Coming up in the Boston music scene can be tough if you’re not into the hardcore or Celtic punk sounds, but Bang Camaro (comprised of 30+ members) has exploded out of this fickle scene with an old school metal sound that has been burning up the ears of listeners nationwide. Check out my conversation with founding members Alex Necochea and Bryn Bennet in the latest issue of the Nappie.
I discovered Metallica during my middle school years when “And Justice for All…” came out. Their sounds came to me courtesy of a dubbed cassette, and yes, I bought the real deal shortly afterwards in order to have a better recording. They were my introduction to speed metal, and I began a torrid affair with the genre. Their sound was a perfect soundtrack to the angry teenage years and led me into other underground genres such as punk. As with the other Metallica fans at the time, I was extremely excited when their black album came out. I ran down to Saraland’s first and only movie/music/book store (for real, they had one in Saraland and a quite impressive one at that) and picked up my first taste in the form of a cassette single of “Enter Sandman” (”Stone Cold Crazy” on the B-side). Excitement grew as I heard the first hiss of the track beginning, and what came next was one of the biggest disappointments of my life. Metallica had sold-out and sold-out hard with a new less than intense mainstream metal that was actually radio friendly. In my mind and the minds of others, Metallica wasn’t supposed to be friendly in any way.
When they pulled through Mobile later, the situation became worse. One of the snottiest cheerleaders at my high school school prissed through the halls, “Like, omigod! I’ve got like front row tickets to Metallica! I’m gonna dress up like such a metalhead and headbang!” On the night of the concert, we caught her on the jumbotron front and center singing “Seek and Destroy” with frontman James Hetfield only because he prompted her with the words. This was quite a slap in the face for me and my companions, and we hung up our Pushead shirts for good. It took many of their fans a little while to come to the realization that Metallica had followed in the footsteps of bands such as Aerosmith and decided to go soft, but a good chunk of them entered a state of permanent denial that their beloved band hadn’t gone soft. I have nothing against this breed of Metallica fan, and about 99% would agree with me. Metallica had betrayed all that anger that they I had previously relished.
Fast forward a couple of years to the days when Lollapalooza was a festival that actually toured. It was a new age Woodstock engulfed in art, politics, and alternative bands back when alternative ruled the radio. I was fortunate enough to make it for Lollapalooza 94 when the Beastie Boys and Smashing Pumpkins headlined with bands like L7 and The Breeders providing support. 95 kept with tradition with Sonic Youth, Beck, and The Jesus Lizard on the line-up. However, Lollapalooza 96 marked the beginning of the end of the festival. Palooza had built a reputation of featuring the most premiere alternative, eclectic, underground acts on the scene. I won’t go into all the line-ups, but they could be considered a who’s who of the bands that made the 90s wonderful. When 96 came along, there were still a few big names like Rage Against the Machine, The Ramones, and The Violent Femmes, but it was a definite “One of these things is not like the other” situation with Metallica as the muy grande , be-all end-all headliner. After 97, Lollapalooza went into a six-year hiatus, and it hasn’t really been the same since.
Next, there was the whole Napster thing. Sure, music piracy is highly illegal, but why did Metallica have to get so involved and die hard about this? This was a band that established this rebellious outlaw image for themselves, and here they were suing (which is such a shitty move) a bunch of rebellious outlaws. My mind always goes back to the South Park that covered this. I still picture drummer Lars Ulrich weeping bitterly because he will have to wait a few more weeks for his gold-plated shark tank bar because someone downloaded their music. Were they really hurting that bad financially at a time when they hadn’t even put out anything? Hell, the spark for this legal fire was over a song found on the Mission: Impossible II Soundtrack, and we know what fine cinema this was. Were they trying to recuperate finances lost on that piece of work? Either way, they should have said their piece and let Dr. Dre take care of spearheading the whole Napster lawsuit. It is the rap industry that is suffering so much from music piracy that their sales have dropped completely, and many of the labels are having to go back to the drawing board.
Now, it’s Bonnaroo 2008, and Metallica is once again the be-all, end-all, muy grande headliner of an iconic music festivals. Bonnaroo received some criticism last year for steering away from the jam scene that had built this festival, but the rock acts like the White Stripes, Wolfmother, and even TOOL were eclectic on a certain level. Putting Metallica on the bill is really saying something to the Roo Crew. I can already make an extremely educated guess and predict that the Roo Society will be different. With the exception of one, I have gone to Bonnaroo with the same rag tag team of rock and roll gypsies. Last year, our running joke was that 2007 was the year that the shit would hit the fan. By that, we were meaning another Altamont or Woodstock 99. We expected the whole festival to plunge into a apocalyptic/Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome at any second, and we had already taken a group vote to trade off one of our own (Abner, our Roo Sherpa) as a sex slave for any weapons we could get for him. We then began a debate as to what band’s fans could make this event happen. It was a unanimous decision: Metallica. So, is Superfly Entertainment trying to wrap up Roo, or are they wanting to change the social thermostat to an unsafe level? I’m really anxious to see what’s going to happen with this, and I’m also curious to see if my theory that Metallica is a music industry coffin nail. And yes, I am planning on making another trek to Roo and blogging the phenomenon. I picture myself being some kind of broke-ass Dan Rather wading through the violent masses. Actually when I think about it, it will probably be more like Wayne Gale from “Natural Born Killers.”