Am I high or is it weird that in 2011 nobody touts the first two Skid Row records as mega-masterpieces? What has undermined lasting renown? Is it that those jams are too heavy for radio listeners and not aggro enough for metal fans? Did major line-up changes doom them to be written off (except for the three enduring singles)? Is it Sebastian Bach’s fault? Is the rest of the band too stubborn and unambitious? Really, has there been a more compelling, awesome, and fearless heavy rock record since? Help me figure this out?

To me, it’s not a problem per se that one-time Skid Row vocalist Sebastian Bach is a huge jackass. One, his all-time top ten singing chops justify extreme arrogance and render decency unnecessary; two, reality TV and morning radio has immunized us all to dunderheads of Bach’s type. So fans are over it, right? Yet it’s still possible that Bach’s exhausting bimbo-ism has quieted the global and unanimous mega-acclaim that Skid Row deserves. How?

Think about it: Is it not Bach-related acrimony among the members of Skid Row that hamstrings their legacy-building? No reunion tours, no massive retrospectives, no anniversary celebrations. No documentaries, no tribute albums, no peer buzz. It’s probably Bach’s spaztardation that makes these things impossible. Click to read more…

Carlos “Master of Lists” Ramirez strikes again! This time our friend and favorite Zakk Wylde’s guitar squeal impersonator has compiled a list of the “Top 10 Heavy Metal Books” for Noisecreep. Check it out here.

It’s a very good list (and includes an entry by a sometimes-MS contributor!), but I am a little bummed that Chuck Klosterman’s Fargo Rock City didn’t make the cut. To be fair, that book is primarily about hair metal (Klosterman writes briefly about Slayer, and his complete lack of understanding of that band’s work borders on embarrassing) and has a Kiss cow on the cover of more recent editions (as though Gene Simmons didn’t look bovine enough already), so it’s possible Carlos didn’t consider it a “metal book;” still, it’s a great read and I think deserves it’s moment in the “top ten list” sun.

So what would I bump from Carlos’ otherwise excellent compilation? Probably Garry Sharpe-Young’s Metal: The Definitive Guide. Not because it’s a bad book, but because I’ve never read it. Not the best reasoning, I know, but, hey. Blow me.

There are some other famous metal tomes missing from the list, but… for the most part, I think Carlos nailed it. Slash’s autobiography, for example, really does not deserve a spot here.

Check out the rest of Carlos’ list here, then come back and argue about which books, if any, he missed.

-AR

Back in October it was announced that The Late Show with David Letterman writer Tom Ruprecht The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn were co-writing a film version of Chuck Klosterman’s book, Fargo Rock City, which is a personal favorite of both Vince and myself. It struck me as a pretty shitty idea at the time, especially in light of the writers’ assertion that the film would not really be about music the way the book is.

Now Klosterman has spoken to /Film about the adaptation, and – not exactly shocking, given that he has a stake in what happens next – he says it’s great:

Click to read more…

Well, this makes me nervous.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Tom Ruprecht, a longtime writer on CBS’ ‘Late Show With David Letterman,’ and Craig Finn, frontman of the popular rock band the Hold Steady, are teaming to write and produce” an adaptation of Chuck Klosterman’s 2001 Fargo Rock City.

The book, a personal favorite of my Vince’s and myself, is basically, like everything Klosterman has ever written, a rambling dissection of pop culture (in this case, 80s hair metal)  interspersed with personal stories (in this case, about growing up in North Dakota).

So here’s the part that makes me nervous. The film version is described in the following manner:

Click to read more…

Look: after nearly 20 years of making brutal death metal, Deicide ain’t exactly trying to reinvent the wheel. So while “The Beginning of the End,” the opening track of their latest offering, Till Death Do Us Part, is kind of surprising (it’s a slow, moody instrumental, as foreboding as the title would suggest, that is unsettling and in no way beautiful, like the negative version of the intro to every American New Wave album this century), everything after is exactly what you’d expect from these fearsome Floridians. Chuck Klosterman once suggested that the reason the Sunshine State spawned so much awesome death metal is because constantly being surrounded by old people makes one think about death all the time; maybe all that ponderin’ of the great beyond also makes these dudes desperate to maintain their youth, and so they just keep making the same album they did in 1990 over and over again.

In any case, it’s a moot point, ’cause like AC/DC before them and Children of Bodom after, the fact that they’re usually pretty good slides them from the “boh-ring” column to the one labeled “dependable.”

Click to read more…