News

Faith No More last played a concert in August 2016, and it appears they won’t be returning to the stage anytime soon. Drummer Mike Bordin says that singer Mike Patton has “gone from being unable to do the shows to clearly being unwilling to do shows with us.”

Patton was supposed to return to the stage with Faith No More in 2021, but canceled all scheduled concerts at that time due to mental health struggles. He has since returned to performing live with his band Mr. Bungle, but Faith No More have yet to reschedule any shows.

In 2022, Patton told The Guardian that the pandemic took a toll on him, and that he turned to alcohol during those dark times. “The idea of doing more Faith No More shows — it was stressful. It affected me mentally. I don’t know why, but the drinking just … happened.” He added, “The band is rock solid,...

Faith No More haven’t played a proper show in nine years, and it appears that fans will have to wait a while longer to see — or hear — from Mike Patton and company again.

While the band isn’t quite no more just yet, keyboardist/rhythm guitarist Roddy Bottum offered up an update on the group in a new Substack post, writing that the band is on a “semi permanent hiatus.”

Bottum opened the Substack post by discussing his current musical endeavors, which don’t appear to involve Faith No More for the foreseeable future.

“I live in NYC and I work with my boyfriend in a band called Man On Man and two awesome friends in a band called Crickets and also sometimes the horror art project gnarl core Nastie Band,” wrote Bottum. “Fnm is kind of on semi permanent hiatus and Imperial Teen is making a record slowly but definitely.

Man on Man, the duo comprised of Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum and his partner Joey Holman, have announced their sophomore album, Provincetown, due out July 16th via Polyvinyl Records. They also dropped the video for lead single “Showgirls.”

Much of Provincetown was written in the Massachusetts town that gives its namesake and where Bottum and Holman shared their first home together. For example, the noisy pop-punker “Showgirls” was inspired by a Provincetown variety show and sees Bottum and Holman trading off on vocals and guitar licks.

“As we lean into what Man on Man is and will be, two things immediately come up. Energy and community,” said Bottum in the press release. “’Showgirls’ is all that.”

The track’s music video epitomizes that sense “energy and community” and the band’s unapologetic LGBTQ+ themes, as Bottum and Holman perform to a room of men who turn the mosh...

When Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum and his boyfriend Joey Holman visited Oxnard, California, a town 60 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, last year to handle a family matter, they suddenly found themselves isolated due to pandemic lockdown restrictions. So the couple started making music together.

“Roddy was just like, ‘We’re both musicians, let’s just do it to pass time.’ At first, we were just going to share with our friends,” Holman explains. Then, after releasing their first track and video, “Daddy,” under their new Man on Man moniker last May,...

Crickets — a new band featuring members of Le Tigre and Faith No More — have released a thumping new reprisal of toxic masculinity, “Elastic,” set to appear on their upcoming self-titled debut album, out July 17th via Muddguts.

The track is centered around a steady dance groove cut with a delightful and delirious screeching guitar riff. Jd Samson (of Le Tigre and Men) keeps her lyrics straightforward but potent, singing, “I thought that becoming the toxic masculinity that hurt me/Would give me the power to keep on livin’/But indeed I was still toxic,...

Last week, Man On Man, a new rock duo created by Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum and his musical partner and boyfriend, Joey Holman, released the video for their first single “Daddy.” The clip, which featured Bottum and Holman embracing in their tighty-whities, sharing a banana Lady and the Tramp-style, and seductively pulling on each other’s underwear, was not without its sexual overtones but featured no nudity and paled in comparison to some of YouTube’s more overtly sexual videos by A-list artists.

“The statement of the song...

Roddy Bottum — the veteran Faith No More keyboardist who has also played with Nastie Band, Imperial Teen, and Crickets — is no stranger to pushing boundaries. He came out publicly in the early Nineties when that sort of brazen honesty could lose friends and any chance of being in a hard rock band. “It felt dangerous then,” he told Out magazine in 2012. “I got a lot of warnings. At the same time, it was exciting to be amid people asking, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? You might lose fans.

Sebastián Silva’s scathing, scorched-earth take on bro culture, code-switching and how best buddies double as bitter underminers kicks off with a mistake. Two guys are pushing their car down an upstate New York road, shooting the shit. One of them is waiting for his friends to come along and get them, since they’re all converging on a pal’s house in the Catskills for a long guys’ weekend. The other is essentially along for the ride, as his apartment back in Manhattan is filled with his girlfriend’s family.

"Never trust the white man." Magnolia Pictures has debuted the first official trailer for an indie drama titled Tyrel, the latest feature from Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva. This premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year, and it also played at the Seattle and Sydney Film Festivals. The film stars Jason Mitchell as a guy named Tyler, who joins one of his friends for a party at a cabin in the woods. After arriving, he discovers he's the only black guy there and things start to get nerve-wracking. Also starring Christopher Abbott, Nicolas Arze, Roddy Bottum, Michael Cera, Philip Ettinger, Caleb Landry Jones, Michael Zegen, and Ann Dowd. I saw this film at Sundance and didn't really like it. Though it seems like Get Out, it's more like the anti-Get Out. Have fun. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Sebastián Silva's Tyrel, direct from Magnolia's YouTube:...

As the Faith No More and Boo-Ya Tribe song goes, 'It's just another body murdered!' As it appears that Neill Blomkamp's much talked about sequel Alien 5 is officially dead with no signs of resuscitation. And we can pretty much blame Ridley Scott's lackluster Alien: Covenant for the cancelation of this particular franchise installment.

Speaking with The Verge, director Neill Blomkamp hammered the final nail into the coffin of his once anticipated sequel. He says this.

"I think it's totally dead, yes. That would be an accurate assumption at this point. It's sad. I spent a long time working on that, and I feel like it was really pretty awesome. But politically, the way it's gone now, and the way that it all is, it's just not going to live."

The true story behind what happened may never come out. But as it were, Ridley Scott decided he...

Over the past couple of days, there has been a spat of fake Suicide Squad soundtrack listings making the rounds, for whatever reason. But to counter this, Amazon has actually updated their site with pre-sale information. And they've announced the confirmed song list. The hard rocking line-up is headlined by some usual suspect, including Skrillex, Lil' Wayne, Eminem and Twenty One Pilots. We also get a look at the cover art.

When it comes to choosing his music for any given project, David Ayer has been as meticulous as Quentin Tarantino. And it was said in the past that some of the older songs included in the movie are quite important to the plot in the same way that Star-Lord's Awesome Mix Tape Vol. 1 was to Guardians of the Galaxy. Though the two records have a decidedly different flavor. This one looks to be a bit on the heavier side.

Cryptic Corporation

Rock has long been a breeding ground for weirdos. From the crazy prog concept albums of the 70s, to the aggressive post-punk groups of the 80s, to the alt-rock oddballs of the 90s, rock music has never shied away from the surreal or the strange. Perhaps its the genre’s outsider status that has allowed such unusual acts to prosper. Or maybe it just attracts nutters.

There are a few bands, however, that go that little bit further than most into the realms of the insane. They take the genre beyond “a bit bizarre” and into seriously mind-boggling territory. These are bands that simultaneously make audiences utterly confused and completely enthralled. They inspire humour, intrigue and a general response that amounts to “Wtf?!”

The 15 weirdest bands to ever grace a stage are included here. There’s the unclassifiable genre jumpers Ween, the clashing sonic fusions of Praxis and Naked City,...

Wikimedia Commons

Have you heard about the the anonymous band that everyone believed was The Beatles in disguise? What about the holes in the murder case against Sid Vicious? Did Tupac really foresee his own death? Which bodily fluid is the beverage of choice for the Prince Of Darkness? Is the great Paul McCartney actually… Whisper it… The late Paul McCartney?!

Music culture is defined by its larger than life figures. Gyrating Elvis, egomaniacal Kanye, strutting Jagger, shape-shifting Madonna, androgynous Bowie… They’re all mythologised and built up to be strange, alien characters from another world that we don’t fully understand. It’s no surprise, then, that many of these idols are the focus of a wealth of crazy, creepy stories that border on the unbelievable (and are often a bit gross!).

Sceptical? Of course you are. But then, you haven’t read the compelling evidence that suggests that...

Refused are a hardcore punk band from Umea, Sweden that started in 1991 originally. They played for the better part of the 90s before splitting up in 1998 after releasing their magnum opus, “The Shape of Punk to Come”.Their new album certainly echoes the sound of that era. They could easily have fit on a bill alongside Fugazi and Faith No More. They mix elements of punk rock, metal, and funk and their lyrics are very anti-conformist and leftist. They recently reformed in the 2012 and did a world tour and played a series of festivals as well as headlining […]...

Felipe Dana/AP

As festival season is well underway, we are now at the halfway point of the year and it has proved a fruitful one for rock music. Despite the claims that ‘rock is dead’, the genre has been revitalized somewhat in the mainstream with bands like Royal Blood and Muse bringing their harder flavor of rock to the general public.

This has been further solidified by the recent study on Spotify that suggests that heavy metal is more popular than pop music. Though slightly misleading, it’s clear that both genres still maintain a passionate and loyal fan-base.

2015 has also saw a resurgence of older artists making a return to the center stage with bands like Slayer taking to the metal pulpit once again and the much anticipated album release by Faith No More after eighteen years out of action. It has also been a great year for...

WWE.com

The WWE Nxt brand continues to grow as they were announced as part of the Aftershock music festival in Sacramento, California on October 24 & 25. It’s a different kind of venue for WWE’s developmental system that is growing as an alternative WWE show.

The last time WWE Nxt was in Sacramento was during WrestleMania weekend when they drew an impressive crowd of 5,000 people for a Friday night show.

Its interesting to note that in the WWE.com release about the show, they didn’t mention current Nxt champion Kevin Owens. It’s very possible that Owens might only be on the WWE main roster by that point, so that’s why they failed to mention him even though he would be one of the biggest names if he was there.

The graphic they used features current Nxt Champion Sasha Banks, top diva Charlotte and one of the top male wrestlers Finn Balor.

Welcome to a new week of Skip Or Repeat, capsule reviews of the week's newest albums. New albums out this week, on May 19: '80s love from Killers frontman Brandon Flowers, fresh noise from Paul Weller, a mess from Jamie Foxx, Faith No More's return after a 17-year absence and a pop-club mix from Zedd. Additional recommendations from my end include Holly Herndon with crazed beats, Holly Miranda with some true rockers, Hot Chip's chirpy electronica, and Shamir's outstanding brew of funk, soul, R&B and dance. What new music is on your radar this week? What have you been listening to?...

WWE.com

Cm Punk, despite having been signed just a month ago and with no fight lined up until at least the latter half of 2015, was paraded out at Ufc 182 for a Q&A session with fans in attendance in Las Vegas Friday. It was a no-holds barred sort of event with a pair of open mics and Punk speaking relatively candidly.

Despite a fairly drunken audience, pretty much everyone was on their best behavior, although some of the questions ranged from where the Cm in his stage name comes from (Faith No More’s original lead singer) to his time writing for Marvel to whether he would play rock, paper, scissors with a very drunk fan at the end of the Q&A.

All silliness aside, however, Mma fans did learn a little more about Punk’s thought process, where he sees himself going as far as his Ufc career,...

Thousands up on thousands of albums came out in 2014, and just as many are due for 2015. There are some we just don't know much about yet -- like those from big names including Rihanna, Kanye West and Adele. Acts like Faith No More, Giorgio Moroder and Sleater-Kinney have reformed or come out of retirement and dutifully outlined their plans. More mysterious artists like Frank Ocean, Radiohead and Bjork have only given snippets or hints of their activities. Check out what may be in store for Kanye West, Belle & Sebastian, Drake, Modest Mouse, Kendrick Lamar, Gwen Stefani, Beach House, Miguel and others in the new year. Whose album are you most excited for this year?...

Woody, Buzz and the rest of the Toy Story gang almost visited their birthplace of Taiwan and had an encounter with Transforming robots in Toy Story 3. This was before Pixar came abroad the project, and the story greatly changed into what we know today. But new concept art has emerged, and offers a look at what could have been.

Back in 2004, Disney and Pixar were feuding over the rights to certain Pixar created characters, with Disney forming a new company called Circle 7 Animation. The studio assigned a creative team to come up with a concept for Toy Story 3, which was starting to move forward without Pixar's involvement. Over the years, the plot to this proposed sequel has been revealed in bits and pieces. It would have revolved around the Buzz Lightyear toy malfunctioning and being recalled back to Tawain.

Artist Jim Martin (not the former guitarist for Faith No More...

Since reuniting, punk-metal-rap-and-more outfit Faith No More has mostly been content to mine their back catalog for live shows. That all changes with the upcoming release of the charming ditty "Motherf**ker," their first new studio recording in 17 years. The song will recieve a physical release as a limited 7" single on Record Store Day's upcoming Black Friday, but for now it can be streamed in all its glory over at Rollingstone.com. "Motherf**ker" fits in nicely with the group's pre-millennial output, as well as Patton's diverse post-fnm career. It's a sweeping, cinematic song in which a sinister piano collides with militant snare drums, while Patton's distinctive vocals careen from spoken word raps to wounded howls to threatening whispers, repeating the phrase "get the mother**ker on the phone!" so often that you might actually remove your headphones and call the "motherf**ker" in your life. You can pre-order the track from iTunes here.

For the first of five nights playing "Late Show With David Letterman," the Foo Fighters brought with them a special guest to cover a very special song. Dave Grohl and co. drafted the help of their pal Zac Brown (who appears on their upcoming album "Sonic Highways") for a faithful cover of Black Sabbath's seminal anti-war anthem "War Pigs." With the addition of roots rocker Brown, the performance features no less than four guitars, but they still can't measure up to the de-tuned menace of Sabbath axeman Tommy Iommi. The vocals are performed by both Brown and Grohl (if you can see him behind all that hair), but likewise can't replicate Ozzy Osbourne's original performance. Still, they're clearly having one hell of a fun time.  Watch it here: Fun fact: "War Pigs" has also been covered by bands like The Flaming Lips, Faith No More, Cake and Quasi.

Remember Faith No More? The band behind 1989's smash hit, Epic? (If you're in your mid-30s to 40s, then this answer is yes.) Well, they're back together again and in the studio, getting set to release their first full-length album in 18 years in 2015. Britpop pioneers New Order, who recorded the chart-topping song Blue Monday in 1983, are also back in the studio, getting ready to record their 10th studio album. Though they never officially split up, they have changed labels over the years and this will be their first album without longtime bassist Peter Hook. Erasure, who saw their biggest hits like "Oh,...

Remember Faith No More? The band behind 1989's smash hit, Epic? (If you're in your mid-30s to 40s, then this answer is yes.) Well, they're back together again and in the studio, getting set to release their first full-length album in 18 years in 2015. Britpop pioneers New Order, who recorded the chart-topping song Blue Monday in 1983, are also back in the studio, getting ready to record their 10th studio album. Though they never officially split up, they have changed labels over the years and this will be their first album without longtime bassist Peter Hook. Erasure, who saw their biggest hits like "Oh,...

When Bay Area metal experimentalists Faith No More reunited for a world tour in 2009, many fans assumed new recordings would follow. Well, better late than never. The group -- frontman Mike Patton, drummer Mike Bordin, keyboard player Roddy Bottum, bassist Bill Gould, and guitarist Jon Hudson -- are in the midst of recording their first full-length record since 1997’s "Album of the Year," with April 2015 as the projected release date. Longtime lead guitarist Jim Martin is not taking part in the reunion. In anticipation of the album's release, Fnm will drop a limited edition 7-inch single featuring the new song “Motherf*cker” on Record Store Day’s Black Friday event on November 28). The B-side will feature a remix by J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus). The vinyl single will be limited to 5000 copies, but will then be released digitally on December 9. "We’ve always shared a chemistry between ourselves that’s unique to this band,...

We're back with another installment of Radio 66.6! This week features the latest news, music, videos and tour dates from the likes of Faith No More, In Flames, Anthrax, Opeth, Black Label Society, Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Slash, Chiodos, Misery Signals, Senses Fail, Doyle and more. Don't touch that dial.

News

The reunited Faith No More are rumored to be working on a new album.

In Flames’ eleventh album, Siren Charms, will be released on September 9th via Sony/Red.

Anthrax will release a live DVD/Blu-ray titled Chile On Hell on September 16.

Slash will release his third solo album, World On Fire, on September 16. The first single drops on June 13.

Music

Listen to a new Opeth song titled "Cusp of Eternity" here. It’s the first single from Pale Communion, out August 26 on Roadrunner Records.

Check out Battlecross' cover of Slayer’s classic "War Ensemble" here.

Videos

Watch Arch Enemy's...

It has been causing problems since neanderthals began walking the earth. It has grown more powerful over the centuries. It's now ready to take action. What is it? It's It! What is it? Damn you, Faith No More! Now try getting that out of your head today, and read on for your first look at It Follows!

With a riveting central performance from Maika Monroe and a strikingly ominous electronic score by Disasterpeace, It Follows is an artful psychosexual thriller from David Robert Mitchell (whose The Myth of the American Sleepover premiered at Critics' Week in 2010).

The film also stars Keir Gilchrist ("The United States of Tara"), Daniel Zovatto (Laggies), Jake Weary ("Chicago Fire"), Olivia Luccardi ("Orange Is the New Black"), and Lili Sepe (Spork).

Synopsis

For 19-year-old Jay (Maika Monroe, At Any Price), the fall should be about school, boys, and weekends at the lake. Yet, after a seemingly innocent sexual encounter,...

London, March 31: Iconic rock band Black Sabbath will be headlining 2014's Barclaycard British Summer Time festival at the Hyde Park.

Band member Ozzy Osbourne said that his group is beyond honoured to be allowed to put on a show and hope that the royals will enjoy it, the Mirror reported.

Other bands who will be performing at the event include McBusted, Soundgarden, Faith No More, Motorhead and Soulfly.

In 2013, the music festival park was headlined by The Rolling Stones. (Ani)...

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

If you love Metallica, you know all about how great Master of Puppets, Creeping Death, Seek & Destroy and all of the classic tracks are. Metallica’s entire pre-radio play catalogue contains a litany of definitive songs that fans pretty much agree are great.

But there are also lots of Metallica tracks that aren’t as appreciated on such a large scale as the band’s more popular and acclaimed songs. With Metallica playing more and more varied setlists these days, digging into lesser explored corners of their back catalogue, we look at five of the best obscure Metallica tracks.

If you don’t see your favourite obscure track listed here, share it with us in the comments! What are your favourites?

5. Tuesday’s Gone

This Lynyrd Skynyrd cover was originally recorded in 1997 for a Ksjo Radio acoustic session, to promote Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit gigs,...

Easy Peasy: Stein Returns to High School Hallways for Sweet Hearted Message Movie

Five years before Mean Girls brought the monstrous high heeled bitch posse back to the forefront of PG-13 blockbuster entertainment, director Darren Stein’s 1999 film Jawbreaker explored the morbid universe of a trio of black hearted murderous maidens in the delightful R tradition of Heathers. In his first feature since then, Stein goes back to the hallways of high school with G.B.F., once again revisiting the formula of the popular female triumvirate, only this time aligning himself with the spirit of John Hughes. Many aspects of high school life may seemingly never change, but Stein’s latest rendering, while extolling a message that seems deliriously obvious to the adult world, cheerfully proposes that even this rigid, socially conditioned environment has had opportunity to grapple with progressive notions of equality.

The three most popular girls in high-school, ‘Shley...

Ahead of its theatrical release, G.B.F. has shared an exclusive clip with VH1. The movie tells the story of two closeted best friends Tanner, (Michael J. Willett, United States Of Tara) and Brent (Paul Iacono,The Hard Times Of R.J. Berger). While Brent longs for popularity, it’s Tanner who catches the school’s attention when he is accidentally outed. Soon the three most popular girls in school fight to land Tanner as their gay best friend. In the clip above, Tanner unites the queen bees (Sasha Pieterse, Pretty Little Liars; Xosha Roquemore, Precious; and Andrea Bowen, Desperate Housewives) in a “reveal” that recalls the iconic entrance from Jawbreaker.

Because both movies share the same director (Darren Stein) it comes as no surprise there’s a reference to the scene, which turns 15 years old this month. In fact, when asked about the scene made famous by Rose McGowan and...

Pete Kowalsky is a very interesting character. A mainstay of the Florida Metal/Hardcore scene, he is best known as the vocalist/songwriter for Remembering Never, but is also notable for being the current vocalist for the band xBishopx, formerly known as xBishopx, which lyrically, focuses on the Straight Edge lifestyle.

He is known for being very opinionated and outspoken; he has hard line views on many issues that affect us all, whether we like it or not. He has written angry and thought provoking songs on matters such as animal cruelty, the meat trade, gay rights, faceless art critics, gay rights and much much more. If you thought Rage Against the Machine was as angry as politically motivated music gets, then you really haven’t listened to a Remembering Never record.

They have three full lengths, and are about to release their first in 7 years.

Pete has been busy with what he calls,...

Although he's most famously known as the drummer for iconic masked metallers Slipknot, Joey Jordison has also been a regular FEARnet favorite thanks to his many macabre side projects – including a stretch on the road with Rob Zombie and the reunion of legendary shock-rock unit Murderdolls, which he reanimated a few years ago with co-founder Wednesday 13. Jordison is still active with Slipknot, of course, but during a lengthy offline period (partly due to the death of bassist Paul Gray in 2010), he turned his creative energies from that band and focused instead on forming the industrial-metal supergroup Scar The Martyr – who have just unleashed their mammoth self-titled debut album. “I was working on new Slipknot material but I had to shelve it and wait until we all know we’re getting back together,” says Jordison. “But I couldn’t stop writing! I stayed in the studio because I had so many...

Patty Schemel is best remembered as the drummer of the alternative rock group Hole, fronted by erstwhile alt-queen rocker, now-notorious loudmouth Courtney Love. For top level context, Schemel laid the thunderous beat on both of Hole’s most popular and well-known records, including 1994’s Live Through This, which was released just four days after frontwoman Courtney Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in their home. This is all well-documented. What only the most hardcore of rock aficionados will remember was that Schemel’s drum parts on 1997’s follow-up record Celebrity Skin were replaced by a session drummer at the behest of producer Michael Beinhorn (knob-twiddler for records like Soundgarden's Superunknown, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Mother's Milk and Grave Dancers Union by Soul Asylum).

What isn’t well-documented in the career and life of Hole and Schemel -- and this is what “Hit So Hard: The Life...

On 2007’s The Hair The TV The Baby And The Band, intermittent indie-rock concern Imperial Teen attempted to square its rock ’n’ roll lifestyle with the reality of middle age. “And now we have to book the rental cars / We no longer smash guitars,” sang Roddy Bottum (of Faith No More fame) on the resigned “Room With A View.” The new Feel The Sound—Imperial Teen’s first album in five years—is similarly adult-minded, but remarkably more assured and hopeful. It’s the sound of a band comfortable in its own skin, but still not afraid to embrace ...

If there’s a theme to 2011’s crop of films featuring lesbian/bi women, it’s that this was a very good year for emerging voices. First time and younger filmmakers made a mark in huge ways this year, providing everything from spellbinding documentaries (No Look Pass), heart-wrenching drama (Pariah, Break My Fall, Circumstance), and fresh comedy (Jamie and Jessie are Not Together, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same). Pair that with the quality coming from established filmmakers like Celine Sciamma (Tomboy), and you have a year marked by the presence of strong, unique voices.

Hard Hitters

Nowhere is that strength of vision more prominent than in the year’s dramas. Well-meaning (but tired) melodramas were drowned out by clear-eyed, nuanced filmmaking, most evident in Pariah, the story of a young African-American woman struggling with her identity, and Circumstance, which features the romance between two teenaged girls in Iran.

As AfterEllen.

The world-renowned vocalist and musician scores director Saverio Cotanzo's latest horror drama, and offers an update on his own ever-growing slate of projects

Though The Solitude of Prime Numbers is not readily available in the States, as it has not been released theatrically or on DVD, the soundtrack for both the movie, and the book upon which it is based, will be available in stores and for download starting today, Tuesday, November 1st. It may seem odd that the soundtrack to a film that isn't slated for a Us release would be something of interest, until you learn that it was scored by world renown musician and vocalist Mike Patton, who has decided to release the album as a stand-alone solo record; a companion piece to both the movie and Paolo Giordano's Italian novel upon which it is based.

This is Mike Patton's third time scoring a film project,...

When most think of rock docs, it’s likely VH1′s award-winning Behind the Music pops into their mind. Blending a featured band’s comprehensive history with a fast-paced narrative and popular music, it was a documentary series that was accessible and entertaining to the ardent fans and newbies alike. P. David Ebersole’s Hit So Hard is not so inclusive, favoring a storytelling method that assumes the film’s audience will be devotees of the bygone grunge age – or at the least deeply fascinated by Kurt and Courtney. Anyone else might struggle to follow the film’s tenuous thread.

Hit So Hard focuses on the roller-coaster-like life story of drummer Patty Schemel, an outcast turned struggling artist turned rock star turned literal crack whore turned mentor. It’s a compelling tale and Schemel is engrossing as she openly reveals her highs and lows with a self-deprecating sense of humor and utter lack of self-pity.

Screening Times: Tuesday March 15th, 9:15pm (Alamo Ritz 1), Friday march 18th, 7:00pm (Vimeo Theater)

A veteran director and producer of cable television (Wicked Wicked Games, Desire), P. David Ebersole’s rock doc Hit So Hard is a typical booze-and-drug-filled profile of his friend and collaborator Patty Schemel, the original drummer for the seminal grunge band Hole, who fell on hard times after the always controversial rock band’s heyday.

Filmmaker: How did you first conceive of Hit So Hard?

Ebersole: My friend Patty Schemel brought me a gold box, filled with 40-plus hours of never-before-seen video footage from when she was on tour with her band Hole. She shot the tape on Hi-8 and was afraid it would disintegrate soon, so she came asking for advice about how to best preserve it. Soon, the two of us were transferring the tapes and watching the footage together. Patty, a great raconteur,...

Anybody who listened to Hole during their peak knows that the band was dominated by frontwoman Courtney Love. Her personality was so outsized and her voice so big and distinct that there was little room for anybody else in the band to really shine. But Hole were an incredibly efficient rock machine, and a lot of that was because of the savage precision of drummer Patty Schemel. Drummers tend to get short shrift in any band (save for iconic singularities like Keith Moon, John Bonham or Neil Peart), so it's about time that one of the more talented members of the time-keeping fraternity gets the attention she deserves.

That attention comes in the form of "Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death of Patty Schemel," a documentary about Schemel's life and career behind the kit. The film, which borrows its title from a song from Hole's 1998 album Celebrity Skin,...

Director Ralph Ziman takes us behind-the-scenes of this amazing South African crime thriller

The amazing South African crime drama Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema is finally coming to DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, September 28th. Directed by Ralph Ziman, this intense tale proves to be an unflinching look into the crime, corruption and the transgressions of those looking to survive in the most crime-infested district of Johannesburg.

Compared to classics such as Scarface and Goodfellas, the movie follows young Lucky Kunene (Rapulana Seiphemo) who quickly graduates from small smash and grabs and petty crimes to more aggressive heists, such as armed robbery and carjacking. Soon, Lucky realizes he needs a bigger score to fulfill his goals of making it big, and escaping from the slums, to a dream house by the sea. It's a provocative look at the fifteen-year dissolution of Apartheid, and it has resonated with audiences and critics across the globe.

When people ask me to ramble off the names of my favorite bands, there’s a few that I always mention. Faith No More. Helmet. Clutch. And Prong.

Prong first hit my radar in the early 1990’s. I was in high school, and MTV still played music. A weekend staple was always Headbangers Ball, and it was through that show that Prong first hit my ears during the era of their 1991 Epic Records release Prove You Wrong.

The music was powerful, heavy, yet uncluttered. The bass groove was infectious, the drums precise, and the guitar and vocals of front man Tommy Victor was the icing on the cake. Being a sophomore in High School at the time, I had my dad take me down to the local “CD Exchange” in search of the band’s earliest works.

After months of searching, I’d been able to go back to the beginning.