Stocking Filler

Aka 'Corey, don't give up the day jobs...'


Just when you thought I was out they pull me back in.
In my final Xmas missive I thought I'd pick up on the fact that Corey Taylor of SlipSour and Stoneknot recorded a Christmas single.
I will point out it's done for Charidee so it's all right and for a good cause apparently.
Now I thought I'd try and give it a swerve but having brought people's attention to it they asked for my opinion.
Well first off I'll reproduce the lyrics for you:

Corey Taylor 'X-M@$'

Ho Ho Ho Ho!

There ain't nothing more depressing than a pine tree
Gussied up with candy canes and balls
Those carolers have kept me up for hours
It's Merry Christmas seeping through my walls
Now I'm no wiccan commie nut or nothing
But there's one damn holiday that I can't stand
It ain't Halloween or Thanksgiving or even April Fools
But it'll surely make a fool out of every man
HA

If I ain't drunk then it ain't Christmas
You know where to stick those jingle bells
If I ain't hammered it ain't hanukkah
And all you motherfuckers go to hell
If I ain't cockeyed then it ain't Kwanzaa
Joy to the world and jack and coke
If I ain't drunk then it ain't Christmas
Cause I ain't never anything but broke

Now every year the malls are just a madhouse
Full of empty pockets, thoughts and smiles
Just the smell of Eggnog makes me vomit
And those colored lights are fucking infantile
I think we collectively as a people
Should rise against this corporate jolly noise
And tell the world:
"Let's buy some peace and quiet for a change"
Before we spend it all on fucking toys.
HA

So if I ain't drunk then it ain't Christmas
You know where to stick those jingle bells
If I ain't hammered it ain't hanukkah
Fa la la la la go fuck yourself!
If I ain't cockeyed it ain't Kwanzaa
Joy to the world of getting stoned
If I ain't drunk then it ain't Christmas
So leave this god damn scrooge the fuck alone.
HA

MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS!

(Hi Simon! )

Blabbermouth is full of fuckwits.
There I said it.
A site that makes this thing look well written and unbiased and usually sends me apoplectic with rage reading some of the user comments but every now and then a gem shines through and this comment sums up everything I feel about this song:
Charities deserve greatness because they're doing a great thing. And this is not greatness. Corey would have been better to give the money to charity and save his reputation by not producing this song. I like Corey Taylor, generally speaking I think he's a talented guy, and usually quite funny. But this is not funny, this is bad. AND YES, I stand by my point that a sober dude is telling everyone that it ain't Christmas unless he's drunk.

Testify anonymous internet user.
Least we forget the row upon row of column inches dedicated to Taylor's battle with alcohol addiction and the ginger fuckwit releases a song not only so incredibly infantile it takes a pop at coloured lights, jingle bells, pine trees, carollers and 'joy corporate noise' whatever the hell that is... but also about how it's impossible to celebrate without being wrecked? Are you serious!?!
This is a guy who makes a living raging about and exposing the darkness of the human condition, now he's raging about things that make people happy!?!
Seriously Corey, I agree that Xmas can be tacky but it's what you make of it - spend some of that money, hang out with the family, say a prayer for Paul... chill the fuck out would ya?
Maybe Christmas has lost it's charm now you are sober but don't tell me the only way to get through it is to be pissed frankly it's fucking childish, the song sucks and makes you look a moron, especially the pathetic 'Hi Simon' at the end... if John Cage's 4'33" failed to make a dent do you think this piece of garbage will even surface on Cowell's radar?
He probably had to have it explained to him who you even were, yet alone be remotely concerned.

I know, I know it was meant to be taken as a joke, I should laugh really... but it just seems so sad to perpetuate this dumb drunk knuckle dragging culture metalheads have been stereotyped with for years and years. Taylor is, to my chagrin, in one of the most influential metal acts of the modern age. He is the mouthpiece, the focus and a role model. In my mind role models should raise people up, not drag them down and this does us no favours in the eyes of the world...

Still those of us who aren't ready to admit their addictions can get drunk and make it Christmas...
Whatever you are up to and however you are doing it from here at History Towers, have a great one and we'll return in the New Year to spread the odd comment and a whole lot more bile.
As J.S Claydon used to say, 'Take it easy. PEACE!'

Christmas Stocking Part Three

A Brief History Of Metal's Worst 5 albums of 2010

Weird to think that, being someone who is not short on vitriol, the idea of compiling a 'Worst 5' list would be so hard. Maybe because I haven't listened to as much music as I would have liked this year? Maybe it is because I have all but given up on listening to bands with spikey logos and lots of o's and k's in their names or maybe it's just because the season of peace and love is kicking in? I must confess I initially struggled with five I found worth of rising themselves exceptionally above the parapet, but then it all kicked in to gear and I had to mention a few others on the way down...

Disturbed released an album so bland I can't recall it's name without looking on my Ipod but I don't want to risk messing around with the amazing climax of '100 Million Miles' Away by Monster Magnet. Frankly you could, even on 'Indestructible', rely on bouncing riffs and head nodding entertainment and vocal staccato, here not so much.

Serj Tankian followed up the anaemic 'Elect The Dead' with an album I couldn't even be bothered to make it to the end of in 'Imperfect Harmonies'. Boring, boring, boring. Get back with SOAD... you have? Great, this is irrelevant then.

Poker Whore Scott Ian and the guitarist from Anthrax who is not Scott Ian teamed up with the rhythm section of Fall Out Boy and fringe merchant Keith Buckley of Every Time I Die to form a 'super group' called The Damned Things. They pedal girlfriend appealing classic, punky, saccharine rock that grown men should be ashamed of. You hum it in the car and cry on the inside - expect this to come up again soon.

Rob Zombie 'Hellbilly Deluxe II' - going back to the well because your last two albums sucked Rob? Meh? 'Hellbilly Deluxe' never captured the heights of White Zombie and lets face it sequels are rarely better.

Fear Factory have spent most of the past couple of years trying to be as big a joke as Anthrax even to the point where two fat guys who were brought into the band tried to sue the fat guys who got them in because they wanted to use the fat guys original name. Or something. 'Mechanise' saw aspiring Mexican Pimp Dino and Burton 'Massive C Turn' Bell reunited. In a not-quite-as-stock comeback everyone creamed themselves over this. I was bored long before the vinegar stroke to be honest.

Ozzy Osbourne parted company with retired beer swiller and egg throwing, pinch harmonic overusing, twat merchant Zakk Wylde and recruited Firewind's totally Greek Gus G in a bid to make a new album that didn't sound like left overs from the cutting room floor of a Black Label Society album in 'Scream'. Needless to say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks - too many Beatles-esque harmonies, stock lyrics, and a man who sounds like his voice is shot no matter how many effects you smother it with? Check.

So without further ado or mentioning how limp Hellyeah's 'Stampede' was I give you.

5. Avenged Sevenfold 'Nightmare'


Is it cruel to single out a band who went through such a tragedy?
To be fair I've said worse about Paul Grey and I dislike Slipknot less... Avenged Sevenfold then, they are bollocks though aren't they?
Sure M Night Shadows can't scream anymore so they went all sleazy, sure the Rev was a great drummer, but your guitarists are called Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance for fucks sake, you look like a bunch of cunts and this album has one good track (Natural Born Killer for those interested) which you ruin by making people endure the shit around it.
Whether it's soppy ballads or the heavier numbers, I much more enjoyed the days when they tried to be the Orange County Killswitch Engage, and I hated them then.
They are the epitome of the Hot Topic image driven mewsick that chips away at the heart and soul of metal.
I'm sorry for your loss but please, please, fuck off.

4. Them Crooked Vultures 'Them Crooked Vultures'


Confession time, I last saw Josh Homme on T4 Music (Sunday morning hangover TV for Students and the dole queue generation) and he was wearing a pair of tight leather trousers and a tight, pink tank top playing an atrocious bubblegum pop song that I assumed was the latest piece of garbage to spew out of the celebrity ridden, travelling revolving door that has become Queens Of The Stone Age. From that moment my heart was broken, I mean sure he used to look a right twat in Kyuss but he never looked a complete cunt until then - The years of celebrity girlfriends, mates and every journalist wanting to blow you clearly having gone to his head.
So next up Super Vanity Project TCV featuring The Nicest Horse In Rock on drums, Homme on guitar, and John Paul Jones playing bass.
The album picks up almost exactly where QOTSA's last coaster left off and is a timely reminder than just as he was capable of writing direct killer riffs like '100 Degrees' on Sky Valley, he almost wrote the incredible self indulgent 'Shepherd's Pie' on Desert Sessions... this album is no different.
Excruciatingly irritating at times and fearfully boring in others it reminded me of why I walked away from QOTSA and openly wept over my Kyuss records. I mean I subject my girlfriend to a lot of crap musically but never has she actually begged me to turn anything off until I played this album.


3. Bullet For My Valentine 'Fever'


Vocalist Matt Tuck claimed they weren't even sure they were metal in the press run for this album. He always thought of them as just 'rock' apparently. Nice try little man - see I always thought of you as a decent enough bunch of guys who had witnessed the success of fellow sheep fanciers Lost Prophets and tried to weld a brighter than the sun pop sheen onto a couple of cast of Machine Head riffs.
Fuck man, you had the same hair, the same cut off t-shirt look, the same guitar, the same stage stance... you couldn't be anymore Rob Flynn if you tried, in fact Rob Flynn isn't that Rob Flynn... so now you are rock what the hell are you going to do with that heaviness?
Please don't get me wrong I saw these guys when they only had an EP to their name, it was good. I thought they would mature into a fairly decent band but every album gets progressively worse. The music has gone more towards the desperately poppy, the lyrics were written using the rhyming dictionary and the whole thing is just so... so... nothing.
It's not pop, it's not metal, if Occam's Razor suggests a middle point is rock then yeah, I guess you are right Matt, you guys are totally rock... pink rock, cheap pink rock you'd find on some tacky tourist shit hole sold by an owner desperate to furnish his child support and drinking problem, or maybe the one with a pier and friends of Dorothy in abundance...
As you quite rightly say on 'Four Words (To Choke On)' Look. At. You. Now.

2. Linkin Park 'A Thousand Suns'


It must suck to start with the 'Black Album' of your career really. Hybrid Theory destroyed the charts and seemingly for forever you couldn't shake Bennington and Shinoda off the TV, radio, or your leg it seemed and fair enough it remains to this day a great, great album. However despite the remixes, dalliances with Jay Z and steadily declining albums Linkin Park refused to get out whilst the going was good.
'A Thousand Suns' is that crunch point, they could not realistically make another 'Linkin Park' album that was weaker than the last and either needed to reinvent themselves or wither and die. Sadly for those of us with ears, they chose the former and released an album that has more in common with Depeche Mode than chart bothering rock music.
Words cannot describe the bafflement to be honest. They appear to have ditched the drummer, the bassist and the guitarist - I assume they still have the DJ given the bleaps and squeaks all over the damn thing - but then again I'm sure between Mike and Chester they could remember to hit start on the Casio keyboard they used to make it whilst the other one was singing.
It has two intros for a start and by the time I heard first/third track proper I was pissing myself laughing it was that amateurish... it doesn't matter how much you swear to appear bad Mike or guest with Cypress Hill you are not Sean Carter, this album is a joke.
It would slide right in to the number one spot if I honestly didn't used to love them so much and can't help think that any minute now they are going to hold their hands up and say it was all a prank.
Nice one guys... now about 'Minutes To Midnight'...

1. Korn III "Remember Who You Are'


When I round up on history I will tell you how Korn's eponymous debut is one of the most important albums of the nineties, but for now just be content that I believe that Korn's last good album was probably 'Life Is Peachy'...
This has been touted as a much welcome return to form for Baskerfield's most famous son's - Jonathon, Munky, Sausage Fingers and Rent-A-Drummer woke up in a cold sweat of poor reviews, declining albums sales and realised it wasn't a bad dream; Brian 'Head' Welch did indeed jump for Jesus, David Silveria became a male model and yes Reggie did record a solo rap album.
The result is a trip back to the master producer Ross Robinson - the man who pioneered the Nu Metal sound with Korn, Limp Bizkit and Slipknot and made Davis sound like he was shouting from the khazi was he cried 'You can suck my dick and fucking like it' on 'Faget'.
The much vaunted result is a renaissance for Korn, allegedly.
Personally I don't get it - Davis somehow sounds worse than he did 16 years ago (possibly due to his insistence on trying to 'sing'), Sausage Fingers still can't tune, yet alone play, his bass and Munky reveals the not-so-secret fact that Jesus' favourite NuMetaller was in fact the driving force in keeping Korn interesting.
It's lumpen, sludgy and frankly cringe worthy, it shows nothing of the song writing nouse of 'A.D.I.D.A.S' or 'Freak On A Leash' and none of the raw emotion of anything off the first two albums. The whole thing whiffs like a band so far past their sell by date it's unreal - for crying out loud if Linkin Park who have been massively successful realise they can't fool people with the same thing anymore then surely these idiots would take a look around (see what I did there?) and realise it's just not good enough to make an album that sounded fashionable for 18 months back in the nineties?
The worst thing is they'll probably sell a butt load of t-shirts and tour tickets, they may even sell a few albums but the sad fact is that this is a band who are now a bona-fide headliner, a band who exhibit no imagination, no stage craft and were very much a thing of zeitgiest.
Coming from a band nine albums into their career it shows that they have scraped the bottom of the barrel and are no more current than if they had had their DNA pulled from mosquitos found in hardened amber.

Christmas Stocking Part Two

A Brief History Of Metal's Top 5 of 2010

Closer contenders:
All That Remains 'For We Are Many'- insanely catchy, superior Metalcore from Phil LaBonte & Co.
High On Fire 'Snakes For The Divine'- Slayer meets Motorhead in High On Fire's third solid album in a row.
Grand Magus 'Hammer of the North'- JB and Co delivers the Magus' most mature and honed album yet.
As I Lay Dying 'The Powerless Rise' - Forget the Christian Metal tag, once again AILD shred all the competition in an impressive display.
Mutiny Within "Mutiny Within' - American take on Euro Metal with an English singer, high on melody and power, promises much for the future.
The credibility damaging Ratt 'Infestation'. This years 'Saints Of Los Angeles' FACT.


5. Monster Magnet 'Mastermind'



There is no doubt Monster Magnet have been in the wilderness of late. Dave Wyndroff's been playing by his own rules again...
Remember back in 1997 when 'Powertrip' was riding high on the crest of success with singles, iconic rock, leather, main stage appearances...? It looked like Monster Magnet would head up a level from cult stoner band to classic rock act. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your approach, Dave had other ideas and there followed the difficult ('God Says No'), the tongue in cheek ('Monolithic Baby') and the (allegedly) sub par ('4 Way Diablo'). Since those heady days the Bullgod has suffered from addictions, entered rehab and found a love of the pies.
No longer the rake thin, acid fried, Vietnam vet of old one might be forgiven for thinking that the Magnet's ideas and appeal were heading in the opposite direction to his waist-line... wrong.
'Mastermind' swaggers from the speakers with the confidence of a man who faced his demons and won; 'Hallucination Bomb' towers above anything he has written in the past ten years, 'Gods & Punks' sounds like the next step on from Crop Circle and the title track itself is a timely reminder than when he is on his A game no one writes a tune like Wyndroff.
This has a classic 'rock feel whilst retaining the stoner vibe of Spine of God and the pop sensibility of Powertrip'. His familiar biting sarcasm and social commentary is all on show here once more, the lyrics as much of a driving force as the music. In short he's back, he's focused and has delivered the best album he has made for 10 years.


4. Kingdom of Sorrow 'Behind The Blackest Tears'


The Crobreed/Hatebar project featuring Jamie Jasta and Kirk Windstien which made it's debut back in 2008 was a largely hardcore sludge mix that proved itself to be one of the years finer moments and changed my opinion of the Hatebreed vocalist from 'Meh' to 'Nicely done MTV Boy'; his often one note macho shouting balanced by Windstein's smoky, melodic rasp.
Two years on and the ever productive driving force Jasta has delved deep into the dark places once more. Surprisingly, the chief difference on The Blackest Tears is that it is not afraid to let the melody breathe. Songs like 'From Heroes To Dust' and 'God's Law In A Devils Land' have more in common with the New Orleans infused Crowbar than Jamie's day job, complementing the snarling aggression of 'Sleeping Beast' and 'Torchlight Procession' with a more mature balance.
Given the pedigree of the brains behind it, it would be easy to be crushed under the weight of expectation but this is a disc that thunders, rages and smothers the listener with emotion and is a must for anyone who likes Down, Crowbar, Hatebreed, CoC, Eyehategod...
This is a band that I would like to see continue and hope that after the reactivated Crowbar album and the Down IV reunion that 2012 will see the re-emergence of one of the finest side projects I have heard.

3. 36 Crazyfists 'Collisions & Castaways'


I must admit I have feared for my Alaskan boys over the last couple of years. Dropped from Roadrunner for a time and taking up residence on the last chance saloon label Ferret (home to 'Where are they now?' contenders such as Ill Nino and (Hed) PE). The two preceding albums were solid affairs but somehow failed to manage to spark the imagination of the masses (maybe due to the smaller reach of the labels advertising budget?) and this lack of confidence seemed to reflect in the band who stacked their shows heavily in favour of the Roadrunner released hit second record. Add to this the departure of long standing bassist Mick Whitney and things looked (realistically) bleak.
However, becoming the second band to experience a Volte-face at the hands of Roadrunner after Machine Head, they found themselves back home and subsequently delivered possibly a career best record.
Discarding the pop sheen once and for all but never abandoning the ability to write a catchy tune, 'Collisions & Castaways' crushes all before it, from the stop-start explosion of 'In The Midnights' to the apocalyptic 'Waterhaul II'. This is an album that shows maturity and a renewed confidence that allows them to turn in their heaviest offer yet with tracks like 'Death Renames The Light' and the subliminally hook-laden 'Reviver'.
Seeing them last month on a double header with Devildriver they turned in a set that showcased the new material proudly and had every word sung back to them in rapture. If there is one band this year who deserve your support and admiration, it's these guys.


2. Deftones 'Diamond Eyes'


I love the deftones. Ever since 'Adrenaline' they captured my imagination and a place in my heart that, in my mind, made them more special than Korn when everyone was creaming themselves about the Bakersfield crew. This event solidified by the fact that they grew with each release up until 'White Pony' their creative impetus increasing lock step with Korn's decline in quality control, band members and credibility. However even the most ardent of deftones fans will be hard pushed to say that since 2000's 'White Pony', or even the subsequent 'Back To School' Ep, they have fired on all cylinders.
'deftones' was a difficult album, some great tunes, but lacking the direct song writing punch of before; 'Saturday Night Wrist' was a slight disappointment continuing this trend, being not only the weakest thing they had penned but exhibited some bizarre, throwaway experimentation and evidence that the fire that once burned so bright was fading.
Fast forward to 2010 and the planned album 'Lovers' (or 'Eros') was shelved, unfinished with bassist Chi Cheng still in a coma following a car crash and the 'tones resembled, drafted in former Quicksand bassist Sergio Vega and have delivered one of the most urgent and compelling releases of their career.
The title track shimmers in transcendent medley and groove, 'Royal' rages like the band of old, in fact the whole album makes the band sound hungry and rejuvenated again.
There is no denying that the circumstances are unenviably cruel but songs like 'Rocket Skates', 'Sextape' and 'This Place Is Death' are among some of the best they have penned as they soar and snarl with the majesty of old.


1. Iron Maiden 'The Final Frontier'


An obvious choice really for me and not just an automatic reaction, I actually have reasons to justify it...
The post reunion albums have been a tough act to accept for some of those who grew up on 'The Trooper' and 'Aces High'. "Brave New World' seems to have gotten away with being hailed as a classic (but then anything after 'X Factor' and 'Virtual IX' would have been); 'Dance Of Death' seemed to put people off with it's rubbish CGI cover despite the fact it had some fantastic tracks, 'A Matter Of Life And Death' pleased the band to the extent that they played the entire thing live (and in my mind is a phenomenal record) much to the chagrin of people who wanted to here the same songs for the 70th time and moved them further down the prog path Harris has been pushing since he wrote 'The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner' back in 1984.
So the 15th studio album, with talk of being the last ever (now debunked), is a strange, forward looking affair and incredibly impressive.
The first reason being it has actually been produced. For the first time since BNW, Harris has actually let Kevin Shirley finish his job as opposed to using the rough daily mixes and from the bizarrely industrial into of 'Satellite 15' to the melancholy closer 'Where The Wild Wind Blows' it leaps from the speakers.
The songs themselves are expansive, tinges of folk, prog and metal collide in an album that sees Maiden push their boundaries further. It has balls out rockers like 'El Dorado' and 'The Alchemist', sprawling epics like the delicious 'Isle Of Avalon', lighters in the air (sorry mobiles in the air) anthems like 'Coming Home' and those thunderous galloping tales like 'The Tailisman'.
Maiden may have moved too far away from their eighties heyday for some who yearn for 'Wrathchild' or ''Two Minutes To Midnight' but, for the patient, they are ploughing a much more rewarding furrow.

Christmas Stocking

You have to love Christmas don't you?
The adverts start way back in August, guilting you into spending your money on that special someone or child, because if you don't make some overt grand gesture on a day, which mythology tells us some 2000 years ago the son of God may have been brought forth in a stable and visited by sheep worriers and members of a far flung (and probably Muslim) Royal family or three, then the fact is that you clearly don't love the assumed target and you may as well throw acid in their face.
As such every year there is a parade of toy and perfume adverts and charity pleas dominating TV from about September, Dingles in Exeter will have a Christmas Display up before I celebrate my birthday (clue, it's not in December. Or November.) and the radio is an endless mewing of old Christmas hits and new stock recordings.

Take this year for example, the novelty of Facebook campaigns aside (that was soooo last year man) the likelihood is that everything will return to normal and the UK Number One will be a glorified karaoke competition winner who has furthered the TV ruining career of a man who spent more time in the mirror admiring his teeth than removing the trousers from his armpits.

The X Factor will no doubt regain the top spot, it's challenge coming from John Cage's 4′33″ which would amount something of a speculative gamble, because, let's face it, kids are more likely to buy something with the word 'Fuck' in it.
The song it will be vying with (release date conveniently moved closer to Xmas to avoid last years issue, Cowell may be an idiot, but he's not stupid) is a cover of Biffy Clyro's 'Many Of Horror', delicately renamed 'When We Collide'.
Now on one hand you could argue that this is a good thing - an alternative rock song used as inspiration for Christmas Number One!
However, what glorious message are we having jammed down our throats in this time of peace and love?

Sample lyric:
When we collide we come together
If we don't we'll always be apart
I'll take a bruise I know your worth it
When you hit me hit me hard

You said love was letting us go against what
Our future is for...

Many of horror
Our future's for many of horror

Yes that's right, everyone has rushed out and bought a song about being the recipient of domestic abuse. What is this the fucking Eastenders Christmas special? At least when Iron Maiden got there with 'Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter' it was tongue in cheek. I'm sure parents can't wait to have a whole load of pubescent girls growing up singing 'I know your worth it when you hit me hard'.
Jeremy Kyle must be rubbing his hands with glee.

As I am writing this I find that my prediction is true, Facebook campaigns failed dismally, Simon can laugh once more as he has made enough money to buy all the stocks of teeth whitening he'll ever need. Again.

But what of the metalverse?
Well Corey Taylor has recorded a Christmas song I won't even comment on right now and all the magazines are filled with stock critics polls, readers polls as every puts their collective feet up and sips a warming Absinthe... here at History Towers we could strive to keep pressing on with our journey, but like most Xmas traditions (over indulgence, drink driving and spousal abuse) not even I am immune to the charms of a top 5, 10, 15... whatever so I thought I'd give you a round of the best and the worst that I have heard in 2010.

Unsurprisingly I got carried away and to make this a little more bite sized I decided to break it down into three parts:
This introduction
Top Five
Worst Five

So I'll let you get on with it.

The Problem with Illegal Downloading is There Are So Many Shit Bands

I have to say I am someone who fiercely sticks by artists who I believe have earnt my loyalty and will gladly pay the price to ensure that they are suitably rewarded for the enrichment they have given me over the years.
Take 36 Crazyfists for example - five blue collar guys from Alaska. Christ, we've all seen 30 Days Of Night right? It must suck out there with the cold, the month without sun and the fact that Angel from Home & Away is constantly wrapped up tighter than Tutankhamun's nutsack and that's without the vampires coming and burning down the place or eating your loved ones... The fact that this region has produced one of my favourite bands, possibly ever (well in the last 8 years anyway) makes me doff my furry cap with the fluffy ear flap things.
Taking serious pause for a moment; I would gladly drag myself over hot coals to support them. They are a band I will buy on first day of release, I will go to any show I can in spite of distance, I won't complain (well only to a select few who I know love them like me) about the fact their sets seem to be 40 minutes long and usually consist of their second album's material. I'll buy their shirts, buy the slightly ropey DVD... they had me at 'Hello' (Well, 'Slit Wrist Theory' anyway).
As such I won't bat an eyelid downloading their album a month ahead of schedule because they'll make it back from me even if I have to ask Mummy and Daddy to buy it for me for Christmas... that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

On the other end of the scale there is no doubt file sharing, whilst beneficial to the cheapskates amongst us, has destroyed the record industry as we know it (and this is a good thing in many respects). Eminem's 'Recovery' album (getting all multicultural on your ass) sold a pitiful amount compared to The Slim Shady LP, closer to home Linkin Park's 'A Thousand Sun's' shifted a couple of units (probably to the proud parents of the rhythm section who then spent 50 minutes wondering where their boys were and why they had put on a Pet Shop Boys album) compared to 'Hybrid Theory' which according to Chester Bennington is not quality related but because 'People Get Their Music In Different Ways Now' - yes douchebag, from bands that aren't whiny crapspackle. Elsewhere that anonymous bloke who fronts Nine Inch Nails rip off merchants Filter (the one whose brother is a famous actor) bemoans records sales falling because people just rip things off these days , implying that this decline is no way connected to the fact that they have out lived the short life span of their radio single 'Take A Picture' and now have to work construction to get by... ask Rob Zombie how cruel it is when no one buys your music (newsflash Rob, no one downloaded and kept Educated Horses either).
It's fucking laughable really when credible acts still sell tens of thousands of units, that it's the pretenders who got lucky are the first to run and cry foul... 'Mad' David Draiman is just keeping quiet and laughing his ass off that no one has noticed Disturbed haven't made a good album since 'Believe' but they still ship 'em out by the tanker load.



But I digress... it no doubt impacts and bands like Crazyfists probably suffer the most. Gone are the days when signing a contract meant a ticket to ride the gravy train. The music industry is a harsh mistress and survival now is for the cockroaches in 'genre' music. Having said that file sharing saves me a fortune at the cinema as I absolutely refuse to spend the best part of a tenner on CGI Remake 3... 3D? I think you have to be able to make good movies in 2D first before I'll cough up to go see that. I forecast my next trip will be somewhere around Batman 3 (You'd better deliver Nolan...) but this isn't A Brief History Of Cinema.

The problem with music is quality.
I remember when i was a kid and albums came out every year or every other, were reasonably affordable and had 8 tracks on them. If they were crap you'd get another go the next year...
Take Iron Maiden (just to show faith that no band is immune from criticism) their first seven studio albums are 8 tracks long and hands down, stone cold, classics.
We get to 1990 and 'No Prayer For The Dying' ramps it up to ten tracks and even with my Maiden tinted glasses on there are at least two songs that you don't need to hear on it and that's without the album sounding like it was produced by a half deaf bass player in a barn in his back garden... oh hang on...
Fast forward two years and 'Fear Of The Dark' soared to the heady heights of twelve tracks. Frankly anyone who tells me that 'Weekend Warrior', 'The Apparition', 'Chains Of Misery'' and 'The Fugitive' are good songs needs trepanation.
With a fucking spade.

There was a time when I would rush out and buy an album without hearing it before hand but having been burnt by an ever increasing list - Union Underground, Megadeth's 'Cryptic Writings', Alien Ant Farm's 'Anthology', most of Audioslave's output, Staind's 'Break the Cycle', Pearl Jam's 'No Code', Black Sabbath's 'Technical Ecstacy' are some examples that no band new or old are immune from the odd duffer and I remember taking back a stack of CDs from my DJing time (probably the best part of £100s worth) into the local independent store and making back about a tenner in trade in value, which effectively equated to 3 CDs (1 decent and two shite most likely).

If I didn't download them first I would have (probably) rushed out and bought Linkin Park's 'A Thousand Suns', Them Crooked Vultures, The Damned Things, Bullet For My Valentine and so on... it's con I know, but my disposable cash is a jealously guarded thing these day and frankly some of the shit listed above should have been paying me for listening to it.



The answer?
There is no answer.
In one corner it's immoral, it's illegal, it's stealing... on the flipside Metallica was founded on tape trading. I got into this whole mess of music obsession from a copy, a rough and ready, not as good as the real thing, copy.

As an aside the 'perfect reproduction' argument is also bollocks Lars - A flattened MP3 does not reproduce the same sound as a CD - if you want the real thing, buy it, if not accept a lesser standard. MP3s and 'making radio singles louder' reduces quality.
Don't believe me? Listen to Death Magnetic on MP3 or CD, then listen to the Mobius Remix available from a fan, downloadable for free... I paid money for a shitty sounding album Lars... again and yet when I play Guitar Hero Metallica it sounds better... you appear to be rogering me from behind... again.

I operate music on a try before you buy donation system these days - if I like it/you I might buy the album, I'll go to your show, I'll buy a T-shirt and put the money directly into your pocket.
You wouldn't steal a car/handbag would you?
Probably if I could get away with it... after all as Tool once said
'Consequences dictate
our course of action
and it doesn't matter what's right.
It's only wrong if you get caught.'

The Big Flaw?

After all the dizzying excitement of last summer when 'The Big Four of Thrash' toured together for the first time since... well, never, they are back to do it all again to the delight of the metal world.
They didn't do it back in the day don'tcha know.
'Why not?' you say.
Well because Metallica thought Dave Mustaine was a dick, Kerry King (balding, axe wielding Slayer meat slab) thought he was a bitch, Mustaine in turn hated everyone and everything, including his band and excluding Heroin, and well no one really thought a great deal about Anthrax in the grander scheme of things - I mean sure their trainers were nice and white, they did that song with that rapper and their frontman wore an Indian head-dress on stage, but when it came to slugging it out unit for unit in record sales and quality songs it came down to favourites and they for me (sadly) lagged behind the brutality of Slayer, the er speed of Megadeath and the forward pressing Metallica.

So last year, in a bid to royally shaft all other festivals in Europe, Sonisphere put out 'The Big Four' for the first time - Metallica, King and Mustaine buried the hatchet in a vomit inducing bout of letting bygones be bygones and Scott Ian stopped tweeting about poker long enough to grab onto the coat tails and drag the twitching corpse of Anthrax along for their biggest payday since 'Bring The Noise'.
The glaring omission was of course the UK, Sonisphere boasting the only date for Iron Maiden, which by the way was two ball busting hours of greatness...

So this year and the festival race was on, Sonisphere bursting out of the blocks with Slipknot's first show without the late Paul Grey. In between the (frankly) pathetic online contradictory statements from Joey Jordison and Corey Taylor (which seems to herald any of the Iowan Nontet, er Octet's activities these days) it seemed like a reasonable stab, if not one that went down like a cup of cold vomit in my household.

Download countered with the reunited, looking for a payday, System Of A Down. Daron Malakian must have stopped shovelling the drugs Scarface style long enough to realise his bank account was edging towards zero considering Scars On Broadway went down like a cup of cold vomit across the world, yet alone in my household and Serj Tankian is too nice a guy to ignore the pleas of the rest who were eyeing the back of the dole queue with increasing alarm...
They followed with the ever predictable Linkin Park for the 8,796th time and the surprise of Rob Zombie, whose first tour in 8 years sold out faster than Glastonbury and gave new meaning to the words Ebay and Rocking Horse Shit.
Download looked to be taking it back, especially as Sonisphere revealed it's second headliner to be the less than impressive Biffy 'Indie Band' Clyro to universal outcry which managed to lessen the years other tragedy, the fact that Avenged Sevenfold had found a drummer to tour with them and were taking their brand of bullshit to my spiritual home, then BAM! - Out of the blue Sonisphere announced the 'Big Four' and metalheads old and new creamed themselves at the prospect of something that could never have happened 'back in the day'.

It is however, in my not so humble opinion an odd to time to try this.

Metallica - as fond of them as I am, they stopped being a thrash band somewhere around 1990, since then has followed the Universe-shagging 'Black' album, blues, haircuts, cocaine, country, Napster, sackings, therapists, St Anger and 'Comeback' thrash album that is about as thrash (realistically) as, well words fail me at this point, but you know deep down in your heart that if you put 'Kill Em All' through 'Justice...' on and then listen to 'Death Magnetic' it's not thrash, no matter how much the audio clipping makes a mess of the sound when you turn it up.
As for the live show, it's great. Lars will try not to fall off his stool or keep his mouth shut, James will sing everything in a Country stylee, Hammet will get his own solos wrong and the new guy is FAMILY don'tcha know... just like Eastenders.

Slayer - fair enough, the only band on the bill to consistently remain thrash. They are still going strong, well Tom Araya is broken, Kerry King contradicts himself with every passing year, Jeff Hanemann is seemingly fading into the background and Dave Lombardo barely drinks these days; none of which seems to matter with a rabid fan base that keeps pretending that they haven't (successfully or not) made the same album again and again since 'Seasons In The Abyss' as long as they get to hear 'South of Heaven', 'Reign In Blood', 'Angel of Death' and 'Dead Skin Mask' live.
I know I do.

Megadeth - I loved them as a kid. For one glorious summer they were my band of choice over Metallica and Iron Maiden. I listened to 'Rust In Piece' all through the holidays and could even make out the words behind his nasal whining... then they, like Metallica, they went all commercial. 'Countdown To Extinction' was good,'Youthanesia' passable all the way downhill until 'Crush Em'. I had already bailed somewhere between buying 'Cryptic Writings' and getting home and listening to it.
Then Dave found God, quit drugs and started whining about everything else, embarrassed himself in 'Some Kind Of Monster' (although everyone did to be fair...) and eventually started making thrash albums again. To give him his credit, they are thrash albums, boring ones maybe and his Sylvester the Cat vocals fight with endless solos, but none of it will compare to the static stage show that will wow approximately no-one... then again maybe I'm just bitter because I have seen them three times and he has failed to play 'Peace Sells' and 'In My Darkest Hour' in the same set...

Anthrax - Now I actually feel sorry for dedicated fans of Anthrax... their lot has been hard over the years. They seem to be split into two camps Belladonna verses Bush. The old school will tell you Joey is their boy because he is on all the classics; the John fans will tell you Bush is their boy because he can sing.
I kind of straddle the ages on this one. I grew up with the old school but never felt passionate about them, I heard 'Sound Of White Noise' and suddenly they were a great band. Problem is no-one bought the records in the same quantity and the last couple of years have been a revolving door of vocalists - Belladonna back, Belladonna out; Bush in, Bush out; Dan Nielson in and out for allegedly shitting on the chest of the guitarist who isn't Scott Ian and making a pass at the poker players wife... so Bush back, no wait, Belladonna Zzzzzzzzzzz.
Fact is they were barely a thrash band in the eighties, certainly not in the nineties and given they have been making a new album nearly as long as it took Axl Rose who the fuck knows what they sound like anymore...
The new Anthrax album with old material and new vocals (or new songs and an old vocalist) is expected some when. Don't hold your breath... as a live act I have seen them twice with the old corpse and can say, hand on heart (and not for the first time), I wanted Bush.
Yeah, that was cheap wasn't it...?

So there we have it - cynical cash grab or giving the fans what they want?
The Big Four of Thrash featuring one thrash band...
It could be a great day out but having seen all four bands numerous times, you'd have to hope the experience is greater than the sum of it's parts.

Voodoo Six at The Cavern

I must confess I rarely garner any enthusiasm to get down to The Cavern these days, in fact live music in Exeter has taken a hell of a downturn in recent times (and I'm not arrogant enough to suggest it is purely since I stepped aside from promoting but...) due to the closure of Tiggas Bar, the ruination of The Hub and it's replacement by the music-cafe-come-trendy-name-drop-indie-hippy-hang-out-my-daughter's-Josh-Stone-dontcha-know Mama Stones it has been sparse pickings.
So it is left to The Cavern to fly the flag for decent music... which they kind of do with the waft of a tattered dish rag in an inconsistent breeze, going for scene punk and metal with a smattering of wider styles thrown at the wall to see what sticks.
So with all the talk of Voodoo Six being the next saviours of British rock and some interesting opening acts it was time to revisit a place I was a fairly regular attendee of before it got a stupid hair cut and put on some nail varnish and 'guy' liner.

First off my lift was late; I had to buy a ticket from a man in a pub and decided it would be a far more rewarding use of time to catch up with old friends rather than see the opening band. I was reliably informed they were thrashy... but unfortunately (well not that unfortunately) I was tucking into a pint of ice cold lager and trading insults with Grifter drummer Foz so I shall review the pub instead.
The John Gandy is much like Exeter really; when I came here 12 years ago it had character and a bohemian vibe that made it unique, it was never the best pub but it had something... Like the council, the owners have managed to rip this out of it, turn up the lights a bit and bring in the same stuff as everywhere else. The refurb has left it, like Exeter High Street, soulless and devoid of personality, a chain pub without a chain, four walls and a bar... still mass produced lager is the same anywhere as long as it's chilled.

On to The Cavern and the taste of slightly less chilled lager in plastic pint glasses. The next band (or maybe even the first - a point no one could clear up) were in mid flow. Watching it kind of took me back to the early nineties... I could have sworn that a normal sized Sebastian Bach was fronting a band playing Megadeth and Slayer cast offs whilst a prepubescent Mick Mars wailed on guitar.
I know that fashion is cyclical but this was a display that you would have thought had been killed off when people ran into the arms of Seattle's miserables, got fat on the turntables of Nu Metal, far too macho and serious in the era of Metalcore and cut themselves to My Chemical Romance... it was cheesy, ballsy and unashamed. They could all play their instruments and wore their influences on there sleeves, good crowd interaction too.
Couldn't say it was something to make me go 'wow' and rush down the front but if I had heard this in 1992 and been old enough to buy a beer legally I'd have loved it.

Next up Grifter are a band immune to trends, quite frankly they play rock and roll and pull their influences from Robert Johnson and the founders of The Blues itself as much as Black Sabbath, Clutch or ZZ Top. It's too easy to dismiss bands with a 'retro' feel as trendy, but they aren't doing this as some band wagon jumping 'next big thing', they exist simply because they want to. They didn't spend ages in front of the mirror working on their rockstar wardrobe; they turned up dressed like they would come round your house or go out to the pub and put on a deliciously unpretentious lesson in having a good time.
Every song is a potential anthem in waiting, spurred on by huge grooves and more hooks than Peter Pan in a hall of mirrors. At times it is almost like an eye opening rifle through your Dad's record collection (well if your Dad was a cool rocker who listened to Motorhead and wasn't some socks and sandal wearing Steely Dan lover) but they manage to inject everything with a modern attitude, that if anything makes these tunes ageless rather than some flash-in-the-pan sound of the moment.
As a live act they are honed through years of hard graft and like the personalities that make up the band themselves they are intelligent, belligerent and articulate and above all fun.
It's so uncomplicated it's untrue, not the music but the concept. Drink beer, rock out and have a good time - they may have sold their souls at a crossroads but you can be sure they haggled themselves a good deal.

So onto Voodoo Six.
It's a hard time to be a British band; largely because we invented the damn genre and have been playing catch up since Iron Maiden released 'Powerslave' - cue every band with a moderate sound and a sniff of success labelled 'the Saviour', the 'next big thing', the best British Band since...'. Christ, the list of casualties is fucking phenomenal: The Almighty, Dub War, One Minute Silence, Kill To This, Murder One, Iron Monkey, Raging Speedhorn, Arcimony, Pulkas, Earthtone9, Pitchshifter, Dogs D'Amour, fuck it - the head stone isn't big enough to list them all.
The point is that as a British Band we'll support them round every toilet in the country until they collapse. We'll refuse to buy any of their stuff when they release it and so they get dropped and fold anyway.
The ones that get through this cycle sell out their roots for a few hundred bucks worth of free tattooing (cough, Lost Prophets) and spending the rest of their careers blowing goats, record execs and most likely each other as touching their groupies would earn them a stretch... in the modern age it has to be a depressing thing to be at the level Voodoo Six are...
However I have to say I don't really rate them. The guitar sound is borrowed from Tom Morello and whilst they are admittedly heavier live than on record it is still an anemic bag really and one that doesn't justify the hype.
I guess they aren't bad, just not my thing which sums it up for me - you have to love or hate an act, have a powerful reaction... indifference is the death knell of a rock n roll band.
Being 32 and having an early start in the morning with the added bonus of middle management responsibilities the prospect of a slightly earlier night was more appealing so I sacked it in half way through.

Metal Inquisition

I don't even know how I found Metal Inquisition...
I really don't.
It's discovery was lost in the haze of trawling through the internet reading about music - kind of like being on You Tube I guess (so I'm told) where you start off looking for something specific, follow a related link and in four clicks you are looking at Two Girls, One Cup.

The advantages and problem with the internet is that is limitless. I spend a fair bit of time on it but in specific corners that clearly mark out territory and I can quite happily live without it. I have friends who seem to be on it all the time if possible and there is a wild look of fear in their eyes if it is unavailable.
However on one random journey (at this point I'm just theorising and dressing this up in romantic hyperbole, like Ahab at sea looking for Moby Dick) I somehow stumbled across Metal Inquisition.
Sadly now a shadow of it's former self the blog was funny. Guys clearly older, who viewed Metal with a world weary sense - they knew it was big and dumb, they knew how close minded a lot of heavy music followers are and just how shit it can be.
When I found it I knew I had come home, sure some of it offended bands I love, but if you can't take the knocks grow a thicker skin or fuck off.

I shared their views even at my more youthful stage. You only have to wander round a festival site to see how many wankers take themselves too seriously.
I've done the thing where you run around and go see every single band, I get it, but what I don't get is 'scene fashion' - you know Goths for example wearing a ton of leather and chains and face paint in the sweltering heat, only to be seen later half undressed, sunburnt and passed out.
Every genre (another pet hate I will get to) has it's own dress sense be it dickheads with silly haircuts, jeans with skinny legs and baggy arses or jock assholes with too many tattoos, wife beater vests, baggy shorts and an over abundance of testosterone - every genre has it's failings.
If you can't poke fun at yourself then really stay the hell away from me.
Metal Inquisition was that for me, they liked things to wind up the metal purists and for someone who ensures there is dance, hip hop and William Shatner on playlists for festivals (and was recently told I was at the wrong place!) it was an instant connect.

The guys have grown tired and weary, no longer listen to that much metal, certainly not since the early nineties it seems and are running out of steam and desire but for the inspiration, the laughs and the amazing ability to annoy the dumb I salute you.

Perhaps We'd better Start From the Beginning

When it was that I realised that you could actually be a music journalist and make a career out of writing about music, I don't recall.
Maybe it was pouring over what was then the best music magazine in the world Kerrang (more on this shocking fall from grace another time), maybe it was when the career adviser from the RAF told me that because I once used an inhaler I couldn't join the services, despite the fact I played first team Rugby and Hockey for an impressively sport fervent private school in Bath and most importantly despite the fact I had my sights on a desk job...
Nope, unequivocally nope. Please allow me to smash these dreams and write off your plans for the future.

Oh well, the law was boring and to be honest with you I can't see myself liberating oil from the clutches of those evil Arabs anyway so I guess having 'feeble' lungs probably left me richer in my soul, although considerably lighter in the pocket.

Being an only child and having parents with fairly old school values, I didn't get a TV in my room until I was 18 and I bought it. Hence music and reading were the chief occupiers of my time and as such I spent years reading about the likes of Iron Maiden, Metallica, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Ozzy etc, I probably knew more about some bands through reading than I did by listening to their music.

It was pure escapism - people joke about my knowledge, but I really didn't have anything better to do with my time. Music was my only real friend and companion for a while when my mates left after GCSE and I say with complete and utter sincerity that if not for the music I listen to I would not be here, simples.

At some point it occurred to me that I should write about music for a living, I didn't have the drive to fight my parents over the musical instrument of my choice and my voice was passable at best, so I knew I stood no chance of being in a band. In time honoured tradition those who can't contribute, critique. Or Criticise anyway. The halcyon days of Kerrang were fading, even metal itself was in one of it's customary slumps and slowly but surely Metal Hammer emerged as the one thing that seemed to say 'Fuck You' to the idea of pandering to the mainstream. What's more they had recruited all the disgruntled Kerrang writers I grew up reading and whose opinions I had digested as a kid.
Whilst at University studying English the stars seemed to align - Future Publishing now resided in Bath, I was going to get my degree, learn as much as I could about making magazines, go home after graduation and work for Metal Hammer.
Again, simples.

Roughly ten years on from that it obviously takes a fair bit of squinting and standing on your head to understand how I live in Devon and work for a manufacturing company. Surely as the stars align, they wheel off again into the night....

Metal Hammer (quite sensibly) moved back to London (taking a guy who I knew from the local night club with them - perversely he was the editor within 5 years) and being Londonphobic after periods of 24 hours there, coupled with a blossoming relationship, a couple of grands worth of immediate debt, never mind the student loan and that dream sailed away into the night... my passion actually fired by the missed opportunity rather than dulled.
You see that sad bastard shaking his head and pointing out tiny errors in that magazine - that's me.
You fuckers got my dream, at least treat it with the respect it deserves...

So it's a hobby and this is the background preamble - you probably didn't want to read it, didn't want to know, but tough! Here there is no deadline, no agenda, no editor to answer to and I don't work with a bunch of cunts I can't stand; so in that respect my dream remains alive always the shining beacon of what it is.
I review albums for a site called The Sleeping Shaman, which I have to say is a much better gig than writing for Copro's magazine, and now I have this.

Content?
Don't count on it... this is the gospel according to Mark.

Let There Light/Lies

Okay, so you've been lied to...
Right off the bat I'll come clean and say you have been lead here under false pretenses by a title concocted in a smirking homage to Steven Hawking.
Nothing more clever than the fact it sounded kind of catchy and I could childishly play around with Photoshop to get some images of him throwing the horns, which as of yet I haven't bothered with... watch this space when I run out of things to say.

Seriously though this is not Brief, nor is it a History of Metal in so much as I am not going to just endless regurgitate stuff from books and Wikipedia; this is a slanted view on the music that I have loved ever since I was 10 years old and someone gave me a recorded 90 minute tape of Iron Maiden. Where ever this ends up - sometimes a historical perspective, sometimes a review of something new that has caught my ear or just ramblings, this is as much my journey through music as it is Heavy Metal's.

So read on if you fancy, I make no apology for my opinions and you are welcome to comment on anything you disagree with, just know that in my world... I'm still right.
The demise of my favourite Metal related blog Metal Inquisition (okay it's not dead but it's on life support in danger of flatlining) left a hole that cannot be filled so I thought fuck it, I do it myself.
Probably without the humour.

You've been warned.