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Our pals over at Metal Injection recently unearthed the below video of Fantomas playing a medley of old Slayer tunes, and, yeah, it’s pretty great. Despite the presence of Slayer drummer Dave Lomabardo, Fantomas put their own unique spin on the material, rather than just doing rote copies of the originals. Killer stuff… check it out below:
-AR
I meant to remind you guys yesterday but I’m a dick so I forgot — Arch Enemy’s North American Khaos Tour, which we here at MetalSucks are very proudly co-presenting, is now underway! I’ve been trying to find fan-filmed footage from last night’s kickoff show in Baltimore to no avail, but I hear the concert was great… which is really no shock. Especially given that the three support bands — DevilDriver, Skeletonwitch, and Chthonic — are all as much fun as Arch Enemy! You can get dates here. If anyone is gonna be at the NYC show tonight, come find us. I’ll be the really, really not-sober guy in the back screaming for them to play “Savage Messiah” over and over again.
Now, here’s some stuff we did this week:
And, oh hey, did we mention that tickets for The Metal Suckfest are on sale now? We did? Okay, swell!
Have a good weekend, y’all. See ya Monday.
-AR
On December 31, 2008, Fantômas– the on-again-off-again supergroup featuring Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk, Peeping Tom), Buzz Osborne (Melvins), Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, MadLove) and Dale Crover (Melvins, Shrinebuilder) — performed their 2001 album The Director’s Cut live at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. Nearly three years later the band is releasing The Director’s Cut Live: A New Year’s Revolution on DVD and as a standalone audio download via Ipecac Recordings.
As you’d expect from this rowdy cast of characters, the performance was electric. Check out the song “Cape Fear” from the show below. The Director’s Cut Live: A New Year’s Revolution came out yesterday and is available for order here; you can also download just the audio here.
Chthonic, Monstro and Saviours have the big metal releases of the week. Let’s take a look at those and a couple of others after the jump.
Interviewing Buzz Osborne was, without a doubt, one of the best experiences of my lucrative career in music journalism. Sometimes, interviewing can be a real drag, me trying to pull meaningful answers out of disinterested people. What a bummer it is when you realize that someone whose music you dig turns out to be a jerk or worse–a bore. Thankfully, the frizzy-haired Melvins frontman and Fantomas guitarist proved to be a funny, engaging, and opinionated interviewee, turning what could have been a straightforward Q&A session into an hour-long phone conversation. For your sake, I’ve broken this dialogue up into two parts, the first of which appears below.
The Bride Screamed Murder, the imminent new full-length Melvins album, is the strongest work of the current Big Business-infused lineup and quite possibly the best damn record the band’s put out since the classic Houdini. Read on to learn King Buzzo’s thoughts on the new record, black metal, military cadence, and why U2 are “a bunch of pussies.”
It’s true. I interviewed Mike Patton. Do I even need to do an introductory paragraph for this? You either know who Mike Patton is or you have no fucking business reading this website. Disagree? Suck it.
I will say this, though. Mr. Patton’s latest album, Mondo Cane, is a collection of Italian language cover songs, recorded with a forty-piece orchestra. And it’s fucking great. While that might not sound very metal, it makes sense to anyone who’s followed his career of making exciting, challenging, and even befuddling music with groups like Faith No More, Fantomas, and Mr. Bungle. Check out what he has to say about Mondo Cane – and much more — below.
Down, Melvins, and Weedeater are playing a show in New York City tonight. Holy crap in my pants, I cannot recall the last time I was this excited about a metal show. Three of my favorite stoner metal artists on one bill! The tour continues throughout September, wrapping up in Louisville, KY on the 28th. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this incredible tour is that none of these bands have new albums out. So basically, this one is for the fans. And the money. WIN-WIN!
In related news, those darned Melvins will be releasing a remix album called Chicken Switch via Mike Patton’s Ipecac imprint the day after the Down tour ends. Of course, ever the contrarians, the band has opted to provide entire albums as source material, as opposed to single songs. Participants include a whole mess of freaks, including Merzbow, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, and David Scott Stone, the latter of these boasting an impressive resume recording and playing with Big Business, Fantomas, and The Locust (as well as the Melvins). Drummer Dale Crover is also a member of the doom colossus known as Shrinebuilder, which finally revealed its FUCKING AMAZING first song to the public and is playing a handful of live gigs.
-GS
[Gary Suarez is erecting a pillamyd. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]
I suspect that, save for the weirdos and closeted avant-jazz heads lurking among our readership, many of you are unaware of or oblivious to the work of Trevor Dunn. Of course, any Mr. Bungle fan will instantly recognize the name of that seminal band’s bassist. Produced by the influential and infamous John Zorn, its 1991 self-titled debut might be one of most bizarre albums in my collection of bizarre albums, blending bombastic hard rock, demented circus music, and freak jazz with thematic wit, irreverence, and depravity. In subsequent years, the Mike Patton-fronted group took a proverbial backseat to the vocalist’s work in the comparatively more successful Faith No More, leaving Dunn and his cohorts to pursue other musical ventures including Secret Chiefs 3. Though Mr. Bungle ultimately and mysteriously disbanded after the release of its third album California, Patton and Dunn would continue their musical partnership in the experimental metal supergroup Fantomas–a still technically active quartet that also includes Melvins’ esteemed axeman Buzz Osbourne and Slayer’s revered drummer Dave Lombardo–as well as the related Fantomas-Melvins Big Band and Zorn’s “Moonchild”. Separately, Dunn has spent much of this decade as a major player in New York’s avant-jazz community, featuring in countless groups and albums including his own Trio-Convulsant. MadLove, however, might be the most extraordinary (and frustrating) release of Dunn’s career given its curious straightforwardness and accessibility.
Trevor Dunn has a new band called MadLove–and apparently it isn’t some freak jazz thing for a change. Just the idea of the legendary bassist making what he calls “straighter, more commercial” rock music should sound irresistible to fans of his heavy work in Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, and the Fantomas-Melvins Big Band. A regular in New York’s downtown avant-garde community, he can frequently be found playing artsy-fartsy venues like The Stone, supporting likeminded subversives such as John Zorn or even leading his own ensembles like PROOFReaders, an Ornette Coleman cover band. That might suit jazz aficionados, but for metalheads it just aint heavy enough. Judging by the video above, MadLove should interest at least some of you.
If you didn’t happen to catch MadLove during the ATP Nightmare Before Christmas weekender last December, the band is playing three shows this week, in Philly, Joisey, and Brooklyn, the latter of these featuring openers Pink Noise and some Thurston Moore trio.
-GS
[Gary Suarez has swine flu. He also writes for Brainwashed and usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]
