Tag Archives: Hard Rock

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

Saints (Winners) and Sinners (Losers)

WINNER
Machine Head are doing the opposite of what all the other bands are doing. Playing smaller venues, selling them out and doing “An Evening With..” extravaganza. The prices of tickets are affordable and not extravagant. This is one band that realizes their niche place in the metal music business and they play to their core audience, the Headcases.

In Robb Flynn, they have one of the best frontmen in thrash/metal circles that is not afraid to take a stance on an issue. He speaks to his core audience via his journals. He controls his own narrative and not the press, which is the downfall of a lot of other artists.

Flynn, along with Monte Conner from Nuclear Blast have realized that music is all about the souvenirs. The “Killers and Kings” single release for Record Store Day with the four different tarot covers proved once again that if people believe in the artists, they will spend their money. Machine Head weren’t selling music, they were selling collectibles. I purchased all four and I still haven’t opened them.

WINNER
Megadeth. As a guitarist I didn’t really dig Broderick’s uninspired lead breaks so I am pretty happy that he has left. Just because a person is super technical it doesn’t mean they are good songwriters. Seriously put those lead breaks up against the jazzy shred work of Chris Poland, the neo – classical shred metal of Marty Friedman, the tasteful phrasing of Al Pitrelli and the pentatonic chaos of Dave Mustaine and you will see where Broderick stacks up. Drummers are plentiful so I am sure that Megadeth will have no issues here finding one that will suit.

LOSERS
Chris Broderick and Shaun Drover.

The history of guitarists and drummers that have departed Megadeth is vast. The real good ones have had stellar careers pre and post Megadeth. Marty Friedman had a fan base before he joined and then he became a Japanese musical icon post Megadeth. Al Pitrelli also had an established fan base prior to joining and he was already in demand as a session guy and touring guitarist for various projects. Chris Poland did “Damn The Machine” which was an unbelievable album/band that wasn’t embraced by the waves of change that happened to metal in 1993 and Poland’s instrumental album “Return To Metalopolis” was also a favourite back in the day.

WINNER
Streaming. Fans of music didn’t care at all that The Pirate Bay got raided or that Kickass Torrents got taken down. Those raids/takedowns are all pure PR stunts by the associations and a waste of money/legal resources because copyright for the last 15 years has been hijacked and used purely for criminal pursuits and nothing to do with aiding the artist.

LOSERS
Artists and entities that compare the streaming dollars earned today to those pre 1999 sales dollars without understanding that streaming is all about scale. The more people using the platform, the higher the payments will be in the future. But no one can look that far, when everyone thinks about “right now”. The ones complaining about streaming royalties just don’t have enough fans interested in listening to their music consistently.

WINNER
Slash. He has shown that he is more Guns N Roses than Axl Rose is. His output has been solid via his many projects, like Slash’s Snakepit, Velvet Revolver, Slash (the guest vocalist album) and now Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators. He is doing what every other musician should be doing, which is releasing product and touring.

LOSER
Duff McKagan. His views on piracy/copyright infringement are restricting him from doing what he needs to do, which is, to create music.

WINNER
Dee Snider. His views on Doug Aldrich are spot on.

LOSER
Doug Aldrich. He’s a good guitar player but nowhere in the league of the Eighties guitarist he was competing against when he was with “Lion”. For the years he has been involved in music, there is not one definitive song/riff that can be attributed to Doug Aldrich.

WINNER
Data. The era of feeling it or rorting the charts is over. It’s all about the fans and what they listen too.

LOSER
Sales. Just because Spotify is killing off piracy, it doesn’t mean that people will start to buy physical CD’s, vinyls or pay to download MP3’s again. Seriously there is a lot of rubbish reporting out there stating something like “sales are worse now since Spotify has entered the market”. Well, hello genius, Spotify and streaming for that matter are also competing with sales.

WINNER
George Lynch. He realizes it’s all about the music and without making new music, he has no career. That’s why people come back. Lynch Mob, his solo career, KXM, Sweet and Lynch and now the announcement of a new project called “The Infidels” which is another pseudo-supergroup.

LOSER
Don Dokken. Without the involvement of Lynch and Pilson in the songwriting department, the band Dokken is a shadow of its former self.

WINNER
Indegoot Entertainment. They have a roster of bands that make up a very large portion of the U.S Hard Rock market, that have proven to be consistent sellers in a recorded music sales market that is contracting instead of expanding. Shinedown, In This Moment, Halestorm, Chevelle, Adelitas Way, Black Stone Cherry, Theory of A Deadman and Story of The Year.

Rock is far from dead when you have rock artists like these. And with a good roster of talent comes power on the live circuit. That is why Indegoot is a winner.

LOSER
Any metal or rock band that is spending months upon months creating their new album and being out of the public consciousness. The modern way is to be in our head space every day. If an artist today takes a break then they are on their way to being forgotten. And you don’t want to be in the news if it is not about your music. No one can forget what their core business is.

Slipknot took almost seven years to release their new album, only to have “The Devil In I” rack up 9.6 million streams. What about the other songs?

Yngwie Malmsteen has delivered a lot of dud albums in the last ten years and he still takes his time before issuing the next one.

WHY?

You would think after one crap album, he would get going with delivering a better song quickly to make amends. Malmsteen can be doing much more to keep in touch with his fan base which doesn’t revolve around issuing ten to twelve songs every two years under his own name.

Take a leaf out of George Lynch’s or Michael Sweets or Marc Tremonit’s or Russell Allen’s playbook.

WINNER
Kevin Churko. Everyone wants to work with him. He is the modern-day version of Tom Werman or Keith Olsen. Five Finger Death Punch, In This Moment, Hellyeah, Papa Roach are all bands that have used the might Churko as producer and on some occasions as songwriter. If you want to use sales as a statistic of reach, then bands produced by Kevin Churko are some of the best sellers in the genre.

LOSER
EVH.

My EVH Peavey 5150 Combo that I purchased back in 1995 is still my favourite amp to record with. So it is a shame that the greatest and most innovative guitarist cannot get it together to deliver new music worthy of his stature. Reading Sammy Hagar’s bio recently cemented my views on EVH who has become a person that is so out of touch with reality and a victim of his own vices. His future without any doubt is with Sammy Hagar as the front man.
WINNER
Allen Kovac’s move from management to the label business has paid off. Eleven Seven Music is another label doing their bit in bringing hard rock back to the masses. Artists involve Hellyeah, Mötley Crüe, Papa Roach, Pop Evil, Sixx:A.M, Nothing More, Art Of Dying, Apocalyptica, Escape The Fate and Drowning Pool.

LOSER
AC/DC without Malcolm Young have lost their foundation. Don’t get me wrong, I love AC/DC and always will. They will make a killing on the live circuit however no one cares for their new music. On top of all that their views about withholding their music from certain digital outlets (while it is available for free on pirate sites) shows how out of touch they are. They are leaving money on the table.

WINNER
Marc Tremonti. He showed the world that he was the brains and driving force behind Creed. He kept his career going with Alter Bridge. He started his own solo band. He went away and mastered the art of shred. His PRS guitars are state of the art and brilliant to play. Trust me on that one as I have one. The PRS through the 5150 is the perfect sound for me.

LOSER
Metallica. They are trying to replicate the corporate deals of U2 and the product saturation of Kiss. This in turn leaves the hard-core fan base squeamish. Meanwhile it has been seven years since they released “Death Magnetic” and music is the very reason why Metallica is in the powerful position they are in right now. However it seems they have forgotten that part of their career. “Lords Of Summer” will most probably be turned into a totally different song however if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t bode well for Metallica as they sit down to write the next album.

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

The Work Of The Devil

It’s funny how originally rock and roll, then blues rock, then heavy metal, then hard/glam rock, then thrash metal and so on were seen as the work of the devil.

Growing up, I wore my heavy metal and hard rock T-shirts with pride, ready to defend myself if anyone decided to have a dig. Thankfully I didn’t have a situation like that present itself.

Growing up in a city that employed thousands upon thousands at the local steelworks, the majority of the children of those workers were all metal and rock heads. Plus by wearing the colours of your favourite band, by default people just saw you as dangerous.

In other words, if I wore an Iron Maiden “The Number Of The Beast” t-shirt or a Motley Crue “Shout At The Devil” t-shirt it was a shorthand way of informing the public to not mess with me.

I know in my circle of friends, we all came from religious backgrounds. All of us are baptised.

Crucifixes, Mother Mary and Jesus Christ ornaments decorated our walls and cabinets. My olds were cool however they also had very conservative friends who kept on judging them for the musical tastes of their children.

But my Dad, he is a deadest legend. He allowed me to be who I wanted to be growing up, giving me a hell of a lot of freedom. He was a musician as well so he understood my mantra of “music being my religion” and when he would come home from a gig he would have about $500 to $1500 in cash on him.

The usual routine was that he would hand over the cash to me to count and then he would give me a couple of twenties for my efforts. Of course those twenty-dollar notes went straight into the cash till at the local record shop the next day. I was a music junkie, consuming the expensive U.S magazines and whatever vinyl I could get my hands on.

My Dad would talk to me about the family name, our history, what it means to have a good reputation and the most important lesson was that people will judge you no matter what you do. He said that if I conform to what others want me to be, people will still judge me. If I remain true to myself and be who I want to be, people will still judge me. He said if you fail in life there will be people there ready to talk about you and to throw more mud in your face. He said that if I am happy then there will people there ready to drag me down into the same hole that they live in.

And every time we spoke about matters like these I always had a song in the back of my head that connected with the message. That is why I gravitated to metal and rock music. The messages connected.

“Stand Up And Shout” from Dio. You see as good as “Holy Diver” and “The Last In Line” are it was the more simpler lyrical songs from Dio that really connected with audiences, like “Stand Up And Shout”.

It’s the same old song
You’ve got to be somewhere at sometime
And they never let you fly

The daily grind, the nine to five. How can we fly and reach for the sky when we always have to be somewhere each day and do the same old song and dance. Credit Jimmy Bain for the great riffs.

“I Believe In Rock And Roll” from Twisted Sister’s “Come Out And Play” album. A very underrated album and “I Believe In Rock And Roll” is one such song that hasn’t been given it’s proper due.

Every day
I work so hard
Every day
I’m dealt the cards
Every day
I’m told exactly what to do
Every day
I lose control
Every day
I rock ‘n’ roll
Every day
It’s gonna help to see me through

Dee Snider sure knows how to tell it. If anyone tells you that their days are not like the above, then they are liars.  The first six lines deal with the daily grind, the nine to five routine. It was a common theme in the Eighties. Then the next six lines deal with music and how it helps get through the days.

“I Wanna Be Somebody” from WASP. Blackie Lawless is a great songwriter and WASP has a special place in my heart. The pinnacle to me was “The Crimson Idol” however “The Last Command” and the debut album are not that far behind.

You’re nobody’s slave, nobody’s chains are holdin’ you
You hold your fist up high,
And rule the zoo

Conformity is a disease. If you don’t believe me then look at the symptoms. You are alive but mentally chained to some ideal pushed on you and you don’t know if its a good ideal or a bad ideal. In the end, we should all bang our heads and use our fists to break down the walls.

(P.S. Do you like what I did there, merging WASP, with Quiet Riot and Motley Crue.)

“You’re No Different” from the “Bark At The Moon” album by Ozzy Osbourne. Bob Daisley wrote some excellent lyrics about Ozzy’s reputation and how people judge him.

Everything that I say and do
In your eyes is always wrong
Tell me where do I belong
In a sick society

You’re no different to me

The judgemental people can put themselves up on some imaginary pedestal but in the end they are as pathetic as the rest of the us. We are all no different to each other. We all end up in the same prison with a tombstone above our heads. Let’s see them judge other’s then.

And how good is that outro. It reminds me of the “Escape From New York” theme, while Jake E.Lee starts to unleash.

“Fighting The World” from Manowar. Founder Joey Demaio always had a song about metal and brotherhood. This one is a classic in my eyes.

Now people keep asking if we’re going to change
I look’em in the eye
Tell’em no way
Stripes on a tiger don’t wash away
Manowar’s made of steel not clay

I must admit I always found Manowar’s lyrics laughable because they delivered them so seriously. But seriously who else could get away with a lyrical line, “stripes on a tiger don’t wash away, Manowar’s made of steel not clay.”

Brilliant and perfect for the times.  And then the call to arms with the marching drums;

Fight for a living – Fighting the World

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit, Unsung Heroes

The Money Business

As bad as the RIAA makes out the piracy epidemic sound like the end of the world, is piracy really taking away from sales of recorded music.

I have been looking at some metal sales recently.

All up, from June 18, 2014 to July 2, 2014 in total there have been 289,810 hard rock/metal sales. It total that is a retail gross taking close to 3 million dollars. Not a bad take for two weeks.

Mastodon’s “Once More ‘Round The Sun” makes up 12% of that total. And that is their label “Reprise” only entry. Eleven Seven Music had two entries with “Hellyeah” and “Nothing More” and those sales in total came to 6% of the total.

Warner Bros along with “Linkin Park” take up 50% of those sales. And this fits right in with the “Blockbuster” strategy of Anita Elberse that has proven that a very very small percentage of artists make up the majority of the sales.

Warner Bros also have Avenged Sevenfold and Gemini Syndrome on their roster, with Avenged Sevenfold having moved 490,000 units of “Hail To The King” in the US and Gemini Syndrome having moved 22,000 units of their “Lux” album in the US since their release dates.

Yep, that Avenged Sevenfold release in actual sales has generated close to $5 million for Warner Bros. And of course, let’s not forget the streaming income, radio plays income and so on.

There is a few takeaways from this.

There is still a lot of money in hard rock and heavy metal music.

Aggregate sales of 300,000 over two weeks, equates to 7.8 million sales in the U.S alone for 52 weeks, with a gross retail sales value of $78 million. And of course, let’s not forget the streaming income, radio plays income and so on.

The issue is that the sales are spread over a lot of releases.

And it’s good to see labels like “Artery”, “Fearless”, “Prosthetic” and many other independent ones flooding the market with releases. It’s good to see a lot of bands self releasing and recording sales. And you still have the regulars like “The Pretty Reckless”, “Five Finger Death Punch”, “Chevelle” and “Volbeat” still moving units.

And yes, the recording business still generates a lot of money. It’s just a shame that every band is held captive to the creative accounting of the record labels, especially the larger ones. It’s also a shame that every band is configured with band agreements that take into account payments to managers, accountants, lawyers and the band members themselves. Heaven forbid if a band member leaves. Then the money business starts to get messy.

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The Death Of The Traditional Charts

The “traditional” single release used to get marketed and promoted for months. It would then get radio airplay and with all of the hype that goes with each single release, the record label and the artist would hope that the single would sell.

After the single does its run it would be removed from sale. During this period thousands or maybe millions of people would have purchased the single. They would hand over their money at the store and then take it home and play it as many times as they liked. The actual sale of the single was counted by the charts but all of those plays at home didn’t count for nothing.

Until now.

One sale is just one count towards the artist.

But now with streaming, a song/single can continue to have traction for months, years or decades. And there is the paradigm shift right there.

Albums were designed to have a longer shelf life. Singles were designed to have a short shelf life. Now with streaming, the border lines between singles and albums have dissolved. But the record labels and artists still insist on spending three to nine months recording albums. That was fine once upon a time, when albums did have a longer shelf life due to gated releases, but in 2014, albums have a shorter shelf life. Release frequently is the norm today, but nearly every established artists refuses to do it.

An artist will continue to earn a streaming income on a recording for years from their fans, whereas that fan would in the past have only paid once. Actually, if the artist gave their rights away to the record label for an advance payment, then it would be the record label that will continue to earn a streaming income on behalf of the artist.

Artists need to negotiate better. Sell your rights away for an advance payment, however have a clause in there that stipulates that if a song reaches a certain target, then a different rate of payment kicks in or the advance needs to be topped up. Because at the beginning no one knows how big or how low the actual song could go.

Going back to the new charts.

I am expecting the best to rise up again, the classic songs that we have known. Don’t be surprised if AC/DC and Metallica make a comeback to the charts. Journey will be there with “Don’t Stop Believin’ and Bon Jovi will be there as well. Old recordings will reappear. I have no doubt about that.

But with any technological product, it is open for misuse and I am sure that streaming services could skew the results based on their corporate deals with TV Shows and Record Labels.

But in the end it is a change and a big one.

Are the Heavy Metal artists and their fans ready?

This is their chance to bring Metal and Rock music back to the masses because the power of the radio and the labels is diminishing in this area for now.

The power is in the hands and ears of the individual streamer. The fans of the artist have the potential to control the musical career of their favourite artists. As an artist this is a good thing.

And business models around streaming and ownership of music will continue to grow.

“We can say with a high level of confidence that it no longer matters how many albums an artist has sold. All that matters now is how many listeners that artist can convert into owners.”

The words above are from the Arena CEO.

Who is Arena you ask?

Arena is another player on the scene and their business model is very different. Once a listener streams a participating single song 5 times, Arena then gives the listener the MP3 file to download and own. Arena then will pay the artist $0.85, in addition to the $0.21 for the 5 streams, as if the listener had purchased the song to own directly. This is a combination of streaming and ownership, because if peer-to-peer downloading has taught us one thing, it is that fans of music still want to own and they want to own music for free.

What Arena is paying is well above the industry standard rates from Pandora, Spotify, Beats Music, and YouTube. To top it all off there is no monthly subscription. If Arena will take off, or if it will get swallowed by Spotify is a different matter. What is clear is that it is addressing a gap in the record label business model that is still unaddressed.

And that is peer-to-peer downloads of mp3’s. And how these five streams = 1 download will count on a chart is another matter in its entirety and it further highlights how out of date the current charts are.

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

The Classic Game Changer Albums

Is there any artist or band out there that can totally wow us like the first time that bands like Dream Theater, Motley Crue, Metallica, Guns N Roses, Pink Floyd, Rush, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Van Halen, Twisted Sister, KISS, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Blizzard Of Ozz, Rainbow and so many others did.

Don’t get me wrong, I hear bands that are good all the time and most of those bands sound like the bands that I have mentioned however they still do not make me feel like when I first heard those classic bands mentioned above.

I know that people will argue the point, however they really need to put themselves back into that head space of that era.

Just think about it.

Put yourself back in 1983 and Metallica is on stage. You are watching this band play a hundred miles a hour and they are in your face. Then think back 10 years from that point and pick anything that resembles what Metallica does on that night in any shape or form.

The same for Van Halen. Imagine it is 1978 and you are there watching Eddie Van Halen on stage and he is ripping up the fretboard with hammer ons, legato runs and finger tapping. He isn’t doing it as part of an extended jam or a guitar solo moment, he is doing it as part of the songs riffs and leads. Then think back 10 years and find another guitarist that resembled what Eddie Van Halen is doing on that night.

Of course, people will argue that Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix were all doing the rounds in 1968. That’s a decent argument. Then I say go back another ten years from then to 1958 and then you will see what a massive change was happening during that twenty year period.

Hell, the sales of guitars jumped astronomically from the fifties to the eighties. That should be proof enough of the change that was happening during that time as music started to cross boundaries and become worldwide.

There is no doubt that music has played a vital role in our society. We listen to it, we play it, we create it and we use it for almost everything.

Regardless of where people’s loyalties lay when it comes to their favourite artist, the truth is this; there are only a handful of truly great hard rock albums from start to finish that will stand the test of time. Of course there there are albums with a handful or just one truly great rock songs that will stand the test of time.

Since Metallica is in the news a lot with their request by fans tour happening, the new song “The Lords Of Summer” doing the rounds, plus all the petitions in place to kick them off a festival, lets kick off with them.

There is no doubt that the “Black” album is their TRULY Classic moment. One album that encapsulated and re-defined and re-classified a genre. A game changer in every sense.

What about the albums that came before the Black album?

“…And Justice For All” had two defining songs in “One” and “Harvester Of Sorrow”. Other songs that on any given day could be up there or are up there are “Blackened” and “And Justice For All”. The album wasn’t a game changer in any way as it just built on the three albums that came before it.

“Master Of Puppets” is a pivotal album in Metallica’s career for two reasons. It was the first Metallica album that was a true Metallica album, written by the band and it was the last album to feature Cliff Burton before his tragic death.

The one two knock out punch of “Battery” and “Master Of Puppets” is undeniable. However the next two songs, although good are mere imitations of songs 3 and 4 from the “Ride The Lightning” album. “Disposable Heroes” picks it up, while “Leper Messiah” is a foreshadowing of the “Black” album style. “Orion” is a great instrumental to fans of instrumental music like me and “Damage, Inc.” is jarring and in your face, which people either dig or detest.

The first four Metallica albums could easily be packaged into one GAME CHANGER album.

1. Battery
2. Master Of Puppets
3. For Whom The Bells Toll
4. One
5. Disposable Heroes
6. Harvester Of Sorrow
7. Creeping Death
8. The Call Of Ktulu
9. Seek And Destroy

Same deal for Motley Crue. Their first four albums could easily be packaged into one GAME CHANGER album.

1. Live Wire
2. Shout At The Devil
3. Looks That Kill
4. Red Hot
5. Home Sweet Home
6. Wild Side
7. Girls, Girls, Girls
8. Too Young To Fall In Love
9. Too Fast For Love
10.On With The Show

Here are a few more game changer albums from the Eighties;

Bon Jovi – Slippery When Wet

It gave Jon Bon Jovi a career that he is still doing victory laps on almost 30 years later.

Guns N Roses – Appetite For Destruction

It gave Axl Rose a career that he is still doing victory laps on it. It also gave Slash and Duff a springboard to go solo.

Def Leppard – Hysteria

“Pyromania” got the ball rolling and “Hysteria” after laying dormant for a year went viral.

Motley Crue – Dr Feelgood

Sobriety leads to a lot of clarity and groove and a number 1 album.

Van Halen – 1984

The definitive statement of Californian Rock, launching David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen into every household of the planet

AC/DC – Back In Black

It launched the band world wide and solidified the growing reputation of a young producer called Mutt Lange.

Twisted Sister – Stay Hungry

It gave the band two cultural video clips and when they reformed in 2001, it was the launching pad for the next wave of SMF’s.

Ozzy Osbourne – Blizzard Of Ozz

It re-established Ozzy by giving his solo career a real boost and it gave the world the talents of Randy Rhoads and the lyrical writing talents of Bob Daisley.

Judas Priest – Screaming For Vengeance

It paved the way for metal to burn up the charts again in the U.S that no one saw coming.

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Crossfade – We All Bleed

It was five years from the last album. Five years are a long time to be gone from the music industry these days. A lot of living has taken place. Fans grow older. Tastes change.

Singer/guitarist Ed Sloan declared that music was his enemy. After doing two album and tour cycles, he was burnt. It wasn’t until the other Crossfade band members, Les Hall and Mitch James snapped him out of his slumber towards the middle of 2008 that they started on working on new songs for the album that would become “We All Bleed”.

They had a new label in Eleven Seven Music. Allen Kovacs knows how to spot a good act and he pursued them hard enough from when Columbia dropped them. Eventually he ended up signing them.

“Dead Memories”

It’s full of Muse’isms. It begins with a “Stockholm Syndrome” style riff that connects immediately. And then a Pantera style Chorus melody with a lot of groove. The song is credited to Les Hall and Ed Sloan and it’s a guitar heavy classic.

I’m not holding on to dead memories of what I used to be
I found a way to make this, I found me

It sets the theme of personal struggles evident throughout the whole album.

“Dear Cocaine”

It’s a brutal song even though it is a country-style ballad. The brutality lays in its honesty.

The song started off with the words “Dear cocaine, I’m not your bitch …” written on a piece of paper by guitarist Les Hall. Mitch James then added the next line “Dear Cocaine, I’m not your whore”. T

“I Think You Should Know”

It’s another ballad that comes across as brutal. A Les Hall composition who proves himself over and over again as a songwriter to be reckoned with.

I think you should know how it feels
Falling down and out alone when no one cares
I think you should know how it feels
When the world buries your soul and you’re still alive

Isn’t that always the case, when you feel that the whole world is against you, no one just understands.

“Lay Me Down”

The song has got some serious groove. The underlying feel is Deftones but the song has so many different decorations added to it, that it makes it unique. Especially the lead guitar lines under the chorus vocal melody. Another Les Hall and Ed Sloan composition.

I’m useless, I’m done
I’ve written letters to the ones
I’ve loved so much that it hurts to say goodbye
I don’t wanna die, I just don’t wanna be alive

It’s dark and disturbing. It’s actually even darker than “Suicide Solution” or “Fade To Black”, yet those songs ended up in the courts.

“Make Me A Believer”

It starts off as another Muse inspired song. Then it starts to go into a progressive groove, with shades of early Black Sabbath. Is that a bass solo from the 8 minute mark?

Lost
Something is lost
Alone
Dying alone
Make me a believer

“Open Up Your Eyes”

Is that a tapping string skipping/sweep arpeggio lead break? Another Les Hall and Ed Sloan composition. So many eclectic styles are heard on this album.

So everybody just sing along
Make the answer known
Know that none of us are alone
Everyone of us should feel life
So open up your eyes!

A message of hope.

“Prove You Wrong”

It’s credited to Les Hall, Ed Sloan and Mitchell James however the initial draft was written by Ed Sloan when he got off the road after the “Falling Away” touring cycle. He wrote a piano upbeat song as he didn’t know what direction to go in. Once he handed the song in to the band, Les Hall worked it up to the version that we know.

Lyrically it is about going through a tough time and when Sloan finally snapped out of his depression he realised that he was bringing a lot of people down with him, so he decided to write this song and let everybody know that he was going to prove them wrong and that everything’s going to be all right in the end.

Someday I might stay sober
Figure out where I went wrong
Make some sense of what’s left of me
Make a go of this alone

Life is complicated, and we count on our music to get us through.

“Suffocate”

It looks like Les Hall was listening to some Dream Theater. “Suffocate” reminds me of Dream Theater’s “Disappear” and “The Ministry Of Lost Souls” with the addition of a Deftones type groove and finished off with some tasty classic rock lead breaks. What a great combination. What a great song.

This empty image of myself
A different view from someone else
It turns and slowly counts to three then it fades out
Then it fades out

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What Happens After The Pinnacle?

Want some advice.

Each style of music regardless of what genre will reach its pinnacle within 3 to 8 years and then a freeze would come across it.

The bands involved in the growth of the will have their best memories and the most defining moments of their musical careers during this growth period. We can use any scene however let’s look at the Eighties LA scene. It began in 1981.

Motley Crue, RATT, WASP and Quiet Riot had the LA Scene cornered at that point in time.

Quiet Riot was a twelve-year overnight success story when they had the first big breakthrough, going to Number 1 with “Metal Health” in 1983 and becoming the first “metal” band to do so in the U.S. That was the bands pinnacle. Within 3 years the band was over.

RATT was also a ten-year overnight success story, when they had their big breakthrough with “Out Of The Cellar” released in 1984. That was the bands pinnacle and within 8 years the band was over.

WASP was an eight year overnight success story when they had their big break through with their self-titled debut in 1984. The band never really stuck together, however Chris Holmes and Blackie Lawless remained until 1990. At that stage, WASP more or less became Blackie Lawless’s solo project and I define “The Crimson Idol” as Blackie Lawless’s and by default WASP’s defining moment.

Motley Crue was a six-year overnight success story when they had their big breakthrough with “Shout At The Devil”, however their defining album was by far “Dr Feelgood” and that album was a twelve-year journey. However a few years after that Vince Neil was out.

Once the pinnacle is reached, after that, a freeze sets in. That freeze happened in 1992 for hard rock music.

It took Motley Crue another 12 years before they achieved the same heights as they did in the Eighties. In between, the members worked hard at their own home movies, cough cough, Vince Neil and Tommy Lee. Solo projects like Methods of Mayhem for Tommy Lee, Vince Neil solo albums, 58 and Brides Of Destruction for Nikki Sixx and eventually finding time to record three Crue albums. One with John Corabi on vocals, one with the band reunited and another with Randy Castillo (RIP) on drums. Then came the all-encompassing book. “The Dirt”. And the resurrection started. If you’re not afraid to go through one door, many more will open there after. And that is what happened to Motley Crue. The book was the door they went through.

And that is what Motley Crue have done, played the game their own way and ended up with riches and power.

Quiet Riot and RATT never re-covered.

WASP/Blackie Lawless realised early on in the Eighties that WASP was a cult band, with a hard-core audience, and it was that audience who Blackie has played for. He didn’t change the WASP sound when Grunge was king. He didn’t change the WASP sound when Industrial and Nu-Metal became king. He just kept on going, realising WASP albums and I am proud to say that I own all of them.

And after the hard rock ice-age was over a new status quo existed.

The previously successful acts need to work even harder to stay successful. The new acts starting off in the new frontier had to work ten times harder.

Because the people that we think are star’s many people around us have no idea who they are.

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

Money In Music, Greed, Elitism And A Lifestyle Of Not Taking Things Too Seriously

One thing about the world of heavy metal and hard rock was that we never took ourselves too seriously. It was always a camaraderie, a culture to have “Nothin But A Good Time”. A culture to “Seek and Destroy” and just have some fun “Smokin In The Boys Room”.

So when Zakk Wylde was playing “In This River” at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards for the fallen rockers and a picture of Jani Lane from Warrant came up, and it stated, Jani Lane, Motorhead, 1964-2011, it was just one of those things we had to laugh about. Of course, a lot people these days take stuff a little bit too seriously and the elite Motorhead fans were outraged that a wussy singer like Jani Lane was associated with their band.

Or what about when the Salem Community Easter Drama titled “Lamb Of God” actually used the Lamb of God logo on their tickets. It made everyone have a laugh. Because this is what metal and rock is all about. A lifestyle of not taking everything too seriously.

Then you have the other side of the metal and rock community, which is the elitism view.

First let’s go back to the beginning. It was all just rock, blues and folk.

Then it started to branch out into hard rock, blues rock, folk, R&B, Surf Rock, Brit Rock.

Then metal/heavy metal came into the picture, along with Southern Rock, Americana Rock, heavy rock, progressive rock and so forth.

Then came Funk, disco and punk rock.

Then came the New Wave Of British Metal and everything was just metal again for a few years. Regardless of how different the style of metal was, the audience always crossed over between genres. Fans of NWOBHM, also supported the LA metal and hard rock scene. Fans of that LA scene also supported pop rock and Americana acts like Kiss, Ted Nugent, Styx, Bruce Springsteen, Journey, Survivor, Reo Speedwagon and others.

It didn’t last for long as the genre that defined a cultural movement splintered into Hard Rock, Glam Rock, Glam Metal, Pop Metal, Power Metal, Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Extreme Metal, Progressive Metal, Black Metal, Metalcore, Groove Metal, Industrial Metal, Nu Metal, EMO, Punk Metal, Gothic Rock, Doom Metal, Djent, Technical Metal. Folk Metal and the list just goes on and on and on.

Within each genre, there is a subset of elitism within it. The type of elitism that sees the hard rock style as not just not hard enough for the heavy metal community. The type of elitism that sees Metalcore and melodic death metal as not evil enough for the “real” death metallers out there. Or the type of elitism that sees progressive metal as just not brutal enough compared to death metal or black metal.

Sort of like an episode I saw on the cartoon show “Metalocalypse” where the new song that the band Deathklok was writing just wasn’t brutal enough according to their singer.

The elitism goes both ways, where elitism in hard rock sees other metal bands as not melodic enough.

In some occasions it is simply down to taste. People enjoy the pop structure of the “verse – chorus” sing a long, every day, all year round.

The way I see it, people either praise someone else’s success, or they try to tear it down because they believe they should have been there and that someone stole their ride.

People attach themselves to this cancer within them that says “If this band made it, they suck” because they don’t want to admit that they wish it was them on that throne. They don’t want to admit that they are undeserving because they are not qualified or talented enough or good enough.

From the people that I know, and doing some crude math, eighty percent of wannabe musicians drop out when the going gets tough. The remaining twenty percenters keep at it, networking, planning, practicing, creating and moving on. Then from those twenty percenters, another eighty percent drop out due to starting or having families, which means that they have obligations and the need to have a stable income. So let’s say 100 start off. After the first cut, 20 will remain. After the second cut, only 4 will remain.

See no one tells you that when you reach a certain age, the power players in music don’t really want you. That is why the focus is on the young. It’s like McDonalds. Get em young and work em hard for less money.

Making it is hard work. It involves a lot of variables and the main one is luck. Very few make it and a lot of others have excuses for failing.

Sort of like the people who always scream to anyone who cares about how Spotify is killing the music business and pointing to pay out figures without giving the full picture as to how much the label took, how much the manager took, how much the publishers took, how much the lawyers took and how much went to the slush account for expenses.

Seen what Jared Leto said recently.

“We all know that, as content creators, artists and musicians, a great deal of our work is going to be streamed, but the issue is that artists are getting the short end of the stick. The streaming companies are paying record labels, but record labels are not paying artists.”

I have been saying this for a long time in other posts that the greed of the record labels is putting a stain on the streaming model.

“Record companies are taking giant advantages, they’re taking pieces of stock options or technology companies in exchange for guaranteeing rights to artists’ streams, there’s all kinds of deals being made, and artists aren’t a part of those deals.”

This is a biggie. Spotify needed to give over half of the company to the Major Record Labels so that they could operate in the U.S. What did the Major Record Labels use as their bargaining chip in these negotiations?

Yep, you guessed it, the right to access the music of artists past and present. And as Leto alluded too, artists are excluded from these conversations and negotiations.

Spotify is a great enabler of getting music out to the masses. It’s also set to overtake iTunes in Europe due to the closing of a digital tax law loophole in the UK – that put an end to all song downloads being priced at £0.99 ($1.79AUD). This in turn is means that iTunes is expected to lose consumers opting for subscription streaming services instead of paying for each track as a download.

In relation to the heavy metal and hard rock communities, they are not doing a really good job at promoting Spotify by still relying on album sales as a measure of success. Streaming is a tried and true business model. Hell, the whole free to air TV industry is the same model as the free streaming option. And the TV stations made a monza. In 2014, there is no fundamental reason why music needs a “sales” business model.

And while popular culture artists are raking in 100 million plus streams a song, metal and rock bands are still going the mp3/CD sale route. It is the wrong way. There should be no reason why a metal act should not have a song that has surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify by now. No reason whatsoever.

It’s the selling (instant money in the pocket right now) mentality versus the streaming (money in the pocket later) mentality and everyone wants to be paid right now. From the labels, managers, lawyers and producers, down to the individual band members. Everyone wants money to live on and get by.

But music is a risk game. Music was never an industry that guaranteed an income.

So why are bands pushing that argument.

Guitar World ran an article back in April 1997, about where are the Eighties Guitar Heroes now. Now meant 1997 for the article. One of the questions they asked each guitarist was their FINANCIAL STATUS. This is what they had to say;

WARREN DeMARTINI (RATT) – “It’s not like I never have to work again, but I had the luxury of not doing anything right away and I really enjoyed the break.”

“Out Of The Cellar” sold over 3 million copies in the U.S. “Invasion Of Your Privacy” sold over 2 million copies in the U.S. “Dancing Undercover” sold 1 million copies in the U.S. “Reach For The Sky” sold over 1 million copies in the U.S. “Detonator” sold over 500,000 copies in the U.S.

In total Ratt sold over 7.5 million records in the U.S. Using the average retail price of $10, you can do the math on the gross sales of Ratt’s music.

And that break that DeMartini took was roughly 12 months. After that he was a touring guitarist for Whitesnake in 1994, releasing instrumental albums in 1995 and 1996 and new Ratt albums in 1997 and 1999.

In other words even though he was the main songwriter in a band that grossed $75 million in album sales in the U.S alone, he still had to work his arse off.

REB BEACH (WINGER) – “I’m certainly not set financially. I still have to work. I didn’t sign the best contract. Back then, it was ‘Sign this, or we’ll get another guitar player.”

ERIK TURNER (WARRANT) – “We made millions and we spent millions. Now we’re like everyone else: we work for a living.”

BLACKIE LAWLESS (WASP) – “Slow and steady wins the race. We’re a lot better off that a lot of bands that sold a lot more records at one point because we have a cult following. We have the most devoted fans in the world. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

STEVE BROWN (TRIXTER) – “We came out of the whole thing in decent shape. We all have to work, but we don’t have any day jobs and I have a nice house.”

TRACII GUNS (L.A. GUNS) – “I’m by no means set. But I’ve established myself where people buy my records and come out to see us live.”

There is a lot of money in the music business and the ones that create it are the least underpaid.

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

The Cover Song Is A Doorway Into Your Act

My first introduction into Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine was from the Kerrang “Master of Puppets” 20 Year Anniversary album. My initial interest to hear the album was because Machine Head was covering “Battery”. So after they blew me away with their downtuned cover, along came Trivium with their cover of the title track and man what an undeniable job they did with it. Bullet For My Valentine didn’t set the world on fire with their cover of “Welcome Home (Sanitarium) however they did enough to get me interested in it.

By hearing those two cover songs, I started to seek out the actual original music of Trivium and BFMV.

Another record was “Maiden Heaven: A Tribute to Iron Maiden.” That one had Black Tide covering “Prowler”, Fightstar covering “Fear Of The Dark” and Madina Lake covering “Caught Somewhere In Time”.

Upon hearing those cover versions, I had to go and seek out more music from those bands.

So you see, as an artist trying to make it, those original songs that you create and release might be great, but it doesn’t get you the connection with the audience just yet. Sometimes a cover song does the job.

There is a reason why Jimi Hendrix connected with “Hey Joe” and “All Along The Watchtower”. “Hey Joe” didn’t do much for “The Leaves” in 1965, however it was The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s first hit single in 1966. “All Along the Watchtower” these days is well-known as a Hendrix psychedelic groove rock song instead of a Dylan folk song.

There is a reason why Van Halen connected with “You Really Got Me”. As good as the debut album is, the needed an introduction and “You Really Got Me” was the introduction.

There is a reason why Joan Jett and The Blackhearts connected in 1981 with “I Love Rock N Roll” that was penned by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker from the British rock band Arrows and released in 1975.

There is a reason why “When the Levee Breaks” became so enduringly influential. It’s origins go back to 1929 when husband and wife singer-songwriters Kansas Joe McCoy & Memphis Minnie originally recorded it as a blues song about the Great Mississippi Flood.

“Hard TO Handle” was the breakthrough hit single for “The Black Crowes” in 1990 and it is a cover song from 1968, originally written by Otis Redding.

Quiet Riot went platinum in 1983, with “Cum On Feel The Noize” and it was a cover song from 1973. The thing is, the Slade version went straight to #1 in the United Kingdom and Ireland and was a top 10 single throughout parts of Europe. The Quiet Riot version reached the #5 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US.

“Black Magic Woman” is known as Carlos Santana’s flagship song, however it is also a cover from the Peter Green version of Fleetwood Mac. Actually, Carlos Santana’s Woodstock-era period made a career out of re-imagining other peoples’ songs.

Cover songs are not the enemy and on a lot of occasions, the cover song broke a band to the masses. It was the doorway to the other treasures that lay in waiting.

Recently bands like “Within Temptation” or the “Smith/Meyers” project have taken to re-interpreting cover songs.

Machine Head have always selected great cover songs from “Battery” to “Hallowed Be Thy Name” to “The Sentinel” to “Our Darkest Days/Bleeding.”

Find a great tune and get cranking on a kick-ass remake/re-imagining of it. You never know how it could connect as music has a way of making peculiar connections.

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Music

Bands Will Have That One Big Product, and Then They Will Write Some Sequels To It

There is a story over at the NewYorker from a while back about the One Hit Wonder known as “Candy Crush Saga”.

As we all know by now millions upon millions of people around the world play Candy Crush Saga.

– It is a free download and it has been downloaded over half a billion times.

– A person can play the game for free.

– However, certain users of the game are willing to pay for extra lives and various performance boosting tools while the other users are happy to remain on the game without paying for any extras.

– The Irish company “King Digital Entertainment” who is the maker of the game had close to two billion dollars in sales, with a pure profit margin of $567 million.

It seems like there is a lot of money to be made if there is a freemium option available especially if you have a star product to push.

King Digital has over a hundred different games that are available, however it is Candy Crush that brings in the money. It is King Digital’s “star product”.

Even in music, bands normally have hundreds of other songs or countless albums in existence, however it is that one star product that they are known for, except for the few great acts who would have multiple star products.

Metallica had “Master Of Puppets” and “The Black” album.

Motley Crue had “Shout At The Devil” and “Dr Feelgood”.

Dream Theater had “Images and Words” and “Scenes For A Memory”.

Machine Head had “Burn My Eyes” and “The Blackening”.

AC/DC had “Back In Black”.

Def Leppard had “Pyromania” and “Hysteria”.

Ronnie James Dio was a true legend by having a few star products in different acts. First off was Rainbow then Black Sabbath and then as a solo artist with “Holy Diver”.

Kingdom Come had their self titled debut.

Skid Row had “Slave To The Grind”.

Bon Jovi had “Slippery When Wet”.

Twisted Sister had “Stay Hungry”.

RATT had “Out Of The Cellar”.

Quiet Riot had “Metal Health”.

Ozzy Osbourne had “Blizzard Of Ozz” and “No More Tears” as a solo artist.

The world of heavy metal and hard rock contains many more examples. In the end luck plays a huge part in breaking music to the masses.

And as the article eludes too, most new products fail in general. In the music industry, the failure rate of new music is amplified and as it is an industry that faces a lot of competition between the acts alone.

And as with everything that rises it eventually falls. The true greats pick themselves up and rise again, while the ones in it for the money just fade away. Check out this quote;

“Typically, companies will have that one big product, and then they’ll sell some sequels to it. But, unless they manage to become the center of an ecosystem, over time they tend to weaken and disappear.”
By Michael Cusumano, a professor at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management

There is a lot of truth in that.

Remember when Bon Jovi rewrote “Slippery When Wet” and called it “New Jersey”.

Or when bands rewrote their main hit song over and over again trying hard to recapture the success

Music is a competitive, hit-driven industry and there is no guaranteed recipe for success. But in order to give it a shot you need to know how to play your instrument and you need to practice your songwriting skills.

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