Tag Archives: Classic Rock

Copyright, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Piracy

The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – February 14 to February 20

2018 (8 Years Ago)

SPEAKING UP

When artists write lyrics that reflect society and our politics back at us, people get upset. When I think about the past, people who made real change persisted even when others tried their best to silence them.

Artists once formed the chorus of dissent to social ills and corruption. It’s probably a reason why we got so many songs that still stand the test of time today.

Artists told the record label heads what to do, not the other way around.

Machine Head’s new album at the time “Catharsis” was causing division amongst their American fan base. Europe, Asia and Australia didn’t really care about its Anti-Trump stance. Fans of any artist come from different sides of the political debate. It’s expected. No one can agree on everything. If people did, everyone would wear the same outfit. The world would be pretty bland if people all agreed. Wouldn’t it.

It never would occur to me to stop listening to an artist because of a stance they have on an topic.

Artists are not the enemy. They are mirrors, reflecting the world back to us. What we choose to do with the reflection is a different story.

CASSETTE COPYING INCORPORATED

Copying of music has always been there. We used to listen to the radio and record songs from it. We used to record video clips from TV music stations. We would make a copy of an LP from a friend or a family member. We would even re-copy a copied album. The music industry grew because of copying.

So if we used the buzzword of the modern era, piracy was rampant back in the 80’s. Most of my music collection during that period was made up of music copied onto blank cassettes.

You know that peak year of sales for the recording business in 1998. Well there is research out there which suggests it was due to two reasons. One reason was people replacing their vinyl collections with CD’s and the other reason is the people who had music copied on blank cassettes in the 80’s had enough disposable income to buy those albums on CD.

If I didn’t borrow and copy (which the labels call stealing and piracy), I probably never would have become the fan of music I am. As my Dad would always say, “I probably would have had four houses paid off, instead I have a tonne of grey concert T-Shirts, ticket stubs and a wall to wall record collection.” I wouldn’t have it any other way, because the memories are the stories I tell.

1979

Here is the kick off from 1979.

AC/DC – Highway to Hell

Six months after the album release date, Bon Scott would be dead. Mutt Lange is on board to produce at the strong insistence of their U.S record label and it was the start of the holy trinity of albums. Malcolm was less than pleased because it meant older brother George, was no longer involved.

“Highway To Hell” is a rite of passage. It might have been about touring, however timeless songs have lyrics that can be interpreted in many different ways. Plus the riff to kick it off is iconic. Credit Malcolm.

Livin’ easy, Livin’ free

Pink Floyd – The Wall

“The Wall” is Roger Waters lasting legacy. But the best song on the album to me is “Comfortably Numb” written by Gilmour and Waters. Credit producer Bob Ezrin for persisting to get Gilmour’s music on the record. However, it was “Another Brick In The Wall Part 2” that was all over the radio.

Check out “Goodbye Blue Sky” as well, which served as the inspiration for “Fade To Black” from Metallica.

And that outro solo in “Comfortably Numb”. Perfection.

Judas Priest – Hell Bent for Leather/Killing Machine

The first time I heard “Delivering The Goods” was via Skid Row’s “B-Side Ourselves” EP. I enjoyed the Skid’s live take on it, so I went seeking for the album in the second hand record stores. I actually own both copies, the “Killing Machine” version and the “Hell Bent For Leather” version.

Or the iconic riff in “Hell Bent For Leather” which is so derivative that many other bands had a similar riff before and after this song, like the opening riff in “2 Minutes To Midnight”. They even used it again for “Running Wild”.

In relation to guitar playing, Glenn Tipton always kept an eye and ear out for what was hot in guitar circles and he would go away, master these new styles and incorporate those influences and styles into his guitar playing. In this case, he breaks out a tapping lick which was obviously influenced by EVH. On albums from the mid 80’s, Tipton would start to incorporate sweep picking courtesy of Yngwie Malmsteen’s influence.

“The Green Manalishi (With The Two Pronged Crown)” is a great cover of a Fleetwood Mac song, which is written by their original and largely forgotten guitarist Peter Green (RIP), and it works pretty cool in the hands of Judas Priest.

Journey – Evolution

It has “Lovin, Touchin’ Squeezin’” but it’s not my favourite. The three listed songs are for various reasons.

“Lovin’ You Is Easy” has upbeat music and it’s always good to hear Schon rocking out.

“Do You Recall” has melodies which appear in Jovi songs.

“Lady Luck” grooves, taking its cues from Led Zeppelin.

The Police – Reggatta de Blanc

The Police didn’t really write a perfect album from start to finish, but they could write classic tracks.

The intro to “Message In A Bottle” hooks me. And it’s guitarist Andy Summers who saves the day with his add9 chord voicings over a simple bass groove.

Whitesnake – Lovehunter

I didn’t hear this album until very late in the 90’s. During this time I was buying so many second hand LP’s from record fairs and second hand book shops, I can’t even place a memory as to when I purchased it. But I do know I was always a sucker for the 3 for $5 bins.

Press play to hear “Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues” which is written by David Coverdale and the underrated Bernie Marsden.

It all started with the blues. Rock was built on the bones of the 30/40’s blues artists. Metal was also built on the bones of those same artists, along with the defiance and rebellion of rock music. Without the blues, the music I listen to, would not be possible.

KISS – Dynasty

One of the first albums I owned from Kiss and I played it to death, so it’s no surprise I have a few songs from it on my list.

“I Was Made for Loving You” was the obvious single, but it was still an unexpected hit, written by Paul Stanley, Vini Poncia and Desmond Child. Stanley also performs bass duties on this one.

“Sure Know Something” is a mixture between melodic rock, disco and new wave. In the end, it’s still Kiss. The bass groove is unique and the lead guitar break from Stanley is worth the listen.

“Dirty Livin’” is an excellent track. It could have been on a Steely Dan album or a Doobie Brothers record. Instead it’s on a Kiss record and it rocks. Peter Criss sings, it and he co-wrote it with Stan Penridge and Vini Poncia. It’s actually the only track that Peter Criss drums on. Anton Fig played drums on all of the other songs.

“Magic Touch” is solely written by Paul Stanley, which comes loaded with a melodic riff and a pop melody. Still to this day it’s a favourite, purely for its sense of melody.

“Hard Times” is from Ace Frehley and its another Kiss rocker.

2014 (8 Years Ago)

MORE RECORD LABEL INNOVATION

The record labels just kept getting my attention like trying to get the Courts to set a precedent in which the Internet Service Providers act as the Police to monitor music pirates based on the labels say so.

And my favourite was Principle Management (U2’s Management Company) losing money for the fourth year in a row, so its Chairman Paul McGuiness was quick to blame Google for his losses. Talk about sense of entitlement.

BADLANDS

With Jake E Lee excommunicated from the Osbourne camp no one was sure what he would do next. But in 1988, Badlands formed.

The original Badlands line up was Ray Gillen on vocals, Eric Singer on drums, Greg Chaisson on bass and of course Jake E Lee on guitar. And we will never be able to see the band that cut the self-titled debut album reunite. Ray Gillen has passed and Eric Singer said in an interview on the “Daves on Tour” website that his memories of Badlands aren’t good ones.

Eric Singer auditioned for Ozzy back in 1985 and he didn’t get the gig. Greg Chaisson also auditioned for Ozzy around the same period and he also didn’t get the gig. Both of them lost out to Randy Castillo and Phil Soussan. The outcome for both Singer and Chaisson was that they got to meet Jake E Lee and have a jam with him.

Eric Singer also did a stint in Black Sabbath during the Glenn Hughes/Ray Gillen era. Music is a relationship business and it was these relationships, albeit small ones once upon a time, that ended up getting together to create one hell of a debut album.

In an interview with Kerrang from May 1989, this is what Ray Gillen had to say on the bands beginnings;

“I was particularly keen on the project because I had to pick myself up off the floor after my involvement with the Blue Murder project had gone sour. I was basically asked to leave the band due to outside record company pressure. John Kalodner, one of the top people at Geffen Records, simply said that I couldn’t sing!”

Wearing their Seventies classic rock influences on their sleeves and very cleverly merging the minor key riff remnants of the mid-Eighties heavy metal sound, Badlands hit the target. Each song was unique.

The standout song on the debut is “High Wire”. It cemented Jake’s reputation. You can’t keep a super star down and what a great way to open the album.

Seriously, how good is that opening riff?

The beauty of the song is the simplicity. It is a simple A to C, A to D riff, the cornerstone to all classic blues/classic rock songs.

“Winter’s Call” is the most Zeppelinesque song on the album, especially in the verses, combining Middle Eastern drones with Celtic modes. It is also one of the oldest songs on the album, as the song’s roots go back to 1983.

“Streets Cry Freedom” is the next gem and a great way to close off side one. When vinyl was king, albums got sequenced by having a great opening track and a great closing track. The comparisons to Led Zeppelin, Humble Pie and Bad Company are prevalent in this song. The song’s verses are a typical 12 bars blues. Instead of playing it in the standard way, Jake E Lee shows his guitar smarts by arpeggiating the verses.

“Seasons” is the gem on the second side. It reminds me a lot of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”.

This was 1989 and MTV ruled. Bands needed a hit to get recognition. So while “Dreams In The Dark” did the video rounds, as the record label decided it had the most “hit” potential, songs like “Winters Call”, “Seasons” and “Streets Cry Freedom” slipped under the radar.

The self titled album is brilliant. While other artists went with the one hit single per album and the rest as filler, Badlands delivered an album strong from start to finish.

THE WALKING DEAD

So how did a TV show, based on a niche Zombie comic, explode into the mainstream and into people’s consciousness.

In order to understand the answer you need to go back to the beginning. And the beginning for “The Walking Dead” goes back to 1968 and a movie called “Night Of The Living Dead”.

“The Walking Dead” is a classic case of building on works already in the public domain as well as building on existing copyrighted works by creating derivative works.

First the whole Zombie genre owes a large debt to George A. Romero’s classic “Night Of The Living Dead”. Many of the accepted Zombie formulas started here. Something that is quite common to us in 2014, was all brand new to audiences in 1968.

Due to a late name change from “Night Of The Flesh Eaters” to “Night Of The Living Dead”, the distributor forgot to include a copyright symbol on the release and due to this omission, the movie entered the Public Domain on its actual release date. That meant that anyone could do derivative works and also build on the existing story.

The whole opening scene from “The Walking Dead” of Rick Grimes waking up in the hospital alone, is a combination of what has come before.

In “The Day of The Triffids, the main character awakes to a silent hospital to find that his town has been overrun with blinded people.

In “28 Days Later”, a bicycle courier awakens from a coma to find the hospital and the city, completely deserted and overrun by people infected by the rage virus.

In “The Walking Dead”, Rick Grimes wakes from a coma in the hospital to find his town overrun with walking corpses, referred to as ‘walkers’.

Romero did miss out on a hefty payday due to the copyright bungle with “Night of The Living Dead”, but Romero’s story ends well. The film’s popularity OPENED UP MORE OPPORTUNITIES. Romero continued to create movies and the fame that his Public Domain movie gave him, opened up other offers around comics and novels.

In the end, the lack of copyright around one movie, grew and helped define the zombie genre in the same way that the lack of copyright around earlier blues and folk standards helped define the classic rock genre. So next time someone tells you they need stronger copyrights or longer copyrights, point them to the “Night Of The Living Dead” example.

SHARING MUSIC

I got a 8GB USB stick of music given to me recently by a musician friend who told me that I need to check out the bands on the stick. When I was growing up we used to these kinds of trades on cassettes. Back then we had an hours or hour and a half worth of music. Today 8 gigs worth of music is about 270 songs at 320kbps. Yep, that is how it is done today.

Some of the bands on that key are still favourites today like Degreed and Riverside.

RECLAIMING YOUR RECORDINGS

In between solo albums, Henley was busy with the Eagles, Geffen contract issues, Copyright issues against Record Labels, termination rights on songs and the Eagles again.

Henley knows his rights.

While people criticise musicians who turn into business people, it was inevitable that musicians would end up taking the business path.

The great record label rip off/exploitation made them seek this path. It is just unfortunate that a lot of the musicians that didn’t achieve world-wide domination still don’t realise their rights on their songs. Not a lot of hard rock and heavy metal artists are serving notice to their record label to reclaim songs they had written 35 years ago.

While I don’t agree on everything Henley does, like sending a cease and desist letter to an independent band or trying to get a remix law taken off the radar, the bottom line is this, he is a musician that looks out for his own interests. And that is why we loved our heroes.

And that’s a wrap for another week.

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

The Record Vault: Def Leppard – Adrenalize

“Adrenalize” came out on 31 March 1992 through Mercury Records.

I was a first day buyer because of Steve Clark (RIP). I heard it a couple of times and put it on the shelf. It stayed there for a long time. I wanted to like it but my bias and loyalty to Steve Clark was making me not like it. And I kept telling anyone who listened to me that it was missing the special melodic decorations that Clark was well known for.

Many years later, I did come across various interviews in which Phil Collen stated that he recreated Clark’s parts from the demos because Collen was there with Clark when he played his original ideas for the songs.

And “sort of gone” from the ship was Mutt Lange as he decided it was time to drive Bryan Adams crazy. After three albums, AC/DC didn’t want to work with Lange again. Malcolm Young hated him because he felt his methodical studio takes sucked the life out of the music. Foreigner stopped working with him but Def Leppard still wanted to work with him, and they did the pre-production with him as Lange is there in the song writing department as the fifth member.

I’m not sure what the point of the above is. Is it an eulogy or a “hey, we tried to save him but couldn’t”?

The recording band was Joe Elliott, Phil Collen, Rick Savage and Rick Allen. Interesting to note that backing vocals includes a certain John Sykes who was heavily rumoured by the magazines to be the new guitarist.

Let’s Get Rocked

I couldn’t shake the “Pour Some Sugar On Me” vibe in the verses. And I liked the cleverness in the lyrics, like “I suppose a rock’s out of the question”.

Heaven Is

The music is derivative of Def Lep songs that came before, like “Photograph”, “Armageddon It” and “Let It Go” and I like it.

Make Love Like a Man

It was only a matter of time before a song title would come about to challenge “Dude Looks Like A Lady”. And this one is it. While the song lyrically does nothing for me, the song is great to jam along with.

Tonight

One of my favourite tracks as it has a feel from “High N Dry” and “Pyromania”.

White Lightning

The tribute to Steve Clark.

It’s long droning guitar intro gives way to a “Billy’s Got A Gun” style groove.

Stand Up (Kick Love into Motion)

How good is the start?

It reminds me so much of “Hysteria” and I like it.

And press play to hear the lead break.

Personal Property

It’s back to the AC/DC style riffage on this but the track could have been interchange with any Bryan Adams cut during this time.

Press play to hear that section from 2.17 to 2.38. its classic early Def Leppard.

Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad

Lange is rewriting, “Everything I Do” here. And it’s a big reason why I was off this album. Like how much Mutt Lange can we really have in our lives. According to the charts and sales of Adams and Twain in the 90’s, a lot of Lange.

I Wanna Touch U

Typical Lange style of song, with a clichéd un-inspired riff that mimics AC/DC.

Tear It Down

My favourite song on the album and it’s an oldie, a B-side from “Hysteria”. It rocks hard and I like the simplicity of the Chorus, which reminds me of “Let It Go”.

In Australia it went to number 1 and to a Platinum award. In the U.S, it went to number 1 and its 3x Platinum. In Canada, it also went to Number 1 and a 4x Platinum award. In the U.K, it also went to number 1 and a Platinum certification. And the trend continued in other countries like Finland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand and France.

The tour for “Adrenalize” went for 18 months, beginning in April 1992 and finishing in October 1993. After it, we got the excellent “RetroActive” in 1993 (a collection of unreleased tracks to close off the Steve Clark era) and a Greatest Hits package in 1995 called “Vault”. And the music scene kept changing but we didn’t think that Def Leppard would change that much. Then they dropped “Slang” in 1996 and man, they changed. But that’s another story.

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A to Z of Making It, Alternate Reality, Copyright, Music, My Stories

The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – January 31 to February 6

4 Years Ago (2018)

CATHARSIS

I have no issues with lyrics of any kind. I also have no issue with artists taking a stance and commenting on what they see is the state of the world. Opinions are important whether I agree or disagree with them.

So it’s no surprise that on “Catharsis”, Robb Flynn is giving his take on the world. It’s not pretty, but no one said the six o’clock news is pretty.

Check out my review of the album.

APPETITE FOR COPYRIGHT

Seriously you can’t make up the madness that Copyright comes up.

The labels get richer as they keep making licensing deals with techies. Facebook was another techie who made a deal back then.

None of the licensing fee goes back to the musicians, even though it’s the musicians works the labels used in the negotiations. So far Universal and Sony have made the deal and Warner Music Group is in conversation.

And music creators believe a government bill increasing the royalty rate services that play music need to pay, will increase the payments get back. Umm, it won’t. The record labels and publishers will have more money in their bank account and the creators will still get the payments they always get based on their publishing and label contract.

You see, this is what happens when you create a law that creates a monopoly, which in turn gives rise to corporations who become powerful entities. They are all about their own pockets. People who have created no value and no art are living high, from the hard work of artists.

8 Years Ago (2014)

ROADWAY

I was listening to their self-titled EP from 2011.

They had a song on it called “This Is Why” which is a derivative version of “Soldier of Fortune” from the David Coverdale era of Deep Purple.

“This Is Why” is a great song and no one has even heard it. By the way, it features Doogie White and it actually made me call up “Soldier Of Fortune” on Spotify. Yep, “This Is Why” made me want to revisit the Coverdale era of Purple. I even set up a playlist with both of the songs. It is also their most played song on Spotify, however at 60,000 streams it’s virtually unknown.

Roadway does Seventies hard rock vibe. They have it down and it is so refreshing to hear a current band be influenced by that era, especially when the main songwriter Ross McEwen was born in 1988.

And in 2013, they released another EP called “Set In Stone”.

Check em out on Spotify. You will not be disappointed.

THE METAL MANIFESTO

So without further delay, here is The Metal Manifesto;

  • Metal music is a way to belong. We wear the patches/colours of our favourite bands on t-shirts.
  • Metal heads question everything, as we strive to find our own place in society and our own road to walk on.
  • Metal music is a lifestyle. We live it and we breathe it.
  • Metal music is empowerment. It is freedom. It is release.
  • Metal music has its own heavy metal salute, a call to arms, in which the pinkie and forefinger are raised over a clenched fist. Credit Ronnie James Dio for the salute.
  • Metal music is confrontational. Deal with it.
  • Metal music is diversity. It doesn’t matter what colour, religion or country you are from. We are all one.
  • Metal will never fade into obscurity. It is always there, a survivor of the times.

ALTERNATE HISTORY

What kind of musical history would we have if Randy Rhoads didn’t get on that plane?

The “Bark At The Moon” album would still have been written as Ozzy Osbourne had the song titles already and lyricist Bob Daisley was on board to write lyrics again. The big difference would be the music. Instead of hearing the Jake E Lee riff we would be hearing a Randy Rhoads riff instead.

It is pretty clear from all interviews that Randy Rhoads was growing tired with the touring and the Osbourne camp. And that he would leave Ozzy.

So if Randy Rhoads walks away from Ozzy after the “Bark At The Moon” album, Jake E Lee could still be a candidate for the Ozzy job, as Rough Cutt was nowhere near the level of a platinum selling act.

But Dio might have picked him up after Vivian Campbell left. So how different would the “Dream Evil” album be if Jake E Lee brought the riffs that made up the Ozzy BATM album.

But would the Badlands project have existed if Jake E Lee didn’t get a guitarist gig with a high profile act?

And that’s another wrap for another week.

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

The Record Vault: Def Leppard – Hysteria

I didn’t get into this album when it first came out. I’m okay with that.

But then something strange happened. It started to become part of the conversation. After a few false starts with the singles in Australia, they finally got our attention with “Pour Some Sugar On Me”. So we wanted to hear the album.

Metal and rock fans like to buy what is happening. And happening at the same time was Def Leppard and Guns N Roses. If a person went into the record store to pick up a copy of “Appetite”, they would add “Hysteria” to the purchase and vice versa. That’s how I remember it happening. Both albums were slow burners, percolating, until they exploded onto the scenes behind a few songs, like “Sweet Child O Mine”, “Pour Some Sugar On Me” and “Love Bites”.

“Hysteria” cost over $5 million to write and record. It’s Def Leppard’s fourth album, released in August 1987 on Mercury Records, four years after “Pyromania”.

The album was “eventually” produced “Mutt” Lange who at first, came in and did some work with the band, then left to work on other stuff and then came back. While Lange was gone, Jim Steinman came in, but he spent his time trying to change the carpet in the studio (as the colour didn’t suit his taste) and writing “Bat Out Of Hell 2” Meatloaf’s (RIP) comeback album in the early 90’s.

The band for the album is Joe Elliott, Steve Clark, Phil Collen, Rick Savage and Rick Allen. Rick Allen also came up with the album title, in reference to his 1984 car accident and the loss of his left arm from it.

It is also the last album to feature guitarist Steve Clark (RIP) before his death during the writing of “Adrenalize”. As a guitarist, this one hit me hard when it happened. He wasn’t as popular as EVH or George Lynch or Yngwie Malmsteen or Richie Blackmore or John Sykes, but goddamn, he was one of my favorites. Because he played for the song and he decorated each song with his sense of melody.

Because the album took so long to see the light of day, a book was also published called “Animal Instinct: The Def Leppard Story”, written by Rolling Stone magazine senior editor David Fricke.

“Animal Instinct” was also the original album title, hence the “humanimal” in the “laser bulls eye” on the album cover. Metallica used a similar humanimal cover idea for “Hardwired To Self-Destruct”. And I’m not happy that I stupidly traded it for some vinyl records in the mid 90’s. Those vinyl records mean nothing to me right now, but the book did.

It needs to be mentioned, the loyalty shown by the band to allow Allen to return to the drum kit, using a combination electronic/acoustic kit with a set of electronic pedals that triggered (via MIDI) the sounds that he would have played with his left arm.

Even their management team wasn’t sure if it was possible, but they all gave him the chance. And for all those self development books about positive growth mindsets and grit, well, look no further than Rick Allen. He is the definition of positive growth mindsets and grit.

“Hit Makers” by Derek Thompson mentions how most artists’ best work comes AFTER they’ve had a hit.

Def Leppard had the hit with “Pyromania” and then said to the world, “now that I have your attention, sink your teeth into “Hysteria””.

Following the “Blockbuster” method set out by Hollywood (check out the excellent book by Anita Elberse), the artists wanted to create albums in which every song could be a potential single. It happened with “Thriller”. It happened with “Born In The U.S.A”. It happened with “Hysteria”.

And I know that the traditional metal sound found on “Pyromania” was gone, but I was okay with that as well, as it was taken up by Tesla for their debut album “Mechanical Resonance”. If you don’t believe me, check out tracks like “Modern Day Cowboy”, “Before My Eyes” and “Rock Me To The Top”. Even Cinderella’s debut album has sounds and riffs from Def Leppard’s first three albums.

“Pour Some Sugar On Me” gave the album some legs.

But by June 1988, the band was getting ready to go back into the studio to record the follow up. The tour was coming at an end as well in October.

Then in July, 1988, “Love Bites” dropped as a single and the album started selling like a brand new album. The song gave the album another 15 months of life on the charts and it led to “Rocket” being released as a single in January 1989. And the album just kept on selling.

Women

I didn’t appreciate this song when it was first released as a single, but along with “Gods Of War” it’s one of the most heaviest on the album. Check out the intro lead and that Chorus riff.

Rocket

Musically it’s pretty simple with a F# major arpeggio being the main riff, a Joe Elliot vocal melody in which he raps his favourite acts and a Led Zep inspired “Rock N Roll” break down.

Animal

This song gave the melodic rock movement a heart. And I like how one guitar plays a rhythm track and the other guitar just decorates with melodic fills and leads.

Love Bites

I don’t normally like ballads, but this song is unbelievable. Steve Clark is on Rhythm here and Phil Collen is the decorator, with his melodic fills and leads.

That layered Chorus hook alone, is heavy and with Collen playing those metal like leads, well it’s perfect.

Pour Some Sugar on Me

Step inside I did.

The intro riff is reminiscent of the hard rock songs from their first two albums with a Chorus similar to “I Love Rock N Roll”. And whatever “Sugar” they wanted to have poured over em, they definitely got it.

Armageddon It

The riffs on this song are Classic Rock and from their earlier albums.

The intro riff is “Photograph”. The verse riff is a blues boogie, reminiscent of AC/DC. And the song goes through so many key changes, it’s hard to keep up.

But my favourite part is the E major solo section. Press play and enjoy.

Gods of War

Side 2 begins with my favourite track on the album.

How good is that Beatles “She’s So Heavy” inspired outro?

Even the band realised this song is one of their best, bringing it back into their set lists.

Don’t Shoot Shotgun

It’s AC/DC on pop rock steroids. If you don’t believe check out the verse riff and tell me it’s not AC/DC like.

Run Riot

How good is this song?

Joe Elliot throws his voice out on this one, as he delivers a 60s/70s sugar gum pop vocal in the verses. If anything its very Sweet like with a bit of rockabilly.

Hysteria

Perfection.

And I like how that major key guitar riff for the intro and verses sounds haunting, because of the open G string.

Excitable

I didn’t know what to think of this song.

The start of it with the voices didn’t really get me excitable, but when the vocals kick in, it’s got that soul rock funk vibe, and I love it.

Love and Affection

It’s basically “Animal” part 2. Not that it’s a bad track, but with so many other awesome tracks ending up as B sides, it makes me think the album would have been better served with one of those tracks.

If you look at the albums popularity, it’s 4× Platinum in Australia, Diamond in Canada, Platinum in New Zealand, Gold in Norway, Gold in Sweden, Platinum in Switzerland, 2x Platinum in United Kingdom and 12x Platinum in 12,000,000.

There’s nothing else to be said, except, press play and enjoy a blockbuster release.

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A to Z of Making It, movies, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – January 24 to January 30

4 Years Ago (2018)

ZAKK WYLDE

I overdosed on “A Love Unreal” from Black Label Society.

Since 2014, I have been playing “Angel Of Mercy” non-stop. It’s made my 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 end of year lists. It’s always in my Top 100 Spotify songs I play each year. The guitar solo on it is “guitar hero” level. With “A Love Unreal” Zakk has orchestrated another candidate. The guitar solo on this song is a 10 out of 10 for me.

It’s a song within a song. God damn, the whole solo section is 1 minute and 20 seconds long. There are pop songs on the charts which are 2 minutes long.

8 Years Ago (2014)

METALLICA

The Grammy’s is not about the awards, it is about the performances. The Grammy organisation exists solely to sell a TV show and advertising.

The music websites back then wrote about the performances, and how Metallica mashed up “One” with classical pianist Lang Lang. And they got a 125% boost in Spotify streams for the song “One”. Overall, across their whole catalogue, their Grammy performance gave them a 63% increase.

No one wrote about the actual winners in the Best Metal category.

Who was it again?

That’s right, it was “God Is Dead?” from Black Sabbath, And it didn’t get any traction after the awards.

METAL HEADS

We overpay for music in Australia.

The ACCC, our competition watchdog launched an inquiry into the pricing. The techies went in front of the commission and stated that they didn’t set the price for music in Australia and that the price was set by the Record Labels.

It was found by the Commission that there should be no reason why Australians should pay more for software and music.

However, nothing has changed in relation to the prices. If anything, with the labels pushing vinyl, the prices have quadrupled, with a brand new double vinyl set going for $80.

And music sites would talk about the return of vinyl, but its miniscule compared to what digital brings in. Music is about data. It’s not about how many albums or songs are sold.

Are people listening, sharing and talking about your music?

And if they are, where are these people located, so you can organise ways to tour there and monetise.

DEPRESSING SONGS

I don’t see myself as depressive, but I do have a lot of songs in playlists that are classed as depressive or sad. So I wrote about some of the songs. The link is more in depth however I will summarise.

“Give Me A Sign” is from the album “Dear Agony” by Breaking Benjamin released in 2009. “Break Away” is from the album “The Illusion Of Progress” by Staind released in 2008.

“What A Shame” is from the album “The Sound Of Madness” by Shinedown released in 2008. “Broken Bones” is from the album “Light Me Up” by “The Rev Theory” released in 2008.

“Let Me Be Myself” is from the self-tilted Three Doors Down album released in 2008. “Alias” is from the album, “A Sense Of Purpose”, released in 2009.

“Wake Up” is from Story Of The Year, who are a very underrated band in the metal community. From the outset they got labelled as Emo. However, to me I always saw them as a metal band. This song is from the “The Black Swan”, released in 2008.

“That Was Just Your Life” has so many familiar bits, like the “Enter Sandman” riff backwards, the harmony guitars at about the 5.50 minute mark ripping Thin Lizzy rip offs and a section in which they plagiarise “Jump In The Fire”. Call it a great song, to open up the “Death Magnetic”.

“The Forgotten” is from the last album of the Howard Jones/Killswitch Engage era released in 2009 and what an album it is.

“The Unforgiven III” is another Metallica classic.

Set sail to sea, but pulled off course

LIFE MESSAGES FROM MOVIES

American Hustle and The Wolf Of Wall Street

These two movies are for all the people who believe that if you work hard, get a good education and put in the 12 hour days, that somehow, success will work itself out and befall on them.

But it doesn’t really happen that way at all. Everybody is putting a scam in motion.

What these movies have shown is that it doesn’t matter what level of education a person has. It doesn’t mean that they will win. Quitters never win and it is the winners that write history. The winners write history because they bend the laws and they twist social morals to suit them. People may not like it, but it’s the truth.

Oblivion

I love it’s eeriness.

This movie is for the people who only believe what they are told and even when they come across something that questions that belief, they re-frame it and twist it, so that it conforms with what they believe in, because that is all the know. Whatever Mission Control said was the truth and the whole truth.

We life in an information society right now with everything at our fingertips.

Don’t be a fool. Do your own research and question everything. Don’t just follow. Whereas “The Wolf Of Wall Street” and “American Hustle” reflect the hustling mentality of life, “Oblivion” reflects our servitude to institutions.

Now You See Me

This movie is a sleeper hit. For a movie that cost $75 million to make and promote, it has returned over $350 million.

World War Z

I wrote back then how we have had a pretty clean run in relation to pandemics compared to previous centuries. I guess it was a bit premature.

In “World War Z” the virus needs a viable host to spread and therefore it is found that people inflicted with various diseases are immune from the zombie swarms as they cannot spread the disease.

Respect our world is the message that I get from WWZ. The more we disrespect it and pollute it, the more we and our future generations will suffer.

And the rich pharmaceutical companies care about treatments. There is no money in cures for them.

RICHIE SAMBORA

I found an Hot Metal article from November 1991 on Richie Sambora, so I did the painstaking task of typing it all up and adding my own comments. The interviewer is Stefan Chirazi and it was part of Sambora’s press campaign for his first solo album “Stranger In This Town”.

1991 was three years after “New Jersey” came out and five years after “Slippery When Wet.” The band Bon Jovi was on hiatus meanwhile Jon Bon Jovi had another hit with “Blaze Of Glory.” This was a crucial time for the artist known as Richie Sambora.

Here are some quotes from the article;

“I don’t consider myself a rock or pop star, I consider myself a musician and I would like people to consider me as an artist.”

“At the time Blaze Of Glory hit, Jon said he didn’t really know if he wanted to go on with the band again. That kind of left me in a difficult position because I didn’t have a record contract and I didn’t have a contract with Bon Jovi.”

“Then, at the end of our last tour, we had some disagreements about different things. I owned the record company which is now Jamco and used to be The Underground – Jon and I and Doc McGhee owned it all together. And I didn’t wanna be part of that anymore because I was so tired and beat up from being out there so long.”

“Bon Jovi’s sold 30 million records and I can’t even evaluate that or relate it to real terms. All I know is that I work as hard as I can, and at this stage of my career I’m still working this hard.”

1992 – The Year That Hard Rock Forgot

1992 was the year of transition.

Once the year was over; hard rock, melodic rock, glam rock and so forth would never be the same. In relation to hard rock releases, what a year it was. So many great albums got released, however according to the record labels barometer of success, those albums failed miserably.

One of the best releases from 1992 was “Blood and Bullets” by Widowmaker. Not only is it a great album, it was also the first “official” album to feature Dee Snider from Twisted Sister after Twisted Sister.

Along with the self-titled Lynch Mob album, “The Crimson Idol” from W.A.S.P., “Dog Eat Dog” from Warrant, “III Sides to Every Story” from Extreme, “Sin-Decade” from Pretty Maids and “Revenge” from Kiss, it formed my decadent seven wonders of heavy rock.

My metal tastes got serviced by “Countdown to Extinction” from Megadeth, “Fear of the Dark” from Iron Maiden, “The Ritual” from Testament, “Dehumanizer” from Black Sabbath, “A Vulgar Display of Power” from Pantera and a new band from Seattle called Alice In Chains” and their excellent “Dirt”.

Dream Theater blew me away with “Images and Words” while Yngwie Malmsteen delivered the excellent “Fire and Ice” and no one outside of his hardcore fan base heard it. Another neo-classical shredder Tony MacAlpine released “Freedom To Fly” and boy didn’t he fly with it.

“Hold Your Fire” from Firehouse, “Five Wicked Ways” from Candy Harlots, “Don’t Tread” from Damn Yankees, “The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion” from The Black Crowes, “The Wild Life” from Slaughter, “Nothing Sacred” by Babylon A.D., “Hear” from Trixter, “Tangled In Reins” from Steelheart, “Double Eclipse” from Hardline and “Adrenalize” from Def Leppard satisfied by hard rock cravings.

And the record labels just abandoned this music.

PEARL JAM – BLACK

Smith and Myers cover this song.

I didn’t like “Even Flow” or “Alive” when they hit the air waves back in 1991. They just didn’t connect with me at that point in time. In addition, I was really anti-grunge because all of the rock bands that I was into started to disappear.

So I was staying loyal to my team. The hard rock team.

Then in 1993, I saw a live performance of the band on MTV doing “Jeremy” and then they went into “Rockin In The Free World” with Neil Young and suddenly, I was interested. Loyalty to hard/glam rock was still strong, however in the end I am a fan of music and if there is great music to hear from other genre’s I will dig deep and hear it. So I asked a previous hard rock friend of mine who switched to the grunge side to copy the album onto a cassette for me.

Oh, the shame of admitting defeat.

And that’s another wrap for another week.

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

The Record Vault: Def Leppard – Pyromania

In 1983 and 84, it felt like there was “Pyromania” and then there was everything else.

Quiet Riot didn’t have the same success in Australia that they had in the U.S and Motley Crue was a few years away from their “Home Sweet Home” fame in Australia.

The Lep’s wanted to be on top of the pop charts. That was their mission. The rise was slow but gradual.

If you like rock and metal music, you would like this album. If you like pop and other forms of music, you would still like this album.

The “Pyromania” story begins with “High ’N’ Dry”.

The album didn’t sell what the band and the label expected it to sell. And their UK headlining tour had them selling 25% of the tickets. In other words, they were pulling in between 400-500 people in 2000-seat theatres.

Def Leppard was then given a supporting slot on the European Leg of the “Point Of Entry” tour by Judas Priest. But they never had a chance to make an impact, coming on second after Accept, who had massive momentum with “Balls To The Wall”.

The tour finished in December, 1981.

But the band was busy writing riffs on the road and man, they sure had a lot for new songs. They also revisited some older songs and rewrote em lyrically or rearranged em musically.

“Medicine Man” wasnt good enough to make the “High ‘N’ Dry” album but it was beefed up and retitled “Rock Rock (Till You Drop)”. With new lyrics, it became the album opener.

There was another unfinished track which was described as “a dual-guitar pop song” by Joe Elliot in an interview at TeamRock.com. Well that song was also finally completed, and it became known as “Photograph”.

Producer Mutt Lange, was also on board, being listed as a co-writer on all of the album’s 10 tracks which bothered Willis as he believed that wasn’t the case.

When the band was given the green light to record, the budget was tight. Two albums in, the band was in debt to their label to the tune of £700,000, and each band member was on wages of £40 a week.

A cold hard truth on the realities of the recording business and the creative accounting of the labels is that the bands incur debts that could last forever.

The album finally hit the streets in January 1983.

But.

The album was selling slow in the U.K. A showcase gig at the Marquee Club in London on February 9 had a very small attendance.

But in North America, it was a different story.

MTV put the songs “Photograph,” “Foolin’” and “Rock of Ages” on constant rotation.

Suddenly rock and metal bands changed the way they recorded. NWOBHM bands started to sing more melodically and with multi-layered backing vocals.

Joe Elliot once said that he wanted the power of AC/DC mixed with the variety of Queen for Def Leppard. That equals “Pyromania”.

I had the vinyl but it was also in the same box that went missing during a house move however I picked this up on CD.

Rock Rock (Till You Drop)

It’s a sound and groove that Cinderella and Kix and many other U.S acts would put to good use to build careers’ on.

But it was guitarist Pete Willis who wrote the riff to “Rock Rock (Till You Drop)” however he’s not credited.

Willis and Lange didn’t get along at all, constantly clashing with each other in the studio which then also led to tension with the other members.

As a founding member, Willis didn’t believe he could be removed or fired. But removed he was.

Anything goes

Photograph

There is no denying the riff. It’s as good as any of the classic riffs that guitarists play in guitar shops and so forth. Structurally, the song goes all AC/DC style riffing in the verses and pop rock like in the Chorus.

Stagefright

Rick Savage came up “Stagefright”.

It’s got this Sweet “Action” vibe merged with metal riffage in the verses and a pop chorus.

Too Late For Love

As soon as this song starts off, I swear I’ve heard it somewhere else.

Die Hard The Hunter

You feel the sadness as soon as the Emadd9 clean tone arpeggios kick in and it gets even sadder when Joe starts singing “Let’s toast”. Then it goes into a riff that Queensryche used when they wrote “Revolution Calling”.

That section from 4.05 to 5.05 always gets me to stop what I’m doing and start paying attention.

Foolin

The opener to Side 2, with that majestic guitar part.

The magic is in the arpeggiated intro and the eventual build up with the layered backing vocals singing “Is anybody out there?”.

This song stands the test of time.

The lead break begins with a call and response. It reminds me of “Over The Mountain” from Randy Rhoads and Ozzy.

Rock Of Ages

The first time I heard em.

Yeah, it’s better to burn out / Yeah, than fade away

A rock and rollers creed.

Rise up, gather ’round / Rock this place to the ground

Burn it up, let’s go for broke / Watch the night go up in smoke

Rock on (rock on) / Drive me crazier / No serenade, no fire brigade / Just the pyromania, come on

This is the embryo of “Pour Some Sugar On Me” and they take inspiration from Queen, by using songs like “We Will Rock You” and “Another One Bites The Dust” as influences for the verse delivery/structure.

When the Chorus comes in after two verses, it’s well worth the wait. “Don’t Stop Believin’” from Journey also used this kind of song structure.

Rock of ages, rock of ages / Still rollin’, keep a-rollin’

Rock of ages, rock of ages / Still rollin’, rock ‘n’ rollin’

You won’t be able to stop yourself from singing along with the chorus.

Comin Under Fire

This song is a must for any guitarist. It merges 70’s classic rock, with the NWOBHM sound with Scorpions Euro Metal.

The intro alone has it all.

Arpeggiated guitar lines hook you in and then the pedal point riff blasts through the speakers.

When the verses come in, we are greeted with volume swells that outline the different chords.

Like the pre-chorus of “Foolin”, the chorus of “Comin Under Fire” has excellent layered backing vocals. Lyrically, it’s not the best, but musically, it rules.

Billy’s Got A Gun

Steve Clark was a Jimmy Page fan, so it was no surprise that he was the one who created this Zeppelin-influenced epic.

Never underestimate the ability of a song to paint a picture.

This is my favourite Def Leppard cut and it has so many good bits.

The verse bass riff reminds me of “Heaven and Hell”. The backing vocals are so layered, melodic and operatic. The overall drum groove reminds of “Kashmir”. And I guarantee you that Chris DeGarmo, Geoff Tate and Michael Wilton all had this album and paid particular attention to this song as the “Operation Mindcrime” album is musically influenced by “Billy’s Got A Gun”.

And you get an unbelievable solo and an ending that makes you press play again, so you hear the album over and over and over again.

As time marches forward, the greatness and power of this song is being forgotten.

And it’s like the band made a crossroads deal to achieve fame. The success of this album put the band members on different paths than the previous ones they were on and that would lead to different outcomes for them.

On New Years Eve, 1984, Rick Allen went to overtake a car and failed to negotiate the bend. He lost part of his left hand in the accident and surgery to reattach it, led to an infection and then eventual surgical amputation.

And no one knew it at the time, but it was going to be long wait for the next album.

On a side note, Trevor Rabin and Mike Slamer are both thanked in the credits.

Those two dudes are very well known session guitarists, so I’m asking the question; did they actually play on this?

Slamer was used by producer Beau Hill on most of the records he produced in the 80s. If you have an Alice Cooper, Kix, Winger, Streets, Warrant, Fiona, Europe, Twisted Sister and Ratt album, then there is a high chance that Slamer played on it.

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Influenced, Music, My Stories

The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – January 16 to January 23

I’ve been all over the place with posts this month.

It all started when I got Covid around the 7 January (from my brother in law who had it and decided to keep it secret and infect us all) and although I’m triple vaxed, there are still some minor symptoms like a constant cough, a small temperature increase and just tiredness or laziness.

So these posts are normally released on Sunday’s but I’ve been late.

4 Years Ago (2018)

FORGOTTEN 80’S

“Better Days”, “Taking On The World” and “The Feeling Within”. From Gun, a very underrated and under-appreciated band.

With their debut album, GUN got lumped in with the hard rock/glam rock style of bands because that’s the only way the record labels knew how to promote the music. They would basically compare it to something else which is popular and hopefully they would get 10% of that audience to buy blind. 30 years later, it’s still the only way record labels know how to promote music.

“Now Forever After” and “Stargazer”. From Kingdom Come.

The most well-known version of the band only lasted two albums and one touring cycle. By the late 80’s the record labels didn’t care about artist development. It was all about platinum certifications. If the artist got one, they had another shot. If the artist didn’t get one, they got dropped.

Kingdom Come went platinum with their debut and their follow up didn’t set any sales record alight, even though it was better musically than the debut.

Musically, Kingdom Come had three sides. One side was the 70’s inspired classic rock of Led Zeppelin. The other side was the blues rock of AC/DC, while the third side was the Euro melodic rock inspired by Deep Purple, Scorpions and Rainbow combined with a little bit of Toto and Styx.

Check em out.

“I Believe In You”, “Knock You Out” and “Hands Of Time”. From Y&T.

For many, “Earthshaker” is a landmark album. If you took all of the different rock stylings happening at the time, and put them into the Y&T blender, “Earthshaker” is the result.

For Y&T, they were just happy to have a deal with A&M, after two albums on a different label who had had no clue what to do with the band.

Coming into the album, Y&T had already played the songs live quite a bit, hence the reason why everyone who heard the album said, “wow, these songs would really work live”.

“Abandon” and “Heartbreaker”. From Dare.

Both songs are from the “Out Of The Silence” album released in 1988 on A&M records. Dare was formed in 1985 by former Thin Lizzy keyboard player Darren Wharton after Phil Lynott had dissolved the band.

They had some success and when their second album “Blood From Stone” released in 1991 tanked in the sales department, the band was dropped.

“Lovers”. From Fate.

One of those acts who are classed as B or C level. This is from the “Cruisin’ For A Bruisin’ album released in 1988. A friend of mine had this album and he dubbed it on a blank cassette for me around 1992. I knew nothing of the band back then and I still don’t know anything about the band today, but what can I say, I’m a sucker for a derivative and clichéd melodic rock song and as soon as the Aldo Nova “Fantasy” influence kicked the song off, I was hooked.

“Future World”, “We Came To Rock”, “Yellow Rain”, “Loud’N’Proud” and “Rodeo”. From Pretty Maids.

They should have had more mainstream success. Not sure if the band name helped their chances or hindered them. Check out the “Future World” album.

“Under The Gun” and “Turn It On”. From Danger Danger.

For a band formed in 1987, they had Al Pitrelli on guitar for a brief time, and after they got a recording contract, Pitrelli left and was replaced by Saraya guitarist Tony “Bruno” Rey (who actually played on the debut album) before he returned to Saraya and Andy Timmons replaced him and played on the rest of their debut album, which was released in the same year.

“Long Way From Home” and “Angel In My Heart”. From Britny Fox.

Carbon copy of Cinderella, Britny Fox formed in 1986 in Philadelphia. In fact, the band had former members of Cinderella in its roster and their connections to Cinderella allowed the band to secure a major recording contract. And while they sounded like other bands, I’m still a sucker for derivative rock.

“Misery Loves Company”, “Nobody Knows”, “Hard Luck” and “Letters In The Rain”. From Lillian Axe.

Formed in 1987, they caught the attention of Ratt’s management which led to a record deal with MCA and Ratt’s Robbin Crosby producing the band’s first album, “Lillian Axe”.

As Wikipedia tells me, neither the debut nor the 1989 follow-up, “Love + War”, met commercial expectations and the group was quickly dropped. But check em out.

“The Right To Rock”, “United Nations”, “King Of The Rock” and “Don’t Say You Love Me”. From Keel.

The rock is strong with Keel.

And Ron Keel was always a full throttle with his voice.

Don’t let anyone tell you
How to live your life
But they do tell us how to live our lives. If you have a credit card, you are being told how to live your life with each monthly repayment. If you have a mortgage, you are being told how to live your life with each monthly repayment. God forbid if you are late. If you have are employed, you are told how to live your live every single day, just so you get that fortnight or monthly pay gets deposited into your account.

I’ll make my stand
If you’re with me, raise your hands

We had splintered by 1987.

Metallica went on tour with James Hetfield having a sticker on his guitar that said something like “Kill Bon Jovi”.

Mustaine called Queensryche “Yuppie metal”.

Any artist that introduced keyboards or had keyboard players got labelled as sell-outs. Any artist that brought in outside writers also got labelled sell-outs.

The label marketing machine was in overdrive creating new genres. We had Glam Rock, Pop Metal, and Glam Metal. We had hard rock, progressive rock, psychedelic rock and pop rock. We had thrash metal and speed metal. We had heavy metal and technical metal and progressive metal. Death metal was becoming a thing. Europe was having their own thing happening with power metal, progressive classical metal, folk metal and the embers of a black metal scene were beginning.


In the states, hard core was a thing and when it became heavy, grindcore became a genre. Punk was just punk, once upon a time. Then it became post punk, punk rock, punk metal and punk pop.

It’s like that scene in “The Warriors” with Cyrus trying to unite the gangs. It didn’t end well for Cyrus.

8 Years Ago (2014)

ADAM DUCE

When original founding members are removed from the band they founded, the only winners are the lawyers.

Adam Duce claimed that Machine Head kicked him out of the band just before they signed a new record deal however the Machine Head camp said, Duce left on his own because he was “sick of it”.

So Duce sued the band, its three current members and manager in Federal Court, alleging trademark infringement, breach of partnership agreement and defamation, among other things.

When a member leaves or is fired from a band (depending on what story you believe), this rubbish normally happens.

It will all come down to the band agreement in place. Being in bands previously, the band agreement is a document that is meant to be fair amongst the band members. So if the other members feel like they are putting in more effort, then why should they split things evenly.

Robb Flynn is a lifer when it comes to music. He lives and breathes Machine Head. He is the main songwriter, the one that goes home and thinks about Machine Head. The one that dreams about Machine Head. The one that stays to the late hours recording the albums, mixing them and all of that.

There are no winners in court cases like these except the lawyers/attorneys.

And a few months later, the case was settled with the terms of the deal remaining confidential as both sides were able to reach a satisfactory agreement.

Fast forward to 2019, Adam Duce, Phil Demmel and Dave McClain had a jam session at the opening night of Demmel’s Pub. Which is bizarre as McClain was going to quit Machine Head if Duce remained.

I guess hell had frozen over.

CHAOS

It’s a chaotic and disruptive time in the music business and with chaos comes opportunity.

On one side you have COPYRIGHT. And that can be broken down into a lot of other little chaotic categories like infringement, the length of copyright terms, copyright monopolies, the lack of works entering the public domain and so on.
The public domain is culture. Keith Richards once said, ‘you can’t copyright the blues.’

Culture is built and expanded by sharing stories and building on the works of others. Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and all of the sixties greats like Hendrix, Clapton and Beck used this concept. They built off the blues.

However copyright law and its real purpose got hijacked by corporations and everything changed. Instead of culture being built up in the works that the public creates and shares, the public is now faced with copyright corporations locking away works that should be in the public domain by now.

It is important to respect the public domain.

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE SCENES

Video games are one of those peculiar cultural items where the games are well-known, however the actual designers are not really known.

Does anyone know the names of Tomohiro Nishikado (“Space Invaders”) or Toru Iwatani (“Pac-Man”) or Yu Suzuki (“Outrun”)?

I didn’t, however I knew the games and I even spoke about the games to my kids.

And it got me thinking about some names behind some of the great music that I love.

Tom Werman is one person that comes to mind immediately. Regardless of the different versions of history out there from some of the artists that he worked with, one thing is clear; Tom Werman was a pop producer who got selected by the A&R people of the labels as the man to get hard rock acts on the radio. And he did that job with a lot of Gold and Platinum certifications along the way

Michael Wagener is another that comes to mind. He was a producer, an engineer and a mixer.

What about Randy Staub?

He engineered “Dr Feelgood” from Motley Crue, the black album from Metallica, “Keep The Faith” from Bon Jovi, Motley Crue’s self titled album, “Subhuman Race” from Skid Row, “Load” and “Reload” from Metallica, “Satellite” from POD and many others like Five Finger Death Punch’s “War Is The Answer.” He never was the Producer but was an in demand engineer. Those sounds are from Staub.

Mike Fraser is another whose name is in the majority of albums that I like as mixer.

Of course there are others like Max Norman, Roy Thomas Baker, Jack Douglas, Bruce Fairbairn, Bob Rock, Duane Baron/John Purdell, Dave Prater and many more that shaped the albums that we have come to known to love. The music has achieved worldwide acclaim, the bands and the song writers have achieved worldwide acclaim however a lot of the people behind the scenes that captured the sounds, mixed them, edited them, spoke out about arrangements and so forth, have not.

ZEBRA

Randy Jackson from the band Zebra does Robert Plant better than Robert Plant!

It was Dream Theater’s cover of their song “Take Your Fingers From My Hair” in 2009 that re-awakened my interest in Zebra.

Isn’t it funny how a cover song brings back the original song and the band into the psyche.

Jackson founded Zebra in 1975.

They had a very large following before their first record ever came out in 1983 on Atlantic Records.

Like most bands in the later part of the Seventies and the early part of their Eighties, most of their fan base had been developed from their live shows.

In addition, the majority of the bands had been slugging it out for a decent time in the clubs before getting their recording contract.

The follow-up album “No Tellin Lies” in 1984 stalled in the U.S and by 1986, their 3.V album wasn’t even noticed and Atlantic dropped them.

Then it was over.

Randy Jackson formed China Rain and they lived in development hell and never got a fair shake.

Randy Jackson finished the China Rain record in 1990 and Atlantic Records decided not to release it. Sound familiar. Gatekeepers controlling the fate of musicians. Dee Snider suffered the same fate with his “Desperado” project.

From 1992 to 1996, Randy was involved in the development of an interactive musical instrument called “The Key”.

“Zebra IV” started recording in 1996. The drums were done in a week in 1996 and the rest of the album was done sporadically after that. The album didn’t see the light of day until 2003.

Throughout the Nineties, Randy also built up his acoustic shows. Nobody wanted to book him in the beginning, even his trusted agents in New Orleans who had booked Zebra for 20 years rejected him. Now he is playing places like Japan and criss crossing the US and he hasn’t even put out a record of the acoustic project. Yep, while labels and artist still believe it is about the album, here is Randy Jackson delivering a show that is spreading via word of mouth.

In between Randy did “The Sign”, a melodic rock supergroup. He also handles the vocals for the wildly successful Symphonic Music shows of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Eagles performing to packed houses across the country (from 1996).

He is a lifer in the music business. Prepared to do what he needs to do to get. He didn’t get the fame that other bands did, however it didn’t mean he didn’t have success.

LIFERS

If you want to have a career in the music business, “Lifer” is a term that you need to get used to. I’m other words, you need to be in it for life.

CREDITS

Sebastian Bach believes he’s been ripped on the songwriting credits of the songs that Bolan and Sabo wrote. Doc McGhee said that Bach doesn’t understand how Copyright works and that their is a difference between writing a song and performing a song.

Some musicians believe that their performance on the song should give them a songwriter credit, which is a false belief.

There is always a main songwriter in each band. That is why in Motley Crue you see a lot of songs written by Nikki Sixx. Iron Maiden have Steve Harris. Skid Row has Rachel Bolan. Zebra has Randy Jackson. The Police had Sting.

In the majority of the cases, the original song writer will be listed as the song writer. There could be a band agreement in place here that distributes monies earned from the songwriter to the other band members in relation to licensing royalties.

Dee Snider had one with Jay Jay French.

Van Halen had one but in the 90s they started to give the songwriting credits to the people involved in the songwriting and that didn’t include Michael Anthony.

WICKED SENSATION

Dokken didn’t get much traction in Australia so you rarely saw them on the music television shows in Australia.

And just when Dokken had the world in their hands, unresolved internal conflicts made the members part ways. The internal conflicts stem back from the beginning of Dokken.

This is how drummer Mick Brown summed up the conflicts;

“A few years after running into Don Dokken, 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” (laughing) but he did anyway.”

And if there was any doubt to Lynch’s guitar god status, “Wicked Sensation” cemented it.

In 1990, I was in a rut in relation to my guitar playing. “Wicked Sensation” re-awakened my desire and showed me new ways to play chords, create rhythms and structures.

Much in the same way that the “Randy Rhoads Tribute” album and Tesla’s “The Great Radio Controversy” became my bibles, “Wicked Sensation” was next in my list.

And that’s another wrap for another week.

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

1986 – Part 4.2: Quiet Riot – QR III

“QR III” or “Quiet Riot III” is actually the fifth studio album from Quiet Riot if you can the “QRI” and “QRII” albums with Randy Rhoads.

It was released in 1986 on Pasha/CBS and it is the last album to feature lead singer Kevin DuBrow until the 1993 album “Terrified” which got a zero skull review in an Australian mag and the word “Terrible” as part of the review.

It’s produced by Spencer Proffer again with John Purdell.

A funny thing was happening in 1986. For some strange reason, artists who had massive sales in 1983 and 1984, struggled to match those sales a few years later.

Twisted Sister had big sales in 1983 and 1984 and they played to half empty venues on the “Come Out And Play” tour in 1985 and by 86, no one really cared about em and by 87 they had broken up.

Judas Priest had declining album sales by 1986, but still proved to be a big drawcard on the live circuit.

Ratt couldn’t match the success of their 1984 debut and by 1986, “Dancing Undercover” was just a blimp on the charts.

And then we have Quiet Riot.

Following the massive success of “Metal Health” and the more modest reception of “Condition Critical”, sales of “QR III” were even lower and it did not achieve any certification.

This Quiet Riot album is also the first album to feature Chuck Wright, formerly of Giuffria, on bass as an official member replacing Rudy Sarzo.

Wright joins Kevin DuBrow, Frankie Banali and Carlos Cavazo.

Before I get into the album, it’s worth mentioning that I never understood the argument put forward about bands rocking less when keyboards are involved. This album has a lot of keys but it still rocks.

Main Attraction

It’s a songwriting committee of Carlos Cavazo, Frankie Banali, Kevin DuBrow, Spencer Proffer, John Purdell and Chuck Wright.

They keys are prominent and the track could be mistaken for a Styx or Toto track.

The Wild and the Young

The song is written by Proffer, Banali, Cavazo, DuBrow and Wright.

Behind “Bang Your Head”, “The Wild and the Young” is the next best original.

The drum groove from Banali starts things off. Then the guitars and the keys play in unison until Cavazo overdubs a memorable little lead.

And the vocals start. While DuBrow is more miss with his lyrics, on this song he’s perfect with his message and delivery.

The music video for the song wasn’t cheap as it shows a dystopian future under control by a totalitarian militarist government and they are trying to round up anyone who is listening to rock music.

Twilight Hotel

Written by Wright, Banali, Cavazo, DuBrow and Proffer. I was drawn to this song immediately because it was different musically.

Down and Dirty

Written by Dubrow, Banali, Cavazo and Wright. It’s written as “Dow And Dirty” on Spotify. It’s typical hard rock and of the times.

Rise or Fall

Written by Dubrow, Banali, Cavazo and Wright.

I dig the opening riff on this. And Cavazo goes to town on the lead break.

Put Up or Shut Up

Written by Dubrow, Banali, Cavazo and Wright.

CC DeVille would have been listening to this as the main riff sounds like something that DeVille tweaked for “Nothin But A Good Time”.

Still of the Night

It’s written by the same songwriting team that wrote “Main Attraction”.

The cut is excellent, a soft rocker but so far removed from the “power ballad” formula.

Bobby Kimball from Toto performs backing vocals on the track, however the “backing” vocals are really cranked up in the Chorus, so it’s safe to say that Kimball was brought in to be the lead vocal there.

Bass Case

It’s an Instrumental written by Wright and all bass. For a minute length, I’m not sure why this is here.

The Pump

Written by Banali, Cavazo, DuBrow and Wright. It’s an attempt to capture “The Stroke” from Billy Squier.

I’m surprised that this song hasn’t been sampled by the rappers as it’s got a lot of good bits in it.

Slave to Love

The mighty Stan Bush is here as a songwriter, along with the committee of Banali, Cavazo, DuBrow, Proffer and Wright.

Musically it’s excellent. It’s almost melodic Metal The melodies are also excellent. Lyrically it’s crap.

Helping Hands

Written by Dubrow, Banali, Cavazo and Wright. It’s an underrated cut with a heavy 70s influence with a killer lead by Cavazo.

While a lot of people were off the QR train by the time this album hit the streets I wasn’t one of em. I was hooked by the music video for “The Wild And The Young” and when I saw the High Syme cover I was happy to part with my money.

Musically it’s a very mature album and an album that’s aged well.

Check out and be wild and young again.

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Influenced, Music, My Stories

The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – January 9 to January 15

Damn, I just realized I didn’t post this on my usual Sunday.

4 Years Ago (2018)

PUBLIC DOMAIN 2018

A simple post about the works not entering the public domain but should have been.

COPYRIGHT SUITS

Lana Del Rey and Radiohead went to war, with Radiohead suing her for copyright infringement in her song “Get Free” which has a verse that sounds similar to “Creep” released in 1992.

Boy George had the best quote on his Twitter account. “Radiohead were sued by The Hollies and now Radiohead are suing Lana Del Rey. Utter Madness!”

RANDOM LISTENING – THUNDER BAY VERSION

These artists albums came from Deke’s EOY list for 2017.

Greta Van Fleet – From The Fires

I thought it was Wolfmother.

“Edge Of Darkness” is the song that hooked me. It’s feel and groove, which is a cross between Southern Rock and Led Zep’s style of rock is infectious.

And I heard the album that came after and it was boring but I’m still interested as to see what comes next.

Headstones – Little Army

Check out the lyrics.

  • “We’ll I’m a red meat eater, liar and cheater”… from “Devils On Fire”.
    Take that all you politically correct wannabes.
  • “You won’t lift your finger to get your s!!t out of this” … from “Little Army”.
    Blaming others when something goes wrong and doing nothing to fix the problem.
  • “You’re singing the same old song, it’s called “sucking the life outta me”… from “Dead To Me”.
    You gotta love relationships.

Cheap Trick – We’re All Alright

I was never a Cheap Trick fan. Bands I liked always mentioned them as influences, but when you have limited funds to purchase music, I avoided Cheap Trick.

“Brand New Name On An Old Tattoo” is an excellent song title and the song is pretty cool as well. “Floating Down” rocks hard for a mid-tempo song, and the vocal line is infectious and “If You Still Want My Love” is a bonus track on the deluxe version that probably no one would hear.

And youngsters won’t care about this album and the extra few million who purchased “Lap Of Luxury” because of “The Flame” won’t care either. But there are people who will care!

Europe – Walk The Earth and The Final Countdown 30th Anniversary live

Europe nailed it.

They started off with the whole “War Of Kings” album and then played the whole “The Final Countdown” album.

When Joey Tempest screams, “Are you ready London?” the answer is a unanimous cheer.

Stephen Pearcy – Smash

Does anyone care if Stephen Pearcy is running solo?

The “Unchained” sounding “Ten Miles Wide” is cool while “Rain” is interesting musically and it has some decent lyrics. “Want Too Much” works but the piece d’resistance is “Passion Infinity”. Everything just fits and works brilliantly together.

Finally “Summers End” is another song that surprised me with its epic “Kashmir” feel.

Not bad from the Rattster. I wanted another album after this but it never came.

Collective Soul – Live

They don’t disappoint and they have the catalogue of songs to keep the live show ticking over.

I also dig the change to have “Shine” starting off with the piano and how they jam it out “Lynyrd Skynyrd” style at the end, turning one of their biggest songs into a 7 minute jam epic is worth the price of admission alone.

MEMPHIS THREE

If you want to know what society and politics is like, just look at the documentary “West Of Memphis”.

In it you will see incompetence and political corruption.

Three metal head kids (the Memphis Three) are arrested for the murders of three 8-year olds. They are convicted of murder and did more than 18 years in prison.

But they are out now as the whole case against them in a Bible Belt town was all bullshit.

And what the hell is an Alford Plea?

I looked it up on Wikipedia.

The Prosecutors knew they had to release them, but the only way they would do it is by an Alford Plea, so the Memphis Three claim their innocence but plead guilty. The tragedy is the killer still walks free and law enforcement can’t go after any other suspect because a piece of paper says they have the killers.

And the current prosecutor at the end of the doco is a joke. He’s saying those kids are guilty.  If they are guilty why didn’t he go to a re-trial then?

He knew he was going to lose the re-trial because the weight of new evidence found was in favour of the Memphis Three and he would lose votes and lose his position as City Prosecutor.

GRIT

Never quit. Good things come from frustration. If you are upset about failing, it just means that you haven’t failed enough.

Dream Theater almost called it a day, during the period between 1988 and 1991, when months rolled by and no suitable singer appeared.

Perseverance is a skill. It keeps you estranged from the conventions of society.

Ronnie James Dio spent 18 years paying his dues before finding success with Rainbow in 1976.

How many musicians starting out today will put in 18 years of service to music?

Breakthrough work is usually rejected at first. Success is slow.

There is plenty of money to be made in the long run if you don’t make money your number one priority. Start small and remember you don’t have to start perfect.

Just start.

8 Years Ago (2014)

THE CHALLENGE

The record labels arose as a way to get music out of its city venue limitations and into the greater world.

However in time these record labels formed into mega corporations with the emphasis on lower costs and high profit margins.

Throughout the Eighties and Nineties, the labels employed people that figured out how to engineer processes and machines to drive productivity and profit.

The labels ruled the kingdom unchallenged until another player called social disruption reared its head.

It started with a technology called Napster and society showed the powerful record labels what they really think of their high prices.

In the last 20 years, the record labels have constantly stated that the “biggest threat” they face is continued copyright infringement.

They point to research that shows how it is destroying businesses, employments and other sectors. They get people in the press and they get elected politicians on their side to believe those claims. Because, hey, big copyright monopoly companies said that copyright infringement is a threat so it must be a threat.

Did you know that Vivendi (owner of Universal Music) commissioned 23 reports and only 5 of those reports mentioned copyright infringement as a potential risk?

Guess which reports get released to the public.

Did you know that Sony (Sony Music and Sony Pictures) commissioned 15 reports and only 2 of those reports mentioned copyright infringement as a potential risk?

But in their recent annual report, the company listed copyright infringement as a major risk to their business, however 13 reports out of 15 disagree.

The record labels seem to forget that their business is reliant on humans forming a connection with an artist. Yep, with the artist. Not with the label.

THE KASHMIR EFFECT

Great songs don’t happen overnight or by a committee. They happen by jamming and by creating derivative accidents.

If there was any doubt about the power of “Kashmir”, then look no further than the metal and rock movements during the Eighties.

Kingdom Come’s derivative version “Get it On” helped the self-titled Kingdom Come album released in 1988 move over a million units in the U.S.

Whitesnake employed the same technique in “Judgement Day” from the “Slip Of The Tongue” album, which even though it didn’t reach the sale heights of the self-titled 1987 album, it still moved over a million copies in 1989.

In the Nineties, the main riff was used by Puff Daddy in the song “Come with Me”.

The defining part of the song is the ascending chromatic riff over a pedal point which is made even greater by the drumming from John Bonham, playing slightly behind the beat.

Dave Mustaine is a great employer of this technique.

“In My Darkest Hour” and “The Call Of Ktulu/Hanger 18” both employ this technique,

“Mary Jane” from the “So Far, So Good, So What” album released in 1988 has a riff which comes in at 0.46 and continues throughout the song. If it sounds familiar, it should, it is a very close derivative version of “In My Darkest Hour”.

“This Was My Life” from the “Countdown To Extinction” album released in 1992 has the main verse riff.

“Public Enema Number 1” from the “Th1rte3n” album released in 2011 has the main verse riff.

“The Kingmaker” from the “Super Collider” album released in 2013 has the Chorus riff.

Check em out if you don’t believe me.

THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE

“The Thing That Should Not Be” from Metallica is inspired by H.P Lovecraft. It is the story of Cthulu the Apocalyptic Elder God lying in a dream state within his sunken kingdom of R’lyeh.

Today, “The Thing That Should Not Be” is the story of Copyright.

In 1998, the US Congress agreed to grant another 20 years of copyright protection to every film, book and song in the land. And because of this, works that should be in the public domain are not there.

The world needs a sensible copyright policy which makes the public domain bigger and better so people can build upon.

SAMPLES

Everyone knows the song, “Every Breath You Take”. It is from the mega selling “Synchronicity” album from The Police and it is credited as a Sting composition.

Sting did bring in the demo with his bass line, synth chords and vocal melody.

But, it is in the performances and the Andy Summers guitar riff which makes the song memorable.

But Sting is credited as the songwriter, so he gets all of the publishing royalties.

And when Puff Daddy did his version, it was the guitar track which was sampled, not the drums or bass, but Summers guitar track.

THE ULTIMATE SIN

“The Ultimate Sin” is a misunderstood album.

It is loved by many as much as it is hated.

By 1986, the legend of Ozzy Osbourne was growing. After writing the “Bark At The Moon” album with one finger on the piano m, the heavy metal community waited with anticipation as to what Osbourne would do next.

Jake E. Lee got burned on the song writing credits for the “Bark At The Moon” album, so he demanded a contract up front before he even started writing. It’s not an ideal way to commence the album development cycle however this litigious house is the house that Sharon built.

Of course, the Osbourne’s didn’t credit Daisley for his song writing contributions on the initial 1986 pressing of the album, though this was corrected on subsequent pressings. So there are 500,000 albums out there that doesn’t credit Bob Daisley.

And that’s another wrap for another week.

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Music, My Stories

The Record Vault: Deep Purple – Masters From The Vault (DVD)

I got suckered in by the $7 price.

This is Deep Purple performing for the TV stations in Europe during the 70’s.

This DVD sourced the material from;

  • 1970 Live Performance from Granada Television Studios in England
  • Circa 1971/72 Live Performances on German TV
  • 1989 Live Concert Performance of the Ian Gillan Band

Check out the 1970 live performances for Granada Television Studios in England on YouTube. The version of “Child In Time” is killer and the 25 year old, Ian Gillan is nailing everything and Ian Paice is thundering behind the kit. And the song is played in it’s entirety.

All up the live TV performance has 4 songs. “Speed King”, “Child in Time”, “Wring That Neck”, and “Mandrake Root”. Apart from “Child in Time”, the other songs are edited so Deep Purple could fit into the 30 minute TV slot.

The German TV material has 3 songs in “No No No”, “Highway Star” and “Hallelujah”.

Listen to this, just to hear “Highway Star” in its infancy as the classical arpeggios hadn’t been written yet.

And “Hallelujah” is lip-synced.

The Ian Gillan Band material is of Deep Purple songs and it’s pretty good.

You can hear it here.

“When a Blind Man Cries” is done really well.

Back when the DVD was released I believe it was the earliest known recordings of the classic Mark II line up of Blackmore, Lord, Paice, Gillan and Glover.

One final note, it looks like the footage was copied from an old VHS.

And this brings to end my Deep Purple collection. Either Dream Theater or Def Leppard is up next.

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