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Hey, remember last month, when Nick Oliveri held his girlfriend hostage and got into a four-hour standoff with a S.W.A.T. team? Well, guess what? The cops found coke and meth in Oliveri’s home. Shocking, I know.
So while we may never know the cause of Oliveri’s inappropriate behavior, we do know he may be going to prison for a long, long time.
From TMZ:
So, to review the ways in bass players let us down this week:
In case Coheen and Cambria bassist Michael Todd’s arrest on Sunday for threatening to blow-up a drug store unless they gave him six bottles full of prescription meds and Jeroen Paul Thessling’s decision to quit Obscura didn’t already make bassists the least popular people in all of metaldom this week: TMZ is now reporting that former Queens of the Stone Age/current Not Kyuss! bassist Nick Oliveri has now been arrested on charges of felony domestic violence. Which is bad enough, but it’s not the part of the story that’s really interesting. This is:
I heard about, and then completely ignored, this photo album of Mastodon recording their new album. Why did I completely ignore it? Because I’ve seen bands record albums. It looks like dudes standing in a studio playing instruments. And unless you’re dealing with a band who haven’t recorded together in a very, very, very long time, well… that’s not too exciting. So these kinds of shots in and of themselves are usually not very cool.
Well, I’m an idiot. If I had looked, I might have seen this pic of Dave Grohl in the studio with the band:
Instead, I had to read about it on Heavy Blog is Heavy. D’oh!
ANYWAY, let us now analyze this photograph into, ahem, oblivion.
So, yeah, I think I’m officially not excited for Kyuss Lives!, the new Kyuss reunion missing the man who is arguably the single most important member of Kyuss. Has anyone seen this band? Are they worth getting stoked for? I literally haven’t heard from a single European reader who thought they were awesome, which I take as a bad sign. But who knows? Maybe we just need more European readers.
In any case, Kyuss Lives! — they’ve added an exclamation mark I guess, as though that might induce enthusiasm — have announced two U.S. tour dates, presumably with more to follow. The Sword are opening. So it will be like a night of seeing Not Kyuss and Not Black Sabbath. Awesome.
Here are those two dates:
9/23 — New York, NY @ Terminal 5
10/8 – Pomona, CA @ The Fox Theater
-AR
[via Metal Insider]
One of these men will not be on the new Kyuss album. Guess which one?
Kyuss Lives!, the ridiculously monikered Kyuss non-reunion which replaces Josh Homme with some dude no one has ever heard of, are apparently “thinking of doing another record,” according to this interview with vocalist John Garcia. I object to the use of the word “another” because in case these dudes haven’t noticed, they’ve never made a record before, but I’d like to think that the phrase “thinking of”* means “it’s not written in stone yet,” “there’s still time to stop the madness,” and “we said this to gauge the reaction of fans, possibly as represented by an incredibly smart, exceedingly handsome Jewish blogger from New York.”
So, assuming that Garcia was, indeed, trying to get a message to me to see what my thoughts were, I’d like to now respond by saying: I don’t think this is a good idea.
Steven Blush’s American Hardcore: A Tribal History is one of the great rock n’ roll history books. And now it’s bigger. Originally published in 2001, the Feral House book nails the golden age of old-school hardcore, from the movement’s inception to the watershed year 1986. The book inspired a documentary, the 2006 film American Hardcore. The movie is a must-see that has inspired as much griping and controversy as the book.
No matter how you feel about the Kyuss reunion under the Kyuss Lives moniker, I hope it has at least rekindled your interest in that heavy desert rock the boys used to make for us. Fortunately, Small Stone Recordings has been carrying the flame while the rest of you have been trendhopping like a bunch of bitches. (How’s that blackened deathgrind re-thrash emocore working for ya?) And as with last year’s revelation House Of Broken Promises, the label has given us another rare hunk of hard rockin’ gold in Gozu.
Presumably named after the bizarre Japanese flick, this Massachusetts quartet describe their sound as “GAAHL meets Hellhammer meets Clutch” — and who am I to fucking argue with that?! To say that Locust Season, their magnificent debut, rocks is an understatement. For much of 2010, I’ve been pining for some serious hard rock and been given slim pickings from the mainstream as well as the underground. Friends, our long national nightmare is over, and we are in Gozu’s debt. Check out “Regal Beagle” below and tell me that if rock radio actually rocked anymore this wouldn’t be a fucking chart topper!
[this streaming promotion has ended]
-GS
The first official photo of Kyuss Lives.
I know that everyone and their mother would love to see a Kyuss reunion, but they’re one of those bands where you kinda hafta stop and consider: What would constitute a Kyuss reunion?
Take, for example, Kyuss Lives, a not-really-new band that will reunite 75% of Kyuss’ original Wretch and Blues for the Red Sun line-up. The missing member, in case you couldn’t figure it out right quick, will be Josh Homme, who will be replaced by some dude I’ve never heard of, Bruno Fevery.
But is this exciting news? I mean, it sort of is, right?
Well here’s some good news.
You know Chris Goss whether or not you know you know Chris Goss — he’s “The Godfather of Stoner Rock,” and has produced/engineered/otherwise worked with everyone from Queens of the Stone Age to Screaming Trees to Kyuss to Stone Temple Pilots to Auf der Maur to Kik Tracee (!!!). He’s also the singer/guitarist for Masters of Reality, a band which, although they’ve been releasing albums pretty consistently since the late 80′s, have been woefully underrepresented in America since 1992, the last time one of their new albums was actually released here. (At least in a timely fashion… I think Spitfire maybe got around to finally putting some of their stuff out here, like, years after the fact.)
Which is all about to change: MetalSucks can now exclusively reveal to you that Masters of Reality will release a new album, Pine/Cross Dover, via Cool Green Recordings on September 14.
So while the album was released in Europe last year, now you’ll be able to get it without breaking any laws, or taking out another mortgage on your home so you can purchase the import. John Leamy (Surgery, Dr. Mars) plays drums on the record, which also features contributions from Queens of the Stone Age’s Brendon McNichol, Eagles of Death Metal’s Brian O’Connor and Dave Catching, and Merle Jagger’s Mark Christian. And, oh yeah, actresses Missi Pyle and Shawnee Smith (who I had the most unbelievable crush on in her Who’s Harry Crumb?/Summer School/The Blob days) are doing some backing vocals. Sweeeeet.
There’s already a video for one song, “Always,” which Leamy made, apparently using an iPhone app, “PhotoSpeak.” Do you hear that, Slayer? John Leamy made a better video than you using a goddamn iPhone app!!!
-AR
Formed by some of the other members of John Garcia’s post-Kyuss project Unida, House of Broken Promises seriously rock so hard that it should terrify Buckcherry, Daughtry, Nickelback, and the rest of their lackluster ilk. Simply put, they fucking rule. Don’t believe me? Then check out the video for “The Hurt (Paid My Dues),” which comes off their just-released debut Using The Useless.
If, like me, you’ve been craving something that’s “heavy” without being “brutal,” you ought to buy this immediately. While you’re at it, be sure to pick up Pig Charmer the latest from House of Broken Promises’ Small Stone Recordings labelmates Throttlerod. Both of them are late contenders for my best-of-2009 list.
-GS
[Gary Suarez is bad for your health. He usually manages WHOLLY DIVER (a Dio tribute site) and the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]
Los Angeles psychedelic-doom drivers Ancestors are already back with another new album after last year’s acclaimed two track debut Neptune With Fire, and this time around they’re arguably even more ambitious. On the eight track Of Sound Mind, the band expands their scope and continues their doom-laden trip down nostalgia lane, with plenty of prog rock inspirations. And lots of guitars.
Metal Hammer reports that Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones (those are the dudes from Queens of the Stone Age / Kyuss, Foo FIghters / Nirvana and Led fucking Zeppelin respectively, for the uninitiated or just plain retarded), in what would be the second extremely boner-worthy collaboration involving Josh Homme to surface in the past month.
Grohl is kinda-sorta getting his childhood/ongoing wet-dream of playing drums for Zep, kinda sorta. The man can pretty much do no wrong in my book, whatwith Probot, playing with Mastodon, a million other side projects, and of course the continued quality output of Foo Fighters. A collabo with Josh Homme makes perfect sense given his stoner/metal background, and JPJ is just the icing on the cake! Gonna be some deep, stoney shit.
-VN
Black Math Horseman have been around a relatively short while, but have quickly risen to prominence. With Wyllt, the band’s Scott Reeder produced/MetalSucks approved debut, they’ve created a subtle space of OG-psychedelicambience and post-/doom metal riffs and crescendos.
A big part of the band’s distinctiveness is vocalist Sera Timms’ droning voice, occasionally veering over to screaming but usually sticking to singing. In an email interview Sera was kind enough to grant us, she eloquently discusses the origins of Wyllt, working with Scott Reeder, and the current climate of music in the twilight of the record industry.
The Obelisk, a new metal blog run by JJ Koczan of the now defunct Metal Maniacs Magazine, recently published a fascinating interview with Roadrunner Records A&R-king Monte Conner on the subject of stoner rock. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the mind of one of the most famous and influential A&Rs in the history of metal, if not just for the interesting stoner rock subject matter then for the industry / label politics / A&R talk. Monte speaks all about his stoner rock heroes from Kyuss to Fu Manchu to Queens of the Stone Age, spends a good deal of time talking about why Roadrunner never ventured far into the stoner rock foray (Karma to Burn excepted — and he goes in depth about them, too), the current state of stoner rock, and why it’s never become a commercially viable genre. Take a quick look at some of the interview highlights after the jump.
