As you are probably well aware, our favorite punching bag, Vince Neil, is heading to the pokey on February 15 for not knowing how to hold his booze and/or drop his car keys. But did you know he is also in trouble for not knowing how to file a 1040 tax form? Seems Vince forgot to mail in those pesky $1.1 million tax dollars last year. Oops!
Wormrot have released another song (here’s the first) from their new album, Dirge. It’s called “Erased Existence,” and it’s a real cock tease, ’cause it’s so damn good, but it’s also only forty-five seconds long.
Of course, they could also just release a slowed-down version of the song to make it last longer. Sure, why not? Apparently they recently had to slow down some of their shit in order to convince event permit officers in Vietnam that they have “mellower” material, too:
Dana Carvey hosted Saturday Night Live this week, and a good portion of the show was a nostalgia-fest devoted to reminding us that once upon a time, the dude was a big star. Luckily, the sketch devoted to the return of the most metal public access show in Aurora, IL, went first, so it had the benefit of seeming charming. And it was actually pretty funny, so it had the benefit of not being everything else on SNL.
And then they had to go and ruin it with a million references to characters Carvey used to play, and multiple Linkin Park performances. Did you know that all these years later that band still hasn’t gotten any better? And no longer play rock music? And now the rapper sings, the singer raps, everyone lip synchs to the perfectly harmonized backing vocals, and the guitar player plays everything but guitar? Kind of amazing.
ANYWAY, here’s that Wayne’s World sketch. This is the first time a Def Leppard shirt has been worn on national television during the 21st century, and it may be the last.
-AR
In 1987, $lash wrote the main riff for “Sweet Child O’ Mine” as a joke during warm-up for band practice, and after Izzy Stradlin and Axl Rose recognized its potential and turned it into an actual song, The World’s Best Jew ‘Fro argued against its inclusion on Appetite for Destruction, thinking it was too ballad-y for a hard rock album. Now, twenty-four years later, $lash has finally taken his revenge on the song that gave him his career: wearing a variation of his signature top hat that was apparently fashioned from some old clothes Rob Halford recently donated to the Salvation Army, $lash appeared on the Super Bowl half-time show with The Black Eyed Peas to assist Fergie in what Vince rightly referred to as a “mutilation” of the song.
As promised, last night’s Super Bowl saw the debut of a Best Buy commercial starring Justin Bieber and our favorite sexagenarian celebrity slut, Ozzy Osbourne (whose last product endorsement commercial was released less than a month ago). And the commercial actually turned out to be kinda funny. Not because of the lame jokes about how Ozzy doesn’t understand technology or how Bieber looks like a girl (although I appreciate the acknowledgement that Ozzy has no idea who Bieber is), but, rather, because of the simple but true implication that the Biebers of the world will soon usurp the Ozzys of the world as Lords of Whoring.
“Ozzy’s in the background!” a crew member complains from off-camera, making explicit that which we were all already thinking anyway; even though he’s a sad, dithering old man, the Ozz Man refuses to leave the set, not because he actually has anything to contribute, but because, goddamnit, he’s got crap to hock!
But Bieber nails it on the first take. He’s the guy who’s gonna be trying to sell you shit for the next however many years, until he’s finally out of touch himself, or the sun dies, whichever comes first. Someone thought to toss in the “Bieber looks like a girl” gag to make sure that the Zakk Wylde chapter of Mensa doesn’t get too offended — “Huh huh, yeah, Bieber’s a fag, huh huh!” — but the subtext of the ad isn’t even subtle.
-AR
No other band rips quite so massively, and this track off of seminal Leviathan only supports such a claim with flying colors.
Our esteemed panel of industry “experts” even named said album the best metal offering of the millennium thus far.
Accept no substitutes…..this is Mastodon.
-KW
BING! Still funny. Amazing.
I was kinda flattered last week when some people said they actually DO read the intros to “Worst Week.” So, uh, thanks for the ego boost!
In addition to Groundhog Day, here are some things we celebrated this week:
Speaking of celebrating — don’t forget that Vince is DJing at Idle Hands Bar from 7 to 10pm tonight. All the cool kids will be there. You wanna be cool, don’t you?
-AR
Knocked down but never defeated, Eli Shaika is back from the jaws of death to bring you the seventh episode (and first of 2011) of Cooking Contaminated, our very own metal cooking show. This episode’s guest is Jonathan Canady, a man of many talents you might know from his time in Torture Chamber, Deathpile, Blunt Force Trauma, Angel of Decay and most recently Unearthly Trance and Diamond Cult.
Jonathan brings his simple yet delicious recipe for “Spreading the Disease Grilled Cheese” and pairs it up with Eli’s own home-made “Bromato” tomato soup for yet another Cooking Contaminated episode that has our tummies rumbling. Watch the episode below and find the list of ingredients after the jump!
Auditions week three
Cities: Austin (Wed), Los Angeles (Thurs)
Misery index: 10/10
Tyler-o-meter: 3/10
Let there be no doubt: This week’s fifth and sixth rounds of American Idol auditions were a trip into the fetid bowels of Hell. Not the Deicide-Danzig fun Hell — the bad Hell. The kind of Hell where L.A. loonies make Sly Stone and Lauryn Hill seem calmly sane. The kind of Hell where atonal country warblers make the “One Hot Mama” guy seem tasteful and talented. The kind of Hell that resembles a tranny-packed West Hollywood donut shop at the brink of total wingnut anarchy on a Friday night. The kind of Hell that no amount of pills can conquer. Friends, I am shaken, so deeply shaken and disturbed.
Before I plunge us into this Hades for fuckheads, let’s prelude our shared suffering with a recap of this week’s action surrounding our Steven Tyler and Aerosmith in which…
Alternate titles:
Why Germany hasn’t selected Gut to represent them in Eurovision is beyond me.
-Sergeant D.
Sergeant D. makes people with no sense of humor mad every day at Stuff You Will Hate.
Of course you do! Which is why you should watch the below video — the band’s second behind-the-scenes-making-of-webisode-whatever for their new album. The content isn’t quite as entertaining as the initial clip, but, like the headline says, you get to hear a little more of what the band is working on… which, at the end of the day, is all we really care about, right?
All Shall Perish’s latest should be out later this year on Nuclear Blast. You can hear a pre-pro version of a new song in much greater detail here.
-AR
Let’s class this bitch up.
On Thursday, February 17, at Hank’s Saloon in Brooklyn, we are going to be presenting (with some serious help from The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley!) Heavy Metal Literature Night. This will be like one of those classy book readings where intellectual types sit around drinking wine while people read aloud from beautifully written, deeply meaningful texts — only instead of intellectual types, the readers will be various members of the local metal community, instead of wine we’ll be drinking beer and whiskey and whatever else leads to terrible decisions in life, and instead of beautifully written, deeply meaningful texts, we’ll be reading from some of metal’s greatest tomes, including Motley Crue’s The Dirt, Led Zeppelin’s Hammer of the Gods, Slash’s Slash, Marilyn Manson’s Long Hard Road Out of Hell, and other books of that nature.
There will be booze. There will be music. There will be fun.
Mark it in your calendars. More details coming next week…
So …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead is obviously not a metal band, but I just saw the cover art for their latest offering, Tao of the Dead, and it’s pretty fucking cool, and I’d rather discuss this than, say, the umpteenth terrible deathcore band one of you sent us claiming they were “the future of metal” or whatever.
Badass Digest tells me that the cover was done by the band’s own Conrad Keely, who apparently once had aspirations of doing comic book art. I’m not gonna get all Vince/Protest the Hero with it and analyze this thing in great detail, especially since there might be references that a very casual Trail fan like myself wouldn’t even pick up on… so for now, let’s just enjoy its beauty.
-AR
Oceano and Rose Funoral are the kinds of bands that make you wish the supervolcano under Yellowstone Park would just erupt already and end us all, and there’s no such thing as God, so, of course, some dudes from those bands have now joined up, Voltron-style, to make one supergroup of suckitude.
Lionheart, Built On Struggle (Mediaskare)
Toughguy hardcore comes out swinging in 2011 with the second full-length album from this Bay Area band, and those familiar with their 2007 LP The Will To Survive already know to brace for the impact of fist against face. The crew has expanded this time around, with unfuckwithable guests like Earth Crisis’ Karl Buechner and Skarhead’s Lord Ezec joining the fray on select cuts. Given that Lionheart’s advocates include Mike Hood and Jamey Jasta, the metallic hardcore on offer here will naturally appeal to fans of Hoods and Hatebreed. No wheels are reinvented, but that’s hardly the point. Tumultuous tracks like “Don’t Speak My Name” and “Nowhere” are designed for decimation, occasionally slowing down the tempo long enough to let pit fiends finish spitting up blood.
(3.5 out of 5 horns)
I’ve never been able to “get” Born of Osiris. They’re technically proficient enough (these days who isn’t) but they just never really stood out to me when stacked up against their peers. They’re not as proggy as The Faceless, don’t have the songs of After the Burial, aren’t as good players as Animals as Leaders, aren’t as dumbed-down and breakdown happy as Emmure… you get the point. An OK band that never really stuck out for me, for better or worse. And of course there’s the now infamous Danzig Debacle of 2009 which made it incredibly difficult to take these guys seriously; it’ll probably dog this band until they’re Danzig’s age and some young whippersnappers profess ignorance by not knowing who Tosin Abasi is.
But I have now heard the new Born of Osiris song “Follow the Signs” and I think I finally “get it.”
If you consider yourself a geek (as I do) and you’re not reading Topless Robot, you’re really missing out. Proprietor Rob Bricken covers all things nerd on a daily basis, ranging from comics to movies and television to video games to toys, and he is one funny motherfucker; even when I don’t agree with his opinions (he’s pro-Tron but anti-Nolan… fuck that jazz), I love reading his stuff ’cause it’s just so damn funny.
His latest master work is a list of the “10 Nerdiest Literary Inspirations for Concept Albums.” And it will shock no fan of the genre to learn that multiple metal bands made the list.
I can’t describe this video in any way which would be more fun than just watching, soooo… just watch it.
Awesome. Totally awesome.
-AR
…the fuck?
So the Times of Grace tour is now underway, and I don’t think I was alone in wondering if the band would playing any vintage Killswitch Engage material out on the road. I mean, it would make sense — 3/5ths of the KsE Alive or Just Breathing line-up is Times of Grace, and, clearly, this is the big selling point for the group. I mean, you don’t just start out headlining on your first tour unless you’re a supergroup or, in this case, an unofficial reunion.
But now reader Tyler Lesniewski has e-mailed us a link to the setlist from the band’s first live performance, and guess what? There’s not a single KsE song on it.
Faithful MS reader and devotee VyceVictus is the latest to enter our ongoing Show Us Your MetalSucks contest, in which we ask you to send in photos of yourself wearing your MetalSucks merch in exchange for a box o’ free shit from the Mansion. VyceVictus set asail last week aboard the now-legendary 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise, where he describes himself as “one of five black dudes on the entire boat” and wondered whether this distinction would attract other attention on the web. As it turns out he was right; a picture of him sporting his MS t-shirt also appeared in Metal Injection’s photo set of the cruise.
Thank you, Mr. Victus, for sending in these pics. Everyone else: keep those pics of yourselves in your MS merch streaming in. There are still a few of our limited edition “Appetite for Deconstruction” MetalSucks shirts left, too. Holler.
One more pic after the jump:
