My Musical Evolution – Page 20 – Mapping Influences Over Time

My Musical Evolution – Part 223 The Metal Years Piece Of Mind

Having really gone mad for for Iron Maiden’s Powerslave. I went back to Wooden Nickel and bought a couple more Iron Maiden albums. Working my way backward through time, my next stop was Piece OF Mind.

The music had the same high energy and subject matter that I hoped it would. Iron Maiden was well on their way to becoming my favorite metal act. I loved the two guitar setup, I was intrigued by Eddie the skeletal mascot, even the stylized logo was something that I thought was cool. I thought it cool that their songs all seemed to be 6 or 7 minutes long at least, with extensive solos and orchestral progressions.

The fact that they chose to write their songs about mythology, history and classical literature appealed to the scholarly side of me. Iron Maiden was the renaissance man’s metal.

I saw the video for Flight Of Icarus on MTV at Brian’s house months prior, not really knowing who Iron Maiden was at the time. As I recall, none of my metal friends seemed to like Iron Maiden as much as I did.

Where Eagles Dare

Revelations

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

Still Life

My Musical Evolution – Part 222 The Metal Years City Boy Blues

I can tell you exactly where I was at 10:00 am on June 21st, 1985. I was standing outside Wooden Nickel Records waiting for them to open so I could buy Mötley Crüe’s new album Theatre Of Pain which was coming out that day.

This was the first time that I ever stood outside a closed record store waiting to buy a newly released album. Aric and I both were there. We bought Theatre Of Pain then went back to my house to listen to it.

I think that we both thought it started off well with City Boy Blues and Smokin’ In The Boys Room. It was good but it didn’t seem to have the rough metal sound that I was expecting. I wanted it to sound more like Shout At The Devil but it didn’t.

Still, it was new Mötley Crüe and that was good. Then Home Sweet Home came on and I was thinking What is this? I would eventually grow to love Home Sweet Home as a good song if not necessarily a Mötley Crüe song.

Theatre Of Pain is kind of like The Dark Knight Rises. It would be the best Batman movie except that The Dark Knight is the best Batman movie. If I didn’t know about or own Shout At The Devil, this would have been a great album but even though I really like it, it is no Shout At The Devil. It seemed like they went out of their way to appeal to girls. A concept that I’d adopt myself in the coming years.

With all that said, we played Theatre Of Pain a lot that summer. Listening to it now takes me back to my old blue Galaxie in the summer. Cruising with the windows down, just having fun.

City Boy Blues

Smokin’ In The Boys Room

Keep Your Eye On The Money

Home Sweet Home

Tonight (We Need A Lover)

My Musical Evolution – Part 221 College Intermission Simbro Brothers

Aric and I hung out together all summer long. Did a lot of parties and country cruises. Listened to a lot of Heavy Metal. We also did a Free Coffee experiment. There was on old guy afffectionately called Pops that used to come in for coffee every day. He was really old but always in a good mood. He would come in, wave and say “How Do!?”. He always sat in the same seat and drank about a pot of coffee. We never charged him.

I wondered how long it would take to acheive free coffee status. Aric and I decided to find out. first we scouted the local restaurants that served coffee. We then selected the one that had the most pretty young waitresses. The winner was the Azar’s Big Boy on Coliseum Blvd. That summer we started going in there every day. We come in, wave and cheerfully say “How Do?!” We got to know all the waitresses pretty well and sooner than I expected, we were getting free coffee. I owed Aric $1 for the bet. OK I made the bet thing up.

The artificial sweetener they served was called Simbro and we were known there as the Simbro Brothers. Another thing happened that summer. I began to pay less and less attention to the radio and focused more on my growing collection of Metal records. I think that there were too many memories on the radio.

Another change was the women that I began to seek out. They were older, more experienced and often had apartments of their own. They didn’t want boyfriends but knew what they wanted. I had another chance encounter with a beautiful blond at that Azar’s that summer although it would be another year before I realized it. And with that, the curtain closed on The College Intermission.

The Pointer Sisters – Jump For My Love

John Cougar Mellencamp – Pink Houses

The Pointer Sisters – I’m So Excited

John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band – On The Dark Side I’m not sure why but we started calling this girl we knew Raleen Hutchings And The Brown Beaver Band

My Musical Evolution – Part 220 College Intermission Moving Pictures

I turned 20 in February of 1985. I still can’t help but think of Al when he turned 20 on Mount Equinox in 1983. He seemed to grown up and everybody else seems too young. I’m intrigued by things like numbers and coincidence. I bring this up because this is post 220 and I’m talking about turning 20. I suppose I’d feel the same if I happen to be talking about turning 22. Nevermind.

For my birthday that year, Aric gave me Moving Pictures. He had been a Rush fan for a few years and was surprised that I didn’t know anything about them. I had heard Geddy Leesing Take Off! on the Great White North Album. I suppose I heard some of their songs before but never made the conneciton. Aric was right. Rush is a good band with an interesting sound and a plethora of great songs.

They seemed to have many of the qualities of the music I used to listen to like Kansas and Styx. They had a crisp delivery and some really nice orchestrations. With songs like Red Barchetta and Tom Sawyer, Moving Pictures was easy to get into. I also appreciated the humor behind the cover.

Tom Sawyer

Red Barchetta

YYZ – Geddy Lee is a fast bass player, try to keep up on this one.

Limelight

The Camera Eye

My Musical Evolution – Part 219 College Intermission The End Of 1984

Penny and I lasted until the end of the year with the last month being more off than on. Again I felt the stinging numbness of heartbreak and loss. Looking back on it decades later, I wonder if I was really broken up over Penny or just at the idea of breaking up. Were those emotions still left over from The Rise & Fall Of ’84?

I didn’t get The Wall back out. Instead I turned to my Heavy Metal music to shout instead of cry and rock out instead of withdraw. I even made a note that said something to the effect of You can always depend on metal. I think Conan the Barbarian’s dad told him the same thing but he was talking about swords.

Even though The Wall was off limits I could not help but feel like Pink emerging from the coocoon. I had changed. Not into a skin head neo-nazi type but I swore that steady relationships were not for me. I had back to back failures and I wasn’t ever going to do that again. From this point forward I would be the lover and the friend but never the boyfriend. That attitude and the rules of the game led me to the most prolific years of my life. It was amazing.

Zebra – Bears

Tina Turner – What’s Love Got To do With It

Rod Stewart -Infatuation

Lionel Richie – Running With The Night

Elton John -I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues

My Musical Evolution – Part 218 College Intermission Wheels Start Turning Again

Was Penny a rebound girlfriend? If she was, I wasn’t conscious of it at the time. With almost 30 years of hindsight, I can’t see how she couldn’t have been. The timing for one thing. I had to be searching for somebody to fill that gaping hole in my life. To patch that wound. It was Penny.

We had a Comm class together. That’s how we met. It was the kind of class that involved a lot of public speaking and I seemed to be cut out for that. I recently found a letter from her that spoke of how nervous she was to get up in front of the class but I seemed to have no trouble getting up there and getting everybody laughing.

REO Speedwagon had a new album out and Penny and I both liked it. As you know, I had accumulated a few REO Speedwagon albums during the Academy Days. I can’t tell you why I skipped their follow up to Hi-Infidelity because I really don’t know. I just never seemed to be able to get excited about Good Trouble. Even now, Good Trouble is just this whole between Hi-Infidelity and Wheels Are Turnin’.

It seemed that with this new record, REO Speedwagon was able to recapture some of what they had. More likely, it was probably my involvement with a woman that gave power to REO Speedwagon.

On November 23rd, REO Speedwagon came to the coliseum. I took Penny to see them. Survivor and Zebra were the supporting acts. We had to miss Zebra because we had to go to her brother Jeff’s rehearsal dinner. He was getting married. Penny was a bridesmaid, I was her date. It was too bad that we were late. I would eventually get into Zebra and we both like their latest song Bears.

Like Lisa, Penny was a gymnast. She was maybe 5 feet tall and weighed probably 80 pounds. I only mention this because at the concert, she and I got right up front for REO and I had her up on my shoulders for the entire show. It was no trouble. She would have been crushed down there otherwise.

One Lonely Night

Thru The Window

Live Every Moment

Can’t Fight This Feeling Although I would not even meet the woman who would become my wife for another year, this song reminds me of her. We’ll talk about it again in 1987.

My Musical Evolution – Part 217 The Metal Years The Chains Are On

I don’t ever recall Dio saying anything that could even accidentally suggest an allegiance to dark forces of any kind but his album covers weren’t helping me convince my mother of that. In fact, I think she might even have thrown away my Dio concert shirt.

The Last In Line may not have recognizable songs like Holy Diver did but it builds the same formula. It also introduced my ears to some guitar techniques that would become staples in the heavy metal diet. Listen to the solo in The Last In Line and focus on the guitar. That style and effect would start to pop out in a lot of metal music of the era. As I play back songs in my mind, I think it seems like a Randy Rhoades influence that seems to have caught on.

Egypt (The Chains Are On) was my favorite at the time, the intro appealed to my love for eerie instrumental stuff even though it is brief.

I’m getting a little bit ahead but we saw Dio at the Coliseum in January of 1985. His stage was all decked out in an ancient Egyptian them with Sphynx [what is the plural for Sphinx?] a pyramid and such. The Last In Line came out a couple months before Iron Maiden’s Powerslave. Do you think that they planned that? Anywas Dokken was the opening act. Dokken is OK but never been a big favorite of mine. Dio was very good live. I should check to see if that tour is avalable on DVD someplace.

We Rock

The Last In Line

Breathless

One Night In The City

Mystery

Egypt (The Chains Are On)

My Musical Evolution – Part 216 College Intermission Billy Squier

It seemed that Billy Squier was everywhere for a while in 1983-84. His songs were all over the radio. Just about everybody I knew had at least oneBilly Squier record. I didn’t. I liked what I was hearing well enough to enjoy it but it didn’t grab me for whatever reason.

For sentimental purposes, I bought his 16 Strokes Best Of collection just a few years ago. There were a couple of songs I was wanting to listen to again. What I found was that Billy Squier was so much better than I remembered. Maybe it was just timing. Maybe it was radio overkill and the fact that everybody was into him back then. Maybe it is the nostalgia now. Until I reach some sort of epiphany, I’m just going to go with the mind works in mysterious ways.

So I never owned any of the Billy Squier records back then but he certainly belongs here. I put him in College Intermission by elimination. He wasn’t part of The Rise & Fall Of ’84and even though I would seem him in concert with Ratt, he doesn’t fit my idea of The Metal Years.

In November of 1984 I saw Billy Squier in concert because I wanted to see Ratt who was opening for him. Like I said earlier, I had heard a lot of his songs because they all seemed to be on the radio. The term saturation comes to mind. Nothing really stands out in my memory about his performance but then again I was there to see Ratt. Listening to this 16 Strokes album I wish I would have paid more attention.

The Stroke

In The Dark

My Kinda Lover

Emotions In Motion

Everybody Wants You

Rock Me Tonite

All Night Long

My Musical Evolution – Part 215 College Intermission Self Control

One day I had some time before my english class in the CM building. I sat in a lounge type area where there was a television. There were a few other students present, seated or milling about. On the TV was this program about billiards. These guys were making these really cool trick shots to some appropriate instrumental music. I was entranced. Watching shot after shot, listening to the music. Then a guy walked up near the TV and pressed the stop button on the boom box that I didn’t notice there and the music was gone. It wasn’t part of the program at all, just an exceptional coincidence.

Alan Parsons Project – Sirius / Eye In The Sky

The Police – King Of Pain

Air Supply – All Out Of Love

Irene Cara – Flashdance What A Feeling

Laura Branigan – Self Control

My Musical Evolution – Part 214 The Metal Years Water, Water Everywhere Nor Any Drop To Drink

I had seen Iron Maiden albums in the record store. I had even seen the Flight Of Icarus video on MTV at Brian’s house. I just didn’t seem ready to buy something called Number Of The Beast.

Iron Maiden’s album Powerslave hit stores in September. I can recall it being displayed proudly in the new releases area. The Egyptian theme caught my eye. There was something awfully Fiend Folio about the cover. What really sold me though was a track listed on the back called Rime Of The Ancient Mariner. We studied that poem in English back at the Academy. I knew it well. I wondered if it could be the same one.

I decided to purchase it and a few hours later I was firmly a fan of Iron Maiden. They sounded amazing and the subject matter was fresh and interesting. They weren’t singing songs about girls, heartbreak or even rebellion or partying. They chose historical artifacts for their subject matter. Literature, mythology and history in heavy metal form. How refreshing.

The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner was a worthy adaptation of the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem. I thought this album was top notch and couldn’t wait to get more Maiden records. Listening to Powerslave now is an energizing experience. It makes me eager to dust off the rest of those maiden gems. Iron Maiden would become one of my all time favorite metal bands if not the top of heap.

Aces High

2 Minutes To Midnight

Powerslave

Rime Of The Ancient Mariner