Believe it or not, I didn’t get into Uriah Heep until just recently.

I recall hearing the name all through my younger years. I’d read magazines like Hit Parader and recall hearing about evil rock concerts by devil worshiping bands like Mötley Crüe and Uriah Heep. So I’ve always known about them, but just never had any albums nor listened to them.

But I came across something a few months ago and I was able to listen to a fair lot of their catalog.

OK, they don’t sound very metal, at least if you consider metal to be things like Testament, Hammerfall, Megadeth, Slayer, and the like. But the Heep’s influence is evident, and a lot of metal (even if you look at hard rock and “hair metal”) wouldn’t be around if not for them.

“The Wizard” certainly isn’t very metal sounding, but it’s a cool song (and the Indian pants rule). And it’s got hot 70’s chicks dancing in the background. 🙂

Sorry, without Max (and Igor), it’s not Sepultura.

One of my favorite bands in their (sub)genre. Fast, dissonant yet melodic. Technical, with a groove, thrash, moody; like Prego, it’s in there. Max’s growl wasn’t death cookie monster but yet due to his accent had a different sound.

When “Arise” came out, I was working college radio. Roadrunner Records did a huge promotion of it. I recall getting some video of a live show in Barcelona, a nice-sized pewter pin that replicated the “Beneath the Remains” album cover, a vinyl picture disc of “Arise”. Even that summer I took my leather biker jacket and got the “tribal S” airbrushed onto the shoulder. Yeah, I liked ’em.

But then, Max left. Just not the same.

Lately I’ve found myself listening to a lot of “early metal” from the 1970’s.

Take for example, UFO’s “Rock Bottom” and this live performance from 1975

I reckon it’s reactionary. I’m so tired of listening to perfect music… not that I’m listening to perfect music by choice, you just can’t help but by inundated with it (especially having children and being exposed to things like Hannah Montana). Auto-Tune has a place but it’s become overused, abused, and is the norm. There’s no room for mistakes, there’s not even a need to have talent because you can just fix it all with technology.

That’s not music.

Sure you try to make the album solid and as close to “perfect” as you can, but even the best albums have some little flubs here and there. It’s not 100% perfect.

Listen to Schenker’s playing in the above. How many times was there something messed up? He may not have hit the strings just right, or bent that note all the way. There’s flubs, there are mistakes. But it’s pure raw talent and energy there. There’s nothing manufactured. It works hard. It’s emotion. It’s energy. It’s talent. It strives to be the best it can be, but ultimately it cannot be perfect. It’s flawed. It’s human.

And it’s in that, where we find the beauty.

Venom.

An important band in the history of heavy metal. You don’t need incredible musicianship if you can play “good enough”, fast enough, loud enough, and have a good gimmick (Satan always works, especially back in the 1980’s). In fact, I remember the PMRC just loving Venom, calling some of their songs recipes for Satanic worhip and other such nonsense.

The term “tongue-in-cheek” seems to have been overlooked.

I mean honestly… look at this video for “Witching Hour”

It’s silly!

I remember seeing this exact video on the “Ultimate Revenge Combat Tour Live” video and just how… well… silly it was. You couldn’t take it seriously. It’s just terrible. But hey… it rocks! And back then, if it pisses off or scares your parents, that makes it all the better, right? 😉

Speaking of that tour video, the Exodus and Slayer portions seemed to be actual tour footage at Studio 54, but the 2 Venom clips looked like they were filmed elsewhere and (badly) produced (watch carefully in the above YouTube video, at the end you’ll see there’s words coming out but Cronos’ lips aren’t moving). But then during the video, they had backstage interviews that looked to be in the same dressing room as the Slayer interview. I always wondered about the production quality of that video. But still, it’s a classic. I probably still have the VHS lying around somewhere….

To be complete, here’s the other performance by Venom from that tour video, “Countess Bathory”

In light of the recent passing of Ronnie James Dio, here’s a recent performance by Heaven & Hell of “Mob Rules”

“Mob Rules” is one of my favorite Dio-era Sabbath tunes. It’s fast, heavy, cool lyrics. I love Dio’s singing: “…play with fire you’ll, burn your fingers…”   I was introduced to the song because it was a part of the Heavy Metal movie soundtrack, and used at an awesome point of the movie:

Left quite an impact on young teenage me. 🙂

After seeing Exodus live a little while ago I figured it was time to check out some of their more recent stuff.

This is “War Is My Shepherd” from their 2004 album, “Tempo of the Damned”.

Heavy.

Check it out. The song is called “Dagger”, written during the “America’s Volume Dealer” sessions but it didn’t make the album. This was recorded in 1998 (geez… that album is THAT old?). Very good recording of the song… and yes, that main riff sounds like Kiss’ “God of Thunder” but still the song sounds good.

If COC is dead and gone (sounds like Pepper is making Down his #1 priority), it’d be nice if they at least collected all these various rarities and B-sides and such and released them.

I didn’t like Slipknot at first, but after talking with a guy at a record store about them one day… I gave them a try.

I bought a copy of “Iowa” and was blown away.

Their prior albums? A little too nü-metal still for me, and even the later albums are a little more moody than I care for. But I still respect what they do. They put on a show, they have a lot of guys working together. They blend a lot of elements and it all works.

The opening track from “Iowa”, People = Shit

Man.. was it really that long ago that Ice-T and Body Count stirred up all that controversy?

I feel old now. 🙂

I will say… listening to this edited version of “There Goes The Neighborhood” just doesn’t sound right.

OK, so maybe it’s not metal like Meshuggah, but hey… Austin, Texas’ own Broken Teeth kicks ass.

What I love about this video for “Viva La Rock, Fantastico” is well… the video. McMaster’s got an iPod in his ear for the audio feed, then a camera in his hand, and appears to just be wandering the streets in downtown Austin filming. Kinda cheesy, kinda cheap, but also kinda cool. 🙂

Check more details at Blabbermouth.