"Welcome to Hell New Jersey!"

If there's one thing we love it's sweet-ass stage raps. When we head out to a rock show we want those muthas onstage to own the fucking place and letcha know they mean business. That's why we were extra excited to stumble across this collage of between song banter from a 1986 Venom show. We dig Cronos' self-absorbed "Fuck yeah!" evilness, but what we dig even more is the sheer legendary-ness of this thing. Did you know it was recorded and pieced together by Joe Cole? Released as a 7" by Thurston Moore? Sampled by The Beastie Boys? And then repeated by them as their own meta-stage rap? We knew all that before we found this WFMU page. Now that's too much Duty!

The Duty's Feral House Trifecta: Lords of Chaos

In our never-ending quest to like music even more than everyone else in the history of ever, Heavy Duty decided to branch out into the realm of rock tomes. Not that the music scholarship is foreign to us, but we figured that if we're gonna spend all day and night listening to bad-ass tunes we might as well spend a few minutes each day readin' about 'em. Our first foray into our brand new "Books, Check 'Em Out" feature is Michael Moynihan/Didrik Soderlind 1998 Feral House publication, Lords of Chaos!


Okay, so this one's been on our list of Potentially Interesting Reads for years and years now, and we finally decided to pick it up since we're blasting that Northern Darkness album every goddamn day. We knew Lords of Chaos was Feral House's cash cow and that everyone from Howard Stern to Germany's Financial Times seemed to love the tabloid tales of a few fucked up Norwegian kids who played scary fucked up metal and burned churches to the ground, but here at Heavy Duty we thought the Chaos was a bunch of sensationalist bullshit. We'll admit that we were waaaay into that early chapter 'bout the History of Satanic Metal and thought just about everything leading up to Euronymous' brutal stabbing was pretty cool. And every now and again Moynihan's wildly exaggerated and serious writing style (Florida is a "swampy netherworld" and Black Metal's cacophony is a sonic recreation of a Norse legend about a thundering army of dead souls) brought a smile to our lips.


But the bullshit part about Lords of Chaos is the entire second half where it's either about the absurd connections between Nazism and UFO cults or about some isolated incidents where fucked up kids from other countries killed some douchebag or broke into a cathedral. Black Metal is just kids who made everything "evil" their raison d'etre. And then this psychopath Varg murdered someone and became the spokesman for the Black Metal scene before anyone knew there was a scene in the first place. End of story. This book rightly tells some intriguing and fascinating stories, but after awhile it not only seems to place more importance on Black Metal than the small phenomenon deserves, but it also makes these few minor instances of violence and destruction out to be the typical and expected actions of everyone involved or associated with the genre. How fucking stupid. Maybe we're biased since the only Black Metal cat we know is also one of the least scary cats we've ever known, but we figure most duders blasting Mayhem's latest are just duders into creepy shit not dumb ass motherfuckers who want to burn a priest. We ain't gonna discount the entirety of Lords of Chaos 'cause we just can't hate on that "etiology of a scene" stuff, but unless you find this one used we think your time would be better spent learning about Emperor and Darkthrone on Wikipedia, YouToogle, or especially by watching that VBS.tv series we posted about a few months ago. That way you won't have to wade through all that garbage on Satanism and mythology.

We'll Settle For Just Being A Pimp

Fresh off grabbing a heel-to-toe sando, a tasty Diet Mountain Dew and a trip to our local independent recored store, we are ready to declare a band fo yo weekend. But whom? Easy, jackass. The revivalist blues stomp she's-not-a-bad-drummer-she's-playin'-what's-good-for-the-song duo The White Stripes.

We're listening to their new disc Icky Thump right now and we gots to thinkin': We really like The White Stripes. We even think they're a tad underrated. C'mon, most of their songs consists of the three main musical ingredients that makes a band Heavy Duty: bad-ass riffs, huge fuckin' drums, and a good sense of humor, intentional or unintentional. And the new record is kickin', folks. Some of the heaviest songs in the catalog, with the cut "Little Cream Soda" being borderline metal. So go pick up some Icky Thump, maybe work on yer loan-me-five-dollar abs a little for them shirtless summer days, and remember, if you ain't Heavy Duty, you ain't shit.

Deep Band Cuts: The Humpers

Ah, The Humpers. Not only were they the only decent band on the Epitaph roster, but they rocked pretty damn hard all throughout the nineties. We'd like to go on for a few paragraphs on how cool their records are, but when you get down to it they just put out a bunch of records of really great open chord punk rawkin' and rollin'. Every year we like these guys more and more 'cause even on them earliest records they always sounded like real-deal adults, guys that weren't out to change the world or raise awareness about some bullshit campaign, but just cats out to have a good fucking time and bring down the house with some high-speed Les Pauls and Marshalls tunes about day jobs or winding up in the local pokey. The Humpers are the only band you want to hear when it's a Saturday night and you end up at a bar that's servin' tallboys. They're a little bit drunk, a little bit tough, and they have a bunch of cool Slash-in' solos and notey Firebird basslines. Best of all, they seem like the kind of guys that might just read some Nabokov right after they fix their Chevelle's transmission.

Here's the video for "Wake Up and Lose" from 1996's Live Forever or Die Trying, a record you'll easily find in your local dollar bin. That's what we did!

You Know They Used to Call Him "Albini the Weenie"

Since half of us here fucking love Steve Albini we especially dug this PowerPointed YouTube doc that chronicles his illustrious career. We didn't learn nothing new, but these following nine minutes and fifty-three seconds are pure indie Internet geekdom! Pretentious, smarmy, fact-flubbin', and brimmin' with the results of a simple Google image search. Enjoy!

Java Youth

According to this teaser interview trailer from Pitchfork, indie rock grandparents Sonic Youth are hard at work compiling a "celebrity" tribute disc exclusively for Starbucks. Someday soon you'll be able to enjoy Jeff Tweedy's cover of "Teenage Riot," Portia de Rossi's chanteuse-in' of "Ghost Bitch," and Beck's vita-(re)mix of "Cinderella's Big Score" right as you sip from that double tall soy americano. Aren't you excited? We read this story the other day and didn't think twice about it until we ran across this insanely long forum thread about it all over at the Electrical Audio message board. Whoo-weee. Calm down, guys. Here at Heavy Duty we don't care if SY teams up with the Coffee Kings or puts their name on another sure-to-be tepid release. Of course we also don't go to Starbucks or listen to Sonic Youth. But these smarty internet cats, they sure are up in arms over the whole thing. Nineteen pages in just over a day?!?!?! Why do they have such a problem with music anyway?

Gimmie Some Mo': Cool Band Shirts!

Now that we're back to thinking bad-ass band t-shirts are fucking cool, we're pissed that too many of our favorite rock and roll combos just plain don't deliver the goods. We ain't asking for much y'see, all we wants is a "Vaya Con Satan" Turbonegro shirt instead of that one with the leatherboyz hat. We want a one-sided corpsepaint n' logo Immortal tee and a logo-only non-girlie no tour dates on the back Nile shirt. And how 'bout some Gojira merch that doesn't look like it came from a golddern beads and crystals faire, huh? So all you Duty-approved bands out there, we're asking ya to keep us in mind when you're placing that next order with CinderBlock and remember to give us black, give us small, and for the love of God, give us some more.

Now We Have One Less "Gimmie Some Mo'"

Witch's debut record just came out last year, but it quickly became a Heavy Duty best of all time classic. Big ol' fuzzy riffs, mystical faeries in boots lyrics, and stick-spinnin' drum thumping from the one and only J Mascis. We haven't posted enough about these guys since they were sorta just a project band, don't have enough killer YouToogle clips, and just plain didn't tour or bombard the press circuit with hilarious interviews, but believe us when we say they're awesome.

The coolest thing since ever, though, is that only a few short minutes ago we got some super sweet inside info straight from the band themselves. We hope you're for this one, kids, 'cause Witch is currently woodshedding tunes for their next full-length! September recording session and March '08 release! Whoa, we're so fucking stoked about it we can hardly contain ourselves, but what's really givin' us a headache in our pants is the band's plan to "get out to the west coast and over to Europe." Holy shit! We a tad wary of getting our hopes up, but, c'mon, we know for a goddamn fact that Witch WILL hit up Heavy Duty's Seattle homebase and you know for a goddamn fact that we'll be front and center banging our heads and waiting for that kick-ass whooosh part from "Seer." See you there!

Mayhem Gets a Break

Bad news, evil duders: Mayhem drummer Hellhammer has broken his arm. The official word so far is only that the band has bowed out of next weekend's Hellfest performance in Froggy-land, but according to this post from the H-deuce himself, all "my touring from now until the beginning of august is cancelled." Hmmm...this doesn't bode well for the Duty since we were super stoked to catch these corpsey Norwegians at the local scary metal club next month. We already reserved armored steeds and mail-ordered spiked wristbands, dammit. We spent the past week memorizing "Chainsaw Gutsfuck" and "Impious Devious Leper Lord" and now what are we gonna do? Wait a few months for them to reschedule? C'mon, man.

We'd ask ya to pray for a speedy medical recovery for our boy Jan Blomberg, but knowing these guys' history we know it'd have the opposite effect. At least send some good thoughts our way so that our proposed Extreme Metal July doesn't turn into a July of Extreme Metal.

Yeesh. Now that'd be scary.

Death or Us A-Snoozin'?

Oakland sludge metallers and all-around "don't fuck with us" duders High on Fire just announced dates for an upcoming Fall tour. Fuck yeah! We love Matt Pike's brand of warehouse-district gutter metal, and we love burly fucking rock shows. But what we absolutely don't get is why in hell Mono is the opening act. That's right, Mono, Japan's finest version of the Austin version of the Scottish version of the Slint EP. We swear we like these guys just as much as High on Fire, but we only want Mono when we're fallin' asleep and feelin' ways about stuff, not when we're lookin' to sucker punch a bearded guy and pound some air drums. Why anyone thought these brooding post-rock epics would mesh with such uncompromisingly bare-chested aggression is beyond us.

But we're still goin'! It's gonna be bad ass!

Lists o' Top Six: We Go Metal Thrashing MAD

We've been aching to clack out a post about Corey Taylor's roundabout confirmation on his position as Anthrax's new singer, but we figured a bunch of insults about a band we don't care about would be pretty fucking stupid. But then we thought, "Hey, ya know what wouldn't be pretty fucking stupid? A Definitive Lists o' Top Six: Anthrax Singers We'd Like to See!"

6. Kevin Sharp. Fuck you, Dan Lilker! We're gonna sabotage that Brutal Truth reunion and then debut the new 'Thrax lineup on VH1.

5. Whitfield Crane. Just look at what America's Least Wanted vocalist did for Life of Agony! And who isn't waiting for Billy Milano to drop an "Everything About Jews" blast?

4. Dave Mustaine. A thrash singer with no business singing joins a thrash band with no business banding? We smell a shitload of real nasty Blabbermouth posts.

3. Brian Posehn. When the band's a joke, the punchlines write themselves!

2. Tom Jones. Scott wants them gaming circuit guarantees, Tom wants them pentagram thongs, and we wants to shit a Heavy Duty brick of joy when we hear "Think I betta mosh now" during the encore.

1. David Faustino. MoshMaster B. 'Nuff said.

Track By Track Duty Attack: QOTSA's Era Vulgaris

Josh Homme's musical mission seems to be put out killer albums that go beyond categorization without ever repeating himself. After a few spins of the new disc we can best describe this effort as Hypnotic Noise Rock. We knew we'd like this one no matter what, but geez this shit is genius. Air drums on every track!!

Turnin' On The Screw
A stompin' and a squeelin' dirge noise fest with barely recognizable Homme vocals and some killer sly drum fills. Love the Buffallo Bill quote in the lyrics and Troy's search for the weirdest lead guitar tone.

Sick, Sick, Sick
The easy choice first single. Classic Homme vocals and a killer beat you can almost dance to. We feel bad for all them steerin' wheels that'll get pounded along to this one. First Queens songs in a while that makes us want to punch you in the face.

I'm Designer
There's that falsetto we like so much. Josh's is havin' fun on this one. Crunchy guitars with a patched on melodic chorus. Are they tryin' to break the record for most different guitar tones on one record?

Into The Hollow
Groovin' verse riff gets the head-a-bobbin', then they hit you with maybe the sweetest melody on a Queens record. Bringin' a tear to the Duty's eye. Should be a single and it's our favorite song on the record! Blasphemy!



Misfit Love
Spank-rock that drones 'till you can't get it out of ya head. Great lead fills all over this one. Feels like it's ten minutes long until the bridge/coda comes out of nowhere and makes the song feel like two different bands.

Battery Acid
This song makes our head hurt, in a good way. Great funky lead break and we think Mark Lanegan sings on the bridge. We need a breather.

Make It Wit Chu
Ahhhh. At first we were surprised this old school Desert Sessions track got an update and a made this record, but after listening to the whole album, it makes sense. It's a nice piece of alterna-soul right after two of the nuttiest songs in the QOTSA catalog. Best lyrics ever and our all time favorite Homme guitar solo.



3's And 7's
The only kinda regular rockin' song on the record with Nirvana-esque riffin' and great lead work. Bad-ass bass breakdown and rippin' solo ride out ending. Should end up being a live staple. We're gonna learn how to play this one.

Suture Up Your Future
Best song title ever, we're pissed we didn't come up with it. A somber-stomp that would have fit well on Lullabies. Homme is god.

River In The Road
Swirly spacey shifty shit, folks. We could never come up with stuff like this. Not exactly sure what's going on, but it'll grow on us.

Run, Pig, Run
After ending the last two albums with ballads, it's nice to hear this one go out with a bang. Pounding caveman drummin' throughout with geetar to match, this one twists and turns and starts and stops with ease. Once again with the wacky guitar tones. This album's gonna sell a million stomp boxes.

New Shit Tuesday: Are We Forgetting Some Shit? Edition

Pig Destroyer Phantom Limb: Relapse Records strikes again with more super fucking angry guys screaming at us. Expect more Pig Destroyer Dutys after we finish beating each other with lead pipes.

Turbonegro Retox: The States won't get the new Denim Demons disc 'til August, but the Norweigan public got it yesterday. At least these Scandinavian leather boyz had the decency to let us stream the tunes now. Turn up the 'Negro heat and prepare to rawk out with your cock out. Then in. Then out. Then back in.

Sonic Youth Daydream Nation (deluxe edition): Now with a whole 'nother disc of tunes you'll talk about but won't listen to! Don't worry, your secret's safe with us.

Traveling Wilburys Traveling Wilburys: Put down that shaving kit and remind Dad how his childhood idols turned into corny old farts who wrote songs worse than Bobby D's Xian hymns.

Gimmie Some Mo': Radiohead!

So you Duty faithful that have slogged through our countless posts 'bout all them brutal blast-beat bad-ass bands the past few weeks might have noticed we've neglected some of the other genres we enjoy so much while gleefully reviling in the revolting world of extreme metal. So when we gots one of our old-timey favorites on the shuffle today, coupled with this story on the Pitchfork, we said to ourselves: Let's listen to Immortal again! Ha! Then we said when the fuck is the next Radiohead record coming out? Shit! Come on lads, give us some more!

To All The Girls We've Loved Before (And All The Girls We Will)

Ithy-whaaaaa..????

Nile's Ithyphallic is still a month away, but Nuclear Blast just upped a slick new e-card where you can preview the new tracks and check out Dallas Toler-Wade's sweet skullet.

We don't have anything else to say. This band's pretty fuckin' cool. Good day.

New Shit Tuesday: Too Much Shit Edition

Neurosis Given To The Rising: We've been all over this album for awhile now, and we are fuckin' stoked it's finally out. Scariest "regular guy" band ever, folks. No corpsepaint 'n spikes needed here just East-Bay hardcore duders playing the doomiest of metal. Buy.







Chris Cornell Carry On: We're a little conflicted on this one, 'cause we dug C-Deuce's first solo album but soured on the failed experiment Audioslave after the first record. But back then we weren't into the heaviest of the heavy shit we are now, so this might be a little pussy for us. And it has a a cover of fuckin' "Billie Jean." Eh? We'll stick to TVZ for our Sensitive Duty.



Pelican City Of Echoes: More instrumental post-rock from the band that kinda sounds like sloppy Isis to us. That's a compliment.

Marylin Manson Eat Me, Drink Me: No thanks, we just ate five hotdogs and are eyein' that two week old apple pie in the fridge.

Free Speech For The Dumb

Even though we've been drowin' ourselves into every conceivable metal sub-genre known to man/beast, Metallica is and always will be our favorite band. So when we get some juicy quotes from the guys about the sound of the next record, we gets a little excited, kinda makes our pants tighter. Bassist Bobby T. dropped this nugget on Greece's Rock Hard mag:

This album incorporates part of the dynamic and character of Master of Puppets, as well as the melodic style that people liked in the Black Album.

Holy shit! If they actually pulled that off, it would automatically be the greatest metal album of all time. We settle for the sixth best 'Tallica record. Then Kirk let loose with his own fan-baiting quote on the Australian website Krone.at:

People will see that we've kind of embraced our old vocabulary again and are using that vocabulary to express new things...I think with this album we're definitely going a little more back into our roots."

All that goodness, and then we get this in the mail today. Yay!

Gimmie Some Mo': Kill Allen Wrench!

We've kept quiet on our love for the punk rawk sleaze of Riverside's Kill Allen Wrench, mostly 'cause we didn't want y'all to think we were all that hellbent on rapin' the horses and ridin' off on the women, but dammit, we can't stay silent no more! 'Cause if there's one thing we want in this world it's more two-minute songs about hard drugs, loose women, and cold suds. We know it sounds like a lot to ask for more burly dudes in devil horns rasping about porno stars and drunk driving, and we know that clamoring for more Heathen Scum guitar solos sounds a little desperate, but we don't care.

Kill Allen Wrench, it's just been too darn long. Two albums in nine years? One show in three? We know you're busy with the boating, Hamburglarin', and Judo tourneys. We know we sound like total assholes as we beg for more what with bassist Mark Hernandez resting in peace, but when we get a powerful hankering to ogle stretch-marked barflys, suck down cans of Pabst, and pee in the venue's parking lot, the only soundtrack we want to hear is from the one and only Full Metal Messiah hisself. Yes, Allen, we love that you're bad enough to kill Kurt Cobain and hang with Jewel De'Nyle, but what we really love are them Satan-worshipping tracks about whores, Hokes, and hangovers, so, please, give us some more.

Thrash Sells, And We Be Buyin'

Holy shit, it's Friday afternoon and we are already three beerz into our weekend with more to come. And it's an official Heavy Duty P.I. weekend 'cause we're checkin' out this flick and maybe learning something new about our favorite heavy metal sub-genre.

Seriously, we'll get into any band if they throw in some sweet-ass thrash riffin' once and awhile. So even if we think most of the bands in the thrash metal scene kinda suck compared to the mighty 'Tallica, we sure do have a soft sport for it's break-neck-bad-ass-ness. So this week's Band For Yo Weekend is.... Megadeth!!?



Fuck yeah, why not? They had some good tunes. And even though Musty D sold out just as much as Metallica did, at least he never cut his firey locks! So while you try to find that crusty wife beater with the Natty Lite stains you threw in the back of yer closet last October, why don'tcha pay tribute to metal's ultimate number two band and blast some Rust In Piece or something: