Need more Poison?

If the oft-repeated airings of POISON's VH1 Behind the Music episode have left you yearning for viewing variety, the good news is there are more tele-sightings to come. The band will be on the cablenet's Before They Were Rock Stars on November 26, but frontman BRET MICHAELS has a TV date this week, appearing on the CBS series Martial Law on November 6. According to Michaels, the show's director and casting director saw the ubiquitous Behind the Music and rented his A Letter From Death Row and thought he'd be perfect for the "John Malkovich-esque" bad guy. "I'm this leader of a cult of people who are on this plane," says Michaels, whose cohorts in the ConAir-like drama include DAVE NAVARRO and KORN's DAVID SILVERIA. The good guy is played by a musician-actor, too: RICK SPRINGFIELD is an FBI agent chasing the escaped cons. Michaels was also commissioned to write a song for the episode--it's called "The Nightmare" and it will play during a fight scene. "I may re-record it for my solo album," he says (more on that tomorrow). Michaels is also tentatively set to appear on an upcoming (early next year) Politically Incorrect show to discuss relationships with the authors of The Rules , and there's talk that "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" will be heard on a May sweeps episode of The Simpsons in which the bus driver gets married. While JON BON JOVI's WWII movie U-571 is due out in April and his indie drama Row Your Boat is looking for a distributor (it, and Jon, won raves at several film festivals so far), the singer-actor has turned down other roles and appearances in order to concentrate on the record BON JOVI is trying to complete for spring release. Recording the as yet untitled record (Sex Sells is only a working title) in New Jersey, the band keeps a tape of the classic American Graffiti running constantly in the studio for inspiration. Last week Jon and the band had a surprise visitor, thanks to friends: PAUL LeMAT, the actor who played their favorite character John Milner, showed up at the studio. KORN, which received over 25,000 entries in the MTV-sponsored contest to design the cover of Issues, picked four winners and the designs from each will be available for a limited time. After that, only the grand prize winning entry will be used on the cover and the others will be depicted inside the album. MTV will announce the winner on November 5 at 5 PM ET. The band is offering free MP3 dowloads of four different remixes of "Freak on the Leash" at www.korn.com., one each week for four weeks. The first is DJ Lethal of LIMP BIZKIT's "Lethal Freak Mix. Limp Bizkit won the Parents Just Don't Understand Award at the WB Radio Music Awards last week. Ex-SEX PISTOL STEVE JONES and producer RONNIE KING are producing six songs for a NIRVANA tribute record for Deadline Reords. TOTAL CHAOS will cover "Breed" for the disc, which is due out in the spring. There's talk of a live album from The BLACK CROWES and JIMMY PAGE--the two Los Angeles shows that the artists joined forces to play on October 18 and 19 were recorded. More dates are being considered for next year. TOMMY LEE's METHODS OF MAYHEM will be the opening act on METALLICA's New Year's Eve show at the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan. KID ROCK AND TED NUGENT round out the bill. The first single from Metallica's S&M album will be "No Leaf Clover" (but we knew that already, now didn't we?) On November 11, The BULLETBOYS and LOVE/HATE will play at Gazzarrri's Night at the Key Club in West Hollywood, where Love/Hate will record three live tunes to join past hits on compilation for Deadline Records. Also, singer JIZZY PEARL will sign copies of his book, I Got More Crickets Than Friends. SUBSTANCE D will celebrate the release of their new album Addictions tonight at Black Lodge at Club Dragonfly in Hollywood. The band will go on at 10:30 and will give away free copies of the album. DEEPDOWN, KILLINGFIELD, and SLUTS 4 JESUS are also on the bill. Guitarist MIKE GILBERT has rejoined FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, replacing MARK SIMPSON, now in LYNCH MOB. Drummer JEFF McMANUS has left PIST.ON, and the band's future is in doubt (well jeez, beyond that one song, "Grey Flap", was there anything else worth listening to from these guys...who knows?)