blind-fitter

But moving onto the subjct of bad lyrics. I was in a shop today when Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" came on; a decent enough tune- a classic, even. Who could help but like it? Then there's that line: "you laughed at all my jokes, My love you didn't need to coax". Fer pity's sake.

Absolutely not. Consider this. "She said I was good-looking; I looked a bit like George Michael. But she didn't want a f*cking, She was on her menstrual cycle" from "God's Gift To Women" by The Macc Lads Genius, in anyone's book.

Splendid. The decision to "work from home" today is vindicated. My employers might not see it that way, but what the heck?

From the Wall of Metal website: (wallofmetal.com)Link What is thrash metal? Thrash metal or speed metal is widely viewed as the most riff-oriented of all the heavy metal music sub-genres. It is generally accepted that it came into existence in 1981, though some bands had thrash riffs and other thrash ideas earlier than that. The first riff of Black Sabbath's 'Symptom of the Universe' (1975) is possibly the first thrash riff, though their 'Into the Void' (1971) was influential as well. Speed metal pioneers Judas Priest had some thrash ideas on their Stained Class LP (1978), including the punkish counterpoint riff on 'Saints in Hell' or the general structure of 'White Heat, Red Hot'. Two important early proto-thrashers were Motorhead and Venom, both playing a raw punk-influenced speed metal in the late 1970s. Motorhead's Overkill LP (1979) would give the name to a New York band that would officially write the first thrash song in 1981: 'Unleash the Beast Within'. Soon thereafter, San Francisco's Leather Charm would write 'Hit the Lights'. This band would break up, but the primary songwriter's next band, Metallica, would feature this song." ...and so on.

I found an interesting interview with Lemmy of Motorhead. Now if one single band could be identified as the progenitor of thrash-metal, speed-metal, Metallica, Slayer, Venom et al, it is Motorhead. I'll quote from it here: "E.C.: You've influenced a lot of the speed metal bands that appeared in the 80's... Lemmy: They've just got the wrong bit. They think that being fast and loud is the whole thing and it isn't. The guitar solos are not really difficult for a guitar player, it's just playing scales. To feel a solo and bend into it & I mean Hendrix is the best guitarist you've ever seen in your life. And he learned from people like Buddy Guy, Lightnin' Hopkins and people like that inspired Hendrix. To be influenced by something, you're gonna have to play it the same. And these guys are influenced by us, but I don't feel any kinship with them. Cause theirs is vastly inferior to ours. E.C.: You cover "God Save the Queen" on your newest record... Lemmy: Oh, you noticed that (deadpans) E.C.: A lot of bands have tried to cover Sex Pistols songs... Lemmy: The only one I heard that was any good was Megadeth's "Anarchy". E.C.: A lot of other bands at that time saw punk as a threat. Did you feel an affinity with the punk bands when they first came out? Lemmy: We had gigs with the Damned & I always felt more kinship with the punk bands than the metal bands cause I mean, we had a lot more in common with the Damned than Black Sabbath. I mean we have nothing in common at all with Judas Priest. There's like the Damned, the Pistols, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers before he fucked up again. They were great, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. When they first came to London and he was relatively clean they were tight as a crabs ass. But then, there they go again, heroin one more time helped a generation through their problems." Link to full interview

Impressed by this reasonably comprehensive analysis of "hardcore punk": Link In this article, it is observed: "Influence on other genres: The San Francisco-based thrash metal band Metallica incorporated the compositional structure and technical proficiency of heavy metal with the speed and aggression of hardcore. The new fusion genre became known as speed metal, and later thrash metal. Other early bands in this genre include Megadeth and Anthrax. Slayer are also known for their hardcore punk roots, and have released an album of hardcore covers called Undisputed Attitude. Many longtime punks, who remembered fighting with hostile metalheads only a fews years earlier, felt that those long-haired heavy metal fans were attempting to co-opt hardcore, and were merely mimicking the hardcore punk style. In 1985, New York's Stormtroopers of Death, an Anthrax side project, released the album Speak English or Die. Although it bore similarities to thrash metal – with a bass-heavy guitar, fast tempos and quick chord changes – the album was distinguished from thrash metal by its lack of guitar solos and heavy use of crunchy chord breakdowns (a New York hardcore technique) known as mosh parts. Other bands, such as Suicidal Tendencies and DRI, switched from hardcore to a similar metallic style, which came to be known as crossover."

Excerpt from interview with Charlie Benante of Anthrax Link

Why on earth would Megadeth do a cover version of the Sex Pistols "Anarchy In The Uk"? And rename it "Anarchy In The USA"/ And include it on their album "So Far, So Good, So What?". Well, I don't know, but they did.

You're bloody good at missing the point aren't you? I mentioned skate-core merely as an example of a genre in which punk and metal music and styles have cross-pollinated, influenced one another to spawn a new genre. It might not be the most famous genre, but it certainly exists (or did so) on an international scale. I could just as easily have cited "grind-core", which being British and not a skater, is somewhat easier for me to relate to. I then mentioned "yacht rock" in the context of your spurious analogy of referring to Chicago as ska on account of ther brass section. It is perfectly reasonable to compare punk and metal, and analyse the relationship between them; there are significant musical and cultural parallels between the two, and countless examples of sub-genres resulting from hybrids of the two. The same can not be said for Chicago /yacht rock and Jamaican ska, as they share very little common ground, in the same way that Norwegian Black Metal bears minimal comparison with South African Kwela; even though both may feature electric guitars and foreign-language vocals, there is infinitesimally small "cross-over potential". Anyway, i digress wildly. In trying to pin down some evidence of Metallica being strongly influenced by British punk (and by the NWOBHM,which was itself, a group of metal bands influenced to some degree by punk), I discovered, conveniently, that in 1998 Metallica released a "covers album" ("Garage Inc."; check it out), precisely to reveal their roots and inspirations. Well, bugger me with a plastic fish fork if it doesn't open (Disc 1 Track 1) with a cover of "Free Speech For The Dumb" by Discharge. It's followed by a track by NWOBHM band Diamond Head. (Track 5 is a Misfits cover, btw, who were something like a punk band...ish). Closing track of Disc 1 is another Discharge cover,"The More I See". Onto Disc 2; a collection of covers Metallica recorded in their early years and which featured as B sides of their early releases. Well, frig me frantically and tell me it's Friday, if Track 3 isn't a cover of Killing Joke's "The Wait"(from their debut album). Track 11, much to my pleasant surprise, is a cover of another UK punk band, those dirty bastards The Anti-Nowhere League and their lewd, crude anthem "So What?" (This I've got to hear). Man, these Metallica guys must have been simply gagging for that UK punk in the early 80s. Ha! Ha! Now i only need to demonstrate that Motorhead, Slayer, Venom, Anthrax and Megadeth were similarly keen on/iterested in/inspired by UK punk and thrash music, and my point is made.

"Night Time" was Joke's fifth album, by which time they had regrettably started going commercial/downhill. It's the first two albums "Killing Joke" and"What's This For?" where you would look for the bleak, brutal, intensity and menace that would influence Metallica, amongst others. Killing Joke were at that time (1981, when I first saw them) as punk as f*ck, and no mistake. For the benefit of those who haven't heard Discharge before: "Never Again" released in 1981 "State Violence State Control" (1982) Your "therefore Chicago must be a ska band" point is a totally spurious red herring. Naturally Chicago cannot be considered "ska" just because of the presence of a brass section: the presence of brass has never been a defining characteristic of "ska", which refers to a particular rhythm characteristic of Jamaican music in the early/mid 60s. In the course of a few years "Ska" would evolve variations, such as bluebeat, rocksteady and ultimately reggae. The presence of brass in many (but by no means all) original (i.e. genuine) ska recordings can be attributed to the fact that many Jamaican ska musicians had learnt their chops in the 1950s, in swing/jazz bands who fused the sounds of New Orleans and Cuba with the rhythms and styles of their own folk tradition. Punk and metal have variousstylistic similarities and utilise broadly the same means of production. Also, they often appeal to the same demographic; thus, they frequently meet and have hybrid babies. The same cannot be said for "yacht rock" and West Indian folk music, I dare say. Yeah, anyway, just because it's faster and louder, doesn't mean it's "punk-influenced". True enough. But I'm not making this ******* up, just bringing to your attention stuff which I know to be true, through being feverishly interested in music for the last 30 odd years. I am not speculating that Metallica were initially inspired by the NWOBHM, Killing Joke and Discharge; these are all examples of known fact, based on statements of the band - straight from the horse's mouth as it were - in contemporaneous interviews, and which could, if necessary, be substantiated by research, if you choose not to believe me. My point is that punk and metal have co-existed for decades and crossed paths on various occasions, most notably in the late 70s when punk's intervention led to a rebirth of "Heavy Metal" in somewhat different form (not my opinin, but a widely acknowledged phenomenon) and again around the turn of the 90s, when the essentially "punk-rooted" genre of "grunge" transplanted hair-metal as the music of choice for a new generation of fans/musicians hell-bent on the joy of loud guitars, and brought with it some remnants of punk/alternative rock ideologies which had hitherto been absent. But, man, even some of the hair-metal stuff had punk influences too....remember Motley Crue, Hanoi Rocks? There have been several other examples of punk influences metal influences punk: skate-core for one, began as a predominantly punk genre, but evolved towards metal as its early exponents (e.g. Suicidal Tendencies, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles) grew in stature, weight and musical proficiency. Fact is, pretty much every hugely successful and massively influential heavy rock band of the last 20 years, from Guns And Roses, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nirvana, Metallica...gad, even Def Leppard... acknowledge punk rock as a formatve influence upon them. I don't know what you find so hard to grasp about the notion that "punk" has at some point or another, influenced "metal". The examples are absolutely everywhere.

You know, for a fella who likes to give the impression he knows everything, you can't half talk some tommyrot. You talk about genres as if they were unnegotiable, strictly defined by inflexible characteristics and situated at a fixed point in time. In reality, genres are constantly subject to external influences which cause re-evaluation and re-definition of terms at various points along their timeline. Genres experience peaks and troughs in commercial popularity, which tend to be the moments when they experience redefinition (caused by media interest in the phenomenon, which reinforces stereotypes) and the imitation factor (those who style themselves in a particular way to conform to such trends)and divergence, spawning sub-genres and cross-over genres in the process, when the stylings of a prevailing trend are applied to other musical genres. For instance; both "punk rock" and "metal" are genres which have existed for over 40 years, and have experienced peaks of commercial interest and cultural significance, which have effected re-evaluations and redefinitions of the genres. Inevitably, there have been times when one has influenced the other to some significant degree. It is an absolute nonsense to suggest that the influence is one-way traffic (as you state in your first sentence), and I'm happy to provide examples to set the record straight. You enthusiastically cite "thrash metal" and Metallica as "where the action is". Yet Metallica, and thrash metal, are precisely examples of a substrand of Metal influenced by punk rock. From their inception, Metallica's influences were bands from the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM): "a heavy metal movement that started in the late 1970s, in Britain, and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. Sometimes compared to Beatlemania, the era developed as a reaction in part to the decline of early heavy metal bands such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. NWOBHM bands toned down the blues influences of earlier acts, incorporated elements of punk, increased the tempo, and adopted a "tougher" sound, taking a harder approach to its music. It was a scene directed almost exclusively at heavy metal fans. The era is considered to be a major foundation stone for the extreme metal genres with acts such as the American Thrash Metal band Metallica citing NWOBHM bands like Saxon, Motörhead, Diamond Head, and Iron Maiden as a major influence on their musical style." (Wikipedia) In the aftermath of the punk rock explosion in the UK, there was a significant cross-over between punk and metal, both genres tending to be covered in great detail by the same weekly music paper, Sounds, whilst the other papers remained sniffily aloof, once punk had shot its credibility bolt. The genres had common ground: appealing primarily to adolescent/young adult males whose tribal instinct was to distance themselves from respectable/mainstream society. The NWOBHM, which also included Def Leppard,(Sex Pistols fans), Tygers of Pan Tang (another influence on early Metallica and featuring, on guitar, an ex-member of early UK punks Penetration) and a restyled Judas Priest (newly enthused about "Breaking The Law"), undeniably drew from the well of punk rock. Whilst Metallica's first album may well be exhilaratingly groundbreaking, that does not mean it came from nowhere. As well as being significantly influenced by the NWOBHM, early Metallica is clearly preceded by the likes of Killing Joke (whose debut album is a widely-acknowledged precursor to the industrial and doom-rock genres) and Discharge, probably the first significantly popular band to employ "thrash" as a modus operandum. Both punk bands, incidentally, albeit significantly different from one another in style and substance. Another band strongly influenced by the NWOBHM and by the thrash music of Discharge was VENOM, who coined the term "Black Metal" as the title of their debut album, which was subsequently adopted for an entire genre of thrash-influenced metal incorporating apocalyptic and occult imagery. The early 80s UK anarcho-punk scene spawned a crusty offshoot - people interested in thrash/black-metal and political consciousness - which manifested itself in the influential likes of Napalm Death (in the UK) and Corrosion Of Conformity (in the USA), and ultimately spawned new punk/metal-rooted genres such as "grind-core". When a new ideology/trend gains support, achieves momentum and ultimately attains the "critical mass" required to challenge and supplant the dominant ideology, this is known as a "paradigm shift". The most notable "recent" example of a paradigm shift in the world of rock music occurred in the early 90s, when the arrival of "grunge" wiped out "hair-metal" almost overnight. The term "grunge" had originally been coined to loosely describe a motley assortment of (essentially) punk rock bands, populated by punks/alt.rockers, motivated by interests in punk (both its music and its perceived ideology), who happened to also dig some classic metal/rock and naturally incorporated aspects of these into their musical arsenal. Thereafter, aspects of punk music, ideology and lyrical subject matter, which had previously existed only on the margins of public awareness, were subsequently employed by hugely popular and relatively mainstream rock bands (such as Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, not to mention Green Day, My Chemical Romance) who have themselves become significantly influential. This, I contend, clearly demonstrates that "punk" has had its effect on the evolution of "metal". You might argue that the bands referred to above are not "metal", therefore my case is undermined, but that would be missing the point. A punk-rooted genre supplanted a metal-rooted genre so devastatingly that many metal/rock artists - even giants like Iron Maiden - were forced to take stock and reinvent themselves, in order to survive in a changing landscape, and thus "heavy metal" and heavy guitar-based rock, in general, took a turn in a different direction. Thus, in its current state, "metal" has been subject to the influence of "punk".

Apparently the producer claiming to have done the vocals volunteeered to be the public face of Plastic Bertrand, but the record company wanted somebody who didn't have long hair and a moustache. Seems fair enough to me.

Incidentally, you do know I absolutely can't stand The Killers, don't you?

1) I Wanna Be Adored - The Stone Roses 2) Sweet About Me - Gabriella Cilmi 3) Broken Doll - Paloma Faith 4) Afirika - Angelique Kidjo 5) A Case Of You - Joni Mitchell 6) Roll With It - Ani DiFranco 7) It's Been Done - Angela McCluskey 8) What'd I say - Rare Earth 9) Don't Blame Your Daughter - The Cardigans 10) Bubbly - Colbie Caillat Nice stuff!

Your idea of indie and my idea of indie are two pretty different things, mate. All the same, I insist that any such compilation as you describe must include some stuff by The Smiths. The Smiths are one of the key defining bands of the indie genre, and Morrissey the poet laureate of unrequited lovers. How about any of the following: "How Soon Is Now?" "Reel Around The Fountain" "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me"

At the weekend, I was at the supermarket, loading my shopping into the car, when I saw a woman repeatedly banging her head upon her steering wheel. I thought she must have just realised she had forgotten to purchase an essential item. But no, she was just having difficulties adjusting the position of the driver's seat.

The wife of Jerome Hirsch (39), the only man ever to survive being run over by a steamroller, is now filing for a divorce. "I just can't stand him any longer", she explained.

According to BBC Sport: In defence of my fellow-Yorkshireman, referee Howard Webb, I find the Dutch coach's criticism ironic and laughable. So he thinks the referee didn't control the match well? The thuggish tactics of the Dutch gave Webb no option but to clamp down fairly early on foul play. It's only a surprise there weren't more red cards. Had Webb applied the letter of the law, rather than erring on the side of leniency, the Dutch might well have been reduced to 7 men. Yes, seven, had all bookable offences been spotted and addressed appropriately. De Jong's chest-high and potentially life-threatening challenge, Van Bommel's second-half foul which went unnoticed by the ref and which should have brought him a second yellow card, Arjen Robben (already on a yellow card) kicking the ball away after play had stopped for an offside... (A Spaniard was subsequently yellow-carded for the same offence) The ref made one potentially-significant incorrect decision in respect of the Dutch, when he failed to award them a corner-kick after a shot had clearly been deflected off a Spanish defender (and the 'keeper's fingertips). The alleged obstruction of Elia (just preceding the winning goal) was by no means a clear-cut offence - Elia attempted to squeeze through a narrow gap between two players, but neither of those defenders actively blocked him off; sometimes you get the decision, sometimes you don't. Otherwise, the ref did the Dutch favours by not sending them off when he probably ought to have. Before the game, I wasn't that bothered who won, as long as it was a good match. Even though it wasn't anywhere near as pretty as it might have been, I still found it quite absorbing. As a dedicated football fan, I don't have any problem with sides employing a robust approach to counter technically superior opponents; it's all part of the game. However, the Dutch went way beyond "robust"; they were dirty and disgraced themselves and the sport, to be honest. Such a relief that Spain won in the end.

You mean "Shot By Both Sides" by Magazine, mate. Not Television. (Different branch of the media). I've mentioned this shared riff before (in the "Punk Bands" thread). Howard Devoto quit the Buzzcocks to form Magazine, liked this particular riff so much he used it on his new band's debut single. Meanwhile, Pete Shelley decided the Buzzcocks would use it as well. And why not? It's a killer riff.

"Super Imposed Man" - Yeah Yeah Noh

1) Ice Cream For Crow - Captain Beefheart 2) Home - Public Image LTD 3) Spirit Of The Age - Hawkwind 4) One More Time - Motorhead 5) Creep - Radiohead 6) Shakin My Cage - Joe Perry 7) Bike - Pink Floyd 8) Killed By Death - Motorhead 9) Hurt - Johnny Cash 10) Don't Give Up - Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush

"I Saw The Sign" by Ace Of Base has to be one of the worst songs ever.

However, they and everyone else know that they cheated to achieve that, so how satisfying is it? I've been admiring Uruguay throughout this tournament; suddenly, tonight, my support for them drained away. In situations like that, you wonder if they should be able to do what happens in Rugby and award a "penalty goal". i.e. the goal which would have inevitably resulted, if the crime had not been committed. Yes, I know Suarez has been red-carded and misses the next game, but just look at the advantage his offence has secured. He could return to play in the World Cup Final; it's not on. I hate it when out and out shameless cheating is rewarded.