MetalSucks

I’m usually anti-cover album – what’s the point, really? – but I have to admit that I’m more than a little curious to hear Children of Bodom’s Skeletons in the Closet… but mostly for non-metal or not-really-metal reasons. I mean, I’m sure that COB can pull off Slayer and Sepultura songs without breaking a sweat, but what’s it gonna sound like when Alexi and company do Creedence? Kenny Rogers? Pat Benatar? Their Brit-Brit cover (which will be on the new disc) sounded surprisingly Bodom-like, as though the Reigning White Trash Queen of Pop had never even existed. And can you think of another melodeathrash band more suited to do hair metal covers of Poison and W.A.S.P.?

So. Skeletons in the Closet comes out September 23 on Spinefarm. The band is now streaming two new re-makes, of Suicidal Tendencies’ “War Inside My Head” and Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell,” on their MySpace page. Throw back a few shots and play ‘em loud. That’s how COB would want it, motherfuckers.

-AR

At the risk of sounding disrespectful: we cannot look at Michael Jackson through rose-colored glasses just because of his untimely passing. The dude was, to put it mildly, a weirdo, and probably very, very crazy. And the fact that he is now dead does not change that fact.

That being said, back when the guy was slightly less crazy (or, at least, the general public was less aware of his craziness), there’s no denying that he was major talent who had a huge impact on music. Denying this fact because of his later follies is just foolish. And even though I’ve been listening to metal since before I had pubes, I freely admit that I owned a copy of Thriller long before I owned a copy of Reign in Blood.

Jackson apparently had some kind of affinity for hard rock guitarists, or, at least, had someone in his camp who did. Besides employing Jennifer Batten for years, Jackson worked with Eddie Van Halen (”Beat It”), Slash (”Give in to Me”), and Steve Stevens (”Smooth Criminal”).

For the usual dumb reasons, none of the videos for these collaborations are embeddable, but you can easily find them on the net. In the meantime, here’s Jacko and Slash:

On a more cynical note, except at least one, if not more, of these guitarists to start exploiting their relationship with Jackson for publicity any second now.

-AR

I haven’t watched any of Sam Kinison’s old stand-up in years, so I have no idea how his work holds up – but when I was a younger, I thought he was just about the funniest human being that had ever lived, and when he died, I was really, really upset about it.

I heard recently that HBO is making a TV movie about Kinison’s life – which is why I was thinking about him again – and I suddenly remembered Kinison’s video for his cover of “Wild Thing.”

Today the video seems vastly inferior to Brian Posehn’s “Metal by Numbers,” because a) that song is actually about metal, b) that song isn’t a cover, and c) that song doesn’t have Tommy Lee in its video. But at the time, this clip was the shit – I mean, in addition to the aforementioned Lee, it also features Slash, Billy Idol, Richie Sambora, members of Aerosmith and Ratt, and Jessica Hahn’s tits.

-AR

If you haven’t heard about the laughing stock that is Microsoft Songsmith by now you’re either dead, completely tuned out, or my grandma. In a nutshell, Songsmith is a new computer program released by Microsoft that automatically creates cheesy sounding, karaoke-style backing music to whatever you sing into it. It’s the modern-day version of those cheesy ’80s Casio keyboards that played a beat and chord progression whenever you hit a new note, only for your voice. But here’s the catch: it’s a complete piece of shit. Since its release a couple of weeks back, the Webernets have exploded with Songsmith-ed versions of famous songs, featuring publicly available a cappella tracks piped into this disaster of a computer program. And the results are simply marvelous and endlessly entertaining.

After the jump, a look at some of the tastiest Songsmith creations based on songs by your metal faves.

Click to read more…

As far as I can tell, in the year 2008 the Steve Stevens fan club consists of exactly three people: Vince Neilstein, myself, and Allyson at Bring Back Glam. So I was happy yesterday to find that Allyson had written something of an ode to Stevens, which included the below music video for the Billy Idol axeman’s Grammy award winning theme to that 1980s bastion of homoeroticism, Top Gun.

Y’know what? All these years, I had no friggin’ idea that Steve Stevens had anything to do with those infamous Top Gun guitars. I mean, the music was credited to Harold Faltermeyer, which means Stevens was probably just a session player, but still, if I know all the lyrics to the Stevens/Vince Neil collaboration “Sister of Pain,” I should probably have known that.

Gotta love Stevens’ hair in this video. It’s like Vince’s beard, if Vince’s beard were on his head instead of his face. And was gay.

-AR

Last week I gleefully reported that Memory Crash, the solo album from Billy Idol and ex-Vince Neil all-around-awesome shredmaster (and Brooklyn Jew) Steve Stevens, had hit the shelves nationwide (or at least the shelves of the Amazon warehouse). So it came as a surprise to see a press release today — one full week after the scheduled release date — announcing that the release date has been moved to March 4th. Pushed-back album release dates aren’t uncommon these days due to the product not being ready in time, distribution problems, etc, but generally when an album is pushed back the announcement is made, ya know, before the scheduled release date.

Anyway, MetalSucks is perhaps the only website to actually give a shit and this certainly doesn’t temper my excitement for Memory Crash. Stevens’ performance on the Vince Neil solo effort Exposed is far, far underrated; Neil pretty much gave him free reign to take it over the top, and take it over the top he did. Not to speak of his amazing guitar work (and songwriting) for Billy Idol,which goes without saying (but there, I said it anyway).

For a preview of what’s in store (or not, as it were. ba-dum-bum ching!), check out Stevens’ MySpace page. The title track alone is a good taste, Vai-virtuosity meets Idol-accessibility. King’s X crooner Doug Pinnick also makes a guest appearance on the album, as does drummer Brian Tichy (Idol, ex-Ozzy).

-VN

This is the news that Axl, myself, and approximately 7 other guitar dorks worldwide have been eagerly awaiting. Steve Stevens — Billy Idol’s guitarist for years, Vince Neil’s guitarist on the Exposed album, and king Brooklyn Jew (birth name: Steve Schneider –take a look at that shnoz!) — will be releasing a new solo album, Memory Crash, on January 29th via Steve Vai’s Magna Carta record label. Doug Pinnick of King’s X makes a guest appearance lending his soulful voice to one track, as does Billy Idol / ex-Ozzy bassist Brian Tichy.

Those who have followed Steve Stevens closely over the years as I have — and I’m guessing there’s maybe one of you who has — know what an underrated and incredible guitarist he is. In addition to writing all those classic Idol riffs (”Rebel Yell,” “White Wedding,” etc etc etc), Stevens absolutely tore it up on Vince Neil’s Exposed record, his 1993 post-Motley solo debut. He wrote some amazing songs, and fuck did he ever go nuts on the guitar on that album. He’s also done a bunch of experimental stuff over the years (Bozzio / Levin / Stevens) and some studio work here and there.

Stevens says about the record, it’s “a journey through another dimension, It’s virtually musical cinema.” Citing influences such as prog-rock giants Pink Floyd, Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, he continues, “I’ve always loved that about the prog records, like Dark Side Of The Moon. You enter this little theater of the mind. It’s a true headphone experience.”

Cool.

-VN