Posts Tagged Bob Rock
Proposed Lyrics To Metallica’s “Unforgiven Four”
Posted by Keith Spillett in The Poetry of Death on December 29, 2014
“Yes, we sell out. Every seat in the house. Every time we play. Anywhere we play.”
-Jason Newsted on VH-1’s Behind The Music: Metallica
Unforgiven Four
(Song begins sounding almost exactly like Unforgiven 3 in the hopes of capitalizing on earlier Metallica work and ensuring that the landscaping on Mr. Hetfield’s home in Malibu will be paid for well into the next century)
How could we know
Writing four-minute ballads-ah,
Would change our lives for-ever-ah?
Hired Bob Rock to change our course,
Sold trillions of records-ah,
Caused old metalheads
Senseless pain,
In our quest for Bentleys.
Been confused,
Always confused,
By the rage they’re feeling.
We…ARE…A…COM-MOD-ITY,
That’s…..what…you…want us….to be,
(What you want us to be)
(Chorus)
How come if we suuuuu-ck,
We make more money this way?
Stopped playing no-name clubs,
You should see our 401-Ks!
How can we go wrong?
This is the American Way,
How can we sell out?
This is how the game play—-dah.
People like to whine,
About how things have changed,
Distracts them from their lives,
To us it just seems strange.
We do what people waaaaa-nnn-tttt,
We have become unsure,
If we’ve always been a business,
What should we be Un-forgiven Forrrrrrrrr?
(Mediocre instrumental part that ham-handedly transitions from cannibalizing The Unforgiven 3 to regurgitating the first part of Unforgiven 2)
Lay beside me,
Try not to make me grin,
Commodity fetishism-mmmah,
Is surely not a sin.
We are rock icons,
We certainly do not care,
About your lives, about your ideas,
Just please don’t file share.
Lay Beside Me,
And I’ll tell you how things are done,
You act the part,
Hock an image,
None of this is true.
We are a consumer item
Just like Elmer’s Glue,
Well…they’ve been selling rock as revolution,
Since 1962,
If you can understand McDonald’s,
Then you understand what we do.
Yeah, you can understand what we do-ah!
(Chorus)
What we’ve done,
What we’ve sold,
You know the rules,
No one’s been rolled,
You hate the system,
But you participate too—ah.
Yeah…What we’ve felt,
What we’ve known,
Hegemonic mediocrity,
Etched in stone.
Behind our masks,
We are amused by youuuu-ah.
Before you call,
Lars a whore,
Then peddle your skills,
To buy seats on the floor,
Remind us again why you’re so pure,
And we’re The Un-forgiven Four.
(Mildly interesting but forgettable solo section that somehow meanders into a new chorus meant to put an end to this monstrosity of a song)
You think we’re old,
But we’ll survive,
In ten years you’ll get nostaligiccc-ah
Want to see us live,
Pay 400 dollars,
To hear us play The Unforgiven Five-ah.
Yeah…The Unforgiven…………..Five……
Great Moments In Metal History: Jason Newsted Invents The No-String Bass
Posted by Keith Spillett in Excessive Cruelty Towards Strangers on April 8, 2014
In 1988, Metallica released their seminal album “…And Justice For All”. Beyond being one of the top selling metal albums of all-time it featured the debut of their new bassist Jason Newsted. Newsted took over for the late Cliff Burton who was considered one of the finest metal bass players on the planet.
The band selected Newsted out of a pool of thousands of candidates including jazz legend Victor Wooten, Primus front man Les Claypool and Egyptian Prime Minister Hosni Mubarak. Newsted, who was never really considered much of musician, was selected for his very metal looking hair and menacing scowl. Following Cliff Burton was a challenge for a guy who only recently had learned to use both hands when playing the instrument. How would Jason replace this legendary metal figure?
Instead of running away from this daunting task, Newsted devised a strategy before the “…And Justice” sessions that would forever change metal bass playing. He simply removed the strings from the instrument. “We knew he had no idea what to do with the bass,” said noted producer Bob Rock. “He’s right-handed and would pick the thing up like he was a lefty. We were really nervous. Then, Jason showed up with the bass with no strings and Lars was like ‘Hell yeah, man!’ The rest is history.”
The invisible playing that Newsted performed on “…And Justice” is some of the most memorable non-playing in the history of the genre. Who could forget the fabulous non-bassline in Dyers’ Eve? Or the complex non-bass solo before the fade up at the beginning of Eye of The Beholder? By simply standing there pantomiming what an actual bass player would do, Jason helped create one of the most important albums in the last 30 years.
Newsted abandoned the no-string bass on later albums. This proved to be a career-destroying mistake. James and Lars called a closed door meeting with Jason and broke the news to him. “I told him ‘Jason, we simply can’t grow as a band if you continue to insist on playing actual basslines. It’s just not your strength. Maybe it’s time for you to move on.’ Besides the “little Danish friend” talk with Dave Mustaine in the movie “Some Kind of Monster”, it was the most difficult conversation I’ve ever had,” said a teary-eyed Lars Ulrich as he casually glanced at his watch.
Newsted tried to bring back the “no string” style on a solo album called “The Sound of No Noise”. He was accompanied by two no string guitarists, a drummer with no sticks and a mute vocalist. The album sold less than 300 copies. Newsted picked up studio work with several well-known bands, playing several times in the silent space between the last song on the album and the hidden track.
Today, Jason is a manager at a Herman’s Sporting Goods store in Bayonne, New Jersey. He doesn’t talk often talk about the time he spent in Metallica. Recently, he’s toyed with the concept of doing a ragtime album using a piano with no keys, but his musician days are probably behind him. He has no regrets about his life on the road with the band, but he is clear that his getting paid a lot of money for looking like he belonged in Metallica days are behind him. “There just isn’t much of a market for a bass player who doesn’t know how to play bass,” said Newsted as he calmly stacked boxes of Reebok sneakers on top of one another. “Honestly, in heavy metal, untalented, tone-deaf bass players are a dime a dozen.”
North Korean Leader Regrets Decision To Let Metallica Producer Bob Rock Launch Rocket Into Space
Posted by Keith Spillett in Articles I Probably Shouldn't Have Bothered Writing on April 23, 2012
Former Metallica producer Bob Rock just can’t seem to stay away from trouble. Since being credited as the producer of Metallica’s St. Anger, an album which many experts believe sounds slightly worse than the noises made by a kitten being thrown into a blender, Rock has been involved in several high profile failures. The worst of these disasters came last week when the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3, a rocket built by Rock and his team of scientists, exploded and crashed into the Yellow Sea near Gunsan, South Korea.
Rock, who has no formal training as a scientist or a satellite technician, impressed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with his work on Motley Crue’s Billboard #1 album Dr. Feelgood along with five progressively less interesting Metallica albums. Un was amazed by Rock’s ability to take a talented band and suck the life and joy out of their work, reducing them to a tattered shell of their former selves. He initially hired Rock in 2009 to produce a record by his thrash band Gulag Face. Gulag Face’s debut record “Setting Baby Ducks On Fire With Mayonnaise” sold over 15 copies and became the top selling album in North Korean history.
Rock’s work with Gulag Face so impressed Un so that when he became the country’s leader in 2011, he was hired to run North Korea’s entire missile program. Rock immediately set out to reduce the intelligence of his team of North Korean scientists by forcing them to listen to Loverboy’s seminal 1981 record “Get Lucky” twice a day for four months. From exposure to this album, the average IQ score of these scientists dropped from 134 to 78.
Rock also tried to focus the scientists on creating a more commercial, “radio-friendly” rocket, whose technology could be understood by anyone. This led to his fateful decision to hold the missile together with rubber bands and Elmer’s glue.
Un claims that Rock’s “shenanigans” have left a permanent scar on North Korea’s image. He has distanced himself from Rock, who will no longer be able to eat for free at North Korea’s only Sizzler restaurant as punishment for his failure. In order to repair the nation’s embarrassing reputation, Un has hired Rick Rubin to take control of the program and get it back on its feet again.
Rock has had a difficult stretch since he left the Metallica camp. Before he helmed the North Korean program, Rock was hired to produce and direct Will Ferrell’s “Land of The Lost” film, which lost a near record 100 million dollars at the box office. In 2010, Rock served as the Boston Red Sox pitching coach and was cited as a major reason the team collapsed in one of the most horrendous Septembers in baseball history. He was fired immediately after the season.
The Tyranny of Tradition 