My family likes to travel. My first time on a plane was when I was 3 months old, and I’m told I had the decency to pass out and not make one peep on a trans-Atlantic flight. Traveling is fun in and of itself but traveling for music is a perfectly legitimate reason as far as we’re concerned. My mom and I set a record this summer as we took about four 24-hour trips to cities to see concerts, from Brussels (good beer) to Salzburg (good beer) to Istanbul (good beer. Unless it’s Turkish.) Various other friends and family participated in these trips here and there, but she and I did it all. They weren’t metal shows so I won’t elaborate too much except they ranged from Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, (oh like you need to wonder. I totally heckled them when they sang, “Layla.” I was the obnoxious loud one during a beautiful, melodic number, screeching, “THAT’S MEEEE!”) to a DJ that mixed traditional Anatolian sounds and dance paired with readings from a Turkish author, to a philharmonic orchestra. I did top off the summer by coming back from Europe in time to see KISS in Boston, though. Music is important to us and we’re pretty dedicated when it comes to showing our support.

Click to read more…

Sebastian Bach and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Corey Glover and, to a definitely lesser extent, Paul Stanley have all had some success doing theatrical musicals, be it on Broadway or elsewhere; now Dee Snider wants in on that action, and has joined the cast of Rock of Ages, the hit Broadway jukebox musical that incorporates 80′s music that is still remembered fondly by the bridge and tunnel crowd — e.g., Poison, Journey, etc. He’ll be in the show for eleven weeks, from October 11 through December 24.

And why not? Snider’s vocal talents were never on the level of guys like Glover and Bach, but live videos that I just watched on YouTube (like the one above) tell me that his voice is still in surprisingly good shape. Plus, he already dresses like Liza Manelli, so he’ll fit right in on The Great White Way.

And it’s a genius stroke on the part of the producers; the people who wanna see this show are definitely gonna know who Snider is, and be all the happier to buy a ticket to see him. It makes you wonder why no one thought of this sooner, or if anyone besides Snider was ever approached to be in the show.

Also, if Snider’s eight-shows-a-week (!) commitment to Rock in any way slows the production of Strangeland 2, than it can only be a good thing.

Meanwhile, it was just about a year ago that a Rock of Ages movie adaptation was announced, to be directed by Adam Shankman, the man behind such Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or winners as Cheaper by the Dozen 2. But there’s been no news of that project since, so it’s either dead or stuck in development hell. Either way, the human race wins… for now.

-AR

The Smoking Gun has posted a list of the per-gig earnings of some of the highest paid artists that toured this year, and a number them may interest you, our beloved Suckalos.

It will shock absolutely no one to learn that Kiss are number two on the list, and take home $500,000 a night, or that radio stalwarts Buckcherry and Shinedown respectively earn $100,000 and $85,000 per performance.

More surprising, to me at least, is that Bret Michaels gets $64,000 a night even without Poison (which means all those reality show appearances are good for something!), and that Warrant — FUCKING WARRANT — get $12,000 per show. I know $12,000/gig probably doesn’t seem like much when you consider what Kiss is getting, but I can assure you that it’s wwwwwaaaaayyyyyy more than pretty much all of your favorite metal bands are earning (unless you exclusively listen to Metallica or Korn or whatever). And that’s for a band who haven’t had a hit in two decades, and who are currently touring without their original singer, who also happens to be their most recognizable member.

The moral of the story, I guess, is that it pays to have a radio hit. As long as there’s someone who wants to hear “Cherry Pie” and “Heaven” live, Warrant will be richer than you.

Look at the complete list here.

-AR

[via Gun Shy Assassin]

On Saturday night, I ventured deep into the heart of the clusterfuck known as The Minnesota State Fair to witness the monster known as Kiss. This was my first Kiss concert, and it was quite an experience to be sure, but after the smoke finally cleared and retina-frying KISS logo was finally unplugged for the night, I was left with a single nagging question: Does Kiss still matter? Not, Is Kiss viable? mind you. Hell, this band is a moneymaking machine with a screwdriver wedged in the gears to force endless cycles of rinse and repeat. You don’t sell 100 million records worldwide and continue to pack arenas by accident. Clearly, this formula works. But does Kiss still matter?

Click to read more…

FRIENDLY REMINDER: Vince and I are taking over WSOU tomorrow from 4 -8! It’s the only radio station on the eastern seaboard that’s actually worth a damn, and it’s gonna have the awesomeness that is US, so listen in!!! We’ll be taking callers, too. If you live in the area, it’s 89.5 FM on your radio; everyone else can listen on the Internet right here.

And now here’s some things we did this week:

• We spoke to Decapitated’s Vogg, All Shall Perish’s Ben Orum, Within the Ruins’ Tim Goergen and Joe Cocchi, and Iron Thrones’ Steve Henningsgard.
• We debuted a new track by Moth Eater.
• We wondered, “What’s the big deal about Lady Gaga?” as she danced to Metallica.
• We rocked out to a newly-released Soundgarden song, and we couldn’t believe that the new Limp Bizkit song has a guitar solo!
• We commended Australia for its populations’ collective child-rearing skills.
• We marveled at this nine year’s old review of Reign in Blood.
• We sang Monster Magnet’s praises.
• We asked you to help us complete this Metal Map of America.
• We watched Kiss put the “ass” in “Massachusetts.”
• We wished Behemoth’s Nergal a speedy recovery.

Okay. I hope to hear some of your voices tomorrow! Seriously, guys. Listen. Call. Don’t make me sad. If you do, we’ll schedule Nu Metal Week to take place ASAP.

-AR

When you go to a KISS show, you expect certain things. Explosions, blood, loud noises, drunken fist-pumping, explosions, fire, platforms, explosions, demon/starchild/alien/cat faces, obnoxious amounts of sequins, and possibly even explosions. It might seem cliché and it might seem over-done, but that’s what comes to mind when you think KISS + concert. So it’s a good thing they know that, too, because their show at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA was the loudest, brightest, most epileptic-fit causing explosion, ever.

Click to read more…

We now rejoin Allyson B. Crawford (Bring Back Glam!) and Anso DF (MetalSucks) and their riveting analysis of Glam Metal’s Ten Best Must-Have Records.

Get caught up on yesterday’s action here.

***

7. TRASH - Alice Cooper

July 25, 1989 // Epic Records // p: Desmond Child

The hits: “Poison” “Bed of Nails” “House of Fire” “Only My Heart Talkin’”

The heart: “Hell Is Living Without You” “Spark In The Dark” “I’m Your Gun”

Anso: So by 1989′s Trash, Coop had been in a booze stupor for like seven straight albums. The good news was that his successful comeback tour inspired some check-writing at Epic Records. But that support came with strict control, or at least that’s what the presence of Bon Jovi/Kiss/Aerosmith/Ratt hit-maker Desmond Child implies. So Allyson, what’s your stance on Desmond Child?

Allyson: I got to interview Alice Cooper once. One of the highlights of my life, I swear. The man rules. He was all about sobriety when we spoke and I think that’s awesome. Now, Desmond Child. Oh my. I’ve written about him before on Bring Back Glam!. I suppose he is — no, he is a genius, but damn. Aerosmith is my favorite band of all time and Child sort of took away their grit. So that hurt. But for some people he really, really helped and that’s Alice Cooper. Alice needed a hit for a new generation and Trash came along at the right time, didn’t it? Oh and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to meet and interview Desmond Child, so there you go.

Anso: Hey, same here! His stuff is mega-cheesy, but so are delicious Cheetos. Plus, Detonator rules, so it’s easy to forgive misfires like “I Was Made For Lovin’ You.” Oh and of course I warmed to him after VH1 aired that hilarious footage of his collaboration with (and antagonism of) Vince Neil. You saw that right? “Hello-o! Successs!”

Allyson: Yeah, I’ve seen that. Oh, I’ve seen it.

Anso: Okay, Trash was buffed up by a full whack of celebrity guests: Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi, Kip Winger, Guy Mann-Dude, Steve Lukather, and 80% of Aerosmith. I suppose they helped pull chicks and young people to this old man record. Did these guys make Trash more attractive to you in any way?

Allyson: Because I’m a chick? Well, here’s the thing about me. I’ll agree there are some hot guys in rock, but that doesn’t mean much to me when it comes to music I like. If the song rocks, awesome. If not, okay. I like tons of music that is mocked — often right here on MetalSucks, ha! — and I always “go my own way if you will.” Trash is awesome to me because I love the songs. “Only My Heart Talkin’” is a great love song, a completely different type of power ballad. But, back to guests. I usually don’t care about guest stars on albums. I buy records because I want to hear the real band — not a slew of guests, you know?

Anso: Yeah. I’m not an Alice Cooper scholar, but I’ll wager that Trash is his sexiest record. It’s a bit uncomfortable to hear a 41-year old Coop describe passionate banging.

Allyson: As you know, my dear Anso, sexy is in the eyes of the beholder.

Anso: Hey, let’s talk about Trash‘s super-hit, “Poison.” Can you think of any single in history with such a memorably quirky riff? It’s awesome on its own and I love how they set it against different chords in the intro.

Allyson: So I’ve talked to Alice guitarist Keri Kelli a few times. Once I said I was frustrated trying to learn bass and guitar parts for some Alice songs. And Keri said something like, “Look, if you want to learn ‘Poison’ it’s just going to take awhile.” This frustrated me because I have little patience. I think I got off the phone with Keri, looked at the guitar and then sat down with a bag of chips or something. Anyway, yes, “Poison” is freaking epic. One of the best songs of the ’80s. Then again, Alice is a master. I love when the band performs “Poison” live. The crowd always goes batshit crazy.

Anso: What else makes you love this record?

Allyson: Hmm. It’s the sum of its parts I guess. I think all the songs fit well together, there’s not really a dud and the album helped push Alice to the top again. The cover photo is iconic. It was in magazines first and then Alice chose it as his cover — so I remember seeing the image of Alice everywhere as a kid. I had this instant connection to the record I suppose.

Click to read more…

Axls ands Vince saids Is haves to dos this. Is hates it. Axls says “Its likes corpses paint.” Vince says “Its ‘Unholys.’ Yous likes things thats ares nots holys!” Is calls bullshits. Is quits. Fucks yous. Fucks yous and the ponys yous rodes on.

-NC

It’s entirely possible that I stayed up way past my bedtime last night playing Crackdown 2. (I also had a Predator marathon in anticipation of Predators. Ladies, try to control yourselves.) I still find it kinda funny how video games can very much take control of my life, given that just a few years ago, I’d stopped playing them altogether. Then I had some extra money burning a hole in my pocket, and rather than do something useful with it, I bought a used Xbox, and then for some reason my writing career kinda stalled for a year. Hm. Curious.

ANYWAY, I’m telling you entirely more information than you care to know as a way of explaining that I wasn’t playing video games in 2000 — and I certainly was no longer paying attention to Kiss or anything Psycho Circus-related. So I had no idea that there was ever a PC-themed video game, entitled Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child. (I hear the working title was Colon: The Video Game: For PC and Dreamcast.) Then I saw this old commercial for the game on one of my favorite nerd sites, Topless Robot, who observe that “Even the announcer in the trailer can’t fake any enthusiasm about this piece of crap.”

Wow. That looks pretty lame. What I can’t figure out is, why the hell did it come out two years after the album? I’ve been operating under the impression that Psycho Circus ultimately only sold about a half a million copies — a great number if you’re Killswitch Engage, but pretty lackluster by Kiss standards (even in 1998, which I think was right around the time the record industry was rightfully starting to get nervous). I know hardcore Kiss fans are like hardcore fans of any arena-headling band — they’ll buy anything with the group’s logo on it — but I’d still be curious to know if this game was ultimately profitable. (Especially because most Kiss fans are pretty old. Do they even know how to play video games, or do all the colored buttons on the controller confuse them?) Given the complete overabundance of crap Kiss is will to put their name on, I’d think that occasionally at least some of it has to shit the bed.

-AR

Well, no, not really.

The reliably hilarious Cracked sometimes holds these really excellent Photoshop contests; their latest asked readers to create rejected versions of famous album covers. A lot of the entries had nothing to do with metal, but a few of ‘em did – like these:

Click to read more…

As I understand it, Family Jewels, the show about Gene Simmons, pushover softcore porn star Shannon Tweed, their plagiarizing son Nick, and their daughter Sophie (who, amazingly, I currently can find no ways to insult), is still going strong – but I guess the execs at A&E thought that if one show about a grown man who plays dress-up for a living was a hit, a second would be twice as nice. ‘Cause Blabs is saying that Dee Snider and his family are getting their own A&E reality program, to be called Growing Up Twisted.

Click to read more…

If you haven’t read Part One of my interview with Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne, you might want to check it out before you go any further. In this second and final installment of that conversation, King Buzzo pulls no punches. See below to learn his thoughts on grunge, crabcore, and why he’d rather open for Madonna than ever play Ozzfest again.

Click to read more…

There are two reasons that a John 5 interview could last for days. The first is that in just more than a decade, he’s already played guitar for David Lee Roth, Rob Halford, Marilyn Manson, and now Rob Zombie, none of whom are uninteresting conversation topics. And if that got old, he could discuss what it’s like contributing songs to Filter, Garbage, Avril Lavigne, Meat Loaf, Paul Stanley, Lynyrd Skynrd, and the friggin’ Scorpions. If he still has a voice, you could next ask him about his somewhat accidental/totally awesome solo career.

The second reason is that John 5 (né John Lowery) is a total music guy. And it’s totally effortless to talk music with total music guys. You could bump into him before a show and end up blowing off the headliner just to continue a breathless discussion of Van Halen at the bar next door. I can also imagine the results if I stopped at the guitar shop on my lunch hour to find John 5 lounging against an amp: We’d innocently start comparing Rob Zombie’s band to Ozzy’s and before you know it, it’d be sundown and I would be sneaking back into the office through a window. A bus ride to the beach would be disastrous ‘cause we’d undoubtedly miss our stop by miles while merrily disputing the merits of KISS. And so on.

Sadly for me but mercifully our transcribers, my talk with John 5 last week lasted but twenty minutes. He used the word “love” a lot to genially discuss his past and present collaborators, his fifth solo album The Art of Malice (get it May 11), this year’s Mayhem tour, and the Ozzy situation last summer. After that, we just talked about Van Halen a bunch – and might’ve gone on all day. But apparently he has things to do. About a million things.

Click to read more…

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Gene Simmons has finally gotten into the insurance business. Chaim Witz has been exploring new and exciting ways to slap the KISS logo on any and all products for the last three decades, and at this point, his marketing and merchandising efforts have long since jumped the shark. I could come up with something witty, but that would just be a waste of time. Honestly, I’m curious why it took him so long to finally get involved in this market.

Mr. Simmons’s new group, Cool Springs Life Equity Strategy, was launched last month to tap into a lucrative demographic: entertainers, sports stars and other people with a net worth of $20 million or more who need a life-insurance policy of $10 million or greater. The firm’s founders, who include David R. Carpenter, formerly of insurance powerhouse Transamerica, believe there is big opportunity to sell jumbo insurance policies to rich people.

Yes, undoubtedly there is.

Click to read more…

Full confession: until about an hour ago, I had no idea who the hell Ke$ha was. I think I’ve read some shit about her on Stuff You Will Hate, or maybe she just looks like someone I’d read about on Stuff You Will Hate (she’s collaborated with SYWH favorites 3OH!3); in any case, I didn’t really know any of her music.

Then I saw on The Number of the Blog that Metal Hammer played her a bunch of metal songs – including selections by Slayer, Megadeth, Horse the Band, Atreyu, DevilDriver, Steel Panther, and Kiss – to get her opinions, and decided I had better check out her music so I knew how seriously to take her reactions.

Holy shit, is this bitch ever lacking in talent. It’s like she looked at Brittney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and said “Nah, those chicks are too classy and prude for me.” If I ever caught my daughter listening to this garbage, I’d probably send her to a convent. And given that I’m Jewish, you should know if I ever send my daughter to a convent, I mean business.

But as it turns out, Ke$ha (I assumed it was pronounced “kee-sha” but apparently it’s “keh-sha,” which sounds like a dish my mom’ll be making at Passover next week) does not have terrible taste in metal – just kinda mediocre taste in metal. Her assessment of Atreyu pretty much hits the nail on the head, and it’s hard for me to talk too much smack on anyone who has good things to do say about the recent output of Slayer and Megadeth. But Horse the Band, “too emo?” Seriously? How about a nice cold glass of go suck a dick, Ke$ha?

-AR

Nowadays, classic metal seems all the rage — some cool kid told me this while walking to the market — and with MetalSucks doing the whole “Ten Great Bands That Inadvertently Helped Ruin Heavy Metal” thing, I got to thinking: how did metal become metal? We all know the Sabbath/Priest/Zeppelin “who started heavy metal” debate, but what about the in-betweeners that were probably “heavy metal” to my dad’s mom when Pops was just growing that ridiculous mustache and finding out that drinking beer was pretty cool once you got past that taste?

(Okay, full disclosure: I was drinking a beer and cranking UFO while reading the Van Halen story, so there.)

We’ve all known 3 Inches Of Blood for more than a few years at this point, but with the rise of bands like White Wizzard, Holy Grail, the criminally underrated Wolf, Gypsyhawk, RAM, and Cauldron waving the flag for the classic metal sound, I got to thinking about the bands that inspired them. These are groups where you could look back at them and say that they aren’t even definable as “metal” anymore.

Click to read more…

I am going to assume that a decent portion of the followers of this site are themselves musicians with bands of their own. That is generally how it goes with metal. There are seamless lines blurred between the “fans” and the “bands” because, like myself, many metal patrons represent both categories. Without this large sector of musician fans, technically proficient bands that cater directly to this base (like Dream Theater, Meshuggah, and Necrophagiast) would be much less successful. So to those musicians, I would like to use this blog to shine a light on one of the harsh truths in all music and entertainment that many musicians choose to ignore -

Image matters a lot in this industry. In fact, it’s probably just as important as the music.
Click to read more…

If the you young ‘uns don’t know Stryper, well, they were like the Underoath or Demon Hunter of their day. Which is to say, they played Christian metal. Their songs had names like “To Hell with the Devil,” and “Calling On You,” and for their 1985 album, they even covered “Battle Hymn of the Republic (Glory, Glory, Hallelujah),” which may still be the single lamest metal cover of a non-metal song ever, which is really saying something.

Now the band is working on a covers album, which will include their take on songs by the homos in Judas Priest, the blasphemous, drug addled guys in Black Sabbath, and the Jews in Kiss.

I don’t really have much else to say about this… it just made me laugh. Fingers crossed that they add a song by Slayer or Mayhem to the mix…

-AR

Last week the publication of Nick “Son of Gene” Simmons’ comic book, Incarnate, was halted after it became apparent to one of the millions of readers of a manga called Bleach that Simmons was blatantly stealing from that title. At the time we thought that Nicky had taken to Facebook to demand an apology, but it turned out it was just some dude who gets his ya-yas by pretending to be the douche bag kids of famous rock stars.

But now Topless Robot reports that the real Nick Simmons has released a statement, in which he attempts to simultaneously apologize for being a worthless piece of dung and not quite acknowledge that he’s a worthless piece of dung:

“Like most artists I am inspired by work I admire. There are certain similarities between some of my work and the work of others. This was simply meant as an homage to artists I respect, and I definitely want to apologize to any Manga fans or fellow Manga artists who feel I went too far. My inspirations reflect the fact that certain fundamental imagery is common to all Manga. This is the nature of the medium. I am a big fan of Bleach, as well as other Manga titles. And I am certainly sorry if anyone was offended or upset by what they perceive to be the similarity between my work and the work of artists that I admire and who inspire me.” — Nick Simmons

Hey, Nick, don’t sweat it. You were just paying homage to the artists’ whose work you admire! And it was clearly an homage, not plagiarism, right?

Dude, if ever an honest apology was warranted, this is the time. Don’t pretend you didn’t steal when the evidence is right there, schmucky.

Go to Topless Robot for more side-by-side comparisons.

-AR

SHOCKER! Gene Simmons’ son, Nick, is a total prick! I can’t believe it. I have no idea how that ever could have happened. I mean, he had such a good role model growing up.

From some dork website I’m not familiar with (via SMN):

“The American company Radical Publishing has announced that it halted the production and distribution of Nick Simmons’ Incarnate comic book series on Wednesday evening, amid allegations that the comic plagiarized Tite Kubo’s Bleach manga. According to Radical, ‘We are taking this matter seriously and making efforts now to contact the publishers of the works in question in an effort to resolve this matter.’”

What Would Tyler Durden Do (don’t ask) reports that Nicky-boy has gone on Facebook [Just some dude pretending to be Nick Simmons... oh, well. -Ed.] and demanded an apology. And side-by-side comparisons of his comic with the one he’s accused of ripping-off show that he deserves one. I mean, they’re clearly totally different (Simmons’ is the one in color, the original in b&w):

Click to read more…