The ultimate turkey: Mordred

Today, in the good ol' US of A, it's Thanksgiving Day. For all of you who live elsewhere and may not know what Thanksgiving is all abut, I'll break it down for you. You are basically forced to go back home to see your family, where incredibly uncomfortable situations will take place due to the fact that you don't really get along with them. You want to get away from them, and go do something else...but your plans are usually stopped short because nearly all commerce is closed, and all your friends are in another city being miserable with their families.It's like christmas, but without the presents. Instead you just eat a whole lot, and often watch what is often refered to as american football.


The food usually consumed during this holiday is turkey, but I should tell you that "turkey" is also slang for a person or thing that is considered a failure, and thus undesirable. Now that we're all on the same page, I will tell you about the ultimate turkey. Mordred.


As soon as I began research for this piece, I realized just how insanely stupid and bizarre Mordred are. Why? Because they are still around, and they have gone from being the only prominent thrash metal/funk act, to being a renaissance festival themed band. I'm not even joking. Look at the photo below. They have managed to start sucking in an entirely different way, and managed to include their attire into their sucking strategy. Apparently they have now taken the name of their band literally, since Mordred is a character from the King Arthur legend. I guess. I'm so confused. If you want to see more, watch a video of them live here, or look at their official site here. Notice anything missing from this current Mordred line-up? Yup, they unloaded their DJ, DJ Pause, like he was dead weight.

Mordred today, after having somehow morphed from horrible pseudo funk, to horrible renaissance-themed metal...or something.

Back to Mordred as we knew them back in the day. Considered revolutionary by no one except themselves, Mordred stretched the bounds of music by managing to suck at two musical styles at the same time, metal AND funk...managing to sell dozens of records. Mordred was one of those exciting mistakes that happened at the Thrash Metal factory. They were an anomaly that should have been corrected, had all six sigma regulations been put into place. They were at best a factory second, a defect, a mutation that should have never seen the light of day, like those babies with eight heads and six eyes that die seconds after they're born. They were horrible at metal, and considered themselves to be a funk band due to occasional slap bass and the fact that they had a black DJ.

This is the cover of Mordred single "Esse Quam Videri", which is Latin for: "We make our DJ pose with malt liquor containers in all photo shoots"

Yes, that's a can of Olde English 800.

Members of the band attempted to seem open minded when it came to issues of race in interviews, I mean...they even wore Bad Brains shirts to prove their point! They also listed Living Colour as one of their favorite bands, so you know they meant business! There is one tourbling aspect about the band though, they always made their DJ pose with a container of Olde English malt liquor in band photos (See above). In doing so, the band single-handedly set back the clock on race relations by 35 years. For those of you outside the US who may not know what malt liquor is, much less Olde English, this is part of their Wikipedia entries:

Like many malt liquors, its relatively high alcohol content and low price make it popular among those on a tight budget wanting to become inebriated quickly. "Pour Some for the Homies" is often spoken during pouring a small amount of the top of a 'forty' on the ground, in recognition of deceased friends or relatives who were close.

As though it weren't bad enough that their DJ and his race were used as a novelty, and perhaps as a way of gaining minimal street cred, in one of their videos, they tastefully made him rap while he was dressed like a pimp. Yes, I get it...it's their amazingly hilarious take on 70's black culture...but god damn, couldn't they let the guy have some dignity? I'm surprised they didn't make him play basketball on film.



Until recently, I believed that Mordred's DJ was merely a prop borrowed from their record company's mail room. He was never interviewed, so I doubted he was even real. Not so. He's real! His name is/was DJ Pause, and wouldn't you know it...he has a Myspace page here. In his page, I found this picture of Mordred today (below). Apparently they've dissolved into what looks like an aging janitorial staff on their day off. Though this is basically the same line-up as the renaissance themed version of the band that is also active right now, this version features DJ Pause and the old singer. Please don't ask me to explain all this, because I have a headache just thinking about it. It's like in Back To The Future, when there's two Marty McFly's at the "Enchantment Under The Sea" dance. I found videos of both versions of the band, one with the old annoying singer and with a DJ, and one with the other singer dressed like a knight of some kind. Both version appear to exist at the same time. Are you confused yet?



Not surprisingly, Mordred's bass player Art also has a Myspace page. In his page he doesn't list an occupation, probably to keep the entire world from laughing about the fact that the guy who wrote and played on the song with these lyrics:

Go to work? Ha, no way
I see you work so hard
To pay your credit card
I see you bust your ass
To buy a new bus pass
So you can go to work
Like every other jerk

Now works the third shift at a machine shop, and is managed by a teenager half his age. Them's the breaks, as they say in the south. Check out the picture I found on his page, it leads me to believe he has turned into your average angry filipino who wears a see through shirts while suffering from late stage alcoholism.



Lastly, let's all enjoy the seminal moment in Mordred's career, documented in video format for all of us to enjoy. Listen to the depth of their comentary on music and culture. Turkey's served. Dig in!

Cock-smashing brutality: The best death metal song intros

When I'm not thinking of ways to meet Lauren Conrad or the girls from 90210, I enjoy studying the intricacies of death metal songwriting. The best songs aren't just a bunch of mindless double bass and monotonous blast beats, they're finely crafted opuses that are painstakingly assembled riff by slamming riff, like a brutal ship-in-a-bottle. Perhaps the most important part of such a masterpiece is the intro, and with that in mind, I present several of our favorites...



Cannibal Corpse - Hammer Smashed Face
When we're talking about the best death metal intros of all time, you would be out of your hammer-smashed skull not to put this song at the top of the list. Cannibal Corpse is, without a doubt, one of the most generic, dullest death metal bands, yet this song is the perfect marriage of catchy hooks and cock-smashing brutality! I'll be honest, it's been a long time since I paid much attention to them, but what fucking happened?! Chris Barnes is writing song after ass-rapingly awful song about pot, wearing Jncos and Star Trek shirts, and Corpsegrinder would rather be playing WoW... I mean, I understand that as people get older they lose touch with the trends, and that's fine... but christ, these guys take irrelevant fossils to a whole new level. If there is a god, Chris Barnes will get hit by a meteor and spare the worl of another Six Feet Under performance.



Suffocation - Human Waste
As soon as the song starts, you hear the Hellraiser sample, and you're all "Oh shit, son, this is spooky as fuck... What's coming next?!" The hair on your arms stands up, because you know the song is going to be some super brutal brutality, and it doesn't disappoint!! The intro riff on this song is without a doubt the sickest thing ever recorded at the time, considering that this song is from their 1990 demo (I didn't hear it until 92 or whatever, though, on "Corporate Death"). The rest of the song is pretty slammin' too, but the first minute or so is really what will knock your dick in the dirt with pit riffment. Every time I hear this song, I put on a Trump Plaza shirt and some sweat pants and jump around my room pretending I'm Frank Mullen.



Obituary - The End Complete
Before wigger slam existed, I listened to Obituary when I needed a dose of groove in my death metal. Obituary are a great band because they always emphasized good songwriting over speed or brutality for their own sake, and this is a great example. Aside from having an awesome intro, it also has a super sweet outro- it starts AND finishes strong, like good porn. I am pretty sure I've posted about this video before, but the best part is Alan West's Rollins Band and Red Hot Chili Peppers shirts. There's nothing funnier than when fans are disappointed by how un-brutal a band is, like when you see Glen Benton taking out the trash or whatever. But that sort of thing is Lucho Metales' speciality, so I'll leave it to him to go into more detail.



Devourment - Babykiller
If there is such a thing as a flagship single for wigger slam, it is definitely this song- especially the original version on 1.3.8. The sorely-missed Wayne Knupp's incredible vocal performance started a whole generation of cricket vocals, and it all started with the cock-smashingly brutal intro to this awesome song. It's nearly 5 minutes long, but I can listen to it the whole way through anytime it comes on my iPod. This song showed the death metal world that traditional musical concepts like melody, dynamics, structure, and lyrics were outdated assumptions, that the only thing that really matters is pit riffment. If you think about it, it was very avant garde and postmodern! Hopefully some grad school egghead will write a paper about this song called something like "Operationalizing pit riffment: Contradictions and paradoxes in Texas slam metal."

More marriages of awesome hooks and cock-smashing brutality?
As always, please tell us what we missed. There aren't a ton of great death metal intros on the level of these, but surely the list is longer that this post.

5 Albums That Changed My (musical) Life

Computer-rendered depiction of the quiet moment when I decided to come up with this list.

My life in the world of metal has been a long one, at least it feels that way to me. Looking back on my years involved in metal, it's sometimes all a blur. I've attended lots of shows, concerts, and fests as an audience member. I booked bands, and helped my brother run his tape distro. Yes, there was a time when bands put out tapes. I saw Entombed at a strip club during their first US tour. I was part of the Wild Rags Records street team, and I was a pen pal of sorts with members from Hellwitch, Impetigo and other not-so-seminal bands. My brother and I did a radio show for many years, and played 7 minute Carcass songs so we could go to the bathroom which was roughly a mile away from the studio where we did the show from, and still get back in time to give out the call letters by the end of the hour. I played in bands, and got my double bass 36th notes to sound damn good and even. I've collected records, I've collected cassettes, and VHS tapes. I've driven long distances to see bands, and I've even waited to outside a tour bus to have an Obituary drumstick autographed. Okay, that last one still makes me cringe, but it was 1992 for god's sake! Anyway, because it's all a blur, I sometimes like to set some quiet time aside to think about it all. Just me, an Enya CD, a cup of tea, and nature. It's during these quiet moments (see image above) that I most effectively manage to reflect upon my life in the world of metal. Below is the product of my last quiet moment of reflection, a list of albums that changed my life. I've tried to be as truthful as possible in compiling this list, and as such the albums may not be as impressive or obscure as some I could have come up with. But this is the truth, here for all to read. These were albums that I encountered by chance at some point in my life. In one way or another, these recordings changed my view of music at that moment, and more often than not, sent me in a significantly different musical direction thereafter. School's in bitches. Let us begin.

1982

Kiss-Unmasked

I was a little kid when my brother and I received this album as a gift from our uncle. While many would argue that getting Unmasked as a gift is just as bad as getting smallpox infected blankets for your birthday, I have to tell you that I love this piece of garbage album to this day. In a way, I love almost anything that Kiss has done actually, best exemplified by Gene Hoglan's Balls and I singing "Hard Luck Woman" at a kareoke place just this weekend. But back to Unmasked. When I tell Kiss fans that this is my favorite Kiss album, they look at me exactly as you'd look at a retarded kid that just crapped his pants. A mix of disgust and sadness. What can I tell you, at such a young age, I had no idea that Kiss hadn't always been a disco-tinged pop disaster, but rather an awful talentless theater show. How was I to know? The album had enough songs with a harder edge to make it my favorite for many years, at least prior to my age jumping into the double digits. As a matter of fact, this was the only album that my brother and I listened to for most of our childhood. As a result of my youth, at one point I really did believe that Kiss may have actually been connected to satan, if only in a minor way. You see, my mom always told me to put my Kiss record away, (along with all my other toys) before going to bed. One day, I didn't listen to her and went to bed, leaving both the sleeve and the record sitting on the carpeted floor by my bed. In the middle of the night, I woke up to go to the bathroom, slipped on the record and hit the back of my head on the edge of my bed so hard that I nearly threw up from the pain. I remember getting a bump in the back of my head that was roughly the size of a hard boiled egg cut in half. After that day, I was always careful with the record, and kinda thought it really did have evil powers. As it turns out, the only evil power the record had, was making money for Gene and Paul for what basically amounted to third rate disco bass lines. I know, I was an idiot, but I was also like four. I loved the record, and while other kids in school were listening to silly kids music (perhaps one step up from "row, row, row your boat.."), I was listening to Kiss, and I felt like a bad-ass. This album basically set me up to continually keep looking for music that was harder, and more extreme than what the rest of the kids around me were listening to. Humble beginnings, I know, but in 1982, and this is all I had access to. About 8 years ago, my brother and I ended up at a taping of the David Letterman show. We sat right above Anton Figg, who was the session drummer for Unmasked. The whole time, I kept yelling at him to play "Torpedo Girl", which is my favorite song in the album. After the twentieth time, he kinda looked up, and shook his head. Yes, I had basically been told I was an asshole, but I had been told by the guy who laid down the groove on Torpedo Girl! So I was a happy man.




1988
Iron Maiden-Live After Death

Many years after Unmasked, my brother and I received dubbed copy of Live After Death from my sister's boyfriend. We were amazed by the whole tape. It was harder and faster than Kiss, and the cover (which we got a poster of) was way more evil! Eddie's shirt is all ripped, and the screw keeping his forehead shut was getting hit bit lighting! Holy shit! Sign me up! Soon after getting the tape, we watcged the home video version, and we were in love. I didn't speak any english then, but I could still be heard yelling out "scream for me long beach!" through the halls of my school. Can you believe that I still wonder why girls were repulsed by me? Maybe the bleached rat-tail, and the Brut Cologne didn't help, and I'm sure my wearing sweatpants constantly didn't make it any easier either. It's as though I was daring the oppostite sex to not throw up when looking at me. So, a couple of years after owning the tape, and playing it thousands of times, it became worn out. Another mishap with the TDK-60 dub of this album was that my sister's boyfriend had left the tabs in, so I mistakenly hit "record" twice while attempting to press "play" to listen to the tape. Because of this mishap, our beloved cassette had two blank spaces in crucial moments of songs. Actually, they weren't blank spaces, but spaces with ambient sound of my room back then, picked up by the small microphone in my Sony boombox. Having heard Maiden, the world of bands like Helloween, Metallica, Testament, and even Whiplash was open to my brother and me. I was like a fatty with an insasiable hunger for metal...and the pages of Metal Hammer magazine were my all-you-can-eat buffet. It was also around this time that we were introduced to some other very extreme bands, ones that bordered on grindcore, but they were small local bands that no one would know about...so I'll skip those. Moving on...






1989
Slayer-Reign In Blood, Venom-Black Metal

I count this one as one album, since it came to me as a single cassette. You see, one of our neighbors came to our house one day, asking if we'd buy one of his dubbed cassetes for five bucks or so. In retrospect, I think he wanted money to buy some wacky-tabbacky...but I'm not sure. He was older than my brother and me, and he was hella' metal. The tape he sold us was a 90 minute cassete with Reign In Blood on one side, and Black Metal on the other. While we liked Venom, it was Slayer that captured our imagination. Sadly, this was the first Slayer album I encountered. As I've stated before, South Of Heaven is my favorite...but life has a funny way of leading you down a path. Anyway, soon after hearing this tape, we got a dubbed copy of the Ultimate Revenge home video, and we were both hooked. Clearly, we didn't speak english then...otherwise we would have noticed just how insanely stupid Slayer comes off in that video. Luckily, we were clueless. Having heard Slayer, Metallica started to seem a little tame to us. We finally realized that Kiss was a disco band at one point. We were shocked. We still loved Maiden, but we knew that there were more extreme bands out there, and we had to find them. Destruction, Kreator, Cryptic Slaughter, Crumbsuckers and Bathory made sense to us after having owned this tape.



1989
Napalm Death-Peel Sessions

My friend's mom was going to England for work in 1989, and he asked my friend what he would like her to bring him back from England. Being a smart dude, he quickly called me and asked me for the names of the most extreme bands I could think of, so she could buy those tapes while in England. My brother and I compiled a list, but I don't think that Napalm Death was on it. We had heard of other early Earache bands through reviews in Metal Hammer, but I don't think we even knew about Napalm Death. I should mention that Metal Hammer back then was made up of endless articles about AC/DC, small features about Metallica, a cover story about Triumph or Uriah Heap, with small reviews of actual metal bands. To give you an idea of how behind the times we were in our beloved backwards country, the Metal Hammer issues we were buying at the supermarket for a good bit of money, were literally three years old! I'm not kidding! Imagine my shock when I found out that Cliff Burton had not only died, but they had already replaced him and were well on their way to sucking full-time! In any case, back to the story about my friend's mom.... she came back with the Peel Sessions tape from England. We heard it, and as you can expect, we were shocked. Now Slayer sounded like Bon Jovi and Def Lepard. It blew our mind, and I think it took some time for it all to sink in and make sense. Having heard this tape, the world of death metal, grindcore, punk, crossover and noise was open to us. Though some bands could be heavier, nothing seemed faster and more extreme than this recording for many years. I have to say, while many were bummed when Napalm Death released Harmony Corruption, I actually liked it...even if it sounded tame compared to Peel Sessions. It's still one of my favorite death metal albums of all time.






1991
Death-Human

Living in south-Florida during the formative years of American death metal was a great experience.Chuck Schuldiner lived in a storage space near our apartment, guys from Obituary were dating girls in my brother's high school, member of Cynic hadn't started to play in salsa bands in cruiseships...those were the days! It should come as no surprise then that I still feel that those early years of death metal were by far the greatest as far as musical output. Shortly after the Death album "Human" came out, I bought it and loved it instantly. Actually, I didn't buy it...I got this kid who I completely used for his money back then to buy it for me...but that's another story. Human was catchy and highly melodic, two qualities that were somewhat rare in other death metal bands back then. Yes, you could remember the general melodies to Deicide songs, but Death had taken it a step beyond. It reminded me of Iron Maiden, and that was a good thing. Perhaps that's why so many people grew to hate them. Another aspect of this album that blew me away was its complexity. In retrospect, the album is not THAT musically complex, but it opened my eyes to the possibilities. I know many people hate the fact that bands like Cynic or Atheist opened up Pandora's Box, and that inside that box was Fusion and Jazz...but I loved it. While Human was not as complex as some of Atheist's music or Cynic's, this album connected with me and showed me that complexity could be metal, prog could be metal...hell Jazz could be insanely enjoyable. Sadly, like many great moments in music, I believe that albums like Human, and most Swedish death metal are to blame for letting in a fair number of short haired beardos into metal. But what can you do? That's not Chuck's fault! Go blame the beardos! You gotta crack some eggs in order to make an omelet.




That's it. I guess since 1991 I've had no musical breakthrough moments in the realm of metal. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows or understands my taste in music. I've had plenty such moments outside of metal, but I guess in my eyes, little has been done that matters in any way since 1991 within metal. Yes, I've listened to some bands after then and liked them a good bit...but I have not heard anything after Human that sent me into a different branch of the metal tree, if you will. I'm sure some of you disagree, but this is my opinion. An opinion that sounds an awful lot like the old man who is still going on and on about how The Beatles were the last great band, or the Greatful Dead fan who refuses to acknowledge the mere existence any musical output after 1972. I guess I've joined their club...and to tell you the truth, that's just fine with me.

My Dream Band

As winter sets in, and there's less to do as a result of the cold weather, I can't help but race through the dark corners of my mind (those areas of my mind, by the way, kinda' look like the cover of Broken Hope's "Swamped In Gore", including the green chess board)




In racing through those dark corners, nooks and crannies, I reminisce about my many unfulfilled dreams. What's at the top of that list you ask? My dream of being in a world class metal band. It never happened. Today, thanks to technology and the interweb, I've held auditions for each crucial position and I'm here today to share the finalists with you. Why not? Journey got their latest singer from Youtube. Let me know your thoughts on each candidate. I'm looking to start making some calls next week, so that we can have our first practice in early December.




Lead/Rhythm Guitar

This first candidate for the job has all the necessary riffing abilities and great equipment. There are some issues with his stage presence, like his riffing underbite. I'm referring to the face he makes when he reaches full riffing speed. His jaw looks like a urinal. There's also the issue of possible 'rhoid rage.







Not as much of a riff monster, but he still has skills. Good equipment...but as you might imagine, I have some reservations about his stage presence. The stuffed animals on his bed are a concern, so are his blue shirt and those very tiny shorts.






Vocals

As far as a singer goes, no thought had to go into making this decision. A Metal Inquisition classic, Jon Becker's unbelievable talent and range is a must-have for this all-star band.






Drums

One quality that any great drummer must have is commitment. Watching the video below, there's no doubt in my mind that this young man/woman has exactly what it takes. As you watch this clip, you can feel his energy and commitment through your computer. Amazing stuff. Sorry to post this video again, but when you've seen greatness, you can't turn your back on it.






Bass

If you've ever been in a band, you know that the bass player really doesn't matter at all. If the A/C or furnace comes on in your practice space as you play, that hum will usually be enough to fill up the low end of the spectrum. That way,you don't have to deal with yet another band member. Having said that, I thought I should be on the lookout for the very best talent in order to make this band a true metal unit. This guy fits the bill. He's pretty talented, he has the stage presence of your uncle Earl who does heating and cooling repair for a living...And those amazing sweatpants! Is he wearing anything under those? You can almost see his manjunk jiggle around in there. I do have one concern though...playing a Rickenbacker through a Peavy amp? Isn't that like like putting a trailer hitch on a new Mercedes S-Class? (the AMG version even).




But wait, maybe we'd like to take a more technical approach to our music at some point. Perhaps at some point we'll all get into Cynic, then Chick Correa, and then stuff like Sun Ra. If we do, we need a bass player who can really really help us go the distance...and that's not a bass player at all...we need a chapman stick player, one with great presence and personality!

When awesome bands make shitty records

Many years ago I interviewed Brian Baker, who you may know from such bands as Minor Threat, The Meatmen, Bad Religion, and Dag Nasty. I asked him how it happened that even though Dag Nasty was such a great band, they wrote some absolutely fucking terrible songs. His answer was, "Hey, you can't win 'em all," which I thought was pretty insightful. Nobody bats 1.000, and even the best bands go wrong from time to time. Here are some examples of just that...

There is a clear, positive correlation between the passage of time and Suicidal Tendencies being shitty. Note the inflection points at the release of extra shitty albums.

Suicidal Tendencies - The Art of Rebellion
OK, to be fair this is more of an example of shark jumping than an aberration or outlier. Any way you slice it, though, this record fucking sucks like crazy. I mean I liked "Lights Camera Revolution" when it came out, but this was a dealbreaker. Even though it was kind of gay and crappy too, it had some great songs like "You Can't Bring Me Down" and "Lost Again." Then Mike Muir got too far up his own ass and tried to be an artist or whatever. I don't mean to be the "I only like the demo/first album" guy, because those people are the worst, but Suicidal is really the perfect example of a band that just gets worse with every album.

What is this shit?! Where did the NOT! banner and bermuda shorts go?! In the words of Discharge, "why why why why why"?

Anthrax - The Sound of White Noise
Remember the part in Lords of Chaos where one of the Norwegian BM dorks is talking about how he saw a picture of some band "wearing jogging suits and riding skateboards" and got very angry and confused? I'm pretty sure he was talking about Anthrax, and I can only imagine how difficult it would be for some Scandinavian hick to understand the nuances of five Jews from Queens imitating Iron Maiden, Agnostic Front, and Public Enemy all at once (by the way, my father is from Norway, so I have a bit of Scandinavian hayseed in my veins). But that's why we loved Anthrax: their whimsical, fun loving brand of thrash made you forget your troubles and whisked you away to a magical land where the streets were paved with mosh riffs.

In any case, a lot of people thought Persistence of Time was the beginning of the end for Anthrax, but I disagree. I thought PoT was pretty great. TSOWN is when Anthrax officially began their shockingly rapid descent into a state that would make being a laughingstock positively dignified by comparison. Why did they get rid of Joey and start writing lame, boring songs about fucking ski lodges or whatever? What happened to the jogging suits and skateboards? Why not just urinate on the sodomized corpse of everything your once-great band stood for?! Arggghhh!

At this point they were barely even phoning it in.

S.O.D. - Bigger Than The Devil
Obviously I am a big SOD fan. When I discovered them in 1991 or so, it was as though I was Christopher Columbus, piercing the fog to reveal the pristine shores of a whole new world before me, full of riches the likes of which even the most avaricious man could only dream of! Also, it was the closest thing to wigger slam that existed back then, so needless to say I was happier than a pig in shit.

Apparently they blew their load with "Speak English or Die," though, because SOD became one of the most absolutely wretched bands to ever disgrace the planet quite shortly after releasing it. They turned into basically the thrash metal version of Weird Al, even sinking so low as to write cringeworthy novelty/parody songs like "Seasoning The Obese" and "Celtic Frosted Flakes" on their 1998 album "Bigger Than The Devil." It's not just bad, it's awful on a level rarely approached by mere mortals. You have to scour YouTube for clips of John Cena rapping aggressively at Brock Lesnar before you come close to these levels of douchebaggery.

I am about to show you something so horrible that I must warn you before you go any further. Do not scroll down if you have a heart condition, are prone to fainting, or if you are eating. It is a spectacle so hideous that even the dark and twisted mind of HP Lovecraft could not have spawned it; even the slimy tentacles of Cthulu cannot inspire revulsion such as the following video can. With that warning in hand, click at your own risk! Recoil in horror at the atrocities that are birthed upon the world when Billy Milano listens to The Offspring too much!!



What other awesome bands made a shitty record?
As always, it is now your turn. There are many more great bands who put out crap, please help us list every single one of them!

Metal bloopers

Metal Inquisition staffers have searched high and low in order to bring you the most hilarious and unbelievable metal bloopers, outakes and blunders...and no, we are not including Benediction's entire catalog in this post.

Enjoy these videos, and don't take a drink before you watch these, it will end up all over your monitor! Ha ha ha!


We sure hope Bruce Dickinson's insurance covers his scrotum ripping in half!





Apparently, Steve Harris has trouble staying upright too! Hope his scrotum doesn't also rip in half. Ha ha ha! Maybe that's why he has that thick, padded bass strap, for when he falls on his ass.






Considering how big of a douche Gene Simmons is, I think we can all enjoy this clip of his hair catching on fire. If you want to watch an even funnier blooper, you can watch his sex tape (obviously not work safe).






Watch Jason Newsted fall down, much like his side-project Echobrain did. Oh my goodness!






Watch Dave Mustaine throw a mega-tantrum. I bet you this was exactly his reaction when his wife proposed that they start a coffee company.







Cannibal Corpse's Corpsegrinder gets mad about the fact that members of the audience are throwing money at him. Considering what the low royalty percentages must be for a band like Cannibal Corpse, I would simply put the change in my pocket and call it a day.







Did you know that Danzig sang for Iron Maiden? Well, he didn't...but in this video you can watch Blaze Bayley do his best Danzig impression as fans appear to taunt the band and demand their money back due to his horrendous singing. Let us not forget, however, that Blaze has had a fair share of succesfull projects after his time with Maiden, like being the spokesperson for this hair restoration company.








Paul Stanley vs. Laser Pointer. Watch as Paul breaks character and stops talking like a southern black woman, but only for a second. Kinda hard to take threats seriously when they come from a 63 year old jewish woman in make-up and a rhinestone studded belt.







In case anyone is wondering, no we haven't run out of material. We simply LOVE bloopers. Can you blame us?

The ultimate argument settler

We live in a divided nation. For those reading outside the U.S., the same holds true. We live in a divided planet. Just last week, the United States of America had its presidential election. Similarly, here at Metal Inquisition we are hugely invested in the democratic process. We are also, however, authorities in the world of metal, and with that authority we are more than happy to have final say, and settle any metal argument. As the name of this blog implies, we are judge, jury and excecutioner. Below are our rulings. Well, mine at least. Having said that, we will still hear you guys out, probably just to point out how wrong you are though. So, we have decided to let you, our beloved readers, vote. For all those who are not americans, or do not live in this country...feel free to play along.




1. Best Slayer Album: - Reign In Blood or South of Heaven?
Don't be a wise guy and say "Haunting the Chapel", because that was an EP. Don't be an ass and say "Show No Mercy", that's like nominating the fat girl in your high school for prom queen as a joke. My vote? South of Heaven. The production alone makes it the best album hands down. I don't care how controversial my vote is. I'm sticking to it. By the way, if you vote for Seasons In The Abyss, you're a poser. Everyone knows that's Slayer's "new" album.

2. Dark Angel or Death Angel?
We settled this one ourselves sometime back, but we'd now like to hear from our readers. Again, don't be a smartass and say "Morbid Angel". I proudly vote for Dark Angel, even
though the date and place where the lyrics to each song were written are listed in the liner notes.






3. Norwegian black metal or Swedish death metal?
By Swedish death metal, I'm referring to the first three Entombed albums, early Dismember etc. Tough one, but I have to go with Swedish death metal since it generated less awful third rate bands.

If my brother and I had only had the minimal fashion know how necessary to pull off this look in 1989, we would have done it. Yet another obstacle that stood in our way was the fact that my mom wouldn't let us grow our hair long.

4. American thrash or German speed?
Another controversial one, I know. Though some disagree, when I say "german speed metal" I'm talking about the holy-trinity: Kreator, Destruction, Sodom. If you disagree with what I mean by "German speed", go start your own blog. By American thrash I'm talking about Anthrax, Exodus etc. I would love to say german speed, since its more aggressive and cooler...but the reality is that in 1989 I made my mom buy me bermuda shorts because of Anthrax, and I thought Exodus were the coolest band ever. Guilty.







5. New York City, or Bay area thrash?
Which will it be? Forbidden or Anthrax? Overkill or Exodus? Testament or Nuclear Assault? This one is really tough for me. Damnnit, I may have to go with the Bay-Area.

This cover is of the second printing of the video. I have the original one, since I'm no poser.

6. Hard N' Heavy Grindcore edition or Thrash Metal edition?
The Grindcore one had way scarier animation, whereas the thrash metal one had that creepy metal guy basically assaulting women. For comedic value alone, we have to go with the thrash metal one because it features the Anthrax poodle haircut, and unbelievable interviews with Vio-Lence and the award winning piece on Mordred.







7. Who riffs harder, Prong or Pantera?
Yet another argument as old as time itself. We also ruled on this one at one point, and we called it a draw. I personally have to go with Prong. If you want to know about my reasoning, read the post we did all about this ongoing debate.








8. Earache or Roadrunner?
I don't care what these labels are up to now, I don't even know if they exist. I'm talking about back in the day. Napalm Death vs. Malevolent Creation. Obituary and Suffocation vs Bolt Thrower and Carcass. Because of my current love affair with most things that Obituary has done, I have to go with Roadrunner. Don't be a wise guy and say Grindcore records. Let's keep this orderly.







9. Was Darkthrone better as a Swedish death metal band or as a Norwegian black metal band?
No, you can't just answer "none of the above"...so it's a tough one. I know that Mr. Sargeant D has made an argument for why they were way better as a death metal band...but I may have to side with the black metal years. It's just so hard to cut through the cult of personality around them, and the insanely stupid fans. But once I do, I find the black metal albums to be more interesting, even if they sound terrible and are largely composed of three notes that sound like a fly buzzing in my ear. I guess it's part of the charm.






10. Better compilation, Grindcrusher or Death is Just The Begining?
Man, Grindcrusher just hit the spot back in the day! Morbid Angel, Napalm Death....hot damn! I'll just try to forget all the other awful songs.






11. Best/Worst Colaboration: Anthrax and Public Enemy or Biohazard and Onyx?
Biohazard/Onyx certainly provided the highest cringe factor, but I'd be less than honest if I didn't admit to the fact that I still know all the lyrics to Bring The Noise to thise day due to the 'thrax/P.E. colabo. As such, that's who I'm voting for.

Where are they now: Alex Perialas edition

As though the wacky goatee wasn't enough to let people know that he's not your average old douchebag, he's managed to borrow accessories from the Olson twins' closet to communicate just how awful of a human being he is.

If you ever call Metal Inquisition's World Headquarters and get put on hold due to heavy call volume, nine times out of ten, you'll be listening to the work of master producer Alex Perialas as you wait for someone to pick up on the other end of the line. With an impressive catalog that includes S.O.D.'s "Speak English Or Die" as well as the 12" single for the greatly underappreciated Anthrax masterpiece "Make Me Laugh", his catalog dominates our cassette collections to this day.

Metal Inquisition Facilities Manager Rich Pompeani is the only M.I. employee trusted to care for our beloved Alex Perialas cassette collection. Here we see Rich carefully relabeling one of three Fistful Of Metal dub copies in our collection.

You see, long before Scott Burns was making dozens of dollars producing albums for the likes of Obituary, Sepultura and Hellwitch at Morrisound Studios, Alex Perialas was toiling away behind the knobs for such legendary, life-changing recordings as "U.S.A. for M.O.D." With all this in mind, how could we not use our investigative powers to give our readers more information about the kind of life and fortune that producing Overkill's landmark recording "Fuck You" can grant a man? We simply had to ask:

Where on earth is Alex Perialas?

Well, if you guessed Ithaca, New York...you are right! These days, Alex has traded in the exciting, and opulent life of working with Billy Milano on his vocal overdubs, as well as the privilege of working with Danny Spitz on his guitar solos for a simpler, quieter life. Alex is now an assistant professor at Ithaca College (also known as Cornell's retarded brother). Assistant professor? Can you believe that a guy like Alex can produce a masterpiece like Testament's "New Order" and they still won't give him a tenure track job? Assistant professor? That's all? For having worked on the S.O.D. album alone they should let him be Dean of the school of music, AND be the head of the political science program. Can you think of a better candidate for the job? I sure can't.

Here we see Alex playing S.O.D.'s classic track "Speak English Or Die" to a group of Guatemalan children, as he explains to them that the title of the song was meant to be ironic, and that no harm was meant by it. Sadly, the children didn't understand a word he said since, well....they don't speak English.

So what type of life can you live when royalty checks from Megaforce records are flying in every month (signed by the one and only Johnny Z)? Sadly, not a fantastic one. According to the City of Ithaca's records office, Alex's humble home is valued at a modest $155,000. To our European readers, due to the current exchange rate, that comes out to roughly 6 Euros.

As you can see in this picture of his home, Alex needs to do some weeding pronto. Maybe Bobby Blitz can come over and take care of it, I'm sure he needs some money and steady work right about now.

So has Alex simply faded away into a life in academia? Oh no. Once you've worked on a Pro-Pain album you can't simply hide your production abilities from the world. To the contrary, you must share those abilities. It's for that reason that Alex is now the proud owner of Pyramid Studios, a place that he no doubt imagined would be filled with the kind of action and hot ladies that were commonplace in Anthrax, and Testament recording sessions back in the day. Sadly, thrash metal is dead, and the studio is in Ithaca, so the only thing he's recording is the sound of tumbleweed rolling around in the state of the art drum room. Such is life. Thrash metal is dead. The end of that era came long ago...but at least it's alive in our cassette collections and in our hold music here at M.I. headquarters. In keeping it alive, Alex's spirit will remain alive forever. FOREVER I TELL YOU!

In closing, I say we all watch the video below together and remember a time when both Alex and bermuda shorts reigned supreme. By the way, what the hell was up with Joey Belladonna's mic stand? He had the mic on half a mic stand, which had no base. It looks ridiculous. I can just imagine the tantrums he would have if a roadie didn't have his half-mic stand ready for a show.

"Are you kidding me? Do you expect me to sing into a full mic stand, or even worse, carry my mic around in my hand without my half mic-stand which looks like a broom stick? Oh hell no. I'm not performing under these circumstances! I played drums on I'm The Man! I sang on Madhouse! I deserve better than this!"

Perhaps he was influenced by Kind Diamond's patented femur half-mic stand.

Music to kill yourself by

Between the winter and my pending divorce, I'm pretty bummed these days, and naturally my thoughts are turning toward suicide. Nothing works as a suicide aid like music, and I thought I would share the albums that are driving me to the brink of despair.

Womb/Disciples of Mockery - split CD
This album is a crushing slab of misanthropic, self-destructive sludge that isn't really like anything else I have ever heard. Womb is the brainchild of former Incantation guitarist, Nazi, and general weirdo Craig Pillard, and they play some very fucked up music. It's slow, sludgy, doomy death metal with very disturbing S&M-themed lyrics that leave you feeling all yucky inside in the way that only interfacing with genuinely unhinged people can. With titles like "Thong" and "Bound, Fucked, Humiliated" and lyrics like "I want to taste your saliva," listening to this will put you in a really strange mood to say the least. You'll feel like you need to wash out your brain, and one step closer to killing yourself!



Abruptum - demos
After priming yourself with some Womb, you won't truly feel the self-hatred until you jam some Abruptum. Actually, you don't really "jam" Abruptum so much as bathe in it. Jamming is for bands that have melody, dynamics, structure, and other things that define music. Abruptum is not so much music as sound. I don't remember who said it, but I read some interview years ago with one of the dummies from some band like Emperor where he said "Abruptum is the sound of pure hell," which is the best description I have ever heard. If you are on the verge of suicide, Abruptum is a valuable aid in pushing you over the edge, because they will make you hate not only yourself, but everybody else on the planet. Once you hate everybody and have severed all emotional connections to the people you used to care about, it's trivial to make the decision to say "Goodbye, cruel world!"



Life of Agony- Ugly
Now most people will say that LoA's finest record is "River Runs Red," but they are wrong. "Ugly" is their finest hour, mostly because it is so melancholy and depressing. If you were feeling chipper when you put it on, you'll definitely be in the dumps before it's over! Pretty much every song on this record is fantastically dreary and hopeless, but the track in the video above is especially good for getting yourself amped up for suiciding yourself. It is called "Coffee Break" and is only found on the import version of "Ugly," but thanks to the interweb, it's easy to pirate these days.

"Fears" is another good one to put on when you're laying in the bathtub in some warm water, getting ready to slit your wrists:

No one knows what it's like
No one knows how it feels
Nothing else cuould compare to the fears I fear
And I've been on my own
Struggling all alone
And all I have are these clothes on my back and this song <-- Priceless!!
I never had much I never believed I could be
Someone, somehow, somebody
Said goodbye to all my childhood hopes and dreams
Time to grow up and accept real life responsibilities
Listen
Won't you listen to the things I have to say
'cause it just might affect the way that you think about
How you live from day to day
It may be easy for you
But it seems like hell to me

Wow! What a cornucopia of self-pity! It's the perfect sountrack for peacing yourself out.


16 - Blaze of Incompetence
I got this record when I was 18 or something, and although I didn't "get it" at the time, I sure do now. If we are discussing music to kill yourself by, we would definitely be remiss if we didn't mention it! I think it is one of those records where you have to get beat up by life for a while before you can understand the feeling of "angry surrender" that permeates pretty much every part of it. When you're 18, you haven't really had to deal with enough bullshit to understand how hopeless and annoying life really is. I think one of the lyrics sums it up well: "Life sucks, who cares, get high." Musically, if you are a fan of bands like Dystopia, Cavity, Fudge Tunnel, or Eyehategod, you will enjoy 16, but it's really the lyrical themes that make this record so special.

Successful people make lemonade when life gives them lemons. When they get knocked down, they get back up, dust themselves off, and keep trying. Listening to this album will make sure you are not one of those people. Some bands, like Life Of Agony, will overwhelm you with the pain of life reduce you to tears and make you want to throw yourself on a sword. 16 is a little different, though. After a couple of songs, you won't be sobbing and in pain, you'll just be so annoyed and frustrated with life that you'll chomp on the cyanide pill just to avoid having to talk to your idiot boss the next day.

Download it here




Jessi Malay
Perhaps the one thing in this world that drives me closest to throwing myself on a sword is the fact that Jessi Malay never got popular. Not only is she hot as shit, this song is pretty awesome- the beat is amazingly dark and crushing, and it has a guest appearance from College Park's biggest baller, Yung Joc. She's so cute! If I can't have her, I'm leaving this planet for good.

What's the soundtrack to your next suicide attempt?
You're among friends, we won't judge you if you say Tori Amos or Vanessa Carlton. We draw the line at Michelle Branch, though!

Black Metal-The Prank Call

Perhaps some of you have heard the prank call below at some point, as it's been around for a while. I first heard it from a friend who claimed to know the guys who were responsible for it. I think he said they were in a hardcore band or something like that, and that they had put the call on their demo. You kinda' have put aside the slightly racist, over the top black accent to enjoy it (at least I did), as well as the fact that the whole call is based upon a premise first introduced by A.C. a million years ago (with the song Living Colour Is My Favorite Black Metal Band). Having said that, there are still some gems in there. Certainly helps put the concept of "evil" in black metal further into question.

Cassettes I owned in 1992

As most readers know, all of the Inquisitors are big fans of cassettes. It just seems like the natural format for genres like thrash, generic death metal, and crossover. I mean, can you imagine listening to Master or Desultory on vinyl or CD? Of course not! These days I'm more likely to listen to Forever The Sickest Kids or Miley Cyrus remixes, but here are some cassettes that I owned in 1992, for better or worse.



The Accused - Grinning Like An Undertaker
The Accused had pretty much the perfect formula for getting a 14 year old kid stoked. You could put the poster of the infinitely detailed monster from the album cover on your wall and bounce around your room moshing to the mosh parts and thrashing to the thrash parts, then go see them at some crappy VFW hall and get high in the parking lot with them before the show. What could be better?! Although this record had that regrettable rap song on it (I chalk that one up to signing with Nastymix), it is overall their most consistent release, including some of their best songs like the title track, "Tapping The Vein," and "When I Was A Child." They were one of the first bands where it really wouldn't be possible to classify them as punk or metal. I liked that a lot as a kid since I didn't feel comfortable in either scene, and I liked them even more since they were a local band. Too bad Tommy ruined the band by quitting to start Gruntruck, who were absolutely awful.



Forced Entry - As Above, So Below
As a youngster growing up near Seattle, I was fortunate enough to see Forced Entry many, many times. I won't be "that guy" who goes on and on about the old days, but I will say that one of the most memorable shows I ever went to was Forced Entry and The Accused for free at the amphitheater under the Space Needle, I think it was 91 or 92. It was the day they filmed the video for "Macrocosm, Microcosm," and I'm pretty sure I'm in the video for a split second- I was wearing a black and white plaid shirt, buttoned at the top in my best Mike Muir impression.

Anyhow, their brand of technical thrash was really ahead of its time, and in my opinion still sounds great. They were definitely white trash retards, like everybody else from Mountlake Terrace back then (these days it's much fancier than it was at the time), but their music was much more cerebral and avant garde than their peers. They weren't a bunch of faggoty eggheads, though- they knew how to fuckin' party!! In case you didn't believe them, they proved it with their version of one of the best elements of thrash: the goofy party song (Exodus were good at this too). Forced Entry had not one, but TWO of these on "As Above, So Below": "We're Dicks" and "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," both of which had awesomely retarded lyrics about bongs, blowjobs, and booze.

I could go on about Forced Entry for a long, long time. For example, I could talk about how Brad Hull almost got to be the replacement for James Hetfield when he got burned (he got beat out by the dude from fellow Seattle band Metal Church), how jealous I was that my friend in Himsa got to skate on the singer's ramp back at Brier High, but I'll leave it at that. If you are a fan of weird, angular thrash like Voivod or Coroner, or even progressive death metal like Broken Hope or Oppressor, do yourself a favor and check this album out.

Biohazard - Urban Discipline
We have already discussed Biohazard extensively on Metal Inquisition, so I won't repeat it. Suffice to say that, as one of our readers commented, this album and its accompanying videos were indeed a wiggerish arm movements instructional video, and I loved it!



DRI - Thrash Zone
My friend Kevin gave this to me in gym class in 1990. He said "Here, you can have this, it's too thrash metal for me." His favorite bands were Bad Religion and Red Hot Chili Peppers, although now he plays in western swing bands. I had only seen the video for "Suit And Tie Guy" on a Seattle-area show called Bombshelter Videos, but I knew I was in for a treat! This album is a chopaholic's dream come true: every song goes "chop chop choppa choppa chop" like a well-tuned machine. Also, it's a little funny that DRI pioneered the concept of short songs, yet succumbed to the common 80s practice of making their songs way, way, way too fucking long on this album. I mean who really needs five goddamn minutes of songs like "Gun Control" and "Abduction"? Nonetheless, "Thrashard" is without a doubt one of the best crossover songs ever written and if there was an Academy Award for retarded punk lyrics, it would most certainly win! It was one of the highlights of my life to sing this verse with half a dozen people on a boat before Lucho Metales' bachelor party a couple of years ago:

Thrashing and slamming
Like hell in the pit
Tomorrow they know
May not come
Banging and moshing
Like they don't give a shit
To the rapid beat
Of the drum

A boot to your forehead
A knee in your face
Your nose and lips
Start to bleed
Like a wild Indian
From outer space
Drunk and
High on weed

Your turn
What were your favorite cassettes in 1992? Don't cheat and list stuff you had on vinyl or CD!!

Proof that drummers are retarded (Part 1 of 368)

First and foremost, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I should tell you that I play the drums. I'm not sure if I'm a drummer, but I play the drums.

With that out of the way, I can now tell you something that you may already know: drummers tend to be some of the most odd human beings you'll ever meet. Who on earth would choose such a retarded instrument? It's the least portable instrument (okay, maybe harps and pipe organs are less portable), and one that requires that you physically attack it as though it's your worst enemy. As a result, it should come as no surprise that drummers are weird, unstable human beings. Back when I was in a band, we toured with another band who we were friends with. That band's drummer decided to bring his own pots and pans on tour so he could cook using his own equipment while on tour. I made fun of him relentlessly for this reason, only to realize that I myself had packed and brought an extensive array of cleaning and disinfectant sprays and fluids on tour with me. An array so plentiful, that it would have even been impressive to any C-Level executive at Procter and Gamble. I suddenly realized that drummers were in fact weird, but also that I was part of the problem. I was certainly guilty of falling in love with, and nurturing my childish idiosyncrasies. With that story out of the way, you can now more meaningfully enjoy these retarded drummers.



Did you ever want to see an instructional video featuring your balding uncle Frank showing you how to play a blast beat? Your dream has finally come true:





If I were his drums, I'd be afraid of being eaten. I feel bad for the dude, because he clearly has to run his own video equipment, since he has no one to help him. When you see and hear him play drums, you understand why no one wants to be around him, let alone help him. Nice Umbro shorts though.







This guy has the world's fastest feet, and I'm not just saying that. He won a contest. Have you ever heard the old joke about the special olympics? Even if you win at the special olympics, you're still retarded. (Insert rimshot sound effect)






I bet his mom cries herself to sleep.






This is a true story. When I met Mr. Gene Hoglan's Balls, I went to his apartment and saw a pair of drumsticks in his bedroom. I asked him if he played the drums, and he told me "No, I use those for air-drumming". The fact that an adult man, would air drum with drumsticks was shocking to me, but judging by this video, I guess it's common practice. I think for christmas, I'll buy Gene Hoglan's Balls a guitar pick so he can air-guitar.





An oldie but a goodie. Further proof that drummers are weird, and since british people are weird too, Mick Harris is pretty much a perfect storm of stupidity.