Joan Rivers' Best Interview

Among all her memorable celebrity interactions, one could lose track of how hip Joan Rivers was to cool bands. From giving Hüsker Dü their closest shot at stardom to getting good interviews out of David Lee Roth (not an easy task, as anyone who ever suffered through his radio show can tell you) to teasing young Beastie Boys to hosting the Osbournes ten years before The Osbournes, the comedy legend endeared herself to headbangers around the world. Best of all, she hosted the most metal moment in television history.



It makes sense that two of the world's most influential comedy acts should meet up, until you realize that this was in 1990, when Oderus Urungus and Beefcake the Mighty were Metal Blade signees on their second album, years away from appearances in Empire Records or on "Beavis and Butt-head." I won't give any of the jokes away, but I'll note that both Gwar and Joan are in top form. How many 50somethings could love this band? I can only think of one.

Andrew W.K. on GWAR

"I first found out about GWAR when I was around 13-years old. I was just completely blown away by everything about them. I'd never seen -- not only a band like them -- but I'd never really seen anything like them. I'd never seen creatures that looked like them, let alone ones that played music. From that moment on, I really looked at GWAR as an arbiter of excitement and a living example of the idea that anything was possible in this amazing thing called 'the living arts.' If this group of people could become rock and roll monsters and travel the earth, then maybe I could do whatever I dreamed of in life."

Read the rest in The Village Voice here.

Gibby Haynes on The Daily Show

The Daily Show
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With author Amy Yates Wuelfing, and including a tribute to Oderus Urungus from the man who played Fritz Wang in GWAR's Phallus in Wonderland film.

Dave Brockie and Oderus Urungus

If Oderus Urungus were to write an obituary for Dave Brockie, no doubt he would fill it with tasteless jokes about how much his music sucked, how idiotic his fans were and what sexual position he was crushed in while he died screaming. But like nearly everyone else in the world, I don't have the wit or the fearlessness to make you laugh about something as awful as the news that Brockie and Urungus died this week at the age of 50 and 43 billion, respectively.



I will stand on my desk and say that GWAR is one of the greatest metal bands ever. Call it hyperbolic or overemotional, and maybe it is a fanatical thing to say about a band whose music was fine at best. But metal is best enjoyed from the stage and not from your home speakers, and no band ruled the stage like GWAR. Sure, Mastodon and Neurosis write better songs. But who would you rather see in the flesh?

Flesh was one of the only things you were guaranteed at a GWAR show. Sometimes it was Justin Bieber's, the Pope's, the President's, a Dictator's or Jesus Christ of Nazareth's, but it never took long to get ripped apart and land on the front row. The banter was hilarious ("God has a son? Let's crucify that motherfucker!"), the costumes were fantastic and the show was always unpredictable--no telling who would get killed next, or what monster would emerge from backstage. Up until the end, Oderus was making fun of Nelson Mandela and his self-congratulating mourners, laughing at Flight 370 conspiracies and picking fights with Kerry King. Even his fans got offended, from metalheads upset about his jokes at As I Lay Dying's expense or Kevin Smith getting provoked into a Twitter fight when Oderus pointed out (correctly) that Smith's reality show was a waste of time.

Actually, Urungus was right about most things, including social issues ("So Utah is going to repeal gay marriage, but you can still have ten sister mama wives. Reminds me of a planet I crushed. Planet of the Morons."), American ignorance ("Dude from Syria gasses 3000 of his own people and what do Americans care about? Miley Cyrus acting like a retard!") and how to make listeners laugh and retch in the same sentence ("O.K. you worthless piles of rancid phlegm...give me not one but two reasons why I shouldn't have sex with this dead bear I found."). Like the best comedians, he brought up the worst things about society and made us feel better about them. But he was the only one who did it all while living as a metal god alien in charge of the greatest band of monsters, robots, humanoids and aliens to ever treat the universe with their presence.

The first time I saw GWAR was the first time I ever crowd-surfed by accident. I went home drenched in the blood of President George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Pope Benedict XVI and Arnold Schwarzenegger, giggling like Beavis and too electrified to care that I was soaking wet in the cold December air. I couldn't believe I got to live in a world with these barbarians. It felt like being Max in an R-rated version of Where the Wild Things Are. Of course I saw them every chance I could over the next few years, and as of 2012 they were better than ever. Their antitheist jokes were funnier than anything in God is Not Great or Religulous. They slaughtered both of the 2012 presidential candidates and forever changed the way I say the name "Rob Zombie." I was ready to go back and see it all again. It's going to be harder to deal with the next Rand Pauls and Vladimir Putins knowing that we're never going to see what their large intestines look like dripping from Oderus Urungus' mouth.

Up until the end, Brockie was finding new ways to be hilarious and repugnant. It's almost inevitable that every shock rock artist loses their bite (yesterday's Ozzy is today's Osbournes Reloaded), and that comedy acts have even shorter shelf lives than boy bands (Green Jellö, anyone? Dread Zeppelin?). But Oderus Urungus and GWAR were never neutered by the mainstream, whether stealing Empire Records with the best-ever metal cameo or telling off Greg Gutfeld on Oderus' Fox News appearances, before the channel reportedly banned Oderus for dismembering Sarah Palin and playing with her entrails. As of last month, they were still disembowling prime ministers and infuriating bureaucracies (in Australia, of all places), horrifying and thrilling audiences 30 years into their incomparable career.

But no matter how gross they got, GWAR always mattered by being funny. If they had just worn costumes and talked shit, they could have been Lordi. If they had taken themselves more seriously, they could have been Mudvayne. But instead they were GWAR, the most uproarious and convincingly extraterrestrial band in the world. Thank you Dave Brockie and Oderus Urungus, for making the galaxy a funnier place.

Key & Peele, "The Power of Wings"

With all respect to Barnes & Barnes, no musical groups do comedy better than the metalheads. An entire Dr. Demento anthology couldn't stack up to the laughs provided (intentionally or not) by Spinal Tap, Steel Panther, Dethklok, GWAR, Tenacious D, "Earache My Eye" or "I'm the Man." Hell, even some of metal's biggest "serious" bands are funnier than anything on Funny or Die. Suicidal Tendencies' "Institutionalized?" Cannibal Corpse's "Hammer Smashed Face?" Give these men the Mark Twain Prize.

Key & Peele, currently mugging on the cover of this week's Time, are the latest to join the illustrious Metal Comedy world. The video for their song "The Power of Wings," which premiered on the team's uproarious Comedy Central show, is a deadpanned tribute to metal bombast that has me laughing even harder on the third viewing. Eat your heart out, Dragonforce.

The Weepies, "Gotta Have You"

Last summer, two of my closest friends gave me the honor of creating a playlist for their wedding reception. One song that made it to the final mix was this one, which the bride had introduced to me months earlier. As much as I'm predisposed to dislike a twee indie folk-pop married couple writing love songs to each other, something about this one totally got its hooks in me. What can I say--I like it for the same reasons that I like Cameron Crowe movies. I even decided I liked it enough to put it next to Nick Cave and Stevie Wonder on the playlist, and now to post it next to GWAR on my predominately metal blog.

This week, the Weepies announced that guitarist Deb Talan has stage 2 breast cancer. From the band's social networking page:

Thank you for the outpouring of love and support. We are overwhelmed, we accept, and we intend to take all the help we can get!

A lot of people have asked if they can do anything. Sure! If you want to send Deb a love note or care package or a few words of encouragement via snail mail, we say yes.

The Weepies
PO Box 2776
Iowa City, IA 52244

Also, what you can do – make an appointment for yourself to get your yearly cancer screening, right now.
With love,
Deb & Steve

I'll be sending them a note this week, and I hope you will too.

GWAR, "Saddam A Go-Go"

Nobody wants to admit it, but this is the greatest ska song of all time.

The Animated Tales of GWAR

Via Funny or Die. NSFW, obviously.

Oderus Urungus Reading Goodnight Moon

Oderus Urungus on Internships

Basically Goofus and Gallant for college kids.

Back to School

Back to School

1. The Smiths, "The Headmaster Ritual"
2. Van Halen, "Hot for Teacher"
3. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, "School Days" 
4. The Mountain Goats, "Fall of the Star High School Running Back"
5. John Lee Hooker, "Teachin' the Blues"
6. Chuck Berry, "School Days"
7. The Replacements, "Fuck School"
8. Kanye West, "School Spirit"
9. The Dubliners, "Schoolday's Over"
10. Nirvana, "School"
11. Venom, "Teacher's Pet" 
12. Otis Redding, "Stay in School (Radio Spot)"
13. James Brown, "Don't Be a Dropout"
14. Paul Simon, "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"
15. Elvis Costello & the Attractions, "Chemistry Class" 
16. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Catholic School Girls Rule"
17. Jerry Lee Lewis, "High School Confidential"
18. Muddy Waters, "Good Morning Little School Girl"
19. Jethro Tull, "Teacher"
20. Leonard Cohen, "Teachers"
21. The Ramones, "Rock 'n' Roll High School"
22. Pearl Jam, "Jeremy"
23. Deftones, "Pink Maggit"
24. Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2"
25. Gwar, "School's Out"

GWAR, "School's Out"

Alice Cooper's "School's Out" is the unchallenged, definitive end of the school year anthem. Each June, every classic rock station in America puts it in heavy rotation. It's soundtracked enough films, TV shows, commercials and montages to make it possibly the most internationally-heard hard rock song of all-time, up there with "Iron Man" and "Back in Black." It's been on The Muppets Show and two different episodes of The Simpsons. It's also been performed by the casts of Glee, American Idol and even Alvin and the Chipmunks, although the latter diffused the "School's been blown to pieces" lyric with "School's ancient history."

But for the sake of contrarianism, let's celebrate the end of school this month with GWAR's version. 



Even GWAR's biggest fans, like yours truly, will tell you that they're not great songwriters. If KISS put the show first in their career, GWAR made it the only thing that matters in theirs, releasing albums for the fun of it between tours and video collections. Yet it's a blast to hear them romp through "School's Out," by far the catchiest and most reverent thing they've ever recorded. Said reverence doesn't stop them for amending the lyrics to be even more offensive ("We've got no metal detectors!") but like the best covers, they manage to be faithful while putting their own filthy stamp on the original. The music video is also a gem, featuring a suspiciously adult-looking class and a quick tribute to class Eddie Van Halen in the "Hot for Teacher" video. Class dismissed.

Ten Metal Bands to See Before You Die: GWAR

Imagining rock music without GWAR is like imagining film without Troma, or TV without South Park. GWAR gave shock rock its sense of humor back and reinvented it as something edgier, funnier and sicker. In a genre that does comedy better than any other kind of music (Spinal Tap, Steel Panther, Dethklok, Austrian Death Machine, S.O.D., Cheech and Chong's "Earache My Eye,") GWAR does it best.

 
Nothing is taboo at a GWAR show. They dismembered George W. Bush for eight years, then started mutilating Barack Obama before he'd even taken the oath of office. Every show has more jokes about sex abuse, terrorist attacks and bodily fluids than any Aristocrats routine. Imagine Bill Maher's antitheism without his self-importance, or Bill Hicks' misanthropy with a headbanging soundtrack. Their show is regularly updated to reflect the week's events, with no attempt to pander to anyone, even metalheads (Sample banter: "Glad to hear Randy Blythe has escaped the clutches of the infamous Czech justice system. Now he can get back where he belongs, blowing me.") If it's sacred, GWAR will destroy it.

In all my years of taking friends to metal shows, only once has a band has ever inspired one of my buddies to leave early in disgust. It was in 2009, when GWAR were ripping the newly-deceased Michael Jackson's face off and gruesomely eating a few babies. My friend, a sensible and cultured guy who is neither religious nor conservative, could not take it. It'd be one thing to offend a Michele Bachmann type, who probably thinks that Coldplay is Satanic death metal, but watching GWAR offend a guy who went to Sarah Lawrence College with me was something else altogether. As long as there's a room for GWAR to obliterate, rock n' roll will never become safe or stale.

But don't dismiss GWAR as being gross for the sake of being gross. GWAR are first rate showmen, social critics and comedians, not to be lumped in with the Slipknots and Lordis that cop and dilute GWAR's style. Unlike their humorless shock rock followers, GWAR never let commercial aspirations get in the way of a great time. In an interview last year, bandleader Oderus Urungus quoted Rob Zombie as (reportedly) saying, "The first time I saw GWAR, I thought ‘I want to be that, but I want to make money.’" "That to me says a lot about Rob Zombie as an artist," stated Urungus. "It says that he isn’t one."

He didn't have to go any further and call himself an artist, because, as anyone who's seen GWAR will attest, that fact is never in question. Shock rockers and shock humorists come and go almost as quickly as boy bands, but nearly 30 years into their career, GWAR are funnier and wilder than ever, leaving countless Mudvaynes and Mushroomheads in their bloody dust. GWAR beat on, boats against the current, boors ceaselessly into the future.

Ten Metal Bands to See Before You Die

NME's list of 50 artists to see before you die is problematic, as these lists always are, but it raises some good questions. Who are the artists that you need to see? Is it worth it to see Ozzy, who gives it his best shot but can barely keep up with the songs, just to tell your grandkids that you shared a room with the Godfather of Heavy Metal? Is it better to see a band like Gojira, whose songs you know, or GWAR, who puts on a real show?  Should you go to shows to discover new bands or to enjoy the ones you already like? How much of either?

My belief is that you go to shows to experience them. The only time I ever saw the Rolling Stones, there were plenty of big shots (and at least one Fox News commentator) there who probably couldn't tell Keith Richards from Charlie Watts. They got to live-tweet the show and tell their friends that they saw the The World's Greatest Rock n' Roll Band. If I ever go to a show for either of those reasons, I will stop running a music blog.

Keep in mind that this is for the state of metal in 2013, when Slayer and is down to two original members and Mastodon aren't having fun. On some nights, I'm sure they're all great--mind-blowing, even. But for consistency, if you only see ten metal bands from hereon, make sure that it's these ten. I'll be counting them down over the next few days.

Song of the Day: Motörhead, "Iron Fist"

Man With the Iron Fists was everything that I hoped a RZA-helmed kung fu adventure would be. That being said, I assumed that hearing Motörhead's "Iron Fist" in the score would be too much to ask for. 



Kung fu metal is an untapped niche. There are more than enough horror-themed metal bands (White Zombie, GWAR, the Misfits), and some terrible sci-fi ones (anything that sounds like Fear Factory), but no metal band has incorporated martial arts into their music the way that the members of the Wu-Tang Clan have. Most likely, kung fu metal would end up sounding like the System of a Down and Tom Morello collabs with the Wu-Tang on the Loud Rocks comp. But hopefully, it would sound more like Motörhead.

Nothing conjures up action like Motörhead's music--one of the sharpest reviews I ever read compared Lemmy's tones to the sound that Snoopy's plane makes when he's fighting the Red Baron. The lyrics, like a kung fu movie screenplay, are just there to sound cool in the fray. "You know me, evil eye/You know me, prepare to die/You know me, you can't resist/Devil's grip, the Iron Fist" could be dubbed into Shogun Assassin. If Man With the Iron Fists gets a sequel, and it definitely deserves one, I'm hoping that RZA includes "Iron Fist."

Top Five Metal Movie Cameos

1. Alice Cooper in Wayne's World

Everyone remembers this scene for Alice's mild-mannered discourse, but the part that I could never get over is that Wayne and Garth head backstage while Alice is still playing "Feed My Frankenstein."





2. GWAR in Empire Records

Ever try to explain GWAR to someone? It never works, but I still try, and I usually start by asking if they've seen this movie. Easily the best scene. (Also, didn't realize until now that Daniel Johnston's "Rock 'n' Roll/EGA" is juxtaposed with "Saddam A-Go-Go" here. Brilliant.)




3. James Hetfield in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

Metallica's frontman tells Kenny that he's going to Hell, the consolation being that he'll still get better music than the angels.




4-5. Ronnie James Dio and Dave Grohl in Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

One terrible movie bookended by a Ronnie James Dio poster coming to life and Dave Grohl playing one of the all-time best Beelzebubs. YouTube clips were invented for movies like this.

Happy Halloween

GWAR at Music Hall of Williamsburg

They killed Jesus. They killed babies. They brought Jesus back as Monster Robot Undead Jesus and killed him again. They killed Mitt Romney at the opening and slaughtered Barack Obama for the encore. All in your average Michael McDonald show.



No, of course, this was GWAR. Without having a single song that you remember, GWAR are approaching AC/DC's record for consistently delivering a great metal show. The basics are the same--escaped aliens from Antarctica dismembering celebrities between a no holds barred horror-comedy routine and a soundtrack that includes songs like "A Womb with a View." The dismemberments could have made Peter Jackson sick, and included every imaginable (and some previously unimaginable) orifice and bodily fluid. The fans, some in metal band t-shirts and others in plain whites intended to show off the carnage that landed on us, sopped it all up.

Few bands ever have done a better job of carving out a niche and perfecting it. Reinventing Alice Cooper's Halloween theatrics with death metal extremity seems like a given now that we have Lordi, but GWAR reminded us that they did it best. If KISS is too commercial and Buruzm is too self-serious, girl do I have the band for you.

Sans costumes, weapons and codpieces, frontman Oderus Urungus would still be a worthy comedian. His stabs at the Lord were as savage as Christopher Hitchens', and the swipe he took at rivals "Zob Romney and Manson Marilyn" (feuding on their co-headlining tour this week) sounded just like the one my high school English teacher made in the '90s. Still, the banter, like GWAR's music, mainly served to support the band's next round of killings. I think Adolf Hitler, who was shown about as much respect as Jesus Christ, was next.

For their encore, GWAR dedicated a metalized take on Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son" to recently departed guitarist Flattus Maximus. Some sources will tell you that Flattus' real name was Cory Smoot and that he did of a heart attack, but Oderus informed us that his comrade had safely returned to outer space and been replaced by his brother Pustulus Maximus. It was somehow an appropriately mournful and joival tribute to Flattus, a testament to GWAR's professionalism that climaxed at the arrival of Techno Destructo to saw a few monsters' limbs off.

Dave “Oderus Urungus” Brockie and Andrew W.K

Best interview of the year.

Metal Baby Names

I'm a big fan of writer Margaret Eby and her new book, Rock and Roll Baby Names: Over 2,000 Music-Inspired Names, from Alison to Ziggy. Any nerd for names, music and/or good writing will be engrossed, and I'm sure that I will be picking up many more copies when my friends start having kids. In honor of Margaret's book, particularly the chapter that starts on page 137, here are 20 of my favorites.

 

1. Trey Azagthoth (Morbid Angel) 
2. Balsac the Jaws of Death (GWAR)  
3. Beefcake the Mighty (GWAR)
4. Igor Cavalera (Sepultura)
5. Glenn Danzig
6. Techno Destructo (GWAR)
7. King Diamond
8. Johan Hegg (Amon Amarth)
9. Jizmak Da Gusha (GWAR)
10. Nils Frykdahl (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum)
11. Lemmy Kilmister (Motörhead) 
12. Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity, Down) 
13. Sleazy P. Martini (GWAR)     
14. Flattus Maximus (GWAR) 
15. Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses)
16. Ozzy Osbourne
17. Axl Rose (Guns N' Roses)
18. Oderus Urungus (GWAR)
19. Wolfgang Van Halen (Van Halen) 
20. Kaizer Von Loopy (Hanzel und Gretyl)