MetalSucks

So what was your entre into the world where denim, leather n’ demonology reign supreme? Where you adore the goat and sway to the symphony of deee-struction? Every man (or woman) has a tale to tell. Here’s mine. You’re gonna hear a lot of names you might be unfamiliar with, especially if you’re a member of Attack Attack! (Or just plain anyone under 23!) You’re gonna be thinking, “Damn, this fucker is old!” Yeah, well just remember that I’ve seen seen stuff that would make you shit Perrier with jealousy. I’m definitely old enough to have seen Minor Threat, Cliff Burton-era Metallica… the list goes on… before most of you were a tadpole in yer pappy’s population paste.

Let’s start at Discharge. I could go back and trace the whole history of early 80’s hardcore for you, but neither of us have the time or attention span. Let’s just say, the minute I heard these Stroke-on-Trent monsters of the nuclear reactor riff on the monstrous Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing album, I nearly pissed my pants. It was the gateway to something far heavier than I had ever heard on a scratchy 7” from the new record store that had opened in Boston called Newbury Comics.

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Faith No Mania continues!

Following the news that the legendary Faith No More are, in fact, reuniting, it has just been announced that they will headline the opening night of this year’s Download Festival in the UK. Slipknot and Def Leppard will headline the following nights.

Oddly enough, the FNM-inspired nu-metal acts that Mike Patton has repeatedly professed hatred for, Korn and Limp Bizkit, will play earlier that same day.

Will Patton make fun of Fred Durst from the stage? Will Nikki Sixx throw a fit that Motley Crue’s umpteenth tour isn’t nearly as newsworthy? Can FNM’s performance even possibly live up to expectations? I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.

On a side note: I know some non-European readers have been freaking out because the band allegedly has no plans to tour the rest of the world right now. All I can say is: chill. We have it from a good source that this reunion is going to last quite awhile. Just be patient.

-AR

On several occasions I’ve heard someone refer to Def Leppard as part of the British New Wave of Heavy Metal, and that band’s inclusion into the genre never made sense to me; it’s not that I don’t enjoy vintage Def Lep (for better or worse, I do enjoy it, very much so), but uttering the words “Def Leppard” in the same breath as “Judas Priest” or “Iron Maiden” just seems… wrong.

Well, I guess the fellas in Iron Maiden disagree with me. Maybe this is old news, but in a recent interview with Inside Out, the Def Lep guitarist discusses how he almost ended up battling giant Eddies on stage:

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I’ve lost track of how many of these blogs I’ve done so far. I used to number them but now I don’t know what number I’m up to. Speaking on the phone with Vince, we both realized I’d been doing this blog for over six months and it blew my mind.

Where does the time go?

I let the cat out of the bag when I mentioned we were covering a MUSE song. I’m not sure if I should have told everyone but I don’t think that information needed to have a chastity belt on it. Just to clarify though, the cover is NOT going on the album. We just recorded the song for some extra diddies and maybe some extra sack action! Women love angelic voices and skinny dudes with pale skin. We’re the exact opposite of that but maybe sack action can be in our future because of that song! I’m sure MUSE will hear our cover and say in an English accent, “Ian, these niggas have ruined a fucking classic…”

Ok, enough heehawing. On to the real news! I was blown away by the Poison vs. Def Leppard debacle. I mean come the fuck on. What the hell is our world coming to? Remember East Coast vs. West Coast rap? Motherfuckers were getting shot. Back then it was who was the hardest most stone cold motherfuckers out there. With Poison and Def Leppard this shit reminds me of one of those Ben Stiller movies like Zoolander or Tropic Thunder. What are they fighting about? Who sucks worse? What over-40 chick wants you more?

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[Welcome to our new column Hair Metal Happy Hour, which will be manned by the fine writer Michael S. Robinson. Things have been admittedly less hairy around here lately, but we hope to rectify that situation with this semi-regular column. Huh huh, he said "rectum-fry." - Ed.]

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost twenty years since glorious hair metal ruled the charts and MTV. Once the crispy, crunchity sounds of the Pacific northwest took over, many of our cock-rocking heroes from the 80s faded into oblivion, while others continued to record sporadically, enjoying varying degrees of success, or lack thereof.

Now it’s 2008, almost 20 years to the day since Stryper released In God We Trust, and we find ourselves in the midst of unarguably the greatest year for hair metal releases since the 1980s. I’m not sure what any of us have done to bring about this incredible turn of good fortune, but it’s worth pausing to analyze, and give thanks for the bounty of hair metal we have been given, and are about to receive, in 2008.

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Eventually, someone is going to adapt Motley Crue’s The Dirt (which I’m still fairly certain is the best book ever written in any language ever) into a movie. There’s too many greenbacks at stake for the project just to sit on the shelf forever.

But I’ve read screenwriter Rich Wilkes’ adaptation of the infamous tome (written by Neil Strauss under the guise of being written by the band members themselves), and it wasn’t going to make a good movie. In fact, I can guarantee you it was going to make a horrible, horrible movie. Wilkes is the writer of such gems as The Jerky Boys movie and xXx, so that news really shouldn’t shock anyone*; in fact, I have to guess that Wilkes got the job ’cause he wrote Airheads, which is probably the last Hollywood movie about metal that is only a semi-embarrassment to the film industry**. Still, Wilkes’ script was all set to go before cameras under the guidance of Borat director/Seinfeld executive producer Larry Charles, who is really way, way, way too talented for this lousy script. At various times, Ashton Kutcher and Johnny Knoxville were rumored to be in talks to play Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx, respectively, and Christopher Walken and Val Kilmer were alleged to have filled the roles of Ozzy Osbourne and David Lee Roth.

In other words, this thing really had about as much chance of being good as Lars Ulrich does of growing to be six five four feet tall.

So lucky for us all that the project, at least as we’ve known it, seems to be in jeopardy.

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Look: I know the new Def Leppard single, “Nine Lives,” is gonna suck, and you know the new Def Leppard single is gonna suck. Even if Def Lep haven’t grown into as monumental an embarrassment as, say, Motley Crue, they certainly haven’t written anything anyone should give a crap about in a long, long while. Plus, “Nine Lives” – which comes from the band’s forthcoming new offering, Songs from the Sparkle Lounge* – is a collaboration with country singer/Faith Hill fucker Tim McGraw, which places it squarely in the Sevendust/Chris Daughtry “Just Shoot Me in the Fucking Head” category.

But the band is releasing the single via Guitar Hero III, and I’m tired of playing “One” and “Raining Blood” over and over again. So, yes, I do plan to download the song and play the living shit out of it.

Besides, it has to better than Aerosmith’s “Nine Lives”… right?

-AR

*They couldn’t just call it Gay: The Album?

Def Leppard bassist Rick Savage* is auctioning off some of his stage clothes on DefLappard.com, according to Blabbermouth. Even when I think of the rock stars I’m most enamored of, I can’t really imagine wanting something they wore on stage** and did all kinds of sweating and who the fuck knows what else in. The worst part is that these aren’t even Savage’s stage clothes from back in the day, when he was still cool; this is the shit he wore on stage earlier this year. Sheesh.

No word on whether or not the clothes have been cleaned. I’m not sure if these duds being filthy would be a pro or a con for whatever nut job is surely gonna fork over an obscene amount of money for this shit.

-AR

*You remember Rick Savage, right? He’s not the lead singer, not the dead guitar player, not the guitar player who isn’t really the lead singer of Genesis, and not the one-armed drummer who beat his wife and may or may not have killed Dr. Richard Kimble’s wife; nay, Savage is the one who stutters.

**Okay, MAYBE I’d buy one of Slash’s top hats. Maybe.