i should start calling this ‘Metallica Saturdays’, if i keep this up!

Well, not really. Once again, there were a ton of technical mishaps, like the camera being in the incorrect configuration, computer freezes/crashes/battery death, totally losing parts of a recording, and so on. All of these things happened , and interestingly enough i began to think about Metallica. One of the reasons i appreciate them is because of how open they are in their imperfections. They stay making mistakes, and make fun of themselves about them. While they certainly don’t shy away from the occasional post-production fixxxing (see what i did there?), there’s plenty of evidence of ‘happy accidents’. And let’s keep it real: as celebrated as they were for the output in their ‘younger days’, a lot of those live shows were pretty sloppy… which is why it’s interesting to me that people attack them for any mistakes they’ve made in later years. They absolutely do make mistakes, but as a whole how they play now is far more refined, and less sloppy.

i also thought about this, because when you watch drumming videos people tend to not show mistakes. There are people who are excellent and barely make mistakes (if at all), but that can’t be EVERY person who produces content. The interesting thing for me in posting this content is not only watching my growth, but also recognizing common mistakes i may make, and figuring out how to make them better. One of my hopes is that someone who watches this (and is a drummer/bassist/etc.) could point out things i could do better.

So of course in the following posts i made some mistakes.

Of course.

Today is a shorter post.

Of course.

The first major mistake was erasing half the drum track. The camera (when filming) was in the correct position, but when i went to go edit it ended up being flipped sideways. i erased everything up to the bridge of ‘Master Of Puppets’. Master Of Puppets was actually my favorite Metallica album from the age of 14 up until this year, where Load knocked it out of the #1 spot. ‘Master Of Puppets’ was my second favorite song of theirs (after ‘Blackened’), until ‘One’ knocked it to number three. That said, ‘Puppets’ is by far, the greatest Metallica song to exist. It is the one song i would choose if asked what the one song by them someone should listen to. It’s absolutely got excellent lyrical content, but even without lyrics, the song takes you through an emotional journey. ‘Puppets’ is up there with ‘Home Is Where The Hatred Is’ in the pantheon of songs describing the journey of addiction.

The song also has my favorite James Hetfield solo…

For this one, the first portion of the video is me playing along with Lars, and the other portion (from the bridge on) is where i am playing. It was also the first time i drummed through the whole song in full (but alas, i erased the first half).

The next song is pretty appropriate, because i was struggling hard all day. i made a couple of mistakes here too, but you already know!

i’m trying to get my ‘Lars face’ right.

‘The Struggle Within’ is one of my absolute favorite songs on The Black Album (aka Metallica). It’s also one of the most fun to drum to.