SHRIEK ATTACK!

SHRIEK ATTACK!

ALL THIS EXCITEMENT ABOUT MEGADETH

MEGADETH

L’Amour

Brooklyn, New York

July 29, 1986_

by Ida S. Langsam

There’s been a lot of hype about Megadeth—not from a record label, but from real metal fans who know about these groups before any A&R guy is courted. That in itself is a good sign: dedicated headbangers are highly critical and fiercely loyal. With this in mind, it came as no surprise to find L’Amour—a club billing itself as the heavy metal capitol of Brooklyn, a dubious distinction at best—packed to the rafters and waiting with bated breath for Megadeth to hit the stage. When they did, the band was instantly greeted with screams and cheers, and the audience turned into a sea of clenched fists waving in the air. As the group launched into their first tune (seemingly mid-song), the “dance floor” parted like the proverbial Red Sea to make way for the small in number but big in presence slam dancers.

The first thing I noticed was guitarist/ singer/group leader Dave Mustaine standing dead center on stage. This young man is a star in-the-making, and doesn’t seem to be conscious of it. Yet. He immediately began hyping the new Megadeth LP and clearly announcing the record label’s name (Capitol Records). This is a tactic that takes months, sometimes years to instill in artists. “Talk about your albums on stage, and be sure to tell the fans what label it’s on so they can go out and buy it.” This advice must be Rule #1 in the mythical guide book for would-be managers, and the single most difficult-to-remember point for rock stars. But not Mustaine. From him, it sounded natural and completely normal. Of course the guy is proud to be on a major label...it’s just another way to thumb his nose at his former group, Metallica. “If they can get a record deal well, hey, so can I!” you can hear him thinking. There’s no love lost between these two bands. A few days earlier, on the heavy metal panel at the New Music Seminar, Mustaine was introduced as the man who, upon parting ways with the aforementioned group, rechristened them “Metallicunt.” So much for friendly parting of the way.

But I digress. Mustaine definitely has a riveting presence onstage, working his fingers along his guitar’s neck, his head bent, bobbing up and down in manic time to the rhythm, his long red/blond hair flowing. The songs are underpinned with a heavy, hearty bass beat that sent primal urges through the audience. The crowd began to pass each other overhead up towards the stage, where thugs disguised as security guards crouched in ready. Barely waiting until they were within reach, these very massivp men flailed out and punched the kids back into the center of the crowd, or dragged them onto the stage by their (long) hair just to shove them down the back stairs and out into the muggy summer night, barred from seeing the rest of the show.

As a counterpoint, or maybe as an illustration, Mustaine introduced “Peace Sells But Who’s Buying?” After the song, the lights went out and the band exited the stage for a moment, to repair an amp which prevented one of the guitars from being heard. The crowd wanted none of it, chanting “Mega-deth, Mega-deth” over and over until they reappeared. Although only a quartet, the group looked cramped on the tiny stage, with drummer Gar right up against some amps mere inches from Mustaine’s back.

A brief chat with the audience led to “Killing Is My Business And Business Is Good,” introduced as a song off their first album. The energy, devotion and enthusiasm of the fans was almost overwhelming. It reminded me of the early Beatles playing at The Cavern in Liverpool. As excitement flared, so did tempers, igniting several punch-up fights among the crowd-men as well as women getting in on the action. All of this just provided an unwarranted excuse to be poorly handled by the security men, who dragged people off while throwing their own angry punches, helping to give heavy metal its bad name.

While he did watch this with seemingly concerned interest from onstage, Mustaine carried on playing up a storm.

I can’t really call this thrash metal, because the melody of each song is too distinguishable to fit the bill, but it is definitely speed metal of the highest order. Mustaine’s fingers were going at 90 miles an hour, being witnessed by a highly vocal, appreciative audience. Too bad the lyrics were so garbled; I’ll bet they’re interesting.

Gar is a very proficient, technically correct drummer who manages to play all over his kit at an incredible speed, but personally I found his musical ability boring and unoriginal. Does creativity have to suffer for the sake of velocity? Maybe with Gar...but not with Mustaine. He is an unsung hero who will undoubtedly get his due soon. I mean, when fusion musician Stanley Jordan plays on the neck of his guitar, he ends up on the cover of a magazine! Soon come, Dave, soon come. Mustaine does not have a brilliant voice but he sure does emote, and inspires the audience to maximum reactions. It’s easy to see why there’s all this excitement about Megadeth.

“Devil’s Island” sounded almost like a rap song; Mustaine was not really singing, more like shouting quickly, his words tumbling out all over each other. A representative from the record label callad it “Rambo Rock,” and I suppose that’s as good a description as any.

Megadeth are definitely a phenomenon. There’s the same kind of feel about them in their genre as there was about the Beatles and Duran Duran in theirs. It’s fitting that they should all be signed to Capitol Records. I believe that Megadeth are at the forefront of the new wave of thrash metal bands breaking through to commercial possibilities without really selling out. Yet.

THE ART OF NOISE

EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN/

KILLDOZER

The Graystone,

Detroit, Michigan

June 11, 1986

by Chuck Eddy

You probably won’t believe me, but the most amazing thing about the best new wall-of-industrial-noise kitchen-sink-plus metal machine-musick combos is that they’re so incredibly rhythmic. I don’t mean rhythmic in some hi-culture-jazzbo conservatory sense; I mean they got the big beat like Run-DMC or Trouble Funk or somebody. Clamor crews like Chicago’s Big Black, Austin’s Butthole Surfers and England's Mark Stewart and Maffia incorporate hip hop beatboxes and/or multiple drummers, and New York’s Sonic Youth fire their exploding load with Madonna’s “Into The Groove” pumpin’ in the background. Even Gotham axe-meanies the Swans, for years the most stiff-derriered band on the planet, get the funk on their recent “Time Is Money (Bastard)” single. This stuff takes the idea of the disco inferno to its logical conclusion.

And sometimes takes it literallywaiting for West Berlin air-conditioningduct-beaters Einsturzende Neubauten’s show to commence, I heard stories about the band starting onstage fires in New York (not to mention a “riot” in Houston) during previous tour dates. But the only flamethrowing in Detroit was sonic: the fivesome was well-behaved, though lead screamer Blixa Bargeld appeared miffed both about mother nature messing up his day (the group’s afternoon flight into Motor City was postponed three hours, thanx to a tornado watch) and the club’s electronics messing up his dissonance (“We usually plug electricity into our PA,” Blix reminded the soundman at one point, though the real problem was that the amplifier for Neubauten’s balance-beamsized three-shock-absorber-spring bass thingamajig kept freaking out.) These nuisances only further committed his bondage-and-battle-dress-attired quintet to rock the place—bad amp or no, they laid down some monster polypercussive grooves with that spring-thing and their huge drum-and-oil-kettle set. They were sliding dildo-vibrators across guitars, hitting microphones with balpeen hammers, banging chains on drums and clanging their giant springs with ratchet wrenches and power drills; the 50-ish guy who owns the club told me Einsturzende reminded him of his younger days at the Desoto plant. With Blixa pacing back and forth like a caged jaguar, diving across the floor, sweating, drooling, and screeching more German than my two high school years could decipher, it was kinda hard to understand the words. But the artsies and baldheads and thrillseekers in the house boogied anyhow, and not without good reason.

Neubauten started out like a Godzilla heavy metal band (Steppenwolf to the fifth power, maybe), turned into some kind of demonic Eurodisco troupe (sort of a sopor-generation Kraftwerk), shifted gears and became a bunch of Krishnakissin’, Arabian-guitar-strummin’ hippies, and then let it all hang out with “YuGung,” the most transcendent piece of noisy dance rock Deutschemarks can buy in its Adrian Sherwood-produced avantdub vinyl version, and a mothershipfunkin’ joy to behold live. Encoring with their rendition of cosmic cowboy Lee Hazelwood’s ballad “Sand,” the only English-language song these Jagerschnitzels have recorded, Einsturzende Neubauten came across almost human, and Blixa’s deep, gutteral R-and-L-rolling suggested he’s a pretty moving singer for a pretentious punk-rock type. When he intoned “I am a stranger in your land/A wanderin’ man/Call me sand,” he even sounded homesick for the old country.

While Neubauten was rushing to catch their next plane to Chicago, Wisconsin college-boy sludge blues-funk trio Killdozer picked up where their “German bloodbrothers whose name we can’t pronounce” left off, demonstrating to the few smart stragglers that you don’t necessarily need ferocious contraptions to make a horrible noise. Michael Gerald, clad fashionably in paisley sleeveless and armadillo tattoo, growled about wrestling in “Pile Driver,” being born with a spatula in his mouth in “Big Song Of Love,” and how they make things bigger in Texas in “King Of Sex.” Killdozer’s slowed to-themax cover of CCR’s “Run Through The Jungle” seemed half-hearted, but Boxtops/Cocker’s “The Letter,” a tough white-blues singer’s test which Gerald aced and then some, roared toward obli-' vion. Closing with their kid’s day-out ditty “Going To The Beach,” Killdozer eclipsed noise rock’s beauty barrier like few skronk crews I’ve witnessed. Bill Hobson crammed a needle nose pliers onto his axe strings, started the sucker wailing on some bizarre tuning, and dropped the instrument to the ground as the threesome exited stage left. It kept playing, and could have gone forever. If bands like this can conquer Father Time that easily, the rest of rock’s last outer limits ought to be a cinch.