text:
And the Music Was Good, And the Music Was Loud…
Ian Gillan's Book of Magic
April 28, 2019 April 29, 2019 mayobat Music	Bernie Torme, Bluesy Blue Sea, Breaking Chains, Colin Townes, Deep Purple, Deep Purple Mk II, Deep Purple Reunion, Demon Driver, Gillan, Ian Gillan, Ian Gillan Band, Ian Paice, Janik Gers, John McCoy, Jon Lord, Long Gone, Magic, Mick Underwood, Mk II Reunion, Purple Sky, Rainbow, Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Whitesnake
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
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
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
January 9, 2019 January 22, 2019 mayobat Music	'Master of Reality, A Bit of Finger, Bassically, Black Sabbath, Death Mask, I don't Know If I'm Up or Down, Jack the Stripper, Killing Yourself to Live, Luke's Wall, Paranoid, Prelude to a Project, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Step Up, The Elegy, The Haunting, The Wasp, Volume 4
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.
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…
Legal Discliamer: This blog exists for infotainment purposes only. Consume at your own risk. In no event will we be liable for any loss or damage including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from the summoning of demons, initiation of Armageddon, loss of soul, or insanity, arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this blog.
(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!
Satan, Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas!
October 14, 2018 mayobat Music	AC/DC, Backmasking, backwards messages, Black Oak Arkansas, Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, ELO, H.R.6363, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, reverse phonetics, Satan, Satanic Influence, Satanic messages, Satanic Music, Satanic Panic, Styx, the Eagles
When internet news sources began announcing that Satan would be releasing an album in September of this year, I was immediately interested. I thought, 'great, now we'll get to see what he's really all about musically.' After decades of collaborating with other artists, it was finally time for the Horned One to step out on his own and pursue his own unique artistic vision. But alas, the headlines actually referenced the NWOBHM band called Satan, and NOT The Father Of All Lies. So, no Beelzebub solo album after all. Damn it!
It's a shame. Such was the impact of his work, that, in his own way, The Devil himself became one of the biggest rock starts of the 1970s. But Ol' Scratch retired from the music biz in the early 80s, and opted to watch from the sidelines as his message devolved into shtick, leaving behind a void that was quickly filled by a seemingly endless parade of Venoms and Motleys and Slayers, all peddling phony evil and bogus damnation… What prompted his sudden departure from the world of Rock n' Roll? My guess is that Satan retired from the music biz after the embarrassing failure of one of this most ambitious and creative projects: Writing backwards Rock and Roll lyrics with some of the biggest artists of the 70s.
The Devil's plan was simple. He would find popular songwriters and record producers willing to collaborate with the Prince of Darkness. For the most part, Satan chose established artists and bands with ready access to large audiences and a track record of success on the radio. It was probably easy enough to find writing partners among the biggest stars of the era; the standard 'deal with the devil' was fairly commonplace, and if the promise of unlimited fame and fortune didn't work, there was always the 'strippers and blow' approach. Satan would then insert Satanic ideas and messages into the artist's songs, brainwash the masses into worshiping him forever, overthrow God, bring forth the Apocalypse, etc etc.
The true genius of Lucifer's plan was his use of 'phonetic reversal', a key component in the theory of 'reverse speech'. Satan subscribed to the idea that the subconscious mind will attempt to interpret messages in several different contexts, including by reversing information, and that the mind will be subliminally influenced by said messages because they are not perceived consciously and are therefore not subject to analysis and critical thinking processes available to the conscious mind. This idea finds little validation in hard science, and remains at best a grey area in the field of cognitive theory. However, this didn't stop Satan from moving forward with the project in earnest. Science! BAH!
Crafting a lyric where Don Henley sings about rehab and also references Satanism when reversed by the brain is an enormous artistic achievement, if not Grammy-worthy. However, the Devil's poetic voice lost much of its persuasive force in translation. Think about it: These lyrics needed to be meticulously constructed syllable-by-syllable; words and phrases carefully chosen and intricately placed so as to flow understandably forward and backward; each stanza containing not one but two ideas, each flowing simultaneously in opposite directions. This method carried with it some considerable vocabulary and grammatical limitations, and often left Satan's message severely compromised.
Looking back at his best work decades later, it's easy to see why Satan's plot failed: The Devil had outsmarted himself. His message was hopelessly muddled by his process. What's difficult to understand, however, is how these nonsensical statements actually caused such a stir; yes, they referenced the Devil; yes, they were placed in our kids' favorite songs covertly, but… They sure don't seem to add up to much. What follows are the top ten most-referenced instances of hidden Satanic messages found in Rock music during the 70s 'Satanic Panic' era. Everything gathered here is 100% pure Devilspeak; none of the intentional studio chicanery purposely created as a response to Satan's poetic plot is included below. Now: Prepare to be underwhelmed by these Palindromes For the Damned:
AC/DC / 'Highway to Hell': I'm the law, my name is Lucifer, she belongs in hell.
It's unclear exactly why AC/DC opted to work with Satan and his evil secret messages; a band with songs called 'Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be,' and 'Hell's Bells' etc obviously doesn't feel the need to hide their devilry. Indeed, AC/DC's Angus Young commented on the hoo-hah surrounding 'Highway's hidden messages: "You didn't need to play [the album] backwards, because we never hid [the messages]. We'd call an album 'Highway To Hell', there it was right in front of them."
It's also curious that Black Sabbath's 'N.I.B.' contains the lyric 'my name is Lucifer' which plays out forward, while AC/DC's 'my name is Lucifer' was inserted backwards. Neither song fills me with the urge to sacrifice goats or burn churches, so it's unclear which method is more effective.
The Eagles / 'Hotel California': Yes, Satan organized his own religion.
This song was went to #1 in 1977 in the US, and became an international smash; the album from which it was pulled has sold 42 million copies. The song's appearance on The Eagles Greatest Hits album ensured that record would be certified as the best selling album of the 20th century. All of this success, obviously orchestrated by the Devil himself as his part of the Eagles/Satan merger, guaranteed millions upon millions of ears would hear his message… And this is the best lyric he could muster?
Cheap Trick / 'Gonna Raise Hell': You know Satan holds the keys to the lock.
Rick Nielsen's lyric concerns the Jonestown Massacre, and Satan uses the dark subject matter to craft this cryptic missive. Note the use of third person, which creates distance between the messenger and the message, while also revealing Satan to be a narcissistic, self-obsessed asshole.
Black Oak Arkansas / 'When Electricity Came To Arkansas': Satan Satan Satan, He is God, He is God, He is God.
Okay, okay, okay!
Queen / 'Another One Bites the Dust': It's fun to smoke marijuana.
Beyond the Captain Obvious message, this one is notable for being inserted into a song about a hit man. A guy who kills people for money. A murderer. Did Satan even read the forward lyrics to any of these songs while working on them backwards?
Electric Light Orchestra / 'Eldorado': He is the nasty one. Christ, you're infernal. It is said we're dead men. Everyone who has the mark will live.
Styx / 'Snowblind': Satan move through our voice.
After being accused of inserting these Satanic messages into the title track of their 1974 album 'Eldorado', ELO included several intentionally backmasked messages on their next album, 1975's 'Face The Music'. Backwards messages were 'found' in 'Snowblind' as well, and Styx responded to the accusations of Satanic influence by placing backwards recordings on the follow-up 'Killroy Was Here'.
Very funny, guys… Now can we get back to brainwashing millions of kids into doing the Devil's bidding? Thanks.
Judas Priest / Better By You, Better Than Me': Do it
Judas Priest / 'Beyond the Realms of Death': I took my life
One wonders if anyone ever checked the original Spooky Tooth version for backwards/forwards lyrics? Pro Tip: If you ever find yourself under the spell cast by the backwards instruction embedded in this song, and feel a desperate need to 'do it', I would suggest giving the Pink Fairies 1971 B-side 'Do It' a few spins, to… you know… Undo it.
And how ironic that, considering the tragic events forever connected to Priest's version of 'Better By You…', that the 'I took my life' bit, from a song on the same album, wasn't a major focus of that infamous 1990 court case.
Led Zeppelin / 'Stairway to Heaven': Oh here's to my sweet Satan. He will give those with him 666. There was a little tool shed where he made us suffer, sad Satan. He will give you 666. Happy is the man who makes me sad whose power is Satan.
Jimmy Page's flirtations with Black Magic, his association with Alistair Crowley and the ensuing fallout that his band and their associates suffered are well known. Thanks to Satan, the record would go on to sell 37 million copies, and currently sits in the #11 spot for biggest selling albums of all time. The album's centerpiece, 'Stairway to Heaven', is widely considered the band's greatest work, and Satan contributed some outstanding material to this grand collaboration. What it all means? How the fuck do I know. But the bit about the little tool shed is pure evil.
So: After studying his work for many… minutes, I can safely state that, while working in reverse, The Devil is no Bob Dylan. As a lyricist, he's actually much closer to Ronnie James Dio. Let that sink in for a minute…
Lucifer's backward poetry was often confused with backmasking, a process by which a sound or message is purposely recorded backward onto a track that is meant to be played forward, for aesthetic/artistic reasons or, later, for ironic effect. Again, BAH! His Satanic Majesty was always more poet than technician. And let's remember that A&M's Bob Garcia famously said 'It must be the devil putting messages on the records because no one here knows how to do it'. Most folks regarded the phenomenon as hooey, deciding that what was being heard occurred completely by accident, but when artists began intentionally inserting humorous or ironic backwards phrases into their recordings as a response to accusations of Satanic influence, these actions confused the issue and lent a level credence to the allegations.
Regardless of the true origins of the messages, legislators and religious leaders declared that any words or lyrics that made sense when played backwards were a) placed there intentionally, and b) of Satanic origin and intent. As Satanic phraseology, both real and imagined, was gradually 'discovered' and exposed, it caused an uproar that included protests outside of record stores and concert venues, as well as organized record burnings. Books were written, so-called 'experts' lined up to appear on radio and TV talk shows, and 'Satanic Influence in Rock Music' was viewed as a legitimate area of public discussion and debate. Perhaps the most bizarre result of this Satanic panic was the introduction of legislation in Arkansas and California.
The California bill, H.R.6363 Phonograph Record Backward Masking Labeling Act of 1982/1983, was introduced on the Senate floor as a law that would prevent backmasking that 'can manipulate our behavior without our knowledge or consent and turn us into disciples of the Antichrist'. Yep, that sentence is part of the Congressional record. A California State Assembly hearing was held, and 'Stairway to Heaven' was played backwards. None of the legislators present sprouted horns. The bill made the distribution of records with undeclared backmasking an invasion of privacy for which labels, distributors, and retailers could be sued; however, the only result of this law was that five DJs were fired for encouraging listeners to find backward messages in their record collections.
The Arkansas law passed unanimously in 1983, and referenced Satan's work on records by Electric Light Orchestra, Queen and Styx, among others. The legislation mandated that records with backmasking include a warning sticker that read: 'Warning: This record contains backward masking which may be perceptible at a subliminal level when the record is played forward.' However, the bill was rejected by then-Governor Bill Clinton and ultimately defeated. Government action was also called for in the legislatures of Texas and in Canada.
Of course, all of this Lucifer-centric legislation was specific to 'backmasking', or material recorded backwards on purpose, and did not cover reverse phonetics, which could happen 'accidentally' or exist only in the mind of the listener. The Devil's bad poetry emerged from the American legislative process unhindered. Fools! You cannot legislate against The King Ov Hell! However, as lawmakers no doubt believed they were saving the souls of a generation of young people from damnation, it was Satan's bad grammar and sloppy syntax, along with the bogus theories of reverse phonetics, that saved countless innocent children from the never-ending torment of eternal Hellfire.
Halleluja!
Raging Slab Against the Machine
August 12, 2018 August 12, 2018 mayobat Music	Alec Morton, Alex Perialas, American Recordings, Assmaster, Black Belt in Boogie, Def American, Don't Dog Me, Dynamite Monster Boogie COncert, Elyse Steinman, Freeburden, From a Southern Space, Gregory Strzempka, Raging Slab, Rick Rubin, Sing Monkey Sing, True Death
In a July 2015 issue of The Guardian, Faith No More's Mike Patton and Billy Gould are asked to reflect upon their career, and recall their record company's initial reactions to their fourth album 'Angel Dust':
"It didn't totally click," Patton says drily. "I remember the label saying 'commercial suicide'."
"The classic line was: 'I hope you didn't just buy houses,'" Gould says.
Maybe 'commercial suicide' was a little extreme, but the suits had a point. Artists exist to create art, and labels exist to make money. 'Angel Dust' has barely achieved Gold status in the US over the course of 25 years. Having a record universally acclaimed as a masterpiece is no doubt fulfilling to the artists involved, but this alone doesn't butter anyone's bread. In the ages-old battle of Art vs Commerce, compromise is key, although the balance of power is heavily skewed toward the biz side, and it's usually the creators that have to do most of the compromising. In this environment, it's easy to lose sight of your vision, and sticking to your guns can get you killed.
Consider the saga of New York's Finest Southern Rock Band (!), Raging Slab. Their 7-album discography (or is that 10?) includes three albums released via the Majors (or was it 6?), and includes the record we're going to explore here: the Slab's 5th (8th?) album, 'Sing Monkey, Sing!', a record that I love dearly, but has beguiled me for many a year. As the follow-up to what many consider Raging Slab's defining statement, 1993's 'Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert', 'Sing!' is a wildly careening curve ball, at best a challenging listen for the band's fan base and a twisted and broken middle-finger farewell to the major label segment of their career arc.
For the uninitiated, 'Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert' was a potent dose of southern-tinged hard rock with extra helping of musicality and a whole lotta soul. Southern Rock from NYC? Think Heavy Metal Skynyrd with an subversive alt streak and a wickedly obtuse sense of humor. DMBC was released on Rick Rubin's red-hot Def American label (through Warner Bros), featured strings composed by Led Zep's John Paul Jones, and the video for lead single 'Anywhere But Here' was Beavis and Butthead-approved. In an era when both Grunge and Alternative were slowly creeping into the mainstream, Raging Slab's 'Dynamite' was a welcome blast of 3-guitar, old-school boogie-rock kick-ass, that somehow managed to seem both familiar and thoroughly relevant.
Then why, WHY?? was the follow-up, 'Sing Monkey, Sing!' so … um, different? DMBC seemed to be a perfect foundation on which to build a career, and combined the best of several worlds: Hard Rock, Alt Rock, Southern Rock, even a li'l Alt Country. All the stars looked to be aligned: hot video, buzz band status, a growing live rep… So what the HELL happened? The follow-up to 'Dynamite' is a very different animal, almost sounding like the work of a totally different band. Guitarist Gregoryy Strzempka has called 'Sing Monkey, Sing!' 'one of the most bitter, unlistenable records ever made.' There must be a reason for the extreme left turn that Raging Slab made here; some explanation for the abrupt transmogrification from funkified Blackfoot to something that might have eminated from Frank Zappa's Straight label.
'Sing Monkey, Sing!' is a poke in the eye to to the Powers that Be from a band tired of trying to please desk jockeys and number crunchers. Crammed with obtuse musical angles, algebraic lyrical formulas, and oddball atmospherics, this ugly little album stares at you with a demented smile and dares you to like it… If you don't dig it: HA! You're not supposed to! This willfully weird musical mutation was not aimed at you anyway. And if you do: That's because a truly great band can deliver a bad album that's still great because it's supposed to be so bad that it's great. If this record wasn't a deliberate career suicide, it was certainly career self-sabotage, a musical hand grenade lobbed at label honcho Rick Rubin and the majors in general. And, boy, did it backfire…
Everything about this album reeks of 'FUCK YOU': the album's title, the strikingly bizarro cover art, and the severely bent anti-boogie within… The queasy, seasick bass throughout 'Gracious'… the haunted house stabs in 'Never Comin' Down'… the wicked witch vocals in 'Checkyrd Demon'… the throat-shredding chorus of 'Lay Down'… the disorienting vocal patterns in 'C'mon N' On' and 'Shoulda Known'… The lyrics are laced with poetic poison, and you don't even wanna know about the album's epic 3-part closer. It's 'Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert' played upside down and backwards. Don't worry: The Slab groove is there; it's just hiding, and the whole mess is delivered with an artfully musical smirk. Once you clue into this record's genius/dementia, suddenly it all makes a kind of sense. Kind of.
Full Disclosure: I love this much-maligned, misunderstood masterpiece. In fact, it's one of my favorite albums of all time. And while 'Dynamite' might be a 'better' record, 'Sing!' resonates with me much more. Why? Simply put, backstory. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows it's all about backstory here. Backstory can deepen one's appreciation for an album or an artist; at least it can for me. And the story behind Raging Slab's brief foray into the swirling cesspool of major label Purgatory is a humdinger. A little while back, I reached out to the principles in the Slab saga: Main man Gregory Strzepmka, slide guitarist extraordinaire Elyse Steinman (Strzempka's wife), and bassist Alec Morton for the straight dope on this curious classic:
The Slabs 1st two indie releases, 'Assmaster' and the band-favorite 'True Death' EP, are a unique combo of classic 70's boogie rock with an alt-punk edge and NYC underground attitude…
Alec: We were really proud of True Death. 'Assmaster' had been recorded very quickly and chaotically, and with 'True Death' we took our time and loved the result. Elyse spent hours at home making cassette dupes of the record; the three of us would load our pockets with them and pass them out to anyone we could when we went out to clubs, trying to get the record heard by as many people as possible.
Elyse: The important factors of our philosophy were humor, groove and to make people think beyond their horizons. 'True Death' encapsulated those qualities for me, just like Bowie or Zappa did for me as a kid.
Greg: I imagine my nostalgia regarding "True Death" is due to the fact that it was the last time we'd functioned in a studio without the 'benefit' of label input. It's definitely my favorite Slab release. It was the perfect gel of everything we had envisioned. We all knew it sounded like us and nobody else, and I felt as if we had found our voice. And we had done so with only Elyse, Alec and myself in an 8 track, basement studio in Brooklyn.
Workin' For RCA: The Slab enter the big leagues, sand down a few sharp edges, and learn a new word: 'Compromise', while working on their major label debut…
Alec: For me, the most mainstream thing about the RCA record is the production. Daniel (Rey, producer) had a production deal with RCA, he wanted to make records that sold. No one at RCA was looking for an 'art' band; the labels were desperate to find an east coast Guns n Roses. It seemed like a possibility that if we had a big, 'current' sounding record, we could succeed on a national level. This was new territory for us, a little intimidating. The final result is slicker than 'True Death', but once you're signed to a corporation, there's a certain amount of playing ball that goes with it.
Greg: I hope that 'Raging Slab' sounds more commercial, because it was intentional! The RCA record was done in two parts: we recorded five songs as part of a 'development deal', which was basically a recorded audition. There was a conscious effort to present ourselves as a sign-able act. So the more mainstream material was part of the 'demo' sessions. We were offered a contract based on those tunes, and we completed the album three months later, at which point we began our return to quirkier stuff. When the label chose Gary Lyons to mix, it became evident what they wanted us to sound like. RCA were not interested in anything other than having their own Guns n' Roses.
Elyse: I think this is what we all wanted at the time, not so much to be 'rock stars' but to be pioneers in the field of music and art. But like our good friend Lisa Robinson always said, 'It's the pioneers that get shot in the back', a prophesy we would later find to be true… 'True Death' indeed.
After some moderate success with their self-titled major label debut, Slab enter the studio with renowned Metal producer Alex Perialas for RCA album #2: 'From a Southern Space'. Nobody likes what they hear; RCA pulls the plug.
Alec: We only finished 6 songs with Alex Perialas; we weren't happy, neither was the label, so no full record was done.
Greg: Alex Perialas and Pyramid Studios was entirely an RCA idea. And I recall our agreeing to it because we had no intention of recording in NYC again as the Record Plant had just closed for good. Alex was a nice enough guy, although he didn't have a clue what to do with us.
Elyse: Well, once again we were outsmarting ourselves. Raging Slab tended to mix it up a little too much and that made the suits very uncomfortable because you just couldn't pigeonhole us. I think Gregory, Alec and I can be shameless contrarians and we just didn't want to be a carbon copy of anyone, even ourselves.
Another record, 'Freeburden', is begun; this one is completed. There's a little more of the 'True Slab' sound and vibe on this one, and hopes are high…
Alec: There was a lot of pressure to get product out, since we had spent time and money on the Perialas recording. RCA had several suggestions for a producer; we went with Michael Beinhorn. I remember liking the results a lot; we were mixing it in NY, inviting friends to come hear it, getting great reactions across the board. Greg and I were in the room when all the RCA execs heard it, convinced they would be thrilled. When it was done, there was an awkward pause… Someone finally said,'I don't hear a 'Don't Dog Me'. It was a crushing moment.
Greg: We still fully expected most listeners to 'get it'. Whether it was a musical quote, or a triple entendre, or a heavily veiled lyric, we always gave the record buying public, and especially our fans, the benefit of the doubt that they'd be rewarded for listening closely. We also tried to make sure that it stood up without the intense scrutiny. In some sense, that's exactly what was wrong. It was our misguided belief that people wanted rock and roll that was subtle, tongue-in-cheek, and unpredictable. Even in our half-hearted attempts at commercializing, I still insisted that the songs not fully surrender themselves after a single listen.
Now with two records in a row rejected by RCA, Slab are dropped from the label, and disillusion sets in…
Alec: I guess they were confused by a couple of acoustic songs; they thought they could farm the record out to the country department. Believe me, it was a full-on hard rock record. We were dropped shortly after. We were frustrated, angry, confused, and we also didn't have a drummer.
Greg:This was also about the same time that major labels started utilizing third party market testers & data analysis, rather than using their own fucking ears. A&R staff began throwing around terms like 'the 18 to 24 yr old demographic' and saying things like 'That track got bad phones in Atlanta, so we couldn't use it as a single'. You got the impression that they weren't even listening. We'd counter this by telling them 'we play this shit to live people every night, with our fans presumably constituting our most immediate demographic, and we can tell you which songs they respond to!'
Elyse: Very frustrated. I remember when we did the monster truck video (for 'Raging Slab's 'Don't Dog Me') the record company wasn't into it at all. This was still the 80's, and I had to take them to Madison Square Garden to see a monster truck show and I said 'count the AC/DC t-shirts in here!' For goodness sakes, what isn't rock and roll about monster trucks??
Rick Rubin's Def American picks up the band, and oversees their next album, 'Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert'. Once again, the band makes concessions to commerciality, and again, a bit of the band's unique identity is missing. The album is excellent, but the band's frustration grows…
Alec: I know what you mean about some of the 'weirdness' being left behind, although I don't agree 100 percent. Still, we were in the world of MTv and mainstream rock radio, we were not an indie band. For sure wanted a successful record. For me, 'Dynamite…' is more over-produced than the RCA record; keyboards, background singers etc, but it sounded very current for the time. Everyone at the label was convinced if was going to be a huge hit.
Elyse: Rick's initial motivation seemed honorable, I think he genuinely liked our band, but I'm not sure if he understood it because he seemed to drop the ball quickly; they focused on songs we felt weren't the strongest ones.
Greg: Unlike RCA, American had a staff that was obnoxiously 'hip', but they were still miles away from grasping what we were about. And as far as we were concerned, we were never in need of advice. We had album titles, videos, graphics, all planned out 'til the next millennium. We always had a chip on our shoulder about the 'art' of what we did, because we genuinely regarded it as just that. Elyse, Alec and I grew up admiring artists who didn't 'sell out'. We were predisposed to not play nice with a major label. Granted, Def did try harder than RCA, but still… And once again, they didn't trust us enough. The 'artistic guidance' that RCA and American dispensed always felt like going clothes shopping with your mom.
After the moderate success of 'Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert', Raging Slab once again try to assert their true Slab selves on the planned follow-up, 'Black Belt in Boogie'… a record that is flatly rejected by the label. If you're keeping count, that's rejected album #3…
Greg: 'Black Belt in Boogie' was started with DC Hardcore producer Don Zientara, that was Rick's idea, which turned into a long, low-energy ordeal. We had just gotten back from a really gruelling European tour. Marc (Middleton, guitars) and the band parted ways mainly because we wanted to get back to the 'True Death' lineup, streamline, strip down, etc. There was a lot of wandering in the dark at that time. We spent a LOT of money, doing what amounted to one and a half CDs of music. They didn't want it.
Alec: When it was time to do another record, we were eager to not be hemmed in by the "Lynyrd Skynyrd meets Metallica" label. Greg came in with a wide variety of songs, and I liked the eclecticism. Rick had signed us himself, so he had veto power on the material. When he finally heard the stuff, he really disliked it, and told us he wouldn't put it out. Once again, we were angry and frustrated and felt time passing us by. After Rick rejected the record, our drummer Paul quit. Everything seemed to take forever with us; once step forward two back.
Elyse: Well of course we were frustrated. We had recorded so many songs over and over again and kept being slowed down for one reason or another. It was maddening to say the least, and it was very hard to keep positive. We just kept producing more material and tried to remain focused on the big picture, which was the integrity of the band and making music. But yes, those were very hard times.
Rubin agrees to let Slab work alone for their next album. Spirits are low, but unhindered by label expectations, the band tries hard to shake off the dysfunction, and seizes the opportunity to recapture their original mojo…
Alec: We knew at that point that nobody at the label liked the band, but they wouldn't release us from our contract, and I felt an atmosphere of freedom and lack of pressure to produce a hit. I loved playing the songs on 'Sing Monkey', it's my favorite Slab record after 'True Death'.
Elyse: 'Sing Monkey, Sing!' was a conscience effort back to our roots, but it was gravely misunderstood. We had a great time making that album because we knew that nobody at the label gave two shits about us which allowed us the freedom to be totally ourselves. It was great to experiment again, just like on 'True Death'.
Greg: 'Sing Monkey, Sing!' was essentially a psychotic episode set to music. When you've consciously made concessions that ended up being damaging to your career, you overcompensate in the other direction. As a result we began to develop a collective psychosis. The constant rejection began to ferment a climate of paranoia and desperation as well as a really poisonous, bitter outlook towards the music business. It's impossible to look back at ANY of that material and not feel our anger and frustration all over again.
If all art is self-expression, 'Sing Monkey, Sing!' is a window into the soul of a great band… at the very end of their rope. It's everything the majors didn't like about the real Raging Slab, and then some. The record has little commercial potential, but its lack of mainstream viability feels wholly intentional yet also completely organic. It's almost as if, after having 3 of their records rejected, Slab crafted a record intentionally conceived to be rejected. Was there a conscious effort to hand in a 'difficult' album?
Greg: Music is all about communicating emotion, and is best when communicating emotions that are beyond words or pictures…so let me congratulate you on your remarkable powers of perception.
Elyse: Thank you so much for noticing, I wasn't sure anybody did.
Alec: When Greg came in with new songs, I felt there was a toughness and a fuck-you quality that was a response to frustrations with the label. I don't think we tried to make a difficult record, we just didn't want to make the same record again. I seem to remember Rick's take on the album as something like, 'It's the best record you guys have done, it won't sell at all'. Iggy Pop's album 'New Values' was one that we all liked a lot; I always felt that it was lurking in the background on 'Sing Monkey'.
Rubin tells the group that he 'didn't hear any songs' on 'Sing!' Then Rubin's label ends its relationship with Warner Bros, but neglects to tell the band, and also 'forgets' to release the group from its contract. The 'Sing!' album is disowned by Rubin and sold to the Columbia Record & Tape Club. Slab has no choice but to wait out the term of their contract, which prevents them from releasing any new music for almost seven years…
Elyse: I really don't know what Rick's feeling towards us were at that time, he had clearly moved on, I was very sad about that. But he runs a business, and if you're not selling product… I heard whispers of 'not wanting to throw good money after bad'. I understand that but I thought of Raging Slab as something that wasn't instant bubblegum music, we had more depth to us. We were trying to make meaningful art.
Greg: Rick treated that record with some degree of puzzlement; I think he wasn't quite sure if it was the worst piece of shit he'd ever heard or if it was our "Trout Mask Replica". The majority of the American Recordings staff did their best to make sure it was buried. We didn't even think he'd put it out. It was like 'if you didn't like the nice stuff we did for you, here's this!' And it didn't even achieve our intended result, which was to have them drop us. The Columbia Record & Tape club arrangement was their incredibly effective, career-destroying way of saying 'Fuck you, we own you, you have made us sad and we're more than happy to set up a few lawn chairs and watch you wither on the vine'. We ended up being under contract to them for another 6-7 years.
Raging Slab waited out their ties to American Recordings, retreated into the underground and released two indie albums: 'The Dealer' and '(pronounced ēat-shït)' before calling it a day. Both records are more akin to the band's 1st two indie slabs than to their major label output. Lessons learned? Perhaps. Strzempka waxes philosophical for a brief moment and offers a cautionary spin on the entire Slab saga…
Greg: There's nothing inherently wrong with intentionally making "pop" music, but I'd strongly caution anyone from making partial concessions in that direction when it doesn't feel right. It either has to be one or the other. And in terms of our career, I would have preferred that we lived or died by our own hand. If I have a 'what if' moment, it's: What if we hadn't conceded anything after 'True Death'?
In terms of the mainstream record-buying public, Slab might mainly be remembered for RCAs 'Raging Slab' and Def American's 'Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert', when in fact their major label adventure resulted in 2 albums released, 3 albums rejected, and 1 album buried– Raging Slab's official discography is gonna have a bunch of asterisks attached. I asked them how this whole adventure looks now that it's firmly in the rearview…
Elyse: It was a tremendous ride and I'm grateful to everyone who gave us a chance. I do wish the powers that be had a bit more faith in our vision and trusted us a bit more, but I never had any illusions about one indisputable fact, it was called the record business for a reason.
Alec: We certainly were more successful than lots of bands I know; most bands don't get the chance to not sell records on a major label, I'm well aware of that. There's no point in my speculating on what would have happened 'if'… although I've done it plenty. If we were a band with a small cult following, so are many of my favorite bands. I'm grateful that I was a part of it.
Greg: If you measure success by album sales then surely RS was a disappointment, however as a music fan I'm comforted by the fact that most of my favorite albums and bands were flops. Frankly, I never wanted to be anything more than a 'cult band' and had no interest in fame. If I re-examine our career in those terms it was an undeniable success. Even though we had more material rejected than was released, the fact that the material was recorded counts a lot to me! Not to mention having been signed to two majors over a span of eleven years without landing anything close to a Top Ten… now there's a trick in itself!
Many sincere thanks to Alec Morton for taking the time to participate in this exploration of a decidedly dark era of his band's history… And of course to Greg Strzempka & Elyse Steinman, for also doing so during a very difficult time. During my discussions with Greg and Elyse, it was disclosed to me that Elyse was battling Stage Three lung cancer, and that Greg was acting as her primary care-giver. Both agreed to indulge me nonetheless, and I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to these two amazing people.
Elyse Steinman passed away on March 30, 2017, just a few months after our conversations wrapped up. Although we corresponded via email, it was apparent to me that, besides being a truly unique musician, Elyse was also a very special person. This article is dedicated to her memory. Rock on, Slab Chick.
Year of the Gatefold
May 6, 2018 May 7, 2018 mayobat Music	AC/DC, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Alive!, At Budokan, Blue Öyster Cult, Cal Jam II, California Jam, Cheap Trick, Double Live Gonzo, Frampton Comes Alive, Frank Marino, Go For What You Know, If you want Blood, Judas Priest, Kiss, Live and Dangerous, Live Bootleg, Mahogany Rush, Montrose, Pat Travers, Rainbow, Ramones, Sammy Hagar, Scorpions, Some Enchanted Evening, Strangers in the Night, Ted Nugent, Thin Lizzy, Tokyo Tapes, UFO, Unleashed in the East
Ah, the live album. The gatefold sleeve, plastered with tons of live pics of your favorite band, holding four sides of music recorded live on stage, where it really mattered, performing before an audience of worshiping fans. The best live records drop you in the front row, where the thick, humid air smells like a mixture of weed, puke, and sweat; where your ears take a pounding from a PA system bigger than your house as the crackle and pop of firecrackers echoes through the arena. Some say that the 1970s was the Decade of the Live Album, and if any single year should hold that same distinction, it's got to be 1978, when an unprecedented number of live sets arrived in record stores (remember them?) to add color to the soundtrack of our youth.
Call it The Frampton Effect. 'Frampton Comes Alive!', Peter Frampton's 1976 double-live release, spawned 2 hit singles and topped the Billboard charts for a whopping 10 weeks, and went on to become the best-selling album of that year. The record remained in the Top 100 for 97 weeks, well into 1977. Live albums by Bob Seger, The J. Geils Band, Joe Walsh, and Rush also reached deep into the Top 40 in 1976. The success of these records had a significant impact on the industry. And in the world of pure Hard Rock, the Top Ten success of Kiss and their 'Alive!' and 'Kiss Alive II' albums was also hard to ignore.
At a time when the rockers of the era were struggling mightily to get on the radio, the monster success of Frampton's live album suggested there might be another way to break through. The Record companies saw the gazillions being made from records that cost relatively little to record. And so mobile recording units rolled out for virtually every tour that hit the road in 1977; those recordings would bear fruit the following year. Notable live records from Alice Cooper, Rainbow and Foghat appeared in '77, but the sheer number of HR/HM live albums released in 1978 is stunning… I count no less than TEN significant live records hitting the market between January '78 and January '79.
1978 kicked off with an expanded field recording of Ted Nugent captured in the wilds of America in '76 and '77. Unleashed in January, 'Double Live Gonzo!' showcases The Nuge's big guitars and even bigger mouth. His guitar prowess already firmly established, Terrible Ted's live album is peppered with politically incorrect between-song raps that have become the stuff of legend (just ask Atlanta band Nashville Pussy). But the real value in 'Gonzo' lies in it's capture of Nugent's classic-era band in a live setting, and how it provides Nugent-the-guitarist the opportunity to put up or shut up… And as we know, Ted never shuts up. I remember walking around with friends, blasting this out of a portable 8-track player, feeling all badass as Nugent's raunchy raps echoed off my neighbors' houses.
After the Nugent extravagonzo, there came an almost 5-month lull, the calm before the storm of live releases that would hit in the second half of the year. Thin Lizzy opened the floodgates in June with 'Live and Dangerous', a 2-record set that reached the #2 spot in the UK. While it's safe to say that Nugent's 'Gonzo' is 100% pure NUGE, Thin Lizzy's 'L&D' is another story. Debate endures regarding just how much of this album is 'live'… but, seriously, who cares? What matters is the end result, and 'Dangerous' is a worthy celebration of the Lizzy experience. Shamefully short at just 50 minutes, it's overflowing with fantastic songs played with charisma, passion, and flair. Suspend your disbelief and enjoy the show.
Recorded in Japan during guitarist Uli Roth's final two shows with Scorpions, 'Tokyo Tapes' came out in August as a Japan-only release. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to capture the Uli-era Scorps live! I didn't catch this one until it was released domestically the following year, but when I did, mind = blown. There is some truly jaw-dropping guitar playing within these grooves, and each and every one of us should take a moment to thank their higher power that Dieter Dierks and RCA records rolled tape during Roth's final 48 hours with the band. 'TT' contains some jarring edits that break the 'concert experience' feel, but overall this collection really cooks.
Also in August, Sammy Hagar decides to return to his monstrous Montrose roots and release a live album balls-out with scorching rockers. 'All Night Long' was recorded in San Francisco, San Antonio, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz and Santa Monica… I'm not kidding. I snapped this one up after learning that the band on the record was 3/4 of Montrose, and the track list includes two songs from the mighty Montrose debut. The Red Rocker keeps this single-disc live outing tight and punchy, and Sam reveals himself to be a smokin' guitarist. 'All Night' is the first and only live album that I'm aware of where the final song fades out —while the band is still playing! Like having to leave the concert before it's over because your ride wants to be home early.
A few weeks later in September, Blue Oyster Cult would offer up their second live album, 'Some Enchanted Evening'. Like Hagar, BOC would limit themselves to a single disc, and much to this young listener's disappointment, include two covers. With a catalog as deep as BOC's, why waste precious space on somebody else's tunes? Where's 'Tattoo Vampire'? Where's 'The Golden Age of Leather'? And what about 'Dominance & Submission'?? Thankfully, the stellar version of 'Astronomy' included is worth the price of admission all by itself. Despite the dubious song selection, 'SEE' would somehow become best-selling album in the Cult's catalog. Go figure!
I remember walking into my local record store in early October and spotting Cheap Trick's 'Cheap Trick At Budokan' high on the wall behind the counter, with a $27 price sticker on it. CT had just released 'Heaven Tonight' in April; I was completely blindsided by this mysterious live record. '27 bucks!?' I exclaimed. The clerk explained that it was a Japanese import, and wasn't coming out in the US. Shit. Somehow the 14-year old me came up with the 30 dollars (I seem to remember rolling coins…) and snagged it off the wall before anyone else did. Woohoo! 'Budokan' was another single-disc live record, (in a gatefold sleeve!) and featured three songs we'd never heard before. Allowance money well spent.
I have come to appreciate Aerosmith's 'Live! Bootleg', but back in October of '78, I was disappointed. 'Bootleg' dispenses with the 'concert recreation' feel that most of the live LPs of the era went for; instead, it serves as a live retrospective, featuring recordings from as far back as 1973 and right up to March's 'California Jam II' concert. It's a mixed bag; performances by young scrappers in Boston clubs segue into recordings from the biggest stadiums on the planet, not in chronological order, all adding up to kind of a jumbled sonic documentary of the band's heyday. Teenaged me wanted something more like what Lizzy or Cheap Trick had delivered. Still, two live albums from two of my faves in one month was pretty killer. Wait, what? THREE??
With 'Bootleg' and 'Budokan' still in heavy rotation on my turntable, Australian upstarts AC/DC joined the fray in late October with 'If You Want Blood… You've Got It'. The band had released their 'Powerage' album back in May and I was instantly hooked; this live album followed a mere 5 months later. Recorded at the Glasgow Apollo (see also: Status Quo's 'Live!', portions of Rush's 'Exit: Stage Left') before an absolutely rabid audience (ANGUS! ANGUS! ANGUS!), 'Blood' is a sweaty, raunchy workout that captures the band's stage show as-is. I remember riding my bike home from the record store with this album clutched to my chest, trying not to bang it around and ding up the album cover. Which reminds me of a story…
So I'm at the record shop, and spot the record, marvel at it's totally awesome front and back covers, and head to the front counter, where the clerk (let's call him Steve) checks out the cover, and starts laughing. He says 'You don't really want to buy this piece of crap do you?' I say, um, yeah, I do, and he starts yelling to another employee, 'Hey man, have you seen this cover? HAWHAWHAW!!' He looks at me once again and says 'Really?' Just then an older gent walks up to us (I presume was the owner or manager) and tells Steve 'meet me out back in a minute'. Steve, with an *Oh Shit* look on his face, heads to the back room. The owner/manager rings up my sale, smiles and says 'AC/DC! Cool!' Never saw Steve there again. True story.
At some point in 1978 (details are scant) came a single-disc live LP from Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush. This is another record that I didn't get hip to until a few years after it's release. Marino was largely written off as a Hendrix clone decades ago, a stigma that prevented him from ever achieving the mainstream success enjoyed by his peers… although Frank Marino is entirely without peer as a rock guitarist. This guy OWNS every other rock player of the era. On the imaginatively-titled 'Live', Marino, backed by his sturdy rhythm section, blazes through hippie-trippy highlights from his catalog, then shoots himself in the foot by including a Hendrix cover. The liner notes for a 2018 re-issue claims that there are no overdubs on this puppy, but hey, who knows. Call this one Single Live Gonzo.
As if to hammer home the fact that 1978 really was the Year of the Live Album, CBS Records released 'California Jam II', a selection of highlights from the second Cal Jam concert that took place back on March 18. The 2-record set included tunes from Aerosmith, Nugent, Heart and Mahogany Rush. Dave Mason, Santana, Jean Michel Jarre and Rubicon (with Jack Blades and Brad Gillis, pre-Night Ranger) also appear. (Bob Welch and Foreigner played the show, but didn't make the record, as they were not signed to one of CBS' labels.) But it's the hard rockers who dominate the set, of course: Nugent gives us live versions of two songs that didn't show on 'Gonzo', Aerosmith gift us with one that didn't make 'Bootleg', and Marino wipes the floor with all the other guitar slingers on the bill. Worth hunting down on vinyl, as the album has never been released on CD.
As if TEN live albums in one calendar year wasn't enough, the Gonzo just kept on comin', a residual effect that would carry through much of '79. First up: I caught Cheap trick at Boston's Orpheum Theater in December '78, and was blown away by opener UFO. A few weeks later, I took the bus (it was January; my bike wasn't feasible) to the record store, headed for the end of the alphabet, and found the just-released 'Strangers in the Night' double album. The lineup I saw featured Paul Chapman on guitar, but 'SITN" captures Mad Michael Schenker's final swing with the band. An instant classic, and possibly the finest album covered here. A shame that a re-arranged re-master is the only way to purchase this album today, as the original Chrysalis version is flawless.
Also in January of '79, Scorpions finally release 'Tokyo Tapes' in the US. With both Uli Roth and Michael Schenker long gone before either 'SITN' or 'TT' are released, the Scorps/UFO live albums became indispensable documents of a bygone era. Then, in early February, the suits at CBS wise up and release Cheap Trick's 'Cheap Trick At Budokan' domestically as well. The Japanese version had become the biggest-selling import album of 1978, so CT's next studio record ('Dream Police') was shelved to allow for 'Budokan's release, and the rest is history. Oh, and in April, the Ramones released the double 'It's Alive' set… but not in The States, where it wouldn't be released until 1995 on CD.
Queen's 'Live Killers' hit the bins in June. Here again, the now-15-year-old me was a little disappointed; Queen's studio records were so elaborately constructed that to me it didn't sound like Queen (ex: during 'Bohemian Rhapsody', a tape of the operatic a capella section was played after the band hastily exited the stage, and that moment plays very awkwardly on a live album). But what I grew to understand is that it does sound like Queen, as this is exactly what the band really sounds like, and in this context, stripped of the indulgent studio magic that adorned their studio records, a great live band comprised of supremely talented performers is revealed.
The Pat Travers Band kicked our asses over the summer of 79 with their single-disc live set, 'Go For What You Know', and their version of 'Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights)' became a minor radio hit. A double-disc might have been much, but would have allowed for the inclusion of PTB's roof-raising live version of 'Statesboro Blues', or a live 'Life in London'. The syngery between guitarists Travers and Thrall is stunning, and the chops on display here are phenomenal. This young lad found the myriad tones and effects the two employed positively hypnotic. But it's not just the guitars that impress here; some of the drumming on GFWYK has to be heard to be believed. Mars was no slouch on the bass either. Where's the expanded remaster??
This unprecedented super-cluster of live releases comes to a close in September of 79, when The Beast that is Priest release 'Unleashed in the East'. Live? Studio? Overdubbed vocals? Again— WHO CARES. The record is simply awesome. At the time, this was the heaviest metal I had ever heard. This single-disc wonder should have been– and could have been –released as a double album, had all the bonus tracks and B-sides culled from the same shows been utilized. As-is, this record explodes with state-of the art, pure of heart, flag waving HEAVY METAL, released at a time when it was definitely not cool to be tagged as such.
WOW. Fifteen live albums from just about all of my favorite bands in a year and a half! You couldn't leave your house without stepping on a live album. It was almost as if Heavy Metal's underlying strategy was to 'wait out' Punk Rock; that the hard rockers of the era conspired together to take some time off and reassess. Whatever the reason, this deluge of live gonzo makes 1978 (and half of '79) a standout year in 70s Metal, despite the fact that the rest of the music world was preoccupied with either Punk or Disco, and most critics and journos had decided that Metal was over… One month after the release of 'Unleashed in the East', the cover of the Oct '79 issue of CREEM Magazine blared: "Is Heavy Metal Dead?" No, stupid, Heavy Metal is LIVE!
Metal Tongue
January 21, 2018 January 21, 2018 mayobat Music	Accept, Balls to the Wall, Baron Rojo, Crazy Nights, Deaffy, Disillusion, Gaby Hauke, Jimmy Pursey, Le Mitard, London Leatherboys, Loudness, Repression, Scorpions, Sham '69, Thunder in the East, Trust, Udo, Volumen Brutal, Wolf Hoffmann
With over 100 million albums sold worldwide, it can safely be said that Scorpions (there's no 'The'; it's just 'Scorpions') are the most successful hard rock/metal band to have ever originated from Continental Europe. Why is this geographic distinction important? That the Scorps hail from Germany is interesting because English is NOT the native language spoken in that country. Critical to the band's massive international success is the fact that all of their lyrics are sung in English. The only other non-anglophone group to have had that kind of global impact has to be Abba (360m sold), whose records are also sung in English. Would either band have had such massive international success if they delivered their lyrics in their native languages? Doubtful. Let's face it: English is the globally accepted language of Rock and Roll.
Scorpions learned the language or Rock early on; not just English but all of the useful signifiers and tropes of Western Hard Rock: cars, girls & R'n'R, along with a healthy dose of hippy-esque existential poetry for good measure. There were a few clunkers in the early-early days, with some lyrics obviously translated from the German and coming out more than a little wonky in English:
'Test the mend, devil melt / Bloody money when it's lent / Scum repair everywhere / They want money, oh'
Overall though, Scorpions had a pretty firm handle on English right out of the gate, which allowed the band to find early success outside of Germany (in Japan!), rub shoulders with UK greats like UFO, Thin Lizzy and Judas Priest in Europe and the UK toward the end of the 70s, and then to break through commercially word-wide in the 80s. Their international success, as well as Metal's resurgence with the NWOBHM in 79/80, opened the doors for bands from many other countries on the Continent and in Japan, including some that had been releasing records for years in their native languages. These younger European bands were watching the NWOBHM explode in the UK, and saw Great Britain as their target to expand their audience and made the necessary linguistic adjustments.
Spain's Baron Rojo ('Red Baron' in English) had established themselves in their homeland with a Gold certification for their debut album 'Larga vida al Rock and Roll' ('Long Live Rock and Roll') before setting their sights on the UK. The Baron was apparently well-connected in Britain; second effort 'Volumen Brutal' was recorded at Ian Gillan's Kingsway Studios in late 1981, and Gillan member Colin Townes contributed keyboards to the record. Vocals were recorded in both Spanish and English, and BR had some notable help in dealing with the language barrier; Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson is credited in the sleeves notes as having assisted with their English lyrics.
Baron Rojo's UK connections created a sufficient buzz to land the band on the cover of Kerrang! magazine and garner them a slot on the 1981 Reading Festival, where they played 4th from the top on Night One under Budgie, Trust, and Praying Mantis. A NWOBHM-ish single, 'Stand Up' (the English version of album track 'Resistere') was released to the UK market. By all accounts, Baron Rojo sat poised on the brink of breakout success at the end of 1982… However, BR's 3rd record, 'Metalmorfosis', while again recorded at Kingsway, featured Spanish lyrics. In fact, Baron Rojo would never revisit English again, and, predictably, would sink into obscurity immediately thereafter.
Did someone mention Trust? This French band's potent NWOBHM-ready mix of Punk and Hard Rock had gotten their debut album noticed outside of France, French lyrics and all. An English language version of 2nd album 'Repression' was cut. But Trust's volatile socio-political message (justice for the oppressed) hit hard enough to get several of their songs banned in France; such was the importance of Trust's staunchly political lyrics that a genuine UK Punk Rocker was sought to interpret their lyrics for Anglo ears: Jimmy Pursey of Sham '69. No stranger to political controversy, the Sham attracted a large skinhead following. Their concerts were plagued by violence, and the band stopped performing live after a 1979 concert at the Rainbow was broken up by white power skinheads fighting and rushing the stage.
Pursey translated 'Repression's lyrics, including 'Antisocial', which Anthrax covered to much acclaim years later utilizing Pursey's lyrics. Ironically, the standout track from 'Répression' is 'Le Mitard', which was the only song not translated for the English version. It's likely that Pursey found the song untranslatable, as it's subject matter is uniquely French; some of the lyrics were taken from the memoirs of Jacques Mesrine, a career criminal who was controversially killed by French police in 1979. Trust's next two albums, 'Marche ou Creve', and a self-titled 4th album, were both released in English language versions ('Savage' and 'Man's Trap', respectively), but failed to catch fire outside of France; fifth and final album 'Rock and Roll' was sung mostly in French and released in Canada and France only.
Japan's Loudness broke the language barrier in 1983, when they left their homeland for the first time to tour the US and Europe without ever having released an album outside of Japan. To prime foreign audiences for the tour, their single 'Road Racer' was released in those territories with English lyrics. The following year, the band once again headed to Europe, this time to record their 4th studio album, 'Disillusion', in 2 languages. Both versions of 'Disillusion' became the first Loudness album(s) released outside of Japan. Ironically, it was the version sung in the band's native tongue that sold the most in the UK & Europe, and is considered by many to be the band's best album.
In truth, the first three Loudness albums were sung in a style known as 'Japanglish'; an mix of Japanese and English commonly used in Japanese entertainment and advertising, consisting mainly of Japanese interspersed with key English words and phrases. All song titles (and most choruses) were in in English, but verses were sung in Japanglish. After 'Disillusion', the next three Loudness records would be released as English-only throughout the world… Although, in an ironic twist, after the US success of their 'Thunder in the East' album, a backlash at home saw homegrown fans upset over the band's apparent abandonment of Japan, and a Japanese-language version of seventh LP 'Hurricane Eyes' was hastily assembled and released there to appease an angry Japanese fan base.
But the most fascinating language barrier story brings us back to Germany and those Teutonic terrors, Accept. Accept followed the template set by Scorpions, with all of their lyrics sung in English. The band's early material is rife with awkward, poorly translated lines and phrases that hinted at a willingness to provoke the listener with vulgarity/profanity… 'Take Him In My Heart', from the band's 1979 debut tells the story of a beautiful young girl who decides it's time to lose her virginity:
"One morning she was feeling bad and didn't go to school She went to town to find a man who fucks her very cool"
Another track from the album, 'Glad to be Alone', starts off with the line 'I don't like your fucked up bunch'. Is this clumsy translation or something more? Then there's Accept's third album 'Breaker', and the infamous 'Son of a Bitch':
"Son of a bitch/Kiss my ass/Son of a bitch Son of a bitch/You asshole/Son of a bitch Cock suckin' motherfucker I was right – take this"
It's pretty clear that there was something more to Accept's blunt use of profanity than sloppy translation. The language here is blatant and the message is clear: Fuck You! Here was a band unafraid to use vulgar/provocative language to communicate their ideas.
Enter Gaby Hauke. Hauke, a self-described 'journalist and poet', became the band's manager after the release of 'Breaker'. While they readied material for their 4th album 'Restless and Wild', the band worked with outside writers to polish up their English lyrics. Robert A. Smith-Diesel contributed to five of the album's ten songs, and Hauke, credited under the pseudonym 'Deaffy', contributed two complete poems, which became 'Neon Nights' and 'Princess of the Dawn'. Hauke's poetry worked well as lyrics, adding a depth and fluency missing from Accept's first three records. With Accept's next album, Hauke would become the band's sole lyricist, and come to embrace the bluntly sexual elements of the band's vision… with controversial results.
'Balls to the Wall' was the band's breakthrough, and the only Accept album to be certified Gold in the US. Metal's early-80s resurgence was a factor, as was MTv's exposure of the album's title track. But a significant factor in the album's success, and its' notoriety 35 years later, was the record's flirtation with homoerotic imagery in the artwork and lyrics. A minor controversy erupted in the pages of many Metal mags and in the minds of headbangers across the globe… "Is Accept Gay?" To be sure, there was a lot here to potentially cause folks to at wonder whether BttW was a 'pro-Gay' record, and by extension, if Accept were Gay themselves.
First and foremost, let's remember that Gaby Hauke was responsible for 100% of the lyrics on BttW. This alone explains a lot. When lyrics such as 'Feel the power of lust as these guys passing by' are delivered by a male, one might make some reasonable assumptions about the song's message. When one considers that these lyrics were written by a woman, suddenly they make a very different kind of sense. The song 'London Leatherboys' added to this with 'Got some kind of feeling/Looking in his eyes/I feel the power surge to a head', and of course with it's title. It would have been easy to change a few pronouns or alter the gender of the narrative voice in Hauke's lyrics; clearly there was a conscious decision not to. Accept had to realize this would cause some controversy. Controversy is not always a bad thing… Hauke & Accept embraced the dynamic and ran with it.
Other elements were tied in, such as the title track: the phrase 'balls to the wall' originated as an aviation term, and has evolved to mean 'all-out' or 'to the limit'; in the context of the song it means 'you must fight oppression with everything you've got'. This fit the loose political theme of the album; that the phrase contained the word 'balls' worked well with the daring presentation, and so the phrase also became the album's title. The cover art seals the deal, with fashion photographer Dieter Eikelpoth's b&w cover photo of a decidedly male …um, area, clad in bondage gear and clutching a ball in his hand… It's a very provocative package. The' cover idea' is credited to Deaffy, indicating that 'management' was behind the entire scheme. A band pic was also included featuring the band shirtless (except for Udo), and Wolf Hoffmann and Stefan Kaufmann with arms intertwined.
What's fascinating about the use of Hauke's lyrics is that, for a time, while working to deliver their lyrics in another language, Accept also ended up delivering some of them in another gender. There are some raunchy hetero-derived lyrics on BttW, like 'Why don't you screw the girls that's next to you' from 'Losers and Winners', but nobody noticed; it was material perceived as 'pro-Gay' that got all the attention. Again: It was 1983. This was a bold stance; one that could have backfired badly. Instead, it helped give Accept ('accept' what, by the way?) their well-deserved breakthrough. Hauke also wrote the words for Accept's next five albums, but on 'Balls to the Wall', Accept and their manager/lyricist fucked with our heads, pushed the envelope, and made us think. All of that, delivered in a language we can all understand: Metal.
Baron Rojo:
-'Gold' in Spain = 20,000 copies sold
Loudness:
-Producer Max Normal reportedly had a major role in shaping the lyrics for both the 'Thunder in the East' and 'Lightning Strikes' albums.
-Just what does 'M.Z.A.' stand for? A highlight of Loudness' biggest hit 'Crazy Nights' is the band chanting these letters, begging the question— W.T.F.? Here's the official explanation:
"Actually it does not have any meaning. When we were doing pre-production for the Thunder in the East album, I did not have any lyrics for Crazy Night then, so I sung total nonsense as a guide vocal for the demo recording. I sung "M.Z.A." by accident and the producer Max Norman liked the line, even though that did not have any meaning. We were trying to create some cool line but we could not beat "MZA." Max ended up deciding to use "M.Z.A." for the real take." -Minoru Niihara
-The album's title track contains the familiar lines "Happiness he cannot feel/And love to him is so unreal"… Hmm… feels vaguely familiar…)
-'Son of a Bitch' was altered for the UK market; the title and chorus were changed to 'Born to be Whipped', and the more graphic lines quoted here were translated into yet another language: nonsense.
-Hauke and Accept guitarist Wolf Hoffman married at some point in the 80s.
Ninety-Two Minutes to Midnight, Part 2
October 2, 2017 October 3, 2017 mayobat Music	A Matter of Live and Death, Aces High, Adrian Smith, Blaze Bayley, Brave New World, Bruce Dickinson, Dance of Death, Eddie, Empire of the Clouds, Fear of the Dark, Final Frontier, Geneses, Genesis, Iron Maiden, Janeck Gers, No Prayer For the Dying, Steve Harris, Supper's Ready, The Book Of Souls, The Trooper, Virtual XI, X Factor
Despite having developed into one of the most successful Heavy Metal bands on the planet during the 1980s, Iron Maiden entered the 90s in a state of crisis. The musical climate was changing around them; most notably, Americs'a 'Big Four' Thrash Metal bands had erupted from the underground and were making serious inroads into the Metal universe, threatening the Maiden throne. The key to Iron Maiden's massive global success in their first decade was their blend of 70s Prog rock and Punk-inspired Heavy Metal, and the band closed out the 80s with increasingly prog-leaning albums like 'Somewhere in Time' and 'Seventh Son of a Seventh Son'… Enter the young, angry upstarts from across the pond to 'smash it up' and destroy the status quo. Those who know their music history will find plenty of Iron-y (heh) here.
Steve Harris made some decisions. The music on Maiden's eighth album would be simpler, stripped-down and more direct, closer to the band's earlier sound. The change in direction was so drastic that Adrian Smith left the band during pre-production. The resultant album, 'No Prayer for the Dying', was a near-complete regression back to the street-level, headbanging vibe of Maiden's early years. The lyrics covered real-world concerns such as oppression, religion and politics, all sung by Bruce Dickinson in a rougher, raspier voice. Even the artwork reflected the 'new' direction, depicting Eddie (sans lobotomy bolt and cyborg augmentation) smashing out of his tomb to strangle a hapless gravedigger, a far cry from Eddie the reality-bending cosmic existentialist from the previous album.
'Prayer' rejects 'Arry's progressive tendencies and just gets on with it. Not one of the album's 10 tracks breaks the 6-minute mark, and the whole record runs at a tight (for Maiden) 43:42, almost 10 minutes shorter than both 'Powerslave' and 'Somewhere in Time'. But Harris couldn't completely resist his Prog compulsion; the album's closer, 'Mother Russia', contains several progressive elements, although it's multiple movements and ambitious historical sweep are constrained to a mere 5:30. Still, 'Mother' feels like an awkward edit of a 10-minute 'Arry epic, and sounds out of place on an album of much more concise and immediate material.
So Iron Maiden had forced themselves back to square one, denying the Prog beast within and returning to their roots to do battle with Metal's next wave. Did the change in direction work? In the UK, 'Prayer' reached #2 and the album's second single was Iron Maiden's first-ever UK #1. In the States, the album held it's own, but the the Thrash Metal movement was in it's heyday, and Metallica now dominated the Metal conversation. 'No Prayer for the Dying' went Gold in the US, but it would be the last Iron Maiden album ever to do so. Maiden's return to their roots was perhaps too little, too late.
What to try next, then? How about… everything! On 'Fear of the Dark', Maiden's 9th album, confusion reigns. It's the first Maiden album not produced by Martin Birch; it's also the first Maiden record not adorned with the artwork of Derek Riggs. The music within reveals a band struggling for direction, identity and relevance, featuring full-on Metal, a power ballad, and yes, the (welcome?) return of Steve Harris' beloved Prog. And with the return of progressive elements to Maiden's music came expanding song lengths: two of 'Arry's contributions stretch past 6 minutes, and the total record was the longest ever in Iron Maiden's history, at 57:58, just shy of an hour.
Regardless of their length, it's the Harris-penned tunes on 'Fear of the Dark' that sound most like classic Maiden. 'Arry's 'Afraid to Shoot Strangers' and the album's title track are standouts; both creep past 6 minutes and reach back to the expansive, indulgent sound of just a few years previous. While overall it's an uneven listen, 'Fear' topped the UK charts, giving Maiden their first-ever UK No. 1 album, and charted higher in the US than 'Prayer'. Hmmm… Maybe re-asserting Steve Harris' Prog side was the way to go next…
GAAHHHHH! On Maiden's tenth album, 'The X Factor', Harris unleashes the Prog beast, and it runs rampant over this 70-minute disaster. Opening with the 11-minute slog 'Sign of the Cross' sets the stage for a looooong, mid-paced trudge through the tortured landscape of Steve Harris' psyche. The bassist was dealing with a difficult divorce while writing the album, and his name is on 10 of the 11 songs here; only 'Man on the Edge', written by new singer Blaze Bayley and guitarist Janick Gers, trots along at a proper Maiden-esque pace. 'Edge' is the shortest tune on a record where half the songs move well past the 6-minute mark, and every track feels like a 10-minute epic. Maiden had shown in the past that they could ably hold the listener's interest through songs of extended lengths… here they fail spectacularly.
It's interesting to note that that three songs were recorded for the album, 'Justice of the Peace', 'I Live My Way', and 'Judgement Day', but were not included on the finished product. All three clock in between 3:33 and 4:04, significantly shorter than anything that made the final cut, and all three are up-tempo rockers sporting tight, concise arrangements that hearken back to Maiden's glory years. This would indicate that building an album comprised of over-long, melodramatic downers was an artistic choice. 'Arry's head space has been called into question during critical examinations of 'X'; obviously Steve Harris was in a very dark place during the creation of this record.
It's amazing that Maiden survived the 'X Factor' debacle, and a testament to their iconic status and bullet-proof reputation that the album reached #8 in the UK. In the US, however, the record peaked at a dismal #147, where 'Fear of the Dark' had climbed to #12 just three years previous. Dickinson's absence was a factor, as was the album's repulsive cover art. But 70 minutes of poisonous Prog metal sealed the deal: 'The X Factor' was a deal-breaker for many US fans, who walked away from the band for good.
In 1996, Maiden released a non-lp single to promote an compilation album. 'Virus' was 6 minutes and 14 seconds of classic 'Arry Prog indulgence, and it solidified a pattern that would become a template for several (too many) Maiden songs to come: an extended intro featuring whispered vocals, moody synth backdrops and delicately played guitars, kicking into a classic Maiden gallop with harmony guitars on top. The trouble is, the quiet, slow-moving introduction lasts for 2:20, which is 40% of the song. An edit of 'Virus' was released to radio, which removed the intro completely, slamming immediately in with the classic Maiden sound of yore. There was a lesson to be learned here; trim the fat, cut the excess, strive for maximum impact… 'Arry was having none of it.
Maiden's next, 'Virtual XI,' was almost 20-minutes shorter than 'X'; however, the Prog bloat persisted. The album features 3 extended pieces, one at 8:11, the other two at 9:51 and 9:06, all written solely by (surprise!) Steve Harris. Oddly, the album's longest song, 'The Angel and the Gambler', was chosen as the first single. At over 9 minutes, the song had no chance at commercial radio, so an edit was also released, running at 6:05… also too long for commercial radio. The questionable choice for lead-off single was compounded by the song's arrangement: the chorus of "Don't you think I'm a savior? Don't you think I could save you? Don't you think I could save your life?" is repeated so many times that it makes me want to stab myself in the eye. Even the edited version sends me searching for sharp objects.
The Blaze era was an artistic and commercial failure when compared to what had come before. Take a second to remember the urgency and immediacy of their early work; a catchy guitar riff, the band kicks in seconds later, and we're off to the races! Now it seemed that every other song started with an extended atmospheric intro. Grandiose epics had become commonplace, which minimized their impact and strained our patience, when in the early years, longer songs like 'Phantom' and 'Mariner' were anomalies that felt special and exciting. Without Bruce interpreting his material and Adrian Smith's pop sensibilities reigning in the songwriting excess, 'Arry's progressive streak was barreling out of control and the SS Maiden was sinking under the epic weight of their bassist's ever-expanding vision.
Someone needed to put the Prog genie back in the bottle. Surely the return of 'Arry's old writing partners would right the ship and Iron Maiden would pick up just where they left off with 'Seventh Son'! Well… Kinda. But not really. Bayley departs, Dickinson and Smith return… but Gers stays put. As if to highlight Harris' 'more is more' philosophy, the band itself expanded to six members. Now armed with three guitarists, was there any chance of more economical song lengths, any hope of more compact arrangements, with three guitarists jockeying for solo spots in every song? Or would the addition of two members from Maiden's most successful period temper the excess and impose some moderation onto the proceedings?
Alas, the Prog continued it's expansion, unabated. Album total run times ballooned with each release:
'Brave New World' 66:57
'Dance of Death' 67:57
'A Matter of Life and Death' 71:53
'The Final Frontier' 76:34
Which brings us to 2015 and 'The Book of Souls'.
While I understand the mindset that says 'there's a 4 or 5-year gap between albums so let's give 'em as much music as we can', the total length of each album isn't the only reason that Maiden albums have become so… unwieldy. Nowadays, Maiden songs that run 5 minutes or less are now the anomalies; on 'The Book of Souls', there are three songs that sail past the 10-minute mark, and the album contains their longest-ever song, 'Empire of the Clouds', an 18-minute super-mega-epic about… zeppelins. 'Arry's 'The Red and the Black', at `13:33, would be a fitting final tour de force to close any of Maiden's previous albums; on 'Souls', it's only Track #4 of 11… And the song never ends! Just when you think it's winding up, it changes up and keeps rolling on… and on… and on…
While I believe 'Souls' to be the best of the last five Maiden releases, my assessment is based on a single listen. Why? It took me days to get all the way through 'The Book of Souls' in its entirety. With each visit, I'd inevitably find myself losing focus, especially in the longer songs, as my mind drifted while the music blended with the wallpaper. The monstrous length of the album and most of the songs on it are just too much for me. I've considered giving the 'Souls' CD(s) a second spin, but always decide against it; the prospect feels too daunting, too massive an undertaking, too much of an investment of time and attention. I liked what I heard the first time through, but it will be a long time before I climb that mountain again.
Yes' 'Tales From Topographic Oceans', a polarizing progressive rock milestone notorious for its overwhelming length and complexity, has become a symbol of overblown Prog excess. 'The Book of Souls' is 10 minutes longer. The needle on Iron Maiden's progometer has been 'in the red' for about 20 years now, and with 'Souls', their progressive readings are off the charts. It's as if Steve Harris has been steadily working to emulate his favorite piece of music: the 23-minute 'Supper's Ready' by Genesis. Enough, already! News Flash: 'Run to the Hills', 'Sanctuary', 'The Trooper', 'Wrathchild', 'Aces High', 'The Evil That Men Do'… All classics… all under 5 minutes! Message to 'Arry: Every song can't be 'Supper's Eddie'!
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