Sharpening the Axe

Back when we took ownership of the new millennia, finished with the last, Playboy published a list of the sexiest stars of the last century. With the exception of one or two silent film stars, and studio era bombshells it was largely a list of the sexiest celebrities since 1950. I don’t lend a lot of credence to committee or public voted lists. It’s an entirely subjective system, and so where I might like to know who, say, my friend Tom James thinks are the ten, fifty, hundred sexiest of all time, I’m less interested when FHMs genepool organise their catalogue of white birds off the telly. It’s often frustrating to see which of the least ‘In The Name of The Rose’ looking Eastenders cast makes the cut, over a myriad of exceptionally beautiful, but less-well-known faces. I’m disappointed by the lack of research.

Anyway, if my memory serves me correctly, number one was Marilyn Monroe, number two was Jane Mansfield and the rest of the top five, I think was Cindy Crawford, Racquel Welch and Pamela Anderson, but in which order I can’t remember. With the top two, the editor posed a question. Had Marilyn Monroe never been discovered, would Jane Mansfield have the number one spot, or would she not be on this list at all?

I honestly prefer Mansfield over Monroe. The iconic heavy lidded eyes of Monroe don’t translate to beauty with me, and while there’s no denying she had charm, I’m happier with the cheaper, bustier, somehow more fun-looking Mansfield. The innocence and vulnerability in Monroe feel a bit manipulated and manipulative. But in the record of thing, Mansfield will always seem like the knock-off Monroe. Dannii to her Kylie.

In 1992 Megadeth released their fifth studio album ‘Countdown to Extinction’. It hit shelves just a short while after Metallica had released their fifth studio album, the commercially successful ‘Metallica’. (Which sometimes gets called ‘The Black Album’. I’ve always called it ‘Metallica Metallica’, but on the odd occasion someone came into my old record shop and asked for that Jay-Z album, I would have come back to them with a shiny disc of Bay Area Thrash. For the purposes of this post, I’m also going to call it ‘The Black Album’.)

The Black Album is widely recognised as one of the benchmark metal albums of all time. A critical and commercial success. The trendsetter for years to come. But had it never come out, or come out later, would it have been overshadowed by Countdown to Extinction, a record I feel eclipses the Black Album?

I can see this quandary instigating absolutely zero debate amongst my peers. Perhaps only inviting the unhelpful and inaccurate ‘Black Album sounds like Bon Jovi.’ After last week’s cuntgate it’s probably best I don’t court controversy here.

I don’t dispute the next decade or so of reigning champions. There’s no argument that Korn’s ‘Follow the Leader’, Marilyn Manson’s ‘Antichrist Superstar’ or Slipknot’s ‘Subliminal Verses’ are the pinnacle of Metal at the time, and all spawn numerous imitators (have to say, I think ‘Take a Look in the Mirror’ is the better Korn album, but it’s only them perfecting what they start with FTL). There are other significant albums that come out that have a monumental effect on the metal world, but I wouldn’t actually call metal. So Nevermind, Angel Dust, The Downward Spiral, Rage Against the Machine and Parabola all change the landscape, but I don’t think any of them were metal by design.

In the same year as ‘Countdown...’ Pantera unleashed (that’s a metal word) ‘Vulgar Display of Power’, which is easily more important than both ‘The Black Album’ and Megadeth’s offering combined. From that point onwards almost all of metal sounded like Pantera. If you think you can give me shit about Machinehead, Biohazard or Sepultura being better, you are gravely mistaken. ‘Vulgar Display...’ is a monster.

But that’s not what I’m talking about, really. I don’t think so anyway. It’s this Monroe/Mansfield balance that, for one album at the very least, could have been tipped the other way.

When people ask me what type of music I like I almost always say metal, but it’s not the truth. Metal is the town I grew up in, but I don’t live there anymore. I listen to hardly any metal at all these days, and even back in the day it was just a select few bands on heavy rotation. Like comics and action movies, the bulk of metal is indistinct and shit. Today I will still play Alternative Metal acts like Faith No More, Nine Inch Nails and Tool, and they are the guys I’d call my favourite bands. But Slipknot, Down, Pantera, Slayer, Sabbath even...unless they turn up in the shuffle, they don’t much airplay. Clutch and Gn’R are Hard Rock, right? I still got times for them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Metallica. I’ve seen them, now five or six times. Never seen Megadeth once. Metallica are gods in my eyes. Untouchable, unstoppable, unbelievable. But ‘Countdown...’ is a badass record. A seriously fast, heavy, savage dog of metal, that would maul ‘The Black Album’ in a one on one.

If ‘The Black Album’ was maybe three or four tracks shorter, this might be a different contest. The arrangement of the songs almost serves to highlight the lesser numbers. Once you get past ‘Of Wolf and Man’ the anthems are over, but the album carries on for the good/ok trinity of ‘The God that Failed’, ‘My Friend of Misery’ and ‘The Struggle Within’. Had these tracks been tucked between the ‘Sad But True’s or ‘Wherever I May Roam’s the record might fare better on repeat. ‘Countdown...’ trumps it by being all killer, no filler. ‘Nothing Else Matters’ Metallica’s first rock ballad, isn’t a bad song. It’s metal’s only decent love song, and it’s a great live moment for putting your arm around someone. But it’s a weak spot when Megadeth are pulling no punches.




It’s unlikely you don’t already know, but I should recap anyway. Megadeth’s troubled frontman Dave Mustaine, used to play in Metallica before they made it big. He got kicked out, reputedly for being an asshole even by Metallica’s standards. (Hetfield today might be a cuddly, reformed rocker, but back then he and drummer Lars Ulrich were jerks much like anyone in any hugely successful metal band was.) He went on to form Megadeth, and although the band have been seen as rivals ever since, Metallica have become the Roman Empire, to Megadeth’s little village in Gaul.

Metallica have had some changes to their line up over the years. Cliff Burton died, Jason Newstead quit. That’s been about it for the bulk of their career. Megadeth’s tourbus has been a lot more unstable – making it a lot more like Dave Mustaine’s band than a band itself. ‘Countdown...’ was the second album from what was their deadliest line-up; Dave Mustaine/David Ellefson/Nick Menza/Marty Friedman. Marty Friedman is the biggest gun in that box. The shredding you’ll find on ‘Countdown...’ makes Kirk Hammett’s work on ‘The Black Album’ stand outside in the corridor. Luckily for Kirk he’d already got solo’s like ‘One’ and ‘Battery’ in the bank. So whereas The Black Album sort of fizzles out, ‘Countdown...’ let’s rip with a dizzying, all-or-nothing exhibition of Mustane/Friedman fretwork. You only need listen from 02.55 onwards.

Ashes in Your Mouth

Kerpow. Hetfield and Hammet between them normally have the edge on Riffs/Solos, but the planets were aligned on the day ‘Countdown...’ was born. Metallica eases you into ‘Enter Sandman’ and from there the album itself. Megadeth don’t want you to put on your seatbelt. They want to smash you through the windshield (I’m trying to channel classic Kerrang hyperbole here. I wish I really did talk like this though). Ignore what Dave waffles on about. The album comes in on that first drum roll.





It’s not a nasty little record, ‘Countdown...’ It’s bloated with concepts and messages, more so than ‘The Black Album’ with its werewolves, nomads and cosmic musings (I first listened to the album on my walkman, reading Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘2010 Odyssey 2’ a book that scared the shit out of me as a kid – the bit with the moss and the bit with the multiplying monoliths are two of the most chilling sequences I’ve ever read – so the ‘Black Album’ and ‘Through the Never’ in particular are inextricably linked to thoughts about space and horror.) Megadeth go all out with nuclear apocalypse, schizophrenia, critiques on canned hunting and Reagan-era economic policy, suicide and in ‘Psychotron’ an unexpected tribute to Marvel Comic’s zombie commando Deathlok. You’ve got to love metal for the stories it tries to tell. Megadeth seem to have more fun, there's more humour on this record. Mustaine's barbed-wire-strangle vocals lends itself better to mockery, than po-facedness.

And...crap. I’m running out of things to say. I struggle writing about things I like. I’m an articulate complainer, which leads most people to think I live only to hate. Not true. I just tend to say ‘awesome’ for the things I think are awesome and essay the things I disagree with. I’ve written some fifteen hundred words on Megadeth now and I’m in danger of saying ‘bitchin’ or ‘gnarly’ because I just can’t write about music. This is kind of a facetious entry anyway. With blogs clogged by Beatles, Brian Wilson and Dylan, I thought the world could use a wake up to the Buzz Aldrin of metal, Megadeth’s ‘Countdown to Extinction’. It's got bigger breasts than the 'Black Album'. That's what I'm saying.

If I keep writing I might forget what weekend this is.


Anyway. See us out, Dave.










Oh. There is a bit in ‘High Speed Dirt’ where Mustaine shouts he’s a ‘dirt torpedo’. It sounds like he’s yelling ‘I’m a dirty paedo’. It’s ace.

Rough Beats

Now, if I’d had a spare ticket would I have taken a girl, or a wingman?

I’m sitting at my desk, beating things out in Arial size 14 when one of the Producer’s secretaries, Linsey, approaches. She’s smiling at me. That’s already made my day better. But it seems like she wants to say something. I flick off the iPod (Pursuit at Port Au Prince – David Arnold) and get ready for what I assume will be a quip about how I looked, or what I got up to, on Halloween. Linsey says “I feel like Willy Wonka. How would you like to go to the MTV Awards tonight?”

The tickets are like Sears Snaggletooth. I’m being offered one at the eleventh hour because several months ago MTV came to us at the eleventh hour and said we could film a segment there. I contributed a pitch and sat in on the ideas meeting and ended up story-lining ten beats or so that got shoe-horned into the corresponding episode (Monday 10th November 18.30 – my first screen credit). Obviously producers and the cast were given their pick of the tickets initially offered. Someone’s great kindness meant that when this spare turned up, it was offered to me and not someone who’d get column inches.

I dash home. By bus, which isn’t any kind of dash at all, but I can tell I’m not relaxing into the evening like I should. If I can be back at work by 17.10 I can catch a minibus with the cast and walk up the red carpet. So I’m watching my watch and getting adrenalized. I’m going to go with a suit. I contemplate suit jacket, shirt and jeans but I feel like my cock is hanging out whenever I try it on in the house even. It’s not my uniform. I book a cab, shower, get into the suit and then run into Liverpool One to find a belt. All I’m doing is getting more hot under the collar. No one does a belt I think it going to work, so I go to my flat and then discover the belt I have does fit the loops on my trousers. I’m not sure when or why I thought different. Good. The cab is here.

The driver gives me a bit of Liverpool history. This is where the prostitutes used to be. He offers me gum and when I say ‘Ta’ he tells me I’ve gone native. He doesn’t know why Scousers say it or where it comes from. I give it some thought. In Denmark “Thank you” is “Tag”. I put that forward as theory – given the Scandi influence in the area (Scouse comes from Lobscouse/Labskaus, a Nordic meat stew.) He seems satisfied with that. He tells me the origin of the remark ‘When dick docks.’ He also shakes off two black Alfa Romeos shooting at us and supernaturally gets me back to Lime Pictures with ten minutes to spare. A hearty tip for you, my good man.

I let the office weigh in with tie/no tie decision making. I go with tie. Back down in reception I meet up with the producer Bryan and I’m kindly introduced to Natalie Emmanuelle who plays Sasha Valentine. I’ve already gone on the record with him as saying she’s the most beautiful girl in the show, so that’s Christmas sorted for me. She tells me something to the effect that it’s good I’m going in a suit and not casual. It takes a certain quality of man to pull off a suit with style. Or words to that effect. It takes a certain kind of girl to pull off butterfly long false lashes and black leather gloves, and she is the first and only girl I’ve met who falls into that category. I’m smitten.

The buses come. I end up riding with Bryan and some reality TV kids. I think the cast want to stall and arrive a little late so they get another bus. I probably shouldn’t mention anything I overheard from my lot. You come talk to me personally if you want my opinion on this one.

When I get to the Echo Arena I liaise with a PR girl from MTV and find myself handling all the flash of this big money pit with the professional distance of a veteran PA. I just get things done. It might come from being on Bryan’s arm. I pocket my Red Carpet pass and head along the fenced off walkways to the VIP entrance. Schoolgirls and Slapparazzi press their bodies against the railings at the suggestion of celebrity traffic. As I pass I overhear:
“Who is it? Who is it?”
“It’s no one.”

Don’t forget which side of the chicken wire you are on, petal.

It’s quite refreshing to see how the others react to it all. The cast are a bit giddy. It’s overwhelming for some of them. My reaction is a mixture of warzone detachment, and imposter syndrome. My senses de-tune everything that isn’t right in front of me. Much like when I’ve been on stage or done brief stand up, I develop a very useful blindness.

I pretty much run up the red carpet. Great, forceful strides like I’m Roger Moore leaping from crocodile head to crocodile head. The cast know to stand and pose. The lights have already cooked great sheets of long-term memory off my brain. The names of school friends have bubbled away like butter in a pan. Nobody took my overcoat from me, so I perhaps looked like their minder. I can live with that. I think I might have also looked like Bryan’s bit on the side. But hey, all publicity is good publicity.

In the VIP room I listen in on the cast banter. There’s some sniping about panto and Dancing on Ice and other in-jokes. I fail completely at making anything beyond safe chit chat with Nathalie. I’m surprised I could make words. Looking around the room I don’t really recognise anyone. There’s one, no two Atomic Kittens...hmmm...that lot could be the cast of Croatian Big Brother...I’m told he plays for Everton...the fittest girls in the room are the ones that bring the food. Skewered prawns and glazed chicken goujons, spinach samosas and tuna sushi. The bar is free.

When we go to take or seats I learn that my ticket is with the mob and not with the limelight. Easy come easy go. At lunch I had none of this. I shuffle into the arena and look down on what is about to happen.

One Hit Wonder Katy Perry turns up and sings. Then when she’s done with that she stands around hooting like a manatee. This is all she does for the rest of the night, except for change outfit. I don’t recognise one word she says. Still, she’s far less annoying than vacant-eyed pretty boy Jared Leto. I can understand what he says; he’s following the script – but saying it all with disdain. That means he’s still cool right? No. He’s still a pretend, grunge-puppy, dickless puke, who sells records because he was the cute (illiterate, retarded) one in My So Called Life.

Metallica are nominated for two awards. They are beaten by 30 Seconds To Mars and some Joe Nobodies called Tokio Hotel. I think I’m more well known than them. My respect for the voting system dies in two strokes.

Some big names come out and perform some of the lousiest songs in their back catalogue. I’m still tickled that I saw Take That so I don’t mind what track they chose, but Beyonce’s latest single is a turd and Pink is wasting my time with that particular number. The one-hit wonders do better – Estelle and Kanye and The Ting Tings do something you want to hear live; the only thing you’d ever ask of them. The Killers are ok. Kid Rock is essentially saying ‘Aren’t Skynyrd awesome? Don’t I suck ass in comparison?’ I do go a bit giddy when Grace Jones presents an award. She doesn’t read out the year because she doesn’t observe time. I love you Grace Jones.



Bono comes out and like a Spitting Image parody of himself manages to include potatoes, the Pope and St. Peter in his dedication to Sir Paul. It’s beyond parody. He prattles on for an age, and his hyperbolic, overlong introduction confounds the Beatle himself, who comes out early, trips on a step and then is shown back to his hidey place by a woman with a headset on. Eventually when U2’s emissary shuts up, Macca takes his award, air guitars for a bit and then limps away.

As jaded as I sound, I found the whole thing bizarrely joyous. Maybe because the showbiz world is so carnival like, that there’s something to be said for just looking at all the colours and noise and – so long as you never take it seriously – swimming in the madness a bit.

When the show was done I shuffle out again and find out the chap I was relying on for my aftershow party ticket has gone home and the man now in charge of it won’t return my calls. It’s a bit of a bum note. I spot one of the lads from the show and I get a brief reprise as he drags me to a blue double decker bus and we are ferried to another VIP entrance. I lose him when he jumps off the bus early, fed up with traffic. He probably gets in on face value alone. Without wristband I am back where I belong. Little people. Luckily my flat is two blocks away. I stroll home still feeling elated. The club looked cramped, I still had my pirate coat on. The cast had splintered off into different cells in different bars and without at least one flicker of recognition I would have floundered inside of ten minutes. I tell myself these things in between kicking myself that I didn’t try and get someone to take a photo of me while I was there. But the whole thing was so short in my expectancy that I didn’t feel disappointed with how it turned out at all. It came out of the blue and then was done.

So it wasn’t an Entourage moment. It was very touristy. But how was your day at work on Thursday, hmm? Oi! Bagel for lunch? Fit girl on the Victoria Line, reading Michael Chabon? Got out five minutes early? Oh humdrum. I knew you once.

Anyway, I should get back on with my fifty hour weeks and rewrite deadline sweat sessions.

I'll probably get back to proper blogging soon enough, once I run out of "Hey, look at me" brag-wanks.