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.
He wrote hit songs, which means he isn't considered as hip as his Detroit Rock City brethren like the Stooges or the MC5. But "Under My Wheels" proves that Alice was just as crucial in the rise of punk and metal, and that he rocked as hard as anyone else making music in the 70s.
There's a horn section, which usually dilutes rock 'n' roll into easy listening territory, but here it makes the song seem deadlier, giving Alice's rage the proto-Rocky Horror sensation of a musical going off the rails. Everyone from the New York Dolls to Rob Zombie would go on to write music in this vein, but when Alice is onstage, they're all still under his wheels.
CMJ hit the New York City area this week, and an abundance of shows, panels, screenings, showcases and industry parties flooded our town. Artists and businessmen of all sorts flocked through, representing all kinds of music, ideas and levels of success. All of them almost certainly had one thing in common: none of them could compare to the show that Nine Inch Nails brought to the Barclays Center and the Prudential Center this week. For all the talents that might have been performing nearby, there was only one genius playing in the city this week.
25 years into one of the most innovative careers in rock music, Trent Reznor, who is as much Nine Inch Nails as Prince Rogers Nelson is Prince, could have filled the arena with a microphone and a karaoke machine. Yet Reznor brings the passion and perfectionism that marks his best studio work onto the stage. Each song got a different light and LED treatment, with mesmerizing patterns guiding us through much of NIN's terrific new album, Hesitation Marks. A blue screen silhouetted the band for "Find My Way," magnifying Reznor's two-handed microphone tricks and guitarist Robin Finck's guitar god strutting. Strobe lights underscored the intensity of "Copy of A" and "Somewhat Damaged," perfectly supplementing a band that made the most abrasive dance music known to humanity.
Of course anyone with the right budget could afford a light show, but Reznor takes it to another level. For another band, it would have been distracting, either bogging down the pacing or an obvious distraction from inferior songs. Artists like Tool and Rob Zombie have extraordinary light shows, but both employ them at the cost of spontaneity, playing identical shows each night to stay in line with the mechanics. But Nine Inch Nails played a rock show, changing up the setlist, swinging their instruments and blowing through every song with a forcefulness that no machine could match. A pair of female backup singers, including Lisa Fischer from the Rolling Stones, gave NIN's music an R&B swing that worked shockingly well, revealing Reznor's funk sensibilities in the new "Satellite" and the underrated "Into the Void," wherein when Reznor traded stanzas with Fischer like an industrial Mick Jagger and Merry Clayton. At 48, Reznor is still unearthing his talents as an arranger.
But even if he weren't the composer, programmer and producer of every Nine Inch Nails record, Reznor would have been a rock star. Grappling the microphone and hurtling himself toward the crowd, he's a ferocious lead singer, bellowing stories of pain and hatred that transcend the adolescence that he wrote them in. Whether or not he's outgrown the lyrics to "Wish" or "March of the Pigs," Reznor understands that those feelings still matter to a lot of people, and he expresses them beautifully enough for us to keep coming back. By the time he finished "Head Like a Hole," with blazing searchlights dying down for a huge LED screen with the NIN logo, there was no doubt that Reznor's talents as a performer are in a league with his studio wizardry.
For the encore, Reznor introduced the band (it was his first banter of the evening) and treated us to a few more songs, including "Echoplex" and Hesitation Marks standout "While I'm Still Here," the latter including the first-ever saxophone on an NIN record. But best of all were "I'm Afraid of Americans" and the closing song "Hurt," two drastically different compositions that gave two legendary artists (David Bowie and Johnny Cash, respectively) late career comebacks. One could take it as a pat on Reznor's back, or even a reminder that he doesn't need any guest songwriters or producers as he nears 50. Those of us in attendance saw that, like Cash and Bowie, Reznor deserves to be held in the highest regard for the way he's reshaped modern music.
Not metal, but the late country singer, who died this week at age 90, soundtracked one of the best horror film scenes of this century, from the Rob Zombie-helmed House of 1,000 Corpses.
Fun fact: One of the actors in this scene is Harrison Young, who played elderly Private Ryan. Nobody saves him here.
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.
With tributes pouring in to Boston in the wake of this week's tragedy, I imagine that more than a few of them will come from or at least cite Boston's rich musical history. I've already seen plenty about the Dropkick Murphys, and I'm sure that some well-meaning rock media figure will mistake Rob Zombie for still being Bostonian or Aersomith for still being rock. Not that anyone needs to--without resorting to "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," here are five bands proving that Boston rocks as hard as any city in the world.
1. Revocation
No band is making better death metal than these guys. Technical enough to land on this year's Summer Slaughter while still writing actual songs, this quartet gives death metal its long overdue thrash-inspired ass-kicking, from their bluesy, Dimebag-worthy soloing to their rapid fire riffs and jackhammer rhythms.
2. The Red Chord
One of the only bands to respect grindcore enough to flesh it out into something with solos, audible lyrics and fully-realized (but succinct) compositions. On their last album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, The Red Chord destroyed genre, song structure and time signature conventions with some of the most energized performances being recorded today, although you might have to see it live to believe it.
3. Converge
It's almost unfair. Every album is a challenging, gut-wrenching and addictive example of the best that punk and metal can do, almost single-handedly keeping punk music off life support for the entire 21st century. Technically, Converge are from Salem, but their rampaging music and ardent integrity is as rooted in Boston hardcore as it is in Bannon, Ballou, Newton and Koller's chemistry.
4. Mission of Burma
Before every punk tried to pass as an intellectual, Mission of Burma made punk rock into something almost pretty, packing a few dozen art-punk tracks into a some addictive albums in the '80s. That first run helped shape the next few decades of art-rockers, and was more than enough to earn them a spot among Boston's musical elite, but then they reunited in the 2000s and set the high standard for rock comebacks with a series of albums at least as strong as the early classics. Eat your hearts out, Strokes.
5. Boston
What can I say? Boston's debut is mainly remembered for selling 17 million copies and being Boston's only good album, but what an album it is. The production has aged poorly enough for cooler bands to goof on its songs, but they still listened, and were better off for it. As late '70s hard rock, it ranks with KISS and Blue Öyster Cult.
Here's a playlist that I came up with while making my next mix CD. If you can correctly guess the theme, I'll send you a copy.
1. Led Zeppelin, "Trampled Under Foot"
Even with a clavinet in the mix, Led Zeppelin could do no wrong on Physical Graffiti. Lyrically inspired by Robert Johnson's "Terraplane Blues," this would later become the basis for Mastodon's "Trampled Under Hoof."
2. Rush, "Red Barchetta"
Carenheit 451.
3. Megadeth, "Mechanix"
If classic rock is your bag, imagine that Keith Richards and John Lennon wrote a song together in 1961. Us headbangers have "Mechanix," a Dave Mustaine/James Hetfield composition that predates Killing is My Business and Kill 'Em All. Metallica rewrote it as "The Four Horsemen," and Mustaine is still bitter enough to introduce his version this way.
4. White Zombie, "Black Sunshine"
20 years removed from La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1, "Black Sunshine" sounds like MTV star Rob Zombie doing Punk Godfather Iggy Pop a solid. More so was Jim Osterberg lending his support to a fledgling suzz-metal band that couldn't get much more than a CBGB gig at the time.
5. Ministry, "Jesus Built My Hotrod"
Ministry roasts industrial metal on a spit under the nastiest scatting in recorded history, courtesy of the Butthole Surfers' Gibby Haynes. This should be played at NASCAR events.
6. Deftones, "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)"
Had the Deftones never played Ozzfest or the Family Values tour, "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)" could be on Pitchfork "Best of the '90s" lists. Instead, we'll have to wait for metalgaze to become a thing.
7. Metallica, "Fuel"
Please. Give that man his dabajabaza.
8. Rob Zombie, "Dragula"
One out of every six post-1998 action movies includes this song, and one out of every two needs it. Bonus points for the music video's Night at the Roxbury moment.
I am by no means a dance expert, but I also don't see why dancing is considered wussy in some male circles. Norman Mailer can talk all he wants, but I'd bet against him in a fight with Rahm Emanuel.
The fact is, any dude who wants to put on a good show needs to do more than just sing or play his instrument, and that requires being confident enough with your masculinity to not care about what other people think. Here are five admirable guys who aren't afraid to leave their friends behind.
5. David Lee Roth
The only one on this list who clearly took dance lessons, David Lee Roth can't do anything but entertain you. Those high-kicks, splits, vaudeville steps and irrepressible ad-libs helped make him the greatest hard rock frontman in the world during his first stint with Van Halen.
4. Rob Zombie
Rob's sense of rhythm must have come from a different planet. Other than Jarvis Cocker, I've never seen another musician who seemed to know what the audience was seeing as well as what he was doing. Clearly a future director at work. Watch how even in the cramped space of the Letterman Show studio, Zombie knows how to let himself fly.
3. Iggy Pop
Yes, it's amazing that Keith Richards and
Ozzy Osbourne are still alive, but the most remarkable might be Iggy,
who not only survived but also still puts on a more violently energetic show than any number of mortals. Here he is schooling the stars of Trainspotting in a promotional video for "Lust for Life."
2. Axl Rose
In the wisest available piece on Axl Rose, John Jeremiah Sullivan dubs him "the only indispensable white male rock dancer of his generation, the only one worth imitating in mockery." He cites a tender moment from the "Patience" video as evidence, but it's the abrupt yet rhythmic spasms of Axl's now-infamous snake dance that made the world take notice.
1. Angus Young
Can you imagine matching the performance intensity of everyone else on this list...while playing a guitar? How about if you're playing the foundation of hard rock and the best blues-metal solos in history? Angus' duck walks and spins remind most folks of Chuck Berry, but a more accurate comparison would be Prince, the only other artist who can pack intrinsic showmanship and picking virtuosity into a 5' 2" frame.
More often than not, I find myself defending Rob Zombie's solo career to fellow White Zombie fans. Like nearly every artist who has been making music for nearly 30 years, Rob has seen his creativity decline, but I stand by Hellbilly Deluxe, his solo debut, which sits with Astro-Creep 2000 as his greatest musical achievement.
"Dragula" and "Superbeast" soundtracked every action movie trailer from 1999-2003, but my favorite is "Living Dead Girl." People who say that "Living Dead Girl" isn't scary are missing the
point. George Romero's films aren't as scary as Stanley Kubrick's, but
sometimes you'd rather watch something fun.
One of my favorite things about Rob Zombie is that he has no pretenses about his position in the world. He may be the only shock rocker who never set out to be Public Enemy Number One. Around the release of Hellbilly Deluxe, I remember an interview where, in response to the interviewer's goading, Zombie stated that he wasn't as scary as Marilyn Manson. He's right, and that's why he's taken more seriously than Marilyn Manson these days.
Metal's greatest cinemaphile, Rob directed and based the song's music video off The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
That's Rob's wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, as the titular character. Oh, stop it.
Mayhem Fest? Forget it. Summer Slaughter? Nice try. You will not see a better show--club, park, arena, stadium or basement, than the one that Iron Maiden and Alice Cooper took to the Prudential Center last Monday.
Long lauded as one of the finest live acts in metal, Maiden only seem to get better as Nicko McBrain turns 60. Someone should hire the whole band as anti-drug spokesmen. Each of the bandmates turned in athletic performances that shamed anything Aerosmith, Van Halen, Black Sabbath or Judas Priest can pull off, to say nothing of nearly all artists young enough to be Steve Harris' children. Maiden's chops are nonpareil, and their stage set, a refinement of their 1989 Seventh Son of a Seventh Son tour spectacle, speaks volumes for the artistry of high-budget rock shows.
Of course there was also risk, which arrived in the form of one of rock music's most legendarily charismatic frontmen opening the show. The irreplaceable Cooper took the first set, packing all the best elements from the show he's spent his life perfecting into one ideal hour-long set. Little has changed about Alice since you last saw him, including the fact that no one plays theatrical shock-rock as well as he does. The swordplay, chambers, guillotine and Frankenstein's monster were all there, along with some staged routines with the road crew and a reliably hit-heavy setlist. His band, all of whom looked younger than Welcome to My Nightmare, indulged in the fun.
As a showman, Alice is refreshingly old school. More than a harbinger to Rob Zombie, he's a throwback to Screamin' Jay Hawkins, dead set on delivering the best show that music and Halloween props can give you. Closing with "School's Out," Cooper added the chorus to "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" to the finale. It clarified both his influence on Pink Floyd and the fact that he articulated school life better than Roger Waters.
Following Alice Cooper's act would be devastating anything less than the very best artists, but Maiden passed with flying Union Jacks. Entering to "Moonchild," the band embarked on a two-hour set of their best songs. "The Number of the Beast," "Wasted Years" and "2 Minutes to Midnight" are all pillars of metal, yet underappreciated by anyone who's never seen them performed by their sculptors.
Bruce Dickinson, arguably metal's greatest frontman to
this day, egged the crowd on like a showbiz pro, taking a friendly jabs
at our upcoming holiday (the one where we declared independecne from his
country) between acing every note of his larynx-pushing vocals. Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers perpetually slung their guitars around their shoulders, racing up and down the stage set while joined by Eddie's likeness on a Sphinx, monumental statues and a zombie soldier. It was the kind of show that only a few bands can compete with, none of whom come close to Maiden's songcraft.
Iron Maiden tours seem to rotate between "classics" and "new songs" setlists, and with all respect to The Final Frontier, the band is best seen playing their best songs. In their compositional prime, Maiden's were as un-wanky as power metal
gets, with relatively relaxed solos and only a few songs hitting the
eight-minute mark. By re-enacting their Seventh Son tour with better proficiency and production values, Maiden blessed us with rarely-played tracks from the 1988 release alongside stompers like "Run to the Hills" and "The Trooper." Rules were bended to include '90s glories like "Fear of the Dark" and "Afraid to Shoot Strangers," lest you believe it was a nostalgia show.
After an encore that break wasn't long enough to find a bathroom, Maiden returned with "Aces High." Ending by appeasing Paul Di'Anno fans with "Running Free," the band bowed and left the dazed audience to find our way out while "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" played on the arena PA. If you only see one metal band, try Iron Maiden, and if you only see them once, now is the time.
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.
