Twitter is arguably the most powerful tool available to musicians today, its micro-blogging mechanism allowing for real-time dissemination of information as well as a venue for direct communication open discussion with fans. Sadly, too many bands focus so heavily on the first of these benefits (Shadows Fall are a prime example of Twitter fan abuse, their profile replete with repeat tweets) that they squander any chance of actually connecting with their supporters. Interestingly, one musician who actually “gets” Twitter comes from a generation of rockers you’d expect to not “get” Twitter. His name is Glenn Hughes.

Click to read more…

I’ve never seen Weekend Nachos live, but I would very much like to someday. Relapse Records – who have had a fucking AMAZING 2009* -put out their album Unforgivable earlier this year, and it kills. If the band can do anything to re-create that energy in a live setting, I bet bucket loads of blood, sweat, and healthy releases of raw aggression will ensue.

The band is setting out on a tour at the end of the month, and, just my luck, it’s not coming close to New York – most of the dates are out west. But I implore you to go see Weekend Nachos if you can, so that I can live vicariously through you, my beloved readers.

Dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

Fuck $14,000 moon-men statues; THIS is what I need. A laughingly shitty electric bass and an 8 Watt practice amp that are both “pre-owned” (?!?!?) by Chip Z’nuff? WANT WANT WANT!

Will someone with $150 to spare pretty please buy this combo for me? Deals this good don’t come around often. That’s “$150 FIRM,” people. No bargaining! To think Chip Z’nuff hands once graced the frebtboard and volume knob of these fine peices of rock memorabilia… sheesh! The mind boggles at the sheer enormity of the situation.

-VN

[Thanks: Edward Nudd]

Altitude TV [via Blabbermouth] has posted some footage of Deftones performing a new song called “Rocket Skates” at the MetalSucks co-sponsored Smokeout Festival a couple of weekends back. It’s pretty fuckin’ heavy and, not surprisingly, it’s a step forward for a band that’s always sought to push musical boundaries (though it still sounds distinctly Deftones). I mean it’s not as if the Deftones have suddenly gone prog, but… you get the point… as far as Deftones songs go, this one doesn’t sound like the band is trying to re-live or re-create the past so much as take the next step.

For those wondering, I believe that’s Quicksand bassist Sergio Vega stepping in for the still-ailing Chi Cheng. And hey doesn’t Chino look like he’s in awesome shape? For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, Deftones have shelved their completed but unreleased album Eros and are said to be working on something else. It’s never easy for those guys to release a record, is it?

-VN

While the members of Anthrax continue to try and convince the world that John Bush is definitely returning to the fold, Mr. Bush continues to pursue a new studio album with Armored Saint – and now video footage of them in the studio has emerged.

What that means is that there will be a new Armored Saint album – and presumably a tour – in 2010. Even though I think it’s looking better and better than Bush will indeed return to Anthrax, he continues to decline to make a firm commitment, and this video serves as a reminder that he has other priorities, too. Because while he’s not actually in this video, I’d be very surprised if he turned around and just left the band high n’ dry – that’s the kind of thing the members of Anthrax do to him, not the kind of thing he does to other dudes.

-AR

Did anyone see that viral video that was going around this summer of the people dancing down the aisle at that wedding to the sounds of super-autotuned Chris Brown, or whatever the fuck the kids think is so cool these days?

Well Iron Maiden playing your wedding is so much cooler than that. And Iron Maiden playing your wedding in 1984 is possibly the coolest.

And, oh yeah, the wedding was Poland. So I guess the Polacks get the last laugh.

-AR

Thanks to Patton for the tip!

I always forget that current Megadeth bassist James Lomenzo used to be in White Lion. I guess I can accept that he was in Black Label Society (and David Lee Roth), since Zakk Wylde usta use an awful lotta hairspray, but Megadeth? Doesn’t that seem kinda like if Metallica hired the dude from Dangerous Toys or something?

Anyways, I mention it because the “Oh Don Piano!” moment of the day is Lomenzo saying he’d be open to a White Lion reunion. I’m sure the five White Lion fans left the world are all very excited. But I don’t think anyone should get their hopes up. And I can’t be the only one who’d rather hear Lomenzo play tracks from Endgame or pretend to be Dave Ellefson, can I?

-AR

Over the weekend I read a story on Blabbermouth about former Guns N’ Roses manager Alan Niven selling his MTV Video Music Award “Moon Man” statue for the band’s “Welcome to the Jungle” Best New Artist award. The company now re-selling Niven’s statue is asking a mere $13,500 for it.

Since once upon a time a reader very generously bought a pretty bitchin’ Warrant shirt for Vince, and this piece of memorabilia from a band I am inexplicably obsessed with is only $13,430 more, I thought, hey, it worth a shot.

Buy me the best Hannukkah present ever here.

-AR

P.S. Not that I think that any of you are actually that nuts, but just in case – please do no actually purchase this item for me. That would be crazy and I would honestly be a little frightened. Unless you’re a really hot girl trying to prove her love for me, in which case, have you considered just sending me naked pictures?

I tried to give Gnaw Their Tongues, the one man ambient-black-industrial band from the Netherlands, a shot after a recent profile in Decibel piqued my interest; unfortunately, it’s just not for me. Gnaw Their Tongues’ noise – I’m not sure it’s “music” in the traditional sense – makes Lustmord sound like he has a tight sense of structure (and I say that as someone who likes Lustmore, albeit in limited doses). Whatever it is that people find appealing about this – I’m not getting it. Maybe I’d understand it as the soundtrack to an experimental horror movie or something, but I just can’t imagine ever sitting around and being like “Lemme throw some GTT on.”

But I do love the name Gnaw Their Tongues, and all the graphics I’ve seen associate with the band, and the title of the song “The Gnostic Ritual Consumption of Semen as Embodiment of Wounds Teared in the Soul,” the video for which was sent to us by Tom Wills. (They’ve got some other songs with awesome titles, too, like “…Pestilince Stalks Forth” and “All the Dread Magnificence of Perversity.”) I hope some of you dig it more than I do.

-AR

Adema are the latest nu-metal to reunite in hopes of cashing in on barely decade-old nostalgia. They’ll play their first show in over five years at the Whiskey in LA on January 14, which, hey, uninteresting fact, happens to be the anniversary of my bar mitzvah.

Anyways, if you don’t remember this band, well, consider yourself lucky. The most notable thing about them is that their singer, Marky Chavez, is the half-brother of Korn’s Jonathan Davis (or something like that). They were definitely a last-generation nu-metal band – they got big in 2001ish, right around the time the American New Wave was starting its ascent to popularity – but I guess someone needs to be the first support act for the inevitable Korn/Limp Bizkit summer shed tour, right?

Anyways, here’s one of their videos. Don’t even bother watching it – I just thought this post looked too bare with no graphic or non-written content of any kind.

-AR

Even in my youth I hated those intercut-performance-footage-with-movie-footage soundtrack tie-in videos, and Suicide Silence’s clip for “Genocide” shows that these types of videos haven’t gotten any better since then. I like the song and I like the band, I just think this is a lame video. But, hey, if it gets a few Saw fans into Suicide Silence…

-AR

Over the weeken, Baroness released a video for “A Horse Called Golgotha,” one of many excellent tracks from their latest effort Blue Record. I’m not sure Blue Record will end up in my year-end top records list, but I know plenty of people who love the shit out of this record and I certainly can’t begrudge them that; it IS really good.

So this video is pretty psychedelic / trippy / artsy, much like Blue Record itself. I’d sum it up thusly: if Hugh Jackman’s “future” character in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain had been sick, twisted and tortured on the inside instead of a Zen-like testament to patience, this is what the movie would’ve looked like. Stop the presses, Vince made a movie reference! Next thing you know Axl’s going to write his own Metal Mets column.

-VN

Baroness – ‘Blue Record’ Out Now!!! | MySpace Video

Things just haven’t been the same since Rosie left The View Attack Attack! The world has become a Bill Withers song – it feels colder outside, and the sun seems to be setting earlier than it was just a few weeks ago, as though it can’t even be bothered to shine. Life without the classic Attack Attack! lineup that changed the face of metal – nay, music itself – forever just barely seems worth living.

Luckily, Rosie promised “I will be starting something new soon,” and while we all assumed that this “something new” would be another gay cruise for HBO to inexplicably broadcast, Sergeant D at Stuff You Will Hate (by way of Weedsteeler) has discovered that Rosie has posted an ad on Craigslist looking for recruits for a new band. I’m not entirely sure how anyone knows that this posting is by Rosie, but I trust the investigative reporting skills of my fellow bloggers.

Here’s the posting:

Click to read more…

It’s been a while since we’ve reported on the current Fear Factory drama because, well, it got boring re-hashing the same old shit over and over again just to get you guys all hot and bothered in the comments (whoops, did I just say that?). To summarize, in case you didn’t read this site missed out over the summer: Dino re-friends Burton Bell and the two start working on new music under the “Fear Factory” name, while Christian and Raymond — currently working on their Arkaea project — rightly object because Fear Factory is supposedly a four-way partnership. Lawsuits and public shit-talking ensue.

Last I checked a resolution between the two warring Fear Factions hadn’t been reached. So either the four men have settled, or Dino and Burton — let’s just call them the baby-eating Fear Faction — just don’t give a fuck. The baby-eating Fear Faction, along with latter-day FF cohorts Byron Stroud [Strapping Young Lad] and Gene Hoglan [Strapping Young Lad, Dethklok, every fucking band ever] — just announced that they have a new album called Mechanized coming out on February 9th via Candlelight Records (!?!).

The new song “Powershifter” has been making the Internet rounds all weekend; stream it below. Unsurprisingly, it sounds a lot like Fear Factory. I imagine some of you will love it and some of you will hate it; place me firmly in the “meh” camp. I loves me some Demanufcature and Obsolete, but 10 years later there are tons of metal bands out there that are way better, more interesting, and more worthy of my listening time.

-VN

Upon returning back to the Mansion from a bike ride on an unseasonably warm day here in Brooklyn, I was greeted with the following bit of very sad news: drummer Jerry Fuchs is dead at 34. Fuchs was the drummer for Maserati (as well as Turing Machine, !!! and others), a band I’ve written about several times over the past few months whose shows were positively mesmerizing. Fuchs was the backbone and focal-point of the band, his rock-solid skin-pounding the unquestionable propulsive force behind this rock/psych/groove outfit. Though Maserati aren’t metal, their hard-driving grooves and intricate musicality appealed to a lot of metalheads (including this one). I fully credit Kip W. and burger maestro The Rev with having turned me on to this excellent band at SXSW this past Spring; both raved of Fuchs’ skills behind the kit as a highlight of the band’s performance. I had the pleasure of seeing them again this past September here in Brooklyn; the show was stellar, and the band not only impressed MetalGF but blew headlining act Mono off the stage.

Now about his death… it’s even more bizarre than the band’s music. Apparently Fuchs died early Sunday morning when he fell down an elevator shaft. Talk about scary ways to end it all… wow. Reports Spinner:

Fuchs and a friend were in an elevator in a converted factory used as loft space when the elevator stopped “somewhere above the fifth floor,” the Buildings Department spokesman told the New York Post. The pair opened the elevator door and attempted to jump a few feet down to the fifth floor. The friend made the jump, but a piece of Fuchs’ clothing was caught on the elevator, “sending him swinging back into the crevice separating the elevator from the fifth floor,” the Post writes. Fuchs fell five stories to the bottom of the elevator shaft, where he lay “unconscious and unresponsive,” reports Gothamist. The musician was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition and died early this morning surrounded by “an entire waiting room of friends,” according to Chunklet, to which Fuchs was a contributor.

Crikee! One can only hope Fuchs fired off one last passion-filled drum fill in his head before meeting his ultimate demise. Watch the above video for just a small sample of what the man could do behind the kit. And listen to some Maserati tunes on MySpace today, wouldja?

R.I.P. Jerry (Gerhardt) Fuchs.

-VN

MASERATI: “Untitled” – Live at Drunken Unicorn, Atlanta GA, March 16, 2009 from Cassavetes Band on Vimeo.

“BAD MONKEYS!!!”

I swear to god, I’ve been woken up so many fuckin days round here by one of the fast-growing number of MetalNotSoGood staff members uncontrollably exclaiming the above, or a far grouchier expletive….for you see, we are always stepping in shit around here — how could you not when there are so many goddamn monkeys bouncing about, flinging all sorts of rancid poo at each other?

However, it is we who be the monkeys today, and here’s why: I recently made the sad discovery that we have never, ever, ever (never) written a single gosh darn post on the totally nutso and crazily unique seminal band Primus.

For shame!!

I was never a kill-dead-die-hard fan of these guys the way that so many became, but there was no denying the sheer talent and originality oozing from every song the band ever played.

Led by uber-bass-maniac Les Claypool, Primus skated a fascinating line between funk and metal, but ultimately there’s no real categorization to be made — the band has always had a sound unique unto themselves.

Clearly Primus sucks even more than metal does.

Dog will hunt…

PRIMUS — “John the Fisherman”, from Suck on This (1989)

PRIMUS — “Too Many Puppies”, from Frizzle Fry (1990)

PRIMUS — “Jerry Was A Race Car Driver”, from Sailing the Seas of Cheese (1991)

PRIMUS – “My Name Is Mud”, from Pork Soda (1993)

Note: the above tunes were some of the band’s more popular singles; to truly experience the insanity that is Primus, one must delve deep into the plasma pit that is each album…..don’t be scared!!!  You can take a leak right here.

Vids after the jumpjumpjumpjump.

Click to read more…

Holy shit. I wasn’t even out that late last night, but for some reason I am just so tired today that it feels like nothing is really happening. Am I really typing this? Did I really write something positive about Zakk Wylde? Can I please just go to sleep now? I’m just gonna go to sleep now.

Before I do, here’s some things that happened this week:

• We’re giving away a free download of Katatonia’s new song, “Forsaker.”
• We spoke to Hypocrisy’s Peter Tagtgren and Brian Cook from Russian Circles and These Arms Are Snakes.
• We checked out new releases from Slayer and Jesu.
• Otep Shamaya gives women in metal a good name – too bad she won’t be a woman much longer.
• Leaves’ Eyes singer Liv Kristine gives women in metal a bad name – or, at least, a silly one.

Alright, seriously, night-night time for Axl. I think Gary Suarez is going to the NYC Vader gig tomorrow; if anyone sees him there, give him a dead arm for me.

-AR

Last night Vince and I hit up the Trivium/Chimaira/Whitechapel/Dirge Within show at Irving Plaza here in NYC. I will never ever get sick of watching Chimaira live. They have a forty-five minute set on this tour, and they really make the most of it by basically segueing directly from one song to the next with a minimum of on-stage banter, presumably in order to allow a maximum of brutality. To top it off, the set-list was pretty much perfect – they played at least one or two songs from each of their albums (This Present Darkness excluded), and not always they song(s) you’d expect, either. Definitely go check ‘em out!

Here they are doing “Severed” at the Download Festival in 2007. They played this song last night and the pit just went insane – I think this has to be the heaviest track on Pass Out of Existence, no?

-AR

…MS Maniac Daisy May Tinklepants just pointed out to us that the cover art for their new album, Revisions, is awfully similar to the cover art for Throwdown’s new album, Deathless. The two are being released too closely together for me to think that one is ripping off the other (also, their respective music is so dissimilar that I wouldn’t be surprised if either band didn’t care for the other’s work), so let’s just call it serendipity.

And, while we’re on the topic, here’s Slayer’s video of “Eyes of the Insane,” which the reader known only as “Jimmy” pointed out was the precursor for both of these covers.

-AR

So unless you spent your summer someplace where there’s no internet or any way to get metal news, you should be aware that Zakk Wylde a) has been replaced by Firewind’s Gus G. as Ozzy’s new guitarist and b) got the news when Ozzy did an interview announcing he was parting ways from his longtime axe-slinger, because apparently Ozzy and Sharon are too chickenshit to actually pick up the phone and make a difficult call. And so it would be completely within reason for Zakk to have nothing but terrible things to say about all parties involved – in fact, I kinda expected him to do just that. This is the man, after all, who threatened to kill Dave Grohl just for writing some riffs for Ozzy, and who basically attacked a journalist who repeated a rumor that Wylde’s pal Mike “Metal Mets” Piazza might be a homosexual.

But Wylde is actually taking the news really well, or, at least, he’s putting on a good face. From a recent interview with MusicRadar.com (via Blabbermouth):

Click to read more…