Holy shit it’s been forever since I did a Metal Shavings bit. I’ve been covering so much press releases and such lately that I have lacked the human side of this site. My opinion is my outlet on things that are wrong, right or indifferent. And like everyone else I have to get shit off of my chest. Let’s see what we have on our platter tonight…

Anheuser Busch settled it’s lawsuits with the families of victims of the 2003 Station nightclub fire, paying 21 million dollars as opposed to going any further with legal actions and fees. How the hell Anheuser Busch was responsible in any way of this tragedy is beyond me. It’s like the stupid woman that didn’t know here McDonalds coffee was hot. The legal and justice system in this country is all f*cked up. Next up to settle is the company that makes the urinal candies…cause you know they are responsible for this somehow as well.

Morbid Angel announced earlier this week that they have added a new guitar player into the mix. That’s cool to take a little pressure off of Trey Azagthoth. It’s also really cool to see the band back to the best line up with David Vincent back on vocals. The new guitarist is Thor Anders Mythren from Zyklon.

You may have saw earlier that All That Remains have names their new recording ‘Overcome‘ as opposed to ‘Fozzy’, which I suggested on Blabbermouth awhile back due to Chris Jericho’s band naming their last album All That Remains. ‘Overcome’, a kind of a generic name for an album in my opinion but I think Phil may have been having some personal problems during the time of recording or whatever and perhaps this is where the name came from. Phil also said it’s a much darker album than The Fall Of Ideals. I don’t give a shit what they name it, it’s sure to kill! ATR!!!

Lars Ulrich’s father says the new cd “Sounds like Metallica” which could mean a number of things but at least he didn’t say “Delete that” like he did on Some Kind Of Monster, which in my opinion they should have listened to him. Whatever…we’ll see.

Hammerfall is releasing a Cover album with a bunch of cool songs on it…Makes me wonder why Dream Theater never did this because whenever you heard them doing covers live, they always sounded amazing. Or did they actually do this? They should.

Tommy Lee will be lending his voice to a half hour animated series called “The Life and Times Of Jimmie Jaxx” which is supposedly based on actual events of his life. So what they are saying is this cartoon is going to be about a mediocre drummer who screws a super-model, makes 4 different career changes in an attempt to stay relevant, and ends back up in the same band that gave him fame but he wanted to abandon but realized that THIS was the only way he could stay semi-relevant….does that make sense?

Well that’s all the cynicism and/or enthusiasm I can expend in one day.

Image ©Metalmartyr.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

I want this to be a great record. That’s part of the problem these days. Whenever a band gets ready to make a new record they always say to themselves, “We need to really go balls out on this next record and be bigger, badder and even better than the last record”. How about this, why don’t you just try to make another great record? After all, that’s all we as fans want, just another great record. Consistency is the key. Look at AC/DC. They made great rock records over and over again. Not by trying to out-do themselves but just by writing great songs that will be appreciated by their fans.

Now what I say next may sound totally contradictory to what I just stated but hear me out. In order for a band to have longevity these days evolution of a band is a must. A band must change with the times but not so drastically that you sound like a whole new band. If you as a band change so much you’ll do one of two things or even both. One, you will lose one fans base and gain a whole new fan base or you’ll commit career suicide. Career suicide doesn’t always mean that it’s the end of the band but the end of the band that used to be and that everyone came to love and worship. You may still be putting out records and some feeble minded, long time fans may be stupid enough to buy them just cause it has the name on it. They will be disappointed and try to convince themselves that they like it but sooner or later it becomes a forgotten CD and anticipation for the next disappointing day will come and come again. Change with the times, but don’t let the times change you.

Don’t be afraid to hate your favorite bands when they don’t put out. Disagreement is not disloyalty or disrespect. If your suckin’, your suckin’! If your on top of your game it will show in your work.

Some Kind Of Monsturd Pt 1.

Post from: Metal Martyr

Anyway, here we are in 2007. In March Metallica finally starts recording the as always highly anticipated new record. Exit Bob Rock (been a long time coming if you ask me), enter Rick Rubin. Where will this record go? Will it be a big ole cup of disappointment like “St. Anger”, a large helping of WTF? Like “Reload”, or a truckload of “I’ve waited four years for this?” that was called “Load”. Only time will tell.

I know I’m going to catch a lot of flack for this but its expected. How did this article come to life? Well…I’m flipping through channels the other night and come across VH1 and what is on but none other than “Some Kind Of Monster”. As I’m sitting there watching this for the second time in my life and getting even more noxious than the first time, I think to myself…”What the hell happened”?!? Everyone is crying, bitching about one thing or another, “He’s hurting my feelings”, “I can’t work with him”, “I can only be in the band a few hours a day”. I mean COME ON!??!?? Was this all a marketing ploy to help sell the anticipated coming album? And if it was then Metallica has become nothing more than a bunch of media whores if they are so willing to put themselves out there on front street and embarrass themselves by showing so much negative emotion. There’s a therapist helping write lyrics, Bob thinks he’s the new bass player and Lars is crying cause James doesn’t love him. I thought I was watching The Real World on an estrogen induced acid trip! I think Jason had plenty good reason to leave the band.

Think back a bit. Lets get our “What-ifs” flowing. What if they never fired Dave Mustaine? Would they be as big a band as they are today or would he have lead them to an early demise? Speaking of demise, if Cliff had lived what would “…And Justice For All” have sounded like? There are just so many possibilities! Frankly, I’m glad they fired Dave because if they didn’t I would have never fallen in love with the by-product of Metallica called Megadeth. I would have never heard that intro bass line to “Peace Sells” or the ferocity of “Black Friday” Or every amazing solo on “Rust In Peace”. If you ask me Mustaine was far too talented to not be a front man of his own band!

To be continued…

Pic. from Metallica.com

Post from: Metal Martyr