Beatallica preview

Beatallica
Subterranean, Chicago
Saturday, December 10, 2005

Combining Metallica and The Beatles into one big pot of bubbling, bloody, pop and thrash metal? Can you believe nobody though of this before?

Beatallica is a collection of local Milwaukee musicians who got together four years ago to perform a one-off festival gig as a Metallica tribute band. During the course of rehearsals, though, someone got the idea to give a Beatles riff a Metallica makeover, and Beatallica was born. Using the aliases Jaymz Lennifield, Krk Hammettson, Kliff McBurtney, and Ringo Larz, Beatallica take the lyrics and arrangements of Fab Four classics and cleverly inject them with Metallica references and mannerisms, including Lennifield’s spot-on James Hetfield delivery. So, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” becomes “I Want To Choke Your Band,” “Hey Jude” “Hey Dude,” and “Back In The USSR” is mutated into “Blackened The USSR.” You get the point.

Almost immediately, Beatallica became an Internet sensation as people frantically downloaded tunes from A Garage Dayz Nite (Beatallica don’t release CDs, instead making all their music available for free download online) and media outlets started latching onto the band’s story, but it was February of this year when the attention really started to pour in. That’s when Sony/ATV, which owns the rights to the Beatles catalog, sent cease-and-desist letters to the company that hosts the band’s site as well as their webmaster (official title: Webmaster Of The Puppets), and the site was shut down. But enter Lars Ulrich, heroic MP3-trading advocate. A fan of Beatallica (Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have yet to share their opinions on the band), Lars and his lawyers contacted Sony, serving as peacekeepers between the two sides and paving the way for the site to reopen and for the masses to once again enjoy “Got To Get You Trapped Under Ice.”

Locals Siderunners, who unfortunately are not a Deicide/Run DMC mash-up band, open.

— Trevor Fisher

Click here to download Beatallica’s “Hey Dude.”

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly