DVD Reviews
The Great Kat: Beethoveen’s Guitar Shred
The virtuoso guitar shredder has a new DVD out and what a load of ole’ bollocks this thing is. One really has to wonder why she bothered releasing a DVD with such lameness as her visual guide to torture, “Torture Techniques”. We have her take on “Islamofascists” complete with her band hooded and in various poses suggesting execution with a knife. Not sure what she was going for with this display, but whatever it was it didn’t work. There is another clip called “Blood” which is equally pointless.
When she gets down to shredding, and stops faffing about, it’s a bit more interesting. She specializes in playing as fast as possible, more specifically playing classical pieces on the guitar as fast as possible. In this outting we get to see her shred, or butcher depending on your point of view, “The Flight of the Bumblebee”, “Paganini’s Caprice #24”, "Beethoven’s 5th", and "Bach’s Bradenberg Concierto 3".
As extras there is a frankly pathetic “Shred Cartoon”, more of her shredding, shred geniuses and her take on Bach’s "The Art of the Fugue". All in all this is one of the lamest music DVDs I have ever had the displeasure of having to watch. The musical shredding is nothing worth watching and the rest of the material ranges from poor to in rather bad taste.
Clearly Kat is mad as a march hare. That said you would have to mad yourself to part with any money for this release.
Book Review
Joel McIver: To Live is to Die
The subtittle for this book is “The Life and Death of Metallica’s Cliff Burton” and that is assuredly what it is. It’s a wonderfully put together trade paperback with an intro from Lars Ulrich. The intro is clearly demonstrating that the band approves of the book. As is the author, I am surprised that Cliff Burton has never had the biography treatment but this seems to be the first one on the man legend.
Cliff, a man pivotal in the development of the band Metallica, despite the fact he was the bassist, was one who saw his instrument as more than merely a backing one. He died at only 24, but left a legacy of what it means to be a thrash metal bassist. In his short time he managed to produce a template that is still influencing bassists to this day. It will shock many a Metallica fan when you realise that Cliff died so long ago. As many know, thanks to Some Kind of Monster the Metallica documentary, Cliff’s death had a great effect on the band that it has only fully been coming to grips with of late.
Article comments
1 - Marty Dodge
Update: The Great Kat was unamused by my review. The email proclaiming their deleting me from their database can be found here.