MetalSucks

You can download “Skinny Little Bitch” by visiting the Hole website and giving Courtney Love your email address and birthdate. The song isn’t very good, but it’s on par with most of the lackluster material on Love’s 2004 solo album, America’s Sweetheart. That this tiresome, insincere rehash of polished riot-grrl rock was chosen as the first official single from the upcoming album confirms my suspicions that this will be a total disappointment.

On that same page you’ll also find listings for two U.S. concerts from the reconstituted band – April 22 in LA, April 27 in NYC. Nobody’s Daughter, the first Hole album in twelve years, will be available for purchase on April 26th.

-GS

I’d kill myself, too, if I woke up one day and realized I’d been giving this thing my seed:

-AR

I don’t really know what the critical consensus was on the self-titled debut solo album from ex-Hole/ex-Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, but I thought it was catchy as hell. It came out just a few months after Courtney Love’s America’s Sweetheart and certainly blew that album right the fuck out of the water, that’s for sure. If you’ve never heard it, all you really need to know to understand what kind of record it is is that Josh Homme co-wrote and appears on the album alongside James Iha, Jeorde White (a.k.a. “Twiggy Ramirez”), and some other nifty guest musicians. Either those names appeal to you, or they don’t.

ANYWAY, that was almost six years ago already, and I kinda thought maybe Ms. Auf der Maur was done with music or something. But not so! She’s just released a video for “Out of Our Minds,” the title track from her new solo album, which a press release tells me “extends into a 28-minute, HD film starring and conceived by MAdM, as well as a limited edition comic book and matching Picture Disc Vinyl illustrated by Jack Forbes from Brooklyn, NY.” Personally I’m not sure that I care about anything other than the music, but, hey, good for her for being ambitious.

So this isn’t really metal and I’m not as wild about it as I was, say, “Followed the Waves” or “Taste You”* from her last album, but it’s not bad at all:

Out of Our Minds comes out March 30. And it features a duet with Glenn Danzig!

-AR

*If you can find the French language version of “Taste You,” check it out instead of the English version. The song sounds a million times sexier en Francais.

While I love New York City 364 days out of the year, it is the last place I want to be on New Years Eve. Restaurants jack up their already steep prices, clubs overcharge for the privilege of waiting interminably for a drink at their open bars, and the streets are full of intolerable amateurs, bewildered tourists, and lapsed teetotalers. Typically, I stay at home and watch the ball drop in the comfort of my Park Avenue penthouse. Yet this time I was almost tempted to break with tradition when I read that Courtney Love would be playing a black tie event at The Standard Hotel’s Boom Boom Room. The exorbitant ticket prices, which started in the high hundreds and went well into the thousands, were prohibitive enough to keep me away, but fortunately Love has graced the IntarWebs with some candid footage of her rehearsing for the show (in what appears to be a hotel room) with Micko Larkin, a member of the reconstituted Hole. The track is a difficult-to-recognize cover of The Replacements’ “Unsatisfied” and, speaking as a longtime fan of the group, it is extremely, well, unsatisfactory.

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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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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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Last week we posted Courtney Love’s latest display of English language prowess blog offering, in which the Hole frontwoman poo-pooed beer, remarking “Beer isnt even GOOD. i mean REALLY. ‘ahh ahm a gonna belly up to the sports bar and have a brewski y’all want one?’ i mean who has really had more than TEN beers in thier life on my blog?”

Well, approximately 30 of you disagreed with Court and shared your opinions with us on her reverse-sexist tirade, including one commenter named “cherry” who may or may not in fact be Courtney Love herself. Cherry’s style of prose and firm grasp on the English language mysteriously resembles Love’s, and though we can’t be sure, Cherry’s avid defense of Courtney and Dave Grohl-bashing are mighty suspicious. We also find her choice of posting name highly curious (and time — 5:04am!) , given that 5 hours after said comment was posted, Love put up another blog on her MySpace titled “beer”; we think the 7th word looks familiar:

hey now..i LOVE that Belgium Cherry beery and Frambois beer and Ale and Stella and shit i mean Budweiser CULTURE its all about the fucking m,enfolk and their goddammed football , ilove me some basketball if im inthe good seats atthe lakers and i do lobve bnaseball buti just hate budweiser culture its annoyingly obvious i hope that clarifies mty fox talking point issue wich seems tohave taken off.

Ah, so we get it, you just frown upon Budweiser and the men who drink it! Way to be so egalitarian; only high class beer like Stella and “Belgium Cherry Beery” will do for you! Excuse us low-class metal farts for getting confused by your Olde English prose. At least we write in the first person rather than pretending to be your own fan named “cherry.” Also Court, in all honesty, some good ol’ Bud might do you some good; get some meat on those bones.

-VN

Courtney Love’s latest 2,000+ word blog entry (and I use the term “word” loosely) is another A+ exhibition in spelling and grammar, with a page-long rant about colors:

mauve i love mauve ill buy mauve if the packaging doesnt lok faux victorian- and anythinbg wedding cake inspired- any sort of bridal thing i always look twice at- i love3 that nude peach that is almost skin like in vintage clothes and i got a fantastical opera coat a dar dar k chiocalate brown with coral lining but i hate salmon but im callinthis coral as it was so fabulius itacal- i think i got a real vionette dress too0- chriust i sound like jack white- i do like red white and black really-= no i love aqua- variations of aqua- i love berry as ina clear berry lip= i like a really really loght pink as i think of fucshcia denim and metallic gold as paris h, too much- hmmm- maybe some of you are mor eimaginative than me- those kali pictures from india all blue skina nd orange and saffron roibes and rubies emeraLds etc- i live green outside but i love autummn more ( we dont have that in la but we do in LONDON and new york and wellsoon be in BOTH!)id hAVE TO SAY I LOVE CREAM . ;ike tea dipped white and plum and i love a beuatiful purple and periwinkle blue always takes my cake-

Got a headache yet? Then there’s this bit about the recording of her new album:

when i first stazrted this endaevor almost 4 years ago ( yeah but ONLY 74 DAYS IN THE STUDIO ALL IN) i had these niave barely there little songs this paino sinmset ,marwuis i gave to Visionare because i loved the idea of anything being in Vinyl and becaus ei knew that it would never opthewr wise see the light of day, so yes it goes on and on – bu tthaqtsx because itll cvome out when its ready although the date has not changed

Does anyone know what a “sinmset” and a “marwuis” is? Because really, I’d like to know what those will sound like on her new album.

-VN

Amazingly “Buddhism” is about the only word spelled correctly in Courtney Love’s latest psychopath rant MySpace blog entry, posted Sunday. Seriously, you have to read this thing, or at least give it your best effort; the old “monkeys on a typewriter” saying never held more water. Here, the singer riffs on a failed business partnership with (I think) Madonna:

DEAMND paper on everything
legibel all sneaky bits up front
force people to signa contract of your making
so im agonised and hur

t , beyond what i can express and i express it publically because imn SICK of it so sick that im not trusting anyone withjout paper paper apApr graphs and accountibility – and if you ever see a real estate or other cobntract getr some one with an mba to give you a WRITTEN cliff notes of the sneaky bits and fuckings your getting an dthen you can negiotiate-=
so my whole lofe has been decimated and eithe rthis person makes a major restituion in many ways not just fiscal or i move onto a different paradigm – sans some one iove considcered my best friend for years and its not going to driveme into the anguish or pain pr mental opr phsyocal break down im sick of the stress this dynamic betewwen me and this person si caussing me

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