Awful Metal Video of the Week: Slayer - "World Painted Blood"

Say what you want about the 2006 album Christ Illusion, or the song itself, but the music video for Slayer's "Eyes of the Insane" was awesome. A definite gem among the mundane "watch us headbang and play cool looking instruments" music videos that plague the metal genre. It gives me chills every time I watch it from start to finish.

So when I learned of there being a music video for "World Painted Blood" off of Slayer's semi-sort of-return-to-form album of the same name, it's fair to say that my expectations were a little high. Much, much, much higher, than this animated travesty... certainly...

I love those episodes of South Park where instead of doing an artistic rendition of a famous person or celebrity, they just take a photograph of that person's face, and crudely make the mouth move to obnoxious dialogue. That's what we're seeing here with bassist and frontman, Tom Araya. Matt Stone and Trey Parker do it in South Park because they know it looks funny. I don't really know what they're trying to do with the same concept in a Slayer video...

"Give me back my MONEY!!"

So unlike the "check out my guitar and my t-shirt" music videos, there's a story behind this one:

The host of Unsolved Mysteries is hanging out inside a run down building in wartorn Baghdad, where he shows some businessmen his idea to cover earth in a big pentagram. They love it. The band members of Slayer are practicing without amplifier assistance while submerged in blood. Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman jerk off the necks of their signature guitars, while Dave Lombardo tries to look as unbrutal as possible in his backwards baseball cap in the background. Apparently his lack of motivation goes so far as to not even bother to get ready for a cartoon. 

Suddenly, the brick-wall garage door in the building opens, and out come several giant robot tanks that have giant, black windshields, as well as robotic teeth-like grills that I will soon learn serve no purpose whatsoever. The tanks then proceed to run over the only two guys in all of Baghdad, who just so happen to be white, and identical twins. It's only two people, but it's enough blood and gore for the tanks to draw a giant, evenly distributed blood pentagram at least a mile in diameter. Robert Stack then uses his magical satanic pentagram eye powers to summon a giant robot skull spider from the depths of hell, that uses the robot tanks as feet. 

The giant robot skull spider's mission? Jump on and blow up the building Robert Stack and the shadowy businessmen are residing in. (It's safe to say he lost that account.) Due to the animator's extreme misinformation, he assumes that with that many dead people, there is now enough blood to engulf the entire planet, and the building's crater turns into a blood geyser that does exactly that. Definitely a mystery that is unsolvable. The world is now painted in blood. Imagine that...

End of video.

Yelling The Song You Want to Hear at a Show

"HEARTWORK!! HEARTWOOOOORK!!!"

I'm sure after reading my blog for some time, you have ascertained that I have familiarized myself with a wide variety of "that guy" species at metal shows. Today specifically, we're going to be discussing one of the most common, and certainly the most prominent: Screamus Ignoramus. Better known as the guy who yells the one song he wants to hear for the entirety of the band's set. Considering venue patrons numbering in the hundreds to the thousands, it is a guarantee that at least one of the many people attending will be such a guy. Equipped with toddler-like egocentrism and an even more toddler-like patience, he wants to hear only one song from the band everyone came to see, and he wants to hear it right now.


We can only assume that due to his obnoxious behavior, the experience that ignoramus has with the headlining musical act is either a single music video that caught his eye, a single track he heard on Pandora radio, or a single MP3 file that one of his very few unfortunate friends sent him. With his inexcusable actions, I find it impossible to believe that his fandom for the metal band he came to see goes beyond only the one song he hollers over and over at the top of his lungs. And I do mean over and over. This troglodyte will scream, wail, screech, squeal and howl the one song title at a progressively higher volume until he hears the band play it. At the moment he hears the song he wanted, he will cease his aural onslaught, and swell with delusional pride, convinced that the band heard his voice over the many others, and specifically obliged to his demands.


The tragic part about all of this is due to his exceptionally low I.Q, and inability to think for himself, this loudmouth typically wants to hear the band's most popular song; ergo; their last. Meaning you are going to have to put up with his barking for the entirety of the band's set, if they know enough about what's going on to not do it for the entirety of the concert. We can only hope.


Shut your stupid suck hole, you clown. This isn't a wedding, the bands are not taking requests...

LOL WUTS DAT

Take a good, long look at this. It's called a "set list". Every good touring metal act has one. The band plays the songs on the list, in order, from start to finish. The first song first, the last song last.  Except for the occasional curve ball now and again, the band does not stray from the songs on this list and the order that they are in.  Your hollering has little to no effect on what song the band is going to play, or when they are going to play it. I say little effect, because back in November at a Blind Guardian show, I witnessed a pack of wild screamus ignoramuses chanting the song title "Majesty" with one another in unison. Being the swell guy that Hansi is, he took a pause, asked the crowd "Do you really want to hear that song?" and then they actually played it, despite it not being on the set list for that tour. Blind Guardian unsheathed a double-edged sword that night: It was cool because it proved the guys in Guardian care about the fans, but also not cool because it was a victory for "those guys" everywhere.

Unfortunately, as a metal fan, there's really not much you can do about these loudmouths outright. Violence is always a great solution, but more often than not, will get you thrown out of the venue. You can always kindly tell him to "STFU", if the volume of your voice permits you to do so. This however, may put you at risk, for some folks might think you're directing your remarks towards the band. Indeed, the band members are the only people with the power to deal with screamus ignoramus properly. The best and most professional method is to ignore his nonsense altogether. He'll lose steam eventually, and more often than not, you're going to play the song he wants to hear at some point. If he is obnoxious enough to get on your nerves and distract you from playing, feel free to humiliate him in front of everyone by telling him to suck it over the microphone. You're the artist, get creative. Don't worry about him not liking your band anymore, he's the worst kind of fan anyway, and makes you guys look bad.

WRITE YOUR FAVORITE METAL SONG IN ALL CAPS WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS IN THE COMMENT SECTION BELOW, DEMANDING THE BAND ON STAGE TO PLAY IT IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE YOU SAID SO!!!

Pining for Autographs

WOOF.
 Take note: Suicide Silence has turkey-necked, senior citizens for groupies. 

Today's TNM post subject is credited to Samantha Landa from Vancouver, British Columbia. She is a young heavy metal drummer, and like many of our neighbors in the Great White North, probably knows how to curse you out in French. I'm also assuming she's one of the many who thinks I'm a sexist jerk. If that were the case, she'd be right. Thanks Samantha!


If you have any suggestions for what's NOT METAL, like my Facebook page and take it to the Discussions section. If I like your idea, it might be the next TNM article! LUCKY YOU. 

A metal fan who thinks another man's signature is worth any more than his own, is incredibly unbecoming of a true metalhead. Egomania and delusions of grandeur come with the territory of listening to the greatest genre of music on the planet. (See?) If you wait outside a venue, wait in a line, or approach a merch table with the intent of getting signatures from your favorite metal artists, you are a chump, and are giving them the impression that they are more metal than you are. This is lunacy, because if you are reading my articles, it means you are on a never-ending journey to be the single most metal person you know in life.

Watch this Suicide Silence music video. The entire video is a roughly edited montage of the band members performing live at a festival and signing crap for those fans sad and pathetic enough to wait in line just to say hi to them. I wait in line for roller coaster rides. If I wanted to talk to a guy with long hair that played guitar well, I'd call him from my cell phone contacts. Actually, if I wanted to talk to someone who played guitar well, I would delete Suicide Silence from my contacts. I can't see this video as anything else other than a pretentious mockery of the rest of us folks who aren't signed to a major metal label and therefore, not half famous like they are. Grow up you deathcore assholes.

Even if these band members actually are of a substantially higher metal status, you are never supposed to admit that to them by requesting their signatures. What are you going to do now that you got the bassist from White Wizzard to scribble his name on your grungy t-shirt? Show off to all of your friends how shameless and lame you are? Just because a guy like Scott Ian is a household name and has been rocking for decades, doesn't mean you are any less metal than he is. He started "The Damned Things" for god's sake. If anybody took a silver sharpie and ruined the band shirt I paid $20+ for by scribbling all over it, I don't care who they are, they're getting a skullbutt to their mouth.

If you do meet a metal "celebrity", there is only one appropriate way to go about it. Get your picture taken with them. That way, you can play it off like you were just two dudes hanging out with each other, and even have the option of claiming the famous guy wanted his picture taken with you.

This dude is totally just Lemmy's friend. You can tell because they have their arms around each other. 

If you've ever waited in a line or waited outside a venue just to get something of yours signed by your favorite metal musicians, apologize to me about it in the comments below. You're no better than those depressing man-groupies who fist fight each other for flicked guitar picks.

Using a Guitar as a Skank Accessory

A "Gio" Ibanez is really cheap. That makes two of them.

I definitely had a lot more fun writing this particular post than any of the other ones I have prepared thus far. Mainly due in part that the majority of the photographs I came across pertaining to today's subject matter were delightfully NSFW. I love the internet sometimes. But not all the time. Usually because the internet is chock full of pseudo-artistic females with a tendency to abuse Photoshop's filter gallery, and also the half-naked bi-products of inferior parenting who shamelessly pine for inappropriate male attention. If one however, were to combine the worst of both these groups, the result would be a scantily-clad girl suggestively holding a musical instrument. This is a clever way for many of these young women to translate to the world that they are "hip, edgy, artistic" and also "kind of a slut."

Babes holding guitars is by no means a fresh concept. Just ask Guitar World magazine. Much like babes with hot rods, babes with motorcycles, or even babes with guns, there has always been something tantalizing about a gorgeous woman getting her hands and body all over a piece of equipment that you would regularly use. Not to mention the not-so-subtle imagery of her dainty fingers firmly stroking the guitar's neck and her pink tongue curling around the tip of the guitar's head. Yowza. The big difference between Guitar World magazine and Facebook however, is that Guitar World hires paid models to seductively cling their expensive instruments in photograph. You are not a model. You are an average or under-average chick with a Squier that you keep in your room as a decoration.

She got a bass because she was told it would be easy. That makes two of them.

Don't get me wrong. The last place I want to be is on a side that opposes the act of women removing their clothing. The musician in me however, can't help himself. God forbid I strongly feel that a guitar is meant to be played. It is not a fashion statement. It is not an accessory. No matter how cheap or basic, an electric guitar is a tool to rock with. I hard press anyone to find an amplifier in the bedroom of any of these floozies. (If you actually do find yourself in one of their bedrooms, then high-five.) Unless of course the amp came in the box she bought the guitar in. In fact, if you asked her if she knew any "chords", she would probably start digging through that box to see if she could find the one that plugs into her amp.  

It is safe to say that I am fiercely skeptical of any of these fine ladies' guitar playing capabilities. I'm not claiming that women can't play guitar well, (as tempted as I am to say that outright to offend). I'm just saying that the ones who are serious about it don't spend their time posing with an instrument to turn on anonymous creeps on Myspace. Probably the biggest piece of evidence supporting my theory of their inabilities, is that almost every guitar you see in these kinds of photographs are the cheap, shitty ones. Squier seems to be pretty popular, as well as budget Chinese-made Jacksons, BC. Riches, Epiphones, etc. We're talking a $100-150 guitar here, at the most. Somebody who is serious about playing has developed an ear for guitar quality, and typically has saved up their pennies for something at least a bit more substantial. The second biggest piece of evidence would be that in the pictures where they are kind of pretending to play, they're always doing something wrong, whether it be the lay out of their fingers or the angle from which they strum the guitar. There is nothing less sexy to me than a woman with something in her hands that she doesn't know what to do with. It says a lot.

"DINK DINK DINK".  FAIL.

I honestly feel that a woman who can play a guitar and play it well is in a dozen ways far more sexy and attractive than some naked skank rubbing suggestively against her ex boyfriend's cheap axe. And I love naked skanks. 

If you're a woman who can actually play guitar, or if you want to make mention of any famous female shredders, let me know in the comments below! Any mention of "Kittie" and you've lost the game.