So I've gotten a sneak peek at the cover this week, and thought y'all might also like to see it in its grayscale glory... 

While I wait for the second set of proofs to arrive (any day now), from which I'll make the book's index, the marketing department seems to have finished the cover.


I've been told that the "Damage Incorporated" part will be "metallic," but I think they mean "mirrored." Then again, maybe it will have that embossed metallic look you see on trashy fantasy/romance paperbacks.

Overall, I'm reasonably satisfied. I'm not sure the "Damage Incoporated" font is "damaged"-looking enough, and my name is a little bright-lights-big-city, but I think the total package looks good enough. I'm most pleased about their willingness to shell out what must not have been chump change for the Hetfield image that's been on the wall in my various apartments for years. It's from sometime in the early 90s during the Black Album tour, and I've always been taken with the power and focus Hetfield is displaying here. The photo was first published (in color) as a centerfold in Guitar for the Practicing Musician in 1994 or 1995.

What song might Hetfield be playing, you ask? My guess is he's just sung the word "By" in the phrase "By my hand" from the famous middle section of "Creeping Death" (1984): "Die / By my hand / I creep across the land / Killing first-born man." (Charming, isn't it?) In the enlarged version you can see that he's grabbing an 8th-fret F power chord, which coincides metrically with the word "By." The harmonic changes in that section of "Creeping Death" are also slow enough that Hetfield could have grabbed the power chord with the specific kind of fist-like hold seen in the photo. Had they been faster (and thus part of a different song), his fingers would probably be extended a little straighter in order to allow the power chord shape to slide along the guitar neck more quickly.

Anyway, one more tick off the old To-Do list...