MetalSucks

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

To review: last year Wes Borland joined Marilyn Manson. This seemed a little odd because while Manson and Borland both like to play dress-up, Manson is a known Limp Bizkit hater – a fact which Manson explained away at the time by claiming that Borland “used to be in a really terrible band that he left because he felt that it was a destructive force in art.”

Of course, this little marriage didn’t last very long because Borland went running back to Bizkit, thus making Manson look like a fool or, at best, pretty naieve.

So, of course, Manson being the God of Shit Talkers, he has now lashed out at Borland in Kerrang:

“We almost made the mistake of having Wes play guitar but he re-joined Limp Bizkit,” Manson explains. “That move forever eradicated my feelings on his choices in life as an artist.”

When asked why he thinks Borland went back to his old band, Manson said: “That is what I find myself asking when I urinate sometimes. He said he would never go back. If the reason is money, then I’d rather roll up a 5 note and shove it up my urethra. I’d rather set my dick on fire than join something that I hated.”

Click to read more…

Twenty days ago it was announced that Burton C. Bell and Dino Cazares would be joining forces for a new project with Gene Hoglan and Byron Stroud; at the time, I wondered why the hell what is basically a Fear Factory reunion wasn’t going to be called Fear Factory.

Well, turns out it will be called Fear Factory.

Click to read more…

If you go here you can watch a video of Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows being interviewed about the whole nu-GN’R/Velvet Revolver rivalry. I can’t embed it because the people at Artisan News Service, who conducted the interview, are no good smelly fuck faces, but here’s a transcription of the relevant part:

“I go more towards the Use Your Illusion records, and I know that [Axl Rose] had a major part in those. You listen to the Velvet Revolver records and you can tell that it’s more of a straight-ahead rock band. And a lot of people like that… and it’s not a diss on them, but they have a short attention span… From the new stuff I’ve heard and the demos, I can tell that Axl had the biggest part in [the Illusion albums]… the lyrics… the vocal stylings… that to me was the major part of Guns N’ Roses. Even though you can’t have Guns N’ Roses without Slash and those guys, but… just, to me, Axl was the most important part of that.”

Now, that’s not exactly an inflammatory comment – in fact, it’s pretty even handed – but it’s still hard to imagine, say, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum (to say nothing of Izzy Stradlin) not taking serious issue with Shadows giving Axl so much credit and saying Velvet Revolver is for people with short attention spans.

So, I gotta wonder: did Shadows and Slash discuss Axl being the most important part of GN’R when Slash played with A7X last night?

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

Directly from the horse’s mouth comes the news that “guitarist n’ songwriter [emphasis added to point out mental retardation] Dj Ashba… officially replaces current NIN guitarist Robin Finck” in Guns N’ Roses. “Once Dj’s name was in the hat, the hat disappeared!!” benevolent dictator Axl Rose exclaims, doing his best impersonation of my Uncle Morty.

Showing that Rose at least has a sense of humor, the statement concludes: “Now, one step closer to the abyss, Ashba joins a band who’s all time roster is nearly as long as it’s [sic] founder Axl Rose’s rap sheet!” Oh, Axl, you scamp.

Click to read more…

To: W. Axl Rose

From: Double-Jew Axl Rosenberg

Re: Plans for a Guns N’ Roses Summer Stadium Tour in 2009

Dear Axl Rose,

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?!?!

Click to read more…

The Huffington Post is reporting that Courtney Love and The Wrestler star Mickey Rourke are secretly dating. I find that kinda funny, given that The Wrestler features a line about what a pussy Kurt Cobain was, and Rourke is a known accomplice of Axl Rose, who famously feuded with Love and Cobain back in the day.

But there’s nothing funny about the way Courtney Love’s face looks.

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Today is Axl Rose’s 46th birthday (!), and he decided to celebrate by giving his first official interview in nine years. The interview, with Billboard, was conducted by e-mail, and Rose reveals that one of the reasons he granted the industry rag’s request was because he “liked the questions,” so apparently the only way to get in good with the guy is to give him up-front approval on everything (no real shock there). Still, there’s some entertaining nuggets in the interview, which, even from the point of view of an Axl apologist such as myself, is pretty friggin’ ridiculous. Check out the highlight reel after the jump, with our observations in italics.

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Even before we were an “industry type” (I think we can safely call ourselves that now), I loved the fact that Roadrunner Records posts their staffers and some of the artists “best of” lists every year; these people work at/with one of the biggest metal labels out there, so it’s pretty interesting to see what they were grooving on from year to year.

The 2008 lists are on Roadrunner’s website now. Here are some highlights:

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Monday was 2008 Sucks day here at MetalSucks, but we rocked out the rest of the week with some ridiculous shit as per usual:

• We announced our best-of lists for 2008. Check ‘em out.
• Contest: You tell us why you hate the holidays, we send you 100 CDs. Sweet deal.
• PA woman tortures kitties with piercings.
• We spoke with Misery Index’s Jason Netherton and Three Inches of Blood’s Cam Pipes.
• Corporate rock still sells, but Chinese Democracy apparently doesn’t.
• We hated on this band, this band and this band, the latter of whom sent their fans here in droves to hate us back.
• We wondered whether Roadrunner Records actually dropped Amanda Palmer because of her “belly fat” (hint: they didn’t even drop her).
• God Forbid released the cover artwork and tracklisting of Earthsblood, and Pack of Wolves (ex-At All Cost member) released new music.

Tonight it’s new The End Records-signees Hull for Kip and me. Have a good one, everybody.

It’s the holiday season so there isn’t much to report in the way of new releases, with labels instead opting to cash in on best-of collections, holiday-themed albums and catalog albums (industry speak for albums that aren’t the band’s most recent release). That said, there’s a really interesting subplot happening on the Soundscan Charts this week.

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This coming Monday the entire MetalSucks staff will each release Top 10 lists for the entire year in metal of 2008. Get psyched! Things have been slowing down here at the MS Mansion as the holidays approach, but we still found ways to keep it fun this week:

• Axl Rose finally did some press to support Chinese Democracy… but as usual, there’s an asterisk.
• We debuted a new, exclusive Daath track — a medley of Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Dying Fetus covers.
• We interviewed members of Clutch, Bison B.C., Dir En Grey, and Fear Factory / Arkaea.
• Job For a Cowboy’s Jonny Davy blogged about urination and hotel trashing, while Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum’s guest blog claimed that Entombed’s Uprising and Morning Star are two of the most underrated albums of all time. Oh, and The Haunted’s Peter Dolving blogged about sleep.
• Gojira’s Joe Duplantier orders you to stop the killing of baby seals but apparently has no problem with ripping New York City a new arsehole.
• Meshuggah + Cynic + The Faceless = The Erection Tour of 2009.
• The metal industry lost a kindred soul. R.I.P. Adrian Bromley.

After weeks of wondering why the fuck Axl Rose was doing nothing to promote Chinese Democracy (which is selling poorly, to put it mildly), early this morning “The Howard Hughes of Rock” added another bizarre chapter to his ongoing saga by answering fans’ questions on the message boards for popular GN’R fan sites Here Today… Gone to Hell! and MyGNR.com (Under the username “Dexter,” because he’s apparently a fan of the television show and has named his cat after the titular serial killer. Seriously.).

Aside from what his reputation may have led us to believe, this was not a Dubya-like pre-planned press conference, and Rose didn’t appear offended by a variety of questions actually worth asking (e.g., Why did the album take so long?, Why did the old band break-up?, etc.). That being said, his answers were typically enigmatic, strange, and, in some cases, unsatisfactory, and anyone who thinks this “promotion” will help sales of the album is kidding themselves – casual fans may hear about this unexpected happening, but it can’t possibly have the same effect as, say, a Rolling Stone cover.

That being said, I don’t think it was Rose’s intention to boost sales* so much as it was simply to communicate, in whatever capacity, with the hardcore fans that continue to hold a candle for him. And that’s actually commendable. You could argue that communicating with fans is what Rose is supposed to do and that patting him on the back for this “interview” of sorts is like rewarding someone for not breaking the law; but the GN’R faithful can give Trekkies a run for their money in the “inappropriately passionate” department, and why rain on their parade? They’ve put up with a lot of shit over the years and deserve this little ray of sunshine.

After the jump, read some of the more interesting Q&As from Rose and his fans, including info on an upcoming video, the (seemingly) already planned re-release of Chinese Democracy, the next GN’R album, and more.

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We don’t always agree here at the MS Mansion. Despite what Axl said on Wednesday in his editorial, I would like to go on record as saying that Chinese Democracy — at least in the commercial sense — is an epic fail. By now you’ve all seen the numbers; despite a 9-day sales week (including Black Friday), a big promotional push from one of the nation’s top electronics retailers and the hype generated from a 17-year wait, Guns Axl N’ Roses’ long-awaited Chinese Democracy shifted a mere 261,191 units in its first week of release, enough to land the album at #3 on the Soundscan charts. That’s approximately one-third the number of albums sold first week by the other legacy rock/metal acts who released albums this year, AC/DC and Metallica, who both debuted at #1.

Ouch.

So what exactly went wrong?

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As you are no doubt aware by now, Chinese Democracy was released last week to what are generally considered disappointing sales figures. Here in the States, the album sold 261,000 copies to land at number three on the Billboard charts; that’s a little more than Velvet Revolver’s debut, Contraband, sold in its first week back in 2004, when the industry was actually in better shape – but Contraband didn’t take fifteen years and didn’t cost thirteen million dollars. So that number just ain’t really cutting it in most people’s eyes.

But the number actually strikes me as being kind of impressive, when you consider how little promotion was actually done for the record. At the Best Buy where I bought my copy of the album, not only was there no floor display or posters announcing its release, but when I couldn’t find a copy on the shelves (in either the “new release” section of the “Guns N’ Roses” section), one employee actually tried to tell me that they weren’t carrying the disc – despite the fact that Best Buy is the only store in America that are stocking the record (Another, slightly less retarded store worker was able to find the album for me no problem. As it turns out, I could have walked ten blocks to the Virgin Megastore, who are selling Canadian imports of the CD at a slightly higher price.). And if reports are any indication, I’m not the only one who experienced a Best Buy blunder.

And that’s on top of the fact that, as we’ve noted, the man himself, W. Axl Rose, hasn’t come out of hiding to grant interviews, shoot a music video, tour, or in any way acknowledge that his masterpiece is finally seeing the light of day after years of waiting. I think this fact struck most Axl fans as a typically bizarre/enigmatic/just plain dumb move on Rose’s part – I don’t think it actually occurred to anyone that Rose might be, y’know, actually missing, as Music-News.com is now reporting.

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With seemingly every band in the world reuniting right now, it seemed like it was only a matter of time ’til the members of Faith No More decided to tour again. Frankly, there’s just too high a possibility of making a lot of money not to do a reunion tour. I know that’s crass, but we’re all big boys and girls here at MetalSucks so let’s just be real and admit that “We thought playing together again would be fun” is not the driving reason behind most of these reunions.

But I digress.

SO. Kerrang! is reporting this rumor that FNM are, indeed, now getting back together in ‘09, and that venues have even been put on hold, etc. Bassist/guy-who-gets-asked-about-being-in-FNM-more-than-anyone-else-who-isn’t Mike Patton, Billy Gould, has been tacitly denying the reunion, but in a manner which I personally find about as convincing as Pamela Anderson’s breasts.

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HOLY FUCKING SHIT, have you guys read the liner notes for this fucking thing? “Produced by Axl Rose and Caram Costanzo. Mixed by Andy Wallace, Caram Costanzo and Axl Rose. Final Mixing: Caram Costanzo and Axl Rose.” “Additional production and preproduction by Roy Thomas Baker.” “Additional Production: Sean Beaven.” “Additional and/or initial Engineering.” Those are just the whole album credits. Each song gets its own “initial production” credit, too, and, in one instance, an “initial arrangement by” shout out. The phrase “reamped, edited and engineered” appears at least twice. Fourteen recording studios are listed, spread out over four cities on two continents. There’s no fewer than five guitarists (six if you count Rose himself), two keyboard players (three if you count Rose), two drummers, and two composer/orchestrators cited (The fact that only one bass player, Tommy Stinson consistently plays on the album seems like something of a marvel… oh, wait, that Chris Pitman dude everyone calls “Mother Goose” for some reason plays bass on “If the World.” Nevvvvvvermind.). Donatella Versace, Kid Rock, Lars Ulrich, and Mickey Rourke are all thanked, alongside guys with names like “Mookie” and “Worm.” THERE’S A CREDIT FOR “LOGIC.” I DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK THAT MEANS. IS THERE A COMPUTER PROGRAM CALLED “LOGIC” OR ARE PEOPLE ACTUALLY BEING CREDITED WITH SUPPLYING SOME LOGIC????????

I’m not making this shit up. I couldn’t make this shit up. Oh, to be a fly on the wall during the recording of Chinese Democracy! It must have made the production of Apocalypse Now seem like a long weekend on Fire Island.

But here’s the thing: as incredibly, insanely, undeniably fascinating as all that shit is, it really has nothing to with any critical analysis of the album.

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The album we’ve waited 17 years for has finally arrived (stay put for our own Axl’s review later today). But where the fuck is Axl Rose? Typically when bands have an album coming out they like to do this little thing called “press” to help generate buzz and sell records. But Axl is nowhere to be seen, having not made a single public appearance or even so much as a statement since the album’s release date was announced. No press conferences, no music video, no interviews, no talk shows… NOTHING.

Click to read more…

Dr. Pepper’s website is still not working, but that hasn’t stopped the world from participating in Chinese Democracy mania. I stopped by the Best Buy on 23rd St. (where door signs read “The Most Anticipated Album Release Ever!”) to buy my copy yesterday, and rumors from an unconfirmed source have it that one Axl Rosenberg was there at 9am to watch the doors open. At the moment I’m writing this sentence, Blabbermouth’s most recent 5 headlines are all GNR-centric (see screen cap, above) and TV news outlets in countries around the world are covering GNR mania.

Will the truncated, two-day first week be enough to snag the top spot on the chart? Will it outsell the other two big rock releases of late 2008, Metallica’s Death Magnetic and AC/DC’s Black Ice? Will its second week top its first week, boosted by Black Friday and a full week, and will it sustain enough steam to beat Kanye West and The Killers? Will there ever be democracy in China???

-VN

It was a crazy week at the MS Mansion. Vince passed out in the bathroom after a 48 hour coke binge only to be awakened by Axl, whom, after coming home that morning from a strip club with The Blogronaut and Dallas, was viciously attacked by a bunch of angry Hinder fans stalking him outside the MS Mansion gates. Actually, none of that happened. But here’s what did:

• Axl offered up a bounty on Hinder’s Austin Winkler.
• Chinese Democracy leaked, and almost two decades of waiting finally ended.
• Whitechapel became the new controversial band du’jour.
• The Faceless killed it on the Soundscan charts.
• Today Is the Day’s Steve Austin’s house almost burned down.
• A video of a fat kid singing along to Dimmu Borgir. Nuff said.
• Vince went Jew on Jew with Genghis Tron’s Mookie Singerman, only to find out he’s not as Jewish as he once claimed.
• Tommy Lee reformed Methods of Mayhem and Vince Neil announced plans for another solo record, sans Steve Stevens. We scratched our heads.

We’ll see you next week, albeit it’ll be an abbreviated one due to the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. Toodles.