The Bon Om Thook water festival celebrates the changing direction of the Tonle Sap River at the end of the wet season. Don’t ask me how that works, but they have a big party anyway. As a well as a boat race with teams from each different province, big illumated floats going up and down the river at night a bit like a Disney Parade, and a big firework display.

“Hey what about that big monument thing at the Roundabout though?”
“Ah I’m sure we could just shimmy around it.”
“Yeah probably. And this eh, Sky Train thing, it’s gonna cover the Old Town right? Cos we kinda skipped that bit with subway.”
“Nah, it’s only tourists that go up there anyway, they’re fine with the tuk-tuks.”

What if it was like currency exchange? Everyone measures money in different ways so it’s pretty lucky we all ended up measuring time in the same way.

“Ëxcuse me, how long does it take to get to the airport?”

“About 2000 bajodas, depending on traffic.”

“George, how much is 2000 bajodas in hours?”

“Öh don’t worry dear that’s only about eleven and a half minutes.”

But it’s not all bad in Bangkok, there’s some cracking markets to hunt round. Last weekend we headed for the famous (well, it was in the guide book) Chatachuk Weekend Market in Bangkok. Fiona thought it started at 7, so we got up at 7, which meant we arrived just in time for it actually opening at 9. This was handy as it gave us a chance to give the place a once over whilst half the stalls were still setting up, and the market was still fairly quiet.

Four hours and probably several hundred stalls later, we made our way back upstream, passing by the hoards of punters coming off of tour buses, and I got to thinking about markets back home. Certainly Camden and Spittalfields are always crawling with tourists, but what about the Barras? Does Lonely Planet Glasgow list it as a must see? I haven’t been there in years - and I mean years as in the last visit I remember we were buying pirated floppy disks with Atari ST games for £2.50, maybe £2 depending on how good Dad’s haggling was that day - but I think I’ll definitely make a trip down there when I get back to Glasgow, just to see how it compares to the markets I’ve been kicking around in London and the rest of the world in the last few years.

As I mentioned in my ramblings about Tokyo, the new Oasis album (Dig Out Your Soul) was released in Japan the day we arrived (a week earlier than in the UK), so I was dying to get alisten to that. When I got to Mount Fuji on Sunday night, I had an email saying that as part of the deluxe box set I’d ordered, I could download the album the day before it’s UK release! Which I did, but then couldn’t actually listen to on my iPod for various technical reasons. Until I got to Hiroshima, got it sorted and had a good listen. First impressions are good although it always takes a while to draw your attention away from the first couple of tracks and any singles you’ve heard already.

The new Metallica album is awesome! There’s probably not much more to say on that. It’s fast. It’s loud. It’s catchy. (Some would say too loud but that’s a story for another day!)

First thing to do was to validate the Japan Rail passes, then we could hop on the bullet train down towards Mount Fuji. In fact it wasn’t quite as exciting as that, it was two Metros, a regular local train and a regular long distance train to get to Kawaguchiko. Yes, for the record, this was my idea. Kawaguchiko is a quiet little town in the mountains - it’s basically the Aviemore of Japan. The weather was a bit drearier down this way as well, so it was a welcome change from the sweaty madness of Tokyo. Hostel was nice too, a bit more old skool - shoes off at the door, sushi breakfast, that sort of thing.

As it was quite apparent there wasn’t much else to do in Kawaguchiko, we headed out for dinner to a Japanese BBQ restaurant, about a mile up the road. Sitting on the floor around the hot coals, the waiter brings out a selection of meat, fish and veg for you to cook yourself. He gave us a quick rundown of how to do it - grill it, dip it in the Teryaki sauce, grill it some more, eat it. His last instruction, however, was most unexpected.

“For fish, wait until stop moving”

I looked down at the plate, sure enough the little bugger was still alive. An eight-inch rainbow trout skewered from head to tail - both head and tail still wagging in protest. Delicious with a bit of Soy Sauce in the end though.

The evening’s second installment of Japanese culture came courtesy of a traditional Onsen bath. Instead of having individual showers in the Ryokan, all they have is a large, communal, very hot bath, preceded by a quick shower. A bit like the showers at the swimming baths only you’re not allowed to keep your trunks on and you have to sit on a little stool while your getting washed.

In comparison to the hostel in Tokyo, the Kawaguchiko Station Inn was absolute luxury!

This meant we could stick to our original plan of leaving Tokyo tomorrow to head south, so we made a list of all the things we still wanted to do in Japan and tried to make a plan for the next 10 days. And so Saturday night was assigned to going up Tokyo Tower.

Tokyo Tower is basically like the Eiffel Tower but a bit smaller (I think). The elevator ride up to the observation area is smooth as a baby’s backside, not like that rickety piece of shit in Paris. The views once you’re up there are awesome! Tokyo looks more like Tokyo from up here than it does on the ground. I managed to get a couple of decent pictures I think but they still don’t really do it justice…

Tokyo is cool! We are staying in the Asakusa district, which isn’t the liveliest but is pretty nice, and still handy for getting places. We arrived at Narita airport only to be told that British Airways had lost our bags at Heathrow and they hadn’t been put on the plane. So we’re short of clean clothes and other essentials like camera cables for uploading photos - grr! But hey I suppose we’ll just get on with, hopefully the bags will arrive soon.

On the first night we headed over to Ginza. It’s mainly a high street with glamorous shops, a bit like the Champs Elysee but less snooty I guess. It was also very postcard Tokyo (or so I thought at the time), which I liked! The first thing I saw as I came out the Metro station was a 50ft poster of Shunsuke Nakamura above the Adidas store! We wandered for a bit and then found a little basement food court place for dinner - had a cracking beef teryaki dish cooked fresh right in front of me in about 2 minutes - it was exquisite and only cost 1000 yen (about a fiver). Wandered a bit more, decided we were knackered, and headed home!

15 hours of (badly needed) sleep later, we got up and made tracks for Shibuyu. Now this is postcard Tokyo! Think Piccadilly Circus but twice as busy, twice as many lights and screens, and the screens actually playing music out of them. As well as that, there’s advertising vans driving about also playing music out of them. And as if they knew I was here, a big truck drove by blaring out Oasis, with “Dig Out Your Soul - Out Now” emblazoned on the side. After years of buying Japanese imports on eBay, I thought I might as well indulge myself and go and buy it from the big fuck-off Tower Records in Tokyo! When I got there though they had some other Oasis stuff I didn’t have already, so I just bought that instead, seeing as i’ve already pre-ordered the new album back home, and would have no means of listening to it here anyway. When I got to the checkout I also got a free Oasis poster, which I suspect was only meant to be given away with the new album - “Present!” the little dude said as he handed it to me, all smiles.

Right I’m probably boring you now so I’ll just give a few observations of Japan so far:

• All the toilets have a built in electronically controlled bidet.
• Some restaurants make you take off your shoes.
• They have Mario Kart in arcades.
• They display maps at arbitrary orientations. Sometimes with North pointing up, some so the river is running across the way, some so the river is running up and down the way. Whichever they think looks best. It troubles me.

Tomorrow we’re going to the fish market, so need to get up early doors. Night night!

I’ve got a few pre-departure photos lurking on the camera at the moment, but I won’t get the chance to upload them before I go, so we’ll need to wait for the first installment proper from Japan.

JAPAN! Mental! One of those places I always thought would be cool to go to, but never thought I would. And yet for the last few months i’ve been talking about it so much (yes even I’m bored of listening to me) it’s as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.

eboPod is all loaded up and ready to go. The plan for months has been to wipe it clean and load it up with all those albums I’ve never quite got around to listening to, because its so easy just to go back to the same old lazy stuff you’ve been listening to for years because it’s right there in your pocket. So what have I got lined up then? In no particular order (it’s tucked away in the hand luggage now so this is off the top of my head!): Bat Out of Hell, Never Mind The Bollocks, Dark Side Of The Moon, Thriller. Due to time and effort constraints I had to settle for a few ‘Best Of’s (Elvis, Bruce Springsteen), which I normally wouldn’t stand for. The Guitar Hero 3 playlist, courtesy of Alan’s time and effort. The odd curveball (3 Colours Red). I reckon I’ve got enough to keep me going til Christmas anyway.

Of course I won’t be relying on music all the time, I’ve got a few books packed. ‘Round Ireland With A Fridge’ I started a couple of months ago, then kind of forgot I was reading it - it was bloody hilarious so far though, so I’ll probably start by finishing that. ‘Bringing Down the House’ was recommended after I saw the film version (’21′ with Kevin Spacey), so looking forward to that one. Lastly I’ve got ‘iPod Therefore I Am’ which I also started reading ages ago, but found it a bit difficult and weird, but I’ll give it another bash!

Upon it’s initial release, the script generated some healthy discussion over on the Flickr Hacks forum. This brought up a couple of issues, which I haven’t had the chance to investigate yet. The main one seems to be an internationalisation issue, which I guess would be tricky for me to test quickly so that’s kinda put me off trying.

I came across map data for the London Underground over at Wikimedia Commons one day, and, coupled with the (then) recent full-scale rollout of geotagging support on Flickr, I had the idea for Tube Mappr. It’s a simple script that plots Tube stations on a map, and clicking on a station displays random Flickr photos tagged with the name of the station.

The curious thing which I’m now realising is that Tube Mappr makes absolutely no use of the Flickr geo stuff (neither data nor functionality), but i’m pretty sure it was part of the motive.

http://tubemappr.ebotunes.com

The main purpose off the application is to allow people who use Last.FM and Flickr to easily tag their photos with the relevant machine tags. Almost ever since Last.FM started doing event listings (I think), they’ve offered a feature allowing users to feed their own gig photos onto the Event page.

More recently, Flickr decided to complement this feature by displaying a link to Last.FM on the photo page whenever a machine tag exists. This prompted one of the Flickr devs to blog about it which, in turn, prompted me to get my finger out and finish Gig Taggr! [UPDATE: also looks like one of the Last.FM devs mentioned it too!

The main thing that had been holding it back was the lack of an API method to get a user’s past events. This was easily solved by asking for it. Thanks again to vincro and joanofarctan!

As an added bonus, Gig Taggr also lets you geotag the photos while you’re at it, based on the venue location info given by Last.FM. Cashback!

http://gigtaggr.ebotunes.com

Photos tagged using Gig Taggr

http://www.last.fm

I’ve always been impressed with Banksy’s stencil graffiti art, but for some reason never had the inclination (nevermind the time) to purposely go in search of it. That is until a few months ago, when I discovered the big yellow flower one is just round the corner from my house - so that got me started. Not long after that we stumbled across the Tesco flag one on Essex Road (which we must have passed a bunch of times, but always waliking in the other direction!).

So now that Ive got some time to kill I’ve started on the purposeful search thing. Despite a plethora of lists and maps and photos all over the web, it has proved difficult to find one definitive, reliable, accurate list of existing Banksy’s artwork. Some have been ‘vandalised’, painted over, removed by local councils. Some have even been auctioned and removed along with the wall they’re painted on! Initially I planned to plot an entire tour of London and set off on my bike to cover it all in a day, but then it came apparent there were pockets of them not too far from home, then i tried to fix my bike and made it worse so it turned into several long walks instead.

One sunny Saturday afternoon I jotted down a list of a few locations around Brick Lane. Either I didnt look hard enough or they’re all gone now. I did end up wandering past the yellow flower one though and found that someone had scrawled some nonsense over the top.

On Monday I had to go into town so it was an ideal time to finally snap his newest ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ piece. Since the weather was decent I thought I’d walk the length of Oxford Street and try and hunt down another older one near Marble Arch. So this turned out quite a productive trip, much more so than the Brick Lane jaunt! Since then I’ve decided the most reliable source of information is from Flickr photo geotags and EXIF data. Sifting through the Banksy pool, I can check for locations on the map, and then check the ‘Taken on…’ date to see if it’s recent and most likely still there. I reckon there’s still a few more good ones out there to find, so keep an eye on my Banksy set on Flickr to see how it goes.

And to those who would criticise my ‘quintessential London’ comment, yes I know that Banksy’s art has appeared in Bristol, Brighton and other places all over the world, and I don’t have that ‘London-is-the-centre-of-the-universe’ complex - but he’s done a LOT in London, and certainly none in Glasgow.

My Banksy set on Flickr

Banksy on Wikipedia

Banksy’s website

One thing people have been saying all along is that if you’ve got good musicians, you’re off to a good start. And these guys were not only brilliant, but they were musicians, in the truest sense of the word. That’s not to say the guitar bands we’ve had in arent very good at what they do and great to work with, but this session just had something infinitely more enjoyable about it.

Luckily by the time I arrived the drumkit was set up and most of the mics in place, so the hard graft was mostly done. I was the only one there who had done a proper drum session previously, so I was able to lend a few pointers (having learned from my mistakes, my drum recordings are nothing spectacular!). As well as the drums, we had a double bass, a keyboard and a trumpet. Such is the nature of Jazz music, the band needed to play ‘live’ and be able to look at each other while playing. This threw a few curve balls in terms of isolating the instruments, specifically just the bass and the trumpet (drums are in a separate booth and the keyboard was DI’d).

As luck would have it, Itamar had done his Written Assignment on microphone techniques for Trumpets (!!?), so he set about that (with a Shure KSM 32) while we wired everything else up. For the bass we used two mics, a Shure SE1A and an AKG C414. Initially we had the C414 sitting just above the fretting hand (I know they don’t have frets but I’m a guitarist, I don’t know the proper word) to catch the slappy-clicky sounds (that’s a technical term) on the strings, and the SE1A down low, at the f-hole to catch the warm bass sound. Like I said the band wanted to see each other, and we didnt have any baffles shorter than about 6ft, so we ended up having to turn one on its side and put in front of the double bass to try and isolate it from the trumpet.

With all that in place we did a couple of takes to fine-tune all the levels. Unfortunately the bass wasn’t sounding great and the C414 at the top was picking up too much trumpet. We swapped it round with the SE1A, which is more directional so we were able to use the rejection points to eliminate a bit more of the trumpet.

So after almost four hours setting up, the band had just under two hours to actually make some noise (a fairly typical ratio!). But when they did it sounded awesome! As we sat in the control room listening, it became quite clear that mixing the tracks would require very little effort (compared with the 16 channels of guitar I’ve been wrestling with on my project!). It would be almost difficult to take the credit as engineers for it sounding so good, as it was mostly down to the quality of the band. Although to be fair, I’d learned the lesson after my drum sessions that the more effort you make before pressing that record button, the better results you’ll get, so that four hours (which we could easily have rushed into two and a half) really was worth it!

Download the ‘Google Map on Flickr photo page’ script here

If anyone can think of a snappier name let me know :)

Now that I think of it, possibly the reason it hasn’t been done before is that the Google Maps Javascript API made it too hard (or even impossible??). Who knows. Anyway, it’s my first attempt at a GM script so its VERY simple and VERY rough. Post any suggestions/ideas in the comments!

Iain

[UPDATE: Join the FlickrHacks discussion]

Bob Rock began working as Metallica’s producer on their fifth album, ‘Metallica’. This was generally considered to be the point at which the band crossed over to the mainstream, and Bob Rock is generally credited with making that happen. As Metallica’s career progressed with Rock as producer they alienated a lot of their hardcore metal fan base; most of whom believed Rock to be the primary reason for the band’s apparent downfall. Though his involvement with the band over the years is difficult to understate, there were several other factors contributing to the direction of Metallica’s career.

Introduction

The career of Canadian producer Bob Rock has seen him work with a variety of big name artists, with a large degree of commercial success, as well as some degree of critical acclaim. After producing bands like Motley Crue and Bon Jovi throughout the Eighties, Bob Rock was then recruited by Metallica for their eponymous 1991 album, which is widely acknowledged for bringing Metallica to the mainstream. I intend to look at how he impacted the sound of Metallica, and also the musical format, compared with the four albums released prior to his involvement, and also the events that led to his departure as Metallica’s producer in 2006.

Bob Rock: Pre-Metallica

Bob Rock’s musical career began in the late 1970s performing as a guitarist playing in various bands, most notably Payola$ [sic], who had some brief success in the early 80s. In addition to this Bob worked frequently as an engineer and producer with several rock artists including his own band. His biggest success as an engineer came with Motley Crue and Bon Jovi, for whom he produced several albums.

In fact it was particularly his work on Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood album which initially impressed Metallica. Lead singer James Hetfield commented at the time:

“…if you go back and look at the stuff he’s produced, it sounds great, even though the songs were crap”

Unlike some of his peers, Rock was not known for a ‘trademark sound’ as such, but had simply, as Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich put it, “an incredible ear for attitude and feeling”.

Metallica: Pre-Bob Rock

Prior to working with Bob Rock, Metallica had recorded four albums which had placed them firmly in the thrash metal genre, and earned them a dedicated following. Their first full length studio album ‘Kill ‘Em All’ in 1983, produced by Paul Curcio. Following that, the band gained increasing success, both in record sales and critical acclaim with the next two albums, Ride The Lightning (1984) and Master Of Puppets (1986), both produced by Flemming Rasmussen.

Following the tragic death of bassist Cliff Burton in a tour bus crash in 1986, he was replaced by Jason Newsted, and 1988’s ‘…And Justice For All‘ album was the first release to feature Newsted.

The production sound on the ‘…And Justice For All’ album came under scrutiny for the lack of bottom end in the mix. With guitarist and lead singer James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich heavily involved as producers on the album, the domination of their instruments in the mix was evident.

Production issues aside, at this stage Metallica were starting to show signs of outgrowing the thrash metal scene. An unlikely breakthrough single from the album, ‘One’, became the first Metallica song to receive mainstream radio airplay, and also led to the band making their first music video. However the album as a whole was arguably Metallica’s least accessible work to date. This on top of the harsh production is possibly what stopped their popularity extending much further into the mainstream at that time.

The Black Album¹

In preparation for the next album, Metallica were aware of the need for some guidance in terms of the production. They also felt that they wanted to produce simpler songs than they had done before. In particular, that the increasingly complex arrangements of the songs on ‘…And Justice For All‘ had proven difficult to reproduce in a live environment.

With an already impressive CV to his name, Bob Rock was considered by Metallica to work on what would be their fifth studio album – the eponymous ‘Metallica‘ (commonly referred to as ‘The Black Album’ due to it’s monochrome cover art.

Even before any work had begun on ‘The Black Album’, it was already shaping up to be a big turning point in Metallica’s career. Working with a producer who had a reputation for producing sonically pleasing, radio friendly records was an extreme change from the first four albums. Initially Rock was approached only to mix the new record, but after seeing the band play live on a number of occasions he decided he wanted to take up full production duties on the project. He felt that the band had not yet captured their live energy/sound on record.

Bob Rock brought some radical changes to Metallica’s approach to recording, and it took several months for the band to get used to their new producer, and for the producer to get used to working with the band.

Firstly, the band’s previous recording experience had been to record each person separately, and to concentrate on capturing the ‘perfect’ take. They were now being encouraged to play ‘live’ and capture a more natural, energetic performance.

In terms of reducing the complexity of the songs’ arrangements, Rock was suggesting that they stick one riff per song, and make the songs shorter, in an effort to distill the essence of the Metallica sound. This could be seen as a direct attempt to increase the commercial potential of Metallica’s music by making their songs accessible to a much wider audience.
With regards to the overall sound of the album, Rock wanted to produce something very thick and heavy, in contrast to the thin sound of ‘…And Justice For All’. The bass frequencies were once again an important aspect of the overall sound, much to the satisfaction of Jason Newsted, who was doing his best to immerse himself further into the Metallica ranks. Newsted was eager to claim his second writing credit, having contributed to ‘Blackened’ on the previous album. He came up with the bass line which eventually became ‘My Friend of Misery’, and Newsted had hoped that this would be the instrumental track on this album. On all previous records the band had included one fully instrumental track, but in the end The Black Album did not follow this tradition, possibly to avoid diluting the album’s accessibility.

The approach to recording of the drums on The Black Album was also something of a new experience for Ulrich. Bob Rock insisted on experimenting more and more in order to get the exact sound they required. This included using several and varied room mics to try and capture as much as possible, and each song typically needing around thirty or forty takes to get enough material to edit together into one very strong track. Again, as a heavy metal band the main objective had always been simply to make as things sound loud and aggressive, but now under Rock’s guidance the band were achieving a much stronger and more complete sound.

One of the main aspects which Bob Rock worked on with Metallica during ‘The Black Album’ sessions was James Hetfield’s voice. As was typical of the heavy metal genre to which Metallica had belonged until now, the vocals were rough and aggressive. Rock, however, convinced them to start treating Hetfield’s voice ‘as an instrument’ and put more focus on the melody. Coupled with the efforts to simplify their songs, the vocals were now even more important, and on certain songs would become as much of a driving force as the guitar riffs. Inevitably this would have a fundamental impact on the overall Metallica sound. ‘The Black Album’ also marked the first time Metallica had put vocal harmonies on record.

Aside from the musical innovations being made with the vocals, there was also a new attention to technical detail in terms of the microphones being used. Hetfield was encouraged to try out various microphones and find a setup which he felt accurately captured his performance and the emotion of the songs.

Throughout the course of the album’s recording, there was often a great deal of tension between the band and the producer, due to how hard Rock was pushing the band to get the best out of them (or at least what he perceived to be the best).

The eventual release of the album in August of 1991 confirmed what many had predicted – this was the album that would bring Metallica to the masses. Lead single ‘Enter Sandman’ reached Number 16 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the band’s highest ever position, and the album itself peaked at Number 1 in the album charts in both the US and the UK.

Load and Reload

After the colossal worldwide success of The Black Album, the band faced a difficult task in following it up. They chose to continue working with Bob Rock as producer and initially planned to record a double album, but due to touring schedules ended up releasing the project as two separate albums: Load in 1996 and Reload in 1997.

Having found success with the production sound on The Black Album, the challenge for Metallica would be to come up with songs as strong as those on ‘The Black Album’. Musically, fans reaction to the albums was mixed. Songs such as Mama Said had a definite Country influence, which understandably upset many a hardcore metal fan.

As far as the production was concerned, however, some were unhappy with the highly polished and unadventurous production sound. Naturally this meant that they failed to create the same impact as they had done with The Black Album, and Bob Rock was accused of lazily taking the same approach to production, and not offering anything new in terms of the sound.

By the time Reload was released in 1997 Load had sold around half of what ‘The Black Album’ had sold, which in major label terms was something of a disappointment. In the lead up to the release of Reload, Lars Ulrich suggested to fans that it would be significantly different to it’s predecessor. In fact it followed a very similar pattern in terms of dynamics and style of music.

Some Kind of Monster

After Load and Reload, Metallica released a covers album and a live album, but whilst they were making plans to go back into the studio to record new material, Jason Newsted left the band in January of 2001. The rest of the band decided to continue with the recording sessions as planned. With Bob Rock still a firm fixture in the Metallica camp, he would be filling in on bass guitar whenever needed.

Recording plans were once again put on hold when James Hetfield had to go into rehabilitation to recover from alcoholism. By this stage the band had begun filming a documentary intended to be focused on the making of the new album. The film would later be released in 2004 under the title ‘Some Kind of Monster’ and became a lot more than just a typical ‘Making of…’ documentary. The band’s management had hired the services of a “performance-enhancing coach” Phil Towle to help the band through the difficulties they faced following Newsted’s departure and Hetfield’s trip to rehab.

The film gives us an interesting insight into the dynamics of the band at this time, in particular as far as Bob Rock is concerned. Throughout the therapy sessions with Towle, Bob appears to be more or less part of the band, and have an equal say in decisions being made about the band’s future. This is hardly surprising given that their working relationship now stretched back more than 12 years. Add to that the fact that he is physically playing bass guitar for them, and it highlights just how important his presence is, and the influence that he has on the band as a whole.

St. Anger

In 2003, after a turbulent few years away, Metallica came back with their eighth studio album St. Anger. It appeared to represent yet another change of direction for the band. The production sound was raw and dry, and in stark contrast to the highly polished sound of previous albums Load (1996) and Reload (1997), St. Anger smacked of a band over compensating against the ’sellout’ claims coming from their hardcore metal fan base.

Whilst the songs were certainly louder, longer and arguably less radio-friendly, they lacked the sophistication and intelligent arrangements of the band’s earlier work. It appeared they were sticking to the Bob Rock philosophies of ‘one riff per song’ and ‘keep it simple’ but just adding the element of repetition.

Another issue which instantly upset a lot of fans was the complete lack of guitar solos on the new album. This issue is somewhat documented in the ‘Some Kind of Monster’ film, where we see lead guitarist Kirk Hammett debate with the rest of the band the importance and necessity of guitar solos on the album. Far from being overruled, Hammett appeared to reach agreement with the rest of the band that solos should be included purely on musical merit, and not just to ’satisfy the ego’ of any band member. It’s quite possible that of the thirty songs recorded by the band during the St. Anger sessions, those with guitar solos simply did not make the final cut. So it is clear that the omission of guitar solos was not a straightforward decision made by the producer.

Following Jason Newsted’s departure in 2001, Bob Rock also took up the role of Bass Guitarist for the St. Anger sessions. This inevitably led to him having an even greater influence on the music, and he receives writing credits for all eleven songs on the album.

The years of fans’ criticism came to a head after St. Anger, with an online petition lobbying for an end to Bob Rock’s work with Metallica. Addressed to the band and their management team:

“We, the longtime loyal fans and friends of Metallica and their music would like to see a major change with the upcoming album. I know it will be a hard thing to do, but we feel it is time to sever your working relationship with Bob Rock.”

It appears that Rock’s direct musical involvement in St. Anger was a step too far for some fans. Further on, the petition reads:

“Then we are left with St. Anger. It is completely unlistenable and this is the album that Bob Rock had most of his influence [sic]”

To date the petition has received over 20,000 signatures, although it is unclear just exactly how much influence, if any, this petition had on the band’s decisions. In 2006 it was announced that Metallica would not be working with Bob Rock on their next studio album, and it would instead be produced by Rick Rubin. Much of Rubin’s work is notable for it’s ’stripped down’ production sound, something which perhaps Rock was aiming for with St. Anger, but ultimately failed to achieve. With Metallica already firmly rooted in the mainstream, it is unlikely that this change will have the same impact as Rock did with ‘The Black Album’, but it appears the band are again looking for a change of direction.

That change of direction, however, will not solely be coming from the new producer. Following the completion of the St. Anger recording sessions, the band recruited Robert Trujillo as their new permanent bass player. Having now been a member of the band for several years and extensive touring, he will no doubt be an important creative input in the Metallica/Rick Rubin era. Compare this with St. Anger, where Bob Rock was a direct musical influence as the resident Bass guitarist, whilst also carrying out the usual production duties.

In contrast to Jason Newsted’s arrival in 1986, Robert Trujillo has had a more welcoming and supportive induction into the band. The now older and seemingly wiser Hetfield, Ulrich and Hammett have accepted that their initial suppression of Newsted’s role, leading to the unbalanced production sound of ‘…And Justice For All’ was a mistake.

The Cliff Factor

The late Cliff Burton is considered by many to have been the most profound influence on Metallica’s music during the early stages of their career. According to Gem Howard, a member of the bands management team in the 80s:

“Cliff was the one who brought in the musical variation to Metallica…. I don’t think for a second that they would have become a stadium rock band had he still been around, because I don’t think he would’ve thought it was cool.”

That being the case, it seems likely that he would not have shared the visions that Bob Rock had for the band. Indeed, it may not even have come to that, given that it was Cliff’s departure which indirectly led to them seeking guidance. With the original bass guitarist in place, it is highly unlikely that ‘…And Justice For All’ would have ended up sounding the way it did, and Metallica would have instead continued to grow organically, and build on the success of ‘Master of Puppets’. Ultimately, the absence of Cliff Burton in the Metallica camp has been arguably just as important as the presence of Bob Rock.

Conclusion

Regardless of any personal opinions on Metallica’s music pre- or post- Bob Rock, his place in the band’s history cannot be understated. Although the most common criticisms from fans and media point the finger squarely at Rock, it is perhaps unfair to single him out and blame him for the band’s alleged downfall.

By the band’s own admission, it was they themselves who actively sought fresh input and guidance at that particular point in their career, and were fully aware of Bob Rock’s previous work, and the reputation that he had. If Metallica had not recruited Rock to fill this role, it would have been someone else with similar ideas about where to take the band’s career.

It is also entirely plausible that the band’s own ambition and the strength of their songs would have been enough to carry them to the same heights of success. Perhaps Bob Rock just made things happen a little sooner.

Bibliography

Books

Chris Ingham (2003), “Nothing Else Matters - Metallica – The Stories Behind The Biggest Songs”, London: Carlton Books

Websites

Michael Vasiliou, “Metallica ending their ties with producer Bob Rock” [online], Online Petition, http://www.petitiononline.com/SaveMet/petition.html, 29^th January 2008

Various Authors, Various dates, “Bob Rock” [online], Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bob_Rock&oldid=199238614, 24^th March 2008

Various Authors, Various dates, “Metallica” [online], Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Metallica&oldid=200276798 , 24^th March 2008

Discography

CD

Metallica (1988), “…And Justice For All”. Vertigo 836 062-2

Metallica (1983), “Kill Em’ All”. Vertigo 838 142-2

Metallica (1996), “Load”. Elektra CD 61923

Metallica (1986), “Master of Puppets”. Vertigo 838 141-2

Metallica (1991), “Metallica”. Vertigo 510 022-2

Metallica (1997), “Reload”. Elektra CD 62126

Metallica (1984), “Ride the Lightning”. Vertigo 838 140-2

Metallica (2003), “St. Anger”. Elektra CD 62853

DVD

‘Classic Albums: Metallica – Metallica‘. 2001 [DVD], Dir. Matthew Longfellow. Isis Productions.

‘Some Kind of Monster’. (2004) [DVD]. Dir. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. Radical Media Productions.

1For clarity, to avoid confusion with the band name itself, this text will refer to Metallica’s eponymous album as ‘The Black Album’ in most cases.

As is normal practise with a new album I get addicted to too quickly, I needed to go cold turkey for a few weeks on this one. Delete it from the iPod, stop telling people how good it is, and find something else to keep me amused, perhaps an old classic. In this case I had to resort to Metallica’s entire back catalogue, due to being approximately 50 words into my 3500 word essay on Bob Rock, and with less than a month to finish it. But that’s another story.

Thankfully I’m now past the annoying phase of Studio Head and am onto the appreciative phase. Man this record sounds good. It was produced by Bernard Butler - ok so his bands were shit but I’m willing to let him off with that now. Eilidh’s bass sounds awesome - solid, present, but not obtrusive. Another thing you notice with This Gift compared with The Repulsion Box (ebo album of the year 2005) is that Adele’s voice is much more controlled and focussed, but no less feisty. Overall the album sounds a lot thicker - a bit less mandolin and tambourine this time around, and the guitar riffs are louder and heavier.

Best track? It was Chains, but now it’s Flags. Make up your own mind (…what? you haven’t bought it yet? how many times do I have to tell you!)