Diehard Fans Protest Planned Removal of Metallica's Feeding Tube

New York, NY - Throngs of Metallica fans have flocked around Time Warner corporate headquarters to protest the imminent removal of the washed up rock band's feeding tube.

The band, whose creative integrity suffered extensive damage after a gruesome plunge from atop the metal ladder in the late eighties, has been languishing in a persistently vegetative state for over fifteen years, and in spite of the unwavering faith of some of their more diehard fans and the standard protocol of the recording industry to capitalize on name recognition for all it's worth notwithstanding, the decision was made last week to "let them go".

The industry executives behind the choice to remove the group's feeding tube by collectively agreeing to not offer them any more recording contracts acknowledge that the decision was difficult considering the band's glorious history, but cite their precipitous decline in musical quality from the eponymous "Black" album released in 1991 to the laughable Load/Reload albums of the late 90s followed by the travesty that was 2003's "St. Anger".

"It's definitely a sad thing. Considering what they once were, it's a very sad thing," commented Elektra Records executive Stephen Baird, "But with the band's incapacitated state impairing its own judgment it has become imperative that we intervene on their behalf. Sure, we could lead their creatively comatose shells back into a studio, stick a microphone in front of James's dazed face and milk them for a few more million, but even we have consciences. I wouldn't rape a corpse for a ride on the Goodyear blimp."

Despite the massive amount of unequivocal evidence that Metallica is creatively brain dead, their supporters point to the crude sounds the band members managed to make on their last couple of albums as a sign of life that suggests at least some small chance of eventual recovery. People who know better, however, disagree.

Rebuffed Rolling Stone Journalist David Silverman: "No, I'm afraid not. Those noises on St. Anger - James's groaned ham fisted metaphors, Lars's monotonous, rudimentary banging on that aluminum paint can and those derivative guitar riffs were nothing more than a product of primitive autonomous brain function. Put any group of guys with three months experience on their instruments in a studio and they couldn't do any worse."

"And the possibility of a miraculous return to form is absolutely zero," Silverman added, "They kicked ass when they were a bunch of angry, booze crazed twenty year olds, but now they're all forty something, married with kids, rich as hell and in psychotherapy. Its time for what's left of their fans to give up and say goodbye. For the love God."