Talk:Cliff Burton

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Cliff Burton has been listed as one of the Arts good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.

December 10, 2007

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[edit] "recently published interview"

What is the

recently published interview that claims to have been conducted with Cliff Burton hours before his death

you are talking about ? May I have a link ?

Since no link or proof was provided for that article, I removed it. - Keith, evil dude

Added the song "Enter Sandman" to the song list that Cliff Burton contributed to. Many people do not know that he put his ideas in this song since it was put on album in 1991, but it says on the CD,(Metallica AKA The Black Album) that he did infact contribute to the musical process.

Clifford Lee Burton was the greatest bass player, ever. His creativity gave Metallica their leading edge when it comes to Metal. Don't believe me... Listen to Kill 'em All, Ride The Lightning, and Master of Puppets, listen to the detail in the songs, now listen to ...And Justice for All (good album, but not as good as their first three... NOTE: They also used some riffs Cliff wrote), Load/Reload, Garage Inc, St. Anger, the list goes on. The solos from their first three albums are, well the best in Metal, or at least thrash metal. Although Cliff did not play the electric guitar, he did help write up some riffs for his former band member, Kirk Hammett. It is very obvious that he had a major impact on the greatness of Metallica. If it wasn't for Cliff, I don't think Metallica would have been as big as they were back in the 80's. *RIP* Cliff

                                                                            -Nick

[edit] re Sandman

Find a cite for it and put it back in. Anger22 21:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay

[edit] "The Album titled "...And Justice for All" has no audible bass guitar in honor of Cliff."?

So far I've seen three conflicting lines on this. "Jason has his bass turned way down," "Jason didn't show up for mixing sessions," and now "the album doesn't have bass in honor of Burton." So which is it? Mewtation 10:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I've also heard, "The way in which the album was mixed didn't allow for bass". After listening to the Justice album with bass (found at [1]), I would guess it's that one.--164.106.67.158 23:44, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Why doesn't anyone acknowledge that the most likely explanation, that is that if the bassline follows a heavy distorted guitar-riff closely enough, it becomes difficult to distinguish them by ear. The bass CAN be heard clearly on One in the clean-tone sections.

[edit] W.T.F.

What's up with "I dream of Lars Ulrich being thrown through the bus window instead of my mistical master Cliff Burton?" What the hell?\

Thats wrong man. Yah. Whoever wrote that should be shot.

It's the title of a Sunn O))) cover of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Sunn likes bass. Gatesofawesome!

i kinda wish it was lars instead of cliff... i mean, lars is great, but he doesnt bring what cliff did... plenty of drummers in the sea, but only one cliff. but it is icky to wish death on anyone. so really, i wish it was a guitar that got sent through the window. that would be fun. -- Cannibalicious!

I hate to break it to you guys, and maybe your ears aren't tuned well enough to distinguish the bass from the guitars, but there is no doubt that the bass exists in pretty much every song...Yes it is quite difficult, but being a bass player myself, and having played for a number of years, I almost can't NOT hear the bass in every song I listen to, and "...And Justice..." is not an exception. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.138.65.247 (talk) 00:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Orion at Cliff's funeral

Orion wasn't actually performed by the remainder of the band at Cliff's funeral; it was played over a stereo. Wangoed 19:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bass Influences

I think that a possible influence on Burton is being overlooked, Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler.

In an interview Cliff specifically stated Steve Harris was not an influence, and also states: "Geddy Lee, Geezer Butler, uh, Stanley Clark...Uh, Jimi Hendrix and Ulrich Roth, Shankar to a little degree, Maybe Tony Iommi...also had an influence."

The page can be found here (good reading): [2]

So I'm taking off Steve Harris

[edit] Songs about Cliff

His life and tragic death have inspired many songs from bands including Megadeth, Primus, and Motörhead,...

Motörhead have never wrote (or performed) a song about Cliff. They did, however, write a tribute to the Ramones. Roda 18:01, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Also the grindcore/hardcore group The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza has recorded the song "Cliff Burton Suprise" featuring a quite amazing bass work.

Motörhead did remake "Enter Sandman", just to let you know.

[edit] Style of playing

From Style of playing: "Especially during his solos, he often played on 2 or sometimes even 3 strings at once." This sounds very lame. Most guitarists and bassists play 2,3,4,5 or sometimes even 6 strings (if its a 6 string bass) at once.

If they play power-chords with a pick (like Lemmy), then yes. But bass is usually played using one string at a time. Roda 15:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to vouch for that not being true. Pretty much any metal bass player worth their weight can play more then one string at a time, pick or not. Such as say Steve DiGiorgio —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.73.199.69 (talk) 20:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Picture

Could someone not find a good picture of Burton to put on this article? This article could really use one. Jason Newsted's article has a picture. You could just put a bad picture if that's all you have and then we can change it later but this article really needs a picture. --Davidjustinlee 21:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Influence

Cliff's obsession with surreal horror writer H.P. Lovecraft gave the band a large array of album cover art. In what way has Lovecraft contributed to Metallica album covers?? --84.157.121.247 02:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think that the cover of Some Kind of Monster depicts some form of Ktulu. This was, of course, after his death but I believe it may have been a dedication to him. Joetheodd 07:28, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't think so, Cthulhu has always been shown with a octopus-like head. LikuX 08:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Lovecraft did not influence any coverwork (unless there's a few pesky bootleg singles out there), only the songs "Call of Ktulu" and "The Thing That Should Not Be". ArdClose 19:43, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English American?

Why is Cliff's page in the Category:English Americans? I see no reason why it should be.--Jeff79 00:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of the Bands Video =

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8600360414571121543&q=cliff+burton

It seems like a High School Auditorium; and Cliff seems really young. The date on the video says "1984," but Cliff was in Metallica by then. You can hear For Whom the Bell Tolls in it and (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth in their very primitive forms. I don't know how it could add to the article, but it's a pretty neat find fans would enjoy. It does show Metallica used very early compositions by Burton. The article also has no mention of the band "Agents of Misfortune." LikuX 08:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evaluation of progress toward GA status

Cliff Burton SCORES IN KEY AREAS
Legality	A	A	A	A
Neutrality	A	A	A	A
Writing	A	A	A	A
Sources		B	B	B
Citations		B	B	B
06:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

All the pictures are used legally, that's good. The article is neutral, provided that there are no notable controversies about him (I doubt haters much to say about him anyway). The writing is interesting, and the sentences are not very long yet not choppy either. There are not that many sources on the page, but a majority of the page which needs to be cited already has been. There are still more citations needed (on citation-less paragraphs) for me to give you an A on that. The lead WP:LEAD has an appropriate number of paragraphs. Try doubling the length of the paragraphs. This article may have a greater than 50% chance of passing. But I probably will not be the one to give the final say on this.◙◙◙ I M Kmarinas86 U O 2¢ ◙◙◙ 06:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.

a (prose): b (MoS):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.

a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.

a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.

a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
It is stable.
It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
Overall:

a Pass/Fail:

Comments:

1. Manual of Style:

see WP:LEAD. The lead should be a summary of the article and more or less capture the same info the article then expands upon. So, for example, which was his signature piece? Which was the last Metallica album with Burton called? Things like that. Should still be very short, but a little more comprehensive.

Also, there are some lost, one sentence paragraphs, which shouldn't be..

2. sources:

Some don't seem to reliable, since their are written by single people, without editorial oversight or peer review (like magazines for example). And like Kmarinas said, there are some unverified claims, which I would either remove, or try to back up (e.g. "The most well known non-Metallica tribute..", "During their tours, Burton exposed the band to a variety of music styles...".) .

The entire equipment section is unreferenced.

6. use of copyrighted material:

The source given redirects to flickr, which obviously is not the original source of the picture and does not clarify anything about the copyright status of the picture (which is why we have to state the source), especially since it looks like a cropped scan of a magazine, and the magazine is never named etc..

7. Overall, I had to fail the article, although I think that it's not very far from being able to pass the GA-process, so keep up your head and your good work! Best wishes, Johnnyw talk 11:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] live perfomance of orion

metallica played this song already at rock am ring/rock im park festival(june 3rd/4th), so the date June 6th is definitely too late.

[edit] His Older Brother's Death

Should there not be something about the death of his older brother inspired him to pick up bass because his brother was a guitarist or bassist? I'm sure I heard this in an interview with one of Cliff's parents or something. Also this is very similar to a certain other musician who is sadly no longer with us - Chuck Schuldiner, not that is relevant however, but it just kills me that to wonderful people such as Cliff and Chuck have been taken from us.

Just Found that interview... [3]

" He didn't take music lessons until he was 13, after his brother died. He said to a couple of people, 'I'm gonna be the best bassist for my brother.' " I suggest others read this and update the article, there is some very interesting stuff on here about how he outplayed his tutors--78.144.80.5 23:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cliffs six string playing

From this site [4], I feel Kirk's quote about Cliff is quite relevant as even more exposes Cliffs all round musical talent further than the article does right now, some of it should be added to exemplify just the type of influence he had on the other members and how it made Metallica what they were. "in fact, I picked up a few things up from his hotel-room guitar playing that ended up on Master of Puppets"--Dimedude 14:39, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First Band

Come on!! Trauma was not Cliff's first band, although it was his first major band, we all know he must have been in several bands before that, the Agents Of Misfortune video for instance Cliff and Jim state they want the band to go somewhere; it wasn't just a jam band. Someone should put something about that in the arcticle, I wish I could but I don't know how to word it. We should really all work to get this page passed, cause I noticed some sort of Rating thing failed it, (no doubt they've passed all the articles about "non-metal" musicians such as Noel Gallagher or dicks like that. In any case, I don't know how this rating thing works, but we should work to pass it for not just Cliff, but for music.--Dimedude 20:42, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ===Cliff Burton===

The day he died is coming up, so we should honour him. 24.139.31.210 01:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FAC nomination

The FAC nomination for this article has not been completed. Please create the page Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cliff Burton and then add it into the main nomination page. → AA ^(talk) — 08:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

done PENSIMONSTAR 15:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA nomination on hold

Leave a note on my talk page when you're done with this. — Dihydrogen Monoxide 02:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

"which was composed of songs that had been written prior to Burton's arrival." - Change "Burton's" to "his"
"Master of Puppets" doesn't need to be wlinked twice in 2 sentences (in the lead)
"Cliff had two elder siblings, Scott and Connie" - Change "Cliff" to "He"
Ref 1 needs formatting. Suggest {{cite web}}.
"Burton joined his first major band, Trauma, in 1982." - Standalone years (1982) shouldn't be wlinked, unless there is a full date.
Ref 3 needs better formatting (I'm gonna list them anyways, but please convert the article to {{cite web}}, or similar)
"But the idea of having to move to Los Angeles did not sit well with him" - Sentences shouldn't start with "But" - just remove it and start with "The idea of..."
"Metallica, eager to have Cliff in the band left their origin of Los Angeles to make home in San Francisco." - Ref/Source?
Ref 5 formatting - All Music Guide is the publisher, not part of the title
"he has a credit on 6 of the album's 8 tracks." - reword to "and he received credit for 6 of the album's 8 tracks."
"(which is often mistaken for a guitar)" - Ref/Source?
"They were signed to Elektra, and began working" - Replace "They" with "Metallica" or "The band"
Ref 7 - Publisher is All Music Guide
Ref 8 needs full formatting, as does ref 9.
"Burton's final performance was in Stockholm, Sweden on September 26, 1986" - The date here should be wlinked.
"On the evening of September 27, 1986, Burton had won the game with an ace of spades" - Date should be wlinked.
"Burton fell through the window of the bus and the bus fell on top of him killing him. [11] . " - Fix up the issues with the full stops (.) here. Also, there shouldn't be a space between the full stop and the ref.
"At the ceremony, the instrumental "Orion" from the album Master of Puppets was played. Burton had never played the song live, and Metallica did not perform it until June 6, 2006 (when they performed the album in its entirety to mark the 20th anniversary of its release). Until then, only sections of the song had been used as part of their performance. During the 1990s, Burton's successor, Jason Newsted, would often use the bass line as part of a medley." - A few things. 1) Wlink for the date (6 June 2006). 2) Refs needed for playing of "Orion", for Metallica first performing it in '06, for Newsted using it as part of a medley.
"Cliff cited bass players like Geezer Butler, Phil Lynott, Geddy Lee, Lemmy, and Stanley Clarke as influences. He has also cited guitar players such as Ritchie Blackmore, Ulrich Roth, Jimi Hendrix and Tony Iommi as influences." - Ref/Source? Also change "Cliff" to "Burton"
Refs 10, 12 ({{cite video}} I think), 13, 14, 15 and 16 (all {{cite web}}) need proper formatting.
In the "Tributes" section, refs/sources are needed for the following things; Cliff 'em All (what it's about, what it's made up of), ...And Justice for All (what it's made up of, what it's about), Megadeth's memorial stuff, unveiling of memorial stone (and its location would be nice), dedication of albums to Burton.

Reviewed version: [5]

Good luck, — Dihydrogen Monoxide 02:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Passed. — Dihydrogen Monoxide 03:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Line removal

"I dream of Lars Ulrich being thrown through the bus window instead of my mistical master Cliff Burton. What the hell piece of crap cover band dare say that. I deleted this line:

Prior to the accident, Burton and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett drew cards to see who would claim Burton's bunk. Burton drew the Ace of Spades, the death card.

To me it sounds like an urban legend or a myth. Even if it's true (have a link?) it doesn't seem appropriate for a Wikipedia article. --Patik 04:26, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC) it does sound verry unbelieveable that he happened to draw the card that is a symbol of death and died...-Drrake

A few interview CDs (including one I own called X-Posed) contain Kirk himself discussing this. Here is a link for the quote. Jh51681 05:10, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I also can confirm that; I saw a special on VH1 'Behind the Music' where they show a short video clip of Kirk saying words to that effect. --wisher

Everyone knows that. C'mon my friend. Thtat's been a fact straight from the band for years now. J-Dog 14:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic addition of "class=GA"

A bot has added class=GA to the WikiProject banners on this page, as it's listed as a good article. If you see a mistake, please revert, and leave a note on the bot's talk page. Thanks, _BOT Giggabot (talk) 05:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)