Dispatches from the Van: Every Friday Should be METALLICA Friday!

Ever want to know what its like to go on tour with a working-class musician? METAL Injection correspondent Justina Villanueva is currently on the road with Psyopus on the Grinding to Cataclysm Tour (dates here) and will be checking in every few days with war stories from the road…

The trance of tour life can't be escaped. It takes months to weeks to prepare. Once you're on the road your life becomes driving to a different everyday, which could be cool until you get to a city you like and realize you can only spend 3 hours there before you must get into the scummy van all over again. Day after day we unload gear from the van, the band plays, load gear into the van, stay with someone or drive to the next city and then it all starts all over again. We passed our longest drive of 16 hours two weeks ago. It went from Tuesday to Wednesday.? A couple days later we had another: 11 hours from Portland, Oregon to Palo Alto, Calif.. But, thank god for Metallica Friday. For those of you who are over 16 and therefore did not attend the first Friday show in Arlington Heights, IL, you might have missed watching the greatest cover of "Master of Puppets" in person, but you can enjoy a rough version below.

There were rumors of what unrehearsed Metallica song Psyopus and Fuck the Facts were going to cover the Metallica Friday following "Master of Puppets". It turned out to be a song whose lyrics can easily be converted to a new song entitled: "Creepy Dad." People got so crazy I thought we would leave the print shop called The Jungle, where an office transforms from a day job desk and coffee joint to a underground metal haven at night, in ruins. But, there was none of that.

There is one more Metallica Friday left. I promise it will be legendary. Metallica fans of the universe should make it to tonight to Atlanta!