Further to recent events, I managed the other day to wring a few drops of information of out Page H. He confirms that, though Chris Traynor has played bass on some of the new recordings, he won’t be joining the band as a full time touring member. He added that he’s expecting a June release for the new album, along with European tour dates in July.
According to a fan’s post on the official Helmet forum, former Helmet guitarist Chris Traynor has indicated via his Facebook page that he’s currently working on the recording of Helmet’s as yet untitled new album.
In early November 2009, I’d been made aware that Jon Fuller was no longer a member of Helmet and, though I was asked to put up new pictures of the band – sans Jon – on the band’s various web presences, no official statement was to be made. A few observant fans noticed Jon’s absence from the new photographs but, if anyone drew any conclusions, no-one was saying so. Tellingly, Toshi Kasai, who is producing the new Helmet album, announced on 12 November via his MySpace blog that recording has been suspended, ostensibly while new material is written.
So Chris’s Facebook post means that recording has resumed, presumably with the former rhythm guitarist reprising his Size Matters and Monochrome roles as stand-in bass player…
For those who remember the Born Annoying site from the old days: Hi! It’s back! For those of you who don’t, you can get up to date on the who, the what, the why and the when on the about page.
The reason for this sudden resurrection? Quite a few, really. For a start, though I design and run Helmet’s official website, I’ve missed having a place to put all of the crap I hoard (press releases, tour dates, interviews, set lists, musical equipment lists) that doesn’t have a place on the official site. Also, inspired by that excellent repository of information on the sadly defunct Shiner, ThirdGearScratch.com, I thought it’d be nice to have Born Annoying up and running in time for when Helmet, too, are sadly defunct.
Nevertheless, it was more on a whim than with any grand plan that I recently managed to acquire the domain name again and now, well, here it is. It’s going to take a little while to populate this place with all of the content I have but, in the meantime, why not sign up for the RSS updates to keep you up-to-date?