Here are two big shows that were just announced this week.

Metallica’s next studio album, Death Magnetic, leaked onto the Internet yesterday, after a French retailer started selling copies of the album ten days before its scheduled release date of September 12.

Lohan’s blog has made headlines lately because — well, because it’s really written by Lindsay Lohan, but also because she 1) posted a tirade about her father, and 2) wrote a political blog that commented on Sarah Palin’s announcement that her unmarried 17 year-old daughter was pregnant.

This week’s review is the second release from local label Afro-Baile Records, an EP from U.K. collective Yaaba Funk.

Here are a handful of shows that were just announced this week.

This week’s “Flier of the Week” is for a show tonight featuring O Pioneers!!! and Andrew Jackson Jihad. In case you don’t recognize him by now, the surly mug on the flier belongs to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. We particularly like the SS-style lightning bolts shooting out of his eyes.

A symphonic heavy metal concept double album about Nostradamus may not rank among such conceptual classics as Pink Floyd’s The Wall, David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, or the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but when the band making Nostradamus…

I recently had the chance to speak with Halford about the Metal Masters Tour, the new Judas Priest album, and his favorite things about Phoenix. You can read about the former two things in the music section of this week’s issue (“Seer Review,” August 28, 2008), but we saved the desert dishing for this blog.

The Phoenix New Times Summer of Sound series was a success again this year, thanks to the hard work and dedication of our marketing department and some of the finest local bands in town. It’s been a long, hot summer, but we finally got through all seven shows in seven genres over the course of 15 weeks. Just like last year, we had audience members at each show vote for their favorite band. But unlike last year, we didn’t announce the results at the end of each night, choosing instead to announce all winners at the awards show last night at Big Fish Pub in Tempe.

This week’s review is the “long lost, almost forgotten debut EP” from Valley rapper Rashenal.

On a recent, rainy weekend trip through northern Arizona, I cooled my heels in the tasting room at Page Springs Cellars, where new releases from Maynard James Keenan’s Caduceus Cellars are available for tastings and purchase.

Here are some upcoming shows that were just announced this week.

The City of Phoenix has shut down all pool party events on the rooftop patio of the Hotel San Carlos. The reason? According to the fire marshal, maximum capacity on the third floor rooftop patio of the hotel is 40 people. And Star Swim was drawing hundreds.

This week’s “Flier of the Week” comes from Tempe indie rockers The Maine. After a long summer tour with Boys Like Girls and Good Charlotte, the band will be playing a hometown show on August 30. Check it.

Believe it or not, Arizona has always been a haven for heavy metal icons. From the earliest days of heavy metal, the Valley of the Sun has housed and spawned some of the most influential acts in the genre: Flotsam and Jetsam, Sacred Reich, Megadeth, Soulfly, Linkin Park — hell, our state even has ties to Slayer and Metallica. We’re not sure if it’s the purgatory-worthy heat, the mystic mountains, or the minions of metalheads here, but one thing’s for certain: more famous metal musicians live or have lived in Arizona than the average Joe realizes. The 14 most noteworthy Arizona metal men are listed below, in no particular order.