Classic Rock...The Last Frontier

Its OK! Maningrey is back to liven up this blog from all the boring technical stuff! This week I am reviewing some classic rock for you...Listen without prejudice.




You know when you go through one of those periodic times when you are just bored of music and are waiting for the next thing to come along? You've done Afrobeat, strange compilations of Cambodian flute music that smell of dust, Grindcore, bluegrass, IDM (idiot's dance music)....What next? Well I made the leap into some classic rock. I found the rule of thumb is that great rock records are in the genre of "hard rock" ( blues based, songs about "hot mamas", drummers who can play disco beats, not afraid to sell out and stick ballads and funk tracks in the mix when careers on the wane) rather than "heavy metal" (no blues base at all like music designed by Hitler, songs about "jailbait" or even worse "wizard's sleeves", drummer who play two kits joined together, occasionally folk track about a lonely dragon when career is on the slide (it in)). Also the great records are either by bands just on the turn like week old cumberland sausages and hated by the "true" fans or albums that sold only two copies at the time due to being too "punk" for plaid wearing American teens. It also struck me that there is no earthly reason why "lovehunter" by Whitesnake is less profound than "like a rolling stone", what's more fun, getting laid by a rock chick with a pink thong or listening to some thin guy with a horrible voice whine on about his Siamese cat?

1) "Draw the Line" by Aerosmith
Lets make one thing clear, The 'Smith sucked from 1977 onwards, everything after this was filed straight into "hair metal" but for a short time they were the only band who seemed to herald punk rock and try to deal with it. This is their best album because it is the most fucked up, all the mythological themes of 70"s rock bundled together like one of those epic Norse sagas or Eldorado (the sobaditsgood 80"s drama not the place made of gold) and that great moment where technically proficient players have so many track marks in their arms they can only play like a punk rocker and there is no twiddling. The best thing about 70's rock is they were only one or two generations removed from the real blues guys, a lot of them jammed with them (ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons played with Lightning Hopkins) so there was a lot of swing and funk still left in the playing. Aerosmith's secret weapon was Joe Perry, whose playing mixed garage rock, jump blues, swing, country and funk. Although he is the epitome of the 70's metal player his intricate riffs sound a lot like Television or some of the odder punk that was going down at the same time, who were also influenced by similar sources. In the same light this is the album where Aerosmith found themselves caught between a massive drug habit and threatening new styles of music that were about to wipe them off the map, however they went out swinging even if the punch was like a blow from Mr Burns. Like old blues records they were so in the moment that the lyrics no longer seemed like posturing but were a direct view into the madness, you realised these guys were flying by the seats of their tasseled pants, the smack coursing round their veins made the playing looser as well so they started to groove, its so funky it makes "exile on mainstreet" sound like Joni Mitchell. You know when a band is on the way out when they no longer write middle 8's but just sort of all stop playing and you can hear guitar stands falling over and people swearing before the producer tells them they have only played for two minutes and they better get started again. Best tracks are "bright light fright" which is the only song to actually "get" punk thrash, about how Joe Perry is so wasted his bedroom is like, really messy dude and he just watching TV all day, "the two disco ones" which are clearly songs based around the same jam and then idiotically sequenced one after the other, they just said to the drummer "play something disco" and then after 8 minutes stopped and got the producer to chop the jam in two while they chopped out the lines, still fucking rocking though, the title track is great as well, it sounds like both the guitars are made of glass and has a really good shrieking bit at the end by Tyler, probably like when he found out he had a daughter he had not seen in 20 years. The only shit track is "kings and queens" which sounds like Genesis....

2) Storm Bringer by Deep Purple
This is generally deemed the worse album made by DP (double penetration?) and possible all of hard rock...The reason being it is not a heavy metal album but a soul album with really bad clothes. It shows how many drugs they must have been doing that after chucking out definitive metal screamer Ian Gillan, the rest of purple decided to get two soul singers in and let them completely take over the band. It is literally as if Metallica went from "master of puppets" to a next album that sounded like "future sex/love sounds". It sank Purple's career but its one of those great albums where you know you are the only person on earth who likes it and you can have your own club where only you and a pair of head phones are the member. If you skip the first track which is gothic metal toss then you have a string of funky jives that make your butt shake like something by the Average White Band but with added prog keyboard that goes "wowwwrrrrrrwowww" in that squidgy bit of the brain that processes da funk. The bass player has a fantastic treacly voice as if you are rubbing your face on a lovely velvet loon pant and later turned up to sing the hook on "america, what time is love" by KLF, now how fucking cult is that my friends? If KLF dig it then you should to....

3) Montrose by Montrose
Nothin' fancy nothin' pretentious just lots of words that miss out the "g" at the end in the lyrics, do that and call your album "montrose" by ermm "montrose" and get them jean dungarees out ya'll...It helps to all stand bare chested on the cover as well looking peeved that you just got laid off at the local Ford factory. If any music should have sounded tracked "blue collar", the 70's movie classic about autoworkers fighting evil unions it should have been this, but they chose Captain Beefheart instead...how boring. I like the fact that lots of music snobs will sneer at this music and force themselves to listen to the "authentic" "trout mask replica" instead, on their own, while dreaming of the girl they will never have the guts to ask out who works at the vegan stall in Camden Market, while the rest of us in the know (thats you now!) stick "montrose" by "montrose" on, slug Wild Turkey, have coke blow where the sun don't shine and fuck our girls in the ass on kitchen tables during parties cheered on by drunken masses (see picture above). The tricky bit is to ween your girlfriend off Judy Sill and play this instead....

4) Strangers in the Night by UFO
You were no one in 70's rock with out a double live album, in one fell swoop you told everybody you could really play, you showed you had enough great songs to fill two discs, you got to indulge your worst album cover fantasies (this one has eye burning join-the-dots pictures of people screaming on it) and you put out a sneaky greatest hits without admitting your career was over. Imagine an English AC/DC but with Paganini playing guitar and the really polite guy who in your local library singing in the shower. To be honest they would have been a bit bog standard if it wasn't for guitar whizz Michael Schenker, there is a bit in the "Anvil" documentary where the singer/guitarist goes up to Schenker at a festival and compares him to the "Beethoven of lead guitar" and that he plays his own axe with a vibrator to complete blank amusement by the blondy German. It sums it up though as Schenker can really spank his plank, the whole two records are just an excuse for him to blast away sounding like a cross between Tom Verlaine on heroin and Nigel Kennedy on crack. Rather than pretending to be all rebelious by recording a classical version of "purple haze", the freaky violinist should have covered "rock bottom"off this album, the best guitar wank by a white guy, period...What is it with Americans and saying "period"?

Anyway I have a party to go to and I have "montose" by "montrose" under my arm so until next time my only advice is "grow some balls and ask the vegan bitch out!".

Maningrey