MACHINE HEAD frontman Robert Flynn has posted another installement in his online “diary” at the group’s official web site. A couple of excerpts from the entry follow:

“Just got back from the Kerrang! Awards in London, as well as a short press tour for the DVD and the ROADRUNNER UNITED project. Both went well. A press tour is not unlike hell… essentially just a long list of stuck-up, snobby journalists scheduled to interview you, and each one comes in pretending to know stuff about you and your band (but really doesn’t), and proceeds to ask you hundreds of pointless questions that have nothing to do with why you’re there, and everything to do with stale four-year-old gossip they read on Blabbermouth.net the night before during their cram session. 80% of these ‘journos’ need to be drug out into the streets by the elastics of their underwear, savagely beaten to the brink of death by grumpy hordes of mindless, irrational indigents and stabbed in the eyeballs with recycled herpes-infected needles.

“JUST those 80%, though. The rest are cool.

“Max Cavelera happened to be in town promoting his new record ‘Dark Ages’, as were our RoadRage ’04 buddies TRIVIUM, who were doing a secret one-off show in addition to attending the awards (they were nominated for ‘Best International Newcomer’). The three of us ended up doing a crop of interviews together, as Max sang on a track of mine for the ROADRUNNER UNITED thing, and Matt from TRIVIUM was also a captain… it was cool, and we had some pretty funny interviews, especially with Mike from BBC1 í¢ä‰åäó he’s certainly one of the good guys. Definitely check out the new SOULFLY, it has a ‘Chaos A.D.’ kinda feel to it… good shit, and TRIVIUM‘s ‘Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr’ from their new album ‘Ascendancy’ is just flat-out crushing.

“Kerrang! Awards were a different story altogether. Held at the schwanky Brewery Ballroom, each of the 50 tables were prepared with a gallon of whiskey, a liter of something else, two bottles of wine, and over 13,000 bottles of Carling beer (!!!) on hand kept a neverending bucket of beer full at every table, ensuring maximum drunkness… WOO-FUCKIN-HOO!!! Now that’s what I’M sayin’! You actually had to ask for water! Roadrunner U.K. sprung for a stretch Hummer with flames on the side for us to arrive in, which was straight BLINGIN’, but alas, our bling would be short-lived, once we were moving, someone bumped into the strobe light, which in turn blew up the stereo, which in turn killed the air conditioning. Jee-sus! We all stumbled out onto the red carpet, gasping for air and drenched in sweat. Classic!

“Our boys TRIVIUM ended up winning the award for Best International Newcomer, MAIDEN won a Lifetime Achievement award, KILLING JOKE won a Lifetime Achievement award (which had them introduced with a hysterical story from Dave Grohl í¢ä‰åäó who just has something about him that makes him naturally funny). Our own label, Roadrunner Records, won a ‘Services To Metal’ award for 25 years of metal, which was cool. Max, Matt and I went up there to receive it on behalf of the label. It was crazy, for some reason I got unbelievably nervous and my brain just hiccupped… so I kept it simple and easy on the ol’ melon, talked about SEPULTURA being the reason why MACHINE HEAD wanted to sign to Roadrunner in the first place, introduced Max, who told a funny story about how he managed to scam a PanAm flight from Brazil to NY to give demos to Roadrunner, and then Matt rocked out the most solid speech of us all, reminiscing about how MACHINE HEAD was his first metal concert ever, and how MACHINE HEAD and other Roadrunner artists influenced his band, very well-spoken, and genuinely sentimental. I gotta say though, it was bit of a trip accepting a Kerrang! award on behalf of Roadrunner… that irony wasn’t lost on me. And hey, between Roadrunner and TRIVIUM, we collected 2 Ks that evening!

“Got 2 Ks from Kerrang!!! AGAIN!!! m/

“The after-party was friggin’ RAGING, tons’a beers I turned down about 740 brown eyes (thank fuck for that!), had some chill time with Nick Barker, BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE, FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND, Omar from FIGHT STAR… eventually went back to the hotel for more beers, then crashed. I got my wake-up call at 10 a.m. í¢ä‰åäó which I woke up to í¢ä‰åäó but then was like, ‘I think I’m just gonna lay here, for one more minute.’ I closed my eyes for what seemed like two seconds, and opened them again two hours later to an angry cab driver on the phone, pissed that I was 15 minutes late for pick-up. D’oh!

“In other news, as of Sunday (Aug. 28) the entire DVD í¢ä‰åäó every single frickin’ section and feature í¢ä‰åäó is officially DONE! It’s being assembled as we speak, and may actually come out sometime this year! (Though you’re on the crack again if you think I’m gonna give you a release date.) Honestly though, the whole thing turned out awesome, we’re extremely stoked with how it all came together, and very proud of the quality and substance that we were able to pack into our first DVD release. We got a killer show, videos, a ‘Making of’ for each video, an all-new, no-punch-pullin’ 30-minute ‘Making of’ ‘Through the Ashes of Empires’ feature, behind-the-scenes vignettes… you’ll definitely get your money’s worth, and we think you’ll enjoy the living shit out of it to boot.

“The HEAD have been writing for the last couple of weeks, got about 4 half-songs written. A little too early to say where it’s going, it’s heavy, difficult to play, and best of all, has no lyrics to get in the way of all those monstrous riffs!!! Yet… *cough*. We’re going into the studio in March, and would like to have the record out by the end of July next year, just in time for summer festivals. YEAH FOOL!!!

“On a sadder note, on behalf of Phil [Demmel] and I, I want to send our deepest condolences to Snake, Blacky, and Away from VOIVOD as well as the family of Piggy aka Denis D’Amour. VOIVOD took Phil and I on tour when we were kids, and Piggy was our drinking buddy… always in a good mood, and always great to hang around with. The last time we saw him was when they rolled through San Francisco with SEPULTURA, and they tore it up as usual. Metal brothers, we lost another one of the good guys.”

Check out a photo of Flynn, Cavalera and Heafy at the Kerrang! Awards at this location.