Deftones will be streaming a live performance from Dallas, TX tonight at 8PM EST/5 PM PST. Go to http://www.ustream.t​v/deftones at the appointed hour and you can check out their set, which will undoubtedly feature songs from their (awesome) new album Diamond Eyes.
 

So apparently the Rockstar Energy Drink people, not satisfied with sponsoring the Mayhem Festival Tour, have also decided to unveil the Uproar Tour this summer. The lineup isn't actually that bad - the main stage will offer Disturbed, Avenged Sevenfold, Stone Sour and Halestorm (no idea who this band is), while the second stage will feature Hellyeah, Airbourne, Hail the Villain (again, no idea who this band is), New Medicine (once again, no idea) and whatever local band wins some contest sponsored by Jägermeister. Perhaps more interestingly, depending on your tastes, all three of the big main stage bands will be releasing new studio albums around the time of the tour. I kinda like Disturbed, didn't hate Avenged Sevenfold's City of Evil (though the self-titled follow-up was like dipping my ears in cold diarrhea), and think Stone Sour have recorded some very solid material, particularly on their debut disc.

Here are the dates:

Tue 8/17 Minneapolis, MN Target Center
Wed 8/18 Kansas City, KS Capitol Federal Park at Sandstone
Fri 8/20 Omaha, NE WestFair Amphitheater
Sat 8/21 Chicago, IL First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
Sun 8/22 Buffalo, NY Darien Lake Performing Arts Center
Tue 8/24 Toronto, ON Molson Canadian Amphitheatre
Wed 8/25 Cleveland, OH Time Warner Cable Amphitheater at Tower City
Fri 8/27 Scranton, PA Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain
Sat 8/28 Wantagh, NY Nikon at Jones Beach Theater
Sun 8/29 Saratoga Springs, NY Saratoga Performing Arts Center
Tue 8/31 Washington, DC Jiffy Lube Live
Wed 9/1 Charlotte, NC Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
Fri 9/3 Birmingham, AL Verizon Wireless Music Center
Sat 9/4 Tampa, FL Ford Amphitheatre
Sun 9/5 TBA
Tue 9/7 TBA
Wed 9/8 TBA
Fri 9/10 Dallas, TX Superpages.com Center
Sat 9/11 Corpus Christi, TX Concrete Street Amphitheater
Sun 9/12 Houston, TX Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Tue 9/14 Denver, CO Comfort Dental Amphitheatre
Wed 9/15 Salt Lake City, UT USANA Amphitheatre
Fri 9/17 Sacramento, CA Sleep Train Amphitheatre
Sat 9/18 San Diego, CA Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre
Sun 9/19 Tempe, AZ Tempe Beach Park Amphitheatre
Tue 9/21 TBA
Wed 9/22 Irvine, CA Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
Fri 9/24 Portland, OR Clark County Government Center Amphitheatre
Sat 9/25 Seattle, WA The Gorge Amphitheatre
Sun 9/26 Vancouver, BC Pacific Coliseum
Tue 9/28 Edmonton, AB Rexall Place
Wed 9/29 Calgary, AB Saddledome
Thur 9/30 Saskatoon, SK Credit Union Centre
Sat 10/2 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
Sun 10/3 Fargo, ND Fargodome
Mon 10/4 Madison, WI Alliant Energy Center Memorial Coliseum
 

Gonna be in Los Angeles on May 16? Wanna be in an In This Moment video?


 

Vanilla Fudge never had a huge single, but they had a unique, exploratory sound and a crushing live show, not to mention an incredible rhythm section. All these elements secured their place in rock history, and made them an influence on bands that came later, including Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin (who opened for them in 1969), who in turn helped create the sound known as heavy metal.

The band was formed by organist/vocalist Mark Stein, guitarist Vinnie Martell, bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice. By 1967, when Vanilla Fudge came together, these guys were already veterans of the East Coast club scene, playing covers and backing anonymous vocalists while waiting for the opportunity to really showcase their individual talents. This commercial...let's call it "malleability" is one reason their self-titled debut album, recorded in summer 1967, includes covers of hit songs by The Beatles ("Ticket to Ride"), Curtis Mayfield ("People Get Ready") and The Zombies ("She's Not There"). But these weren't faceless impersonations; Vanilla Fudge had a uniquely slow and heavy sound, and they turned these songs into plodding dirges slathered in blaring organ and distorted guitar, not to mention Appice's hammering drums. Their most famous song was a nearly seven-minute version of The Supremes' soul hit "You Keep Me Hangin' On"; they dragged it down to half speed and blew the instrumental arrangement out into an almost prog-rock roar.



The band was extremely productive, recording four studio albums between 1967 and 1969. Over that short span of time, their sound became more aggressive and more expansive/adventurou​s, moving in the direction of "symphonic rock" without ever expanding their instrumentation beyond the four core players. Tracks like "Faceless People," from 1968's Renaissance, feature waves of guitar noise that are almost as ferocious as that being offered by Blue Cheer on the other side of the country. Their East Coast origins were one of the key factors in developing Vanilla Fudge's sound; though they explored psychedelic subject matter in their lyrics, they weren't hippies. They were from New York and had little time for pastoral bullshit. By their fourth studio album with their original lineup, 1969's Rock 'n' Roll, songs like "Street Walkin' Woman" were chunks of harsh boogie-rock, prefiguring bands like Sir Lord Baltimore and even early Kiss - not to mention what their own rhythm section would do once the band split.

When Vanilla Fudge did break up at the dawn of the '70s, bassist Bogert and drummer Appice immediately went in an even harder, heavier, bluesier direction. They recruited guitarist Jim McCarty and vocalist/harmonica player Rusty Day and formed Cactus, a band that played bluesy boogie-metal, like pre-MTV ZZ Top combined with Black Sabbath. Cactus made four albums before membership changes and other difficulties split them up. The two men also briefly teamed up with guitarist Jeff Beck in the trio Beck, Bogert & Appice, whose self-titled studio album is just okay, but whose double-disc Live in Japan will tear your face off.

Vanilla Fudge's work has been anthologized in the limited-edition, four-CD Box of Fudge from Rhino Handmade; it contains the best tracks from their first four albums, two cuts from a 1984 reunion disc, and a complete, previously unreleased live show that demonstrates their full blasting power. This isn't metal per se; it's loud, exploratory psychedelic rock. But fans of Opeth, Bigelf and other retro-minded current bands should definitely know this history.





 

The lineup and dates for Ozzfest 2010 have been announced, and they're...okay. Only six shows in about a ten-day span mid-August, with the following artists:

Main stage - Ozzy Osbourne (with new lead guitarist Gus G), Mötley Crüe, Halford, Devildriver, Nonpoint

Second stage - Black Label Society, Drowning Pool, Kingdom of Sorrow, Goatwhore, Skeletonwitch, Saviours and Kataklysm

My personal response? The main stage lineup is a little disappointing. Mötley Crüe have it in them to put on a pretty good show (as long as you don't mind Vince Neil being out of breath every other line, relying on the audience to sing for him), and Ozzy's got a new guitarist to draw in the curious, but the main draw for me would be Halford. The guy's a showman, and the two albums he released as a solo artist (let's just agree to ignore that Christmas EP) and the two with Fight were pretty damn solid. Devildriver are supposedly very solid live, even if you can't remember a single one of their songs. The biggest puzzle is the inclusion of Nonpoint, who I honestly didn't even know still existed, let alone that they were Ozzfest-main-stage big. I think of them as a footnote, at best.

As far as the second stage is concerned, there are three or four really good bands on the bill (Kingdom of Sorrow, Skeletonwitch, Saviours and Kataklysm). I hate Goatwhore, but other people like them and swear they fucking slay live. Black Label Society and Drowning Pool are straight out of a time capsule, though, and even the bands I like, I'd rather see in a club than in a baking hot parking lot in the middle of the afternoon.

Here's something interesting, though. Unless the intern who typed up the press release made a basic math error, there's another announcement coming, because that's five main stage acts and seven second stage acts, but the official announcement says, "Each Ozzfest date will include 13 bands on two stages." So who's the missing mystery band? Rumors have circulated about Mastodon (unlikely, since they're touring with Alice in Chains and Deftones beginning in September), Down and even Metallica. Who knows? Only Sharon Osbourne, at this point anyway.

In the meantime, here are the dates:

Sat, Aug 14 - San Bernardino, CA - San Manuel Amphitheater
Tue, Aug 17 - Chicago, IL - First Midwest Bank Amp.
Thurs, Aug 19 - Pittsburgh, PA - First Niagara Pavilion
Sat , Aug 21 - Hartford, CT - Comcast Theater
Sun, Aug 22 - Camden, NJ - Susquehanna
Tue, Aug 24 - Boston, MA - Comcast Center
 

"You can't let the little pricks generation-gap you." - a character in William Gibson's Neuromancer

(iwrestledabearonce,​ a band I hate but people half my age love.)

There's a wave of nostalgia running through metal these past few years. I've complained about it in regard to Soundgarden and Faith No More and other bands that I didn't think were all that great back then. But I confess I might cut a little more slack to bands I love. When Megadeth plays Rust in Peace in its entirety, a little part of me is thrilled, even though I can admit that several of its songs are nowhere near as good as "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due" or "Hangar 18." The same is true of Slayer; on their upcoming tour with Megadeth, they will be playing 1990's Seasons in the Abyss in its entirety, and make no mistake, I love World Painted Blood, but I'm okay with that. (Weirdly, opening act Testament will be abandoning their full-album performance of The Legacy on the upcoming jaunt.) Similarly, I didn't attend Judas Priest's 2009 tour, on which they performed British Steel (watch this space for an interview with guitarist Glenn Tipton), but I kinda dug the idea in an abstract sense.

I have seen two explicitly nostalgic tours by Iron Maiden - when they co-headlined Ozzfest, they performed only songs from their first four albums, and they followed that with their Somewhere Back In Time tour, which featured only songs from the next four. I had a fucking blast both times. But Maiden have gone in the opposite direction, too; when their last studio album, A Matter of Life and Death, came out, they played the whole thing live, infuriating fans who'd come to hear a greatest hits set. They've got another new album coming out, and I'll buy it the day it's released, and look forward to hearing one or two new songs on their tour with Dream Theater.

Here's the thing, though. Bands won't get nostalgic unless there's an audience that wants the comfort and shelter of the past. If nobody showed up for these things, if nobody bought deluxe reissues of "classic" albums, bands would stop doing them. And from a fan's standpoint, there's no shame in admitting that your love of metal ends with a specific time period. Whether it's the hair metal era, or early '80s thrash, or even the death metal scene of the early '90s...we all get older, and we all have an era and a sound that we're particularly attached to, that appeals to us more than anything ever did before - and more than anything has since.

That latter part is crucial. Metal has always been about pushing the sonic limits, about getting louder and meaner and uglier and more disorienting and assaultive than those who came before you. As a consequence, even metalheads get alienated from their chosen genre at a certain point. There are vast numbers of diehard metal fans who look at the bands playing tours like Summer Slaughter or the second stage of the Mayhem Festival and turn away in disgust. The sounds - whether it's the croaking deathcore of Whitechapel, Winds of Plague, etc. or the everything-into-the-​sonic-blender approach of acts like iwrestledabearonce or HORSE the Band - repel them. And that's fine. That's as it should be, even. Metal should offend people, even if those people call themselves metalheads.

I'm torn by this stuff. On the one hand, bands like iwrestledabearonce and HORSE the Band are some of the worst "music" I've ever heard in my life. I think screamo acts (I won't name any names, 'cause they all sound the same) are wasting valuable oxygen that could be inhaled by bunnies and kittens. But on the other hand, I'm still finding new bands that I like all the time. Young bands I support include Born of Osiris, Brain Drill, Chelsea Grin, Enforcer, The Faceless, Fatalist, Job for a Cowboy, and on and on. But on the third hand (the one growing out of the middle of my back), do I still go back and listen to albums I was listening to in high school? Every goddamn day.

If you feel alienated by the contemporary metal scene, and you want to spend your time listening to twenty-year-old albums you bought when they were new, that's fine. It doesn't make you any less metal. Hell, maybe your kids will dig it. I brought my nephew to his first concert in 2008 - the Judas Priest/Heaven and Hell/Motörhead/Testament show. He was nine. He had a blast (though he fell asleep partway through Judas Priest's set). One person's nostalgia trip could very well be another person's induction into all things metal.
 

The rumors have been confirmed; Alice in Chains will tour the U.S. in September and October with Deftones and Mastodon opening. The official website for the tour is blackdiamondskye.com​, and it lists the following dates, with more to come:

September 16, Chicago, IL Charter One Pavilion, on-sale May 22
September 17, Detroit, MI DTE Energy Center, on-sale May 22
September 18, Toronto, ON Molson Amphitheatre, on-sale May 20
September 20, Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun, on-sale May 22
September 22, Boston, MA Agannis Arena, on-sale May 22
September 24, New York, NY Madison Square Garden, on-sale May 22
September 28, Atlanta, GA Lakewood Amphitheatre, on-sale May 22
October 1, St. Louis, MO Scottrade Arena, on-sale May 22
October 4, Denver, CO Red Rocks, on-sale May 22
October 7, Vancouver, BC GM Place, on-sale May 15
October 8, Seattle, WA Key Arena, on-sale May 22
October 9, Portland, OR Memorial Coliseum, on-sale May 22
October 16, Las Vegas, NV The Joint, on-sale May 22
 

The Swiss pagan/folk metal band Eluveitie has been earning a stellar reputation, both on disc and in performance, over the last few years. They released one disc, 2006's Spirit, before signing with Nuclear Blast - since then they've put out two electric albums, 2008's Slania and the new Everything Remains As It Never Was, and an acoustic disc, 2009's Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion. What makes Eluveitie cool is that unlike many of their peers, they actually play traditional instruments onstage rather than just programming a synth to sound like a bagpipe or a fiddle. One of the most interesting instruments in the group's arsenal is the hurdy-gurdy, a stringed thing that's played by turning a crank. When the group came to New York recently, opening for Amon Amarth, I got their hurdy-gurdy player and sometime singer, Anna Murphy, to demonstrate and explain the instrument. Here's the video.