MetalSucks

MetalSucks Maniac Steve Hamlin sent us the link to this 24 minute documentary, Heavy Metal Jr., which follows six tween boys and their band, Hatred. Inevitably, a few of you will criticize these kids for, I dunno, like Marilyn Manson or whatever. But you know what? If you do, you’re an asshole. These kids are keeping the dream alive, and clearly, they’re pretty committed. Also, I already like them better than Black Tide, or Bad 4 Good, or whatever adolescent metal band you wanna name.

Watch this when you can – all of it. It’s totally worth it.

-AR

We’re signing off early today here at the MS Mansion. There are bowls to be smoked, beers to be drank, and barbecues to attend in the waning days of summer. Enjoy your weekend! Meanwhile, some stuff that happened here this week:

• We posted interviews from our trip to the Rockstar Mayhem Festival with Mastodon, Machine Head and Black Tide. Well, the latter was not so much an interview.
• Even Dallas got in the ring to weigh in on the politics of Metallica, and we had some fun with Metallica haiku and pontificated the 3rd new song.
• Rage Against the Machine raged against the machine. So did we.
• The new AC/DC single sounds like the old AC/DC single sounds like the old…
• Axl Rose called the FBI on the Chinese Democracy leaker.
• Slipknot goes in another new musical direction with All Hope Is Gone… and possibly has a #1 record.

Toodaloo!

-VN

We’re in the press area of the Rockstar Mayhem Festival, and Black Tide vocalist/guitarist Gabriel Garcia is wearing a shirt that says “VAGINA” in huge letters and chewing gum. When he sits down to talk with MetalSucks, he never even takes his backpack off. His answers to our questions are, to put it mildly, limited. He clearly has no interest whatsoever in talking to us.

Maybe it’s because he’s aware that we’ve written some not so nice things about his band before; maybe it’s because he’s anxious to get back outside in time for the Ladder Up an Ass performance; maybe the kid just hates giving interviews. In any case, Axl and Vince pretty much agree that this is the worst interview we’ve ever done. Check it out after the jump, and then make fun of us for failing to engage Gabriel, make fun of Gabriel for refusing to not be monosyllabic, and make fun of whomever the fuck else you like in our comments section.

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A very, very, VERY special thanks to Rosa Henriquez for the awesome photos. Now we’re that much closer to being like a real big kids’ website!

I think one of the things Slipknot’s fans love most about them is one of the very same qualities that their detractors so violently hold against them: their theatricality. I mean, these are nine dudes who dress up in matching outfits and wear “spooky” masks. The band’s members talk about death metal an awful lot, and, musically speaking, that influence is certainly present. But aesthetically, they belong to a line of bands like Kiss and Motley Crue. They’re showmen.

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As Vince has already explained, we were at Mayhem Fest yesterday, and in the coming days we’ll have a full review, photos, interviews with everyone from Mastodon to Machine Head, and all that good stuff.

But really quickly, I just wanna talk about the highlight of the day’s activities – an incredible performance by a supergroup going by the moniker Ladder Up an Ass (And yes, it’s “an Ass,” not “the Ass” or “Your Ass” – it’s a non-specific ladder and a non-specific ass.). Because while some members of the band seemed to think it was a one-off performance, no one ruled the possibility of more surprise appearances on upcoming Mayhem dates. And if you go to Mayhem in the coming weeks and happen to hear that Ladder Up an Ass are playing, YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST DROP EVERYTHING AND GO SEE THEM.

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Back in January I wrote a fairly lengthy piece about the advance marketing campaign that Interscope Records was running for teenage metal band Black Tide. In short, based on the number of FedExed advance records (5 in varying configurations), press releases (13 to date) from high-powered publicists, and the general sense of manufactured-in-a-marketing-meeting hype surrounding the band, I declared that Interscope was frivolously throwing away money towards hopes that could never possibly be realized. The post stirred up quite a few comments, including one from guitarist Gabriel Garcia himself.

Today, the first-week sales numbers for their debut record Light From Above have been revealed; according to the Soundscan report that just it my inbox, the record shifted 11,357 copies, enough to land them at #73.

Now, I hate to say “I told you so,” but I told you so.

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[Better late than never. This is the 6th and final installment of new MetalSucks contributor Corey Mitchell's reporting from South by Southwest 2008 in Austin, TX. Be on the lookout for more show reviews in the future from Corey. - Ed.]

BLACK TIDE/AT ALL COST/IN THIS MOMENT/JASTA @ RED 7 PATIO – Saturday, March 15, 2008 – 2:20 P.M. – 6:00 P.M.

Not feeling any older despite tossing back a few too many rum ‘n Cokes the night before, I ventured out one last time for my final metal fix of the 2008 SXSW Music Conference. Once again, I was headed toward another free show over at Red 7. The sun was scorching hot, not a cloud in the sky, and I was semi-interested in seeing teenage sensations…

BLACK TIDE
Okay, I’m sure you know all the hype. Every band member under the age of twenty, ridiculously good looking, led by frontman 14-year-old Gabriel, and signed to Interscope Records. It all sounds a little too Light of Doom-ish for my taste. In fact, it’s enough to make you wanna puke. But, again, I approached their set with an open mind, and again, I was pleasantly surprised.

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In the early 90s, Steve Vai assembled, wrote all the music for, and produced a band called Bad 4 Good, consisting of members no older than 17 and often as young as 12 or 13 (which makes the semi-nude photo of the band, above, that much creepier). The most notable member, I suppose, was lead singer Danny Cooksey, a child actor best known for playing Arnold and Willis’ precocious little white brother on Diff’rent Strokes, Eddie Furlong’s GN’R lovin’ buddy in Terminator 2, and, of course, the bad ass rebel on the cult classic shitcom Salute Your Shorts.

Even with Vai’s involvement, this band sucked hard, and the irony of a bunch of kids under the age of 18 releasing a single called “Nineteen” should be lost on no one (were they dreaming of what they might do when they eventually turned 19?). By the time the band broke away from Vai and changed their name to Mother’s Milk, no one gave a shit about them anymore, if anyone gave a shit in the first place. After the jump, check out a Bad 4 Good EPK and the video for “Nineteen.”

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By now you’ve no doubt heard of Interscope Records’ latest priority, the teenage metal band Black Tide. You may have missed their Ozzfest fiasco, in which they got bumped from the Jagermeister-sponsored second stage because they had members under 21 (their youngest is 14), only to be added to an early spot on the main stage. Either way you’ll be hearing a lot about them very soon; Interscope is making sure of this by spending an assload of cash on them. They bought the band a pricey spot on Ozzfest, they’ve sicked high-powered publicists on us for months (10 press releases to date! — no disrespect meant to these good folks though, as they’re great people and we know they’re just doing their job) and even FedExed us a watermarked CD that we can’t even play (these are themselves expensive to manufacture) a full month and a half before the album’s release date (Priority Overnight! what’s the rush, dudes?), all for a very, very young band.

It seems as if Interscope is pushing an old-school campaign to new-school fans. And when it boils down to it, the square peg won’t fit in the round whole.

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