Hard rock

[PZ]

There was a retro hamburger place in our area called Hard Rock Cafe which went out of business recently.  I liked that place, so am posting some of the hard rock I enjoyed as a youngster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VxcnIycgv8#ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh0iihjANPc#ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNF2KNcRm-U#ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDrk5DBHle8#ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTlamz5msoI#ws

[Fiach]

Kiss Alive 2! Crikey I love that song, here is a cover by Bulley Lavolta, a band I loved in the 80's :)

Bullet LaVolta Detroit Rock City live

[PZ]

Good rock!  I'd not heard of that band before.  :-X

[Fiach]

They were a punk/metal band in the 80's mate, had a great album called Swan Dive, Detroit RC was from a live EP called Xfire .

[Binnatics]

I started with this band, mostly because of the cover-art, but I did like the music:

Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast

Then I moved over to this:

Seek and Destroy - Metallica - Kill 'Em All - Lyrics - Studio Version - HQ

There seems to have been a discussion between James Hetfield and Dave mustaine, which made Dave leave the band and start a new one: Megadeth was born:

Devils Island - Megadeth (studio version)

(Chris Poland very nice metal guitarist)

Megadeth - Symphony Of Destruction

(Dave Mustaine in optima forma)

I do like metal in all its extreme forms, but Megadeth is the all time favourite for me 8)

[Binnatics]

By the way, Lynyrd Skynyrd with Freebird, great song and great version, reminded me of GTA San Andreas again. This song fits in there :-D :-X
GTA's Favourite songs

[fragger]

Funny thing - I really enjoy Lynyrd Skynyrd but tend to shy away from their well-known songs like Free Bird, Sweet Home Alabama, etc. and focus more on their less well-known stuff (among my faves: White Dove, Right or Wrong, The Ballad of Curtis Lowe, Workin' for MCA). Same with the older Doobie Brothers' material (pre-Michael McDonald, before Pat Simmons left and took all the soul with him) and Allman Brothers Band. That is if we're talking about that type of 70s quasi-rural American rock (I guess for want of a better term) and which I very much enjoy.

Interesting seeing Deep Purple's Machine Head album back there - first album I ever bought and an early quadrophonically recorded album (not that there were many - some thought quad was the way of the future but in the event it died in the arse, just like 8-track cartidges and Betamax videos...) Way back then I was really impressed with the quality of the sound engineering on that album. Still am, considering when it was made.

Lately we've seen and heard rock from all around the world, so I thought I'd chip in a bit of classic Aussie rock. One of my fave Oz rock bands was Cold Chisel, as far as I know totally unknown outside Australia but a household name within it. They were big in the 70s and early 80s and just recently got back together for a comeback tour. This is from one of their later albums (Circus Animals 1982) and was a kind of anthem for me and my mates when we were all young and full of piss and vinegar. A brief historical rundown: Oz kicked butt in the America's Cup in 1983, the first non-Americans to nick off with it in 132 years utilizing a boat with a revolutionary Aussie-designed keel and there was a kind of surge of national pride (looking back I think: so we won a boat race, big deal) and there was much self-congratulatory posturing and own-back-slapping and promotion of this Boxing Kangaroo flag, which was flown from the winning yacht, Australia II:

[smg id=4312 align=center width=250]

Believe it or not I even had one of those flags flying from the back of my motorcycle for a while there, along with my waist-length ponytail (I'd be lucky to grow a rat's tail nowadays). A little cringe-inducing to think back on it, but what's done is done :) In any event the song "Wild Colonial Boy" by Cold Chisel became a kind of FT(rest of the)W number for me and my friends back then, even if all we ever heard in the media at the time was a stomach-turningly poofy song called "Land Down Under" by a stomach-turningly poofy band called Men At w@&k (I still hear that song from time to time and I still think it's stomach-turningly poofy).

I'd like to think we've all grown up a bit since then. That's what I'd like to think - I wonder about some of my contemporaries sometimes...

Anyway, Cold Chisel was a cool band with a great sound and its lead singer Jimmy Barnes put his whole soul into it. I still like to listen to them and have all their albums. They were actually very versatile, encompassing blues, rock, soul and even the odd bit of jazz and reggae, and this song is in no way indicative of their entire repertoire. There's no clip here because there never was one, so all you'll see is a still image:

Wild Colonial Boy "Cold Chisel Circus Animals"

Sorry to blather on back there, but I'm an old fart - it's what I do.

[fragger]

And then there's one of my all-time favourites: the thinking person's metal band, the Blue Öyster Cult.

If astrophysicists formed a rock band, this is what they might write a song about:

Blue Oyster Cult - Heavy Metal: The Black and Silver

This is something of theirs which always appealed to me (pity the sound quality's not better):

Blue Oyster Cult: The Marshall Plan

I think what I like about these guys is they were all about heavy but slick harmonies, not just crashing sounds and power chords:

Blue Oyster Cult: Lips In the Hills

Finally, here's a live one that's reminiscent of Julian May's novels:

Blue Oyster Cult - Extraterrestrial Live - 11 - Veterans of the Psychic Wars [LIVE]

[Fiach]

BoC are my favourite band, yeah, thinking mans metal, I get that tbh :) My phone ringtone is Stairway to the Stars :)

I highly recommend this live DVD A Long Day's Night

I dont get the Julian May reference, although I have read most of her books.

Here are some of my favourites :

Steairway to the Stars

Blue Oyster Cult: Stairway to the Stars

Cagey Cretins

Blue Oyster Cult: Cagey Cretins

Dominance and Submission

Dominance and Submission-Blue Oyster Cult

Golden Age of Leather (surprised you didnt mention this being a biker n'all :))

Blue Oyster Cult: Golden Age of Leather

Tattoo Vampire

Blue Oyster Cult: Tattoo Vampire

Baby Ice Dog

Blue Oyster Cult: Baby Ice Dog

[fragger]

Great minds and all that, mate :-X :)

RE: Julian May, I was thinking of her Galactic Milieu Trilogy, specifically Marc Remilliard and his Metapsychic Rebellion, how it failed and how he and his followers had to escape to the Pliocene via the Time Portal - the Veteran of the Psychic Wars defeated and licking his wounds. Maybe it's just me :-()

I was going to link The Golden Age of Leather, but I already mentioned my long-vanished ponytail and motorcycle and didn't want to belabour the point :-D Love that song though :-X

I recently picked up a new CD of Some Enchanted Evening and it came with a bonus DVD inside called Some Other Enchanted Evening, which was filmed at a concert from the same tour that the album was recorded from. Largely the same repertoire as the CD but not quite. Sound and image quality aren't the best (the 70s, you know), but good enough to keep a fan entertained :-() I mention this because they do a great rendition of TGAOL in the film. Keep your eyes peeled for it if you don't already have it, as a BOC fan I reckon you'd like it  :)

And I will keep my eyes peeled for A Long Day's Night, thanks for that :-X

[Fiach]

Mate, I had a total brain fart on the Julian May thing, I thought you meant the cover pic of ETLIVE, I never looked at the song title  :-[ 8-X

I have the SEE album, but not the dvd, I'll keep an eye out for it cheers :)

[fragger]

 :)

Just a couple more from BÖC that I really like:

This isn't heavy, but I love the harmonies in it, as well as Buck's guitar solo:

Blue Öyster Cult - Don't Turn Your Back

And this one based on Michael Moorcock's novel Fireclown (and co-written by him), also not super heavy, but just a cool sound:

Blue Oyster Cult: The Great Sun Jester

[fragger]

Something I'd just like to clarify - earlier I used the expression "poofy". I hope nobody takes this to mean I'm homophobic, because I'm not. Far from it - I couldn't have worked in the theater for five years if I was :-() I've known gay guys who could punch the lights out of any hetero tough guy you could throw at them. What I mean by "poofy" is anything that is either insipidly nauseating (like that freaking song I used the word to describe - you would too if you heard it) or needlessly, overly ornate and anile, like having a lace doily on one's dashboard. Offer me a pink meringue with pink sprinkles on it and I might call it poofy but I'd still eat it and enjoy it. I just really like the expression and don't mean anything of a bashing nature by it.

I just wanted to make that clear in case I cause any offense to anybody who happens to read that post :)

[PZ]

Something I'd just like to clarify - earlier I used the expression "poofy"...

I had no idea what you meant anyway!

[Fiach]

From the album of the same name  >:D

Senseless Things - Homophobic a$$hole

[Fiach]

Back to BöC, I like this version of Astronomy, from the Imaginos project

Blue Oyster Cult: Astronomy (Imaginos Version)

[Binnatics]

I don't know any of these songs, but I do enjoy BöC.

And on a sidenote: I LOVE their cover art. That reminds me; when I was 12 years old I had the desire to become a cover-art-designer :-D
I made one once, for a Dutch Hiphop artist, but he never managed to get his album published :D
Anyway, ever since I was a child I've always been impressed by cover art. I remember two specifically: An album by Commander Cody (in fact most albums of that group) full of pilots and falling airplanes and smoke. Recently I stumbled on the album again and put it on the turning table at my parents' but the music didn't really touch me. It was mostly the cover ^-^

There's another example where cover art and music perfectly matched my favour: Nirvana with their album Smells Like Teen Spirit. I saw the swimming baby in the pop section of my favourite record store while I was searching the trash/rock category and thought to myself; "Man, that must be fantastic music".
In that same period I heard the title song an the radio and a few day later I went to that same store asking for the album; it happened to be the swimming baby :-X :)

When I see your taste of Rock Music I realize I've been influenced a lot by my desire to find the heaviest, hardest, fastest and darkest metal ever produced. My search to find that goal lead me to the darkest and most unsavoury sounds ever taped. Bands like Morbid Angel, Deicide, Gorefest, Cannibal Corpse and Obituary. On the other hand there were bands like Pantera, Slayer, Judas Priest and Exodus, all claiming to have the roughest, fastest and most pumping guitars around.
I went a lot to rock concerts during the 90's. The first one was in a relatively small theatre, all dark and smoky. The performing band was called Obituary and it was part of their World Demise tour. The lead singer was known for his roggeling grunt and I can still remember him headbanging on the stage. The most impressing performances were those of Slayer and Ministry. I as a youngster usually wanted to move to 'the pit' to pogo and headbang with the rest of the fans, but when Slayer started, the crowd always filled up with bulky, stinky screeming men made out of pure steel and adrenalin. A bit out of my league.  :o I remember a concert in Eindhoven, Dynamo Open Air '95 (Netherlands' biggest metal fest) where I saw trains of guys like that, 3, 4 guys each, moving towards the podium from all directions. That was really creepy. I decided for the first time that I'd better not go there.  ??? :-[

I think my queeste to find the hardest song in the world had everything to do with me becoming an adult, and having parents that already rebelled against any possible establishment you can think of; they are an example of an ever lasting hippy couple I guess :-D
The only way to rebel against them (considered that I didn't want to follow the mass and listen to Snap, 2 Unlimited, MC Hammer and Whitney Houston) and find my own way of rebelling, was in my narrow vision of that specific time, to go for the hardest. I remembered a live concert of the band Iron Maiden I taped from my favourite music station earlier on, and there started my search.

After my heavy period I also went deep into hiphop, and kept searching for 'the hardest' (Slick Rick, Public Enemy, Kool Keith, Easy E, 2pac etc). That took a few more years and then I settled again. Californication was the most obvious step towards cooling down.  ^-^

From time to time I realise there's still a lot to discover, even when it comes to rock ;)

[Fiach]

Cool memories mate  :-X

[PZ]

From time to time I realise there's still a lot to discover, even when it comes to rock ;)

Indeed - I don't know any of these songs either, and when young would listen to music all the time.  Interestingly I can listen to a song and sometimes recall something from my youth that I thought I'd long ago forgotten.  Amazingly, many memories are still locked away waiting to be rediscovered one day.

[Binnatics]

..... Interestingly I can listen to a song and sometimes recall something from my youth that I thought I'd long ago forgotten.  Amazingly, many memories are still locked away waiting to be rediscovered one day.

All these music topics we're recently starting are making me surf on memories for long nights the last 2 weeks :-X ^-^ (too long sometimes when I have early shifts that is :-D)

[PZ]

I know what you mean - have been remembering things from my teen years that were quite pleasant.  ;)

[fragger]

My interest in the popular commercial music scene began to fade as I got into my thirties and even before that I was never much into the really hardcore headbanging stuff. The only one of those bands that Binn mentioned that I've ever heard of is Judas Priest (I actually didn't mind them). I liked hard rock but I liked it done with a certain kind of finesse and musicality, not just crashing metal :-() I liked all the classic hardies like Led Zep, Deep Purple, some of Black Sabbath, a relatively hard BÖC-inspired Aussie outfit called Radio Birdman, but by the time the nineties rolled around I'd pretty much switched off the commercial scene altogether. Actually I began to go off it in the eighties when all those embarrassingly insipid boy bands like Culture Club and BROS began to pop up.

I've always had wide-ranging tastes. I've only gone on about rock here because that's what the topic is about, by I can also happily listen to jazz, prog, fusion, classical - just about anything as long as it's musical :-D

@Fiach, I really like the Imaginos version of Astronomy too. Cool album that - a concept one was a bit of a departure for those guys, I thought.

@PZ, "poofy" is kind of short for "poofterish", a "poofter" being a derogatory term for a gay guy, like faggot. I think it's English in origin. But as I said, I don't mean it that way at all - I just think the word is funny. Another word I like is "skank" for a bimbo-type girl, I think that's hilarious :-()

[PZ]

... Another word I like is "skank" for a bimbo-type girl, I think that's hilarious :-()

Another of my favorite movies came out of the early 80's - called Wraith, it features characters called "Skank" and "Gutterboy" a couple of hoodlums the latter of which is bordering on single digit IQ.  Here's an example - a cop went to visit the two at their place of employment and Skank uttered "Man, I smell a cop..." to which Gutter boy replied "a..a..a..all I smell is French fries, but that don't make no sense, huh Skank"

[fragger]

 

I first heard it at a mate's place. We were shooting the breeze in his lounge room while his daughter was watching "Mean Girls" on DVD and some character in it mentioned an "army of skanks"... I had to research the word later :-()

[fragger]

Binn mentioned album cover art a few posts back (yeah mate, I also like BOC's cover art - and each cover had this symbol on it somewhere):

[smg id=4313]

It's one of the great shames about CDs that their packaging doesn't allow the same level of creativity as the old vinyl record covers did. A cover artist once had essentially a foot-square canvas to play with, as opposed to about a 5-inch square for a CD, and without the encumbrance of an enclosing plastic case. I was thinking about some of the cool album covers of yore, like Led Zeppelin III and their Physical Graffiti album covers which had moving parts and cutouts to reveal a range of different pictures, and their In Through the Out Door album which came in a plain brown paper bag (cardboard record sleeve inside), the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers album which had a working zipper on the front, Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick album which came wrapped in an eight-page newspaper (complete with do-able crossword and a naughty join-the-dots puzzle), and Emerson Lake and Palmer's Brian Salad Surgery album which had flipping panels that revealed an H.R. Giger painting underneath. I'm sure there are others that I can't think of at the moment.