I grew up listening to the heavies. My father was a baritone and sang military marches and some of the less intense numbers from the Methodist hymnal, but for some reason he felt compelled to buy me my first Kiss album in the 3rd grade. A short time later he bought me AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock, and out the window went the law degree right there. I never even had a chance. From there it was Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, Sabbath, Alice Cooper… and in the 80’s it was Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica (holy crap – I saw them for 6 bucks in a Scotia bowling alley in 1984), Slayer, Raven, Saxon, Exodus, Motorhead, The Wildhearts, Accept and on and on. Despite all of this, I was lucky enough that through the years many friends, teachers and drumming heroes stressed versatility, both instrumentally and in terms of musical genres… which luckily allows me the amazing fortune to share the stage with the lads (and lady) in Ten Year Vamp. I’ve also had great experiences playing jazz, funk, Latin and LOTS of dance music.
This, however, has not gotten in the way of my penchant for a bit of the old Hessian warfare, as we folks from Colonie (the second largest township in the US, incidentally) like to say. The future of the hard stuff is in great hands, with bands like Mastodon, The Sword and Lamb of God carry, under a blazing light, the tradition into the new millennium for scores of new, unwashed suburban maladroits who still enjoy a good fistfight with the old man over the last Meister Brau on the front lawn.
Yet, as years go by and the joints in my hands and knees heal much more slowly after such endeavors, I started to elevate the music of my working experiences and committed to learning more about what makes some of it so good and some of it so eye-wateringly terrible. I suppose on a much more subconscious level I wanted to focus on the less corporeal attributes of heavy metal and more on the “logistics of aesthetic” (metal or not) for lack of a better term. Who the hell really knows? But, what I found was a TON of great music out there that, when deconstructed, internalized, owned… not only made me a better musician, but a better human.
And, this also reaffirmed across genres what I knew all along with heavy metal. That is, for every good band – whether you like country or jazz or acid Latin disco fusion with a twist of lime – with there are about 100 really, really, really shitty bands trying to do the same thing. This is why conveniences like iTunes and in-store sampling is like manna from the heavens… you can separate the wheat from the chaff pretty damn fast. Never mind all those people who say you need to let an album grow on you. Man, we ain’t got time for that now. Not in this age of permanent accessibility, people getting pissed at you because you don’t text them back right away, egregious deadlines based on the speed of the information highway and not on human mercy. Naw… hit me hard and fast. Rip out my heart on Track One and show it to me as I slide down the wall. I’m so caffeinated right now I can’t even tell if I’m being sarcastic or not!
I know, I know. By now you’re saying… “Bill. Where the hell, exactly, are you talking aboutgoing with this?” Fair enough. This is my long-winded way of saying there is just no way that I can come up with my Top 10 favorite albums of all time. Or a Top 50, or a Top 2 for that matter. When I was in high school back in 1935 my friends would come up with these lists and debate the merits over much malt liquor but I could never do it. It changed every day… I would have made a list every day. To me it was about reflecting mood, about work, about repetition and vagaries of thought and experience. It was about the daily soundtrack to the movie of my homeless life. Waking up in your own bed and fixing yourself a screwdriver on a Sunday with no one else around requires the Scorpions’ “In Trance.” Waking up behind the backstop of a West Albany ballfield on Everett Road requires Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” It’s a living, breathing thing.
But what I can do is show you what I’ve been into lately, and there’s no doubt that many of these do reflect CD’s that float in and out of my Top 10 on the regular. Looking at this short list, I noticed that I have a thing for transitional albums in many cases. Recordings that marked a pivotal juncture in a band’s career, where there was really no turning back, where the band realized, “Uh-oh, how are we supposed to top THAT?” Well, there’s always law school.
For your consideration.
Alice Cooper – Love it to Death
Aerosmith – Rocks
Max Roach – Percussion Bitter Suite
Black Sabbath – Volume 4
Saxon – Wheels of Steel
Hank Williams III – Straight to Hell
Grateful Dead – Wake of the Flood
Kiss – Dressed to Kill
Tito Puentes – Dance Mania!
Kyuss – Welcome to Sky Valley
Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band – Seasons of Change
Sloppy Seconds – Destroyed
Clutch – Blast Tyrant
The Beach Boys – Spirit of America
Led Zeppelin – Presence
Styx – Crystal Ball
Thin Lizzy – Fighting
The Beatles – Revolver
Tommy Dorsey and His Clambake Seven -
The Supersuckers – The Evil Powers of Rock and Roll
Ramones – Rocket to Russia
Pat Travers – Go for What You Know… Live!
NOFX – Punk in Drublic
Corrosion of Conformity – Wiseblood
Pink Floyd – Mettle
Scorpions – Tokyo Tapes
Lamb of God – Ashes of the Wake
Lynyrd Skynyrd – Second Helping
Jason and the Scorchers – Both Sides of the Line
Motorhead – Bomber
Frank Zappa – Apostrophe
Black Dahlia Murder – Black Dahlia Murder
Judas Priest – Sin After Sin
Mulatu Astatqe – Ethiopiques, Volume 4
At the Gates – Slaughter of the Soul
Black Sabbath – Sabotage
AC/DC – Let There Be Rock
Chick Corea – Now He Sings, Now He Sobs
Bette Davis – This is It!
Metallica – Kill ‘Em All
The Toadies – Rubberneck
Faith No More – The Real Thing
Alice Donut - Mule
Accept – Restless & Wild
Cheap Trick – In Color
Neutral Milk Hotel – In an Aeroplane Over the Sea
Green Day – Dookie
Prince – One Night Alone… Live!
Neil Diamond – Just for You
Miles Davis – Four and More Live
Buddy Rich Big Band – Keep the Customer Satisfied
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – Mosaic
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