I originally started this blog on the anniversary of the passing of original Metallica bassist Cliff Burton who died on September 27th, 1986. It was actually just after I had written about the 30th anniversary of the passing of Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham. I had already written an entry about the 40th anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix. It just seemed a bit of too many…”memories of dead rock musicians”
I want to talk about my memories about the band that many metal fans consider one of the greatest Heavy Metal bands of the past 30 years and one of the best bands of all time.First, I'll start off with an album considered a landmark album in the world of Heavy Metal and Hard Rock. That album is the 1986 album Master of Puppets.
In high school, I would usually have a copy of Hit Parader with me most of my senior year. I would usually pull it out of my books at the end of class to have something to flip through and read before the bell would ring between classes and eventually the end of the school day. For me, music(especially Rock and Metal) was the thing that made me feel accepted. During my senior year, I remember reading about an album from Metallica called Ride the Lightning. I had a friend named Dave E and he became a big fan of the harder edged metal. He told me he bought Ride the Lightning. I remember telling him “Ah man! You bought Metallica?…they have such a lame name!” It wasn’t until I gave it a listen that I actually had second thoughts.
When I started college in the fall of 1985, I became exposed to friends with really diverse musical tastes. I talked about my friend Shaun in my blog on Yes. As I said in that blog, Shaun was a big fan of hardcore punk bands. He liked drummers that kicked ass and played fast. Shaun could be very vocal about music at the time. But, looking back, Shaun had such a diverse collection of music. I don’t think people who thought they knew him really knew how varied his tastes were. Of course, in 1985, bands like Motley Crue and Ratt were huge with lots of makeup and glam looks. Shaun and I would frequent Dustys Records to look for hard-to-find albums and new bands. One day, Shaun came across the album cover of Metallica’s Kill ‘em All. We looked at the band picture on the back of the album and Shaun made a comment about how ugly the four members looked. He had to buy it. If you’ve seen the VH1 Metal documentary, Sebastian Bach has said just about the same thing. The band is pretty ugly looking in that early picture. Metallica had been around for years at that point. But, it was pretty cool to tear off the plastic on that album and drop the needle on that one. The band was fast, aggressive and full of attitude. Shaun definitely turned me on to the speed of Whiplash. I liked the full force of hostility in the music. But, I didn’t feel compelled to buy the album.
Months passed and we went into Dustys and noticed the album cover for their 1986 album Master of Puppets. The album was released in March of 1986 which would have been the spring semester of our college freshman year. It looked kinda cool and I tossed it around in my mind whether or not I wanted to buy it or not. I remember Shaun coming back from a spring break(I think) and he had bought Master of Puppets. He would put it on his turntable and we would listen to it over and over. As I listened, it felt aggressive yet melodic and somehow memorable in a "stuck in my head" sort of way. I definitely remember walking from Shaun’s dorm room to my own dorm room. The Metallica songs and melodies were still ringing in my ears. I would find myself singing Battery and title song Master of Puppets to myself. At the time, Metallica were definitely an underground band. They were big in the skateboarding community. In fact, following the release of the album, vocalist James Hetfield broke his arm while skateboarding down a hill. So, I ventured down to Dustys Records as I had many times before. On this day, Dusty was having a sale called the “Pathological Liars’ sale”. At the time, Jon Lovitz’s SNL character of Tommy Flanagan was known as …”uh President of the Pathological Liars club”. The catch phrase that his character had was “Yeah…That’s the Ticket!” The details of the sale were that if you told a lie regarding your purchase, it was a dollar off! So, I made up some kind of lie about Hetfield and his skateboarding accident and then followed it with the tag line “Yeah, that’s the ticket!!”
Honestly, it’s hard to write this as Metallica has become so huge. It’s hard for me to get in the mindset of where I was in the mid 80’s. It was like a badge of rebellious honor to be a Metallica fan. While the other guys in the dorms were blaring Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet, I was cranking up Battery and Leper Messiah. I was the non-comformist on the 3rd floor. In 1986, they were fast and loud and epitomized the genre of Thrash metal! I was becoming a little tired of every Motley Crue, Ratt, Dokken and Bon Jovi type of band. I was becoming a very sarcastic and disillusioned individual and not the happy spoiled kid I had been most of my life. I had spent most of my youth as a kid who had a lot of stuff basically given to him. I had a relatively happy home life. I had felt pretty confident in my talents in High School activities as I was in a lot of musical groups both instrumentally and vocally. My grades were always rather good in everything I did. When I hit college as a music education major, I was hit in the head with a big dose of harsh reality. I wasn’t the best musician in the department. I wasn’t the awesome drummer I thought I was. I had to work to get the grades I wanted. My discovery of Metallica made me feel like the outcast individual that I’d always felt but didn’t know how to express. As a friend of mine used to say…I was a “young tough livin’ in a world of hate!” Most kids did that in high school. I did mine in college! Metallica was against the norm and those of us that felt we “discovered” them (in the pre-video days) were special individuals and had one up on the rest of the general public that found new music by watching MTV and listening to top 40 FM radio.
When Cliff Burton died in September of 1986, I was in my second year of college. I’m not sure if I could call that my sophomore year or not. By September, the circle of friends I ran around with were continually going to a myriad of college parties starting on Thursday nights and would last into the weekend. So, my memories are a bit hazy at this point. We found out about Cliff Burton’s death and we all said things like “Dude, that sucks!” and some other variation on that. Cliff was replaced by bassist Jason Newsted from the band Flotsam and Jetsam. I wasn’t sure who he was or really cared. I was pumped that Metallica was carrying on.
From 1986 to 1991, the popularity of Metallica grew by both word of mouth and eventually with the promotion tool of the 80’s…the music video. They played the Van Halen’s Monsters of Rock tour in 1988.
They released....And Justice for All that following October or November. Eventually, they made a music video too. It was an exciting day at Dustys. Bob and I had seen the band play some of the new songs during the Monsters of Rock tour. We had also successfully converted Forrest into a Metallica fan. Forrest had been a fan of college alternative stuff like REM, or the Replacements or the Smiths. I still remember a customer who was very reliant on Forrest's list of current faves to be in utter shock and disbelief when he listed And Justice for All on his list. The customer looked at Forrest and asked (in utter disgust) "Did you really put Metallica on your list?" The album was just an incredible statement at the time for myself and my Dustys buddies Bob and Forrest. Bob and I were broadcasting majors at Kearney State College and we would bring in our Metallica CDs and albums and we prided ourselves in being the only station in town that would play Metallica over the airwaves. The band definitely had an underground following. But, if you were friends with us, you definitely couldn't go a day without us saying something about the greatness that was Metallica. At the time, I was blown away by the complicated rhythms, intricate guitar riffs and drum accents contained on this album. I would listen to it on a daily basis whether it was at the store or in my car or on my cassette walkman. It was always with me.
The band was ascending in popularity. But, they still had the angst and hunger of their early days. VH1's Behind the Music described the album (some years later) as "a progressive, frenzied and violent statement that proclaimed the end of the American Dream." Blackened and Eye of the Beholder were songs about being blacklisted and the hypocrisy of society's spin on "Freedom of Speech". But, the track that caught on big time in the public eye was One. The song was based on a book by Dalton Trumbo called Johnny Got His Gun. The story is about a World War I soldier that is rendered armless, legless and unable to see, hear or speak and yet remains alive in his own private Hell. Metallica opted to use footage from the 1971 movie version of the book and interspersed it with footage of the band playing for their very first music video. In 1988, This was a big deal. If you were releasing music in the 80's, it was routine (and required) for the artist to release a music video to be played on MTV. So, when this video debuted, it was a big deal not only for fans like myself but for the music buying public. I remember even a few of my female friends had reactions to video too. The video was strong enough in its subject matter that it was effective enough to propel Metallica to yet another level of public awareness.
From there, they were to be one of the first bands to be nominated for the first every Heavy Metal category at the Grammys. For many fans, this was a no brainer. They were on the rise and this was to be their moment. They just killed onstage as they terrorized the stage and the CBS broadcast as they performed One with machine gun like precision.
When the "smoke" cleared and the winner for best Heavy Metal performance was announced, the award went to.....JETHRO TULL???!!! I had admired JT for some time at that point. But, I (along with many fans) thought that the award should have gone to Lars, James, Kirk and Jason.
My Metallica obsession continued into the summer of 1989 when Bob, Forrest, myself and my friend Steve C roadtripped to Omaha to see Metallica headlining for the first time with the Cult opening up for them. This was the LOUDEST concert I had ever attended. I remember 2 or 3 songs into the show looking down at the pant leg of my jeans and noticed that my clothes were vibrating. The aural barrage of Metal music that filled the Omaha Civic Auditorium was so loud it made my clothes shake. Damn...that was LOUD!
Steve and I eventually made our way through the general admission crowd to the mandatory thrash concert MOSH pit! This was my first mosh pit experience. As these die-hard metal heads thrashed and slammed into each other and in front of us, Steve and I locked arms and began pushing them back into the pit. This concert was a great road trip and was actually the last time I saw Metallica live.
According to 1001 Albums,
As I look back on that album, the album production doesn't hold up over time. It sounds rather tinny with little to no bass guitar in the final mix of the album. Some say this was due to paranoia by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich and their lack of confidence in Jason Newsted's bass playing skills. I don't claim to be an expert on what their feelings were at the time. But, as I write this (and listen to the album), I am filled with fond memories of music and friendships that still last to this day."...And Justice for All reveals itself as an epic, even noble concept album with many, many layers of invention to explore. The album sits between Metallica's finest hours: the melodic, aggressive beauty of 1986's Master of Puppets and 1991's earth-shattering, rock club-fueling non-thrash Metallica - not an easy place to occupy."
....coming soon...Music memories of the "Black album" and the S&M double CD
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