DEVIN TOWNSEND HAS SUCCUMBED TO MY MIND CONTROL

Like many, I gargle the nuts of Devin Townsend and like slightly fewer, I didn't comprehend his last record. Though there's little of the accompanying despair and disappointment, as Devy is so reliable and evolutionary that one is compelled to take the blame if and when his tunes fail to stick. Further, Ki is the first that hasn't and it came at a time when my mid-life crisis has oriented me backward, and shit I'm not really prepared to just Dorothy into the surreal dimensions of Dev's brain. Which, not for nothing, seems to be enduring a crisis of its own since well forever. Wow that's arrogant of me to write but anyway a November 17 release for Addicted means not even a half-year will've elapsed between parts one and two of Townsend's New Devin Quadrilogy; so it would seem that the two albums may be similar but that's entirely impossible according to Townsend:

Musically, Addicted is along the lines of the big, wall of sound hard rock/heavy metal; [it] is a very direct and 'to the point' album with an emphasis on groove and the chorus. In the past, lots of my records end up taking a kind of Pink Floyd-ish route (between song meandering, etc.) Addicted is really simple: 11 rocking songs with no bullshit.

I wanted to make a record that was heavy, without being dark or depressing. When I got into metal it was for the energy behind it, but somewhere along the way that energy started getting really negative. In music right now, there's a ton of heavy bands that are really depressing to listen to loudly. [Yes! - ed.] I wanted to make a record without any real deep metaphor on the surface. Something that sounds good, has a good beat and a positive feeling. [Yes!!] It is still heavy as-all-get-out, but I think there's a differentiation to be made between being 'peaceful,’ and being peaceful but wanting to celebrate loud, crushing music. [Oh god yes!]

I absolutely love this record and it affects me in a way that I wasn't prepared for. It's a fully rocking album of optimism. If you just want to 'play it loud' without any crazy metaphor, this album might be for you. The reason that Addicted exists is maybe a little deeper than what the record sounds like up front. But up front, it kind of states: 'Life is tough, the world can be an ugly place...so let’s forget about the dramas and Rock - here's some heavy guitars, big choruses and killer beats.

OK having read the above and listened to this new song from Addicted -- and crapped myself with joy -- I can say that this record may end my life. It just might be the record I've been demanding from Townsend: a big-production pop-metal album. This is like the greatest pastry chef in the universe making a donut. This is Kobe on my team for two-on-two. This means my efforts to manipulate his thoughts have succeeded and boy howdy! He just booked his first live date too! Though he must've misheard my directive cuz it's in fucking Europe, which happened with Faith No More too. Shit. Incidentally, this applies to Mike Patton, too, cuz the heavy pop dalliances of each are goddamn fucking awesome. One could make a (shamefully brief) mixtape of these tracks (opening with "Fluke," above), but a post 9/11 Hysteria, as Townsend indirectly promises this November, would pretty much explode my reality. Somebody tell Patton to take off that tinfoil hat.

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.

THE MARCH OF TIME

A lesson I've learned again and again is that it's a fine line between good-natured ribaldry and jockish demands for tit-flashing. Like, say, at the weekly Steel Panther gigs at Hollywood's Key Club, where the moments leading to SPanther's entrance are spent with a live boob-cam manned by frowning stagehands, who bark orders at tank top chicks in a creepy manner totally not conducive to breast-revealing. Then Michael Starr, Satchel, the gay one, and the drummer come out and before you know it, two porn actresses are grinding on somebody's grandmother to "Pour Some Sugar On Me."

Anyway, the band's intro made a good point that still-active bands Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and Motley Crue suck ass now and that Steel Panther is the superior show. No one should be surprised, as anything left out in the wind for 25 years will assuredly grow stale. I'm resigned to that. What is truly shocking though, is that Steven Tyler looks like the goddamn crypt-keeper (above, at a Boston liquor store?). Life is finite, youth is fleeting, Vince Neil is a fatass. Way to stick it in my face, Tyler. More drugs, please.

GET OFF THE STAGE. LITERALLY.

That Metal Show's Download Fest special got off to a shaky start with a flatulent Def Leppard farting through the fartastic "Pour Some Sugar On May" but the next clip was kickass Tesla in Like New condition. In the judiciously edited interview footage, funnymen ruled like Steel Panther and Ripper Owens, and HooM! Horns to Lil' Joey Jordison whose Stump The Trunk question was about the fantastic Voivod Angel Rat record (above, Piggy most fluent guitarist ever?). Then TMS co-host/painfully unfunny dunce Jim Florentine started humping Tommy Lee's leg and Buck Cherry joined them for the incoherent argument segment in which apples battle oranges. Surprise not one of those fucknuggets voted for Faith No More as the best mainstage headliner (Def Lep 3 [seriously?], Slipknot 3).

While not being entertained by Florentine's weird neck and repeated mention of Lee's wang, I drifted off and thought about how fucking awful it must have felt for the members of Faith No More to play right after Limp Bizkit and Korn. I would've demanded that the stage be sectioned into little roped-off islands for each Bizkiteer from which they may not wander. And the Korn guys suspended from wires except Luzier.

FAITH NO MORE'S FEST FEED FREE

The product of extensive number crunching, our calculations read that at 1pm in L.A., Faith No More's Download Festival set will be webcast here. Not to be all ungrateful but how about more notice next time? Now I have to reschedule with my cake/pie guy who's in town from Tempe with a trunkful of hot Entenmann's. He's gonna screw me on the crullers but it'll be worth it to confirm FNM's level of awesomeness, cuz British reviewers seem so full of shit and I'm sure as hell not taking retarded-ass Joe Elliott's word for it. Iddiott dishes out backhanded compliments to FNM before praising the career, money, and fake longevity provided to his band by Mutt Lange to Metal Hammer:

When Faith No more got together I was raving about them. They were embarrassed, I think because they weren’t Leppard fans! Those guys went through such a meteoric rise that they didn’t know where they were, then they released an album no-one bought and they split up.

Kudos to bands like us and Iron Maiden who’ve managed to avoid all that. Now the band are older and wiser, they’ll probably say, ‘I wish I’d done it differently’ and I can’t help having a wry smile ‘cos we did things differently.

I'm not sure the guys in Faith No More were hanging on your every word in the 90s while they grew into the most interesting band on earth and you were imploring the world's population to join you in getting rokked as the leader of producer Mutt Lange's backing band. The logic at work here is rickety at best, and cloudy enough that I can't make heads or tails of his comments on "an album no-one bought" [sic]. Surely you speak not of Angel Dust (above). And get Iron Maiden's name out your mouth, dingus. There is no "us and Iron Maiden." Maybe "us and Bryan Adams."

WELL THIS IS AWKWARD

Anyone who's seen any of the several Hysteria making-of docs knows that Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott is a mega-douchestain. I particularly enjoy his convenient omissions regarding producer Mutt Lange's writing contributions to the kajillion-selling record. So months ago when Elliott tried to drum up lame drama with some cheap potshots at Poison drummer/non-rapist Rikki Rockett, it struck me as a bizarre move. Y'know, seeing as Def Lep and Poison both inhabit that depressing botox/bald spot touring realm.

But that doesn't mean the bonehead won't back-pedal like a mofo now that the two bands were packaged by someone at LiveNation for a sad, flabby summer tour. But you're saying if not Elliot's no-talent ass, who's to blame for the war of words? Foreigners. Obviously. Elliott tells AP: 

The supposed fight that we had with Poison wasn't a fight at all. It was taken out of context by a foreign journalist. I've spoken with [Poison vocalist] Bret Michaels, and he totally gets that it was taken totally out of context, and we don't have a problem with any of these guys, never have been.

Uhh really dude? Also, the above clip is hilarious for Elliott claiming L.A. glam bands were missing the point because they weren't weird and overtly faggy like '70s UK ponces. Yeah there's a real connection there. 

HooM! Point/Counterpoint: JOE ELLIOTT DID THAT SHIT ON PURPOSE vs JOE ELLIOTT IS RETARDED, OLD

POINT

JOE ELLIOTT PLACED THE STANLEY CUP TROPHY UPSIDE DOWN ON PURPOSE

Chris Chelios

Detroit Red Wings

Someone should have drove that guy ... we know he [placed the Stanley Cup trophy upside down on purpose]. We talked to people at the show and Elliott was being real rude to everybody. He was in a bad mood when they got there, so for whatever reason he didn't want to be there. And that's his way of showing it and taking it out on the NHL ... [Red Wings goon] Darren McCarty didn't really get a chance to see it; I guess he was going off the stage when it happened. And you know, [Red Wings defenseman Kyle] Quincey was the only one that said he would have done something to him. I don’t know if he would have popped [Elliott], but he could have given him a good shove."

COUNTERPOINT

JOE ELLIOTT IS A DUMBASS GERIATRIC

Ken Russell

The Hockey News

Ya know, the NHL really tries, but you have to wonder sometimes if these guys get it. Some dumbass geriatric singer puts the Cup down upside down and then say, “Well never mind. We’re soccer boys. What do we know?” What else would you expect from a bunch of guys who can’t seem to spell the words “deaf” or “leopard” properly? Must be that soccer trophies get placed down with the big covered side sticking up. That makes sense.

I can just imagine the planning meeting for this thing. Yeah, to celebrate the Stanley Cup in Detroit, let’s invite a bunch of aging English rockers who don’t know anything about hockey. Hmmm, Dexy’s Midnight Runners are booked up, so let’s invite Def Leppard to Motown. Yeah, to Motown. And just for fun, let’s not have a dry run with the Stanley Cup beforehand. If I were the NHL, I’d be trying to wipe this embarrassment from everyone’s memory banks and have YouTube pull it down immediately. But no, the NHL celebrates it with gushing stories that don’t even mention the incident. And then they wonder why people laugh at them.