The release year is winding down. Aside from new Megadeth and Animals as Leaders records, I think we’re pretty much done with bigtime new albums until 2012.

The #1 record on the Current Hard Music chart last week came from a band whose music it’d be a stretch to call “hard.” Click through to find out who it was. Blessthefall, Misfits and Wayne Static had solid debuts, while a number of last week’s releases jumped off the second week cliff. All that and more, right here:

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The passing of Apple visionary Steve Jobs is not nearly as maddening as the Casey Anthony verdict (let’s get cereal for a moment: it’s actually incredibly sad), but the responses of the metal community via Twitter are just as lulzy! So, in the spirit of our own Anso DF’s Casey Anthony verdict vs. the metal people Twitter roast I present to you…

… THE METAL PEOPLE REMEMBER STEVE JOBS:

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I’m officially making the switch from the Top Hard Music chart to the Current Hard Music chart for the purposes of this column. While it’s interesting to see what classic Metallica and Aerosmith albums are charting and I still may occasionally reference the former, the latter chart paints a much clearer picture of the modern metal landscape by opening up more room for new records that sell less than classics, allowing a larger number of relevant new releases to place in the Top 100.

This chart has a slightly different way of tallying new releases, where sometimes they appear as having already been on for one week before official release — I’m still sorting through precisely what that difference is — so occasionally the chart positions are a little mixed up. But this only comes into play much farther down the list and this chart still provides a good gauge of relativity.

Now, onto the releases: as you all no doubt know, Mastodon and Machine Head were the biggies last week, and both did quite well — but the album that ended up at #1 is also a debut, and none of us saw it coming. Sebastian Bach, Warbringer and Maylene & The Sons of Disaster fared well in Week 1, while new records from Rose Funeral, Textures, Suffokate, Rwake, Brutal Truth and many, many more also appeared in the Top 100.

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via WWTDD

So much of this week ended up being devoted to the Big Four that I honestly don’t wanna think about any of those bands again for at least the remainder of the year. So to wrap this shit up, here’s everything Big Four-related we did this week:

• We live snarked the Big Four show at Yankee Stadium.
• We went to an Anthrax press conference.
• We went to the Metal Masters clinic and saw Phil Anselmo jam some Pantera with various Big Fourers.
• We debated the merits and demerits of Anthrax’s Worship Music.
• We listened to Lars Ulrich on Howard Stern.
• We had fun at the expense of Dave Mustaine’s faith.
• We had a Big Four edition of Show Us Your Metalsucks.
• We helped Metal Injection with their Big Four-themed Livecast.
• I also made an appearance in Metal Injection’s Big Four video recap, which you MUST watch because a) it’s awesome and b) I’m so handsome!

We make fun of Sebastian Bach a lot here on the site, and we’re not about to stop doing that. But it ultimately comes from a place of love (read this) and we certainly never wish anyone physical harm or damage of any kind. So it’s with heavy hearts that we say we sympathize for Baz, who lost his New Jersey home of 21 years and a whole ton of personal belongings to flooding caused by Hurricane Irene this past weekend. Comments Bach, part of a full statement you can read here:

Skid Row master tapes, video and audio, concerts, master tapes from ’Oh Say Can You Scream’, etc. Boxes and boxes of one-of-a-kind Skid Row memorabilia, from the first tour to our last, all stuff I collected on the road that no one else had. I had a library in the basement with every single magazine that had Skid Row on the cover. This library took up a big part of the basement. All of this is lost now.

We will salvage what we can, of course. But how I wish there was a reason to do a box set or something before Hurricane Irene hit. Nobody cared. Now it’s too late.

Oof. Not to mention the damage to the house and other personal property. Our thoughts are with you, duderino, even though Black Veil Brides and Asking Alexandria are your new bands of choice.

More photos of the damage after the jump:

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The only member of the original Skid Row that Sebastian Bach is still on speaking terms with is drummer Rob Affuso, probably because he, like Baz, was sacked from the band at some point in-between Subhuman Race and Whatever the Album After Subhuman Race Was Called. But whatever the reason, Affuso hopped up on stage with Bach last night during the singer’s solo show in Poughkeepsie. And while they had the good sense not to perform “Youth Gone Wild,” they did not have the good sense to have Rachel Bolan, Scotti Hill, and Dave Sabo on stage, too.

-AR

[via Classic Rock]

Photos by Brian Schroeter

Though hard rock has arrived at retirement age, its senior classmen are flourishing on tour. Really, these years are the first in which old metal musicians exist, and 2011′s foundation will be built on someday by geriatric Gojira, decrepit Devin Townsend, crotchety Cave In, et al. Right around 2025, those bands might look to Ronnie James Dio, who played all aces til his final days; to Metallica, who in middle age flagged fast; to Judass Priest’s withdrawal from major touring (or whatever) and to the renaissance of Whitesnake, whose recent face-blasting gig with L.A. Guns and Skid Row was like a survival guide for bands seeking to enjoy fruitful third and fourth decades! I was there and learned a lot! Check it out:  Click to read more…

I hated Angel Down so much that I kind of naturally assumed that Sebastian Bach’s new solo album, Kicking & Screaming, would also be a shitfest. (The cover art wasn’t especially reassuring, either.) But now Revolver has debuted the music video for the title track, and the song is really not that terrible.

I mean, it’s not great, either — it’s basically a generic hard rock song — but I can’t really give Baz any shit for it. Watching the clip, I mostly kept wondering a) if the thirteen year old who’s playing guitar for Bach now was reimbursed for the gas money he spent to get to the shoot or if he was expected to pay for it himself because “playing music is his life,” and b) if Baz ever actually gets in a room with his band, or just stands up against a random wall someplace at all times.

Kicking & Screaming is out September 23 on Frontiers. Click on the screen cap of the hot lady who is in the video for no apparent reason other than hot ladies sometimes help sell records to see the clip.

-AR

1) Be nicer to Sebastian Bach
2) Compare penis sizes with Tommy Lee
3) Hire Phil LaBonte as a vocal coach
4) Hire Billy Milano as a personal trainer
5) Hire Tripp Eisen as a baby sitter
6) Sleep with present-day Tawny Kitaen
7) Help Danzig clean up his motherfucking bricks, bitch
8) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about politics
9) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about romance
10) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about Ted Nugent

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…uhhh…..

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I LOLd for an hour straight on Tuesday cuz my Twitter was blowing up with metal people’s reactions to the Casey Anthony verdict (announced around 4PM EDT). It’s a serious situation, so dudes are mad and lending their two cents. That’s natural. But man, some people think dumb. Actually, know what? I’m just gonna c+p some metal celebrity tweets below. Remember, most of the following mini-declarations are wrought in awful logic, but not everybody on the internet is ignorant and high-horsing this shit to death. Um yeah just go ahead and keep reading and oooh the suspense…

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The thing about Sebastian Bach is, he’s a pathetic loser and a total idiot, but he’s also really talented. His voice is still in amazing shape, and his performances haven’t lost any of their verve. That’s way more than I can say for more dudes his age, who have been in the business for more than two decades. If Bach ever gets some decent collaborators for one of his solo albums, or joins a good band, he’d be a force to be reckoned with again.

Case in point: Baz recently hopped on stage with Children of Bodom during the West Hollywood stop on their now-in-progress tour with Devin Townsend, Obscura, and Septicflesh (remaining dates here). Needless to say, it was much, much cooler than Baz performing with Asking Alexandria.

Here’s some fan-filmed footage of the blessed union:

You can check out some video over at The PRP.

-AR

Am I high or is it weird that in 2011 nobody touts the first two Skid Row records as mega-masterpieces? What has undermined lasting renown? Is it that those jams are too heavy for radio listeners and not aggro enough for metal fans? Did major line-up changes doom them to be written off (except for the three enduring singles)? Is it Sebastian Bach’s fault? Is the rest of the band too stubborn and unambitious? Really, has there been a more compelling, awesome, and fearless heavy rock record since? Help me figure this out?

To me, it’s not a problem per se that one-time Skid Row vocalist Sebastian Bach is a huge jackass. One, his all-time top ten singing chops justify extreme arrogance and render decency unnecessary; two, reality TV and morning radio has immunized us all to dunderheads of Bach’s type. So fans are over it, right? Yet it’s still possible that Bach’s exhausting bimbo-ism has quieted the global and unanimous mega-acclaim that Skid Row deserves. How?

Think about it: Is it not Bach-related acrimony among the members of Skid Row that hamstrings their legacy-building? No reunion tours, no massive retrospectives, no anniversary celebrations. No documentaries, no tribute albums, no peer buzz. It’s probably Bach’s spaztardation that makes these things impossible. Click to read more…

Sebastian Bach has announced a September 27 release date for his new album, Kicking & Screaming. The press release makes no mention of any collaborations with Jamey Jasta or John 5, which would have been the reasons to at least be curious about this record, especially after the awfulness that Bach’s last outing, Angel Down. So… oh well.

But the press release did include a link to the below promo photo, by Gabriel Goldberg, and it might be the most inadvertently hilarious promo photo ever for a professional musician of whom you’ve actually heard. I can’t believe that anyone, let alone what was probably a team of people, thought it was a good idea to release a photo where Baz looks like he’s just about to start weeping. Because nothing screams “ROCK!” like a depressed blonde man with too much make-up on.

Vince is away on vacation, so there won’t be any of his patented photo caption contests for awhile. But if anyone can come up with a caption for this that actually makes me laugh, I will send them a goody bag of assorted whatever-the-fuck we have lying around.

So have at it…

-AR

In 2006, Axl Rose’s Nu-GN’R played what was then their first show in almost four years at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC. Rose had recently made a surprise appearance on The Eddie Trunk Show*, dropping in after a texting session with Bach, whom he had not seen in many years. So at this first Hammerstein show, Rose brought out Bach, and they did a duet of “My Michelle,” and, of course, the crowd went totally apeshit.

Then they did it again for the next three nights the band played at the same venue. And then they did it again at almost every single Guns N’ Roses show since. And then Axl Rose made a guest appearance on Bach’s album, and then Bach made a guest appearance on Chinese Democracy. I mean, these guys sure did beat that gimmick until it was dead, and then they continued to beat it, just so its mother wouldn’t be able to give it an open casket funeral.

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One of the many members of the metal elite that our pals at Metal Injection got to interview on the Black Carpet at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards last week was Dj Ashba, current guitar player for both Guns N’ Roses and Sixx A.M. (He’s like the most in-demand musician of 1989!) Ashba was accompanied by actress Nicky Whelan, who, box office receipts tell me, probably none of you remember from her recent role as a bippy who gets naked in the movie Hall Pass (very NSFW video here). Ashba spouts some nonsense about the new Sixx A.M. album, and Whelan spouts some nonsense about the new Sixx A.M. album, and then Ashba says that GN’R might tour the U.S. this year. But this is the same dude who thinks there’s actually gonna be a new Guns N’ Roses record soon, and that he’ll still be in the band by the time that record gets done, so, y’know, it must be nice to be so blindly optimistic.

Metal Injection gots some other good gossip on the Black Carpet, too, including:

• Sebastian Bach told one of the dudes from Asking Alexandria that he’s going to die soon.
• Taylor Momsen’s parents are very supportive of her decision to exploit her barely-legal body in the name of making money for them.
• William Shatner doesn’t know who the band Shat.

Check out all of their coverage here.

-AR

Because Vince and I are lazy asses, we did not do any interviews on the Black Carpet at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards last week. In fact, I think we were both already kinda drunk by the time the whole thing started. So, yeah, Joan Rivers we ain’t.

But don’t be sad, ’cause our bro-bros at Metal Injection did rock the Black Carpet — in fact, on-camera personality Rob Pasbani even wore a shiny silver coat, which, I shit you not, was the hit of the party. (The amount of compliments he got on the thing was absurd.) And, as usual, the video report they’ve filed from the event is super-lulzy. Highlights include learning the hard way that Volbeat are good at sarcasm (Rob: “What kind of performance can we expect from you guys?” Volbeat: “A musical performance.”), Sebastian Bach practicing his future routine for stand-up in the Catskills (Baz, upon being asked to do a bumper for MI: “I don’t do bumps anymore.”), and Vince Neil proving that he is still the greatest interview subject in all of metaldom (Rob: “I feel like you guys are the definitive L.A. band.” Vince Neil: “Well, we’re from L.A.”).

Continuing in the tradition of last year’s awkward Metal Injection-Black Carpet screen cap, you can click the below still of Sasha Grey checking out Rob’s delicious ass to watch the entire report.

-AR

Avenged Sevenfold and Vinnie Paul, “Mouth For War”

Matt Cerone over at MetsBlog.com does these daily “the least you should know” wrap-ups after every game, which this season have essentially all boiled down to “they sucked.” In that spirit, here’s an abbreviated report from the Revolver Golden Gods Awards in L.A., which Axl and I had the privilege of attending and which, unlike the Mets, most definitely did not suck. We had a rip-roaring good time and got rip-roaringly drunk before realizing that oh yeah, this is L.A. and you have to fucking drive home. What a nightly buzzkill, literally! Thanks, Axl, for driving my drunk ass home.

The least you should know about the 2011 Revolver Golden Gods Awards before we have time to properly recap the event:

• Avenged Sevenfold were easily the most popular band there; most kids at the show were wearing their shirts. Their performance was fantastic and even converted a few industry non-believers I spoke with; in addition to a “hit and run” set of the band’s most popular songs, they played “It’s So Easy” with Duff McKagan and “Mouth For War” with Vinnie Paul (video above).
• Alice Cooper played very early in the night but rocked nonetheless. (video after the jump)
• Vince Neil: not sober.
• Asking Alexandria frontman: definitely not sober yet. Lost his mic under the drum riser 10 seconds into “Youth Gone Wild” with Sebastian Bach (video after the jump).
• Sebastian Bach: still awesome.
• Sebatian Bach to Dave Grohl, upon running into him backstage: “Hey! Dave Grohl!” [hugs]
• Rammstein vocalist Till Lindemann was hilariously hitting on every woman in sight, including L.A. metal sorta-celeb Metal Sanaz.
• Other backstage celeb sightings: Dino Cazares (who Tweeted “where’s the baby?” at us), Dave Navarro (who still looks 20 years old), Rob Zombie, Alan Robert of Life of Agony (mega-cool dude), Taylor Momsen, Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Sasha Grey, Jenna Haze, Steven Adler, dude from Puddle of Mudd, William fucking Shatner, the ghost of Dime.
• Black Veil Brides winning “Best New Band.” Lulz!

Fun videos after the jump! More extensive coverage coming soon.

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I was mindlessly channel surfing, as you do at the end of a long day, when I saw a flash of blond hair that could only be Sebastian Bach. Naturally, I had to go back to see if it was true. Lo and behold, I was right. Now, I don’t know what’s sadder; that I recognized him in a split second or that he was on… GILMORE GIRLS. Yep, old Sebastian was part of some cool indie band on the show, and he was singing, uh, “Holla Back Girl.” My reaction was threefold; 1) Why did no one tell me this existed? 2) What the fuck is he doing?! 3) Man, how good was old Skid Row?

Though I do enjoy Slave to the Grind as the heavier follow-up, 1989’s Skid Row is, in my humble opinion, the best Skid Row release. For a first album, just look at all the amazing songs that came out of it.

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This video of Asking Alexandria vocalist Danny Worsnop totally fershnickered on-stage at a recent Seattle gig has been making the rounds these past few days, and I honestly don’t know quite what to say about it. I think this band is terrible, and there’s some schadenfreude to be had in watching this dude basically fuck-over a room packed full of paying fans; on the other hand, Worsnop apparently now recognizes he has a problem and is quitting drinkin’ n’ druggin’ (Asking Alexandria’s initials are “AA”… coincidence?!?), so I can’t give the guy too much shit, I guess.

Besides, the part of this video that really fascinates me — besides the fact that the fans don’t lynch Worsnop — is how mensch-y his bandmates are. They’re so calm and understand and fucking British! Bands break-up or almost break-up because of shit like this all the time, but these dudes are just so chill! If it were my band and the singer acted like this I’d probably beat him to death with my guitar. But I guess that’s why these dudes are rock stars and I’m just a blogger. Well, that and my refusal to get a ridiculous hair cut.

-AR