There’s absolutely nothing news worthy about this video, which was apparently filmed at the 2009 Gathering of the Juggalos. And I should probably feel bad for laughing at it. That being said, I don’t.

A ridiculous number of you e-mailed this to us over the break, which tells me that we’re all going to hell together. Somebody just remember to bring some smoke.

-AR

After I posted footage of Dj Ashba butchering Robin Finck’s solo from “This I Love” last week, I invoked the wrath of certain Ashba supporters, who claimed that Ashba is a better guitarist than I’m giving him credit for. And that’s probably true. That first Beautiful Creatures album was fun, and evidence suggests that Ashba was just having an off-night.

So here’s a video of him doing a much better job as the new guitar player for Axl Rose’s Guns N’ Roses. But before you watch it, know that I still can’t get behind Ashba, for the following reasons:

1. He plays just like Slash.
2. He stands just like Slash
3. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, is he wearing a top hat?

Ashba is exactly what Guns N’ Roses doesn’t need, and exactly what Robin Finck and Buckethead were not – a Slash clone. If Axl really wants to make some claim that this new band is a legitimate band, having a member with no discernible personality of his own is a mistake.

And here are Finck and Buckethead, in happier times. Hard to believe this was nine years ago already…

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Shelby Cobras at Illogical Contraption may be throwing in the towel on making fun of Juggalos… but we’re above such nonsense. It’s way too much fun!

Today I have two Juggalo-related linky-dinks for some end-of-the-week lawlz. Shelby has alerted us to the existence of JuggaloFaith.com, a one-stop shop for all of your Christian Juggalo needs. The site’s creator Rev. B-Lotus seeks to justify the cause with lyrical proof of ICP’s Christianity. Some ICP lyrical examples:

“Truth is we follow God, we’ve always been behind him, the Carnival is God, may all the juggalos find him.”

“Fuck the devil, fuck that shit, we believe in life legit, ain’t you gettin’ what we say, why you throw your soul away??”

I suppose ICP could be a Christian band… which would strike me as somewhat hilarious given all the violence and idiocy they propagate. But then again, hasn’t violence and idiocy been the M.O. of religion, well… for the entire history of religion?

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a link from the excellent Juggalo-bashing blog The Juggalog. Check this out (NSFW!!). No further explanation is necessary.

-VN

Atreyu drummer / vocalist Brandon Saller has announced he’ll be playing a solo show in Anaheim this January. If badly out-of-key vocals are your thing, then I recommend you attend this show. Exactly what this show will entail, I’m not certain… continuous drum solos? Brandon on an acoustic?

Also, what the fuck is going on in the above photo? Who needs 3 fucking bass drums?

Slow news day.

-VN

Reader Luke Papadopoulos sent us the below video of Attack Attack! performing a new song. Even with the lo-fi audio, it’s easy to tell that the song is fucking awful. Still, there’s three things I’d like to point out, at the risk of coming across as a major homophobe:

1. The song is called “Sexual Man Chocolate.”
2. Attack Attack!’s current front man is named Caleb Shomo.
3. Attack Attack! previously covered Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” – and didn’t change any of the lyrics to make them gender appropriate.

In conclusion, looks for Attack Attack! to tour with Burzum sometime in 2010.

-AR

Rejected by even the lowest also-ran nu-metal mooks, (hed)p.e. have sunken so far down to the lowest dregs of society that they’ve been drawn into the only scene left that will actually accept them; Juggalos. They’ve been touring with Psycopathic artists for years now, but somehow I missed the fact that they’ve now even resorted to wearing clown makeup. Wow.

I’m surprised this band is still even making music. This is awful. Thanks, SMNnews.com, for inflicting this pain upon me today.

-VN

Reader Jared Piers e-mailed us about this unsigned band from Toronto called Speak of the Devil. Now, I’m not going to talk about Speak of the Devil’s music, because whatever. It’s incredibly generic and not for me but to each their own. Rather, I’d like to talk about the below promo photo of the band, which is the first thing you see when you go to their MySpace page.

Now, why the hell did this band take a picture of themselves looking like they just got done with a fight? Presumably it’s so they come across as a bunch of bad-asses. But they don’t like like bad-asses. They look like some kids who have make-up on intended to make them look like bad-asses, which, consequently, makes them seem incredibly not tough. It’s the exact opposite of the desired effect of the make-up.

I really, really hope this doesn’t become a trend amongst young bands. Because it’s incredibly dumb.

And that’s all I hafta say about that.

-AR

Now I’m not saying I agree with all, most, or even any of the points made in Stewert Voegtlin’s recent bitter-tastic Village Voice article (aptly entitled “Sketchy Metal”), but holy jeez a voice of dissension should be appreciated, welcome, and even necessary at times, especially when certain bands are so blindly revered by so many…..and furthermore anybody who can bring such a well-worded subtly sardonic taste to their Hateology (free album title!) a la our own Gary Suarez deserves a complimentary bong hit.

The article starts out with an analysis on Pelican’s sound (or lack thereof), positing that the Chicago band’s thang never crystallizes into anything approaching authentic emotion, but that some bands that Pelican derives influence from (Trans Am, in particular) have made plenty of music worth veneration, especially back in the day.  Hmm……agreed.

I almost joined the Train of Descent (free band name!) recently myself when I was considering writing an article — which was to be called MASTODON EVOLVED EVERYTHING ABOUT THEIR SOUND ON CRACK THE SKYE….EXCEPT FOR THE LYRICS – about the many cliches held within several of the lyrics on Crack the Skye. However, after listening to the album a few more times to get a clearer context of the lyrics to the piece as a whole, I cleaned my shorts off and reconsidered libeling the best modern progressive metal band of the decade.

But Voegtlin? This guy ain’t takin no prisoners (pls disregard double negative)……my favorite gem of haterade enclosed within the article definitely has to be Voegtlin’s response to Baroness’ John Baizley’s claim that his band’s music is influenced by “fine art, cinema, and literature”:

[This is] as stiltedly silly as name-dropping higher mathematics, physics, or philosophy, when what the band really peddles is exactly the everything-and-nothing Hallmark heft so many claim to uncover in Pelican’s wordless, aimless songs. While Baizely’s predilection to hawk such High Times erudition makes him sound more puerile than he likely is, it’s difficult to imagine him honestly striving to disseminate meta-emotional discourse through music as transparently commercial as his band’s stoner-metal-meets-Ford-truck-jingle approach.

Yowza!!

More insightful dissin’ and the link to the actual article afterthejump.

Click to read more…

An anonymous reader tipped us off to the existence of Georgia’s Amecca, a band whose MySpace bio makes the following claim:

Further on the newly developed genre of Albacore, we created the genre as a dedication to some of the most premium food on the planet, Seafood. We also used the creation of a new genre to display the fact that we are different from every other market band. With fast paced death metal riffs and heavy breakdowns merging styles of bands such as Whitechapel and Oceano as well as The Faceless and Veil of Maya. We step away from the popular “Deathcore” scene by titling our songs after seafood platters and bringing awareness to the dying breeds of the Sea.

Now, I think this is worth talking about for the following reason: while it’s clear that these dudes have a sense of humor, they do not have a sense of humor the way I think they should. Allow me to clarify:

Click to read more…

Longtime reader Ray Pecheone sent us the following video of French hardcore band Cordier Street, and, uh, there’s really not that much to say about it. The song is terrible and the video is terrible, and this more or less represents everything wrong with hardcore. It’s a wonder Fox News doesn’t run this as an example of why the French suck. Blech.

-AR

So I don’t think this exactly news as I’m assuming that someone who isn’t me already knew this, but reader Cody Barrick has just tipped us off that our favorite YouTube vocal coverist (I know, I made up a word, eat me), Senor “Deathcore is Not Scene” Bivins, has his own band – What Lies Beneath. Yes, they named themselves after a Michelle Pfeiffer movie. But at least it’s a Michelle Pfeiffer movie with (SPOILER ALERT!) ghosts and a murderous Harrison Ford, and not, say, a Meryl Streep movie about how hard it is to make it in the fashion world. Also, a blog posting from earlier this month promises that they will soon have a new band name – I’d like to suggest they go with I Could Never Be Your Woman. Just sayin’.

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Although I know of at least one groupie who probably would like to see the fellas in Born of Osiris forcefully lose their butt cherries, this article is actually about the below video, which Sergeant D. brilliantly included in his review of a recent Hatebreed/Cannibal Corpse/Hate Eternal/BOO gig.

The clip is noteworthy for two reasons:

1. It’s just funny to see some kids in a deathcore cover band playing to fifteen people in their school gym. As Sergeant D. notes, when the kids start moshing at the 47 second mark, it makes you “wish you could spray everybody under 21 in the face with AIDS.”
2. This band calls themselves “The Rapist.” What a charming band name. Clearly, The Rapist should be signed to Sumerian ASAP, so that they can rape rape rape all across this great land.

Fear for the future of our world, people.

-AR

I want to take a shit in your mouth.

Why does this song sound so familiar? Oh, yeah:

Click to read more…

Whoops. I guess I just blew it.

Click to read more…

Dear Oceano: congratulations! You are now only the second worst group to add a vowel to the end of the word “ocean” and use that as your band name.

This video by the band Oceana (yes, Oceana) is only interesting for about three seconds. I suggest you skip to the ten second mark, and then turn the video off around the thirteen second mark. Because what really fascinates me about this video is the following quesiton: How many takes do you think they had to do of everyone starting to headbang all at once like that? I bet somewhere there are at least a half dozen takes where one of the band members starts too soon or too late. In fact, I think it’s fascinating that the singer is the only member of the band who doesn’t partake in the synchronized rockin’ out… or any rockin’ out during the rest of the video. It’s as though he were too stupid to take even the slightest direction, so whomever was in charge decided “Let’s not have him move at all and people will think it’s part of the ‘meaning’ of the video!”

I hope this is just the latest in a trend of bands using a completely fake and meaningless variation on the word “ocean” – we can have Oceani, Oceanu, Oceany,and a few dozen other bands that were too lazy to use an actual word as their band name.

-AR

Thanks to Samuel A. Favata for the tip.

Things just haven’t been the same since Rosie left The View Attack Attack! The world has become a Bill Withers song – it feels colder outside, and the sun seems to be setting earlier than it was just a few weeks ago, as though it can’t even be bothered to shine. Life without the classic Attack Attack! lineup that changed the face of metal – nay, music itself – forever just barely seems worth living.

Luckily, Rosie promised “I will be starting something new soon,” and while we all assumed that this “something new” would be another gay cruise for HBO to inexplicably broadcast, Sergeant D at Stuff You Will Hate (by way of Weedsteeler) has discovered that Rosie has posted an ad on Craigslist looking for recruits for a new band. I’m not entirely sure how anyone knows that this posting is by Rosie, but I trust the investigative reporting skills of my fellow bloggers.

Here’s the posting:

Click to read more…

Vince really likes Buckcherry, but I’ve never gotten into any of their songs that aren’t the big hits – namely, “Lit Up” (a.k.a. “the one about cocaine”) and “Crazy Bitch” (a.k.a. “the one about fucking”). Like so many bands that hoped to be the Appetite-era Guns N’ Roses of the late 20th/early 21st century, Buckcherry always just felt like they were trying way too hard to prove what a bunch of bad-asses they are. GN’R never actually used the words “cocaine” or “heroin” in a song – Buckcherry’s biggest hit finds them shouting “I LOVE THE COCAINE! I LOVE THE COCAINE!” In case anyone doubted that they were the real deal. Puh-lease.

So. Former Buckcherry bassist JB Brightman has a new band, Black Robot, and – no shock here – it’s readily apparent that they want to be AC/DC. If you’re one of those people who unironically loves retro-hard rawk that has no sense of originality whatsoever, then you will probably dig this band. And whatever you do, stay away from Loudermilk and Manmade God – bands that actually make excellent, original hard rock.

And, hey, guess what? Black Robot covered Clapton’s “Cocaine!” How original! How shocking! What a bunch of bad-asses! Now I can finally burn my copy of Appetite for Destruction!

Barf.

-AR

I guess I don’t really mind Atreyu wrecking the legacy of The Neverending Story so much; when I was a kid I thought it was a cool movie, but I haven’t watched it in years, and I don’t have any real desire to, which tells me something, y’know?

On the other hand, the original Ghostbusters is surely one of the best Hollywood movies ever made, a truly retarded idea executed with such perfection as to seem not quite so idiotic.

So I’d just like to tell the members of the band Zuul to go fuck themselves. They’re a second-rate retro metal band, and not at all worthy of tainting my pre-adolescent memories of the tingly feeling caused by Sigourney Weaver in a flowing red dress, barking like a dog. Please change your name to Leonard Part 6, or a reference to some other 80s movie I don’t give a shit about.

That is all.

-AR

RUFKM? (AKA “Are you fucking kidding me?”) takes a look at stellar metal albums and their douchie one-star Amazon reviews.

Next up: Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast.

Nate Acephalic opined: “This is for the people who have little left in the brain and have perhaps burned one too many nerve cells. Great music to be retarded to.”

Andy critiqued: “pretty sad when the backstreet boys are a heavier band than you… his voice sounds like bea arthur trying to sing.”

Jeremy cracked: “Dudes and other genders Maiden sux bad…all i have to say…’har har look at me im all gay and stuff i listen to maiden.’”

Click to read more…

Meet Senor Bivins. I read about him this morning on Sergeant D’s Stuff You Will Hate. Bivins posts lots and lots and lots of videos of himself on YouTube doing those vocal covers of deathcore songs that we find so amusing here at the Mansion. And the Sarge is pissed because apparently Bivins gets a lot of pussy from doing it – or, at least, he gets to take photos of himself standing next to semi-cute scene girls making obscene gestures:

It’s not clear to me whether or not he’s actually fucking these chicks or what. If he is getting groupies without even being in a band, then, well, I guess that’s a whole new scam and maybe someday Neil Strauss will write a book about him or something.

ANYWAY, even more interesting is this video of him defending deathcore as “not scene.” Check it out:

Click to read more…