Meet Doctor Doom "Forty years ago, with his band Pentagram, Bobby Liebling invented a style of fiendishly heavy metal that hardly anyone heard. He spent the ensuing decades in a haze of hard drugs and big trouble. (5 arrests, 35 detoxes, more than 200 hospital visits.) Now, with the genre he spawned on the rise and a young wife and baby boy in tow, Liebling is feeling the first rumblings of success. Here's where things start to get weird."
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 20, 2011 -
26 comments
This cheesy 1979 promo film from the group,
Blackjack, offers a glimpse into the hard rock past of balladeer Michael Bolton, which also includes a co-writing credit for a
Top 40 hit by Kiss. Similarly, Bill Joel disavows the days when he
posed in medieval armor next to slabs of raw beef on the cover of the self-titled album by Joel's heavy metal duo,
Attila, although
Julian Cope is a fan of the album and its Deep Purplish vibes (check out
Holy Moses and
Wonder Woman). To round out the trifecta, we have Tori Amos who got marketed as the metal-chick frontwoman of
Y Kant Tori Read (check out the video for
The Big Picture). On the other hand, metalheads have the opposite problem of hiding their pop past. Examples include the industrial metal band Ministry's early days as a
new wave synth act and Tommy Iommi's brief tenure as a
member of Jethro Tull before becoming lead guitarist of Black Sabbath. Meanwhile,
Bon Scott, the late lead singer of AC/DC, is probably spinning in his grave over the YouTube footage of him as an
Australian teen idol and a
bearded hippie with a recorder.
posted by jonp72
on Nov 26, 2007 -
70 comments
"To me, I've always looked upon the stage as a much-hallowed place, a place of worship for real artists, as I said just before. That doesn't just stem from rock n roll days; to me, Judy Garland was a real artist, Al Jolson was a real artist, people like that gave their all and everything for the stage and most of them finished up dying for it as well. In my view, nobody should be allowed to stand on a stage unless they can present the total professional thing, unless they really can sing and really can play. Punk was a total anti-attitude towards music."NWOBHM: How a now-little-known nostalgic reaction to punk called the New Wave of British Heavy Metal changed the world.
[much, much more inside]
posted by koeselitz
on Jan 10, 2007 -
40 comments
The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM to cognoscenti) one of the lesser known but most influential movements of the past quarter century. After the
innovators of Metal ran out of steam in the late 70's and were stampeded in the maelstrom of punk, heavy metal (and testosterone-soaked delindquents everywhere) found itself in a quandary). A number of UK acts took some cues from the punks, shortened the songs, reigned in the self-indulgence and speeded up the tempo, and upped the relevance and intelligence of the lyrical content, while still retaining the vocal prowess, instrumental pyrotechnics and young warrior energy that makes it Metal in the first place.
Some groups became world famous. Others only
big in Europe. Some great ones
missed stardom by just a
notch. Many of these acts have been cited as inspirations by Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Napalm Death and the thrash/death metal hordes, and even many post-punks. An interesting summary for fans, and a good introduction for non-mans who may have to recalibrate their opinion of the genre after checking some of these bands out.
posted by jonmc
on Dec 17, 2003 -
17 comments
KNAC was the heavy metal station in southern california from 1986 to 1995. Their stickers graced the back of many a 4x4 and street sign. While driving around today, I noticed a KNAC PURE ROCK sticker for the first time in ages, but there was a .COM where "105.5" used to be. Going to
KNAC.COM reveals that they are in fact back with their same format, now solely internet based. After firing up their broadband stream, I heard some good old Ozzy and it was like being in high school again. This begs the question though, since they went under from a lack of advertising before, is there enough money in internet radio to keep them afloat today?
posted by mathowie
on Feb 22, 2000 -
2 comments
