(photos in this post are by the uber-talented Tim Flach)

I’ve returned from my vacation, which was better than I deserved, and I will soon be doing my part to contribute to the site on a more regular basis again. Given the quality and diversity of the guest posts while I was gone, this will undoubtedly come as a let-down to many readers. And that brings me to the first subject of this post…

A WORD OF THANKS

That’s a figure of speech, because I have more than one word: I want to send out a huge thank-you to all of the people who sent in guest posts in response to my request for help before leaving on vacation. I have posted every single one that I received — 25 in all, so far — with the final one coming later today. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of them, and based on the traffic stats for the site, it’s apparent that our readers did, too.

Honestly, I could get used to having other people do my work for me. If any of you guest writers who submitted posts feel like doing more, don’t wait for another invitation. You know how to reach me. And for those of you who may have mused about doing it, but didn’t — muse harder. And then start writing. Check the “Contact” page if you’ve lost my e-mail address. Continue reading »

Sometimes I overthink things. I just watched Revocation’s brand new official video for “Invidious” (from their new self-titled album). I had fun watching it, not only because the song is excellent but also because it captures the energy of the band performing live in front of an enthusiastic stage-diving Boston crowd. I hope we get half as good a crowd during Revocation’s set at the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour stop in Seattle this afternoon (and tonight), because that’s where I’ll be.

But while I watched the video I was also thinking about how much work it took to make this thing. Like, how did they get all these camera shots with the crowd going nuts everywhere? And how did they edit them together so effectively? And how did they sync the hundreds of video segments so well with the album track?

Somebody did some fuckin’ A-grade work on the video. When I find out who, I’ll stick their names in here. For now, watch this: Continue reading »

Well, I guess it had to happen someday. Since we put up our first post at NO CLEAN SINGING in November 2009, we’ve had an unbroken record of posting something on the site every day, weekends and holidays included . . . until yesterday.

Yesterday was just a clusterfuck.  The long work project I’ve been whining about prevented me from doing anything NCS-related from the time I woke up until late last night. My NCS comrades Andy Synn and DGR made a valiant effort to bail me out by sending in pieces, but unfortunately I couldn’t even check my e-mail until late afternoon, and even then didn’t have time to get them up on the site. You’ll see what they wrote later today.

I suppose I could have quickly put up some pics of monkeys having sex, just to keep the record going, but that seemed like a pretty lame idea. I mean, I’ve posted some pretty stupid shit here in the past, but I’ve always actually put some effort into being stupid. Continue reading »

It’s so rare that anything connected with heavy metal breaks into the mainstream consciousness that I can’t help but pay attention when it happens. Today it was kind of unavoidable. I was in my car with the radio tuned to a local talk channel just about the time that the CBS national radio news came on, and sure enough, right there at the end, after stories about things like wildfires and drought in the Midwest and Mitt Romney’s latest insistence that, yes, he pays his taxes, was Dave Mustaine’s latest and perhaps most outrageous pronouncement yet. CBS even aired a clip from Mustaine’s August 7 commentary in Singapore. You know, the one where he said this:

“Back in my country, my president … he’s trying to pass a gun ban, so he’s staging all of these murders, like the ‘Fast And Furious’ thing down at the border … Aurora, Colorado, all the people that were killed there … and now the beautiful people at the Sikh temple.”

Later, Mustaine went on to suggest that he may move to Singapore — a state not exactly known for its libertarian values — to escape the terror of “Nazi America.”

Dave, please move. Please, please, please, please, please!! If you move to Singapore, there’s less chance that the people at CBS will hear the next piece of ignorant garbage that spews from your pampered mouth.

It’s true that Dave Mustaine is not the only member of the community of metal with paranoid goofball ideas who insists on sharing them with the world. Unfortunately, the patronage of generations of metalheads have given him a platform from which his blathering gets noticed a lot more than the blathering of other lunatics who play in metal bands. It’s way past time that fans took the platform away from him. Continue reading »

Dethklok, Lamb of God, and GOJIRA GOJIRA GOJIRA will be touring North America this summer.  Also, GOJIRA will be part of that tour.  Further, the tour will include GOJIRA.

This news, which includes GOJIRA, was officially announced days ago. I must have been in a coma, because I missed it until today. I found out today because I’m on an e-mail list for the venue in Seattle where this tour will be stopped, and I got an announcement of a pre-sale that begins today. After I attempted to get all the sticky stuff out of my pants that appeared there when I realized I would get to see GOJIRA again, I promptly bought tickets.

And yes, the tour, which features GOJIRA, will be stopping in Seattle. In fact, the tour BEGINS in Seattle on August 1. GOJIRA and those other bands will then visit 31 other cities in the U.S. and Canada over the next eight weeks. The whole schedule is after the jump, along with info about how to find tickets — which go on sale tomorrow.

Also, GOJIRA. Continue reading »