Music videos that feature Thunderbirds

[uwe]

Oh yes, Terry Uttley played a TBird for quite a while though he always tried out different things too. In the late 70ies - when the first Bicentennials hit Europe and new TBirds became available for the first time again - there was window in time when TBirds became quite popular in Europe,  people like Steve Priest of Sweet (also someone who would flaunt new basses a lot) and Krautrock Proggies from Eloy and Grobschnitt would play them. I always thought that the warmth of a TBird should be especially attuned to Smokie's mellow countryfied sound. Why they never amounted to much in the US is beyond me. Chris Norman was - and is - a fine singer and their backing harmonies were a trademark sound. In Europe, there was no getting away from them for a couple of years, the hits only dried up in the early 80ies, but they remain a touring entity to this day (though Norman has long left the fold, never to return).

[uwe]

So how do you like prog metal played pissed off? (aside from Fleming Rasmussen totally burying Cliff?)

So I've now heard it. Maybe shouldn't have waited three decades to listen to it, it's a good album alright. By a youthful, ebullient band. Some traces of what would later materialize on the Black Album can already be heard.

Hammet's guitar playing is striking - it is so European, as if Eddie van Halen had never even existed and young Kirk had been weaned on a diet of Blackmore, Schenker and Uli Roth. But there is a very European influence all over. This might sound like a stupid question coming from someone who knows little about Metallica but does the diminutive Dane play piano or guitar or how did his co-songwriting credits throughout come about? Pleasantly free of Zep-influences too (rare with US heavy rock), instead I hear a lot of Sabbath in the playing.

There are a few filler tracks, but overall this is a credible piece of work.

[Highlander]

He haunted the Marquee Club at the same sort of time I did and was well into the NWOBHM movement, still during the tail-end of his tennis days... hung around with a lot of Brit bands at the time... hence parts of the influence... the "Garage Inc" recordings give a big nod to influences...

[66Atlas]

[Psycho Bass Guy]

So I've now heard it. Maybe shouldn't have waited three decades to listen to it, it's a good album alright. By a youthful, ebullient band. Some traces of what would later materialize on the Black Album can already be heard.

They, meaning Cliff, were actually planning to fire Lars as his drumming had started slacking even then. That's another thing only allowed out of the Metalli-PR camp after 30 years. If Cliff had lived, Metallica would have been a VERY different band. Most of the issues with ...And Justice for All were Lars' demands that his drum sound dominate EVERYTHING, even down to specific EQ curves and also why Newstead got such a hostile reception. Lars also dictated that whatever level Jason was mixed, that level should be reduced by another 6dB and it was.  The difference between Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning, its predecessor, was that Cliff was more audible on Lightning and the lyrics less mature and well executed. Puppets is their best album, but it was an evolutionary step and not a quantum leap like they made from their John Zazula-produced major label debut, Kill 'Em All. Cliff is most audible on it and the original Garage Days Revisited EP of NWOBHM covers, all two of 'em: Blitzkrieg's eponymous anthem, and Diamondhead's "Am I Evil?," which were included on early CD releases of Kill 'Em All.

Hammet's guitar playing is striking - it is so European, as if Eddie van Halen had never even existed and young Kirk had been weaned on a diet of Blackmore, Schenker and Uli Roth.

Kirk was a student of Joe Satriani, literally taking lessons from him, and his playing sounds to me to be a more European "angular" take on that, (he's also a big UFO fan) carrying the same melodic themes as his teacher but with less ease in execution. (It also helped that the two albums where Metallica cemented their early sound, Lighting and Puppets, were recorded in Denmark.) Watching the Black Album documentary A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica, and seeing Bob Rock goad the spectacular solo (compared to his previous halfhearted efforts) in "The Unforgiven" is probably the musical high point of the movie.

But there is a very European influence all over. This might sound like a stupid question coming from someone who knows little about Metallica but does the diminutive Dane play piano or guitar or how did his co-songwriting credits throughout come about?

They all shared songwriting credits equally for publishing royalties when Cliff was alive for songs that were written while a member was part of the group. Their original bass player, Ron McGovney pretty much could barely play at all, much less write, and there are songs on the first two albums that Dave Mustaine wrote but had the lyrics rewritten by James after firing him and erasing him from the songwriter credits. Megadeth's first tracks included the "original" versions of them. Listen to "The Mechanix" from Megadeth and then listen to "The Four Horsemen" from Metallica: same song, different lyrics, and there were other riffs, melodies, and whole tunes over those first two Metallica albums whose authorship was claimed by Mustaine for years, IMO justly, though Metallica played them better. That Newstead was also excluded from credit on most of Justice was another kick in the teeth for him and a shadow of  more bad things to come. Lars takes credit for the rhythm I guess, though his studio engineer and tape editor deserve that title more than he does. There's an entire 10-minute section on A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica showing Randy Staub  ("Randy Razorblade") literally razor-splicing Lars' various drum takes into one cohesive comped-track because he was mostly too drunk to keep a beat.

Pleasantly free of Zep-influences too (rare with US heavy rock), instead I hear a lot of Sabbath in the playing.

...hence my non-worship of them. I like Zep OK, but for me, it started with Sabbath.

There are a few filler tracks, but overall this is a credible piece of work.

Among Metallica and most metal fans in general (myself included), none of the album is filler and all the tunes are regulars in their current live set. Lightning had "Trapped Under Ice" and "Escape;" THOSE tracks are filler.

BTW, no T-Birds in 'Tallica land, but early album covers showed the band's early workhorses to be counterfeit Gibson guitars. James' white Flying V even had a bolt-on neck. When they asked Gibson for an endorsement deal after their gear was stolen on the Puppets tour, they were summarily refused, so they hooked up with ESP and James played a-not-even-trying-to-hide its origin Explorer copy made by ESP for over two decades while Kirk favored (and still does) Jackson-esque ESP Super Strat copies. Cliff played a Rick 4001 in which he later installed a Gibson Sidewinder in the neck position after Metallica began endorsing Mesa Boogie and the lack of bottom he was used to from his s/s Sunns and Acoustic amps he had used prior made him try to make the Rick sound deeper. Eventually, he settled on an active Aria Pro II. Jason started out with Xotic 5-strings, probably because they were the most expensive basses he could find, and bounced around through various boutique brands, mostly using Spectors in the studio before discovering Sadowsky, who made him watertight instruments because his profuse sweating was shorting out the electronics in his other instruments on tour. That happened around the time that Load was released.

BTW, Garage Inc is just a collection of both previous Garage Days EP's with a few newer covers and single B-sides like "The Prince" another Diamondhead cover, from the B-side of the Japanese single for "One" along with some newer and previously unreleased covers. The band was sneaky though, and in every tune that was a remastered re-release of a previous EP or single, there are small moments of backwards backing vocals, most obviously in their Misfits cover, "Green Hell." Speaking of blues-punk since I mentioned the Misfits, James Hetfield also provided uncredited backing vocals on two tracks of Danzig's first album.

Can you tell how much I USED to be a fan?

[Psycho Bass Guy]

BTW, I've never heard those versions, did they sound remarkably different? Daisley is an arch-pick player while Trujillo is not, replicating that terse pick-driven EB sound on the Ozzy debut must have been a challenge.

They sound like what they are: karaoke tracks of Ozzy and whichever guitar player (generally Randy Rhodes and Zakk Wylde) with a generic backing band.  Even when the notes are the same, the new versions have the stink of Pro Tools all over them and while they are superior in terms of fidelity, there is NONE of the charm of the originals and the tempo mapping applied to them really shows Ozzy's vocal timing deficiencies; what had been a clever drunken eighth-rest in the analog domain became just a bad late note in digital. Basically, the original mulitracks were copied to digital and then the drums and bass deleted and overdubbed. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that Sharon destroyed the original analog versions.

[uwe]

I thought they realized the errors of their ways and later remasters were back to Daisley's and Kerslake's original tracks? The abominations are not even available anymore, thankfully out of print.

[gearHed289]

I thought they realized the errors of their ways and later remasters were back to Daisley's and Kerslake's original tracks?

Yes they did.

[uwe]

"Can you tell how much I USED to be a fan?"



"Are there any wimmin here today?"

[Psycho Bass Guy]

The piano arrangements of everything post "Black Album" from this same ultra-talented pianist show just how tried and trite Metallicunt became post-Cliff. This however isn't that far off from what one would expect from" real" classical music. IMO, the only thing lacking is when she alters octaves and drops bass rhythm notes on power chords so she can play the melody too. Still, this, this is awesome!



..and one day I'll cover Master and play it on T-Bird to make penance for taking this thread so far off. I liked the Worf GIF, BTW. It's from Deep Space Nine, the most "real" of all the Trek TV shows, and he's sitting on the bridge of the Starfleet Warship Defiant. DS9 was the old Metallica of Trek shows!

[nofi]

sounds like metalunica. a fake band on the soap opera all my children many years ago.

[4stringer77]

Concrete Blonde sure likes Gibson basses.

[veebass]

Someone may have posted these. Too many pages to check.

[Granny Gremlin]

I love these guys, but since I moved my records and turntable to the studio I hardly listen to them anymore.  Some stuff came up on my tumblr that reminded me (guitard is the guy behind Death By Audio):



This one is a bit early-mid Cure-ish - like put it on a mix tape after A Forest.  Sorry, I know noise rock ain't very popular around here, but when it comes to Gibson bass fandom, you can't be too choosey. If I can learn to appreciate Slade...

[Nocturnal]

I kinda like that. Definitely reminds me of older Cure stuff.