While dallying with hardcore, Metallica's first priority was still to rule the metal world -- now an enormous, thriving realm. Cliff Burton and James Hetfield had sometimes ventilated through Spastik Children, a goof-off stupor-group that would play "London Dungeon" by the Misfits repeatedly during a performance. The band carried on sporadically after the passing of Burton, playing an engagement at the birthday party of old friend Ron Quintana. "Those shows all became fiascoes," says Quintana, "because the club owners would leak that Metallica was playing a special show, but they wouldnąt say it was Spastik Children. That would always create friction, because all those guys wanted to do was get up there and play really badly on the wrong instruments and annoy people. They eventually got tired of people yelling, 'Play "Ride the Lightning"!' At that point forget it -- Metallica was just too big...