Murder In The Front Row: Thrash-Metal Parking Lot
Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story is a new documentary by Adam Dubin telling the story of West Coast thrash metal.
Like its hardcore punk sibling, thrash-metal was arguably metal's best guise; a subgenre fueled by the need for speed (music), aggression, and an anti-establishment attitude.
My first introduction to thrash was picking up a copy of Kill 'em All on cassette. Not knowing anything about Metallica beforehand Kill 'em All was like a swift and brutal welcome to the genre. After that, there was no better metal than thrash.
Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story is a new documentary by Adam Dubin (A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica) telling the story of thrash metal from the West Coast. It features a who's who of the genre; members of Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax all feature in the documentary. I can already tell that Lars is going to be annoying.
The blurb behind the flick;
In the early 1980’s, a small group of dedicated Bay Area headbangers shunned the hard rock of MTV and Hollywood hairspray bands in favor of a more dangerous brand of metal that became known as thrash! From the tape trading network to the clubs to the record stores and fanzines, director Adam Dubin reveals how the scene nurtured the music and the music spawned a movement.
Perhaps the reason why I love thrash metal is because of its connections to hardcore- DIY, tape trading, fanzines, club shows- all before most of these bands became huge, and ultimately as they grace towards senior citizenship; Dad metal. Ah well, at least we have the memories, the best band logos in the history of music and now, this documentary.
Check out the trailer above.
(As a kid I was particularly fond of the Exodus logo)