Wed: “Hollywood” group night
Thurs: “Hollywood” solo auditions
Misery index: Barrrrrffff
Tyler-o-meter: 87%

Wednesday on American Idol was group night, in which remaining contestants break off into groups of at least three to perform with live accompaniment. In Idol lore, the group week is a fiery tribulation for the singers that requires a measure of dependance on teammates and – gulp — on mastery of rudimentary dance. It proved to be too much for nearly all contestants. They sucked ass! Period.

But if group night was an ordeal for the singers, then it was torture for judges, for viewership, and, if their monitors were on, for the backing band. You know that movie, The Running Man? It’s comparable to group night with one small but vital tweak: Imagine that if Arnold defeats his unfairly advantaged predators to pass a stage, then the gladiator-style game show of death’s sadistic hosts and spectators don’t merely get mad, but get subjected to a taser to the junk (or its emotional equivalent). That is exactly what group day was like: Horror for all.

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Wed: San Francisco, auditions day seven
Thurs: “Hollywood,” first round of eliminations
Misery index: four hankies
Tyler-o-meter: 60%

Wednesday’s American Idol broadcast didn’t constitute entertainment as much as hardcore, face-banging tragedy-porn. It was an orgy of misfortune, a cumshot compilation of adversity. After all, this seventh and final audition was the last chance for rubbernecking viewers to gawk at unhinged auditioners; on the flip side, show producers seemed desperate to lock in viewership for the coming weeks when Idol makes the ostensible transformation from blooper reel to talent competition. So out came the human-drama canons to douse us in sap. There wasn’t even time for a viewer to sigh wistfully after one tale of woe before another was blubbered out over drippy music. Shudder.

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Steven Tyler’s review of “Idol Remains” on MetalSucks

You folks have all been closely following MetalSucks’ own “Idol Remains” column by Anso DF, right? They’re awesome, because they’re just like watching American Idol, without having to suffer through actually watching American Idol.

Here’s what the critics are saying about the column:

“I am, quite simply, in lust with Anso DF’s prose.”
-Satan Rosenbloom

“The anxious unpleseantness of awaiting the next ‘Idol Remains’ is akin to forced urine retention.”
-Axl Rosenberg

“I am intimidated by Anso’s great dancing and super bod. I finish reading ‘Idol Remains’ in in a state of conspicuous arousal.
-Vince Neilstein

The next “Idol Remains” will go live tomorrow afternoon; in the meantime, you can read Anso’s columns thus far here.

Auditions week three
Cities: Austin (Wed), Los Angeles (Thurs)
Misery index: 10/10
Tyler-o-meter: 3/10

Let there be no doubt: This week’s fifth and sixth rounds of American Idol auditions were a trip into the fetid bowels of Hell. Not the Deicide-Danzig fun Hell — the bad Hell. The kind of Hell where L.A. loonies make Sly Stone and Lauryn Hill seem calmly sane. The kind of Hell where atonal country warblers make the “One Hot Mama” guy seem tasteful and talented. The kind of Hell that resembles a tranny-packed West Hollywood donut shop at the brink of total wingnut anarchy on a Friday night. The kind of Hell that no amount of pills can conquer. Friends, I am shaken, so deeply shaken and disturbed.

Before I plunge us into this Hades for fuckheads, let’s prelude our shared suffering with a recap of this week’s action surrounding our Steven Tyler and Aerosmith in which…

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Auditions week two
Cities: Milwaukee (Wed), Nashville (Thurs)
Misery index: 9/10
Tyler-o-meter: 7/10

Before Bradley Cooper played hunky douchelords in Wedding Crashers and The Hangover, he stole scenes as Ben, a drama queenly camp counselor in Wet Hot American Summer. In one of the hilarious movie’s hilariousest scenes, Ben warns would-be auditioners for Camp Firewood’s production of Godspell that, and I quote,

I’m only speaking from personal experience, but if you can’t carry a tune, don’t come into the audition environment and waste our time. For serious, okay?

…and let’s just agree that these words should be broadcast on a loop at face-scorching volume to all American Idol hopefuls/delusionals. It’s for their own good. They need to hear it.

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This week’s were my first ever episodes of American Idol, and man, that shit is hilarious in the most unfortunate way. Singing, man. It’s not rocket science. Step one, you visit a voice coach weekly for six months; two, you sing to bars and to your mirror for a few weeks; three, get in line for American Idol auditions. But for some reason, thousands of let’s face it fucktards think that singing is not a skill that you need learn, develop, or even acknowledge. “Hey, I have the ability to make sound with my voice. And therefore I’m going to sing on the TV!” You dunces. I mean, I have arms, eyes, a brain, and an ass — all the tools needed to pilot a chopper — except I’d crash it into a fucking mountain cuz I’ve never taken a Flying Helicopters Not Into Mountains lesson, duh x10000! And one after another, the losers’ refrain was “My friends say I’m a great singer!” Oh well fuck man, if Tina from Accounts Payable thinks you’ve got the stuff, then shut my mouth. Wait, let me pre-pre-order your album. Here’s a twenty.

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I’m not a masochist and therefore I have never endured more than a moment or two of American Idol schlock. My first experience with the show involved an army cowboy yodeling his way through “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thang” and yee-haw that shit was enough AI for a lifetime. But things have changed here in 2011 with the addition of Aerosmith lip-flapper Steven Tyler. He’s batshit. He’s a tweaker. He’s the most talented, versatile, lovable American rocker in history. I will be watching that shit!

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Man, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry is having a rough month. First, his arch-frenemy Steven Tyler finalized a spot on that TV show about pre-failures caterwauling hit songs while nervous. And this follows know-it-all beardo John Kalodner’s description of Perry as “completely wrong,” “jealous,” and “ultra-pissed off,” which supposes that Perry hoped that the AI judge seat was to be shared by the Toxic Talkshit Twins. Actually that would’ve been cute, every week Tyler perched gamely on Perry’s lap, stroking his abs while some featureless shriek-droid performs “Don’t Stop Believin’” to a theater of fame-wet spectators. Well, that’s what I dreamt last night anyway. Cough.

Anyhow, when Perry awoke and rolled off a pile of my money this morning, he was probably too crabby to just ignore the announcement that his band is the latest victim of an Atreyu Cover Version attack. It happened to Bon Jovi in 2004, when Atreyu launched an emo-guided missile of Twilight-level corniness at “You Give Love A Bad Name” (I complained all about it on The Deciblog). Then, an unapologetic lameness mine overturned both Faith No More’s “Epic” and “Clean Sheets” by The Descendents in 2008 and holy shit let’s not validate that type of ear-terrorism with discussion of any kind. (It never happened if everyone on Earth denies it. You fuckin’ deny that shit.)

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Which is a smart move on Fox’s part, because now people who have never watched American Idol in the past — like me! — will tune it at least once, just to sate our curiosity.

Stranger might be that J. Lo is also a new judge on the show. Various celebrity gossip sites claim that Lopez is a massive bitch, which doesn’t shock me at all, and it’s readily apparent that Tyler is no cupcake; hopefully this pairing results in some back-stage cat fights. My money would totally be on Lopez.

Here’s a Tyler quote from the LA Times:

“Tyler said he wanted to be a ‘part of something bigger than himself. I wanna bring some rock to this roller coaster.’”

So I guess Aerosmith isn’t “bigger than himself.”

Does this mean the end of the Boston quintet? Will they just hire a new singer, Velvet Revolver-style? Or will everyone make nice once they realize this is probably good for record, concert ticket, and merch sales? Stay tuned…

-AR

So I can’t keep track of what the fuck is going on with Aerosmith these days, mostly because I barely care on account of the band’s “let’s never release anything musically relevant ever again” policy; I know Steven Tyler and Joe Perry hate each other, though, and even though Tyler is still in Aerosmith (at least for now), I guess he’s doing some solo stuff anyway.

Like this song called “Love Lives,” which Ain’t It Cool News has helpfully pointed out is in the trailer for this new Japanese space opera, Space Battleship Yamato. As a matter of fact, Tyler apparently wrote the song specifically for movie. I don’t know why he would want his lead solo track going in a Japanese film which will most likely be watched in other countries only by nerds of the highest order; I assume the thinking was, “Well, one of my biggest hits was in Armageddon, so I should try to re-create that success with a power ballad in another sci-fi action flick,” and then everyone in Hollywood was like,”That’s fine, but only if it’s with Aerosmith,” and then Tyler was like, “Fuck that,” then the Japanese were all, “We’ll take it!” ‘Cause Japan is where dudes like Sebastian Bach are still popular.

No word on when/if this flick will get a release date outside of Japan, but presumably Tyler’s song will end up on the internet sooner or later.

-AR

So in case you haven’t been following the madness, late last year it looked like Steven Tyler was leaving Aerosmith, and then he came back and things were s’posed to be all hunky-dory in the Aerocamp, and the band has even been touring again. And then suddenly it was announced that Tyler is gonna be one of the new judges on American Idol, and, that news seemed to divide the Aerofamily yet again.

Then, earlier this week, things took another interesting turn when Joe Perry ass-bumped Steven Tyler right the fuck off the stage during a show. We got a lot of e-mails about it, but didn’t write anything because it appeared to be a perfectly harmless accident with absolutely no deeper meaning:

But Napoleon once said “There is no such thing as an accident,” and I think Freud probably would have agreed with him. And so the above incident might reasonably be considered the physical answer to a Freudian slip.

And now Tyler has slipped Perry right back, bopping him on the head with mic stand — again, “by accident” — at a recent gig (go to the :32 second mark):

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Oh, baby! There has been escalation in the volatile Aerosmith situation. Until this weekend, it was a case of a lead singer gone coconuts after too many spills and pills vs. his semi-hetero life partner/drug buddy and the other three guys. Since Steven Tyler seems kinda, um, relapsed and not into Aerosmith, the upper hand goes to Joe Perry, whose public support comes in return for promises of more touring and a real Aerosmith record.

Arms were twisted, so Aerosmith is on tour; then the fragile, contemptuous truce was rocked by Tyler’s recent threats to join American Idol‘s panel of insightless windbags. Perry, noticeably aggrieved, returned to the press to gripe and, frankly, his case is stronger than ever. It was four on one, yet the four were hostages. But that was until Monday when blam!!! The balance has shifted. It’s a power struggle!

Drummer Joey Kramer told Billboard.com: ”We’ve been talking about it the last couple of days, and it’s made me come to realize what a positive impact it could have for [Aerosmith]. The possibilities are kind of infinite with something like that happening, us being exposed to a whole new generation of people. So we’ll see what happens. It should be interesting.”

I bet Perry was like, “The drummer went over to Steven’s side? That fuckin’ shank!” All the same, Kramer’s statement is meaningful; Tyler’s cross-generational marketing prowess — not Aerosmith music — is responsible for the band’s prolonged success. So I can see how Joey K. would trust him now, though Tyler is currently way batshit insaner than he was circa Get A Grip. Oh, and only a drummer could fail to notice that American Idol is not exactly the portal to the young wallet like hip-hop, MTV, and big soundtracks once were. I’m sure Tyler even knows that, which means Idol was his third or fourth choice after The Hills and Jersey Shore. Think about that shit.

-ADF

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Inspired this week by the rumor that Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler may be a new judge on American Idol, we decided to ask our writers:

IF YOU HAD TO PICK ONE METAL MUSICIAN TO BE A JUDGE ON AMERICAN IDOL, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Ugh, I absorb a lot of insults from my elitist friends for loving Aerosmith. But the scary thing to consider is how often strangers casually slam Aerosmith. Anti-Aerosmith vibe is everywhere! Like, my Pump tee might as well read Who Farted? judging from the eye-rolls I got at the library yesterday. At the bar the day before, I rocked “Deuces Are Wild” on the jukebox and when I returned to punch in “Rag Doll,” it was requested that I not wreck a perfectly nice Sunday afternoon with, ahem, “faggot music”. (I face-blasted that guy with Boston’s “Foreplay/Long Time.”)

But please, good people, you don’t need to put me down for lovvvvvvvving Aerosmith with my entire being across space and time; I already feel pretty bad about it. Everybody everywhere holds you responsible for how they’ve overstayed their welcome by, um, two decades! They say the band is so corny and hideously dressed. And their songs are not theirs. And by the way what in the motherfuck is an aerosmith?

I know all that! And don’t bother pointing out that Aerosmith may reach a new apex in annoying if Steven Tyler is indeed to be a regular on American Idol. You non-fans think you’re annoyed by this new way Tyler has discovered to tunnel into your life, but the major beef belongs to fans like me, who squirm whenever Tyler devotes energy to non-Aerosmith activities. His resources are finite in an very real and very immediate way. This is a fact: Our days are numbered. So please, Steven Tyler, just make one last great fucking Aerosmith record, then go on and sack-tickle Randy Jackson under the table all you want. Eye on the ball, please, Steven Tyler.

-ADF

Thursday’s big announcement of Aerosmith’s reconciliation (and tour!) kinda ensured that I’d spend all afternoon hiding a conspicuous boner. Even so, it was nice to exhale after months spent watching helplessly as Steven Tyler threatened to diva his way out of earth’s last rock ‘n roll band and into the world of tragically misguided solo careers. But perhaps Tyler’s new representation successfully conveyed to him the probable result of such a move: Either he could bank on big tours as Aerosmith frontman with, say, Motley Crue, or risk co-headlining casinos with Vince Neil. Scary! Tyler’s personal “brand” goes unmentioned in the band’s, uh, statement, so the Tyler/Neil Sadness + Shame Tour might happen someday for all we know. For now, Tyler and the ancient men of Aerosmith are now girding up their loins for a few more awesome gigs. And I say, Hell yes. Hell yes, I say.

My slavish hanging on the balls of Aerosmith is embarrassing, but I can’t help it that my ears are gay.  Also, I follow an example set by James Malone of Arsis, whose love of silly bands is expressed without hesitation. It’s shameful to forever drag the poor guy down with me whenever I feel insecure about my, uh, proclivities, and shit, actually, the whole point of mentioning Aerosmith was to hurry along* my drooling praise of the new fucking Arsis record, Starve For The Devil, which is a pure white beam of awesomeness. So it’s all connected, friends. Plus, Malone and Tyler each have some totally understandable rehab time in their recent past. Actually, if some jerk writer wanted to recklessly jump to pat conclusions, he’d assert that S4tD seems to reflect a victory in Malone’s personal battles; it’s still Arsis, but bigger, better, and way more fun! To get the idea, imagine 2008′s We Are The Nightmare but expand it sonically and rhythmically tenfold in every direction. Then imagine snappy lyrics, riffs that aren’t so needlessly busy, and grooves that jam. Then imagine your last $15 angrily demanding to be spent on a crisp new copy of Starve For The Devil.

- ADF

*That is, I wanted to be brief about Arsis to allow for about three hours of Aerosmith karaoke tonight.

In case there’s any doubt that he’s a frickin’ loon, let’s review how Steven Tyler has spent the past week, shall we?

1. He left rehab and went straight to a bar.
2. He randomly grabbed a microphone at a Home Depot in Rancho Mirage, CA and sang pieces of “Dude Looks Like a Lady” and “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” over the store’s PA system.

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Next up on the heavy metal, hard rock, and punk rock book treadmill is Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer’s 2009 autobiography Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top.

The little-known drummer of one of the most successful bands in music history brings to the table a story rife with the things that make rock star books appealing to so many readers: sex, drugs, backstage hoo-ha, band squabbles, a troubled youth, and more. Only, it all seems to fall flat when it comes to rock star debauchery, as well as its other seemingly intended goal of providing a cautionary tale of drugs and schadenfreude.

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This shittiest papparazi photo ever was taken this past Tuesday night at The Tilted Kilt in Palm Desert by Mike “DJ Kermie” May.

It’s been thirty days since we heard that Steven Tyler was checking into rehab, which means that he may have wrapped up his twenty-eight days earlier this week. Then again, I seem to recall James Hetfield being in rehab for the amount of time some bands spend on multiple album cycles, so I guess that twenty-eight days thing isn’t written in stone.

Either way, I don’t take it as a good sign of Steven Tyler’s health that he was spotted in a bar – excuse me, a “pub” – on Tuesday evening.

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In all the eulogies of this new millenium’s first decade — from USA Today to the hot-ass moms at my dentist’s office — nowhere will you hear of Aerosmith’s vital contributions to 21st century music. Um cuz there were none. Their lone album in the 2000s, Just Push Play, is about half-great, when not tainted by a littered, ADD-production mentality and songs whose bland anonymity could’ve just as soon landed them on a record by an American Idol alum. Surrounding JPP were schmaltzy soundtrack songs (“Girls of Summer” FTL!), a loudly inessential covers album (come on!), abortive tours, live album, a contemptuously unexplained stint in rehab, greatest hits albums, court-mandated concerts, book tours, and most recently, a lot of coded threats from the band to its singer.

Basically, it’s as though Aerosmith embarked on a ten-year campaign to reduce their fan base to all but the media-deaf and internet-free. Shit, I consider albums like Pump and Rocks part of my DNA and yet I wouldn’t buy a fucking apple from those ignorant sluts in the year 2010. There’s nothing post-millenial Aerosmith wouldn’t do for my money and attention. Worse, as it became impossible to ignore singer Steven Tyler’s backslide into drug abuse and Spinal Tap antics (management jumps, the full-time toadying of Mark Hudson, the oft-delayed ‘autobiography’), the back-to-basics Aerosmith rock album (and its producer, Brendan O’Brien) faded further into the ether, replaced by the promise of solo albums and basically ten more years of epic horseshit. The only reason to hold out for Aerosmith — they have bounced back before and from worse — seemed gone forever.

So it’s nothing short of a Festivus miracle that the real Aerosmith is preparing to once again step forward. L.A. Times reports:

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No offense, but does anyone else find it hard to trust metal websites whose titles don’t include the actual word “metal?” Take AOL’s Noisecreep. To me “noise” is what fills Merzbow’s fifteen yearly albums; “creep” is a moanthem by poutypants Radiohead. But only petty jerks care about names (cough). Plus, Noisecreep scribe Carlos Ramirez is both awesome and author to the year’s most wondrous metal journalism surprise: a candid Q&A with Ratt producer Beau Hill. It appeared in November, oddly apropos of nothing, and without any substantive mention of an upcoming project. (Sure, Ratt’s eighth record is slated for a 2010 release, but Hill’s not working on it. The Chevelle guy is. Great.)

Anyway, the too brief interview kinda outs Ramirez as a fellow producer fanboy, an unsexy pursuit for sure. Still, I can conclude that’d he’d have my back should I challenge Aerosmith to a fucking battery fight in West L.A this weekend. What’s my beef with them? Thanks for asking, champ! See, I love Aerosmith like ,seriously and so I can overlook watered-down pop records and obnoxious over-marketing. Fucktarded promo videos with sexy chicks don’t bother me either. And, honestly, Tyler’s much-discussed antagonism of his band mates and almost certain return to substance abuse only make me love him more. To party with him these days would actually be fun; those other grandpas would only prattle on about their memoirs or music made by their kids. Gag. Meanwhile, Tyler would be like Alfred Molina in Boogie Nights.

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