Phil Varone was the original drummer in Saigon Kick and the not-original drummer in Skid Row, and he was on VH1′s Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew. But either the treatment wasn’t very effective, or I don’t understand what the show is actually about, because now Varone has a launched a porn site, Phil Varone’s Secret Sex Stash (it should go without saying that the site is NSFW).

The gimmick of this particular porn site — because all porn sites must have a gimmick, lest men be forced to jerk off to a plot-free video of people fucking — is that all the women are allegedly groupies that Varone has shutpped during his tenure as a C-list celebrity. (Varone claims to have slept with 3,000 women, which I guess explains why he hasn’t recorded a decent album in twenty years — dude has been busy with other projects!) So if you’ve ever had a fantasy about being with a girl who wanted to bang you for the sole reason that you are a replacement member in a band that was famous in 1992, this is the site for you! Kerri Kelli is jealous he didn’t think of it first.

Of course, Varone isn’t the first metal d00d to get into the world of porn — there’s Evan Seinfeld, of course, and Dead to Fall’s Chad Fjerstad, to say nothing of leaked sex tapes starring Tommy Lee, Bret Michaels, and Fred Durst (although not all three of them together… now that would sell a bajillion copies). And, clearly, it’s a smart career move. The music industry is dying because of people illegally downloading music on the net, but, as we all know, getting free pornography online is damn near impossible. So finding people willing to pay $240 a year to watch a guy who SWEARS ON HIS MOTHER’S LIFE that he’s a rockstar nail “groupies” should be no problem.

-AR

[via Noisecreep]

It was a long weekend, and seemingly eight thousand fucking bands all decided to put out music videos while we were away. Let’s check ‘em out and see if any of them are decent, shall we?

First up we have a video for “Larvae” by Portal. This band pushes so many envelopes they were all offered jobs at the post office, so I’m disappointed they couldn’t come up with a more innovative video. This clip is seriously boring as fuck, as I have no idea what’s going on. Which is how some people feel about Portal’s music, I guess. So, in that regard, this video is a success!

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Since getting cable for the first time in five years this past September I’ve been fascinated with TV, can’t stop watching it whenever I have the chance; Hulu, torrents and the like are great, but sometimes you don’t know what you want to watch and prefer the glorious ADHD-riddled game known as channel surfing. Other than the occasional sports broadcast, my cable box stays parked between the channel range of 270-290 on Direct TV, aka all the dork channels: Discovery, History, A&E, etc. But one channel really takes the cake; The Science Channel! Anyone who has a cable provider that doesn’t broadcast this channel is missing out on some of the best shows to grace television’s black screen in ages such as MANTRACKER, HOW IT’S MADE and SURVIVORMAN. A++++ would do business with again fast shipping programming! For the most part I really don’t need to change the channel; I could watch endless repeats of those three shows (with a little Mythbusters thrown in) and be perfectly happy.

So it’s no surprise then that I had no idea ex-Skid Row and ex-Saigon Kick drummer Phil Varone is now a C-list celebrity because of an appearance on Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew in 2009.

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Since its inception by the typings of some clever music journalist in the 80s, the categorization “hair metal” (or “glam metal”) has been as amorphous and, consequently, as misused as “metalcore” has been in the aughties. And since it’s hair metal week here on MetalSucks, we thought we’d try to address this issue by pointing the spotlight on ten bands that are often, and incorrectly, deemed “hair metal.” And to that end…

As with many rock and metal bands that the major labels brought to prominence towards the end of the hair era (non-definitely, let’s just say approximately ’89-’91), Saigon Kick were mis-marketed — and hence misconstrued in the public eye — as hair metal. It didn’t help that, like so many hair metal bands, the big hit that catapulted them into public view was a power ballad. So despite incorporating myriad influences from funk to punk to, of course, metal, Saigon Kick were written off by a mostly apathetic public who, in the post-Nirvana era, thought that if it had long hair and heavy guitars it must also have a ridiculous level of machismo and poofy hair. SO not the case with Saigon Kick, a terrific band who ironically may have experienced more success had the kind of music people thought they pedaled still been in style.

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It was a mostly Metallica week here at the MS Mansion, but it turns out that some other stuff happened too. In summary:

• We re-christened the site MetallicaSucks.net for a day — all of our writers each reviewed Death Magnetic to varying praise (or lack thereof).
• God Forbid debuted a new song. We likee. You likee.
• Lars Ulrich gave us tips for appearing taller than you really are, and Ronnie James Dio gave us hair care pointers.
• We spoke with Suicide Silence, Walls of Jericho and 36 Crazyfists.
• Saigon Kick will kick again in ’09.

Also, we wrote a whole lot of other shit about Metallica or something. Next week we’ll be back to our usual shenanigans. Enjoy your weekend!

Axl and I have been waiting, oh, about 12 years for the inevitable “SAIGON KICK REUNION” headline to come across our ticker, and thankfully on this 10th day of September in the year 2008 A.D., we can celebrate. It’s no secret that we have a major hard on (non-ironically, thank you very much) for this awesome band; but we’ve also never gotten to see them live. So either Jason Bieler and Matt Kramer kissed and made nice, or that last Nonpoint record really bombed. But who the fuck cares? Saigon Kick are getting back together in 2009!

The catch: they’re reuniting for a one-off festival show in… Algona, Iowa??? Hopefully this means more festival appearances are in the works.

In the meantime, enjoy this priceless early ’90s timepiece video for “Hostile Youth” from the band’s landmark album The Lizard.

-VN

Publicists send us shit all the time, and 9 out of 10 times it blows goats but we listen anyway because every now and then there’s that occasional gem that shocks you and makes hours of brain-drilling listening all worth it.. Sikth’s Death of a Dead Day — originally released in 2006 — is that fucking good.

UK-based Sikth’s own brand of progressive metal mixes the breakneck hardcore spazzes and jazz freakouts of Dillinger Escape Plan or Between the Buried and Me, time-warp rhythms of Meshuggah, metallic melody of Dream Theater and bone-crushing breakdowns of Hatebreed all into one neat little package. But the band possesses a sense of songwriting and melody, like their UK prog-metal brethren Porcupine Tree, in which those bands rarely indulge. The musicianship all around is stellar, and vocalist Mikee Goodman shows a surprisingly versatile vocal approach, ranging from singing to screaming, growling, shouting, and everything in between. (According to Sikth’s MySpace page Goodman has moved on and they are searching for a new frontman. Hear that, aspiring vocalists?)

What’s more, the band produced Death of a Dead Day entirely themselves, with a precision mix job coming from Bieler Bros. Records (helmed by Jason Bieler, ex-Saigon Kick!) go-to-guy Matt LaPlant (Nonpoint, Skindred, Burn Season).

Why has no one ever mentioned this band before to me or anyone at the MetalSucks Mansion? This. Record. Fucking. Rules. The #1 sleeper hit of 2007 in my book, even though it was released in June of ’06. See for yourself, below.

Sikth – “Bland Street Bloom”

Sikth – “Part of the Friction”

-VN

(four out of five horns)

[Visit Sikth on MySpace]