The interwebs are all aflutter today because Dave Grohl has announced that his former Nirvana bandmate, Krist Novoselic, is going to make a guest appearance on the new Foo Fighters album — which is also being produced by Garbage’s Butch Vig, a.k.a. “The Dude Who Produced Nevermind.” This will mark the first time Grohl and Novoselic have recorded with one another since Kurt Cobain injected himself with enough heroin to kill an elephant, and then stuck a shotgun in his mouth, just to make sure that medical science didn’t get any bright ideas.

Look: I know Nirvana were cool, and I know that Cobain’s premature passing means they get to stay cool forever and ever and ever because the dude didn’t get to grow up to be lame like Billy Corgan and Chris Cornell, but I really don’t see any reason to get excited about this. Novoselic was never a songwriter; he was never even a particularly distinctive bass player. Cobain was Cobain and Grohl certainly beat the ever-lovin’ shit outta his drums, but Nirvana pretty much could have swapped out Novoselic for another bassist at any point and not missed a beat. This song isn’t gonna sound like Nirvana — you’d need to re-animate Cobain to make that happen — it’s just gonna sound like Foo Fighters. I’d wager that the bass lines won’t even be that special, since, like I said, Novoselic’s playing never had much discernible personality. So you’re not even gonna get the “What might that sound like?” curiosity factor that you might get from, say, Dave Lombardo filling in for Lars Ulrich at a Metallica show, or Duff McKagan joining Jane’s Addiction. Creatively speaking, this reunion doesn’t amount to much more than a gimmick.

All of that being said… I’ll take any excuse to post the below video of Novoselic hitting himself in the head with his bass at the 1992 MTV VMAs while Grohl taunts Axl Rose from the stage. This has to be one of the five proudest moments in MTV’s history, right?

-AR

Two nights ago, Axl, Kip and I and Rob from Metal Injection went out to Union Pool to watch Fiend Without a Face, the rockabilly side-project of Mastodon’s Brent Hinds and Brann Dailor. As I worked my way all the way up to the second row in a crowd of less than 100 folks — packed for the cozy Union Pool — to watch the fez-clad gentlemen roar through their set of rockabilly, I remembered something I’d apparently forgotten:

Brent Hinds is an absolutely incredible guitar player with ungodly talent.

It’s weird that I forgot this fact, seeing as Mastodon’s latter-day music is really proggy and they’ve always been fairly technical (not that kind of technical) in their approach. But standing there watching Hinds’ hands effortlessly glide through modified pentatonic blues runs, complex finger-picking patterns and just straight-up balls out rawk soloing drove the point home once again — Hinds is easily one of the best guitarists in metal today.

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Hey-o!!! I guess we’re going four-for-four on these, as reader John Thompson has now sent us a bunch of bands from his town — including his own band — that he thinks we check out. So let’s see how Columbus, Ohio fares against Houston, Kansas City, and the Philippines, shall we?

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We’ve written about the classes of Aaron O’Keefe before; the guy is an Ohio music school instructor who teaches his classes to perform songs by the various bands of Phil Anselmo — specifically, Down’s “Ghosts Along the Mississippi” and Pantera’s “Cowboys from Hell.”

The most logical next choice for one of Mr. O’Keefe’s classes would probably be a Superjoint Ritual song, but I guess someone decided that songs like “Fuck Your Enemy” and “The Knife Rises” were inappropriate for a bunch of kids, so we’re back to Pantera. In this instance, O’Keefe’s latest class has covered “Revolution is My Name.” It’s pretty great, even if you are guaranteed to crack up laughing when the singer begins “’68, and into the world born,” before starting to go on about the 70s and Vietnam. Some of these students are as young as twelve years old, which means they were born in ’98, not ’68.

Also kinda funny: The actual video for “Revolution is My Name” features kids impersonating the members of Pantera. I’ve always felt that the lil’ dude playing Dimebag did an especially dead-on impersonation. Here’s that clip, on the off chance that you’ve never seen it before:

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I’ve accused All That Remains’ Phil Labonte of being autotune-dependent many times in the past, and I know it pisses off a lot of ATR fans. Here’s a good comment from a reader calling himself “matttao,” left after the most recent time I said that Mr. Labonte is actually not a very good singer:

This is auto tuned because that is the industry standard. These are not difficult notes. I have no doubt this dude can hit these notes in the studio… To say that Phil Labonte can’t hit these basic notes here is just slanderous and stupid. This is easy shit, folks.

matttao is right. That WAS slanderous of me, to accuse Phil of not being able to sing the parts without the aid of a computer. I realize the error of my ways now that I’ve seen All That Remains’ recent performance of their latest single, “Hold On,” on Fuse:

See! It’s note-perfect!

Oy.

And in case you still don’t believe me, compare and the contrast the above performance with the one on the actual record:

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Sean Reinert is quite the accomplished drummer; aside from his job as the skinsman in Cynic, Reinert’s talents have long been appreciated and worshipped by drummers the world over. If you can remember all the way back to Spring of this year (long time ago, I know) you’d also remember that he played drums on Avalanche of Worms, the instrumental record composed by Daath’s Eyal Levi and Emil Werstler.

Of all of Reinert’s many accomplishments “instructional DVD” hasn’t been one of them until now. And you can be a part of it; the cleverly named It’s About Time, which is being presented by Sick Drummer Magazine, will cover topics requested by you, the fans. All you need to do is record a video of yourself asking Sean a question about his playing and upload it to YouTube as a response to this video on the SickDrummer YouTube Channel, and if you are selected your video will appear on the DVD.

I can’t imagine how my life might’ve been different if the now-standard technology that makes this possible were available to me as a kid. Asking Zakk Wylde a question to be included on one of his instructional videos?? Ohmigod, I would’ve freaked.

-VN

According to Deadline, it’s a possibility — Cruise has apparently been offered the role of “Dennis,” a bartender, in the upcoming feature film adaptation of the hit Broadway show, which recycles cock rock anthems into a story about young love or some such nonsense. I haven’t seen the show, but Deadline says that while it’s only a supporting role, Cruise  ”would get to belt out a bunch of 80s hair band tunes.” I love how they wrote “get to” — as though somewhere Tom Cruise is sitting around, calling his agents, screaming “Why haven’t I played a role where I sing old hair metal songs yet?!? GET ON IT!!!”

In any case, Cruise hasn’t accepted the part yet, so this could all end up being just some film exec’s wet dream. But what I find really hilarious about the whole situation is that, on Broadway, the role of “Dennis” is currently being played by Dee Snider. Because these two look appropriate for the same part, right?

-AR

A lot of you commented on yesterday’s article about The Ocean robbery saying that you wanted to donate, but had already preordered the album — or that you didn’t want the album but still wanted to make a donation. So we sent Metal Blade an email asking for a PayPal address so those of you who still want to donate can just send some money. You should send all donations via PayPal to:

info [at] theoceancollective.com

Include a note like “robbery donation” so The Ocean knows what it’s for. You can also still include a donation if you pre-order Anthropocentric. Thanks again to everyone for helping out a great band in a time of need.

-DM

Nowadays, fucking everyone is on Twitter — the President, Snooki, Napalm Death, Lady Gaga, and pretty much every famous/infamous/inconsequential figure imaginable is out there constantly micro-blogging away. One entity I never expected to stumble across on there was Agoraphobic Nosebleed vocalist/lyricist/mindfucker J. Randall, but lo and behold — he is indeed a tweeter. An offhand remark about his desire to do a few interviews about recent happenings in Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s world caught my eye, and I couldn’t help it: I took the bait.

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Torche are the latest metal band to be featured on Fox News’ Red Eye program, following in the footsteps of Gwar’s Oderus Urungus and Cobalt’s Phil McSorely. The difference between Torche and those dudes, though, is that Mike Huckabee — former governor of Arkansas, United States presidential candidate, and now self-proclaimed “doom metal expert” — didn’t endorse Gwar and Cobalt, or compare them to a tractor. Now THAT’S gotta be going on Torche’s album sticker, right?

And here’s the actual interview… it’s pretty amazing for a number of reasons, not least of all being I wasn’t aware they were allowed to say “sodomized” on Fox News unless they were referring to how they think that all homosexuals should burn in hell.

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This past April, Gojira announced they’d be recording a new five-song EP this summer featuring “guests from the international metal community,” the proceeds of which would benefit anti-whaling organization Sea Shepherd. As of July, we were still wondering what the heck has been going on with that, and since then, we’ve received fairly regular e-mails from readers asking us for updates — in fact, MetalSucks Maniac Ray Pecheone e-mailed us looking for info just this monday.

And, hey, guess what? The PRP has the scoop! They report:

Gojira will enter a Los Angeles, CA area studio next week to begin recording their new four song EP with producer Logan Mader (DevilDriver, Cavalera Conspiracy). The band have also revealed that the EP will feature some “very special guests singing.”

So the EP is still happening, it’s still gonna have some presumably awesome guests (my money’s on Randy Blythe, amongst others), the recording schedule just seems to have been delayed a little. But I’ll take tardy Gojira over no Gojira.

-AR

Album art credit: Dennis Konstantin

White Arms of Athena are one of my most favoritest unsigned bands. I first spotlighted them back in June of 2009, heard rave reviews about their live show from the dudes in The Binary Code [who played with them this past January in their hometown of Dallas], and last, but certainly not least, the dudes took serious care of us when the Heavy Metal Road Trip rolled through Dallas in March by providing us with some serious herbage.

On that fateful roadtrip stop in March the guys played us a few tracks from the album they’d just wrapped up with producer Jamie King, and to say the music blew our minds would be understating it; everyone there on the bus with us, including some grizzled metal industry vets, was seriously impressed.

Now that album is about to be released, and we’re proud to be able to exclusively premiere one of its tracks, the progressive masterpiece “Astrodrama.” This is some serious music, and the band has a bright future ahead of them; they probably won’t stay unsigned for long. Check out two more songs from the record on White Arms of Athena’s MySpace.

-VN

[this streaming promotion has ended]

That statement may be a bit premature, but if the fellas at Mosh Rebellion have their way we’ll finally be able to put an end to the miserable trend known as “hardcore dancing.” I, like the creator of this site, am fed up with a few dunder-headed neanderthals ruining a perfectly good moshpit by taking up the entire floor as their own personal playground, fighting their invisible friends:

I have had many bad run-ins with these types of people in the past and have nearly gotten into fights with many of them. After a hardcore dancer hit me right in the face at the Suffocation show last weekend at the Gramercy theater I decided I couldn’t take it any more. It pains me to see a bunch of metalheads staring at the pit, waiting to get their mosh on all night but being forced to watch a bunch of basketball short and flat brimmed hat wearing kids wail at their air.

There is literally nothing more I despise in the world than hardcore dancers, because they ruin metal shows for true fans looking to have a good time. Which is why I say enough is enough. Metalheads, this blog is your opportunity to share with the world your hatred for these people. I insist congregate here, speak in the comments below, and share the world your stories and opinions. The main goal of this blog is to eradicate hardcore dancing from the world, and if we can unite and speak out then it is a possibility.

As Valient Himself would say, “Do you know what I’m talkin’ ABOUT???”

Yer either with us or against us. Join the fight at Mosh Rebellion.

-VN

Last week Eyal asked you what you were all listening to, and as of this writing, three of you said Hail of Bullets. Now, this is one of these bands that I know some people LOVE — they’ll e-mail us about how great they are, or I’ll read rave reviews on another website/publication, or whatever.

And I don’t think Hail of Bullets are bad or anything… but I don’t see what the big deal is. I know that Martin van Drunen used to be Pestilence, and that’s great, but this band ain’t no Pestilence.

Here’s the band’s latest video, for the song “Operation Z.” Check it out and tell me what I’m missing.

Hail of Bullets’ latest, On Divine Winds, is out now on Metal Blade.

-AR

Am I the only one who sees the complete absurdity in the whole “on hiatus” thing bands do these days? In 2010 no band stays broken up… every band gets back together, at least to tour if not also to release new music, because they need to do so to make a living. But it seems like every time a band announces they’re taking a break / “on hiatus” the media freaks out; will they ever be back, or is this the end??? Of course they’ll be back, nincompoop!

I call Metal Insider’s Bram Teitelman a nincompoop only in jest, of course, because I know the guy’s a legit Ratt fan; dude once told me his first concert was Ratt with special guest openers Bon Jovi, some new young band at the time. That’s real deal! Metal Insider is reporting that Ratt singer Stephen Pearcy is the latest band member to confirm there won’t be any more Ratt shows or new music in the near future after bassist Robbie Crane said the same this past Monday. In an interview with Philadelphia’s WYSP:

I’ll be taking care of some solo stuff until Ratt takes care of its business, and then we’ll probably or hopefully start working on another record. We’ll go on hiatus for a while, and everybody will do their own thing, and then we’ll take it from there.

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But then I realized that it was just a bunch of zombies. Phew! Zombies I know how to handle, but Fergie is friggin’ scary!

ANYWAY, the video, for the song “Zombies, March!”, debuted on Fangoria earlier today, and was directed by Fango’s own Dave Kendry. Check it out below.

“Zombies, March!” will appear on the album Gwar’s Bloody Pit of Horror, which comes out November 9. And don’t forget that MetalSucks is streaming another new song from the album, “Sick and Twisted,” right here.

-AR

Anyone who has survived a live Cro-Mags show can presume that a health and nutrition book penned by front man John Joseph “Bloodclot” McGowan is not going to be a touchy-feely affair. For the uninitiated, let’s just say Joseph’s motor has but a single setting: Pulverize. And it’s safe to assume that after having this man pound sand up their collective asses for sixty minutes, the corpulent contests on The Biggest Loser would be pleading for comparative nurturing ladled out weekly by Jillian Michaels.

Whoever coined the adage that you can’t judge a book by its cover likely never saw Meat Is For Pussies:A How-To Guide For Dudes Who Want To Get Fit, Kick Ass and Take Names staring out from a shelve at their local Borders. As the title oh-so-delicately suggests, Joseph’s second foray into publishing (his first being 2007’s autobiographical The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon) finds the singer sharing his opinions and insights on a variety of health-related topics, ranging from the health and ethical advantages of a no-meat diet, to the use of unsound food additives, to his favorite legume recipes, to the shadowy role of government, corporations and special-interest groups like the American Medical Association in the existing American food complex.

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2010 has been a weird year for metal; there’ve been a ton of really good releases but so far none that are like OMG WOW THIS RULEZ! [except for Ratt's phenomenal comeback Infestation, of course]. Finnish epic metallers Kiuas released Lustdriven back in March and at the time I was all up on its nuts, but I haven’t really listened to it since… I guess that means ultimately it’s another of those “really good but not great” releases. I’m re-listening to it now for the first time in months, and I do stick with my original assertion that this album is really fucking good.

I bring this up now because loyal reader Ross King has alerted us to the fact that Kiuas lead singer Ilja Jalkanen has left the band.

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Wrong Houston

For the past two days I’ve done a “Reader’s Choice” installment based entirely on local scenes — one for the Pilippines and one for Kansas City — and now one of the members of a Houston, TX band has sent us an e-mail plugging both his own band and some other groups from the area that he thinks I should check out… so I guess we’re gonna do a hat trick of these things. I’ve been to Houston International Airport for a layover but never outside its walls, so it’ll be good to a taste of some Houston culture that isn’t the Geto Boys.

Okay, here we go!

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Worlds collided this past Friday in Austin, TX, as two distinctly different types of metal tours converged upon the famous Emo’s; Immolation, Vader, Abigail Williams and others at the indoor stage and the Iwrestledabearonce-headlined Ghostbustour on the bigger, outdoor stage. Since no genre is quite as petty and immature as metal when it comes to infighting and childish turf wars [ok, maybe hip-hop is worse], there was instant beef between the death metal kids and the swoopy-haired scene kids in a battle for the privilege of being the biggest losers, culminating with a giant dildo being lobbed on stage by one band during another’s set [video after the jump!!]

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