A reader named Thomas sent us an e-mail last night asserting that Puddle of Mudd’s 2001 hit, “She Hates Me,” is a rip-off of Suicidal Tendencies’ “I Saw Your Mommy” — and while we obviously can’t prove that PoM deliberately stole from ST, the songs certainly do sound awfully alike. Of course, the Tendencies tune gets fast at points, where Mudd’s never does, and Mudd’s song has a somewhat different intro, but… the chord progressions during the verses are basically identical. Listen to both songs for yourself and see what you think…

-AR

Happy birthday, Reign in Blood! We love you. You don’t sound a day over one.

Here’s some other things that happened this week which are worth celebrating:

• We started the countdown to The Metal Suckfest.
• We debuted new music by Immolation and a new video by Early Graves.
• Devin Townsend and Textures’ Jochem Jacobs and Bart Hennephof took us through their live rigs.
• GWAR’s David Brockie discussed the NFL, Daath’s Eyal Levi discussed getting the fuck out, and God Forbid’s Doc Coyle discussed how the times, they are a changin’.
• We spoke to Mike Muir from Suicidal Tendencies, Mother of Mercy’s Bob Wilson, and directors Sean Dunne and Kenneth Thomas.
• We checked out new releases by Ghoul and Taake and Craft.
• Sergeant D. became the most popular feminist in metal.
• Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli Sykes had a bad week.
• We mourned the death of the album intro track.
• We wondered if Mastodon’s live vocals are getting better.

Now go crank some Slayer.

See ya Monday.

-AR

In all the discussion of thrash metal’s first big bands, too little airtime is given to the great Suicidal Tendencies. Launched by a teenaged Mike Muir in Los Angeles, Suicidal took root in punk and hardcore, landed an early MTV hit in the manic, careening “Institutionalized,” and attracted the ire of authorities via rumored gang ties and concert violence. And that was before ST solidified a line-up, one anchored by Muir’s bandmate in No Mercy, riff-god guitarist Mike Clark. The two Mikes rebooted Suicidal with the defiantly thrashy How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today, a major label-powered crossover hit which drew an even bigger target on the band for censorship crusaders and unwittingly helped to fertilize the coming crop of nu-metal self-pity peddlers.

But in the hands of Muir, personal woes weren’t excuses but motivation, and confrontation more often than wallowing; see 1989′s mini-album Controlled By Hatred/Feel Like Shit … Deja Vu, on which Muir continues to document disassociation for a society slow to acknowledge mental health realties. Suicidal’s peak came in 1990 with Lights … Camera … Revolution, an album-length indictment of society’s complicity in its own demise, all cowed by power-mongers, con men, and the self-righteous. This was a different era for metal; no commercial band had yet approached the blunt rage, contrarianism, and pervasive guitar solos of Suicidal Tendencies.

On the phone to MetalSucks last week from California, a typically expansive Muir downplayed his regard for the history of Suicidal, but even he looks back to past days on The Mad Mad Muir Musical Tour (Part 1), his forthcoming collection of new and vault tracks by re-punk era ST, his solo Cyco Miko project, and Infectious Grooves, the funk-metal clan Muir formed with ST bassist Robert Trujillo (now of Metallica). So I had all the license needed to drag Muir down memory lane to tour the land of Suicidal. Join us!

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The official website for the upcoming Metallica/Lou Reed collaboration has launched, although right now there is absolutely nothing of interest there save for this picture of the old bass player for Suicidal Tendencies and four terminal cancer patients.

Still, I thought you might wanna know that the project is moving forward; presumably the next step is either to release some actual music, or a photo of Trujillo with a bunch of burn victims.

-AR

The release date of T.R.A.M.’s debut album Lingua Franca via Sumerian Records has been delayed, but that hasn’t stopped the label from releasing 4 minutes of an unmastered version of the track “Endeavor,” picked up by our fellow T.R.A.M. enthusiasts at Metal Injection. The band, of course, features Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes of Animals as Leaders, Adrian Terrazas formerly of The Mars Volta and Eric Moore of Suicidal Tendencies. We’ve been excited about this band ever since we saw them at SXSW, and while the Metal Injection-filmed live footage of that show was super-stellar it’s great to finally hear a studio version of something.

And it sounds exactly like I hoped it would. You can tell there’s a basic structure to the song — Section A, Section B, Section A, etc — but that within each section there’s no set script, and a pre-determined band member is free to improvise within the given framework. T.R.A.M. isn’t really so much a metal band as they are a jazz band with distorted guitars and shredding, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong that; the metal world needs to be turned upside down and shaken once in a while, and #2 Tosin Abasi on our list of the Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists is the perfect guy to do it.

-VN

Whenever it strikes me as humorous that Mike Muir, the frontman of Suicidal Tendencies, suffers from a bad back like some oldie, I hear the hurt, defensive words of John Candy in Planes, Trains, And Automobiles: “Do you have a bad back? Well I do. And it hurts like a bugger.” Sounds painful, actually; the back is connected to like all parts of your body. If I realize that, it ceases to be funny that the guy who represents ST’s pre-Korn non-silly fuck-you power probably groans “Ahh tsssssssssssss ugh my shit hoitz!” every morning. And it’s totally unfunny that his condition has affected ST tours, but Muir and some random ST dudes just wrapped a tour of Australia, during which he no doubt tested his back on stage and I presume in tight tourbus bunks.

So at this point, Muir, his band, and his fans do not need some silly slag to mount him like there were a Danish taped to his neck Saturday in Sydney (above, at :25). I guess the Australian high-five is a headlock. Srsly, I take out my contacts and the clip looks like a cover version of the parking lot fight scene in The Big Lebowski.

-ADF

Today in metal is like Japan day, with announcements of a international X Japan tour, a mind-boggling charity bid on an X Japan piano, and a forthcoming new Gallhammer album; we’ve even blabbed about excellent J-metallists Maximum The Hormone and Desecravity. Shit, even Taiho got a nod on Tuesday. So by now your J-pumps are J-primed for the greatest post-311 rap-metal band ever, Osaka’s magical Missle Girl Scoot. This defunct two-singered nu-metal quintet will forever remain one of my favorite bands, and that’s wild considering that I, like all reasonable people, deride their entire genre; but winners win, and their jamz are so catchy, slamming, melodic, good-spirited, awesome, rad, and killer. I cherish my MGS library. I headbang to them in the shower and know all their guitar parts. I air-drum to these jamz in my sleep. Srsly.

MGS is a weird crew, fronted by an intense butch rapper chick and a delightfully unvarnished clean singer, and led musically by an ace songwriter behind the drum kit. Plus, MGS is 100% Sergeant D.-ready via their unending fits of wiggerish hand movements. I saw MGS at SXSW back in freaking 1999, then in Tokyo in 2001 on my freaking birthday, and each time, the venue was transformed into Boner City and I was mayor. They later popped up stateside on a nearly-unnoticed Suicidal Tendencies and friends compilation, but with a few sessions with a speech coach, MGS’s hook and mosh jamz might’ve outsold every loud rock act ever. Ever! Crank it!

–ADF

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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In my post-festival coverage of SXSW I raved about the live debut of T.R.A.M. — the new group featuring Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes of Animals as Leaders, Adrian Terrazas ex-The Mars Volta and Eric Moore of the Suicidal Tendencies — and I even included some lo-fi but passable cell-phone footage of a couple of songs that I found on the Interhole. Leave it up the Metal Injection dudes to out-do my Interhole trawling with legit, three-camera footage and excellent audio of a song called… well, uh, I honestly have no idea what this song is called. And leave it up to Rob to out-do my description of the way the band’s music made me feel with this simple gem: “it massaged my ear-pussy.”

Now you, too, can get your ear-pussy massaged and eagerly anticipate the full-length album due in May on Sumerian along with us. Metal? Barely (especially this tune). Awesome? Absolutely. Watch:

Check out a highly entertaining Metal Injection interview with Abasi, Terrazas and guest interviewer-cum-drummer Eric Moore after the jump.
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Yep, you read that right — Sumerian has signed T.R.A.M., a new supergroup consisting of Animals as Leaders guitarists Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes, Suicidal Tendencies drummer Eric Moore, and Adrian Terrazas (who used to go by “Adrian Terrazas-González” but whatever), who played flute/sax/bass clarinet/percussions on three albums by The Mars Volta (Frances the Mute, Amputechture, and The Bedlam in Goliath). The band’s moniker, in case you haven’t put it together, is an amalgamation of the last initial of each musicians’ name (For the cheap seats: Terrazas, Reyes, Abasi, Moore).

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INTRO BUST

Everybody knows that Hatebreed is by far the most popular hardcore band in the history of the planet, but not everybody knows that they are beyond a doubt the best hardcore band of all time. I can feel the butthurt starting already, but lettuce be srs, brahs: no other hardcore band has consistently dropped album after album of brutal mosh jams. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a step through history and prove it! In more-or-less chronological order, I will go through the bands who some might say hold the title of “best hardcore band of all times” and illustrate why Hatebreed is #1.

Go!

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

Presumably inspired by this week’s announcement of a Big 4 show in the U.S., this week’s question was posed by MetalSucks contributor/author of the Reign in Blood entry into the 33 1/3 book series, D.X. Ferris. Mr. Ferris was even good enough to join us for this edition of QOTW! And his query was:

IF THE BIG FOUR WERE THE BIG EIGHT, WHICH BANDS WOULD BE THE NEXT FOUR IN THE GROUP?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Steven Blush’s American Hardcore: A Tribal History is one of the great rock n’ roll history books. And now it’s bigger. Originally published in 2001, the Feral House book nails the golden age of old-school hardcore, from the movement’s inception to the watershed year 1986. The book inspired a documentary, the 2006 film American Hardcore. The movie is a must-see that has inspired as much griping and controversy as the book.

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Anyone who was unfortunate enough to have well-meaning-yet-clueless relatives knows the feeling of disappointment. After weeks of anticipation, staring at the shiny boxes under the Christmas tree and wondering what’s inside, you eagerly tear open your presents. What lies inside? GI Joes? Transformers?? A BB gun? A new Nintendo?!? Mind racing and adrenaline pumping, you open the first box and are brutally assaulted by reality: your hippie uncle got you some handmade, wooden train from his recent trip to Chile. And it only gets worse — grandma gave you a subscription to Highlights, and mom got you enough socks and underwear to last you through high school. Dejected, you retreat to your bedroom and pout while thinking about all the awesome presents the other kids must have gotten.

This is the same feeling I got all too often as a young metal fan in the late 80s/early 90s. Back then, without the internet, finding new bands was a real crapshoot — you really never knew what you were in for when you bought a new record unless you manged to catch them on Headbanger’s Ball. You did the best you could with what you had, but it wasn’t much to go on. Time and time again I was tricked by a cool logo, sweet cover art, or a name that sounded brutal — what I thought was going to be ass-ripping thrash or hardcore turned out to be dreadful hard rock, third-rate speed metal, or limp-wristed art rock. I tried so hard to be positive and enjoy the album that I had squandered my $8 on, but I just couldn’t do it.

In no particular order, here are a few of the dozens upon dozens of bands who I tried to like, but simply could not. What are yours??

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Start shopping for a new bandanna (or hit the easy button and buy this), because Suicidal Tendencies kick off a proper five-week U.S. tour this week! Last month, the latest version of the band released No Mercy Fool!/The Suicidal Family, a collection of re-recorded cuts from Join The Army and the No Mercy project–and that’s as good a reason as any to play some fucking shows. Opening acts vary depending on the city, but include Cro-Mags, Death Before Dishonor, D.R.I., (Hed) P.E., High on Fire, Kylesa, and Underdog.

Immediately following the tour, Muir returns to California to play an exclusive Infectious Grooves live gig at the House Of Blues in Hollywood–the side-project’s first U.S. show in over a fucking decade. If all of this doesn’t make up for Muir’s 2008 collaboration with P.O.D. (*shudder*), I don’t know what is. All dates are below.

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To celebrate the release of Madball’s latest aggro masterpiece, Empire, we asked vocalist Freddy “Madball” Cricien to compile a list of his favorite non-hardcore (but still heavy!) bands. Luckily for us and all of you, he agreed! So we’ll be running two entries a day from Freddy’s list every day for the next five days, leading up to Empire‘s October 12 release. You can read Freddy’s initial installment here; to follow, enjoy day two of the countdown…

8) SUICIDAL TENDENCIES

This is a band that could be categorized as H.C., or, rather, H.C. punk. But over the years, they developed into their own thing. It’s hard to really categorize these guys, so I’m going to go ahead and put them on the list. They are legendary representatives of “heavy music.” I think they deserve to be here. Not to mention, they are one of my favorites. And believe it or not, Lights… Camera… Revolution! is the stand out record for me. People would probably assume I’d pick something older, because of my background, etc. But that record was the onefor me! All their stuff is solid. We’ve toured with them twice now. They are stand up guys and a great band… respect.

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Suicidal Tendencies’ 1983 self-titled debut album is universally regarded as an absolute classic. And rightly so — it’s without question one of the definitive 80s hardcore records, and required listening for any would-be fan of the genre. It’s fucking untouchable; anybody who says otherwise is your enemy and you should punch them in the face immediately. But it’s not the only classic in the Suicidal catalog: my pick for the most underrated gem in their career is 1988′s Controlled By Hatred/Feel Like Shit/Deja Vu EP.

“Master of No Mercy” is my all-time favorite Suicidal song, yet in all the many times I’ve seen them they’ve never played it :(

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It’s a long way from loving a band’s record to loving the band. There are records I’ve listened to eight-hundred times whose authors, if ever set on fire, would die at my feet as I arch a stream of tinkle just past their twitching, smoldering carcasses. Hate their guts. On the other hand, there are terrible, mega-awful bands staffed by funny guys who don’t dress like dogfuckers and are fans of your favorite records, too. Isn’t that a bummer.

Occasionally, you luck out and like the band as much as the band’s music. I love that! The best case scenario in my book is Faith No More, but a deceptively close second goes to the Deftones guys. It’s so easy to like bands that can select and execute cover songs so well. As a fan, I worry that either band might appear to be a purveyor of the dreaded Wacky Cover Song, or worse, the Pretentious Cover Song that’s actually a demand for respect in disguise, as if to say “Man, look at all the cool shit we listen to!!!”

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Moby is one of those guys, like Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, who has never made it a secret that he has a proclivity for metal. But up ’til now, he’s never really gotten involved in the game; I mean, he almost produced Chinese Democracy, but that doesn’t really count for any number of reasons, not least of which is that everyone almost produced Chinese Democracy. MetalSucks intern Dave Mustein almost produced Chinese Democracy and I think he was still in diapers when they started recording it.

But now Moby is looking to enter the metal world at least semi-for reals, teaming up with two dudes I’ve never heard of (including some fruit who calls himself Tomato) and Dave “King of Metal” Hill, who has done some hilarious work for Metal Injection, to form Diamondsnake, a new band that seeks to combine “such disparate influences as rock, hard rock, metal, and heavy metal.”

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Photos by Adam Haussman

My bosses at MetalSucks love me for my looks, but by now Vince (pictured here) and Axl (here) know that my dazzling physical gifts are accompanied by a lot of blown deadlines and indecipherable twaddle about the band Junkyard and drugs. To compensate, I help out with dropped assignments and try to do a really super job on the big stories that fall to the MS L.A. Bureau. Well I direct your attention to the word try in the previous sentence cuz for the last month or so [Seven weeks, Anso. But who's counting. -Ed.], I have been failing to produce even a coherent thought about the Between The Buried and Me/Cynic/Devin Townsend show back in January. I got zilch.

But it’s not my fucking fault. Stupid tour. It was too good.

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