Monday, June 09, 2008

Not for the cure heads unless you now appreciate good music

Well thats the longest title out of the way.

This whole music thing has been fun for me also on youtube, and Dollys mention of Metallica got me searching and I found two absolute gems.

Metallica was formed by an amazing drummer Lars Ulrick and would have been one of the top 4 Trash metal bands when I was growing up, alongside other greats like Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer. There was great tales of Megadeth and Metallica always at odds with each other, due to the fact that the original lead guitarist Dave Mustaine was kicked out of the band after 2 years due to arguments with the rest of the band, mainly because of drugs and alcohol. Dave Mustaine was a mad man and a loose wire and I think kids looked up to him in a wierd Amy Winehouse way.

After been kicked out he formed Megadeth, and the fueding started in gusto and to this day is unresolved, the replacement guitarist for Metallica ended being Kirk Hammett, and Mustaine even had a go at him with quotes like "I dont care Kirk took my job, at least I got to bang his girlfriend before he took my job — how do I taste, Kirk?" oh yep class stuff!

Mustaine was and still is an amazing guitarist with some heads of the music industry claiming he was the inspiration of Trash Metal and Speed Metal.

Anyhow back to Metallica, they also replaced the original bass player with a guy called Cliff Burton, who unfortunatley was killed in an accident in Sweden when the tour bus went out of control and he was crushed under it. 2 months later Jason Newstead joined.

This was the line up that I mainly grew up to love, Lars Ulrick - Drums, James Hetfield - vocals and guitar, Kirk Hammett - lead guitar and Jason Newstead on bass.

This first video is old school Metallica (1984) and a tune from their second album "ride the lightning" called for whom the bell tolls



Here it is again this time years later in 1999 when Metallica had the pleasure of working with an amazing composer Michael Kamen and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for a live gig called S&M (Symphony and Metallica) Basically the band asked Michael Kamen to score 21 of their songs going back through the years and play 2 concerts with a full orchestra, this was no mean feat thrash metal mixed with an Orchestra, but it works and works really well, and I much prefer this later version.

To this day this album still remains one of my all time favorites, even the old man will listen to it and he is almost 60!!! listen to Lars on the drums to this day I have never heard anyone play drums as well as he can!




The only bad thing about Metallica is the fact that Lars spearheaded the demise of music sharing through Napster, and to be honest lost a fuck load of fans in the process, what a wanker. And since then music sharing has never been the same and that is all Metallicas fault. In 2007, Metallica was named #17 on Blender magazine's list of "biggest wusses in rock" for its "anti-Napster crusade".

Anyhow sorry for boring all you cure heads and your morbid sucidal music fetishes, but finding these 2 gems as I say was a great way to see how the band grew up and listening to them both I would have to say how much I have grown up with them.

12 comments:

  1. oh my god, I've just realised you were a rocker, I was a cure loving person......we were enemies!

    Did you hang around Stephens green? I was a peaceful loving girl so I never got into any fights but the rockers and the cureheads used to regularly bang heads...

    Does this mean we can't be friends? :-)

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  2. Afraid so MW I am still a rocker at heart, cant stand the drone of the cure, the smiths, morrisey or any of those wankers.

    We can still remain buddies if we never talk of this again in person, although if I am ever in your house again and you put on any of that shit lord knows what sort of things could happen.

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  3. Ahh, now I know how it is we never knew each other in the Noggin...I was a Curehead and the rules were clear in good old holy child: Rockers and Cureheads could never mix!

    Mind you, I hated Morrissey too, whiny git.

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  4. It all makes perfect sense now although still suprised you did not know the idiot, good to see you back online!!!

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  5. My neighbours will love me tonight as I'll have to listen to all the Metallica records now. Well up to the black album it will be cause after that I think they suck. Tried so hard to please their fans going back to garage sounding rock. They were too old and played too well - you can't fake garage.

    As to Cure... I was never a hard core fan. I think it shows from the samples of music I picked. We were in to music as such, but never really fans.

    Did see the Metallica concert before they had the bus accident. Felt strange knowing Burton played the night before and then he was no more.

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  6. Yep I have seen them now 3 times all up to the black album, like you say never went for the whole commercial sound thereafter, but live they are incredible I could just look at lars drumming on his own and be happy. New album is due out sometime this year it will be interesting to see what comes of that.

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  7. I've seen Mettallica a couple times and they're one of the best live bands I've seen. I'll always love the Cure though... and I married a rocker.

    I feel sorry for people who have no grey areas - we al wear black after all ;)

    So Shan, did you have a dodgy poodle cut?

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  8. Jo I went through differing stages of hair. I had it long, then got a bodywave and highlights think Joe Elliot from Def Leppard, then got into death metal and had straight hair down past my arse, played in a death metal band for 2 years, then grew up cause I needed a job.

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  9. Down past your arse? That's long hair!

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  10. hmmm must root out picture of Shan with long, curly, hi-lighted hair!

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  11. SL can we please bar all future comments from this person called Paula, I dont want the blog to end up in a libel case!

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  12. Shan OMG I love all this blast from the part rocker stuff. Can't believer you were such a nig rocker with mad long hair and all. That's gas. I got myself a ticket for Metallica in Rathfarnham this summer. Never seen them before but always meant to. I sneakely bought a Megadeath CD back in 1993 and loved it. I'd love to see AC/DC live too.

    I think the Lars Ulrich/Napster thing was so totally in line with what Metallica are. They've always been the responsible fathers of rock; when they had that early 90s US tour with Guns n Roses, both bands were poles apart.

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