How about a Friday night music thread?
brendancalling made us a Metal playlist to start us off!
It’s the long-promised, long-awaited, perhaps long-dreaded metal playlist!
I’ve been a metal fan pretty much all my life, beginning with when I learned about AC/DC (more hard rock than metal, and not included in this playlist) and, soon thereafter, Ozzy Osbourne. It’s a wide-ranging genre of music, often not taken seriously, perhaps due to the occult fascination of some bands, or the frequent lack of political lyrics. Not to say there aren’t explicitly political metal bands or that apolitical bands don’t occasionally do songs about social issues—those exist and are included herein. But at its heart, metal (to me anyway) has always been a louder version of rock-n-roll. Many of the lyrics are overwhelmingly inspirational—metal is a HUGE part of my running playlist—and the rhythms are driving, to say the least.
It’s that “inspirational” part that I want to emphasize here. Back in the day, metal heads were kind of outcasts. Stoners. Kind of threatening in some ways, because they weren’t always perceived as particularly smart. And for real, I drifted away from metal early, because I liked punk rock. Yeah, we were also pariahs in high school, but our songs had meaning. We were singing about politics (the Dead Kennedys, MDC), life on the streets, not taking drugs.
But the thing is, the messages were often the same. “Believe in yourself!” “No one can stop you!” “Keep rocking!” And when metal and punk (and, later, hip hop) crossed over—wow. That was a different beast altogether. HOLY MOLY.
Caveat emptor: there’s a lot of metal I don’t like, and won’t include here. You won’t hear a lot of 1990s metal on this playlist. Like the rest of the music world, metal responded to the introduction of “grunge”, and began taking on the same dour themes and sludgy tempos. You won’t hear a lot of extreme metal on this list either, although there are some great bands out there like Vektor or Iron Reagan. It’s not because I don’t like them—I very much do and they are incredible musicians—but it’s definitely an acquired taste. Start with the California rolls before you go eating the fugu—that’s my way of thinking.
And, with that thought in mind, I started this playlist off with some songs by the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix that you could call “pre-metal” or “metal adjacent.” If you’re hesitant to call a “Helter Skelter” metal, well—1980s hair-metal band Motley Crüe had a huge hit with their rendition, spending 4 weeks in the top 40 after its release.
Black Sabbath. Their first four albums were majestic—one thing to listen for is drummer Bill Ward, who brings his jazz sensibility to the endeavor. Also, guitarist Tony Iommi has rubber fingers on his fretting hand, after losing two of ‘em in a factory accident and being told he’d never play again. These guys grew up in England in the aftermath of WW2, which is probably behind one of my favorite descriptions of the band, by their singer Ozzy (paraphrased because I can’t find the exact quote): “Everyone around us was all peace and love, and we just wanted to be scary.” And Black Sabbath brought it—although the critical reader will find their themes are often very Christian and against evil.
Ozzy got kicked out of Sabbath in the 1980s, and went on to forge a hugely successful career as anyone who’s watched reality TV can attest. But before my one Ozzy track, I dropped in some Van Halen, which is not entirely a metal band but is certainly metal adjacent. Their guitar player, Eddie Van Halen was in his heyday then—the man revolutionized rock guitar in so many ways, and everyone was aping his schtick and production. Ozzy’s first guitar player, Randy Rhoades, died in a tragic accident, but when you listen to the cut, do note the similarity in production between good-time party boys Van Halen and scary Ozzy. That slickl production, helped the genre first cross over into pop. Sure, your mom and dad freaked out about his album covers, but he was making the sounds the big rock stations liked—so there he was, in regular rotation. Even after he ate the bat!
Next up, the legend Ronnie James Dio, who got his start in the 1950s as a doo wop singer in the Ronnie and the Red Caps. Dio, in particular, had a real obsession with occult themes—they show up constantly in his lyrics. At least I think so—you see, while nothing at all personally like the Idiot from Alaska, Dio’s lyrics can only be described as “Palinesque word-salads.” I rarely have any idea what he’s talking about. Regardless, “Last in Line” and “Stand Up and Shout” are rockers, with powerful themes of self-identity and self-empowerment. “You’ve got desire/so let it out/you’ve got the power/stand up and shout.” The backbeat in both songs is relentless.
I included two early cuts by one of my favorite bands, Judas Priest. One of them is a Joan Baez cover. The other is their classic, “Breaking the Law.” Judas Priest is a fascinating band. On their earliest albums, the Queen/Freddie Mercury influence is extremely strong, before they adopted the black leather and metal studs that came to define the band’s look. So maybe it’s not all that surprising that their singer, Rob Halford, came out as gay in the early 1990s. [A funny aside is that the story prompted gasps from the media and worry that the fans wouldn’t accept him, and the fans responded “yeah, we kinda figured this out years ago.” Metalheads can be very accepting.] Halford has an exceptional vocal range: check out the falsetto in “The Ripper.”
Today, Rob Halford isn’t just the “Metal God” as he’s been called (more like metal grandpa with the Santa beard he sports these days). He’s also a queer icon and a role model for weirdo kids everywhere. He’s released two metal Christmas albums, and just this year put out a single with Dolly Parton. Also—Judas Priest is DEFINITELY one of the models for Spinal Tap, and if you haven’t seen that movie, you should.
Speaking of vocal range, as well as sheer instrumental virtuosity, Iron Maiden’s singer Bruce Dickinson may be THE sound of 1980s metal, backed by the twin guitars of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith. Their bass player, Steve Harris, is a legend—he’s not playing with a pick. That’s all fingers. Maiden usually pursued historical and literary themes—I didn’t include it, but their 13:38 minute epic version of Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” really needs to be heard, because it’s fucking amazing. And check out the intro to “Alexander the Great,” nearly two minutes of steadily building harmonized guitars before the singing even begins. Same with “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner,” based on the novel of the same title. As a runner, this is one of my favorites. I mean, those lyrics: “I’ve got to keep running the course/I’ve got to keep running and win at all costs/I’ve got to keep going, be strong/Must be so determined and push myself on…”
And now we get to the heavier stuff. I’m gonna start y’all off with Motörhead, whose singer Lemmy Kilmister (Praise upon his name) always described the band as rock-n-roll. Which… yeah, but they were always metal as hell. First of all, you need to know Lemmy supposedly saw the Beatles. He was a roadie for Hendrix. He played bass for Hawkwind, a lesser known but hugely influential space-rock/psychedelic band. After getting kicked out—Hawkwind was all about the acid, while Lemmy was a speedfreak—he started Motörhead, a band of which he told the media ““If Motörhead moved in next door to you, your lawn would die.”
I never saw Motörhead, and it’s one of my biggest regrets because I love everything about the band. I love how ugly they are, I love how there’s not a drop of glamor about the band, and the lyrical content is great. I’ve included three songs here: “Ace of Spades,” their only real “hit”; “Orgasmatron,” an indictment of the world; and “1916,” which is not at all what you’d expect—a truly heartbreaking song about the child soldiers of WW2. Honestly, I could write about Lemmy and Motörhead all day. There’s a lot to say. In many ways, Lemmy is a hero to all of us metalheads: “Born to lose, live to win.”
A lot of you have probably heard (or heard of) Metallica. They had a big hit in the early 1990s with “Enter Sandman,” which personally I think is crap. Their heyday was their first three albums, when Cliff Burton played bass and kept them from getting cheesy. So I included “Disposable Heroes” (an anti-war song) and “Fade to Black,” about suicide. Heavy stuff—like I said, when punk and metal fused together, things got interesting.
Metallica really changed everything when those second two albums—”Ride the Lightning” and “Master of Puppets”—came out. Metal wasn’t stupid anymore. The lyrics were relevant. But also the intensity was ratcheted up exponentially, and the talent was undeniable. You’ll notice there’s an emphasis on rhythm and odd time signatures—it’s really tight, precise music. I think my favorite example is Testament, and of course, Anthrax, who teamed up with politically conscious hip-hop heroes Public Enemy to do a crossover version of that band’s underground hit, “Bring the Noise.”
And finally, a lot of these bands are made up of white guys (although there are a lot of Latinos playing metal as well). And it’s true—there aren’t tons of black people forming metal bands, which is why I’m always psyched to showcase Ice T, who many of you may know from TV’s “Law and Order: SVU.” Ice T made his career in hip-hop—some of you may remember the hysteria over “Cop Killer”—and has never been shy about sharing his political opinions. A lot of folks don’t know he’s also a freak about metal. His band Body Count released “No Lives Matter” in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, and it is so angry and so honest it hurts. That whole album is a banger. “Black Hoodie” will break your heart: “All these people out here tripping off police brutality/Like this shit is something new/Give me a fucking break/I’ve been talking about this shit for over 20 years/And now you can kill a motherfucker just because of how he’s dressed/Are you fucking serious?”
That’s probably enough for now. But I wanted to end with one extreme bands, even though I promised not to: Vektor, who Wikipedia describes as “heavily themed around scientific, philosophical, futuristic and astronomical topics.” “Tetrastructural Minds” is the perfect example of the band’s ferocious technical expertise. Yeah, it’s an acquired taste (as I warned), but I don’t think there’s one standard time signature in the whole danged song. Worth a listen even if it’s not your taste—and yes, they pull it off live. They used to live in Philly (not sure if they still do) and I’d sometimes hear them practicing from outside the house where they presumably lived.
Boy, this has been a long blurb. I feel like Leonard Bernstein on his old TV show explaining classical music. So with that… let’s go!
TeezySkeezy
Tom Nichols just felt a disturbance in the Force, lol.
JCJ
Saw Tool Wednesday in Milwaukee. Their music can be mesmerizing. It was a great show.
brendancalling
I’m on my way to NYC listening to Marin’s interview with Rob Halford (singer for Judas Priest). It’s amazing.
brendancalling
sorry the blurb is so long!
currawong
‘This is Spinal Tap’ is one of the great movies. The Stonehenge piece is totally politically incorrect.
My first music purchase was Led Zeppelin. I never fully got into metal though I’ve listeded around the edges. One of my favourites is Paranoid by Black Sabbath. I spent years trying to convince my kids that he was singing about a lost roller skate “Telling you now of my skate…”.
I don’t think they really brouht it.
WaterGirl
@TeezySkeezy: ??
WaterGirl
@brendancalling: It’s long, but I think it’s interesting!
TeezySkeezy
@brendancalling: Marin is the shit. He came back from the dark side but still has enough of it in him to be interesting.
TeezySkeezy
@WaterGirl: He *hates* Led Zeppelin. It is up there with curry for him.
Martin
Metal has this tendency to not be fun, or even that interesting, so I tend to like the weirder takes on the genre. Tool is much more interesting to listen to, and Japan made it fun. A lot of metal fans also rejected bands like Rage because they didn’t want metal polluted by anything from hiphop – in a “We must secure the existence of our music and a future for heavy metal” kind of way.
Martin
@TeezySkeezy: What an awful human being.
Roberto el oso
Great playlist. With the exception of Ice T I’ve been fortunate enough to see all the bands you listed play live (several times each for Sabbath, Maiden, & Priest). BTW, when people talk about dedicated fans, most recently the Swifties, I have to admit that there are NO fans like Iron Maiden fans, and even though I’d been one since the start I always feel like something of a poseur when I encounter them — they are absolutely dedicated and usually very sweet and cool. I saw Dio when he was the singer with Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, and Blackmore, who can be such an intimidating persona onstage was all smiles whenever Ronnie stepped up to the mic. I was also lucky enough to see Metallica on their first out-of-California tour, they were the opening act in a mid-size club in Houston (the recently passed Fitzgerald’s), with TSOL and Slayer headlining.
Your list brought back some great memories. Thanks!
brendancalling
@Martin: See, I consider Rage to be more a hardcore band than metal—and I love hardcore. As for metal and hip hop, there was actually a lot of that in the whole “Numetal” scene of the 1990s—but as I mentioned in the blurb, I had drifted away from the genre by then. Not due to the hip hop influence, but the gloomy bummer lyrics. I’ve found metal to be a really welcoming genre.
grumbles
I got to see Motorhead once, a long time ago. I unfortunately did not know them well enough to really appreciate them – I was 17, I think, and mostly in to punk at the time, but really enjoyed the set. It was the unfortunately branded “Operation Rock ‘n’ Roll” tour that happened right after the first Iraq war. Judas Priest and Alice Cooper played, too; there were some other bands I can’t remember.
They also played here where I live the same year he died. I was in kind of a bad place myself at the time, was pretty broke, and skipped it. I really wish I’d gone. I really appreciated Lemmy. Did his own thing on his own terms, and did it well while not taking himself or anyone else too seriously.
ALurkSupreme
Good list. Needs at least one cover from Killdozer — American Pie, Sweet Home Alabama, Disco Inferno, I’m Not Lisa …
Dealer’s choice.
WaterGirl
@TeezySkeezy: Thanks, I had no idea.
brendancalling
@Roberto el oso: A buddy of mine here in Philly opened for Dio in the mid 90s, and said he was the nicest guy. Super encouraging.
I saw Maiden for the first time with my kid in 2019. I never made it to see Motörhead, and they’re probably my favorite band.
prostratedragon
Change of genre for the Trump brothers’ time on the stand: “I’m an Old Cowhand:” Bing Crosby with the original lyrics; Sammy Davis, Jr. and Andy Williams with some appropriate action (Williams is Eric).
WaterGirl
@ALurkSupreme: Links?
Raoul Paste
When I taught college a few years ago, some of the students would give me the OK boomer treatment
I’d tell them that I may be a lame old person whom no one should ever listen to, but I’m the only one here who has seen the Ramones live
When they start to respond, I’d interrupt and pretend I couldn’t hear “ I’m sorry, my hearing was damaged when I saw the Ramones.”
geg6
Early Sabbath is awesome. War Pigs is just as relevant today as it was back in 70. Not much else of the genre ever resonated with, with a few exceptions that are probably more hard rock than metal.
But I went all in on punk. Mid to late 70s punk was a revelation and I loved it all. Until the skinheads started invading the scene and then I was done with hitting the clubs and too many bands got too fashy along with the audience.
Shame. I still love that shit. The Dolls, Iggy, the Ramones, Television…those were the days.
JCJ
@Martin: Thanks for the link. They are good. Babymetal is a great into to kawaii metal.
prostratedragon
“That’s Enough of That Stuff,” Marcia Ball live
Roberto el oso
Additional note: as an electric guitarist, metal has been almost as formative an influence as blues for me. (I joined my first band when I was 14 (1971) and with a few years off here and there I’ve played consistently until COVID just made it too chancy for us old-in-the-tooth rockers). For me and my high school mates who also played and who ended up in 3-pieces (drums, bass, guitar, + singer) the power trio bands to emulate were just so insanely talented — Cream, Hendrix’s Experience, The Who, and Led Zeppelin. And then Sabbath showed up and, without taking away any credit from them, they were just simplistic and bad enough that they showed us the way in, and so we didn’t have to slow the records down to 78 rpm in order to pick apart some fast-as-light lick from Clapton or Jimi or Page. And so gratitude breeds loyalty.
Villago Delenda Est
OK, here’s a cover that does an excellent job of coming close to the glory of the original.
kindness
Black Dog. Zep used to rent a big place in Wales to work up new records. Hedley’s Garage I thing it was called. One of the neighbors had a really big black dog that used to wander over all the time and hang out with the band while they were there. So they named a song after him, even though the song has nothing to do with dogs. Saw them during their 75 tour. 2 times at MSG.
ALurkSupreme
@WaterGirl: Lurkers don’t do links!
Omnes might oblige, though. Wouldn’t surprise me if he knew at least one of the guys personally.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@brendancalling: Thanks for the playlist!
I enjoyed how FUN the Anthrax/Public Enemy collaboration was!
Vektor’s instrumentation was interesting and cool, but the vocal stylings were not for me.
I like 90s indie rock that has elements of punk and metal, and often mixes up genres. Frank Black, 311, even some Sublime stuff.
As far as the precursors to metal… Santana seems like an influence from a lead guitar perspective, and The Who must have inspired some future metalheads…
zhena gogolia
@ALurkSupreme: Wow, a Madison, WI, metal band.
EriktheRed
Re. Motorhead, I bought their album Iron Fist in ’82 (on recommendation from Rolling Stone). I now have that album hanging on my basement wall with a bunch of other LPs from my youth.
Most of them didn’t survive.
zhena gogolia
I saw Black Sabbath in around 1971 in KCKS at the National Guard Armory. Can’t remember much.
ETA: Looks like it was at KC Memorial Hall. Sweat Hog opened. They were terrible, that I remember.
SpaceUnit
I’ve been following a band called The Warning since they were just three little girls rocking out in their basement and posting the videos on YouTube. It was a cult thing at first but now they’re starting to catch fire in a huge way.
Here is their live remake of Enter Sandman. It’s the only ‘cover’ they ever play these days but it’s a mood all its own. (And in my opinion it’s better than the original.)
Enter Sandman
Another Scott
A multi-decade online English friend is really into weird metal genres. There’s some sort of Norwegian (?) metal band that I was looking for that has huge fun shows, but while searching I came across his pointer to this instead:
AFRICAN METAL Nishaiar Bewatar (Irix zerius 2018) (5:16)
Enjoy!
Cheers,
Scott.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@kindness: I was just wondering about where that name came from earlier this week. Thanks!
WaterGirl
@prostratedragon: They looked like they were having great fun in that clip. Doesn’t seem like the Trump boys were having much fun in court, though.
brendancalling
@JCJ: Babymetal!!! I LOVE them!!’
prostratedragon
Cello/piano duo Runge&Ammon celebrate the end of shutdown from their balcony: “Purple Haze”. Runge makes a convincing case that Hendrix could have had the exact same career as a cellist.
WaterGirl
@ALurkSupreme: Pardon my manners, then! :-)
It’s not a music thread until Omnes shows up?
E.
Whoa great post, great writing too, thank you!
Jeffro
Brendan, you can keep the Judas Priest coming all night and into the next day! Thanks!
As someone who started listening to the ‘hair metal’ bands like Ratt, Poison, Def Leppard, and the like (and then proceeded both back into Priest, etc and forward into the grunge era) it’s been a long strange trip…but I never get too far from those crunching guitars and pounding drums!
Gravenstone
Body Count! The ghost of Chuck Heston will be reaching out for you shortly.
brendancalling
@Another Scott: oooh, Gotta check that out! There’s a lot of great metal going down in South America too, but heavier than I wanted to share here.
@Roberto el oso: I’m not a fan of Jimmy Page’s playing. I think he’s a lot sloppier than Iommi. (I think Page is an amazing producer).
@geg6: I was also much more a punk kid. I got out of hardcore for some of the same reasons—skinheads, fights, and the whole “straight edge” cult. I got into metal later—more like “came back to metal.”
Gravenstone
A bit of Japanese metal
Nemophila – covering Sugar by SOAD
And for some fun, Hanabie with Be the Gal
Cliosfanboy
@SpaceUnit:
cool! Thanks for the link. I donated to their fundraiser back when they started.
brendancalling
@Jeffro: One of my favorite running bands. Right up there with MOtorhead
Mel
More recent, but Halestorm is great.
For something not metal, but absolutely entrancing, check out The Hu’s “Song of Women”, featuring Lzzy Hale on vocals. It is stunning.
mrmoshpotato
Nice playlist there.
Body Count (Ice-T’s heavy metal band) has also covered Slayer’s Postmortem and Raining Blood.
Here’s a live version of Metallica’s Master of Puppets from Lollapalooza 2022.
Cliosfanboy
Even though I’m a Boomer (near the end though) and still a big fan of late 70s Rock, I also like some Grunge: Alice in Chains, Stabbing Westward, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden. I confess I even like some Marilyn Manson. My Apple Playlist can be a bit jarring, jumping from the Beatles to Bee Gees to GNR to Staind.
mrmoshpotato
@Mel: Halestrom’s cover of Dio’s Straight Through The Heart.
Mel
@mrmoshpotato: Oh, yes!!!
mrmoshpotato
@JCJ: Awesome. Saw them in 2006 on the 10,000 Days tour in Chicago.
SpaceUnit
@Cliosfanboy:
Yeah, they’re awesome.
By the way, if you haven’t seen it yet you need to watch that entire concert. They posted it on YouTube about a month or so ago. The whole thing is amazing.
Alison Rose
Okay, first, a very not-metal comment, because I just saw this video from a woman named november ultra on Colbert and HOLY WOW. Her voice is…stunning doesn’t cover it. I’d never heard of her but I will definitely be checking out more of her work.
On the metal topic: My oldest brother has always been a metalhead, and a huge Metallica fan. I was never all that into metal as a genre — I got into grunge music around age 10, and then goth/industrial in my late teens, and there’s a little similarity with some bands there but not a lot of crossover, LOL. But I did always like Metallica, and back in 2000, my brother had tickets for their tour but his friend couldn’t go, so he asked if I wanted to. I said sure, and they were amazing, of course. It was a festival tour with them as the headliner and four other bands, one of whom I’d never heard of (Powerman 5000), two of whom I liked (System of a Down and Korn), and one of whom I am forever ashamed of having been even unintentionally in the audience for.
Kid fucking Rock.
Do not ask me why the hell he was on a tour with those other acts. I spent almost the entirety of his set hanging around the concessions stand.
Oh well, at least the rest of the show was worth it. Was definitely a sight to behold, seeing about 50,000 people with their arms raised in the air, screaming “OBEY YOUR MASTER” in unison with fire effects in front of us.
delphinium
@Raoul Paste: Ha! Ha! I’ve seen the Ramones live as well.
Here’s a mishmash of songs that seem at least somewhat metal-related:
God Lives Underwater (industrial): All Wrong
KennyHoopla (genre mix): How Will I Rest in Peace…
AC/DC (genre crossover): Cover of George Benson’s On Broadway
Joe Satriani (Kirk Hammett was a student of his): Summer Song
frosty
I’m going to jump in here without reading the comments to give a shout out to Halestorm, a metal-adjacent or at least hard rock band fronted by Lzzy Hale. Also, they’re from Red Lion just up the street from me.
Also Evanescence, at least their first couple of albums. They’re the ones that got me into metal with female vocalists.
Finally, tinnitus. I blame a Grand Funk Railroad concert in the LA Forum in 1970. I found out years later that Black Sabbath was the opening act! My ears rang for a day and a half.
Now to read the comments.
raven
Blue Cheer – Summertime Blues (1968)
Here’s a dime, buy a clue.
mrmoshpotato
@TeezySkeezy:
Hating Zeppelin and curry…
Is Tom Nichols ok?
raven
@frosty: Grand Funk was killer till they started that “O My Captain” tripe.
frosty
@Mel: Nice to see another Halestorm fan!
Last December there was a double bill of Halestorm and Evanescence in Pittsburgh. Neither of my sons wanted to join me and I couldn’t find anyone else, so I didn’t go. Kicking myself about it now.
mrmoshpotato
@grumbles: I was lucky enough to see Motörhead in 2012 co-headlining with Megadeth. Volbeat and Lacuna Coil were opening.
So loud, so great.
Tarragon
@Alison Rose:
stunning voice staying in metal would be Jinjer, a Ukrainian metal band. The singer is amazing singing Beauty and the Beast metal by herself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQNtGoM3FVU
delphinium
@Alison Rose: I like System of a Down too, the singer has a nice voice when he isn’t screaming : ).
Alison Rose
@frosty: Love Evanescence. I know some people sort of made fun of them for their, let’s say, melodramatic nature, but they have a great sound, and Amy Lee has a voice for DAYS.
TeezySkeezy
@Martin: eh, i think hes awful for making a thing of it. I only like Immigrant Song myself, but I dont have a reaction to people liking their work. They are talented. Their sound isnt my thing. But i see why people can like them.
hrprogressive
For those who are adventurous enough to brave some “heavier” and more modern metal with societal/political vibes:
Conquer Divide – system_failure – All women band with a great mix of heavy and melodic elements
Unearth – The Great Dividers – High energy metalcore band that poses the relevant refrain: “Divide our home / Does hate mean freedom?”
Otep – Warhead – Anti-Bush Anthem of 2004 for us headbangers. This one is really gnarly!
Ripley
My early 20s were a wonderful, mad dash playing in several hard rock/metal bands. During the glory days of hair bands, we leaned on Priest, Maiden, Metallica, & Queensryche, but we had to throw in Poison, Britny Fox, Cinderella, Ratt* & Dokken for the ladies and bar owners.
I played with some phenomenal musicians and had so much fun it should have been criminal.
Nice thread – thanks for bringing up the memories.
*imho, Ratt was the smartest band in their landscape, at least their first couple albums.
mrmoshpotato
@EriktheRed:
But do you still have the album covers? Some of that artwork totally deserves the LP cover treatment in full 12″X12″.
Tarragon
Here’s a fun fact, actor Cristopher Lee sang metal and made a number of albums. Some original, some covers. He did several songs from Man of La Mancha that I really love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUPUuFbYXLM
Yarrow
Even if you’re not particularly into metal you’ll likely enjoy Anvil: The Story of Anvil, a documentary about the Canadian metal band Anvil that never quite made it big. It came out in 2008 and the band toured with the film then. It had a re-release in 2022 and they toured with it again. Apparently it was really popular with teenagers who were coming out of Covid lock down. The story of really following your dreams resonated with them. It’s a really good documentary.
geg6
@Raoul Paste:
Ha! I also saw them live. Saw Blondie, too. Twice. She came out of the punk scene even if she got famous more for rock or pop. I wanted to be Debbie Harry when I first saw her in NYC in 1975. Chris Stein and the band were tight. Oh, my lost youth!
mrmoshpotato
@Alison Rose: Saw Kid Rock open for Metallica twice in 2000 (winter and summer).
His set was a great time to make sure I was ready to plant my feet on the floor for 2+ hours of Metallica! (Bathroom break, etc.)
And Limp Bizkit got booed off stage in July 2003. Meh. More time to talk metal with other people who were there for Metallica.
prostratedragon
Noticed this evening that all of a sudden it’s pitch dark just past 6pm, and the time hasn’t even fallen back yet. “Night on Earth,” Tom Waites; Runge&Ammon.
OGLiberal
Judas Priest and Iron Maiden were the background music in my high school football locker room while the varsity basketball team used to come out of the locker room with AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells leading them in….they didn’t emerge until the guitar kicked in – then they went right into a tip drill. The toughest guys on the football team had Circus magazine pages with Halford on them ripped out and taped to their lockers. (little did they know Rob’s secret at the time) And you could learn world history by listening to Maiden. Saw early Metallica (pre-Cliff Burton death) open for Ozzy at the Meadowlands in 1986, day before my 16th birthday. None of us were old enough to drive and our parents had no interest in going to the show or driving through traffic to get us there so we rented a limo. Priest did cover Fleetwood Mac – but not the Nicks/Buckingham edition.
mrmoshpotato
@raven: Metal Evolution – Episode 1 Pre-metal
geg6
@mrmoshpotato:
Sadly, I’m with Nichols on this.
Alison Rose
@mrmoshpotato: I mean…Limp Bizkit makes a little more sense as an opener for them, I guess. But sometimes it’s so hard to please fans. You want an opening act that’s smaller than the headliner, but that would have a chance of appealing to the crowd, and that’s not always gonna happen. Sometimes bands/managers make good choices, sometimes odd.
frosty
@Alison Rose: I was sorry they broke up but then the band reproduced by fission! Amy found a backing band that sounded the same, and the band formed We Are The Fallen and found a singer like Amy. I thought I was going to get a twofer for awhile but WATF didn’t make it past their first album.
ETA I went on a metal/goth/female vocals kick in the early 2000s and there are a LOT of bands way more melodramatic than Evanescence. Nightwish and Within Temptation are the only ones I bought CDs of.
Martin
I think my problem with metal and pop are pretty much the same in that the fanbase doesn’t do a great job of filtering, so you get a lot of shitty stuff becoming pretty popular, and so if you aren’t pretty actively investing time in curating what you listen to, you wind up with a lot of trash which makes it easy to just declare the genre to not be very good. And like most genres, it has a tendency to descend into nostalgia because a lot of people’s music tastes kind of stall out at certain points in their life. But mine never really did, but also my presence where new music is getting any kind of good filtering struggles to keep up.
mrmoshpotato
@Ripley:
🎶Dream Warriors 🎶
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow: That’s a great documentary. I wish they’d got the fame they deserved. So many big name bands cite them as a huge influence.
Yarrow
@mrmoshpotato: During interviews for the re-release of the documentary they said they’ve never had to go back to working day jobs again. So they must be making enough money with the band. That’s good. It’s such a great documentary. Interesting to learn it’s resonating with a younger generation.
Anotherlurker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OhY4ipNbPY
ProtoMetal? San Jose’s own: The Music Machine
brendancalling
Folks, I gotta bow out. Hanging w/ my gal’s family, gotta be social…
frosty
@geg6: I just saw Blondie for the first time in 2019 in the theater where I used to take my dates to the movies in high school. Debbie’s lost the upper range, Chris Stein was playing sitting down, but Clem Burke was still doing great on the drums.
I was wondering why the original guitarists weren’t with them and went back to look at their lineup. They went through guitar players like Spinal Tap went through drummers!
ETA lost youth indeed!! My crush was Linda Rondstadt. Saw her at the Troubadour and the Palomino Club in the mid-70s before she hit the stadium circuit.
mrmoshpotato
@Alison Rose:
And sometimes a band upstages Ozzy, like Metallica did on the Master of Puppets tour.
Captain C
Since we’re talking metal, among other musics, here’s a YouTube of an instrumental track by the metal band Sweet Magma from Astoria, Queens that I got to guest on on bari sax.
brendancalling
@delphinium: The guy from SOAD sounds a lot like Jello Biafra to me. One of the few 90s metal bands I really enjoy.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow: I hope it’s finally paid off for them.
I remember that one of the guys (I think it was Rob.) was working for a catering company at the time.
brendancalling
@SpaceUnit: checking this band out.
Tarragon
there’s a lot of interesting European metal but unfortunately it’s getting a lot of white power racist attention. The fans more than the bands, but bands too. There are plenty of cool bands but I just don’t want to have filter anymore so I’ve stopped listening to new and sticking with bands I already know
Of late I’ve been listening to Japanese metal. Japan has a really awesome metal scene doing a lot of interesting things. Punk too, but that’s a different post
A couple of approachable examples:
Baby Metal is an amazing cross between J-pop and metal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIKqgE4BwAY
Wagaki Band, the name translates as Traditional Japanese Instrument Band, do music in a-lot genres, but a lot of metal. This is the video that got them breakout attention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_xTet06SUo
Martin
@mrmoshpotato: Ozzy was already getting into the ‘need money for rehab’ phase of his career then.
Ripley
@Martin:
I also have a “PhD in Yacht Rock” from my pre-metal days and still love it. I probably listen to less metal nowadays, and it tends more toward songs than artists or albums.
If you’re a yacht rock fan, check out a Midwestern band called Pet Rock. They’re ridiculously good.
brendancalling
@Ripley: Ratt was killer. Same with early Def Leppard, Raven, Tygers of Pan Tang…
delphinium
@prostratedragon: Nice!
brendancalling
@Tarragon: also Ningen Isu. Great Japanese metal trio.
Captain C
@brendancalling: I saw Judas Priest with Megadeth and Testament opening in Worcester, MA, in 1990. We caught half of Testament (who were great), and then Megadeth blew the doors off the arena. Me and my five friends looked at each other and marveled at how cool Priest was to bring an opener that would blow them off the stage. Then Priest came on stage, and boy were we wrong. The sent the roof of the arena at least halfway to Albany, NY with their incredible set.
Also, when I worked at Tower Records in Tempe, AZ Rob Halford used to come in with his boyfriend (who worked at another Phoenix Tower) and browse.
kalakal
@brendancalling:
Blackmore, who’s been friends with him for decades, has always said that Page’s problem has always been he’s wearing too many hats at once and that his playing suffered because of it
SpaceUnit
Anyone else a fan of the band Jack Off Jill? (Yeah, it’s hell of a name). Not exactly metal, but they were fully capable of rocking your face off and their album Clear Hearts Grey Flowers is an under-the-radar masterpiece. Can’t imagine why they weren’t all over the airwaves.
Fear of Dying
Cinnamon Spider
SpaceUnit
@brendancalling:
I think you’ll like them. I think you’ll like their story. They’ve been on a mission since they were kids.
WaterGirl
@brendancalling: Thanks so much for the playlist and the great writeup!
kalakal
Fripp would have a fit at being called metal but the first really heavy song I heard was 21st Century Schizoid Man
I remember putting it on, cranking up the volume, and being blown away
prostratedragon
@Captain C: Nice, hope you all get more views. Did you ever hear Charles Tyler? Former neighbor of mine. His preferred instrument was baritone sax, but had to switch to alto and tenor for his health, which was fragile. He gave the baritone a farewell performance (mid-70s) which I heard. Was quite something.
EriktheRed
@mrmoshpotato:
No, when i said they didn’t survive, I meant the whole package. I did NOT take good care of my records.
Still, some managed to not get ruined and I hang them on my wall now, switching them out periodically.
BSR
@geg6: Totally agree. As much as I like early Sabbath, some of the covers out there surpass the original (to me). Check out this version of War Pigs by the Dresden Dolls for a cover that strips the song down to the bare essentials.
https://youtu.be/K4USCwkcdjc?feature=shared
Captain C
@prostratedragon: I have not, but will definitely look him up.
ETA: And thanks!
BigJimSlade
@geg6: I like to joke that Blondie is famous for rap. There’s nothing like going out at night eatin’ cars.
trnc
@kindness:
Headley Grange.
Other Other Other John
God, what a stupendous playlist. Can we expect another with Norwegian bands, melodic death metal, and American black/thrash/doom groups? The world must know of Children of Bodom and Skeletonwitch!!
Odie Hugh Manatee
My wife and i saw Metallica at the Monsters of Rock 1988 stop in Spokane, WA (Kingdom Come, Dokken, Metallica, Scorpions & Van Hagar). Excellent show and Hammett dropped the shorts on the fat cameraman when he squatting for a shot of Lars…lol! Judas Priest, Fastway, Motley Crue, Ozzy, Cinderella, Dio, Yngwie, and more, I got to see them all and am glad I did. I’ve got a heck of a collection of arm bands and t-shirts I collected that our kids will get one day. I went to just about every concert I could afford to go to from the early 70’s to the early 90’s and it was a lot of them.
Good memories of great times.
Ripley
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Saw that tour at the Silverdome in Michigan. When Metallica ran(!) out on stage, the lower bleacher seats emptied and it looked like colonies of ants streaming down to the stage.
Great show.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Ripley:
I thought Metallica and Scorps kicked ass more so than Van Hagar. Eddie and Sammy were great but…
We had around 25,000 ‘ants’ at our event and it was a hot summer day so they had large hoses and sprinklers set up around the stadium. I didn’t take a seat the whole day/night, nor did anyone in our crew. I also smuggled 1/2 oz of rolled joints into the venue while carrying my shirt and wearing only shorts.
The good ol’ daze… ;)
NotMax
@Tarragon
Linked to his version of “A More Humane Mikado” several times in the past.
;)
HarlequinGnoll
An album that comes to my mind is “No World Order” by Gamma Ray
mrmoshpotato
@Other Other Other John:
Yes and yes!
Craig
@OGLiberal: Damage Inc. tour. Metallifans were ripping the seats out of arenas to make a pit. That Ozzy tour was when Metallica saw that shit was real and they could be huge, cause they already were.
Craig
Here’s a couple of underground legend San Francisco black metal bands.
Weakling,
One guitar player Josh was in math/prog rock genius band The Fucking Champs. The other guitar player John was in super gloomy band Assunder.
Ludicra, seminal American Black Metal. Genre comes out of 90s Norway: screamy vocals, lots of speed, crunchy guitars, lots of complex harmony, blast best drums, complicated arrangements. A great song on here is Awake to Grey.
The thing about modern underground, whatever that means, metal is how inclusive it is. Both these bands have two women as prime movers. I haven’t been to a metal show in 20 years that wasn’t 40%wonen in the audience. There’s a lot of very talented musicians working in this field.
Thanks brendencalling for the post. Solid write up.
Chris Johnson
@Raoul Paste: I saw Bad Brains live in 1986.
I wish I had known what that was back then, and how it’d matter, because I would’ve got closer to the stage. It was in a hippie college dining hall, blisteringly painfully loud and abrasive, and while I was impressed I also hated the experience: it just hurt, and I was a Yes fan completely unprepared for HR, and an audiophile completely unprepared for their sound mix :)
brendancalling
@Chris Johnson: I saw them so many times in the 1980s. Always always always insane shows!