What Are You Listening To Right Now (Part IV)

[Charger]

Avatarium - Rubicon

[Zzzptm]

D.R.I. - Shut Up

[Charger]

Megadeth - We'll Be Back

[Zzzptm]

Dave Mustaine - talking about including Ride the Lightning on Megadeth's next album

[Charger]

^^
I am excited to hear that version!

[Vyn]

Many moons ago, there was strife in the Metallica camp. After kicking Dave Mustaine out of the band (frankly the best thing that could have happened to him), many thought that the turmoil was over.

It wasn't. It just didn't get played out in Hit Parader,, but the man who I always have felt was the core of Metallica, Cliff Burton, was concerned.

He was concerned that their drummer was going to always be a dead weight the band would have to carry around rather than an engine that helped rev them up. As those thoughts coalesced into a plan, the unthinkable happened.

After the accident that claimed Cliff's life, the rest of the band soldiered on. And it seems to me that their output over the years has been somehow less than it could have been. Hetfield can project rage with the best of them, Kirk can drive the riff, their bass players over the years have been serviceable, and Lars continues to be a pro-groupie who can't believe the band let him bang on the drums. To me, he's never grown out of that. I think Cliff was right.

Meanwhile, Megadeth has consistently tore ass over the years. Despite Dave's nitroglycerine-like temperament, he's always gotten the best out of himself and those around him, and sales numbers aside I think they are the better band when compared to Metallica.

And I can't wait to hear their rendition of Ride the Lightning!

[Zzzptm]

^Agreement with Vyn, 100%

Meanwhile, I listen to Fela Kuti to start my day, his 1969 album Fela Fela Fela. 

[Charger]

Quite well said there Vyn! I find myself agreeing with everything you say.

I too have always preferred Megadeth over Metallica. The first three Metallica albums are great and Justice has it's moments but they went downhill fast after that...becoming more interested in radio friendly garbage than making actual heavy metal music.

Megadeth eventhough they went bit more commercial they never went over the top and stayed more true to their roots...and ofcourse they have been much more prolific hammering out solid albums every few years where as Metallica has just been happy doing their greatest hits live shows for most of the 2000s.

And yes Lars is THE WORST drummer in thrash metal...but I guess he made it up by his song writing skills...don't know...

[Zzzptm]

Makes me miss Cliff Burton...

[Zzzptm]

The Boys - The Boys

[Typhon]

 

[Zzzptm]

^That's a lovely song for the fall season, I think I'll listen to it, as well!

[Zzzptm]

Well that got me in the mood for another cool-weather tune. Not yet cold here, so I'm holding off on my David Gilmour ritual, but summer's definitely turned in for the year and it's time for that fall vibe.

Grand Funk Railroad - "Feelin' Alright"

[Vyn]

Funny thing about that GFR album cover, I always pictured Mark Farner as actually living like that when he wasn't playing in the band. I mean, I think that's an actual picture of his living room.

[Zzzptm]

Times was hard in the early 70s for three young rockers from Flint, Michigan. While they lived in squalor, barely able to rub two sticks together for a fire, their manager had all their money and joked about how managing GFR was like printing money.

After making the E Pluribus Funk album actually *look* like money, Mark Don & Mel took matters into their own hands and sued Terry Knight to terminate his management contract. They may have made plenty coin for Terry Knight with their first 6 albums, but they hit gold with this tune...

One can see from the footage that the band were now successful enough to buy trousers and Mel Schachter could even buy a shirt and coat! Happy days, indeed!

The transformation was memorialized in Michael Palin's invocation on Motorhead's Rock 'n' Roll, at the end of Side One:

“Oh Lord, who art on high, who hast made the blades of grass, and the little tiny things that creep therein, that hath made the cricket bats, who has made hankies, who has made… [long pause] …all things, bless thou these people from Motörhead, that they may so verily endow the people of this planet with pleasure and enjoyment that yea, they may verily increase fourfold their already large sums of loot and enable them here in this life to purchase maybe one other pair of trousers each. Oh Lord, thou who hast seen the trouserless and had compassion, look down upon them. Thank you.”

All bands go through a "trouserless" phase, more or less, none more vividly recorded in the public zeitgeist than Grand Funk (+Railroad every other album or so)