Dusty Hill’s Greatest Hits

Dusty Hill (May 19, 1949 – July 28 2021) was ZZ Top’s secret weapon. Most every ‘Top album has a ‘Dusty Song’ lurking within, often nestled deep into Side Two; just as the album’s energy starts to ebb, when the sonic scenery begins to get a bit same-y, BOOM Dusty’s spotlight song kicks you square in the ass with a muddy cowboy boot the size of Texas. His tunes were a blast of cool, a welcome ‘Howdy, y’all!’ from a familiar friend, often ramping up the album’s energy level with a higher voice and quicker tempo. Hill’s scratchy, soulful yelp was the perfect counterpoint to Billy G’s low-down and dirty drawl.

When I was a kid, listening through the new ZZ album for the first time carried with it the anticipation of what Dusty was gonna roll out this time. Because Billy Gibbons gets songwriting credit on virtually every ZZ original, it’s hard to tell if Dusty’s songs were actually written by the Dusty One himself, or if the the band (or producer) felt that his voice suited songs with a little more kick. Overall, most of ZZ Top’s Dusty-sung songs do offer a few unique elements: Besides the higher-gear tempos, there’s also a certain quirky quality in the lyrics that differentiate them from the rest of the catalog, a certain quality of cleverness and smarts. A solo album really would have cleared this up…

Based on the quality and quantity of Dusty’s spotlight tunes, I used to think a Dusty Hill solo album would have been the cat’s balls. But, then again, Queen used to indulge Roger Taylor one song per album, and eventually Taylor did release a solo record: the slightly-disappointing ‘Fun in Space’. So maybe That Little Ol’ Band from Texas knew best: Apply sparingly; save the Dusty songs for emergen-ZZ use only.

Anyway, we can now say with virtual certainty that we will never get that Dusty Hill solo album. Unless… we conjure one ourselves. Here’s a run-down of Dusty’s Ditties, all gathered together for your convenience. Taken as a whole, Dusty Hill’s body work within the ZZ Top Canon makes a killer comp. So here they are: “Dusty’s Greatest Hits”. Crank this shit UP! Soak up the spirit, the grit, and the badass vibe of the one and only Dusty Hill: The Bottom to the Top.

“I turned around and lit a cigarette, Wiped the dust off of my boots”: Ride with me now, way back to 1973, and ZZ Top’s first album, “ZZ Top’s First Album”. Dusty sings the 2nd verse in ‘Squank’, but on ‘Goin’ Down to Mexico’, Dusty take the mic for the whole enchilada. The soul and the clarity are there, and the smooth intensity of his delivery perfectly fits the tone of the song, but ‘Mexico’ only hints at what Hill would soon bring to the table.

Dusty did not take a lead vocal on ZZ’s next two albums… His pipes are notably absent from “Rio Grande Mud”; ZZ’s second and an early-era scorcher, but jeez, one Dusty bomb would have really pushed this record straight over the top. The band’s third (and best?) album, ‘Tres Hombres’, does not include a Dusty solo lead vocal, so we’ll have to settle for Hill and Gibbons trading off verses on the barn-burning ‘Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers’, which illustrated clearly how the duo’s vocals compliment each other so well.

“Everybody let’s rock”: As if to make up for the Dusty deficit on their two previous albums, the four-stringer gets THREE lead vocals on “Fandango”. Side One was recorded live, and ZZ’s scorching rendition of Elvis Presley’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ may be the finest example on this list of exactly what I’m talkin’ bout here. Dusty absolutely wails on this one, no ifs, ands, or buts. Billy G’s guitar is smokin’, but Dusty’s the one who’s on fire.

“Drinking whiskey and throwing dice”: Dusty takes the lead twice on the studio side of “Fandango”, and ‘Balinese’ is a southern-fried ode to a down low party location that only certain hombres know about. It’s a nimble, mid-paced numbah, and with a tasty lead vocal from Senior Hill, it’s a winner.

“I said Lord take me downtown, I’m just lookin’ for some tush”: Although later singles would chart higher, ‘Tush’ endures as ZZ Top’s signature song to many fans of, er, a certain age… The song was thrown together in about ten minutes during a soundcheck, and gave the trio their first taste of Top Twenty success and put ZZ on the map. Man, didn’t his voice sound great on the radio?

“And now you’ve got the order, I said it’s time to slip the border”: Dusty really shines on ‘Ten Dollar Man’, the ass-kickin’-est song on ZZ’s excellent fifth album “Tejas”. The ensemble playing here is absolutely brilliant, but The Dust breathes fire during this stern critique of some shady-ass individual who can get you whatever you need for a ten spot (just don’t ask too many questions).

“I got your name and your number!”: ‘HiFi Mama’ is a shot of old-school R&B, complete with a horn sections (ably played by The Lone Wolf Horns, aka Billy, Frank & Dusty!). This textbook Dusty bomb detonates smack in the middle of side two of 1979’s ‘Deguello’, and while brief (2:22), ‘HiFi Mama’ makes a Texas-sized impact in large part to Dusty’s high-spirited vocalizin’.

“Billy G. was passed out underneath the sink”: The hard left turn that was 1981’s “El Loco” was certainly the weirdest ZZ album to date, and closer ‘Party on the Patio’ followed suit. ‘Patio’ initially sounds more like the B52s than the Double Zed… until Dusty lets loose with his good ol’ boy howl. Some trippy effects are applied to his lead vocal, but nothing can dampen this cool-ass party invite. Be there or be square.

“Guess I’ll have to spank my monkey!” For me, a clear highlight of the controversial but hugely successful “Eliminator” album is Dusty’s ‘I Got the Six’, the hardest-charging song (and best dirty joke) on the album. While the new wave-y ‘Got Me Under Pressure’ rivals ‘Six’ for forward thrust and velocity, it’s Dusty’s delivery here that seals the deal. “Eliminator” eliminated a lot of loyal ZZ Top fans, ‘I Got the Six’ is proof that the REAL Top was still in there somewhere.

“I like to work it down low, I like to work it to the top”: ZZ Top followed up the enormous success of “Eliminator” with more of the same on “Afterburner”. THIS is the album they should have titled “Recycler”! I didn’t follow the ‘New! Improved!’ Top into their techno rabbit hole, and did not purchase this album, despite the fact that it boasts two Dusty tunes. ‘Can’t Stop Rockin’ closes out Side One with an upbeat, new wave-ish rave, with music so mechanized and stiff that one might imagining it being played by three bearded robots. But with a little magic Dust sprinkled on the Top, ‘Rockin’ is a keeper.

“Things were looking kind of serious, ‘Til everybody got delirious”: “Afterburner” wisely places a Dusty song at the tail end of the record to end things with a bang, and ‘Delirious’ does not disappoint. Very similar in spirit to “El Loco” closer ‘Party on the Patio’, ‘Delirious’ is 100% Dusty. High tech bells and whistles abound, but Hill’s Rock n’ Roll soul shines through the sci-fi sound effects and wraps up a ‘meh’ album with a whole mess of screechin’ and a-howlin’. Am I saying that Dusty Hill almost single-handedly saves this album? Yassir… almost.

In case you needed a reason to skip the third album in ZZ Top’s ‘Elimintor Trilogy’, here’s a big one: There are no Dusty-sung songs on ‘Recycler’. Adios!

“In this cloud of dust, you’ve got to keep steady”: ‘World of Swirl’ appears 3rd in the running order of 1994’s “Antenna”, an album that finds ZZ attempting to climb out of the techno-hole they dug for themselves on their three previous albums. That said, ‘Swirl’ really should have been 2nd in the running order on “Antenna”, as slowpoke downer ‘Breakaway’ almost kills the album before it has a chance to find it’s legs. A straight-up rocker like ‘Swirl’ at #2 would have taken ‘Antenna’ in a completely different direction.

“Cranked up all the way my tube is turning red”: All is not lost on “Antenna”, however; Dusty returns a few tracks later with driving bass playing and an urgent lead vocal in the dynamic ‘Antenna Head’. The Dust closes out the album with ‘Deal Goin’ Down’; this album feels a bit over-long, and the middlin’ ‘Deal’ would be one of the tunes I’d have trimmed off to tighten things up.

“Loaded, loaded, disembodied!”: By the time the ‘Top released “Rhythmeen” in 1996, it seemed as though few were listening. That’s a damn shame, because that means not enough people heard ‘Loaded’, Dusty’s contribution to what is a vastly underrated album. Hiding in the tall grass in the second half of the album like a snake, ‘Loaded’ slithers and slides through your speakers, drenched in distortion and hip shaking swagger. Dusty wants to party; climb on into this groove and join him.

“Put a chain around my neck And lead me anywhere”: Named to commemorate ZZ Top’s 30th anniversary, “XXX” isn’t just underrated, it’s oftern downright dissed. This unfairly maligned late-period fave features a handful of ‘live’ tracks at the end of the running order, including a version Elvis Presley’s ‘(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear’. The band play it slow, deep and hard, while Dusty slathers his vox over the top like spicy BBQ sauce. Not a word is changed in the lyric but somehow Hill manages to make this 50’s Elvis classic sound downright filthy. Bravo, Dustman!

“If I wasn’t lyin’, I wouldn’t be talkin’!”: There is a song called ‘Dusted’ on ZZ’s fourteenth album, 2003’s “Mescalero”, but Hill doesn’t sing it. Instead, he rolls out with ‘Piece’ at the halfway point of the album. Dusty’s in fine form, sparring with crazy-ass drum fills and begging a special someone for a little piece, and goddammit, it’s probly gonna work. Thirty-five years in and you can still hear that youthful ring in his voice; still see that wicked glint in his eye behind those cheap sunglasses.

“There’s girls that want my money, There’s girls that want my time”: The band’s final album “La Futura” doesn’t have a Dusty track… unless you bought it at Best Buy. ‘Drive-By Lover’ would have added so much to this lackluster album (Rick Rubin strikes again!), but for some reason (see previous parentheses) the song was relegated to ‘Bonus Track’ status. Damn shame! The final Dusty track in the ZZ Top catalog boasts a strident tempo, a slinky boogie feel, and a super-smooth vocal, rounding out this list in fine style.

Well, folks, now that Dusty has hit the dusty trail, and as more and more of our heroes depart this mortal plane, on what seems like a tragically regular basis, remember: The musician may be gone, but the music’s not. The best way to pay tribute to our fallen idols as they pass on is to celebrate their art; to use the gifts they gave us as intended. Make a playlist, burn a CD-R, whatever, just CRANK IT UP!

In Case of Sonic Attack In Your District

Question: What do the following songs have in common?

“You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC
“Hit Me Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears
Theme from “Sesame Street”

Answer: They have all been used by the US military as instruments of torture.

Music Torture is a thing. Not ‘torture’ in the same way that we annoyed our parents by blaring “Master of Puppets” from our bedrooms — but actual torture. Music torture has been shown to be an effective means to erode enemy resistance, influence behaviors, and ‘break’ prisoners during interrogation. On it’s face, music torture might not seem like such a horrible thing, but when wielded by the the CIA or the Psychological Operations branch of the US military, music can cause you to lose your mind. And not in a good way.

The idea of assaulting enemies with music was formalized within the US military during Cold War-era research into the concept of “no-touch torture”. Researchers during this period found that sensory deprivation and environmental manipulation, including extended bombardment with music and/or noise, could cause disintegration of a subject’s personality. Music torture became popular with the US military in later decades because it left no marks no the body, and was therefore more palatable to the public.

When the US launched Operation Just Cause in 1989 and invaded Panama to oust the country’s corrupt dictator Manuel Noriega, the notorious strongman claimed religious asylum and took refuge in the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See, a Vatican-owned building in the country’s diplomatic quarter. The US military began an audio-based assault on Noriega on December 20, using loudspeakers to blast noise at the side of the building. The military also blared broadcasts from the military’s SouthCom Network (SCN) radio at Noriega; Christmas carols were shot at the ex-dictator on December 25th at excruciating volumes.

On the 27th, the psychological warfare was turned over to the 4th Psychological Operations Group of Special Operations Command, and Operation Nifty Package was launched. Nifty Package allowed local troops to call the SCN station and make requests, suggesting songs they wanted played at their ‘guest’. Over the next 3 days, the number of songs requested grew to more than 100. It’s an interesting array of songs, from the more obvious ‘message songs’ (‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’, ‘You’ve Got Another Thing Comin”, ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’) to more eclectic choices (‘Eat My Shorts’ by Rick Dees, Paul Simon’s ’50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’, ‘You Send Me’ by Sam Cooke).

In the end, the sonic assault didn’t work. The Holy See complained to President George H. W. Bush about the tactics employed by the Americans surrounding the embassy, and after three days, the music was stopped. On December 30th, the Monsignor of the nunciature where Noriega took refuge was finally able to convince him to turn himself in to US Forces. So while the music didn’t lead to Noriega’s surrender, it did give the troops assigned to Operation Nifty Package a chance to express themselves. Loudly.

In 1993, the US Bureau Of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives decided that the Branch Davidian religious sect was stockpiling illegal weapons inside their compound in Waco, Texas. Local law enforcement attempted to execute search warrants and arrest the group’s leader, David Koresh, but were met with fierce resistance in the form of a marathon gunfight. The FBI joined the fray, and after several days of failed negotiations, the Feds began a high-volume campaign that included directing louspeakers at the compound and using sound to force sleep deprivation on the Davidians.

The weaponized audio included the music of Styx, Judas Priest, and Black Sabbath, as well as Lee Greenwood’s ”God Bless the U.S.A.” and Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made For Walkin”. Also on the Feds’ playlist: recordings of jet planes, the chanting of Tibetan monks, telephones ringing, and the screams of rabbits being slaughtered. Christmas Carrols were also played. But Koresh, a musician, retaliated in kind. R.J. Craig, part of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, said: “He had his little band in there and all of a sudden he starts playing, and we were 200-plus yards away and had to yell at each other to hear. It went on for several hours, this rock concert. Just showing us that his speakers were more powerful than ours.” Eventually, power to the compound was cut.

The FBI’s musical warfare didn’t work, and the siege did not end well. Another attempt to use music and sound as a weapon had failed. But the FBI siege at Waco and the Nifty Package operation were just the opening acts for the headline event: The psychological torture employed at Guantanamo Bay after 9/11.

Immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks, the George W. Bush administration established the Guantanamo Bay detention camp on the coast of Guantánamo Bay in Cuba to ‘detain extraordinarily dangerous people, to interrogate detainees in an optimal setting, and to prosecute detainees for war crimes.’ Interrogation at GITMO included several practices that most of us would reasonably call torture. And music torture was key among the the tactics employed against the inmates detained there. Music was used to create fear, disorient, and prolong what the military call ‘capture shock’.

Plenty of angry and aggressive music was employed against prisoners at Guantanamo Bay: Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, and Deicide were all present on the GITMO playlist. But once again, some decidedly non-Metal music — Brittney Spears, Eminem, the themes to children’s shows “Barney And Friends” and “Sesame Street”, the sound of crying babies and the audio from a television commercial for Meow Mix cat food — were also used. Babies? Kitty cats meowing? “Sunny Day, sweepin’ the clouds away”? How is that gonna hurt anybody?

Metallica’s Lars Ulrich was confused. In 2008, Ulrich told Blabbermouth.com “If there are people that are dumb enough to use Metallica to interrogate prisoners, you’re forgetting about all the music that’s to the left of us. I can name, you know, 30 Norwegian death metal bands that would make Metallica sound like Simon and Garfunkel.” James Hetfield didn’t get it either; after Kerry King commented that SLAYER’s music “would have been scarier and maybe more effective”, Hetfield said, “I agree. No doubt about that, but there’s still even scarier stuff than SLAYER too. There’s some pretty intense crazy stuff out there.”

Deicide’s “Fuck Your God” was a popular go-to at GITMO; Drummer Steve Asheim also chimed in: “Look at it this way. These guys are not a bunch of high school kids. They are warriors, and they’re trained to resist torture. They’re expecting to be burned with torches and beaten and have their bones broken. If I was a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay and they blasted a load of music at me, I’d be like, ‘Is this all you got? Come on.’ I certainly don’t believe in torturing people, but I don’t believe that playing loud music is torture either.”

What these dudes are missing is exactly how Music Torture works. As Thomas Keenan, director of the Human Rights Project at Bard College said in 2009, “It is music’s capacity to take over your mind and invade your inner experience that makes it so terrifying.” Human beings can’t simply decide to not hear something, in the same way we can decide to not see something by looking away or closing our eyes. With this understood, we can then move on to the three elements necessary for utilizing music as a form of terror: volume, aesthetics and repetition.

The volume piece is easy. Excessive volume can make it hard to focus and concentrate, and can also make it impossible to sleep. Mark Hadsell, an Army Reservist with the 361st Psychological Operations Unit led a PsiOps team in Iraq in 2003-2004. He blasted music while conducting interrogations near the Syrian border. In 2006, he told SPIN “We played Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ on repeat for a 24-hour period as sleep deprivation. You wanted to get them emotionally exhausted. Say you’re up for 24 hours straight, music pounding in the background… Nine times out of ten you’ll just answer a question without thinking.”

The repetition piece of the equation involves an insidious psychological component. Prolonged repetition of the same song can make it more difficult for the subject to orient themselves in time, and, ultimately, in reality. Choosing cutesy songs like Barney’s “I Love You” theme to repeat endlessly works as what the PsiOps folks call ‘Futility Music’. The stark contrast between the cheerful, melodic music and comforting words with the prisoners’ real-world misery and terror adds to the breakdown of the subject’s psyche by creating a schism with reality in the subject’s mind, and reinforces the idea that they are insignificant, that their plight is unacknowledged, and that there is no hope for reprieve… Basically, Barney and the gang are saying ‘resistance is futile’.

But it’s the aesthetics piece that is perhaps the most misunderstood. To understand this component, we need to acknowledge the power music holds within a culture, and the stark differences between Eastern and Western music. As Kelsey McKinney wrote for vox.com, “Music connects you to your culture, or severs you from it. Like many forms of art, music is how we identify with our culture and our place in the world. Playing music that was intentionally American or foreign was intended to distance detainees from themselves and their culture, as well as to wear them down psychologically. By using mainly Western music, detainees become inundated with sounds that are foreign to their ear and thus even more grating and isolating than something they might be better associated with.”

“Our brains automatically process music and try to figure out what comes next,” Daniel Levitin, a psychology professor at McGill University and author of the excellent book “This Is Your Brain on Music” told NY Magazine in 2009. “Any Western music would have done the trick. These were tonal structures the detainees’ brains can’t figure out. They kept trying, and they kept failing. Just as if I made you listen to Chinese opera, it’d probably drive you crazy.”

Within the aesthetics idea, there is a religious component as well. Songs by Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera were chosen because female singers were thought to offend Islamist detainees; hearing Aguilera’s “Dirrty” ad nauseum was meant to humiliate a male subject by making it impossible for him to be an observant Muslim man. “Enter Sandman” was used during the interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani, the 20th hijacker on Sept. 11, which brought al-Qahtani to tears because he thought he “was hearing the sound of Satan”.

Music torture at GITMO was, at it’s core, the weaponization of differences between Eastern and Western cultures. Blasting Barney or Lee Greenwood will do just as much damage as the most brutal Death Metal imaginable. So: Now that we have a proper understanding of exactly how music can function as an instrument of torture, we should be asking: Did any of this work?

No.

A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report found that torture at GITMO inflicted severe psychological damage on many of those who were subjected to it, but did not lead to any actionable intelligence. Specific to the musical element, Dr. Stephen Xenakis, a psychiatrist, retired brigadier general, and former commander of the Southeast Regional Army Medical Command, says this sort of musical bombardment can indeed cause permanent damage. “It’s really traumatizing to the brain. It will lead to anxiety and the kind of symptoms you get with post-traumatic stress disorder.” So while the Senate report indicated that several detainees were indeed “broken” by the music, the ‘enhanced interrogation’ that utilized music as a weapon at GITMO did not result in any important intelligence breakthroughs.

‘Futility Music’ indeed.

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Metal

For the last seven years or so, I’ve been writing about the music, musicians, albums & songs that I love. Lately I’ve found myself hitting something of a roadblock when putting these articles together, usually when exploring a topic from the 1970s. Using the term ‘Heavy Metal’ in a 1970s context used to come naturally and feel completely appropriate to me; but lately I find myself questioning it’s validity in a 1970s context. I’m sensing some kind of shift has been underway in the historical understanding of Heavy Metal, and it’ troubles me. What gives? Why do I now frequently find myself musing, ‘wait, is it Metal, or is it Hard Rock?’ The answer to that question may well depend on when you were born.

My Heavy Metal fandom started in 1978; I was 14 years old. As I started to develop my tastes and buying records as they were released, I also started buying music that appeared before my Metal awakening. My own tastes and personal understanding of the genre led me to the conclusion that Metal became a ‘thing’ in 1968. If I had to pick The First Heavy Metal Band, I’d choose Blue Cheer; First Heavy Metal Album: Blue Cheer’s ‘Vincebus Eruptum’. I understand that the rest of the world seems to have settled on Black Sabbath’s 1970 debut as Ground Zero for Metal. And I totally get that.

In my view, 1978 was Heavy Metal’s tenth anniversary year. A lot of growth occurred in Metal’s first decade; we went from The Yardbirds’ version of ‘The Train Kept a’ Rollin’ to Judas Priest’s pulverizing ‘Hell Bent For Leather’. As a kid in ’78, the ‘heaviest’ record I had ever heard was Sabbath’s ‘Master of Reality’; possibly Van Halen’s debut. Maybe AC/DC’s ‘Let There Be Rock’? I, like many others, kept searching for records that would outdo those records on the Richter Scale. And as Metal evolved, we got our wish. Heavy Metal got heavier. And heavier.

That’s the thing about Heavy Metal; if things get stagnant or stale, it re-invents itself. I’ve been lucky enough to witness the birth of several new sounds, styles, and significant sub-genres in realtime, while following Metal’s twisted path, and if you’re my age, you have too: NWOBHM, Thrash, Death, Black… Ok, yes, also Hair Metal and Nu Metal. So after fifty years of steady evolution, today’s Heavy Metal (or, as it’s more commonly referred to today as simply ‘Metal’) is so far removed from the Metal of 1978 that the fourteen year old inside me is often stunned whenever I put the ol’ iPod on shuffle, and hear Nazareth segue into Napalm Death; Van Halen into Vader.

But can both Y&T and Carcass really inhabit the same genre? Well, yes and no. A funny thing happened on the way to 2020: As Metal evolved into new and different sonic and stylistic territories, it began to shed an entire era of it’s history; a significant chunk of what was inarguably considered ‘Heavy Metal’ in the 1970s is being re-labeled as ‘Hard Rock’, a change that minimizes much of the heavy music produced during the first decade of Metal’s evolution and would leave modern fans’ understanding of the genre and it’s history incomplete and seriously skewed.

Only someone who was a Metalhead in the 70’s would be aware of this subtle change in terminology. If you’re aged 40 or under, you’re probably unaware of this creeping category shift; to you, the Fast, loud, n’ hard music of the 70s is probably known to you as ‘Hard Rock’. The average 20-something Metal fan of today would laugh probably in your face if you referred to Aerosmith as a Heavy Metal band. But if you grew up in the 70s, you know that this was exactly how they were classified. Is Thin Lizzy Heavy Metal? Depends on how old you are. The truth is they were, but now, it’s suddenly debatable.

So what’s happening? Clearly, the Heavy Metal of the 70s is so different from the Metal of the new millennium, that modern fans couldn’t reconcile the two sounds falling under the same umbrella, and decided en masse that the genre boundaries needed to be re-drawn. Obviously Metal music of the 70’s hasn’t changed, only the category to which we might assign it. The sole exception seems to be Black Sabbath, who will probably never lose their Heavy Metal status, due to being widely regarded as the inventors of the genre, but other 70’s Heavy-weights still considered Metal today have begun sporting the ‘proto-‘ prefix before their descriptor. There’s been no coordinated plan, no petition, no agreed-upon date for this change; it’s occurring gradually, organically. For a student of the genre, it’s a fascinating phenomenon.

Ironically, we might consider 1980 and the rise of the NWOBHM to be the cut-off point. It seems as if, at some point after the turn of the millennium, most of the Metal bands of the pre-NWOBHM era (otherwise known as ‘The 1970s’) found their Metal cred in question. I say it’s ironic because the term ‘New Wave of British Heavy Metal’ implies that there was a previous wave of British Heavy Metal. And of course, there was; Queen, UFO, Budgie, Rainbow, Judas Priest all existed before the NWOBHM. But here again, most of these bands are being re-christened as ‘Hard Rock’. But the NWOBHM makes sense as new genre boundary, as after the passage of several generations, the era of the genre’s rebirth becomes regarded as the era of it’s birth.

Do I sound like an ageing fan with a fading memory? Are there readers out there who were born sometime in the 70s, or after, who are thinking ‘this guy is nuts; Hard Rock is Hard Rock and Heavy Metal is Heavy Metal!’ I’m here to tell you it wasn’t always that way. And I can prove it. No, I’m not going to refer you to the internet, where the vast majority fof the content was likely generated after this HR/HM shift began. No, to confirm this, we need access to a static, unchanging source of information, one contemporary to the time period in question: that old pile of Circus and CREEM magazines in my basement. Watch your head.

Some context: When I joined the party in ’78, and just before the NWOBHM breathed new life into the tired warhorse called Heavy Metal, the genre’s popularity was at it’s lowest ebb. Metal seemed spent, and was suffering an identity crisis after assaults from Disco, Punk Rock and New Wave. and the vast majority of Metal’s Heavy-weights chose to take the year off and release live albums. Metal fans were fewer in number but as dedicated as ever, but the rock press knew that the genre was in serious trouble. The situation was so dire that in May of 1978, a Circus Magazine cover blurb asked “Can Heavy Metal Survive the 70s?” music journo Robert Smith took the opportunity to wonder “Can Kiss, Queen, Led Zep and Nugent keep Growing?”

A year later, CREEM Magazine took this a step further, asking “Is Heavy Metal Dead?” in their October 1979 issue. In this article, which was described as a ‘eulogy’ in that issue’s table of contents, one of CREEM’s more irreverent writers, the legendary Rick Johnson, submitted a rundown of all the ‘relevant’ Metal bands of the era and provided his thumbnail assessment of each group’s worth. It’s a hilarious piece; Johnson’s sarcastic style was always entertaining. Looking back at this article, and at the Circus article from the previous year, provides a snapshot of which bands were widely considered Heavy Metal near the end of the 70s.
Here’s a round-up of the bands included in both the Circus article and the CREEM piece:

Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, Ted Nugent, Monstrose, Van Halen, Rush, UFO, AC/DC, Rainbow, Queen, Nazareth, Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Foghat, Thin Lizzy, Status Quo, Uriah Heep, Budgie, Bad Company, Boston, Pat Travers Band, Wishbone Ash, Heart, The Dictators, Molly Hatchet, Mahogany Rush, Starz, Angel, The Godz, The Runaways, & REO Speedwagon.

Sure, decades later, it’s easy to agree that many of the covered bands should no longer be considered Heavy Metal –the fact that REO was included pleads the case for their urgent re-classification; no way in Hell can REO Speedwagon reside within the same musical category that Slayer did a decade later– but at in 78/79, they did. It helps to remember the context: This was Metal’s first decade of existence, and at that point in time, it didn’t get any heavier than this, folks. Deep Purple did not exist in 1978/79, and Motorhead’s ‘Overkill’ record wasn’t released until May 1979, and when the CREEM article was published, it was virtually unheard outside of the UK and Europe.

CREEM’s October 1980 issue, one year after presiding over the death of Heavy Metal, CREEM took note of the NWOBHM and Metal’s rapid resurgence with another feature article by Johnson called ‘Heavy Metal: Back From the Dead’. In addition to many of the bands featured in the 1979 article, the 1980 rundown included Scorpions, Blackfoot, Gamma, The Joe Perry Project, Triumph, and Humble Pie, along with a smattering of NWOBHM bands (although the tag ‘NWOBHM’ was not mentioned in the article). Again, if it looks a little odd seeing this bunch of bands referred to as Heavy Metal (Humble Pie?), it is what it is; that’s they way that it was.

I also dug out a (coverless) Special Edition issue of Circus, cover dated Feb 1980, called Rock Legends. There’s an entire section of the mag covering Heavy Metal, and features articles on Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult, and … Grand Funk Railroad. Was GFR a Heavy Metal Band? Circus Magazine, with sales and circulation in the 70’s second only to Rolling Stone, thought so. Apparently, Humble Pie met the 1980 criteria for Heavy Metal certification, before the goalposts started moving .

Somehwere around the dawning of the new millenium, Metal Nation collectively/unconsciously decided that much of the Metal of the 70s wasn’t really Metal at all, and began to re-assign it to the Hard Rock category, and undertook a major re-write of Metal history. Maybe it started back in the 90s, when Metal split into endless sub-genres and fans needed a scorecard to keep track. But it IS happenning; right under our noses, 70’s Heavy Metal is quietly getting demoted, downgraded… diminished. The term ‘Heavy Metal’ indicates a genre seperate from any other; ‘Hard Rock’ reads like a sub-category of ‘Rock’. Yawn.

I think genre tags, musical boundaries and categories are subjective and ultimately meaningless. That said, this shift will never be acknowledged by me as legitimate. I view Metal as a wide spectrum of sounds and styles. I can see no reason why any single ‘era’ of its history would need an etymological update. Perhaps I’m reluctant to see it change because I because I lived through it, I grew up with it; I’m emotionally invested in this era more than any other. So don’t drink the Kool Aid! If it was Heavy Metal then, it’s Heavy Metal now, dammit, it always will be and HEY YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!

We’re Moving Like a Parallelogram

“I was on tour with Hawkwind in 1974, we were staying at the Riot House (the Hyatt Hotel in Los Angeles) and Roy Wood and Wizzard were also in town. I got this urge to write a song in the middle of the night. I ran downstairs to the Wizzard room, got Roy’s Ovation acoustic guitar, then hurried back to mine. I went on to the balcony and howled away for four hours. Cars were stopping and the drivers were listening then driving off, and there I was yelling away at the top of my voice.” – Lemmy

 
And there you have it: The origin of a hugely significant song, one that inextricably connects Lemmy’s history with Hawkwind to his subsequent success with Motorhead. Originally positioned as a non-album single B-side, the song would eventually became a ‘hit single’, rising to #6 in the UK singles chart.

 
The song in question was named for the American term for speed freak: ‘Motorhead’. One could therefore easily deduce exactly what kind of drugs Lemmy was on on that night in LA; I’m no expert, but suddenly being struck with an urgent need to write a song in the middle of the night and bellowing off a balcony at the top of your lungs for four hours may indicate the use of speed. Well, they say ‘write about what you know’, and Lemmy did just that. ‘Motorhead’ is a snapshot of what was happening in Lem’s head during that late-night writing session:

 
Sunrise wrong side of another day, Sky-high and six thousand miles away
Don’t know how long I’ve been awake, Wound up in an amazing state
Can’t get enough and you know its righteous stuff?
Goes up like prices at Christmas

 
And of course, no examination of Lemmy’s ‘Motorhead’ lyric would be complete without a mention of the infamous ‘parallelogram’ line:

 
Fourth day, five day marathon, We’re moving like a parallelogram
Don’t move, I’ll shut the door and kill the lights, If I can’t be wrong, I must be right
I should be tired, and all I am is wired, Ain’t felt this good for an hour
‘Moving like a parallelogram’? YES. When you do drugs with Hawkwind, everything moves like a parallelogram. Speaking of drugs, the fact Lemmy’s ‘Motorhead’ would appear as the B-side of Hawkwind’s ‘Kings of Speed’ single confirms some previous assumptions about the band’s drug use. Beyond the obvious ‘speed’ reference, the ‘Kings’ lyric also makes reference to cocaine:

 
Between you and me Mr. C, I think we have what these boys need
We guarantee you the sweetest ride, You’ll go so far you’ll think you’ve died
The biggest attraction, the brightest star, Boys you’re going fast and far
Kings of Speed, Kings of Speed, We’re gonna make you, Kings of Speed

 
‘Motorhead’ was the perfect compliment to ‘King’s of Speed’, as the songs are clearly linked thematically, making the single a kind of musical tribute to amphetamines. It would also be the last song Lemmy Kilmister would ever write for Hawkwind, as Lem would be fired in June the following year. Excerpts from a short piece in the NME from June of 1975 gives us insight into Lemmy’s firing, and the significance of speed to this time period in The History of Lemmy:

 
“Sacked. I was sacked. We were going from America to Canada and I had two grammes of Sulphate. They thought it was cocaine. A bit later I was called to Dave Brock’s room. They were all sitting there. I was told I was being sacked. I said ‘Thanks very much’ and left the room. I must tell you I was Upset. Tears Were Seen. Anyway, I pleaded Not Guilty and the charges were dismissed. After all, it wasn’t the Big C — only Biker Sulph, which ain’t illegal in Ontario.”

 
Lemmy further explained that his new band would “concentrate on very basic music: loud, fast, city, raucous, arrogant, paranoid, speedfreak rock n roll … it will be so loud that if we move in next door to you, your lawn will die”. While he first considered naming his band ‘Bastard’, an allusion to his recent firing, ultimately he decided to see the title of his final contribution to his previous band: ‘Motorhead’. As he moved on, he also took the song itself with him and reshaped it for his new project, with great vengeance and furious anger.

 
‘Motorhead’ the song has been re-recorded by Motorhead the band three times, features on two of the band’s official live albums, and many alternate versions of the song – by both bands – have appeared as bonus tracks on ‘Deluxe’ re-mixed/re-mastered versions of the original classic records. I count no less than eleven versions of ‘Motorhead’ that I consider worthy of your attention. Here they are, in the order that they were originally recorded:

 
‘Motorhead’ Version 1 / Instrumental by Hawkwind, from the ‘Warrior on the Edge of Time’ sessions, 1975

umbling to life with a patented Lemmy Bass Intro, the first recording of ‘Motorhead’ lopes along at a friendly, almost laid-back pace. What makes this version interesting is that, in the absence of a lead vocal or guitar solo, the energetic bass strumming of frustrated guitarist Lemmy can be clearly heard in certain sections. Laid bare like this, the simplicity of the song’s riffs and overall arrangement reinforce a stark contrast between most of Lemmy’s songwriting contributions to Hawkwind and the trippy prog/jam sound that characterized most of the band’s music.

 

‘Motorhead’ Version 2 / Brock Vocal by Hawkwind from the ‘Warrior on the Edge of Time’ sessions, 1975

Say what you will about Lemmy’s …unique… vocal stylings, but Hawkwind founder Dave Brock’s vocal take is blah. Maybe it’s just that we’re so used to Lemmy belting out this tune, but Brock’s somewhat thin voice lacks character and his lazy approach to the lyric’s rhythms dulls the impact of a song that’s supposed to be all about the manic intensity of an amphetamine high. The guitar solo here may have been just a ‘scratch’ take, and not intended to be retained, as it’s completely unfocused and aimless; though backed with Hawkwind’s warped electronic sound effects, it actually kinda works.

 
‘Motorhead’ Version 3 / Single version by Hawkwind, B-Side of ‘Kings of Speed’ single, 1975

This is the first recording of the song that anyone outside the band ever heard. The WotEoT Deluxe liner notes state that Lem had lost his voice when it was time to record the vocal to his song, and Brock stepped in and sang Lemmy’s lyrics, completing the tune. Apparently Lemmy wouldn’t have it, and he eventually laid down his vocal, job done. Not to be outdone, Lemmy added a lower harmony, which lurks beneath the main vocal and lends the lead vocals an ominous tone. Another major difference from the previous two iterations is the inclusion of a violin solo. You read that right. Welcome to Hawkwind.

 
‘Motorhead’ Version 4 / Dave Edmunds Demo by Motorhead, 1975

With Larry Wallis on guitar and Lucas Fox on drums, we have arrived at the very first version of ‘Motorhead’ actually recorded by Motorhead. Compared with the Hawkwind version from earlier in the year, the tempo is juiced, the energy level is way up, and harmony vocal is gone. Lemmy’s vocal performance is spirited and the guitar flourishes by Wallis bring the song squarely into Hard Rock territory. In my humble opinion, this is the ‘best’ studio version of this song. A pity Dave Edmunds, producer of the demo, didn’t stick around to do the album that followed…

 
‘Motorhead’ Version 5 / UA ‘Debut’ Album Version, 1975

This problematic version is the opening track on what would have been Motorhead’s debut. Recorded in 1975 but shelved by United Artists, the record was ultimately released as ‘On Parole’ in 1981 to cash in on the smash success of Motorhead’s ‘No Sleep ’til Hammersmith’, which entered the UK charts at #1. Side One/Track One opens with the sound of a motorcycle roaring to life, obscuring almost all of Lemmy’s bass iconic bass intro; the annoying bike noises continue well into the song. The ‘production’ on this version is questionable at best, with its tribal drums and droning guitar overdubs rendering this version an unfocused mess.

 
‘Motorhead’ Version 6 / Chiswick Debut Album Version, 1977

Because Motorhead’s very first version of ‘Motorhead’ (the 1975 demo) was unheard for 22 years, and the second (UA album version) was locked away for six years, this third Motorhead version of ‘Motorhead’ that the general public would hear. With the classic ‘Three Amigos’ line-up of Lemmy, Fast Eddie Clarke, and Philthy Animal Taylor in place, the band recorded this version during a whirlwind weekend session in 1977 that was supposed to produce a 2-song single; instead, the session yielded this song, plus 12 additional backing tracks.
Eddie tells it:

 
“That was Friday night, so we had all Saturday and Sunday. We’d been playing these songs for a year, so we thought fuck it, we can do an album. In a few hours we had all the backing tracks down. Put the vocals down. Bit more speed, put some more guitars on. Few more beers – we were fucking steaming. Come Saturday night, we’d nearly finished it.”

 
Speed, indeed! Even the producer’s name was Speedy Keen. Management agreed to up the budget and a full album was completed.

 
Rough and ragged, this take on the band’s namesake song sounds very punk and has a live ‘warts and all’ (no pun intended) feel. When the band crashes in to the song proper, and Phil’s hi-hat work and Eddie’s wall of sound guitars meshing with Lemmy’s trebley bass savagery, it’s clear: while still in its primitive stages, there’s something special happening here. Eddie’s hyperactive solo is the icing on the cake: Motorhead have arrived. Lem’s lead vocal carries a bit more rasp than usual; yours would too if you’d double-tracked vocals for 12 songs in 48 hours. This version was also released as the band’s first official single, with their version of Larry Wallis’ ‘City Kids’ on the flip, in June of 1977.

 
‘Motorhead’ Version 7 / Chiswick Session Alternate Take, 1977

Unearthed and included with a 40th Anniversary re-release of the ‘debut’ album in 2017, this alternate take is even more frantic than the album/single version, but probably wasn’t used due to the fact that Eddie applies a an echo effects pedal midway through his solo, and then a flange pedal near the end, which he never de-activates, allowing the effect to continue throughout the entire 2nd half of the song. The vocal is not doubled, and Lemmy’s lead vocal sounds great, although this take was likely abandoned early in the sessions.

 
‘Motorhead’ Version 8 / ‘No Sleep ’til Hammersmith’ Album Version, 1981

Recorded on March 29, 1981 during the ‘Ace Up Your Sleeve’ tour in 1980 in Newcastle. The Three Amigos had come a long way since their ‘debut’ appeared in 1977, rapidly evolving into the unstoppable wrecking machine heard on their first official live album ‘No Sleep ’til Hammersmith’. Lemmy intros the band’s final encore with a tossed-off ‘Just in case…’, and unleashes that classic 4-string intro, his bass approximating the sound of the flaming metal wreckage of the Hindenburg impacting the ground. The band sounds absolutely vicious throughout. This recording was also released as a single, unedited, with one minute plus of ear-piercing, squalling feedback and air raid sirens at the song’s end retained from the album version; it peaked at #6, becoming Motorhead’s highest-ever charting single.

 
‘Motorhead’ Version 9 / ‘No Sleep til Hammersmith’ Alternate Version, 1981

Also intro’d with a ‘Just in case…’, this one is a bit more ‘unorganized’ than the ‘No Sleep’ version discussed above, but overall quite similar, as it was recorded on March 30, at a second Newcastle City Hall show. This was released in 2001 in a 2-CD ‘Complete Edition’ of ‘No Sleep ’til Hammersmith’, which compiled an alternate version of the ‘No Sleep’ album with unused recordings from the Leeds and Newcastle shows. As is usually the case when tracks that didn’t pass muster the first time around are hauled out as bonus tracks, these tracks are interesting, but not up to the standard of the material chosen for the official album.

 
‘Motorhead’ Version 10 / ‘The Birthday Party’ Live Version, 1985

This version is surprisingly tight, considering there were 9 people on stage playing it together! For the final song during Motorhead’s Tenth Anniversary gig at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, the 2-guitar version of Motorhead – Lemmy, Wurzel, Phil Campbell, and Pete Gill – are joined by Phil Taylor, Eddie Clarke, Brian Robertson, and Lucas Fox – every previous member of Motorhead with the exception of Larry Wallis. Wallis didn’t make it, but that was fine; his spot was taken by none other than Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott! Employing 5 guitarists, 2 bass players and 2 drummers (Fox played guitar here, not drums), this rendition could have completely fallen apart, but it all hangs together well, as this mob bulldozes through the old warhorse and does it proud. This show was released on CD and VHS in 1990; sorry, no legit DVD or Blu-Ray exists.

 
‘Motorhead’ Version 11 / Guitar Hero III Video Game Version, 2008

For the next iteration of ‘Motorhead’, we have to jump forward almost 25 years, and into the video game era. In 2008, the song was recorded by would would be the final line-up of Motorhead: Lemmy, Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee. This version was released as downloadable content for the Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock video game, along with new versions of “Stay Clean” and “(We Are) The Road Crew”, so once again, this song may be an entire generation’s introduction to the magic of Motorhead. This take absolutely rages, and while there’s a definite modern metallic sheen to the proceedings, all of the punk-ish elements in the song remain intact, 30+ years after it’s inception. This track was added to the posthumous covers compilation ‘Under Cover’ in Japan as a bonus track in 2017… But was this really a cover?

 
‘Motorhead’ was not a song that appeared very often in Motorhead’s live set, even in the early years. Perhaps it’s because the song’s structure and feel are somewhat outside of what would become the ‘Motorhead sound’; lyrically, it’s 6,000 miles away from the much more grounded lyrical output Lem would pen for his band. I mean, in the end, it’s really a Hawkwind song, isn’t it? But the opposite argument could also be made: ‘Motorhead’ is really the very first Motorhead song, it’s title and lyric encapsulating the renegade spirit and chemically-enhanced manic intensity that would fuel Lemmy’s career from that moment forward; it’s music embodying the garage-punk Rock n’ Roll attack that he would harness and hammer into the mean machine called Motorhead.
By the way… I would so buy this album!

Lemmy’s Band Banned By BBC

The list of songs that have been banned by the BBC is as long as it is ridiculous. Since the British Broadcasting Service, the UK’s public broadcasting corporation, has been banning songs since the 1920s, the list is a long one; too long to reproduce here. It’s a vast collection of music that runs the gamut from the tame innuendo of Cole Porter’s ‘Love for Sale’ to Prodigy’s patently offensive ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, with a whole bunch of seemingly-random material in between. Songs concerning themselves with sex, violence, drugs and alcohol, the Devil, and war abound, but the reasons for banning the vast majority of this seemingly innocuous material are baffling. Fatboy Slim’s ‘Fucking in Heaven’? Okay. ‘The Monster Mash’? Really?

 
A whopping 67 songs were banned after the start of the first Gulf War. This sub-list also contains it’s fair share of head-scratchers (John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’?), but much of the material is more obvious, such as The Cure’s ‘Killing an Arab’ or Edwin Starr’s ‘War’. But where were the charting singles and rock radio staples from the world of Heavy Rock? Two singles by Status Quo are as loud as this list gets. ‘War Pigs’, helloooo?! Doesn’t AC/DC alone have 67 songs about firing guns, canons, and shooting things down in flames? Motorhead’s ‘Bomber’ single entered the UK Top 40 in the winter of 1979; how did this escape the ban hammer?

 
As it happens, Lemmy actually was banned by Auntie Beeb, and it was a song about a bomber … But maybe not the one you think.

 
Space Rock pioneers Hawkwind hired Ian Kilmister, aka Lemmy, as their bass player, just after the release of their second album ‘In Search of Space’. During the year previous to Lemmy’s hire, Hawkwind had established themselves as the go-to band for free shows and benefit concerts, contributing performances to the early Glastonbury and free festivals movements. With Lemmy on board, the band also aligned themselves with several fringe political organizations, playing benefit concerts for the likes of the White Panthers and the Stoke Newington Eight.

 
The Stoke Newington Eight were members of the Angry Brigade, a far-left militant group responsible for a series of bomb attacks in England between 1970 and 1972. Using small bombs, they targeted banks, embassies, a BBC Broadcast van, and the homes of Conservative MPs. In total, police attributed 25 bombings to the Angry Brigade. The bombings mostly caused property damage; only one person was slightly injured. Eight people eventually stood trial for these bombings between May and December in 1972.

 
It was during the Angry Brigade trial that Hawkwind performed a benefit concert for The Eight. Right around that same time, the Hawks struck gold with their ‘Silver Machine’ single, released on June 9th, 1972. The record rose to #3 on the UK singles chart that summer, giving the cosmic crew a bona fide smash hit. But their brief intersection with the Stoke Newington Eight would have significant repercussions when the band attempted to follow up the success of ‘Silver Machine’ with a new single in the summer of ’73.

 

The song ‘Urban Guerrilla’, co-written by recent Hawkwind acquisition Bob Calvert and Hawkwind mainstay Dave Brock soon after the band’s brief intersection with the Stoke Newington Eight, was a strong contender. Musically, it’s quite simple when compared to the average Hawkwind track; less-‘prog’ and more ‘rock n’ roll’ in style and structure. This was likely one reason it was chosen as the follow-up single to ‘Silver Machine’. Although… the choice was a bold one, as new recruit Calvert’s lyric seems to directly support the Eight’s anarchist philosophies and methods:

 
I’m an urban guerrilla, I make bombs in my cellar
I’m a derelict dweller, I’m a potential killer
I’m a street fighting dancer, I’m a revolution romancer
I’m society’s cancer, I’m a two-tone panther
So let’s not talk of love and flowers
And things that don’t explode
You know we used up all of our magic powers
Trying to do it in the road
I’m a political bandit, And you don’t understand it
You took my dream and canned it, It is not the way I planned it
I’m society’s destructor, I’m a petrol bomb constructor
I’m a cosmic light conductor, I’m the people’s debt collector
So watch out Mr. Business Man
Your empire’s about to blow
You know I think you had better listen, man
In case you did not know

 
It was rare at this point in the band’s history that the band would declare their political philosophies directly, without the drug-feuled sword & sorcery trappings. The surface layer of Hawkwind’s lyrics consisted of hippie-trippy fantasy or sci-fi themes, with an underlying expression of desire to overcome oppression; to be free. From the simple don’t let the man bring you down of ‘You Shouldn’t Do That’ to the gritty urban hopelessness of Lemmy’s ‘Lost Johnny’, Hawkwind’s worldview condemned mainstream culture and embraced escape, by any means necessary… Including chemistry. ‘The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke)’ basically says ‘modern society sucks, so let’s do drugs’, which handily sums up the vast majority of Hawkwind’s lyrical canon.

 
‘Urban Guerrilla’ stood out in stark contrast to Hawkwind’s usual cosmogology, and was quite plain in it’s messaging. Band manager Doug Smith said, “It was a major political statement.” ‘Guerrilla’ summarized the harsh reality of Hawkwind political position, the dark side of the counterculture, the come-down of the 70s after ‘peace and love’ had gotten the hippies nowhere. “We definitely had a sense that we were part of a revolutionary movement” agreed Lemmy, “not some hippie-drippy never land, something much more immediate.”

 
Bob Calvert’s time as frontman and lyricist in Hawkwind was the band’s most successful era; also their most turbulent. Calvert suffered from bipolar disorder, which often caused friction within the band, and during one particularly acute cycle, Calvert was committed to a mental hospital under the UK’s Mental Health Act. The people closest to him were likely not surprised at all by the content of his ‘Guerrilla’ lyric. Nik Turner: “Robert Calvert used to dress up as an urban guerrilla. He wore jackboots and combat clothing quite a lot, khaki stuff. His influences were probably people like Lawrence of Arabia. He was really into military uniforms. One nervous breakdown he was having, he dressed up as a soldier, marched for 25 miles and admitted himself to a loony bin.”

 
With the Stoke Newington Eight trial a year behind them, the band chose ‘Urban Guerrilla’ as their next single. The song was backed with ‘Brainbox Pollution’ and released in July of 1973, two months after Hawkwind’s live mindfuck ‘Space Ritual’ hit the Top Ten. This band was on a serious roll; a lot was riding on the band’s next move. And the gamble seemed to work: initial sales of ‘Urban Guerrilla’ were strong, and the record seemed likely to enter the singles chart in the Top Forty. Then, suddenly…

 
18 August: Two fire bombs exploded at Harrods department store at Knightsbridge, London causing some serious damage. No one was hurt. ‘The Troubles’ had arrived in London earlier in the year; the IRA would ultimately be responsible for 36 bombs detonated in the city in 1973. The August 18th bomb came just three weeks after Hawkwind’s new single hit, and forced the title and lyrics of the song into a new context. The BBC refused to play the record, banning it from the British airwaves. Band, management, and label also reacted quickly. A blurb in the weekly NME read:

 
HAWKWIND WITHDRAW “GUERRILLA”

 
HAWKWIND’S new single “Urban Guerrilla” has been withdrawn from the market with immediate effect by United Artists, at the special request of the group themselves – despite the fact that the Hawks are currently undertaking a tour to promote the record, which is on the verge of chart entry. Reason for the withdrawal is the current spate of bombings in central London.

 
A spokesman for the group commented; “Although the record was selling very well, we didn’t want to feel that any sales might be gained by association with recent events – even though the song was written by Bob Calvert two years ago as a satirical comment, and was recorded three months ago.”

 
At the groups suggestion, United Artists now plan to release the “B” side of “Urban Guerrilla” as a new single. It is “Brainbox Pollution” and will be out as soon as possible.

 
The promotion of ‘Brainbox’ never happened. After three weeks in shops and on the air, the single had entered the charts at #39… but was instantly a non-issue. As BBC Radio is the only broadcast outlet The BBC in Britain, the ban had killed the record dead, and the withdrawal of the single was a necessary move by the band and their label to prevent accusations of opportunism as the IRA continued their bombing campaign in England.

 
Nik Turner related some of the fallout from the ‘Guerrilla’ debacle in 2012: “They tore the floorboards up in my house looking for guns and bombs and stuff like that. They didn’t find any of these things. Then, the record company withdrew the single because of unfavourable publicity and because of the situation in Ireland, really. The IRA was letting off bombs and stuff like that. So, the authorities investigated me and investigated the band. When we were on tour we were stopped by Customs, when we went out of Britain and we were kept waiting around for a day or so. It was very inconvenient, really. But the record company was withdrawing the record eventually, because the radio, BBC, wouldn’t play it anyway. They were very silly at the time and we had a lot of problems because of that single as you can imagine.”

 
The single’s withdrawal cost Hawkwind valuable momentum, they failed to follow up their #3 smash with another hit, and the band’s next two singles both failed to chart. Who knows how high in the charts the ‘Urban Guerrilla’ single would have climbed? Hawkwind’s albums continued to chart, and the band was well on it’s way to becoming a touring institution. But the banning of ‘Urban Guerrilla’ killed any chances of Hawkwind ever becoming a ‘pop’ group, which was likely fine with linchpin Dave Brock, who famously pledged to “stay as far outside the music business as possible”.

 
Of course, some six years later, Lemmy would write a song about a very different kind of bomber, inspired by a Len Deighton novel of the same name. His post-Hawkwind band, Motorhead, would ride the song to #34 in the UK singles charts, five places higher than ‘Urban Guerrilla’ had reached as it was pulled.

1988: Thrash It Up!

A while back I posted a piece here about the live album phenomenon of the late 70’s, specifically the amazing fact that during the 12-months between January 1978 and January 1979, no less than ten notable Hard Rock/Heavy Metal bands released live albums. I declared 1978 the ‘Year of the Gatefold’, as during that time period, it was impossible to walk through a record store without tripping over a double live LP. Well, my friends, I’m about to make another declaration: I hereby declare that within the Thrash Metal genre, 1988 shall henceforth be known as: ‘The Year of the Cover Version.’

 

The phenomenon we’ll explore here didn’t make quite the impact that that live album cluster did, as it occurred within a relatively new sub-genre of rock music: Thrash Metal. By 1987, Thrash Metal was breaking out of the underground and into the Heavy Metal mainstream, pushed forward by the massive success of Metallica and their ‘Master of Puppets’ album, and the anointing of Thrash Metal’s ‘Big Four’, Metallica/Slayer/Anthrax/Megadeth as Thrash’s standard bearers. And as Thrash began to break out into the mainstream of Metal, an interesting phenomenon occurred: Virtually EVERY Thrash band of note released a cover version between January 1988 and January 1989, tallying almost TWENTY covers that year.
First, let’s go back a few years. Metal bands have recorded covers since the very beginning of the genre; the debut albums from both Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer, two records generally credited with birthing Heavy Metal, contained covers. This move is useful for several reasons; perhaps a band was short on songs, or maybe they had an interesting take on someone else’s material. Or… maybe the record company felt they had a chance at getting the band some extra attention (or airplay) with a cover of an established song. No doubt, covers have featured on Hard Rock and Metal records throughout it’s long history.
Now let’s look at Iron Maiden, one of the biggest bands to emerge from the NWOBHM. For Maiden, recording covers was an opportunity to celebrate their heroes, and they began recording covers for the B-sides of their singles during their ‘Piece of Mind’ sessions in 1983. Maiden were paying tribute to their influences, putting a NWOBHM spin on some choice ’70s hard rock and prog songs while also educating their fans on some of the music that inspired the band. They continued this practice for the next 25 years.
Now we’ll skip ahead just a few years to 1984, when several emerging Thrash Metal bands included covers on their debut albums. NY’s Anthrax included a cover of Alice Cooper’s ‘I’m Eighteen’ on their 1984 debut. Metal Church’s ’84 debut included their version of Deep Purple’s ‘Highway Star’. And in 1985, New Jersey’s Overkill included ‘Sonic Reducer’ by the Dead Boys on their debut. At year’s end, Metallica stood as the emerging genre’s leaders, and were very much following the Maiden template toward runaway success. When they released their ‘Creeping Death’ single in November, they backed it with two covers: ‘Blitzkrieg’ by Blitzkrieg and ‘Am I Evil?’ by Diamond Head. As with Iron Maiden, the practice of using covers for B-sides became the norm with Metallica for decades.
After Metallica’s next release, ‘Master of Puppets’ was certified Gold without the aid of radio play or an MTv video, every record company wanted their very own Metallica. A feeding frenzy ensued, with labels the world over snapping up any band wearing bullet belts and denim vests. And so second and third tiers were established within the Thrash genre, with Metallica leading the way, and the rest of the aforementioned ‘Big Four’ following close behind. And where Metallica went, the rest of the movement followed…
Metallica’s ‘The $5.98 E.P.’ firmly established the recording of covers as a standard practice for Thrash bands. The E.P. was comprised of thrashed-up renditions of other bands’ material, and the record once again served as a tribute to the band’s early influences. But because much of the material covered was unknown to a large portion of the band’s fan base, it worked as fresh Metallica material while the band continued to get their shit together after the tragic loss of their friend and bassist Cliff Burton. And, having reached #28 on the Billboard charts, the record was a ‘hit’. Now, for all record labels and bands within the rapidly evolving Thrash universe, there was another reason why recording a cover version was a good idea: Metallica did it.
Which brings us to 1988. Thrash was now a firmly established Heavy Metal sub-genre, and Metallica was arguably the biggest/hottest band in Metal. The bands following in their wake wasted no time in following the example Metallica had set the previous year with ‘5.98’. Thrash’s ‘Year of the Cover’ kicked off in January with Megadeth’s cover of the Sex Pistols’ punk anthem ‘Anarchy in the UK’ in January, which was also the lead-off single released from the band’s third album ‘So Far, So Good… So What!?’ Just as an aside: when the first single is a cover, it may be an indication that the band/label is lacking confidence in the strength of the original material on the album…
Second tier (third?) Thrash band Death Angel recorded a cover of Kiss’ ‘Cold Gin’ for their sophomore effort ‘Frolic Through the Park’, released in March of ’88. It’s a little goofy, but not completely out of place on an album that also includes the ultra-goofy ‘I’m Bored’. As a young thrasher myself, I was of the opinion that this kind of throwaway filler was perfectly fine as a B-side (see: Anthrax, Maiden. Metallica), but as an album track, I felt it was a waste of space. I wanted to hear another original, not junk like this.
May of ’88 brought us two covers: Testament delivered a version of Aerosmith’s ‘Nobody’s Fault’, and Flotsam & Jetsam rolled out Elton John’s ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fightin’. Okay, I can believe that Aerosmith was an influence on Testament, and their take on ‘Fault’, a contender for A-smith’s heaviest song, is solid. But it’s more than a bit of a stretch that The Flots were inspired by the music of Sir Elton. But hey, what do I know. A great song is a great song, but Flotsam seem to be playing this one for laughs. Sadly, I see this one as yet another wasted album track.
Nuclear Assault’s second offering, ‘Survive’ was released in June, and ended with a cover of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Good Times, Bad Times’. The Nukes wisely decided to place the song at the end of the album’s running order, so it doesn’t feel like an intrusion, but on an album with a run-time of 30:15, another original song (or two (or three)) would have been more than welcome. The song was released as a single along with some live stuff, and another ‘cover’, their version of the theme from the ‘Happy Days’ TV show, which amounts to a never-ending three minutes of awful. Sadly, both of these covers are throwaway tracks.
I feel compelled to introduce the term ‘sophomore slump’ here; it refers to the phenomenon where a band has years to write the songs for their debut, but only months to put together songs for their second, almost guaranteeing that record #2 would be short on high quality material. That said, four of the last five covers outlined above appear on each band’s sophomore album; not as B-sides, but as album tracks. Just sayin’.
Voivod concealed a short but suitably skewed take on the ‘Batman’ theme at the end of their ‘Dimension Hatross’ album in June. At 1:14, does this count this as a ‘Thrash ’88’ cover? Sure. Coming out of nowhere after the listed songs end, it’s neither an album track nor a B-side; it’s an enigma… just like Voivod. A month later, Slayer placed their take on Judas Priest’s ‘Dissident Aggressor’ on their ‘South of Heaven’ album. Vocal concessions are made, but otherwise Slayer play it straight, and illustrate just how far ahead of it’s time this song was. It’s a rare example of a ‘Thrash ’88’ cover that actually works exceedingly well as an album track; fitting into the context of the album around it perfectly and complimenting the album as a whole. Bravo!
Metallica gave us two more killer covers in August: ‘Breadfan’, their second Budgie cover, and their third Diamond Head cover, ‘The Prince’. I myself was not a fan of Metallica’s ‘…And Justice for All’ album, but I loved these two recordings; basically anytime Budgie gets props, I’m thrilled, and also there’s a couple of bass guitar breaks in ‘The Prince’, and you can actually hear the bass! Truth be told, I’ve actually enjoyed Metallica’s covers more than their originals since the ‘$5.98 E.P.’, what can I tell ya.
In September, Anthrax released three covers, and one of them became arguably their biggest song. ‘Antisocial’, originally by the French band Trust, was recorded as an album track on fourth album ‘Sate of Euphoria’, and became that record’s second single. Arguably, ‘Antisocial’ was the song that broke Anthrax through to the Metal mainstream, but the lion’s share of the credit goes to Trust, as the song is simple, melodic, and catchy, with a chant-worthy chorus. During the later third of ’88, the video for the song (highlighting Anthrax’s …questionable wardrobe choices during that era) was all over MTv’s Headbanger’s Ball show, and the single even crept onto the UK singles charts, peaking at #44.
The two B-sides to the ‘Antisocial’ single were a cover of the Kiss klassic ‘Parasite’, and yet another Trust song, ‘Le Sects’. The Kiss cover is fun, but where ‘Antisocial’ translated exceptionally well into the Anthrax attack, ‘Le Sects’, not so much. The dark, angry lyrics about Jim Jones and mass suicide clashed with Joey Belladonna’s vocal approach; try as he might, Joey just cannot sound convincingly angry and mean. Best that this one was relegated to a B-side.
October brought us Sacred Reich’s sophomore (!) release, the ‘Surf Nicaragua’ E.P., and a cover of Black Sabbath’s epic ‘War Pigs’. Thankfully, it’s a sturdy take on a absolute classic, and the drums in particular are nuts, but I was glad this showed up on an E.P., rather than taking up over six minutes on an album proper. The E.P.’s title track contains brief snippets of ‘Wipe Out’ and the ‘Hawaii Five-O’ theme, but we’re not gonna include that song on this list, as we have to have some standards in place, don’t we?

 

Original Bay Area Thrashers Exodus were a little late to the party, but just made this list with a pair of covers recorded for their ‘Fabulous Disaster’ album, released on January 30th of 1989. Their version of War’s ‘Low Rider’ made the album (it shouldn’t have), while their take on AC/DC’s ‘Overdose’ was used as a bonus track later on. ‘Overdose’ works well, as Zetro’s voice exhibits a strange similarity to Bon Scott’s, and the band lay back in the ‘DC groove and really crunch it up. If a cover needed to appear on ‘Fabulous Disaster’, it should have been this one, with the cheesy ‘Low Rider’ relegated to ‘bonus track’ status.
Now then! Let’s do the math: SIXTEEN covers in just over a year! In the relatively small stable of bands inhabiting the Thrash genre, this is a ridiculously large number, and certainly qualifies as a phenomenon. Again, covers have always featured in Rock and Metal music, but this was something more: clearly, in Thrashworld, recording covers were not merely an option, it was a requirement. Simply put, Metallica were blazing a trail to major mainstream success, and their peers were following the path very closely.
I’m thinking this list would make a pretty cool mixtape/CD comp/playlist; this pile of tunes is a very mixed bag, a bit uneven in consistency and quality, but gathering them together provides a snapshot of a brief but curiously interesting period in Thrash Metal’s evolution. Oh! And if you want to add a few bonus tracks for that imaginary CD comp, we need only look to the burgeoning German Thrash movement, and include Kreator’s slamming interpretation of Raven’s ‘Lambs to the Slaughter’ from their ‘Out of the Dark…’ E.P., and Sodom’s ‘Mortal Way of Live’ album for their live cover of Motorhead’s ‘Iron Fist’… which would then bring our total to EIGHTEEN covers by Thrash bands of note between January 1988 and January ’89. Wow.
Interesting side notes: Iron Maiden actually covered themselves in 1988; re-recordings of both ‘Prowler’ and ‘Charlotte the Harlot’ appeared on the B-side of their ‘The Evil That Men Do’ single. As Maiden were not a Thrash band, we won’t include them in our overall tally here, although Maiden themselves certainly racked up a slew of covers over the years. If you include those two self-covers, plus versions of ZZ Top’s ‘Tush’ and Thin Lizzy’s ‘Angel of Death’ that were recorded for B-sides during the ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ cycle, but never used, Maiden’s cover count totals a whopping 23. Metallica still has them beat, with a running total of 32 covers. But the undisputed kings of the cover are Anthrax, who have cranked out a grand total of 42 (forty-two!) covers.

 

So far.

Are We Hair Yet?

I have a confession to make. I’m a Ratt fan.
Why is this a big deal? Keep reading…

 
As a young metalhead eager to see where the genre was headed as the NWOBHM phenomenon waned, I followed the thread of Metal’s evolution even as it seemed to split into two very disparate directions. One road led into the mainstream, and the more commercial brand of Metal that exploded in popularity after the success of Quiet Riot’s ‘Metal Health’ album; the other led to the underground and the burgeoning Thrash movement. For a while, I didn’t see the split, and was buying records on both sides of the divide. But as these two divergent directions solidified into two clearly definable musical sub-genres, it dawned on me that as the underground stuff got heavier, so did the commercial stuff grow more lightweight, more… safe. As the two styles quickly headed for opposite poles, I felt I had to choose a side.

 
At some point in 1984, I re-evaluated my record collection, and purged a bunch of records by bands that I decided had crossed the line, and no longer belonged in my collection: Dokken’s ‘Tooth and Nail’. Motley Crue’s ‘Shout at the Devil’. Quiet Riot’s CBS debut. Ratt’s first two major label releases: dumped. Once I realized where this new strain of Metal was headed, it was easy for me to kick these bands to the curb. This wasn’t real Metal! It wasn’t MINE. I was NOT the target audience for this music. What was I thinking? How did these records get into my collection? I felt like I had been tricked, duped, ripped off. I felt violated. I share all of this without exaggeration.

 
In strictly musical terms, ‘Pop Metal’ (the term ‘Hair Metal’ came much later) quickly solidified into a recognizable sub-genre with easily identifiable features: the throbbing single-note bass line, the gang vocal shout-outs, the glitter canon snare drums, the bag-of-tricks guitar solo… Lyrical content centered around women/sex, partying/rocking, and … well that’s about it. And, of course, the mandatory power ballad. All of these features were pretty easy to spot, and sure enough, I started to notice these elements creeping into the records some of my heroes were making…

 
It was true. Some of favorite bands were undergoing a shift in style, streamlining their sound by simplifying song structures, sweetening the backing vocals, adding keys… and generally sliding toward a faceless, generic sound that worked on the radio, but lacked authenticity or bite. So I also tossed some albums from some of my heroes, and simply stopped following others. It wasn’t easy, but the changes that some of these bands were making to their music felt like betrayal. Deciding where to draw the line was also difficult. In some cases the slide into commerciality was gradual, unfolding over two or three albums, without a clear delineation between authenticity and artificiality.

 
These were turbulent times, and these were not easy decisions. Walk with me now along the dividing line between the music I loved, and the music of compromise; the blurry border between truth and artifice, where the siren song of worldwide fame and fortune during Metal’s boom years led many a great band astray. You may have drawn that line in different places; you may not have drawn it at all. But here’s how I made my determinations during my Great Pop Metal Purge:

 

Rainbow
Departure Point: ‘Straight Between the Eyes’ (1982)
Red Flag: ‘Magic’ & ‘I Surrender’ from ‘Difficult to Cure’
Deal Breaker: ‘Stone Cold’

‘Stone Cold’ placed JLT-era Rainbow squarely into Foreigner territory. Rainbow’s foray into FM radio-friendly territory began with Russ Ballard’s ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’, and the JLT era began with the excellent ‘Jealous Lover’, but the ‘Difficult to Cure’ album was a mixed bag, and ‘Stone Cold’ was so bland that I passed on the ‘Eyes’ album altogether. This was before ‘Metal Health’ arrived and changed the landscape for the rest of the 80s, but it foreshadowed the issues I’d face the following year.

Re-Assessment: I did buy this record and its follow-up, ‘Bent Out of Shape’ later when Polydor made Rainbow’s catalog available on CD. Compared to the disappointments to come, my initial disapproval of Rainbow’s radio-friendly shift in direction seems kinda silly now, as these are solid records with some great songs and some very fine playing.

 

 

Def Leppard
Departure Point: ‘Pyromania’ (1983)
Red Flag: ‘Photograph’
Deal-breaker: The Full Mutt

When I first heard the Lep’s 1983 single, ‘Photograph’, it was over for me. I couldn’t believe these guys were making a mainstream move after only two records! This was not NWOBHM, it wasn’t even Metal, even by early 80’s standards. I chose not to purchase ‘Pyromania’. It was easy for me to dismiss this record as a sell-out, with records like fellow NWOBHM pioneers Iron Maiden’s monstrous ‘Piece of Mind’ available as a comparison point. Nonetheless, I bought ‘Pyro’, but only listened a few times; I never needed to put it on, as for almost two years it was inescapable.

Re-Assessment: Listening with today’s ears, the music on ‘Pyro’ sounds like a very natural progression from the ‘High n Dry’ album, but with a much more commercial sheen. I view it as a ‘crossover’ record, in that the Leps had thoroughly crossed over from NWOBHM to Pop Rock. In retrospect, this is probably a great record, but it’s just not my thing.

 

Saxon
Departure Point: ‘The Power and the Glory’ (1983)
Red Flag: Where’s Pete Gill?
Deal-breaker: New version of ‘Suzie Hold On’

Not another NWOBHM band pandering to the American market? Alas, ‘The Power and the Glory’ sounded different than any of Saxon’s earlier records, sporting a ‘bigger’, arena-ready sound. Gone was the scrappy NWOBHM sound we had known and loved; this was Saxon on steroids, ready to kick American ass. Beyond the cavernous production, the US version of ‘Power’ featured a beefed-up re-recording of the band’s 1980 single, ‘Suzie Hold On’. The song’s inclusion on US pressings bumped the more metallic ‘Midas Touch’, sacrificing some real heft to make room for a much more commercial song. This kind of needless fuckery was really starting to piss me off.

Re-Assessment: No doubt this album rocks hard, but I maintain that the huge leap in production values buries their scrappy old-school NWOBHM charm, and it still doesn’t sit right with me. Un-Saxon-like songs like ‘Nightmare’ and ‘The Eagle has Landed’ are ambitious and even somewhat successful, but give me the first four albums any day.

 

 

Blackfoot
Departure Point: ‘Siogo’ (1983)
Red Flag: Keyboards (Ken Hensley???)
Deal-breaker: ‘Send Me an Angel’

First JLT-era Rainbow starts sounding like Foreigner; then Blackfoot starts sounding like JLT-era Rainbow. Not what you wanna hear from Blackfoot, the most ass-kickin’-est southern axe slingers of the era. I played this record exactly once and could never bring myself to try it out again. I just found it disingenuous and flat out dull. Blackfoot had lost their balls. Looking for answers, I noticed that some outside writers were listed in the writing credits, which I thought might at least partially explain how BORING this record was, and um WHAT THE FUCK IS KEN HENSLEY DOING IN BLACKFOOT?

Re-Assessment: Well, I tried it out again. It was difficult to get through. I would rather hear an all-in Def Leppard sell their souls to Mutt Lange than an insincere, half-hearted, middle of the road exercise in compromise like ‘Siogo’. Honestly, find this kind of record deeply offensive.

 

Krokus
Departure Point: ‘The Blitz’ (1984)
Red Flag: The cover art
Deal-breaker: Everything

I never bought ‘The Blitz’; seeing/hearing the video for ‘Midnite Maniac’ sealed that deal. Coming directly after ‘Headhunter’, easily the most Metal album in the Krokus catalog, this pap was a real slap in the face. Krokus had reworked their look and sound, AGAIN, this time adopting all the requisite Pop-Metal tropes as perfectly as they had duplicated AC/DC’s sound just a few years earlier. After this move, Krokus stood revealed as shameless bandwagon jumpers… I forgave this band once already, for their unabashed AC/DC thievery, but not for this.

Re-Assessment: All frosting and no cake. The production is lightweight, the songs are tame, the cheesy radio-friendly cover of ‘Ballroom Blitz’ is nauseating, and the cover art is… Yuck. Krokus were always at their best when they sounded like Krokus. Pity they didn’t do more of that.

 

Y&T
Departure Point: ‘In Rock We Trust’ (1984)
Red Flag: That robot
Deal-breaker: That stupid fucking robot

This was a tough call. Y&T had always existed at the commercial edge of hard Rock and Metal; their best albums– ‘Earthshaker’ & ‘Black Tiger’– masterfully balanced their poppier inclinations with their more metallic edge. But for me, they crossed a line on ‘IRWT’, bringing in outside writers to sweeten the tunes, using some silly production tricks on ‘Lipstick and Leather’… Or maybe it was just one too many songs about Rock. My girlfriend loved this album… ‘Nuff said.

Re-Assessment: Decades later, this record really doesn’t sound that different from the few before it; it’s really just a matter of degree. There’s little too much sugar on top of this one for my taste. And that goddam robot…

 

Scorpions
Departure Point: ‘Love at First Sting’ (1984)
Red Flag: It was inevitable
Deal-breaker: Can’t quite put my finger on it…

Look, the Scorps INVENTED the power ballad, so I didn’t begrudge them the success of ‘No One Like You’ from ‘Blackout’; I think we all expected that, at some point, one of theirs would strike gold. ‘Still Loving You’ was a well-deserved victory lap, and as I cut ties, I wished them well. I just couldn’t hang to celebrate the Scorpions’ mainstream breakthrough, as I thought the rest of ‘Sting’ was severely lacking in that patented Scorpions …sting. I found the songs lame, the production tame, and the one balls-out rocker (‘The Same Thrill’) cliched and unconvincing. And is that even Herman Rarebell on the drums? I’m skeptical.The Scorps sounded spent here, after three scorchers in a row. Auf Wiedersehen, meine Freunde.

Re-Assessment: This isn’t the shameless sell-out that some other records I’m covering here are. Scorpions hadn’t changed their sound or style very much at all on ‘Sting’, they just took the next logical step on a journey they began a decade previous. I might actually re-buy this one. I said ‘might’.

 

Whitesnake
Departure Point: ‘Slide It In’ (1984)
Red Flag: Mickey Moody
Deal-breaker: John Sykes, Cozy Powell, and …Colin Hodgkinson?

When David Coverdale revamped Whitesnake, he fired Mickey Moody, the heart and soul of the band’s original Blues Rock sound, and replaced him with John Sykes, guitar masturbator extraordinaire. Cozy Powell also entered the mix, and while there’s no denying his place in the upper echelon of Rock/Metal drummers, I felt he was wrong for Whitesnake. I had pretty much decided to boycott this record based on those two changes alone; hearing that the album had been ‘remixed for the American market’ reinforced that decision. I’m not sure I even heard the entire record until it’s 35th anniversary edition was released…

Re-Assessment: I love this record. I bought the double-disc anniversary edition, which contains the UK & US mixes of the record, and I was blown away by an album I had written off without hearing. Of course, I prefer the original mix, as it leans a little more toward their classic Blues Rock sound, but Coverdale sounds great on both, the songs are strong throughout, and the real Hair bomb hadn’t hit yet.

 

Twisted Sister
Departure Point: ‘Stay Hungry’ (1985)
Red Flag: The cover art
Deal-breaker: The cartoonish videos

As Twisted Sister dived head first into the music video era, I bid them farewell. The image that the band chosen was ridiculous, and the videos were embarrassing cartoon garbage. None of this spoke to the music on the album, I know, but that’s where I was at the time: I was making qualitative judgments about albums based on non-musical factors. So I passed on ‘Stay Hungry’ on principle, even after I’d heard enough to be was pretty sure it was better than their previous record. Damn you, MTv!

Re-Assessment: This is actually a pretty worthy record; crunchy, punchy and aggressive. I still believe that the songs overall are better than the material on ‘You Can’t Stop Rock n Roll’, but even after all these years, I still can’t separate the music from the silly visuals stuck in my head due to the over-exposure of this record on MTv.

 

Loudness
Departure Point: ‘Thunder in the East’ (1985)
Red Flag: Signing to Atlantic Records
Deal-breaker: ‘M! Z! A!’

At this point, due to the mounting number of disappointing albums released by the old guard, I was dropping older bands from my fandom roster at the drop of a hat. Mistakes were made (see: Whitesnake). When I first heard the ‘Crazy Nights’ single from Loudness, I felt the same way I did when I had heard Scorpions’ ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’: Ugh. Simple, safe, predictable, BORING. Loudness had apparently dumbed-down their music after signing with Atlantic and were in the big leagues now, clearly playing to the cheap seats. Unfortunately, I was getting used to cutting ties with bands I had loved for years, and it was getting easier.

Re-Assessment: Solid album. I bought this and the follow up, ‘Hurricane Eyes’, a few years back; both are worthy Loudness records. Kudos to these guys for not cashing in their chips completely while playing the major label game. I was wrong about ‘Thunder in the East’, a record more than worthy of your attention.

 

Van Halen
Departure Point: ‘5150’ (1986)
Red Flag: Sammy Hagar
Deal-breaker: ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’

Van Halen were, for a time, the most dangerous band on the planet. When Sammy joined, I assumed he wanted to get his Montrose mojo back, so hey, maybe this could work? Suddenly, Van Halen was fronted by a guy who could actually sing, but the result was obnoxious junk like ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’. I did not buy ‘5150’ based on my impression of that single alone. Diamond Dave’s presence and EVH’s guitar abstractions had (barely) saved the synth-heavy ‘1984’ and the paper-thin ‘Diver Down’ from total Pop disaster, but now Dave was gone and Ed had lightened and brightened his guitar tone, while continuing his annoying flirtation with keyboards. Dead to me.

Re-Assessment: I don’t think I have ever heard this album in it’s entirety until just now. Ed’s ‘new’ guitar sound just ruins it for me. And there’s just too much damn fun going on. All of the danger and edge that made Van Halen so badass is gone, and we’re left with a party band with funny haircuts and parachute pants. I hope I never hear another second of this record again.

 

Judas Priest
Departure Point: ‘Turbo’ (1986)
Red Flag: the cover art
Deal-breaker: ‘Turbo Lover’

This one still hurts. For many years, The Beast that is Priest was the living embodiment of the phrase Heavy Metal. Cutting my teeth on albums like ‘Sin After Sin’ and ‘Hell Bent for Leather’ made an album like ‘Turbo’ impossible for me to take. I had given them a pass on ‘Take These Chains’, and tried hard to like ‘Defenders of the Faith’ despite the over-processed production and lack of quality songs. But when I got about 60 seconds into ‘Turbo Lover’, I knew I could never be a fan of this band again. NOTE: 1986 was also the year of ‘Master of Puppets’, ‘Peace Sells…’, and ‘Reign in Blood’. After hearing ‘Turbo’, the road ahead was clear.

Re-Assessment: I’m just as disappointed today as I was 30+ years ago. No redeeming qualities at all. Just awful.

 

Aerosmith
Departure Point: ‘Permanent Vacation’ (1987)
Red Flag: Rehab
Deal-breaker: ‘Angel’

Wait— the band that wrote ‘Toys in the Attic’ and ‘Rocks’ needs to bring in outside writers? What the fuck for? So they can have huge hits like ‘Dude (Looks Like a Lady)’, and the wretched power ballad ‘Angel’, that’s why. Well, if this schlock was the result, then my hometown heroes would have to complete their career makeover without the likes of me. Oh, how I wanted these guys to recapture the dark magic of their first handful of records… I couldn’t have been the only kid who secretly wished these guys would start doing hard drugs again.

Re-Assessment: Not my Aerosmith. Props for surviving, but this almost sounds like parody to me. There are a few moments where the Aero boys almost catch fire, but if I were forced to include a post-rehab A-smith album into my collection, it would be ‘Pump’.

 

Accept
Departure Point: ‘Eat the Heat’ (1989)
Red Flag: Udo’s exit
Deal-breaker: Udo’s replacement

This record had no chance with me. Zero. Accept had replaced Udo Dirkschneider with an American singer, David Reece. I knew what it would sound like before I even heard it. I think I got a free promo copy of this on cassette, popped it into my car deck, listened in shock for a few songs, popped it out and into the trash. The music was vaguely recognizable as Accept, but as soon as the vox kicked in, this could’ve be any L.A. Glam Metal band with above-average chops and a misspelled name.

Re-Assessment: I can’t. I’m sorry. I tried. Unlistenable. Imagine Motorhead with Joe Lynne Turner on vocals; that is the schism we were presented with on ‘Eat the Heat’. Time has done nothing to make this epic mis-step more listenable.

 

Bonus Entries: In the interest of completeness, I also re-listened to the records that initially tipped me off to the faux Metal charade. Yes, I once owned these records. For a short time. Briefly. I think. Anyway, here are my current takes:

 
Quiet Riot / Metal Health (1983)
The Slade cover is brilliant. And that, my friends, is the best thing I can say about ‘Metal Health’. Actually, here’s something else: It’s better than ‘Shout at the Devil’, though that’s not saying much. After the reasonably metallic title track, and the brilliant Slade cover, the rest of this record is over-produced, under-written commercial Metal with a serious saccarine aftertaste. But could a record this crappy really be so influential? Yes, because when a record hits the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, it immediately begins to influence the genre it operates within. Listening with fresh ears, I am struck by how this album set into place a strict template that most successful Pop Metal records that came after followed rigorously. A sub-genre is born?

 
Motley Crue / Shout at the Devil (1983)
Full Disclosure: I have come to believe that Motley Crue are the worst band in the history of music. But back in 1983, I thought the Motleys were OK enough, having been a big fan of at least one of their tunes: ‘Live Wire’ from their debut album. But listening today, ‘Shout’ feels strangely empty; It’s pretty plain to me that this record is packed wall-to-wall with filler. ‘Knock em Dead, Kid’ on Side Two is simply a re-write of ‘Looks That Kill’ from Side One, the album’s intro is a ‘Number of the Beast’ rip, and the Beatles cover sux. Oh, and the Satanic nonsense is just plain silly.

 
Dokken / Tooth and Nail (1984)
I bought the debut on Carerre in 1982, due to the buzz surrounding George Lynch, and I hoped ‘Tooth and Nail’ would be more and better. Well, the cover was better. In hindsight, though, this album is probably as good as a 100% certified Pop Metal album could be. Damning with faint praise? Okay, how about this: If your girlfriend popped this into the cassette deck on your way to the beach, you could do a lot worse. By the way, this guy is NOT a great singer. A stronger vocalist might have saved this record’s spot in my collection.

 
Ratt / Out of the Cellar (1984)
Ah yes; Ratt. I bought ‘Out of the Cellar’ based on my love for Ratt’s debut indie EP, and I liked the album a lot. I even saw them live on the tour supporting this record. But when I purged the Pop, I deemed the Ratt records to be part of the infection in my collection, and into the dumpster they went.

 
Since then, Ratt’s ‘Round and Round’ became one of the most persistent earworms I’d ever been inflicted with. It like a small section of my brain had been rewired to loop that song over and over (round and round?) forever and ever. Recently, it was suggested to me that the best way to remove an earworm was to listen to the offending song, so I did. I re-bought ‘Out of the Cellar’. And I had a blast revisiting this record. I love it! Somehow, Ratt had achieved the impossible, creating a record that exists simultaneously on both sides of the border I drew back in the 80s, with plenty of appeal for both true 80s metalheads and their Hair Metal counterparts. In my current collection, it sits comfortably alongside my Riot, Raven, and Rainbow albums.

 
And there you have it: A journey back through a difficult time. Lessons learned since then? Sure. Drawing such strict genre barriers when I was younger caused me to have to later re-buy several albums I had once decided were garbage; that was an eye-opener. Not to mention the countless hours of listening enjoyment I cost myself by being such a purist. I’m I’m happy to report that I’m a little more open-minded nowadays, but back in the 80s, this really was all a very big deal to me. And I couldn’t have been alone with all of that inner conflict… When and where did you draw the line? Did you draw one at all? And most importantly: Which side was Ratt on?

Mary Long and the Three Different Pigs

Who is Mary Long?

 
It’s fairly common knowledge these days that the lyrical inspiration for the Deep Purple song ‘Mary Long’, Side One/Track Two on their ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’ album, came from two separate individuals: Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford. For ‘Mary Long’, written in the summer of 1972, Gillan was inspired to move away from the ’emptiness, eagles, and snow’ of previous DP records and write an overtly political statement condemning a specific public figure. Or figures, as Whitehouse and Longford were combined into one ‘character’, and savagely lampooned in a brilliant work of social commentary. What may not be so well known is that Gillan was almost certainly writing in response to Whitehouse’s headline-grabbing attack on Alice Cooper in the summer of 1972.

 
In a nutshell: Mary Whitehouse rose to fame in the mid-1960s as a self-appointed, and much derided, guardian of British morals. She was the founder of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, whose mission was to clean up British television, which she perceived as corrupting the nation’s morals. Francis Longford was a Labour Party politician and social reformer, known as a campaigner against pornography.

 
Whitehouse’s crusade to clean up telly had previously included campaigns against the likes of Benny Hill (for its sexual content), Doctor Who (violence), sitcom ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ (profanity), and coverage of the US war in Vietnam (‘desensitization’). She successfully forced Stanley Kubrick to withdraw his film ‘A Clockwork Orange’ from UK theatres. After unsuccessfully attempting to ban Chuck Berry’s hit ‘My Ding-a-Ling’ from the BBC airwaves, which, despite the good lady’s urgent disapproval (or because of it; more on that later), reached the top of the UK pop music chart, Whitehouse turned her attention to Alice Cooper’s 1972 single ‘School’s Out’.

 
The controversy began with Alice Cooper’s lone UK date on the ‘School’s Out for Summer ’72 Tour’ on June 30th at Wembley Pool Empire in London. Sensational press coverage in the weeks before the show, most of which highlighted Alice’s ‘killing’ of a chicken thrown on stage during the band’s set at a Chicago festival (the chicken was killed, but not by Alice) ensured that the show sold out, which increased the sales of the British release of the ‘School’s Out’ single enough (AC’s previous British single, ‘Be My Lover’, had failed to chart) to garner the band an appearance on BBC Tv’s ‘Top of the Pops’. Mary Whitehouse was watching…

 
No doubt the good lady was horrified. Alice Cooper performed ‘School’s Out’ with twenty local students dancing and cavorting on stage beside the band, who mimed along to the single. The kids had been given free tickets to the taping, and clearly had a ball. Alice could not have looked more badass, as he slashes through the air with a sword, violently knocks his mic stand to the ground, and pulls on one of the young female students’ hair. As he lip syncs the song’s final line, he looks squarely into the camera and simulates cutting his throat with the sword. Whitehouse saw the broadcast and began a fervent push to ban AC from the BBC airwaves completely.

 
Whitehouse stated that she held “the gravest concern over the publicity which has been given to Alice Cooper’s record ‘School’s Out’. For weeks now ‘Top of the Pops’ has given gratuitous publicity to a record which can only be described as anti-law and order. Because of this, millions of young people are now imbibing a philosophy of violence and anarchy. This is surely utterly irresponsible in a social climate which grows ever more violent.”

 
Whitehouse’s public comments and the ensuing publicity she generated pushed School’s Out’ to the No 1 spot on the UK Pop charts, where it stayed for 3 weeks straight. Coming after the ‘My Ding-a-Ling’ affair, the School’s Out’ episode comfirmed it: Mary Whitehouse was now a certified hit-maker. The #1 ranking ensured the band another appearance on ToTP, which Whitehouse tried unsuccessfully to block. Alice was so grateful for Whitehouse’s attention that he sent her a bouquet of flowers and a thank you note for putting him on the map in England. Years later, Alice remembers the period fondly… and perhaps with just a pinch of sarcasm:

 
‘I have been taught many lessons and one of those lessons came from the lovely Mary Whitehouse. I learned a big lesson about marketing and perception. We could not have had better publicity for the song and it went to No 1 in the British charts. She did so much for my career and I have never forgotten her, there is always a place in my heart for that wonderful lady. Thank you Mary.’

 
The following year, when Alice announced another tour of the UK, this time to promote the ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ album, the upright citizen’s brigade was ready. Leo Abse, a prominent member of Parliament, launched a campaign to ban Alice from entering the country. Referring to AC’s oeuvre as the ‘culture of the concentration camp’, Abse claimed that Alice’s ‘incitement to infanticide and his commercial exploitation of masochism is evidently an attempt to teach our children to find their destiny in hate, not in love.’ The Labour MP petitioned the Home Secretary to prevent the band entry into the country. AC opted to pass on the UK that year, so kids in the UK were deprived of the B$B spectacle. Coop was also banned from entering Australia and the USSR.

 
At this point, every teenager in the UK wanted desperately to see Alice Cooper. One of those teenagers was named John Lydon. Lydon was 16 in 1972, a member of the Alice Cooper Fan Club, and a HUGE fan. In the introduction to the book included with AC’s 1999 box set ‘The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper’, Lydon gushes about his passion for AC as a young lad:

 
‘Killer’ is the best rock album ever made, which, of course, followed the masterpiece ‘Love it to Death’. These two albums put together were just too much for an angst-ridden teenager such as myself to handle… I thought those records were the best it could be!’

 
Lydon also relates that his musical career began with his audition for the Sex Pistols, where he was asked to sing along with to song on a jukebox; Lydon, aware that he couldn’t sing a note, opted instead to mime his way through a tune instead. The song he chose? ‘I’m Eighteen’. He got the job, changed his last name to Rotten, and the rest is history. Lydon/Rotten further espouses at length on the genius of AC:

 
”Alice Cooper is the original rabid dog on a rope. A very frayed rope. It’s the wild-craziness barely contained on a leash. And we like that. The restraint is what gives it power. Society has such foolish rules that the individualist will always shine as long as there is such a dark thing called society. So in a weird way, we need it. Chaos only works well inside four very strict brick walls.’

 
That ‘chaos’ comment essentially explains The Sex Pistols, and Punk movement they spearheaded in a Conservative Britain near the end of the 70s. And of course it makes perfect sense that a young Alice Cooper fan would end up fronting a band that exploded into British culture’s greatest nightmare. He compared AC’s artistic approach to that of his own:

 
‘I’ve referred to the Sex Pistols as “musical vaudeville” and “evil burlesque”, and for me, there was definitely Alice influence in there. And I’m very proud to say so, because, without that, I don’t think I would have had that extra kick when I was young… It’s brave to do those things.’

 
The Pistols inked a deal with EMI in October, and the ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’ single was released a month later. As the Sex Pistols began live work around London in the spring of ’76, violence and controversy followed. When a live interview on BBC Tv’s ‘Today’ program ended with a hostile, expletive-ridden exchange with the show’s host, angry headlines screamed from the front pages of the weekly tabloids for days. Political pressure was applied, and the Pistols were dropped by EMI. The negative coverage in the national media resulted in the band’s becoming household names virtually overnight. And then, suddenly… The ‘Anarchy in the UK’ single reached the top of the British Pop charts: Number One. Imagine that.

 
A&M records quickly snapped the band up in March of ’77, but dropped them in just 6 days. 10,000 copies of the band’s second single, ‘God Save the Queen’, had been pressed; all were immediately destroyed. In May, Virgin Records signed the band and became the Pistols’ third record company in six months. Virgin released the single soon after, to much public outcry. The record’s sleeve and the song’s lyrics prompted fresh moral outrage throughout the country. The record was banned on the BBC and most independent radio stations; several major music retailers refused to carry the single. Despite the lack of radio promotion and presence in record shops, the record sold 150,000 copies in ten days, leading the Daily Mirror to predict that the single would debut on the charts at No. 1.

 
‘God Save the Queen’ entered the official chart at No. 10, and looked as if it would hit No. 1 during the Queen’s Jubilee Celebration week. Political pressure was this time applied to the chart’s compilers, and so for just one week, the official rules were changed: record shops owned by record companies could not have sales of their own records recognized in the chart. Since Virgin Records released ‘God Save the Queen’, Virgin Record Stores’ sales of the single were barred from the stats, which resulted in the song stalling on the chart at No. 2, while Rod Stewart sat at the top spot with “I Don’t Want to Talk About It.”

 
In October ’77, the Sex Pistol’s debut album was released. With the Queen’s Jubilee six months behind it, ‘Never Mind the Bollocks: Here’s the Sex Pistols’ crashed into the album charts at No. 1. The album’s title and cover caused even more controversy, resulting in an obscenity trial that stole headlines for weeks; once again the sensational (and free) national media coverage fueled sales. The Sex Pistols, fronted by a student of Alice Cooper’s ‘musical vaudeville’/evil burlesque’, had cut the very frayed rope that held the rabid dog at bay and walked away with three No. 1 records. Well… two and a half. Just three months after the release of ‘Bollocks’, the band split; but during their brief reign of terror, the Pistols and the chaos they created within British culture’s four very strict brick walls changed the musical and cultural landscape of the UK forever.

 
Roger Waters paid close attention to the Sex Pistols explosive ascent. Pink Floyd started work on their tenth studio album, ‘Animals’, in their new South London HQ in April of 1977, at the same time that the Sex Pistols began to receive negative (and therefore positive) press coverage for the confrontational nature of their performances and the violence that seemed to erupt regularly at their gigs. The debut album by the Ramones began making waves in Britain’s underground in April, and in July the Ramones gig at Dignwalls was attended by nearly everyone in the burgeoning UK Punk scene. Also in July, two new ‘punk’ bands, the Damned and the Clash, made their live debuts opening for the Pistols… Something big was happening.

 
The Floyd were tuned into the underground art and music scenes in and around London, having once been an underground band themselves, and looked on with considerable interest. But this new breed of underground band was singing overtly-political lyrics, and their aggressive, anti-establishment stance challenged not only the political establishment, but the established musical order as well. Punk wasn’t concerned with skilled musicianship, elaborate concept albums, or 20-minute jams; rather it was decisively anti- all of those things. Punk was about immediacy, nihilism and confrontation. When a photo of Johnny Rotten wearing his now-infamous ‘I Hate Pink Floyd’ t-shirt appeared in one of the weekly music papers, Waters knew that Pink Floyd needed to find a way to connect with this movement in order to re-establish relevance and survive the punk onslaught about to overtake Britain’s music scene.

 
David Gilmour, pre-occupied with the birth of his first child, contributed only one song to the album, ‘Dogs’, leaving Waters to compose the rest. With the Punk Rock movement erupting all around him, he fashioned a concept loosely based on George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, in order to comment on the social-political conditions of late 1970s Britain. Waters replaced Orwell’s take on Stalinism with his own ideas about Capitalism; and the focus on the warring social classes was tailor-made to connect with Britain’s disaffected youth. Musically, the tone was harder, the mood more cynical than on previous Pink Floyd albums, but it was Waters’ lyrics that really cemented the punk rock angle.

 

In ‘Pigs (Three Different Ones)’, Waters skewers three different prominent public personalities to further the album’s iconoclastic tone and perhaps garner some anti-establishment points with the punks. The identities of two of the ‘Pigs’ Waters outlines in the song are unknown, while the identity of the figure in the third verse was very clearly established within the song itself, and later confirmed by Roger Waters to be none other than… Mrs. Mary Whitehouse.

 

Hey you, Whitehouse
Haha, charade you are
You house proud town mouse
Haha, charade you are
You’re tryin’ to keep our feelings off the street
You’re nearly a real treat
All tight lips and cold feet
And do you feel abused?
You gotta stem the evil tide
And keep it all on the inside
Mary, you’re nearly a treat
Mary, you’re nearly a treat, but you’re really a cry

 

Mary Whitehouse died in 2001 at the age of 91. She is the only known actual person to feature in the lyrical canons of both Deep Purple and Pink Floyd. How cool is that? 

 

Couple things:

Nick Mason would produce the second album by The Damned, ‘Music For Pleasure’ in the Autumn of ’77.

Pink Floyd’s next album, ‘The Wall’, would be produced by Bob Ezrin, who had previously produced ‘Love it to Death’ and ‘Killer’, the two Alice Cooper albums that young John Lydon felt ‘were the best it could be!’

Bob Ezrin would also go on to produce two Ian Gillan-fronted Deep Purple albums.

Ian Gillan’s Book of Magic

Of the three major offshoots that emerged after the break-up of Deep Purple in 1976, Gillan (the band, not the man) was certainly the most musically daring. And Gillan’s most daring album just might be their last: 1982’s ‘Magic’. Yes, the keyboard-heavy record carries a glossy, polished sheen; yes, it contains a pair of obvious stabs into ‘hit single’ territory; and yes, the off-the-rails kinetic chemistry of the Torme years is largely absent. But it’s not the music that makes makes ‘Magic’ Gillan’s most fascinating record; it’s the words. Truth be told, ‘Magic’ could and should be looked at in hindsight as a concept album, as the lyrics throughout revolve around a common theme: Gillan (the man, not the band) was laying out his future plans right before our very eyes, misdirecting our attention with another album’s worth of musical hocus pocus while planning the greatest magic trick of all: making himself disappear.

Some context: After leaving Deep Purple in June of 1973, Ian Gillan spent a few years away from the music biz, eventually launching The Ian Gillan Band, who released 3 albums of what can only be called jazz-rock, to limited success. Gillan scrapped the IGB but retained keyboardist Colin Towns, whom the vocalist regarded as a valuable writing partner. The pair re-emerged in 1978 with a new band, re-christened simply ‘Gillan’, and a self-titled album, released only in Japan. Perhaps sensing the coming NWOBHM, Gillan, Towns and bassist John McCoy revamped the band’s line-up to include guitarist Bernie Torme and drummer Mick Underwood, heading in a much harder-rocking direction. This bunch released three UK Top Twenty albums (including a #2 & #3) before Torme left; enter Janick Gers, and two more UK Top Twenty records. Add to that six UK Top Forty singles, and you’ve got one heckuva four-year run.

In Britain, during the NWOBHM, Deep Purple’s offspring: Gillan, Whitesnake and Rainbow, dominated the UK Heavy Rock scene. But the first whispers of a Deep Purple Mk II reunion began to circulate in early 1982, as the NWOBHM fire began to fade, and probably caused the five members of DP’s classic line-up to pause and reassess. Ritchie Blackmore seemed content, having found his pot of gold at the American end of his Rainbow, and bassist Roger Glover was a key factor in the band’s US success. Whitesnake, which then included Jon Lord and Ian Paice, were on the verge of implosion, as David Coverdale began retooling the band in an attempt to replicate Rainbow’s success in the US. Paice bolted; Lord stayed. Gillan’s response to the MK II reunion rumors was hidden in plain sight: within the lyrics of what would be his namesake band’s final album, ‘Magic’.

A quick look at the track listing reveals a lot: Titles like ‘Caught In A Trap’, ‘Long Gone’, ‘Living A Lie’ imply a theme; non-album tracks used as b-sides and giveaways such as ‘Breaking Chains’ and ‘Purple Sky’ continue that theme. Even on the surface, we find an indication as to where Gillan’s mind was at during the process of putting together the ‘Magic’ album. Delving deeper, and looking at the lyrics to these songs, and several others on the album, allows an even deeper insight. The concepts IG was working with here center around themes of entrapment, escape, and rebirth… as well as deceit. The lyrics on ‘Magic’ paint a picture of one trapped in an undesirable circumstance, while covertly working toward a more favorable situation. Which is pretty much exactly what occurred while Gillan maneuvered himself into position for a DP reunion.

‘Magic’s lyrics contain ample evidence that, by the time that the lyricist put pen to paper, Ian Gillan had already made his mind up to end the band. Of the twelve original tracks recorded (several covers were also recorded, though only one made the album), eight of them contain hints and clues about Gillan’s mindset and the band’s imminent demise. Some of these red flags are woven into the material with great subtlety; others are startlingly direct. These weren’t just lyrics; they were a letter of resignation. Gillan’s work on ‘Magic’ is akin to a that of a master criminal who intentionally litters his crime scene with tantalizing clues and dares us to put the pieces together, before it’s too late… Or how about Gillan the Escape Artist; stunning his audience by extricating himself from certain doom with seconds to spare, through mystifying means that could only be described as ‘Magic’.

Entrapment/Escape, Rebirth
Some additional context: After a few albums and an extensive amount of touring, the members of Gillan became concerned at their lack of financial success (see: Bernie Torme’s exit), and Ian himself has stated that the band were badly in debt by 1982. Gillan had financed the band entirely with his own money, and by around this time, the Gillan band was deeply in debt. A reunion of the classic Purple line-up just might do the trick…

This snippet from the b-side ‘Breaking Chains’ contains several hints of Gillan’s financial woes:
Ten years of hard sweat, I’m sitting here with a mess of bad debt
I’m down, flat broke, sitting here and you know it’s no joke
I ain’t tired, I ain’t dead, going crazy getting out of my bed, here we go, got another show
Hot dog, cool bitch, feels good but you will not get rich, here we go, got another show
‘Chains’ also speaks to Gillan’s imminent freedom:
How can I be so sad? I gave everything I had
Now that I’m free again, I’m strong and I’m breaking chains
Here’s the dream that I’ve been searching for, I know ’cause I’ve been here before
‘Here’s the dream – I’ve been here before’ is a reference to his previous tenure in DP and the potential upcoming reunion.

The chorus to ‘Caught in a Trap’ also shows Gillan looking forward to revisiting his past in the future (!) but feeling stuck:
In a gateway, I’m trapped in a gateway, Look where I’m going, look where I’ve come from
I’m caught in a trap

‘Long Gone’ has many surprisingly overt references to Gillan’s as-yet-unknown decision to end the band. Musically, this song was an obvious choice for one of the album’s singles, although with these lyrics on top, the choice was a bold one; here IG unflinchingly reveals that his decision is made: He’s gone, long gone:
Say what you’re going to say. I’ll never turn you away but you’ll never make me stay
I’ll come back when the trees stop growing, I’ll come back when the tide stops flowing
I’ll look around when there’s no complaining, I will not return
Send love to the old ways, love to the city haze, I’m gone, long gone

The album’s magnum opus, ‘Demon Driver, contains the following:
I’m trapped here in this tomb, Hell fire here in this womb, this earth
‘Driver’ also includes many uptempo sections that utilize the concept of driving as a metaphor for escape:
Goodbye habit, boring Sunday, Monday slow death
Hello freedom, faster freeways, clean air sweet breath

The album outtake ‘Purple Sky’ is another hidden-in-plain-sight clue about Gillan’s future plans. The was kept off the album, and was not used as a b-side, but rather it was relegated to a flexi-disc and given away free with the purchase of an issue of Flexipop magazine. This excellent song would have been a stellar addition to the album’s track list, but perhaps the title/chorus was too much of a giveaway? The song opens with the line:
‘My old lady, have a lot of fun, when she look the other way, I begin to run’
The first proper verse leads right into the chorus like this:
When I’m cruising you know I’m confusing my head                                                                              When I’m choosing there’s no one that I want instead
Purple sky, get me by, purple sky get me high, get me high, free and high, purple sky

Deceit
Gillan began work on the Magic album in July of 1982, and the album/tour cycle lasted until the band’s final performance in December; Gillan’s lyrics had to have been completed during the July/August recording sessions, at the very latest. That means that IG kept his plans to end the band a secret for six whole months…
‘Bluesy Blue Sea’ is about a man about to embark on a journey, as he prays to the sea that he will get to his destination. He suspects that his departure will upset those he left behind who are as yet unaware of his decision, but feels he must stay true to himself despite the fallout and hopes that they will understand the reasons behind his leaving:
Sitting here with the bottom line, you wanna know what, I’m gonna take my time
It may be good but it could be bad it drives me mad
Looking deep in my moody eyes, feeling good well I got a big surprise
Lock me up if I’ve done you wrong, you’ll never sing my song
Got a dream in December days, I can’t reach it but I’m gonna change my ways
Forget the wind and forget the now, you gotta let me go
Sitting here like a lunatic, you wanna know what and don’t it make you sick
Yes I may be right I may be wrong, but you can’t sing my song
Bluesy Blue Sea won’t you favor me

In ‘Driving me Wild’, Gillan outlines another reason he had privately decided to move on:
What can you do when you stay is your soft and easy life, when ambition is burning to make a break?
What can I do? Lost in a haze, telling you how but I’m just in a daze
That ‘telling you how‘ bit could be seen as a bold admission that the truth is here if one cares to look.

‘Long Gone’ offers more hints at the covert nature of Gillan’s decision throughout the creative process of the album, in the two cryptic instances of ‘it’s not what you think’:
Long gone, out of this place, long gone, it’s not what you think
Long gone, don’t want a new face, long gone it’s not what you think

‘Living a Lie’ appears on the surface to be about a person who has fallen out of love with their partner, yet remains in the unhealthy relationship. In the context of the rest of the lyrics on the album, it’s all too easy to understand that Gillan is actually relating his feelings about his relationship with his band. The middle eight section reads as follows:
Going down going down, down to deceive, coming round, around I believe
Lay me down, lay me down I can’t breathe, I’m living a lie
This line is sung three different times in the song over a solemn, church like organ riff, and is quite striking in its stark declaration:
It’s just another lie
The song ends with this line, softly spoken and drenched with reverb, over the same quietly somber organ backing… feeling more like a confession than a song lyric.

And finally, ‘Demon Driver’, includes this ominous admission:
Look past my eyes, you’ll be surprised
Inside this civilized master, there lies a human disaster

In May of 2020, an unreleased outtake from the ‘Magic’ sessions called ‘Reunion’ was leaked to YouTube. The file is degraded, obviously ripped from an old cassette, but it’s clear that the recording of the song itself was complete, including double-tracked lead vocals, a Gers guitar solo and a fade-out to the end the tune. Musically it’s quite ‘pop’, in the ‘Long Gone’ vein, but lyrically, it’s yet another strong indicator of Gillan’s intentions. Clues can be found among the sonic murk, such as “Ten years on, ten years gone” (Ian left Purple in 1973, and while the DP MkII reunion happened in 1984, it was originally planned for 1983*), and “You’re flyin high, I’m just gettin’ by/We’ll fly in circles ’til we meet again“, which is likely a reference to Ritchie & Rainbow’s recent successes in America vs Gillan’s lack thereof. Oh, yeah— and the song title itself is also a dead giveaway! That’s probably why, although completed in the studio, the song was never released in any form until the leak 38 years later.

Gillan dissolved Gillan the band at the end of the Magic tour, after their final gig at Wembley Arena on December 17, 1982, exactly as foreshadowed in ‘Bluesy Blue Sea’ with that ‘Got a dream in December days’ lyric. Clearly IG had the band’s demise planned right down to the month of the final gig. Claiming the need for throat surgery, Gillan was now free for the Deep Purple Mk II reunion… which was scuttled by Ritchie Blackmore, who opted to one more album/tour cycle with Rainbow*. Gillan now had a year to kill, and so less than two months after his namesake band’s final gig, he was announced as the new lead vocalist of Black Sabbath. The quick turnaround was a shock to the other members of Gillan, leading them to believe they had been *ahem*, misled about the reasons for Gillan’s ending the band. The Sabbath detour turned out to be a one-off, as the fabled Mk II reunion finally became a reality in April of 1984.

The remaining members of Gillan were all quite vocal about their perceived betrayal, expressing their acrimony in the UK music press as well as in songs written about their ex-bandleader’s behaviors and motivations. To hear the band’s impressions of what took place, without the lyrical sleight of hand employed by their former boss, check out John McCoy’s ‘Because You Lied’, a direct response that pulls no punches; McCoy felt so close to the singer that he named Gillan godfather to his first daughter. Colin Towns gave ‘How Does the Cold Wind Cry’ to Roger Daltrey, who recorded the song for his ‘Parting Should be Painless’ collection, a loose concept album inspired by the break-up of The Who. Towns’ song fit into Daltrey’s theme seamlessly; the lyric is a sad and haunting take on his betrayal by someone he had loved and trusted for almost a decade.

So Gillan the Magnificent pulled off quite an amazing trick with ‘Magic’, turning Gillan’s fifth record into a concept album about his breaking up the band right before our eyes… and right under his band’s noses. In retrospect, this IS the same guy who wrote a very unflattering lyric about Ritchie Blackmore over a song on Deep Purple’s ‘Who Do We Think We Are? LP (‘Smooth Dancer’) which went wholly unnoticed by the Man in Black, so his ‘Magic’-al mischief was not without precedent. One wonders if any of the former members of Gillan ever had had an inkling of what was happening, after hearing those lyrics night after night on the road, or perhaps a head-smacking moment years later— “Of course! How could I not have seen it!” But by then, The Amazing Gillan had packed up his travelling Magic show and moved on to Purpler Skies and greener pastures…

The Secret Sabbath Songs: A Listener’s Guide

I first heard Black Sabbath at a friend’s house, sometime in 1978. I was 14 years old. That same year, I saw them get utterly destroyed by a young and hungry Van Halen, who opened for them on Sabbath’s ‘Never Say Die’ Tour. Behind the scenes, Ozzy had previously quit the Sabs, but was coaxed back to celebrate the band’s 10th Anniversary with one final album & tour. But somebody must have said ‘Die’, as for all intents and purposes, Black Sabbath as we knew them were over, seemingly the very moment I discovered them.

Although I started buying Sabbath records with 1980’s ‘Heaven and Hell’, I back-filled all of the Ozzy-era albums over the next few years. By the time I started collecting records, all of the Ozzy-era Black Sabbath albums were into their umpteenth pressings, and so I unfortunately missed out on some neat features found only in the initial production runs: UK copies of ‘Black Sabbath’ originally shipped in a gatefold sleeve with a creepy poem lurking inside; ‘Master of Reality’ originally came in an embossed cover and included a full-color poster; the early run of ‘Volume IV’ was not only produced as a gatefold, but also had several pages of color pics bound within, like a book. By the early 1980s, none of these features were still in production.

Since I completed my Ozzy Sabbath collection in the pre-internet age, I had no idea that any of these earlier variants existed, until I found a gatefold copy of the debut at a flea market at the local mall. But the most mind-blowing revelation was finding a dilapidated copy of ‘Master of Reality’ at a used record store in Boston in the late 80s. The copy was sans poster, but the vinyl within sported the old khaki green Warner’s label. Cool. I examined those labels closely. What the—

On those labels were titles of songs I had never seen before… ‘The Elegy’… ‘The Haunting’… ‘Step Up’… ‘Deathmask’…?? The room spun around me. Was this some kind of bootleg? Nope, the Warner’s logo was front & center. Did the original version of Master of Reality contain extra songs that had for some reason been removed from subsequent pressings?? Then, like a 5-pound sledgehammer: WERE THERE OZZY-ERA SABBATH SONGS THAT I HAD NEVER HEARD BEFORE???

Well… kinda. Actually, no.

Follow me, if you will, as we ascend downward and backward, into the murky darkness of Black Sabbath’s early years, where we’ll attempt to unravel one of the greatest mysteries of their classic Ozzy-era catalog… We’ll explore musty and worn album covers, moldy old books and faded record labels for the keys to unlock the keys to the Sabbath Code… We’ll travel to that to that cursed and unholy place where Art meets Commerce in an eternal battle for our musical souls. Because it’s true what they say: the Devil is in the details.

Nerd Alert!

On their landmark 1970 debut, Black Sabbath put their live set down on tape as-is, almost completely live, including Iommi’s guitar solo showpiece. Parsing these recordings for a proper track listing was likely a bit problematic in such a free-flowing, jam-like presentation, particularly during the final third of the album. When the original European ‘Black Sabbath’ was released in Europe in February 1970, this arrangement was listed as just two songs: ‘Sleeping Village’ and ‘Warning’, with an extensive untitled guitar solo section occurring inside of ‘The Warning’; four months later, when the album was released in the US, the solo section was given a title: ‘A Bit of Finger’, and all three ‘songs’ were grouped together into one single 14-minute track.

If this was an attempt to clarify this convoluted cluster of music, it failed, because while ‘Finger’ is listed first, the album’s 14-minute climax actually begins with ‘Sleeping Village’. With the last guitar note from ‘Village’ still ringing, ‘Warning’ begins with bass and drums, with no clean break between the songs. Then at around the 7-minute mark, ‘Warning’ transitions into ‘A Bit of Finger’, Iommi’s 6-minute lead guitar showcase, after which the rhythm section re-enters at around 13:00, providing a brief musical bridge for the band to reprise ‘Warning’ and give it a proper ending. Exactly why ‘Finger’ appears first in the track list is a mystery. So, if not to clarify, why alter the track listing at all?

Side One features the same phenomenon: The UK version lists ‘Behind the Wall of Sleep’ and ‘N.I.B.’ as two songs; the US version listed this music as four separate works combined into one track, adding something called ‘The Wasp’, and also gave Geezer Butler’s solo intro to ‘N.I.B.’ a clever title: ‘Bassically’. These changes to how this music was identified resulted in two songs becoming four. Again: Why were intros, and other sections of songs broken out and given their own titles for the US market, identifying them as distinct pieces of music?

Simple answer: Money. The Warner’s deal for the US afforded band an opportunity to negotiate a new publishing deal, and more songs = more publishing money, for both band and publisher. Bill Ward has himself once responded to an interview question regarding these titles by stating that the band needed a minimum of 10 songs per album to satisfy the requirements of their publishing agreement; Ward was likely referring to their US publishing deal, as each Sabbath album that had less than 10 titles listed on the UK version contained 10 or more titles when released in the US.

For confirmation that these ‘extra’ titles were added after the albums were recorded, one only need to check out the handwritten track notes on the original tape boxes for the Sab’s first three albums (reproduced in Sanctuary’s 2009 CD reissues), indicating that these titles were not in use during the recording sessions. So: Extra song titles were added to each of Sabbath’s first five US releases to satisfy a stateside publishing deal. Mystery solved?! Probably.

Now that we have surmised the origin of these phantom titles, nagging questions remain: Were these titles just conjured out of nothing and slapped onto record labels for mere monetary gain? Or are they connected to any of the music on these records in some way? We can only guess… Um, hold on a minute… Besides also appearing on early cassette or 8-track tape runs, these song titles actually DID appear in one other notable place…

Hal Leonard Publishing, the music notation juggernaut, produced ‘easy guitar’ songbooks that were published concurrently with each of the Sab’s first five albums, and are still in print today. All of our phantom songs are included in these books, each of which provides ultimate confirmation of exactly where these musical mysteries reside. Where does ‘The Elegy’ end and ‘After Forever’ begin? Through the precise language of music notation, the Hal Leonard songbooks express these delineations explicitly, marking exactly where all of these ‘songs’ begin, end, and in some cases, reprise. While the titles and their sequencing on the early WB record labels provided clues, understanding exactly where these ‘songs’ reside is a futile exercise… Unless you can read music.

To save you the trouble of learning how to read music notation and/or spending fifteen bucks a pop on the HL songbooks, I’ve provided a rundown of Sabbath’s mystery songs, along with some pointers to understand exactly where and when they occur on each album. As you’ll see, some of these tags make perfect sense, while others seem quite random… the intro riff from ‘Lord of This World’ gets a title, but the intro riff from ‘Under the Sun’ doesn’t…? But again, the band only needed to choose two or three sections to name in order to reach that magic number of ten titles per record. Anyway, here we go:

I’ve already dissected ‘A Bit of Finger’, and ‘Bassically’ is pretty self-explanatory, but ‘The Wasp’ is a little tougher to nail down; Hal Leonard confirms that this piece of music acts as the intro to ‘Behind the Wall of Sleep’, it initially ends at the :32 mark and then kicks back in again at 2:30.

‘Luke’s Wall’ is the two-minute section that closes ‘War Pigs’. It starts at approx. 5:40 and ends the song by speeding up the tape to the point where this Black Sabbath masterpiece sounds like an Alvin and the Chipmunks song. Like, wow, man.

‘Jack the Stripper’ is the intro to ‘Paranoid’ album-closer ‘Fairies Wear Boots’. It wraps up it’s initial appearance at about 1:10, where the drum break carries us into the classic ‘Fairies’ riff; it reprises again at around 3:30 and repeats its lead-in to the main song.

‘The Elegy’ is the section of music that introduces ‘After Forever’, coming in immediately after that ominous phased tape loop that bookends the song. ‘Elegy’ reprises several times within ‘Forever’, and early Warner’s pressings listed this grouping as ‘AFTER FOREVER (Including ‘THE ELEGY’)’.

‘The Haunting’ is nothing more than the ghostly edge-of-feedback bent note that soars and dives throughout the slow fade at the close of ‘Children of the Grave’. Ozzy whispering the song title as the section fades was undoubtedly the inspiration for the iconic sounds that signal the arrival of Jason in the Friday the 13th movies. I can’t be the first one who’s noticed that…

‘Step Up’ is the riff that repeats for 30 seconds at the start of ‘Lord of This World’. It’s listed on the original solid green Warner Bros label as occurring before ‘Lord’ and its duration is time-stamped at :30, although it does appear again within the song, just after the chorus.

‘Death Mask’ is not only the greatest/heaviest muthafuckin’ riff of all time, but it’s also the intro to ‘Into the Void’. It’s likely that this was conceived as an song idea and given a title before it was attached to ‘Void’, as this segment was played live by itself as part of an extended jam inside an elongated ‘Wicked World’ in 1973 (See: ‘Live at Last’).

‘The Straightener’ is the instrumental section that quickly fades in and closes ‘Wheels of Confusion’ on the ‘Volume 4’ album.

‘Every Day Comes And Goes’ is the section in ‘Under the Sun’ where the song breaks down into a new riff, at double speed. The vocals start with the line ‘Everyday just comes and goes/Life is one long overdose’ etc, before moving into some jazzy soloing from Iommi and solo bits for Ward.

‘You Think That I’m Crazy’ is tacked onto ‘Killing yourself to Live’ and occurs between 2:45 – 4:08 (ish); while ‘I Don’t Know If I’m Up Or Down’ kicks off directly after that and winds up the song. These two pieces were likely written separately (and perhaps even assigned titles?) and connected during the songwriting process. The recognition of these two ‘ghosts titles’ imposes some structure on this somewhat-meandering piece of music and reveals ‘Killing Yourself to Live’ as a 3-part suite. Mind = Blown.

‘Prelude To A Project’ is the 45-second solo acoustic intro to ‘Spiral Architect’, the gorgeously epic finale to the ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ album. The ‘Crazy’, ‘Up or Down’, and ‘Prelude’ titles never made it onto any official release, not even on any of the record’s labels, and have only ever appeared in the official songbook from Hal Leonard in 1973.

So there you have it: we’ve cracked the Sabbath Code, solved a decades-old riddle and uncovered hidden dimensions in the understanding of Black Sabbath’s essential catalog. These troublesome titles have caused confusion and consternation among fans and collectors for decades– at least for those who were aware of their brief existence– but no more.

The inexplicable disappearance of these titles from subsequent US pressings, and the fact that these titles never appeared on any album covers (just on the labels) has made these ‘songs’ the stuff of legend and added to the dark mystique of early Black Sabbath. For you skeptics and/or agnostics who would prefer your Sabbath remain dark and mysterious, I will submit that I have not examined these titles for any secret messages, biblical codes or mathematical formulas… If anyone out there wants to take a crack at it, go for it. Let me know what you come up with. But please, be careful…

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(This article copyright 2019. All rights reserved. Not to be republished without the express permission of the copyright holder.)

Special Thanks to my bud Monte Conner for instigating, inspiring, and informing this article with his November 25, 2018 Facebook post about this phenomenon, and to all who contributed to the thread. Oh, and to Hal Leonard!