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We have successfully arrived at Yankee Stadium and are sitting in the press box. We feel so professional!
We’re gonna put the live blog after the jump so it doesn’t eat up the entire page. You’ll hafta refresh to get updates. Sorry.
And now, enjoy the snark…
Like every wise metal listener, I heeded Axl’s advice on Monday to get over to AOL for a free spin of The Human Abs Tract’s forthcoming collection of mega-jamz. A bit later, once I returned my thoroughly fucked face to its position atop my neck and cleansed it of A.J. Minette and crew’s milky load, a click or two led me down the queue to a free stream of Jag Panzer’s first record since 2004, The Scourge of the Light (you listen here now). I’ve only admired the Colorado quintet from afar for their contribution of studly guitarist Chris Broderick to Megadeth in 2008, for 2000’s nerdy Macbeth-based concept album Thane To The Throne, and also for their possession of the teeming confidence necessary to have such an easily mockable band name. (Srsly so easy.) Now I admire them from about two inches away from their ballz cuz Scourge is epic American power metal made exceptional by eminently sing-able choruses, themes of frustrated humanism, and impactful, genre-busting restraint. Click here and U R JAMMING!
-ADF
Jag Panzer’s first post-Chris Broderick record, The Scourge of the Light, is out today on Steamhammer/SPV. Order your CD, digital copy, and 2xLP here.
No one is better at keeping track of album release anniversaries than Cosmo Lee. So we need to thank him for pointing out that Megadeth’s Rust in Peace — still their best album, if you ask me — came out twenty years ago today.
Cosmo has an extensive essay up at Invisible Oranges, and I’m not even gonna try and compete with his insights. I am, however, going to steal the below video of Marty Friedman auditioning for Megadeth — ’cause I ain’t never seen it before, and it’s a part of metal history. With all due respect to Chrises Poland and Broderick and all the other talented dudes who have been in Dave Mustaine’s glorified solo band over the years, Friedman has been, is, and will continue to be the definitive Megadeth lead guitarist in my mind. Too bad he left the band to turn Japanese.
Head over to Invisible Oranges to read all of Cosmo’s thoughts on RiP‘s big day.
-AR
So I feel like we’ve been talking about this Slayer/Megadeth tour FOR-EV-ER, and last night I finally got to see it. And despite my usual cynical instincts telling me that it might very well end up being a major disappointment, I gotta say… I had a really, really fun time.
Testament were great. That’s not really a surprise or anything — Testament have been great, Testament will be great, and if all else failed, I never really doubted for a second that they’d put on a killer show. If I don’t have much else to say about them, it’s because there was never really any suspense with regards to whether or not they’d be good. (But be advised: they went on shortly before 7 pm, so get to the venue early to make sure you don’t miss ‘em. There were far too many people not yet at the venue when they played, which was a damn shame.)
Megadeth… well, there’s really only one problem with Megadeth: Mustaine’s voice sucks. Like, at a James Hetfield level of suckitude — actually, he might sound worse than Hetfield, who can at least stay on-key or close-enough for 60% of the time. (Mustaine was almost on-key during an encore of “A Tout Le Monde,” and that was about it.) I seriously had to tune out Mustaine’s voice just to enjoy the music. He can still play guitar like nobody’s business, it’s great to have Ellefson back, and if we’re not gonna have Marty Friedman and Nick Menza in the band, than Shawn Drover and Chris Broderick are about as good as it’s gonna get, replacement-wise. But Mustaine’s vocals… it’s just embarrassing, man.
And then there was Slayer.
Tonight is the first of the European Big Four shows, and sixteen of the seventeen musicians that now comprise those bands all gathered in one room and put their differences aside long enough to snap this picture (click on it to make it enlarge… heh heh, he said “enlarge”):
Should we over-analyze the reasons why certain people are standing near one another, or far apart, or how they’re standing? Well, this is MetalSucks, ain’t it?
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:
I’ve always hated top-whatever lists. Best guitarist, best band, best blowjob, best double anal with a horse, whatever. I think that those lists are pretty much all slanted by politics, or bought and paid for. I first got that idea in my head when Titanic won as many Oscars as it did. There were so many movies that year that were far more deserving of the title that my faith in the award system died.
Jump forward about ten years. I just got back in town from the Revolver Golden God Awards. I’ll just say that I’m stoked they exist. Metal needs that in the U.S. I have no issue with their nominees and obviously you can’t pick everyone so this is definitely not directed at them. Again, THIS IS NOT DIRECTED AT REVOLVER MAGAZINE, but the concept of picking “best shredder” or “shredder of the year “is just one of those things you can’t accurately do with the amount of talent that’s out there. You want to nominate Zack Wylde or Dave Mustaine? Okay. That’s cool. Those guys have earned it. But when you leave the circle of greats and legends, how exactly do you pick a BEST shredder? I mean am I alone in thinking that when so many amazing guitarists are overlooked that the award itself loses its meaning? What guitarists am I talking about? Okay… I’ll name a few. In my opinion these guys should be winning all the awards. If I left someone out, it’s because either I haven’t heard of them, I’ve heard them and I don’t think they’re among the very best, I forgot to mention them, or I’ve heard them and I know for a fact that what you think is shredding is just studio trickery.
So here it is. My personal list of whom I think should be winning all the metal guitar awards. Am I biased? Maybe. But I’d like to also think that considering what I do for a living that I’m a good judge of competency in the field. This is in no particular order. These guys all rule for different reasons. (DISCLAIMER: Sorry that there aren’t videos for every dude I mention, but sometimes finding quality footage is tough.)
Two observations about “The Right to Go Insane,” the new Megadeth video that debuted on Noisecreep earlier today:
Check out the video at Noisecreep.
-AR
Photo: Michael Singman-Aste, www.PostdiluvianPhoto.com
2009 is an awesome year to be Robb Flynn or anyone in Machine Head. Your band’s been touring non-stop for two and a half years on the well-deserved critical and commercial success of The Blackening, all without doing a single U.S. headline run. You’ve opened arenas for Metallica, huge theaters for Megadeth and Slayer, played on one of the biggest U.S. touring festivals, and quite literally traversed the world several times over. Not bad… not bad at all.
At the start of their U.S. tour with Megadeth, Machine Head’s publicist contacted us about interviewing Robb. The guy’s a character, The Blackening was fantastic, and it’d been almost a year and a half since we last spoke with anyone in the band (guitarist Phil Demmel on the 2008 Rockstar Mayhem Tour), so we figured we may as well. Crazy as it is that the Machine Head machine is still heading on an album released in 2007… it’s true, and they’re not even slowing down.
After the jump, read my full chat with Robb. We spent a whole lot of time talking about things other than Machine Head; the business-like nature of touring with Megadeth (as of interview time, he hadn’t once seen Mustaine in person on the entire tour!), the down-to-earth nature of hanging out with his heroes in Metallica, mentoring the young lads of Suicide Silence, and the always entertaining subject of the constant feuding between Slayer, Metallica and Megadeth. We also chatted about Machine Head’s constant touring — a dream come true for Robb — and about what the future might hold for the band, including their next album (writing has begun). And wouldn’t you know it, Robb reads MetalSucks!
In his “Tell Us Why MetalSucks Sucks” contest entry, finalist Malacoda accused us of not covering Nevermore at all. To this I have two things to say:
1) this is clearly not true. (ditto for All Shall Perish, the other band Malacoda suggested we gave the short shrift, whom we have covered in abundance)
2) fuck you.
To that end, here’s a video of a shred-off between Chris Broderick (now in Megadeth) and Jeff Loomis filmed at Jaxx in Springfield, VA in 2006. SHRED!
Nevermore are currently recording a new album. No word on a release date yet, but you’ll definitely know as soon as we do.
-VN
