Category Archives: Influenced

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

Can’t Get Enough

It came out in 1990 on “In The Heart Of The Young”, the follow up to their mega successful debut. And the power of this track, the bass sound and the guitar riff is made for big speakers. Which people don’t have any more and those rigs have been replaced by headphones, some good and a lot of em are really bad.

This is Winger at its peak. I think its spelled “Can’t Get Enuff” on the album, but spelt properly on digital services.

After many years of doing their time with other projects and other artists, the band members Kip Winger, Reb Beach, Paul Taylor and Rod Morgenstein got together and recorded a brilliant debut with songs mainly written by Kip Winger.

But the follow up cemented them, with songs mainly written by Winger and Beach. The album was helped by the rock momentum from the early eighties, as rock still ruled MTV at the start of the 90’s. For the kids who have grown up with pop and hip hop as the dominating force, rock did dominate TV and radio stations once upon a time.

For me, it’s the vocal line and the sound of the voice which connects. It’s like a cross between Bryan Adams and Joe Elliot and I dig it.

Reb Beach on guitar decorates the song throughout with power chords, little fills here and there and triad chords. Underpinning it all, is the locked in bass and drums of Kip Winger and Rod Morgenstein, driving the song forward like a diesel train.

And a few years after this release, the rock landscape became confused, between 1993 to 2000. Lars Ulrich threw darts at Kip Winger during the making of the Black album and Beavis And Butthead built a cartoon comedy career from poking fun at Kip Winger and his nude spread.

The record labels abandoned rock music and went looking for Grunge artists (while their back catalogues of rock music kept selling), then the labels went looking for Industrial artists (while their back catalogues of rock music kept on selling), then Nu Metal artists (while their back catalogues of rock music kept on selling and selling) and then pop artists (while their back catalogues of rock music kept on selling and selling and selling).

Then came file trading/sharing.

I guess I just can’t get enough.

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

Love Song

Tesla followed up their debut album “Mechanical Resonance” with “The Great Radio Controversy”. And there isn’t a song on the album that I wouldn’t listen to today. It’s consistent with some big songs thrown in the mix. “Hang Tough” brings the metal, “Heavens Trail” brings the acoustic slide guitar, “The Way It Is” brings the Southern Rock, “Paradise” brings the progressive 70s style of song writing to the fore and then there is “Love Song”.

The album was on Spotify Australia, and when 2020 started, it was off. I don’t understand why artists or their labels would remove or even withhold their music from streaming services. And “Psychotic Supper” has never been on Spotify Australia. At this point in time, this is the Tesla catalogue on Spotify Australia;

  • 1986 – Mechanical Resonance
  • 1990 – Five Man Acoustical Jam
  • 2001 – RePlugged Live
  • 2007 – Real To Reel Vol.1
  • 2007 – Real to Reel Vol.2
  • 2008 – Forever More
  • 2008 – Gold
  • 2010 – Alive In Europe!
  • 2011 – Twisted Wires
  • 2014 – Simplicity
  • 2016 – Mechanical Resonance Live
  • 2019 – Shock

Yes, there is a lot of music there, but my favourite albums are the first four, which I have on vinyl and CD, but when you are out and about, those two mediums don’t cut it. YouTube has them, but not Spotify Australia. It’s insane.

Anyway, my 13 year old has been playing “Love Song” on the acoustic guitar for a while (he’s been listening to it on Spotify because the song is on the “Gold” compilation) and I’ve overdosed on it again, in the same way I did when the song came out. I spent time learning the song and its Randy Rhoads inspired acoustic intro.

Its written by Jeff Keith and Frank Hannon.

Actually Frank Hannon is one of the most underrated guitar heroes ever. Hannon’s grasp of 60’s Rock like The Beatles and Rolling Stones, 70’s rock like Aerosmith and Styx and Kiss, Southern Rock like The Allman Brothers, Molly Hatchet and Lynyrd Skynyrd, 80’s rock and metal, rhythm and blues, plus technical shredding is impressive and makes him a complete player. An MVP to have in your team.  Of course there was also Tommy Skeoch who could also play.

Once that acoustic intro is over, there is a D pedal point ringing throughout, while Hannon plays diads on the high B and E strings.

So you think that it’s over
That your love has finally reached the end
Any time you call, night or day
I’ll be right there for you when you need a friend, yeah

You see, love is not just what you do in bed. It’s a person to laugh with, a person to challenge you and offer different viewpoints, a person to share experiences with, a person to be there for you, a person to listen and a person to help you be a better version of who you are.

Love is all around you, yeah
Love is knocking’ outside your door
Waiting’ for you is this love made just for two
Keep an open heart and you’ll find love again, I know

Damn right, but people don’t know it or refuse to see it, because they have seen love involving roses, fancy trips and so many other dollar crunching events. But the truth is, love is free. It doesn’t really cost anything. And if you are alone in your house, feeling lonely, well guess what, there is another like you, looking for a connection.

So ignore all the social media friends who boast about how great their life is, because the cold hard truth is this, every single one of us in insecure.

Then the first guitar solo begins. A lot of people talk up the “November Rain” solos from Slash, but goddamn, Frank Hannon delivers here a solo full of emotion, vocal melodies and perfect phrasing.

And the ending begins about love finding a way back to you. It always does. Then another solo begins under the vocal melody. It doesn’t take away from it, it supplements it.

And this song keeps finding a way back to me.

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

Mean Town Red House At The Crossroads

There is a Guitar World interview from July 1989 with Jake E Lee and it goes into a little section called “JAKE’S TOP FIVE GUITAR SOLOS”. It just lists the songs and that’s it.

With the interview being conducted during the Badlands promotion campaign, I wasn’t surprised at the top 5 at all and the focus on blues.

Red House – Hendrix In The West [Reprise] 1971 – Jimi Hendrix

Artists once upon a time very rarely played the studio cut live. The live show was a chance to jam, be free and have fun. Jimi Hendrix was a huge innovator in that department.

Crossroads – Wheels Of Fire [Polydor] 1968 – Eric Clapton

This is a live version of “Crossroads” in which Clapton sings and goes all pentatonic.

Since I’ve Been Loving You – Led Zeppelin III [Atlantic] – Jimmy Page

I don’t know any guitarist who hasn’t been affected by Jimmy Page. Even the new up and comers will be exposed to a Jimmy Page riff or lick or song. And Page is another innovator when it comes to the live show and jamming.

Mean Town Blues – Johnny Winter and Live [Columbia] 1971 – Johnny Winter

The blues is repetitive, especially these days when everything is available instantly, but it provided a canvas of opportunity once upon a time. Bands built careers on 12 bar blues romps.

Stratus – Spectrum album by Billy Cobham [Atlantic] 1973 – Tommy Bolin

Tommy Bolin was a huge talent that was lost to the music world very early. His understanding of jazz and rock and roll was impressive.

Also check out the bass line on this song.

I still think his best work came with his solo albums and his work with Deep Purple.

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A to Z of Making It, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Attention

Everything happens at once.

You get a message on WhatsApp, on Messenger, a normal SMS, a blog post notification, a voice mail, an email, a Slack mention, a phone call, while you are listening to music with the earpiece in one ear and you are carrying out a conversation with a work colleague or a family member or a friend.

This is a crisis, and its real.

We have to choose on what to focus on, as our attention is a scarce resource. We need to find ways to use it wisely because every single human being gets the same amount of attention to spend each day, but some use it better than others and have an ability to focus on getting stuff done.

While others just waste their time on their smartphones or gaming or watching streaming TV. Imagine if all that time wasted on your smartphone scrolling the social media feed was money.

Would you waste your money like that?  

On absolutely nothing.

I suppose the question to be asked is, how do we want to live each day?

Do we want to live to just get through the day, and tomorrow will be another day to get through?  

And then what happens?

We’ve gone through all the days and lived the same as all the previous days. Is this a life fulfilled?

But what would happen if we saw each day as an opportunity to do something different, just for 10 minutes, instead of a task in a process.

How would that feel 12 months from now?

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

The Record Vault – Bon Jovi From 2000 to 2009

After a very limited release schedule of new music in the 90s, Bon Jovi became a different beast at the start of the 2000’s releasing more frequently. Almost yearly.

Was it the Napster effect?

100% it was.

When fans of music could get their music fix for free or by cherry picking from the iTunes Store, it meant the old business model of living off the royalties of your past successes and releasing music every two to five years was challenged and a new way was needed. Suddenly not a lot of people wanted the album, just the “hits”.

And because of the internet, people moved on to different artists and sounds quicker than ever before. So in order to stay relevant and in the public conversation, artists had to release more frequently. Which Bon Jovi did.

There was no escaping “Crush” released in 2000. “It’s My Life” was everywhere and Bon Jovi had another Super Bowl title win with this song. It’s no surprise that the hitmeister of the day, Max Martin co-wrote the song, in the same way Desmond Child co-wrote a lot of the Jovi hits back in the 80s and early 90s. I even got “Collectors Edition 05686”, whatever that means.

And I got all the singles from this album because they had so many unreleased tracks on them. Check em out.

“One Wild Night Live 1985–2001” came out in 2001 and I purchased it, to hear Jovi, still firing on all cylinders.

“Bounce” released in 2002 is one of my favorite Jovi albums. There is a lot of Dropped D riffing, it’s heavy and it’s angry. It’s written post September 11 and everyone who saw those images of the planes hitting the towers could forget em.

And I purchased the singles because they had a lot of B sides to them. Something that Jovi was doing really well.

“This Left Feels Right” came out in 2003. Sambora went to town here, re-interpreting all the classics in an acoustic folky way.

“100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong” is one hell of a box set, released in 2004. This is the jewel in the Jovi crown. There is so much history on this.

“Have a Nice Day” came out in 2005 and it had some cool tunes on it as well. I’ve got the Aus Edition with bonus tracks and a DVD I haven’t played.

“Lost Highway” released in 2007 was interesting, because I liked it. I liked the ballsy change to country rock.

“The Circle” was released in 2009 and after the GFC so it had songs on it about the working man doing it tough. It was interesting how people took offense to Jovi even attempting to write an album like this while he was so far removed from the working man.

Regardless, it still had some cool tunes on it and I was still on board.

Coming up is my Jovi collection from 2010 to 2020.

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

Working Man

Alex Lifeson really gets to work on this song in the riffs and the guitar solos.

The opening riff could easily be used on a Metallica or Pantera album, it’s that heavy.

I get up at seven, yeah
And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin’
Yes, I’m workin’ all the time

And when you add overtime to the mix which everyone would say yes to, as it added that little bit of extra in the pay, then there is zero time for living because you are working all the time.

But hey, you are thinking that the holidays are coming soon and you will have time for living then and you will go away with your family, but suddenly, you and your partner are disconnected because of all the time you spent away and your kids just don’t have that connection with you either.

It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that’s why they call me
They call me the working man

Live to work or work to live. Jobs in the past provided security. It was the norm that someone would start and retire in the same job. My Dad did. These days it’s very different. There is a gig economy, part time work, casual work, full time work and most people have been in more than one job. Sometimes a lot of jobs.

The thing I like about music is when artists are creative.

From the 2 minute mark “Working Man” changes. That whole lead section and that riff from 3.10 is basically a song within a song. And it keeps going, so far removed from the pop formula of verse, chorus and bridge.

Then at the 5.20 mark the song comes back to the original music. After 7 plus minutes, the only option left is to press repeat.

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

Circle The Drain

The song started its life 13 plus months ago. It had a hook about “Treading Water” initially and that was probably going to be the title.

Robb Flynn then mentioned how the song title came about. He had a friend, who returned from Afghanistan only to have his relationship fall apart. His girlfriend messed around on him while he was gone, then she got paranoid about him messing around on her and drove him crazy. The title came from the words Robb’s friend said to him, “they were just circling the drain”.

Circling the drain means to be very near death and have little time to live. It is also used to describe a project or relationship that is on the brink of failure.

Robb also lost two long term band members who decided to leave Machine Head.

I don’t know if it was a relationship gone bad or if it was just time to move on, as nothing lasts ever, even the cold November Rain.

But when relationships do go bad, either romantic or band breakups, the people’s lives change forever. Suddenly, people/friends take sides, and you are not being invited to the events you used to go to and you are exposed to it all via social media and societies quest to showcase how great their lives are on it.

So artists channel this pain and anger and aggression into their music and their words.

Treading water, were just numbing the pain
Spinning round as we circle the drain

You know how it’s going to end, but you are too scared to move on and break ties. So we go around in circles, walking on egg shells and taking care to not hurt each other’s feelings, while our real feelings left the building a long time ago.

Excuses don’t mean anything when tears run down our eyes

No one said break ups are easy. And totems of the relationship are left behind everywhere, like a song or a movie that you don’t like anymore, because it brings back memories of that person.

And if it’s not tears running down the eyes, its blood. For all of our advancements in science and technology, we still can’t control our lizard brain, that small section of the brain that controls everything once it’s activated. It’s dangerous and on occasions deadly.

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Influenced, Music, My Stories

Hair Metal

There is no doubt that artists who played the Strip had a certain dominance on the charts until a new sound from up the Pacific coast, washed em away. And when people started to write about the 80’s, there was nothing positive said. All of these new indie writers tried to re-write history in favour of their preferred musical taste and all they wrote about was the bad hair, the bad music, the lipstick and hairspray, the bad hair again, the lifestyles, the bad hair again x2 and the bad music again.

Would “Guitar Hero” have existed if it wasn’t for the 80’s?

Van Halen is one of the first bands that I know that came from the Strip, more because they played up and down the Strip like crazy instead of living on the Strip. And even though they had long hair, it wasn’t teased and hair sprayed and glammed up. Only David Lee Roth would take that on, even though the poster boy look upset the Van Halen brothers. When the band became Van Hagar, they still had a down to earth look, with Sammy even wearing an interesting red outfit.

Motley Crue is the first prominent band to came from the Strip, living and breathing it. While “Too Fast For Love” was done independently with songs written before the Crue was formed, it wasn’t until “Shout At The Devil” hit the streets, that the sound of the strip was born.

The generic sounding “Shout At The Devil” sets up the “Shout” call and response vocal, while “Looks That Kill” pulverises you with its down tuned riff and razor sharp women ready to slice the little boys apart. Even “Helter Skelter” sounds like it came from the Strip, instead of the clubs of Liverpool, England. In “Ten Seconds To Love” Vince is telling his girl to wait a little bit more, because here he comes and how he can’t wait to tell the boys about her, while she shines his pistol a little bit more.

Glam metal then left the Sunset Strip and moved to Sheffield England and an album called “Pyromania” from Def Leppard.

From the opening notes of the AC/DC influenced “Rock Rock (Til You Drop)”, to the harmonies of “Photograph” and “Rock Of Ages”, to the grooves of “Billy’s Got A Gun” and “Die Hard The Hunter”, Def Leppard changed the game. They brought the sounds of the NWOBHM, mixed em with AC/DC, Queen, The Sweet and Mott The Hoople and suddenly, the glam hair sound is developing even further.

The glam sounds returned to the Sunset Strip and a band called RATT took over with a song called “Round and Round” from “Out Of The Cellar” released in 1984.

It’s got streets, where people meet, to cross lines and get into fights. And we loved it, even though the chorus of “love finding a way” didn’t really match the threatening verses of picking a fight. The Rat gang also got a mention in “Wanted Man” and my favourite track, “The Morning After” comes roaring out of the speaker.

WASP is another Sunset act, which was thrown in with glam, but to me, that’s like placing Motorhead as a glam act as well. Then again, with songs like “Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)” and “L.O.V.E Machine”, they got traction and Tipper Gore added the band to her filthy list.

At the same time, a band that played the New Jersey/New York State area for a decade broke big with big hair and a glam rock look from the 70’s and film clips about standing up for your rights, like “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock”.

And the term hair band and glam metal got even messier.

Poison moved to the Sunset Strip, dragged the cat in, played dirty and screamed for action with their 1986 debut album, and their 1988 follow up “Open Up And Say Ahh” cemented big hair.

Bon Jovi showed how slippery it really gets when things get wet and “New Jersey” in 1988 further cemented the big hair look.

Suddenly, we had Skid Row going wild with their big guns, looking for a piece of everyone. Def Leppard poured even more sugar on their sound with “Hysteria” and finally, a bunch of highly strung musicians got it together to write and record an album called “Appetite For Destruction”.

You know where you are, you’re in the jungle baby, and that jungle proved so easy to please, with cheap booze on the Nighttrain, while talking to Mr Brownstone on our way to the Paradise City.

Regardless of what you think of the music from these artists, or how you want to label them, this form of rock and roll was loud, in your face and it didn’t really care what you thought, sort of like how Axl said, if you think your so cool, you can just fuck off.

The journal that inspired this post.

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A to Z of Making It, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Change Was Needed

By 1988, the slick and polished sounds which heavy metal became known for was starting to fade. We saw the NWOBHM morph into the Sunset Strip rock and roll show and when the hairs became bigger than the sounds courtesy of MTV, the label reps came up with so many other wonderful names like Glam Metal, Hair Metal, Pop Metal, Hard Rock, Heavy Rock and whatever other word they could find to put before rock and metal. Basically, a rethink was on the cards for a lot of the artists.

But not for all.

Bon Jovi delivered one hell of a slick rock and metal album in 1986 and followed it up with another slick album in 1988. Whitesnake had the same dilemma, so they wrote another guitar heavy album to follow up from the self-titled 1987 album. Kiss continued on from “Crazy Nights” to “Hot In The Shade”.

Then Motley Crue dropped “Dr Feelgood” on September 1, 1989. All of those interviews about the drug overdoses, the death and subsequent return from death for Nikki Sixx, the drugs, the crashed cars, the lawsuits, the drugs again, the imposter, Vince escaping jail, the women, the drugs again times two and three and four, the partying, the clashes with the law, the break ups and the eventual “sobriety”.  “Dr Feelgood” had to be number 1. If the music didn’t do it, the stories would have.

But “Dr Feelgood” wasn’t just an album, it was a statement and it was a sound. And underpinning it all was the blues. That’s right, the baddest boys of rock and roll had gone back to the Missy Sippy Delta (I know how Mississippi is spelt) well for inspiration.

I remember walking down to the local shopping centre to buy the album which cost $19.99 in Australian dollars.

From the start of the Dr Davis call in “Terror N Tinseltown” which segues into the thundering rolling E note that kicks off “Dr Feelgood”, you knew this album was an assault on the eardrums. But it’s the chromatic blues riffs which come after which showcases the underrated Mick Mars. There is the chromatic passage and then two note chords, a D5 to an A/C# chord. Then it goes back to the chromatic passage and then that “Purple Haze” chord, the E7#9.

Sonically, its heavy and pleasing on the ear drums. It has a lot of groove. And lyrics that deal with a drug boss called “Dr Feelgood”. You can create a comic book character based on the lyrics of the song. Descriptive all the way down to the type of car with primed flames.

But it was the nod to the blues which got me very interested, especially when bands like Aerosmith, Badlands, Lynch Mob, Dangerous Toys and Tora Tora all released decent albums based around heavy blues rock. You could say they were all building on what Guns N Roses brought back to the masses with “Appetite For Destruction”.

And the changes weren’t confided to blues rock.

Some bands went heavier based on the new found success of bands like Pantera. Other bands went back to classic rock acts from the 70’s and others went more progressive. One thing that was clear, change was happening, except if you were AC/DC and Iron Maiden. And maybe there is something to be said there as well, as both of those acts still make great coin from touring.

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

Revelation (Mother Earth)

So Ozzy gets fired from Sabbath because he’s apparently more wasted than the rest of the other guys in the band, and while he is wasted in L.A, all the people around him, manage to put a band together which involves Randy Rhoads, Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake.

And this separation between Ozzy and Sabbath wasn’t just tied to this band.

All of the bands that had success in the 70’s went through this. Aerosmith was experiencing their own dramas amongst wasted members, along with Kiss, UFO, Scorpions, Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, The Eagles and Styx. Deep Purple was already done, while Rainbow already experienced a turnover of musicians.

The record labels were always looking for their next cash cows and so many bands had artists in there, that could be successful on their own, so the sway of the dollar was causing a huge turnover of personnel. Ronnie James Dio is a perfect case, from Elf to Rainbow to Black Sabbath to Dio.

And from all of these movements of personnel, the Blizzard Of Ozz band came to be and man, they created some memorable masterpieces.

“Revelation (Mother Earth)” appeared on the “Blizzard of Ozz” album from 1980. But the definitive version is from the “Tribute” live album released in 1987 as the tempo is increased a little bit, plus you get the fake crowd noises added which weren’t really there and you get recut vocals from Ozzy.

Bob Daisley wrote the lyrics about how we are destroying our own planet. I guess not much has changed since 1979. Forty years later, the planet is definitely on a highway to hell and we keep finding ways to fuck it up. Some of the lyrics reference the book of Revelations in the bible and the word “Mother” in the title came from a John Lennon song called “Mother”.

The intro/verse riff from 0.00 to 1.24 is just pure Randy Rhoads. A classical piece, it can be a little song within a song. It’s timeless and it doesn’t sound dated at all.  

Mother please forgive them
For they know not what they do
Looking back in history’s books
It seems it’s nothing new
Oh let my mother live

How much more can Mother Earth forgive and forget?

In Australia we have just come out of fires and endless days of smoke haze and poor air quality only to enter into severe rain and flooding.

Heaven is for heroes
And hell is full of fools
Stupidity, no will to live
They’re breaking god’s own rules
Please let my mother live

Everything is a balance. Screw up the balance and things change.

Father, of all creation
I think we’re all going wrong
The course they’re taking
Seems to be breaking
And it won’t take too long

As a society, people are trying to move to more sustainable models, but nothing is easy when big business is involved. And people’s livelihoods are at stake here as well, who work in these industries. Then you have other countries who just don’t care, who will just burn their rubbish. If you travel, you would have seen it.

Children of the future
Watching empires fall
Madness the cup they drink from
Self-destruction the toll

Every great empire has fallen. Alexander’s Empire disintegrated, the Roman Empire fell, the British Empire is no more and currently, some of the large democratic countries are showing similarities to the Empires of the past, just before they crumbled.

I had a vision, I saw the world burn
And the seas had turned red (seas had turned red)
The sun had fallen, the final curtain
In the land of the dead

Those pictures from Australia got traction all around the world. There was no need for Photoshop to enhance the destruction as mother nature’s fury was enough.

Mother, please show the children
Before it’s too late (before it’s too late)
To fight each other, there’s no one winning
We must fight all the hate (must fight all the hate)

It’s too late. All the different races and colours still hate each other. All the ones who seek profit over nature, will lie and scheme to get their way.

Then 03.03 to 3.21 just before the acoustic interlude.

Then from the 5 minute mark to the end is just brilliant. It is a merge of heavy riffing and classical / baroque influenced lead break that twists and turns into each other.

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