Mashable gives us the lowdown on Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica, the latest iteration of the popular iPhone game developed by Silicon Valley firm Tapulous. Drummer Lars Ulrich tells Yahoo! Tech, “It’s one more thing that’ll keep me semi-cool in my kids’ eyes for another six months until the next thing comes out. It’s not about the money or revenue or some master plan. This stuff all falls in the fun category.”

The app costs $4.99 and includes ten classic Metallica tracks including  ”Enter Sandman”, “Sad But True” and “One.”

According to the always resourceful Hypebot, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) has launched a digital music think tank that includes a host notable members including 7digital, Amazon.com, E1, EMI, IODA, Iris, iTunes, Microsoft, Mix & Burn, Napster, Nokia, The Orchard, Rhapsody, Rhino, Sony, Topspin, Universal, Verizon, WEA, and Wind-up.

The goal of the NARM tank is to resolve issues in the digital music biz and it will be divided into three digital think tank working groups: Digital Supply Chain, Metrics & Data Visualization and Product Development.  Read more here.

According to Wired, the Mountain View, CA giant will announce next Wednesday a new music service that could be called “Google Music,” “Google Audio,” or “One Box” and will link out to two music services: Lala and iLike.  CNN.com states that Google will not serve as a music retailer itself like Apple, but will offer enhanced music search with a streaming function. In addition, searching for an artist or song will apparently bring up a box (hence the “One Box” name) with a streaming link randomly assigned to stream songs from either Lala or iLike.

SoundCtrl x Music:Tech Meetup Present:

CMJ Happy Hour Mixer

Celebrating The CMJ Festival and Music:Tech’s 1 Year Anniversary.

Wednesday October 21st, 2009 @

Bowery Electric

327 Bowery
New York, NY 10003-7176
(212) 228-0228
6-830pm

Come to Bowery Electric first & then let everyone in the Music:Tech/SoundCtrl community know where you’re going after…Blog it, foursquare it, tweet it, capture it and in the meantime, check out our Facebook page here.

Let us know where you are and where you’ll be and what’s going on throughout the evening.

Foursquare it: http://foursquare.com/user/musictechster

Tweet it: @musictechster or @soundctrl

Also feel free to check out The SoundCtrl curated CMJ Panel:

“Being Your Own Label” – Sound Ctrl presents a focused discussion on the tech-savvy artist’s ability to do his or her own marketing, publicity, outsourcing uncreative work, raising capital, and distribution in the music tech movement.

About: This concept takes D.I.Y. to another level. The digital revolution is providing tech-savvy musicians with tools to lay the groundwork for a prosperous future. These digi-intelligent pioneers will cover marketing, publicity, outsourcing uncreative work, raising capital, and distribution in the music tech movement.

Speaker/Artist(s) Moderator: Chris Schlarb, Founder/CEO, Dubshot Records and Board Member of SoundCtrl

Glan Caterine, CFO Tunecore, Inc.

John Lavallo, Music Attorney, The Takeout Group

Yancey Strickler, Co-founder, Kickstarter

Peter Van Ness, President, Gimmesound.com

SoundCtrl friend/online music mix site 8Tracks has announced a slew of new product offerings including a smart queuing function on the site. 8Tracks says: ”No longer will you hear death metal at the completion of a 70s yacht rock mix.  We added intelligence so a new, RELEVANT mix will show up next, based on the music included in the first. Try it out by clicking Next Mix (to the right of the search box) while listening to a mix you like.  Now you can listen for hours without having to dig around for another mix.”

The site also announced the integration of a player widget into Facebook, which you can access by following these instructions: “Click Share (just below the Play button) on any mixpage and select the Facebook option.  Add a quick note & publish. On your FB profile and news feed, the mix title/DJ, cover art, description and URL are presented.  Click the play button on the art, and our Flash player shows up for in-page playback.”

Along with the tech installations, 8Tracks is selling $20 black, white and navy T’s that feature their logo on American Apparel shirts. Go purchase some here.