During the summer of 2001 I interned at an NYC-based startup called Clickradio. It was a part of the original dot-com boom, only by mid-2001 the dot-coms had most certainly stopped booming and shit was hitting the fan. The tanking economy was unfortunate for Clickradio, a service that did exactly what Pandora did before Pandora did it; in better times the company surely would’ve made it.

I spent that summer driving around Manhattan in a pimped-out promo truck with external computers and speaker bays adorned with Clickradio signage, parking in dense pedestrian areas and demoing our product to the masses. Preaching the benefits of an Internet radio station you could customize to fit your own tastes in 2001 — when broadband wasn’t even widespread yet — was kinda like preaching the benefits of a monthly fee / all-you-can-stream music service is in 2011 — when people are still obsessed with physical / file ownership. But I digress.

The reason I bring this all up: for some reason we had some kind of promo deal with Bay Area nu-metallers Systematic. We were always giving out Systematic stickers and sampler CDs from our truck to confused midtown businessmen whose definition of metal might be AC/DC. Systematic songs always came up on the Clickradio “metal” channel, so I got pretty familiar with the band. All things considered, I guess this band wasn’t really that bad… but they also weren’t really that good. Apparently Systematic got back together and did a reunion gig this past weekend. Click “Thumbs Up” if you like it and “Thumbs Down” if you don’t, and your Clickradio station will be customized to fit your own tastes!

-VN

The only member of the original Skid Row that Sebastian Bach is still on speaking terms with is drummer Rob Affuso, probably because he, like Baz, was sacked from the band at some point in-between Subhuman Race and Whatever the Album After Subhuman Race Was Called. But whatever the reason, Affuso hopped up on stage with Bach last night during the singer’s solo show in Poughkeepsie. And while they had the good sense not to perform “Youth Gone Wild,” they did not have the good sense to have Rachel Bolan, Scotti Hill, and Dave Sabo on stage, too.

-AR

[via Classic Rock]

Tony Iommi just posted the below message on his official website. It’s not exactly a denial that there’s no Sabbath reunion going on, but it is a denial that Iommi has confirmed the reunion, so, uh… yeah, I guess let’s see how this one plays out.

Here’s the statement:

“I’m saddened that a Birmingham journalist whom I trusted has chosen this point in time to take a conversation we had back in June and make it sound like we spoke yesterday about a Black Sabbath reunion.

“At the time I was supporting the Home of Metal exhibition and was merely speculating, shooting the breeze, on something all of us get asked constantly, ‘Are you getting back together?’

“Thanks to the internet it’s gone round the world as some sort of ‘official’ statement on my part, absolute nonsense.  I hope he’s enjoyed his moment of glory, he won’t have another at my expense.

“to my old pals, Ozzy, Geezer and Bill, sorry about this, I should have known better.

“All the best, Tony “

-AR

Thanks to Cody Daniels for the heads up.

UPDATE: Uh, maybe this isn’t happening — check out Tony Iommi’s official statement.

They are, according to  MetalTalk.net, who broke the news yesterday, and now the Birmingham Mail, who have gotten a confirmation from Tony Iommi.

It’s not exactly shocking news; after Dio passed away, putting an end to Heaven and Hell (which was really just a reunion of a different era of Sabbath), it seemed like an inevitability. And it’s not exactly bad news, either; last time I saw this reunited line-up, at Ozzfest 2005, they put on a fun enough show, even if Ozzy is Ozzy and none of these guys are exactly vibrant and youthful. But it’s the kind of thing where I’d say if you’re either a huge Sabbath fan or you’ve never gotten to see them before, it’s worth checking out a show.

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Unlike those spoiled Europeans, America does not currently have an abundance of awesome annual metal festivals; there’s Maryland Deathfest, New England Metal and Hardcore Fest, and I guess Scion Rock Fest, although that one changes locations every year so I dunno if it counts, even if they’ve done a great job putting together a killer line-up three years running now.

My point being, there’s a reason Maryland Deathfest is so revered by metal fans in this country. And next year being the tenth edition of the fest, you would expects its organizers to put together something pretty special to celebrate.

And they have — they’ve snagged what looks to be Godflesh’s first performance on North American soil in a decade.

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Last summer, D.X. Ferris interviewed Corrosion of Conformity’s guitarist Woodroe “Woody” Weatherman for us about the band’s Animosity-era line-up reunion, and, of course, the issue of whether or not Pepper Keenan would ever return to the fold was one of the topics of conversation. Here’s what Weatherman had to say about the subject:

“It’s kind of a weird way it came about. It was Pepper that stirred everybody’s bones back into motion. He had brought us up, doing some things in Europe this summer. Then with Mullin coming back in, being the original guy or whatever, that kind of fell through. Our cages had been rattled.

“Mullin came out of the shadows, so we kept on going with it. When the time is right, when Pepper is willing and everybody else is willing, we’ll probably do more four-piece stuff later on.”

Well, hey, guess what? Keenan recently joined the band onstage during a gig in Bilbao, Spain. Here’s some fan-filmed video:

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Keenan is back in the band for good — he seems to be pretty busy with Down at the moment — but it is one step closer to getting that four-piece reunion going. So I’ll take it, and happily.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

For metal fans over the age of 30, there’s little fresh news to be found on VH1′s That Metal Show; the weekly show functions mostly as a clubhouse for “remember when?” type gab with flabby old-timers. (For metal fans under 30, TMS provides a peek back in time to when the term “metal” meant “heavier than Paul McCartney & Wings.”) So I was one of tens of viewers of the TMS season seven finale, in which former Ozzy drummer Carmine Appice (above, big brother of Heaven & Hell skinsman Vinny Appice) shot ropey jets of great and hilarious news all over the sweaty boobs of the dinosaur metal world.

Wow, that’s a clusterfucked metaphor, but ahem the important thing is that the unconvincingly bewigged Appice addressed the status of Blue Murder to TMS host Eddie Trunk, who along with me makes up about half of the post-Whitesnake John Sykes supergroup’s restless, rabid fanbase. But that was only the happiest news, not the weirdest. According to Appice:

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Kurt Ballou, you rat bastid! After telling us he was about to begin working on a new Old Man Gloom record and getting us into a tizzy, Ballou has gone and taken it all back a few days later, claiming it was a “belated little April Fools joke.” From Kurt’s Facebook via Metal Injection:

whoops. nevermind about Old Man Gloom. they forgot to write songs, so they’ve cancelled

And then a follow-up reply to stangry FP commenters:

hey, i want an new OMG too. i think i’m just going to write it and record it myself and see if i can pass it off as them. i have played drums, guitar, and sang on their records before, so it’s ok, right? it will be called “easter.”

Oh well. At least we can still pine for that Scissorfight reunion.

-VN

Well, if you don’t, here’s a hot tip: do not read the rest of this post. It ends badly for you.

If you do, then, swell! ‘Cause guess what? Here’s the band playing “Toxicity.”

Sure does sound like “Toxicity,” doesn’t it? So there’s a real shock.

System of a Down will be playing songs you remember the way you remember them for the rest of the month. Get remaining dates here.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

In 2001 I went to the now-defunct NYC venue Brownie’s to catch Cave In, who I’d recently discovered, and ended up catching Old Man Gloom and Scissorfight in the process. The way I viewed heavy music was forever altered, the show a railroad switch that sent my descent into the gnarlier side of metal over the edge.

All three bands took lengthy hiatuses shortly after peaking mid-decade. Cave In, as we know, got back together in 2009 to record Planets of Old and have a new album White Silence due on May 24th. Old Man Gloom — whose members include Aaron Turner of Isis, Nate Newton of Converge, Caleb Scofield of Cave In and Jay Randall of Agoraphobic Nosebleed, among others — are jumping on the reunion bandwagon too (did they ever officially break up? whatever); according to Gun Shy Assassin, producer (and Converge guitarist) Kurt Ballou posted a Facebook message that his next project is a new Old Man Gloom record. Good news indeed.

So where are Scissorfight in all of this? Word on the street is that frontman Ironlung is totally over it. We beg him with all our granite hearts to reconsider. Axl and I jammed Potential New Agent for Unconventional Warfare no less than 30 times (seriously) whilst driving around in L.A. a few weeks back, in part because it was the only CD we had and in part because sick fucking riffs dude! C’mon, Scissorfight… do it, do it, do it!

-VN

Last month Soundgarden announced the first set of dates for their forthcoming North American reunion tour; now they’ve released their full itinerary, and, in case my headline somehow failed to convey this, support acts, too.

Of course, cynical bastard that I am, my immediate concern is that if Chris Cornell’s voice is in poopy shape, these support acts could pretty much end up overshadowing what’s supposed to be one of the biggest reunions in years. Then again, Mastodon’s vocals don’t always sound so good live, either, so maybe it won’t matter. In any case, having this caliber of bands as the opening acts is a smart move on Soundgarden’s part — it could definitely bring in younger fans who are too young to remember SG from the their heyday, and it will definitely incentivize skeptical pricks like me into getting their ass to a tour stop.

Here’s the full tour schedule, including info on which bands are playing which sections of the tour, courtesy Metal Underground:

Click to read more…

Back in 2008, legendary metalcore pioneers Overcast — who went on to be in a couple ofsmaller bands you may have heard of, like Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage — got back together to re-record some old tunes for a collection called Reborn to Kill Again. When that album was released, I interviewed vocalist Brian Fair (also of the aforementioned Shadows Fall), and I asked him if Overcast might ever write some new music together. His answer?

“We’ve actually talked about it because Pete [Cortese, guitarist] and Mike [D'Antonio, bassist] definitely have ideas for songs. We just have to make sure that they’re Overcast songs, you know? And not just a Pete song. Like I said, it has to be tuned to E and there has to be a mosh part that goes nowhere and there has to be random time changes for no reason. All those things have to be there in order to make it an Overcast song. We’re definitely not opposed to [writing and recording new material]. It may or may not happen, it depends on if the songs are quality.”

Well, I guess somewhere along the way these dudes either decided that these songs are not “Overcast songs,” or otherwise decided that it just wasn’t Overcast without guitarist Scott McCooe and drummer Jay Fitzgerald, or, uh, something else — because the band’s three most famous alumni (In case you’re dumb: D’Antonio went on to join KsE, Cortese went on to join Seemless) are now reuniting to form a new band called Death Ray Vision.

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Here’s the latest round of idiotic news revolving around the band you can pretty much blame for this website’s existence.

First of all, Corey Taylor has been heavily rumored to be the new vocalist for Velvet Revolver, and then a couple of weeks ago, he refused to contradict that rumor, thereby pretty much confirming it. Now Metal Insider tells me that Duff McKagan thinks he’s being cute by pretty much doing the same thing, telling fans during a recent online chat that “I can neither confirm nor deny” that Taylor is the group’s new singer before apparently mistaking Taylor for a can of Pepsi: “He’s the voice of a whole new generation.”

Slipknot’s been around for over a decade now, so I guess McKagan doesn’t actually know what the phrase “new generation” means, but whatever. Like I said last month, there’s absolutely no reason to say shit like this in the press unless Taylor got the job. And at this point, VR absolutely needs to start denying the rumor, or just announce Taylor as the new singer. Because now if he’s not the new singer, whomever the new singer is is gonna hafta be pretty frickin’ awesome and/or famous, or the whole thing is just gonna seem anticlimactic. In fact, if Taylor isn’t the new singer, I’d say they either need to get Robert Plant, or just announce a reunion of the original Guns N’ Roses.

Which, incidentally, some morons think is what’s gonna happen. From Classic Rock:

Click to read more…

I’m really over it with the cold, the dark, the snow, the ice, the sludge, the wind, and the retreating penis. It’s time for warm weather already. I know, I know, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow yesterday, spring is coming sooner rather than later, hoo-ray. But it needs to be sooner, and it needed to be sooner yesterday. Warm weather means long walks, outdoor beers, ladies in skimpy outfits, and, oh yeah — the return of two of metal’s greatest icons.

Yep yep yep — after telling the world this past summer that creator Mike Judge was working on new episodes of Beavis and Butt-Head, yesterday MTV announced at their upfronts (a presentation of upcoming programming for potential advertisers) that the animated series would return “this summer.” A more specific date was not provided.

The announcement was made by the cast of the controversial kiddie porn show Skins, and then, as part of what must be the ultimate media coup, tweeted by Justin Bieber:

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I didn’t think A Perfect Circle could get more irritating than when they released (e)Motive, but they’re going out of their way to prove me wrong. First they split up, and then they got back together, and then, just two months and four shows into their reunion run, they seemed to split up again. And now there’s this tweet, which more than implies that, no, all is well and good in APC land:

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I didn’t think A Perfect Circle could get more irritating than when they released (e)Motive, but they’re going out of their way to prove me wrong. First they split up, and then they got back together, and then, just two months and four shows into their reunion run, they seemed to split up again. And now there’s this tweet, which more than implies that, no, all is well and good in APC land:

Click to read more…

Announced with fanfare in the opening minutes of New Years Day 2010, the return of Soundgarden was supposed to redeem Chris Cornell’s tarnished legacy in the aftermath of the Timbaland-produced bomb Scream. Unfortunately, the grunge superstars have to-date spent their so-called reunion trying to sell repackaged collections of previously released music sprinkled sparsely with studio outtakes and ultimately playing fewer concerts than I can count on one hand.

We’ve yet to get a clear answer as to why this has been the case (theories: Matt Cameron’s Pearl Jam obligations, Kim Thayil’s obsessive compulsive beard maintenance), and the latest announcement that an old live concert is being put on CD only makes matters worse. As a longtime devotee, I pretty much feel cheated.

Seemingly, Cornell recognizes that the fans want to see the guys on tour, which is perhaps why he’s decided to offer up the next best thing and go out on the road by himself for a cross-country series of acoustic “Songbook” dates. It makes sense, and he can probably sell some of those live Soundgarden CDs along the way. Some press release blather and the list of dates are below the cut.
Click to read more…

Fuck Van Halen. Fuck Faith No More. Fuck At the Gates. Fuck Carcass. And fuck Soundgarden, too.

Guys, I’m not dicking around. Think about it for one second — whose reunion could possibly be so momentous that it would make all those other re-alliances look like just another tour? What band has continued for years now without that one key member that really MAKES the band, that we’ve all been DYING to return?

Have you guessed yet?

Yep. That’s EXACTLY who I’m talking about.

Don’t pinch yourself. It’s really happening.

In 2011…

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One of these men will not be on the new Kyuss album. Guess which one?

Kyuss Lives!, the ridiculously monikered Kyuss non-reunion which replaces Josh Homme with some dude no one has ever heard of, are apparently “thinking of doing another record,” according to this interview with vocalist John Garcia. I object to the use of the word “another” because in case these dudes haven’t noticed, they’ve never made a record before, but I’d like to think that the phrase “thinking of”* means “it’s not written in stone yet,” “there’s still time to stop the madness,” and “we said this to gauge the reaction of fans, possibly as represented by an incredibly smart, exceedingly handsome Jewish blogger from New York.”

So, assuming that Garcia was, indeed, trying to get a message to me to see what my thoughts were, I’d like to now respond by saying: I don’t think this is a good idea.

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So Max Cavalera has been running around saying he wants to do the Sepultura reunion, but it ain’t gonna happen because Andreas Kisser is a dick, or, no, wait, Paulo is a dick, or, really, your mom is a dick and it’s all her fault that the reunion isn’t happening. And up ’til now, to the best of my knowledge at least, the remaining Sepulturians have kept their mouths shut about all of Max’s smack-talking.

Well, no more:

Now, of course, you should never say never, but that seems to be pretty definitive, at least for the moment. Maybe if Max points the finger at Igor next, though, he can really make this happen.

-AR