Guides And Inspirations, David Bowie

Hi folks. Here is another post in the series Guides and Inspirations, this time on David Bowie. Really, what can you say about David that hasn’t already been said in all other publications? Not much so I am going to try and find lesser known facts and maybe even, include links to lesser known songs, including a Queen rarity.

During David Bowie’s early years in the music business he stumbled, as he tried to figure out what works and in some cases, the results were good, but nothing came of it. For example: if you have the Nothing Has Changed album and specifically the deluxe version, this is the last song as the running order goes from newest at the time, to the earliest music he had put out. Oh yes, I also forgot to remind us all that his birth name was David Robert Jones and this first track is listed under his real name (more or less) before some other cute guy came along and became famous as a member of The Monkees. https://youtu.be/KNNfqh-iJXs?si=0YMMbE2rs5zTgA1p

David played in some other bands after that such as Davy Jones & The Lower Third and The Mannish Boys, with whom he also put out singles which at least one of them are on Nothing Has Changed, besides a previous track above. Anyway, David even tried novelty songs with The Laughing Gnome, which you can find on The Deram Anthology 1966 – 1968 and if you haven’t heard it yet, this is going to surprise you as it did me back in 1994. https://youtu.be/5SQdBxVjZx4?si=_BIu_T-uGB0dRnFj

Since this is a Queen related blog, I’m going to include this because it is Record Store Day and we should have this version legally on all formats. Unfortunately, it’s only available on YouTube and the single is only coming out on 7 inch vinyl. https://youtu.be/hKh7TqdzmIM?si=xUpi1H1cGrp97AWi

I had heard that David had done vocals on other songs on Hot Space years ago, but I had never found out what they were. I thought that Action was one of them, but it turns out that this weird Freddie and Deacy track had some Bowie on it, before he had his vocals pulled. I don’t mind it and like I said, this should come out on all formats to be purchased and not streamed.

There are 2 more connections to Queen through the 1995 album Outside and they are Brian and David Richards. In the case of Brian, he was sampled on Segue – Ramona A. Stone / I Am with Name. If you listen to the track and about 3 minutes and 18 seconds or so, you will hear Brian yelling “GIVE IT TO ME ONE MORE TIME” at the end of Hammer To Fall from Live at the Brixton Academy. The other is David Richards who worked with both Queen and David in the 80s and 90s at Mountain Studios and yes, David helped with the production of Outside, along with Brian Eno. As a bonus, I am going to include the fact that I had mentioned Mountain Studios as Outside was recorded there, along with work being done in New York during the winter of 1995. David Richards also worked with Mr. Bowie on Never Let Me Down and I did not know that until looking up the selected discography on Wikipedia. I liked his drum sounds he got out of Roger and when I found out that he was involved with a David Bowie album which has hints of industrial music in it, I was surprised and happy. This means that if Freddie was still with us, maybe Queen could do something like that, but as it would work for them.

I am keeping this post kinda brief, because you can find all sorts of information on David Bowie and 2 podcasts episodes I know of, documenting his life and career. In 2018, The Ongoing History Of New Music podcast included a 2 part episode on David, just after he had passed away, which had aired in early 2016. Alan Cross has done multiple episodes on David and the first ones I heard, were in 1994 and 1999. If you wish to hear David’s story being read to you in an audiobook, just look for The Alan Cross Guide and you may be able to find a separate chapter on David, along with a few standalone chapters on other bands, who were in a huge list of over 50 greatest alternative rock artists of all time, as of 1999. There were some unfortunate exclusions such as Radiohead and Jane’s Addiction, but I guarantee that nearly all of the many bands who became popular in the 90s are there, with David at number one. I’m going to email Allen at some point and ask him if he can find those episodes, so he can put them in the Ongoing History Of New Music podcast, possibly over this summer. If not, I understand, but we can find all of the other things I had mentioned, including the audiobooks by Alan Cross and standalone audiobooks on selected artists, including David. Oh, Alan does mention Queen and Under Pressure briefly in the audiobook so, I suggest looking for it. Unfortunately, it only goes as far as 2009, but the podcast episodes go to January 10 2016, the day David passed away. Here are the episodes for those who use Apple devices. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ongoing-history-of-new-music/id1201968027?i=1000399580375

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ongoing-history-of-new-music/id1201968027?i=1000400010926

If you use other streaming services to look for both episodes, I can’t help you with that, but I can assure you that the two part episode does exist and it is worth listening to, in order to know that David was an influence on more than just classic rock, but also punk, new wave and every other sub genre which came out of both of these genres in the 70s and 80s. Besides, David sure got around playing with such musicians as: John Lennon, Elton John, Bing Crosby, Mick Jagger, Queen, being in a Jim Henson movie and doing an interpretation of Peter And The Wolf. Anyway, good luck to those who are looking for the new single, Cool Cat today and I hope it sounds great on your turntable.

Equals, Alice In Chains

Hi folks. Here is post number 4 in Equals and this time, we are staying in the 90s and Seattle. Alice In Chains may not be spoken in the same breath as Queen by some, but I have found similarities to both band’s career arks and unfortunately, death is involved. I’m not going to get into any of the gory details of the deterioration of their previous lead singer, out of respect for the band and it had been published elsewhere on the Internet, if you were interested.

Alice In Chains formed in Seattle in 1987, after guitarist and main songwriter Jerry Cantrell, bassist Mike Starr, and drummer Sean Kinney convinced singer Layne Staley to quit his funk band. Layne was hesitant to join, so the other guys would audition intentionally bad lead singers in order to send a hint that they wanted him and nobody else, with the last straw being a male stripper. The group began writing songs which were quite different to what would end up on the 1990 debut album Facelift and you can hear some of that on the Music Bank boxed set, which came out October 26th 1999 a couple of weeks before Greatest Hits III. By the time Facelift came out and songs like Man in the Box and We Die Young were released as music videos, Queen were recording Innuendo and rock was changing, with metal getting heavier and 1980s metal bands being shoved to the side.

Some time during the tour for Facelift, AIC was remade as a grunge band alongside fellow Seattle bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. Around the same time Nirvana and Pearl Jam were blowing up and Soundgarden were starting to be a name to remember, AIC had recorded an acoustic EP called Sap, which showed that this was a band to take notice of, because of the diversity and having multiple vocalists. Actually, just Layne and Jerry with Ann Wilson of Heart on Brother and Am I Inside from Sap. On the vocal harmonies, regardless of where AIC had been, they have been moving forward ever since with stacked vocals and Jerry’s sludgy riffs and howling guitar solos. Sap lead to a track on the Singles soundtrack called Would? The same song would appear as the closing track on their second album Dirt, whose first single Them Bones was cool because it wasn’t in a 4/4 time signature except for the chorus. Of course, the best known song off this album is Rooster, both of which came out while Queen had a North American resurgence in 1992, with the Killer Queen compilation, which is really the 1992 Greatest Hits album in the US and Canada. In 1994, AIC released the EP Jar of Flies and it was the first EP ever to debut at the top of the album charts, even before Soundgarden and Pantera. Sadly, there was no tour to support it because of Layne’s battles with a debilitating drug addiction, which he tried to overcome with help from others.

In 1995, Layne got together with Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin and bassist John Baker Saunders to form the supergroup Mad Season and they would release their only album Above, which wasn’t bad. Then Alice In Chains would get back together and record the final album with Layne entitled Alice In Chains. It came out the same day as Made In Heaven did and again, another good album with more stacked harmony vocals than ever before with songs where Layne sings lead. Jerry also took more of a roll as lead vocalist, as Layne wanted him to take the reins. After all, Jerry was the main creative force so why not have him sing lead more often? Anyway, no tour for the album, except for some shows opening for Kiss in 1996 and an unplugged show for MTV, with members of Metallica in the audience. Too bad Queen couldn’t do anything like that from 1988 to at least 1990. Anyway, after the unplugged show Layne became mostly a recluse after his girlfriend passed away. Then, he eventually succumbed to his dependencies in 2002. Apparently, he passed away on April 5th and was found on the 20th, after no activity with his bank account for a couple of weeks. That is why I am doing this post today, as it is the 22nd anniversary of Layne’s death and I will get into how he is just as much of an influence as Freddie further down.

The surviving members went their separate ways before reviving the band in 2006 with William DuVall taking over some lead vocals, with Jerry handling the majority of singing duties on the last 3 albums: Black Gives Way to Blue in 2009, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here in 2013 and Rainier Fog in 2018. The closest we get to Queen is Sir Elton John playing with the band on their 2009 album Black Gives Way to Blue and the title track. I know that the guys in Metallica are fans as James and Lars had interviewed AIC for a world premier radio special for the album. I wonder if there will come a day, where Brian and Jerry will get to play guitar together. I hope that they do, unless they have already and I haven’t heard what it sounds like. I wonder if Brian is a fan and I also wonder if Jerry is also a Queen fan, as I found out that Jerry is also a fan of Elton. Obviously, both Queen and AIC had stopped after the deaths of both Freddie and Layne respectively and waited years before getting back together in the current form. Sadly, Mike Starr would pass away in 2011 and he was replaced in 1993 by Mike Inez who has also toured with Ozzy and has had a hand in writing songs such as Brush Away with Jerry and Sean. Mike has also played with Heart in the early 2000s and with Jerry in 1998 for his touring band to support his debut solo album Boggy Depot, which I believe was Jerry’s coming-out party as a lead singer and he has never looked back. I obviously love Alice In Chains nearly as much as I love Queen, in that I must have everything I can get my hands on that they have ever put out to us. I love that there are two singers who handle lead vocals in either of the incarnations of the band. I also appreciate that there are 2 guitarists in the band, with Layne he decided to give the ax a try, toward the end of his life. Not exactly like Freddie on Crazy Little Thing, but actually playing some decent six string wailing on a song he wrote in 1992 called Hate to Feel. With William, I believe that he also plays guitar as well as singing and obviously, that’s good so William has something to do, so Jerry can take over the majority of lead vocals on AIC albums now and not leave anyone else doing nothing on stage. Originally, what Jerry had done reminds me of Brian and Roger singing the occasional song with Queen, but with AIC it seems to be a bit different. Sometimes Jerry would sing part of a song and Layne would handle the rest, like Would? from Dirt. Could you see Queen going out with Brian, Roger and John or another bassist, instead of either Paul Rodgers or Adam? Obviously, nobody can replace Freddie, or Layne and in Layne’s case, he has also influenced younger singers of more recent hard rock bands and even Metallica throughout the mid to late 90s. Just check out the track Where The Wild Things Are, from Reload. Another thing connecting Queen to Alice In Chains is the miss categorization for me, in that I see Queen is a hard rock band. With Alice In Chains I think of them as a metal band, because of the sound of the guitars and because of the songwriting. The guitar sound has much more crunch and sludge and is less punky than other grunge bands and the vocals are singable and not just an angry snarl or scream. Like Brian, Jerry’s guitar has all the crunch and dirt in the playing, but without coins and using a pic. The other thing is that the use of acoustic guitars helps set them apart from the other three bands from this movement. Actually, every one of the four bands did use acoustic guitars at one point, but not using glossy vocal harmonies to sweeten the sound, even when they went electric and that’s why, AIC are relatable to metal bands more than the other three. Not that Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden aren’t an influence on hard rock and metal bands in more recent years, but AIC have songs which are more accessible to Radio than the other three and there is more to do, for the singer and guitarist. I mentioned Metallica earlier, but even someone like Aaron Lewis of Staynd , or maybe even Miles Kenedy can’t deny any influence of AIC on the songwriting and arrangements of what he does with Alter Bridge. Out of the big 4 grunge bands, AIC are the band I would suggest, to any new Queen fan who likes the hard rock and metal side, if I wanted to steer them away from Queen for a time. You have your guitars, you have your melody, stacked vocals and you have versatility from both. As for me, I like all of the big four grunge bands for various unspoken reasons which I can’t explain, but AIC and Soundgarden are the top two bands out of the four, who kept me holding onto Queen the most. AIC aren’t all dark, all bleak, all the time, as they like to screw around once in a while. On Sap, there is a bonus track on the CD called Love Song, reported with the band switching instruments and probably, drunk as well. Sean is on lead vocals, yelling into a megaphone and Layne is on drums and adding additional backing vocals, actually howling. Someone’s playing piano, way off key with the rest of the band and like I said, it is really stupid as they were probably not just sloshed , but probably tired and wanted to do something really silly to let off steam . AIC has other influences besides Black Sabbath such as: Kiss and Van Halen. There is your other connection to metal, besides Metallica and Pantera, whom Jerry loves. VH took AIC on tour with them in 1991, because the older band were scared of the newer band and thankfully, friendships were born between the two bands to this day and both bands pranked each other during the last show. https:// youtu.be / 9js2azKf68I ? si =dlJ0e9QByW2af9qK

I mention Van Halen because of the obvious connection with Queen, with Brian and Eddie playing together in 1983 and with Alice In Chains, another Queen Family band they would open for in the early 90s is Extreme. I hope that both bands became friends and weren’t just out for blood on stage. Like I said earlier, I hope that Brian is a fan of AIC, or at least Jerry and his playing and it is mutual. Okay, it’s over now as I keep going on and on and on.

Equals, Pearl Jam

Hi folks. Here is post number 3 in a series called Equals and once again, these are bands or artists who may not have been influenced by Queen, or have influenced Queen, but had kept me holding on while no new music had been forthcoming all these years, since Freddie had passed.

For the 3rd post in this series I am going back to the 90s and the grunge movement. Yup, it’s time to talk about Pearl Jam and don’t forget about Andrew Wood and his time as the frontman for Mother Love Bone. Also, the fact that Andy loved Freddie, but he had this problem with drugs and particularly, heroin. Andy had passed away of a heroin overdose on March 19th 1990, aged 26. After Mother Love Bone’s only album (Apple) had come out in July of that year, bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard hooked up with guitarist Mike McCready and singer Eddie Vedder, who had another band previous to what became Pearl Jam called Bad Radio. Eddie was from San Francisco and was a surfer, who was friends with, or had been acquainted with Jack Irons formally of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Jack would be a member of Pearl Jam, from 1994 to 1998, as you will see as I go through the list o drummers who have played on a record. Anyway, the band first went by the name Mookie Blaylock, named after a basketball player in the NBA whose number was 10. Obviously, lawyers got involved and the band had to change the name. What could it be? Apparently, the name Renick Roink came up and I’m not sure if I even spelled it correctly, as it isn’t mentioned on Wikipedia. However, we now know they have changed it to Pearl Jam and yet, we don’t know the actual origin of the name, as it is shrouded and myth. Wikipedia has one version of the story as a part of the narrative, but could it be something else? I have heard that it came from seeing Neil and Crazy Horse live and noticing, how much they love to jam on stage. Again, I’m not sure as it could be a joke answer to the question about the name, used to mess with the press.

The debut album was called Ten and it was released on August 27th 1991 as Innuendo was still hanging in the charts. If you were around back then, you know that after Freddie had passed away, all these bands from Seattle simply became not just popular alternative rock artists, but because of their Black Sabbath and or Led Zeppelin tinged music, they were easy pickings for album oriented rock radio, as it was changing. After all, the same rock stations also play classic rock bands including Queen and Pearl Jam fit right in. Also, Eddie’s melodic baritone voice helped in getting them on the radio and the songs were also good too, with Alive, Even Flow, Black and Jeremy all getting heavy action on rock radio. I liked what I heard and I still do, as I have said before and after a bunch of albums they are still here today, but with a different drummer than they started with. First there was Dave Krusen who played on Ten, Dave Abbruzzese played on Vs. And a good chunk of Vitalogy, Jack Irons pounding the skins for part of Vitalogy, No Code and Yield, with Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron playing on every album after Yield. Oh yes, I mustn’t forget about Temple of the Dog which includes all of the current lineup of Pearl Jam and half of Soundgarden, with Matt and Chris Cornell. Chris had written all the songs and Eddie sang on the track Hunger Strike, handling all the low parts for Chris. Cool album and it’s no wonder that Pearl Jam asked Matt to join in 1998, as he is a versatile drummer and as a point of trivia, if you have the Temple of the Dog album, the track Wooden Jesus has a drum part which was inspired by a classic Paul Simon track. According to Matt Cameron, he told Rick Beato that the drum pattern was inspired by 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. I guess so, but using a different meter, possibly 6/8 like I’m In Love With My Car? I am a drummer and I still have trouble with Time signatures and the math involved!

Both Queen and Pearl Jam came from the ashes of previous groups and both bands had problems with people in their management stealing money from them. Although in the case of Pearl Jam, this was much later after years of success. They both were lucky to record music with their influences, with Queen and David Bowie doing a song we all know, while Pearl Jam and Neil Young recorded an album together called Mirror Ball in 1995 and Pearl Jam would sometimes play Rockin’ in the Free World as the encore. Freddie, Brian and Roger sang with good friend Ian Hunter and Bryan got to play with Hank Marvin. Eddie Vedder (like Brian) loves The Who and Eddie has played with singer Roger Daltry on occasion. Eddie also took the place of Jim Morrison, when The Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and even sang The Waiting for Tom Petty in the 2000s. Both Brian and Mike are huge Jimi Hendrix fans and Mike even emulates some of his traits in his playing at times. Other than that, not much connection with Queen except that both bands are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At least, Queen had no need to take on Ticketmaster, or other ticket agencies for price gouging. You know? Maybe they should because of the high cost of concert tickets these days, which is why I didn’t go and see Queen and Adam, among other reasons. Speaking of live Pearl Jam, I wonder if the name of the live album Live on Two Legs was a poke at Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To…), as the name of the album brought the Queen song to mind. I have never heard anyone ask Mike, Stone, Jeff or Eddie about the title and I bet nobody ever will. Hopefully, someone will suggest it when it is known that a member of Pearl Jam is set to be interviewed on a podcast or something.

Pearl Jam have a new album out called Dark Matter and it is actually good. Eddie sounds great, but I am not sure if it is because his vocals are tuned or not. He has always been on pitch when singing, even with vibrato, which is much the same as Freddie’s own. Anyway, I am so glad that Pearl Jam kept me holding on while Queen were inactive and that they had put out great music which at times goes back to a sound, similar to the 70s. One example of which is the song Wishlist from teh Yield album has a guitar solo, which reminds me of 1970s era Rolling Stones and I like tastefully it was executed. It wasn’t showy and it wasn’t just one note either, it suits the song and that’s the key. Anyway, if you enjoy both Queen and Pearl Jam, I hope you like me at least trying to connect the two bands, with very little in common with each other.

Queen On My Radio

Hi folks. Today it’s about Queen’s relationship with Radio in North America, from my perspective. Queen have been consistently popular outside of North America since they started breaking through to the mainstream, but over here it is a different story, with fragmentation when it comes to which songs are played on which formats.

Queen are played regularly in rotation on rock radio, known back in the before days of the 70s and part of the 80s as album oriented radio and as music changed, so did Queen’s popularity and lack of new songs being added. Let’s be honest, Radio Ga Ga sounds out of place next to a bunch of newer and classic bands, who play guitars, bass and drums for the most part. Besides, at that time we had a bunch of newer bands with a lot of hair and spandex becoming the next trend in rock, with histrionic love songs and power ballads becoming the big talking point, about hair metal. Then again on the other side, in Canada we had to play a bunch of bands who fell outside of normal rock and straddle the line between it, new wave, country and other genres. Not that it was a bad thing, but we just had bands who didn’t exactly blow up huge outside of Canada because of this. For example: Strange Advance who had a 1985 hit with a new wave tinged song called We Run and there was also BB Gabor. No, this is not a mistake, as Queen weren’t the only band or artist who had stumbled in that sense, but on the other hand, radio may have lost love for any new music for Queen over here, except for stations outside of the rock format. I actually heard A Kind Of Magic on ChumFM in Toronto, which used to be an AOR station, but had changed the format and sound in 1984 for an older audience. Queen were suited for such a listenership, but this left out fans who only knew them for the classic rock and hard rocking tracks as singles. Thankfully, the classics were still played on rock radio and when The Miracle and Innuendo had come out, I Want It All and Headlong were given a place on rock station playlists. Also, tracks from both albums had made it onto playlists outside of the normal rock radio format such as Breakthru and These Are the Days of Our Lives getting love on ChumFM in 1991, with Somebody To Love with George Michael also making it on their playlist, in 1993. With Breakthru, I heard it on CFPL FM96 in London Ontario in the 90s and probably, around the time The Miracle was released. In 1995, the station had done away with playing pop and switched to only playing rock. They were a rock station, but some pop and alternative had made it into the playlists and then, with grunge coming and being owned by the same company as Q107 in Toronto, the time had come to switch to rock.

When Made In Heaven came out, I had heard Too Much Love Will Kill You on Q107, Mix 99.9 and ChumFM in regular rotation from mid November 1995, to about January 1996. Briefly, I Was Born to Love You was played on Q107 and as a rock station, I believe it was played out of reluctance because, it’s a love song and yet, it rocks. Besides, they had to play something from Made In Heaven as Queen are a classic band and a favourite of many listeners like me.

Not every active rock station took to Made In Heaven and 97.7 HTZFM is one of them, with only Too Much Love Will Kill You being featured on a music news program called Music Notes… … once. It is fully understandable, as at the time they only played up-beat and hard rock and metal, with very few exceptions. They did play Boh Rhap and November Rain by Guns N’ Roses, but not that many ballads or laid-back music for rockers. However, Somebody to Love was brought back to the playlist in September 2015 and as a Queen head, I had no problem with that as I was happy to hear anything by Queen, as long as it fits the format. I am respectful of rock radio stations, because I grew up listening to rock radio on my own accord, despite being exposed to pop and dance music at school.

These days, Queen is played on all sorts of formats with a few songs still getting regular spins and in some cases, some of the same songs can be heard, on not just rock radio, but also on adult contemporary radio. Classic rock radio is a given, along with the newish format called adult hits and of course, Queen make up a part of those playlists too.

As far as the songs outside of the classics we all know from being streamed a billion times or so, rock radio has been allowed to play some lesser known tracks too, with some we know from the Deep Cuts compilations. So, here is the list of regularly played and featured Queen songs on all rock and pop formats from Queen to Made In Heaven. I will not be including complete albums as I had heard Queen II and A Night At The Opera in their entirety, but not every song was featured in a set of music. Also, no songs which have been included in documentaries as a part of foreground programming, or mosaic programming such as Psychedelic Snack. However, Psychedelic Sunday counts as it is a Sunday afternoon’s worth of music. However, as much as I love In the Studio with Redbeard, I can’t include songs played from either of the three albums by Queen in the series, or even Live at the Rainbow ‘74. I will include some new music shows such as The 6 O-Clock Rock Report, as it was meant to feature new music and music news and interviews. I will even include top 20 or top 30 albums and finally, a metal show like The Power Factory because… … why not? After all, it played a small part in nudging me toward Queen even if it was wrong.

Keep Yourself Alive, and Liar from Queen. Seven Seas of Rhye from Queen II was featured and played once. Killer Queen, Flick of the Wrist, Now I’m Here and Stone Cold Crazy all from Sheer Heart Attack. I’m In Love With My Car, You’re My Best Friend and of course, Bohemian Rhapsody from A Night at the Opera. Tie Your Mother Down, Somebody to Love and White Man from A Day at the Races. We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, Sheer Heart Attack and It’s Late from News of the World. Fat Bottomed Girls, Bicycle Race and Don’t Stop Me Now from Jazz, Play the Game, Dragon Attack, Another One Bites The Dust, Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Rock It (Prime Jive) from The Game. As you can imagine, not much from Hot Space except for Body Language and Under Pressure. Radio GaGa, Machines (Or “Back to Humans”) and Hammer To Fall were played or featured at various times. I Want To Break Free currently functions as bumper music for Newstalk 1010 and the morning show, as one of the many songs leading into the next segment of talk. Like Hot Space, A Kind of Magic didn’t get any love on rock radio, but I had heard the song A Kind of Magic and Who Wants to Live Forever on at least 2 Toronto radio stations. With The Miracle, not a lot of action except for I Want It All, Breakthru and Was It All Worth It, with the latter being fetured on that metal show I told you about. I think I even heard The Miracle at least once, during a countdown program too. Innuendo marks a return of more than 3 songs getting action on not just rock radio, but adult contemporary Radio. The title track, Headlong, I Can’t Live With You, These Are the Days of Our Lives, The Hitman and The Show Must Go On, all getting played or featured on the radio in Ontario Canada. With Made In Heaven, this is an interesting one, because its title track was first played on a program of B-sides and rarities called From The Vaults hosted by Canadian radio legend Larry LeBlanc. He has written articles and various magazines and has hosted radio programs and like Alan Cross, knows his music. Anyway, Let Me Live, I Was Born to Love You, Heaven For Everyone, Too Much Love Will Kill You and You Don’t Fool Me all were either played, or featured at least once. If we are going to count The Cosmos Rocks, the only song I had heard from front to back was C-lebrity, with only a little piece of Cosmos Rockin’ and Say It’s Not True getting heard during news reports on World Aids Day, or on a talk show promoting new music of the week, at the end of October 2008. As for Return Of The Champions, I remember hearing Fat Bottomed Girls at least once in 2006, or 2007 on Q107, while it was a classic rock station. Of course, I can’t forget Thank God It’s Christmas and even a slice of A Winter’s Tale on an all news station, around Christmas years ago. If I must, I will include Let Me In Your Heart Again, which has never been played on rock or adult radio, but once again had been teased on an all news radio station.

Well, that’s the list of Queen songs I have heard on the radio and I left out solo material, because only Man On Fire by Roger, The Great Pretender and Living On My Own (No More Brothers Radio Mix) by Freddie, Driven By You, Love Token, Too Much Love Will Kill You and Business by Brian all got played or featured. I was going to include Why Don’t We Try Again, but that was through BBC (I believe) and on a radio station from McMaster University in Hamilton. So, that is disqualified. Anyway, that was a list of what I remember hearing on radio in parts of Southern and Southwestern Ontario all these years.

About The Music Program Where I Went To School

Hi folks. This is taken from a post I had done in a Facebook group related to where I had gone to school. I will also be repeating text from my previous post on record producers in order for context. Remember, that I went to a boarding school for the blind and the music program was rather popular there and back in the 90s, that is where I was allowed to be openly into Queen. I was active in that I took lessons, participated in music appreciation class, sang in the school choir and played in what we called our lab ensemble.

Years after I had graduated, the school had created a new class called Music Electronics and this is an area in which I would have loved to have been educated. I have always been interested in how everything sounds, when it comes to how every instrument has a certain character. For example: think of how Roger’s drums sound on every Queen album, from one to the next and there is an obvious difference, besides the change in co-producers. Consider how guitars were recorded and obviously, this is down to microphone placement and Weather the guitars are recorded through the consul or not. These days, everything is compressed, including drums. Then we have affects to put sauce on the steak, such as gate reverb which Phil Collins was most popular for. Then we have such wavy sounding affects on everything like flange, phasing and chorus, as well as delay. As an example of flange, think of the beginning of Ogre Battle and how it eventually fades in with the ending played backwards . I realize that every producer does things their own way and I could get into the roll of the producer here, but not in this post. The idea is to bring to your attention, how little people are educated in something which they and the rest of us have access to, through the radio and streaming music.

This is especially for those of us who hung around the music wing and were involved with music groups and classes. By groups I mean the various choirs and ensembles we were in, when we went to the school. By classes I mean not just music lessons, but also music appreciation too.

Speaking for myself, I learned that some rock bands had incorporated classical, jazz, music hall, ragtime and baroque into their music. A prime example is Queen, who even use tempo rubato and those of you who went to school with me, know how much I had got into Queen in the early 90s. I still love them and have learned more about them as a band ever since.

The reason for this post is because of a couple of Youtube videos which had come up in 2022, about the school’s music program and in particular the music electronics course. I hope that it goes beyond just being able to record and compose music, to learning about affects and even something as abhorrent as pitch correction and even something as convenient as Pro tools, which is something I hadn’t heard about until I left the school. Case in point, Nine Inch Nails! I also found that no contemporary music was being shown off and those who had participated in the video, had expressed hopes to go on Broadway some day. Fair enough, but what about those of us who play guitar and want to rock out? Do we still have people like that in the music program, or is rock ‘n’ roll to primitive to be a part of The music curriculum? I’m only asking as I have always been on the rock side of the fence, as apposed to only learning about music from a certain period of time and I had found what I had heard, quite disturbing to me. https://youtu.be/TpfUccGZusY?si=TtudaafEXWofLrvR

I thought it was kinda cool, although I had wondered and I still do, if any emphasis was put on:autotune, vocoders or other forms of studio trickery and technology which helps to either enhance recorded music, or ruin it for those of us who would rather hear music… … warts and all? I’m just curious, because of everything since I left the school which had come after 1994, especially for pop, rock and metal. I have been trying to follow musical trends of all kinds and pitch correction is an obvious one, which I hope that students have learned about, both what it is and how to control it.

Another video I had found had focused more on the music program. https://youtu.be/bcr6e1d76k8?si=t73OaemfovfHupj6

As a former student and as someone who was involved with the music program, I agree with what everyone had said. Altho, I don’t think that I actually forgot about my disability and I was just in the moment, as I played an instrument or sang songs in choir or in other settings. The only thing I don’t hear is any modernity in how the music program is these days, with choice of music and instruments reflecting the times we are living in. For example: are there any students using a turntable as an instrument, or are there any students playing guitars with more than six strings on them, in order to learn a certain genre of music which is harder and more abrasive? What about other rock bands and students learning their songs, like Queen or even The Beatles? I’m just asking as I feel really strongly about my own experiences at the school and how music has progressed to 2024.

Anyway, my main point of the post was to get those of us who currently go to, or work at the school to talk about what we had learned in any and all facets of the music program. I was mainly looking for comments from my fellow former students as well and I honestly hope that there is still room for those who like their music loud and dangerous sounding, alongside those who are interested in non-contemporary music, including jazz. I believe that the reason for a younger music teacher (who happens to also play bass) was highered was to bring the music program up to date, in not just musical instruments, but also more contemporary music. I was invited to join the ensemble in 1990, months before my Queen fandom had awoken and I enjoyed it, because I didn’t just play jazz tunes, but also some rock songs I knew. One song we did was After Midnight by Eric Clapton and I played the guitar and sang backup vocals, with a bassist, drummer and a singer, who didn’t play an instrument. We also did Gimme Some Lovin’ by The Spencer Davis Group, with our singer on lead vocals and singing it, in a baritone, rather than a soulful tenor like Steve Winwood on the original and best version of this song. We had no keyboardist and a saxophonist, who could hardly play and didn’t solo and, was also not a musician and had no interest in being one. I could get into some of the more ridiculous songs we tried to play throughout my time, but I won’t unless people ask in the comments section, on either the Facebook group or for the blog itself. However, I will tell you that we did Dragon Attack with me on lead vocals and I wish I had heard the version from Milton Keynes, or Montréal in order to give myself more options, rather than trying to copy Freddie, as he did it on The Game. I did okay, but I still should have had more options to work with.

Anyway, it wasn’t all that bad as I got to sing some Queen songs and our bass playing guitar teacher showed me how to play The Hitman on guitar and showed me, that I didn’t always need to play root notes when playing chords. Now that I think of it, Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple also uses this technique, with the guitar. I played that song on our school Piper Orregon and a fellow student (who shall remain nameless) figured I would get in trouble for playing such an evil song, foweling up the pipes. Nothing happened and everyone else played what they learned on piano, as our intermediate choir were in the auditorium that day, getting a opportunity to explore and play the pipe organ.

There was nothing to this post really, except that I wanted those who are reading to know how most of us who were lucky enough to learn about not just playing a musical instrument, but also recording and mixing. I wasn’t back in my day, despite that I knew a bit about studio technology and what some of the buttons did, as well as the various knobs like a fader for example. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading and watching the YOutube videos.

Equals, Disturbed

Hi folks. Here is post number 2 in a series called Equals and again, these are bands or artists who may not have been influenced by Queen, or have influenced Queen, but had kept me holding on while no new music had been forthcoming all these years. Like I had said in the debut post in this series, all of the bands are influential in their own rights, to younger bands in a similar lane. Of course, with all of the bands in this series, I will do posts on them from as much of a Queen perspective as I am able to do, as quite a few have come after Queen’s initial 20 year run and before getting back together with Paul Rogers and Adam Lambert.

This is a post on a band from Chicago, who have a singer who tends to be outspoken on issues and in recent years, has devoted himself to helping those who have dealt with mental health and addiction issues, along with the rest of the band. The singer is also laid-back and when giving interviews, speaks deliberately and answers the questions he has asked, much like Bryan and Roger, unlike how politicians answer questions which they wish had been asked. They are one of the biggest bands out there now and one of their more recent hits is a cover of The Sound Of Silence. Yes, I am talking about Disturbed and they have been releasing albums since 2000 just after Greatest Hits III, but had formed in 1996, during the chart run for Made In Heaven.

Disturbed’s current lineup is guitarist Dan Donegan, singer David Draiman, bassist John Moyer and drummer Mike Wengren. The original lineup consisted of Dan, Dave, Mike and bassist Steve Kmak. They had formed in 1996 under the name Brawl. They were originally going to name the band Crawl, but as with future Equals band Sevendust, another band had the name first. Then when David auditioned, he decided to see if they had any originals as well as covers. They did and obviously, Dave has been singing and making noises with the band ever since.

March 7th 2000 saw the release of the debut album The Sickness and it had 4 singles released off of the album and 2 of them have become rock radio hits. This was the first one to start it all. https://youtu.be/GVcY–XzeIc

The other big song off of this album would turn out to be their best known track of all, because of an animalistic noise made by David. You know this song. Right? By the way, contrary to Wikipedia the noise was not inspired by a trip to a zoo. https://youtu.be/22yh698nf8o

Let’s hear David now discuss how he had come up with the noise. https://youtu.be/PQS2WWTEefY

Without further ado, let’s hear the song itself. https://youtu.be/09LTT0xwdfw

The band toured and toured and during a radio interview in September 2000 in Toronto, David’s percussive vocal style had come up, which could be mistaken for wrapping. David was interviewed by the late Dave Bookman on 102.1 The Edge and Dave had pointed out David’s wrapping and the response was (rather nicely) “oh, no no no no my friend it’ss not wrapping” and said that it is his singing style. You really can’t blame anyone for misconstruing it though, because of the song Pour Some Sugar On Me bye Def Leppard which incorporates much the same singing style. Although in the case of Disturbed, they were unfortunately lumped in with the Nü Metal that was popular at the time. As they have evolved they managed to get away from as much of it as they could, without straying too far from their original sound. In fact, they stay with the original sound but have added things along the way, which I will get into while talking about future albums.

During the touring cycle for The Sickness, Disturbed were on Ozzfest in 2000 and 2001, as well as starting their own tour called Music as a Weapon. Unlike most other tours, the tour is numbered in Roman numerals and there have been five incarnations of the tour, from 2001 to 2011, with Australian tours of their own in 2008 and 2011. If you are a Simpsons fan, doesn’t this remind you of the annual Treehouse of Horror episodes?

Disturbed’s second album Believe came out on September 17th 2002 and it continues much of what The Sickness had to offer but there is more of an emphasis on melody this time. David’s voice does go soft but it is only during certain points of certain songs in which this occurs. In particular the songs: Awaken, Mistress, Remember, Breathe and the dark acoustic track Darkness. Really… you had to figure that they would go in this direction to expand the sound for their own purposes and not for celling more albums. Even so, Believe debuted at number 1 and the band went on tour to support it. This was the first single off of the album and if you remember, the music video was banned, because of the images of burning buildings. Don’t forget, this was nearly a year after the September 11th attacks and I honestly believe that people were waiting to see what bands would come up with, in response. Anyway, here is the song in question. https://youtu.be/DWSlOCEzRGo

One of the other singles off of the Believe album is Remember and it has a hint of what is to come, particularly with the guitar and the switch in time signature, during the verses. https://youtu.be/OaptZgTDWEg

During the tour, they did Ozzfest in 2003 and Music as a Weapon II, with a live album in March 2004. Also, Steve would be let go, dew to personality differences. Early on when they were traveling in a van to go from gig to gig, it would be Steve and Mike who decided to drop deuces in the van, while Dave and Dan did not. It resulted in their transportation smelling like ass every so often and having to dispose of shit every fucking day, from what I gather. I know, that’s gross and I apologize for that, but I had to tell you some time. Anyway, in 2004 Disturbed would hold auditions for whom would be the new bassist and John Moyer was one of the many who would try out. His band The Union Underground had become inactive in 2002 and so, John was available. The guys knew him, but he auditioned anyway and he of course, got the job and is still playing deep rumbling base with Disturbed to this day.

Ten Thousand Fists came on September 20th 2005, while Queen and Paul Rodgers were touring. The album was a sort of return to the sound on The Sickness but with most of the melody of Believe intact. This time, the band tuned the guitars down a half step and added guitar solo’s. If you are a musician and you are reading this and you are a fan of the band, you know that they wrote the first two albums in e flat and or dropped d flat tuning. They continued this on Ten Thousand Fists but also added droped c tuning to the mix, to make the sound heavier. When I met Pete Loeffler from Chevelle in 2002, I asked him about tuning the guitars down for their latest album at the time, which was called Wonder What’s Next. He told me it was to make the sound heavier. This was compared to the d standard tuning on their previous album Point #1. It makes sense to me now that I think about it because the lower tuning does give the music more of a menacing tone, when needed. Is it any wonder why most extream metal bands have done this in the past few years? Also, why do you think Korn use 7 stringed guitars tuned down as low as a 1 being the lowest note and Fear Factory using low tuned guitars throughout their career? Anyway, I digress.

A number of singles were released off of this album, such as the first official single for Radio and is a prime example of both aspects I have talked about, setting this album apart from the first two. https://youtu.be/I77mjesUbkw

Another big single is their cover of an 80s era genesis classic and you know what? I like it as well as the original. https://youtu.be/YV4oYkIeGJc

The final single is the title track and it also opens the album. https://youtu.be/OuK4OcMUGcg

Disturbed would be on Ozzfest again in 2006 and this was mostly without Ozzy. Bands who were also on that year’s tour included Avenged Sevenfold, System Of A Down and many others.

The band toured throughout 2005 and 2006, including Ozzfest and after finishing, they went into righting and recording mode, for the next album. Indestructible continues where Fists left off, sort of and it came out on June 3rd 2008. However it is more of a return to the earlier sound on The Sickness, married with elements from the last 2 albums. I like the whole thing, but a number of songs stand out to me after years of it being out there. The first single came in March 2008 and I especially love the guitar solo, with the ascending line at the end of it. https://youtu.be/rxujAPhxlo0

The other song I had heard a lot on the radio is the title track and because they were on tour with Slipknot at the time as a part of the Mayhem Festival, I was concerned that the beginning of this song and Slipknot’s Pulse of the Maggots both have that army siren that it could be an issue. Thankfully, it wasn’t and to show you what I mean, here are both songs. Let’s hear some Slipknot. https://youtu.be/3TokaT9MPLM

Now, here is the Disturbed track with that same siren, but without any speech. https://youtu.be/aWxBrI0g1kE

As for the Queen timeline, Indistructable came months before The Cosmos Rocks dropped in October 2008. Touring for about a year, Disturbed had worked hard and there would be one more album, before going on a hiatus. Asylum is unfortunately, my least favourite album because of its decidedly dark tone. I actually expected something similar to Indestructible! What I did notice with it and Believe is the lack of keyboards and samples on both albums. I had read that it would have a similarity to Believe but I actually expected more of the melodic aspects of that album in this one. However, having heard interviews with David talking about what he had gone through during that time made me reconsider my feelings on how it sounds musically, sonically, melodically and lyrically.

One thing David has also had to deal with throughout his career as a singer is acid reflux, which obviously can affect his singing voice if he hadn’t had surgery to correct the problem. Apparently, it is now under control, where as before stomach acid would come up and burn his vocal cords, which is obviously not good for anyone, let alone a vocalist. I believe taht Justin Hawkins of The Darkness has also had to deal with the same issue over the years.

Asylum has had some fan favourites including the first single Another Way To Die, which is about climate change. https://youtu.be/HwELajFteTo

In 2011, the guys decided to take a deserved hiatus from the band and in the process, all of the band members became fathers. Some were married with kids before then, but David actually got married during the break and has a son, born in 2013. He also started a project called Device, who had put out an album on April 9th 2013 and it sounds much like Disturbed, but with an industrial bent. It had a bunch of guests including Lizzy Hale, Serj Tankian, M. Shadows, Tom Morello, geezer Butler and Glenn Hughes. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t Disturbed! The other members weren’t sitting around, with John joining Adrenaline Mob in 2012 and Mike and Dan starting their own group called Fight or Flight in 2013. However, this would not spell the end of Disturbed. Even so, John would form yet another group called Art of Anarchy in 2014 and I believe that both of his groups are still active, alongside his membership in Disturbed.

David also produced the album Vengeance Falls by metalcore band Trivium and it wasn’t bad. I had posted on David’s Twitter about how I liked it and he had favourited my tweet, as Twitter posts were known at the time.

Before I forget, there was a compilation in 2011 called The Lost Children, consisting of B-sides and unreleased tracks. It had come out on November 8th 2011 between Replaceable You and The Food Wife. This was the single and it was a B-side from 2005. https://youtu.be/jvAmUKgH7HI

In 2015, Disturbed were back with a new album and a new producer, after working with Johnny K for their first 3 albums and the last 2 being produced by the band. This time they worked with Canadian producer Kevin Churcko who has worked with such artists and bands as diverse as: Five Finger Death Punch, Ozzy Osbourne, Shania twain, The Corrs, Britney Spears, Hinder and Michael Bolton to name a few. Kevin brings his own signature sound, which is most noticeable in the drums. If you listen to any of the albums by the artists I mentioned, you will hear what I’m talking about. Pay particular attention to the pitch of the snare drums. Oh yes, Kevin was also a protégé of Def Leppard producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange. It explains a lot as to why his albums sound the way they do. Doesn’t it? I mean, I could easily get confused with an album produced by Kevin and Dark Horse by Nickelback because of the drum sound and another hallmark, such as the producer singing backing vocals and co-writing songs.

The new album in 2015 was called Immortalized and it is even heavier than Fists, with the guitars tuned down even lower. This is a prime example as it is also the first single off of it. https://youtu.be/8nW-IPrzM1g

The big song off of it is their cover of the Simon & Garfunkel classic The Sound of Silence, which was released as a single and video in December 2015. I had hoped to hear it in a Simpsons episode, but so far no luck. So, I will put it here anyway. https://youtu.be/u9Dg-g7t2l4

One more song which is of note is The Light, which is the first Disturbed song in a major key. Rather than give you the studio version, here is a live video from Youtube, where David humbly asks for audience participation. When fans hear the chorus hit and David sings the title of the song, all cell phones must light up, but only when he sings those two words. https://youtu.be/-N2Ri6Jz7fM

On July 20th 2017, the music world lost Chester Bennington to suicide, aged 41 and David wrote a heartfelt tribute to his friend, on Disturbed’s Facebook page. I have copied it for myself, but I won’t paste it here as a part of the blog post. However, I will tell you that he had told some great stories about being on tour, with both LINKIN PARK and Papa Roach and him being the grumpy old man trying to get some sleep, while Chester and Jacoby Shaddix were competing to see who could get rowdier on a chartered jet. Also, David tells a story about how Chester loved his vocal work on Sound Of Silence and told him that he should do more of that. Well, more on that below and I have read that tribute to Chester from David a few times.

October 19th 2018 saw the release of the next studio album Evolution and it would also be produced by Kevin Churko. I had mentioned it coming out the same day as the soundtrack to the Queen movie Bohemian Rhapsody and because I like Queen, Disturbed and The Simpsons, I couldn’t resist talking about both albums in the post entitled Bobo??? the post talking about my favourite aspects of the classic episode Rosebud. Anyway, the guitars were tuned down even lower for one of the heavier songs, but the album also consisted mostly of ballads. The first single was more typical Disturbed and here it is. https://youtu.be/55NJzOSuKuY

Another popular song off of the album is A Reason To Fight and it was the second single, as well as being one of the ballads. Sure, there were thoughts of Chester in there, but also of Chris Cornell and Scott Weiland,, who had delt with addiction throughout his career. Here is the song as it was released on the album. https://youtu.be/t4382UVl0oc

When they play A Reason To Fight live, David gives a speech about how he and the rest of Disturbed had delt with either addiction or depression, or both. Also, how they know people who had also dealt with it in the music business and who had unfortunately passed away because of both demons, like Chester, Chris and Scott. David also reveals that he almost joined them in 2023. https://youtu.be/eeIy_utxOzg

The band toured until late 2019 and were going to do a 20th anniversary tour for The Sickness, but the coronavirus had other plans for us and so, they couldn’t go on tour and they and we… had to stay home. In September 2020, Disturbed released a new single and a cover of a track by Simpsons guest star Sting and it was from 1993. Again, both the original and the Disturbed versions are equally good. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Evolution had come out 2 days before Treehouse of Horror XXIX. Anyway, let’s here Disturbed covering Sting. https://youtu.be/KY8E-O7LCog

In 2021, David did a guest vocal with Alice Cooper guitarist Nita Strauss and it was released as a standalone single at the time. https://youtu.be/kXylY7ACINI

I should also catch up on music I had almost forgotten about, where David sings on a track written by Korn’s Jonathan Davis for the movie soundtrack Queen Of The Damned. It certainly gave us a hint as to what else David had to offer on Believe and future Disturbed albums. Right? https://youtu.be/7YZHY1ekgYo

In July 2022, Disturbed roared back with a single which would be from a new album in November. I remember hearing it for the first time on Youtube and it was exactly when Hey You was being premiered to the world. https://youtu.be/YCGIj7KmwyI

On November 18th 2022, Divisive would be released, between Season 34 episodes From Beer To Paternity and Step Brother From the Same Planet. It was produced by a gentleman named Drew Fulk and I didn’t know the name until Disturbed worked with him. I try and make it a habit of learning who produced what and with more recent bands, it’s hard to tell without reading up on albums on Wikipedia. Anyway, this was a return to form, back to the meat and potatoes version of Disturbed and it is quite good. They even do a track with Ann Wilson of Heart and it is supposed to be a future single and the only ballad on this album. https://youtu.be/s4JudskwgAc

There is a song called Won’t Back Down, but it is not a cover of a Tom Petty song. I wish it was though, as it would’ve been interesting to see how they would tackle this track and it does have a little rhythmic vocal melody to it. However, it wouldn’t fit musically. https://youtu.be/ddnjfTqsT7o

In February 2023, David almost took his own life, because of a divorce from his wife of 10 years and thankfully, he is still here and rocking at age 50 like me. David was born March 13th 1973 and I am a couple months and change younger than him. I had put the speech about his almost joining Chester, Chris and Scott wher I did because he has said this in his speech on quite a few occasions this year, after playing A Reason To Fight. Anyway, Disturbed are on tour and let’s see how long they will go, before writing and recording a new album, while taking time off for their families.

Will we ever hear Brian playing on track with members of, or with all of Disturbed on an album,or live? Probably not, but I can dream and wish for that. Besides, the connection to Queen is their friendship with Metallica, who are obviously an influence and James Hetfield is one of David’s favourite singers. Altho, if they did play together, I guess it would be more possible during coincidental festival appearances. Altho, I would be cool if Brian could do a solo with Dan on a Disturbed album. Anyway, here is both parts of the Disturbed Wikipedia Fact or Fiction and some of which has been heard before. Also, it is as recent as 2015. https://youtu.be/w40DhmnD3A4

Now, the second part on David and it starts from whense he had talked about his Grandfather, distancing himself from his Grandson to 2015. https://youtu.be/9IdV7GdLrsk

Back to Metallica for a moment, in that David had wished James Hetfield a happy 60th birthday on his birthday on Twitter. He would go on to name his 3 favourite Metalica songs and they are: Fade to Black, Creeping Death and Master of Puppets. Disturbed had played Faid To Black live during the Believe tour and it was partially played, to lead into Darkness.

While I compose these posts, I wonder what fans of the respective bands think of me talking about them, in context to Queen. I also wonder what the members of Disturbed would think of some blogger somewhere in the world, putting them in the same context as a classic band like Queen. This blogger is also a fan and is blind. Would they be flattered? Would they take a brief look at my post and move on to something else, if (for some reason) a member does a random search on Google to check up on things in general? I hope that they like what I am doing, because I am and I always have been respectful to bands that I like. I’m just a fan who wants everyone to get along, especially when it comes to entertainment. I think of the musicians who play heavy music as people like us and they are only doing what they do, to entertain us. One more thing I almost forgot to put in here ,is this excellent duet with David and Breaking Benjamin doing a classic from Queen & David Bowie, as a fan of all of the artists, I like this and as a Queen and Disturbed fan, this makes me very happy to hear two both Dave and Benjamin Burnley singing both vocal parts. https://youtu.be/UYYaIOvwAoY

Finally to end this post for real, I love this as it made me laugh so hard and the same with David and probably the rest of Disturbed. Besides, this reminds me of when rock radio stations would insert fake commercials into blocks of music and I wish that would return. https://youtu.be/66gSvNeqevg

Equals, LINKEN PARK

Hi folks. Here is the first official post in a new series of posts on other bands I like, besides Queen. The Show Must Go On is about bands who have been influenced by Queen in some fashion, while Guides And Inspirations focuses on bands who had influenced Queen in any way possible. There are bands who are also equals to Queen, including Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and many others who are not just inspirations and or among the influenced, but also on the same ground as Queen within the music industry. I could have put them in my new series called Equals, but I didn’t. and All of the bands I have mentioned (and more) are influential in their own rights, just as Queen are equally sided as an influence on younger bands. Also, some of these bands do not directly site Queen as an influence (at least out loud), or have ever played with either Freddie, Brian, John or Roger. However, all of the rock bands I had ever done, or will do further posts on, have kept me holding on to Queen over the years and this includes equals to Queen, whom I intend to do posts on now and in the future.

This includes a band who had formed in the 90s and had released their first album in 2000. I’m going to talk about LINKEN PARK from as much of a Queen perspective as I can, from when they had formed to the present day, including the death of their singer in July 2017. I will also make a connection to both Queen and LINKEN PARK through live albums and stage banter.

LINKIN PARK were formed in 1996 in Agoura Hills California, while Made In Heaven was still releasing singles. It was: Mike Shinoda on vocals, guitar and keyboards, Brad Delson on lead guitar, Dave Farrell on bass, Joe Hahn as the band’s DJ/turntablist and drummer Rob Bourdon as the founding members. Nearly all members of LP are university educated and like Queen, LINKEN PARK are quite hands on with everything, including artwork for album covers and everything else which goes into recording, mixing, mastering an album as well as the live show. It was Mike, Brad and Rob who had gone to Agoura Hills high school and had also graduated together, while recruiting the others, along with singer Mark Wakefield to perform in their band, which was then called Xero. Even if they were limited in resources, the band began recording and producing songs within Shinoda’s makeshift bedroom studio in 1996. This would result in a four-track demo album, entitledHowever Xero, which would be released in November 1997, the same month that Queen Rocks had been released.

Brad had introduced the band to Jeff Blue, who was the vice president of A&R (artist and repertoire) for Zomba Music. I guess that Brad had been an intern for Jeff and the label in college! It was thanks to Jef that Chester Bennington would eventually come into the fold, after a time of touring with Mark and a growing frustration of not getting a record deal. So, Jeff contacted Chester, a native of Arizona who had his own band Grey Daze, but he was happy living with his wife and kids. When he got the call from Jeff he decided to try and he stood out among applicants because of the dynamic in his singing style. So, what we heard on the debut album Hybrid Theory was born and Hybrid Theory would also be the name of the band for a while. They had changed the name to LINKIN PARK after being advised to do so, in order to avoid confusion with a British band called Hybrid, whom I had never heard of either. Thankfully, they had obliged and the band name would be changed to LINKIN PARK, as apposed to Lincoln Park for website domain name reasons. I have sometimes noticed the spelling with every letter in all caps and sometimes with the L and P cappitalized, or just “LP”, but either way, the spelling is always the same. So, LINKIN PARK it is. In an interview in 2000, it was either Chester, Mike or Dave, or maybe Brad who had said that the name should sound local, because of a park happening to exist in every city or town in the US. Okay?

The band would sign with Warner Bros. Records after being turned down by the label on 3 previous occasions. When they signed, the label tried to convince Chester to fire Mike so they could make a rock record and obviously, that wouldn’t happen. There would be nobody else doing the wrapping parts, other than Mike and the vision of the band would be intact. I will have more on that in a Youtube video further down. One Step Closer was the song we would hear first from the album Hybrid Theory. It took a while for it to grow on me, but I obviously like it a lot and both the album and the rock mix were played on various radio stations I could listen to, until now. No, One Step Closer is still played on rock radio, but I haven’t heard the rock mix on my radio station of choice, since 2022.

Hybrid Theory was released on October 24th 2000, around the time of The Platinum Collection boxed set coming out. Over the next 12 months or so, the guys would tour their asses off and release singles like Crawling, which is my personal favourite. However, the big song off of Hybrid Theory that we all sing along to, is In The End and when played live, Mike tells the audience to sing along with, or for Chester. It kinda reminds me of We Will Rock You and how Freddie encouraged those of us who got a chance to see Queen live, to sing the chorus? It does for me even though the songs are different in tone and subject matter.

In March 2003, the album Meteora came out and the first single was Somewhere I Belong, which I latched onto because of how low the guitar was tuned, to A sharp. Next was Faint and I don’t have all that much to say about it. After Faint was Meteora’s big anthemNumb, which I had heard in the fall of 2003 and which was also the focus, after the death of Chester in July 2017. Lying From You is my favourite off of Meteora, because of the weird riff which goes up and down. One of the last singles off of Meteora is Breaking the Habit, which was a real game changer for a song in many ways. It was in a natural key, there was no screaming, no heavy guitars and it wasn’t heavy musically. This would be a sign of things to come, whether we noticed or not. It reminds me of Fun It, but it wasn’t released as a single and couldn’t serve as a hint that Queen just might be venturing into funk and disco in the future, like Another One Bites The Dust. Actually, another example of a game changer is Killer Queen, as Freddie wanted people to know that Queen were more than just a band who were influenced by Led Zeppelin.

Fast forwarding to 2023, Meteora gets a 20th anniversary reissue, with a whole bunch of goodies we hadn’t heard before. Some of them we have, with 2 complete concerts and a bunch of demos including the single Lost. It reminds me of The Miracle in 2022, with both Hybrid Theory and Meteora getting a similar 20th Anniversary release like what we got with The Miracle boxed set. For more about the reissue, let’s watch and hear this interview with Mike, Brad and Dave. It will get more into Chester and what he was like and how he had their back, when Warner Music wanted to make him the focus, instead of the band, as a group. https://youtu.be/LZ_zO1Uqimw

Ever since Meteora, LINKIN PARK had released Minutes to Midnight on May 15, 2007 months before Queen Rock Montréal would come out on CD for the first time. The single New Divide came on May 18th 2009, around the same time that Queen and Paul Rodgers would split and months before Absolute Greatest would be released. From here on in, LP would release their next 3 albums A Thousand Suns on September 10th 2010, Living Things in June 2012 and The Hunting Party in June 2014, all without any newly released Queen compilations with which to compete. One More Light would be released on May 19th 2017, a month and 4 days before the Queen + Adam Lambert North American Tour would commence. The album also came out 1 day, after the death of Chris Cornell, friend of Chester Bennington and singer of Queen Family member Soundgarden. Then, on July 20th 2017, Chester would also die by suicide by hanging. I believe that Queen and Adam were in Toronto around the same time too!

Next a tribute concert to Chester would take place on October 27th 2017, with LINKIN PARK and a bunch of friends Live at the Hollywood Bowl. I had included the video in a past post, namely the post on the Freddie tribute concert. Which reminds me, both tribute shows had a video montage between set changes and in one of them, Chester even makes fun of Freddie. I don’t think that it was meant to offend anyone and Chester could take a joke, when being made fun of by David Draiman of Disturbed, who had written an essay, remembering Chester on Disturbed’s Facebook page on July 20 2017. I would love to share it here, but I don’t think it would be the right thing to do.

In 2003, LINKEN PARK had toured with Metallica and had become friends with them, to the point of pranking them while playing and it was Chester’s idea. https://youtu.be/b6_Yqi5zDhE

I remember hearing LINKIN PARK for the first time and not being impressed, but I eventually came around. I think it was in 2003, when it finally hit me that this is a band I should be following, even if I don’t ever buy any of their albums on CD. Then, in 2017 I had purchased every album on iTunes after Chester had died. This includes remix albums, live albums and now, anniversary deluxe versions and singles. I did much the same thing I had done with most bands including Queen and solo work, which is get myself caught up with them and do the research before hand, as to what I had missed. In the case of LINKIN PARK, they were well documented so I knew what I was getting into, except for versions of albums which had both instrumental and a cappella versions of each track on them, namely Living Things and The Hunting Party. Isn’t it cool to hear songs like that? If you are trying to learn a song, you can listen to either the band or the vocals without having to deal witha reduction in of everything else in the background. I don’t mind that, but I can see how hearing other instruments can distract from learning the vocal melody or the words, same with learning guitar, bass or drum parts. Now that I think of it, Queen should release instrumental and a cappella versions of all of their albums besides the one album they have which is designed for karaoke.

Here is my Queen connection to LINKIN PARK and it is actually twofold, with both Queen and LINKEN PARK having played at Milton Keynes Bowl in June 1982 and the younger band playing at the same venue, in June 2008, with both concerts with a live album and video each. Obviously, we have Queen On Fire: Live at the Bowl released in 2004 and Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes released on November 24 2008. Hmm!!! Anyway, that got me to thinking about the stage banter with both Chester and later, Adam Lambert with the same response to the audience. With LINKIN PARK, Chester yelled “do you want some more?” The answer was a loud “YEAH”. As documented on Live Around the World in 2020 and the classic Freddie track Somebody to Love from the Isle of Wight Festival UK in 2016, Adam would bark “can anybody find me?” And demand “say yes!? The audience obliged and hollered “yeah”. Both Chester and Adam’s responses were the same, answering back with “I don’t believe you” and demanding an even louder cheer, by asking and saying much the same thing respectively. I thought it was funny that both men did that years apart and I wonder if Adam is a fan of Chester and his work in and outside of LINKIN PARK. I hope so and I hope that they had met and become friends. That is my Queen connection to Chester. By the way, I encourage you to give a listen to Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes and check out the stage patter between Chester and Mike. Also, check out Rob’s drum solo near the end of Bleed It Out, as we hear that this dude can play and hold is own, with guys like Roger and other skin pounders. For the record, the LINKEN PARK track which has Chester barking “I don’t believe you” at the beginning is Numb / Encore (feat. JAY-Z).

Anyway, it remains to be seen if we ever see LINKIN PARK live or hear any new music from them, other than digging up songs with Chester’s vocals. We had Lost in 2023 and now, Friendly Fire from the band’s first Greatest Hits album called Papercuts which came out today. On March 29th 2024 the band had released a single with an instrumental and a cappella version of Friendly Fire and again, I ask why Queen doesn’t take the hint and consider releasing all 15 studio albums in an instrumental and a cappella format? To get an idea of how the running order could be sequenced, there could be the instrumentals of each song and then, acappella versions after the last note or drum beat has hit. Besides, Queen can do that and the should, as an iconic band in order to give the fan something to listen to and wow over, when hearing the vocals without the instrumental under it. Or on the other hand, hearing the backing tracks of each song without the vocals such as what we got on The Miracle Boxed Set in 2022. Besides, this would test us to see how well we know our Queen lyrics and if they decide to do something like that one day, we could hear Freddie clearly and not mess up when singing along with him. Besides, the other reason is for those who wish to do karaoke using the instrumental tracks and not having to go on YouTube all the time, in order to get the stems. Oh yes, the lead vocals on Friendly Fire are certainly autotune, as I can hear a certain something in Chester’s lead vocals. The same is true with Face It Alone and I’m not going to get into it here, but you can hear that it has been fixed. Anyway, I digress.

One important ingredient to the success of LINKIN PARK was and probably still is a street team, which uses the internet and social media and of course, taking the word to the street for marketing purposes and in the case of LINKEN PARK, simply marketing the band and their albums. Could you imagine if Queen had done this throughout England in 1973, to help promote the debut album? They didn’t have that much support, but what they had they could have used to do what a street team does, if they wanted and if someone had thought of the concept of the street team back then for a rock band, they could have been the first. I wish that bands like Queen and others who had not blown up right away had thought of such a grassroots tactic, for getting out the word and maybe, adjusting the strategy a bit to include radio in helping Queen get into large venues and sell more albums, sooner than they have. If you want to find out more on what a street team is, how it came to exist and how it has evolved, but not specific to LINKEN PARK, just do a search and (spoiler alert) the concept had started in 1991.

As for the future of LINKEN PARK, I had heard roomers of them working with a female singer and that is an interesting twist, if it actually comes to any fruition as it would change the whole sound and dynamic of the band going forward. I wish that they could have poached Adam and convinced him to join. Then again, some fans may get pissy aboutat that so maybe a girl is for the best. Either way, I guess we will have to stay tuned and find out what will come for this band from Agoura California.

The Show Must Go On, Nirvana

Hi folks. Here is another post on the influenced and another band from Seattle and the first, who blew up huge from the grunge and alternative rock movement in the 90s. Yup, Nirvana may have more than one connection to Queen, but I will get to that further down and I will leave any conspiracy theories alone.

Nirvana were a trio from Aberdeen Washington with Kurt Cobain on guitar and lead vocals, bassist Krist Novoselic and a succession of drummers such as Dale Crover, Chad Channing and Jason Everman, who had a short stint as the bassist of Soundgarden, before they let him go and picked up Ben Shepard. The classic lineup included Kurt and Krist, with a recently unemployed drummer named Dave Grohl, who played in a band called Scream, who had just called it a day. By the way, do not confuse Scream with “The Scream” which featured former Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi from 1993 to 1997.

Anyway, after the debut album called Bleach, which featured the original version of About A Girl, which gained popularity on the MTV Unplugged In New York album in 1994, Jason was out and Dave was in the band. Then in 1991 came Nevermind, while Freddie was still alive and I wonder if he had ever heard Smells Like Teen Spirit and if so, what he thought of it. I liked it and the rest of the album, including that crazy hidden track at the end of the CD called Endless, Nameless. Brian had done his own hidden track at the end of the Another World CD in 1998, with Made In Heaven doing another type of hidden track nearly 3 years earlier. I may do a post on the idea of a hidden track on CD’s, because I find the concept very interesting.

Nevermind obviously exploded and Nirvana got bigger than anyone expected and as a point of trivia, Nirvana signed with DGC, because Sonic Youth had signed. Their main reason for even touching pen to paper for a contract was creative control and that was the same for Nirvana. They didn’t expect to get big, but because Kurt wrote songs which had a pop appeal, they would cross over to the mainstream. Kurt didn’t like it because he expected to remain under the radar, regardless of how the songs he wrote lent themselves to being singable pop tunes with loud guitars. He rebelled against it with the 1993 album In Utero, produced (recorded) by Steve Albini, who is Kurt’s kind of guy in that he is critical of the mainstream and has no qualms expressing opinions about music and things that bother him. In Utero didn’t do as well as Nevermind, but that was to be expected as it waasn’t meant to be a slick sounding product and more live and raw sounding. It was messy and it worked.

Then in April 1994, we found out that Kurt had died by suicide, after we had heard of some overdoses and suicide attempts in previous months on tour. I’m not going to go into the conspiracy theories spouting that Kurt was murdered, but I’m not going to ignore it either. I know that there are people who believe this to be true and a whole bunch of other conspiracy theories, but let’s leave the man alone. He’s dead and he gave us his music.

Queen’s Wikipedia page lists Nirvana as being influenced by Queen, but looking at each member I can’t find evidence of that. With Kurt and Krist, no mention of Queen in their early lives as music listeners and with Dave, we know that Freddie and the guys were only a part of his own musical development, along with punk rock, Led Zeppelin, Rush and just about everything to do with rock and pop music. Another member who listened to Queen while growing up was Pat Smear, who would be a touring guitarist with Nirvana in 1993 and 1994. After Nirvana broke up, Pat joined Foo Fighters for a couple of years and left until 2006 and has been with Dave and company to this day. Pat was part of a punk band called Germs and their singer was Darby Crash (Jan Paul Beahm September 26 1958 and died December 7 1980). Pat listened to Queen and other rock and prog rock bands growing up, which is not really part of the narrative of punk rock. Obviously, Pat is now a member of Foo Fighters and with Taylor Hawkins joining in 1997, the Queen connections are in place, as Pat was influenced by Brian and other guitarists like Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols among others.

It’s too bad that Nirvana had only put out 3 albums and if they had gone on and if Kurt had lived, how would our music be any different? Would he soften his stance on Nevermind, sounding too much like a hair metal album? It was rather slick, but this was 1991 and Lofi wasn’t all that popular yet in the mainstream and I do believe, that Kurt would demand that all future Nirvana albums be recorded with analogue technology and Lofi, leaving any and all mistakes in as much as he could. I wonder what he would have thought of the garage rock revival in the 2000s with: The Black Keys, The White Stripes, Jack White as a solo artist, or even the 90s punk revival. I could hear him blasting pitch correction as evil and possibly calling new rock and metal bands as either imitators or revolutionary like him, depending on the band and how they sound and look. After all, grunge was a reaction to not just hair metal, but also classic rock and the fact that the world wasn’t exactly a great place to live in at the time for everyone including young people during a recession and the fact that concert attendance was down in 1991, for the big rock and metal bands at the time. Of course, we had no iTunes or streaming back then either and another factor in helping Nirvana and other left field bands is soundScan. This was simply something which tracked what was flying out the door of record stores more precisely, then calling out the record store and saying what they believe is moving units. Also, other similar bands became better known like Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction among them and others who would blow up, alongside Nirvana. Obviously, Queen were immune from this as they had just signed a big record deal and were just getting big in the US again, when grunge came and Freddie would pass away, 2 months exactly after Nevermind would be released. Also, would Dave still form Foo Fighters after either leaving willingly, or being fired by Kurt over songwriting disputes? There is only one nirvana song with Dave as lead vocalist and as songwriter and if you have Skin and Bones (Live Acoustic) the track Marigold appears as the bonus track on the CD single twoHeart-Shaped Box, i’ll be at rather rough and still melodic.

I like all of the big four grunge bands equally, for all their strong points and with nirvana, it’s their songwriting combined with their unapologetically messy sound. Nevermind may have been slick, but in general they were meant to sound like a GarageBand and after all, Kurt was a stoner who also loved Black Sabbath, The Beatles, Kiss and Led Zeppelin as well as punk. He even kept a journal and now that I mention it, I wonder if Freddie ever did. Maybe not, but if he did I wonder what he would’ve written and what he would really say about various things going on in his life, besides Queen and his comments on the world in general. I will be doing a post on the other two big four bands of grunge because as I said, I like all four of them for different reasons and like I said with Nirvana, song writing is among them and in fact, I appreciate everything each of the four bands have done with their songs, but I will get into the other two later on this month as I have already done Soundgarden. I will also do a post on Foo Fighters either this year, or next to mark the 30th anniversary of their debut album, or I may just do one on Dave Grohl… I don’t know.

To Solo, Or Not To Solo

Hi folks. This is a post on guitar solos and this came up because of a discussion in an online guitar magazine, on the lack of guitar solos in the 90s, during the grunge and alternative era and even with nü metal. Brian obviously has a guitar solo in nearly every Queen song. However, the one-note solo is not among them, such as a solo on I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones. Most grunge solos were either the vocal melody, one note, or something which sounds improvised. Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil is probably the best example of a guitarist who plays that kind of solo, with Mike McCready and Jerry Cantrell playing more or less conventional solos for Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains respectively.

The most controversial lack of guitar solos and most famous album without which is by a band, who have a guitarist who can shred. In 2003, the album St. Anger by Metalllica had no solos on it and the only time there could have been one included is a slide guitar solo on the track Sweet Amber, which we hear in the movie Some Kind Of Monster. Apparently, they wanted to put solos on the album, but as Brian has said many times, the song is king. The song dictates whether guitar solos will fit, into the general demeanour of the piece of music being created. Not every song by Queen has a guitar solo and famous examples include: Another One Bites the Dust, We Are the Champions, We Will Rock You, Fat Bottomed Girls, Body Language and Under Pressure. There are more, but you get the idea. I had included We Will Rock You because Brian isn’t exactly playing a solo, but a guitar passage ending off the song. Also, I don’t believe that Champions has an actual solo, but a short break where Brian buts in, between Freddie singing the chorus. Having said all that, we know that Brian has played with Soundgarden in 1993 and I think he held up well, along with inserting himself into a previously released and recorded track by the Seattle Quartet. https://youtu.be/3TgxwiIp0F4?si=azo8rfuRA3pHx84S

Were Queen ahead of their time? Nope and like Brian has indicated about songs, they are the king and they point toward whether a song is heavy, light, has a guitar solo, or does without. I don’t mind either way, but I know that some people insist that a guitar solo be in every single song, no matter what. I nearly formed a band with someone in the early 2000s and that was his thinking. I understand why, but I also know that not every song is the same and as Queen fans, I know we are certainly aware of that. Besides, could you conceive of any of the songs I mentioned having a guitar solo? Nope, because the songs simply have no room for a solo, shredding, melodic or otherwise.

Thankfully, guitar solos are back and even with newer metal bands such as Slipknot, Disturbed and others who had previously not included a solo. Even Korn have included solos during live performances in the 2000s as an ending two a song, but not on a studio album. Some guitarists have just shredded, while others do both shredding and play tunes like Brian. I will be doing a post on a nü metal band (in a new series of posts) who had gone from no solos to including solos on songs, with room for them next month. Anyway, let’s all enjoy guitar solos, whether it is Brian, or whom ever is wanking away.

The Show Must Go On, Pantera

Hi folks. How are all Gord’s people doing? Has spring sprung where you are, or had spring weather teased you earlier in the month and left, to go somewhere else for a while?

Today it is the 30th anniversary of an unlikely album to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 and by an uncompromising metal band at that. Also, a band who are a part of my version of The Queen Family, for a number of reasons.

One of the big stories in rock and metal in the last couple of years was the highly improbable reunion of 90s metal band Pantera, whose two founding members: Drummer Vinnie Paul and guitarist Dimebag Darrell are no longer with us. Vinnie had passed away (aged 54) on June 22 2018 of dilated cardiomyopathy and coronary disease in his sleep. Darrell was shot on stage, murdered 24 years to the day that John Lennon was killed (aged 38). I had done a post on both shootings and how they had impacted Queen in December 2022. Anyway, in July 2022 it was announced that surviving members bassist Rex brown and vocalist Phil Anselmo are reuniting as Pantera, with Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante taking the place of Vinnie and Daryl on drums and guitar respectively. Oh yeah, I should also mention that Vinny and Daryl were brothers and their real names were Vincent Paul Abbott and Darrell Lance Abbott. I had learned this back in 2000, thanks to a series of compact disks as mini talking books on popular bands and artists of not just rock and metal, but pop and country. It was known as Chrome Dreams Media. I had learned about some of my favourite bands through purchasing either CDs by that company, or Star Profile. Those of you who are reading this and who live in the UK probably know more about the company than I do, if you had picked up a CD or two, or more at HMV over the years. I don’t think that Queen ever had a CD from either company, or even needed one. However, Black Sabbath had one. Anyway, I digress.

The Abbot brothers grew up in Abilene Texas, bassist Rex Brown was from Graham, Texas, while Phil Anselmo came from New Orleans, with Pantera (the band) being from Arlington Texas. The brothers had formed Pantera in 1981 and had released their first album Metal Magic, on their record label of the same name. It was also produced by their father Jerry Abbott, who will come up again later. The singer for this album and the next 2 was Terry Glaze and Pantera were a glam metal band for those years. After two more albums: Projects in the Jungle and I Am the Night, Tarry was out and Phil was in, with his first album being Power Metal. The band began to change the sound, to a more thrash medal approach, with some groove and it further expanded with the album Cowboys from Hell and that album and song, basically started groove metal. Yes, there are thrash elements but groove also became an important characteristic of this sub genre of heavy metal. Also, if you are a long time reader you know how much Cowboys From Hell and Keep Yourself Alive remind me of each other, simply how both songs start, with a tape error and chugging guitar.

Anyway, after 1990, Pantera just got heavier and heavier and when the album Far Beyond Driven was released and had debuted at the top spot of the billboard charts, they had carved out their own sound using elements of Metallica and Slayer, but also incorporated other extreme metal bands and even hard-core punk into the song writing and musicianship. For example: Phil used a style similar to Rob Halford at first, but he then started to introduce screaming and growling into his vocals, along with occasionally singing. As for everybody else in Pantera, they just played faster and meaner and this made for a real potent cocktail of not just music and technique to burn, but copious amounts of alcohol. Apparently, in the contract you had to drink if you were going to go on tour with Pantera. One such drink is called “Black Tooth Grin” and if you know the song Sweating Bullets by Megadeth, you know that those three words are mentioned in the lyrics. If you haven’t heard it yet, I just happen to have found this video on YouTube. https://youtu.be/aOnKCcjP8Qs

Phil had decided to go back home to New Orleans and start a side project of his own in 1995, called Down and the debut album was called Nola and Down had a more Black Sabbbathy type of vibe and I guess you could say, was music for stoners. Down has released a number of albums over the years and in 1999, Rex would join.

While the partying and debauchery was going on, band tensions began to arise between Phil and the Abbott brothers, as they were having a great time and Phil was getting into heroin, in order to self medicate because of back pain he had suffered on a previous tour. Rex was and always has been neutral! Anyway, Phil’s July 13, 1996 overdose was a clear wake up call that something was wrong, but not before the album The Great Southern Trendkill was recorded in challenging circumstances, with Phil at home in New Orleans and the rest of the band in Texas, at a studio which was a Barn Darrell had converted into a recording studio. In 2000, Reinventing The Steel was released and it proved to be the final album, with a tour was cut short by the September 11th attacks. Then, Phil and Rex focused on Down and Phil had other bands with albums coming out, while the abbott brothers were patiently waiting for the guys to return, so they could get to work on the next album. That was not to be and Pantera broke up in 2003 and the Abbott brothers formed Damageplan, with Patrick Lachman on vocals and Bob Zilla on bass. Bob would be a part of Vince’s next band Hellyeah, with Chad Gray of Mudvayne on vocals, Tom Maxwell of Nothingface on guitar, with Vince and Bob rounding out the rhythm section. During Damageplan’s tour, Darrell was shot and killed in 2004 in Columbus Ohio, while Vince had spent 2006, to 2018 in Hellyeah until his death. I know I’m missing a lot, but I didn’t want this post to go on forever.

As for who would be sitting in for the Abbott brothers, it is Zakk Wylde on guitar and Charlie Benante of Anthrax on drums. Zakk was thought to be a perfect guy to sub in for Darrell, as they were friends and they had played together sometimes. For example: Zakk had played on a couple of songs from the one and only Damageplan album New Found Power: Reborn (with a guitar solo at the end) and the mostly acoustic final track Soul Bleed (where he did a guest vocal with Patrick). As for Charlie, Pantera and Anthrax had toured together and more importantly, both Zakk and Charlie have Queen in their musical DNA. Charlie is a Queen fan and one of his favourite Queen albums seems to be Jazz. This is only judging from a Youtube video from a few years ago, where musicians would shop at an record store as part of a series called What’s In My Bag. Charlie actually shows how much of a fan he is, when he talks about a few surrounding albums in this video. https://youtu.be/6Udh2lpoQw0?si=oMfmr8E6hrUuIQ8i

Zakk got to play with Brian and a bunch of other guitarists in 2020, doing a guitar instrumental hard rock version of Bohemian Rhapsody. I had accidentally found it on Youtube through a Facebook friend who works in rock radio and of course, I was as happy as a pig in shit and here it is. https://youtu.be/kDmA4KCpmmE?si=BUq791hYvWP3YBFi

Brian is a fan of Pantera and he had come backstage to say hi, along with his son Jimmy when the Texas Quartet had played in London in 1994. When Dime was murdered, Brian was one of the many people around the world, to pay tribute, with a statement from Brian’s website. Remember the post I had done on December 8 2022? Both the statement and a video of Queen playing Imagine after hearing the awful news of John’s murder are in that particular post. I also believe that all of Pantera were Queen fans as Phil has mentioned them as a favorite, along with The Smiths. I had no idea either, but Phil loves Queen and I say the rest, because in an earlier post, I had mentioned Hellyeah doing a cover of Stone Cold Crazy, but in the style of Metallica. If you listen to Chad’s stage patter before the song, he kinda mentions Queen as an influence, when he says “killing two influences with one stone”. However, I believe that Queen are favourites of any members of bands the Abbot brothers were in together. The other hint of being correct was a mention of Queen by Pantera in 1992, around the time of the movie Wayne’s World and obviously, the scene where Wayne and Garth are in the car head banging to the hard rock section of Boh Rhap.

As for Jerry Abbott, he had produced a song for none other than orson Welles who released a music single in 1984, titled “I Know What It Is to Be Young (But You Don’t Know What It Is to Be Old)”, which he recorded under Italian label Compagnia Generale del Disco. This song was performed with the Nick Perito Orchestra and the Ray Charles Singers, with Jerry producing, while orson Wells does the spoken parts. I can’t find a video for the song and when I have, it would be taken down.

I had first heard Pantera in 1994, on the radio when 97.7 HTZFM finally decided to have a metal show as a part of the programming day called Beyond 11. This was on Friday nights at 11:00 PM and it went on for 2 hours and the first song I had heard was I’m Broken. It took me a while to warm up to Pantera, because I was going through a weird phase of listening to almost nothing but Meat Loaf. Why? Probably because some friends had been going on about Bat Out Of Hell and I grew to like it, more than I had before. By the way, Beyond 11 is an obvious reference to This Is Spinal Tap and if you haven’t watched the 1984 movie, you should. I will do a post on it one day! Anyway, I also heard other classic Pantera songs like Walk and Cowboys from Hell, among others which had come before Driven. One song I had liked because of what Phil Anselmo did with his voice was Shedding Skin, where he not just screams, shouts and growls, but also whispers as if he can hardly breathe. I wonder if he had recorded or written some of the songs while either suffering back pain, or self-medicating in order to relieve any discomfort. Thankfully, he has had surgery to correct any back problems and is still doing his best Phil, with the current version of Pantera on stage. Another track I love is Use My Third Arm and I wonder if in the back of someone’s mind, Zaphod Beeblebrox was spinning around. After all, Zaphod is a main character from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (book, radio and TV series by the late Douglas Adams. Probably not and it may have been referring to a penis, but I don’t care. After all, Zaphod has three arms and two heads so, that is why I am wondering, more than not if someone in Pantera, may be a fan of the late author’s work.

In 1997, I finally purchased the live album Official Live: 101 Proof and I liked what I had heard. However, I knew there was more with a song like Cemetery Gates being a power ballad and Phil singing. So, I eventually got each album at a used record store and when Reinventing the Steel had come out in March 2000, I made damn sure to get it, despite that I was in the process of moving into my own place, where I am today. I thought that Reinventing the Steel was Pantera on auto pilot, but it wasn’t bad. In fact, it is quite good despite this. See? Autopilot does not necessarily mean bad and if a band like Pantera or Queen can go through the motions and make a great album, you know that they are good at playing and writing killer songs.

Reaction to the news of the reunion was quite mixed at first, with some people loving it while others were saying that this is not Pantera. I was unsure about this myself, as I believe that Zakk could fill his old friend’s shoes nicely, but I was not sure about Charlie. I know that he is a great drummer, but he isn’t Vince. Judging from videos on Youtube, it sounds great and I am glad that I was not on the side of being against it, because it wasn’t Pantera. Much like Queen and Adam Lambert, there is a tribute to the Abbot brothers every night while we have the nightly Freddie appearance, thanks to video. Let’s be honest and say that both Queen and Pantera going on tour right now is a celebration of the music and the legacy of Freddie and the Abbot brothers and the music that both bands had made back in the day. There has been talk about Pantera maybe doing something like a new single or album, but I can’t see it happening, much like Queen and Adam are probably not going to record a full album in the future.

Pantera had made a real impact on the music industry, with Far Beyond Driven (which was released 30 years ago today) debuting at number one on the Billboard charts. Despite that the album is very extreme and is intentionally without a pop song on it, they achieve the impossible, which most other bands playing really heavy groove metal haven’t done. The exception is Slipknot and their 2008 album All Hope Is Gone but Pantera is the champ, in having no ballids or radio friendly songs on their chart topper. Unless you consider their cover of the Black Sabeth song Planet Caravan, there really is no let up in the album and it’s grinding, aggressive, pummelling and most importantly, good album. I wonder how they did that, by going increasingly less commercial with every album from Cowboys from Hell onward and move more units as they went, with Far Beyond Driven being the peak. If you ever get a chance to listen to this album and compare it to any Queen album, you will notice that it is heavy, from start to finish except for the Black Sabbath cover at the end. The closest Queen have come to that kind of energy on an album is Hot Space, with no ballads except for a couple on side 2. Everything else is mid-tempo or slow, but not balladic and Pantera did something similar as a metal band and they topped the album charts, without radio rotation except for metal shows.

I saw Pantera in 2001, before September 11 and it was a really long and loud show, with 5 bands: Scrape, Morbid Angel, Static-X, Slayer and Pantera on one bill. The most memorable thing about the show besides the bands was some asshole throwing a beer at me, ruining my shorts. I also remember the use of pyrotechnics and especially, concussive Pyro. Queen were no strangers to using this and again, if you have watched the video to the tribute to Freddie, listen to when Roger and John play their first note on Tie Your Mother Down and the boom which happens at the same time. I had heard many booms like that, throughout Pantera’s set and it was a loud few hours. Thankfully, I had earplugs to save my hearing, but my voice was shot from singing and screaming along with 3 of the bands. Anyway, I enjoyed the show and am thankful to have seen Pantera, before they broke up and now, both Abbott Brothers have passed on.

Like Queen, Pantera have deluxe versions of each of the studio albums on Warner Bros Records, under Electra and Atlantic at various times throughout their major label phase. The thing is, all of the deluxe versions have come out 20 years after each of the albums have been released and that’s okay. The most interesting one which is closest to what Queen did with The Miracle boxed set in 2022, is what Pantera came up with in 2020. Reinventing the Steel was given a remix for all of its 10 songs and a separate remaster, of each song as well, along with radio and single edits, b-sides and non-album tracks. The only one missing is Pre-Hibernation (an instrumental) from Spongebob Squarepants (Original Theme Highlights) which was released in 2001. Of course, The Miracle did not get a remix treatment and thank Freddie it didn’t happen. Altho, I would like it if there could be a compilation of remixes one day, as there are enough to make a full albums worth. Anyway, I digress.

I had been thinking about something Vinnie Paul had said in an interview in 2001 on 97.7 HTZFM about the attack on the kick drum. Vinnie told my friend at the time who was interviewing him for the same metal show I had mentioned earlier, that he puts silver dollars at the end of the beaters, which gives the attack that loud clicking sound when they hit the drum. I wonder if Roger had even considered experimenting with something similar for the last few Queen albums and The Magic Tour, as a song like Lost Opportunity and any songs off of Innuendo have a similarly loud attack, when Roger hits the kick drum with the pedal. These days, everything is triggered for metal bands and this includes every drum in a kit. No matter how hard one hits, the attack will always be the same, much like an electronic drum kit with pads representing the snare drum, tom-toms and a little metal pedal for the kick drum with real cimbals of all types in a regular kit.

Going back to something I had said earlier, I ask how the hell did Pantera do what they did, like Queen had done with a song like Boh Rhap becoming a classic? Both Queen and Pantera are among a number of rock and metal bands who have at times subverted commerciality and got away with it, Buy selling many albums and enough, to make an impact like Far Beyond Driven, or any of the classic 70s Queen albums in the US and Canada back in the day. I mean, Pantera have a song called Yesterday Don’t Mean Shit, while Queen have Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To…) which could have had some bad words in the title, but it was probably down to record labels being scared in 1975. Could you imagine if Freddie actually demanded that Legs had any of those seven words you can’t say on TV, or even radio as a part of the title, instead of three periods? This also brings to mind the late American comedian George Carlin and his natural being as a rebel, as opposed to being a clean cut comedian earlier in his career before 1970. Pantera started as a glam metal band and when Phill had joined, they had moved away from that and decided to go heavy. They had defied expectations (like Queen and George Carlin) and all three have a Legacy as influencers. I may do a separate post on George one day, but as far as Queen and Pantera go many bands look up to Queen and Pantera as an influence on them. Just do a search on Wikipedia and both have many newer rock or metal bands who regard one, or both Queen and Pantera as an influence on what they do. Slipknot is an example of such a band and Five Finger Death Punch and Trivium are two others.

Anyway, I will probably listen to some Pantera and especially, Far Beyond Driven some time today, as it is the 30th anniversary of the album and why not? Brian is a fan and so am I, because we both play guitar.