Brecht, right, with Pasadena Napalm Division

Who? Kurt Brecht is the iron-lunged front man of D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles), the ridiculously speedy hardcore punk band that got its start bashing out tunes inside his parents' house in Houston back in 1982. After shattering the sound barrier with the 18-minute, 22-song Dirty Rotten EP the same year, D.R.I. pulled up stakes and headed off to San Francisco, where the group became patron saints of skateboarders everywhere by welding together the more aggressive elements of hardcore and metal into a blistering new sound known as crossover thrash.

These days, D.R.I. continues to incite wild circle pits and gnarly backside fakies the world over. The band just finished a tour with fellow crossover legends Suicidal Tendencies and kicks off a string of dates featuring its classic '80s lineup this Friday at Scout Bar.

Now back in Houston full-time, Brecht keeps busy pulling double duty as the front man for Pasadena Napalm Division, the local thrash supergroup also featuring members of deadhorse. Their debut album is scheduled to drop in a matter of weeks.

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Photos by Groovehouse

Suicidal Tendencies, Sick of it All
House of Blues
May 6, 2013

How will I laugh tomorrow when I can't even smile today?

That question served as the title to Suicidal Tendencies' third album, released 25 years ago. But for a while there at their gig at House of Blues on Monday night, the question on my mind was, "Will I see any smiles tonight?"

That's a bit of an exaggeration, I guess, but not by much. Crossover thrash shows are supposed to be wild and gnarly affairs. A decent crowd turned out for Suicidal's tour stop with fellow hardcore punk legends Sick of it All, but from the outset, the audience seemed oddly reserved. Maybe it was the sterile, decidedly non-punk venue, a collective Cinco de Mayo hangover or just a bad case of the Mondays, but whatever the reason, the crowd played hard to get all night.

The audience's hard-assed mood was most conspicuous during Sick of it All's set. I missed the night's opening salvo from Suicidal affiliates Waking the Dead, but I can't imagine they put the crowd to sleep. Nevertheless, Houston audiences can be tough and fickle for no apparent reason sometimes, and New York's hard-working hardcore heroes found themselves onstage facing one of Houston's toughest crowds of the year on Monday night.

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Photos by Groovehouse

Coheed and Cambria, Between the Buried and Me, Russian Circles
Bayou Music Center
March 2, 2013

The last time Coheed and Cambria came through town, they were opening for Iron Maiden at The Woodlands. I'd never really considered Coheed to inhabit the same universe as those heavy-metal gods; their music is a tad too gentle and bright to conjure comparisons to "Number of the Beast." But I guess the metal hallmarks are all there: the comic-book lyrics, the histrionic front man, the shout-along choruses.

The band proved once again that they can bang with the heavyweights at Bayou Music Center on Saturday night, headlining a bill with a couple of the country's finer purveyors of thinking-man's metal.

Chicago's Russian Circles seemed to go on nearly the minute the doors opened, but a large crowd was already inside the venue to catch them. The heavy instrumental trio was a little hard to see, lit only by what appeared to be a couple of 60-watt bulbs onstage. There was no trouble hearing them, however, as the entire crowd was good enough to shut up and listen to Russian Circles' spacey marches.

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Welcome to Stinkadena!

Hold on to your flip-brim hats: New music by Pasadena Napalm Division, the local thrash-metal supergroup featuring members of D.R.I. and deadhorse, is on the way. The band announced last week that it has signed a deal with San Francisco-based Minus Head records to release its debut album this year.

That's most welcome news to the denim vest set. Comprising D.R.I. vocalist Kurt Brecht and deadhorse guitarists Greg Martin and Scott Sevall and drummer Ronnie Guyote, PND dropped a mosh-tastic EP full of exactly the kind of crossover-thrash rippers you'd expect from such a crew back in 2010. The band played some shows around the state to promote that release, but seemed to fizzle out not long after.

Luckily, napalm itself is notoriously tough to extinguish. I gave Brecht a call to get the scoop on the band's recent activities (and inactivity).

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Yesterday Black Sabbath released a three-minute YouTube clip for their new upcoming album, 13, which is due to hit the streets in June.

Producer Rick Rubin is behind the boards and Rage Against the Machine's Brad Wilk is on drums, as Bill Ward is still involved in a contract dispute with his estranged Sabbath mates.

13 will be the first Sabbath LP featuring singer Ozzy Osbourne in 35 years, and the title is meant to poke fun at the albums that the band released sans Ozzy. (It's actually the band's 19th full-length.)

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Photo by Craig Hlavaty

This man loves vests.

Back in the '80s, Metallica was the shit of all shits. We all know this. If you were alive then and you were into metal, I'm sure you have some pictures with you wearing a) a Metallica T-shirt or b) the exact clothes Metallica would wear.

But things changed. I'll leave out all the details, because I'm going to guess everyone's heard a couple of the band's albums over the last 20 years. More relevant here is the fact that somewhere along the way into the '90s, the Metallica members lost their damn minds when it came to dressing themselves.

It's become really bad lately, but as some of these examples will show, things weren't much better around the very moment they became world-famous.

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Rick Allen, left, with Def Leppard

Twenty-eight years ago this week (New Year's Eve), Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen became famous. Well, he was already famous, we guess, for being the drummer for one of the finest pop-metal bands of all time. But on December 31, 1984, Allen became even more famous for being pretty much the only pop-metal drummer in history with a single, solitary arm.

Rick Allen was born with two arms, you see. Back in '84, he was riding high -- a rich and desirable rock star with no reason to suspect he was not invincible. That illusion was shattered when Allen got caught up street racing on the back roads of Sheffield, England, in his Corvette.

Allen lost control of the car while racing an Alfa Romeo and was launched from the vehicle when it struck a stone wall going about ten trillion miles per hour. (Wear your seat belts, folks!) His left arm was severed in the accident, and although doctors were able to reattach it, the arm had to be removed again due to infection. For drummers, there aren't many more devastating injuries than that.

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http://www.facebook.com/lambofgod

Now that Lamb of God front man Randy Blythe's Czech prison vacation is over, he and his bandmates are heading out onto the road to make up the dates they had to cancel over the summer.

The metal act will be in Houston on December 6 at Bayou Music Center. The band, plus Dethklok and Gojira, were set to play BMC tomorrow night until dates had to be scuttled with Blythe's fate still in question.

Blythe had been incarcerated in a Czech Republic prison for the past month for his part in the death of metal fan Daniel Nosek, a 19-year old who rushed LOG's stage in Prague numerous time during a May 2010 gig and Blythe pushed him back. Nosek eventually fell directly on his head, resulting in severe head trauma and died weeks later from his injuries.

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(UPDATE: From Adrenaline PR: "After five weeks in a prison in Prague in the Czech Republic, Randy Blythe has been released on bail and is returning to the United States. Although Lamb Of God has cancelled their summer co-headline tour with Dethklok, the band is currently targeting October 26th as the start date for a U.S tour. Dates and cities will be released as soon as possible. Randy will be making a public statement discussing his time in Prague and thanking fans worldwide for their support in the next week.")

Check out Blabbermouth's coverage here.

This morning it was announced that the September 7 Lamb of God and Dethklok concert at Bayou Music Center has been canceled, along with all of the other dates on the bands' summer tour. The highly anticipated show would have been both acts' first Houston dates in a three years.

The reason?

Lamb of God singer Randy Blythe has been incarcerated in a Czech Republic prison for the past month for his part in the death of metal fan Daniel Nosek. The 19-year old rushed the LOG stage in Prague numerous time during a May 2010 gig and Blythe pushed him back. Nosek eventually fell directly on his head, resulting in severe head trauma and died weeks later from his injuries.

A statement from Adrenaline PR's Maria Ferrero:

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The early to mid-'90s were good times for underground music in Houston. At clubs like the Axiom, the Vatican and Fitzgerald's, an eclectic mix of punk, metal, funk and ska bands like deadhorse, Sprawl and more regularly played packed shows in front of 500+ fans.

Much has changed since, but those of us who were stuck in junior-high detention back then are in luck. A fascinating new documentary called "When We Ruled H-Town," co-directed by J. Schneider from bong-toting rockers Taste of Garlic, takes a nostalgic look back at those heady days in the pre-Napster era when it seemed inevitable that someone, ANYONE from Houston's thriving underground rock scene would blow up big nationally and put the city on the map. That scenario never quite happened, but it wasn't for lack of talent. Check out the film's premiere on Thursday to learn more.

There was much more bubbling up from the underground in Houston in the early '90s than just rock, of course. The Geto Boys were helping to kick off the rise of Dirty South hip-hop, and DJ Screw and the Screwed Up Click were hard at work twisting rap in an incredible new psychedelic direction. Ask anyone about Houston's musical legacy of the past 20 years, and these names are bound to pop up.

There wasn't a lot of overlap between the rock and hip-hop scenes, but that's not to say there was none at all, according to Schneider.

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