One of the dozens of things to dislike about Milwaukee is that it’s home to Hal Leonard, the publishers of history’s worst guitar tab book, Metallica’s …And Justice For All. I hate that goddamn book of lies. The authors of the alleged “note-for-note transcriptions” apparently are crotchety old uncles whose wedding band just celebrated their 10,000th gig. I mean c’mon! In my neighborhood, “Blackened” and “One” at minimum were mandatory learning, so even we knew something was rotten on the day we grabbed the tab book to compare notes: It turns out that the transcribers settled on ball-park estimation of metal’s greatest fucking guitar songs while also displaying a dazzling ignorance of distortion.

And the nutfucked thing is how Hal Leonard continues to sell this faulty piece of shit since fucking 1988. I pointed out its crappiness to HL in several curtly-phrased and progressively vulgar emails. Those went unanswered. One night, I helpfully grabbed a red sharpie to correct it with frowny faces and clusters of distraught question marks. That got me banned from Guitar Center. Then the worst happened: I began to doubt my own ear. After all, I reasoned, a lot of weed gets smoked in here; these “mistakes” in the tabs might’ve been the product of my imagination. But nay, the essence of Metallica riffs is embedded in my spine. I am right; these Justice tabs suck.

Would it be tolerated if I’d been sold Hamlet that reads ‘To be or not to be – shat is the question’? How about a faulty CD, like my skipping Lateralus? Or a signed pic of Jon Bon Jovi with his vagina exposed? It’s refund time, right? And actually, I don’t want my money back half as badly as I want those jerks at HL to correct their goddamn shit and stop fucking young guitarists who study metal guitar from Metallica. Can you imagine the embarrassment of obliviously mis-playing Hetfield riffs in your Youtube video? We’re trying to get laid here, Hal Leonard, you wanna fucking help us out?!?!

Luckily, to our rescue come cool metal guitar dudes like ex-Darkest Hour guitarist Kris Norris and now Protest The Hero’s Tim Millar (beard guy) and Luke Hoskin (no beard guy). They’re full-frontal metal rippists who transcribe their own shit, which not only ensures accuracy but also drags indie music into the tab book world. (Ironically, nearly all major label tab books are unnecessary; if you can’t learn that dugga-dugga radio shit by ear, that means you suck at playing wack shit. Try having some respect for yourself.)

Now, if any high-impact album has been crying out for a transcription, it’s PtH’s frenetic, guitargasmic Fortress. (And Nothingface that shit is driving me crazy!) To describe the self-penned Fortress tabs as helpful is a titanic understatement, but it pains me to point out a troubling detail: The book is a live arrangement for two guitars, not a full-track breakdown of the studio album called Fortress (or Fartress, to its authors). Millar and Hoskin explain as much in the introduction (my promo copy’s intro also contains a handwritten apology from Hoskin for one misprinted page) and I’m not being ungrateful but aw geez those missing harmony parts oy! And if you’re easily confused like me, bring a golf pencil to add lyric cues on its spiral-bound pages (lays flat! glossy cover!). But otherwise the book is a gift from guitar heaven and should serve to further justify the jihad I’ve declared on Hal Leonard*. And help us all get laid.

Buy Protest The Hero’s Fartress tab book of awesomeness here and then get laid.

–ADF

*Metal Sucks legal statement: The abovementioned jihad is a purely metaphorical and totally imaginary jihad. But you fuckers owe me $25.