A Story And A Song – Never Say Die

On By bigbadburchIn A Story And A Song5 Comments

Time for a story and a song again, or a song and a story, whatever order this goes in, I don’t know. This one is pretty simple and not much of a story, just something that came to mind the other day and I figured I’d chronicle it before I forget it again.

The song in question is the title track from Black Sabbath’s Never Say Die!, the 8th studio album from them and the last to feature lead singer Ozzy Osbourne for 35 years. The album itself is not generally looked upon as one of Black Sabbath’s best (we’ll get to that), but this song is actually pretty cool. It’s one of a few I don’t mind listening to from the album.

Before I get to the story itself, I’ll talk about the album for a minute since opinions on the album are important to the story. Never Say Die! is not a watershed moment in the Black Sabbath catalog. It is one of the least popular albums, both from the Ozzy years and the catalog as a whole. The album is all over the place, uninspired, and lacking for anything truly awesome stuff. My opinion is that of the consensus, which is that the album is not very good. There are dissenting opinions and strong defenders of Never Say Die!, which is where today’s story takes us.

The year was 2009. I was working an evening shift job, from roughly 4 PM to 12:30 AM or whatever it was. The shift was also Sunday through Thursday, meaning Friday and Saturday were my weekend. It was a cool Friday morning, probably around 9 AM when our story takes place. It was one of those nice fall mornings where having the windows open was ideal, I enjoy it being on the cooler side when I sleep and it was the perfect weather to let some air in. It seems the “open window” days are few and far between anymore, but hey that’s not the point.

So I had my window open on this nice Friday morning when I woke up, but wasn’t yet ready to get out of bed. I laid there for a bit when I could make out the voice of my neighbor talking. I lived (and still do live) in town, where houses are not very far apart from one another. The neighbor was a decent guy, I shot the shit with him a bit but we weren’t really friends or anything like that.

On this cool Friday morning, the proper start of my weekend and just a bit earlier than I normally woke up, I hear my neighbor going on about something and he was really into it. And that something?

Never Say Die!

He was going on and on about how great of an album it was and people were wrong about it and all of this and that. He was very passionately defending the honor of this album. It was in a zealous way, I’m sure many music fans have encountered someone with a contrarian viewpoint before and experienced how fervently and wordy these devotees can be about their cherished thing that a lot of people can’t stand.

This diatribe kept up for awhile. My first thought was actually “hey, good for him, I’m glad someone likes that pile of an album.” It is cool when a work means that much to somebody, especially when popular opinion is very against it. Then I got a little sick of hearing it, like “ok man, you’ve run the course with this album, but you keep going.”

I kept laying there, not wanting to get up but also sort of transfixed by this odd treatise on the virtues of Never Say Die! that I was not going to get back to sleep even if I wanted to. I went from sort of enjoying this odd thing to overhear on my nice weekend morning to getting sick of it. Open window days were not in big supply and this was starting to ruin my morning, even if I was initially cool with it. Also, even if I can appreciate someone’s dissenting take on something, I honestly don’t think Never Say Die! is a worthy recipient of such passionate defense. Whatever he or anyone else who is into the album wants to think, it pretty well sucks. Just ask the drugged out group who recorded it.

I was pretty close to going outside and jumping into the conversation. It was that combination of early morning weariness, having my open window time spoiled, and me truly not being on board with the opinion that due would not shut up about.

But I did not wind up going outside. I started up my day and went about business as normal. I never brought up what I overheard and the neighbor never asked me what I thought of his precious, crappy Black Sabbath album even though he knew I was big into music. A few months later I moved out of that house and never saw the guy again.

I almost became “that guy” would would start an argument over a music opinion. It wouldn’t have been anything huge, I knew the guy and I wasn’t going to really go off on him or anything. But it got annoying there for a minute, listening to this dude go on and on about an album I’m not really sure is even fit for human ears. In the end it all worked out – guy got to brag on an album he stands with against the grain, and I didn’t start an argument over something I think sucks. I just wish a guy could leave his damn windows open around here without hearing everything under the sun now and again.

Infinite Dreams – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series34 Comments

Today’s single is a pretty straightforward one, it’s all live and all songs are available on the larger album so there’s nothing really exotic here. The song is Infinite Dreams from the Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son album, and the live album in question was Maiden England. That was originally released as a video, so this is actually a single to a long-form video. But the full album has been released on its own so it’s available in a variety of formats.

The cover art is another Derek Riggs piece and is essentially the same cover as the Maiden England live release – Eddie on a motorcycle with a Union Jack in hand. The cover was changed for the 2013 re-release of Maiden England but this original art is pretty cool.

This was released in several formats – 12-inch and 7-inch records, CD and cassette. There are a few shaped picture discs and things like that. Mine is the typical 12-inch record and thus we get the third song. Just a note that after this, the singles started getting released with a billion versions and I won’t be out to keep track of all the differences, but for today it’s still straightforward.

Infinite Dreams

The single’s main subject is a track from the Seventh Son… album. It is one of the album’s more memorable cuts and features a few musical movements from the band, a step into a prog-lite direction they would explore again in the 2000’s.

The song works incredibly well with its quiet moments and builds into more epic passages. Bruce showcases the full force of his vocal range through the song and everyone in the band gets a chance to flex their chops. It’s a very compelling arrangement and a showcase that the band had arrived at a new point of creativity in their landmark seven album run.

The song is the album’s second and has some bearing on the sort-of concept album going on – the main character has very strange dreams and visions and winds up stuck in those, with dreams so crazy and life-like that he doesn’t know if he’ll ever wake up again. Though the band did not fully flesh out the story beats, last week’s single The Clairvoyant gives a fairly grim answer as to the ultimate fate of the dreamer and his visions.

The live rendition here is wonderfully executed. The Maiden England live album runs smoothly as a whole, if not maybe just a hair off of its predecessor, the mighty Live After Death. But the cuts here are a huge part of Maiden lore being the end of their golden 80’s era and it’s a worthwhile experience overall.

Killers

The first B-side is the familiar title track from the second album. We’ve had this song a few times from both singers so I won’t go over in depth, but as is expected this version is well done. The song wouldn’t get a ton of stage time after this tour so it’s still nice to have another live representation from the earlier years.

Still Life

The other B-side is a very interesting track to have, even if it’s not “special” since it’s also on the full live album. Still Life hails from Piece Of Mind and wasn’t a song that got a whole hell of a lot of stage time. It’s one of its album’s more interesting cuts and it’s splendidly presented here. It’s a very nice cut to have as the song didn’t quite get the attention it might have deserved.

That wraps up this single and also marks the end of a run for one member. After this album guitarist Adrian Smith would depart the group, unhappy with the band’s intended musical direction after he contributed a lot to these “synth era” albums. Smith would make a few cameo live appearances through the 1990’s but would otherwise be gone until 1999, which is a story for that point in this singles series.

Losing Adrian was a huge blow, and the 1990’s were not Maiden’s greatest decade in their history. He had a good bit to do with the group’s success to this point and was integral to the past few albums these singles came from. But nothing lasts forever, and Adrian had to step away and do his own thing for awhile. He’d get some company on that front a few years down the line, as most are aware.

Next week it’s into the ’90’s and No Prayer For The Dying. The singles start getting different with a wide array of versions and also I’m missing a fair chunk of this time period. But there’s still plenty to go over so we’ll get into that next week.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Live! + One

Running Free

Sanctuary

Women In Uniform

Maiden Japan

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

2 Minutes To Midnight

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant

Infinite Dreams (you are here)

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

L7 – Shitlist

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs6 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

L7 – Shitlist

Today’s song hails from L7’s third album Bricks Are Heavy. The 1992 record was the band’s first involvement on a major label and was produced by Butch Vig, who a year earlier had produced Nirvana’s Nevermind which changed music forever. The album saw some grunge influence meet with L7’s already established hard ass alt/punk sound and was the group’s vanguard moment.

Shitlist was not a single for obvious reasons, though it was the B-side to Pretend We’re Dead, the band’s most popular single release. As the album and singles took hold through radio and MTV, this song got its fair share of notice. L7 were pretty hard ass as a whole, but Shitlist was another degree of that.

The song is pretty simple musically – it’s got some nasty distortion on a pounding riff and rhythm. The guitar adds some flair here and there, but this song is a vessel to communicate a message rather than provide an exercise in pentetonic scales. Donita Sparks delivers a vocal with a combination of snarl and disaffection to perfectly fit the nasty tone of the music.

Lyrically this is a blatantly obvious song – we’re pissed off, and there’s a list of those who did the foul deeds that led to this state. There’s maybe only 20 different words used in the lyrics but everything works so well to communicate the message – you’ve made my shitlist. It’s one of the first songs that comes up when people talk about “angry songs” or things like that, Shitlist has truly made its mark in that regard.

There are no real metrics to evaluate in terms of Shitlist’s success. The album Bricks Are Heavy was last certified at 327,000 copies sold in the year 2000. I’d wager that it’s moved a few more since then and maybe a re-certification would see it get past the gold threshold, but I can’t say for sure. The song didn’t get MTV play because, well, just look at the title.

But Shitlist did strike a chord with music-listening America in the early 1990’s. While the L7 singles like Pretend We’re Dead and Monster got video airplay, people in the know would make sure to tell you to get the damn album so you could hear Shitlist in all its glory. Word of mouth was still important in the pre-Internet days and that’s largely how a song with a controversial name like this would get out there.

Shitlist did get another boost from appearances in several movie soundtracks. The song was in quite a few movies, actually, though to be honest I’m not sure I want to go deep diving on some of those early ’90’s movies to recall the flicks more specifically. But Shitlist did land a very memorable part in one movie scene.

In the opening scene of 1994’s Natural Born Killers, the movie’s main couple Mickey and Mallory Knox are in a diner out in the middle of nowhere. A local patron starts putting moves on Mallory. Her response is to go to the jukebox and put on Shitlist, then beat the shit out of her harasser. Mickey joins in and the couple kill everyone in the diner, except for one they leave alive to report that Mickey and Mallory were responsible.

This is the scene, don’t count on it being upon YouTube for a long time.

The movie released just after L7 had released their next album Hungry For Stink. I don’t know if the movie scene had a huge impact on sales of that or Bricks Are Heavy, but the way that scene is still vividly recalled today, I’d guess that it had some influence.

L7 would continue on through the 1990’s but run out of steam by the turn of the millennium and call it quits in 2001. They would reconvene in 2014 and have been touring and releasing music since, with a renewed interest in a band that many felt didn’t quite get their full due in their first run.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

Shitlist is simple, heavy and powerful. Its message cuts true and is something every person on the planet can identify with, someone’s made our shitlists at some point in time, even the most zen of folks. L7 were known for bringing the nasty when they wanted to, and Shitlist was another extension of that. Its memorable tie to the scene in Natural Born Killers still resonates with viewers who may not have ever bought an L7 album in the ’90’s. This was not a band to mess with, and Shitlist was the calling card of that.

Heart (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week9 Comments

For this week I’m pulling out one of rock music’s greatest transformation albums – a band shifting their sound to fit with the times. Some call that selling out, others call it the smart play. In the case of Heart it was very much the latter, and the group would land the biggest success of their career by fully embracing the glitz of 1980’s hair and glam rock.

Heart – self-titled

Released June 21, 1985 via Capitol Records

My Favorite Tracks – What About Love?, If Looks Could Kill, The Wolf

Heart began in the 1970’s and released a string of renowned albums that resided in the hard rock/folk rock realm, an interesting combination not heard every day. The band gained notice with their unique blend of music and also for their front-line sisters, guitarist Nancy Wilson and lead vocalist Ann Wilson.

Then the 1980’s came and rock music changed. Heart entered the decade well enough but had two dud albums through the early ’80’s. It could be said that Heart’s musical transition was started on those albums, though the true fruits of the change would arrive with this self-titled record in 1985, just as hair metal and its associated sounds were becoming the music of the day.

The songwriting on Heart is its own tale, as some of the songs were shaped by the Wilson sisters and several others were done by outside songwriters. I won’t be running down each individual one, just a few of the more notable ones, because it would make this post 10,000 words long. Credits are available in the album’s liner notes and in many places on the Internet for those curious. The album was produced by Ron Nevison, who was one of the go-to producers of the 1980’s.

Heart boasts 10 songs in 39 minutes so not an overly stuffed album, but half of these songs were singles and a few were major hits so there’s plenty to talk about here.

If Looks Could Kill

The album opens with a cover tune of a song also done in 1985 as a dance song. Heart took a more rock approach and fashioned a pretty cool song out of it. It’s very synth heavy, which would figure since it came from the dance/disco world but it’s translated well to the melodic rock environment. The song sees a cheating lover being the object of scorn.

If Looks Could Kill was the album’s fifth and final single, and also the only one not hit the Billboard 100’s top 10.

What About Love?

Another cover song, this time from Canadian band Toronto and one that group did not release originally. Heart would up with the song and would make hay with it, hitting the top 10 of the Billboard 100.

While unfortunate that Toronto did not get to enjoy the original fruits of their labor, this song fits the Heart album like a glove. It is a defining power ballad of the ’80’s and was the keys to the car for Heart’s comeback. It is a song that reminds people who are chasing their “way to the top” that love is still out there and is a more important force than whatever comes at the end of the rat race.

Two notable guests appear to help with backing vocals – Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas from Starship.

Never

Another album single and one that would get to the 4 position on the Billboard 100. This is an upbeat, very poppy melodic rock offering about being disgruntled by love but being ready to give it another go.

These Dreams

Up next is another single and Heart’s first chart-topping hit. The song was originally written by the songwriting duo of Bernie Taupin and Martin Page, two folks who’ve had hands in countless hits. The pair offered the song to Stevie Nicks, who turned it down. Heart were more receptive to it and the rest is history.

Heart switched tack on this song as Nancy Wilson handled the vocals. Nancy had been ill during recording and the production team was quite happy with her raspy take, so much so that she’d be asked in the future to “get sick again” to emulate her style here.

These Dreams is an atmospheric track with the lyrical concept of going to a different world while sleeping and getting away from the issues of regular life. The album’s liner notes dedicate the song to Sharon Hess, a fan who was battling leukemia and met the Wilson sisters during the recording of the song. Hess died just before the album’s release.

The Wolf

Here we hit the first of a few songs that weren’t singles. This is a very nice track that’s all rock and deals with a man out on the prowl who isn’t worth the trouble he brings. This song didn’t get the attention of the hit singles obviously, but it’s well worth a listen as it’s a great ’80’s rock song.

All Eyes

Its 2 for 2 on album deep cuts here with another good rock song. It’s a nice song about hooking up, pretty standard fare for the time. So far the album’s deep cuts compliment the singles well and make for a nice album listening experience.

Nobody Home

This one is a slow ballad that also kind of throws things off for a moment. It is very keyboard driven, which is not a problem in and of itself but the key part sounds like the soundtrack bits of a Final Fantasy video game. FF didn’t exist when this song was recorded but it’s the vibe I get from the song.

The song doesn’t pick up much steam as it goes along even with other instruments coming in. It’s a nice enough sentiment about someone finding no one around when they inevitably fall, but the song doesn’t do a lot for me.

Nothin’ At All

This was the album’s fourth single and also the fourth straight to hit the Billboard 100’s hallowed top 10, hitting exactly that position. This is a very easy-going rock track about how sometimes love just happens super easy without any fuss or drama. The video for this one was pretty popular and features the band simply goofing around.

What He Don’t Know

It’s back to the rock, this one is a fairly tame number but it does pick things back up after that last song. This one puts the shoe on the other foot in contrast to the opening song, as this time a couple is cheating while the singer’s significant other is unaware. It was fairly scandalous song material for the day as adultery and cheating was a huge deal back then, but no one gives a damn today. I don’t recall this song catching any actual grief though.

Shell Shock

The album closes on one more really cool song, it’s a straight ahead rock song. Ann Wilson is going a bit rapid fire in the verses here, it’s a neat way to wrap up the record.

Heart was not only a return to commercial success for the band, this was the peak of their album success. The record topped the Billboard 200 and was on the charts for 78 weeks. It has been certified 5 times platinum in the US and 6 times in Canada. Along with four straight singles in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and this was a massive win for Heart’s ’80’s glam makeover.

Heart were successful in updating for the times and re-energizing their career, though for some it was too drastic of a move away from the classic sound that made them popular in the first place. I personally have no issue with it at all – while I think their ’70’s output is spectacular, I also love their ’80’s hair era. The songs were there and the band rode the wave of big hair and power rock/pop, usually doing it better than many others in the same era.

This would mark the start of a three-album run that saw Heart churn out more hits, including the biggest single of their run in 1987. After the “big hair” era ended, the Wilson sisters would return to their roots and explore more of the work that put them on the map in the first place. But they certainly left their mark on the 1980’s.

In On The Scam – Rip Offs for Live Tickets and Records

On By bigbadburchIn Controversy7 Comments

The past few weeks have seen an uptick in the dark art of scamming, and some of it relates to music. The worlds of live ticketing and record buying have both been hit with a flood of scams, mostly related to the modern age of electronic payments and digital goods.

In today’s world many concert tickets are digital codes. Simply show the QR code on your phone to the door person, they scan the code, you’re in. Physical tickets do still exist but the COVID era has seen a huge rise in the amount of paperless ticketing going on.

And with that comes the scam – a person on a Facebook group (where a lot of this is going on) says they have tickets for a show, at a decent price compared to the predatory resale market. Someone agrees to buy the tickets. The buyer pays the seller through PayPal or Venmo (same company, btw). The seller gets the money then vanishes into the ether, leaving the buyer hanging for tickets that never truly existed.

I’ve heard about this happening with concerts but I’ve personally witnessed it in the sports world – St. Louis has a new Major League Soccer team and it’s been a hot ticket so far with a massive resale market. Scammers have popped up in Facebook groups offering non-existent tickets quite a bit the past few weeks. It’s the only stuff I’ve really seen, but I’ve heard these same scammers are floating around with fake concert tickets too.

The easiest way to not be scammed like this is obviously not to buy from an untrusted source, which is tough if you want decently price resale tickets. Using the Goods and Services option through PayPal does provide a measure of protection, it is an absolute red flag if a seller asks for payment via the Friends and Family option, no one should ever make a PayPal purchase through that unless the person selling is a family member or friend. But buying from some random poster on a Facebook page is not really the way to go, even if legit sales do happen.

This will continue to be a thing as concert tickets go digital. I don’t know what real solutions are for this, the digital ticket market kind of lends itself to needing an official resale outlet- which is just what the few companies who engage in that trade want, of course. It used to be pretty easy to buy a paper ticket from someone who needed to sell, now it’s a whole other ballgame.

The other realm seeing scam activity is the secondary vinyl market, and specifically on the Discogs site. Discogs has become the premier place to catalog records as well as sell them. It’s a mostly convenient site for doing anything vinyl-related, though the scam bug has infiltrated it as of late.

Most of the information I’m using here comes from the Discogs subreddit. There’s been a lot of discussion about scammers in the past while, though there’s also been some misplaced hysteria over it too.

The Discogs scam goes like this – someone lists a record for sale, usually a hot item that goes for a few hundred bucks. For awhile the going price on these scam listings was around $80. A susceptible buyer jumps on the deal, then the seller disappears and the money with them. Even with word getting around about this type of scam, it appears plenty of buyers have fallen for it.

Discogs offers a few degrees of protection that the concert ticket thing does not. There is a seller and buyer feedback system, though the scammers are usually long gone by the time feedback means anything. There is also a reporting system for suspicious listings, and it seems to have some effectiveness. The typical method of payment is also PayPal Goods and Services, which provides PayPal’s own protection that often favors a spurned buyer. A seller seeking payment through means that circumvent PayPal G&S is an auto red flag and also against the Discogs terms of service.

There are a lot of if, and’s and but’s about this whole thing. Discogs themselves issued a message about scamming on Friday, April 28th to all users. They are going to take action on the matter, including a waiting period for new sellers. It’s a good move but it also affects me, since I am getting ready to sell on the platform. But I can’t really bitch since they are taking active steps to stem the scamming tide.

The actual email Discogs sent outlining their response to scamming

One bit BUT to this is the issue of user feedback. The feedback is essentially a score on Discogs, and in all honesty it doesn’t work out that great. I’ve only been a buyer on the platform to this point and all of my transactions have cleared without issue, about 50. I have a 24 score in feedback, all positive, and all on the buyer side. That’s less than half of what I’ve truly bought on there. Many sellers have reported getting less than 50% feedback on successful transactions as well.

The mitigating factor is that you don’t need a massive buyer score. Mine is 100% and is totally fine, even if it doesn’t represent half of my actual purchases. For a seller? Discogs feedback is massively important. A new seller might ship off three records to three different buyers and get dinged on one for some odd reason. The 66% seller feedback rating is a killer for them. To add in new metrics that affect new sellers is another hurdle to clear that sometimes isn’t practical.

The big issue which is sort of in the background here is the scammers and their accounts. No one should buy a cheap record from a new account, that ought to yell out scam to anyone. But – scammers have also been hacking accounts of established sellers and pulling this same crap. I don’t know how often it’s happened but there has been a bit of talk about it on the reddit forum.

Some have wondered just how much scamming was really going on through Discogs. Some feel the issue is overblown, while others point to a fair amount of clear scam listings as well as testimony from people who got ripped off. And an official response from the site itself would indicate it’s a big enough issue, at least in perception, to make official policy around it.

There are a mess of other issues entwined in this – what about the person who actually wants to sell a record cheap? Some personal collectors do fire sale their stuff because they need money pretty badly. Selling below the Discogs median will still net far more money than what most local shops will pay. These scams have been far below the price line so hopefully it won’t catch up anyone truly needing to make a buck or the lucky person who scores a nice haul out of it.

And yes, buyers do scam too. One common one is to pretend the item never showed up and get a refund. Another is to order a clean, nice condition record, request a refund and then return a damaged record to the seller. This is a thread I intend to pick up in a separate post.

In the case of Discogs scams, the easiest way to protect yourself is to not buy listings that are far below the median price. No one is selling a rare Cure record for $200 less than its median price. PayPal does offer its usual degree of buyer protection, but it’s still far easier to not get caught up in the scam to begin with.

This issue will likely crop up again, as it’s clear that the digital money age has lent itself to a whole host of predatory people. I don’t know how the live concert/digital ticket market will shake out, that one is kind of a frontier. I do expect the Discogs saga to relent some but that’s just a gut feeling, I could be totally wrong about that. Either way, be careful out there with your money, it’s a shark tank.

The Clairvoyant – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series33 Comments

The Iron Maiden Singles Series is now on to Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, the band’s seventh album. As noted previously and also via the list below, I don’t have the first two singles from this album so they aren’t part of the series at present. Today I’ll get into the third one, which actually represents live material and is a bit of a gem in that the songs aren’t from a full-length live record of any sort.

The cover art today is pretty trippy – it’s Eddie’s head in some kind of occult/crazy configuration. Out in left field for sure but you gotta do something off the wall once in awhile, and it does fit the song’s theme. Don’t drop acid and look at this (I wouldn’t know, just seems like good advice)

There are several versions of the single available – the usual 12-inch and 7-inch versions, as well as some picture discs, clear vinyl and even a shaped picture disc. The singles from this album were also issued on CD, which as far as I know are the first CD singles for Maiden. My single is a typical black vinyl 12-inch version, though it is housed in a very nice gatefold sleeve as opposed to the thin paper stuff many of the singles came in. And, in a change of pace, there actually is a pretty big difference between the 12-inch and 7-inch singles as it relates to the lead track. That’ll be covered in a minute.

All of the live performances on the record came from the Monsters Of Rock festival in Donington on August 20, 1988. That was the day after I turned 11 for anyone wondering. These are the only songs I know of from the performance that were released in an official capacity. I’d guess this has bootleg versions but I honestly have never looked for them.

As usual with these, this first video has the two sides from the 7-inch single. We’ll get to the difference between versions right in the first track, though the fact that the lead single doesn’t sound very live should tip most people off.

The Clairvoyant

The feature song today is one of the pivotal moments from the sort-of story being told on the Seventh Son… album. The title character has gained the gift of clairvoyance but becomes troubled by it, and also very ironically cannot foresee his own death. The music is pretty spectacular on this song, as it is throughout the album. Very nice, almost prog-lite guitar work on here and the chorus is very nicely done even with being a mouthful of words.

Steve Harris has said that the song was inspired by the death of British psychic Doris Stokes. This person seems to have been a giant fraud and died just when the band was cooking up new song ideas, and Steve came up with the central premise of a clairvoyant being blind to their own death.

Now, here’s the kicker as far as different versions of this single go – on most 7-inch pressings of the single, The Clairvoyant is the studio track. On the 12-inch versions and a very few 7-inches, the live cut from Monsters Of Rock is present. To add to the confusion, the band shot a video featuring live shots from Donington but the song is the studio track with bits of live crowd noise rather badly cut in. So to have this single with the more desirable live cut on side A, a prospective collector should seek out a 12-inch record.

The Prisoner

The first B-side is a cut from The Number Of The Beast and is a more low-key favorite of quite a few fans, myself included. The song was inspired by the late ’60’s British sci-fi drama of the same name, and the show was also the inspiration for Powerslave’s Back In The Village.

This one flies a bit under the radar on the hierarchy of Maiden songs but in my view it is an excellent song. This live performance is well captured and presented without any issues. The Prisoner would get more time on the Maiden England tour, which was presented as a live album.

And it’s worth noting that all versions of the single have the same live cut of The Prisoner – unlike The Clairvoyant, there are not different presentations.

Heaven Can Wait

The 12-inch “bonus” B-side is a nice cut from the Somewhere In Time album. It is also live from Donington and also the same across all versions it appears on. It too is well done and nicely presented, no crappy live audio or anything. It’s nice to have live versions from this album because any official presentations are few and far between. I assume that will change once the next tour and inevitable live album from it is presented.

That wraps up today’s pretty interesting single. On deck is another live cut, this time from the Maiden England tour and album. And also next week we’ll have something we haven’t had in quite some time – a departing band member. Until then.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Live! + One

Running Free

Sanctuary

Women In Uniform

Maiden Japan

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

2 Minutes To Midnight

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant (you are here)

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

Orange Goblin – Healing Through Fire (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week5 Comments

This week I’m actually grabbing an album from this century, it’s back to 2007 and the very general genre descriptor of “stoner metal” for an ace of a record that would cast a new spotlight on a long-running band.

Orange Goblin – Healing Through Fire

Released May 21, 2007 via Sanctuary Records

My Favorite Tracks – They Come Back (Harvest Of Skulls), Cities Of Frost, The Ale House Braves

Orange Goblin of London, England had been active since 1995 and were on their sixth album at this point, and also first for what was a semi-major record label with Sanctuary. While the record deal would not really pan out as Sanctuary would essentially fold a year later, Orange Goblin would see expanded interest with this release.

Healing Through Fire is not a concept album but does tie a few themes through its songs, the theme being the Great Plague of medieval Europe. The plague’s worst years were in the 1300’s, though this record does reference events and people of 1600’s England as well, a century which also saw plague outbreaks.

Orange Goblin’s lineup had been stable through this point, with Ben Ward on vocals, Joe Hoare on guitar, Martyn Millard on bass and Chris Turner with the drums. Keyboards on the album were provided by Jason Graham. The album is a fairly lean affair with 9 songs in 43 minutes. Note that there is a deluxe reissue version with a ton of bonus and live tracks.

The Ballad Of Solomon Eagle

The opener kicks off loud and groovy with some very active riffing that clearly separates Orange Goblin from the more monotonous strains of stoner rock out there. The song deals with Solomon Eccles, also known as Solomon Eagle. Eagle was from 1600’s London and had been a composer, but later denounced his prior life and became a Quaker. This group were religious pariahs during this time. Solomon was known to go through public with few clothes on, if any, and denounce civilization. His proclamations of the end were fueled by the Plague as well as the 1666 Great Fire of London. He is a pretty curious person to feature in song, something he wouldn’t have liked as he considered music a sin after his Quaker conversion.

Vagrant Stomp

Another loud and stompy song that gets into some gross medical stuff from the time period. The song also uses the phrase “terminal spirit disease” in its lyrics, that also being the title of a 1994 album from Swedish melo-death pioneers At The Gates. No idea if the reference was meant for anything.

The Ale House Braves

This one is a faster-paced slammer that paints a picture of economic class disparity in medieval England. The destitute have nothing to lose and are coming for the well-off, a tale as old as time. There’s a very nice old-school guitar jam in this one too.

Cities Of Frost

Things slow down a bit here, which in stoner/doom parlance means it gets even heavier. This excellent song is a death march through a town being destroyed. No real clue what this is about, possibly the London Fire but it’s not specifically mentioned. Could be some random stuff that doesn’t tie into any real theme. While Orange Goblin are clearly their own entity, this is a song that gets a bit into High On Fire territory.

Hot Knives And Open Sores

Another one about the Plague and how gross everything was. I can’t imagine how nasty it would have been in the days before modern medicine when people were using every stupid thing in the book to try and treat the disease.

Hounds Ditch

More classic rock-based groovy stuff, again dealing with the piles of bodies around plague-ridden London and all the things that come to feed on the dead. This one switches to a pretty heavy end section to really emphasize the problem with lots of diseased dead bodies laying around.

Mortlake (Dead Water)

A quick and quiet instrumental gives a bit of a break here before jumping right back into the plague-laden mess.

They Come Back (Harvest Of Skulls)

This amazing song truly spells out the cost of the plague and its all-consuming nature. The dead themselves were a source of infection and would claim the living. This song has some very cool tempo changes and really brings the point home about how people thought the plague was a punishment from God and that it would be the endtime judgment a lot of people were waiting for.

Beginner’s Guide To Suicide

The closing track takes a left turn and lays out a slow blues-based effort. The lyrics are a haunting depiction of someone choosing suicide by poison as opposed to suffering from the plague. It’s a pretty harrowing position to be in but I’m sure plenty had to make that choice. The song is very well done and caught a lot of interest, today it stands as the band’s most-streamed track on Spotify.

Healing Through Fire was a watershed moment for Orange Goblin. While the album did not bust through charts, it truly put the band on the map and established their sound after several years of occasionally wandering through different parts of the rock and metal universe. The stoner genre had always been a constant presence though with a bit of a low ceiling in terms of dynamics and creativity, Orange Goblin were one band who showcased a higher degree of songwriting and arrangement to make something truly special out of the music.

The band’s choice to shape the songs around a theme was interesting and clearly paid off. It’s no secret among metal bands that the Great Plague is a fertile ground for lyrical inspiration, it was one of the most brutal times in human existence. Orange Goblin did fine work with the Plague as their creative backdrop.

The next decade would go well for Orange Goblin, three albums through the 2010’s would see the band’s stock continue to rise. While now an entity for nearly 30 years, it’s fair to say they really hit the nail on the head in 2007 with Healing Through Fire.

Wasted Years – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series32 Comments

Today it’s time for one of Iron Maiden’s most known songs, and also the most talked about B-side from their long career. And also perhaps one of the least talked about B-sides from their long career.

The cover art here is different in that it doesn’t feature Eddie front and center and that was by design. The single was going to release before the album and management didn’t want the full Somewhere In Time Eddie reveal before then, so Derek Riggs did up a time machine console thing with Eddie being the one piloting the machine. Just a glimpse of Eddie’s reflection is available. The cover art doesn’t stand as iconic compared to many of the other singles but it was done for an understandable reason and is still a nicely presented concept.

The version thing is the same here as with others – several 12- and 7-inch releases and a few on cassette. I have the 12-inch so we get the bonus B-side.

Wasted Years

The single is again one of Maiden’s most recognized songs. It was composed by Adrian Smith and it features a very distinctive riff that is instantly recognizable anywhere. The lyrics explore the concept of being away from home out on the grind of tour, something Smith was feeling big time after the huge World Slavery tour Maiden were on prior to this album.

The song’s chorus implores the listener to stop searching for things outside of their scope and appreciate the moments they’re in. It’s a simple message but one that resonates pretty hard and this bit of simple wisdom from Maiden remains one of their top songs to this day.

Reach Out

The first B-side is the most talked-about “bonus track” in Iron Maiden history. It is the subject of a lot of discussion on forum posts and is often hailed as the group’s best B-side. There’s a lot to get into here, though I covered some of the general history last week on the Stranger In A Strange Land release.

Reach Out is a song written by Adrian’s friend Dave Colwell. Colwell had played in Samson just prior and would later go on to be a part of Bad Company, Humble Pie and many others. Reach Out was a song Colwell had in the can and he brought it to the Entire Population Of Hackney jam/show that Adrain, Nicko and others put on during Maiden’s downtime in 1985. Steve Harris suggesting using songs from that show to use as B-sides and that’s exactly what happened. Maiden did a studio rendition for the single, though they kept Adrian at lead vocals. Bruce does provide background singing here, and of course is instantly recognizable.

Reach Out is an obvious departure from Iron Maiden material and is more of a ’80’s radio rock/AOR track. It is a pretty good song and Maiden do an admirable job performing it. It does excite a lot more of the fanbase than it does me personally, though I have nothing against the track. I do think their most interesting non-album track lies a bit further down the road, but we’ll get to that in due time as it’s one of the singles on this list. But no matter what I think, Reach Out is a massive part of Iron Maiden lore and is a stone cold lock for many as the best non-album track they’ve done.

Sheriff Of Huddersfield

The 12-inch “bonus” B-side is, to be brief, a total shitshow. It is a joke track recorded loosely along to the song Life In The City from Adrian Smith’s prior band Urchin. The song is poking fun at the band’s longtime manager Ron Smallwood, who had recently moved to Los Angeles and was complaining about the move. The song has at Smallwood and his cushy kingdom in the Hollywood Hills. Smallwood himself was not aware of the song until just before the single was slated for release.

I won’t act like this is my favorite Maiden B-side, but then again a band who releases tons of material ought to be able to have a joke here and there. This wouldn’t be the last time Maiden used a B-side to poke fun of Smallwood either.

That does it for this one and the Somewhere In Time singles. Up next is Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son and also the portion of the list where my collection is incomplete. I do have the third single released from that album but not the first two. Those will hopefully make their way to me someday but for now I’ll just roll through the series with what I have.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Live! + One

Running Free

Sanctuary

Women In Uniform

Maiden Japan

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

2 Minutes To Midnight

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years (you are here)

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

Tales From The Stage – John Mellencamp

On 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 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.