My UFO experiences started in the 90’s. The band UFO, just in case anyone was wondering.
“Lights Out” (released in 1977) is the gold standard along with the live album “Strangers In The Night” (released in 1979).
But.
“No Heavy Petting” deserves more love.
The band for the album is Phil Mogg on vocals, Michael Schenker on guitar, Danny Peyronel on keyboards, Pete Way on bass and Andy Parker on drums.
Any idea about the monkey on the cover.
“Natural Thing”
The intro riff is great to play and one of the best committed to tape.
And I was pointed towards “Rock N Roll Queen” from Mott The Hoople as an influence. The guitar player on that is Mick Ralphs before Bad Company.
“I’m A Loser”
Written by Schenker and Mogg. The acoustic intro riff has influenced a lot of the 80’s bands.
How good is the piano melody in the section when “hard times, out on the streets” is sung?
And the lead break from Michael Schenker is guitar hero worthy and I’m pretty sure forgotten by all.
“Can You Roll Her”
The song is written by Peyronet, Mogg and Parker.
A stupid title which doesn’t do the fast paced and frantic music any justice. The guitar riffs in the intro/verses and little guitar melodies in the Chorus are excellent.
Schenker goes to town when it comes to the lead spotlight, combining his brilliant pentatonic playing with fast picked Aeolian Minor runs. The way it is constructed would influence countless of other guitarist to “work out” their leads.
“Belladonna”
Written by Schenker and Mogg.
When I hear this song, I think of “Soldier Of Fortune”. It more or less follows the same pattern. But I also think of “Try Me” which would come on the album after. And Scorpions would write songs like this in a few years’ time.
The Schenker solo is memorable, but on “Try Me” it’s outta this world.
Make sure you check out the classical like guitar melody that Schenker starts playing after the solo.
“Reasons Love”
What a great funky, sleazy and bluesy guitar riff to kick off the song.
“Highway Lady”
It’s your standard blues rock fare with Schenker wailing away in the solo.
“On With The Action”
Written by Schenker and Mogg.
The riff to kick this song off is like doom metal, if downtuned. Its heavy.
The groove in the song makes it a favorite of mine but the song is forgotten by the masses when it comes to discussions about UFO.
And if you are a fan of excellent guitar playing, make sure you check out the solo here as well. All of the 80’s guitar heroes copied it.
“A Fool In Love”
It’s written by Frankie Miller and Andy Fraser and it’s a “Honky Tonk Woman” meets “All Right Now” blues romp.
“Martian Landscape”
Written by Peyronel, Mogg and Parker. It’s one of those songs that the 70’s bands put on albums that was a bit progressive and experimental. And sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. This song worked for UFO and it’s the precursor to “Love To Love”. And a riff in “Love To Love” gave birth to “Desert Song”
In other words, “No Heavy Petting” is an underrated hard rock record, a link between the derivative 12 bar blues and hard rock as I know it.
The song has over 7 million streams on Spotify. The guitar riff is influenced by the intro guitar riff in Billy Squier – “Powerhouse” from 1986.
The bass lines are very similar to the bass line from 45 seconds onwards in Great White – “Mista Bone” from 1989. Then again, that running bass line is pretty common in most songs. You hear it in “Disturb The Priest” from Black Gillian’s album “Born Again”.
And “Unskinny Bop” still sounds original.
8 Years Ago (2013)
I was discussing the prices of tickets for Bon Jovi’s Australian tour.
If a Bon Jovi fan wanted to sit in Row 1 and purchase a Diamond VIP package, the price of one ticket is $1975 + $10 booking fee.
If a Bon Jovi fan wanted to sit in Rows 2 to 5 and purchase an Emerald VIP package, the price of one ticket is $1475 + $10 booking fee.
If a Bon Jovi fan wanted to sit in Rows 6 to 13 and purchase a Sapphire VIP package, the price of one ticket is $975 + $10 booking fee.
And for the Sydney show, these VIP tickets had been sold out. And after the JBJ website sale, the next stage of the sales was the Telstra pre-sales, the Showbiz pre-sales, then the Ticketek VISA pre-sales and the general pre-sales and finally the public release.
What a collusive, exploitive and unregulated process.
And the Telstra presales were a disaster. The website went down and people couldn’t get tickets but eBay had tickets on sale for triple the price.
In other words the band was scalping its own tickets.
And the “What About Now” album continued its free fall, sitting at 133.
I’ve already written about Choirboys previously, especially their 80’s album in the self-titled debut released in 1983 and “Big Bad Noise” which had the monster hit, “Run To Paradise” released in 1987.
So how do you follow up a monster album released in 1987. Well after all the touring, opening up for large U.S acts and going back into the studio to write and record, the gap was 4 years.
That’s right, 4 years.
It’s a long time.
Instead of recording in Australia, they went to Cherokee Studios in L.A with producer Marc Tanner who used to be an Elektra recording artist.
“Midnight Sun” hit the streets in 1991. And compared to “Big Bad Noise” which was certified double platinum in Australia, “Midnight Sun” has no certification.
For a great album, it gets no love or attention. Even on Spotify, there are no songs from this album in the Top 5 of most listened songs from The Choirboys.
“Midnight Sun”
It’s got this AC/DC style groove (think of “Live Wire” with a bit of a Springsteen/Mellencamp vibe.
Lyrically they are the devils boy, is walking the streets of society as the keeper of the midnight sun.
“Our Empire Falls”
This song should have been a hit.
Standing with her back to the ocean Is this the final curtain call? Still trying to make a deal with the sunshine It′s over, it’s over
Once bathed in glory But now your image is fading
And check out the lyrics, which deal with faded glories and contemplating suicide. This from an act who was expected to write party anthems.
Tonight is the night our empire falls
“Rise Up”
Their blend of different rock styles is perfect. This song is a great example of how a song can still sound hard rock but be catchy and commercial. It’s a mixture of an AC/DC (that “Live Wire vibe again), Bryan Adams and “Jessie’s Girl” from Rick Springfield with a bit of Def Leppard.
The intro alone has the drums and bass playing a simple hard rock groove.
It’s no surprise that Mellencamp’s music is heard in Australian artists, as the “Scarecrow” album was massive.
‘Cos I see the best of things Lies somewhere in the kiss of knowledge Bullshit ends when faith begins If you’re down at the bottom, at the end
Rise up
“Place With No Love”
A great ballad with a weird music video featuring a character in a leather fetish mask.
“Rendezvous”
It’s got this “Radar Love” style drum groove and a film clip with people hitting the road to meet up somewhere.
Now we’re on the road to our Rendezvous With nothing, there’s nothing to lose
These lyrics connect straight away.
Australia is a massive place with vast distances between towns. The only way we used to be connected was via the motorways and suburban roads and railways. So hitting the road to meet up is part of the Australian psyche.
How can you fly with your feet on the ground Take all of your dreams, let’s get out of this town
We all wanted to escape our hometowns to try and achieve our dreams. These days the kids are okay to live at home we’ll into their 30’s.
“Only In America”
This song melts. When I hear it, I think of The Cult, AC/DC crashing with Springsteen.
Only in America you read my rights to me Only in America I watch my trial on TV Only in America only in America I won’t ever be alone Then why do I feel so lonely
“Battle Boulevard”
Check out the intro.
It’s just bass and drums and then the guitars come crashing in with power chords and a nice little lead.
I hear the guitars playing My Generation That used to be our song And I can feel the beat down on the boulevard
“Going Home”
This feels like a hard rock “Need You Tonight” from INXS.
But I’ve lived a dreamer and I’ve lived in hope But I don’t want to stay here on my own
I’m going home
“Romance Street”
A rocking ballad if that ever could be a thing. To me, it’s an awesome cut in the vein of “Born To Run” Springsteen.
“We Believed”
When “The Killers” came out, I thought of this song. Because it felt like “The Killers” sounded like this.
In the end, The Choirboys was just another Australian band trying to break into the larger U.S market, which didn’t pan out as expected. And while the first two albums sounded “Australian” (whatever that means, but the label reps kept saying shit like this), the “American” sound was here on this album, and the song writing is mature and the lyrics get you thinking.
Useless fact, fast forward a few years from this, I was in a band opening up for Choirboys in a small pub with about 200 hundred people in attendance.
And vocalist/guitarist Mark Gable along with bassist Ian Hulme were the only original members, but they still brought it live.
The band is still going today with the line up that did this album. Jamming with Gable and Hulme, is guitarist Brett Williams and drummer Lindsay Tebbutt.
I started this series with the Part 1 posts of 2001, then 1996 and most recently 1986. Now we go back in time another 10 years to 1976. And after this we go back to 2001 for Part 2 and the process repeats.
Rainbow – Rising
Album number two for Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow. Actually that was the title of the debut album, so the buying public would have some idea of who was leading the group. For this album, it’s just called Rainbow.
Coming into to this album, only Blackmore and vocalist Ronnie James Dio remain from the debut. Basically, Blackmore booted out, the Elf members. Cozy Powell is on drums, replacing Gary Driscoll. Jimmy Bain is on bass, replacing Craig Gruber and Tony Carey is on keys, replacing Micky Lee Soule.
“Tarot Woman”
It starts off with an Hammond or Moog organ.
But it’s that fast alternate picked riff of four note lengths and a small pause which gets the foot tapping. And once the drums and walking bass groove kick in, its blues rock heaven. But metal as well. The way I know metal.
Blackmore’s lead break moves between pentatonic licks and harmonic minor licks.
And I remember trying to learn the organ lead break in the outro on the guitar. Its worthy, check it out.
“Run With The Wolf”
This is basically a blues song however Dio’s choice of lyrics take it into a fantasy place about a hole in the sky and something evil passing bye.
How good is that foot stomping verse riff?
And it feels like Blackmore is playing slide guitar in the lead break.
Dio is a master at ad-libbing the outro’s with his vocals.
“Starstruck”
A great blues rock song.
It’s got everything a song should have. A harmony guitar intro. A memorable Chorus riff and a foot stomping 12 bar blues verse on steroids.
And while my first exposure to Dio was “Rainbow In The Dark”, I really dig his blues strut vocal style.
“Do You Close Your Eyes”
The Pre-Chorus is excellent, musically and melodically. But the lyrics are blah around asking the question “if your partner closes their eyes while they make love to you”.
“Stargazer”
After the drum solo like intro, the guitar riff kicks in. It’s got groove and it’s fun to play.
How good are the exotic sounding keys and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in the Pre Chorus and Chorus?
Dio is in his element here, singing about whips and chains, towers of stone, flesh and bone and rhyming fly, with die and why.
Blackmore’s lead is excellent. His use of vibrato and effects to kick off the solo, sounds like a sitar, and when he goes into the fast alternate picked lines around the harmonic minor scale, it sounds like a guitar solo spotlight at a concert. But the whole could have sounded flat, if it wasn’t for the powerful drumming of Powell.
“A Light In The Black”
A brilliant song, featuring another classic riff from Blackmore in the verses and Dio’s powerful vocals.
How good are the vocals when Dio sings “coming home”?
I like the nod to the past with its “Burn” like lead break with the organ and guitar in harmony. And the drumming from Powell is relentless. Ian Paige worthy.
For the next album, “Long Live Rock’N’Roll”, Bain was out, replaced by Blackmore on most tracks with Bob Daisley doing a few. Tony Carey also did keys on a few tracks with David Stone doing the other half.
And if you want to know what happened between Dio and Blackmore, well here is Blackmore’s point of view over at Louder Sound.
“I was always very close to Ronnie until, to be quite honest, he met up with Wendy [Dio’s future wife and manager], then it got very strained. She was a nice enough woman, but we didn’t really click. I remember trying to sort out a song.”
“I was playing an effect, trying to get the song down, and both of them walked by and one of them said: “We want to talk to you.”
Ronnie said. “I’ve just heard from Wendy that you’re on the front page of Circus and we’re not.”
“Really? I had no idea.”
The three of us had done the photo session, but the photographer did a couple of me on my own, and one of these got on the cover.
And Cozy [Powell, drummer] or Ronnie said: “If we’re gonna be your sidekicks then we’ll act accordingly.”
That really pissed me off, cos that was nothing to do with me. After that it went downhill, cos I had no respect for either of them after that. I didn’t like that.
“We’re not on the front cover with you!” Is that my fault?”
The first copy I gave to the drummer from a band I was in, along with “The Dirt” hardcover book and the “Rush In Rio” DVD. But when we had an argument, he wouldn’t return the items. So I repurchased “The Dirt” but this time in paperback, and this DVD. The Rush DVD price was extravagant when I was looking for it and I haven’t relooked since.
Now, live albums have been known to have a lot of studio overdubs or in some cases, total re-recording of some of the tracks in the studio. From what I can hear, nothing feels fixed or redone in a studio on this. So what you get, is a band that can deliver live, the chaos they create in the studio. If anything, I believe the guitars are tuned down ½ a step as Claudio’s voice was strained during this period. But man, he still delivers.
Coming into this release, Coheed and Cambria had released three studio albums, in “The Second Stage Turbine Blade”, “In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth” and “Good Apollo”. For the hardcore Coheed fans, yes, I’ve abbreviated the names of the album titles.
It’s the only live release with the original line up of Claudio Sanchez on vocals/guitars, Travis Stever on guitar and backing vocals, Michael Todd on bass and backing vocals and Josh Eppard on drums and backing vocals. Michael Petrak does additional percussion and Dave “Wavis” Parker is performing keyboards, backing vocals, some extra guitar and samples.
In a perfect world, the audio of this concert would be available on Spotify, but it isn’t. YouTube has the live concert footage and some of the YouTube users have created just the audio.
“In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3”
A perfect opener. It’s just a bit faster than the studio recording, but hey, that’s why I love the live show. And the crowd gets involved with the who-oh-oh chant towards the end.
“Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood and Burial)”
This version is electrifying. Again, a bit sped up than the studio, but I feel the energy smack me in the face.
“Blood Red Summer”
It follows the poppy rock vibes of “Ten Speed” perfectly.
“The Crowing”
This version is a metal beast and this live version is my go to track for it. As mentioned previously, its downtuned a little bit more from the studio cut and it sounds menacing.
After the two pop rock songs in “Ten Speed” and “Blood Red Summer” the placement of this is perfect to get the live concert back into progressive and metal like territory.
“Wake Up”
One of the best ballads from Coheed and Cambria, and live, you just hear the clean tone electric guitar, Claudio’s voice and the crowd singling along with him. It’s chilling, emotive and perfect.
“Delirium Trigger”
From the debut album, the intensity of the song grabs my attention quickly. Hearing it played alongside songs from two of my favourite albums, works perfectly. The middle subdued section offers a calm before the song picks up again. With so much musical movements, nothing is lost and missed.
“A Favor House Atlantic”
It’s faster. When I watched the band live, this song is sing-a-long. You can’t make out the audiences here and you sort of lose the power of when Claudio drops out and the crowd sings. But the energy is still there. “Bye, bye, beautiful” alright.
“The Suffering”
The pop punk energy comes through. I wanted a bigger impact for the “wishing well, will you marry me” part but not all songs can be winners.
“Everything Evil”
I don’t think this song worked well live.
“Welcome Home”
The best cut and I like the sped up vibe of the song. And even though its quicker, the intensity of the vocals is still there. I would have loved to be able to hear the crowd cheering the who-oh-oh at the end.
“The Willing Well IV: The Final Cut”
At 14 minutes long, its eight minutes longer than the CD version and the jam aspect vibe they bring to this track is brilliant.
When there jamming the middle section lead break, they play this lead break that I swear comes from “Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son” lead break.
And when they come out of the jam back into the normal song, its powerful and beautiful. The crash cymbals are smashing, the guitars are screaming and all hell is breaking loose as they finish off the concert.
In the end, “The Last Supper” leaves you wanting more of the Coheed and Cambria supper.
There is a lot of hate for the Public Domain from the corporations that hold the Copyrights to a lot of culture and the hate will get even bigger now that other corporations like hedge funds and investment funds are buying up the rights to valuable works.
A lot of artists hate streaming, but streaming has really shown how valuable music can be, which has brought in a new player to the Copyright table.
The Night Flight Orchestra got some love as being hot as well as the Sweden’s music scene. Adrenaline Mob was also back after the death of AJ Pero and the previous departure of Mike Portnoy. But a much larger tragedy was on the horizon.
“It’s a cheap tag (on being called Heavy metal) and its been stamped on us mainly from a media point of view. It’s an insult to be slapped in with hundreds of other bands. We look at it this way, we’re a rock and roll band. Calling AC/DC heavy metal is like saying The Police is a reggae band, even though they may have a bit of that style.”
AC/DC is still found in the Metal section of the record stores.
“You should give someone a chance to develop their own technique. If someone tells you how to play something it could easily mess up your talent and corrupt you for life. Everything you play should be done how you feel like doing it—very naturally. Playing guitar is like doing anything else—you’ve got to be able to think for yourself.”
So I wasn’t surprised when by 1990 so many guitarists sounded the same and had very similar techniques.
Vito Bratta’s guitar playing was still coming through the speakers. He spent so many years to make it, only to walk away, a few years after making it.
Jerry Cantrell from Alice In Chains was pissed because “something you’ve worked on and poured your soul into, and invested your money in, somehow it’s no longer deemed valuable. That’s fucked up, to me.”
But I disagreed. His art is valuable to the people who find it valuable. Just because someone spent two to three years creating art, it doesn’t mean that people will find it valuable to pay you for it. The ones that want to pay, will pay.
I was overdosing on “West Ruth Avenue” from The Night Flight Orcheatra. It’s the Kiss – “I Was Made For Lovin You” guitar like riff that grabbed my attention. It’s from their 2012 album “Internal Affairs” released via Coroner Records.
The NFO captures the magic of classic rock and they make it sound so authentic.
Nikki Sixx was pissed at fans rushing the stage and Black Sabbath debuted new songs live prior to the release of “13”. Meanwhile Stone Sour was covering Sabbath with “Children Of The Grave”.
“Children of The Grave” is my best Sabbath song. I still prefer the blistering Randy Rhoads version on “Tribute”. It’s got more of a metal feel to it and the lead break that Randy unleashes is another one of his songs within a song lead break.
Thirty Seconds To Mars dropped “Conquistador” and I was/still am a fan of its massive blues rock riff.
I was on the Queensryche is nothing without Chris DeGarmo and posted about it. And i was still following the trajectory of “What About Now’ from Bon Jovi. This week it slipped from 76 to 96.
Dragon is a New Zealand rock band which was formed in January 1972 and relocated later to Sydney, in May 1975.
“Body and the Beat” is album number seven. The album was released in June 1984, peaking at number 5 on the Australian charts and gained a platinum certification.
But it’s their first album since 1979.
At the time, Dragon was on the verge of breaking through worldwide but vocalist Marc Hunter was out of control with his heroin addiction and on stage antics, offending everyone, including audiences, other acts and label heads.
They had a US tour opening up for Johnny Winter that went pear shaped when Hunter called Winter’s blues rock audience rednecks and faggots. Then again it was another stupid decision to place Dragon on this bill, it’s like Imagine Dragons opening up for Iron Maiden.
Actually when I watched Maiden on the “Somewhere Back In Time”, the opening act “Behind Crimson Eyes” was the support. Now they are an Australian metalcore band with screaming vocals and they got booed after each song, until they played a cover of “Ace Of Spades” and the crowd cheered. Again, another misplaced opening act.
Anyway, back to Dragon, the band which included his brother Todd, fired him. This brought to an end the first period of Dragon which also involved the heroin overdose of drummer Neil Storey in 1976.
Hunter went solo and had some success and then the band got together again.
“Rain” was the output in 1983. Written by Johanna Pigott, Marc Hunter and Todd Hunter, it’s 3 minutes and 40 seconds of hard rock glory. Make sure you stick around for the “if you go out in the rain” melody.
Due to its success, the band went into the studio to record an album worth of songs.
It’s worth noting that the songwriting team of Johanna Pigott and her partner, Todd Hunter (Dragon bass player) also wrote the smash hit title track “Age Of Reason” for John Farnham.
The album kicks off with “Rain”. “Promises” and “Wilderworld” are melodic rock songs perfect for a summers day.
If it wasn’t for “Rain”, then “Cry” would be a favorite.
“Body And The Beat” has a bass groove and a feel that bands like INXS were making popular.
“Magic” feels like a driving song, with the window down and the warm winds blowing through.
But.
Apart from “Rain”, this album is forgotten.
Everyone told the band the album would break the band overseas. But it didn’t. Within a year they were back in the studio recording another album..
A year after this album came out, keyboardist Paul Hewson and the writer of their classic songs “April Sun In Cuba” and “Are You Old Enough” was found dead in a friends car, hours after he told the band he wanted to leave.
Dragon continued and released the super successful (in the Australia market), “Dreams Of Ordinary Men” in 1986 and my favourite “Bondi Road” in 1989. A few greatest hits and acoustic re-recordings hit the shelves. And then tragedy struck again.
Marc Hunter was diagnosed with throat cancer in November 1997 and he died on 17 July 1998. Dragon have continued on with Todd Hunter still the driving force.
It’s the album that defined the Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett and Burton line up. By 1986, they had been together for three years and the musical creativity between the guys was at an all-time high.
I can’t believe I haven’t posted any Metallica reviews at all. When I started this blog I tried to focus on artists who didn’t get a lot of love and stayed away from acts like Metallica because the internet is littered with stories and reviews. But each story and review is personal to the person who wrote it.
For me, Hetfield and his commitment to down picking and writing killer riffs is a huge influence when it comes to guitar playing. The lyrics he wrote, living in corporate Reagenomics showed a maturity far surpassed for his young years. There is and never was, no tease and please in his lyrical lines.
The cover foreshadows that other unseen masters control our lives from the cradle to the grave. Designed by Metallica and Peter Mensch and painted by Don Brautigam, it depicts a cemetery field of white crosses tethered to strings, manipulated by a pair of hands in a blood-red sky.
With “Master Of Puppets”, Metallica took the diverse musical elements of “Ride The Lightning” and raised the bar even higher. Live, they performed even faster and looked like your friend standing next to you watching the show, so far removed from the image put out by Ratt and Motley Crue, to name a few.
“Battery”
The ominous Ennio Morricone themed intro kicks off this monster track. It’s even classical sounding in nature as James Hetfield creates a melody that moves from F to E to D while the low notes move up chromatically from E to F to F# and to G. And while those chords ring out, a subtle harmony guitar outlines a different melodic idea.
Eventually, the power chords start crashing in and those subtle harmony guitar licks come to the fore.
Then all hell breaks loose at the 1.05 mark, when a chainsaw galloping riff smashes through the boundaries and James starts singing with his four day alcohol infested throat. The song isn’t pretty, but its message is about a light that burns within despite the violence and darkness around.
It could be seen as a bastard, a collision between punk and metal.
“Smashing through the boundaries / lunacy has found me / cannot stop the battery”
And a sea of bodies run, circle and smash each other into bits, creating scars to prove that the battery cannot be stopped.
How good is that hard rock like groove and lead from 2.58 to 3.18 before the breakneck solo section.
And make sure you bang your head on the military foot stomping chromatic riff from 3.49 to 4.00.
Which also closes the song. I guess battery is found in me.
“Master Of Puppets”
They wanted to write another “Creeping Death”.
Hetfield grew up in a Christian Science house. The person here is controlled by the religion first, then the family, the social circles of the family and the cultural values of the family and their circle of friends. Hetfield explored these themes of control and subjugation in “Dyers Eve” and “The Unforgiven”.
In its essence, it’s asking for sanity to prevail in a control-freak society/world. Then again, it could be seen as a band saying to their audience, “taste our music and you will see, more is all you need”, because once everyone got a taste of em, they more or less stayed hooked and agreed with Hetfield.
After a few descending and chromatic power chords, the intro riff kicks in at the 3 second mark. Hetfield’s combination of syncopated chromatic lines with a driving low E pedal at 220 beats per minute creates an urgent feeling.
The verse riff has so much power because of the vocal line. They complement each other.
The song could have ended at the 3.32 mark. A 3 minute thrash-a-thon. But this was Metallica, and suddenly we get a haunting Em arpeggio riff, with harmony guitars and James Hetfield breaking out into an individual solo before joining back up with the harmony lead.
Then the clean tone arpeggio riff is played menacingly with distortion while power chords crash down around your senses, while Lar’s just keeps building into the “master, master” chant section.
“The Thing That Should Not Be”
An ominous D to E clean tone chord rings out. On this they drop the E down to D and all the other strings remain the same. It was my first exposure to the DADGBE tuning.
Lyrically, I read a track by track analysis book from Mick Wall and Malcolm Dome, who said the song is about the madness that lives at the bottom of the well of all human souls. And it stuck with me, because even though it could be about the mythical creature Cthulhu, I always saw lyrics from a personal and social point of view.
“Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”
This song is the definition of taking the best things of what has come before and merging those things all together to come up with something unique, original and innovative.
INTRO (0.00 to 0.20) Back in 1971, Yes released “Roundabout”. The intro is more or less a droning note, with some harmonics and a hammer on/pull off lick on the E string.
Take something from the past and make it better.
INTRO 2 and VERSE (0.21 to 1.48) and (2.10 to 3.10) Anyone heard of a New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) band called Bleak House?
If the answer is NO, then you are in the majority. However, a certain person called Lars Ulrich has heard of this band. James Hetfield has even said in an interview that the band shall remain anonymous.
So Bleak House release a song called “Rainbow Warrior” as a seven-inch single in 1980 via Buzzard Records. By 1982, the band called it a day. The intro riff of “Rainbow Warrior” is catchy. It was so good that James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich are influenced by it. They start to jam on it and they start to tweak it into “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”.
Hetfield and Ulrich made this riff the centrepiece, as Hetfield arpeggiates a serious of 5th power chords on the A and D strings, surrounding them with the Open G and E strings, which forms like a double pedal point. The lead break from Hammett is phrased perfectly.
Metaphorically, I saw the world as a lunatic asylum and you know how truth is meant to set you free, but in this song, truth actually imprisons you. In a cruel twist of fate, knowledge is maddening, instead of being powerful. I’ve definitely overanalyzed the lyrics, but god damn, what else was I meant to do during this time except listen to music, analyse the music, read the interviews in the mags I purchased and since I played an instrument, learn the music and write my own music.
In the “Guitar Legends” #108 issue, Hetfield said that the idea for the song came from the move “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” and that “the riff was lifted from some other band, who shall remain anonymous.”
OUTRO (4.05 to 4.26) and (04.48 to end) Metallica have taken the intro from “Tom Sawyer” and used it as their outro. The feel and the phrasing of the two songs are almost identical.
Again, take what has come before and make something new.
“Disposable Heroes”
One of the most underrated cuts on the album. This song is a blast to play on guitar with so many different movements and bone crunching riffs, like the open string palm muted chugging riff after the power chords intro.
And that open string palm muted riff comes back in the verses.
At 8 plus minutes, it’s a tour de force, another metal classic, the way metal should sound.
“Back to the front / you will die / when I say / you must die” as even in war, the soldiers are controlled by masters. These kind of concepts Hetfield explores a little bit more in “One”.
Make sure you stick around for the various lead breaks between the 4.50 and 5.25 mark.
And the lyric, “I was born for dying” scared the hell out of me, because it’s true. Everything that is born will die eventually.
“Leper Messiah”
The song is written by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. The title comes from a David Bowie lyric in “Ziggy Stardust”.
It’s worth noting that Dave Mustaine claimed he wrote the song’s main riff and was not given credit by Metallica. Hammett denies this, saying that just before the guitar solo there is a less than 10 seconds of music that could be his and that it was actually Lars Ulrich that came up with the main motif.
For all of those haters that said Metallica had sold out with the “Black” album obviously didn’t know that Metallica had similar style songs on their earlier albums. “Leper Messiah” is one of those songs.
The best part comes in around the 30 second mark. Cliff’s trademark bass lines just rumble along while James lays down palm muted staccato power chords.
“Send me money, send me green / Heaven you will meet / Make a contribution / And you’ll get a better seat / Bow to leper messiah”
Turn on the TV and you see some evil right there. These TV evangelists made some serious bank, using heavy metal and hard rock music as topics of discussion, while spending a lot of their time in seedy motels doing drugs and hookers.
Make sure you check out the section between the 3.20 to 3.35 mark.
“Orion”
The drums are stock standard while the bass plays phased out chords, but when the distorted guitars kick in, that riff is head banging, back breaking and desk breaking worthy.
At the 4 minute mark, the song slows down into a Sabbath like blues rock riff courtesy of Burton and the guitars really shine here, with their harmonies. From the 5.13 mark, a lone lead starts but its quickly harmonised. This whole section was written by Burton.
At the 5.41 mark, there is another melodic lead which keeps on repeating and it builds into a single lead break. Then you get a bass solo. At the 7 minute mark its back to the thrashing mad lead sections, but here Hammett is all Michael Schenker like.
“Damage Inc.”
I will leave this review with the following lines from “Damage Inc.”;
“Following our instinct / not a trend / go against the grain / until the end”
I had no idea who Steve Vai was until I saw him in the “Yankee Rose” clip, making his guitar answer questions that Dave Lee Roth put forward. And if you think it was a fluke, make sure you check out the cat/kitten noises Vai did for the intro on “Kittens Got Claws” on the Whitesnake “Slip Of The Tongue” album a few years later. The way Vai could manipulate the guitar with the whammy bar, bends and slides and effects to create animal and human like voices is unique.
“Eat ‘Em and Smile” is the debut full-length solo album by original Van Halen vocalist David Lee Roth, released on July 7, 1986. The band on the album is Steve Vai on guitars, Billy Sheehan on bass and Gregg Bissonette on drums.
Produced by Ted Templeman, it’s got all the bells and whistles of a party about to go out of control.
“Yankee Rose”
Penned by David Lee Roth and Steve Vai. The intro is iconic with the walking bass line and of course the “talking guitar” which seems to have a conversation with David Lee Roth.
From a musical viewpoint, Vai is in cruise control here, making a very simple guitar riff sound interesting with his additions of arpeggios, legato lines, bends and whammy bar manipulations towards the end of the fourth bar of the riff.
The video clip was also designed with MTV in mind, with moves orchestrated to show the technical abilities of the individual band members.
“Shyboy”
The Talas track penned by Billy Sheehan got some added muscle on this album with Vai’s virtuosic playing complimenting Sheehan. And of course, Gregg Bissonette on drums is in his element here.
“I’m Easy”
From Aussie artist, Billy Field who he co-write the song with Tom Price. The whole big band sho-be-bop is not my thing however I don’t mind when rock artists take a song from that style and rock-ify it.
But this isn’t really rock-i-fied.
“Ladies’ Nite In Buffalo?”
Another Roth and Vai cut, this one sounds like it came from the fingertips of Joe Walsh.
The blues rock boogie from Sheehan and Bissonette is excellent and the funky guitar riff by Vai compliments it perfectly. It’s tracks like this that made Dave Lee Roth’s solo career interesting and exciting.
And that lead break from Vai is outta this world.
“Goin’ Crazy!”
It’s another Roth/Vai penned song.
Vai brings the goods with an iconic guitar riff to kick it off. If you think the riff sounds like something you’ve heard before, I always said that the riff in “Finish What Ya Started” which came a few years after, is very similar to this.
The synths compliment instead of detracting.
Check out Vai’s solo and then go to YouTube to watch the video clip put together from the movie that never came to see the light of day.
“Tobacco Road”
A cover song written by John D. Loudermilk, it’s got that big blues rock feel and the way the DLR and the guys in the band do it, is excellent.
“Elephant Gun”
Another track penned by Roth/Vai and this one is full of great Van Halen inspired riffs. Vocally, Roth sings in a deep baritone, something which Axl Rose would do a lot within the Guns catalogue.
The solo section starts off with an impressive bass solo, which keeps happening, when Vai starts shredding the guitar lead.
“Big Trouble”
The “Big Trouble In Little China” film always come to mind when I see this song title.
Does anyone remember the Kurt Russel and Kim Cattral film?
The song has nothing to do with the film except that it’s a sleazy little rumble, written by Roth/Vai with a rap like vocal melody in the verses and a progressive like Chorus.
Check out the blistering Vai solo full of his trademarks fast legato lines with finger taps.
“Bump And Grind”
Another Roth/Vai composition.
Great title with a riff which bumps and grinds its way through the song and Roth is being Roth, having fun and talking his way through the song.
“That’s Life”
A big band cover song written by Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon. What can I say, is Roth being Roth.
And this line up wouldn’t do another album again or perform together once the tour ended. However a reunion show was planned recently, and it was killed seconds before the band took the stage by a fire marshal who was worried at the size of the venue and the amount of people in the venue.
The free spirited nature of “Eat ’Em and Smile” is attractive and exciting as it feels like the whole album could just go off the rails and crash at any time.
At 31 minutes, man, its short for a release, which was strange for a highly anticipated and expected album. But the impact it left behind is huge, introducing Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan to large rock audiences, along with drummer Gregg Bissonette.
After this, Vai and Roth would do one more album in “Skyscraper” while Sheehan formed Mr Big with another ace guitarist in Paul Gilbert. Both acts had huge success with their releases.
Vai would finally release his second solo album “Passion and Warfare” and he also got a chance to decorate the songs that Adrian Vandenberg wrote for the “Slip Of The Tongue” album after a cool million dollar advance.
Meanwhile Roth hooked up with various guitarist to write the follow up, eventually settling on 19-year-old guitar virtuoso Jason Becker to replace Vai.
“A Little Ain’t Enough” was released in 1991, produced by Bob Rock. It did okay business in sales but before the tour started, Becker was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, rendering him unable to perform onstage. Guitarist Joe Holmes stood in for Becker during the tour.
But the audience just wasn’t there for DLR to fill arenas in 1991, After 15 years in the spotlight, Roth’s brand of hard rock became unfashionable.
And the original era of Roth’s solo career fractured shortly after.
P.S. this is the second part of a post that was meant to be just one post. Here is the link to the Maiden post covering “Somewhere In Time”.
I was waiting for my CD to come in before I did this post.
The debut album was released in 2002, but the story goes back to 1995 when Claudio Sanchez and Travis Stever had a band called “Toxic Parents” which then became “Beautiful Loser”.
Three months later, Stever left and the remaining members renamed the band, “Shabutie”.
Michael Todd was recruited in 1996 and would remain the bassist until his arrest for break and enter circa 2010/11.
As Shabütie, the band released their first studio demo “Plan to Take Over the World” in 1999 and “The Penelope EP” in 1999, shortly after which Stever rejoined the band.
The original drummer left in 1999 and Josh Eppard was the replacement. He would be the drummer on the first three Coheed albums and while he was out of the band between 2006 and 2011 he returned for “The Afterman” albums and is still the drummer at this point in time.
The band went on to release another EP called “Delirium Trigger” in 2000 and several songs that appeared on it, were based on a series of science fiction comics written by Claudio Sanchez called “The Bag.On.Line Adventures”, which were later renamed “The Amory Wars”.
This science fiction story was Sanchez’s side project. Eventually, the band would rename themselves as Coheed and Cambria, after two of the story’s protagonists.
In a nutshell, and spoiler alert, Coheed and Cambria are dead by the end of it. Coheed by now had already killed off his children except Claudio and Cambria had to kill Coheed as he unleashed a virus and then unable to live without Coheed, she killed herself. In the process her energy/sacrifice then saved the dying star that Coheed was trying to destroy. Their son Claudio, is left to pick up the pieces.
A lot of pieces of the puzzle are put into place, and backstory’s are told. The fan wiki page does a great job detailing it.
“Second Stage Turbine Blade”
It’s a minute of ambient noise and an ominous sombre piano riff.
“Time Consumer”
The feel of this song in the first minute feels like a Pink Floyd/U2 jam mash up. It is raw and gritty as it grooves its way to the exploding of distorted guitars at the 1.14 mark.
“Devil In Jersey City”
It’s got that pop punk feel, almost happy like but the subject matter is disturbing involving a bashing and a rape by the gang called “Jersey City Devils” on the daughter of Coheed and Cambria and her partner.
“Everything Evil”
This moves into “Everything Evil,” which is arguably the most proggy track on the album. The ending of the song has that piano riff which becomes the first song on subsequent albums
“Delirium Trigger”
The heaviest song on the album.
“Hearshot Kid Disaster”
It has a funky riff.
“33”
A pop song which is 3.30 long. Coincidence.
“Junesong Provision”
“Junesong Provision” Heavy guitar and impressive vocals and lyrics make up this noteworthy song.
“Neverender”
The bass is excellent and the riffs are rooted in hard rock. Claudio’s vocals are the most confident on this one and it shows.
“God Send Conspirator” A clean guitar riff starts the song off, which sounds like an indie song. The bass grooves and funks it’s way throughout.
destroyerofharmony 