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It’s no secret that I love Ugly Kid Joe, and got totally excited when the band announced their reunion last year. And so it was with great excitement this morning that I learned that UKJ have not only recorded a new six song EP, but that one of the songs from said EP, “Love Ain’t True,” has now been played on the radio, which, of course, means it’s now on the internet (above).
And then I actually listened to the song, and then I wept.
I love music, but I am first and foremost a fan of comedy. If you were to spy on my iPod, you’d see that I spend 90% of my time listening to Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla’s podcasts. Music is cool and all, but you can only hear so much before the novelty wears off and you just want to hear an insecure nerd droning on and on about airport security, his nagging wife, or whatever comedians talk about these days.
With that in mind, I am a huge fan of bands who combine both worlds: COMEDY METAL, although the subgenre is (to say the least) a mixed bag. Bands like Gwar, Ugly Kid Joe, and Shat are geniuses, while others deliver, uh, less than satisfactory results.
In this post, we will attempt to answer this question: Lots of bands try to be funny, but which ones succeed, and which ones suck eggs???
Buried in a press release about Whitfield Crane doing a guest gig/Dio/Peter Steele/Paul Gray multi-dead-musican tribute show with Costa Rica’s Sight of Emptiness* was this awesome news from Mr. Crane:
“It’s ON — UGLY KID JOE is back. We are talking about doing shows next year, in addition to studio time. I’m stoked.”
I don’t know what’s up with burying reunion news in press releases about other shit, but all I can say about this particular reconciliation is: YES!!! (Note: Apparently this news has been on the band’s MySpace page since May. I’d like to thank every one of you fuckers who e-mails me every day to tell me about your friend’s awful unsigned band, to tell us to post about something we’ve already posted about, or to express anger over my hatred towards Parkway Drive for not making any mention of this news. Sheesh.)
Through amazing mind-reading technology created by the MetalSucks Mansion Monkey affectionately known as “You Worthless Retard,” MetalSucks was exclusively able to listen-in on Joey Belladonna’s most private thoughts while he contemplated whether or not to return to Anthrax.* What follows is a transcript of those thoughts…
Okay, Joey. Now, let’s be rational. Let’s think this all the way through. Let’s not make any brash decisions this time.
I mean, these dudes have not been cool to me. Remember when they fired me in 1992 for no apparent reason? And they hired me back to do that reunion tour. And then they, uh, y’know. Fired me again. And this time, I found out about it over the internet. They weren’t even good enough to give me a phone call! And then Scott and Charlie talked an awful lot of shit about me in the press, and said that I should “Grow up and be a man. Take responsibility for your life.” And I had, like, no idea what they were talking about. Just a couple of months ago, Scott made fun of me on television! I kinda think it might be because the reunion was less financially successful than we’d hoped. But I don’t really know, ’cause I never actually spoke to them about it.
And now they wanna hire me back! Again! And they want me to sing some other dude’s parts on a new album, without actually contributing anything myself! And the guy is some kid they hired because when John Bush showed a little backbone and refused to come back to the band after I was re-fired, they decided they’d rather work with pretty much anyone but me. Actually, they decided they’d rather work with Corey Taylor than me. But Corey’s business manager had more sense than that, and then they decided they’d rather work with pretty much anyone but me. The nerve!
The other day I made my desire for an Ugly Kid Joe reunion known. Two of you, Kuranes and wormdrive66, seemed in favor of such a reunion, while one of you, David was against the idea – and no one else mentioned it in the midst of speculating about who’s gonna be on Ozzfest 2010.
So, fuck it, I’m gonna talk about this band some more.
I think most people remember this band for their hits – duh – “Everything about You” and a cover of Cat Stevens’ “Cat’s in the Cradle.” But the band has some other cool stuff, too, which I actually still enjoy today, even if the deliberate goofiness of the lyrics hasn’t aged so well. Obviously UKJ’s music wasn’t rocket science, but it was really fun – and if they’d never broken-up, maybe Godsmack would be short a drummer and Evanescence short a producer. And I’m convinced that if the band had been around five years earlier, they would have been much bigger than they ended up being… victims of Cobain, I’m afraid.
Anyways, after the jump, five UKJ songs I still enjoy.
So apparently Ozzfest is coming back this summer, and is coming back as a traveling tour again (as opposed to the one-off fest it was in 2008). And that’s all well and good, only… who’s gonna be on the bill?
Mayhem, which is basically Ozzfest 2.0, has already scooped up a lot of big-name bands for the summer, including many who have played multiple past Ozzfests – namely Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Atreyu, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed, the latter of whom I think have been on something like 90% of all Ozzfests ever.
Add to that other Ozzfest alum like Chimaira, In This Moment and Norma Jean, and some bands the kids today all seem to like, such as Winds of Plague and They Who Shall Not Be Named, and, well, that’s a whole bunch of potential mainstage and second stage draws right there.
Then there’s the mini-fests like Summer Slaughter. I can’t tell you which bands we already know are booked for some of these tours without betraying a lot of people’s confidence, but I can tell you that some great bands are now no longer available for Ozzfest.
And, oh yeah, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament are now doing their American Carnage tour in the summer, so they’re out.
So who’s left? After the jump, I’m going to play my favorite game: it’s called “over-think about something incredibly unimportant.”
Before we proceed, it’s worth noting that I’m going to try and be semi-realistic when moving forward with some barely-educated guesses about who’ll be playing Ozzfest. If a band already has summer tour dates booked, I’m going to assume they’re not avail, although I acknowledge that they could cancel those dates in favor of playing for a bigger crowd. And I’m not even going to bother with bands like Pig Destroyer, Sigh, and Salome – bands that will play Ozzfest right around the time Joey Belladonna’s solo band plays four sold-out headlining shows at Giants Stadium. Also, obviously not all of these bands are gonna end up on the bill – these are just bands I think could end up there.
And so, without further bullshit…
And thankfully, Sergeant D of MetalInquisition is inclined to agree:
Let’s be perfectly clear: If you don’t like Nitro, you’re not my fucking friend. Obviously Nitro are completely ridiculous, but I 100% non-ironically love this band as Skullkrusher and Lucho Metales [other MI writers] can attest to. They had the biggest hair, the highest screams, the fastest solos, and the sickest riffs. I can listen to “OFR” a million times in a row. Also, the liner notes and lyrics are priceless, like the note that admonishes “DRUGZ R 4 DUMBFUKKS, DON’T BE A DUMBFUKK.” Everything about the band is totally absurd, but their songwriting is fucking awesome and the retarded lyrics just make me love them that much more.
Perfectly said, Mr. D. For similar non-guilty pleasure missives on the likes of Vinnie Vincent Invasion, Ugly Kid Joe (complete with baja jackets!), Tuff, and Pretty Boy Floyd, pay the cats at MetalInquisition a visit.
In the meantime, enjoy the video for Nitro’s “Freight Train:”
-VN
So about a week back Slipknot released the following two minute-plus video “teaser” for the new, still untitled album. And even though I’m generally prone to defending Slipknot and I’m all in favor of trying things that are new and creative, I have to say, I have no fucking idea how this pertains to a new Slipknot album. I mean, there’s no music in it. Are they trying to tell us that their new disc will be an hour’s worth of ambient noise recorded around their hometown of Des Moines, Iowa? Or just that we should expect to be bored off our asses?
I assume that this thing was directed by Shawn Crahan (he’s the one in the clown mask, in case ya didn’t know), who also directed the very avant garde-y Slipknot DVD Voliminal: Inside the Nine. But this video makes that DVD look like a straightforward piece of narrative storytelling.
The new Slipknot album comes out in August. Former Ugly Kid Joe guitarist/current Evanescence producer Dave Fortman is manning the boards, which, if I’m being completely honest, makes me a little nervous – I have no interest in a glorified Stone Sour album. Hopefully my cynicism will turn out to be unfounded.
-AR
Don’t you, too?
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