When filmmakers who like Metallica aren’t rich

I stumbled across this short film recently… I’m not gonna lie, it’s not exactly Citizen Kane, but what I found fascinating was the intro music. It was weird and offbeat, yet very familiar. It took me a while to realize it’s a ‘lawsuit-safe’ version of Metallica‘s ‘The Thing That Should Not Be.’

Then I noticed the character’s Metallica shirt, which means it’s not accidental. In fact, at one point in the film you can hear the original track being played on that CD player, which means they wrote/made the film with the song in mind, even used it, but then probably had to switch it for legal reasons.

Here, have a listen:

Fans of Conan may know the bit he does where his band plays a famous song differently, to ‘avoid legal action.’ That is, of course, meant to be a joke. But it actually does happen, even on major TV shows… When you don’t have the rights (or the money to buy the rights) of a certain song, you either find a band who will cover it for you using slightly different notes, or if the song is famous enough, you might actually find that ‘lawsuit-proof’ cover already, you just have to buy it. Soundtrack sites list these songs as “In the style of Metallica” or something similar.

But this does raise an interesting point… Why don’t labels allow their music to be used in non-profit work? I understand that a movie or a TV show makes a lot of money, thus it’s only fair to pay for the music. I also understand your song is your property, so I’m not saying everyone should just distribute their music for free… I’m just saying, if I was in a band, I’d have no problem with student films or YouTube clips using my music. As long as it’s not making a profit, who cares? If anything, fans of that short film might actually check out more of my music.

I understand trying to fight piracy, but I don’t understand discouraging people from using your music if they’re doing it just for the sake of the art. Back to the short film above, I’m willing to bet the filmmaker had Metallica’s song in mind the whole time, but had to change it for festivals and other events. It’s a bit sad when the song that inspires you can’t be used unless you can fork out the big bucks.

Silly me, trying to understand labels and their greed.

New band alert: King Carnage

Patrick Brown (on the right) of Trillion Red has a new project. It’s called King Carnage and Patrick teamed up with Sasha Horn of Novembers Doom.

The project is described as ‘Aggressive New Heavy Crust Death’ which sounds a bit like a metal pizza topping, if you ask me.

Apparently material is being written as we speak, and the record itself will probably come out next year. I guess if you’re a fan of Trillion Red or Novembers Doom, this will excite you. If you’re like me, and none of these names ring any bells, then I guess I’ve just wasted a few minutes of your life — which is awesome!

In some unrelated news, I just deep fried some baloney the other day… I mean, it’s not bad, but it does have a weird taste. Maybe I should stick to just regular chicken or something.

Funny Mötley Crüe bassist is funny

Whenever Nikki Sixx talks about ‘being heavy,’ I always assume he’s talking about his weight gain, followed by some bullshit excuse of how he got fat for a role. I guess I’m wrong this time, cause he’s actually talking about heavy music… Mötley Crüe and heavy music, now that’s something I’d pay good money not to see.

“My idea for a record is… We can’t depend upon radio or anything else to sell records, so I think we should depend upon what really juices us, and for me right now, I would love to make an extremely heavy, non-commercial record — more like a Shout At The Devil type of a record.“

Watch full interview after the jump.

Oh yeah, cause Shout At The Devil was an amazingly heavy album. God forbid should you return to such death metal roots.

So yeah, Nikki, we appreciate your passion for heavy music (or rather, trying to make heavy music), but the only thing heavy related to you was when your weight crushed that fan whose head you jumped on.

New batch of BS rumors

What you see above is a video interview of Jack and Kelly Osbourne, conducted by Artisan News, which they claim fuels more rumors of the Black Sabbath reunion and new material happening, despite Tony Iommi’s last week’s  comments.

To be honest, all I got from Kelly is that Ozzy “is doing something that is very, very exciting,” therefore he couldn’t make the premiere of the documentary film “God Bless Ozzy Osbourne,” which to me can be anything from “actually woke up this morning” to “managed to get up and go to the toilet before taking a crap.”

Either way, somehow this made me a bit more excited about the prospect of the reunion happening, so let’s cross our fingers and wish them at least another decade of a good and healthy life, because that’s how long I presume this whole thing will need to take off.

Visions of horror

It’s a sad day when I can’t think of a good Bring Me The Horizon joke. I mean, musically at least. I’ve been through so much shitcore in the past week, that basically anything written with more than two-note riffing and less than 432 breakdowns fills the criteria for good. So, there, I (kind of) said it, their new video for Visions is good. I mean, I could probably squeeze in a few mall/Hot Topic jokes in here, but I won’t, this one’s on me.