My Musical Evolution – Page 19 – Mapping Influences Over Time

My Musical Evolution – Part 233 The Metal Years More Maiden

I finally picked up Killers and thus had collected all of the Iron Maiden studio albums. I still was firmly in Team Dickinson but the Paul Di’Anno albums had a quality about them that was – I’ve been sitting here for a few minutes trying to think of the word to summarize that quality. If I sit here listening to Killers and tune out the vocals and focus on the guitars, bass and drums, there is no mistaking that Iron Maiden signature sound. The song structure is certainly Steve Harris driven.

There is somthing different though. Perhaps the guitar effects evolved a little from Killers toThe Number If The Beast. Not by a huge amount but what I’d expect from equipment upgrades as budgets increase.

Of all of my Iron Maiden albums ofThe Metal Years, Killers is the least played. It is a solid offering and I think that timing was more to blame in this. AlthoughThe Metal Years were far from over, the focus on Metal was shifting away. Heavy Metal music was awesome for teen aged boys but we were fast becoming 20 somethings and with that came a more mature appreciation for music and a willingness to listen to what the women were listening to.

Sure, there were Metal women but statistically, our chances were better with pop music. I think we knew it far earlier than we were willing to admit it and even longer before we succumbed to doing anything about it.

The Ides Of March / Wrathchild

Murders In The Rue Morgue

Genghis Khan

Purgatory

My Musical Evolution – Part 232 Roach Days Revisited Perfect Strangers

Every guy that has picked up a guitar in the 1970’s or 1980’s has played the riff from Smoke On The Water. It always happened.

Deep Purple is one of those bands that I’m often tempted to include with The Metal Years. All of my metal friends liked them. They had a heavy sound. They were often included with other metal bands like Black Sabbath in conversation. Ritchie Blackmore was the guitarist that certainly had a heavy rock background. Even considering all this, I can’t bring myself to call them Metal.

This is especially true with the album Perfect Strangers. I’m listening to it right now and yes it has some screaming guitar bits and pounding percussion but when you compare it to something like W*A*S*P that we just talked about in the last post, this is not metal. It is good Rock & Roll though. During the Roach Days I used to tell girls that I was the perfect stranger.

To my knowledge, this is the first album that I owned that included Ritchie Blackmore. I has to preface it with the to my knowledge because Ritchie Blackmore has been in 143,826 bands and appears on over 8 million records. Well maybe not that much but he really was involved in a lot of musical projects over the decades.

We went down to Indy to see Deep Purple at Market Square Arena. I’m certain that I didn’t appreciate Ritchie Blackmore then like I should have. 20 something years later I’d cross paths with Ritchie Blackmore again and then I’d be much more appreciative. Stay tuned.

Knocking At Your Back Door

Mean Streak

Perfect Strangers

Wasted Sunsets – The guitar on the intro is signature Blackmore

Hungry Daze

My Musical Evolution – Part 231 The Metal Years WAS*P

W*A*S*P seemed to be what Mötley Crüe would have been if they truned toward Metal instead of glam after Shout At The Devil. They had many of the same things that made Mötley Crüe so cool. Blackie Lawless had a more powerful voice than Vince Neil but the metal distorted guitars and big drums were certainly the spawn of that L.A. metal scene.

At the time, the spikes and circular saw blades were awesome. It feels a little corny now but the music still inspires the need for volume. While I am enjoying this album again for the first time in decades, I can see why it didn’t get quite as much play as some of the other stuff we were listening to back then.

There are a few really good pieces here but I cannot help but feel that much if it is formulaic and repetitive. Is history repeating itself? I wonder if this was the same pattern of thought that I was experiencing back in The Metal Years. This was by no means the end of The Metal Years but it wouldn’t last too much longer. It couldn’t.

I Wanna Be Somebody

L.O.V.E. Machine

The Flame

School Daze – How many records include a full recital of the Pledge Of Allegiance?

Hellion

The Torture Never Stops

My Musical Evolution – Part 230 Roach Days Revisited & Recap

Roach Days Revisited covers the time from September, 1985 to May, 1988. During that time Aric and I lived at The Roach Motel then Stately Roach Manor. It was an epic time of parties, women and Rock & Roll.

While we moved in on September 6th, It wasn’t until Halloween that the name Roach Motel became official. I sometimes wonder if I should have been in marketing. To promote our new house and spread our new address, we had a Name That House Contest.

To enter, the contestant had to write their contact information and suggestion for the name of our house on a post card and mail it to us at our new address. The prize was a fun filled weekend in the house that they named! I made business card sized fliers on the copy machine at Keltsch’s. They contained our address, the details of the contest and served as invitations to the Halloween party we were having. We spent the next couple of weeks handing them out to every hot girl we saw. That would become our party policy. Invite every hot girl you see, never invite any guys. Somehow guys always seemed to find out anyway but it made the Girl/Guy ratio much more attractive.

We got a bunch of suggestions but the winner was Ginger, one of the waitresses at Azar’s on Coliseum Blvd.. Our house became, The Roach Motel. We got fancy guest book for people to sign when they came to visit us. I wonder what ever became of that book.

Before we plunge ahead into Roach Days Revisited, let’s do a quick recap. My early musical influences were primarily my mother who provided the kind of Disney material that one would expect. As I got a little older, TV theme songs became intersting to me. My mother’s love for pop radio fuelled her to collect hundreds of 45 records from all kinds of artists but sticking rather closely to top 40 material. My tastes narrowed briefly as I focused in on KISS. Going to school in Vermont led to a wider appreciation for more artists and styles including folk, classical, disco, soundtracks and more. Still, I was hovering mostly around popular radio music. In high school I got my first stereo and the benefit of peer driven influences. Boom boxes and Walkmans were the new mobile music technology and I acquired a lot of music on factory cassettes. MTV was born and a whole new wave of MTV-Ready music acts appeared to take advantage of that space. I loved a wide variety of artists and styles that were equally varied yet not too far from the safety of radio. I returned to Indiana for college and began to gravite toward harder rock while still appreciating the pop music and signature 80’s style and MTV appeal. During theRise & Fall,I got a good dose of MTV and learned the relevance of heartbreak and loss songs. My tastes narrowed to heavy metal for a while but they were about to expand again.

The Clash – Rock The Casbah

Wham! – Careless Whisper

Simple Minds – Don’t You Forget About Me

Starship – We Built This City remember how radio stations all over inserted themselves into this song?

Glen Frey – The Heat Is On

My Musical Evolution – Part 229 The Metal Years Freewheel Burning

If you went to some metal concerts in the 80’s or listened to Metal Shop on WXKE or hung around with some metal head, you were bound to hear some Judas Priest. I was familiar with the name and some of their more radio-ready songs like You Got Another Thing Coming.

For some reason, Judas Priest just didn’t seem to interest me. Who can say why? It had many of the same elements of many of the other metal bands I was listening to. I guess when I zigged to Iron Maiden, Aric zagged to Judas Priest. It could be as simple as that. I was on a mission to acquire all of the Iron Maiden records that I could and didn’t have enough leftover cash or attention to pursue Judas Priest.

Even after moving in with Aric, I didn’t check out his Judas Priest records. It wasn’t until one day he played Freewheel Burning for me. I never heard such a fast vocal track. That guy was doing 20 words a second. I was impressed and eventually gave them more of my attention.

I listened to Aric’s Judas Priest records and even ended up including a couple of their songs in my set. They never did catch hold with though like some of the other bands of the era. It would be the early 90’s before I purchased Turbo, my first Judas Priest album and the 21st century before I would add Defenders Of The Faith to my collection.

Freewheel Burning

The Sentinel

Eat Me Alive

Some Heads Are Gonna Roll

My Musical Evolution – Part 228 The Metal Years Dokken

September 6th, 1985 was payday. Aric and I put up our rent. It would be the last time we saw that security deposit. We moved into this duplex on Goshen Avenue. It was duplex by design not one of those big old houses that was awkwardly split into two homes. Our portion was in the back facing the alley. We didn’t mind and it actully turned out to be a bonus when we had parties. Any neighbors calling in a “disturbance” would give out our address which was not visible from the street. Officers called out would see 802, 806 and just figure that the call on 804 was a prank.

One of the benefits of sharing a house with another guy is instant access to a bunch of music. Aric and I had plenty of overlap especially in our newly acquired metal stuff but he had a good dose of new stuff too.

Dokken was a band that Aric took a chance on. I really didn’t care for Dokken much. They always seemed like pretneders for some reason. Like a classically trained musician who puts out a gangster rap record. I have no knowledge of Dokken’s biography and I’m just basing all of this on his eye-liner.

Just recently, I heard about how talented Don Dokken really was in those days as a collaborater with a bunch of other artists. Another recent Dokken sighting was on local cable access. When Dokken was here in town opening for Dio, some local music group whivh might have been radio sponsored got to interview the band backstage after the show. You coulkd hear the muffled remains of Dio performing in the background as the interviewer asked young Dokken a few questions. It seemed somewhat tragic to me in that it didn’t appear that the dreams and goals they expressed then were ever met.

Tooth And Nail is a pretty good record with some quality execution but still I can’t shake the feeling that these are a bunch of white bread boys just dressing up and pretending to be metal. I’m willing to be wrong.

Without Warning

Tooth And Nail

Just Got Lucky

When Heaven Comes Down

Into The Fire

Alone Again

My Musical Evolution – Part 227 The Metal Years Invasion Of Your Privacy

Ratt Invasion Of Your Privacy At some point that summer Aric and I came to the realization that getting an apartment together would be just like driving around in my car with the addition of a refigerator and a bathroom. So we decided to start looking.

We would scan the classifieds in the paper as we drank mutliple pots of free coffee at Azar’s. We never really found anything that we would seriously consider. Maybe we were just day dreaming.

The dream would become reality when we found that one of the women we worked with had a duplex that she and her husband rented out. The details came together quickly and before you know it we were signing a lease on the back half of a two bedroom duplex.

My biggest concern was how I was going to break this to my mother. I had started going away to school at 12, came home at 18 and a year and half later, I was going to move out again. Luckiliy for me, she solved the problem for me.

By chance, on the day that we signed, my mother approached me and said that I was 20 now and had a job and she felt that I should pay her some rent every month. I told that I’d move out then. If I was going to pay rent, I wanted all the benefits and freedom that went along with that. I think she was shocked but there was no denying the logic. Timing is everything.

You’re In Love

Lay It Down

Give It All

Between The Eyes

You Should Know By Now

My Musical Evolution – Part 226 The Metal Years Video Pieces

VCR’s both VHS and Betamax were starting to become more and more common in homes across America. Columbia House saw this as an opportunity. The Columbia House Catalog suddenly had a music video section. I found Iron Maiden’s Video Pieces there. I bought this only mine was the Betamax version. I had a really nice Toshiba Beta machine with a wired remote and everything.

Just thinking about those Beta cassettes that I had really get the clock spinning backwards. Anyway, I really didn’t know what to expect from the Video Pieces tape. Columbis House’s description was rather vague. It was Iron Maiden so I bought it. I chuckle at the notion of having to check the VHS or Beta box when ordering. It seems so so so long ago. It turned out to be a handful of videos. Let’s see if I can name them all.

Run To The Hills
The Trooper
Flight Of Icarus
The Number Of The Beast

I think that was it. OK now I feel compelled to look it up. Hang on. Yes that was it and if you swap The Trooper with The Number Of The Beast, you’ll have them in order as they appeared on the tape. So it was a handful if you are missing a finger.

What the heck, here they are:

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

My Musical Evolution – Part 225 The Metal Years Strange World

I have long forgotten why I skipped Killers in my pursuit of Iron Maiden albums. Maybe Wooden Nickel didn’t have it when I went o but it. Maybe I just thought the cover of Iron Maiden looked cooler than Killers. Perhaps I just wanted to get to their very first ablum and experience where it all began.

I was surprised at first and maybe a little disappointed. Paul Di’Anno was the singer and not Bruce Dickinson. In case you haven’t heard them both, they are quite different. I was brriefly bummed that Bruce’s powerful vocals were absent. The guitars weren’t quite as polished either. I don’t mean that the guys couldn’t play them as well as on the later albums. I’m talking about the crafting of the sound. On the later works, their guitars have a great and distinctive quality in the tone and effects.

I quickly grew to appreciate this incarnation of Iron Maiden. Like Van Halen / Van Hagar, there are things to like about each. It wasn’t the Iron Maiden I knew but it was still some good stuff even if it was for entirely different reasons.

It was also around this time that I got my first real six string at the 5 and dime. Well the pawn shop really. I playe in until my fingers hurt really bad. i was awful and even if i was a great guitar player, that crappy guitar was a total piece of shit. I remember one of the first songs that I could play was Transylvania from this album. I was moderately fast but repetitive so it wasn’t too bad to pick up. We’ll talk more about guitars and stuff inThe Roach Days Revisited.

Prowler

Sanctuary

Remember Tomorrow

Running Free

Phantom Of The Opera

Transylvania

Strange World – My favorite Old Maiden

My Musical Evolution – Part 224 The Metal Years Woe To You O’ Earth And Sea

Here is another cover that belongs in the gallery of iconic album art. I had seen this album cover numerouas times before I was an Iron Maiden fan. I wondered about the music inside that album cover. I wondered if it would be a source of contention between me and my religeously sensitive mother. I weighed the decision carefully. Was this cover better or worse than the Dio coverss in this context? Was The Number Of The Beast someting underwordly or Satanic? After becoming familiar Iron Maiden my concerns disappeared. Writing a song with Biblical references was not outside the realm of their typical stuff.

As I suspected, there wasn’t anything on this album to suggest any allegiance with dark forces. What was there was more of the stuff that attracted me toIron Maiden.Songs about Indians, Visigoth and even British television from the 1960’s. These guy really connected with me.

Mom actually ended up really liking Run To The Hills. I was playing it on night in my room and she came in and by the end of the song, she was singing along wioth the chorus. Of course, I made sure that she didn’t see the cover.

Although I am still somewhat fascinated by the cover, I often wonder why they open themselves up to the controversy. Iron Maiden took a bunch of nnedles flak over this album. Is the publicity worth it? Does the nature of the cover appeal to rebelious youth who would not have bought it otherwise? I’m sure that somebody at the record company has studied all of this extensively.

Invaders

The Prisoner

The Number Of The Beast

Run To The Hills

Hallowed Be Thy Name – This one has always been a personal favorite