METALLICA To Play Corporate Event In San Francisco

METALLICA's official web site has been updated with the following message:

"San Francisco show?? Well, sort of

"It all started when Kirk [Hammett, guitar] mentioned that his next-door neighbor had invited us to play at his party in San Francisco and we figured, 'Why not?' After all, it has been quite some time since we've played in our hometown, and we haven't exactly been getting out a lot lately.

"Well, it turns out that Kirk's neighbor, Marc Benioff, is the top dog at a 'small' company called Salesforce.com and his shindig actually lasts for four days and hosts over 30,000 people!

"So much for a little backyard barbeque . . .

"Following in the footsteps of Neil Young, the FOO FIGHTERS, BLACK CROWES, and Stevie Wonder, we are excited to announce that we have been invited to play at the ninth annual Salesforce.com Dreamforce convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Wednesday, August 31. It promises to be quite the party... Where else can you learn everything you ever wanted to know about cloud computing during the day and then rock out with the 'TALLICA at night?

"If you're planning to attend Dreamforce, cool, we look forward to seeing you there and of course, if you're a Met Club [official METALLICA fan club] member, log in and check out how you can win tickets . . . we're giving hundreds away."

Although METALLICA is currently completing work on a surprise collaborative album with Lou Reed, the band is also about to start writing songs for its 10th studio effort on its own. Producer Rick Rubin, who worked with the group for the first time on 2008's "Death Magnetic", told Billboard that he recently met with drummer Lars Ulrich and will return to San Francisco sometime in the next week or so to sit down with the whole band and "explore what the focus is going to be this time around."

Rubin offered a hint of how that initial meeting with the band will go: "I'll ask a lot of questions and we'll probably listen to some of the riffs they've been writing. And usually I'll hear something that will sort of indicate the direction and then we'll talk about it from there."

Rubin did not give a timetable for when he thought METALLICA might begin recording.

The band revealed last week that the "secret recording project" it was working on in May was a collaborative album with Reed, the legendary singer and former VELVET UNDERGROUND frontman.

The project had apparently been in the works since Reed and METALLICA performed together at the 25th anniversary of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at Madison Square Garden in October of 2009.

METALLICA has not indicated when or how the yet-to-be-titled album will be issued.