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.

Zakk Wylde guitar giveaway!

No matter how shitty-sounding your guitar is, aesthetics work at the end of the day.




(Ain't that the truth!)

I guess I'm trolling here no matter how much I hate debates. I still hold on to my opinion, don't get me wrong,  the guitar should sound fine. But isn't playing in front of many people the reason why we started rockin' at all? Club or arena, for damn sure I want my guitar mean-looking as hell if I am to shake my ass in front of people!

Point is, if I have all the money in the world, I can get good guitar brands with quality sound. Now the issue is not the quality, but the 'type' of sound. And yes, of course, the looks. If I want to play blues straight away, I'd get a Strat. And not just a Strat, but a Road-worn Strat. But I'm not your full-on blues guy, I also play metal rhythm. Now we should be talking Dean, or ESP in that regard. But no matter how many designs I look into, I still go back full circle to Zakk Wylde's Bullseye.

It's gonna be my 'safe queen' if ever I get my hands on one.

Win Zakk Wylde's Guitar!

Check out Classic Rock for all the details. The actual sweepstakes site is in Facebook though.

For whatever reason my eyes swept past again on all the details and were caught suddenly on that 'only persons residing in United Kingdom..' eligibility of the raffle. Man, I almost lost all interest to read on further. Often as well I'd find videos in Metal Hammer and Classic Rock, which, upon clicking, slaps you right off in the face with 'streaming only available in the uk'. Whenever I see that one hell of a disclaimer I always feel the urge to give my childhood buddy and former bandmate/drummer Vincent, who's now based in the UK, a buzz to check those things out. But in this case, I reckon it's not much of a reason of a disturbance to him, or any of my other friends in that country, who are now all too busy with Wimbledon, and are in mourning of the Three Lions' recent trouncing from Germany. Besides, my buddy's a drummer and the prize here ain't no drumkit. 

But off I went on to read more.. Fact of the matter is, I only saw the SG top half of the guitar in the pic above. Now I wanted to learn more about it and how Epiphone plans to pull-off the Bullseye pattern famous with the Les Paul, on the not-so-rounded body of an SG. Problem is, details say its half SG top and half flying V bottom. Curiosity is at an all-time high already as I cant even imagine the bullseye rings in an SG, let alone in a hybrid of two famous designs. Damn the extra effort of going to Google images.. but I'm saving you the hassle of that.

I can't say I'm particularly excited about this one. But I'm pretty much sure I don't want something that reminds me of snorkeling and agitating some starfish underwater. 

Always have been drooling over the bullseye design. It defines everything I love about Zakk Wylde -his playing, his attitude, his 'wrestler' stance, his fist-pumping, muscle-flexing, saliva-spittin', water-sproutin' antics and most of all, his blindingly fast pentatonics. He rips those leads and you're caught in a hypnotic trance. It's the same effect when you look into the rings of the Bullseye pattern!

However, as with this Epiphone ZV, Zakk has a tendency to use designs not so in-sync with his image. I did not like his take on the dotted Flying V pattern ala- Randy Rhoads, and more especially his bottle cap riddling off the Les Paul top. He better be sober when conceptualizing Guitar models, or else it gets too weird, not wild. And it says so in the Black Label Society site, which I quote "Here is a tip for the faint of heart - never put these three things together: Zakk Wylde, a bar napkin, and a pencil." I was thinking sarcasm, except it was not. I got it from the complete Gibson* Zakk Wylde ZV promotional donwloadable pdf that you can get here.

*you heard right, Epiphone is a subsidiary of Gibson but they maintain different production plants.

I think I'll be satisfied dreaming of just the orange Buzzsaw for now..

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 :)