The most recent album by Jane’s Addiction, 2003′s Strays, was a big-budget, big-production heavy rock record that kinda flopped despite its awesomeness. Since those distant days, Jane’s members have flirted with a full reunion (momentarily counting longtime hold-out Eric Avery as a returned member), with ex-Guns N’ Roses/current Velvet Revolver bassist Duff McKagen (he came and went within weeks), and with total futility (via singer Perry Farrell’s lame project The Satellite Party, featuring his wife and Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt).

So, along with my fandom, Jane’s has my curiosity about their new stuff — not just for the abovementioned travails, but also ’cause the album is a Rich Costey production (Mastodon, Muse, Cave In) and is the beneficiary of creative goosings by TV On The Radio dude Dave Sitek. I don’t care about TVOTR, but I’ve surmised that a dose of noisy post-rock might be good medicine for trio of moribund freak-rockers whose attempted return to glory was a safe, anthemic rock radio record. And now I see that my diagnosis is accurate, so far: Just listen to their thunderous, cacophonous new jam “End To The Lies” and its nipply new video (above, NSFW; audio only here). The jam is on fire! Turn it up!

-ADF

Jane’s Addiction’s fourth album The Great Escape Artist is out August 23 on Capitol Records.

It’s not hard to come up with theories as to why Slash has gotten so lame over the years — aging, sobriety, marriage, fatherhood, pacemaker, Fergie, etc. — but has anyone ever considered that Slash just might not be real? I mean, I know a truly silly number of people who have been Slash for Halloween over the years (both Vince and myself have done, in case you’re curious), and the reason is, he’s both recognizable and incredibly easy to imitate. Get a dark, curly wig, a top hat, and a cigarette, wobble around drunkenly, and, every now and then, remove a piece of paper that says “MY LEGACY” on it, place it on the ground, drop trou, and poo. Presto, you’re Slash.

But has anyone ever considered that the reason Slash has gotten so lame, and is so easy to impersonate, is because he’s not real? Y’know, like Santa. Like, maybe Slash seemed a million times cooler when I was a kid because my mom was Slash and my mom did an awesome job because she wanted her little gift from God to be happy, but now every time I see Slash it’s just some out of work record executive trying to bring back the good old days, or, worse still, Dj Ashba?

This is the theory that South Park posited on Wednesday night (about Slash not being real, not Slash being Dj Ashba in a disguise), with rather amusing results. (Two words: “Vunter Slaush.”) I can’t for the life of me figure out what spurned on Trey Parker and Matt Stone to include this storyline, although, yes, it does seem like Slash is always in too many places at once. I also feel like these guys lampooned Slash once before — I distinctly remember him being in some All-Star Charity Concert on a past episode — although I can’t seem to find that episode now, so maybe I’m imagining it.

ANYWAY, here are the clips from the episode relevant to Slash, courtesy reader Hetal Bhatt… you can watch the full thing here. In case you need some context for these clips, basically, the boys are trying to get Slash to play the half-time show for their new sports league, the Crack Baby Athletic Association. Yep yep.

-AR

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In 2006, Axl Rose’s Nu-GN’R played what was then their first show in almost four years at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC. Rose had recently made a surprise appearance on The Eddie Trunk Show*, dropping in after a texting session with Bach, whom he had not seen in many years. So at this first Hammerstein show, Rose brought out Bach, and they did a duet of “My Michelle,” and, of course, the crowd went totally apeshit.

Then they did it again for the next three nights the band played at the same venue. And then they did it again at almost every single Guns N’ Roses show since. And then Axl Rose made a guest appearance on Bach’s album, and then Bach made a guest appearance on Chinese Democracy. I mean, these guys sure did beat that gimmick until it was dead, and then they continued to beat it, just so its mother wouldn’t be able to give it an open casket funeral.

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Star Wars and Guns N’ Roses both have a special spot reserved in my geekiest of geeky heart, and probably for similar reasons: Return of the Jedi was the first movie I ever saw in theaters (and I was obsessed with/sympathetic to Darth Vader, not Luke Skywalker or Han Solo, it will shock exactly no one one to learn), and GN’R were my gateway into metal. In other words, seeing Jedi and hearing “It’s So Easy” were both major contributing factors to ruining my mother’s dreams of me ever going to medical school.

So. Now our friends over at Metal Insider have discovered the below video, filmed at Disney’s Hollywood studios’ “Star Wars Weekends” show, in which Chewbacca… and then an ewok… well, just watch. It is fucking strange, and I have no idea what the crap it has to do with Star Wars, although the audience does seem to be pretty into it.

Yep. ‘Cause I always thought that was “Welcome to the Jungle” was missing was a Jawa shouting “Wootini!” at just the right moment.

But wait, there’s more! They also had Lord Vader gettin’ jiggy wit… Metallica?

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Seether are still around? Apparently they are, and apparently they still sell buttloads of records. While Seether nabbed the top spot on the Top Hard Music chart, Scar Symmetry also had a good debut, as did, um, Vampires Everywhere. Foo Fighters, Hollywood Undead, Black Label Society and others are still selling lots of records too. Numbers after the jump.

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The Revolver Golden Gods Awards will air on VH1 later this month (or something… I know we got a press release but I was too lazy to read it), and it will be interesting to see that, because I was there, but I didn’t actually see very much of the show. I saw the schmuck from Asking Alexandria drop his mic two seconds into “Youth Gone Wild,” and I saw some of Avenged Sevenfold’s performances with Duff McKagan and Vinnie Paul, and I saw enough of Chris Jericho performing “For Whom the Bell Tolls” to consider throwing myself over the balcony and ending the awards in spectacular fashion (sometimes, sacrifices must be made for the greater good). But by and large I was too busy snorting coke in the bathroom with a girl who fucking swore to me that it wasn’t a herpes sore that lying bitch! to be bothered.

So one thing I had absolutely no idea even transpired was the below montage paying tribute to the five guys who died in the past year that are relevant to the readers of Revolver, which is to say, not Phil Vane or Frankie Sparcello.

But I shouldn’t be a jerk about it, it’s really a very touching video.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Buckethead…

“He was born in a coop, raised in a cage,
Children fear him, critics rage.
He’s half alive, he’s half-dead
Folks just call him ‘Buckethead.’”
–”The Ballad of Buckethead,” Buckethead featuring Les Claypool

Buckethead (his mommy just calls him “Brian Patrick Carroll”), the one-time Primus and Guns N’ Roses axe slinger, hasn’t released a single album in 2011, which I guess is excusable, SINCE HE RELEASED FOUR IN 2010 and ANOTHER FOUR IN 2009. In fact, his most recent release, 2010′s Untitled, was his thirtieth studio album — and that only counts solo albums, not stuff he’s recorded with bands/other artists. And even then, only solo albums released under the moniker “Buckethead,” not solo albums released as “Death Cube K” (which, in case you don’t see it, is the letters that spell “Buckethead” re-arranged).

Of course, the fact that he’s pretty much the most prolific person in the history of ever would make no difference if he wasn’t also an incredible, mind-bogglingly mind-blowing musician. Fact of the matter is, when you look at all those albums he’s released, not only are they all good, and not only do they all display top-notch musicianship and songwriting abilities, but they cover a wide range of styles, including not just metal and hard rock, but electronica, country, funk, blues, flamenco, and lots and lots of experimental shit that I don’t even know what the fucking fuck you’d call it.

For example, here’s a quick overview (and a shit ton of videos) of the genres covered in just those eight most recent solo releases:

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The Foo Fighters and Hollywood Undead were finally toppled from their respective #1 and #2 spots last week after holding down the fort in that order for three straight weeks prior (with Hollywood Undead at #1 the week before Foo Fighters’ debut), but rest assured, they’re still at #2 and #3 and show no signs of letting up. Nikki Sixx’s new Sixx A.M. record nabbed the top spot on the Hard Music Charts this week, undoubtedly due to this record-shifting post.

Elsewhere, Shinedown debuted their new live album, another Poison greatest hits collection flopped, and some other bands sold some records too. The numbers:

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‘Cause I just found their new singer.

He’s young, he’s talented, and he recognizes that JESUS IS THE LORD, a message which somehow got lost in previous VR tunes like “Pills, Demons & Etc.,” “Dirty Little Thing,” and “Just Sixteen.”

OMG SLASH PLEASE HIRE THIS KID RIGHT NOW HE IS SO FREAKIN’ AWESOME!!!

-AR

[via Badass]

One of the many members of the metal elite that our pals at Metal Injection got to interview on the Black Carpet at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards last week was Dj Ashba, current guitar player for both Guns N’ Roses and Sixx A.M. (He’s like the most in-demand musician of 1989!) Ashba was accompanied by actress Nicky Whelan, who, box office receipts tell me, probably none of you remember from her recent role as a bippy who gets naked in the movie Hall Pass (very NSFW video here). Ashba spouts some nonsense about the new Sixx A.M. album, and Whelan spouts some nonsense about the new Sixx A.M. album, and then Ashba says that GN’R might tour the U.S. this year. But this is the same dude who thinks there’s actually gonna be a new Guns N’ Roses record soon, and that he’ll still be in the band by the time that record gets done, so, y’know, it must be nice to be so blindly optimistic.

Metal Injection gots some other good gossip on the Black Carpet, too, including:

• Sebastian Bach told one of the dudes from Asking Alexandria that he’s going to die soon.
• Taylor Momsen’s parents are very supportive of her decision to exploit her barely-legal body in the name of making money for them.
• William Shatner doesn’t know who the band Shat.

Check out all of their coverage here.

-AR

So I was hanging out on the smoking balcony at the Revolver Golden Gods on Wednesday night when I spotted a few of the below promotional cards scattered on a nearby table.

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Two days late but not two dollars short, I figure ya’ll might like to know how all the albums that came out last Tuesday (April 12th) fared sales-wise, even though I think we can all agree that album sales aren’t the be-all-end-all measure of a band’s success. So without further ado, here’s how the new Between the Buried and Me, Foo Fighters and Red Fang albums sold last week.

Also, Dave Grohl is a very rich man; in addition to the ginormous debut of his new Foo Fighters album, seemingly every Foo catalog album made a return back onto the charts this past week.

Right, the numbers:

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Duff McKagan, vocalist and lead guitarist of Duff McKagan’s Loaded, bassist for Velvet Revolver, and former bassist of Guns ‘n Roses, took to the interwaves (via phonerview) to slam the “reality” television show Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.

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If you’d've told me in 1993 that some Swedish metal band that sings about Viking lore would sell more records than Pearl Jam 18 years later, I’d've called you crazy. Shit, if you’d have told me earlier this year that Amon Amarth would sell more records than Pearl Jam I’d've called you crazy. But that’s exactly what happened this past week. Sure, the Pearl Jam release in question was a reissue, but still; how unlikely is it that Amon Amarth, of all bands, have one of the strongest metal debuts of 2011 so far, strong enough to net them #1 on the Hard Music chart — selling roughly 14x the number of copies The Haunted’s new album did (in the U.S.) — and to beat out the enduring monolith that is Pearl Jam? Pretty fucking unlikely, and pretty fucking awesome too. Slow and steady wins the race, I suppose… 13 years and 8 albums in, Amon Amarth have broken through.

No doubt, it’s all due to this 10-year old Amon Amarth fan (WARNING: severe metalhead overload alert!).

Whitesnake (!), Within Temptation, Cavalera Conspiracy, Becoming the Archetype, Obscura and The Haunted also cracked the Top Hard Music Top 100 in their first week of U.S. release; those releases and other notable charting albums after the jump.

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Fuck Nu-GN’R, and fuck Velvet Revolver, too. This band covers “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” and blows of ‘em out of the water. Axl and Slash, in all their various projects, have not sounded this good in decades. If this group’s originals are even half as soulful as this cover, they could single-handedly save hard rock from the Hinders and Godsmacks of the world. SOMEONE PLEASE SIGN THESE DUDES IMMEDIATELY.

-AR

Thanks to “S.” for the tip!

Crave Online has premiered Duff McKagan’s Loaded’s new video, “Dead Skin,” and in this case, “dead skin” seems to be a clever metaphor for “clothing.” Because the best parts of this video have Mrs. Duff, the almost unfairly beautiful former model/current designer Susan Holmes, stripping away various articles of clothing. Not that I’m complaining  – the rest of the video is pretty boring.

On a less lecherous note, it’s nice to see drummer Isaac Carpenter (formerly of Loudermilk) getting so many close-ups. Humorously enough, Loudermilk started out as a Guns N’ Roses cover band, .22s N’ Tulips, and now Carpenter actually plays in McKagan’s band. Guy’s an awesome drummer, so he deserves any success that comes his way.

-AR

While both The Deciblog’s Shawn Macomber and myself both think that Chinese Democracy is pretty great, two music critics does not a hit album make. The record shit the bed when it came out in 2008, and Best Buy, who paid untold millions of dollars for the exclusive rights to sell physical copies of the album in the United States, were left holding the bag — I can’t find the exact figure right now, but I know they had to buy X million copies outright, and I know they weren’t allowed to return/sell back any copies they failed to get off their shelves. In other words, Axl Rose and Geffen Records ended up making out like bandits despite the album’s colossal commercial failure — they ended up not losing any money on the record’s fifteen year creation process, and they even got to claim that the album went platinum, because it did, technically, ship a million units. (For the record, as of this writing, it’s sold roughly 600,000 copies.) Meanwhile, if you’ve checked the shelves at your local Best Buy recently — and I have, for shits n’ giggles — there will literally be dozens and dozens of untouched Chinese Democracy CDs.

So what the crap is Best Buy gonna do with all those unsold units? Sell ‘em for $1.99, that’s what.

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It’s barely been more than a month since DevilDriver released their fifth studio album, Beast, but bassist Jon Miller has now announced his departure from the band.

His statement doesn’t really tell us anything and makes the split sound perfectly amiable (it’s so vanilla I’m not even gonna print it here, but you can read it at Metal Underground if you’re really curious), but Miller had entered rehab in January of this year, so it’s hard not to speculate that his new-found sobriety had something to do with his decision to leave the group. In case it isn’t obvious, being in a band out on tour isn’t necessarily the environment most conducive to just saying “no” — you will constantly be surrounded by people who are partying, and sitting on the bus by yourself is not a lot of fun.

The band hasn’t announced an official replacement, but apparently some dude named Bubbles, who used to be Bury Your Dead and is now DevilDriver’s tour manager, has been filling in for Miller these past few months, so that should pretty much take care of that.

Yep, DevilDriver now has members named “Dez” and “Bubbles.” Not since the “Izzy/Dizzy” era of Guns N’ Roses has anything been so silly.

-AR

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

J. Bennett stopped by Decibel HQ last month; naturally, we took the opportunity to grab some adult beverages. It didn’t take long for me to punch up some Kylie in a jukebox that was doing just fine with Use Your Illusion and Ride the Lightning. Nor did it take some random backpatch hombre long—like maybe a second and a half—to cleanse the bar of Ms. Minogue’s exotic stylings with something off of Relentless. Little did this kid know that my drinking comrade was in town specifically to meet up with Bobby Liebling for our May cover story. Ah, the seren-dipshittery—a nice bit of low comedy before an interview that I assume blew even Bennett’s mind.

Said cover story is an instant favorite for multiple reasons, but I think number one is this brief aside from Sean “Pellet” Pelletier, longtime Liebling supporter/sufferer, describing the abode of the Pentagram mainman’s parents.

“There were Cocoa Krispies stuck to the ceiling because Bobby threw a bowl of cereal.”

That’s what I call living. I mean, you don’t need heroin and crack to do that shit, although I suppose it helps. On a moderately more serious note, while the cover’s in simple black and white, the issues detailed therein—loyalty, hedonism, spirituality—span a broad, colorful spectrum. Liebling has defied the odds in virtually every facet of his life—despite endless, infamous struggles with addiction, he’s concocted an absolutely essential proto-doom canon, and lived long enough to see a lethal cocktail of self-sabotage and bum luck transform into international adulation. Worthy subject matter—funny, heartbreaking and, again, sometimes mind-blowing.

And the rest of the issue is no slouch. We’ve covered the Napalm Death flexi already, but there are outlandish and informative features on Burzum, Gridlink, Kylesa, Krallice, Darkest Hour (specifically John Henry’s metal mutha), Obscura, the Scion Rock Fest and shitloads more. Hit it or quit it.

-AB

You can buy the May 2011 issue of Decibel here, or get a full subscription to ensure you never miss an issue, or of those awesome flexi discs!

Ah, Spring! That magical time of year when the sun gets brighter, the days get longer, the birds start tweeting, the flowers start springing forth from the earth and even fans of much-maligned teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates have cause for optimism. Bernie Madoff be damned, there’s 162 games of baseball left to be played ON THE FIELD and I’m gonna be optimistic if I want to, dammit. So eat it.

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