Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 at 12:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
In 1997 there was this girl that I was really into. I don’t even remember what her name was now, but I remember being very excited when I finally found myself at her place with just the two of us for company.
“Hey, wanna hear something awesome?” she asked me. The correct answer in that situation is obviously “Yes,” and so she walked over to her stereo and hit “play.” And this is what came out of the speakers:
The song ended and I figured out some excuse to leave and I left. Later I wondered if the girl really liked the song (she certainly seemed to) or if she played it knowing it was awful because she couldn’t think of a polite way to reject me, but it’s a moot point: I will never know how my relationship with that girl might have played out, all because she had to go and be the first person ever to introduce me to Limp Bizkit, and, more specifically, Limp Bizkit’s terrible covers.
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 at 10:30am by Axl Rosenberg
The reason all the hair-metal autobiographies have been disappointing is because the best hair metal band, Motley Crue, did it first, and did a really killer job (treating it like an oral history told from lots of different perspectives = master stroke), and so there was really no place to go but down. Bret Michaels’ autobiography never actually materialized, Slash’s was good but not great, Steven Adler’s sucked, I only know one person who read Bobby Blotzer’s, and now all the Motley Crue guys are dipping back into that pool for a second or even third time, only without each other because after thirty fucking years they still haven’t figured out that the unit is stronger than each individual. At this point I think it would take everyone who ever worked on Chinese Democracy, including Axl Rose, all banding together to make a The Dirt-style Roshomon piece if anything is even gonna BEGIN to compete with The Crue’s initial tome.
Now glam’s ugly twin, thrash, has started to catch on that there’s an interest in these books. And they don’t seem to be following the same pattern as cock rock. Sure, Dave Mustaine went first, but no one seems to really believe a word of his book, and it’s certainly not a definitive snap-shot of the time and place the way The Dirt is for the Strip in the 80′s. And I obviously have a lot of faith in Phil Anselmo’s upcoming collaboration with MetalSucks’ own Corey Mitchell, but Pantera weren’t purely thrash, and weren’t around for the Big Four’s heyday.
So. Now Noise Creep says that Kirk Hammett is doing his autobiography. (The news actually originated in an interview with Ultimate-Guitar, but I can’t find it. If anybody does, drop me a line.) There’s no word on which lucky writer will score that coveted “with” credit, but here’s a choice quote from Kirk:
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 at 12:30pm by Leyla Ford
At the Accept show I went to last week, I had a pretty funny moment with the boy when I said that it sounded like they were singing “We are nice” instead of “Neon nights.” Which got me thinking: I mishear lyrics a lot. It could be because I’m deaf, or people just don’t enunciate, or that most of the bands I listen to don’t really know English that well so they probably are singing stupid shit. Or it could be that I’d rather hear something than what I actually do — I mean, Bob Ezrin wanted a new, edgy song to appeal to those hip youngsters and thought Alice Cooper was singing “I’m edgy,” instead of “I’m eighteen.” Personally, I’m way more entertained with what my brain, or other people’s brains (as I got some volunteers for this task), comes up with. So here are a few songs that made it to my Misheard Lyrics Hall of Fame.
Monday, September 27th, 2010 at 11:00am by Axl Rosenberg
So unless you live under a rock in a cave beneath the ocean, you’re aware that the Big Four did some shows together this past June; at the time, I suggested that it would be cool if they all came out and jammed together, and then they did all come out and jam together (video above courtesy Metal Injection), and it wasn’t really that cool. ‘Cause when I made that suggestion, I guess I forgot that this was all the Big Four bands now, not the Big Four bands in 1990.
So I was actually a little relieved — although not at all surprised — that 75% of Slayer did not participate in the jam (the exception being Dave Lombardo, natch). ‘Cause Slayer have always been and will always be “Cooler Than Thou.”
As it turns out, though, Kerry King would have liked to have participated, but had to do the work his lazy and decrepit band mates wouldn’t do. From a recent Revolver interview:
Friday, September 24th, 2010 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
I had no intention of writing about this, but so many of you have e-mailed us about it, and we aim to please… or some shit like that.
So in case you never saw it, there’s this famous outtake from A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica in which James Hetfield talks a lot of smack about Axl Rose — or, as Hetfield calls him, “Axl Pose.” Check it out:
And now this Australian radio station, Triple M, has interviewed Hetfield, and, even though he claims to “respect” Axl, he clearly does not:
Look: whatever else you wanna say about Hetfield, he does seem to basically show up and do his job, and I’ve never heard about him dicking the fans over (unless you consider Metallica’s post-Justice output “dicking the fans over”). So it’s hard to say that Hetfield is wrong. On the other hand, y’know… just ’cause someone sucks harder than you doesn’t mean you don’t suck, y’know?
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 5:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
Yesterday I praised whomever came up with the moniker for The Acacia Strain’s upcoming “To Catch a Predatour” trek with The Red Chord and The Contortionist as a genius; today I know that it was Mr. Vincent Bennett, vocalist for TAS. For the band’s new, David Brodsky-directed video for “The Hills Have Eyes” is a parody of the infamous “news program” that outs kiddie fuckers (or, at least, would-be kiddie fuckers) on camera. And so, Mr. Bennett, I say again: YOU ARE A FRIGGIN’ GENIUS.
My other not-so-deep thought about this video is that it’s a million times better than that one The Malloys made, where Metallica are performing a very poorly written and produced song about a clogged toilet for the inmates of San Quentin. Maybe it’s “cooler” to go film at a real maximum security correctional institution where the inmates might get loose and rape Kirk Hammett at any moment, but Kirk has been getting raped by Hetfield and Ulrich for three decades anyway, so who really gives a shit? I’ll take Matt Pike (not that one, this one) as a reporter over Robert Trujillo droppin’ a deuce any day.
“The Hills Have Eyes” comes offa The Acacia Strain’s latest and greatest, Wormwood, which is out now on Prosthetic.
People sometimes ask me why I spend so much time writing about Limp Bizkit if I hate them so much, and I really don’t have a good answer. I think it’s probably not dissimilar from the way my dad is always watching programs about the Nazis on The History Channel, even though he and his family just narrowly escaped from zee Germans with their lives — you wanna understand the monster that committed these atrocities, y’know?
And so with that in mind, I braced myself and listened to Limp Bizkit’s latest, “Walking Away.” And for most of the song, I was like, “Oh, great. A terrible alt-rock power ballad.” ‘Cause, y’know, I really thought we were finally done with those after Puddle of Mudd mercifully disappeared. In fact, the song is just so generic and lame that I wasn’t even gonna write about it; I was gonna save all my vitriol for the Gold Cobra review Vince tells me I absolutely must write (And “take seriously.” I have no fucking idea how to take a review of Limp Bizkit seriously, let alone write a serious review.).
But then at the 3:18 mark, I was caught totally off-guard — ’cause Wes Borland takes a guitar solo. I pinched myself, but I wasn’t dreaming; I looked out the window, but I had not somehow missed the start of the Apocalypse; I had the MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys run a quick lab test on my weed, but someone hadn’t mixed it with a stronger hallucinogenic. There really is a guitar solo in a Limp Bizkit song now.
Granted, it’s nothing that anyone with ten fingers and five minutes to practice couldn’t play, but still… it seems like just yesterday that Hetfield and Ulrich were able to bully Kirk Hammett into not taking solos because they might “date” St. Anger, and here we are, and Wes Borland is taking a motherfucking guitar solo. What’s next for Bizkit — blast beats?
Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 1:20pm by D.X. Ferris
From left to right: Weatherman, Mullin, and Dean. Pic courtesy C.O.C.
C.O.C. is not only one of the best bands to come out of the old-school 1980s hardcore movement; technically, it’s at least five of the best groups to emerge from the scene. Over 28 years, every release – and later, every other album – has found the veterans with a new lineup and an all-new sound.
The band launched in North Carolina in 1982 as Corrosion of Conformity. In its first incarnation, the band played crusty, heavy, speedy hardcore. In 1984, the Eye for an Eye LP introduced the punk world to the group’s spiky skull mascot, one of the great extreme-music icons.
The lineup and sound reshuffled by 1985’s Animosity LP. The crossover disc was released on Metal Blade imprint Death Records, where they held their own against labelmates D.R.I. and the Ugly Americans. (The latter band featured singer Simon “Simon Bob Sinister” Bob, who would step as vocalist for C.O.C.’s 1987 Technocracy EP.)
Hey Suckfaces, the Big Four live in Sofia, Bulgaria concert/movie thingy has encore showings tomorrow in select markets and you should totally go! It’s the most fun ever. Even if you’re lukewarm on a band/the bands, the theater-going experience is novel and pretty easy to like. It’s communal (like a concert) and comfortable (good for old people who listen to the Big Four). Plus, the little things: set breaks are excised; the audio is that Live Aid quality which disguises not even the smallest flub or shortcut, almost sickeningly real; close-ups of guitar shredding abound; and mosh pits are way more fun in a movie theater.
But if you just can’t make it to this exciting cinema-concert event cuz you’re in jail still from the Lakers celebration parade or you’re a piteously ugly John Bush fan or whatever, here’s what you’ll miss:
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
So I’m still in Atlanta observing Daath as they make their new album (which, unless something goes really, hideously awry between the time I leave and its release date, is going to be so fucking great… people really have no idea what they’re in for), but I just checked my e-mail for the first time in awhile and Ryan Badami sent us a link to the below video of the Big Four photo shoot, and some of it is so goddamn funny I just had to take a minute to write about it.
First of all, good for Hetfield for giving Mustaine that little fist bump. It seems like seeing Mustaine after all this time must be liking being at a party and seeing that crazy bitch you broke up with a million years ago but who is, for some reason, still not over you. So I appreciate Hetfield’s attempt to make things at least kinda-sorta not awkward.
But what mostly amuses me about this video is Joey Belladonna. I know a lot of you think I give him too much shit, but whatever. The dissenting opinion gets its moment in the sun, too, and if you don’t find Joey’s activities in this video funny, you probably have no sense of humor.
Look to the back for Joey waving, then make sure you keep your eyes on him for the rest of the video.
Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 1:30pm by Axl Rosenberg
So we had a lot of fun laughing about that Big Four photo yesterday, and then last night on the Metal Injection Livecast (download it here), we had a good chuckle over this second picture, in which Dave Mustaine makes his feelings about James Hetfield perfectly clear:
But I guess some clever publicist or manager was on-hand for this shoot, and saw this picture being taken and was all, “Fuck, this could be a real problem, we better make sure that we get another one where it doesn’t look like these two hate each other.” And that publicist or manager was correct. If Mustaine can play nice with Kerry King, he should be able to suck it up and play nice with Hetfield, too. (And let’s not forget that Scott Ian is no Mustaine fan, either.)
Thus, we also get this picture, which is better insofar as Hetfield is not standing so far away from the rest of the group, but is not better insofar as it is still hilariously awkward:
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
Tonight is the first of the European Big Four shows, and sixteen of the seventeen musicians that now comprise those bands all gathered in one room and put their differences aside long enough to snap this picture (click on it to make it enlarge… heh heh, he said “enlarge”):
Should we over-analyze the reasons why certain people are standing near one another, or far apart, or how they’re standing? Well, this is MetalSucks, ain’t it?
Thursday, June 10th, 2010 at 2:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
Under normal circumstances I might be inclined to make fun of “Mission Statement,” the first new song we’ve heard from Stone Sour’s upcoming Audio Secrecy; but coming after the putrid waste of everything that is the new Methods of Mayhem song, it sounds like it was written by a super-group consisting of Saint-Saëns, John Lennon, and a young James Hetfield.
Actually, I keep thinking that it sounds like some 90′s alt-arena-rock band trying to do a Sepultura song. Which makes since, I guess, since Stone Sour really wanna be a 90′s alt-arena-rock band, the members of which probably all grew up on Sepultura.
You can download the song here if you want. It’s really nothing special (again, it’s Stone Sour, so no shocks there), but it’s free, so, uh, why not?
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at 11:00am by Axl Rosenberg
I’ve always wanted to ask Brian “Head” Welch if the Jesus tattoo on his hand has been a success as a masturbation deterrent, ’cause I feel like if I really, really wanted to jerk-off, no picture of a deity could ever really stop me. To that same end, I’ve never been sure if having an “X” tattooed on my hand would prevent me from having a drink or smoking weed or putting any number of other substances into my body. But I’ve never gone to rehab, so maybe I just don’t understand the power symbols can have when helping one fight his inner demons.
So. James Hetfield’s struggles with addiction have been about as well documented as any rock star’s struggles with addiction; in Some Kind of Monster, you can watch the guy morph from a grumpy, introverted, inarticulate alcoholic to a talkative, bespeckled and frosted, touchy-feely whimp right before your very eyes. (That’s not a criticism of his sobriety, by the way; his music lost its appeal for me long before he went to rehab, so I’m not someone that believes we’re just a few beers away from Master of Puppets Part II. And I actually appreciate that Hetfield seems to have become a more self-aware and articulate man since he stopped drinking.) But according to Double Cross Webzine, in latest issue of Metallica’s fan club magazine, So What!, Hetfield identifies himself as “a reborn straight edge,” and even got a new “X” tattoo on his hand to prove it.
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
So we had a lot of fun hanging out Nevermore’s Jeff Loomis last night – definitely a very laid back and humble dude, considering that he could probably kill us all with his guitar playing. Attendees included MetalSucks’ own Anton OyVey and Antonin Skullia, Esq., as well as Empyreon drummer Frank Godla (who, despite one of my poorly phrased tweets, has not replaced Van Williams in Nevermore.). When we weren’t passing my iPhone around, enjoying the entries for the Nevermore/MetalSucks “Create Your Own Conspiracy” contest (it ends Friday and there is definitely a front runner already – so enter now if you’re gonna!!!), it should surprise no one to learn that significant portion of the evening was devoted to music dorkery; so while I can’t remember exactly how it came up, at some point Mr. Loomis recommended we all check out MasterTracks18, a YouTube user who has uploaded literally hundreds of individual tracks from various well-known songs spanning different genres – metal and hard rock being primary amongst them.
Of course, it’s all pretty fascinating; you could lose hours of your day listening to all of these. I’ve only listened to a handful myself so far, and I already feel like I’m about to lose hours of my day listening to these. I’m sure all you instrument nerds can are gonna love really getting into the nitty gritty of the various tracks, but even if you’re not an instrument nerd… it’s just a really, really awesome look behind the curtain, so to speak.
You can check them all out at MasterTracks18′s YouTube page, which now, for legal reasons, is segueing to page for MasterTracks19. But in the meantime, here are just a few of my favorites…
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 at 10:30am by Axl Rosenberg
Is it possible that Lars Ulrich is such a douche chill that he won’t even put on his own socks? I mean, we know that the midget is a drummer with absolutely no relationship to his own feet (rimshot!), but I assumed he would, at the very least, have some desire to give the appearance of being above the age of three. But not so, says Contact Music:
The US heavy metal drummer is so demanding, he even likes to have a member of road crew put his socks on for him, according to the band’s singer, James Hetfield.
Speaking no Norwegian TV, James – who is joined in the band by Lars, bassist Rob Trujilo and guitarist Kirk Hamett – said: “For high maintenance and demanding it’s a tie for first place between Lars and Kirk.
“They need what they need, ‘Oh – my shoelaces are the wrong colour’, or, you know. It’s different, we all operate differently.
“I feel better when people are away from me and I can get into my own space; then Lars – he likes people plugging in his earphones, putting his socks on, all of this stuff.”
Do people really compare Reb Beach’s guitar playing to that of Kirk Hammett a lot? I’ve never heard that fucking comparison in my life. I think you know how many hours of my life I’ve wasted sitting around stoned and contemplating metal to a ridiculous degree, and never in any of the many, many conversations I’ve had with friends about the guitar playing of Kirk Hammett or Reb Beach has the other musician’s name come up. I’m not even sure what the comparison would be, other than they’re both shredders. They play completely different styles of metal, and I don’t recall Beach ever being as fond of the wah pedal as Hammett.
My point being, I have no idea why Classic Rock Revisited asked Reb Beach to compare his playing to Hammett’s, but they did. And Reb Beach, as it turns out, is no Kirk Hammett fan. A transcript of Beach’s answer, courtesy the fine folks at Blabbermouth, follows:
Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 5:30pm by Axl Rosenberg
Howard Zinn, Zelda Rubinstein, and J.D. Salinger all died within twenty-four hours of another. That’s crappy on all fronts, but right now I’d like to concentrate on Salinger.
On the one hand, it’s very sad that he’s dead because I happen to think he was a brilliant writer; on the other hand, it’s not like he’d written anything in a long, long, long time anyway, so it doesn’t feel like we’re really losing anything; on the other hand, his son Matt was one of the frat douches in Revenge of the Nerds and played the title role in the straight-to-video live-action Captain America movie, which is to say he and Mr. Salinger’s other remaining kin folk will almost certainly sell away his father’s ideals ASAP. Look for Catcher in the Rye 3-D, starring Zac Efron as Holden Caufield, to hit screens sometime in 2011.
Now that that’s off my chest, here’s a recap of what happened in the metal world this week:
Alright, it’s fucking freezing as fuck out there, but I’m gonna try and get my ass out and enjoy what’s left of my youth anyways. If you live in the NYC area, don’t forget that The Austerity Program play this Sunday January 31, in Brooklyn at Public Assembly (70 N 6th St) with White Suns, Immanent Voiceless, Daniel Malinsky. This your chance to thank Justin for all the awesome writing he did for us, or to tell him off for all the terrible writing he did for us, depending on your perspective.
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