REVOLVER GOLDEN GODS AWARDS: MUSTAINE’S REVENGE

The big frickin’ deal week before last was Metallica’s induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland. Last week, the focus of the Metal community’s honor is Metallica’s Lucifer, Dave Mustaine, at The Epiphone Honda Fury Revolver Magazine Golden Gods Awards. Anti-Metallica sentiment was aired freely and to shouts of encore! The name of Mustaine’s band was chanted pretty much all night (poor Atreyu guy). The event went down at Club Nokia in downtown L.A. on Tuesday night hosted by Rodrigo from Mr. Show (Brian Posehn). Honestly? It was pretty awkward and not very Metal. A ton of Metal people were there, mostly ticket buyers. The vibe started a bit chilly outside the venue, then spiked at Killswitch Engage and Maynard James Keenan (not together) before a nosedive from which even Megadeth could not recover. I had a GREAT TIME! Photos by Adam Haussman.

THE SOULS OF BLACK CARPET

The ugliness starts right away at the ‘black carpet.’ First of all, press credentials were mistakenly issued to an agitated ape that someone had shaved and trained to wear a baseball cap. Once the preliminaries get going, the black carpet kinda creates the effect that mobs of metal guys and creatively near-naked chicks are exiting a 7-11 very gradually. The only show of speed was when it started lightly raining after 70 brutal minutes, and Scott Ian scampered right past us to shelter. There you have it, friends: Scott Ian’s weakness is water. Can’t be interviewed while moist. That’s later. For now, the night is young, so let’s rudely lean over into somebody else’s interview of Protest The Hero, puzzled but triumphant winners of Most Viral Video.

Tim Millar [guitar]: As far as we know there was no competition, but…

Interviewer in a tank top: Well, there had to have been at some point. Right?

Millar: …

Rody Walker [vocals]: We don’t know!

Millar: We don’t know.

Int: Basically you just blew them out of the water! So what’s in store – what’s going on next for Protest The Hero?

Millar: This evening there’s going to be some dancing.

Int: Are you performing?

Walker: Fortunately for the viewers, who get to laugh at us. Unfortunately for our parents, who get to be ashamed of us.

Int: Where are you parents watching from?

Millar: Fortunately, they don’t get MTV in Canada. So maybe never.

What the hell are they talking about? Dancing? I didn’t know they were performing. Maybe I should ask them about that. Or maybe it’ll slip my mind completely as I contemplate that the guys in Protest The Hero are all like 22 years old. Stupid talented young people.

Int: Canadians see and define me, so it’s weird. I had this same conversation last night. Well, congrats guys! I’ll see you on stage!

Millar: Brace yourself.

Oh I see, she said Canadians seem to find me. Wait a second, that’s even weirder than what I initially thought she said.

Walker: Oh I know MetalSucks! MetalSucks.com right?

Uh it’s .net, man. Not cool.

Millar: Ohhh. He doesn’t know.

Walker: Hey! I knew it was an internet website!

Millar: I think I did an interview for MetalSucks.

I think you did too! So, we’re kinda at the ass end of the carpet here – so far, has anyone known who you are?

Walker: Um I think they’ve been … sort of elbowed by their superiors. ‘They won this. This is all the information that we have’.

Millar: It’s funny. I didn’t realize they were walking in front of us holding a sign that said the band name and the award we won.

Walker: So, undoubtably no.

Did that guy ask you about hockey cuz you’re Canadian?

Walker: Yeah.

Millar: We kinda brought it up.

Walker: It was FoxNews.

Millar: FoxSports.

Millar + Walker: FoxSports.

Walker: He said ‘Do you guys like sports?’ And we said no. Maybe hockey.

Millar: I said poker and he didn’t wanna talk about that.

Jackass. But your band made one of 2008’s best-loved records. Metal people are really into it. Are you proud of that?

Millar: …

Well, you guys won an award [Most Viral Video].

Millar: This award has nothing to do with our music. But since our music may be tinged with metal we get included. I don’t know.

Yeah at least it’s an award where one is deserved.

Walker: I guess so!

Come onnn. Admit it.

Walker: [mock-indignantly] We deserve this shit!

That beardy/incredible guitar player sure has some attitude. He ‘think[s]’ he did an interview ‘for’ MetalSucks? I think he means ‘One glorious day, the MetalSucks guys frittered away a few Anytime minutes to talk about my great band. The MetalSucks logo is tattoed on my dick!’

And what is that tinged with metal remark about? Is he insinuating that I can’t identify Metal? Did Protest The Hero just call me a pussy?

TESTAMENT’S CHUCK BILLY MAKES ME ENTHUSIASTIC

Hey Chuck Billy! Goddamn!

Chuck Billy, vocals, Testament: Heeey!

What’s going on with the new Testament record?

Billy: Uhhhh. We haven’t started it yet.

Yeah, but Eric [Peterson, Testament guitarist] has been talking about it.

Billy: M’yeah but it’s September. That’s when we actually start doing it.

That live album is getting reissued!

Billy: The Live at Eindhoven reissue.

That was so long ago! You were so young!

Billy: It was only released with five songs that long ago. The full length concert is gonna be cool.

It’s a document!

Billy: It was our first time ever to Europe, so it’s nostalgic for me.

I’m excited!

Billy: Right on, man!

Hatebreed loves the black carpet. They even brought their bro, For The Lions, to pose in the pictures with them. He’s their new covers CD and you should totally get a For The Lions of your own when it comes out May 5. What’s the date again? Why it’s May 5, or cinco de mayo as the guys in Hatebreed like to say. Don’t worry, they’re happy to remind you 70 or 80 times later on during their live mini-set. Judging from Jasta’s body language, their third song details the ways in which each member of the audience is a huge pussy. Earlier in the show, Jasta presents the award for Most Metal Energy Drink (or something) and totally shouts out Suicidal Tendencies and Black Flag, which is cool. Until I realize he’s just plugging the covers album again. You’re good, Jasta. I see why they hired you.

During All That Remains’ess’s’ performance, I am transfixed by singer Phil Labonte’s fancy jeans and douche-top combo. The Eddie Bauer ballcap is also a nice touch. It occurs to me that while it was intimated that tonight was to be a Metal event, there’s hardly any official acknowledgment of Metal anywhere. All the language is about being gods or totally sick. That’s both sad and lame. It’s kinda slame.

Worse, Megadeth is acting as a beard for these gay metalcore bands. Shit no sorry I’m not calling them gay in any sense — it’s an analogy. New analogy: Mustaine’s gonna jam tonight but only after some neighborhood kids trot out 20 minutes each of mediocre metalcore (ATR), heavier but whinier metalcore (Killswitch Engage), above-average deathcore (Suicide Silence), and mediocre hardcore. (Hardiocre?) That line-up couldn’t follow an a capella set by Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King, winners of The Most Wack, Tripped-Out Guitar Rippists ever!

SLAYER TIME

But back on the black carpet three beers earlier, Hanneman and King are chatting with a guy about pointless shit. Both could easily be hugged from this distance:

Interviewer dude: You guys are being recognized as guitar gods tonight.

Dave Lombardo, Slayer: It’s great, man. I’m really glad, man. I’m so excited.

[all laugh]

Kerry King: He doesn’t know yet.

[big laughs]

King: …

Int. [To King, Hanneman]: How about you guys?

King: We’ll let you know later on. We’ll check it out. I don’t know. We think it’s a joke.

Lombardo [peering over heads]: Whoa. Somebody [over there] just fell down!

Int.: Tell us a little about the Mayhem Tour. You guys are going out with Marilyn Manson.

King: You probably know more about it than we do. We’ve been locked in the studio for like six weeks.

Wow. Marilyn Manson is brilliant for adopting a name that spot interviewers love to pronounce like Alex Trebec. These gel farmers practically tongue-rape it. Marrre-ih-lin Maahhhnsin. Mare-lin Myiansin. Hey dude kick it don’t lick it. Now he’s asking them if they Twitter. Slayer. If Slayer twitters. I involuntarily lunge to my left, pulling Lombardo and Hanneman to safety.

Psst. Dave, Jeff.

Lombardo: Yes!

You’re one of the bands that made this all possible.

Lombardo: You know, I feel very honored. I feel very humbled and I’m choked up right now.

Jeff Hanneman: [laughs]

So you’re not taking this seriously at all.

Lombardo: Fuck no.

Hanneman: [laughs]

Lombardo: Dude. Are you crazy? We’re not serious about this!

C’mon it’s gotta make you happy.

Lombardo: It’s just another fucking doorstop in the fucking house.

Can I have it?

Hanneman [magnanimously]: Well, think about it. To us … we don’t take all this seriously, because we just do what we do. If people like it, they like it and if they don’t, they don’t. We’re not out for fame. We just wanna put out good music that we think people will like.

There was a poll recently that asked fans to choose their favorite Slayer record not called Reign In Blood. The most popular choice was Seasons In The Abyss, Do you agree with that?

Hanneman: Yes it’s pretty close. This new one is gonna be on that level.

Why?

Hanneman: There’s some magic going with all of us right now. It’s working. I think it’s gonna be a good album. A real good album.

Dave Lombardo was either impressed with or baffled by my Seasons question cuz he didn’t really say anything. I was similarly dumbstruck when Steel Panther sexed all over the black carpet. What can you say about that laugh-riot on eight legs anyway? Well, two smirking publicists moaned ‘Great. Yeah jack off the guitar. The camera loves that.’ ‘Watch out. Now he’s jacking off the microphone.’ Later, S’Panther took the stage to dub Kat Von D an honorary metalhead (seriously: whatever), when I am surprised to find that in their absence I’d missed them. It’s not surprising that I’m surprised, though.

The rain shuts down the black mat uh carpet with 15 minutes til showtime, as though Father Weather himself is calling for a pot break. (Adam, I’m so sorry for leaving that half-doober behind in your car. Had you gotten stopped and totally arrested, I would’ve shot myself.) After two terrifying escalators, we are just inside the gates when suddenly a dwarf grabs me around the waste from behind. I claw at his shiny, flat arm only to notice it’s seven feet long and growing from a black pole at nutsack height. Oh Club Nokia you devil you: these crowd-control ropes are black to the point of invisibility!

THE BEST PRESENTER AWARD GOES TO MAYNARD JAMES KEENAN

At about the hour mark, Tool’s Maynard James Keenan becomes just the latest dude to unsubtly call me a pussy, the first dressed in a blinding white suit:

That was your first mistake. You listened to the voices outside of your head, rather than listening to the voices inside your head. The ones that push you to create. The voice of a true artist. You didn’t follow your heart. You didn’t listen to your intuition and that’s why you guys are standing down there, and these guys are up here getting a reeward.

Other great presenters include Testament’s Chuck Billy, who said fuck and shit a lot while directing attendees to the cancer charity table. And Vinnie Paul, cuddle bear, who lead a totally cathartic chant of Dimebag! Dimebag! Dimebag!

Later, 4/9ths of Slipknot materializes to accept an award, but when they begin thanking people, the masks add a creepy lisp to their speech. Bassist Paul Gray was especially unnerving. I’m seized with disappointment that the rain fucked up my chance to ask him about his 2003 crack bust. Oh lolz Joey Jordison just said he wanted to keep his acceptance speech ‘short and sweet.’

Selected reasons that everybody was in a bad mood by the time Megadeth came out:

• Consecutive delays led to a crabby audience, to which the producers promptly responded by blasting commercials. Sadly, they only sold one spot, so we were treated about three dozen times to the trailer for an MMA movie called Never Surrender. No not Never Back Down; that one cost money. This one stars MMA fighters. From what I could discern, acts one and two are about punching people into backflips. But the film’s moral is as timeless as the tides: In the world of underground Mixed Martial Arts fighting, there can be only one champion.

• Host Brian Posehn displayed his preternatural ability to select the wrong mic. The first three times (of 15), I thought he was doing a joke about Parisian mimes. But then he grabbed the other mic, and, with an oath, restarted his schtick using the mic that actually rendered him audible. Last time we saw Posehn, it was at the Anthrax show in Chicago. He was cool to us. Keanu Reeves was there too. Look! I just wrote half of a Brian Posehn bit!

• Teleprompters win, Metal guys fail.  You know that guy Jason who sat next to you in choir and was kinda rat-like but he sold you his mean brother’s So Far, So Good … So What? tape? Remember how he used to read aloud in a monotone and without pausing like Speak ‘n Spell? Lots of that tonight. Revolver EIC Tom Beaujour’s and managing editor Josh Bernstein’s jobs are based on reading and they sounded like Corbin Bersen in the “American Express card” scene in Major League. They were shooting for Jack Larson, president of Laramie Cigarettes.

• Guitar World’s Brad Tolinski also presented an award. That’s what I was told after returning from the toilet. I noticed the Megadeth superfan in the next row was asleep.

• Protest The Hero may have miscalculated slightly when opting to accept their award with a hilarious high-speed dance workout. In super tight tights. Judging from the boos and wildly unenlightened jeers, apparently it’s not metal to feast on heaping eyefuls of hot Canadian bacon. Sorry change that apparently to definitely. No just forget that sentence forever.

• Revolver may have miscalculated slightly when attempting to attract Metallica (and interest) to the event by giving best album honors to their FUCKING AWFUL ADMIT IT record Death Magnetic. And it’s as though the band expressed its disagreement by not attending. Which caused mega-boos and a Megadeth chant. (At least Ozzy breezed through to say hello.)

• Snowboarder Shaun White was named most metal athlete. The audience struggled to mute their disgust. Then a drunken blowhard shrieked what most were merely thinking: So who gets the award for most athletic metalhead at the Snowboarder Fag Awards? And it became evident that my current beer was the result of poor decision-making.

• Apparently going to a metal awards show involves being called a pussy at every turn. At least Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz did it to my fucking face. (Now we’re even.) Vocalist Howard Jones probably dreams of slapping him with a brick-loaded glove cuz throughout their four-song set, Dutkiewicz was cartoonishly stomping around, shouting Fuck Youuuuu and menacing the balcony with a middle finger suggestive of a giraffe breaking through a barn roof. The entire back of the room was in hysterics. And during all this, poor Jones was trying to sing about feelings. Undeterred, Dutkiewicz announced the band’s last song in a Sgt. Slaughter voice: ‘This song’s for all the fucking old fucks here tonight! “Holy fucking Diver.” Holy fucking SHIT!’ Hi-larious.

• When did Glenn Danzig go on? Did I miss Glenn Danzig? Is he here? Is that him behind Joey Jordison?

• The neat-o podium must’ve been furnished by Epiphone cuz it was made of guitars. Long nose guy from Slipknot – on their second trip to the stage — ripped one out and limply tossed it into the crowd. Awesome! In the true spirit of metal, the guitar was soon broken into souvenirs for 47 lucky muscular guys. I bet that shaved ape had a paw in this.

A GUY FROM WHITE LION IS IN MEGADETH NOW

A few minutes behind schedule, Megadeth is on stage. It seems incredibly amusing that a roadie tapes down setlists in four places for a set that lasts three songs. As Mustaine and at least two guys in silk vests mirthlessly pump through “Peace Sells,” I am suddenly able to tell the difference between heavy and loud. Just as non-metal is sometimes heavy, occasionally metal songs are not, and Dave couldn’t brown Wonder Bread with his energy. A shrug ripples through the crowd as they immediately follow with Mustaine’s metal-swing number, “Sweating Bullets.” I spend the song’s duration calculating if it’s chronologically possible that Dave wrote it after just having seen Swingers. Here’s hoping someday he’ll agree to do that song wearing a top-hat and monocle like “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” White and black tiled floor. A little soft shoe. Hey wow “Holy Wars … The Punishment Due.” Hey wow lots of stairs. Hey wow the parking lot.

–ADF

Anso DF is a former music journalist who spied an awkward man hug between Fieldy and Jonathan Davis on Tuesday night. Those words have never been arranged into a sentence before. More swearing and Metal on daily Metal news column Hipsters Out Of Metal!