I was relaxing at Casa Del Recky the other day (like thats nothing unusual) watching a doco called Heavy Metal Britannica and it expounded forthwith about the bands that "created" the genre we have all come to know as heavy metal...
I thought to myself thats an idea for a bloggaroo, I have included Black Sabbath by the band of the same name, and cudos to them for their creative use of the tri-tone or diminished fifth if you will, Iommi the riff master rules, but I plan to, and will go back before Sabbath and blather on about the bands from both sides of the Atlantic, that came before them.
As I may have mentioned before, I had the great, good fortune to be raised ankle deep in a stack of vinyl that should be envied..so all the bands in the comp I can say with certainty that I had them ringing in my ears from the get go...The first bands included in this blogaroo that I can remember flogging to death was Steppenwolf , blasting out Born to be wild and Magic Carpet ride, and the awesomely loud Grand Funk Railroad and in particular their tunes "Locomotion" and "Were an American band",
but prior to this, good old Uncle Yogi ( for that is how he shall be remembered) waylaid my good self with tunes from Cream , Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, Hendrix and The Doors and I added to this myself by playing some Troggs, Yardbirds and the first "heavy metal" trio , Blue Cheer bashing the living shit out of "Summertime Blues"....
The bands from the very early days of rock music, Ive included here have a touch of the "outsider" to them, meaning that at the time of their release they weren't considered mainstream...
as a matter of fact, many of them were considered long haired hooligans and for example, "The Killer" Jerry Lee Lewis wasn't thought of as a boyscout by any stretch of the imagination.....neither was Little Richard, although he was more of a girl scout...fkn black AND gay in Georgia in the 50's...hmmm, wonder if he could fight?
As you can see , Ive included some acts that came at the beginning of rock'n'roll...like I said, jerry Lee and then there is Jackie Brenston bashing out Rocket 88 and for the blues fans among you, I chucked in some Hooker playing my favourite Hooker tune, his classic "Maudie".......then came bands that I always considered "hard rock" anywhoo... MC5, Mountain and Iron Butterfly, who had an awesome live version of "Ina Gadda Da Vida", hanging around my place, tell you what, if you dig mad drumming, then this is the record for you.......
then comes the bands of the what I call, the second British invasion, that come from the 'rough" end of the pop music spectrum...The Troggs, Yardbirds, The Kinks, and in particular Ray Davies who had the wonderfully original idea of taking a razor blade to there speaker cones which gave them that roaring fuzz in "You really got me" and then there is, The Who...I must say I never really got into Pete Townshend and the boys, probably only two or three songs max, but to be fair, I never really gave them a fair shake, I don't hate 'em, but cant class 'em as a regular listen either....
another guy I can honestly say that I only like a couple of tunes of, is Arthur Brown...one of the original "shock " rockers I dare say...and he has Bruce Dickinson as a hardcore fan, so that makes him o.k by me (slightly)....
and I was a bit confused as to where to put Jimi Hendrix...is he a British act, seeing as how thats were he kicked it into high gear or is he a American act who lit up Old Blighty with his axe skills...I think I will go with the first thought, cause if I put him down as a yank act I would have to put him in with the Doors and Vanilla Fudge and Grand Funk and quite honestly, to me, he doesn't fit in with those I just mentioned
And then there is a band I mentioned earlier, that if your not from Old Blighty, then you more than likely have never heard of them...the Edgar Broughton Band, they started out as a blues band, but seeing the Yardbirds and Cream, they decided to get a bit raucous instead...there was some vinyl laying around the house, Yog's must have got it from an import shop cause I cant imagine these blokes cracking the 2SM Australian top 20 on a weekly basis...there a bit...ummm..proggy, if you will, yeah a touch of the old 20 minute jam feeling going on with these boys, but that's cool...its all good if it makes sense...i thunk.....
So there you go...I firmly believe that all the acts mentioned in some way , shape or form lent something to the beast that we know as Heavy Metal....
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