Posts Tagged Metallica
Top 10 Metal Albums From 2104 List or Whatever
Posted by Keith Spillett in Articles I Probably Shouldn't Have Bothered Writing on December 31, 2014
I’ll Be Honest With You, This Article Is Pretty Lousy. However, I Thought I Might Distract You From That Painful Fact With A Danzig Meme.
2014 certainly was a year. It went by quickly and more of us were born than died. So, I guess things are looking up.
There were at least 10 incredible metal albums that came out this year. Unfortunately, I haven’t listened to any of them.
However, I am strong believer in the principles of jurnalizmcore (whatever they may be) and feel it is my solemn obligation to inflict upon you my opinion on what the best albums to come out in the past year were.
10. Licking Nutella Out Of a Goat’s Armpit
by A Plethora of Ants Eating The Lining of My Stomach
The second effort from this 93-piece grindcore orchestra from Wheeling, West Virginia turned heads by becoming the first CD in the history of heavy metal to explode when placed in any sort of listening device. So far, over 917 people have been maimed or killed by the record.
9.You And I Both Have Horrible Sores And Boils All Over Our Faces But We Are Still Human Beings And Deserve To Be Treated With Respect and Dignity
by Kankles On The Legs of Satan’s Younger Brother Ralph
This pop-power metal noise polka Eucharistcore mummy alphabet chicken Montreal haphazardly blackened deathrot band debuted with a record that many have compared to the noise made by a hippopatamus being slaughtered during a ritual sacrifice in Youngstown, Ohio by a roomful of Shriners.
1. Milk of Magnesia of Human Kindness
by Impetigo Sore Ridden Kidney and The Pips
I once witnessed a homicide in Troy, New York. It sounded like this album, only people were smart enough to run away.
Abbath Meme. Boom! I Bet You Already Forgot What The Article Was About
S?. Illegally Downloaded Version of Ride The Lightning
by Metallica
Sounds exactly like the legal version that people paid for except I had to type the names of the songs in (which was a serious inconvenience)
Twelve. Angel of Rotting Succubus Infected With The Worms of Evil
by Some Band That Sounds Like Slayer
I read somewhere that Joss Whedon had a painful adolescence. Too bad it didn’t continue.
Some number that rhymes with Twelve. I Went To Have Tests Done At A Local Hospital and They Diagnosed Me With A Horrible Disease That Only About Two Hundred People On Earth Have. I Ran Home And Named My Band After It.
by Rheumatoid Hemorrhagic Mump-Measals
A playful mixture Incantation, The Early Writings of The Marquis de Sade and Bob Marley. Sort of like listening to the last Burzum album after sustaining a traumatic head injury.
7. Fetal Gunshot Syndrome
by Fatal Head Wound
Best rap metal album to come out since the last rap metal album came out.
8. After Smoking For Thirty Years One Of My Lungs Looks Like A Plate of General Tso’s Chicken
by After Smoking For Thirty Years One Of My Lungs Looks Like A Plate of General Tso’s Chicken
I’m getting sick of trying to describe these albums. Most of them sound the same. I’m just going to type the first words that come to mind.
”Rattlesnake”….”Pomegranate”…”Optimum”….”Opiate”….
4. Jeff Hanneman Jokes Aren’t Funny
by Some Guy Who Just Told Me A Rick Allen Joke
I’m sure that just pissed someone off
W. Malaria: One of The Most Deadly Diseases On The Planet Yet Not One Metal Band Is Named After It
by Echo, The Bunnymen and Narcissus
Sounds like a cross between Nell Carter during her doom metal phase, early Pestilence, Erasure and mayonnaise.
2. Tim Lambesis
by My Dying Bride
Many believe this album might be a hit…
*rimshot*
“I’ll be here all week. Thanks. Try the veal”
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……
FRAUD AT THE POLLS: Piledriver Frontman Gord Kirchin Robbed In Nebraska Mayoral Race
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on November 5, 2014
Piley Expressing His Displeasure At The Outcome of Yesterday’s Election
In an upset reminiscent of the famous 1948 Dewey/Truman Presidential Election, Democrat Harry S. Truman, who recently had been polling 112 percentage points behind Piledriver vocalist Gord “Piley” Kirchin, emerged victorious in the hotly contested race for Mayor of Nebraska. However, many of Kirchin’s supporters are crying foul.
While Metalheads comprise 68 percent of Nebraska’s population, a record low of 3 percent actually voted. Why such a low turnout? Many point to voting irregularities, reports of widespread voter intimidation and outright fraud.
Polling places throughout Lincoln, Nebraska, a hotbed of heavy metal and Islamic radicalism, were closed due to violence and rioting caused by Truman’s shock troops attacking anyone wearing Piledriver tee shirts or barbed wire hats. Truman himself was seen in Omaha beating several longhaired Piledriver fans with a baseball bat on Maple Street in downtown Omaha.
Twerk Dat Souljah Boy
One tactic used by Truman’s Thugs to disenfranchise Metalheads was blaring Mariah Carey and Garth Brooks songs at locations where balloting was taking place. The music forced many Metalheads, anxious to vote for Kirchin, to run away screaming before they were able to vote.
Police officers were spotted at several polling places giving tickets to any automobile with a Cannibal Corpse or Hirax bumper sticker on the back. Metalheads throughout the state were detained by cops because they “fit the description” of famed Nebraskan mass murderer Charlie Starkweather, who died in 1959.
Nebraska’s new “Stop and Frisk” policy netted the arrest of over 500 Metalheads outside of voting areas for carrying bootlegged tapes of Metallica’s Live From Antarctica “Trapped Over Ice” concert.
A Metal Voter Who Turned Away At The Polls For “Looking Weird”
Truman supporters throughout the state used a new tactic called “robovoting” in order to garner more votes for the candidate. Robovoting takes place when a special device is implanted in voting machines causing it to cast thousands of votes for one candidate. In the small town of Ord, Nebraska, a mysterious voter named Luke Bryan cast over 100,000 votes for Truman. The town only has 2,000 residents.
Outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder has ordered an investigation into illegal voting practices in the state that will “rival the speed and potency of the crackdown on Wall Street after the 2008 financial meltdown”. The Justice Department will announce indictments of anyone involved in obstructing the democratic process in Nebraska no later than 2056.
Piley has already announced that he will not contest the results of the election. Instead, he intends on forging ahead with his political career. A press conference/pig roast is scheduled for later today where he is expected to announce his plans to run for Prime Minister of Hawaii in 2015.
Metallica To Donate 1 Percent Of Profits From Album To Victims of Being Trapped Under Ice
Posted by Keith Spillett in Excessive Cruelty Towards Strangers on August 18, 2014
Heavy metal is known as a type of music that promotes Satanism, debauchery and ritualistic homicide. For years, bands like Varg Vikernes and Megadeath have celebrated the suffering of millions in order to sell record albums. In a bold step to forever alter the image of heavy metal, Metallica has decided to take a look at the man in the mirror and make a change.
After the band visited a hospital ward in Blaine, Minnesota filled with children who had been trapped under ice, the members of Metallica have decided to give back the best way they know how. With money.
In the last 20 years, nearly one million Americans have been trapped under ice. This can lead to hypothermia and really bad cardiopulmonary stuff. Being trapped under ice is the 179th leading killer in America today, just behind accidentally dropping a toaster in the bathtub and hoof-in-mouth disease. Awareness of this national crisis is critical in order to raise awareness of this national crisis.
According to Metallica spokesman Chuck Ponzi, “It is critical that the public understand that Metallica really cares about people. We wanted to take pictures of them at a leper colony, but that was deemed too dangerous, so instead they decided to help The National Trapped Under Ice Foundation battle against other diseases for the charity dollars of millions of Americans.”
“It’s a win-win situation. People can absolve themselves of the responsibility of having to actually take action to help others all while enjoying a fabulous new album. Also, by bringing awareness to this vital cause Metallica can rehabilitate their reputation as money-grubbing swine and make absurd amounts of money in the process.”
“The guys have been talking a lot lately about wanting to make a difference. The other day when they were at a local Starbucks drinking seven-dollar coffees, it became clear how they could do it. Starbucks gives two percent from every beverage sold to save the rainforests. Why can’t Metallica sell their brand in the same way? Let the public spend money on things they want and let them feel like good people for doing it!”
Several bands have already jumped in with ideas on how to create a better world while hawking useless consumer goods. As of today, two percent of every Immolation tee-shirt sold will go to burn victims while MOD will donate the proceeds from three percent of every hoodie sold to those suffering from AIDS. Even Kiss is getting into the act by donating a full .0000001 percent of sales of Kiss lunchboxes to help fight depression.
Incantation to Release “Backwards To Golgotha”; Entire First Album Played in Reverse
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on August 11, 2014
In order to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of Incantation’s seminal metal classic “Onwards To Golgotha”, the band plans to release the album entirely in reverse. This new take on an old classic gives the band an opportunity to capitalize on the recent trend of metal bands milking every remaining cent out of metal’s defiled carcass.
“Live albums, remastered album, rerecording old material…all that stuff has been done to death. Manowar has released albums where they rerecord rerecordings of recordings of old Manowar songs. Mustaine wants to charge the public 15 bucks to hear the bass a bit higher on Rust in Peace. At least we are giving the fans something that sounds relatively new,” said the band’s current bass player on the condition of anonymity.
“Then again, it’s a poorly produced death metal album. Who can really tell the difference if it’s playing backwards or forwards?”
Meanwhile, several bands have also gotten into the sucking blood from a stone business. Metallica plans to rerelease “The Black Album” in the fall with a trained chimpanzee playing drums. Testament is currently in the planning stages of a new version of “The New Order” with Chuck Billy singing after inhaling helium from a balloon. Slayer is in talks to put out “Reign in Blood 2.0”, a recording where all Kerry King’s solos will be replaced by a chainsaw cutting through a series of oak trees.
In an attempt to reclaim their role as genre defining innovators, Incantation plans to follow this remake by moving away from their death metal roots. The band is in the process of creating a musical comedy called “A Funny Thing Happened on The Way To Golgotha” about the crucifixion of Christ. Several of the musical numbers, including one featuring Jesus and a Rockettes style line of people being crucified, have already been completed. Singer and guitarist John McEntee, who bares an uncanny resemblance to Jesus, plans on playing the lead in the show.
“The integration of Stephen Sondheim style songs and showmanship should hopefully put the last nail in the coffin of heavy metal,” said McEntee in a fictional interview conducted at his home last Friday.
“I mean, folks…it’s over. Go home. Metal is in the final death spiral. We are the Roman Empire besieged by hipster Visigoths. In 10 years you’ll be spending a thousand bucks to travel to Wacken to see Attack! Attack! headline. And it’ll still be better than watching Ozzy get wheeled out on stage to screw up War Pigs for the 8 millionth time.”
Is Metallica’s “Kill’em All” A Fake?
Posted by Keith Spillett in Pointyheaded Highbrow Stuff on April 15, 2014
One of heavy metal’s most beloved and revered albums may not be what you think it is. According to musical forgery expert Dr. Elmer Hory from the Lillehammer Institute of Ersatz Studies (LIES), the version of Metallica’s first album owned by most people is actually an impeccable forgery created by a group of Metallica impersonators. “Almost every copy out there is not the real album Metallica recorded, but rather an incredibly detailed copy,” claimed Hory in his soon to be released book “Fake Hearers: The History of Heavy Metal Forgery”.
Hory listened to the original studio tapes of the album and compared them to an actual copy of the album bought last year at his local Sam Goody music store. While nearly everything on both versions sounds exactly the same, there is one point in the middle of the song ‘Phantom Lord’ where the original has a barely audible guitar note that is not heard in the fake “Kill’em All”. Hory was only able to pick up the note after listening to the record over 800 times in a two week period, but he is certain that there is a difference.
Upon researching the roots of the album and following up on some rumors he had heard, Hory discovered Neil and Cliff Irving, two struggling musicians from Southern California who heard the record days after it was released and claim to have copied it nearly perfectly.
“We had seen Metallica at clubs for years and loved the record. We wanted to see if we could make a perfect copy of the album and sell it and make a few bucks to buy prairie dogs to feed to Neil’s pet python. The copy we made was identical down to the sloppy drumming. “
“We omitted one guitar note in “Phantom Lord” to let our friends know it was us. From there, I’m not sure how it happened, but all the copies that are out today are without a doubt the version we recorded,” said Cliff Irving, now a mattress salesman in Rancho Cucamonga, California, who moonlights as a Neil Diamond impersonator at children’s birthday parties.
While both Hory and the Irving brothers are uncertain as to how the phony album came to be known as the real one, it is clear that even the most devout metalhead is unable to tell the difference between real and fake metal. Last week, Hory played both versions for a target group of lifelong, die-hard metalheads between the ages 35 and 60 all of whom claimed to have hung out with James Hetfield “before the band got big” and everyone in the room believed he had simply played the same album twice.
If this revelation is true, it raises troubling questions about whether there is any truth in heavy metal at all. Even though Metallica created “Kill’em All”, is it not the Irving Brothers, whose version almost everyone is familiar with, that should get credit for the record’s popularity? After all, just about no one has really ever even heard Metallica’s actual recording. Just how is “real” determined in music? Elvis Presley re-recorded strikingly similar versions of Otis Blackwell’s “All Shook Up” and “Don’t Be Cruel” and those are known by just about everyone as “real” Elvis songs.
More importantly, if Metallica copied Dave Mustaine’s song “The Mechanix” and changed it to “The Four Horseman” only to have their copy copied by The Irving Brothers who were then copied by Mustaine when he re-recorded “Mechanix” on “Killing is My Business…And Business is Good”, whose song is the “real” song and which version is the “fake”?
Does it make a difference who recorded the album? If Metallica fans never read this article and never come into contact with Dr. Hory’s research, they would still believe “Kill’em All” was a Metallica album. Nothing would change.
If this article is simply some moronic joke made up some crackpot writer who can’t figure out if he wants to publish satire or armchair philosophy, but the reader thinks it’s real because they only read the title and fail to grasp the fact that the Internet is largest hi-tech illusion machine ever created, will it change the experience of the album for them? The songs certainly won’t sound any different.
Does it even matter?
Any of it?
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.”
God: “I Did What I Had To In Order To Prevent ‘Lulu Two’”
Posted by Keith Spillett in Excessive Cruelty Towards Strangers on February 26, 2014
God Angrily Dismissing Questions From Reporters About “Lulugate”
In a press conference outside his home in Valdosta, Georgia, God today admitted responsibility for committing “several crimes against humanity” including “ravaging Lou Reed’s body with disease” in order to stop Metallica from collaborating on a second album.
“Look, I know I created a world where many horrible things happen. War, famine, earthquakes, tornados, babies born without heads, I can live with all that. However, James Hetfield again declaring himself to be a piece of furniture is where I draw the line,” pronounced God moments before he ascended into the clouds for an afternoon meeting with rap legend Eazy-E.
God is no stranger to controversy. While he has been responsible for many of the greatest miracles ever to take place, he has also gained a reputation as a vengeful, jealous God and, by some estimates, has been responsible for the deaths of over 107 billion people throughout the course of human history. Some critics have gone as far as accusing God of the manufacture and use of several biological weapons including the bubonic plague, cancer and the Ebola virus.
Some of God’s critics claim his treatment of humans is excessive and even bizarre. Lot Markowitz, a traveling salesman from Gomorrah, Pennsylvania, remembers God’s behavior as being extremely erratic.
“He destroys two cities completely, kills everyone, but lets my family go, right? Then, all of a sudden, my wife turns around and she’s a pillar of salt. What sort of weird, sick creature would do that?!?!”
God also has been known to play the occasional inappropriate practical joke. He once told his faithful servant Abraham to climb up to the top of Mount Moriah and kill his beloved son Isaac. Only moments before the murder of this small child, God, hardly able to keep a straight face, stopped Abraham and boomed out “Just Kidding!!!”
In spite of his recent indiscretions, many believed God’s ending of the Cold War and introduction of additional cable television channels had signaled a “kinder, gentler God”.
However, according to several confirmed sources, God not only smote Lou Reed but also threatened to cover each member of Metallica from head to toe in boils and send a flood to destroy the city of Cleveland, Ohio if they released anything else they had written in tandem with the rock legend.
Many bloggers had speculated that God took retribution on Metallica skinsman Lars Ulrich by robbing him of his ability to play drums as punishment for his work on the first “Lulu” album. However, those charges have been brushed aside by many in the metal community who have listened to Ulrich’s drumming since “…And Justice For All” and are well aware that he was stripped of those powers back in 1988, well before the dreaded 2011 release.
Setting The Record Straight: The Truth Behind Five Popular Heavy Metal Stories
Posted by Keith Spillett in Totally Useless Information on January 13, 2014
Often at this website, we are accused of fabricating stories or writing “joke news” articles. While we consider this sort of attack on our jurnalizmcore integrity to be unfounded and patently absurd, we are willing to admit that there is a good deal of fake news out there parading as truth. Tyranny of Tradition’s staff of over 500 reporters, 700 editors and 3,000 fact checkers constantly strive to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The same cannot be said for many of the best-known acts in heavy metal.
The truth is that many of the most memorable stories in metal history are just that, stories. Nothing more than creations of either the artist or the record label in order to drum up attention for the band. Here are a few of the most famous myths in heavy metal history unmasked once and for all.
Myth #1: Dio Invented The Heavy Metal Horns Up Hand Symbol In Praise of The Devil
For a myth to be effective, it often has to have a shred of truth in it. While it is true that Dio first used and popularized the symbol, it was not invented as the shout out to Satan that most people think. While Dio was touring with the band Elf in 1972, the band visited Canberra, Australia. While there, he was performing in front of a crowd filled with mostly deaf aborigines.
During the first song, many in the crowd realized that Dio’s fly was unzipped. The symbol in Aboriginal Sign Language for “your fly is down” is the horns hand gesture. Hundreds of people began flashing the sign to Dio, who, thinking it was a spontaneous show of enthusiasm for his music, began flashing it back. Finally, he realized why they were doing it and took care of the embarrassing situation. However, he was so impressed by the sea of horns up hand signs, he began incorporating it into his stage act. Satan had nothing to do with it.
Myth #2 Suicidal Tendencies Singer Mike Muir Is A Jehovah’s Witness
We are often astonished at how many people in our culture are members of this religious movement. From Prince to Venus and Serena Williams to Abbath, there are many recognizable cultural icons that you wouldn’t think are Jehovah’s Witnesses but are. Some, like Abbath, even still go door to door preaching The Word. Mike Muir, however, is not one.
An article appeared 3 years ago in USA Today about the religions history in which Muir was described as an active member of the faith. The reporter confused Mike Muir from Suicidal Tendencies with Mike Muir, a carpenter from San Luis Obispo, California. Don’t expect Cyco Miko to come a’knocking at your door anytime soon.
Myth #3 Dave Mustaine Was Once in Metallica
In many ways, this is truly The Great Rock’N’Roll Swindle. It started as a joke between friends Lars Ulrich and Dave Mustaine. The two concocted a pretend feud centered on a made up story about Mustaine being kicked out of Metallica. This was completely untrue. Over the years, the joke has gotten somewhat out of control with Mustaine going so far as to put a song exactly like a Metallica song on a Megadeth album (Mechanix, a direct copy of The Four Horseman) and several doctored photos and videos of Mustaine with Metallica floating around on the internet. Things really reached a ridiculous level in 2004 when Ulrich and Mustaine created the hysterical “little Danish friend” scene in the Spinal Tap sequel known as “Some Kind of Monster”.
Myth #4 Happy Days Actor Scott Baio Was The Original Drummer For Slayer
This is yet another in a series of examples of how, as Mark Twain once said, “A heavy metal lie can go halfway around the world before the truth can put on it’s combat boots”. Scott Baio, known for his work on sitcoms “Happy Days” and “Charles In Charge”, was linked to the band on several websites earlier this year including a Facebook site called “I Bet I Can Get A Million Lithuanians To Tell Kerry King To Let Scott Baio Back In Slayer.” The rumor, as strange as it sounds, wasn’t all that far from the truth. Baio is, in fact, a die-hard metal head and played drums briefly in the 80s thrash band Forbidden, but was never in Slayer.
Myth #5 Cronos is The Uncle of British Princess Kate Middleton
This ridiculous, unfounded rumor was circulated around the Internet by some 3rd rate metal Onion site. Why an Onion would be made out of metal is beside the point. Typically, Mother Nature is capable of producing both metals and vegetables, but rarely has she seen fit to create a hybrid of the two. And what would be the point of such a vegetable?
Anyway, this rumor got so out of control that the Royal Family was forced to issue denials and actually barred the writer from ever visiting England. But, he was not planning on going there anyway, because he had heard that British people eat fish and chips off of newspaper. Which is disgusting.
SPECIAL REPORT: Metallica Looking to Stage Leveraged Buyout of Megadeth
Posted by Maximus Frank in Uncategorized on September 3, 2013
(The Chief Executives of Metallica, pictured above with President Obama, Senator John McCain, and other Federal Reserve Officials in a meeting about the legality of their proposed Megadeth buyout)
We all know about the Super Collider debacle: with the collapse of their latest dud product, the executives of Megadeth have been circling the drain for months. Rumors of a top-line overhaul have leaked out of boardroom minutes, but it seemed as though the crisis was contained, at least, to the 42nd-floor offices of the company’s CEO, CFO, and CDO. Of course, Megadeth has been bleeding capital since at least 2004, but now it looks as though Wall Street is looking to turn the fallen eagle into a veritable vulture’s picnic.
Here’s how the story began: Metallica, one of the largest investment banks on Wall Street and former owners of Megadeth, gradually began buying back Megadeth stock earlier this summer. The bank announced in early July that they would be purchasing up to 20 million Megadeth shares at prices between $52 and $58 a share, supervised by Iva Harrison’s firm, Lazard Freres. In August, they bought even more – 21 million shares – at $53.50 each. Megadeth, which had traded around $52 a share in anticipation of the buyback, immediately fell back into the mid-forties. Metallica had spent more than $1.1 billion buying Megadeth stock, and its price was lower than ever. Private equity analysts began sweating about what this spelled for Megadeth’s future.
“This reeks of classic hostile takeover,” said J. Tonlimson Heartvord, founder of Clearer Markets, a nonpartisan financial accountability firm. “Metallica purchases Megadeth stock en grosse. The stock price then falls, making the company vulnerable to a takeover.”
In a leveraged buyout, a bank, company, or hedge fund takes another, publicly held, company private. The buyout is “leveraged” because the purchaser usually needs a good deal of debt to finance it. Metallica has owned large shares of Megadeth stock since 1984, but according to classified “top-drawer” reports prepared by Metallica’s Mergers & Acquisitions arm, Mergertacquisitionallica, the bank is preparing a complete takeover of Megadeth. One such document obtained by Tyranny of Tradition, “On Megadeth Civil Service Examinations” could be straight out of Orwell:
“This report concludes by stressing the need for “report cards” to furnish conclusions concerning Megadeth staff, expressed in arithmetical terms… This includes personality, which deals with intangible elements the existence of which do not readily admit of proof, but nevertheless, each employee must be rated on personality.”
Another, “Special Report On Megadeth Research & Development” stresses the need to cut back on Megadeth staffing, by “eliminating unnecessary employees,” in order to concentrate capital on R&D projects.
Edvard Robinson and Henry Henderson, formerly of Shearson Lehman, expressed concerns about the vulnerability of Megadeth. “I hope Metallica has a plan for what to do about Megadeth, a company that has been a cash drain for nearly a decade,” said Robinson. “If they can pull off this takeover, we’ll be sure to see some major overhauls of Megadeth personnel, from the top down.”
Henderson speculated about other, far scarier, scenarios. “This could blow up in Metallica’s face – we’re already hearing whispers that other private equity firms, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), The Dillinger Escape Plan (TDEP), The Ocean Collective (TOC), and Lamb of God, LLC (LOG) are taking a serious look at Megadeth.”
KKR defeated Dillinger and Metallica back in 1989 to complete the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, which at the time was the largest buyout in history. Subsequent layoffs, downsizing, and restructuring spelled doom for RJR Reynolds and Nabisco employees across the country, as well as the ruin of towns like Winston-Salem. In that sinking ship of a business deal, the executives, financiers, and lawyers floated to safety on golden-parachute life rafts, taking home millions in bonuses while thousands of employees of both companies lost their jobs.
The Tyranny of Tradition 