So, to review the ways in bass players let us down this week:

• Coheed and Cambria’s Michael Todd robbed a pharmacy.
• Nick Oliveri from Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss held his girlfriend hostage in a four-hour standoff with a S.W.A.T. team.
• Jeroen Paul Thessling quit Obscura.

Dave Grohl has been known time and again to be part of the endangered species known as “The Cool Rockstar.” Dude is a household name and could probably buy and sell this website and everyone who reads it ten times over, but time and again he manages to convey one simple idea — that he is awesome.

Well, he’s done it again.

And now I’m just that much more excited to see Grohl and his Foo Fighters live in September. HIGH-FIVES!

-AR

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…

Of course when you set out to make a list like, say, the one we’re doing right now, of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, you are bound to piss a lot of people off — that just comes with the job.

But I always find it hilarious HOW those people get pissed off. For example, this week I saw a lot of complaints that the guitar players we’ve been selecting aren’t “modern.” And I can’t believe we have to fucking define the word “modern” for some of you idiots, but apparently we do. So:

So… which one of you jackasses would like to call up Alex Skolnick or Vernon Reid or Adam Jones and let them know they’re antiquated and obsolete? ‘Cause I saw Testament and Living Colour and Tool live just last year, and I would not want to make that call. Just because those dudes have been playing this game for awhile doesn’t mean their best days are behind them.

My point simply being: I don’t care if you hate our choices. That’s fine. But at least try to hate our choices based on an argument that makes sense, y’know?

And on that note, here are other ways we entertained ourselves this week:

• We debuted new music from A Pale Horse Named Death and Oakhelm.
• We checked out the latest releases from From Exile, Godstopper, and Cruachan.
• We wondered which is better, old music or new music?
• We philosophized about Google’s new cloud service.
• We fretted that metal may soon be blamed for terrorism.
• We got excited about The Faceless’ new demo.
• We bemoaned the current state of In Flames.
• We wept because Dave Grohl is not going to be on the new Mastodon album after all.
• We enjoyed a vegetarian cooking lesson from a dude in corpse paint.
• We questioned the logic of the new Avenged Sevenfold video.

Next week we unveil numbers fifteen through eleven on our guitar player list; the average age of those five musicians is thirty-one, whereas the average age of this week’s selections was forty-two. So maybe you can go back to being upset because you think they suck, not because you think they’re too old to be “modern.”

-AR

Well, this news is a real boner-killer.

Last week we got all excited because the above photo of Dave Grohl in the studio with Mastodon appeared online, and, of course, all of our minds went right to “DAVE GROHL IS GONNA MAKE AN APPEARANCE ON THE NEW MASTODON ALBUM!”

Alas, it’s not to be, says Rocksound.tv, who got official word from Camp Mastodon that “the Foo Fighters frontman popped into the studio to say hello – and not to record on the new album.”

So that blows.

Bitch and moan that everything doesn’t go exactly the way we want it to with us in the comments section.

-AR

[via The PRP]

So we’re now five axe slingers deep into out list of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists. We predicted that the list would get a lot of you angry, and, no shock, it has. Funny thing is, reading the comments, as of yet not one of you has correctly predicted which guitar player is gonna be #1. So, just lettin’ you know… you may be even angrier in the coming weeks, or maybe you’ll be less angry, but so far, it seems like you guys just do not see it comin’.

While you chew on that, here’s some other fun things we did this week:

• We premiered new music from Hate Eternal, Arch Enemy, and Nader Sadek.
• We enjoyed a new episode of “Cooking Contaminated,” this one featuring King Fowley of Deceased.
• We checked out the latest releases from Benighted and Zubrowska.
• We wondered if Metallica and friends have gone too far in their quest for the Big Fortune.
• We checked out some *real* hardcore.
• We weighed Donald Trump’s claim that President Obama was the first drummer for Overkill.
• We wondered why talent can’t be passed down via genetics.
• We weighed, compared and contrasted multiple metal concerts showcasing female-fronted bands.
• We prayed for Kurt Cobain to rise from his grave and off Miley Cyrus.
• We wondered whether or not Dave Grohl is gonna be on the new Mastodon album.

And so, in conclusion… I am going to get a slice of pizza now.

See ya next week.

-AR

I heard about, and then completely ignored, this photo album of Mastodon recording their new album. Why did I completely ignore it? Because I’ve seen bands record albums. It looks like dudes standing in a studio playing instruments. And unless you’re dealing with a band who haven’t recorded together in a very, very, very long time, well… that’s not too exciting. So these kinds of shots in and of themselves are usually not very cool.

Well, I’m an idiot. If I had looked, I might have seen this pic of Dave Grohl in the studio with the band:

Instead, I had to read about it on Heavy Blog is Heavy. D’oh!

ANYWAY, let us now analyze this photograph into, ahem, oblivion.

Click to read more…

Avenged Sevenfold and Vinnie Paul, “Mouth For War”

Matt Cerone over at MetsBlog.com does these daily “the least you should know” wrap-ups after every game, which this season have essentially all boiled down to “they sucked.” In that spirit, here’s an abbreviated report from the Revolver Golden Gods Awards in L.A., which Axl and I had the privilege of attending and which, unlike the Mets, most definitely did not suck. We had a rip-roaring good time and got rip-roaringly drunk before realizing that oh yeah, this is L.A. and you have to fucking drive home. What a nightly buzzkill, literally! Thanks, Axl, for driving my drunk ass home.

The least you should know about the 2011 Revolver Golden Gods Awards before we have time to properly recap the event:

• Avenged Sevenfold were easily the most popular band there; most kids at the show were wearing their shirts. Their performance was fantastic and even converted a few industry non-believers I spoke with; in addition to a “hit and run” set of the band’s most popular songs, they played “It’s So Easy” with Duff McKagan and “Mouth For War” with Vinnie Paul (video above).
• Alice Cooper played very early in the night but rocked nonetheless. (video after the jump)
• Vince Neil: not sober.
• Asking Alexandria frontman: definitely not sober yet. Lost his mic under the drum riser 10 seconds into “Youth Gone Wild” with Sebastian Bach (video after the jump).
• Sebastian Bach: still awesome.
• Sebatian Bach to Dave Grohl, upon running into him backstage: “Hey! Dave Grohl!” [hugs]
• Rammstein vocalist Till Lindemann was hilariously hitting on every woman in sight, including L.A. metal sorta-celeb Metal Sanaz.
• Other backstage celeb sightings: Dino Cazares (who Tweeted “where’s the baby?” at us), Dave Navarro (who still looks 20 years old), Rob Zombie, Alan Robert of Life of Agony (mega-cool dude), Taylor Momsen, Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Sasha Grey, Jenna Haze, Steven Adler, dude from Puddle of Mudd, William fucking Shatner, the ghost of Dime.
• Black Veil Brides winning “Best New Band.” Lulz!

Fun videos after the jump! More extensive coverage coming soon.

Click to read more…

If you are heading down to Austin for SXSW, be sure to head out to some of the metal-leaning movies on tap as part of the SXSW Film Festival. In addition to the first round of films I recently spotlighted here, even more titles have been unleashed on the unsuspecting public.

Click to read more…

More than perhaps any other band in the history of ever, the Foo Fighters always deliver with fun music videos. The latest clip for “White Limo,” which looks like it actually may have been shot on VHS, is the latest in a long, long line of video wins for the band. I don’t wanna ruin the fun for you, so I’ll just drop this nugget: the video centers around Lemmy driving the Foo-some Foursome around in, you guessed it, a white limo. Watch:

There will surely be some haters who think Foo Fighters don’t belong on a metal blog. They’re wrong, for reasons I shouldn’t have to qualify. But for what it’s worth, this song is as metal or more metal than anything they’ve ever done; it’s almost like Dave Grohl misses playing in Queens of the Stone Age so much that he just decided to write a QOTSA song for himself.

-VN

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

Last week we asked you, oh beloved readers, to suggest some QOTW, and there were actually a number of good queries posited. So we kinda just picked one at random, and then we’ll do some others in the coming weeks. In the meantime, this week’s question, from Tim, is:

WHAT ALBUM ORIGINALLY GOT YOU INTO METAL?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

Click to read more…

Despite the fact that I thought that Them Crooked Vultures was the most boringest thing in the history of ever, my man-crush on Dave Grohl continues unabated. I’m not even that big of a Foo Fighters fan, truth be told. I think they’re fine, but I don’t love them or anything. Mostly, I just think that Grohl is an awesome drummer who elevates nine out of ten projects he hits skins for (see: Queens of the Stone Age, Nine Inch Nails, etc.), and he seems like a cool dude. Which is, of course, key.

Also, once a year I break out that Probot record, and each listen makes me appreciate it more than the last. Remember how Zakk Wylde was really pissed that Grohl was supposed to write some tracks for Ozzy? But Grohl wrote better metal songs than Wylde has in for-ever. Sheesh.

Why am I talking about all this?

Click to read more…

It’s been a while since we had anything to grind through the Mike Portnoy / Dream Theater rumor mill, unless you count all those “I’m not the permanent drummer of Avenged Sevenfold” interview responses, which I don’t. Thankfully this glorious week of giving thanks here in the U.S. brings us two Portnoy / DT news tidbits to be thankful for, one dorky and one gossipy.

First, the dorkitude. In perhaps some of the best DT drum covers to be posted to YouTube in the history of that site, Behold… the Arctopus and Blotted Science drummer Charlie Zeleny recently uploaded a bunch of “audition” videos of himself playing along to various Dream Theater songs. “Audition” is in quotes because apparently Zeleny wasn’t actually asked in for an audition, but somehow got wind of which songs DT were asking auditioning drummers to learn and recorded and uploaded them of his own accord. It sorta worked, too; apparently the members of DT have now seen these videos. I’m actually kinda surprised more young drummers that grew up under Portnoy’s influence haven’t done the same thing the way, say, Dave Grohl publicly groveled for Led Zeppelin’s drum throne when they reunited in 2007 to pay tribute to Ahmet Artegun. Here’s Zeleny covering the middle/end section of “Metropolis Pt. 1″:

Note the Portnoy stick-flip at 1:10! Way to score those extra points, Chuck.

Now onto the gossip!!

Click to read more…

As recently reported and subsequently grumbled about by Axl, Krist Novoselic recently reunited with his former Nirvana bandmate Dave Grohl and Nevermind producer Butch Vig to record a song for the upcoming, as-yet-unnamed Foo Fighters album. Some weeks back, I did my own bit of grumbling over Grohl’s claim that the new record would be the band’s “heaviest yet.”

If there’s any speculation that the musically dormant bassist’s contribution might fulfill his former drummer’s prophecy, Novoselic’s documented trip to Hollywood’s Amoeba Records wont help things. Check out his selections — which include records from such hard rock luminaries as Lil’ Wayne and M.I.A.–in the above video. Sheesh.

-GS

The interwebs are all aflutter today because Dave Grohl has announced that his former Nirvana bandmate, Krist Novoselic, is going to make a guest appearance on the new Foo Fighters album — which is also being produced by Garbage’s Butch Vig, a.k.a. “The Dude Who Produced Nevermind.” This will mark the first time Grohl and Novoselic have recorded with one another since Kurt Cobain injected himself with enough heroin to kill an elephant, and then stuck a shotgun in his mouth, just to make sure that medical science didn’t get any bright ideas.

Look: I know Nirvana were cool, and I know that Cobain’s premature passing means they get to stay cool forever and ever and ever because the dude didn’t get to grow up to be lame like Billy Corgan and Chris Cornell, but I really don’t see any reason to get excited about this. Novoselic was never a songwriter; he was never even a particularly distinctive bass player. Cobain was Cobain and Grohl certainly beat the ever-lovin’ shit outta his drums, but Nirvana pretty much could have swapped out Novoselic for another bassist at any point and not missed a beat. This song isn’t gonna sound like Nirvana — you’d need to re-animate Cobain to make that happen — it’s just gonna sound like Foo Fighters. I’d wager that the bass lines won’t even be that special, since, like I said, Novoselic’s playing never had much discernible personality. So you’re not even gonna get the “What might that sound like?” curiosity factor that you might get from, say, Dave Lombardo filling in for Lars Ulrich at a Metallica show, or Duff McKagan joining Jane’s Addiction. Creatively speaking, this reunion doesn’t amount to much more than a gimmick.

All of that being said… I’ll take any excuse to post the below video of Novoselic hitting himself in the head with his bass at the 1992 MTV VMAs while Grohl taunts Axl Rose from the stage. This has to be one of the five proudest moments in MTV’s history, right?

-AR

The Cult is amazing, but singer Ian Astbury is confusing. He publicly wipes his ass with Dave Grohl’s name and generally decries modern disposable pop. It’s like he’s too aware of rock’s legendary personalities and their creative, conceptual, and technological leaps in the art form. So he gets a bit holier-than-thou these days, even when guesting on lame vanity records (Slash) and lame hipster records (Bore-us). Whatever. But what possible reason could he have for dramatically changing the way we enjoy The Cult? Oh, I see. Poor sales.

Click to read more…

When you tune into the premiere broadcast of The Second Annual Revolver Golden Gods Awards tomorrow night on VH1 classic, you’ll see the final public appearance of our beloved Ronnie James Dio. You’ll also see Jerry Cantrell and Mike Inez of Alice In Chains, winner of roughly half of the meaningful awards, enjoying the metal community’s validation of their potentially dicey comeback effort, the magnificent Black Gives Way To Blue. You’ll see metal codgers like Rob Halford, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, and Lemmy bathe in much-deserved adulation. You’ll also see potentially ho-hum performances pumped up by mega-drummers: Rob Zombie with Joey Jordison (in his debut performance), Fear Factory with Gene Hoglan, Brian Posehn with John Tempesta (and Brett Anderson girl call me srsly) and Slash with Dave Grohl.

But at a mere 60 minutes, the broadcast can’t capture all of the April 8 event’s super moments and silly gaffes. Here’s a few things you won’t see:

Click to read more…

People who care more than I do tell me that today is the anniversary of when they found Kurt Cobain’s carcass (’cause I guess it was hanging around a few days before someone stumbled upon it). That was sixteen years ago. It’s weird to think that he’s been dead longer than some of you have been alive.

I always liked Nirvana, but I never loved Nirvana. In fact I wrote an anti-Cobain piece back in 2007; I know a lot of you weren’t reading MS yet in 2007, so now’s a good time to check this out and tell me what a douche turd I am for kicking a dead man when he’s down.

Meanwhile, here’s Nirvana performing “Lithium” at 1992 MTV VMAs. I like this performance because a) Krist Novoselic hits himself in the head with a bass at the end and b) Dave Grohl goes out of his way to provoke Axl Rose, who was in attendance and performed with Elton John later that night. This lead to an infamous Rose-Cobain scuffle after the show. Good times. Good times.

-AR

As this blog’s unofficial grunge rock correspondent, I have Internet filters in place to catch for news related to the dinosaurs of that otherwise dormant subgenre. So when my tricked-out Commodore 64 started billowing black smoke, I knew that something big was happening in the world of flannel metal–well, big to the sense of old, weepy, nostalgic farts like me. So what caused this mechanical meltdown of FAIL-like proportions? Was it news that Butch Vig (producer of Nirvana’s Nevermind) would be producing the new Foo Fighters record? Hardly. As it turns out, Dave Grohl’s accompanying boast that this would be the Foos’ “heaviest album yet” overloaded my computer’s custom-made Bullshit Detector. I mean, c’mon!

Click to read more…

Reader Shane Gillis sent in this video, which appears to be a bunch of clips strung together of an obviously overcaffeinated Dave Grohl in the studio with Them Crooked Vultures (who are pretty “meh” even by “meh” supergroup standards). And while, on the one hand, it’s pretty funny, on the other hand, I know that in real life I hate being around people this loud and obnoxious. Guess it’s a good thing that Grohl is a rock star and we’ll never be friends. I didn’t wanna be friends with him anyway…

-AR