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As you may be aware, MetalSucks recently invited  musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere to tell us what their favorite albums of 2011 have been. But the always-unique Eugene S. Robinson of Oxbow fame turned in a list of a somewhat different nature. The silver lining is, his list is so great that we opted to run it anyway! And so please enjoy Mr. Robinson’s list of “Top Ten Records for Making Everybody in the Room Uncomfortable…”

10. Sylvia, Pillow Talk – Sure, she started Sugarhill Records, which was on the map for giving birth to what Morrissey (more on him later) would call “pop thuggery” in the form of hip hop, and sure, she just died, but nothing says “douche chills” like her making fuck noises on this record. For like twenty minutes. Complete with baby talk and the lyric, “What I’m teaching you tonight, boy, you never learned in school.” In fact, any song with fuck noises in it gets on this list. Think I’m a prude? Try playing this shit when your mom’s around. Also, why does heavy metal, outside of Black Flag’s Slip It In, have so little simulated sex going on in it?

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¿¡Q-VO, CULEROS?! Te gustan EL MOSH?! Pienso que sí! Escuchame si te quiero EL MOSH tambien!!!

As you can tell from my terrible Spanish, I’m just a dumb güero who can barely tell a tamale from a taqueria. I might not be the master of foreign languages, but I do know that Latinos always been a big part of metal/punk/hardcore (even though nobody ever talks about it). Not only that, but Latinos might be a driving force in the future of the genre — in fact, I think the next big thing will be middle-class white kids jocking Mexicans!

In this post, I will discuss the past, present and future of Latinos in metal/hardcore/etc. Whether you’re a pinche white person like me or a Latino, tell me if you see things the same as I do. Feel free to tell me I’m an idiot/racist/troll if you want, but I would prefer legitimate discussion since I am genuinely interested in this topic.

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Black Flag will never reunite in any form that even remotely satisfies its generations of fans. But perhaps the coolest “not-quite-a-reunion” yet has just been announced.

Chuck Dukowski, Black Flag’s original bassist, has just recruited Eugene Robinson from Oxbow/Vice contribution to front a new band called Black Face. They’ve just recorded four songs that were written around My War-era Flag but that nobody in the world apart from Chuck has ever heard before. The tracks are called “Monster,” “I Want To Kill You,” “Where Will We Run,” and “Leave Me Out to Rot.” The band, which features former Oxbow drummer Tom Dobrov and Insects vs. Robots guitarist Milo Gonzalez, are also going to start playing all the songs that Chuck wrote for Black Flag live.

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INTRO BUST

Everybody knows that Hatebreed is by far the most popular hardcore band in the history of the planet, but not everybody knows that they are beyond a doubt the best hardcore band of all time. I can feel the butthurt starting already, but lettuce be srs, brahs: no other hardcore band has consistently dropped album after album of brutal mosh jams. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a step through history and prove it! In more-or-less chronological order, I will go through the bands who some might say hold the title of “best hardcore band of all times” and illustrate why Hatebreed is #1.

Go!

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In 1968, Gary Moore (above, top left) was just 16 years old when he joined future Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott in the Dublin blues-rock quartet Skid Row*. So, Moore was a charter member of the Society of Overachieving Teen Guitarists that would later include Steve Vai (19, Frank Zappa), Zakk Wylde (19, Ozzy Osbourne), and Devin Townsend (19, Steve Vai). Pretty elite company.

After a pair of short stints in Thin Lizzy, Moore again reunited with Lynott in 1979 for the band’s seminal Black Rose: A Rock Legend (see Axl Rose’s Black Rose-themed tattoo here, upper left). More than twenty solo albums followed, including 2008’s Bad For You Baby.

British tabloid The Sun reports that Moore, 58, was discovered unresponsive by medical staff in a Spain hotel suite where there were “definite signs of alcohol.” The Sun also quotes a source at the hotel who has stated that Moore “seemed fine when he left [the hotel bar] around 11 pm.” A post mortem has been scheduled.

After the jump, check out the MetalSucks round up of tributes to Moore by members of Obituary, Opeth, Black Flag, Testament, Black Sabbath, and mo(o)re.

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Steven Blush’s American Hardcore: A Tribal History is one of the great rock n’ roll history books. And now it’s bigger. Originally published in 2001, the Feral House book nails the golden age of old-school hardcore, from the movement’s inception to the watershed year 1986. The book inspired a documentary, the 2006 film American Hardcore. The movie is a must-see that has inspired as much griping and controversy as the book.

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“BIG PANTS WASTE PRECIOUS FABRIC”

Step into my Nocturnus time machine and take a magical journey with me into a time long, long ago, an excursion into a world that scarcely resembles our own. In this world — we’ll call it Moshtopia — hardcore kids are known for wearing giant, baggy pants, not skinny jeans; there are people under 30 that know who Black Flag is; and metalcore bands worship Krishna, not Christ. This is not a fanciful episode of Jojo’s Bizarre Adeventure fan fiction, my friends, — it is the strange and wonderful world of mid-90s hardcore!

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We’re not huge punk-lovers here at Metalisbad but this certainly seems worthy of mention…

The (anti?) super group OFF! is made up of Keith Morris (Circle Jerks, Black Flag) with Steven McDonald (Redd Kross), Dmitri Coats (Burning Brides) and Mario Rubalcaba (Earthless, Rocket from the Crypt, Hot Snakes). Vice Records is putting out four EPs in a box as a debut in November, and the first 7″ came out last week.

OFF! will play a CMJ show TONIGHT at Club Europa in their first NYC appearance ever (with Cerebral Ballzy).

More vids after the hoo-hah…

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So many great frontmen either rest on their laurels or otherwise spiral downwards, and to a certain extent we excuse this state of affairs and even come to accept it. None of us ever really expect Ozzy Osbourne to truly impress us ever again. We might be entertained by his latest record, or even catch a fleeting glimpse of what endeared us to him, but we aren’t expecting a Johnny Cash styled career reboot from the guy. Not only are his best days behind him, but his second-best are as well.

On that same point, Keith Morris doesn’t need to make good music anymore. His hallowed name has already been recorded in the hardcore history books thanks to his founding roles in Black Flag and Circle Jerks. Yet his latest project, the simply and provocatively monikered OFF!, is causing quite a stir as a remarkably authentic continuation of the work Morris began roughly three decades ago. Bolstered by veterans of Redd Kross and Rocket From The Crypt/Hot Snakes axis, OFF! slip the punk back in hardcore, bridging a divide that has exponentially widened since the 1980s. The above clip is for “Darkness”, a spittle-flecked, fast-n-furious track off the SST-referencing 1st EP 7″ — featuring sleeve art from Raymond “I-Designed-Every-Fucking-Black-Flag-Record” Pettibon — out as of today on Vice Records. I get chills hearing Morris bark with the same dead-on intensity he had back in the Nervous Breakdown days.

Take a minute — well, 59 seconds, to be exact — and watch the video if you have any love for classic hardcore. U.S. tourdates are below.

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Seattle’s Akimbo seem like they should be easy to classify, but many subtle elements of various aggressive sub-genres find their way into the band’s crushing sound and offer inviting ears a few curve-balls along the way. Guitarist Aaron Walters [one of ELEVEN axe-slingers over the band's career (!)] claims in the below interview that the explanation started out as “Black Sabbath meets Black Flag meets The Melvins”, which is pretty spot-on in representing the stony thump-grooves/rawkish punk asthetic/noiseful attributes, but I feel compelled to throw a couple more names in the hat, most notably Motorhead (so many parts are teeming with Lemmy’s uptempo forward-thrusting momentum) and local angular heart-core heros Botch [whose bassist Brian Cook went on to pummel in MS faves These Arms Are Snakes (RIP) and space-proggateers Russian Circles]. Bluesy, fuzzed-out Zeppelin-y jamouts meld with abrasive sludge to forge a style that is instantly familiar but somehow unexpectedly original in the songwriting.

These daze Akimbo has refined their sound and create a more soothing heavy-scape, as exemplified by their most recent 2008 album Jersey Shores, “a concept album inspired by a series of mysterious shark attacks which occurred on the beaches of New Jersey in 1916. This latest effort showed a substantial deviation in style from previous recordings, which can be attributed in part to Aaron Walters’ contributions as a guitarist/writer.” (Wiki) Original founding members Jon Weisnewski (bass, vocals) and Nat Damm (drums) continue to sustain a furious and punishing rhythm section while exploring new textures throughout.

Funny that they released this album the year before another Jersey Shore became such a huge worldwide phenomenon — I’m sure Akimbo has been hearing all about that for quite some time now, probably both to their amusement and chagrin.

Speaking of which, have you seen poof’d tanster tits Snooki get punched in the face from last season? Now that’s metal.

Visit Akimbo on Everyone’sSpace

Read previous Akimbo posts by Vince and moi, and Christopher Roddy’s review of Jersey Shores

Let’s all sludge past the, whatchamacallit……oh yeah, jumpppp, for more Akimbo live videos and an interview.

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Black Flag — at least the Henry Rollins fronted version that most people associate with — won’t be reuniting, ever. Rollins doesn’t need the payday and has shown zero interest in playing music these days, favoring his acting and writing careers instead. But informed fans of the pioneering California hardcore act know that Rollins was one of a handful of vocalists that played in the band. One of those who preceded him was Ron Reyes, best known for his work on 1980′s Jealous Again EP. Though he may not have been as revered as Keith Morris or Dez Cadena, Reyes’ part on that seminal recording will forever grant the-artist-also-known-as-Chavo-Pederast a cache of street cred from hardcore purists.

So it’s pretty cool to learn that he reunited with Black Flag mastermind Greg Ginn at a Vancouver concert celebrating Reyes’ fiftieth birthday. The legendary guitarist joined Reyes and his backing band onstage to play a few tracks including “Jealous Again” (check out the video above) and “Revenge”. While there’s no indication that this is anything but a one-off gig, I suspect that fans would welcome a proper reunion tour from any incarnation of the band. With Morris busy with his new band OFF! (including an upcoming gig at the punk extravaganza known as Riot Fest) and Cadena playing in the current Misfits incarnation, a Reyes-fronted reunion with Ginn and any of the former rhythm section players could be pretty cool. Maybe Rollins could plug it in his Vanity Fair column!

-GS

To celebrate the release of Sick of it All’s awesome new album, Based on a True Story, we asked SOIA vocalist Lou Koller to compile the definitive list of quintessential hardcore albums. Luckily for us and all of you, he agreed! So we’ll be running one entry a day from Lou’s list of the top-ten (+1) hardcore records of all time for the next couple of weeks. You can read his first installment here; the second one is after the jump…

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My good friend Rob at Metal Injection thinks that “SNL was actually pretty good this week,” and while I love Rob, I have to violently disagree: a friend and I watched the show when we were so blitzed that watching SNL actually seemed like a good idea, and I think we still only laughed two or three times. And I’m sorry, but Them Crooked Vultures are lame.

One of the better sketches, though, was the below, which… well, the less you know about it beyond that fact that Dave Grohl is in it, the better. Suffice it to say, the evidence is growing that there’s at least one writer at SNL who knows what’s up. If anyone knows who that writer is, please drop me a line. I’d love to interview him or her and ask if they think the show might ever actually be good again.

NOTE: I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with the video embed, but you can watch the skit here.

-AR

Last year, former Billy Corgan Zwan-mate David Pajo released an LP of lo-fi acoustic Misfits covers. Surprisingly, these bare compositions–drowned in tape hiss–worked rather well. Now as open-minded as I am about artists reinterpreting the work of other artists to make new songs, I was admittedly a little taken aback when I heard about an upcoming performance that will feature classic hardcore punk songs converted into classical music.

Yeah, you read that right. THIS IS ACTUALLY FUCKING HAPPENING!

Sebastian Meissner, Germany’s well-known producer of electronic music, who also works under the name Klimek, collaborates with Kwartludium, one of Poland’s most innovative classical/avant-garde quartets. Together, as Solid State Transmitters, they perform an homage to the artists and sound of California’s infamous punk label SST Records, often described as the most influential and popular underground indie label of the 1980s. Essential songs from the SST catalog will be reinterpreted in a surprising, strikingly beautiful manner, to reveal their persisting uniqueness and relevance.

Now I’m familiar with Meissner’s folktronica-ish Klimek material, and I’m not much of a fan. So it doesn’t fill me with confidence that this ensemble’s take on SST bands like Black Flag, Husker Du, Meat Puppets and Minutemen will be at all to my liking. It sounds like some seriously pretentious, ironically artsy hipster bullshit, if you ask me. Let’s not forget that SST also put out a whole mess of Saint Vitus records back in the day too.

Even though this February 4th concert at David Rubenstein Atrium at New York’s Lincoln Center wont cost you any money to attend, it might potentially cost you loads of credibility. See you there? I hope not!

-GS

[Gary Suarez usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

As one of the chief riff providers for swaggercore titans Every Time I Die, Andy Williams takes pride in making the discordant into catchy. For a perfect example of this, look no further than the band’s latest (MetalSucks-approved) album, New Junk Aesthetic. Distilling the band’s decade-plus essence into a tight half hour, it’s a satisfying mix of thunderous heaviness and easily the most appealing material the band have put to tape. But while he’s often overshadowed by vocalist Keith Buckley’s relentless wiseassery, it’s his and Jordan Buckley’s Skynard-by-way-of-Dillinger-Escape-Plan guitar work that make the band stand out and ultimately worthwhile.

A self-described “chatty Cathy,” Andy Williams was remarkably frank and refreshingly earnest in a recent interview with MetalSucks on the eve of the release of New Junk Aesthetic. Among other things, he discussed why he can listen to the new album and none of the band’s other material, his thoughts on the new Converge record, the changing landscape of the scene he came up in, and life over at ETID’s new label, Epitaph.

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This morning, I received the following e-mail from reader Parker Werley:

“How does a band get to earn the proud badge of having -core in their genre?”

That’s a pretty simple question, but it’s also kind of thought provoking. So I thought maybe we could explore it here a little bit. Because, honestly, I’m not sure that I know what the answer is.

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What? You were expecting someone else?

-AR

Okay, I’m going to come right out and say this but I don’t want it to deter you from exploring what I’m about to describe; Capricorns are a band from London who invariably fall into the doom/sludge category.

Wait! Don’t run away. Seriously, you should keep reading this time and I’ll even make it brief. While they’ve been labeled as such, Capricorns are so much more than your typical Neurosis knock-off. I really think they’re the sort of act that could change your mind about this style of music. The reason? Capricorns don’t wallow in dragging time signatures and brooding, growly vocals. In fact their latest effort, River, Bear Your Bones is completely instrumental. Thematically it explores the band’s own feelings toward living in close proximity to the great Thames river and “the London Towne that spreads from its banks like a concrete cancer.” Musically it has the hardcore edge of the best Black Flag material, the crushingly melodic undertones of a band like the Melvins and the sort of complexity in arrangement that made for the most memorable and engaging moments in Black Sabbath’s mid-to-late Seventies material. They’ve become a staple on Lee Dorian’s now 20 year old Rise Above Records label and have won over the admiration of many industry giants.

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