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.

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