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A little respect for Run DMC; a little reality for Metallica

by Ian Waldron-Mantgani, August 29, 2001

The Carling Weekend, taking place in Reading and Leeds every year, is a wonderful celebration of music. You camp amid thousands of other like-minded young people, drinking and chatting, mucking around, savouring the atmosphere, and occasionally punctuating all this by strolling over to the arena to see whatever bands look good.

This was my second year at the Leeds Festival -- some of the better acts I witnessed included System of a Down, the powerful new band who mix heavy metal with Eastern melody; the legendary Stooges frontman Iggy Pop; The Cult, who have much more enthusiasm and sincerity than you'd expect from a reformed classic rock band; rising stars Lost Prophets; and shock-rockers Marilyn Manson and Eminem.

On my return, however, I was forced to dwell on two depressing pieces of music news -- one involving ill treatment of modern music gods, and one involving a bunch of jumped-up California twats who like to think of themselves as gods.

The true gods I refer to are Run DMC -- the first band to combine hardcore hip-hop with solid rock. Back in the 1980s, their famous cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" shamed the clumsy samples of most rap artists, and their style helped paved the way for Rage Against the Machine, the most important band of the 1990s.

Run DMC were playing on the main stage at Leeds. They were one of the only acts I've ever seen who chose to open their set with their biggest hit ("It's Like That"), and with each song they managed to get the crowd going better than any other band with an afternoon slot in the entire weekend. Their banter with the audience was fun and pantomime without quite being clichéd. They were terrific showmen.

But there were scheduling problems that afternoon, as a New York City indie quintet called The Strokes had been moved to the main stage at the last minute. The organisers must have been panicking about making sure everything ran on time after this new arrangement, because a bunch of honky-ass pencil-pushers came to the side of the stage, turned off the microphones and appeared to order Run DMC off, right after the group had asked the crowd to "Make some noise if you want us to keep on going!"

The crowd were making deafening noise. They wanted to see Run DMC finish. But the group did not come back on, and were not even allowed a chance to perform "Walk This Way". There was a hollow, disgruntled feeling amongst everyone I talked to about the finale of the performance, and Mean Fiddler, the organisers, have shot themselves in the foot. Pushing around big-name acts because of their own mismanaged schedule annoys punters, and earns Mean Fiddler a lousy reputation that will help them book only lousy performers.

The Run DMC fiasco was enough to leave a sour taste in my mouth. I really didn't need to get home and read that the self-important shitheads of Metallica have filed another lawsuit.

The heavy metal superstars are well known for their legal battles over the last few years with the glorious Napster service, which enabled kids around the world to swap 'mp3' files over the internet, and listen to music before buying it. Bass player Lars Ulrich was most vocal in his opposition to the software, and deserves the brunt of the blame for its current unavailability.

Last December the band sued the French perfume company Guerlain, for naming one of their scents 'Metallica'. Now they're in the process of an action against the automotive company MHT Luxury Alloys, who are producing a wheel named the 'Metallica'. In the past Metallica have also taken exception to the names of a Victoria Secret lip-liner and a Pierre Cardin tuxedo line.

Jill Pietrini, Metallica's lawyer, claims that "[MHT] are trying to usurp the market, which isn't right." Steve Anderson, a sales manager for MHT, responds "My boss is 48 years old and doesn't know much about the music industry. The wheels were metal, so he called it the 'Metallica'. That's all there was to it."

The wheels were metal, so they were called the 'Metallica'. 'Metallica' happens to be a perfectly natural manipulation of the English language; for the group Metallica to think they have a monopoly over it is absurd, and being this paranoid resembles the behaviour or someone who spins around whenever he hears a giggle, wondering if people are laughing at him. Thank God none of Metallica's members were in The The.

I happen to have affection for much of Metallica's music, and will forever remember seeing them in Dublin when I was sixteen years old -- my first major gig. Still the fact remains that they have turned into a bunch of litigious old bastards, who file suits left and right, while the far superior Run DMC have trouble asserting their right to finish a set.

COPYRIGHT© 2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani

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