The Sunday Cool Down Shuffle

This is a new feature post for the Duty. We load up the iTunes, hit shuffle, and write about the first 10 songs that come up no matter what. Got it?



10. "Randy Normal Jeans" - Pleeseasaur - Take a look at the picture above. Ha!

9. "Pretty Tied Up" - Guns 'N Roses - Great fuckin' bass fill in the intro. One of our favorite "Non-Appetite/Illusion single" Guns track.

8. "Through The Collonades" - Entombed - We Googled "collonades" while listening and still aren't sure what the hell it means.

7. "Across The Night" - Silverchair - Instead of trying to be Nirvana, these Aussie lads give the Beatles a shot. Meh.

6. "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" - The Darkness - We love any song where the singer yells "Guitar!" before the solo.

5. "Freewheelin'" - Truckfighters - This song somehow sounds like Kyuss + Fu Manchu + Tool. With a spanish guitar + Dirty Harry sample at the end. WTF!?

4. "Mongoose" - Fu Manchu - Cowbell! Fuzz Geetar! One of our favorite Fu songs to hear live.

3. "She Cracked" - The Modern Lovers - Our first ever Heavy Duty road trip was a two hour trek to The Ventura Theatre to see J. Rich. We listened to Master Of Puppets on the way home to stay awake.

2. "They (As In Them)" - Intronaut - Shhhh. Don't tell anyone, but we think we likes these guys more than Mastodon for our proggy caveman metal.

1. "Space Rock" - Weezer - This is off our favorite of the "shitty" Weezer albums 'cause Rivers play quite a few rippin' solos. Still shitte, though.

The Devil Rides Beside Him

Wow, so just how cool is this "Race with the Devil" song anyway? We know it's sorta lame to center a Sin After Sin post on a cover tune from the remastered version, but what the hell? We're Heavy Duty and we do what we want.

See, we like "Race with the Devil" since its exactly what we want from a B-side: chunka-chunka rhythm guitars and bloozey soloing, soulful 'tude and half-baked verses about being chased by a gun-wielding devil (huh?). It's the kind of thing you wanna listen to over and over again, but if you didn't have it then, shoot, you wouldn't miss it at all. Probably 'cause you'd be too busy yammerin' 'bout how beeftastically legendary Sin After Sin was (it's got them uber-heavy cuts like "Starbreaker" and "Dissident Aggressor" dontcha know). "Race with the Devil" is really only necessary for one reason, and that's to show the world that the Priest is hiney-kicking even when mucking around on another dude's tune.

Also 'cause it makes us want to fire up the amps and crank out a version of this song ourselves. You think we can outdo Black Oak Arkansas?

Stone Faced

Is it just us, or is Charlie Watts awesome? Jagger and Richards get all the glory, but them songs make ya shake yer ass for a reason, and it's Watts layin' down the bad-ass blueprint beats. C'mon! Just listen to Honky Tonk Women! Yes!

Our favorite thing about Watts is that with all the bullshit going on around him, he manages to make it happen. Fuck, we're pretty sure Keef just on riffs Jumpin' Jack Flash no matter what song the band is playin', but Watts' rock solid skin work keeps the train a-rollin'. So while you pour yourself another Bourbon Sweet Tea, why don't ya make the Stones the Band Fo Yo Weekend!

You Got Any Goat?

So your crack Heavy Duty staff noticed that a there are a ton of bands out there with a some variation on "Goat" in their name, most notably Goatwhore and Archgoat. Mix that with the goat being a heavy metal image staple, and well, we've gots some goat fever. Goat.

Then it hit us. We could come up with some great fake goat band names, dammit! We are funny! And yes we know that somewhere out there, not matter how ridiculous these names are, some drunk assholes are printing up the t-shirts as we speak.

So here ya go, our "Top Ten Fake Band Names With Goat In The Title," done old school Letterman style.

10. Goatscroat
9. Abe ViGoata
8. Goat-Riffic
7. Taog
6. LOLgoats
5. Motorgoat
4. Swampgoat
3. Goatpope
2. Goatgasm
1. Goat Goat

Hee-heeee!

You're In For A Shaw-aaaaaaaaack!

So even though this record has gone on to be considered an early heavy metal classic along the lines of Zeppelin II or Machine Head, what the fuck is up with that song Epitaph? We know all bands have some stinkers, but this is some grade A crap. It sounds like one of them White Album era McCartney bullshit songs nobody likes, especially when their metal gods schmaltz through it.

Trust us, were not against some lighter (or the more modern cellphone) raisin' songs to be sprinkled through a band's catalog, but their is no excuse for this one. This is the second album folks! Imagine if something this bad was on Paranoid or Ride The Lightning. And the fact that "The Ripper" is on this record doesn't make up for it.



Okay. It does.

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits

Take Her If Ya Want Her, If Ya Think Ya Can

So is it wrong to like an album 'cause you wanna see it redone? Now we don't mean redone like Still Cyco After All These Years or Exodus's recently announced Bonded By Blood plan. Nah, when we say redone we mean it in that fancy pants Hollywood re-visioning way: keep most stuff the same, but tweak the stuff that'll fool ya into thinking you got something new and different.

Rocka Rolla was Priest's 1974 debut platter, a record that's probably forgotten 'cept for the title track's puffy shirts 'n Stetsons Bri'ish telly performance (conveniently located at the bottom of this post). But here at the Duty we've spent some time with the R-deuce and we think it's brimmin' with tunes ripe for a stoner rock makeover. Not that the record itself is lackin', but we say its ZZ Top/"Frankenstein" riffin' is perfect for some downtuned fuzz pedallin'. Some gruffy soul bellows doin' Bobby Halford's sing-songin' would be divine. Heck, just try and tell us album opener "One For the Road" don't already sound like a Queens of the Stone Age cut! All these boring beardy duder Clutch bands would totally win us over if they dropped a heavified version the already feedback-segued "Winter/Deep Freeze" suite. So bands, get on it! Don't forget to "Planet Caravan" the weenie parts.

Crank the Hi-Fi High

So now that we've kicked off Metal Meltdown Month, we wanted to give ya a sneak preview of what Judy P posts we've got up our sleeves. Since we know how much you guys loved our recently-published Nostradamus critique we've decided that over the next coupla weeks we're gonna give ya Heavy Dutys about each and every Priest album! That's right. From Rocka Rolla to Angel of Retribution, we've got all them records in our pristine alphabetized music library (errrr...well more like under our beds and stuck behind the dashboard) and we're a-fixing to fine-tooth comb 'em for your readin' pleasure. So stay tuned. If you're lucky we might even drop a Jugulator on ya.

Great Weekends Are Rockin'

Can you believe we've gone about a year and a half without a GWAR post! WTF! Sorry if you just spit some PBR all over yer keyboard, we're as surprised as you is. All this black metal and Priest worship has pushed our beloved Antarctic metal masters to the background. Well shit, let's make Gwar the Band Fo Yo Weekend, The Heavy Duty does not forgot where we come from.

We Are All Nostradamus

So we picked up our copies of Nostradamus yesterday, and we've been burning the midnight oil tryin' to figure out how how to write up a review for the mighty Priest's newest looong player. And holy shit, this thing is long with a capital L. We're talkin' two dumps long. You think you could grab us a magazine or something? Jeepers.


Ya see, we knew goin' in this one was gonna suck as soon as we heard "concept record" and "about some crackpot dude in a funny hat." 'Specially when it's all brought to you by the band that gave the world "Hot Rockin'" and "Eat Me Alive"? Not exactly a recipe for a slam dunk classic, eh? But we loves us some Priest and though we had some not so great expectations, we gave it a fair chance and we gotta say Nostradamus is nothing but a solid gold Judas classic.

We knew Priest can't give us another record like British Steel or Stained Class, but that don't mean they can't try something completely fuckin' over the top and insane, right? That way they can't lose! And with this one they up the ante with two hours of overblown heavy metal opera that's as ludicrous as it is legendary. In fact, we says its so much classic-er than any forty-minute recapturification of Ram It Down woulda EVER been!

So instead of givin' the record an arbitrary number or star score, and instead of being all unfair and rating this one track by track ('cause ya can't do that to high-art) let's have some fun here and kick your way a simple pro's and con's album review.



The Good

Is Judas Priest!

Tracks "Persecution" and "Prophecy," and "Future Of Mankind" are vintage Priest heavy metal. Ooooh-wee are they some heavy metal.

Tipton and Downing have rippin' weedily solos all over the darn place, this time with gooder tone! We can't believe it neither!

Ian Hill's bass tone more prominent than, ah....well, it's there.

The title track is incredible. An instant Priest classic.

The Bad

Too much Gilbert and Sullivan not-metal.

We were ready to learn 'bout the life of one Sir Nostra-D. We didn't, and we actually think we learned more about Edgar Cayce during this one.

Doesn't have "Devil's Child."

No band photos in the booklet. WTF?!?!?

So what does it all mean, eh? Well if you like the idea of Painkiller meets The Pirates Of Penzance then Nostradamus is a must buy. If that sounds like the worst fuckin' thing ever, at least give props for the Priest tryin' something so different so late in the game.

The biggest compliment we can give any artist is that the work they produce is sincere, whether you think it sucks or not. When Dio flashes the swoop horns, Tiny Evil is the truth. When Abbath brandishes his frosty axe, he is black metal. And when Halford wails "I am Nostradamus, your life is at stake," that fact that he means it so much cuts through all the ridiculousness. And that our friends, is Heavy Duty.

Since We Heart the Birmingham Beasts

So if there's any band that could define us it's the almighty Judas Priest.

Wait, let's back up for a minute. We think what we meant to say was, "the al-fucking-mighty Judas fucking Priest!!!" Hmmm....yeah, that sounds waaaaay better, don't it?

See, we've dug the metal gods for so long and they've given us (and you, by extension) so much that it's time for us to give something back. So in tribute to the killing machines of heavy metal the Duty's decided to dive into our most epic undertaking yet and declare June 20 to July 23 Metal Meltdown Month! Starting now and continuing until the final days of July we're gonna short your circuits with as many Judas Priest-themed Halford/Downing/Hill/Tipton posts as our Tina's Burritos-addled brains can come up with. We've got some ideas percolatin' and some stuff we've been sitting on awhile, and we're leavin' no stone unturned until we've sufficiently stuffed y'all full of these boys from Birmingham. Don't worry, it won't hurt.

So charge up your laptop and prepare to order in. The fun begins tomorrow with an exclusive Duty-take on the Priest's triumphant new double disc, Nostradamus. It's a doozy!

Broke Mah Beard

So we eagerly awaited Metallica's performance at this year's dirty hippiefest Bonnaroo, hoping they would play new track off their upcoming record Death Magnetic. We got bupkis. Shit. Looks like we'll have to wait until their next show on July 16th before we might get a taste.

So with all that gripin' about new 'Tallica, we didn't even notice that Mastodon was on the bill as well, and they debuted three new fuckin' songs! Hot damn! Problem is that some record company asshat already took them clips of YouTube. No dice for the Duty, but them damn hippies and their good karma got to hear them. But we're going to see the bearded metal gods live on the Rockstar Mayhem tour July 9th, and they better give up the goods. Or at least groomin' tips.

While we wait for the all new shit, check out this incredible live clip of Metallica tearin' the shit out of "Ride The Lighting." We don't give a fuck what you think of the band now, you have to be impressed by how good they sound here:

Where Dark and Light Don't Differ...In Full Color!

It was a just regular Cool Ranch Doritos/"Unchained" afternoon here at the Duty when we innocently decided to step outside where we found ourselves pleasantly surprised to see our just delivered pre-ordered copy of Peter Beste's True Norwegian Black Metal staring at us from the front stoop. It's no secret we've come down with a SERIOUS case black metal fever this past year, so when VICE magazine announced they was putting out a swanky hardbound picture book of Pete Beste's finest photos of Oslo's spikiest heavy metal madmen you better believe we were looking for that order form as fast as our fingers could type. And now that our months-long wait for the release is finally over and our coffee table will proudly display that bloody cover pic of Carpathian Forest's Nattefrost until the end of time, we feel more metal and more cultured than ever before.

We're sure everyone'll agree that Beste's photos of Satyricon's Frost breathing fire in a cave or that old lady glaring at a guy from Jotunspor are the hands-down greatest images music has ever seen, but what's even more amazing and inspiring about this book is its true sense of humanity...and we're serious when we say that. See, aside from its church-burning origins and genuinely frightening "superstars," Norwegian Black Metal is just a handful of dudes getting shit off their chests. For every face-painted, vested pose of Immortal's Abbath, there's the guys from Darkthrone playing records in a basement. For every shot of impaled sheep's heads atop the stage monitors, there's a guy ponytailing his hair so he can put on his makeup in the greenroom. Beste's book fits in with absolutely everything we stand for, which means it offers this world equal amounts of Heavy and Duty at the same darn time; it ain't just about scary guys into fucked-up shit, it's a story of guys who wanna listen to Discharge and walk through a forest. If one pic can sum it up it's this shot near the end where Gorgoroth's King ov Hell, fully made-up with leather and studs, is throwing up the heavy metal horns...and sitting behind the wheel of his white Volvo.

Highly recommended.

Sounds Like Kirk Got Himself A Metal Zone

The Duty Gives You Some Head

So we're about a year late to the party on this one, but fuck Machine Head's The Blackening is an amazing record. It's got all the great old epic metal stuff we love so much, in newer metal form. Thunder thrash verses, super Maiden/Lizzy harmony lead madness, fuck every songs has a part that sounds like "Battery." Man, do we feel ridiculous for whiffing on this one last year.

This is the first Machine Head album we've ever gotten into, we remember our most metal childhood friend Kevin had Burn My Eyes and we thought it was waaay to fuckin' metal for us. But know that we've gotten a taste, we'll be checkin' out some of them other records. And while we do that and probably this, why doncha put another nail in the coffin of false metal and make Machine Head your Band Fo Yo Weekend!

Symp-Tom of the Universe

In a recent "interview" with instrument superstore Sam Ash, Black Sabbath/Heaven and Hell riff-master/moustache-cultivator Tony Iommi said his first pick for super-group singer'd be, and we quote:

I have always liked, and I don’t know why, but Tom Jones (laughs), I always wanted to do something with him. I just like his voice. He has a great voice.

Ha! How about that? We're sure you guys think this could be another Country Lee Roth debacle, but here at the Duty we think a Jones/Iommi match-up would be the greatest thing a stage has ever seen! Now just think about it for a sec: Tom's black goatee fits right in and the Sabbath/Ozzy reunion was the corniest Vegas act in years. We think that if Big Tom can shamelessly sell us Prince, "Burning Down the House," and forty years of cucumber undies he can surely kick some "War Pigs" keister up and down the block.

We hate to say it, but Dio better watch out.

We Heart the Berlin Beasts

So we've long had this punchline about how the most metal guy ever was an air-drumming two a.m. Denny's patron in a Kreator tee, but since we could never remember where this joke came from or why we brought it up in the first place we always lumped this Deutschlandic thrash band in with all those shitty high-top groups like Overkill and Vio-lence. But last month when we had to close out our eMusic subscription and when we saw 2003's Live Kreation right there on our screen and realized how an onstage audio document of twenty-five years of heavy metal blood, sweat, and tears could be both ours and super fucking cool we figured, hey, why in the hell not and promptly clicked "download all."

And, mother of god, we had no idea Kreator was so darn cooooool! Every song has a "Hellion" intro and a Master of Puppets breakdown and a guy with a weird Euro name screaming about paranoia, and by the time they get to the wanky Charvel solo we're already sore from all our headbanging that we're halfway through our Coors Light tallboy and have some Hot Pockets in the microwave. This is some serious metal for ya, and not in some postured spikey armband way or full of phoney "I can't fucking hear you" stage rap ploys. No sir, this is real deal heavy metal played by middle aged guys who couldn't do anything else if they tried.

Heavy Duty hereby simultaneously names Kreator the Motorhead of Thrash and the best of what Germans do best. They've been around since '82 and 2001's Violent Revolution is so outstanding it's like the band's Painkiller! (Hey, wait....the time between Priest's debut and Painkiller and the time between Kreator's debut and Violent Revolution was about the same....could we have stumbled on a significant metal factoid purely by accident???? Whoa!) Here's a live version of VR's title track as it was performed to 2005's hometown Wacken crowd. We especially like all the waaaay emo crowd shots and the Flying V bass!

Givin' The (Corn) Dog A Bone

So occasionally we have to make that dreaded trek out to that special part of suburban Hell know as Wall Mart to pick up some cheap shit, like a belt or maybe a puppy. One of our favorite things about going to Wally Word, besides fat chicks on motorized carts, is the fact that everything they've got for sale smells like corn dogs. Which is fucking awesome.

So when we read that the new AC/DC album will be sold exclusively through the Behemoth of retailers, we were a bit puzzled at first. So you're tellin' us we'll have to navigate through an army of welfare coasters and blue smocked yahoos just for a chance to lay down three purple fives for an album that'll probably be worse than Stiff Upper Lip? Como?

And then we put two and two together.

We shall be proud owners of an AC/DC album that smells like a corn dog!

Damn right it feels good to be Heavy Duty.

Excellent!

So our Pops finally came over to check out our new downtown Seattle Heavy Duty HQ and see where all this metal magic you guys read every day happens. We decided to grab heel-to-toe sandos and see if we could find some cool live shit On Demand. And lordy, did we ever! Iron Maiden's Rock In Rio performance from their World Slavery tour in 1985! We are down.

Live Maiden is always good for some fun, with Bruce Dickinson's pioneering metal bangs and out of control vibrato, some super non-metal Strat action, and the search for a classic riff in a sea of Steve Harris' lead bass noodlin'. Oh wait! This riff is pretty bad-ass:



Okay, so the band dress code for this tour was apparently "Dress like a pro-wrestler/superhero, with the tightest spandex you can fuckin' find." Our eyes are still bleedin'. But our respect for the Maiden grew a little. We think we'll go pick up Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son and you should make Iron Maiden the Band Fo Yo Weekend!

Baloney On Hand

So since we've had many-a posts about who should be singing for heavy metal jokesters Anthrax, we though we'd phil you in now that the new guy has made his anticipated debut. Here's some crappy video evidence:



Wow. Looks like they went for "generic angry modern metal guy" this time around. We guess anything is better than Joey Fuckin' Belladonna. Man that guy sucks. Wait, why are we postin' about a band we don't even like? More Priest!

ZOMG!

We have tried our best to temper our enthusiasm over the next Metallica record, considering how excited we were before the release of St. Anger, and we all know how that one turned out. But after reading Rock Sound and Metal Hammer's take on the six songs they got to preview, we've officially shifted into "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!!!" mode. Here's a tasty quote:

Track three kicks off on a stop-start riff flecked with Eastern touches, as other bustling guitar lines play off each other and Hetfield’s vocals retain the power of old, like some monolithic prophet overlooking events as mid-paced, chugging riffs come in, sounding like an army on the march, methodically shooting anyone in their path.

We need to get our hands on this album NOW. And a clean pair of shorts.

Dude Wrote Like 400 Songs With His Own Name In The Title

Bo Diddley is dead, but The Heavy Duty knows he will always be remembered as that guy from them Bo Knows commercials back from the late 80's.

RIP, and may they have square guitars and blue blockers in Heaven.

Diamond Duty

When we decided to watch some Mercyful Fate videos before bed we never thought we'd come across something as outstandingly Heavy Duty as this. In fact, our wildest dreams couldn't have predicted we'd ever stumble across something so Duty that it'd stupefy us into such a state of pure Duty overload.

So here it is. A 1987 clip of King Diamond doin' the Fate's "Evil" and leading the crowd into a "Happy Birthday" sing-a-long for James Hetfield. We don't think the world can get any more metal.