Category Archives: Unsung Heroes

Alternate Reality, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Chapter 3

I am still having fun with that Metallica story I started a few weeks ago. So here is Chapter 3.

–Current Day–The City Of Carpe Diem–

“You are being discharged”, said the Doctor to Fixxxer, however the words could have been said to anyone, as Fixxxer was fixated on Walter Cyanide. From when they made eye contact, Fixxxer just got a “Han Solo” bad feeling about the situation.

“Do you want to exit from the front or the back as there are a lot of reporters out there waiting for the sole survivor,” adds the Doctor. Fixxxer pays no attention to the treating Doctor. He only has eyes on Dr Cyanide. Fixxxer notices Dr Cyanide take a call.

——

Cyanide answers it with a simple hello.

“So let it be written, so let it be done, you’ve been sent to kill the chosen one, you are the creeping death” said the voice on the other line.

——-

Fixxxer notices the eyes of Cyanide fade to black and it unsettles him. Just like the bus driver’s eyes.

Fixxxer takes a brief glance to the left of him and he notices that the Doctor that just treated him is outside treating another patient oblivious to what is happening in Treatment Room 1366.

That brief moment of not paying attention is unsettled as Fixxxer feels a cool breeze on the back of his neck. Suddenly Cyanide is in his face however for some reason Fixxxer sensed the move and without any thought he moved out-of-the-way of the coming attack.

Cyanide comes at Fixxxer again with various combinations of martial arts and boxing. He is so quick that Fixxxer is on the defensive and struggling to keep the blows from hitting him. And that was when Fixxxer felt a blade enter into his left abdomen and make its way up to his heart. Fixxxer grabs a hold of Cyanide’s hands and tries with all his might to stop the blade from going up any further.

The door to the treatment room opens again.

“What the hell?” gasps the Doctor that only a minute ago was treating Fixxxer? In his shock he drops his pen. Cyanide exits the room with a speed the Doctor has never seen.

Then the dropped pen hits the floor.

–Current Day–The City Of Carpe Diem Sanatorium–

Sweet Amber Sowhat screams in pain again.

Mysteriously, a gashing wound from her left abdomen up to her ribcage has just presented itself.

The nurses rush to her assistance, scanning the room for an assailant or a weapon that could have caused the injury.

–The Judas Kiss Backstory–Someplace in the 1930’s–

Her name was Judith King once upon a time. She was born into an average middle class family. Her father worked at the local steelworks, earning $80 a fortnight and her mother was a housewife raising six kids.

Then her father got retrenched. He didn’t say why.

Afterwards and for reasons only known to him he couldn’t get another job. The bills kept on piling up and the bank kept on sending letters warning foreclosure. To Judith it felt like the world had turned its back on them. The fire of hope that burnt bright in her father’s eyes was dead and gone.

Her father became fearful when he got retrenched and the first thing he purchased was a gun. When asked why, he replied with the following words;

“I cannot tell you why”.

The inevitable day came and the Sheriffs came knocking. Her father was passed out on the lounge due to another bout of drunkenness the night before. Eventually he woke up and answered the door.

“Are you Reginald King?”

“I”.

“I have a court order asking you to vacate the premises right now. Can you and your family please step outside?”

Just like that the King’s lost everything, their home, their possessions and their memories. By the end of the week, Judith King lost her father to the same gun he purchased to protect himself.

It was a selfish goodbye.

On the day of Reginald King’s funeral a storm had blackened the sky like never before. Judith King was thirteen years old. The funeral took place on Friday the 13. That would be the last day she saw her family.

–The Judas Kiss Backstory–Ten Years after the Disappearance of Judith King–

“Rise today as “The Judas Kiss”. Recite this vow as I have become your new god now”. Her new god was cloaked. The only part visible was his lips.

“So bow down, sell your soul to me, I will set you free and pacify your demons. Bow down, surrender unto me, submit infectiously and sanctify your demons.”

“Now repeat back to me the final mantra”.

“Into the abyss
I cease to exist
No one can resist
The Judas Kiss”

–1978–The City Of Devils Dance–

E.B has just left the house of his brother Tomas, when from the corner of his eye he noticed two people walking out of a lane fifteen metres away.

“No” said E.B as he began to run.

E.B ran from the footpath to the middle of the road before he was set upon. E.B was not scared of a confrontation; however the moment was not the best.

There was a flurry of blows that each assailant tried to plant onto E.B’s body; however the assailants failed to make any impact. Actually one of the assailants ended up getting his neck snapped in the process when E.B deflected that persons own hands back at him.

That just left E.B and the other assailant who was now unmasked.

“The Judas Kiss” exclaims E.B. In a way he feels proud. The Armerous only send “The Judas Kiss” when it is of vital importance to their cause.

“I feel honoured that I would be the one to take your life tonight”, adds E.B.

The Judas Kiss says nothing.

Her history of cold-blooded killings precedes her and she is confident as she starts her attack. However E.B is special and more than able to handle her attacks. After an intense 20 second barrage, The Judas Kiss steps back and for the first time in her life she is worried. She musters up enough energy for another frantic onslaught however E.B just seems to move away and deflect her most powerful punches without any effort.

The Judas Kiss has never really had to battle for this long.

With her fists and fighting styles having no impact, she is starting to resort to weapons. Star Blades begin to whirl through the air towards E.B.

Just like his favourite comic book character Magneto E.B sticks out his hand and in the same way that Magneto can manipulate all types of metal; the same can be said about E.B.

And that is how the reign of “The Judas Kiss” ended by having all of the star blades that she threw at E.B travelling back to her at a speed that she was not fast enough to avoid. Each star blade found a vital organ to embed themselves in.

A third man watches the fight from the alley. He is hooded and his lips are visible. Once “The Judas Kiss” took her last breaths he frowns and proceeds to walk away.

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

Build Your Own Music Road

The Madonna leak made something visible that was never there before. The record label along with the artist reacted swiftly. They didn’t react by going nuclear with lawyers. They reacted by coordinating to finish a sub-set of songs and having them available for purchase on iTunes. Hanging over Madonna and her team was the Christmas break and a deadline to get the music to iTunes before they shut down for the period. However they got it done and the result was that the songs dominated the iTunes charts and sales.

In the Eighties when Madonna broke through, the game was about marketing the album to death so that it would have a big first week and by default retailers would order more stock. Today, an album has a huge lead up and then what.

AC/DC had a huge lead up with “Rock Or Bust”. The Malcolm Young illness story was free marketing, the Phil Rudd legal shenanigans was also free marketing and add to that free marketing all the paid for marketing. And if the band expected huge sales on the board they would be seriously disappointed. However is that a true indication of an albums reach or influence.

In the end, its not about how many records or mp3’s got sold. It’s about who is listening to it. Does it really matter to AC/DC because everyone knows AC/DC makes their money on the road?

Machine Head released an album that sold decent in the first week for a metal band. The media were all over it and then it disappeared from the news outlets. However if you go on Spotify, you will see numbers there of people listening to it. Go to YouTube and you will see the same. Go on Facebook and you will see fans engaging with each other and talking about the album. Subscribe to Robb’s blog posts and you will see the discussions they generate among the people.

The game has shifted. It’s all about the audience and if the audience is listening to an album six months or a year after the release date then that is not news to the media outlets like Blabbermouth and Loudwire. What is news to these outlets is the album release and the lead up. But that is not the only news the audience cares about.

Robb Flynn is aware that to triumph in the future you need to be prepared for a long game. Excellence will survive and you need to work it.

Jonathan Coulton is not a name that is popular in metal and rock circles however the way he has embraced new business models is a great example of an artist who is building his own road and making a living in the process.

As with a lot of musicians, Coulton tried to become a professional musician 25 years ago, however he was unable to break through the gatekeepers. Thanks to the internet, he nurtured its power and reach and became a success this time around. This is the beauty of the internet when it is done right. It levels the playing field. Coulton didn’t have the opportunity under the old system however today he has found his niche and is making pretty good money in the process.

In 2010, he brought in $500,000. And guess what, because he doesn’t have the entourage that other artists have, the majority of the money earned was for him. In other words he cut out as many middle men as he could and that meant the record label.

He used the web and connected with people who became fans, however the big break came with a geeky song about an out of love computer programmer called “Code Monkey”. As I have said a million times it is all about the song. In this case, Coulton put the song on his site, techies picked it up and started discussion it in forums and the rest is history.

One other thing to note here, is that since 2003, he has released music consistently and every year. In some years it was multiple releases. How many metal and rock artists are doing that right now.

I know that George Lynch is and he is an established artist. Check out the last eight years:

2007 – George Lynch – Guitar Slinger
2008 – George Lynch – Scorpion Tales
2008 – Souls Of We – Let The Truth Be Known
2009 – Lynch Mob – Smoke And Mirrors
2010 – George Lynch – Orchestral Mayhem
2011 – George Lynch – Kill All Control
2012 – Lynch Mob – Sound Mountain Sessions
2012 – T&N – Slave To The Empire
2013 – George Lynch – Legacy (EP)
2013 – Lynch Mob – Unplugged: Live From Sugarhill Studios
2014 – KXM – KXM
2014 – Lynch Mob – Sun Red Sun
2015 – Sweet And Lynch – Only To Rise

Who else?

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

So You Wanna Be In A Band

ENTITLEMENT

I feel bitter as I’m going through a clean up/archiving process of some old emails. What can I say, they just brought back so many bad memories from my ex band members.

The first thing that stands out is the entitlement of my ex band members. Just because they played an instrument on a song, they argued that they were entitled to a song writing percentage. Just because they suggested that we play the riff once instead of twice, they believed they were entitled to a song writing percentage. And the bass player who joined to play live gigs also put in a song writing claim.

The band was formed in 2008. The majority of the songs that I used in the band were written during 2004 to 2006. I registered the songs with the rights organisation during that time as I was planning on shopping them around to other artists. Even though I showed these facts to my band members they still argued with me over their entitlement to a song writing share for the songs.

Let’s face it, bands are complex beasts and very hard to hold together. Instant fame and riches could push aside some of those bad vibes for a little while or maybe even a decade. However those bad vibes will always come to the forefront until an explosion happens of mass proportions. Motley Crue and Vince, Axl Rose and the rest of the Gunners crew, Don Dokken and George Lynch, The Eagles, Machine Head and Adam Duce. And there are many more examples when that innocent love for music turns sour.

Arguments ensure over money all the time because each band member is on a different financial path. Some are on unemployment benefits, some are on unemployment benefits and casual wages, some are on something else all the time and some are full-time workers. Some band members are more important to the band than others.

The thing that pissed me off the most was when I used to hear the drummer or the bassist or the vocalist telling other people that they were involved in creating the songs and that they had some input. That piece of dishonesty didn’t sit well with me and still to this day it makes me bitter.

DISHONESTY

I know that all of the songs have been written by me and only me. I was the one that spent time away from my family to write the songs. I was the one that recorded them on my Zoom 8 track machine alone late into the night. I was the one who tabbed them on Power Tab while my foot was rocking the bouncer in an attempt to put them to sleep.

To me, if a person suggests that we do the chorus once instead of twice that is not a reason to add them as songwriters. They didn’t contribute anything musical to the song nor did they contribute any new lyrical ideas or melodies. All they did was suggest to play a piece of music/words already written once instead of twice. In an end of credits scroll list from a movie these people will be listed as editors. The writer is still the writer regardless of what the editors do with the script flow.

So of course, I confront the drummer at his dishonest statements, and of course he disagrees with me aggressively stating that he did provide input. Of course I don’t let it slide easily and I ask him what input did he actually have. What piece of music did he contribute? What lyrical verse or melody did he contribute?

He answers that he provided ideas on subject matter. I reply that an idea does not mean that he wrote any music and lyrics. He answers that he assisted with a melody in a verse. I ask him what did he actually change that was so different to what I wrote in the first place.

Singing a word by enhancing the syllables is not a reason to get a song writing credit. Otherwise, James LaBrie or Vince Neil would get song writing credits all the time. Hell, if I used the logic that the drummer put forward that would mean that Bruce Dickinson needs a songwriting credit for every single Iron Maiden song, even the ones from the Paul Dianno and Blaze Bayley era of the band as Bruce did enhance the vocal delivery.

At this point, the singer and the bass player are on the drummers side and I feel betrayed.

BETRAYAL

I remember the day when I got a call from the rights organisation advising me that counter claims have been made on the songs I wrote from the drummer, the bassist and the vocalist. I was in a state of shock. And boy did I hate and curse them bad. I will never forget that moment because it made me realise how deceitful and dishonest people can be.

I told the rights organisation that I do not agree with their counter-claim however the rights organisation did not care either way. The songs go into suspension and any money accumulated from them is held by the rights organisation. For the rights organisation it is a win win. But for me, it was a loss. I had to get a lawyer who charged an arm and a leg however the work that he did was not of the quality that he charged me for. I was told that the onus was on me to prove that I wrote the songs. I saw this as unfair and unjust. The onus should be on them to prove that they contributed to the song writing.

So why did all of this rubbish happen?

GREED leads to a sense of ENTITLEMENT. What I had was a bunch of average musicians that have never written a song in their lives wanting to change the truth so that they are seen as more important than what they really are/were. To prove my point once I was out of the band, in the space of eight months they didn’t write nor release not one NEW song. What a bunch of talents, hey? And then the band ended.

So while forming bands are initially fun, if any artist is serious about making it in the music business and they think that the above doesn’t happen then they are living in a delusional world. This is what happens in the real world because untalented people are greedy. This is what happens because untalented people want to trump up their efforts as being more important than what they really were.

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Alternate Reality, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Chapter 2

I have been having fun with the story based on Metallica songs and their themes, so here is Chapter 2.

Chapter 2…

–1974–

The town of “Devils Dance” never really lived up to his infamous name. It was always a quiet little town that housed a lot of the dock workers before the war. Trouble didn’t exist and the residents normally slept with doors unlocked and windows open.

However after the war the town saw a large cultural shift. The young started to demonstrate. The woman of the world started to liberate. The establishments that existed started to feel very threatened.

That is when The Metal Militia came to town.

When ‘E.B’ came back from the war he was changed. The innocence was gone. The dreams and hopes that his father had for him died in the war with the burning bodies of napalm and hydrogen.

Broken, beat and scarred, E.B tried his best to adjust to the normal way of life; however the streets that he knew had changed so much.  Glorious shopfronts had bordered up signs and the ones that didn’t had dirty windows.

Along with four other vets in Frantic Frank, Dyers Eve and the twins, Stone D.F and Nole A.F. Clover they became secretly known as the “Unknown Five” and in social circles people knew them as “The Metal Militia”.

E.B wrote a lot of short stories while he was in Vietnam and he kept on mailing them to his home address.  One of the stories had a poem in it that would become the mission statement for the new entity.

To Live Is To Die

We are the battery that will seek and destroy with no remorse

We are one identity as we are all the same fighting for one cause

On through the mist and the madness

We are trying to get the message to you

We are the Metal Militia

The title of the poem where the last five words that ‘E.B’ heard from his best friend “One” as his legless and armless body spasmed all over the jungle floor from an enemy landmine.

You see, when E.B was in Vietnam he found something spiritual and supernatural. Subsequently the task of protecting what he found was bestowed on him by the aging Buddhist monks who guarded the secrets. You see, the thing that should not be, is not something that someone will come across accidently. The guardians of it are natural selected. It’s evolution at play, where the strongest are selected to continue with progress.

E.B’s tour involved a lot of secret visits to The Temple of Wolf And Man. Under the tutelage of the Phantom Lord, E.B learned the ways of the Guardians, their fighting styles and eventually he found a way to tap into the spirit world. In one of his many meditation sessions he communicated with powerful old spirits. The words of that meditative walk through the spirit world still remain with him.

“What we have bestowed upon you must be kept safe at all costs for if it does fall into the wrong hands, it would be dangerous to humanity to possess. The spirit world entrusts this secret knowledge to you Edward Breadfan.”

Little did E.B know that while the Spirit World saw him as benevolent and good, another world was unleashing Five Evil Worshippers to sow confusion and reclaim the books of secret knowledge that are now in the possession of E.B.

–Current Day–The City Of Devils Dance

Change can be bad or good. It all depends on people’s point of view. Stone D.F has seen change happen around him. The upbringing of Orion has been entrusted to Stone and he is struggling with it. He doesn’t know much about Orion or his heritage.

Orion for the lack of a better word lives day-to-day. When he runs out of money to buy liquor, he gets small jobs as a stand over man until he has enough money to supply his addiction for a while. In between drunken stupors, Orion is haunted by a vision of a brunette lady and a legacy of what-ifs.  He is at his favourite bar, “Whiskey In The Jar-O” when his phone rings.

Orion looks at the screen and it is from an unknown number. He never answers calls from unknown numbers. He waits until it rings out as the stripper spread eagles herself around the pole.

The phone rings again. Orion peers at the screen again and it shows up as No Number. Blank. No number whatsoever is present. Orion wonders how can that be and in the end curiosity got the better of him.

“Hello”.

There is a silence on the other end.

Then a deep voice is heard. “Is this Orion Ktulu?”

“Who is this?” replies Orion.

For some reason the voice on the other side is satisfied that Orion is on the other line.

“You must return to the City of the Beholder. Your father has died.”

Orion is stunned. He didn’t envision the day turning into a mystery.

Who is the person asking him to return to his birth place?

A birth place that Orion cannot even remember and for the first time in his life it is the first clue he has received that deals with his past. He has no idea who his father is. His mentor Stone has told him that his father loved him and that in order to keep his only son safe, his father needed to send Orion away.

What Orion knows is that he was born in January 1976, during a freak lightning storm. One of the worst ever storms ever recorded.

His mother died in childbirth and throughout the years, Orion has felt the presence of a person who seemed to be there at the right time to save him from an unfavourable outcome.

Orion is about to respond.

The line is dead.

— Current Day–The City Of Carpe Diem

June Sowhat is a ten-year old girl who is watching television. She is flicking through the channels and her attention is caught by a picture of an overturned bus.

June gazes at the television screen. The aerial views show buses, trucks and cars all tangled up and in bits. There is a section that is all burnt out.

June gets up off the coach and reaches over to the notepad on the coffee table. On the notepad there is some writing.

“City Bus 1366 – 8.32am”

June puts her gaze back to the television. The news scroll at the bottom grabs her attention.

“The 8.32am City Bus overturned causing a large accident. The number of fatalities is high. Although unconfirmed, initial numbers estimate the death toll to reach the 300 mark. Emergency number is 1-300-555-777…”

June doesn’t take her eyes off the screen. She makes a small whimpering sound that no one hears.

–Current Day–The City Of Carpe Diem Sanitarium

An elderly woman screams.

At 8.34am she broke her arms and legs.

Mysteriously.

A minute later her skin started to blister like she was caught in a fire.

Sweet Amber Sowhat is the mother of Fixxxer. She can see a TV screen mounted on the wall opposite her.  The number of the bus unsettles her.

1366.

–Current Day–The City Of Carpe Diem Hospital

Fixxxer’s eyes slowly open. The fluoro lighting while normally dull is super bright. Fixxxer blinks his vision back and he realizes that he is in a hospital bed. A doctor enters the room.

“How are you feeling?” asks the Doctor.

“Okay, I guess,” replies David as the Doctor flashes a light in Fixxxer’s eyes.

“Do you know where you are?”

“In an emergency room”, answers Fixxxer.

“You were in a serious accident. Do you remember it?”

“I remember the trip and picking up speed and then nothing. Why are you looking at me?

“When your bus overturned it caused a massive pile up and then an explosion. The bus was the epicentre of the accident and the explosion. They only found one person alive so far and that is you and you don’t have a scratch on you nor a broken bone nor any burns.”

Fixxxer notices another Doctor looking at him from a distance, Asian in appearance.  His gaze unsettles him and the name tag even more so.

WALTER CYANIDE.

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George Lynch and Don Dokken

The history of George Lynch is a complex one to say the least. He auditioned for Ozzy’s band at the same time as Randy Rhoads did. Once Randy got the gig, Lynch got Randy’s teaching gig. He auditioned again after the tragic death of Randy Rhoads and this time he lost out to Jake E.Lee.

And then Dokken broke through with “Tooth And Nail”. They continued that momentum with “Under Lock And Key” and “Back For The Attack”.

And then it was over. Don Dokken said that it was the ego of George Lynch that broke up Dokken. Ego is a very ambiguous word to use. Ego means a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance, so I can’t see how if a person has a high self-esteem it can be seen as a negative or bad enough to break up a band.

What we do know is that Don Dokken was the one that got the original recording deal with Elektra Records. He got that recording deal based on songs that George Lynch and Mick Brown had written in their earlier bands.

This is the way Mick Brown told it:

“He took some material that George and I had wrote and took it to Germany and pretty much put his name on it, you know what I am saying (laughing) and he got a recording contract. So he called me up to play. I looked over at George and I said George, this guy’s got our music and he’s got a record deal and we were pretty upset about that because he’s got our songs. But then we also thought, it’s kind of an open door so we went along with it. I think probably when people talk about the turmoil in Dokken, that was pretty much the moment where it all started. I remember Don asking us to, if he could take some of our songs over there to try and get something going in Europe and we said “No” but he did anyway.”

And this is the way Don Dokken told it:

“When I went to Germany to get the record deal, they wanted to sign me as a solo artist. The original album, Breaking The Chains originally came out in Europe and the band was called was called Don Dokken. It was pretty rare. There were 500 copies of it that said “Don” on the cover. So when we got the band together, I just dropped the “Don” and we became Dokken.”

INSERT: Disagreement Number one.

The label then would not give any extra shares to George Lynch or Mick Brown, so the monies came from Don Dokken’s slice of the pie which was already pretty shitty and that pie got diminished even further when Jeff Pilson joined. This battle for an equal split proved to be a source of animosity.

INSERT: Disagreement Number two.

Remember Vivian Campbell. He was livid that he didn’t get an equal split from Dio. Randy Rhoads confronted Ozzy about the “Blizzard Of Ozz” band and why the album was going to be marketed as Ozzy Osbourne’s solos act.

However the most stupid thing any band could do is split up at their commercial peak.

On a press tour for the “Back For The Attack” Don Dokken said the following about George Lynch:

“I don’t dig him and he don’t dig me. But we respect each other as musicians. He can be a total jerk, but I’m not that easy to get along with either.”

Dokken (the band) at the time of the split were ready to re-negotiate their deal. They had the leverage and the sales on the board. They had Q-Prime Management on board. According to Lynch, Don Dokken didn’t want to share any new deal. He saw it as his band, with his name on it and any new deal would involve Don Dokken only with the remaining band members reduced to hired guns.

According to Lynch, Dokken told the band the following:

“I’m gonna try to take the whole thing and run with it, and you guys are gonna get left in the dust, and if you’re lucky, I might hire you.”

In the end, the band split. George Lynch and Mick Brown got a deal with Elektra Records while Don Dokken got wined and dined by Geffen Records and eventually signed a deal with them. Jeff Pilson, who was in my mind the better songwriter got going with various other creative outlets. According to Pilson, the band had a lot of egos and it was those egos that got in the way.

“It wasn’t really that different from other bands with the exception that we aired our dirty laundry in public.”

That is true.

After the split, the bickering didn’t end there.

In 1990, George Lynch, Jeff Pilson and Mick Brown went to court to stop Don Dokken from using his surname for any new solo band. They heard that Don Dokken was planning to release his first solo album as Dokken II. This didn’t sit well with them and they went to court to get an injunction to stop Don Dokken from using the name Dokken or Dokken II.

However, what Lynch and Dokken did was shoot each other in the foot. A good vocalist will always need a good guitarist and a good guitarist will always need a good vocalist. This is the secret of a lot of the bands successes. Vivian Campbell had Ronnie James Dio. George Lynch had Don Dokken. John Sykes had David Coverdale. Jimmy Page had Robert Plant. Paul Kossoff had Paul Rodgers. Mick Ralphs had Paul Rodgers.

And being in a band is not a guarantee. In the October 1989 issue of Guitar World it was a period of change for a lot of guitarists. Steve Stevens was on the cover with the headline, “Life After Billy Idol”. There was also a boxed picture of George Lynch with the headline “Bye-Bye Dokken”. Jake E.Lee was also featured talking about Badlands and life after Ozzy.

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Thrash Metal

I am a great believer that certain musical styles rise to prominence on the backs of social change or a social movement. There is a quote from Deena Weinstein who is a Professor at DePaul University in the Metal Evolution Thrash Episode that goes something like this;

“When Thrash started in the early eighties Thatcher and Reagan were in charge and we had a highly conservative very restrictive kind of society and if you’re a teenager especially a teenage male, yuck, you don’t want to live in a place where they are in charge. This made males feel like they had to fight against the system just to stay in place and that kind of aggression leads to a sense of wanting to be louder and faster.”

By 1988, Thrash Metal in Australia was becoming huge. There was a substantial underground movement of thrash bands or bands that dabbled in rock, thrash and traditional heavy metal and there was an audience for it. Suburban garages became jam rooms for a million wannabe thrash bands.

And then came Metallica to our shorelines for the “Justice” tour.

All of those suburban teens who had seen their parents deal with the Black Monday Wall Street crash purchased tickets.

All of those suburban teens from immigrant families that had seen their parents get dicked around and racially abused purchased tickets.

All of those suburban teens that had seen their parents get shafted from various long-term state governments that dealt in corruption purchased tickets.

All of those suburban teens that had seen their parents get fired from companies that dealt in corruption and bribery of politicians purchased tickets

 

All of those suburban teens who didn’t fit in to the new divide between the haves and the have-nots purchased tickets.

All of those suburban teens who had finished high school or dropped out and couldn’t hold down any jobs or get work, scrapped up enough cash to purchase tickets.

We even made the news. In our excitement to get into the venue, we broke down gates and fences. When the police came we resisted. So many misfits, that just wanted to fit in.

We all stood together with people wearing Venom, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, first two albums Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and Slayer tops. This was our moment and the “…And Justice For All” album with its lyrical themes of corruption and truth being sold to the highest bidder was the same shit that we faced or our parents had faced. We all related to the “injustice” themes throughout the album.

I have always debated with people who was the biggest band in the genre. I always saw it from an influential musical point of view and others saw it from a sales point of view. Metallica and Megadeth to me are the two bands that had their feet in so many genres. With each album they kept on crossing over into new markets. That is why to me, the Black album wasn’t outside of the norm for what the Metallica sound is.

In the doco, Sam Dunn (the interviewer) felt betrayed when Metallica came out with the “Black” album. He wasn’t alone in that view-point. A lot of my peers also felt betrayed at the album however I couldn’t understand their viewpoint.

Metallica always had more accessible shorter songs on every single album leading up to the “Black” album.

What about, “For Whom The Bells Toll”, “Escape” and “Trapped Under Ice” from the “Ride The Lightning” album.

What about, “Leper Messiah” (how good is that bass riff (RIP: CLIFF BURTON) over the E5 power chords from 0.33 to 0.55) and “The Thing That Should Not Be” from the “Master Of Puppets” album while the “…And Justice For All” album had the big one, “Harvester Of Sorrow.”

All of those songs are more or less at the same tempo that the “Black” album songs are at.

I for one am glad that Metallica had the balls to make the “Black” album instead of “And Justice For All Part Two”, which if you look closely at it, the Justice album was more or less, “Ride The Lightning Part III”.

Megadeth on the other hand, in between their drug addictions and overdoses created some definitive songs. All of the thrash fans that felt betrayed at the Black album liked “Peace Sells”. That is why their view points just didn’t make sense.

Yes people, the mighty Dave Mustaine was way ahead of his time. He gave Metallica that technicality and their sound in the early years and by 1986, he gave the Thrash movement a crossover hit song in “Peace Sells”. It was all over MTV.

And that is the reason why this sub-genre has survived and grown. The two biggest bands of the movement just kept on crossing over and those two biggest bands had two super influential songwriters in Dave Mustaine and James Hetfield. It’s hard to believe that once upon a time they were in the same band.

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Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

Chapter 1

Metallica has been in the news recently with the release of the updated “Some Kind Of Monster” and it got me thinking about their movie “Through The Never”. Apart from the live footage, the movie was pretty shit, but man, it could have been so much better. There is a wealth of material and inspiration to be found in Metallica songs.

And that is the purpose of this post. Me playing around with Metallica songs to come up with a little story.

Enjoy.

CHAPTER 1

— 1961 —

A striking Asian woman is holding her baby that she has just given birth to. Dr Hetfield has just entered the room, observing the scene and then looking at the woman.

“Do you have a name?” asks Dr Hetfield. The woman smiles for the first time.

“Walter” replies the woman as she hands him the wrapped child. The baby starts to cry as Dr Hetfield starts to walk away.

“Where are you taking my baby?” asks the woman, feeling a bit agitated.

Dr Hetfield ignores the question and keeps on walking down the hallway. The baby keeps on screaming. The mother is screaming for the nurses to help her however they just stand and stare.

“Please bring him back?” howls the woman. She tries to get up and realises that she is now restrained in the bed. When did that happen?

The doctor finally turns around. He makes eye contact with the woman for only a second. It’s enough. A chill goes through her as the eyes of the doctor fade to black. It unsettles the woman. The baby cries even louder and then the doctor disappears around the corridor and the cries of the baby cease.

The room the woman is in then returns back to normal. The nurses that just stood still and stared seem bewildered. The woman is screaming at them that a doctor took her baby. The nurses look confused and whisper to themselves.

“I’m sorry, that can’t be possible”, answers the taller nurse. “No paediatric doctor is on duty today”.

The woman screams.

— Current Day — The City Of Carpe Diem

The 8.32am bus starts to approach the bus stop. The cigarette smokers take their last desperate drags before they board. Women grab their children by their hands and school students with backpacks hang back. A face inside the train watches the stream of passengers enter the bus. The amount of people entering is way more than the available seats.

Fixxxer is a man in his early thirties. The bus starts to pull out as a pretty brunette takes the spare seat next to him. She pulls out a magazine to read.

“You into sports?”

“I work for an agency that deals with a lot of sports people”, answers the woman.

“I had to make a decision once about being a pro athlete or trying to make it in the music business.”

The woman smiles. “Is that right? It looks like you regret the choice”.

Fixxxer laughs.

“Which star are you meeting today?”

“I’m meeting a player. He’s a midfielder. You like football?” replies the woman.

There is a loud sound as a truck passes them at high-speed in the opposite direction. It breaks the mood of the conversation and the woman goes back to her magazine. An awkward silence.

Fixxxer is about to ask her another question, however the woman points to her ring finger.

“I think you got the wrong idea”.

The woman is a bit unsettled as she gets up and moves to the back of the bus. She balances herself against the bars as the bus picks up speed to get past the orange light.

Fixxxer feels like an idiot. He rests his head against the window. The vibration of the bus calms him. The shaking of the glass is getting stronger. Fixxxer looks out the window. The outside scenery is all a blur. The bus is picking up speed. And then the high-pitched sounds of tyres screeching as the bus takes a turn.

A few heavy-set dudes at the front try to make a pass at the driver however they cannot get to him. It’s like some invisible force field is present. The driver turns for a brief second and Fixxxer is certain that the driver’s eyes faded to black.

Fixxxer looks to the passengers around him as their side of the bus starts to rise.

— 1974 —

E.B is shaken and bloodied. His last mission in Vietnam went bad. Real bad. In three days, he will be boarding a plane back home. He doesn’t even know what home means anymore.

Edward Breadfan, otherwise known as ‘E.B’ is the son of the town mayor and in high school he was the local sporting hero. However, like all good young kids, he was drafted into the army and sent to the frontlines of Vietnam.

E.B in the end wanted to go, so whatever strings his father pulled to get him out of duty, it was all for nothing. That was four years ago and how E.B wishes that he could go back and accept his father’s offer. A body is pulled from the chopper. It is actually the torso of E.B’s best friend, Kirk One-Ta.

E.B told the superiors that it was an enemy landline that did it.

And those black eyes on the Vietcong soldier E.B will never forget. He was told that they didn’t exist and now they know about E.B as well.

— CURRENT DAY — The City of Devils Dance

Stone D.F believes that all truth is lies, a bunch of invalid viewpoints that the rich and powerful have put together to show their viewpoint of the world. Throughout his life, Stone has been called a liar. The scars of life are all over his body.

“You see, Orion, I took chances, risks, you know what I’m saying” Stone grunted in between a drag and blow of his cigarette.

Orion certainly believes that Stone took chances. Any person that just glances at Stone sees it.

“The last chance I took almost got me through the never,” continued Stone.

For Stone, when he refers to “the never” it means the end of the line because no one can know what comes after death. Heaven or hell is again another viewpoint put out there by wealthy organisations as a form of control. In this case it is packaged nicely as a little black book called the Holy Bible. Hell, the most definitive version of the Holy Bible is the King James Version. That is enough proof for Stone that it is all bullshit.

“If only I would have known what was in store for me when I took that offer.”

 

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Unsung Heroes

The War Between Money and Art

The music industry is a thriving industry. It always was and still is. History has shown that musicians have expressed themselves lyrically without interference in their vision. They have been creative and innovative. However, with the rise of the recording industry and the money pyramids that industry created, the musical vision was compromised. Greed became more important than the vision. Once our heroes attained riches, the songs post “most successful album” just didn’t connect or resonate anymore.

As kids growing up, we fall in love with music, the melodies, the riffs, the lyrics, the phrasing and that free rebellious feeling that it inspires in us. Music always captured a sense of time and place. I could hear a song that I haven’t heard in ages and immediately it places me back in a time and a place of my past.

Music is about the creative individual and how they express their creativity. Great creativity equals success and success equals profits. When money enters the game and people who contribute nothing musically start to live a very comfortable life from those profits, then all they care about is keeping those profits the same plus a little bit more. That is why pop music suffered in the Eighties while Metal and Rock took a foothold. Metal and hard rock was honest and real. However once it became a commercial viable product, commerce took over and metal/rock became stale, until Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Guns N Roses blew open the paradigm again and suddenly every label was chasing similar style of bands or getting their current roster to emulate those two bands.

Impose any financial and marketing frameworks on creativity and you get compromised art.

Conformity.

A business that is 100% about profit.

And the very thing that brought money into the industry in the first place and made the industry so popular is sacrificed. What was free and rebellious becomes controlled and processed. In 2014, the songwriters from Sweden have this down pat, which is no surprise as Sweden did give the world IKEA, which sells generic and bland ready-to-assemble furniture, much like the pop industry right now, bland ready to listen music.

The songwriter of the two thousands is without doubt Max Martin, a Swede. Taylor Swifts pop career has been written by Max Martin. Britney Spears career has Max Martin all over it. Bon Jovi’s comeback hit “It’s My Life”, yep that had Max Martin as well on it. Pink’s “Please Don’t Leave Me” and Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” also had Max Martin all over it.

And where did Max Martin start his career. It was as a singer in a metal/rock band called “It’s Alive”. The band was a stepping stone to meeting other people and eventually he got into song writing and at the moment his team is known as an “assembly line song writing team”. Martin is that big in Sweden, that the Swedes will now be able to lick him via his own postage stamp.

It’s a thin line as artists want to be paid for their creations and record labels want to make money of art that they have funded. Add to that mix songwriters like Martin who also want to get paid along with the publishers. However all sides are forgetting the crucial unknown, the FANS.

The casual music fans will lap up the trashy, mass-marketed pop music and any other music that crosses over into the pop stratosphere. The niche fans will bank roll their heroes forever and a day. Think of Shinedown as an example. They crossed over with “The Sounds of Madness” album and had platinum parties for singles and album sales in excess of a million. The follow-up, while still popular moved half of its predecessor. What that means is that the original niche fans of the band still purchased the album, the merchandise and the concert tickets while the casual fans streamed it and purchased the concert tickets, as Shinedown did big business at the box office on the Amaryllis tour.

But the question in all of this is that labels are seeing a future where the artists are tied to corporate ‘brands’. With this kind of business mindset, would another Dream Theater, Pantera, Machine Head or Metallica even come to be.

How can an artist be free to express their musical vision if they are tied to a corporate brand whose only interest is profit and commerce.

George Orwell said that “Myths which are believed in tend to become true” and the recording industry via the RIAA and the Publishing firms are all about making myths into truths. However Orwell also said that “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act” and that is what the Internet has allowed. The internet has allowed people to tell the truth or to offer a differing viewpoint then the one that is pushed by the lobbyists and the copyright industries.

For artists it is all about the song. That is your ticket and your bargaining chip. The song is your entry into the business. A lot of songs equals a body of work (not an album). But you need to work it, and you need to connect.

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

The Master At Re-Interpretation: Joe Cocker (R.I.P)

When I started to play guitar in the Eighties I was obviously into the whole metal and hard rock scene. As far as I was concerned, it had to be all pedal point riffs, fast eighth or sixteenth notes and a whole lot of shred thrown in. I was self-taught for about three years however my dad kept on pushing me to go to a guitar teacher.

My dad got the number of a teacher from a work colleague of his, who had has son visiting the same teacher. To cut a long story short, the lessons were structured on theory, rhythm, scales and it ended with the teacher (his name was Michael) showing me a song to play. Michael asked me in advance to give him a list of hard rock and metal songs that I want to learn so that he could figure them out and show me. I told him that I got that part covered and I would like him to show me songs that he likes regardless of what styles they are or from what artist they are.

I must say it was a dead set eye opener. Apart from sitting down and learning songs outside of the style I was interested, I also learnt the art of melody, better chord placements and vocal phrasing. Overall these sessions made me a better musician and a songwriter. It changed my viewpoints from being just a guitar player to being a band player and to play for the song instead of the glory of the solo.

“Bad Moon Rising”, “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay”, “Mr Bojangles”, “Sunshine of Your Love”, “I Shot The Sherriff”, “Knockin On Heavens Door”, “Imagine”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Lambada” happened in the first 9 weeks. Then we started with some Beatles songs like “Yesterday”, “All My Loving”, “Come Together”, “Let It Be”, “Day Tripper”, “Eight Days A Week” and eventually we got to “With A Little Help From My Friends”.

And that is where Joe Cocker comes into my life. It was his version of the song that I remembered. So I started to study some of his most well-known songs and I found out that he didn’t write any of them. But it was his re-interpretations of those songs that made him a superstar. Some people are great at just writing songs, some people are great at writing and performing their own songs, while others are great at re-interpreting other people’s songs. That is Joe Cocker.

His fame is tied to what he did with the words of other songwriters. And Cocker (along with his collaborator’s) chose well.

“She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” and “With A Little Help from My Friends” released in 1969 and 1968 respectively. “She Came In” was Cocker’s big U.S hit at the time, while “With A Little Help” was his big U.K hit.

“Delta Lady” released in 1969 was written by Leon Russell. “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” also released in 1969 was written Nina Simone and covered in 1965 by the Animals. “Feelin Alright” was written by Dave Mason with Traffic.

“The Letter” released in 1970 was a song from 1967 by the band Box Tops. An upbeat rock version of “Cry Me a River” was released in 1970 by Cocker however the song’s roots go back to 1953 and it was written by Arthur Hamilton. “You Are So Beautiful” released in 1974 was written by Bill Preston whose original version first appeared in 1974 however it was Cockers slowed down version courtesy of producer Jim Price that made the song a hit.

Cocker’s biggest single came in 1982, when ‘Up Where We Belong,’ a duet with singer-songwriter Jennifer Warnes’ from the movie ‘An Officer and a Gentleman,’ stayed at No. 1 for three weeks. This is one song that wasn’t a cover of a previous song, however it was written by a song writing committee in Jack Nitzsche, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Will Jennings.

Then in 1986, “You Can Leave Your Hat On” came out. The song was written by Randy Newman and it goes back to 1972. “Unchain My Heart” was released in 1987. The song was written by Bobby Sharp and recorded first in 1961 by Ray Charles. Then in 1989 came “When The Night Comes” a song that wasn’t a cover, however it was written by hit songwriters in Bryan Adams, Jim Vallance and Diane Warren.

The point of all this.

In the mid-nineties I was in a band. We played three sets each night and got paid $150 each. The set up was bassist/vocalist, drummer and myself on guitar. The first set was originals. Hard rock originals. Think about that for a second. The mid-nineties was very hostile to hard rock bands, however we didn’t care. Anyway the second set involved covers from the sixties, seventies and eighties and the last set was all nineties modern rock songs. It was the second set that got the best applause.

The bassist and I had a knack for re-interpreting  songs. “Stormbringer” and “Knockin On Heavens Door” became one song with music coming from Deep Purple and the lyrics coming from Bob Dylan.

“Foxy Lady” and “Immigrant Song” became another song. “Born To Be Wild” and “Cum On Feel The Noize” was one more. “We Will Rock You” and “Long Way To The Top” also got merged. I am seeing a lot of this cross merging on the internet, especially between Metallica and Megadeth. Fans of the bands are doing their own merging and re-interpretations of the bands classic songs. One song that we didn’t change at all (and played within our originals set) was “Breaking The Law” from Judas Priest. And the grunge/industrial crowds we played to at the time lapped it up. They thought the songs were our own song and we didn’t tell them any different.

Throughout this whole phase, Joe Cocker was in the back of the mind. I kept on asking myself, how would Joe approach this song. Would he slow it down, speed it up, funk it up or just fuck it up.

Hell, our heroes hooked us with cover songs or crossed over into the mainstream because of cover songs. Motley Crue with “Smokin In The Boys Room”, Tesla with “Signs”, Machine Head with “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, Killswitch Engage with “Holy Diver” and many more.

As a musician, there is a lot to learn from re-interpreting other people’s songs. There are some songs that are just perfect for you and relate to you in a way that they could have been written by you. It’s okay to cover songs and to have a career based on your re-interpretations of cover songs.

Rest in peace Joe Cocker, you showed me that music is much more than the clichéd “these songs are my children” point of view.

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Music, My Stories, Piracy, Unsung Heroes

Thoughts On Music

Good music feels like it was made just for you and in an era right now that has artists coming and going, that song connection is what forms a sense of devotion to an artist. So when a friend of mine said that people are less devoted to artists today and more open to the listening experience I was quick to disagree. Maybe in a pop context that is the case, however when it comes to metal and rock music, that devotion is real. Of course it has changed from the past. In the past, that devotion was fostered over the purchase of an album. Today it is fostered with each song.

Go on Spotify and you can see that “Now We Die” is a song that fans of Machine Head are gravitating too. It already has almost 1.2 million streams. “Halo” has 1.9 million streams and that is from an earlier album. For me the song that I gravitated to is “Ghost Will Haunt My Bones” because god damn, that past of mine just doesn’t seem to leave me be.

Music gives us identity and it expresses how we feel. Generations are defined through music.

The British Rock invasion in the Sixties defined a generation born just after WWII and a whole cultural shift began. Punk Music defined a generation in the U.K that was beset by unemployment and another cultural shift took place. That punk attitude merged with the British Rock invasion gave birth to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal and Thrash Metal then caught on in the Eighties and in the U.S it defined a generation disenfranchised by the conservative Reagan era. Metal music appealed because it was angry and people were looking for music that they could clench their fists too. Hard rock/heavy metal music was the gang that we all gravitated to.

Music was our patch, in the same way that bike clubs patch in members.

And so much debate is happening around music that really has nothing to do with music.

There is a section of artists who are arguing that they don’t get paid enough from streaming services. Then you have streaming services that are arguing that they have killed piracy. The $2 billion that Spotify has paid to the rights holders is not a number to be compared with how much money the rights holders would have made selling CDs. Spotify is comparing that number with how much money artists would have made from piracy. And as we all know piracy doesn’t pay artists a cent.

So music is going through another cultural shift and a whole new generation is being defined. The recording industry was disrupted by technologies and there are two ways to respond. See the change as a threat or see it as an opportunity. Unfortunately 15 years after Napster, the incumbents still think only in terms of loss and insist on thinking about the industry in the same way as before.

So while a subset of people are decrying the online world, millions and millions of others have decided to embrace it, believing a relationship with their fans is what it’s all about.

And you have different mindsets competing with each other. You have people who broke in the eighties, when we were all glued to MTV and then you have people who broke in the two thousands, in an era that is still defined by turmoil. The Eighties heroes are struggling to get people interested in their new music, so their dollars come from the live circuit where they play all the classics.

We all know the old game was about making a lot of noise. That huge marketing lead up could lead to a big first week in sales. And then the album dies from the news. The normal media outlets don’t care if people are listening to the latest Machine Head album or Vanishing Point.

The game today is that if you’re a musician you would start off in music and then end up doing a lot of different things that involve speaking tours, fan funded projects, book deals and so forth. The fans will keep you alive however you need to be a realist. Musical world domination is a long shot, while being a famous public figure in the internet age is more achievable.

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