Slayer guitarist Kerry King is a badass.

Six weeks before the October release of Phrazes for the Young, Julian Casablancas' wonderfully familiar (that voice!) and far-out (those synths!) solo debut, the erstwhile Strokes frontman is sitting in his publicist's downtown Manhattan office, gently disagreeing with the notion that he's been keeping a low profile.

Never get high on your own supply. Last July, haze-rock conjurer Kurt Vile learned that lesson the hard way. "I was fired for having a beer on the job," says the 29-year-old former forklift operator at the Philadelphia Brewing Co. "Well, that's not the only reason, but my boss was a hard-ass. It turned out for the best, though.

Some things are more important than rock'n'roll -- even for Bruce Springsteen. The E Street Band's Monday night concert in Kansas City, Missouri, was canceled after the unexpected death of Springsteen's cousin Lenny Sullivan.

For SPIN's November issue, readers are given a glimpse inside the phantasmagoria that is GWAR frontman Oderus Urungus's normally private "slave pit." But even alien thrash metal maniacs like to get out sometimes -- and when the codpiece-wearing cretin took a stroll through the streets of Richmond, Virginia, we were there, filming.