For last week’s Photo Caption Contest we offered up a signed Rush lithograph, commemorating their brand new triple-boxset Sectors. And the winner is:

• fugsspot: “Um, Ethyl? You know how Death follows us all, getting closer every day? Don’t look now, but hurry the hell up please!”

This week we’re giving away a copy of Butch Walker’s new autobiography Drinking with Strangers. I’m reading the book right now and it’s everything you’d expect from a man as traveled and witty as Walker. The stories from SouthGang’s Chinese tour? Worth the price of admission alone. To win, leave a comment with the funniest caption to the photo below (sent in by MS reader Matias Demeke). Remember to use a real email address (or post it along with your comment if you’re using FB Connect / Twitter etc).

Not only does musical superhero Butch Walker, herein dubbed “The Devin Townsend of pop,” have a new album out — The Spade, which I’ve somehow entirely neglected to write about until now even though it’s been out for weeks — but the ex-Southgang guitarist has an autobiography on the way too! Butch Walker, his very own book!

Producer books can be hit or miss, captivating looks into the behind-the-scenes sessions of and minds behind your favorite albums on one side of the spectrum and boring, self-indulgent TL;DR-fests on the other. But in the case of Butch Walker, who is not only a producer but a singer, songwriter, guitarist and all-around fucking genius, I have no doubt at all that Drinking With Strangers is going to be hard to put down. I know this with absolute certainty because Walker is one of the only songwriters/musicians in the history of ever whose lyrics I actually listen to; the dude’s got a way with words. AND he’s surely got some fucking amazing stories to tell from all of his years in a hair band, his time in the Marvelous 3, and the countless pop artists he’s produced.

There’s a little parody video Butch made to promote Drinking With Strangers over at EW.com. Unsurprisingly, it’s completely aces; if you ever watched Reading Rainbow growing up you’ll find it especially funny.

Drinking With Strangers comes out on October 25th and is available for pre-order via Amazon.

-VN

I <3 Butch Walker! He’s about as brilliant a songwriter, producer and lyricist as there is in the entire world!

But before he got all indie/modern of late (and way after he was all glammed up in South Gang) he was all about power-crunch guitar pop, and hotdamn was he good at it. Following the breakup of Marvelous 3 in 2001 he released his first solo record Left of Self-Centered in 2002, an album with which I walked hand in hand down memory lane a few days ago. So excellent!

I’d forgotten about the little sketch, above, that opens the album. It’s funny how it’s even more relevant now than it was in 2002 when it was recorded. And for good measure, the album’s first actual song is included in the clip too since there’s a nice little segue there that’d be odd if it was just cut off.

If you’re questioning the validity of this post on a metal site, a) fuck you, b) do some research.

-VN

I’m not much of a lyrics guy. Never have been. There’s the obvious fact that most metal screamers are nearly incomprehensible, but it goes beyond that. I was brought up in a musical family and started playing instruments at a very early age, so when I listen to music I’m listening to what’s being played, how the instruments interact with other, the arrangement and composition, the tones, the production, etc. I view the role of the vocalist in modern metal as that of another instrument; I listen to how the voice adds to the overall song, the melody (if he’s singing), and how it matches up with everything else. I very rarely pay attention to lyrics and even when I try I have a hard time staying focused before I’m distracted by something else going on in the “background”; it’s just the way my brain’s wired. Ask me what 99% of the bands I write about on a daily basis are singing about and I will have absolutely no idea.

But every now and then an album or song comes along whose lyrics I really connect with. I’ve always really enjoyed Butch Walker’s lyrics; dude’s a bonafide master, of course not just at lyric-writing but at everything musical. He knows how to craft a song, get a [musical] point across and write a turnaround from part to part better than anyone. Maybe the reason I connect with Walker’s lyrics is that they’re so damned straight-forward, simple and easily comprehensible by my non-lyrical mind. This line from “She Likes Hair Bands” on Walker’s latest I Liked It Better When You Had No Heart drew me in right away for obvious reasons:

She Likes Hair Bands
On satellite radio
But I was in one
So it’s a little too close to home

But the rest of the lyrics to the song have a lot more substance than the above jokey intro might imply. I just downloaded the album from Amazon for only $7.99 and you should too!

Listen to “She Likes Hair Bands” on Butch Walker’s MySpace, and then, after the jump… have a gander at Walker’s hair band past.

Click to read more…

Apparently Sade has a new hit record and scored the #1 record last week. Who knew? Good for her… Sade’s pretty rad. I know at least one death metal dude who will be REALLY psyched to hear this news.

But I’m guessing you all care more about the new High on Fire record. Let’s find out how that and other metal and hard rock releases charted last week after the jump.

Click to read more…

Because we at the MS Mansion keep no secrets about our un-ironic love of ’80s hair/glam and because we can never seem to resist a Carlos Ramirez-penned Top <insert here> list at Noisecreep, we give you The Top Ten Musicians with Hair Metal Pasts.

There are a few usual suspects whose Aqua Net pasts have been well-documented here and elsewhere (hiya Rivers Cuomo and studly stud Butch Walker) but there are a few surprises in there as well. Like Disturbed’s Dan Donegan… what I wouldn’t give to hear a Vandal recording! In fact, if someone wants to email those to us I’ll gladly post them for all of us to laugh / sneer at / enjoy.

Take a look at the list, then come back here and tell us why hair metal sucks.

-VN

Vince was pretty put-off by pop duo Tegan & Sara’s metal shirt earlier this year, but I’m inclined to give The Donnas a pass for pulling a similar stunt. Why? ‘Cause they’ve always been upfront about their love of hair metal (which is close enough, I guess), and I actually enjoyed their Butch Walker-produced album Spend the Night. Judge me if you must.

What do y’all think? Is this a cool tip of the hat to all things metal, or a needless co-opting of our culture on par with Lindsay Lohan wearing a Maiden shirt?

-AR

[via The Deciblog]

Yet another lost gem from Allyson @ Bring Back Glam; Southgang, the hair band that Butch Walker of Marvelous 3 and Avril Lavigne-producing fame got his start in. On second thought, Southgang to Lavigne isn’t that much of a stretch, is it?

Dig that choice of guitar — Walker had to be the only dude in rock in 1991 using a Telecaster — with an inverted headstock, no less! Nothing screams “metal” like an inverted headstock.

-VN

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