Top Ten of 2012

Yo' mamma. Well, my mum, actually.

Alice Cooper: what a legend. He brought us Poison which is without doubt one of the finest mainstream metal songs of all time, his antics with a chicken have put him in the metal history books but most of all, his breakfast show on Planet Rock gets me up and running every single day. You just can't beat a bit of Free's Wishing Well at 6:15am.

Today was special though. Ol' Vincent kicked off with Neil Young, closely followed by Tom Petty, both of whom are up there with my mum's favourite artists. I'm hoping this is a sign, as MADmum is currently in hospital after falling down her stairs and busting her leg. She's got an operation today to get everything pinned backed together.

MADmum gave me, Bro Dude and my sister an epic start to life with her staple diet of Crosby, Stills and Nash, Steely Dan, Neil Young, Tom Petty, The Byrds, Motown and old Ratpack music. Coupled with my dad's love of Dire Straits, The Rolling Stones and the fact he owned a first edition Paranoid vinyl, I've got a lot to be thank them for. So horns up high for me mum; get better soon, you clumsy moo.

On the subject of quite serious shit, I'm doing a fun run (massive oxymoron) for a UK stillborn and neonatal death charity - feel free to find out more and give me money here.

But back to the metal! I have an absolute plethora of new shit to plough through, including the new Stone Sour album Audio Secrecy. I'm hearing good things so far and seeing as Come What(ever) May gave me a priapism, I can't wait to get stuck into it. Then there's The Conscious Sedation by System Divide and Dawn of Ashes' Genocide Chapter which both look promising. I'm also enjoying Aeon's Path of Fire at present; a bit Trigger The Bloodshed-y, very much my sweet spot.

Right, time to fuck off. May your weekends be filled with much merriment, alcoholic pleasures and rough sexual intercourse.

M
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Let's do this...

The day is upon us folks. In a matter of minutes I shall be joining the exodus of the great unwashed from civilised society to the hallowed grounds of Donnington Park. In case you weren't aware, a few music fans are having a wee get together up there to listen to some bands.

But before me and Hot Chick straddle the Harley and burn off into the sunset (and by that I mean trundle round the M25 in our rented Nissan) there are a couple of things that need to be mentioned.

Firstly, how fucking good is Iron Maiden's new song, El Dorado? Hmm?? I'll tell you how good. Fucking good. The first time I listened to it I thought to myself "it's good but is is MAIDEN good?". Bruce Dickinson's vocals sounded a bit clean (but that's more than likely down to the fact that I've listened to Live After Death about 16,829 times) but as soon as he hits his high notes and the undeniably Maiden triple axe attack gets into full flow it's apparent that you're still listening to the greatest heavy metal band of all time. Not bad considering their combined ages is comparable to that of the Great Sphinx, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Esther Rantzen.

We've also been treated to new material from Stone Sour's forthcoming third album, Audio Secrecy. Tracks The Bitter End and Mission Statement hint that Corey Taylor and the boys are going down a more melodic route, with much less growling and chugging riffs this time round. This being said, they'll grow their fanbase with this album if these tracks are anything to go by. The metally metallic metallers won't be won over in the slightest though. One criticism I have (which will make me unpopular with my better half) is what the fuck are they thinking with the titles? Audio Secrecy is a crap album title, The Bitter End has been done by Black Stone Cherry and Placebo off the top of my head, and I should imagine countless others too. And Mission Statement? It's almost like they couldn't be arsed. But that is a small, insignificant issue in the grand scheme of things. Cannot fucking wait to hear the new album and see them at Download 2010. Nightmarish clash with Aerosmith though...

Right, why am I still waffling? I've got 500 pints of Tuborg to drink. Oh, and in my typically shameless self-promoting way, log on to Download Festival Radio this weekend as Download FM has kindly asked me to write a blog for them. And if you're not already following me on Twitter, do so (click the logo at the top of the page). Be warned though; I will be drinking a lot so am liable to be talking bollocks. For a change.

Onwards to the metal!

'Taters
M
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Here we go again...

Apologies for my unexplained hiatus over the last couple of Fridays; me and Hot Chick have been moving house so a lack of Internet connection has resulted in my unblogitute. I thought some of you may get all emo and start cutting if you had to wait until Friday so here's a nice Monday treat for you.

No we've got that business taken care of, onto the really important stuff: why I'm not going to Sonisphere 2010.

The lineup for this event is so good that I've filled my pants a good six or seven times. But we've been over that before. Download 2010 announces it's headliners today and AC/DC are looking like the bleedin' obvious big hitter but aside from that, look at the other key facts; Download 2010 marks the 30th anniversary of heavy metal on Donnington's hallowed grounds. The capacity has gone from 80,000 to a bafflingly huge 110,000. Tell me there isn't going to be some insanely epic names needed to shift those tickets? Think of all the bands that have played over the years - imagine a "best of Donnington" lineup. Yeah, you like that, don't you? You dirty sl....sorry, getting all excited.

Here's the rub; Download could easily shift the numbers if they got some of the poppier bands of late. The danger here is that if cuntyball fuckwarblers Metro Station or spasticated wankmonkeys Plain White Ts are there you may see news reports of an overweight skinhead committing mass murder with an over-priced Yorkshire pudding. But you take the rough with the smooth. The other lot with money to burn are the 30-40 year olds, so rumours of Van Halen and the imminent demise of The Scorpions suggests a possible repeat of Download 2009's epic 80s power rock lineup win. Plus, with Corey Taylor refusing to miss a year, Stone Sour are a pretty hot favourite for a bit of new album promotion which is a big hit with this mother fucker, then there's Soundgarden's reformation, and so on and so forth...

Isn't variety the spice of life? Download has and always will mix the brutal with the melodic, the hardcore with the mainstream, the good with the shit, and I for one am a big fan of absorbing many types of over music over the weekend.

But perhaps the most important reason of all is that Hot Chick (and I shall be slaughtered for broadcasting this) is also celebrating her 30th anniversary of being on this big ol' hunk of space rock this year. As such, what kind of gentlementaller would I be if I didn't let her pick the festival this year? After all, she gets dragged along to a lot of shows she wouldn't choose over the rest of the year so it's only fair, innit?

Don't get it twisted homies, I'd love to be at both Sonisphere and Download but that's gonna be crazy expensive and damn impossible G.

So to conclude this Monday broadcast, it looks like MADman will be at Download 2010. Provided I can nick enough bags off old women and steal the lunch money off of enough school kids to pay for the tickets.

Now it's Monday morning so stop reading this and do some fucking work. It's your fault the world's in a recession.

M
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Punk's not dead

Last weekend really was the shit. Not only did I get to sample some upcoming British metal talent in the shape of Arxis and Snakebite but I also saw Rise Against, one of my favourite acts of all time, giving it plenty in Brixton. That, my friends, is what a weekend is all about.

Following on from witnessing Chicago's finest, I'm in a punk mood right now which essentially means listening to fuck loads of Leatherface, Pennywise and Lagwagon just like the old days. Plus, I'm off to see Madball next week which is going to be more punk that spitting on an ugly bird with a mohawk and tartan skin-tights. And whilst we're on the subject of muthafuckin' hardcore, I've recently encountered Rhinoceros, a straight-edge band from Buffalo. These guys are pure and simple, smash-your-face-in hardcore so go have a listen (link's in the list, of course).

But as with all of my recent posts, I've got to be serious briefly. Legendary metal frontman and pioneer of the "metal horns" Ronnie James Dio has been diagnosed with stomach cancer. They've caught it early doors so things are looking okay but still, spare a thought for the crazy little mentalist.

On the up side, the best news I've heard this week though is that Stone Sour are heading back to the studio in January for a spring release of their third album. Hopefully this means we can expect to see them at Download 2010 as ol' Corey does love the event. I'm going to have to immerse myself in either class A drug smuggling or white slave trafficking to afford a couple of tickets this year. Or sell my pants of eBay. Seemingly people like that shit. I'll just pretend I'm a lesbian teenager and we're all set.

Finally, massive fucking horns up to local metallers Echovirus for getting onto the Hammerfest 2010 bill. I'm a big fan of these guys (check out my post from July 7th, 'Infectious 'Virus') and they're a worthy additional to the line-up. Good work gentlemen.

I now need to get a sausage and egg bap because as usual, I have a fucking huge hangover.

M

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Um, hello???

So I got an email from everyone's favourite label, Roadrunner, advising me of a special one-off gig Staind were playing for charity at the Hard Rock Cafe in London. As a super special Roadrunner subscriber, I got £3 off each ticket. £30 for me and Hot Chick, only 200 tickets, intimate gig, why the hell not?
I've got about four Staind albums but I've not given them much of a listen apart from Break The Cycle, the one that really brought them into the limelight. It's got the acoustic version of Outside, where Fred "Nuwwano wayawunna hate me" Durst adds his, um, vocal, plus It's Been A While.
So in we went, all on the guest list, got our wrist bands, queued for the bar. It was at this point I felt that we had accidentally gone to a frat party. We were surrounded my massive shaven headed Americans with arms the size of melons. Now don't get me wrong, my bald self tips the scales at 14-stone but I spent so much time flexing that I left the gig with cramp in 95% of my body.

So 2 beers, a double voddy lemonade and £15 later, there we are a mere 10-feet or so from the stage. We'd been there for a good 90 minutes and then they arrived. The band we'd all been waiting for. The band that are used to playing venues ten times the size of the Hard Rock. The music kicked in and my God, they were tight. Aaron Lewis's vocal were note perfect, the guitars were entwined in harmony, the bass levels and acoustics were ideal. But they fucking sucked.

When you go to see a band you want to feel like they want to be there. Staind didn't. Lewis must have said about 4 words to the crowd in between off-mic complaints to the poor sound man about his guitar levels. He had about as must energy as a arthritic donkey on a hot day, and the fact that the sound tech behind him was looking bored the whole night kinda summed up my feelings. Now don't get me wrong, the singalongs were amazing and it was great to see Outside live - the crowd were as one, it was truly moving. However, when the same thing happened during Stone Sour's Bother, Corey Taylor was moved, thanked the crowd, and had a wee chat with us. Aaron Lewis just looked grumpy and in need of a cheeseburger.

To summarise, the band were amazing. The performance was a stimulating as a morning-after-a-few-beers dump.

Oh well - DragonForce, Turisas and Disturbed in a couple of weeks. Bring it on...