MetalSucks

I’ve been meaning to mention this for a week. But I can already tell it’s gonna be a slow news day, so now seems like a good time to bring it up.

The lovely ladies at Reign in Blonde discovered that McSweeney’s has has a list of Heavy Metal Board Games. They have also added a few suggestions of their own. Here are a few that tickled me:

• Whitesnakes and Ladders
• Motley Clue
• Twister Sister
• Black Scrabbleth
• Crytopoly
• Dio’s and Dragons

Check out the rest of the list here. And, of course, I’m dying to see if y’all can come with s’more.

And if you really are bored, don’t forget that actually is a Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book.

-AR

Less than a year ago Judas Priest were threatening to pull an Iron Maiden and play their most recent, snooze-inducing album, Nostradamus, live in its entirety; either the band’s handlers told them that was really, really shitty idea, or the band just realized that they like making money, because now they’ve announced that they’ll “celebrate the 30th anniversary” of their classic release British Steel by playing it live from start to finish on their summer headlining tour.

Of course, no one seems to have told them that they’ll actually be celebrating the 29th anniversary of the release of British Steel, which came out in the Spring of 1980. But, hey, they’re old and my dad can’t remember what year it is either, so I sympathize.

ANYWAY, British Steel isn’t my favorite Priest record, but it’s obviously a damn fine one and Halford and company can still bring it live. So this should be a good time.

Here’s Priest performing “Living After Midnight” live in 1982. Announced tour dates thus far are after the jump; support will come from Whitesnake, which means I might actually be able to talk my woman into coming with. Rad.

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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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At the risk of sounding melodramatic, some days I do have to stop and ask the big question – “Where the fucking fuck is my fucking life going?” And often, the answer would seem to “nowhere.”

Then I remember that Vince and I started this totally rad website and all is right with the world.

ANYWAY, running with the theme of “Where is my life going?”, here’s five cock rock videos that address that very issue in some way or another. Why cock rock and not death metal or grindcore or whatever, you ask? Fairly simple: none cock rock bands rarely seem to waste their time dealing with such clichéd bullshit.

My picks after the jump.

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I love YouTube so much. From one of the best singers of all time (and pro gum chewers) to complete trainwrecks, YouTube’s got ‘em. And fortunately today it’s the latter. In response to yesterday’s claim that Whitesnake’s “In The Still of the Night” was a fine choice for drunken karaoke, die-hard MetalSucks Maniac TedTedPoleyPoley posted quite possibly the worst karaoke version of anything in the history of forever, sending my theory straight to the shitter.

-VN

Because sometimes a little Whitesnake is just what your day needs.

Let it be said that this is one of the best karaoke songs EVAR. Especially at the end of a long night of drinking when everyone is about to fall over. Not that I would know anything about that.

-VN

[Welcome to our new column Hair Metal Happy Hour, which will be manned by the fine writer Michael S. Robinson. Things have been admittedly less hairy around here lately, but we hope to rectify that situation with this semi-regular column. Huh huh, he said "rectum-fry." - Ed.]

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost twenty years since glorious hair metal ruled the charts and MTV. Once the crispy, crunchity sounds of the Pacific northwest took over, many of our cock-rocking heroes from the 80s faded into oblivion, while others continued to record sporadically, enjoying varying degrees of success, or lack thereof.

Now it’s 2008, almost 20 years to the day since Stryper released In God We Trust, and we find ourselves in the midst of unarguably the greatest year for hair metal releases since the 1980s. I’m not sure what any of us have done to bring about this incredible turn of good fortune, but it’s worth pausing to analyze, and give thanks for the bounty of hair metal we have been given, and are about to receive, in 2008.

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