Monday Morning Metal 01.16.06
Posted by Jeff Modzelewski on 01.16.2006
Breaking news on the future of this column, plus, you know, music stuff.
Well folks, it's official. I will be leaving this slot here at 411 Music. Don't worry, though, I'm not going far. In a few weeks I'm going to be premiering a column over at 411 Politics. You know I can't leave you guys. If any of you remember my earlier columns, they were basically political columns, with a little bit of music at the end. I want to get back to doing that. We've got a bunch of great guys here at 411 to cover your metal needs. Frankly, I'm pretty happy leaving the metal stuff to Rhett and Ben. Now I'll be around at least for one more week, so I'm not gone yet. If you're interested in taking over this spot, please send me an email, and I'll pass it along to MM and Brandon. Hopefully there won't be any Monday gap. Anyways, on to the
Pimps
Jared doesn't like rock remixes. Other than a select few, I can't disagree with him there.
Frank talks about chick rock. Dude, how can you cover that subject without talking about Liz Phair or Tori? Seriously!?!?
We've got a lot of rock with the weekly news columns. My two personal favorites are the ever popular Rhett Walker and newbie Ben Czajkowski. I love having a guy here with a goofier name than mine. Oh, and Ben, while I would like to see Lacuna Coil, I will never ever ever ever ever pay money to see Rob Zombie. Dude, seriously. I am still considering the In Flames/Trivium/Devildriver show, though, so I may see you there.
Metal News
A documentary about the 80's thrash metal scene is nearing release. "Get Thrashed" is the product of 3 ½ years research, and includes interviews from bands such as Slayer, Metallica, Anthrax, Godsmack, Stone Sour, Superjoint Ritual, Chimaira, and many, many more. It should be a very comprehensive look at 80's metal and the influence that those bands had. I'm not much of a documentary guy, but this could be very interesting if done right.
VH1 also announced a 4 part documentary on heavy metal, cleverly titled "Heavy: The Story of Metal." The show will feature interviews with the usual suspects in metal, and each show will focus on a different era of metal. Should be pretty good, you know, for VH1.
Lacuna Coil have their new single up online at AOL Music. Just click on the Underworld soundtrack, and you should be able to find it. It's been a couple of years since their last album, so hopefully they'll be able to re-gain the momentum that they had.
Mushroomhead's new frontman Waylon recently did an interview with Midwest Excess about the band's upcoming album. Waylon basically said that fans should forget everything that they thought about the band and come into it with an open mind. He also says that the album is "get in the bathtub and slash your wrists. It's very dark." Well, this could be a good thing, since I know that the rest of the band is very good at writing dark music. Hopefully he'll be able to fill J's shoes. Oh, and Ben, where did you here that Stitch left Shroom? Yeah, he's doing Ventana, but he hasn't left the band based on any info that I've found on the internet, including his myspace site.
Kittie is back to working in the U.S. They'll be playing a radio station's pre-Superbowl party in Detroit. Since some band members couldn't make it into the U.S. a few months ago, it's good to see that they've fixed the problem. They've got an album being released on the internet only on February 7th, so, if you like a chick that can tear down buildings with her voice, you should be excited about that.
Anthrax has started working on some new material. Basically, Frankie, Charlie, and Scott got together and have put together some rough beginnings of songs. No word yet on who will be singing on them. Anthrax is also featured in the soundtrack for Kevin Smith's "Clerk's 2" movie. You can check out the trailer here.
In a surprise to absolutely no one, Ozzy has given up on finding a new guitarist to work with, and will write and record his next album with Zakk Wylde. Figuring Zakk would probably lose it and kill any other guitar player that Ozzy brought in to work with, that's probably a good idea. Plus, the relationship is mutually beneficial. Ozzy gives Zakk more household recognition for non-hardcore metal fans, and Zakk gives Ozzy credibility with younger fans.
Tool may or may not be playing a festival in Norway this summer. A TV station said they were, but it's not listed on the website for the festival, so there's really no firm news yet on this.
Despite what Slash said last week, there is no release date for the Guns and Roses album "Chinese Democracy." You'd think that, if there was any chance of it coming out in the near future, the band would jump all over this and get the album out. Of course, Axl will never finish it, and it'll never come out, so it's really all a moot point.
Robert Flynn of Machine Head gave an update on how the recording of the band's new album has been coming along. So far he said that there's about 4 songs that are mainly done, and a bunch of partial songs floating around. He also said that it's not an old-school, return to their roots album, and that the lyrics are more about society instead of being personal. These guys really don't fuck around, and they do no wrong, so I'm betting that the new album will kick ass. It'll probably be about a year until it actually comes out, but it's good to see that they're working right now.
Devildriver will be heading out with Opeth after their tour with In Flames. Of course, they're not doing any headlining dates, which is fucked up, but that Opeth show should be amazing. Sadly, I doubt that it'll be coming to Columbus, because the In Flames show is coming here in February. But, whatever, if you have a chance to see Opeth and Devildriver together and you skip out, fuck you. That'll be a great show.
Drummer Igor Cavalera may or may not have left Sepultura. He's definitely taking a break from the band, but original reports stated that he had actually quit the band. Subsequent reports stated that he's simply taking time off to spend more time with his family, but that can often be a precursor to actually leaving for good. Obviously, there will be more news about this in the near future. In an odd twist, former Soulfly drummer Roy Mayorga will be taking over the duties, at least for now. Roy stated that it was too early to tell how long this would last, but he plans to "ride it out as long as" possible. All of this is very interesting, and hopefully we'll get more info in the near future.
Chimara have brought back original drummer Andols Herrick. Herrick left the band originally because he was unhappy touring, but apparently he's had a change of heart. This all sucks for the man who was his latest replacement, Kevin Talley. Talley is a hell of a drummer, so Andols has a lot to live up to on the band's new stuff. Well, as always, best of luck to those guys. Hopefully this'll be the last lineup change that these guys have to go through for a while.
Life of Agony frontman Keith Caputo is in the studio working on a solo project. Yeah, cause the last solo album you did worked out so well for ya. After LOA's failure to do much with their latest album, the band was dropped by Epic. I was extremely excited about the reunion of these guys, but, unfortunately, it just hasn't been all it was cracked up to be. I wish Keith the best, but I really don't know what to say about the future of these guys.
The Last Word
Well, we've almost reached the end of my time here at 411 Music. I'll be back at least next week, and possibly for a couple more, but it'll be pretty cool moving on to something new. Anyways, if you have any comments, feel free to email me. See you all next week.
