MetalSucks

I’ve never seen Rock of Ages, the “Broadway smash!” jukebox musical that incorporates (recycles) old hair metal and hair metal-friendly songs into what Variety tells me is the story of “two people who meet at the Sunset Strip club Rock of Ages, fall in love and try to stay together.” But I’m assuming it’s awful. I mean, on the one hand, if you’re gonna suffer through a Broadway musical, I understand the appeal of said musical at least featuring songs by Poison, Bon Jovi and Twisted Sister; but on the other hand, no I don’t.

ANYWAY, I mention all of this because Variety also tells me that Adam Shankman is going to be directing a feature film version of this show. Shankman presumably landed the job because he directed the movie of the musical of the movie Hairspray and the studio execs in charge needed 110% assurance that whomever they hired would do nothing original or creative whatsoever. He’s also directed such masterpieces as Bringing Down the House (Queen Latifah shows Steve Martin his inner brother), The Pacifier (Vin Diesel wears a tutu), and Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

Christ. They couldn’t even get the dickhead who directed the first Cheaper by the Dozen.

Rock of Ages has given the world one true gift, however – Bret Michaels getting whacked in the head at the Tony Awards:

Click to read more…

Here’s Mr. Michaels, post-Tony Awards snafu:

Click to read more…

When everyone in the band is a total moron who can’t keep his directions straight, you could, say, forget your cue and then have to race your backdrop to the platform you’re supposed to be standing on, and you could lose that race, and you could get hit on the head at a big awards show while millions of people are watching (Okay, it’s probably more like thousands of people. It is just the Tonys, after all. But still. Pretty embarrassing.).

By the way, LOVED Blabbermouth’s headline on this one:

POISON Singer Gets Laid Out By Stage Backdrop At TONY AWARDS; Video Available

Classic.

-AR

Well, not exactly, but he does take a shot at Michaels and Michaels’ blatant baldness in his new video for “We Made You.” I don’t think the song is any good, but I’m always appreciative of a good Bret Michaels joke.

-AR

[via Bring Back Glam]

It was over a year ago that we first got the news that Bret Michaels was writing his autobiography (and by “writing,” I mean dictating to some dude named Shane Stanley who had to do all the actual work); the book, Roses & Thorns (nice title, schmucky), will now finally a get a release on June 23, according to People.com.

Granted, this will not be a good book. The chances that it’s as decent as The Dirt are pretty slim; hell, the chances that it’s as good as Slash are pretty thin (and even Slash was only okay). But, there is a lot of room for comedy here, especially if Michaels takes himself too seriously which, chances are, he will.

Here are things I’m looking forward to reading about in this tome:

Click to read more…

Long time readers of this site should be fully aware that I was addicted to the initial season of Rock of Love, VH1’s completely fucktarded reality show in which Poison singer/wig wearer Bret Michaels basically moved into a mansion with a large amount of not especially attractive (or smart or personable or nice or any other quality one generally looks for in other human beings) sluts and makes them all do ridiculous things to determine which one is his one true love (And by “one true love,” I mean… I don’t know what I mean. It seems like Michaels fucks all the girls anyway, so what’s the fucking point?).

But I basically lost interest two episodes into season two. Like pretty much every reality show I’ve ever tried to watch (which, admittedly, is only three – hello Project Greenlight and The Apprentice), the gimmick go old quickly. Maybe watching a different washed up hair metal star make some groupies of Gumpian intellect jump through hoops for the chance to suck his cock would have kept me interested; as it stood, I’d had enough.

I’m not sure which season Rock of Love is on now – I think it might be the third, and I think it’s on a bus now, or some shit – but it looks like Deicide mainman/generally all around scary dude Glen Benton caught a few episodes, and, it should surprise no one to learn, he was not amused.

Click to read more…

According to a press release that just arrived at the MetalSucks Mansion, VH1 is looking for “beautiful babes” (which would be a step up from past seasons) for a third edition of Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. But why would any woman in her right mind wanna be on that show? Obviously you’re not really gonna make Bret Michaels fall in love with you, if the first two seasons are any indication.

So, instead, we propose that all women looking to degrade themselves and/or hang out with Z list “celebrities” audition for Cock of Love with Axl and Vince. Like Rock of Love, this will be a reality show in which a few dozen slutty strippers/porn stars/single mothers/crack addicts compete for the affections of a man (or, in this case, men); unlike Rock of Love, we’ll just dispense with the ridiculousness of pretending that mud football or talent contests actually have anything to do with love and just get right into the nitty gritty of it: our contestants will be judged solely based on their ability to provide a wide range of horrific, scar-you-for life sexual acts, including but not limited to Chinese fingercuffs, donkey punches, Houdinis, attending concerts performed by NYC’s infamous death/grind masters Lake Bukkake, and, of course, our mutual favorite, The Messy Matzoh (think “Ookie Cookie,” but Jewier). The show won’t be on VH1 but we’re fairly certain we could get the dudes from Metal Injection to film it all for us.

Interested parties should write their phone number on the wall of their local men’s room and wait to be contacted.

-AR

Rocklahoma, the three FIVE day hair metal festival in Pryor, Oklahoma, kicks off its second annual event tomorrow. Hard to believe it’s been a year since last year’s massively successful event, but it has, and this year’s lineup is even more extensive than the last.

Pretty much every hair band ever — both those still on the touring circuit and a bunch of recent reunions — are playing. This year’s headliners are Queensryche, Warrant, Triumph, Bret Michaels and Ratt. Even bands that were peripheral but related to the ’80s hair scene have joined in the party, such as Extreme, Living Colour, Jackyl and Armored Saint. There are also two sidestages with a smattering of lower-level national and regional bands, though the Rocklahoma website makes this info hard to find.

Apparrently 100,000 people attended last year’s event; this seems crazy to me, but I guess it speaks to this music’s longevity. New MetalSucks columnist Michael S. Robinson plans to write a piece about this topic later in the week.

Any of our readers going to Rocklahoma? I know at least one person who is SUPER psyched!

-VN

So while Richie Sambora is not doing the new season of Rock of Love, Sharon Osbourne has been hired to teach “some of the most notorious contestants from Rock of Love with Bret Michaels the art of becoming more lady-like” for a new program entitled – what else? – Rock of Love Girls: Charm School.

Since Sharon Osbourne knows little to nothing about being a) lady-like or b) charming, I can only assume that Mrs. Ozzy is actually being hired because she knows how to land a rock star and keep a rock star. “Make sure he’s too fucked up to know where he is at all times,” I can just hear Sharon instructing these, um, “ladies.” “That way he’ll never cheat on you and you keep can keep him working and making money for you until the day he dies.”

No word on which sluts – uh, contestants – from Rock of Love will be on the show, but as long as the sloppy drunk chick who kept saying “Don’t threaten me with a good time” shows up, I’ll tune in at least once.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

Yes, you read that headline correctly: There will be a third season of Rock of Love, and it will star the Bon Jovi guitarist in place of the Poison vocalist.

I somehow find this news troubling; I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m almost certainly gonna watch, but I had no idea that Sambora was as big a scumbag as Michaels. Isn’t this really the kind of thing more fit for, I dunno, like a Vince Neil or a Kip Winger or at least a Jani Lane? I mean, wasn’t Sambora married to Heather Locklear not that long ago? Wasn’t he just shtupping Denise Richards like a year ago? Doesn’t he already get all the tabloid attention he can handle? Or has the weight of living in Jon Bon’s shadow all these years really just proven to be too much for him?

No word on when this car wreck will film/air, but here’s hoping it will be on VH1 in time for the TV doldrums of summer.

-AR

UPDATE: Idolator says that VH1 says that this isn’t true. So there’s still hope for Jani Lane after all!!!

The worst kept secret in rock is that Bret Michaels and his natural hair parted ways long ago. It’s why he’s also wearing those stupid bandannas that went out of style in like 1990 or so. Remember that story about the girl with the thing tied around her neck, and when her husband finally got her to remove it her head fell off? Such is the relationship between the Poison singer and his head gear.

Now, in an interview with the Associated Press, Michaels has come clean… almost:

AP: What are you hiding under that bandanna?

Michaels: My hair is combined of my hair and the finest extensions Europe has to offer. I do [Rock of Love] without it on all the time and they won’t film me. They are like, “Put your bandanna back on. It is your image.” It is my signature thing.

Well, I don’t buy for a second that he offers to let them film him without the bandanna; Slash’s top hat is a “signature thing,” but eighteen gazillion morons wore bandannas in the 80s. Still, I give Bret credit for admitting that it’s not all his real hair; that’s more than you’ll get out of most over-the-hill hair metallers.

-AR

With the incredible success of The Dirt, I kind of assumed that every 80’s metal star in the world would wanna pump out an autobiography; I mean, really, most of the work is left to some poor “c0-writer” like Neil Strauss or Anthony Bozza, and there’s obviously a market for the finished product. But here we are, almost seven years after The Dirt was originally published, and it seems like we’re only now starting to get the influx of tell-alls I expected: just last year Nikki Sixx tried to hit the jackpot a second time with The Heroin Diaries while Slash took his first step towards a post-Velvet Revovler career with Slash, and now it’s been announced that we can all look forward to a tome from… Bret Michaels. A press release states:

“Not only can you see Michaels on Rock of Love this spring but you will also be able to read all about his life this fall when the singer’s much-anticipated autobiography is released by renowned publishing house Simon & Schuster.”

There’s no word on who is doing the real writing for Michaels – by God, I hope he’s not trying to write it himself – or when we can expect this literary masterpiece. But I do find the press releases assertion that Simon & Schuster is a “renowned publishing house” kinda hilarious. I mean, it’s certainly one of the bigger publishers out there, but it seems a little like saying “renowned record label Capitol” or something – most people probably aren’t paying attention to the label, they just wanna hear the album.

In any case, I’m not gonna lie, I will most likely read this book. Still, I wish more bands would follow The Dirt’s model and do a Roshamon-like multiple-perspective telling of events. Because even though hearing Michaels talk about how crazy C.C. DeVille is might be fun, it won’t be as much fun as a chapter by DeVille in the same book disputing his insanity would be.

-AR

In case you’re into this sort of thing, here’s an assembly of clips to look forward to from throughout Rock of Love Season 2, the VH1 reality show in which 20 past-their-prime, mostly ugly, silicon and botox-filled bimbos compete for the “love” of Poison frontman Bret Michaels. And no, Bret Michaels is not competing for the love of himself.

If nothing else, it’s fun to play a game by trying to spot Michaels’ terrible wigs beneath his famous bandana cover-up.

-VN

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/QA8Vm4SWgeE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

So the second season of Rock of Love with Bret Michaels has commenced. I was watching the premiere with MetalSucks friend Tommy Wee, who had never seen the show before, and he kept asking me why they would stick Bret Michaels in a house with a bunch of Bellevue patients; but that didn’t bother me, because crazy, ugly, third rate porn stars acting like total morons in a lame attempt to get with someone who hasn’t really been famous since about 1991 or so is the entire point of watching drek like this.

No, the premiere of Rock of Love bothered me for a much different reason. See, while most of the girls on the first season were less than attractive, they were not, by and large, irredeemably repulsive. Put more simply: I would never actively pursue one of the Brandis, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility that, while in a drunken stupor of horniness and self-loathing, I might take one of them home.

But contestants like Angelique – she’s the Planet of the Apes reject on your above right – actively make my penis limp. I mean, look at her: she’s fucking DISGUSTING. I wouldn’t fuck Angelique with Angelique’s dick.

Click to read more…

Thanks to MetalSucks reader R Rocket for sending us this promo shot for Bret Michaels’ Rock of Love Season 2, the TV show in which 20 over-the-hill silicon bimbos vie for the affection of the wig-wearing Poison frontman. This photo is… wow, I don’t even know what it is. I’m just shocked.

We’ve got some miscellaneous metal goodies lying around the MetalSucks Mansion, and we’d love to give them away to you (side note: Heavy Metal Hanukkah winners fear not, your prizes are being mailed soon). All you have to do to win is post a comment below with a funny caption for the above photo. Axl, Kip and I will choose our favorite winners and contact them by email. Good luck.

Here’s one for motivation: “It’s a shame they can’t Photoshop ‘rock credibility’ into this Bret Michaels promo shot.”

-VN