TRUE or FALSE: Lars Ulrich of Metallica is a terrible drummer

Every other day, I hear some guy talking about how Lars is a terrible drummer, he's one of the worst of all time, oh god he's really bad isn't he, he can barely play, etc. Despite the fact that people have been repeating this line for years now, it still seems quite trendy at this point to continue repeating this claim, rarely with any specific corroborating evidence.

Where were these people during Metallica's prime? Were people talking about this in 1986, or ever 1991? Don't get me wrong-- I'm not saying he's the greatest drummer of all time or anywhere close, but I also don't think he's terrible either. My suspicion is that this is just a way for morons who have no idea what they're talking about to pretend like they do by jumping on a trendy bandwagon. Also a way for people still fuming about filesharing to vent their inner rage at the temerity of a rich rock star to assert some right over distribution of his own music (i.e. 'what a greedy cunt'). Or maybe just some simple way to write off an unlikable character. I have my suspicions that these are the actual drivers of this claim.

Now, I pass the question to you: is Lars Ulrich a terrible drummer? If not, where did this view originate? If he is, please provide supporting evidence. Out-of-context footage from 'Some Kind of Monster' will be summarily dismissed.

I'm not really a Metallica fan, so am not exactly qualified to have a lot of opinions about Ulrich's drumming. What I can say is that compared to the drummers of metal bands I DO like, his drumming doesn't really stick out as being great. Serviceable maybe, and considering how big Metallica is/was, even "influential". However, the Metallica documentary from a few years ago doesn't really make him look like a great musician either, so if there is some recent outpouring of criticism, that might have something to do with it. All of this said, I think agree with you in part --- Metallica basically represents the idea of a band selling out and leaving behind everything that made them good for a lot of metal fans. Lars Ulrich is the most outspoken member of the band, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this kind of thing come down to conflating Metallica's modern-day suckiness with Lars Ulrich's drumming abilities.

i've seen youtube videos of tv performances where he can barely keep time on a regular 4/4

he's certainly no janet weiss but who except for jazz bores really pay attention to drummers

st. anger drum sound

i've seen youtube videos of tv performances where he can barely keep time on a regular 4/4

is this the footage you're talking about? because yes, it does look bad, but if you see it in context, you'll see that he's deliberately trying to keep a strange beat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-PegaXlZFo

st. anger drum sound

I mean, the AJFA drum is probably even worse, but that's not really a function of being a good/bad drummer.

metal always seems like its own weird world when it comes to instrumental prowess. is it mostly metal drummers who are saying he's terrible?

is it mostly metal drummers who are saying he's terrible?

I feel like it's mostly people who like repeating things they're heard

i mean the dude played on lulu, he's a great drummer in my book

like, are there people who independently concluded that he's terrible? It just seems like some retarded meme.

also, what if his alleged terribleness is just like Ringo's alleged terribleness... like he was exactly what 'Tallica needed

mike portnoy > lars ulrich

he looks like bob the goon, which is a plus

He's pretty far away from some of his peers at the time (Nick Menza, Gene Hoglan, Dave Lombardo, Nicko, etc) if you compare them both live and on record (Lars always a bit plodding), but compared to some of the lower-tier speed/thrash bands he wasn't full-on bad. There are many great bands with merely servicable drumming, Dissection is another example where awesomeness in all other departments overshadows some very pedestrian drumming.

I can't imagine Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets, three of my favourite albums of all time, without Lars's drumming. As a drummer he is what he is, and complements the music uniquely and on those records, perfectly.

Also, although I don't like the Black Album Bob Rock really cracked the whip and got a superb drumming performance out of the guy. Not to mention a spectacular tone.

I love the drum sound on AJFA.

Tend to agree with A. Begrand, Siegbran, and most definitely with Poliopolice. He plays like himself, which is exactly what he's setting out to do. His band appears to mostly like what he does (and surely they don't want him to play like anybody else) so what could possibly be the problem?

IIRC the allegedly unacceptable sound on St. Anger is just a really high and bright piccolo snare, right? That's like having once tried a goatee or flared jeans. A trendy experiment that didn't go well.

Overall, his music is not my cup of tea. But as a fan of the drums, I think I'd rather hear his sincere, enthusiastic plodding than the flash and technique of one of those Drummer's Drummers with The Awesomest of Drummy Chops.

if you see Metallica live you'll get a good understanding of why people say Lars sucks. He has trouble maintaining consistent tempo, adds extra beats in error, etc. the band themselves are pretty sloppy live too actually but I mean who cares really.

but if we're just talking technique then yeah, he's middle of the pack at best.

like, are there people who independently concluded that he's terrible? It just seems like some retarded meme.

― Poliopolice, Wednesday, March 25, 2015 10:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so you're not really interested in engaging this topic than Tanukiing your preconceived notions down everybody's throat? cool

I'm really only familiar with the radio hits, and with whatever live stuff I happened to run across. He always seemed fine to me -- not exceptionally distinctive, but ideal for his situation.

And didn't they make their early rep on live shows? If he couldn't hack it live, they wouldn't have, for instance, blown Ozzy off the stage every night as his opener (which, ok, maybe not the highest bar set there...)

Also, fun fact: Lars' godfather was Dexter Gordon.

xxpost cos I mean, I spent hundreds of dollars on Metallica bootlegs (lol me) back in the day and that was where my opinion of his weak drumming came from. on Sad But True he has always added an extra drum beat in the chorus that shouldn't be there. He used to, in the mid-80s, get so nervous that he'd speed up the songs to where they were way faster than on disc, which is hearable on those bootlegs. His double bass playing is sloppy and "Dyer's Eve" (which ok, is a really difficult drum part for *anybody* to play) was recorded in spurts and he is incapable of playing it. Even Hetfield himself has basically intimated in interviews that Lars isn't a 'superstar' drummer.

I mean we could debate all day whether we like his drumming despite that or if it detracts from the music at all or things like that but you flat out asked about his technique. Not to mention I think you're straw manning a bit - the opinions critical of Lars' drumming don't all say he's "terrible", there are a lot of people who merely say he's mediocre. However, it's kinda "who cares" really - it doesn't hurt the albums at all. The band isn't musically tight - who gives a fuck really

And didn't they make their early rep on live shows? If he couldn't hack it live, they wouldn't have, for instance, blown Ozzy off the stage every night as his opener (which, ok, maybe not the highest bar set there...)

that largely had to do with the ferocious energy of their shows. James was a madman on stage back in the day (as was Cliff) and they played with a frenzied energy (as stated above, Lars often sped up the songs significantly due to nerves).

It isn't like he's the drummer on Sodom's early recordings where he can't even drum on the beat but he isn't particularly great. Not really sure what the point of this thread is, as the OP seems to have come into it with an axe to grind rather than desiring to actually engage the topic.

I tend to side with Siegbran's reply.

he's a v poor timekeeper which could be a product of him only monitoring the rhythm guitar

i think his drumming on lulu is straight up wonderful but that's sort of down to him making his limitations work in a very specific context

but imo there's an awkwardness to the interaction between his bass and snare drums and he hella relies on cymbals to fill up that awkwardness and it gives some metallica tracks this strange empty feeling in the rhythm section. by which i mean he seems incapable of generating a groove. would put him at the level of most rock drummers regardless.

i kinda like how loose Metallica are live. it can be annoying when they outright fuck up a song (as I heard on a few bootlegs) but it sometimes makes em sound like a train hurtling down the track. they've kinda returned to that style of playing again live as opposed to what they were doing during the Load tours.

Kirk Hammett fucks up about as much as Lars live and doesn't get half the shit he does. ON the Cunning Stunts video during the solo to "One", he's so damn lazy that he falls two full measures behind on the solo, then gets a look of "oh shit" on his face and struggles to catch back up.

always loved the drum sound on the garage days EP and was always so sad that that was the last time their drums ever sounded like that on record.

but yeah dude is sloppy but whatever dude played on battery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_qLd2uj21w

also in live performances he's just working his ass off which is pretty impressive on its own

this is a fave fantasy football moment though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QLZSDTOtyc

could watch this all night long:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ivOfkqFmxg

TRUE or FALSE: Dave Lombardo was a sexy drummer

he's MY sex god.

things got really real in metal land with the dawn of death and xtreme drumming. not every 80's warrior could hang with that crowd, but they could get by on legend and hard rock chops. kills me how someone like gene hoglan can still be an insane death robot all these years later, but then so was buddy rich when he was ancient. roy haynes is 400 years old and he can still kick your ass.

HSB-- I only have 'an axe to grind' if you believe that actively challenging some endlessly repeatedly opinion that rarely if ever appears with any supporting evidence is unreasonable. Yes, I have an opinion and I'm willing to state it outright, but i asked in my first message for anyone to offer up any specific evidence showing how he is terrible-- and no i don't think that's a strawman at all. People often call him terrible and one of the worst drummers ever. Your statement about bootlegs is the first time I have ever heard anyone intimate anything approximating supporting evidence; my genuine impression thus far has been that most people with this view have not independently noticed his poor drumming, especially given that few have probably even heard Metallica bootlegs. You are free to disagree with my assessment, though I still would like to her some specific reference material if you can cite some recordings. I would be particularly interested in hearing bad drumming on any of their proper albums.

Well not everyone listens to bootlegs but hundreds of thousands of people have seen them live over the years, it's not as if he only played sloppily in his own basement or at this one show. I can fully understand that many a metalhead who also saw a Maiden or Slayer gig would find Metallica surprisingly messy - I did too. My tolerance for shoddy musicianship is legendary tho.

For the last ten to fifteen years he's been playing at the limit of his capabilities especially where consistency and speed are concerned, and when you do that your bad days are much more noticeable.

Watching footage I often wonder if he has a bad back because he always stands up from his stool, even during breaks in songs, I know it's partly a 'HEY CLEVELAND, HOW YA DOING?' move but idk.

His posture is pretty bad, so yeah, he probably has back problems. I'd be shocked if he didn't. It's not uncommon among drummers: Phil Collins' back got so bad in recent years that he couldn't even hold a drumstick (though he's supposedly recovered/recovering), and Larry Mullen has had at least one back surgery.

I think Lars gets a bad reputation in part because so many metal drummer peers are so much better. Back then, Lombardo, Benante, et al., not to mention the crazy tech prodigies that followed in his (and everyone's) wake. Lars is great on record, creative, interesting, etc., without being a machine. He's also been very open about feeling not up to the task, taking lessons, doing 1000 takes to try to get something above his abilities down. He's more or less admitted that one thing that prompted the black album slowdown was all the competition in the other direction: he couldn't keep up. Hence the advent of triggers: shit has gotten so fast even ace drummers can't keep it up, either.

Not to "appeal to authority" or whatever, but I interviewed Lamb of God's Chris Adler for WonderingSound a few years ago, and here's what he had to say about Lars:

"You know what? Everywhere I went [when we toured with Metallica], people would come up to me and say 'Did you hear Lars messed that up?' or 'What do you think of Lars?' and all this stuff. I think it’s real easy to pick on the king, and for me there was a particular sound that happened on the ...And Justice For All record that made me want to tune my drums that way. And that almost defined what metal drums are supposed to sound like, at least as I was coming up. And then seeing him live, he made fewer mistakes than I did. There’s never a perfect night, but I think people give him much too hard a time. I think he’s a great drummer. In talking to him and getting to know him a little bit, I think there’s a point – and I’ve recently reached it in my playing as well – where if you are constantly absorbed with performance and making sure every night is perfect and every song is played perfectly, if and when mistakes come about, they generally turn into much larger issues because of the focus that you give them. As opposed to it being, 'Ah, it was an off night.' And Lars, in my opinion after talking to him, he’s gotten to the point where he’s not overanalyzing himself, he’s not critiquing every night’s performance, he’s not going to bed wishing he had hit one of the double bass runs harder or more specifically than he did. Every night’s a new chance to do it right, and that’s how he approaches it. And seeing that and getting that through my own head, I’ve definitely had much better performances since then."

Personally, I like Ulrich's drumming, particularly live. I saw them twice in 2008-9, and he was my favorite thing about the show. He gives their music a loose, rock 'n' roll feel that's a lot of fun—Metallica's first four studio albums are models of precision and compositional craft, but when you hear those songs in an arena, bashed out by four dudes in their 50s, they come alive in an entirely transformative way.

Hence the advent of triggers: shit has gotten so fast even ace drummers can't keep it up, either.

I wouldn't know how to search for it, but I seem to remember a recent article about how the technical-facility arms race in metal drumming has led to some drummers using drum machines on stage, but trying to hide it, and the controversy/backlash being analogous to doping/PEDs in sports.

I cannot begin to answer this question objectively, Metallica were the band that got me into metal (indeed you could argue got me into music in a serious way) when I was 13. So for me the drumming on the first five albums are the platonic ideal of metal drumming, and kind of showed me how percussion works and what it can add to a band of any genre.

Agreed he is extremely sloppy live (judged from clips rather than ever actually having been to a concert), but these days Metallica gigs seem to be fun singalong parties rather than serious musical events, and there's nothing wrong with that really.

It's all relative which is Lars' biggest problem: He's probably the least talented player in his own band and when he came up he was surrounded by drummers, many of whom were mentioned above, who were also better than he was. He's okay, but surrounded by people who are much better.

His personality also makes him a magnet for criticism. The way he eats crackers like he owns the place, that sort of thing.

man oh man listening to starless and bible black right now and that album will remind you what a drummer sounds like in a hurry!

Well, yeah. Not a fair comparison, though.

surrounded by people who are much better.

Keep in mind, the doc even shows Kirk struggling. If anything, Trujillo is the most talented dude in the band. He sort of fills the Darryl Jones dumbin' down for the Stones role.

who except for jazz bores really pay attention to drummers

Christ almighty can we collectively outgrow this infantile know-nothingism about musicianship, please

lol

DNFTT

"I seem to remember a recent article about how the technical-facility arms race in metal drumming has led to some drummers using drum machines on stage, but trying to hide it, and the controversy/backlash being analogous to doping/PEDs in sports."

This happens a ton in the studio now with metal production where you get producers doing microscopic edits all over metal drumming by shifting hits around next to a metronome grid. People spend hours upon hours editing that stuff.

So I guess Ministry's "Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste" was indeed truly ahead of its time. Because the crazy drum programming on that thing was pretty much unreplicable, even with two drummers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLCZhQX_Fm0

We've come full circle back to industrial.

i heard that Flo Mounier just records himself hitting each piece of his kit once and the producer uses one of those radio shack sampling keyboards to fill in the rest

Isn't that what they did with Tomas Haake from Meshuggah? The Drumkit From Hell software program was all built out of individual Haake hits.

there's one lead riff Kirk added in the mid-90s that hurts more than it helps and I wish he would retire it...takes me out of the moment.

This happens a ton in the studio now with metal production where you get producers doing microscopic edits all over metal drumming by shifting hits around next to a metronome grid. People spend hours upon hours editing that stuff.

― earlnash, Sunday, March 29, 2015 11:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't think there's any genre where moving all beats over to snap to grid isn't now the norm

having a nightmare now of going to see some tech metal band and having the drummer only be able to do kick+snare, kick+snare and audience starts booing

This happens a ton in the studio now with metal production where you get producers doing microscopic edits all over metal drumming by shifting hits around next to a metronome grid. People spend hours upon hours editing that stuff.

― earlnash, Sunday, 29 March 2015 23:04 (Yesterday) Permalink

A relative of mine was in a pro-style metal band, who worked with a "name" producer (I feel like he had done stuff with Korn or someone), they spent three weeks and untold amounts of money working on their album. The entire first week was getting drum sounds and recording each individual drum, uploading it into a computer and assembling the drum beats that way.

The drummer who played on the record was a fill-in guy. After the band got home and started looking for a new drummer they were dismayed to find out that no one could play any of the songs as they had been created in the computer. They spent a few frustrating months of not being able to get a replacement they eventually broke up and I don't think the album ever actually came out.

LOL this thread is a great window into the insanity of modern metal.

thankfully James quit doing the "I'm bored so I'm going to fuck around" mentality vocally speaking

you will die

OHHHHHH

when i sayyy

WATCH ME NOW

love dizazter. this is from this year. impiety are from singapore but dizazter is from australia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-X2kNoPFSc

Is the "No samples, no triggers" Bandcamp disclaimer 2015's answer to the "NO SYNTHS" LP shrink wrap sticker, or what?

Once you start down the adjusting-drum-hits-individually, forever will it dominate your destiny.

Posting this video to this thread because the drummer rules. Thanks to scott seward for posting it somewhere else!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaOLR9N0WVM

yeah!

great beat. btw you guys might enjoy this thread:
Drum geek sick chops youtube thread

All Che-a's YouTube videos are from 2010-2011; I wonder what happened to them? I bet they have regular jobs now.

you can always listen to stone among many other cool bands inspired by metallica. their drummer was cool. metallica famously supposedly stole their cool riff. and then the drummer ended up in amorphis? i think?

Read that as "the drummer ended up in animorphs"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3a/Animorphs_32_The_Separation.jpg

Once you start down the adjusting-drum-hits-individually, forever will it dominate your destiny.

http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/09/11/More-Seeds-We-Sow-for-Lindsey-Buckingham-4BCGU0G-x-large.jpg
"Tell me about it."

I've heard that there was one Fleetwood Mac song where Mick decided he had to have his drums recorded with ribbon mics - very expensive, very sensitive, very easily damaged microphones usually used for vocals - and they blew out a bunch of them while recording his drum parts in multiple takes.

lol most engineers I know are hesitant to let singers at a ribbon mic, you can blow those things out easy and indeed they are massively expensive

I heard that Tony Cohen set out to record the Birthday party's Junkyard with contact mics attached to the interior of the drumkit which kept on blowing.

Reminds me of the story in the making of Never Mind The Bollocks video where they talk about finally getting a real cheap mic for Johnny Rotten so he could kind of throw it around and give the required performance.

Also, for a while thought that picture of Lindsey Buckingham was Jojo Mayer for some reason.

Hmmm.

http://i.imgur.com/GLTmA28.jpg

I've heard that there was one Fleetwood Mac song where Mick decided he had to have his drums recorded with ribbon mics - very expensive, very sensitive, very easily damaged microphones usually used for vocals - and they blew out a bunch of them while recording his drum parts in multiple takes.

― ^^^ NOT METAL (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Thursday, April 2, 2015 4:17 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's a great anecdote about mick and lindsay doing "what makes you think you're the one?" off tusk, and they are at the studio by themselves one night and they actually take apart a handheld cassette recorder and put the mic from that inside the snare drum to get that sound (the whole unsaid subtext to the anecdote being "we were insanely coked up")

but yeah i almost wish there was a special ILM metal thread for "metal records that don't sound like shit" because i would check them out no matter what genre

also lars 4 ever #! lars fan 4 life! lars ulrich fan club!

The Ringo of metal imo. Team Lars 4 Life

re: this, I don't think Kirk gets enough flack for how badly he occasionally blows this live. like, there's mistakes, and there's him occasionally falling two entire measures behind (as I pointed out upthread), hitting the wrong frets, bending out of tune, or on one 1986 bootleg, actually fucking up the harmonized interlude to Master of Puppets because he started on the wrong fret and couldn't fix it, so he was playing dissonant garbage while James played it correctly.

and then there are the shows where he IS a machine and nails everything. but he's so casual live to the point where he sometimes comes across as not gaf, and yet the knock on Kirk = "he's a lame guitarist in that his lead compositions suck, but he can play technically like a mo'fo!".

anywho, I stand by what I said upthread about Lars, but lord, Kirk has degraded over the years and hides a lot of his mistakes in wah (which he's done for years), but I'm fairly sure they had to fix a lot via overdubs on live recordings for him.

James does seem to have been the glue that held the rickety thing together, but I also think there has to be a reason two of his bandmates remained constant throughout the band's career, the same band that is way more successful and popular than p much all of the bands with "better" drummers/guitarists.

It's amazing how many huge bands have at least one member that really can't play - Kiss, U2, the Stones (Charlie, sue me), I'm sure there's more. I suppose that crap musicians learn to come up with interesting workarounds occasionally, although most people in loser bands are just crap at even that.

I don't even really think Lars is "crap." The technical standards in metal are pretty high and he may not meet them, but I enjoy his feel, sound, fills etc.

i think i'd be even nicer about lars' drumming now than i was upthread but i have a lot more appreciation for individual feel these days even if that feel can be described as stiff. on justice he is just this thrumming industrial machine, and he has a real understanding of drum fills as hooks

kirk is really the sloppiest of any of them live but i find it impossible to criticize him because he is like a baby kitten whose feelings i care about

he was playing dissonant garbage

Didn't know they'd pioneered this too.

Yeah totally, re fills as hooks. I think one of the flaws of a lot of drummers with greater technical prowess is that they fail to understand that the kind of hyper-advanced shit they are doing gives people too much sonic information to process, esp if they're not watching your youtube video while listening.

Re: Lars, I watched some of those Hardwired making-of videos recently, and while it's no Some Kind of Monster, it's the closest window to seeing their Justice-style writing process. It's pretty clear that even though James writes the actual riffs & melodies, the songs wouldn't really exist without Lars. He's the arranger, he's the one making confident decisions about which riffs go together and become songs, where to repeat little cells and insert extra bars, which takes are keepers, etc.

Also every now and then he'll play a little fill and it just sounds iconically Lars, I don't have a bad word to say about him (even if he has atrocious time live, but he can turn it on in the studio, so who cares).

most modern metal albums sound quantized to fuck so it's kind of hard to say who's got it and who doesn't

Lars always seems like he's playing someone else's kit. Like, the parts are all fine and good or great, but then you see him, and he always seems to be struggling to reach the right cymbals or hit the right tom.

Maybe he needs a more ergonomic drum set

He should never have stopped using that white Tama kit he had back in the day

Lars doesn't drum, he sits there while 4 burly me move his body up and down

so I'm watching one of the vids that came with the AJFA boxed set, and Lars is a split second off beat consistently during the "dun nuh nuh, duh nuh nuh" Part during "...And Justice for All", so it sounds like the aural equivalent of someone's boots getting stuck in the mud every few seconds.

the band is having to adjust to it and it is distracting af.

I’m inspired by your posts to revisit the remasters - working my way through the earlier stuff, the single RTL DVD and the two MOP DVDs, and Cliff Em All. The four (4!) Justice DVDs look a bit intimidating I have to say.

As a Johnny-come-lately to the metal scene, I even struggle with Metallica's classic studio recordings, let alone their live releases. Ride the Lightning comes closest to fully swaying me.

xpost it's really more like two actual shows, one video of handheld camcorder clips of parts of songs, and......i don't think i've seen the 4th one yet, i think it's interviews

the dvd from the Stone Balloon is great, cuz it's Metallica performing in a teeny club just so they could say htey play Delaware

I have a story about that Delaware show... I posted this on my Facebook some time ago but some here might enjoy it...

Metallica decided that they wanted to play all 50 states on the Damaged Justice Tour so they did a surprise show at the Stone Balloon, a beloved college-town club in Wilmington, Delaware. Seeing Metallica in a small club would have been amazing!

I have no idea how I figured it out in the pre-internet days but I found out about the show in advance and called the local promoters Cellar Door a few weeks in advance of the show. The guy on the phone was stunned that I heard about it and said he would reserve me tickets for the show!

Friend and sometime photographer David Rogers and Jeff Vander Clute of Metal Meltdown fanzine fame took the trip with me. We made a weekend of it - the day before I went to L'AMOUR in Brooklyn for the first time ever and caught DBC (Dead Brain Cells).

We crashed with my grandmother who lived in Jamaica. The next day we went into the city and visited some record labels (my fanzine Curious Goods was a reality at this point and Metal Meltdown was legendary in the underground so i was able to glom off of Jeff's established cred).

I remember meeting Larry Getlen, then a publicist for Roadracer (not Roadrunner yet) who gave me tons of stuff including Obituary's "Slowly We Rot" on vinyl and the first Last Crack cassette (he said of the latter project "that's really weird.")

We also visited Noise Records' NYC office and Sal Treppiedi hooked me up with a Kreator Extreme Aggression tee-shirt (when I wore it to a DC show people were in awe how I got it) as well as a shit ton of music.

Then we drove down to Delaware where a huge throng was there. My name was on the list but not to get in for free, just to get into the sold out show... And I was broke! But the guy from Cellar Door said he would trust me to mail him a check... Yay! We were going on!

But then they checked my ID. I was not 21. Entrance denied. Horrible!

In the forthcoming months I would get letters from other fanzine guys saying to me "Did you see me onstage singing 'Seek & Destroy'" and a little part of me died.

The show was bootlegged and released on vinyl (the cover of which is pictured here).

http://img.discogs.com/pLSy2faHu8-LRw6BYPTrudNkaZ8=/fit-in/600x605/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-626440-1140233939.jpeg.jpg

I never got it. The show is on YouTube if anyone wants to check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WkLm6yLO_Q

Jeff is not on Facebook but I did exchange emails with him a couple years ago when I picked up the entire series of Metal Meltdown on eBay.

Oh man. Oh man oh man. I died with you during that story.

yeah that would have gutted me.

course I was 9 at the time so