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I still find myself on my self imposed bicycle sabbatical, but I saw this video over on Gizmodo and, well, come on it’s kinda cool.

FROM STEEL: The Making of a Soulcraft from michael evans on Vimeo.

Overkill never gets the respect that they deserve.

Heather Williams is a local

• Real Estate agent
• Professional freestyle motocross rider (OMG! She was in the X-Games)
• Professional motocross racer
• Drag bike racer
• Funny car racer
• Scuba diver
• Skateboarder
• High school basketball player
• Cross country runner
• Tween soccer player
• Go karting enthusiast
• Reality TV “personality.”
• Lingerie football player
• Owner of two large, round breasts

Ok, that’s just too much shit, there’s no way someone can do all of that stuff and be good at it.  It doesn’t even make sense.  It’s just too much, TOO MUCH!

Sorry, back now.

Anyway, in the below video Ms. Williams lets you know how awesome she is by pretending to be Lita Ford while showing VHS footage of all the stuff she’s into.  She also breaks Shredding Rule Number One by turning her back to the camera during the solo.  Nice ass or no, you’re supposed to show off your tasty licks, not hide them.

Oh yeah, this is the good stuff.

All hail KMFDM

It’s easy to hate The Monkees. They were, after all, “The Pre-Fab Four” a precursor to every boy band to come out of Orlando in the 90s and every show staring vaguely Latin jailbait on Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel. Of course, the proof is in the music, after all, Motown’s bread and butter was pre-fab groups and I dare you to deny The Supremes. The Monkees, I argue are just good music. Ian MacKaye agreed with me enough to cover “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” but beyond that.

• The Monkees took Jimi Hendrix on his first US tour.  Now, this worked out roughly as well as Justin Bieber having Snoop Doggy Dogg opening for him (note, not Martha Stewart’s friend, “Snoop Dog,” but Snoop Doggy Dogg who didn’t love them hos while pulling a 187 on an undercover cop with his mind on his mone and his money on his mind).  Even though The Monkees were a group designed from the bottom up to make teenage girls spend money, they were just a bunch of 20-Something guys who liked what 20-Something guys liked
• Their movie “Head” was directed by Jack Nicholson and only makes sense if you’re tripping balls.  I’ve never tripped balls, but I saw “Head” once at like 2am in a buddy’s dorm room.  It took several months of intense therapy to recover.
• “She” is just a good song, with it’s plodding repetitive riff, had it been recorded by Blue Cheer all the old, troo/kvlt/brootal guys would be getting tennis elbow jacking off over it as proto-metal greatness.  It’s not hard to imagine Tony Iommi bringing this riff into band practice and Geezer Butler saying, “I’ve got some lyrics about a demon woman that would work with that.”

Don’t hate, just enjoy.

It’s always been obvious in R&B music, the Xerox effect.  Where you end up with a copy of a copy of a copy that vaguely resembles the original but in a totally superficial way.  Where as, say Aretha Franklin and Al Green started in the church and their singing style evolved from that, Whitney Houston was influenced by both singing in church and the things that Aretha/Tina/The Supremes/The Temps/Etc. brought to it.  By the time we get to Mariah Carey the church is gone and it’s just an imitation of Whitney Houston and Beyonce’, an imitation of Marian.  A copy of a copy of a copy that vaguely resembles the original, but not really.  It went from “The Spirit moving me” to “urban yodelling” in forty years.

Hair metal is no different, but the time span was well and truly more compressed.  That first generation of bands, your Motley Crues and Quiet Riots were influenced by 70s glam and punk bands.  Motley, specifically, were the result of Sid Vicious sodomizing Ziggy Stardust. The second generation, your Poisons and Warrants (Guns and Roses were always an outlier, anyway) lost the punk rock attitude and focused on the glam image, by the time you got to the third and fourth generation you ended up with bands who either had great musical chops but no identity (check out Shotgun Messiah, a band that put out three albums and an EP that all sound like they were made by different bands) lots of musical chops, but little sincerity (I’m looking at you, Spread Eagle) or Trixter. You also had a weird situation where the bands that influenced the movement (Kiss, Aerosmith) re-tooled their image to fit into it better.

Also, Tuff.  Stevie Rachelle’s greatest musical accomplishment was running the now pretty much dead in the water Metal Sludge.  But before that he was the lead singer of Tuff, and it would not surprise me if he ever demanded a paternity test from Brett Michaels.   Tuff was to 80s hair metal what Justin Bieber is to Al Green, a copy of a copy of a copy of a thing so far removed from the thing that only the faults remain.  Even through the influenza and cough syrup haze I currently live in, this song sucks.  Hard.  Not even the ‘Tussin can help.

One of the best breakdowns in metal. Getcha pull.

Over on the Deciblog they’re still doing “Justify Your Shitty Taste in Music” (I STILL think someone should do “Justify The Shitty Music in Your Web Edit”). They got around to someone justifying liking Celtic Frost’s Cold Lake. And they posted the video to Cherry Orchards

I had forgotten how bad that song was. Really. (I will agree that the opening riff is pretty awesome, though)

To understand why Cherry Orchards is so bad you kind of have to hear what Celtic Frost is supposed to sound like.

I’m waiting for Sean to chime in on how it wasn’t that bad. It was that bad. Tom G. Warrior, the man who wrote “Procreation of the Wicked” is wearing fingerless, white, lace gloves. It was that bad.