This site is dedicated to the classic rock era; hard rock and heavy metal from the 70´s and the 80´s. Here you´ll find music, news, concerts, trivia, stories and much more.
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Fancy reading some books? On google books you find lots of books to read online. "Phil Lynott: The Rocker" by Phil Putterford is a great book - free to read!
The "Soldiers of Fortune" by Alan Byrne is another great book on the history of Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy.
"At the beginning of the 1970s, Black Sabbath stood with Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple at the forefront of something loud, large, and life-changing. Yet while Zeppelin had its "Stairway to Heaven" and Purple its "Highway Star," Sabbath's "War Pigs" was the almost magical beginning of a riveting new musical form. As hard rock rose to prominence during the decade, Kiss emerged as metal forerunners with catchy anthems and a stage show beyond all precedent. In 1976, however, Judas Priest delivered the goods with Sad Wings of Destiny, extending heavy metal into something beyond bombast and Black Sabbath. Sadly, as the original line-up of Sabbath met its end at decade's finish, the pioneering work of Ozzy Osbourne and his comrades was put to rest." - Chapter 1 summary.
"Black Sabbath is and always will be synonymous with heavy metal. Sabbath got me started on all that evil-sounding shit, and it's stuck with me. Tony Iommi is the king of the heavy riff." - James Hetfield.
Enjoy this great vids on the story of Black Sabbath. The web is full of different ones, but this one´s a really great one.
"Nearly 40 years of drugs, depression, booze, the Beast, and paranoia are laid out in unflinching detail in this journey into the wicked world of Black Sabbath. With numerous albums that are routinely on "best of" lists, an influence on contemporary acts that cannot be overstated, and an original lineup—fronted by the infamously addled Ozzy Osbourne—that continues to tour, Black Sabbath still fills coliseums and amphitheaters all over the world. Through rare and previously unpublished interviews, documents, and artifacts spanning the band's entire career, readers get an all-access pass to Sabbath's manic history, from bat-biting to rehab. The book contains new and never-before-seen photos and conversations that shed more light on metal's dark forefathers. Every album is cataloged, every song pored over, and every tour deconstructed—making this headlong rush down metal-memory lane the definitive reference to the band."
During the recording of The Wörld Is Yours, Motörhead experienced an unexpected fork in the road when Campbell’s father got sick. As such, Phil flew from Los Angeles to Wales to attend to his Dad, who unfortunately passed away. According to Lemmy, “Phil wanted to go say goodbye; that’s fair. You couldn’t deny the guy that obviously for a bloody album. So that was okay. The Internet’s a great thing for that. Phil has a small studio in his house (in Wales).We sent him tracks and he put lead guitar on them over there and sent them back. He only had to do it once; he did pretty well.” Listening to The Wörld Is Yours, there isn’t the slightest inkling that the Atlantic Ocean separated the guitarist from the rest of his band. “Yeah right,” jokes Lemmy. “We couldn’t get a good screen in the studio so…”
The content of Sabbaths songs (both originals and cover versions) from the two first albums demonstrated a tongue in cheek interest in the occult and black magic. This was a crucial step in establishing the 'darkness' and 'heaviness' of later heavy metal lyrics, and Black Sabbath was the first group to feature such lyrical content, almost to the exclusion of other topics. Led Zeppelin, The Doors and others might have hinted at magic or the occult, but few contemporaries could match Black Sabbath for directness, such as "My name is Lucifer/Please take my hand" (from Black Sabbaths "N.I.B."). Butler wrote most of the lyrics.
Another innovation was the by-product of an accident: Iommi's fretting fingers were injured in an industrial accident slightly before his early tenure with Earth. He was working in a sheet metal factory at the time and the tops of the two middle fingers on his right hand were sliced off. Initially, he forged himself prosthetics from a melted plastic detergent bottle. The injured fingers were understandably tender, so Iommi downtuned his Gibson guitar from standard E to C#. The resultant slackness of the string allowed him to play with less bother to his fingertips. Butler also downtuned his bass guitar to more easily follow Iommi's playing. The lower pitch often seemed "heavier" or more substantive, and Black Sabbath were perhaps the first popular group to downtune. The practice of downtuning is now common, perhaps even standard, among metal groups.
It all starts somewhere. The first Kiss performance was on January 30, 1973, for an audience of three at the Popcorn Club (renamed Coventry shortly afterward) in Queens. In March of that year, the band recorded a five-song demo tape with producer Eddie Kramer. Former TV director Bill Aucoin, who had seen the group at a handful of showcase concerts in the summer of 1973, offered to become the band’s manager in mid-October. Kiss agreed, with the condition that Aucoin get them signed to a recording contract within two weeks. On November 1, 1973, Kiss became the first act signed to former teen pop singer and Buddah Records executive Neil Bogart's new label, Emerald City Records (which was shortly afterward renamed Casablanca Records).
Ace Frehley lives the myth! Trashing hotel rooms seems to be an important ingredient to the rock´n roll mythology. This is an instructional step-by-step video so that you all can learn the fine art of trashing your hotel room the right way. Enjoy.
"People used to ask me, 'What do you reckon you'll be doing when you're 40?', and I told 'em 'rocking out and kicking ass!' Now it's 'What do you reckon you'll be doing at 60?' and the answer's exactly the same. I'm always going to love Jimi Hendrix - 'Purple Haze' will still give me a hard-on when I'm hooked up to a life-support machine. Hey, even when I'm dead, they're going to have a hell of a job nailing the coffin lid down." - Steven Tyler
Ozzy was known by most people as "the singer who bites heads off bats". This rumor traces back to one isolated incident. On January 20, 1982, at a concert in Des Moines, a bat wound up on stage, which had either been stuck in the rafters or thrown up there by a crazed fan. Osbourne bit it for a goof, thinking it was a rubber toy. He had to take a week of rabies shots. Despite a $25,000 donation later that year to the SPCA, the bat story grew to be an urban legend of its own, to the point where even numerous unrelated heavy metal bands were commonly accused of ritualistically killing live animals on stage.
Always funny to watch the old Cooper videos. "I love the dead" is a great song, by a great performer. Along with Alice Coopers career there´s a lot of nice stories. Here´s a good one: While Cooper was playing a stadium show in the 1970s, a fan threw a live chicken on stage. Cooper, who's from Detroit and unfamiliar with farm animals, generally assumed that since the chicken had wings, it would be able to fly. So he grabbed the chicken and tossed into the air, thinking it would fly out of the stadium, when in fact it went straight down into the crowd, who ripped the bird to pieces. The parts were thrown back on stage, and the headlines later claimed that Cooper bit the head off the chicken, and drank its blood. Frank Zappa later advised Cooper not to tell the real story, simply because "everybody loves it!".
Fancy reading some books? On google books you find lots of books to read online. "Phil Lynott: The Rocker" by Phil Putterford is a great book - free to read!
