MetalSucks

Honestly, I was never that excited about Them Crooked Vultures, for the simple reason that supergroups are anticlimactic nine out of ten times (and the fact that Queens of the Stone Age haven’t made a record I’ve wanted to listen to more than once since Songs for the Deaf didn’t help). Still, I was open to giving the band a shot.

Then I heard their first single, “New Fang.”

When Gary Suarez described this band’s music as “seriously generic and geriatric classic rock,” he wasn’t kidding.

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I haven’t done a blog in a while because the last blog I did really got me thinking about the mentality of people in the metal scene. Most particularly, the mentality of shit talking. We’re all guilty of it. I admitted to shit talking Bring Me The Horizon in magazines over in Europe when I was in God Forbid. I never heard them at that point. But now, I dig them and I feel pretty stupid for slagging them.

In my last blog I mentioned my excitement for the band Eryn Non Dae and how I was going to “borrow” some of their ideas for my new project. First of all, my last blog was PACKED with information about band business, touring and juicy tidbits of amazing knowledge :) But, the funny thing about the last blog was this guy ‘Jamie.’ Out of a five hundred word blog, he took the phrase “borrow ideas” and accused me and God Forbid of riding the coat tails of other popular bands. Killswitch was his biggest gripe. Then it was Opeth.

He claimed Gone Forever (2004) was a Killswitch rip and Earthsblood (2009) was an Opeth rip. This type of thing usually doesn’t bother me. In this instance I was fucking bothered. Jamie and I entered into a written brawl about the history of God Forbid and the intentions of our song writing for the last ten fucking years. Why would I waste my time to defend myself from this sort of claim?

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We are often asked how we train the MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys, and the answer is surprisingly simple: we just play them metal. That’s one of the key reasons we selected monkeys to do our bidding. Yes, they like to throw poop, but they are excellent typists and just fucking love metal.

And now a scientific study at the University of Wisconsin confirms this little fact (about monkeys liking metal, not them being excellent typists). Satan Rosenbloom just showed us this story about the study, which found that monkeys prefer metal to classical, jazz, and even a certain classic rock giant:

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So what was your entre into the world where denim, leather n’ demonology reign supreme? Where you adore the goat and sway to the symphony of deee-struction? Every man (or woman) has a tale to tell. Here’s mine. You’re gonna hear a lot of names you might be unfamiliar with, especially if you’re a member of Attack Attack! (Or just plain anyone under 23!) You’re gonna be thinking, “Damn, this fucker is old!” Yeah, well just remember that I’ve seen seen stuff that would make you shit Perrier with jealousy. I’m definitely old enough to have seen Minor Threat, Cliff Burton-era Metallica… the list goes on… before most of you were a tadpole in yer pappy’s population paste.

Let’s start at Discharge. I could go back and trace the whole history of early 80’s hardcore for you, but neither of us have the time or attention span. Let’s just say, the minute I heard these Stroke-on-Trent monsters of the nuclear reactor riff on the monstrous Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing album, I nearly pissed my pants. It was the gateway to something far heavier than I had ever heard on a scratchy 7” from the new record store that had opened in Boston called Newbury Comics.

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So I’ve been living in the UK for about four months now, and have managed to take in quite a lot of this “culture” thing they’re so fond of over here. I’ve been to nine countries, eight major metal festivals, and a handful of cities in Ol’ Blighty itself; I’ve gate-crashed hotel parties in Norway with the drummer of Swallow the Sun, stage-dived into a sea of muddy grind freaks in the Czech Republic, gotten roaring drunk with Wolves in the Throne Room in the Netherlands, met Gaahl’s boyfriend in France, gotten lost in Rome, watched Electric Wizard blow an amp in Manchester, lost my mind to Eyehategod at Hellfest, seen Manowar (‘nuff said there) – and that was just the first couple months. Between all the metal, mud, bruises, whiskey, calimocho, hard cider, and terrifying Czech liquor (Becherovka and Fernet are no fucking joke, even if it is Kevin Sharp and Danny Herrera pouring you a shot), I realized that, somehow, something was still missing.

To my immense chagrin, I had yet to take that all-too-necessary pilgrimage up through the Black Country and into the Unholy Land itself – to Birmingham, England. Every metaller worth his leather (and several million other music fans besides) knows exactly why this unimpressive, coal-smudged city matters so much. Birmingham is the ancestral home of heavy metal. Everything – whether it be doom, black metal, powerviolence, or even the plague that is deathcore – everything came from here. The famed Mermaid Pub provided a fertile breeding ground for extreme metal, nestled as it was in a dodgy part of town where the cops ignored the punkers and longhairs milling around out front as the early rumblings of a deadly new sound thundered away upstairs The city itself was the original stomping ground of the dirty sexy hard rock’n’roll of Led Zeppelin, the NWOBHM gods in Judas Priest, the crusty proto-grind of Sore Throat, the scummy grindcore forefathers of Napalm Death, the industrial noise terror of Godflesh, and the one and only BLACK FUCKING SABBATH.

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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

…..cause this shit never gets tired.

LED ZEPPELIN — “In My Time of Dying (live)”, from 3/11/75 show at Long Beach

(full concert here)

-KW

Vince has gone into some detail in the past about the travails of dating a girl who isn’t into metal; I’ve kept my own struggles to educate the future ex-Mrs. Axl Rosenberg more private, but I do feel Vince’s pain.

Lucky for us, then, that Thrash Hits has pointed us towards this article at self-titledmag.com, which outlines a plan to get your non-metal gf to give into the dark side. Here’s an excerpt:

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That’s the realization I had on Tuesday night at the Mercury Lounge watching Northern Ireland’s The Answer rock the house. The kind of music The Answer peddle — retrofried, bluesy, Southern hard rock reminiscent of AC/DC, Led Zep, and even early ’00s rocksters Silvertide — gets my blood pumping and gives me a giant stiffy instantly. There’s just something about lots of D, A, C and G chords that sounds fucking great together, no matter how many times you’ve heard it before and in how many different permutations. Especially when played on a Les Paul through a Marshall amp — ya know, the kind with actual real overdriven tubes, not the fake, washy digital kind. Makes me feel like I can stay out all night long drinking, doing lines and fucking bitches because it’s rock and fucking roll, dude!!! Indeed, The Answer are a tight package that rock you just the way you want to be rocked, with plenty of bravado but little pretense.

Check out the band’s brand new video for “On and On” below, which comes from their new full-length Everyday Demons (The End). I haven’t heard the full record yet, but if their recent EP Never Too Late is any indication, it’ll be as slammin’ as the band’s live set.

-VN

If you are a fan of the instrument they call the drums, this shit surely speaks for itself…

Part Two after the jump…

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The United States has a brilliant new President in Mr. Barack Obama, and here we are debating whether or not Christians can make tr00 black metal. What can I say? Here are some other things that happened this week:

• We debuted new music from The Giraffes.
• Marilyn Manson splits with young, ghostly-looking female, contemplates future life (hint: it probably involved another ghostly-looking female 20 years his junior).
• Mastodon divulge some details about their new album (hint: lots of drugs had to have been involved).
• Sammy O’Hagar interviewed Enslaved’s Grutle Kjellson and Vince went Jew on Jew with Daath’s Eyal Levi.
• Deftones bassist Chi Cheng was in a tragic car accident and remains in a coma. Godspeed.
• Stoner legends Sleep announce reunion shows; as Led Zep contemplates life without Robert Plant, we pray to God that decision doesn’t spawn a Creed reunion.

Til Monday…

Remember Silvertide? That band was fucking awesome, and it’s a shame they disappeared after releasing only one album. Thankfully now we’ve got The Answer, a Northern Ireland quartet who, like their American predecessors in Silvertide, have barely changed a thing from the ’70s hard rock formula that had its heyday before the band members were born. On their four-song debut EP Never Too Late (The End Records) these lads rock with plenty of AC/DC meat and potatoes bombast and the melody of Led Zeppelin, mixing it with a more modern (relatively), hard-hitting, Black Crowes-y sensibility. Vocalist Cormac Neeson’s wail undeniably calls Robert Plant to mind; if Led Zep do go on to tour without Plant, they should surely give Mr. Neeson a call. Meanwhile, guitarist Paul Mahon wails like Page or Hendrix possessed — the dude can fucking PLAY — while the rhythm section of Michael Waters (Bass) and James Heatley (Drums) holds it down with plenty of energy and power.

As with most throwback bands like this you know what to expect, so there ain’t much in the way of surprises; but that’s just fine when you’re opening stadiums and arenas for AC/DC on their Black Ice tour. When these guys do finally get around to recording a full-length I imagine it’ll sound just like a longer version of this 4 song EP, and if they’re fortunate enough to get to the next one, that’ll probably sound the same too. If it ain’t broke, why bother fixing it?

-VN

(three and a half out of five horns)

[The Answer on MySpace]

The Webernet rumor mill has been aflutter in recent weeks with the news that two of the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin — Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones — would like to take the band out on the road following their massively successful 2007 reunion concert. The late John Bonham’s son Jason, who participated in the reunion show, would likely sit on the drummer’s throne, but singer Robert Plant has publicly stated he isn’t interested, instead opting to continue making bland alt-country music for the NPR / Starbcuks set with crooner Allison Krause.

All this begs the question: if Plant does indeed decline, who would take his place? Various names have been bandied about — Steven Tyler and Chris Cornell among them, and the latest, petrifying, scary and frightening choice: Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge.

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The Sunday Mirror reports that Robert Plant shot down an offer for £300 million to do a Led Zeppelin reunion world tour, clashing with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones who both wanted to go ahead with it. Plant said he’d rather focus on his new project with country singer Alison Krauss; the pair’s duet album Raising Sand reached #2 in America and Britain and they are starting their own tour in April.

Can I be the first to say… thank fucking God. Though seeing Zeppelin live would be extremely cool (if I decided to fork over the gigormous amount of dough it would have cost, which would’ve been unlikely anyway), a world tour would tarnish the legacy of Zeppelin and make them look like flip-floppers for re-negging on their promise to play just the one reunion show last year in honor of late Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun. I think the world will be a little better off — and our wallets thicker — if this does not happen.

-VN

Proof that if you clamor loud enough you might just get what you ask for… almost. Though Dave Grohl didn’t quite get his publicly-announced wish (yet!) of playing drums for the reunited Led Zeppelin, he got the next best thing. Grohl somehow convinced Led Zep bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones to join the Foo Fighters on bass for a performance of their hit “The Pretender” at Sunday’s Grammy Awards, a childhood dream if you ask me. Oh, and there was also a full symphony orchestra on stage. Watch an excited Grohl perform the song with JPJ + orchestra below.

-VN

I understand that Twiggy Ramirez re-joined Marilyn Manson because the money’s right, but I guess that Manson has to get something out of it, too – and it would appear that the payoff for him is some sense of nostalgia for a time when he was much, much more famous. In an interview with Rolling Stone last Friday, he revealed:

“The turning point for me was when I went to see Led Zeppelin’s reunion show, and I saw Jimmy Page and Robert Plant look at each other for a moment, and they probably said, ‘Holy shit, we wrote ‘Stairway To Heaven.’ I wanted that look again… I want to look at Twiggy and go ‘Holy shit, we wrote ‘The Beautiful People.’”

When giving interviews, I think it’s a good rule of thumb to never, ever, under any circumstances, mention Led Zeppelin and your own band in the same breath, unless maybe you are/were a member of, say, The Beatles or The Stones or some shit. ‘Cause “The Beautiful People” was a big big hit in its day and I like it and all, but “Stairway,” it ain’t.

In response to Manson’s statement, ousted Manson member Tim Skold revealed that he would be re-uniting with his old band, Shotgun Messiah, because he was inspired by “that look that Steve ‘Sex’ Summers gets when he looks over at Kristy ‘Krash’ Majors during a Pretty Boy Floyd show.”

-AR

The Beard Liberation Front has endowed Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant with the “beard of the year” award for 2007, according to BBC News.

This is nothing short of an outrage; Plant’s paltry chin whiskers are an insult to those of us who take the art of beard growing very seriously and put real time and effort into our facial hair, present company included. We can think of at least two men — Justin Foley of Killswitch Engage and John Baizley of Baroness, both pictured below — whose manly manes put Plant’s to shame.

Beard Liberation Front — does this seriously exist? — fuck you!

-VN

According to Telegraph.co.uk, the recent Led Zeppelin reunion gig at the O2 Arena in London has sparked Led Zeppelin fever throughout the UK. The recently released Best Of album Mothership, released in November, is already platinum in the UK (300,000 units), and sales of the band’s back-catalogue rose 500% in the day since the concert, according to an HMV spokesman.

This is all well and good, and certainly bodes well for a slumping industry that could use a holiday boost. But guess what — not only will it not last, but it’s a relative blip in the radar compared to how far off overall sales numbers are from last year.

Expect a big drop in overall CD sales from 2007 to 2006, and expect big retailers to cut shelf space as soon as the numbers come in. It’s (still) the beginning of the end for the CD.

UPDATE: The Sun [via Blabbermouth] reports that after the gig the bandmembers were overheard discussing a three-night set at Madison Square Garden in New York City sometime in 2008. According to the report, the consensus was “Why not?” It’s inevitable, folks!

-VN

Last night’s Led Zeppelin reunion gig will surely be one of the more buzzed about topics on the Internet this morning (don’t tell the fools who paid thousands for tickets that the band is planning a 2008 tour with The Cult opening! sssssshhhh!). Here’s a pro-shot video from last night of the band performing “Black Dog:”

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/a8v_Rqi4B-E" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

The setlist, which I believe Kip W. will share his thoughts on later, was as follows:

01. Good Times, Bad Times
02. Ramble On
03. Black Dog
04. In My Time Of Dying
05. For Your Life
06. Trampled Under Foot
07. Nobody’s Fault But Mine
08. No Quarter
09. Since I’ve Been Loving You
10. Dazed and Confused
11. Stairway To Heaven
12. The Song Remains the Same
13. Misty Mountain Hop
14. Kashmir

Encore:

15. Whole Lotta Love
16. Rock and Roll

-VN