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

1982 – Part 1: Saints And Sinners, Priests And Thieves and The Creatures Of The Night

Ahh, 1982, Slash was only 17 years old, Blackie Lawless (still an unknown outside of LA), started to experiment with hurling raw meat at the audience, Nikki Sixx decided to chase a heckler called Lars Ulrich down Santa Monica Blvd and the main house bands at Gazzarri’s were RATT and ROXX REGIME. Roxx Regime would of course go on to become Stryper. 1982 was also the year that metal and rock music started to become a force to be reckoned with. MTV’s launch on August 1, 1981, would change the industry in a big way.

KISS – Creatures Of The Night
It’s a who’s who of outside songwriters.

Paul Stanley hooked up with Adam Mitchell to write “Creatures Of The Night” and “Danger”. The winner of that hook up is by far “Creatures Of The Night”. The metal heaviness, the pedal point riff and that major key riff change before the lead break is just brilliant.

Victims of the moment
Future deep in doubt
Living in a whisper
Till we start to shout
We’re creatures of the night

The rock n roll children, the heavy metal followers, could all relate to being creatures of the night. We would be up to the small hours of the night, listening to our favourite cuts. Rock and Roll Children listening to the “devils” music”.

Vinnie Vincent is all over this album.

“I Love It Loud” is a Gene Simmons, Vincent composition. The drum groove, the chants.

Perfect.

In 1982, it was exactly what the youth wanted to hear. “Killers” is another Simmons, Vincent composition, however the stupid lyrics on the song take away from the power of the music. Regardless, we still have “I Love It Loud”.

Guilty, till I’m proven innocent
Whiplash, heavy metal accident
Rock on, I wanna be president
‘Cause I love it

It’s a brilliant play on words and a mission statement for all rockers.

People born in the Nineties would not understand how the religious groups and certain politicians reacted to hard rock and heavy metal in the Eighties. As far as these organisations were concerned, heavy metal music promoted anti-social behaviour, drug taking and basically nothing good was expected from the youth that listened to it. So as the lyrics state, we are all guilty until we are proven innocent.

Loud, I wanna hear it loud
Right between the eyes

Anthems about cranking it up started to become the norm in the Eighties. Slade wrote “Cum On Feel The Noize” in the Seventies, however a lot of people will associate the song with Quiet Riot and their 1983 take on it. Twisted Sister took it up a notch with “I Wanna Rock”. Motley Crue wanted it “Louder Than Hell”. Bon Jovi wanted to “Let It Rock”. Metallica formed a “Metal Militia” and so on.

Turn it up, hungry for the medicine
Two fisted till the very end
No more treated like aliens
We’re not gonna take it

That’s right. The war cry from the youth of the Eighties.

We’re not gonna take it.

With our devil horns and our black t-shirts patched in with our favourite bands, we were not aliens anymore. We belonged. And the unifying force was our love of heavy metal and hard rock.

“I Still Love You” is a Paul Stanley and Vinnie Vincent composition and to this day it is one of my favourite power ballads. The Emadd9 to Cadd9 chord progression is mournful and perfect for the song.

People tell me
I should win at any cost
But now I see as the smoke clears away
The battle has been lost

Great lyrics. Even though the song is a love song, the four lines above can be used for any situation. If you are a rocker and the audience deserts you, what do you have left? Sort of like the song “When The Crowds Are Gone” from Savatage. If you haven’t heard, call it up on Spotify or YouTube and let it fill your head space.

There was another interesting song writing committee on hand. Gene Simmons, worked with Bryan Adams and his songwriting partner Jim Vallance. The result is the excellent “War Machine” and the not so excellent “Rock N Roll Hell”.

How heavy is “War Machine”?

Better watch out
‘Cause I’m a war machine

Another common theme from the Eighties was that rock heads and metal heads were meant to be mean muthas, typified by songs that promoted macho like behaviour. Sort of like how the rappers preached “don’t mess with us, we got guns and we use them”, the metal heads preached the same message with their fists and bravado.

“Watch out, we are here to seek and destroy.”

Next to “Unholy” and “God Of Thunder”, “War Machine” rounds off a trilogy of groove metal anthems from The Demon.

And to put it into context, the legend of The Demon owes a lot to Vinnie Vincent who was on hand to write the super-charged demonic riff for “Unholy”, Bryan Adams/Jim Vallance wrote “War Machine” and “God Of Thunder” was penned by Stanley and given to Gene to sing, who would then go on to become the “God Of Thunder”.

With Vinnie Vincent in the band, Kiss was ready for the Eighties. “Lick It Up” that followed the following year would give the band enough life and momentum to move forward until “Revenge” gave them another victory lap.

Whitesnake – Saints And Sinners
This album is gold. As with everything Whitesnake, the recording process began in 1981, just after the end of the “Come an’ Get It” tour. Since Whitesnake was formed, it had been album and tour, so it was expected that tensions would start to appear, especially when the debt was piling up. The band couldn’t understand why, as they played to sold out places and had album certifications on the walls.

We all know that this album gave birth to “Here I Go Again” and “Crying In The Rain” and to be honest, I really enjoy the Adrian Vanbenberg and John Sykes guitar playing on those songs many years later as well as the original versions.

But going back to the some of the other songs, there is no way you can’t tell me when you listen to “Young Blood”, you don’t get the urge to tap your foot and nod your head at the groove. It’s infectious.

Then you have the major key Led Zep inspired “Victim Of Love” plus the funky groove from “Saints and Sinners” and the great lead break.

I mentioned previously that in 1980, “Ready An’ Willing” was the album that started the rise of Whitesnake. Think about the quality of songs released on the trilogy of albums. You can sequence songs from “Ready An’ Willing”, “Come And Get It” and “Saints An’ Sinners” into a perfect album.

1. Young Blood
2. Don’t Break My Heart Again
3. Fool For Your Loving
4. Blindman
5. Crying In The Rain
6. Here I Go Again
7. Aint Gonna Cry No More
8. Victim Of Love
9. Lonely Days, Lonely Nights
10. Ready And Willing
11. Saints And Sinners

I didn’t get the full album until the late Nineties. As with all things commercial, once Whitesnake’s 1987 album started selling by the truckloads, Geffen Records re-issued the earlier stuff in 1988. So David Coverdale in a roundabout way should thank John Sykes for assisting him in getting richer from back catalogue sales.

Like a lamb to the slaughter,
Another sacrifice,
For giving love to woman
With a heart stone cold as ice….. from “Victim Of Love”

Brilliant lyrics from David Coverdale. Instead of the rocker being the one with a heart of stone and a “love em and leave em attitude”, the woman he is sleeping with is the one doing the loving and the leaving.

A woman goes crazy with the thoughts of retribution
Then a man starts weeping when he’s sick and tired of life ….. from “Crying In The Rain”

Hell has no fury like a woman scorned. In a break up, thoughts of retribution are high on the cards.

Like a drifter I was born to walk alone ….. from “Here I Go Again”

A lot of people forget that Bernie Marsden is a co-writer on this track.

It’s a brilliant line.

In the end, all of us musical fans are loners. We listen to music in our own time, with our headphones on, in our bedrooms or on the train to work. And we drift from job to job, house to house, relationship to relationship and year to year.

This lyric connected “Here I Go Again” to every man, woman and child. It is a universal line. And the result is Whitesnake’s biggest single. It took 5 years later for it to happen, which goes to show how way ahead “Here I Go Again” was for it’s time.

Saints an’ sinners, priests an’ thieves ….. from “Saints An’ Sinners”

A brilliant play on words.

I stand guilty of a thousand crimes,
An’ I suffer temptation still,
Show me a man who won’t give it to his woman
An’ I’ll show you somebody who will ….. from “Saints An’ Sinners”

Trust David Coverdale to deliver a brilliant tongue and cheek line. To all of those guys in relationships that cant stop looking at other woman. Well, guess what, there are thousands of men looking at your woman. Brilliant.

Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Treating Fans Like Shit

Crying In The Rain – The John Sykes Firing From Whitesnake

Two official studio versions exist. A very bluesy and sorrowful version from the 1982 album, “Saints and Sinners” and a very polished guitar heavy gem from the 1987 self-titled “Whitesnake” album.

However the version that I listen to all the time is the version that appears on the “Bad Boy Live!” album by John Sykes, released in 2005. It is an exact replica of the 1987 version that brought “Crying In The Rain” to the masses.

Of course, the guitarist on the 1987 version is also John Sykes and even though I have heard various incarnations of Whitesnake play this song live since then, none of the guitarists seem to connect with it the same way that John Sykes did.

There have been conversations about how much the original bluesy version from 1982 borrows from Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused” in relation to the tempo and the bridge, which is ironic since “Dazed and Confused” was copied from another artist by Led Zeppelin. The 1982 version is sleazy and if you strip away all of the production it is basically a 12 bar blues shuffle in the key of E. The solo section in the 1982 version continues with the blues shuffle like “Roadhouse Blues” from The Doors and every other blues song.

Not the 1987 version. Credit John Kalodner. He requested that David Coverdale revisit the song as he felt the song, along with “Here I Go Again” would make a mark in the US. Guess Kalodner was right. This song is powerful and it was the album opener. Fans of the earlier versions of the band hated the 1987 version, calling it “glam rock” masturbation.

You hear the C5, B5 to E5 progression and then David Coverdale starts singing “A black cat moans when he is burning the fever”.

What a way to start the album! For millions of fans this was our first initiation to Whitesnake. I actually purchased the record because of the album cover. Yep, I handed over $20 and purchased an album without hearing a single note. How times have changed compared to today. In an interview on the Whitesnake website, this is what David Coverdale had to say on the new logo and the new design;

INTERVIEWER: The ‘1987’ album saw the advent of the “new” Whitesnake logo. Was this logo of your own design and was it meant to signify a break with the past?

COVERDALE: Yes.Well spotted. It was meant to be a whole new beginning, a fresh start. A whole new bag. I worked with a fine, graphic design artist called Hugh Syme, a Canadian chap. Very gifted. We connected on a very positive, creative level. I discussed with him all the elements I wanted to have in the presentation, a new logo, an emblem, a Celtic, runic style amulet that looked ancient, like it had been here forever, but, still maintained immense power.

All the symbols within the emblem represent only positive energies. Sun, Moon, fertility, Yes, a little ‘humpty dumpty’ in there, too. Check out the interlocking snakes. They are DEFINITELY getting to know each other! But, no negatives, no black magic nonsense. It seemed to work.

Yep it sure did.

“I keep on dreaming dreams of tomorrow
Feel I’m wasting my time lighting candles in the wind
Always taking my chances on the promise of the future
And a heart full of sorrow paints a lonely tapestry”

What great lyrics. You know that feeling when you think that tomorrow will be better if you just ride out the storm that is present today, however today is getting worse and tomorrow is looking so far away.

How many times can David Coverdale be out of love or in love? The whole Whitesnake catalogue has a large chunk devoted to heartbreak and love.

The song is large and epic. Just think of that John Sykes solo and the thunderous powerhouse drumming after the solo section. Aynsley Dunbar does a brilliant job connecting with the song which in turn connected with the audience. Seriously, look at his history and credits coming into the Whitesnake recording sessions. This guy could play and along with another season veteran in Neil Murray, it all came together.

John Kalodner in an interview on the Melodic Rock website, said that he always tells David Coverdale that he should work with John Sykes again.

The David Coverdale and John Sykes team wrote 9 songs and re-recorded 2 songs from Whitesnake’s back catalogue. The 1987 album was so good, even David Coverdale was left shocked and speechless when John Kalodner said he wanted “Children Of The Night” over “Looking For Love” on the album on the US release.

I feel the same way as David Coverdale. I still believe that “Looking For Love” is one of the best songs that John Sykes and David Coverdale wrote together and it never got a proper release and it remains largely forgotten.

It is a shame that John Sykes never got to tour behind the album. There are so many different stories that have done the rounds like;

John Sykes wanted to replace David Coverdale due to the uncertainty around Coverdale’s throat problem. He contacted John Kalodner and ran that proposal by him. John Kalodner didn’t seem impressed as he did sign David Coverdale before John Sykes even came in the picture.
David Coverdale wanted a second guitarist and he was interested in Steve Vai before Vai joined the David Lee Roth band, however John Sykes wasn’t interested. This led to arguments.

John Sykes said the following in an interview with the Baltimore Sun from 1994;

“Me and David, we wrote the songs between us. We went to France, wrote the songs, then took the whole thing over to Los Angeles, which is where we found Aynsley Dunbar, the drummer.We started recording up in Vancouver with Mike Stone at Little Mountain Studios, and as the closing part of the drum stuff was getting finished, Aynsley comes to me and says he’s been fired. I thought that was kind of strange, because David hadn’t really talked to any of the band members about it. We couldn’t really figure it out. So Neil [Murray, the bassist] finished up his parts, and he got fired. This is over a period of months. And then, I was just wrapping up guitars, Mike Stone phoned up his office and he found out that he’d been fired.”

You can see where this is going. John Sykes starts to freak out that he is next. He calls David Coverdale in LA and Coverdale doesn’t answer. Sykes leaves a message and Coverdale doesn’t return the call.

So Sykes calls John Kalodner, the Geffen Records executive in charge of the project. What he heard from Kalodner was far from comforting. This is how Sykes described it;

“So I said to John: ‘Look, I’m kind of wondering what’s going on. I can’t get ahold of David, and I’m starting to wonder if I’ve been fired.’

“And he said, ‘Well, it’s kind of looking that way.’ “

What a sticky predicament.

“My option was to quit right then and not finish the guitars,” he says, “but obviously that would mean he’d get someone else in to do guitars — and I didn’t want that to happen, seeing as I’d written most of it with him. So I finished up the guitar leads, and just walked away from it.”

By now Sykes found out where Coverdale was mixing the album and flew out for a final confrontation.

“I went into the studio and caught him, and it got into a little bit of a shouting match. One thing led to another, and he wound up locking himself in his car, shrugging his hands like ‘It wasn’t my choice.’ Then he just drove off.”

Yep, David Coverdale drove off into platinum heaven, while John Sykes went back to looking for love in a new band where he was the leader.

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

Welcome To A Day In The “Progress Is Derivative” Life

Society today is all about multi-tasking. We take on so much stuff it’s not funny. We have nine to five jobs, some have night jobs, some are studying as well, raising families, trying to kick-start a music career or blogging. In all of that commotion, we still try to find time to listen to music.

Lately I have been over dosing on a few recent albums. My drive home from work normally consists of the following songs;

“Shepherd Of Fire” – Avenged Sevenfold
“Lift Me Up” – Five Finger Death Punch
“Mist” – Protest The Hero
“Live In Love” – Times of Grace
“Fallen” – Volbeat
“Bulletproof” – Evans Blue
“Be Still and Know” – Machine Head

It is a perfect set list, timed to finish as soon as I drive into my driveway. It got me thinking about the progress is derivative effect.

So by looking at the above playlist, all of the above songs can be traced back to other songs. Here are some examples;

“Shepherd Of Fire” – the influence of Megadeth’s “Trust” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” are unmistakable. Of course “Enter Sandman” had its main riff come from a band called Excel and a 1989 song called “Tapping Into The Emotional Void.” Megadeth’s “Trust” intro was also inspired by the Pittsburgh Penguins’ entrance theme “The Boys of Winter.”

“Lift Me Up” – the vocal melody influence from “The Ultimate Sin” is very similar.

“Be Still and Know” – has the Iron Maiden “Wasted Years” vibe at the start

“Fallen” – has a Chorus very similar to Lifehouse’s “Out Of Breath.”

However the post is not about the songs I listen too on my way home. It is about the songs I listened to at work today. That is where Bad Company enters the equation.

I always talk about progress being derivative and that is what the Seventies became to be. I think it is safe to say that decade was the “Derivative” decade. So many similarities in songs, yet still unique enough to be different. Bad Company was one such band.

“Ready For Love” is probably the best known “cover” song from Bad Company. What a lot of people don’t know is that Mick Ralphs was in a certain band called Mott The Hoople, and his composition was released in 1972 on the “All The Young Dudes” album. Of course, all the kudos went to the David Bowie composition. However a great song is a great song and Mick Ralphs resurrected it with Bad Company in 1974 and the song finally got the attention it deserved.

This was a common theme for the Sixties and the Seventies with a lot of artists resurrecting great songs from just a few years before that went unnoticed.

Even in the Eighties, Whitesnake became famous in the U.S on the back of the “Here I Go Again” 1987 version. The original song was released in 1982 on the “Saints and Sinners” album.

The song “Bad Company” is sleazy and swampy. Five Finger Death Punch did a good take on it, however the original has that X factor. Maybe because in most cases the bands of the seventies played it live in the studio, before multi tracking became the norm. Talk to any Joni Mitchell fans and they will tell you that “Bad Company” released in 1974 is a derivative version of Joni’s “Woodstock” released in 1970,

“Seagull” is a band that is writing what they want to write and not what people or record labels expect them to write. That is a big difference with artists these days especially once they attain some success. They are showing their folk roots in this song, something that the Eighties will turn into a power ballad. “Seagull” is one of those songs that deserved hit status, however it was never promoted as a hit.

“Feel Like Makin Love” is one of those classics. It was a product of its time. It was released in 1975 on the “Straight Shooter” album. Talk to any fans of The Who and they will tell you that the song’s main riff is a derivative version from the song “Sparks” that was released on the “Tommy” album in 1969.

“Shooting Star” was released in 1975, however Van Morrison fans could swear that it was a cover of a song called “And It Stoned Me” from 1970.

What about “Run With The Pack” and the symphony strings towards the end. What happened to just jamming a song to the end in todays’ market? You have songs that need to end at 3.30 minutes, otherwise that old institution called Radio won’t play it. Funny thing is, does anyone listen to the radio. In relation to hard rock music what is the point. It’s non-existent unless it’s the song is short enough to fit the format or edited to death.

The last time I heard the radio was over 10 years ago and I still remember that they played “Sweet Child O Mine” from Guns N Roses, by shortening the intro and all the lead breaks. Basically they turned a 5 minute plus song into a 3 minute song. Then they played “November Rain” as part of a back to back promotion and the editing was disgusting.

The thing with Bad Company is that by the time the Eighties rolled around, they had fallen into the same circle as all of the other bands, chasing the big pot of gold by delivering music in the style that was selling at the time. Just because it worked for one band it didn’t mean that it would work for every band.

One last thing, for the thousandth time, “A Day In My Life” from the new Five Finger Death Punch album is a great song.

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

The Song Needs To Be A Song First – Words of Wisdom from Zoltan Bathory

“Every one of us can play. We are technical players. When it comes to songs, there’s a difference between just shredding and showing of or writing songs. That’s a different talent. First and foremost, the song has to be a song then you start to think about yeah, let’s add a guitar solo.”

(Zoltan Bathory from Five Finger Death Punch in a recent interview with Loudwire.)

I remember towards the end of the Eighties, hard rock and glam rock bands are getting signed up left, right and centre by all the record labels. The greedy labels over saturated the market with diluted quality. They got talented musicians and sold them the dream of fame and fortune. Once they had their signature on paper, they told them to go and write songs like Cherry Pie.

Have you read or heard what Jani Lane (RIP) said about Cherry Pie. He wishes he never wrote the song. The album was done, it was going to be called Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The label wanted a hit song or they wouldn’t release the album. Jani had two options, tell the label to go F themselves and by doing that he knew that his songs will never be heard or he could comply with their request, write them a sugar pop song and get the album out. We all know how the story goes?

Writing songs and playing technical are two different things and it’s good to see Zoltan make that distinction.

Would people still be interested in Dream Theater if they just played technical passages, without having a real song as the springboard. Pull Me Under is the song that you can say broke Dream Theater to the masses. It is the most simplest Dream Theater song to learn and play, however it was written by musicians who have great technical ability. The second track, Another Day is another Dream Theater song that is simple to play and again it is from the same well. Of course Images and Words has Learning To Live, Metropolis, Take The Time and Under A Glass Moon and the reason why those songs have become cult songs in the progressive genre, is because they are songs first and technical masterpieces second. The bottom line is, you need a great foundation.

When Ozzy relaunched his career with the Blizzard Of Ozz band (that then became the Ozzy band when the record was released), it was on the back of great songs and great technical guitar playing from Randy Rhoads. A simple catchy AC/DC style song like Flying High Again, had a dazzling tapped lead break. The Crazy Train solo is one of those songs within a song guitar leads, however who would have cared if it was there, if the song it was on is terrible.

The bottom line for both Dream Theater and Ozzy Osbourne is; if you take away the progressive instrumental breaks and guitar leads from the songs that we love, you still have a great song and that is the essence to everything.

When the Whitesnake album exploded in 1987, it was on the back of great songs and great guitar playing from John Sykes. Listen to his lead break on Crying In The Rain. John Kalodner, the A&R rep that signed Whitesnake to Geffen, knew that was a great song. It just need to be re-done in a way that it could get massive exposure. The song was a song already as it already did the rounds on the Saints and Sinners album from 1982 and by adding the one minute plus tour de force lead break by Sykes to it, it made the song even more dazzling and a product of the times. However, as I mentioned above, if you take away the lead break, you still have a great song.

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