Schoultz’s Lo-Fi Motel

A new feature!  There is a wealth of rock’n'roll movies out there dating back to the 1950’s.  Some are sublime and transcend.  Some make you want to gouge out your eyes with serrated spoons and pierce your eardrums with No. 2 pencils.   No matter.  They are there, we geek out to our favorites, and as long as there are guys (and possibly…um, gals) who get aroused by the scent of vintage vinyl, there will always be some role for movies about the rock.  And the roll.  Or even the MEA-TAL.  Thus, I give you Metallica, warts and all.

Some Kind of Monster is an excellent film in that it presented me Metallica since I long had lost interest in them in a way that made them fascinating again, if not for all the wrong reasons. 

It wasn’t the Load album that shied me away as it did so many other more dullard, unadventurous hardcore fans.  No, I thought that release was genius, the haircuts, the semen as cover-art, Kirk’s black nail polish and all.  I saw it as a kiss-off to all the hardline metal purists.  Plus, the songwriting was really, really solid, I thought.  Slower, but solid.  I was impressed.  When the band did a song and video for the film Mission Impossible 2, I pretty much admit I had an ass-full of them.  Lars acting like a little bitch over Napster pretty much nailed the wooden steak in their heart.  Not that I agree with music piracy, but prosecuting your own fans?  C’mon.

Metallica in the mid-80’s were the anti-rockstars.  They dressed like their fans.  They were not particularily handsome.  They had pimples.  Thier music was a revelation to the lost boys of the Reagan era.  Listening to Metallica’s Ride The Lightning or Master of Puppets in 1985 or 86 was akin to hearing the Sex Pistols or The Ramones in the ’70’s.  They were ours.  We made them huge.  They perhaps became the monster that the movie’s title refers to.

The film centers on the making of the dubiuos back-to-basics album St. Anger.  Bassist Jason Newstead has flown the coop and now they are stuck with a therapist trying to keep the group together.  This is a scenario one might have guessed that The Beatles might have tried, but Metallica?  Perish the thought!  Turns out there is a heaping helping of dysfunction amonst the boys, including James Hetfield’s substance abuse issues.  Little wonder seeing as they decided upon the band name combining the words metal and vodka when they were, what, age 16 or something?  Thus James goes into rehab and reappears wearing glasses for whatever reason.  The therapist tries to become Billy Preston to Metallica’s John, Paul, George, and Ringo (with producer Bob Rock playing the Paul/bassist role since Jason Newstead ran away screaming).  I never warmed up to the St. Anger album.  It seems over-ambitious, and way too self-aware.  Plus, it sounds like Lars is beating on empty cat food tins instead of drums.  Last year’s Death Magnetic was an interesting car-wreck.  Maybe it is too much to ask for Metallica to return to yesterday.  However, SKOM remains a fascinating record of a band ready to implode but deciding that their day jobs were too sweet to lose afterall.  Even though I sound cynical, the movie is fascinating in its own right, if nothing else but for the egos that superstardom can spawn.  Metallica, for all of their early “we are just like our fans” cocksure bluster, managed to become one of the biggest group of rock stars ever.  Be damn careful what you wish for.

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