I am old and married to a kindergarten teacher, therefore, I can only go to concerts during the sweltering months of summer.

This is my summer vacation (Part I).

WHO:MÖTLEY CRÜE, POISON & NEW YORK DOLLS
WHERE: AT&T Center — San Antonio, Texas
WHEN: June 9, 2011

I can’t say I was too excited to check out this bill. I did give Mötley Crüe a solid review for their 2008 Crüefest that scooted into the now-defunct Verizon Wireless Amphitheater under the scornful eye of a vicious summer storm, despite the fact Buckcherry, Sixx A.M., and Trapt opened up for them. This time around, I can’t say their choice for major support would cause me to sport a woody. I mean, c’mon… Poison? 4srslz?

Click to read more…

Okay so that’s not a direct quote, but still.

Last week I expressed some disappointment that everyone in Mötley Crüe and Poison seems to be getting along in advance of their upcoming summer tour, with Nikki Sixx apparently even going so far as to apologize to Bret Michaels for derogatory comments he had made about Poison in the past — y’know, like when he called Poison “fake bullshit” and declared that The Crüe “would never, ever tour with a fucking band like Poison.”

But guess what? As it turns out — shock of shocks — either Michaels is a liar or delusional, or Sixx is a liar or just an asshole. ‘Cause now Nikki has taken to Twitter to assure the world that, no, he never apologized for his comments:

Click to read more…

I don’t know why, but I’ve had John Corabi on the brain recently. Maybe it’s ’cause Corey just wrote about the poor dude? I dunno. But last night I realized I’d never seen any footage of him performing live with Mötley Crüe during his brief tenure with the band, and went looking on YouTube for said footage. I found some okay bootlegs (“Hooligan’s Holiday,” “Dr. Feelgood,” “Home Sweet Home”), and it looks like Corabi was actually doing a pretty good job — which isn’t really surprising. The one eponymous album Corabi made with the band is actually pretty good, even if it was pretty much damned right from the get go.

More interesting, though, is this footage I stumbled upon of Corabi and the The Crüe rehearsing. It’s professionally filmed, although for what, I have no idea, and it’s been on YouTube since 2008, so I’m kinda surprised that no one ever sent it to me before. But I love this kinda shit. I mean, I’m obviously never going to rehearse with Mötley Crüe, so this is a pretty interesting look into that process. It’s fun to see how these guys actually interact with one another, y’know? (My favorite part might be Mick Mars getting pissy become a tech scuffed the floor. Seriously.) Plus, it turns out Tommy Lee was always retarded, if that’s news to you.

More after the jump!

Click to read more…

Long-time readers of MetalSucks are fully aware of my lifelong obsession with Mötley Crüe. Okay, it was more like a two-year love affair, at least until I discovered Terry Glaze-fronted Pantera, Metallica, and the English Dogs.

I have ruined any chances of running for public office by openly displaying my dress-up capabilities as both Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx on this wonderful publication. I have reviewed the band’s concerts here, as well as their books (and books, and books).

My pathetic one-sided man crush was shattered on December 8, 1984, when lead singer Vince Neil vehicularly manslaughtered 24-year-old Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley, while driving his Pantera to a liquor store in Redondo Beach, California, to pick up some booze. Interestingly enough, that was the same exact moment the band’s music began to completely suck. Hard.

That brings us to modern day Mötley Crüe and their upcoming co-headlining summer tour with metal stalwarts Poison **hack** and glam rock pioneers the New York Dolls. According to Blabbermouth, Crüe bassist and de facto leader Nikki Sixx claims that the band’s fans “demanded” that they take Poison out on the road. MetalSucks co-head honcho Axl Rosenberg, of course, is much wiser than Sixx gives him credit.

Click to read more…

So in November, Bret Michaels said that Poison and Motley Crue were gonna do a big summer tour together, despite the fact that Nikki Sixx once said that there was “No way in fucking hell” that Motley “would ever, ever tour with a fucking band like Poison,” ’cause “That would be the death of us… I will not be attached to that kind of fake bullshit.” And then a couple of days later, Tommy Lee shot down the rumor with an enthusiastic “NO!”

Well, now Michaels has gone on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight and announced that Poison and The Crue will, indeed, do a big summer tour together, to celebrate the former band’s 25th anniversary. And just to make extra-sure that Nikki and Tommy now have to eat their words, the tour is going to be called “Glam – A – Gedon 25.”

Now, I’m of two minds about going to this tour:

Click to read more…

Life’s kinda getting’ out of control. I think. I don’t know if you agree, will you hand me that ashtray? So, man, the other day I decided I might as well pull out that Vince Neil autobiography. I was a big Mötley Crüe fan when I was a teenager and got tired of Elton John, Boston, and Ted Nugent. They were cutting edge back then. The Crüe, that is… at least, that’s what I thought. What did I care, they fuckin’ rocked, they looked cool, and the chicks used to come out in droves for them. What more could a horny male teenager ask for? What’s that? I don’t know… shit! I dropped my coffee in my lap. Fuckin’ cat!

It’s like, what it is, it’s like… I know you’ve heard the phrase a thousand times, but it’s a rat race. So, where were we? Oh yeah. Mötley Crüe, Vince Neil. His autobiography, Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock’s Most Notorious Frontmen, which came out a few months back. Unlike my fellow MetalSucks brethren, I actually used to like Vince Neil. [Uh... actually, we did, too, which is part of the reason we now give him so much shit! - Ed.] Hell, I even dressed up like him for a lip-synching contest way back in ’83. Even posted it here as one of my most embarrassing life moments. Lost to some teenyboppers singing Cyndi Lauper. “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun…” What a crock! Should’ve gone with “Looks That Kill” instead of “Piece of Your Action.” My bad. Used to love going to Fast Times in Pasadena, Texas, where they had those contests. Teens trying to act like adults. Lots of hot chicks, bad hairstyles, and people who hated heavy metal. Losers.

Click to read more…

According to Metal Undergound, Bret Michaels announced during a Canadian solo gig last night “that in celebration of Poison’s 25th anniversary, the band will be touring with fellow American rockers Motley Crue next year, who will themselves be celebrating their 30th anniversary.” That’s great news, unless you hate fun. Even with Vince Neil being bloated and winded, Tommy Lee devoting the remainder of his career to reenacting the C. Thomas Howell classic Soul Man, Mick Mars having less mobility than a corpse, and Poison being, y’know, Poison, it’s almost impossible for me to imagine this tour being anything less than awesome. Especially if they get another great glam band (by which I mean a band like Cinderella, not a latter-day cock rock wanna-be like Hinder or Saliva), to open. Seriously, just hook the alcohol dispenser up to my veins and let me go see this show. Hell, even if the just turned out to be a train wreck of drama and shit-talking, it would be awesome.

Click to read more…

I haven’t enjoyed an All That Remains album since This Darkened Heart, and that was in 2004, which is like a millenia in blogger years. The problem, I think, is that I saw them live, and realized that Phil LaBonte can’t sing and the rest of the band apparently looks to 21st century Mick Mars as their model of how much to move on-stage. Once I know I’m never gonna be able to enjoy a band in concert, who gives a flying fuck about their records? Especially when their records sound like Overcome.

But ATR’s popularity seems to be ever-increasing, and I’m nothing if not a people pleaser, so here I present the cover for their forthcoming …For We Are Many. The art, by the very talented Travis Smith, makes almost no sense to me as a concept, because while there are “many” people on the cover, only three of them seem to be emitting light from their heads. So unless ATR are suggesting that they and/or their fans are faceless dim bulbs, it kinda seems like the release should be called …For We Are Few. But, hey, what do I know? I’m just a guy who enjoys the act of thinking.

All That Remains’ latest Adam Dutkiewicz-produced affair comes out October 12 on Prosthetic/Razor & Tie.

-AR

[via Noisecreep]

One day mankind will go extinct and the remains of our civilization will later be picked over by aliens. Though they can speedily assemble collections of most homo erectus artifacts for their alien museums, their super-brains will struggle to grasp and group the arts of Earth, y’know, for their encyclopedias and stuff. So it’s in the interest of preserving and defining Glam Metal across the cosmos that we at MetalSucks have counted down the Ten Best Must-Have Glam Metal Albums. We even tapped in to the genius of Bring Back Glam‘s Allyson B. Crawford to give it that “definitive text” feel. (Read part one, part two, part three)

Thanks to Allyson and our Anso DF, Glam Metal will live on in other worlds long after our planet has become a barren hellscape. That’s comforting. Here’s the number one Best Must-Have Glam Metal Album! So, come now children of the beast, be strong and …

Click to read more…

In 1984 Vince Neil went driving while drunk and subsequently killed or maimed three people, only one of whom had actually been stupid enough to get in the car with him. Then, last week, he was arrested in Vegas for drunk driving, demonstrating that the fateful night twenty-six years ago really had a long-lasting impact on him and the way he looks at life.

And how does Vince feel about his DUI? By all appearances, really, really guilty: Last Thursday, three days after the arrest, he asked a crowd in Vegas, “Who’s been drinking tequila tonight? Who’s gonna drink some tequila tonight?” And we know this happened ’cause TMZ has video of the incident.

Click to read more…

I’ve said before that Muderdolls were a guilty pleasure of mine. My entire interest in the band lay in the fact that they were basically a modern hair metal band who actually wrote catchy tunes that were mostly ridiculous instead of entirely ridiculous.

But now the band – which is really just Joey Jordison and Wednesday 13 – has released a new song, “My Dark Place Alone,” and it sounds nothing like old Murderdolls. Which might be good news, if you hated old Murderdolls and love generic Godsmackian rawk, but I do not fit into that particular demographic. I mean, I appreciate the over-use of the cowbell, but that’s about all I appreciate about this crap.

Mick Mars is supposed to be on this album in some form another; hopefully the tracks he plays on will be more vintage Motley Crue-ish.

-AR

[via Bloody Disgusting]

I’m confused. First, Murderdolls’ Joey Jordison and Wednesday 13 told Artist Direct that their new album, Women and Children Last, isn’t gonna be quite the hair-metal fest that their last album was…

Does Women and Children Last preserve that classic Sunset Strip attitude?

Wednesday 13: Kind of…the title more or less exists to piss people off. Even though I’m a hair metal fan, I’ve become a huge Slayer fan over the years. With the way the new Murderdolls music sounds, it’s everything from that Sunset Strip stuff to Slayer. It goes everywhere this time—whereas the first record was more punk rock.

Joey Jordison: I’m really excited about it. I think it’s actually going to reel in a lot of the Slipknot fans because of the heaviness. We’re not going to lose any fans; this album is only going to gain fans for us. We weren’t like, “Okay, we’re going to crank out some campy songs like we did before.”

…and then they announced that Mick Mars is doing a guest spot on the album, and released the following photo just to prove that Mick can still sit down is really in the studio with them:

Now, I love old Motley Crue and I love Slayer, but you’d never hear Mars play on Slayer album. So either Jordison and 13 (is that how I refer to him?) are full of cow poo, or this is going to be a really, really diverse sounding record. I sincerely hope it’s the latter.

And that’s the second time today I’ve mentioned Mick Mars and Slayer in one breath. Weird.

-AR

Crashdiet are one of those bands I’m constantly reading about on Blabbermouth, but have never actually heard. Unlike Kamelot, I couldn’t tell just from their name what genre they were, although I guessed hair metal, for no better reason than Guns N’ Roses have a kinda-sorta well-known unreleased track called “Crash Diet.” (Note: it has just come to my attention that this band also has an umlaut in their name. Obviously, if I had known that at the time, it would have been a dead giveaway.)

And now the band has released a new video for their song “Generation Wild,” and, hey, lookit that, they are, indeed, hair metal. Swell.

I think that’s a terrible song, but it makes me sad that the video is more competent than half the crap we’ve seen better bands put out this year.

On the upside, apparently Mick Mars plays on these dude(ttes?)’s album, so, y’know, at least they have some glam cred.

-AR

Yes, it’s true. Because Brides of Destruction, Methods of Mayhem, Sixx A.M., and Tommy Lee and Vince Neil’s solo efforts all burned up the charts, Mick Mars has decided to follow in the footsteps of the rest of his Crue and try his hand at making a solo album. It’s no surprise that it took Mick this long to catch up with the other guys, seeing as he is now made mostly of stone.

Click to read more…

I write books and also for MetalSucks so it’s about time I reviewed some metal books. I’ll start with a few rock autobiographies that have been out for awhile. First up is Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe and his needle gazing memoir The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star.

Click to read more…

You know when you know you’ve got too many greatest hits albums? When more than one of them are called Greatest Hits.

Click to read more…

MS Maniac Brutal Jay tipped us off to the existence of the hilarious Halloween “Metal Mayhem Child Costume” now available at Walmart. My immediate instinct was to be a hater and harp on the co-option of metal culture by a huge conglomerate who obviously cares solely about how much money this product bring in, but then I realized that, for a young kid who’s into metal, this costume is ten times cooler than your average superhero/devil/zombie/vampire whatever costume.

Although, I think if it were me, I’d definitely opt for the Mick Mars edition.

-VN

This live footage of Morgan Rose filling in for the injured Tommy Lee on drums with Motley Crue this past weekend is really entertaining. I mean, you get to see Vince Neil, who still can’t remember all the words to his own songs / gets winded after about two lines, and that in itself is always funny. And you get to see Mick Mars, who despite his status as the walking dead can still wail out those solos pretty well. But best of all, you get to see Morgan Rose, one of the greatest drummers on the planet in terms of pure, raw talent, rock through a set of songs he hadn’t heard in years for which he had zero time to prepare.

It seems that Tommy Lee burned his hand and couldn’t play. There’s video floating around of Tommy coming out on stage at this show and explaining the situation to the audience; as usual, he sounds like a total idiot. So the band flew out Sevendust’s Morgan Rose from Atlanta last minute, day of the fucking show, to fill in on drums. I know what you’re thinking… Motley songs ain’t too complicated drum-wise and they just play all the hits anyway. VRONG. This is the Dr. Feelgood tour in which the band plays the entire album start to finish, deep cuts and all, plus the usual smattering of greatest hits. Rose comes out and fucking nails it all. I love how in these clips you can see Nikki Sixx communicating with Rose about when the changes happen in the song, or when to end, or when to begin. THAT is fucking pure musicianship that can’t be taught. You either have it or you don’t. And Rose most certainly has it.

Check out “Same ol’ Situation” below and “Dr. Feelgood” after the jump.

Click to read more…

So Nikki Sixx has had his girlfriend, the insanely irritating Kat Von D., tattoo Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars onto his knee. Apparently he chose the knee to taunt Mick, who cannot, in fact, bend his own knee anymore.

I assume Nikki chose Mick and not one of his other bandmates because Mick has never challenged him or do anything to threaten his time in the spotlight. In any case, look for Tommy and Vince to get tats of one another and not Nikki in retaliation.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

No booze at a Motley fucking Crue show? Jesus fucking Christ. That must be like having sex with a condom made of nails.

Click to read more…