Long Live Heavy Music - 1st Steamin' Anniversary!

Before I move on to anything stupid, lemme thank Blogger. Thank You. You are so fucking awesome. One inebriated moment had me seriously contemplating I should've chosen Wordpress, but things here are done so dirt cheap, and I get to be paid!!

I know there aren't many of you regularly following this ambitious attempt of a webmag, but I am grateful. As hell. Some of you may be from the upper echelons of the biz, though I am pretty much sure most of you are my damned dearest, most loyal friends.

I sure owe you all lots of explaining big time, as with regard to why I have started doing this. By now, I would have replaced that Inaugural Post link in the Shortcuts widget with this one here. Originally I was to label that previous link as "Often Edited Inaugural Post", so I could, from time to time, add bits and pieces of excuses for changing themes as my archiving progressed. But I guess I'll just make a separate post here as it adds more content, more traffic, more hits, more ad clicks and more people pissed. At least I know by that one last bit, I have come.. victorious!

Death Angel, Arch Enemy, Avenged Sevenfold and Dio. These were the four major bands that had me writing like mad. They played a big part in revving the metal engine in me. I discovered these bands a tad too late in life and still I was forever changed. Because as old school as I am, I never thought that there can still be uncharted grounds, fore and aft, as far as my tastes go. Pardon my ignorance, but we didn't have mp3 downloading back in the day!

I would like to have that same mindset applied to the breed I belong to. The breed who's wary to give that old Appetite CD (or, heaven forbid, cassette tape) it's much needed retirement. It may be the seventh copy for all I care, making up for earlier ones which may have been destroyed, lost, or worse- unreturned. 

I am no Metal Messiah, but by God, I'm gonna herd some metalheads out of their comfort zones.

So now when I meet up with old friends and ask them what they have been playing lately and get 'still the ones we grew up listening to..' for an answer- Man I swear I could've been a tiger in my past life with the way I jump on an opportunity like this.

For starters, I move forward with recommendations. Like hearing A7X brings me back to the old days, fuck the nasal singing and their shitty fashion sense, City Of Evil is quite accessible if you give it a try. I remind them oldies too, that we didn't get to buy Death Angel tapes back in junior high but they were such a lifetime to miss. I stick up for Dio being not just a mere Ozzy replacement, and I show them how Arch Enemy's sound comes close to being a bit Thrash-y.. with a fine pretty blonde bombshell for a growler. 

With luck, I am able to haul some metal asses off to finally get their hands on those basics. And then it gets all the more exciting. I tether them now on to some Lamb of God singles, Dark Tranquillity live shit, Nikki Sixx new talents, 'supergroups' like Chickenfoot, Damnocracy, Roadrunner United.. and bring forth an awareness that both the then-opposing genres of Thrash and Glam are making a feisty comeback.

As my iPod song number counts close to ten thousand, I refuse to sit in solitude, experiencing such amazing records. As if I was in Sunset Strip circa '85, going out and 'handing flyers' became my mission. But the big blockade in this chosen path lies on the reluctance of the old guard to embrace the fact that Nü Metal is dead. You see, that's one big spike in the boot for me. Every time I go on vouching for new material to classic rockers, they always think that 'new' is Nü. 

Sheeet. Can't blame them, really. But I ain't callin' it a day.

So that is how I ended being curled up in this wormhole of a blog. Besides, I never run out of metal thoughts, though recently I have been running low on friends to whine and bitch and curse to.. And I'll be caught dead before doing this through famous social networking sites. Fuck Facebook, and all the political righteous waste of bandwidth!

Since it has been a year already, finally I had surrendered to the idea that I should let my readers in to my metal treasure chest. As a result, I had rolled out a link list of other blogs I read by the sidebar on the right. Shall I lose the few readers I have to them metal gurus, so be it. Pretty damn fine consolation knowing they will be in good hands. Funny thing is, I have my own selfish reasons, but to be included in their blog roll is certainly not one of those. I may be guilty enough to admit what I've been echoing from Blabbermouth, but I don't have the audacity to not acknowledge other sites that keep my metal juices up and running.


So give me this chance to thank as well, them angels (or rather devils) on my shoulders.

Metalsucks, for constantly reminding me that it truly sucks to enjoy Avenged Sevenfold! Vince and Axl, you are true metal geniuses. You guys'll never make it to heaven, that's a fact.  

Metal Odyssey, for the astounding archives of metal album reviews. Thank you, Stone, for such profound advice. I have been trying very hard lately in being 'my own music boss'. I haven't really done my homework by a long shot, but I'm feeling a little improvement!

Bring Back Glam, for your undying cause. You are such a badass, Allyson, for having taken potshots at not truly being able to 'live' the hairmetal salad days,  yet you proved them all that you know the scene better than anyone else who did.  

SkullsNBones Heavy Metal Social Network & Blog, thank you for the community. It's a long and dirty road ahead, but I'm wishing you all the heavy metal luck. Thank you also for this last video in which I'll be wrapping all these shit up.




Lastly, thank you, readers! Takers and haters alike! 


Because as what the mighty Slayer says, 'I deny, defy and spread a little hate wordwide!!"

Hell N' Diesel - high velocity hard rock in a sea of Glam.

Blogging about Hell N' Diesel makes up for lengthy content. It gives me one fine reason to add another post in less than a week without writing a great deal.

That's because there's really nothing much to write about them, and I mean no sarcasm in that. Quite literally, there's virtually nothing to be found significant after almost two months of searchin' the web. Official site is on 'htm-test', their MySpace account is nothing more than a plain media player.. the only thing you find in Wiki is their line-up, written in, well maybe, Swedish. The album I downloaded did not even have the proper title, Passion for Flower was how I  grabbed it. Hardly even my Glam guru  friend Harry knows anything about this band, and he knows them all- from the least important foxy posers during the Sunset Strip heydays up to the most legit musicians from this recent uprising in Sweden. Yes, there are more than a just a couple of 'glam revivalists' from Sweden. There's a revolution going on, and I'll write about that one soon.

I'm glad that on this note, there's something new I can hand on to Harry that he doesn't know yet. It's another matter if he'll dig this or not. Consider yourself lucky, I will not be writing about this band if this shit ain't worth your time. This record has been playing from start to finish on all my long road trips as of late.  Hell N' Diesel, as I would put it, is the flipside to this whole Swedish Sleaze stew that's been emerging. Somewhat like Guns N Roses was to the whole L.A. scene. Not because they don't sport the whole shitty fashion sense that these new bands from Sweden seem to still replicate (in point of fact, save for the pop metal lead singer, it's Crazy Town I do observe in them), but for the sole reason that Hell N' Diesel is the most aggressive-sounding from the lot. It may be a phenomenon, or some observable fact for them to be an antithesis to the scene in which they came from. But then again it may be strategy if the chronicles of GnR history were to be the basis.

There's one official clip from You Tube that fortunately they were able to put some budget into. Not the best one from their record I guarantee you that. First time I heard this, Motley Crue's Power to the Music instantly came to my mind. I hope this doesn't deter you from getting your hands on their powerful record, and as well I'm giving you the heads-up that the guitar solos you'll find here are so Slash-like, and the singing voice you may take  for Jani Lane's any time of the day. 

Just think of Hell N' Diesel this way: a street gang carrying with them a whole arsenal of everything that is heavy, raunchy and dirty about the eighties.  Now blast away!

The Last Vegas - Whatever Gets You Off !

The Last Vegas - it's been forever trying to write about this band and their record Whatever Gets You Off. It has taken so long because I can't embed the fucking video of their single! Goddamn ElevenSevenMusic for that.

This is THE post, if you will. I'm finally admitting, not without a trickle of courage, that I SO dig  Glam Rock. Or Glam Metal, Hollywood Rock, 80's metal, Sleaze Rock, Spandex Rock. Choose how you label this genre of unforgivable looks, there's some good music involved, that's for damn sure.

I've always bantered on myself that I'm a half-thrash metal, half-hard rock type of person. That's because I really can't seem to slice up where the boundaries lie. Thrash represents the dark side in me- I hold on to this music in times of angst and dejection, headbangin' in my man-cave or swaying back and forth in such ominous cacophony as I manhandle my demons. 


Call it psycho but I ain't slashin' my wrists in such an emo-esque manner! 

Hard Rock, on the other hand, stands for the badass in me. The debauchery, the cowboy boots and my love for alcohol!


I'd say if it were to be based on personality and just that alone, I'm one notch more of a hard rock guy.

Notwithstanding the abovementioned split personality psycho babble, blastin my speakers with tracks from Whatever Gets You Off made me think how much of a Glam fan I am. And I figured that's because it's the one sub-genre of this very wonderful umbrella of heavy music that makes me such a teen forever. Whether I'm thrash or hard rock doesn't seem to matter anymore. I will always be this kid who will never outgrow, despite the silly looks and moves, my love for Poison, Ratt and Bang Tango. There's just so much fun to miss!

       

That's it, Whatever Gets You Off is a fun record in general. Though I can't say the 'fun' part is still stuck in the eighties. The Last Vegas, in spite of being a Nikki Sixx 'gem' has kind of re-modeled themselves into this one big dirty ball of sleaze rockers playing some serious abrasive type of rock n roll. Yes it's still rock n roll to my ears, and I believe to yours too, if you listen more seriously. The one thing that drags them to the metal category, in my opinion, is their use of heavy and modern distortion. But then if you briefly shove those effects aside, you'll be cleared to an underside of boogie-based rhythm chords and lots and lots of Rolling Stones type of swagger.

Get this album now whether you relate to all my sentiments or not. As for how I manage playing this record, I have given two stars for each and every song since I can play the album in its entirety. There's not one lifeless piece in here, and the first track of the same title sure gets me off I just might crown it my five stars. 

In Whatever Gets You Off, the way in which the end of the chorus jumps right back at (yes, at, not to..just like a cat) the next verse is so insane in its execution! It's like hitting someone with a baseball bat and just totally forgetting about it as you resume playing guitar! 

Now since there's just no embedding that official vid, and I can't even download the badmother and upload it back here in blogger's crappy player, do check out HELL!. Trust me, you will surely bookmark that one.

Guns N' Roses Family Tree Double CD

I'm a big GnR crackhead always at the ready for my fix, but I called in sick on the last fanclub hieros gamos and entirely missed this piece of news here.

Guns N' Roses Family Tree

released on the Argentina record label Music Brokers Arg., May 2010.

If you are all too familiar with long-standing bands which have become somewhat like 'revolving doors' for different members, you might have ended up going to forums and sites trying to see who's the bassist, guitarist, or even singer for a particular point in a band's career. Say you've got numerous Whitesnake albums, and you have been impressed with the second lead guitar solo of this one song, but dunno of it's Doug Aldrich or Vivian Campbell who's playing (Doug has become some sort of replacement for every band Vivian has ever been to that he almost kind of replicated the 'delivery' of the latter), then you end up tracing the band's 'Family Tree'.

They're scattered all over the internet, those Family Trees. Whitesnake, DiO, Def Leppard and even to some degree, yes, Guns N' Roses. Not that they have really been a 'revolving door' band for the better part of their career, but some crazy-ass fans just kept on documenting its members and session musicians off of their Sunset Strip days up to the present Entropy of a line-up. You might not all be willing to agree that the current line-up is still GnR, but great band they may be, I, as well, belong to the camp which prefer them better left as "Axl & Friends". 


As I have originally intended to write this online resource for friends who have stopped researching on new material, I found the urge to write this and inform them of this 'must-download' stuff. Problem though, is that if you're probably one of them GnR die-hard fans with too much time on your hands, you must have amassed enough mp3's of your heroes that you may find nothing new in here.. 


Save for, maybe, the original studio version of Nice Boys. 


Nonetheless, I reluctantly loaded my iPod with this double album and duplicated some of my other files in the process. I noticed I already have some of the tracks from my Roots of Guns N Roses - Gilby Clarke and Fred Coury re-mastered, L.A. Guns studio recordings, Tribute to Aerosmith..etc..


But I'm having mighty grand time comparing the quality of those same tracks. My eardrums may be  all too hammered but I figured right off the bat that the ones from this Family Tree compilation seem to have been quality mastered before distribution. I may just as well end up saving the tracks from this record instead.


Tracklist: 

CD1

1  Anything Goes  -  Hollywood Rose
2  Welcome To The Jungle  -  Gilby Clarke, Tracii Guns & Kevin Dubrow (Quiet Riot)
3  No More Mr.Nice Guy  -  Slash & Roger Daltrey (The Who)
4  Sex Action  -  L.A. Guns
5  Sweet Child O Mine  -  Gilby Clarke
6  Killing Time  -  Hollywood Rose
7  Elected  -  Duff Mckagan, Matt Sorum, Steve Jones (Sex Pistols) & Billy Duffy (The Cult)
8  My Michelle  -  L.A. Guns
9  It’s So Easy  -  Tracii Guns, Gilby Clarke & Fred Coury (Cinderella)
10 Last Cigarette  -  Hollywood Rose Feat. Teddy Zigzag

11 You’re Crazy  -  Gilby Clarke, Tracii Guns & Stevie Ranchelle (Tuff)
12 Nice Boys  -  Guns N’ Roses (Rare Track – Original GnR Lineup)


CD2
13 Pour Some Sugar On Me  -  L.A.Guns
14 Rocker  -  Hollywood Rose
15 Mr. Brownstone  -  Bang Tango Feat Tracii Guns & Gilby Clarke
16 Toys In The Attic  -  Tracii Guns & Stephen Pearcy (Ratt)
17 Jailbreak  -  Hollywood Rose Feat Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones)
18 Used To Love Her  -  Gilby Clarke, Tracii Guns & John Corabi (Motley Crue)
19 Gypsy  -  Slash & Tommy Shaw (Styx)
20 Wanted Dead Or Alive  -  L.A.Guns
21 Patience  -  Gilby Clarke, Tracii Guns & John Corabi (Motley Crue)
22 Don’t Cry  -  Spike (Quireboys), Tracii Guns & Gilby Clarke
23 Shadow Of Your Love  -  Hollywood Rose
24 Lay It Down  -  Stephen Pearcy (Ratt) & Tracii Guns




Now if only you can show me that one golden link to a fine copy of those Rumbo Tapes...

Black Tide's Light From Above is totally off the charts Old School Metal!

Them Magic City kids can kick your teenybopper asses anytime of the day.

  

I must say, it ain't that frustrating after all, quittin' on the idiot box and all its mighty crap. People talkin' shit left and right 'bout who's winning the fuckin' elections, the NBA games.. never gave a dirty rat's ass about basketball.

But it was cool 'accidentally' seeing the final American Idol episode, with Bret Michaels finally back and rockin hard!

Hell, but look at what dwellin' in my filthy wormhole has gotten me into. Longliveheavymusic discoverd Black Tide! A tad too late for some metalhead who's been out hunting for some real music as of late, I know. But pardon me, I've been lookin' at the other direction, re-exploring the Hard Rock side of the word 'heavy'. That's what I do whenever I feel jaded about evil stuff, the Devil's Third, camo shorts and unkempt hair- i switch back to fun rock n roll! 

These past few weeks got me takin' a crack at the few hard rock items I had been waiting for, and it has been a long wait since the last output from Airbourne. Yet I still have this yearning to dig up quite some more after one spinning of No Guts, No Glory. True I can't go anywhere near as 'judging' it, and I won't. It's just that everything sounded too simple and basic from start to finish..

 

So forward I went to catch up on some of the more complex rock that's been out there for a while but I haven't checked out yet. I can give this self-titled one from Black Water Rising additional stars, maybe, after a couple more times I sit around with it. But I guess it's my longing for raw energy, power or chi..or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, that seems to never dwindle down.





Thank heaven for the parents who squirted out Black Tide.

More than a million hits on You Tube and I might still be playing John Corabi-era Motley Crue when all of these are happening! 

My ultimate memory of kids playing real heavy music was that of Death Angel's video from way before when they were just starting out. Andy Galeon was14 years old at the time and he ripped skins not thinking that his arm may only be as thick as those Vic Firths that we have today. I was blown away. Completely.


Had I seen that before the upper fucking echelons of the music business decided they would cash in on Silverchair ( and eventually Hanson, Moffats..  p'Tui! apologies all you alternagrunge lovers but I see no difference in them all ), it might have been a less boring time for me during the early 90's. I could imagine just how many people I would have debated that those kids aren't the be-all and end-all of teenage musicianship.

Well, we got a new breed here. 


from Wiki:

"The band started touring and gained a position on the second stage of Ozzfest, but were kicked off the tour because the stage was sponsored by Jagermeister and all of the members of Black Tide were under the legal drinking age. Although the band was no longer appearing on the second stage, Black Tide was able to be the opening act on the main stage in some areas...They are well known partly due to their age. They are all under the age of 21 and two members are still in High School. Also the lead singer is still 15."

Totally stoked. From first to the last track, Light From Above is full-on high velocity old school metal! It's been a long time since I had last gotten my hands on one album where I just kept on clicking 5 star ratings,  track after track, in my iTunes Library.

Sure enough everything is so ProTools these days, and I see where the skeptics are coming from. But hell we can always check with live footage. Try that one on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Man, do they deliver! Only complain on them live was the singing, which seemed to be low-pitched already. But I can't whine any much further about someone who's not even old enough to buy liquor and play really technical stuff!  

Also, don't crucify this author for branding them heavy metal, I must admit I was thinking sleaze rock when I first heard them. Some had even gone as far as '..sounds like Guns N Roses' in their reviews. But I'll pass on that. It's the riff-driven definition of 80's metal (virtually forgotten these days) that really grabs the music of this band if you listen more closely. Not so textbook on their part however, which means it can also be dubbed... FRESH. Hell, I don't even know how to explain the possibility of that. All I know is I fear maybe someday they will 'mature' musically, and experiment too far. But that's stating ahead of everything, might as well get fired up first with what they have to offer at the moment. 

This album is killer, man. I can't even find the words. I may be old school, but I have always believed that this same formula of heavy music is what we all true fans battle to push forth to the next century. If this can't be labeled as carrying the torch, I don't know what else can. Justin 'Gay Beaver' Beiber? Gimme a fuckin break.



EDIT 9 June: yes that last sentence baffles logic and obscures the flow of thought coz he's not even metal, but i'm not editing it for bashing purposes..i dont even know who he is :)