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.

Click to read more…

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]

Oh, never mind, it’s not an ad for Target. It’s a Cypress Hill video. Huh. Go figure.

I don’t know whether or not Morello co-wrote this song, “Rise Up,” but it sounds more like Rage Against the Machine than anything I’ve heard anyone do in years. And that includes the legions of RATM imitators. And, one way or the other, this is wwwwaaayyyy better than the cover of “Paradise City” the Cypress Hill dudes did with Slash.

Also, to answer your question, Cypress Hill, I can get pretty high. You?

-AR

When it comes to mixing rap and metal there were obviously bands that did it before Rage Against the Machine, but those bands shouldn’t be credited/blamed for fucking up metal as much as Rage Against the Machine did for the following reasons:

1. They did it on a one-off basis instead of making a career of it.
2. They precipitated the rap metal fad by way too many years to be considered true progenitors.
3. They didn’t do it nearly as fucking well.

Click to read more…

If you weren’t already excited for Iron Man 2, this oughta do the trick: our friends at Metal Insider report that Tom Morello has revealed via Twitter that none other than Tom Morello is working on the score for the film in conjunction with composer John Debney (who also did the music for director Jon Favreau’s Elf, Sin City, and a whole lotta other crap). They replace Ramin Djawadi, whose score for the original Iron Man was one of the least memorable things about that flick. (MI also points out that Morello played guitar on Djawadi’s score, and had a cameo as one of the terrorists Tony Stark offs in the cave scene. There’s something kinda ironic about that, given Morello’s political views, and the fact that the portrayal of said terrorists was cartoonish to be the point of being borderline racist, but I guess that’s a different conversation for a different time.)

This is in addition to the already-announced utilization of AC/DC on the IM2 soundtrack, as well as Lamb of God’s contribution of a new song to the movie tie-in video game. If there’s gonna be a more metal-friendly mainstream movie this year, I don’t know what it is.

Here’s the new trailer for Iron Man 2, which makes it look like it’s gonna kick all kinds of ass:

-AR

Somewhat unexpectedly but undoubtedly awesomely, the bid to propel Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” to the top of the U.K. Christmas Singles chart has actually been successful. The initial download sales figures showed Rage ahead, but X Factor winner Joe McElderry was expected to overtake them when his track was released on CD. Snow, ice and a general boredom with X Factor prevented that from happening as Rage held onto the coveted top spot, ending a four-year run of #1 tracks by winners of Simon Cowell’s X Factor (the U.K.’s version of American Idol).

News like this is ultimately pretty inconsequential, but it always feels like a victory when an artist of merit overtakes generic pop tripe. Check out a live, expletive-ridden performance of “Killing in the Name” that Rage did on the BBC last week.

-VN

Writing headlines for Rage Against the Machine is too easy, because those dudes just rage against everything (except a couple of shitty Audioslave albums… oh snap! But I did enjoy the first one). Rage, rage, rage.

The latest raging is happening in the U.K., where the band are jumping on board with a fan-led initiative to land “Killing in the Name” on Top of the U.K. Christmas Singles chart. MS Maniac Charlie F. sent in this clip of Zack and Tom doing an interview with the BBC, followed by a full-band live electric performance of the track. The performance is passionate and fierce, and the song is still as vital as ever all these years later. Make sure you listen to the entire performance (which starts around 4:10); there’s a special surprise at the end that would make Howard Stern proud.

Man, when this album came out I could not get enough of the “Fuck you! I won’t do what you tell me!” part. My ten year old ass was running around screaming that shit EVERYWHERE! It still gives me shivers.

After you listen to the performance below, click through the jump for a special surprise that’s a new take on an old joke but still really fucking funny [thanks: Morizz].

-VN

Click to read more…

Our email boxes have been blowing up about this for the past week, but until the BBC and Billboard reported that it actually had legs I just thought it was another ridiculous Internet campaign.

The campaign is an online effort to get Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 hit “Killing in the Name” to grab the top spot on the U.K.’s Christmas Singles chart, a spot that’s been dominated by winners of the “X Factor” TV talent show (similar to American Idol) for the past four years. As of right now the RATM classic actually holds a 10% margin over Joe McElderry’s cover of Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb,” which occupies the number 2 spot at the moment.

Click to read more…

The good thing about being Rolling Stone is that even though you haven’t been relevant in twenty years, there’s some prestige attached to your name, so you can get famous people whose publicists don’t know any better to do shit for you. The glorified glossy toilet paper’s latest coup is getting a bunch of celebs to list their favorite albums and songs of the decade.

I imagine this will cause a million times more arguing than the lists published by any magazine or website staff, because if frail egos collapse under the weight of differing opinions from writers and other “experts,” than I can only imagine how people will react to finding out that Kirk Hammett likes Sinéad O’Connor more than Meshuggah.

Check out some of the lists from Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and Tom Morello after the jump.

Click to read more…

Here’s Zakk Wylde talking to Tartarean Desire a few years back… I’ve added some emphasis:

“What would be a good career move is to get Eminem to sing on a Black Label album. It would stir up some controversy with the Hell’s Angels of Iron if you had Eminem rapping on a Black Label album. I go first off I hate fucking rap music, so what the fuck would I want to have that mother fucker singing on my fucking album… Because he is popular?”

And here’s Zakk ranting about rap and rap metal back in 2006:

Of course, ideals are nothing in the face of a paycheck. And so here we are, it’s almost 2010, and Zakk Wylde has recorded a guest guitar solo on Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise 20XX” for DJ Hero, a video game for people who think that Guitar Hero is too sophisticated.

Click to read more…

So we read on Metal Insider, who read on Drowned In Sound, who read on nme.com, that Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello used to be a stripper. Seriously. Says Morello:

When I graduated from Harvard and moved to Hollywood, I was unemployable. I was literally starving, so I had to work menial labour and, at one point, I even worked as an exotic dancer. ‘Brick House’ [by The Commodores] was my jam! I did bachelorette parties and I’d go down to my boxer shorts. Would I go further? All I can say is thank god it was in the time before YouTube! You could make decent money doing that job – people do what they have to do.

Click to read more…

Last week’s post of In This Moment covering Iron Maiden sparked such an uproar that it inspired longtime MetalSucks Maniac Hegy to send in a link of another female artist covering a (sort of classic) metal track, Rage Against the Machine’s “Guerilla Radio” as performed by everyone’s favorite Canadian yodeler Alanis Morissette. Thing is, said cover isn’t nearly as objectionable as it might seem. For one, Alanis has actually got a good voice, and I liked a lot of her earlier material in a completely non-ironic (haha, get it?) way. But more importantly, Alanis doesn’t go for the straight cover. Her version of the RATM classic is musically quite different from the original — it’s more of an “interpretation” than a cover, if you will — and unless you’re a devoted student of RATM lyrics you probably wouldn’t recognize the song until the chorus kicks in at around the 1-minute mark. Alanis, you continue to prove why Canadians are that much smarter than their American brethren.

-VN

CityPages is reporting that Rage Against the Machine were not allowed to play a show by Minneapolis police, after supposed headliners Anti-Flag finished a show at the Republican National Convention and said, “Stay put; shit’s gonna get crazy.” After the band argued with police and event organizers for 15 minutes, they descended into the crowd. Singer Zach De la Rocha then addressed the crowd with a short anti-war speech, and the band proceeded to lead the protesters in a cappella versions of “Bulls on Parade” and “Killing in the Name Of.” Morello sang the guitar parts and de la Rocha the lyrics, as 2,000+ protesters sang along in unison. Thanks to the wonders of the Internets, we have a fan-filmed video.

Fucking A, I love this band so much right now. Fast-forward to the 2:30 mark for the song.

-VN

[Thanks: Eric H. and Gabexmosh]

[Ed - Correct video is now on, sorry.]

We’re signing off early today here at the MS Mansion. There are bowls to be smoked, beers to be drank, and barbecues to attend in the waning days of summer. Enjoy your weekend! Meanwhile, some stuff that happened here this week:

• We posted interviews from our trip to the Rockstar Mayhem Festival with Mastodon, Machine Head and Black Tide. Well, the latter was not so much an interview.
• Even Dallas got in the ring to weigh in on the politics of Metallica, and we had some fun with Metallica haiku and pontificated the 3rd new song.
• Rage Against the Machine raged against the machine. So did we.
• The new AC/DC single sounds like the old AC/DC single sounds like the old…
• Axl Rose called the FBI on the Chinese Democracy leaker.
• Slipknot goes in another new musical direction with All Hope Is Gone… and possibly has a #1 record.

Toodaloo!

-VN

Not only were/are Rage Against the Machine fiercely political and idealistic, they’re also perhaps one of the only examples of rap-metal done right. The video for “Bombtrack” from 1992′s self-titled debut showcases not only the band’s political bent but their heavy as fuck riffs and grooves. Come on – don’t front. You love Rage Against the Machine. McCain’s super-hard right wing VP pick? Not so much.

-VN

Sure, they made some fucking awesome music (I probably spun their self-titled disc more than any other in the summer of ’92). But what I want to talk about today is how, despite fame, money and age, they’ve remained fiercely political, involved and angry, always sticking to their ideals. The above picture [from Fear and Loathing via MetalSucks reader Eric H.] says it all — RATM on the front lines with 7000 other protesters at the DNC, urging Barack Obama to stick to his anti-war platform. Not only did they schedule a concert in Denver during the DNC; not only does Tom Morello frequently speak out in the press; they protest with everyone else, on the front fucking lines. That is the definition of honesty and keeping it real.

God, I fucking love this band.

-VN

You may or may not have heard in the past week about the fact that the Writer’s Guild of America – the union of writers for film and television – is on strike (you can find excellent ongoing coverage here). The mass media isn’t giving the strike much coverage because, well, the mass media is largely owned by the same conglomerates that the writer’s are striking against. See, the gist of the conflict is this: right now, when you a buy a DVD, the writer of whatever film or tv program is on said DVD gets about four cents, and the writers would like a raise so they make a whopping eight cents on each DVD; furthermore, writers currently aren’t paid when their work is streamed on a network website (usually complete with paid commercials) or downloaded on iTunes, which is to say: they’re not being paid for their work. Of course, GE and Time Warner and Viacom don’t want you to see it that way; they want you to think that the writers are greedy assholes and they want you to be upset that by the end of November, there basically won’t be anything on tv save for re-runs and reality shows (You won’t feel the effect in movie theaters until about 2009, when every shitty script the studios rushed into production to beat the strike is released. Seriously: the last time Hollywood thought there was gonna be a writer’s strike, Fox immediately gave a green light to… the re-make of Planet of the Apes. Chew on that.).

ANYWAY, leave it our favorite heavy metal crusader, Tom Morello, to take a stand for the writers, joining picketers at last week’s rally outside Fox. Video below:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/oQAzNsPLlDk" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

-AR