Separated at Birth: Olympic Edition

I know that, in the top 1000 least metal things to do, watching the Olympic Games ranks just below buying your dog a Halloween costume. But it's not my fault. Last weekend I came down with a bad, bad case of Olympic Fever (almost as contagious as Robb Flynn Disease). I didn't watch 5 minutes of the Olympics in 2004, but I'm addicted to the damn thing this year.

Anyway, I was discussing with the old lady (aka my ball-and-chain), which Olympic athletes we'd pork. Alicia Sacramone and Misty May were my top 2, of course. Then she mentioned Michael Phelps. I'm so metal, I only heard about this dude 7 days ago, but I know enough to know he's ugly as an old man's armpit. I couldn't believe she'd say his name! "Dude, he's fucking ugly!" I told her, "He looks mildly retarded, for Pete's sake! He looks like... he looks like..." Holy shit. That's when it dawned on me! Michale Phelps and Dan Lilker were separated at birth!

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Besides their horrible looking face, oddly shaped chin, over sized nose and previously mentioned mentally handicapped demeanor, these two guys have a lot in common. Phelps has won 11 Olympic medals, Lilker has been in 11 shitty bands. Phelps is a dumb flag waiving patriot, Lilker was in SOD... The similarities keep coming:

Their tooth-to-gum ratio is exactly the same


They both look great in shorts. OK, maybe not.


Their sleepy eyes and weird jaw-line makes me want to give them both a hug. Or a drop kick to the face.

The one place were they differ is who they hang out with. Lilker mostly hangs out with loser metalheads has-been's and never-were's in the NY area. Meanwhile, Phelps chills with the president, Bob Costas, Bill Clinton, Paris Hilton, John Travolta and other famous peeps.

Phelps with a few friends


Lilker with a few friends

As always, here's a random image i found while researching this post. Enjoy.

Twisted Sister: Leaders of the Wack Pack

So, we all know what tools Twisted Sister were/are, correct? In case you forgot, peep the video of their version of "Leader of the Pack".



The Shangri-Las probably never saw this video and thank God! There's only one thing sadder than Dee Snyder wearing a white leather jacket with fringe and that is a bunch of 80's glam "dudes" chanting "Yeah, we see", "Down, down" and "New, new."

I know they didn't exactly take the song or the video seriously, but these guys were retarded clowns, period. Dude, they wear sunglasses at night. I've hit dudes for doing that in bars in Brooklyn!

I know, of course, there will be the usual poser fags who will claim that TS was awesome and influential and God knows what other stupid shit, BUT let me remind you: This is Metal Inquisition, not Lame-Ass-Poser Inquisition. If you want to talk about TS and their make-up and shitty riffs or any other glam band, you should go here.

You're gonna tell me that these assfucks look like metal dudes? If you think this is metal, you need to pop in the 'Reign in Blood' cassette in your walkman, set it to auto-reverse and crank the fucker to 11.

A few more things that made me chuckle when watching this piece of garbage:

- Mr. Spock poster in the girls room.
- Cameo by Bobcat Goldthwait.
- One of the dudes is really short and looks hilarious standing next to the others.

The one thing i do find cool is the matching denim vests. I'm gonna buy some for the MI staff and we'll be as cool as these gents.

Metal + Hip Hop. A Marriage Made In Heaven.

When people talk about landmark moments in the blending of metal and hip hop (or "rap" if you so desire), they often bring up the classic Anthrax tune "I'm The Man". Those with more metal pedigree will talk about Downset, Biohazard or the drum machine breakdown in the Atheist song "Earth." Others will talk about when Chris Barnes started to wear JNCO jeans, or Chuck Billy getting cornrows.


Those in the know will dig deeper. Yes, these examples are from two bands that many would not qualify as "metal" per se...but watch the videos below and you will see that these are incredibly important moments in musical history.

First, Paul Stanley raps to a littler person wearing a cape and guy on stilts while wearing a red leather jacket. Listen closely to hear him say "what be this". This song alone set back race relations in America a good 30 years.




The second example is from the Rush song "Roll The Bones". In order to connect with a young audience, Geddy and the boys hired a rapping skeleton from Toronto's booming hip hop scene to come down to the studio and spit some lines. Watch the skeleton keep time with his foot. He's one cool dude. If this doesn't show you how disconnected and white Canadians are, nothing will. *





*Sorry to any Canadian readers, but you know it's true.

King Diamond: King of YouTube

My heart got crushed a lot as a kid. First there was no Santa, no Easter Bunny and no Tooth Fairy. Then I discovered that, to my dismay, King Diamond wasn't really the scary monster I thought (and hoped) he was. Man, I used to be scared of him, no joke! We had a Metal Hammer poster on the wall of our room and I didn't look at it at night, 'cuz it used to creep me the fuck out. "Them" is a scary-ass record and the videos weren't really light either. OK, so the band members were pretty glammy-faggy and definitely not scary, but you know what I mean.
As I grew older the fantasy began to dwindle. We (Lucho Metales and I) have talked a lot on MI about various meetings with the Danish Dwarf and how he's as scary as a plate of under-cooked strawberry pancakes. Sadly, these days KD occupies a place in my life which he shares with Carlton Banks, pogs and Thrasher Magazine. You know, those things that make you smirk to yourself when you think about them. Sorry, Speegster, KD is a bit of a joke...



This one is pretty funny. Of course, I'd done a way better job, but I did chuckle a few times. Who knew that the youngsters could be sarcastically funny like this?



Sure, this chick is ugly and has a terrible voice, but something about this video makes want me want to bend her over and record a few intros for a MeatShits 7".



This one has gotten around a bit... I can't tell if the teen on the left is a dude or an ugly broad. All in all, tho, I have to admit I think this video is pretty rad. Here's a quote from Blabbermouth about the clip (thanks, Seth):
In a statement released to BLABBERMOUTH.NET, King Diamond, who saw the clip for the first time earlier this week, said, "OH MY GOD!!!! That just blew me away!!!! Absolutely 200% AWESOME! I [have always said that] we have the best fans in the world! It's so hilarious and at the same time it really makes me feel so honored seeing the level of dedication and how much our fans get out of our music!!"



Best for last. Remember a band named Metallica? Yeah, they were awesome. This video illustrates two theories of mine: King Diamond is a tool and Metallica used to be awesome dorky fun-loving guys, before they became rock-star prick-fucker looser righ-wing assbags.

A SkullKrushing Vinyl Collection (part 3)

Welcome to part 3 of "A SkullKrushing Vinyl Collection," brought to you today by Megaforce Records. If you care, here's parts 1 and 2.

So, here's a few more records from my crates along with a few more stories from my... my... my... my... I don't know. Something that rhymes with "crates"



Alright! Laaz Rockit! What could be better than a cheesy California thrash band? Well, a cheesy California thrash band that misspells the words in it's name on purpose, of course! Well, this is a test pressing of the Rockit's second effort "No Stranger to Danger " that came out in '85. I scored this jewel for $3 at Jerry's, of course. Jerry's is to record stores what double-sided dildos are to the world of adult toys.
I think it's pretty cool to own a record like this, 'cuz when I tell ladies about it, all they wanna do is rip my Testament shirt off and lick my hairy chest. True story. OK, maybe not.



You can file these 3 records under the "You are the luckiest SOB I know" category. When we were in Amsterdam on tour in Europe with my band, we met a guy from a label who wanted to put out some shit of ours. The label had done cool releases before, so I was going to agree anyway, but I guess he felt I needed a little incentive. He offered me his entire Maiden collection. All 11 pieces. I took it all, of course. These 3 picture disc singles are just a sample. If you ever come to my house I might let you see the rest. But, you have to show me your boobies first.



We all know what a dbag Danzig is. The quintessential egomaniac with a Napoleon complex and a serious case small-dick-testosterone-surplus. I got this double 7" bootleg in Eastern Europe somewhere during the same European tour with my band. The sound is so bad, I can only barely recognize one song and it's Samhain, not even Danzig. Still, this is one of my favorite records in my collection. Why? It comes with a poster, dude!



I saw Excruciating Terror in Berkeley once. It was at a Fiesta Grande, so you know the audience was chuck-full-o-PC fags. All these pseudo politically involved bands had been playing and then ET went on. Someone started screaming at them about a song of theirs being racist or sexist or something. I don't know if you have ever seen these dudes, but I wouldn't wanna fuck with them, that's for sure. Anyway, the singer looked at this hippie in the audience and asked him: "Hey, what do you say to a girl with 2 black eyes? - Nothing, you already told her twice." The place went nuts with boos and ET exploded onto their brutal set. It was classic! I got this 7" from Wild Rags, where I'd gotten their demo a few years back. Man, Mexicans can really rock.



I really don't know what to say about these 2 records. Maybe I should say that it's fucking bizarre that nerds out there have offered me up to $300 for the AC / Meat Shits split. Maybe I should say that I'm often embarrassed to own these. Maybe I should say that I own more than a few Meat Shits cassettes. I really should kill myself and this world a better place. Especially for my family.



I'm finishing up with OZ for two reasons:
1. OZ is the awesomest thing to come out of Finland since Mika Hakkinen.
2. I'm working on another classic post on these rockers for next week.

Funny to think that Megaforce records lasted as long as they did putting out shit like this...

MIOSoMA: MegaMetal vs. RockCards

In 1991 the world of metal was turned upside down with the release of not one, but two collections of heavy metal cards. In one hand you had Impel's MegaMetal and in the other Brockum's RockCards. Even tho I had a few cards of each back in the day, I acquired both complete sets in mint condition in 2001. I traded a mint set of 15th series GPKs for them in a non-sports card convention in Philly. Hey, we are all nerds here, right?
Anyway, today, the question that has been haunting the metal scene for 17 years will be answered: which set of metal cards was better? After an ardous investigation I came up with the answer. Which set got the Metal Inquisition Seal of Metal Approval (MISoMA, for short)? Read on and find out.
(I know there was some other set with Motorhead and a few other metal bands, but it also had Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer, so excuse me if I try to forget that that collection ever existed.)

The Basics
First of all, MegaMetal is a way cooler name than RockCards. MegaMetal's logo has a skull in it and the cards have a black border on them. RockCards have poser gradient colored borders. All rainbowy and gay. MegaMetal also has checklist cards, which made writing this thing a lot easier. MegaMetal is off to a good start.

This image is here specifically for the spookyspeegster, who always complains about the lack of King Diamond in MI.

Size. Does it matter?
MegaMetal's basic set was only 150 cards, while RockCard's basic set was 288, plus 16 stickers. But is this an issue of quality vs quantity? I don't know, but I'll award one point to RockCards.
(Please note: There was holograms, promo cards and gay shit like that on both sets, but let's stick to the basic set)

RockCard's set included pretty bad-ass art stickers

The Poser Factor
MegaMetal featured such poser kings as Bon Jovi, Firehouse, Skid Row, Heaven's Edge (who?), The Front (who?), Vixen (!), Slaughter and L.A. Guns. That's a total of 73 hair-poser cards. That's 2 cards short of half the set.
Not to be outdone, RockCards had Winger, Cinderella, Poison, Skid Row, Warrior Soul (ew!), Whitesnake, Slaughter, Tangier (who?), Warrant, Sisters of Mercy (why?), Bon Jovi, Motley Crue and Salty Dog (who?). That's 144 poser cards. That's exactly half.
By 2 cards MegaMetal comes up on top here, so I'll give them the point. Still, on both sets half of the cards are hair-metal. We all lose.

Seriously, if anyone has current addresses for any of these assclowns, let me know. They are just begging for a beating. Denim shorts (x2)? Are you fucking kidding me?

WTF?
Each set has a few cards that seem to come out of nowhere and do not seem to fit.
MegaMetal has 7 Billy Squire cards. I didn't know Billy was metal, much less "mega" metal. Add 8 Robert Plant cards to that and 8 McAuley Schenker Group cards. That adds up to 23 more cards we can chuck.
RockCards gives us Katmandu (5 cards), Dan Reed Network (5 cards. Who the fuck are these people?), Junkyard (10 cards), Deep Purple (6 cards), Yes (4 cards), The Moody Blues (4 cards), Pink Floyd (4 cards), Iggy Pop (2 cards), Stevie Ray Vaughan (1 card) and Clarke-Rotondo (who? - 1 card) . Total 42 useless cards. This is pretty sad.

I have no clue who the fuck Dan Reed is or why he has a "Network", but what I do know is that they look like idiots.
This why I support tough immigration policy. We could easily deport these dbags.

Surprise!
Both collections have a few gems in there. A few cards you wouldn't expect, but make the set a little awsomer. MegaMetal gives us a Dark Angel card, 11 Iron Maiden record cover cards, 4 M.O.D. cards and 5 King Diamond cards. Not bad, right? Can RockCards match that? Well, not in the basic set, but the 16 sticker set has 2 Slayer covers, 4 Iron Maiden art cards, 2 Pushead cards, and 6 Megadeth's Vic art cards. This is a tough call, but you can't deny Dark Angel. Even if it's just one cards, that's pretty metal. I'm going with MegaMetal on this one, too.

The card that might end up tipping the scale

Down to Business
OK, all the cards we've talked about are the special ones, but what about the rest. The ones we are left with once we throw away all the shit. Well, both sets have Iron Maiden, but MegaMetal features Nuclear Assault, Priest and Dio. Not bad, not bad. RockCards? Well, they got AC/DC, Anthrax, Sabbath, Megadeth, Testament and Exodus. That's also not bad either, but I think Nuclear Assault and Dark Angel are way more Metal. Sorry, MegaMetal on top again.

A couple or rad RockCards of Steve Souza.I can almost hear him: "Do... the Toxic Waltz!"

Individual Cards
The competition is too close to call at this point. What I'm gonna do is look at a few more cards from both sets and make the decision. After all, most people out there don't collect complete sets non-sports cards like I do, so this might end up being the fairest way to judge.

Knock, knock... Who's there?... Tangier... Tangier who?... Exactly.

Yeah, it's 3 different dudes. Seriously, it's 3 different dudes. Yeah, they are dudes.

Damn, it's grampa Lou and uncle Earl!

Lame-ass motorcycle pic, Bad-ass motorcycle pic.

Separated at birth? Nice boots there, brizzy!
That's the beds that Mustaine gives members of Megadeth on tour. Good luck fitting in there, Nick!

MegaMetal has pretty bad-ass Maiden cards. they are way better than RockCards.
Gotta love the hyper-typical Dave Murray "oh-face".

The inclusion of these dipshits is costing RockCards serious points.
They look like rejected extras in a Miami Vice episode.

This dickhead makes me want to kill my family and then spread my brains all over the kitchen table.
GOD! Why does this picture make me SO FUCKING ANGRY?

I went to college with dudes like this. I punched them in the kisser as often as I could.
Die you fucking hippie. DIE!

The world is a worse place because of this picture.
If you stare at this fucking pole smoker long enough, you'll go blind. Try it.

I don't know anything about this band, except that their Photoshop skills equal that of a lab baboon with serious brain damage.
You know, 'cuz the testing they did on'em.

Veredict?
Well, back in the 90's I was all about MegaMetal. I liked the name and the logo, I guess. After writing this post, tho, I'm not so sure. I mean, RockCards have more cards in the set and they have the nice stickers. But they have too much glam shit... MegaMetal has Vixen and MSG, but also King Diamond and Dark Angel. It's a tough call, but I'm going with MegaMetal. I'm gonna trust my 16-year-old gut.

MegaMetal cards get the MISoMA! Congratulations!

Great moments in art history: Voivod

There's a few things out there that sound good on paper, but in reality are pretty gay and people who like them should be treated as criminals. Things like snowboarding, video games in general, the Sopranos, Buddhism and Voivod.

There's not many bands out there I hate as much as I hate Voivod. I know there's a whole bunch of people out there who love them and will be quick to tell me what an ignorant fool I am for hating these Canucks, but I despise their music. Maybe I don't get it, but I hate their whole discography. From the early thrashier shit to the 90's stuff to the new shit. I hate it all. Just give me some serious fucking metal without all the techno-esoterical shit, you know? But there's more to my hatred... I think the reason I hate them so much is 'cuz they should have ruled. Voivod should be the raddest band ever! I mean all the elements of a shredding band were there! A cool name, good band member names, awesome image, and they were on a cool label. Even all that sci-fi robotic bullshit they were into, that now seems so fucking retarded, was cool back in the day. But the one thing that Voivod had going for them that, in my opinion, gave the obligation to rock hard was their artwork. Man, their logo was bad-ass and their records were chuck-full of awesome artwork. (I know that anything after 1989 sucks Canadian-hockey-loving-balls, but the early art was amazing and that's what this post is about)

These guys looked the part. What a waste of good bullet belts.

Sadly, however, Away, Piggy, Snake, Puppy, Teletubby and Sleepy formed a band that just sucked and found enough imbeciles with serious intelligence and taste deficiency to have a following that keeps them going to this day. I'd rather own one embroidered Voivod patch than their entire discography on limited edition 24k gold CDs.
Imagine if all Voivod fans would have saved the money they have spent on sub-par technical shit metal and put it in a jumbo-jar instead. Imagine how much money would be in that jumbo-jar? Millions of dollars, I'm sure. Millions of dollars we could have used to help the victims of today's world tragedies: the earthquake in China, the Cyclone in Burma, the food crisis in Africa or the Cavalera Conspiracy.

Anyway, let's take a closer look at some sweet, sweet art...

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Even in the early days Away's art was pretty metal. The type is rad and the tank has fucken spikes on the tracks. I'm a bit disappointed that the perspective is pretty good in the tank and the logo. I'd love to have seen a really crooked way off perspective, which would have been WAY more metal.

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Again, hand-written metal type is back and becomes a staple of Voivod's visual repertoire. IMO, this is the raddest piece of art Voivod produced. The logo is incredible and that techno-skull is as bad as the baddest riff Jeff Hanneman ever wrote.


Here's a further exploration of the techno-skull ("The Voivod"). This ranks #3 in the all-time best back-patch of all times list, after the Motörhead England skull and Venom's Black Metal.




Finally, the techno-skull comes into maturity. This is the best of all Voivod logos. It's got spikes and spaceship/building looking shit. It's just metal. This is the type of record I'd frame and when people asked me why I did that, I'd tell them "cuz the Gods of Metal have given us a gift. A gift of amazing Metal Art and I want to thank them, and honor them, by framing it" And then they'd ask me how I can listen to the record if it's framed, to which I'd reply "The Gods of Metal hate Canada, so the record is not worth listening to."

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I know what you are thinking: "I could have done this!" And you are right. My landlord's kid could have done a better logo and he's autistic. You gotta admit, tho, it's a pretty metal logo. Look at those spikes! Sure, the "D" is more like a sleeping "P", but I'm sure Away wasn't going for legibility. They are French-Canadian, dude, they don't even speak American. The perspective and foreshortening on The Voivod are prime. It looks and feels cubist, which we all know is just a label for talentless artists to hide under. Dude, look at that machine gun, the gas mask, the bullet arm-band, the Oderus Urungus-like shoulder pads... this is a Metal Masterpiece, if I ever saw one.

Cubist art was an obvious influence on Away's art

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I'm not sure why, but as a teen I thought RRROOOAAARRR was the best name for a record ever. Of course, I also wore a golden razor blade earring, so what did I know. Well, this cover is a natural progression from the previous one. Away sticks to the always reliable red/white/black color combo and may the Virgin Mary bless him for that (Do Canadians believe in the Virgin? Savages). It feels like the camera panned out from the War and Pain cover and revealed more of The Voivod. Plenty of spikes, once again. The Road Warriors pads make an encore and we appreciate them, once again. Also making a welcome re-appearance are the spike tracks on the tank. Nobody wants to fuck with a pissed off looking hunchback metal robotic tank thing with a knife. There's also a little Ed Roth thing going on here.

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I'm not sure why The Voivod turned into an old tape recorder/ghost grinder, but this cover is the beginning of the end. All the perspective and cubist experimentation is gone and we are left with a flat dead-on view of the subject. The spikes are all but gone and replaced with rivets. The colors are as poser as they can get and that gradient is pretty generic and does not help the static composition. I'm not sure about the bandages around his waist (right around where the cassette goes), maybe all the ghost-grinding takes up a lot of calcium and causes ribs to weaken. After this record Voivod's art went to the shit dumpster. Seriously, the covers from now on are so bad they almost match the terribleness of their music.

Ghosts maybe scary, but they are 0% metal.

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I was looking for a pic of someone sporting a rad Voivod tattoo to close the post, but I couldn't find one. What I did find was a photo of Lita Ford.