Metallica: Disposable heroes by Giles Skerry

I have finally managed to illegally download Metallica’s 1986 release, Master of Puppets, having lost the CD for a number of years now. I don’t know why I used the adjective illegally, I just felt like being a bit dangerous. It has prompted me to reminisce about my on/off relationship with Metallica over the years. They have gone from being my favourite band to a guilty pleasure.

Why did this happen? There has always been a certain amount of pleasure placed on me by my school friends to denounce Hetfield and co. as the wankers they are. I remember my friend Greg defacing a poster I used to have with various expletives and obscenities, justifying it by saying that it was all true, and that they were really, really shit. I could not accept this, and went to sleep after school listening to any one of their albums. Increasingly, though, I would listen to what could be objectively described as their weaker albums (Load, Reload, etc). I’m not entirely sure why, I think it was because their early work, which stayed truer to their thrash metal roots, was quite hard to fall asleep too. Anyway, I fucking loved Metallica. I got to see them, too, in 2004 at Reading festival. It was the zenith of our relationship and produced a barren period subsequently. This was not totally inexplicable, I think I had achieved all I could with Metallica, and the pace of university life meant I was discovering numerous other bands that held my attention away from my childhood sweetheart. It was inevitable really. You just can't sustain home relationships at University.

Now, some years later, having amalgamated an eclectic and (I think) sufficiently acclaimed music collection, I decided to reappraise Metallica’s position within my hard drives. I have come to the conclusion that it is a worthy one. I must preface an explanation of this my saying that I am only really speaking about Metallica’s first three albums (Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets). I still have time for the Black album and And Justice for All but they come from a Metallica branching out of thrash metal. Herein lay the problem for Metallica I think. Their success within thrash metal led to their increasing popularity which by turn led to their sound becoming more commercial and straying into hard rock.

Add to this several other factors - egotism, wealth, the introverted nature of the Hetfield/Ulrich song writing partnership, James Hetfield’s conquering of his alcohol and drug problems, internal tension and members leaving, and the fact that both were complete and utter wankers - and you can begin to see why song writing suffered. Post black album, where their popularity rocketed, they delved into self-indulgent bluesy rock with little or no genuine feeling behind it. Save 1999’s album with the San Francisco Philharmonic, S&M, which, despite its excellence, only served to demonstrate their increasing popular accessibility, their nineties and noughties albums have been extremely poor. They have become victims of their own success because their realisation that Metallica had strayed far, far away from their roots only led to the train wreck of St. Anger, a devastatingly shit ‘return to what its all about’ album. It was totally contrived and only increased my antipathy towards the band. It was with all this in mind that I realised why I have been able to cherish Metallica once more.

A friend told me that in order to succeed in life you need to be able to compartmentalise. I have done exactly this with Metallica. I have split them up into two different entities. The one being the aging crusty fucknuts who release tired music and have some much wealth and such huge egos that they want to control the entire industry. I have no time for them. They are, well, cunts. And their music is shit. But the second Metallica are the earnest, drink fuelled aggressive bastards who brought three albums of the fastest and most complicated thrash metal ever made. Their anger, their loathing for pretension and the world they saw brought frenetic energy to their music, and a fierce, seething fury that I find utterly compelling. And yet, as people so often forget about Metallica, in Cliff Burton (who tragically died in a road traffic accident while the band were on tour) they had an incredibly gifted and classically trained bassist, whose appreciation for classical music was an integral influence on the technical musicianship of their early work. These classical influences are, to me, plain to see. Although, I am not knowledgeable enough about theory to discuss this in specific detail. You just have to listen to Call of Ktulu on Ride the Lightning to understand this.

Having said all this, is it fair to place Master of Puppets (by way of example as their most critically acclaimed album) alongside other great albums like Blonde on Blonde, Revolver, Forever Changes, Daydream Nation, Velvet Underground and Nico? I think so. It is as good as the aforementioned work but its strength is undermined by virtue of the negative and mocking attitude people generally have towards ‘thrash metal’ as a genre and the general contempt people have towards Metallica as they now are. Which is a shame.

words: Giles Skerry

Today I haven't done any work

I am at work and i haven't done any yet. Even by posting this, i am probably implicating myself in some way. Someone of relative stature within my boutique-style business to business publishers will probably stumble upon on this undiscovered blog and call me in to an unused conference room, slap me on the wrist, and then send me into the kitchen to lethargically operate the plunger on the office caffetiere. I don't even drink coffee - it leaves me with the same effects that most people who use cocaine complain of. Shuddery, achey heart, sore kidneys and a feeling of restlessness - minus the positives of course; I don't become obscenely confident and annoyingly content with the sound of my own voice for example.

While I am writing this, I should be transcribing an interview which featured a balding northerner from some big bank giving me an ass-aching lowdown on his bank's particular services and how they offer the most efficient assistance out there when it comes to getting returns from captive insurance investment strategies despite "market volatility" - so you can see why I have opted to write this excruciatingly tedious and self-absorbed personal rant which no one is ever going to read, with the exception of one or two mates who, even by this point, will have given up out of the sheer boredom of reading this rambling display of self-pity.

For those who are still reading, the reason is I just can't be bothered (pretty unoriginal, I know... have I lost you yet?). While I risk sounding like a pair of adolescent tits, three weeks of thankless tortue have got the better of me. As we drift deeper into recession, it seems it is 'lose your job, or lose the will to live'. Do or die. Kill or be killed. Or any other pointless cliche that describes everything I am trying to say, without really saying anything at all.

Anyways, my ultimate point is, to combat this feeling of absent self-worth I have opted to listen to this song repeatedly until my eyes feel as if they are going to turn into crusty Wotsits set in a bed of dry pot noodles... It really is beautiful.

Beirut - My Night With a Prostitute in Marseille

Radio GaGa

Radio: The warm pampering ass-fuck that drives us insane. By Giles Skerry

Recently I lost my Ipod. More accurately, I lost my bag which contained my Ipod and my father’s favourite book. This, combined with severe lack of funds, has led to me consider new ways of entertaining myself on those long walks through fields and along rivers. I am currently dabbling with radio. Not digital radio, mere lowly FM. Now my current routine is to switch between Radio 1 and Radio 2. I’m not sure why, maybe its my masochistic streak. I cant really abide Radio 1 on account of its inane DJs, inane music, and inane listeners. Radio 2 has its ups and downs. For instance I like Steve Wright but I hate Chris Evans. See? Simple really.

The point of this diatribe (yes, it is a diatribe) is not to celebrate or condemn each channel but actually to talk about one particularly despicable and risible element common to both. It is something a lot of my least favourite programs on TV and radio have in spades: namely, members of jonny public telling the world about their problems and how they’ve suffered. On Radio 2 this normally occurs on the Jeremy Vine show (Mon - Fri, 12 - 2). On it the smug and listing Vine invites listeners to participate in a discussion about various news stories of the day. I happened to catch the end of the show yesterday and they were talking about a drug being developed that could erase specific memories. It sounded like one of those ‘and finally’ stories about cats performing an emergency tracheotomy on their owner who was choking on a piece of gristle. What followed was truly shocking. Apart from all the cranks who saw it as one step away from total thought control, several callers saw it as a means of removing burdensome memories of past traumas from them, thus enabling them to live a full and rich life. As far as I can tell, there are only two arguments; both of which are happily exemplified by a text sent in and a caller. The text was from a woman who wished she could remove the memory of her husband who hung himself in their living room. Every day she cries, apparently. Vine remained remarkably nonchalant; I think he played Dr. Hook straight afterwards. Nonetheless her argument was that it would be good to be able to remove traumatic memories. Fair enough. Following the light relief of Hook M.D., Vine tried to eke out the reasons for the next caller getting in touch. This wasn’t very difficult. The guy was all too pleased to announce on national radio that “basically, when I was eight, I was raped”. The caller, an archaeologist, claimed that the drug was a bad idea because of the didactic strength of the past. Not bad, although I was always taught that academics hate this argument about the benefits of history. He undermined my respect for his intellect, however, when he subsequently argued that if you had the memory removed then you’d have to go through it all again when you bumped into someone on the street and they said "ooh, wasn’t it awful about when you were raped aged 8". I’m not sure if that’s dinner party conversation. What struck me was, firstly, my grotesque voyeurism and how I revelled in others’ misfortunes and, secondly, the sheer self-indulgence of these people. Everyone loves sympathy. The warm pampering arse-fuck of someone consoling you is one of the greatest pleasures known to man. Its like being hungover. Its shit, but the feeling of gradually returning to normal far outweighs the pain you’ve been through. People who want to ‘open up’ about their problems, which seem to be of ridiculous proportion or nature, should do so in the correct setting. Not on some pithy radio show presented by a wad of toilet roll stuck together by wanking too much.

The sheer antipathy of Vine, and his ability to empathise one minute before laughing and listening to yet another disco track, leads me nicely onto Radio 1’s equivalent shitstorm of self-indulgent grieving: Changing Tracks. Now presented by Sara Cox (in the absence of plastic-faced indie giver of handjobs Jo Whiley) it attempts to show the power of music by reading out the story of one person’s traumatic experience and the song that turned it around. It is fucking laughable. Sara Cox is so vapid that she cant even speak sometimes. She was clutching for the word ‘identify’ for about a minute today in the following sentence: “It’s a story a lot of people will er…um…will er…um…“and so on. Anyway, the joy of Changing Tracks is that the detestable self-indulgence of it all is easily countered by the listeners’ responses via text message and more significantly the complete contrast between the gravity of the story and the strength of the song. Now, bear in mind the stories are very rarely as shocking as boyhood rapings or being the sole survivor of a family trip to Disneyland. They are a bit less grim than that. One girl wrote in about her boyfriend. They were together for years until he admitted cheating. She broke up but missed him so much they got back together. He cheated again. They split up but got back together. By now he was physically and mentally abusive. She found text messages on his phone from another woman. Are you following so far? They split up, again, got back together again, before another final bout of cheating put the kibosh on the whole thing. I don’t know what part of that story I like the most. The guy had it sweet. What a dumb bitch. Anyway, that’s not the point. Regardless of my personal feelings about the story, she really was trying to change her life and she heard the song in question when out in taaawn on a night out with her mates and it made her realise that things can only get better. You’re dying to know what song aren’t you? 'Its All Over Now', 'Baby Blue'? 'The Rat'? Not quite. It was actually Ultrabeat’s 2003 smash hit 'Pretty Green Eyes'. Jesus fucking Christ. Unbelievable. Or at least I thought. Maybe a one off?

Unfortunately not. Today, on my bi-monthly walk to the Job Centre I tuned in for my fix of misery. It was the turn of some pregnant lady who’s grandmother died a few months after the birth of their kid, Kitty. Now I don’t know about you but that really isn’t anything to worry about. And yet, here’s Sara Cox reading out this pitiable email in her dulcet northern tones. “Trauma sadness blah blah blah misery blah then this song came on” and here’s the really important bit, “it made me realise that I needed to care for my child and that she needs me to be a good mother”. Does this mean that before she heard this particular song on the radio she was a neglectful violent mum? She used to beat the kid out of sheer frustration at the death of her lovely old gran? If that’s the case, maybe it was a stunning song. Take That’s 'Rule The World'. Hmm, I’m not so sure about this. I’ve heard the song and its really, really shit. But, this is very confusing, because a woman texted in to the show to say that her gran died and it gave the song new meaning. And a teacher trying to write reports ended up blubbing over her laptop, which is pretty dangerous. Maybe her pupil will write in next week about the death of their favourite teacher by electrocution. Maybe then Radio 1 could be tried for manslaughter? Maybe I should stop writing, get a knife, upload Take That onto my Mp3 player and go give my Nan some Shipman-style attention. Oh wait, I forgot, I lost my Ipod. Thank god for that.

Words: Giles Skerry