Metal Asylum Vol. 4

Greeting fellow headbangers! Welcome to the fourth -- and very special -- edition of Metal Asylum.

I had the pleasure of attending America's first ever hard rock and metal awards show. The Epiphone Revolver Golden Gods Awards were held on April 7th at Club Nokia in Downtown Los Angeles. The event was hosted by comic and actor Brian Posehn (The Sarah Silverman Show), who is well known for being a self-proclaimed metalhead. Indeed, Poshen's comedy album, Live: In Nerd Rage, which was released back in July 2006, featured a song called "Metal By Numbers" which the comic wrote and performed. To promote the song, which mocks "poser" metal bands and features guitarist Scott Ian from Anthrax (who is also a columnist for SG), Poshen made a silly video, which you can check out below.



Presenters, performers and nominees of the night entered the club on the black carpet. The event was open to the public (by ticket purchase), and the line to get in extended all the way to the next block. Lemmy (Motorhead) was a presenter that night and shared his thoughts on the new annual Golden Gods award show in this video.



As guests were arriving, Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor spun a DJ set, which included awesome classics from Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Dio. The actual awards ceremony started quite late, the timing issue being the first of many technical problems that night. Poshen's microphone never seemed to work, neither did many of the presenters' mics, which were always going in and out. The entire show was very disorganized. "It's metal -- so who gives a shit" seemed to be the prevailing attitude.

The awards ceremony kicked off with a pretty hysterical video of Posehn getting ready for the evening. It included shots of Pantera's Vinnie Paul making Posehn breakfast. Scott Ian was then seen playing guitar to the presenter while he was in the shower and reminding him to "wash his balls." At the end of the video, Posehn spun a HM record backwards to summon the Devil, who appeared in the mortal form of Dio.

One of my favorite elements of the show was that they had the guitarist from Steel Panther (a pseudo Spinal Tap-type band that mocks 80's hair bands) on the stage for the entire show. He just stood there and would play ridiculous riffs during the intermissions and while presenters and winners walked on and off stage..

The night's winners included:

Most Awesomely Good Drummer - Vinnie Paul (Pantera, Hellyeah)
Best Live Band - Slipknot (who also won the Best Riff award)
Best Album - Metallica (Maybe..if this was 1983)
Best International Band - Dethklok (the band gave a pretty entertaining pre-taped acceptance speech)
Best New Talent - Suicide Silence (.....really?)
Best Underground Metal Band - Isis (okay, I'm a huge fan of this band but I'm not sure they're the best underground metal band)
Best Metal Label - Roadrunner Records (love 'em)
Honorary Headbanger - Kat Von D (and the point of this award was...?)
Most Mind Blowing Guitarist - Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman (Slayer)
Golden God - Dave Mustaine (Megadeth)
Hottest Chick In Metal - Marta Peterson (Bleeding Through)
Best Riff - Slipknot
Most Viral Video - Protest the Hero
Most Metal Athlete - Shaun White
Metal Industry Award - The Rainbow Bar & Grill
Reader's Choice Award - Acacia Stain

They also presented Ozzy Osbourne with the lifetime achievement award. I'm sure we all saw this coming, and can admit that he deserves it...But before Ozzy came out to accept the award, they played an almost 20 minute "tribute" type of video for him. Needless to say, it was a tad long and a little over done.

For a complete list of the winners of the night as well as videos from the black carpet hit Revolvers website

The show also featured live performances by Killswitch Engage, Hatebreed, All That Remains, Suicide Silence, and Megadeth, who headlined. They could -- and should -- have picked a broader range of bands to represent more of the metal sub-genres. Also, perhaps because of the sound issues, the crowd never really seemed to be "into it." Even Hatebreed had a hard time getting the crowd riled up (I've unfortunately seen them many times and the crowd has never before failed to go fucking nuts).

Megadeth dropped the last performance of the evening. I have seen them only once before at a Gigantour festival gig a few years back. They put on an amazing show when I last saw them, unfortunately, I cannot say the same for this performance.

Megadeth played a three-song set (as did all the bands that night). Their set-list was chosen by fans in an online poll, and they kicked off with "Peace Sells." Right away you could hear that the sound was not mixed well. The guitars were way too loud and Dave's voice, for whatever reason, sounded very off. Dave had a look on his face that said, "Let's just get through these songs as quick as we can and get the hell out of here." Their next song was "Sweating Bullets" which happens to be a personal favorite of mine. For the last song of the evening they played a true classic, "Holy Wars."

Here's a video of Megadeth's performance of "Holy Wars."



I was very excited at the prospect of America finally having a home grown metal awards show and, for the most part, it was an entertaining evening with many metal legends participating (which was a very positive sign). My only hope is that next year the event will be much more organized, and that they will honor and celebrate more corners of our beloved metal scene.

On that note, here are some albums I have been really getting into as of late..
Primordial - Imrama
Old Man's Child - Slaves Of The World
Epica - The Classical Conspiracy
Candlemass - Death Magic Doom
Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God
Eluveitie - Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion

As always, let me know what you guys have been listening too lately. I always look forward to checking new music!

And make sure to keep an eye out for my interview with Chrigel Glanzmann, the guitarist and mastermind behind Eluveitie, which should be up soon.

Until next time,

Horns and Hails!!!

Hollee

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/news/all/23663/Metal-Asylum-Vol.-4/