Posts Tagged ‘black sabbath’
Serpent Throne
White Summer*Black Winter
I like a lot of instrumental bands but I’ve always found it difficult to find quality instrumental rock bands that didn’t write their stuff to sound like they were writing around having a singer. Philadelphia’s Serpent Throne satisfies my instrumental craving perfectly.
I met the two guitarists, Demian Fenton and Don Argott, at the premier for the movie Last Days Here during the SxSW 2011 Film and Music Festival. You can read my review of their movie here. They are the guys behind the production/direction of the movie and in talking with Demian after the flick, he mentioned that he was in a band and I had forgotten about it until a few days after seeing the movie as I was wrapped up in a lot of SxSW activities.
Since then I have been spinning their stuff practically non-stop. Metal has a lot of sub-genres and these guys would typically be classified in the stoner rock and doom categories. To call them Black Sabbath worship is too easy. Pretty much all metal bands worship Sabbath whether they know it or not. Serpent Throne take it to a bit of a different level in my opinion. They use lots great dual guitar harmonies that are reminiscent of Thin Lizzy in places. I hear hints of Trouble (S/T LP era) in there as well, intended or not. There are some cool hints of 70s Scorpions as well as Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash. Maybe some Cactus too. It’s a nice blend of great rock and metal without sounding like they are just ripping off all of the classic bands.
I think it’s pretty tough for an instrumental band of this genre to continue to write stuff and keep it interesting and Serpent Throne has done that
The Battle of Old Crow
with all 3 of their albums: Ride Satan Ride (2007), The Battle of Old Crow (2009) and White Summer*Black Winter (2010). I highly recommend picking up all of their stuff. Battle of Old Crow and White Summer*Black Winter are available for download from Amazon and iTunes. I had to buy the CD for Ride Satan Ride and convert it to MP3 myself as it’s not available for legal download.
Hopefully I’ll catch these guys live sometime, even if it means heading to Philly for it. Would be cool to have them hit Austin for a show sometime. I think they’d do well here, especially if they were in on a SxSW gig. So, nice work, guys! Hope all good things come out of Last Days Here as well.
Black and Blue Concert Movie Review
Last night our local independent theater chain, The Alamo Drafthouse, played the 35mm version of the legendary Black and Blue concert from 
1980 which featured Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult live in Long Island, NY. I hadn’t seen this movie in about 20 years and had forgotten a lot about it. For some reason I thought that there were some interviews along with the concert footage, but I was sadly mistaken.
The movie starts out with some silly little movie by BOC called Here’s Johnny. Completely goofy. Then the live footage starts.
Let’s clear the air here. I’m no true BOC fan. They have a handful of songs that are friggin’ brilliant, but most everything else of theirs is hokey cheeseball stuff. I’ve tried time and time again to get into them and just can’t do it save those handful of songs that I really like. Their stage show was completely goofy. Sure, it was 1980, but c’mon. For the song Divine Wind, they dedicated it to the Ayatollah Khomeini and were flipping him the bird. Yes, I know that it was a big deal when all that was going on, I remember it well. And I guess that the news reflects in music quite often. Remember all the songs in the last 80s and early 90s about TV preachers and such? But still. Too goofy for me. Maybe had I been at the show I would not have thought the same. The only songs that BOC did in this set that I moderately liked were Cities On Flame and Godzilla (purely for nostalgic reasons). BOC’s stage presence is pretty boring as well. I met those guys about 7 years ago and they were a bunch of douches. It was at a biker rally in Virginia Beach, VA and they were doing a little meet and greet before their set. They treated every person there like shit. We stayed for 2 songs and left. Fuck ’em. But that experience plays no hand in this review.
Now, on to better things. Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio. Ronnie always seems more animated when the cameras are running. When I saw DIO in 2002, he was lively but not cartoonish. When I was at Radio City Music Hall (NYC) in 2007 for the filming of the Heaven and Hell DVD, he was certainly more lively. Gotta play it up, eh? But in this movie, he’s over the top, more so than I have ever noticed in past live footage. Ronnie is very good with his between song banter. He throws the horns aplenty. He even says in one spot, “A lot of people mistake this sign for being something evil when it really just means long live rock and roll.” They play a lot of the Ozzy era stuff and I never thought Dio sounded good on it. Just like Ozzy would sound terrible doing the Dio era stuff. They some Dio era stuff and it sounds pretty good. Tony and Geezer are killing it although Tony looks wasted. Geezer is playing an awesome BC Rich Eagle bass, unfortunately they don’t show him as much as I would like. It was interesting watching him use a pick in a few songs. Overall they sounded great but would have been a little greater had Bill Ward been behind the drums. When they did N.I.B., Dio made the comment that it doesn’t stand for Nativity In Black, it just stands for N.I.B.
The crowd in the theater was about half full, not too shabby for a 10:15PM showing on a Monday night. Tickets were $2 each. Our whole row seemed to know each other and that was fun. My friend and singer for local doom band Mala Suerte sat next to me. I cracked him up when I leaned over and said, “This is definitely a night for mustache rock!”
In the end, it was cool to see this on the big screen and to hang out with some good friends while doing…but I am tired today.
Here’s the setlist:
BOC
- Here’s Johnny
- The Marshall Plan
- Doctor Music
- Cities On Flame
- Divine Wind
- Godzilla
- Roadhouse Blues (The Doors)
- Born To Be Wild (Steppenwolf)
Black Sabbath
- Warpigs
- Neon Knights
- N.I.B.
- Iron Man
- Paranoid
- Heaven and Hell
- Die Young
This came out on VHS and Betamax in 1980 and a few years later on Laserdisc. It was supposedly being released on DVD in 2002 and for unknown reasons got canned. You can view the entire show on YouTube on this girl’s channel.
Holy Dio Tribute 2CD Set 1999
When I still had my CD business going, this was one of the things I plucked from Century Media and sold quite a few of. There were a ton of tribute albums coming out at the time and Century Media seemed to be releasing 
half of them. Some good, some not so good. This one was one of the better ones and has been out of print for quite some time now. Enjoy!
Tracks:
Disc 1
1. BLIND GUARDIAN – Don’t Talk To Strangers
2. PRIMAL FEAR – Kill The King
3. DORO – Egypt (The Chains Are On)
4. JAG PANZER – Children Of The Sea
5. FATES WARNING – Sign Of The Southern Cross
6. CATCH THE RAINBOW – Rainbow Eyes
7. GAMMA RAY – Long Live Rock And Roll
8. SWANO / TAGTGREN – Country Girl
Disc 2
1. GRAVE DIGGER – We Rock
2. HAMMERFALL – Man Of The Silver Mountain
3. HOLY MOTHER – Holy Diver
4. PRIMAL FEAR – Kill The King
5. AXEL RUDI PELL – Still I’m Sad
6. ENOLA GAY – Heaven And Hell
7. STEEL PROPHET – Neon Knight
8. SOLITUDE AETURNUS – Shame On The Night
9. DESTINY’S END – Last In Line
10. ANGEL DUST – Temple Of The King
Minus a few tracks like Destiny’s End, Grave Digger and maybe a few others, this is really good. I especially love Doro’s version of Egypt.
Thanks Señor Dio.
Dio died yesterday.
Ronnie James Dio.
Dead. It still pains me to even think about.
Sure it sounds cheesy that the death of someone I had never met has saddened me so much, but it is what it is. Ronnie was legendary not only for his longevity in the business, the “devil horns salute,
an incredibly strong voice (even into his 60s) but also for being one of the nicest and classiest guys in the music business. He’s one of the few big stars that I always wanted to meet and never got the chance to. I’ve known several people through the years who did meet him and some who spent ample time with him on tour and they all said the exact same thing…’class act.’
Thanks to one of my older brothers, I got introduced to this voice in the late 1970s, probably ‘78 or ‘79 if I had to wager on it. I’m pretty sure it was Rainbow Rising. I just remember that I liked it a lot. Subsequently I remember him bringing home Long Live Rock and Roll and the first Rainbow (my guess is that he stole them – funny but true). I really liked that stuff but it was right around that time that Heaven and Hell came out and I was already a Black Sabbath fan thanks to my brother. But this Sabbath was different. A lot different. Pleasingly so. How could one not love this stuff? And Mob Rules? C’mon! Dio was really making his mark in the music world and I fucking loved it. I’m not never shy to say that I prefer the Dio era of Sabbath over Ozzy’s. Don’t get me wrong, that Ozzy stuff, most of it, was great, but there is something about Dio’s voice that suits me better. Even 15 years after Dehumanizer came out, I finally liked it. Quality record for sure.
But this blog isn’t about the Dio discography. After coming home from seeing some bands in the wee morning hours yesterday, I started seeing rumblings of “RIP RJD” posted on various social networking sites. Then I saw that rumor get squelched. Then yesterday afternoon around 2PM CST, I saw the official word from Dio’s page and the note from Wendy. Crushed. That’s how I felt yesterday; it’s how I still feel today. I honestly feel like a friend of mine just died…in some ways a friend did. Ronnie’s music, especially with Sabbath and the DIO (band) stuff was really important to me throughout my adolescent years. I spent hours upon hours playing drums to these records in the 80s, especially Last In Line. That is my favorite record of his over anything else he has ever done.
When I first saw the news about his death I just sat there for a few moments dumfounded. Really? He’s dead? Dio? Dio can’t die. He’s Dio! He’s going to live forever! Then the pit in my stomach came. I am not afraid to admit that I cried a little yesterday and am actually a little choked up writing this today. Music can be a very emotional thing for me and Dio’s music certainly moved me for most of my life.
I’m glad I did get to see him live a few times, even if the first time was c. 1998. In 2007 I went to Radio City Music Hall in NYC to attend the Heaven and Hell show, the same show that’s on the DVD. That was quite a special experience because I also got to see Iommi and Butler on stage together with Ronnie. I got a little verklempt when they hit the stage that night as well.
I remember my Dad saying to me years ago before he died (1997) that the older we get, those that we know and love in our lifetimes are going to die off. So true. Everyone dies sometime, eh? Coincidentally, my Dad and Dio were only 2 weeks difference in age, Dio just lasted longer.
Not to drag this on any further, but thank you Mr. Dio for making my world a little bit of a better place because of the quality music you have been creating for as long as I can remember. Much of the Dio catalog stays in steady rotation in my playlists, but I’ll surely be spinning a little more of it this week. There’s no such thing as too much, Dio, right? Whether you ended up in Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, a crematory or just a box in the ground, you touched the lives of many. Thanks again.
Custom Guitar Picks
So back around 2001 I was at Alpha Music in Virginia Beach and saw that they had custom guitar picks. I thought it would be cool to have some 
for myself even though I wasn’t in a working band at the time. I had only been playing bass since 2000 after having been a drummer from 1984 to 2000. The owner of Alpha gave me the business card for In Tune Guitar Picks.
When I saw the address I thought to myself, Onancock, VA? Really?” Onancock is a tiny little town, almost a village, on the eastern shore of Virginia. I had done several projects in that area while working for the DOT. I knew I had to make another trip up there (2 hours each way) for work and called a day ahead to ask about his picks and to check out his operation. He said, “It’s not much but you can come by.”
So I went to the address and and it was to his house. He had his pick machine in the garage. I thought it was a pretty cool process and Bert was an incredibly nice dude. He gave me some samples and a little while later I was on my way to do some actual work. I placed an order shortly thereafter.
My first picks from him were thin celluloids with a sketch of Phil Lynott on them as he was a huge inspiration on my playing. I always liked getting picks at shows and not long after getting my own picks I landed in this silly band called The Renegades of Sluts. Yes, that was our name and no I didn’t pick it. These were all old friends of mine and we were doing sort of a biker metal thing. As we were playing shows, it was pretty cool to see people scramble when I threw a pick out or if someone would ask me for one after a show.
Through the following years I upsized and switched to the delrin 1.14mm picks. Perfect! I’ve had several different styles made as far as to what is printed on them. Bert has always given me first rate service. He has obviously given a lot of people great service as he has expanded his business quite a bit. He’s got his own shop now and last time I was there (2006) he was running 2 machines and was increasing his staff. His client list is pretty impressive…Motley Crue, Slayer, Gibson Guitars, Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, most of the 80s metal bands, lots of country bands…It’s pretty crazy.
Check ’em out. You will not be disappointed. His prices are comparable to buying regular picks from Fender and Dunlop without your custom artwork on them.
The Metal Files 
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