Archive for category Uncategorized
Trump Defends Action Bronson; Rips Ghostface Killah
Posted by Keith Spillett in Uncategorized on July 22, 2015
Presidential candidate Donald Trump might be a stranger to rap music, but he is no stranger to controversy. That’s why few were surprised that Trump has gotten himself involved in the heated feud between rap icon Ghostface Killah and Action Bronson.
At a speech sponsored by the Georgia branch of the John Birch Society, Trump leapt to the defense of Bronson. “One of the most important cultural figures in America today is Action Bronson. I’ll never forget when I first saw the movie ‘Death Wish’ back in the 1970s. I thought to myself, ‘There is a man that understands how the justice system in America should work!’”
Trump went on to praise Bronson’s war record. “Not only did he serve heroically under the brilliant military mind of Lee Marvin, he fought side-by-side with great Americans like Ernest Borgnine and George Kennedy during what many thought would be a suicide mission against Nazi forces in World War 2.”
He was inspired to get involved in this rap battle after seeing a Bronson’s picture on the news yesterday. “He looks awful. He’s gained weight. He looks like he hasn’t shaved or bathed in months. He could be selling pencils at the airport. The so-called ‘Ghostface Killah’ should not talk about a great American the way he has.”
Trump took umbrage with Ghostface’s Youtube rant against Bronson calling it “tasteless”.
“I watched your little Youtube program yesterday, Ghostface. Listened to you make shameful and tasteless remarks with the beautiful music of Teddy Pendergrass playing behind you. If Teddy were here today, Ghostface, he’d have stood up and knocked some sense into you.”
Trump even made veiled threats against the rapper to the delight of the crowd. “If I become President, I’ll have at my disposal thousands of people willing to do disappearing acts for me. How’s the CIA for starters, Ghostface?”
He finished by taunting the rapper to thunderous applause from the crowd. “I went to one of his shows once because someone told me Tony Stark was playing. When I saw it wasn’t Robert Downey Jr. flying around in a metal suit, blowing things up, I left.”
“People say he’s a New York rapper. I’m from New York. He’s from Staten Island. Do you know what we call Staten Island in New York, Ghostface? New Jersey!”
“Where’s your “Art of The Deal”, Ghostface? Where’s your casinos? Where’s your reality TV show? Where’s your plaque in the WWE Hall of Fame? “
Ghostface Killah has yet to comment on Trump’s scathing attack.
SPECIAL REPORT: Are Aliens Abducting Heavy Metal Fans?
Posted by Keith Spillett in Uncategorized on July 10, 2015
Three more public officials today denounced a new sub-genre of heavy metal growing in popularity amid recent widespread media attention. Known by fans as aliencore, the newest addition to the already saturated landscape of extreme music has been both praised and scorned by fans and critics alike. Now, some government authorities are calling for an outright ban of the music over allegations that it may be dangerous to its listeners.
The emergence of aliencore was first reported by music writer Budd Hopkins in an April 8th New York Times article. Investigating an increase in the number of missing persons cases among heavy metal fans, Hopkins inadvertently discovered an unusually high influx of new metal bands fronted by undocumented immigrants. Hopkins coined the term “aliencore” to refer to the new sub-genre created by these bands. Described by noted heavy metal documentarian Stanton Friedman as a cross between death metal and the drone of honeybees, aliencore has since garnered major radio airplay across the country and several bands have performed to national televised audiences.
The Times article references several of the more popular aliencore bands. In an interview with the founder of a group calling themselves Rings of Uranus, Hopkins quotes the musician as saying that he and his bandmates come from a small Italian town called Zeta Reticuli and, among other enigmatic statements, that he formed his band “around the time of the dawn of human civilization.”
The drummer of a band called Children of Kecksburg spoke to Hopkins about the artistic influences of the new aliencore movement. “It runs the gamut,” said the drummer. “Everything from 1950s-era civil defense films to cosmology and astrophysics to Whitley Strieber books.”
The members of another aliencore band called Hypnotic Regression seemed to imply that their music had an altruistic objective. “The mission of our band is to serve man.”
Despite the growing popularity of the sub-genre, several critical reviews have appeared. Phillip Klass, in a Rolling Stone review of a new album called The Drake Equation, referred to songs like Intergalactic Border Crossing and Paradoxical Paranoiac Probing as “nonsensical drivel.”
But the real controversy over the music stems from a report in the May edition of Scientific American that cited a connection between aliencore music and the disappearance of at least 750 self-described metalheads around the world. According to numerous local police sources, all of the missing people had attended a performance by an aliencore band only hours before their disappearances. While authorities continue to investigate, this circumstantial evidence has led several politicians and community leaders to call for the cancellation of all scheduled aliencore performances in their jurisdictions until a full investigation can be concluded.
Kenny Lofton, police chief of Gulf Breeze, Florida, held a hastily scheduled news conference this morning to announce the disappearance of at least 15 concertgoers from a performance by the band Sacred Hive the previous night. “We’re taking this extremely seriously,” said Chief Lofton. “Until further notice, I’ve issued a townwide prohibition against any further performances of this so-called aliencore music.”
At the same time, aliencore fans are expressing their support for the right of the bands to perform. Barney Hill of Rachel, Nevada, told CNN that be believes the disappearances have been blown out of proportion. “So what if a couple of dirtbags down in Kingman, Arizona, didn’t come home after an aliencore show last weekend? They probably got stoned and went camping or something. This is about free speech.”
In Europe, heavy metal fans have been as outspoken as their freedom-minded American counterparts. Herb Wells of Woking, England, was quoted by Sky News as saying that he fully supports the “right of these bands to perform. It’s the same thing every couple of years. Some group of parents or politicians wants to censor this kind of music.”
But in Aurora, Texas, Mayor Andy Van Slyke today ordered the destruction of all aliencore records from the local Sam Goody and Tower Records stores following the disappearance of three teenagers from a concert last week. “We’re fully cooperating with state and federal authorities,” said Mayor Van Slyke, “but in light of the many published reports concerning the possible connection between this music and the recent disappearances, we can’t risk any more of our children going missing.”
In recent days, several aliencore bands have gone on the record to defend their music. During an interview on MSNBC, Fhru Glarmorkiop, the bass player for a band called Fgoppreasewwmoarcqert, said “Yuydjh duirttyuu op rertnyopriy morkeeportuni nerlio.”
He went on to inform viewers that his band will defy any performance or recording bans and still plans to enter the studio next month to record its debut album, As the Wormhole Turns. The album, said Glarmorkiop, will feature a song played entirely in binary, called 001101000100100111010100, and include an aliencore cover of the Megadeth classic Hangar 18.
However, in the most stunning development of this unfolding story, an aliencore band called Hydrocephahic Hybrid may have admitted that a sinister connection does indeed exist between the music and the missing persons cases.
On a segment of the O’Reilly Factor on Fox News last night, the band’s lead vocalist told host Bill O’Reilly that aliencore bands have been abducting their fans since late last year. “Look, we’ve been doing it the old-fashioned way for far too long now,” said the singer. “It’s tedious. You have to fly down during the middle of the night, shine some bright lights through the windows, float them out the door… We were hanging around one night and we realized it would be easier to get them to come to us. Your average heavy metal fan isn’t exactly the smartest knife in the cutlery rack, if you know what I mean. So a bunch of us formed metal bands and started playing shows and the next thing you know we’ve already met our quota for the year.”
Despite the growing sense of alarm, Hydrocephalic Hybrid will embark next week on a three-month tour of Midwest wheat fields and trailer parks in support of San Diego-based deathgrind band Cattle Decapitation.
(Dirty Dave on The FM is a special investigative reporter for Tyranny of Tradition. Hours after he filed this report his office was ransacked and he went missing. If you have seen Dirty Dave please contact the Tyranny of Tradition offices as soon as possible)
To Compete With Google’s “Unsend”, Apple Unveils Innovative ”Unlisten”
Posted by Keith Spillett in Uncategorized on June 24, 2015
While many may have been taken aback by the recent news that Apple’s new streaming service “Apple Music” will not be paying its artists during its three-month pilot period, and shocked by the announcement that they’ll now be paying artists a voucher for a free Denny’s Grand Slam per 10 million streams, and were perhaps even more uproarious about the more recent announcement that the 500 least-streamed artists on this platform will be hunted and killed by Apple’s patented T-800 robots at the end of the three-month trial, even those with the most disdain for the multi-billion dollar monolith were on their knees in worship at the reveal of their newest feature, the memory-wiping “Unlisten”.
Inspired by Google’s new feature, “Unsend”, which allows users to recant emails after sending them, Apple Unlisten’s open beta launched last Sunday, June 21st. Those who sign up for the “Unlisten” open beta will have access to an extensive database of every single song and artist they’ve ever listened to in their life, and, at the click of a mouse, users will have the ability to have any song they’ve ever listened to wiped from their memory, erasing any catchy lyrics, instrumentation, and fondest childhood memories of the dear friend that turned them onto the song that may still be lingering in their head.
“We thought it’d be a great idea,” Apple Music CEO Craig Jonas said in a press release. “One of my colleagues came into the office one day and said, ‘Man, did you hear that new Shinedown single? Man, what I wouldn’t give to unlisten to that monstrosity.’ We just stared at each other in amazement at the idea we had just birthed.”
“While we probably shouldn’t be surprised by how easily our users have been willing to give up their social security number, credit card information, name of their hometown, brain scans, and a strand of their hair for us to be able to acquire this information about them, like damn, just how much do these people trust us?”
Listeners have voiced their unanimous excitement at this innovative new feature.
“I think it’ll come in handy,” says Andy Johnston, 20. “Now the next time one of my douche friends links me the latest Rebecca Black song on my Facebook timeline, I can know that I can listen to it without being left with battle scars.”
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” Mark “The Bloodied” James, 27, told us in between his daily animal sacrifices. “Now all my fellow metalhead friends can’t shame me for liking that latest Charli XCX album, because now thanks to Unlisten, I can just forget that that album ever existed.”
We recently reached out to Mark again for further comment after testing Apple Unlisten, and his paranoid, stammered-out response simply went, “Who are you? Who am I? What have you done to me?”
(contributed by guest correspondent Jess Casebeer from Northwest Music Scene)
Islamic Terrorist Group Sodom Banned From Traveling To U.S. For Maryland Deathfest
Posted by Keith Spillett in Uncategorized on May 21, 2015
The New Axis of Evil?
The State Department has refused to officially comment on a recent report that Islamofascist group Sodom was not issued visas in order to perform at this weekend’s Maryland Deathfest. However, senior sources with in the Office of Homeland Security have confirmed, off-the-record, that a visit to war-torn Baltimore by the band could lead to an outbreak of evil on a scale unrivaled in this nations history.
One unnamed official pointed out that the band has embraced a form of justice more menacing then even the Sharia Law practiced by ISIS. “We’ve seen reports that these doers of evil are so obsessed by cruelty that they have advocated a legal system based solely upon “The Saw”. The song “The Saw is The Law” is a manifesto encouraging the abandonment of democracy and the rule of law. Instead, these destroyers of civilization want to rule through the use of a violent tool INVENTED BY EGYPTIANS!”
“The saw is a simple tool that can be assembled by one terrorist alone in his basement. You could make one for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. However, when used correctly, a group of terrorist with saws could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of unarmed, innocent Americans.”
Angelripper Holding a Weapon of Mass Destrcution
Another concern voiced by officials connected to Sodom’s banishment from America site their frequent references to weapons of mass destruction in their songs. According to top ranking military intelligence officer, “Sodom consistently encourages their fans to use Agent Orange and Napalm. Granted, they only advocate the use of napalm in the morning, but nonetheless, this Group of Three has displayed wanton disregard for the safety of Americans with their irresponsible lyrics.”
“Can you imagine what would happen if the groups shadowy leader Thomas Angelripper, a man who has talked frequently at his concerts about having a “Nuclear Winter”, was able to sneak a nuclear warhead into his carryon bag? One word….Genocide.”
Metal Scientists Successfully Create Rainbow in Dark
Posted by birthad1 in Uncategorized on May 17, 2015
On the fifth anniversary of singer Ronnie James Dio’s passing, metalhead scientists at MIT have announced they have successfully created a rainbow in the dark.
“What was once just a cryptic metaphor is now a scientific reality,” said Chief Physicist Dr. Jim Durkin in a prepared statement, “Until now, rainbows were only possible with the presence of ultraviolet light. In this setting, we have been able to generate a rainbow in a completely dark room with its refraction as the sole source of illumination. This could pave the way to other discoveries like cold fusion.”
As of now, the potential of this new technology remain to be seen. Some researchers have suggested it could prevent people from being brought down by lightning or being left on their own, but most experts agree that its proper applications remain elusive.
“What we’re looking at here is an image caught in time,” said Dr. Wolf Hoffmann, MIT Laser Sciences Director, “when I consider the possibilities of this incredible find, it leaves me virtually speechless, like words without a rhyme.”
A symposium on the significance and meaning of a rainbow in the dark will be held this fall at the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC. Prominent physicists and engineers from all over the globe have already announced plans to attend.
At press time, a team of nautical engineers at Stanford University have announced their intention to design and build a Holy Diver, as soon as they figure out what the hell that is.
Morbid Angel To Reissue Limited Edition Copies of “Altars of Madness” Covered in Sriracha Sauce
Posted by Keith Spillett in Uncategorized on March 25, 2015
Doesn’t This Thing Look Like It Is From An Episode of Scooby-Doo?
What do Thomas Jefferson, William Blake and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer have in common? If you guessed that Morbid Angel is reissuing a thousand copies of “Altars of Madness” covered in Sriracha Sauce, you’d be correct.
That’s right, Sriracha sauce. That spicy sauce with the rooster on it that took America by storm in the summer of 2013. The sauce that has been linked to the death of famed character actor Wilford Brimley and Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah. The sauce that toppled the regime of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. The sauce that broke the major league record for most hit batsman in 1972. The sauce that indirectly led to the capture and beheading of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin by magpies. The sauce that Shakespeare himself claimed launched a thousand ships when he wrote the King James Edition of The Koran in 1861.
In 1905, Belgian doctor Wolfgang von Golfwang created Sriracha sauce in an attempt to manufacture a new version of blood. The chemical was pumped in the veins of several men who were born without blood in an attempt to help them increase their libido. While the chemical killed all the test subjects, it was later discovered that it would make a great topping for food from the Far East.
Morbid Angel first began listening to Sriracha sauce in 2001. Along with Yoko Ono’s second solo album, Sriracha sauce became singer and nasal vestibule David Vincent’s biggest influence. In a recent interview with Boys Life Magazine, Vincent claimed that “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
(When I was a kid, my mother had a VW bug. It had the trunk in the front and an engine in the back. It didn’t make the car drive all that differently, but it was the sort of ‘unique’ feature you can put on an automobile in order to sell it to people who don’t really know the difference between a V6 and a V8 engine)
THIS WAS BEFORE DRONES!!!!!
(Anyway, one time on a lark, we filled the entire front trunk with fake chattering teeth. The ones you find in novelty shops or in Groucho Marx movies. This was back when people at gas stations would check your oil and pump your gas. We waited and waited for months for an attendant to not realize the whole front trunk thing and open up the front thinking he was checking the engine)
MAKE THE HAMSTERS STOP RUNNING IN CIRCLES ON MY FACE!!!!
(Well, this went on for months and nobody ever opened the trunk. So we got the idea that I would ride in the front trunk with the false teeth and bang ever so slightly on the hood of the car to make it appear as if the engine were making a strange noise. After three months trapped inside the car, an elderly mechanic fell for it and opened it only to find me, covered from head to toe in mayonnaise in a trunk filled with chattering teeth. He fell over dead on the spot. Hours later, Iranian militants took over the American embassy beginning the worst hostage crisis in American history and single-handedly clearing a path for Ben Affleck to win an Academy Award. I can’t help but think that I am responsible and to this day break into tears anytime I see an Ayatollah Khomeini bobblehead doll)
Evil D: Keepin’ It Real
The reissue of the album will feature a Bee-Gees style remix of “Chapel of Ghouls” along with a recent live cover of “The Pina Colada Song” by Rupert Holmes. Unfortunately, Morbid Angel no longer own the rights to the song “Maze of Torment” and, therefore, were unable to put it on the newest version. The original was in a hope chest in the living room of the band’s former bugle player Mike Browning. In 2008, Browning’s home was robbed by futuristic droids who escaped in a flying DeLorean piloted by Michael J. Fox with “Maze of Torment” and 46 pounds of cream cheese in tow.
Would you be mad if I stapled your tongue to your forehead? Are you failed children?
Why The Girls Are Right About #Metalgate
Posted by Keith Spillett in Uncategorized on December 15, 2014
(Guest columnist and noted political philosopher John Winthrop gives his thoughts on the latest #Metalgate controversy)
Women! They are everywhere nowadays! There are lady lawyers, lady doctors and, even, lady construction workers. Some people say there might even be a Lady President pretty soon. That’s why it shouldn’t surprise anyone of us that ladies can do almost anything that a man can do. They even can play heavy metal music better than some of the boys!
Let’s face it fellas, it’s time to open the #metalgate to anyone who wants to come in. It’s time the bare-knuckle savages climb back up in their trees and enter the 20th century. Metal is for everyone…folks! Not just the guys!
It’s a new day PEOPLE! Metalheads can be black, white, purple, green, gay, straight, male, female, Latvians, Ukrainians, those who suffer from Restless Leg Syndrome, those who struggle with basic math facts, those who have bunions, those who do not have bunions, those who wish they had bunions and don’t, those who married their spouses because they were secretly attracted to their bunions. Anyone!
The other day, I was out at one of these Lady Metal concerts. Ladycore or whatever the “special interest groups” like to call it. There was this lady onstage and she was wailing away at the guitar. A lady drummer was pounding away on the drums. Some lady singer was yelling about lady issues. She was mad, too! I’ve never seen one of them so angry. I couldn’t tell what she was saying, but I bet her husband really did something to irk her! I’m surprised he let her out on stage like that.
This Lady Metal band played for an hour without a break. At first, the fellas in the crowd were just like “she’s hot” and whatever, but after a while they were all listening to the music. And, you know what, it wasn’t all that different than the stuff real musicians played. These ladies knew how to rock!
Someone told me that some lady writer wrote an article the other day that said that heavy metal was conservative and is becoming liberal. Or was bad and is becoming good or something like that. That’s stupid! I’m all for this empowerment stuff, I mean, giv’em what they want if it means so much to them, but I don’t want metal in my politics or politics in my metal. I didn’t come for the gender equality…I came to bang my head!
When I listen to metal it is to escape from the world, not be reminded I live here. Heavy metal is neutral. It isn’t male or female. It’s music. Last time I checked, music doesn’t have the necessary plumbing to be considered anything but a bunch of notes being played through a speaker.
I don’t mind if they get up on stage with the boys, I just don’t want to get into all of their agenda and issues and stuff. Everybody has got problems! Besides, they are up on stage, isn’t that enough for them or do they have to own the whole damn building?
I also heard this lady writer said that metal is getting “on the right side of history”. All I can say to that is, “Welcome to the party, Babe!” Metal has always been on the right side of history! We crush all other styles of music! We came, We Saw, We Rocked! End of story!
History keeps showing us over and over again that men OR women with the balls to conquer keep conquering and those afraid to rock get stomped. Even that whiner Marx said it in The Count of Manifesto when he was like “those who have the equipment get to take whatever they want”.
Listens To Hip Hop
Metal is about owning and conquering. Always has been, always will be. A predator comes along in the wild and is hungry; he eats his weaker prey. He doesn’t ask about the feelings of the animal he’s eating. He doesn’t listen to a whole bunch of speeches from other animals about how he’s bullying the creature. He doesn’t set up a support group for the other animals who might end up getting eaten. He just eats till he’s full and leaves the bones. It’s human nature.
Some people are going to read this and think I don’t like women or want them to be treated worse than men. That’s not true. I love women. I was raised to treat them with respect. I have three daughters who I love with all my heart. Do you think I want people telling them there are things in this world they are not allowed to do because they were born girls?
All I want is to not be told what to do by outsiders because they got their feelings hurt a few times growing up. People want me to speak in a way that is politically correct, but what about how I feel? What about who I am? Why do I have to be the one that pretends?
Do you think I wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and think “here’s the bad guy”? Is that what you think when you see me?
Listen, I would pay my hard earned money to see girls play metal as long as they play real heavy metal. I’m for freedom. That’s what America is all about. As far as I’m concerned, if these ladies play real heavy metal they can play in any damn club I’m in any day of the week.
Were Major Media Outlets Including Huffington Post Fooled By Halford/Lady Gaga Prank?
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness, Uncategorized on June 30, 2014
An Alleged Photograph Of Rob Halford From The Interview With The Huffington Post
A Tyranny of Tradition prank might have claimed yet another series of new victims. Back on April 28th 2014, this website ran an article claiming that the new Judas Priest album, scheduled to come later this year, was a hoax. The album, of course, came out in July. Tyranny simply meant to write satire to confuse and amuse the metal loving masses.
However, this time, things might have gotten out of control.
In a recent interview with The Huffington Post Canada, Rob Halford discussed a possible duet with pop star Lady Gaga. While Halford’s love of Lady Gaga has been known for over four years, there is an eerie similarity between the Tyranny article and the Huffington Post interview conducted days earlier.
In the final paragraph of the Huffington Post article, Halford is quoted as saying, “I’ve been a huge fan of Gaga since she first burst on the scene. I just love everything that lady represents. First and foremost, her voice is extraordinary. I love her voice. She’s an accomplished musician, she plays piano really well, she’s just a great songwriter. And she’s a beacon of hope for a lot of people in the world.”
In the final paragraph of the Tyranny of Tradition article back in April, Halford is falsely quoted as saying “I’ve been her since she first burst on the scene. I just love everything that lady stands for. First and foremost, her voice is extraordinary. She’s an accomplished musician. She plays piano, oboe, zither and tambourine really well. She’s just a great songwriter. And she’s a beacon of hope for a lot of people in the world.”
The interview with Halford has been picked up by many major media sites including The CNN of Heavy Metal Blabbermouth.com. Tyranny of Tradition writer Keith Spillett has not been able to be reached for comment.
There is Nothing Fun About The Fun-Sized M & Ms
Posted by Keith Spillett in Uncategorized on May 19, 2014
One of the worst parts of being a part of a culture based on mindless, endless consumption are the hustles you have to put up with on a daily basis. Look, I’m a grown man. I walk around America with my eyes wide open. I know that someone is always trying to get a hand in my pocket. These are the rules of the game and unless I plan I on some grand Henry David Thoreau move to the hinterlands of Mongolia, this is the game I get to play. Fine. Just don’t puke on my back and tell me its warming lotion.
There is nothing fun about the fun-sized bag of M & Ms. All it is are M & Ms in a smaller pouch. If I want to have fun I might choose to go play basketball or go to a carnival or maybe sit under a tree on a sunny day. I certainly don’t plan on deriving my pleasure from a tiny bag of chocolate. Yet, those soulless vultures at the M & M Company try to convince you that eating roughly 12 M & Ms is a regular party in a bag.
I’m not saying eating chocolate isn’t fun. It’s great. I can’t get enough of the stuff personally. A regular sized bag of them is kinda fun. I could have a fine time with one of those gigantic bags that look like they could strap it to a horses’ face and feed it for hours. But, the M & M schmucks don’t call those “fun”.
Those miserable frauds lie to you when they don’t even have to. What would be wrong with calling it “the little bag” of M & Ms? Would that somehow demean the product? Would I somehow be having less fun?
If they were just to level with you about the thing you’d know what you were getting and there would be some integrity in the act of consuming them. They have to suck you into to some worthless, disgraceful lie about the type of experience you are going to have. I only want a few M & Ms, therefore, I’ll get the small bag. Seems reasonable. But everything has to be celebration. Even getting a tiny bag of freaking M & Ms, which is really one of the duller experiences a person can have in the general scope of things.
The worst part is, if you want a small bag of M & Ms, you have to participate in this con. I ate one of them earlier today and couldn’t shake the feeling that some retired scumbag ad executive is sitting on a beach somewhere thinking about the millions of dollars he has collecting interest in a bank in the Caymans because he thought up the idea of calling a little bag of M & Ms “fun”. I hope a shark eats him. In front of his grandkids.
I want to drink a soda, not an “icy cold Coke”. I don’t want to “Just Do It”, I want a pair of sneakers. I don’t want to be “the best a man can get”, I just want to use a razor from time to time so I don’t end up looking like The Unabomber.
Just leave me the hell alone. If I want something, I’ll buy it.
SPECIAL REPORT: Metallica Looking to Stage Leveraged Buyout of Megadeth
Posted by Maximus Frank in Uncategorized on September 3, 2013
(The Chief Executives of Metallica, pictured above with President Obama, Senator John McCain, and other Federal Reserve Officials in a meeting about the legality of their proposed Megadeth buyout)
We all know about the Super Collider debacle: with the collapse of their latest dud product, the executives of Megadeth have been circling the drain for months. Rumors of a top-line overhaul have leaked out of boardroom minutes, but it seemed as though the crisis was contained, at least, to the 42nd-floor offices of the company’s CEO, CFO, and CDO. Of course, Megadeth has been bleeding capital since at least 2004, but now it looks as though Wall Street is looking to turn the fallen eagle into a veritable vulture’s picnic.
Here’s how the story began: Metallica, one of the largest investment banks on Wall Street and former owners of Megadeth, gradually began buying back Megadeth stock earlier this summer. The bank announced in early July that they would be purchasing up to 20 million Megadeth shares at prices between $52 and $58 a share, supervised by Iva Harrison’s firm, Lazard Freres. In August, they bought even more – 21 million shares – at $53.50 each. Megadeth, which had traded around $52 a share in anticipation of the buyback, immediately fell back into the mid-forties. Metallica had spent more than $1.1 billion buying Megadeth stock, and its price was lower than ever. Private equity analysts began sweating about what this spelled for Megadeth’s future.
“This reeks of classic hostile takeover,” said J. Tonlimson Heartvord, founder of Clearer Markets, a nonpartisan financial accountability firm. “Metallica purchases Megadeth stock en grosse. The stock price then falls, making the company vulnerable to a takeover.”
In a leveraged buyout, a bank, company, or hedge fund takes another, publicly held, company private. The buyout is “leveraged” because the purchaser usually needs a good deal of debt to finance it. Metallica has owned large shares of Megadeth stock since 1984, but according to classified “top-drawer” reports prepared by Metallica’s Mergers & Acquisitions arm, Mergertacquisitionallica, the bank is preparing a complete takeover of Megadeth. One such document obtained by Tyranny of Tradition, “On Megadeth Civil Service Examinations” could be straight out of Orwell:
“This report concludes by stressing the need for “report cards” to furnish conclusions concerning Megadeth staff, expressed in arithmetical terms… This includes personality, which deals with intangible elements the existence of which do not readily admit of proof, but nevertheless, each employee must be rated on personality.”
Another, “Special Report On Megadeth Research & Development” stresses the need to cut back on Megadeth staffing, by “eliminating unnecessary employees,” in order to concentrate capital on R&D projects.
Edvard Robinson and Henry Henderson, formerly of Shearson Lehman, expressed concerns about the vulnerability of Megadeth. “I hope Metallica has a plan for what to do about Megadeth, a company that has been a cash drain for nearly a decade,” said Robinson. “If they can pull off this takeover, we’ll be sure to see some major overhauls of Megadeth personnel, from the top down.”
Henderson speculated about other, far scarier, scenarios. “This could blow up in Metallica’s face – we’re already hearing whispers that other private equity firms, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), The Dillinger Escape Plan (TDEP), The Ocean Collective (TOC), and Lamb of God, LLC (LOG) are taking a serious look at Megadeth.”
KKR defeated Dillinger and Metallica back in 1989 to complete the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, which at the time was the largest buyout in history. Subsequent layoffs, downsizing, and restructuring spelled doom for RJR Reynolds and Nabisco employees across the country, as well as the ruin of towns like Winston-Salem. In that sinking ship of a business deal, the executives, financiers, and lawyers floated to safety on golden-parachute life rafts, taking home millions in bonuses while thousands of employees of both companies lost their jobs.
The Tyranny of Tradition 