Eyal Levi from Dååth, Levi/Werstler, and Audiohammer Studios has obviously been in this business for some time now, and he’s learned a thing or two about a thing or two. This week, he imparts ten lessons about the music biz — and life in general — to you, our beloved readers, once a day, two installments at a time. You can read the week’s first two lessons here; check out lesson numbers three and four below!

#3: BE UNDENIABLE

I first saw Behemoth live when they toured with Suffocation sometime around 2004. I had only heard of them before that. Needless to say, this band blew me away. The sound was shit, as it always is at that club in Atlanta, but that didn’t matter. They came on stage and OWNED. I was captivated from start to finish of the set. And then I bought a shirt. That is such a rare occurrence that I remember it to this day. For me to go buy a shirt after seeing and hearing a band for the first time is not quite on the level of Haley’s Comet… but in the span of my own meaningless existence, it’s pretty remarkable. Anyways, Behemoth is now an institution in extreme music.

I remember the first time I saw Opeth on the Blackwater Park tour. I had kind of gotten into their music prior to that, but had not solidified my opinion on the band yet. When they finally played, I got this amazing feeling, as though I was watching something historical and religious go down. I had never seen or heard a band produce sounds and transitions and emotions that were so right and so on. I felt like people must have felt when they were first seeing the early metal bands in the 1970’s. I’m not exaggerating one bit. I was completely humbled and a fan for life. Obviously, the rest of the metal world eventually caught on.

Anyone here seen Muse live? I’m a sucker for great musicianship and songwriting, and Muse definitely have an ample amount of both. But that didn’t drive my loyalty towards them until I saw them live. Their show is easily one of the most incredible rock shows ever put on by any band ever ever EVER! To try and describe it will not do it justice. Just go see them. I saw them first in 2005, when they were playing small theaters. They are now headlining arenas. I guess enough people couldn’t deny their power.

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The most recent album by Jane’s Addiction, 2003′s Strays, was a big-budget, big-production heavy rock record that kinda flopped despite its awesomeness. Since those distant days, Jane’s members have flirted with a full reunion (momentarily counting longtime hold-out Eric Avery as a returned member), with ex-Guns N’ Roses/current Velvet Revolver bassist Duff McKagen (he came and went within weeks), and with total futility (via singer Perry Farrell’s lame project The Satellite Party, featuring his wife and Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt).

So, along with my fandom, Jane’s has my curiosity about their new stuff — not just for the abovementioned travails, but also ’cause the album is a Rich Costey production (Mastodon, Muse, Cave In) and is the beneficiary of creative goosings by TV On The Radio dude Dave Sitek. I don’t care about TVOTR, but I’ve surmised that a dose of noisy post-rock might be good medicine for trio of moribund freak-rockers whose attempted return to glory was a safe, anthemic rock radio record. And now I see that my diagnosis is accurate, so far: Just listen to their thunderous, cacophonous new jam “End To The Lies” and its nipply new video (above, NSFW; audio only here). The jam is on fire! Turn it up!

-ADF

Jane’s Addiction’s fourth album The Great Escape Artist is out August 23 on Capitol Records.

I think we’ve made this point either explicitly or implicitly on MetalSucks many times before, but the following e-mail from reader Barry Cavanaugh inspired me to re-iterate the concept: If you can’t do it live, don’t it. Period.

Here’s Barry’s e-mail:

“While you guys are a mainly metal website you guys do cover rock once and a while, and I think you should do something on the new my chemical romance. People can call them emo or whatever they want but the black parade was a straight up rock album, and an amazing rock album at that, probably one of the best rock albums in the last 10 years I would say, I would even go so far as to list it as one of the greatest rock albums of all time, don’t get me wrong I listen to mostly metal, but I know a great rock album when I hear it and the new one by mcr could be awesome. With that, please cover it or do a review on the album, trash it, do whatever you gotta do.”

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Believe it or not, folks still buy CDs. I know… I’m shocked too. But the weekly Soundscan numbers released by Neilsen actually do include digital downloads too. I know what you’re thinking… people still pay for music? I s’pose so. Here are the most recent week’s charting hard rock and metal releases, with my own snarky commentary, natch. Check those tags down yonder for a list of covered releases.

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Lasers are kinda like boobs; I’ll always be transfixed by them and I’ll never ever ever get sick of ‘em. When Rob from Metal Injection and I caught Muse’s epic set at SXSW we were, as always, transfixed by their laser light show. Rob said it best: despite the fact that every single band who employs the use of lasers in their live show uses the exact same laser array, the lasers never cease to positively astound. LASERS!

This video that Suckalo Justin Reich sent in of BTBAM drummer Blake Richardson jamming in the studio doesn’t have lasers per se, but it does have really bright lights that look as if they’re being controlled by Blake’s sticks. And they’re pretty damned entertaining, don’tcha think? Perhaps someone with greater video editing skills than I can explain how this was accomplished. Neat-o.

-VN

April 20th was circled in my calendar well in advance, and not just because it’s holiday we at the MS Mansion take very seriously — April 20th marked the biggest release date of the year thus far for metal releases with new offerings from Periphery, Ratt, Sevendust, another greatest hits repacking from AC/DC, Circa Survive, Airbourne and more. Let’s see how those releases fared in their first week out, as well as how other metal and hard rock records are performing after the jump.

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It’s no secret that the music industry is in shambles. What was once an industry that could stand neck and neck with Hollywood is now just a series of competing guerilla operations. Some richer than others. This is not news. This is talked about every day. All I hear about is how the sky is falling and there’s no hope.

Well… I beg to differ. I think there’s nothing but hope. You see, I attended an Opeth concert in L.A. two weeks ago. as well as one held by Muse in Atlanta about a month and a half ago. Both shows were completely sold out. The audiences were in awe of the performances. Both bands sounded incredible. Both bands had great staging. I’m sure both bands cleaned house in merch. The sorry state of the music industry didn’t seem to be affecting them too harshly.

I once read someone in Dream Theater saying something to the effect of, “We’re in a bubble that somehow protects us from what’s going on with the rest of the industry.” Why is it that some bands can clean house in any economic climate, while so many other bands that just two years ago were living the life, are now downsizing back to vans, getting real jobs, etc.? People point to the the sheer amount of tours leading to poor ticket sales. Other people say it’s just that people don’t have money due to the bad eonomy. Well, somehow they seem to have money when Opeth, or Dream Theater, or Muse, or Slipknot, or any other mega-band comes around. Kinda like your pothead friend that’s always broke, but can always find money for weed.

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Musicians are strange creatures. Their work hours and habits are almost always odd, hygiene is often suspect, and sanity questionable.

If I had to point out one thing that ties all musicians together, it would be inspiration, often drawn from a simple but strong love for music. Inspiration comes from all varieties of thoughts and experiences though, and most will agree that it is a mystical and almost spiritual matter that is difficult to qualify. For me, personally, my inspiration is the most important thing I have in life because it guides all of my goals and efforts to blast through them. Although it may be oriented around music for whatever reason, the specifics of what I am inspired to do are not crystal clear. It is not instrument, genre, or socially based. It is just to create.

I have always been in awe of musicians that are able to look past the world’s conceptions of genre. For some bands, it is absolutely correct for them to do their thing 100% their way and use their tested process over and over, record after record. I don’t mean being stale, either… Development and growth between records is an assumed necessity for me to take a band seriously. Examples of bands that know their sound or process well and tend to stick to it (with great results) would include bands like Meshuggah, Megadeth, Behemoth, Muse, Deftones, and even more progressive bands like The Mars Volta, Opeth, and Dream Theater. But the musicians that REALLY get me thinking these days are ones who understand how to take a complete 180 degree turn: drop the world’s, or maybe just critics’, perception on its head, and use new influences from a completely different angle. It is almost as if they side-step into a bizarro dimension and are running two or more separate careers. Musicians that can accomplish this demonstrate a certain type of understanding and mental clarity that is all too rare. Here are some of my favorite examples:

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In which we ate epic BBQ and saw an epic headline set by Muse…

Every year at SXSW I make time for a trip down to the Salt Lick. It’s never easy; at 45 minutes outside the city limits it turns into a 3+ hour adventure, and the tricky part is getting a ride. Thankfully this year the dudes in East of the Wall and Goes Cube hooked it up big time and by noon me, Kip, and Rob from Metal Injection were on our way to Driftwood.

I know there are other great BBQ places, even inside Austin itself, but the Salt Lick is so fucking good I just can’t NOT go there. By the time we rolled up to the Salt Lick parking lot with Goes Cube, East of the Wall were ready and waiting with a case of beer (Salt Lick is BYOB). We quickly sucked down the two joints we’d rolled that morning and put our names on the list, and within 20 minutes we were sitting at a table ready to gorge ourselves on meat.

Salt Lick offers “all you can eat” meat platters for $15 per person. They include brisket, ribs and sausage, and they’ll just keep bringing you more platters until you say stop. Stoned, drunk and jubilated we tore into the meat as soon as our waiter set it down on the table. For some reason the question “Another round of meat, guys?” elicited constant laughs… there’s something about the concept of being able to order rounds of meat that tickled us silly.

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How many of you actually listen to guitar solos? How many of you actually pay attention to the musicianship involved in a project? How important is that for you? I’m curious to hear about this from musicians’ and non-musicians’ perspectives.  I know that for me, as a listener, amazing technicality alone is only interesting for about two minutes, and then my mind wanders.

Actually, it’s more like ten seconds now. When I was a teenager learning to play guitar (still learning, by the way), I could stomach shred records in doses. Usually, there would be that one cool track where it was obvious that some feeling and time went into the composition. The rest of the album would be wank filler. There’s some exceptions, like the first Yngwie record or Jason Becker’s Perpetual Burn, but by and large that is a boring-ass genre. I can’t geek out to that stuff. I don’t care about the Olympics, let alone the Guitar Olympics. Boring!

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Apparently Sade has a new hit record and scored the #1 record last week. Who knew? Good for her… Sade’s pretty rad. I know at least one death metal dude who will be REALLY psyched to hear this news.

But I’m guessing you all care more about the new High on Fire record. Let’s find out how that and other metal and hard rock releases charted last week after the jump.

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As long as [most] metalheads continue to be a bunch of close-minded goofs there will be a large majority of people who object to us posting about non-metal bands like Muse, despite their obvious metal influence and undertones. Dudes… you’re missing out. The other day Eyal Tweeted or posted on Facebook that the Muse show he just witnessed in person was one of the most mind-blowing shows he’d been to in eons (or something to that effect). Muse are the real deal in every single facet and they’re as close as we’ve got to true rock stars in the age of Internet-created micro-micro-sub-sub-genres. If for some reason you’re still averse to Muse, get yo’ head out yo’ ass, fools.

Muse just released a new video for the title track of their latest album The Resistance [posted on SMNnews.com] and it’s the rare exception to the rule that live-footage music videos are ho-hum. As our friend Eyal just witnessed, Muse’s live show is positively mesmerizing. World class. The only band whose live performances I can compare it to is Nine Inch Nails, whose concerts are basically theatrical performances where an awesome band just happens to be playing. Check out the video below, and if you happen to be lucky enough to live in one of the markets in which their North American tour is playing this month and next I implore you to go.

-VN

Not that we had any doubt Baroness’ Blue Record would have a strong debut, but it’s always nice to see the proof. And Skeletonwitch’s ripping new record Breathing the Fire had a great debut too; I’m elated to see the band sell as many records first week as they did. Elsewhere it was the usual radio rock / alt-metal suspects dominating the charts. Click through to see chart positions and sales figures.

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At some point during the recording of Earthsblood, God Forbid announced that they had covered Muse’s “Stockholm Syndrome.” Since then, we’ve actually gotten a stupid amount of e-mails from people asking us when it was going to be released. And we really didn’t know. (I know we’re tight with some of the dudes from God Forbid, but it’s important to remember that we’re not actually in God Forbid, even if we sometimes air guitar to “The End of the World” and fantasize that we are.)

Well, the song is finally available as a single on iTunes. An it’s good! Muse are already one of the most metal non-metal bands out there, and GF completely succeed in turning the track into something metal as fuck. The guitars rip and Byron Davis screams in jjjuuuussssttt the right amounts. If you’re a God Forbid fan, it’s totally worth the buck it’ll cost you. And as a bonus, remember that it might be the last official God Forbid recording to feature Dallas Coyle (who handles most of the vocals, in addition to his usual guitar duties) ever.

For obvious reasons I can’t/don’t want to post the cover here, but below you can check out the video for Muse’s original, in case you’re unfamiliar with it.

-AR

I’m in my bunk. Everyone else is asleep. We’re riding through some windy dark mountain roads somewhere in Germany on the way to the next show. I’ve got “Ghost of Perdition” by Opeth blasting on my headphones. Figured that I would give that a spin. I haven’t really listened to them very much lately. I kinda burned out on them for a while. I never stopped loving their music, but I think I just had more than my brain could handle. When I got into after the release of Blackwater Park, all the way through the release of Ghost Reveries, I’d say that Opeth were on my iTunes at least once a day. They are a band that I’ve listened to, and listened to again, and again, and again. There’s always something new to find in their music. Not only did I listen my ass off but I went to their shows whenever possible. I saw them at least six times before I even met them. I ended up dating a member of their crew for a little while, so that meant more and more Opeth shows. Basically, I know my Opeth, and from the musicianship to the composition I think that they are one of the greatest bands of all time.

That said, I haven’t decided to listen to them in about a year before tonight. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Albums that I just absolutely love, I would consider and just be like, naaah. Maybe it’s the mental equivalent of a water-soluble vitamin like C. Once you have your dosage, the rest just gets released with your urine. Maybe your brain can only handle so much of one type of stimulus for so long before it shuts off to it. I mean that’s happened to me with other bands.

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Five heavy hitting heavy hitters — Alice in Chains, Hatebreed, Austrian Death Machine, Steel Panther and Dethklok — all released new records last week. Solid 2nd and 3rd week performances from Three Days Grace, Muse, Megadeth, Five Finger Death Punch and others made it an all-around big week for metal. Let’s see how everyone fared after the jump.

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Muse are one of the best active bands on the planet, and their new album, The Resistance, is one of the best of the year. Period.

The band’s music would make them awesome enough, but apparently they’re righteous dudes, too. To wit: according to the Telegraph, when the band was recently ordered to mime a performance of their single, “Uprising,” for an appearance on an Italian talk show, front man Matt Bellamy and drummer Dominic Howard responded by switching positions. Watch the hilarious video below: Bellamy clearly can’t play the drums, isn’t playing the drums, and is having a lot of fun pointing out the bullshit lip syncing (the most egregious example comes around the 3:14 mark).

Awesome. Totally awesome.

The Resistance is in stores now. You should purchase a copy.

-AR

Thanks to Alex Nasse for the tip.

First of all, I have to say, if you’re into Muse then check out their new album, The Resistance, which comes out today. It’s fucking brilliant. They always manage to take a different approach from album to album, and this one continues on that path. Anyways, its great stuff and I recommend it highly.

I’ve had music writing on my mind a lot these days. Maybe its because I have a lot on my plate. The record I’m doing with Emil from DAATH and Cynic’s Sean Reinert needs to be delivered by the first of the year. It’s going to be released in the spring of 2010. My side project wants to record an EP of still to be written material this December. And last but not least, DAATH is looking to go into the studio in April to record our next one. We’d like for it to be out by the end of Summer 2010.

That’s a shit load of music to write in a very short period of time if you consider that we’re still touring. Some advice I get from people is “Don’t rush.” That’s good advice. None of this is going to be rushed and it will all get what it needs and wants so that it can grow into the work of art it deserves to become. I think I’ve figured out how to write on the road and this next tour will be the perfect situation for that. We are sharing the bus with a straightedge band. Can’t be partying like usual because my health could relapse. Instead of staring into space and wishing I could party, I’ll occupy my time with creative things. So I’ll be writing music on the road. And a lot of it!

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[Welcome to the new category "Not Quite Metal?" for those bands who aren't necessarily metal but often cross over to a metal fanbase, whatever the reason may be. Note the question mark -- because really, what the fuck even is metal anyway??]

Lots of you have reacted negatively to our posts about British art-rockers Muse in the past; but fuck you, it’s our website. Muse’s new album The Resistance comes out next week (Tuesday in the U.S., Monday everywhere else), and it’s currently streaming in full (mostly) on the band’s official website (you have to sign up to hear full tracks).

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