Rust doesn't grow on a rolling dough-nut; the MaxXouT-a-maniacs have been as busy as ever. New tune-age is in the works like a bun in the oven. New shows have been booked, and will be a Maxxin' out all over the Allegheny. Catch us 4/22 at the Rock Room--a delightful little slice of America. The last time I was there, I watched a full PBR can hit a guy with a skullet right in the side of the head. Really brought me back to my childhood. Anyhoo, below is a song that Elliot keeps playing to women he doesn't really know to try and woo them. When Kyle and Eric put the rhythm muscle on top of it, I've seen people convulse in happiness. It happened at Cattivo, our last show, with Stone Cold Killer, Burned, and Stone Wicked Souls.
The MaxXouT Show, Episode: Blammo | Martial Arts Tutorial for Rock Stars
MaxXouT-amaniacs, today, my friends, we open up a new chapter of dementia. Today we are releasing the first in a long series of episodes of The MaxXouT Show. Come on this first journey with us and learn how to defend yourself when jabronis rush the stage, crash into your $4,000 B.C. Rich guitar or puke on your spandex. You will be glad you did:
New Promo Video: MaxXouT Talks About Internet Critics with Internet Muscles
Oh man oh man oh man. MaxXouT is releasing our second major official music video next Wednesday, July 13th. This is for Narcan Atomizer and it's so awesome it's like listening to a Dimebag Darrell solo while speeding in a muscle car while eating Taco Bell. That's how awesome it is!
And guess what? Leading up to this epic event, we are going to be releasing daily promo videos all for your enjoyment. Damn, can life get any better than this? The first video just launched, and it's all about a topic near and dear to our hearts: how awesome we are. Actually, it's the opposite of that, it's about Internet trolls.
Here's what we have to say about it:
There's a lot of critics and trolls with internet muscles out there, but don't let them get you down. Instead, do what MaxXouT did and answer criticism with the face-meltingly awesome video for Narcan Atomizer! But first, watch this video where we confront our internet critics and give you, the few good people of the internet, a friendly PSA that might save your face from melting.
First Show | Elliot's Face Got Licked
Two weeks ago we played our first show, got paid $15, and spent it all on PBR tallboys. It was awesome. With no provocation at all a girl licked Elliot's face. Johnny Fangers did Hulk Hogan leg drops on an empty beer can; I saw him a week later and both of his elbows were black and blue. Fresh off of having a life-changing epiphany, Showtime Dan accepted our invite and showed up; he even took a video of us because he is the best human ever: https://instagram.com/p/BFIRrJQHQgj/ . The other bands were all cool. I prank called Justin from 12 Chances later on, which he was fine with ("Justin, from 12 Chances, here's your 13th Chance...etc); I thought about prank calling him everyday, as a running gag--getting prank calls over and over again from someone you don't know that well--but chickened out. We stopped at Taco Bell, and we drove away and got back to Elliot's before I realized half the order was missing; of course it was the expensive half, they remembered the gelatinous nachos they just give away, but the fake meat, oh no, we didn't get any of that.
The club was called Diesel's Concert Lounge, in Chesterfield; the stage had more lights than a laser tag; the sound system was primo. I saw a dragon shoot out of the PA. Granted, I was wearing Macho Man Randy Savage sunglasses, so maybe that was an illusion. The next week they hosted Kip Winger and POD. Kip Winger has been a running joke in my family ever since my sister found a Kip Winger poster and taped it to our fridge with the inscription "To Stoshy: the best I ever had. -Kip". My sister suggested I leave fan art somewhere for Kip Winger to find which I thought was a really weird suggestion. Do people do that? Hide fan art/letters for other people to find? I can't unwrap the psychology of that. There were no fan art or love letters for MaxXouT. I guess we're more of a get-licked-in-the-face type of band.
Tales of the Virgil Pt. 4: How Much Did The Million Dollar Belt Cost?
So there we were in Stosh's basement. Stosh, myself, Michael Sorg our cameraman, and WWE Legend Virgil had just finished shooting our first music video for Kayfabe (check it out here). We proceeded to shoot the shit, and by shooting the shit I mean listen to Virgil tell epic stories from the 80's. Well, after a third round of hearing about shitty pay days in Memphis, I finally got a word in edgewise, and asked the one question that had been on my mind since we met this morning...
"Thanks Virgil, can I ask you a question man?" I asked knowing it might be a good time to change the subject.
"Anything brother"
"So, did the million dollar belt really cost a million dollars?"
"It cost $968,000.00, and in the 80's that was a lot of money. You know how much that would be in today's money?"
"No idea man, probably a shit ton"
"$20 MILLION dollars"
"Damn..."
"Well it would have been $20 million If the gold market hadn't gone to shit last year. They keep it at the WWE towers in the lobby, a pair of armed security guards lock it up every night in a safe when they close. The safe lives in the basement, its too heavy to be anywhere else, and instead of key cards they use fingerprints to get in and out. The only way to steal it is to cut a hand off of either Vince McMahon or one of the security guards."
"..."
"Any other questions, brother"
"Naw man, that's all need to know."
Fact Checking
Let's address the elephant in the room: how much is $968,000.00 adjusted for inflation? Here is the math:
FutureValue = Principle (1 + Interest / CompoundingFrequency) ^ CompoundingFrequency*Time
Naturally, this doesn’t take into account possible fluctuations in gold and diamond prices that could cause the overall value of the belt to increase or decrease dramatically above or below the inflation rate, but assuming a reasonable inflation rate of 5%, the value of the belt today would be (Virgil drum roll):
$3,794,685.01. Hey that is still a lot of money, but not quite $20 million.
Then there is this Wikipedia entry; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Dollar_Championship which completely refutes the $968K million dollar belt and puts the value of the belt in 1988 at around $125K. This lower cost is because wikipedia alleges the belt was only gold plated and the diamonds were all cubic zirconia. Still, this CZ gold plated behemoth of a belt built today would run you about $490,016.14, and hey, that’s still a lot of money. But the $490,016.14 dollar man doesn't quite have the same ring as the MILLION DOLLAR MAN, now does it?
Tales of the Virgil Pt. 1: Real, Live Crocodiles
Crocodile Mile
I have a taxidermied mounted crocodile head (who doesn’t) set up where we shot the video. Usually it wears an old school Riddell Green Bay Packer helmet or my Elvis sunglasses and sits on top of a bookshelf in the corner. The day of the music video, we realized it could be an eye-catching, weird visual element to add, so we perched the crocodile head on top of my guitar amp. We decided to have Virgil hit it with drum sticks at one point, though I don’t believe that footage made the cut (see the full video here). But, the crocodile head isn't the star of this story, it's the conversation that it inspired. In between filming shots Virgil turned to me and said:
“You guys need to do crazy shit when you play live. You need to blow people’s minds. You should get a real live crocodile and have it come out on stage right when you’re jamming.”
Virgil did some air guitar, actually more air bass to really drive the point home at this juncture. I readily agreed with these suggestions not because I agreed but just to see what would happen next if I pulled the string.
“I’ve been in show business for thirty years. You gotta blow people’s minds!” Virgil continued. “But, you should probably keep that crocodile in a cage because you wouldn’t want it biting anybody. You know, that’d cost a lot, there’d be a lot of legal fees.”
Shit, it’s craziest enough to work. Anybody have any live crocodiles out there I can borrow?