We know that Bruce Springsteen is renowned for "just dropping in" to jam with just about every band that passes through his hometown of Asbury Park, New Jersey, but we'd advise the Boss to steer clear of the boardwalk around the Ides of March -- unless he's eager to have the oceanfront festooned with his entrails. |

You see, right around that time in mid-March, Asbury Park will be invaded by roving gangs of visigoths and ne'er-do-wells who'll be distinguishable from the local variety by the wide diversity of death-metal T-shirts they'll be sporting. They'll be descending on the town for the first March Metal Meltdown -- an offshoot of the wildly successful Milwaukee Metalfest, which has been tormenting cheeseheads for thirteen years now. The two-day fest will bring together nearly three dozen of metal's manliest and moshin'-est, including rare performances by grizzled oldsters Blitzkrieg, Holocaust and Sweet Savage -- all of whom were covered by Metallica on their recent Garage, Inc. collection. For those who aren't into the oldies-but-goodies, MMM will offer plenty of Hades' latest exports, headed by Iced Earth, Gorguts, Cryptopsy, Immolation, In Ruins, Dark Funeral, Meshuggah, Hate Breed, Candiria, Hypocrisy, Bloodfeast, Whiplash, Vicious Rumors, and Slaughter House. Sounds promising, although we're a bit disappointed that there won't be a special appearance by former New Kid on the Block Joey McIntyre, who's now rollin' solo. Tickets for the festival, which runs March 12-13 are $30 per day, or $50 for both. Cash and credit cards will be accepted: No decision has yet been made about eye of newt . . .

Those of you trying to end your frustration in not knowing the words to R.E.M.'s indecipherable "Catapult" (or, for that matter, anything prior to Up) by plucking them off the Web are out of luck. The International Lyrics Server (www.lyrics.ch), a lyrics database run by a Swiss company, was forced offline last week when police officers seized the company's computers and hauled a technical consultant in for questioning. According to the New York Times, a criminal complaint was filed by lawyers from the Harry Fox Agency, representing Polygram Music Publishing and seven other music-publishing companies, for infringement of international copyright laws. Pascal de Vries, who founded the site in 1997, is claiming his innocence, citing that it was the site's users who posted the lyrics to over 100,000 songs, and that he merely put them into a searchable database. Lawyers from Harry Fox assert that the postings are costing artists royalties. For now, anyway, you're just going to have to figure out what the hell Michael Stipe is saying all on your own . . .

U2 have worked in the past with such unlikely collaborators as Luciano Pavarotti and Boyzone, but this time they've outdone their previous picks. According to The Guardian, controversial author and sitting-duck-in-hiding Salman Rushdie recently gave Bono the lyrics to a romantic song for the band's next album. U2 also hope to release the song, titled "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" after the author's forthcoming book of the same name, as a single in conjunction with the novel's release on April 23 . . .