AC/DC Score Their Own Pinball Machine

AC/DC fans now have a pinball machine to call their own! Stern Pinball, Inc. has revealed its newest pinball machine, and the game honors the legendary rock and roll band with plenty of AC/DC-appropriate goodies.

The AC/DC pinball machine features 12 classic AC/DC chart-toppers, such as “Back in Black,” “Highway to Hell” and “You Shook Me All Night Long.” Other features include two individual ramps, a pinball-shooting cannon, eight drop targets and cartoon animations of band members.

“The combination of classic rock and pinball can’t go wrong," said Gary Stern, founder, CEO and chairman of Stern Pinball, in a release. “The music and play of the AC/DC machine delivers nothing less than the ultimate rock experience that both AC/DC fans and pinball players can appreciate.”

Sound like something that’s purpose-made for your game room? The AC/DC pinball machine runs from $5,699 to $8,499, depending on the version. To learn more about the game, visit Stern Pinball’s official website.

Who do you think should be the next rock royalty to get their own pinball game?

In other AC/DC news, former bass player Marc Evans recently chatted with Gibson.com about his love for Gibson J-200s and Gibson Rippers . Read the chat, here.

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Machine Head’s Robb Flynn: My Top 10 Albums of 2011

As 2011 draws to a close we all start casting our minds back over the best music of the year. Mainstream or obscure, metal or country, rock or jazz, everyone’s got a Top 10 list in them. Gibson.com asked Machine Head’s Flying V playing guitarist Robb Flynn for his best-of list for 2011. Thanks to Robb for getting the ball rolling!

1. Times of Grace - The Hymn of a Broken Man

This record is unreal. Unbelievable album. SO inspiring. Goosebumps throughout. The passion, the vocal harmonies, the lyrics, SO meaningful and real. Songs about LOVE on a metal record... and they’re great??!! Crazy. What I’ve always loved about Jesse Leach’s voice is that it sounds like dude has PROBLEMS!! And I relate. I was really disappointed with where music was going when this came out... and this record literally saved me.

2. Ghost - Opus Eponymous

It took me about 4 listens, but when I “got it,” man, it hit me like a ton of bricks, this record simply RULES.

3. Ray LaMontagne & The Pariah Dogs - God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise

Normally I hate this kind of music, but our drummer Dave McClain turned me onto this, and it’s seriously an absolutely incredible folk/Americana record. I could not stop listening to it. Ray’s voice has so much ache and sadness. “This Love is Over” is a masterpiece.

4. All Shall Perish - This is Where it Ends

Our Bay Area brethren deliver an ambitious and staggeringly heavy piece of work here. These guys are the undisputed kings of the Death-Core genre, and the main reason is the songwriting. This isn’t Tech-Death-Arpeggio-Core with a 3rd rate Meshuggua riff; these are songs, GREAT songs, with great lyrics. “The Past Will Haunt Us Both” is simply incredible. They just might be putting the nail in the coffin to this genre, while at the same time transcending into something greater.

5. Tyler, The Creator - Goblin

Sick, sick, SICK man!!! So dark, and [expletive] up. Warped! Underground rap at its finest. Thank you, Mark from Chimaira.

6. Trivium - In Waves

Best album since Ascendancy, hands down, and probably a better album overall. Great songwriting, great production, great hooks. “Watch the World Burn” is amazing. Love it.

7. Kanye West & Jay-Z - Watch the Throne

I love my mainstream hip-hop, I can’t help it. Going back to the “sound collage”-style of early ’90s east coast rap, this record, sonically, was incredible. Ridiculously good rhymes from both rappers, and the dark political undertones only deepened the beauty of it all.

8. The Beatles - iTunes Catalog

I’ve heard every one of these songs a million times, and yet getting them all together made me fall in love with The Beatles all over again. The guitar tone at the beginning of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is one of the heaviest, raunchiest things ever put down in history. And while many bands have tried to cover “Helter Skelter” and make it heavier, none have come close to the apocalyptic proto-punk, garage-rock feel they captured. “Eleanor Rigby,” forget it!

9. Anthrax - Worship Music

I wasn’t expecting much out of this to be honest – the long public train wreck that unfolded with our friends was a bummer. Plus, I really liked John Bush’s voice, but man, this record is just so unbelievably good it stopped me in my tracks. Great songs, great, production, great lyrics and [expletive] me if Belladonna didn't deliver the vocal performance of his life. Hands down the best he has ever sounded, and the freedom he was allowed (insisted on?) made it all the better, soaring vocal harmonies, power, the quality of his vocal tone, dude had to deliver a Hail Mary and he did. “In The End” and “Fight ’Em Til You Can’t” are TWO of the best songs Anthrax have ever written. GREAT job dudes!

10. Darkest Hour - The Human Romance 

Stop sleeping on this album!!  Metal done at its finest, by a bunch of dudes who are serious music freaks, and might be the craziest bunch of party animals alive. Do yourself a favor and buy this now.

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Rage Against the Machine Played ‘Competitive Gigs’ with Tool

Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello is posting a series of “Guerrilla Videos” leading up to the band’s July 30 show at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. In the latest video, he talks about the humble genesis of Rage Against the Machine 20 years ago in a “hot and grubby” rehearsal space that was “about 110 degrees” in San Fernando Valley, in August 1991.

He went on to talk about playing “very competitive gigs early on with Tool.”

“When we got that first batch of 15 songs, everything changed,” he said. “We started playing gigs opening for Tool, who was a local band at the time who had been the subject of a bidding war, and they were good friends of ours, and so we played some very competitive gigs early on with Tool, which were pretty exciting. I think it sharpened both bands’ edges.”

When it came to making the first Rage record, grunge and rap of the ’90s were at the forefront of band members’ minds.

“I remember the jams that were coming out of Zack [de la Rocha]’s truck at the time and my band at the time were Nirvana’s first record; Soundgarden, Badmotorfinger; the first Cypress Hill record,” he said.

“And then I remember very clearly having the conversation and we were talking about what we wanted the first Rage record to sound like sonically, in terms of other bands, and we were looking for somewhere between Nirvana’s Bleach and Ice Cube’s most murderous track… [Laughs] I think we got pretty close to that.”

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Arcade Fire Make Florence a Crying Machine

Florence Welch, the charismatic voice of Florence and the Machine, recently admitted that meeting Arcade Fire took a toll on her tear ducts. In a video interview with Nylon Magazine TV, Welch copped to being star-struck when she met the Grammy-winning band.

“I love Arcade Fire so much,” she gushed. “Ever since Funeral. I'd love to work with them.”

She may have scuttled her chances of impressing her heroes, though, when she met the group’s frontman.

"I met Win Butler and I was so star-struck that I cried,” she laughed. “It was so embarrassing, ’cause I saw them play at the O2 [Arena] and then we went back to their after-party area and then they all came in. I was trying to talk to him and I just kind of [teared up]. And it was such a disaster. I was so star-struck that I cried, yes. It was a big, big moment for me… and I played it really cool."

Florence and the Machine are currently recording with producer Paul Epworth (Adele, Cee-Lo Green) in London.

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Music Machine: The Fruit of the Spirit

CD Music Machine: Fruit Of The Spirit by Agapeland

Price: $7.98

Click here to buy from Amazon