This be what you seek, it's only sodding eighties week...
Megadeth with
Mary Jane - also the basis of the show's cover this week. I do like a bit of Megadeth and *ahem* unfortunately at the age of twentyfour I still haven't found it in me to prefer Metallica. Or even think about Metallica. No offence to Metallica - not that I'm sure they mind. I love MegaDave and his crew - and their gonzo vaguely politicized early period is music to my ears. Crunchy music.
I've always maintained that
Aerosmith, no matter what period they're in are at
least forty percent better than you think they are. A fine boogie band if ever there was one - and here in 1989 they were still surfing on their resurgence in popularity -
My Girl is a fine little song and simple as a ball.
Diamond Head are one of the most vibrant bands of the early eighties - and sod it but their story of self destruction is almost addictively horrible. Cork your head around
Streets of Gold a B-side from a 1980 single - reissued on various copies of their debut album. Which itself is TIGHT. LIKE A PARTICULARLY TIGHT PAIR OF SHOES. If it enraptures you I recommend you listen further in.
Beyond the Doors of the Dark is a sonorous little ditty from
Savatage's 1987 album "Hall of the Mountain King". A heavy metal record so gorgeously unaware that it's got THAT as an album cover. Good god they could play though - and the older they got the better it was. I love this record - I used to wear a backpatch of the album cover that always had the chavs at college talking. I'm sure it was all good. A vibrant and extraordinary band.
The meatiest head in rock - seminal bar blues king
George Thorogood and his Delaware Destroyers ruled the sweaty beer-soaked holes of the eighties with their irresistible Bo Diddley beat and sinisterly snake-skinned suits. This is from the mid-eighties and it's a trifle more witty than you'd think. That's right, a trifle is a unit of measurement now.
It gets no more metal than
Judas Priest. It literally ACTUALLY can't get more metal. Top scientists the world over have been trying to make things
MORE metal but it physically can't be done. With
Rapid Fire off of 1980's "British Steel" the Priest were ... well, they were simply forging the furnace for the final grand slam weren't they? The voice at the beginning was, indeed, Arthur Dent from the Hitchhiker's Secondary Phase (also 1980). In many ways also metal.
Fight Sequence is, naturally, a
Hawkwind song. From "Live Chronicles" a mid-eighties... well, Live Chronicle of their tour for "The Chronicle of the Black Sword", a particularly Moorcockian voyage through atmospherics and hysterics. Well worth hearing I do love Hawkwind - even out of the seventies it's all good. Also - that clip at beginning - is clearly from Monty Python's Meaning of Life.
...an interesting record from the 72nd year of
John Lee Hooker's considerably excellent existence.
Rockin' Chair is from 1989's The Healer which featured such ... relevant artists as Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana and Los Lobos - also the aforementioned Thorogood. This one though, is all Hooker's own and it's extraordinarily atmospheric. Do loves me some Hooker. Shouldn't have said that.
Who's up for some eighties
Black Sabbath?!
No one? Really?! It's actually not as terrible as you think. Tony Martin is on vocals and... well the eighties is certainly there. As well as riff titan Tony Iommi and some session players. It's Sabbathness is debatable but good lord it's got some good riffage buried in there. It's like wading through a confusing eighties sea (see extended metaphor on Mixcloud description).
Classic "athletic rock" trio
Raven kick the living shit out of most sappy turgid bands from the early Nwobhm era simply by being louder, faster and overall more ridiculous. I challenge anyone to wail as convincingly as John Gallagher. Are they the best band from Newcastle? Probably.
I don't know what to say apart from that I FUCKING LOVE
RUSH. Don't ask me why. ACTUALLY DO. Ask "Why do you like this pompous Canadian trio? Why do you enjoy their self-involved atmospheric instrumental rambles? Why do you adore the astronomically high-pitched-yet-eloquent vocals?" Why do you ask rhetorical questions? I wear this album cover as hoodie for the same reason crusaders wore a cross. I'M OUT TO CONVERT YOU.
Finally we're out with
Albert Collins - an ICE-cold bluesman who was as sharp on the guitar as... well, ice is generally. Hence why he was known as "Iceman" hence why this album is called "Frozen Alive" hence why this song is called
Cold Cuts. It's that simple.
See you in the nineties - !
O x
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