20/08/08

Whoa, bet you (whoever you are, reading this) didn't expect me to update this one! Well guess what, I did. Suckers. My visits to random parts of Europe are sadly over for the year and I'm blogging Kerrang! #1224 despite the fact I should be in bed healing a foot tattoo. Professionalism, dudes. Let's get on with the harshness.

1. WOW, YOU GUYS SOUND LIKE PRICKS TOO (p. 67)

For the past couple of weeks now, I've been opening the pages of Kerrang! to find some painfully wacky advert for a band by the name of My Final Hope. Everytime I see this, I judge the book by its cover - four guys, with ridiculous haircuts and colourful Topshop tshirts, pulling Alien Ant Farm faces while they pose with their instruments. Woah, the bassist is smiling and holding his bass upwards! Woah, that guy's keyboard could fall over! The drummer's hanging through his bassdrum!... you get the idea. Basically, I called it - these guys suck. But you know what? That's not a fair appraisal of My Final Hope's music. So I checked it out today and HOLY SHIT these guys know how to fucking rock!

...actually, no. They're literally as bad as I thought. I will give you know mp3s here by the band but I will give you this picture so you have some idea of what I'm getting at. Christ.

2. SKA-PUNK LUMINARY REPS BOTH L.A. AND CHICAGO (p. 46)

Or so says Vinnie Fiorello from Less Than Jake, who knows both handshakes for the Bloods and the Vice Lords. That's, erm... huh? "They're good to know when you're out and about," says Fiorello, and I'm sure, but when do guys in ska-punk bands find themselves having to throw up sets in gang territory? Seriously? Did he learn the Blood handshake just so he could talk to Snoop Dogg at Projekt Revolution all those years ago? Because, wow, that shit would've backfired.

Three Six Mafia - Gang Signs

3. JUSTIN HAWKINS STILL PLAYS "I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE" LIVE (p. 4)

I read this on the letters page and, really, any excuse...

The Darkness - I Believe In A Thing Called Love

4. SOME BANDS ARE DELUSIONAL ABOUT THEIR NAMES (p. 16)

I recently skimmed over an article in the NME about how important it is to pick the right band name so that people will listen to you - that's the reason why Muse aren't called Rocket Baby Dolls and why Negro Wives are now R.E.M. That's pretty true - to be honest, the fact This Week's Kicking Boys My Final Hope are called My Final Hope is one of the reasons I dared to venture nowhere near their music - and it extends to one of this week's Introducing bands, I Hate Kate. Guff name. But wait... courtesy of singer/guitarist Justin Mauriello, there's a STORY BEHIND IT!

"[Kate] was actually a girlfriend of a buddy of mine. This girl had to be the most evil person I'd ever met. Everyone hated her, she was the Devil, she really was. One day I actually said 'Man, I hate Kate', and it sounded like a cool name for a band. I was actually bet $5 that i wouldn't call my band by that name, but I did."

Well then. It is, to be fair, a better name than Negro Wives. (Which is actually growing on me, albeit a good twenty-eight years too late.)

I Hate Kate - Embrace the Curse

5. I CAN TWIST THE RULES OF THIS BLOG BECAUSE I WRITE IT (p. 42)

Yeah, serious! How sweet is that? The reason I say that is because the thing I want to point out isn't actually something I read in Kerrang!, but in Rock Sound. In K!, Corey Taylor talks about how awesome it is to come back to the UK for Reading/Leeds, blah blah blah, but the fact Slipknot are playing inbetween Tenacious D and Metallica psyches him out. That's because Corey Taylor, as I found out, plays in a Tenacious D cover band by the name of Audacious P! NO SHIT. Thank you Rock Sound - a monthly blog is on the way. (No, actually, it sure as hell ain't.)

Audacious P - Scooby Doo, Where Are You? (for the uninitiated, not a song by the D. Shame.)

So, Metallica.

...hey, talking of Metallica!

6. IAN WINWOOD HITS HARD WITH THE DEJA VU (p. 27)

The last time Metallica headlined the Reading/Leeds festival, it was 2003 and Blur were still together. That is a long goddamned time, yet in this week's cover story, Ian Winwood finds a way to end his 2008 article the very same way as the 2003 article, which I remember pretty well: "Be ready." To paraphrase Winwood's pervious article ending:

"Metallica are coming. Be ready."

Compared to this year:

"Death Magnetic will be here next month. Be ready."

Five years and he couldn't think up a different ending line? Is this part of a trilogy? Am I just a weirdo for noticing these things?

Metallica - Cyanide (Live)

7. MORE ROCK STARS MARRIED TO OTHER ROCK STARS (p. 41)

...To use the term lightly, of course. Turns out that Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence is married to Chantal Claret, vocalist for New Yorkers Morningwood. Quoth the Urine: "I saw this band play and [Claret] is an amazing performer. In fact, she was so good that I thought she was way better than me at her in-betweens and so much smarter and more comedic and so natural that I ended up marrying her! They are like a monster truck rally combined with fucking a Bond girl. I got totally swept off my feet."

Awwww!!! That's still not as nice as Omar Little and Fran Boyd getting married, but still.

Morningwood - New York Girls

8. DRAGONFORCE KNOW THEY'RE ONE-TRICK PONIES (p. 48-9)

Okay, they're still a fun band, and their many many loyal fans will rush out and buy ULTRA BEATDOWN (the all-caps rule still applies) when it's out on record shelves, but one can't help but shake the feeling that Dragonforce have hit a glass ceiling. This could be as far as it goes with these guys, folks: despite getting a 4-K rating for their newie, Paul Travers basically says that this is the same album as the last one, detailing a hilariously elaborate description of BEATDOWN's sound ("a cross between Queen and the Latvian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest") and then admitting that the "exact same description" fits for any of the band's previous long-players.

In the inlet on the next page, Travers straight up asks guitarist Herman Li whether or not his band are just playing "variations on a theme". Li says that there are "more changes" on ULTRA BEATDOWN rather than just being a 4000mph riffathon in the spirit of Inhuman Rampage. I'll judge when I hear the album in full but, really, isn't there nowhere else these guys could go now? Aside from Guitar Hero IV?

Dragonforce - The Warrior Inside

9. METAL BANDS LIVE IN JOCKISH VIDEO GAMES (p. 10)

Dragonforce are inspired by ridiculous video game music, hence all the Pac Man noises in their music. Now, video game music is FUCKING POPULAR MUSIC. This never gets old to me! (I play a Game Boy Advance and a Sega Saturn, for goodness' sake, this is INSANE.) Now, whoever thought that Trivium's ass-blaster (and that's a compliment) of a song "Into the Mouth of Hell We March" would work with the helmeted action of a John Madden American football game? Certainly not me. And not with the rest of the batshit soundtrack for the game. Airbourne? In Flames? Busta Rhymes? Wale? Kidz In The Hall? Mindless Self Indulgence? How does that make sense in any way?

Trivium - Into the Mouth of Hell We March

10. GALLOWS, THANKFULLY NOT COMPROMISING (p. 45)

I love Gallows. My friends know this very well. They just blast shit left right and centre and somehow became one of the biggest bands in Britain with an album that addressed family collapse, sexual politics (and the crimes that come with it) and oppressive small-town life. Sweet! So it's a joy to hear that while the band are broadening their horizons on their upcoming album, they're still writing what they want, nevermind anybody else. When asked by Tom Bryant on what would happen if the fans hate the new album, vocalist/professional ginge Frank Carter has one thing to say: "I wouldn't give a fuck. Fuck them." I should be insulted, but I'm actually really pleased by all the pre-game talk. Go on, bring on a new record then!

Gallows - Gold Dust

So, erm, my foot hurts. Like, hopping-on-one-leg-hurts. I'm fucking off to bed.