To help promote their upcoming tour, on October 11 Judas Priest will release The Chosen Few, their umpteenth career retrospective, and one which does not feature any new material. The Chosen Few does have a hook, though — I mean, beyond the fact that the band members appear on the cover only as silhouettes, I assume at least in part to downplay the fact that a certain key member is no longer in the group.

No, the hook  (and this is actually a neat idea) is that the band has let a lot of other celebrity musicians — including Ozzy, Lemmy, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kerry King, Slash, and Vinnie Paul  – choose which songs would appear on the collection. And, yeah, it’s interesting to know that Zakk Wylde is way into “Grinder,” and and that Randy Blythe and David Coverdale might actually have something to talk about at a cocktail party, and that Joe Satriani likes his Priest heavier than I might have suspected.

But like I said, there’s no new material here, so I can’t quite imagine why anyone would want this album anyway. The coolest thing about The Chosen Few is seeing which dude chose which song, and you can do that after the jump. So, look, we just saved you ten bucks.

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So, uh, Noisecreep tells us that a company called Head USA is now making Motorhead-themed skis. Because when I think “beautiful snowy resort getaway,” I think “dude with a giant mole on his face,” y’know?

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Congratulations to reader Cody Coates, who correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Anencephalic Phallopagus. Cody wins a copy of the new Abaddon Incarnate/Phobia split 7″! Three cheers for Cody! Hip-hip-hoo-ray! Hip-hip-hoo-ray! HIP-HIP-HOO-RAY!

This week we have another super-duper special prize for you, courtesy the nice folks at Megaforce: a Blu-ray copy of the new documentary Lemmy: 49% Motherfuckker, 51% Son of a Bitch. I just watched this bad boy over the weekend and it’s a really, really in-depth and fascinating look into the life and mind of one of metal’s most influential icons. And the Blu-ray comes with a metric TON of extra features. It hits shelves today (and entered this week’s Soundscan video chart at #1) — you can order a Blu-ray copy here or a DVD copy here, or, of course, just enter this contest!

All you gots to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. ALL ENTRIES WITHOUT AN ADDRESS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select one winner and announce his or her name next week.

This week’s logo was provided, yet again, by the great David Foust. David, I really appreciate you scouring the internet for these things so that I don’t have to!

-AR

Do you guys know Electric Six? I guess they fall into the category of ironic hipster indie douche band, but they made at least one album, 2003′s Fire, that I thought was pretty good — and, certainly, the videos they made in support of that album are excellent.

Don’t turn this off before the 1:22 mark

Well, Electric Six’s new album is called Zodiac, and as you may have heard, the signs of the Zodiac recently changed — in other words, your sign may not be what you thought it was. (This is assuming you care about any of this shit. I don’t pay it much mind, although it can be fun to think about when trying to self-induce a coma.) And so Electric Six, those merry pranksters, have decided to have a little fun with their fans. From their official website:

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In October, after I asserted that Motorhead should not have re-recored “Ace of Spades” for a beer commercial, a friend and I had a rousing philosophical debate about the contents of that very post. I said that Lemmy is a wealthy man, and didn’t need the extra money from doing the ad; my friend asked if I’d seen Lemmy, the new documentary about the legendary front man. I hadn’t (and still haven’t), and I told him so, to which he replied, “Dude, he drinks and snorts all his money away! Wait ’til you see his apartment!!!”

Now Rolling Stone has unveiled the very clip where we do get see the Chateau Kilmister, and, uh, my friend wasn’t dicking around. I gotta say, I really appreciate Lemmy keepin’ it humble and not getting all Lars Ulrich on us, but maybe he can use some of that brew money to get a storage space? I think cramming thirty-five years of Motorhead memorabilia into such a small space is, uh, ill-advised. (Rob at Metal Injection worries that Lemmy may be a hoarder.) I’m not exactly the tidiest person myself so I sympathize, but… ah, fuck it, it’s not like I have any gold records to hang on my wall.

If you live in a large metropolitan area, you should be able to see Lemmy during its limited U.S. theatrical engagement in January. If not, don’t bum too hard, ’cause it comes out on DVD on February 15.

-AR

Ever seen Woody Allen’s Zelig? It’s a pseudo-documentary about a guy who immediately assumes the traits of whomever he’s with at the moment; put him in a room full of Chinese people and he’ll turn into a Chinese man, move him to a room full of Hasidim and he’ll suddenly appear to be Hasidic, and so on and so forth. It’s a(n obvious but still pretty funny) metaphor for a guy with no personality of his own.

Now, consider Slash. Guns N’ Roses folklore tells us that Slash is not the best judge of his own material, and often wanted to scrap some of Guns’ best songs; and, unfortunately, evidence suggests that this folklore is fact, and that Slash is a pretty ho-hum songwriter. Axl Rose has his legitimate insanity and over-sized, not entirely comprehensible artistic vision, but all Slash really seems to have is a desire to be like his heroes in Aerosmith and AC/DC, which is to say, a legacy act and purveyor of catchy but fairly middle-of-the-road rock. Consequently, a lot of the pressure on Slash-penned songs in the post-GN’R era is not just on the guitar playing of the Artist Formerly Known as Saul Hudson, but on the performances of whatever singer he’s working with at any given moment. Slash songs can be like underwritten roles in movies that way; you need the best character actors available to give them some personality, or they risk becoming boring.

Slash has personality (or at least persona) to burn, and it’s no shock that on Slash, his first solo record, he keeps up his up his end of the bargain in the guitar solo department. Despite the fact that he was never a revolutionary musician, Slash was always a very distinctive musician; a lot of people play the way he does, but no one sounds quite like him. But it is kind of a shock that on this, the album which is supposed to be a distinct and unique artistic statement outside the confines of his collaborations with various bands, Slash has very much allowed himself, like Zelig, to blend in with whomever was in the room at the moment.

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All this talk about Slash’s upcoming solo album has got me playing “Fantasy Velvet Revolver” in my head once again. Though I still hold out hope that Axl’s idea of having Perry Farrell front the band comes to fruition, I know in my heart that there’s probably a better chance of Scott Weiland rejoining the band, which is admittedly a pretty remote possibility. Remote like Siberia.

So looking through the list of vocalists purportedly gracing the axeman’s new record, I see a number of qualified albeit unlikely candidates to fill Weiland’s still-vacant spot. Yeah, it would be a heavy music lover’s dream to have Ozzy Osbourne sing for the band, considering the craptastic nature of his last few solo albums. Realistically, that would be an unholy managerial nightmare with the potential capacity to yield a catastrophic clusterfuck to put the legal woes of Black Sabbath and Guns N’ Roses to shame. Dave Grohl’s too busy counting his money and playing geriatric rock with his idols to commit to yet another band. These days, Alice Cooper and Lemmy Kilmister have the commercial drawing power of, well, Alice Cooper and Lemmy Kilmister, and maybe would shift a few more units than a Velvet Revolver fronted by an unknown (anyone remember Eric Dover or Rod Jackson?) or that dude from Spacehog. Don’t even get me started on Fergie.

One other name on that list, however, actually makes sense…

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The Starbucks Incident

Yes, I am going to continue to bitch about Slash. I understand that Slash is not Jimi Hendrix but this might be the single biggest betrayal to my formative years since Metallica released everything they’ve released from Load on, and I need to mourn.

So. Some lady says that the following singers are all on Slash’s new solo album, How Could Taking My Cues from Carlos Santana Possibly Go Wrong? I have added my own thoughts because that’s what we do around here. Click to read more…

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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An oldie but a goodie from The Onion:

“I remember a time not long ago when the Devil Horns were reserved for only the most righteous of person, deed, or riff,” Grand Elder Lemmy Kilmister said. “To see someone throwing the horns to his mate at the launderette because the clothes dryer came to a full stop just as he finished reading his copy of Circus… It breaks my heart.”

Touche.

-VN