Happy birthday, Reign in Blood! We love you. You don’t sound a day over one.

Here’s some other things that happened this week which are worth celebrating:

• We started the countdown to The Metal Suckfest.
• We debuted new music by Immolation and a new video by Early Graves.
• Devin Townsend and Textures’ Jochem Jacobs and Bart Hennephof took us through their live rigs.
• GWAR’s David Brockie discussed the NFL, Daath’s Eyal Levi discussed getting the fuck out, and God Forbid’s Doc Coyle discussed how the times, they are a changin’.
• We spoke to Mike Muir from Suicidal Tendencies, Mother of Mercy’s Bob Wilson, and directors Sean Dunne and Kenneth Thomas.
• We checked out new releases by Ghoul and Taake and Craft.
• Sergeant D. became the most popular feminist in metal.
• Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli Sykes had a bad week.
• We mourned the death of the album intro track.
• We wondered if Mastodon’s live vocals are getting better.

Now go crank some Slayer.

See ya Monday.

-AR

In all the discussion of thrash metal’s first big bands, too little airtime is given to the great Suicidal Tendencies. Launched by a teenaged Mike Muir in Los Angeles, Suicidal took root in punk and hardcore, landed an early MTV hit in the manic, careening “Institutionalized,” and attracted the ire of authorities via rumored gang ties and concert violence. And that was before ST solidified a line-up, one anchored by Muir’s bandmate in No Mercy, riff-god guitarist Mike Clark. The two Mikes rebooted Suicidal with the defiantly thrashy How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today, a major label-powered crossover hit which drew an even bigger target on the band for censorship crusaders and unwittingly helped to fertilize the coming crop of nu-metal self-pity peddlers.

But in the hands of Muir, personal woes weren’t excuses but motivation, and confrontation more often than wallowing; see 1989′s mini-album Controlled By Hatred/Feel Like Shit … Deja Vu, on which Muir continues to document disassociation for a society slow to acknowledge mental health realties. Suicidal’s peak came in 1990 with Lights … Camera … Revolution, an album-length indictment of society’s complicity in its own demise, all cowed by power-mongers, con men, and the self-righteous. This was a different era for metal; no commercial band had yet approached the blunt rage, contrarianism, and pervasive guitar solos of Suicidal Tendencies.

On the phone to MetalSucks last week from California, a typically expansive Muir downplayed his regard for the history of Suicidal, but even he looks back to past days on The Mad Mad Muir Musical Tour (Part 1), his forthcoming collection of new and vault tracks by re-punk era ST, his solo Cyco Miko project, and Infectious Grooves, the funk-metal clan Muir formed with ST bassist Robert Trujillo (now of Metallica). So I had all the license needed to drag Muir down memory lane to tour the land of Suicidal. Join us!

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Whenever it strikes me as humorous that Mike Muir, the frontman of Suicidal Tendencies, suffers from a bad back like some oldie, I hear the hurt, defensive words of John Candy in Planes, Trains, And Automobiles: “Do you have a bad back? Well I do. And it hurts like a bugger.” Sounds painful, actually; the back is connected to like all parts of your body. If I realize that, it ceases to be funny that the guy who represents ST’s pre-Korn non-silly fuck-you power probably groans “Ahh tsssssssssssss ugh my shit hoitz!” every morning. And it’s totally unfunny that his condition has affected ST tours, but Muir and some random ST dudes just wrapped a tour of Australia, during which he no doubt tested his back on stage and I presume in tight tourbus bunks.

So at this point, Muir, his band, and his fans do not need some silly slag to mount him like there were a Danish taped to his neck Saturday in Sydney (above, at :25). I guess the Australian high-five is a headlock. Srsly, I take out my contacts and the clip looks like a cover version of the parking lot fight scene in The Big Lebowski.

-ADF

Suicidal Tendencies’ 1983 self-titled debut album is universally regarded as an absolute classic. And rightly so — it’s without question one of the definitive 80s hardcore records, and required listening for any would-be fan of the genre. It’s fucking untouchable; anybody who says otherwise is your enemy and you should punch them in the face immediately. But it’s not the only classic in the Suicidal catalog: my pick for the most underrated gem in their career is 1988′s Controlled By Hatred/Feel Like Shit/Deja Vu EP.

“Master of No Mercy” is my all-time favorite Suicidal song, yet in all the many times I’ve seen them they’ve never played it :(

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I used to love Suicidal Tendencies, but I stopped buying their stuff circa Still Cyco After All These Years, ’cause, y’know. That’s not how you spell “psycho.”

But it warms the cockles of my heart to know that Mike Muir and some dudes are still out there rockin’ in the name of Suicidal Tendencies. They have a new DVD out, called Live at the Olympic Auditorium, and Metal Hammer has debuted footage of the band playing “War Inside My Head.” Check it out:

-AR

I’m a fan, but it’s not tough to overdose on melodrama when listening to Dir En Grey. Then again, hey so what if their singer lives in a constant state of shrieking despair and favors the bare chest/tight jeans look? The total product is awesome mostly thanks to two inventive guitarists. But, again, can so much moaning be endured by anyone older than nineteen or so, guitars or not? At what point does the schtick break down, causing reasonable listeners to wonder when, in this Jonathan Davis world of soul-searing pain and emotional crises, do the DEG guys find the energy to record and tour every year? (Same for uber-pimps and giga-gangsters who split time between running hoes/drugs from atop their criminal empire and TRL.) The DEG guys probably think Mike Muir seems reasonable and are unable to detect the irony in Devin Townsend’s moments of panic. I bet they play Korn at the beach. They’re that freaked out.

All the same, it’s easy to respect Dir En Grey for their work ethic and easy to like them for their balls. Okay, that sounds bad, but goddammit you get me if you heard 2008′s Uroboros – abrasive, post-tonal intra-metal mindfuck that it is. Some of its songs still refuse to make sense to me – and that’s after thirty listens – but not in the same way that a prog-clusterfuck can bewilder. Uroboros is more like an opera of suffering performed out of order. So far, DEG’s records are each better and wilder than the previous, so it’s easy to get excited about their untitled 2010 outing. However, it’s not easy to remember the snappy title of the new song: “Hageshisa to, Kono Mune no Naka de karamitsuita Shakunetsu no Yami.” I’ll just call it “Awesome Spaz Attack Song #76.”

- ADF