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Old school rock music

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Brigade du jour

21:58 / 27.03.04

I can't believe it. I'm almost in tears. A year and a half on Barbelith and at last I've found a thread that feels like home!

"Among the Living was ACE!!! (Caught in a Mosh, Skeleton in the Closet...) I'd given up on Anthrax many years ago, then I saw them by accident last year and they were fucking brilliant. Scott (not) Ian was having SO much fun... even if they'd been shit, they'd've been worth watching. But in the event, they actually rocked a snow leopard's ass."

Stoatie, was that the Motorhead evening at Wembley that we went to? I remember those snow leopards, they couldn't get in cos they had no tickets, but even from outisde their asses were rocked.

I used to be such a metal fan when I was about fifteen, but there's still a handful of those kinds of bands I'd listen to today, and I'm not even sure what irony is. I always liked Megadeth, especially Peace Sells ... But Who's Buying? All their early albums had lots of unnecessary punctuation in their titles, as if Dave Mustaine just wasn't in a hurry at all.

Anthrax, definitely. I kind of liked State Of Euphoria, even though I never got the David Lynch or Stephen King-inspired lyrics first time around.

Queensryche were good, a bit intellectual but that probably made them stick out like a sore thumb in the poodle-haired, misogynistic eighties. Operation:Mindcrime (cheers Seth) was ace; Empire even better if you didn't have time for a concept album.

Oh, and of course, Alice Cooper. The fucking man. Well underrated songwriter too, I might add. Everyone just thinks of 'Poison' but the stuff he was doing in the 70s with his 'classic' band was like a cornucopia of brilliant rock'n'roll songs. Under My Wheels, Elected, School's Out, No More Mr Nice Guy. Oh dude, you've got such cool music coming your way, I'm almost jealous!

Brigade du jour

19:20 / 28.03.04

Danzig, thanks for the Dance Of Death tip. Iron Maiden were actually my first favourite band (before that the only records I had were Michael Jackson and some free 7-inch Five Star thing. Jesus.) so this is really good news to me!

01:45 / 29.03.04

Iron Maiden's Phantom of the Opera is brilliant. I may have to check out that live double album mentioned upthread.

02:26 / 29.03.04

I just want to add another voice of praise for Anthrax. Prior to my radical chemical reconstruction they were my favourite band ever. While I was dubious about the vocalist change I really liked 'Sound of white noise'. Its one of their heaviest albums.

15:53 / 29.03.04

I bought a Blind Guardian album last week, I did.

I've had an appreciation for old silly-image Rock Bands since about the age of eight, and while I proclaim it proudly, I also point the finger of blame at my older brother, the hair metal King of my impressionable youth.

I wonder if I could find a babydoll 'maiden shirt somewhere...

Locust No longer

17:58 / 29.03.04

Two seventies rock bands I really, really like with little irony are Pentagram and Dust. Pentagram wants to be Blue Cheer, but they pull it off. And Dust is simply great rocking proggy metal type stuff. Dude...

23:45 / 26.04.04

Shit just by 'Kill 'em all', stick on 'Hit The Lights' and all will become clear.

Seen ACDC, Anthrax, Maiden, Ozzy, Slayer, GNR, etc, but Metallica were by far the best - been crap since 1992, but can still play live!

Brigade du jour

22:51 / 24.07.08

Anyone care for a spot of Aerosmith? Here are some thoughts, loosely strung together (only fair to warn those searching for a point!).

A friend of mine once told me her theory that Aerosmith had actually signed a pact with the devil. She based this theory on the evidence that Steven Tyler and Joe Perry look pretty bloody fantastic for their age and that the band are still making good music (well, as good as any of the music they made when they were younger).

The thought cropped up last summer after I went to see them at Hyde Park, after about twenty years of wanting to see them. They really were sodding brilliant live - the energy coming off the stage was really quite enormous.

On a broader note, I always thought Aerosmith didn't quite fit into the 'heavy metal' category. In a cultural sense they used to get lumped in with Maiden etc. but musically I think they come more from a rootsier, blues-based tradition whereas Maiden's music is perhaps a bit more classical- and even folk-influenced.

I'm no musicologist, but I've been thinking about where to draw the line between 'rock' and 'metal' recently, while setting up playlists on my MP3 player (yes ... this is my life). I put Maiden, Judas Priest, Megadeth and definitely Slayer under 'metal' but Aerosmith, AC/DC and Led Zeppelin found themselves in 'rock'. I tried to base my reasoning solely on the musical qualities, rather than 'image', but I had some trouble with certain artists. Motorhead I put under metal but Lemmy is perpetually on record describing his band's music as 'rock'n'roll' rather than 'heavy metal', in spite of it displaying heavily metallic characteristics, such as lots of guitar distortion, high tempos, gruff vocals etc., not to mention the cultural associations those outside the metal 'scene' might put upon them.

Anybody else care to try and 'Draw The Line' (b-boom)?

20:47 / 25.07.08

A friend of mine once told me her theory that Aerosmith had actually signed a pact with the devil. She based this theory on the evidence that Steven Tyler and Joe Perry look pretty bloody fantastic for their age

Hmmm! Not sure about this statement personally, as both look a bit like shammy leather left in the rain, but they do make good music. And write bloody good tracks, I've always like 'Dream On' and 'Janey's got a Gun'.

Whilst not a huge Maiden fan, I did grow up on hair metal, and recently have been found conducting inppropriate kitchen dancing to Mr Brownstone by Guns and Roses. I also confess that I'm off to a metal reunion night next Friday in Newcastle, namely a celebration / reunion of the Mayfair rock club, cruelly demolished to build a multiplex 8 years ago.

Can't wait!

20:49 / 25.07.08

PS. Having seen Motorhead at Donnington I don't care what Lemmy says. They're metal. Ear splittingly loud metal.

Brigade du jour

23:22 / 25.07.08

I should probably have specified that Tyler and Perry look better than most sixty-year-olds! Maybe that says more about my elder family members, though ...

07:45 / 29.07.08

there's nothing silly about motorheads image, unless i'm missing something, and i love them, big time. i would rate them alongside the ramones and the stooges as greatest hardest rocking rock and rollers of the past 40 years. had the pleasure of seeing them live at the hammersmith odeon and it was awesome. not sure i would call them metal either though. they are a thing unto themselves.

AC/DC were a great rock and roll band with bon scott singing, though back in black was good i thought they became a bit of a cartoon band after that.

i also have a soft spot for 80s pop metal like Rainbow of that era (since you been gone etc), Saxon (but only the first LP) and of course Maiden despite their somewhat overwrought style. i think i prefer my rock dumb assed at the end of the day.

Kiss are also good value of course, live at least. anyone off to the Download festival?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:56 / 29.07.08

Motorhead are the PERFECT metal band. There's just nothing out of place there. There's no "it's metal but with X"... it's just METAL. Pure fucking metal. No excuses.

There's a case to be made for Motorhead being the greatest rock band of all time. I'd make it, were it not for the fact that they just bypass all my critical faculties and just make me go "FUCK YEAH", which isn't really the highest level of discourse.

I get the Ramones parallel. They're the fucking ESSENCE. All other metal is like Motorhead but with a twist. Refined. Pure. Motorhead ARE metal. Metal IS Motorhead.

...and I'm way too drunk for this time of night.

20:31 / 29.07.08

yeah lemmy is definitely ROCK personified!

03:45 / 30.07.08

when that image loaded i thought for a second that nick cave had taken a turn for the worse.

11:19 / 30.07.08

that is nick cave sitting with motorhead, looking the best he has in years.

but, i dunno, motorhead as metal i just don't get but maybe just because i see them coming from a different lineage (chuck berry-stones-garage rock-stooges-ramones-motohead), rather than starting a new one (motorhead-saxon-krokus-twisted sister-manowar)

11:27 / 30.07.08

on a related note lemmy walked off nevr mind the buzzcocks mid-episode complaining about the sexist crap the regulars were spouting.

go lemmy go!

13:39 / 30.07.08

Has anyone else found that Guitar Hero et al has given them a greater appreciation for this kind of music?

Brigade du jour

14:00 / 01.08.08

I think you might be on to something there. Hard rock/heavy metal (woeful phrase, please bear with me until somebody comes up with something better) seems to be more socially acceptable now than it seemed to be when I was 15 and one of the few kids at my school whose favourite kind of roses were Guns'n' and not Stone.

Maybe 'Guitar Hero' is part of the same zeitgeist that prompted the likes of David Beckham and Robbie Williams to wear Exodus t-shirts. I don't know for a fact that neither of them are genuine hardcore Exodus fans (like, from the beginning, dude) but I do know pretty much for a fact that both of them are or have fairly recently been widely regarded as some kind of fashion icon.

Brigade du jour

14:02 / 01.08.08

My apologies, I just realised that I didn't really answer your question at all there! I just spun off on some tangent.

If it's any consolation, I've never played 'Guitar Hero' before and I've loved this kind of music for nearly twenty years so I'm hardly qualified to answer it anyway.

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