As much as I love Max Cavalera, Soulfly basically started as a nu-metal band (and Roots is a nu-metal album… sorry, kids), and it’s sometimes hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that Cavalera had Fred Durst do a guest rap on SF’s 1998 self-titled debut. I tend to ignore it because a) the friend of my enemy is not necessarily my enemy, and b) Max has worked with plenty of dudes I  don’t like (Jonathan Davis) and plenty of dudes I do like (Greg Puciato, Chino Moreno), so, y’know, shit happens.

But the topic of working with Durst came up in a recent interview with PyroMusic.net, and… well, Cavalera basically places the blame for Durst’s appearance on producer Ross Robinson’s shoulders:

Click to read more…

Holy crap. I don’t even really mind some of Eminem’s older stuff, which can be a lot of fun, given the right circumstances (namely forties, weed, and a bunch of white dudes feeling nostalgia for ten years ago). But this if AWFUL. I mean, it’s still better than Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park, mostly ’cause Eminem is a wwwwaaayyyy better rapper than Fred Durst or Mike Shitoda, but that’s like saying it’s better to lose your finger than your entire hand, y’know?

-AR

[via Metal Army]

Can you imagine if everyone to whom we give endless amounts of shit followed Dino’s example? We’d have Rose Funoral cards and Tommy Lee faking his own death and Fred Durst pulling a Billy Madison and pics of Joey Belladonna with his twig and berries tucked back. That’s the kinda world I wanna live in. I believe we can make it happen if we try.

ANYWAY, here’s some shit we did this week:

• We did a second installment of Cooking Contaminated.
• We’re streaming new tracks by Son of Aurelius.
• Eyal gave us a Daath studio update.
• We spoke to Max Cavalera and Ratt’s Bobby Blotzer.
• We suckered Decibel‘s Andrew Bonazelli into writing about the Metal Mets for us.
• We checked out some new German cheese metal releases.
• We called out David Draiman.
• We watched some great music videos, some awful music videos, and some really awful music videos.
• We made fun of the most annoying little kid in the world.
• We were sorry about Abacabb breaking up, but really happy about BOOBS!!!

Speaking of Eyal and studio updates: on Sunday I’m flying down to Atlanta to visit Daath in the studio. If you never hear from me again, assume I’ve been lost amidst a cloud of ATL purp smoke and awesome metal. But what a way to go!!!

-AR

Our friend Amy Sciarretto from Noisecreep reports that Birmingham City University (in England, not Alabama) is naming an award after everyone’s favorite heavy metal grandpa: the Ozzy Osbourne Development Award “will be bestowed upon the student that makes the most significant progress on their degree in the Media and Communication/Music Industry degree.” I assume that the Osbourne family donated a nice chunk of change to get the award named after him, but this doesn’t really make that much sense to me. For one thing, I don’t know if Ozzy has really shown any musical development in, oh, the last hundred years or so, and as much as I admire a lot of his past work, you’ll never convince me that the bulk of the credit doesn’t lie with his collaborators – especially given that the dude doesn’t actually play an instrument. And beyond that, fuck has Ozzy got to do with media and communication? If we’re talking about his work with various reality shows and what have you, well, then, shouldn’t the award be named after Sharon, since we have her to thank for Ozzy’s wonderful non-music endeavors.

But whatever. This piece of news got me thinking: what other awards could we name after heavy metal musicians? And so, after the jump, my suggestions for new university kudos monikered in honor of various other members of the heavy metal community.

Click to read more…

After I actually shaved a decade off my life by listening to the new Limp Bizkit song last week, a lot of you e-mailed me to indulge in major LULZ about Limp Bizkit’s announced tour with Snoop Dogg. And I didn’t write anything about it ’cause, y’know. It’s Limp Bizkit and Snoop Dogg.

But then yesterday Snoop put down the pipe just long enough to come to his senses and drop off the tour, and today it was announced that he’ll be replaced by… Ice Cube.

In case anyone has forgotten, here’s what came of the last collaboration between Fred Durst and Mr. Cube:

According to Box Office Mojo, The Longshots made a little less than $12 million dollars worldwide. I don’t know what the production budget was on that movie, but I’d wager it was higher than that. So, y’know. Somebody lost their job over that little investment.

Still, that was a shitty kids’ film and this is a shitty grown-men-who-act-like-kids’ tour, so things will probably run much more smoothly this time.

-AR

I don’t know. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know. I’ll bring it up in therapy this week.

In any case, I am now about to listen to this song for the first time, and just type out my thoughts as I do. Should I get high for this, take the edge off a little? I think I’m gonna get high for this. Be right back.

Click to read more…

So apparently Ozzfest is coming back this summer, and is coming back as a traveling tour again (as opposed to the one-off fest it was in 2008). And that’s all well and good, only… who’s gonna be on the bill?

Mayhem, which is basically Ozzfest 2.0, has already scooped up a lot of big-name bands for the summer, including many who have played multiple past Ozzfests – namely Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Atreyu, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed, the latter of whom I think have been on something like 90% of all Ozzfests ever.

Add to that other Ozzfest alum like Chimaira, In This Moment and Norma Jean, and some bands the kids today all seem to like, such as Winds of Plague and They Who Shall Not Be Named, and, well, that’s a whole bunch of potential mainstage and second stage draws right there.

Then there’s the mini-fests like Summer Slaughter. I can’t tell you which bands we already know are booked for some of these tours without betraying a lot of people’s confidence, but I can tell you that some great bands are now no longer available for Ozzfest.

And, oh yeah, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament are now doing their American Carnage tour in the summer, so they’re out.

So who’s left? After the jump, I’m going to play my favorite game: it’s called “over-think about something incredibly unimportant.”

Before we proceed, it’s worth noting that I’m going to try and be semi-realistic when moving forward with some barely-educated guesses about who’ll be playing Ozzfest. If a band already has summer tour dates booked, I’m going to assume they’re not avail, although I acknowledge that they could cancel those dates in favor of playing for a bigger crowd. And I’m not even going to bother with bands like Pig Destroyer, Sigh, and Salome – bands that will play Ozzfest right around the time Joey Belladonna’s solo band plays four sold-out headlining shows at Giants Stadium. Also, obviously not all of these bands are gonna end up on the bill – these are just bands I think could end up there.

And so, without further bullshit…

Click to read more…

So The Village Voice – which, depending on who you ask, is either a bastion of intelligent artistic commentary or the most pretentious toilet paper in print – recently compiled a list of the fifty worst songs of the decade, and, sure enough, some terrible nu-metal found its way onto the list. Here are three notable entries, via Blabbermouth:

08. LIMP BIZKIT and JOHNNY RZEZNIK – “Wish You Were Here”
10. FIELDY’S DREAMS – “Baby Hugh Hef”
12. DISTURBED – “Land of Confusion”
14. KORN – “Ya’ll Want A Single?”
15. HINDER – “Born To Be Wild”
19. NICKELBACK – “Something In Your Mouth”
27. KELLY OSBOURNE and OZZY OSBOURNE – “Changes”

Now, I’d never argue that these are terrible songs. But of the seven songs listed above, four are covers. And I just can’t take a cover seriously as the worst pick for each of these groups.

Click to read more…

Here’s Fred Durst back in July, shortly after he married Esther Nazarov (whomever the fuck she is):

“I love being married and I am the luckiest man alive to be so in love. It took me 38 years and was absolutely worth the wait. Every path has led me here. I’m hers, she’s mine, forever.”

And here’s Freddy yesterday:

“For those of you inquiring, I will confirm that Esther and I have decided to go our separate ways and we both thank you for your support.”

By the way, he made that little announcement over Twitter. Classy.

Click to read more…

Pure comedic gold. The pacing is a bit off and the video way long (it could’ve been just as funny at half the length), but the guy’s heart is completely, 100% in the right place. Also, the faux-NY accent is a bit bizarre… but whatevs. Anything that makes fun of Fred Durst is aight in our book.

-VN

[Thanks: Jeffrey Grasske]

This is a story about a band I don’t care about getting involved in some drama with a band I haven’t cared about in at least fifteen years. But it’s still kinda amusing, so I’m posting it.

Click to read more…

I started learning to play guitar when I was eleven. That was also the year I had my first guitar recital (which I realized even then wasn’t cool, but what was I gonna do, tell my parents to take the lessons I’d asked for and blow ‘em out their collective ass?). I probably sounded like I was playing with broken fingers, but everyone applauded when I was done because, well, I was eleven years old and it was my first time playing in front of people and that’s what you do when an eleven year old kid is showing some effort.

But why the fuck anyone would applaud for this is just way, way beyond me.

Actually, I think he’d sound better if someone broke his fingers. Certainly couldn’t hurt.

-AR

Thanks to twisted_freak for the tip.

Uncle Vinnie is back; under a moon-lit sky at Saturday night’s Tool show in New Jersey, Axl and I had “a moment” and kissed and made up.

Seriously though, folks, I was just on vacation at the MetalSucks Mansion Kentucky Korner. Did some of you ninnies actually believe I quit?

Wouldn’t be surprising given all the feuding that’s gone down in metal this summer already, though, and we haven’t even reported on the tummy-tickling beef between Machine Head and Limp Bizkit.

Click to read more…

From MS Maniac VillanJ via Twitpic:

“Maybe the Grim (kvlt, tr00) Reaper will think he didn’t finish the job on Michael Jackson and axe this doofus.”

-VN

You know what? I owe Fred Durst an apology. No, seriously. I just read his latest interview with Rolling Stone, and now I know the truth: Freddy isn’t a total douche chill. His music has just been misinterpreted all these years, co-opted by “bullies and assholes.” All he ever wanted was to make sensitive, romantic music for sensitive, romantic people. Like his heroes in The Cure.

How did it ever come to this? Let’s investigate. After the jump, check out some choice quotes from the interview, contrasted with some of Mr. Durst’s lyrics in bold.

Click to read more…

Vince is in Kentucky scouting land for a SECOND MetalSucks Mansion and against the advice of Gary Suarez and my own instincts, I’m off to see Terminator Salvation. We shan’t be posting Monday ’cause it’s Memorial Day, but we’ll be back Tuesday. In the meantime, here’s some shit that happened this week:

• We did a video interview with IWRESTLEDABEARONCE! We also spoke with The Haunted’s Peter Dolving, God Forbid’s Doc Coyle, and Unholy.
• We stole Daath’s Eyal Levi away from Headbanger’s Blog.
• Sigh’s Mirai Kawashima graced us with another totally excellent studio blog.
• Corey Mitchell says this is the best album of the year so far.
• Fuckface Durst finally went too far.

As Baz would say, “I’ll be Bach.”

-AR

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

Fuck me naked with a spoon.

Last night we got what looked like a mass e-mail from someone claiming to be Wes Borland, announcing that he was, once again, out of Limp Bizkit. Upset that Fred Durst has apparently committed to direct another movie in August instead of touring North America with Bizkit, sissy cry baby face Borland complained in the e-mail that “Fred has once again proven that he does not view Limp Bizkit as a legitimate artistic endeavor but, rather, as a commodity… I will spend my summer touring with Marilyn Manson instead.”

We dismissed this e-mail as a terrible April Fool’s joke, as I’m assuming any other media outlets that received it have as well, as it I’ve yet to see it reported anywhere. And I wouldn’t have thought twice about it… if not for this series of tweets from one Mr. Frederick Durst:

wes couldn’t hang… out with the old, in with the new. 8:10 PM yesterday from TwitterBerry

new guitarist is da bomb! 9:29 PM yesterday from TwitterBerry

ever wonder what break stuff sounds like with an awesome shred solo? 10:26 PM yesterday from TwitterBerry

let the countdown to egstinction [sic] begin! 11:05 PM yesterday from TwitterBerry

1st rehearsal over… time to go home n rust in peace 1:19 AM today from TwitterBerry

Well, Durst’s horrific spelling aside, I was now more than a little nervous about all the classic Megadeth references and talk of “shred solos.” Since we get a press release every time the Japanese go ape shit because Marty Friedman farted or whatever, I shot his publicist an e-mail basically asking if she knew what the hell was going on. I honestly thought I’d get an e-mail back telling me she had no idea what the crap Durst was talking about and my pot-addled brain was reading way too much into the mindless ramblings of the mentally deficient.

But here is the absolutely horrifying response I got instead:

Click to read more…

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

Do I rag on Fred Durst too much? Guess what? I don’t really care! It amuses me and it’s a slow news day.

SO. I’m new to this whole Twitter thing. Vince signed us up and I’ve tweeted (Christ typing that makes me feel like a ree-ree) a few times, but it’s not really for me.

But I am really, really enjoying following Fred Durst on Twitter. His tweets – which range from star fucking to philosophical to just plain weird – are as poetic and deep as his lyrics. If you don’t believe me, check out some of my favorite samples after the jump. And remember, kids, this is all real – I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

Click to read more…