I’ve finally found a video of the namesake of this site! Sixteenth Century Greensleeves has raced to the head of the pack, beyond Stargazer, far past Man on the Silver Mountain to be my all time favorite Rainbow song.
It’s got all the earmarks of a classic Dio composition lyrically. The local evil wizard woman has kidnapped one of the Villager’s kin. So one brave (extremely short) warrior decides its time to stop turning a blind eye and kick some wizard bitch ass! He rounds up the posse and breaks out the armory to bring the Wizardess to a bloody end.
Possibly my favorite passage in the song comes when he non-chalantly namechecks “Crossbows in the Firelight” as if to let you know not only do they have an angry mob but they’re armed to the teeth with the equivalent of the 16th Century AK.
Blackmore’s intro of actually playing Greensleeves only adds to the amazing display of majesty…
God bless you Richie Blackmore and Ronnie James Dio for, if even briefly, putting together this confluence of rock savants.
There was only 1 rock band I listened to for about 5 years solid and that band was Thin Lizzy. Actually I listened to them so much I was pretty burnt on them up until a year ago. Luckily You Tube is lifting the moratorium and I can hear stuff besides the studio albums and crappy bootlegs.
I think it’s fairly well documented about Phil Lynott being a visionary and a musical genius in his genre. One of my favorite things about them is they were doing proto speed metal way back in the late 70’s. Of course Phil hung out with diverse people as Midge Ure, Lemmy and the Sex Pistols so its not like he was unaware of what was really going on at the time. He even was good friends with Huey Lewis(!?!)
Are You Ready shows such badass metal mastery that its one of my most favorite tunes by Thin Lizzy. I liked the sappy stuff as much as the next guy, but when they turned it up it was a wonder to hear.
Behold Thin Lizzy possessed by the spirit of Maiden… Or WERE THEY?
This song was written in 1975, a good 5 years before Maiden even put out a record…
And what a drum solo at the end pure badassery, pure unadulterated badassery!
Well it’s been a while I won’t bore you with why I’ve not been here for a while suffice to say work and holidays have played a major part. Anyways better late than never.
Having seen Abe’s posts on glitter rock it was time to dig out some of my own guilty pleasures and here’s the first, REO Speedwagon. And what a guilty pleasure they are. And who can resist bands with 3 solos per song (one before the first verse), loads of organ and backing singers? Great stuff in my book, my first introduction to the ‘Wagon came in the form of those awful soft metal/rock compilation LPs that you can pick up in charity shops for next to nothing. In amongst the Heart, John Farnham and Whitesnake, REO Speedwagon stood out as a bunch of honest to goodness to rockers (albiet soft ones) with Can’t Fight This Feeling. A little further investigation of their back catalogue revealed this gem of a track. There were a whole bunch of versions of this on the mighty ‘Tube but I plumped for this one due to outrageous bubble perms, pastel coloured flouncy shirts, guitar histrionics and general arena rocking atmosphere.
So yeah, I knew that Slade had originally written the excellent (at the time) Quiet Riot song Cum on Feel the Noize. Slade had written a lot of songs later covered by US bands that became hits. Mama Were All Crazy Now, God Gave Rock n Roll To You (oops, that was Argent…)are the two at the top of my dome. So its was a pretty great 80’s hard rock song end of story right? Wrong…
Coop dropped a bunch of Sweet and Slade videos on his blog and of course the top hat made me stop and take notice. I imagine one day when I’m a fancy artist with gallery shows and whatnot I will have the money to have this selfsame suit made for me, But until then give a listen to this version, I can’t tell if its the video compression or not but I’d swear the drummer was busting a skiffle and let not get into the mirrored pharoah (is he flashing the horns at the end?) dear god this is a stellar performance…
The very first time I saw Kiss was on the Paul Lynde Halloween Special in something like 77 or 78. I was maybe 7 or 8 and already obsessed with monster movies and the Saturday morning mystery cartoons like Scooby Doo. So to see a real live rock band full of monsters was pretty much a dream come true. I was hooked on Kiss from Alive 2 up until Unmasked but I was a voracious buyer of the back catalog. Although I never listen to it much, Hotter than Hell was one of my favorite albums for about 10 years. So when I saw this clip my chin hit the keyboard. I love you youtube you are truly the best internet invention ever…
One of the things I try to do is to play videos from when the bands were young. Nothing worse that a 60 year old Klaus Meine trying to do scissor kicks while wheezing through winds of change. Here’s Blackout from Japan circa 1984.
