Tiger Clutch

Tiger Clutch might be the greatest glam rock band you’ve never heard. With influences based on Judas Priest, Nirvana, and Kick Axe, Tiger Clutch are five local musicians who play the part of grizzled hair metal veterans, having rocked, partied, and screwed their way through decades of music history. When it’s time to rock, they take the stage names of Thor (singer and local comedian David Leon), The Blast (guitarist Derek Reinfried), Brick Johnson (guitarist Joe Cushman), Shredderella (bassist Jennifer Reinfried), and Beatz “Off” McKenzie (drummer Riley Heninger). With a rock fist in the air and their tongue firmly in their cheek, they release their latest (in reality, first) album on Thursday December 1st. We took a few minutes to discuss the new record with them.

Maxmas - Volume II

Christmas albums tend to be schmaltzy overblown affairs by aging artists looking to cash in on their demographically-changing audience as they move from the hipster stage to developing families. Scott Weiland’s latest bizarre big-band/lounge Holiday embarrassment is just another in a long line of overt money grabs by rockers as they struggle for relevance in the fluid and fickle morass of pop music popularity. Christmas albums are for guys like Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond, right? (Yes, he did release one and yes, I did see The Jazz Singer, thank you.)

Well, thank sweet Zombie Jesus that the Madison Area Christmas Compilation Vol. 2 (abbreviated M.A.Xmas) is the antidote to that kind of thing. 

M.A.X.-mas Volume II

We’ve all heard the lousy Christmas songs that get beaten into our head over and over every single year since our conception. The one’s that make you go just a tad bit crazy and one more step closer to that breaking point. If you’re from the U.S., you know all about the corporate sponsored shopping spree we as Americans partake in, despite whether or not we have money. Now, I’m no Scrooge. But if I’m going to have to suffer through another year of thousands of meaningless dollars spent and seeing family half of us don’t like as it is, I want some kick ass music to dull the pain.

Anthrax

Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeath. Imagine sharing the stage with these three metal icons for some of the most killer metal shows of all time. Amazing right? It’s all in a day’s work for guitarist Rob Caggiano and the boys in Anthrax. The legendary metal band was part of one of the most incredible lineups and concerts metal has ever seen. Out on the road in support of their latest album “Worship Music,” Anthrax is hotter than ever and is out to prove it to each and every metalhead. Rob was nice enough to talk to Maximum Ink’s Aaron Manogue about the new record, the Big Four show for the ages at Yankee Stadium, his experiences in producing and how Anthrax has transcended the ages to stay on top, where they belong.

Maximum Ink: You started tracking the record about four years ago in 2007and it was released in 2011. That’s quite a long time for a record to be built. How did the album change over the years from when it first started?
Rob Caggiano: Well, like you said, we started in 2007 and we got pretty far. We got all the way up to the mixing stage but unfortunately the lineup wasn’t exactly stable at the time and things got a little crazy. We basically had to put the record on ice for a while until we figured out what we were doing and who was going to be singing for the band. Fast forward a few years and Joey Belladonna comes back for these Big Four shows and one thing led to another and he finally felt comfortable enough to want to sing on the record. So we went and opened the books again, so to speak, worked on what we had and made the changes to what we needed to fix. One of the cool things that resulted in having this much time with the songs is we basically pushed these songs as far as we could push them. You know what I mean? It wasn’t trying to beat the gun or whatever or be on schedule. It was kind of like, let’s take these songs and make them as good as they can possible be and that’s what we did.

Malakai

Hip hop artist Malakai is the founder of the Substance Over Hype Movement. His latin influences can be heard on the tracks Fresh, Ghetto Blaster, and Concrete Rose. His career began as a freestyle battle MC. His latest album is titled MOVE.

Maximum Ink: What was it like growing up in Tucson? What were you like as a kid?
Malakai: To put it simply Tucson is a very real place. It’s very similar to New York in that people don’t hold much back. Tucson is near the border of Arizona and Mexico so it has a very large amount of drug and gang activity and I can’t say that I didn’t get pulled into those things. I was definitely a charismatic trouble-maker as a kid. I also had a lot of rough things go down in my youth and was independent at a very young age.

I loved a lot of the same things I still do (music, skating, dance, sports) but unfortunately my distraction to negative outlets took away from more time that I could’ve spent on those. What’s fresh though is that now I’m at a place where I’m still at it and out trying to hit certain moves and tricks for the first time—and I share that with all the kids still passionate about their movements.

MI: What advice would you offer people regardless of age who struggling to make the best of negative environments, etc?
M: I believe that you cannot control the things that happen to you…only how you respond to them. Without outlets and faith there’s not much hope, but with the right outlets and a conscious choice to change things, the outcome is always positive and always possible.

MI: Do you think you would have made it this far if not for music? Why do you think music is such a powerfully comforting thing in times of trouble? 
M: I can’t say where I would be without music because my love of it and dreams to do it go back as far as my first childhood memories.It’s always been what I wanted. 

Big John Bates to cure Madison music fans with hellfire remedies

The doctor is in. Big John Bates will share his hellfire remedies for ho-hum music with audiences at The Frequency Nov. 10. When Big John Bates plays in Madison, audiences can expect to hear new material featured on the band’s upcoming release Battered Bones.