I don't need to tell you a goddamn thing about Thin Lizzy. Suffice to say that this their second full-length album, released in 1972 while they were still a three-piece. The title comes from the former bands of Lizzy's members -- guitarist Eric Bell played in Shades of Blue while drummer Brian Downey and Phil Lynott played in Orphanage. Although the trademark dual-guitar riffage that TL is known for might be conspicuously absent on this one, I defy anyone to tell me that "Buffalo Gal", "Baby Face", or any of the other epic jams on this album are anything short of perfection. Fuck. I haven't been able to stop listening to this one lately. Phil Lynott at his Lucite bass-playing, bell-bottom-and-platform-shoe-wearing, massive fro-having, chicken-legged best. Rest in peace, dude.
“The project was brought about by a German businessman named Leo Muller, who contacted Irish group Thin Lizzy to record the album. The group were not enthusiastic, as they were trying to forge their own style and identity, but they needed the money. Thin Lizzy's vocalist, Phil Lynott, decided that he was unable to sing like Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, so restricted himself to playing bass guitar and singing back-up. The band brought in Benny White, singer with the Dublin group Elmer Fudd, because they generally performed Deep Purple covers during gigs.
The makeshift band rehearsed for "two or three hours", according to Downey, before recording the whole album in one day. Nine tracks were recorded, with five being Deep Purple covers. Three others were loosely improvised instrumentals; "Dan" - a version of "Londonderry Air" or "Danny Boy" by Bell in a Jimi Hendrix style; "Rising Sun" - a cover of "The House of the Rising Sun" made popular by The Animals; and the original composition "Palamatoon". The last track on the album was "Corina", credited to Leo Muller, as were the other non-Deep Purple songs.”
By request of !Shako! after Seanford's recent post on MIDNIGHT:
The first two long-players from Oakland's own ANNIHILATION TIME. The conventional wisdom on this band is as follows: They sound like Black Flag crossed with Thin Lizzy. I agree, but I hear the Flag influence much more distinctly (especially on these two albums). And really, is sounding like Black Flag really that heinous of an offense? I mean, Bl'ast has been doing it since '82 (an idea that Annihilation Time seems to reference on the final song of their second album, "Bl'ast Off").
These denim-clad Bros are unashamed of their influences -- shit, their guitarist even rocks the same model Lucite guitar Greg Ginn played back in the day (see below). They even put out a 7" single in '03 titled Bad Reputation, which featured as its centerpiece their own faithful rendition of this Thin Lizzy classic. Hey, there are worse bands to worship. I find absolutely nothing wrong with Annihilation Time's honest-to-gosh homage-via-mimicry. They always put on a fun, ass-kicking show, and their records are consistenly awesome. Crack a beer, pull a couple tubes, and check out these two face-melting, 100% Bro-approved albums. Super gnar.
(Side note: The first album is the only A.T. release to feature original vocalist Fred Hammer, who was replaced by Jimmy Rose after their first U.S. tour. So there's that.)
Hopefully you poser dorks are already schooled on Thin Lizzy. If not, I'll have to ask you politlely to leave. Because they rule. Maybe this album has a couple clunkers on it ("That Woman's Gonna Break Your Heart", "Dancing in the Moonlight (It's Caught Me in Its Spotlight"), but in my opinion every mis-step is redeemed tenfold by an awesome rocker like "Soldier of Fortune" or "Opium Trail". Not to mention the title track, which is one of the best songs ever written. Annihilation Time does a pretty decent cover of it, in fact. Did you notice that Robbo isn't pictured on the cover? That's because he only played on two measly tracks, and was in the process of getting booted (at which point he joined Motorhead, where he was promptly booted as well). Robbo is kind of a douche.
Night After Night was one of my favorite Bay Area bands of all time. If by any chance you lived in or around the Bay Area in the last 6 or 7 years, you’re thinking, dude, me too.
If you’re a huge snob who only listens to inaudibly esoteric black metal then this band might be too heavy on the classic influences for you. On the other hand, if you like FUN, sweet jams and tight bros, this will be your new favorite record. Whenever something unusually rad happens to me I tend to go to this record to soundtrack my celebration. It’s also perfect for the first two hours of a tour, before the inevitable feeling of disgust and despair set in. If you enjoy things like partying, KISS, UFO, partying, Thin Lizzy, the On Through the Night record or partying, then I can guarantee you’ll be stoked on this record. Still not sure if you’re interested? They have video of an entire show posted on their myspace page. See for yourself.
Although there is a lot to say about the many talented members of this band, you probably already live upstairs from one of these guys right now and would just jump on me for leaving out some awesome band Brain Hill played bass in back when I was still listening to The Smashing Pumpkins and rocking a gnarly undercut. I will say this though, TINA GORDON, if you read this, marry me.
This album was recorded by Billy Anderson, it featured one track that made it on to the Invaders comp, and after that, I’m not really sure what happened. The band broke up, the record never came out.
Today is the first day of Spring. Fuck yeah. Here is a mix I put together of songs that just plain MAKE ME HAPPY. Because isn't that what Spring is all about? The snow is melting, the birds are chirping, and love is in the air. What a magical time! You'll find this mix to be different in both color and tone from the Winter Non-Mixtape I posted back on the first day of that season, and for good reason: now is a time for joy and celebration, a time to look forward to the warmth and bounty of the fast-approaching Summer. You'll note that many of the songs contained herein fall under the "1970's Hard Rock" label. There is a very simple reason for this. 70's Hard Rock makes me happy. You might also notice that a few of these songs were imported from Cosmic Hearse. The Hearse makes me happy, too. As usual, the mp3s have been re-numbered to maintain their flow in 'Playlist' mode and the entire mix is under 80 minutes to facilitate disc-burning. This time, though, I've provided links where applicable to connect you to the original source material.
Nearly two and a half years ago, our old pal Aesop described Dark Quarterer's first album as such: "Really only Italians could pull off something as bizarre and grandiose as the proggy cult doom of Dark Quarterer. The band was formed way back in 1974 by eccentric bassist/vocalist Gianni Nepi, but didn't release their amazing self titled debut album until 1987. And while I wonder what these guys must've sounded like in '74, this album shows them sort of treading the same path of backward-thinking eccentricity as Cirith Ungol and Slough Feg... Truly epic cult metal filtered through the Italian psyche with all the melodrama and pageantry that we've come to expect from the country's metal bands."
Epic indeed, but the hazy ESL present on Dark Quarterer's very own Last.FM page ups the ante even further: "The original group was formed in 1974 in Piombino and was called “Omega erre”. Eight years of playing cover followed with no concerts or performances, but a continuous effort to capture the sounds and colours of the hard and progressive rock of those years...
It was an absolute imperative for the band to reproduce the songs faithfully - they played dozens of covers of Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden, Krokus, Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, Gentle Giant, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Van Der Graaf Generator, Deep Purple, Ten Years After, Cream, Manowar, Michael Shenker, Colosseum... Their first composition was too light-weight harmonically and too commercial, boring even on first hearing. Fulberto Serena experimented with classical sonorities (Bach), arpeggios that were also veritable riffs, almost exclusively in the minor aiming to achieve the darkest colour possible...
So it took a lot of instinct but also many corrections and radical changes in order to achieve a final result that could not be improved upon. Only when everyone firmly believed in it was the result considered definitive. The introverted and moody personality of Fulberto contributed to disturbing pieces like the self-titled Dark Quarterer, The Entity, Gates of Hell, in which the protagonist actually wanted to live and die in the name of evil to dethrone Lucifer in the underworld!"
Are we clear on all that? Good. Here's their second album.
Almost one year ago, in my very first post for IC, I described PDX shred monster Dark Black as "tragically under hyped." They had just put out their first full length record and it seemed like I was the only person in America rubbing my balls on it nightly. Now, 48 weeks later, Dark Black is hitting the road for the first time in support of their new recording, Midnight Wraith. The hype is still subdued, but finally, it looks like people are just beginning to take notice. Here are a few reviews, forwarded to me in their press release:
"...crank this or spank it folks, there’s some serious boogie in these riffs! Holy shit this thing stomps!" - Hellride Music
"...Midnight Wraith definitely harkens back to around 1978 sonically, with a Thin Lizzy-meets-Iron Maiden feel, and the band definitely has the chops to back it up." - Metal Underground
"If you are a fan of old school Heavy Metal this is a must." - Minacious
"As with their Traditional Metal peers, the likes of Enforcer, Ravage and White Wizzard, (to name a few), DarkBlack takes me down Metal memory lane to a time when bootleg and demo cassette trading was the norm." - Metal Odyssey
Wow, those are some SHITTY FUCKING REVEIWS. Holy shit. Enforcer? White Wizzard? COME THE FUCK ON. Dark Black, from me to you, scrap these shitty Maiden laden reviews and use this one. Besides, IC is at least twice as credible as Metal Odyssey.
DARK BLACK IS THE BEST UNDERGROUND METAL BAND IN THE UNITED STATES. I HAVN'T EVEN HEARD MIDNIGHT WRAITH AND I CAN STILL SAY WITH COMPLETE CONFIDENCE THAT DARK BLACK RIPS ASSHOLES FASTER THAN FOURLOKAREHIA. - Seanford, Illogical Contraption
Cosbro Lee wrote on Invisible Oranges today that where as Dark Black "aren’t really my thing", "I know folks who are nuts about them." This sentence was extra lols to me because many of my conversations with Cosmo go like this:
SF: Hey Cosmo.
CL: Hi Sean, nice muscles.
SF: Thanks. Have you listened to that Dark Black I sent you yet?
CL: No, I have a job. And I don't smoke weed.
SF: Oh well. Your muscles look good too.
If somehow you managed to avoid SELLSWORD this year, please stop fucking up and acquire this. It might be a repost but we try to make it easy.
I played with these dudes on my first tour way back in the Trigger Renegade days. After a few shows in PDX it was obvs we were never going to out rip these guys. We changed our name to Professor, wrote all new songs and gave it another shot. Two more tours, two more tries, but DB still got us pregnant with their careless spay of rizz (riffs that make you jizz). So we went back home, changed our name again, beefed up (or boobed up) our line up, wrote another new full set of jams and now we're off to cross axes yet again with the mightiest of mighty in the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend. The dates are below, see Dark Black.
DARKBLACK Midnight Wraith Tour:
12/1/2010 The Black Lodge - Seattle, WA w/ Skelator, Emeralds, Elk’s Blood
12/2/2010 *house show - Seattle, WA w/ Throne of Bone
12/3/2010 Kelly's Olympian - Portland, OR [CD release show] w/ Spellcaster, Dead By Dawn
12/4/2010 Bender's - San Francisco, CA w/ Huntress, Walken
12/5/2010 The Hazmat (Your Hause) - Oakland, CA w/ Dodsfalla, Bruxers, Infernal Graves, Drunken Hardcore
12/6/2010 Cinespace - Los Angeles, CA w/ Huntress, Gypsyhawk
12/8/2010 The Gup - Eugene, OR w/ Excruciator, Scrolls
12/9/2010 The Know - Portland, OR w/ Nux Vomica
PS - When googling Dark Black Portalnd, one of the first suggestions that comes up in the search bar is "what does dark black poop mean?" - WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
What the fuck is the matter with people? One of the best bands of the prog era make one of the heaviest live albums ever and the critics at the time completely shit on it so it remains in obscurity forever. Stupid! Let us not forget that these are the same critics that were telling us how worthless Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin were all the while touting the genius of The J. Geils Band and Toto. Fucking puke.
Van Der Graaf Generator were difficult to most listeners. They are not "tight" in the way King Crimson or Genesis are known for. They were way more punk and experimental in their approach to "progressive" music of the time. Jazz influenced in theory only, not in the academic way, say, Henry Cow or Gentle Giant were. There are no frolicking elves and faeries in Van Der Graaf music. This is why they rock a thousand times more than their peers.
Vital is the only official live album of the 70s released by the mighty Van Der Graaf (they dropped the Generator by this time) and it is a fucking ripper. Not ripping in the sense of Thin Lizzy - Live and Dangerous per se, but more in the way of Sleep's Holy Mountain or something. Singer/main songwriter/keyboardist Peter Hammill is brilliant at making music that's both beautiful and horrific at once and he honed that skill perfectly within the group of insanely talented musicians in VDGG. This release highlights my favorite aspects of their music. The contrast between Hammill's angelic and demonic vocals, disgustingly distorted thumping bass, intense drumming and David Jackson's sax. Yes sax. Don't be scurred. It works.
This is prog at it's best. It's absolutely madness. Play loud.
And for this Lunch Lady, School's out forever. Ahhh, Summer. My favorite time of year. I do believe it's about time to throw on that Budweiser bikini, grab a 40 oz beer koozie, and pour a bottle of vodka into a watermelon and then turn it into a bong.
(Killing two birds with one stoned, wait...huh?)
It's time to get wild in the woods kids. I think the whole IC crew is due for a sweet vacation, although it would probably end up looking something like this:
Anyways, if you're stuck in traffic coming home from your lame-ass job, staring at the asshole in front of you with his trucker balls dangling, your radiator overheating, your crotch is all sweaty, and your just fuckin over it, stick in this sweet jam mix (dedicated to country hikes, getting high, jumping in a river, sitting in a tree, and making epic fires) and imagine you are here:
(Raging River of Fear-Big Sur, 2010)
If you're a regular around these parts, most likely you have at least half of these (as they are all part of my RFL list-REQUIRED FUCKING LISTENING), but in case you don't here are the links/posts to most of the albums for download. If there's a particular one that doesn't have a link and you want it, I'll upload it for you. Major bro move right there. Yep. Now in no particular order:
SCHOOL'S OUT-a true tale of a raging camping trip.
1. Weed-Sweet Morning Light (Ken Hensley goes to Germany and cheats on Uriah Heep) 2.Budgie-Whiskey River 3.Blues Creation-Mississippi Mountain Blues (love these Japanese trippers) 4.Flower Travelin' Band-Unaware (these ones too) 5.Black Mountain-Druganaut 6.Possessed-Climb the Wooden Hills (everything on this post is REQUIRED) 7.The Young Flowers-Overture (what is it with Swedes and being so rad?) 8.Cain-Born On A Wind (To a Limey) 9.Blues Creation-One Summer Day 10.Captain Beyond-Raging River of Fear 11.Atomic Rooster-Head in the Sky 12.Orang-Utan- Country Hike 13.Leaf Hound- Growers of Mushrooms 14.Sir Lord Baltimore-Lady of Fire (Excuse me, Sir; is this song about me??nah-narcissist.) 15.Alice Cooper- Teenage Lament 16.Iron Butterfly-Termination 17.Asterix-If I Could Fly 18.Art-Think I'm Going Weird (pre-Spooky Tooth project, pretty rad) 19.Arthur Brown-Fire (REQUIRED) 20.Socrates Drank the Conium-Naked Trees 21.Thin Lizzy-Old Moon Madness
Now, if you'll pardon me; it's about time to make invisible citrus in front of the fire, rip off clothes, carve a pentagram into my chest and go running like a wild animal into the forest under a full moon. Trust me on this one: it's good times.
Cryptic Winterstroms have enshrouded The North Abyss (Flagstaff) in The Winter of the Ages (about three inches of snow). That means I have to do my legally required "winter" post, as stipulated in the Blogger Terms and Conditions. I could easily shit out a review of an Immortal, Ulver, Dissection, Old Wainds or almost any other black metal album and fulfill my legal duties. But I'm not gonna do that this year. I'm gonna do a post on the album that most represents cold, freezing and winter to me: Danzig III: How the Gods Kill.
Danzig III doesn't have any songs about winter, coldness or freezing; and its production is quite warm, so why does it make icy shivers run down my back and my hands numb just thinking about it?
For the past two summers I've worked at the campground in the Grand Canyon National Park. I spend most of my time sitting on my ass, taking tourists money and yelling at French "people." It's nice because I get to flirt with hot European chicks and get paid a ton of fuckin money. It sucks because it seems that every hot Euro chick has a faggy Eurotrash boyfriend, I have to talk with fat Americans and French "people".
Last fall I stayed on during the school year and worked weekends at the canyon. Minus "start up costs:" gas, coffee, lunch and Taco Bell, I still had a take home of about $100 a week. The downside? I had to get there. The Grand Canyon is about 75 miles from Flag on US 180 and SR 64, and I figured out I could get from my dorm, gas up and to work in and hour and a half including gassing up and going through the south entrance. That means I was driving at about 80-90mph almost the whole time. At this time my whip was missing a driver's side window. Why didn't I get it fixxxed with the insane $$$ I was earning at the time or with the savings from the summer? Cuz I spent it all on an half stack and a 42" TV and I spent most of my weekly earnings on booze and Mexican food, and I'm a cheap motherfucker.
September and early October weren't so bad, but once it started getting cold round late October it started getting pretty rough. 25°F at 90mph is pretty cold even with the heat cranked in my car; some days I'd have to wait in the office for 30min until my hands were warm enough to type. Couple this with a screaming hangover almost every day and 5 hours of sleep on a good day or 2 hours on a bad one and you got a pretty rough commute.
Where does Danzig III fit in? I can distinctly remember the five cd's I had in the car: Danzig II: Lucifuge, Danzig III, Beheaded-Ominous Bloodline, Kataplexia-Supreme Authority and Thin Lizzy-Jailbreak. Brutal death gets muffled by 90mph wind through the window, I'd listened to Danzig II too many times by the time it started getting cold and I was getting tired of skipping all the crappy tracks on Jailbreak. That meant I was listening to Danzig IIIa lot, and singing along to keep myself awake. So from now on Danzig III will always be linked with ball shrinking coldness and Icewinds.
Music? Sounds like Danzig, and III is my favorite. If you like him, you already have the album; if you don't like him then you aren't gonna download it.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: DUE TO A DMCA "TAKEDOWN NOTICE", ALL DIRECT DOWNLOAD LINKS HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THIS POST AND THE OTHER ONE LIKE IT.)
It's no secret: Rapidshare sucks. It fucking sucks BAD. Unfortunately, I was not always aware of this. Lucky for you, I'm a super nice guy. I went back and moved EVERY SINGLE file available for download in the IC Archives OFF of Rapidshare and ONTO either MadiaFire or Megaupload. It took a long time. But convenience and accessibility are of the utmost importance to both myself and the team here at Illogical Contraption HQ. Happy downloading, buttholes!
(Artist name & album title links to original post.)
As always, let me know if you have any issues with these files. Maintenance comes included with every standard-issue IC Membership.
PS: A special "Congratulations" goes out to Monster Mutt, who took home the 2010 Monster Jam championship last night at the Oakland Coliseum with a whopping 31 points in the freestyle competition. Shit was EPIC.
I don't need to tell you a goddamn thing about Thin Lizzy. Suffice to say that this their second full-length album, released in 1972 while they were still a three-piece. The title comes from the former bands of Lizzy's members -- guitarist Eric Bell played in Shades of Blue while drummer Brian Downey and Phil Lynott played in Orphanage.
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