Tag Archives: Metallica

Cliff Burton’s dad thanks his son’s fans

Ray Burton, the guy responsible for one of metal’s best bass players, wishes to thank Metallica fans for their support and wishes.

Nothing else to add, just watch the video…

Hetfield says Big Four shows have ‘run their course’

I’ve never wanted to punch a host in the face as much as when I saw this video. Someone get that dude off coffee and on some ADHD medicine.

Anyway, the interview itself has some pretty interesting quotes from Jaymz, so might as well post them here in case you’re too lazy to either watch the full thing, or go read it on Blabbermouth (cause that’s where I stole this from):

On more Big Four shows:

“Never say never, but I think it’s kind of run its course as far as Europe, for sure, and the two on the coasts here. I think it’s done what it needs to do for now, and then we’ll go our separate ways, do our albums, do our things. […] Who knows what happens in the future? It could be the ‘Big Ten’ and then we include… Who knows?! No limitations, man. But this has been a blast. And I think this might be the last one for at least a little while.“

On the Lou Reed album:

“Lou came with the lyrics; the lyrics were all finished. The lyrics are intense, and every time that I listen to this thing, there’s a line that I pull out and I just gnaw on that potent little thing all day. It’s like, ‘Man…’ It’s deep, and without getting too artsy-fartsy, you can take it to another level. It’s not party rock, that’s for sure. It’s deep, dark and intense.“

On their 30th anniversary gigs:

“We’ll have contests, we’ll have…. Who knows what goes on?! It’ll be Metallica insanity. And we’re trying to invite as many of the people who have jammed with us on albums or on stages, whatever, or songs we’ve done from them, we’re trying to get them up on stage […] Hopefully Lemmy, and Ozzy, and Tony, the Diamond Head guys, and who knows?! Whoever we’ve toured with as well. C’mon up — let’s have some fun and celebrate.“

 

Here are my thoughts, cause you fuckers know I have an opinion on everything:

• I’m willing to bet they’ll do more Big Four shows once each band finishes releasing/promoting albums. The demand is there, money is to be made, mark my words — it will happen again, and again, and again.
• Lou Reed wrote those pretentious lyrics? Wow, surprise of the fucking century. I realize this is a passion project for ‘Tallica, but jeez, they’ll have a new St. Anger on their hands, if only through the fans’ perspectives.
• I have to admit, having a show with Metallica, Lemmy, Ozzy, Tony and others would be fucking epic. I really want to go.  <whore> If anyone from Metallica’s camp is reading this, care to fly a metal e-journalist there? </whore>

Lulu, in a nutshell

Could this be the new ‘Bargains‘?

Anyway, no idea who made it, so unfortunately I can’t give credit to the author, but I did get it from MetallicaHD’s Facebook page.

Ian, Burton, Hammett – The Three Musketeers

Scott Ian posted a cool story of his friendship with the late Cliff Burton on his blog, and it’s a pretty awesome read. I just couldn’t help myself and had to do that photo above. Why? Read below…

Love how fat Kirk looks in that photo, by the way.

Anyway, here is the (somewhat) short version of the story. Make sure to read the full thing when you have the chance:

“I knew Cliff for three years and in those three years became good friends with him and Kirk, bonds that have lasted and stood the test of time. We were the three musketeers when we were together and we got to spend a lot of time together back in those days.

I was in London in March of 1984 doing promo for our first album Fistful Of Metal. Metallica was also in London because they were supposed to do a tour with The Rods and Exciter in the UK but the tour was cancelled. […] One day Cliff and I were going to a store so Cliff could buy a Walkman. We were in the tube station and two policemen approached us and asked us if we had drugs. We said no, big surprise. Truth is, we didn’t. They kept telling us that we should just tell them what we have and things would be easier for us. We kept telling them that we didn’t have anything. I guess they didn’t believe us being the long haired freaks that we were because they arrested us and took us to the police station. […]

At some point I heard Cliff’s voice and I started banging on the door screaming at them to tell me what was going on. A cop opened the window in the door and told me “they were taking my mate back to the flat so they could search it.” Apparently they had found Cliff’s cold medicine pills in his coat and they assumed it was illegal drugs. […]

So now they were taking him back to the apartment and I got really nervous because I knew he had weed back there. If they found the weed we were fucked. All I could think of was that movie Midnight Express where the guy gets busted in Turkey for smuggling and sent to Turkish prison and nobody ever sees him for years […]

It’s easy to get irrational when you’ve never been arrested for anything and you’re sitting in a cold concrete cell in a foreign country in your underwear for five hours with no clue as to what is going on. Another two hours or so passed and the cell door opened and a cop was handing me my clothes and telling me I was to go to the Captain’s office. […] To my surprise, Cliff was already there lounging in a chair with a huge Cheshire cat grin. I figured we were OK but I still had no idea what happened and how they didn’t find the weed back at the flat. The Captain started to apologize to us and tell us how “sorry he was for the mistake and us being falsely accused and that the cold medicine really was cold medicine etc etc.” I freaked. […]

As soon as we were outside I asked Cliff what the hell happened back at the flat. He told me that they (Cliff and six cops) walked into the flat and Kirk was in the living room playing guitar. The cops proceeded to search the flat for an hour to no avail. They couldn’t find anything. I asked Cliff where the weed was hidden, like he had some super secret hidey hole to stash his shit. He started laughing and asked me where would be the first place I would look if I was a cop searching a flat looking for drugs. I told him I would look under the mattress of his bed.

Exactly.

The weed was under his mattress and the cops never looked there!! I couldn’t believe it. The Metal Gods were looking down on Cliff and I that day.“

Read full story here.

Wait, is he saying what I think he’s saying? Did these guys commit a felony?

Holy shit, someone should call the cops! I have a feeling the inmates will REALLY love Kirk.

Make the jump for a photo of Scott and Cliff from that period.

Metallica Tribute: Four guitars, one person

Michael Angelo Batio is a very special guitarist, mostly because he can play both left-handed and right-handed guitars. Born a southpaw, he simply learned guitar ‘the right way,’ and then tried learning it with his dominant hand, also.

Regular guitarists may not be aware of this, but as a lefty guitarist myself, trust me, it’s very frustrating having to deal with it. You may think that it’s the fretting hand which needs the dexterity, but it’s not quite like that, as you have your rhythm in your dominant hand, so the strumming motion comes naturally with it. Which is why I’d encourage all the lefties to get lefty guitars, doing it reversed just adds more frustration to the already daunting task of learning the basics.

Being a lefty guitarist, however, is pretty annoying. There are guitars you simply can’t buy, they just don’t make them for your kind, and any time you see a guitar, well, you can’t show off your skills:

– Don’t you play guitar?
– I do, yeah
– Here, play it.
– I can’t, I am left-handed
– So?
– So I need a left-handed guitar
– LOLWUT?
– Are you stupid?
– Fuck you, dumbass…

So yeah, that’s what I had to deal with when I talked to my mom about guitar playing.

Anyway, I appreciate Batio‘s dedication to the instrument. Not only did he fight through all the trouble of being a lefty, he learned to play both types of guitars, and he got very fast on both. My jaw is always dropping when I see him playing something.

However, that Metallica tribute is pretty boring. I got the clip from MetalSucks, and as they said, nothing in that clip needed more than one neck.

I have seen Batio doing lead guitar on one neck, and rhythm guitar on the other one. Why didn’t he do the bassline on ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ with one hand, and the rhythm with the other one? Surely that would have been impressive. Maybe he’s just getting old.

Make the jump for a video where he is absolutely amazing. Granted, it’s guitar wankery at its finest, and it has the melody of an 8bit Atari game, but it’s still impressive, just because of how much this dude practiced his instrument to get to that level.