Metallica. You know the story. Those that don’t are doomed to have me repeat it. Early ’80s, a metal brat and a friend not ashamed to look like Frank Marino come crashing out of the Ulrich family garage in tree-lined Norwalk, California, and into the L.A. metal scene proper, only to be kicked in the corner by a batallion of stilettos. Not that there’s anything wrong with stilettos, nor make-up nor spandex nor hairspray for that matter; all have been a better friend to me than any dog I’ve known. What was wrong, in the metal sense, was the behavior of their wearers, sheep-like, rolling over, submitting themselves gladly to the businessman’s shears that snipped and smoothed and Tomwermanized them into harmless, nice, Ken doll perfection. No place in the pen for a band that thought the music of Diamond Head godhead, for a drummer who once threw up on Lemmy’s hotel carpet, for a band from L.A. who were loud, fast, obnoxious, young and didn’t care...