Yesterday A Perfect Circle announced their reunion, and we wondered who, besides Maynard James Keenan and Billy Howerdel, would be in the band; now we have our answer. Drummer Josh Freese, the band’s only constant besides Keenan and Howerdel, and guitarist James Iha, who joined the group for Thirteenth Step, are both returning to the fold, while bassist Matt McJunkins, who must have been teased mercilessly in grade school, will replace Jeordie White, who has since returned to being “Twiggy Ramirez” in Marilyn Manson.

McJunkinthetrunk, pictured above, was practically a shoe-in for the gig, since he’s played with both Keenan and Howerdel before, in Puscifer and Ashes Divide. Other than that, I don’t know squat about the dude. His Facebook page would suggest that he sometimes refers to himself as “Junk,” which somehow makes him a-okay in my book.

And that settles that. Matt McJunkins is now the Dave Kushner of A Perfect Circle.

-AR

Listen, I don’t think this is gonna come as a galloping shock to anyone given all the talk there’s already been about A Perfect Circle returning from their hiatus/break-up/whatever, but we just got a press release making it official. The band is apparently gonna get this party started with a five-city tour in the fall:

Shows in Phoenix (Marquee Theatre), Los Angeles (Avalon), Seattle (Showbox at The Market) and San Francisco (The Fillmore) will be three-night stops with each night featuring one of A Perfect Circle’s three albums in its entirety (Mer de Noms, Thirteenth Step and eMOTIVe).  Las Vegas (The Pearl) will be a two-night outing (Mer de Noms and Thirteenth Step).

The band will also play Jimmy Kimmel on October 27.

Two quick and random thoughts:

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Last week I posted a pretty awful mash-up of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and some random, generic metal riff, which, to my surprise, a lot of you actually seemed to dig. So I’ll be curious to see what you think of “Going Through Changes” a new Eminem track that samples – duh – Black Sabbath’s “Changes.”

Now, as I’ve said, I don’t really have anything against Eminem, and I actually think this song is okay… although I honestly find the Ozzy vocals to be kind of out of place. More successful, I think, was the track “Sing for the Moment,” which sampled Aerosmith’s “Dream On”…

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So Maynard James Keenan has said that Tool are working on their next album, and that “If it comes together” they may even play some new shit live this summer. I’m always totally down for some new Tool, so I won’t even say what we’re all thinking, which is “It might be nice to a get a new Tool album in under five years for a change.” I mean, we’d heard that Tool were in writing mode back in 2008, but whatever. It’s Tool. If they need that time to make the best possible record that they can, I’ll go along with it.

But a new Tool album was always a foregone conclusion; the band may very well break our hearts and throw in the towel one day, but we are (very luckily) not there yet.

So more interesting, in a way, is the news that writing has begun on a new album for A Perfect Circle. Not “more interesting” in a APC > Tool way, ’cause, come ON, that would just be a ridiculous argument to try and make. Interesting in the “Oh, cool, A Perfect Circle really aren’t done” kinda way.

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Last month is was announced that Marilyn Manson and the young girl who lets him sodomize her, Evan Rachel Wood, would be co-starring in a retro slasher flick called Splatter Sisters, but other than it having some kind of road movie element, we actually weren’t told very much about the project. Now MTV has spoken to director Adam Bhala Lough, and gotten some details:

“It’s about two 18 year old beautiful drifter girls who go on a murderous rampage across California, killing scores of teenage boys. And they’re under mind control by the leader of this death metal band, this underground death metal band,” [Lough] said.

The death metal band leader in question is Lars, which is Manson’s role. He’s not just a rocker though. Lars also knows how to swing a sword! “There is a lot of samurai shit in [the movie] too because Lars is a samurai,” Lough said. “There is a lot of decapitation, a lot of arms getting chopped off, blood gushing, but in the beautiful way of a Japanese samurai film.”

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Did you know that we have lives outside of the metal world? It’s true! And sometimes, that life gets distracting. I LOVE writing for MetalSucks more than I love certain members of my mother’s family, but like any job, there are gonna be days when there’s some out-of-office shit going on and it’s really hard to just sit at your desk and concentrate.

Alas, today is one of those days. Thus, I present four stories that you might find of interest, but about which I have little to say. My sincerest apologies.

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1. Endure a political lecture from Blackie Lawless.
2. Take an I.Q. exam designed by Korn fans.
3. Pose for a Paul Stanley-painted portrait of my taint for his next exhibit.
4. Try to teach my dog to play The Binary Code’s “Suspension of Disbelief” on the ukulele.
5. Watch Lita Ford and Jim Gillette fuck, then Tweet about it.
6. Help produce British Steel Drums: The World’s Most Irritating Tribute to Judas Priest.
7. Let Marilyn Manson spit in my mouth.
8. Let the dude from Weedeater clean his gun while it’s aimed directly at my face.
9. Tie Billy Milano to my penis and toss him over the side of a roof.
10. Pretend to be a solicitor, call the Dio residence, and ask if Ronnie is available.

So stop e-mailing us about it.

-AR

I wasn’t gonna say anything about this because it seemed like there really wasn’t that much to say, but fuck it – the whole situation is starting to get out of control, which is to say, it amuses me.

So Hole released a new album this week, entitled Nobody’s Daughter - which is either a hilarious reference to the fact that Courtney Love (who apparently now wants to be known as “Courtney Michelle,” because changing monikers after twenty years worked out so well for Prince) lost custody of her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, last year, or is supposed to be profound in some way I don’t give a shit about. I haven’t heard the album and really don’t care to; if Gary Suarez had never written about it, I don’t think I’d even be aware of its existence.

ANYWAY, Billy Corgan, who was once friends with Love/Michelle and may or may not have helped her write some songs which may or may not actually be on Nobody’s Daughter, responded to the record release with a Twitter tirade telling us a lot of shit we already knew – namely, that Love can’t write music on her own, that nobody would ever have given a shit about her if she hadn’t somehow tricked Kurt Cobain into squirting his baby-making juice into her, and that she’s a terrible mother. From Classic Rock:

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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.

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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.
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Poor Joey Jordison must get bored when he’s not busy with Slipknot; besides Corey Taylor and Clown, he’s easily the most visible member of the band, even when they’re on hiatus (as they are right now). This is extra-amazing when you consider the fact that, unlike Taylor or Clown, he doesn’t really have a side-project: the one he started, Murderdolls, released one album in 2002, did a whole bunch of touring behind it, and then promptly broke-up. (MD vocalist Wednesday 13 recently hinted at a possible Murderdolls reunion, but that doesn’t actually seem to be happening.) But Jordison constantly manages to stay in the spotlight, be it through producing gigs (3 Inches of Blood’s Fire Up the Blades) or, more often, guest spots with other well-known bands: he recorded some drums for Otep’s House of Secrets (as though Otep didn’t sound enough like Slipknot already), toured with Ministry, and did a few tour dates with Satyricon before a couple of their members got arrested on a kiddie-sex charge and that trek was canceled.

And now it’s been announced that Jordison will spend the spring and summer playing for Rob Zombie.

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Of all the track debuts that floated into my inbox yesterday I was definitely NOT expecting the one by Rob Zombie / ex-Marilyn Manson guitarist John 5 to impress in any way, shape or form. But leave it up to MS Master Josh Kidd to insist we listen to John 5′s new track “The Nightmare Unravels,” from his forthcoming solo album The Art of Malice, which you can stream below [thanks: Bmouth].

Turns out the dude can absolutely rip on the guitar — I literally had no idea. I assumed that because he’s spent the better part of his career playing simple riffs in goth and sleaze rock bands that that’s all he was capable of; shame on me. “The Nightmare Unravels” is a shred-sterpiece that’s something I’d expect to hear on the new Levi / Werstler album or anything else on the Magna Carta roster. I feel like an even bigger douche because apparently John 5 played with David Lee Roth, so dude’s obviously got chops.

I guess now would be a good time for me to go and catch up on John 5′s FOUR previous solo albums before the new one comes out this Spring.

-VN

I don’t really know what the critical consensus was on the self-titled debut solo album from ex-Hole/ex-Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, but I thought it was catchy as hell. It came out just a few months after Courtney Love’s America’s Sweetheart and certainly blew that album right the fuck out of the water, that’s for sure. If you’ve never heard it, all you really need to know to understand what kind of record it is is that Josh Homme co-wrote and appears on the album alongside James Iha, Jeorde White (a.k.a. “Twiggy Ramirez”), and some other nifty guest musicians. Either those names appeal to you, or they don’t.

ANYWAY, that was almost six years ago already, and I kinda thought maybe Ms. Auf der Maur was done with music or something. But not so! She’s just released a video for “Out of Our Minds,” the title track from her new solo album, which a press release tells me “extends into a 28-minute, HD film starring and conceived by MAdM, as well as a limited edition comic book and matching Picture Disc Vinyl illustrated by Jack Forbes from Brooklyn, NY.” Personally I’m not sure that I care about anything other than the music, but, hey, good for her for being ambitious.

So this isn’t really metal and I’m not as wild about it as I was, say, “Followed the Waves” or “Taste You”* from her last album, but it’s not bad at all:

Out of Our Minds comes out March 30. And it features a duet with Glenn Danzig!

-AR

*If you can find the French language version of “Taste You,” check it out instead of the English version. The song sounds a million times sexier en Francais.

If you’re reading this, you are a sexy genius with a packed social calendar, so I understand if you couldn’t shoe-horn Sunday’s Grammys broadcast into your life. I, however, only had to interrupt a ten-minute conversation with my watch in time for the opening number (Elton John’s duet with the daughter of Marilyn Manson and Cher). It was the first of many atrocities, but none more grotesque and exploitative than the, ahem, tribute to Michael Jackson. Let’s not examine it too closely, lest our brains be scorched by the searing retarditude of having MJ’s children take the stage and hail their own father as a genius and special soul too strange for our world. Yeah. We fucking get it.

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It’s basically impossible for me to take “Babylon’s Burning,” the new video from W.A.S.P., at all seriously. Maybe inter-cutting footage of Nazis with the number “666″ as Blackie Lawless sings the number “666″ should strike me as being metal as fuck, but, mostly, it strikes me as an old-man who used to make headlines by being shocking trying desperately, and failing miserably, to be shocking again. Also, the song sucks.

Marilyn Manson, watch this video closely: this is your future.

-AR

Yesterday a little fight broke out in the comments section of our bit on the mysteries of Andrew W.K., and not that a little fight breaking out in our comments section is unusual, but this fight wasn’t really about Andrew W.K. – it was about the piano, which AWK plays.

And the piano is awesome. There should be doubt of this. Good pianists should be respected, even if the phrase “good pianist” sounds kinda funny.

As if to prove this point for us, Maniac “musicalsnob” posted a link to a YouTube user going by the handle “vkgoeswild.” She does some pretty rad piano covers of metal songs. Check out her take on Carcass’ “Corporal Jigsore Quandar,” for example:

After the jump, check out vkgoeswild as she does Slayer’s “Raining Blood,” and actually makes Marilyn Manson sound pretty.

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Back in 1996, I was an angst-ridden young buck, and the only kind of music I truly cared about was industrial rock. Indeed, it was at the tail of a gilded age for the subgenre, the door to commercial success having been opened a few years earlier by major-label breakthrough artists like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry as well as notable independent label acts like long-slogging innovators KMFDM. If you have ever owned music from bands like God Lives Underwater or Gravity Kills, you know exactly what I’m talking about, brother.

That same year also saw the major release of a self-titled debut from SKOLD, a dark electronic project from a former member of glammy metal act Shotgun Messiah, a group that had toyed with industrial rock on their final album Violent New Breed. Though there wasn’t a bad song in the bunch, the highlights included machinist’s slog “Dust To Dust” and soaring dystopian anthem “Neverland.” Though mastermind Mr. Tim Skold would move on to lengthy stints with Marilyn Manson (refer to: The Golden Age Of Grotesque, arguably the band’s finest record) and the aforementioned KMFDM, this now woefully out-of-print album–and occasionally accompanying promo VHS cassette–has always held a special plate in my withered heart. This is is why I am so pleased to report that after thirteen (13!) long years, Mr. Skold has revived this long dormant solo act.

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Was Rob Zombie never cool and I was just an idiot? Or am I right that he’s only recently become kind of a let down? I honestly can’t tell.

Anyways, even if we ignore the cheesiness of the fact that Zombie is obviously trying to cash-in on past glories by making a sequel album (Has there ever been a good “Part 2″ record? First person to say Operation: Mindcrime II gets a kick in the anus.), this cover art clearly comes from the Marilyn Manson school of “Have an intern whip something up on Photoshop.” Which is not only lame, but kinda weird: Zombie went to the prestigious art school Cooper Union.

You can do better than this, Rob. C’mon. Be cool again.

-AR

So, Marilyn Mansion has Swine Flu. This is very amusing. Says Manson, “I know everyone will suggest that fucking a pig is how this disease was obtained. However, the doctor said, my past choices in women have in no way contributed to me acquiring this mysterious sickness.”

Let’s have some fun with this, shall we? Let’s play a game where the object is to come up with Manson-related Swine Flu puns, and the prize is the satisfaction of knowing you’re hilarious. I’m gonna go first:

• The Beautiful Pig-Squeal
• Piggy Ramirez
• Eat Me, Eat Me
• The Pork Show

Now your turn… go!

-VN

In case you didn’t know, Alice Cooper is a lame old man. How lame and old? He plays golf…

…and wrote a book about playing golf…

…and is friends with Pat Boone. Yes, that Pat Boone.

So how is it possible that a church group could still find this 61 year-old boring fart threatening?

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