THE WICKER MAN WILL FUCK YOU UP

It was a huge fucking deal back in 2000 when singer Bruce Dickinson rejoined his former band, Iron Maiden. Days after the announcement, Dickinson was in town to promote the big news with the local morning zoo crew. My intrepid Sony rep tried to get me five minutes with the Spruce Bruce, but alas, didn't happen. Months later, I bumped into Sony dude at the Maiden/Halford/Queensryche show, where he unexpectedly dragged me backstage to chat with the Maiden dudes. I had to lower my voice to heap praise on Bruce for his incredible Skunkworks album, and his response was muted, but I can tell he was flattered and wanted to be BFFs from that moment forward. 

Weeks earlier, I'd badgered Maiden guitarist Dave Murray about the reunited Maiden's first single, "The Wicker Man," which somehow lost half of its chorus on its way to lead position on the album Brave New World. Murray had given an evasive answer, and now, backstage, I was too busy trying not to seem uncomfortably baked in front of my heroes, so fuck if I know. I can't even conceive why the band would even name a song after a mind-mangling acid trip of a movie about an isolated Scottish island whose inhabitants worship the sun, fuck in public all over town, and generally freak out visiting policeman Edward Woodward (The Equalizer). Will he find the missing girl and escape the island? That's the burning question. Mwah hahaha. 

I'D BE HAPPIER WITH THE PROFANITY

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WHO DISHES BEHIND HIS BACK WINS

I bitch about my poorly-timed birth (too late for Van Halen and Hitchcock, too early for space porn) but at least I'm right on the money with The Simpsons and Kobe Bryant. I started watching NBA basketball right as Bryant was coming off a brutal ordeal surrounding charges of sexual assault followed by a couple of hideous post-Shaq seasons. He chilled out after that shit. Hence our love is so pure cuz I missed five years of his being a huge arrogant bastard. 

I find a parallel in my history with Thrash Metal. I came of age just as Thrash was growing beyond the sound of dumb heshers being dumb. Nay, by the time I was old enough to count money Slayer ditched reverb and high screams; the lyrics of Testament no longer detailed scarifying tales of horror, instead opting for the socio-political; mid-era Anthrax could really put a melody together (below); Metallica didn't once mention leather or spikes. Good times. 

I would've suffered a lot less heartache if only I could time my death just as perfectly. Like if I hadn't survived the time I dared Mike to push me in front of a train in 1992. Hey you take six hits of acid and see what sounds like a fun Thursday afternoon idea.  

LOOKIN' GOOOOOD GEOFF TATE

I finally peeped Kreator's mantastic "Hordes of Chaos" video and wow that shit is hot. Greased up guys, swordplay, supplicant women -- that's how it's done. There's so much distracting green screen shit and so many quick, jerky shots that I wasn't even able to get a bead on frontman Mille Petrozza. Which is fine cuz as a non-chick, he has neither luscious tits nor a cute lil' caboose. Those Cherman bands keep it sexy.

Geoff Tate and the sad pile of hamster vomit masquerading as Queensryche might've heeded that last bit of advice when conceiving their eye-raping video for new single/proof that god doesn't exist "If I Were King" (too foul to link sorry). You'd say this were impossible, but I insist that the band travelled to the set of General Hospital in 1985 to shoot this gem. And since I haven't heard about a sudden, gory suicide of a music video editor, I'm gonna have to conclude that the band didn't employ one. (I imagine Eddie Jackson just kept hitting the pause button on the three rented digital cameras.) No sane production professional would opt for five solid minutes of Tate (above, with Anna Nicole Smith) grimacing in agony on a beach. That guy is just pure sex. 

HEY ANACRUSIS IS BACK! UH HELLO? ANYBODY?

The very existence of magazine for young men with tin ears Blender would be unknown to me, except that somehow, the pointless fluffrag seems to follow me. My last few employers subscribed to it; when I crash at a friend's, an issue is found staring at me from the toilet tank; I even stumbled over a burst carton of them in the aisle of a bookstore once. But those days are over, as New York Times reports:

Blender, a music and entertainment magazine, will cease publication with its April issue, but will continue to publish on its Web site, blender.com, its owner, the Alpha Media Group, announced on Thursday.

“We went as far as we could in a difficult environment,” said an Alpha Media spokeswoman, Nora Haynes.

About 30 people will leave the company as a result of the magazine’s closing, she said.

I guess will leave the company is how Haynes pronounces will get kicked the fuck out of their offices but anyway it's kinda funny that Blender thought it could survive by offering internet-similar content in a website-esque design alternated with pictures of non-nude women for the not-free cost of $5 only 20 short days later than the actual internet. Maybe blender.com could rebound with a service that takes my emails, prints them to a letter-sized paper, and then contracts an organization to hand-deliver them to my desired recipients in 5-7 days. 

Seriously, they had 30 people on staff for that? At least the really hip decision-makers responsible for Blender's content and look will be reassigned to lucrative positions at sister publication Maxim. Anyway, the gaping hole in my life left by Blender will be filled by the mini-reunion of underloved prog-Thrash quartet Anacrusis (1993's awesome, very Killing Joke-ish "Sound The Alarm" above), who are confirmed for Keep It True XIII in Chermany, much to the delight of me and 12 guys on Blabbermouth. Alright Realm, you fuckers are next. Let's get something GOING!. 

STEVEN TYLER INVITED ME TO HIS BIRTHDAY PARTY USING ESP

If you phoned me last night only to be confused by my evasive curtness and whispering, then goddammit stop calling me while I'm um "hanging out with" Steven Tyler. The pap shots of the Aerosmith frontman's 61st birthday party Thursday night are probably up on WENN by now, and you'll notice I'm the stylish and not at all clammy guy lurking I mean looming no that's not it lounging at Tyler's six. Behind the plant. My other hand? Uh why it's fixing my belt of course. 

In other news, that's me as well on the beach with my face stitched to Zhang Ziyi's no-no zone. March is always a big month for me. 

IN MY FACE

I'm pretty sure that every reasonable Metal person enjoyed a hearty chortle at the new Static-X album's cover art (above). Come on, this is some delusional bullshit, we all thought; the Chicago quartet is dumb-looking, silly-sounding, and beset with unfortunate links to habitual child rapists. So precisely where does this fictitious legion of Static-X fans congregate for Wayne Static to go all Morpheus on them? Did he just rip the top off a barrel of meth or something?

Well, Static-X anticipated our skepticism and has responded by selling 19,000 copies of Cult of Static, which lands in the Top 20 in its first week. Huh. Really makes you think. Of suicide.

THE HOOM! YEAR IN METAL 2008: ALL YOU NEED IS HATE

2 HATE ETERNAL * FURY & FLAMES (Metal Blade)

My dad blasted my world with a monster zing one night at dinner. When asked what I was up to all day, my timid response was that, as usual, I'd spent the three hours since school listening to Metallica's ...And Justice For All. The old man surprised me with the news that he, too, had heard some incidental Metallica that very day. Ecstatic, I fired at him What song? How? Where? What the hell? He chewed thoughtfully before explaining that near a construction site, his ear was grabbed by a song familiar to him from hearing it through the walls of my room. 'Second-hand Metal. Awesome! I shouted, rapt. He continued: Yeah I was just getting into when it turned out to be the sound of a city worker running a jackhammer while casually screaming profanities. My sister's burst of laughter shot a gob of eggplant across the table onto my plate. Damn. 

That night I was mayor of Pout City but damn if I wouldn't feel the same way about extreme Metal a few years later. On my first viewing of Napalm Death's "Suffer The Children" video, I found parts of the awesome song were only a blur of noise; my common lament was that there's too much going on for it to make sense. Until one of my Metal mentors suggested that I wasn't listening to Carcass and Death at a high enough volume. I thought it was a trick until I rushed home to find that the fucker was so right! Louder is better!

This bit of insight is especially important when listening to Hate Eternal's brilliant 2008 album Fury & Flames. Not just because the mix is so drum-heavy, not just because there's so much shit happening, but mostly because Fury & Flames. Is. Fucking. Unbelievable. On F&F, Hate Eternal demonstrates a preternatural understanding of Brutal Death Metal as the music's most limitless and progressive genre. Where Progressive rock subtracts and divides, Hate Eternal's BDM is pure addition. 

That's a lot of academic talk but it goes for context. And, obviously, more is not synonymous with better. In the case of Fury & Flames, however, every pick stroke, every growl, every throbbing, hammering beat is beautiful. Like Behemoth's The Apostasy, F&F's drums lend a groove to the songs, alternating mid- and uptempos to pristine effect. Frontman Erik Rutan's vocals are both a lead and rhythm instrument, clearing the way for deceptively smart riffs. You don't get hired into Morbid Angel (like Rutan did) by being unable to put together a solo, and F&F's solos employ both the screamy, shimmering tone of solo Chris Poland and the phrasing of James Murphy. And still, the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. Or however that expression goes. Turn. It. Up. LOUD.

DEATH TO ALL BUTT METAL

In their awesome (and dirty) new video "Death To All But Metal," Steel Panther (fka Metal Skool) lays it on pretty thick, so their Hollywood hair metal schtick might be a little tongue-in-cheek. That's an understatement. But I'm serious as a heart attack when I say that this song is history's greatest goddamn piece of music. Sorry Mozart's Requiem; you've been dethroned. And the singer can do comedy! Nice!

METAL NON-METAL II

It's been a dispiriting month for fans of shrieking, caterwauling Japanese pop singers. First, Utada Hikaru, the Kobe Bryant of J-pop, embarrassed herself a second time with her silly sophomore English-language wannabe R&B record, This Is The One. Her LeBron James, BoA, did the same with her self-titled US debut, though at least she had the good sense to hire experts to wholly fabricate her desperately inauthentic LP that no reasonable American would buy. And most devastating of all, Brilliant Green singer Tomoko Kawase's new record under her Tommy February6 moniker turns out to be a fucking Best-Of, culling superhits from all um two of her albums. Oh plus a compulsory pair of new songs, which I'd bet dollars to donuts will pop up on her next real record anyway.

Kawase has HooM! Diplomatic Immunity as the author of the two best Top 40 pop records since back when Madonna's vagina wasn't dried shut, so I'm not mad. But I was mad ready (ha) for a new TF6 outing in these lean pop times. Til then, her ripping side-side project Tommy Heavenly6 will suffice, whose awesomeness if typified by the hot and heavy "Fell In Love With You" and "Gothic Pink" (below). Let's all go to crazy and enjoy to headbang!

GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING YANKEES

My therapists and attorneys tell me that the first step on the road to contentment is honesty. So alright I admit it: I like Damn Yankees. Mostly, I like DYank frontman Jack Blades, pop songwriting assassin/total nancy. They're all major lamewads, not least of all Tommy Shaw (S'Dicks) and Ted Nugent (draft dodger, racist, selective amnesiac, moron).  And though Damn Yankees was marketed as a hard rock supergroup, they're about as heavy as Toto, but with measurably better hair. 

But don't front, Metal people: "High Enough" is beautiful garbage and "Coming of Age," the real culprit of my latent Damn Yankeesism, loops in my head for entire weeks every year thanks to daily mentions of Japan's young, nubile 20-year old girls and their January rite-of-passage ceremonies. And I'll be goddamned if DY don't absolutely rip live, here on non-single/radio favorite "Come Again" (at 1:29 above, nice fucking shorts, Shaw). Sorry about that Toto remark. Nuge looks high.

DEVIN YOU'RE SCARING US

Hey y'know that whole thing about Joaquin Phoenix quitting movies to be an MC or whatever? But it's supposed to be a hoax, an inside joke? For now, let's file Devin Townsend's new sober lifestyle and freaky overtalking in that same drawer. I mean, anybody with at least one functioning ear knows that Townsend is a fucking genius. From the screaming Metal of Strapping Young Lad to his more pensive, expansive solo stuff (like 2007's Ziltoid The Omniscient), his records KILL, a fact made remarkabler by the scant downtime between them. He's the Steve Marriott of Metal, the guy that all singers and guitarists and producers secretly admit is the real shit, the best voice, the keenest ear, the most soul. 

So it's alarming and scary that in 2009 Townsend sounds like a changed man with a different approach to music. It's always sad to see a superstar ambassador of our drug community change sides, but it's not about that. Not exactly. Townsend describes his upcoming record Ki (teaser here), the first in a four-volume project (via Blabbermouth):

Many folks have been waiting to see what I do next after SYL and Ziltoid, so after careful consideration, I wanted the first record to be quiet and subtle. However, fear not chaos fans... the next two records in the quartet are progressively heavier; the third volume, Deconstruction, is the heaviest music I've ever created. I know as I get older, a steady diet of chaotic music does little more than give me a headache. So with Ki, I wanted to re-introduce myself in a way that says, "I can make chaos like you've never heard. But for starters, please get comfortable." 

The common ground to my previous releases would be my voice, but even my guitar playing has changed. I use primarily a clean tone now (no distortion) and in terms of the sonics, I have used very little compression and it is not mastered very loud. The term Ki loosely means "life force" and, therefore, in almost the antithesis to my previous albums, there is no real editing or triggers on the drums. Much of the music was recorded "live off the floor." I wanted to preserve the energy flow without worrying so much about mistakes.

Ki appeared after I quit drugs. I found myself angry at drugs, in all honesty. I spent many, many years stoned out of my mind, making music that although clever, was a misrepresentation of what I truly feel I wanted to say. Once I started "clearing up," I found that reality in many ways is much HEAVIER than the drug world. It has sharper edges and less release, but the point with Ki is that I need to clarify a lot of things I've said in the past musically. I believe in spirituality, and that life force is much more intense when I participate in it with a sober mind. 

Huh. News of four (!) new Devy records should make my wang scream, but it's totally disturbing when a lifestyle change causes musicians to drastically alter their perfectly sound approach to being awesome. I get it that drugs are wrong for Townsend now, but it's specious (at least) for him to conclude that his drug years (and their fruits) require a total reversal. What parts of transcendent records like Terria or Physicist could be wrong or dishonest? Does he truly intend to distance himself from life-saving perfection of Infinity? From sonics to performance to content, Townsend is negating and reversing. He claims he wants to clarify his past sentiments, but his words tell a different story. He's becoming an anti-Devin.

It's just as likely that Townsend is fully aligned with himself now, and that Strapping Young Lad and his classic Devin Townsend albums, brilliant as they are, represent but a fraction of his potential. Ki, and Destruction and Addiction and Whatever may be the best, purest Devin music ever, an unfiltered expression of a profound musical mind. For now, all we have is (a shitload) of explanations and a very disheartening five minutes of clips. Or it's joke.

BRING ME THE CHINS OF ROBERT RITCHIE

We at HooM! are intensely disciplined about the live and let live spirit. Example? If Kid Rock fits your definition of good music, fine, rock on dude. Just stay the motherfuck away from me. And wipe that twinkie grease off your face, fatty. Likewise, if you actually are Kid Rock, whatever, chump; it's a sin to let fools keep their money. Get it while it's easy, I say. 

But even sensible, thick-skinned guys can be pushed too far. Like when my senses were raped today by a fucking Kid Rock video/military recruitment ad hybrid. Holy fuck, what am I, a fucking moron? What the fuck do race cars have to do with anything? What the mother of shit does Kid Rock know about wars and combat? Are you telling me that we, as taxpayers, are paying Kid Rock to counteract the American military's horrible public image with schmaltzy bullshit? This is not a product; this is human life. If what is depicted in the above clip were accurate, then Kid Rock and Prof. Racecar guy wouldn't be necessary to make a good case for recruitment. Kid Rock, if that is your real name, you better request a detachment to guard your own bloated ass because I just declared jihad on you. Whatever happens Kid Rock you're dead! 

THAT METAL SHOW DREADFUL, BLOWS

I'm filled with several types of rage, but none more profitable and entertaining than my virulent Consumer Rage, which results in the occasional but venomous costumer service dispute. A particularly heated Call & Bitch session resulted in a tasty upgrade to my cable service. Unfortunately, I've now been subjected to Eddie Trunk's That Metal Show, unwatchable and funereal as it is. Trunk is cool, but the half-hour is an assault of poorly-conceived/awfully-executed segments, inept interviewing, and pointless discussion. (A recent episode features two deathly minutes of apples-to-oranges comparison of Vulgar Display of Power and Reign In Blood. Ugh.) Worse, Trunk's unlikable goons peddle mirthless East Coast tough guy non-humor, overshadowing their obvious affection for Metal. And leave it to VH1 to produce a Metal show hosted exclusively by non-longhairs. Lame. 

I'm gonna get back to this Showtime softcore (lest the plot escape me [something about erotic seduction {the best kind}]), so let's wrap it up by saying for good Metal viewing, go no further than the magnificent doc Heavy Metal In Baghdad (above). And we thought the PMRC was bad. 

Y'KNOW I'M A SINGER/BUT I'M DEAF OF TONE

It's hard to remember, but Motley Crue once was just an amusing, occasionally over-achieving bimbo rock quartet. That was two decades ago. Since then it's been a lot of dishonest spotlight-chasing and Nikki Sixx's big stupid mouth. I'm hard on them because non-Metal people -- y'know, lame-wads -- think that Motley is some dangerous, wild shit. Yeah, their biggest hit was my doorway to feeling on the girls' swim team star's ass at junior high dances. Thanks Michelle.

Where was I going with this ... Oh yeah one indisputably positive thing about those retards is that behind the kit Tommy Lee was a god. I remember the video premiere of "Wildside," a Tommy showcase, and being struck at how that particular tune illustrates the band's wasted potential. All of their best moments were dark and violent yet for every "Wildside" there were a dozen turds like um everything else on Girls Girls Girls. This ratio improved markedly but still unsatisfactorily on 1988's Dr. Feelgood, featuring "Slice Of Your Pie" (above), another thundergod moment for Tommy. Turn it up.

MASTODON'S BILL KELLIHER WILL RAPE YOUR POCKET

I'm not at South By Southwest this year like certain big fat hotshots, but at least there's a funny movie opening Friday. Hint: It doesn't co-star a shaved horse on its hind legs nor does it take place in New England and its title doesn't rhyme with blowing. But seriously, I Love You, Man tackles an issue close to our hearts here at HooM!: unbridled platonic man love. With any luck, these themes will permeate modern society so it won't seem strange when Brent Hinds of Mastodon opens a mysterious package in his dressing room containing a set of four-legged pants with our names embroidered across the seat. And intertwined roses.

I know you just choked up a mouthful of appletini but I've done my research, jackass. Bassist Troy Sanders tells AOL's awful, semi-functional Spinner.com:

After a 2007 gig in Portugal, [the guys in Metallica had] come out of their trailers and Bill [Kelliher, Mastodon guitarist] walks right up to Lars Ulrich, and puts his penis in Lars' pocket. I'm not kidding. I was like, 'Dude you're about to get your ass kicked by a security guard.' That's what makes Bill so special. That, and his mustache.

Kelliher adds:

I have a picture of [Ulrich] kissing me on the cheek. He must have liked it.

Oh you bet he liked it. Just ask Iron Maiden's Steve Harris.

WHITESNAKE HEAT, RED HOT

Like everybody, I find the newly-announced Judass Priest/Whitesnake bill kinda unusual and somewhat foul. But there's a twisted logic to the pairing, cuz Priest singer/man fan Rob Halford will seem that much more studly after a dozen of Whitesnake singer/arch bushman David Coverdale's songs about crying and summoning the strength to leave her behind and can't keep away noooo-whoaa.

Still, let it not be said that I wouldn't submit to a public horsewhipping in return for a televised duet with Monica of Slip Of The Tongue mushfest "The Deeper The Love" (above). Long skinny mics, formalwear, trading verses/harmonizing on the choruses, fists clenched to chests -- you betcha. Then we'd make babies right there on the set of Ellen.

TESTAMENTAL

I got a few emails wondering about a perceived lack of HooM! enthusiasm about the finally-announced Testament tour. To which I respond hey my hands have been heh heh 'full' since this hot, sexy news hit the streets. Yeah it's impossible to type with your mitts feverishly working up and down a long, hard ... guitar while practicing songs likely to appear on the Testament setlist. You see, I have a Drebin-esque plan to meet Testament lead guitarist Alex Skolnick but suddenly look beyond him like there's something really interesting there. I feel a "What the..." will be a nice touch and as he turns BLAM right on the noggin. As a precaution, I removed sometime Skolnick replacement Glen Drover to a self-storage locker in Fullerton, where an elaborate device controlled by my mobile phone delivers regular electrical jolts to his balls. You too can participate by texting Shock Glen's Nuts to HooM! (4666). Anyway, at the show if you find that Skolnick seems a few inches shorter, visibly intoxicated, and a lefty, um that just means you're totally wasted, dude. Hey what's that behind you?

TEGAN + SARA CAN SHAMPOO MY CROTCH

In a very profound sense, annoying hipster junk like the offensive, patronizing, jackassy t-shirt above is responsible for HooM!’s founding and subsequent roaring popularity. Which is to say that HooM! is the petulant, rage-filled bastard child of a true-blue sweaty metal guy and a silly poser chick who thinks Whitesnake is hilarious. Ok Whitesnake is asinine but the point is that my friends and associates and enthralled readers and Metalists of exquisite taste like you owe hipster dorks like Tegan + Sara (nice femullets) a measure of gratitude. Y'know, for rerouting my petty, deafening rants to this forum for the written word. Which is quieter. Thanks uncleaver dorks! Hipsters out of Metal! And stay out!

TELL ME WHY I HAVE TO BE A POWERDAVE

I kinda spoke with my wallet last month by actually purchasing a copy of Guitar World. And to think, it onlyl took ten years of being dead for the godly Criss Oliva to get a story -- and for GW to get my eight (!!) bucks. But hey there are lots of obscure, unsung guitarists. Savatage wasn't big, and the writer had to work the TSO angle pretty heavily as it was. So while it's wrong, at least it makes sense.

But it's in explicable and criminal to disrespect a well-known band's brilliant axeman. So what the shit is every guitar mag's excuse for ignoring Iron Maiden's Dave Murray? Only surpassed in pure phrasing by Tommy Baron of Coroner, Murray has a exhilarating, fluid style that's part Blackmore and 100% beautiful. Just exciting as hell. And clean, beautifully-toned on the neck pick-up against Gers' raunchy blues and Smith's staccato melodicism. More than once, Steve Harris' by-the-numbers rhythm parts drag like zombies without him. 

I laughed when ex-Manowar dork Ross The Boss said B.B. King's playing could make him cry; luckily, when I openly wept this morning following Murray's solo in "The Prophecy" (below), R the B wasn't in the shower with me. For once.

YOU HAVE THE POWER TO FEEL YOURSELF

All those lame celebrity-voiced animated vehicles that Dreamworks and Pixar et al crank out every year have yet to interest me. It's mostly kids stuff, which means no freebasing or dwarf-bangs. Just a lot of conformist brainwashing and Robin Williams. But that could change since David Fincher (Zodiac, The Sensuous Case of Bradley Pitt) is tackling animation with The Goon. Keep an eye on that one.

For now, my wang loves the spellbinding new animated video from metalists Gojira, "All The Tears" (above), which reportedly "is about all the tears." So yeah my boner was already having a busy week when Gojira announced a headline (!) tour last night, featuring opening bands Who Cares and Not Gojira. And we're inside of a week 'til new Mastodon. It's kinda like getting an aching wisdom tooth removed and scoring ten vicodin on your way out the door. Now if only I could get this traffic cone out of my ass. 

EARACHE RECORDS WHEN DOES IT END?

Initial reports are trickling in to HooM! HQ about the varry spayshle Carcass Exhumed to Consume II tour and it sounds horny. Jeff Walker's in good humor, Bill Steer's in good form, and the setlist is packed with Necroticism super hits. So it makes sense that Earache Records, the band's former label home, is peddling their Carcass re-issues with a tasty contest over at Deciblog. Man, Earache reminds me of that guy at the party lingering at the keg to catch a glimpse of side-boob as Carcass and Nuclear Blast Records drunkenly make out on the couch. That's a weird analogy. Sorry. 

MY FREAKIN' EARS

How about that pathetic new Queensryche single, which arrived on a wave of really counter-productive desperation publicity. While often my finger hovered near the play button, days passed before I was high enough to sally forth and listen to ugh "If I Were King" (nice subjunctive) from the forthcoming American Soldier shudder.

First of all, easy drama is for afterschool specials, dog. Second of all, I call exploitation on you. In these complicated times, I'm certain no one looks in Queensryche's direction for commentary, but that doesn't stop them from basically intellectualizing Godsturbed's "USA! USA!" chants and crass photo ops. Most importantly, the shit is just lame. Yeah, I saw Generation Kill too. And Mindcrime 2 was fucking great. Too bad.

LOVE YOUR BONER DAY

I look down my dashing Italian nose at mystics but I did read Tool's egghead website a lot in the early 2000s; those nutjobs have dropped a lot of acid or whatever's stronger than acid judging from their um ideas, more recently nutshelled in the April Guitar World with bimbo Kirk Hammett. Toting a guitar with a lot of retarded and possibly conflicting symbols opposite Tool's Adam Jones, Hammett is begging for a reprise of Kristin Bell's (above) farewell kiss-off of Russell Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Or a taser to the nuts. One of the two.

Anyway, I may be changing my tune about kinship among all living things and the great magnet cuz I was in my jammies when suddenly my boner began to rise against its easterly curve to point to the right, where lies my computer. What is it boy, I asked before spotting news that Mastodon's new record, Crack The Skye, is streaming here. Sound quality is shittay, but hey whatever. Thanks, boner! I promise to get you wet soon!

FUCK SLASH

Oh great god the horror. As if that Chris Cornell shit weren't enough to break my boner. Check out this combination of horrifying words, from Slash's myspace:

"Week after next, I'm going into the studio to start recording [my solo album]. I've made a ton of headway getting some killer songs written with some very profound individuals over the last couple of months. Next week, I'm going to do some guitar work for an instrumental version of Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir', performed by Escala, an all-girl string quartet from the U.K."

Slash's wife, Perla Hudson, told Rockerrazzi last fall that the albums special guests will include Ozzy Osbourne and pop/R&B singer, rapper and actress Fergie (a.k.a. Stacy Ann Ferguson).

Wow good thing they included Fergie's full name. That shit is vital. And uh are you fucking serious? a string quartet version of "Kashimir" f/Slash? And they say Axl is the fucked up one.