Wherever I may roam, whether as an international sports chiropractor or the team doctor of Metallica, the most prolific, number one "heavy metal" band in the world, I find a tremendous response from my patients for chiropractic.
Over the last decade, Metallica has been the winner of several Grammy Awards, numerous platinum record awards, and has received admiration from music artists throughout the world. Metallica has been on a one and a half year tour that started in California in August 1991 and has since covered the entire globe. The group's 301st concert in Belgium July 4th of this year will complete the tour.
The kings of the speed metal fraternity play tortuous, nervous system, head-pounding, blow-your-brains-out music that requires an old die-hard like myself from the '60s heavy rock era to recuperate for at least one week following a metal concert.
Metallica and the entire group, including the hard working crew members, often seek health care from myself to help them cope with their transient lifestyle. I have the group on recovery and maintenance care and on a nutritional plan to make sure wherever they roam, they will be enhanced by my referral chiropractic network.
I've come from a musical oriented family. My mother was a professional jazz soloist during the 1930s and '40s; my father is a jazz saxophonist; my five female cousins, known in the past as the "Third Wave," were pop jazz artists; my eldest brother is a professor of music and a jazz saxophonist. Kirk Hammett, my cousin, is Metallica's lead guitarist. He has been highly influenced by the elite sounds of the late Jimi Hendrix. I'm into Indian classical flute. I enjoy touring with Metallica whenever they're in Australia or whenever I'm able during my international sport chiropractic tours.
Arising from the aging metal bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zepplin, Metallica's 1983 debut album ushered in the birth of the thrash metal/speed metal genre out of the ashes of heavy metal and post punk. The sound is noisy and furious, and the lyrics employ a broad range of topics, most of them blasphemous. Ask Australian Wimbledon champion Pat Cash, a connosieur of heavy metal, what this is like!
If you have ever experienced a heavy metal concert, especially a Metallica or Megadeath concert, it's like being in the middle of a Vietnam war air attack. One would observe fans punching their fists in the air and making the heavy metal sign with two fingers, and would be captivated by the many head-shaking individuals making mincemeat out of their grey matter.
Only a few of my worldly experiences rival the experience of a heavy metal concert: the 1984 mass hysteria in India following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Ghandi, and being trapped in Afghanistan during a civil war. Somehow, I seem to attract these overpowering subluxation-inducing scenarios.
The sound of music, whether it is relaxing or "thrash," often penetrates our subconscious minds creating a supposed "subliminal" effect on our behavior. Such an effect has caused governmental intervention in some countries to regulate its use by the music and advertising industry.
While in the middle of a Metallica concert, I found myself reacting to the pure metal sounds, and the fury and the passion in the minds and bodies of those around me. The frenetic and exhilarating but damaging effect to our locomotor systems is even more plain to see while removing one's own earplugs.
The group has turned out its fifth and most prolific album to date, "Metallica." When the group decided to work with Bob Rock, producer for groups Motley Crue, the Cult, and Bon Jovi, the minds in Metallica were opened to new exciting things. The result was a furious collection of songs vastly different from the previous ones. During the days the the "Metallica" album was being produced, with ten months and over $1 million in recording costs invested, Bob Rock said to me during a chiropractic adjustment, "I've got to receive more chiropractic treatments if I'm going to survive this business!"
Through Metallica's current and past changes in music style, they have evolved into a softer, less "thrashful" sound, hence, the emergence of a brilliant album, one that reaffirms the band's standing as the number one metal band in the world. Principle lyricist and lead singer James Hetfield has come up with his most heartfelt, sincere, remarkable words yet, displaying an exquisite maturity. His complex and mysterious sounds portray his ability to transform personal feelings into songs, giving added weight to the album. The words are more personal and profound, and so while other bands are singing about devil worshipping and black magic, the Metallica album has set itself apart.
Could it be the continual chiropractic treatment and the nutritional plan that is "subliminally" affecting this group of international stars of the metal world?
Those DCs interested in being interviewed as a Metallica "team doctors" during their remaining tour and future world tours may contact me at the following address:
Dr. Don A. Oyao
86 Nicholson St.
Fitzroy, Victoria
Tele: (011) 5 152-1073
Australia 3065
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