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Who are your current top 5 bands?


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I buy a lot of bios, some I wait until they are in the throw out bin at the local book shop and only pay $2 for them but in general if I see a metal bio I buy it.

I don't mind the songs Maiden did with Di'anno I just don't particularly like him singing them. Running Free is over played, but I like Phantom Of The Opera, Strange World, Remember Tomorrow, Purgatory, Innocent Exile and Wrathchild, but I don't remember when I last listened to the two albums.

Tattooed Millionaire and Accident At Birth are my faves, but I love them all too.

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4 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

For me as a vocalist Di'anno was imeasurably preferable to Dickenson. If they would have kept him around a little longer I might have stayed with them past 1984.

This.

Although I more than stuck with with them I still always have preferred Di'anno as the vocalist for the band.  He represents Maiden as a band with a sound that carried threat and menace.  As they flirted with paranormal themes alongside social commentary Paul's vocals kept everything grounded for me and for this reason their first two albums are much more tangible experiences for me.

Bruce brought something different and his era of the band is most certainly the period I grew up with them.  Progress has its victims of course and there's nothing to say they would even be around had Di'anno stayed but I would settle with just having those first two records.  

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7 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

I buy a lot of bios, some I wait until they are in the throw out bin at the local book shop and only pay $2 for them but in general if I see a metal bio I buy it.

I don't mind the songs Maiden did with Di'anno I just don't particularly like him singing them. Running Free is over played, but I like Phantom Of The Opera, Strange World, Remember Tomorrow, Purgatory, Innocent Exile and Wrathchild, but I don't remember when I last listened to the two albums.

Tattooed Millionaire and Accident At Birth are my faves, but I love them all too.

Fair enough, I don’t really listen to the Dianno albums either, I listen to the Blaze era albums much more often,

 

those 2 albums are good, Tattooed Millionaire isn’t great but there are a couple great songs on it, my personal fave is the Chemical Wedding.

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I like Tattooed Millionaire because it was the first one he did outside of Maiden. Licking the Gun and Zulu Lulu aren't the best songs but when that album came out I listened to it all the time. Kind of like Overkill's Horrorscpe, it became a favourite more by default because of the amount of times it got played more than how good or bad it really was

 

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On 1/27/2022 at 12:19 AM, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

Saxon id like to see live. I should make more of an effort to see them before they retire. Let me know how you get on with saxon. Alot of those old singers in my experience do a great job.

Well @blaaacdoommmmfan I can tell you Saxon were nothing short of awesome!! They played so many good songs and honestly Biff sounds as great as ever, had an absolute blast last night, and they are playing again in November! i'm tempted to book tickets again hahaha, heres a clip from the show;

 

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On 1/29/2022 at 9:29 PM, H34VYM3T4LD4V3 said:

Well @blaaacdoommmmfan I can tell you Saxon were nothing short of awesome!! They played so many good songs and honestly Biff sounds as great as ever, had an absolute blast last night, and they are playing again in November! i'm tempted to book tickets again hahaha, heres a clip from the show;

 

Amazing there still so good and biff is still on it.tbh suspected they'd be great but pleased to hear it.  Thanks for the update and link.

Mental note for November for Saxon gigs. whirrr, saved😉

 

On 1/29/2022 at 9:29 PM, H34VYM3T4LD4V3 said:

Well @blaaacdoommmmfan I can tell you Saxon were nothing short of awesome!! They played so many good songs and honestly Biff sounds as great as ever, had an absolute blast last night, and they are playing again in November! i'm tempted to book tickets again hahaha, heres a clip from the show;

 

Amazing there still so good and biff is still on it.tbh suspected they'd be great but pleased to hear it.  Thanks for the update and link.

Mental note for November for Saxon gigs. whirrr, saved😉

 

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On 1/27/2022 at 12:08 AM, KillaKukumba said:

I never got into his stuff that much, but I own everything he did with Deep Purple and if we just disliked people for blowing their own ego out of proportion we wouldn't like too many musos :)

Nostalgia tells me Horroscope is my favourite Overkill simply because I've listened to it so many times and do keep going back to it. But lately Wings Of War and The Grinding Wheel also get a hammering.

I'm mostly into thrash, older bands like Exodus, Slayer, Testament etc, but I also like newer bands like Evile, Evil Invaders and Suicidal Angles and so many in between. But I also listen to a lot of softer stuff from the 60's right through to today and I do have a soft spot for the raw energy of the Aussie pub rock scene of the 70's 80's and 90's because I was a part of it.

Kk cool connection to Australian pub rock scene 70s, 80s,90s. What were your favourite bands from that era. We're acdc part of this. 

Excuse my ignorance but I know nothing about this era.🙂 

On 1/27/2022 at 12:08 AM, KillaKukumba said:

I never got into his stuff that much, but I own everything he did with Deep Purple and if we just disliked people for blowing their own ego out of proportion we wouldn't like too many musos :)

Nostalgia tells me Horroscope is my favourite Overkill simply because I've listened to it so many times and do keep going back to it. But lately Wings Of War and The Grinding Wheel also get a hammering.

I'm mostly into thrash, older bands like Exodus, Slayer, Testament etc, but I also like newer bands like Evile, Evil Invaders and Suicidal Angles and so many in between. But I also listen to a lot of softer stuff from the 60's right through to today and I do have a soft spot for the raw energy of the Aussie pub rock scene of the 70's 80's and 90's because I was a part of it.

Kk cool connection to Australian pub rock scene 70s, 80s,90s. What were your favourite bands from that era. We're acdc part of this. 

Excuse my ignorance but I know nothing about this era.🙂 

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2 hours ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

Amazing there still so good and biff is still on it.tbh suspected they'd be great but pleased to hear it.  Thanks for the update and link.

Mental note for November for Saxon gigs. whirrr, saved😉

Yes it was pretty astounding how little they’ve aged musically 😁 Biff is great with the crowd too hes so funny, their new album is out next week aswell! So keep a look out for that one.

And if you’re going to go who knows! We might meet each other one day haha, depending where you are in UK lol

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1 hour ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

Kk cool connection to Australian pub rock scene 70s, 80s,90s. What were your favourite bands from that era. We're acdc part of this. 

Excuse my ignorance but I know nothing about this era.🙂 

 

AC/DC were part of the scene in the mid 70's and by the late 70's they were starting to get international recognition and tours so we'd kind of lost them even though they used to call themselves Australian.  Bands like Little River Band and Air Supply were softer, more top 40 but hugely popular and they also went overseas quickly. INXS did the same and went from pubs and small clubs of maybe 2000 people to world wide arenas, but they were not as big of a live band here as many around the world think.

Bands like The Angels and Cold Chisel rocked 6 and 7 nights a week by the end of the 70's, both went overseas and although they did okay the US labels did not understand the music they were writing and tried to change it for a US market but it didn't work. Both continued to play loud, fast and powerful in Australia through the 80's. Cold Chisel broke up and went separate ways with lead singer Jimmy Barnes carving a successful career playing a similar hard rock type of music until he worked out he could sell anything and moved into soul music, blues and rock.

By mid 80's The Angles were a local force to be reckoned with, they knew their audience was in the pubs and small clubs and they played almost constantly, it was about then I started to get involved. The Angles paved the way for bands like Screaming Jets and the Baby Animals and by then we were doing statewide pub crawls. We'd only travel an hour or so down the road each day but the bands would be playing to packed pub every night where they knew so many of the fans.

In the 90's things started to change a bit and alcohol and drug fuelled violence was getting so bad at gigs some of the bands decided to move out of the pubs and start doing small halls and outdoor gigs. They weren't quiet the same and given that most of these bands grew up in alcohol fuelled venues, half of them grew up in alcohol fuelled families, it was hard for them to give up the easy sell audience where bands not only got a cut of the door they also got a cut of the booze sold. But quite a few of them decided they were just over the fighting and shit that went with every gig. It wasn't long after than I got out (not because of the booze bans) and while some of the bands kept playing, many went to a more low key role or called it quits.

And then there was metal, which really started to take off in a live sense here in the mid 80's and ran parallel to the pub rock scene.

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But what about the mighty Rose Tattoo, why'd you leave them out? 

Rose Tattoo - Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw (1978)

 

I remember my wife playing Cold Chisel for me, and one of Jimmy's solo albums. I had never heard of them before or Jimmy Barnes. Not sure what there is to understand, rock music is rock music but you're right, I guess Americans don't get it. Cold Chisel is awful. I never liked any of those Aussie bands that did make it big in America either, INXS, Midnight Oil, Crowded House, Men at Work none of 'em.

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Oh, fuck me GG, you've got it all arse about. Rose Tattoo were shit and Angry Anderson is a maggot. I never really liked Chisel, but Jimmy Barnes is a decent human being. 

INXS -  poseurs fronted by a poonce.

Crowded House - lovely songs well sung

Men at Work - a fucking novelty act

But the Oils...nah, you've got to love the Oils. They were great live back in the day and me, the wife, the son and his wife are booked to see them on their farewell tour.

1 hour ago, KillaKukumba said:

Air Supply were softer

That name brought back a memory. A band I was in played as support for Air Supply one night. A pad fell off one of the keys pads of my alto sax rendering it unplayable. I freaked the rest of the band out but just walking off stage to find a roadie with some superglue to fix it. None was found and so I proceeded to play everything for the rest of the gig on my baritone.

Oh, and Air Supply were totally shit.

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5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

But what about the mighty Rose Tattoo, why'd you leave them out? 

 

To be fair I left out about 100 bands that most people wouldn't know. It may have looked like I was writing a novel but it's very much an abridged version of the Australian music scene which was very heavy influenced by the UK scene so it's not surprising it didn't translate well to the US. Even AC/DC struggled on the US, it took them years to become an overnight success.

The Tatts were a great band and Angry certainly isn't a maggot, he's about the most genuine bloke you could meet, but I can see why people think otherwise.

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3 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

To be fair I left out about 100 bands that most people wouldn't know. It may have looked like I was writing a novel but it's very much an abridged version of the Australian music scene which was very heavy influenced by the UK scene so it's not surprising it didn't translate well to the US. Even AC/DC struggled on the US, it took them years to become an overnight success.

The Tatts were a great band and Angry certainly isn't a maggot, he's about the most genuine bloke you could meet, but I can see why people think otherwise.

Since the Beatles landed on our shores in 1964 America has been enamoured with British rock music. Not only does it translate quite well, but in general Yanks can't get enough of it. I think the only reason Autralian and New Zealand music isn't more well known here is the distance. We just don't ever hear about most shit from down under there.

Having heard a bit of Cold Chisel I can say I don't hear anyhing specifically Aussie about them at first glance that would only appeal to Aussies while putting Yanks off, it's just very generic and not very good so it didn't crack into American radio playlists. There have been more than enough Aussie artists who have made it quite big here to demonstrate that America is perfectly willing to accept them with open arms if someone thinks they're good and puts them on the radio or Spotify or whatever. Problem is there's just no telling what crap these normies might think is good so it's very hit or miss what gets picked up to be thrown on the radio.

Considering most Americans are geographically challenged and couldn't point out either Australia or England on a map and honestly don't know where these places are even located, I don't think there's any real prejudice against Aussie acts or anything. I think some people here might even think OZ is part of England or something because most of them can't tell the accents apart. I know for a fact having had a kiwi wife that most Americans have absolutely no idea where New Zealand is. Even when we'd volunteer that it's near Australia many folks still had quizical looks on their faces. America really is the country that thinks the sun shines out of our asshole.

Even I....just found out tonight while poking around the internet that that band Dexy's Midnight Runners who had that insufferable "hit" song Come On Eileen 40 years ago was from the UK. I had always thought they were Australian.

AC/DC struggled like most bands but not for very long, '77's LTBR put them on the map here, Highway broke them into the bigtime, then 1980's B in B sold like 25 million copies in the US alone.

Don't have Angry's bio in front of me here so I don't actually know why Doc has a problem with him. All I know is that he says he's not a nice boy and he never was.

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Yeah the Beatles were huge everywhere, it's not really evidence that UK and European music in general did much in America. America was never an easy market for any overseas bands to break. Between bad contracts with labels, to difficulties actually getting bands there, to music that just wasn't accepted it's always been a hard market to break. AC/DC spent the best part of 4 years breaking America, other bands like INXS were luckier and plenty of other bands gave up.

In the late 80's the band I worked with tried to trademark a band name in America because there was hope they would tour there. It was going to cost the band as Australian residents more than $40K to get a limited trademark stopping anyone else using that name for a musical/entertainment group. In Australia it cost us $50 and in Europe it was going to cost $2000. America wasn't only a hard market to break it cost Australian bands a small fortune to establish themselves and many went broke before they got their audience.

Every country has it's own music scene, bands from the Who to Oasis suffered differently breaking out of their local market. While bands like the Kinks played US to big audiences, then got banned and couldn't return until about 81, there was plenty of other bands whose music might have been similar that didn't make it. The same thing happened with Australian bands. Not everyone could hear the difference that made AC/DC or INXS an overseas success, that didn't make The Angles or Cold Chisel the same success. Just like they couldn't tell the difference between why Rose Tattoo and Skyhooks had pockets of success where other bands didn't. And just like they can explain why suddenly Rose Tattoo became a renewed success for the Euro Festival circuit in the mid 00's but that same success wasn't even happening in their home town.

In the 80's especially there is a difference in many albums that have received both a Australian produced release and an American produced release. Most times those decision were based on record label decisions, sometimes management, but some of it just comes down to the idea that we all had different studio techniques and both sides thought theirs was the only way.

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On 1/31/2022 at 1:23 AM, H34VYM3T4LD4V3 said:

Yes it was pretty astounding how little they’ve aged musically 😁 Biff is great with the crowd too hes so funny, their new album is out next week aswell! So keep a look out for that one.

And if you’re going to go who knows! We might meet each other one day haha, depending where you are in UK lol

Me again🙂 the mechanic at work agrees to. He said he saw Saxon not long ago and was very impressed with the show. Also the lucky duck 🦆saw motorhead not that long before Lemmy died. He said only bad part of show was the volume. As it went up and up and up he migrated further away from the front. 😁

Yeah the new Saxon album. I need to you tube that and put it on my wishlist as short of money. A band I'd like to see is iron maiden before they retire. Did you see a show or at download. Was they good. 

Yeah absolutely we might meet at a future gig. 🤘You never know. 

 

 

 

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On 1/31/2022 at 1:36 AM, KillaKukumba said:

AC/DC were part of the scene in the mid 70's and by the late 70's they were starting to get international recognition and tours so we'd kind of lost them even though they used to call themselves Australian.  Bands like Little River Band and Air Supply were softer, more top 40 but hugely popular and they also went overseas quickly. INXS did the same and went from pubs and small clubs of maybe 2000 people to world wide arenas, but they were not as big of a live band here as many around the world think.

Bands like The Angels and Cold Chisel rocked 6 and 7 nights a week by the end of the 70's, both went overseas and although they did okay the US labels did not understand the music they were writing and tried to change it for a US market but it didn't work. Both continued to play loud, fast and powerful in Australia through the 80's. Cold Chisel broke up and went separate ways with lead singer Jimmy Barnes carving a successful career playing a similar hard rock type of music until he worked out he could sell anything and moved into soul music, blues and rock.

By mid 80's The Angles were a local force to be reckoned with, they knew their audience was in the pubs and small clubs and they played almost constantly, it was about then I started to get involved. The Angles paved the way for bands like Screaming Jets and the Baby Animals and by then we were doing statewide pub crawls. We'd only travel an hour or so down the road each day but the bands would be playing to packed pub every night where they knew so many of the fans.

In the 90's things started to change a bit and alcohol and drug fuelled violence was getting so bad at gigs some of the bands decided to move out of the pubs and start doing small halls and outdoor gigs. They weren't quiet the same and given that most of these bands grew up in alcohol fuelled venues, half of them grew up in alcohol fuelled families, it was hard for them to give up the easy sell audience where bands not only got a cut of the door they also got a cut of the booze sold. But quite a few of them decided they were just over the fighting and shit that went with every gig. It wasn't long after than I got out (not because of the booze bans) and while some of the bands kept playing, many went to a more low key role or called it quits.

And then there was metal, which really started to take off in a live sense here in the mid 80's and ran parallel to the pub rock scene.

Thankds for the history lesson very interesting. 

Re the Beatles I never got that band. They done a number of songs I really really  liked like yesterday, sarge pepper song and some others the rest I'd leave. However the rest of the world including America loved them. Your right loads of bands have tried to crack America and loads and loads have failed.  Iron maiden Ive read only took off big time there when bruce d was singer. It's a hard place to break into definitely. 

 

 

 I've heard of Jimmy Barnes. He's on UK rock radio from time to time. Are Midnight oil, men at work part of the scene I've heard a couple of there tracks which they play on the UK radio.  

Inxs didn't realise they were part of the same scene I'd assumed they just gone to America and got mutt Lange to produce them and they was instant success. Im not there biggest fan by any stretch but  the  songs I've heard of there's are very catchy especially the guitars. A bit overproduced for me. Sort of like zz top for there big hits. I'd probably like them more if it weren't so perfect and shiny neat sounding. 😁What a description 🤣

 

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Yeah Midnight Oil were locally popular when they called themselves Farm, but they didn't record their first album until '78. They were only of those bands that had some success all over the place but never really had enough success to break anywhere but Aust. They did do some big gigs overseas but like most they were bigger here than anywhere else. They were one of the first "white" bands and the first successful rock band to be accepted into aboriginal communities to play and move about. There is a very select number of performers who have earned that right and the stories the guys from the Oils retell are quite stunning.

Men At Work is an interesting one they came along later than many others and did have some success with Who Can It Be, Down Under and Overkill. They only released 3 albums and Down Under kept getting revived for all sorts of things which kept their name out there. But Colin Hay, the main man and guitarist actually moved to the US 30 years ago (became a citizen eventually) and spent lots of years doing tv and movie work. He's had both songs and personal appearances in all sorts of shows from JAG to Scrubs, and Zach Braff from Scrubs has not only had in appear singing in the show but used him on multiple tv shows and movies he produced which keep reviving his career.

INXS were a manufactured band, not like the Monkees or Spice Girls, but they were manufactured for big hits. They were a big part of the local scene, they drunk, drugged and fucked with most of the other bands. They created nearly as many enemies as they did fans here. But like Alberts Records decided it was time for AC/DC to break the world market and then spent 4 years making it happen INXS management did the same. They wrote and produced the highly polished, too perfect for most, music which the US label knew would sell in huge numbers, the pumped the shit out of the PR and just like sheep the world took to the new amazing act and made them a success and made the record company richer.

 

 

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