The Band by The Band

The Band by The Band, may very well be my favorite album. It could have very easily been titled Nothing Ever Goes Right For Me, but that would have been the title had this been released thirty years later, and The Band had called itself by one of the proposed names for this band: The Honkies.

It is, I think, the greatest American rock n’ roll album of all, despite the fact that all but their drummer were Canadian. It dares to deal with aging, of all things, as a theme, which is pretty much verboten in the retarded world of The Popular Music There. It might very well be the closest thing to a personal statement made by a bunch of dudes who truly were born to fail and/or die by their own hands.

Many rockers wish to make that sort of statement. It is entirely another to have that statement be entirely honest. It calls for a stunning amount of both innocence and cunning on the part of the artist.

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McGovney, Hetfield, Ulrich, Mustaine (L to R)

So before Metallica’s Garage Inc, there was Garage Days Re-revisited. The $5.95 EP, ca 1987. Notice it says Re-revisited. That’s because the band released a single for Creeping Death in 1984 and the b-side was called Garage Days Revisited by the band because it featured two covers Am I Evil and Blitzkreig. Readers will now point out the use of Revisited in that title and be asking, if there is so much revisiting, where is the original garage days? What readers may not know is Metallica made a very early demo recording called GARAGE DAYS, pre-San Francisco thrash days, pre Cliff Burton and even pre James Hetfield rhythm guitar. This is listed on some fan sites of unreleased demos as Ron McGovney’s Garage Demo. And rightfully so. This is not a major release. It sounds like it was recorded on someone’s boombox that had a built in mic. Although, a Ron McGovney interview reveals it to be Lars Ulrich’s Teac 4-track.

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