Monday, October 4th, 2010 at 10:00am by Sergeant D
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 :(
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!!!”
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.”
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.
Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 4:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
I used to love Suicidal Tendencies, but I stopped buying their stuff circa Still Cyco After All These Years, ’cause, y’know. That’s not how you spell “psycho.”
But it warms the cockles of my heart to know that Mike Muir and some dudes are still out there rockin’ in the name of Suicidal Tendencies. They have a new DVD out, called Live at the Olympic Auditorium, and Metal Hammer has debuted footage of the band playing “War Inside My Head.” Check it out:
Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 2:35pm by Axl Rosenberg
Here’s the poster for this summer’s Sweden Rock Festival. You tell me what’s wrong with this picture:
Are people really like “Man, I can’t wait to see Slayer and Mastodon and Suicidal Tendencies… and Rick Springfield!”? Do we think there are a lot of Swedish Behemoth and Watain fans who are also totally stoked to check out BTO? I guess I can see some of the over-forty set being just as excited to sing along with “Jesse’s Girl” as they are “Round and Round,” but if you’re the kind of person afflicted with that particular virus of 80s nostalgia, I don’t know what the hell you do while Danzig are on-stage. Grab a beer and wait for W.A.S.P., I guess?
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 10:11am by Doc Coyle
A couple weeks ago, I did an interview with Metal Injection for a retrospective on the highlights, trends, and cultural significance of the heavy music scene from an insider’s perspective concerning the last ten years. Near the end of the interview, I was asked if there were any sub-genres or trends that I didn’t like, or that seemed to get on my nerves. I thought about it for a minute, and generally annoying things like nu-metal or screamo or stale metalcore just seemed obvious and an easy target, when something dawned on me. I was generally annoyed by the whole ReThrash scene.
I’m a fan, but it’s not tough to overdose on melodrama when listening to Dir En Grey. Then again, hey so what if their singer lives in a constant state of shrieking despair and favors the bare chest/tight jeans look? The total product is awesome mostly thanks to two inventive guitarists. But, again, can so much moaning be endured by anyone older than nineteen or so, guitars or not? At what point does the schtick break down, causing reasonable listeners to wonder when, in this Jonathan Davis world of soul-searing pain and emotional crises, do the DEG guys find the energy to record and tour every year? (Same for uber-pimps and giga-gangsters who split time between running hoes/drugs from atop their criminal empire and TRL.) The DEG guys probably think Mike Muir seems reasonable and are unable to detect the irony in Devin Townsend’s moments of panic. I bet they play Korn at the beach. They’re that freaked out.
All the same, it’s easy to respect Dir En Grey for their work ethic and easy to like them for their balls. Okay, that sounds bad, but goddammit you get me if you heard 2008′s Uroboros – abrasive, post-tonal intra-metal mindfuck that it is. Some of its songs still refuse to make sense to me – and that’s after thirty listens – but not in the same way that a prog-clusterfuck can bewilder. Uroboros is more like an opera of suffering performed out of order. So far, DEG’s records are each better and wilder than the previous, so it’s easy to get excited about their untitled 2010 outing. However, it’s not easy to remember the snappy title of the new song: “Hageshisa to, Kono Mune no Naka de karamitsuita Shakunetsu no Yami.” I’ll just call it “Awesome Spaz Attack Song #76.”
Monday, December 17th, 2007 at 8:27am by Axl Rosenberg
Vince and I got to interview Dillinger Escape Plan front man Greg Puciato yesterday (there’ll be a full transcript up later this week), and at some point, the conversation turned the most brutal pits in metal, and Greg mentioned Suicidal Tendencies as being one particularly nightmarish war zone. Now, if a big dude like Greg can get freaked out by a pit – well, you just know it must be wild.
Since it thus occurred to me that Suicidal Tendencies is yet another band we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about around here, I thought perhaps we’d kick our Monday off with their video for “You Can’t Bring Me Down,” ’cause, well, it’s a good anthem to remind you not to off yourself (or any of your co-workers) on yet another shitty start of a shitty work week.
Photos by Adam Haussman
