Forget for a minute that Tom Morello is a very famous musician, and put aside your views on whether or not musicians should use their music as a platform to express political views. Now watch and listen to this interview with Tom Morello at the Occupy Wall Street protests — where he serenaded protestors last week — and as you’re doing so think of him of just one of 300-some-odd million U.S. citizens with an opinion to express, just like everyone else:

I don’t care who the guy in the above video is; his are some of the most well-articulated, smart, and reasoned opinions of the whole “Occupy” campaign I’ve encountered to date. Best of all, Morello does a great job of framing the issue not as Republican vs. Democrat — because it’s really not a partisaned issue at all — but as regular people vs. the entire government/corporation complex, regardless of party lines. Sure, Morello’s history leans very far left, but the “Occupy” movement is gaining steam precisely because it doesn’t recognize political affiliation. Tea Partiers should really be able to back its message too. Sure, certain groups are trying to co-opt the message, but Morello addresses that issue in the above interview too.

Now feel free to once again remember how famous Tom Morello is, how many people he can influence, that the guy’s a pretty fantastic musician and, oh yeah, has a degree in Political Science from Harvard. I’d say this is fairly important, wouldn’t you?

For more on Occupy Wall Street re: metal: check out Valient Himself of Valient Thorr’s thought on the matter in an exclusive MetalSucks guest blog.

-VN

Yesterday word got out that Tom Morello was in New York to perform for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, and now, of course, there is video of that event, which you can check out below. There isn’t really all that much I can say about this, so I’ll just echo Vince’s words from yesterday: “God bless Tom Morello and the rest of the Ragers for never compromising their ideals.”

More after the jump.

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Evil Empire might not’ve had the non-stop song-to-song momentum that its self-titled predecessor did but it still packed one hell of a motherfucking punch. “People of the Sun,” “Bulls on Parade,” “Down Rodeo” and “Without a Face” are all classics in the Rage canon, and the comparatively raw production of Evil Empire gets right up in your face and serves to up the impact. The rhythm section of Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford absolutely pulsates on this one; it’s like you’re standing in the room with them and Zach de la Rocha, who’s as fired up and angry as ever. These songs sound just as important now as they did in 1996.

Funny story: I bought Evil Empire when it came out in ’96 but decided to trade it to a friend a couple of years later for Beastie Boys’ License To Ill because I didn’t like it as much as Rage’s first record. That was silly! I should’ve just bought both. But thanks to the modern wonders of Spotify, I now have it back again: stream it here.

God bless Tom Morello and the rest of the Ragers for never compromising their ideals. Morello has flown to New York City on his own dime to seranade the Occupy Wall Street protestors TODAY at 12 noon. Be there, and RAGE IT UP.

-VN

It will probably not surprise you to learn that I’m a big fan of politically-themed talk shows that are hosted by sarcastic pricks and feature panels of people arguing and often insulting one another. And one of my favorite such shows is HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, which I watch religiously.

And I found this past Friday night’s episode especially fun, because one of the guests was none other than Tom Morello, who was ostensibly on the show to help promote his new solo outing as The Nightwatchman, World Wide Rebel Songs. Now, honestly, I’m not a huge fan of Morello’s post-Rage Against the Machine output, but hearing him talk about the inspiration for this album (I won’t spoil it for you here) did make me wanna give it a second, and more attentive, listen. I know that anyone with political views like Morello’s will be a divisive figure, and I’m sure there are plenty of you who violently disagree with him; sometimes I think he may even be too left for me. But there’s no arguing that he’s not a smart dude with plenty of interesting things to say.

For some reason the episode doesn’t seem to be streaming on the show’s official website, but someone made a shitty rip for YouTube, so you can check out Morello’s part of the show in three sections below. And then praise him/tear into him in our comments section below.

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I’m going to put about as much effort into this introduction as I put into trying to be sensitive to Hinder’s feelings.

We begin today’s cinemetal round-up with “Irresistible Force,” the first new video from Jane’s Addiction since whenever the last time they released a video was. The clip has some stuff going for it — like a lot of mostly-naked beautiful women, and a particularly funny moment, at the :54 second mark, when there’s some not-at-all-subtle vaginal imagery — but for the most part it’s pretty standard stoner stuff. The fact that the song is fairly boring doesn’t help.

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I somehow missed this when The PRP posted it earlier this month, but caught it yesterday on Metal Injection: a video of the first time Rage Against the Machine ever played in front of a public audience. (According to Tom Morello, the band “had done one show previously but that was a living room party,” so I guess it doesn’t count.) It’s not just a clip, either — it’s the whole damned show.

And I think it’s worth watching, not just because it’s a fun look at the earliest days of a now-legendary band — but because the band was okay but not great, and because most of the crowd, clearly, does not give a hoot about them. People routinely just walk on by the stage, with no idea that they’re missing out on a seminal moment in rock history. (Not that it’s their fault; how could they possibly have known?) And I think that’s a valuable thing for young bands to see: EVERYBODY HAS TO START SOMEWHERE. Once upon a time, Rage Against the Machine were just some local band, playing to an audience of three people, just like every other group in the history of ever. Don’t you find that, I dunno, encouraging?

-AR

Last week wasn’t as big for new releases as this week is going to be, but we did see respectable debuts from Trivium, Adrenaline Mob and Fleshgod Apocalypse. Let’s see how those albums — and more — sold last week, after the jump.

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Ludicra broke-up, so THANK GOD we still have P.O.D., right? I mean, I just don’t know what the world would have done without a Christian rap metal band. We might have had to resort to listening to, like, Verdi or something. Yucky.

Of course, I am kidding. I was ready to pour bleach into my ears about two seconds into P.O.D.’s new single, “On Fire,” but then, around the forty-one second mark, vocalist Idunnohisname Andidontcareenoughtolookitup made some reference to Rage Against the Machine, and I had to turn the song off. P.O.D. in any way comparing what they do to what RATM do/did is right up there with Limp Bizkit making a Slayer reference in terms of completely wrong and misguided correlations.

Anyways, if you can make it further than I did, you are hardened, tough son of a bitch. And if you actually like this song, then, by all means, please feel free to kill yourself.

-AR

If memory serves, the Spawn movie which came out in 1997 was pretty terrible, but we did get one great thing out of it: the soundtrack. It was pretty much like the Judgment Night soundtrack, only instead of combining metal bands with rap acts, it teamed up metal bands with electronica acts. And every song on it was innovative and amazing.

No, I’m totally kidding. The soundtrack sucked almost as bad as the movie.

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We’ve all heard the American glory anthems, but what jamz do you count on to decode your American shame? What songwriters help to explain our fucked up shit to the rest of the world? What albums are currency to convince your foreign friends that you’re not a typical American bastard?

On Independence Day I’m ready to party, but not unconditionally. I’m usually thinking “Sure, America is silly now, but we’re getting better at dealing with a massive technology epoch shift and natural resources stuff and getting rid of cigarettes and prejudice and fat chicks, so, to this extent, I say let’s party.” Anything beyond that would be self-delusion and nationalism generated by misplaced fear.

That vibe doesn’t last. I soon default to “Man, America is about being a fucking jerk all the time” mode. This happens every year: The fourth of July holiday could be a renewal of goals, of commitment to responsible nationhood; instead, it’s a day for marathon face stuffing and drunken blather. It could be both. Speech in the morning, bongs and bikinis by brunch. Shit.

Lucky for all, America has produced not only an infinite well of parking space stealers, war profiteers, and dirty diaper litterbugs, but also a few killer songwriters who express the bullshit-osity of America to us and everybody else. Check out these angry, angry jamz:

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You’ll probably never convince me that marching bands are cool, but I guess if you gotta be in one, you might as well play something awesome (as opposed to, like, Sousa or whatever). So I found this video of The George Mason University band, The Green Machine, rehearsing Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name,” to be pretty entertaining — not least of all because of how into it all the musicians seem to be. I mean, just keep watching that chick in the red shirt near the front — she is rocking out, yo!

I do have to wonder at what event the band is gonna play this though; would the rest of the student body be pissed if they sang “Those who died are justified/ For wearing the badge” at, like, homecoming or whatever?

-AR

[via Badass Digest]

…the fuck?

So the Times of Grace tour is now underway, and I don’t think I was alone in wondering if the band would playing any vintage Killswitch Engage material out on the road. I mean, it would make sense — 3/5ths of the KsE Alive or Just Breathing line-up is Times of Grace, and, clearly, this is the big selling point for the group. I mean, you don’t just start out headlining on your first tour unless you’re a supergroup or, in this case, an unofficial reunion.

But now reader Tyler Lesniewski has e-mailed us a link to the setlist from the band’s first live performance, and guess what? There’s not a single KsE song on it.

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One of these men will not be on the new Kyuss album. Guess which one?

Kyuss Lives!, the ridiculously monikered Kyuss non-reunion which replaces Josh Homme with some dude no one has ever heard of, are apparently “thinking of doing another record,” according to this interview with vocalist John Garcia. I object to the use of the word “another” because in case these dudes haven’t noticed, they’ve never made a record before, but I’d like to think that the phrase “thinking of”* means “it’s not written in stone yet,” “there’s still time to stop the madness,” and “we said this to gauge the reaction of fans, possibly as represented by an incredibly smart, exceedingly handsome Jewish blogger from New York.”

So, assuming that Garcia was, indeed, trying to get a message to me to see what my thoughts were, I’d like to now respond by saying: I don’t think this is a good idea.

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For my opening salvo, I suppose I should mention that it has been a long break between blogs. I’ve been meaning to get back to it, but this summer has been a very busy one filled with the musical composition of the new God Forbid album as well as a new project I’ve been working on, in addition to the daily pursuit of living life and getting by. I hope to contribute more frequently in the near future.

If you’ve followed my articles in the past, you may notice that I often address music history, and pertaining to this site, heavy music specifically. I have a great respect for artistic pioneers and the roots of where the most admirable and brilliant music stems from. I was the type of kid who would read liner notes and interviews by my favorite bands to find out who influenced them. I would always want to climb that musical family tree to see where it lead.

In my process of discovery, there was a common thread that jumped out at me that has been consistent through metal and rock history.  There seemed to be an intercontinental ping-pong match between the USA and Europe in terms of trailblazing the cutting edge of whatever musical genre was the dominant force of the time. This goes way back before metal existed — and yet, it has helped shape the musical landscape that exists today. The torch keeps being symbolically passed from one shore to the other.

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Amongst the older musicians on Warped Tour, dissing the traveling festival’s main constituency of tight-pants-wearing, hair-swooping, girly-man emo kids has kind of become like going fishing in a stocked kiddie pond; super easy but still lots of fun and irresistible. Every Time I Die’s Andy Williams and Dillinger Escape Plan’s Liam Wilson had plenty to say on the matter when I chatted with them about beards last month, and the latest rock vet — who makes those two look like kids themselves — to chime in is Tom Morello, whose band Street Sweeper Social Club played a couple of the tour’s California dates.

Elise at Reign in Blonde, who brought this video to my attention, makes a good point that most kids at Warped probably have no idea that the guy up on stage making funky sounds with his guitar has another, more popular band that’s sold tens of millions of records worldwide. But Morello seems to take it in stride, and though he fires a few shots at Warped’s primary attendees he recognizes the value of playing to a new crowd. Skip to the 1:00 mark for the Morello clip.

-VN

Alight guys, sorry I haven’t posted an article in a while, but I’m here now with something I think is kinda cool and rarely gets talked about in the metal world: Groove.

Some of you guys may know just how much I love a rhythm that grooves, something that just makes you want to bob your head to it, and there’s more to it than just getting playful with the accents or syncopating a beat. There are the more subtle aspects, the kind that sometimes don’t translate so well to recordings. I mean, what is groove exactly and what gives it that “feel”? Who in the band really affects the level of groove — is it just the drummer, the drummer and the bassist, or the band as a whole?

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I don’t really have anything against Phish, beyond the fact that their fans are some of the most annoying people I’ve ever encountered. But whatever. Frequent MS tipster Hetal Bhatt sent us a link to this video of the band covering Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” at their July 4 show this past weekend, and while the cover doesn’t sound that great, it doesn’t sound awful, either. And I guess we should applaud all the hippies for getting down with such angry music. So I guess Eric Cartman had it all wrong.

Trey Not Jerry Garcia rants for the first half of this video; skip to the 4:45 mark to hear the cover.

-AR

Despite everything that’s gone on politically in America since 2001, the voice of Zack de la Rocha has been noticeably absent from the public debate. His less-than-amicable departure from Rage Against The Machine in 2000 halted that group for several years, and other than an EP from his One Day As A Lion project he has not released new music. Thankfully, his lack of creative output is not indicative of his dedication to human rights and civil rights, as his commitment to a new endeavor called The Sound Strike makes clear.

A reaction to Arizona’s odious, fearmongering and (in this writer’s opinion) racist legislation SB 1070, The Sound Strike is an effort to organize artists in a civil non-violent action against that state. What it amounts to is a boycott of Arizona by musicians, who vow not to perform in those states. A full list of the artists that have joined this can be found here, but the names that will matter to readers of this site include Nine Inch Nails, Rise Against and Joe Satriani as well as Rage Against The Machine and related projects like Street Sweeper Social Club. Now obviously this is a contentious issue, and I suspect more than a few of you prefer to keep your music and your politics separate. Still, these artists are taking a stand against what they see as an injustice, and even if you disagree with their positions or their choosing to boycott Arizona, you ought to respect their reasons. I encourage you to check out the above video, in which Señor de la Rocha explains his stance. Then, sign the petition and–if you’re in a band–you can add yourself to the list of artists participating in the Arizona boycott.

-GS

In the last few years, something seemed to happen and I barely noticed. Suddenly, I’m no longer the young kid at the show. I’m one of the guys hiding out by the bar. I’m not crowd surfing, not covered in sweat with my shirt off, and I’m certainly not moshing. I’m also not randomly yelling “Slayer!”, but that seems to span all demographics. I became… (gulp)… an adult. I don’t know what the range is in the ages of the followers of MetalSucks, but I’ll assume that it’s a mix of younger and older metal fans. I am 29 years old, but I still feel relatively young and energetic considering my opening salvo. I’m the youngest member of my band, and younger than a good majority of my friends in bands and the industry.

With that said, I think there comes a time for all metal heads, and probably all adults for that matter, when you look at what is popular amongst the true youth culture (16-24), and you feel as if not only do you not relate to it, but it feels alien, as if it’s creation was not meant for your consumption (which it wasn’t) – and it also seems inferior to music that you grew up with. I’m only 29, and I’m already having “back in my day” moments. It kind of scared me, and I began to wonder if I was being obtuse and a little too set in my ways, or if my analysis was accurate.

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I’ve never been to Bamboozle, but every year there’s a day where artists do an entire set covering one other artist. So if you’ve ever wanted to see, for example, Manure Emmure covering Rage Against the Machine for a solid thirty minutes, well, you’ve now missed your chance.

Rage Against the Machine made number nine on our list of “Ten Bands Great That Inadvertently Ruined Metal,” and even if the below footage of said Emmure homage to RATM doesn’t actually justify the rap-metal pioneers’ spot on that line-up, the fact that the Emmure dudes and I like some of the same music makes me feel like I need to take a shower. (Yep, bloggers shower, too! Sometimes.) Making it worse is that the band does nothing to put their own spin on the music (I think – I admit that even if they did I’d probably just make fun of them for being terrible), and that vocalist Frankie Palmeri seems to have mustered about as much enthusiasm for this performance as Rob Halford would if Christina Scabbia offered to jump his bones. I can’t believe this dude can get excited about Raptor Jesus, but not playing “Killing in the Name.”

Oh, well. Whatever keeps them from ripping-off The Acacia Strain I guess.

-AR

[via The PRP]