Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

This is really decent.

http://www.spreeblick.com/2010/12/06/map-of-metal/

Use the small map to get it all.

Latest on the Nugent line. He wins an award for a public service announcement. Writes column full of
laughable errors.

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/12/10/the-pathetically-stupid-man/

This one wasn't worth a blog post. Ted writes a column to himself. In Ted world, I suppose he imagines that sometime in 2012 Sarah Palin will get elected and he'll be made Secretary of the Interior.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=40549

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/hunting/2010/12/palins-caribou-hunting-controversy-still-has-steam-you-betcha

Before Thanksgiving I'd dug out my Frank Zappa collection and have been listening to a number of LPs, mostly the hard rock stuff, of which there's a lot.

Had an old copy of the Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar box which is just edits of relentless guitar solos and various parts. It takes an evening to chew through but if you really like electric guitar, it's great.

The other three which fit this thread well are Zoot Allures, [/i]Them Or Us[/i] and Apostrophe.

Zoot is as close as FZ got to making a mid-Seventies metal record. Them Or Us has a good version of "Whipping Post" plus one of my silly favorites, "In France". And "Apostrophe" for "Cosmik Debris" and the title cut. "Stink-Foot", on the other hand, is one of the more irritating things he ever wrote, one in a large collection.

I feel like discussion of the Damned Things' Ironiclast belongs here, not on the Rolling Metal thread. It's a "supergroup" with two members each coming from Anthrax, Fall Out Boy and Every Time I Die, and it's basically a hard boogie-rock record (think Clutch or SoCal desert rock) with some modern songwriting touches (a couple of choruses have a definite Fall Out Boy feel) and some weird power-pop moments tossed in (one song has handclaps, which is always a plus for me). Vocalist Keith Buckley sounds much better here than he ever has with Every Time I Die.

no thank you?

cuz when i read the words:

"Anthrax, Fall Out Boy" and "hard boogie-rock record" i can't help but think...no.

That's what I thought going in, too, but I was proven wrong. Would it help if I said there are moments that remind me of Billy Squier?

So, anybody reading this, is the Sweet's Level Headed (the 1977 album with "Love Is Like Oxygen" on it) as lousy and rockless and un-Sweet-like as Martin Popoff suggests? Never heard it, but saw a copy for $1 today. Almost bought it, then decided otherwise.

George predicted right about me liking that D.B. Cooper LP from 1980, by the way. Sounds like a more hard-rock version of some missing link between real early Joe Jackson and real early John Cougar. Or something.

i always dug later more proggy sweet. i think i just like the sweet. definitely worth a dollar.

i mean, at the very least, its got love is like oxygen on it. which is a great song.

i need the first sweet album. which i never ever ever see.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/97/Lp_funny_uk_a.jpg

i like cut above the rest too. from 1979. never heard their 1980 album. kinda weird to even think of sweet in the 80's.

never seen/heard this either. 1982!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/IdentityCrisis_Sweetalbum.jpg

always so amazed when i see an album i've never seen by someone who is ubiquitous. case in point, saw this at the record show three weeks ago and i swear i'd NEVER seen a copy before. how is that even possible?

http://991.com/newgallery/Keith-Emerson-Honky-460982.jpg

http://tralfaz-archives.com/coverart/E/emerson_honky_in.jpg

don't have 'Level Headed', but for late Sweet I like Sweet VI a lot, it has a great track "Own up, Take a Look at Yourself". it has the same chorus melody as "Radio Free Europe". maybe R.E.M. ripped them off.

always so amazed when i see an album i've never seen by someone who is ubiquitous.

^^ yeah, this. always so thrilling in a weird way. even if the record is probably totally crappy, and i don't buy it. it's the new discovery thing.

came out in 1981. how do i miss a keith emerson album for 30 years! especially with that cover and gatefold? i didn't buy it though. it was 7 bucks. i should have offered the guy three bucks. i would have paid three bucks just for that cover. i tried to get thurston from sonic youth to buy it, but he wouldn't bite.

Jimmy Buffett parody by Keith Emerson - in 1981. should've been huuuuge right?

the natural follow-on from 'Love Beach'?

mike mascis's (j's brother) band The Warblers is playing in my basement right now and its nice to hear some honest to gosh psychedelic garage rock guitar solos! leo, the lead guitar dude is hitting all the right fuzzy notes. sounds great!

nice! are you recording anything? would love to hear

sadly i didn't.

So, anybody reading this, is the Sweet's Level Headed (the 1977 album with "Love Is Like Oxygen" on it) as lousy and rockless and un-Sweet-like as Martin Popoff suggests?

Other than "Oxygen" I could only vaguely recall this sorta Alan Parsons/sorta Styx ballad, which is probably why I sold mine long ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUbY6Jf-l9Q

What's the format we're using again in submission of Myonga's Bob Seger reissue?

I went with this:

Bob Seger – Never Mind the Bullets Here's Early Bob Seger (Myonga CD-R)

Noticed somebody on line calling the label "MVB Records" instead, but I'm sure they'll sort all that out at P&J headquarters.

have so much to listen to. i'll get to it all somehow. just got these gems and i'm gonna take my time with them:

ronnie paisley's band - smoking mirror (pye - 1978) (this is great!)

yesterday and today - s/t london - 1976) (excited to find a clean copy of this!)

british lions - s/t (vertigo - 1978)

pez band - two old two soon - live at dingwalls! (passport - 1978)

meal ticket - take away (logo - 1978)

esperanto - danse macabre (A&M - 1974)

charlie and the wide boys - great country rockers (anchor - 1976)

the bogey boys - jimmy did it! (chrysalis - 1980)

cozy powell - over the top (ariola - 1979)

tyla gang - moonproof (beserkley - 1978)

sean tyla's just popped out (polydor/zilch - 1980)

keith christmas - fable of the wings (polydor)

YAMASH'TA - come to the edge (island - 1972) (had this years ago and got rid of it. give it another try.)

nite city - s/t (20th century - 1977) (ray manzarek and nigel harrison. i'll give it a shot.)

russ ballard - s/t (cbs - 1974) (never heard this. song titles look very promising.)

mike harrison - s/t (island)

manfred mann - chapter three (polydor - 1970?) (finally digging into the vast 70's manfred mann stuff. lots of good jams. this stuff was recorded in 1969 though.)

ellis - why not? (epic - 1973)

ellis - riding on the crest of a slump (epic - 1972)

johnny winter - still alive and well (columbia - 1973)

the bishops - live (chiswick - 1978) (woo hoo! needed this so bad!)

um, tons of UFO albums.

stray dog - s/t (manticore - 1973) (needed this too!)

british lions - trouble with women (cherry red - 1980)

zones - under influence (arista - 1979)

trash - s/t (flarenasch - 1981)

omega - live at the kisstadion (bellaphon - 1979)

mother's ruin - road to ruin (spectra - 1982)

delta rebels - down in the dirt (polydor - 1989)

johnny winter - saints & sinners (columbia - 1974) (basically want nice copies of every JW album from the 70's.)

trapeze - hot wire (warner bros - 1974) (hey we were just talking about them, no?)

also got that double live beserkely record. german thing. tyla gang. earthquake. kihn.

>>pez band - two old two soon - live at dingwalls! (passport - 1978)

Pretty much shows how much the guitarist liked Jeff Beck/the Yardbirds.

>>tyla gang - moonproof (beserkley - 1978)

Big drop off after the debut, Yachtless.

>>johnny winter - still alive and well (columbia - 1973)

A bit better than Saints & Sinners. The live records are still the best. Maybe the first two, also.

>>stray dog - s/t (manticore - 1973) (needed this too!)

This was great. Shocking how Snuffy went into television theme music. He probably made a mint for 30something themes.

>>trapeze - hot wire (warner bros - 1974) (hey we were just talking about them, no?)

Yep. This is a pretty funky and electric record. But after it's over the tunes are hard to remember.

>>also got that double live beserkely record. german thing. tyla gang. earthquake. kihn.

Think I may have said this in one of these threads. Half good, half bad. Kihn and the Rubinoos are the half bad. Tyla Gang and Earth Quake, the half good. Earth Quake doing an Aerosmith imitation. Tyla Gang great for "Styrofoam" alone, one the early Stiff singles, I think.

Here we go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny15av4VU3c

Highway Patrol as police car theme

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/12/20/highway-patrol-revisited/

delta rebels album is pretty good! never even heard of them. biker/southern/hard rock band. group shot with a harley on the back cover. some good group shout choruses. nice guitar action.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qCK-Qw6Pr7Y/TNiy1GDzwjI/AAAAAAAAFyw/sRtQ7dUdWmw/s1600/Delta%2BRebels%2B%25E2%2580%2593%2BDown%2BIn%2BThe%2BDirt.jpg

So, Private Lines Trouble In School album from 1980 turns out to not quite smoke in the boys' room as much as its title made me hope for, but it's still good catchy tricky very slightly new wavey hard pomp pop rock along the lines of, say, Shooting Star or Streetheart or Prism from the same time period. Loudest guitars probably "How Long"; stickiest hooks title cut and "Young and Sexy." ("A keyboard-dominated pop-rock band with brutal guitaring--and one album to date," Jasper and Oliver called them in their book.)

Anyway, here's a question; has to do with something Spin assigned me. What, if any, great hard rock albums would you say qualify as "wall of sound," production-wise? Like, in the Phil Spector sense. Things louder than, say, Born To Run or Bat Out Of Hell, I mean. Any?? (Was thinking maybe the first two Boston LPs, or Hysteria; what am I blanking out on? In my head I want something like Dream Police to qualify -- Cheap Trick definitely had beefed-up ELO moments -- but that might stretch things.) (The Move, maybe? I don't know. I feel like there's some obvious examples that just haven't occurred to me yet.)

Or the Who (early '70s), maybe? Have any hard rock bands or producers ever claimed to be influenced by Spector (or George Martin, or Brian Wilson)? (The Ramones had an album produced by Spector, of course, but I'm not sure that counts.) This really isn't something I usually care about, which probably means I'm not a big wall of sound fan myself. (I mean, it's possible you could say most heavy metal works as a "wall of sound" in a sense, but I doubt that will cut it.) (Oh wait, I guess there's Queen, right?)

yeah, queen. boston. aerosmith too depending on the album.

In terms of Cheap Trick maybe the George Martin-produced thing. Actually, "The World's Greatest Lover" is probably closest they got to wall-of-sound early and that's a ballad. The first Boston album, yeah, I'd agree with that although wall-of-sound doesn't equate as "loud" to me. More like smothering, or all filled up. Haven't listend to the second one in years and years so I dunno there.

Maybe a Ramones album or two. However, not the one produced by Spector. More likely Pleasant Dreams, the Gouldman-produced one.

Nothing in the Move's catalog. Technology hadn't caught up with what they were doing.

Keith Olsen produced records in thr Eighties, might include something by Heart and one by .38
Special.

Wall of sound for Spector meant cramming everything into a mono mix to overcome the limitations of
transistor radios and cheap phonographs. Not precisely the same once ornate stereo mixes became common.

You should probably dig through your late Eighties hair metal records after hard limiting was really
entrenched because I recall all those records, no matter what was on them, as delivered to come blasting out of the speakers.

ZZ Top's Rhythmeen and Mescalero, particularly the former, are walls of sound. Rhythmeen virtually
falls over on top of you, just like a wall, at times.

Foghat's Fool for the City is monolithic in that way, too.

The debut by Cactus is a wall of something.

Yes's Tales from the Topographic Chinch Bug and Relayer.

The Godz debut, courtesy of Don Brewer's wall of guitar and drums production.

Lou Reed's Rock n Roll Animal with Wagner and Hunter and guitars. It's allegedly a live album but Al Kooper did some odd things with the guitar tracks in the studio to make it overwhelming.

Not all these are real good records.

You could probably fish one or two or even three from Roy Thomas Baker-produced Queen. The first album, at least.

Ha ha, I think lots of those are "walls of something." But that list definitely helps a lot; thanks George (and Scott)!

Just got offered an interview with Ritchie Blackmore, pegged to a new Blackmore's Night album coming out in January. I told the publicist I'd do it if and only if he was willing to talk about his older bands (which he's gotten testy about doing in the past); I'm willing to indulge him with a few questions about his and his wife's puffy-sleeves folk thing, but if he thinks I'm not gonna ask Rainbow questions less than a year out from Dio's death, he's fuckin' nuts.

yeah, 80's stuff in general was all about that bombastic mix. just get an eddie money record. he even stole phil's girl!

for the wall of sound thing, maybe Mott's Brain Capers for the solid echoey mass, or for the big over-ornateness, Kiss Destroyer or Use Your Illusion.

definitely Dream Police and The Move's Looking On (their heaviest IMO). also Mott's album "The Hoople" - really thick soupy sound.

speaking of which, i recently got beautiful U.K. pressings of Ian's S/T album and Overnight Angels and they are both pretty massive sound-wise. Overnight Angels got the Roy Thomas Baker treatment.

bought lotsa 50-cent past expiry hard rock vinyl today

"I'd buy that for a dollar!" Great purchases for a buck or less

>>The Kids "Anvil Chorus"

aka The Heavy Metal Kids. It's their second album. Not quite as good as the first but still way better than average. Singer Gary Holton wound up on a very popular Brit TV show as one of a crew of migrant bricklayers and construction workers, then died just as he was getting famous, of a drug overdose. Was definitely mining the street glam rock thing and I recall posting a couple YouTube vids of them on some German music show.

The television series produced a good crew of Brit actors you now see in American productions -- Tim Spall, Bill Nighy, for example -- so if he hadn't up and died he might now be famous, too.

Listened to The [New] Runaways "Fast and Loud", a Kim Fowley production effort to revive the band with new personnel sometime in the late Eighties, I think. I never actually saw a copy when it was released, so it might have been enjoined in stores but has now been reissued because of someone's desire to ride along on the minor success of The Runaways revival.

It was a band of laughably lousy ringers, doing songs with embarrassingly sub-moron lyrics like on the first two Runaways albums. But with absurdly tacky, sometimes hilariously inappropriate production and two singers of much less talent than Cherie Curie and Joan Jett. The only thing that came to mind when I was listening was Daphne & Celeste fronting a band of mates trying to do late Eighties Alice Cooper mixed with teen angst torch songs about wanting to be with the bad boys, or the guy/graffiti artist with "boots of fire" -- no joke. Seriously, boots of fire. And they do a song called S-P-E-E-D-M-E-T-A-L which is more like speedy Cramps novelty material.

Actually, the record is so bad I'm having a great time making jokes at its expense. Perversely, xhuxk might actually like parts of it because it has those qualities that led him to put those entries in Stairway to Hell that intensely irritated purists. Kind of an accidental whoopie cushion of a record which I will probably listen to, at most, only one or two times again in my entire life. Two might really be stretching it. Once again, maybe.

And I actually saw a copy in BestBuy where it was listed with The Runaways, with the same name on the label, waiting to trick some unwitting person who doesn't smell the rat.