Youtube find: Backstage with Metallica at Fresno's Selland Arena, 1996

Also, Fashawn gets pulled into deal with Sony Music.

Oh the joys of Youtube.

For music nerds like me (or Bandgeeeeks, as it were) there may be nothing better than happening upon some random piece of obscure media like this upload from user metfan4l.

The 16-minute video is a collection of newscast, back stage interviews and b-roll footage from Metallica’s performance at the Selland Arena in 1996 (the opening night of the band’s Poor Touring Me tour).

The newscast itself is great in its portrayal of the band and fanbase. It is very much of its time, with a scare-tactic focus on the “controversy” of the band’s lyrics (oooh! explicit!).

Of course, that is what was being said of every “metal” band at the time and Metallica was the biggest of them all.

The back stage interview (seconds of which are used in the actual newscast) has James Hetfield talking about his lyrics, yes, but also explaining the band’s drive and success at the time. It is interesting to watch, given what we know now and also totally ironic given the full-on meltdown that was coming for the band.

See: “Some Kind of Monster.”

We also get some good sounding footage of the band playing through “Creeping Death,” and “Sad But True.”

Of note: when Hetfield asks whether Fresno missed Metallica, he was somewhat justified. It had been four years since the band had been in town.

According to the Metallica wiki fandom site, this was their third time playing Selland Arena. They performed there February 15, 1992 on the Wherever We May Roam tour and, before that, in 1988 on the Damaged Justice tour.

Nas’ Mass Appeal (and Fashawn by proxy) inks deal with Sony Music subsidiary

File under: industry news that’s maybe a bit insider-y (but whatever).

Nas, the rapper most people put in the running for Greatest Of All Time, inked a deal this week to bring his Mass Appeal label to Sony Music.

The strategic partnership puts the label under Sony subsidiary The Orchard.

According to Music Business Worldwide, this means Mass Appeal’s full roster of artists will now have access to The Orchard’s distribution, marketing, sync licensing, video services, data analysis, advertising, rights management and radio promotion.

That would of course, include Fresno rapper Fashawn, who was signed to Mass Appeal in 2014 and released his highly anticipated second album “The Ecology” the following year.

It was the label’s second release, after “Run the Jewels 2.”

His EP, “Manna,” was released on Mass Appeal in 2017.

That’s it for this week. If you have anything you think I need to be looking at or listening to, feel free to let me know: jtehee@gmail.com