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Q: What’s even more tasteless than making fun of cancer?
A: Metal Inquisition’s Sergeant D making fun of making fun of cancer!
How meta. So yeah Peter Criss has breast cancer. Hardee har har! Yuck it up, fuckos.
-VN
If I had a biological clock, I’d worry that’s it’s ticking. Because this is my second story about little kids today.
Reign in Blonde has made the awesome discovery of Jonah Rocks, who is a) the only four year old I’ve ever seen that can play the drums, and b) the only four year old I’m aware of that already has a stage name. He also seems to have an endorsement deal with Vic Firth. Holy poop.
For reasons that are totally beyond me, the videos of this lil’ tyke rockin’ out are not embeddable, but if you go here, you can watch Jonah play “Harvester of Sorrow” with more skill and passion than Lars Ulrich has displayed in years.
After the jump are some more links to Jonah playing. Some of these videos were made when he was only three years old!!!
I found the following quote from a recent interview with Gene Simmons to be (inadvertently) hilarious:
“This is electric church, and no one on that stage — me or anyone else — wears the makeup and platform heels by some kind of birthright. This ain’t Europe; just ’cause your dad was king doesn’t make you the king. You’ve got to earn it. And when you defile KISS, you should be thrown out.”
Gene is referring to dudes like Ace Frehley, Peter Criss and Vinnie Vincent, of course. But I have to wonder what he thinks they did that was worse than this:
I love Metal Insider’s Bram Teitelman so much right now I could kiss him on his Quaker Jewish mouth right now (And no, I’m not kidding. And, oddly enough, Teitelman is the second Quaker Jew I’ve known. Bizarre.). See, Bram noticed what the rest of us failed to – that the riff from the new Kiss song, “Modern Day Who Gives a Fuck,” is more or less a total rip-off of The Sword’s Freya.
Think Bram is wrong? Listent to both and decide for yourself.
Here’s Kiss:
And here’s The Sword:
I was initially optimistic about the latest cinematic update of The Wolfman (photo above right). The cast was pretty good (Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt), the legendary Rick Baker was doing the creature make-up, and music video director extraordinaire Mark Romanek was all set to helm.
Then Romanek fell out and was replaced by Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park III… ugh), and the production has been plagued by endless re-shoots and release date shifts and all the other things a studio does when they know they have a dog with fleas (or in this case a wolf with fleas) on their hands.
Perhaps even less enticing: Gene Simmons is doing the “howling” voice for the titular monster.
Am I the only one here that thinks that American bands shouldn’t be allowed to wear corpse paint? There should be a law in the metal books that states it. There’s some rules that us American metalheads must follow, like the famous “Don’t Wear Your Own Band’s Shirt Law,” for instance. It doesn’t apply to Europeans and that’s okay, they’ve got their own set of laws. It applies to us, though, and when you break it, people get to talking.
Well, I think that corpse paint should fall under the “Must Never Be Applied To The Face Of An American” law. I think it should be punishable by excommunication from the community. I’ve got my reasons.
…the new Kiss album is going to suck puppy anus.
By the way, in case ya didn’t know: that ain’t Ace Frehley or Peter Criss you’re looking at…
-AR
When I was a teenager, if my father ever insulted me (and when he did, it was usually because I was being a little asshole and totally had it coming), he would immediately thereafter look at his watch. He was timing me to see how fast I could come up with a witty retort. That probably sounds fucked up, but I’m actually really glad my dad did that – it’s definitely one of the reasons I grew up to be such a prick, but, without tooting my own horn, I am very good at being a prick (you’re reading this website, after all) in no small part because of my old man’s insistence that I learn to properly defend myself in a verbal battle.
If only young Chaim Witz’s father had been as determined as Poppa Rosenberg to whip his son into mental shape. ‘Cause grown-up Witz (that’s “Gene Simmons” to you) is like the fat bully in the school yard – he’s way too dumb to trade barbs at an adult level, so he just says something sophmoric and unfunny and tries to claim said comment as a victory.
For example, look at this video of Simmons “debating” with music-biz guru Bob Lefsetz. Lefsetz criticized Simmons’ understanding of the way the music industry works today, and all Simmons can come up with by way of retort is to make fun of Lefsetz’s name. Forget, for a second, that’s not entertaining; it’s not even on-subject. It’s like watching Chris Farley tell David Spade “You’re a thick… candy…” in Tommy Boy. I mean, I almost feel bad for Simmons.
And now Simmons is losing a verbal war in the press with Trent Reznor, for the same reason: he just cannot hold his own in a debate.
There’s something reassuring about knowing that people one sometimes considers cooler than him or herself were not, in fact, always so cool.
MSNBC.com [via Idolator] is reporting that KI$$ frontman Gene Simmons sold a kidney stone that he passed on eBay for $15,000. Our bullshit radars are going off the charts; Gene is just the type of guy who’d claim something this crazy just to generate publicity, and hey, wouldn’t you know it, Gene just launched Season 4 of his TV show Family Jewels! Our pals at Idolator have done some kidney stone sleuthing of their own, but you can watch Gene’s claim on MSNBC below and judge for yourself.
Who wants to take bets that Simmons eventually tries to sell his own poop?
-VN
Thanks to our bro-bros at Metal Injection for bringing to our attention that one of the greatest metal documentaries of all time, Penelope Spheeris’ The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, is now available online, in its entirety, absolutely free (And FYI, in case ya didn’t know – Spheeris would go on to direct another classic of cinemetal, the original Wayne’s World.).
For some reason this 1988 classic – which includes amazing interviews with Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Steven Tyler, Taime Down, Riki Rachtman, Bill Gazzarri, members of Poison, Kiss, and Armored Saint, and, most infamously, a very, very, very drunk Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P. – isn’t available on DVD, and I honestly don’t even know anyone who owns a VHS player anymore. So if for some reason you’ve never seen this film, you MUST watch it now – especially since I’m fairly certain that this is not a legal rip. Watch it now before the lawyers take it down.
-AR
News about Ace Frehley never ceases to amuse. There was the breaking press release announcing his brand new, straight-outta-1996 website, complete with animated gifs and Photoshop 101 text effects. And now there’s his first-ever video blog, a snapshot into the mind of this hopelessly out-of-touch legend. Watching this video is kind of like listening to my mom tell me she joined Facebook; there’s no way they really grasp the entirety of what they’re doing, but it’s a cute effort. Says Ace:
“By the way, that is me on MySpace and Facebook, and if you don’t believe me you can go to AceFrehley.com and you’ll find the link. It’s not brain surgery. (laughs) Hey, keep those photos, messages and all those great little anecdotes coming, because I do read them from time to time whenever I get a chance.”
That’s right, it’s not brain surgery, kids.
-VN
-VN
Vinnie Vincent is something of our patron saint here at the MS Mansion. If ever there was a shredder this side of Kerry King whose solos went absolutely nowhere but GODDAMN did they do it fast, that man was Vinnie Vincent. Matter of fact, there’s a life-size bronze bust of the one-time Kiss axe-slinger that greets Mansion visitors as they step into our front yard foyer bathroom urinal closet.
You shoulda seen the look on Axl’s face when MS Maniac Steve S. sent in this video of Vinnie, well, being Vinnie. Last time I saw Axl get this excited was when MS Mansion Monkey extraordinaire Higgins stumbled upon a website specializing in midget torture porn. True story. But let’s save that one for a different time.
I love how this video is titled “Speed, style & phrasing,” as if there’s one iota of phrasing involved anywhere in this entire clip. After the jump, check out another clip of Vincent doing some intense guitar canoodling live; like everything else the man ever did, it’s completely over the top.
What do Twisted Sister, Great White, Kix, Nelson, Danger Danger and Anthrax all have in common?
They’re all playing this year’s Rocklahoma Festival.
Thanks to The Deciblog for pointing us towards the website of Pierre Blanc, a gentlemen who makes heavy metal vases like the one you see above.
Seriously.
Which is why I would never engage in a debate with Gene Simmons about anything. It’s the same reason I rarely respond to comments left on this site. If I post about a band I think is great and someone’s response is “Ur a faggit,” what the fuck am I supposed to say that? My IQ could drop just trying to communicate with that person, so I don’t.
But music biz guru Bob Lefsetz must love a Sisyphean task when he encounters one, because he’s been feuding with Simmons for the past week. The whole tiff started when Lefsetz criticized Simmons in his newsletter (of which both Vince and myself are avid readers) for a speech Simmons gave during Canadian Music Week about various ways in which the music industry might stay afloat; Simmons responded with his own e-mail, in which he made fun of Lefsetz’s name. Seriously. This is the level of of maturity and intelligence with which Lefsetz is trying to engage.
The feud culminated in a public debate last week, which you can watch below – or don’t. Simmons’ opening argument rests not on any proof of acquired business acumen (and beside the admittedly phenomenal success of Kiss, it’s worth noting that 9 out of 10 Gene Simmons ventures fail – see exhibit A, Detroit Rock City), but, rather, on a bald joke. Which tells you pretty much everything you need to know.
After the jump, you can watch a clip of Lisa Lampanelli roasting Simmons on A&E last year. Which is considerably more entertaining than the video above.
First Maynard, now this.
Look: I fucking love Vegas. I was there for New Year’s once and I think I had pretty much the best fucking night of my life.
But part of what’s so fun about that town is how friggin’ ridiculous everything is; it can’t be taken seriously at all, and if you try to take it seriously, you’ll probably just give yourself an aneurysm. As a place to go spend a couple of days drunk and act like a total dip shit, I think Las Vegas is just swell – but I think if I had to live in there, I’d kill myself.
I’ve always loved Stone Temple Pilots and refuse to make any apologies about it. Found this video at HardRockChick.com of Stone Temple Pilots dressed up in full KISS makeup for a show in 1993 at The Roseland Ballroom in NYC, and it goes to prove what I’ve been saying all along; STP were always just a modern version of their classic rock heroes, unfairly thrown into the whole grunge / alternative axis by some marketing minions in a major label conference room. Here they are performing “Crackerman;” look at that audience go apeshit. Also: is Weiland actually playing that guitar or just hamming it up as part of the Paul Stanley shtick?
Rumor has it that the DeLeo bros. are working on material for a new STP album while Weiland finishes up his solo tour. No word yet on the status of the pending lawsuit with Atlantic Records.
DeLeo bros. 4-evr!
-VN
Have you guys seen Ace Frehley’s website? Shit is fo’ real. 1996 called, and it wants its website back. Words like “geocities,” “angelfire” and “AOL hometown” come to mind, fresh on the cutting edge of the Information Superhighway. It’s all here, folks: stock astronomy imagery, cheesy photoshop text effects, animated .gif icons, mystery navigation… the mind boggles.
We know this because we got an email announcing that he’s released the artwork for his forthcoming album Anomaly, his first since 1989’s Trouble Walkin’. We left a message with 1989 seeking comment, but it has yet to return our call.
-VN
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