The Crooked Wanderer

Sanctuary

Purgatory

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years (you are here)

The Clairvoyant

Infinite Dreams

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

Tales From The Stage – John Mellencamp

On April 26, 2023April 25, 2023 By bigbadburchIn live music11 Comments

Going back now to 2016, and yeah it’s still weird that it was now seven years ago. The occasion was John Mellencamp in concert. I had never seen him live before so I jumped on the chance when he booked a local show.

The show was at the Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts on the campus of Missouri State University. Sure it’s a mouthful to say but it’s a great place to see a show. It is a theater type of building with balconies that look basically right over the stage, meaning there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. I was up in one of the first few rows of the first balcony and had a great view of the stage, even from up a bit in the air.

Opening the show was Carlene Carter, the first-born daughter of June Carter and a performer since the mid ’70’s. She had been collaborating with Mellencamp and this would continue into the next year when they released a joint album. Carlene played a set that featured some old Carter Family standards like Will The Circle Be Unbroken as well as her hits from the early ’90’s, including Every Little Thing. She was very engaging and put on a really nice show. I wish I had more to say about it but this was seven years ago and also not a single person uploaded a setlist of hers from any stop on this tour so I’m a bit hosed on that. Had I known that I would have kept track of it that night but I’m not bright enough to do that.

Between sets Carlene was reportedly giving free hugs in the main lobby by the merch stands. I missed out on that because there was a beer vendor just off to the side of my section. Them’s the breaks, I guess.

Here is a bit of very good footage of Carlene from the same year in North Carolina.

After the break, John Mellencamp came out with his band, or at least the first iteration of it. For these shows John was splitting things into two mini-sets – one with more country-oriented instruments such as fiddle, and the second with the standard rock package.

Mellencamp opened with two songs from his most recent album, 2014’s Plain Spoken. Lawless Times and Troubled Man were the cuts. I wasn’t overly familiar with them but they were good songs to kick the show off with. He then went into two old classics, Minutes To Memories and Small Town.

John filled the time between songs with some banter, telling short stories about stuff his kids were up to and things like that. The set would run through several songs from different eras – hits like Human Wheels and Check It Out as well as other cuts from albums more recent.

The oldest album Mellencamp went back to for a song was 1982’s American Fool. He made sure to let the crowd know that he personally didn’t want to do the song but he knew everyone would riot if he didn’t, and then went into Jack And Diane. It is one of his bigger hits but also does get a fair bit of flack. John has not been shy about not liking the song but hey, you gotta play your hits. The crowd was into it so I guess that’s the important part.

The first part of the set rounded out with two collaborations with Carlene Carter – Indigo Sky and My Soul’s Got Wings. Both of these would appear on their joint album the following year. Then some instrumental parts led to a brief set change to set up the rock half of the show.

And when I say rock, I mean rock. Mellencamp and company came out to absolutely shred. The guitars were distorted and turned up to 11 and the band pounded out the hits. Rain On The Scarecrow led the way, with other hits like Paper In Fire, Authority Song and Crublim’ Down following. The set would close on Pink Houses and then Cherry Bomb.

That would wrap up the night. I was very glad to have finally seen Mellencamp live as he had been one of about a million artists I’ve missed over the years. It’s far easier to see someone when they play local as opposed to dealing the hustle and cost of travel to a major city, and this show was literally a few miles from my house. It was off into the night for me, with one more artist checked off my bucket list.

This video is not good at all but the sound is ok and it’s from the very show I was at.

Soul Asylum – Grave Dancer’s Union (Album of the Week)

On April 24, 2023April 23, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week6 Comments

This week I’m taking a look at one of the breakout alt-rock albums of the early ’90’s. Soul Asylum had been a long-running independent band by 1992, but a massive single would propel them to the top of the board.

Soul Asylum – Grave Dancer’s Union

Released October 6, 1992 via Columbia Records

My Favorite Tracks – Without A Trace, April Fool, Black Gold

Soul Asylum found the stage for success when rock music turned on its head in the early 1990’s. What was alternative and independent was now mainstream, and Soul Asylum were gearing up their sixth album by this point. The band was experienced and ready to break out.

The lineup at this point had been stable for awhile but was going to experience a shift. Dave Pirner was the band’s frontman and rhythm guitarist, Dan Murphy provided lead guitar and Karl Mueller was on bass. Grant Young was the band’s drummer but issues cropped up during recording and Sterling Campbell was brought in to supplement the drumming. Each drummer played on roughly half of the album. Young would remain the band’s drummer for the tour but Campbell would take over before the next album.

The album’s cover photo was a curious choice, it is a 1970 photograph by Czech artist Jan Saudek titled “Fate Descends Toward The River Leading Two Innocent Children.” Other Saudek photos have been used in cover art over the years, this being the most prominent one.

The album runs through 12 songs in fairly quick 44 minutes. There is a reissued version with live bonus tracks but I’ll be tackling the main release today.

Somebody To Shove

Opening with the album’s lead single and very nice song. It has a great hook and a nice concept about being frustrated with trying to fall in love. This was Soul Asylum’s introduction to the world at large and it worked well, as the song landed toward the top of the Alternative and Mainstream Rock charts.

Also of note – both this and the Black Gold music videos were directed by one Zack Snyder. Not sure if there are Snyder Cuts of these videos, I’d assume not.

Black Gold

The second single kept the ball rolling for this album until the train was ready to leave the station. Though a very sad song, the chorus keeps things squarely in the rock realm. The lyrics do offer a ton of room for interpretation, though it is generally given that the song is about the Persian Gulf War of 1991. For me the lyrics hit pretty hard, especially the parts about being in a small town, and as it turned out my ticket out of there was the military.

Runaway Train

Probably not a more fitting name for a song that would become the vehicle to smash success in music. The song itself is a forlorn ballad that Dave Pirner wrote about depression. The song also features a cameo – Booker T of the MGs provided keyboards.

This desperate single would climb to number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was everywhere on release. It was aided in great part by its music video, which took a different tack and featured pictures of missing children. The video and missing kids were changed for each major territory, and in the US there were 3 versions of the video each with different missing children.

The video is credited with helping locate at least 26 of these missing kids. This doesn’t have the happy ending it might convey, as many of the missing kids were murder victims. And several of the featured children were never found.

While the truth behind the video’s children might be stark, the song Runaway Train was a huge leap for Soul Asylum. The single itself went gold in the US and won the Best Rock Song Grammy in 1994. Its success would also fuel sales of the album and this would wind up being a runaway hit.

Keep It Up

After the weight of the prior song, this is a more uplifting tune both in music and theme. On its own it’s not a song I’d be all that into, but it does serve a great place in the album’s sequencing to come just after Runaway Train. And in general it was a more uplifting alternative to the gloomy grunge of the day.

Homesick

Another sad song, this one is hauntingly quiet as the narrator longs for a place they’ve never actually been. Not a ton to say about this one but it’s pretty well done.

Get On Out

Again keeping with the sequencing of going sad/uplifting, this one hammers at the depression and bad thoughts. This is a pretty good one and very well written.

New World

Another sad and quiet one though this one is a bit more abstract in theme. It does have to do with being stuck in a small town but it gets into some other territory as well. Like most everything else on the album it works pretty well.

April Fool

As the album winds toward its last third we take a detour into massive riffs. April Fool is a great song that combines riffs that are near heavy metal with some silly lyrics to paint a picture of cool and hip. It’s a departure from the album’s norm and it’s a wonderful back-half gem, though we’re just getting started on that front.

Without A Trace

The late-half gems continue with this amazing song. This did actually get released as a single toward the end of the album’s life cycle. While many of the songs here are either sad or not, this one combines all sentiments and distills them into an essence greater than the sum of its parts.

Dave Pirner wrote the song about always being on the move to try and find something new or try and get away from the trappings of the old place. And the guitar hook on this is just spectacular. It’s like a ’90’s country song but put on rock steroids.

Growing Into You

This one is a pretty straightforward alt-rock slammer. It doesn’t quite hold up to the two preceding tunes but it’s a nice song worth the time.

99%

One more hidden gem before the album winds down. This is a sloppy, distorted mess, which is always right up my alley. It’s also a pretty accurate treatise on love and how it’s a 99% thing. Not much else to really say about it, just a nice, dirty love song.

The Sun Maid

The album closes on a quiet and very melancholy track. It’s a departure from the songs prior to it for sure. The song in and of itself is not bad by any means but I’ll admit I’m one of the people who aren’t’ all that into it. It just crashes the mood after all the rocking out that just happened. I know some people passionately defend this song and I’ve had arguments over it in the past, but I’m not gonna be swayed off my position after 30 years.

Grave Dancer’s Union was the album that put Soul Asylum on the map. It charted at number 11 in the US and held high spots in many European countries. It has at least two US platinum certifications and maybe even three, this information is a bit hard to nail down sometimes.

It would not be a long stay in the mainstream eye for Soul Asylum. Their next album would produce another hit single but the band would ease back into the independent scene after that. This was more their moment in the sun than a great arrival. Soul Asylum are still an active outfit today.

For me I very much enjoyed this album when it came out, even though at the time I was mostly exploring the extreme metal scene. These songs had the right amount of creativity, sadness and wit to stand out from others in the alt-rock crowd. This is decidedly a rock record but it certainly has shades of country to it. It was fantastically written and played, and it remains a staple of the ’90’s alt-rock era.

Stranger In A Strange Land – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On April 20, 2023May 25, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series23 Comments

Moving along with the Iron Maiden singles, we are now to the band’s 6^th studio album Somewhere In Time. This beings the two-album “synth” arc that saw the band expand their sound a bit and, while opinions vary of course, this period is well acclaimed.

It’s also worth noting that my decision to use my Discogs stuff as my reference for this list is biting me in the ass right now – today’s single is out of order and was the second released from Somewhere In Time. No real big deal to me, but this series has been attracting quite a bit of attention and I wanted make sure it was stated that I’m aware of the order not being proper.

Today’s single features the lead track as well as two pretty unique and worthwhile cover songs. And the covers have pretty deep ties to Maiden lore and trivia so there’s a fair bit to go over. And we have again very nice and unique cover art. Here Eddie is decked out like an Old West cowboy, though also sporting the futuristic bells and whistles fitting of the album’s cyber sci-fi theme. Eddie’s pose was based on Clint Eastwood’s famous “Man With No Name” character from the old Western movies. The cover’s background setting gives a bit of the Star Wars cantina vibe to everything. There are a few cool easter eggs on the playing cards, I’ll let people go over those on their own.

There were quite a few different versions of this single, with several 12-inch and 7-inch releases, as well as a cassette. I have a 12-inch version and thus the extra B-side. And, for the first and only time in this series, I also have a 7-inch version. This was a 2015 reissue the band did of their singles, I saw it at a record store for not much one day and figured what the hell, I’ll snag it up.

As is usual with these, this first video includes the single and the first B-side as it represents the 7-inch version.

Stranger In A Strange Land

The feature track is a mid-tempo song that eases off the acceleration a bit and lets the song operate through its atmosphere. Lyrically it’s about an explorer who was frozen to death exploring harsh cold climates and then found many years later, the song bears no relation to the novel of the same name. Adrian Smith was the songwriter here and he also gets a fair bit of time on an absolutely beautiful solo that is a prime example of how a solo can be complimentary to the music without needing to be guitar wankery to be good.

This is one of my absolute favorite Iron Maiden songs, probably second or third if/when I get to the business of actually ranking them. I love everything about it and anytime I’m debating on what Maiden album to play, the chance to hear this song again often influences me to go with Somewhere In Time. It’s one I’d give a kidney to hear live, so hopefully it’s in the set for the next tour which focuses in part on this album and the band make a run through the US with it.

That Girl

The first B-side is a cover from a band with deep connections to Iron Maiden. The band in question is FM, in this case the British band and not the Canadian one. The story leading to this cover version is not a short one but it has bearing on both B-sides so on we go.

FM originally formed in the early ’80’s and secured a record deal based on the strength of a demo, which included That Girl. In 1985, Iron Maiden were taking time off after a grueling world tour and Nicko McBrain got bored. He called up Adrian Smith and the two hatched a plan to get together with some friends and play a few secret gigs. The first and more famous of these gigs was under the title The Entire Population of Hackney. Appearing with the Maiden duo was Andy Barnett, formerly a bandmate of Smith’s in Urchin, as well as Dave Colwell and Martin Connoly. Each brought songs from various points in their careers to play at this gig, which included this FM song as both Barnett and Colwell had some early involvement with the group. (Barnett would later join FM)

So after the secret gig, Maiden decided to work up a full band version as a B-side. It’s a very well done song and fits the vibe of the full album pretty well, something both of these B-sides do fantastically. It’s also interesting because the cover is based on FM’s original demo recording. FM had reworked the song a bit before releasing their debut album and went more melodic AOR rock with it, very fitting for the time.

It’s also interesting because Maiden’s cover was released barely a few months after the original was out. FM’s debut album Indiscreet came out a week before Somewhere In Time and this single was released just two months later. So this was two versions of a song out at essentially the same time.

Juanita

This song was also done at the secret gig outlined above. Even more interesting than the last one is that the original of this was never actually released. The song was originally composed by a group called Marshall Fury, of which Martin Connoly had been a member. The band never released the song and info on the group is scarce – in fact, looking them up on Wikipedia redirects to this very single.

There’s no original to compare here, but Juanita is a pretty well done track for a Maiden B-side. It’s a straightforward rocker and the band handles it very well.

That (finally) does it for this single. If you thought there was a lot here, wait until next week. Another song from the secret gig will be there and it’s probably the most-discussed Maiden B-side in existence. And someday I’ll get into the bootleg of The Entire Population of Hackney, but the bootlegs are a ways off so don’t hold your breath waiting for that one.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Sanctuary

Purgatory

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land (you are here)

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant

Infinite Dreams

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

Remembering Headbanger’s Ball

On April 19, 2023April 18, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Memories6 Comments

I’m going with the anniversary theme again today, and this one wasn’t something I was originally planning on but it fell in my lap so I decided to run with it. On April 18, 1987, MTV aired the first episode of Headbanger’s Ball. The first episode featured guest hosts Lemmy Kilminster and Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor of Motörhead. This was the start of an institution that ran for 8 years on Saturday nights on MTV.

While MTV had previously flirted with an all-metal show called Heavy Metal Mania, hosted by Dee Snider, Headbanger’s Ball would become the true home of metal through the late ’80’s and early ’90’s. It was blocks of all metal music videos, with interviews, live footage and occasional off-the-wall content sprinkled in.

Guests hosts filled the first handful of episodes, then MTV VJ’s began hosting the gig. Kevin Seal was an early host, then Adam Curry ran the show for a few years. In the ’80’s, MTV kept the programming mostly true to the music of the time – hair metal. There were heavier bands played at times though, and Headbanger’s Ball was the only time on MTV to see thrash, power metal and other forms not related to the hair bands.

For me personally I saw occasional episodes of the Curry-hosted shows, but it would be into 1990 when I became an every-week watcher of the Ball. By this point Riki Rachtman was the host and the show transitioned away from hair metal and into the more aggressive strains of the genre. The studio got a set designed by Rob Zombie at one point, the hours were expanded and Headbanger’s Ball was one of the most-watched programs on MTV.

The early ’90’s period of the Ball saw a slew of bands get airtime – thrash mainstays like Slayer and Megadeth, legends like Ozzy, and a lot of new blood from a lot of metal avenues came up on the show. The new grunge acts got some Ball time, like Alice In Chains and Soundgarden. Rap metal like Biohazard was around before nu-metal was a thing. The “alt-metal” scene was very well represented on the Ball, with acts like Danzig and Type O Negative getting frequent appearances. And extreme metal also got in the act a bit, with Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel getting some airtime.

I don’t remember exactly when it was, I’ll peg it sometime in 1994, the writing kind of started to appear on the wall for the Ball. The show would lose an hour of true programming and that got swapped with something called The Countdown to the Ball. The countdown played ten videos that were popular elsewhere on MTV, stuff like Pearl jam and whatnot.

The end of the main era of Headbanger’s Ball came at the turn of the year in 1995. In typical corporate TV fashion, no announcement or farewell episode was given. Rachtman and the staff were simply called and told not to come back to work after filming what wound up being the final episode. MTV ran a show called Superock in the old Ball timeslot awhile later, before airing re-runs of The Real World 24/7 and giving up on music videos altogether.

I was one of many pretty upset with the sudden demise of the show. It was a fantastic place to learn about new bands and upcoming releases. Remember, this was just before the Internet became a household thing – this kind of information was not at everyone’s fingertips or instantly accessible. It was a few years before the Internet became a reliable source of news and commerce. Seriously, you should have seen some of the websites up in 1995 – it was unreal.

So Headbanger’s Ball went away. Metal went into a fairly dark place in the late 1990’s, but then came roaring back in the early 2000’s. And with it, MTV saw fit to bring back the Ball. It showed up on MTV2, again with guest hosts in the beginning but with a long run from Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta at the helm. The show has gone through various cancellations and renewals over the years both on MTV and online, so its status today is murky at best.

For me and many other young metalheads that watched over the 8 years that Headbanger’s Ball ran, it was Saturday night church of the metal variety. We got to see some videos that we knew would be played during the time, and we got to see a lot of stuff we never would have otherwise. This wasn’t MTV, it was a small subset of MTV that happened to catch on with a large fanbase and last even through music’s most seismic shift in 1991.

We also got to see a lot of stuff we wouldn’t have otherwise in the pre-Internet era – we got a candid interview with Ozzy Osbourne after No More Tears released. We got Megadeth skydiving somewhere “in the vicinity” of Area 51. Alice In Chains went down a waterslide, Soundgarden went bowling, and a bunch of acts went across the Iron Curtain to play the Moscow Peace Festival, with MTV and Headbanger’s Ball right there on the action. Even in more simple TV studio interviews, we got candid talk from bands all over the metal spectrum.

For the 2000’s MTV2 revival, I’ll say this – the show did a lot to put metal back into the consciousness, and also brought a lot of the 2000’s era extreme metal into a new light. The show would be hosted for awhile by Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta, still today an advocate for heavy music far and wide.

But nothing for me will replace the original. It was Saturday nights, skipping over the run of Saturday Night Live and choosing instead to wreck my neck for a few hours with first Adam Curry, then mainly Riki Rachtman and the truly heavy tones that came from his tenure on the gig. Riki today is doing spoken word tours across the country recounting any number of experiences, including Headbanger’s Ball, and I hope to catch one someday.

It was Saturday nights from 11 to 1, for me in the Central time zone. Then for awhile 10 to 1, then 11 to 2, then one day it all went away without so much as a thanks. But the work done by Riki and the Headbanger’s Ball staff, the fans of metal worldwide, and most importantly the bands themselves, lives on all these years later. Headbanger’s Ball was how we found this stuff and was our church, and is very responsible for a way of life that continues 28 years after the show originally went off the air. It’s one memory of sitting in front of the TV that I’ll truly never forget.

This is an apparently unofficial compilation of a bunch of HB highlights over the years. Worth checking out if the video stays up.

Iron Maiden (Album of the Week)

On April 17, 2023April 16, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week8 Comments

As of last Friday, April 14, Iron Maiden’s debut album is 43 years old. Seems like as good of time as any to explore it here.

Iron Maiden – self-titled

Released April 14, 1980 via EMI

My Favorite Tracks – Iron Maiden, Transylvania, Phantom Of The Opera

Iron Maiden had spent five years playing in pubs and shifting line-ups in advance of their full-length debut, but the actual recording process for the record took all of 13 days. The band had mis-fired on two attempts to record the month prior and went through two producers before settling on Wil Malone. This would not be a fruitful partnership as Steve Harris recalls that the band did most of the actual production.

The recording line-up would be bassist and band founder Steve Harris, Dave Murray and Dennis Stratton on guitar, Paul Di’Anno at vocals and Clive Burr on drums. By album four, only Harris and Murray would remain of this line-up.

The cover art depicts the band’s legendary mascot Eddie. This was not Eddie’s cover debut as a shadowy form of him appeared on the Running Free single and the Japanese single release featured Eddie in full form, but this album still serves as the popular introduction. Derek Riggs was the artist behind Eddie’s appearances through Iron Maiden’s first decade of operation.

The album would release with 8 tracks, but I will be covering the US version which also offered the song Sanctuary. This was added to subsequent re-issues later on, though the current day pressings seem to omit it.

Prowler

The opener slams in with great guitar work between the Murray-Stratton duo and the signature rumble of Steve Harris’ bass. Di’Anno sings a desperate tale of a depraved man out to stalk and flash women.

I am warmed to the album’s production after decades of hearing it, but I will admit that Prowler is one song that maybe could have used a bit more work in the mixing stage. Still a very nice track but I can hear where it could be cleaned up a touch.

Remember Tomorrow

A remarkable song that starts out slow and contemplative but later launches into a Maiden guitar fireworks show fast break, showing that the band would forego typical pop-based song structure in their expressions. The song’s title was a phrase Di’Anno’s grandfather used frequently.

Running Free

This was the band’s debut single and still lives today as an iconic track. It is a simple banger that would get an extended live cut with a call and response passage added. The song is about the simple pleasures of being a wild and crazy youth and was based in part on Di’Anno’s young lifestyle.

For more on the single of this song, visit my recap of it as part of my Iron Maiden singles series.

Phantom Of The Opera

We move now to an extended cut and one with shifts and movement as Maiden take on the famous novel which has been adapted musically far and wide. The groundwork for the Iron Maiden sound to come can be found here, with a focus on epic storytelling. Phantom remained a staple of the live set long after Paul Di’Anno’s exit from the band and the song is hailed as one of the best from the early era.

Transylvania

Up next is the band’s first instrumental. The song was originally intended to have lyrics but after hearing the instrument cuts they decided to keep it as is. This is a fantastic song that plays out just fine without words and I’d say ranks at the top of the band’s handful of instrumental tracks. Transylvania would see a fair bit of stage time in the band’s early years and then again in 1993.

Strange World

Now it’s on to a song that’s aptly titled as this is very strange and a huge departure from what is recognized as the Iron Maiden sound. This is a trippy, atmospheric track that doesn’t feature the distinctive Maiden rumble at all. The song is maybe about vampires, or drugs or who knows what. It’s very odd and it’s jarring to hear when set against the rest of the album but it’s not bad in and of itself.

Sanctuary

The US bonus track slots here on original pressings of the album, note that re-issues can have it in different spots. This song about a killer on the run from the law would be a mainstay of early Maiden setlists. For more on this one, head to my rundown of the Sanctuary single.

Charlotte The Harlot

Here we have one of just a few songs written entirely by Dave Murray. This is celebrating a woman of the night and Murray has stated it’s based on a true story, though that story has never emerged. While the song itself is not the most celebrated track from this album, Charlotte would make three further appearances in Iron Maiden songs before her story was completed in 1992.

Iron Maiden

The album closes with an eponymous song, which is always a treat when a band does that on a self-titled album. And this one is truly a gem – there is no more signature Maiden sound than the guitars and bass on this song. Just as the chorus says, Iron Maiden’s gonna get you, and that they did with this track. This is the band’s most-played song live.

Iron Maiden marked the start of a heavy metal legacy. The album would hit number 4 on the UK charts and get platinum certifications in the UK and Canada. Critics took to Maiden right out of the gate, and the band found ready and willing audiences when they entered new countries to play there for the first time. The days of grinding in London pubs were over and the world was waiting. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal had been bubbling around England for years and Iron Maiden helped bring it into the light for the world to experience.

The raw production gave the album a “metal meets punk” feel, though band members insist they were not chasing punk as a sound. But the identity would follow Maiden through the Paul Di’Anno era and a subset of fans lament the turn toward something more akin to power metal that Maiden took when Bruce Dickinson stepped into the singer’s role. Those fans represent a minority of course, but they are out there.

For me I was a hair too young to catch this on release, I was not quite 3 years old when this album hit. It would be several years later when I got into Maiden and backtracked through the early stuff. This one was always a favorite of mine, I loved the raw energy yet still finding a lot of the band’s signature sound that was present on later albums.

This album was the start of something very special and a legacy that has now run close to half a century. All things must end, but they also must begin and Iron Maiden’s start was a great thing.

Running Free (live) – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On April 13, 2023May 25, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series22 Comments

And we’re in to the second of the singles from Live After Death, Iron Maiden’s first live album. This one offers the rare chance for brevity – the cover is a live shot as opposed to an Eddie illustration. The songs are mostly self-explanatory – the A-side is off of the full album and the B-sides are not. Mostly.

I have a 12-inch version of the single, which includes a second B-side. 7-inch records have just one, physics and all that. As usual, the video below has the A-side and the first B-side, this is because Maiden put the 7-inch versions of the singles up on their YouTube during a reissue series last decade.

Running Free

Up first is one of the iconic songs from the band’s debut. Here we get Bruce Dickinson handling the song’s vocals. Far from the first time he sang this tune, but the first time it was offered up on a live album.

Running Free was done in an extended jam format at the Long Beach Arena in 1985, where Bruce and the crowd do a great call and response part for a few minutes. It’s a very cool rendition that everyone should check out – on the full-length release of Live After Death, because this is a single and it’s an edited song with the crowd part chopped out.

I do get the reasoning – this was released as a single and they weren’t doing 8-minute long live jams on the radio in the ’80’s. BUT, it sucks not to have the full song on this 12-inch record. The brief version is fine to listen to but is obviously not the full experience.

A note on the B-sides before I get into them – while not available on Live After Death, there is a 1995 Iron Maiden reissue series from Castle Records with bonus discs that do have the B-sides with the album, though on a second CD. To my knowledge this is the only way to get these songs “packaged” with the live album in any official capacity. And the Castle Records discs aren’t the easiest things to come by these days so it’s not a huge deal anyway.

Sanctuary

Our first B-side is a track from the Long Beach shows. Sanctuary is from the first album, though only in certain countries and was its own single as well. It’s well done here with Bruce in full air raid siren mode and the band keeping pace with the rest of their set, a bit frantic and faster than the albums. That style fits this tune fine. I will admit I do prefer Paul Di’Anno’s vocals on this particular track, there’s something about his snarl that fits the song a bit more than Bruce’s operatic approach. This version is totally fine though, no complaints here.

Murders In The Rue Morgue

This is the “bonus” B-side for the 12-inch record and is a super cool treat as it’s my favorite track from the Killers album. As with the other songs, this one is cranked up a bit but it’s executed very well. Not a whole lot else to say other than I consider this a special treat and very worthy listening.

That’s all for this week. Next time we’re into the band’s synth era and we are just two weeks away from what’s considered the most interesting and lore-ridden B-side in Maiden history.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Sanctuary

Purgatory

Stranger In A Strange Land

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live) (you are here)

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

Van Halen – For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (Album of the Week)

On April 10, 2023April 9, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week10 Comments

This week it’s time to head back to the fateful year of 1991, but in this case it’s to visit a band that was immune to the tectonic shift in rock that year. Van Halen were riding high heading into their third album with Sammy Hagar at the mic. While many dismissed Van Hagar as AOR rubbish that didn’t hold a candle to the beloved David Lee Roth era, VH were cranking out number one albums and hit singles as well as arenas full of eager fans.

Van Halen – For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

Released June 17, 1991

My Favorite Tracks – The Dream Is Over, Poundcake, Judgment Day

Van Halen spent a year recording their first effort of the 1990’s. While Andy Johns was tabbed to produce, the band also brought in an old friend – Ted Templeman, who had famously guided the band’s early albums but had been absent through the Van Hagar era. The duel producers were a means to satisfy Sammy, who apparently didn’t enjoy working with Johns.

This album would see Van Halen forego the synth-based AOR rock of the late ’80’s and move to a heavier song structure based on guitar, and the occasional power tool. While I’m sure the band made the decision on their own terms, it did coincidentally fit with the times as the album’s release slotted in the summer that hair metal, AOR and other venerable forms of rock met their mainstream end.

The album cover is nice though also basic, but the real art lore was in the inner booklet pictures. In first pressings of the album, one photograph showed a blackboard with a bunch of phone numbers on it. Some of the phone numbers got massive amounts of calls, so the record label repressed the album with the phone numbers removed. Note that these CD and cassette versions are not hard to acquire, it was a mass produced item so the phone numbers version carries no premium. Vinyl copies of the album did not have the blackboard photo that I know of, but vinyl of this album is scarce and does command huge value.

And of course there’s the album title. If it isn’t obvious, it spells out FUCK. The phrase was NOT the origin of the actual word “fuck,” which is a thing that’s out there but isn’t true.

There are 11 songs running at near 52 minutes total, time to head on in.

Poundcake

We start off with Eddie using a drill to mess with his pickups and then we’re off to the races. This is a heavy, driving track that doesn’t go too fast but really slams its point home. And that also happens to be what the song is about – slamming the point home with a nice, lovely woman.

Judgment Day

This one retains the heaviness but gets a bit faster as Sammy extols the virtues of kicking back in life and staying out of the ambitious rat race. This song was a big hit with my teenage self, perhaps informing me a bit more than it should. But hey, it’s all good.

Spanked

This one is pure sleaze and grime. This is some monster heaviness from Eddie and the band, it goes a degree further with it than Van Halen ever really went before. This one also has a good helping of the backing vocals that Van Halen were famous for but were not emphasized a lot on this album.

The song is about the old 1-900 numbers, which were a pre-Internet outlet for the sexually frustrated gentleman. They were total rip-offs as magazines were far cheaper, but I guess nothing beats that “personal” interaction. The song today would be about OnlyFans.

Runaround

One of the album’s featured singles, this track is a bit of a faster-paced and a less R-rated version of a sex song. It could be considered basic but it’s a pleasant song and I don’t find anything wrong with it. The video makes use of the rotating stage Van Halen were into using in their live shows, a pretty obvious fit given the song title.

Pleasure Dome

This one is a bit of an oddball. It’s still fittingly heavy for the record but is also a bit out in left field, at least in vibe it’s reminiscent of the prior album OU812. It seems like someone is caught in an artificial utopia of some sort but is aware and wants out, some kind of virtual reality or simulation kind of thing maybe. There is some seriously crazy riffing from Eddie on here, it hangs back a bit in the song but its truly something to behold.

In ‘N’ Out

A bit more of an “open” rocker here, it’s a song about how money makes the world go around and most people are basically screwed no matter what they do. The song’s loose rock vibe is a bit in contrast with the grave subject matter but it’s a sign that Van Halen were willing to explore more serious lyrical fare, something that comes up again on this album.

Man On A Mission

Another bit of a loose and upbeat song, this is Sammy motivating himself to go out and get his girl. Parts of the song are a bit self-help in nature and then other parts are total sleaze, it all works pretty well overall.

The Dream Is Over

A total vibe shift here from going out and getting some to a stark condemnation of the system and its leverage against the average citizen. This one really came from out of nowhere and delivered a powerful statement about the workings of society. Eddie and Sammy had discussed turning an eye toward more serious lyrical fare and they hit on it big time here. The song feels like nothing less than a death certificate for the American Dream and feels just as relevant today as it was 32 years ago.

Right Now

The album’s huge hit and a song that caused a lot discussion back on release. This was another of the songs with a more serious look at things and is the song Sammy Hagar has declared his proudest lyrical moment from his Van Halen days.

Right Now is about embracing change and reaching for it in the moment, even in the face of great adversity. The music video featured a bunch of random footage with text of things that were going on “right now,” some funny but many serious. The video was a smash hit and is likely the band’s biggest of their career.

Right Now was also used by Pepsi in a huge advertising campaign for Crystal Pepsi. The story of that soda is an odd one all its own, but for Van Halen it caused a fair bit of anger for the band “selling out” to corporate interest. Eddie justified the licensing, saying that the ad agency would have simply hired some jingle writers to do a basic cover of the song anyway, and he was correct in that assessment.

316

This instrumental track was originally written during the 5150 era but was brought back out by Eddie when his son Wolfgang Van Halen was born. Wolfgang’s birthdate was 3-16-1991, thus giving a title to the piece. This one is a quiet and reflective piece that sequences very well after the thematically heavy nature of Right Now.

Top Of The World

The album ends with a more “standard” Van Halen track that connects more to the prior Van Hagar releases. It’s a pretty simple and uplifting song that pretty well says what the title communicates. It’s a pretty nice way to close a record that was filthy in parts and serious in others.

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge was another smash hit for the Van Hagar camp. It spent 3 weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 chart and would come out with 3 US platinum certifications. Singles from the album were all over radio and MTV, and the band’s tour for this cycle was one of their longest. While success can be defined by many different metrics, this period was easily one of the band’s most successful. Music critics were not very into this album, but the record won the popularity contest.

For me personally this was a pretty watershed moment in my music history. The summer of ’91 was when I really took off as far as getting into music goes, and I went to get this one on the day it was released. Along with it I also bought an album that had just come out a week prior, that being Skid Row’s second album Slave To The Grind. I went back and forth between both albums constantly and both tapes got wore out pretty quickly.

The “Van Hagar” era gets a fair bit of flack from Van Halen fans, with many people living and dying on the classic catalog built in the band’s first frame with David Lee Roth. I would never in a million years argue against that period of the band. But to discount Sammy’s tenure is short-sighted and for me, this album is the high point of that time.

S-Tier Songs, Vol. 23

On April 7, 2023April 6, 2023 By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs6 Comments

And on again to the S-Tier songs series, or my own personal song “hall of fame,” if you will. For the list of songs in so far and the general premise behind it, head to the main page. And we are now just a few away from me ending my “no artist repeat” rule – after the 25^th one and nearly 2 years of me running this, I’ll open the floodgates and let artists have multiple entries on the list. I wonder who will be first ….

But for today it’s a first-time entry, and a big hit from a massive record in the early ’90’s that did big business and made superstars out of a pair of brothers.

The Black Crowes – She Talks To Angels

Today’s subject was the fourth single from the 1990 multi-platinum smash Shake Your Money Maker. The song got to number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100, but caught the number 1 spot on both the Mainstream rock chart and the Radio And Records AOR Tracks chart. If you haven’t heard of that last chart, you are in good company because I haven’t either, but a number 1 is a number 1.

For the Black Crowes, this kept the train rolling. They were literally living up to the name of their album – the money maker was in full swing. This southern band bucked all trends and were a hot commodity all through the turmoil of 1991, essentially immune to the seismic shifts in rock trends that happened during the fateful summer.

She Talks To Angels is a fairly simple acoustic tune. After a bit the drums and an organ join in but the song is basically the background music and the singing. Simple is often best for songs, especially those intended for mainstream appeal, and everyone hit the nail on the head here. While the Black Crowes were certainly capable of more than a catchy tune, that would be an exploration for their future albums. Here on the debut things are kept trim and effective.

Where the song really connects with people is in its theme, and it’s a very sad one of a young woman caught in the grip of addiction. This isn’t a story-song so much as a peek into the life of someone gripped in the pains of drug addiction. This song paints a picture and leaves it for inspection, there is no beginning and end here.

It is a fairly universal theme, one that a fair number of people have some experience with. Many have either been the girl in the song or know the girl in the song. Well, that applied to a lot of people, but not so much the song’s creator Chris Robinson, who just kind of knew the girl who inspired the song.

Chris tells the story in the 2010 YouTube piece embedded below – the song is about a goth girl he knew growing up that was addicted to heroin. Everything else about the song came from Chris’ imagination, as at the time he had no experience with the issues he was writing about. He did know the girl and was friendly with her but did not relay any of her personal story through the song.

This song has lived on through classic rock radio and is also a streaming champion with over 100 million Spotify plays. It would make any list of essential Black Crowes tunes, even after the band spent a career carving their own path out since the debut. It’s also a song that has been covered endlessly by artists from all genres of music.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

She Talks To Angels is a sweet yet sad acoustic ballad outlining the trials of a young person caught in addiction. The theme caught on with a wide audience and the song itself was one of several hits from a mega debut album. Over 30 years later the song remains a staple of rock formats and a favorite of many far and wide.

Run To The Hills (live) – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On April 6, 2023May 25, 2023 By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series26 Comments

Today it’s time to move into the singles from Iron Maiden’s first official live album, the heralded Live After Death. This live set is a massively celebrated treasure of the catalog and there were two singles offered up.

Live After Death has a bit of a confusing make-up – most of the songs were recorded over four nights in Long Beach, California in March of 1985. A handful of others were recorded in October 1984 in London. It’s these London shows that provide the B-sides for the single and the only relevant part for the singles series – actually tracking how Live After Death has been released in its many versions is a pain in the ass to be reserved for another time.

The cover art is another Derek Riggs piece, though this one is a bit confusing. Eddie is playing a huge synthesizer/organ on top of some mountains. It doesn’t make sense to the uninformed eye. Riggs was given instructions to combine Run To The Hills and Phantom Of The Opera in his artwork so this cover was the result and makes a great deal more sense with that context behind it. It actually is a pretty interesting piece of the Eddie art lore, even for its initial WTF aura. Still odd, but understandable given the artistic direction.

The single was released in 12-inch and 7-inch vinyl versions as well as cassette. I have and will be discussing the 12-inch record. The following YouTube clip has the first two songs of the single.

Run To The Hills

This cut is directly from Live After Death and is on all versions. It was from the Long Beach concerts, though discerning which specific concert is a research and argument-filled road I’m not going to go down.

The live cuts from these shows see Maiden playing at a high intensity and picking up the pace on pretty well all of the songs. This does make a very stark contrast to some songs, especially Hallowed Be Thy Name. On Run To The Hills there is a noticeable uptick in pace but the song functions very similar to its familiar studio version. It is one of Maiden’s most-known songs and it works very well in the live setting. There isn’t anything terribly different or interesting lore-wise to recount about the song here so let’s move on to the B-sides.

Phantom Of The Opera

The first B-side is one of the London performances and this one is on several versions of the full album. I’m not going to track the specific ones because it’s a lot of if’s, and’s or but’s and it would take up too much space. The relevant part is that this is the B-side on all of the singles.

What we have here is a cut from the debut album, done in the faster-paced live setting of the period and with the huge difference of having Bruce Dickinson on vocals as opposed to Paul Di’Anno. While there was nothing wrong with the original cut at all, there is something special here with Bruce tearing into this one. The song gets a pretty different feel with the faster pace and bits that are done different than the original. And Bruce showcases his range pretty well here, hanging out in the lower end for a lot of the song but truly making his mark on the track. This one is quite a treat.

Losfer Words (Big ‘Orra)

Our 12-inch “bonus” B-side is an instrumental track from the Powerslave album. This performance is also from one of the London shows and is not available on most versions of Live After Death, only on a 2-disc 1995 CD reissue series.

Despite being instrumental, Bruce gets in a few words before the band starts, basically lamenting his lack of presence on the song. Then the band launches in to the tune. It is performed faithfully to the original version though still a touch faster than. There is not a whole lot to say about an instrumental tune but this one is certainly worth checking out, it is a pretty nice jam.

That’s all for today’s single. Next week it’s on to the other one from Live After Death.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Sanctuary

Purgatory