Ride The Lightning Transcript

https://bit.ly/Ride_Lightning

Music Rewind welcomes Michael Kattawar to discuss the 1984 album Ride The Lightning by Metallica.

A lifelong music enthusiast with a wide-range of musical tastes, Michael tells us how this album forged his love of Metal along with other areas of Rock.

Album: Ride The Lightning Artist: Metallica Year: 1987

Transcript as follows: Participant #1:

Hello, and welcome to music rewind, a podcast where we look to tell the stories behind our favorite albums. I'm your host, Steve Epley, and in each episode, I will invite a guest to tell us about their favorite favorite music album, how they discovered it, and what makes it special to them. Joining me today is an old friend groovesman at my wedding and someone I've had many long conversations with about everything from music to baseball. Michael Catowar. Michael works in scheduling and dispatch for Atlanta clean tech, who does industrial cleaning for new homes, which I can imagine has been pretty crazy this year. A music fanatic who enjoys many genres and to my benefit, he has gifted me numerous albums over the years, enlightening me to various artists in metal, bluegrass, jazz, and hiphop. Welcome, Michael, and thank you for being on the show. Thanks for having me, buddy. It's good to see you. Good to talk to you. It's been a while now. It has been quite a bit. You left us and moved to Alabama. Yeah, I did, and we missed Georgia, and we missed being there. There's been some good friends made and everything here and some good times have, but, yeah, after a decade of being there and obviously getting all you guys so well and everything, it's been kind of bittersweet. We're still looking into what we can do to make it back that way. Hopefully within a year's time, actually. Oh, that would be cool. When I started this particular project, you were one of my first thoughts of who I wanted on this show because we've had many long conversations about anything regarding music. Yeah, your insight was going to be something that I wanted to get recorded and get out to the masses. So, Michael, let's jump right into this. What is your favorite album and how did you discover it? Well, knowing the conversations you and I have had and, as you said, knowing how adamant I am about my music and everything, it kind of put me in a pickle trying to decide that one album from that time of life and everything to narrow down. I spent a solid six to 8 hours collectively just sitting up at night trying to pick one, and I just ended up going with metallica. I chose a ride. The light

Participant #1:

kind of went against the grain of the usual master of puppets. And, I mean, my reasoning for that was simply that right. The lightning came to me first before master puppet. The album came out in 84, and I wasn't born until 85. I didn't hear it for the first time until I'd say probably six or seven. So 92, 93, somewhere around there. It just kind of stuck to me, man. It was just the first thing I'd ever really heard like that. My older brother Chris, eight years older than me, is where I got a lot of my musical taste from and where I got introduced to a lot of things, but Chris, being eight years older than me, was a little more into the punk scene and everything at the time. Circle Jerks, Bughazi, Bad Brains, those guys from that era. Stuff like Metallica just wasn't really quite his bag. And I don't remember how I heard it first. Probably just on the radio or something. We had a local rock station back home in Beaumont that played some pretty good music, and that's probably where I came across it, just hearing something on there for the first time. And then that was around the time that Napster and stuff was big, and it took nothing to be able to look up a band name and find some music, listen to, admittedly, before all the streaming services and all that stuff. I don't know if you're allowed to say Metallica and Napster on the same program.

Participant #1:

Napster Bad, right? Yeah. So you heard Ride the Lightning before the Black Album, then? Yes, I definitely heard the Lightning for the Black Album, and for that matter, like, I didn't really even get into Ride the Lightning until probably a couple of years later. When did Load come out? I don't remember exactly when that came out. 97. 98. Okay, so maybe I got that CD for either Christmas or my birthday, like, the year it came out, and I asked for it strictly on the premise of hearing one or two songs on the radio, and I just knew that I liked it. And so I don't know that I may be even so much asked for that album. I just asked for Metallica album, and that's what my parents ended up giving me, was the most recent one that had come out, and so, of course, I listened to that, and I'm just thinking, like, this isn't quite this isn't quite what I had in mind. Like, this doesn't sound like the rest of the stuff. And I think maybe that's just what kind of I had a computer already. Everything my dad was already dad had always been into computers and building them and stuff, and so I had access to the Internet and stuff like that and started looking things up and trying to read about them. And I mean, I've still got a whole box full of cassette tapes that I recorded off the local radio station back home. I don't know, it was just music. Music wasn't a thing. And hearing fresh metal for the first time in my life, like, six years old, and was just really into it. And, like, having a four year old now and playing music for him and watching how he gets excited about stuff, that's great. I look back and go, well, sure, of course I was into that. It was mind blowing. So with me, my first exposure to Metallica was the blackout that came out right there with I can't remember what year exactly, early 90s. But that was where they were MTV heavy with Unforgiven, Enter Sandman. And then I heard A little bit of Angelsis For All. A little bit. I wasn't really staying up for Headbangers Ball or anything on MTV, so that stuff really wasn't in my rotation at the time. But then later on in the Army, Metallica was pretty big in the barracks, and you go in and out of different rooms, and you're like, Hey, what's that Metallica? It's not any Metallica I've heard. What is this? And then you started to discover that that's old Metallica. It's from the mid 80s, like, Oh, I didn't know they were that old. And then you get into the first time, you hear Fade to Black, and it's just, wow. That's not Load. That's not reload. This is something completely different. Yeah. And, I mean, that was even from Kill Them All to Ride the Lightning to Master Puppets and Justice For All and everything. Like, while those other three are pretty similar, I mean, Kill the Lightning or Kill The Lightning, kill Them All was obviously a little more raw and down and dirty and just straightforward. There wasn't all the acoustic guitar work, and I feel like more in depth writing and everything involved. They definitely did some quick maturation and evolution there as a band. I mean, hell, they were teen whenever they were first writing and recording, so they were young, too. Yeah. You can tell a huge difference between Killamall and Ride The Lightning. There's a gigantic leap in maturity and songwriting. There's actual melodies. Like you said, Kill Them All is just a handful of tracks of thrash metal. Nothing wrong with that. But that was their beginning. But, yeah, Ride The Lightning, stand out tracks, but still an album that you can listen to all the way through. Yeah, that was kind of one of the things that I had for it. You had to do this. And I was sitting down listening to a track by track and kind of making notes, which is not something I've done in a while. It's not like it's been forever since I've listened to this house, but it's been forever since I've sat and listened to this house. Yeah. I've just kind of forgotten, I guess, how much parts of it, how much particular songs did kind of stand with. I mean, the opening track by Fire with Fire, it starts off with the acoustics and everything, and it's all nice and pretty, and then just kind of all of a sudden, wham.

Participant #1:

Okay, so these guys haven't forgotten how to crash. Right. It's really a great misdirect. Yeah. The great classical intro, the acoustics, and then there's, like, a wave of rock that just sweeps over. Yeah. Just kind of pummels you right in the face all of a sudden. And then your brains are beat out, and here you go, you're on for the ride again. When I finally got the album, I had finally got the CD I had low. And that's the first time that I've been able to just sit and listen to a Metallica album start to finish. Look. But then I got this. And so the difference there immediately in the writing and the sound, everything from this point forward, from Ride the Lightning, ford has always had some of those ups and downs like that. I mean, they're instrumental tracks that they started tacking on the album down here in the notes on my list later. That's one of the things that I love the most about it, was the instrumental track and what they started doing with those. I think Kolkulu is my favorite track on this album. It is a fantastic song.

Participant #1:

I mean, it's the kind of thing, like these guys ended up playing an album with the symphony behind it because some of their songs could allude to that. It's something that they wrote that they were capable of kind of adding on to. I'm not the biggest fan of Metallica SNM, but that Kalkatulu, where they start off, is fantastic. Nine minutes of just I watched it today on YouTube. I wanted to see it again. It was kind of neat, though. I watched that and that was kind of them in their prime. Well, that's an opinion as far as when they're in their prime. But I actually watched three Metallica videos today and it was that one. And then a version of Fade to Black for 2018 in Lincoln, Nebraska, which was excellent version, but it showed their age because SNM was probably 99, 2000 somewhere in there. That sounds about right. Yeah, 20, 18, 18 years later. And then a live version of Whom the Bell Tolls with Cliff Burton back from 85. And number one, their ages. Watching that one from 85 last. You're right, they were kids, absolute kids on stage and just rocking. They were having a blast seeing James and Lars with the long hair because now, for so long, it seems like all that we know them as is these old dudes. Yeah, they've got tattoos, whatever, but they freaking rock. But then you go back and go, not a tattoo one on them, no facial hair, long curly locks. They look like a hair metal band. But the beauty is they didn't sound like one. No, they didn't. They didn't, thankfully. No. I mean, single handedly, without a doubt, one of the most important rock and roll bands of all time. And I don't think there's anybody that would ever say otherwise. Their string of albums in the though, from Ride the Lightning Puppets and justice for all and The Black Album, those four were just I mean, when I say prime, that's what I'm talking about. Those guys were just in full stride. Could do no wrong for those four albums. Yeah, I know how much grief the Black Album gets and everything. Oftentimes I think that as a whole, it's almost become a joke. More so than reality of what people really think about it. But Black Album was a good album. It was, I agree. It's still one of my favorite Metallica albums. And after that, they definitely kind of made some artistic decisions that not everyone agrees with. I love the Garage album. Was it Garage incarce Days? That was a fun album with Dyed Die, My Darling and still crazy stuff for Cool. But they never really recaptured what they had in the No Man because then you mentioned some of the other bands. Like, I always knew that Dave McCain had tried out Metallica or that they wanted him to, or whatever. However the story truly goes, I'm not totally clear on that. But Dave went on to make Megadeth. And while Megadeth may not be I don't know as it's tough for me to say this because Megadeth is huge. Megadeth is a huge band all around the world. Are they Metallica status? I mean, no, they don't have the commercial success that Metallica has. But when you talk about the big, brashmetal bands of that era, I mean, Slayer, Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeth, they're all dead within the same vein. And Dave did a lot of writing from Algae. He's got some yeah, that's something that I made note of. I didn't realize that he was actually still credited with some of the writing for Ride Flight. It's not surprising, too, going back and listening to it. After reading that, I thought, it really does maybe kind of sound like some Dave saying it. There no Omega Death like that. I can hear his guitar work. David Stands an amazing part. Absolutely amazing guitars. I don't care for Megadeth the way that I do Metallica. I still like them. But that's one thing that I kind of discovered with Revisiting this album was Cliff Burton. I knew that he was a big part of the band in the early days before his untimely death, right after Master Puppets, I think. And I knew he was a good basis. I didn't really know his skill level. I didn't really know I couldn't point out that's Cliff on base or anything. But in the reading and everything, apparently he was a huge influence in the maturity of this album. Going from Killamall to Ride the Lightning, getting those melodies in there, getting the actual rhythmic bass mixed in with the dual guitars, that was actually all Cliff. Teaching them how to do it. Yeah, he taught them theory and everything. These guys didn't know music theory and how to implement it. Flipburton taught these guys how to be musicians, basically. How to be better musician. And I also didn't know that at the beginning of For Whom the Bell Tolls, that's all him.

Participant #1:

I always thought that was guitar rather than just bass guitar. I didn't realize what he was doing there. The wawa pedal and everything. That was pretty cool. And it's actually pretty cool to see in that YouTube video. I recommend seek that out. Yeah, I probably should. Man, that's admittedly something that because when I was so big into Metallica and everything, there wasn't YouTube. That's very true. You weren't so freely available to find stuff like that. And I just don't listen to Metallica the way I don't listen to metal the way that I do. I actually put one of my metal album stations up on Pandora earlier today for the first time. An agent. It was down at the bottom of my station list. Yeah, this is a rocking track. I forgot about this. I just don't listen to metal much more. That was something else that was kind of cool, going back to this kind of going back to some my roots. I was considering Pantera for Vulgar display of power. I really wanted to talk about that again. You talk about the first time as a young kid. Yeah. The power behind those vocals and that drum work and I mean, dimebags. There's just nothing else in the world like it and nothing else like yeah. I was in high school when I first heard Vulgar for the first time all the way through. And you don't really know what to do with that power coming out of those speakers. Am I supposed to bob my head? Am I supposed to punch somebody? What am I supposed to do? I like it, but I'm not sure how to react. Yeah. Do I throw this bookshelf on the floor? There was definitely something different. I mean, I was in middle school. I'll forget I was in middle school. My buddy Byron's house, Byron Oakland, when I first heard that, and it was Daniel Splinter. He was about two years older than us and he lived a couple of blocks away and he had come by with the album and we listened to it that night, hanging out in the backyard, playing basketball, whatever, and he put it on and I just remember my eyes being like, the dinner plates. Just what is this? Even after liking Metallica, everything that was a step beyond Metallica's level of heavy. The band you mentioned, the Anthrax and Pantera stuff, they never really had their Black Album that went megapopular. I hate to say the word mainstream, but the Black Album had several ballads on there that got a lot of MTV playtime. Nothing Else Matters Unforgiving. And that would change any evolution of any band. But say Anthrax, all I could tell you is Scott Ian with the beard. I couldn't tell you a song. Panther. I could tell you several songs, at least. But all those other bands, slayer and stuff. Angel of Death or something. Yeah, angel of Death is a good one. Dimension. That's the first and only one that comes to mind. I don't have the in depth metal knowledge that's like it, but like battalika. Because of the Black Album, I was able to kind of discover in reverse several amazing albums. I'll thank MTV for that. Give them credit. They were good for something at one point in time. Yeahthead. And A on Flux and stuff like that. They play Late night. He was have a Metallica shirt. Yeah, he did. Yeah. But

Participant #1:

that is the first time I saw the video for one was Beavis and Butthead. Yes, I remember that episode. Yeah. Beavis was kind of going on this sucks, while we watched it. And Butt head kept saying, Wait for it and then Beavis goes nuts after the midpoint. Yeah, I remember that. And see, I probably could have chosen Justice For All, honestly. I love that album, too, if it weren't for the recording of it, which is something you hear so much. Just the complete another lack of clips. There's no base, no bottom end to it. If that album had been recorded differently, I still think it's in their top three, those three albums, right. The Lightning and Master Puppet. But there are some particular songs on Injustice for all. I think the writing was maybe better for some of the songs on that album than they were on the other two. Just lyrical content and composition of the song. The recording sucked, which is what was such a downer about it. But I don't know, it was really hard not to just pick the trifecta to say, you know what, we're going to talk about all three of them, which is what we've done already. Someone may come on later and still pick puppets or we talk about Ride the Lighting in there. I'm not keeping anybody from it. But the actual album, Ride the Lightning is a great listen from front to back, more so the front and then there are a couple of tracks like Escape and Trapped Under Ice are too, that they're not bad songs. They just, to me, don't quite live up to Bells and Fade of Black and Cthulhu. Well, Creeping Death in there, though. Yeah, creeping Death is like that's where I made my kind of big bold note. Because for me, right, Lightning the title track. This is something else that I didn't know until I started kind of digging in and doing a little research with this, apparently. Did you know that it was named off of a line from the Stand by Stephen King? That makes sense. It's a line that spoke in at some point or whatever and they decided I forget who it was. Like, Oh, that sounds kind of cool, let's use that. Whatever. But yeah, that's what it came from. That's the title of the album and the title of that track. It was From The Stand. That makes perfect sense. I mean, as far as Stephen King and the electric chair, right? He's got a thing with the electric chairs.

Participant #1:

For me, honestly, for the Bellholes, I know that it would be considered like a single off the album, pretty much, or whatever. The big hit and all. Spotify had it with the most plays as well. By 20,000, 30,000 plays or something. It got played infinitely more than any other track, but it may I don't want to say my least favorite track on the album, but it might would be close. I really just don't it just doesn't do that much. I've seen a lot of Soldier and army compilation videos to that one. Yeah, okay. With whoever making it. Not understanding the irony of the actual lyrics and purpose of the song, which is kind of protest against the horrors of modern warfare. Yeah, not really grasping, like, what the title of the song with that phrase? Like someone who's never read the book, apparently.

Participant #1:

I mean, I think that Fade to Black, the song after it just has more depth and everything to it. I agree. Well, Food The Bell Tolls is a good track, whereas Fade to Black is an epic rock ballad, for lack of better word. It is. I mean, this is the way it starts. It tells a story, it feels well, it does tell a story. It's about a guy contemplating suicide and then eventually at the end, he does kill himself. It's deep, lyrically and sonically. I mean, just that song is what stuck me to this album. Call Two is good, but Fade to Black with that beginning

Participant #1:

and then that midpoint where it turns. It's fantastic.

Participant #1:

Yeah. I feel like it's one of the ones on the album. Maybe off the top of my head. Can pick out the others, but where James? Like, really clean vocals from him. He's not growling. Yeah, he's not growling stuff. He has his voice and he does it very well. And something I've always liked for him. I could say this about a number of other metal artists or whatever, metal vocalists in particular, but when they don't sound like they're having to try so hard to get their sound, he just does it and it sounds like him and it sounds good. Philip on Salmo Pantera I have never in my life heard somebody that has the octave range, can screen you into the ground and then turn around and sing you a pretty little ballad afterwards and hit the highs and the low and the ability to do it all without effort. Who's that guy from Slipknot? Corey Taylor. Corey Taylor, yeah. He's one of those that's what you just described that reminds you because he had that side gig with Stone Sour, I think they were called. It's beautiful tracks, very clear vocals, like you said, and someone tells you, Hey, that's the dude from Slipknot. The guys with all the mass and the thrash metal. Yeah. I mean, while I'm not a big fan, I can appreciate his ability. What he's able to do there, it's impressive. It's really impressive to be able to hear that amount and power of voice come out of somebody and it just seems so effortless now. I know it's work. They're trained to do it. It's not something you just wake up doing one day. It takes lots of effort and practice. But, I mean, yeah, if I tried screaming like Bill does in Pantara, if I tried doing that, I'd probably throw up without having the knowledge and experience that I do whatever with recording and any of that. It does also kind of made me wonder how much of that has to do with the recording call as well. The booth, they're in Mice. Just whatever. I know that doesn't change somebody's voice, but I don't believe that James was using any kind of voice modulation on the Black Album to change his voice. But just the recording itself makes me just kind of wonder how much of it was his voice changing and how much of it was just it was a newer age, it was newer equipment. Maybe they had better payroll to use, whatever for the recording. I can only assume that makes a huge difference regarding time in the studio as well. Because when you're first starting out, when they made this, I don't even think they were fully signed yet to a major label. It was on Electra still. Was it on Electra? I know they were eventually signed for Electra, but I don't kill them all. Was it okay? Yeah. Once you get that money and you get more time to say, Okay, that was good, let's do it again, but do better. Sure. And see, I hadn't even considered it like that. Yeah, I wouldn't even think of that. I was just thinking hardware even. And then a producer makes a big difference. I have no idea who produced these albums if they have a go to producer, but it's something that I'm discovering more and more doing these shows, is that the producer in the booth makes a huge difference as far as someone that the band trusts and someone that gets to know their voice. Lyrically, though, one thing I like about this album is that each song, the overall concept, you'd say, is death. That's kind of a course. But each individual song tells at least its own individual story, or has it's not really a message album by any means, but you're looking at Ride the Lightning. It's the guy that's being wrongfully. Put to death in the Electric Chair, for Whom the Bell Tolls, horrors of Modern Warfare, fade to Black is about suicide trapped under ice. You got a guy who's cryogenically frozen and they wake up and they cannot get out. Yeah. I don't know what James was doing writing the lyrics, but he was definitely putting some stuff out there. I felt like almost maybe he was doing a lot of fiction, science fiction reading or something. Maybe. Who was reading Stephen King to just even get that line from Stephen King? Yeah, one of them was. There was a conversation between them to name the album that and subsequently the song. Maybe the song came first, whatever. But somebody was doing some reading. They're like, what were they reading? How much of this came from just sitting around and being dorks and reading books? Well, then Creeping Death is about the passover. Yes. I did read, though, that no one was reading the Bible at the time. They were actually watching The Ten Commandments. Yeah.

Participant #1:

I don't know anything about them personally, but yeah, I don't really see it. I never noticed that. And then I listened to it while reading the lyrics and I'll be down they're very specific. They're going right down the whole story. Yeah. That is one of my probably top two favorites on me out between Creeping Death and calling Cthulhu after it on Master of Puppet, they kind of did it the other way around where the instrumental was second to last, Believe Orion. And then after that comes Damage Corporate to just really like, that's the final send off. Super thrash, beat your brains out of your heads off on Right Lightning. Creeping Death is followed by the calmer nine minute long call a Ctula to close out the album. And I'm kind of torn as to which way I think is better. Call it Cthulhu is great. Love it and everything, but I feel like it's maybe a little bit of a calm send off and it might should have been put earlier in the album. And then something like Creeping Death. Like you're saying the subject matter, everything being death, isn't that I feel like this one is just probably the most in your face death. Like, it's just this that the other slate, Born to Serve. Everything is just really not heavy in the sound. Heavy is in the content. Yeah. I don't know, like, if it were me, I would be wanting to walk off the stage from that and not call a co. Do you know? I feel like that one could have been a little earlier on. I feel like they did it more right. With Master of Puppets closing out with Damage of Corporate, I could really go either way because for me, call Katula versus Orion. That's almost like Kurt versus Picard there. I've always loved Orion. I actually heard Orion first, but then Metallica SNM came out in that amazing version of Kalkula, which I would I prefer over the Ride, the Lightning version. I don't know, there's just something about that version. They did everything right there but Orion. That's really a hard call. Which album ends better? I think that Ryan the Lightning ends better, whereas Puppets starts better. Okay. I could get on over that. Sure was a battery that starts off yeah, batteries are a wonderful song. And then that leads right into Puppets. So it's a one two punch right there from the beginning. Yeah. Which I love. Tracks one and two of this album, they're great, but it really kicks into gear for me with three and four with bells and fade to Black. Those two together, for me are the meat and potatoes of this whole album, and they're just awesome. It does end well, though. So you got the meat and potatoes in the middle, and then at the end and I'm sorry for Trapped Under Ice and Escape. They're just kind of there they are. There is a little bit of filler off, and again, I kind of made note of that myself, too. That as much as I love it and I have picked it, I still wouldn't skip them. Skip them. I still listen to them. They're still good. They are a little bit of filler. I mean, Trapped Under, I I do like Trapped Underize, but yeah, there's a couple of tracks on there, basically. I don't know if I could go back or if they re released it, and they're like, Here's some B sides. And we thought about putting these in there. If one of those is good, I probably go, okay, you should have put that one. That should have been the one you put in. I'd be curious to hear if there's any besides on this. I mean, 45 minutes, and it's only, what, like eight tracks or eight or nine tracks. Okay. Yeah, eight. I don't know. I'd be hard pressed to imagine that there probably was. I mean, they had room and time for another, especially, like, with a nine minute epic at the end of the album, they've got room for another song, so maybe they just weren't any good. And Fade to Black is not short either. What was that? Fade to Black is just under seven, and then Katie is just under nine. But right. The lighting is 640 itself. See, maybe I didn't realize that. I didn't realize it was that long. Okay. Yeah. But again, when you've got a 45 minutes album that's only got nine, eight tracks on it, they're all going to be five minutes plus each. Basically average. There's grandparents, but know who Metallica is. There's babies who know Metallica is there's. Every country in the world knows who Metallica is. It's a household name. There's just no two ways about it. Everyone has seen their logo. Metallica, you put logos up everywhere, whether they can read the words or not. You look at that logo and it's recognizable. Everybody's seen it before. They know what it is. This is true. I don't know. Not everybody recognizes, like I mean, everybody recognizes the Van Halen VH. Everybody recognizes the Rolling Stones. It become iconic for a reason, I guess. Have you had the chance to see them live, metallica? No, I have not. Really? No. Never have. Most of the bands I've been to a load of live shows, man. I've been to lots and lots of live shows, but most of them that I've been to, I've really not been to too many big bands aside from a festival type thing or something. I've seen Iron Maiden, Jean Motorhead, Gene alice Cooper. Those are some of the biggest things. I've got a picture of me, AJ and Tattoo hanging out with Player and take pictures with them and take a shot of Jaeger with them. That's nice. That's only because Amy was working at Gwen Adriena at the time. She got us upstairs in the VIP lounge with them. So, I mean, at that show, that was oh, who else? That was Slayer. And was that actually Slayer, anthrax and Megadeth altogether in the same night? I think. Damn. Yes. I really think it was. It was at least Anthrax and Slayer that night. I'd have to ask Nick about that. He would remember. But yeah, I mean, I say only those are some really big names that I've been fortunate enough to see. But the Iron Maiden, the Motorhead, those were at an outdoor festival thing. They're in Alpharetta. I got to see Metallica when I was 18, right before I left for the army up in Illinois. What year was that? This was 98. 98, okay. It was right after Load reload came out. And they came out and they said, well, sorry for fans to Load reload. We feel like playing old stuff. Everybody goes nuts. And the show is fantastic. Days of the New and Jerry Cantrell opened for them, so it was a great show. Jerry Cantrell solo? Yes, he just put out a new solo album. I haven't gotten to listen to it yet, but, yeah, he just released it. But then I saw them about a year and a half later when I was at my permanent duty station in Hawaii. And they suck. It was absolutely horse shit. It was one of those situations where a lot of bands would go to Hawaii and they would kind of just do a half ass job to pay for their vacation, more or less. To was the same way Tool was. Abysmal show was horrible, and I love Tool, but their show on Hawaii was bad. It kind of gave me a less Metallica with me on a sour note. But then years later, I saw him at Bonneroo and played a fantastic set. Okay. So they redeemed themselves for me again at Bonneroo. I have technically seen them three times. Right on. Okay. I had a group of friends of mine that were going to see them back on Beaumont. I ended up having to work like, a 26 hours shift or something for this big print job that we were doing. And while I would have liked to have gone through tickets for, like, $60 or something also, and I just was not in the place to be spending $60 on a Tool ticket and be missing out on all the overtime that I was going to get. Fair enough. And I'd also, like, heard so much stuff at that time about Mannard and how weird he was. It shows like standing behind a curtain, just never faced in the crowd or whatever. He literally turned and played PlayStation for 20 minutes during like a very slow bass solo. That was it. Yeah, he sat down, he played PlayStation while not even like a good base solo. Doom. Doom. And it was at the, uh, campus, which had no alcohol, so people were just bored out of their minds. Wow, that was really bad. And see, the earlier I can't stand anything that they've done. This was after Lateralis. Lateralis or whatever? Yeah. No, I don't even like Lateralis. I don't like that album. I don't like anything they've done since Automa or Anema or whatever the hell it is. I wouldn't mind if someone brought Undertowe. Undertow and Opiate were awesome albums, but since then, all puns intended, he's a toolbag and I don't like that band. Every album sounds the same. Every album sounds the same and it doesn't sound good. Say, I don't know, he needs to keep making wine and whatever it is he's doing these days. The only really good concert I saw out in Hawaii was called the Great Hawaiian Smoke Out. It was sponsored by Dare and it was headline, so anti drug concert. It was headlined by Cypress Hill and Pennywise. Nice. Yeah, it was pretty fantastic. Sponsored by Dare. I would like to see Cypress Hill. I could get on board with that. They had a great cover of War Pigs. Really? Yes, it was really good. I've heard a lot of War Pigs covers, but I've never heard Cyberspilt cover. Interesting. I've been to some good hip hop shows too, man. Again, you asked me about a short list and then some other potentials. Right. The lighting made your top spot. What's on your shortlist? Again, trying to keep my mind narrowed down to that day and age, that time of my life or whatever earlier on and not anything recent. I was also trying to just kind of consider things in a different direction, not considering another metal album because as you said, and as you know about me, my taste is pretty varied. I like a little bit of everything. And so I tried to kind of swing a different direction. Like I mentioned, my brother and his interest in the punk rock and everything at the time is on that list. 13 songs came out in 1980, 913 songs. It's kind of a compilation, if I remember right, it's from like there are two or three EPS they put out previously. So it's not a best of it's not anything new either. It's just some shorter albums all kind of mashed together to make their teeth, though. Yeah. Ian McKay, the lead singer and most of the writing and everything for that, he's probably hands down one of the most important guys of the punk era in the late 80s. My brother, like I said, who got me into them and Molder brother, played bass and subsequently I played bass. So I tried to chris was always far more better basis than myself. But one of the things that really drew me to them was how involved in the songs and everything the bassist was. And especially for punk music, it's almost like they had a funk basis playing Punk Florida. And then you've got a band like Red Hot Chili Pepper Shoot back then in that time, mid to late 80s, early 90s, whatever, before they played the garbage that they play now and have for the past ten years. Stuff like Mother's Milk and Blood Sugar, Sex Magic and all. I mean, again, you talk about punk basis, playing punk type stuff, whatever. It was just that weird mix. There was a lot of that going on. That's when the rap rock stuff started. Suicidal Tendencies playing and everything. Like those guys that's Robert Trujillo, who is now playing base for Metallica, he was in Suicide, Tennessee. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yes, he was. Sorry. I had to look it up because he caught me on a limb there and I was going to make an ass with but yeah, Bugsy 13 songs. That one was really important. And then my brother also got me into some hip hop, early hip hop, tribeca Quest, of course, Jurassic Five is still one of my favorite hip hop groups. And there's something about a group of NCS getting together and each one of them having their parts not quite like a harmony with a number of singers singing harmony together. But when you could get two, three, four guys that can all have their parts of the song with their lyrics and their rhymes and their own cadence and their own sound, and it all works together, and then you throw in like a jazz loop beat in the background, I'm hooked. That's my kind of hip hop. I love hearing the jazz beat and stuff like that mixed in, especially kind of later in playing trumpet middle school and everything, getting into jazz and being able to sometimes recognize some stuff. These guys are cutting into their songs. That's cool. Yeah. Being able to pick up on some of that, it was great. So, yeah, Bugsy 13 songs, and it was a drastic five. Concrete School Yard. Yes. Those two probably would be the honorable mentions of that era. Those would be two albums that I have not listened to. Yeah. Yeah, I'd have to check those out. I almost chose 13 songs over Metallica. Almost. It we can always have you back on and talk that one dude, that's like I told you, especially here the last couple of years, working from home now and everything, too. I've come across so many new artists that I've had time to just like, while I'm working, sit down and look at this stuff and listen to I'm sure you've heard Tyler Childers and the stuff he's been putting out. I mean, that guy is amazing. Lanie and I got to go see him. Amazing singer songwriter. And then idol is one of my new favorite bands. European group, combination of, like, Irishmen and Englishman. They actually just played on Jimmy Kimmel, I think, like last night. We got a new album coming out next week. They're incredible. I absolutely love them. I found them and I put the two albums they had out at the time on repeat for three weeks straight. Probably wife got sick of it earning them all the time. There's lots of good stuff out there. There's still good music being made. That's good to hear. I'm discovering lots of old stuff with this particular project, but I am definitely glad that there's also good new stuff coming out. By all means, we'll have you back on and talk some of those albums as well. Sounds like a plan, man. We'll have to pick some other kind of theme maybe so I can narrow it down again. It's not specifically an album that changed your mind. It's just more of a what's your favorite album that you want to talk about? This time, though? I've got to give myself some limitations. It's really what it's about. I got to give myself some limitations. Otherwise, all the best over and find 30 different albums. Talk about. Let's see, if I were maybe just picking one today, like from each genre or whatever, if I just did something like that for myself, then that would allow me some focus. That would be up to you. Okay. We'll talk about it further off there. Well, Michael, before we wrap this up, please tell our listeners what you're working on or if they can find anywhere or anything you'd like to pitch. Steve, I'm really working on these days is keeping those two little boys out of as much trouble as I can. That's about it. Dad life and working hard. That's it. I mean, company, Atlanta clean tech. If you're building a new home for yourself or if you happen to be a home builder and you're in that market, you can find us online atlanticlanetech.com and we can give you a help out with a lot of your subcontractor needs and cleaning and pressure washing in the Atlanta area. We're currently trying to expand a bit into Huntsville, Alabama, where we've got some work and also down in Destin, Florida area. Other than that, man, that's it. Just work and lots of play with a four year old and two year old. Excellent. Well, Michael, I'd like to thank you for your time today. It was a pleasure to sit and talk to you about Metallica's bride the Lightning. Yeah, man. Thank you much. It's good to see you get to talk to you. Let's do it again sooner or later. Absolutely. Thank you for listening to music rewind a podcast from the Sidereal Media Group. As I always say, listen to the full album. Until next time,

Participant #1:

A podcast from the Sidereal Media Group. Back to you. Anchors.

https://musicrewind.podbean.com/e/ride-the-lightning-with-michael-kattawar/