Twisted Sister – Live at the Astoria [CD/DVD]
Demolition Records (11/18/08)
Hard rock / Metal (Glam)

While never the most prolific metal band out there, Twisted Sister has somehow become one of those bands from the ’80s that is regarded as somewhat legendary on the strength of a handful of popular tracks.

Live at the Astoria plays out as a greatest-hits collection, with a solid sampling from the group’s back catalogue. The recording is fairly crisp, with hardly any crowd interference (which you’ll either like or dislike depending on what you’re looking for in a live album).

...read full article...

After having been honored with the key to the city of Bridgeport, Conn., last week for his charity work, 50 Cent quickly canceled out his act of goodwill when he attacked actor Frank John Hughes during the filming of an upcoming movie.

According to a witness who was on-hand during the filming of the drama Righteous Kill, 50 Cent and Hughes (who is best known for his role as “Wild Bill” Guarnere in HBO’s Band of Brothers) got involved in an altercation after Hughes made a comment about 50 Cent forgetting his lines, with Hughes ending up with minor injuries.

“Frank tried to correct [50 Cent] and he got really upset,” the witness told reporters. “Before it was all over he had Frank on the ground pummeling him. … The paramedics looked at Frank and he’s OK. It’s everyone else here that’s still shaken up… No one is trying to get on his bad side.”

What an asshole. Not only is this guy a shitty actor who can’t remember his lines, but he’s also a no-good thug who can’t take criticism. He should have been fired from the movie and blacklisted from Hollywood—this is unacceptable. It probably didn’t help that the incident occurred shortly after 50 Cent got his ass handed to him in the record selloff with Kanye West, but it’s still no excuse. Will somebody please fatally shoot this guy already so we can be done with him once and for all?

In an effort to keep whatever minuscule heat he had conjured up recently at the MTV Video Music Awards, when he got into a scuffle with fellow Pamela Anderson ex, Tommy Lee, singer/rapper Kid Rock recently made some rather bellicose comments directed at rappers Kanye West amd 50 Cent.

While he’ll likely sell a few more records than Kenny Chesney, who griped when he was forgotten amid the Kanye West/50 Cent record sell-off in September, Kid Rock claimed that his upcoming album, Rock & Roll Jesus, “in the long run, [will] sell more records than both of those two put together.” Not very bloody likely, but if it makes Kid Rock feel better about himself, more power to him. Chances are his new album will be more of the same country-tinged rap-rock that fans grew tired of about five years ago.

In a recent interview with Penthouse, Kid Rock said that he thinks he’ll sell 10 million copies of Rock & Roll Jesus before either Graduation or Curtis hit the mark, adding, “Because of the options that are available for getting records out nowadays, I might not be able to move 12 million records [right away], but I do think I have a shot at having a diamond record.”

He further made himself a target of rap fans by slamming the level of skill (and rightfully so), or lack thereof, that current rap music seems to require, saying, “I’m a rapper by nature. I started out as a DJ. To me, hip-hop is the blues music of our day and age. But writing a rap song is 10 times easier than writing a melodic song that’s hopefully going to be around 20 years from now. … I think it’s much harder to come up with melody and chord progression. There’s been some great rap [but] I don’t hear a lot of it lately.”

While he may have a point vis-à-vis useless sacks of shit like Soulja Boy, Ying Yang Twins and most of the crap inundating today’s urban radio charts, making a blanket statement that all hip-hop music is essentially a cinch to make compared to the garbage he puts out makes him look like an enormous choad. I predict his new album will sell 400,000 units and he will have to find some other famous broad to date in order to get his name mentioned in print.

Puddle of Mudd lead singer Wesley Scantlin has been banned from Graceland after a ridiculous stunt during a recent tour of the estate. The band was touring Elvis Presley’s legendary home in Memphis this past Monday, and Scantlin, being something of douche, stripped down to his boxer shorts and jumped into the pool, much to the shock and disbelief of fellow visitors and staff.

Moments after jumping into the pool, Graceland security guards took Scantlin into custody and ejected him and the rest of the band from the property, where they were told never to come back.

Asked why he did it, Scantlin told reporters, “I just wanted to go for a swim.” Interesting. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the band’s coming out with new album in a few weeks and wanted to get their heat back after all but dropping off the face of the earth for the past few years. I wonder if Puddle of Mudd plans on touring the Grand Canyon any time soon…

In another instance that confirms that The Ad Hoc Award-Demanding Waste of Skin thinks way too highly of himself—and will go to obscene lengths to make sure that nobody ever forgets it—he recently challenged other celebrity purveyors of women’s perfume to a fragrance “smell-off”.

According to the rapper/producer/shameless self-promoter, who spoke with reporters this past week while plugging his upcoming Unforgivable Woman fragrance, he would officially issue the challenge during a guest appearance on an upcoming episode of Rachael Ray. “I am going to challenge my female counterparts,” he puffed, after demanding that the reporter stoop down and massage his feet, “from J.Lo, Mariah, Sarah Jessica Parker to Gwen Stefani that my fragrance is better than theirs. I am a man, and I know how a woman should smell.”

Of course… that’s perfect logic. You’re a man, so obviously you’d have a better idea of how a woman should smell than a woman herself. How could the rest of us have been so negligent to overlook that? It’s kind of like whenever your toilet’s stopped up (perhaps with all of the shit that you spew out of your mouth); your first thought might be to call a plumber, but actually a painter would know better how to unclog your toilet. The analogy might be lacking, but the main point here is that Diddy’s full of shit.

Perhaps wanting to get his heat back after getting spanked by Kanye West this past week in the duo’s record-selling feud, rapper 50 Cent has decided to show the world that he’s still number one when it comes to spending ridiculously exorbitant amounts of money on things that should otherwise cost very little. He’s booked for two separate events in London next Wednesday—the Vodafone Live Music Awards and the MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Awards—and while the six miles between the two locations would cost normal peons like you and me nothing more than the gas money and any applicable tolls, 50’s dropping $2 million on transport.

After taking the stage at the Vodafone Live Music Awards at Brompton Hall in Earls Court, he’ll somehow be utilizing three helicopters, several SUVs and a group of men from former Special Forces units in order to get him to the O2 Arena in North Greenwich (a mere six miles away) for an appearance at the MOBO Awards. Asked by British newspaper The Mirror what all of the pomp and circumstance is for, representatives for 50 Cent told reporters that “[h]e is aware that it’s extravagant but he wants to get there in good time and chill out before his performance. … He’ll do whatever it takes to get to the MOBOs in ample time.”

I declare bullshit (Widro has approved ass and shit!). Methinks that 50’s using this as a bit of a red herring to try and divert attention away from the fact that he looks like an enormous choad right now after Kanye sold twice as many albums as he did over the past week. All of that talk about how “Kanye’s not in the same league as me” and “Kanye is small potatoes” and “I look like an Irish Wolfhound” is going to catch up with him, so this is really his only way right now of showing that he’s still worthy of mention. And why exactly would you need ex-Special Forces? In case your ego gets so inflated that it actually floats away and requires reconnaissance? This is something that one would expect from The Ad Hoc Award-Demanding Waste of Skin, but you, 50 Cent… this eradicates any sort of street cred or toughness that you had leftover there from five years ago. You are now officially a bitch, and should from this point on be recognized as such.

As the Ad Hoc Award-Demanding Waste of Skin has moved his annual White Party from his home in the Caribbean island of St. Tropez to his mansion in Long Island this year, it appears as if he’s continuing with his long streak of arrogant shenanigans, this time targeting Billy Joel’s 26-year-old wife (and former host of Top Chef and other similar segments), Katie Lee Joel.

While the term “White Party” is more widely known as a series of circuit events held on a somewhat regular basis to benefit HIV/AIDS charities, Diddy, being the prolific man that he is (interesting to note that damn near every single one of his hits has blatantly aped another song), decided to ape the name and general idea (in which attendees wear all white), and repackage it as a ridiculous, self-aggrandizing, celebrity-and-excess-studded event.

While the original White Party no doubt has its share of pretentiousness, Diddy’s White Party has brought it to a whole new level, as guests Billy and Katie Lee Joel were turned away because doormen (acting on Diddy’s strict decree) noted that Katie’s dress was a cream shade of white, and not pure white. Despite Billy Joel trying to woo the doormen with an a cappella rendition of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, they were having none of it, instead telling Katie Lee to go homne and change into something whiter. Does anyone else notice any irony in a white person being turned away from a party hosted by a black person for not being white enough? Where’s Mathan? Surely his white half must be at least a little irritated by this.

Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine is doing some quick damage control after allegedly telling Russian magazine Exile that knockout tennis star Maria Sharapova (whom he met in 2005, at her 18th birthday party) is terrible in the sack. While the magazine still stands by the interview that it conducted with Levine last month, Levine himself is vehemently denying having ever said anything of the sort.

“She wouldn’t make any noise during sex. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was. I really thought, like a lot of guys, that she’d be the loud screaming type. But instead, she just lay there like a dead frog. She even got angry if I started to moan; said it ‘ruined her concentration.’ It was so disillusioning that I went on Paxil for a month afterwards [to prolong ejaculation]. Really, it was much more of a shock than when I found out there’s no such thing as the Easter Bunny.”

But Exile apparently concocted the entire thing, as Levine later told other, less Commie reporters, that it’s “absolutely not true” that he said any of that. Personally, I think he did say it, but didn’t think it would make it out of Russia. It’s regardless whether or not it’s actually true that Sharapova is a “dead frog” in bed, though I’d be willing to bet that that’s not true (seeing as she shrieks and moans every time she hits the damn ball), and that Levine was just mad when she canned his ass after a matter of weeks.

I’d be pissed, too, but even I have my limits. Even the biggest assholes in the world know that it’s uncouth to talk publicly about former lovers’ bedside manners, but remember that Adam Levine has previously dated Paris Hilton, so he’s obviously a scumbag. Or maybe it true. Maybe Maria Sharapova really was motionless the whole, because he happens to be lame in the sack.

I’m probably in the majority of guys who would still totally hit it, even if she is a “dead frog”.

Amid the bevy of ongoing legal woes for pop star Michael Jackson, including a $113,000 lawsuit filed this past week by his former attorneys, one that seems to especially stand out is a suit filed (also this past week) by a Bahraini sheikh who is claiming that Jacko breached a contract that the two had, which was made upon his arrival at the man’s home following his child molestation trial back in 2005.

According to the suit filed by Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Khafilat, an agreement was made between the two, that would allow Jacko to take refuge at his palace in Manama, the capital of the small Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain. In return, Jacko promised to help al-Khalifat launch his own record label, Two Seas Records, which would feature the sheikh himself as the premier pop star. The way Jacko was able to keep a straight face upon hearing this offer, I’m sure—aside from needing someplace to stay where he wouldn’t need to constantly be on the lookout for people wanting to kick his ass—is that his facial muscles no longer work.

But in any event, long story short, Jacko has seemingly renegged on the deal after leaving Bahrain to shack up in Vegas, and the sheikh is none too happy about that. While his lawsuit doesn’t appear to demand any monetary amount, he’s demanding that Jacko return to Bahrain to work on his album and label as promised. Hey, I don’t blame him… I’m sure he had to put up with a decent amount of Jacko’s idiosyncrasies while he was living there. Then again, as previously stated (and covered in The Saturday Swindle Sheet #113) by Jacko’s abusive asshole father, Joe Jackson, “[I]n Bahrain, behavior including stripping naked and curling up in a fetal position inside of a cardboard castle while having a 12-year-old boy urinate on your face as a naked Verne Troyer throws peeled grapes at your buttocks is not only tolerated, but encouraged.” You heard it here first.

50 Cent is a f*cking choad. Yes, so is Kanye West, but 50 Cent has him beaten by a long shot. For the first time ever, this writer will go on the record as supporting Kanye West, in this, 50 Cent’s recently concocted “record-selling feud”.

For those of you just joining us, Kanye West’s Graduation and 50 Cent’s Curtis will both be released on Sept. 11. While the usually pompous West has shied away from any sort of inflammatory talk towards his fellow rapper, 50 Cent is chock-a-block full of hot air vis-à-vis proclaiming that his album is by far the superior one.

For those of you doubting this, 50 Cent decided that it would be a good idea to try and set up a presidential-style debate on BET, to determine which album is better. “What am I going to debate about? I’m going to go in the studio and make music. … When I heard that thing about the debate, I thought that was the stupidest thing. When my album drops and 50’s album drops, you’re gonna get a lot of good music at the same time.”

While I’ll be the first to point out that Kanye West is an egotistical prig, at least he makes pretty good music, whereas 50’s material often leaves much to be desired, and this stunt seems like more of a red herring to distract fans from the flaming pile of shit that Curtis will likely be.

Moreover, after hearing that West would not be taking part in his shameless publicity stunt (perhaps instead opting to let the music do the talking?), 50 Cent upped the ante, saying that if Kanye West sells more records than him on Sept. 11, he’ll “no longer [perform] music,” adding, “I’ll write music and work with my other artists, but I won’t put out any more solo albums. … They would like to see Kanye West give me a problem because I’ve worked myself into a space where I’ve become the favorite. … And I bet this: When Kanye West’s sales come in, he’s gonna have a 70 percent decrease cause Def Jam is gonna buy records [during the first week] to keep him closer to 50 Cent. So watch the first week and then watch the second week. Watch his ass drop off the planet.”

He also added that Kanye West might get more awards and media recognition, but he makes more money, showing that he really has no passion for the music at all, instead preferring to market subpar rap music to the same impressionable idiots who buy albums by musicians like Soulja Boy (I use the term “musicians” very loosely when referring to him) and Nickelback.

But do you realize what this means? If 50 Cent doesn’t sell as many records as Kanye West, we’ll never have another 50 Cent solo album, not to mention the sure kick in the rocks that this would do to his ego. So for those of you out there reading this, do us all a favor and buy Kanye West’s Graduation on Sept. 11. Sure, you can go ahead and leave it in the cellophane and return it two weeks later, but even if you keep the album, it’s not only going to be better than Curtis, but fifteen dollars is a small price to pay to see 50 Cent take a shot like this.

Of course, if Kanye West does manage to sell more records, watch 50 Cent retract his statement after getting stir-crazy (cough*Jay-Z*hack) or slip in some sort of loophole that will have him releasing older, unreleased recordings for the next ten years. Either way, we haven’t seen the last of him.

But still, the shot to his ego would be f*cking priceless. Sure, he’d still be around in some capacity, but he’ll always be marked with the stigma of having to end his solo career because he wasn;t as good as he says he is.

Do it for the children. And if you hate children, do it for Widro.