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Hey, remember last month, when Nick Oliveri held his girlfriend hostage and got into a four-hour standoff with a S.W.A.T. team? Well, guess what? The cops found coke and meth in Oliveri’s home. Shocking, I know.
So while we may never know the cause of Oliveri’s inappropriate behavior, we do know he may be going to prison for a long, long time.
From TMZ:
Since summer and, thus, summer festivals are almost upon us, I thought I’d take a closer look at Sonisphere, one of the biggest European music festivals. Mostly because I wanted to do some research on it, since it’s the only festival in which I am indulging this year. Probably.
(Note: I don’t much like festivals, especially ones that are outdoors. The bands I like never play for that long ,and unless I want to be stuck in the way back, I have to suffer through all the other artists just to get a decent spot. Not to mention, the weather. I hate hot weather. I swear to God I was born with menopause, because I’m always having hot flashes. I try to spend my summers carefully planning my routes with air conditioning and avoiding any chance of getting damp that isn’t shower or pool/sea/any body of water-related. But no one likes a cranky, sweaty bitch, and I split my time between two especially humid cities, so I grit my teeth and steel myself for my few months of personal hell.)
The Sonisphere Festival has been around only since 2009, when Stuart Galbraith joined the events company Kilimanjaro Live. His idea was to hold a series of events that would change and adapt to wherever they were being held. That’s what is really interesting about Sonisphere — unlike a traveling festival with one specific list of musicians and bands that tour the continent, they have a changing roster of artists for each “territory.” In 2009, the Germany date featured Die Toten Hosen and The Prodigy, adding a more punk and house air to the festival, while the Sweden shows featured The Cult and Primal Scream to suit their audience. Of course, there are bands that headline each show (in this case it was Metallica), but I’ve never seen audience preference be such a priority for a huge festival.
So as you know, the week before last Vince and I took our annual trip to Thailand to shtup ladyboys went on a business trip. We flew JetBlue. There was nothing metal about it. I mean I listened to the new Anaal Nathrakh album on the flight home and Vince stunk of all-night partying, but that was just the metalness that we ourselves brought to the flight — the airline itself provided no metal whatsoever.
Well, apparently, we just chose the wrong airline.
See, Jeanne Fury at The Deciblog took her own trip that week, and flew Virgin America Airlines. On the flight, she made the following awesome discovery:
“Instead of having a steward or stewardess go through the whole ‘what to do in case of an emergency and a dude named Sully isn’t flying the plane’ shpeel, Virgin shows its passengers a little cartoon video. A couple of seconds into the video, a black metal character looking suspiciously like Abbath appears. You can imagine my delight/surprise/utter disbelief.”
Ms. Fury was even able to find the video online so that we can all enjoy what does, indeed, appear to be an Abbath cameo:
The best part of this is the assumption that black metallers don’t remove their corpse paint before flying — y’know, because they’re just that fucking tr00. I wonder if they get picked for “random” security checks a lot?
-AR
So 70,000 Tons of Metal, the most metal cruise EV-AR, has now ended — but that doesn’t mean the fun is over. We’re gonna have a couple more Tons of Fun for you during the week, starting with the below video, taken during the cruise, of Testament’s Alex Skolnick, Exodus’ Tom Hunting, and Death Angel’s Rob Cavestany doing a karaoke version of The Eagles’ “Lying Eyes” onboard the ship.
Yep. We’re being totally serious.
We first saw this amazing video over at Metal Insider; they also have clips of karaoke performances from members of Fear Factory, Sodom, Ensiferum, Tyr, and Swashbuckle. So head on over to Metal Insider if you wanna see some of your heroes embarrassing themselves in the name of fun.
Also, our bro-bros at Metal Injection were actually on the cruise, giving constant live updates. Go here if you wanna read all about their adventures, or if you just wanna look at pictures of MI’s resident female, Noa Avior, in a bikini.
-AR
While MetalSucks shut down for the holidays and New York City braved one of the biggest blizzards it’s seen in years, metalgf and I headed overseas to get our adventure on in Amsterdam and Paris.
Behold, the pictorial story of our epic 10-day journey.
Be forewarned: traveling whilst looking like a terrorist is most likely a bad idea, so I decided to shave my epic beard (pictured here) before our trip. So pardon the clean-faced gentleman in these photos and let us never speak of this again. Onwards!
I went to Hong Kong on my Christmas vacation. How’s that for a short, sweet introduction?
Ten days in Hong Kong with five nights on the main island and five nights on the Kowloon side (“Kowloon Bay? OH MY GOD I was born in Kowloon Bay!” Name the movie and you get a prize. I said this every time we caught sight of the bay. Which was all the time. I really don’t know how I came back not in a body bag). Let’s put it this way; If there’s ever a National Lampoon’s Chinese Vacation, I’d say my boyfriend and I would beat out the antics of Chevy Chase and Beverley D’Angelo by quite a bit.
I’ll spare you our gastronomical, dumbass foreigner, and, er, intestinal adventures for the sake of keeping this metal-related, but I will say that I’m fairly certain I ate horse without knowing it (It was in my lo mein. Fun fact: lo mein isn’t entirely an American invention! I found it in China, and it’s exactly the same as in the States. Albeit with unidentified animal parts in it. I’m not certain, but it definitely wasn’t pork. Or chicken. Or beef.), and for the entirety of the trip, I had a nasty cough that made me hack and spit mucus (and almost crack a rib) like the best of the elderly men there. China, though it may technically be Hong Kong and not China China, is not for the weak.
I admit, I wasn’t well versed, or versed at all, in the local metal scene. Hell, I can only name one band from China (Tang Dynasty), so I thought it might be cool to do a little research on the subject.
Paris is about to get a hot metal injection via Vince Neilstein and metalgf that’s sure to out-Eiffel The Eiffel!
Vince and metalgf are going to Amsterdam one week from today. After 4-days of weed and coffee-fueled city street meandering and [weather permitting] bike riding and [metalgf permitting] crazy raunchy threesomes in the red light district, we’ll head to Paris where we’ll spend 5 night and ring in the new year.
Why am I telling you this? Because we want to go to a metal show, of course! If you live in either Amsterdam or Paris and know of a cool show (even local bands) happening between December 23rd and January 2nd — or even if you’d just like to be hospitable for an afternoon or evening and shoot the breeze about metal, love, life and the pursuit of happiness — shoot an email to me at vince [at] metalsucks [dot] net. Let’s talk!
-VN
If there’s one thing that’s certain this Thanksgiving other than your crazy Uncle drinking too much Scotch and doing a faceplant into the mashed potatoes, it’s that Andrew W.K. will be partying hard, with or without Gary Suarez. As for which Andrew W.K. will be doing the partying… well, your guess is as good as ours.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
-VN
There are a lot of places I want to see in the world, and quite a few cities I want to visit in the States. I want to go to Austin, Seattle, and up until last week, Chicago was on that list, too. As luck would have it, a dear friend of mine recently moved to Chicago, so my best friend and I took it upon ourselves to descend on her and her boyfriend for the week.
I loved it. I love Chicago. I love being in any town that has coffee shops rather than nine Starbucks on every street corner, and Chicago gave me a glorious coffee shop with an ‘80s theme; there was a DeLorean parked in the shop, along with posters of Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and various other kitschy things like a wall of old lunchboxes. But there was no Ninja Turtles one, and that was my choice of lunch transport in first grade. But I let it slide.
Beyond all that though, Chicago is home to a very special place. A place with unmatched burgers. A place that celebrates heavy metal. A place known as Kuma’s Corner.
My family likes to travel. My first time on a plane was when I was 3 months old, and I’m told I had the decency to pass out and not make one peep on a trans-Atlantic flight. Traveling is fun in and of itself but traveling for music is a perfectly legitimate reason as far as we’re concerned. My mom and I set a record this summer as we took about four 24-hour trips to cities to see concerts, from Brussels (good beer) to Salzburg (good beer) to Istanbul (good beer. Unless it’s Turkish.) Various other friends and family participated in these trips here and there, but she and I did it all. They weren’t metal shows so I won’t elaborate too much except they ranged from Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, (oh like you need to wonder. I totally heckled them when they sang, “Layla.” I was the obnoxious loud one during a beautiful, melodic number, screeching, “THAT’S MEEEE!”) to a DJ that mixed traditional Anatolian sounds and dance paired with readings from a Turkish author, to a philharmonic orchestra. I did top off the summer by coming back from Europe in time to see KISS in Boston, though. Music is important to us and we’re pretty dedicated when it comes to showing our support.
I’d like to take you to a place. A place where trends might come a few years late, but are wholeheartedly embraced when they hit (Children of Bodom, Dimmu Borgir, and the WWE are recent arrivals). A place where metal is cool and metal fans are the cool kids (even if it’s just in their own heads). A place bands tend to skip in favor of clearly inferior countries, like Bulgaria. (No offesne to Bulgaria, but who really wants to play to goats?)
I’d like to take you to Turkey. Or Türkiye for those better informed.
Now obviously most folks associate Amsterdam with puffin some serious dank, but it’s important to mention that there is actually a pretty decent music scene there too if you’re lookin for it…
While being stuck in A-dam for the week I sought out plenty of live musical goodness; some of my favorite spots after the *cough cough* jump.
No mandatory extended vacation in Amsterdam would be complete without smoking a cartel-load of sensational ganja & hashish……and believe you me, I certainly did my part last week.
My personal favorite coffee shop I patronized along my stony travels was most definitely the mighty Dampkring, where the vibe is just right, the staff is ultra-friendly, and the selection is aces.
I highly recommend this spot.
-KW
Holy stony synchronicity!!!!!!!!
Have you guys heard about this crazy volcanic ash situation in Europe that´s grounding planes left and right?!?!?
Well guess whose flight got cancelled from AmstermotherfuckingDAM to NYC yesterday and is stuck spending the week smoking the world´s best hash and weed???
This is not going to be easy — I really appreciate your sympathy.
-KW
“The last day of SXSW is always the most metal.” – Kip Wingerschimidt, the morning of the last day of SXSW 2009, before staying up all night partying with Dredg and then tearing the insides of his knee to shreds in the most non-metal of ways whilst getting ready to go to the airport. Fortunately there would be no injuries this year, but the last day of SXSW was indeed quite metal, we did stay up all night, and we worked out some really sweet deals.
Only one problem: it was fucking cold outside. Not just Texas cold… actual cold, like low 40s / high 30s. We New Yorkers are used to that kind of weather (on a good day in the winter) but having to endure it in Austin in the Spring was a major buzzkill.
The calm before the storm… E. 6th St. at about noon, while trucks are making their beer deliveries and everyone else is still sleeping off their hangovers from the night before.
But we had our own method of keeping warm. With at least half of the bag o’ herbals left and only one day to smoke it, it was do or die time for the sweet leaf we purchased in Dallas. First mission of the day was to roll it all up. Fifteen minutes later we were ready to begin our final mission, five joints in tow.
In which we ate epic BBQ and saw an epic headline set by Muse…
Every year at SXSW I make time for a trip down to the Salt Lick. It’s never easy; at 45 minutes outside the city limits it turns into a 3+ hour adventure, and the tricky part is getting a ride. Thankfully this year the dudes in East of the Wall and Goes Cube hooked it up big time and by noon me, Kip, and Rob from Metal Injection were on our way to Driftwood.
I know there are other great BBQ places, even inside Austin itself, but the Salt Lick is so fucking good I just can’t NOT go there. By the time we rolled up to the Salt Lick parking lot with Goes Cube, East of the Wall were ready and waiting with a case of beer (Salt Lick is BYOB). We quickly sucked down the two joints we’d rolled that morning and put our names on the list, and within 20 minutes we were sitting at a table ready to gorge ourselves on meat.
Salt Lick offers “all you can eat” meat platters for $15 per person. They include brisket, ribs and sausage, and they’ll just keep bringing you more platters until you say stop. Stoned, drunk and jubilated we tore into the meat as soon as our waiter set it down on the table. For some reason the question “Another round of meat, guys?” elicited constant laughs… there’s something about the concept of being able to order rounds of meat that tickled us silly.
After 6 nights of non-stop boozing my body was starting to tell me it was time to take a break. When I woke up Thursday morning I was tired and cranky. The first night of SXSW — or any gathering large or small, for that matter — is always a rager, right? Everyone’s so excited to see each other that they all go balls to the wall. Thursday morning I was feeling the cumulative effects of 6 days of boozing and the prior night’s activities and I decided to take a break from the sauce for a while.
I was up at 11 and treated myself to a nice sit-down breakfast at the hotel. I headed over to Emo’s with Frank from Metal Injection to hang our banners at Full Metal Texas before the Noon door time to find folks literally lined up around the block to get in. Word of special secret guest Dillinger Escape Plan had apparently gotten out, as if the free admission and a dozen other awesome bands weren’t enough to pique folks’ interest in the first place. Karnivool, Animals as Leaders, Darkest Hour, Howl, Amarna Reign and Iron Age were just a few of the many bands to play that absolutely killed.
The whole no booze thing was going pretty well. Until I was given a handful of drink tickets. I ordered up a Heineken tallboy and got about half-way through before the dames at RockPit.com accosted me for a quick interview. When I literally stopped mid-sentence because I drew a complete blank on which showcase I’d been at the night before I knew it was time to really put down the booze. Enough. For the rest of the day it was just water for this guy.
Onto the bands!
I’ve indulged in enough posts about the crazy and random shit we did on the road, so now it’s time for what we were all traveling for in the first place: SXSW. The magnitude of SXSW is inconceivable to anyone who’s never been; every orifice of downtown Austin is literally oozing live music. As MS commenter Joel Bailey said yesterday, “Half the shows at SXSW are in the store room of some coffee house or the smoking patio at an Ihop.” While this is true it’s not for lack of real music venues — in fact, the venues in Austin are all top-notch and blow NYC’s rooms out of the water — but there’s just so much going on that even smaller places that normally have nothing to do with music want to get in on the action. For a glimpse of what the scene looks like, check out Metal Injection’s SXSW wrap-up video.
Kip and I decided months back that this year we’d splurge on a hotel room Downtown. Trying to crash with local friends in years past was economical but a pain in the ass; getting a cab at 2am at SXSW is nearly impossible, and hiking a mile or two just to get home (and not having the option of a mid-day stop-in, or even better a clean place to take a shit!) can be really tiring, or worse, result in injury (just ask Kip). Though the option of staying on the SlayRV for the duration of SXSW later presented itself, we opted for the space and comfort of the Omni Hotel and it ended up being well worth it.
After settling into our room we headed over to the Mohawk to get set up for the Prosthetic Records showcase we were sponsoring. With a killer lineup of Prosthetic bands playing inside and the Action PR showcase going on outside (feat. High on Fire, Priestess, NAAM and others) — all in the same venue for one price of admission — the night was off to a great start before it even began.
After the previous night’s Bourbon drinkathon, grill-out and car wash adventure — not to mention the delicious fried chicken and BBQ ribs we inhaled earlier that day — trouble was a brewin’ in the bowels of the SlayRV. One by one we systematically decimated the bathrooms of the Walmart and nearby Burger King, and once business was taken care of we hit the road for the 5+ hour trek to Dallas.
Bowels freshly purged we swore off meat for the day; I had a healthy breakfast of carrots and hummus. Of course that oath went straight out the window when we saw the following sign across the road from a truck stop in Texarkana:
I mean how the fuck can you say no to THAT??
Part of being on the road is the constant struggle to find a suitable place to take a dump. Even when you’re in a bus with a bathroom, as we were, there’s a strict no-pooping policy. Trust me, you do NOT want to be on a bus where a smelly dude who’s been on the road for days or weeks ingesting nothing but fast food and booze has let it all out of their system… X6. You respect your fellow travelers even in dire situations and they respect you — NO pooping on the bus, no exceptions. So what does that leave, then? Well, there are always gas station and fast food joint bathrooms which vary in degrees of cleanliness and comfort. If you’re lucky you can pinch a loaf when you’re stopping at a friend’s house somewhere (pity that poor fool, though). But when it comes to comfortable places to poop nothing beats a Walmart — they’re open 24/7, the stalls are big and no one cares. Plus, you can usually park a bus in the back of a Walmart parking lot and sleep there over night meaning you can poop when you arrive at night AND in the morning before you leave. Gold mine!
One goal of this road trip was to take advantage of all the quintessential experiences each city had to offer. What more quintessential experience is there than getting BBQ in Memphis? That one’s a no-brainer… but what exactly has Little Rock, AR got to offer? Walmart. Lots of ‘em. The company is based there. The only way our experience in Little Rock could’ve been any more quintessential was if we’d gotten blowjobs from Bill Clinton.
But first, Memphis…
