I’m filing this under the “Laugh At Others’ Misfortunes” category because it’s always funny to see people that aren’t you get hurt. But the truth is, the incidents in question aren’t nearly on par with, say, Bret Michaels getting whacked in the head at last year’s Tony Awards, mostly because they’re not really brought about by outrageous acts of stupidity, whereas Michaels’ injury was clearly, despite his claims, entirely of his own doing.

First, some dude managed to get up on stage during a Slash solo gig in Milan and tackle the frizzy haired guitarist. Note that Slash barely even stops his solo – apparently his guitar was broken after the incident, but he didn’t even notice at first. What a pro! (And don’t worry, my fellow guitar fetishists – the instrument was repaired and back in action two nights later.) Still, if the guy shouted “PARADISE CITY WITH FERGIE AND CYPRESS HILL SUCKS!” right before he tackled Slash, then he’s my hero.

Here it is at another angle; skip to 1:18:

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I know this really has nothing to do with metal, but we all enjoyed that video of the so-called “teen werewolves” that Vince posted awhile back so much that when I saw this follow-up on Topless Robot, I just had to watch it; and, upon seeing this kid cry because Josh won’t stop making fun of him (BTW, who the fuck is Josh?), well, I just knew I had to share it. Because I would make fun of this kid, too. ‘Cause he dresses weird, and he’s a sissy cry baby face.

And when you’re finally done laughing at this and you’ve caught your breath and cleared the tears from your eyes, can I please have three cheers for the only teen wolves really worth caring about?

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I know it’s unusual for us to post about one particular piece of news twice in the same day, but it seems like there’s fuck-all happening this afternoon, and I just this on Blabbermouth, and it is SO GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING HILARIOUS that I just had to say something about it. It’s a segment from VH1′s That Metal Show (which, I admit, I’ve never actually seen before) that aired in March (and was filmed in January). It’s a “Belladonna Vs. Bush” debate, that includes Scott Ian and his wife, Pearl Aday (a.k.a. “Meatloaf’s Daughter.”)

Needless to say, Mr. and Mrs. Ian both side with Bush – in fact, with regards to the Belladonna-Bush switch, Scott even goes so far as to say, “We didn’t need a bird, we needed a lion.”

And this just proves my point: regardless of whether or not you agree with Vince and myself that John Bush r00lz and Joey Belladonna dr00lz, there’s no arguing that they went back to Belladonna for any reason other than they had no choice. This is not some grand artistic move meant to do what was best for the band as a creative entity; it’s a last-ditch act of desperation. Sad, sad, sad.

-AR

So Axl Rose slipped and fell while performing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” in Bogota last week. And far be it from me to miss an opportunity to point at someone and laugh when they make a mistake. Problem is, I just could not think of a headline for this article that took the word “fall” or “puddle” or whatever and inserted it into the title of or lyrics from a Guns N’ Roses song. Blabbermouth, who posted this originally, used “Falling On Heaven’s Door,” which is pretty good; a commenter on that story made a not-very-clever “It’s So Easy” joke by typing “See me hit puddle… I fall down!”

So fuck it, here’s the video. Axl falls right around 1:18. At least he appears to have a sense of humor about it, which I imagine is considered “progress” in Axl’s world; Vince and I saw him slip just a little at Download in 2006, and he freaked out and threw a fit.

Please suggest your Axl-fall-down GN’R puns in the comments section below.

-AR

I don’t know how this hasn’t made more headlines, given all the hype around Slash’s forthcoming solo album, but: Letters of Note, a website that collects “correspondence deserving of a wider audience,” has unearthed a letter that a fourteen year old Saul Hudson – that’s Slash to you – wrote to Michelle Young, a girl who had recently dumped him for talking about his guitar too much (!), and who would go on to be the subject of Guns N’ Roses’ classic, “My Michelle.”

The letter, written in 1979, features the (not too shabby!) doodles you see above, plus heartfelt Slashian poetry as this:

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Past behavior is always the best indicator of future behavior. Which isn’t to say that people can’t change; they just usually don’t change, because, well, changing means taking a good, hard look in the mirror, admitting your faults to yourself, and then working on those faults. And most people just don’t wanna do that, ’cause, y’know. Even if the end result is good, the process kinda sucks.

Which is why I will never, ever again pay to see Stone Temple Pilots or any band featuring Scott Weiland, and why, even if I was offered a free ticket, I’d have to think long and hard about whether or not it was worth the schlep. Because watching that strung-out, off-key motherfucker try to take his coat off for five minutes is all the “performance art” I’ll never need this lifetime, thank you very much.

But Vince is a much bigger STP fan than I ever was, and I believe him that the band put on a killer show at SXSW a couple of weeks ago, and that Weiland “appeared sober.”

But I’m not convinced that Weiland actually is sober.

See, Blabbermouth had two interesting stories about Mr. Weiland over the weekend. In the first, he fell off the stage in Sioux City, Iowa:

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The same night that Antonin Skullia, Esq. and myself saw Hot Tub Time Machine, I scolded him for missing the incredible Unsane show at Brooklyn’s Union Pool. At which point he rightfully scolded me for having completely forgotten about Unsane’s video for “Scrape,” which is really just three minutes and twenty-one seconds of footage of dudes falling off their skateboards in ways that look incredibly painful. (There’s a little bit of performance footage, too, but it’s not why anyone cares about this video.)

So we watched the video on YouTube and we laughed. Hard. “This is the best music video ever made,” Antonin declared. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but it might very well be one of the five best videos ever made.

It doesn’t hurt that song rules, either.

-AR

Last week the publication of Nick “Son of Gene” Simmons’ comic book, Incarnate, was halted after it became apparent to one of the millions of readers of a manga called Bleach that Simmons was blatantly stealing from that title. At the time we thought that Nicky had taken to Facebook to demand an apology, but it turned out it was just some dude who gets his ya-yas by pretending to be the douche bag kids of famous rock stars.

But now Topless Robot reports that the real Nick Simmons has released a statement, in which he attempts to simultaneously apologize for being a worthless piece of dung and not quite acknowledge that he’s a worthless piece of dung:

“Like most artists I am inspired by work I admire. There are certain similarities between some of my work and the work of others. This was simply meant as an homage to artists I respect, and I definitely want to apologize to any Manga fans or fellow Manga artists who feel I went too far. My inspirations reflect the fact that certain fundamental imagery is common to all Manga. This is the nature of the medium. I am a big fan of Bleach, as well as other Manga titles. And I am certainly sorry if anyone was offended or upset by what they perceive to be the similarity between my work and the work of artists that I admire and who inspire me.” — Nick Simmons

Hey, Nick, don’t sweat it. You were just paying homage to the artists’ whose work you admire! And it was clearly an homage, not plagiarism, right?

Dude, if ever an honest apology was warranted, this is the time. Don’t pretend you didn’t steal when the evidence is right there, schmucky.

Go to Topless Robot for more side-by-side comparisons.

-AR

SHOCKER! Gene Simmons’ son, Nick, is a total prick! I can’t believe it. I have no idea how that ever could have happened. I mean, he had such a good role model growing up.

From some dork website I’m not familiar with (via SMN):

“The American company Radical Publishing has announced that it halted the production and distribution of Nick Simmons’ Incarnate comic book series on Wednesday evening, amid allegations that the comic plagiarized Tite Kubo’s Bleach manga. According to Radical, ‘We are taking this matter seriously and making efforts now to contact the publishers of the works in question in an effort to resolve this matter.’”

What Would Tyler Durden Do (don’t ask) reports that Nicky-boy has gone on Facebook [Just some dude pretending to be Nick Simmons... oh, well. -Ed.] and demanded an apology. And side-by-side comparisons of his comic with the one he’s accused of ripping-off show that he deserves one. I mean, they’re clearly totally different (Simmons’ is the one in color, the original in b&w):

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I have a theory that there are two periods in which no one – and I mean absolutely no one – looked cool:

1. High school.
2. The 80s.

Lamb of God’s Chris Adler, who I think is a fantastic drummer and an insanely cool and down to earth guy, was born in 1972, which means he had the unfortunate luck of being in high school in the 80s, which a double whammy of awful.

So. After the jump we have an old yearbook photo of Chris’, sent to us by reader Norm Burt, who apparently has a buddy that went to high school with Chris. Yes, it is a bad photo, and yes, it is bad in a very funny way. But Chris, if you’re reading this, know it’s nothing personal. I looked pretty dorky in high school, too.

Here it is…

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Reader Remi S. Langseth sent us this video of a band I’ve never heard of before, Like Rats from a Sinking Ship, playing on a boat at the Norwegian tundra. But you can’t really tell that they’re at the tundra. Or on a boat. That’s not what makes this video interesting.

What happens about three seconds in is what makes this video interesting.

I don’t think this band is my cup of tea, but in appreciation of the vocalist’s sacrifice to the comedy gods, here’s a link to their MySpace.

-AR

Y’know, considering how many of you bitch about me writing about Guns N’ Roses too much, I sure do get a lot of GN’R-related e-mails.

Case in point: Axl Rose and company kicked off their Canadian tour earlier this week, and my inbox is suddenly flooded with messages that all say something to the effect of “OMG AXL IS SO FAT NOW LULZ!!!” And while I don’t know if “fat” is the word I’d use for how Axl’s looking this tour, I do know that I would never use the word “good,” either. Check out this photo from Rolling Drone:

Who does he look like these days? That’s right, you guessed it. He looks like -

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I know I shouldn’t be laughing at this, but I can’t help it.

Weedeater vocalist/bassist “Dixie” Dave Collins accidentally shot off his big toe this past weekend. That would be kinda funny in and of itself, but the real punchline comes when you find out that Collins wasn’t hunting or whatever when the incident took place – he was cleaning his favorite shotgun.

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I, for one, happen to like Airbourne. Much like Doc Coyle, I generally can’t get behind bands who unscrupulously rehash their forebears, but for some reason in the case of Airbourne I find it acceptable. I’m not suggesting anyone raise them up on the “bringing back true rock n’ roll” alter, but at the very least Airbourne deserve a light (light!) pat on the back for capturing and reinvigorating the energy of vintage AC/DC.

But grammarians the band members are not. Phil Freeman of Heavy Metal Superfan points out that it’s all in the punctuation:

See, “No Guts, No Glory,” while trite as all hell, is at least a purposeful title that might conceivably inspire someone to purchase your album (out March 8 on Roadrunner ) and enjoy your brand of fist-pumping, beer-guzzling rawk. But that wasn’t the path you chose. No, you went with…

No Guts. No Glory.

Whoopsie! Oh, the difference one piece of punctuation can make. And yes my grammar is always perfect, damnit.

-VN

So apparently the source of the split between Evan Seinfeld (Biohazard/Damnocracy) and Tera Patrick (porn) was Patrick’s request that Seinfeld leave the adult film business. Says an evil tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch:

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Last week’s Worst Tattoo Ever of the Day post — in which some sucker drew with crayons tattooed his back with logos of ’80s hair metal bands from the most popular all the way down to Tora Tora — seems to have struck a nerve. The post elicited a healthy number of comments while being spread on the Interwebs via Twitter and Facebook. Whether people were laughing at this poor chap or laughing with him really matters not — regardless of whether your skin is virgin clean or you’ve got a few bad tattoos yourself, this shit’s kinda funny, right?

MS Maniac Ryan F. sent in a photo of a bad tattoo of his own doing, pictured above. Explains Ryan: “I bought a tattoo gun online for about 50 bucks and my friends and I used to get wasted and tattoo each other. I decided one night to get ‘What Would Phil Anselmo Do?’ down my leg.” I can see Ryan explaining this one when his grandkids ask, “Grandpa, who’s Phil Anselmo?” “Well, Phil Anselmo sang for this metal band and sometimes ranted and raved about white pride… err, um, nevermind.”

This is fun. I could see it becoming a regular series. Got a funny/bad/embarrassing metal tatoo? Send ‘em in to news [at] metalsucks [dot] net, or better yet post ‘em in the comments for all to see/laugh/excoriate.

-VN

MetalSucks uber-Maniac Josh Kidd has recommended we check out Volbeat, whom he described as “Elvis metal.” (“Elviscore” would be inappropriate, since there’s no core whatsoever to the band’s sound.) I find that description about as enticing as the prospect of sitting through Metallica playing the entire St. Anger album live, but out of respect to Josh I did give Volbeat a listen, and, yeah, they’re not good. I hate Michael Poulsen’s vocals. Hate ‘em. It’s like someone took a moose rock singer and stuck him in a slightly more interesting band than, say, Nicklesuck or Theory of a Dead Suck or whatever. Not. For. Me.

Still, I don’t wish any will upon Mr. Poulson, who made headlines this week when he collapsed on-stage. Apparently the dude is okay and just has the flu or something, but still, that sucks.

Of course, it’s not gonna keep anybody from rubbernecking! So here’s video of the collapse. Skip to the 2:30 mark to see Poulson hit the stage (literally). And, by all means, feel free to tell me why I’m missing the mark on this band in our comments section below.

-AR

Mayhem have perhaps one of the longest and most sordid histories in all of metal. Motley Crue may have shoved half a phone up some poor girl’s vagina and made her call her mother (at least according to The Dirt) and Marilyn Manson may have been blamed by scheming politicians for Columbine, but members of Mayhem have actually killed themselves and/or one another. Most metal bands project some kind of “scary” image, but Mayhem are one of the few bands that are actually scary.

Everyone gets older, though, and the members of Mayhem are no different. No longer the bright-eyed, bushy tailed kids who recorded De Mysteriis Dom Sathana, the members of Mayhem have now been reduced to rebelling by destroying hotel rooms the way every other band does.

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Every now and then, something happens to make me feel like there really is some justice in the world.

So while it looks Limp Bizkit are going right back to being the mega-stars they never deserved to be in the first place, at least Creed – possibly one of the most worthless musical acts, like, ever – aren’t doing so hot.

From a recent news report on the band’s recent concert in Birmingham, Alabama:

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Full props to our bestest buds at Metal Injection for finding this pretty hilarious story.

So. I guess it’s Vice‘s fifteenth anniversary, and to help celebrate, writer Chris Nieratko dug up a decade old, previously unpublished interview with a certain Behemoth front man. Now, Nieratko played a pretty mean-spirited trick on Nergal – whose first language isn’t English – but that doesn’t negate the fact that the results are fucking funny as hell.

Check out an excerpt:

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