My Dodgy Metal Past
I spent my several of my most impressionable teenage years in Northampton, where it seemed almost compulsory to enjoy heavy metal (I suspect that it was the same in many provincial towns, especially in the Midlands).
Most of my spare cash went on coach trips to Birmingham and Leicester and London to see AC/DC, Rush, Ozzy Osbourne, etc., while Saturdays were spent sifting through the racks at second hand record shops searching for cheap UFO and Scorpions albums. I wore a denim cutoff featuring a huge Black Sabbath logo in the shape of a coffin and a hand-embroidered Hanoi Rocks patch. I bought Kerrang!, I grew my hair, I went to Castle Donnington, and I banged my head at school discos.
Then, somehow, metal got really silly. A wave of foolishly coiffured American imports took over: Ratt, Faster Pussycat, Cinderella, Poison. For a while it all seemed a bit glamorous, but the lustre faded pretty quickly and I moved on to other things.
These days, I don't like any metal (except for the hilarious System Of A Down). It all seems so childish, and I can't listen to much of the stuff I grew up with - AC/DC and Motorhead aside - without feeling acute embarrassment.
Am I alone feeling this way? Does anyone else share my dodgy metal past? Is there anything I should be re-visiting? And is there any modern metal worth hearing?
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You're not alone
In fact, you're in very good company. As I overheard Bob Dylan telling Dave "Silly Beard" Stewart while I waited for my lamb rogan josh, metal is "jus' a phaaaaase".
He's seen the light, good man
Sorry only just spotted this blog; Fraser- your comments resonated hugely. Not sure if I agree that metal was just a midlands thing. I was brought up in the South Wales valleys where adolescent boys of a certain age followed Nicky Wire's 11th Commandment "thou art Welsh; though shalt like Motley Crue".
Admitting you like metal as an adult appears akin to admitting that you have some kind of medieval or sexually transmitted disease which is strange yetendearing in equal measure. Im not so tribal that I only listen to metal bands nor so myopic that I cant spot quality when I hear it. Metal bands and artists are like non metal bands and artists- there are good metal bands and bad metal bands. If you have 50 quid and are open minded then you could do far worse than looking for the following: Machine Head, Mastodon, Opeth, Fear Factory, In Flames, DevilDriver, Tool.
Come on in, the metal waters are lovely....
From the wastelands...
I think perhaps the metal ratio tends to be in relation to the distance from civilisation, as South Wales and the Black Country both demonstrate. I spent 3 months in Wick during 1980, think north of the Highlands, near John O Groats. Metal (and flares) still very very big.
Metal GOT silly?
I think that was part of the whole charm of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal - that it was at the same time terribly earnest and very very silly. The corresponding episode of VH1's brilliant documentary 'Heavy' has some fantastic footage of kids turning up at heavy metal pubs/clubs with home made cardboard guitars - each trying to outdo each other with styling - before standing in circles and miming all night.
Plus of course you've got some roadie dressed as a mummy running around on stage at early Iron Maiden concerts, before the budget extended to a giant animatronic version.
I'll be honest...
...used to listen to lots of it. A few years ago most of my listening was made up of this and fairly stodgy, soulless 'retro prog' and 'prog metal'. It didn't take that long to realise that much of this was doing nothing for me. It was the 'hair metal' which really moved me away from a lot of metal- Motley Crue, Poison, Warrant and all that kind of stuff are simply vile and creatively bereft to these ears. The 'power metal' is even worse!
But don't get me wrong, there's still a fair bit of classic metal I have a lot of time for. Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest are my favourites and the ones I still play on a regular basis. 70s hard rock like Deep Purple/Uriah Heep/Thin Lizzy/UFO/Rainbow etc. are still favourites of mine too. Some NWOBHM- Samson, Diamond Head, even a few Saxon albums- I still give the odd listen as well. I can handle Metallica/Megadeth in small doses too.
On the subject of modern metal, I like Opeth and Mastodon quite a bit. Both play complex and intelligent music- it depends on your tolerance for those 'growling' vocals but I can put up with that. I'd take what they're doing over yet another sub-Libertines band of the kind we get in the UK any day, personally. British metal seems to be a bit of an oxymoron at present...
Opeth
I gave up on metal during the Fred Durst years (ugghhh...), but Opeth have brought me very close to going back. I absolutely adore 'Ghost Reveries'. The track 'Beneath The Mire' sums up everything that is great about them - the soaring riffs, the sudden changes in style and tempo, the juxtaposition of grunt and croon... It's all good stuff.
Other than that, my metal intake has been mostly drone and doom - Sunn O))), Boris, Earth, the more 'acquired taste' stuff. Some distance from my youthful love of Iron Maiden.
Perhaps I should start buying Metal Hammer again...
Classic Rock/Metal
I have to agree that I still play a lot of the "good" stuff from the late 70s/early 80s. I bought Kerrang from issue 1 for about 4 years and still play UFO/Rainbow/Rush etc on a regualr basis.
This music was just part of what I have listened to since discovering music in 1978 and I can imagine I'll still be playing classic albums like UFO's Strangers in The Night for many years to come.
I've long since stopped worrying about the "guilty pleasures" aspect of my listening habits with this stuff and just embrace the riff! Long live NWOBHM!
Let's rock.....AAAAARGHHH!!!
Also...
...though they have much in common with psychedelia and progressive rock too, check out UK band Porcupine Tree's 'Fear Of A Blank Planet' which has metal elements and shows it can be as intelligent as any other genre.
Seconded
Porcupine Tree have done some great stuff, and "Blank Planet" is very good. I jumped on board with the excellent "Signify", in 1996 or thereabouts. I had thought that intelligent prog-metal was an oxymoron, but they carry it off well.
Yes to all the above
To me the startling thing is that, some time in the 90s, I started seeing teenage girls who looked like they belonged to the tribe.
In my teen days in the ealy 80s I was forced to be a fairweather metaller, not in the music I listened to but the way I dressed at parties. Metal gear was girl repellent so I would dress in black, scrape my hair back with gel and wear heavy eyeliner above and below the eye. I'm baffled as to why this was considered an improvement over the leather jacket and denim cut-off soaked in patchouli look, but it seemed to do the trick.
My Metal phase
My metal phase came between the ages of 16 and 19 and revolved mostly around Slayer, Machine Head, Sepultura and Fear Factory. I don't listen to it much anymore however I confess I'm still yet to hear anything as powerful as Machine Head's Burn My Eyes or be anywhere as intoxicatingly aggressive and downright fun as a Metallica mosh pit.
YES!
Machine Head were my first ever gig, supported by Meshugga and Mary Beats Jane. This was their first British headline tour, and they rocked like bastards. It was then that I realised I was born to mosh...
'Tallica are always a tasty live treat, too. I saw them in Manchester for the Load-era tours, when they had the collapsing set and the roadie on fire. Pure brilliance.
I'm not quite the heavy metal monster I was in my youth, although I do sometimes return to that stuff - I popped some 'Burn My Eyes' on recently, and that, along with Fear Factory's 'Demanufacture' and a dose of White Zombie, made me feel very happy indeed.
You ask 4 questions.
No, no, no, no.
Me too.
In the late 70's early 80's in Central Scotland it was pretty much compulsory too... I was weaned on Classic 70's metal, prog and NWOBHM. I'll see your Denim cutoff and raise you an army surplus combat jacket with a huge "Rush" logo on the back (first album cover...) Not quite in the same league as the now legendary "Rush Pig", but getting there.
I too largely gave up on it when the whole hair-metal thing came into play, though I had a later peak of interest when the likes of Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth etc. came along, and in one two week period in 1987 I saw all four live... Slayer are still one of the tightest live bands I've seen.
Can't say I listen to a lot now, although "Reign in Blood" still gets the odd spin, along with "Back in Black" and "Rainbow Rising".
In retrospect I regret that I missed out on some of the other contemporary stuff that was going on in the early 80's - didn't get into REM until 1986, missed out on the Smiths altogether - but it was fun at the time.
I was a teenage metal muthaf**ker - KLASSIK!
I have fond memories of my metalhead years whilst a teenager, although I never exclusively listened to metal or hard rock. As well as Priest, Maiden, Dio, Sabbath, Motörhead and AC/DC I liked Little Feat, Steely Dan and lots of other music.
My poor mum was pressed into sewing numerous band patches onto my too-new looking denim jacket and I wore it with pride. I went to see lots of gigs, but one shall remain etched into my memory forever because I can't honestly believe what I did afterwards.
I went to see Dio in 1984. I enjoyed it. Mr Ronald Dio had a fine set of lungs, and threw the devil's horns better than anyone. The crowd loved it. Afterwards I stood in the pouring rain for about an hour and a half outside the stage door of Hammersmith Odeon to see if I could get backstage to meet my heroes. After an age the door opened and four fans at a time were allowed into the band's dressing room to have a chat and get autographs. I remember they were all absolutely charming and seemed genuinely happy to be meeting the fans. After I'd said something terribly original to Mr Dio ("I loved the show... you guys rock!" or something like that) he thanked me and made the devil's horns sign in front of me. The 15 year old me was thrilled.
What possessed me to do this, I can't honestly say. I no longer listen to Dio. But at the time the experience made me unbelievably happy, and now I am still the proud owner of a signed tour programme. It features the remarkable fizog of keyboard player Claude Schnell, a man battered senseless with the ugly stick. He was forced to play behind a curtain. Enough respect, Claude... you're the man.
Wow... I had exactly the
Wow... I had exactly the same experience, but at the Edinburgh Playhouse, same tour. Was pretty starstruck (do you see what I did there?) but managed to chat briefly to all of them, including the invisible keyboard player, to whom I actually commented that I could hear him but couldn't see him ;-).
It all got a bit silly after that, what with animatronic dragons and so forth, but it was fun while it lasted.
A friend got this for me...
It's a signed insert from a recent CD.
Only Dio would sign his name using 'Special Magic'.
Oooh Fraser...
I think he likes you! Ronnie James Dio's 'special magic', indeed!
You Are Supposed to Get Over It ?
Shit I'm in trouble then.
Also growing up in a Provincial Midlands town ,Fraser is spot on.
For me it was Metal or Northern Soul. I took a bit of Metal and a lot of Soul.
AC/DC -ROCK no question
Sabbath-are still great to listen to
Slayer-saw then last year Fantastic live Band-great atmosphere and a really friendly crowd.
Iron Maiden turned me away from Metal.Absolute garbage
There was a great Documentary out about what it's like to Be a Metal FanIt Was made by a German or Swedish guy.It seemed most metal fans also thought the whole posturing thing was funny too.The loved the Fact that the scene was very friendly and non-judgemental.Everybody was welcome.
That Hair Metal thing produced some of the worst music ever made.
Spot on...
The friendliest people I've ever met at gigs were invariably metal fans. They seemed so happy to be there. Everyone felt like a member of a tribe and respected each other.
Yes...
...I really do have a problem with the snobbery from some of the music press towards metal and its fans. It was established long ago that Kerrang actually outsells NME by a considerable margin, as does Classic Rock too, but the stigma still exists.
I remember a piece for The Guardian recently which highlighted the fact that none of those 'best of the year' polls featured any metal whatsoever despite begrudging critical acclaim that some albums got. I personally have seen the same thing happen with some recent prog albums- they get begrudging respect but many critics still won't fully countenance them.
There's also that faintly silly so-called 'hipster metal' thing which indie fans use to justify that they like some metal acts by giving it a daft name as if it's outside metal. I believe Mastodon have been tagged in this way.
There's a fair bit of rubbish metal, sure, and almost all of that is from the power/hair type of thing as I highlighted, but there is some great stuff too.
Glad to see an absence of this snobbery on this thread. Have to confess, mind, I don't rate Guns 'N' Roses at all- I don't see them as being much better than the other hair posers of the era. Cinderella were the most bearable of that lot, I thought, even though they had probably the worst name!
I think Mastodon's constituency
is very much metallers rather than hipsters. They - like Dillinger Escape Plan and various Mike Patton related projects - are in the "math metal" camp of ludicrous timesignatures, much beloved of troubled, over-educated teens and 20-somethings*. I always assumed hipster metal referred more to people who overlapped with the noise/art world like Sunn 0))) and Lightning Bolt.
*on a swift Google I can't find the article, but there was a survey released last year which showed that of American high school and college students, death metal fans had far and away the highest IQs... Whether this says that it's "intelligent" to like Cannibal Corpse, or whether it just means that the US educational system drives anyone with a brain to paroxysms of hate, I do not know.
Hair Metal...
Sir, I give you...
Skid Row
Motley Crue
Poison
Europe
Def Leppard
Bon Jovi
I personally don't see the problem.
Arf!
AC/DC
NOT metal.....ask Angus!
32-49-56
How high is your iron content?
Do you know what 'Shades'was ?
Which London Nightclub held a Wednesday Rock night?
What were 'Stryper's' team colours?
Do you own an album on Music For Nations?
Who did Kingdom Come shamelessly ape?
If you can answer at least two of these questions you need to join an MSG - 'Metal Support Group' (and not the band that were always in 'Metal Hammer' along with 'Doro' and those dodgy ginger twins..what was their name?)where group meetings are held in church halls for ex metallers to talk openely and anonymously about outsize mullets, band T shirts (printed front and back)worn over office shirts at gigs and an amnesty on Kerrang VHS comps is offered. My story is.....
Motorhead and AC/DC were my way in to metal, which lead to Guns N' Roses (a year before Donnington), The Almighty, Faster Pussycat, W.A.S.P and Cinderella. Never liked to many of the anthemic American acts though.
Bands like Masters of Reality, Faith No More and Kings X seemed to be moving metal in the right direction until Nirvana (who I liked, but was never convinced by) and Britpop made it seem a bit - well, plain daft really.
I do still dip in to Motorhead, AC/DC and Masters of Reality, Faith No More and Kings X , but sold my entire G n' R vinyl collection on Ebay for a tidy amount, some years back..
4/5
I'm not sure about the club, though. Was it The Clarendon? I remember going there for metal discos, but can't remember the day of the week.
Kingdom Come....
....were widely known as Zeppelin clones, right? I don't see them as being any more blatant than Whitesnake were in the same period. No idea on your other questions though!
In keeping with the thread I got hold of Whitesnake's new album today...
Was getting worried here......
I presume this is not the same as Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come? I can't see many Led Zep pointers towards traffic lights.
It was
Fraser - Wednesday night was R.O.C.K night at The Hippodrome (I never went but Mrs C was a regular)
JJ - You're right the late 80s Whitesnake may have mugged their moves from Led Zepp'(even bowing the guitar in one vid')but they never lifted the riffs like Kingdom Come...
Kingdom Come - Get It On
Oh and the ginger twins were Gypsy Queen (a name so close to Gypsy Cream biscuits - that it strips the gloss right off the glam)
To hear Kingdom Come mentioned in the same sentence as..
Led Zeppelin always made me want to chew off my own ears. That song is frightful! The nadir of metal.
Last 3 answers
'Shades' was a basement record shop somewhere in Soho, I believe. Only made the pilgrimage (from Lincolnshire) once, back in 1986 or 87. Probably bought Hanoi Rocks semi-bootleg 'Rock N Roll Divorce' album there.
Stryper's team colours were yellow and black.
Not only do I still own a copy of the superb double album 'Striktly For Konnoissuers' (MFN, 1985), but I spent several months a couple of years ago scouring E-Bay for the albums by the original, and similar, bands (SFK was a compilation of obscure US & Canadian hard rock acts of the late 70's, you'll remember). I am now the proud owner of the world's only homemade 4xCD expanded version of SFK. Beat that!!
Have been reading these Word topics for a while, but had to sign up for this one. After years of denial I am pretty much reconciled with my Metal past (alright, maybe Hair Metal not so much), partly because, as the Drive-By Truckers decreed, 'It's OK to Rock!'.
Good Work Ghosty
I had the 'Hell Comes To Your House' MFN album.
Great to see Hanoi getting another mention, I was always indifferent about them until I saw their set at Crocs in Rayleigh on my 18th birthday, was totally blown away and became a complete convert.
When is someone/anyone going to release 'All Those Wasted Years - Live at The Marquee' show on DVD what a gig!!
Hanoi
Fantastic band. If not for the drink and drug addictions, premature deaths, their clumsiness with the english language, and their mis-classification as 'metal' (as obvious a hybrid of The Clash and Mott The Hoople as I've ever heard), they could have been massive.
'Cheyenne', from the first album, came up on the iPod on the drive into work this morning. What a song!
MSG
MSG - Michael Schenker Group produced a classic live album "At Budokan" (a UK Top 10!) in 1981 which features Cozy Powell on drums alongside MS on guitar - dig it out and revel in classic metal.
The Metal Years
For me were early teens, up to about 16. Alongside the Buzzcocks, Jam, Clash etc I had a metal side as one of my best friends was a confirmed 'Nugget' (top term for young lad sporting denim jacket with spangly Quo/Rush/Krokus/Scorpions patches everywhere). Crucially also many bands played venues where the U-18's could get in like the Apollo and Free Trade Hall - so went to see Rush twice, Girlschool and AC/DC, all bands I can still quite happily listen to alongside the Magnetic Fields and Aphex Twin. What was a step too far was the Heavy Metal/Rock Disco. In Manchester this was the salubrious 'Jillys' at the top of Oxford Road and we knew instinctively never to darken its doors. A couple of years later I was at a halls of Res at Mcr Uni and looked down at a uni bar with 200 head-bangers shaking their locks in unison to the quo. Magnificent stuff. Excellent thread.
metal - a way of life rather than a passing phase
a life long fascination with the quo and queen aside, my experience in metal started in about 1985 in cardiff. i blame bon jovi as the initial catalyst - theirs was the commercial permed-hair introduction which later paved the way towards def leppard, whitesnake, guns'n'roses and from there into metallica and all things proper heavy, like...
23 years later i'd still stand by metal as the most triumphant rock music genre which has gendered the most passionate fans. far from being a silly phase, metal to me has been a means of communicating with a whole hoard of different people with whom no other common ground could have been envisaged but which in turn has led to some of the closest friendships.
my ipod is packed to the hilt with the likes of love/hate, masters of reality, king's x, black sabbath, def leppard, deep purple. although i've broadened my field of musical appreciation since 1985, metal still provides the most enjoyment and the biggest drive at both sides of a shitty day / week / month / year. long live rock 'n roll.
Plymouth Guildhall (lower hall)
was a dimly lit, stygian pit that hosted the mighty Ark Roadshow on Saturday nights. A slack approach to underage drinking and a lack of dress policy led to packed houses with a pretty catholic array of yoof-cult sub-groups present, including the feared "grebos".
Those of a mainstream disposition would bop to the chart stuff, but the instant the wind-machine whirl of the intro to "Silver Machine" began, a space cleared for the grebo contingent, who would spend the next 6 minutes generating a tornadic whirl of hair, sweat, denim and menace. A lull would follow until the next suitable number hit the decks, then off they'd go again. It kept them fit, or at least, offset the effects of massive Courage Best intake.
1971-1975
My metal phase.
Mainly Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, with a sprinkling of Uriah Heep and some Zep. We classed Hawkwind as metal as well.
Sadly my tastes then veered towards the more 'cerebral' prog, and it was wall to wall ELP, Yes and Genesis until all was swept away in the punk wars. As a result the NWOBHM completely passed me by, and it was only many years after the event that the joy of the riff resurfaced in belated recognition of the genius of AC/DC.
Innocent, but happy, times indeed.
Back in the day...
...we had it all in Ipswich. Budgie, Mama's Boys, Uriah Heep, Spider, Vardis, White Spirit, The Tygers of Pan Tang, I could go on. Gillan had a cage full of Ipswich Town footballers on stage with him at one point. How we wept with pride when Alan Davey left Gunslinger to join Hawkwind. He's back now.
Happy days.
Skirky
(ex-guitarist, Magwytch and Brute Force & Ignorance).
Intact with a human psyche
Up until the age of 17, my record collection consisted of the first three Nik Kershaw albums and some early Now That’s What I Call Music… compilations. I didn't start listening to metal until I was in my early 20s and so never got to experience Iron Maiden from the wide-eyed perspective of a hormonal adolescent. As a result I have never listened to The Number of the Beast with anything other than a wry sense of amusement and perhaps some tongue in cheek headbanging (Curiously the lyrics regain some of their menace in Zwan’s pared-down acoustic cover version).
I still enjoy the music. I bought The Irons last studio album and during Brighter Than a Thousand Suns felt the skin on my back transform from flesh to frayed, stonewashed denim. I just can’t commit to the sentiment in the same unguarded way that I would have in my teens.
The only time I have emotionally connected with an Iron Maiden song happened a few years ago when I was on a plane to Asmara. On the way we stopped over in Jeddah. It was around midnight. Practically everyone else disembarked, leaving me in an almost deserted jet. After we took off I put on the headphones. The rock station was playing Rainmaker (from Dance of Death). Speeding through the night sky, above the Red Sea, towards the coast of Africa and the volcanic wastelands of Dankalia, the song made perfect sense. It felt right for the moment.
My brother has an encyclopaedic knowledge of black, death and dark metal. Last week he sent me an album by Diabolical Masaquerade, titled Death’s Design. It’s a solo project by the guitarist from Katatonia (not to be confused with Catatonia - believe me, you wouldn't get the two mixed up). 61 tracks, very few over a minute long, but which segue together to form a near-continuous piece of music. It's like a movie soundtrack with Death Metal vocals, frenetic drumming and occasional soft rock interludes! The song titles are genius. My favourites are Mary-Lee Goes Crazy, Old People’s Voodoo Séance, A Hurricane of Rotten Air and The Remains of Galactic Expulsions.
Hmmmm
"My brother has an encyclopaedic knowledge of black, death and dark metal."
Am I alone in suspecting that there are more sub-genres than actual bands in metal these days?
Much like dance music...
...the genre has sub-divided.
Metal's gone underground again, or at least in the UK. It amuses me that Ajattara's brutal Christmas singles make it into the Finnish top 40. Their cover of Juice Leskisen's Sika got to number four. I'd rather have that than Cliff Richard or whoever won The X Factor.
Dance genres. . .
are about to be classified definitively, thanks to groundbreaking quantum-level research just completed at the CERN particle accelerator.
Long haired scientists...
...in denim lab coats are hoping to use the Large Hadron Collider to locate the 'Supernaut' - a theoretical particle that is thought to give Heavy Metal its mass.
That will be (is it) Denzil Dexter then
The hippy californian scientist from the Fast Show, always, I thought, based on John Perry Barlow, Grateful Dead lyricist and something like a nuclear scientist as well.
Dave?
Dave! You gotta see this!
Classic.
The process
Two guitarists stand at either end of the Large Hadron Collider and simultaneously play a power chord, known in musicologist circles as an Ascending Hadron. These chords are not played on a traditional guitar but instead on a specially modified cello.
Where the soundwaves from both chords meet they explode into their constituent parts, which can then be collected and analysed. Thus far the power of the chords has proven insufficient to reveal the theoretical ‘supernaut’.
But haven't you heard?
The E-major kerrangon, predicted by equations but never before observed in the physical universe, has now been isolated by accelerating an SG Special through a Marshall Very Large Array.
"progressive, post-hardcore, doom metal"
I ventured out to a fine indie store on Saturday in support of an initiative to re-stock record stores with customers. I enjoyed myself in spite of the having to listen to a full album of some new breed of metal. I asked the clerk as I was leaving what I'd been listening to and he explained. "This is Torche. It’s their third album, their first on a major indie. I saw them once supporting The Sword.” I asked him how he’d describe it and with an air of nonchalance he said, “progressive, post-hardcore, doom-metal.” Perfect for National Record Store Day.
I was 17
in 1980. The great thing about that particular year was that bands who would never have had a chance of being near the top 40 were suddenly in it, high up, and actually on the radio and TV!!!
So I loved all the usual suspects but particularly all the ex- Purple bands - Rainbow, Whitesnake, Gillan. First gig was Whitesnake in 1980 at the Glasgow Apollo. They were magnificent! This was long before the big hair days of 1987, and they were just a brilliant band.
I recently made up a CD for the car containing the following:
Rainbow - All Night Long, Since You Been Gone
Whitesnake - Fool for your Loving, Don't Break My Heart Again
UFO - Doctor Doctor, Lights Out
Rush - Spirit of Radio.
and many more.
I hadn't listened to any of these tracks for at least 10 years.
I think I was inspired to do this by watching School of Rock. These tracks are just great fun, and it's hardly out of the car's CD player.
Happy days!
A fine line between clever and stupid...
and an equally fine one between bluesy/heavy rock and metal.
The former includes ZZ Top, AC/DC, Zeppelin, Free etc; beloved by many metal fans but not strictly kosher.
The real stuff could be anyone whose lyrical content concerns aliens/sword and sorcery/being "hot for teacher"/in league with the devil/rolling like a night train/girls girls girls.
I still enjoy Van Halen's early output and some of the early Megadeth/Anthrax/Suicidal Tendencies stuff but the rest? I could cheerfully live out my days without ever clapping ears again.
Useful distinction
I was reading this thread thinking the same thing - the early bands - as Pete says, yer Purples, Zeps, Free, Rainbow, even TYA etc came out of the heavy rock blues thing whereas I think the later mob came from pop/glam and consequently were much more into the flamboyant presentational side of things. Probably Van Halen got it right for me. The other hair mob were funny but not interesting musically. That movie about the LA heavy metal scene in the 80s (something or other Part 2 - part 1 was about punk) was hilarious.
Films
Ah yes, the Decline of Western Civilization series. There's also a third part, but none are available on DVD, which is criminal. The scene in Part II where W*A*S*P's Chris Holmes is interviewed drunk in a swimming pool with his mother forlornly looking on is forever etched in my brain.
Another metal movie mutha™: Heavy Metal Parking Lot
That's the one
That's it! The Chris Holmes scene was great - where he pours a whole bottle of vodka down the neck whilst floating in a pool chair fully leathered up! I wonder what happened to him?
Surely the ultimate metal movie. . .
Is Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. I knew nothing about them before I saw it and by the time it was over I knew more than I wished I knew, but in the meantime, oh, how we laughed.
Somehow I don't think Rob Halford's feelings for the young lass
are quite so strong. His bones remain unjumped by her, methinks.
I Used To Buy Kerrrrrrrrrrrang
Not so much meta, but I flirted with the following as a teenager and still enjoy a blast of the following now and again, or at parties; Whitesnake (new album sounds pretty good, from what I've heard) Rainbow, The Dan Reed Network (remember them), Living Colour (amazing live), Little Angels (Scarborough band), Jethro Tull, UFO, Iron Maiden,FM, Van Halen, David Lee Roth (his Skyscraper album still sounds brill), Kings X (powerful trio with lovely harmonies) All pretty safe stuff;I suppose I should include Marillion who always appeared in all the Heavy Metal mags, but were never a metal band.
Tull? Metal?
Not in a million years.
Grammy
Ian Anderson pointed out at the recent gig I went to that hilariously they won the heavy rock/metal band grammy for "Crest of a knave" - in his words "what the hell, if they're handing out Grammys they might as well give us one even if we are actually a folk/rock band".
The Tull...
...put out an advert after that bizarre Grammy win that had a picture of a flute with the brilliant caption 'the flute is a heavy, metal instrument'! I seem to remember reading Ian Anderson poking fun at Metallica's petulance at losing that award, saying something like 'bless their little spandex shorts' too...
I don't ever think it's been easy to pigeonhole Jethro Tull as being any one genre though.
After years of listening to chart-pop pap...
... it was Faith No More's 'The Real Thing' (courtesy of a school friend) that put me on the track to 'proper' music. It never really got me into other metal music, rather oddly...
Metal Genres Explained
No idea where this came from (and I salute whoever created it) but it should explain a lot...
The story is, there's a beautiful princess trapped in a castle guarded by a dragon. This is how the story would play out, depending on the metal genre of the knight:
POWER METAL: The protagonist arrives riding a white unicorn, escapes from the dragon, saves the princess and makes love to her in an enchanted forest.
THRASH METAL: The protagonist arrives, fights the dragon, saves the princess and f--ks her.
HEAVY / CLASSIC METAL: The protagonist arrives on a Harley, kills the dragon, drinks a few beers and f--ks the princess.
FOLK METAL: The protagonist arrives with some friends playing accordions, violins, flutes and many more weird instruments, the dragon falls sleep (because of all the dancing). Then they all leave without the princess.
VIKING METAL: The protagonist arrives in a ship, kills the dragon with his mighty axe, skins the dragon and eats it, rapes the princess to death, steals her belongings and burns the castle before leaving.
DEATH METAL: The protagonist arrives, kills the dragon, f--ks the princess and kills her, then leaves.
BLACK METAL: The protagonist arrives at midnight, kills the dragon and impales it in front of the castle. Then he sodomises the princess, and drinks her blood in a ritual before killing her. Then he impales the princess next to the dragon.
GORE: The protagonist arrives, kills the dragon and spreads its guts in front of the castle, f--ks the princess and kills her. Then he f--ks the dead body again, slashes her belly and eats her guts. Then he f--ks the carcass for the third time, burns the corpse and f--ks it for the last time.
DOOM: The protagonist arrives, sees the size of the dragon and thinks he could never beat him, then he gets depressed and commits suicide. The dragon eats his body and the princess as dessert. That's the end of the sad story.
PROGRESSIVE (PROG) METAL: The protagonist arrives with a guitar and plays a solo of 26 minutes. The dragon kills himself out of boredom. The protagonist arrives at the princess' bedroom, plays another solo with all the techniques and tunes he learned in the last year at the conservatory. The princess escapes looking for the HEAVY METAL protagonist."
I was thoroughly metal
aged 13. Maiden, Kiss, Def Leppard and Motorhead patches, ripped up jeans, the works; taking a ghetto blaster down the "rec" and moshing was the escapist activity of choice in the middle England market town where I grew up. I was Beavis (or was it Butthead)? And as my tastes got "Peelified" through my teens then "mainstreamed" later on, I have never really lost my affection for the genre, its fans and its aesthetic.
As it happens, the promo of a new "best of 80s Iron Maiden" album dropped through the letterbox yesterday, and silly though it is, the playing and structures still give me tingles. Listening to 'Powerslave' (my absolute favourite way back when) now, I was surprised to discover how close in sound it is to the Dead Kennedys. I remain an unashamed fan, too, of Ver Priest - though not so much that I can't laugh my head off at the classic 'Heavy Metal Parking Lot' documentary film, which presents the Priest fans of Maryland in all their moronic glory.
I'm very fond of the heavier end too - I've seen Slayer twice and Napalm Death once (yes I know they are something of a pariah in this parish, especially following the 'Cider With Roadies' incident, but they are about much more than just the 3-second-songs silliness of the 80s, and if you can ignore the militant hessian-eating politics, are sonically and structurally amazingly sophisticated) in the past 3 or 4 years, and I regularly buy Terrorizer mag with its monthly covermount CD to keep up with what a world of weirdos are up to. Several of the wonderful bands in the 'Progspawn' feature (see The Word passim) I would never have stumbled across without that regular eduction - e.g. the Julian Cope-friendly Japanese likes of Boris and Acid Mothers Temple.
At the other end of the scale, I never stopped loving AOR / Glam / Hair Metal either - I say without a quantum of irony that 'Appetite For Destruction' would be one of my desert island discs, and I direct readers to the "drunk pub singalong classics" discussion of last week for the value of records like Poison's 'Unskinny Bop', anything by Bon Jovi, 'More Than A Feeling', 'Cold As Ice', 'Since You Been Gone', 'School's Out', 'Crazy Crazy Nights'....
AOR
Good shout for AOR, Joe. Funnily enough I found a vinyl copy of Foreigner 4 yesterday, and briefly toyed with the idea of buying it. Journey are surely the undisputed kings of this sub-genre though? I don't care how often Mark Radcliffe slates them on his R2 show, he's simply WRONG on this one. Infinity/Escape/Frontiers/Raised On Radio are superb albums.
AOR...
...Journey are indeed the best of that genre, IMHO- never liked anything after and including 'Raised On Radio', which I found to be way, way too slick for a band that DID manage to do some pretty decent pieces of heavy rock on the previous albums.
Of the UK bands I like Magnum and even some Asia too, but the rest of the genre generally doesn't do much for me- bands like Foreigner ('Cold As Ice', 'Starrider', 'Waiting For A Girl Like You' etc.), Boston (the first side of that Boston debut is great) and Toto ('Hold The Line', 'Africa', 'I Won't Hold You Back'...that's about it!) really only managed a handful of songs I like. I had the first three Toto albums a while back and I thought they were pretty bad, to be frank, save the one classic 'Hold The Line'.
The spirit of metal...
Tommy
and Fluff.
This thread was incomplete. Now it isn't.
.... and for those in the Central Belt of Scotland
... we had Tom Russell's Radio Clyde show right after Tommy Vance. Also Jay Crawford's "Edinburgh Rock" and Dave Stewart's "Hot Tracks" on Radio Forth.
Had to be done.
Anyone?
I wonder what the track was Fluff refers to as the 'most exquisite' he's ever heard.
Probably...
something by Emerson, Lake and Palmer!
Oh for anyone of a prog bent
up for something a bit bracing, I highly recommend The Meads Of Asphodel - http://www.themeadsofasphodel.com - who are definitely to the more "extreme" end of metal, yet are rich with melodies... and feature several ex Hawkwind personnel!
the past is another country
I have a (very) metal past but, in no way do I think of it as dodgy
Sometimes I have to put up with...
UFO, Queensryche and Scorpions if I haven't put on my "obscure" CDs as he cites them. Obscure...they are from The Word Magazine???
Hmmm....shall I put on some Iron Maiden or some Extreme Noise Terror, Lawnmower Death ("Suffer You" is one of my favourites)or anything from the Earache record label just to keep him happy? Or Metallica, Megadeath, etc.
More recently I've been listening to VAST and Idiot Pilot.
I remember one of my former ex-friends introducing his local radio show (after a charity appeal for the hearing impaired) saying the following announcement "And now for the musical tone deaf...Motorhead!"
I have a few "heavy" and "hard" rock albums in the deepest bowels of my music collection.
Oh yes, Black Mountain are currently heading for one of my picks of the year, an absolute stormer.
TV on the radio on Friday night in the 80s!
Rock on!
Undisputable...
surely everyone knows that the true kings of metal are venom...?
that's...
Black Metal
Yeah, Northampton'll do this
Yeah, Northampton'll do this to you. When I was a kid, we all had to listen to Raging Speedhorn and Defenestration. Those were dark times. Then I found proper music like.... Rush, actually.
"Two guitarists stand at either end of the Large Hadron Collider and simultaneously play a power chord, known in musicologist circles as an Ascending Hadron. These chords are not played on a traditional guitar but instead on a specially modified cello."
I LOVE YOU.
NO REMORSE (great album title eh?)
My provincial town was the south london suburban sprawl. I'm now approaching 43 and still wondering if I'll ever reach 25 years old in my head.
My regular rock club was Del Stevens Heavy Metal RoadShow on a friday night in Downham, even the RoadRats + Angels mixed (not very well I admit)and yes I spent saturdays hanging out in my local record store (Saxon quote?) ... DJ Discs in West Wickham before lunch ... and that wonderful emporium of delights and cyncism - Beanos in Croydon.
I guess I was lucky to work with some ex-BBC Engineers one of whom was proud to have introduced Fluff to ELP: they were so chuffed too, they even got him to announce them to the crowd (the festival that pre-dated Reading Rock). This guy ( Hi Mick) opened my ears to West Bruce & Laing amongst others - I realise now, I'm older than he was when we first met and he still hasn't grown up either! Metal WILL keep you young.
Despite an early indoctrination to Hawkwind at age 9, care of Family Favourites (BFPO Requests anyone?)I really bit hard on the bluesier side... although I worshipped at the altar of NWOBHM and took Kerrang from issue 1, as Sounds dried up and my mates went Mod/Punk I stayed true to form with my AD&D pals - eventually getting to gigs at the Hammy Odeon once I had a salary+transport.
Anybody else still horde all their ticket stubs?
And while we're all raking the names I'll add a personal fave - Dumpys Rusty Nuts ... well they supported Venom on their 7th Date of Hell gig .... still looking for the video - I need to see the ceiling burnt by the big flamethrowers just once more before I die!
It's only since the interweb became affordable to those of us supporting families that I've managed to track down old favourites ...much of my vinyl was warped on cheap decks assuming it survived "those parties" - ah the innocence of youth! Anyway there are some great sites out there and I'd recommend the multiply.com communities to all of you too.
Rock On :)
Lemmy Memory
197?, HMV next door to Birmingham Odeon, a Saturday, picking a poster to adorn the bedroom wall. In walks Lemmy. They are playing that night, we have tickets. The 'Bomber' tour, largest front moving truss thing to be used on tour at that time (so the myth goes). If certainly was amazing to behold when the lights started flashing and the 'bomber' took to the skies!! Anyway, I buy the poster and cheekily ask for an autograph. Not a problem, and would we like to get the set. So we follow him out of the shop and down the alley next door, where the coaches always parked. Onto the bus to meet 'Fast' Eddie and Phil(thy animal) Taylor.
We were there only a minute or so, enough to say hello, and be dumbstruck in that teenage 'this is unreal' way. Left a lifelong impression though. Top blokes.
A phase? Definitely. Now I listen pretty much exclusively to stuff written pre-1977, and country. The latter bit is explained much more eloquently by Bob Lefsetz, whose site you should all visit and subscribe (free) to, and I quote....
"Maybe this is the power of country music. While the urban stars on Top Forty radio are urging the audience to pay attention to them, to realize how fucking great they are, better than the listener, the country acts are saying I'm just like you. Come on, that's part of Kenny Chesney's appeal...he's just a good ole' boy. Just like you."
This is how I feel about country music now, that is how I felt about heavy metal then. Thank you Bob. Thank you Lemmy.
School bag
David's comments on the Podcast about adorning school bags with band names reminds me of one chap at our school in about 1983. Being a fan of Gillan he grabbed a biro and set to work. Unfortunately, English wasn't his best subject.
Not long after, someone took a look at the bag and asked, "who's GILLIAN?".
The last time I heard of him was on Friend's Reunited, where in the intervening 25 years, his life highlight had been, 'winning a tenner on the Lottery'.