I haven’t really fucked with metal since my career as a late-90s high school stoner jock came to an abrupt end. But ever since Synthesis Marketing Idiot and overall coward Cayle Hunter moved into the desk next to mine I’ve been getting a crash course in the latest badass deathcore and Scandanavian metal bands. Shit like White Chapel, Salt the Wound and probably my favorite yet, Bloodbath. Something of a Swedish metal all star band, Bloodbath wouldn’t even know where to find a fuck, let alone how to give one. The music thing more pissed than the music is the artwork, which features the obligatory illegible lightning bolt font band name and a wolf in a priest outfit bathing an infant in blood. In the liner notes, the band members are listed as “Those Who Unbless the Purity.” Thank god for Sweden, where the government is smart enough to subsidize death metal bands. Maybe that’s why all their bands rule and most of ours are fucking shitdicks. Fuckers.

Yesterday as Kirty South and I drove back from Olympia WA, HANDS DOWN THE WORST PLACE IN THE UNITED STATES (with a few notable exceptions), I got to select the playlist on his iPod. Between The Shaggs and Deerhoof songs, there was plenty of ’80s pop, with no fewer than three Michael Jackson songs strewn in there. Man, that dude could write and perform a song. Despite child-touching allegations and a two-decade long decline in productivity and popularity, you still gotta give it up for Michael as an artist.

This led me to wonder: so when’s Wacko Jacko gonna release a new album? Apparently, it’s in the works. According to Billboard, songwriter Claude Kelly penned a song for the new Akon album. When Akon played Kelly the track, it featured none other than Michael Jackson. The track “Hold My Hand” will reportedly be released on both Akon’s album, and Jackson’s upcoming release (no release date yet). I for one can’t wait. No, seriously.

Claude Kelly, who can write a hit song, but apparently has no eye for design, is understandably way stoked.

“I wrote the song and gave it to Akon with the intention of it going to maybe Whitney Houston, but Akon said he wanted to cut it himself. I thought, ‘It doesn’t get any bigger than this’,” the 27-year-old New York native tells Billboard.com. “A few months after, Akon plays the song for me and all of a sudden I hear Michael Jackson’s voice. I was literally shaking by the time the song was over.”

Frontman and singer of Joy Division, Ian Curtis, had his memorial stone stolen. Curtis committed suicide in 1980 and the epitaph on the stone read “Love Will Tear Us Apart” - the British bands most popular and famous song.

The stone was taken from Macclesfield Crematorium in northern England earlier this week. The stone brought many fans and tourists from around the world to pay respects and leave messages behind.

Curtis had a dark life; reflected in his painful lyrics. He struggled with balancing the band with his home life, having epilepsy and falling in love with another woman. Local officials are hoping it will be returned soon.

Breath easy internet, I have returned to my blogging post. Over the last week and a half I’ve been journeying up the Pacific Coast with Bear Hunter . As it turns out, when I try and write on my laptop while in the van I start to puke all over my band mates — hence, my absence from Synthesis Blog. Over the next few days I will be recounting my harrowing journey (in between fascinating posts about pop stars getting busted for drugs, children with weird growths on their bodies and general paranoid-paranormal fodder). Get ready, dear readers. Get your asses ready.

If you’re an Eastern dweller and can’t get your fill on Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder’s got some solo dates to keep you satisfied. Check it out here.

Video Matt comes through with not one, not two, not three, but FOUR new Paramore videos on our YouTube channel. And you thought that dude who was selling her childhood drawings on eBay was bad. At least he was her stepdad. We ain’t even kin.