When it comes to art, I most respect dedication and passion. The troubled production of Megadeth's Rust in Peace album shows that they are not needed When it comes to art, I most respect dedication and passion. The troubled production of Megadeth's Rust in Peace album shows that they are not needed for greatness. The Inside Story of the Megadeth Masterpiece is less the story of writing songs than it is about getting clean.
To be honest, I was surprised just by how much the story was about drugs. Sure, it's nonfiction about a popular heavy metal act, so you should expect your fair share of sex, drugs & rock'n'roll. Actually, the entire first half of the book was on various drugs and alcohol related failures and how Dave and "Junior" got into the habit of complementing their regular cocaine use with snorting heroin.
It's amazing to think that this turned out to be a success story. Chuck Behler and Jeff Young, who played on So Far, So Good... So What!, had to be replaced and it took a very long time to fill the guitar position. As the book makes clear, in some respects Marty Friedman wasn't the perfect fit for the band, but he sure know how to play. But it was a long way until then. For a long time it feels the guys were content with carefree jamming (noticably with Slash from Guns n’ Roses). It was only when their record company threatened them to be dropped that they got their shit together. Well, it took many more returns to rehab until Dave took it seriously on a personal level.
The actual recording session is even more puzzling. The songs certainly weren't the result of continuous hard work. Did they come out of nowhere in a spontaneous outburst of creativity? Before entering the studio Ellefson wondered whether he could even play soberly. Mustaine had a relapse and left again early on. In fact, he was in rehab for most of the recording. Yet, what came out at the end was easily their best album (even though I shamefully admit that I love Youthanasia).
I find it quite interesting how they themselves interpret their history. To their minds the album was conceived in their darkest moments and recorded when they sorted things out. Frankly,, that's not really how they told the story. Actually, the disputes over who wrote the songs and who deserves what (not the least financially) were particularly noteworthy. It must require quite the ego to claim it's your album when you had hardly been in the studio. Similarly, I thought it was kind of funny that the book is published with Mustaine as its writer when clearly – and explicitly – the story is told by many different voices.
It's not a very exciting story and it might even leave you somewhat disillusioned about the creation of powerful art, but it certainly feels like a very honest account of what happened at the time. It moreover offers great insights into the big-money show biz before grunge fully took over. The portrayal of the different characters involved is perhaps the strongest aspect of the book. However, as a fan of the music I hoped to learn a bit more about how it came to be. But maybe that's the point – it somehow came to be when the originators had been preoccupied with their own personal demons.
This is less a biography than an introduction to Einstein's thinking. I felt that it really hit the mark of being informative without overwhelming theThis is less a biography than an introduction to Einstein's thinking. I felt that it really hit the mark of being informative without overwhelming the uninitiated. Obviously, Einstein must have been a very interesting character, and anecdotes (some amusing, some more serious) are used to lighten up the more theoretical focus. In fact, while I certainly would be lying if I said I understood everything, this was pretty easy to read through.
After an Introduction - whose purpose within the rest of the book escapes me, as I have to admit - the book is structured according to the three principal fields to which Einstein made his main contributions, i.e. special relativity, general relativity, and quantum theory. My knowledge of physics (or the natural sciences in general, for that matter) is very limited, so most of the principles discussed here were new to me. Sure, some things belong to the stock-in-trade of science-fiction, but it still was a very exciting book for me to see the ideas developed in a more systematic, and historically structured, way.
Actually, it's not only about mind-bending ideas such as gravitation influencing light (and in this way bending space and slowing-down time); I was surprised to find many interesting contributions to the philosophy of science. In fact, especially in the years leading to the special theory of relativity, Einstein's unique feature seems to have been that he did conceptual work rather than conducting experiments. His use of thought-experiments certainly must feel more familiar to modern (analytical) philosophers than to scientists. So, a priori thinking might lead to better understanding of the empirical world after all. Moreover, the ideas on the role of observable properties and the soundness of non-observable theoretical entities (such as atoms) goes to the heart of my philosophical interests.
I was also quite impressed about Einstein as a person. I love to think that there really was this unseriousness and cynicism to his social demeanor, with no regard for authority and social standing, talking the same way to everyone. Also, you cannot but admire those starving artists who live their "normal lives" in day-time (working a full-time job in a patent-office, in Einstein's case) and investing all their energy to self-set goals and ideas at night. Incidentally, I remember that in primary school already kids were pointing out that even Einstein wasn't that good at math in school - I was surprised to find that there actually was some truth to it. At the university he was a middling student and pursued mathematics only so far as it really seemed necessary. So, his more conceptual musings are seldom accompanied by heavy-duty formulae.
The quote that maybe impressed me the most, and that maybe casts a negative light on this somewhat voyeuristic last paragraph, came near the end of the book: "Because of a peculiar popularity which I have acquired, anything I do is likely to develop into a ridiculous comedy." (in a letter to the Queen of Belgium) Oh, and it turns out that he actually did say this thing about the dice and of God not throwing it.