MetalSucks

MEGADETH, RUST IN PEACE

Ok, I was like, what, eleven when this shit came out? More like thirteen when I discovered it. Back then, Dave Mustaine was almost like a political figure as far as metal goes. Who knows how I’d look at his role now, but back then, he was a hero.

And then there was the songwriting. Nobody was writing music as creative as them. Listen to the guitar breaks in songs like “Five Magics” or the entire masterpiece, “Rust in Peace.” Nobody was writing stuff like that, and for the time, I felt like the lyrics actually meant something. And the solos – try playing a Marty Friedman solo when you’re thirteen. Try playing one now. The dude is/was/ and will forever be untouchable.

This band meant the world to me back then. I’m not crazy about the new directions the band has gone in, but that doesn’t diminish that they changed my life back when I was younger. I always felt like their rival bands were playing it safe, and that Megadeth was taking all the musical risks. I definitely think that this would be the musician’s choice for those of us who are and were still into real metal with real songs. Not just shred wankery.

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According to Blabbermouth, Elton John plays on the title track to Alice in Chains’ forthcoming Black Gives Way to Blue, which is described as “a heart-stirring tribute” to late vocalist Layne Staley.

Apparently John’s contribution comes solely in the form of piano playing and not vocals, which must be why Vince made no note of it when he reported on the album’s listening party (although he did make note of the “melancholy piano” and the lyrics “I remember you,” which he suspected at the time was a tribute to Staley); at the same time, I can’t believe they’ve kept the collaboration with John a secret this long.

So… anyone wanna get pissy about this? Honestly, like our friend Eyal Levi, I need some non-metal sometimes, and vintage Elton John often hits the spot. Plus, this isn’t the first time he’s worked with a near-metal band:

Black Gives Way to Blue comes out September 29.

-AR

This past Saturday night, Vince and Axl bought tickets to hipster-douche fest All Points West with the express purpose of seeing Tool and Tool only. There was a serious and very visible divide in the crowd – namely, other metalheads vs. people who think Interpol is cool  – and your MetalSucks editors were privy to some pretty funny dialogue as a result:

1. “I think they’re called, like, ‘Tools?’”
2. <robot voice>”Intergalactic, planetary. Planetary, intergalactic.” </robot voice>
3. Beat-boxing.
4. “Gogol Bordello are awesome.”
5. “Please don’t block my view of the stage.”
6. “There won’t be any moshing. Look at all that mud! No one wants to get dirty.”
7. “Where are the fried Oreos?”
8. Scowling at Axl’s Slayer shirt.
9. Scowling at Vince’s Paganfest shirt.
10. “What’s that smell?”

No matter; Tool kicked major ass anyways. It’s like there’s an unspoken agreement between the band and their fans: “You bring the weed. We’ll bring the lasers.”

Here’s Tool at All Points West on Saturday night, performing with special guest drummer Frank Ferrer of Guns N’ Roses fame.

-AR & VN

I’ve gotten multiple e-mails from peeps about this interview The Eagles of Death Metal front dude Jesse Hughes just gave to the Montreal Mirror.

Now, I should preface this by saying I’ve heard very little of TEODM’s music, and what I hear didn’t do anything for me. But, clearly Hughes is a funny guy.

But the statements everyone is harping on seem kinda… well… shrug. Read for yourself:

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Last week, Elise at Reign in Blonde wrote a piece entitled “TOP 5 SONGS I WOULD PROBABLY USE AS MY STRIPPER SONG.”

Improbably enough, this led to a stoned think-session where I came up with a list of the top five songs I would probably use as my own stripper song. ‘Cause I know you all wanna see me strip so badly.

Okay, here we go:

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I know we (well, I at least) give Slash a lot of shit around here – but it’s only because the dude was my hero growing up (I had his poster on my wall, was him for Halloween at least twice, etc.), and it’s always disappointing when one of your heroes, say, starts gigging with the alien “chick” (recent evidence suggests she may, in fact, be a dude) from Black Eyed Peas.

But Slash turns 44 (!!!) today, and it’s pretty much a miracle the guy is still alive. So I am going to take this moment to celebrate him by pretending that he’s still the way I’d like to remember him:

-AR

I imagine that when the members of, say, Daath get together for rehearsal, no one expects to be paid for said rehearsal. They’re all dudes who are friends – some of them even grew up together, if I’m not mistaken – and it’s not like they’re making squillions of dollars playing metal. Rehearsal, then, has to be viewed as an investment – get better as a band, put on a good show for the crowd, and, knock on wood, your band will get bigger and the money will come.

I also imagine it’s different being in someone’s solo band. If your boss is Ozzy Osbourne or Axl Rose or Dave Mustaine or Trent Reznor, there’s going to be a lot of money involved, and your creative input is going to be somewhat limited (I imagine). I know for a fact that the members of nu-GN’R are paid an annual retainer, just in case they’re needed; I assume members of certain other solo bands are given a similar (if perhaps less lucrative) deal. And actors definitely get paid to rehearse; granted, the rehearsal rate is less than the performance rate, but the unions insist that if you want an actor there for rehearsals, he or she must be compensated.

Now. Sebastian Bach’s record sales obviously are not what they used to be. But the guy still opens for arena bands, routinely plays large festivals, and, by his own admission, gets paid very large sums of money to appear on crappy reality shows. Doing something like, say, paying for his band’s member’s gas so they can get to rehearsal seems reasonable, especially when you’re talking about dudes like Metal Mike Chlasciak, who, even if he’s not exactly Zakk Wylde, has played with dudes like Halford, and is definitely a “known entity.”

Well, Baz disagrees. He’s looking for a new guitarist and a new bassist, and, more specifically, he’s looking for someone to do it for bubcus. Check out this statement from the Old Dude Gone Wild:

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When I left the bar on the relatively early side last night to get back to the Mansion and walk Sacha the Death Metal Puppy (one task the MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys can’t seem to master no matter how I berate them: picking up dog poop without flinging it at someone), Anton OyVey was proving that Jews really do love bacon by keeping one of the shiksas from Reign in Blonde pinned down in the corner (I think it was the, uh, blonde one), Frank Godla from Metal Injection was tolerating a conversation with some dude whose entire argument for why The Devil Wears Prada are a good band was based on how many records they’ve sold (by which standard I guess Transformers: Everyone Done Know Sambots Don’t Do Much Readin’ is the greatest achievement in the history of cinema), and I think Vince was actually dancing. Dancing.

Then at about 5 am this morning I had a serious John Hughes moment when I was dreaming that a cute girl was licking my ear, only to awaken and discover that it was, in fact, Sacha, trying to entice me into a game of fetch with his favorite stuffed animal, or, at least, the limb of his favorite stuffed animal (said toy was torn apart recently during a particularly rowdy listening session in which Sacha took the band name “Dissection” to heart). ‘Cause, y’know, fuck sleep.

What was my point? Oh yeah. This:

-AR

When I first heard that Courtney Love was going to release her long-delayed solo record under the Hole name, I considered it “a huge fuck you to co-founder Eric Erlandson.” Though the argument has been made that the influence and involvement of Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan may have had more to do with the band’s successes than the work of its official membership, I wondered how it was even permissible for her to utilize the name. Surely there had to be legal hurdles to be dealt with that couldn’t be dismissed without consent from former members. (I mean, Axl Rose effectively destroyed Guns N’ Roses by compelling his bandmates to relinquish all rights to the name.) So I’ve been waiting for Erlandson or someone from Hole’s management to comment on Love’s unilateral decision to shamelessly cash-in on the Hole brand. Well, at last, he has:

Furthermore, guitarist Erlandson insists a contract Love signed with him in 2002 bans her from using the name Hole for any future ventures, unless he’s involved. He tells Spin magazine, “We have a contract. She signed a contract with me when we decided to break up the band, which was like 2002 or something, so I really don’t have comment on it except that I know my part in that band. The way I look at it, there is no Hole without me. To put it blunt. Just on a business level… Somebody told me (about Love’s plans) and it just sounds like something… it just sounds like the usual. I love her a lot and I wish her the best, and I’m open to discussions regarding the real Hole, and if she has a solo album together, I think that’s great. I think she should finish it and put it out and do that.”

Of course, Love has responded to this seemingly sound logic with her usual grace, tact, and impeccable grammar… via Twitter.
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Annoying as he is, I’d love to talk metal with Moby someday. For one thing, he was ever-so-briefly the producer of Chinese Democracy, and I have a feeling he has some great Axl Rose stories.

For another thing, he was the guest editor for magnetmagazine.com last week, and he had some interesting things to say about Gwar:

Have you ever seen Gwar live? No? Rectify this immediately. The best live band ever. Really.

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This is gonna be a long, Lefsetzian rant that is only peripherally related to metal. Don’t read it if that’s gonna bother you.

MTV’s The State came out on DVD yesterday – the complete series. For those of you too young to remember, The State was a sketch comedy series that launched all the guys (and girl) who went on to make Wet Hot American Summer, Stella, Reno 911, and a whole bunch of shit I’m forgetting.

(The troupe’s members have also written and/or acted in some terrible movies, I’m sure because it paid well, but if it funds their own work, then whatever.)

So last night after we shuttered the MetalSucks Mansion Grand Study of Doom & Horror (where we do all our “work”) for the evening, I went out (To fucking Best Buy – because there is now no place else in the city to purchase DVDs) and bought The State, came home, “got right” as Ron Saint Germain would say, and sat down to watch a show I haven’t seen in sixteen years.

Holy shit, that makes me feel old.

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There’s something reassuring about knowing that people one sometimes considers cooler than him or herself were not, in fact, always so cool.

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At the risk of sounding disrespectful: we cannot look at Michael Jackson through rose-colored glasses just because of his untimely passing. The dude was, to put it mildly, a weirdo, and probably very, very crazy. And the fact that he is now dead does not change that fact.

That being said, back when the guy was slightly less crazy (or, at least, the general public was less aware of his craziness), there’s no denying that he was major talent who had a huge impact on music. Denying this fact because of his later follies is just foolish. And even though I’ve been listening to metal since before I had pubes, I freely admit that I owned a copy of Thriller long before I owned a copy of Reign in Blood.

Jackson apparently had some kind of affinity for hard rock guitarists, or, at least, had someone in his camp who did. Besides employing Jennifer Batten for years, Jackson worked with Eddie Van Halen (”Beat It”), Slash (”Give in to Me”), and Steve Stevens (”Smooth Criminal”).

For the usual dumb reasons, none of the videos for these collaborations are embeddable, but you can easily find them on the net. In the meantime, here’s Jacko and Slash:

On a more cynical note, except at least one, if not more, of these guitarists to start exploiting their relationship with Jackson for publicity any second now.

-AR

Paleozoic UK-based periodical NME reported today that Courtney Love will release her long-delayed second solo record as a Hole album. Apparently, none of the band’s other members will actually perform on the record, save for a possible appearance on backing vocals by Hole’s last bassist Melissa auf der Maur. With a brazen move that would make Burton and Dino blush, the Gratest Bloggre On Earht has effectively delivered a huge fuck you to co-founder Eric Erlandson by co-opting the name in an attempt to save her perpetually disintegrating career.

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A Nine Inch Nails live show is, truly, something to behold. It won’t shock anyone that Trent Reznor puts a massive amount of attention and care into his concerts; not just in the selection of the set list, but in terms of the stage show, the lighting, the on-screen visuals, etc. You could argue that Reznor is over-compensating for the fact that his band requires samples and drum loops as much as they require excellent musicianship, but attending a NIN gig is never just going to see another concert; it’s going to have an experience. And Reznor always makes sure that his fans get their money’s worth.

But now those evil Viacom bastards are reporting that Reznor is retiring from the stage:

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I was a little taken aback when I was this editorial in the New York Times this morning, written by former Guns N’ Roses/current Velvet Revolver bassist/current Loaded front man, Duff McKagan. Not so much because I was surprised to see that Duff is literate – he has a column in Playboy – but because the byline features his birth name, Michael McKagan.

Maybe it’s wrong of me to assume that the Times was being snotty – perhaps it was his idea to use his real name in the Paper of Record – but the whole thing is just kind of a head-scratcher.

No word yet on whether or not Axl Rose will now start writing for the Washington Post under the name “Bill Bailey.”

-AR

P.S. I interviewed Duff back in April. The MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys have been dragging their feet getting that shit transcribed, but at some point, you’ll get to read it.

If you don’t know who Amy Sciarretto is, well, ya should. She’s Roadrunner Records in-house PR goddess (and often writes the very funny “Ask Amy” column for the Roadrunner website) and also writes for NoiseCreep. She’s also written for Revolver, Kerrang!, Guitar World, and a butt load of other publications and websites. In other words, she knows her shit.

Now Amy has teamed up with Rick Florino – founder or Ruined magazine and a contributor to Inked, Revolver, Hit Parader, etc. – to write Do the Devil’s Work for Him: How to Make it in the Music Industry (and Stay in It!). Featuring interviews and music biz advice from members of System of a Down, DevilDriver, Dragonforce, Matt Sorum (current Velvet Revolver/ex-Guns N’ Roses drummer) and Roadrunner A&R guru/blade runner Mike Gitter, this promises to be much, much cooler than your average “how to” guide.

The book hits shelves on June 26. In the meantime, you can get more info here.

-AR

To review: last year Wes Borland joined Marilyn Manson. This seemed a little odd because while Manson and Borland both like to play dress-up, Manson is a known Limp Bizkit hater – a fact which Manson explained away at the time by claiming that Borland “used to be in a really terrible band that he left because he felt that it was a destructive force in art.”

Of course, this little marriage didn’t last very long because Borland went running back to Bizkit, thus making Manson look like a fool or, at best, pretty naieve.

So, of course, Manson being the God of Shit Talkers, he has now lashed out at Borland in Kerrang:

“We almost made the mistake of having Wes play guitar but he re-joined Limp Bizkit,” Manson explains. “That move forever eradicated my feelings on his choices in life as an artist.”

When asked why he thinks Borland went back to his old band, Manson said: “That is what I find myself asking when I urinate sometimes. He said he would never go back. If the reason is money, then I’d rather roll up a 5 note and shove it up my urethra. I’d rather set my dick on fire than join something that I hated.”

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I mean, it’s not like the dude has been some bastion of artistic integrity the past, oh, decade or so. He’s performed with Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/whatever the fuck his name is now, and Fergie, and done an AmEx (or was it Master Card?) commercial, and a car commercial, and wrote an autobiography primarily based around years that, by his own admission, he doesn’t really remember all that well. Obviously, the guy comes from the “You Pay Me I Show Up” school of decision making.

Yet our inbox has been flooded with e-mails of outrage that $lash would “sell-out” and appear on America’s most annoying television program. What can you do? Just blast Appetite as loud as possible and try to forget that this shit ever happened, or remember that this American Idol episode(s? I didn’t watch) is probably at least 30% less irritating than a Slash-less AI.

-AR

If you go here you can watch a video of Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows being interviewed about the whole nu-GN’R/Velvet Revolver rivalry. I can’t embed it because the people at Artisan News Service, who conducted the interview, are no good smelly fuck faces, but here’s a transcription of the relevant part:

“I go more towards the Use Your Illusion records, and I know that [Axl Rose] had a major part in those. You listen to the Velvet Revolver records and you can tell that it’s more of a straight-ahead rock band. And a lot of people like that… and it’s not a diss on them, but they have a short attention span… From the new stuff I’ve heard and the demos, I can tell that Axl had the biggest part in [the Illusion albums]… the lyrics… the vocal stylings… that to me was the major part of Guns N’ Roses. Even though you can’t have Guns N’ Roses without Slash and those guys, but… just, to me, Axl was the most important part of that.”

Now, that’s not exactly an inflammatory comment – in fact, it’s pretty even handed – but it’s still hard to imagine, say, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum (to say nothing of Izzy Stradlin) not taking serious issue with Shadows giving Axl so much credit and saying Velvet Revolver is for people with short attention spans.

So, I gotta wonder: did Shadows and Slash discuss Axl being the most important part of GN’R when Slash played with A7X last night?

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]