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Killing Joke

15 Jul 2011 -

These were taken a while back at the House Of Blues on Sunset. Thought I’d already put them up, but apparently not.

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Blogs Of War for Metal Hammer

08 Mar 2011 -

The city council are banning smoking in West Hollywood. Not that it’s been passed yet, but it’s a done deal. I’m not just talking about in bars and clubs, though this is one of the first places I remember to ban that. I remember being at the Key Club with Lemmy and all these twats following us around with plastic cups of water, insisting that we put our cigarettes out, and then Lemmy would just light right back up again. Even he has given up that battle now and smokes outside, but that’s what they’re talking about banning next. Yeah, that’s right, no smoking on the Sunset Strip. I think it’s Santa Monica where you can’t even smoke in your own fucking house! Rest assured, at some point, particularly since bad ideas tend to migrate across the pond, you will be arrested for possession of cigarettes.
But the funny thing is, and not just funny, but absurdly hilarious, is that no matter what fresh pettiness ‘they’ invent or civil liberty ‘they’ infringe upon, ‘we’re’ still winning. Hopefully I don’t need to explain ‘us and them’, but maybe I should substantiate the rest of my gibberish.
A couple of years ago ‘they’ wisely decided that boobs and alcohol are a bad mix and that one should avoid looking at the former while imbibing the latter. Doubtless there was some clear and reasoned thinking here that has yet to be fully explained or understood, because up until that point places like Crazy Girls were packed most nights and even referenced in shitty Motley Crue songs. Hell, they’d be in there most nights, along with Korn, Cypress Hill, Monster Magnet, System Of A Down… But then ‘they’ insisted, doubtless incensed by ‘us’ having far too much fun, that said boobs be covered at all times and Crazy Girls became a bikini bar. Of course it closed down, don’t ask stupid questions. Another rock n roll landmark seemingly gone forever. And fuck ‘them’ for it!
But guess what, rock n rollers? It’s back, and with it a fledgling scene, just the buds of something cool. I went there a few weeks back to see Mondo Generator, and then again with uncle Lemmy to see desert rockers House Of Broken Promises (bouncer: “Can I see some ID?” Lemmy: “l’m 65!”) and a wild time was had by all. Admittedly, at 65, you’re still not grown up enough to look at tits whilst drinking, but the addition of live bands takes up the slack so to speak, with the aforementioned bikini girls dancing to them while they play. And speaking of the buds of something cool… You’ll recall (or possibly not), that I mentioned a smoking ban ANYWHERE in West Hollywood. Well, tobacco’s bad for you anyway. Even I know it stinks and I’m a smoker. Let them ban it! I’ve got a medical marijuana card. Because while ‘they’ were fighting to stop us doing one thing, ‘we’ were fighting for the right to do another, and not even fighting, just doing what ‘we’ do. That sounds to me like “we’re’ winning.

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Blogs Of War for Metal Hammer

10 Nov 2010 -

Are the latest bunch of frontmen a bunch of whiny piss-ants compared to the groupie-snorting, drug-fucking stars of yesteryear? Metal Hammer scribe and all-round legend Morat investigates!

I got a text from Nashville Pussy frontman Blaine Cartwright the other night that read as follows: “Just got kicked out of Wild At Heart in Berlin for spitting at the DJ for playing Duran Duran followed by the Ghostbusters theme. We ruled tonight!”

Obviously, after the obligatory ‘who is this? My bastard phone has eaten all my numbers!’ it was good to know that somewhere out there, on some far off crazy night, a rock n roll band was still raising a little hell in the obnoxious wee hours. Lemmy’s probably out there too, maybe propping up the bar at the Rainbow or Crazy Girls like he has (when he’s not on tour) since before you where even born. The trouble is that, as Blaine put it, a few albums back, they are “the last of the last of a dying breed,” an ever dwindling wild bunch, and without them rock n roll is going to be a desperately, desperately boring place, make no mistake about it.

You know why it’s called rock n roll, right? Fucking. Bumping uglies. Rocking and rolling. Ian Dury put the trinity together in a song for the first time in 1977 with ‘Sex and Drugs And Rock And Roll’, but it’s been around a lot longer than that, way back to Jerry Lee Lewis waving guns around and marrying his 13 year old cousin.

Rock n roll has always had the finest tradition of hellraisers and, on any given night, you could always guarantee that that fine tradition was being well represented. Somewhere out there Lux Interior was drinking wine out of his boots and smashing holes in the stage with his mic stand, Ozzy was snorting ants, the Dwarves were wrecking your favourite dive bar and giving your sister a dose of something contagious in the car park. It’s the devils’ music after all and these tales of extraordinary madness are the stuff of legend. Keith Moon driving a roller into the swimming pool, Led Zeppelin inserting fish into groupies, Ozzy (as ever) pissing on the Alamo, Nick Oliveri getting arrested, naked and often bloodied…

Bands will go on tour now with a laptop rather than a lapdancer, they’ll actually read their record contacts before signing them, and there’s a good chance they won’t overdose on horse tranquilizers, but, fuck me, are they dull.

When their lives, eventually, flash before them it will be a series of accounting decisions and endless hours of Metal Gear Solid and Facebook, they won’t need any blanks filling in like Iggy Pop or Motley Crue, bless ‘em and their crappy music, at least they went for it.

It may have become impossible to think but Lemmy’s not gonna live forever, baby, and what are you going to do when he’s gone? There are no replacements, no pretenders to the throne and nothing to live vicariously through on a dull winter night: welcome to the brave new world where we can discuss Brian Warner’s paintings rather than watch Marilyn Manson smash the shit out of everything on stage. No thanks. I prefer my rock n roll and bit more…well, rock n roll.

Morat. Los Angeles, November, 2010

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Karma To Burn for Metal Hammer

06 Oct 2010 -

KARMA TO BURN

Look on any self-respecting list of classic stoner rock albums, classic albums period, for that matter, and you will usually see Karma To Burn’s self-titled masterpiece from 1997 lurking near the top. And yes, it is that good. Even now, there’s the sound of West Virginia thunder in there, the juxtaposition of claustrophobia and vast open spaces on dark, dark nights with nothing to do but heroin and moonshine. It sounds like the devil’s in there too, some of that old Southern voodoo and sinister superstition. Karma To Burn were the real deal and, appearing with perfect timing to fill the void left by Kyuss, they were all set to be massive. Except…well, it’s turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, that they really were into heroin and moonshine. Before Karma To Burn even made it to the UK the tales of their madness were the stuff of legend: these wild hillbillies had driven at least two singers to insanity, finally revealing that they’d never wanted
a singer in the first place, but couldn’t get signed without one. After singers the band started dispensing with song titles too, whole sets full of tunes called ‘8’, ‘5’, ‘33’… And then there was the heroin and moonshine! By 2001 when Karma To Burn released their third album ‘Almost Heathen’ all three band members, Rich Mullins (bass), William Mecum (guitar) and Rob Oswald (drums) were so strung out on heroin that they were getting it Fed-exed to them on the road!
“Yeah, we were doing that,” admits Rich, able to laugh at it after being clean for several years. “It was just such a problem that we weren’t really practicing. We weren’t really doing anything other than trying to get heroin and we’d only get together when we had to get a song done, which meant only when we had a record coming out. We’d get together and do heroin, but that was about it. When we did Almost Heathen I don’t think any of us really remember it that well to be honest. The usage was really heavy, even in the studio, so that was a little bit slower than some of the other records.”
It’s a wonder you got anything done!
“You can actually get a lot done during the day,” says Rich. “You’ll have two days where you get a lot of shit done and then you’ll sleep through the third day, that’s usually the pattern. But you can be functional, it’s the whole not having any that’s really, really terrible.”
Eventually Rich decided that his only way off heroin was to split the band up and move out of West Virginia all together. He’d tried numerous paths to quitting, but they all ended back in the same place and the band were out of control.
“I’d tried to quick heroin three or four times in different ways and after the forth time I needed some change, so I thought if I moved to Texas that might work.”
Of course, there’s no heroin in Texas is there?
“Exactly!” laughs Rich. “That was a bad idea!”
Rich made further decisions that Stevie Wonder would have spotted as bad ideas. He joined a band called Speedealer, where ironically he was the only drug user, but they threw him out, leaving him by the side of the road after he stole from them. Then he moved to Holland (no drugs there, of course). Eventually Rich washed up in LA, homeless and still strung out he’d progressed to doing crack with his new friend Daniel Davies. They didn’t even have power in their apartment.
It took seven months of rehab for the pair to clean up and somehow, somewhere along the line they’d managed to form a fine band in Year Long Disaster. But part of Rich’s rehabilitation process was to right a few wrongs, cross a few bad deeds off the list like on My Name Is Earl, the karma list. Speedealer were on the list. And Karma To Burn were on the list.
“A couple of my and Will’s mutual friends just said “you guys should talk,” says Rich of the reunion with his former guitarist. “I needed to apologize for a lot of things and I really felt like maybe he would give me a listen. He was actually really cool when we finally got hold of each other. He was like “let’s just forget about the past and look at the future”, which was really nice. The age we met at, like 20 years old and you start something like we did, you have a weird, really strong bond. We did it for a long time, like nine years…”

It’s been about a year now since Karma To Burn got back together. They have a few drinks now and again, but none of them are doing crack or heroin or elephant tranquilizers or whatever the hell else they were doing. From experience Rich, was always a nice guy, always easy conversation and a great host, always with a smile, but nowadays you’d actually give him your real phone number, introduce him to your mum or something. What’s more, when the band reunited they found that they still had a solid fanbase, all eager to kick off where they left us. They sold out home town shows first and then toured the US before heading to Europe.
“It was really weird and we were totally shocked,” says Rich. “I expected no one to be at the shows and then when we got to Europe it was really, really good there too. We’re definitely gonna keep doing it! Had it been stale at all we wouldn’t have done it, but I think the new stuff came out really cool. I swear to god it sounded like where I thought we would sound today. The good thing was we didn’t have to go through any long work out periods.””
Even more shocking is that Karma To Burn’s new album, the brilliantly monikered Appalachian Incantation, is said to have vocals on a track!
“There’s two!” reveals Rich. “There’s a bonus disc that’s gonna come with it that has John Garcia (Kyuss/Unida) singing a song that we did in 1996 when he was actually living with me in West Virginia, this is before they released “And the Circus Leaves Town’. The only vocals on the first records were supposed to be this one song that we’re putting out now! And then on the new release Daniel came in and did a song with us and we were really happy with it so we put it on the regular record. It’s the only one with a name instead of a number too, it’s called Waiting On The Western World.”
Although many fans preferred KTB with a vocalist, Rich insists there was no peer pressure involved, the track simply worked. But when asked if it’s a sign of things to come from the band the answer is simple: “Absolutely.” They’ve even covered Sabbath’s Never Say Die for Metal Hammer, with Davies again providing vocals.
“That’s kind of how the whole thing with the vocals got started,” says Rich. “We went out and recorded that with Scott Reeder, out in the desert; he co-produced the whole Karma record and we were really happy with the way it turned. It’s one of the more upbeat rock songs that Sabbath have, it’s got a really nice bounce to it!”
So which band takes priority? Year Long Disaster or Karma To Burn?
“Well they’re both running simultaneously and they’re turning more and more incestuous,” laughs Rich. “I’m really digging that so we’re gonna see what happens, see if we can’t mold them all into one band.”
Year Long Karma Disaster?
“Exactly!”

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Mayhem Festival 2010 for Metal Hammer

06 Oct 2010 -

MAYHEM FESTIVAL

Smoke drifts up from somewhere in the middle of a pit that’s maybe ten thousand strong. It’s not a big fire, but the smoke is thick enough that it’s visible from way over on the other side of the field, past the merch stalls and the Harley Davisdon bar, and the shitty, overpriced food vendors. Chimaira, only one song into what turns out to be a suitably blistering set, are forced to stop playing until someone figures out how to get in there and put it out. Luckily, it’s relatively cool today, only a steady 90 degrees. Sometimes it can hit 110 by midday, temperatures only rattlesnakes and metalheads can survive in, and, even then, the weak are turned into shoes or ambulanced away. The rest can turn a little crazy at times, sunburnt and drunk by two o’clock with thirteen bands to go. Why else would anyone start a fire in the middle of the pit? In the middle of the fucking desert! Welcome to San Bernadino and the first day of the Mayhem Festival
2010.
Chimaira kick back into gear and the pit turns back into a dust cloud of fists and elbows. The brief fire aside, it’s been like that for nearly three hours now, in front of two stages: 3 Inches Of Blood-bang! In-your-face for exactly 30 minutes. Shadows Falls-bang! 30 minutes on the Jagermiester stage! In This Moment-bang! 30….well, okay ten minutes because Maria Brink sounds like a cat being strangled, but otherwise it’s unrelenting, a heartbeat between bands and each as brutal as the last. In all there are nine bands back to back before the main stage even opens, all of them playing their best and most aggressive six or seven songs. Which, from the likes of Chimaira, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed is saying something. This will continue for five weeks in 26 cities across the United States. Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb Of God, Five Finger Death Punch, heat, noise, trucks, and enough metalheads to populate an entire country. Cool, huh?
San Bernadino is just the first day of this madness, but it’s also hallowed ground, a mecca for metal. This purpose built 65,000 seater venue, the biggest outdoor amphitheater in America, may change it’s name every half an hour from Blockbusters Pavilion, to Glen Helen Pavilion (it’s currently San Manuel Amphitheater), but in many ways it is to California what Donington is to England. Everyone has played here. Everyone. Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Pantera, Marilyn Manson, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Slayer. Everyone. They had the first Ozzfest here back in ‘96 with Ozzy, Slayer, Danzig, Neurosis, and a line up from the Gods, the same year certain bands were making porn movies in the parking lot. And a good few bands have started out by playing in that same parking lot and gone on to be, well, Slipknot, Fear Factory, System Of A Down. It’s also where that whole Ozzy-Maiden egg throwing feud started.
Not that there seem to be any feuds today. Over in the tented press area bands are herded around and plonked in front of a conveyor belt of press. There’s some shade there and they’ll let you take a cold beer in so the Hammer joins the conveyor, seemingly set on random, with all the bands just doing five minutes, like musical chairs. Except the music’s really loud and they don’t turn it off while you do the interviews. Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Jason Hook and drummer Jeremy Spencer are doing their soundbites before opening the main stage, which is roughly the size of Texas.
“When we played Download,” says Jason, ”we’d just played a bunch of smaller stages and then we get on this big stage and it’s like “holy shit! All my guys are way over there!” That’s a little bit weird, like, I’ve got to switch my pedals but they’re 17 feet that way! Going back and forth is a little tricky because you’re adjusting all the time, but this is cool. We were on the second stage last time, so we were in the parking lot with lots of dust and lots of rocks, but it was lots of fun and lots of great bands too. And brutalizing heat every day, but we got through it! At least now we get to get out of the sun occasionally, which is kinda refreshing.”
Anyone you’re looking forward to hanging out with once the tour gets rolling?
“Jeremy,” grins Jason. “For me the Lamb Of God guys are cool. We made friends with Shadows Fall and did a lot of touring with them last year. Korn is family. It’s gonna be great. The beautiful thing is you get to do this when you feel like it. If I’m tired one night I’ll skip a concert and watch it tomorrow or the night before a night off!”
A luxury that, unfortunately, Metal Hammer don’t share. And Hatebreed are due to close the Jagermiester stage, which is going to be like a scene from Braveheart. Mayhem festival is one of the few in America that are completely insane for the smaller bands and then slow down a gear or two for the main bands. It’s the heat and the seats. There may be more people watching the main bands, but it’s more… civilized. The Hatebreed pit is like a battlefield, almost rabid near the center. It’s an impressive sight. Particularly with a guest appearance from Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe and Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel, cranking out Live For This if front of one hell of a circle pit. Atreyu are up next, hitting the stage to Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls.
“I kind of dubbed us kings of the parking lot, although I don’t know if that’s too arrogant,” says frontman Alex Varkatas before they go on. “We’ve done a lot of parking lot tours and we love doing them. Amphiteatre’s are fun, but this is more our style. The kids go insane and it’s right in your face . You’re still playing to a ton of people but they’re right there! It’s weird, I never went to seated shows as a kid so it’s weird playing them as an adult. If you pay me I’ll play there, but I prefer it sweaty.”
Doubtless he’s not disappointed today. Another dust cloud full of elbows.
Part of the beauty of Mayhem festival, at least in San Bernadino, is that it still has a wild streak. Festivals on this site have tamed a little over the years, but not too much. There’s still the Nazi skinheads and Mexican gangbangers, the swaggering sheriffs department and, always, the Berdoo Hells Angels, but back in 96 on the Ozzfest it wasn’t entirely safe to walk around, particularly after dark. A generation on, it’s more friendly, but without entirely losing it’s ‘fuck you’ attitude. Don’t forget this is where they egged Bruce Dickenson, and they booed Marilyn Manson last year. If they don’t like your band, you will know about it.
Five Finger Death Punch don’t have any such problems opening the main stage with a thundering 35 minute set. Still in daylight, they have to work hard with songs like The Way Of The Fist to win a crowd that can barely see them, (no big screens!) but it’s slowly working. Next year, no doubt, they’ll be one spot higher on the bill.
Meanwhile in the press area, the Hammer is supposed to be chatting with Fieldy from Korn who is never going to show up, but Rob Zombie guitarist John 5 and bassist Piggy D are lurking about, thankfully not sporting the Rob Zombie hobo/Charles Manson look.
“We did it briefly for a photoshoot and I think both of us simultaneously shaved straight afterwards!” laughs D. “It works on some people, but John and I…. not so much!”
“I know!” adds John. “This is about all I can do beard-wise.”
All the same we’re looking forward to the set, sir.
“You’ve seen a ton of concerts,” says John 5 confidently, “but this is the best show you’ll ever see! It’s amazing! You’ll see!”
The new album absolutely rocks apart from the drum solo.
“Well, we have a special edition coming out and we took the drum solo out!” grins John. “So when the new release comes out, you’ll love it.”
Are you looking forward to hanging out with any bands on this tour?
“No!” says Piggy. “I’m just unfamiliar with them. I’m not hip! I wish I was! I know Korn obviously and I like some of their stuff, but it’s not really my scene. Oh I forgot Lamb Of God. I like them! Randy looks like a serial killer on stage, he’s so intense!”
Indeed. There’s half an hour until Lamb Of God on the main stage and they plan to tear it apart, seating or not.
“Most of the venues have huge lawns behind the seated are,” says drummer Chris Adler, who’d have a better view than the rest of the band. “There are crazy pits up there, fires even! There’s also a small pit area of about 1000 people before the seats begin and they’re all ripping it up. The people in the seats look scared for their lives most of the time! We don’t care what’s in front of us, we give 110 per cent every time.”
It’s 7.35 and Fieldy isn’t coming, no sense in missing Lamb Of God bulldoze through the likes of Black Label and Laid To Rest. The new track Set To Fail, stands out tonight too.
But just as John 5 predicted it’s Rob Zombie who steal the show. Sure, those bagpipes still sound immense when Jonathon Davis huffs into them for Shoots And Ladders and that Giger mic-stand still looks the business, but Blind and a few others sound surprisingly laboured. And with just one little screen over the stage, Korn become ants at times where Zombie has a giant fuckng robot on stage for More Human Than Human and rocks the whole place for House Of Sin. Bigger, louder and better.
It’s unlikely that Mayhem festival will ever be up there with Download, but three years in it’s become a solid fixture, a possible ‘must do’ to add to your travels. There’s still no camping and the nearest town or meth lab will be a bit more lively than Kegworth, but still…Rain or shine it says on the ticket and it’s sure as hell not going to rain.

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Reverend Horton Heat

18 Aug 2010 -

Shot at the House Of Blues, Los Angeles for Metal Hammer. Special guest Lemmy Kilmister!

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Fear Factory and Masuimi Max for Metal Hammer

02 Aug 2010 -

Shot for Metal Hammer at Sword And Stone, Burbank, California. Many thanks to Tony who makes all the cool weapons!

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Blogs Of War for Metal Hammer

30 Jun 2010 -

Los Angeles isn’t burning…

It took just one Saturday night in London to confirm that Los Angeles is dead to rock n roll. Gallows were playing the Bizarre Ball and they came on stage wearing balaclavas, with a truly ferocious cover of ‘God Save The Queen’, all attitude and uncaged aggression. It was one of those moments, all the better for being shared with friends. A week later AC/DC headlined Download.
It’s been four years since I was back in England and almost ten since I moved to Los Angeles, foolishly seeking something that had died with Kyuss in the desert not long after Demon Cleaner. Those wild generator parties that Kyuss made legend were replaced by corporate, sterile, festivals, where the cops are unnerving and you can’t take your overpriced beer within about 100 miles of the stage. So much for stoner rock.
But who the fuck wants to live in the desert? I can see the Whiskey A Go-Go from my window. That mecca of rock n roll, where the Doors and Guns N Roses and System Of A Down all played back in the day. Iggy Pop overdosed on stage there. Nowadays it’s nine band bills with some pay to play bullshit and, in all fairness, you wouldn’t pay to watch any of them play. Awful death metal bands (with due respect to good death metal bands), with stupid names, clogging up the pavement and usually playing to no one. It’s as close as Sunset gets to a music scene unless you count Steel Panther every Monday, but, as fun as they are, surely someone sees the irony. There’s also thriving underground punk scene if you fancy venturing down to Compton and you’re prepared to have a gun pointed at you by the cops. And so much for the capital city of rock n roll.
Aside from the odd gem at the House Of Blues (Revolting Cocks being a rare example) the only venue in LA consistently booking good bands is Club Nokia and words cannot fully describe what a turd that place is. Suffice to say you won’t be able to see or hear much of the band unless you’re among the first 400 to get there (the place holds about 2200). This is one of many genius rules that seems to be catching on in LA in order to discourage dancing. Probably best, since dancing at Club Nokia will ensure that three bouncers dislocate your knee to stop you doing it again.
There’s a reason that bands likes living in LA and that’s because if they’re touring then they don’t actually have to live here. It’s a beautiful, beautiful city, where you can surf in the morning and snowboard in the afternoon (no one ever does, they just like to rub it in), but beyond the bar culture there’s no real rock community here and not enough passion for it to even hope for one. If you’re looking for the heart of rock n roll then it still beats on a soggy little island just north of Calais. And no, it’s not the Isle Of Wight.

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Blogs of War For Metal Hammer

30 Jun 2010 -

Introduce yourself…

It’s been some months now since our long suffering editor and Gibby Haynes look-a-like Alex Milas suggested that I write some sort of column, perhaps beginning with an introduction of myself. Which, frankly, is why this has taken so long to get started. Why should you give a flying proverbial? Well, aside from loved ones, music is the singular most important thing in my life and it has informed literally everything in my life from my political views and the clothes I wear to the city I live in. I’m a lifer, an obsessive even, but I’m far from alone. That passion qualifies anyone to write about it. I just got lucky and got the job.
The thing with music though and the problem with writing about it, is that it is entirely subjective. Everyone’s lives and everyone’s experiences are different and the way we listen to music and what it means to us is different. Rob Zombie blasting out in a Vegas strip club is a world away from Leatherface on your i-pod in a leaking council flat in Hackney and another world away from AC/DC at Download. Even the ways we discover music are different, from that slither on the radio to a cool album sleeve or, maybe once in a while, an album review. And that’s probably where I come in; I’ve been writing about and photographing rock n roll for 22 years now and if I’m honest I only ever took the job in the first place so I’d get to see all my favourite bands as often as possible.
But with that privilege comes a responsibility of sorts, and that is to be honest. And it’s not always as easy as it seems. If your favourite band plays a shitty show it’s not exactly the best feeling in the world having to write about it, particularly if you have friends in the band. And what of the people who had the best night of their lives? Maybe they got laid that night or had never seen the band before and thought it was great. Maybe they just stood in a better place where the sound didn’t suck. All you can do is be honest and, hopefully, entertaining.
And in all honesty, it doesn’t matter the aforementioned flying proverbial whether you like what I have to say or not. Indeed, sometimes it’s better to find a writer whose tastes you dislike. I remember, for instance, an awful review of Discharge that said they “made the UK Subs sound like a male voice choir”. I went out and bought it immediately and I’m still a big Discharge fan. And let’s not forget that someone gave the first Kyuss album a bad review. Someone even turned the Beatles down for a record deal! Mind, there’s still an argument that he was right and they were just a precursor to boy bands, but Kyuss fucking rule! Then again, without the Beatles there might not be a Motorhead. There we go being obsessive again. If you’re still reading then I’m sure you understand and you’re very welcome.

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Roy Mayorga for Metal Hammer

04 Mar 2010 -
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