HYPOCRISY ALERT, BOTH KINDS

Thanks to file sharing panic, lately the recording industry is like a giant pair of clenched asscheeks. Only when the inevitable squeeze-fatigure sets in do the mastercheeks relax and part to spit out some compact beige turdlets of product; simultaneously, all the creativity-challenged middle management types scramble to ram their dicks in before the brown hole of glory is again slammed shut. O! the countless wangs that have been violently detached by the spiteful, merciless undercarriage of the music business. It's a wonder that good music ever makes it to its public for the scared busybodies charged with delivering it. But anyway, I aspire to be one of those scrambling dicks/scarybodies (?) but am currently too peonic to even sniff the all-powerful Big Buns and their chocolate secret. If I had any juice at all believe me Hypocrisy would be a much bigger band. Tagtgren would be co-hosting with Leno and the cover of Newsweek would read 'Hip-ocrisy?' and to USA Today I'd suggest they run a snappy infographic titled 'Hip Hip Hypocrisy!' Patience, Monty.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT ENCORE

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks. Except you cuz you're a pussy. Or you already know Testament is the second best Metal band of all times. Or you're a gay-mo-fag-xual. One of those.

Each day this month, your gay-ass hasn't joined HooM! as we died, went to Testament heaven, and took a monster dump on your mom's chest. It's the last song this time for real; an involuntary cry is muted too late by your balled fist; and now you've got somebody's crinkly hairs in your mouth; your retching is cosmetically similar to extreme death metal enthusiasm but then Testament slams your ear-boner in a door with the conclusive, brutally unheralded closer to an underloved album whatawoild:

ANOTHER REALM

Speaking of Wisconsin metal, how about that Lazarus A.D. in this new and very Metal video for The Onslaught's "Revolution", featuring footage from umm that looks like Summerfest. As it happens, a super Realm bootleg I've heard is from Summerfest though 15 years earlier; it's on an old TDK tape but you can still hear ripping then-new songs "Final Argument of Kings" and "The Other Side of Me" plus their King Crimson number "One More Red Nightmare" and the conveniently forgotten "Partnerz 'N Crime." Ok in all fairness, that spelling is unconfirmed but there's no question that prog-thrashers Realm did write and perform a jokey rap song a la "I'm The Man," with pro-safe sex messages and crap. Otherwise, they're awesome and Lazer Ass A.D. is too so one wonders if these studs aren't transplants to the area. See, I know a guy who's paternal grandmother is one-quarter Wisconsinish and that dude can't even spell the word guitar let alone play one.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT ENCORE

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. This near to the end, every song comes into sharp focus despite the fatigue of yknow standing up for 90 minutes; you begin to search for deeper significance in the final songs; what is Testament's view of the state of humanity, what are their parting words to us, are they of hope, despair, deliverance?

REALM-UNION OR BUST

Besides the usual hay fever, another allergy I suffer from is an extreme sensitivity to crusading writers and their pet bands. Maybe it's the tone of exasperation, or the smugness that accompanies a real find. Worse is that nowadays, under-exposed bands are everywhere and likewise rabid band patrons number beyond actual journos to include empowered comment jockeys; Metal Sucks even turned over one Friday's operations to such a breathless, put-upon zealot.

Now on the other hand, this endorsement of an underloved band like Realm is justified, cuz few people are unlucky enough to live in Milwaukee (home to the band and most of its fans), their awesomeness levels roughly equal those of Atheist and Queensryche (seriously), and goddammit I'm trying to get a reunion tour going here (not getting any younger y'all). Turn it up and join the movement. No not that kind.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT ENCORE

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. Here we are, encore time and I don't mind orking like a seal for more live Testament; the stage is black but here returns drummer Paul Bostaph who sure is a wee widdle fella but he's 5'3" of explosion on the song whose playback intro is percolating now, a thunderously grave and gasp poignant classic which proves we were fools to tolerate post-Justice Metallica and their ilk:

URINE LOVE

Something else I learned by religiously following Dee Snider's House of Hair is that an alarming number of hair rock classics may very well be about peeing on people. Steady your bowtie, sir, I shall continue. Ok for starters, Lita Ford's "Gotta Let Go" is pretty suggestive and there's really no doubt about "River of Love" by Lynch Mob. Then there's Ratt and the bizarrely anthemic HOH favorite "You're In Love" (above, worst video ever). I'm kinda ignorant about early Ratt cuz I got onboard with Top-10 All-Time Classic Single "Way Cool, Jr." (and its superb but overproduced Reach For The Sky album) and continue a lusty love affair also with Detonator, and shit I even love five or six tunes from the comeback record. But it's tough for me to go back in a band's catalogue. Doing so always results in disappointment, as the band sounds crude and underdeveloped; few bands have a stronger identity before a few records under their belt, and the rare acts with a formed personality from the jump (G n' R, Van Halen) invariably descend into insanity and wackness.

Anyway, the lyrics of the new wavey "You're In Love" are hilarious through a tinkle-tinted lens, such as singer Stephen Pearcy's description of a surprise piss attack from a stumble bum ("You take the midnight subway train/You're calling all the shots/You're struck by lightning/Urine Love!") or his boasts of accuracy ("I'm the one who's out and aims to please"). That's about whizzing on dudes seriously.

SNOT LOVE

HooM! can be pretty negative but it belies my intrinsically hopeful interior. For egg-sandwich, no one I know has ever found a reason to like Dokken, and I mean not a soul not even the mega-heshers a few grades older than us who were freakin Laaz Rocket fans for the love of Geoff. But with awful bands there's a point where I become able to suppress my symbolic vomit, and that's when I set about trying to find something -- song, album cover, guitar solo, haircut, hot girl who likes them -- anything good about them. Especially with major label bands, cuz goddammit like a half-dozen people are paid to make the songs good even if sung by a breathy, whiny, sub-Coverdale drama queen (with great comic timing). Seriously. According to the laws of probability, even bands who set the global standard for gay-ass breakup songs will stumble into a snappy single. Especially in your best-loved genre.

My Dokken quest came to an end during Dee Snider's House Of Hair back iiiiin um 2005 when I first laid ears on "It's Not LOVE!" which rips despite the usual Don Dokken cornball despair. That song opened the door for another awesome/faggy song "Burning Like A Flame" but then you have stuff like "Paris Is Flaming" and "In My Jeans." Ear-barfingest harmonies ever.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. The worst moment of any show is announcement that 'this is our last song'; sure there's the encore but the stench of inevitable parting with Testament hangs heavy in the air; well that and pot smoke, sweat fog, and the electricity of an instant-classic solo by then 18-year old Alex Skonick, who Mustaine actually considers himself superior to pfft please:

THAT'S MORE LIKE IT

Last week, Aerosmith guitarist/shiny chest enthusiast Joe Perry kinda threw a scary bitch fit but like a battered wife, he is quickly and decisively retracting his not veiled threats to Steven Tyler. Tyler might deserve a rank-out cuz he's been acting funny lately. Not funny funny but funny weird. Fishy, even. But anyway, Perry may have overshot when he actually made like demands and stuff. I mean so what if Tyler (above, just pure money) is a diva in the midst of a um late-life crisis with new management, the standard issue piece of tail who's younger than his daughters, and at-best indifferent motor skills. I'm trying to wring another couple albums out of him so let's all kinda use collective consciousness power to make it happen. Look it's working on Perry, who promises the Boston Harold:

When we started using outside songwriters it definitely helped with our success in the '80s and '90s. I don't know, maybe it got too [easy] to rely on [them]. I don't think anybody really cares who writes the songs as long as they sound like Aerosmith songs and, at least to me, there have been times when we drifted away from [the Aerosmith sound]. I don't mind using outside songwriters but I'd still like to see an Aerosmith where the core of the music comes from the guys in the band. Maybe we have three more records in us. Maybe we have [about] seven years of touring.

I like this optimistic, bullshit-ish Perry much better than professor poutypants from last week. And yes we're all stomping on his dong for that little episode but he doesn't sound cranky! They should just barely tolerate and write some overtly derogatory and insulting songs. Like Faith No More or Sloan or Stone Temple Pilots.

NO COALESCE BONER

Ok fine you beat it out of me: I can't stand Coalesce. I've been half-fronting for years but it's time to come clean. That album of theirs 2112: Revolution Is Just Glistening in my collection? A promo. After a few listens in 1999, back to the shelf it went until its contents made sense. In the meantime, I nodded blankly during any Coalesce-related discussion and lent it to friends with vague and evasive endorsements (each hated it except Emily). And alas it never ended up making sense cuz the record is totally pointless, and there I said it. And I heard their bassist will take a dump on stage (above).

At this point, I'd apologize to the (superb) publicist who kindly sent me a copy like eight months after its press cycle but then again, here I am in print basically wearing his balls on my face. And shit now that I think about it, he's the one who made me listen to that rotten Coalesce album. I assume it was his skillz (and studly name) behind the tasteful campaign (balls on face) for their new record, Ox, and again my effort was solid but shit no foiled again I hate it. Ok laterz.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. It's getting kinda late and you picture your bong laying seductively across your cuddly bed; from somewhere you detect the scent of those chicken pita thingys at the Greek place; time for a loud one with killer intro/outro and absurd solo:

LARS HAD 'COCKS IN HIS EARS'

I cherish my boner and all its wacky exploits, plus I'm a paranoid, horny weirdo whose blackouts can span days, so it's become my depressing yearly custom to jaunt down to the awful county-operated clinic for a wang diagnostic. And thus we turn up another purpose for Steel Panther at top volume, cuz that shit really brightened up the lobby/sadness tank and sleazed me into a good mood. By the time my balls were being gripped by that shifty, pouting doctor, I'd crossed over from cooperative to effusive then to celebratory. I was pretty close on her accent, which was Columbian though she was half-pleased with my guess of nearby Panama. I only said it so I could sing the song (above) with my wiener in her face. Nuge.

Ahem after all that distress, I like to treat my johnson and face to a late breakfast followed by a rare mid-day goofball. So my junk is resting peacefully right now, but even so I'd wake it up if Lars were here for whomping duties on his stupid face. Then he'd act like he didn't love it. And then mime begging for more. Then don a kabuki mask for a seven-hour show about his dickmark of shame and the vengeful writer who branded his right cheek with a veiny length of man. I'd pull a quote from the Tuesday story about Lars's latest rehearsal for his coming-out speech but shit man it's 11:45 what can I tell ya. So check it here or just read the comments, from which I stole the headline. See those little quotes? That's journalism's perk, like rights of confidentiality (lawyers, doctors), underage sex (teachers, rock stars), or free cupcakes (come on sponsor me Entenmann's!).

THE BIG FOUR TOUR WILL SAVE METALLICA

Lakers F Lamar Odom is but 29 years old but has survived an shitload of heart-rending tragedies, losses, and random disasters. Even coach Phil Jackson allows for Odom to be a duh-machine plus usually he's kinda brilliant. Anyway to the point ahem if healing for Odom is a sudden wedding to the delicious (but beneath him) Khloe Kardashian, then I can stand for that. Even though a marriage commenced after merely 30 days of acquaintance already reeks of drama and distraction. And I don't think this event moves forward without Kobe's consent. It's in the contracts trust me.

Like I attempted to say up there, tying the knot to a hot, crazy piece like any Kardashian sister sounds sweet and all but will likely end in calamity fast. Just like the tittered-about Big Four tour. On one hand, Metallica hasn't really had any competition on that retard round stage for dickknobs that looks like a freaking USO show, so few would notice if the band has average nights every night. And surely Lars knows that Mustaine will scream his band into kickass shape, and Slayer will destroy even them, so in theory Lars might convince all to play their songs as long-haired men would (above), not like warbling no-playing sorry-ass guffawing douchesacks who now inhabit their bodies. Not literally. Or more likely it will be Mustaine belittling everybody on Blabbermouth alternating with Lars' boasts about being faggy as shit (more on that later). Hey look Marnie is on. Sean Connery and Hitchcock on the same set ha that had to've been a riot.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. Hey there's the guy who shared a stifled giggle with you at the guy barfing and crying in the next stall; you immediately regret high-fiving a guy who you are certain was just in a disgusting toilet swamp only surpassed in disgustingness by the rancid Eagles Club no-smile zone, no-doors no dignity "bathrooms"; you'd go on ranking live venue shitters (#1 all time is Astro Hall) but then lookout:

METALLICA'S STAGE RAGE

Now look it's obvious that this rumored Big Four tour would be radness but troubling is the fact that Metallica currently performs on a dumbshit stage for assholes. I wouldn't even know that, but shoot me I just wanted to check out our Doc Coyle joining Lamb Of God in Mark Morton's stead on the current leg of the Metallica global cash removal operation. But holy shit in the above footage I could hardly locate the God Forbid shredder on the barren, black hole of a stage. See this diva shit is why Lars can't be in charge of anything, let alone of the Big Forehead tour. Ok from the crowd's point of view the stage reeks cuz to every seat, only one bandmember is really in your view and it's basically awkward as shit. If it spins look out cuz that's why I barfed at Def Leppard in the round; well that and shirtless Phil Collen cough. The monitor situation must be clusterfuckdom too and wow how alien it must be to face opposite directions as your bandmates, like sitting backwards on the train. And while we're on the subject get Testament on the Big Foreskin Tour, or we'll be punished again with grunge. I mean it's your life. I guess some of us just don't want to go through that again.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. The bathroom turned out to be a bad idea as your shoes fill with warm toilet water; it's an even worse idea now that you've spotted a small pile of cocaine, abandoned on the counter; with a tilt of your head, you contemplate it briefly but are distracted by a suspiciously long silence between songs and suddenly there are acoustic guitars on stage which means yay:

TREBEK HAS BEEN INCORRIGIBLE LATELY

The new set on the 26th season of Jeopardy is pretty obnoxious but host Alex Trebek seems to be pumped, all zinging dudes and even indulging in some devilish ribaldry. It was something about long winters in Minnesota indirectly leading to families of 13. Daffy! Ok look I have a confession. All this Trebek talk? It's a charade, a diversion, a misdirection to cover up my terror and anxiety about Joe Perry threatening Steven Tyler in the media as reported on Thursday. This isn't happening this isn't happening Perry to AP:

The tour was building up to be a great tour, and I was pretty (upset), you know. I haven't talked to him in over five weeks. I don't know what's going on with him. I hear he's getting better, but I don't know I really don't know what's going on with him. I was pretty (upset), because right before [his tumble from the stage], he had pulled a muscle in his leg. And we had to take two weeks off, [missing] probably seven dates. All I know is he's got to get his act together. I mean, he and I haven't written a song together alone in the same room in over ten years, so there's been some changes in paradigm of what Aerosmith is.

See that? He's not just bitching about the tour shit; he's pissed off about the songwriting process I mean lack thereof. That is discontent. Tyler's fucking up. That young chick, the foot injury/detox, falling off the damn stage omigod omigod omigod somebody DO SOMETHING.

FUCKIN SLAUGHTER ROXX

Yeah call it the benefit of hindsight but gulp Slaughter actually had some heavy shit. Now, you basically have to run a red marker through all the schmaltzy songs that seem like refugees from a Don Johnson album. Other than that, "Eye To Eye"? Slammin'! And how about that Vinnie Vincent diss track, "Burning Bridges"! Forget about it. Anyway it kinda reminds me of this girl I felt uh dated in junior high. I totally got snickered at by the record store nerds when I bought the Stick It Live EP for her birthday. Yeah who was laughing when her boobs were out that night? Well not literally. Naked knockers don't really provoke laughter except that once and I already apologized to Maria Brink.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. It's really time to make a move toward the toilet or trough or whatever so bring on the drum solo; Greg Christian suddenly looks really baked and smily; this next song reminds you of the night that Indian guy from your dorm got kicked off Testament's bus:

TOWNSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEND!

I was trying to convince myself today that, having once distractedly half-listened to Devin Townsend's new record, I am now merely taking some time off from it. That was nearly three months ago, reports iTunes, taunting me. The truth is that I'm scared to listen to it a second time. In retrospect, I kinda shoulda been in crash positions for the record what for all the bizarre conceptual ground he's been covering in recent interviews, but please let's respect each other and take it as a given that no matter what is said, whatever the record turned out to be would turn out good. Devin's shit is like that sometimes; it's really big, weird, poppy Metal written, performed, produced, and released by the same handful of people. I've never once misidentified a band's song as one of Devin's, which is the confusing way of saying his records are pure Devin and even the bands for whom he creates whole records don't really live in the same world or galaxy even.

The point I'm slowing sneaking up on is that way back in early summer on that Monday that I stubbed my toe all to fuck and listened to Ki, I did not at all understand what I was hearing. It sounded like a bunch of dicking around! Mumbling! Very little of the album remains in my memory, but simply put I did not get it. I distinctly remember thumbing through a Scientific American or some shit while listening to it! Yes, sadly it is true! And it turns out I've been in denial about this fact since fucking June 22. The reviews are positive and reliable Vince Neilstein likes it. I have to listen to it again eventually, so my hope is it's one of those records like say Mental Vortex or Streets that make no sense at first and then rule your ballz 4 life. If not, it basically means that life has disowned me and I'm in a bad mood until further notice. Wish me luck. Do iiit.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. A bit of crowd turbulence during the previous song caused you to finally greet the foxy Goldie Hawn chick in the Forbidden shirt with a swift elbow to the breast; your exaggerated gesture of apology clotheslines a teenager so you high five each other like an outtake from The Naked Gun; sensing romance in the air, Testament wants to get you alone with the lights off:

GUITARISTS SAVE THE DAY AGAIN

Darkest Hour is kinda breaking my heart, because, like Dillinger Escape Plan and Caliban, they blew my world apart one night in concert then have failed repeatedly to deliver a great album. Dillinger is frustrating as hell in their inability to write more than two types of song (Bad Religion syndrome), but Darkest Hour is a close second, somehow eluding awesomeness despite counting among their ranks a Crown superfan and one of two murderous lead guitarists. It reminds me of my uncle groaning through a Sunday listening of Souls of Black, dismissively stating that no amount of superb guitarwork can salvage shitty lyrics and go-nowhere songs. I agreed curtly, but thought We haven't even gotten to "Absence of Light" yet, fucker.

As guitar playing gets awesomer and albums sound more rushed and formulaic, this idea is growing less true. Just ask the guitarists of Black Dahlia Murder, Shadows Fall, and Megadeth who've elevated respectively great, tiresome, and outright fraudulent Metal records with awesome fretfucking. Mustaine fired the drummer's damn brother to hire guitarist Chris Broderick, and the big asshole must be thrilled to get a Friedman-level player at less than the Pitrelli price.

AMERICA WILL BLOW UP THE MOON

Paul Gilbert told me last week (reading it might be nice after all that your mother and I have done for you) that he wished rock musicians shared the tendency of their classical counterparts to like perform the classics. Hearing that, I began to imagine trying out for first guitar chair in the Los Angeles Metal Orchestra, but seriously, Gilbert presents a thrilling idea. Those clenched-cheeks violinist types don't write shit, don't create shit, can disguise crummy playing amid up to a half-dozen clones, and generally get tongue-bathed for their precious skill of mimicry. Meanwhile, cover bands are derisively spat upon, usually by bearded guys in unsuccessful ahem "original" bands, even though a good cover band is instant party and dour baldcore makes me want to punch babies. The shittiest "Electric Slide"-playing wedding band kicks the shit out of Pouty McBeardslacks & The Over-Its any day. But anyway, I guess in classical music(s), the music is king; in pop, performance and spectacle share a spine with composition. Too bad.

Gilbert later mentioned that Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy is the brains behind the tribute events in which Gilbert and others have rocked a setload of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Rush. Sounds fun and hmm as it happens, the most recent words I exchanged with Portnoy were on the topic of San Francisco greats Jellyfish, and Gilbert's new record with Freddie Nelson is very Jellyfishy (above), and lastly any living being that's ever heard Jellyfish would give their eyes for loud, live Jellyfish, so count this as my unsubtle plea to the two handsome, stylish, virtuosos to put me on lead vocals for a Jellyfish tribute event on the fucking moon for all I care. The mic was just removed from James LaBrie's asscrack? No problem! I'll smash this chick like blammo! Call me, Mike!

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. Probability-wise, how is it that every errant foot finds your chin; the dudes in front of you sympathize and pass you the charity nub of their joint; it must've been angel dust cuz it takes you the first 28 bars of "The Legacy" to discern what key its in, which makes sense once you realize that actually they're playing "The New Order":

WARREL, TAYLOR DANE

Equal in my book to the great insulters of this world (see yesterday's blue ribbon rank-out here) are the ruiners. The out-of-line. Like Jarvis Cocker when he waggled his fanny at Michael Jackson's audience. The incident with Sebastian Bach's abominable t-shirt. Or even ignorant-ass Daz Dillinger instructing an awards show crowd to 'sincerely from the bottom of [his] heart ... eat this dick.' So naturally I'm a superfan of Kanye West's bad behavior, which first caught my eye post-Katrina with that anti-Bush outburst that turned Mike Myers gay. Since then, West has generously donated to the world delightful bratery and whitey-angering loudmouthery, but none as empowering to the square community as Sunday night's drunken hijacking of a defenseless Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the VMAs. Taylor Swift? Sound more like VM-Gayz. And newsflash, Beyonce sucks ass so I guess we're going to agree to disagree here. At any rate, my vote for best female video this and every year since 1990 is Sanctuary and their hot-ass singer, named Wendy or Carol or something. I heard Mustaine banged her.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. Hey great, drunk ass no shirt guy has appeared behind you and is climbing up your back; you now smell like seven types of B.O.; a crotch-grab to finger-sniff self-probe comes back negative for jeans-pissing but arouses suspicion from Goldie Hawn chick:

CHRIS ROBINSON GIVES GOOD HOLLER

I owe a debt of thanks to this guy at my old job whom no one could stand for furnishing me with Black Crowes' Warpaint record. That was last spring though I was shocked a couple weeks ago when I discovered that the earth-shattering album closer "Here Comes Daylight" is a bonus track? What the shit. So now I'm really grateful to superstud cuz there's no way I'd've gotten the iTunes version, and my life would be poorer one classic divorce song. But anyway it's a tremendous number so some personal issue must be the cause of its absence from the album proper. And yeah if I didn't have this Hal Leonard jihad on my plate, it'd be my mission to ask Crowes' singer Chris Robinson about it. At any rate, I think he could use some time to cool down after the brutal invectives he thundered down on venue security at Wednesday's gig (above). Freakouts are inherently funny and all the better when the shitfit is in the name of good. Good weed, I mean.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. You definitely have to take a leak but hope to just sweat it out; occasionally looking in your direction is a Forbidden fan who resembles cutie pie Goldie Hawn in Foul Play; if only you would have known Chuck Billy was about to rip your head off and shit down your throat, but alas now you have shitbreath:

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. Someone's denim-covered bulge is being pressed dangerously close to your brown zone; two bouncers doze serenely at stage left; your junk throbs excitedly as Testament unveils a rarely (if ever) played classic:

SLAYER HURT MUSTAINE'S FEEWINGS

My innernit went down last night and I can't help but think it had something to do with a Thursday HooM! comment, easily the most repellent, silly, and random comment in HooM! history. By severing my eithernet connection, the forces of nature perhaps tried to protect me from the lewd, vulgar suggestions made regarding the lovely Gabriela, this just as I began to despair of the lack of comments. And now, after the scarring imagery and irrelevant ethnic potshots, my wishes for greater HooM! interaction seem foolhardy. Be careful what you wish for.

Anyway, those pornless hours last night allowed me to revisit a pre-web lifestyle. Thus I repaired to the parlour where I thumbed a novel over tea. Actually wait no I conked out on my bed, fully clothed; awakening to restored internet connection, I found yet more blather from Dave Mustaine, who has ramped up his lip-flapping in honor of another procedural, self-aggrandizing non-album (streams here "Dialectic Chaos" gimme a break). Mustaine addresses recent comments from both Tom Araya (above) and Kerry King, which he, in a state of fearful denial, has forgiven them for:

I am aware that there is stuff out there that has been said about me; some of it is old, some of it is new. I am disappointed in the new comments, but I am going to remain professional and give Kerry and Tom and Slayer the benefit of the doubt and hope that it is just old stuff, and be the best tourmate that I can be. Either way, I pray for the guys in Slayer, although they may not want it, but I do. I pray that we'll be friends again someday, I pray that the tour will be as much fun for them as it is for us, and I pray that they will be as happy as we are and more.

Wow. How big of Mustaine to forgive Araya and King for correctly identifying him as a bag of cock. It inspired me to forgive the gross pervert who so crassly reduced my soft-focus, wine-and-roses fantasy of prolonged love-making with Gabriela to some dimly-lit border porn. Now apologize to Gabriela, fucker. Apologiiiiize.

WHEN'S CAVE IN ASKING ME TO PROM?

Huh. So let's try to figure this out: The new Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans movie doesn't share a writer, director, star, character, setting, mood, message, or anything with the original Abel Ferrara/Harvey Keitel shocker. Which is weird, cuz I always thought when two entities share a name, they must have something else in common. It reminds me of the disappointing return to action from Cave In, Planets of Old (listen), an EP of uncharacteristically weak material which fails to even approach the timelessly hooky space-rock of their best albums or the feisty metalcore of their early outings.

I'm holding out hope that the record will get some needed context in concert -- with Coalesce at the Knitting Factory in October -- but ugh. And it's true, they just got back together, but at this point the quartet sounds confused, attempting to play music with which they are no longer connected. Or possibly trying to find a common ground on which all members of the band can meet, only to end up totally lost. Four grown men standing in the parking lot of their old high school. Well, somebody pass them this note I wrote in study hall: I'm mad at Cave In!

GABRIELA Y ANSO

It's a point of pride that I've never succumbed to the temptation to uncouthly hoot and holler at onstage chicks from the crowd. But now it seems likely that I would've done had there been a lass hot enough to require it. Which sucks, as a passion of mine is merciless ridicule of male Fiona Apple fans and other idiots who listen to music made by sexy dames. Tell me, I'd ask, do her tits appear before you when you push play?

Well, that semi-mature, faggy me died last summer when I heard Rodrigo y Gabriela (translation: Rodrigo and Gabriela). Now it's true, it's two acoustic guitars which I usually take in small doses. But as is well documented, R y G are awesome and have covered Metallica blah blah. Even mentioning their Metal tributes belittles the pair; their stuff breathes Metal even without these open nods to the greats of the genre. Both developed cutting-edge playing techniques, which I'd love to further explore once I bat my boner out of my eyes. Listen to the new record here. Gabriela call me!

TAINTS OF LOS ANGELES

It's irresponsible and lame to use a virtually anonymous internet platform to wish bodily harm on a human being. But Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx is 90% vagina so he doesn't qualify as a person with feelings. So I double-taked like a motherfucker when a co-worker hipped me to the news about a stabbing at a recent Motley Crue show in New York. My first words were Has Sixx been neutralized? Has this month's HooM! Poll (vote over there) spurred some wackjob to fatal action? Can you see this pie stain on my shirt? The answer to all three was no. Sigh.

Trouble started for John Bieganski when he thought he saw a friend being tackled and punched by one or two other men. When he tried to pull one of the men off his friend -- it turned out not to be his friend who was being attacked -- Bieganski said he suddenly felt something warm on his leg, touched it, and then saw the blood. He required 28 stitches to close a gaping 4-inch wound on his leg.

Unless he got confused cuz, say, Bieganski wears Sixx brand clothing and thus closely resembles Flabby McDoublechin, I can't understand the unidentified assailant's rationale. Wait, unless he planned to heave Bieganski's prone body onto Sixx from great height, crushing the lardass bassist to death. Shit we've all contemplated doing that.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. It's mid-show crash time, so Eric Peterson just pointed in your direction to pump the crowd, to which you respond "Yeahblurgwwwihheflavfigloy!"; your third vicodin has made it seem reasonable to stumble into the designated mosh area; sensing an opportunity for revenge, Testament plays an old song with the word pit in the title:

SOBER JANI SIGHTING SOBERING

Daath guitarist Eyal Levi's guest column on Metal Sucks struck close to home on Tuesday in its frank discussion of drunk driving. I consider myself a drunk driving scholar, simply because it's easy to take notes from the passenger seat while careening down the streets of America's drunk driving Graceland. For some it's a macho thing ("I ain't jrunk"), while for most in that region, it's the result of suicidal tendencies (not the good kind, but justified still). For my friends, though, it was a skill. It was the only time they paid attention to the road. And I cultivated my preternatural ability for spotting hidden highway cops. Rollers! I'd exclaim, and joints would be lowered and the driver would step off the hood and re-enter the car. Safety first.

I'm pretty sure that ex-Warrant singer Jani Lane isn't legally allowed to be intoxicated following his DUI in June, which probably explains why lately he can successfully breathe and hit notes in concert, as evidenced by footage from an August 28 gig in Hollywood. My spine kinks at the thought of sobriety -- especially gulp lasting sobriety -- but well-performed music is its own reward. So cheers to Jani for ceasing to suck donkey dicks in concert (here here or here). It's funny though, cuz when I heard Jani singing the correct words in the same key as the band, it felt like looking the wrong way through a peephole; I must be fucked up. Then I spied Bulletboys drummer Jimmy D'Anda behind the kit and never felt more sober. Life is weird.

TOO MANY THINGS WERE SAID

A few incredulous readers have complained that windbag/poser Nikki Sixx is placing so poorly in this month's HooM! poll. Yeah, I too am shocked that so few wish to seal his speaking and breathing mechanisms with kwik-dri cement; but there's some stiff competition up there. Sharon Osbourne leads as of this writing, but unlike Sixx, her mouth isn't principally what makes her detestable. It's her unethical business practices, outbursts of anti-hottie violence, and metal cock blocking. So she's a shoo-in for the hypothetical poll What Mega-Cunt Shall We Catapult Into The Sun?

But here and now, we're deciding the overlord of shittalkers. A retarded dunce who claims to have painstakingly chronicled a life-threatening heroin addiction as it happened, only to publish these vital insights to promote a unspeakable side project. An infantile moron who threatens to expose the exploits of philandering producers to their wives 20 goddamn years after the fact. A shit-for-brains fuckwit who tirelessly imitates rock 'n roll royalty like a pathetic hanger-on, measuring himself by his ability to fulfill misperceived celebrity cliches. And who never, ever will shut the motherfuck up about it. Vote Sixx.

SEPTEMBER SETLIST: TESTAMENT

Setlist is a HooM! serial in which an unreasonable jerk designs an awesome band's most fantastical, logistically impossible night of live mega-Metal. The dream concert set: both the best and the best-known, played before an throbbing ocean of insatiable Metal freaks.

Each day this month, join HooM! as we die and go to Testament heaven. Seven songs in, the crowd is fully lathered; the main floor, like Phil Anselmo, reeks of sweaty balls, cheap weed, and fart; Skonick seductively points his Les Paul at your crotch as he begins to DERka-derka-derka-derka DERka-derka-derka-derka DERka-ka DERka-ka DERka Derka-derka-derka-derka: