Korn Has Accepted Jesus Christ as Its Personal Lord and Savior

I freely admit that I loved the tracksuit metal band Korn in the 90's. I can't bring myself to be pretentious and act as if I haven't seen them five times, sung along lustily to their song "A.D.I.D.A.S. (All Day I Dream About Sex)" from their 1996 album "Life Is Peachy," and declared their self-titled 1994 debut album "an unsung classic" on numerous occasions. I adored their crunchy, faux-hardcore, seven-string guitar sound, their unabashed allegiance to their fans and unbridled hedonism in the sometimes hedonism-shy 90's.

All of this makes it very perplexing that two members of Korn have given in their Satan's Army ID cards and handed their lives over to the Prince of Peace, Jesus. And they both have written books about it. Slate Magazine has a very interesting (if notably Korn-negative) article about the fact that Korn bassist Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu has just put out the book Got The Life last month on the tail of Korn guitarist Brian "Head" Welch's 2007 memoir, Save Me From Myself.

I have yet to read these potentially juicy memoirs, but they are on hold for me at the library, so a review will be coming soon in my new feature about 90's-oriented books, "Turn The Page."

I don't agree with Slate writer James Parker's assertion that Korn as a band and a sound were DOA from the release of their 1994 album. Though I understand many diehard rock, metal and hardcore fans' objection to the band (including corporate record label invention of the abysmal moniker "nu-metal" to describe their unusual riff-based guitar sound), I still really love the angry, painful yet ebullient rebelliousness of their music, especially their debut, "Korn."

Though I will probably end up doing a "I Can't Believe You Don't Own This F%#kin' Record" post on each of Korn's 90's records, I felt the Holy Spirit and it told me to play you guys a couple of songs off of their first album. Enjoy!





Korn - "Clown" from their 1994 record, "Korn"

See You At The Show: Monster Magnet at Central Maine Civic Center, 1998

You know, in posting about the upcoming Danzig show, it got me to thinking about memorable metal days, and one show that I saw at the Central Maine Civic Center stood out. It had White Zombie as the headliner, and what I believe was Slayer, with Monster Magnet as the opener. My college boyfriend and I had alot of fun laughing at Dave Wyndorf's egomaniacal stage persona. I mean, you were supposed to laugh at this preening guy with the impossibly big guns that was actually obviously a geek of some kind. It perfectly matched the outsized 70's Southern buttrock style that Monster Magnet played at the time.

Enjoy the edited version of the 1998 hit single, "Space Lord..." I chose the edited version because I find the phrase "motha motha" quite amusing. This video is a great confluence of the two musical genres that ruled the 90's. Plus anything ranking on P. Diddy deserves its place:



I also kind of have to prove that these guys weren't one hit wonders...Here's a live version of "Negasonic Teenage Warhead" from the 1995 album, "Dopes to Infinity:"

I Can't Believe You Don't Own This F%#kin' Record - Life of Agony - River Runs Red & Upcoming Show

LIFE OF AGONY - RIVER RUNS RED (1993)

This is a hybrid: A.) Life of Agony will be playing in NY, NY at the Blender Theater at Gramercy (127 East 23rd Street) on Sunday, December 14 for you Right Coast NYHC fans. B.) Let's talk about my soft spot for LOA and their debut album, "River Runs Red."

I mentioned how hip-hop is in the blood of native New Yorkers; well, so is hardcore punk and metal. In fact, many of my NY brethren listened to both with equal devotion. Life of Agony, who hail from Brooklyn, hit me in the little metal sweet spot in my heart. They were hard and angry, but the songs seemed to stem from a genuine place of loneliness and hurt, like they were just kids wanting to be understood (unlike some of the more superficially testoterone-driven metalcore of the period), which was exemplified in the voice (and lyrics) of singer Keith Caputo. I think Caputo was as formidable a singer as any of that early 90's period, including Layne Staley of Alice in Chains and Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. Check him out on the title track to test me, if you will:



Life of Agony - "River Runs Red" - River Runs Red (1993)

And here's the video for "Through and Through" off this album. Please check out the entirety of River Runs Red if you are a burgeoning metal fan, you will not regret it:

I Can't Believe You Don't Own This F%#kin' Record - Kyuss - ...And The Circus Leaves Town (1995)

One of my favorite parts in an admittedly not-90's movie, High Fidelity (2000), is when Jack Black gets his panties in a bunch because a dimwitted customer does not own Jesus and Mary Chain's "Psychocandy." And how right he is. The 90's were the last time that music was listened to in 60-80 minute blocks in a predetermined sequence, unlike in our currently singles-centric, iPod-driven technological age. I Can't Believe You Don't Own This F'in Record concerns itself with the full-length albums that shaped the musical landscape of the 90's.



KYUSS - ...AND THE CIRCUS LEAVES TOWN (1995)

There are some bands from the 90's that are so damn good they make me want to cry. In the 90's, back East, I had never been to a desert before. Kyuss, to me, sounded like what I imagined the desert to be like: arid, trippy and overwhelming all at the same time. Kyuss, from Palm Desert, CA, was hailed as something of a Velvet Underground of metal...they held an underground cult status in the metal and rock scene, and eventually were recognized as the standard bearers for a certain kind of sludgy, Black Sabbath-esque hard rock.



Really, all of Kyuss's albums should be featured since they spent such a relatively short time as a band (1989-1995) and had such a consistently fresh and exciting take on bottom-heavy metal. ...And The Circus Leaves Town is special to me since it introduced me to the band shortly before they broke up and morphed into the fire-breathing superband Queens of the Stone Age (which formed in 1997), and it contains what is one of my top ten favorite songs ever: "Catamaran":



Beautiful.

John Garcia was one of my favorite lead singers in the 90's. His voice had a uniquely rough, yet oddly vulnerable quality to it that was a great contrast to the rumbling guitars, kind of like Danzig without the fascination with Elvis. Even when his singing was "tough," it felt like he could get run over by those Mack truck guitars at any time. Listening to this record was like discovering Sabbath's Master of Reality album all over again, with the lead vocalist singing as if he spent his youth inhaling desert sand and cactus needles instead of ashes from Birmingham factories. Heaven on Earth.

Many of Kyuss's songs had an innate groove to them as well that I was attracted to: I mean, just because I embraced punk, metal and hardcore didn't mean that I had disavowed the need to shake my thang every now and then. Many of the low-end bands that followed in their wake, especially Fu Manchu, didn't quite seem to pass that test for me. Kyuss had a slinky, sensual vibe to all their music that a teenage girl truly appreciates when she's listening to her Walkman late at night. Here is a video for "One Inch Man" off of this record that perfectly illustrates what I mean:



John Garcia did not follow the path of Queens; instead he moved on to the (unfortunately) short-term project, Slo Burn, from 1996-1997. They put out an EP in 1996 called Amusing the Amazing, which is actually worth checking out because it sounds exactly like Kyuss, and features this amazing song, "Pilot The Dune":



Guitarist Josh Homme, of course, leads the very successful outing, Queens of the Stone Age, with Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters even playing the drums for the entirety of their excellent 2002 album, Songs for the Deaf. I, however, recommend Queens's self-titled first album if you are a Kyuss fan, since their sound had not quite developed into the kind of more mainstream rock that Queens is known for today; it still stays quite close to the more dank immersion into metal that is Kyuss.


The very tasty Josh Homme, friends