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First of all:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Second of all:
I just stepped out to grab some lunch (and no one tried to shoot me!), and when I returned to the mansion, my inbox was flooded with readers e-mailing to tell me about the following tweets from one Mr. Zakk Wylde:
This just in: Malevolent Creation’s Phil Fasciana is officially a douche turd.
I don’t actually know very much about Malevolent Creation. For whatever reason, they just never came across my radar. I mean, I’ve heard of them, but I guess I never came to that point where a friend was like “Dude, check out this band!” or whatever, ’cause I never listened to them. I have no opinion about their music one way or the other.
But y’all have been e-mailing us all week about guitarist Phil Fasciana’s claim to Blabbermouth about being the next Bruce Willis n’ shit. In case you missed the whole story, Fasciana e-mailed “the CNN of heavy metal” and claimed to have kicked some ass and taken some names after walking in on a convenience store robbery in Ft. Lauderdale:
Metal Hammer reports that Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones (those are the dudes from Queens of the Stone Age / Kyuss, Foo FIghters / Nirvana and Led fucking Zeppelin respectively, for the uninitiated or just plain retarded), in what would be the second extremely boner-worthy collaboration involving Josh Homme to surface in the past month.
Grohl is kinda-sorta getting his childhood/ongoing wet-dream of playing drums for Zep, kinda sorta. The man can pretty much do no wrong in my book, whatwith Probot, playing with Mastodon, a million other side projects, and of course the continued quality output of Foo Fighters. A collabo with Josh Homme makes perfect sense given his stoner/metal background, and JPJ is just the icing on the cake! Gonna be some deep, stoney shit.
-VN
Anyone remember that scene in Spaceballs where Rick Moranis tells Bill Pullman “I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate?”
It hasn’t been confirmed, but a recent article published at Rock-a-Rolla.com [sent in by uber-commenter groverXIII] hints at the possibility of a Josh Homme / Mike Patton collaboration in the not-too-distant future:
Queens Of The Stone Age, Eagles Of Death Metal and Desert Sessions man Josh Homme is currently working on a “top secret” project according to Ipecac Recordings boss Greg Werckman. “Josh has got a new top secret project that he’s working on right now” Greg tells us. “He’s trying to get a lot of people involved in it, too, as a matter of fact he’s trying to convince Mike Patton to go out to the desert but Mike hates the desert.”
Seeing as the source of the rumor is a higher-up at Ipecac — the label Patton himself co-owns — the likelihood of this tantalizing collaboration coming to fruition seems pretty high. Homme + Patton? Color us interested. As long as it doesn’t prevent that Faith No More reunion tour from hitting the U.S. first (AHEM!).
No word yet on whether Homme plans on insulting and throwing bottles at his audience if the duo ever performs live.
-VN
I wouldn’t be shocked if Soundgarden reunited. Everyone else is doing it; Chris Cornell needs to try and get his street cred back; I’m sure Kim Thayil could use a paycheck; and then there was that whole Tadgarden thing. In fact, I’d imagine that, at this point, the biggest impediment to a Soundgarden reunion is the fact that Cornell’s ex-wife, Susan Silver, set up the Tadgarden show, which, presumably, means she’s still involved in the band’s business dealings despite what was reportedly a nasty split with the singer.
Now, all of that being the case… in the words of my associate Gary Suarez, I’ll believe the reunion is happening when “I hear it from Kim Thayil’s hairy lips.”
And Shinedown singer Brent Smith, whom Blabbermouth tells me claims he heard from “someone… specifically in their organization” that the reunion is happening, ain’t no Kim Thayil. His lips aren’t even hairy.
Here’s the best tweet I’ve seen all week, from Norma Jean:
just had a brief conversation about the direction for the next record which we will soon write. A little “back to our roots” is in order.7 minutes ago from web
If that turns out to be true, I will be one happy motherfucker. I know that MetalSucks’ own Gary Suarez disagrees with me that the most recent Norma Jean record sucked, but how anyone could think that “Robots 3, Humans 0″ is better than this is beyond me:
-AR
Last week Dave Mustaine made some typically coy statement about touring with a band and squashing a “potential feud,” and using a mixture of common sense and sheer stupidity, I predicted that the band in question was Slayer.
And now Metal Underground says I’m right:
“Two of thrash metal biggest names will be joining forces for a tour together later this year. The event is expected to be announced officially next month along with details regarding support etc. Tour dates will be revealed shortly. By the Fall, both bands are expected to have released their new studio albums which are due to be released this summer.”
I have no confirmation of this news and haven’t seen it reported anywhere else, but I don’t mind admitting that I really, really hope it’s true. I don’t see how self-respecting metalhead could ever pass up the opportunity to see a Megadeth/Slayer co-headlining tour.
-AR
Thanks to MetalSucks Maniac Ryan Wineman for bringing the Metal Underground piece to my attention.
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Blabbermouth tells me that Dave Mustaine has released yet another of those bizarrely cryptic messages (No, I’m not going to make the obvious joke) he digs so much:
“Today is the 9th of April and I have agreed to doing something last night that I am sure a lot of people are going to be very excited about, and something that I had hoped would one day lead to another one of the potential feuds going away for good, if not for a long while.
“I can’t confirm the band or the dates yet, and I have to go get my youngster up for school. Rest assured, as soon as we are ready to announce it, you will be one of the first to know.”
Man, Mustaine loves his teases, don’t he?
No, not Tool. But Berlin, Germany’s The Ocean certainly give them a run for their money in “best band ever” category. About a year ago Kip and I saw The Ocean headline a small NYC venue — before which we interviewed guitarist/mastermind Robin Staps over a round of whiskeys — and they literally made all of the opening bands look like little girls. And we’re not talking about slouchy openers, here — Withered, Lair of the Minotaur and Kylesa opened up, in that order — but the difference was just that stark in the live setting. The Ocean ruled, everyone else drooled in comparison.
Is “Andrew W.K.” a sham, a carefully constructed record label concoction played by several different actors? Was the hard-partying, bloody-nosed screamer a faceless ploy to sell records? According to a fascinating piece sent in by long-time MS Maniac Elijah T., there is indisputable evidence supporting this claim.
Alright. Last week one of you e-mailed me to tell me about this story (and my apologies that I don’t know your name – I’ve lost quite a lot of e-mails in this weekend’s server transfer), in which Obituary guitarist Trevor Peres revealed that his band has been trying to put together a package tour with great old school Floridian death metal bands including (beside Obituary, natch) Deicide, Morbid Angel, Six Feet Under… and Cannibal Corpse?
From Austin360.com:
Austin Powell of the Austin Chronicle says he’s received confirmation from the Metallica camp that the metal superstars will indeed be playing Stubb’s on Friday March 20 at 10 p.m. as part of the “Guitar Hero: Metallica” showcase…
Roland Swenson of SXSW was not too happy with Thursday’s “Off the Record” scoop, however. “He didn’t get it from us,” Swenson said. “We were told not to confirm anything and we’re sticking by that.”
So, let’s say this is true. Is it even worth attempting to get in? Seeing Metallica in a 2,100 capacity venue would be a priceless experience, but is it worth potentially having to wait on line for hours? Yours truly and Kip will be blessed with press credentials, but I still find it hard to believe that 10,000 indie rock-loving pretend Metallica fans who also have badges/wristbands won’t be trying to get in, too. Worth a shot, I guess?
-VN
Lots of people must care about this band, right? Because at least once a week there’s a post on Blabbermouth about Stratovarius and/or ex-guitarist Timo Tolkki. Every time I see one of these headlines I chuckle on the inside, because Stratovarius have a very, very severe case of Nickelback Syndrome — presumably they have fans, lots of ‘em, yet I’ve never met a single one. I don’t give a shit about this band, nor do Axl or any of the other MS Mansion inhabitants (that I know of… monkeys excepted). I’ve never met a single person who likes this band, never seen a Stratovarius record, never encountered someone wearing a Stratovarius t-shirt at a show. To be fair, I had one Stratovarius track on my iPod once and it was pretty good, but my interest pretty much ended there.
So presumably there’s oodles of uber-fans following the L.A. Guns-like drama unfolding between estranged guitarist/main-dude Timo Tolkki and the remaining members of the band:
The webernet rumor mill has been swirling for months with talk of a Faith No More reunion this summer, but to date no one in the band’s camp has commented on the matter. And that remains true today… sort of. In a press release announcing FNM frontman Mike Patton’s involvement with the score of the feature film Crank 2, the last sentence alluded to said reunion (emphasis added):
Patton has also provided vocals to several videogames including “Bionic Commando,” “Portal,” “Left 4 Dead,” and “The Darkness.” He also lent his voice to Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse (character name: Rikki Kix). Patton just wrapped up a trek across Australia with Fantômas as part of the Big Day Out festival. His upcoming schedule includes a performance with labelmates Zu (Mar. 19 @ Great American Music Hallin San Francisco), the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Apr. 17 with Rahzel (ex-Roots beatboxer) and the highly anticipated reunion tour with Faith No More in Europe this summer.
So, um… is it happening or isn’t it?
An anonymous source has confirmed to MetalSucks that legendary magazines Metal Maniacs and Metal Edge — both published by Zenbu Media — have closed their doors for good. At this time we can’t report whether either magazine will print any final issues or whether Zenbu itself is in trouble, but we can confirm that the end is nigh for these once mighty metal publications.
Any time hard luck falls upon anyone in the metal community it’s a tough pill to swallow, but Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs are fucking institutions and this news will undoubtedly send shockwaves throughout the metal world. Though these once mighty publications may not have carried the same weight in recent years that they once did, their demise delivers a shocking blow in one fell swoop to two industries already in peril, publishing and music. To say the absolute least, this is the end of an era.
Of the many implications running through my brain — not the least of which are the awesome people at both publications who are suddenly jobless — I keep coming back to two:
So apprently Slayer are gonna announce their co-headlining tour mates this coming Monday, January 26. Of course, this raises the question: who will said co-headliners be?
While we had just planned on catching Killswitch Engage, Lacuna Coil and Chimaira on this Spring’s Music As A Weapon Tour and leaving before Disturbed hit the stage, it may be that we won’t have to. The latest round of announced tour dates includes an April 15th date in Lowell, Mass, a Boston exurb on the New Hampshire border that’s only 40 miles (and 2 days) away from the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival in Worcester, Mass. Could we be in for some more additions to the Friday night lineup?
And the big Mastodon announcement that warranted a days-long countdown on their official website is…
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