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                  THE ENCYCLOPEDIA METALLICA NEWSLETTER
                         ISSUE #20, 30. Nov 1998
                         http://www.encycmet.com/
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EDITORIAL. No big news this time, just wanted to share a short interview
with the guys about the new cover songs. This is used with permission from
Polygram Australia. please also note that there now is a new question on
the "Weekly survey" on my page at http://www.encycmet.com. Anyway here we
go.

                                           Sem Hadland (Editor)
                                           http://www.encycmet.com
                                           


SOME THOUGHTS ON THE NEW COVERS 

1) Free Speech For The Dumb - Discharge 
JAMES: "I think we've slowed it down a little bit and tuned it down to get
more 'chug' out of the riff. I like to think that they were the first
crossover band, even before us, as in combining aggression and good
riffs." 

2) It's Electric - Diamond Head 
JAMES: "That's where the shit came from, that's what spurred us on. " 

3) Sabbra Cadabra - Black Sabbath 
JAMES: "You sit and listen to the Sabbath stuff and think 'wow that's
great' and then you go to sing it, and think 'wow I can't sing that high,
we'll have to tune the song down a bit to get in that range'. " 

4) Turn The Page - Bob Seger 
JAMES: I heard a song on the radio singing about the road life, a kind of
sombre, gruff, honest lyric in there. I kinda felt it could be Bob Seger,
but the lyric and song itself was great. So it's all to do with that song
rather than Bob Seger itself. That lyrics is us. We've been road dogs
since day 1. 

5) Die Die My Darling - The Misfits 
JAMES: "Awesome, ugly shit. I always liked their poppy modulations
combined with singing about death." 

6) Loverman - Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds 
JAMES: "He's got the nice mellow stuff and goes straight into chaotic
hell. He builds these things into giant ugliness. That's the kind of stuff
we were doing with 'Fade To Black' acoustic to heavy, one extreme to the
other, and I saw a lot of that in Nick Cave. That's what this 'Loverman'
is really all about." 

7) A Merciful Fate Medley (featuring Evil, Curse Of The Pharaohs, Satan's
Fall, A Corpse Without Soul and Into The Coven)- Mercyful Fate  
LARS: "I think it's dear to all us, we realize 15 years later how
tremendously influential they were and what a motherfucker it was to
execute. Just realizing how those guys were such brilliant musicians and
have such a great thing going." 

8) Astronomy - Blue Oyster Cult 
JAMES: "That song's always been pretty epic to me. Listening to the song,
we thought whether we should even fuck with it because it's so sacred. We
tried it and it came out pretty well." 

9) Whiskey In A Jar - Thin Lizzy 
JAMES: "It's extremely catchy and the fact it isn't really their song is
weird, it's some Irish drinking song. I liked the fact that Phil Lynott
could go anywhere and write any style, from some completely sappy love
ballad to some total quick-rocker to goofing around with the cowboy song,
to different shuffle beats." 

10) Tuesday's Gone - Lynyrd Skynyrd 
JAMES: "'This is the only one with guests (Gary Rossington, Jerry
Cantrell, Les Claypool, Jim Martin and John Popper). It was live from the
radio show we did last year and so there's all these people singing out of
key. We gave Randy (Staub) the tapes of it and said 'here, mix this' and
he was like 'holy shit.' There's 20 guys on it, and it had a great vibe." 

11) The More I See - Discharge 
JAMES: "They had the riffs. Bones came up with some metal riffs, and Cal
would just scream. It was fun doing those songs, there were no lyrics
there, just three lines with 'repeat repeat.' Very cool doing that stuff." 



==== METALLICA SUES AMAZON.COM ===================================
Metallica filed a lawsuit on Monday in the U.S. Central District Court of
California against online store Amazon.com over the bootleg album entitled
"Bay Area Thrashers: The Early Days." The group is seeking an unspecified
amount in damages, in addition to an injunction preventing future sales of
the album.

Metallica is continuing to allege in various suits that the bootleg album
was marketed and distributed without the band's permission, and the law
firm representing Metallica is quick to point out that even Amazon.com's
online description of the album mentions, via customer comments, that the
record is an illegal bootleg and not authorized by the band.

The suit lists such complaints as unfair competition as well as various
copyright and trademark infringements. As previously reported by MTV News
(see "Metallica Files Lawsuit Over Fake Live Album"), the group also filed
a suit earlier this month against Outlaw Records and various others over
the same release.

 

==== TURN THE PAGE IS #1 =========================================
Turn the Page came in at numero uno on the Billboard Mainstream Rock
Tracks for November 21, 1998, beating tracks by Black Sabbath, Rob Zombie,
The Offspring, and Kiss, among others. 
    www.intersandman.com/ 



==== FESTIVAL TOUR THIS SUMMER ===================================
Metallica have talked about an European festival tour the comming summer.
Some dates are now ready. They will be headlining the Roskilde Festival in
Denmark on Thursday July 1, 1999. Roskilde is the largest yearly European
festival with more than 150 bands. Metallica will also headline the Dynamo
Open Air-Festival in Holland on Sunday, May 23. 




==== GARAGE INC. REVIEW ==========================================
I didn't want to review the album myself as i feel that my work is to give
you the latest facts, and not my views. This review is from BBC Online.
Use my guestbook to tell the world what you think of the album, I'll put
some of the postings in this newsletter. If you still haven't ordered this
masterpiece, go to my page (http://www.encycmet.com) and click on the
CDNOW logo to order it right away

You know the silly season is in full swing when Metallica decide to
release a double album of covers. 

I kid you not - 27 tracks thrashed to bleeding point and guaranteed to
blow the cobwebs and everything else away come Boxing Day. 

It is not really what you would expect from a band whose original material
surpasses many of the songs they have paid homage to. 

But the end result is not a painful experience in the main part, although
they should have issued free cotton buds to keep the obligatory 'Parental
Advisory' sticker company. 

The second CD comprises various Metallica B-sides from 1984-95, but the
first is proudly billed as 'New Recordings '98' - new recordings of other
people's songs, you understand. 

The 'modern' stuff goes straight for the jugular with opening track Free
Speech For The Dumb - a fast and furious re-working of the 1982 song from
second generation punks Discharge. 

There is a brief respite when the boys daringly enter Black Sabbath
territory for a comparatively laid-back rendition of Sabbra Cadabra, with
its easy riffs and lazy drums. 

They just about get away with it, which is more than can be said for the
interpretation of Thin Lizzy's Whiskey In The Jar. 

The relentless, pounding beat ruins the whole complexity of the song and
serves as a warning to others that some classics are just uncoverable. 

Bob Seger's Turn The Page gets The Unforgiven treatment, Loverman (Nick
Cave) sees James Hetfield doing his Dave Gahan impersonation and Blue
Oyster Cult's Astronomy has him alternating between purring pussycat and
growling lion at the flick of a pick-up switch. 

The first chapter closes, as it began, with a highly-charged Discharge
cover. 

It is ironic that the very band they are trying to emulate probably did
not make enough money in their spluttering career to pay for one of the
industrial-strength speaker stacks that dominate the skyline whenever
Metallica play live. 

The second CD, or retrospective retrospective, if you prefer, involves the
band proving to the world that they can play their instruments faster than
anyone else - so there! 

The version of the Misfits' Green Hell is quite possibly the fastest song
ever, with James giving even Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys fame a run for
his money as the angry guitars spit out riffs like machine-gun fire. 

Helpless (Diamonhead) is another 180mph blockbuster, while the attempt to
bring Killing Joke's The Wait back to life fails due to an unnecessary
smothering of the original mystery. 

The acceptable adaptations far outnumber the offensive, with the trademark
growling guitars chugging at the heart-strings in an almost comforting
manner. 

'Motorheadache '95' (Overkill etc), though, was a dodgy task to take on.
You can almost see James with his head under the mike in a bid to ape the
inimitable Lemmy. 

But Motorhead are probably the only band that could out-Metallica
Metallica and that's the way it should stay. 

Perhaps the most enjoyable (and certainly the most offensive) cover in the
collection is the rendition of the infamous So What by the Anti Nowhere
League. 

The title is the only lyric that could possibly be replicated in these
pages, but it will have die-hard punks everywhere reminiscing on the days
when they used to play it, loud, with the bedroom door open to rankle
their long-suffering parents. 

In summary, Garage Inc works because the material chosen is not a million
miles away from the band's own repertoire - I'm looking forward to the
sequel - 'Metallica play Manilow'. 

But the question it unavoidably throws up is why are they spending
valuable studio time recording other people's songs, when they could be
writing a few of their own? 

Source: BBC Online
Chris Charles /news.bbc.co.uk/ 



==== NEXT SINGLE ================================================
Rumors say that Metallica will be in Los Angeles shooting the second video
for 'Garage Inc', "Whikey in the Jar". This will probably be the next
single 



==== LOOKING FOR SPONSORS? ======================================
Do you have a webpage and are looking for sponsors for a new income? I can
recomend ValueClick. They will even host the banners for you and rotate
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==== WEEKLY SURVEY ==============================================
The question on the weekly survey is now "What do you think of the new
single track, Turn the page?" OK, 3046 have voted so far and the results
are as follows. 

   Excellent: 64.54%
   Very good: 18.78%
   Good: 8.27%
   OK: 4.37%
   Bad: 1.35%
   terrible: 2.69%

Don't forget to go to our page to make you voice heard, the URL is still
http://www.encycmet.com




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