Rolling Stray Hard Rock Oort Cloud

Some of the kids who sign their kids up for his school are the usual upper middle class mainline types and they make your skin crawl in their hubris and desire to have little Johnny be a rockstar. In particular is the family of one young guitar freak, who does the Eddie van Halen thing on a guitar that's bigger than he is. Because he's a freak, he sticks out, not because of his "musical" ability which is run of the mill Saturday afternoon at Guitar Center, if you know the experience.

When he has to play some rock 'n' roll, ie -- not an Eddie van Halen solo, he's horrible. He's a kid machine trained in finger gymnastics. At one point he has to go to a hospital to have a defect in his leg corrected, so he does his Eddie van Halen thing sitting in a chair in front of a crowd, like Blind Lemon Malmsteen. It's unintentionally absurd and perverse.

I rented it and it was worth the cash money. There's also a CD. Horrible patience-trying version of "School's Out" on it with Alice Cooper sitting in. Imagine a robot-like band of kids playing the tune, repeating the chorus ad nauseum as Alice gamely sings. It made me sweat during the end credits, which was the point, I think.

Lots of brow-beating by the headmaster and one kid, a suicidal mumbler, who is such a loser he eventually gets thrown out, but still manages to steal much of the "show" by dint of his "character."

For Immediate Release

June 9, 2006

HEAVY METAL ROCKS

NOW MORE THAN EVER

IN

Heavy Metal: The First 20 Years
In Stores July 25th

Head Banging Tunes From

Iron Butterfly, Motorhead, Kiss,

Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, The Scorpions and More

Fairfax, VA --- When nearly every town in the country has a radio station that still plays songs like Kiss’ “Detroit Rock City,” “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by the Scorpions and Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law,” there’s no escaping the fact that heavy metal, rock n’ roll’s brazen and histrionic stepchild, has endured the test of time. Heavy Metal: The First 20 Years (in stores July 25th, Time Life) is a tribute to the bands that rocked, filled with songs that manage to be both nostalgic yet as relevant as ever. Vintage metal videos still run on VH1 Classic around the clock and fans still wear their beloved tour t-shirts, but this time around, their adolescent kids are wearing them too.

Filled with songs from the first two decades of earsplitting rock (1964-1984), Heavy Metal boasts stadium anthems by Alice Cooper, Kiss and the Scorpions and the over-the-top orchestrations by acts like Iron Butterfly and Queensryche. Quiet Riot’s pop-crossover hit, “Cum on Feel The Noize” is tempered by Dio’s sonic masterpiece “Holy Diver” and Motorhead’s speed metal “Ace of Spades,” showcasing the full spectrum of the heavy metal genre. Defined by its loud instrumentation, relatively simple song structure and raucous lyrics, heavy metal first roared on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1960s and continues to be one of the most enduring and popular forms of rock.

About Time Life Inc.

Headquartered in Fairfax VA, Time Life Inc. was founded in 1961 as a direct marketing company specializing in music and books. It has since grown to become one of the world’s largest direct marketers of audio and video products, selling more than 13 million units each year throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and is the largest advertiser of music products in Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Time-Life set the standard in the direct response industry by pioneering direct marketing techniques, building one of the most trusted and recognized brands in commerce. The company now also sells their products through major traditional and non-traditional retailers around the world as well as via the Internet. Time Life is a registered trademark of Time Warner Inc. used under license by Direct Holdings Americas Inc., which is not affiliated with Time Warner Inc.

###

Heavy Metal: The First 20 Years
Tracklisting

1. You Really Got Me / The Kinks

2. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida / Iron Butterfly

3. Eighteen / Alice Cooper

4. Easy Livin / Uriah Heep

5. Detroit Rock City / Kiss

6. Free-for-All / Ted Nugent

7. Godzilla / Blue Öyster Cult

8. Kill the King / Rainbow

9. Ace of Spades / Motörhead

10. Breaking the Law / Judas Priest

11. Hot Love / Aldo Nova

12. Heavy Metal Love / Helix

13. Cum On Feel the Noize / Quiet Riot

14. Holy Diver / Dio

15. Queen of the Reich / Queensrÿche

16. Screaming in the Night / Krokus

17. Balls to the Wall / Accept

18. Rock You Like a Hurricane / Scorpions

Take it over to Rolling Metal 2006 - Zwei and ask for wisdom. Wait, that's impossible.

also, i can't find my copperhead CD! does anybody know where i put it? i thought it was older, but *live and lost* actually only came out in 2005, which means it's eligbile for 2006 lists by definition!

Aww.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/07/guitars-vice-and-religion-zz-tops.html

The deluxe edition comes with a DVD that tells you more about them in fifteen minutes than you want to know. White trash from Kentucky, two of 'em are sons of Kentucky Headhunters. But that's as far as it goes. Grew up in a town like where I grew up, but anyone who was any good in town got run out, so right away you're suspicious when the locals start professing love on camera and testifying as to how much the local boys sure do rock. Takes a trip to the pool hall to show you the salt-of-the-earth standard inbred of the interior where there are always two surnames in the thin phonebook of 1000+ with at least two hundred entries.

They say a number of times how old school they are. This means the posters in their rehearsal space are old and that they went to an old high school, an old school being one that looks like it was built in the late 80's or 90's.

Fair version of "Shapes of Things." Some of it sounds like a southern slant on Alice in Chains. Band says on camera how they want to open the door for southern rock. I thought the door was already wide open on CD Baby. "Tired of the Rain" is boosted by an organ line that penetrates the double Les Paul Marshall sludge.

Mostly, it's too slow and not hook-filled enough for what they aspire to. "Rollin' On' and "Hell or High Water", for example, only get near Copperhead territory when they should be right dab smack in the middle of it. The latter might grow on you.

Meta tags: bags of model glue, Boones Farm, bag of Chuckles, salt-of-the-earth, cow flop, pasture, cave, shed, clapboard, rural route 2, downtuned guitars into Marshalls or Peavey 5150's, trudge, earnest lyrics, hated school, love grandad and Old Grand Dad, annoying suvvern heevahava drawl, look like young Lynyrd Skynyrd minus one or two but sure don't sound anything like them, sent nationwide for a mercilessly brief run on the pure milk of human kindness.

C+, maybe a B- if they'd written more like "Hell or High Water,"

The first seven tunes from Black Stone Cherry could have been left on the hard drive in Hollywood. Then it's track number eight to thirteen which are acceptable, throwing out one as accidental dreck. Autotune also very present. I don't detest obvious autotune, but it's not necessary, by any means, in this sort of music.

The title of this thread bites it, guaranteeing few to none will read about an idiom already thought, mistakenly, to be marginal. Thanks for overthinking, dudes.

Reminds me of the ACME in Pine Grove, Schuylkill country, combined with the late 70's Liquor Control Board State Store.

anyway, here are hard rock albums i paid either 50 cents or $1 for at antique barns upstate last week; which should i listen to first?

angel - white hot LP
aviary - aviary LP
bighorn - bighorn LP
billion dollar babies - battle axe LP
derringer - derringer live LP
david essex - all the fun of the fair LP (assuming this is hard rock; did he do anything else like "rock on," ever? i have no idea)
janitors - thunderhead 12-inch EP (brit postpunk artfuck hard rock?)
labelle - chameleon (probably not hard rock but i noticed that nona hendryx wrote most of the songs so you never know, now do you?)
reo speedwagon - good trouble LP (followup to hi infidelity, which i like a lot though it's long after their "golden country" peak, hmmm.)
tom robinson band - power in the darkness double LP (gay new wave shoutalong hard rock which may or may not actually rock hard enough)
tom robinson band - trb two LP (ditto)
starvation army - mercenary position LP (cleveland artfuck hard rock? or maybe not? supposedly doug gillard was in the band once)
the three degrees - live LP (almost definitely not hard rock but they cover "free ride" so what the hell i'll list it here anyway)

Aviary sounds like a harder rock version of Supertramp. Sometimes a bit of prog, sometimes a little Queen, they sound veddy British but were from Washington state.

"White Hot" is Angel's power pop record. Some of the songs are good in a sub-Slade way. Frank Dimino's voice is kind of wearing over much more than thirty minutes. They were trying desperately for a radio hit, the record company was about to give up on 'em and that was the studio show until a live album came out the following year and they were dropped.

Billion Dollar Babies' "Battleaxe" is amusing, about as good as Alice Cooper's "Muscle of Love." The mini-opera, "Battleaxe Suite," is kind of cool. Manowar lyrics before Manowar. They performed it live about once, I think, in Michigan the same year the album came out before breaking up. The pre-production version of "Battleaxe" -- included in the Billion Dollar Babies box set (yes, amazingly, there is one) -- is a better record because the record company took the songs and made them re-record them prettied up a little for pop consumption. There's one really embarrassing song on "Battleaxe" which, I think, was aimed at being a single, "Too Young," which sounds like something Kim Fowley would have written for the Runaways or Venus & the Razorblades or the Orchids. "Rock 'n' Roll Radio" is kind of hokey, too.

First Tom Robinson Band double certainly rocks hard enough with blazing guitar on most of the cuts. Check "Long Hot Summer." Second doesn't rock hard at all, almost sounding like a different band.

Zappa wrote a song about the guitarist, Punky Meadows, called "Punky's Whips," which is hysterical. It's on Baby Snakes and Lather in a live version from NYC. The lore was that it was about FZ's drummer, Terry Bozzio, masturbating to a record company promo shot of Meadows. The lore also was that Meadows liked it but I find that part unbelievable. The song is funny but mean-spirited.

In today's rapidly changing world
Rock groups appear every fifteen minutes,
Utilizing some new promotional device.
Some of these devices have been known
To leave irreparable scars
On the minds of foolish young consumers.
One such case is seated before you:
Little skinny Terry 'Ted' Bozzio,
That cute little drummer!
That's right!
Terry recently fell in love
With a publicity-photo of a boy named Punky Meadows...
(Oh Punky!)...
Lead guitar player from a group called Angel.
In the photograph,
Punky was seen with a beautiful shiny hairdo
In a semi-profile which emphasized the pootched out succulence
Of his insolent pouting rictus,
The sight of which drove the helpless young drummer mad with desire!

I can't stand the way he pouts
'Cause he might not be pouting for me!
Punky Meadows, pouting for you?
Ha! You bet sailor!
You mean,
You mean he's not...he's not pouting...
He's not pouting for me?
His hair's so shiny and it's done real nice
'Til I squirm with ecstasy

Punky, Punky, give me your lips to die on!

Oh Punky, isn't it romantic?

Punky, Punky, give me your lips
To die on...I promise not to come in your mouth
Punky, Punky, your album's the shits!
It's all wrong!

I ain't really queer
But if he ever got near
Steven Tyler would PAY to see!
PAY to see!

Punky's lips, Punky's lips
His hair's so shiny,
I love his hips!
I love his teeth and his gums and such!
Punky
(What is it? You come home!)
You're an Angel!
You're too much
(Oh God!)

The boys of my thoughts in my lonely teenage room!

He's been havin' a rash
(No shit!)
That keeps the girls away
(It's true)
Skin doom
(Skin doom)
Is what the doctors say
And that makes me wonder
I wonder what Punky is rehearsing today
I'll just go over, and hear him play
His hair is so pretty...I'd like to bite his neck
I've heard a rumor he's more fluid than Jeff Beck
BUT I AIN'T QUEER
I AIN'T GAY
(He's a little fond of chiffon in a wrist array-ee-ay-ee-ay)
A wrist array-ee-ay
(That's all that is, I swear!)

Punky's lips, Punky's lips!
Oh! I love his hair while eatin' dunk-y chips
Yeah! I love his blink and his blank-blank-blank
Why, maybe he'd like to yank my crank?
YANK IT PUNKY!
YANK IT FASTER!
YANK IT HARDER!
YANK IT ALL NITE LONG!
COME ON PUNKY!
GET FUNKY!

I AIN'T QUEER
No no no no!
I AIN'T GAY
No no no no!
(He's a little fond of chiffon in a wrist array-ee-ay-ee-ay)
Wrist array-ee-ay
And then he told me now:
I AIN'T QUEER!
(Hey!)
I AIN'T GAY!
(Hey! Hey!)
(He's a little fond of chiffon in a wrist array-ee-ay-ee-ay)

I-I, Lord,
I'm fo-o-o-ond of chiffo-on
In a wrist array-ee-ay
Oh oh oh oh!
I-I, I said I'm fo-o-ond of chiffo-on
In a wri-i-i-i-ist array
Come on Punky!
Give me your lips!
Ride on my Venus-trip!

Canadian quartet in the same place as Brooklyn's Riot. Guitar's are a hair more incinerated than Riot's first two, which says something. They look glam and cartoon happy on the cover but sound altogether more carnivorous in the grooves. Competitive with the Nuge, knuckle-dragging dumbo muscle car rock and roll lyrics (It's takes all kindsa people to make this world a better place, so come along and sing & live rock 'n' roll with us, etc, it's the boy's night out, smokin' and swearin' 'till daybreak, boy they're real bikers, ha-ha-ha, let's go curse!), whiplashing lead, built on songs for the most part. Stuff greases Angel easy. Slays Kiss at one hundred yards.

Didn't translate to the States, except Texas, where they were big in San Antonio, where there was a hard rock nuts dominating FM station. Everyone was big in San Antone.

Found it hard to believe Joan Jett is priced at 20 dollars for her new one. Looks like it covered Westerberg's "Androgynous" and Badfinger's "Baby Blue" but JJ records are no way worth parting with that green. Where's the nice price? Eesh.

Yeah, thought so (not sure if I ever heard this album, though):

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=ADFEAEE67818DE4EAD7E20C79A3A40CDAD67FD1BFE5AFB86112F0456D3B82D40AF1844C34FA39A81B6E577B366ADFF2EA21609D9CEEC5CFFD9765D40&sql=10:ouaqoaralij9

No, it was one of the Appices, Vinnie, I think. I'm digging through piles for the Angel Cd-Rs. You can never find it when you want it, then it shows up when you're looking for something else.

Killola's Louder, LOUDER! was a recent pleasant surprise. Nothing like what's been talked about above, though.

Killola look very promising, but there's no way to contact the band on either their website or (see below) cdbaby page. Am I actually going to have to listen to their songs on line?? God forbid...

http://cdbaby.com/cd/killola

uh....I'm thinking really bad so far. (part of lyric of the first song: "jack the lad/king of kings/lord of the rings", honest!) but cool sound effects! which "rock on" obviously had, too. it might take me a while to figure this out. his voice just sits there most of the time, totally immobile. i'm realizing that i have no concept of essex at all. who the hell was he? a teen idol? a studio whiz? i guess i figured he was following in marc bolan's footsteps, maybe? was "rock on" an anamoly? this is ickily twee cups-and-cakes singer- songerwriter music by some dork who likes sgt. pepper's too much, but....i can imagine somebody, somewhere, finding it interesting. (like maybe people who like apples in stereo or guided by voices?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Essex

I appreciate that.

There's an amazingly twee song on the Goedert album about a little boy and little people in the fields and his space friend who lands on his roof.

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=bs&sbrftog=1&from=R10&satitle=david+essex+%22all+the+fun%22&sacat=11233%26catref%3DC6&sargn=-1%26saslc%3D2&sadis=200&fpos=ZIP%2FPostal&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D1&coaction=compare&copagenum=1&coentrypage=search&fgtp=

Yes there is. Killola at gmail. Which I schwicked off their website. They sent me a CD posthaste for PTW.

I dug out my home remaster of Angel's Live Without a Net and it's about the best because it roughs up the weird and the pop from White Hot and Sinful, and smooths out the pompous prog on the first two. Was '80 and way too late for 'em to match Kiss Alive which it's better than as a meat and potatoes lively hard album with keys and guitars veering between bubblegum late 60's rock and Keith Emerson, on the whole. And when I was decades younger I liked Kiss Alive. Their highest chart was for the single "20th Century Foxes," also in '80 which was the theme for "Foxes," the Jodie Foster/Cheri Currie/Scott Baio vehicle about bad good bad and loose girls in the San Fernando Valley. Angel had a cameo rock gig and Peter Frampton played their manager, the Foster character's estranged dad, I think. It was as close as they came to the mainstream.

Aviary was produced by Gary Lyons who was fresh off of Hustler and Foreigner's first and he was a specialist in making hard rock records. Drank an incredible amount of booze when I saw him in action. Second album was never released until the CD age, the record company paid for it and bailed when the first did nothing.

Another band I dig out once or twice a year.

This is interesting. Everything you ever wanted to know about Angel, maybe too much. I was wrong -- Meadows didn't mind "Punky's Whips," his bandmates did. But my gut feeling was right that their live album was better than Kiss Alive. Hard to believe Casablanca spent so much money on them they were over a million and a half in the hole when they were 86'd. It sure didn't show up in the records.

For better or for worse, Angel was quite influential in their own way - particularly on the hair metal boom of the 1980s - and represent a kind of missing link between keyboard-driven hard rock bands of the '70s such as Uriah Heep and '80s acts like Poison.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/08/supernova-summary-faults-which-render.html

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/08/wounded-bird-successfully-catering-to.html

And some print characterization that was worth ridicule:

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/08/metal-band-into-scat-entertainment.html

Seemless came in the mail. Looks like modern no-listen metal. PR starts with tearsheet from Terrorizer, so it would be odd if it were my bag.

"Best of Teaze" encaps the Canadian group's product outside the first album. Third of it is produced by Miles, the April Wine main man and voice, so it has a glistening finish aimed at radio. In fact, it reminds you of a slightly harder version of April Wine, which would make them . . . Moxy with Mike Reno? About of third of it is rougher from "On the Loose," an album that put together the first album's toughness with somewhat finer production. Good version of "Gonna Have a Good Time Tonight." Lots of people rise to the occasion for Vanda & Young compositions and so did Teaze.

I think the Black Stone Cherry would sound better if they didn't down tune the guitars so much.

Agreed on Black Stone Cherry. They could throw out the first eight cuts, because those are the ones where they do the strenuous and trudging he-man downtuned rock thing.

The Hypnotics should have made it to CD. Now there was a soCal band. First album made entirely by the song "Natzi Schnatzi" with the chorus, doubled, of "Heil Hitler!" Way more outrageous than watching twentysomething dingbats, mostly girls, going nuts to the Angry Samoans' "They Saved Hitler's Cock" at the Knitting Factory in modern times.

One of the most interesting features of punk rock that's popular now is that it's a favorite now with all the high school and post high school kinds on MySpace who, as a social class, would have hated the music and beaten the bands up when it was fresh. Nothing new here but it's astonishing to see the dumb girls and jocks at Samoans gigs in contrast to when they were pushing records outside the mainstream. Ten thousand plus "friends," mostly girls, on MySpace!

The Teaze records kill this shit. Dive bar 70-80's hard rock, fought out bitterly on fruitless and futile tours in Canada and the midwest. Plus I remastered and edited the Dead End Kids' "You Don't Like It, We Don't Care" which was in the same vein. For the mid-80's, featured one of the great rock singers (could do the righteous shout as well as the melodic croon) who never made it in any shape or form.

Was reading the press on Seamless, which drops the names of Pete Seeger and Don McLean because of recording at some 1,000 buck a day famous rock and roll chateau. Only the last song on the CD sounds classic rock, though. It could pass for good emulation of Pink Floyd but the rest is I'm-an-emotionally-depressed-man downtuned power rock with diversions to stoneland. The singer is good but has no songs to sing. And I wish this stuff were better because they're so earnest and striving but they never get beyond 90 bpm where 110 would be good. No guitar solos. Did I say they were earnest? Can't get enough of earnest and serious. Earnest with a big E and serious with a big S.

They seem to indicate they hate Creed but that's who they remind me of. Or Staind or Trapt so they're aiming for the five year old arena sound, which the production allows them to nail. And if they stuck to Pink Floyd, instead of saving it for the end, they might have made a much better record. Maybe it will grow on me, but most likely, not.

And "Girls Got Rhythm" crushes all this. As usual, the girls beat the hell out of the boys.

Plus the Gooze was recommending a relook at the Action Swingers. He claims "Decimation Boulevard" was face-punching.

And how 'bout the Blackjack reissue on Lemon?!? Pre-fame Michael Bolton with the guitarist who went on to Kiss and Pat Travers' drummer!

1. the godz - nothing is sacred LP
2. derringer - derringer live LP
3. billion dollar babies - battle axe LP
4. angel - white hot LP
5. aviary - aviary LP
6. bighorn - bighorn LP
7. rail - rail EP (really catchy the second time through)
8. janitors -thunderhead EP (just barely a keeper; the singer stinks.)
9. tom robinson band - trb two (this is amazingly pathetic. it's like he's inventing billy bragg or something. what the hell happened?)

right now i'm listening to the excellent double album by Smoke Rise, *The Survival Of St.Joan*. It's a concept album about the life of Joan Of Arc. I dig it out about once a year. they could definitely rock. and they had awesome greasy rocker mirror shade looks. 1971. paramount records.

http://www.popsike.com/php/detaildata.php?itemnr=2542997494

but the crazy gatefold and the back cover picture of the band with half-skull faces might even be better.

Wrong, Scott! I'm listening to Power in the Darkness now, and it rocks! (Also, "2-4-6-8 Motorway" and "Grey Cortina", contrary to what you suggest above, are two different songs, not just one!) (Well, they sort of sound alike I guess, but that's okay.)

Weird, though, how on the first TRB album, the most famous and most of the best songs are on the "bonus EP." What was up with that? (They sorta debuted with an album and a half, like Rock City Angels.)