When you think about Metallica, the first thing many people think of is Lars Ulrich. That’s because Lars has been the band’s spokesman for the majority of their career. The guy’s also been at the center of just about every stupid decision they have made in the last 20 years, from Napster to that coffee can drum on St. Anger. But if the rumor is true, had Cliff Burton not died, Lars would have been booted out of the band. Now, mind you this is third-hand information at best, but it’s not coming from a bunch of journalists trolling message boards for something to write about. It’s coming from a couple of rock gods. Dave Mustaine was giving an interview to Rolling Stone. The interviewer figured, “Hey, Dave knows a little something about being booted out of Metallica. I’ll just run this rumor past him.” The guy, a journalist by the name of Greg Prato, asked Dave, “As far as you know, is it true that on the last Metallica tour Cliff Burton was on before he died, the band was planning on firing Lars Ulrich at the tour’s end?” Mustaine said, that’s what Scott Ian of Anthrax had told him. According to Dave Mustaine via Scott Ian, James, Cliff and Kirk were going to fire Lars. Now, I’m pretty sure that we’ll get a quote from James in the next could of days saying, “We were never going to fire Lars. There is no band without Lars. Dave should quit spreading rumors.” But really. What else is he going to say. If confirms the rumor he just drown in a flood of furious sibilant spit. “Shh. You know what dickweeds! You’d be nothing without me! People loved my sweet coffee can drum. I’m like the heart and soul of the band. DICKWEEDS!!”
ACDC Has About 2 Years Left
And it turns out that Brian Johnson listens to the Backstage Blog, as every rock star in the world should. If you will recall yesterday I said that the problem with rockers these days is that they simply don’t pee on stuff enough anymore, recounting not only the story of Johnson peeing on Sputnik but also David Coverdale’s especially viscous bladder grease being the cause of Dr. Steven Hawkings’ confinement to a wheelchair. I said that to be a real rocker you needed to start hosing down historical space debris and visionaries in theoretical physics. Well, Brian Johnson must have heard the podcast and realized that it’s been too long since he drizzled a satellite because he’s planning on retiring. I can only imagine that his enlarged prostate is keeping him from his proper rock god duties because Brian Johnson says he’s getting too old to rock. He’s planning on giving it up in 2011. He says, “We were talking about the end of thetour and I said, ‘We’re finishing in May and that’s me done!’ But Malcolm said, ‘What are you talkin’ about? We’re not gonna let you retire!’” He said that he would honor the bands commitments through the next tour which will wrap in 2011. He says, “The other lads are in their early fifties. I’m the old dog in the regiment. It’s a purely selfish thing. I don’t want to look a prat if I try to push it too far. I don’t want for people to see me on stage and say, ‘Oh, poor old f**ker, the band’s carrying him!’”
You know what’s wrong with rock stars these days? Not enough bodily functions. Back in the heyday of rock, someone in spandex and eyeliner was always peeing, pooping or spitting on something. People took special care while walking through the streets after a band like Motley Crue had played because you never knew when you were going to step on a freshly squose Nikki Sixx turd. And I can’t tell you the number of people who suffered serious injury after slipping in a puddle of David Coverdale’s urine. That dude peed Pennsoil. Very slick. That’s how Stephen Hawking ended up in that wheel chair. Whitesnake played a show in London and Hawking was on his way to prove the existence of wormholes when out of no where… COVERDALE PEE! Hit the ground like a sack of ripe pears. Paralyzed. (Little known fact: Stephen Haking can talk. The problem is whenever he opens his mouth he uncontrollably spaws a profanity-laced tirade and the viscous nature of David Coverdale’s urine.) But not anymore. Now all these bands want to be called artists and write songs with strong lyrics and interesting chord progressions. Who cares about the words? Give me a little widdley-wah and get to hosing down the crowd with some recycled Budweiser. Well all you Kings of Leons and Modest Mice and Death Cabs out there, pay attention because this is how you become one of the greatest rock bands of all time. You pee on THE symbol for Western paranoia and Cold War hysteria. Back in ’91 Boris Yeltsin promised the people of Russia a little of the Western rock and the roll in an effort to get them to quit rioting in the streets. The Russians, always suckers for Levis and Pepsi said, “OK, we’ll quit demanding democracy for a couple of days if you bring us good time rock and roll. But none of this Hasslehoff crap the Germans are all sweaty for. We want someone GOOD.” And so Yeltsin talked ACDC into performing at a military base in Moscow. The same base that had a hanger containing Sputnik, the first man-made satellite into orbit. The very same one that tripled the paranoia level in the US just by existing. And it was on that satellite that Brian Johnson decided to relieve himself. He says,
“It was getting dark then and I was bursting for a pee. I went outside and there was this concrete plinth and I’m standing there going piss. And there were these two guards who were really upset. Then the translator came out saying I had just pissed on Sputnik! It was just this black ball, I didn’t realize what it was.”
Gay Slurs Make You Look Dumb
And just a reminder: if you don’t like something please don’t call it “gay.” It makes you look like an idiot. If you think something is something that is particularly homosexual, like say Fatty’s wardrobe, then it’s perfectly fine to call it gay, but gay as a description of something that you think sucks makes you look really dumb. Also, rockstars, quit bitching about Twitter. If you don’t like it don’t use it. Kid Rock may be an American Badass, but he’s not a fan of Twitter.
“It’s gay. If one more person asks me if I have a Twitter, I’m going to tell them, ‘Twitter this [bleep], mother[bleep]er,’ I don’t have anything to say, and what I have to say is not that relevant. Anything that is relevant, I’m going to bottle it up and then squeeze it onto a record somewhere.”
Joe Elliott Back-Pedals Like The Tour de France In Reverse
And now the sound of furious back-pedaling. Chances are you know the sound. You may have even created it yourself. It’s the Fred Flintstone running footsteps that trickles out of your mouth when you’ve been caught talking crap about someone just as they walk into the room. “That Cindy is such a f-ing whore. I hear she’ll let you stick it in ev… Hey, Cindy! I totally saw you standing there. Just now. And I was all like, uhm, I thought, I’m gonna totally make her think I’m talkin crap and then when she walks in I’ll be all, ‘Haha, I totally fooled you,’ because you know I’d never say that you were a filthy whore that takes multiple inputs like some sort of human universal remote. Heh. Buddy.” If you’re that person’s boss they’ll likely play along with it knowing that they can lean on you for a raise the next time performance evaluations come up, but if you’re an equal, chances are you’ve got a round house kick to the throat coming First Class Air Mail. What’s less clear is what’s the protocol when you are sharing the bill on a tour. You may remember that last year, Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott made sure everyone knew not to lump his band in with sucky hair metal acts like Poison because Poison has no substance, whereas songs like “pour Some Sugar On Me” have a deep message and sociological impact, like, “Here’s some sugar and, if you want, you can, like, pour it on me. ‘N stuff.” But now, Def Leppard and Poison are sharing a stage with the “Shows I Would Have Cared About When I Was Twelve Tour,” rolling through Portland on 9/11. So what does Joe have to say about Poison now that he has to see Bret Michaels every day back stage? He says this:
“I never said their music had no substance, I said that ours had more. That’s a totally different thing. Yes, it was taken out of proportion. Truth be known, it was a dumb question from a foreign journalist in a press conference where I could barely hear what was going on and I was getting really agitated with being in the room in the first place, so I couldn’t hear the questions. It was a dumb question from a dumb journalist, to a dumb singer about a dumb subject.”
Ah yes, the old stupid journalist baiting stupid rockstars into embarrassing answers with wily dumb questions defense. He also went on to say that being in a band, you have to believe your band is the best band in the whole wide world, so it’s natural that he thinks that Def Leppard is better than Poison. And The Beatles. And the Stones. And the Who. All of which he said.
Portland Kicks Ass Shakespeare-Style
And once again Portland has to step up and show the rest of the world how to take an old and tired idea and make it something that people actually want to see. First it was Trek in the Park, mashing up Shakespeare in the Park and Star Trek. Now, again proving and interest in the Bard is not just for the tweed jacket crowd, we have metal Shakespeare. A Portland guy named Jason Simms has formed a band called the Metal Shakespeare Company setting some of Willy S’s iambic pentameter to screaming guitars. Simms says Shakespeare and modern metal music have a lot in common. He says, “Both have a lot to do with gender bending and costumes – I mean, Iron Maiden wore tights, had long hair and put on makeup.”Check out the group’s video for their song “To Bleed or Not to Bleed” at MetalShakespeare.com.
The once marginally interesting, mostly coherent and generally likeable (in a douche-aware-of-his-own-douchiness sort of way) Marilyn Manson has committed the cardinal sin of celebrity internet use: He threatened all the people talking crap about him to a battle of the fisticuffs. Apparently Manson just bought a computer, either that or he finally got drunk/high enough to override his own sense of reason and common sense, because he just made it known that he’s read the comments made about him by message board types and journalists alike who made the rather obvious observation that Manson is a 40-year-old who writes like a 14-year-old goth girl and brags about cutting himself. That last part is in reference to comments Manson made about his break-up with Evan Rachel Wood and how he cut himself with a knife for every day they were apart. Manson of old would either shrugged off the comments and ignored them or made some equally biting criticism about the particular journalist/internet troll and shamed them into silence, which would in turn cause the internet at large to LOL, ROFL and FTW in approval. That was before Manson found whatever cocktail of drugs and booze that has utterly and simultaneously sapped his intellect and sense of humor. He posted a rambling, haphazard blog on his Myspace (which doesn’t do much to deflect that whole 14-year-old comparison people have been making) that he will personally punch-up anyone who talks crap. He writes:
I can, but do not need to defend myself And the absurd accusations that the average press has clinged onto. If we need a nude photo of me to prove that I am far different than the soon-to-be-murdered-in-their-home press has decided to fabricate, that is easy. But if one more “journalist” makes a cavalier statement about me and my band, I will personally or with my fans help, greet them at their home and discover just how much they believe in their freedom of speech. I dare you all to write one more thing that you won’t say to my face. Because I will make you say it. In that manner. That is a threat. Mm
Own Some Really Disgusting Rock Memorabilia
Do you want to own the grossest piece of rock memorabilia ever committed to film? Have you always wanted to decorate your living room with pictures of pasty, naked, pigeon-chested hippies? Then you need to pick up this latest piece of rock history. A naked picture of John Lennon is now for sale. The shot comes from John’s photo shoot with Yoko Ono for their 1968 album Two Virgins. It is a full-frontal outtake that, according to the sellers shows John and Yoko sitting down and looking straight into the camera and smiling. The description goes on to explain, “He’s in an excited state, and let’s just say you can tell that he’s not Jewish.” Learn more or buy the photo for 54-thousand dollars at memorabilia site MomentsInTime.com.
OK, let me say up front that Motley Crue is a great live band. They pour their hearts and souls, not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars, into their stage show and rarely do the fans leave disappointed. That said, someone needs to pull Nikki Sixx aside and explain to him that 1) they aren’t doing anything so special that someone need to put up a spoiler alert before talking about the show and 2) that if you give a journalist the impression that you are against the free flow of information and social networking then are just writing his article for him. Nikki appears to be pretty upset about an interview he did with the Wall Street Journal where he talks about Cruefest 2. During the course of the interview he expressed concern about video of the tour’s opening night leaking to the internet via the fans in attendance. He said, “It’s 2009 and there’s a million iPhones with a million opportunities to take a picture of our show and ruin Christmas. We want to control as much as we can of what’s getting out there about us so that people who come are blown away.” He then went on to suggest that he thought Twitter was silly, saying, “I’m so over the Internet. Twitter is ridiculous and there’s too much info out there. Celebrities, movie stars and rock stars are losing their mystique.” The Journal writer took those statements to mean, “I Hate the Internet,” which is a sentiment that he attributed to Nikki even though he didn’t say those exact words. Nikki posted that he thought that a paper as reputable at the Journal wouldn’t hire such a “stupid writer” and pointed out they myriad ways in which Motley Crue has used the internet to benefit fans and themselves, thus refuting the allegation that he hates the internet. All of that not withstanding, Nikki, I’m begging you to let this go and, more importantly adjust your point of view regarding your show and the fans with camera phones. Because here’s the deal, the fans posting videos of your show? That’s not ruining Christmas. That’s the commercial for that GI Joe aircraft carrier that you really want two weeks before Christmas. All I can do is watch some other kid play with that aircraft carrier on TV, but I guarantee you that it made me all the more excited to get one. Same thing with these crappy camera phone videos. Best I get there is 30 seconds of crappy sounding, shaky video from 100 yards away. That’s not ruining the show. It’s going to make anyone who wants to go get all the more excited. Think of it not like someone pirating your show, think of it like a trailer for your movie that you didn’t have to pay someone to make and distribute for you.
And don’t forget that Cruefest is rolling through the Clark County Amphitheater next Tuesday. I’m going to post a hand-held camera phone video of the Cruefest’s opening night over on the Blog at KUFO.com. After you watch it ask yourself if really made you want to see the show any less.
Free Unreleased Metallica Album
And I would never suggest to a band that they learn from Metallica when it comes to using the internet because even though they have become much more lax in the last few years I’m pretty sure James Hetfield still paws at the keyboard and sacrifices squirrels to the glowy picture gods on the monitor while Lars attempts to get in verbal arguments with the message board posters who flame the crap out of him and eventually beats the computer with one of James’ dinner bones because everyone is ignoring what he’s shouting at the screen. But their fast internet failings and their current internet incomprehension, Metallica just did something pretty cool. Some rare, previously unreleased METALLICA has been posted on the MetallicaUnreleased’s Channel at YouTube. The Presidio Album contains the tracks that Metallica were recording in 2001 at the Presidio in San Francisco. This would have been the record that was St. Anger but James went to rehab and the songs were discarded.