The Growing Temptation of Authoritarianism

The Hat · Dec 2, 2019

1xAntifa said: ↑

The Hat said: ↑

1xAntifa said: ↑
I got evicted for playing Metallica's first 3 lp's. The Venom didn't help either. I loved at War with Satan and played it repetitively. Still do if I'm feeling nostalgic.

I did my first trips to Black Sabbath. Had all the albums upto Mob Rules when the rot set in. I found Dio's lyrics to be plain silly and the thought of Deep Purple meets Sabbath made me want to up-chuck. But the first 6 Sabbath albums are classics in my book. You were a seriously social outcast if you were into Sabbath here. Nobody liked you except other Sabbath fans. People would swoon over Led Zeppeilin or Deep Purple but as soon as you mentioned the Sabs, it was like who took a shit on the floor. Who is laughing now? Especially now that Zeppilin have been shown up for the thieving rip-off bastards they were [not going into Page's paedophiliac tendencies].

Being a Judas Priest fan here was dangerous as Halford was so obviously gay[the cover of Unleashed gave the game away], and our society was soooo homophobic. [It was illegal to be gay where I lived until I was 22 and I was in my 30's before the last state decriminalised it]. I bought my first Priest lp in 1980, Killing Machine, and got them all until they lost me with Turbo.

The mainstream music scene here in the 80's was so vanilla they considered Bon Jovi heavy metal. One music show on TV used to lower itself enough for the presenter to say "OK meatheads, here's your ten minutes" and it was invariably Maiden, Crue, Quiet Riot or haircut bands like Poison. Like gee, I've stayed up till 4am for THIS? It wasn't until the state broadcaster put on a show called Rage that things started to open up.

Possibly controversially, I've come to the conclusion that punk/hardcore/crust/grind etc is a variant of heavy metal with socially/politically relevant lyrics instead of the satanic stuff [which was itself really just an inchoate middle finger to the straight world]. Sure there are going to be exceptions to the rule but the vast majority draws on metal to some degree or another.
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Side two of At War With Satan was good, and side one is alright, but it takes up a whole album side. I shouldn't say anything since Live/Dead is one of my favorite albums. My first trip was with The Beatles. I have all the Sabbath albums up to Born Again. If you don't like Ian Gillan's voice, fair enough, but I was a big Deep Purple fan up to Burn, which was the last good album IMHO. After Burn, Ritchie Blackmore left to form Rainbow, and, as far as I'm concerned, Dave Coverdale ruined the band, even with Jon Lord in it. Funny you should mention Black Sabbath and Deep Purple in the same breath. back in 1974, there was this concert in California at a race track called The California Jam which was televised for four nights. Night two had highlights from the performances of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. I was already a Deep Purple fan, so I watched it, but Black Sabbath scared the shit out of me, but in a good way, like going on a very high roller coaster ride. When you start to go down, you're screaming your head off, and the adrenalin rush takes over, but when the ride is over, you want to get in line, and ride again. Everything up to Volume 4 is GOAT, but after that, one could tell the drugs took over and they were just phoning it in. Don't get me wrong, I love all the stuff Ozzy did with them, and even like the two worst albums Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die. I thought they should've changed their name when Dio took over the vocals since they were now writing songs to suit his singing, but I still enjoyed them. (Fun fact: Did you know the version of The Mob Rules that appears in the film Heavy Metal is different that the on that appears on the album with the same name?)
As I said, I liked Born Again, but, as afar as I was concerned, that was the last good Sabbath
album. In my opinion, they became a hollow shell of their former selves, and it was now Tony Iommi's band, and I thought he was dragging the good name through the mud. That being said, I want to hear the album Headless Cross, only because Brian May from Queen makes a guest appearance, and I'd like to hear what he contributes.

Funny you should bring up Judas Priest, and the live album Unleashed. I knew when I saw that Rob Halford was gay as springtime. Being that my gran used to live in New York City proper, when I visited her, I used to go to Greenwich Village to buy records and clothing. I saw enough leather boys to recognize one when I saw one. I used to get my ass kicked by Priest fans all of the time for pointing out Rob Halford was gay. They would just say that it was a "Biker" look, and it was part of heavy metal, and a lot of those fans were homophobic as all get out. (Same with Queen. At least 70s Queen. A lot of people I knew, myself included turned their backs on them after The Game. We didn't know the difference between funk and disco, and we thought Another One Rides the Bus was a sell out, and they gone disco like a lot of the bands at that time) Yeah, I got punched in the face on more than one occasion for pointing out that Rob Halford and Freddie Mercury was gay. Now that everybody knows the truth, I wonder if any of those people would even admit to listening to them. Come to think of it, I wonder how many racist skinheads had a cat when Nicky Crane confessed he was gay while dying of A.I.D.S.

Yeah, Turbo was their "Sell Out" album. They were trying to go mainstream with that. It has it's moments, though, but not their best.

What went for Sabbath fans in your part of the world went for punk fans in my part of the world, especially the mid west. If you lived in New York, or the west coast, there was a buffer and you could find fans to hang out with and back you up, but in the midwest, you were on your own, and sometimes admitting you liked punk meant taking your life in your own hands. You could get beaten up or harassed just for wearing a Ramones, shirt. On the plus side, the scene where I came from was very strong and united, as small as it was. It had to be, because we only had each other, and we knew it was us against everybody else in society. Punk has grown and splintered into many factions. I guess I'm out of touch with the new generation, and still considered an odd ball because I still think both The Buzcocks and Discharge are great bands, and both have merit. Everybody has split apart, and factionalized, and one group of "Punks" won't associate with another group do to musical differences and styles of dress. Like I once said in a previous thread on a totally different subject matter, I was listening to punk rock when they still called it rock and roll, so all of this is silly to me. (Of course the concept of somebody listening to The Grateful Dead along with punk rock is silly to a lot of people)

You're right about a lot of punk being a variant on heavy metal. In the early days, punk was just another form of powerpop especially influenced by The Who and Small Faces, but later on, not only did heavy metal become an influence, punk influenced heavy metal. If it weren't for Discharge and G.B.H. there would be no Venom, or Metallica. (Or even Slayer for that matter) At least Metallica wrote some decent lyrics, and avoided all that Satan stuff.
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You only had to see the Village People and the cover of Unleashed to be able to put 2+2 together. The fact that Halford was a biker raised his cred in my eyes as I was going through my 1% phase at the time, after leaving the army. Helped break down my own homophobia. The Buzzcocks were a great band and should be mentioned in the same breath as Discharge etc. I don't get the factional shit either. It's natural to have musical preferences but to fight over them or matters of fashion is just plain stupid. Put it down to the intolerant arrogance of youth, when we think we know it all. I also got weird looks for listening to the Dead, Airplane or Beefheart whilst cranking out the Saints, Adverts or early Banshees.
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Actually nobody took notice of The Village People's lifestyle. Everybody thought the outfits were show business gimmick a la Kiss, and people just danced to the music without understanding the underlying subtext of the lyrics. People were either ignorant, or just turned a blind eye. It was the late 70s and everything went.

I hope my reply in your thread about the Christmas ornaments wasn't too offensive. Like I said, I cope with situations of that sort with dark humor, and you don't have to remind me that there's nothing funny about The Holocaust.

Just wanted to square that with you.

1xAntifa · Dec 2, 2019

The Hat said: ↑

1xAntifa said: ↑

The Hat said: ↑
Side two of At War With Satan was good, and side one is alright, but it takes up a whole album side. I shouldn't say anything since Live/Dead is one of my favorite albums. My first trip was with The Beatles. I have all the Sabbath albums up to Born Again. If you don't like Ian Gillan's voice, fair enough, but I was a big Deep Purple fan up to Burn, which was the last good album IMHO. After Burn, Ritchie Blackmore left to form Rainbow, and, as far as I'm concerned, Dave Coverdale ruined the band, even with Jon Lord in it. Funny you should mention Black Sabbath and Deep Purple in the same breath. back in 1974, there was this concert in California at a race track called The California Jam which was televised for four nights. Night two had highlights from the performances of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. I was already a Deep Purple fan, so I watched it, but Black Sabbath scared the shit out of me, but in a good way, like going on a very high roller coaster ride. When you start to go down, you're screaming your head off, and the adrenalin rush takes over, but when the ride is over, you want to get in line, and ride again. Everything up to Volume 4 is GOAT, but after that, one could tell the drugs took over and they were just phoning it in. Don't get me wrong, I love all the stuff Ozzy did with them, and even like the two worst albums Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die. I thought they should've changed their name when Dio took over the vocals since they were now writing songs to suit his singing, but I still enjoyed them. (Fun fact: Did you know the version of The Mob Rules that appears in the film Heavy Metal is different that the on that appears on the album with the same name?)
As I said, I liked Born Again, but, as afar as I was concerned, that was the last good Sabbath
album. In my opinion, they became a hollow shell of their former selves, and it was now Tony Iommi's band, and I thought he was dragging the good name through the mud. That being said, I want to hear the album Headless Cross, only because Brian May from Queen makes a guest appearance, and I'd like to hear what he contributes.

Funny you should bring up Judas Priest, and the live album Unleashed. I knew when I saw that Rob Halford was gay as springtime. Being that my gran used to live in New York City proper, when I visited her, I used to go to Greenwich Village to buy records and clothing. I saw enough leather boys to recognize one when I saw one. I used to get my ass kicked by Priest fans all of the time for pointing out Rob Halford was gay. They would just say that it was a "Biker" look, and it was part of heavy metal, and a lot of those fans were homophobic as all get out. (Same with Queen. At least 70s Queen. A lot of people I knew, myself included turned their backs on them after The Game. We didn't know the difference between funk and disco, and we thought Another One Rides the Bus was a sell out, and they gone disco like a lot of the bands at that time) Yeah, I got punched in the face on more than one occasion for pointing out that Rob Halford and Freddie Mercury was gay. Now that everybody knows the truth, I wonder if any of those people would even admit to listening to them. Come to think of it, I wonder how many racist skinheads had a cat when Nicky Crane confessed he was gay while dying of A.I.D.S.

Yeah, Turbo was their "Sell Out" album. They were trying to go mainstream with that. It has it's moments, though, but not their best.

What went for Sabbath fans in your part of the world went for punk fans in my part of the world, especially the mid west. If you lived in New York, or the west coast, there was a buffer and you could find fans to hang out with and back you up, but in the midwest, you were on your own, and sometimes admitting you liked punk meant taking your life in your own hands. You could get beaten up or harassed just for wearing a Ramones, shirt. On the plus side, the scene where I came from was very strong and united, as small as it was. It had to be, because we only had each other, and we knew it was us against everybody else in society. Punk has grown and splintered into many factions. I guess I'm out of touch with the new generation, and still considered an odd ball because I still think both The Buzcocks and Discharge are great bands, and both have merit. Everybody has split apart, and factionalized, and one group of "Punks" won't associate with another group do to musical differences and styles of dress. Like I once said in a previous thread on a totally different subject matter, I was listening to punk rock when they still called it rock and roll, so all of this is silly to me. (Of course the concept of somebody listening to The Grateful Dead along with punk rock is silly to a lot of people)

You're right about a lot of punk being a variant on heavy metal. In the early days, punk was just another form of powerpop especially influenced by The Who and Small Faces, but later on, not only did heavy metal become an influence, punk influenced heavy metal. If it weren't for Discharge and G.B.H. there would be no Venom, or Metallica. (Or even Slayer for that matter) At least Metallica wrote some decent lyrics, and avoided all that Satan stuff.
Click to expand...

You only had to see the Village People and the cover of Unleashed to be able to put 2+2 together. The fact that Halford was a biker raised his cred in my eyes as I was going through my 1% phase at the time, after leaving the army. Helped break down my own homophobia. The Buzzcocks were a great band and should be mentioned in the same breath as Discharge etc. I don't get the factional shit either. It's natural to have musical preferences but to fight over them or matters of fashion is just plain stupid. Put it down to the intolerant arrogance of youth, when we think we know it all. I also got weird looks for listening to the Dead, Airplane or Beefheart whilst cranking out the Saints, Adverts or early Banshees.
Click to expand...

Actually nobody took notice of The Village People's lifestyle. Everybody thought the outfits were show business gimmick a la Kiss, and people just danced to the music without understanding the underlying subtext of the lyrics. People were either ignorant, or just turned a blind eye. It was the late 70s and everything went.

I hope my reply in your thread about the Christmas ornaments wasn't too offensive. Like I said, I cope with situations of that sort with dark humor, and you don't have to remind me that there's nothing funny about The Holocaust.

Just wanted to square that with you.
Click to expand...

The VP were pretty obviously gay. But you're right, the majority of people either turned a blind eye or it sailed right by them. My mothers second husband was an evangelical and he had the VP lp in his collection. That caused me no end of mirth.

As for the white Christmas, its cool. I wish I'd thought of it. You've got to take the piss out of the situation, otherwise dispair sets in.

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