Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Supergroups

Dear Scott Ian,
Please stop it.
Sincerely, Everyone
While browsing Blabbermouth.net this afternoon, I was introduced to a modern day supergroup known as "The Damned Things". The Damned Things consist of Anthrax guitarists Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano (very metal), Every Time I Die vocalist Keith Buckley (sort of metal, but not really) and the guitarist and drummer from Fall Out B... wait, wait what?

 It was a pretty peculiar combination to say the least, but due to being a long-time Anthrax fan (and avid Fall Out Boy hater), I couldn't help but be intrigued. I eagerly clicked the play button on the audio track "Little Darling" that Blabbermouth provided within the article. I sat and waited patiently for the Foo Fighters song to be over, until I realized that the Foo Fighters song I was listening to, was actually the song by The Damned Things that I was intending to hear in the first place. Imagine my surprise... another supergroup that blows.
"Little Darling" by The Damned THings

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term 'supergroup', it is essentially a "rock-music group whose performers are already famous from having performed individually or in other groups". That's really it in a nutshell. More specifically, a supergroup occurs when a talented musician from a well established band gets tired of making great, well-produced music with the musicians he is well practiced with, so he calls up a bunch of famous names to start a garage band. These are a bunch of guys he doesn't know, doesn't have chemistry with, and all have different opinions in music. It's kind of like being in a band in high school, except you're 40 and a millionaire. I guess that's the idea.

The end result is typically this chaotic jam band clash of different playing styles from different genres of music altogether. It's like jazz with distortion. You can almost hear the artists struggle just to keep time with each other. So the fans are treated to this poorly-cut mishmash of garbage tracks that even the most Revolver of critics would struggle to call art. Regardless, it is produced on a high budget and distributed by a big name record label, just because people know the names, and are going to buy it. Thankfully, due to opposing schedules from their own respective bands, supergroups are often short-lived and hardly ever go on tour.

In theory, it sounds like a great idea. A group of awesome musicians from their own legendary bands all come together to form one single entity of musical glory. In practice however, it is a nightmare. It's like if pizza, birthday cake, whiskey and salmon were thrown into a blender. All of these things are tasty on their own, but a whiskey salmon pizza cake shake shouldn't sound appetizing to anyone. I don't care how drunk you are.

However, it is certainly possible to enjoy fish, cake, pizza and whiskey in one evening, (you are a metalhead after all) and all of these delicious items are going to merge together in your insides and form a single, powerful entity; that of which, the likes have never been seen...

A superpoop.

17 comments:

  1. This blog would make an awesome book.

    -B.D. Wong

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  2. Down is not really my cup of tea. A band like that still doesn't hold a candle to the acts from which its members originate. Granted, names like Pantera, Crowbar, and Corrosion of Conformity mean they have big shoes to fill, so it's not surprising that they fall a little bit short. I'll admit they're still a decent band, far from a complete tragedy, like Chicken Foot or Hellyeah.

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  3. Yeah okay I'll give you Bloodbath. A broken clock is right twice a day.

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  4. Borknagar would be another example (in my opinion, of course) of a supergroup that worked. Granted, the lineup has rotated quite a bit, but when you pull people like Infernus from Gorgoroth, Grim from Immortal, and others together at any given time, I'm pretty sure that qualifies as a supergroup.

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  5. When I was reading this, the word bloodbath kept going through my mind, although I'll admit most supergroups aren't anything special

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  6. What about Barren Earth or Wintersun?

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  7. Or throwing all sorts of random shit on pizza....california pizza kitchen i'm looking at you. That guy is right, this should be a book like "1000 awesome things" and "Stuffwhitepeoplelike" but it probably wouldn't sell, you need to make a flashy cover and charge $4......

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  8. Yeah... Down battered in my head as I was reading the article too... Down members essentially come from the same underground and have the same influences so the chemistry works out fine... And they've all been to each others gigs and even played on each others lives (Anselmo played guitar in Eyehategod's show at Hellfest and Bower was a drummer for Crowbar)... They started out just jamming together... It turned out great and now we have Down...

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  9. There's a rumor going around that Dave Mustaine wants to start a supergroup with James and Lars from Metallica... He should read this before he gets too ahead of himself.

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  10. Demons and Wizards.

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  11. What about Zyklon???

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  12. Pretty late to the party, but what about Hear n' aid?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZktrrqT1A0

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  13. Metal Up Your Nostril3/06/2013 4:34 PM

    Mutherfuckin Cream.

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  14. Primate is a good band. Maybe not as good as Brutal Truth, but far better than Mastodon.
    Although, Primate isn't actually a metal band.

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All readers that post under the name "Anonymous" and are too frail and weak to represent themselves properly with a title, shall be deemed false metal poseurs for the remainder of their pitiful existence.