bidhardcore.com

Metal Monday Vol. 7:

Maybe you’ve heard of Metallica. The only band that has been a perfect 10, and a perfect zero in rock ‘n roll. At one time they were so good, so perfectly hooky, heavy, and powerful, that even having probably THE WORST drummer to ever be in a successful band, couldn’t stop them from being awesome. Ride The Lightning and Kill ‘Em All are the most heart thumping, fist-banging, thrash ever IMO. Yea i know there’s way cooler bands to reference from Germany and Brazil and Colombia, but seriously, none of them wrote Creeping Death. I don’t even care. Now I know what some people are thinking: “uhhh I’m pretty sure Meg White is the worst drummer to ever be in a successful band”. Those people are wrong and I will tell you why: because Lars Ulrich thinks he is good and accomplished as a drummer, and Meg White knows she is bad, and goes on national television with a 4 piece kit and bashes it out caveman style. Lars has roto-toms and 2 kick drums and is still fucking up “For Whom The Bell Tolls” ON THE RECORDING. But like I said, the fact that this is going down, and Metallica is still one of the best ever is a testament (no pun intended) to the power of their riffsmanship. Sometimes I wonder if Hetfield only kept him around to prove that he was the best.

“I’m so good I can play with a drummer not fit to tie Lombardo’s shoe laces, and outsell everyone. Watch me.”

In some ways it’s criminal. Anyway, Kill ‘Em All came out as Metallica’s vinyl debut in 1983 after a couple of well circulated demo cassettes, and sold out its first pressing of 5,000 copies allegedly instantly (well by the end of the week). At the same time, their label Megaforce issued a couple of 12″ singles for songs found on the record. One was the Whiplash E.P. which was basically a modified version of the Jump In The Fire single that preceeded it by a few months (e.g. it’s different by only one track). Whiplash contains the songs Jump In The Fire, and of course Whiplash on the a-side (in slightly remixed versions), and demo versions of Seek and Destroy and Phantom Lord with fake crowd noise added on the b-side. Mostly it was produced to capitalize on a popular band and to have a single to issue to radio stations I would imagine. So here is a test press of the Whiplash single on Megaforce. Already bid to an insane dollar amount considering it’s not even a proper album. In addition the seller has a number of other similar test pressings, mostly of less cool big name thrashers like Anthrax (sorry Sanchez) and Overkill, although I will give the nod to the test press of Testament’s “The Legacy” - a great thrash debut, as far as bigger name American bands go.