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We haven’t made fun of Juggalos since before this past October, when the short documentary American Juggalo finally achieved the impossible and made Juggalos seem — gulp – sympathetic.
But then this yutz comes along and reminds us, “Oh yeah, these people are FUCKING STRANGE.”
(click to enlarge)
I don’t know if I’d be relieved or disappointed if this turned out to just be a joke.
-AR
[via Film Drunk... thanks to Rob Liz for the link]
Sean Dunne’s short documentary, American Juggalo (above), has become nothing short of a sensation. When readers first started sending us links to the doc, I thought it was great, but I also thought that it would be interest to a handful of music fans and pretty much no one else. I was dead wrong, though; suddenly movie blogs and the mainstream media starting giving Juggalo attention, comparing Dunne to some of the truly great legendary filmmakers like Frederick Wiseman and D.A. Pennebaker.
And Dunne deserves the acclaim. American Juggalo is insightful, even-handed, and even sympathetic to ICP fans. I know it’s good because it almost made me regret all the shit I’ve given Juggalos over the years… almost.
I reached out to Dunne via his website to see if he’d be game for an interview, and, happily, he was. Read our complete chat after the jump and find out the answer to the question: “Fucking American Juggalo, how does it work?”
Of course, the Oscar for Best Documentary, Short Subject will actually go to something about, like, crippled third world crack babies suffering from both HIV and terminal cancer, but that’s a crock — director Sean Dunne should totally get it for his twenty-minute American Juggalo (below), a very straightforward, non-judgmental series of interviews with ICP fans at The Gathering of the Juggalos. I’m not sure it made me any more sympathetic to their plight (for example, there’s a girl who calls herself “Maniac” and claims to be high only “on life,” but even if that’s true, she should start telling people that she’s high on crystal meth, because the other option suggests that she was dropped on her head as a baby), but it did give me some new understanding of them as people. For example, there’s a girl early on who claims she became a Juggalo because another Juggalo took her in when her family had abandoned her, and while that’s very sweet in theory, it’s also how cults recruit new members, so… yeah.
ANYWAY, you need to watch this because it’s highly entertaining (and beautifully photographed). Be forewarned: it’s NSFW due to nudity.
-AR
Thanks to everyone who e-mailed us about this!
It’s true! The summer is over. Sad. We’re closing down early today to enjoy the long Labor Day weekend. That also means we won’t be here Monday. We hope everyone has a great, Axel Rudi Pell-free weekend!
While you await our return, here’s some fun stuff we did this week:
Okay, time to go get fucked up. See ya Tuesday!
-AR
Well, I feel vindicated.
See, I’ve been telling friends that Jack White was an idiot for years. YEARS. Like, pretty much since the first time I saw/heard The White Stripes. (In fact, I was opposed to entire movement of “The Plural” bands of the early aughties — see: The Hives, The Strokes, The Vines, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Fuck Your Mothers, etc.) ”Fuck this guy!” I declared. “What a tool!”
“NO!” screamed back many of my friends and fellow appreciators of fine music. “JACK WHITE IS THE SAVIOR OF ROCK N’ ROLL!!!” Fuck, Rolling Drone said he was a better guitar player than Eddie Van Halen, which I think is roughly the equivalent of saying your niece who made that adorable fingerpainting on your fridge is a better painter than Da Vinci. For roughly the past ten years or so, I have just been astounded by how much praise has been heaped on this yutz.
And now Jack White is collaborating on a new album with the Insane Clown Posse.
So, clearly, I won that argument.
From Spin:
We keep getting e-mails regarding the below video of Charlie Sheen at The Gathering of the Juggalos this past weekend, because allegedly it shows how he was booed and pelted with bottles and generally not met with a warm greeting from all the little Ninjas. “How are you guys not all over this?!?!” one reader even asked.
Thing is, it doesn’t really show any of that fun stuff. I think I counted four bottles thrown at Sheen, and he doesn’t seem particularly offended — in fact, he catches two of the bottles, and is met with applause for doing so. There aren’t even any really audible boos until he announces an act and walks off the stage, and it’s not clear if the crowd was booing Sheen or the upcoming performer. So it’s not like this was a repeat of the Tila Tequila incident from last year’s Gathering.
In other words: this video is not that entertaining, but if you wanna see what all the fuss is about, here it is.
-AR
Word to the wise: don’t give up on the above video just ’cause it’s not metal. Stick with it. You will be pleased. Honest Injun.
And after you’ve watched, why not review some of our top stories from this week? For example –
Next week we make the biggest announcement of our lives. Be there or be be square.
-AR
Earlier today, Noisecreep published an interview with Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J. (his mommy calls him “Joseph Bruce”) regarding this year’s Gathering of the Juggalos. And while perusing said interview, I came across the below quote… emphasis at the end is my own:
“It’s hard to be a Juggalo. It’s not cool. We are the most hated band in the world. But when you get together with other people all over America, who do the same shit you do, it’s wonderful. I was even reading what reporters said last year, reading stories that came out after The Gathering, where writer were saying that ‘I was so surprised by everyone’s warmth and happiness.’ That’s why there is no reason for cops or tough ass security guards; it’s not on that kind of show.“
And that particular assessment piqued my interest, because in case everyone has forgotten already, at last year’s Gathering, the Juggalos did this to Tila Tequila:
In June, ICP released their annual infomercial for their annual Gathering of the Juggalos, the largest music festival I still can’t believe a) exists and b) has never been napalmed. That commercial ran twenty-seven minutes long, or about a minute for every IQ point of your average Juggalo, so you’d think that everything there was to be said about this ridiculous event had, indeed, been said.
But you’d think wrong. Not only has ICP now released a second infomercial for the Gathering, but this one is THIRTY-THREE MINUTES LONG. To give you some idea of how crazy that is, keep in mind that a single episode of a half-hour network sitcom only runs about twenty-two minutes (the other eight minutes being, of course, devoted to commercials).
Why do these things have to be so friggin’ long? Do Juggalos really need to be convinced that they should attend this thing? Did adding Charlie Sheen to the line-up merit more than another half-hour of material? Or did some poor starving child ask the group for a donation, and they were just like, “Fuck you, we’re making a thirty-three minute commercial for our festival instead?” The mind boggles.
-AR
[via Metal Insider]
Maybe next week we’ll finally stop making fun of Morbid Angel for thinking that Illud Divinum Insanus was a good idea, but then again, probably not. As long as videos like this one exist, the lulz shall continue!
Speaking of lulz, here’s what else we did this week:
And hopefully next week no legendary bands will release anything that’s completely unlistenable. ‘Til then, dear friends…
-AR
Making fun of juggalos is passe at this point; been there, done that, 100 times over, and everyone gets the point. But posting the annual infomercial Psychopathic Records puts out to promote the Gathering of the Juggalos is something of a ritual, always good for a few lulz, and possibly even entertaining.
Once you get through the so-uncool-at-this-point-that-maybe-it’s-cool-again Star Wars-style intro, you’ll discover that Vanilla Ice has sunken to an even lower low and is now a juggalo. In addition to the usual assortment of interchangeable clown-faced rappers, this year’s lineup also brings a whole new set of artists scraping the bottom of the barrel that’s become their career: CKY, Dope, Saliva, Vanilla Ice (obvs), Xzibit, Kittie and M.C. Hammer. In the “Are you sure you really want to stoop so low?” department we have Ice Cube, George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars and Busta Rhymes, who all must be getting hella paid. And last but not least, the comedy stage will feature Brian Posehn and classic wrestlers Iron Sheik and Rowdy Roddy Piper (zuh?).
Should be an interesting one. Perhaps an MS reader braver than us can go on an anthropological mission on August 11-14. I already had the juggalo experience of a lifetime, and I think that’s enough for me.
-VN
The most important thing you need to know about an Insane Clown Posse show is that the band (can we even call them a band?) have an entire crew on tour with them — maybe 3 or 4 dudes — whose sole job it is to make sure Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent Jay have several 2 liter bottles of Faygo on stage within arm’s reach at all times. These guys — let’s call them Faygo Stocker Dudes — are essentially the equivalent of guitar and drum techs; with the absence of any real instruments, Faygo essentially IS the instrument, the crucial element of an ICP show. At pre-determined climactic moments, the Faygo Stocker Dudes themselves join in with the soda-spraying madness and drench the audience in diet root beer along with ICP.
That gigantic semi trailer parked outside the venue? No instruments, no stage props, no scrims… JUST FAYGO. Thousands of 2-liter bottles of the stuff. All diet root beer, natch.
Oh, and every wall and speaker cabinet in the entire venue was wrapped in soda-repelling plastic.
Does that set the stage for what I witnessed last Friday in NYC?
My DVR has been busted the past few weeks, but I finally got a new cable box on Saturday morning and, thus, was able to record Saturday Night Live for the first time in awhile — which is to say, I was able to resume the whole “Why the crap do I record this” internal debate. ‘Cause these days, SNL is funny approximately five times every season.
Not especially funny: the sketch institution’s latest parody of the Gathering of the Juggalos, this one, Easter-themed. Everyone knows we love making fun of Juggalos here at MetalSucks, so my objection to this sketch isn’t the topic is played-out; it’s that they’re telling the exact same jokes every time they do one of these things. They need to find something new to add to the formula, or cut it the fuck out.
I also saw an off-Broadway play this weekend, Peter and the Starcatcher, which, despite being a prequel to Peter Pan, featured a much, much funnier parody of Juggalos. I’m not sure how many people in the crowd understood the reference, but, uh, yeah, if you live in New York and you can spare the time/money, go see that shit before it closes in two weeks. It’s pretty amazing.
-AR
So anyone else catch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia last night? I’ll assume a lot of you did. But in case you didn’t — it became the latest program to address America’s Juggalo problem.
What was interesting about the approach, however, was that instead of lampooning Juggalos, it looked at the ways in which Juggalos are persecuted, as the character of Charlie begins to mentor a young high school-aged Juggalo, whose name I believe was “Ricky,” and who was suffering from being bullied from the non-retards at his school. It was really quite touching, and it’s nice to see It’s Always Sunny being so socially conscious.
I haven’t been able to find any video clips of the episode to post, but here are some stills, courtesy the Juggalo site t-j-e.net.
So far today I’ve written about poor Pathology being in a serious bus accident, Attack Attack!, Oceano, and ICP. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, someone send me some good news before I slit my wrists.
-AR
Seriously, if you haven’t read Vince’s epic story about how MetalSucks Maniac “whiskey” won last week’s last week’s photo caption contest, you need to go read it now. It’s pretty amazing. Whiskey’s mom even left a comment! We like to think of MetalSucks as something the whole fucking family can enjoy together, so that warmed the cockles of our collective heart.
Here’s some other fun stuff that happened this week:
Next week is CMJ here in New York! If you’re in the area and looking for some awesome metal, check out our handy guide to all the festivities — including not one but TWO showcases sponsored by MetalSucks. We’re not gonna lie — we are going to be very hungover and tired next week. But that just means we’ll be crankier than usual. We’ll still be here with lots of debuts, interviews, and other assorted nonsense. Bring your mom! It’ll be fun.
-AR
We’ve gotten a lot of e-mails these past few days regarding this interview, in which the members of Insane Clown Posse reveal that they’re actually evangelical Christians. Apparently, this is shocking news, even to the Juggalos — I guess ’cause ICP, with their open love of weed, booze, women, and violence against women, don’t exactly come across as Christ-like.
Personally? I’m not shocked at all. Not in the slightest! Here’s why:
Unless you count current metalcore bands with a wiggerish slant (Emmure, Winds of Plague, Acacia Strain, etc.), the genre of nu-metal is all but dead. Once a nearly-unstoppable juggernaut of Kikwear pants, eyebrow piercings, and chinstrap beards, today it is but a dessicated husk, barely clinging to life. At its peak, nu-metal filled the airwaves coast-to-coast, but these days you’re most likely to hear it on a beat up boombox in the corner of a windowless basement printshop or third-rate auto parts store on the outskirts of town.
While the tastes of fickle music consumers may have changed, nu-metal has never sounded better. Many kids these days are too young to have experienced this unique genre the first time around, so I figured I would share some of nu-metal’s best artists that fly a little under the radar of current tastemakers — I’ll skip the big names that we all know (Korn, Kid Rock, Bizkit) and focus on the unsung heroes. And mark my words, you’ll see indie rockers ironically listening to hed(pe) within the next few years!
We got so many fucking e-mails about this video of Tom Green at the Gathering of the Juggalos that I have to assume they all came from Mr. Green himself, using a variety of different e-mail addresses and IPs, or that he begged lots and lots of his friends to e-mail us and get this posted. For, surely, if this many people still thought Tom Green was worth a damn, he’d still have a television show on a major network, he’d still have a film career, he’d still be shtupping Drew Barrymore, and he most certainly would not be at the Gathering of the Juggalos, where careers (and dignity) go to die.
So why am I posting it anyway? Because my fascination with Juggalos just will not end. To any Juggalos who may be reading this site (and I know there are at least a few of you): Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you people?!?! You’re like the Nazis, but less organized.
I’m also posting it for the Gallagher cameo at the end. Holy shit, man — frickin’ Gallagher is still alive.
-AR
Tila Tequila is one of these ladies who is famous for reasons I don’t really understand. I’m reading her Wikipedia page right now, and it looks like she got her start posing for Playboy, because I guess some guys like any woman who will take her clothes off, even if she looks like Gollum with fake tits. Then she did some acting, by which I mean she played “Hooters Girl #3″ in the unwatchable I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. And then she got a VH1 reality dating show, because VH1 is where people with VD go to find true love, or, at least, someone to fuck until next season. And I guess she put out some music, too, because that sort of thing is no longer based on talent, but, rather, access to a computer, and every famous-for-no-particular-reason person in the world now puts out an album sooner or later.
So. The Eleventh Annual Gathering of the Juggalos took place this past weekend, and I don’t know who books/curates/whatever that event, but my impression is that they’ll take anyone. If you’re moderately famous and willing to play their festival, the organizers will gladly have you. And I guess it didn’t occur to anyone that Juggalos are used to fucking girls who looks like this and, thus, would probably get overly excited by the site of a woman who looks like Tila Tequila. And so Tequila took the stage at said Gathering… and was promptly attacked by the crowd of rabid horny mongoloids.
She told TMZ, an institution that represents everything right with the world:
![[richard_ramirez_horns.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m47RlRiYoAg/SfNccAREn5I/AAAAAAAACIU/FH-d_iPeZj8/s1600/richard_ramirez_horns.jpg)
SXSW is, by far, the coolest music festival on the planet. Up until the last few years, however, heavy metal has always been the unwanted step-child.
I remember fighting with the SXSW organizers back in the late 80′s/early ’90s about bringing more metal to the fest. Their seeming non-interest in our favorite genre led to me and my best friend and fellow college radio metal show DJ Ray Seggern to host our own non-fest showcase at the old Riverside Drive Dollar Theater, featuring bands such as dead horse, Agony Column, and Sedition, long before non-fest showcases became the norm. The show was a huge success and even led to dead horse signing with Big Chief Records. SXSW, however, would not budge, and the metal pickings remained paltry over the next several years.
I was finally able to crack through SXSW’s anti-metal stance in 1996 when I brought one of the bands I managed, 16Volt, to the Backroom, along with Burn (which featured several ex-members of Skrew), Fear Factory, and Earth Crisis for an officially SXSW-sanctioned showcase. The concert was a huge success, and the presence of metal at the conference has slowly grown ever since. The metal pinnacle (or nadir depending on your perspective) culminated with the 2009 appearance of Metallica at Stubbs’ BBQ.
Now, you can help bring even more metal to SXSW by voting on which panels will be represented at next year’s music festival. I have been kind enough to peruse the 298 panel idea submissions and found three (yep, only three) that might be worth your headbangin’ time. Take a gander at these ideas, sign up (it’s free!), vote, and feel good about spreading the disease.
ARE METALHEADS SMART ENOUGH TO BE ONLINE?
This was submitted by Canadian metal blogger Laina Davis of Hellbound and will focus on the online community of metalheads. Hopefully, our very own Monkey Wranglers, Axl and Vince, will be on board.
