I WAS ON THE RADIO AGAIN

This time, I was paired up with Maura Johnston of the Village Voice and the subject was Lulu. Wanna hear it? Here you go:

LOU, LOU

The steady trickle of information about Lulu, the collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica, is kind of wondrous to behold. Stanley Crouch once quoted Nietzsche on Wagner in describing Miles Davis's electric period as "the greatest example of self-violation in the history of art." I think we have a new trophy contender.

I confess a bias. I have never liked Lou Reed's music very much. I have tried, many times, to like it, but it has never sunk in with me. I bought The Velvet Underground & Nico on vinyl when I was in high school, and listened to it over and over. There were one or two songs I sort of liked - "I'm Waiting for the Man" had a piano part that stuck in my head, and "Run Run Run" was sort of catchy. But the bulk of it was, to my ear, extremely poorly played attempts at rock, and little more. The band seemed to be stumbling all over itself just trying to get through the songs, and nobody involved could sing worth a shit. Reed just seemed to be reciting the lyrics, as though they wanted to get rough versions down on tape which they would then provide to the real singer, once he or she turned up.

I have listened to several other Reed and/or Velvet Underground albums over the years: Loaded, White Light/White Heat, Rock 'n' Roll Animal, Lou Reed Live, The Blue Mask, Legendary Hearts, New York, The Raven, Metal Machine Music, and Songs for Drella - oh, and the old RCA Walk On the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed compilation - have all lived in my house at one time or another. Out of all those records, exactly four songs have actually, really worked for me:

"Waves of Fear," from The Blue Mask;
"Nowhere At All," from Walk On the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed;
"Sweet Jane," from Rock 'n' Roll Animal;
"Strawman," from New York.

So no, I am not a fan. And in fact I bear Reed a kind of animus at this point, because as a music critic, I pay attention to artists other critics tell me I should care about, and Lou Reed is fucking worshipped by critics. He invented punk; he's some kind of genius of the electric guitar; his lyrics cut through the flesh and bone to the beating heart of contemporary human existence...blah blah blah. If it wasn't for all the rapturous reviews over the years, I would have given up trying to like Lou Reed years before I did.

With this in mind, I have thoughts about Lulu. Based on the one song I've heard, "The View," I think it's going to be a staggeringly bad album. Reed sounds cranky, tired, and old; Metallica sound like a band recruited to accompany him, like one of the local outfits hired to back Chuck Berry in whatever town he's playing that night. I don't know James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Robert Trujillo or Lars Ulrich. I don't know if they're lifelong Lou Reed fans, or if they're just there because he asked them to be there and they were too intimidated to say no, just like for years I was too intimidated by the reputations of the critics praising Lou Reed to say no, this album (whichever one I was being told to love at the time) is boring, lazy bullshit. But what they're playing behind Reed on "The View" has none of the power of their own most recent studio album, Death Magnetic.

Metallica are a great band. By making this kind of ham-fisted doom-thrash as Lou Reed mutters and shouts (and the song is mixed in such a way that it sounds like he's reciting the lyrics over a tape of the band he's playing on a boombox), they are throwing away their reputation as songwriters, as riff craftsmen...for what? For the chance to have their names next to Lou Reed's on an album cover? They don't need him. The worst-selling Metallica studio album has likely outsold every Lou Reed and/or Velvet Underground album put together. All Reed brings to the equation is near-unanimous critical approbation and the prestige that comes with that. But Metallica have critical respect on their own, hard-won through decades of solid work (minus a bad stretch in the '90s and early '00s) and brutal, breathtaking live shows. I genuinely don't know why they took this project on. And I suspect I'll never have the opportunity to ask. But at least I know better than to listen to the thing when it's shat onto store shelves a little over three weeks from now. I've been burned by Lou Reed enough times already.

HEAR ME TALK

I made what I think was my sixth appearance on the WNYC radio show Soundcheck today, participating in their every-Tuesday "Soundcheck Smackdown," where two critics debate the merits of something or other. I've previously been on to discuss the merits of Metallica when Death Magnetic came out, take the anti-Bruce Springsteen position when his last studio album was released, take the anti-White Stripes position upon their breakup, and defend Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." I was also there once in a non-Smackdown context, when my book Marooned came out.

Today I was there to defend Pearl Jam in a deathmatch with Nirvana (defended by the awesome writer Jeanne Fury), since Ten and Nevermind are both turning 20 this year. I have never liked Nirvana, not ever; when they first got big, I was deep into Napalm Death, Slayer and the Rollins Band, and Nirvana just seemed like whiny bitches compared to any one of those three acts. I was never a big Pearl Jam booster, but they at least had good songs (and guitar solos), and when I dug deep into their catalog in preparation for this debate, I discovered a whole bunch of really solid material. I also came to the conclusion that "Black" is their "Free Bird," and that's a good thing.

Anyway, here's a link to the audio. Somewhere around the 15-minute mark, Vernon Reid(!) calls in to castigate us for not discussing Soundgarden instead. I can't say he's wrong, even if ultimately my favorite Seattle band will always be Tad.

TOM PETTY, THE MASSES AND ME

I went to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night to see Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, with Buddy Guy opening up; if you want to read my more formal review of the show, which was excellent, it's over here.

I've seen a bunch of concerts at Madison Square Garden over the years—Dio, Radiohead (twice), Coldplay, Iron Maiden (also twice), Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Nine Inch Nails, AC/DC, Bob Seger, Metallica, Mötley Crüe...a surprising number of shows in all, considering how ambivalent I am about the whole arena experience.

Some of the music I listen to is really popular; I have a shit-ton of classic rock in my iPod, along with a bunch of classic hip-hop, loads of big-name metal bands, et cetera, et cetera. Some of it's not popular at all. This has never really concerned me—I don't spend much time thinking about whether other people like the stuff I like. (This is very different from thinking about why I don't like stuff lots of other people do like, which I do all the time.) When I write a review, for example, there's an element of the utilitarian "consumer guide" to it, but I'm not really trying to convince other people that they should buy the album in question, even if I write that way sometimes. I'm just saying that I think it's good, and trying to explain why in some kind of coherent way while avoiding masturbatory theoretical bullshit.

Because of my lack of interest in music's relative popularity, the atmosphere of a massive arena show, with thousands of people screaming and singing along, doesn't really have much effect on me one way or the other. I don't care that all these people standing around me like Iron Maiden as much as I do; I just care that Iron Maiden is one of the best live acts in music, that they put on a fantastic, well-paced, consistently entertaining show. Sometimes, though, it can provide an element of surprise that's fun.

At the Tom Petty show, for example, I was surprised to see people singing along with such fervor to slow songs like "Free Fallin'" and "Learning to Fly." I like "Free Fallin'" a lot, that first verse is an absolute killer, but I'm a much bigger fan of some of Petty's earlier, meaner songs. He's got a real talent for creating evocative, minimalist images. Think of the first two lines of the song he opened the set with, "Listen to Her Heart": "You think you're gonna take her away/With your money and your cocaine." You know exactly who that guy is. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker would have devoted a whole song to painting that asshole's portrait; Petty conjures him and dismisses him in two lines.

I like that side of Tom Petty more than the jangly balladry that inspires girls to sing along and hug their boyfriends at his concerts. And/but watching that audience reaction made me think mine was a minority opinion. It reminded me that Tom Petty hasn't been that snarling guy for quite a few years now (though he still transforms into him from time to time, like on "It's Good to Be King" or "I Should Have Known It"). And that you can probably sell more albums and concert tickets by making girls hug their guys than by making guys pump their fists and snarl.

But here's my point: I think I could have enjoyed that concert just as much had none of those people been there. They weren't an important part of my aesthetic experience. And I'm wondering whether I'm alone on this one, whether the feeling of being surrounded by fellow Tom Petty fans enhances the experience for other people in some major way. And I'm trying to figure out when I started feeling this way, because it wasn't always the case. I used to like mingling with crowds, especially when that meant getting into a sweaty moshpit. Now I'm old(er), and my legs hurt if I stand up for two hours at a show, so I'm much more likely to go to something big enough (in an arena, say) that there's a seat there for me to flop back down into when things get boring (and every show gets boring at some point). A thing like the Summer Slaughter Tour, which features eleven or twelve death metal bands in a row, many of which I like a lot, but is held in a tiny sweatbox of a club with no seats and starts at three in the afternoon? You can forget about that bullshit.

Still, pure physical discomfort isn't what makes me so unconcerned with being part of a crowd. It's something larger, something I can't put my finger on yet, and/but it's something that's making me re-evaluate rock music as a whole. Because for a lot of people, the idea of rock (and pop) as communal experience carries a lot of weight. Someone whose preference is for solitary listening seems to be in some way "doing it wrong," or having an "incomplete" understanding/experience of the music. I'm not convinced. In fact, I think rock music may be best experienced in focused solitude. Because it's not part of a total package—it's not just the sonic component of an evening that depends on beer, lust and air thick with sweat to be complete. The music is enough all on its own, for me anyway.

METAL MAYHEM

Mom, nachos, and $1,000 box sets: On the road with Lamb of God

When and how did Lamb of God become a metal institution? They still seem like a new band, even though they've been around for more than 15 years. Their first album, a self-titled disc from when they were still called Burn the Priest, came out in 1999. New American Gospel, their debut under their current name, arrived a year later.

Since then, it's been a ten-year rocket ride: multiple Ozzfest slots, support for Megadeth and Slayer, and a Grammy nomination for the song "Redneck" in 2007. They spent most of 2009 opening for Metallica, which singer Randy Blythe says was a bid for "prestige...[and] maybe we'll pick up some fans, because a 50-year-old guy isn't gonna be aware of the Lamb of God show at House of Blues. But he'll check out a Metallica show."

One Metallica gig was particularly special for Blythe: When the band played New York, he brought his mom. "She was right in between the barricade [and the stage], standing by our techs," he recalls. "She'd never been to New York City, so I flew her and my wife up early, and she got to cruise around the city for a day or two. I'm probably never gonna play Madison Square Garden again, so I had to have Mom there."

But bigger stages haven't changed the band. "We do what we're gonna do," says Blythe. "Whether we're playing with Eyehategod or Brutal Truth or playing with Metallica." That relentless individualism has been a major factor in Lamb of God's popularity. The group's breakthrough albums, 2003's As the Palaces Burn and 2004's Ashes of the Wake, were stridently political. This earned them a diehard following and praise from critics, who always fall all over themselves to point out any sign of unexpected intelligence in metal.

But Lamb of God made a sharp left turn on 2006's Sacrament. "I had been writing politically oriented stuff since the Burn the Priest days, because I come from a punk-rock background," says Blythe. "Palaces and Ashes were fairly highly politicized records during the Bush regime, [but] there's only so many ways you can say 'fuck Bush.' It's beating a dead horse after a certain time. We tried to step away on Ashes, but it didn't work. We were still too pissed off. But after we did that, we were like, All right, we need to try something different. We're trying to write each record to be different. Why write the same record over and over?"

The band's most recent album, 2008's Wrath, lives up to its title. Musically, they plow the same crushing groove they've spent a decade and a half perfecting, driven by Chris Adler's astonishing drumming. Lyrically, they mix politics with introspection and general pissed-offness. It's the perfect formula for starting furious mosh pits, but Lamb of God haven't been able to do that for quite a while. The Metallica shows were in arenas, and they're now occupying a main-stage slot on this year's Rockstar Mayhem Festival alongside co-headliners Korn and Rob Zombie.

"When we were main support for Ozzy, there were a lot of 55-year-old dudes eating hot dogs and nachos, looking at us like we were space aliens and going, 'Where's Ozzy?'" recalls Blythe. "If you look up past the seats onto the lawn, which is where our fans are, they're up there destroying shit. That's what our fans do. They're like the bad kids in the back of the school bus."

With arena shows and platinum albums on their résumé, Lamb of God have crossed the divide that separates newbies from legacy acts. They even got a box set: Hourglass, a three-disc compilation of album tracks, demos, and a few rarities, came out in June. The most deluxe version of the set—one that retails for $1,000—includes a banner, a custom guitar, and the band's entire catalog on vinyl, all packed in a coffin-shaped guitar case.

"We were on tour when it came out," says Blythe. "We were doing an in-store and they had it, so we were like, Oh, so that's what it looks like. We all kinda pored over it. Then in Luxembourg, a girl who works for Sony bought us five of them. The band is always the last to get anything."

[From the Cleveland Scene.]

THEY DID IT ON PURPOSE—AND I'M GLAD THEY DID

Every Metallica fan knows that the band's fourth album, ...And Justice for All, sounds extremely thin and crunchy, with almost no bass. The story's always been that then-bassist Jason Newsted's parts were turned down because they were hazing him. And that would have been one of the most horrifying examples of self-sabotage in the history of music...except that the album fucking rules.

That's why I don't like stuff like the YouTube clip above, or the bootleg ...And Justice for Jason, where some douche overdubbed his own bass parts onto the songs. See, I think the long, intricate, prog-thrash songs on AJFA work better without bass. I think the thin sound is a big part of what makes the album great—what makes it my favorite Metallica disc.

Those songs don't work as well live (as listening to Live Shit: Binge & Purge proves) because they need that edge. I think when they play Justice songs live, the bassist (whoever it happens to be at the time) should unplug, or walk offstage, for the duration. Thin and fierce—that's how it's supposed to sound.

RUSH, UNHURRIED

I watched the Rush documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage last night on VH1, and it was everything the rapturous reviews I'd read in advance said it would be...and less. The home movies and stuff from their early days were fun and charming, revealing the quiet Canadian suburban existence and high school geekiness that fueled bassist Geddy Lee's and guitarist Alex Lifeson's lifelong friendship and creative partnership, and the inner life of hyperliterate, introspective drummer Neal Peart. The stories of their gradual rise to U.S. stardom following the recording of their debut album were interesting, especially (credit where due) the parts about their touring with KISS.

The movie made me want to listen to a lot more Rush than I've heard to date. All I own by the band is Gold, a two-CD compilation that's weirdly sequenced (it's not chronological, nor is it thematic as far as I can tell) but offers a pretty solid overview of what they do. Now I'm thinking I need to hear their whole string of '70s and early '80s albums; I'm not quite sure where I'll stop, but it'll probably be somewhere around Presto.

I'll admit it; the valentine aspect of the movie (and it's a valentine, top to bottom), while it made me interested in the music, also disappointed me. I would like to have seen more discussion of their working methods, and more in-depth discussion of each album's musical differences from the one before. But that would have required a six-hour film, and it would have had about one-sixteenth the potential audience of this one, with its good-natured jibes at the male-dominated nature of their fan base, its interviews with celebrity fans (Jack Black, members of Metallica and Tool and Primus and Smashing Pumpkins and Dream Theater and Rage Against the Machine), and all the rest. This is the kind of documentary every band wishes someone would make about them—a celebration and an ideal introduction. And who knows? Maybe the ultra-nerdy stuff I want is on the home version, which is a two-DVD set.

THIS WEEK IN CLEVELAND

Thrash Landing
Kreator return to their primitive roots

Just as America had its Big Four thrash bands — Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer — Germany had a trio of homegrown powerhouses in the '80s. Starting in the middle of the decade, Sodom, Destruction and Kreator shaped a uniquely German thrash sound — punkier and more primitive than its slick American counterpart.

Kreator's debut album, 1985's Endless Pain, was recorded in 10 days, and it sounds like it. A grinding trio disc that combines the crude, hammering rhythms and caveman riffs of Venom with the lyrical nihilism of Motörhead, it's not their best effort — in fact, it barely hints at what they'd achieve only a year later — but it rocketed them out of obscurity.

When 1986's Pleasure to Kill was released, Kreator's reputation was secure. Songs like the title track, "Riot of Violence" and "Death Is Your Savior" proved that Europe had its own thrash thing going on. Indeed, it could be said that Kreator paved the way for death metal with frontman Mille Petrozza's guttural, barking vocals and the band's punishing sound. The brutality continued on Terrible Certainty and Extreme Aggression, and the group made some breakthroughs outside the recording studio — when the Berlin Wall came down, Kreator was the first metal band to perform in East Germany (a show later documented on At the Pulse of Kapitulation, a mid-'90s home video that was reissued as a CD/DVD set in 2008).

The 1990s weren't nearly as kind to Kreator, creatively or commercially. Beginning with 1990's Coma of Souls, they started to experiment, incorporating industrial elements and writing longer, more musically ambitious songs, with mixed results. Fans weren't pleased, and the band's profile dipped substantially. Even Petrozza's longtime partner, drummer Jürgen "Ventor" Reil, grew disgusted and left just before 1995's aptly titled Cause for Conflict, though he returned on 1997's Outcast.

Finally, in 2001, the group got back on track. Violent Revolution kicked off with "Reconquering the Throne," and the album lived up to that title's promise, delivering one reinvigorated blast of raw, crushing thrash after another. Reviews were rapturous, and the tour that followed saw fans returning in droves. Kreator then released their first live album, Live Kreation, which featured performances so strong, they even rehabilitated songs from the reviled Cause for Conflict, Outcast and Endorama.

Enemy of God, from 2005, was another collection of killer modern thrash. Since that album's release to another chorus of critical hosannas, Kreator hasn't slackened the pace. For the past five years, they've been touring the globe, only taking some time out to record another album, Hordes of Chaos, released in early 2009. Much shorter than its two predecessors, each of which offered 12 tracks and nearly an hour of music, Chaos features only 10 songs and gets the job done in less than 40 minutes — another sign that Kreator have come full circle and gone back to their primitivist thrash roots.

They promoted the album with one of the most hilarious videos ever, for the title track. The "Hordes of Chaos" clip cuts back and forth between Kreator playing the song atop a heap of bodies and the adventures of a head-choppin', limb-severin' barbarian who seems to own nothing but fur underwear, a big-ass sword and a generous supply of baby oil. "Jörn Heitmann came up with the concept," says Petrozza. "I think he wanted to visualize the Hordes of Chaos and use images from [painter Frank] Frazetta, Conan the Barbarian, etc. I think the results look amazing! There was a lot of waiting around on the set, so no exciting stories to tell, unfortunately."

In 2008, Petrozza told Metal Edge magazine, "No offense to bands that do anniversaries all the time — there's bands that celebrate the 10th anniversary, the 15th anniversary — but we're not into that. We focus on the present and the future of the band, not what we've achieved in the past, and I don't see a reason why I should have a special celebration. I think that's kinda lame, to be honest."

But for the band's 25th-anniversary tour, Kreator asked fans to vote for songs to be played live — and thousands responded. "The surprising thing is that our taste is not that far off from what our fans like," says Petrozza. "[But] there will be some songs in the set that we haven't played in a long time."

And even as they honor their past, Kreator are once again in transition. In May 2009, their label SPV declared the European equivalent of bankruptcy and shut down its U.S. division. Recently Petrozza announced, "We have just signed a worldwide deal with Nuclear Blast, the strongest metal label in the world!"

Petrozza's enthusiasm for the music is at the core of his being. He's had more success with Kreator over the past 25 years than Steve "Lipps" Kudlow and Robb Reiner had with Anvil, but he shares their attitude that metal is something you do out of love. Asked about his near 30-year relationship with drummer Reil, who had to skip a recent leg of tour dates due to medical problems, he says simply, "It's great! We both love metal! We are living our dream!"

HIGH ON FIRE POLISHES ITS METAL WEAPONRY

[From the SF Weekly.]

Oakland's (and possibly Earth's) heaviest band, High on Fire, is ready for its close-up. The trio's fifth studio album, Snakes for the Divine, is its first for the E1 label after several years on highly regarded metal imprint Relapse. The musicians also worked with a real producer for the first time in years.

On Snakes, the band's sound was shaped by Greg Fidelmann, who has worked on such high-profile metal discs as Metallica's Death Magnetic and Slayer's World Painted Blood. "He's actually a producer producer," says guitarist and vocalist Matt Pike, contrasting Fidelmann with Steve Albini and Jack Endino, who worked on 2005's Blessed Black Wings and 2007's Death Is This Communion respectively. "Greg's a lot more hands-on."

The result is High on Fire's cleanest, most accessible album to date. Of course, the members keep their trademarks. Pike's vocals are a hoarse roar somewhere between Motörhead's Lemmy and the Melvins' Buzz Osborne with throat polyps, and the rhythm section of bassist Jeff Matz and drummer Des Kensel thunders like an avalanche. But each instrument occupies its own space, with room for subtle ornamentation. And Pike's guitar, one of the fiercest and most punishing axes in modern metal, has moments of surprising clarity. Indeed, from the album's first few moments, it's obvious this is a new stage in High on Fire's evolution — even if the title track begins with a high-pitched, buzzing riff that's naggingly similar to AC/DC's "Thunderstruck."

Pike laughs and owns up to the borrowing. "Not intentionally, but yeah, I kinda lifted a little bit of that," he says. "I thought it was so cool, and it's such a fun thing to play."

For the rest of its eight-minute running time, the song is a vintage High on Fire gallop, riffs landing like body blows from a 9-foot-tall steroid abuser. The album is jammed with the band's longest and most punishing songs (five pass the six-minute mark, and two run more than eight minutes). It also offers greater variation from the High on Fire crew. "How Dark We Pray" and "Bastard Samurai" are slower than anything the band has recorded since its 2000 debut, The Art of Self-Defense. "Every now and then it's good to slow down some," Pike acknowledges. "Jeff and I had a really wide span of tempos."

Pike is busy preparing for the band's first headlining U.S. tour in several years. "The way our management and booking agents are, they want us opening constantly," he says genially. Indeed, the group has been the first act of choice on Megadeth's 2008 Gigantour outing and on the recent Dethklok and Mastodon co-headlining tour, but Pike would like the chance to play for an hour straight for a change.

He'd also like to play fresh material this time out. "I'm two-thirds of the way through learning all of 'em so I can play and sing 'em live," he says of the new songs. "We're still working out the quirks. But by the time March rolls around, I'm pretty confident everybody will have their end of things in order."