I like music videos. I don’t mean just lame concert footage videos either. (I get it, Band, you can play your instruments like, really well. In front of people!) No, I mean the amazing, overblown, explosions and nonsensical storylines, holy shit is that a cameo by jailbait Keri Russell in bra?!, looks like it was directed by Michael Bay, epic mini-movies. In fact, Meat Loaf’s, “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” has pretty much all of the aforementioned, except one. I won’t say which one, just look it up*. It is the most amazing seven minutes ever.  Except for the part where he prays to the god of, “Sex, and drums, and rock’n’roll.” Come on, now, you’re not fooling anyone.

The other night I couldn’t sleep. So I ended up watching music videos until the sun came up. I did not have a good day that day. Of course, I watched metal videos. (Okay fine, like half were Meat Loaf videos. He kind of hovers on the periphery of metal, right? He was in Rocky Horror Picture Show, he played a totally awesome biker named Eddie! Isn’t his daughter married to Scott Ian? Fringes, he’s on the fringes. Shut up, Meat Loaf is awesome. Even more so when I can’t type and write “Meat Load.” Good job proof-reading at 5:40 a.m.)

Videos were my first introduction to many bands. They were like trailers for records, and the more confusing and “deep” they were, the more interested I got. I’m not saying there are no good videos anymore, but I just can’t believe we live in a time where it’s no longer cool to shred shirtless on a cliff while your bandmate gets married but then it starts raining and the bride is dead and Axl Rose is swimming with dolphins while Stephanie Seymour beats up a girl in a bar. I mean, maybe it’s a good thing bands don’t go bankrupt after videos anymore. and the Guns N’ Roses trilogy more than borders on the ridiculous (Hi Shannon Hoon! I see you, there on the roof!) but let’s take a look at some that kind of stuck with me.

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When setting out to do holiday shopping every winter, I’m reminded of this awful night that I accidentally sat on a greased traffic cone. I don’t recall the circumstances of my pantslessness, or what miniscule probability was conquered to allow for the weighted cone’s chance placement directly below my then-unbreached shit chute, but oh my I remember the discomfort and Kafka-esque strain to free myself from its orange deathgrip. You see, it’s impossible to get your footing cuz struggling only squeaks you further down the fucker’s widening shaft, so yeah let’s just say I could easily be swapping tips with Jack Russell today if that nice family from Gardena had not stopped to tip me over.

Few events in my life have resulted in such pain and horror, but that mess was still less traumatic than any December shopping trip. Cuz after the butt-cone incident, I merely had to gulp like eight painkillers (four each for wounded bum and ego); conversely, the amount of intoxicants necessary to soften the impact of stressful useless shit purchasing would render me unable to drive, speak, or even identify my wallet. So that’s out. Fuck.

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It was a long weekend, and seemingly eight thousand fucking bands all decided to put out music videos while we were away. Let’s check ‘em out and see if any of them are decent, shall we?

First up we have a video for “Larvae” by Portal. This band pushes so many envelopes they were all offered jobs at the post office, so I’m disappointed they couldn’t come up with a more innovative video. This clip is seriously boring as fuck, as I have no idea what’s going on. Which is how some people feel about Portal’s music, I guess. So, in that regard, this video is a success!

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Does Tommy Lee WANT me to hate him? When rumors of a Motley Crue/Poison tour in 2011 started to circulate earlier this week, I got all excited, both for the shows themselves, and for the rampant idiocy that would no doubt accompany those shows. Alas, Long Dong Tommy took to Twitter late Monday afternoon to put an end to my fantasies of Aqua Net and unprotected sex with strangers:

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According to Metal Undergound, Bret Michaels announced during a Canadian solo gig last night “that in celebration of Poison’s 25th anniversary, the band will be touring with fellow American rockers Motley Crue next year, who will themselves be celebrating their 30th anniversary.” That’s great news, unless you hate fun. Even with Vince Neil being bloated and winded, Tommy Lee devoting the remainder of his career to reenacting the C. Thomas Howell classic Soul Man, Mick Mars having less mobility than a corpse, and Poison being, y’know, Poison, it’s almost impossible for me to imagine this tour being anything less than awesome. Especially if they get another great glam band (by which I mean a band like Cinderella, not a latter-day cock rock wanna-be like Hinder or Saliva), to open. Seriously, just hook the alcohol dispenser up to my veins and let me go see this show. Hell, even if the just turned out to be a train wreck of drama and shit-talking, it would be awesome.

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Remember earlier this year, when Bret Michaels and Miley Cyrus re-recorded “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” as a duet, and then recorded a new duet with some incredibly sexual lyrics? At the time, I assumed that the 46 year old Michaels was tappin’ the 17 year old Cyrus, but as it turns out, he was probably doin’ her mom instead — at least, the rumor is that their affair is the cause of the pending divorce between Billy Ray Cyrus and Tish Cyrus.

And I don’t know why Tish Cyrus would wanna fuck Bret Michaels. I guess she always had a fantasy in which she slept with a clone of herself, only the clone wore more make-up, and had the facial hair of a barely-pubescent boy.

Of course, now Bret’s publicist has denied the affair, lest it sully his good name:

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The reason all the hair-metal autobiographies have been disappointing is because the best hair metal band, Motley Crue, did it first, and did a really killer job (treating it like an oral history told from lots of different  perspectives = master stroke), and so there was really no place to go but down. Bret Michaels’ autobiography never actually materialized, Slash’s was good but not great, Steven Adler’s sucked, I only know one person who read Bobby Blotzer’s,  and now all the Motley Crue guys are dipping back into that pool for a second or even third time, only without each other because after thirty fucking years they still haven’t figured out that the unit is stronger than each individual. At this point I think it would take everyone who ever worked on Chinese Democracy, including Axl Rose, all banding together to make a The Dirt-style Roshomon piece if anything is even gonna BEGIN to compete with The Crue’s initial tome.

Now glam’s ugly twin, thrash, has started to catch on that there’s an interest in these books. And they don’t seem to be following the same pattern as cock rock. Sure, Dave Mustaine went first, but no one seems to really believe a word of his book, and it’s certainly not a definitive snap-shot of the time and place the way The Dirt is for the Strip in the 80′s. And I obviously have a lot of faith in Phil Anselmo’s upcoming collaboration with MetalSucks’ own Corey Mitchell, but Pantera weren’t purely thrash, and weren’t around for the Big Four’s heyday.

So. Now Noise Creep says that Kirk Hammett is doing his autobiography. (The news actually originated in an interview with Ultimate-Guitar, but I can’t find it. If anybody does, drop me a line.) There’s no word on which lucky writer will score that coveted “with” credit, but here’s a choice quote from Kirk:

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The Smoking Gun has posted a list of the per-gig earnings of some of the highest paid artists that toured this year, and a number them may interest you, our beloved Suckalos.

It will shock absolutely no one to learn that Kiss are number two on the list, and take home $500,000 a night, or that radio stalwarts Buckcherry and Shinedown respectively earn $100,000 and $85,000 per performance.

More surprising, to me at least, is that Bret Michaels gets $64,000 a night even without Poison (which means all those reality show appearances are good for something!), and that Warrant — FUCKING WARRANT — get $12,000 per show. I know $12,000/gig probably doesn’t seem like much when you consider what Kiss is getting, but I can assure you that it’s wwwwwaaaaayyyyyy more than pretty much all of your favorite metal bands are earning (unless you exclusively listen to Metallica or Korn or whatever). And that’s for a band who haven’t had a hit in two decades, and who are currently touring without their original singer, who also happens to be their most recognizable member.

The moral of the story, I guess, is that it pays to have a radio hit. As long as there’s someone who wants to hear “Cherry Pie” and “Heaven” live, Warrant will be richer than you.

Look at the complete list here.

-AR

[via Gun Shy Assassin]

I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in Darwin, and natural selection is clearly trying to send Bret Michaels a message: “You are not supposed to be here.” He’s diabetic, he’s the only person in the history of ever to almost eat it at the frickin’ Tony Awards, he’s spent half his life touring with C.C. DeVille (there’s a death sentence if ever there was one), and this year alone, he’s suffered  a massive subarachnoid brain hemorrhage AND discovered that he has a hole in his heart. Is this dude a character from a Final Destination movie or what?

Speaking of that gap in his ticker, and nature wanting him dead: In January, he’ll undergo surgery to try and fill in that sucker, ’cause unlike Extreme, the hole in his heart most certainly cannot be filled by only you. He’s gonna need, like, doctors and medicine and stuff.

I know it’s wrong to joke about a man having heart surgery, but, somehow, I feel like Bret is gonna pull through. Nature might want him dead, but just you watch — this dude is going to outlive us all. There could be a nuclear war, and all that would survive would be cockroaches and Bret Michaels.

And then he’d try to fuck the cockroaches.

-AR

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Inspired this week by the rumor that Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler may be a new judge on American Idol, we decided to ask our writers:

IF YOU HAD TO PICK ONE METAL MUSICIAN TO BE A JUDGE ON AMERICAN IDOL, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Weed: Responsible for this photo?

Do you think Bret Michaels is a nice guy in real life? He seems like he would be. But it’s been my experience that more often than not, people who achieved that level of fame and success are real douche bags. Which kinda makes sense, ’cause what kind of frail ego needs a spotlight that bright shined on it at all times?

But I know there are exceptions to this rule, and I’d like to think that Michaels is one of them. And the cops just found weed on his tour bus, so between the fact that he wrote “Unskinny Bop” and the fact that we both like to get tall, I think that Bret and I could be friends.

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As much as I love glam’s favorite apparently-playing-with-broken-fingers’d clown, C.C. DeVille, there is really no denying that Poison made their least annoying — if also least famous — music without the Brooklyn-born junkie.

To wit: 1993′s Native Tongue, the band’s first (of only two) albums written and recorded without DeVille. After expiring the man born as Bruce Johannesson for excessive drug use (a true feat amongst hair metal bands), Poison hired blues shredder Richie Kotzen — then just 23 years old, nearly a decade younger than his new bandmates. Unlike DeVille, Kotzen’s playing wasn’t obnoxious, and his guitar tone was warm, and fluid. He also happened to be a better singer than Bret Michaels, as evidenced by his vocal performance on songs like “Bring it Home” and “Seven Days Over You.” Native Tongue is no masterpiece — this is Poison we’re talking about, after all — but it does feel more like a real, honest to goodness hard rock album than the cotton candy confections for which the band is known. Hell, I even seem to recall Alex Sklonick endorsing it in an issue of Guitar World.

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Maybe I’m a jerk, but it’s always blown my mind that Poison singer Bret Michaels has, like, never hit a correct pitch, ever. On any song. Or during any recorded live footage. One could go so far as to imply that Michaels may have never taken a singing lesson or hired a voice coach or even fucked the mouth of a karaoke contest winner. He’s a good guy, you can tell. And of course, I respect the party prowess of Bret Michaels, lovable skank-wrangler. It’s just that my ears want revenge on Bret Michaels, singer.

Also remarkable about the Michaels saga, which only recently turned scary and hammy, is the possibility that Bret-skis — for like twenty years — has somehow stood up to producers and record label honchos and his bandmates and reason and good taste, and has never seemed to mix-fix or pro-tools the living shit out of his takes. Good for him! Why cheat on a test that doesn’t matter? That dude is fucking rich anyway, and at least one of his records is a classic (next week, you’ll see that Allyson from BringBackGlam.com disagrees with me about which one), and I’m pretty sure he’s indestructible, because his brain basically exploded and yet he remains alive as fuck. My hat is way off to Bret.

However. It’s about time that someone tip Bret to the fact that he’s over-Oprahing his return from death’s doorstep. He’s gone total cheesecorn and his orange fingerprints are everywhere. Teary interviews. Book deals. Mortality-themed bandanas. And Tuesday night Star reports that now he’s gone and proposed marriage to his best girl from days gone by? Marriage, Bret? I guess this means the story arc of his new show, Bret Michaels: Life As I Know It, involves redemption or something. What’s next? Singing lessons?

-ADF

Read more about Bret Michaels and other guys who don’t sing great but no one minds all next week when MetalSucks brings back glam with Allyson B. Crawford of BringBackGlam.com. Read it or we’ll fuck your mom. Again.

I’m filing this under the “Laugh At Others’ Misfortunes” category because it’s always funny to see people that aren’t you get hurt. But the truth is, the incidents in question aren’t nearly on par with, say, Bret Michaels getting whacked in the head at last year’s Tony Awards, mostly because they’re not really brought about by outrageous acts of stupidity, whereas Michaels’ injury was clearly, despite his claims, entirely of his own doing.

First, some dude managed to get up on stage during a Slash solo gig in Milan and tackle the frizzy haired guitarist. Note that Slash barely even stops his solo – apparently his guitar was broken after the incident, but he didn’t even notice at first. What a pro! (And don’t worry, my fellow guitar fetishists – the instrument was repaired and back in action two nights later.) Still, if the guy shouted “PARADISE CITY WITH FERGIE AND CYPRESS HILL SUCKS!” right before he tackled Slash, then he’s my hero.

Here it is at another angle; skip to 1:18:

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Jon Wiederhorn at Noisecreep says “It’s too early to start making fun of Poison frontman Bret Michaels,” given all the terrible shit he’s been through lately - but I respectfully disagree. Am I really supposed to sit here and pretend that Bret Michaels is Ronnie James Dio? It doesn’t mean I hate Michaels, it just means I recognize that he’s a buffoon. If we weren’t laughing at Michaels, we wouldn’t be talking about him at all.

So. Michaels’ voice, a claymation version of his body, are making a cameo on the June 11 season premiere of Nick at Night’s Glenn Martin, DDS. And now a clip with Michaels’ appearance has found its way online.

I’ve never seen the show before, but based on this clip, it looks like I’m not missing anything. Still, there’s something so perfect about the way they captured Michaels… it looks like they gave a lady claymation figure some five o’clock shadow and called it a day. Which is perfect, ’cause. Y’know. Michaels basically looks like a lady with five o’clock shadow. No wonder my mom mistook him for my Aunt Sadie.

Bret Michaels on Nick at Nite’s Glenn Martin, DDS from NickPress on Vimeo.

-AR

Dio died. Isis broke-up. Bret Michaels is back in the hospital. And I just used Dio, Isis, and Bret Michaels in one thought-stream, which, I’m sure, offended somebody.

Luckily, we did manage to have some fun this week:

• Sick of it All’s Lou Koller is counting down his top ten hardcore albums, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa is counting down to the end of L O S T, Batillus’ Fade Kainer is counting down ’til the band can get the fuck outta the studio, Agenda of Swine’s Pete Benumb is counting down to MDF, and Cynic’s Paul Masvidal is counting down to achieving a higher level of being.
• We spoke to Steve Joh from Century Media, Tara Johnson from Disembodied, Emil Werstler from Daath and Levi/Werstler, and Travis Stever from Coheed & Cambria.
• We checked out the latest release from Rosetta.
• Sergeant D. has new slamz 4 u.
• The best music video ever of the week is by… Goldfrapp?
• There are plenty of things we’d rather do than listen to a new Attack Attack! song.
• Endorsement of the new Avenged Sevenfold single = flame war.
• You guys are still arguing about my Korn review. Seriously?
• I’m still upset about John Bush leaving Anthrax again. Seriously.
• We used to love Sweden, but we had to kill it.

And hopefully no one awesome will die or break-up next week.

-AR

On April 12, Bret Michaels was rushed to the hospital to have an emergency appendectomy; ten days later, he was rushed back to the hospital after suffering a subarachnoid hemorrhage. But then he was released and the doctors cleared him and said he’d make a “full recovery,” and now he’s on the cover of People lying in the hospital with his bandana on and joking around with Oprah Winfrey and announcing plans for new reality shows and blah blah blah. So the rough times are over for Bret, right? Nothing but smooth sailing from here.

Except maybe not so much: yesterday, he was rushed back to the hospital after experiencing a so-called “warning stroke” that numbed portions of the left side of his body. And when doctors investigated, they came to realize that the man has a hole in his heart.

Holy shit, this poor dude just cannot catch a break.

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One of the awesome things about narrowly cheating death is that you get to exploit your plight for publicity and money. (I think your estate probably makes even more money when you die, but that’s no good to you unless you’re the kind of person who cares more about your family than your own personal desires, in which case you’re probably not very famous.) Case in point: Bret Michaels, recent survivor of a subarachnoid brain hemorrhage. He’s apparently getting another VH1 reality show, this one about life at home when he’s not on the road – so, in other words, a show that’s gonna be boring, and will most likely make you hate the Michaels clan as much as you hate the Osbournes. (Except Bret is single, so it should have a kind warm, kinda-fuzzy Full House feeling – y’know, the outrageous exploits of a single dad and all that.) He’s also one of two finalists on Celebrity Apprentice; he attained that status prior to his time in the hospital, but I’d wager he’s gonna win it now for sure.

Plus, he’s on Oprah! ‘Cause she’s not proof that there’s no God or anything like that. And that bitch clearly reads MetalSucks and is stealing material from us, ’cause in this video she cracks wise about him wearing his bandana in the hospital, and no one could have possibly noticed that picture and thought it was weird besides me. I am a beautiful and unique snowflake.

Do you think she’ll make his upcoming autobiography part of her book club? It’s sure to be as true-to-history as A Million Little Pieces and is gonna outsell The Bible anyway, so might as well get a piece of that action. Stedman needs a new pair of shoes, baby!

-AR

[via Talksalot]

Bring Back Glam tells me that the new Bret Michaels song is called “Wasted Time.” I haven’t heard it yet, and I don’t really care to. I just wanted to point out that one of Michaels’ peers in cock rockdom has already written and recorded a song called “Wasted Time,” and that this song was, is, and forever will be the only “Wasted Time” with which glam fans should waste time.

Now somebody get Baz and the band to kiss and make-up already. I’m tired of this Johnny whasshisname shit already.

-AR

When Bret Michaels was rushed to the hospital after suffering “a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding at the base of his brain stem)” and was listed as being in critical condition, I wrote that yes, Michaels is a buffoon, but he doesn’t deserve to die and “we sincerely hope he makes it through this okay, and has many more years of buffoonery ahead of him.” And now Michaels is out of the hospital and it looks like he’s gonna make a full recovery and thus will, indeed, have many more years of buffoonery ahead of him. Starting right now, as a matter of fact.

I was surprised to see Michaels on the cover of People  - I didn’t realize that that many people still cared about him. Never underestimate the power of reality television and a potential tragic fatality, I guess. But I was even more surprised to see, on that cover, a picture of Michaels, lying in his hospital bed… with his bandana on.

Are you fucking kidding me? They not only brought a photographer to the hospital, but either Bret or someone on his team was like, “Make sure he has his bandana on?!?!”

And here I was thinking that whatever procedure they needed to do while he was in critical condition would probably be a good excuse for him to finally ditch the ridiculous wig/extensions/whatever. “They had to shave my head for medical purposes,” he could tell people, finally allowing all five of his fans who don’t realize that he’s bald to join the rest of us in Reality.

Oh, Bret. You never fail to amuse. Here’s to you and your buffoonery, dude.

-AR

[via Bring Back Glam]