Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Fri, 10 Apr 1992 14:38:26 EDT
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Metal Lists (fwd)
              10 Apr 1992 10:33:30 PDT from <hedberg@INFERENCE.COM>

On Fri, 10 Apr 1992 10:33:30 PDT James Hedberg said:
>Forwarded message:
>
>> From: JL_BOBROWITZ@ACAD.FANDM.EDU
>> Subject:      Metal Lists
>> ...
>> One thing, though- Genesis? For a metal/hard rock list? I'm not quite
>> sure that covers the format I'm looking for.(By hard rock, I meant some
>> bands like Van Halen, or AC/DC. Otherwise, I'm looking for stuff like...
>
>
>What catagorizes "Metal"?  Is it just distortion & a heavy beat?

As it happens, I've been thinking about this a fair amount lately. A new Rhino
compilation came down the pike called _Metal Age: The Roots of Metal_, which I
thought sucked-- not that the tunes weren't good (although they were seemingly a
random sample, probably whatever Rhino could get the rights for cheap), but that
I had a vastly different conception of what roots were. (And no, I don't think
Genesis and Yes are those roots, but I will argue presently that the tunes I'd
mentioned do everything metal is supposed to do, except boost your testosterone
level... I wasn't wholly serious, but I also wasn't just kidding around.)

>I've always thought of Hendrix starting this style - is that a point
>of general agreement?

No, I'm not going to agree. I think the first genuine heavy metal band was the
Yardbirds. They planted the seed from which sprang (directly) Cream, Jeff Beck
and his numerous groups, Led Zeppelin (who made metalheads identify themselves
as a distinct subculture in rock)... and (indirectly) Hendrix and everybody else
worth mentioning. I'm sympathetic to arguments that the Who were metal before
the Yardbirds, but I think of the dual guitar thing as important-- it frees one
guitarist to concentrate on pure sound shaping (Townshend could cut some of the
Beck feedback ideas, as you can see in the Woodstock movie, but he kept having
to stop and play the chords). I would also mention the Move, whose loud pop
songs kept getting louder and more strident. All this went down the pike before
there was a Black Sabbath or a Jethro Tull :-) or any of those metal avatars. In
America, you could point to Blue Cheer, Vanilla Fudge, James Gang, and a zillion
one-hit-wonder bands like the Count Five as progenitors of the metal imperative.
And Zappa was always metal, even when the Mothers were a soul band.

>I thought seeing _Yes_ mentioned was a little unusual as well.  I sure
>don't think of _Yes_ as doing anything "Metal".

Well shit, what do you want metal to do??? I want POWER, I want IMAGINATION, I
want SPIFFY GUITAR LICKS!!! And while I grant you the current Yes tends to be
oriented toward selling sequencers to hobbits, the group as of _The Yes Album_
or _Fragile_ was hot shit. The guitar parts are quite elaborate and played with
a ferocity that, while not as showy as Ritchie Blackmore, still packs a wallop.
The lyrics, when they're not overly foppish (a continual problem with Yes), are
high-grade fantasy-- these guys had the whole galaxy to play with.

   "Sadly now your thoughts turn to the stars
    Where they have gone, you know you never can go
    Watcher of the skies, watcher of all
    This is your fate alone, this fate is your own."

When I was younger and less cynical, man, I thought that was totally cosmic.
Now I know better, I realize both these bands took their metal cues from the
first King Crimson album-- and THAT's unquestionably metal, just look at that
ghastly screaming face and you know there's an operation mindcrime lurking
within.

Nowadays metal is more populist; with the exception of yer Metallicas and
Queensryches and Voivods, it lacks that galactic scope. I'd rather listen to
old Yes than state-of-the-art Guns'n'Roses any day. And I think if Yes then
had the equipment GnR has now, and could have recorded the same sounds, many
of you would agree. "Yours Is No Disgrace" was a lot more dangerous in its
contemporary context than "Sweet Child O'Mine" in its day.

>Is it just me?

Well, obviously it's not just you. Haven't you figured out yet I'm the flake
on this list?

>-Headbanger
>
>METAL DEATH TO ALL WHO RULES APPOSE!!!

This reminds me of a John Cage text:

I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY AND I AM SAYING IT AND THIS IS POETRY

which Cage then rearranged into several different, equally grammatical and
equally meaningless, sentences. As a composer, he was a topnotch poet.
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