As a little background, my fascination with hard rock and metal started in 1975 (I was 5) when my older brother brought home KISS' Dressed to Kill LP. I asked him why there were evil clowns on the cover. haha. He put the record on and I was hooked. From there he had me listening to Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest (first heard Sin After Sin in '77 or '78), Wishbone Ash etc. By the time that 1980 rolled around, I was already finding my way through the hard rock and metal bands and in the early part of the decade I was getting into bands such as Ozzy, Rainbow, DIO, Triumph etc. Then in 1982 I heard Iron Maiden's Run to the Hills. I loved it but didn't own my first Maiden record until 1984 when Powerslave came out. To this day that is still my favorite by them or any one else for that matter. The Maiden era from 1980 to 1988 puts them as my favorite band of all time.
I got my first set of drums in 84 and started out learning Maiden, Sabbath, Fates Warning, Metal Church...any and everything I could get my ears on. Besides the usual suspects like Priest, Maiden, Sabbath, Megadeth, Metallica, my main metal focus stayed in the underground listening to bands on labels such a NOISE, Metal Blade, Combat, NEAT etc. Luckily there were great magazines out there like Circus, Metal Hammer, Metal Forces, RIP, Kerrang, Aardschock America and the like to keep us kids in the loop.
To this day, my main metal focus is still on the 80s underground. CD reissues of a lot of stuff I had on vinyl or cassette are popping up either as official releases or bootlegs. I scoop up what I can. There are a lot of great resources out there for information as well as purchasing and I'll share them over time.
For the record, I'm only a recent convert to Motorhead. It's only been in the last 5-6 years that I finally "got" what they are all about. About the same goes with Thin Lizzy. It's only been about 10 years of fandom for me, but they have made quite an impact on my musical life.
I do tend to be very critical of music and live performances. Sometimes it becomes a burden for me to sit and watch a band just do their thing without trying to break down everything that they are doing. Same goes with listening to an album. I love what I love and I hate what I hate.
I've posted this link before, but here's my CD collection. Mostly metal, but a lot of other stuff as well.
One of the things I like to do is review a band's album history. I have several that I have posted elsewhere and will add them here over time. The first one will be KISS since they are the band that got me started.
I consider myself well-versed in the genre and sometimes even get dubbed a metal snob. It's probably true!
Anyway, as Saxon said:
Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free
Denim and Leather
Brought us all together
It was you that set the spirit free
I eventaully got used to seeing him like that.
