Metallica: the beginnings

Ñòðàíèöà: 4/5

At this time, the kind of music METALLICA played, not only nobody else in America played, but nobody even heard it! It was really something new, and unheard of before. This can be explained be the absence of Metallica concerts, which in turn can be explained by Metallica not being fully compiled (James Hetfield, was still torn between vocals and guitar, and refused to do both).

Finally, the historic even – first, the very first concert of Metallica – happened in the club called “Radio City” in Anaheim, on March 14, 1982. For Metallica it was a completely new feeling new atmosphere – the world of live music, unity of performers and listeners, where the boundaries between the two disappear. However, in those years only a few people took interest in Metallica’s music, and the masses were crazy about the Glam-rock. Despite all that, guys’ popularity somehow kept growing and even Europe heard of Metallica!

After some touring, Metallica set (which consisted of only “Hit The Lights” at the time) finally had three more songs added to it: “The Mechanix”, “Jump In The Fire”, and Hetfield’s “Motorbreath”. In April of 82 these three plus “Hit The Lights” were recorded on tape in McGownie’s garage. Later this tape became a basis for all the business deals. Lars Ulrich and a guy named Patrick Scott, started on distribution of these tapes, by passing out free copies with card that said Metallica and their phone number to almost anyone they saw.

At the same time, the band was continuously searching for a rhyth guitarist. They found an extremely weird guy named Brad Parker, but after one concert with him, they had to kick Brad out, and James Hetfield finally realized that he would have to carry the burden, of playing the rhyth guitar.

In 1982 the “Metal Massacre” finally came out. Even though its cover had countless typos and the band’s name was spelled “Mettallica”, it became their first official disc, and planted the seeds where Metallica’s later fame would be partly rooted.

Things really to started to pick up the pace for Metallica when of their concert recordings wound up in the hands of Kenny Kane, owner and manager of independent company “High Velocity”. Having found Metallica’s work very innovative, Kane contacted the band and offered Metallica to release a whole EP, promising to cover all the recording costs. Sure enough, the band agreed, but later it turned out that the concert tape Kane heard had only the cover songs, not the Metallica originals, so Kane refused to put out the Metallica vinyl. However, the band still got their paid studio where they recorded “No Life ‘Till Leather” – their new demo tape, which was spread the same way as the first one.

On September 18 in San Francisco, Metallica appeared at the presentation of “Metal Massacre” organized by Brian Slegel himself. The band wound up there pure accidentally after Cirith Ungol (one of Slegel’s picks) couldn’t make it. The interesting thing was that all the fans that came to that concert had “No Life ‘Till Leather” and jointly sang the words of almost all the Metallica songs. This was the first time Metallica met with its real fans.

Metallica continued playing in San Francisco, gaining more and popularity until November 28, when the band finally headlined their own show! That show was also where and when Metallica met Kirk Hammett, who then played in Exodus – a band who was warming the crowd up at the show.

At the same time, there were and more problems with Ron McGownie in the middle of Metallica itself. Ron was getting more and more distant from other band members, even during their friendly parties. As things were getting worse, Brian Slegel invited Lars and James to visit concert of the band called Trauma. There, both were completely captivated by Trauma’s bassist – Cliff Burton. Cliff didn’t have any desire to leave Trauma, but after the concert and months after that Lars and James were literally stalking Burton, trying to get him into Metallica. Ron McGownie accidentally found out about all this, and in December he officially left Metallica. Several weeks after that whole Metallica moved to San Francisco, and Cliff Burton finally agreed to play with them.

Ðåôåðàò îïóáëèêîâàí: 5/07/2007