AC/DC - T.N.T.

ORIGINATION High Voltage
LAST LISTENED TO mid week
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT not bad
RATING

This is just classic AC/DC. It starts with Bon Scott almost grunting 'oi oi's in between Angus' guitar licks, before the bass cuts in just exactly where it should. That's the thing about AC/DC: their music is very straightforward, almost to the point of predicability. Almost predictable, but not exactly predictable because everything happens (in classic bluesy hard rock) not only where you know it was going to but where you wanted it to and where it had to. Doing things so very straightforwardly can't be at all easy and AC/DC do it very, very well.

T.N.T. is about being generally just hard (and in fact, 'dirty, mean and medium clean'). That's really it. Apart from those great 'oi's and the riffs and that magnicificent rolling AC/DC bass. You just have to love it. It's on their first album which everyone who has ever enjoyed an amplified guitar should own.
Further AC/DC songs: Sin City

Monday morning mess

The shock of an early alarm and a head full of fuzz confused issues too much this morning. I ended up with a big old mess of random snatches of music. The biggest and most continuous snatch was from AC/DC's Rocker, but this was interspersed with a near equally large dose of Public Enemy's Welcome To The Terrordome, both of which would merit a decent mention in their own right. However, there where so many other bits and random pieces kicking around that it doesn't seem fair to pick out just the two. There was bits of the Beastie Boys The Biz Vs The Nuge, for example and even a part from Chris Morris' Pixies spoof Motherbanger which was a real shot from out of nowhere.

Ultimately, there was just too much random noise for anyone's head on a monday morning. No way to start a week.

AC/DC - Sin City (again)

ORIGINATION Powerage
LAST LISTENED TO yesterday
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT very, very high
RATING

Find the frst time .http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifhere

AC/DC - Sin City

ORIGINATION Powerage
LAST LISTENED TO a few days ago
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT good
RATING

There is something pretty primitive about AC/DC. Their formula that they have perfected over more than thirty years is pretty simple: basic 4/4 drums, classic rock-screech vocals and giant, giant chords. Where their particular appeal lies is in how they weave these most basic of rock elements together, which they so do in a way that combines exciting, charged dynamics with space and air.

In many ways Sin City is one of the best examples of that style. It begins with large chords, before turning into a typical mid-tempo AC/DC head-nodder. Soon the guitar cuts back to choppier chords as the vocal comes in and the rolling bass becomes more noticable. There is air and space through this verse, that flows over the dynamic tension of guitar and drums. Shortly, however, this space is lost when the guitar comes back in full, building the the verse to the chorus, which in turn builds to a guitar solo that takes things even higher.

From this height almost everything is stripped away, leaving only the bass, hi-hat and vocals. The space left is great and yet is quite tense as it's certainly only a matter of time before a huge guitar comes crashing back in. Which it does and it is wonderous.

Many other artists have used a similar technique to this in the past, but few with quite as much success as AC/DC had here. They recorded this in '78, on their (depending on who's counting) fourth LP. That they are still at it today is a testament to AC/DC who, in their thirty years, have seen pretenders come and then go, but have never really been challenged as Kings in the land of hard rock.

Wolfsbane - Black Lagoon

ORIGINATION Down Fall The Good Guys
LAST LISTENED TO mid december
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT no so big
RATING

Oops. I hit the publish post button and sat back. And then i gradually noticed the chorus from this running about inside my head. Hey, where'd that come from? Then i realised i have a morning song after all. What a relief. Obviously it just took my brain a while to come online this morning.

So, Wolfsbane. Top early '90s good time hard rock. They cropped up a few months back with a song from their first album, which you can find here. This track is from their second full album, which suffered from a degree not-as-good-second-album-itis. Of course, their first album was so very, very good, as well as the mini album that came between these two (titled All Hell's Breaking Loose Down At Little Kathy Wilson's Place) that an amount of drop-off in quality was inevitable. It also means that that album is only not very, very good. So it's quite good.

Black Lagoon is one of the faster tracks on the album and it's pretty good. It's got the pace, the apparent simplicity and the catchy chorus that is to be expected for Wolfsbane. The playing is more accomplished than it at first appears, which is a trick the Wolfsbane often pulled off. For a group of seeming hard drinking, hard playing, hard rocking, scruffy metallers, they actually were a very tight outfit, something that their image was somewhat at odds with. Other than that there is little to say, except that the Black Lagoon of the title may in fact be an a certain alcoholic beverage. Certainly that's the impression i'm getting. Could this be Wolfsbane's warning about the perils of drink? Not very likely, i'll admit.

I'm falling down…

Wolfsbane - Tears From A Fool

ORIGINATION Live Fast, Die Fast LP
LAST LISTENED TO a few weeks back
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT confusing
RATING

After almost a week of almost nothing but funk, it came as quite a surprise this morning to wake with this in my head. Especially considering that it is the weakest of all the tunes from this, Wolfsbane's debut release. There are far better and more catchy tracks on it that i really like, why it wasn't one of those, i don't know.

Wolfsbane, for those who are unfamiliar with them, and that's much more likely to be more than less of you, where a small, hard rockin' heavy metalish crew who first hit in '89. They went on to produce three and a half albums. Their singer, Blaze Bailey, then became singer for no less than Iron Maiden during a number of years in the mid to late 90s, before Bruce Dickinson returned.

'Tears From A Fool' is the ballad from their fast, exciting and slightly scuzzy debut. As a ballad on a metal(ish) LP chances are that it'll be crap and it is, kind of. However, it has a strange appeal that is rather hard to discern. Lyrically there are more clichés than even slightly sensible writers would have considered and the old accoustic guitar strumming up to electric guitar solo is a tired formula. Tired and clichéd. Yet, and this is the puzzler, i actually quite like this song. Maybe it's just a soft spot i have for Wolfsbane. Maybe it's nostalgia, i can't tell.

What i can tell is that the song, like most of theirs, is played surprisingly well. For all that Wolfsbane played the part of a scuzzy, half-arsed, layabout metal band, they were actually really tight. Going back to their music after a number of years, i was surprised at how well played it was. There is also humour and humanity in it, traits that most metal sadly lacked. Maybe that's the appeal.

For all this track's clichés and predictability, it's pulled off convincingly and there is something quite appealing about that conviction.

Kiss - Crazy Nights

ORIGINATION tv, the other night
LAST LISTENED TO for a millisecond on tv the other night
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT sadly high
RATING



Argh! What a crap start.

Whether you remember this 80s hit by Kiss is anyone's guess. I certainly would rather not. Sadly, a few nights ago i was attempting to watch tv and one of the freeview channels was doing a 'top twenty classic rock' tunes or something. Clearly it can't have been that classic, as this song is pure pish. It was enough to make me turn the tv off right there. As usual.

The video, which was quite rubbish too, shows Kiss on a sound stage somewhere with their adoring fans looking on, the poor sods. Kiss, sadly, had by this point chosen to lose their make-up which does prompt one to question why they continued to bother.

Enough cringing. I'm off to listen to something good.