To help promote their upcoming tour, on October 11 Judas Priest will release The Chosen Few, their umpteenth career retrospective, and one which does not feature any new material. The Chosen Few does have a hook, though — I mean, beyond the fact that the band members appear on the cover only as silhouettes, I assume at least in part to downplay the fact that a certain key member is no longer in the group.

No, the hook  (and this is actually a neat idea) is that the band has let a lot of other celebrity musicians — including Ozzy, Lemmy, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kerry King, Slash, and Vinnie Paul  – choose which songs would appear on the collection. And, yeah, it’s interesting to know that Zakk Wylde is way into “Grinder,” and and that Randy Blythe and David Coverdale might actually have something to talk about at a cocktail party, and that Joe Satriani likes his Priest heavier than I might have suspected.

But like I said, there’s no new material here, so I can’t quite imagine why anyone would want this album anyway. The coolest thing about The Chosen Few is seeing which dude chose which song, and you can do that after the jump. So, look, we just saved you ten bucks.

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Adrenaline Mob, the new band featuring ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portony, Symphony X vocalist Russell Allen, and Stuck Mojo/Fozzy guitarist Rich Ward, are now streaming their debut EP in full (below). And, as we have suspected since the project was announced in June, it’s lame.

I mean, I’m sure it will have its defenders, but I’d also wager that those defenders all have beer guts, and reside either in New Jersey or on Long Island. Because that’s how this music sounds; like it was made by a dude who was prom king back in ’86 and basically hasn’t been able to see his own penis since. It’s like one of these demos people send us where the band clearly had no higher aspiration than to be the next Black Label Society, and yet, they have failed miserably.

Feel free to check it out for yourself, though. I hope you have a super-awesome good time!

-AR

When I heard about the Dream Theater-shaped hole in the life of drummer Mike Portnoy back in September, I wanted to pitch him on my long-gestating idea to form a killer Jellyfish cover band. I bet he’d be into it cuz of his Jellyfish super-fandom (he has cited 1993′s Spilt Milk as a top ten favorite album); and he’s a pro at pulling together all-star jams, like his awesomely fun tributes to The Who, The Beatles, and Led Zeppelin with guys like Paul Gilbert, Jason McMaster, and Dave LaRue; and lastly, The Ghosts At Number One (that’s my vote for our band name) could serve as a totally non-cynical tribute to another hardcore Jellyfish fan, the late Dimebag Darrell Abbott. And what better way to hip headbangers to irresistible non-metal jams? How could Mike say no to that? Can I call him Mike?

But, shit, while I was dicking around, gobbling drugs, and failing to corner, pressure, and/or threaten Portnoy about the Jellyfish idea, he teamed with qualified musicians he knows who actually, like, realize their ideas. Even if those ideas aren’t so great. Symphony X singer Russell Allen talks about Adrenaline Mob, one of Portnoy’s new bands:

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Not Chris Jericho

Does anyone take Chris Jericho seriously? I’d stopped paying attention to pro wrestling by the time his career started, and the one time I heard Fozzy at a listening booth (remember those?), I thought it was pretty awful.

But the guy has his fans, I guess, and some of them are probably pretty upset that he’s going to be on the latest edition of ABC’s reality show, Dancing with the Stars. (In case you’re not familiar with the program and are too stupid to grasp the basic premise based on the title, it’s a show in which “stars” dance, and, uh, stuff.) His co-contestants will include The Karate Kid, a talk show host, a woman who actually used to let Hugh Hefner fuck her, a model, a retired boxer, and the morbidly obese lady who used to be on Cheers.

Honestly, I find this much less disgraceful than Vince Neil appearing on Skating with the Stars, because there are no ice skates involved, Jericho doesn’t look as though he could audition to play the title role in The Blob, and, like I said, I never held the dude in very high regard anyway. But like I said, Jericho’s fans might be upset right now, so, uh, let’s all give them a hug or whatever.

On the bright side, maybe Jericho will fall down and break his leg or something on television, and then at least we can all have a good laugh.

-AR

So Revolver are doing their Golden Gods awards for the third year in a row on April 20 in L.A. (read our coverage from previous years here, here, here, and here) and the nominees have been announced.

Now, the first thing you will notice is that the nominees are more or less fairly ridiculous. For example, if these awards are to be believed, than Disturbed’s Dan Donegan is a better guitarist than Misha Mansoor, and Times of Grace (which is really just Killswitch Engage), We Are the Fallen (which is really just Evanescence), and The Damned Things (which is a supergroup) are all new bands.

That being said… I do not get particularly offended by these nominations the way I do with the Grammys. I think that’s because I know there are people who take the Grammys seriously, and think those awards actually mean something, whereas the only people who pay attention to the Golden Gods are already metal fans who either a) know that this is really just an excuse to throw an awesome party and have a big event promoting metal as a genre, or b) are eleven years old.

So check out the noms after the jump, and try not to get your panties in a twist. You should also be aware that Alice Cooper, Duff McKagan, DevilDriver, Asking Alexadria, Volbeat, and Fozzy are all performing, and that Motley Crue are getting the Ronnie James Dio Lifetime Achievement Award. (Their lifetime achievement: still being alive.)

So, about those nominees…

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The most interesting headline to come across my RSS reader this morning was this one from SMNnews.com: “Fozzy Song ‘Martyr No More’ Streaming.” Fozzy is still around? Fozzy of wrestler Chris Jericho fame? No shit.

A side project for Stuck Mojo guitarist Rich Ward at best and a musical outlet for Jericho at worst, apparently Fozzy have a new album coming out called Chasing the Grail. I’m not sure I’d ever listened to a Fozzy song before today, but you know what? “Martyr No More” ain’t bad at all for what it is. Rich Ward is a great songwriter and a surprisingly tasty guitar player, and though his sound hasn’t changed much, or really at all in 20 years, you have to give the guy credit for being several years ahead of the rap-metal curve (for better or worse). Take latter-day Stuck Mojo and remove some of the cringe-worthy rapping (not for nothin’ I’ve actually dug some of Mojo’s later material) and you’ve got Fozzy, which is actually kind of an upgrade. If you can just ignore all the auto-tune on Jericho’s voice, you’ve actually got a pretty decent song here. Certainly not gonna reinvent the wheel, but a good song.

-VN