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.
Hey who among us isn't beaming with pride as the economy tanks yet Metal is stepping up with mind-mangling tours one after another? The people of Metal seem to have exchanged shrugs and glances, deciding that illegal downloading or not, recording industry mismanagement or not, wave of unemployment and despair or not, the best medicine is loud Metal by the ton. If your head has been up your ass all month, observe:
Tours in progress:
Soilwork with Darkane, Warbringer, Swallow The Sun
As I Lay Dying with Protest The Hero, The Human Abstract, My Children My Bride
Cradle of Filth with Satyricon, Septicflesh
Tours upcoming:
Meshuggah with Cynic, The Faceless
Lamb Of God with As I Lay Dying, Children of Bodom, God Forbid/Municipal Waste
D*******d with Killswitch Engage, Lacuna Coil, Chimaira
The Haunted with Nachtmystium, Kylesa, Intronaut
Kreator with Exodus, Belphegor, Warbringer, Epicurean
As you can see, that'sa soma espicy meataballsa. Though for the life of me I can NOT see how God Forbid is opening that Lamb of God tour. And only half of it? Does AILD sell lotsa records or something? In HooM!World, it's a LoG/GF co-headline tour all the way. Huh.
Anyway, SoCal Metal people get even more awesomeness as Shadows Fall (above, rrrrrar) is slated to play a surprise show in Fullerton TONIGHT for FREE to the first 200 people. SF is kinda like Living Colour to me: a top-notch bunch of players and 100% super-happy-Tom-Cruise-blue-jeans dudes, but a great album has thus far eluded them. With every day there's fresh hope. And hope for freshness.
If cuddly bassist Dan Lilker has done anything wrong, I sure as shit haven't heard about it. I think that cat is just tops, a true Metal lifer. Most headbangers heard of Lilker as a member of the fledgling Anthrax (nice start); then there was the lame but forgivable S.O.D. and Nuclear Assault, the latter authors of at least one stupidly awesome speed/thrash record (Handle With Care). When N'Assault went all limp with that ear-raping cover of dumbest song ever "Ballroom Blitz" (pre-Wayne's World thank god), Lilker jumped into grind with Brutal Truth. I'm not his fucking biographer or anything, but you can see how all this Metal experience may amount to some pretty wild anecdotes. We've gotten bits of Lilker wisdom over the years, like in last year's bonerific doc Get Thrashed (above), but there are more to come. From a press release via Blabbermouth:
It's now been a quarter-century that I have played music that in the 'professional' arena. Over that period, I've experienced a lot in several different bands, and there's been many a time when I was hanging out either backstage somewhere, at a bar, or at a party, when I entertained those assembled with an interesting story from my experiences. More often than not, someone would say, 'You should write a book man, you've seen it all!' To which I'd reply, 'It would take forever to organize something like that!'
But back in February '07, when Brutal Truth did a tour of the U.K., our vocalist Kevin Sharp suggested bringing along his friend Dave Hofer, a journalist from Chicago. Dave wanted to keep a daily journal throughout the tour, which was published later in Metal Maniacs. So the next time he came on tour with us, he said, 'You should write a book, and I'll help you!'
Judging from the amount of line editing I did to make Lilker's comments readable, it's a good thing that a journalist is taking care of the composition duties on the tome, tentatively titled The Story Of My Widdle Teeth by Dan Lilker. OK I made that up but yeah somebody publish this bitch!
MTV is a pile of dogshit -- revamped, colorless Headbanger's Ball included -- so it's a rare day that I visit their awful Headbanger's Blog (ugh). Well, today is our lucky day because ... well, because:
While free-associating about the title of the new Dragonforce record, we mentioned Overkill’s former guitarist Bobby Gustafson, who we feel was one of the band’s greatest strengths [until] 1989, when he left the band.
Sadly, Gustafson is hardly remembered, even among thrash fans. And he’s not alone. Everyone knows Yngwie, Hammett, Dimebag, Rhoads, Tipton, Downing, Murray, Smith, Blackmore, etc… But there are tons of great axemen that are highly underrated, including Voivod’s Denis “Piggy” D’Amour, Testament’s Alex Skolnick and Nile’s Karl Sanders to name a few.
Amen to that. Let's not forget Coroner's Tommy Baron, Realm's tandem of Takis Kinis and Paul Laganowski, and (duh) Marty Fucking Friedman's superlative guitarage with Megadeth. That the Tiptons and Hammetts of the world are celebrated loudly, despite being ho-hum players, reminds me of Rolling Stone's fucking hideous 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time list (not linked because don't fucking read it). Considering the presence of respected songwriters/awful guitarists like Kurt Cobain, Johnny Ramone, and The Edge (fuck that guy x1000), a more fitting title would've been 100 Guitarists From Popular Bands.
And the same goes for Metal: Just as Metallica's Master Of Puppets is labelled the band's best, it's probably because it was their first best album. 'First best' isn't an actual term, but humor me: ...And Justice For All is superior to Puppets in the same way that jets rendered prop planes obsolete. Both machines achieve the same function, but the latter is vastly superior though some still like to mess around with the former for nostalgia's sake. Not complicated.
Now that Metalheads from Metal's golden era (both commercially and artistically) are coming of age, Justice is getting its due and, judging from recent buzz, Testament is finally out of Slayer and Metallica's shadow. And likewise, prop plane guitarists like Tipton and Hammett (really? people think this guy is good?) should step aside in favor of the jet engine roar of the Barons and Skolnicks. Hey, those 'first best' cats are awesome songwriters in (usually) terrific bands, natch. But best guitar players? Don't make me laugh.
We're getting off-topic. Let's all crank The Years Of Decay and appreciate Bobby Gustafson, guitarist of dubious skill but infinite soul, author of one of Metal's 10 best solos ("Elimination"), and owner of an killer mustache. I love you, Bobby.
As Dark Knight fever sweeps the world, it's nice to see that star Christian Bale can scare the living shit out of people in real life. People he's known since birth. To the extent that they file police reports.
Sources close to the actor said he 'flew off the handle' at London's Dorchester hotel after Jenny Bale said 'some outrageous things'. However, a source close to the 34-year-old actor says Bale is confident he’s done nothing wrong, and blames his mother.
The source said: ‘Christian was stressed, but he didn’t lay a finger on anyone. Instead, he flew off the handle and cussed his mother. He just got very loud because his mother was saying some very outrageous things about him and his wife.’
‘Normally Christian would just call a friend and go out to a pub to cool off. But he was literally trapped into this confrontation with his mother and sister because there was an army of fans and paparazzi outside.’
The source also claimed Bale had been deeply affected by the death of co-star Heath Ledger.
I love how the report points out that Bale didn't physically harm the complaintants, which is obvious since nowhere does it state that Bale's mother and sister have been punched into a different dimension. Add this incident to yesterday's report of a Bale freak-out on the set of McG's Terminator 4 ("I will kick your ass!") and the awesome racially-charged Josh Brolin & Jeffrey Wright Vs. New Orleans Police melée and we are forced to conclude: Actors are metal. Actors Into Metal!
As the month of June comes to a close, we at HooM! reflect on the year 2008 thus far. There have been ups (reunions for Carcass, Forbidden, and At The Gates; the rise of Ana Ivanovic) and downs (Amy Winehouse sapping Earth's drug supply, a new Disturbed album), strikes (Kobe Bryant MVP, my new watch) and gutters (a Lakers defeat in the NBA finals, Oreo Cakesters). Anthrax is back (and shitty). Nine Axl Rose songs leak (assuredly setting back a Chinese Democracy release by 16 months). And, of course, a whole bunch of natural disasters and stuff. Which is eerie since 2008 has been a terrific metal year to this point. Coincidence? Surely.
THE BEST METAL OF 2008through June 30
Presented By Hipsters Out Of Metal!
In no order because I'm not done listening to the damn shit yet ok?
Hate Eternal, Fury & Flames (Metal Blade)
Protest The Hero, Fortress (Vagrant)
Testament, The Formation Of Damnation (Nuclear Blast)
Arsis, We Are The Nightmare (Nuclear Blast)
Nachtmystium, Assassins: Black Meddle, Part 1 (Century Media)
Origin, Antithesis (Relapse)
And that doesn't count the semi-digested records from Byzantine, Opeth, Aborted, Kataklysm, and Scar Symmetry because, what, should I quit my goddamn job?
Rasheed Wallace, the metalest NBA player of all time, reacts to the lopsided officiating in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals against Boston Celtics May 28.
"All that bullshit-ass calls they had out there... with [referees] Mike [Callahan] and Kenny [Mauer] -- you've seen all that shit ... all them phantom calls. [Celtics] cats are flopping and falling all over the floor and [referees] are calling that shit. That shit ain't basketball out there. It's all fucking entertainment. You should know that shit. That shit's all fucking entertainment."
Rasheed's like James Hetfield and Wilt Chamberlain combined! He's an agitator. A truth-teller. A rocker. He's a shot-blocker, three-drainer, low post-dominator, heartbreaker, love-taker, bushwhacker, hornswoggler, ass-kicker, shit-kicker, and weed-smoker.
But real NBA heads worship 'Sheed because he's the sole member of the league -- that's counting active players, coaches, covering media, administration, and alumni -- who remains unafraid of NBA Commissioner/dickless sell-out David Stern and the moneyed honky class of NBA ticket buyers. The last NBA hero. The Mayor of HooMville. Pure METAL.
UPDATE: On May 30, Rasheed was fined $25000 by NBA Goon Stu Jackson for the above comments. Goddammit.
Anthrax crapped on their own credibility when they scrapped metal for a simpler, blander heavy rock sound. It didn't seem incongruous at the time, since they'd just added a new singer, but by 2003's We've Come For You All, 'metal' suddenly wasn't a dirty word anymore, and Anthrax got all pentagram-y and semi-sincerely pledged their souls anew to metal. We called bullshit.
Granted, WC4UA is one of Anthrax's two post-Joey Belladonna albums with more good songs than bad, but the same can be said for the first two Van Hagar outings: good stuff if you're into lame, watered-down pop rock. Which you are. We are, too.
And now we cross into pure desperation: It was gross enough when the classic Anthrax line-up reunited for a big cash grab tour. (Not gross enough to keep the HooM team from the Chicago gig, which ruled, despite the stench of superficiality and intra-band dislike. Fuck that, "Caught In A Mosh" killed!)
Yuckier still: Last night, Anthrax debuted in Chicago its latest, grossest line-up featuring that off-brand producer they've been using lately on guitars (good hair! nobody misses the mohawk!) and some guy from Shinedown on vocals. Or, at least, some guy from a Shinedown concert. Plus Meatloaf's untalented daughter's husband, the greasy pudge from *NSync, and the guy who was in Helmet for two hours.
