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Dethmyname

We hope we aren't in the minority here at Rocks Off in saying that Marilyn Manson is the last living active rock star. True, Jagger and Bowie are still kicking around, but no one ignites tempers and soothes dark hearts like Brian Warner. Plus, the dude can't hide his pop sensibilities, no matter how many baby skeletons and hobo-skull goblets litter his kitchen. Looking back, 1996's "Beautiful People" was just as catchy as "Hey Ya!"

Manson reunited with longtime bassist Twiggy Ramirez (aka Jeordie White) after a 2002 falling out and has been recording a follow-up to 2007's blandish Eat Me, Drink Me. That album saw Manson stray dangerously close to conventionality with love songs and, sadly, power ballads.

Ron Newkirk

Maynard James Keenan

Maynard Keenan has to be one of the most enigmatic and musically schizophrenic men in rock. A soldier in the U.S. Army in the '80s, Keenan did a four-year tour of duty and then entered civilian life. He met future Tool guitarist Adam Jones in 1988 and one year later, the monolithic prog-metal group was born when the two enlisted drummer Danny Carey and bassist Justin Chancellor.

Keenan has had a myriad of side projects in music and film. He blew up modern-rock radio with the wiry and divisive A Perfect Circle in 2000, and confounded some with his solo Puscifer project. He was a semi-regular guest on HBO's Mr. Show with Bob and David as the lead singer of a fictitious metal band called - funnily enough - Puscifer.

A few years back, Keenan started a vineyard in Arizona - an area not generally associated with wine-making - with fellow vintner Eric Glomski, Since 2004, Caduceus Cellars has been producing bottles of well-received wine from his Merkin Vineyard.

Keenan hits Houston Thursday afternoon at the Whole Foods Market in Sugar Land (15900 Southwest Freeway, 4:30-7:30 p.m.). He'll be signing bottles of his wine and making spaghetti and other homemade organic dishes that he hopes to one day package and sell along with the wine. Kind of like a prog-metal Paul Newman.

Pretty wicked for the dude who sang "Prison Sex" and "Hooker with a Penis"...

Rocks Off been so far removed from mall culture that we had almost forgot that Hot Topic existed. Not that we ever meditated on where on 14-year old girls get their "Twilight" shirts and metal gauntlets from or anything...

Apparently local Hot Topic locations have been hosting acoustic shows by local artists, aiming to cultivate a grassroots scene away from those bands with shirts on their trendy brick walls. We got wind of a Ladyheat gig coming up soon at Katy Mills, plus a few scattered one-off sets at other outlying locations by other Houston bands.

Tonight, a guerilla-warfare assault of sorts is rumored to be going down at Baybrook Mall in Friendswood. As of this moment, we are negotiating our way out of a Knights of Columbus fish fry with the 'rents to hit this up.

www.unwigged.com

Legendary British heavy-metal pioneers Spinal Tap, authors of albums such as Smell the Glove and Shark Sandwich and stars of Rob Reiner's groundbreaking 1984 "rockumentary" This Is Spinal Tap - who bear a remarkable resemblance to American actors Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer - announced yesterday they will reunite for an acoustic tour that stops at Jones Hall May 1. Carrying the illusion even further, the trio is calling the tour "Unplugged and Unwigged: An Evening With Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer."

Opening will be the Folksmen, the popular 1960s acoustic group that appeared in Guest's 2003 film A Mighty Wind.   

Remember to wear something you don't mind getting covered with booze, blood, vomit or feces, and probably all four...

Metavenge are a gaggle of teenagers in faded Slayer shirts from the Friendswood/Alvin area, but they sound like they opened for Metallica on the Ride The Lightning tour. Ever since we first heard them back in the fall, we have been blasting "Time To Kill" on our iPod as we foolishly attempt to run at the gym.

The dudes are brutal, as any guy worth his leather gauntlets will tell you. The boys recently flew to California to work with producer/guitarist Keri Kelli, who currently plays in Alice Cooper's touring band, during Christmas break. The mastered tracks we have heard are disgustingly awesome, and don't sound like they were made by dudes who were probably conceived to the strains of "Nothing Else Matters."

There is more coming, with a proper EP in the works for the summer. Down and The Sword are cool and all, but we wouldn't have minded seeing Metavenge opening for Metallica back in November at Toyota Center. But they were probably in the crowd headbanging their impressionable young brains out, just like we were.

Leave it to the British music press to read more into something than it merits. Any new fad they see pop up they immediately have to make a celebratory month for, or start spending thousands of pounds on to trace its source. It's a dirty habit. They can't leave well enough alone.

That's how you get an article in the Guardian speculating on the origins of blastbeats. Come on, blastbeats? Alexis Petridis, who looks like Mr. Bean's stoned kid, also writes a weekly fashion column for the Guardian when he's not dissecting thrash-metal technique. This past week's dispatch on blastbeats name-checked local legends D.R.I. and Insect Warfare in its valiant search for the true spirit of the blastbeat. All of this is to commemorate International Blastbeat Celebration Day.

[Via comicvsaudience.com. Click on the image for a full-screen version.]

Denison-based Texas Hippie Coalition, or THC to fans, lays claim to the title "Kings of Red Dirt Metal," and will more than likely rock you the eff out. These guys feel like Pantera meets Lynyrd Skynyrd, so horns most definitely up. (Plus, the drummer goes by "Cowboy.") Lead singer Big Daddy Rich recently spoke with Metalocalypse about the Man in Black, horror movies and whether or not the abbreviation of the band's name is a coincidence. See if you can guess.

Metalocalypse: When was the first time you saw a Band/performer and said to yourself. "I want to do that for a living"? Who was it, and why were you so impressed?

Big Daddy Rich: Johnny Cash. I was really impressed with his stage presence, the ability to control a crowd and keep them hanging on every word, whether it was lyrics in a song or his ranting and raving between songs.

M: What is a typical Sunday like for Texas Hippie Coalition?

BDR: Hopefully some football, always some smoking and not just on the grill. Texas Barbeque and an unfriendly game of Texas Hold 'em.

[Note: this is the first entry in a partnership between Rocks Off and Houston-based metal Web site UNdergroWNd MiNdbloW. In the hot seat is all-female Toronto quartet Scarlet Sins. Enjoy.]

My name is Chris, and I have a long ongoing love affair with music. Especially heavy metal, death metal, speed metal, grindcore and metal in general. The first time I saw a live show and an unknown band hit the stage, I was a fan.

It was at the Cotton Bowl in the 1970s, and this "unknown" band came out. Their lead guitarist opened the show witha solo, which was unusual in itself. As an airplane flew overhead, someone jumped out and parasailed onto the stage.

The band was Van Halen, the song was "Eruption," and from that moment on I was a fan of the underground scene. I interview underground bands, local bands, and characters of metal, by asking "10 Questions" that they would normally never be asked.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks and months for Tool, Carcass, Bolt Thrower, All Shall Perish, Gen 1;12, Texas Hippie Coalition, Exodus, Three Inches of Blood, Metal Sanaz, Trina Mason, In Flames and many more. But for now, let's meet Scarlet Sins...