Author Archives: destroyerofharmony

Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

May 2020 – Part 3

December
Highway To Paradise
Gathering Of Kings

I really need to sink my ears into this album and learn more about the project because even though their brand of melodic rock is derivative, I like it.

On their debut album, it had a lot of guest vocalists, and because Bjorn Strid from Soilwork and The Night Flight Orchestra was involved, I was interested.

These tracks are from the follow up.

The Shift
10 Years

I’ve been a long time fan of 10 Years.

There form of groove rock, which in the beginning, had a nod to Tool but in a concise 4 minute package, got me interested.

And since then, they have kept on morphing into a unique rock band.

Darker Thoughts
Ghosts
Paradise Lost

I became a fan with the “Draconian Times” album and then they lost me with their Depeche Mode style album in the late 90’s.

Since the start of the 2010’s they have started to creep back in. “Darker Thoughts” is sombre, as it percolates with just an acoustic guitar, violins and cellos. Then it kicks in, and that riff from 2.18.

House On Fire
Asking Alexandria

This band did a covers EP once, and they had songs from artists I grew up with.

For example, on the “Life Gone Wild” EP from 2010, they covered “18 And Life” and “Youth Gone Wild” frim Skid Row.

Then in 2012 they dropped another EP called “Under The Influence: A Tribute To The Legends Of Hard Rock” which had, “Separate Ways” from Journey, “Kick Start My Heart” from Motley Crue, “Here I Go Again” from Whitesnake and “Hysteria” from Def Leppard.

This track is from their new album and its different, bordering on the sounds of “Imagine Dragons” in the verses with a massive Chorus, which gets the foot tapping.

Check it out.

Uninvited
Earshot

“Earshot” is another band that found a niche combining the angst of bands like Korn with the progressiveness of Tool, into concise 4 to 5 minute rock songs. This was between 2004 and 2008. Then they disappeared, while similar bands like 10 Years and Chevelle kept on going.

“Uninvited” is a great return.

And I’m interested.

It has this epic, Middle Eastern/Arabic feel as it percolates and rumbles through, with a kicking guitar solo.

The following songs, I have already written about on some of the Release Day Friday playlist posts.

Make It Out Alive
Tell Me How You Really Feel
Trapt

The cover for “Make It Out Alive” is a skull with the American flag painted/engraved into the bone, wearing a gas mask all on a black background. It’s a great piece of art and the song portrays that angst.

Dark Necessities
Luca Stricagnoli

This dude can really play an acoustic guitar.

This is a cover of a RHCP song and what you get, is the guitars, the vocal lines, the bass lines and a percussive beat all played on the guitar.

He also has his own special designed acoustic guitar with three necks which allows him to play these songs live.

Watch his YouTube videos to see him in action.

And it was two of those YouTube videos that made me a fan.

“Thunderstruck” and “Fear Of The Dark”.

Watch em and be in awe.

There is so much talent in the world today, that deserves to be heard and seen, the same way guitarists in the 70’s and 80’s were heard and seen. And Luca Stricagnoli is one of those artists.

Prove Me Wrong
Dee Snider

After 40 years in the business, Dee Snider is still proving people wrong. His recent batch of releases, which takes a stab at modern pop rock with “We Are The Ones” and modern groove metal with “For The Love Of Metal” has returned him to the throne of the black sheep’s, the SMF’s.

And “Prove Me Wrong” has a foot stomping metal riff that could make it on a Metallica album with Dee at his metal best.

Atlas Falls
Shinedown

I am a fan of Shinedown.

Their last two albums moved away from the hard rock sounds that got me into em, but they have enough goodwill in my book, for me to remain a fan, plus they had enough tracks on the last two releases to keep me interested.

So when this track was released, a left over from the “Amaryllis” album released in 2012, I was hooked, because this is the Shinedown I like.

Skyfall
Vandenberg

This tune just smoulders, like those epic 70’s tracks from Rainbow and Deep Purple.

Yep, that’s the vibe I get, a Ritchie Blackmore vibe.

Invasion
Haken

The vocal delivery reminds me of Styx and the sounds in the first minute are like an 80s video game.

Musically, it ticks all the boxes for me.

And just like that, they are back in my life as I became one in 2016, then I was on the fence in 2018 and now I’m back.

Voices
Long Distance Calling

They have no singing, it’s all instrumental, but instrumental music built on a groove or a riff and they just keep building it with derivative versions of the same riff.

You need to listen to it, to understand what I mean.

Change For The Better
FM

I knew about FM from the 90’s but never heard anything from em. And in the 2010’s they started to come into my life.

And then they really came on my radar because of “Shot In The Dark”, the song which is known as an “Ozzy” song.

You see, Phil Soussan wrote that song while he was in a band called Wildlife with the Overland brothers (before FM was created). According to the Overland brothers, they helped develop a lot of the concepts and progressions and lyrical melodies, including the keys for “Shot In The Dark”. But they didn’t get the credit and even questioned what Ozzy Osbourne actually did to the song to get a credit.

So they re-recorded the version they had done with Soussan back in the Wildlife days as a bonus track to their 2016 EP.

Give it a listen on Spotify and or go on YouTube.

And as Wikipedia states, “this authorship issue has become a source of contention over the years, and in spite of its success, the song has rarely appeared on Ozzy Osbourne greatest hits compilations as a result.”

As for “Change For The Better”, it’s a mix of Journey and Toto when they used to rock a little bit.

Blackened 2020
Metallica

It was great to see James Hetfield again on the YouTube video of this.

And what a comeback song for him, with a pretty cool acoustic rewrite in the Ennio Morricone style for one of their most progressive and powerful tracks.

To me, the “Justice” album is an unbelievable record. I don’t care that the bass is missing and that the guitar sound has too many mids or the drums sound too compressed. Because a great song is a great song regardless and the “Justice” album has a lot of great songs.

And man, didn’t “One” really shake up MTV.

For a band that didn’t do any clips, they did two versions, one with the film footage and the other with just the band performing in the warehouse. Suddenly you had a million kids buying a double bass drum kit and off they went to practice the double kick “landmine” section.

But “Blackened” opened the album and it’s 7/4 time signature for the intro riff grabbed me by the throat instantly.

“Termination (termination)”

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Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

The Record Vault – Biffy Clyro

I wanted to know what the deal was for this band. They had a lot of write ups in Australia.

And they had this album (along with some others) in a 3 for $20 bin a long time ago.

I already did some research and I knew that the cover was designed by the great Storm Thorgerson, so this album got the nod.

And…

“Mountains” stood out and so did “Many Of Horror”. Actually “Many Of Horror” is a real good song.

It’s you and me ’til the end of time, when we collide we come together

But I never went and checked em out further.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

May 2020 – Part 2

Here we are with May Part 2.

The Black Serenade
Gunfire
Sign Of The Times
The End Of The Line
Bad Reputation
Wings Of The Storm
Into The Fire
Axel Rudi Pell

As soon as I saw the song titles and how un-original they sounded, I wasn’t really keen on this, but I’m glad I bit, because it’s a good metal album (metal being, the way I know metal) and Johnny Gioeli who has had vocal duties for over twenty years, delivers.

If you like good riffage plus lead breaks that sound like they came from the 70’s classic rockers and melodic vocals, then this album should be on your list.

“The Black Serenade” has the synth choirs happening while Axel Rudi Pell emotes and then burns for the minute and thirty seconds album lead track. “Gunfire” has the same venom of “Ace Of Spades” with a lead break that goes for almost two minutes, but never gets boring.

“Sign Of The Times” is epic, “The End Of The Line” is just one of those songs that could have come from a Rainbow album, about a “valley far away” and “Bad Reputation” has this major key vibe.

“Wings Of The Storm” is a blues tune, a metalized version of “Fool For Your Loving” and “Into The Fire” is epic, “Kashmir” like.

Cut Me Down
Ryders Creed

From the UK. That’s all I know. So I let the music do the talking and the song ended up in my playlist. They have an album out as well, which I will check it, as I’m interested to hear more.

Mysterious
DeVicious

From Germany.

This is why I like the recording industry and Spotify. Every artist can participate and somehow their music finds a way. From the artists mentioned, there are two German acts and an UK act.

All For Love
Joe Satriani

Satriani wrote a song once called “The Enigmatic” (it was called that because of the scale he was using was the Enigmatic scale) and that is how he has remained with me.

An enigma.

I’m on the train and I’m off the train.

“All For Love” is one of those slower tempo songs that will remain with me for a long time. So I’m back on the train.

Can’t Stop This Train
Hartmann

This song sounds a like those early 90’s songs that hit the charts, which focused on a blues like groove but still rocked hard. And the vocals remind me of David Coverdale so much on this one.

I also really like the lead break on this one, so I need to check out who the guitarist is.

Hollow Convictions
I Feel Alive Again
Prophets Of Treason
Killswitch Engage

Killswitch Engage live in that world between aggression and harmony, between screaming and melody. In purgatory. It’s a balance. “Hollow Convictions” is excellent musically and it connects the balance for me, with a melodic Chorus. “I Feel Alive Again” also achieves that balance, along with the aggressive “Prophets Of Treason”.

Eternity Now
Love Is Alive
New Event Horizon
Everything You Want It To Be
Big Sugar

I had never heard of “Big Sugar” at all. But thanks to the blogging community and Deke at “Thunder Bay” I now have.

“Eternity Now” sounds like it could come from a Rush album. “Love Is Alive” sounds like the best Don Henley song that Henley didn’t write. “New Event Horizon” sounds like a reggae/Latin song which could be appear on an Enrique album. “Everything You Want It To Be” sounds like a funk song, until that ELO like Chorus kicks in.

Basically if you like variation in your artist, then Big Sugar delivers it.

That’s it for Part 2. May Part 3 is coming up.

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Music

The Record Vault – Aerosmith Addition

I’m still unpacking a lot of stuff from my house move in 2010. I’m a slow unpacker, but a pretty good packer when it comes to moving out.

So there is a box with DVD’s in it and since I’ve covered some of the bands already in previous Record Vault posts, I had to do some extra additions, for completeness. There will be Anvil, Black Label Society And Sabbath additions to come.

I missed this “Live In Philadelphia” from Aerosmith. The notes on the DVD state, it was recorded live at “The Spectrum”, Philadelphia, PA, January 19th. 1990.

This is the “Pump” tour even though the cover states, “Live In Philadelphia – Permanent Vacation”.

The set list is a combination of the “PUMP” and “Permanent Vacation” albums and a select best of, from their 70’s output.

I got this DVD from a shop in Eastern Europe for $8AUD. The shop actually had a lot of DVD bootlegs and copies of actual CD’s, but not the real/legal CD’s. I even asked our tour guide to ask the shop owner if they had any more bootlegs from other bands, and his response was, “Whatever I want, he can get within 5 minutes via the internet and have it burned and ready in another 5 minutes for me to buy”.

I passed.

And the RIAA reckon stream ripping is a problem.

Also Eastern Europe has a culture of bootlegs. Microsoft set up offices in Serbia and Romania because the company saw that those countries had the most pirated versions of Microsoft Office in circulation, and because of this piracy, they found a very competent and young IT workforce available for cheap labour. Plus these countries have some pretty fast internet speeds.

Anyway, from doing a search on the internet, it was never an official release. There are various versions of this concert released with different covers. And how does it work out that the Japanese bootleg version, has an extra track in “Walk This Way” at Number 21. Even bootlegs get Japanese bonus tracks.

Then again, I can’t really complain, as Australian releases of official CD’s always had bonus tracks as well.

For a bootleg, it’s done well, with the cover and the graphics making it look legit. And the video quality is not as good, but then again it was recorded over 28 years ago from when I purchased it.

You win some and lose some.

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Music, My Stories

Van Halen

There was a post from December 2019 over at Bob Lefsetz’s blog about Billie Eilish and Van Halen.

The post is an opinion piece about how Billie Eilish said she didn’t know who Van Halen is.

And Twitter at the time started it’s normal thing and suddenly Van Halen was trending. Like everyone else, I saw their name trending and thought that VH either had new music or something bad happened.

So should a 17 year old “home schooled pop singer” know who Van Halen is?

Growing up in the 80s (for those born in the late 60s and for those born in the 70s) there was no denying Van Halen.

But for a person born in 2003.

Van Halen wouldn’t be a thing. They were missing for most of the decade.

And even when Van Halen made their comeback in 2012, it didn’t really crossover into the mainstream news for a long period of time. Adele was ruling the charts and her year old album kept the “DLR VH” version from reaching the number 1 spot, something which the “DLR VH” version have never achieved, while the “Hagar VH” version did achieve a number 1 spot and Sammy was sure to point it out.

But even then, Billie Eilish who would have been 9 and would not have cared about Van Halen. Maybe if she wasn’t home schooled and went to a school with people who had different tastes, she would have seen Junior with a VH T-shirt being all hot for teacher.

In other words, if you weren’t a Van Halen fan, or had a ticket to the show, “A Different Kind Of Truth” was ignored. But for us fans who cared, Van Halen was back. We didn’t even care what the critics said about the recycled old riffs. Come on, this is EVH. His old riffs were still better than the riffs that the other guitarists at the time came out with.

Speaking of the young generation, when Sabbath reformed and Bill Ward was out, they used the Audioslave/Rage Against The Machine drummer Brad Wilk for the album and Tommy Clueftos from Ozzy’s solo band for the gigs.

And i was at the gig, standing on the floor with people around me and these two young dudes were blowing out at how good the Sabbath drummer has kept himself. I asked em if they thought it was the original drummer Bill Ward. And they said “yes”. And then I told em it wasn’t. And they looked confused. I googled Bill Ward and showed em. And they walked away pissed at me, like I ruined something for them.

And that’s the world we live in.

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Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Blues For Copyright

Here is a great post about the blues and how the genre was appropriated by others and on many occasions the original creator is not even credited.

The 60s blues explosion from the UK happened because the artists took the blues standards from the 30s and made em their own (either by building on an existing work or by just saying that they wrote the song without any credit to the creator).

Remember that histories are written by the winners.

I watched a documentary on “The Australian Sound” and there is no mention of the black blues musicians who influenced the white musicians. It just goes back to the white blues musicians from the 60s and it moves forward from there.

Music is all about influence and experience. What you hear, what you read, see, smell, taste and live, all end up in the song.

Similar sounding songs is big business for lawyers. When you have an artist covering another artists songs and claiming that songs as their own, well, that’s morally wrong and also big business for lawyers.

It’s all because Copyright lasts 70 years after the death of the creator. Remember that Copyright was designed to give the creator a brief monopoly on their works so they could make money and as a by product, an incentive to create more works.

These terms originally were 14 years to 28 years. And if the creator passed while they still had a copyright it expired on death and it all went to the public domain for it to be built on and reused.

So what incentive is there if the creator is dead.

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Copyright Sweet Copyright

Don Henley wants to censor the internet in the name of Copyright.

Who knew that by writing a few songs which ended up being popular gave him (the creator) so much power to get legislation changed. As Peter Parker’s grandfather said, “with great power comes great responsibility”.

It feels like this whole industry of “intellectual property” is becoming more a police state than anything that’s meant to foster creativity.

And while Henley is testifying, there is one crucial segment which is not represented for these Copyright discussions.

From a U.S point of view, that is 229 million American adults who use the Internet to pay bills, to learn, to work, to socialize, to watch content they pay for and to create.

And the public is not part of the conversation and it’s the public who have their rights taken away to please the corporations who hold the rights to content.

These corporations, like the Majors (Sony, Universal And Warner) won a suit against telecommunications company Cox for $1 billion.

They convinced a judge and jury that the ISP is responsible for policing what its users do with their internet access.

If only we can hold the gun makers and knife makers accountable for what their users do with their devices.

Imagine that.

And instead of the labels doing something worthwhile to compete in a vast changing marketplace for the creators they claim to represent, they want the ISPs to play the Copyright Cop for them.

The majority of income the labels get, comes from streaming services and mp3 downloads. And none of these services were created by the labels.

But they still want stronger Copyright restrictions because apparently piracy still exists.

Come on. Really.

Warner Music was valued at $2 billion in 2004 and today its valued at $15 billion.

And 10% of the population will never pay for content. Michael Eisner from Disney said that once upon a time. So why bother with them.

How crazy will Copyright get?

A lot more crazier than right now because the public is never in the discussion.

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Music, My Stories

The Fight

Martin Luther
Brought the truth
The color of our blood’s the same
So break the chains
And solve the pains
And we all become one race
Fight For Your Rights – Motley Crue

You would think, whats going on in the mind of a drugged out twenty something rocker back in 1985. But here we are 35 years later and the lyrics are not out of line with what is happening today.

One man makes all the policies
While the rest of us get blown away
Rock N Rolls Gonna Save The World – Y&T

Psychopaths are in charge of big economies and psychopaths are in charge of companies who support these kind of Governments.

If you want
Life, life, life
It’s time to break down the chain of command
Life, Life, Life – Y&T

The people are trying to bring change and they are met with loaded guns. The people are trying to bring change and they hope they won’t get sick with the Coronavirus.

There’s only kings and queens
And you’re a pawn in their game
Of masters and slaves
Masters And Slaves – Y&T

Will anything change after it’s all over?

In the last two years the world has had climate protests and they have led to nothing so far. Human rights protests have been happening for a long time and you would think circumstances would changed. I guess we are slaves to masters and instead of chains, we are paid a wage which has to then be paid to other institutions.

It’s the law of the jungle, only winners have rights
The losers relinquish their lives
Masters And Slaves – Y&T

Rules don’t apply to the winners, the wealthy. In Australia, a billionaire businessman returns from overseas and he and his wife are allowed to serve their 14 day quarantine at home, while everyone else needs to serve it in a hotel controlled by the police and the military.

Our PM just announced a home builder scheme that would benefit a company called Bunnings, whose CEO he is pretty cosy with and who advises the Government on policy matters.

I guess the current winners keep on winning.

I hear a siren and I feel the heat
A prowlin’ shark in black and white
Break Out Tonight – Y&T

The Police are meant to uphold the law and yet they abuse it. Remember the song “Cop Killer” from Body Count.

Did that rage against law enforcement ever disappear?

They’ll try to tear you down and fit you in
Break Out Tonight – Y&T

Everyone is born with a dream and a need to love and be loved. Conformity and hate are introduced by society and culture. Break the chains of conformity and don’t let people dictate who you should be or what you should be.

You only live once and it’s short.

So how will you approach tomorrow?

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

May 2020 – Part 1

Dark Four Door
A Few More Hours At YYZ
Hell Or High Water
Billy Raffoul

Billy Raffoul came on my radar via the excellent blog, 2loud2oldmusic. Mr John Snow buys a lot of physical recorded product and an album by Billy Raffoul was one of his purchases. Check out the blog here.

So I called up the artist on Spotify and these three songs really stood out to me.

He doesn’t have a Wikipedia page (while a lot of the 80s bands do), but he has a song which has 34 plus million streams on Spotify and other songs all over 2 million plus streams (which a lot of the 80s bands I like don’t have).

In other words, the new artists don’t need an encyclopedic entry as their music is doing the promoting. Furthermore, the majority of music consumers these days don’t really care about this information. My son learnt the solo to “Comfortably Numb” and doesn’t even care to know who the guitarist is.

Until then I’m still looking for you in every dark four door
From Dark Four Door

I should have known, I should have tried to hold on
From Hell Or Highwater

An acoustic and a voice. You can’t get any more simpler than that.

Paper Sun – Live
Def Leppard

The intro is one of my favourite Def Leppard riffs and when I tell people who “liked Def Leppard in the 80’s” about this song, they don’t know of it, as it appeared on “Euphoria” released in 1999.

From the live recordings I have heard, Joe Elliot is pretty conservative with his voice, singing more in a bass baritone voice. It’s a smart move as there is no point in straining the voice each night when a lot of shows are coming his way.

Rodeo – Live
Pretty Maids

Pretty Maids is one hell of a rock band. And they deliver live as well.

“Somebody makes it and somebody don’t” because in the end, life is a rodeo, in which we need to perform publically each day in order to participate in society.

I even associated the rock and roll live show to a rodeo, as the trucks start to turn up to the venues, the road crew then gets the stage ready and the band turns up and performs publically.

I’ll Be Waiting
Believe In Us
Hell Or Highwater

I’ve been a fan of this band since their first EP release. For those that don’t know it’s a another outlet for the drummer from Atreyu (who also does the clean vocals for Atreyu) to showcase his songwriting and vocals.

And it’s all rock songs.

Canary Yellow
Haken

This one took a few listens to grow on me, and I’m glad I invested the time in it.

Haken has been an interesting journey for me. Their 2016 album “Affinity” made me a fan, but “Vector” in 2018 didn’t really cement it for me. The new album “Virus” is coming out in two weeks and suddenly I’m interested again.

Polar Bear
Alcatrazz

Joe Stump came out in the early 90’s and was labelled as an Yngwie clone.

When you have solo albums with the titles like “Guitar Dominance!” (1993), “Night of the Living Shred” (1994) and “Supersonic Shred Machine” (1996), he was an anomaly in the grunge musical landscape and the “no guitar solo nu-metal” movement.

And when I heard the latest song from Alcatrazz, I thought Yngwie Malmsteen re-joined with Graham Bonnet. Because all the guitar parts sound like Malmsteen. But then I read a bit more, and found out that the guitar player is Joe Stump.

And I’m thinking, what a brilliant move by Bonnet.

So if you like the first Alcatrazz album, then you will like this song.

Check it out.

Addison
Birds Of Tokyo

How could you leave me here, my friend?

Relationships either romantic or friendships or family, have an end. Sometimes nothing needs to be said, as life and society is enough to tear it all apart and once months and then years go by, it becomes harder to reconnect.

Birds Of Tokyo rule the charts in Australia with each release.

Ian Kenny from the excellent progressive Karnivool is on vocals, and it was sort of a side project for him, but I think these days, it’s his main project with Karnivool becoming a side project.

And on this album, he’s written the turmoil and angst of his marriage breakdown.

Rainbow In The Dark
A Conversation With Death
Khemmis

The Dio cover is down tuned, sludgy and the way its delivered, it would give Ghost a run. Then it picks up for a shred lead break.

Plus there is an original cut, which sounds like a conversation at the crossroads with death himself.

The New Pandora
Hands Of Time
Line And Sinker
We Don’t Need Them Here
Destination Unknown
Angel Of Dawn
The Unity

This album surprised me at how good it is. “The New Pandora” sounds like it came from Dream Theater’s “Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence” and “Hands Of Time” sounds like it came from a Pretty Maids album.

I had to do some reading on them. From Germany, the guys in the band are from various power metal acts and this is their third album. And this album has done enough to make me a fan.

The Way Back Home
Spoken

This band is down tuned and aggressive on the music side, and the clean tone vocals remind me of James Durbin. If you like melodic rock done a bit different from the Euro melodic rock doing the rounds at the moment, check out Spoken.

Give Me All Your Love -2020 Remix
Whitesnake

I suppose Whitesnake will always be in a playlist for me.

The End
Watch Me Drown
Blacktop Mojo

They came into my radar because I saw in some article how they won an opening spot on a Bon Jovi tour a few years back, so I thought I should check em out, plus their name sounded cool.

And I was greeted with a refreshing hard rock sound, and I’ve been a fan ever since. Plus they do a pretty awesome cover of “Dream On” from Aerosmith.

Alive And Kicking (Quarantine Sessions)
Nonpoint

I have always enjoyed the brand of rock that Nonpoint bring and this is a cool acoustic session for a song which is 15 years old.

“Alive and Kicking” was originally released in 2005 on their fourth album. And they have been around since 1997. 23 continuous years in the business.

Stay tuned for part 2.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Jeff Pilson Talks

Blabbermouth always has clickbait headlines that hook me in. If I was a fish, I would have been someone’s dinner a long time ago. This story is from April 2020, and I’ve had it sitting there to write a blog post on.

“If there’s one record for me with DOKKEN, it would be the ‘Tooth And Nail’ [1984] record, just because we were still very hungry.

It’s a pretty raw record, but there’s a lot of great writing on there. It’s not the best-sounding record we ever did, sonically. We kind of changed horses in the middle of the stream, so we had to do some damage control, sonically.

But there’s something about it that’s very real and it’s very hungry, like I said. There’s energy and angst in that record that we never quite matched again. So that’s probably the record I’m most proud of, but there’s [other] great ones.”
Jeff Pilson

Changing horses in the middle is another word for changing producers because one bailed (Tom Werman) due to the aggressive wrestling and punching between two band members. So others (Roy Thomas Baker and Michael Wagener) got brought in to finish off the recording as producer and mixer.

On “Tooth And Nail”, Pilson is a co-writer on all of the 10 tracks and he is the true unsung hero of this album, the glue between George Lynch and Don Dokken. And if you listen to the album, you will hear speed metal (“Tooth And Nail” and “Turn On The Action”, heavy metal (“Don’t Close Your Eyes”, “When Heaven Comes Down” and “Bullets To Spare”), hard rock (“Just Got Lucky” and “Heartless Heart”), ballads (“Alone Again”) and mixtures of all those styles in (“Into The Fire”).

“We did a record in 1999 called ‘Erase The Slate’ that I was actually very, very proud of, with Reb Beach on guitar. A fabulous record.

Then there was a DIO record that I did called ‘Strange Highways’ [1993] that I still think was just a hugely underrated record, because when it came out, people were expecting a more traditional DIO record, and I think over time, people have come to appreciate it more.

But that was such an inspired period, and working with Ronnie [James Dio] at that point was such a game changer for me. And the chemistry of that band and the writing chemistry that we had was so powerful and I still think ‘Strange Highways’ really holds up.”
Jeff Pilson

“Erase The Slate” is a perfect comeback album for Dokken after the terrible “Shadowlife” album they did with George Lynch. Reb Beach gave the band an injection it really needed and with all of the songs written by the four dudes in the band, my favourites are “Erase The Slate”, “Change The World”, “Maddest Hatter” and “Voice Of The Soul”.

Meanwhile George Lynch went from bad to even worse with his reboot of Lynch Mob into a nu-metal rap act. I purchased it, listened to it and never played it again.

“It’s a crazy world we live in and I’m leaving it today”
From Strange Highways

It sure is crazy. The protests happening in the U.S and now other parts of the world, all under the cloud of a pandemic show just how crazy and desperate it is. Time will tell how all of this plays out. Then again, history is always written by the winners, so…

“Strange Highways” released in 1993 from Dio is a heavy comeback album. I guess the time Dio spent with Black Sabbath and the “Dehumanizer” album brought out a more heavier approach. And Pilson again rises to the occasion with 9 co-writes on this album out of 11 tracks. But the surprise to me was Tracy G on guitars, who co-write the music on all of the 11 tracks. I had heard of his WWIII project from 1990 and seen the ads in the music mags, but never heard any music from it.

A soccer mate, “Nick The Stick”, was (and still is) a mad Dio fan, so he dubbed the CD on a cassette for me as I wasn’t sure I was back on the Dio train. I enjoyed “Lock Up The Wolves” (1990) and “Dehumanizer” (1992) so I don’t know why I wasn’t interested in a new Dio album. But I do know that my musical tastes were developing and looking for different ways and styles to learn and incorporate into hard rock.

The search for something different was linked to my journey as a practicing guitar player. It’s a big reason why “Images and Words” from Dream Theater (1992), “Undertow” from Tool (1993) and “Promised Land” from Queensryche (1994) resonated with me.

Do the crime, then write the law, there’s no wrong, you can change it
From Here’s To You

It sure seems that way. The people in power and their advisors keep breaking the laws and then after a few years they are in a position of power to write new laws. The GFC villains/architects all went on college speaking tours, while millions around the world lost their homes.

And the purpose of this post was to bring back some great albums that an artist holds up high. Plus it’s always cool to hear and read interviews from artists who talk about their previous works.

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