My father once told me that “celebrities eat and drink and piss and shit just like us,” which was his poetic way of saying that famous folks are just people, too. And that can be a hard fact to remember, even if you’re not the type to get starstruck. Sure, your favorite Rock God might seem awesome right now, but the chances that he or she came out of the womb being Super Cool are slim to none.

Case in point: this 1987 public access footage that Metal Insider unearthed of Maynard James Keenan and his then-band, Children of the Anachronistic Dynasty, performing a song called “Burn About Out”… which is very clearly an early version of the Tool classic, “Sober.” Sure, it’s faster, the anthemic chorus is missing, and some of the lyrics are different  – but if it’s not the same exact melody, then I’m the new keyboard player for Dr. Acula.

And my point isn’t “Oh hey Maynard wrote a version of this song six years before it appeared on Undertow,” because I don’t think that’s really news — Tool actually had an early version of the song on their 1991 demo, 72826. My point is simply that once upon a time, Maynard looked totally lame, and surrounded himself with bandmates who also looked totally lame, and that’s okay, because all butterflies were caterpillars once.

Tool are currently on tour and, to the best of my knowledge, still the four coolest guys in the world, who put on pretty much the best concerts in the world. Get dates here.

-AR

We’re not the only ones scratching our heads at the incredible (and well deserved) good fortune bestowed upon Intronaut by the mighty Tool in the form of a string of opening gigs: guitarist/vocalist and MetalSucks contributor Sacha Dunable is just as awestruck. In a tour diary for L.A. Weekly, Dunable shares some of the expected dream-like scenarios of suddenly finding yourself playing in an arena for 8,000 people after a lifetime in bars, dives and dirtholes — pre-show jitters (or lack thereof), Tool’s 12-truck entourage, etc — and also offers this nugget of wisdom:

Tool are one of the most awesome live bands I’ve ever seen. Someone I know recently made the statement that they are “the Pink Floyd of our generation,” and fair enough. They are the masters of the ultimate full on audio/visual performance. It’s inspiring to see a band go to the lengths they do in order to provide that experience for their fans. It’s also interesting to watch the after-show load out done by the team of maybe 100 locals and touring crew. If I were to imagine Egyptian slaves building the pyramids, it would look a lot like Tool’s end of night tear down.

Truer words = never spoken (although I’ve yet to personally bear witness to their load-out). Point being: if you’ve somehow never seen Tool live and our incessant declarations of Tool as the best live band on the planet haven’t yet convinced you, take it from Sacha and go see Tool on tour right now. Do it.

-VN

Evil Bells aka Slay Bells by guitarstevecc

I’m not one for Christmas music, but I enjoyed the above doom interpretation of an Xmas classic very much. Click “play” while you catch up on this morning’s news:

• Tool have announced the opening acts for their string of winter 2012 dates… and it’s wonky stoner-prog outfit Intronaut (as rumored) on the first half of the tour and doom metal titans Yob on the second half! It’d be easy enough for Tool to take out a commercial hard rock band because their agent or manager said so, an established act that could help put some butts in seats, or no one at all… but nope, they march to their own drum and chose Intronaut and Yob, two acts that will seem completely out of left field to most of Tool’s fanbase. That’s Tool for you; just one of 1,697 reasons I love this band so much.
• Paganfest will come back to America in spring 2012 for its third U.S. incarnation. Despite the pagan/folk metal trend being long over, Paganfest III actually features a really cool lineup: Turisas, Alestorm, and Ex Deo are the bigger bands, and they’ll take along with them Arkona and Huntress, neither of whom I know much about. Get dates here.
• Gwar’s Oderus Urungus and Balsac the Jaws of Death review the new Spielberg movie War Horse for NextMovie.com on video.
• Alternative Press readers have chosen Asking Alexandria’s Ben Bruce as “Guitarist of the Year” for 2011. MetalSucks editors have nominated Alternative Press readers as having the “Worst Taste in Metal” for eternity.
• Gory death metal vets Exhumed have posted their entire live set from Maryland Deathfest 2011 on NPR’s website. Stream it here. And oh hey look at who wrote that article! (hey hey)

UPDATED:

SPOILER ALERT: If MetalSucks ever does a list of the Top Live Modern Metal Bands or whatever, Tool is almost certainly going to be #1. Vince definitely thinks they’re the best live band on the planet — he often calls them the only band he’ll go see in concert anytime, anywhere — and while his passion for them probably surpasses my own, I definitely worship the pot Tool pisses in. I mean, not only does Tool sound fantastic live, but, y’know — LASERS!!!

So it’s hard not to be incredibly excited by the fact that the band is gonna do a tour starting next month. If you have the chance to see Tool live and you don’t go, you really should go lie down in traffic. They are just… mind-blowing.

Here are the dates so far… it’s hard for me to imagine that there won’t be more announced soon:

Click to read more…

Who is Tool’s webmaster? The guy’s been writing for the band’s official site with verbose, oddball rants for years, part Tool updates and part literary masterpieces designed to send us Toolheads down a million rabbit holes simultaneously. If I ever meet the guy I’m gonna give him a big hug for doing such great work, then I’ll slap him in the balls for being such a conniving jerk!

Speaking of which: some sites reported yesterday that Tool are working on their new record with 10,000 Days engineer/mixer Joe Barresi, citing a post on Tool’s website that referenced using a Studer A827 “Gold Edition” analog tape recorder (pictured above). Here’s the thing: I’m pretty sure said webmaster is actually talking about the Volto! recording sessions. That’s Danny Carey’s side project. D’oh!

Actual Tool information that can be gleaned from said webmaster’s cryptic ramblings: 1) writing sessions are progressing nicely and a new music video for one of the new tunes is already in the works. 2) a tour this winter/spring is a possibility, with Texas (SXSW?), Los Angeles and Australia being name-checked specifically.

So, yeah… that happened.

-VN

“The ’90s were a challenging decade for metal,” opens Loudwire writer Joe Robinson. You got that right! ’90s nostalgia hasn’t firmly set in for metal yet; Limp Bizkit’s new record tanked, less people are interested in Korn than ever, and some of the more credible ’90s acts from Europe never even stopped to take a drink of water. But that hasn’t stopped Loudwire from publishing a “Top 11 Metal Albums of the ’90s” list. For once, I think this topic is quite ripe for list-making given metal’s widespread unpopularity during the decade. Sure, decades themselves are artificial constructs with which musical trends don’t neatly align (hair metal was still huge in ’90 and ’91 and the true stuff was already filtering back in by the end), but they do provide convenient language for discourse, much like metal sub-genres aren’t always perfect but give us some kind of approximation of what a band sounds like.

Loudwire’s list is actually pretty solid; it’s hard to argue that any of these albums shouldn’t be included on a best-of-the-’90s metal list, and I love the inclusion of Alice in Chains and Tool. I could do without Korn’s debut, but I know it was important to a lot of people and it certainly left its mark on the metal landscape. I have a hard time believing Anthrax’s Persistence of Time would’ve appeared on this list had the band not just released a new album. The list completely omits European bands, and I think In Flames’ The Jester Race, Whoracle or Colony — any one of ‘em — deserve a nod for all the impact they had on metal to come. For that matter, how about At the Gates? Or Refused’s Shape of Punk to Come? And what ’90s metal list is complete without Nevermore or Iced Earth, two bands that essentially flied in the face of “cool” and held up giant middle fingers?

But whatevs… it’s a list, and therefore cannot be perfect. Go check it out here, then come back here with your arguin’ pants on and tell us what you think the comments.

-VN

Thanks: Andrew Robbins

These albums might even have some good music on ‘em, too!

ANYWAY:

• As I’ve said before, I’m not really a fan of Maynard James Keenan’s Puscifer project, but my man crush on Keenan is such that I actually feel severe guilt over said lack of fandom. And Pusicfer’s latest, Conditions of My Parole, might have the best album art of the year. Spin (still a thing!) is now streaming the entire record in advance of its release on October 18 via the cleverly named Puscifer Entertainment. I’ve listened to a lil’ bit of it and I feel about it pretty much the way I feel about all Puscifer, which is that it’s not bad, but not interesting to hold my attention against all the other great music out there right now, and really Maynard just get back to the business of TOOL as soon as humanly possible.
• Giant Squid’s Cenotes comes out October 25 on Translation Loss, and also has totally bitchin’ album art (above… FUPAs for the win). Now the whole thing is streaming at NPR (New slogan: “NPR… it’s not just for old people anymore!”). I’m actually listening for the first time now, and while Giant Squid have yet to produce anything that I love as much as Metridium Fields (“Ampullae of Lorenzini” might be one of the most beautiful songs in any genre written in the past ten years), they’re still way out ahead of most of the pack, so you should at very least give this a listen and see if you dig it. I mean, you’d do as much just to be able to make fun of Design the Skyline, so, y’know, fair is fair.

The thing about Ministry is, sure, they were innovative, and sure, their live show has a lot of cool lights and effects and shit, but I think their music gets real boring real fast. It falls under the category of “too much of the same too quickly.” To give a recent example: Remember that single “Lies, Lies, Lies” from 2006′s Rio Grande Blood? Catchy fucking song, but I was shocked to learn that it’s just barely over five minutes long — ’cause it’s just the same thing, over and over and over again, and consequently feels like it’s an hour. And their whole catalog is basically like that. I remember when Al Jourgensen insulted Trent Reznor as just some Ministrwannabe back in the day, thinking, “Well, if you ever write a song as good as ‘Head Like a Hole’ or ‘Hurt,’ you might sell that many records, too.”

That being said, you do have to give Jourgensen and company their spot in history… and director Douglas Freel’s new documentary about the band,  Fix: The Ministry Movie, does look like a lot of fun. Besides covering the project’s entire history, it features interviews with Reznor (!) and Maynard James Keenan, who, in the trailer below, is, I think, but I’m not positive, is making a reference to the abandoned Tapeworm project he had with Reznor.

ANYWAY, here’s the trailer. The movie is gonna be doing four screenings (at least so far) this month and next month across the U.S.; get the screening schedule after the jump.

Click to read more…

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

Maynard James Keenan has released two new video teasers for Conditions of My Parole, the new album from his Puscifer project. And I have almost no idea what the what is going on in these clips — called The Book Of Douche Bag, Volumes 1 & 2 — I do know that I found them entertaining. In fact, I wish Puscifer’s music was this much fun… it’s a real bummer to enjoy the promotions for an album more than the album itself.

Click to read more…

Justin M. Norton over at Invisible Oranges has been killing it this week. Yesterday, he wrote a really great piece about entitled “Why Ghost Matters,” which you should definitely check out, especially if, for some reason, you’re still not convinced that those Swedes are the real deal; now, he’s unveiled his list of the Top 10 Metal Lyricists, which, I imagine, will cause exactly the kind of shit storm that makes the internet so damn fun in the first place.

And, hey, I don’t agree with all of his inclusions (although I certainly agree with some of ‘em, like one Mr. J.R. Hayes from Pig Destroyer). But, again, the debate is what’s so much fun about these kinds of things. Lists don’t really “mean” anything — they’re just the opinions of one individual or a group of individuals. But what’s great about them is that they get people thinking; even if you disagree with the choices, you have to figure out a way to articulate exactly why you disagree with the choices, to hopefully come up with a retort more sophisticated than “You’re wrong and you’re a douche for disagreeing with me.” (Although, clearly, some internetters fall back on that “reasoning,” too.)

Check out Norton’s list here, then come back and let us know who your own favorite metal lyricists are in our comments section. Two of my personal poetic heroes who I think definitely deserve to be on this list: Tool’s Maynard James Keenan and The Red Chord’s Guy Kozowyk. How about you cats?

-AR

I may not be a huge Puscifer fan, but nothing is going to top this this year. Not even Opeth’s heads in a tree.

Conditions of My Parole is out October 18.

-AR

[via The PRP, who think it may be the best album art of the decade]

I don’t normally think of Adam Jones(#18 on our list of the Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists) or Tool as being the kinds of artists who appeal to the Hellyeah/Five Finger Death Punch crowd, but I guess that’s just me being an uptight elitist. Because Jones played “The Star-Spangled Banner” at WWE’s SummerSlam over the weekend, which, let’s be real, is about as white trash as you can get without making an appearance at The Gathering of the Juggalos (and before you get your panties in a knot over that statement, you should know that I once proudly attended SummerSlam, and, yes, I had a blast).

ANYWAY, here’s video of Jones’ performance… needless to say, he did a fantastic job, and if nothing else, it’s always good to hear him playing music, not doing whatever he does while Maynard goes off and makes wine and Puscifer albums.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

Milla Jovovich has played with Pusicfer. Therefore, it is okay for me to post this image with this article.

I’m not even really clear how many Puscifer albums there have been at this point; I pretty much gave up after 2007′s V is for Vagina. It’s not that I think Puscifer is bad, exactly, so much as the project just doesn’t excite me. It’s hard me to see it as anything but one more obstruction to a new Tool album, or even a new A Perfect Circle release. Of course, that might not be true — Maynard could stay home all day and jerk off, and it might not make a Tool record appear any faster or slower than it already would — but the fact remains that Puscifer is still my least favorite of Maynard’s various projects. And, yes, I’m including his wine.

ANYWAY, in the event you think I’m crazy and are desperate to hear some new Puscification, the fresh-out-of-the-oven track “Man Overboard” is now streaming here. It’s kinda catchy, but it basically re-confirms my minimal interest in Puscifer; in fact, if Maynard wasn’t involved, it’s hard for me to imagine I even would have sat through the entire song.

Puscifer’s new album, Conditions of My Parole, comes out October 18. Meanwhile, it’s been more than five years since the last Tool album, so hopefully there will be a new one sooner rather than later.

-AR

Captain America is a comic book movie about a wimp who takes a special serum and becomes a super-soldier who fights the Nazis during World War II. So, of course, it makes perfect sense to use Tool’s “46 & 2″ in the new trailer for the movie, since Tool are the most jingoistic band ever, and since “46 & 2″ was, in fact, all the rage in 1942.

My sarcasm aside, I guess the inclusion of the song here does kinda-sorta make sense, assuming it was chosen for its lyrical content, which basically uses Jungian theories (the shadow) to discuss personal evolution (Like the Cap going from zero to hero!).

ANYWAY, here’s the full song, on the off-chance you’ve never heard it before:

Click to read more…

Tool are notorious for shenanigans and delight in giving their fans tidbits of information while watching them lap it up, parse it in every single way imaginable, and discuss it in the kind of depth usually reserved for biblical debates (guilty). So when Tool posted a missive against failed rapture prophet Harold Camping and his blind followers (sound familiar?) on their comically out-of-date website last week, then followed that with a “personal guarantee” a new Tool album would come out on May 22nd or May 15th, 2012… well, you just hafta wonder.

Click to read more…

Of course when you set out to make a list like, say, the one we’re doing right now, of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, you are bound to piss a lot of people off — that just comes with the job.

But I always find it hilarious HOW those people get pissed off. For example, this week I saw a lot of complaints that the guitar players we’ve been selecting aren’t “modern.” And I can’t believe we have to fucking define the word “modern” for some of you idiots, but apparently we do. So:

So… which one of you jackasses would like to call up Alex Skolnick or Vernon Reid or Adam Jones and let them know they’re antiquated and obsolete? ‘Cause I saw Testament and Living Colour and Tool live just last year, and I would not want to make that call. Just because those dudes have been playing this game for awhile doesn’t mean their best days are behind them.

My point simply being: I don’t care if you hate our choices. That’s fine. But at least try to hate our choices based on an argument that makes sense, y’know?

And on that note, here are other ways we entertained ourselves this week:

• We debuted new music from A Pale Horse Named Death and Oakhelm.
• We checked out the latest releases from From Exile, Godstopper, and Cruachan.
• We wondered which is better, old music or new music?
• We philosophized about Google’s new cloud service.
• We fretted that metal may soon be blamed for terrorism.
• We got excited about The Faceless’ new demo.
• We bemoaned the current state of In Flames.
• We wept because Dave Grohl is not going to be on the new Mastodon album after all.
• We enjoyed a vegetarian cooking lesson from a dude in corpse paint.
• We questioned the logic of the new Avenged Sevenfold video.

Next week we unveil numbers fifteen through eleven on our guitar player list; the average age of those five musicians is thirty-one, whereas the average age of this week’s selections was forty-two. So maybe you can go back to being upset because you think they suck, not because you think they’re too old to be “modern.”

-AR

MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Tool’s Adam Jones…

I love thinking of Tool’s Adam Jones as an awesome guitar player. I mean, it’s true, even despite his total lack of resemblance to those we think of as rad axedudes. He’s not that kind of virtuoso. Like, I find no photo documentation of his jumping off a monitor or rocking out with his lead singer. Nor does he pucker his lips or drop his jaw whilst ripping. Gosh, he doesn’t really rip, ever. No screaming artificial harmonics or tapping; no runs or tremolo picking; I can identify only a handful of Tool moments that qualify as a solo, or even a second guitar part. Mostly, his accents go only far as wah pedal and wicked vibrato. That is what Tool requires; that is what Jones is awesome at.

Click to read more…

Of all the issues we’re forced to think about on a daily basis in this ever-turbulent world — the shaky world economy, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, political unrest in Tunisia and Egypt, illegal immigration, climate change, Rodney King — surely one of the most burning questions on the forefront of your mind is “What is like to be Maynard James Keenan preparing for a show and walking out onto the stage?” Thankfully the frontman of the best band in the world knows our pain and decided to take matters into his own hands by filming a video that answers this very question.

And uh, the answer to the question is, “It’s pretty fucking awesome.” You start by doing some kind of pow-wow with your bandmates before warming up like a boxer. Then you walk out onto a platform in front of thousands of adoringAustralians, and you’re standing next to one of the best drummers in the world. And then, presumably, you rock.

Will 2011 be the year we finally get new Tool? It’s been 5 years since 10,000 Days, and 5 years is usually how long Tool take between albums. A man can hope.

-VN

So 2011 is officially underway! I mean, we’re two full weeks in — time to stop accidentally writing “2010″ as the date on shit, y’know? We started to preview some albums we’re stoked about, and will continue to do so next week. In the meantime, here’s some other fun crap we did this week:

• The Human Abstract’s A.J. Minette continued his discussion regarding the merits of creative limitation.
• We debuted new music by Deicide, Ulcerate, Owen Hart, and Roger Miret.
• We also reviewed the new Owen Hart album.
• We played a metal edition of “Marry, Fuck, Kill” with both chicks and d00dz.
• We checked out some awesome pictures from Vince and the metalgf’s vacation to Amsterdam and Paris.
• We joined the Scotty Griffin Fanclub.
• We confirmed that Tool are the coolest band ever.
• We felt bad for Mike Portnoy.
• We were upset by Wrest’s arrest for sexual assault and domestic battery.
• And while it was news to us until we heard it from Rush Limbaugh, we were apparently responsible for the Tucson shootings.

Next week brings more debuts, more interviews, and more general Suckitude. See ya then.

-AR