Blog Archives
Let us feast on flesh at the GWAR-B-Q
Getting sprayed with fake blood at a GWAR concert is fun and all, but I bet it pales in comparison to getting sprayed with real blood and/or lighter fluid. And both those things are probably strong possibilities at the 4th Annual GWAR-B-Q, an orgy of loud music and roasted flesh hosted by the greatest alien-god-monster metal band in the universe. Too bad it’s happening in Virginia, or I’d totally go. But I’m pretty sure I still have at least two outstanding warrants in that state. Or was it West Virginia? Either way, I’m out.
But if you’re in that part of the world on Saturday, Aug. 17, you should totally fucking go. In addition to GWAR, the lineup features such stellar purveyors of weird metal as Cannabis Corpse (weed-themed death metal), X-Cops (current and former members of GWAR dressed up as, well, cops) and Kung Fu Dykes (uh…this shit). Also on the bill: the less weird but undeniably awesome Corrosion of Conformity, Municipal Waste, Loincloth and one of my personal favorites, muthafuckin’ Pig Destroyer. Shit is gonna go off, y’all.
Oh, and did we mention they’re also gonna be rolling out the very first GWAR-themed beer, Impaled Ale? Somebody save us a case.
Tickets go on sale June 6th at gwarbq.com. Mark your calendars in the blood of your enemies.
Beatallica are back with more Beatles/Metallica mashups on “Abbey Load”
Way, way back, when we were just an adorable little rugrat of a blog, we wrote about this crazy cover band from Milwaukee called Beatallica, who combine Beatles and Metallica songs into epic hesher anthems like “All You Need Is Blood” and “The Thing That Should Not Let It Be.” At the time, they had just released their second album, Masterful Mystery Tour, and seemed destined to become the Greatest Cover Band of All Time. Metallica + Beatles? What’s not to love?
Well, four years have passed and, sadly, Beatallica have not replaced this horseshit on the international cover band circuit. And Justice For All, my ass.
However, Beatallica are back with a brand-new album, the awesomely titled Abbey Load. Unlike previous Beatallica albums, which mashed up Beatles and Metallica tunes into original(ish) headbangers, Abbey Load is comprised entirely of Beatles covers done in the style of Metallica, including “Come Together,” “Help!” and the entire side two Abbey Road medley. They do manage to sneak a few Hetfield and co. riffs in there, but compared to previous Beatallica outings, they play this one fairly straight.
If you have a Spotify account, you can stream the whole album below. If you don’t have a Spotify account, you’re shit out of luck. Or you can just go to Amazon and buy the damn thing. Trust us, “Polythene Pam” totally works as a punk/metal rave-up.
Primus: Back on the road. Still in 3D.
Quick, what do Primus and The Hobbit have in common? If you answered, “they can both test audiences’ patience”…well, technically, you’re right, but that’s not the answer we were going for. No, they’re both in 3D, dude! Apparently last fall’s “Primus in 3D” tour was so successful, they’re bringing it back. Turns out Primus fans really love watching hallucinatory visuals that seem to distort space and time itself. Who’da thunk?
Anyway, here’s where Primus will be laying down the 3D jams this year. Except in places marked by an asterisk. You’ll have to settle for the low-tech, 2D version.
5/9 – Bottle Rock Festival – Napa, CA *
5/10 – Eureka Municipal Auditorium – Eureka, CA
5/12 – Revolution Center – Boise, ID
5/13 – Wilma Theater – Missoula, MT
5/14 – Shrine Auditorium – Billings, MT
5/16 – City Auditorium – Colorado Springs, CO
5/17 – Santa Fe Community Convention – Santa Fe, NM
5/18 – Rialto Theatre – Tucson, AZ
5/19 – Fox Theater – Pomona, CA
5/21 – Majestic Ventura Theater – Ventura, CA
5/22 – Fox Theater – Bakersfield, CA
5/24 – Cuthbert Amphitheater – Eugene, OR
5/25 – Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall – Portland, OR
5/26 – Sasquatch Music Festival – Quincy, WA
5/28 – Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium – Edmonton, AB
5/29 – McEwan Hall – Calgary, AB
5/31 – Burton Cummings Theatre – Winnipeg, MB
6/1 – Myth – Maplewood, MN
6/2 – Riviera Theater – Chicago, IL
6/6 – Mountain Jam Festival – Hunter, NY *
6/7-8 – Danforth Music Hall – Toronto, ON
6/9 – Niagara River Rocks – North Tonawanda, NY *
* – Not 3D show
In other Primus news: Remember that $5,000 video contest we told you about? Well, either you all suck and no one won, or the band is really taking their sweet time picking a winner. The contest supposedly ended Dec. 15 but as far as we can tell, there have been zero updates since. Could no one contain the awesomeness of “HOINFODAMAN” in a single, low-budget video? Where are Your Fuzzy Friends when you need them?
Captured! By Robots announces the C!BR Is Trippin’ Balls tour
Can robots trip balls? We’re about to find out. Captured! By the Robots, the world’s greatest Journey-covering nearly-all-robot band, is heading out on tour this April and May, and they’re promising a mind and/or CPU-expanding show the likes of which we sad little meat puppets have never seen. There will be baby eating. There will be dildo trombones. There may or may not be some unicorn riding. Or maybe there will baby riding and unicorn eating. You don’t know, and neither do we. All we can do is tell you the dates.
4/17/2013 Slabtown Portland
4/18/2013 Chop Suey Seattle
4/19/2013 The Palace Missoula
4/20/2013 The Shredder Boise
4/21/2013 Urban Lounge Salt Lake City
4/24/2013 3 Kings Tavern Denver
4/26/2013 The Brick Kansas City
4/27/2013 Triple Rock Minneapolis
4/28/2013 The Aquarium Fargo
5/1/2013 JD’s Bar Green Bay
5/2/2013 The Frequency Madison
5/3/2013 Cactus Club Milwaukee
5/4/2013 Martyrs Chicago
5/5/2013 House Cafe Dekalb
5/7/2013 TBA Marshall
5/8/2013 Mac s Bar Lansing
5/9/2013 Blind Pig Ann Arbor
5/10/2013 Grog Shop Cleveland Heights
5/11/2013 The Note West Chester
5/12/2013 Chameleon Club Lancaster
5/15/2013 The Hideaway Johnson City
5/16/2013 Milestone Club Charlotte
5/17/2013 The Jinx Savannah
5/18/2013 The Earl Atlanta
5/22/2013 Artmosphere Lafayette
5/23/2013 TBA Austin
5/24/2013 Double Wide Dallas
5/25/2013 Rubber Gloves Denton
5/28/2013 LAUNCH PAD Albuquerque
5/30/2013 Rhythm Room Phoenix
5/31/2013 TBA San Diego
6/1/2013 TBA Los Angeles
I’ll repeat here what I already told C!BR on their Facebook page: When you gearheads come to L.A. (and you better, godammit), you should play The Smell. That place is awesome. Bring a few robot floor fans, though. Otherwise you’ll probably blow a gasket when the temperature hits 120 and the walls start sweating.
We’ll leave you with a behind-the-scenes video of C!BR drummer DRMBOT0110 stress testing his double kick-drum. If you’re a drummer in a death metal band, you might wanna start looking for other work.
Iwrestledabearonce are working on a new album. But who’s singing on it?
As the girl who had to replace Krysta Cameron on lead vocals for Iwrestledabearonce, Courtney LaPlante has one of the most thankless jobs in all of rock-dom. Months since LaPlante took over screaming/singing duties, IWABO fans still routinely post things like “the new vocalist sings like shit” and “When Krysta’s back????” on the band’s Facebook page. Because, y’know, Iwrestledabearonce is the FIRST BAND EVER IN HISTORY TO REPLACE THEIR LEAD SINGER. And all just because their former lead singer decided to have a baby. What-fucking-ever.
The dude members of IWABO aren’t really helping dampen the Courtney/Krysta controversy, either. Krysta’s still listed as the lead singer on the band’s official website. Cold, guys, cold.
Still, when IWABO announced this week on their Facebook page that they are “currently writing a new album,” LaPlante was the one in the accompanying photo. Presumably this means she’ll be the one singing on the new album, too…but who knows? So long as IWABO fans keep pouring on the haterade and the band doesn’t update their official bio to at least mention her, there’s always a chance she’ll finally just say “Fuck this shit” and walk.
But, if she doesn’t…expect new music from the Krysta-less version of Iwrestledabearonce later this year. And maybe a wacky cover or two.
Meanwhile, those still mourning the departure of Krysta should order a copy of A Beary Scary Movie, IWABO’s feature film debut. Not only does it feature Krysta doing her best scream-queen impersonation, it also boasts a “special appearance by Jake Busey.” Aren’t all appearances by Jake Busey special? Here’s the trailer:
Compressorhead
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Humans suck. So it’s no surprise that there’s been an explosion of all-robot bands in recent years. There’s these guys. And these guys. And let’s not forget our old pals Captured! by Robots. Although they do have one human member, so technically they don’t count.
But earlier this month, a new all-robot band emerged that is basically the Terminator T-1000 to everyone else’s R2D2. They’re called Compressorhead and in addition to rocking solid imitations of Motörhead and The Ramones, they’re the first all-robot rock band that actually looks like a rock band. The drummer has four arms and a mohawk. The guitarist headbangs. If they could just smash their instruments, they’d really put all human rockers out a job.
Compressorhead are from Germany and they’ve actually been around for a few years. Early versions of the band featured just the drummer, Stickboy, although he was occasionally accompanied by robot go-go dancers. Am I a weirdo for saying the robodancers are way hotter than actual human dancers? Well, fuck it, I’m saying it anyway.
Stickboy was eventually joined by Fingers, a guitarist with 78 fingers (because shit, why not?) and Bones, a bass player, who only has eight fingers because let’s face it, playing bass is not that hard. Stickboy also has a little mini-Stickboy sidekick who looks kinda like a robot gremlin and just plays the hi-hat. Every drummer should have a mini-sidekick on hi-hat, don’t you think? So they can focus on more serious matters like double kick drums and cymbal crashes and bashing the living shit out of their snare.
Even though they’ve been around since at least 2008, Compressorhead really only started getting major attention earlier this month, when a video of them doing “Ace of Spades” went viral. Since pretty much the entire Internet has seen that clip, here’s another one of them doing “Blitzkrieg Bop.” You probably don’t actually need 78 fingers to play Johnny Ramone’s three chords, but it sure couldn’t hurt.
Starting this past weekend, Compressorhead began playing Australia’s Big Day Out Festival, which began last Friday in Sydney and continues this weekend in Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth. Apparently BDO organizer Ken West is now managing the robots, which has gotta beat managing a crowd of 50,000 sweaty Australians. Here’s a clip of them performing their signature track “Ace of Spades” for a mob of puzzled onlookers. I’m glad to see they gave Bones a little motorized platform so he can wheel around the stage, since apparently none of the robots have working legs yet. I’m sure they’ll all be stage-diving any day now.
So what do you think: Robot bands, good, bad, or a sign of the coming apocalypse? And when is someone gonna put them all on the same bill and call it RoboFest or something equally stupid? I figure it’ll happen by 2014 at the latest. This guy could be the MC.
Links:
New Misfits live album “DEA.D.ALIVE!” coming next month
Did you know ghoul-rockers The Misfits haven’t released a live album since the ’80s? It’s true. All their albums since the ’80s have been dead. In more ways than one. I kid, of course! The ’90s and ’00s Misfit albums are perfectly serviceable if your like your horror-punk with its rotting tongue planted firmly in its decaying cheek.
Anyway, the live drought is finally ending on Feb. 5th, when Jerry Only and co. will unleash DEA.D.ALIVE! on a terrorized populace. The album features all tracks from the post-Danzig version of the band, but there’s still hope for you fogey-punks who miss the good ol’ days of “Die, Die My Darling” and “Horror Business”: In an interview with Rolling Stone, Only says there’s some “’77-’83 material that we performed together back in the day that remain unreleased, just sitting in the vaults…It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Glenn and I might evaluate some of that stuff in the not-too-distant future and consider bringing it to the fans in a joint effort.” Which sounds pretty weak, I know…but compared to some of the words Only has had for Danzig in the past, it’s practically a Glenn ‘n’ Jerry lovefest.
That Rolling Stone article also features a preview of a track off DEA.D.ALIVE!, a live version of “Shining.” It doesn’t exactly make me wanna rush out and buy this set on limited-edition “solid gold” vinyl (and by the way, I’m pretty sure they mean solid gold-colored vinyl…otherwise I’m gonna start hoarding Misfits LPs for the coming apocalypse), but it does make me think it might be fun to finally go to a Misfits show. Like most people who own the T-shirt, I’m a poser who’s never actually seen them.
You can pre-order DEA.D.ALIVE! now from the Misfits online store. Here’s the complete tracklist, courtesy of antiMusic:
1.) The Devil’s Rain (3:39)
2.) Vivid Red (1:44)
3.) Land of the Dead (2:00)
4.) Curse of the Mummy’s Hand (3:18)
5.) Cold in Hell (1:54)
6.) Dark Shadows (3:18)
7.) Death Ray (4:02)
8.) Shining (2:39)
9.) American Psycho (1:56)
10.) Dig Up Her Bones (2:26)
11.) Scream! (2:22)
12.) Helena (3:24)
13.) Science Fiction/Double Feature (3:17)
14.) Saturday Night (4:10)
Ping
Photo by Lene Ask
This week’s band comes to us from Norway, which seems to have more weirdness per capita than most EU nations (see also: Mayhem, Hurra Torpedo, etc.). And even though Norway is only like fifth on the list of Countries Where They Actually Read Our Blog, this band kicked major ass in our latest Facebook poll. Somebody from the Obama campaign should hire them to run their get-out-the-vote efforts in Ohio. Ohio is kinda like Olso, right? They both have shitty winters and begin and end with an “O.” Close enough for government work, as they say.
But about this band, which is called Ping: They’re a prog/psych-rock/jazz/fusion/whatever five-piece who have been around since 1999, when they were started by guitarist Mattis Janitz and bassist/vocalist Jørgen Greiner. They list such TWBITW favorites as Frank Zappa, Mike Patton and Ween among their many influences (also Wilco, but probably just for the Nels Cline guitar solos). And one of their albums is called Discotheque of Darkness, but is neither disco nor especially dark. So while they’re hardly the weirdest band we’ve ever blogged about, Ping definitely keep the quirk factor high.
The fan-made video below isn’t really Ping at their weirdest (for that, I’d have to recommend checking out the very Zappa-like “Anyway But Now“), but it does feature a truly amazing array of misfit goth/metal fan photos, plus a few shots of some of our favorite bands (keep an eye out for GWAR). Our kinda people!
Ping’s fourth album, The Hurricane Spoof, came out this past May. You can get it, along with the rest of their catalog, from the Norwegian version of iTunes.
P.S. Want your heart and/or other body parts to swell with pride when you see next month’s reader-voted Weird Band of the Week? Then go vote in our new Facebook poll. You’ll have to like our Facebook page first, but don’t worry, we’ll keep it casual.
Links:
New GWAR guitarist Pustulus Maximus is coming to crush us
Like most puny humans, we shed tiny, powerless tears at last year’s passing of GWAR guitarist Flattus Maximus. So it is with great joy that we report that our favorite band of skull-crushing demon-gods is whole once again. Meet the late great Flattus’s mighty cousin, Pustulus Maximus, and prepare to grovel at his swollen feet. GWAR is back, baby!
The announcement of Pustulus’s arrvial came earlier this week via GWAR’s cyber-fortress (aka their website) and was greeted with much rejoicing by the various earthbound metal blogs. We’re a little late to the party because, honestly, we’ve spent most of the past four days doing celebratory shots and cranking Scumdogs of the Universe.
We’re glad we waited though, because this also means we get to tell you about Pustulus’s debut performance, which took place in the offices of the A.V. Club on Tuesday. The full band, with Pustulus in tow, tore through a version of Kansas’s “Carry On Wayward Son” that was way more awesome than it had any business being. In the mighty hands of GWAR, even bloated ’70s pomp-rock can totally shred.
Pustulus and his new GWAR-mates are hitting the road this fall with DevilDriver, Cancer Bats and Legacy of Disorder. Here are the dates:
10/12: Philadelphia, PA @ Electric Factory
10/13: Worcester, MA @ The Palladium (“Rock and Shock”)
10/14: Clifton Park, NY @ Upstate Concert Hall
10/15: New Haven, CT @ Toad’s Place
10/16: Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
10/18: Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade
10/19: Ybor City, FL @ The Ritz Ybor
10/20: Ft. Lauderdale, FL @ Revolution
10/22: Charlotte, NC @ Amos’ Southend
10/24: New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues
10/25: Austin, TX @ Emo’s
10/26: Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
10/27: Houston, TX @ House of Blues
10/28: Oklahoma City, OK @ The Chameleon Room
10/29: Little Rock, AR @ The Rev Room (NO DD or Cancer Bats)
10/30: Kansas City, MO @ Beaumont Music Hall (No DD or Cancer Bats)
10/31: Denver, CO @ Summit Music Hall
11/1: Albuquerque, NM @ Sunshine Theater
11/2: Tempe, AZ @ The Marquee
11/3: Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory
11/4: West Hollywood, CA @ House of Blues
11/5: Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst
11/6: Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
11/8: Boise, ID @ Knitting Factory
11/9: Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
11/10: Seattle, WA @ Showbox SODO
11/11: Spokane, WA @ Knitting Factory
11/12: Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theater
11/14: Edmonton, AB @ Edmonton Events Centre
11/15: Calgary, AB @ MacEwan Hall Ballroom
11/16: Saskatoon, SK @ Odeon Events Centre
11/17: Winnipeg, MB @ The Garrick Center
11/18: Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
11/19: Joliet, IL @ Mojoes
11/20: Grand Rapids, MI @ The Intersection
11/21: Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
11/23: Detroit, MI @ Harpo’s
11/24: Toronto, ON @ Sound Academy
11/26: Millvale, PA @ Mr. Smalls Theater
Welcome to Earth, Pustulus! We look forward to you stomping us like the puny scum we are.
Van Canto
German people are awesome. Don’t believe me? Just feast your ears on Van fucking Canto, a heavy metal a cappella group that is way more committed to making that “diggadiggadiggadigga” sound with their mouths than will you ever be committed to anything in your entire life. Yes, you probably love your children less than Van Canto loves singing “diggadiggadiggadigga” on Metallica and Manowar covers. That adorable a cappella group you loved in college? The Whiffengoobers or whatever? They are but dust on the heels of Van Canto’s studded motorcycle boots.
Van Canto have been doing their “hero metal a cappella” thing since 2006, aided only by a drummer because, as their website proudly states, “we do not do disco pop.” By implication, this means all other a cappella groups do do disco pop. So fuck off, Rockapella. You know what you guys don’t have? Drums. Also, druids and fire (see video below). Therefore, by definition, you are disco pop. Van Canto has spoken!
A massive shout-out to our old friend Richard from Army of Gay Unicorns for turning us on to these guys. And yes, Richard, they do turn us on. It’s not just a figure of speech. Just thought you should know.
Links:
- Van Canto official site
- Van Canto on Facebook
- Rakka-Takka (official fan club site)
