Song Of The Day 10/3/2014: Young Canadians - "Hullabaloo Girls"



Before They Were Famous - Producers Edition: Depending on your take Bob Rock was either the best thing to happen to Metallica or the worst. Yeah, he turned The Black Album into a metal dirigible by beefing up and compressing the drums and locating the bass they'd apparently misplaced on ...And Justice For All. But he also turned down their tempo and looked the other way when somebody meekly presented "Nothing Else Matters" as possible ballad bait. He took the thrash component of their sound and fed it to the wolves who promptly snapped their own necks. It got Metallica a lot of sales, but it cost them a good slice of their credibility, which they never regained until the internationally beloved and heralded album St. Anger. (That's a joke. I'm kidding. Ha-ha, it's a joke! Heh... heh. I'm quite funny.)

Rock's first production credit was on the EP Hawaii by Young Canadians. They were supposed punks in 1979, and their song "Hullabaloo Girls" gives no indication whatsoever how Rock's personal style would develop. Looking for the forceful drum-guitar intro that sets up Mötley Crüe's "Dr. Feelgood"? Yeah, you won't find that here. You will hear a mean -- well, maybe it's more like "perturbed" -- isolated rhythm guitar in your right channel. He knew where the pan pot was, that's for sure. And he turned it all the way to the right. Or maybe the left, I'm not sure my speakers are in the right spots. I might have accidentally mixed them up in the move. And I'm certainly not going to correct them now, I'd have to move around all this crap on my desk.

Anyway, there you have it. Bob Rock. Young Canadians. From small things big things one day come. You know it's sad but true.

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