Away Team

The heavy metal time machine will turn back to the 1980s and ʻ90s when Queensryche, Cinderella, Ratt, Kix, Warrant and Night Ranger are among the 19 bands to take over Merriweather Post Pavilion, playing full sets of their glam rock and heavy metal hits.

For the first time, M3 fans wonʼt have to choose between bands with overlapping set times, since each band will play one at a time. Also, the festival will take place on two separate stages, each simulcasting the other, giving fans the option to stay in one seat and watch
all the bands as they appear on both stages, or fans can move from stage to stage without missing a note.

In its fourth year, I.M.P. Presents M3 Rock Festival starts with The Official M3 Kix-Off Party Friday May 11th at 7pm. Acts playing Friday night include Night Ranger, Kix, Enuff ZʼNuff, In the Pink and Let There Be Rock. The fullblown 2012 M3 Rock Festival begins Saturday, May 12th at 11am and will include Queensryche, Cinderella, Ratt, Skid Row, Warrant, Quiet Riot, Dokken, Stryper, Loudness, Lynch Mob, XYZ, Bang Tango, Drumwars, and Street Light Circus.

Each year VIP and Pavilion seats sell out in minutes. VIP and discounted 2-Day Packages will go on sale Friday, Feb. 3 at 10am EST through Ticketfly. If there are any tickets remaining as of February 24th, they will go on sale as Single-Day tickets at 10 am EST. Tickets can also be purchased at the Merriweather and 9:30 Club Box Offices. For more information, visit http://www.ticketfly.com/ or http://www.m3rockfest.com

VIP ticket holders will have:
• Private VIP Entrance gate
• Official M3 2012 Festival T-shirt
• Official M3 2012 Concert Poster
• Access to floor and prime pavilion seating
• Access to M3 VIP Deck located backstage (includes access to VIP concessions and VIP restrooms)
• Access to Artist Meet-&-Greet Lounge.

For more M3 click here.

METALLICA & LOU REED

Lulu

Warner Bros Records

-10 out of 10 (THAT’S A NEGATIVE 10 OUT OF 10!)

When Metallica & Lou Reed performed Sweet Jane at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame 25 Year Anniversary show a couple years ago, it was a good rendition of a great song.

Then someone somewhere, smoked a huge vial of expired rancid cow shit, and thought what a great idea it would be to have them collaborate on an entire album together. Now to be fair, the idea isn’t that bad. Who knows how good or bad the final outcome would be? I mean it is the legendary Lou Reed and Mighty Metallica after all? How bad could it be?

Well, you’ve heard the single streaming for sometime, and I swear, I SWEAR, I thought it was a goof! I thought there was no way in hell that THIS was the final product. But alas, I was wrong. It wasn’t a goof, it wasn’t a ploy to throw us all off the scent, this was the final product, they were serious, and this was the roasted dog turd that they were serving up known as Lulu.

Now lest you think I am a Metallica hater, I have always and still do defend St. Anger. There are some great riffs, and songs buried in that album. Yes the production stinks, but go back, and really listen to it. Ok, well listen to the DVD of them playing it all live, it is much better than the CD itself. And listen to the songs again. Buried in the repetitiveness and overkill of each 10 minute song is a great 4 minute song struggling to get out.

That being said, it saddens me to call this album worse than Limp Bizkit’s Gold Cobra. Hell, this is even worse than Stryper’s cover album The Covering and that was a steaming dog turd!!!!

I just reread my review of Stryper and realized that musically (and for song choices they covered) I had them at 4 out of 10 before Michael sang. And that dropped it back to 0.

So in all fairness I should give this ‘Less Than Zero’, as it only garnered one point for some of the underlying riffs that Metallica lays down throughout this horrible horrible album. So, as I said with Stryper’s attempt at recording the worst album of 2011, DO NOT PICK THIS UP. You’ll thank me later.

If you HAVE to listen to it for yourself, you can listen to the entire album streaming here.

But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

My heart hurts. I have to go drown it in some Slayer now thank you.

STRYPER
The Covering
Big 3 Records
0 out of 10



Ok, who here had The Yellow And Black Attack? Raise yer hand! Right.
Who here had Soldiers Under Command? RAISE YER DAMNED HAND! Right, thought so.
Who here had To Hell With The Devil? Raise yer hand, yeah you, there, right there. Raise your hand, you know you had that cassette jamming in your Pinto on the way to high school in 85. Don’t lie to me.
Now, who has any album after that by Stryper? Me neither.

25 years later and the bumble bees are back buzzing around with a new album. Only this time it is covers of their influences, the songs and bands that made them want to be musicians. The list of bands they are covering on the album is great. You’ve got Ozzy, Sweet, Black Sabbath, Scorpions, UFO, Kansas, Kiss, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Deep Purple, Van Halen, and Led Zeppelin. Sounds like a pretty badass CD doesn’t it?

Well it’s pretty bad alright. Don’t believe me? Here is Away Team‘s very own Bam Bam’s two word review of The Covering right here.

Musically there are some decent points to the disc. I mean, as soon as the song starts you can name every song they are playing. So, there’s that. That should almost be worth a point on the 1 to 10 scale right? Ok, so we’ll give them 1 point for being able to recognize the songs they are playing.

And of course the song list is great. Lights Out, Immigrant Song, Breaking The Law, The Trooper, Over The Mountain, Heaven And Hell, Carry On, Highway Star, Set Me Free, Shout It Out Loud, Blackout, and On Fire. I mean, I truly don’t think I’ve seen a better cover album song list than this on one album. So there’s a point for that. Now we’re at 2 out of 10.

The dude on the cover of the album looks like Chris Jericho the wrestler to me, so if you’re into wrestling you might give them a point for that. Now it’s 3 out of 10.

Then Michael Sweet begins to sing. Not that the guy has a bad voice, I mean he’s no Joey Belladonna and that is a point IN his favor, so we’ll give them a point on this CD just because he CAN sing better than Joey Belladonna. Here’s to 4 out of 10. Damn, they’re almost batting .500!

Oh, wait, Michael is still singing. Wow. Ok, I am TRYING to be fair here. His vocals on Set Me Free aren’t THAT bad. I’ll say that. So, in starting off the album it is OK. Of course starting off an album at just OK is not a good place to start. You better go up real quick, because you don’t have far to fall into the ‘this stinks like 10 pounds of hot steaming dog shit’ pile of no return.

The opening riff to the Scorpion’s Blackout kicks in, and you’re like, ok… Let’s get this going. Hey, Michael Sweet doesn’t sound too far off from the Scorpion’s Klaus Meine here. I’ll be damned. Oh wait, there’s the Michael Sweet Stryper Scream… Oh wait, just fucked the whole song, and now his inflection is more Stryper than Scorpions. Lost me there boys.

Heaven And Hell is next. I mean… It’s HEAVEN AND HELL for fuck’s sake! How can you butcher this? Dio, Tony, it may very well be the ultimate old school metal song. And these holier than thou jesus freaks are singing it? I was personally offended when Michael Sweet said that Stryper could have written Heaven And Hell themselves and YOU SHOULD BE OFFENDED TOO because he said that. I’m calling Bullshit! If you could have written something as epic as Heaven And Hell you’d have had a longer career than three years of semi-relevance. And the chorus of ‘ahhhhhh’ during the breakdown????? This isn’t church camp, this is Black Sabbath motherfuckers. How do you remove the balls from one of the most badass songs of all time? HERECY!!!!!!

UFO’s Light Out. Skip it. I can’t deal anymore. Again, I’ll say FOR THE MOST PART, the music isn’t bad. But fuck his voice is so unique, and so pussified that it has no balls to it. And every chance he has to pull this off, he just completely fucks it up. Maybe this should be an instrumental cover album!!!! Yeah, then it would only suck half as bad. Hell, I’d probably rate it a solid 5 then.

The weak ass drum intro into Carry On. What the fuck is that? There’s no balls in the drums either? WTF?????? Skip.

Everyone has their breaking point when it comes to savagely raping the legacy of metal. Stryper covering Deep Purple’s Highway Star is it for me. And we haven’t even gotten to Judas Priest or Iron Maiden yet. Fuck you Stryper for even THINKING about doing this album. Skip.

I don’t think I can continue. Really… My blood pressure can’t take this; my ears can’t handle the blasphemy coming from the speakers, my co-workers are yelling at me to stop killing the litter of cats in my cubicle already. Must. Finish. Worst. Album. Ever.

Shout It Out Loud. Starts out as pussy as the original does. Does that make it bad? No, but at least they can’t fuck up such simpleton songwriting as KISS. If this was maybe the second or third song on the disc, I could probably have handled it, but as we are on the seventh song of this musical abortion, I can’t take anymore, I am up to my limit in shit, so…. Moving on…..

Over The Mountain. Holy Fuck Randy Rhoads just died again. I can’t play guitar that well and I can play the opening riff better than Oz Foxx. Skip.

The Trooper. Stupid fucks, if you are going to take songs like Over The Mountain (Randy Rhoads), Highway Star (Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord), The Trooper (Steve Harris), that have such a distinct musical sound and style, you best be able to reproduce the opening riff, the organ solo, the bass line (respectively) of those songs, or fuck off and JUST DON’T DO THEM. And never mind the shit fucked guitar solo in The Trooper, come up with your own (not). Skip.

Nobody should cover Judas Priest. Period. Skip

Van Halen. Really? You try to tackle the intricacies of Ritchie Blackmore, Tony Iommi, Randy Rhoads, AND Eddie Van Halen? Who do you think you are, Oz Foxx? Oh, wait… skip.

Do I even have to say anything about Stryper trying to cover Led Zeppelin? Really? Are you going to make me listen to this? FUCK YOU. and fuck Stryper.

And no, I’m not going to listen to their new song called ‘God’. Fuck that. You don’t get to do that to me after aurally sodomizing me for the last 30 minutes.

So, we got the album up to 4 out of 10 before Michael sang, so now where are we? Someone owes me for my therapy bills now!
DO NOT PICK THIS UP, you’ll thank me later.

Annie Lobért, wife of STRYPER guitarist Oz Fox and former high-class call girl, stars in a new series, “Hookers: Saved On The Strip“, which premieres tonight (Wednesday, December 8 ) at 10 p.m. ET on the Investigation Discovery channel. The three-part series chronicles the life of Lobért, who makes it her faith-based mission to help prostitutes in Las Vegas change their lives.

“The parts that you will see is what [Investigation Discovery] chose to portray. There are a lot of things that you will not see that you’re just going to have to trust, if you are a Christian watching, that we are doing this for God,” Lobért told The Christian Post. “It is a show about redemption and restoration in Jesus Christ.”

In a 2009 interview with Classic Rock magazine, Fox stated about Lobért, “My wife has a wonderful ministry called Hookers For Jesus and she reaches out to people that are trapped in the world of sex trafficking, helping them to get out of the business. She meets these girls on the street or in casinos and has them come to church and realize that they don’t have to live that life. Her church provides a home for them to stay in… what she does is amazing. Annie herself was a prostitute for 11 years and she had a radical change in her life after a drug overdose that almost killed her,” Fox continued. “She found God and we married on June 5 [2009]. We live together in Las Vegas. She has a big heart and life is good.”

————

Hookers for Jesus? Really?
Hookers: Saved On The Strip? Are you kidding?
Not that we at Away Team condone human trafficking, but Prostitution? Bet your ass. They don’t call it the oldest profession in the world because nobody is doing it. So Oz Fox from a ‘Christian Rock’ band married a hooker. Stryper used to throw bibles into the crowd during their shows, does Oz now throw condoms that say ‘Hookers for Jesus‘ on them?
And what do you have to do to be a Hooker for Jesus? You think the big JC gets the hottest ones out there? Or do you think he likes his paid pussy like Tiger Woods, skanky and well used? How do you think Jesus approaches the hookers? You think the son of god has game? ‘Hi, I can save your soul if you’ll swallow my load‘.
And how does a name like Hookers For Jesus raise awareness of human trafficking? If you want to be taken seriously shouldn’t your name NOT sound like the latest Jim Norton joke?
For what it is worth Annie Lobért is hot and I’d have thrown five Benjamins at her for an ‘Around The World’. But that’s just me.
And why did I get press releases for this? Why is this ‘Music News’? Because a whore married a rockstar? Do you know how many whores have married rockstars? THAT is a rhetorical question thank you.
Now pardon me while I go pull one off to Ms Lobért.