John Lennon was Effin' Metal

My wife was holding a wooden massage tool when her hand happened to fall into the metal horns, starting a train of thought that lead her to ask - as confirmation, because she's pretty metal herself - whether or not it was Dio who came up with the gesture. After some discussion about Dio's claim versus Gene Simmons's claim, we hit The Oracle for some answers - and came up with this page on Blabbermouth. Assuming the drawing to the left - which matches the criteria, while the picture that Ear Candy claims as proof cuts off Lennon's thumb - is not doctored, we've got cartoon-style John Lennon, staring in the Yellow Submarine, throwin' up the horns long before Dio or Gene. John Lennon was a rock and roll guy, so chances are he'd probably agree with the spirit of rebellion traditionally associated (in metal) with the horns. In that spirit then, I'm going to nominate him progenitor, because if nothing else it'll make good discussion fodder for parties.

Anthrax's Anti Reunion

In case you haven't seen it yet, Blabbermouth printed a letter today they got from Scott Ian, erstwhile Anthrax guitarist and star of many a VH1 show. The letter resolves two things: first, the reunion phase of the career of Anthrax is over, with the departure, once again, of Joey Belladonna to greener pastures. Given the statement that "the problems that were there could not be fixed no matter how hard we tried and in the end Joey made the decision," it sounds like either Anthrax isn't interested in continuing with a singer whose style is, well, a bit out of date, or they spent enough time with him on the road that they got sick of him again and realized why they fired him in the first place. Second, since Ian says "my reality is I feel we have some unfinished business with the We've Come for You All lineup and I will do my best to finish it," it sounds like Anthrax will try and bring John Bush and Rob Caggiano back and continue the history of the band where they left off in 2003. At the same time, since Dan Spitz doesn't get a mention at the end of the letter ("Charlie, Frankie and I"), this letter might be the official end of Spitz's second term with the band. Also, on a (partially) related note, it was very cool in a dorky way to have been at one of the shows Ian mentioned in the letter.

My thoughts: my associations with Anthrax are very, very (almost embarrassingly) recent, especially compared to their lengthy history: the first time I heard their music was when my wife played "Safe Home" for me when we first started dating about three years ago - and then, when I went on a hunt for their music online, the first thing I downloaded was Greater of Two Evils. To say I had a pro-John Bush bias from the start would be a bit of an understatement. I wasn't anti-Belladonna per se and I certainly had a lot of fun at that concert, but I looked at the continued employment of Belladonna as something like a mixed blessing: at least they weren't going to break up, but I'd still rather have John Bush's voice coming through that microphone. Does anyone know if he and Caggiano will come back? No, not really. Would it be really, really cool? Most definitely.