Tuesday, November 16th, 2010 at 2:40pm by Sergeant D
When I am not trolling simple-minded, entry-level elitists, I enjoy the soothing, dulcet tones of some classic thrash or death metal. I am definitely not any kind of metal encyclopedia or authority on the subject, but I have realized that (sadly) I’m old enough to have heard a few bands that many younger metal fans have not, just because I have been exposed to a lot of bands over the years — sort of like an ancient desert tortoise who is not a historian, but has seen history unfold before his eyes simply because he is old as fuck. Because I enjoy giving back to my community, I will share some of my favorite older bands in case any of you might like them. If you want to hate on me, that’s OK, too, so feel free to tell me I’m a poser, that everybody already knows about these bands, that I got some trivial detail wrong, or whatever else you think makes you “sound like u rly know what ur talking about.”
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 at 3:20pm by Axl Rosenberg
12 looped seconds of “Checkmate,” one of 70-something songs from the Chinese Democracy sessions that will probably never see the light of day.
A couple of weeks ago Eyal wrote a great installment of “Jumping Darkness Parade” in which he asserted that “the only thing you can trust is for a person to be who they are, not who they tell you they are.” Past behavior is always the best indicator of future behavior.
And the past behavior of Axl Rose tells us that if we ever get a follow-up to Chinese Democracy, it won’t be for a very, very long time. It was four years in-between the release of Appetite for Destruction and Use Your Illusion, nearly two of which were spent just recording the latter albums, and all signs point to Axl being the source of the long wait; then it was SEVENTEEN more years before the release of Democracy. Even if you consider that Axl and all the various incarnations of GN’R didn’t start working on that album until roughly 1995, and the that recording was allegedly (finally) completed circa 2006, that’s STILL eleven years. Based on this information, I have worked out a mathematical formula for how long it will take Axl to record each subsequent Guns N’ Roses album, which is as follows:
TIME IT TOOK TO RECORD THE LAST ALBUM + NINE ADDITIONAL YEARS = TIME IT WILL TAKE TO RECORD THE NEXT ALBUM
According to this precise formula, if Axl Rose’s Rock N’ Roll Circus enters the studio to make a follow-up to Chinese Democracy in 2011, then the album will be released in 2031. By that time, Axl will be almost 70 years old, Dj Ashba will be almost 60 years old, and Slash will theoretically be 66 but, let’s face it, will more likely be dead (or, at least, still searching for a suitable replacement to take Scott Weiland’s spot in Velvet Revolver). There probably won’t be a MetalSucks in 2031, there almost certainly won’t be a record industry, and there definitely won’t be a Best Buy for Axl to con into carrying a record he has no intention of properly promoting. And I can’t for the life of me figure out who would fund such an endeavor anyway.
And yet Dj Ashba has the audacity to “promise” fans that the next album “won’t take as long” to record and release:
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
I guess it was inevitable that “Beautiful Dangerous,” Slash’s collaboration with Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas, would be released as a single and get a video; Fergie appeals to a large audience that isn’t necessarily Slash’s core fan base, so theoretically it could be a chance to earn some new fans, like when Santana released that song with the guy from Matchbox 20.
The video is actually pretty funny. In it, Fergie plays a woman so obsessed with Slash that she masturbates while thinking about him, then seeks him out at a strip club where he mysteriously is hanging out with no entourage or security of any kind, then drugs and kidnaps him (and no one seems to notice her dragging out one of the world’s most recognizable rock stars I guess), then takes him back to her motel, grinds up against him, and kills him.
Oh, yeah. Spoiler alert.
ANYWAY, there’s nudity and Fergie doing all kinds of suggestive things in this video, so I guess it’s “dangerous” to watch at work. On the other hand, there’s also a shot of Slash enjoying some Monster energy drink, with the carefully label turned towards the camera, so it’s not really that dangerous at all. ‘Cause remember kids: product placement ain’t rock. Sorry.
Also, Fergie’s in the video, so it’s not “beautiful,” either. Just sayin’.
Friday, October 15th, 2010 at 10:30am by Axl Rosenberg
So E! is apparently doing a new reality show, called Married to Rock, which, in case the title doesn’t make it obvious, is about the wives of some famous rock stars. Here’s a rundown of the women who are going to be on this show (some barely safe for work pics after the jump… you’ve been warned, you horn dogs):
So Duff McKagan joined Axl Rose and his new Guns N’ Roses on-stage at the 02 Arena in London last night, playing bass for “You Could Be Mine” (video above) and rhythm guitars for “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and “Nice Boys.” (You can also see photos here.) Inevitably, this is going to make people ask the question: “Is the original line-up (or something closely resembling the original line-up) of Guns N’ Roses getting back together?” As MetalSucks’ resident GN’R geek, I hereby take it upon myself to provide reckless analysis regarding this blessed event. After the jump, get both sides of the argument, as provided by my drug-addled fanboy brain.
Friday, October 8th, 2010 at 12:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
And so is anyone who thinks this dipshit is really sober.
Mr. Weiland’s latest stunt is a recent radio interview in which he is clearly so fucked up that I’m amazed he was even able to hold a phone. (Maybe his assistant was holding it for him, or affixed one of those nifty headsets to Weiland’s noggin.) At one point, the DJ asks Weiland why he missed a particular show; here’s a transcript of the exchange that follows:
WEILAND: Um… [long pause]… Let’s see… I think that was the show where, um… there was a, um…
DJ: [encouraging, as if to a small child] You can do it.
WEILAND: …a foot, um… long… um… uhh… like, it’s like… normally, a stage is just, like, a flat stage…
DJ: [irritated] Riiiight.
WEILAND:…and this was a really high stage…
DJ: Okay…
WEILAND: …and I spun around, did a little James Brown move, and I slipped and fell into it about eight feet.
So. Fred Durst’s feature film directorial debut, a would-be Sundance hit called The Education of Charlie Banks, was a barely-watchable piece of shit that failed to make so much as a dent in public awareness; his second film, the Ice Cube family sports drama The Longshots, tanked at the box office. But Durst gives great head (for dudes… he can’t find the clit so he’s pretty useless for women) and people are stupid, so he’s swindled someone into letting him make another movie. From Noisecreep:
“Durst is also directing his third feature film. The third film is dubbed ‘Pawn Shop Chronicles,’ and it follows a protagonist through a world of skinheads and meth heads thanks to a missing wedding ring. The film is slated to go into production early next year.”
Thursday, October 7th, 2010 at 12:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
Speaking of Slash: Vince and I caught his solo tour last month, and, for me at least, the big surprise of the evening — besides Vince’s brilliant revelation that Slash should start transitioning from rock and metal into blues as he gets older — is that Myles Kennedy is actually pretty awesome. He’s got a terrific set of pipes and a really incredible amount of range, and he’s a great front man. I think I read somewhere that he turned down the chance to be the new singer for Velvet Revolver, which is a bummer, ’cause he’d clearly do a great job (to say nothing of the fact that he’d be able to help them play old GN’R tunes that require a higher vocal register than that of Mr. Scott Weiland, which is all I really care about at this point anyway).
So for now, we have to settle for Kennedy being the frontman for Creed without Wife Beater instead of Guns without Rose. And Alter Bridge’s latest, the cleverly titled AB III, is now streaming here.
Thursday, October 7th, 2010 at 11:30am by Axl Rosenberg
Slash is friends with legendary producer Robert Evans (Chinatown, Marathon Man, uh, Jade), and plays the theme from The Godfather during his extended live guitar solos. Also, he’s obviously pretty famous. And by Hollywood standards, that makes him qualified to help run a production company. And by “help run,” I mean “take large paychecks to put his name on some shit so it will get more publicity while other people do all the work.”
“Unless you answer to Rob Zombie, what musician has a name better suited to horror film making than Slash? The iconic guitarist of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver has teamed with Scout Productions to start Slasher Films. They will produce edgy contemporary horror fare with a nod to the thrillers of the ’70s and ’80s. They’ve set up their first: Nothing to Fear, a horror/thriller that follows a young family as it tries to reinvent itself by moving to a small town in rural Kansas. The family is tormented by an ancient demon with an insatiable blood lust.”
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 at 10:30am by Axl Rosenberg
The reason all the hair-metal autobiographies have been disappointing is because the best hair metal band, Motley Crue, did it first, and did a really killer job (treating it like an oral history told from lots of different perspectives = master stroke), and so there was really no place to go but down. Bret Michaels’ autobiography never actually materialized, Slash’s was good but not great, Steven Adler’s sucked, I only know one person who read Bobby Blotzer’s, and now all the Motley Crue guys are dipping back into that pool for a second or even third time, only without each other because after thirty fucking years they still haven’t figured out that the unit is stronger than each individual. At this point I think it would take everyone who ever worked on Chinese Democracy, including Axl Rose, all banding together to make a The Dirt-style Roshomon piece if anything is even gonna BEGIN to compete with The Crue’s initial tome.
Now glam’s ugly twin, thrash, has started to catch on that there’s an interest in these books. And they don’t seem to be following the same pattern as cock rock. Sure, Dave Mustaine went first, but no one seems to really believe a word of his book, and it’s certainly not a definitive snap-shot of the time and place the way The Dirt is for the Strip in the 80′s. And I obviously have a lot of faith in Phil Anselmo’s upcoming collaboration with MetalSucks’ own Corey Mitchell, but Pantera weren’t purely thrash, and weren’t around for the Big Four’s heyday.
So. Now Noise Creep says that Kirk Hammett is doing his autobiography. (The news actually originated in an interview with Ultimate-Guitar, but I can’t find it. If anybody does, drop me a line.) There’s no word on which lucky writer will score that coveted “with” credit, but here’s a choice quote from Kirk:
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 at 11:00am by Axl Rosenberg
‘Cause apparently he’s out. No word yet on whether he was quit or fired, but either way, this news should be about as shocking as the fact that Axl Rose walked off-stage during a show in Dublin last week. Why? ‘Cause Jane’s Addiction have had four bass players just since 2001. Either these dudes are really hard to get along with, or they have terrible luck. And I don’t believe in luck.
And it’s too bad, really, ’cause for people like me, who basically gave up on Jane’s Addiction when they heard Strays (y’know, from the band’s second reunion), having McKagan in the group was probably a good incentive to pay attention again. And McKagan seemed like a good fit for Jane’s Addicition, ’cause Jane’s and GN’R are similar in that they’re both bands that released a couple of killer records forever ago, and whose members manage to milk those records’ popularity to remain in the spotlight even as their work becomes increasingly lackluster.
No word on who Jane’s Addiction’s next soon-to-be-former bassist will be, although I’m really pulling for Jason Newsted. Meanwhile, I imagine McKagan will now go back to his non-solo solo project, Loaded, and calling Slash at all hours of the night, asking when Velvet Revolver can get back together.
Thursday, August 12th, 2010 at 12:40pm by Axl Rosenberg
I think Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” was actually the first “life on the road” music video, but regardless of who created the genre, it existed before Guns N’ Roses’ Nigel Dick-directed clip for “Paradise City,” and has continued to exist long since. (A recent example would be DevilDriver’s video for “Fate Stepped In.”) And they seem to be a rite of passage in some sense — even Metallica have made one.
But there was a candid quality to “Paradise City” that, even if it was ultimately manufactured, felt real-enough to differentiate it from, say, Warrant’s video for “Heaven.” Jani Lane just looked right into the camera, and all the “home movie” footage looked like regular, glossy MTV footage with some kind of after-effect added in post, and, generally speaking, the whole thing just seemed pretty staged. Whether “Paradise City” was entirely authentic or not is beside the point; Dick did a top-notch job of making it feel authentic, which was enough to sell GN’R's image as a “real” band to kids like Vince and myself, who thought they were the cat’s pajamas.
In that context, it’s difficult to watch Slash’s new video for “Back to Cali” without thinking that it’s intended to be a direct call-back to “Paradise City” — it’s got the grainy B&W footage, the odd and unnecessary use of random Dutch angles, the playing in front of crowds disproportionate to the band’s current success (The “Paradise City” footage was actually filmed when GN’R was opening for Aerosmith; Slash seems to playing mostly European festivals in this video), etc. I don’t know who directed it and I’m not sure why he or she would make such a decision; kids who know Slash as “that dude from Velvet Revolver” won’t remember the “Paradise City” video and won’t care, and I don’t really think it’ll do much for the nostalgia of old bastards like me.
But, uh, whatever, I guess. “Back to Cali” is one of the better songs on Slash’s solo record; it’s basically just blues-based bar rock, which is to say, it plays to Mr. Saul Hudson’s strengths.
And here’s the “Paradise City” video, if you’re one of the aforementioned kids who have never seen it before…
I love reading groupie biographies. It’s sort of a hobby of mine. I’ve read everyone’s, from Pamela Des Barres to Catherine James to Marianne Faithfull (she counts), and am eagerly awaiting the memoirs of Cherry Vanilla, the woman who heroically blew half of New York to get David Bowie on the radio. Some women go sexually apeshit on rock stars, others enjoy reading about it while maintaining a happily gonorrhea-free existence. It’s just how it goes.
When I first heard of The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage, I was rather intrigued. Mind you, I had some preconceptions because of the key words: “slut” and “Iran.” It’s one thing to fuck everyone from Autograph to Winger and write about it, but controversy for the sake of controversy is quite another beast (with two backs, har har).
Though I tried to brush off the combination of these topics as calculated edginess, I couldn’t help but soften to Ms. Roxana Shirazi. Her story runs the gamut from depressingly sad (getting bullied in middle school for being a foreigner) to hilarious (watching as Matt Sorum interrupts himself during a threesome to do push-ups because he’s in ‘such good shape”) to horrifying (falling in love with Dizzy Reed and having to abort his baby). Everything aside, she’s just a girl who loves her rock’n’roll. Naked or otherwise.
I’m filing this under the “Laugh At Others’ Misfortunes” category because it’s always funny to see people that aren’t you get hurt. But the truth is, the incidents in question aren’t nearly on par with, say, Bret Michaels getting whacked in the head at last year’s Tony Awards, mostly because they’re not really brought about by outrageous acts of stupidity, whereas Michaels’ injury was clearly, despite his claims, entirely of his own doing.
First, some dude managed to get up on stage during a Slash solo gig in Milan and tackle the frizzy haired guitarist. Note that Slash barely even stops his solo – apparently his guitar was broken after the incident, but he didn’t even notice at first. What a pro! (And don’t worry, my fellow guitar fetishists – the instrument was repaired and back in action two nights later.) Still, if the guy shouted “PARADISE CITY WITH FERGIE AND CYPRESS HILL SUCKS!” right before he tackled Slash, then he’s my hero.
Our friend Amy Sciarretto from Noisecreep reports that Birmingham City University (in England, not Alabama) is naming an award after everyone’s favorite heavy metal grandpa: the Ozzy Osbourne Development Award “will be bestowed upon the student that makes the most significant progress on their degree in the Media and Communication/Music Industry degree.” I assume that the Osbourne family donated a nice chunk of change to get the award named after him, but this doesn’t really make that much sense to me. For one thing, I don’t know if Ozzy has really shown any musical development in, oh, the last hundred years or so, and as much as I admire a lot of his past work, you’ll never convince me that the bulk of the credit doesn’t lie with his collaborators – especially given that the dude doesn’t actually play an instrument. And beyond that, fuck has Ozzy got to do with media and communication? If we’re talking about his work with various reality shows and what have you, well, then, shouldn’t the award be named after Sharon, since we have her to thank for Ozzy’s wonderful non-music endeavors.
But whatever. This piece of news got me thinking: what other awards could we name after heavy metal musicians? And so, after the jump, my suggestions for new university kudos monikered in honor of various other members of the heavy metal community.
I tried to land an interview with Slash when his solo album came out, but, alas, it was not to be. (Must be ’cause of all the nice things I’ve said about him over the past couple of years.) But one of the things I wanted to ask him about were how involved, or uninvolved, he was with the lyrics on the album. Each song is sung by a different celebrity singer who would be perfectly capable of writing his or her own lyrics, and the few times Slash has tried to lyrics, the results have been pretty disastrous. (Remember “Be the Ball,” the Slash’s Snakepit song about pinball? Yeah, no reason you would, but did I mention it’s about fucking pinball?) But the lyrics to at least one song in particular – the Ozzy-crooned “Crucify the Dead” – seemed so Slash-specific, I thought he might have had a hand in them.
See, “Crucify the Dead” features such lyrics as “Your ego cursed you till you bled,” “Decisions past leave you alone,” “Someday you look back and you wonder why you let it all slip away,” and a reference to – CAPTAIN OBVIOUS ALERT! – “A loaded gun jammed by a rose.” So, y’know. It seemed pretty clear that the song was aimed at one of Slash’s former collaborators. And I don’t mean Rod Jackson.
Well, Ozzy has answered my question – kind of – in a recent interview with VH1 Radio:
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at 12:30pm by Axl Rosenberg
Slash allegedly plays on the new Rihanna single, “Rockstar 101.” I say “allegedly” because there’s barely any guitar in the damn song, and what guitar there is sounds like it could have been played by just about anyone with fingers and five free minutes to spend in the studio. But apparently the guitars are by Slash, and he was supposed to be in the video, too, but couldn’t make it ’cause I guess he afraid he was gonna make Fergie jealous. So Rihanna decided she was just gonna dress-up as Slash, which is, uh, an interesting solution.
Meanwhile, Nuno Bettencourt is part of Rihanna’s band now, and he’s in the video, but he never gets a close-up. In fact, most of the time he’s either in the background or out-of-focus.
So, to review: Rihanna would rather have a fake Slash in her video than a real Nuno.
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at 11:30am by Axl Rosenberg
I don’t think anybody with half a brain really ever believed that Scott Weiland was still sober. Sober people can take their coats off like a big boy, and Scott Weiland cannot. And sober people generally don’t fall off the stage and forget the words to, ironically, a song called “Dead and Bloated,” as their band mates exit the show “in apparent embarrassment and disgust.”
But that hasn’t stopped Scott Weiland from swearing up and down that he’s clean, and even writing a song about it.
So he probably feels at least a little embarrassed that STP bassist Robert DeLeo has now publicly admitted that Weiland is now “popping pills.”
Well, no, not really. But Velvet Revolver do accompany her on “Kissed It,” a new track from her forthcoming album The Sellout. (Hm. Interesting title.) And by “Velvet Revolver,” I mean, “The track listing says “featuring Velvet Revolver,” but of the four current members of that band, only three appear.
MetalSucks Maniac K-milo just sent us a link to the below video of Jane’s Addiction performing a new track, “Soulmate.” We can assume it marks the co-writing debut of one Mr. Duff McKagan, who is now the bass player for the band.
And, um… y’know, it’s hard to judge ’cause it’s not the highest-quality recording, but it doesn’t do much for me. I dunno. I think it needs a stronger hook or something. But check it out and let us know what you think…
