Month: January 2023

Black Sabbath – Paranoid (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week11 Comments

This week I’m going back to the beginning of time. Or, the beginning of heavy metal, anyway. Well, it wasn’t really the “beginning” since they already had an album out that same year. It’s like the continuation of the beginning of heavy metal.

Black Sabbath – Paranoid

Released September 18, 1970 via Vertigo Records

My Favorite Tracks – Paranoid, Electric Funeral, War Pigs

This isn’t an album that needs a huge introduction. Paranoid is the most famous album in heavy metal. It was a rush job of a record, with the label wanting to cash in on the success of the debut album, so everyone crowded into the studio and banged the new album out. Paranoid was on store shelves roughly 7 months after Black Sabbath.

The quick pace of album creation led to a few last-minute decisions – the album was originally going to be called War Pigs, with the album art reflecting that. The single Paranoid was doing great business though, so the album name was changed without redoing the album art. Hence, some dude swinging a sword on an album called Paranoid.

And War Pigs itself was originally going to be called Walpurgis, a Satanic holiday/ceremony of some sort. The record label vetoed that title, as they were (rightfully) concerned about the link being drawn between Sabbath and Satanism. War Pigs summed up the lyrics nicely and was used instead.

Paranoid comes in with 8 tracks at a 41 minute run time. It’s a fairly quick process to get through, though we are talking about the most famous songs in heavy metal here so there’s some exposition to be had.

War Pigs

The once-titled Walpurgis opens the album with a scathing take on the Vietnam War. The band’s intent was to show the politicians who start wars as the real Satanists, a case plainly stated in the lyrics but missed by the “Satanic Panic” movement that would see Black Sabbath as arch enemies.

War Pigs is one of metal’s most significant songs. Its darker topical fare, combined with the signature riffs from Tony Iommi as well as Bill Ward literally pounding the piss out of the drums, totally recast what rock music could do or be about. This song was a stark dividing line, even considering the prior Sabbath album that same year. It is one of the more widely played and covered song in Sabbath lore.

Paranoid

The title track was a hit single in advance of the album’s release and, as stated above, the warm reception was the cause of the album’s name change. Paranoid as a song was a unique Sabbath achievement – it is the their only Top 20 UK hit, peaking at number 4. That seems odd for such a popular act, but Sabbath never were singles-minded hit makers.

The song was conceived in quick fashion and wasn’t really thought of in any significant terms by the band, which is often how hits go. Geezer Butler’s lyrics tell a despondent tale – of depression, not paranoia. The song’s quick pace and pounding riff was reminiscent of Led Zeppelin’s Communication Breakdown, something that Sabbath members were cognizant of and worried about, though no harm came from the similarity.

Paranoid is short, spooky and to the point – a winning formula for a hit. The song has remained in constant rotation on classic rock radio for 53 years and will likely be a fixture of radio playlists until the death of the format.

Planet Caravan

An odd turn but one not out of bonds for a band who, while shaping heavy metal, would also be massively influential to “stoner” culture. This song is trippy and ambient,with several layered effects to generate a calm and muddled atmosphere.

For some the song is a skip because it doesn’t fit the mold of Sabbath heavy metal, while for me and others it’s a welcome change of pace and nice diversion. A band that lasts any length of time is going to record a bunch of songs – might as well branch out here and there.

Iron Man

Sabbath have several highly recognized songs and many are from this album. But none may be as widely known as this one. Iommi pulls riffs straight from Hell to shape this song about a guy who time travels and sees the end of the world. On his return he is turned to steel and mocked by the populace, who ignore his warnings about the apocalypse. Instead of saving the world, he decides to become the end and takes his wrath out on the people who mock him.

Iron Man joins Paranoid and War Pigs as Sabbath staples that have seen constant rotation in the five decades since the album’s release. I believe it’s a felony for a radio station not to play Iron Man at least once a day. (don’t’ quote that) Iron Man was Sabbath’s biggest “hit” in the US, though only charting at 52, the song has become immortal. And while having nothing to do with the Marvel Comics character of the same name, this song was used in the 2008 Iron Man film that saw that character go from an afterthought to the lead role in the MCU.

Electric Funeral

Here Sabbath combine their doom-laden heavy metal with some groove and jam from the music of their time. It’s a pretty interesting mash-up that sees some groove and boogie over lyrics about nuclear holocaust. These for me are some of the more interesting parts of the Sabbath catalog, getting to hear heavy metal shaped alongside the other music of the day. It wouldn’t be until the 1980’s when heavy metal ran along established lines, so this early stuff contained a lot of cool asides and nods to other forms of rock.

Hand Of Doom

This appropriately named track was, in all reality, some ground-level field reporting exposing one of the many horrors of the Vietnam War – the drug use of soldiers. Heroin was the drug of choice among the GI’s in the field, then it came back with them along with the often-untreated horrors of war. The song is a stark admonition against drug use, which does sound a bit odd coming from the lips of Ozzy Osbourne or honestly anyone from Black Sabbath. But the message is on point and this song was a harrowing early account of just how messed up the Vietnam War was.

Rat Salad

A brief instrumental, this was based on Bill Ward’s super long drum solos of the early days when Sabbath had to fill large amounts of time between sets in order to land gigs. It’s a nice jam, I’ve always enjoyed the heavier jams of the late 60’s and early 70’s.

Fairies Wear Boots

The final song is a striking title but isn’t about some mythical creatures who sprinkle pixie dust and wear Doc Martens. Instead the lyrics take aim at skinheads, this was in Britain before “skinhead” became synonymous with “nazi.” Sabbath had run-ins with the anarchist-minded skinheads, including a fight that left Tony Iommi injured and hence served as the inspiration for the song. Iommi has also admitted that the lyrics might be unusual due to the band’s habitual weed use.

Paranoid was a breakout hit for Black Sabbath – it did what they were only able to accomplish one other time, that being top the UK album charts. (the other time being the band’s final album 13) The album was a hit in many other countries including the US, where it peaked at number 12 and has 4 official platinum certifications.

But the legacy of Paranoid goes far beyond its sales figures or chart positions. This is the definitive album of heavy metal. It is the band’s most recognizable effort and the point where they laid the blueprint for their new, mutated form of rock music. The shadow that Paranoid casts over the heavy metal landscape is immense and inescapable. The Black Sabbath legacy is undeniable and this album is a large reason why.

https://youtu.be/5s7_WbiR79E

An Album A Day – Week 1

On By bigbadburchIn An Album A Day3 Comments

It’s time to debut my new series, An Album A Day. As I mentioned before, this is a way to do something like what book people do – rather than read 52 books a year or what have you, this is listen to 365 albums a year, or one a day.

I’ve barely started and I quickly realized something – this is easy street. Listening to 365 albums in a year is not some kind of lofty goal, it’s taking candy from a baby. I’m gonna roll with this whole thing since it’s a fairly easy way to generate some new content and also cover stuff I don’t normally talk about, but this is not a challenge at all.

Anyway, this first post covers the first week of 2023. The next 52 weeks will be filled with – stuff. My missives on these will be brief but there will be several of them so I can still be too wordy.

Opeth – Watershed

It’s been awhile since I listened to anything besides Blackwater Park so I took the time to sift through the 2008 album that was widely hailed as a masterpiece. There’s a lot going on, as there often is with Opeth, but this is a grand moment in their catalog. The Lotus Eater is one of the best songs they’ve ever done, and Hessian Peel offers a grab bag of everything Opeth.

Jane’s Addiction – Nothing’s Shocking

This is one I listened to “back in the day,” though that day was in the mid-90’s and nearly 10 years after its release. And I don’t think I’ve played it in at least 20 years. It was nice to revisit this one, a cool “vibes from the youth” kind of thing. The notable tracks from this are The Mountain Song and the signature Jane Says, but the whole album is a pretty cool offering.

Kalmah – 12 Gauge

Back to a band I was very into in the early 2000’s, Kalmah are a huge part of the Finnish melodic death metal scene, alongside Children Of Bodom. While the bands draw comparisons to each other, I was always more drawn to Kalmah. This 2010 album saw the band combine their early melo-death stuff with the more harsh sound they took on just prior to this. I played this while on a long bicycle ride and it was a great compliment to the ride.

An Abstract Illusion – Woe

This is one from the very long list of “stuff I missed in 2022.” And this was a pretty huge miss. A progressive death metal album, this does draw favorable comparisons to Opeth’s prime era, but there’s also a lot more going on here. This is one of those that needs a lot more than one listen to properly digest and discuss, and it’s one that really was a true miss for me last year. Something I’ll be visiting again for sure.

Jimi Hendrix – Los Angeles Forum April 26, 1969

This is the most recent release in the eleventy hundred posthumous Hendrix albums. This one is pretty nice, it is a very jam-based album with most of the songs being extended improv renditions. There is also some pretty cool stage banter from Jimi, including a call for stage crashers to get off the stage or the show will be shut down. I am of the “wannabe Hendrix completionist” school so I don’t mind the countless releases and this show seems to have some cool stuff that stands out from the clean presentation of the more landmark live gigs.

Suede – Autofiction

This is another from 2022 but wasn’t a miss for me – rather, this was most likely album 11 on a list of 10. I suppose we’re calling Suede alt-rock now rather than the movement they helped create and now can’t stand, that being Britpop. Suede explored some different sounds on their last effort in 2018, but on Autofiction they got back to basics and put out a kick ass alt-rock album. No one was expecting Suede to be bad, but this blew past peoples’ expectations and was monumental.

Jerry Reed – Super Hits

I ended week one with a greatest hits collection of a country star from years past, and also the hilarious bad guy in The Waterboy movie. Reed had a fair few hits in his music career, including When You’re Hot, You’re Hot and She Got The Goldmine (I Got The Shaft). Of course, his most well-known work is probably the theme song from the hit film he also starred in – East Bound And Down from Smokey And The Bandit. Reed was also a pretty underrated guitar player on top of his songwriting prowess. And, to top it all off, listening to Reed reminded me of a story from way back when, so I’ll get a whole other post out of this.

That covers the first of 52 rounds of this new format. While the “goal” idea of it wound up being silly, this does feel like a worthwhile thing to do so I’ll keep at it. It’s a nice way to cover some more ground that I don’t typically get to in a few posts a week and it can occasionally plant the seed for a new post idea. And it doesn’t take up a huge amount of my time to write, so this whole thing is truly off to the races.

Jeff Beck 1944-2023

On By bigbadburchIn Uncategorized2 Comments

This is a super quick post today to honor the memory of Jeff Beck, one of rock’s biggest guitar legends. Beck was the guy who was never the biggest star but was the most widely-celebrated artist among his peers, as seen both in the insane number of collaborations he did and in the outpouring of tributes since his passing the other day.

I’m not huge on doing “obituary” style posts so I’ll skip a lot of the details which are easily found right now after the news of his death broke. I’ll just post a few videos of a few of his many prominent songs and call it good. Rest in peace Jeff.

Running Free – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series30 Comments

It’s time to get back into the series and an actual, proper single this time. This is one of a very few 7-inch Maiden singles I own. It makes today simple as it’s A-side and B-side, the 12-inch singles have some beefy contents sometimes.

There are some different versions of this single around, but in this case they’re mostly just territorial presses and all of the versions have the same content. Mine is a UK pressing in a cardboard sleeve, nothing special to it.

This was the true debut multi-territory single from Iron Maiden, in so far as conventional single releases go. It was put out in advance of the debut album. This is the first official cover appearance of Maiden’s most famous member, Eddie. But as you can see he’s not that easy to make out – the band wanted the album to be his true “reveal” so here you see his face obscured. Putting his face on the label of the single’s record itself probably didn’t generate much suspense for the future “reveal.”

This official video from IM’s channel features both sides of the single in one clip.

Running Free

Maiden’s first single is a very simple and basic rock song, one of the relative few the group recorded. Paul Di’Anno penned the lyrics about being wild, young and free, somewhat inspired by his own young life.

The song is a long-time staple – it’s been played live a trillion times (don’t quote that) and is still one of the band’s best-known even in a career with 17 albums and a peak a few years away yet. A live version got its own single release a few years down the road, which I’ll cover when its time comes.

While Running Free doesn’t necessarily fit the mold of a quintessential Iron Maiden song, it’s one I enjoy quite a bit. It’s simple and pleasing and it works great live. It’s a massive part of the Maiden lexicon even if it got technically outclassed by other material.

Burning Ambition

There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to Maiden B-sides, and honestly a lot of it isn’t good. But we come out of the gate with what might be the best B-side the band ever did. The song comes out with a classic rock vibe uncommon in Iron Maiden’s music but hits pretty hard once Di’Anno starts singing. The song deals with someone who warns his significant other not to hold him down as he pursues something beyond the mundane life.

Burning Ambition has a bit of band trivia behind it – it marks one of the few recorded performances of drummer Doug Sampson. Sampson played on the famous Soundhouse Tapes demo and a handful of other demo tracks, but that is all of his Maiden recording history for his year or so in the band.

Burning Ambition is on the short list of “best Maiden B-sides.” It does feel like enough of a departure to excuse its absence from an album but its quality is undeniable. The song has surfaced on some reissue and archive material over the years but is still a bit of a hidden gem in the catalog.

That’s all for today. It’s on through a run of 12 inch singles next, all with a bunch of stuff on them. Also the list will get a bit bigger next week – I’ve got a few CD singles in, and also I discovered that I have a few more records that what I thought I did. Thanks for not updating, Discogs.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Live! + One

Running Free (you are here)

Sanctuary

Women In Uniform

Maiden Japan

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

2 Minutes To Midnight

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant

Infinite Dreams

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Holy Smoke

Be Quick Or Be Dead

From Here To Eternity

Virus

Out Of The Silent Planet

Rainmaker

Different World

The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg

Empire Of The Clouds

The Song Remains The Same – One

On By bigbadburchIn The Song Remains The Same6 Comments

It’s time to play the game again, this is where I dig up a bunch of different songs with the same title and see which one I like the best. I don’t keep an index of these, if you’re curious what I’ve done before just head over to the category on the right and it’ll show you my other posts.

Today I’m doing one that I was going to do awhile back, but instead I got sidetracked and decided to write about an album instead. It’s time to talk about “that one song,” ever famous in music conversation but no one really knows what one song it is. After all this time we can finally answer the question – yes, I know that one song.

A whole bunch of artists have songs called One. I’ve chosen six from artists I know and/or respect. Spoiler alert – I did not choose Creed. Also spoiler alert – if you think you know which one I’m going to pick as the winner, well, you’d be right, this one is obvious as obvious gets. This one is a bit bigger than normal so let’s have at it.

Alanis Morissette

I was very, VERY into Alanis when she burst on the scene, she had quite an effect on 17 year old boys. But I quickly moved on to other territory and haven’t really kept up with Alanis that much since her big break. This is from the 1998 album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, which sold a lot and I won’t say much more about because the title is taking up a lot of space.

I haven’t ever heard this song before, as I don’t think I ever listened to this album in full. It’s a pretty good song, not anything that’ll set the world on fire but I’m honestly digging it quite a bit. While Alanis won’t win today’s contest, I can say I should maybe visit more of her work someday.

Fates Warning

This band is a pretty well known quantity in metal but I’ll be honest – I’m not all that familiar with them. For whatever reason I’ve never spent a lot of time with them and it’s been years since I’ve heard them at all.

I was kind of shocked to find that this is, by far, FW’s most streamed song on Spotify. I’m pretty sure the 2000 album it came from didn’t make waves, in fact I can’t find a damn thing about it. But this is apparently a very popular song for some reason. It has far more streams than anything from their popular albums.

This is a really good song, one that would be in contention for today’s crown if it wasn’t for that one song. If nothing else, this reminds me that I really need to brush up on Fates Warning.

Harry Nilsson

A well-respected but perhaps underrated artist, Nilsson had some success in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I know some of his stuff but he’s someone I haven’t spent a ton of time with and also one I should probably add to the to-do list.

Nilsson composed One and released it on his 1968 album Aerial Ballet. It wasn’t a hit for him at the time, but the song would soon get pretty big off a cover version by Three Dog Night. Since this series doesn’t consider cover songs (kind of goes against the whole exercise), I’ll only be looking at Nilsson’s original tune. The song has been widely covered even beyond Three Dog Night, though their version is probably the most well-known.

Nilsson’s OG composition is a good tune. I’m not overly familiar with it but I have heard it before, and it’s been in a bunch of movie soundtracks and stuff like that. I don’t have much criteria to rate how it should place in this contest but I’d give it good marks if I were actually handing out scores.

Simple Plan

Ok, we have a bit of history on ye olde website – as long as I was looking over everything correctly, Simple Plan is the first band to appear in these contests more than once. They were on the Jump one, which they obviously lost, and now they compete in the One gauntlet, which they also have obviously lost.

As I said last time, pop punk isn’t really my bag. I also don’t shit on it just because it’s there to do, and this song is ok. I will say it’s just ok – it’s kind of slow and doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t have a leg in this race but hey, maybe at the rate they keep popping up on these, they might sneak away with a win.

U2

It’s time for one of the two very, very well-known versions of One. U2 released this on their 1991 mega-album and direction-changing Achtung Baby. The single was a massive hit and people fall all over themselves to this day to talk about how great it is.

The song was kind of a bridge between what they did in the 80’s and their new direction. Not that the new direction did them any harm – this album was stupid successful. But One was a callback to more familiar U2 material, something for the old folks I guess.

I’ll say this – it’s a really good song. I haven’t heard it in a long time and this is a nice, sad tune. I figured I’d think it was good but I’m a bit taken aback, this is a really great song.

It’s time to sort through the murk and pick a winner. Alanis had a nice tune, as did Harry Nilsson. The metalhead in me would default to Fates Warning, who has a nice offering even with my lack of familiarity. But the U2 song truly did knock me back a bit. They are the clear winner – of second place. Today’s blatantly obvious winner?

Metallica

That’s it, folks. That’s the post. See you next time.

Megadeth – The System Has Failed (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week7 Comments

This week’s album is a band’s reformation effort, though also a reconfiguration in terms of how the band operated and who it worked with. It is noted as a new beginning and a return to form.

Megadeth – The System Has Failed

Released September 14, 2004 via Sanctuary Records

My Favorite Tracks – Kick The Chair, Blackmail The Universe, The Scorpion

The story leading up to The System Has Failed is quite a whopper. In 2002, with Megadeth’s fortunes on the low end of things, Dave Mustaine suffered an arm injury and was not sure if he would ever be able to play guitar again. He disbanded Megadeth and spent time healing his arm and building up to playing guitar again. His rehab was successful and he was able to resume his mastery of the instrument.

Mustaine set out to record a solo album but was held up by contractual obligations, hence the new effort would bear the title Megadeth. With this new mandate in mind, Mustaine gathered a group of session musicians and held the creative reigns of the new album. Megadeth was now Dave Mustaine and Company, a configuration that has held up to this day.

Notable among the session players on the album is Chris Poland, former Megadeth guitarist for the band’s classic Peace Sells … But Who’s Buying? Poland contributed solos to this album, though his time back with Mustaine would be short-lived.

Megadeth had been on the downslide since the late 1990’s and the ill-received Risk album. An attempted return to form with The World Needs A Hero met with mixed results, and so fan perspective was skeptical after the mess of the band’s breakup and “reformation” under a Mustaine dictatorship.

The only way to reignite fan interest would be to deliver the goods. With 12 tracks going for a 48 minute runtime, did Dave deliver? The album cover certainly brought the old vibes back, but what about the music? I’ll get into that in more detail, though the short answer is yes.

Blackmail The Universe

The opener sets a harrowing and urgent tone, as a mock news piece details a terrorist attack on the US President. The leader of the free world is missing and the nation is in chaos about how to respond. Megadeth are no strangers to the world ending via nuclear holocaust and that is the ultimate fate of everything here.

The song is fantastic and was instantly hailed as one of the band’s best in years. The music was explosive and the twisted fate of the world was communicated in powerful fashion. Though in a new form, Megadeth was back.

Die Dead Enough

The album’s lead single is a mid-tempo affair, more in line with what was issued on albums like Cryptic Writings. The song was originally conceived for a movie soundtrack but the deal fell through and it found its home here. Die Dead Enough seems an odd premise but the action sequence sort of vibe works pretty well with the music.

Kick The Chair

Any concerns about Megadeth’s standing were lifted when Kick The Chair hit peoples’ ears. This was Megadeth back in form – snarling, angry and lashing out at a broken system. Kick The Chair takes aim at the justice system and its corrupted ties with money and power. This is a precise thrash masterpiece and one of the best Megadeth songs in years.

The Scorpion

A twisted guitar passage stands out as Mustaine recalls the fable about a scorpion hitching a ride across a river from a frog and stinging the frog, dooming both animals to death. The “scorpion” in this case is a human doing bad things simply because they will. A fantastic song even without the thrash.

Tears In A Vial

A more melodic tune in line with Megadeth’s “commercial” work of the 1990’s. It’s a song about someone walking away from some kind of relationship or thing. While the song veers into more accessible territory it’s still pretty good – the dark secret about Megadeth’s “radio rock” phase is that a lot of it was actually good.

I Know Jack

A very brief interlude at only 40 seconds. No lyrics here, instead a famous 1988 quote from US Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen is played over the riff. Bentsen was attacking rival Dan Quayle, who had compared himself to JFK. In fairness to Quayle, he was only comparing his time in Congress with JFK, but Bentsen’s response became pretty famous in political circles. Quayle, despite his bungling nature, would still wind up as Vice President under George Bush, mostly because we don’t vote for vice presidents.

Why is this track here? I have no idea.

Back In The Day

Here Mustaine pays tribute to the old thrash scene of the early ’80’s. A good track though maybe not as “thrashy” as one would expect from a song talking about that very thing.

Something That I’m Not

Mustaine launches a shot at someone who betrayed him on this song. It is most likely about Lars Ulrich. This song was a bit after Metallica’s Some Kind Of Monster film, which features Dave in a scene that gets mocked a lot. Dave apparently asked not to be in the film but his request was ignored, hence this song. A few years later everyone would start getting along better and the Big Four stuff would happen. The song itself isn’t really my cup of tea.

Truth Be Told

Here we have Mustaine handing out Bible references, probably in line with his “born again” status that happened sometime after his arm injury. The song is pretty good and doesn’t suffer for its religious influences, it ties in Bible stories with its points pretty well.

Mustaine would go on to use his religious beliefs to influence concert promoters to keep other bands off of festival line-ups that Megadeth were playing, most notably Rotting Christ and Dissection. The attempts were not always successful and it generated a lot of nastiness in the metal community at the time.

Of Mice And Men

While sharing a name with John Steinbeck’s famous story, the song has no other connection to the book. Here Dave is reflecting on his life and offering wisdom gained through experience. It’s another track that feels like it could have come from Cryptic Writings and it’s one I don’t mind hearing.

My Kingdom

After the interlude Shadow Of Deth, the album’s closer comes with Dave coming back to claim his kingdom after years away. He is directly referring to how Megadeth pursued areas outside of thrash and now the band is back and ready to get back to it. The song itself kind of misses the mark but the goods were delivered with the album as a whole.

The System Has Failed was a return to prominence for Megadeth – the album charted in several countries, including number 18 in the US. Reviews were positive and fan reception was good after several years in the murk and the break-up.

Initially this album was advertised as Megadeth’s last, with Dave wishing to do a Megadeth farewell tour and then pursue solo music. That did not quite happen and Megadeth would remain in existence to this day. It could be said that, in a way, it really is a Dave Mustaine solo project with a different name. The twists and turns of what happened with Megadeth’s lineups in the 2000’s could literally fill a book and is far more than I wish to get into here. In short, a new band was assembled for touring and members would come and go for years after, with no shortage of drama and weird shit.

But Dave Mustaine did successfully right the ship with The System Has Failed. While the back half of the album trails off some, the front is loaded with some of the best Megadeth songs in years. The new era had begun and more highlights were on the horizon.

Tales From The Stage – Iron Maiden 2013

On By bigbadburchIn live music5 Comments

Today I’m gonna go somewhere back in time to what is now astonishingly nine years ago. I first saw Iron Maiden in 2000, now in 2022 I’ve seen them four times. The concert I detail today was my second time seeing them.

Maiden were touring a retro set this time around – it was based on the 1988 Maiden England tour. The set lists between 1988 and 2013 would differ a bit, I’ll get into that below. I was personally very excited for this one – while Maiden alternate between “legacy” sets and current material a fair bit, this tour was paying homage to my favorite era of the band.

The show was in what used to be called the Sprint Center in Kansas City. For those unaware of the “unique” geography of Middle America, Kansas City is partially in the state of Kansas but a lot of it is in Missouri, and arguably the most significant stuff. (The same is true for St. Louis – a lot of it is in Missouri but a part is in Illinois). And to continue with the unimportant trivia, the Sprint Center is now known as the T-Mobile Center because Sprint and T-Mobile merged a few years ago.

The show was on a Saturday and it’s also important to note that Maiden had not played in Missouri for 13 years at this point – exactly the last time I saw them. The Sprint Center is located near a fairly large entertainment district in KC and the place was electric hours before the show. We had a few adult beverages in the area with a legion of people in Maiden gear before heading into the arena.

One other minor note about the venue – I’ve seen Maiden twice now in this same arena and both times the place was top-notch at getting people into the venue in a timely fashion. This point will come in handy in the future when I get into the time I saw Maiden in a different city with a much less capable entry mechanism. But no such issues in KC.

Most any show has an opening act, and Iron Maiden brought a doozy for this tour – Megadeth were the support for this tour. It made for a stellar tour package but did raise an interesting question – what exactly were Megadeth going to play in an opening slot? They have more than enough material to air out a two hour headline set, so what did they go for in slot an hour or less?

They stuck to the hits, of course. All but one of their nine songs came from their classic run of albums from 1986 through 1992. The lone exception was Kingmaker, from their just-released Super Collider. The album is regarded as a flop in the Megadeth lexicon, though Kingmaker is cited as a highlight track. The song worked fine in their set and I wasn’t bothered by it. The classics played were fantastic and Megadeth was in fine form. Somewhat sadly, to date this still marks the only time I’ve seen them live.

With the crowd ready to go, Iron Maiden took the stage. It was sheer joy after the day-long party outside the arena and Megadeth’s opening set. As mentioned before, the set was a retro offering. The set list closely mimicked the 1988 Maiden England tour list, with a few exceptions. We did not get Killers, Heaven Can Wait or Die With Your Boots On in 2013. Instead two songs from Fear Of The Dark were thrown in – Afraid To Shoot Strangers, and the ever-present title track. I would have personally rather had the old songs in but I wasn’t put off too bad by the decision.

Overall the set was fantastic and it was a trip through the highlights of Maiden’s career. The Maiden England set is a de facto greatest hits, omitting the reunion stuff but hitting on the band’s classic era when they were in top form. The set naturally included many of Maiden’s hit songs, including The Trooper and Number Of The Beast, alongside Wasted Years, 2 Minutes To Midnight, Run To The Hills and Aces High in the encore.

The real highlight of a Maiden England retrospective is the focus on stuff from Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, which was the current album when the original Maiden England tour was rolling along. The 2013 edition featured five songs from that album, including the opening salvo of Moonchild and Can I Play With Madness? Hearing the title track toward the end of the set was a massive highlight and the band went all out for that presentation. This is a set with no real valleys, but hearing Seventh Son live was the definite peak.

The Seventh Son… love was not over with the title track. Maiden brought The Evil That Men Do out in the encore and that was a massive highlight. I was just a hair too young to see the band live on the original tour when this first came out, but here was my chance all these years later to hear it in concert and it was spectacular. Hearing all of this stuff from way back when was a massive treat, I never expected this kind of a set with the way Maiden have leaned hard into the new material in the reunion era.

There were a few “hidden gems” in the set, in a manner of speaking. They were songs played on the original tour but the band saw fit to bring them back and play them in 2013. Most fans wouldn’t have bet on hearing these songs in the reunion era. The Phantom Of The Opera was played for the first time in a long time, and The Clairvoyant was part of the Seventh Son love fest.

But the true jewel of the evening was The Prisoner. This cut from The Number Of The Beast has been one of the more underrated gems of the Maiden lexicon and I was over the moon to get to hear it live. This was again another chance to live in an era I wasn’t originally able to participate in.

The September 2013 concert is a very special one in my memory. It was my second time seeing my favorite band live. A whole bunch of my friends from town made the trek too, I’ve honestly never been in such a huge place with so many familiar faces. The pre-party before the show was something to behold, with Maiden fans of all ages converging and celebrating this massive event. And while it’s hard to ignore the first time I saw them when I wonder what my favorite show of all time was, this one is certainly a contender. Can’t go wrong when your favorite band does a retrospective tour of their golden era. I always have been someone searching for his wasted year, but I did get to live one of my golden ones.

No easily found footage from the show I went to, but here’s some stuff from both bands that year.

Live Plus One – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series39 Comments

It’s time to kick off the Iron Maiden singles series. Today’s initial offering gives a nice glimpse into something uncommon within the Maiden official release series – live material with Paul Di’Anno on vocals. This also marks some of Maiden’s earliest live recordings.

There are a few different versions of this EP, I have and will be going over the original Japanese pressing containing four tracks. There is a later Greek pressing with additional tracks but it isn’t cheap while this Japanese version is pretty easy to obtain.

Also of note – my copy is a corrected version. There is a misprint version, the error is on the back in the bottom right corner. The corrected copy says “Play Loud” while the misspelled version says “Play Roud.” And yes, the misprint is a collector’s item that goes for even more than the Greek pressing with extra tracks.

Anyway, enough of yammering about different versions, let’s get into the songs. Three of the songs are live from a show at The Marquee Club in London during July 1980. The Marquee was a very historic club for decades and was a highlight spot for the emerging metal scene of the 1980’s. It was of special importance to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene, which is obviously what we’re talking about here.

Sanctuary

The lead-off track is noteworthy as this is the only official place to find this recording. The other tracks would all be re-released on other material later. The song was part of the debut album but initially only offered on North American pressings.

This version is pretty good, it’s decent sounding for a 1980 live recording. Di’Anno’s vocals come out clearer than anything but the band is recognizable. I always enjoyed this song quite a bit so having another live version of it with the OG singer works for me.

Phantom Of The Opera

Another song from the debut record, the band rips through it in a bit of rough and tumble fashion but that’s very fitting for the early era of Maiden. It is the full 7 minutes of the song as presented on the studio record so the band didn’t truncate it at all (they never really do that anyway).

Drifter

This is a track that would appear on the second album Killers but that album was several months away still, so the band were airing this one out early. This is a really good version featuring some call and response stuff between Di’Anno and the crowd, it’s the kind of stuff that makes live recordings worth it.

Women In Uniform

The last song is the “plus one” alluded to by the EP’s title. This is a studio recording and also a cover song, originally done by Australian band Skyhooks in 1978. There are some discussion points around this cover song – both with the troubled story of Maiden’s recording of it and also how the song is viewed in a modern context. But since this very single is coming up in a few weeks I’ll save those discussions for then.

That wraps up the first of the singles series. Now the ball is rolling and it’ll be a monster when it reaches the bottom of the hill. If this wasn’t enough for you, you’re in luck because in a few short weeks 3 of the 4 same songs come up again.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Live! + One (you are here)

Running Free

Sanctuary

Women In Uniform

Maiden Japan

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

2 Minutes To Midnight

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant

Infinite Dreams

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Holy Smoke

Be Quick Or Be Dead

From Here To Eternity

Virus

Out Of The Silent Planet

Rainmaker

Different World

The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg

Empire Of The Clouds

New Post Series Coming In 2023

On By bigbadburchIn An Album A Day3 Comments

My original intent in 2023 was to press on with the goal of doing four posts a week. I’m in a bit better position than I was last summer and I’ll have enough time to dedicate to making sure I post as much as I personally want.

I’ve had an idea for something for awhile now, but I haven’t gotten around to running with it yet. And also, this today isn’t about that one. That future one will probably see the light of day in the next month or two and take over Fridays.

But I was also sort of inspired with an idea that I’ve used before on a different site. It kind of came to me as the year was ending/beginning and I saw people doing lists of the books they read and wanted to read the next year.

The premise is simple – why not take that same approach to albums? I have a shelf full of CD’s, another full of records and a pile of digital stuff that I’ve barely put a dent in. Plus streaming access gives me almost everything I could ever want to hear, so why not dedicate some time to making sure I listen to some of it?

What I’m going to do specifically is listen to an album a day, at least statistically. By the end of the year I should have covered 365 albums. It’s not hard to play at least one album a day, hell there are days I listen to several. This should be a piece of cake as a “resolution” in the loosest possible terms.

I’m not going to post every day about an album. My typical kinds of posts will remain. What I’ll do with this new “album a day” series is update it once a week on Saturdays, recapping seven albums I played the week prior. It won’t be full-on reviews obviously, rather I’ll give a quick paragraph to each.

I won’t be using this to discuss things like, say, Somewhere In Time that I’ve listened to a trillion times. Playing something like that is almost cheating in this instance. Rather I’ll give a focus to albums I haven’t heard in a long time or ever. I’ll also use it as a means to judge if something in my collection even needs to be there. I have a bunch of CDs that I got from record label “grab bag” sales that I’ve barely gone through, this would be a good way to give those some attention and see if I should keep or lose them. That won’t apply to every album I cover but will be a small part of what I do with this new gig.

I’ll also give time to new releases that catch my eye/ear. I don’t do reviews of new music normally, as I feel like it takes a lot of time to sit with an album before getting to detailed about it. I’d rather cover a variety of other topics so I don’t dedicate the time to do those kind of reviews. This will allow me to cover a few things that come around that won’t be candidates for my end of year list but I still want to cover.

And it’s also worth noting that the albums here don’t have to be noteworthy or even good. I’d never use my Album Of The Week feature on something I think sucks, unless the band is super important to me and I feel like I can get detailed about it. I might very well not like something I play on here and will be more than happy to discuss it.

It’s a bit funny that I “stumbled” into this idea because I actually tried it out as a blog back maybe nine years ago. The entire blog’s premise was that I would do this exact thing. I posted once, possibly twice before losing focus and not doing it any further. I just wasn’t ready to blog again, or at least not ready to put any real effort into it. Now that I am at least somewhat committed to running with one for awhile, this becomes an easy way to get a bit more content out there. It’s far more of a time investment listening to albums than it is to write a small bit about them and I listen to stuff a fair bit anyway, so it’s a win-win.

So the “Album A Day” series will kick of NEXT Saturday, January 14. I need a week to play an album a day so the final 2023 “AAD” column would hit in the first week of 2024. It’s a bit odd of a time frame but I think it’ll work out. It’s not like anything is riding on me doing it in a certain scope of time.

As for the other new series, I do expect to get that off the ground sometime in February. It’s a pretty easy thing to write that won’t take up much of my time, I just need to mess with it a bit to get the ball rolling. Once that gets going I’ll have posts six days a week, which is honestly more than what I was aiming for but I think it’ll pan out. The biggest adjustment will be me getting the other posts ready in time, something I got a bit of a leg up on at the end of 2022 so it should be smooth sailing.

Thank you all who read my stuff, I hope my plans for this year give you something to enjoy, crack up about or whatever it may be. As for the rest of this week, the Iron Maiden singles series kicks off tomorrow and, well, the Friday post also just happens to be about Maiden. See you then.

The following song is from something that will be on the first post of the new series.

Carcass – Surgical Steel (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week2 Comments

Kicking off the new year with a whale of an album. This was a long-anticipated reunion record that actually managed to not only live up to the hype but exceed it. Playing together for six years before recording might have helped with that.

Carcass – Surgical Steel

Released September 2013 via Nuclear Blast Records

My Favorite Tracks – Thrasher’s Abbatoir, The Granulating Dark Satanic Mills, Captive Bolt Pistol

Discussing Carcass does require a bit of backstory to provide context for the reunion. Carcass were a pioneering band of the “extreme metal era” of the early 1990’s. Beginning as a grindcore outfit, the band morphed into a melodic death metal machine that captured attention with albums like Necrotism and especially Heartwork. The group dissolved in 1996 but got the reunion bug in 2007 and began touring again. After a series of very well-received tours the band shuffled a few members and set about recording their first album in nearly 20 years.

Bassist/vocalist Jeff Walker and guitarist Bill Steer were still around from the band’s heyday. Guitarist Michael Amott had been part of the reunion tours but left the band to focus on his main gig Arch Enemy. Original drummer Ken Owen was unable to rejoin Carcass due to health problems but would provide backing vocals on the record. He was replaced initially by Daniel Erlandsson from Arch Enemy, but Dan Wilding would join as the new drummer for the recording.

The album comes in with a fairly lean run time of 51 minutes but there are 12 tracks, 11 to discuss. Also, Carcass lyrics and titles are often dense and sometimes unclear in meaning so this will be fun.

Thrasher’s Abbatoir

After the instrumental intro 1985, Carcass kicks off its first new song in decades on a banging note. The song has a go at all of the -tion words, which was a common thing to laugh about in the early 90’s death metal scene with a million bands like Suffocation, Incantation and other -tions running around. The song is dreadfully simple yet brilliantly executed, Carcass is very much open for business again.

Cadaver Pouch Conveyor System

The Carcass lyric writing method often involves opening a medical dictionary and throwing a lot of words together. This is in full force here, as I have no clue what a cadaver pouch conveyor system is. I’m sure the other 8 billion people on the planet share my confusion. There is stuff about death and mutilation in the lyrics but this isn’t a concept album so I’ll say the song is great and move on.

A Congealed Clot Of Blood

The medical concept here is far more understandable, but the song is actually about holy war or some shit like that. Whatever – the riffs are massive and the hooks in plentiful supply and Carcass is bashing its way through its return album.

The Master Butcher’s Apron

The tempo slows down a bit here which helps take in the lyrics which are about the slaughter of humans, or perhaps the slaughter of animals or something. I don’t really know, it’s very dense stuff, just headbang to it.

Noncompliance To ASTM F899-12 Standard

It sounds really complicated but this is perhaps the most logical song title here. The F899-12 Standard, or whatever, is a series of guidelines for how surgical instruments can be manufactured. So, noncompliance with that would meant the surgical tools are substandard. The song itself is about death and stuff, which is a likely consequence of having subpar surgical equipment.

The Granulating Dark Satanic Mills

Ok, so maybe this one is actually the most logical and coherent of the song meanings presented. The Dark Satanic Mills refer to Industrial Revolution-era England and the soulless nature of the architecture and work. And, for once, the song’s lyrics have to do with the title. There’s some involvement with/influence from legendary English poet William Blake here too.

But wait, there’s more! The chorus of the song is simply a sequence of numbers and presents a mystery. The numbers are 6026961. This means nothing to anyone and wouldn’t even work as a set of lottery numbers. But, if you remove the 666 from the sequence, you’re left with 0291, which is apparently a code having to do with US livestock standards. This has never been confirmed as the “true” meaning but it seems the most logical option.

Also the song is fantastic, possibly the best on the album.

Unfit For Human Consumption

We have yet another pretty easy to grasp song here. It’s discussing the food supply and how nasty it can be, long a favorite topic of conversation for the vegetarian-minded Carcass members. The lyrics do get into pretty awful detail, which is fitting since this is death metal after all.

316L Grade Surgical Steel

This serves a sort of a title track. The song seems to actually be a break-up song rather than an essay about surgical steel.

Captive Bolt Pistol

More about the food supply here, this is the device which is meant to instantaneously kill livestock with a blow to the head. The song does not sing the praises of the device.

Mount Of Execution

We depart the world of medical supplies and the food chain for a look at religion’s ills. The song is slower paced and very nicely done, with somber guitar work and a methodical vocal delivery. The song is a beefy one at over 8 minutes and changes tack toward the end, leaving out on a militant riff.

Intensive Battery Brooding

We end the album on yet another “what are you talking about?” title. The song is actually about a thing called Blue Peacock, which was a British Cold-War era idea to use live chickens as a way to keep landmine wiring warm. The mines were going to be planted to halt a Soviet Army advance across Europe. Oh, and the mines were nuclear. What a stupid fucking idea.

In other news, this song was actually a bonus track on certain CD editions of the album. It’s included on the Spotify version so I kept it on here.

Surgical Steel was a hit out of the gate. It was a brilliant return to recorded form for one of extreme metal’s most hallowed bands. This genre of music doesn’t often hit sales charts but this album did break through on several nations’ charts, including both the US and UK.

The critical reception to the album was very positive and fan reaction was tremendous – people were over the moon that the new album was not only good but one of the best the band had done. In a cynical music world where reunions are often brief flashes in the pan, Carcass showed tremendous staying power with lights-out live shows and now a monster of a record.

Nearly a decade later, the shine on Carcass has not faded. They are still considered one of extreme metal’s most significant acts. Rather than join the “release an album every year” fray, they have only put out one more since 2013 – Torn Arteries was a hit on year-end lists and charts in 2021. They continue touring and keeping their top-flight brand of melo-death afloat in an age where multiple generations of bands directly bearing Carcass influence have come and even gone. But a lot of the rub for modern day Carcass worship came from 2013 and Surgical Steel. They are an act who truly took over two different eras and reign as kings of the art form today.