MetalSucks

I mean, it’s not like the dude has been some bastion of artistic integrity the past, oh, decade or so. He’s performed with Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/whatever the fuck his name is now, and Fergie, and done an AmEx (or was it Master Card?) commercial, and a car commercial, and wrote an autobiography primarily based around years that, by his own admission, he doesn’t really remember all that well. Obviously, the guy comes from the “You Pay Me I Show Up” school of decision making.

Yet our inbox has been flooded with e-mails of outrage that $lash would “sell-out” and appear on America’s most annoying television program. What can you do? Just blast Appetite as loud as possible and try to forget that this shit ever happened, or remember that this American Idol episode(s? I didn’t watch) is probably at least 30% less irritating than a Slash-less AI.

-AR

Well, not really, of course.

The new front man for the (Tracii Guns version of the) band, previously identified only as a “blond,” is Marty Casey.

If you’ve never heard of Marty Casey, well, neither have I. Apparently he was a contestant on Rock Star: INXS*, which I imagine was only slightly less embarrassing than Rock Star: Supernova, if only because, unlike Jason Newstead, Tommy Lee and Gilby Clarke, no one ever had any actual respect for the guys in INXS.

In any case, at this point I imagine that anyone who still considers him or herself to be an L.A. Guns fan really doesn’t care who’s in the band, as long as the guitar player is named after some sort of weapon and they open with “Sex Action,” close with “Sex Action,” and play “Sex Action” somewhere in the middle.

Stay tuned for the announcement that Dilana is the new singer for Velvet Revolver.

-AR

*By the way, has anyone ever heard the story that INXS asked Mike Patton to replace Michael Hutchence, and he said he’d take the job if they’d let him wear a noose around his neck onstage? I have no idea if it’s a true story or not, but it’s HILARIOUS either way.

With the incredible success of The Dirt, I kind of assumed that every 80’s metal star in the world would wanna pump out an autobiography; I mean, really, most of the work is left to some poor “c0-writer” like Neil Strauss or Anthony Bozza, and there’s obviously a market for the finished product. But here we are, almost seven years after The Dirt was originally published, and it seems like we’re only now starting to get the influx of tell-alls I expected: just last year Nikki Sixx tried to hit the jackpot a second time with The Heroin Diaries while Slash took his first step towards a post-Velvet Revovler career with Slash, and now it’s been announced that we can all look forward to a tome from… Bret Michaels. A press release states:

“Not only can you see Michaels on Rock of Love this spring but you will also be able to read all about his life this fall when the singer’s much-anticipated autobiography is released by renowned publishing house Simon & Schuster.”

There’s no word on who is doing the real writing for Michaels – by God, I hope he’s not trying to write it himself – or when we can expect this literary masterpiece. But I do find the press releases assertion that Simon & Schuster is a “renowned publishing house” kinda hilarious. I mean, it’s certainly one of the bigger publishers out there, but it seems a little like saying “renowned record label Capitol” or something – most people probably aren’t paying attention to the label, they just wanna hear the album.

In any case, I’m not gonna lie, I will most likely read this book. Still, I wish more bands would follow The Dirt’s model and do a Roshamon-like multiple-perspective telling of events. Because even though hearing Michaels talk about how crazy C.C. DeVille is might be fun, it won’t be as much fun as a chapter by DeVille in the same book disputing his insanity would be.

-AR