I know what you’re thinking: Two juggalo posts in one day? What did we do to deserve such treats?!?!
Well, I definitely didn’t wake up this morning and say “Let’s do two ICP articles in one day,” but then Dan And from Bison B.C. e-mailed me these AWESOME photos of the band playing a Halloween gig while dressed as Juggalos, and I just had to share…
More after the jump…
And I don’t mean a man-whore.
Metal Insider found this blog, hilariously titled “That New Car Smell,” in which extreme music’s most famous lesbian announces that she is undergoing sexual reassignment surgery in order to legally marry her lover, an unnamed “A-list actress.” Some excerpts follow:
MS reader AcidBeagle sent us the below YouTube embed of a brand new Them Crooked Vultures track called “Mind Eraser.” It’s pretty good (pretty, pretty, pretty good!), but that’s about as far as I’m going to go with it.
While the prospect of a Grohl/Homme/JPJ union was indeed tantalizing in theory, the partnership has turned out to be pretty “meh” in practice. It’s perfectly fine boogie/blues/whatever rock music, but would anyone ultimately give a shit if not for the star-studded cast of characters involved? Methinksnot, but you be judge.
-VN
Everyone seems to be losing their shit because it looks like Aerosmith might break-up. I’ve read so many fucking puns on the album title Permanent Vacation this week that I am now 99.9% sure that most people writing about the band have never even heard of another fucking Aerosmith album (See what I did with my headline, fellas? They also have some song titles that could be appropriate for this particular occassion. Get it together, you lazy motherfuckers.). And besides, there’s a couple of things we need to consider:
Lambgoat is reporting that West Virginia prog metallers Byzantine will be reforming for a series of 3 “farewell” shows in March 2010. The reunion comes more than two years after the sudden split that followed the release of their highly excellent album Oblivion Beckons, which earned #3 honors on my Top 10 list for 2008. Oblivion Beckons was a near-perfect record, a progressive American metal masterpiece; because the band broke up four days after the album was released they never had a chance to tour it and the record never got its due. Until now… sort of.
Vocalist/rhythm Guitar Chris “OJ” Ojeda had this to say about their upcoming reunion: “2 and 1/2 years ago we put a sudden and abrupt halt to our musical careers under the name Byzantine. It was a really anti-climactic way to go out. We know a lot of fans and friends alike felt cheated that we didn’t play any shows supporting our last album, ‘Oblivion Beckons.’ Now, we all feel like it’s time to give a little something back, all guns blazing. Unfortunately, we are unable to tour since we live scattered across 3 states, have children and full-time jobs, but we want to give our local fans something to remember us by.”
While this doesn’t seem like a full-fledged reunion, at least the band will be getting together to play a series of shows for their fans, all 3 in March of next year in their home state of West Virginia. Dates are listed after the jump, although tickets aren’t yet on sale. Here’s to hoping these shows lead to new Byzantine music, because I’ve a feeling they’ve got a lot left in the tank.
Holy shit – did you know that there are actually people even worse than Juggalos? I saw this video on Topless Robot last night – a slideshow of fan art by so-called “Juggalo Furries,” or people “who are simultaneously into anthropomorphic animals and Insane Clown Posse.”
I couldn’t make this shit up, people. If I did, you’d never fucking believe it anyway.
This is the kind of thing that makes me wanna down a handful of sleeping pills with a tall glass of vodka. Since Vince and I are now friends with one out-of-the-closet Juggalo, I feel bad making a blanket statement like “All Juggalos are worthless fucktards.”
But I am 110% comfortable with the statement “All Juggalo Furries are worthless fucktards.”
Watch the video below… if you dare.
-AR
In news that will only bum out people who have never heard Addicted, Ki, Ziltoid (the album, not the guy who leaves comments here telling us how bad we suck), or any number of other Devin Townsend projects that aren’t Strapping Young Lad, The Formerly Skulleted One has announced that he will not be playing any SYL material on his forthcoming tour with Between the Buried and Me, Cynic, and Scale The Summit.
And there isn’t much more to say than that. I love SYL as much as the next drunken ree-ree, but Townsend has plenty of other great albums from which to pull material, and I’m dying to hear stuff from the last few records that has never been performed live before. And since he’s not the headliner and I imagine his set time will therefore be a little shorter than some of us might like, it’s only natural that he’d want to concentrate on stuff he wasn’t out on the road playing for years and years prior to SYL’s demise.
Or, put more succinctly: even though some idiots will surely bitch and moan, this isn’t a big deal, and this tour is still gonna be awesome.
Addicted, which really is fantastic, comes out November 17 on InsideOut Music.
-AR
Any band whose MySpace page claims they hail from “Bongtreal, Canada” is immediately going to be on my good side – and if the music is actually decent, hey!, then I’ll do one of these here stoopid blog posts about ‘em.
And such is the case with Barn Burner, who just signed to Metal Blade. The press release announcing the coupling describes the band as “the 3 headed love child of Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy and Fu Manchu,” but it’s much simpler to say simply that this is fuzzy, classic stoner rock in the vein of Baroness or Blood Mountain-era Mastodon.
Anyways, I’m digging what I’ve heard of this band so far. I guess we’ll see how Bangers, their Metal Blade debut, is when it’s released in early 2010. In the meantime, here’s a video of the band that they have posted on the aforementioned ; it looks like they’re fun live, doesn’t it?
-AR
When the biggest breaking story of the day is the revival of Skold, you know it’s a slow news day. So why not turn to YouTube for some vocal cover lulz? Let’s dive head-first into the bedrooms of America’s teenagers via YouTube to see the funniest vocal covers of the mighty Korn (see also: The Limp Bizkit Collection).
First up we have this guy. He claims to have been drunk when he recorded it. And?
Thanks to Rob Pasbani from Metal Injection for bringing this interview with Type O Negative’s Peter Steele to our attention. If you skip to roughly the fifteen minute mark, Mr. Steele starts to talk about… God. As in, he is now Saved, or a Believer, or whatever you’d call it.
Now, if Peter Steele wants to believe in God, that’s his right and who the fuck am I to judge him? As long as he doesn’t start preaching at concerts, I really don’t care one way or the other. But I do think it’s funny that (as Rob pointed out) this man is famous, at least in part, for this song:
Back in 1996, I was an angst-ridden young buck, and the only kind of music I truly cared about was industrial rock. Indeed, it was at the tail of a gilded age for the subgenre, the door to commercial success having been opened a few years earlier by major-label breakthrough artists like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry as well as notable independent label acts like long-slogging innovators KMFDM. If you have ever owned music from bands like God Lives Underwater or Gravity Kills, you know exactly what I’m talking about, brother.
That same year also saw the major release of a self-titled debut from SKOLD, a dark electronic project from a former member of glammy metal act Shotgun Messiah, a group that had toyed with industrial rock on their final album Violent New Breed. Though there wasn’t a bad song in the bunch, the highlights included machinist’s slog “Dust To Dust” and soaring dystopian anthem “Neverland.” Though mastermind Mr. Tim Skold would move on to lengthy stints with Marilyn Manson (refer to: The Golden Age Of Grotesque, arguably the band’s finest record) and the aforementioned KMFDM, this now woefully out-of-print album–and occasionally accompanying promo VHS cassette–has always held a special plate in my withered heart. This is is why I am so pleased to report that after thirteen (13!) long years, Mr. Skold has revived this long dormant solo act.
Lots of you responded to our Readers Choice bitch-fest last week by sending us emails asking us to check out bands… and lo and behold, you actually included links! Here are are a couple of my favorites; I’ll spare you meaningless descriptions of what these bands sound like ’cause, ya know, you should be able to decide for yourselves.
Enjoy. As always, tell us what you think in the comments.
-VN
So we read on Metal Insider, who read on Drowned In Sound, who read on nme.com, that Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello used to be a stripper. Seriously. Says Morello:
When I graduated from Harvard and moved to Hollywood, I was unemployable. I was literally starving, so I had to work menial labour and, at one point, I even worked as an exotic dancer. ‘Brick House’ [by The Commodores] was my jam! I did bachelorette parties and I’d go down to my boxer shorts. Would I go further? All I can say is thank god it was in the time before YouTube! You could make decent money doing that job – people do what they have to do.
Metal fans, let’s take a collective moment to consider ourselves blessed with some big Peters. Peters who will take you firmly from both sides of the mixing board with confidence and expertise. Sweaty, bulging-veined Peters whose live shows leave willing multitudes spent, sated, slack – and more than a bit bruised. These Peters, thanks to generous endowments of talent, stand fully erect as superstars in real metal. Each of metal’s hugest Peters share a rock hard work ethic, hardly pausing for rest between releases captured on tape and performances in the flesh, after which they simply move on to violate again in another city.
In the premiere installment of MetalSucks’ Metal’s Biggest Peters, I spoke by phone with Peter Tagtgren of Hypocrisy, who recently added a third instant classic to his resume with A Taste of Extreme Divinity (buy it now, DBAA). Tagtgren is a death metal household name and represents the rare quintuple-threat (guitar, vocals, production, songwriting, hair). With his feet up on the mixing board (awesome!) and in good humor, Tagtgren spoke at length about crappy production, freaking out metal fans, and why his bands Hypocrisy and Pain are ‘guinea pigs’ for the benefit of others.
Photo by Greg Aiello
On Friday night, Vince and I saw Living Colour live for what I think must have been the seventh or maybe eighth time. And it’s a testament to the abilities of this band that, in a day and age when so many groups are seemingly just going through the motions, we’ve really never seen the same Living Colour show twice. These dudes just seem to come from another time and place – an era when a live performance wasn’t about doing a note-for-note recreation of your albums so much as it was about creating a unique experience for the audience. In that regard, Living Colour still delivers in spades.
Leaves’ Eyes vocalist Liv Kristine has written another ridiculous top five list for The Deciblog – this one about the best “vegetarian eats” – but it’s not really offensive, and it would just be petty of me to respond with a top five “meat eats” or whatever (although there’s some obvious humor to be had there).
No, instead I’d like to concentrate on this morning’s Invisible Oranges post by Cosmo Lee regarding “the new breed of female metallers,” which seems to have been inspired, at least in part, by Kristine’s initial list about why women in metal rule, and my (admittedly sophomoric) response.
As is usually the case, Mr. Lee makes some excellent recommendations, my favorite of which is a Russian band, Tantal. Here’s their video for a song called “Suicide.” I suggest you stick with it through the entire six minutes, even if you don’t dig the beginning – as Cosmo writes, “It starts off cheesy but gets better and better, with an amazing Between the Buried and Me-style outro.”
So this is pretty ri-goddamn-diculous.
Reader Justin Omidian just brought to our attention that the Kittie song “My Plague,” from their most recent release, In the Black, is a blatant rip-off of Lamb of God’s “Laid to Rest.”
Seriously. As Vince noted, it’s totally egregious. I can’t believe Kittie ever thought they’d get away with this – in fact, I think the only reason it hasn’t made headlines ’til now is because no Lamb of God fans actually like Kittie.
Check it out. Here’s Kittie’s “My Plague”…
…and on the off-chance you’ve never heard it, here’s Lamb of God’s “Laid to Rest.”
So warneth Noisecreep, who debuted the new track “The Kicking Legs” by Salt Lake City, UT’s Gaza this morning. Gaza fit snugly between NeurIsis post-metal and Dillinger mathcore, mixing raw, lo-fi punk-inspired aggression with precise, spastic, calculated arrangements. Not my usual fare, but I can’t help but dig the juxtaposition of styles; the end result is something wholly fresh to these ears.
Stream “The Kicking Legs” on Noisecreep or download it for free here. The track comes from He Is Never Coming Back, out November 10th on Black Market Activities.
-VN
We’re very excited about Hypocrisy upcoming U.S. tour with Children of Bodom’s Alexi Laiho on guitar. In fact, in the next forty-eight hours, we’re planning to run an interview that our own Anso DF recently conducted with Hypocrisy main dude Peter Tägtgren.
So it’s heartbreaking to report that the tour might go down the shitter, as Hypocrisy are just the latest in a long line of bands to run into trouble with U.S. immigration. A statement from the band follows:
