SEND EMAIL TO
NEWS [AT]
METALSUCKS
[DOT] NET
Last week this guy became an interwebz sensation, when everyone seemed to collectively realize all at once that he’s clearly the best drummer in the history of the instrument:
Now the investigative journalists at Metal Injection tell me that this God amongst men is named Steve Moore, and that he was recently interviewed by City Pages, who learned that – no surprise – he started out as a metal drummer:
Dio died. Isis broke-up. Bret Michaels is back in the hospital. And I just used Dio, Isis, and Bret Michaels in one thought-stream, which, I’m sure, offended somebody.
Luckily, we did manage to have some fun this week:
And hopefully no one awesome will die or break-up next week.
-AR
The long-awaited new single “Nightmare” from Avenged Sevenfold has hit the webernets, and, no surprise: it’s sweet!
“Wait, what’s that?” I hear you e-ruminating. “Vince and Axl like Avenged Sevenfold?”
‘Tis true; astoundingly, it’s permissible to like Avenged Sevenfold, Dew Scented and Keep of Kalessin all at the same time. Shocking! Longtime readers of this site surely remember the run-up we gave Avenged Sevenfold prior to the release of their last album, a Use Your Illusion 2-esque masterpiece. Simply put, they’re pop metal geniuses of our time! Sure, they may look and dress like a bunch of clowns, but anyone who has wicked musical an songwriting chops like these guys do is allowed to dress however the fuck they want. Shit, they could don actual clown makeup and go all ICP and they’d still be the shit as long as they kept cranking out killer tunes.
A few hours ago authorities evacuated Times Square for the second time in a week after someone found a “suspicious cooler” on the street. Of course, everyone was just being overly cautious, but as long as it doesn’t infringe on my civil rights, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. I think Vince was in Michigan when 9/11 went down, but I was here, and if I never see another tank rolling down my street again or run all over the city because there’s no cell service and I need to make sure that all of my friends and family are still alive, well, I’ll be good.
While I nurse my PTSD, here are some happier, metalier things that happened this week:
Next week brings even more betterer br00tal goodness – interviews, debuts, guest blogs, all that shit. It’s gonna get real up in this bitch. See ya then.
-AR
In case you’re just joining us, here’s the story thus far: The Rev died, Avenged Sevenfold announced that Mike Portnoy would be playing drums on their new album, and I wondered aloud, “Who will be the new permanent drummer for A7X?” Well, looks like the band can put off answering that last question for awhile, and Portnoy will now tour with M. Shadows and company “through the end of 2010.”
UPDATE: The actual line-up and dates for this tour after the jump. Still pretty awful. Original story below.
At some point, aren’t all these big package tours just gonna cannibalize one another? It seems like they’re all either competing for the same audience, or at least for a portion of the same audience. And now Metal Insider tells me that there’s gonna be another one, which, like Mayhem, will be sponsored by Rockstar Energy Drink: Uproar.
Gotta love the dudes whose job it is to sit around and think of new names for these things.
So Avenged Sevenfold are going to be playing one single stop of this Summer’s Mayhem Fest, on July 27 in Mansfield, MA. That strikes me as a pretty random location for A7X to show-up; they’re from the O.C. (Can I say “the O.C.” without sounding like a tool? As it turns out, no.), so it’s not like they just have to hop in the car and drive to the show.
But that’s neither here nor there; what I find really interesting about this announcement is that it means that sometime between now and July 27, A7X are going to have to hire a new drummer to replace The Rev, who, in case you haven’t heard, is no longer in the music business. Unless one or more of the drummers from the other bands on the tour are going to fill-in (not an unthinkable occurrence), or Mike Portnoy, who plays drums on the band’s new album, is doing the date (highly unlikely), or they’re planning to go all Genghis Tron on us (even less likely).
Hopefully the band will make some kind of announcement soon. Because while I know that three months seems like plenty of time to find a new drummer, you have to keep in mind that not only does said new drummer need to learn the set list, but he needs to go to the mall, get some ridiculous clothes, be re-christened with a silly nick name, etc., etc. You think they came up with “Zacky Vengeance” and “Synyster Gates” overnight? These things take time, man!
-AR
One last thought about Slash’s solo album, and then I promise to shut up about it for awhile.
Everyone who buys/downloads/whatever Slash the album will get “Nothing to Say,” a collaboration the axe-slinger player did with M. Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold. It ostensibly sounds like an A7X song with Slash on guitars. But what’s really interesting is that there’s an alternative version of the same exact song, this one entitled “Chains and Shackles,” on the Australian version of Slash. And this being 2010 and the internet being what it, we have both versions of the song, and therefore have a nice example of the various ways in which you can make a piece of music sound completely different from itself.
“Chains and Shackles,” you see, doesn’t have M. Shadows vocals or lyrics or melodies – it was done with ex-Queens of the Stone Ager Nick Oliveri instead. The intro, main riff, and even a large chunk of the guitar solo is completely identical in both songs – but the production style is completely different on each one, the outro is different, and “Chains” is a good minute shorter. That song has clearly been designed to sound like something off of Songs for the Deaf, and succeeds every bit as much as “Nothing to Say” does at sounding like a A7X tune. I don’t know if Oliveri and/or Shadows were personally involved with all of the changes made to each variation of the song or not, but it’s funny to see that Slash really IS like Zelig – a chameleon who just blends in with the crowd.
Here are the two versions of the song side-by-side:
By the way, if you’re wondering why one of these ended up on the album proper and the other only made it as an Australian bonus track, well… guess which two musicians share the same manager?
-AR
Ever seen Woody Allen’s Zelig? It’s a pseudo-documentary about a guy who immediately assumes the traits of whomever he’s with at the moment; put him in a room full of Chinese people and he’ll turn into a Chinese man, move him to a room full of Hasidim and he’ll suddenly appear to be Hasidic, and so on and so forth. It’s a(n obvious but still pretty funny) metaphor for a guy with no personality of his own.
Now, consider Slash. Guns N’ Roses folklore tells us that Slash is not the best judge of his own material, and often wanted to scrap some of Guns’ best songs; and, unfortunately, evidence suggests that this folklore is fact, and that Slash is a pretty ho-hum songwriter. Axl Rose has his legitimate insanity and over-sized, not entirely comprehensible artistic vision, but all Slash really seems to have is a desire to be like his heroes in Aerosmith and AC/DC, which is to say, a legacy act and purveyor of catchy but fairly middle-of-the-road rock. Consequently, a lot of the pressure on Slash-penned songs in the post-GN’R era is not just on the guitar playing of the Artist Formerly Known as Saul Hudson, but on the performances of whatever singer he’s working with at any given moment. Slash songs can be like underwritten roles in movies that way; you need the best character actors available to give them some personality, or they risk becoming boring.
Slash has personality (or at least persona) to burn, and it’s no shock that on Slash, his first solo record, he keeps up his up his end of the bargain in the guitar solo department. Despite the fact that he was never a revolutionary musician, Slash was always a very distinctive musician; a lot of people play the way he does, but no one sounds quite like him. But it is kind of a shock that on this, the album which is supposed to be a distinct and unique artistic statement outside the confines of his collaborations with various bands, Slash has very much allowed himself, like Zelig, to blend in with whomever was in the room at the moment.
I am going to assume that a decent portion of the followers of this site are themselves musicians with bands of their own. That is generally how it goes with metal. There are seamless lines blurred between the “fans” and the “bands” because, like myself, many metal patrons represent both categories. Without this large sector of musician fans, technically proficient bands that cater directly to this base (like Dream Theater, Meshuggah, and Necrophagiast) would be much less successful. So to those musicians, I would like to use this blog to shine a light on one of the harsh truths in all music and entertainment that many musicians choose to ignore -
Image matters a lot in this industry. In fact, it’s probably just as important as the music.
Click to read more…
So the Australian branch of iTunes has apparently uploaded thirty-second clips of all the songs from Slash’s forthcoming, self-titled solo album, and, of course, someone has uploaded all of those clips to YouTube. Gotta love the internet! So I thought we’d play one of our favorite games here at MetalSucks. It’s called “Let’s make premature judgments based on not very much actual music at all.” Listen to the clips in the video below, and then get my thoughts after the jump.
Vince brought the shits back with him from Egypt and in the past twenty-four hours I’ve been hit with a cold so bad that I’m probably gonna go to sleep right around the time I hit “publish” for this post. So before I pass out, here’s a run-down of what we did while Vince was playing Camel jockey:
Okay, NyQuil time. See ya Monday!!!
-AR
This is yet another story I probably don’t have to write, given that the sheer number of reader e-mails I’ve received about it suggest that you all know already. But in case you somehow haven’t heard, the headline says it all: Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy will play drums on the new Avenged Sevenfold album, filling in for recently deceased drummer James Owen “The Rev” Sullivan.
I guess that by now it’s old news that the drummer from AX7 is taking the celestial dirt nap for undisclosed “natural causes,” but I just realized that something is bugging me about this whole situation.
First of all, let’s establish something. I am NOT a fan of AX7. Never was, most likely never will be. I think that they’re killer musicians, especially their lead guitarist with the silly stage name, but that doesn’t make me a fan.
I’m not going to specualte as to why a 28 year old suddenly died because I know full well it was probably drugs, but I also know full well that not everyone actually lives out their image in real life. He could have had an un-diagnosed heart condition, or any other number of things that suddenly kill people of any age. So I’m not going to really sit around and guess what did him in, and honestly, I don’t really care.
Here’s what I do care about for some reason: the metal community once again showed me that with some exception, it’s just a lonely, dorky, socially inadequate boy’s club. I know that I’m going to get some hate for this, but whatever. Hear me out.
As you may have heard by now, Avenged Sevenfold drummer James Owen “The Rev” Sullivan was found dead in his home. He was only twenty-eight years old. They’re saying he passed from natural causes, although even the sunniest optimist amongst us would probably have a hard time believing that’s the case.
An official statement from the band reads -
It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we tell you of the passing today of Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan. Jimmy was not only one of the world’s best drummers, but more importantly he was our best friend and brother. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jimmy’s family and we hope that you will respect their privacy during this difficult time.
Jimmy you are forever in our hearts. We love you.
M Shadows, Synyster Gates, Zacky Vengeance and Johnny Christ
A7X are a band that has repeatedly divided the metal community, be it due to their transition from metalcore misfits to cock rock revivalists, or just the general theatrically of their act. But Sullivan was a talented dude, and this is some shitty news to end the year.
Last week, during one of my daily perusals of this very blog, I came across a rather scathing recounting of Killswitch Engage’s self-titled album, which came out earlier this year. This caught me a bit off guard, as I considered it to be one of my favorite albums of the year and a step in the right direction from Daylights Dies, which was at first very disappointing but grew on me after some time. I was even more surprised when I saw that most user comments tended to agree with the blog entry.
It’s hard to believe that Dime has been gone for five years, but December 8 will be the anniversary of one of metal’s bleakest moments. To cash-in on commemorate the event, Metal Hammer have enlisted a bunch of well-known acts to record Pantera covers (but not Damageplan covers, because, y’know, let’s get real here) for a CD that will come with the magazine. Metal Hammer has done this a few times in the past – I remember they had they entire Master of Puppets album re-recorded by various bands, including Mastodon, Machine Head, Chimaira and Trivium when that album reached its twentieth anniversary, and some of it was pretty good.
Get the complete track list for Metal Hammer’s Dime tribute disc after the jump, along with my thoughts in bold.
The Starbucks Incident
Yes, I am going to continue to bitch about Slash. I understand that Slash is not Jimi Hendrix but this might be the single biggest betrayal to my formative years since Metallica released everything they’ve released from Load on, and I need to mourn.
So. Some lady says that the following singers are all on Slash’s new solo album, How Could Taking My Cues from Carlos Santana Possibly Go Wrong? I have added my own thoughts because that’s what we do around here. Click to read more…
Suck. Embarrasing. Awful. Ear-raping. This is just… wow. Yes, it’s real, and you can read the story behind it on YouTube user StudioZeeber’s video page.
Perhaps even more mindblowing is that there are literally dozens of videos just like this one of young kids covering “Unholy Confessions” in basements and high school gymnasiums. I’ve assembled some choice cuts after the jump for your enjoyment / bewilderment.
Even if you’re one of those people who only listen to metal, hardcore, or other such heavy music styles, you have to concede the fact that many of the musicians you love do not share that singular devotion to one genre. Some artists go even further and apply their broad tastes to the music they make. (Mike Patton might be one of the best examples of this.) That being said, I was admittedly quite surprised to learn that Melvins drummer Dale Crover plays on indie rocker Lou Barlow’s forthcoming solo album Goodnight Unknown. And not just on one track…
| The Blog | Columns | Partners | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home | Eyal | Metal Injection | About Us / Contact |
| Exclusives | Dallas | Blast Beat Network | Advertising |
| Reviews | Paul Masvidal | The Syndicate | Privacy Policy |
| Interviews | Misha "Bulb" Mansoor | ||
| Contests | |||
| Cinemetal |
MetalSucks v3.0 | Contact: news [at] metalsucks [dot] net
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).
Website by StudioAKT
