Dear Forum Members:

I just want to extend a very heartfelt and sincere thank you to everyone who advocated viewing the film "A Year and 1/2 in life of Metallica."

I probably would have never watched this film of my own volition, and thanks to you folks, my life has been infinitely enriched. I shit you not.

And more importantly, I will be able to ask drummers to try drum takes that are "more peppery on the top," and immediately piss myself.

Figuratively, mind you.

Please add your favorite bits of this film below, so we may share the warmth of collective experience.

For those who never saw it, here's the original thread on this topic (which also led me to buy and love this DVD):

http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=88

I never posted on the original thread, but this film is one of the all-time best. My wife and I always show it to prospective new friends to see if we will be betting along in the near future. My favourite part: the bass guitar baffle fortress. A solution in search of a problem. Seriously, can anyone explain the rationale behind this time-wasting notion they had? He picks too loud. Huh?

i can posit a guess, though i haven't seen the movie. (i'm so good at this kinda crap, talking about something i have no idea what i'm talking about).

it became really, really obvious after reading that old '91 issue of bass player that i dug up that there was a major problem brewing between hetfield and newsted from really early on.

the way newsted talks in the interview, it's apparent that this is the way he sees things: on AJFA, he was obligated to just double the guitars, at which point his bass was unnecessary cause the guitars were already plenty thick and none of them understood how to work things into certain frequency ranges in a cooperative way. then starting on the black album, there was a distinct move, at least in newsted's mind, to change the model of metallica from a guitar and drums rythmn section to a BASS and drums rythmn section. so he was essentially looking to have the bass be what it's, arguably, supposed to be, and in a sense, to supplant james hetfield as the main instrument of the rythmn section. and the way i see it, lars plays his parts *to* the guitars a lot more than he leads them. james also seems way tighter than lars. and i distinctly recall how james talked about how he really likes how lars plays behind the guitar, in old magazine interviews from right around '90, give or take a year.

anyways, based on that fact (that newsted's language specifically talks about shifting metallica to a bass and drums rythmn section, and NOT guitar and drums) it's obvious that there's gonna be massive conflict there. newsted also talks in the article about how important it is to pick really hard, and really solid, all downpicking when possible, and that *he learned that from james*. so maybe this is a case of newsted having reached a point where he could downpick longer, harder, faster than james, and james was having a little shit-fit about it, masked as something else? i can just picture that, early on them telling newsted that he doesn't pick hard enough, then later on, he picks too hard.

i haven't seen the metallica video, though it sounds like i really should cause everybody loves it so much, but i'm just offering up tidbits from that magazine i just read that would seem to fit together with the assumptions i'm making about what you guys are talking about.

so, who is the driving force behind the baffles? if it's anybody but james, consider everything i just said as an anecdote or a waste of time or something along those lines. it's actually a really interesting interview. i wish i could find it online to link to it.

I think your opinion is well-informed, based on your research of this issue...however, I highly suggest that you watch this film, so that you may learn that your hypothesis doesn't hold a candle to the notions of one of the most ridiculous people I've ever witnessed on celluloid, tape, or DVD...

that is: Mr. Bob Rock.


This film neatly perches itself upon a massive golden altar in the mighty throne of IRONY. When they argue like Spinal Tap during recording, with a producer who is pure Spinal Tap, and then give the album a cover that is obviously Spinal Tap-ian, and are given a backstage tent next to Spinal Tap, and START UP A CONVERSATION WITH SPINAL TAP, you swear to God that if there is a deity of Irony, that he/she is unloading bucketfuls of gleeful ejactulate into the fleeting winds of heaven.

WOMAN!


The best parts? try..

lars speeding and being extra late.
the porn
the shot gun cocking track
lars popping the snare head after he was already super late
the van full of 2 inch
the poor poor guy editing lars' drum fills
Bob rock being 100% about which song was the hit on the record
guitar after guitar playing the same solo
The look on their faces when bob brought in the keyboard player


that movie is just so beyond real. I can't imagine working at any of the locations they recorded.

Yes, let us acknowledge this:

PIECING TOGETHER YOUR DRUMS PARTS HIT BY HIT.

The sickest thing I've ever seen done in recording, except auto-tuning.

I will be totally honest with you, if I was that engineer in the little closet backroom with Lars, I would make an "accident" happen, where Lars slipped (because his feet were wet from showering), and hit his head on the very SHARP corner of the Otari.

what about dave lombardo from slayer being talking into tracking at half speed, so they could then double the speed and make him the fastest drummer in town? and then live, he couldn't pull any of it off?

i'd say on the one hand, this is a load of shit. BUT, a lot of good ended up coming from it, in that hordes of metal drummers convinced themselves they could play as fast as dave lombardo, or even faster, and as a result i think metal drumming progressed lightyears faster than it otherwise would have. so in that sense, i'm happy with it.

i'll bet that some doude out there somewhere listens to some bullshit track that lars edits together, and convinces himself he can play it too, even though in reality lars couldn't. in that sense, i think it's pretty cool, that someone cheating like that results in raising the bar genre-wide.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:what about dave lombardo from slayer being talking into tracking at half speed, so they could then double the speed and make him the fastest drummer in town? and then live, he couldn't pull any of it off?

You know, I'd heard about this trick in the past but I don't know which Slayer songs it was used on. Do you happen to know so I can listen to how fake/fast/dumb it sounds?

Ta muchly!

i'm pretty sure it was more than just a song or two. i remember reading an interview with lombardo very shortly after he left slayer, where he talked about this... i can't say i recall exactly, but i think it was every fast song on reign in blood and south of heaven. i know for sure south of heaven, and reign in blood, since it's fast as shit, i think it was that one, too. i wish i remember what magazine the interview was in. he also talked about how their produced convinced him he should have his legs at some crazy, unnatural angle... damn, i wish i knew what magazine it was... it's messed up trying to recall specifics from a magazine i read while standing in the magazine section at jewel/osco like 10 years ago...

but yeah, when i saw them live, with lombardo, in like 90 i think it was, he fucking sucked. he stood out as playing like shit, and this was long before i was able to tell a good drummer from a bad one. so, i dunno. i would guess a great example of double bass he could never play would be in the song Silent Scream (off South of Heaven). isn't that one sickly fast? i mean, i realize guys can bury that these days, but this was lombardo himself admitting that he was coerced into using this record at half-speed/play back at normal bullshit. so i believe it to be for real.

i never thought of any of the slayer recordings with lombardo as sounding fake, even after reading the interview. although there are lotsa crazy fucking fills on south of heaven that i got the impression were maybe edited together, or just overdubbed. but then, i don't know. cause i've played with a drummer before who i think could pull off any lombardo fill i've ever heard, but maybe not some of the fastest double bass stuff. whatever. shit, i still enjoy listening to reign in blood and south of heaven, and i appreciate them as great albums whether or not they actually played everything live, or overdubbed, or cheated on speed, i don't give a shit in this case. i just think of it as a couple great albums, great for what they are anyways.