Watching the Olympic opening ceremony right now. Chris Collinsworth is giving all the female athletes some creepster looks while he interviews them, especially the blonde snowboarder. But it dawned on me during his interview with snowboard champ Shaun White:
Eh? Alright they don’t look that much alike. They are both funny looking gingers though.
Dave Mustaine is like that one friend everyone has, the self-centered asshole who you keep hanging out with anyway, because, you know, you’ve known each other forever, man, and he’s more like family at this point, and it would just be weird if you didn’t see him for a while, you know? This friend is grouchy, talks a lot of shit in public to anybody about anybody causing trouble for everybody around him, and even though he knows how many enemies he has, he still treats the friends he does have like dog turds from time to time. But deep down, this shithead is still your bro and you always break down and give him a call.
Thrash fans, David Ellefson is back in Megadeth. Dave and Junior are reunited, and it feels so good. They look adorable together. “This shows the power of brotherly love and forgiveness,” Mustaine said in a press release probably written by their agent.
Well…maybe it’s because they’re friends, maybe it’s for the fans, or maybe Junior’s back because his $18.5 million lawsuit got tossed, F5 sucked, and he needs some money for highlights. His hair up above is looking a little flat compared to this golden mane, no?
In all seriousness, it’s within reason that Mustaine reached out to his old friend, the dude who stood by him through all the drugs and tantrums and classic thrash records and shitty alr-rock records. Mustaine is an aging Christian, so, you know…family and love…and stuff.
He’s also an aging Christian who’s a fucking fantastic guitar player. I love Megadeth’s music as much as I love making fun of the guy who writes it. As a long-time fan, I’m super-pumped about Ellefson, Megadeth’s voice of reason, coming back to his rightful place next to that cranky ginger. The Rust In Peace 20th anniversary tour won’t be coming through Boston, so I’ll have to wait until the American Carnage tour in August (fine by me!) to check ‘em out.
For old time’s sake, some classic interviews with the Daves from the golden years.
1986. The original lineup, with a cute story about the Daves’ first meeting. These four dudes look like scumbags.
1988. Dave and Junior, clearly on some funny stuff (watch ‘em twitch!), mumbling about Germany and telling a hilarious story about scaring the piss out of a record producer. Mustaine declines an easy opportunity to talk shit about Metallica, and confirms that yes, he and James Hetfield recently went drinking near a beach…?
1992. The Daves wax philosophical about quitting drugs, and like, having a life, man. Mustaine looks like a ginger Confucius.
In case you missed it, some clown named Stewart Voegtlin wrote a super-douchey article in the Village Voice slamming Pelican, Baroness, Mastodon, and Torche for their “sketchy” metal. Metal Sucks covered it, followed by a hilarious and well-written response to the piece from a guy in a band I’ve never heard of; Jeanne Fury also posted a spot-on response on the Deciblog. Update: The Chicago Reader has a great response of their own. It’s probably best ignored, but this dude pissed me off and I have a few thoughts of my own.
I imagine Voegtlin looks like this.
A) I’m a big fan of all these bands (though I don’t really consider any of them aside from Mastodon to be metal), so I obviously disagree with Voegtlin’s critique of their “sketchy” metal. It’s cool that he hates these bands, but his Scene Police act is fucking bush league. “Hipsters” and other non-metal-looking dudes have been hitting up metal-ish shows and wearing metal t-shirts for years now. He’s fighting the last war. It’s a genre of the people now; it’ll never be as underground and exclusive as it was in 1992. The good old days are gone forever. Whatever. Get over it.
B) I get the impression that Voegtlin holds his critical writing in equal regard to the music that he picks and pans. It’s as pretentious and bloated as he thinks Pelican’s music is, first of all. But pompous critics like this guy seem to forget that art criticism is a vulture artform–it simply wouldn’t exist without actual art to judge. Good criticism illuminates music, offering solid recommendations for new jams and at its best, helping us to hear music from a different, eye-opening perspective. Once in a while, some mook drops a misinformed, xenophobic piece like the Voice article that serves nobody. Yeah it stirs conversation, but from what I’ve seen so far, it’s dumb stuff like “I’m wicked tr00 and I love all these bands, fuck this guy!” or “Pelican sucks, go put on some skinny jeans you fuckin’ hipster.” Music is not a competition.
C) On that note, it’s tough for a writer to make a living these days, and Voegtlin certainly stirred up conversation about himself. He seems like he hates Decibel and the musical diversity that it stands for–I would guess because he’s butthurt that all of his query letters have been rejected. But if the commenter going by VOEGTLIN on the Deciblog post is actually him (and he’s not pulling stuff out of his ass like he did in his Voice article), it looks like Decibel will sign him on for an article in the near future. Good for him–he just had to be a dick to get there.
D) Voegtlin uses the word “milquetoast” far too often. I mean, he uses too many adjectives in general, but especially milquetoast. I’ve read three pieces by him, and he’s used that word in all three. Check out his website The Left Hand Path for more.
On that note, I’ll have your finest milksteak, and the jellybeans raw.
~ Liam
Much of the free world gave up on Rolling Stone as a reputable journal of rock ‘n’ roll culture long, long ago, but I’ve kept my faith (and my subscription — it ain’t metal, but somebody always signs me up as a Christmas present). At the very least, they offer up a few insightful artist profiles (Mastodon, Metallica and Megan Fox — ooh la la) and long-form non-fiction pieces (anything about drugs, gangsters, and grown men in costumes) every month.
As good as it gets these days...boobs!
But I’m really losing my patience. The latest issue (Jagger, Springsteen and fucking Bono argh!) exemplifies everything that’s wrong with the aging rag. Inside was a big, bloated, 52-page feature on the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, including 27 pages on the 25th Anniversary Concerts. Seem excessive? Consider that RS editor, publisher, and founder Jann Wenner is the chairman of the Rock Hall. It was one egregious display of self-gratification, like watching Wenner stare and smile right at me, drool glistening on his lips, as he slowly stroked his cock in my general direction. “Mmm…yeah…aren’t I fucking great? Ooooo yeah…I AM rock ‘n’ roll…”
Mmm...yeah...mmm
I figured that Belphegor had reached the plateau of absurdity when they released a song called “Sexdiktator Lucifer” on an album called Bondage Goat Zombie, a real churner of a tune featuring a moaning woman throughout. That tune happens to be one of my favorites from that album, which is still in occasional rotation on my iPod. Apparently they had some real smut stuffed in their creepy Austrian sex dungeons for this next album. Just look at this fucking video!
To sum it up, some buxom European broad passes out in a mountain. Goats fly around on broomsticks, then the girl gets carried away by the members of Belphegor, who look like rapists and occasionally wear heads of dead boars, goats, and The Exalted Piledriver. One of the minotaur-man-beasts dribbles some semen, thinly veiled as “milk” into the passed-out girl’s open mouth. She wakes up as she gags on his hot load, then goes on a magic flying-goat ride. The Piledriver reappears, and she starts whipping him in some bizarre goat-worship occult sex ritual.
A typical weekend at Belphegor's mountain sex lair.
In short, it’s awesome. I doubt this will ever grace the airwaves, but it was enough to convince me to check out Walpurgis Rites – Hexenwahn soon. I believe it dropped today. Without having heard it, I’m going to assume that this “Der Geistertreiber” track is like the “Sexdiktator Lucifer” of the album, and all the other tracks sound like each other, just like they’ve all sounded since Pestapokalypse IV. Bitchin!
~ Liam
The title of this post could be a sweet Anaal Nathrakh (Anal Nutsack?) song title. In this case, it’s actually a reference to the plastic that’s been found in the stomachs of rotting, baby albatross corpses.
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Gojira song “Toxic Garbage Island,” coincidentally my ringtone and favorite track from The Way of All Flesh, is about this phenomenon. It’s a big whirlpool of trash formed by the Pacific Ocean’s currents, currently occupying an area twice the size of Texas.
This is a big fucking problem, not only because the concept of floating plastic is disgusting, but because — surprise! — it’s wrecking the ecosystem. Photographer Chris Jordan spent some time at a marine sanctuary at Midway Atoll, right in the midst of the patch, to capture the above photograph and dozens more in his “Midway: Message From The Gyre” collection. All sorts of human waste treasures can be found in the guts of these chicks, whose mothers had nothing to feed them but lighters, bottlecaps, and all measure of non-degradable waste.
This post, maybe not so metal. But totally brutal. Ugh.
~ Liam
[Via Gizmodo]
Could David Colman and the Times actually be months ahead of a killer subculture story? Are they paying homage to the forebears of metalcore, “legitimizing” some respect from the mainstream that even half of the fickle, narrow-minded metal underground won’t give them?
Nope. They just name-drop Converge, specifically drummer Ben Koller, in a story on douchey hipster hairstyles published this morning. Koller’s girlfriend, who works at a salon that specializes in such douchey coiffures, was quoted in the article, apparently because of her expertise in the field of making dudes look like complete tools.
Per usual for any Times culture story, it’s about a year or two behind the actual trend. I currently live in a metropolitan backwater, but even I only have to walk a block to the trendy faux-Mexican joint to see some ‘dos that would make mama weep. Some highlights from the text:
“All of a sudden, a big wave of guys just want to experiment,” said Marguerite Jukes, a stylist at the Bumble and bumble salon in the meatpacking district, where the shagadelic manes of the Broadway cast of “Hair” are faithfully kept up. “No one just wants a trim anymore. There isn’t one particular look: It’s a little bit of everything.” She has even become an expert at getting the look not quite perfect, “so it looks like they cut it themselves in their bathroom…
“You can never tell what they’re into from their hair,” Ms. Jukes said. She pointed out that her boyfriend, Ben Koller of the metalcore band Converge, has gone for the early-1970s look of the teenage John Michael Osbourne (back when he was the lead singer of Black Sabbath). His band, however, favors a chaotic clash of punk and metal that makes Black Sabbath’s 1970 hit “Paranoid” sound like Doris Day.
A few thoughts: Read the rest of this entry »
