JEFF HANNEMAN HAS PASSED AWAY

 Metal News  10 Responses »
May 022013
 

Slayer guitarist and founding member Jeff Hanneman died earlier today near his Southern California home. He had been forced to pull out of live performances after contracting necrotizing fasciitis, most likely from a spider bite. But the cause of death has been identified as liver failure.  From a press report:

Slayer guitarist and founding member Jeff Hanneman died earlier today of liver failure. He was 49.

“Slayer is devastated to inform that their bandmate and brother, Jeff Hanneman, passed away at about 11AM this morning near his Southern California home,” the band’s longtime publicist said in a statement. “Hanneman was in an area hospital when he suffered liver failure.”

Hanneman co-founded the thrash metal greats with Kerry King in 1981; their breakthrough came in 1986 with the brutalist album “Reign in Blood.” Hanneman wrote or co-wrote the set’s standout tracks, “Angel of Death” and “Raining Blood.”

Hanneman is survived by his wife Kathy, his sister Kathy and his brothers Michael and Larry.

This is sad news. Jeff Hanneman is gone but his name will be remembered in the community of metal for a very long time.

THE CORE-LESS BREAKDOWN: A LIST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  29 Responses »
Mar 272013
 

 (I wish I had thought of this cool idea for a post. But BadWolf beat me to it — and this is his piece.)

It’s not news to anyone reading this ( I hope) that heavy metal culture has an elitist streak. In fact, read enough comment threads on this blog and others, and you will notice a tiered system of elitism, false barricades that we, as fans, erect to keep ourselves distanced from a perceived wasteland that is ‘the mainstream.’ By virtue of reading a metal blog, I’d wager you’re already a step or two up on the elitism pyramid. By definition, as a metal blogger, I am MORE than a few steps up on the elitism pyramid. But I’m not far enough up to lose my sense of perspective.

There is an appropriate amount of ironic self-distancing when appreciating art. The top of the elitist pyramid? Probably black metal purists, and look how even the mainstream lambasts the true corpsepaint-set as clowns. Those folks would do well to remember that most of the Norwegian attack bands abandoned the strict black metal template quite rapidly. Ihsahn is in a prog band now. Mayhem put electronica all up in their second album.

But at the same time, from where I stand, the lowest rung of elitism is abjectly deserving of ridicule as well. And what constitutes that bottommost rung? Probably the bias against breakdown-centric bands. You can even see it on No Clean Singing—we’re covering a lot more black metal than deathcore these days. Continue reading »

THE DISINTEGRATION OF SLAYER?

 Metal News  14 Responses »
Feb 212013
 

About 8 hours ago Dave Lombardo, co-founder of Slayer and the band’s drummer for more than 30 years, released a statement in which he states that Kerry King has kicked him off the band’s upcoming Australian tour in reaction to complaints from Lombardo about not being paid for the band’s touring in 2012 and about being denied access to the band’s financial records.

In his statement, Lombardo claims that 90% of Slayer’s 2012 tour income was deducted as expenses, including the professional fees paid to Slayer’s management, “costing the band millions of dollars and leaving 10% or less to split amongst the four of us.” Lombardo states that he and Slayer frontman Tom Araya hired auditors in an effort to find out what had happened to all of the tour income but they were denied access to the detailed information they sought to obtain.

He further states that management demanded, as a condition to paying him, that he sign a contract “which forbade me to do interviews or make statements having to do with the band, in effect a gagging order.” Continue reading »

IF YOU LIVED IN WESTERN CANADA AND COULD ASK ROB ZOMBIE AND SLAYER WHATEVER CAME TO YOUR PUTRID MIND, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

 Metal News  50 Responses »
Jul 172011
 

This is not an entirely hypothetical question. It could happen. Our brothers in blog at Heavy Blog Is Heavy are giving away two tickets to the Vancouver stop of the Hell On Earth Tour on August 3, plus a chance for a meet-and-greet session with tour headliners Rob Zombie and Slayer (Exodus is also on this tour, but to ask them questions, you’ll have to get up stage in the middle of their set and see if you can get their attention).

Those tickets and passes are the grand prize in a contest HBIH is currently running, with the second prize being two more tickets (but no meet-and-greet). To enter, you just have to answer this imminently practical question: If all hell were to break loose and zombies came out of the woodwork, how would you slay them?

I keep answers to questions like this on a little notepad in an emergency kit, which includes such other potentially useful items as a can of catfood, a block of C-4 explosive, two packs of Ding-Dongs, and a used-only-once band-aid. My notepad also includes words of greeting in seven known extraterrestrial languages. In other words, I’m fuckin’ ready for anything.

I know how to kill zombies, too. Kill ’em so they won’t be coming back — ever. Unfortunately, since I’m within the secret, monolithic brotherhood of blogdom with the HBIH people, I’m ineligible to enter this contest. Probably for the best; it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else. I also know what to ask Rob Zombie and Slayer, but if I told you, I’d have to kill you.

To get more details about the HBIH contest, go here. Contest ends on July 26.

OLD SCHOOL / NEW SCHOOL

 IQ Subtraction, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  22 Responses »
Jun 092011
 

Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of a feature we’re calling OLD SCHOOL / NEW SCHOOL.  I usually run on at the mouth in introducing posts around here, but for this one, I’m just gonna let you figure out the theme for yourselves. Given the title we’re using for this series, it seemed fitting to begin with the following contrast. (Don’t worry, there will be music after the jump.)

OLD SCHOOL

NEW SCHOOL

(yeah, more after the jump . . .)

Continue reading »

RELAXED, FUN, AND SATANIC

 Metal News  18 Responses »
Aug 312010
 

UK’s Telegraph reports this morning about an article written by the Rev. Rachel Mann, an Anglican priest at St. Nicholas church in Burnage, England, in a publication called Church Times. It’s about metal, and it’s probably not what you would expect from a priest. Granted, our impression is that the Anglican church is somewhat more tolerant and somewhat less judgmental than many institutional forms of religion, but still, Rev Rachel’s article is a refreshing change of pace.

It’s also humorous, in a guileless, probably unintentional way. It’s also a tad condescending. And it doesn’t go far enough.

Nevertheless, we thought it was worth re-printing the Telegraph piece, along with our own running commentary, and of course some musical accompaniment. We also invite you to comment, because we have a feeling this will inspire some thoughts — so don’t keep ’em to yourselves.

Christians could learn a lot about life from heavy metal, says cleric

By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM BST 31 Aug 2010

The Rev Rachel Mann claims that the much-maligned form of music demonstrates the “liberative theology of darkness”, allowing its tattooed and pierced fans to be more “relaxed and fun” by acknowledging the worst in human nature. She says that by contrast, churchgoers can appear too sincere and take themselves too seriously.

This is a defense of metal from an unusual quarter — not that we feel metal needs to be defended, by anyone, especially priests. Sure, sometimes it’s frustrating to hear people who don’t know the first thing about metal condemn it, but usually that frustrated feeling passes quickly, because, basically, we don’t give a fuck what non-metalheads think about our music. On the other hand, we’re not sure we agree with Rev Rachel’s defense.  (more of the Rev’s thoughts, and ours, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

MEGADICK (TO THE MAX)

 IQ Subtraction, Metal News  10 Responses »
Jul 052010
 

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 . . .) Continue reading »

APOCALYPTICA GETS THE GOJIRA TREATMENT

 Metal News  No Responses »
May 062010
 

Those chill cellists in Apocalyptica are set to release their seventh studio album 7th Symphony on August 23rd (August 20 if you live in Germany). Per a press release issued yesterday, the band will continue its relatively recent but oh-so-successful practice of including guest vocalists on some of the songs.

The first single, “End Of Me”, will feature Gavin Rossdale, best known as the vocalist of Bush. Another one, “Broken Pieces”, will include vocals by Flyleaf singer Lacey Sturm, and “Not Strong Enough” will be sung by Brent Smith (Shinedown).  Looks like we’re in for more hard rock from Apocalyptica.

We can’t honestly complain about this, because we’ve got a serious weakness for Apocalyptica, even though their music has drifted far beyond the boundaries of what we write about here at NCS.

But here’s the part of the press release that’s worth a mention on this site:

The album also features a number of other notable guest performances: Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo plays on “2010”, [and] “Bring Them To Light” features Joseph Duplantier, singer and guitarist of the French death metal band Gojira . . . .

Say what?!?  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

WHY IS GERMANY SO FUCKING BRUTAL? (postscript)

 IQ Subtraction, Listmania, Metal News  No Responses »
Dec 192009
 

wacken10smallVans WarpedYesterday, NCS Co-Author IntoTheDarkness posted a piece on the brutality of German extreme metal bands. In an episode of synchronicity, this morning I saw three news updates about festivals scheduled for 2010 — one in the U.S. and two in Germany. And the comparison speaks volumes. On the one hand, we have the 2010 Vans Warped Tour spreading across the US next summer like a brain-sucking plague. On that tour, you’ll have the opportunity to see such stupifyingly awful bands as Attack! Attack!, Breathe Carolina, and Eyes Set to Kill. There are a few saving graces on the tour — Parkway Drive, Suicide Silence, and Whitechapel. But suffering through the rest of the 67-band lineup for the opportunity to see those dudes would be worse than a garden-hose colonoscopy without anesthesia.

SUMMER_BREEZE_2010On the other hand, next year in Germany we’ll have the latest installments of (a) the Summer Breeze festival scheduled for August 19-21 in Dinkelsbühl; and (b) the Wacken Open Air festival scheduled for August 5-7 in (where else) Wacken, Germany. At Summer Breeze, you could see the likes of Asphyx, Barren Earth, Behemoth, Dark Tranquillity, Despised Icon, Dying Fetus, Hypocrisy, Necrophagist, Obituary, Sepultura, Swallow the Sun, The Crown, and Maroon. And Wacken Open Air will feature bands such as Amorphis, Arch Enemy, Caliban, Immortal, Iron Maiden, and Slayer.

What’s really mind-blowing about the contrast is that those German festivals, each spread over just a few days in a single location, will draw tens of thousands (e.g., 70,000 tickets were sold for the 2009 edition of Wacken Open Air more than 200 days in advance). To get that kind of attendance in the U.S. for metal, you apparently need to have a line-up of largely craptastic bands and a schedule of about 40 dates in 40 cities.

To be fair, the German festivals draw crowds from all over Europe, and the U.S. does have some legitimately extreme festivals that are drawing headbangers in increasing numbers (the Maryland Deathfest, now in its 8th year, comes to mind most prominently). But still, so far, it’s no contest.

For full lists of the bands scheduled to date for these 3 tours, continue reading after the jump.

Continue reading »

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