You learn something new every day. You may not think you do, but you do.

Like on Friday, I learned that the German word for emptiness is “leere”. On Saturday, I learned that if you live in the Pacific Northwest and forgetfully leave your car window down overnight, spiders will move in and later drop on your arm while you’re driving, causing unexpected vehicular fun ‘n games. And yesterday, I learned the secrets of how extreme metal vocalists can shriek and growl really low without requiring hospitalization.

I’ve always wondered, and finally, after years of listening to non-clean singing, it now all becomes clear to me. It’s like some trade secret that finally leaked. And it turns out to be something that is easily duplicated. It just takes the right preparation and the right record producer (like Chris “Zeuss” Harris).

I’m not making this up. I learned it from a dude who ought to know — Adam Warren, who happens to be the frontman for deathcore heavyweights Oceano. It’s all in that video at the top of this post. It just takes sleeping ’til noon, some microwaved elixir, a little Lion King chord-stretching, and someone who can tell you which buttons to push.

Go ahead, see for yourself. The secrets are out. We won’t even charge you to watch. In the video, you can also see some spirited debate over whether “Contagion” is the kind of album title people will have to look up, as compared to a common street-word like, uh, “harbinger”.

Truly, Adam Warren is an engaging dude, and we can pretty much guarantee this thing will make you smile, even if you’re not an Oceano fan.  And while we’re on the subject of deathcore, word of a Whitechapel-Impending Doom-Miss May I-Oceano-I Declare War tour has leaked out. Details about that breaking news, plus an Oceano video, follow after the jump. Wonder what I’ll learn today?

According to Lambgoat, Whitechapel will be headlining a fall tour with support from Impending Doom, Miss May I, Oceano, and our Seattle homies I Declare War. Lambgoat reported that the tour hasn’t been officially announced yet, but we did a little poking around and found a fresh Whitechapel announcement. It will be called THE CORRUPTOUR and here are the dates and places:

10/01 Macon, GA The 567
10/02 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room
10/03 St. Petersburg, FL State Theatre
10/04 Jacksonville, FL Rain
10/05 Spartanburg, SC Ground Zero
10/06 Charlotte, NC Tremont Music Hall
10/07 Raleigh, NC Volume 11 Tavern
10/08 Norfolk, VA Norva
10/09 Jermyn, PA Eleanor Rigby’s
10/10 Boston, MA Harper’s Ferry
10/12 Hartford, CT Webster Theatre
10/13 Poughkeepsie, NY The Loft
10/14 Syracuse, NY Lost Horizon
10/15 Toledo, OH Headliner’s
10/16 Grand Rapids, MI Intersection
10/17 Elgin, IL Mad Maggies
10/19 Milwaukee, WI The Rave
10/20 St. Louis, MO Pop’s
10/21 Louisville, KY Headliners Music Hall
10/22 Birmingham, AL Zydeco
10/23 Nashville, TN Rocketown

Unfortunately, unless this thing gets expanded, there are no West Coast dates, which blows, because that’s a killer line-up.

And now here’s Adam Warren’s charismatic self growling and shrieking in an official Oceano vid for “District of Misery” off their last album.  Break yourself down:

Oceano has also been participating in the OVER THE LIMIT tour with this line-up of bands:

As Blood Runs Black
Oceano
Arsonist Get All the Girls
The Tony Danza Tapdance extravaganza
Thick As Blood
Burning The Masses
Circle of Contempt
Blind Witness
Sons of Aruleus (Select dates)
This or The Apocalypse (Select dates)

The following dates remain on that tour:

8/16 Amarillo, TX @ The War Legion
8/17 Colorado Springs, CO @ The Black Sheep
8/19 El Paso, TX @ Club 101
8/20 Tucson, AZ @ Rialto Theatre
8/21 Pomona, CA @ Glasshouse (Summerslam Fest)

Not long after we launched this site, one of my sometimes collaborators (Alexis) thought it would be a good idea if we set up a MySpace page to increase our visibility (y’know, like from 3 readers up to maybe 5 or 6) and to reduce the opportunities for people to pirate our awesomely ingenious site name for their own nefarious ends (y’know, like using it to sell dick enlargements or herpes treatments).

So she set up a NO CLEAN SINGING page on MySpace. As it turns out, that was a good idea. Now we’re selling our own dick enlargements and herpes treatments.

Just kidding. It really has been beneficial, for reasons I’ll explain. But we’ve also had some unwanted consequences. To be specific, we get e-mails and strange friend requests via MySpace that we could really do without. But it occurred to us recently (as a result of comments following our “Miscellany No. 2″ post) that we could have some fun with this shit (after the jump). Who knows, maybe you will have some fun with it too.

But first, a short list of things we like and don’t like about MySpazz:

LIKE

• By becoming MySpace “friends” with bands we’re interesting in following, we get bulletins and notices of blog posts from them. That helps us keep track of their news efficiently. Sometimes that helps us think of things to write about on this site.
• We can use MySpace to send bands e-mail messages. Sometimes, that’s the only way we can find to message bands when we have questions or requests, or to tell em about something we’ve written.
• Having our own MySpace site provides a way for bands to make us aware of their music by sending us “add” requests. We’ve discovered (and written about) lots of bands we might not have discovered except for those add requests.
• When people on MySpace add us as friends, they get alerts when we post new blog entries (though there are easier ways to get those alerts). Of course, readers can just make it a point to visit NCS every day, because we always put up something new here every day.
• MySpace gives us a way to listen to a band’s music to see if we like it, and to find band photos and artwork to use in our posts.

(after the jump, things we don’t like, plus a sample MySpace message we recently received, and our proposed response . . .)

DON’T LIKE

• MySpace pages take forever to load. The more elaborate the page, the longer it takes. Maybe we should be more patient, but honestly, we’re very busy, important people.
• The quality of the music streams on MySpace sucks. There are much better on-line vehicles for bands to use if they want to stream their tunes.
• MySpace puts fucking ad banners on our page, and everyone else’s page, whether you want em to or not.
• We get unwanted e-mail messages and strange friend requests from people who obviously have no idea what we are about, even though our MySpace page is pretty accurate in its description.

But as we said, maybe there’s an opportunity here to turn lemons into lemonade, to make some of the e-mails and friend requests we receive the subject of entertainment. It’s worth a try, right?

So, here’s an actual message we received from an alleged MySpace member, plus our imaginary response. It’s imaginary, because there’s no fucking way we would actually respond to this thing.

Dear Jane:

Thank you so much for your interest in NO CLEAN SINGING.  You are obviously a person who is a big fan of extreme metal, because only fans of extreme metal would check out our MySpace page and decide to become our MySpace friend and write such a thoughtful personal note to us and share your thoughtful comments about the metal scene and all the rad bands you like. (Do you like the band Vaginal Holocaust? They’re from France.)

I think you’re cute too.  I can tell you’re cute because of the personal photo you sent with your message.  It means a lot that you would share such a personal photo with me and me alone (along with the hundreds of millions of other MySpace users).  I know it means a lot to all of them too.

I’ve started carrying a copy of your photo in my wallet, in case any dudes wanna see a pic of my girlfriend. I had to write my own note on the back, y’know, pretending to be you, but I don’t really think I’m deceiving anyone, because I just feel like it’s a matter of time before you and I hook up. It’s like an inevitable thing, just destined to happen, like the eventual end of all life on earth.

Jane, I feel like I can confide in you. I’m a very outgoing person, but I’ve become careful about making friends online.  Sometimes, I’ve found that people pretend to be cute brunettes and then it turns out they’re really ugly chicks with facial hair, or that one time when it turned out to be a dude.  I wish I hadn’t taken that long plane trip to Detroit to meet her/him.  Asshole wouldn’t even give me back the check I mailed before finding out she was a dude. Fucking asshole.

But I know you’re not like that because of the photo you sent.  Also, I can tell you’re a really sincere honest person because you said I’m cute. Many people tell me that, but only the really sincere honest people. I did wonder for a moment about how you knew I was cute since there’s no photo of me on MySpace, but I know you must have some way of knowing or you wouldn’t have said that.

Besides, you said we may have spoken online, and you’re absolutely right!  Because I was chatting online just yesterday with a total stranger who said they were a cute brunette!  So that had to be you.  I was waiting to send my check and buy a plane ticket until I got a personal message with a very personal photo meant only for me, and now I have it!

I know we would really hit it off because you obviously really dig extreme metal and I really dig extreme metal.  So we already have a lot in common. We could just play some really killer music together and rock the fuck out, while reading all the awesome things I’ve written for NO CLEAN SINGING.  That would be so cool. (Do you like the band Anorectal Menstruation?  They’re also from France.)

I can tell you’re kind of shy because you’re not looking directly at the camera in that very personal photo you sent, and I think that’s ultra-cool, because aggressive women make me nervous and kinda scared. But you’re obviously a metalhead chick because you have taken such a personal interest in our MySpace page, so you already know that about metalhead dudes.

Please send me your address and personal phone number, but not one that charges my credit card when I call it.  I’m just about maxed out on my card, what with all the interest and late fees and the recurring monthly charges from some online sites I visit late at night, and I want to save some room on the card in case I have to hire a private detective to track down your address and personal details, because I am really, really interested in meeting you in person.

I haven’t checked out your personal web page yet, but I know it will be cute, just like your photo, and meaningful, and filled with the 411 about your favorite metal bands — not like some other links I’ve visited because of cute brunette photos that turn out to be places that want to sell me dick enlargements and genital herpes treatments, or porn.

But yes, I will see you soon, very soon, and I will make it a surprise visit.  I bet you like surprises. I’ll just show up at your door in the middle of the night, with some killer metal and some Red Bull and vodka. That will be so cool.

So anyway, yeah, thanks again for your interest in NO CLEAN SINGING.  Can’t wait to chat more, and to see if you’re wearing bikini bottoms that match your top, or any bottoms at all!  ;)  Do you have photos of anything below the waist?

Your MySpace friend,
Islander@nocleansinging  \m/

P.S. Jane, here’s a photo of me with my last girlfriend, all dressed up to go headbanging at a Bizarre Ejaculation show. They’re from France. They’ve got a great song called “Drowning in Uterovaginal Secretions”. But you probably know about that already.

(P.S. to our readers: I haven’t checked out Jane’s web site. I don’t intend to. I suggest you don’t. Vaya con dios.)

(P.P.S. We have more e-mails and MySpace friend requests that would be fodder for more posts like this one.  In fact, a nearly endless supply.)

It seems like every week we read about the reunion of one band or another that we had long thought dead, with plans for new recordings, new tours, new hairdo’s. Sometimes, it’s good news. Sometimes, it’s just kinda sad. Sometimes, it’s funny (and sad).

Usually, we refrain from commenting on such developments. But we’re behind on what we had planned for today’s post, so we’re making an exception. To be brutally honest (which is the only kind of honest we know how to be here at NCS), this is filler.

Think of it as a rain delay. Your ticket will still be good tomorrow. But, if you would like a refund because all you’re getting today is filler, please send us a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and we will gladly refund every dime you paid us for the right to access this site.

From a “news” item we saw this morning on Blabbermouth:

“Cadence”, the new studio album from the reunited melodic hard rock band BANGALORE CHOIR, will be released on September 24 via Metal Heaven Records.

It has been 18 years since BANGALORE CHOIR’s only release, “On Target”, on Giant Records in 1992, which came out on the same day as NIRVANA’s “Nevermind”. Shortly after, BANGALORE CHOIR disbanded after being released from the label.

Really, we’re not making this up (and there’s more juice like this to come).  So, to start, everyone out there who remembers Bangalore Choir, raise your hands!  (more after the jump, including a video and a palate cleanser, which you will need if you make it to the end of this filler . . .)

Come on, get your hands up higher, cuz we’re having trouble seeing them!

Oh come on, no one remembers Bangalore Choir?  Even with an eye-catching album cover like the one on the right?

Well look, it’s not their fault that you don’t remember them. Who knew Nirvana would release Nevermind on the same day as On Target? Who could compete with that? That’s just some rotten fucking luck.

And what did those cock-sucking label execs know anyway, dropping BC like a steaming turd right after their debut album hit the streets? Just a total lack of vision on their part. They didn’t see the band’s unique look. They couldn’t hear what made the music so strikingly different. They didn’t see the massive money that could be made with advertising tie-ins for hair-care products and treatments for genital herpes.

Wonder what those poor dudes have been doing for the last 18 years?

After several years under the radar on a ranch in Montana, lead vocalist David Reece (ex-ACCEPT, DAREFORCE) was contacted by Escape Records in 2007 to see what the chances would be for him to go to Sweden to sing on Swedish band GYPSY ROSE’s next release. Soon after that David found himself in the studio for the next year recording and writing for the new GYPSY ROSE CD, “Another World”, which was released in June 2008.

Well, that answers that. The lead singer was in Montana. On a ranch. Under the radar. Sometimes you’ve just gotta get under the radar in Montana to avoid the paparazzi and the legions of fans that just want to invade your privacy and interrupt your creative flow.

But it was just a matter of time before a label would come calling. So what if it meant going to Sweden? Sweden might have been just what the doctor ordered. I wonder if it caused Reece to regain his passion for music, after all those years on the ranch.  In Montana.  Under the radar.

While touring and doing the Sweden Rock Festival in June 2007 and opening for AEROSMITH in Europe, Reece regained his passion for music, deciding he wanted to put BANGALORE CHOIR back together. Reece reached out to guitarist Curt Mitchell and bassist Danny Greenberg and asked them if they would like to make a new record. Both of them eagerly accepted the challenge.

Challenges are good. And lord knows, trying to resurrect Bangalore Choir is a challenge. Particularly when you’ve been under the radar for 18 years. But all these dudes didn’t just accept the challenge. They accepted it eagerly.  (It appears that original members John Kirk, Ian Mayo, and Jackie Ramos declined offers to join the band again. Man, are they gonna be sorry.) On with the story:

Commented Reece: “We knew if we were to make a new record that in order for it to be viable we had to keep some of the old formula that worked so well in the past which we have done!”

Uh, what? I think Reece needs to re-think his marketing strategy here. Let’s not forget, the “old formula” was the one that got them dropped by their label shortly after release of the first and only Bangalore Choir album 18 years ago. I would suggest re-writing this part of the press release, as follows:

Commented Reece: “We knew if we were to make a new record that in order for it to be viable we had to bury the old formula in a toxic landfill (preferably in Montana), cover it with 100,000 tons of concrete, and then salt the surrounding landscape with plutonium in order to kill off any life forms that might still be tempted to explore the site, which is just what we have done!”

Reece’s comments in the press release continue as follows:

“The new record by BANGALORE CHOIR is called ‘Cadence’ — continuing with blistering guitars, pounding rhythms and big, hooky choruses.”

So you can hear the blistering guitars, pounding rhythms, and big, hooky choruses, Bangalore Choir made some song samples from the new album available for streaming, and Blabbermouth is kindly featuring them at this location.

What does the new Bangalore Choir sound like? Astonishingly, it sounds very much like the old Bangalore Choir, as if those 18 years had zipped by like 18 minutes.

What, you may ask, does the old Bangalore Choir sound like? As it happens, we can show you, because back in the day, when MTV played actual music videos, and music videos were tamer things than they are today, Bangalore Choir made one for a song called ”Your Love is Like A Loaded Gun”.

I’m not sure what that means. It sounds kind of nasty. But the video isn’t nasty. It’s kind of sweet. And, for what it is, the song is better than about 90% of the hair-metal music that was generated by Bangalore Choir’s contemporaries.

PALATE CLEANSER!

Well, for the one or two of you who actually made it this far in the post, you’ll undoubtedly need a palate cleanser. And after that nice, sweet BC music video, let’s start with some visual palate refreshment:

Excellent!

To give credit where credit is due, the same edition of Blabbermouth where we saw the Bangalore Choir blurb also suggested our palate cleanser. It reports that Finnish black-metal band Impaled Nazarene (pictured above) is entering the studio this month to record their 11th album, which will be called Road to the Octagon. It’s scheduled for release in November by Osmose Productions.

It’s been almost 3 years since the last Impaled Nazarene album. We’re ready for a new one. In the meantime, here’s a palate-cleansing song:

Impaled Nazarene: Ghettoblaster

Have a nice fucking day.

I don’t read the daily newspaper near as much as I used to.  At some point I realized that the daily news could make me feel good or it could make me feel bad, but there was almost nothing I could do about it. So without ever making a conscious decision, I subconsciously decided that I could better spend my time taking care of my family, enjoying my friends, and battering myself with massive amounts of metal.

So, basically, I became one of those jaded, self-absorbed people I used to detest.

But every now and then, without any rhyme or reason, I’ll check out the daily paper here in Seattle — which I did yesterday. And I found so many ass-ripping stories that if I were a religious person, I’d think the gods were sending me a signal — that it’s time for another installment of “That’s Metal!”, where we write about shit that provokes that exclamation, even though it’s not music. Not quite the magnitude of the burning bush, but still, enough to get me pounding the keyboard.

Most of today’s installment isn’t about “metal” things that inspire admiration. It’s mainly about people who engage in brain-dead activities that remind us of stage-divers who end their acrobatics with a face-plant into the concrete. You wince, but you still gotta throw some horns in honor of the sheer insanity, while also hoping that those people don’t turn out to be breeders.

And to top it off, our daily news involved stories about scrotum damage.  Admit it, there are few things better than scrotal humor, except possibly vaginal humor.  And as a bonanza, we found some vaginal humor, too.  (yeah, all the details are after the jump, of course . . . .)

ONE

Every year in Pamplona, Spain, bulls are set loose in the narrow, cobble-stoned streets and hundreds of thrill-seekers run from them. Of course, said thrill-seekers have spent the previous night getting completely blasted on sangria and other intoxicants. Every year, various fuckers are gored, trampled, and otherwise violated by demented bulls that outweigh them by orders of magnitude. This shit has been going on in Pamplona since the 16th century.

The bulls don’t know that at the end of their run, they will be executed in “bull-fights” by trained matadors. But they act like they know. Because they go for the scrotum. From a story in yesterday’s Seattle Times:

Against my better judgment and most of my principles, two days ago I watched the video of the “Big Four” performing on stage together in Sofia, Bulgaria on June 22. In fairness to me, it’s not like I searched for it. I was just scrolling through the latest drivel on Blabbermouth, looking for the occasional item of interest that does occasionally lurk within the drivel, and there it was. All I had to do was click the “play” button.

Still, I paused.   A long time.   For one thing, although I still like Slayer (and “like” is about all the enthusiasm I can muster), Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax have no current relevance to me. The fact that they broke major ground once upon a time doesn’t mean it makes sense for me to listen to their music today, when there are so many other bands I’d rather hear. For another thing, I wasn’t a slobbering fan of most of those bands even when they were current.

And for a final thing, I’ve just grown sick to death of reading about this whole “Big Four” tour. For purposes of this NCS blog, I feel compelled to keep up with current events in metaldom, but to hunt for things that really do interest me, I’ve had to pass through a fecal waterfall of interviews, press releases, and blogger babble about this fucking tour. Enough already!

And for a final, final thing, I knew if I watched the damn video I’d have to see Dave Mustaine.

But I watched it anyway. And as jaded as I am about these bands and this tour, I did get a mild thrill out of seeing all four of them on stage playing together. Certainly not because of the music, because “Am I Evil?” is a forgettable song, and no one in this performance went out of their way to turn it into something better.

That was two days ago. And then yesterday came, and I saw a transcription of an interview Dave Mustaine gave on July 1 in Vienna, and I was vividly reminded all over again why that guy makes me wanna projectile vomit and why I should have passed right over that video without pressing play.    (unfortunately, there’s more after the jump . . .)

Here are the most grotesque parts of the interview as excerpted by Blabbermouth. Unlike Blabbermouth, I have to add a little commentary, since that’s more sanitary than projectile vomiting.

On whether the “Big Four” tour and the June 22 joint live performance was something special for Mustaine or if it was just “another Megadeth tour”:

Mustaine: “Of course it’s special. It’s historical. It’s life-changing for a lot of people that were there. And I think the bragging rights for people who actually witnessed it versus somebody who saw it on YouTube or saw it in a movie theater or is gonna see it on the DVD that’s coming up… they weren’t there. So to actually watch it was a fantastic thing.”

If you know of a more unadulterated, overweening, bombastically egotistical display of self-love — well, please just keep it to yourself.  A near-death experience or a sex-change operation is “life-changing.” Watching a bunch of aging headbangers blunder through a mediocre song? Not even close. Except in Dave Mustaine’s fantastically self-important mind.

What’s that you say Dave?  You weren’t finished?  Well, pardon me.  Please do continue.

“Standing up on stage where I was, being able to look next to me, on either side being flanked by so much tremendous talent, it was great. It’s just one of those things where in the moment it doesn’t seem as enormous as it really is. After the fact, you look back and you’re like… You know like when you survive a car crash, you don’t think it’s such a big deal until you watch it in slow motion, you’re thinking, ‘Oh, my god, I can’t believe I survived.’ So going up on stage was really, really amazing.”

Really? Playing that song as part of the Big Four was like surviving a car crash? In what sense? I mean, I can understand how getting through the video of that song would make a person feel like they’d just survived a car crash. But honestly Dave, I think you were right the first time. It really wasn’t such  big deal — except in your own fantastically self-important mind.

Oops — still not finished?  Well, if you insist.  Please carry on.

“Especially when I looked back and saw how everybody was embracing everyone and how I think that… If you were there, you would have heard when, through all the goodbyes and everything at the end, when James[Hetfield] and I embraced, the whole audience went [wild], ’cause it’s what they’ve been waiting for. It’s what I think James and I both have been waiting for, too, so it’s a good thing.”

Well, you know, I wasn’t there myself. So, you know, I don’t have those bragging rights you were talking about, and like, I couldn’t hear the crowd going wild, just watching it on the little video player like I was doing, so, you know, it wasn’t the fantastic thing it must have been for all those Bulgarians who were really there in the audience, all those people waiting their whole, undoubtedly insignificant lives just to witness that one life-changing embrace by you and that other guy — and I’m sure that other dude knows just how fucking lucky he was to share the stage with you, because, as you say, I’m sure he was just waiting to be taken in your arms like that, just like the audience was waiting to see it, and it must have just been life-changing for all concerned (except for you, because you were the life-changer).

On whether the “Big Four” tour will hit the U.S.:

Mustaine: “That’s up to METALLICA and their camp, because I think it’s fairly obvious, for myself… it doesn’t need to be the ‘Big Four’ for me to wanna play with James and Lars [Ulrich, METALLICA drummer]. I think if the ‘Big Four’ [tour in the U.S.] doesn’t happen, certainly a MEGADETH/METALLICA tour would be great — whether it’s just the two of us or if we have a support group or something like that.

But yeah, I think it was really fun because of what we stand for in heavy metal. Me and James are like the ‘big daddies’ of this whole thing — we were the two guitar players that set the wheels in motion when the first tapes were made of METALLICA. I think it’s exciting now to look back and see all the millions of bands that have been created off what me and James did sitting in a room in Norwalk [California].”

Dave, you really nailed it there. I’m glad someone is finally giving you the credit you deserve, even if it’s you who’s doing it.

Finally, someone who can see the world with clear eyes and recognize that all those “millions” of metal bands out there owe their careers and their music, not to their own drive and creativity, but to you.

Finally, someone who’s honest enough to say what we all know in our heart of hearts, that all those “millions” of metal bands were created off what you accomplished (with a small amount of help from that other dude). All those bands don’t even know how fucking lucky they are that you made their musical lives possible. I’m glad someone finally paid tribute where tribute is due.

So, here’s to you Big Daddy. Have a beer on me.

All done now, Dave?  Yes?  Well, thank god for that. Because if I’d had to read even one more line of this world-class narcissism, I think I would have had an attack of explosive diarrhea concurrently with the projectile vomiting.

I think I first saw the term “Megadick” applied to Mustaine in one of Axl Rosenberg’s posts for MetalSucks about 3 years ago, on the occasion of yet another world-class display of self-congratulation by Big Dave. Axl’s concluding line is just as fitting today as it was then: “Dave, pal, baby: maybe it’s time to shut your big fat fucking mouth and just concentrate on, y’know, the music. Whatta ya say to that?”

************

Look, we don’t devote much space here at NCS to venting or slagging. When we don’t have something positive to say, we usually just wait until we do. But every now and then, I’ve just got to get something off my chest for fear that if I don’t, it will fester and grow and then erupt out of my abdomen in a great spray of blood like those vicious larval creatures in the Aliens movies. Or something like that.

So, if you think I went a bit overboard today, please forgive me. We’ll be back to more normal fare tomorrow with a new album review. And just to show there’s no hard feelings on my part for those of you who worship the ground Dave Mustaine walks on, here’s the damned video of the “Big Four” in Sofia, for however long this embed code works. As for watching it, let your conscience be your guide.

I spent way too much time playing that game and making a few contributions. So did hundreds of other MS readers. My reactions to the best ones I saw ranged from subdued chuckles to coffee-through-the-nose eruptions of laughter.

For those of you who don’t read MetalSucks, or for those who do but don’t take time to wade through the comment section, I’ve collected here what I thought were the best band-name metamorphoses. Chuckle or erupt or yawn, as you see fit.

Nicemystium

Type O Positive

Cattle Appreciation

Goatherd

Bunnies in the Throne Room

Help the Client

3 Inches of Love

(lots more after the jump . . .)

Vegetarian Corpse

Heaven Shall Get Air Conditioning

ihuggedabearonce

Sunn:))))

All Shall Flourish

Rocking Christ

Heakyeah!

Pillow Thrower

Dimmu Burger

As I Lay Trying

Keep Caressin’

Anti-venom

Caramel Corpse

Fozzy Osbourne

Five Finger Handshake

Job Promotion for A Cowboy

Tur-x-mas

One Inch Nails

Barn Builder

Them Law-Abiding Vultures

Lightly Tanned by the Sun

And here were my entries, which seem kinda lame compared to the best of those above:

Amon Amartha

Bed, Bathory, and Beyond

Dark Chocolate Tranquillity

Carefuldriver

Beer Factory

Sleigher

I’m not seriously suggesting that you join in on this fun, because if you’re like me, you’ll spend way too much time studying your iTunes library and scratching your head. But if the spirit moves you, leave any good ones you come up with in a comment.

I don’t really have time right now to embellish this story with my own snarky comments, but it really doesn’t need much embellishment — it’s fucking hysterical all by itself.

In a nutshell, over-the-hill fruitcake Ozzy Osbourne is paying a research lab to map his genome. The lab he’s using specializes in identifying and interpreting the genetic code of particular individuals in order to find links to disease. Usually, fat cats pay them to do this because they’ve got concerns over their health.  But in Ozzy’s case, after decades of substance abuse, he’s trying to find out why he’s still alive, not what could kill him.

It’s kind of like donating your body to science, except while you’re still alive. And in Ozzy’s case, what kind of scientific advancement can we expect from the mapping of his genetic code? How to drink a fifth of vodka every day without turning your liver into Swiss cheese? Who knows? I guess we’ll find out.

Now, without further ado, here’s the gut-busting piece that reporter Georgina Gustin wrote for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (which we saw in today’s Seattle Times at this location). Your own snarky comments will be welcome.

ST. LOUIS — He is famous for many things. For his eerie scream. For his “Satan worship.” For biting the head off a dove. And a bat.

But Ozzy Osbourne mostly has become famous for indulging in decades of near-legendary substance abuse — the kind that would vanquish most — and surviving.

Scientists now may find out why.  (more hilarity after the jump . . .)

While the “Godfather of Heavy Metal” won’t be in St. Louis during his current world tour, his genes will be. DNA extracted from Osbourne’s blood next month will be sent to St. Louis-based Cofactor Genomics, where researchers will sequence the rocker’s genome — or map his genetic blueprint.

“They’re taking someone who’s healthy, who should have disease, and looking at that,” said Jon Armstrong, Cofactor’s chief marketing officer. “What’s in the DNA, and what does it have that others don’t have?”

In other words: Why is the self-dubbed Prince of Darkness still alive?

Osbourne has called his existence a “modern miracle” and remains remarkably intact, despite his mumbling and shaking, amply on display during his reality-TV show “The Osbournes.”

He reportedly has sobered up and become something of a health nut.

Osbourne this year approached Knome, a company in Cambridge, Mass., to have his genome mapped. Knome, which specializes in interpreting genomes to find links to disease, tapped Cofactor to do the actual sequencing — the legwork before the interpretation begins.

“His people were interested in finding out what whole genome sequencing could help them understand in terms of one’s health outlook,” said Nathan Pearson, director of research at Knome. “It’s a publicity coup for us.”

But it also will shed some meaningful scientific light.

Knome has been hired to sequence the genome of roughly 50 commercial clients, at a cost of about $40,000 each.

“It’s the sort of people who are rich aficionados of technology, or people who have an urgent need because of some health reason,” Pearson said.

Osbourne is slightly different. He is trying to find out why he has lasted, not what could kill him.

“Ozzy’s interested in knowing more about something he already knows about himself,” Pearson said.

Pearson noted that researchers are unlikely to find the precise reason that Osbourne has tolerated his diet of alcohol and drugs.

“Are we going to be able to discover how Ozzy has been able to lead such an aggressive lifestyle? I want to tamp down expectations of that, in terms of the overall benefits to humanity of sequencing Ozzy,” he said.

Yet, Osbourne’s genome could yield important leads.

For instance, according to Pearson, the research may find a new variant in some gene that’s active in Ozzy’s liver and helps it to detoxify certain drugs better than other people’s livers can do.

“Finding that may not be a smoking gun in figuring out what makes Ozzy tick, but it might be something that a scientist can follow up on.”

Because so few human genomes have been sequenced, there’s a lack of comparative data. But more data will exist as sequencing becomes cheaper, making it easier for scientists to find connections and similarities from one genome to the next.

“We’re going to be doing it relatively cheaply,” Armstrong said. “I think what you’ll see in 10 or 15 years from now, it may be the norm. You’ll go into the doctors’ office and get your cheek swabbed and get your genome sequenced.”

So, in the future, as more people who have led a rock ‘n’ roll life have their genomes mapped, scientists will be able to glean more from the data.

The genome of fellow rock and partying legend Keith Richards might be particularly instructive, for example.

“We’re going to have to plumb Ozzy’s Rolodex for friends,” Pearson joked.

Well, fuck, we knew we’d feel guilty about having some fun at the expense of Ukrainian metal band Semargl in our post a few days ago about their latest video, and sure enough: The band was nice enough to leave a comment on our MySpace page complimenting our post.

Gotta hand it to ‘em for having a sense of humor about themselves (and about us). And the truth is, we’ve had that song “Credo Revolution” stuck in our heads for days — so much so that we started listening to samples from three other tracks off the band’s new album that are streaming on their MySpace page.

It’s a mix of divergent styles — some death metal, some groove-oriented power metal, some hard rock (as on “Credo Flaming Rain” — with guest vocals supplied by Nera (Darzamat), who’s pictured above with the band). This is definitely not the kind of thing we usually listen to here at NCS — but confession is good for the soul, and we confess that we’ve now ordered Ordo Bellictum Satanas.

Not sayin’ you should, just sayin’ we did.  We’ll probably feel guilty about that too.

We don’t spend much time on this site poking fun at metal bands. It’s not that we’re morally opposed to the practice. In fact, we have fun reading other sites that do exactly that on a daily basis. It’s just not our style.

But once in a blue moon, we just can’t resist. Like today. We’ll probably feel guilty about it later.

So, the band that caught our baleful eye today is a Ukrainian outfit called Semargl. Try saying that out loud. Even the name is kinda funny, though it’s probably drawn from some ancient demonology text, or at least H.P. Lovecraft.  [Update: Based on a little more research (see the comment at the end of this post), Semargl appears to have been a Slavic pagan deity, depicted as a winged lion or winged dog.]

In addition to the demonic (but funny-sounding) name, the band has got the corpse-painted aspect of a grymm black metal outfit, plus Latinate album titles like Ordo Bellictum Satanas that inspire thoughts of satanic recipe books for the cooking of your fellow man in the fiery depths of Hades.

And to carry the theme further, the band’s web site includes a creed called Satanosophy that proclaims principles such as “Our message is: God should be destroyed” and “Our superiority is Satanic Infernal fire” (in addition to photos of a naked chick who looks like she’s meditating about Satanosophy).

So, with that lead-in, you probably think you’ve got a pretty good idea about Semargl’s music — but you’d probably be wrong. What we’ve got here, at least on the strength of the band’s new video for a song called “Credo Revolution”, is pop music with black-metal trappings, corpse-paint with plenty of tits and ass, tremolo picking and electro dance beats (courtesy of Jonny Maudling from Bal-Sagoth).

We’re still trying to wrap our minds around that concept — but it seems to be working out quite nicely for Semargl.  And we can guarantee that even if you’re having an unbelievably sucky day, this video (and the song) will put a smile on your face — or your money back! (more after the jump, including that video . . .)

We thought black metal was supposed to be grymm and icy. We thought satanic bands were supposed to sound evil. We expected the video would at least include bowls of maggots feasting on fresh gore.

But instead of squirming maggots, we’ve got hot squirming babes in shiny black underwear swiveling their cheeks to the beat. We’ve got pop-rock with broken-glass vocals.

If Varg Vikernes paid attention to this music, he’d probably want to slaughter all associated with the project (or at least he would have been so tempted in his younger days). But there does seem to be an appreciative audience out there for this music.  The band’s MySpace page and web site are pretty slick, and Ordo Bellictum Satanas (which hit the streets in March via the German label Twilight-Vertrieb) is the band’s fourth — so someone out there is diggin’ this shit.

Actually, hate to admit this, but we’re kinda diggin’ this catchy shit too, in a totally non-serious, it’s-better-than-Lady-Gaga way.  And the video makes a nice bookend to that Goldfrapp video that’s been making the rounds on the netz.  What? You haven’t seen that video? Well, what the fuck, we’ll put that one up for you right after this nasty bit of gargle from Semargl:

GOLDFRAPP:

The May/June issue of Revolver magazine arrived in our mailbox over the weekend. What we enjoyed the most was not the cover story about the 2010 “Revolver Golden Gods” awards show (which was largely irrelevant to what we care about in the current extreme metal scene). What we enjoyed the most was Revolver’s verbatim report of a conversation that took place at a dive bar in New York City between Adam Dutkiewicz and Mike D’Antonio of Killswitch Engage and frontman Mikael Stanne of Sweden’s Dark Tranquillity.

As you may know, KSE and DT toured together earlier this year. When Dutkiewicz and D’Antonio formed KSE back in 1999, one thing that united them was their love of Swedish melodic death metal, and Dark Tranquillity in particular. As they got to know Stanne better while touring, they discovered they had more in common than elements of their music. Like a mutual attraction to the Travel Channel (?) and (wait for it) . . . eating competitions.

And green shit.

So after this threesome did some Jack Daniels shots at that dive bar, the conversation eventually turned to the subject of eating competitions, and Revolver was there to record what they said. We thought it was pretty fucking funny.

Granted, our standards of humor here at NCS are pretty low. For example, as you’ll see, we laugh at anything that involves shit. Still, we thought you might find the conversation funny, too. After all, if you’re reading this site, your standards are also pretty low, by definition. So, after the jump, we’ll give you the best excerpts of that Dutkiewicz-D’Antonio-Stanne dialogue from Revolver.

D’Antonio: I heard you recently did some crazy egg-eating competition.

Stanne: It was a 12-egg omelet at Beth’s Cafe in Seattle.  We’re huge fans of the show Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel, so we figured we should always know if there’s an eating challenge in any city we’re in.

Dutkiewicz: You actually tried it?

Stanne: I finished it, and it was huge — full of chili, hash browns, onions, everything.

D’Antonio: Have you done other challenges?

Stanne: In Las Vegas, we did a six-pound burger challenge.

Dutkiewicz: There’s no way you could have finished that one.

Stanne: Not even close. I was worried about it. I thought, This is gonna fuck me up for days.

Dutkiewicz: Did you see the actual episode? The dude was sweating.

Stanne: Yeah. I’ve seen every episode. There’s actually one challenge in New York that I’m really scared of that I might try tonight. It’s an Indian place that has what is supposed to be the hottest curry ever.

Dutkiewicz: I did that!

Stanne: Holy shit! How was it?

Dutkiewicz: It tasted like pain, but I finished it. What was your turd like after 12 eggs? Did you birth a chicken?

Stanne: I felt like I did, for sure. It was rough, but I want to do more challenges.

. . . .

D’Antonio: What country has the worst food?

Stanne: Germany.

D’Antonio: I’m with you. I’m a vegetarian, and they just don’t get it in Germany.

Dutkiewicz: I love German food. The schnitzel and sausages.

Stanne: How about England?

Dutkiewicz: England is fantastic because of the [Indian] curries. When I was mixing one of our records in England I was eating two of the hottest curries I could find a day. By the end, I thought I had to go to the hospital because my ring was so hot, my stomach was bloated, and my shit smelled delicious. It smelled like a curry house, like fresh cooking. Delicious.

Stanne: You want to hear my feces story? On St. Paddy’s day I had a few green beers and I started shitting green.

Dutkiewicz: Yeah, from the food coloring. I once ate a whole box of Cap’n Crunch’s Oops! All Berries. They did a limited run where they left out the regular cereal and it was only the crunchberries left. And when I turded, it came out green water. I called [Killswitch guitarist] Joel [Stroetzel] over so he could look at it.

D’Antonio: This is the same guy who wanted to eat how many cans of corn?

Dutkiewicz: I wanted to guzzle 10 cans of corn to see if I could turd out a cob. I still have to try that one of these days.