Monday, February 21st, 2011 at 10:00am by Corey Mitchell
Round Two of Heavy Metal Blunders brings us, who else? Vince Neil! Yes, the official MS Mansion punching monkey got shipped off to the can last week. At this point, I don’t really care. But I did get a chuckle out of his girlfriend, Alicia Jacobs, who was concerned for her bank account, err… boyfriend. Jacobs claimed Neil was “not eating much other than peanut butter, Doritos and stuff like that. He had a baloney sandwich one day. It’s not optimal conditions.” I wonder what Razzle thinks about dem apples?
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 10:30am by Axl Rosenberg
Yesterday A Perfect Circle announced their reunion, and we wondered who, besides Maynard James Keenan and Billy Howerdel, would be in the band; now we have our answer. Drummer Josh Freese, the band’s only constant besides Keenan and Howerdel, and guitarist James Iha, who joined the group for Thirteenth Step, are both returning to the fold, while bassist Matt McJunkins, who must have been teased mercilessly in grade school, will replace Jeordie White, who has since returned to being “Twiggy Ramirez” in Marilyn Manson.
McJunkinthetrunk, pictured above, was practically a shoe-in for the gig, since he’s played with both Keenan and Howerdel before, in Puscifer and Ashes Divide. Other than that, I don’t know squat about the dude. His Facebook page would suggest that he sometimes refers to himself as “Junk,” which somehow makes him a-okay in my book.
And that settles that. Matt McJunkins is now the Dave Kushner of A Perfect Circle.
Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 12:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
I’ve written before about my affinity for the music of Melissa Auf der Maur, and I know that some people were all,”Hey, this chick ain’t metal.” To which I say: au contraire. Even if her music isn’t always as heavy as a really heavy thing, she’s certainly got the metal in her blood n’ spirit. She fronted Hand of Doom, a (totally killer) Black Sabbath tribute band, and her latest solo album, Out of Our Minds, has a duet with Glenn Danzig, fer Chrissakes!
But in case you’re somehow still too metalier than thou to show Ms. Auf der Maur some love, maybe this will change your mind: She recently hit up the Heavy MTL festival in her hometown of Montreal, and filed a four-part video report from said festival. I’m skipping right to part three below, not because the first two parts aren’t great (Cute Canadian girls with funny accents! WHOO-HOO!), but because I find this interview with Mastodon’s Troy Sanders and Brann Dailor to be really, really entertaining.
Check out the other three video reports here. Melissa Auf der Maur’s latest, Out of our Minds, is out now. And after the jump, in an effort to get you all on board with the program, I’ve posted some more Auf der Maurian goodness…
Billy Corgan’s contribution to the Dimebag Darrell Art Tribute “Six-String Masterpieces”
Well, well, well. As it turns out, when Billy Corgan isn’t engaged in a royal rumble of douchiness, he actually has pretty good taste in metal.
At least, that’s what his list of the “10 greatest heavy metal albums of all time” he compiled for Musicradar.com would lead me to believe.
Sure, The Stooges’ Funhouse really isn’t a metal album at all (which isn’t to say it’s not great, it’s just to say, y’know, c’mon), and, yes, I imagine a lot of people will scream bloody murder when they see which Slayer album he chose. (Hint: Billy says that “I thought Slayer could never top Reign In Blood. I was wrong. Dead wrong.”) But what is the internet for, if not insulting one another’s taste and needlessly criticizing celebrities we don’t know.
Read Corgan’s entire list here, then come back and argue about it in our comments section.
In February I expressed cautious excitement for Out of Our Minds, the second solo album from former Hole/Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf der Maur. Now the album is actually out and I have it… and I haven’t had time to listen to it yet. Bummer.
But AOL is now streaming the record, so even if you don’t have an unopened copy resting within arm’s reach of where you’re sitting right now, you can check it out. In fact, check it out and let me know if I need to move it further up on my list of priorities. I did check out “Father’s Grave,” the duet with one Mr. Glenn Danzig, and it’s pretty cool…
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
I don’t really know what the critical consensus was on the self-titled debut solo album from ex-Hole/ex-Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, but I thought it was catchy as hell. It came out just a few months after Courtney Love’s America’s Sweetheart and certainly blew that album right the fuck out of the water, that’s for sure. If you’ve never heard it, all you really need to know to understand what kind of record it is is that Josh Homme co-wrote and appears on the album alongside James Iha, Jeorde White (a.k.a. “Twiggy Ramirez”), and some other nifty guest musicians. Either those names appeal to you, or they don’t.
ANYWAY, that was almost six years ago already, and I kinda thought maybe Ms. Auf der Maur was done with music or something. But not so! She’s just released a video for “Out of Our Minds,” the title track from her new solo album, which a press release tells me “extends into a 28-minute, HD film starring and conceived by MAdM, as well as a limited edition comic book and matching Picture Disc Vinyl illustrated by Jack Forbes from Brooklyn, NY.” Personally I’m not sure that I care about anything other than the music, but, hey, good for her for being ambitious.
So this isn’t really metal and I’m not as wild about it as I was, say, “Followed the Waves” or “Taste You”* from her last album, but it’s not bad at all:
Out of Our Minds comes out March 30. And it features a duet with Glenn Danzig!
-AR
*If you can find the French language version of “Taste You,” check it out instead of the English version. The song sounds a million times sexier en Francais.
Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 11:10am by Gary Suarez
Paleozoic UK-based periodical NME reported today that Courtney Love will release her long-delayed second solo record as a Hole album. Apparently, none of the band’s other members will actually perform on the record, save for a possible appearance on backing vocals by Hole’s last bassist Melissa auf der Maur. With a brazen move that would make Burton and Dino blush, the Gratest Bloggre On Earht has effectively delivered a huge fuck you to co-founder Eric Erlandson by co-opting the name in an attempt to save her perpetually disintegrating career.
Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 11:00am by Axl Rosenberg
Scars on Broadway didn’t work out. I’m still not entirely sure why. There seems to be some consesus that their album sucked, but I didn’t think so at all (and neither did my colleague Sammy O’Hagar, who reviewed the record). In any case, it’s a moot point, because at the end of the day, all any of us really want is for System of a Down to get back together already.
Scars on Broadway 
