Beatallica take the art of the mash-up out of the hands of pirate re-mixers and onto the live stage, undertaking a U.S. club tour this holiday season that starts in Columbus, Ohio Thanksgiving weekend and ends in Chicago before Christmas. Beatallica have forged a unique oeuvre with a canny if seemingly impossible synthesis of the styles of two of rock music's most revered outfits, The Beatles and Metallica. It is a testimony to Beatallica's great wit, originality, subversiveness and accomplished musicianship that they render this marriage of apparent opposites totally inevitable, graceful, enormously fun and funny! Under the aliases "Jamz Lennfield," "Kirk Hammettson," "Kliff McBurtney" and "Ringo Larz," the Milwaukee-based members of Beatallica created their first offering A Garage Dayz Nite and released it via the World Wide Web in 2002, creating an immediate international sensation among discerning music and comedy lovers. They followed this with the Internet-only The Gray Album on April Fools' Day, 2004 -- eagerly downloaded by an ever-growing legion of fans, a mix of Beatles' fanatics and Metallicats as well as connoisseurs of sophisticated musical satire. Beatallica's music is exclusively distributed free of charge via Internet for free and their website has sustained over half a million hits and innumerable downloads to date. When Sony/ATV Publishing (who control the Beatles' repertoire) served them with a cease-and-desist order, Lars Ulrich of Metallica stepped in and had Metallica's lawyers convince Sony to withdraw the order.
Beatallica's presence continues to grow at a rapid pace through international touring and consistently heavy Internet traffic -- thousands of website hits day in and day out. What started as a small buzz has now become a full-fledged roar with the music-listening public from all seven continents cheering the undertaking and hungrily downloading the music. Beatallica's media presence keeps growing as well with publications like Spin Magazine, Revolver and Metal Maniacs all giving them a hearty the thumbs up (or perhaps the pinky and index finger metal salute!) and tastemaking radio stations including L.A.'s KROQ spinning their tunes. Members of Metallica have given their personal approval as well (no word on Sir Paul or Mr. Starr yet).
Music is an art form that, when done well, extends the boundaries of creativity and presents the listener with fresh points of view and Beatallica have done this exceedingly well. They continue to expand upon their achievements to date as more ‘Tallica and Fab Four numbers flirt suggestively in their collective mind's ear, with fans the world over anxiously awaiting the outcome. So throw your fist high into the air, become a Beatallibanger, and open your mind to their special brand of musical mayhem.
www.beatallica.org.
BEATALLICA US TOUR DATES (more dates to follow)
November 28 - Columbus, OH - Little Brothers
November 29 - Washington, DC - Black Cat
December 1 - Baltimore, MD - Fletchers
December 2 - Philadelphia, PA - Khyber
December 4 - New York, NY - Knitting Factory
December 5 - Boston, MA - Middle East
December 7 - Fort Wayne, IN - Pierre's
December 8 - Detroit, MI - Smalls
December 10 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
