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Early Man front dude and friend of MetalSucks Mike Conte posted the below on his site, Whiplash, and it’s just too good not to post. The specifics, of course, need no explanation.
For more fun with Sesame Street and metal, check this out.
-AR
Did any of my fellow New Yorkers see the headline on the NY Post this morning? “SUPREMA.” Seriously. I mean, come ON. I understand that Sotomayor is Hispanic (in case you somehow missed it), but she’s a fucking nominee to be a Supreme Court Justice, not the latest meal from fucking Taco Bell. Douche bags.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, here’s something awesome: a fan-made video for Early Man that mashes the band’s “Beware the Circling Fin” with footage from Masters of the Universe. After the announcement last week that they’re going to turn my beloved (if totally retarded) children’s cartoon into a dark, grim n’ gritty live-action movie (’cause everyone thinks they’re Chris fucking Nolan these days), it’s good to see that someone can still have fun with this shit.
The video was sent to us by Early Man/MetalSucks blogger Mike Conte, and originally appeared on Conte’s own blog. Thanks, Mike!
-AR
Swine flu got you down? Don’t get too scared, it was always part of the plan. Here’s a headline you should be much more concerned about: “ROB HALFORD UNVEILS NEW LINE OF SUPER CRAPPY T-SHIRTS“. WTF?? As if that isn’t horrifying enough in and of itself, the shirts look like they were designed by people with down syndrome that just couldn’t quite make the cut over at Affliction (as though Affliction Clothing isn’t bad enough). Jesus. If you want to get massively bummed out, head over to Halford’s new t-shirt line website, “Metal God Apparel” and grab yourself a sweet tee for a cool $54.99. Cheap!!
I see tons of douchebags trolling around Los Angeles in shitty shirts that look dangerously similar to these. It’s pretty sad. It’s a pandemic for sure. And there’s not really much we can do at this point. It seems even the Boston Red Sox have been struck with this “affliction” (pictured right). I hate all of you.
-MC
[Read more from Mike Conte at http://www.whiplashwhiplashwhiplash.com/]
After the antics of the first day of the festival, I felt more than ready to get into day two with a healthy dose of music from the beginning. Unfortunately, that was not to be so for me, as at the time I thought I would be continuing on after SXSW into further ridonkulousness, all the way to a family vacation during Spring Break in Mexico….and today was the day that my renewed passport was meant to be FedExed to the flophouse where Vince and I were crashing.
When I had returned to said flophouse the night prior and to my surprise found an open couch in the living room right by the front door (where I was told FedEx homeboy would appear bright and early), I figured it prolly made the most sense to sleep right there on the ground floor as opposed to the stank upstairs sweat lodge where I would be sure to miss any sounds of door knocking.
Sadly, no FedEx arrived in the morning as promised — I was actually awoken by a phone call from Vince around noon wondering where the hell I had ended up last night. After a couple more hours my passport finally arrived, at which point I had to wait at least another hour for a cab to take me down to the action.
HOLY SHIT.
After yesterday morning’s scare, thankfully Kip turned up. On the couch downstairs at the flophouse we’re crashing at. Phew!
It was another fine day in Texas; 80 degrees, sunny, lots of metal. First up was Full Metal Texas, at which I saw Black Math Horsemen, Kylesa, Skeletonwitch and Fact. The End Records / MetalSucks showcase followed, at which Junius, Hull, These are They, Goes Cube, Tub Ring and Early Man rocked the confines of a tightly packed room that looked like an old European castle. My quick summary after the jump.
You bitched and moaned about daylight savings time, even though you were asleep when the clocks changed and you get an extra hour of daylight every day until November. You are all retards.
Here’s what else happened this week:
Next week Kip and I take off for Austin, TX on Wednesday. We’ll be live-blogging whenever possible. To everyone else, have fun not being there, suckazzz!!
-VN
MetalSucks is proud to present, along with our friends at The End Records, an actual Official South by Southwest 2009 Showcase! Kip and I will be rockin’ with our cocks out in Austin, TX non-stop from Wednesday through Saturday while Axl and a particularly clever MS Mansion Monkey named “Higgins” hold down the fort here in NY. You’re likely to catch us at many of the awesome metal-flavored SXSW events going down this year (including but not limited to Full Metal Texas), but you will absolutely catch us at the kick-ass MetalSucks / The End Records showcase at The Ale House Pub on the eve of Thursday, March 19th. The killer lineup includes Junius, Hull, These are They, Goes Cube, Tub Ring and Early Man — holy fuckin’ shit!!
Set times and location after the jump. See you there.
Hello from the road, Metalsuckers! We’re one week into our tour with Portland rockers Red Fang. I am coming to you from a coffee shop called ‘Coffee Works’ in a strip mall in Charlotte, North Carolina. I gotta be quick because we’re about to take off for our load-in and sound check at The Milestone, one of my favorite venues in America. After starting the tour in New Jersey under about a foot of snow last week, we headed to Philly and partied like it was Tuesday night (because it was). I got to hit my favorite spot, Jim’s on South Street!
If you can’t get into one of these you are no friend of mine. I also drink the peppers like a shot. No joke:
Hello Metalsuckers. WHIPLASH! round 2. It’s 5am Thursday, I’m in L.A. about to head to Burbank airport to catch a flight to NYC for the start of our U.S. tour next week. I’ve got a couple minutes before I go so I thought I’d pop in real quick and give you an update. We’ve spent the past week practicing some new songs off of our upcoming full length that we will be playing on this tour. I got into the habit a couple of years ago of filming practice sessions, as in just turning a little camera on and setting it in the corner during practices. It’s an easy way to record jam sessions plus it adds the visual element which can be an interesting little extra layer when listening back. Anyway, I had a camera running this week during one of our practices and have uploaded a little clip of one of our new songs called “By the Serpent’s Breath You Seethe” for your viewing pleasure:
[In which the Early Man guitarist/vocalist shares his thoughts on the world, music, and the usual assortment of drunken adventures/misadventures. Enjoy. -Ed.]
Hello everyone, welcome to WHIPLASH! With this column I plan to give you weekly updates and a behind the scenes look into everything that is going on in the world of Early Man, whether it be drinking, touring, recording, drinking, shredding, drinking, etc., if it’s happening I’ll be writing about it. What I won’t be doing with this column is writing 9 page essays about the “current state of the metal scene” or “my take on the new Metallica record” or any other boring crap like that. Don’t you get enough of that horseshit already? WHO FUCKING CARES! If you want to see what’s actually going on out here in the real world with a working touring metal band, well…it’s your lucky day. And just to make this all that much more interesting I’m going to take your questions and answer them right here on a regular basis via video response. Ain’t technology grand? Just remember, no question is a stupid question, I’ll take them all. Any topic, any subject, fire away. You can send them to: whiplash@metalsucks.net.
Before I take off I’ll use this opportunity to bring you up to speed with what’s been going on over the past 6 months with the band.
One of the very first “sign this awesome local band” posts I wrote for this site way back on June 20th of 2007 was a show review of the crushingly heavy New York stoner/doom metal band Hull. They opened for Big Business that night and literally blew them away; several months later I saw them open up for Early Man at the same venue, and once again they stole the show. Hull’s live shows are just that powerful. So it is with extreme pleasure and excitement that The End Records has given me the opportunity to announce to the world that they have signed Hull to the label.
Just because it’s been a minute since the last Funny Photo Caption Contest doesn’t mean uncles Axl and Vince forgot about ya; we’ve just been listening to the new Gojira record so much we simply haven’t had the time to peruse through your mostly un-funny captions. But fear not, we’re back this week bigger and badder than ever. But first, last week’s winner:
Ike Clanton: “Axl Rose exposed! The first promo picture with the rumored release of Chinese Democracy next month. Axl says he is fine and can’t wait for Steve Adler to come out of celebrity rehab to join the tour.”
The funniest entry was actually posted by MS contributor Corey Mitchell, but, ya know, as a resident of the MS Mansion he’s kind of ineligible to win: “Farquar O’Reilly bemoans his recent firing from Sunn O)))) for having ‘too much bottom end.’” Anyway, Ike Clanton wins new CDs from One Way Mirror, Overcast, Austrian Death Machine and Falconer. Corey, we’ll make it up to you later buddy; sorry!
As promised, this week’s special Halloween edition of the photo caption contest: this week the photo is YOU, and it’s your job to Photoshop in the baddest, most ridiculous looking corpsepaint imaginable. No real corpsepaint allowed, as we’ll know the difference — after all, we regularly peruse ratemycorpsepaint.com too. Email your entries to news [at] metalsucks.net and we’ll pick our favorites. Winner gets an Early Man package featuring a limited edition gatefold picture-disc Beware the Circling Fin vinyl, CD and t-shirt (aka this). Go!
Things are heating up in the U.S. presidential race, and everyone from Vince to Axl to Dallas to the Blogronaut expressed their opinions; naturally you all got fired up too. But even politics as usual couldn’t stop the flow of happenings this week in the world of metal:
We out. See you Monday.
MetalSucks contributor Christopher Roddy recently had the chance to email a batch of questions to Early Man guitarist/vocalist Mike Conte. Conte answered the questions at length about his band’s new record Beware the Circling Fin (out TOMORROW on The End Records! Read Roddy’s full review here), the current re-thrash revival, his uber-religious upbringing, following your own muse, and more. Check out Conte’s answers after the jump, and be sure to stream and download the exclusive new Early Man track “Sinking the Blade” below!
I don’t know what all the people who weren’t around for Thrash’s first run in the Eighties think about the sudden resurgence of the style but I’ve had mixed feelings about it. I really missed traditional Thrash throughout the Nineties and…Oughts (is that what we’re supposed to call them?). Sure, Thrash never really died and there have always been elements of classic Thrash in many of the acts that play Metal today regardless of the sub-or-microgenre with which they are associated; but having come of age in the early to mid Eighties and having been there for the dominant rise of this kind of music I never wanted it to diminish in popularity. Yet it did and there were new styles to take its place. The old acts that established the framework have kept going only to prove, for the most part, that Thrash Metal is a game best utilized through youth. And maybe my mixed feelings regarding all these young acts revolves around the fact that I’m not getting any younger either. It’s neither fresh or exciting to me nor does it further the Metal cause so much as derivatively reflect the glory years. Even so, I’ll be the first to stand up and trumpet that charging “lack of originality” against an act is disingenuous considering that every band carries its influences with them regardless of whether they make it obvious or not. If you think a band is “original” that just means you’re ignorant of their influences. As such I always feel conflicted when faced with a “new” Thrash Metal act.
I really dig Early Man, though. More than most any other neo-Thrash band out there they’ve managed to capture the essence of ’80s Metal for me, personally. From their Monitor Records Fuck You If You’re Talking To Me EP to their Matador Records Closing In album – both from 2005 – there’s been a raw, low budget feel to the music that carries through to their current output even though they now have the backing of The End Records. Their upcoming Beware the Circling Fin EP (out October 14th) was produced by Jack Endino (Nirvana, Mudhoney, Dwarves, High On Fire) and it retains a basement authenticity which makes the effort that much more endearing.
The ongoing revival of revivalist musical genres is often twofold for me — on one hand, I’m like, oh snap, this sounds like 1982 so much and that’s awesome (in the case of thrash metal), and on the other I can’t help but simultaneously recognize that’s it’s the freakin 21st Century and enough musicians/bands/genres have already made their mark stupendously so why are some folks hell-bent on recreating something that was done so well originally? (also in the case of thrash) Perhaps it’s one’s affinity with yesteryear itself (i.e. pure nostalgia for an era faded), maybe it’s the personal recollections of when said folks were all pimply and impressionable kids (as opposed to jaded grownup kids), or could it be that when certain people fell in love with music and/or a particular band/genre and they felt compelled to pick up an instrument and learn it well, their then-current context became the only style they felt/feel comfortable playing in?
Huge statement. Right? Huuuge muthafuckin statement, especially from a guy who’s not even really into thrash. But there’s something about music that works so well for what it is that can transcend genre preferences.
You hate folk music? Look me in the eye and tell me that Simon and Garfunkel ain’t the prettiest damn SHIAT you ever dun heard.
Think funk is for hippies and hairsprayed chicks from New Jersey? Remember back to that one party/night at the bar that you got perfectly drunk enough to dance “really well” and remind yourself that James Brown was your messiah at that moment in time.
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