Appetite for Destruction: "Sweet Child o' Mine"

"A lot of rock bands are too fucking wimpy to have any sentiment or any emotion in any of their stuff, unless they're in pain." --Axl Rose



"There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
But I'm too tough for him,
I say, 'Stay down, do you want to mess me up?
You want to screw up the works?
You want to blow my book sales in Europe?'" --Charles Bukowski

"In me the tiger sniffs the rose." --Siegfried Sassoon

"He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits." --Rudyard Kipling

"Where do we go now?" --GNR

Five Great Crossover Metal Shirts

High Five for 2012

By now you've either heard that Fiona Apple has the best record of the year so far, or you've heard The Idler Wheel... and know that it's true. But with Fiona already riding a 90 on Metacritic, she doesn't need my endorsement. Instead, may I suggest you support the five best metal records for the first half of the year, in alphabetical order.

Cattle Decapitation, Monolith of Inhumanity 

San Diego's favorite misanthropes reinvent jazz as grindcore.

Goatwhore, Blood for the Master

You see us coming and you all-to-geth-er-run-for-cover--we're taking over death metal.

 

 

 

 

 

Gojira, L'enfant Sauvage
Ishirō Honda, meet François Truffaut. Discuss.

High on Fire, De Vermis Mysteriis
Pike's Peak. Again.

Meshuggah, Koloss

The Black Dahlia Murder's arms are too short to box.

Happy listening! See you in December with the top ten.

Appetite for Destruction: "Think About You"

How is it that "Think About You" didn't hit? If Guns N' Roses didn't alrady have six other singles to push, "Think About You" could've landed on the charts. Instead, it's the crème de la deep cuts, a reminder that for a few years, Izzy Stradlin wrote better rock songs than all but maybe about six people in the world.



It's a sweet, catchy song with a danceable rhythm, which is probably why it wasn't a single. "Think About You" is the nicest song that GNR ever wrote, and when you're playing hard rock's Jerry Lee Lewis, you don't give us the nice songs. As John Lydon, one of GNR's heroes, tells us, "'Nice' is the worst insult you could pay anybody. It means you are utterly without threat, without values. Nice is a cup of tea."

But even at their nicest, GNR's music is no cup of tea. The hand claps, cowbell and declarations of love come with a few meaty solos and some awesome plugged vs. unplugged guitarmonies. Best of all is the finale, where Axl tops off some of his greatest melismas with an ominous "only you," set to a haunting Stradlin arpeggio that demolishes the song's pace in a matter of seconds. Only a few metal musicians have ever matched Stradlin's songbook, but one of them shared a band with him.

If Ozzy Osbourne or Judas Priest had written "Think About You," it'd be a staple of their tours and compilations. But on Appetite for Destruction, it's just track eight.

Song of the Day: Queensrÿche, "I Am I"

Does anybody* care at all that Geoff Tate was kicked out of Queensrÿche last week? News that one of history's greatest metal bands fired their lead singer for over 30 years should be significant, but most music news sites couldn't be bothered with the story. In truth, Queensrÿche's legacy has already been too defiled for this story to matter. Since Chris DeGarmo left in 1997, they've only been relevant as a comedy of errors, and the latest Tate episode is just another embarrassing flog to a fossilizing horse.

By all accounts, Tate deserved to get canned. But none of his exasperating behavioral or artistic choices cover the fact that this guy had a voice. Exhibit A: "I Am I," from 1994's Promised Land.



Hopefully you have good speakers and headphones. "I Am I" has some of the most encompassing production that you'll hear. The compression and rawness wars hadn't taken off yet, and each one of Tate's strange harmonies and affectations seem to get their own mix. The result is dazzling--I don't know who James Barton is, but he makes a case for investing in a producer and engineer.

'90s-era Queensrÿche gets dismissed for being radio-friendly, only because they were selling more records than before. Truthfully, it's very weird music. "I Am I" dresses a hypnotic sitar riff in bells, sound effects and strings, packing prog-rock senses into a song that doesn't even last four minutes. Scott Rockenfield's drumming sounds like Dale Crover broke into Danny Carey's mansion. All to arrive at the Iyaric conclusion that "I" is, in fact, "I". If that sounds silly to you, remember that this was written when Queensrÿche still was Queensrÿche.

*Besides the married couple with matching Queensrÿche tattoos whom I met outside the Best Buy Theater.

Song of the Day: Faith No More, "Epic"

Years ago, Richard and I caught a movie in Times Square. As was our tradition, we celebrated the event by visiting Dave's Tavern, the area's last surviving dive bar, and enjoying the free peanuts, pool table and company of the heavily-tattood bartender, Reina. We punched some of our favorite songs into the jukebox.

As each one of our tunes came on, a patron in the back, near the pool table, shouted his approval. "White Zombie, that's what up!" "Beastie Boys, you guys rule!" Each time, we acknowledged his kind words and went back to our Yuenglings. That was until the unmistakable first chords of Faith No More's "Epic" blared through the PA. Our fan lost his mind.



"FAITH NO MORE!" he screamed. "FAITH NO MORE! Yes! Yes! Youuuu wannnt it alllll..."

Flailing his arms, pulling all stops on his air instruments and struggling to hold on to his beer, our new companion looked like too much fun to ignore. Richard and I sang along with the chorus and flashed horns at him while he went completely nuts to Jim Martin's mind-bending solo, each one of Mike Patton's voices and of course, the greatest question of them all, "What is it?"

As the instruments cut out, leaving Roddy Bottum's piano outro to clean up the mess, our friend lost a few steps and dropped his pint, which shattered on the floor amongst the peanut shells. He looked back up at Richard and I. "That's all there is to life," he said in an amazed tone. "You just die."

He walked out of the bar.

Metallica Watching Children Cover "Enter Sandman"

Is that Lou Reed at the :21 mark?

The original video:

Song of the Day: Deftones, "Jealous Guy"

Are there any decent tribute albums? How about benefit records? They all mean well, and can do a lot of good, but you'll be lucky to get a handful of standouts on that plausible Kerrang! Tribute to Van Halen or the inevitable Live Aid 3. It's hard to think of a more admirable organization than Amnesty International, but their benefit albums are a waste of plastic. Better to make a donation rather than purchase a two-CD set of Jack Johnson, Christina Aguilera, Big & Rich, Avril Lavigne and the Black-Eyed Peas covering John Lennon. I can't even bring myself to remember who's on the Bob Dylan tribute.

Yet, Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur comes with one lovely track, an iTunes-only extra from the Deftones.



It takes a combination of balls and/or ignorance to cover a John Lennon song, particularly one that already has a famous Roxy Music version. But the Deftones find a new angle, exercising a Radiohead influence and letting bassist Chi Cheng direct. The strings and keyboard are stripped to a lonesome guitar line, beneath Chino Moreno's most fragile singing on record. The arrangement only gets slightly heavier throughout the verses, but the crescendo that Moreno unloads in the last pair of choruses convinced me that he's a musician.

It's hard for me to find sympathy for the song's narrator, who reminds me of Bob Dylan's guy who didn't mean to treat you so bad. But I still believe him.

For Chi Cheng.

Andrew W.K. Getting Booed at the Gathering of the Juggalos

As funny, sad and strange as Andy Kaufman.






I don't understand much of the guff that juggalos get. Much of the world likes to point and laugh, but much of what they do doesn't seem any sillier to me than painting yourself for a football game or listening to Avenged Sevenfold. I'm also happy that they've found friendship and community with the music that they enjoy. Still, I can't buy that "we're in a place where everyone's accepted" argument when I see something like this. The most that I can say for the juggalos here is that they gave Andrew W.K. a chance to earn an "A" in Performers Etiquette.

Song of the Day: King's X, "Lost in Germany"

No one matches catchy with complicated quite like King's X. I can't keep track of the notes in the chorus riff to "Lost in Germany," but I also can't get them out of my head.



In spite of its terrible cover art, King's X's self-titled fourth record makes a case for Doug Pinnick, Ty Tabor and Jerry Gaskill among metal's best decision-makers. Listen to how they throw in fretboard tricks like a trio of Berklee grads, but they know exactly when to cut out to a simple melody or a series of "doo-doo-doos." No matter what they say, I can't imagine them getting lost.

For Nick.

Anthrax for Bobby Digital

My office comrade, Bobby Digital (no, not that one), got to see Anthrax play Jimmy Fallon. Right as I was congratulating him, he described the event the way that Jesse Helms would probably describe an Anthrax show. No surprise there--Anthrax aren't a band that inspires a lot of indifference. But Bobby D also enjoys Iron Maiden and Metallica, so I sought to give him an audio discourse on New York's greatest metal band.



Anthrax for Bobby Digital

1. Bring the Noise
2. Only
3. Antisocial
4. Got the Time
5. Caught in a Mosh
6. Hy Pro Glo (Al Jourgensen remix)
7. Inside Out
8. What Doesn't Die
9. Among the Living
10. Cadillac Rock Box
11. Taking the Music Back
12. Think About an End
13. I'm the Man
14. Madhouse
15. I am the Law
16. Fueled
17. Refuse to be Denied
18. Metal Thrashing Mad (John Bush version)

One look at Anthrax for Bobby Digital gives me away. I am a John Bush fan. In most circles, that's like saying you prefer Van Hagar, but the fact is that Anthrax were at best with John Bush's growls and not Joey Belladonna's mewls.

Of course, the Joey period is their most popular, and there are plenty of killer songs. "Caught in a Mosh" and Madhouse" should be in any metalhead's collection. Anthrax caught up to their peers in the Big Four by rapping ("Bring the Noise," "I'm the Man,") covering new wave ("Got the Time") and telling jokes (S.O.D.) better than any other metal band. "I'm the Man" has got to be the deftest rap parody outside of Fear of a Black Hat, and "Antisocial" reinvents hard rock as punk rock, but their signature is "Bring the Noise," a perfect rap-metal bridge to Public Enemy that took both bands to their peak while paving the way for Rage Against the Machine and the Judgement Night soundtrack. I like it more than "Walk This Way."

But if Anthrax spent the Reagan Era in the shadow of Slaygadeth, they caught up with John Bush's debut on Sound of White Noise. "Only" and "Hy Pro Glo" deliver a TKO punch to mid-'90s grunge, and "Fueled" earns its Bukowski reference by sounding like it was sung by him. "Inside Out" scores with their best video (because it re-enacts a Twilight Zone episode) and their most ripping solo (because Dimebag Darrell plays it.)

Best of all though is We've Come for You All, their jaw-dropping 2003 comeback, where, amidst the worst publicity of their lifetime (we hope,) Scott Ian and the gang roared back to show the world who the real Anthrax is. From the zombie anthem "What Doesn't Die" to the rifftastic "Cadillac Rock Box" to the all-time heaviest "Think About an End" and beyond, Anthrax claimed the best Big Four record in the past decade. Not that it paid off commercially, but nothing more can be expected from metal's greatest team of underdogs.

Finally, I've alerted you to appearances by Al Jourgensen, Dimebag Darrell and Public Enemy. See if you can find Roger Daltrey.

Download here: Anthrax for Bobby Digital

Yamantaka // Sonic Titan at the Mercury Lounge

In the footprints of the Boredoms, Acid Mothers Temple and Boris, Japanese post-metal tends to exhibit a skewed idea of heavy metal, along the lines of what J-art scholars could imagine Black Sabbath to sound like from the cover of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, a Canadian septet of art school students, distinguish themselves by sounding like a band of metalheads imagining themselves as Japanese artists. Their name comes from a Buddhist deity and a Sleep song, and their music comes from another cosmos.

Entering the room in silence and war paint, Yamantaka // Sonic Titan took the stage with a set of high school-level stage props that accumulated into transcendence once the band entered, walking through the crowd under a hand-crafted dragon. Their instruments were disguised with decorated sheets and foamcore clouds, and the band was adorned in costumes that ranged from geishas to shredded garbage bags. Starting at their quietest, with the childlike "Queens," they worked their way into a noisy whirlwind on tracks like "Reverse Crystal // Murder of a Spider" and "Hoshi Neko," the latter evoking Wendy Carlos and Trent Reznor hosting a Ukiyo-e show.

Despite their DIY production, YT // ST think big. They eschew rock n' roll spontaneity in favor of a rehearsed, calculated production on a punk rock budget. The meshing of values makes for a show as idiosyncratic as their music, and by the end of their set, I felt like I had just survived a hurricane. They had played for about 40 minutes.

Openers Yvette played a promising, effects-heavy form of noise rock.

New York for Talia

Last year, I made a New York City mix for my friend Ellen. In the process, I learned that there were far too many great NYC songs for one 80-minute CD, so I shaped it to Ellen's liking--she got Prince, Harry Nilsson, Leonard Cohen and Rancid. Last fall, I Frankensteined the mix for Richard. He got Nas, Jay-Z, Bill Withers and Lou Reed. Now, my buddy Talia has moved back to Brooklyn, and she enjoys Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen.




New York for Talia

1. Ramones, "Rockaway Beach"
2. Beastie Boys, "No Sleep Till Brooklyn"
3. Elvis Costello & the Attractions, "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea"
4. The Notorious B.I.G., "Juicy"
5. Bob Dylan, "Hard Times in New York Town"
6. Stevie Wonder, "Living for the City"
7. The Pogues, "Fairytale of New York"
8. The Drifters, "On Broadway"
9. Wu-Tang Clan, "C.R.E.A.M."
10. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, "Drop Me Off in Harlem" 
11. The Rolling Stones, "Shattered"
12. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "The Message"
13. Andrew W.K., "I Love NYC"
14. Fountains of Wayne, "No Better Place"
15. Tom Waits, "Downtown Train"
16. Simon and Garfunkel, "The Only Living Boy in New York"
17. Bruce Springsteen, "Jungleland"
18. Run-D.M.C., "Christmas in Hollis"

I'll take any excuse to put the Beastie Boys and Rolling Stones on a mix CD, or to argue that the Apple hosts the world's finest hip-hop. Here, "The Message" follows its clearest influence, "Living in the City," and there isn't much that can top "C.R.E.A.M." or "Juicy." But to Talia's liking, I'm giving her a Satchmo and Sir Duke team-up and of course "Jungleland," honoring her Springsteen fandom and the late Clarence Clemons' greatest solo.

Ellen returned my CD with her own terrific New York mix, and  I've cherry-picked "No Better Place" and "The Only Living Boy in New York" from her choices. Over all, I avoided the decibel levels that usually distinguish my mixes, though I couldn't imagine anyone resisting Andrew W.K.'s "I Love NYC."

One of my favorite parts of Ellen's and Richard's mixes was ending each one with the Sex Pistols' "New York." What better way to pay tribute to the Capital of the World than to end with one big raspberry blown by Johnny Rotten? Yet for all of Talia's intellectual curiosity, I couldn't picture her getting down to being called a pile of shit. Thus, I'm ending New York for Talia with the less divisive but equally satisfying "Christmas in Hollis."

Download here: New York for Talia

Morgan Harrington Update

Dad Rock

Dad mixes are some of the hardest to make. Almost by definition, your father hates the music that you listen to. Mothers get far more musical tributes, and most father songs ("Come to Daddy," "Papa Don't Preach," "Had a Dad," "The End") are wildly inappropriate. Thus Father's Day mixes can be a chore, but let's give it a shot.

 

Dad Rock

1. Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Under the Bridge"
2. The White Stripes, "My Doorbell"
3. Shel Silverstein, "Dirty Ol' Me"
4. Squeeze, "Is That Love"
5. Fiona Apple, "Paper Bag"
6. Stevie Wonder, "Boogie on Reggae Woman"
7. Smashing Pumpkins, "Tonight, Tonight"
8. Sex Pistols, "Pretty Vacant"
9. Elvis Presley, "All Shook Up"
10. James Brown, "Night Train"
11. The Rolling Stones, "Loving Cup"
12. Harry Nilsson, "Maybe"
13. The Clash, "Rudie Can't Fail"
14. Jerry Lee Lewis, "What'd I Say"
15. R.E.M., "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"
16. Joni Mitchell, "Free Man in Paris"
17. Radiohead, "No Surprises"
18. Roy Orbison, "Only the Lonely"
19. Prince, "Starfish and Coffee"
20. Neil Young, "Comes a Time"
21. Santana, "Samba Pa Ti"
22. Shel Silverstein, "Comin' After Jinny" 

In the five years where DC101's playlist was the most important thing in the world to me, Dad would occasionally meet me halfway, at "Under the Bridge" or "Tonight, Tonight" (he never came around to "March of the Pigs.") I met him at Neil Young and Prince, and years later at Joni Mitchell.

Dad and I share an appreciation for Shel Silverstein, who appears in the giddy "Dirty Ol' Me" and the bittersweet "Comin' After Jinny," and we've also agreed on "Samba Pa Ti," Santana's best number and a subject of Nick Hornby's 31 Songs. On a limb, I'm hoping to increase Dad's appreciation for Jerry Lee Lewis, The White Stripes and especially the Rolling Stones, gracing us with my favorite song here.  Dad prefers the Beatles, so I've added Squeeze's best impersonation of the Fab Four.

This year, I've gone on Radiohead and Fiona Apple kicks, represented by father-friendly tracks, and more recently caught up to Roy Orbison, who joins a few of my favorite rock pioneers. The influence of artists like James Brown and Elvis Presley is now universal, and therefore taken for granted. A mix CD is ideal for emphasizing why they really matter.

The sore thumb here is "Pretty Vacant," which outguns everything else here by miles and shouldn't be on a mix for anyone over age 30. That being said, I do worship the Sex Pistols, and Dad likes Johnny Rotten's letter to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so I'm taking a chance.

PS: Metalsucks has an excellent photo gallery of Metal Dads right here.

Song of the Day: Cheech and Chong, "Earache My Eye"

Nobody should buy comedy records. Yes, support your stand-ups, catch their tours and watch their specials. But how many times have you actually listened to Steve Martin's "King Tut" or Chris Rock's "No Sex in the Champagne Room?" Recreationally? The next time you put either of those on a mix CD, count how many times you laugh and how many times you skip forward to the next track.

That stated, for however thousands of Adam Sandlers, there area few Lonely Islands or Flight of the Conchords who can make a laughs record with staying power. Metal is a prime contributor to this exclusive club, most famously with Spinal Tap and more recently with Dethklok and Steel Panther. Scott Ian has at least five songs that are as funny as anything by Tenacious D. But the heaviest, catchiest comedy metal song of all time is claimed by Richard Marin and Thomas Chong.



I love "Earache My Eye." That stupidly infectious, three-chord progression is weirdly heavy, especially for 1974, when it debuted. The lyrics, credited to "Alice Bowie," detail a a cross-dressing delinquent and don't have anything to do with earaches, eyes, missing prepositions or the "plot" to Up in Smoke, where it makes its most famous appearance.



Supposedly the boys were stone cold sober while filming this, making it all the funnier that they don't even pretend to play their instruments.

Being uproarious, left-field and easy to play, "Earache My Eye" is ripe for live covers, as the Rollins Band, Rush, Soundgarden (in a medley with "Big Bottom") and Korn have testified. Against all logic and sanity, two things that this song is not known for, the best cover version is Korn's. Mainly because it features Cheech on vocals.



As comedians, Cheech and Chong proved that a good-natured, mishap-prone duo with a low budget could invent, popularize and influence a new film genre for decades. And as Alice Bowie, they rocked as hard as David and Cooper.

Crooked Man at Freddy's

John LaMacchia is one of music's most underrated genre-benders. In Candiria, he didn't just blend jazz, hip-hop and ambience with metal, he actually infiltrated authentic jazz, hip-hop and trip-hop measures into his music. More recently, he teamed up with fellow sonic mavericks in Isis, The Dillinger Escape Plan and Made Out of Babies for a bludgeoning EP as Spylacopa (say, when can we hear more of that?) and produced Julie Christmas' haunting solo album, The Bad Wife, all for LaMacchia's Rising Pulse label. He could already retire on his track record, but his new three-piece Crooked Man indicates that there's more up his sleeve.

Performing in a secluded room at Freddy's in Brooklyn, LaMacchia's band was filled out by bassist Michael Shaw and singer/guitarist Sabrina Ellie. The sparse, drumless lineup recalled the better MTV Unplugged episodes, where the bands ditched the hits in favor of the songs that were best left underproduced. Stripping much of the aggression from the doom metal nightmares of their recent EP, Crooked Man waltzed songs like "The Parting Gift" into murder ballad territory. Much of LaMacchia's acclaim goes to his production and arrangement gifts, so a forum for his songwriting talents was particularly welcome.

On vocals, LaMacchia doesn't have much range, but he's a convincing frontman with a theatrical flair. He embodied Morrissey and Thom Yorke's emotiveness on Smiths and Radiohead covers, and best of all, interpreted the Misfits' "Come Back" as a Nick Cave ballad. If Crooked Man release a covers record, there'll be at least one buyer.

Encoring with a lovely read of "No Surprises," Crooked Man left the impression that the best of LaMacchia may be yet to come. Call it the process of self-development.

The Worst Song That You'll Hear All Year

Dexter Holland turned down a Ph.D. for this?

I'll stick up for the Offspring as one of the best mainstream rock bands in the '90s. Purists will still cry about the Orange County quartet watering down punk rock for MTV, but more so was the Woodstock '94 crowd catching up with punk. If Smash was on Alternative Tentacles, it'd be on all your punk bar jukeboxes.

Like their peers in Green Day and No Doubt, the Offspring's punk roots have been dissolving, but still apparent, over the past 15 years. That was until now, with their screamingly-awful new song and video, "Cruising California (Bumpin' in My Trunk)."

If the Offspring's muse is taking them towards Katy.I.Am's California Wurld, fine. What really grosses me out is the thought that this is satire. No one needs to be reminded how bad this stuff is, or how easy it is to create, and watching Holland and the gang drown in something they're trying to make fun of is just depressing. Years ago, the Offspring caustically took razors to punk conformity, alternative angst and a nation of wiggers, but this time the joke's on them.

In remembrance of things past:

Courtney Love in a Shopping Cart

Happy Tuesday.

Five Great Records that Robert Christgau Trashed

Earlier this week I met Robert Christgau, the "Dean of American Rock Critics." He could not have been friendlier. I did not expect the Pazz & Jop founder (and the guy who once wished death on Paul McCartney instead of John Lennon) to make time for me, but I learned that his demeanor is worthy of his talent.

Christgau's reviews were, for better and worse, a harbinger for Twitter. He specializes in short, sharp remarks that say more about how music feels than how it sounds. Any serious music writer has spent hours with his Consumer Guide books or web site, which are always entertaining and often infuriating. Whatever part of his brain made him one of America's top journalists did not help him at all when it came to appreciating metal.

"I admire metal's integrity, brutality, and obsessiveness, but I can't stand its delusions of grandeur," he wrote in one of his rare positive reviews, for Motörhead's Orgasmatron. He's come to terms somewhat, more recently telling Salon, "I don’t think metal’s as bad as I hear it as being." But for all his virtues, the Dean is not to be trusted when it comes to the headbanger's art. In some ways, he's metal's perfect foil--an artistic, intellectual type who prefers Sonic Youth in his haughty publications. In honor of Christgau's game-changing style and questionable taste, let's give his writing a taste of his own acerbic medicine.

1. Black Sabbath, Paranoid



They do take heavy to undreamt-of extremes, and I suppose I could enjoy them as camp, like a horror movie--the title cut is definitely screamworthy. After all, their audience can't take that Lucifer bit seriously, right? Well, depends on what you mean by serious. Personally, I've always suspected that horror movies catharsized stuff I was too rational to care about in the first place.

Calling metal on its campiness is like making fun of your friends. If you're a proven comrade and appreciator, it's fine, but if it comes with a "C-" you're asking for a fight. In fairness, metal does have audience that's misguided enough to believe in Satan, and they're also into banning books.

2. Van Halen, Van Halen

For some reason Warners wants us to know that this is the biggest bar band in the San Fernando Valley. This doesn't mean much--all new bands are bar bands, unless they're Boston. The term becomes honorific when the music belongs in a bar. This music belongs on an aircraft carrier. 

On an aircraft carrier? What does that even mean? Christgau's prose is often brilliant, but here he's either too smart for me or has no idea what he's talking about.

3. AC/DC, Back in Black

"Shoot to Thrill," "Given [sic] the Dog a Bone," and "Let Me Put My Love Into You" all concern the unimaginative sexual acts you'd imagine, and "What Do You Do for Money Honey" has a more limited set of answers than the average secretary would prefer. My sister's glad they don't write fantasy and science fiction, and if you're female you're free to share her relief. Brothers are more deeply implicated in these matters.

The number one pratfall of music critics is that they respond to lyrics more than music. Personally, I think Back in Black is full of gems ("She told me to come but I was already there,") but any appreciation of AC/DC starts with the riffs. What Brian Johnson sings
about doesn't matter as much as what you can sing along to.

4. Metallica, Master of Puppets

(T)he revolutionary heroes I envisage aren't male chauvinists too inexperienced to know better; they don't have hair like Samson and pecs like Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's the image Metallica calls up, and I'm no more likely to invoke their strength of my own free will than I am The 1812 Overture's.

Confirmation that everyone assumes that the music they detest is enjoyed by their enemies from high school.

5. Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral

Musically, Hieronymus Bosch as postindustrial atheist; lyrically, Transformers as kiddie porn.

Industrial Bosch actually sounds kind of great, though I have no idea where the second part came from. Maybe he meant to write "transformers, kids and porn," and turned it off before he got to "Hurt."

The Cult at Terminal 5

"What deep cuts do you want to hear?" My buddy asked me, moments before The Cult's set at Terminal 5. My answer: None. I don't love The Cult. They've got some good tunes, but their bombast, coupled with pretenses of being alternative and hard rock without being great either, hasn't endeared them to this headbanger. However, I do love metal, and The Cult are a part of its history, so I took the chance to see them.



Openers Against Me!, now more famous for their newly-transgendered frontman than their music, played a surprisingly likeable pop-punk set. Having been disillusioned with the genre since Ixnay on the Hombre and bored by the show I caught from them five years ago, where they seemed unsure of what to make of their major label status and touring slot with Mastodon, it was fun to see them evolve into such confident and engaging performers. Perhaps inspired to prove herself under her new identity, Laura Jane Grace charged through the show with Green Day-inspired power punk and glam rock androgyny. Best of all, the band covered the Replacements' "Androgynous," a choice that would have been predictable had they not enlisted help from surprise guest Joan Jett.

Getting on the good foot with "Lil' Devil," The Cult set the tone for a hits-filled night. It was not to be--a gracious helping from their newest, Choice of Weapon, suggested leftovers from Josh Homme's Desert Sessions and were received as politely as one could hope. But rock n' roll isn't polite, and The Cult's most raucous moments ignited the crowd, particularly "She Sells Sanctuary" and the definitive "Fire Woman." Windmill expert Billy Duffy, whose jangling connects Johnny Marr to Def Leppard, rang out coliseum-sized power chords that emphasized his case as one of the first alternapop heroes to reach arena rock status. The band's MVP, without a doubt.

But my problem with The Cult, and particularly frontman Ian Astbury, isn't that they're bad. It's that they're not good enough. Like his idol, Jim Morrison, Astbury is both his band's charismatic draw and its pompous foil. He doesn't seem like a bad guy, and in fact was chatting with fans and signing tickets before the show. But his composed sleazeball stage persona didn't do him any favors. Between enough f-words to embarrass Lil' Wayne, Astbury bantered about how hot it was inside (without taking off his fur and leather jacket), pretended to play three different tambourines that all got tossed to the crowd and never got worked up enough to remove his sunglasses. For a more engaging rock star, none of these acts would have seemed forced, but Astbury's considerable talents don't quite live up to his ego. I have seen Axl Rose, Axl Rose was a hero of mine, and Ian, you're no Axl Rose.

But to be fair, Astbury can sing, and his Lizard King fantasies suited Duffy's riffage just fine. Encoring with "Love Removal Machine," the band unleashed what looked like energy that they had saved up in the last hour, thrashing out their cockrock tendencies like mystic rock icons. For once, Astbury was everything that he pretended to be, and we needed him just as much as his band did.

Rorschach at Le Poisson Rouge

Taking your heroes out on tour is a mixed blessing. I'm glad that U2 gave Patti Smith a stadium-sized audience, but does anyone think that "Dancing Barefoot" is best heard in a 20,000-capacity arena? Does anyone remember anything about AFI's 2006 US tour, except that The Dillinger Escape Plan opened? Touring with your favorite artists is honorable, but it can also be dangerous.

Thus Rorschach, a New Jersey artcore band whose dissonant punk rock influenced bands like Coalesce and the Refused, recently reunited for a few East Coast shows, supposedly the last that they will ever perform. At best, this reunion will be remembered as an afterthought to the blazing Converge performance that preceded it.



Saluting two of their influences, Converge sandwiched themselves between Brooklyn's Indecision and Rorschach for a Saturday show at Le Poisson Rouge. It was a venue that Converge could have packed on their own, and they nobly sold no merchandise and took second billing to an elder, less-appreciated hardcore band. Yet onstage, Converge didn't shy away from annihilating their forefathers as if they were any other band.

Perhaps fired up by playing alongside their boyhood idols, Converge played the most violent, spirited show that I'd seen in my ten years of fandom. Moshers were constantly flung up between band members as they roared through their last decade breakneck brutality. Unlike Indecision or Rorschach, Converge's recorded history is ongoing, and their newest songs (promised for release this September 11) erupted with vigor. From the classic hardcore of "Bitter and Then Some" to the enraged blare of songs from their recent Axe to Fall, Converge exhibited one of the most unimpeachable discographies in metal history, backed with urgent, flailing performances by all four bandmates. At the end of "Last Light," the stage was packed with moshers, and frontman Jacob Bannon signaled the end of one of the year's best metal shows.

Rorschach, as performers and musicians, were unsuited to follow. Their sludgier, tricky hardcore, while innovative in it's early-'90s prime, has since been reaped from and bettered by newer bands. This would be fine, were it not performed by five dudes who, either from bitterness or ennui, couldn't muster up the energy to give their music the show that it deserved. Don't buy the too-old excuse--anyone who has ever seen Iggy Pop or Lemmy will tell you that punk rockers can thrash way into their 60s. Even Indecision, the middle-aged, politically-conscious hardcore vets who opened the show, brought more verve to their music than the headliners.

Rorschach left Le Poisson Rouge with an admirable legacy and audible influence, but I'd be surprised if they left the club with any new fans.

Henry Rollins on Dating

"If you're not much of a reader, I'm not much of a dinner-buyer."

Jimmy Cliff at Prospect Park

Jimmy Cliff is reggae's Bruce Springsteen. His performances are joyful, high-energy marathons designed to keep their entire audience out of their seats for the rest of the night. If Cliff had any cynicism about playing his 40-year-old hits for a crowd of Ras Trents at his Tuesday show at Prospect Park, he hid them under a voice and body that exhibited more agility than can be expected of a man pushing retirement age.



Debuting this summer's Celebrate Brooklyn concert series, Cliff set an impossibly high bar, high-kicking his way out on stage to open with "You Can Get it if You Really Want." Leading with his best-known song, Cliff dared himself to follow his biggest hit for two hours and delivered, familiarizing the audience with every song through interaction, call-and-response and dance instruction that proved he was by far the greatest prancer in the bandshell.

A natural showman and crowd-pleaser, Cliff's setlist played like a Best of on shuffle. "Many Rivers to Cross," "Sitting in Limbo" and "Wonderful World, Beautiful People" ushered out the setting sun, and his version of "I Can See Clearly Now" freed itself from Cool Runnings. In his fifth decade as a performer, Cliff is still reimagining his biggest hits, bestowing us will a beautiful, all-drums take on "Rivers of Babylon" and updating "Vietnam" to include Afghanistan.

As an interpeter, he also took most of the cheese out of Cat Stevens' "Wild World" and surprised all of us by skanking through Rancid's "Ruby Soho" early in the set. Cliff's proto-ska rhythms (think of him as Chuck Berry to the Clash's Beach Boys) make him an underrated punk rock influence, but the master clearly got it, nailing Armstrong and Frederiksen's harmonies like a man who was born to sing and dance.

If you go to one reggae show in your entire life, make sure that it's Jimmy Cliff.

Expendables 2 Fan-Made Trailer

As with most sequels, this follow-up to 2010's sensational Expendables "Call to Arms" fan-made trailer can't beat the original. Still, it does have old-fashioned action movie stars blowing stuff up to the music of Andrew W.K., which makes it worth your two minutes. Watch it here: Expendables 2

The original, in case you missed it:

Dave Mustaine Blowing a Shofar

Why not?

Appetite for Destruction: "My Michelle"

Everybody has a Michelle.



Maybe her dad isn't a pornographer, and maybe she isn't balancing schoolwork with cocaine and easy virtue, but everybody has someone that they think they can save. A friend, partner or relative who is loved not too wisely but too well. F. Scott Fitzgerald had Zelda and Johnny Rotten had Sid Vicious. Axl Rose had Michelle.

Michelle's story is immortalized by Axl's reaction to it. No matter what or who she does in the verses, Axl goes back to assuring her that things will work out. "Someday you'll find someone that'll fall in love with you," goes the bridge. "Honey, don't stop trying and you'll get what you deserve," ends the final stanza.

The contrast of her lifestyle and his outlook is reflected in the music. "My Michelle" pairs aggressive verses with a melodic chorus, inverting the more famous "quiet verses/loud chorus" structure defined by the Pixies and popularized by Nirvana. This paved the way for the sonic extremities of bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan, who covered "My Michelle" for a tribute album.



Who knows what Axl saw in Michelle Young. I can't pretend to have an answer, but I wonder if it was anything like what Slash, Duff McKagan, Izzy Stradlin, Erin Everly and Stephanie Seymour saw in him.

In memory of Lauren.

Metalheads of the Day: Ween

Weirdoid rock took a hit this week when Ween announced their breakup. My guess is that they'll reunite some day, but it will be at least a few years before Gene and Dean drive anyone crazy with that boogie oogie oogie oogie.

At best, such as on 1994's Chocolate and Cheese, Ween were the rarest kind of experimental band, the kind that gets stuck in your head. They parodied pop, rock, R&B and country as lovingly as Spinal Tap parodied metal, spewing out ingratiating melodies that made you want to dance even when the lyrics made you want to throw up. More cheerful than the Butthole Surfers, more singable than Mr. Bungle and more versatile than Primus, they leave a gaping hole in the alternative universe. 

Ween's performances were even more unpredictable than their albums, but one treat was seeing them cover metal and hard rock standards. By not playing to a metal audience, they gave new life to classics by Motörhead, Van Halen, Nirvana and Black Sabbath.

"Ace of Spades"


 "Hot for Teacher"


"Heart-Shaped Box"


"War Pigs"


There's a hint of silliness in all of these (except for "Heart-Shaped Box," which will always sound unsettling). I'm sure that the band that wrote "Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)" doesn't mind the thought of offending some humorless Sabbath fans. But I like the goofy tinges and the are-they-or-aren't-they-kidding debates that these covers raise. My take is that no one would go out of their way to learn "Hot for Teacher" just to make fun of it.

Lest anyone still doubt Ween's metal credit, they recorded the best Motörhead impression ever performed by anyone not named Lemmy. "It's Gonna Be a Long Night" is an original from 2003's Quebec, but I could hear it next to anything on No Sleep 'til Hammersmith.




Ween are pushing th' little daisies now, and they deserve a break. But if they ever come back, I bet they've got a great metal record in them.

The Three Worst Nu Metal Reinventions

Much has been made of how hair metal bands tried to jump the grunge bandwagon after Nevermind made them all feel as silly as they looked. There was something sad about seeing Warrant and Skid Row struggle to distance themselves from their past and peers, begging audiences and label execs for their attention, but also something fascinating. Watching Bret Michaels drool his way through Sublime's "What I Got" in 2010 may not be anyone's idea of fun, but it's more memorable than the Unskinny Bop.

Nu metal, the hair metal of the '90s, is more complicated. The fad died out equally fast (until its inevitable Rock of Ages-style revival), but didn't have any clear rock trends to latch onto in the early '00s. Thus, many of nu metal's leaders jumped ships to different waters. As with hair metal, their failures are often more interesting than their actual hits.

No one with any sense of time management needs to find out what happened to, say, Powerman 5000*. But if we cap the list at three, you'll get a few funny, bizarre and almost bearable nu metal reinventions that still won't make you pine for a Family Values reunion tour.

1. Jonathan Davis as a Dubstep Clown, "Evilution"

Korn's recent dubstep album was apparently bad enough to make them relevant again, in the way that "F" grade music is better than "C" grade music. You'd never guess from this song and video, where "J Devil" teams up with two electronic losers (Datsik and Infected Mushroom) to get his ass kicked at a birthday party where his name is misspelled on the cake. The soundtrack suggests AOL's dial up sounds, which means it's about as stale as Korn were in 1999. If this is what the kids want to listen to these days, call me an old man.



2. Aaron Lewis as a Country Music Republican, "Country Boy"

In Staind (sic), Aaron Lewis led the world's most boring band, ordinary enough to be popular and too inoffensive to be Crazy Town. Only now has he stepped things up with this manipulative ode to right wing values, particularly the second amendment. The melody is stolen from Bon Jovi and amazingly enough, watered down. A jingoistic monologue from Charlie Daniels and an auto-tuned, lost-sounding George Jones can't help, and we're left with the most appalling sight of a New Englander posing as a good ol' boy since George W. Bush.



3. Kid Rock as Lynyrd Zevon, "All Summer Long"

I have defended Kid Rock, and will continue to do so, as long as he deserves it. But man, does this song suck. It's bad enough to see the brains behind Devil Without a Cause go bad, but hearing the Kid tie his worst lyrics in with the world's most likeable southern rock band and LA's most colorfully sardonic tunesmith truly underscores how far he's sunk. Hearing this song all over the airwaves in 2008 made me sad not for Kid Rock or my own ears, but for every American who had apparently never heard "Werewolves of London" or "Sweet Home Alabama."



*OK, so apparently they've released a tuneless cover of "Jump" and still sound like a rhythmless, computerized Rob Zombie imitating the Cars.

Meshuggah at Terminal 5

One of the best things about metalheads is that they pay to see bands like Meshuggah. In no other genre, except jazz, will you see a band with no conventional tunings, rhythms or choruses headline a 3,000-capacity venue. Meshuggah's compositionally-subversive non-metal peers probably don't whip their fans into the same kind of visible delirium, but that may have more to do with the band's intangible powers than the forces of death metal.

Meshuggah are death metal's Slayer. Entire subgenres--technical death metal, djent, deathcore, Gojira--have been founded on the idea of outplaying them, but no Summer Slaughter act has ever conjured up the ferocity amassed by the five guys that make up Meshuggah. Watching them wipe the floor with Terminal 5 last week under Godzilla-sized riffs was a reminder that Meshuggah are still at the top of the games that they founded.

Openers Decapitated, one of the better bands to stem from Meshuggah's shadow, drove the crowd into a floor-encompassing pit for the entirety of their set. Sticking to tracks from last year's Carnival is Forever, Poland's heaviest seemed to overcome the venue's stifling acoustics by sheer force. Guitarist Vogg has made a name on passing expectations, losing two members in a fatal bus crash and rebounding with their most consistent record yet, and drummer Krimh honored the mindwarping style of deceased drummer Vitek without imitating it.



Baroness, the evening's odd band out, are famous for classic rock-inspired beard metal. They'd be better suited for a bill with Mastodon or even Bonnaroo, but at Terminal 5 they were able to emphasize their stoner-prog melodies by offering the night's most drastic change of pace. Not once did they pander to the tech death audience, opening with a slow drone and and serving Kyuss-like riffage under often harmonized vocals. The crowd gave them their due, taking a 45-minute break from moshing to absorb the hypnotic progressions of "A Horse Called Golgotha" and "The Sweetest Curse." I'm not sure that I could enjoy a double album of it (as we'll find out when Yellow & Green drops July 17,) but I'd see them again and invite friends.



Impressive as they were, neither Baroness nor Decapitated could steal the show. From the bass-heavy first tones of "Do Not Look Down," Meshuggah unleashed a dizzying set, focused mainly on their two most recent albums, this year's Koloss and 2008's career-peak ObZen. The former's slowed tempos and the latter thrash touches melded into a cinder block-heavy show of horns-flashing music theory classes, graced with a congruent stained glass stage design and a nearly blinding light show. Who knows how much of Terminal 5 would've survived were the Meshuggah fans not relatively subdued by the flashes.

On record, Meshuggah's leaders are guitar wizards Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström and polyrhythmic master Thomas Haake, but onstage frontman Jens Kidman is the star. A good if not mind-blowing singer, his robotic movements and omnipresent samurai face are an unforgettable visual to the sci-fi nightmares behind songs like "The Demon's Name is Surveillance" and "Future Breed Machine." Under the frantic waves of "Combustion," he was the eye of the band's hurricane,  moving just slowly enough to make the case that he was about to destroy the room. Compared with other death metal frontmen, his performances are like his band's music--not the fastest or most dynamic that you can find, but all the scarier for their guile.

Meshuggah will be no one's gateway metal band, but for those of us who like our jazz to come with blast beats, we couldn't have asked for more.