Feb 262010
 

This is just a mish-mash of funny shit we saw over the last 24 hours. I had planned to be talking about some new music today, but the demands of my day job kinda screwed over those plans, so there’ll be a slight delay until tomorrow. So yeah, today’s post is more or less filler. Forgive us.

MACHINE HEAD FIRES SAN DIEGO

First up, this kinda bizarre piece of news about Oakland metal band Machine Head (pictured above):

MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn has revealed that his band has “fired” the city of San Diego, and will never play there again. He tells Rock Radio DJ David “The Captain” Grant, “A lot of crowds are awesome. But if we’re playing San Diego, we’re not going to go on the radio and say, ‘San Diego crows are awesome’ — because they’re not. They’re beat. That’s MACHINE HEAD slang for ‘We don’t like them.’ They don’t come to a show and rage and go crazy. They come to a show and say, ‘Okay… this is cool. Oh, I like this song.’ We’re not into that. I don’t know why they come to a rock show with that kind of attitude. So we don’t go to San Diego anymore. They’re fired.”

This is the first time we can remember a band deciding to fire a whole city. Sure, bands have been known to write off a particular venue where they had a shitty experience, or refusing to participate in a particular tour because of bad experiences with a particular promoter.  But giving the finger to an entire city’s worth of fans? Maybe this is a manifestation of that NoCal – SoCal rivalry that’s been around since California became a state. Or maybe there’s more to this story than meets the eye.

But we’re guessing that now, the feeling’s mutual. Maybe some enterprising photographer will figure out a way to arrange a shot of all metal fans in San Diego gathered in a stadium and flipping the bird at Machine Head. (more after the jump, including some embarrassment about Ozzy and some wet-your-pants funny shit about Tiger Woods . . .) Continue reading »

Feb 152010
 

We apologize in advance for the following post. It’s the latest bizarro episode in the long-running soap opera that Gorgoroth has become. We can’t think of why it would have any redeeming value for you. But the story is just so fucking ridiculous that we couldn’t resist.

The immediate controversy concerns the release by Swedish label Regain Records of a live performance by black-metal legends Gorgoroth and a resulting lawsuit brought against Regain by former Gorgoroth members Gaahl and King ov Hell. Over the last week, Gaahl and King, on the one hand, and Regain, on the other, have engaged in a MySpace exchange over the resolution of that legal case — and someone is either lying or deeply confused.

Just in case you might not find this as funny as we do, we’ll give you the Cliff Notes version of the exchange first — but to appreciate the full, whacked-out hilarity you would need to read the details supplied after the jump.  Cliff Notes version:

Gaahl/King opening salvo: Fuck you Regain Records!

Rejoinder by Regain: No, fuck you, you corpse-painted morons!

Reply by Gaahl/King: I beg to differ — fuck you, you pencil-necked bean-counters!

Now, the details . . . (after the jump) Continue reading »

Jan 142010
 

I had another late night. But today I’m gonna resist the urge to bail out on my journalistic responsibilities by posting more Elize Ryd-style cheesecake. Instead, we’re returning to our more usual serious-minded, thought-provoking metal journalism. We’re going to talk about burning churches, burning Bibles, and burning ideas.

And because we provided some eye-candy for the dudes yesterday, we’re gonna show how even-handed we are and start off today with some eye candy for the ladies. Feast your orbs on this delicacy:

Okay, so it’s licorice-flavored eye candy.

This handsome Norwegian is named Gaahl. That’s not the name his momma and daddy gave him. They liked the name Kristian, as in Kristian Eivind Espedal. But when Kristian started playing black metal circa 1993, he must have decided it would be better to have a name that sounded like throat-clearing. And voila! Gaahl!

As you black metalists out there well know, Gaahl is one of the more notorious figures in a fairly notorious genre. During his ten-year stretch with Norwegian black metal band Gorgoroth, he was imprisoned for assault in Norway in 2002, and then imprisoned for a second nine-month stint in 2006 for allegedly assaulting and torturing a man for six hours while collecting his blood into a cup and threatening to make him drink it. (read more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »