MetalSucks

I know exactly two people who will be really really excited that Vince Neil is working on a new solo album: me and Axl. Woot woot!

Some time in 1993 Axl dubbed me a tape; on one side was Living Colour’s Stain, and on the other side Vince Neil’s first solo record Exposed. My life was changed forever. While my namesake hasn’t managed to hold onto much any credibility in the years since, Exposed still holds up thanks in no small part to the guitar wizardry of the indomitable Steve “Jew from the Bronx changed my name to be a rockstar” Stevens.

While I’m not sure who’s even in Neil’s solo band at the moment (Keri Kelli?) I’m certain it isn’t Stevens, making this record circumspect from the getgo. Not that there aren’t other good guitar players out there but let’s face it, Neil’s a complete hack who definitely needs song written for him ala Ozzy, nahmean? So let’s (as in me and Axl) just agree to be cautiously optimistic about this one.

Here’s Neil w/ Stevens performing “Look In Her Eyes” in Chicago in 1993.

-VN

You know when you know you’ve got too many greatest hits albums? When more than one of them are called Greatest Hits.

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This is a story about a band I don’t care about getting involved in some drama with a band I haven’t cared about in at least fifteen years. But it’s still kinda amusing, so I’m posting it.

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This live footage of Morgan Rose filling in for the injured Tommy Lee on drums with Motley Crue this past weekend is really entertaining. I mean, you get to see Vince Neil, who still can’t remember all the words to his own songs / gets winded after about two lines, and that in itself is always funny. And you get to see Mick Mars, who despite his status as the walking dead can still wail out those solos pretty well. But best of all, you get to see Morgan Rose, one of the greatest drummers on the planet in terms of pure, raw talent, rock through a set of songs he hadn’t heard in years for which he had zero time to prepare.

It seems that Tommy Lee burned his hand and couldn’t play. There’s video floating around of Tommy coming out on stage at this show and explaining the situation to the audience; as usual, he sounds like a total idiot. So the band flew out Sevendust’s Morgan Rose from Atlanta last minute, day of the fucking show, to fill in on drums. I know what you’re thinking… Motley songs ain’t too complicated drum-wise and they just play all the hits anyway. VRONG. This is the Dr. Feelgood tour in which the band plays the entire album start to finish, deep cuts and all, plus the usual smattering of greatest hits. Rose comes out and fucking nails it all. I love how in these clips you can see Nikki Sixx communicating with Rose about when the changes happen in the song, or when to end, or when to begin. THAT is fucking pure musicianship that can’t be taught. You either have it or you don’t. And Rose most certainly has it.

Check out “Same ol’ Situation” below and “Dr. Feelgood” after the jump.

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First Maynard, now this.

Look: I fucking love Vegas. I was there for New Year’s once and I think I had pretty much the best fucking night of my life.

But part of what’s so fun about that town is how friggin’ ridiculous everything is; it can’t be taken seriously at all, and if you try to take it seriously, you’ll probably just give yourself an aneurysm. As a place to go spend a couple of days drunk and act like a total dip shit, I think Las Vegas is just swell – but I think if I had to live in there, I’d kill myself.

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Of the MetalSucks Mansion inhabitants only Gary Suarez was (reportedly) man enough to attend the shit-hot Dillinger Escape Plan ticket (w/ new drummer!) at The Studio room of NYC’s Webster Hall on Saturday night, part of a brief 3-date East Coast DEP jaunt. While I was happily sleeping off the sedative effects of a 10-course outdoor Snow BBQ (that brisket… holy fuck!!), the video warriors of Metal Injection snuck in a hand-held video camera and captured 5 songs, among them a cover of hometown heroes Living Colour’s now-classic “Cult of Personality.” Unlike previous DEP cover experiments that sailed right over the heads of Warped Tour attendees not even born by the time F.U.C.K. came out let alone 1984, the hipper and older NYC audience lapped that shit right out of Greg Puciato’s bodyglove. Watch as the band tears the house down and Ben Weinman rips through Vernon Reid’s metal-jazz-gasm solo like Vince Neil through a new pair of jeans.

-VN

Am I the only who finds Vince Neil’s recent statement that when playing live he tries sing as true to the records as possible completely ludicrous?

You have to really enjoy what you’re doing and try to deliver the songs to the people out there the way they want to hear it. I try to stay as close to the records as possible because I hate going to see a singer who sings it differently. It drives me crazy.

I guess the operative word here is “try.” Anyone who’s seen Vince Neil perform live knows that when he isn’t holding out the mic over the audience to let the crowd do his job for him, his completely winded fat ass is half-assing his way through every third word.

When asked for comment on the matter, Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee simply said, “Yeeeeahh boooyyyy!”

-VN

[ The Desert Post Weekly]

It was a crazy week at the MS Mansion. Vince passed out in the bathroom after a 48 hour coke binge only to be awakened by Axl, whom, after coming home that morning from a strip club with The Blogronaut and Dallas, was viciously attacked by a bunch of angry Hinder fans stalking him outside the MS Mansion gates. Actually, none of that happened. But here’s what did:

• Axl offered up a bounty on Hinder’s Austin Winkler.
• Chinese Democracy leaked, and almost two decades of waiting finally ended.
• Whitechapel became the new controversial band du’jour.
• The Faceless killed it on the Soundscan charts.
• Today Is the Day’s Steve Austin’s house almost burned down.
• A video of a fat kid singing along to Dimmu Borgir. Nuff said.
• Vince went Jew on Jew with Genghis Tron’s Mookie Singerman, only to find out he’s not as Jewish as he once claimed.
• Tommy Lee reformed Methods of Mayhem and Vince Neil announced plans for another solo record, sans Steve Stevens. We scratched our heads.

We’ll see you next week, albeit it’ll be an abbreviated one due to the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. Toodles.

DUDE. Okay, seriously. What the fuck is going on this week? First Tommy Lee announces he’s reforming Methods of Mayhem, and now Vince Neil has announced he’s making another solo album (And, no, Steve Stevens won’t be on it – I checked.). What’s next? Is Nikki Sixx gonna make another Sixx A.M. album?

Wait – WHAT?!

Well fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck. It’s enough to make you want Motley Crue to keep touring.

-AR

P.S. Okay, but seriously, I’d love to see a Mick Mars side project called Mars Attacks!, and I’d love for its debut album to be entitled Creepy Human Statue. I’d give that album an automatic five out five horns.

So Nikki Sixx has had his girlfriend, the insanely irritating Kat Von D., tattoo Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars onto his knee. Apparently he chose the knee to taunt Mick, who cannot, in fact, bend his own knee anymore.

I assume Nikki chose Mick and not one of his other bandmates because Mick has never challenged him or do anything to threaten his time in the spotlight. In any case, look for Tommy and Vince to get tats of one another and not Nikki in retaliation.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

No booze at a Motley fucking Crue show? Jesus fucking Christ. That must be like having sex with a condom made of nails.

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Eventually, someone is going to adapt Motley Crue’s The Dirt (which I’m still fairly certain is the best book ever written in any language ever) into a movie. There’s too many greenbacks at stake for the project just to sit on the shelf forever.

But I’ve read screenwriter Rich Wilkes’ adaptation of the infamous tome (written by Neil Strauss under the guise of being written by the band members themselves), and it wasn’t going to make a good movie. In fact, I can guarantee you it was going to make a horrible, horrible movie. Wilkes is the writer of such gems as The Jerky Boys movie and xXx, so that news really shouldn’t shock anyone*; in fact, I have to guess that Wilkes got the job ’cause he wrote Airheads, which is probably the last Hollywood movie about metal that is only a semi-embarrassment to the film industry**. Still, Wilkes’ script was all set to go before cameras under the guidance of Borat director/Seinfeld executive producer Larry Charles, who is really way, way, way too talented for this lousy script. At various times, Ashton Kutcher and Johnny Knoxville were rumored to be in talks to play Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx, respectively, and Christopher Walken and Val Kilmer were alleged to have filled the roles of Ozzy Osbourne and David Lee Roth.

In other words, this thing really had about as much chance of being good as Lars Ulrich does of growing to be six five four feet tall.

So lucky for us all that the project, at least as we’ve known it, seems to be in jeopardy.

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As far as I can tell, in the year 2008 the Steve Stevens fan club consists of exactly three people: Vince Neilstein, myself, and Allyson at Bring Back Glam. So I was happy yesterday to find that Allyson had written something of an ode to Stevens, which included the below music video for the Billy Idol axeman’s Grammy award winning theme to that 1980s bastion of homoeroticism, Top Gun.

Y’know what? All these years, I had no friggin’ idea that Steve Stevens had anything to do with those infamous Top Gun guitars. I mean, the music was credited to Harold Faltermeyer, which means Stevens was probably just a session player, but still, if I know all the lyrics to the Stevens/Vince Neil collaboration “Sister of Pain,” I should probably have known that.

Gotta love Stevens’ hair in this video. It’s like Vince’s beard, if Vince’s beard were on his head instead of his face. And was gay.

-AR

Yes, you read that headline correctly: There will be a third season of Rock of Love, and it will star the Bon Jovi guitarist in place of the Poison vocalist.

I somehow find this news troubling; I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m almost certainly gonna watch, but I had no idea that Sambora was as big a scumbag as Michaels. Isn’t this really the kind of thing more fit for, I dunno, like a Vince Neil or a Kip Winger or at least a Jani Lane? I mean, wasn’t Sambora married to Heather Locklear not that long ago? Wasn’t he just shtupping Denise Richards like a year ago? Doesn’t he already get all the tabloid attention he can handle? Or has the weight of living in Jon Bon’s shadow all these years really just proven to be too much for him?

No word on when this car wreck will film/air, but here’s hoping it will be on VH1 in time for the TV doldrums of summer.

-AR

UPDATE: Idolator says that VH1 says that this isn’t true. So there’s still hope for Jani Lane after all!!!

Here are the song titles for Motley Crue’s new album, Saints of Los Angeles:

01. Mother Fucker Of the Year
02. Down At The Whiskey
03. Saints of Los Angeles
04. Face Down In The Dirt
05. What’s It Gonna Take
06. Chicks = Trouble
07. White Trash Circus
08. The Animal In Me
09. Welcome To The Machine
10. This Ain’t A Love Song
11. Just Another Psycho

Well, in the words of Balki Bartokomou, “paint me green and call me Gumby,” because I don’t even have to make fun of this shit. Those song titles are already a total joke.

Aw, shucks, let’s give it a shot anyway.

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So Blabbermouth reports that Motley Crue will make a “colossal announcement” in LA on April 15. As far this band is concerned, only two things could qualify as a “colossal announcement” as this point:

1. All four band members will commit suicide on live t.v.
2. The long awaited boxing match between Vince Neil and Axl Rose is finally happening.

More than likely, though, the band is just announcing another tour on which Vince Neil will be fat and winded, Tommy Lee will act like a moron, Nikki Sixx will discover the hard way that there are still STDs he hasn’t yet contracted, and Mick Mars will be unable to move.

-AR

Last week I gleefully reported that Memory Crash, the solo album from Billy Idol and ex-Vince Neil all-around-awesome shredmaster (and Brooklyn Jew) Steve Stevens, had hit the shelves nationwide (or at least the shelves of the Amazon warehouse). So it came as a surprise to see a press release today — one full week after the scheduled release date — announcing that the release date has been moved to March 4th. Pushed-back album release dates aren’t uncommon these days due to the product not being ready in time, distribution problems, etc, but generally when an album is pushed back the announcement is made, ya know, before the scheduled release date.

Anyway, MetalSucks is perhaps the only website to actually give a shit and this certainly doesn’t temper my excitement for Memory Crash. Stevens’ performance on the Vince Neil solo effort Exposed is far, far underrated; Neil pretty much gave him free reign to take it over the top, and take it over the top he did. Not to speak of his amazing guitar work (and songwriting) for Billy Idol,which goes without saying (but there, I said it anyway).

For a preview of what’s in store (or not, as it were. ba-dum-bum ching!), check out Stevens’ MySpace page. The title track alone is a good taste, Vai-virtuosity meets Idol-accessibility. King’s X crooner Doug Pinnick also makes a guest appearance on the album, as does drummer Brian Tichy (Idol, ex-Ozzy).

-VN

This is the news that Axl, myself, and approximately 7 other guitar dorks worldwide have been eagerly awaiting. Steve Stevens — Billy Idol’s guitarist for years, Vince Neil’s guitarist on the Exposed album, and king Brooklyn Jew (birth name: Steve Schneider –take a look at that shnoz!) — will be releasing a new solo album, Memory Crash, on January 29th via Steve Vai’s Magna Carta record label. Doug Pinnick of King’s X makes a guest appearance lending his soulful voice to one track, as does Billy Idol / ex-Ozzy bassist Brian Tichy.

Those who have followed Steve Stevens closely over the years as I have — and I’m guessing there’s maybe one of you who has — know what an underrated and incredible guitarist he is. In addition to writing all those classic Idol riffs (”Rebel Yell,” “White Wedding,” etc etc etc), Stevens absolutely tore it up on Vince Neil’s Exposed record, his 1993 post-Motley solo debut. He wrote some amazing songs, and fuck did he ever go nuts on the guitar on that album. He’s also done a bunch of experimental stuff over the years (Bozzio / Levin / Stevens) and some studio work here and there.

Stevens says about the record, it’s “a journey through another dimension, It’s virtually musical cinema.” Citing influences such as prog-rock giants Pink Floyd, Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, he continues, “I’ve always loved that about the prog records, like Dark Side Of The Moon. You enter this little theater of the mind. It’s a true headphone experience.”

Cool.

-VN

Drummer Will Hunt of Dark New Day has issued a rather hilarious update, a kid-in-a-candy-store style recap of his various exploits in 2007. Last year his talents were called upon for tours with Evanescence, Vince Neil, and Bloodsimple, all in between writing and recording the next Dark New Day record. He even got a last-minute fill-in gig for Motley Crue:

“We played our set at Donington the next day, went back to our hotel in London where the next day we (the EV band) were going to fly to Amsterdam for four days of rest and more matters to smoke on! Amy was off to somewhere in Europe to film the video for ‘Good Enough’. The morning we were to leave for Amsterdam, I get a call from a frantic Tommy Lee. Seems he rocked the Donington show a little too hard and his shoulder was fucked up beyond him being able to play and where was I and could I fill in for the London and Manchester shows. I was in London about to head to the airport, had four days off, and again, BAM!!!!! I’m on stage with Motley-fucking-Crue with bombs and fire going off all around me, Nikki on the drum riser rockin’ with me, Mick just absolutely shredding (he is by far the LOUDEST guitar player on earth — God bless Mick Mars!!!!), and Vince screaming his head off!!!!!! HOLY SHIT is all I can say. I couldn’t have dreamt it in my wildest dreams!!

Hunt then offered a Dark New Day update, saying the band had whittled 83 demos down to 13 songs to record (plus 3 more written in the studio). He also revealed what I’d long speculated (and Clint Lowery chose not to address), that part of the lenthy delay between DND albums was due to a label shakeup; they lost their A&R guy, a detrimental blow to any band. Especially when that band’s first record didn’t do so well. Can you say “slipping through the cracks”? In any case I’m glad DND have been given the opportunity to record another disc — hopefully it’ll come out soon.

-VN

Well, we actually haven’t seen any video yet or even read reports, but if I were a betting man I’d put money on at least one lyrical fuck-up judging by past history and other past history. The Motley Crue lead singer was scheduled to perform the anthem last night just before kickoff as the Pittsburgh Steelers hosted the Miami Dolphins at Heinz Field for ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Hopefully this time management briefed him about what city he was in.

Any enterprising MetalSucks readers who happen to have recorded the event, drop us a line at news [at] metalsucks.net.

-VN

[Ed: Neil's performance was cancelled due to the wet and soggy conditions. Oh well.]