I already whetted your whistle with a juicy little aperitif about a crazy experience that opened up my musical obsessions and now I'm sure you'd like to know just what is so special about these two bands: The Parlour Band and their later incarnation A Band Called O/O/The O Band.
-The Parlour Band-
The Parlour Band formed in the early 1970s in Jersey in the Channel Islands when keyboards man/lead singer Peter Filleul (pronounced FILL YOU) was looking for an outlet for some songs he was writing. Most of these songs were in a gentle melodic folkrock pop style with progressive leanings which makes it an interesting thing that for these songs the band was formed when he joined forces with a local hard rock band. The line up settled around Filleul, "Wah-Wah" Guitarist/vocalist Pix, guitarist/vocalist Craig Anders, Bass playing brother of Craig Mark who also on this one album sang harmony vocals, and drummer Jerry Robbins. They started adapting their different musical approaches and were very much a progressive band minus the pretentiousness that was making for a lot of dire music in Mainland England at that time. To further set them apart Pete's compositions had strong late 60s pop psych influences and the band's driving instrumental sound based on layers and layers of richness led to a brilliant unique music that may have been hard to produce live, but sure was impressive when they made their sole long player IS A FRIEND?.
A complete polar opposite practically to The O Band The Parlour Band had one very bad thing in common- a rather strange and none-too-fitting-of-the-music name. The O Band actually sounds good even if it was meant to give the band no name at all but the letter O and a zero, but The Parlour Band was a name wrong enough to seal the fate of the group. Still some dealers use the word "folk" with this album and I can't help but think that's the fault of their name. Certainly lazy Canterbury legends Caravan who were at an artistic peak in 1972 must have wondered about this strange little band who were opening for them...
Deram, label of Caravan, Honeybus, World Of Oz, Mellow Candle, and some other legends, signed The Parlour Band and during Christmas of 1971 the group went into the studio and commenced work on what would turn out to be perhaps the highest level progressive pop psych record ever. Peter Filleul made tasteful use of a Fender Rhodes and added to that organ, acoustic piano, and at the end of the album a mellotron. The songs definitely sound like jamming and experimenting with fresh new ideas was at a high and you shouldn't believe all you hear about this record- it ain't as soft as a lot of dealers say it is. In fact, the opening track "Forgotten Dreams" is an all out rocker with heavy bashing organ and just as heavy guitars forming a complex monolithic backdrop for some very appealing smooth melodic vocals. The next two tracks "Pretty Haired Girl" and "Spring's Sweet Comfort" are full of beautiful melodies, soaring vocals, and a softer sound that manages to not be quite introspective or quite out front. These songs let you relax and turn on to a melodic band with a rich tapestry of sounds coming from multilayered dreamy guitars, vocals, and keyboards. Camel might be a good point of reference or Fantasy of Paint A Picture and Beyond The Beyond fame, but there's something unique about The Parlour Band. Instead of completely drifting off to it your attention is always on how the songs have a moving flow to them occasionally interrupted by some quiet intensity that would make Danny Kirwan period Fleetwood Mac the closest comparison. "Early Morning Eyes" has always reminded me of a very strange paring indeed- Uriah Heep meets Fairport Convention! You probably won't even see where I'm coming from or will you? Again the vocals soar and are fresh, translucent, and very good with Filleul's crystal clear lead topped by amazing harmonies. Pix plays a consistently heavy guitar throughout the bouncy number not letting it drift at an easy pace too often- instead that easy pace is split wide open by unexpected moments of intensity.
The Parlour Band for a band together almost less than a year play like seasoned professionals. They would be just as tight and disciplined when they became The O Band and it seems a pity that they didn't get to be like a British Toto as star players on sessions later on. They really could have spiced up any number of bands and artists who needed spicing up.
"Follow Me" is the track that ends Side One and it's probably one of the mellowest tracks here- leaning towards a kind of pop psych/folkrock sound that is very 1960s British sounding with American Westcoast influences. Despite the very British nature of much of the material on offer this band were always big on the vibrations coming from across the Atlantic. The most shocking moment on the album is saved for the first track on Side Two the unrepresentatively menacing "Evening." Pix takes his first ever recorded lead vocal and steals the song. When playing this to everyone back in high school and since the majestic Freddie Mercury is who comes to mind with everyone as a comparison. Not bad for a first ever recorded lead vocal! We'd see later on how superb a voice Pix has, but this is his one moment for his crystal larynx to shine on The Parlour Band. The lyrics are dark, abstract, full of imagery that is in stark contrast to other images in the song, and military percussion drives along the storming guitar/organ passages. This song is though very different from the rest of the album a song that fits perfectly as the contrasting styles of music between hard and soft rock are at a creative peak on "Evening." The hardest song on the album is followed by the softest- the lovely floating ballad "Don't Be Sad." Sweet but not icky sweet vocals, dreamy Fender Rhodes, and flowing gentle guitars dominate this very nice track which like much of the album should have been a single, but to my knowledge no singles were tapped from the record!
"Little Goldie" is a song built around jazz chords and a vibe similar to the American band Love- an influence that shines through on much of this album, but an influence probably in the subconcious. The obvious influences though are American bands and British bands of the 60s with early 70s progressive inclinations. "Little Goldie" is again a soft track that brings to mind Todd Rundgren's most melodic early masterpieces as well as Carole King during her Tapestry period- again more American comparisons. The song is full of expert playing and the Anders brothers are superb on this track along with through the whole album. Craig Anders was the virtuoso musician in both bands and this would lead to an increasing rivalry between him and Pix. Pix should not be overlooked as he is a dynamic brilliant guitar player and as with their later recordings the two of them may not have gotten along, but they needed each other. "To Happiness" lets everyone in the band sound great. Pix is raw and punchy, Craig is understated and majestic, Mark Anders plays a great bass line, and the vocals are first
class.
With a perfect album there has to be a perfect closing track. The over 7 minute suite "Home" is it. A song about Northern Ireland and a soldier's departure to the war and then his ebullient return home is the subject matter, but it could be an anthem for a soldier and his loved one in any war. The lyrics are very opaque, understated, and tasteful. They are at complete odds with the pious, pretentious, boring lyrics of worthless bands like Dear Mr. Time and the worst band ever Deep Feeling. While the former wrote a whole album of grim songs about death and the latter made that worse by throwing the blood and guts in this is as far from that as you can get. Sometimes I forget that prog rock can have a soul as much as I love it. "Home" is perfect prog, There's more Queen vibes coming into play, much excellent playing from the group in more of a rhythmical sense, and Peter Filleul's beautiful voice is particularly attractive here. For sophisticated and perfect, brilliant progressive pop psych look no further than IS A FRIEND? as this is the great masterpiece of them all. It's a splendid piece of work- somewhere between Honeybus and Northwind in some ways yet with very much its own sound.
Unfortunately, Deram and parent label Decca showed no interest at all in The Parlour Band. No promotion was undertaken by their label, the tour didn't go so well for either them or Caravan, and no sooner had they made their masterpiece than differences of what direction the band should go in began to show. Filleul had always been at odds with the other members wanting to go for a harder rock sound, but he stayed on and the only replacement made was Derek Ballard taking over from Jerry Robbins on drums. Soon the band really began to have issues with their label and in late 1973 they signed with CBS and with a name change to A Band Called O.
-A Band Called O-
Filleul was pushed into the background whilst Pix took over the band. His more rock oriented vocal approach would serve as a blueprint for the later AOR movement in the States, but far from being a superb debut by this band with a different name the first A Band Called O record was not too impressive overall. The image had changed to tough guys in blue on the front cover and the sound had changed to melodic somewhat harder rock, but the songs just weren't the kind of greatness they'd follow this album up with. It doesn't help to start off with Steve Marriott's low-point in the low Humble Pie done in a horrid version of "Red Light Momma Red Hot." Pix tries too hard to sound sexy, the horn charts are not needed, and the song just like the boring original goes nowhere. There are some good moments on the self-titled first A Band Called O record, but Filleul couldn't adapt to the changes and the rest of the band were still struggling to perfect their new identity. Don't be taken aback by this mediocre record- much, much, much better was to come!
Pete would stay on for one more album and what an album! Despite a horrible, tasteless, and Spinal Tap level trashy laugh riot cover OASIS their second record with the changeover is as classy, professional, rocking, fun, and amazing as the cover is not. Now Pete was hardly writing at all, but he used the synthesizer and his other keyboard arsenal to great effect while Pix and Craig Anders showed they could jam, rock, and weave around each other like nobody's business. The songs are all fantastic. "Amovin'" gets things off to a great start with Pix sounding like a better vocalist than anybody else around. Really, it was Pix's strong, confident, melodic voice that would shape this new band with a new sound along with the expert level playing of all involved. A Band Called O didn't have any more problems with songwriting or performances, but unfortunately for them they were pretty far ahead of their time in a way that would be more shocking than record selling. In fact, they can't be blamed for their poor album sales it's the various labels that should be held accountable. From Deram to CBS to United Artists complete lack of label support would be one key factor to the unraveling that took place. CBS/Epic did nothing to promote an album of what should have been one hit single after another. Remember this was 1975 and as close as "Fine White Wine" sounds to Steve Perry Journey had barely even begun let alone found Steve Perry. The influences are the same- Sam Cooke and a whole lot of melodic voiced soul singers taken into easy, comfortable, melodic solid strong rock. The major differences between Pix and Perry would be that Pix is a bit less strident and his approach also a bit more "Get Down and Get Dirty" if you know what I mean- raunchier perhaps. This album is stunning. Songs like "Sleeping" show a more progressive, spacier, more epic side to the band while much of the rest is made up of rocking tracks that give all of the band members a chance to prove their point. OASIS is an album that belongs in every collection- a milestone.
-O/The O Band-
Just when it should have been looking up for A Band Called O things got even worse for them. Filleul decided to leave the band and CBS dropped them from their roster. Not about to let either problem deter or discontinue them former Alan Bown Set and session player Jeff Bannister was brought in on keyboards and Jeff's funky approach actually fit in much better than the uncomfortable position that Pete had been placed in. Now changing their moniker to just the letter "O" and signing with United Artists it looked like the band were set to break through in a big way with 1976's near perfect WITHIN REACH. Only one song shouldn't have been on the album- the somewhat distracted and lazy sounding "Lucia Loser" which did get the band into a bit of press trouble with its overtly sexual lyrics, but the rest showed the band on top of their game. The opening track "A Smile Is Diamond" Pix and I immediately clicked on as the peak of their career. This haunting, driving, miraculous, exotic sounding, seductive song is a real diamond itself- a gem of mid 70s melodic progressive rock that features the kind of contrasting and quality of The Parlour Band with Pix fitting into his Steve Perry meets Steve Marriott vocal perfection at the highest level he'd ever reach. I love Journey, I love Steve Perry, but he never could sing Tough. Pix can sing like one Tough guy. Now the image was much darker and a complete change from the friendly Parlour Band. The O Band now were playing melodic strong rock and roll with seamlessly winding around each other jamming guitars, Mark Anders laying down a killer bass, and Derek Ballard a rock solid drummer. Jeff Bannister's two contributions "Long Long Way" and "Paradise Blue" are amazing songs and he fit in perfectly to the group. The liveliness of this record makes you want to get up and dance to it. You feel like partying and having a good time. Finally, The O Band had some real artistic freedom. They even got a tasteful album cover out of it! Their popularity as a knock-you-cold live act was blossoming and it's unbelievable that the end and their final destruction were near in sight. WITHIN REACH is how the band would like to sound. They had found a perfect balance between OASIS and what would come on their last long player THE KNIFE, but again the record label just didn't give a fuck about them.
Drugs and alcohol abuse had always been a problem for Pix especially, but the whole band began to get high all the time when things continued to get worse and worse. They were a professional rock band who should have been huge, but the continuing frustration of apathetic record executives, changing musical times, and Pix going completely off the rails with substance abuse were about to all add up to something that began as a joke and ended up being one of the final nails in their creative coffin. THE KNIFE showed the band to have no control over a very disturbing looking album cover, but Pix had too much control over the title track. He said he was a nonviolent person and he didn't appreciate the way people turned him into some sort of a demon over "The Knife" which would sort of be a centerpiece of the album, but his idea of a joke was most people's idea of an outrage. Pix had tried all kinds of drugs, he was hooked on everything. When I knew him he was still always hitting the alcohol and over half the times we talked he was drunk. Even when drunk, he was a really good person and I know that Pix wasn't as malevolent as the image that "The Knife" would paint of him. When we broke up I was so heartbroken I cried. It was his closed minded power mad wife that ended our friendship for good, but for Pix he'd go off to Spain and wish to forget some of the past, mainly this record. I have to differ from him about THE KNIFE. It just may be their best record of all after the changeover and the whole atmosphere of the record is that The O Band had a lot of fight left in them. They would have enough fuel in their fire to produce an excellent hard edged rock album. They would also record for the first and last time in their career two superb cover versions in Randy California's "Look To The Left Look To The Right," but especially their Hollies/Badfinger take on John Fogerty's "Almost Saturday Night" is mindblowing. It may look like a band is running out of musical ammunition when they begin an album with two covers, but nothing could be more untrue. As all the original material here proves a kind of grittiness and get down raunchy rock sound mixed with very progressive leanings would make their last album among the best releases of the mid 70s. "I'm Gonna Leave You" is again in that Steve Perry but tougher mode with excellent vocals from Pix, great harmonies, and fine ensemble playing. "Strange Lovin'" is celebratory, let-it-all-hang-out rock with great Gospel inflected backing vocals, and Side One's closer "Back Alley Lightning" may sound a good deal like their favourite band Little Feat, but this is much better.
Side Two is a whole different thing altogether. Now times were rapidly becoming bad for a rock band with punk becoming more popular and to trash all the rubbish that was coming out Pix had written a rather naughty, risque lyric for the album's title track and the rest of the band pounced on it with intentions of turning the whole thing into a concept side. This was not what Pix had intended, and I also don't think he had a clue just how far he had gone when he wrote the lyrics to "The Knife." Side Two begins and ends with two Craig Anders masterpieces the moody "Time Seems To Fly" and the heavily progressive King Crimson influenced "Venus Avenue" which features astonishing use of strings. Pix sings his heart out, but under very difficult circumstances. His mother had just died and obnoxiously he had been dragged into the studio by the rest of the band and the co Producer (this brilliant Del Newman) to do the vocals with no time for him to get over his painful loss. Maybe that's why his voice on these two tracks is plaintive and mournful. It's anything but that on "The Knife."
"The Knife" in graphic detail is an over 8 minute account of a wild street boy named Jimmy who has a spoiled rich girlfriend named Nicky and who has just made two very bad mistakes- he's bought a knife and taken Methedrine- otherwise known as Speed. Pix fills you in that Jimmy is sometimes a bit on the tense and "tight kind of brittle" side to make a direct quote and that he has told Nicky that he wants to fuck her. When she takes him home Jimmy is so wasted that he can't get an erection. The music becomes ominous while Pix digs into his best Lou Reed impersonation and does a shocking voice over:
"Well now Jimmy slowly turned his head his mouth was dry his eyes were red/And dreams he never dreamt he'd dream come slithering sniggering obscene/He watched her....."
The music slows and slows down and then settles into a menacing pace while the backing vocals again are Nicky mocking Jimmy right at the wrong moment with "Jimmy Jimmy what's in your head/You told me you wanted it that's what you said yeah yeah/Jimmy Jimmy I thought you were hot what's the matter sweetheart some kind of mental block?" Not wise words.
Then it all explodes with the second and final spoken part from Pix:
"Well she ran her finger down his back until she reached the part he lacked/Hey the King is dead long live the King she said and tried a little head quite useless/And then she sighed in sweet surprise as something hard but cold and sharp now occupied the space between her thighs"
Then comes the heavy breathing and slow build up. Then Pix ominously shouts "Here's Something For You Off The Wrist He Said And Gave The Blade A Twist!" Then the chorus is repeated and all Hell breaks loose again. Jeff Bannister merely makes Pix's concept song stick out like a signpost stating "We Really Want To Get A Lot Of Negative Attention" on "Got To Run" where the violent lyrics continue. "I've Got To Run I've Got To Run/I'll Find A Gun" to "I Take My Hat Off To That Phony Bitch/Her Blood Ran Silver And It's Made Me Rich."
I'm not making any of these lines up. The song "The Knife" does make me laugh it's so over the top and tasteless, but a joke about a guy who goes crazy and rapes his girlfriend with a knife combined with the scary looking cover- it can only spell one thing- it's the end. The crowd's reaction to the song the first time they played it was enough to make Pix miserable, but the ending of The O Band was a dragged out year of misery where everything fell apart and tempers flared about who was to blame for the band's demise. Pix had a horrible time accepting that Punk had killed his dreams. The whole band should have gone on, but they'd in some ways dug their own grave with their last album. It's a great record, an amazing record, but whether you find his joke funny is a whole other matter. I do because I know he's not being completely serious and because it's so stupid, but you have to really just think of things in a different perspective like I do when I play it. It certainly isn't as scary as the album looks. Punk was a lot scarier and it was the death of The O Band. Ironically, their new Heavy Metal image just given a little bit more time would have saved them, but they broke up early in 1978 a near decade's worth of dreams of stardom unfulfilled. Do not ever forgive the record companies for what they did to one of the greatest bands ever to come out during the sometimes exciting sometimes sickening 70s. This band is all that rock and roll should be.
It's sad that it ended on such a hard note for The O Band, but the music never dies and so all I have to do is put their brilliant music as The Parlour Band, A Band Called O, O, and The O Band on to celebrate it and relive some of the happiest times of my life. To the musicians involved in both bands and especially for the brilliance of The Parlour Band many, many, thanks and rock on!
Monday, April 16, 2012
Monday, April 9, 2012
DREAMS, REALITIES, AND DISCOVERY THE O BAND/PARLOUR BAND SAGA IN FULL
This is going to be a crazy, intense, emotional, powerful, completely unbelievable story, but every word of it is true!
This really should have been one of my first blogs. In here and in great detail you will discover the band that opened every door for me and led to my obsession of record collecting. That band would be one of the few bands ever to come out of The Channel Islands (namely Guernsey/Jersey) A Band Called O- Known to me as The O Band- the name they finally settled on for their final opus 1977's THE KNIFE.
The tale begins with a dream and then moves into a deja vu experience in January of 1990 which changed my life forever. Fast backwards to 1988/1989 or even before that. My first experience with The O Band that led to the dream I had in 1988 is the haziest part of my story here. I think they were referred to in a stupid anti-Drug Anti-Rock And Roll film from the 70s a cop showed to us when we were in school and I was really young or that I saw THE KNIFE years and years ago in a record store in a local shopping mall when I was about 5. Since I can't verify which beginning is true, but that something had to lead to the riveting I had when I was 13 I'll skip ahead to the facts.
Prelude To Mania- A School from Hell and A Trip To Hell
When I was 12 years old I had already gone through a half year of torture at the middle school and had been thrown into one of the most evil places in the world which at that time was located in Wayne New Jersey- a school for kids with "special learning needs" called Center School. I still have nightmares about the evil abuse that went on towards me and other kids then, but one of the very most memorable experiences was one of their zillion psychological torture experiments on us. This one was one of the scariest. I was unpopular. I was pint sized. I was sensitive, but I claimed to be a heavy metal headbanger. I had struck up a friendship with a few other kids and I can remember me and Tom, another intelligent boy at that time, feeling a lot of fear as the bus roamed ominously from Wayne on a dark and cold day in Fall to a grim and terrifying "Drug Rehabilitation Center." Now, was this trip about educating a bunch of young kids about the perils of drug abuse? No way in Hell. It was done to ABUSE US. The outside of the huge building looked like a gigantic Gothic mausoleum and the inside was dirty, cold, miserable, and still springs to mind when I listen to David Bowie's "All The Madmen." This wasn't a place people went to get cured. It was a place people went to die and/or lose their sanity completely. Tom and I were speechless for awhile after we left, but we both gave killing glances at the demonic Mrs. Carlson, the most evil teacher I ever had in all my years at school. Soon Tom and I were talking on the bus. We knew exactly what she/them had pulled over on us.
A Night Of Revelation- The Prophetic Dream-
I went to bed not so easy that night after the day of our horrific experience at the drug and destruction center. That night I had a recurring dream, but it was the first time I'd have it and the really life-changing important time I'd have it. The dream centered around a band that were infamous and dangerous called Opium first, then The Occult Band, and then when they really did their act of damage The 'O' Band (that's right, now read more!). All incarnations of the band were fronted by a Scottish eccentric named Frankenson Oswald who after a witch hunt against his band had first retired to the English countryside and then had run a large record album warehouse business. I was a little older in this dream than 12, but maybe just a few years. I was walking down a road somewhere out in the middle of a very desolate, unpopulated place and there hadn't been a sign of anything but the road for a good 2 miles. Soon a building appeared in the distance and a big black car. The building was modern and unattractive, and the car made its way down to where I was. The car pulled up to the side of the road and a man with long reddish hair, a big grin, and all black clothes including a decorated robe smiled and asked "Need a ride, boy? Hey, come talk to me, come inside, name's Frankenson. Frankenson Oswald. I'm from Scotland or you may say North England." He looked a bit sinister, but a seductively warm glow filtered through his face and his friendly manner. I got inside and asked him what he did for a living. "I own that building up the road and a few others They're record warehouses where I store old used records, but all in very good condition. I used to be a really hard rocker, but those days are long gone. My kind of music isn't too popular anymore. I'm a 70s man! Grew up on soul, though, my fave's James Brown." He started to talk to me about his past and invited me for dinner. As Opium the band were named after his drug of choice and were a strange group to be sure. A band with two of everything except a lead singer- the former soul and R&B singer Frankenson had a powerful voice that could already with just one of him equal about 5 frontmen! He kept mentioning the deaths of some of the band members he played with and an album in the warehouse called THE KNIFE that destroyed him, but that was later on. Opium were a heavy progressive/psychedelic band who built their reputation around long compositions and a loud, powerful, all-encompassing sound with anti Christian lyrics. Frankenson had a distaste for Christianity that came from a very stern upbringing that made him revolt against organized religion from an early age. Their lyrics were crazed flights of fancy and so were their compositions and a manic stage show. They made two albums- the self-titled first catered to more of a club/soul psychedelic freakout sound whilst their magnum opus was a double album called COLLISEUM (their spelling not mine). This record had an ominous enough cover, but nothing was close to the music. The band were out there, there was no denying that. Frankenson was a very control oriented guy, but once the group made an album of jazzy influenced psychedelia under the name The Occult Band he lost control. We made it to the building by now and I was soon inside. I was thumbing through record after nonexistent in real life record. Then I chanced upon the forbidden record. The one that he had warned me about. The front cover showed a dark black background with manic swerves of a car and a lunatic across it and a huge foreboding white mansion with a younger Frankenson all contorted and in a black robe holding a sharp dagger. At the top of the cover in Gothic lettering was written in white THE 'O' BAND. At the bottom it said in the same Gothic type THE KNIFE. I was already feeling a bit concerned about what this album might contain. Then I turned the cover over. On the back was a flight of stairs with the knife covered in blood on them and in blood coloured lettering were the song titles and a quote that said "He Didn't Tell Her He Was High/She Forgot To Tell Him Not To Come/He Tried And Tried And Tried/He Blew It." The title track seemed to be just the centerpiece of a truly evil album, an album that after it's release saw Oswald vanish after two of the band members died. I was curious though, and he took me to a beautiful house that was one of two he had in the States. He refused to let me listen to the album alone. We dined on a brilliant Indian food feast together and then made our way to his tastefully furnished living room where he took out an old record player, plugged it in, and put the record on. Right from the beginning this was scary shit. It had a dark menacing organ sound, slashing fuzz guitars, all manner of crazed effects, and Frankenson Oswald yowling like a mad dog at the moon. The quiet parts were even scarier, full of real dread and depression evoking parallels with an off-the-deep-end Doors. The title track came on at the start of Side Two. All Hell broke loose. I was screaming for him to turn it off it was so terrifying and I collapsed on the floor. He took the record off and tended to me. "Why did I have to do that!? I still regret ever having a hand in anything that horrifying! How could I have lost it that much!? Don't worry, I'm better now, I learned my lesson, but I learned it the hardest way there could be. At the cost of two friends and bandmates to violent drug induced deaths. We did some really stupid things back then. Shall we go back to a happier subject and have dessert? I'll even let you have some very good sweet wine" this gentleman rocker said. He took the record and smashed it. I sat down at the table again with him and I asked him why he was so nice to me. "You're a young kid. You're a good kid. You've had it rough I can tell. A real load of bad luck has befallen you, but fear not I'll stand up for you. I'll look after you. I'll be your friend and a better friend you can't find."After a brief flashback to all the records he made especially THE KNIFE and his coming to terms with a dark past the dream ended. I woke up in the morning feeling rather strange. Rather high and didn't want to go to school even more than the day before.
-Falling Out with Metal 1989- The Deja Vu January 1990-
Heavy metal interest ended for me in the fall of 1989. That was with current "metal" and I would still for awhile love the older music which was what I cherished the most, but my hatred of all current metal can be summed up in two simple instances both involving two bastards who are still friends with each other and still active- Axl Rose and Sebastian Bach. In 1988 I loved Guns And Roses. I never owned the record, but Appetite For Destruction was undeniably quite a record. They were edgy and he had a strange voice that could irritate easily, but everyone loved them. We considered anyone who didn't an ignoramus. Then Axl had to blow it. When the second album LIES came out that's exactly what it was. After reading of the line "Immigrants and faggots/They make no sense to me/" in a song called "One In A Million" it was all over for me with egomaniac idiotic bigot Axl Rose. Skid Row would be the final nail in current metal's coffin. Sebastian Bach had and has an even more irritating voice than Axl, but before the incident that made me want to kill him I thought he had a great voice and maybe he does. I was huge into Skid Row without buying the album. I loved those songs. Then Sebastian came out wearing a T shirt with the "Raid" insect killer logo on it saying"AIDS Kills Fags Dead." Go fuck yourself, I thought and I was only 13. Then a month later he was convicted of manslaughter and barely got off after a brawl broke out during a concert and he killed or nearly killed a fan. I can remember my disgust. These guys are the real wimps and cowards I thought and still think. Angel and Stories and Aerosmith. Atomic Rooster, Procol Harum, and Emerson Lake & Palmer- those were my bands. I'd changed over completely and hated the then popular new bands.
I found myself in a record store that was a joke called Orpheus the same day I purchased my long time copy of Stories' 2nd record ABOUT US the laminated cover 1st press with no "Brother Louie" hit at a much better store on a rainy dark day in Washington D.C. I then went to Orpheus. I laughed at their prices on everything and then went to a box that was unmarked as far as I remember or else it was just a box of cheaper records. Then the Deja Vu- the opening of Pandora's Box, the Original Sin hit me. I pulled out a record that said at the top "THE O BAND THE KNIFE." The cover was close enough to the one in the dream to send terror and shock through my entire young body. It was a dark black background with a huge evil looking house and a man where you couldn't see his face grabbing a huge knife on the front. On the back was a drawing of the knife on the house's front stairs covered in blood and an eerily similar quote: "He Didn't Tell Her He Was High/She Took Him Home/He Tried And Tried/He Blew It." I was shaking in a fit of terror that would spill over into a breakdown later that day and the next. "This is it. This is the one!" I said aloud and then after holding the record for a few minutes flung it back in the box. I'd never be the same person again.... Soon I'd turn from a bad experience in a manner of a few years to a record freak.
-Discovering The Music And Uncovering The Music-
How could this really be reality? It all was so strange. After a period of being a blithering idiot, hearing "The Knife" by Genesis on Genesis Live and having a fever afterwards and turning into an introverted paranoid nutcase everything changed in 1992. Before even then Bill "Pennies" Pacquin (say Pak-Keen) saw to it that I would be educated in music and Bill knew what no one else at The Princeton Record Exchange knew. He filled me all in on The O Band and their previous incarnation The Parlour Band which I at first thought he said was "The Poe Band." He taped The Parlour Band and I completely couldn't understand it. This wasn't metal at all- it was unlike anything I'd heard except Camel and Queen. Then The O Band I had a little early taste of that year of '91 before in 1992 becoming a huge fan. No, as it turned out The O Band weren't 70s metal at all. They were a rock and roll band, a melodic rock and roll band, and they also played a kind of bridging between spacey progressive rock, Americanized California rock, and Pub rock. When Bill in 1992 traded me the band's last two albums WITHIN REACH and THE KNIFE I had gone full into psychedelic and good old 60s/early 70s rock 'n roll, but hearing WITHIN REACH (an Israeli Press!) I finally was ready for this band. This was really good stuff. Someone in Journey, namely Steve Perry, I still believe heard Pix and ripped him off. The Journey similarities on all 4 of The O Band's records, but especially OASIS, WITHIN REACH, and THE KNIFE are more vocal than musical, but the tight, commercially friendly, hard edged, muscular melodic rock really impressed me. However, when I got THE KNIFE I read the lyrics on the innersleeve and had to have Stuart (dad) play it first. Unlike the Satanic driven drug induced murder in the dream version this was all drug induced and about a guy named Jimmy who takes Methedrine (Speed), tells his girlfriend he wants to fuck her, can't get a hard on, is taunted by her, and rapes her with the knife. He said it must have been part of their stage act when he heard it and when I heard it that was obvious. Yes it was part of their stage show, but when Pix called me up on my 24th birthday to talk to me about the band he said he intended it as a joke, but ended up destroying his career with it. This was years and eons after I'd first discovered and uncovered all of The O Band and their previous band The Parlour Band's now 500 pound album IS A FRIEND? had become one of my all-time favourite records ever made. I had suspected that if Pix (Lead vocals/lead and rhythm guitar) and bandmates Mark Anders (bass) Craig Anders (Guitars/steel guitars/vocals) Geoff Bannister (keyboards, synthesizers, vocals) Derek Ballard (Drums, percussion) weren't intentionally doing a piss take that was what it had turned into and it turned out that Pix in a fury of anger at changing musical trends wrote the song as a joke. Now, a song that graphically details a drug addict, a spoiled brat girl who doesn't know when to shut her mouth, and a knife shoved "between her thighs" may sound like anything but funny or just ludicrously violent, but it just so turns out it is so stupid that it's hard not to laugh at Pix's sick joke. The song itself is not bad, but certainly not the highlight on a very strong last album. After 6 years of struggle, record company apathy, drug and alcohol abuse on Pix's part, a huge changeover in sound and leadership from original lead vocalist/keyboard player Peter Filleul to Pix The O Band were killed off by the oncoming punk scene at the end of 1977. Pix was furious about what had transpired back then. He and the band had worked really hard, had made some of the best music ever especially on IS A FRIEND?, OASIS, and WITHIN REACH, they had been billed as a band that were going to make it really big, and then in a tumultuous misery everything went horribly wrong and it all was over. Pix and I were best friends for a year and a half and this Guernsey/Jersey native's extravagant rock and roll manner made him a very lovable guy until I lied to him unintentionally and things got worse from then. We tried to end as friends, but I still wish that Spain bound Pix and I could have remained friends and really patched it up. Later on I'd go back to all of his/their music and here is where I will end my story. The Parlour Band were the beginning. They opened everything up for me and laidback progressive pop psych with heavy psychedelic guitars is still my favourite music. I called up a record dealer who never had anything good one day in 2006 and he said he'd bought an amazing import collection where the sleeves were a bit damaged but the records were unplayed. At that time I had a cheesy reissue that sounded shite of The Parlour Band and he said he had it. I was shocked, as shocked as the day I'd discovered the real O Band. I told him I'd pay him $125 for it and he went for it! My dad couldn't believe it was true, but when we got to his store sure enough the cover was about VG and the record completely new never played and STEREO- my previous 2 were MONO! I bought it. The guy went for it at that price and now that copy could be worth $700 to $800!!!!! And you won't find a better record, but mind you it really has to be heard in stereo for the best effect. You also won't find a story with a more joyful end. I will go into more detail later about that album, but remember if something may at first look strange and uninviting if a gut force tells you to investigate it by all means do so. Much love to The Parlour Band and The O Band and enough said for now.
This really should have been one of my first blogs. In here and in great detail you will discover the band that opened every door for me and led to my obsession of record collecting. That band would be one of the few bands ever to come out of The Channel Islands (namely Guernsey/Jersey) A Band Called O- Known to me as The O Band- the name they finally settled on for their final opus 1977's THE KNIFE.
The tale begins with a dream and then moves into a deja vu experience in January of 1990 which changed my life forever. Fast backwards to 1988/1989 or even before that. My first experience with The O Band that led to the dream I had in 1988 is the haziest part of my story here. I think they were referred to in a stupid anti-Drug Anti-Rock And Roll film from the 70s a cop showed to us when we were in school and I was really young or that I saw THE KNIFE years and years ago in a record store in a local shopping mall when I was about 5. Since I can't verify which beginning is true, but that something had to lead to the riveting I had when I was 13 I'll skip ahead to the facts.
Prelude To Mania- A School from Hell and A Trip To Hell
When I was 12 years old I had already gone through a half year of torture at the middle school and had been thrown into one of the most evil places in the world which at that time was located in Wayne New Jersey- a school for kids with "special learning needs" called Center School. I still have nightmares about the evil abuse that went on towards me and other kids then, but one of the very most memorable experiences was one of their zillion psychological torture experiments on us. This one was one of the scariest. I was unpopular. I was pint sized. I was sensitive, but I claimed to be a heavy metal headbanger. I had struck up a friendship with a few other kids and I can remember me and Tom, another intelligent boy at that time, feeling a lot of fear as the bus roamed ominously from Wayne on a dark and cold day in Fall to a grim and terrifying "Drug Rehabilitation Center." Now, was this trip about educating a bunch of young kids about the perils of drug abuse? No way in Hell. It was done to ABUSE US. The outside of the huge building looked like a gigantic Gothic mausoleum and the inside was dirty, cold, miserable, and still springs to mind when I listen to David Bowie's "All The Madmen." This wasn't a place people went to get cured. It was a place people went to die and/or lose their sanity completely. Tom and I were speechless for awhile after we left, but we both gave killing glances at the demonic Mrs. Carlson, the most evil teacher I ever had in all my years at school. Soon Tom and I were talking on the bus. We knew exactly what she/them had pulled over on us.
A Night Of Revelation- The Prophetic Dream-
I went to bed not so easy that night after the day of our horrific experience at the drug and destruction center. That night I had a recurring dream, but it was the first time I'd have it and the really life-changing important time I'd have it. The dream centered around a band that were infamous and dangerous called Opium first, then The Occult Band, and then when they really did their act of damage The 'O' Band (that's right, now read more!). All incarnations of the band were fronted by a Scottish eccentric named Frankenson Oswald who after a witch hunt against his band had first retired to the English countryside and then had run a large record album warehouse business. I was a little older in this dream than 12, but maybe just a few years. I was walking down a road somewhere out in the middle of a very desolate, unpopulated place and there hadn't been a sign of anything but the road for a good 2 miles. Soon a building appeared in the distance and a big black car. The building was modern and unattractive, and the car made its way down to where I was. The car pulled up to the side of the road and a man with long reddish hair, a big grin, and all black clothes including a decorated robe smiled and asked "Need a ride, boy? Hey, come talk to me, come inside, name's Frankenson. Frankenson Oswald. I'm from Scotland or you may say North England." He looked a bit sinister, but a seductively warm glow filtered through his face and his friendly manner. I got inside and asked him what he did for a living. "I own that building up the road and a few others They're record warehouses where I store old used records, but all in very good condition. I used to be a really hard rocker, but those days are long gone. My kind of music isn't too popular anymore. I'm a 70s man! Grew up on soul, though, my fave's James Brown." He started to talk to me about his past and invited me for dinner. As Opium the band were named after his drug of choice and were a strange group to be sure. A band with two of everything except a lead singer- the former soul and R&B singer Frankenson had a powerful voice that could already with just one of him equal about 5 frontmen! He kept mentioning the deaths of some of the band members he played with and an album in the warehouse called THE KNIFE that destroyed him, but that was later on. Opium were a heavy progressive/psychedelic band who built their reputation around long compositions and a loud, powerful, all-encompassing sound with anti Christian lyrics. Frankenson had a distaste for Christianity that came from a very stern upbringing that made him revolt against organized religion from an early age. Their lyrics were crazed flights of fancy and so were their compositions and a manic stage show. They made two albums- the self-titled first catered to more of a club/soul psychedelic freakout sound whilst their magnum opus was a double album called COLLISEUM (their spelling not mine). This record had an ominous enough cover, but nothing was close to the music. The band were out there, there was no denying that. Frankenson was a very control oriented guy, but once the group made an album of jazzy influenced psychedelia under the name The Occult Band he lost control. We made it to the building by now and I was soon inside. I was thumbing through record after nonexistent in real life record. Then I chanced upon the forbidden record. The one that he had warned me about. The front cover showed a dark black background with manic swerves of a car and a lunatic across it and a huge foreboding white mansion with a younger Frankenson all contorted and in a black robe holding a sharp dagger. At the top of the cover in Gothic lettering was written in white THE 'O' BAND. At the bottom it said in the same Gothic type THE KNIFE. I was already feeling a bit concerned about what this album might contain. Then I turned the cover over. On the back was a flight of stairs with the knife covered in blood on them and in blood coloured lettering were the song titles and a quote that said "He Didn't Tell Her He Was High/She Forgot To Tell Him Not To Come/He Tried And Tried And Tried/He Blew It." The title track seemed to be just the centerpiece of a truly evil album, an album that after it's release saw Oswald vanish after two of the band members died. I was curious though, and he took me to a beautiful house that was one of two he had in the States. He refused to let me listen to the album alone. We dined on a brilliant Indian food feast together and then made our way to his tastefully furnished living room where he took out an old record player, plugged it in, and put the record on. Right from the beginning this was scary shit. It had a dark menacing organ sound, slashing fuzz guitars, all manner of crazed effects, and Frankenson Oswald yowling like a mad dog at the moon. The quiet parts were even scarier, full of real dread and depression evoking parallels with an off-the-deep-end Doors. The title track came on at the start of Side Two. All Hell broke loose. I was screaming for him to turn it off it was so terrifying and I collapsed on the floor. He took the record off and tended to me. "Why did I have to do that!? I still regret ever having a hand in anything that horrifying! How could I have lost it that much!? Don't worry, I'm better now, I learned my lesson, but I learned it the hardest way there could be. At the cost of two friends and bandmates to violent drug induced deaths. We did some really stupid things back then. Shall we go back to a happier subject and have dessert? I'll even let you have some very good sweet wine" this gentleman rocker said. He took the record and smashed it. I sat down at the table again with him and I asked him why he was so nice to me. "You're a young kid. You're a good kid. You've had it rough I can tell. A real load of bad luck has befallen you, but fear not I'll stand up for you. I'll look after you. I'll be your friend and a better friend you can't find."After a brief flashback to all the records he made especially THE KNIFE and his coming to terms with a dark past the dream ended. I woke up in the morning feeling rather strange. Rather high and didn't want to go to school even more than the day before.
-Falling Out with Metal 1989- The Deja Vu January 1990-
Heavy metal interest ended for me in the fall of 1989. That was with current "metal" and I would still for awhile love the older music which was what I cherished the most, but my hatred of all current metal can be summed up in two simple instances both involving two bastards who are still friends with each other and still active- Axl Rose and Sebastian Bach. In 1988 I loved Guns And Roses. I never owned the record, but Appetite For Destruction was undeniably quite a record. They were edgy and he had a strange voice that could irritate easily, but everyone loved them. We considered anyone who didn't an ignoramus. Then Axl had to blow it. When the second album LIES came out that's exactly what it was. After reading of the line "Immigrants and faggots/They make no sense to me/" in a song called "One In A Million" it was all over for me with egomaniac idiotic bigot Axl Rose. Skid Row would be the final nail in current metal's coffin. Sebastian Bach had and has an even more irritating voice than Axl, but before the incident that made me want to kill him I thought he had a great voice and maybe he does. I was huge into Skid Row without buying the album. I loved those songs. Then Sebastian came out wearing a T shirt with the "Raid" insect killer logo on it saying"AIDS Kills Fags Dead." Go fuck yourself, I thought and I was only 13. Then a month later he was convicted of manslaughter and barely got off after a brawl broke out during a concert and he killed or nearly killed a fan. I can remember my disgust. These guys are the real wimps and cowards I thought and still think. Angel and Stories and Aerosmith. Atomic Rooster, Procol Harum, and Emerson Lake & Palmer- those were my bands. I'd changed over completely and hated the then popular new bands.
I found myself in a record store that was a joke called Orpheus the same day I purchased my long time copy of Stories' 2nd record ABOUT US the laminated cover 1st press with no "Brother Louie" hit at a much better store on a rainy dark day in Washington D.C. I then went to Orpheus. I laughed at their prices on everything and then went to a box that was unmarked as far as I remember or else it was just a box of cheaper records. Then the Deja Vu- the opening of Pandora's Box, the Original Sin hit me. I pulled out a record that said at the top "THE O BAND THE KNIFE." The cover was close enough to the one in the dream to send terror and shock through my entire young body. It was a dark black background with a huge evil looking house and a man where you couldn't see his face grabbing a huge knife on the front. On the back was a drawing of the knife on the house's front stairs covered in blood and an eerily similar quote: "He Didn't Tell Her He Was High/She Took Him Home/He Tried And Tried/He Blew It." I was shaking in a fit of terror that would spill over into a breakdown later that day and the next. "This is it. This is the one!" I said aloud and then after holding the record for a few minutes flung it back in the box. I'd never be the same person again.... Soon I'd turn from a bad experience in a manner of a few years to a record freak.
-Discovering The Music And Uncovering The Music-
How could this really be reality? It all was so strange. After a period of being a blithering idiot, hearing "The Knife" by Genesis on Genesis Live and having a fever afterwards and turning into an introverted paranoid nutcase everything changed in 1992. Before even then Bill "Pennies" Pacquin (say Pak-Keen) saw to it that I would be educated in music and Bill knew what no one else at The Princeton Record Exchange knew. He filled me all in on The O Band and their previous incarnation The Parlour Band which I at first thought he said was "The Poe Band." He taped The Parlour Band and I completely couldn't understand it. This wasn't metal at all- it was unlike anything I'd heard except Camel and Queen. Then The O Band I had a little early taste of that year of '91 before in 1992 becoming a huge fan. No, as it turned out The O Band weren't 70s metal at all. They were a rock and roll band, a melodic rock and roll band, and they also played a kind of bridging between spacey progressive rock, Americanized California rock, and Pub rock. When Bill in 1992 traded me the band's last two albums WITHIN REACH and THE KNIFE I had gone full into psychedelic and good old 60s/early 70s rock 'n roll, but hearing WITHIN REACH (an Israeli Press!) I finally was ready for this band. This was really good stuff. Someone in Journey, namely Steve Perry, I still believe heard Pix and ripped him off. The Journey similarities on all 4 of The O Band's records, but especially OASIS, WITHIN REACH, and THE KNIFE are more vocal than musical, but the tight, commercially friendly, hard edged, muscular melodic rock really impressed me. However, when I got THE KNIFE I read the lyrics on the innersleeve and had to have Stuart (dad) play it first. Unlike the Satanic driven drug induced murder in the dream version this was all drug induced and about a guy named Jimmy who takes Methedrine (Speed), tells his girlfriend he wants to fuck her, can't get a hard on, is taunted by her, and rapes her with the knife. He said it must have been part of their stage act when he heard it and when I heard it that was obvious. Yes it was part of their stage show, but when Pix called me up on my 24th birthday to talk to me about the band he said he intended it as a joke, but ended up destroying his career with it. This was years and eons after I'd first discovered and uncovered all of The O Band and their previous band The Parlour Band's now 500 pound album IS A FRIEND? had become one of my all-time favourite records ever made. I had suspected that if Pix (Lead vocals/lead and rhythm guitar) and bandmates Mark Anders (bass) Craig Anders (Guitars/steel guitars/vocals) Geoff Bannister (keyboards, synthesizers, vocals) Derek Ballard (Drums, percussion) weren't intentionally doing a piss take that was what it had turned into and it turned out that Pix in a fury of anger at changing musical trends wrote the song as a joke. Now, a song that graphically details a drug addict, a spoiled brat girl who doesn't know when to shut her mouth, and a knife shoved "between her thighs" may sound like anything but funny or just ludicrously violent, but it just so turns out it is so stupid that it's hard not to laugh at Pix's sick joke. The song itself is not bad, but certainly not the highlight on a very strong last album. After 6 years of struggle, record company apathy, drug and alcohol abuse on Pix's part, a huge changeover in sound and leadership from original lead vocalist/keyboard player Peter Filleul to Pix The O Band were killed off by the oncoming punk scene at the end of 1977. Pix was furious about what had transpired back then. He and the band had worked really hard, had made some of the best music ever especially on IS A FRIEND?, OASIS, and WITHIN REACH, they had been billed as a band that were going to make it really big, and then in a tumultuous misery everything went horribly wrong and it all was over. Pix and I were best friends for a year and a half and this Guernsey/Jersey native's extravagant rock and roll manner made him a very lovable guy until I lied to him unintentionally and things got worse from then. We tried to end as friends, but I still wish that Spain bound Pix and I could have remained friends and really patched it up. Later on I'd go back to all of his/their music and here is where I will end my story. The Parlour Band were the beginning. They opened everything up for me and laidback progressive pop psych with heavy psychedelic guitars is still my favourite music. I called up a record dealer who never had anything good one day in 2006 and he said he'd bought an amazing import collection where the sleeves were a bit damaged but the records were unplayed. At that time I had a cheesy reissue that sounded shite of The Parlour Band and he said he had it. I was shocked, as shocked as the day I'd discovered the real O Band. I told him I'd pay him $125 for it and he went for it! My dad couldn't believe it was true, but when we got to his store sure enough the cover was about VG and the record completely new never played and STEREO- my previous 2 were MONO! I bought it. The guy went for it at that price and now that copy could be worth $700 to $800!!!!! And you won't find a better record, but mind you it really has to be heard in stereo for the best effect. You also won't find a story with a more joyful end. I will go into more detail later about that album, but remember if something may at first look strange and uninviting if a gut force tells you to investigate it by all means do so. Much love to The Parlour Band and The O Band and enough said for now.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
THE MOVE THE KINKS THE WHO THE YARDBIRDS AND A LITTLE CREAM- THE BIG BANDS WHO MADE THE BIGGEST IMPACT POST-BEATLES
As Monty Python would say "And Now For Something Completely Different!"
Well, you who have read these pages before may see some similarities, but And Now For Something A Lot More Cheerful.
After the big beat-boom in 1964 of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five and other less revolutionary bands England was teeming with thousands of young hopeful groups. A lot of these bands were sticking to the safest most mundane side of Merseybeat, but from London and later Birmingham rose 3 bands to whom we can thank for everything from hard rock to heavy metal to psychedelia to new wave to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal and just about everything else. These bands would be the former Hi Numbers now called The Who spearheaded by guitar and songwriting genius Pete Townsend and The Kinks from Muswell Hill- a small place for the revolutionary sounds of the two Davis brothers Ray and Dave.
When the Kinks exploded in 1964 with "You Really Got Me" and "All Day And All Of The Night" a knife inserted into an amplifier by Dave Davies and Ray's snarling vocals created heavy metal ages before anyone would catch up, but it would be true to say that here was the beginning of hard rock, glam rock, heavy metal and punk. With more maturity The Kinks became an unstoppable force always driven by the two polar opposite brothers who hated each other with a passion, but made up for it with amazing music. The songs that grace the first real album releases when Ray found himself like Face To Face, Something Else, The Village Green Preservation Society, and Arthur these are not just songs they are epics they are stories they are the literature of the future coming years for grown up British rock. Ray Davis knew how to be sympathetic as well as cynical. His vision of The British Empire and "Preserving The Old Ways Protecting The New Ones" was far removed from the primal sexuality of the early hits and Dave was fast becoming a creative writer in his own right- also with a unique voice readily identifiable as the high falsetto in the harmonies. Songs like "David Watts," "Harry Rag," "Phenomenal Cat," "Big Sky," "Victoria," "Brainwashed," and "Shangri-La" all came from classic albums and all inspired every worthy group in England to rock hard yet move forward- add in a few new spices to the recipe. The more subtle ones like "Phenomenal Cat" would heavily influence the Toytown pop psych sound of the best British bands of that era playing softer material yet they always had that crunch and punch- that same crunch and punch that came from all the way back in "You Really Got Me." The Kinks would not die come the 70s either. Like The Move and like best work of The Who they would forge ahead with new ideas and create new sounds. The Who's fallout from their glory days was fast. They had been THE MOD BAND PAR EXCELLANCE of the 60s, but the further they moved into the 70s the less inspirational they became. It all would tank after the hard hitting classiness of Live At Leeds and Who's Next, but as a live act they would remain unstoppable. The Kinks too would pioneer the kind of antics The Move and The Nice later indulged in during their unpredictable stage shows where anything could happen. And the Americans were listening too.
Demand for British bands to come over here to the States and tour was huge, so huge that bands like The Kinks and The Zombies were seen as a threat and they tried to ban them from touring here. They could try all they wanted, but nothing was going to stop the music from breaking through and the early excitement of those classic hit singles led to American bands emulating the British. Many would try to disguise this with a uniquely American slant such as Paul Revere & The Raiders and Tommy James & The Shondells, but their influences were obviously The Kinks and The Who. Then a big change started happening in the States around 1966- American bands became part of the countercultural revolution playing music like no one before had ever dared. The Doors, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Byrds, Love, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Left Banke (probably our Greatest Band- our Kinks) all these very diverse and different bands if they didn't sound English sounded American and were loved back in the country that gave birth to the ability for most of them to exist- England.
The Kinks had 3 classic hard rocking hits in 1964/1965 "You Really Got Me," "All Day And All Of The Night," and "Till The End Of The Day." Ray would follow up with "A Well Respected Man," "Tired Of Waiting For You," and "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion-" pioneering brilliant songs. There was just one problem: the albums didn't live up to the singles. Not only that there were dreadful, clueless songs on the albums and no cohesion to their early releases. This same lack of consistency bit away at The Zombies on their first long player and until the second and final album Oddesey And Oracle much of their output was erratic. Remember these were the days of "The Singles Bands." However, by 1966 Ray Davis discovered the ability to write an entire album's worth of amazing songs and Face To Face was Ray's discovery of himself. He put together his intellectual brilliance and matched it with new ideas and punchy melodies helped along by the even punchier guitar work of Dave. Mick Avory and Pete Quaife (who died recently) were the ample rhythm section.
As Ray would invent new wave decadence long before there was even a word of Roxy Music and Dave would inspire guitar heroes later on to crank the volume to eleven new things were happening in British Rock. The Who came on the scene in 1965 with the classic youth anthem to end all youth anthems "My Generation." These at that time young fresh faced Mods from Shepherd's Bush area London were all about chaos. John Entwhistle's dynamic, flowing, forceful bass and Keith Moon's frantic drumming laid the foundation for Pete Townsend's amazing feedback power chord assault. Roger Daltrey, blond and with an interesting face and a great voice, proved to be the perfect frontman and Pete Townsend right away saw to it that the albums did not disappoint. Unlike The Kinks The Who would rise fast and die fast. From early classics like "Substitute," "I Can't Explain," "Love Is Like A Heatwave" (A Motown cover), "I'm A Boy," and "Picture's Of Lily" to the world's first taste of a rock oratorio in "A Quick One" this was a band you couldn't do anything but have your mind blown in awe for. Their destructive stage act with smashing guitars, drums flying all over the place, screaming onslaughts of pure noise, and Daltrey frantically thrashing around would be the foundation upon which all future Heavy Metal was laid. However, when The Pretty Things released S.F Sorrow Townsend was a changed man. He had a vision of a rock opera to make The Who more musically mature, but how much more mature could you get than THE WHO SELL OUT? The shocking thing about Tommy was the music of which most was brilliant and the huge change over in sound. All of a sudden The Who were now part of progressive rock. They had added in brilliant new ideas, finely crafted instrumental musings, and Roger Daltrey's voice was getting much heavier sounding. The Who were now at the number one position in rock. They could fill any stadium. They were now poised to be giants of the 1970s along with the equally groundbreaking Led Zeppelin. To think this all started as far back as 1966- it's amazing. Every band from Britain in the 60s owed so much to The Kinks and The Who and the band you are about to hear about- my personal favourite The Move.
The Move were named after the move away from Mike Sheridan's Lot and Carl Wayne and The Vikings- two Brumbeat bands and in case you don't know what that means it means Birmingham bands. Roy Wood was born Ulysses Adrian Wood and if he had kept his amazing birth name even that wouldn't have stopped him from surpassing anything and everything. In the beginning, in 1966 Roy was fast becoming a prolific songwriter who could dip into classical music influences, early heavy metal, British whimsy, and pure solid Mod pop and in 1967 The Move set about conquering England.
With good looking Carl Wayne on lead vocals, strange looking Ace Kefford on Rhythm guitar, Trevor Burton playing the heaviest bass ever laid down, and powerful drummer Bev Bevan laying down the backdrop for Roy's virtuosity they burst onto the psychedelic/pop scene with the freakiest single hit of 1967 "Night Of Fear." Based around the 1812 overture it was a heavy, hard, punch-you-in-the-jaw scary single that freaked me when I first heard it having only heard the later Move material, but what a hit it was. Now British pop had it's newest most hopeful young group and the single shot up high in the charts. Even creepier than "Night Of Fear" was the flipside "Disturbance" about a mental collapse and violent breakdown. It was originally intended as the choice song, but it was later to be the flip on a rather strange breakthrough hit for the young band. Roy was now constantly questioned about if LSD had inspired the single, but this really pissed him off as Roy wouldn't touch drugs. The single was a good start, but was surpassed by everything that came after it. "I Can Hear The Grass Grow," "Fire Brigade," "Flowers In The Rain" these were the most perfect slices of heavenly heavy British power pop psychedelia and The Move were ranking up the huge hits with all their singles releases.
Throughout 1967 their crazed stage act which came after The Who and Wood's genius level writing made them a sort of even heavier Who or a very uniquely British take on a huge amount of influences that Roy and friends had stored up. While The Who never really embraced psychedelic rock and only dipped into it a scant few times The Move not only had a psychedelic edge they were sharp enough to be described as "Progressive Pop." Roy Wood is a guitar virtuoso and when he opened his mouth to sing a golden voice poured out. A blueprint for Ozzy Osbourne the heavily Brum accented Wood had an impish yet paradoxically tuneful delivery and with "Fire Brigade" and "Flowers In The Rain" hitting the charts like a hammer he would soon be pushing aside Carl Wayne who wanted to be a cabaret singer! With Ace Kefford singing his only lead vocal on their first self-titled LP opening track "Yellow Rainbow" and the rest of the vocals mainly shared between Wood and Wayne their first record is one of the great ones of 1968. It included many of their 1967 hits and new very exciting album tracks made the Move much loved in England, Europe, and America, but it was England they really took by storm. Roy Wood ran into a few complaints about his humourous treatment of mental illness, but I believe that he was sympathetic to people who weren't all there and wasn't putting them down. He also would continue to receive annoying questions about what inspired him to write. Roy would just write songs- he didn't need drugs or any other unnatural stimulants. He would lock himself up in his room and write for hours on end perfecting gem after gem. The Move wanted to go forward and make a more experimental second record and did so with SHAZAM. This album was my introduction to The Move and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Side Two showed them moving through 3 cover versions covering everything from grandiose psychedelia in the Ars Nova penned "Fields Of People" to Led Zeppelin before Led Zeppelin heavy metal in "Don't Make My Baby Blue" to the uproarious cabaret/folkrock of "The Last Thing On My Mind" by Tom Paxton. It was these amazing performances that helped me to turn even sworn enemies in my horrid private school into friends, but it was tracks like Wood's "Hello Suzie" the album opener which had me floored. Roy Wood was becoming a hero, a really cherished secret, and by the time I got into the first album and early tracks after hating them around November/December 1992 I became a Move fan for life. Roy's unique voice, his masterful skills as a musician who could play any instrument ever created, his ability to do all the vocals, and his songwriting genius would never run dry.
When Roy Wood disappeared from music he did simply that- just retired on a high note. This was 1979 and if you wanted quality from The Who by now forget it. The Move had long since folded and so had Roy's glam rock stardom in Wizzard, but when I saw him give a rare performance in 2002 in Manhattan I witnessed what a true music lover this man is. He had passed out onstage the previous night and was suffering a really bad flu. He came onstage with an all younger than him girl backing band and was cavorting around like nothing was wrong. He made many wry comments about his bad health that night and the night before, but he wasn't about to cancel the show. He went on and rocked hard for the whole time. He played a million instruments. He sang brilliantly, and we were all cheering him on- me shouting "ROY!!! ROY!!! ROY!!!" He nodded at me. I felt blessed.
Back to The Move now. During their 4 album and many more singles run many line up changes influenced the direction that Roy would take, but not one track during their career was a throwaway. He also kept busy producing for other bands and the most notable of these was the tragically unsuccessful Idle Race. The Idle Race were fronted by a very talented young songwriter named Jeff Lynne and Lynne's funny, whimsical, and loving warm hearted songs were somewhat like a lighter more Beatles inspired Move. After two flawless classic albums THE BIRTHDAY PARTY and their self titled second Roy made the second of two offers he'd make Jeff to join The Move. Before Jeff Lynne had refused, but with The Idle Race going nowhere in commercial terms and depression setting in he joined. Now The Move had two multi-instrumentalists and geniuses and it's amazing that they didn't fall into some kind of confused mania with both Wood and Lynne on board. Instead they made as their next venture after SHAZAM the brilliant LOOKING ON. LOOKING ON picked up where the heaviest previous material left off and saw The Move playing a perfect hybrid of early heavy metal/heavy psych and Beatles inspired psychedelic numbers with Jeff Lynne beginning his Lennon fixations which would lead him to the top of the charts with Electric Light Orchestra. Another series of classic singles followed and "Brontosaurus" lifted from the album became an instant favourite. The much covered "Do Ya," "Tonight," and funny "Chinatown" came around this time, but none of these appeared on the band's last album MESSAGE FROM THE COUNTRY. This was a continuation of everything The Move had done before and more. Not since the 1st album with Trevor Burton singing the rock and roll 50s pastiche "Weekend" had The Move revisited the early days of Elvis, but here Roy Wood began his 1950s obsession in earnest with the uproarious "Don't Mess Me Up." Bev Bevan also sang a track- the even more hysterical Johnny Cash tribute/send up "Ben Crawley Steel Company," but much of the rest of the album sounded like The Beatles if they could have stayed together maintaining their integrity along the way. The Move continued to be ahead of their time and to inspire many musicians to form exciting bands. Songs like "Message From The Country" by Jeff and "It Wasn't My Idea To Dance" by Roy helped lift this album to the list of Greatest Ever- a list in which everything The Move did has a very high position. They would never fail you and they wouldn't bring you down into self-indulgent boredom either. The Move are one of the best rock and roll bands ever formed.
So here are the 3 bands Post Beatles who made the biggest dent and the most exciting music, but I must also bring to your attention two other revolutionary bands- Cream and The Yardbirds. While I don't have time to go into full detail they are two bands you will be familiar with as pioneers of heavy metal and I don't think that either one need an introduction as along with The Move, The Kinks, and The Who bands that will live forever and more as the most exciting music of the 1960s. Cream came out of The Yardbirds and both bands came out of the blues- something I haven't touched on till now. While The Move would take some classical bents and some blues influences and turn them psychedelic Cream and The Yardbirds would blow the blues into fragments and then reassemble them. I was listening to UFO the other night and realized how huge an impact Cream had on them. The song was "Pack It Up (And Go)" and the album was OBSESSION- listen to this song and you can hear "Swablr" off DISRAELI GEARS in hyperspeed. For UFO, for Black Sabbath and all the other great hard rockers it all goes back to the 1960s- a time of youthful optimism and wide-eyed wonder. There are simply too many great bands for me to go into detail about and not be here all night, but what I can end with is the music will play on and play on LOUD! You will find all the inspiration for all the coming bands of the 70s and the best of the 80s too in The Kinks, The Move, The Who, The Yardbirds, The Small Faces, Cream- the British Invasion wouldn't die down despite some awful throwaway shlock bands it would lead to American bands playing the most exciting music of all time in that decade of genius along with The British and soon a worldwide explosion of talent. It was a time I wish I had been around for, but can always revisit in the music. Let the music play and let the music ROCK YOU HARD!
Well, you who have read these pages before may see some similarities, but And Now For Something A Lot More Cheerful.
After the big beat-boom in 1964 of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five and other less revolutionary bands England was teeming with thousands of young hopeful groups. A lot of these bands were sticking to the safest most mundane side of Merseybeat, but from London and later Birmingham rose 3 bands to whom we can thank for everything from hard rock to heavy metal to psychedelia to new wave to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal and just about everything else. These bands would be the former Hi Numbers now called The Who spearheaded by guitar and songwriting genius Pete Townsend and The Kinks from Muswell Hill- a small place for the revolutionary sounds of the two Davis brothers Ray and Dave.
When the Kinks exploded in 1964 with "You Really Got Me" and "All Day And All Of The Night" a knife inserted into an amplifier by Dave Davies and Ray's snarling vocals created heavy metal ages before anyone would catch up, but it would be true to say that here was the beginning of hard rock, glam rock, heavy metal and punk. With more maturity The Kinks became an unstoppable force always driven by the two polar opposite brothers who hated each other with a passion, but made up for it with amazing music. The songs that grace the first real album releases when Ray found himself like Face To Face, Something Else, The Village Green Preservation Society, and Arthur these are not just songs they are epics they are stories they are the literature of the future coming years for grown up British rock. Ray Davis knew how to be sympathetic as well as cynical. His vision of The British Empire and "Preserving The Old Ways Protecting The New Ones" was far removed from the primal sexuality of the early hits and Dave was fast becoming a creative writer in his own right- also with a unique voice readily identifiable as the high falsetto in the harmonies. Songs like "David Watts," "Harry Rag," "Phenomenal Cat," "Big Sky," "Victoria," "Brainwashed," and "Shangri-La" all came from classic albums and all inspired every worthy group in England to rock hard yet move forward- add in a few new spices to the recipe. The more subtle ones like "Phenomenal Cat" would heavily influence the Toytown pop psych sound of the best British bands of that era playing softer material yet they always had that crunch and punch- that same crunch and punch that came from all the way back in "You Really Got Me." The Kinks would not die come the 70s either. Like The Move and like best work of The Who they would forge ahead with new ideas and create new sounds. The Who's fallout from their glory days was fast. They had been THE MOD BAND PAR EXCELLANCE of the 60s, but the further they moved into the 70s the less inspirational they became. It all would tank after the hard hitting classiness of Live At Leeds and Who's Next, but as a live act they would remain unstoppable. The Kinks too would pioneer the kind of antics The Move and The Nice later indulged in during their unpredictable stage shows where anything could happen. And the Americans were listening too.
Demand for British bands to come over here to the States and tour was huge, so huge that bands like The Kinks and The Zombies were seen as a threat and they tried to ban them from touring here. They could try all they wanted, but nothing was going to stop the music from breaking through and the early excitement of those classic hit singles led to American bands emulating the British. Many would try to disguise this with a uniquely American slant such as Paul Revere & The Raiders and Tommy James & The Shondells, but their influences were obviously The Kinks and The Who. Then a big change started happening in the States around 1966- American bands became part of the countercultural revolution playing music like no one before had ever dared. The Doors, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Byrds, Love, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Left Banke (probably our Greatest Band- our Kinks) all these very diverse and different bands if they didn't sound English sounded American and were loved back in the country that gave birth to the ability for most of them to exist- England.
The Kinks had 3 classic hard rocking hits in 1964/1965 "You Really Got Me," "All Day And All Of The Night," and "Till The End Of The Day." Ray would follow up with "A Well Respected Man," "Tired Of Waiting For You," and "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion-" pioneering brilliant songs. There was just one problem: the albums didn't live up to the singles. Not only that there were dreadful, clueless songs on the albums and no cohesion to their early releases. This same lack of consistency bit away at The Zombies on their first long player and until the second and final album Oddesey And Oracle much of their output was erratic. Remember these were the days of "The Singles Bands." However, by 1966 Ray Davis discovered the ability to write an entire album's worth of amazing songs and Face To Face was Ray's discovery of himself. He put together his intellectual brilliance and matched it with new ideas and punchy melodies helped along by the even punchier guitar work of Dave. Mick Avory and Pete Quaife (who died recently) were the ample rhythm section.
As Ray would invent new wave decadence long before there was even a word of Roxy Music and Dave would inspire guitar heroes later on to crank the volume to eleven new things were happening in British Rock. The Who came on the scene in 1965 with the classic youth anthem to end all youth anthems "My Generation." These at that time young fresh faced Mods from Shepherd's Bush area London were all about chaos. John Entwhistle's dynamic, flowing, forceful bass and Keith Moon's frantic drumming laid the foundation for Pete Townsend's amazing feedback power chord assault. Roger Daltrey, blond and with an interesting face and a great voice, proved to be the perfect frontman and Pete Townsend right away saw to it that the albums did not disappoint. Unlike The Kinks The Who would rise fast and die fast. From early classics like "Substitute," "I Can't Explain," "Love Is Like A Heatwave" (A Motown cover), "I'm A Boy," and "Picture's Of Lily" to the world's first taste of a rock oratorio in "A Quick One" this was a band you couldn't do anything but have your mind blown in awe for. Their destructive stage act with smashing guitars, drums flying all over the place, screaming onslaughts of pure noise, and Daltrey frantically thrashing around would be the foundation upon which all future Heavy Metal was laid. However, when The Pretty Things released S.F Sorrow Townsend was a changed man. He had a vision of a rock opera to make The Who more musically mature, but how much more mature could you get than THE WHO SELL OUT? The shocking thing about Tommy was the music of which most was brilliant and the huge change over in sound. All of a sudden The Who were now part of progressive rock. They had added in brilliant new ideas, finely crafted instrumental musings, and Roger Daltrey's voice was getting much heavier sounding. The Who were now at the number one position in rock. They could fill any stadium. They were now poised to be giants of the 1970s along with the equally groundbreaking Led Zeppelin. To think this all started as far back as 1966- it's amazing. Every band from Britain in the 60s owed so much to The Kinks and The Who and the band you are about to hear about- my personal favourite The Move.
The Move were named after the move away from Mike Sheridan's Lot and Carl Wayne and The Vikings- two Brumbeat bands and in case you don't know what that means it means Birmingham bands. Roy Wood was born Ulysses Adrian Wood and if he had kept his amazing birth name even that wouldn't have stopped him from surpassing anything and everything. In the beginning, in 1966 Roy was fast becoming a prolific songwriter who could dip into classical music influences, early heavy metal, British whimsy, and pure solid Mod pop and in 1967 The Move set about conquering England.
With good looking Carl Wayne on lead vocals, strange looking Ace Kefford on Rhythm guitar, Trevor Burton playing the heaviest bass ever laid down, and powerful drummer Bev Bevan laying down the backdrop for Roy's virtuosity they burst onto the psychedelic/pop scene with the freakiest single hit of 1967 "Night Of Fear." Based around the 1812 overture it was a heavy, hard, punch-you-in-the-jaw scary single that freaked me when I first heard it having only heard the later Move material, but what a hit it was. Now British pop had it's newest most hopeful young group and the single shot up high in the charts. Even creepier than "Night Of Fear" was the flipside "Disturbance" about a mental collapse and violent breakdown. It was originally intended as the choice song, but it was later to be the flip on a rather strange breakthrough hit for the young band. Roy was now constantly questioned about if LSD had inspired the single, but this really pissed him off as Roy wouldn't touch drugs. The single was a good start, but was surpassed by everything that came after it. "I Can Hear The Grass Grow," "Fire Brigade," "Flowers In The Rain" these were the most perfect slices of heavenly heavy British power pop psychedelia and The Move were ranking up the huge hits with all their singles releases.
Throughout 1967 their crazed stage act which came after The Who and Wood's genius level writing made them a sort of even heavier Who or a very uniquely British take on a huge amount of influences that Roy and friends had stored up. While The Who never really embraced psychedelic rock and only dipped into it a scant few times The Move not only had a psychedelic edge they were sharp enough to be described as "Progressive Pop." Roy Wood is a guitar virtuoso and when he opened his mouth to sing a golden voice poured out. A blueprint for Ozzy Osbourne the heavily Brum accented Wood had an impish yet paradoxically tuneful delivery and with "Fire Brigade" and "Flowers In The Rain" hitting the charts like a hammer he would soon be pushing aside Carl Wayne who wanted to be a cabaret singer! With Ace Kefford singing his only lead vocal on their first self-titled LP opening track "Yellow Rainbow" and the rest of the vocals mainly shared between Wood and Wayne their first record is one of the great ones of 1968. It included many of their 1967 hits and new very exciting album tracks made the Move much loved in England, Europe, and America, but it was England they really took by storm. Roy Wood ran into a few complaints about his humourous treatment of mental illness, but I believe that he was sympathetic to people who weren't all there and wasn't putting them down. He also would continue to receive annoying questions about what inspired him to write. Roy would just write songs- he didn't need drugs or any other unnatural stimulants. He would lock himself up in his room and write for hours on end perfecting gem after gem. The Move wanted to go forward and make a more experimental second record and did so with SHAZAM. This album was my introduction to The Move and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Side Two showed them moving through 3 cover versions covering everything from grandiose psychedelia in the Ars Nova penned "Fields Of People" to Led Zeppelin before Led Zeppelin heavy metal in "Don't Make My Baby Blue" to the uproarious cabaret/folkrock of "The Last Thing On My Mind" by Tom Paxton. It was these amazing performances that helped me to turn even sworn enemies in my horrid private school into friends, but it was tracks like Wood's "Hello Suzie" the album opener which had me floored. Roy Wood was becoming a hero, a really cherished secret, and by the time I got into the first album and early tracks after hating them around November/December 1992 I became a Move fan for life. Roy's unique voice, his masterful skills as a musician who could play any instrument ever created, his ability to do all the vocals, and his songwriting genius would never run dry.
When Roy Wood disappeared from music he did simply that- just retired on a high note. This was 1979 and if you wanted quality from The Who by now forget it. The Move had long since folded and so had Roy's glam rock stardom in Wizzard, but when I saw him give a rare performance in 2002 in Manhattan I witnessed what a true music lover this man is. He had passed out onstage the previous night and was suffering a really bad flu. He came onstage with an all younger than him girl backing band and was cavorting around like nothing was wrong. He made many wry comments about his bad health that night and the night before, but he wasn't about to cancel the show. He went on and rocked hard for the whole time. He played a million instruments. He sang brilliantly, and we were all cheering him on- me shouting "ROY!!! ROY!!! ROY!!!" He nodded at me. I felt blessed.
Back to The Move now. During their 4 album and many more singles run many line up changes influenced the direction that Roy would take, but not one track during their career was a throwaway. He also kept busy producing for other bands and the most notable of these was the tragically unsuccessful Idle Race. The Idle Race were fronted by a very talented young songwriter named Jeff Lynne and Lynne's funny, whimsical, and loving warm hearted songs were somewhat like a lighter more Beatles inspired Move. After two flawless classic albums THE BIRTHDAY PARTY and their self titled second Roy made the second of two offers he'd make Jeff to join The Move. Before Jeff Lynne had refused, but with The Idle Race going nowhere in commercial terms and depression setting in he joined. Now The Move had two multi-instrumentalists and geniuses and it's amazing that they didn't fall into some kind of confused mania with both Wood and Lynne on board. Instead they made as their next venture after SHAZAM the brilliant LOOKING ON. LOOKING ON picked up where the heaviest previous material left off and saw The Move playing a perfect hybrid of early heavy metal/heavy psych and Beatles inspired psychedelic numbers with Jeff Lynne beginning his Lennon fixations which would lead him to the top of the charts with Electric Light Orchestra. Another series of classic singles followed and "Brontosaurus" lifted from the album became an instant favourite. The much covered "Do Ya," "Tonight," and funny "Chinatown" came around this time, but none of these appeared on the band's last album MESSAGE FROM THE COUNTRY. This was a continuation of everything The Move had done before and more. Not since the 1st album with Trevor Burton singing the rock and roll 50s pastiche "Weekend" had The Move revisited the early days of Elvis, but here Roy Wood began his 1950s obsession in earnest with the uproarious "Don't Mess Me Up." Bev Bevan also sang a track- the even more hysterical Johnny Cash tribute/send up "Ben Crawley Steel Company," but much of the rest of the album sounded like The Beatles if they could have stayed together maintaining their integrity along the way. The Move continued to be ahead of their time and to inspire many musicians to form exciting bands. Songs like "Message From The Country" by Jeff and "It Wasn't My Idea To Dance" by Roy helped lift this album to the list of Greatest Ever- a list in which everything The Move did has a very high position. They would never fail you and they wouldn't bring you down into self-indulgent boredom either. The Move are one of the best rock and roll bands ever formed.
So here are the 3 bands Post Beatles who made the biggest dent and the most exciting music, but I must also bring to your attention two other revolutionary bands- Cream and The Yardbirds. While I don't have time to go into full detail they are two bands you will be familiar with as pioneers of heavy metal and I don't think that either one need an introduction as along with The Move, The Kinks, and The Who bands that will live forever and more as the most exciting music of the 1960s. Cream came out of The Yardbirds and both bands came out of the blues- something I haven't touched on till now. While The Move would take some classical bents and some blues influences and turn them psychedelic Cream and The Yardbirds would blow the blues into fragments and then reassemble them. I was listening to UFO the other night and realized how huge an impact Cream had on them. The song was "Pack It Up (And Go)" and the album was OBSESSION- listen to this song and you can hear "Swablr" off DISRAELI GEARS in hyperspeed. For UFO, for Black Sabbath and all the other great hard rockers it all goes back to the 1960s- a time of youthful optimism and wide-eyed wonder. There are simply too many great bands for me to go into detail about and not be here all night, but what I can end with is the music will play on and play on LOUD! You will find all the inspiration for all the coming bands of the 70s and the best of the 80s too in The Kinks, The Move, The Who, The Yardbirds, The Small Faces, Cream- the British Invasion wouldn't die down despite some awful throwaway shlock bands it would lead to American bands playing the most exciting music of all time in that decade of genius along with The British and soon a worldwide explosion of talent. It was a time I wish I had been around for, but can always revisit in the music. Let the music play and let the music ROCK YOU HARD!
Friday, March 16, 2012
STEVE HARRIS 1965-2011 A REMEMBRANCE OF HIS MUSIC, HIS LIFE, AND HIS INSPIRATION.
In loving memory of Steve Harris 1965-2011 who died of a brain tumor after suffering it for two years.
He was my major inspiration and his magic guitar playing was an inspiration to all who heard it.
He will be sadly missed and I am in as much grief as if I lost a family member.
Shy will always be more than just another great band for me. When I discovered them back in December 2001 it was on a whim and it was also after never understanding their music in the past. Over the next year and a half I'd turn into a Shy obsessed new type of guitarist, new type of singer. My first Shy awakening experience was the song "When You Need Someone" demo version on the Regeneration CD where Tony Mills lays down a passionate vocal before Steve Harris soars into the skies with an even more passionate guitar solo that makes the song. This version is way better than what you hear on their one horrible record Misspent Youth and Steve would agree with me about that. The one time I was lucky enough to talk to the great man he said that to me.
Steve Harris will never be equaled. It is safe to say and no hyperbole to say that with his untimely death last year we have lost the greatest guitar player in melodic hard rock along with Randy Rhodes and Michael Schenker- his two major influences along with the also amazing George Lynch. If George Lynch (in case you don't remember that name he was the masterful guitar wizard in Dokken back in the 80s before going into oblivion with his solo projects) or Schenker had died I would be shattered, but for me losing Steve Harris is even worse, even harder to deal with. Perhaps it is because not only was he a very gifted guitar player, but also his astonishingly advanced writing was always what held Shy together. Both George Lynch and Michael Schenker enjoyed and enjoy fame- Harris has to settle for a small cult following and relative anonymity.
What you are about to read is the full history behind Shy and my history with this amazing band- a band that opened many doors for me and led the way for my huge interest in all Melodic Rock.
Shy formed in the early half of 1981 in British Music City Par Excellance Birmingham under the name Trojan and originally were part of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal- something they'd stay on the fringes of as a melodic rock band. Trojan were a heavy metal band who were heavily influenced by Judas Priest and contained the nucleus of Shy in their ranks. In 1982 Shy was born. They were featured on Ebony Records- the notorious label run by permanently jailed Darryl Johnston- a man who ripped off every young band who were on their label and finally was charged with lawsuits by the most successful band on the label metal rockers Grim Reaper.
Shy would too part acrimoniously with Johnston, but not before cutting an excellent debut album Once Bitten Twice.... This record showed that Shy and especially vocalist Tony Mills and guitarist Steve Harris were no ordinary teenaged inexperienced metal band. Shy were not and never were heavy metal once they went through the name change. On Once Bitten Twice... despite the poor production which all Ebony releases suffer from this is miles in the sky above anything else on the label with its powerful melodic hard rock attack full of great melodies and blistering guitar work. Steve Harris was never a flashy, show-offy, gimmick driven player and especially unlike many other guitar players of the time he favored melody over noise. His riffs can be described as punchy, tough, and still very melodic, very catchy whilst his solos soar and spit fire, but the melody is the main thing behind the man. For a bunch of Duran Duran (I have nothing against Duran Duran- in fact I love them) lookalikes this was an odd sound to be hearing- pomp rock taking the best of British NWOBHM excitement and merging it with the smoothness of AOR/Melodic rock. Highlights on this stellar album are the opening track "Deep Water" which sums up the Shy sound, "Think Of Me," "Take It All The Way," "Tonight," and "Chained By Desire." When I heard this album Shy had made the first of two new recordings which actually would surpass even their 80s brilliance although original drummer Alan Kelly (whom Tony Mills hated with a passion and in turn Alan Kelly hated Tony Mills with a passion) would be tearing his hair out over that comment.
When Shy Came back they still wanted to chase success, but let's go back to their formative years back between 1982-1989. When I Heard Once Bitten I had fallen in love for the first time and it had turned out to be as painful as the situation described in "Chained By Desire." Back home in New Jersey and with no way left to tell my should have been best friend or more how I felt for him it was probably that song that struck me the most. I was now deep into Shy for the second year and for two more whole years they'd be my #1 band- in my heart, soul, memory, and love of music forever.
So you're probably asking why so much fuss after I've just described one poorly recorded debut album. Shy would sign to RCA in 1984 and the following year saw the release of their first of two legendary albums on that label Brave The Storm. Brave The Storm was the album that broke Shy into me. It was the album that would take the longest, but that once I got used to Mills screaming his tonsils out on it would impress me almost as much as the follow up masterpiece Excess All Areas. Shy were all very young in the 80s, but they could see and write and sing beyond their years into a sophisticated, polished, and seasoned pomp/progressive/hard rock/pop nexus that arguably no other British band had such a handle on at the time. By Brave The Storm changes had been made. Original bass player Mark Badrick had departed and in his place came ex Trouble (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal- not the awful American band) bass guitarist Roy Stephen Davis. Also, Tony Mills' earlier penchant for makeup wearing onstage flamboyance had been let go of after Mills accidentally wandered into a gay bar in full face paint!!!!
With Tony and Steve sharing most of the writing, classically trained keyboards player Pat "Paddy" Mckenna chipping in, Roy playing a steady foundation laying bass, and some writing help from drummer Alan Kelly Shy looked set to make the big time. Brave The Storm came during a year that saw a lot of darker lyrical themed records released and this was no exception although far more listenable than the debut by fellow Brummies Phenomena (file under really good recipe really bad result) because Shy weren't bogged down in the doom gutter. Doom and AOR did not mix on Phenomena's record. It was an impossible cross and with Shy drawing from early Genesis and Judas Priest the keyboard heavy album had something Genesis never had- a really truly possessed frontman and explosive guitar work. No Neo Prog was this. Brave The Storm saw Shy make an album that was not hard rock and not progressive nor pop, but all 3. There was the choice single track "Hold On To Your Love" which should have been a hit, but beyond that classics like "My Apollo," "Caught In The Act," and "Reflections" which featured some achingly beautiful guitar from Steve Harris made Shy a really special band. The title track was to be Shy's one foray during their career into apocalyptic hard progressive rock, but it would also be the track on the album that brought my love to it and my love to them. Tony would later confirm that he wrote the song about Nuclear Holocaust, but I thought it was a about a different kind of war that killed all mankind- a kind of stand up and fight anthem for soldiers. Scary keyboards begin the track before Mills comes in with his dynamic Rob Halford meets David Bowie instantly recognizable vocals. Over the course of the song Shy go rocking into the stratosphere while the world is destroyed by The Last War. No one survives by the end and Tony Mills screams out in real anguish to end the track on a long drawn out wail that would have Rob Halford in a tizzy as to how he didn't think of it himself!
Shy would leave Progressive Rock and Metal behind after Brave The Storm. Despite great reviews and great shows across the UK and Europe the album just didn't sell. RCA had not done their bit to promote it, but back in 1987 when Shy unleashed Excess All Areas it looked like they were finally about to make it to the top. When I as a shallow, timid, and fiercely Un Anglo (how things would change!!!) 11 year old went to England in 1987 Shy were on the cover of every publication. They were everywhere. Steve Harris was being written up as a rock God. This convinced me before learning better that indeed Excess had been a major breakthrough. Financially and in the fickle world of success VS low sales it was only a minor breakthrough, but it would be the greatest Pomp record England would have and a landmark for Shy.
If you haven't heard Excess All Areas grab a copy, even if it's the not as good American press or do as I did and buy the European CD with their post LP bonus EP added and get it on vinyl as domestic (American). You won't believe this album didn't outsell everything Journey ever did. Journey would be a huge inspiration to Shy and certainly throughout their career Tony Mills would come off like a tougher Steve Perry much of the time, but Shy had something to make them British- a real dangerous vibe to cut through the airbrushed pomp brilliance of their melodies. The songs deal with lost love, fighting for everything you believe in, oppression, and finding the perfect romance. Steve Harris plays his guitar with so much passion and fervor yet with such an understated sympathy towards the songs that would set him apart from all other guitar players chasing stardom at the time. Shy had made the perfect album. Tony Mills is still a bit on the edge of histrionics, occasionally throwing himself right into them ("Telephone"), but boy does his voice sound good. Songs with the strongest melody and feeling in them like "Can't Fight The Nights," "Emergency" (hard to believe Michael Bolton wrote this!), "When The Love Is Over," "Talk To Me," "Young Heart" (a real anthem), and "Just Love Me" which is beautifully sung in a softer voice by T. Mills makes this Shy's most satisfying album. Neil Kernon was a very sympathetic producer to Shy's wants and needs. In the vast "How Could This Miss The Charts" category of AOR the best albums are this, Lionheart's one release Hot Tonight, Snowblind's one record, and Airrace's masterpiece Shaft Of Light, but this would open up a new awareness in me towards AOR and pomp. It could be its own kind of music. It didn't have to follow strict guidelines or rules. It could be truly emotional and Shy paved the way. Things do get much heavier in the outlaw anthem of "Under Fire" with screaming guitars from Harris and their one brush with stardom "Break Down The Walls," but as stated Metal had long been left behind by Shy. Shy had found their best instincts and dreams and Kernon had helped put them on vinyl. Listening to this album after hearing of Steve Harris's death today I had to take it off to fight back the tears. It was unbearable to hear all that we have lost and what a good heart the man had. Steve was the sensible one in the band. I knew that from our one conversation back in 2003. Tony may have been the voice, but Shy were Steve Harris's band. It would be safe to put Excess All Areas now that he has died up there with Ozzy's first two with Randy Rhodes. Now it would seem the only surviving guitar player from those days who really made a mark on me and who is still out there and active is Diamond Head's Brian Tattler and Tattler is a metal Steve Harris. Or I could state that Steve Harris is/was to melodic rock what Brian Tattler is/was back in the day to melodic metal. Both of them found something refreshing to base their music around- melody. Excess All Areas saw Shy headline for the first time and it all looked good. That was until sales weren't what was expected and RCA promptly dropped Shy from their roster.
RCA had never known how to promote their bands. This would go all the way back to the 1960s and nothing had changed by 1987. They had passed up the best thing they had by dropping Shy and Shy would rapidly go down the toilet after they just couldn't gain the success they so richly deserved. This would not be the fault of the band, but come new record company MCA after a brilliant one off EP on FM Revolver (which is included as the bonus tracks on Zoom Club's CD reissue of Excess All Areas) times were not the same and melodic rock was out. MCA had told Shy to make a heavy, commercial, and loud record in the style of the then huge Guns and Roses and the result in 1990/1989 was the sickening Misspent Youth. Shy would hate the album throughout their career. It would be their downfall, their destruction, the bullet-through-the-heart of their dreams. Don't blame the songs some of which were actually great in different demo form, blame one time dream producer Roy Thomas Baker for it. That's right. Roy Thomas Baker the man who brought Queen to the world's stage. He was no longer the huge massive genius he had been then and really after Queen his production jobs had gone steadily downhill. R.T.B would ignore Shy. They were flown out to L.A to record the record and hated it from the start. Tony Mills and Steve Harris were often quoted as saying they never should have made Misspent Youth and I'd agree.
Shy had run their course for the 80s, but not before the worst breakup story ever would have to be told. Shy broke up because MCA were stupid enough to place them on a tour with the despicable Amerikan macho chest beating thug metal band Manowar and the dark metal cookie monster voice band Sabbatt. Manowar pulled the electricity on Shy and the band had to drive all the way back to Birmingham in their tour van. A horrid end to a brilliant story, but a temporary one.
Shy had always had personal problems between Tony Mills and Alan Kelly and when talks of a reunion came up Mills would only agree to it if Alan Kelly was out of the group. Now Alan Kelly may call this not really Shy, but he's lying. With the original three mainstays Davis, Harris, and Mills back + a much better drummer in Bob Richards Shy recorded two last masterpieces in 2002/2003 and 2005.
Unfinished Business was Steve Harris's title idea and it would top even Excess All Areas. How I can say that after what I've said about Excess is I admit hard to believe, but with no more pressure for hit singles Steve Harris now could play solos, fills. and riffs as much as he wanted to. Shy were still the most melodic of all hard rock/heavy pomp bands, but the new guitar attack soars with so much passion that it equals or surpasses the best work that Harris did back on Excess All Areas. Unfinished Business features an opening track that would make for a great add for The Parachute Regiment "Sky Diving-" a song that may be my favourite Shy track ever. Unfinished Business is full of the strong melodies, flying guitars, and soaring vocals that characterize the very best of Shy. Tony Mills is in fine form here too, better than on Sunset And Vine which also is great. "Breakaway," "Change Of Direction, "Maryanne," "Whole Lotta Feelings," "No Other Way" they served as a life force for me. They still may, but with the sadness that the magical guitarist behind these great songs, solos, and memories is dead.
Sunset And Vine followed Unfinished Business in 2005 and is also an excellent album with many great songs and superb guitar from Steve Harris, but I would rate Unfinished Business even higher. Shy seemed like they were finally gonna be here to stay, but unfortunately they just failed to get off the ground once more. Having a strong cult following is enough for some bands. It never was enough for Shy. I have neglected to even mention their one album attempt without Tony Mills Welcome To The Madhouse up till now because it is putrid. Shy needed Tony Mills to spark them and Tony Mills became worthless enough to replace helium voiced Mariah Carey soundalike loser Tony Harnell in the worst band ever Norway's all whimper no bang TNT. Tony Mills was my good friend through emails before TNT, but I knew that he was somebody who would run out of control without the melodies and fire of Steve Harris when I heard his post Shy band Siam- a banal Queensryche wannabe and who would want to be one of the worst bands ever formed. No, for Tony Mills post Shy I've been very much more impressed with Serpentine who I really do need to track down for a blog entry. The question now is how long Mills can survive. In all honesty after he suffered a serious heart attack last year I thought he'd be the one to go and I really hope that Tony can recover his health and find his way back to Shy style music through Serpentine. No offence to you Tony, I wish you all the best in the world mate.
How do I end the story of Steve Harris and Shy without it being all a gloom and depression ridden tragedy? How do I sum up my grief and my shock that the guiding light behind my musical dreams is no longer with us? Look back at the work he left behind him- it all survives still through the magic of being recorded and will live forever. He will always be the cleverest, most inventive, tastiest, and most melodically brilliant guitarist and writer of all melodic rock. I find it still very horrible to think that we've lost Steve. This all comes as so much of a shock to me, but the music lives on and it will live on forever and a day. I believe in Shy- they will continue to inspire my music, my love, my dreams, and my goals to find true love. I lost him back in 2003 as soon as I found him, but Steve Harris's message through all of Shy's music is a consistent one- Love Will Find Its Way To You In The End. Perhaps I will find him again, no, I Will find true love in my life and I have already found it to a good extent in my love of music. May you find Steve Harris and Shy. May you treasure them and love them forever. Rest in Peace and To Your Loving Memory Steve Harris. Much love to all Shy fans out there who will keep up the fight and keep your music alive. You were the greatest and you always will be.
He was my major inspiration and his magic guitar playing was an inspiration to all who heard it.
He will be sadly missed and I am in as much grief as if I lost a family member.
Shy will always be more than just another great band for me. When I discovered them back in December 2001 it was on a whim and it was also after never understanding their music in the past. Over the next year and a half I'd turn into a Shy obsessed new type of guitarist, new type of singer. My first Shy awakening experience was the song "When You Need Someone" demo version on the Regeneration CD where Tony Mills lays down a passionate vocal before Steve Harris soars into the skies with an even more passionate guitar solo that makes the song. This version is way better than what you hear on their one horrible record Misspent Youth and Steve would agree with me about that. The one time I was lucky enough to talk to the great man he said that to me.
Steve Harris will never be equaled. It is safe to say and no hyperbole to say that with his untimely death last year we have lost the greatest guitar player in melodic hard rock along with Randy Rhodes and Michael Schenker- his two major influences along with the also amazing George Lynch. If George Lynch (in case you don't remember that name he was the masterful guitar wizard in Dokken back in the 80s before going into oblivion with his solo projects) or Schenker had died I would be shattered, but for me losing Steve Harris is even worse, even harder to deal with. Perhaps it is because not only was he a very gifted guitar player, but also his astonishingly advanced writing was always what held Shy together. Both George Lynch and Michael Schenker enjoyed and enjoy fame- Harris has to settle for a small cult following and relative anonymity.
What you are about to read is the full history behind Shy and my history with this amazing band- a band that opened many doors for me and led the way for my huge interest in all Melodic Rock.
Shy formed in the early half of 1981 in British Music City Par Excellance Birmingham under the name Trojan and originally were part of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal- something they'd stay on the fringes of as a melodic rock band. Trojan were a heavy metal band who were heavily influenced by Judas Priest and contained the nucleus of Shy in their ranks. In 1982 Shy was born. They were featured on Ebony Records- the notorious label run by permanently jailed Darryl Johnston- a man who ripped off every young band who were on their label and finally was charged with lawsuits by the most successful band on the label metal rockers Grim Reaper.
Shy would too part acrimoniously with Johnston, but not before cutting an excellent debut album Once Bitten Twice.... This record showed that Shy and especially vocalist Tony Mills and guitarist Steve Harris were no ordinary teenaged inexperienced metal band. Shy were not and never were heavy metal once they went through the name change. On Once Bitten Twice... despite the poor production which all Ebony releases suffer from this is miles in the sky above anything else on the label with its powerful melodic hard rock attack full of great melodies and blistering guitar work. Steve Harris was never a flashy, show-offy, gimmick driven player and especially unlike many other guitar players of the time he favored melody over noise. His riffs can be described as punchy, tough, and still very melodic, very catchy whilst his solos soar and spit fire, but the melody is the main thing behind the man. For a bunch of Duran Duran (I have nothing against Duran Duran- in fact I love them) lookalikes this was an odd sound to be hearing- pomp rock taking the best of British NWOBHM excitement and merging it with the smoothness of AOR/Melodic rock. Highlights on this stellar album are the opening track "Deep Water" which sums up the Shy sound, "Think Of Me," "Take It All The Way," "Tonight," and "Chained By Desire." When I heard this album Shy had made the first of two new recordings which actually would surpass even their 80s brilliance although original drummer Alan Kelly (whom Tony Mills hated with a passion and in turn Alan Kelly hated Tony Mills with a passion) would be tearing his hair out over that comment.
When Shy Came back they still wanted to chase success, but let's go back to their formative years back between 1982-1989. When I Heard Once Bitten I had fallen in love for the first time and it had turned out to be as painful as the situation described in "Chained By Desire." Back home in New Jersey and with no way left to tell my should have been best friend or more how I felt for him it was probably that song that struck me the most. I was now deep into Shy for the second year and for two more whole years they'd be my #1 band- in my heart, soul, memory, and love of music forever.
So you're probably asking why so much fuss after I've just described one poorly recorded debut album. Shy would sign to RCA in 1984 and the following year saw the release of their first of two legendary albums on that label Brave The Storm. Brave The Storm was the album that broke Shy into me. It was the album that would take the longest, but that once I got used to Mills screaming his tonsils out on it would impress me almost as much as the follow up masterpiece Excess All Areas. Shy were all very young in the 80s, but they could see and write and sing beyond their years into a sophisticated, polished, and seasoned pomp/progressive/hard rock/pop nexus that arguably no other British band had such a handle on at the time. By Brave The Storm changes had been made. Original bass player Mark Badrick had departed and in his place came ex Trouble (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal- not the awful American band) bass guitarist Roy Stephen Davis. Also, Tony Mills' earlier penchant for makeup wearing onstage flamboyance had been let go of after Mills accidentally wandered into a gay bar in full face paint!!!!
With Tony and Steve sharing most of the writing, classically trained keyboards player Pat "Paddy" Mckenna chipping in, Roy playing a steady foundation laying bass, and some writing help from drummer Alan Kelly Shy looked set to make the big time. Brave The Storm came during a year that saw a lot of darker lyrical themed records released and this was no exception although far more listenable than the debut by fellow Brummies Phenomena (file under really good recipe really bad result) because Shy weren't bogged down in the doom gutter. Doom and AOR did not mix on Phenomena's record. It was an impossible cross and with Shy drawing from early Genesis and Judas Priest the keyboard heavy album had something Genesis never had- a really truly possessed frontman and explosive guitar work. No Neo Prog was this. Brave The Storm saw Shy make an album that was not hard rock and not progressive nor pop, but all 3. There was the choice single track "Hold On To Your Love" which should have been a hit, but beyond that classics like "My Apollo," "Caught In The Act," and "Reflections" which featured some achingly beautiful guitar from Steve Harris made Shy a really special band. The title track was to be Shy's one foray during their career into apocalyptic hard progressive rock, but it would also be the track on the album that brought my love to it and my love to them. Tony would later confirm that he wrote the song about Nuclear Holocaust, but I thought it was a about a different kind of war that killed all mankind- a kind of stand up and fight anthem for soldiers. Scary keyboards begin the track before Mills comes in with his dynamic Rob Halford meets David Bowie instantly recognizable vocals. Over the course of the song Shy go rocking into the stratosphere while the world is destroyed by The Last War. No one survives by the end and Tony Mills screams out in real anguish to end the track on a long drawn out wail that would have Rob Halford in a tizzy as to how he didn't think of it himself!
Shy would leave Progressive Rock and Metal behind after Brave The Storm. Despite great reviews and great shows across the UK and Europe the album just didn't sell. RCA had not done their bit to promote it, but back in 1987 when Shy unleashed Excess All Areas it looked like they were finally about to make it to the top. When I as a shallow, timid, and fiercely Un Anglo (how things would change!!!) 11 year old went to England in 1987 Shy were on the cover of every publication. They were everywhere. Steve Harris was being written up as a rock God. This convinced me before learning better that indeed Excess had been a major breakthrough. Financially and in the fickle world of success VS low sales it was only a minor breakthrough, but it would be the greatest Pomp record England would have and a landmark for Shy.
If you haven't heard Excess All Areas grab a copy, even if it's the not as good American press or do as I did and buy the European CD with their post LP bonus EP added and get it on vinyl as domestic (American). You won't believe this album didn't outsell everything Journey ever did. Journey would be a huge inspiration to Shy and certainly throughout their career Tony Mills would come off like a tougher Steve Perry much of the time, but Shy had something to make them British- a real dangerous vibe to cut through the airbrushed pomp brilliance of their melodies. The songs deal with lost love, fighting for everything you believe in, oppression, and finding the perfect romance. Steve Harris plays his guitar with so much passion and fervor yet with such an understated sympathy towards the songs that would set him apart from all other guitar players chasing stardom at the time. Shy had made the perfect album. Tony Mills is still a bit on the edge of histrionics, occasionally throwing himself right into them ("Telephone"), but boy does his voice sound good. Songs with the strongest melody and feeling in them like "Can't Fight The Nights," "Emergency" (hard to believe Michael Bolton wrote this!), "When The Love Is Over," "Talk To Me," "Young Heart" (a real anthem), and "Just Love Me" which is beautifully sung in a softer voice by T. Mills makes this Shy's most satisfying album. Neil Kernon was a very sympathetic producer to Shy's wants and needs. In the vast "How Could This Miss The Charts" category of AOR the best albums are this, Lionheart's one release Hot Tonight, Snowblind's one record, and Airrace's masterpiece Shaft Of Light, but this would open up a new awareness in me towards AOR and pomp. It could be its own kind of music. It didn't have to follow strict guidelines or rules. It could be truly emotional and Shy paved the way. Things do get much heavier in the outlaw anthem of "Under Fire" with screaming guitars from Harris and their one brush with stardom "Break Down The Walls," but as stated Metal had long been left behind by Shy. Shy had found their best instincts and dreams and Kernon had helped put them on vinyl. Listening to this album after hearing of Steve Harris's death today I had to take it off to fight back the tears. It was unbearable to hear all that we have lost and what a good heart the man had. Steve was the sensible one in the band. I knew that from our one conversation back in 2003. Tony may have been the voice, but Shy were Steve Harris's band. It would be safe to put Excess All Areas now that he has died up there with Ozzy's first two with Randy Rhodes. Now it would seem the only surviving guitar player from those days who really made a mark on me and who is still out there and active is Diamond Head's Brian Tattler and Tattler is a metal Steve Harris. Or I could state that Steve Harris is/was to melodic rock what Brian Tattler is/was back in the day to melodic metal. Both of them found something refreshing to base their music around- melody. Excess All Areas saw Shy headline for the first time and it all looked good. That was until sales weren't what was expected and RCA promptly dropped Shy from their roster.
RCA had never known how to promote their bands. This would go all the way back to the 1960s and nothing had changed by 1987. They had passed up the best thing they had by dropping Shy and Shy would rapidly go down the toilet after they just couldn't gain the success they so richly deserved. This would not be the fault of the band, but come new record company MCA after a brilliant one off EP on FM Revolver (which is included as the bonus tracks on Zoom Club's CD reissue of Excess All Areas) times were not the same and melodic rock was out. MCA had told Shy to make a heavy, commercial, and loud record in the style of the then huge Guns and Roses and the result in 1990/1989 was the sickening Misspent Youth. Shy would hate the album throughout their career. It would be their downfall, their destruction, the bullet-through-the-heart of their dreams. Don't blame the songs some of which were actually great in different demo form, blame one time dream producer Roy Thomas Baker for it. That's right. Roy Thomas Baker the man who brought Queen to the world's stage. He was no longer the huge massive genius he had been then and really after Queen his production jobs had gone steadily downhill. R.T.B would ignore Shy. They were flown out to L.A to record the record and hated it from the start. Tony Mills and Steve Harris were often quoted as saying they never should have made Misspent Youth and I'd agree.
Shy had run their course for the 80s, but not before the worst breakup story ever would have to be told. Shy broke up because MCA were stupid enough to place them on a tour with the despicable Amerikan macho chest beating thug metal band Manowar and the dark metal cookie monster voice band Sabbatt. Manowar pulled the electricity on Shy and the band had to drive all the way back to Birmingham in their tour van. A horrid end to a brilliant story, but a temporary one.
Shy had always had personal problems between Tony Mills and Alan Kelly and when talks of a reunion came up Mills would only agree to it if Alan Kelly was out of the group. Now Alan Kelly may call this not really Shy, but he's lying. With the original three mainstays Davis, Harris, and Mills back + a much better drummer in Bob Richards Shy recorded two last masterpieces in 2002/2003 and 2005.
Unfinished Business was Steve Harris's title idea and it would top even Excess All Areas. How I can say that after what I've said about Excess is I admit hard to believe, but with no more pressure for hit singles Steve Harris now could play solos, fills. and riffs as much as he wanted to. Shy were still the most melodic of all hard rock/heavy pomp bands, but the new guitar attack soars with so much passion that it equals or surpasses the best work that Harris did back on Excess All Areas. Unfinished Business features an opening track that would make for a great add for The Parachute Regiment "Sky Diving-" a song that may be my favourite Shy track ever. Unfinished Business is full of the strong melodies, flying guitars, and soaring vocals that characterize the very best of Shy. Tony Mills is in fine form here too, better than on Sunset And Vine which also is great. "Breakaway," "Change Of Direction, "Maryanne," "Whole Lotta Feelings," "No Other Way" they served as a life force for me. They still may, but with the sadness that the magical guitarist behind these great songs, solos, and memories is dead.
Sunset And Vine followed Unfinished Business in 2005 and is also an excellent album with many great songs and superb guitar from Steve Harris, but I would rate Unfinished Business even higher. Shy seemed like they were finally gonna be here to stay, but unfortunately they just failed to get off the ground once more. Having a strong cult following is enough for some bands. It never was enough for Shy. I have neglected to even mention their one album attempt without Tony Mills Welcome To The Madhouse up till now because it is putrid. Shy needed Tony Mills to spark them and Tony Mills became worthless enough to replace helium voiced Mariah Carey soundalike loser Tony Harnell in the worst band ever Norway's all whimper no bang TNT. Tony Mills was my good friend through emails before TNT, but I knew that he was somebody who would run out of control without the melodies and fire of Steve Harris when I heard his post Shy band Siam- a banal Queensryche wannabe and who would want to be one of the worst bands ever formed. No, for Tony Mills post Shy I've been very much more impressed with Serpentine who I really do need to track down for a blog entry. The question now is how long Mills can survive. In all honesty after he suffered a serious heart attack last year I thought he'd be the one to go and I really hope that Tony can recover his health and find his way back to Shy style music through Serpentine. No offence to you Tony, I wish you all the best in the world mate.
How do I end the story of Steve Harris and Shy without it being all a gloom and depression ridden tragedy? How do I sum up my grief and my shock that the guiding light behind my musical dreams is no longer with us? Look back at the work he left behind him- it all survives still through the magic of being recorded and will live forever. He will always be the cleverest, most inventive, tastiest, and most melodically brilliant guitarist and writer of all melodic rock. I find it still very horrible to think that we've lost Steve. This all comes as so much of a shock to me, but the music lives on and it will live on forever and a day. I believe in Shy- they will continue to inspire my music, my love, my dreams, and my goals to find true love. I lost him back in 2003 as soon as I found him, but Steve Harris's message through all of Shy's music is a consistent one- Love Will Find Its Way To You In The End. Perhaps I will find him again, no, I Will find true love in my life and I have already found it to a good extent in my love of music. May you find Steve Harris and Shy. May you treasure them and love them forever. Rest in Peace and To Your Loving Memory Steve Harris. Much love to all Shy fans out there who will keep up the fight and keep your music alive. You were the greatest and you always will be.
Monday, March 12, 2012
STILL LIFE, POWER OF ZEUS, AND RENIA- TWO UNDERGROUND HEAVY BANDS AND ONE TASTEFULLY PROGRESSIVE MELODIC ROCK
The whole world was changing in the early 1970s and some things would have to die for other new adventures to begin. Flower power was long a thing of the past and had faded into the memories of the lucky few who could remember the Summer Of Love and the classic sounds of that summer.
Disenchantment, foreboding, anarchy, and disorganization partially took the place of the more peaceful ideas about revolution and come 1970 England was in its second full year of war against the Catholic extremist IRA in Northern Ireland. A lot of young people were out of work and this led to lots becoming soldiers or more fortunately gifted ones forming bands to express their feelings of disillusion.
The massive wave of heavy and not so heavy artistically forward moving groups in the United Kingdom, Europe, and America were largely labelled "progressive rock" and/or "hard rock-" heavy metal was just beginning to get some rare usage as a word for the most arch hard hitting of these bands. With the huge amount of music getting recorded came new labels in the UK and a different approach to signing bands for more staid ones. Pye had Dawn, Phillips had Vertigo and a million others, Decca had Deram, and EMI had Harvest Sovereign and Regal Zonophone. This is only a handful as there were about 300 bands and 300 albums coming out every week if you put just two of these countries together with most fading into obscurity as soon as they'd made their one album. A lot of great, brilliant, heartfelt and inventive music came out during the 1970-1973 era. Fantasy, The Parlour Band, Dog That Bit People, Northwind, Renia (who I'll dig into here), Still Life (more on them a bit later also), Quicksand, and Asgard/Stonehouse led the way. With all these exciting bands and records also came disappointments and disasters.
Black Sabbath were a band who had miraculously made it just with their revolutionary first album almost seemingly overnight, but many horrible bands followed that would try to replicate progressive or hard rock with dark lyrical themes. Sabbath were monolithic, amazing, extraordinary and despite their quick rise the band had paid their dues for many years before that first album sent chills up the spine of anyone who heard it. Together with Ozzy and mates the most exciting bands to play progressive rock, the big 3 if you will, would be Yes, Uriah Heep, and early King Crimson with a mention too of Genesis (sometimes they were brilliant, but often sickening). The charts for the first time were also full of exciting music trying to grasp onto a more mature form of flowers and love pop. There was Vanity Fare, White Plains, The Marmalade (who would morph from psychedelic pop in the 60s to a band who could rock hard on their classic 3rd and 4th releases Songs and Our House Is Rocking), Sweet (The Gods of Glam Rock), Slade (The 2nd Gods Of Glam Rock), and all assortment of bands who either gave us pure pop bliss or great listenable harder more thoughtful rock.
The war was taking lives every day. Everyone was scared shitless of what could and might happen if the bomb was dropped or the war escalated. Some unashamedly pompous, sick in the head, and talentless bands rose up to spew filth and fear into the English music scene with this being where the fine line I can discuss is drawn. It is one thing to write about death and destruction tastefully, in an if not subtle than at least intelligent manner, but Warm Dust, Deep Feeling, and the first 3 travesties by Beggars Opera are the most disgusting overblown nonsense ever produced making some British bands look as bad as American chart music of that time. These 3 bands would die their deserved deaths or in the case of Beggar's Opera go on to become a classy rock and roll band, but there was always that question of progressive VS gratuitous. It sometimes was borderline, but usually crystal clear.
This is where Still Life step in. Signed by Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep label Vertigo the young quartet recorded the ultimate heavy melodic showcase for a prime mix of progressive/psychedelic rock and emotive R&B in one of the worst covers of 1971. Look at the front and it's some nice looking flowers, but fold it down to the next panel of the front gatefold you find a disgusting rotted out human skull. You would immediately suspect this to be one of the throwaway records released by the overstretched Vertigo label, but that's hardly the case. Vertigo had many fine bands and on closer look of the great inner gatefold shot of 4 stoned out looking lads Still Life look like they mean business. And they do. This is a very unusual album. Their sound is characterized by a heavy Hammond organ and pounding piano sound with only bass and drums, no guitar. The only tracks to use guitar both use acoustic at the beginning with flute of the opening monster "People In Black" and the first half of Side Two's 1st track "Love Song Number 6 (I'll Never Love You Girl)." Soaring, sometimes strangely phrased Asgard like vocal harmonies and Martin Cure's soulful strong vocals are a pleasant change from the myriad of bands who couldn't sing, but it is the highly thoughtful nature of the music that makes Still Life so incredible. As in my last blog entry sometimes I have the feeling of lying shell shocked in a trench or in this case running for my life down a street in Belfast or Londonderry, but there is something warm here, something even comforting at times. Still Life are a heavy, ominous band and almost a keyboard led hybrid of Uriah Heep and Black Sabbath, but with very strong soul influences. Vocalist Martin Cure whether wistfully singing of lost time and intellectual musings or shouting, roaring out like a lion has a voice that most singers would give their life for. At last there's a white singer who really does have soul, who really can deliver R&B phrasing with the magic of a young Steve Winwood or Gary Brooker. He's amazing. Organist Terry Howells is a fantastic keyboard player who uses bombastic crashing noises to his advantage, but one who also has a keen melodic sense. The rhythm section are also worthy of a mention- they can follow any change in mood, structure, or chord with no problem at all. The harmonies that begin "People In Black" are painfully out of tune, but thankfully Still Life get going and get way professional after that. "People In Black" is a mystifying song. It is definitely a put down, but very opaque. The song has apocalyptic lines and some violent imagery, but mainly a lot of anger at these protesting "People In Black." It runs for over 8 minutes and is an intense piece of music that has your attention fixed on it for the entire duration of the song. "Don't Go" which follows it and the closing track "Time" are both very melodic progressive rock songs with the former a ballad, the latter heavier with great vocals and a very warm atmosphere conjured up. Both are mournful and it seems that Still Life are a band mourning something beautiful that has passed by, maybe unnoticed by most people. It could be the 60s or it could be disillusion with England as it entered an illadvised pointless war, but more likely it's both. "October Witches" and "Dreams" are heavy epic tracks which concoct an aural stew of everything from Procol Harum to the early Nice to The Small Faces and David Bowie. Strong, powerful, and engaging music. "I'll Never Love You Girl" is another track to bring back 60s influences although it turns into a furious shouting vocal halfway through with Martin Cure sounding like Paul Rodgers gone mad. "Dreams" is the most complex track beginning with a freaky spoken section then a hard rocking 1st section and slow contemplative trippy ending. Much, much, much better than Egg or any other Canterbury pseudo artsy nonsense! Still Life may be the only successful prog/soul hybrid in existence along with Procol and some of Uriah Heep's more soulful musings and here everything is so high quality you can overlook that stupid front cover. A must-have for any discerning collector! NOTE: You can more easily afford, but not more easily find a Canadian Swirl pressing that sounds really good and duplicates the British press.
A few quick spins here:
Power Of Zeus: America's answer to the Uriah Heep and Black Sabbath? Progressive rock or heavy psych? A bit of both and a lot more. Power Of Zeus are a rough and ready Detroit quartet whose music is far removed from the garage punk ineptitude of most of who had come before them with their sound decidedly very British/European. This is probably the best and most legitimate hard heavy prog/psych album from the States beating the heads in of every other keyboard/guitar heavy American group. The vocals are occasionally a bit too tough for their own good, but for the most part excellent. The harmonies and some whole songs flash back to the 60s Mod wave and the only problem is the really stupid lyrics to some of their songs ("You Can't see what's happened to me/Cos the rain beats down on your big beef daddy" or "You should see my woman/fine as can be my woman"). That said I would compare this album to Canada's Warpig and the heavy German and British monsters of the time (Power Of Zeus released The Gospel According To Zeus on Rare Earth in 1970)- menacing, freaky, thought-provoking hard brute force stuff with a lot of taste. There's even really melodic sections for variety- always a good thing. One of the best.
Renia- First Offenders: Renia were anything BUT underground on their 1973 record for Transatlantic instead in the vein of Fable, Dog That Bit People, or The Parlour Band a very melodic rock group with progressive leanings, melody, and muscle. Every song could be expounded upon for its perfect melding of melodic R&B/Free like rock and progressive inclinations in the superb keyboard/guitar/bass nexus that drives it along, but the fact that this whole record blends into one big perfect song is its magic. There is not one weak link here and the songs are amazing. Every track sticks to strong melodies over bombast and the vibe for the whole record is very cheerful. As said, not underground. Fable is one of the best examples of melodic British rock with ambitions, but Renia is every bit as good as that very similar record. If you were to have seen the two bands on the same bill you would have experienced the concert of your life probably, but both bands sank without trace after just one record. You can't lose with this one, but it's very hard to find it as Transatlantic only promoted their folk artists leaving rock bands like Renia or Stray for dead. Stray never made it because of the label they were on and the same could be said for Renia. The band's lead singer, Kenny Stewart, would go onto the ill-fated hard rock band Dirty Tricks, but be warned he was never this good again except for the very first album by his next venture. By the time Dirty Tricks released their second album Night Man they were a laughable parody of themselves and about the worst Free/Zeppelin wannabes in the world. Things would hit an all-time low on Hit And Run where Stewart screams his tonsils out and doesn't even try to sing. For some there is but one moment of sheer brilliance in their life and it seems for Stewart he had one and a half. That the talented vocalist didn't resurrect his earlier promise and Stevie Winwood like delivery for a second try is a real shame. Renia's First Offenders is a masterpiece of strong, solid, durable melodic British rock.
England always seems to be the country to start a wave of excitement going and other countries pick up on it. This is true going back to the early Beat days of the Beatles and the Mods, but in the 1970s England seemed to be both a major power and a pale shadow of what the 60s had promised. There was both the best and the worst music with the same true of the life conditions people would face during those days. You either had it made or you went off to fight and got taken for one long horrible traumatic ride of trying to solve a problem you didn't create. Most bands would not make it very far either regardless of their talent, but that everyone who tried tried is what matters- England wasn't gonna fall into misery and die. It would keep itself alive until punk, but then rock would win in the end with all the great bands of The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Take this blog entry as the two sides- despair and happiness- they exist in the lives of everyone.
Disenchantment, foreboding, anarchy, and disorganization partially took the place of the more peaceful ideas about revolution and come 1970 England was in its second full year of war against the Catholic extremist IRA in Northern Ireland. A lot of young people were out of work and this led to lots becoming soldiers or more fortunately gifted ones forming bands to express their feelings of disillusion.
The massive wave of heavy and not so heavy artistically forward moving groups in the United Kingdom, Europe, and America were largely labelled "progressive rock" and/or "hard rock-" heavy metal was just beginning to get some rare usage as a word for the most arch hard hitting of these bands. With the huge amount of music getting recorded came new labels in the UK and a different approach to signing bands for more staid ones. Pye had Dawn, Phillips had Vertigo and a million others, Decca had Deram, and EMI had Harvest Sovereign and Regal Zonophone. This is only a handful as there were about 300 bands and 300 albums coming out every week if you put just two of these countries together with most fading into obscurity as soon as they'd made their one album. A lot of great, brilliant, heartfelt and inventive music came out during the 1970-1973 era. Fantasy, The Parlour Band, Dog That Bit People, Northwind, Renia (who I'll dig into here), Still Life (more on them a bit later also), Quicksand, and Asgard/Stonehouse led the way. With all these exciting bands and records also came disappointments and disasters.
Black Sabbath were a band who had miraculously made it just with their revolutionary first album almost seemingly overnight, but many horrible bands followed that would try to replicate progressive or hard rock with dark lyrical themes. Sabbath were monolithic, amazing, extraordinary and despite their quick rise the band had paid their dues for many years before that first album sent chills up the spine of anyone who heard it. Together with Ozzy and mates the most exciting bands to play progressive rock, the big 3 if you will, would be Yes, Uriah Heep, and early King Crimson with a mention too of Genesis (sometimes they were brilliant, but often sickening). The charts for the first time were also full of exciting music trying to grasp onto a more mature form of flowers and love pop. There was Vanity Fare, White Plains, The Marmalade (who would morph from psychedelic pop in the 60s to a band who could rock hard on their classic 3rd and 4th releases Songs and Our House Is Rocking), Sweet (The Gods of Glam Rock), Slade (The 2nd Gods Of Glam Rock), and all assortment of bands who either gave us pure pop bliss or great listenable harder more thoughtful rock.
The war was taking lives every day. Everyone was scared shitless of what could and might happen if the bomb was dropped or the war escalated. Some unashamedly pompous, sick in the head, and talentless bands rose up to spew filth and fear into the English music scene with this being where the fine line I can discuss is drawn. It is one thing to write about death and destruction tastefully, in an if not subtle than at least intelligent manner, but Warm Dust, Deep Feeling, and the first 3 travesties by Beggars Opera are the most disgusting overblown nonsense ever produced making some British bands look as bad as American chart music of that time. These 3 bands would die their deserved deaths or in the case of Beggar's Opera go on to become a classy rock and roll band, but there was always that question of progressive VS gratuitous. It sometimes was borderline, but usually crystal clear.
This is where Still Life step in. Signed by Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep label Vertigo the young quartet recorded the ultimate heavy melodic showcase for a prime mix of progressive/psychedelic rock and emotive R&B in one of the worst covers of 1971. Look at the front and it's some nice looking flowers, but fold it down to the next panel of the front gatefold you find a disgusting rotted out human skull. You would immediately suspect this to be one of the throwaway records released by the overstretched Vertigo label, but that's hardly the case. Vertigo had many fine bands and on closer look of the great inner gatefold shot of 4 stoned out looking lads Still Life look like they mean business. And they do. This is a very unusual album. Their sound is characterized by a heavy Hammond organ and pounding piano sound with only bass and drums, no guitar. The only tracks to use guitar both use acoustic at the beginning with flute of the opening monster "People In Black" and the first half of Side Two's 1st track "Love Song Number 6 (I'll Never Love You Girl)." Soaring, sometimes strangely phrased Asgard like vocal harmonies and Martin Cure's soulful strong vocals are a pleasant change from the myriad of bands who couldn't sing, but it is the highly thoughtful nature of the music that makes Still Life so incredible. As in my last blog entry sometimes I have the feeling of lying shell shocked in a trench or in this case running for my life down a street in Belfast or Londonderry, but there is something warm here, something even comforting at times. Still Life are a heavy, ominous band and almost a keyboard led hybrid of Uriah Heep and Black Sabbath, but with very strong soul influences. Vocalist Martin Cure whether wistfully singing of lost time and intellectual musings or shouting, roaring out like a lion has a voice that most singers would give their life for. At last there's a white singer who really does have soul, who really can deliver R&B phrasing with the magic of a young Steve Winwood or Gary Brooker. He's amazing. Organist Terry Howells is a fantastic keyboard player who uses bombastic crashing noises to his advantage, but one who also has a keen melodic sense. The rhythm section are also worthy of a mention- they can follow any change in mood, structure, or chord with no problem at all. The harmonies that begin "People In Black" are painfully out of tune, but thankfully Still Life get going and get way professional after that. "People In Black" is a mystifying song. It is definitely a put down, but very opaque. The song has apocalyptic lines and some violent imagery, but mainly a lot of anger at these protesting "People In Black." It runs for over 8 minutes and is an intense piece of music that has your attention fixed on it for the entire duration of the song. "Don't Go" which follows it and the closing track "Time" are both very melodic progressive rock songs with the former a ballad, the latter heavier with great vocals and a very warm atmosphere conjured up. Both are mournful and it seems that Still Life are a band mourning something beautiful that has passed by, maybe unnoticed by most people. It could be the 60s or it could be disillusion with England as it entered an illadvised pointless war, but more likely it's both. "October Witches" and "Dreams" are heavy epic tracks which concoct an aural stew of everything from Procol Harum to the early Nice to The Small Faces and David Bowie. Strong, powerful, and engaging music. "I'll Never Love You Girl" is another track to bring back 60s influences although it turns into a furious shouting vocal halfway through with Martin Cure sounding like Paul Rodgers gone mad. "Dreams" is the most complex track beginning with a freaky spoken section then a hard rocking 1st section and slow contemplative trippy ending. Much, much, much better than Egg or any other Canterbury pseudo artsy nonsense! Still Life may be the only successful prog/soul hybrid in existence along with Procol and some of Uriah Heep's more soulful musings and here everything is so high quality you can overlook that stupid front cover. A must-have for any discerning collector! NOTE: You can more easily afford, but not more easily find a Canadian Swirl pressing that sounds really good and duplicates the British press.
A few quick spins here:
Power Of Zeus: America's answer to the Uriah Heep and Black Sabbath? Progressive rock or heavy psych? A bit of both and a lot more. Power Of Zeus are a rough and ready Detroit quartet whose music is far removed from the garage punk ineptitude of most of who had come before them with their sound decidedly very British/European. This is probably the best and most legitimate hard heavy prog/psych album from the States beating the heads in of every other keyboard/guitar heavy American group. The vocals are occasionally a bit too tough for their own good, but for the most part excellent. The harmonies and some whole songs flash back to the 60s Mod wave and the only problem is the really stupid lyrics to some of their songs ("You Can't see what's happened to me/Cos the rain beats down on your big beef daddy" or "You should see my woman/fine as can be my woman"). That said I would compare this album to Canada's Warpig and the heavy German and British monsters of the time (Power Of Zeus released The Gospel According To Zeus on Rare Earth in 1970)- menacing, freaky, thought-provoking hard brute force stuff with a lot of taste. There's even really melodic sections for variety- always a good thing. One of the best.
Renia- First Offenders: Renia were anything BUT underground on their 1973 record for Transatlantic instead in the vein of Fable, Dog That Bit People, or The Parlour Band a very melodic rock group with progressive leanings, melody, and muscle. Every song could be expounded upon for its perfect melding of melodic R&B/Free like rock and progressive inclinations in the superb keyboard/guitar/bass nexus that drives it along, but the fact that this whole record blends into one big perfect song is its magic. There is not one weak link here and the songs are amazing. Every track sticks to strong melodies over bombast and the vibe for the whole record is very cheerful. As said, not underground. Fable is one of the best examples of melodic British rock with ambitions, but Renia is every bit as good as that very similar record. If you were to have seen the two bands on the same bill you would have experienced the concert of your life probably, but both bands sank without trace after just one record. You can't lose with this one, but it's very hard to find it as Transatlantic only promoted their folk artists leaving rock bands like Renia or Stray for dead. Stray never made it because of the label they were on and the same could be said for Renia. The band's lead singer, Kenny Stewart, would go onto the ill-fated hard rock band Dirty Tricks, but be warned he was never this good again except for the very first album by his next venture. By the time Dirty Tricks released their second album Night Man they were a laughable parody of themselves and about the worst Free/Zeppelin wannabes in the world. Things would hit an all-time low on Hit And Run where Stewart screams his tonsils out and doesn't even try to sing. For some there is but one moment of sheer brilliance in their life and it seems for Stewart he had one and a half. That the talented vocalist didn't resurrect his earlier promise and Stevie Winwood like delivery for a second try is a real shame. Renia's First Offenders is a masterpiece of strong, solid, durable melodic British rock.
England always seems to be the country to start a wave of excitement going and other countries pick up on it. This is true going back to the early Beat days of the Beatles and the Mods, but in the 1970s England seemed to be both a major power and a pale shadow of what the 60s had promised. There was both the best and the worst music with the same true of the life conditions people would face during those days. You either had it made or you went off to fight and got taken for one long horrible traumatic ride of trying to solve a problem you didn't create. Most bands would not make it very far either regardless of their talent, but that everyone who tried tried is what matters- England wasn't gonna fall into misery and die. It would keep itself alive until punk, but then rock would win in the end with all the great bands of The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Take this blog entry as the two sides- despair and happiness- they exist in the lives of everyone.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
NOT SO ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT- THE POST WAR ROAR FEAUTURING APOCALYPSE AND SCORPIONS- LONESOME CROW
During high school I had two best friends from Germany, one from Hungary, and several very nice European girls from the Eastern Bloc were close allies. They were the friends of mine who gave me courage and helped me to survive, but my story starts even before then.
When you are growing up in any well-informed family or in any country where the information is even in the ether you know that Germany has a very dark past of being ravaged along with the rest of Europe by two pointless, horrible World Wars which killed millions and left the country torn up enough for Hitler to rise and then torn up enough after Adolph for a new dawn to rise in the youth of that Nation. Kids who grew up post WW2 in England and Germany and also America, in fact most European/Anglo countries, would soon form a massive underground movement in the 1960s- the counterculture.
There was still plenty of hostility towards this "counterculture" to spread a better, more forward, brighter path for the future whilst retaining the knowledge of the past even during my formative years in high school. I had become a target by my Sophomore year. I wanted to know and I wanted the facts with no lies thank you. I was open for the first time in my life and something had come into my life I found very haunting- Soldiers. I always thought soldiers were taboo, even bad during childhood, but things would change come hearing an album called Lonesome Crow- the first by a young German band called Scorpions. The march-like rhythms and waves of screaming pounding bashing war-like onslaught combined with dark reflective passages stirred up images of what the past had held for kids at my age then of 15 and a half or older. I started to subconsciously associate this dark and menacing album with images of World War 1 and World War 2. The lyrics were pained to put it mildly, yet this creeping menacing album had me floored by it. I could feel the boots marching of every soldier in every nation- now and today. It was like this album of aural apocalypse had brought the human side of war into my mind and heart with the world exploding all around me. Ages later I still can see the same images in my head that I saw when I heard the album the first time.
Having German and European mates was a good thing for me. David (real first name Balaz) Toth, an intellectually gifted Hungarian, was a very open person who I felt comfortable talking to about things other kids didn't ever hear from me. During our period of best friendship there was also a German acid sampling eccentric named Lorenz "Lorenzo" Westewig and I considered him a really special person too. The 3 of us knew that the book by Erich Maria Remarque ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT was on the horizon, but I never knew the impact it would have on me. When we were assigned the book we were warned that it was a really depressing and really "heavy" book and after watching both film versions many times since the subject is very frightening, unbelievably tragic, and very upsetting. During the time I read the book I immersed myself in the characters, especially Paul Baumer- the lead. A young, loving, intelligent boy thrust into the horrors of battle on the Western Front in World War 1. As I laughed at his laughter, suffered with his pain, and at the end cried for an hour over his death I felt that I was also in a war zone. It could have been a brief flight, but no not with me. I wanted to know more. I've learned over time the truth about musicians and the truth about soldiers. We share similarities yet you will always surprisingly find the musicians to be the more narrow-minded ones. A soldier is a young and eager man usually trying to escape from poverty to make something of himself, but if he succeeds and lives to tell of his experiences you won't catch him turning into an egotistical self-absorbed person. Musicians are young and eager people who in the case of especially European (and that includes England) youths are looking to learn from the history of their nation and at the time of Apocalypse's one off and the start of the Scorpions career another war, World War 2, was a subject that would burn like red blood through their songs.
The Germans for the first time could point the finger at other countries- namely America for Vietnam. Most of these musicians would if they went on forge a career of anonymity or in the Scorpions case change their lyrical sentiments to more romantic ones. When a musician grows older he has a soul that is trying to erase his formative youthful years. When he grows old chances are he won't be rockin' or sockin' the truth about all those mysterious foreboding songs to you anymore.
With the horrible war in the Former Yugoslavia raging endlessly I was, we all were, very upset. Here was the country where World War 1 had started and as I looked around I saw no changes in culture or human nature at all there. Genocide and young lives being destroyed again. I wanted to go over there and fight the Serbs, but I wanted my weapon to be loudspeakers. I certainly was having way too much fun to want to go off and get shot.
As I have aged my anti-war yet Pro Soldier beliefs are held more firmly now than ever. I know and have spoken to many British and some other soldiers and I find that history, their history, is one that lives on in a nation and in its music long after all other adolescent fantasies have died. Prepare to be shocked at some of what I reveal to you in this music, and strap yourself in coz this is a hard ride down a hard road.
German hard psychedelic rock came roaring into existence in 1969 and stayed there for nearly over a decade. The bands all tended towards ominous names to match their ominous music and they all grew up in the shadow of World War 2. Bands like Armageddon, Apocalypse (whom I will discuss in full here), Scorpions, Nite Sun, Wind, and Gift (which is German for "Poison" actually) explored the themes of war, violence, and apocalyptic sentiments through their music to varying degrees of success. While Gift assaulted us with a barrage of noise over 2 full length albums in an attempt to make us believe that life was really damned miserable the God Like bands of the early German underground movement would have to be Apocalypse, Scorpions, and the first Electric Food LP. British bands were heavily leaning towards dark lyrics about war and disenchantment as the war in Northern Ireland would go from a bad start in 1969 to a 33 year nightmare for that country, but some of these bands were just looking for an excuse to write sensationalistic nonsense. In England there were thousands of young bands and most of them were brilliant thank you, but Germany was the country where classical music was a proud tradition so for lack of a better term "symphonies" came easier to the young German bands.
Apocalypse were the same boys who made the pop psych classic Kannibal Komix (their spelling not mine- clever ain't it?) album and who after Apocalypse went on to Megaton with all 3 bands involving the ex US Army SGT Les Humphries who had turned to music as their Svengali. Les Humphries was a strange character about whom I don't know a whole lot, but with Enrico Lombardi who was a group member and later producer Gerd Muller in the line up they wrote and recorded the Apocalypse album- one that more than lives up to the threat it promises on the cover. The cover shows a sky turning all kinds of weird colours with at the bottom 7 multicoloured stars turning into barbed wire and holding a bleeding cut off human hand. The back cover shows a background collage and demonic beasts writhing in tortured shapes. If this sounds like you can't stomach it already and if looking at it makes you think it will be too "Heavy" for you the music outdoes the cover!
Dispute goes on about whether Apocalypse was recorded by their producer Giorgio Moroder in 1969 or 1971, but I would compromise there and take my guess as 1970. However you slice it, it was really early and predated the similarly tortured Lonesome Crow. "Life Is Your Profession" begins with a heavy bass drum or timpani being bashed while a choir from Hell in Gregorian madness chant in the background before blasting guitars and aggressive vocals which evoke England's Open Mind or followup band Megaton but way trippier come in. The chorus uses very classical choral harmonies in the background and this is a recurring theme throughout the album. Lyrically, it sets the tone of violence, menace, and destruction that is prevalent throughout the album. "Let It Die" follows and features guitarist Jurgen Drews (now an infamous trashy cabaret singer in Spanish Malorka [sic]) singing in a soft depressed voice in a sitar-led doom-ladened dirge. The weaving sitars, sparse instrumentation, and creepy menacing harmonies have me feeling like I am lying shell shocked in a trench in World War 1. It's hard to believe that such a horrible sensation could also bring a really vibrant love of live and love of the song and album in this very dark music. "Patricia" is the longest track on the album and here the Second World War comes right straight into your living room when you play it. For some of the most tortured, menacing, dark music this album has a staggering amount of power and life. There is enough imagination and drive here to make it THE BEST HEAVY PSYCH GERMAN RECORD AND A WORLD CLASS MONSTER. "Patricia" has quiet and plaintive, wailing sections in its epic structure and features some really monstrously heavy guitar parts. After the soft verses and screaming blasting choruses the song changes into an out of tune guitar and even more out of tune thickly accented vocal about "Too Many People That Cry." The vocal sounds like he's just been shot and then he says "Picture this just 20 years ago" and the war comes out of the disturbing past right into the song with the sounds of chanting, marching, freaky Ghost Like hordes of the damned attacking your mind before a scorching guitar solo hits you so hard you don't know what has just transpired.
Classical influences from Bach to Wagner figure heavily throughout this album. Side Two is more short song oriented and for the first 3 tracks ("Milkman," "Try To Please Me," and "Pictures Of My Woman") the music is much more of a freaky Swinging London psychedelic hard rock sound that I would liken to both The Koobas and the previously mentioned Open Mind or Dutch classic the 2nd album by The Shoes (Let The Shoes Shine In- a new wonderful discovery). There's even a hint of the craziest songs on the July album here, but even more twisted. Dark, doom concerns continue and add to that sexual aggression, wry humour, and unpredictable song structures that seem to be there just to explode to create a psychedelic vision of complete loss of connection with the real world. Yet the world is real that is described in here, alright. They grew up looking at desolation everywhere and here it inspires musical brilliance. "Linda Jones" is about a very plain, self-pitying girl who commits suicide with a Gas stove and is an obvious nod to The Beatles. After all, who had to conquer Germany before they could conquer the world?? The, uh, er, that is BEATLES. The Fab Four had changed music forever and Apocalypse are undoubtedly sincere in their paying thanks to Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr here.
Compared to what followed it the closing track "Blowing In Blow" is even more terrifying than "Let It Die" which is the second scariest track here. This could be any freaked out soldier in any pointless war. "I Think I'm Going Back To Things I Know So Well/Of Muddy Covered Leaves And Broken Bomb Shells" is the main lyric. Every demonic effect and trick including the kitchen sink and both WW1 and WW2 explodes in an ominous attack of screaming mania. This makes Amon Duul II or even the unrelated Amon Duul sound like nothing! The hard rock song semblances hold every track on this album that rocks together and the occasional pop hooks and strength of belief hold the freakiest parts of the album together. Ironically this album was the soundtrack to a film called Wunderland Der Liebe- Wonderland Of Love- Harldly!
By the time of my second and final full onslaught in this mini-novel rock opera Lonesome Crow by Scorpions Germany held enough musical talent to carry that nation for the next decade easily, but there was always something special about Scorpions. Here the classical and choral influences sound like Apocalypse meets Uriah Heep while the main star is 15 year old guitar wizard Michael Schenker. For the first half of his career Michael may have well been the best guitarist in the world. He was already an innovator on this debut album for him. His molten classically inspired licks and riffs also have a bluesy Cream like undercurrent and the whole album is built around frightening images being brought to reality by Klaus Meine's wailing over the top vocals. Meine would never lose his touch. As time went on he would still show a real knack for melodic phrasing and all out venomous screaming when needed. The Scorpions can lay claim to a fact that no other German band can- they conquered the world of not just hard rock, but as time would go on the Pop Charts worldwide. As I have said before about musicians most begin with an entirely different mindset than what they end with. Nowhere is that more relevant than here. "SUN IS DRYING OUT MY BRAIN!!!! AND SMILING RECOLLECTIONS ARE MY PAIN!!!! I'M GOING MAD!!!!" screams Klaus in the opening track aptly titled "I'm Going Mad."
Dark shadowy vocal chants, Klaus sounding uninhibited in his rage to the point of being possessed, and some more melodic moments form a tapestry of fear, decay, and teenaged angst never equaled since. Songs like "Leave Me," "Inheritance," "In Search Of The Peace Of Mind," and the over 13 minute title track do exactly what Apocalypse do whilst bringing it more up to date- this is post war flashing right back into the Hell of the War. Even in the quiet sections there is a lot of real pain that you can feel and when they explode into screams and violent guitar solos it takes you so far out of your own cozy world that you become one with those who suffer in every war and every form of oppression. I will never believe in war, but I do have my fascination with some pretty dark music that obviously came out of the huge hole left in a Nation's conscience by its systematic destruction of youth. The Scorpions were really young when they made this, as stated Michael Schenker was a 15 year old prodigy, but we've probably all had dreams that flirt between heroism and tortured darkness and that is where this is coming from. The terrorized subconscious is unveiled as if by musical exorcism. The demons of troubled young people's hopes and fears comes to life through the music. It's far from the commercial hard rock of "Rock You Like A Hurricane" and closer to the more streamlined heavy hard rock/melodic sound of In Trance- yet much, much more disturbed. On first listening to Lonesome Crow I was knocked cold by how heavy it was. It would take a few spins back in that distant winter of 1991, but through the years its remained a favourite- along with Apocalypse Germany's best.
Also well worth checking out are some fantastic British underground dark themed bands of this era. The British would often be more soulful, more melodic, and more private than the all-out open-everything-up of the Germans, but they gave us the best inspirations for worldwide hard heavy progressive rock with Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and many others. One of the very best British albums is Still Life's only release on the very collectable Vertigo Swirl label where some pressings were released in Canada in a thick but exact same sleeve. Whilst the picture of flowers topping a rotted out human skull is tasteless the music is very soulful, very emotional progressive/psych rock that I will unveil for you in its brilliance the next go round.
The whole world was acknowledging things, waking up, but throughout my entire life I've found that period of realization to be long dead and gone to most people. In high school I was physically and emotionally attacked for nothing more than speaking my mind and being myself. I stood for love and openly emotional sympathy towards those thought to be beneath me and that had me shot down. I kept on fighting, though, and the more it went on the more of a war zone the school life became. Kids turned to drug and alcohol abuse while I watched some of my best friends destroy their lives tragically. Watching All Quiet On The Western Front in especially the colour version with Richard Thomas as Paul Baumer I wish I could have saved his life as his destruction I've missed emotionally/figuratively by a hair many times. Life is frightening and not far from overpoweringly violent sometimes- hold on and face your fears- give love to anyone who needs it and remember that music is the ultimate in unleashing unchained aggression- not war where millions die needlessly. My closing words are Music and Peace to you.
When you are growing up in any well-informed family or in any country where the information is even in the ether you know that Germany has a very dark past of being ravaged along with the rest of Europe by two pointless, horrible World Wars which killed millions and left the country torn up enough for Hitler to rise and then torn up enough after Adolph for a new dawn to rise in the youth of that Nation. Kids who grew up post WW2 in England and Germany and also America, in fact most European/Anglo countries, would soon form a massive underground movement in the 1960s- the counterculture.
There was still plenty of hostility towards this "counterculture" to spread a better, more forward, brighter path for the future whilst retaining the knowledge of the past even during my formative years in high school. I had become a target by my Sophomore year. I wanted to know and I wanted the facts with no lies thank you. I was open for the first time in my life and something had come into my life I found very haunting- Soldiers. I always thought soldiers were taboo, even bad during childhood, but things would change come hearing an album called Lonesome Crow- the first by a young German band called Scorpions. The march-like rhythms and waves of screaming pounding bashing war-like onslaught combined with dark reflective passages stirred up images of what the past had held for kids at my age then of 15 and a half or older. I started to subconsciously associate this dark and menacing album with images of World War 1 and World War 2. The lyrics were pained to put it mildly, yet this creeping menacing album had me floored by it. I could feel the boots marching of every soldier in every nation- now and today. It was like this album of aural apocalypse had brought the human side of war into my mind and heart with the world exploding all around me. Ages later I still can see the same images in my head that I saw when I heard the album the first time.
Having German and European mates was a good thing for me. David (real first name Balaz) Toth, an intellectually gifted Hungarian, was a very open person who I felt comfortable talking to about things other kids didn't ever hear from me. During our period of best friendship there was also a German acid sampling eccentric named Lorenz "Lorenzo" Westewig and I considered him a really special person too. The 3 of us knew that the book by Erich Maria Remarque ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT was on the horizon, but I never knew the impact it would have on me. When we were assigned the book we were warned that it was a really depressing and really "heavy" book and after watching both film versions many times since the subject is very frightening, unbelievably tragic, and very upsetting. During the time I read the book I immersed myself in the characters, especially Paul Baumer- the lead. A young, loving, intelligent boy thrust into the horrors of battle on the Western Front in World War 1. As I laughed at his laughter, suffered with his pain, and at the end cried for an hour over his death I felt that I was also in a war zone. It could have been a brief flight, but no not with me. I wanted to know more. I've learned over time the truth about musicians and the truth about soldiers. We share similarities yet you will always surprisingly find the musicians to be the more narrow-minded ones. A soldier is a young and eager man usually trying to escape from poverty to make something of himself, but if he succeeds and lives to tell of his experiences you won't catch him turning into an egotistical self-absorbed person. Musicians are young and eager people who in the case of especially European (and that includes England) youths are looking to learn from the history of their nation and at the time of Apocalypse's one off and the start of the Scorpions career another war, World War 2, was a subject that would burn like red blood through their songs.
The Germans for the first time could point the finger at other countries- namely America for Vietnam. Most of these musicians would if they went on forge a career of anonymity or in the Scorpions case change their lyrical sentiments to more romantic ones. When a musician grows older he has a soul that is trying to erase his formative youthful years. When he grows old chances are he won't be rockin' or sockin' the truth about all those mysterious foreboding songs to you anymore.
With the horrible war in the Former Yugoslavia raging endlessly I was, we all were, very upset. Here was the country where World War 1 had started and as I looked around I saw no changes in culture or human nature at all there. Genocide and young lives being destroyed again. I wanted to go over there and fight the Serbs, but I wanted my weapon to be loudspeakers. I certainly was having way too much fun to want to go off and get shot.
As I have aged my anti-war yet Pro Soldier beliefs are held more firmly now than ever. I know and have spoken to many British and some other soldiers and I find that history, their history, is one that lives on in a nation and in its music long after all other adolescent fantasies have died. Prepare to be shocked at some of what I reveal to you in this music, and strap yourself in coz this is a hard ride down a hard road.
German hard psychedelic rock came roaring into existence in 1969 and stayed there for nearly over a decade. The bands all tended towards ominous names to match their ominous music and they all grew up in the shadow of World War 2. Bands like Armageddon, Apocalypse (whom I will discuss in full here), Scorpions, Nite Sun, Wind, and Gift (which is German for "Poison" actually) explored the themes of war, violence, and apocalyptic sentiments through their music to varying degrees of success. While Gift assaulted us with a barrage of noise over 2 full length albums in an attempt to make us believe that life was really damned miserable the God Like bands of the early German underground movement would have to be Apocalypse, Scorpions, and the first Electric Food LP. British bands were heavily leaning towards dark lyrics about war and disenchantment as the war in Northern Ireland would go from a bad start in 1969 to a 33 year nightmare for that country, but some of these bands were just looking for an excuse to write sensationalistic nonsense. In England there were thousands of young bands and most of them were brilliant thank you, but Germany was the country where classical music was a proud tradition so for lack of a better term "symphonies" came easier to the young German bands.
Apocalypse were the same boys who made the pop psych classic Kannibal Komix (their spelling not mine- clever ain't it?) album and who after Apocalypse went on to Megaton with all 3 bands involving the ex US Army SGT Les Humphries who had turned to music as their Svengali. Les Humphries was a strange character about whom I don't know a whole lot, but with Enrico Lombardi who was a group member and later producer Gerd Muller in the line up they wrote and recorded the Apocalypse album- one that more than lives up to the threat it promises on the cover. The cover shows a sky turning all kinds of weird colours with at the bottom 7 multicoloured stars turning into barbed wire and holding a bleeding cut off human hand. The back cover shows a background collage and demonic beasts writhing in tortured shapes. If this sounds like you can't stomach it already and if looking at it makes you think it will be too "Heavy" for you the music outdoes the cover!
Dispute goes on about whether Apocalypse was recorded by their producer Giorgio Moroder in 1969 or 1971, but I would compromise there and take my guess as 1970. However you slice it, it was really early and predated the similarly tortured Lonesome Crow. "Life Is Your Profession" begins with a heavy bass drum or timpani being bashed while a choir from Hell in Gregorian madness chant in the background before blasting guitars and aggressive vocals which evoke England's Open Mind or followup band Megaton but way trippier come in. The chorus uses very classical choral harmonies in the background and this is a recurring theme throughout the album. Lyrically, it sets the tone of violence, menace, and destruction that is prevalent throughout the album. "Let It Die" follows and features guitarist Jurgen Drews (now an infamous trashy cabaret singer in Spanish Malorka [sic]) singing in a soft depressed voice in a sitar-led doom-ladened dirge. The weaving sitars, sparse instrumentation, and creepy menacing harmonies have me feeling like I am lying shell shocked in a trench in World War 1. It's hard to believe that such a horrible sensation could also bring a really vibrant love of live and love of the song and album in this very dark music. "Patricia" is the longest track on the album and here the Second World War comes right straight into your living room when you play it. For some of the most tortured, menacing, dark music this album has a staggering amount of power and life. There is enough imagination and drive here to make it THE BEST HEAVY PSYCH GERMAN RECORD AND A WORLD CLASS MONSTER. "Patricia" has quiet and plaintive, wailing sections in its epic structure and features some really monstrously heavy guitar parts. After the soft verses and screaming blasting choruses the song changes into an out of tune guitar and even more out of tune thickly accented vocal about "Too Many People That Cry." The vocal sounds like he's just been shot and then he says "Picture this just 20 years ago" and the war comes out of the disturbing past right into the song with the sounds of chanting, marching, freaky Ghost Like hordes of the damned attacking your mind before a scorching guitar solo hits you so hard you don't know what has just transpired.
Classical influences from Bach to Wagner figure heavily throughout this album. Side Two is more short song oriented and for the first 3 tracks ("Milkman," "Try To Please Me," and "Pictures Of My Woman") the music is much more of a freaky Swinging London psychedelic hard rock sound that I would liken to both The Koobas and the previously mentioned Open Mind or Dutch classic the 2nd album by The Shoes (Let The Shoes Shine In- a new wonderful discovery). There's even a hint of the craziest songs on the July album here, but even more twisted. Dark, doom concerns continue and add to that sexual aggression, wry humour, and unpredictable song structures that seem to be there just to explode to create a psychedelic vision of complete loss of connection with the real world. Yet the world is real that is described in here, alright. They grew up looking at desolation everywhere and here it inspires musical brilliance. "Linda Jones" is about a very plain, self-pitying girl who commits suicide with a Gas stove and is an obvious nod to The Beatles. After all, who had to conquer Germany before they could conquer the world?? The, uh, er, that is BEATLES. The Fab Four had changed music forever and Apocalypse are undoubtedly sincere in their paying thanks to Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr here.
Compared to what followed it the closing track "Blowing In Blow" is even more terrifying than "Let It Die" which is the second scariest track here. This could be any freaked out soldier in any pointless war. "I Think I'm Going Back To Things I Know So Well/Of Muddy Covered Leaves And Broken Bomb Shells" is the main lyric. Every demonic effect and trick including the kitchen sink and both WW1 and WW2 explodes in an ominous attack of screaming mania. This makes Amon Duul II or even the unrelated Amon Duul sound like nothing! The hard rock song semblances hold every track on this album that rocks together and the occasional pop hooks and strength of belief hold the freakiest parts of the album together. Ironically this album was the soundtrack to a film called Wunderland Der Liebe- Wonderland Of Love- Harldly!
By the time of my second and final full onslaught in this mini-novel rock opera Lonesome Crow by Scorpions Germany held enough musical talent to carry that nation for the next decade easily, but there was always something special about Scorpions. Here the classical and choral influences sound like Apocalypse meets Uriah Heep while the main star is 15 year old guitar wizard Michael Schenker. For the first half of his career Michael may have well been the best guitarist in the world. He was already an innovator on this debut album for him. His molten classically inspired licks and riffs also have a bluesy Cream like undercurrent and the whole album is built around frightening images being brought to reality by Klaus Meine's wailing over the top vocals. Meine would never lose his touch. As time went on he would still show a real knack for melodic phrasing and all out venomous screaming when needed. The Scorpions can lay claim to a fact that no other German band can- they conquered the world of not just hard rock, but as time would go on the Pop Charts worldwide. As I have said before about musicians most begin with an entirely different mindset than what they end with. Nowhere is that more relevant than here. "SUN IS DRYING OUT MY BRAIN!!!! AND SMILING RECOLLECTIONS ARE MY PAIN!!!! I'M GOING MAD!!!!" screams Klaus in the opening track aptly titled "I'm Going Mad."
Dark shadowy vocal chants, Klaus sounding uninhibited in his rage to the point of being possessed, and some more melodic moments form a tapestry of fear, decay, and teenaged angst never equaled since. Songs like "Leave Me," "Inheritance," "In Search Of The Peace Of Mind," and the over 13 minute title track do exactly what Apocalypse do whilst bringing it more up to date- this is post war flashing right back into the Hell of the War. Even in the quiet sections there is a lot of real pain that you can feel and when they explode into screams and violent guitar solos it takes you so far out of your own cozy world that you become one with those who suffer in every war and every form of oppression. I will never believe in war, but I do have my fascination with some pretty dark music that obviously came out of the huge hole left in a Nation's conscience by its systematic destruction of youth. The Scorpions were really young when they made this, as stated Michael Schenker was a 15 year old prodigy, but we've probably all had dreams that flirt between heroism and tortured darkness and that is where this is coming from. The terrorized subconscious is unveiled as if by musical exorcism. The demons of troubled young people's hopes and fears comes to life through the music. It's far from the commercial hard rock of "Rock You Like A Hurricane" and closer to the more streamlined heavy hard rock/melodic sound of In Trance- yet much, much more disturbed. On first listening to Lonesome Crow I was knocked cold by how heavy it was. It would take a few spins back in that distant winter of 1991, but through the years its remained a favourite- along with Apocalypse Germany's best.
Also well worth checking out are some fantastic British underground dark themed bands of this era. The British would often be more soulful, more melodic, and more private than the all-out open-everything-up of the Germans, but they gave us the best inspirations for worldwide hard heavy progressive rock with Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and many others. One of the very best British albums is Still Life's only release on the very collectable Vertigo Swirl label where some pressings were released in Canada in a thick but exact same sleeve. Whilst the picture of flowers topping a rotted out human skull is tasteless the music is very soulful, very emotional progressive/psych rock that I will unveil for you in its brilliance the next go round.
The whole world was acknowledging things, waking up, but throughout my entire life I've found that period of realization to be long dead and gone to most people. In high school I was physically and emotionally attacked for nothing more than speaking my mind and being myself. I stood for love and openly emotional sympathy towards those thought to be beneath me and that had me shot down. I kept on fighting, though, and the more it went on the more of a war zone the school life became. Kids turned to drug and alcohol abuse while I watched some of my best friends destroy their lives tragically. Watching All Quiet On The Western Front in especially the colour version with Richard Thomas as Paul Baumer I wish I could have saved his life as his destruction I've missed emotionally/figuratively by a hair many times. Life is frightening and not far from overpoweringly violent sometimes- hold on and face your fears- give love to anyone who needs it and remember that music is the ultimate in unleashing unchained aggression- not war where millions die needlessly. My closing words are Music and Peace to you.
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