Just ask Gaahl of Gorgoroth, Satan is the wind beneath the wings of many Metal bands.

According to a recent interview, Gaahl also has a thing for Norwegian modeling agents, but thats another story.

Here is Gaahl explaining his inspiration in Metal A Headbanger’s Journey.

Thats right, a long dramatic pause and then answering ‘Satan’ makes for a good interview answer. I don’t care what they ask you.

Remember kids, while Gaahl might take you to court over a band name or be designing your clothing, he doesn’t have any exclusive rights to Satan.

Winnie the Poo does.

From RichManofAction, I give you Heavy Metal 101- How to Finger Tap

Packed with insight seldom found on Youtube, RichManofAction makes no excuses of why to learn such a revered Heavy Metal Art as Finger Tapping

Watch and learn

…we do hope that KARMA visits some heavy bad shit on these assholes:

According to The Detroit Free Press IGGY AND THE STOOGES’ equipment was stolen on Monday, August 4 outside the Embassy Suites Hotel (2008 Saint Antoine Ouest) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The equipment’s dollar value is estimated to be in the tens of thousands, said Eric Fischer, the band’s road manager. But he described some items as priceless — including the vintage Gibson bass that had been Mike Watts’ go-to instrument since his MINUTEMEN days in the 1980s.

“That bass would go in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame someday if we could find it,” said Fischer. “We’re all just gutted.”

The yellow, 15-foot Penske truck was discovered missing by Fischer about 7:30 yesterday morning. It had been parked on the street directly in front of the Embassy Suites hotel in Montreal, where Iggy Pop and his band mates had lodged after their Sunday night concert — their first Canadian show in more than three decades. Inside was everything from Scott Asheton’s drum kit to Ron Asheton’s guitars and amps.

List of stolen goods:

Red roadcase containing:
Red Gibson 1963 EB-3 bass (this is mike watt’s bass!) USA No serial number

Black roadcase containing:r
Reverend Flying V guitar - Volcano black USA #08001

Black roadcase containing:
Reverend Orange guitar USA 03416 ZSL7

Black fibre case containg:
Gibson red SG short scale bass USA No serial number

Black roadcase containing:
Marshall Vintage/Modern Amplifier UK M-2007-07-0926-2 RoHS

Black roadcase containing:
Marshall Vintage/Modern Amplifier UK M-2007-07-0927-2 RoHS

4x Marshall 4×12 Cabinets (with Tuki cover) UK #1 Slant: M-2007-05-0149-0

4x Marshall 4×12 Cabinets (with Tuki cover) UK #2 Straight: M-2006-49-0380-0

4x Marshall 4×12 Cabinets (with Tuki cover) UK #3 Slant: M-2007-05-0150-0

4x Marshall 4×12 Cabinets (with Tuki cover) UK #4 Straight: M-2006-49-0381-0

Orange Calzone road case containing:
Guitar pedal board and pedals USA/Japan No serial number
Assorted leads USA/UK No serial number
2x mic stands Germany No serial number
Assorted strings and spares USA No serial number
plus:
2x Boss TU2 Chromatic Tuner
Boss CH1 Super Chorus
Fulltone OCD Overdrive
Crybaby Wah
Peterson Strobo-Stomp Tuner Pedal
Whirlwind A/B Boxes
Whirlwind Cable Tester
and many many istrument cables
various tools ( screwdrivers, soldering iron, pliers, etc… )
tambourine and maracas

Cardboard box containing:
Assorted replacement drum heads USA No serial number

Gretsch Silver Sparkle Catalina drum kit USA No serial number
26″ Kick Drum No serial number
13″ Rack Tom No serial number
18″ Floor Tom No serial number
4x Cymbal Stands No serial number
1x Snare Stand No serial number
1x Hi Hat Stand No serial number
1x Drum Throne No serial number

Eden D810 Bass cabinet USA D810RP4 0703E5001

Eden D810 Bass cabinet USA D810RP4 0703E5002

Cardboard box containg:
Eden VT300 Bass amplifier USA 0601E5115

Cardboard box containg:
Eden VT300 Bass amplifier USA 0507E5033

Floor Fan CHINA No serial number

Floor Fan CHINA No serial number

Green clamshell suitcase containing:
Yamaha snare drum JAPAN No serial number
Yahama kick pedal JAPAN No serial number
Zildjian Mega Bell cymbal USA No serial number
Zildjian 15″ Hi-Hats USA No serial number
3x Zildjian 18″ 19″ 20″ crash medium cymbals USA No serial number

Brown Epiphone guitar case:
Black Epiphone EB3 short scale bass KOREA F300503

1 x Wheeled Black Pelican case (50cm x 28cm x 20cm) containing :
A selection of microphones and microphone accessories, most of which are in separately labeled black pouches. All of the microphones are of Shure manufacture, also a BSS DI box. Inside the Pelican case there is also a Ferrari pencil case containing an iPod, iPod accessories, various small cables and adaptors, a Leatherman Charge, a Stooges AAA tour laminate, some pain killers, some sharpies, some electrical tape, some business cards (Mr Rik Hart). Within the case there is also a big pair of Sony headphones (model MDR7506) with a long curly cable and three very long XLR to XLR mic cables. Here’s a more specific list of the microphones :
2 x SM91
5 x SM98
2 x B98
2 x SM81
2 x KSM32
1 x KSM27
2 x B52
3 x SM57
8 x SM58
1 x BSS AR-133 DI Box
(all manufactured by shure)

If anyone has ANY information, please contact:
Eric Fischer at:
nycentral13@gmail.com
cell phone: +1 646 932 1907

all equipment was in a rented penske 15 foot yellow truck
with u.s. (michigan) license plate number AC46493
parked immediately outside the embassy suites hotel
in montreal. the theft had to have happened in the morning, between 6:30 and 7:30 am - truck and all gear stolen

‘ >
Iggy and The Stooges - I Wanna be Your Dog

James Hetfield is 45 today so I’ll give him a break and not say anything derogatory about Metallica. In fact, I’ll even wish them luck with their upcoming album:

Have a Hella Birthday, Hetfield!

Thats right. Next time you are in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, stop by the KISS Coffeehouse.

What? You’ll be down at Broadway at the Beach, 1320 Celebrity Circle #CS7 on September 6th?

Well hot damn, you can see KISS guitarist Tommy Thayer (fake Ace).

So go grab yourself a Demon Dark Roast or a Iced Rockiato (I’m sure those are trademarked) and enjoy rocking Kiss Coffee Party with contests, live music and Tommy Thayer (not Ace).

Charlotte NC - The Charlotte Observer has a great article about local musician Eric Bryant who is working on a heavy metal album for children, with a $2,445 grant from the Arts & Science Council.

Bryant, father of two, ages 3 and 5, works with children at the Easter Seals/UCP Child Development Center in Charlotte and is drawing from his own fathering experience to put child oriented lyrics to metal and hard rock rifs. Good manners and learning to count to 10 in Spanish instead of Satan, sex, and drugs.

The album will be finished this winter and currently doesn’t have a distributer.

Eric Bryant’s album titled Metal for Munchkins will hopefully be playing at a playground near you soon.

Check out the video

Voivod’s a hell of a thing.

When I came across their first album (1984’s “War and Pain”) in the old Tower Records in Tacoma, I knew I had something special. It took me years to fully understand it and by then the band had outdistanced me and were off to other planets, other dimensions and other bass players. I bought a copy (eight dollars and 98 cents would buy you a sweet piece o’ vinyl in those days), took it home and put it on the turntable. What came out of the speakers was not what I expected. But then, what had I been expecting? Another Slayer clone or third-rate Metallica? Probably. But I wasn’t very discerning then, anyway, and a third-rate Metallica was still better than the unholy Boy George/Michael Jackson/Duran Duran triumvirate that dominated radio and MTV at the time. After all, I did own cassettes like Thrust’s “Fist Held High” (with the non-classic “Poser Will Die”), Omen’s “Battle Cry” and even some band called Vyper that looked like typical L.A. Hair Metal dudes trying to go in a more Power Metal direction.

So, “War and Pain”…

Chances are I would have played it a few times and then sold it along with Thrust, Omen and Vyper to the local second-hand record store for dope money if it wasn’t anything special. But it was. It was more than special – it was unusual. To this day, I can’t think of a record that sounds anything like it (except for Voivod’s second album, RRRÖÖÖAAARRR, but even by then the band was already stretching its black, leathery wings to include strange bits of cybernetic horror and mechanized paranoia). The closest I can come is to maybe compare it to Motörhead on acid or possibly some weird Venom/Germs hybrid filtered through a science fiction junkie’s brain. It sure as hell was the noisiest record I’d ever heard. At times the band sounds barely in control of their own songs and guitarist Piggy’s masterful use of dissonant chords, echo-effects and over-the-top distortion makes his guitar seem like one of the machineries of Death that vocalist, Snake, keeps screaming about as if he keeps waking up in the middle of a nightmare only to discover that everything he ever feared has come true. Original bass player, Blacky (appropriately listed as playing “Blower Bass” on the album) rumbles underneath with the second most distinguishable bass sound in the history of Metal (number one being, of course, Lemmy) and drummer, Away (also the artist responsible for all of Voivod’s incredible and unique cover art) relentlessly hammers away with slightly-demented time-signatures in a post-apocalyptic fury.

Besides the noise, the second thing that strikes the discerning listener (or third thing, if you count the afore-mentioned amazing cover art) is the cohesion of the record. This is the debut album of a fledgling rock band—a fledgling Canadian rock band (not sure why that matters, but somehow, it does)—but already Voivod has tied everything together with an a character—The Voivod himself, a future-past survivor of some cataclysmic war—and a sound that never varies while simultaneously avoiding redundancy. Even the look of the band at this time was in unison. It wasn’t quite a concept album (that wouldn’t happen until their fourth album, the brilliant masterpiece, Dimension Hatröss) but it was a concept—one that the band kept throughout their career, varying it, tweaking it and updating it but never losing sight of it.

From the opening sounds of chains being dragged while Piggy pulls some volumatic tricks on his “Burning Metal Axe”, already something is different. The noise-collage that begins the eponymous track conjures up the nuclear war-ravaged, post-apocalyptic wastelands that Voivod wanted us to envision. Then Snake (simply and correctly listed as “Throat”) kicks off a wake-up call to all those who would dare venture into those wastelands -: “VOIVOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!” - while Blacky and Away steamroll us into submission. We’re off and we’re not looking back. We may never return. Ahead of us we have “Warriors of Ice”, the “Iron Gang”, “War and Pain”, the “Black City” and “Nuclear War” (again?!!!) to look forward to. The mysterious “Blower” doesn’t bode well and “Suck Your Bone” could refer to The Hills Have Eyes-like bands of roving cannibals or perhaps there is some weird sexual connotation there—whatever, it still contains what I consider to be the single greatest line in the history of Rock ‘n’ Roll: “Go, shit, I’m not a fish!”*. And the whole thing is summed up concisely halfway through Side 2 with “Live For Violence”.

By the end of the album you’re lying in a pool of toxic sweat, smoke rising out of your ears from overload, crying tears of blood…but there is a big, goofy smile on your face just the same. Then you flip the record over and start all over again…

In later years, Voivod refined their sound and stretched the boundaries of both their and their listener’s imaginations. The raucous, blood, dirt and machinery grind of their first two slabs of mammoth noise mutated intentionally into an amazing Prog-Metal/Thrash/Psychedelic fusion that continued to challenge and dumbfound many who just couldn’t grasp their unique brilliance. But this, their first offering, remains completely belligerent and insane and heavy as all fucking get-out.

“Voivod – I’m a paranoid

Voivod – the wine of blood

Voivod – I’m a crazy god

Voivod – the ferocious dog” - “Voivod”, Voivod (music by Voivod, lyrics by Snake)

*For the exceptionally curious, the second greatest line in Rock ‘n’ Roll comes from Gene Vincent who sang “Be bop a lula, she’s my baby”…genius!

I’m not sure what The Fucking Wrath smokes or eats for breakfast but I want some of that.
Hailing from Ventura CA, these three make some wonderful 21 Century protometal.
“To the Eels” has some great screaming thrash in the beginning and then they slip into a fucking beautiful 70’s rock rif, drop the bottom out of it, then return to the thrash.

Their myspace gives a quick band member run down and equiptment.

craig/guitar-sovtek mig100-h, sunn 4/12 cab, 2 marshall 4/12s, orange or120, hiwatt 4/12cab nick/bass-sunn 300 colossium head,acoustic 4/15cab, peavy head w/2/15 cab john/drums-HE HITS FUCKING HARD.

yeah, it sounds like that.

Distortion and tight knitted drum & bass lines, inspired screaming vocals, and blues-based guitar rifs make for some fist pumping, kick ass METAL.

Their new album ‘SEASON OF EVIL’ comes out on aug. 14th on Goodfellow Records.
I will do my damnest to get a hold of one.
And….

They fucking opened for Blue Cheer. How cool is that.

If you are in LA check out The Fucking Wrath on August, 1 2008 at the relax bar w/SOURVEIN
5511 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, 90027
$10

I think KD mentioned these guys on a MySpace blog when stuff was all broken
I wanted to link up the trailer to the movie

Heavy Metal in Baghdad is a feature film documentary that follows the Iraqi heavy metal band Acrassicauda from the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 to the present day. Playing heavy metal in a Muslim country has always been a difficult (if not impossible) proposition but after Saddam’s regime was toppled, there was a brief moment for the band in which real freedom seemed possible. That hope was quickly dashed as their country fell into a bloody insurgency. From 2004-2007, Iraq disintegrated around them while Acrassicauda struggled to stay together and stay alive, always refusing to let their heavy metal dreams die. Their story echoes the unspoken hopes of an entire generation of young Iraqis.

To see more: www.http://www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com/

Looks like we missed the screenings, someone buy the DVD and tell me what you think.

When I was but a wee King D, I used to pester my parents into buying bubblegum cards every time we ended up at a 7-11 (remember when trading cards actually came with bubblegum?  Or, to be more specific - rock-hard, pink chalk that would maybe make a bubble if you chewed eight or nine pieces simultaneously).  Mostly I got Star Wars cards because I was never into sports, but at the tail end of '78, the marketing genius that is Greed…er…I mean, Gene Simmons, unleashed these goodies upon the world:  KISS bubblegum cards!

Because being the featured pin-up in 16 Magazine on a weekly basis was just not enough!!!

Anyway, as a short trip down memory lane, I thought I'd display my ALL-TIME FAVORITE KISS Bubblegum cards.  And, yes, most of them are of Ace Frehley…

The sad part of this story is that along about 1982 or so, I figured I was growing out of my infatuation with KISS and getting into more "serious" music, so I sold my entire KISS bubblegum card collection to a guy named Mike (I barely knew him then but later we became best friends, ironically) for a dollar.  That's right - one stinkin' dollar!  (He would never let me buy them back, either - but he did condescend to give me my three favorite Ace cards, which I have to this day).

So, we're all in agreement that KISS is basically just bubblegum music, right?  I mean, the proof is right above, staring us in the face…