First off – I haven’t been on schedule this week at all. This was a combination of the holiday weekend and just general laziness. I’ll have a post today, the next Maiden live album tomorrow, then be back to normal next week.
For today here’s a quick and easy one – this is a new song from metal legends Saxon, who are preparing the release of their 24th album this coming January. 24 records is absolutely staggering and just a great accomplishment, and that the vast majority of them are solid albums is also fantastic.
This new song Hell, Fire And Damnation was released last week and is the title track from the new record. It is a really nice song, Saxon have had a winning metal formula down now for quite awhile so it’s no huge surprise. The music does suit the pretty heavy topic at hand, which of course are also three of my favorite things – hell, fire and damnation.
I am a bit unclear as to one member of Saxon’s present line-up. The following are in place – Biff Byford as the band’s constant presence on vocals, guitarist Dug Scarratt, Bassist Nibbs Carter and drummer Nigel Glockler are all along for the ride. Back earlier in 2023, co-founding member Paul Quinn retired from touring. It was assumed he was going to be involved with future recording endeavors, but here we have an interesting quirk without a ready answer.
To replace Quinn in the touring line-up, Saxon recrutied longtime Diamond Head mainstay Brian Tatler. He was billed as a touring replacement and did state in certain terms that he would also be continuing with Diamond Head. However, the video clearly features Tatler in it and the video blurb touts the guitar duo of Scarratt and Tatler, so going by these bits of information it appears Brian Tatler is fully Saxon’s second guitarist. I’m sure all of this will be made clearer as the album’s release is closer.
That is about all for this one, it’ll be one of many albums I’m looking forward to next year. I’m curious also to see just how much longer Saxon goes on, but at this point I won’t doubt the great British beast to continue for several more years, anyway.
Let’s get this first bit out of the way – En Vivo!, as it translates from Spanish, means “as it happens live.” I don’t actually know this myself as I don’t speak Spanish even though I took it for two years in school 100 years ago, but I’ll trust Wikipedia on this one. Google seems to confirm that it has something to do with “live,” so we’ll go with that.
And live is what we have, once again we are on to a reunion era album and its corresponding tour. The feature album this time is The Final Frontier, which was released in August of 2010. The studio album was pretty well received both commercially and critically, though it did “dip” a bit in perception and maybe was under the radar compared to other reunion albums. All of that is relative, of course, I can only speak to what I’ve witnessed over the years.
This album, which also received what is to date the last physical release of an equivalent video component, was released in March of 2012. This concert was recorded in Santiago, Chile in April of 2011. This is another case of a single, complete concert being released officially. While in the end that’s no huge deal, it is cool to have complete documents of shows.
This audio release did chart in many countries, though not all that high in most cases. The video release did chart extremely well. The song Blood Brothers was nominated in the Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance category at the 2013 Grammy Awards, Halestorm was the winner of that one.
I’ll do the normal thing here – post the tracklist, then get into the nuts and bolts of it.
Satellite 15
The Final Frontier
El Dorado
2 Minutes To Midnight
The Talisman
Coming Home
Dance Of Death
The Trooper
The Wicker Man
Blood Brothers
When The Wild Wind Blows
The Evil That Men Do
Fear Of The Dark
Iron Maiden
The Number Of The Beast
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Running Free
So there’s not a whole lot to talk about in terms of song selection, we know by now what we’re getting with these reunion era live albums. It is several tracks from the new album, here we have a sprinkling of other reunion era cuts, and then a whole list of very obvious Maiden live inclusions.
We do get two songs from Brave New World as well as the excellent title track from Dance Of Death. Those are really nice songs to hear still included years later. The Wicker Man is one of the more recognizable and energetic songs from BNW, and Blood Brothers is a Maiden anthem at this point.
The real judgment of this album comes from the songs picked off of The Final Frontier, and on this the band hit a home run. I’d say every critical track is here – the singles like the title track and El Dorado, the quite underrated quasi-ballad Coming Home and two of the album’s epic cuts – The Talisman, and the nuclear war song Where The Wild Wind Blows. Some might quibble about El Dorado but I think everything here works.
Some might also vent over the inclusion of Satellite 15, which is an intro cut. The main issue people seem to have with the song is that it was placed on the studio album as one track along with the first proper song. Here is was a separate track and also different in form. I personally don’t care that much if bands do intro stuff and I simply have other things to care about, it doesn’t bother me.
I could pine for two songs that didn’t make the set – Isle Of Avalon and Starblind. The former might be a bit much to work with live as it is in contrast to the rest of the band’s material, but Starblind would have worked. It would have been super cool to have them but the band typically does about six off the recent album so this pretty well fits the mold.
The performances here all sound good, nothing is off or bad. It’s a good quality recording and probably wasn’t edited, it has a very “in the moment” feel. Maiden generally don’t edit their live stuff but have been known to do so a time or two, but this sounds pretty solid and untouched.
Maiden do again keep more to the songs’ original paces here, maybe sped up by a hair in some cases and honestly a bit slower in others. The band were getting long in the tooth entering the 2010’s and many wondered if the album title hinted at the band’s impending demise. Well, its 13 years since The Final Frontier released and no, Maiden certainly did not intend to quit in the 2010’s.
Overall En Vivo! Is a fine live package from Maiden. The main highlights are the inclusions from the album being featured on the tour. Those who aren’t necessarily out to get every Maiden live album would have to decide how much they want to hear live stuff from The Final Frontier to judge if this is worth a pick-up.
Next week we’ll go back in time for one final visit to the band’s golden 1980’s era and a deluxe offering of a set that showcased Maiden at the end of their peak, or at least their first peak..
It’s time this week for one of rock and metal’s most immortal albums. Deep Purple were looking to build on momentum from a prior album and also do a better job of capturing their live sound on a studio album when they made a series of recording choices that would both cement them as rock titans and also contribute one of rock and roll’s most infamous song origin stories.
Deep Purple – Machine Head
Released March 25, 1972 via Purple Records
My Favorite Tracks – Space Truckin’, Smoke On The Water, Highway Star
The story of Machine Head and its recording has long been etched into rock music lore. Deep Purple were out to better capture their live sound on a record. The band had established some success on the basis of their album two records ago, Deep Purple In Rock, and were convinced that bringing their live sound to a studio record would help them along. The band booked the famous Rolling Stones Mobile Studio and lined up to record at the Montreux Casino in Switzerland. The original plan was to record a live set as well as the studio album and release a double record. Of course, those plans went up in flames, as we’ll get to.
Tracking Deep Purple line-ups could drive the world’s foremost scholars mad, there is a whole lore and science behind it. This album featured the band’s Mark II roster, which would be the band’s most successful configuration. It featured Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Ian Gillan on vocals, Roger Glover with the bass, the immortal Jon Lord on keyboards and the band’s lone constant member Ian Paice on drums.
Deep Purple would be credited as album producers. They were joined by engineer Martin Birch, who had worked with Purple on previous albums as well as Fleetwood Mac in their early career. Birch would go on to produce for Blackmore again in Rainbow, handle the early Whitesnake albums as well as the first two Dio-fronted Black Sabbath records before settling in as the long-time producer of another British band I might happen to talk about all the time on this site.
Today’s album has a fairly lean 7 songs running at 37:46. Several deluxe editions of the album are also available.
Highway Star
The album opens with a quick hard rocker that was literally written in front of journalists on a bus after one reporter asked how the band wrote songs. Blackmore started jamming on a guitar while Gillan composed lyrics on the fly about simply “being a rock and roll band.” This was also released as a single.
This ode to cars and women accomplished its mission of depicting rock and roll, and the music laid a blueprint for many bands to follow – keep things simple and just rock out.
Maybe I’m A Leo
Up next is a blues jam soaked in Blackmore’s guitar tone and spiced up with Lord’s organ work. It’s a really nice song and a good bridge from rock’s recent past to what it was becoming. There are sparse lyrics here, but Gillan laments the loss of a woman, who maybe was taken away against her will, it’s hard to tell. But she is gone and Gillan is a Leo, but not a lion. (Hey, me too. And it turns out Ian Gillan and I have the same birthday, didn’t know that.)
Pictures Of Home
We have a very amped up jam session here, as each instrument player gets a spot to go off on his chosen weapon of rock. It’s far from just an individual showcase though, it’s also a cohesive song that works when everyone’s playing together as well as when one person takes the spotlight. It also features a harrowing lyrical tale of a mountain climber stuck on a mountain, which would be a pretty awful position to be in. And there’s probably not a British rock royalty jam session going on up on the mountain to pass the time with.
Never Before
It’s another blues-based tune here also with a bit of funk creeping in on occasion. While Lord and Blackmore are up to their usual mastery here, it’s Ian Gillan that really gets a chance to shine vocally here. His tale is one of sorrow, as he’s been done wrong by a woman, but the song is pretty hard hitting and ready to soar.
Smoke On The Water
And here we are. The truth is that this song’s full details deserve their own post so I will Cliffnotes things today. DP were set to record at the Montreaux Casino after it shut down for the winter, the last gig the venue booked was Frank Zappa. A “stupid with a flare gun” decided to burn the place down instead. DP had to find another place to record and also found lyrical inspiration for a song in the fire. In fact, the song’s lyrics give most of the details of the events.
Smoke On The Water was not immediately recognized as a hit. In fact, the band had a live album and another studio record out before this was officially released as a single. The song went on to hit number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was also certified gold in the US.
But the song’s true success goes far beyond charts and sales. The Blackmore riff is perhaps rock and roll’s most recognizable guitar sound. It is simple yet highly effective, and it led to generations of future guitar players annoying music shop employees with repeated plays of a riff so simple that most anyone could play it in a few minutes. This is quite possibly the greatest contribution to rock music ever, it is that massive and influential.
Lazy
This one is nearly an instrumental and is a fantastic jam between Blackmore and Lord. The song is 7:22 in length and these two take up most of the track. It is a jam in the truest sense, with them simply going off and doing what they want to do. The small verse section is about, well, being lazy. It is split in two with Ian Gillan on the harmonica between.
Space Truckin’
The album closes with a brilliant rock and, honestly, heavy metal track. It’s a fantastic, trippy march through the idea of being just what the title says – a space trucker. It’s like Han Solo a few years before he came around. The song is carried by Jon Lord’s just plain gross keyboard riffing. This song got turned into a massive jam in live settings, including an infamous one in 1974 when Blackmore was pissed off and destroyed thousands of dollars in gear.
Machine Head was to be the magnum opus of Deep Purple’s long and storied career. The album hit number 7 on the Billboard 200, and number 1 in 8 countries, including their home UK. It was certified gold in 4 countries and 2 times platinum in the US. Bear in mind that most record labels stop certification counts due to expense and it’s likely that the record has gone on to sell vastly more.
The immortality and legend of Machine Head is undisputed. When there is a list of the greatest rock and metal albums, this album is on there. When there is a list of the greatest songs, Smoke On The Water is on there. When there is a list of rocks’ greatest guitarists, Ritchie Blackmore is there. Deep Purple would, along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, form the “holy trinity” of rock music in the 1970’s. It is the influence of these three bands that shaped the face of music to come and the foundation upon what a lot of the stuff I listen to was built on. It was Deep Purple that influenced a lot of what I and we listen to, and specifically Machine Head that spun on the turntables of the next generation of musicians over and over again. There truly is nothing without this piece of rock history.
This week we head to 2009, when Iron Maiden released a live album to coincide with a theatrical documentary release. The band had been approached by Banger Films to do a documentary and Iron Maiden: Flight 666 was the result of that. The film was widely celebrated among fans and also helped truly nail down the group’s legacy. That legacy had been growing exponentially through the reunion era, to a degree that people might not have even realized.
I’ll go over the film in the future, but will fully recommend it to anyone, Maiden fan or not. Today’s focus will be the accompanying live album. These songs were recorded during the band’s Somewhere Back In Time Tour in 2008. As the name implies, the setlist was purely focused on retro material. Every song is from the 1980’s but one, Fear Of The Dark from 1992. This was a hits set and was billed as such. In and of itself that is no problem at all, though it did cause a curious issue regarding what we didn’t get for a live album.
Maiden had come off the tour cycle for A Matter Of Life And Death before this tour. Those shows were unique in that the band played the entire new album on stage, followed by a small encore of signature hits. The emergence of this Flight 666 film gave the band the opportunity to release a live album for that, clearly not a bad idea at all.
But – we lost on an AMOLAD live album, and I would guess it’s because of this. I presume that the film was what kept the group from releasing the “entire album” live set. There is fan speculation that Maiden were taken aback some at the not always enthusiastic response from the crowd at the AMOLAD live shows, and further speculation that this is what caused them to shitcan the live album idea for that tour.
Now, it is true that some people didn’t really know what was going on when Maiden were playing their new album live front to back. People die hard into the band like me would not only enjoy the premise but also eat up the content, but a lot of people at shows haven’t heard or don’t like the new albums. There are plenty of people out there who adore Maiden and will go see them in concert but just don’t like any of the reunion material. Add in groups of fans who weren’t really keeping up with the group and I can see where some were thrown off by the AMOLAD performances.
So the point in all of this is that, perhaps, Maiden chose to write off the AMOLAD stuff due to fan backlash. I don’t know if that’s true, I feel the more practical matter of having a film tie-in led the band to focus on it. But it very well could be true that the band shuffled the deck a bit after not getting as glowing of a reception as they wanted for AMOLAD’s tour. Some guess that all of this was the reason for the Somewhere Back In Time tour in the first place, but again it’s all just a guessing game and we’ll likely never have concrete answers.
So with all the background and speculation and a missing reunion era live album all covered, let’s get into the details of the live album we did get. Flight 666 covers the Somewhere Back In Time Setlist and is a compendium of different stops on the tour. Each song is from a different venue and the locations selected were every inhabited continent except for Europe. It was a really cool way to spread the love as far as possible, so now places like India, Australia and Costa Rica have at least a song documented on a Maiden live album.
Maiden had decent-ish success with sales and album charts on their prior few live albums, but this one really ignited attention. The audio portion charted reasonably well across many territories, including being the first live Maiden in awhile to land on the US Billboard 200 at number 34. The video package, including both the film and concert video, was a smash success, hitting number 1 in 22 separate countries.
Let’s have at the tracklist for this set and then get under the hood of it.
Aces High
2 Minutes To Midnight
Revelations
The Trooper
Wasted Years
The Number Of The Beast
Can I Play With Madness
Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
Powerslave
Heaven Can Wait
Run To The Hills
Fear Of The Dark
Iron Maiden
Moonchild
The Clairvoyant
Hallowed Be Thy Name
As for the sound quality – it is very good. I will say it’s maybe a step off of amazing capture quality, but it all sounds good and is not in any way an unpleasant listening experience. I can see where it would be challenging to get a cohesive set out of 16 performances all in different venues, but it is stitched together pretty well.
As for the performances themselves, they are Maiden in good form and executing things well. They do actually seem to be more on normal tempo here than they often are live, I guess they left the truck stop pills at home for this tour. There generally isn’t anything wrong with their accelerated pace but it is interesting to hear them dial it back a hair on this one.
Now into the song selection. This one is pretty obvious given the nature of the tour. This was a greatest hits set and thus all of the songs are pretty obvious choices. Of course we’d get Aces High and The Number Of The Beast, and of course they’d close with Hallowed Be Thy Name. And really nothing here is a “hidden gem” or deep cut – these are all beloved songs that have been played live a lot before and have been again after this tour.
Some might consider Revelations a bit of a “secondary” track that did get played, but it’s a pretty revered cut and they’ve played it over 600 times live so it’s not a … revelation. The true “treats” on this one might be Rime Of The Ancient Mariner and Powerslave. Both have been on multiple other live albums but their length often keeps them on the sidelines, at least compared to how they’ve played the song Iron Maiden at every single gig.
So what we have is a nice hits package that is played well, sounds good and represents the band’s most popular songs very well. There’s nothing to knock here – some might call this an unnecessary set due to these songs’ proliferation across other live albums, but it’s still nice to have a document of this tour and movie. I have no issue with it and consider it a welcome addition to the catalog. If you’re gonna have this many live albums, might as well have one that runs down the highlights.
Next week it’s back to the reunion era live album cycle, as a possibly underrated studio album got some live light shined on it.
Going back in time this week to one of the early foundational albums of US power metal. This isn’t the same power metal of 2000’s Europe – this is far more “meat and potatoes” metal that draws a direct line from the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal.
Omen – Battle Cry
Released November 1984 via Metal Blade Records
My Favorite Tracks – The Axeman, Dragon’s Breath, Battle Cry
Omen got their start when founded by guitarist and lone remaining original member Kenny Powell in Los Angeles, California in 1983. Powell was joined by J.D. Kimball on vocals, Jody Henry on bass and Steve Wittig on drums. The band would have this debut album ready about a year after forming.
Today’s album is rather brief, with 10 songs at 36 minutes. We are also light on background info for this one, any easily accessible digital information is very lean and any good old interviews or the like are buried in old print magazines that aren’t easy to come by. Too bad there isn’t a heavy metal library with all the old stuff accessible for reference, but there isn’t so we can run through this one pretty quick.
The album opens with Death Rider. This opens with a nice intro guitar piece and goes into a pretty fast-paced romp through a maniac tearing up the world. Up next is what I and many others consider the album’s highlight, The Axeman. This killer song offers up the impending execution of someone who tried to usurp a kingdom. This isn’t a sad ode to one’s last moments as in many other noted metal execution songs, rather this a recording of the nefarious deeds that condemned the offender.
Last Rites is next and could almost be a sequel to the prior track, though this time gallows are substituted for beheading. It’s a very nice riff that runs through this song. Dragon’s Breath comes in next and is straight out of the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual, of course the cool first edition with demons and shit in it. But this time it’s a dragon tearing things up in fantasy land and as this killer power metal song unfolds, it’s clear the tyrannical dragon has the upper hand.
Up next is a bit of a gag of a song with Be My Wench. I could see people having an issue with this one as some of the lyrics get at the woman in question being a bit too young to be engaging in wench-like activities, but I don’t think this was ever meant to be taken seriously. It is a pretty decent song in the end.
It’s time next for the title track Battle Cry. This is another bit of a horse gallop playing with a nice gang chorus chant as more war and carnage ensue in this unnamed fantasy land. The slaughter continues on Die By The Blade, which is pretty self-explanatory. There’s more very epic riffing from Kenny Powell on this one.
The album rounds into the close with Prince Of Darkness. While this album isn’t a concept album, this little arc of songs does almost form its own little story with this one seeing what could be the main villain in battle. Next is Bring Out The Beast, a song where a guy hooks up with a woman then all of sudden is being burned at the stake, not sure what’s up here. Pretty cool music, though. Things wrap up with In The Arena. The intro to this one is not the greatest but the song moves into a better form after that. This one is a bit slower paced than the other songs here.
Battle Cry was a rock solid debut and one of the foundational albums in US power metal. Omen would issue a few more albums in the ’80’s that furthered their initial legacy, the band would then begin a series of line-up changes and go on hiatus in the 1990’s. They would reconvene and remain a consistent touring outfit since, occasionally dropping new material as well.
Omen would not sell on the same levels as the thrash acts that took off in the mid’80’s, but they have cemented an important place as helping establish the power metal sound on US shores. Today they are hailed as a lynchpin of traditional metal and this first album is a great spot to hear the reasons why.
This week’s Iron Maiden live excursion goes back to the reunion era. This album is culled from the 2003 tour for the album Dance Of Death. This was the band’s second album in the reunion era, which at the time was still growing legs but as we know 20 years later has been the most enduring era of Maiden.
Back on one of these earlier live album posts I said something like how there were only two or so of these live albums taken from a single concert. Well, I think I’ve covered four of them by this point that are single-show complete concerts. This one is also a single show concert that features the complete setlist. It was recorded in Dortmund, Germany in November of 2003 and the songs featured on the live record are the same as those they played that night, so this is a complete show.
Now, I don’t know if they did or didn’t cut some things out. I doubt they cut music but they may have trimmed some stage banter or other stuff. I can’t get definitive sources on this so I won’t commit to saying one way or the other, just that it’s an argument I see going around on fan forums. I don’t have the source material of the original concert and I wasn’t there, so I can’t offer personal testimony. But the setlist is the same, from what I can gather.
The audio release of this was in August of 2005, which was right on a year before they’d do their next studio album. The video of this took longer to get out and was hung up on technical difficulties, which I’ll address down the line when I cover the video series specifically. Today it’s just the audio live album.
Our line-up on this album is the same as it’s been through the reunion years – Steve Harris, the capitan on bass, Bruce Dickinson on the mic, Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers on guitars, and Nicko McBrain handling the drums.
We also get original Eddie artwork on this album cover courtesy of Melvyn Grant, who is the general “number two” behind iconic Eddie artist Derrick Riggs. This is a pretty cool cover with Eddie still in his Grim Reaper guise, leading a haunted stagecoach. What this cover isn’t is the eyesore that Dance Of Death is so it automatically wins a lot of bonus points just for that. But it’s also a cool cover art that should be enjoyed on its own merits.
Here’s the tracklist, then we can get into the meat of the album.
Wildest Dreams
Wrathchild
Can I Play With Madness
The Trooper
Dance Of Death
Rainmaker
Brave New World
Paschendale
Lord Of The Flies
No More Lies
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Fear Of The Dark
Iron Maiden
Journeyman
The Number Of The Beast
Run To The Hills
I’ll lead off with sound quality – this one sounds fantastic. In the 2000’s it was far easier to capture good live sound than in the past, so there’s no production issues or wonky sound quality. There’s nothing here to criticize or point out, it’s all great sound.
Song selection does get to be an issue on these reunion live albums, as four of them all follow the same formula – a pile of stuff from the current record, one or two “oddball” selections, then a compilation of the obvious hits. That’s what we have here, as six of these songs are from Dance Of Death. One is from the prior album Brave New World (guess which one!) and one is from the Blaze album The X Factor. And that one, Lord Of The Flies, is a very welcome addition from my perspective. It’s one I always liked from that period and hearing Maiden keep it alive is very nice.
All of the other songs are dead ringers for Iron Maiden setlists. They are the band’s most known and celebrated songs and it’s no surprise they would get aired out live. It does stand to reason that these songs are also on most other live albums so it’s running a lot of the same ground, but there isn’t any real way around that.
So the heart of these reunion live albums is the material taken from the current album Maiden are touring on. Of the six picks here, all are good selections for the live set. Dance Of Death was a bit varied in scope but did have some clear bangers on it and the record is well represented here. And as this live set is a showcase of the album, it is where the live album’s highlights also come from.
The title track is the first real showstopper moment. This song is a masterpiece and it doesn’t disappoint live. Another massive moment is the live airing of Paschendale. Bruce introduces the song with a passage from a 1917 poem by Wilbur Smith called Anthem For Doomed Youth. The song and poem are both about the horrors of World War I. This song is one of Maiden’s best and has for quite some time reigned as my favorite of the reunion era. It would have been criminal, at least to me, not have this in the set and thankfully it was.
The final highlight is a bit of a departure for Maiden. Journeyman is the band’s only acoustic song and they brought it out live for this tour. Maiden going acoustic sounds like an odd choice but the song worked out very well, and it’s evident that the crowd is into it as they sing along with the chorus. It’s very nice to have a memento of this song being done live, might not ever hear it again on stage.
Death On The Road is a very nice live package. It might have some “limitations” in terms of having a lot of the same obvious songs as other live albums, but this one does have a great selection of songs from Dance Of Death and it’s a good performance to boot. It’s not the first one a person just starting out their collection should grab, but it is a worthwhile document of when the reunion era when from being a stint and showed it had staying power.
Next week, it’s somewhere back in time – literally, as the band culled a live set from that tour to accompany a motion picture about them.
The song this week is a hit cut from Cypress Hill’s 1993 album Black Sunday. This song was big business for the California rap outfit, as it hit number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was a number 1 on the rap chart. It also was certified 3 times platinum as a single, and Black Sunday was the group’s second multi-platinum album in a row, it going 4 times platinum. Cypress Hill had already gained a following, but this song would blow them up.
Insane In The Brain is a song with a very, very familiar beat – if you think it sounds a lot like House Of Pain’s 1992 hit Jump Around, that’s because it does on purpose. This 2019 interview with The Guardian lays out the song’s background – DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill was the producer for the House Of Pain song. He originally tried getting Cypress Hill to use the beat but they didn’t want to record at the time, so he worked it into the HoP song. He liked the foundation a lot so he worked it up again for the next CH album. So no one was ripping anyone off on this one, except DJ Muggs ripping himself off.
Also there is a bit of the song’s lyrical background in the interview, courtesy of Sen Dog. He says the inspiration behind the title was a phrase that the hardest gangsters would use when talking to each other. If one walked up and said “I’m insane, got no brain,” that meant some crazy shit was about to go off. Even in gang culture, it was something reserved for the real heavy stuff.
As it turns out, the actual verses themselves are diss tracks, or Cypress Hill’s responses to being dissed. B-Real’s first verse is a response to a rapper named Chubb Rock, who apparently did a whole song mocking B-Real. And Sen Dog’s verse is aimed at Kid Frost, someone Sen had been close to but who changed and talked some smack about Cypress Hill.
What I’ll say is this – I’d never heard the names Chubb Rock or Kid Frost before looking into this song for this post. I’ve “heard of” Cypress Hill for over 30 years now, so I think the diss winner is pretty evident.
For all of the background that might not be evident on listen, the simple distillation here is that this is a slamming track. It is slight bits creepy and goofy, just enough of both to lend shades to the song without coloring it too much. B-Real’s vocal delivery on the chorus lends a twisted atmosphere to things, and everything comes together with the already familiar beat template to put together a total banger. No one really needed to know what the song was about, just that it was nuts and was a great time.
This song was all the rage back in 1993, when I turned 16 and was happy to enjoy these different sorts of things presented on MTV and through the alt-culture that sprung up around then. Cypress Hill had a ton of crossover appeal and it wasn’t hard for them to get heads bobbing to their songs.
I do have one funny little story, borrowed from an old friend from around that time. He had a PA system and would often DJ high school dances. I myself did not attend these but he did relay this really funny bit about this song. He had this on at one dance and B-Real’s famous line came up “Cops – come and try to snatch my crops.” The teacher who was supervising the dance came over and told him “there will be no crop snatching here!” and demanded the song be stopped. This was the life of small town high school dances in the early ’90’s, in case you were wondering. These days there will be no crop snatching because hey, it’s legal, but this was a long time ago.
That’s about all that needs to be said about this Cypress Hill blockbuster. It was fun, hard and drove everyone wild and it’s still great fun all these years later. It’s probably even more fitting now since just about everyone seems to be ate up, it’s kind of a theme song for these crazy times.
Back to an all-time classic this week, the debut solo album from Ozzy Osbourne. It was originally supposed to be a band package presentation but instead it would be the launch for the successful and controversial solo career of the Prince of Darkness.
Ozzy Osbourne – Blizzard Of Ozz
Released March 22, 1891 (US release) via Jet Records
My Favorite Tracks – Steal Away (The Night), Mr. Crowley, Revelation (Mother Earth)
The premsie behind the album is pretty simple – Ozzy had been fired from Black Sabbath and thought he was done with music. Don Arden was the record exec who not only fired Osbourne from Sabbath but also got him lined up with a solo deal from Jet Records. Don had his daughter Sharon oversee Ozzy, who was in a dark mindset after being axed.
After some twists and turns, Ozzy would form a group with guitarist Randy Rhodes, bassist Bob Daisley, drummer Lee Kerslake and Don Airey on keyboards. The group was named Blizzard Of Ozz at first, but when it came time to release the first album things were re-done so Ozzy had solo billing.
The decisions over the band’s billing would also bleed into writing credits. Rhodes and Daisley were primarily responsible for the music on the debut album and were credited as such. Kerslake received a credit for No Bone Movies, while Ozzy was credited on all songs. The Arden management clan would subsequently decide that they did not want other musicians getting songwriting credits, something that would start a chain of lawsuits, buyouts and other legal wrangling down the line. Things were fairly conventional for the first release, but the specter of Sharon soon-to-be Osbourne was looming large already over the reigns of Ozzy’s solo career.
The album was released in 1980 in the UK and 1981 in the US. It bears 9 songs with a runtime just shy of 40 minutes. I won’t get into any of the myriad other editions with bonus tracks today, though I’ll discuss one infamous re-issue version a bit later.
I Don’t Know
The opener is a blistering metal track that sets the early tone for this phase of Ozzy’s career. The lyrics are about the plague of self-doubt, presumably what Ozzy felt after the Sabbath firing. And while everyone sounds in fine form here, it is the guitars of Randy Rhodes that jump out here. Everything is set here for the creation of a new guitar god – the tone, the writing perfectly for the song with riffs that stand out, and the solos that very few could even hope to imitate.
Crazy Train
Up next is the lead single and what would become Ozzy’s signature song, even though it didn’t crack the Top 40 on release. It’s another crazy riff from Rhodes and a catchy melody and chorus that put the song over the top and cemented it as one of metal’s most-known songs. Crazy Train has been inescapable since then, played on the airwaves far and wide. Someone would have to be born yesterday not to know this one.
Goodbye To Romance
A somber ballad here and one with a pretty 70’s bent, this is another exploration of Ozzy’s down feelings after being sacked from Sabbath. I’ve always like a sad song and this is downright depressing, so it ticks the boxes for me. Not quite what anyone was expecting but a nice song nonetheless.
Dee
A brief instrumental passage from Randy Rhodes here. It’s named in honor of Randy’s mom.
Suicide Solution
And next is the infamous track that would lead to a lawsuit over the influence music has on youth. But before that, this is a slamming heavy metal tune with a riff Rhodes had re-calibrated from his early Quiet Riot days on Force Of Habit.
The song’s message is one of caution – beware of the destructive influence of drugs and especially alcohol. It’s origin is less clear – Ozzy claims he wrote the lyrics after the drinking death of Bon Scott, Bob Daisley claims he wrote the lyrics after observing Ozzy’s own crazy behavior.
But notoriety would come calling – in 1984 a teenager committed suicide, and the parents sued Ozzy and the record label on the basis of the song causing dangerous influences. The case was dismissed on First Amendment grounds, but this and other infamous heavy metal lawsuits would take their toll on the musicians and the scene as a whole.
Mr. Crowley
Another heavy metal standard here as Ozzy jumps into wondering about infamous occultist Aleister Crowley. Ozzy has stated that he had no clue about Crowley and the song was based on not knowing anything about him, though segments of the public would interpret the song as praise of the occult and label Ozzy a satanist. Ozzy was one of the central figures of the Satanic Panic, both this and the lawsuit were key in that casting.
Regardless of the nonsense, this song is wicked in the best way possible, with sublime work especially from Rhodes.
No Bone Movies
A heavy rocker that gets into the subject of “bone movies,” or as we commonly call it, porn. A pretty quick and simple romp through the degeneration of someone who is addicted to the flesh on screen, which back then you had to go to a theater to watch. Now you can log on from home and find out what your teacher or your mom gets up to after dark.
Revelation (Mother Earth)
While Ozzy was branded a Satanist, murderer by proxy and who knows what else, one thing he apparently actually was could be called an environmentalist. This song is the first of a handful over Ozzy’s solo career that tackle the issue of man-made environmental destruction. It personifies the Earth as “mother” and showcases the assault upon her by greed and complacency.
Beyond the song’s message is one absolutely gorgeous tune. This is splendid work by all involved, of course again highlighting Randy Rhodes and his sublime guitar work. Easily one of the best of Ozzy’s solo career.
And now between two songs we have perhaps the most interesting space in recorded music. Revelation ends on a jam that picks up a bit and then closes on a note that indicates more is to come, and that more would be the album’s last song which kicks off right away. After playing this album thousands of times, it feels perfect to have the next one come in right away and it feels wrong when it doesn’t. It is one of the disheartening parts of digital music that this transition often gets cut out by automatic time gaps between songs, or passed over altogether with shuffle features. Those who don’t regularly listen to full albums would be advised to investigate this passage further.
Steal Away (The Night)
The album’s closer is another barn burner that sees Randy shredding away and Ozzy out on a dark journey with some young, impressionable gal probably. It is my favorite song from the album and one I talked about previously here.
Blizzard Of Ozz would be a solid success for Ozzy. While neither single became a hit, at least at first, the album moved copies pretty quick and eventually wound up 5 times platinum in the US. It did also place 21 on the Billboard 200 as well as 7 in the UK and 8 in Canada.
The album would help kickstart Ozzy’s solo career and both his legacy and infamy. It would also establish Randy Rhodes as a top-tier guitarist, something we would all soon be robbed of in a tragic accident.
This album was reissued several times over the years, in 2002 it was redone in very controversial fashion. The powers that be decided to remove the bass and drums that Daisley and Kerslake had originally done, both were suing Camp Osbourne over unpaid royalties from the album. The parts were re-recorded with Robert Trujillo and Mike Bordin, Ozzy’s band members at the time. Also, Suicide Solution was edited to remove sound effect bits that some had suggested were subliminal messages that encouraged suicide.
The reaction to this new version was extremely negative. The execution was not good and the reason behind it, greed, was transparent to most everyone as the stories about the lawsuit were common in metal press. Later reissues worked with the original music and this version was swept under the rug.
Whatever the management of Ozzy’s career would take, no doubt the music itself was spectacular out of the gate. This is a stellar album, performed well by all parties involved. Ozzy would have a second act to his career and Randy Rhodes would become immortal through his work on the early Ozzy stuff. Millions of budding metalheads had a new album to shred out to, and the “moral majority” had a new enemy.
Up next in the live series is a gem from 1982. This live set took eons to see release – it was originally sent out officially on CD in 2002 as part of the Eddie’s Archive box set. It was then put out on vinyl for the first time officially in 2022, bundled with a re-issue of The Number Of The Beast. This vinyl copy is the one I possess, I do not have the CD box set. This is also available on streaming services. I’ve never really looked but I would assume this was bootlegged to all hell before 2002 and even beyond on vinyl.
This album is cut from from a single performance and is the complete show, at least as I understand it. The gig was on March 20, 1982 at the esteemed Hammersmith Odeon in London. This building, now known as the Apollo, has been host to a staggering array of shows over the decades and a great many of those acts have released live albums from the venue, so Maiden joined pretty elite company with this release.
As a brief note, some video does exist of this gig and was released on Maiden’s Early Years DVD set. I’ll do a video series some time down the line and go over it then.
The line-up for this gig was the same that recorded The Number Of The Beast and also toured behind it – Steve Harris in charge and on bass, Bruce Dickinson singing, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith on guitars, and Clive Burr on drums. Also pretty much part of the line-up is cover artist Derek Riggs, who offered this image of Eddie planting the Union Jack through the Earth, presumably right through London but I can’t tell. The CD issue of this was rendered with a huge white space on the front which kind of detracts from the art, while the vinyl package shows the image in full on the back cover.
There’s a whopper of a tracklist here with 18 songs so let’s have a look at it then get into the meat of the meal here.
Murders In The Rue Morgue
Wrathchild
Run To The Hills
Children Of The Damned
The Number Of The Beast
Another Life
Killers
22 Acacia Avenue
Total Eclipse
Transylvania
The Prisoner
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Phantom Of The Opera
Iron Maiden
Sanctuary
Drifter
Running Free
Prowler
The song selection is pretty straightforward, this was the stuff they were playing on this tour. There were only three albums to choose from so that’s what we get. It covers stuff from all three albums pretty well and there are a few treats to be had. Another Life is a cut from Killers that did get played a fair bit in Maiden’s early days but isn’t otherwise represented on a live album. Drifter and Prowler are early standards but having a Bruce rendition is pretty cool. Drifter is also a very extended jam at nine minutes, with Bruce doing the same aping of Walking On The Moon by The Police that Paul Di’Anno used to do.
There’s also Total Eclipse, which wasn’t an album track when TNOTB came out but Harris and company wish it would have been. It is a far better song than Gangland, which made the studio album but not this or any other live record. Note – the 2022 reissue of TNOTB does replace Gangland with Total Eclipse, this is the same vinyl version that has this live album with it.
To describe the recording and performances in a word – absolutely shit hot amazing. Everything here sounds spectacular. There isn’t a bad note to be found, and the show was captured brilliantly. The performance is rock solid from start to finish, Maiden were in fine form here and it carries over on the recording.
There isn’t a ton of banter here, Bruce does engage the crowd briefly between songs but none of his famous rants he would later become known for. Besides the extended jam of Drifter, there is also an extra guitar solo played after Transylvania. Otherwise the songs are played in their usual forms, which is just fine given the sheer scope of quality found here.
This is a total banger of a live album. While my ranking of all these is still a ways off, make no mistake that Beast Over Hammersmith is one of Iron Maiden’s best live albums. It has been in the same conversations with Live After Death and Rock In Rio as the top pick in many fans’ conversations, and some do choose this as number one. This easily could have been Maiden’s first officially released live album and it would have been more than fine, but the band chose to hold off until 1985 and two more studio albums to pull that trigger. But no one even remotely interested in Iron Maiden should miss this barnburner of a live set, it is insanely good.
Next week it’s back to the reunion era and a fantastic proposal – the music of Dance Of Death without having to look at that shitty album cover.
This long-desired documentary on the life and career of Ronnie James Dio finally saw the light in 2022. It had a limited theatrical run and then was on a streaming service I’m not sure of for awhile. That should tip you off that I hadn’t seen it yet. I think a month or so ago the doc was made available to buy in physical form or digitally. I bought it and finally sat to watch.
This film was fully authorized and assisted by the estate of Dio, helmed by his widow Wendy Dio. She was an executive producer of the film and also clearly had a lot to contribute about Ronnie in the film. Aside from Wendy, Dio biographer and renowned journalist Mick Wall was also a primary contributor to the project. And also involved was Dave “Rock” Feinstein, a former bandmate of Dio’s as well as his cousin.
The cast of people who lined up to film something for this doc is pretty staggering. I won’t bother with a complete list, but even summarizing it takes a moment. Rob Halford, Eddie Trunk, Lita Ford, Jack Black, Don Dokken and Sebastian Bach were all on hand. Every member of Black Sabbath that Dio worked with was on film as well, even Bill Ward who was only around for the first bit of Dio’s involvement. And the remaining list of contributor is honestly just too vast to get into here. There is also plenty of archival footage used to fill things out, and of course Dio’s own parts were necessarily culled from old interviews.
This goes through Dio’s early life and then into his music career. It spends a bit of time going over his early groups Ronnie and the Red Caps and Ronnie Dio and the Prophets. (note to record collectors – if you ever see those out while record hunting, GRAB THEM. They are scarce and expensive if people actually know who is involved.) These early old-style rock groups would transition to The Electric Elves and then Elf, all before Dio was tagged by Ritchie Blackmore as the first singer of Rainbow.
All this leads to the career path most people are familiar with – Rainbow, then Black Sabbath, then Dio. All this is discussed in detail by the principals involved, with some emphasis placed on just how huge of a gamble Dio was taking on going out solo and also with huge live production costs. They cover the highs of early Dio and then the crash of traditional metal in the 1990’s, all of it is covered pretty well.
I won’t go too hard on details in the film, but a few things are worth mentioning. One is the famous “devil horns” story. Dio is credited as the initial user of the famous metal hand gesture, with the story that he got it from his grandmother. Geezer Butler does have a very different take on the origins of the hand gesture and Dio’s use of it, that can be found with a quick search. Other noted rock musicians also have their own claims to the “devil horns” but I ain’t got time for that, Gene.
The other issue that gets brought up a lot is the stint that guitarist Vivian Campbell served in Dio’s band at the beginning. Campbell is on the first three solo albums but then left in less than cordial circumstances, and both he and Dio sniped at each other in the press until Dio’s death. Campbell was not brought in for the film itself, fairly understandable as relations between he and Wendy remain icy. But he is discussed as a key figure in Dio’s early work and also he is given a brief moment to say his own peace about his departure via an archived interview. I thought that was a pretty nice touch from the film makers to do that, at least his side is stated in some fashion. This wouldn’t happen in a lot of other musicians’ documentaries.
Overall I was very impressed with the film. It was a big league production, this was not skimped on at all. It was shot well, put together in a coherent fashion, and told the story of Dio in a fantastic way. All of the guests offer worthy contributions and everything is put together well. It flows great and uses every bit of its two hour runtime in great fashion.
The film also gets to the core of Dio’s motivations and background. It’s stated in the title, Dreamers Never Die. He was a man who offered a means of escape and dreams away from the trials of the world. It is central to what made heavy metal so popular in the first place – this was for the outcast and marginalized people, those who didn’t fit in with the popular culture or narrative. I was certainly one of those who came to metal for that reason. This was a nice narrative that tied everything together.
I’d fully recommend this film to anyone interested in music at all, whether or not you’re that familiar with Dio’s work. The film doesn’t fully explain things in reference fashion, but it also doesn’t require any degree of inside knowledge. It was wonderfully put together and is a fitting tribute to one of heavy metal’s enduring icons.
The Crooked Wanderer 