SOUNDGARDEN AND KORN COMPETING FOR “LAZIEST BAND EVER” AWARD

Fieldy ain’t no Scotty Griffin.

There’s no actual connection between these two stories, besides the fact that they both made me laugh. And so:

• Korn apparently held a “virtual” meet and greet last night, whereby fans logged onto some website and neither got to meet nor greet the band. Before the event, Jonathan Davis asserted that “The fact that we’re running it all from a laptop makes it… more intimate of an experience for the fans,” thereby proving that he knows what the word “intimate” means like Alex Whasshisname knows how to spell “aren’t.” But it’s all good, because whatever prevents you from having to take five minutes out of your day and shake hands with the plebes, right, Jonathan?
• The reunited Soundgarden just released a greatest hits package, Telephantasm, a few months ago, but now they’ve announced that they’ll release a live recording from their 1996 West Coast tour, to be entitled Live on I5, on March 22. And live albums are really just greatest hits packages with cheering in the background, so, basically, Soundgarden are using Anthrax’s business plan from when they reunited with Joey Belladonna (the first time, not this most recent time) and put out Alive 2 and Anthrology at the same time. That worked out so well for ‘Thrax that they promptly fired Belladonna (again), but Soundgarden are obviously a way more famous band, so who knows, maybe people will go for this. In any case, they still haven’t announced a tour, which makes me feel like the whole reunion thing was just to get their catalog sales up. But I’ve been accused of being too cynical in the past, so, like, maybe it really is all about the desire to give the fans what they want and create some art, man.

-AR