Late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, has appeared online in a series of photos that will erase any fans’ memories of the little infant being carried around by her daddy in the two years before his death. According to Badass Digest, the photos portray the now 18-year-old Frances in a variety of very mature poses — smoking a cigarette, baring the tattoos on her back and sides, and in one shot reclining in bed with nothing but a sheet covering her.

The photos are from a shoot done for French fashion designer Hedi Slimane. Frances is currently estranged from her mother, with a judge in December 2009 naming her paternal grandmother, Wendy Cobain, and her father’s sister, Kim Cobain, as her legal guardians. Love is reportedly barred from having any contact with her daughter at this time.Check out the photos here.

Staind guitarist Mike Mushok said in a new interview at GuitarWorld.com that making the band’s new, self-titled seventh album was a “miserable” experience because the band was on a tight deadline. After demoing “17 or 18″ songs in December, the group reconvened in January to begin recording the disc with producer Johnny K. Mushok explained that things starting going wrong at that point, saying, “During the sessions, it was clear Jon (Wysocki, drums) wasn’t ready or on the same page, and the motivation wasn’t where it needed to be. After thinking long and hard, we decided to do something different and decided to split up and do all the parts separately.”

Mushok added, “I worked up at a studio in Springfield and Aaron (Lewis, singer) worked in his barn, and that’s how we kind of finished the record. It was the first record we had a deadline with the label. They wanted the finished product by May 1st, so we had to get it done. We thought we weren’t going to be able to do it, but we did and turned it in and they accepted it and were happy with it . . . It ended working out, but I would not like to live January to April of this year again. It was miserable.”

Green Day was voted the best punk band of all time in a new poll commissioned by Rolling Stone magazine, which admitted that the results were almost certainly skewed by a huge influx of Green Day fans voting. The Bay Area trio beat out massively influential acts like the Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, possibly because the official Green Day website and its biggest fan site encouraged people to vote.

* An introduction to the poll at the Rolling Stone website stated, “Even the members of Green Day would probably object to being ranked higher than the Ramones and the Clash on this list — but the Internet has spoken and we have to honor that . . . We didn’t count on fan site Green Day Authority and the band’s official site posting a link and asking fans to vote for them. It gave the group a significant boost in the final tally.”

ROLLING STONE’S BEST PUNK BANDS OF ALL TIME

1. Green Day
2. The Clash
3. The Ramones
4. The Sex Pistols
5. The Dead Kennedys
6. Iggy and the Stooges
7. Black Flag
8. The Misfits
9. Social Distortion
10. Bad Brains

The Red Hot Chili Peppers will celebrate the release of their 10th studio album, I’m With You, by beaming a concert in Cologne, Germany on the day of the album’s release, August 30th, into movie theatres around the world. The show will feature a one-time-only performance of the new disc in its entirety, followed by a selection of some of the Peppers’ greatest hits. More than 450 theatres in over 130 markets in the U.S. will carry the high-definition satellite broadcast.

Tickets for the event go on sale starting Friday (August 5th) at participating theatre box offices and online through an official website and Fathom Events.

The show will begin at 8:00 p.m. in each local time zone, with a second presentation scheduled for the next night (September 1st) at the same time.

Available now are both the AC/DC and Metallica Collector’s Editions of the classic board game Monopoly. Each game is customized so that the locations and game pieces are all derived from each band’s history and music. A special edition of the AC/DC game comes bundled with the Live At River Plate concert DVD and a commemorative T-shirt. Find out how to order the games at both acts’ websites, www.ACDC.com and www.metallica.com.

Foo Fighters are known for their sense of humor and that extends to the band’s latest tour rider, which has been obtained by The Smoking Gun. A normal rider usually sets out the group’s requirements for every performance it gives, and some artists are known for their ridiculous or obnoxious demands on concert promoters. The Foos take that idea to new heights of absurdity in their new rider, which includes a section in the form of a children’s activity book.

Among the items in that section are coloring book pages, drawings of all the Foos, a word hunt for “catering don’ts,” a maze to get guitarist Chris Shiflett to the catering area and more. The “activity book” was put together by longtime Foos tour manager Gus Brandt. The rest of the rider also includes jokes, useless facts, pop culture references and other bizarre nuggets of surreal humor.

One page in the activity book — which, by the way, is titled “Field Guide To Food Coloring Book And Activity Pages” — presents drawings of 22 items and asks catering personnel to circle the ones that belong in a salad.

See the Foos\' \"activity book\" tour rider here.

Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Read the article here.

Tuesday (May 24th) marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Slipknot bassist Paul Gray. The 38-year-old musician was found dead in a suburban hotel room outside of Des Moines, Iowa, his body surrounded by drug paraphernalia. A medical examiner ruled that Gray died of an accidental overdose of morphine and a synthetic form of morphine called fentanyl. Gray also suffered from “significant” heart disease, although that was not said to be a contributing factor to his death.

Gray was a founding member and one of the primary songwriters in Slipknot, and his loss has left the band’s future in limbo. Drummer Joey Jordison and percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan have indicated that the band will continue, although singer Corey Taylor has expressed more uncertainty. The group will tour Europe this summer as a tribute to Gray, with former guitarist Donnie Steele on bass.

Staind has announced Seven as the title of its upcoming album, which will be the seventh studio set from the band. It’s due out before the end of the year through Atlantic Records. Guitarist Mike Mushok said about the set, “It’s completely different than the last record The Illusion Of Progress. It’s more of a throwback to where we came from. You know, (the) Dysfunction and Tormented albums. I don’t think there’s any rehashed riffs; I definitely think it’s fresh. It’s a modern-sounding version of a heavy Staind record. It’s pretty cool.” (Metal Rage)

Marilyn Manson has posted a 26-second teaser of what is thought to be his new single online. The track, which does not have a title, is the first piece of new material to emerge from the sessions for Manson’s eighth studio album, which he is currently recording with long-time collaborator Twiggy Ramirez. The new disc will also be the first from Manson in 15 years without drummer Ginger Fish, who quit earlier this year and joined Rob Zombie’s band. (NME)

A play based on the life of late AC/DC vocalist Bon Scott will open shortly in Australia. Called Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be - The Story Of Bon Scott, the play chronicles the singer’s life from his earliest bands through the massive success he achieved with AC/DC before his death. The play opens at the Anthenaeum Theatre in Melbourne for a two week run beginning July 12th. (Classic Rock)

With Metallica scheduled to enter the studio later this month, the band has been tight-lipped on what kind of project they’re going to be recording. But whether it’s a whole new album or not — which is unlikely — drummer Lars Ulrich told Metal Hammer magazine that there will be no shortage of material when studio album number 10 does get underway. He explained, “James (Hetfield, guitar/vocals) told me in Australia that he had over 700 (new) riffs. That was slightly overwhelming. When I spoke to him yesterday, he told me that he’d been playing guitar again in the last couple of weeks. And listen, when James tunes his guitar, he comes up with three to five usable guitar riffs. It’s kind of frightening. James is not allowed to play guitar without being recorded. Literally! There are also hours and hours of jams and tuning-room shindigs.”

Ulrich added, “We’re gonna sit down and wade through two and half years’ worth of riffs and jams and hopefully a lot of the seeds for the next Metallica record will be in that . . . We can use the rest of the riffs for ringtones or… I don’t know. Set up a web site: SpareRiffs.com.”

# Metallica will head to Europe for more ‘Big Four’ shows this summer, before playing Rock In Rio in September and bringing the ‘Big Four’ show to Yankee Stadium in New York City that same month. The band has also announced its first-ever gigs in India, which will take place in Delhi on October 28th and Bangalore on October 30th.