In Hollywood, it’s important to be a good collaborator. By that I mean you often have to plaster on a smile at the conference table, while behind the scenes you’re part of a mass bitchfight for credit and payout. But it’s not always a simple tit-for-tat. Sure, you want your due (and paycheck), but sometimes it harms the product to have your ugly, worthless name in the credits. (Actually, those are the exact words used to rob me of producer points on Hot Tub Time Machine. Eat shit and die, Cusack.)

Conversely, it sometimes harms you to be attached nominally to a shameful shitfest like, say, Vince Neil’s autobiography. When I signed on to the project, it seemed like a piece of cake (I’d already written most of it anyway) and a good way to compete with awesome MS contributor Corey Mitchell (who even now is at work on Phil Anselmo’s forthcoming tome). But once the memoirs were set to go to print, it hit me: Vince Neil? This is a career-killer! What will the Suckalos think? Panic!! So, per my management, my contributions to Tequila, Turds, and Tattered Tank Tops (working title) were re-written and my name removed from the cover. (I also agreed to be compensated in Vicodin.)

The good news is that, judging from new excerpts, Vince’s team found a way to retain all the Anso-style vitriol and reckless name-calling. So my rep stays clean, but the metal community still profits from all the harsh, hidden truths of Motleydom. We all win! Here’s Neil (and me) on Nikki Sixx:

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I’m completely lying. I mean, the director of the below video, for Ghost in the Machine‘s “Never Trust a Pirate,” was directed by someone calling himself Brock Williams, but I somehow doubt that it’s the former NFL cornerback. And it certainly is NOT the most expensive metal video ever produced — or, rather, if it is, than the money must have gone up someone’s nose or something.

But the video IS a good lesson in how creativity can overcome budgetary restraints. The music doesn’t do much for me (although it’s certainly not the worst thing a reader has sent me today), but the video is memorable, and definitely way better than, like, at least 90% of all the other metal videos I’ve seen this year. Hopefully other professional athletes turned auteurs will take a lesson from Mr. Williams.

-AR

Thanks to Culleen for the tip!

Whenever I was home sick as a kid I’d entertain myself in two ways (this was before I discovered masturbation): 1) The Joy of Painting with the most metal of painters, Bob Ross, 2) USA re-runs of ’70s and ’80s game shows Family Feud, The $25,000 Pyramid, The Price is Right and Press Your Luck. Much later on when cable networks greatly expanded their channel roster and niche channels like The Gameshow Network were born I always loved watching re-runs of The Match Game and Hollywood Squares. There’s something about game shows that simultaneously seems really dated yet not dated at all; the style and manner of the hosts and contestants are all easily identifiable to a certain era, yet the way people react — namely like complete idiots — to being on national television with the chance to win a ton of money hasn’t changed at all. All these years later, those Richard Dawson-hosted Family Feud episodes, with all of Dawson’s drunken buffoonery and the contestants’ rampant excitement, still hold so much entertainment value.

Leave it up to Faith No More (then Ozzy) drummer Mike Bordin to completely shatter the stereotype of person-on-a-game-show freak outs. Dude was cool as a cucumber on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, not playing into the faux-dramatic atmosphere at all by immediately following each answer with “final” in a calm, cock-sure way. Unfortunately his knowledge of U.S. history betrayed him, and I’m not sure his buddy (and then bandmate, pre-Metallica) Robert Trujillo in the audience could’ve helped him either.

I imagine some day kids who were born in the ’90s and the ’00s will look back on re-runs of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Deal or No Deal in the same fond light as I did the aforementioned shows. Hopefully at least a couple of ‘em will be inspired to check out Faith No More when they come upon this gem. See also: the Mike Patton-loving character on All My Children.

-VN

Thanks: NewFaithNoMore.com via Reign in Blonde.

Kevin Dubrow is dead, and I think that most of us assumed he would take Quiet Riot (the seventh most-often-miscategorized-as-a-hair-metal-band of all time) with him to the grave. Those of us who did make that assumption, however, forgot that desperate times call for desperate measures, and an empty belly holds no room for dignity.

So Quiet Riot are re-forming.

Click to read more…

The last time Protest the Hero came out with a new album was in early 2008, a little more than a year into the life of this site. At the time I raved about Fortress endlessly, and it ended up as #2 on my year-end list for 2008 topped only by Gojira’s The Way of All Flesh [side note: so many awesome records came out that year!]. It’ll be interesting to see how the MetalSucks Maniacs at large react to my pending coverage of Protest the Hero’s next record, which they’re supposedly working on right now. Our site’s readership has grown a ton since early 2008 and the amount of vitriol spewed our way in the comments section has vastly increased for better or worse. Back then our readers seemed to mostly support my penchant for prog wankery and really got behind Protest the Hero too; would it be the same these days?

The knock on PtH always seems to be that people don’t like their vocalist Rody Walker. I happen to think that he’s the icing on the cake, a truly unique vocalist that really brings something extra to a band full of amazing musicians. Whereas most bands of amazing musicians simply get a dude to scream over what they’re playing — so that people whose attention spans are too short to pay attention to an instrumental band won’t lose interest — Rody Walker really adds something to the formula, and what the other 4 dudes do is all the better for it. He’s a really talented vocalist too, and PtH certainly wouldn’t be the same without him.

But apparently MS reader Damien doesn’t agree, or perhaps he was just bored and fiddling around with the instrumental versions of Fortress that the band released when he created the below mix of “Sequoia Throne” with Randy Blythe’s vocals for the Wrath track “Fake Messiah” laid over top of it. It’s a cool concept, and though I feel like the use of Blythe’s vocals in the chorus could use work (seems too sparse), I think it’s pretty well done.

-VN

My favorite parts of the new Black Anvil song, “The Evil of all Roots,” have bounce. Obviously not, like, deathcore/Panteradactyl-style bounce, but, y’know, they make me wanna bob my head. In my old age, when a night of headbanging can easily lead to a chiropractor visit, I increasingly appreciate a good head-bob, y’know?

ANYWAY, the song is streaming over at Stereogum, and comes off of Black Anvil’s forthcoming Triumvirate. And I guess I haven’t been reading my press releases very carefully, ’cause that same site tells me that Triumvirate was recorded by Twisted Sister’s Mark Mendoza, which has to be one of the crazier intersections of metal history I’ve heard about in awhile. Black Anvil don’t wear corpse paint, but I can’t exactly picture Paul Delaney in pink stockings and football pads, y’know?

Triumvirate comes out September 28 on Relapse. Don’t forget that we’re streaming another song, “Scalping,” right here at MetalSucks.

-AR

Last week we got to peep some performance footage from Opeth’s upcoming CD/DVD set, In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and this week we get a clip from the behind-the-scenes documentary which will also be included in that package. And it made me laugh out loud. In fact, I don’t really wanna tell you too much about it, ’cause that might spoil your fun. Just watch. It’s short, and it’s enjoyable, I swear.

In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall comes out September 21 on Roadrunner. Hey, that’s next week!

-AR

If my father had utilized reverse psychology when I was a kid, there’s a good chance I would never have latched onto metal; as it stands, his anti-metal stance was probably a big part of the genre’s appeal when I was younger. But now that MetalSucks is what Vince and I do full-time, he’s doing his best to be supportive. For example, he has only ever sent one text message in his entire life. It was to me, and it read as follows:

“Metallica riot see news”

Frickin’ adorable, right? Still, it’s not as though I expected my dad to start listening to Metallica. I mean, he’s probably heard …And Justice for All more times than Lars Ulrich has just from having me blast it around the house when I was a teenager, but I don’t think he can tell the difference between Metallica and The Offspring (I know for a fact my mom can’t).

So I was more than a little surprised when my old man e-mailed me a link to the below video and asked “Know the group?”… because he actually dug the music!

Unfortunately, I had the unenviable task of explaining to my father all about Burzum and Varg Vikernes’ long history of, uh, political idealism, thus promptly ending his too-brief relationship with the first metal band he’s ever actually enjoyed. Oh well. Maybe I can slip him the new Enslaved album or something…?

-AR

Someone call the CDC: Crabcore is a virus, and it’s spreading fast.

A reader calling himself “PeniX” (seriously, dude?) sent us the below video by See My Fatal Trace, a Mexican band that clearly has no higher artistic aspiration than to be to their country’s Attack Attack! Only they might actually be worse than Attack Attack!, ’cause they don’t have that band’s PR machine to provide them with the appropriate level of glo$$. They do, however, have the most inadvertently hilarious music video I’ve seen since waking up this morning. (My favorite part is when the dude bleeds idyllic images of his woman.)

If I was one of those right wingers who wants to keep all the Mexicans out of the U.S., I’d just start showing people this video. I think it would be pretty hard to watch this and still stand by all that “Give me your tired, your hungry, your blah blah blah” crap.

And, no, it isn’t Taco Day here at MS.

-AR

Mike Portnoy’s departure from Dream Theater is pretty much the biggest non-death story to break in metal over the past several months. Foundations have been demolished! Worlds have come crashing down! The strongest of e-friendships and message board dork alliances have been shattered! MetalGF copped to enjoying Scenes From a Memory when I put it on this Saturday morning! What is the Metalverse coming to???

In a move that only underscores how far beyond drumming his role in Dream Theater stretched, Portnoy took to the airwaves on Eddie Trunk’s weekly Friday Night Rocks broadcast this past Friday and attempted to clear up some of the rumors and accusations that’ve been floating around the Webernets since he announced his departure on Wednesday evening. Since you all reading this site are no doubt very concerned about wasting your boss’s dollar while you peruse the Internet, I’ll sum up the main talking points for you here in convenient bullet-point form:

Click to read more…

Rumpelstiltskin Grinder are an awesome band — their most recent Relapse release, Living for Death, Destroying the Rest, ranked number five on Vince’s year-end list in 2009 — and at the end of the day, no band name is gonna change that; they could call themselves “Limp Bizkit” and their music would still kick ass.

Still, I was pretty bummed when an anonymous reader sent us a link to the following message from RG’s MySpace page:

Hey you poofts.  We have officially changed our name to THE DEVIL.  2 new songs just got posted and we’re changing the url to myspace.com/thedevilband.

I’m honestly hoping that this is just a joke I don’t get, like back in April when HORSE The Band announced that they were changing their moniker to “Wicked Decision.” ‘Cause while “Rumpelstiltskin Grinder” is a name that is at once memorable, funny, and accurate with regards to the sound of the band, “The Devil” is generic, boring, could apply to any number of types of bands, and will officially lose all menace as of this Friday, when that new M. Night Shymalamadingdong movie opens.

And as of right now, The Devil’s MySpace page* is pretty bare bones, so maybe it is a joke — or maybe they’re just still getting set up. I dunno, I dunno. I hope these dudes didn’t purchase this name on eBay, ’cause if they did, they got took.

While we wait to see what the deuce is going on here, you can check out those new songs on Rumpelstiltskin Grinder original MySpace page.

-AR

*By the way, even “The Devil’s MySpace Page” strikes me as being a cooler name than “The Devil.”

Listen, I don’t think this is gonna come as a galloping shock to anyone given all the talk there’s already been about A Perfect Circle returning from their hiatus/break-up/whatever, but we just got a press release making it official. The band is apparently gonna get this party started with a five-city tour in the fall:

Shows in Phoenix (Marquee Theatre), Los Angeles (Avalon), Seattle (Showbox at The Market) and San Francisco (The Fillmore) will be three-night stops with each night featuring one of A Perfect Circle’s three albums in its entirety (Mer de Noms, Thirteenth Step and eMOTIVe).  Las Vegas (The Pearl) will be a two-night outing (Mer de Noms and Thirteenth Step).

The band will also play Jimmy Kimmel on October 27.

Two quick and random thoughts:

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Back in 1993, music had not yet been ruined by the internet. Since information traveled through word of mouth and the postal system, it was much easier for a band to seem mysterious and larger than life than it is today, when you can see Jesse “Ripper” Owens’ Twitpics of him flying model airplanes with his daughters or whatever. The most notable example of that is, of course, the Norwegian black metal scene, but that never held much interest to me. For me and my friends who grew up on the West Coast listening to Suicidal Tendencies and Ice T, our cherished mythological metal band was Brujeria, and their 1993 LP Matando Gueros (literally means “Killing Honkeys”) was our version of Transylvanian Hunger.

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That’s right! One of MetalSucks’ most controversial voices — which is really saying something — is gonna be the DJ at tonight’s Heavy Metal Happy Hour at Arrow Bar (85 Avenue A). There are 2-for-1 drinks from 6:00PM until 9:00PM, so if you’ve ever wanted to get drunk and ask Gary “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS OR WHAT?!?!” in person, here’s your chance!

Now the week’s highlights:

• We debuted new music by The Absence and Vanisher.
• We spoke to Accept’s Wolf Hoffmann and Sebastian Bach (but not really with that last one).
• We checked out new releases by Filter, Neurosis, and The Last Felony.
• Vince contemplated a Mike Portnoy-less Dream Theater.
• Sergeant D. contemplated the new Escape the Fate song…
• …while we couldn’t even pay attention during the new Oceano song.
• We considered bidding on the best band name in the world.
• As it turns out, Wormrot are really good live, too.
• Neil Young and Burzum are collaborating on a new album?!?
• Wanna see a fat man eat seven cans of ravioli in time to a Fuckshovel song? OF COURSE YOU DO!!!

As Eyal promised yesterday, next week will see the full-on return of “Jumping Darkness Parade.” Plus we’ll have more contest, more video and track debuts, more interviews, more everything. Be there or be ᄆ.

-AR

Remember the “cool boy named Karen” Grigoryan of Russian metal band Sumatra? He’s got a new song called “Winds Towards Sezam,” and as is so often the case in the djent world he’s released it via a video that shows him playing through all the parts in sync. Thanks to MS reader “\emetal” for sending this in. Dig it:

Our second dose comes from Finland’s We Are the Illusion. We Are the Illusion certainly aren’t the most original band on the block — they borrow plenty from myriad Sumeriancore bands, most notably Veil of maya — but they’re quite capable and seem to have a good grasp on songwriting. Check out “The Podium” from their new EP The Podium of Lies, which will be available for free download next week:

And a djolly djenty weekend to you too.

-VN

MS photographic wiz Jacqueline Cheng has done it again. Her latest batch of mesmerizing photos capture Slayer, Megadeth and Testament on their American Carnage run when it stopped in New Jersey on August 12th. Check out her collection of shots from the show after the jump.

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On Saturday night, I ventured deep into the heart of the clusterfuck known as The Minnesota State Fair to witness the monster known as Kiss. This was my first Kiss concert, and it was quite an experience to be sure, but after the smoke finally cleared and retina-frying KISS logo was finally unplugged for the night, I was left with a single nagging question: Does Kiss still matter? Not, Is Kiss viable? mind you. Hell, this band is a moneymaking machine with a screwdriver wedged in the gears to force endless cycles of rinse and repeat. You don’t sell 100 million records worldwide and continue to pack arenas by accident. Clearly, this formula works. But does Kiss still matter?

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I don’t know what to tell you that you can’t learn from the headline. Our pal Atanamar over at Sunyata — Mindful of Metal captured some pretty good quality footage of this past weekend’s Wormrot show here in New York, including the below video, which features both the song “Blasphemy My Ass” and a new song, the title of which is currently unknown.

I was talking to Atanamar about this last night, and he actually thinks this new song is Wormrot’s best yet. What do you think, our beloved fellow grindfreaks?

Head over to Sunyata — Mindful of Metal for more footage from the gig!

-AR

In my humble opinion, Cephalotripsy’s 2007 LP was and still is the standard by which all other slam is measured. I’ve been waiting for an heir to their seemingly-abandoned throne, and I may have found it in the slamming slamz of INFERTILE SURROGACY. Hailing from the incredibly obscure, klvt Democratic Republic of Congo (does that make them tr00 black metal?? Hay-o!), these guys are vying with CEREBRAL INCUBATION for the title of MOST CRUSHING SLAMZ 2K10.

Perhaps due to an unreliable, third-world internet connection, the gents in Infertile Surrogacy don’t have a lot of news available. Anybody have more detail on this mysterious group of African slammers?? How do you think they stack up to genre titans like Cephalotripsy, Disconformity, and Gorevent????

-Sergeant D.

Bloody Disgusting has unveiled 3 Inches of Blood’s new video, for “Silent Killer,” and while I do think it would be awesome if the entire thing were about some dude ripping SBDs that make people pass right the fuck out from the putrid stench, I also like the video the band actually made. Why? What it lacks in sophistication, it makes up for with violence. And vomiting. Don’t forget the vomiting.

In fact, you may not wanna watch this at work. Or while eating.

“Silent Killer” comes off of 3IOB’s latest, Here Waits Thy Doom, which is out now on Century.

-AR