EU NATIONS WELCOME US AMBASSADOR TO NOISE ROCK
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 11:11am by Gary Suarez
Page Hamilton’s latest batch of hired guns masquerading as “Helmet” is about to embark on a month-long European jaunt that will hit up cities in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and The Netherlands. Kicking off January 13 in Helsinki, the tour includes opening act support on most if not all dates from Totimoshi, whose 2008 record Milagrosa was produced by Mr. Hamilton and engineered by Deaf Nephew Toshi Kasai (of Altamont and Big Business). Details can be found here.
No word on the next album yet, but after 2006’s disappointing Monochrome, does anyone even WANT a new Helmet album? I mean, Chris Traynor (formerly of Orange 9mm) isn’t even in the band anymore, so what’s the point? If anything, what I really want for my birthday this year is a proper REUNION with original Strap It On /Meantime members Henry Bogdan, Peter Mengede, and John Stanier! (Traynor can rejoin too, I suppose, if he promises not to play anything released post-Aftertaste.) Can’t Obama get on that shit? I’m sure that once this European tour ends President Change can detain Page in some secret U.S. prison (extraordinary rendition, wooot!) until he agrees to reform the classic lineup. Si se puede! Yes we can!
-GS
[Gary Suarez is the choice of a nude generation. He also writes for Brainwashed and sorta manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No.]
helmet was my gateway drug into metal, so i will always have a soft spot for page
Agreed. I can’t understand why Hamilton continues to sully the great name of Helmet with these horrible releases. At the very least he should just record them under his own name.
@Ricky: I’m a huuuuuge Helmet fan. I own every album and consider them to be one of my all time top 10 favorite bands. They were one of my “gateway drugs to metal” as well, along with Ministry and Nine Inch Nails. It’s really difficult for me to cope with the fact that ‘Monochrome’ was such a crummy record.
@Christopher: The crazy bit is that Page had an opportunity to leave the Helmet name behind. His Gandhi project was that avenue. Ultimately, probably due to pressure from Interscope, he took the Gandhi tracks and turned them into Helmet’s ‘Size Matters’, which is actually a pretty good record with some excellent tracks.
Man, I loved me some Helmet, but Aftertaste was just so-so, and after that I lost interest. I used to own 1 orange 9mm record, that I haven’t heard in years, I sorta wrote them off as a b-grade Quicksand. What ever happened to Handsome???