Maynard James Keenan’s Puscifer project has debuted its video for “Man Overboard” over at Rolling Drone, and I’m feeling pretty conflicted about it.

‘Cause on the one hand, it’s not every day we see a CG animated steam punk video, and I applaud Maynard for continuing to at least make an attempt to venture into untested waters. Plus, as Metal Insider points out, there’s a Spinal Tap reference at the fifty-three second mark, and I’m all about Spinal Tap.

On the other hand, said CG animation is roughly on par with that incredibly poopy Iron Maiden video for “Wildest Dreams.”

So I guess you should, like, watch the video and make up your own mind. But only after you’ve already watched that way-cooler Ghost Brigade video, ’cause, like I said, it’s way cooler.

VIDEO REMOVED UNTIL WE FIGURE OUT HOW TO STOP ROLLING DRONE’S STUPID FUCKING AUTO PLAY.

Puscifer’s latest, Conditions of My Parole, comes out October 18 on Puscifer Entertainment.

-AR

Whether you’re a tri-corner hat wearing Teabagger who thinks taxes are the work of the devil, a bleeding heart tree-hugging Lefty who believes The Man will take care of everything, or a corporate cocksucking conservative who believes GE deserves a $3.2 billion tax refund despite raking in more than $14 million in profit, today is inevitable.

Death (metal) and taxes.

Yes, normally in America, we must file our taxes by April 15. That was last Friday. Fortunately, for many of you slackers out there, Friday was also a Washington holiday to celebrate Emancipation Day; the day President Abraham Lincoln freed nearly 3,100 slaves in Washington D.C. in 1862, nine months before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Normally, this momentous occasion is observed on April 16 in D.C.; however, since that date fell on a Saturday this year, taxes get pushed back until today.

So, if you are reeling from your continuing procrastination, maybe you can find a few songs here to get you through the tedium (AKA the final hours before tonight’s filing deadline). Or, maybe you are already done with your paperwork and want to stroll down the aisle of taxing tunes and moneyed music.

Some of it is from metalheads, but most comes from the world of rock.

Figures, that’s where the real money is (was) made.

The Beatles – “Taxman” (Cartoon)

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There are a lot of metal and metal-related movies out there. There are classics like This is Spinal Tap, which I’ve introduced to countless people, all of whom eventually admitted to loving it. And of course, every metalhead worth his or her Woolite Dark knows the answer to the question “Who’d win in a wrestling match, Lemmy or God?” Detroit Rock City is one of my favorite movies, which is a little odd, because I don’t particularly like KISS, although I do enjoy fire and explosions. And no account of metal movies would be complete without the celluoid genocide that was Rockstar. No matter how god-awful that movie was (though it’s still one of my top “bad” movies to watch), every single person in the civilized world knows the words to “Stand Up and Shout” — and I don’t mean the Dio song. They play it at my alma mater’s hockey games.

And on top of those films, there are the documentary explorations of the genre, which gave us such memorable moments like Chris Holmes from W.A.S.P. chugging vodka in a pool while is mom watches miserably in Decline of Western Civilization Part II.

I am here to add another illustrious title to this collection of cinemetal classics. I will show you exactly how Cool As Ice is a metal movie, and not a rap one, as everyone assumes. And I have various degrees in film, so you know my word is truth.

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Drummer Mike Justian is out of The Red Chord… again. I guess in all fairness, it was never really clear if this founding member was re-joining the band on a permanent basis, or if he was just filling-in after Brad Fickeisen split with the group last year. Then again, Justian’s been back in TRC for over a year, which seems like a long-ass time to just be filling-in. And even as a massive fan of the band, it’s certainly funnier to think of Red Chord skinsmen in Spinal Tap terms, spontaneously combusting at random intervals.

But fuck do I know? A statement from the band certainly makes the split sound amicable:

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So Metal Insider tells me that “On March 3, guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and Berkleemusic (Berklee College Of Music’s Online Continuing Education Division) will attempt to set the Guinness World Record for the largest online guitar lesson.” I have no idea why Steve Vai would want to do this, other than to remind people who don’t read Guitar Geek Monthly that he’s still around, and he’s not the dude in Chickenfoot.

ANYWAY, as you can probably tell, I don’t really care about that, but I do care about anything Spinal Tap-related. So: Tap’s axemaster, Nigel Tufnel (really actor/filmmaker/hermaphrodite lover Christopher Guest, who doesn’t look a day over dead), has done this commercial on behalf of Vai’s endeavor. It’s actually not THAT funny, but it does exist, so, uh, yeah. Enjoy. Or don’t. I really have no emotional investment in your reaction either way. Anyone got a sandwich?

-AR

I’m back from my holiday trip to smokey Amsterdam and gay Paris and Axl has dug himself out from the heaps of snow to befall the Mansion and the entire Northeastern U.S. while I was away (suckerz!). While we were taking a break and contemplating our Best of 2010 year-end lists, Sergeant D submitted a bunch of drafts sure to get your blood pumpin’, we received 250+ press releases about new metal in the coming year (fuckin A, people, take a rest!) and we brainstormed new ways to get you to accuse us of knowing nothing about metal… yup, 2011 is gonna be a good year.

Except for this bit of news: Rose Funoral are recording a new album in January. We’d thought these Uno-hating deathcore wankers had kicked the bucket but it turns out that announcement was the result of a MySpace page hack, possibly by a fellow Uno-lover. This is most unfortunate for our ears but likely quite good for you, as we’re now guaranteed of at least one more band to make fun of in 2011. Hooray for bad music!

In the meantime, enjoy this 2011-appropriate Spinal Tap clip posted on Metal Injection. Are Rose Funoral the Spinal Tap of deathcore??

I’d like to think that our internet-savvy readers are already familiar with The Internet Movie Database, more commonly referred to as IMDB. On the off-chance you’re somehow not, though — it’s just a site where you can enter the title of any movie or television show ever, and it will give you pretty much all the information available on the movie, from the entire cast and crew (right to the third key grip) to box office history to trivia and quotes to the movie’s quality rating, as determined by the readers of IMDB. And, generally speaking, this rating is based on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest. For example, note the rating for the 1996 classic, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America:

So that rating is obviously total bullshit, but you get the idea.

Well — and I think by now you see where this is going, but still — guess what the rating is for This is Spinal Tap?

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Pull my finger and I’ll take you on a journey to musical parody of the highest order……if you or your gay boyfriend have never sat down and watched the movie This is Spinal Tap straight through you are surely missing out, but bear in mind one of the key components in truly grasping the brilliance of this film is to be emotionally connected to this thing we call rock n’ roll. Sure, I suppose plenty of fuddy-duddies out there will cavort a chuckle or two regardless, but anyone who does or ever has has taken rock music seriously with a capital Ssssssss will find this shit unbearably uproarious…

After the jump, a collection of Tap classics and the trailer for the “documentary” itself…

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And thar she is in all her full-bodied glory!

The cover was done by Les Toil, whose trademark “big girl” style kinda reminds me of Coop. Comments Toil on the cover, “Passive and subtle were never qualities that attracted me to rock & roll. Apparently the same can be said for my appreciation of the opposite sex. I want a fat bottomed girl. A whole lotta Rosie. A big-legged woman who does (or doesn’t) have soul. In other words, I want a whole lotta love!”

As previously reported, Whole Lotta Love: An All-Star Tribute to Fat Chicks is an homage to the fine bigger-bottomed ladies of rock n’ roll, and will feature covers of like-minded tunes such as Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls,” AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie,” Spinal Tap’s “Big Bottom,” Poison’s “Unskinny Bop” and more, played by an all-star cast of musicians.

Can we get an “amen” for the lovers of full-bodied chicks in the e-room? Amen! As many commenters pointed out the last time I ran a story about this compilation, there’s definitely a difference between “fat” and “full-bodied.” It’s unfortunate that this comp’s creators have chosen to use the former when they really mean the latter, but I guess the word “fat” catches your attention. Whole Lotta Love will come out August 31st, and is sure to spark the ire of skinny girl-lovers worldwide!

-VN

A compilation that combines my love of metal with my love of bodacious, curvy babes? Count me in! A press release that just landed in the MS inbox proclaims:

Whole Lotta Love will feature all-new recordings of popular songs praising the fuller female figure, originally made famous by some of the biggest names in rock and pop music. These anthems to abundance will be performed by renowned rock & rollers from yesterday and today, along with a select few rising stars. In direct opposition to the “no fat chicks” mantra espoused by some, Whole Lotta Love will be a star-studded celebration of large and lovely ladies.

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Like a lot of people, I first became familiar with Brian Posehn because of his time on David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s brilliant HBO sketch comedy series, Mr. Show, for which he was also a writer. A few years after that show went off the air, my then-roommate and I went to see Posehn do some stand-up at a comedy club here in New York. I don’t think we were even there to see Posehn specifically – if memory serves, David Cross was the actual draw for us – but he was so funny that I actually laughed so hard I became winded and fell out of my chair. Since then, he’s been on a very, very short list of stand-ups that I never miss the chance to check out when they come through town. Mr. Show sketches about a fictional band called “Titannica” led me to believe that someone on the series’ writing staff was a metal fan, but I didn’t know that it was Posehn until later – and the revelation that he was just as obsessed with metal as I was only made him that much cooler.

Fart and Wiener Jokes, Posehn’s second album for Relapse, comes out today (and you can order a copy here). Like its predecessor, Live: In Nerd Rage, it features not only recordings of his brilliant stand-up, but also an original song he co-wrote with Anthrax’s Scott Ian (“More Metal Than You”) to poke fun at some of metal’s more regrettable foibles. It also has a metal cover of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler,” and between the two music tracks, Posehn has managed to rope in guest appearances by such all-stars as Jamey Jasta, Mark Morton, Mark Oseguenda, John Tempesta, and Russ Parrish. Assuming you love great comedy and great metal, there’s no way you’re not gonna dig Fart and Wiener Jokes.

A few weeks ago I got to talk to Posehn about putting comedy albums out on a metal label, what it’s like to be friends with some of his boyhood heroes, the state of metal today, his take on the Anthrax vocalist situation, and more. He even turned the tables at the end and asked me a question! Read the complete transcript of our chat after the jump.

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The same band that brought you the blackest album of all time has once against revolutionized the art of packaging recorded music by releasing the deluxe edition of their new album, Back From The Dead in a fold-out cardboard digipak — featuring 12-inch tall cut-outs of the band members — that takes 20 minutes to assemble.

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No, silly — I’m not talking about a seminal musician or some legendary band (although in a way, I am); me’s mentioning the almighty Spinal Tap as a reference to how humor so accurately fits into this world of music criticism within which we play. It’s often hard for the most serious artists among us to remember that it can all be pretty fucking laughable, and so here’s a couple reminderz for ya (after the, y’know, jump):

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