I CAN STOP ANY TIME I WANT

So here's some breaking news I'm an idiot and forgot to link to Tuesday's coverage of Steel Panther on Metal Sucks. I love the MS guys cuz they know all the good shit and so what if they like IWABO? Really! I have an aunt who's been a cokehead for like four decades and her Christmas presents are always great, so we're cool. Likewise, Axl + Vince shit out holiday gifts onto my chest all year round by asking me to cheapen their internet-best Metal site with incoherent, monomaniacal Bellow Journalism (I like copyright that term or something). Oh and they love Living Colour too which is the unmistakable mark of people of taste and good genes. Everybody has a certain player who drove them to pick up a guitar and Vernon Reid is mine I heart you VR.

We're off topic but yeah once again it's Steel Panther time, today in honor of the kinda-new and extremely awesome video for "Fat Girl (Thar She Blows)" (above) a tune that's "Here I Go Again" meets "Down Boys" with backing vox ripped from Hysteria. So yes it's a perfect song. And the vid is a Metal Injection exclusive yummy! Finally, this time I swear there's no Steel Panther story left. I'm don't need to write about them. Shit this here writing is mostly about Metal Sucks. So that's it. Well, until Monday night. Godda wuv me!

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.

LET STEEL PANTHER RESTORE YOUR DIGNITY

I hear ya when you say that Steel Panther overdid the bald ribaldry on ripping new album Feel The Steel, ultimately landing closer to 2 Live Crew than Spinal Tap. Then again, Steel kicks the shit out of Tap's largely pointless new non-album Back From The Dead (streams here). Anyway, in a very real sense, SPanther's genius is for openly demoralizing hit-grubbers like Bon Jovi ("Party All Day" with Justin Hawkins nice), Van Halen ("Eatin' Ain't Cheatin'"), and Warrant/Whitesnake/Def Leppard ("Fat Girl [Thar She Blows]").

I know that whenever a lame processed pop song infests my soul ("Lay Your Hands On Me", "When It's Love", "Down Boys"/"The Deeper The Love"/"Pour Some Sugar On Me," respectively), I replace the lyrics with sophomoric porno verse. My famous rapper friend is a fucking black belt and ironically, we get to kinda save our oft-imperiled dignity by soiling this cold, calculated anti-music with our upgrades. It shows we can't be controlled by SongBots like Mutt Lange, Desmond Child, and that rat bastard Jack Blades. (Jack call me!) There's occasional collateral damage, like the unfortunate pooper who from her perch overheard our version of "Lick It Up" and likely spent days explaining her lasting look of horrified offense. She learned something about life that day; we were pretty foul. I mean that fucking song is filthy to begin with.

THE WARRANT ON DRUGS

Twice former Warrant singer Jani Lane looks pretty unhappy in all the documentary footage I've ever seen. He sounded like fine aged donkey shit on that Warrant reunion tour (here and here) so it's wild wacky shit to hear him proudly tell a Maryland audience at 1:38 above "I don't give a shit what you call me, but I am Warrant." It was during a Lane solo show (Kix was there sweet) ugh but I prefer to imagine him thumping his chest while berating a guy with a fork-stab wound to the thigh while saying it, like Alan Arkin in Slums of Beverly Hills. At any rate, sure, Jani Lane is Warrant. No one disputes that or requires reminding. Too bad Lane was swallowed by a bloated, red-faced, no-singing ghoul who then pickled the aghast writer of "Heaven" and "So Damn Pretty" in rail alcohol and vicodin. Swingin'!

HEY ANYBODY UP FOR SOME POST-GRUNGE WARRANT?

I'd been in a bad mood for like 10 years by the time grunge came around, so it felt offensive that bands were suddenly depriving me of gonzo antics and fantastical lyrics about barfing on groupies while having sex with helicopters. Uh you know what I mean: Shit got serious. Feelings, etc. Anyway it's understandable that pop radio whores like Warrant and the newly Vince Neil-less Motley Crue would scramble to kinda shift the emphasis of their outmoded sound. Yep the E word. But this alternative shit was so serious that even Metal bands were all dazed and tentative after the dual concussive blows of The Black Album and Nevermind. Yeah so it took me a minute to see past that to Warrant disavowing themselves fairly well on "The Hole In My Wall" (above) from 1992's Dog Eat Dog. (Remember when that band Dog Eat Dog named their next record Warrant? Good one.) And fuck it, I like "Down Incognito" (omg hilarious video) off Winger's Pull (snicker x10000) album. 

LAPSE OF TIME. SYNCHRO FREEZE.

Hey the new Voivod record Infini has a release date (early July) and artwork (above, too small guys), but thanks to a decrease in Voivod visibility and a rise in pussy-ass shit, other release date/artwork non-news is taking all the attention. In this case, Killswitch Engage and their forthcoming album produced by a slumming Brenden O'Brian. 

One wonders if -- in their honest moments -- the pleadcore/brocore bands realize they are are post-911 hair rock? It's like Godsmack and Disturbed and Shinedown are the really light stuff, like Slaughter, Poison, Warrant. The scream-scream-whine-whine bands are the next step up, good players who are heavier than the poofs. But they stick to the poof subject matter (girls/partying; broken hearts/you bitch/lifting weights) while attracting the male dollar by being tough and intense. Motley Crue. I guess the Badlands-Junkyard-BulletBoys-Dangerous Toys guys are represented by Warbringer and Municipal Waste, bands informed by the previous era's heaviest. It's like hair rock just got a lot heavier and less fun. 

HooM! Point/Counterpoint: Bret Michaels vs. Jani Lane

Point

People Want To Rock Again

Bret Michaels, Poison

People are ready. They want to hear rock again; they want to go out and party and have fun. You want to go to a summer concert and not watch a band staring at its shoes for six hours and complaining. I think people want to hear rock. Everything is cyclical. Everyone wants to go to the party and the red carpet, but my life is 90% work. My icing on the cake is the hour and a half I play on stage.

Counterpoint

We Intend To Come Out And Rock The House

Jani Lane, Warrant

We're just really looking forward to doing this tour and showing people that this is not just a 'Let's go and do one last thing as a last hurrah.' We intend to come out, rock the house, have a great tour, and show people that we're gonna be around for a while. We're going to make a quality record and we'll see what happens. I'm pretty excited about it. We'll see you all this summer. Somewhere! Sometime!