Revolver Golden Gods Recap

First let me say that this show was a mess from a technical standpoint. Too many delays, people not being where they were supposed to be, bands sound checking when they were already supposed to be playing and so it went like that all night long. That being said the "live from the black carpet" was more entertaining than the show itself. That portion had Twisted Sister's Dee Snider and Sirius/XM radio host Jose Mangin going back and forth interviewing rockstars and celebrities coming down the carpet. It was quick it was to the point and jokes were being cracked all over the place. Plus you could feel the love and respect everyone had for each other.

After a quick commercial break the cameras go live inside the historic Club Nokia and Marilyn Manson is onstage. After saying something about going back to our roots and talking about The Rolling Stones he introduces Slayer. Slayer was not an announced performer and the killed it (as always.) They opened with "South of Heaven" followed by "War Ensemble" and a brand new song that I didn't catch the name of, but it was awesome and classic Slayer.

Our hosts for the evening Eddie Trunk, Jim Florentine, and Don Jameson from That Metal Show were introduced but it took a couple of minutes for them to make it to the stage. After making a couple dick  jokes they gave way to the first presenters of the night, Chester and Mike from Linkin Park who announced Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age as your winner for Best Vocalist.

Next up Jill Janus from Huntress (holy s*** she might kill me but I want her to make love to me) and Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro who had the line of the night when he denied being in the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They then presented Rob Zombie and his band with the award for best live band. Rob did give huge props to the rest of his band and had John 5 say some thanks.

Next up Frankie Palmeri from the band Emmure comes up to introduce the punk/hard-core band A Day to Remember. They are not a bad band but to have to be the first performers after Slayer is never an easy task. They played their singles from their latest album Common Courtesy "Right Back at it Again" and "End of Me" then ended with an older tune called "All I Want."

After another technical mishap where the emcee introduced our next presenters twice because it looked like the director of the show didn't know where they were, Carman Electra and Tony Hawk gave Avenged Sevenfold the award for Most Dedicated Fans. A7X is on tour right now so they recorded a thank you live from the stage at their show at the Target Center in Minneapolis where they gave the award themselves to a lucky fan. That was pretty cool of them to do.

Next up Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach and a couple of other guys I've never heard of presented the funk/metal band 12 Foot Ninja with the award for best new talent.

Then out comes the legendary Doyle Von Frankenstein and his girlfriend Alissa White-Gluz ,who just left the band The Agonist to join Arch Enemy as their front-woman, to introduce a live set from The Pretty Reckless. This band is fronted by the maybe 20 year old Taylor Momsen who starred on the TV show Gossip Girl and was even Cindy Lu Who in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. She doesn't look or sound that young. They performed three songs from their 2nd album Going to Hell including the title track, their number one song "Heaven Knows" and a song called "Fucked Up World."

After another commercial break Scott Ian from Anthrax along with Pauley Perrette from the TV show NCIS present the award for Comeback of the Year. Now as much as we love Deep Purple how on earth do they deserve that award over Black Sabbath?

The super group band The Winery Dogs (Mike Portnoy/Billy Sheenan/Richie Kotzen) are next up to present the award for Paul Grey bassist of the year. The band Five Finger Death Punch were up for 6 awards tonight and this was their first win.  Then their bassist Chris Keal says when accepting the award "I win over Geezer?" Class act.

Dee Snider comes out with some guy from the HBO Tv show True Blood to present another band that I have never heard of called Pierce the Veil with the Film or Video of the year. Their music video won over the concert film from Metallica Through the Never and Lamb of God's As the Palaces Burn a documentary about singer Randy Blythe's murder trial in the Czeck Republic. You see the problem here right?

Then Rex Brown from Pantera and Kill Devil Hill along with Chris Motionless from Motionless in White introduce a live performance from the extreme band Suicide Silence. Except the band was nowhere to be found and it was almost 10 minutes from introduction until the band finally took the stage. They weren't good. At least until Max from Soulfly and Sepultura got on stage with them to play the classic "Roots Bloody Roots."

After this, song of the year was presented by Chuck Billy from Testament and Scott Ian from Anthrax to Five Finger Death Punch for "Lift Me Up" a song that also features Rob Halford and was debuted at last year's Golden Gods.

After this I kind of lost interest in the show as it was dragging so bad. Synster Gates and Zacky V won the Dimebag Darrell Best Guitarist award. Avenged's drummer Arin Illejay won best drummer, and most metal athelete went to Josh Barnett who is a UFC fighter.

Finally Alice Cooper presents Joan Jett with her Golden God award, but before she can play her 3 songs Alice has to hold her back as the crew were still trying to fix something on the stage. After though Joan plays her heart out on that stage giving great performances of "Bad Reputation" her newest song  and the classic "Hate Myself for Loving you" with Taylor Momsen singing along.

Then it's time for Dice as in Andrew Dice Clay who introduces a video montage of Guns N' Roses. After which actor Nicholas Cage is on stage who talks about seeing G n' R for the first time and what a big fan he is. He then hands Axel Rose the Ronnie James Dio Lifetime achievement award. After which another 10 to 15 minute delay happens because the band had to soundcheck. It's a professional awards show, why on earth is a band sound-checking for that long? After the delay G n' R plays their hour long set with original bassist Duff McKagen playing bass. Axel looked like hell but he sounded OK. Their performance was alright but it wasn't the G n' R of old that's for sure. The funniest moment came when guitarist DJ Ashba started to play the iconic "Sweet Child O' Mine" riff and his guitar was so out of tune that even the drummer was laughing about it.

Then that was it. The show ended and unlike in years past where I felt great about metal after watching, I felt meh after watching this year's Revolver Golden Gods Awards. Congrats to all the winners!

Megadeth Angry Again

Because I wanted to play 4 songs today for the Razor 3-Way and Roxanne didn't let me. This is a classic from the Last Action Hero Soundtrack

Strangely this may be the best thing you've seen this year

There is a band blowing up in Japan that is fronted by 3 teenage girls between the age of 14-16. Now before you say "great more girl pop" just wait. The band is called Babymetal, yes Babymetal. It is a mix of speed/thrash metal with dubstep and J-Pop and the best part is it works! Here are a couple of their videos.

This may be the coolest song about chocolate ever.


Follow the buzzards!


And of course the power ballad complete with burning flying V's

CLASSIC ALBUM SPOTLIGHT: MASTER OF PUPPETS

I'm going to get real personal on this one. In 1987 my older brother sat me down and told me I needed to listen to Master of Puppets by Metallica. I was young but I really wanted to start playing guitar and after listening to Master of Puppets just once there wasn't a doubt in my mind that playing guitar is what I wanted to do. I wasn't even a teenager yet and I just started digesting everything heavy metal after that. This is the record and Metallica is the band that made me who I am today. As for Metallica, at the start of the touring process they opened for Ozzy, it was the last time Metallica ever went on tour as a support act. Unfortunately it was while on tour in Europe later that year in support of this album that Metallica were involved in a bus accident that killed then bassist Cliff Burton. That makes this record even more important as we hear the peak of one of metal's greatest players.

Artist: Metallica

Album: Master of Puppets

Release Date: February 24, 1986

Recommended Listening: Battery, Master of Puppets, The Thing That Should Not Be, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Disposable Heroes, Leper Messiah, Orion, Damage Inc. (Yes I know that's the entire track listing)

(Album artwork from Elektra Records)

AllMusic.com says:

"Even though Master of Puppets didn't take as gigantic a leap forward as Ride the Lightning, it was the band's greatest achievement, hailed as a masterpiece by critics far outside heavy metal's core audience. It was also a substantial hit, reaching the Top 30 and selling three million copies despite absolutely nonexistent airplay."

Why not make it a Metallica day

Metallica's James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich must of needed some strings and some drumheads because they both stopped by the Guitar Center in San Francisco. Good thing there was a camera crew on hand.

Interview: Joey Jordison

A couple of months ago I had the chance to have a conversation with one of the best drummers in metal of the last 2 decades Joey Jordison for my syndicated classic metal show Hangar 19. Since the mid 90's he has played with Slipknot. During Slipknot's numerous breaks he has played with other bands like The Murderdolls and his newest project Scar the Martyr. So when news broke this week that Joey was no longer a member of Slipknot, a band that has never replaced members, it took all of us by surprise. Even in this conversation Joey had nothing but good things to say about his now former band mates.

Here's the link to listen to or download my conversation with Joey Jordison.

What happened to the one genre of music that hold's true and stands the test of time since it's initial taking over of the world in the 50's. Maybe I shouldn't ever look at the charts anymore but either no one actually likes rock music anymore (Imagine Dragons don't count) or rock fans don't actually buy music. There are only 5 bands that show up on any sales chart I look at,

Well f*** it, I'm going to keep flying the flag on RAZOR 94.7 and on Hangar 19 and I just hope there's enough of us left to keep Rock and Metal alive and well

In This Moment's Maria Brink poses nude!

It's for a good cause and a good reason but as red blooded American male I can't help but be a little too excited. In reality this is pretty good look behind the new song "Whore"

Masked Musicians, unmasked!

Loudwire just put up one of the coolest lists I've seen in awhile, and let's be honest I love lists. I know that's very nerdy of me, but I can't help it.

From Buckethead and Corey Taylor to the members of Kiss. Bands have been wearing masks and make up for as long as there's been Rock n' Roll and it's always kind of fun to see what they look like in real life. Just wait till you see Oderus Urungus from GWAR. Click the pic to see

Mustaine still can't beat Metallica's Black Album

This is from Loudwire. I'd rewrite it and put in my own words but they have already done such a great job.

Here’s some news that may or may not surprise you. Since Megadeth‘s released Super Collider, two months ago, album sales have been somewhat disappointing. In fact, ‘Super Collider’ was outsold this week by Metallica‘s ‘Black Album,’ which is 22 years old.

Metallica's self-titled Black Album is not only one of metal’s most successful albums, it’s the highest selling record of the last 22 years, period. With approximately 16 million copies of the ‘Black Album’ sold, the full-length classic is the most popular album of the Soundscan era, which began in 1991. As pointed out by Metal Injection, the Black Album routinely sells around 1500 copies each week, and as Megadeth’s Super Collider has dropped in sales, the 2013 disc sold less copies than the Black Album did this week.

Megadeth’s Super Collider has been panned by both critics and fans, although there are many who stand behind the latest Megadeth release. Super Collider has sold just over 60,000 copies since it dropped early in June — 1,713 of which were scanned this week. How many copies did the ‘Black Album’ sell this week? The official count is 1,737. As you can see, Metallica’s 22-year-old Black Album charted higher than Megadeth’s two-month-old Super Collider.

Megadeth’s 2011 full-length, TH1RT3EN, debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, selling 42,000 copies its first week. The album has since sold around 120,000 in the U.S. as of December 2012. Although Super Collider debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart, only 29,000 copies were scanned its first week.

I have one word for Dave Mustaine, ouch!

I love Making Fun of Fred Durst

and apparently so does Al Jourgensen from Ministry. Al just released a book called Ministry: The Lost Gospels according to Al Jourgensen in which he tells more insane stories than even an Ozzy book could tell. I'm going to be talking to Al about the book for my classic metal show and I can't wait to get into some of the details, but in talking with Loudwire he told a great Fred Durst story.

The Limp-dickster motherf—er, whatever his name is. I got him naked and in a cowboy hat [in a recording studio]! I’m showing him, ‘Look, you want my sound? This is my sound. This is what I use.’ And he wouldn’t believe it because just by hitting the magic button on the harmonizer that it wouldn’t make him sound exactly like me. He was that naïve. I’m like, ‘Well, try the cowboy hat.’ So I gave him my cowboy hat. . . and it still sounded like s–t. So I go, ‘Why don’t you try and get naked? That’s how I sing.’ I was just bulls–tting him. So he goes out and does that, and is thoroughly embarrassed, again. And then he just left. I got paid to just humiliate him for three songs. It was awesome.

Awesome indeed. To buy the book from Amazon click here

Metallica post full Kill 'em All Set and a couple vids

I'm still kind of pissed at myself that I didn't try harder to go to the 2nd installment of Metallica's Orion Music + More fest June 8 and 9 in Detroit. At least Metallica puts cool sets like this on livemetallica.com so us idiots who didn't go can enjoy it, or for those that were there can enjoy it all over again.

The set goes like this. On Saturday afternoon James Hetfield comes on one of the side stages to introduce a unheard of band called Deehan. James goes through the motions of introducing the made up band when all of a sudden Lars Ulrich hops on stage and starts playing the intro to Hit The Lights, the first song from their 1983 debut Kill 'em All. Then Kirk Hammet and Robert Trujillo walk on stage and James is given his classic Gibson Explorer guitar. They then proceed to play that album in it's entirety.

Here's video from Metallica's website of "Hit The Lights" and "Phantom Lord"

Today is the National Day of Slayer

I believe this may have started on June 6, 2006 or 6/6/6 but I can not confirm that. Either way today June 6th is the annual Day of Slayer. This is according to the website National Day of Slayer and the official press release

After the passing of Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman, the directors of theInternational Day of Slayer have announced a change in the celebration status of this year's edition, saying that"the world's first heavy metal holiday" is now becoming a yearly celebration.

Started in 2006 as the National Day of Prayer spoof, the first International Day of Slayer was celebrated on June 6 2006 (6/6/06), and with this year's edition being a "somber one," it demands the maximum level of engagement from each and every fan around the globe.

UG plus: remove banne"We at IDoS ask you to again stand up in the name of Slayer, in the name of metal, and in the name of Jeff Hanneman, and remind the rest of the planet that we are here, and we will not be going away anytime soon," said the holiday's CEO Jim Tate viaofficial website. "Good music is heroic and ultimately immortal, and now more than ever, the music of Slayer is xactly that."

Tate continued to praise the impact Slayer had on the life of their fans, saying, "They created the battle hymns that so many of us have used to navigate our lives, ones we will continue to rely upon to as the days ahead grow ever darker.

"We cannot let these works fade with time. It is sometimes hard to remember that Slayer is comprised of mortal men like ourselves, but with the proper dedication and stewardship, their works can last a thousand years and join the ranks of masters like Beethoven and Wagner. This is what we must strive for by insisting on bands like Slayer for us and future generations."

Finally, Tate summed it all up with a brief conclusion, saying, "Don't go to work, listen to Slayer!"

In case you are not sure what to do on June 6, you can find the instructions listed on the IDoS official website below. As you can see, you can participate in some of the more standard activities, or even take things to a "problematic level." Also, the use of headphones is strictly forbidden.

"National holidays in America aren't just about celebrating; they're about forcing it upon non-participants," reads the official announcement.

The International Day of Slayer website exhorts users to:

Listen to Slayer at full blast in your car.

Listen to Slayer at full blast in your home.

Listen to Slayer at full blast at your place of employment.

Listen to Slayer at full blast in any public place you prefer.Taking that participation to a problematic level:

Stage a "Slay-out." Don't go to work. Listen to Slayer.

Have a huge block party that clogs up a street in your neighborhood. Blast Slayer albums all evening. Get police cruisers and helicopters on the scene. Finish with a full-scale riot.

Spray paint Slayer logos on churches, synagogues, or cemeteries.

Play Slayer covers with your own band (since 99% of your riffs are stolen from Slayer anyway).

Kill the neighbor's dog and blame it on Slayer.

With that being said..."RAIN IN BLOOOOOODDDDDD"

Golden Gods and Jeff Hanneman

Last night was the 5th annual Golden God awards held in L.A. and put on by Epiphone and Revolver Magazine. It has become a once a year coming together of the metal community to honor it's greatest members. Last night though took a different turn.

With the passing of Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman it could have been a somber event, and by all accounts at times it was. From Jeff's band mate Kerry King doing shots of Jagar in honor of his brother to Corey Taylor breaking down into tears not just because he won for best vocalist but because of the loss of Jeff.

The night opened up with Anthrax performing "This Love" by Pantera with Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown who then ended the song with a minute of the Slayer classic "Raining Blood." From there the performances were outstanding and a huge number of people were wearing Slayer shirts, even that dude from the band HIM.

Jeff Hanneman will be missed as he was class act, a stand up guy, and one of the greatest guitarists metal has ever seen.

Highlights from the show can be seen here.

Rider's Edge Video Blog #1

Black veil brides...haha

Who Actually Listens To Black Veil Brides?

More bands or entertainers should be like Demon Hunter

Demon Hunter is a christian metal band and a band that I have been a fan of since their first record came out in 2002. Since then I have come to have a lot of respect for this band. They write incredible songs both lyrically and musically and they do it all their way. They don't tour that often, but still manage to release a new album every few years.

In their documentary 45 Days they highlight a fan who happens to be a member of the U.S. Military. They like so many other hard rock and metal bands do what they can to support our troops. I know it's something that helps me proudly say I'm a fan of this band.

In an article in Esquire Magazine about the Navy Seal team that took out Bin Laden their name came up. The article has interviews with some of the team members including the shooter. Well after Metallica had come out and said they didn't want their music associated with torture or it being used to strike fear into the opponent, a lot of troops starting using or listening to Demon Hunter. This Navy Seal team specifically even had Demon Hunter patches on their uniforms.

So what does a christian metal band say about that? This is from their facebook page:

"As you can imagine, our inboxes and phones (and those of our representatives) have been flooded with messages asking us how we feel about the Esquire article on the raid that brought Osama Bin Laden to justice that began circulating yesterday. Specifically, the person identified in the story as "The Shooter" said that Seal Team 6 wore the Demon Hunter emblem on their uniforms and "I wore it when I blasted Bin Laden."

Over the years, we have been overwhelmed by the personal (and unofficial) emails and letters we've received from members of the US military. We have been humbled and honored by the troops who've told us our music has offered them some comfort while overseas, while missing loved ones, while doing what they do best in order to keep America safe and protect the freedoms we enjoy. We've met many servicemen and women at our shows and they've shared their stories with us in person, as well. We wrote "The Soldier's Song" back in 2005 to pay tribute to these folks who've reached out to us. We included one such veteran among the Demon Hunter fans we profiled in our documentary film, 45 Days.

We have seen our symbol, a demon skull with a bullet hole in its forehead, tattooed on fans around the world. We've seen it made into sculptures, painted onto motorcycles, even spray-painted onto tanks and military planes. We often post these pictures on our Facebook page when we receive them. One such email, a few years ago, came from a special operations team who had crafted homemade Demon Hunter patches and put them on their uniforms. They asked us if it was OK if they did this and we of course told them "YES" because we are unapologetic supporters of our troops. In the last 24 hours, we have come to believe this team who contacted us a few years ago must have been Seal Team 6.
As for the talk about enhanced interrogation techniques that has sprung up in the media in the last 24 hours surrounding this story, we feel that it is an unnecessary distraction. It's been widely reported for years that heavy metal music has sometimes been used in these situations. We have no specific knowledge of our music being used for this, nor have we ever volunteered it to be used as such, nor are we commenting on it beyond that. The debate about enhanced interrogation techniques is for politicians, military intelligence, pundits and others of the like to have.

The members of Seal Team 6 and The Shooter are American heroes who deserve our support. We were among the Americans and people around the world abroad who supported the bringing to justice of one of the biggest mass murderers in history, who planned and executed some of the most horrific acts imaginable. All of the military who risk their lives to protect our freedoms earn our respect each and every single day. We are honored, humbled and blessed that Demon Hunter was of any support or comfort to Seal Team 6 or anyone in the US military at any time."
-- DEMON HUNTER

Well said, and I commend this band. 

Happy MLK day...let's rock the f out

Today as we celebrate the man that made true freedom possible for millions of black Americans I decided to throw a playlist together on my Spotify account of some of my favorite black rock bands, or bands that have black members in them.

Quick list:
Sevndust
Bad Brains
Stuck Mojo
Living Colour
King's X
Suicidal Tendencies
God Forbid
Killswitch Engage (not anymore)
Jimi Hendrix
...and there are so many more.

Spend some time with some of these killer bands today and when the calendar turns to February and we truly celebrate black history. Although there is never a bad time to pay our respects to a horrible time of American history and celebrate those that had the balls to change it like the good Dr. King did.