The ink's rather dry on this...

...but I feel somewhat obliged, as somebody who knows a thing or two about this, to speak up. Not that anybody reads this blog.

It starts here.

The important quote is this: " it suggests prior knowledge of Ulrich’s near-sacking. But there can’t be prior knowledge of said incident, as this little factoid is not common knowledge" (emphasis mine)

Yes, it damn well is! I knew it, and I barely pay attention to anything! Specifically, I heard it here. Check the info box. It aired in April 2008. A year and a half ago.

By the way, for anybody who doesn't know what the hell I'm going on about, this might be a useful 4-minute primer.

Also regarding that article: "many fans, rightly or wrongly, think of Burton as the anti-Ulrich who would’ve ensured many more years of awesome metal, and would protect the world from Load and St. Anger and the other Load and whatever that thing that came out last year was called." I'm going to weigh in on the "wrongly" side. No disrespect to Cliff, because anyone who disrespects Cliff deserves to have all their teeth pulled out without any anesthesia (ho ho, I'm clever there, aren't I?), but the guy who insisted on wearing bell-bottoms at all times was certainly not the most "metal" member of that band. I'm not talking out of my ass here. Read Joel McIver's book To Live Is To Die: The Life and Death of Metallica's Cliff Burton and you'll know whereof I speak.

Oh, and Scott Ian has since retracted his statement. Which he apparently didn't make in the first place. So nobody's denied it yet. Scott hasn't denied telling Dave (and Anthrax opened for Metallica in 86 on the tour when Cliff died, so there's every possibility that he would know). Nobody from Metallica has addressed it. Lars did note a while back that Dave tends to slam him in the press whenever a new Megadeth album's about to come out... but again, I don't think that this was a planted question. Dave mentioned it a year and a half ago, so people knew. Apparently nobody watched Navarro's show, but Mustaine did say it.

The best argument that it didn't happen is that it didn't come up in Some Kind Of Monster. James and Lars were pretty much at each others' throats, and that entire damn movie demonstrates that the band's not above exploiting inter-band tension for financial gain.

And if it's true, so what? If Kirk, James and Lars managed not to kill each other back in 02/03, they're not going to kill each other over something that didn't come to pass 23 years ago. I wouldn't put it past Lars to own the Metallica name today, not sure if that was the case back in 86...

I'm straining myself to come up with one incident where a band fired someone they managed to part ways on good terms, and all I've come up with is Iron Maiden and Blaze Bayley. And nobody will admit to liking him. So huh.