Like Randy Rhoads before him, lead guitarist Mike Scaccia was an expert musician who seemed destined to outlast his infamous, hard-living co-conspirator. But in an affirmation of life's unfairness and unpredictability, Ministry's lead guitarist died onstage this week of a heart attack.
Scaccia first found success Rigor Mortis, a pioneering thrash metal act that almost single-handedly represented the genre in Texas in the early '80s. Their song "Foaming at the Mouth" appeared on the Decline of the Western Civilization Part II soundtrack, where Rigor Mortis' speed and ferocity distanced them from songs like Faster Pussycat's "Bathroom Wall" or the Lizzy Borden version of "Born to Be Wild."
When Scaccia joined Ministry in 1989, he accelerated the band's jump into metal, a move move that divides Ministry fans to this day. Whatever your take is, Scaccia's riffage helped kick off Ministry's most popular and influential era, including their only gold album Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. College-radio hits like "Just One Fix" and "N.W.O." turned synth-poppers, new wavers, and shoegazers onto metal, and humanized industrial music with guitars that sounded live instead of programmed. That influence can be heard in White Zombie, Nine Inch Nails, Fear Factory, Marilyn Manson and Chinese Democracy.
"Jesus Built My Hotrod," featuring Scaccia's primal riffage and guest star Gibby Haynes' "Surfin' Bird"-on-a-spit scatting, is one of rock music's greatest achievements. How many industrial guitar solos can you think of? How many of them are good?
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."
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.
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.
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."
