LARS IS A DADY! (10 Aug)
Skylar Ulrich gave birth to a baby boy, Myles Ulrich, on August 15, 1998
at 4:15 am in New York City. He was 7 pounds, 8 ounces and was 20 inches
long. Mother and son are doing fine.
METALLI-BABY
James and Francesca Hetfield welcomed their first born on the 11th of June. The
baby was a girl and weighed in at 8.4 pounds. Jamez and Francesca named the baby
Cali Tee.
NEW HOME VIDEO/DVD (15 Jul)
On November 17th, 1998 Metallica will release the previously announced recorded Ft. Worth
concert in two formats. VHS video for those with "regular" video players and in the hot, new
DVD format.
DVD is a fairly new format of audio-visual technology designed for use with your home television. While a DVD disc looks like a regular CD, it offers high definition video and state of the art audio, with quality as high as your local movie theater. It can also be interactive, allowing seamless editing and search, multiple camera angles and many other "extras."
With the band using this format, Metallica fans can expect a more personal and interactive home concert experience. Including being able to choose from multiple camera angles, they might even be able to follow their favorite band member for an entire show, or checkout what's going on in the production offices and backstage.
A VHS version will also be released the same day, however video tape will not be able to support the extras that will be exclusive to DVD.
The concert was filmed on May 9th and 10th, 1997 in Ft.Worth, Texas by Wayne Isham and crew.
ReFUEL
Metallica has decided to release a four CD box set containing all three of the
Australian-only singles for the song "Fuel". Also included will be an interview
disc and a 100 page book.
NEWSTED JOINS SEPULTURA
Metalli-basist Jason Newsted will be featured on Sepultura's new album. The
album has not be named yet but Newsted performs bass and vocals on the song
"Hatred Inside". The song was recorded in San Francisco at Jason's house. Jason
Newsted has not left Metallica but took the time to venture into uncharted
waters on the newest Sepultura album much like Jaymz Hetfield did on the COC
album "Wiseblood". There is no word on the release date of the album yet.
FUEL VIDEO DEBUT
Jaymz phoned into MTV Live to debut the newest metalli-music video, Fuel. The
video featured many rapid shots simular to the Sandman video. Hetfield talked
with MTV VJ Carson Daly about the video. MTV aired the uncensored version which
featured the line "Fuck 'em man, white knuckle tight."
GARAGE DAYS REISSUED
InterSandman.com has reported that Metallica will be reissuing the rare Garage
Days Rerevisited EP this year. The song list is still sketchy but many more
covers will be added to the package. From what I've read the band will begin
work on the album this November. For a complete story check out InterSandman.com
NEW DATES ANNOUNCED
Metallica has announced more dates for their "Poor Touring Me 2" Tour. The band
will resume their tour in the United Stated in late June (Jaymz's first born
baby is due sometime in the early part of June) and will tour until late July
(Lar's first born is due in the early part of August). It is expected that they
will tour right up until the making of Garage Days (read above story). For
further information on tour dates head out to the Tour's page.
HETFIELD MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
The April edition of Guitar World magazine saw Metallica vocalist, James
Hetfield, win this years readers poll as most valuable player beating out
Dimebag Darrell (Pantera), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Eddie Van Halen (Van
Halen), and Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammet. Hammet, however, did come in
1st place as the "Best Rock Guitarist". He also came in 2nd as the "Best Hard
Rock/Metal Guitarist". Metallica's Re-Load album came in 1st as the "Best Rock
Album" AND the "Best Hard Rock/Metal Album". Metallica dominated four out of the
seven relevant categories in first place. Their name could be found on seven of
the categories.
NORTH AMERICA TOUR DATES:
The Offical Metallica Club website announced on March 20th some more tour dates.
The dates range from June to September with no August dates being announced. For
exact dates check out the Tours page. Tomorrow night (Saturday, March 21st) MTV
will air a live show at 10pm EST time for 90 minutes.
OPENING ACTS FOR METALLICA US DATES:
Jerry Cantrell and Days Of The New will open up Metallica concerts for all the
US dates.
MTV METALLICA SPECIAL:
On March 21st MTV will air a live Metallica concert. The show will be 90 minutes
long and will air at 10 pm EST and again at 10 pm PST. If I hear any more news
I'll keep you posted.
UNFORGIVEN 2 RELEASE:
On March 17th Metallica will finally release the Unforgiven 2 single in North
America. The single was already released worldwide in several different formats
on Febuary 23rd.
RE-LOAD TOPS CHARTS:
Re-Load recently went straight to #1 in ten different countries including the
US, Argentina, Austria, Germany, Indonesia, Finland, Norway, New England,
Sweden, and Turkey. The album sold 435,411 units in its first week alone. It is
Metallica's third album in a row to debut at #1 on the Billboard album charts.
In every other territory in the world Re-Load debuted in the top three of the
relevant charts.
FEBUARY 8th, 1998:
Kirk Hammet, Metallica's lead guitarist recently announced that h got married.
This is from the official Metallica Website: "Lani and I got married Jan. 31st
at 2:00 pm at Kailua, Hawaii, in front of the two families. We were both
barefoot...and married Hawaiian style with a Kahu ( Reverend ) overlooking the
ceremonies."
METALLICA WIN BILLBOARD AWARD:
Metallica played at the Billboard Music Awards on December 8th. They beat out
the Wallflowers and Aerosmith to become the Billboard Rock Artist Of The Year.
Metallica played a live version of the Unforgiven II
Metallica. A band that has dominated the record sales as the forth biggest selling band of the 1990's falling shortly behind Garth Brooks, the Beatles, and Maria Carrie. Metallica has single handily sold over 22 million records in the last eight years. Metallica, also dubbed the "Black Album", has sold over 10 millions copies since its release in 1991. The album can still be found drifting on the Billboard top 500 chart eight years after its explosion onto the metal scenes. After the success of the black album Metallica ventured into a two year tour cranking out some 400+ shows including the European Monsters tour with AC/DC plus a co-headlining tour with Guns N' Roses. After an long break Metallica returned to the studio to make a double album title Load. Suddenly they faced the choice of finishing the album, or finishing what they had and put out a new single album and headline the Lollapalooza summer festival tour with Soundgarden. The history of Metallica can date back as far from 1980.
by Eric Lobermayer
People around my age - 15 - seem to have a very distinct group of parents with the same overall viewpoint on Metallica and heavy metal in general. The way it works with me and my friends is that it seems as though parents think that Metallica is absolute crap that is the most fierce and horrid music around. However, they also seem unaware of the kind of music that is really out there, which their kids could also choose to listen to if they wanted. It seems as though everybody in high school either likes Metallica, or if not, likes something even heavier.
Heavy metal as a whole is probably the largest listened to genre of music among teenagers. From this, I think that parents should be glad when their kids go buy Metallica, because they should be aware of the shit that they could be purchasing but aren't. I have noticed from much high volume listening and criticizing of Metallica from my parents that it seems like if they don't like it, it is not good quality music. On the contraire. This may be a little off, but I believe that in '96 or '97 at some big award show, Metallica took number one in bass, guitar, and drums.
This kind of recognition does not come from an inexperienced band. Metallica's roots began back as far as the very early '80s, and has been an unbelievably popular band up till now, and will continue to be that way. This is only achieved from good quality music. Just because they enjoy playing metal doesn't mean that they can't be good musicians. Kids know what is good, too. Metallica and only a couple of handfulls of other metal bands are widely listened to, yet there is hundreds, even thousands of them. Reason is because Metallica and that sellect other few groups know what they are doing, and are doing it well. This doesn't seem to register among parents. I noticed that my dad says that Metallica's singing and lyrics are the pits. But then, he likes to listen to AC/DC. AC/DC just goes around singing about chicks and that is absolutely all (with a few exceptions). Where as Metallica, on the other hand, has songs about anything you could think of. From love songs, to songs against war, to anti - drug songs, to songs even about slavery, Metallica streches to make music about everything. Most music our parents listen to only talks about chicks, or on the other hand, guys.
No matter what any parents say, Metallica is a sophisticated, intelligent, original band that should be recognized as one of the best bands of all time, even by parents who don't like it.
Questions or comments? Drop me a line at gtelob@direct.ca
*Eric is a freelance writer commissioned be the webmaster for this opinions page.
© 1997 timbo05@juno.com
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