Master of Covers

If you'd told me a few months ago that Metallica was planning to release a new album later this year, my response probably would have been, "so fucking what?" Then I would have laughed at my cleverness, because I'm a huge nerd.

My feelings did a pretty abrupt 180 after hearing Metallica's cover of "Remember Tomorrow" on the Iron Maiden tribute CD that Kerrang! recently put out. Gone is the crappy St. Anger production, and Metallica does an excellent job finding that all-important balance between making the song their own and keeping with the spirit of the original recording (a balance that several other artists on the record would do well to learn), producing a track that makes me wonder whether they might still have something interesting left in the tank.

I guess we'll find out soon enough, because the band announced the track listing and album artwork today. Themes of rock 'n roll martyrs ain't exactly Master of Puppets-level potential, but they could be interesting, and the open grave/magnet thing on the cover is pretty cool. Heck, they're even using the old logo font for the first time in seventeen years. But I still have my doubts:

First, "Unforgiven III"? Really? The original song was fine, but what bothered me about the sequel was the seemingly lazy decision to shove the tune from the original into the chorus and tie it all together with the awful pun off of "II/too." Totally unnecessary, and really a waste of what was a half-way decent verse line by making the song a pretty big joke. Even if Metallica doesn't try to pull the same trick again (what would they pun off of three? Something about trees, spoken by a "character" with soft palette problems?), the legacy exists. Metallica can be as out of the box as they want to, but if they're going to do something proggy like have a song cycle, don't make it sound like a bad action movie trilogy.

Second, I might be fooling myself by placing my hopes on a cover. Metallica are past masters of doing kick ass song covers, as a listen of all two-plus hours of Garage Inc. will happily prove, but doing a great job reinterpreting other people's material does not mean you've gained (or regained) the ability to write great originals. "Remember Tomorrow" is really more of a double-edged sword for anticipation: either it heralds a great new tomorrow, or one full of some pretty heavy disappointment.

Iron Maiden at Madison Square Garden

What to say, what to say...well, this happened, which pretty much sums up anything I could say about how awesome this show was. Playing soccer on stage while the crew deals with a blown speaker (during "Powerslave"...the irony is gigantic) and making it fun for 20,000 people to watch does take a special talent. Hell, watching a band play the exact same set list three months apart and loving every minute of it because they managed to make their show that much bigger the second time around (Madison Square Garden: big frickin' space with decent acoustics that sounds massive) is proof positive by itself that Iron Maiden is one of rock's premiere live bands. See them live, but don't take all of the tickets because I'll be coming back for more.

Before the show, I was explaining the rules of t-shirt wearing at concerts to my brother-in-law. Many people don't understand these rules, so it's worth going over them here, if for no other reason than that I was validated for following them immediately after the show. So, here we go:

1. Do not wear a t-shirt put out by the band you're going to see. Doing so makes you look like a poseur who lacks a deeper knowledge of the subtleties of the music scene, or at least the understanding that there are other bands out there who play the same kind of music. On a corollary, don't wear a shirt put out by a fan of the band you're going to see paying homage to that band (like this shirt, for example. By the way, this picture makes me happier than I can say), for the same reasons. You'll just be That Guy, and no one wants that (although the legions of people I see buying shirts at a show and then wearing them during the show might disagree). Also, variety makes people watching far more interesting between sets.
   
   
2. Don't wear a shirt of a band that has a long-standing disagreement or feud with the band you're going to see. For example, if you're going to see Megadeth, don't wear a Metallica t-shirt; if you're going to see Iron Maiden, don't wear an Ozzy t-shirt (or a maybe just a shirt with Sharon Osbourne on it, which would be pretty lame anyway); if you're going to see Dream Theater, don't wear a Queensryche shirt, etc. Much like breaking rule one, breaking rule two makes you look like a tool who doesn't pay attention to the subculture you're invading. Chances are this means you cost some fan who really does care about the music a ticket, which means you're an evil person. It's also possible you just don't care about feuds, but then you're missing the point.
   
   
3. When picking a shirt to wear, the goal is to choose something that's either old or obscure or (preferably) both. Both factors give you credibility, and can help you strike up conversations with random people during the show. Having an old tour shirt (we're talking a piece of clothing that's a minimum of 20 years of age) can even let you break rule number one. I'm pretty sure I saw a shirt from the original Somewhere in Time tour last night, and even though it was a Maiden shirt, it was an old Maiden shirt, which made it pretty cool. People with shirts like that tend to have interesting stories.

Anyway, those are the rules. Follow those rules, last night I chose to wear a GWAR shirt I picked up during the We Kill Everything tour, and sure enough: walking back to my car, I was hailed by two guys who thought my shirt was the coolest thing they'd seen in the past half hour. Instant validation, at only pennies a day!

Super Happy Metal Fun Time!

I work in the editorial department of an online publishing company, and we get a lot of random stuff from PR agencies: books, CDs, press kits, product samples; we even got a bunch of cleaning products in a wooden coffin once, which was a little odd. Since our writers work off site we need to determine whether or not to send this barrage of material on to them; most of it goes on its merry way, but some things, especially the stuff that's misaddressed (sent to one of parenting writers, say, when it really should go to one of the home & garden writers), stay in the office and join our collections of Weird Desk Stuff. I'm the Metal Guy of the editorial department, so when the Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book by Aye Jay Morano came in, addressed to our classic rock writer, I snagged it and added it to my desk display, which includes, among other things, a model of this place, a signed print of this online comic, and a postcard promo of this album I picked up outside of an Opeth show in 2005.

Of course, I opened it first and delighted at cheekiness within. Besides an endorsement from Dio, who no doubt loves metal enough to laugh at the music and the culture at least once in a while, the Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book features an introduction by Andrew W. K. (he's metal now?) full of insipid thoughts about the nature of reality, and then the centerpiece: page after page of all of those pen-and-paper activities you did as a kid, all with a metal twist. There's a word seek with songs by Neurosis; a maze where you help the members of Spinal Tap get to the stage (get it?); two pages where you can color in the 1983 and 1989 versions of Metallica; etc., etc., etc. My favorite is the Death Metal Sudoku, where all of the pre-filled numbers are sixes.

For the retail price of about $10, the Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book doesn't price up to a car ride diversion like the books it's modeled upon, but that's not really the point. I don't want to fill out the activities in my copy; I just want to open it up every once in a while and smirk my way back into a good mood.

Film Review: Get Thrashed

Last week I had the distinct pleasure of attending the New York City premiere of Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash Metal, a documentary about - you guessed it - the history of thrash from its origins in the 1980s to whatever form it's still kicking around in today. Directed by Rick Ernst, Get Thrashed featured Rat Skates, formerly of Overkill, as associate producer.

The showing took place in a theater on the East Side as a part of the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival. This association probably made the whole showing possible, but it lead to a few problems that very nearly killed the fun of this party before it got started.

First, there was the matter of seating arrangements. Because New York City is one of the world's original thrash capitals, many of the members of the NYC-area bands featured in this film wanted to come to the premiere. Because New York City is a place where class equality is a convenient lie, the organizers decided to reserve the front four rows for the bands and their families, even though there weren't really enough chairs for all of the ticket holders and this wasn't a crowd for acting star struck. Clearly, fire code be damned when there are rock stars involved.

But then the organizers went too far: they informed us - less than a minute before the show was supposed to start - that Get Thrashed would have an unannounced opener, a piece called Bang Bang You're Dead about an indie rock band from Utah. And they even had the director, a neophyte giving his first showing, in the audience to make an introduction.

As you can no doubt imagine, the result was a disaster. The film itself wasn't that bad - it reminded me a bit of Instrument, if Instrument had been Jem Cohen's first film - but anyone with half a brain would know that showing a film with no real narrative and a bunch of disassociated imagery about a group of college-age indie kids to a crowd of mostly 30+ metalheads would go over like a lead zeppelin. I was impressed: the crowd managed to maintain a sullen silence for the first few minutes before the conversation rose to low roar, people started actively booing the endless transitions or announcing loudly they were going out to get popcorn. The film's end after half an hour was a mercy killing overdue by about 25 minutes, leaving us to wonder if we had been the victims of a last minute switch due to poor ticket sales for Bang Bang Your Dead or some sort of bullheaded stupidity by our hosts.

Thankfully, the rest of the evening's awesome was proportional to the beginning's suckitude: Get Thrashed is an excellent, excellent film that gets even better when you watch it with a room full of fans not afraid to show their love for a nostalgia trip down heavy metal memory lane. Focusing on the world's four big thrash areas (LA, San Francisco, New York and Germany) and moving in a rough chronological order that tied the US Big Four (Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax) and German thrash giants Kreator to the scenes they helped spawn, Get Thrashed happily traced the progression of thrash from its roots in Metallica's garage in LA and Exodus's brutal live shows in San Francisco in 1980 to the movement's apogee with the 1990 Clash of the Titans tour, using photos, video and interviews with everyone from Blitz Ellsworth and Rat Skates to Dave Mustaine to Zetro to Lars Ulrich to the members of Dark Angel to those crazy bastards from the Old Bridge Militia to tell the tale.

While all of those interviews are informative, a few go beyond and become truly memorable. Blitz Ellsworth, for example, is either really funny or really, really crazy, but in a way that makes you want to have a beer with him so you can hear some stories. Dave Mustaine is...well, Dave Mustaine, the strange cross between super arrogant guitar god and comic book geek. My favorite moment in the movie was when Mustaine goes on a short rant about how he made the careers of everyone in Megadeth, could play better than everyone in Metallica, was, in fact, responsible for thrash music as we know it today - cue a gasp from the crowd - and then the film makers cut to Scott Ian, who tells the camera, "if it wasn't for Dave Mustaine, thrash music probably wouldn't exist."

There were some nice tribute moments, too: moments of silence written in for the memories of Cliff Burton, Paul Baloff and Dimebag Darrell made even more poignant by the sentiment of the crowd, which gave each man a full round of applause. These moments underscored how much of a community metal can be when it's brought together around something good; when in-fighting and external attacks aren't part of the equation and the mood turns to celebration of what's been done.

All of these moments underscore what seems to be Get Thrashed's underlying purpose: to set down the official story, such as it is, as a monument to one generation of metalheads and the bands they loved. It's a huge strength for the film, but it also underscores the film's one weakness: Get Thrashed puts thrash metal's foundations in a near vacuum, as if it sprang fully formed from the minds of a few guys who liked playing loud and fast, tiptoes around the more difficult issues and ascribes everything that's going on in metal now to what started 27 years ago. Historically it makes the film a little skewed, but that one problem pales in comparison to the enjoyable experience Get Thrashed provides to the viewer. If you can go see it, do; you'll have a great time.

Metal for Bike Geeks

I'm not really much of a biking nerd - in fact, the best I do is the occasional circuit around the park near where I live - but if I was, you'd better believe I'd lay down the loot for a biking jersey like the one pictured. It's a part of a group of $80 biking jerseys from Primal Wear Clothing that all feature rock and metal-influenced designs.

There are a lot of good options - Iron Maiden/Killers, Led Zeppelin/Houses of the Holy, Metallica/Master of Puppets, Judas Priest/Screaming for Vengeance - but if someone was to put a gun to my head, I think I'd pick the Metallica/Ride the Lightning jersey, for two reasons: first, it's one of my favorite album covers of all time, very simple and clear with its entwined promise of metal and electrical death. Second, if you're going to lay down the money to wear a bike jersey instead of a t-shirt, why not have it tie in to speed and going fast?

Via David Fiedler

The Most Metal Country

My buddy Seth just sent me a link to Finland's Top 40 chart, where reside a bunch of Finnish titles, some pop selections imported from the States and...most of Metallica's catalog? Confused, I asked him when the Finnish equivalent of Billboard released this chart. "It's current," he said. "I guess they don't use release dates - if Metallica is selling, put 'em up there!" We examined further and picked out at least four metal acts in the top 40, including six of the top ten. It is therefore my great pleasure, without any further ado (or additional research into say, the charts of Sweden and Norway) to name Finland the most metal country on Earth. They should really use this in promotional materials: "Come to Finland, see the lovely countryside and hear the power metal gracing the airwaves, because we're the Most Metal Country on Earth. Take that, Scandinavia."

Live! Tonight! Sell Out!

Going back to the topic I touched on two days ago, let's talk about the other side of the experimentation coin: the all-too-frequent accusation by fans that a band has sold out because they changed their sound.

An example: I was in high school when Metallica released Load. As anyone who follows the band knows, Load marked the culmination of a direction hinted by Metallica, but rendered far more shocking to the metal community by new hair cuts, riffs that were far more hard rock than thrash and Kirk Hammett's incredible collection of facial piercings. The most metal dude I knew at the time (the only metal dude I knew at the time) was a guy named Josh Woodard, a true fan of metal who had hair that hung down his back, a spiked bracelet, wicked shredding ability and an "Up the Irons!" sticker on his guitar. He introduced me to Emperor by playing the opening to Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk over the PA speakers in my school's auditorium, instantly sealing a love for all things black and Norwegian in my heart. After Load came out, such was his outrage that he never referred to Metallica as anything but "Alternica" for the rest of the time I knew him. At the time, I was a callow, inexperienced youth and didn't know enough about either metal or Metallica to recognize a departure when I saw one; later on I became a callow, experienced youth and took up the banner of "they were better before..." and "sell out!" with all of the anger of a disappointed adolescent. Hell hath no self-righteous fury like an idealistic, pig-headed, disappointed teen.

What is selling out? Thus rages the debate. I think Greil Marcus said in Lipstick Traces that selling out as a defamation really took flight with punk rock and the punk movement certainly pushed the concept much further into the consciousness of pop culture, justifying the hanging of anti-heroes with sell out rope with generations of youth rage and idealism. Of course, for all that, there's no official punk rock definition; some might say it's making money off your art, others would draw the line at some level of money making that separates punk bands from rock gods who live in excess, spoiling the purity of the music.

Purity seems to be a strong element, as if the ancient Judeo-Christian customs that glorify the clean and the virgin lurked somewhere in the back of pop culture, affecting even those who scorn them. Purity also means avoiding the dirty taint of the suits who run the music business. Ian MacKaye never sold out in popular opinion because he's embraced DIY and used it to keep the purity of his music, even though he runs a record label. Selling out, therefore, is the destruction of the purity of art through the contamination of money and polluted touch of the profit-oriented hive mind, the classic battle of David (the fans) versus Goliath (big corporate interests). With ideological grounds like these, is it any wonder people get so worked up when they smell sell out?

Experimentation

I was reading Blabbermouth today and came across an interview with Kreator frontman Mille Petrozza, where he talks about the backlash Kreator withstood in the 1990s when they attempted to diversify their sound beyond their thrash roots. The discussion go me thinking about these controversial experiments and how frequently they fail, usually with accusations by the loyal fan base that the band has sold out. Selling out has its place, but I think the real problem runs a little deeper.

Let's break things down: in general, most bands will change their sound over the course of their careers, because they get bored putting out the same old album time after time. Change and experimentation are pars for the course of human nature, especially for artists, who are expected to delve into the mutable aspects of the human soul on a daily basis. However - and here's the critical point - the desire to experiment doesn't equal ability to do so; many bands enter an experimental period and either feel the sting of critical backlash because they've either moved so far away from their original sound that they lack the experience to make a cohesive album, or because they don't have the musical ability to play anything but the sound that made them work as a band in the first place.

Case in point: even though I've developed a fondness for Load over the past twelve years, I think Metallica's conversion from thrash to what they've been playing since has been a failure - not because they don't put albums that sound exactly Master of Puppets any more, but because Reload, S & M and St. Anger weren't particularly good albums, lacking in the creative drive that still makes Master of Puppets so incredible 20+ years later. Metallica can experiment all they want to; it's their prerogative as artists and as people who have their own lives to lead, but they have yet to demonstrate the ability to create those experiments and do so with the same ability that they had as an edgy thrash band.

A Little Metallica Love

The VW Passat: truly the most metal of cars. Especially when it's painted sea-green.

Via Glowfoto

Who's So Queer?

Here's a fun news item: a site called Love God's Way has posted a watch list of bands who they think help spread the dangers of homosexuality to kids through their music. That's right, Fortress America: you may have shunned the homosexual in the street and banned him from your television, but he's still spreading the gay to your children through their CDs and MP3s! Panic! Ban the bands!

The site is down, unfortunately (I think people might have taken the request to "please email us so we can update" if "you know of a band that is Gay or propogating a Gay message" a little too seriously - and can you really blame them?), but the good people at Idolator have the most recent version of the list up in all of its glory...and it's got at least two metal bands on it: Judas Priest and Metallica.

Now, if you're going to go through the puerile exercise of labeling bands as "gay," I guess Judas Priest is going to be a choice as any - "Ram It Down" isn't just about bringing the metal show to town. But Metallica? Is it because they hail from San Francisco? Or maybe Kirk Hammett's piercing obsession during the Load period? Actually, you know what? I've got it: you're really just pissed about the direction the band went with St. Anger. I know it wasn't the sonic gem we were all expecting, but they can't all be Master of Puppets. The 80s are over, man...you have to accept that.

Head Banging: An Exploration

Are you familiar with the term "bangover"? I wasn't either, until Municipal Waste frontman Tony Foresta used it during an intro at Irving Plaza a few weeks ago. The Urban Dictionary has a nice definition, with the wonderful side-effect that depending on the audience, it sounds like I had rough sex last night instead of overindulging in the wonderful world of bang yer head.

In the midst of extreme physical activity, like head banging way too much during Pinebox's set up in Yonkers, NY last night, my mind ends up wandering a little bit. Is it because the conscious mind releases so much control to keep the body moving in time with whatever it's doing that the subconscious takes full control? Is it because my levels of ADD are so high that I need to multitask whatever I'm doing, even if it's not effective? Maybe I'm trying to stave off an embolism (aka "bleeding on the brain") by making sure I can still think straight? Who knows.

In any case, when I wasn't staggering around trying to regain/keep my balance, I got to thinking about head banging and why people do it. I'm not a sociologist by any stretch of the imagination, so I'll just put up my own thoughts on the matter and we'll have to be content without any science to back them up. I have two theories:

1. It looks cool, especially in photos that you see when you're young and impressionable. For me, that was in the mid-1990s, when I saw things like the cover of "Bleach" and the Black Album tour video, which features stills and video of people head banging. Then there was Wayne's World and the "Bohemian Rhapsody" sequence - four metalheads in a car completely rocking out to Queen.
   
   Speaking of that scene, for some reason, the fashion among the kids with the larger bar mitzvahs was to have not only DJ-ed after parties, but lip sync contests at those parties. Thanks to the time limits on the songs, my friends Jeff, Alan and I chose to enter one of those lip sync contests by playing "Bohemian Rhapsody" right from that "head banging" bridge to the end and won because nothing slays a crowd like a group of thirteen-year-olds doing their best whip imitations with their skulls.
   
   With a background like that, there was no way I wasn't growing my hair so I could whip it around whenever possible.
   
   
2. The music itself demands you do something ridiculous with your body. Like those old movies about rock and roll where the repressed parents would feel like they were possessed because the back beat in the music made them want to dance, a good metal beat makes you want to move something, hit something, do something in time to the music. Pinebox was the first set last night and I blew my neck's load watching them play. For the rest of the night, there was no head banging, but the rhythm to move was so intense that I had to do something - so I ended up bruising my hand a bit by pounding it against a pillar.
   

So, let's sum up. Desire to head bang: ingrained enjoyment stemming from exposure during an impressionable youth, combined with frequent exposure to extreme music whose rhythm demands extreme responses from the body. And there you have it.