It’s a sad day in the heavy metal scene.  Drummer Jimmy Sullivan (aka The Rev) of Avenged Sevenfold was found dead in his home Monday, in California.  The details trickling in, just state “natural causes”.

A7X has become one of my favorite bands in recent years, when I stumbled on them around 2004 with the song Beast And The Harlot on Comcast (cable TV) radio.  They sounded like a throw back to 90′s metal and I instantly loved it.  Since then, they have found great success, winning awards, selling albums, and becoming a fan favorite on Rock Band.

The team at MyGGGo send our thoughts and prayers to Jimmy’s family and the members of A7X. His skills on the skins will be missed.

It’s time for a new MFSD. Today it’s MTV’s designated Best New Artist of 2006, Avenged Sevenfold. This metal quintet has some classic late-80′s metal sounds, but just perfected. Their 2007 album made the sound a bit more mainstream, and the song Afterlife really highlights how these metal heads can get them some radio friendly play. Check out Afterlife below, and pick it up as Rock Band DLC for 160 MS Points.

This is the 3rd songs by Avenged Sevenfold on the Rock Band series. In my opinion, it is by far the best. It’s tough for everyone in the band, and the bass line is a bit crazy.  You can also pick up Critical Acclaim for 160 MS points, and get Almost Easy on the Rock Band 2 disc.

Ok, this week’s Xbox Live downloads are available. 3 songs by Avenged Sevenfold, 1 by The Offspring, and 1 by Crooked X. They are all fairly new songs, so none are immediately recognizable. At $2 a pop, I’m somewhat picky at how I spend my money.

After listening to Avenged Sevenfold “Afterlife” on Slacker Radio, I decided that 1) it’s a really good song; 2) it will be a challenging drum song on expert; 3) the guitar will be very tough in the solos and; 4) might be fun to sing. $2 spent. I was able to get through drums on expert first time, but I did redline 3 times. Still have some practice to perfect it. Guitar on hard…..I failed, but I will be the first to admit….I’m terrible on guitar.

I also downloaded an old song, Blink-182 “All the Small Things”. I haven’t played it yet, but think I should do fine. It was a song that I used to jam with SAYD a lot (Pabel should know this). So, if I can’t pull off expert, I should retire.

That’s all I bought this week, though may go back and get the other Avenged Sevenfold songs.

I hear from my friend (Rob, that’s you), that the Disturbed songs released on June 3 are very good and very tough on guitar. I’m thinking about picking them up, since they are a bargain at only $1 per song. Rob, do you have a favorite, or should I get all 3?

Other than DLC, I’m still practicing Foreplay/Long Time and all the Boston DLC when I can, on drums expert. There are still a handful of songs (Rush, Police) that I struggle on expert and haven’t spent much time on.

Some things I’d love to see in the future is Pantera, Dream Theater, and Linkin Park….none have been mentioned yet, but would buy up anything from those guys.

That’s it for now, see you online.