I really only know Johnny Orlando, Jr., because of the work he’s done with Metal Injection, but plenty of people have told me I’m an idiot for not paying closer attention to him. And based on the below video, in which Johnny Orlando , Jr., Jr. asks members of Fear Factory, Misery Index, Revocation and Carnifex that all-important question: “Where do babies come from?”
Kudos to Burton C. Bell for trying to give the kid an honest answer, although Gene Hoglan’s response is clearly the best. Reader Xavier Luxenburg suggests that the absence of a certain guitar player is “confirmation” of his baby eating, but I think that dude actually likes ‘em a little younger than this kid.
I was not familiar with the British atmospheric black metal band A Forest of Stars before reader Jordan T. e-mailed me about them yesterday. I sat down to watch the below video for the song “Raven’s Eye View,” and was intrigued by the description which accompanied it on the band’s official YouTube page:
This footage was discovered in the attic of a descendant of James W Longley, Louis le Prince’s assistant. It was lovingly pieced together by the Louis le Prince Restoration and Appreciation society. Unfortunately most of the material was badly damaged and this represents the majority of the remaining film. This is considered to be the final recording produced by Louis le Prince before his mysterious disappearance aboard a train bound for Paris on the 16th September 1890.
In case you don’t know who Louis le Prince was, well, he was one of the first inventors of the moving image (possibly the first – as is so often the case with these kinds of things, there have been conflicting stories throughout history). He did, indeed, disappear from a train under mysterious circumstances, and to this day we have no idea what happened to him; he may have drowned, but it’s never been 100% confirmed.
Unfortunately, the illusion that this is actual lost le Prince footage is immediately ruined by the fact that just below the description are the words “Music video Directed and Produced by Ingram Blakelock.” Also that the footage isn’t very convincing looking.
But whatever. It’s a cool idea… in theory. But the song is eight and half-minutes long, and not only is the music more boring than the thought of Dave Mustaine and Kerry King actually getting along, but the video gets old fast, too. So I applaud these dudes for trying to do some kind of cool viral thing, but wish they had gone about it in a more clever manner.
Jordan says that the band has a new album, Opportunistic Thieves Of Spring, coming out June 1; so if you enjoyed this, y’know. Mark it in your calendar.
Last week I was having coffee with a couple of friends in a cafe restaurant. One of my buds was sitting across from me on a large table and we were having a hard time hearing each other speak over the noise, so I began to make funny expressions and movements with my hands, embodying a style of humor that an old mate used to perform for a bunch of us when I used to work as a bartender. Back then, Jeff would pretend that he had long hair and would mime shaping it into the form of a Mohawk, or massive spikes protruding from his head. His facial expressions were serious and committed, as though it was a real job to style his invisible hair. He would look into a mirror and prepare his massive punk locks with gels and glue to form these extreme shapes poking out of his cranium. His outstretched arm would perfect the point on each spear, his facial expressions exhibiting great purpose while taking on this important task.
Last week we offered up three prize packs from Massachusetts punk rawkers Never Got Caught. The lucky recipients of some new music to groove to are:
Lance Zeran: “…clearance in the tool department.”
Yo Diggity: “Guess which one is the passing fad?”
Gabe: “Screw-up on aisle 6.”
This week we’ve got two copies of the super-sweet limited edition clear vinyl Monolith/Voyager split we mentioned earlier this week courtesy the folks at Science of Silence Records. Simply leave a comment below with a caption that makes us laugh [photo sent in by Brandon Pewo], and remember to use (or include) a real email address.
My interview with Coheed & Cambria guitarist Travis Stever got off to a bit of a slow start. I believe I was his first interview of the morning in a long line of many, and he was audibly a bit groggy after a rough night of sleep on the bus. But after a few questions Stever got into the flow of things, and started talking at length about his band’s new record Year of the Black Rainbow, their current tour with Circa Survive and Torche, working with ex-Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie, the Neverender series of shows and the thrill of playing Madison Square Garden.
We only had fifteen minutes to talk before Stever was whisked away to his next interview, but we got plenty accomplished in that time. Our chat, after the jump.
The first time I ever heard This or the Apocalypse, I wasn’t really into them. Then I found out that Chris Adler was producing their new album, Haunt What’s Left, and I was like, “Okay, well. If Chris Adler likes ‘em, I’d best give ‘em another chance.” I’m a Chris Adler fan, man. I even used his name as an example of the best seasoned veterans in metal earlier today.
Well, Mr. Adler, you and I are just going to have to agree to disagree, ’cause TOTA just released a song from Haunt, “Charmer,” and it doesn’t do anything for me. It’s not your production, fine sir; I just think the song is kinda generic. In the press release you say that song “gives me goose bumps and makes me jealous,” and I want so desperately to have goose bumps and think “Gee, Chris Adler should really be jealous of these dudes,” but I just don’t. I did get a little hungry when I was l listening to the song, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the music so much as it does that I forgot to eat lunch.
Listen to “Charmer” here and let me know what you think, gang. Haunt What’s Left comes out on Good Fight on June 22.
To celebrate the release of Sick of it All’s awesome new album, Based on a True Story, we asked SOIA vocalist Lou Koller to compile the definitive list of quintessential hardcore albums. Luckily for us and all of you, he agreed! So we’ll be running one entry a day from Lou’s list of the top-ten (+1) hardcore records of all time for the next couple of weeks. You can read his first installment here, his second installment here, and his third installment here; the fourth one is after the jump…
Did you know that we have lives outside of the metal world? It’s true! And sometimes, that life gets distracting. I LOVE writing for MetalSucks more than I love certain members of my mother’s family, but like any job, there are gonna be days when there’s some out-of-office shit going on and it’s really hard to just sit at your desk and concentrate.
Alas, today is one of those days. Thus, I present four stories that you might find of interest, but about which I have little to say. My sincerest apologies.
Okay, so I know this is some random ass shit that’s well over a year old already, but I was searching You Tube for footage of The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza – don’t ask me why, I just was – when I came upon this clip from Tony Danza’s talk show (Tony Danza has a talk show?), in which someone wrote in to him about the band. And while Kevin Bacon handled the whole IWABO thing with class and humor, Tony D. goes for the easy joke. But we all get the last laugh. You know why? ‘Cause we weren’t in Meet Wally Sparks.
The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza’s new album, Danza III: The Series of Unfortunate Events, comes out July 8 on Blackmarket Activities. There’s a bunch of new songs from the album streaming here, and they bode very well for the rest of the record.
I can’t decide whether I like Finland hair metal revivalists (as if it ever really died) Reckless Love or not. Even though they pretty much ape their heroes to a T and they’re relentlessly cheesy like that video of a choreographed wedding proposal in Washington Square Park, I think that I do. In case those heroes would be Def Leppard (see: giant-sized drum production, “woah-oh” gang shouts, masterful use of pre-chorus to build anticipation of the chorus) and Europe (predictable guitar patterns, cheesy synths, bad lyrics)… but the songs are good, and what is hair metal about if not the songs?
In the end I guess Reckless Love do feel a bit calculated in their approach, but eh, they’re pretty good at it so I think they get a pass. Like how on your first report card every semester of High School you’d either get graded “Satisfactory” or “Unsatisfactory”… these guys get a “Satisfactory.” Check out some tuneage on their MySpace page.
Vince and I are seeing Havok tonight for the first time (they’re opening for Primal Fear). I’m pretty stoked; I really dug their album, Burn, and only by the grace of the fact that SO MUCH GOOD STUFF came out in 2009 did it not make my year-end list. If all the retro-thrash bands sounded this good (as good as Revocation or Lazarus A.D., for that matter), I’d be considerably less inclined to bust their balls.
Here’s Havok’s video for “Morbid Symmetry,” from Burn. What an excellent song.
Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 12:30pm by Axl Rosenberg
Twisted Sister’s most famous song, “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” came out in 1984; the video had one of the guys who played one of the dick heads in Animal House giving his kid shit for being a kid, and was basically a call for young people everywhere to rebel against their elders.
But if you were a teenager in 1984, you’re, like, a million years old now – which is how we’ve come to a place where a bunch of teachers from Florida have made a new video for the song, this one basically a call for young people to be less rebellious.
Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 11:30am by Axl Rosenberg
Hail Satan for people that aren’t me and have a much wider range of tastes in music than I do. I never would have deliberately sat down to watch this video for Goldfrapp’s “Alive” if Stabitha Christie hadn’t sent it to me with the words “Holy shit” in the subject line. I’m sure there are plenty of tr00 kvltists who are going to be deeply, deeply offended by this video, but, c’mon: if you’re already wearing corpse paint, you’re already completely ridiculous.
The announcement that Swedish trad metallers Grand Magus had signed with Roadrunner Records was a tad surprising given that label’s recent inclination towards either a) already developed acts with a legacy (Korn, Ratt), or b) more mainstream hard rock and metal acts. But hey, who’s complaining? If the success of every Nickelback and Theory of a Deadman means the label can take a chance on bands like Grand Magus and Baptized in Blood — and gives those bands the opportunity to record with a decent budget without forcing them to make artistic sacrifices — then hey, I’m for it.
We’ll find out how Grand Magus fair in the mainstream metal world when they release their Roadrunner debut Hammer of the North on June 23rd, but all indications from hearing the title track of the album are that they’re going to be just fine. I love the giant-sized bass tone and the thickness it lends the mammoth riffs, and vocalist Janne “JB” Christoffersson voice complements them perfectly to give the song a powerfully dark yet somehow epic feel. Dare I say JB reminds me a bit of Dio when he hits his upper register? Watch the new video for “Hammer of the North” below.
Listen to the older Grand magus song “Like the Oar Strikes the Water” here.
Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 10:30am by Axl Rosenberg
Everyone has already come forth to pay tribute to Dio (totally appropriate) or talk about the time they met the man and what a class-act he was (also appropriate), but soon people who never really knew him will start to say they were his best friend (like that time Marq Torien claimed he and Layne Staley were best buds), or try to re-write history (I can’t believe Vivian Campbell hasn’t made a statement yet), and bands will start covering Dio and Dio-era Sabbath songs for no better reason than it’s an easy way to get the crowd on your side. Dio was an incredibly talented musician – it’s amazingly inspiring and almost impossible to believe that his voice was still in such amazing shape, or that anyone actually managed to stay cool and not sell-out for that long – but the meaning of his passing goes beyond even that; although he died of cancer and not old age, his death signals that metal’s founding generation is getting older, and that, like my family’s table the past few Thanksgivings (fewer and fewer members of “The Greatest Generation,” more and more people who won’t a remember a time when we didn’t have the internet), the landscape is going to look increasingly different in the coming years as the Dios begin to disappear and the Hetfields become the elder statesmen and the Adlers become the seasoned veterans and the Mansoors become the young bucks. Dio’s death has, for lack of a more sensitive term, subtext; it’s for this reason that, with all due respect to every member of the metal community who passed away between December 8, 2004, and May 16, 2010, the loss of Dio has had a greater impact on the headbanger populace than any since Dime was murdered.
And the way you can tell is because those deaths not only struck a chord with us, the metal faithful, but have managed to become news outside the realm of heavy music as well. I found out about Dime because my mother called and woke me up and frantically told me to turn on the radio because “a famous heavy metal guitarist from a band I think you like was killed;” likewise, yesterday I was in therapy when my shrink asked me, “Didn’t a very famous heavy metal singer pass away this week?” (My shrink is roughly the same age as Dio, and also of Sicilian descent; he was tickled when I told him the story of Dio’s grandmother and the birth of the horns, as his family used to use the same symbolic hand gensture for the same purpose.)
And so it is that two of the most noteworthy pieces written about RJD’s passing have come from media venues not traditionally known for their metalocity.
Unfortunately, while one of those pieces is incredibly awesome, one of them is incredibly lame.
Hey, unsigned bands: pay attention to this post! You could learn something.
As part of our ongoing coverage of the Scion No Label Needed series, today we’ve got the latest video documenting the music industry crash-course bestowed upon much-deserved contest winners Iron Thrones. Today’s video features a mentoring session with Big Machine Media PR honchos Jamie Roberts and Leo Lavoro, who offer the band members tips about how to effectively market themselves and what makes a good PR campaign. (full disclosure: we regularly work with Big Machine Media and their artists, but they really are some of the best in the biz). How do you make the best use of your band’s social networking sites? How do you write a good bio? How do you get the attention of journalists? Answers to these questions and more in the above video.
There are some really good tips in here that a band at any level can benefit from, so if you’re in an unsigned band out there I recommend paying close attention. It’s amazing how many publicists and bands get it so, so wrong. Big Machine Media will also be handling the PR for Iron Thrones’ new record once it’s been recorded. It goes without saying that we can’t wait to hear the record!
How is everyone feeling about “What They Died For?” As much as I was hoping it would melt my mind, I’m going to cast it amongst the bottom rung of “not so awesome season six episodes.” This will be a temporary standing, though, if one of you happened to think it ruled and are persuasive in explaining why to me! Clinging to my absolutely last hope of optimism, though, I will assume this episode’s function in the entire grand scheme of this story is to serve a preparatory purpose for the Series Finale this coming Sunday. It wasn’t without its redeemable informative value, as it blatantly defined some extremely crucial roles and objectives:
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 at 4:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
Since Anthrax announced last week that they’re bringing Joey Belladonna into the fold, we’ve had one burning question at the forefront of our minds: What the fuck went wrong with John Bush? Scott Ian said “we needed a total commitment to Anthrax, and [Bush] knew that wasn’t what he wanted,” but that’s fairly vague.The rumor was that he didn’t want to tour anymore, but we also recklessly speculated that he didn’t wanna be just a session musician and re-recorded Dan Nelson’s parts for Worship Music – which is perfectly understandable.
Now Blabbermouth’s Ryan Ogle has scored the interview of the week by hunting down Bush and getting his perspective on things. And as it turns out, the rumors and reckless speculation were both kinda true.
