#lemmy kilmister death day

[plusvanity]

Some silly little HCS for my fics:

NPD x NPD

-you might think this is the worst combo imaginable and you're damn right, except that they actually make it work because Abbath is overt while Varg is (for the most of the time) covert

-they're practicing mirroring and enabling one another to do stupid and impulsive shit, so they only get worse

-cocky bastards, inflated sense of self, grandiosity and all that jazz that basically hides raging insecurities. One wants to live it up like Lemmy Kilmister while the other is dreaming of being a dictator

-the empty schizoid core dilemma: Abbath is a fucking alcoholic because he cannot stand his own emptiness on a sober and lucid mind. Varg is arguably better because he wants to remain sober and as sharp as possible because he knows that when he drinks a little whisky he's the bottom of Abbath's jokes

-the Dead Mother concept

-Varg inevitably becomes overt because his false ego grows like a tumor on Abbath and it makes things harder for both of them

-narcissistic rage and pity parties

-they never actually give one another narcissistic supply because Varg is too fucking proud to admit he likes taking it up the ass while Abbath doesn't know how to talk with mean girls (especially those who piss while standing, have scars on their faces and like setting shit on fire)

-pyromaniacs, thought it was worth mentioning

-friends with benefits is just an excuse for being deprived together

-Abbath actually makes the fatal mistake to fall in love with Varg and he's massively disappointed when he sees Varg growing a beard instead of tits but he's sad and lonely anyway so he'll take whatever he gets. He's no high maintenance

-Varg is an asshole and breaks Abbath's heart as if it wasn't enough that Abbath breaks his liver every night in Apollon

-neither one is optimistic about the future and that's for a good reason

NPD x ASP

-you would assume that this isn't healthy because Varg can do the automatic bitch move of 'swallowing' Pelle's personality whole but he doesn't. He behaves exemplarily because he's desperate to find someone to love him despite being a sore loser

-the shared fantasy: they both live like elves in Tolkien's little fairytale (although Pelle lives like a strigoi in Transylvania) because real life just sucks and because they're both so deeply misunderstood

-both are very bad at communication, especially Pelle, but Varg is naturally quite observant and tries to find out what's bothering his lover. When Varg is silent, it is mostly because he's either entirely collapsed (narcissistic collapse) or his ego is injured. Pelle usually gives him space, but if Varg doesn't get better in a few days, he'll eventually try to talk with him, which is very tricky because Pelle doesn't speak Norwegian

-nerdy sleepovers braiding their hair together and watching Pelle Svanslös (the 1981 version)

-both are big introverts, but the difference between them is that Pelle is asocial while Varg is prosocial (he still needs narcissistic supply even if he prefers solitude instead of human interaction. It's quite complex and disappointing)

-they both read one another like open books because they have seen everything the other can offer (the good, the ugly and that weird thing in between)

-Pelle's emptiness and ego-death is different from Varg's narcissistic emptiness, but they find comfort in one another no matter what. The most powerful thing that Pelle told Varg was 'if you don't have any sense of self and you are just a mirror that can reflect anything, why not try to reflect me instead of the anger of your parents?' because in this way, Pelle gave Varg a chance to be a better, less hateful and less vindictive version of himself. Of course Varg is still struggling and probably always will

-they desperately need love and they're emotionally depended on one another. Once Pelle cracked Varg's defense mechanisms and vice-versa there was no turning back, they had to be the other's salvation

- trust issues rule over them. Very careful with people around them, they're both paranoid and highly protective with each other

-Varg doesn't look for narcissistic supply in Pelle because he doesn't want to take all of Pelle's energy. It's a boundary that he has for himself in order not to ruin their relationship, so he uses fanboys like Fenriz to tell him how great he is and all this nonsense

-they do love each other deeply. Even if they never experienced true love before, they know that their feelings are true and it's the only thing that makes life bearable

NPD x ASPD

-this is where all the scary shit begins

-every failed psychopath is a narcissist (this should tell you a lot about narcissistic rage because they can't be anything but angry losers)

-partners in crime (or rather Varg is Faust's little chewing toy)

-what happens when you take the ego and the super-ego of an individual? You're right. All you're left with is great, kinky sex. (Freud would've laughed. It's a good joke, actually)

-Faust can and will make Varg worse. It's a matter of time until he breaks Varg's core

-church burnings, vandalism, robbery, murder, gay sex, cannibalism and whatever else you would expect from two mentally deranged, ego-dystonic young and highly hormonal bastards

-Faust's chronic and incurable boredom is just what makes him get an interest in Vikernes in the first place. What they have is not a relationship to him, but an opportunity to have fun

-manipulation, gaslighting, abuse, etc. It's basically a Killing Stalking situation but Varg isn't going down without a fight or a good fuck

-drunk non-consensual coitus

-one of the dirtiest moves Faust does on Varg is shaving his head of after a nasty fight, so he strips him of all of his integrity and dignity to show him who's the boss (for a bit of context: it's Varg's fault that he tried to run off with their stolen money)

-they do a lot of crazy shit but get rid of the evidence. They firmly believe the police are dumb enough not to get them

-the empty schizoid core x2 again, although one of them is even worse

-Faust is able to get Vikernes through the full cycle of narcissistic emotional outbursts from total collapse to needy borderline to secondary sociopathy while Varg is only able to get Faust pissed

-buried past, non existent future, just live in the moment. Carpe diem, brothers ✌✌✌

-the lone wolf and the hungry tiger archetypes. The consumption is visceral and that's all I have to say

[rhapsodynew]

#Fun facts from the history of rock music

How to spoil people's mood

In 1968, the Rolling Stones - eternal competitors of the Beatles - released the song Street Fighting Man, which became a hit. They considered the song a breakthrough, and threw a party about it, where they came, including John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Paul discreetly handed me the record and said: "Let's see how you like our new record, Tony." I quickly put the CD into the audio system, and the song "Hey Jude" started playing in the club. Then I turned the disc over to the other side and we heard John Lennon's voice singing "Revolution". When we listened to everything, I noticed that Mick looked annoyed. The Beatles were one step ahead again

- says Tony Sanchez in his book "I was a Rolling Stones drag Dealer")

The song was written by Paul McCartney to support John Lennon's son, who was worried about his parents' divorce. "Hey Jude" bypassed the creation of stones and lasted 9 weeks on the American chart, thereby setting a record

Why do you need to know the roots of the symbols that you adopt

On December 3, 1983, Billy Idol released his second studio album Rebel Yell. His first record was relatively successful, but Rebel Yell was an explosion: the album sold 8 million copies, rose to number 6 on Billboard and entered the "100 best rock albums of all time" according to Classic Rock magazine. And there is a catch in the most prominent place of the record

Rebel Yell translates as "Rebel Cry". Billy borrowed the phrase from the Rebel Yell brand of bourbon, which he once drank with musicians from the Rolling Stones. Bourbon, in turn, was named after the battle cry of the Confederates

As it is now customary to say - everything is not so clear, but nevertheless - in popular culture, the image of the Confederates is the image of the southern slave-owning American states, which did not want to abandon this very slavery, and therefore staged a civil war, which they lost. And it is unlikely that Billy Idol, being a punk (although punks accuse him of incorruptibility), would associate himself with such a symbol if he knew its roots)

How to work in the same team for 55 years and not go crazy

The blues-rock band

ZZ Top

is pretty much the face of Texas - men in cowboy hats and old American cars playing masculine, heavy but not too heavy music

By 2014, the band had sold 50 million albums, entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 10 years before, and has existed unchanged since its founding in 1969 (not counting bassist Dusty Hill, who died in 2021). That's what the founder of the band Billy Gibbons said about it:

“God, we don't break up for longer than many marriages last. I'll tell you a secret, and it's very simple, just two words: different (tour) buses”

Rock music is saturated with drugs. But do you know how much?

In 1975, the band Hawkwind with Lemmy Kilmister in the line-up went on tour in the United States in support of their album Warrior On The Edge Of Time, but Lemmy was arrested at customs for drug trafficking and sent to prison. The band's managers managed to release him on bail, but after Lemmy played the concerts, he was fired. Lemmy later repeatedly claimed that the arrest was just a convenient excuse for the rest of the band to finally get rid of him - because by 1975 the line-up had finally split into two drug camps: amphetamine and psychedelic—and Lemmy said that in fact he was fired for "using the wrong drugs")

After his dismissal, Lemmy created his own band - the legendary Motörhead (in slang, an amphetamine addict), which became one of the main hard rock bands in Britain and the world, in which he played until his death in 2015, having completely played a European tour that ended 20 days before his death

Why is there so much noise around the Oasis revival?

Here are a couple of facts for you:

● In 1996, the band gave a concert for 250,000 people. Tickets sold out in less than a day, in total 2.5 million people tried to buy tickets - about 5% of the UK population at that time

● The band entered the Guinness Book of Records for the longest stay in the top ten of the British hit parade in history

● On August 30, 2024, on the occasion of the reunion, Oasis released the anniversary edition of their debut album Definitely Maybe, and a week later it reached number one in the UK chart (30 years after its release, for a moment). Two more albums took 3rd and 4th places and 3 more albums entered the top 100

With all this success, Liam and Noel Gallagher, the founders of Oasis, were normal such limitless people: one day they went to perform in the Netherlands, on the way they caused a row on the ferry, and they were not allowed to enter the Netherlands. And during the American tour, they overdid it with illegal substances, and when at the concert the staff mistakenly put them different set lists, they performed different songs at the same time and did not notice it. After this disastrous performance, Noel went to Melissa Lim, his friend, so that she would morally support him after such a disgrace. They talked all night, after which the song Talk Tonight was born, and later, under its influence, my favorite song of the band - Morning Glory

The brothers also constantly feuded, but this was also their fuel: at some point, Liam began to periodically not go on stage at concerts as a sign of protest. And Noel, in order not to let the audience down, took vocal lessons and began singing instead of Liam)

The reunion of the brothers is a hope for fans to see them at a concert together (which was rare even before their quarrel and breakup in 2009) and hear new material, which, according to them, from the same 2009, they have There's a lot left

Or how the first rock and roll song appeared

One day, in 1951, someone dropped an amplifier belonging to the Kings Of Rhythm band, and the sound from it began to come out with distortion. But the producer of the band did not repair it because he saw a perspective in such a deformed guitar sound, and the song "Rocket 88" was recorded with it

The essence of the effect was a specific compression of the upper part of the sound wave. From 2024, it's hard to believe when listening to the track, but it was the first conscious move towards heavier sound, so "Rocket 88" is considered the first rock and roll song (what the band played before, and from which rock and roll grew, was called "rhythm and rollblues")

Then began the industrial production of devices that give such an effect (and the name of the effect is overdrive), Eric Clapton and other popular musicians began to use it, then there was more aggressive distortion, hard rock, then metal, thrash metal, and then increasing severity, but it all started with a successful fall of the amplifier

Interesting fact: the song is sung about the Oldsmobile 88 car, and the Jimmy Liggins song "Cadillac Boogie" is taken as the basis. Both automakers belong to the same GM concern, and I did not find information that these songs were an advertisement, but it is very similar to it

How Stoner rock was invented

Kyuss (read as 'ˈkaɪ.We started by playing in the California desert. The specifics of such events was that many beginner bands gathered in one place, and if the public did not like the music, they simply went 200 meters away and listened to another team, unlike bars where the public comes to the bar rather than to the group. It required constant work on his work to keep the audience

The two pillars of Kuyss' signature sound were guitarist Josh Homme's specific slow playing style, inspired by psychedelic rock, and the fact that he connected a guitar to a bass guitar amplifier to achieve a heavy sound

Over time, other bands began to adopt this sound, thereby giving rise to stoner rock (stoner - translated - a lover of marijuana. It was believed that slow heavy music was perfect for it), and stoner metal, as its heavier offshoot

After the collapse of the band in 1995, Josh Homme founded the Queens Of The Stone Age band, extremely popular in the West and undeservedly deprived of attention in the post-Soviet space

I recommend getting acquainted with the genre from the band's fourth album, as it is the most complete and brought to mind in their discography

[mywifeleftme]

355: Motörhead // No Remorse

No Remorse Motörhead 1984, Bronze

I heard British comics writer Warren Ellis tell a story about hearing a horrible banging in the hallway outside his flat late one night in the mid-1980s. When he poked his head outside to give the noisenik hell he discovered Lemmy wandering around smacking the walls with a wooden cooking spoon. After he managed to get the metal legend’s attention, Lemmy waved the implement at him and snarled, “You ever hear of a coke spoon? This is my coke spoon!”

*

This past Friday, I talked to a 50-something punk named Joey P who has 26 Motörhead records on vinyl (including the coveted leatherbound version of No Remorse). If you ever want to have a long conversation with Joey P, I recommend starting with a riff on if Ronnie James Dio was a mob-connected / Rat Pack wiseguy, and then letting him go into antiquarian detail on which Motörhead records are kind of underrated (Another Perfect Day), underrated (Bastards), and really underrated (1916). Love that guy, and I think he’s mostly right. 26 is probably too many Motörhead records even for me, but they are one of those long-running, very sonically consistent bands who turn their deepest fans into sommeliers. I can hold forth about the subtle differences in tasting notes between an Ace of Spades and an Iron Fist (let alone a departure like Orgasmatron!) while an outsider looks doubtfully into their two indistinguishable cups of Jack and Coke. A band like this gives men of a certain age a way to sniff each other over when they meet in a clearing, a low-impact ritual of butting heads.

*

For years I remembered a story I thought one of my friends had told me about running into Lemmy at the Dominion Tavern in Ottawa towards the end of his life. He was miserably drinking white wine on his doctor’s orders, not looking for conversation. The image always struck me as both funny (I cannot imagine the house wine at the Dom having a nice finish), and sad (the day Lemmy Goddamn Kilmister lets anyone tell him he can’t have whiskey!). I think I’ve repeated it once or twice over the years as an example of how age mellows us all, but when I asked the pal I thought had told me, she denied it (though she did add that her ex told her Lemmy’d gone to see “the rippers in Aylmer once”). So, I dunno, maybe he escaped the fate of the Dom Chardonnay.

*

Speaking of fate, Lemmy was a damned sharp fellow beneath all the drugging and boozing (who else could’ve written the lyric “Fourth day, five-day marathon / We’re moving like a parallelogram”), and he rightly figured his label had pitched doing a hits compilation in 1984 because they thought the band was washed up. (The limp sales and savage critical reaction to Another Perfect Day having had something to do with that.) Kilmister insisted on inserting a side’s worth of new songs onto the double LP comp to emphasize that Motörhead remained very much a going concern. Of the four, only the brilliantly dumb “Killed By Death” became a classic in its own right, but the new tracks showed the band were still capable of churning out the sound that had defined them with undiminished ferocity. They never lost it.

*

I do know a woman who hooked up with Lemmy towards the end of his life (if anything in rock and roll can be believed, she had about 1,000 peers. It was like a more pleasant [?] Germs burn). They went home from the bar in Montreal and drank whiskey, and then she split in the morning without leaving her number. She thought the story was funny and I thought not leaving a number was a pretty good flex, but at the end she still gave a bit of a wistful, “I know he probably wouldn’t have called me anyway…”

*

Lemmy picked the songs for No Remorse himself, and even provides short annotations in the liners, so if you’re going to quibble with the selections, you’ll have to take it up with the mole man. (As he says of “Like a Nightmare,” a left-field inclusion, “This was one of my favourite B-sides. Everyone didn’t like it, but seeing as I’m the only one of the old band left, here it is!!”) There are a load of Motörhead compilations out there (I’m partial to 2000’s lavish, oddly-sequenced double-CD The Best of, since it’s the one I had as a kid), and as Joey P will tell you, they did lots of good stuff after 1984. But if 1) you only need one Motörhead record on wax, 2) you’re mostly into the original lineup, and 3) you want something reasonably comprehensive, No Remorse is a no-brainer. It has a few relative duds (“Louie, Louie”) and lacks some absolute classics (“Dead Men Tell No Tales”; “Tear Ya Down”; “City Kids”; “Love Me Like a Reptile”; “White Line Fever” etc. etc.) but why complain given the teeth-rattling abundance there is? As Lemmy says, “Here is Motörhead as you’ve come to expect them. Write your opinion on a Beatle wig and send it to someone who gives a damn. Even if you get us banned, we ain’t gonna stop!”

*

Motörhead were obviously a legendary live act, and they were my first metal show (on a bill at Detroit’s Pine Knob with Dio and Iron Maiden). They played a lot of arenas, but they made the most sense in small theatres. Bigger venues tend to dwarf them, like a small motorcycle gang trying to take over a castle. In a theatre, or better yet a bar, they own the place like The Wild Ones. I don’t remember much specific from their Pine Knob set, except that before closing with “Ace of Spades,” a song Lem was famously bored of playing every night, he told us all, “You’ll know this one, sing along if you want, I won’t be able to hear you anyway,” and then abruptly launched into that hellbent bass riff. Then he disappeared (probably there was some walking beforehand, couldn’t tell you for sure).

*

Lemmy’s funeral was livestreamed back in 2015, and it’s genuinely one of the sweetest, silliest things I have ever watched. The altar features flower arrangements in the shape of the ace of spades; an iron cross in place of a crucifix; two Marshall stacks; a pair of Triple H’s wrestling boots; a 3D-printed urn in the shape of his cavalry hat; and a mirror with a big line of speed on it. Everybody cries, many of them the sort of people the PMRC would’ve expected to burst into flames if they were to enter a church. Everybody talks about how genuinely nice he was. His girlfriend Cheryl, a job that earns you instant and eternal That Poor Woman status from all who observe, gives a super brief statement: “Lemmy loved me, but his greatest love was his fans and his music. I remember saying, ‘Baby, stay home, don’t go, skip this tour. And he said, ‘Baby, I can’t. I love my fans.’” (Imagine that being an interaction between two genuine living people—yet I believe it.) Apparently, he was an absolute pinball fiend. His bootmaker gives a speech. Somebody reads some limericks Lem wrote. What a life. What a story.

*

“Can’t get enough / And you know it’s some righteous stuff / Goes up like prices at Christmas! / Motörhead / Remember me now / Motörhead, alright"

355/365

[lyrasky]

【Motörhead/ Burner】和訳 解説Lemmyの独白⁉︎ Lemmy Kilmister Forever

【Motörhead/ Burner】和訳 解説Lemmyの独白⁉︎ Lemmy Kilmister Forever Lyraのブログへ #moterhead #burner #lemmy #bastards #lemmykilmister #Motörhead #モーターヘッド #レミー #philcampbell #Zööm #Würzel #michaelburston #MikkeyDee #HowardBenson #lemmykilmisterrip #happybirthdaylemmy

「Lemmyの命日(お誕生日も先週)だから、彼のバンドMotörhead の曲を和訳してLemmyを偲びましょう」って思ったら結構迷うよね? Motörhead…

[klirk-hammurton]

KISS, Queen, Freddie Mercury, and Eric Carr

So, an interesting topic between @kissmaidens-blog and I that I feel like makes for great posting material.

I might lose followers for this, I might gain some for this. This is just my honest opinion on the topics of Eric and Freddie's Deaths.

So.....November 24th 1991 Eric Carr lost his year long battle with cancer. Also, that same day, Freddie Mercury lost his battle with AIDS. As many or all of you know, Eric's death was absolutely ignored by the vast majority of media.

Yeah, yeah....I know "but CNN covered Eric's death" that's not the point. Rolling Stone Magazine ignored his death, Time Magazine ignored his death, People Magazine, Fox News, ABC, they all became hyperfixated on Freddie Mercury and swept Eric under the rug. That honestly fucking infuriates me even still to this day.

November 24, 2021 guess what? Eric was still ignored. Every God damn Magazine cover in the music section and entertainment sections of book shops was littered with "Remembering Freddie 30 years later" and not even a fucking sentence about Eric. Freddie had an ENTIRE magazine dedicated to his life and legacy, but Eric couldn't even get so much as a mention??? Fuck. That. Shit.

Sure, Freddie broke barriers but so have KISS and Eric Carr. KISS have sold millions of CDs, 8 tracks, vinyls, and other forms of memorabilia. The music KISS produces is just as influential as Queen, if not more. Eric loved what he did. He thrived on it and cherished every moment. He deserves some god damn respect and attention too. He was talented, funny, influential, dedicated and absolutely inspiring. He made just as much an impact on the music industry as Freddie, but due to purity complexes and hyperfixating on cashing in, Eric was and still is ignored every anniversary of his death.

I won't deny that Freddie wasn't talented, he very much was but that doesn't forgive his existence taking away from other artists. Every anniversary it's Freddie this, Freddie that, Queen this, Queen that all for the sake of selling out and societal purity standards. Fuck that shit. Eric loved what he did and it wasn't even for the sake of selling out. He just loved his career. He achieved greatness at the mere age of 41 before cancer took him away.

I'm so tired of the same societal norms taking away from him and KISS. Rolling Stone Magazine lost itself to society and to become a brand than anything. There are so many talents that are still going unnoticed solely because of Freddie.

Eric Carr, Chester Bennington, Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Dimebag Darrell, Lemmy Kilmister, are just to name a few that are overshadowed by Freddie. Should I name more? None of these names get as much attention that Fred's still does.

I am mad. I am angry. I am tired. It's unfair that so many legacies are being forgotten and brushed under the rug.

[floridaboiler]

HAPPY NATIONAL METAL DAY!!! In honor of the classic metal mockumentary "This is Spinal Tap,” National Metal Day falls on November 11 (11/11) every year. Metal declares independence from the mundane and conventional. Metal has spread into many different sub-genres such as thrash, death, black, doom, Christian, and the oft-reviled nu-metal. So, if you can properly answer this question: “Who would win in a fight, Lemmy Kilmister or god?" this day may just be the excuse you need to bang your head. It’s a trick question. Lemmy IS god. Rock on.

[howaminotinthestrokesyet]

Wherever They May Roam: Jason Newsted

Jason Newsted was born on March 4, 1963 in Battle Creek, Michigan. His family would relocate to Kalamazoo when he was 14. His early family life would take place on a farm. The guitarist essentially was raised initially as a country boy. He would later say this in an interview. "It's where I learned about life – seeing a baby cow born right in front of your eyes when you're eight years old is pretty intense…I was from a very strong family and I was raised to be a strong, pure Americana farm boy." His mother began teaching him piano at the age of nine, but at the age of 14 he switched instruments to the bass guitar. Some of his musical heroes ironically included the same ones as a Cliff Burton like Lemmy Kilmister, Geezer Butler, and Geddy Lee. His inspiration for switching to bass came after listening to Gene Simmons of Kiss on an album. In 1981, Newsted left Michigan with the hopes of starting a band in California. He and a friend made it as far as Phoenix, not California. He helped to start a band called Dogz, which later became Flotsam and Jetsam in 1983. They specialized in the newly found genre of thrash metal. One of the bands that they looked up to at that time was none other than Metalica. Their debut album was released in 1986 on Metal Blade Records entitled Doomsday For the Deceiver. At that time, Newsted not only played bass, but he was also the primary songwriter and lyricist for the band. That same year, Metallica auditioned new bass guitarists following the tragic death of Cliff Burton. Although Flotsam and Jetsam had a bright future, Newsted decided that he would try out for Metallica. The bassist competed against 50 other guitarists auditioning for the job. They included bass players from other established bands like Trestament, Megadeth, Blind Illusion, and Heathen. Newsted would be the last one to audition, so in preparation he had learned most of the songs that the band would be playing for their next tour with Ozzy Osbourne. Upon walking into the audition, the bass player handed Lars Ulrich a list of all the songs he knew how to play. Metallica named Newsted their new bass player at a second meeting, where they had even invited his parents. His mother would say to him that day, “You are the one. Please, be safe."

His first live performance with the band would take place in July 1986 in Reseda, California. His first recording with the band would occur on the 598 EP: Garage Days Revisted followed by his first feature length album, And Justice For All. This became a less than auspicious debut for Newsted as the album’s bass could barely be heard at all causing Ulrich and Hetfield to complain at length about the production quality related to the mixing of the album. Newsted would go on to perform bass guitar on Metallica, Garage Inc., Load, Reload, and three live albums. He sang backing vocals on the tracks for “Creeping Death,” “Whiplash,” and “Seek and Destroy.” The guitarist co-wrote the songs “Blackened” and “My Friend For Misery” during his tenure with the band. His last performance with Metallica took place in November 2000 at the MTV Movie Awards.

On January 17, 2001, Jason Newsted announced his resignation from Metallica. The backstory to this will be discussed at length in my article on the St. Anger album. Newsted had wanted to pursue a side project called Echo Brain, but James Hetfield was quite vocal as to the fact that the band should reject any thought about such a thing. In a 2009 interview, he looked back at his decision to quit. “I tell you very honestly, one billion percent, I have never regretted leaving Metallica. It was the right thing for everyone. It was the right thing to do for the camp. That's it. I've never told anyone that I wanted to go back or anything like that—not once. I made up my mind. It was not an easy thing to do, but it was something I had to do. I thought about it very much before I pulled the trigger and because of that, I have never looked back. The past is where it's supposed to be." The aftermath of all this along with Hetfield going into rehab almost led to the break up of Metallica. Despite all this drama, the bassist remained good friends with the band even appearing on stage with them over the years including side-by-side with his replacement Robert Trujillo at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2009. The guitarist was subsequently inducted into the Hall of Fame with the rest of the group that night.

In 2002, Newsted joined the thrash metal group from Canada Voivod as their newest bass player. He would appear with them at Ozz Fest 2003. On that same tour, he filled in as the bass player for Ozzy Osbourne‘s band ironically because their bass player Robert Trujillo had left to join Metallica as Newsted’s replacement. He had discussed possibly making an album with Ozzy Osbourne, but following the completion of the tour these plans never saw the light of day. Jason went on to record two albums with Voivod, Katorz and Infini. For the latter album, the band’s website noted that Newstead played all the bass parts on that particular album. Sandwiched in between the release of these albums was his participation in a super group called Supernova. This was only meant to be temporary as it was based on a television show creating a new band using recognized musicians to find a new lead singer. In the fall of 2006, the guitarist injured his shoulder trying to move an amp head in his studio. This would lead to a hiatus from playing as he endured a lengthy rehab. Two things came out of this rehab, positive and negative. On the plus side, his girlfriend later his wife artist Nicole Leigh Smith encouraged him to begin painting, This is a hobby the guitarist still continues to this day. His first gallery showing took place in 2010 with many of his original paintings being sold. Newstead said that his artwork is quite similar to his music, crazy and colorful. On the negative side, Newsted relapsed into his addiction to pain killers, which he had struggled with earlier in his career. The good news is the guitarist has said that he has not touched a painkiller since 2010. More recently, Newstead has been involved in three other projects. In 2010, he participated in a super group called WhoCares, which included Ian Gillian, keyboardist Jon Lord from Deep Purple, guitarist Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath, second guitarist Mikko Lindström from HIM, and drummer Nicko McBrain from Iron Maiden. The group created two tracks for charity including “Out of My Mind” and “Holy Water,” which was sold online. In 2012, he formed his own group called Newstead, which would go on to release an EP and a debut album called Heavy Metal Music. Any reference to the group has faded away since 2014 as the guitarist noted the project became a little too costly as he had to put up most of the money for it. “It cost me an awful lot of money – hundreds of thousands of dollars to take the Newsted band around to the 22 countries we played." In 2016, the guitarist formed an acoustic group call Jason Newsted and the Chop House Band. The group has performed a variety of live dates in small venues around the country in the past few years.

[1962dude420-blog]

Today we remember the passing of "Fast" Eddie Clarke who died January 10, 2018 in London, England

Edward Allan Clarke, better known as "Fast" Eddie Clarke, was a British guitarist who was a member of heavy metal bands Fastway and Motörhead. Of Motörhead's classic lineup, which consisted of Lemmy, himself and Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor, he was the last surviving member at the time of his death.

Clarke began playing guitar and, by the time he was fifteen years old, had been through many local bands, one of which was called The Bitter End. Of his "Fast" moniker, Clarke has said "I didn't get the name Fast Eddie because of any sex thing, and it wasn't even because I could play fast. It was just that I could play one note in a solo really fast," referring to his skillful tremolo picking.

He continued playing local gigs until 1973, when he turned professional by joining Curtis Knight's blues prog rock band, Zeus, as lead guitarist. In 1974, the band recorded an album called The Second Coming at Olympic Studios. Clarke wrote the music to Knight's lyrics on a track entitled "The Confession".

Clarke recorded the album Sea of Time with Zeus. Later, with guitarist friend Allan Callan, keyboard player Nicky Hogarth, and drummer Chris Perry, Clarke attended a recorded jam session at Command Studios in Piccadilly. As a result of the tracks from this session, the quartet secured a deal with Anchor Records, and called the band Blue Goose. With a recording contract secured, Clarke, Hogarth and Perry left Zeus to focus on their own project with Callan.

Clarke soon formed another band with Be-Bop Deluxe bassist Charlie Tumahai vocalist Ann McCluskie, and Jim Thompson on drums. Called Continuous Performance, this line up lasted until early 1975, when their demo tracks failed to secure them a record deal and the band split up. Still out to secure a record deal, Clarke then formed a group with Nicky Hogarth from Blue Goose, bass player Tony Cussons and drummer Terry Slater. Their efforts to get a deal were also unsuccessful, and Clarke temporarily gave up the music industry.

Clarke was working on re-fitting a houseboat, when he met drummer Phil Taylor, who had recently joined Motörhead. However, according to Kilmister's authorized biography, it appears that Clarke was introduced to Lemmy by a receptionist at the rehearsal studio, Gertie, who was romantically involved with Clarke at the time. Not long after, he was playing with them. In the early days Eddie rehearsed with Motörhead, before going on the road, at Snobs Rehearsal Studios, part of a converted brewery on the corner of Kings Road and Lots Road, Chelsea, known as the "Furniture Cave". Motörhead's popularity increased along with their UK chart successes. The threesome (Lemmy, Clarke, Taylor) are considered the classic Motörhead line-up and have the Motörhead, Overkill, Ace of Spades, Bomber, No Sleep 'til Hammersmith and Iron Fist albums plus a string of hit singles to their credit.

He performed a lead vocal on five Motörhead songs: "Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers" (on which he traded vocals with Lemmy), "I'm Your Witchdoctor" (on which he duets vocals with Lemmy), "Step Down", and "Emergency", one of the B-side tracks on the St. Valentine's Day Massacre EP, upon which they performed "Please Don't Touch", with Girlschool, under the combined band names of Headgirl.

Clarke left Motörhead in 1982, whilst on tour of the United States. Becoming unhappy at the results of the Iron Fist album, the recording sessions with the Plasmatics were the final straw. For the B-side of the Stand By Your Man EP the bands took turns in covering each other's songs, Clarke felt that this compromised the band's principles and resigned. According to Joel McIver, Clarke himself later denied this version of events and had said: "[Philthy] was the main instigator in my being excluded from the band. Notice I do not call it leaving, as it was not my choice. I had imagined dying onstage with Motörhead, so it was a blow when they didn’t want me in the band any longer." Clarke was replaced by former Thin Lizzy and Wild Horses lead guitarist Brian Robertson after Anvil frontman Steve "Lips" Kudlow turned down the offer to play with Motörhead. Clarke's last gig with Motörhead took place at the New York Palladium on 14 May 1982. Another cameo from Clarke on a later Motörhead album was on 2000's Live at Brixton Academy, released in 2003, on which the band featured many guest appearances from other guitarists, of which he was one, playing on the songs "No Class", "The Chase Is Better Than the Catch" and "Overkill".

Hearing that UFO bassist Pete Way was keen to leave that band, the two met and decided their new band's name would be an amalgamation of their own two names, resulting in Fastway. They advertised in the music press for a drummer and a vocalist. Meanwhile a rehearsal was organised, for which Clash drummer Topper Headon filled in on drums. The ads began showing positive results, cassettes from potential band members arrived; one of these was from a young singer named Dave King.

Clarke was impressed with his voice and financed a trip to London for King; after an audition together, King became the Fastway vocalist. Ex-Humble Pie member Jerry Shirley became the drummer. The band sent out demo tapes and were approached by CBS Records for a recording deal. Way announced his departure just as they were about to sign the deal, but CBS had faith in Fastway and decided to sign them despite this setback.

Touring had been strenuous for the band and, upon returning to Britain, they decided to split. Clarke stayed in London, and soon received a call from King about giving Fastway another go. Clarke agreed and moved to Ireland. With another album for CBS in view, they rehearsed with three of King's friends. The record label was happy with the sound and had them record at London's Abbey Road Studios with producer Terry Manning, releasing Waiting for the Roar in 1986. Clarke toured America with Fastway, supporting AC/DC, followed by a lengthy European tour, which produced 1992's Say What You Will – Live album. Fastway were also engaged to provide music for the Trick Or Treat film soundtrack, for which they composed the title track and performed "Heft" and "If You Could See" from their albums.

After the band split up again, Clarke moved back to London and met up with Lea Hart, a solo artist in the Far East. Clarke's record deals had now expired, so the pair took a demo tape to Douglas Smith (Clarke's former Motörhead manager) at GWR Records, who willingly signed a deal. Still using the name Fastway, they recorded the On Target album. It featured Don Airey and Paul Airey on keyboards, Neil Murray on bass, plus Bram Tchaikovsky of The Motors and Christine Byford as backing vocalists.

Clarke's group now consisted of Riff Raff on drums, keyboards and bass, plus assorted friends helping out; Biff Byford and Nigel Glockler of Saxon, Don Airey, and Kim McAuliffe and Cris Bonacci of Girlschool. Following the production of two albums, Clarke and Hart split up.

However, the excesses he had indulged in with Motörhead had taken their toll, and led to Clarke being admitted to hospital, spending time afterwards in recuperation. Having recovered, Clarke released a solo album, It Ain't Over Till It's Over, which blends Motörhead and Fastway styles. Lemmy also helped out on the album by writing and singing the track "Laugh at the Devil". The double CD release, Fast Eddie Clarke Anthology, on Sanctuary Records showcased a collection of Clarke's music spanning his career before and after Motörhead. It also marked a return to live performances with a re-formed Fastway, including an appearance in the UK at the Download Festival in summer 2007.

In 2014, Clarke went back to his blues roots and released a new studio album through Secret Records. Make My Day: Back To Blues was a collaboration between Clarke and the keyboardist from Shakatak, Bill Sharpe. Clarke reunited with Lemmy on 6 November 2014 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham to play the Motörhead track, "Ace of Spades".

Clarke died on 10 January 2018, aged 67, in a hospital where he was being treated for pneumonia.

[sonicshakedown]

Long live rock 'n' roll

Al Jourgensen once sang about a musician being worth more when they’re dead. He’s not wrong. Take the passing of Eddie Van Halen. Record sales of Van Halen classics increased in sales. Soon will come the box sets, rare releases and numerous books, but this isn’t a criticism as such, because it is more than just a record company cashing in. Necrobutcher of Mayhem put it quite succinctly, that the way we listen to music changes after the death of the musician. 

The death of Lemmy Kilmister was a sad blow back in 2015 as was the death of Bowie. And there have been, and sadly will be many more rock idol deaths to come. My point is not the obvious fact we all die, we know that and don’t need reminding, it’s how we cherish the music more after one of our many golden gods topples off their mortal mountain. The recent release of Motorhead’s self-titled 1977 release sparked in me a pleasantly haunting experience. It was like imagining myself in a time warp hearing the blistering speed rock and knowing how it would inspire countless thrash bands that followed. Listening to Rainbow’s Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll (1978), Dio’s spirited snarl burst from the stereo speakers. There’s a timelessness to the sound, that is perhaps due to the record being produced in a certain time and place, or perhaps it’s the fact that the musical landscape has profoundly changed. Nostalgia can be a powerful seducer.

Taking Necrobutcher’s point, a certain chilling-ness can be felt if one was to drag up from the rotting depths of hell, Mayhem’s 1990 demo of Freezing Moon. Dead’s gravel-throated spewing of tortured lyrics, is my opinion, untouchable. The conflicted anguished lyrics screams choking screams made all the more potent by Dead’s demise a year later. All the more wrought is listening to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. The canon of black metal hails this album as among the quintessential albums of the genre, but listen to it. It’s a howling beast made more ghostly by the death of Euronymous. What’s more, the album is hypnotic. Good Black Metal will hook you under the skin and drag you into a place colder and blacker than the dark side of a funeral moon. It’s a shame Dead didn’t sing on the album.

Even though a band may lose a member and continue, there are times when continuing is not an option, hence the aforementioned Motorhead. I sat down recently to spin Bad Magic, Lemmy and Co’s final album, and despite the inevitable lingering over him, Lemmy puts up a blistering front, something Motorhead fans had come to expect from him. However, one can’t help but hear the strain in his voice, the man was ill after all. That album, much like Bowie’s Blackstar is a true swansong. When such a momentous death occurs, after the dust settles comes the need to rediscover that musician’s oeuvre. It is when we do that, we hear things differently. As a fan, you connect certain emotions or memories with music, and that in turn becomes part of how we hear and interpret the music. I found that post-death listens offer something else. It’s like a part of you becomes contextualized along with the music and remains embedded in a bygone era. I imagine it’s what a paleontologist feels when looking at dinosaur bones. Try listening to Type O Negative’s world coming down, particularly the song ‘everything dies.’ A prophecy to Peter’s death, eleven or so years later.

The nostalgia afterglow is not just personal, it’s connective. A good album, Rush’s 2112 or Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, they tell us how the collective ‘we’, that is connoisseurs of fine vintage rock and metal, lived. It’s a record of humanity. Rock ‘n’ roll is as important as the moon landing. The next time NASA plans to send a golden record into space, then let them send out the words of Lemmy, “we are Motorhead, born to kick your ass.”

Album of the day:

The Hope Conspiracy – Death Knows Your Name (2006).

A ferocious, uncompromising slab of hardcore. A foreboding air lingers like the warning to the coming apocalypse. The driving stomp of ‘dead town nothing’, the timely solo in ‘Animal Farm’, shows shades of variation within the bark and pounding of traditional Boston hardcore. This album is an emotional rollercoaster diving into dark and darker still with Kevin Baker’s throat-shredding leading the way. Favourite tracks: Animal Farm, So Many Pigs So Few Bullets.

[oktony]

get to know me on our first date w/ tovie...sort of

What are you the most proud of?

Makin’ somethin’ of myself. I have a job, a business. A living. I mean, I didn’t get an education or anything, and honestly, I was really fuckin’ scared for a long time. But I did somethin’, y’know…If my family ever needed help, I could do somethin’.

What are you the most ashamed of?

I’ve been in the slammer. Twice. For battery. Y’know, just the run-of-the-mill girlfriend cheated on you so you beat the dude halfway to death. Got eleven months for it. Second time ‘round I got thrown in for, uh, gettin’ into another fight. Pulled a knife. Nothin’ serious, it was just a damn scratch. Had to do a year for that.

If you could go back and change one decision in your life, what would it be?

I’m not gonna say the prison shit. I mean, I honestly don’t regret any of it. I did what I needed to do. I had my reasons for doin’ what I did and I ain’t sorry about it. And I’ve always had my reasons for what I do.

What is your biggest dream in life?

Would you believe me if I said I wanna start my own family one day? Men like me shouldn’t, we’re no good for that sorta stuff. But I want to. I wanna teach someone what not to do. I want kids, I wanna take care of someone for the rest of my life. I want a family to take care of for the rest of our lives. I want all of that.

What difference would it make in your life if you felt completely safe, accepted, and loved?

I feel loved. I know my parents love me. And I’m forever grateful, but love isn’t enough. I dunno. I really don’t know, I guess. I don’t think I’d ever be able to feel completely safe or accepted in life. Life don’t work that way. For me at least. Maybe I wouldn’t be half the callous bastard I am now. 

Do you think your parents did a good job raising you while you were growing up? Why or why not?

Oh, man, yeah. I’m just sorry it don’t show as much, but they did a damned good job raisin’ me. My mom is a superhero, she’s done things I didn’t ever think a human had the capability to do. She did—and still does—a lot for me. Too much. My parents were good to me. They were understanding when I wasn’t. They were patient when I wasn’t. They were calm when I wasn’t. No matter what, they supported me and stood by me through all the shit. It wasn’t easy for them, but they did.

What’s one thing that you wish people understood about you? 

Nothin’. There’s not a thing. I don’t give a fuck anymore. I think it’s a waste of time tryin’ to get people to understand you. You either understand or you don’t. Why do I have to make that effort on someone else’s behalf? They all come to either conclusion: you’re good or you’re bad. Fuck that. My depths are infinite and limitless. I have my own world, my own reality, my own laws, my own visions and it’s nobody’s business.

What is your biggest flaw?

My temper. I…I get angry. And I never know when to stop. I don’t know how to stop. I almost don’t want to stop. The anger turns to fire and…I’m on fuckin’ fire. And I’ve burned everything clean.

What event in your life has shaped you most as a person, and how did it do so?

I think the second time I got locked up, I guess. Because there shouldn’t have been a second time. And there sure as hell wasn’t gonna be a third time.

Have you ever treated a person in a way that you regret?

I do, yeah. It won’t do me no good to dwell on it, but yeah, I have. I should have been better, but I wasn’t.

Do you think it’s possible for men and women to be “just friends?”

Yeah, totally. Not everyone is tryna fuck each other. And if you are, you’re a fuckin’ weirdo. Maybe, sometimes, someone’s gotta check themselves or the other, but yeah, why not?

Would you rather be rich and lonely or financially destitute with lots of great family and friends? Why?

There’s no question when it comes to money or family. Money, too, can’t do what family does for you. I don’t give a fuck about no riches. Money hasn’t ever been able to buy me what I want and need in life. I’ve seen what money has done to people…and I thought I was an asshole. I get that it’s important, but so long as I have enough to make ends meet, I’m ok.

Tell me about something you did when you were drunk that you’ve never confessed to anyone.

Fuck, man. You take this to the grave with you, okay? I don’t remember how old I was, I think I was like twenty or somethin’, but I got shitfaced home alone and, uh, tried on a pair of my ma’s heels. For what fuckin’ reason, I couldn’t tell you. I walked around, danced, ended up breakin’ the damn things, tossed ‘em out, and never said a word about ‘em again.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and why?

I know I should say my temper, but honestly, sometimes it feels good. I feel in control and I feel like it’s the thing to do. It’s like a high almost, if you can believe...I get my way, I get my point across. People listen. Am I wrong for this? I’m not sayin’ I’m perfect...far from, but I don’t wanna change nothin’ about me. I do want superpowers, though. Shapeshiftin’. I wanna shape-shift into a woolly mammoth.

If you knew you would die tomorrow, how would you spend today?

I’d stay here...right here…all night, roll a blunt and listen to all our favorite songs one last time.

Are you truly happy? And why or why not?

I have the life I want, a job I want, a roof over my head, food to put in my mouth three times a day — stability. I should be happy, right?

Have you ever been in love? And how do you know? What was it like for you?

Yeah. I thought I was goin’ fuckin’ crazy. It was torture, but good. I knew because I realized I’d do anything for her. Anything she ever asked of me, I’d do for her no matter what. I’d give her anything I could. I cared about her happiness more than my own.

When you’re home alone, and nobody else is around, how do you like to spend your time?

I’m always home alone. Readin’, listenin’ to loud music, cookin’ and eatin’.

What do you want people to say at your funeral?

Nothin’. Just play Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be by AC/DC.

If you could have a conversation with anyone living or dead, who would it be and why?

Lemmy Kilmister. He’s a musician and rocked fuckin’ balls out hard till the very end. I mean, truly the biggest and baddest motherfucker in rock ‘n roll history. A fuckin’ legend.

Do you think you’re a genuinely good person? And why or why not?

I don’t, no. I’m a selfish bastard. I don’t do a lot of good and never for any other reason than my own. I just don’t care. You’re on your own in this world.

How did you choose your current profession?

I started tattooin’ when I was sixteen. The first time I saw a tattoo was when I was about twelve or thirteen. Half sleeve done on a family friend of a dragon. It was black and red and I was fuckin’ blown away, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And then I thought that I could do somethin’ like that but better. So I went to a studio, told ‘em that I wanted to draw on people too, got signed up for an apprenticeship when I turned sixteen and been doin’ it ever since.

If money were not an issue, how would you spend your time each day?

Still doin’ what I do. I love my work. It keeps me alive, it keeps me sane. If money wasn’t a thing, I’d do what I do for free. Gonna keep workin’ till my hands can’t carry a pen anymore.

Tell me about your political leanings.

I’ll always vote liberal, but these days nobody is on the side of the people. Even when people are on the same side, they’re not. Fuck politics. It’s all hateful shit anyway.

What’s one thing that you do on a regular basis that you hate doing, but nobody knows that you despise doing it?

Calming clients down before I start workin’ on ‘em. I get it’s somethin’ I need to do, but fuck, man, like it’s a fuckin’ tattoo, what’d you expect? You chose to get one and this shit don’t look easy. Get your shit together, I don’t got all day.

[shitty]

Asterope Being (2 years ago) Lemmy Kilmister you're one of the masters in my history as human. You were with me in the school days and after my crazy years you're still with me. Even after your death. This guy... WILL BE REMEMBERED! HE WILL BE AN ETHERIAL GOD NOW.

[hardyharharcomedy]

Jen Curcio returns for the THIRD time to Creepy and Kooky to help Lauren-Blair Donovan and Lady Grimaldi find some graves they didn't find the last time this trio went to Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills on a way-too-hot-summer day. 

 In this episode we find the graves of: 

Brittany Murphy 

Ronnie James Dio 

Carrie Fisher 

Debbie Reynolds 

Naya Rivera 

Sandra Dee 

Lemmy Kilmister 

Rodney King 

 We also discuss many things about eastern Pennsylvania, as it's where both Jen and Blair are from. So how frequent cars hit deer, bow and arrows, and losing track of time in the woods naturally got brought up in this cemetery outing. We got lost trying to find child star, Judith Barsi, and explain why it's easy to get turned around in cemeteries and why online sources often fail you. Plus a funny story from Blair's dad's funeral (...sometimes life is funny, even at a funeral!). And all of the graves of the stars we found are discussed with respect, their lives, their deaths, and their legacies. 

 Please check out the first time we went to Forest Lawn where we found some more stars!

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alwcP... And check out a DIFFERENT Forest Lawn episode, where Forest Lawn Glendale is explored! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYfs_...

[kaiserdingus]

Brutal Legend (2009) PS3/Xbox 360/PC Retrospective

Have you ever looked at a heavy metal album cover and wished that you could experience that world? Have you ever wished you could listen to it while fighting demons? Tim Schafer heard your wishes and he delivered them, and he threw Jack Black into the mix as well. The result was Brütal Legend, a heavy-metal-inspired action-adventure game with Real-Time-Strategy elements released for PS3 and Xbox 360 in October 2009.

This project couldn’t have come at a more opportune time, as both the film School of Rock and the massively popular Guitar Hero video game franchise helped bring heavy metal into the forefront of public consciousness. For a brief moment in the late 2000s, it was popular to be into bands your dad listened to. Like Guitar Hero, Brütal Legend’s soundtrack featured a varied mix of guitar-centric subgenres. Popular mainstream bands like Black Sabbath, Motley Crue, and Motorhead would be featured alongside more niche bands like Brocas Helm or Cradle of Filth. It would be hard to make a game about heavy metal music without licensing a few songs, but the wizards at Double Fine made sure all their bases were covered when they licensed over one hundred songs.

Eddie Riggs, played by Jack Black, is the world's greatest roadie for the world's worst band. An Incredibly skilled and well-organized manager, Eddie hides in the shadows putting together massive rock shows for screaming crowds. A chance encounter with a legendary fire god sends Eddie traveling to another world, one that resembles all of the best album covers. Hot rods, demons, and giant flying shrimp-leeches populate this rich, atmospheric world.

Discovering that humanity has been enslaved by demons, Eddie helps organize an army to start a revolution. Lars Halford is the leader of the resistance, with his sister Lita and their friend Ophelia as the only other members. With Eddie managing the resistance, they’re able to recruit fighters with different skills and abilities to join their army. Emperor Doviculus, voiced by Tim Curry, rules over the world with a sick, leathery fist, while General Lionwhyte serves under him as manager of the human race.

There’s an interesting story of liberation that’s obvious and subtle at the same time. While the plot isn’t hiding the fact that it’s about an underdog rebellion fighting for freedom against tyrannical oppressors, it's presented in a way that ties it more to real-life struggles for liberation than the usual revolutions in pop culture which are vague about their beliefs. The first group Eddie helps liberate are the Headbangers, meaty-necked boys who bang their heads all day to mine for resources as slaves under General Lionwhyte. 

The hierarchy is similar to that of any modern job, with the workers carrying out all of the labor, managers ensuring that the workers do their job or face consequences, and General Lionwhyte as the faceless owner who stands to benefit from the unpaid labor of the Headbangers while contributing nothing himself. Doviculus purposely set up a hierarchical system that would keep the humans bickering among themselves, fighting over the meager scraps they’re allowed, while the demons are safe to rule over them. During the Headbanger revolution, one of the characters mentions the workers forming a union to a Bouncer, who becomes angry at the idea. The game isn’t making any profound political statements, but little touches like this bring the fantasy world closer to our own.

Many of the characters Eddie meets along his journey are based on and voiced by real musicians. The flamboyant General Lionwhyte, a parody of 80’s hair metal bands, is voiced by Rob Halford of Judas Priest. Halford also voices The Baron, an ally who appears later in the game and more closely resembles Halford’s real persona than Lionwhyte. Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead voices the Kill Master, a motorcycle-riding bass player who’s able to revive fallen allies. Ozzy Osbourne takes on the role of the game’s shopkeeper as the Guardian of Metal. Possibly the most over-the-top character, the Guardian sells Eddie upgrades while making sassy comments and elaborating on the world of Brütal Legend. Other cameos include Richard Horvitz, who starred in Schafer’s previous game Psychonauts, and Kyle Gass, Jack Black’s partner in the band Tenacious D.

During the marketing campaign leading up to Brütal Legend's release, Electronic Arts made a point to downplay the game's Real-Time-Strategy elements. Instead, the game was presented as more of a straightforward hack-and-slash/action-adventure game. While a lot of the game’s campaign features Eddie going on missions and completing objectives, these missions serve to prepare the player for the game’s battle maps. Each mission introduces a new move Eddie can use or a new ally Eddie can team up with. The objective of these missions involves using the newly introduced move or ally to solve a problem and advance the story.

Eddie carries two weapons at all times: his Battle Axe which acts as a melee weapon for close-range attacks and his guitar Clementine which can summon lightning from a distance. Also at Eddie’s disposal is The Deuce, a hot-rod he assembles himself at the beginning of the game that can be upgraded in the Motor Forge. In between story missions, Eddie can explore and help people with their problems while also uncovering secrets of the world, learning how he fits into it, and finding the reason why he was brought there. Various relics offer guitar tabs, which teach Eddie new moves he can use with his guitar. These moves open up a short Guitar Hero-inspired mini-game where the player taps the controller buttons in rhythm to perform a guitar solo. 

The battle maps feature two stages, one for each opposing faction, and several resource geysers that can be claimed by either side. These geysers provide resources that help supply your army with the soldiers and weaponry necessary to win, so most battles boil down to claiming as many geysers as you can while sending troops to the enemy stage. Later battles add obstacles that require strategic thinking, or enemies will come from multiple areas, forcing you to divide your troops.

Director Tim Schafer has said that the game was always supposed to be a Real-Time-Strategy game, inspired by the 1990 Sega Genesis game Herzog Zwei. As development proceeded, Schafer found that the action elements were a lot of fun and decided to shift the game’s focus towards that, while still retaining the RTS battles. It’s likely the developers hoped a strong online community would form around the game’s multiplayer mode, which could justify the story mode feeling like an advanced tutorial. Double Fine released two packs of downloadable content which were meant to expand the game’s multiplayer mode with new maps. Had the game been more successful, there might have been more DLC in the works.

It wouldn’t be right to talk about Brütal Legend without mentioning the game’s music. The game features 107 licensed songs from metal bands across the globe, including genres such as black metal, power metal, classic heavy metal, symphonic death metal, hard rock, and industrial. Bands like Black Sabbath, Quiet Riot, Judas Priest, Mastodon, Cradle of Filth, Slayer, and more fill the soundtrack with an authentic sound that would make any metal fan happy. Licensed songs pop in at perfect needle drop moments, such as Brocas Helm’s Cry of the Banshee playing during the boss battle with the Metal Queen.

The game also boasts a robust score composed by Peter McConnell featuring a full orchestra and a heavy metal band to seamlessly blend with the licensed music. McConnell previously collaborated with Tim Schafer on the soundtracks for Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. Judas Priest guitarists Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing provided the guitar solos played by the characters in the game. To promote the game, a DLC music pack was released for the game Rock Band, which was also published by EA, featuring Motorhead, Tenacious D, and Testament.

Despite a massive marketing campaign involving the game’s star Jack Black centered on a “Rocktober 13th” release date, Brütal Legend was not a massive success for Electronic Arts. The game had only sold a quarter of a million copies across both Xbox 360 and PS3 during its first month of release but was successful with critics and those who played it. Many players were confused and upset by the Real-Time-Strategy elements, more specifically they felt they had been deceived by EA’s marketing. Three weeks before the game’s launch a demo was released that featured the first playable mission.  No elements of the strategy side of the game were present, leading players to assume it was a hack-and-slash adventure game.

Since its initial release, the game has gone on to become a cult classic. The sharp wit of the writing mixed with Jack Black’s personality, and the fun gameplay of Double Fine ensured this game would age well. In February 2013, four years after the game’s launch on PS3 and Xbox 360, Brütal Legend would finally come to PC. DoubleFine worked out a deal with EA that saw them receive complete ownership of the game, enabling them to release it on Steam with minor tweaks and bug fixes. The game is also available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X through backward compatibility and is available for free to subscribers of Xbox Game Pass.

Brütal Legend is a fantastic game with a rich, illustrious world to explore that too many people missed out on when it first came out. Some may be turned off by its seemingly overwhelming Real-Time Strategy gameplay, but the game does a good enough job explaining how everything works that even newcomers to the genre should feel comfortable. While a sequel is unlikely, Brütal Legend will stand the test of time as one of the last great games of the 2000’s, and a fitting conclusion to the Guitar Hero/Rock Band craze that was petering out as Brütal Legend was released.

Where to Buy

PS3, Xbox 360, Steam (PC)

The Art of Brutal Legend

Digital Soundtrack

Support Y2K FunZone on Patreon

[mwitchipoo]

In the past few years, I’ve done portraits of famous musicians and icons, such as David Bowie, Lemmy Kilmister, Quentin Crisp, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Elizabeth Taylor, Wendy O Williams, and a few others. My focus are on those who had some sort of impact on my psyche, whether it’s small or significant.

Which brings me to Marc Bolan. My introduction to the ’70s Glam band T Rex was through covers by Bauhaus, Violent Femmes, Powerstation, Siouxsie and The Banshees, etc. Being curious, I decided to go straight to the source.

  Recently came the news that T Rex is going to be an inductee into the 2020 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Usually I don’t give a rat’s ass about who’s been included. Being part of Gen X, I should’ve been happy for Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails. Instead I’ll wait to rejoice when Kraftwerk gets in. I’m always that one person who goes against the grain.

For those who don’t know who Marc Bolan is, here goes. Marc Bolan, real name Marc Feld. His father was an Askenazi Jew, his mother English. Marc was born for the showbiz life. He first appeared as an extra on the British television show Orlando as a Mod. Age nine he was given his first guitar, and his life course was set. After being expelled from school at the age of 15, he tried modelling. It’s rumored he was bisexual, piling his trade as a ‘rent boy.’ In 1964, Marc met his first manager. The result was one of Bolan’s professional recordings. The track was in the style of U.K. teen idol Cliff Richard. Marc soon moved on to a second manager. He had changed his style, adopting a Boho-chic look. The contract was later sold to a landlord to back off back rent, in which the contract was later destroyed. In 1965, Marc signed Decca Records. It was this point Marc switched his stage name to Marc Bolan. Two Decca released singles went nowhere. In 1966, British music producer Simon Napier-Bell, met Bolan, listening to Bolan’s claims about how he was going to be a ‘big star.’ Napier-Bell was managing The Yardbirds at that point. He put Bolan in the band John’s Children, which had some success. It was short-lived, so Marc had to reconstruct his plans for stardom. Influenced by fantasy and romance, he came back with the first formation of T Rex, originally known as Tyrannosaurus Rex

Tyrannosaurus Rex gained a cult following among the U.K.’s Hippie subculture, releasing four Psychedelic-Folk-Rock albums. However, Marc wanted more. Despite charting success, percussionist Steve Peregrin Took was terminated due to drug use. Tyrannosaurus Rex then developed into T Rex, adding electric to the sound. Took was replaced with Mickey Finn on the bongos.

1970 saw the release of the rebooted formation with the self titled album T Rex. As the cliche goes, the rest is history. Marc reinvented himself yet again, setting the bar for what would be known as ‘Glam Rock.’

  The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. This also synchronized with David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era. In fact, both T Rex and Bowie worked with the same music producer, American Tony Visconti and the same manager, Les Conn. Hippies were replaced with teenage fans as Marc performed on stage wearing satin and glitter. This is the iconic T Rex everyone knows. At one point T Rex was as huge as The Beatles over in his native country. T Rex did have success over in the U.S., with the top 40 hit ‘Bang A Gong’, but never as massive as they were back in the U.K. With releases such as Electric Warrior and The Slider, the band was rumored to be selling 100,000 records a day.

What’s up with these ’70s rock stars wearing pants a certain way? 

It really should be noted that Marc would probably never had the success if it wasn’t for his wife, June Ellen Child. June Child already had connections within the British music industry, and was instrumental in T Rex’s success. Finally Marc achieved the rock star status he so desired.

Marc and June on their wedding day

Marc Bolan and June Child

Marc Bolan and June Child

The wave continued to ride high, appearing in Ringo Starr’s film, Born To Boogie. After the album Tanx in 1973, the success T Rex had started to taper off. His marriage was disintegrating too. Marc found new love with American R&B singer Gloria Jones. Jones has her own interesting history. She was involved with Motown. Finding success in the U.K., she was the Queen of  the Northern Soul movement. Most importantly, Jones was the original vocalist for the song Tainted Love, later made internationally famous by ’80s New Wave band Soft Cell.

Marc and Gloria’s paths first crossed in 1969. It wasn’t until 1972, when Jones got a gig as T Rex’s backup singer.  You can guess the rest, as Jones and Bolan became romantically involved. Out of that union, Jones gave birth to their only son, Rolan Bolan in 1975. By that time, Bolan’s star was fading. He had gained a bit of weight, acquired a drug habit, and record sales slowly declined. Jones and Bolan continued to collaborate. In 1975 Jones did background vocals for the T Rex album Bolan’s Zip Gun. Unfortunately the tenth studio album did poorly, only being released in the U.K. (The American version was Light of Love, released on then new Casablanca record label) Another pairing for Jones’ 1976 album Vixen. Jones continued her tenure with T Rex with the albums Futuristic Dragon and Dandy In The Underworld.

Marc’s luck turned around in 1977, when he landed his own variety show on Granada Television. Now this synchronized with the imminent U.K. Punk movement. (The Damned opened up for T Rex on a later British tour) Marc had a few appearances from bands like The Jam and Generation X (with future ’80s New Wave superstar Billy Idol). Thin Lizzy also did a guest spot on Marc. The rest was littered with local performers, never to be heard from again. David Bowie was the most significant delegate, with a spot on the last Marc episode. Bowie was both a rival and a friend – but later proved himself to be a loyal friend as we’ll find out later.

Marc was renewed by Granada, but the next season never came to be. After celebrating on September 16, 1977, Marc and Gloria got into a car crash. Jones was the driver of the Mini 1275GT. While Jones survived, Bolan died instantly. Marc Bolan was only two weeks from his 30th birthday.

While the funeral was taking place, Gloria Jones was hospitalized in a coma. When she came to, to her horror she discovered the home she had shared with Marc had been looted dry. Further matters were complicated because Bolan never divorced from his estranged wife June Child. This meant that Bolan’s was tied up, freezing both Jones and the child she had with Bolan out. Skipping the U.K. legal inquiry over the car crash, Jones and the son returned back to Los Angles, California. Jones continued to be involved with the music industry, but destitute. This is where David Bowie comes into play. Bowie just happened to be the godfather to Rolan Bolan. Refusing to have Rolan continue suffering, Bowie stepped in providing financial assistance, paying for Rolan’s education. It was all due to Bowie’s loyalty towards friendship he shared with Marc Bolan. It wasn’t until June Child’s death in Back in the U.K., a plaque was placed where the crash occurred. For decades, the site has, become a small pilgrimage to T Rex fans.

Over the years, people have held torches in Marc’s memory. Marc On Wax was a label run by two former heads of Bolan’s fan club. Most importantly, the influence Marc and T Rex had continues. As mentioned earlier, many late ’70s/’80s Post-Punk and Alternative bands have covered many a T Rex ditty.

As for Gloria, she later co-founded with the Light of Love Foundation UK, a music school in Sierra Leone, West Africa named in honor of Marc. Called Marc Bolan School Of Music, it gives children opportunities to learn all facets of music and film. Oh, and in 2007, she did a duet with Marc Almond once on a U.K. stage performing Tainted Love.

Gloria Jones and Marc Almond on stage. 2007. 

Honestly, I don’t know why there’s hasn’t been a biopic film about Marc. If they can do one on Freddie Mercury and Elton John, surely they can do one on Marc. I digress.

Now that you’ve read more about Marc Bolan than you originally wanted to, here’s my portrait of him, just in time for his induction into the class of 2020, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Hand drawn, pen, ink and watercolor. There’s a tiny bit of sheen and glimmer with the watercolor, but I don’t think Marc would’ve minded. Here’s a little Marc in your heart.

Marc Bolan. Pen, ink, watercolor. Illustration by Michele Witchipoo. Completed March 2020. 

    Marc Bolan – T. Rex In the past few years, I've done portraits of famous musicians and icons, such as David Bowie…

[harbourcoates]

Top 100 Songs & Singles Of 2017

It’s list week my dudes! At the end of every year a lot of rock critics have the debate of how a year compared to others. I can say, at least for myself, this year *may* have shown up last year a bit - proven by my list sizes alone this year. We’ve got 15 EPs, 15 “best of the rest” releases (compilations, live albums, reissues), 15 honorable mentions, and finally 60 albums that ruled my listening world this year. For now, to begin, here are my favorite 100 songs of 2017. I’m only going to talk about the top ten in detail, but linked below the results is a Spotify playlist where you can listen to all 100 songs. On with the music, as they say.

10. Lil Peep - ‘Awful Things’ (from Come Over When You’re Sober Pt. 1)

Lil Peep was one of those musicians that really confused the hell out of me the first time I heard him, then as I got more into his material I realized how otherworldly the music was. I’m always actively seeking out different-sounding artists every year and Lil Peep’s emo/rap hybrid that brought him to the mainstream was unavoidably addictive - this track ‘Awful Things’ being the standout single of his this year. It’s super moody with equally dark production, and comes with one of the best music videos of the year as well. Lil Peep’s tragic passing earlier this year was such a shock and a complete bummer, but I’m happy that he at least got to release his major label debut before he left us - despite him deserving much more time to this world.

9. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - ‘Rattlesnake’ (from Flying Microtonal Banana)

Australia’s psych masters King Gizzard have thus far been good on 80% of their promise to deliver five albums this year. And the song that started it all, the first song to the first album of the series, made it to constant rotation throughout this year since its February release. ‘Rattlesnake’ is a catchy, groovy psych/kraut hybrid that is hyper-unstoppable - additionally with another one of the year’s best videos (something I should keep track of for next year it seems). King Gizzard will appear more than once on my albums of the year list, but here they’re getting their first praise with one of the best songs of 2017.

8. Ted Leo - ‘Can’t Go Back’ (from The Hanged Man)

Ted Leo is exactly the type of songwriter I aim to be. Both in musical style and process, he’s rock’s unsung hero of pop mastery. Though he released the self-titled effort from The Both with Aimee Mann in 2014, The Hanged Man is Leo’s first rock album under his own name since 2010′s The Brutalist Bricks with his longtime band The Pharmacists (with whom he still tours). On an album of wholly great tracks front to back, ‘Can’t Go Back’ became the standout song for me due to its simplicity, its Motown influence, and incredible vocal performance (and once again, killer video). This track proves that while Ted Leo might have been under the radar for a while, he’s still an absolute force.

7. The Mountain Goats - ‘Abandoned Flesh’ (from Goths)

Since 2009 The Mountain Goats have remained in my top three or five favorite bands of all time. Over their last stretch of albums, John Darnielle and company have really pushed themselves with every release for something new, whether its the pro-wrestling diary of Beat The Champ or the mystical and dark themes throughout Transcendental Youth (which I still think might be their crowning achievement). But this year they really won me over (more than usual) with their tribute to the music, the culture, and the history of the aptly-titled Goths. The album’s closing cut ‘Abandoned Flesh’ is a swing-influenced ballad praying for the respect of ‘80s goth stalwarts Gene Loves Jezebel with some of the most clever and intriguing lyrics on the entire album. And perhaps the greatest motif appears in the very final words of the record; “Because the world will never know or understand / the suffocated splendor of the once and future goth band.” A brilliant track in a set of equally brilliant cuts, this one stuck the landing for me the hardest.

6. Baths - ‘Yeoman’ (from Romaplasm)

Will Wiesenfeld hasn’t graced the world with new Baths music since 2014, but if there was any way for him to come back from the gap, he couldn’t have done it any better than Romaplasm. Perhaps his most bombastic and colorful release yet, the opening track and lead single ‘Yeoman’ became an instant hit for me. I played this at least twice a day for a few weeks straight after its release (and still listen to it pretty frequently now). The production is super bouncy and bright, the lyrics are super upfront and sharp; “Come kiss me swell / the feeling like a buoyant waltz / look goddammit no I don’t know how / I love it though your steps are never gonna make a lick of sense.” It’s a electro-pop love anthem for the eccentrics.

5. HAIM - ‘Little Of Your Love’ (from Something To Tell You)

California’s HAIM sisters are one of the most impressive pop acts out right now. Taking a four-year gap after a wildly successful major label debut could prove to be treacherous - although halfway through that break they were on the road opening for Taylor Swift on the massive 1989 tour. Most notably they’ve broken the “sophomore slump” cliché with their excellent follow-up Something To Tell You. On an album full of pop perfection, it was extremely difficult to pick one track for this list but ultimately ‘Little Of Your Love’ shined through. It’s an infectiously catchy track in the typical HAIM cannon that really explodes at the end with horns, strings and more. One of their most ambitious songs and one of their most fun and danceable - it’s impossible to keep your feet still for this one.

4. Filthy Friends - ‘Any Kind Of Crowd’ (from Invitation)

If I could give Filthy Friends an award, I’d give them as many as I could - but particularly the absolute best collaborative project of 2017. Corin Tucker from Sleater-Kinney matched with Peter Buck from R.E.M. is the absolute apex of a perfect indie rock band. ‘Any Kind Of Crowd’ was released in April for Record Store Day before the full-length album Invitation was even announced, but had the album not been released this song still would have made it into the top ten here. It is the catchiest song this year had to offer and sounds exactly what a Sleater / R.E.M. team-up would sound like. And I was even more thankful the group did release an LP this year that’ll make a fairly high appearance on the albums list at the end of this run.

3. Craig Finn - ‘God In Chicago’ (from We All Want The Same Things)

The Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn released his third solo album this year and it’s easily his strongest one to date (outside of the THS catalog that is). We All Want The Same Things is a beautiful tribute of “songs about two people” (as he claimed many times during his Chicago live show), the most captivating of which is ‘God In Chicago,’ the almost entirely spoken word piano ballad closing out the album’s first side. This track might not have hit everyone as hard as it did to me, but having the two characters traveling around my home city and specific references to suburbs I used to hang out it was really moving the first time I heard it. It was even more moving to me once I saw the video which was filmed about ten minutes from where I grew up. While you could argue that all my lists are personal, this track specifically hits close to home (no pun intended).

2. Queens Of The Stone Age - ‘The Way You Used To Do’ (from Villains)

Other than Filthy Friends, 2017′s best team-up had to be Josh Homme and Mark Ronson. While the Queens’ last album Like Clockwork… may have been my least favorite of their output, they returned in full force this year on Villains with their grooviest, catchiest, and most upbeat record to date. All things considered, ‘The Way You Used To Do’ is a weird track for QOTSA. They’ve never embraced dance grooves and pop production like this before, but again a bulk of that is all at the hand of Ronson producing. This is a song that isn’t heavy enough for the metal fans but is too odd for mainstream rock fans - and I think a perfect song is one that’s gonna piss off both sides of a fanbase. Polarizing as this song and record may have been to most fans, I think Villains is an incredible album front to back and ‘The Way You Used To Do’ is this year’s best original composition. What does that mean, you might ask? The number one pick below should help explain.

1. Motörhead - ‘Heroes’ (from Under Cöver)

Singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet proclaimed on his new record this year, it was a “bad year for rock and roll.” The last couple years have been extremely rough as far as lost legends go - I won’t attempt to list them all here since there’s unfortunately too many and I don’t want to slight anyone. But I must talk about the back to back passings of Lemmy Kilmister and David Bowie for this entry. To some it might be disingenuous to list a cover as the #1 pick for this list, but there was no track more emotionally moving and ultimately encapsulating of the year than this recording. The version as a song is excellent; Motörhead has a pretty solid history of cover songs and this is among their best. The heavy guitars and bass are kept at roughly the same speed of the original, just “louder than everything else” as the band always said. Lemmy’s iconic vocals are delivered with grace and passion like no other. Perhaps the most haunting part of this track is that Lemmy’s death preceded Bowie’s by a couple weeks, which had this been released around that time, would’ve been far too heavy for a lot of listeners (myself included). This was one of the last recordings Lemmy would lay down before he died and it’s a beautiful testament to the legacy of both Motörhead and David Bowie alike.

COMPLETE PLAYLIST OF 100 SONGS

[utexaspress]

A Musical Biography of Chrissie Hynde

By Adam Sobsey

The lead and title track on the new Pretenders album, Alone—sorry, let’s back up a little. Did you know the Pretenders still exist? They released their tenth studio album last fall, and they’re touring the US behind Alone right now, opening for Stevie Nicks. This is no reunion gig. It couldn’t be, anyway. Two of the original band members died of drug overdoses in the early eighties, after the band made their second album, and the Pretenders have gone through numerous lineup changes in the third of a century since. The only constant—and what a constant—has been Chrissie Hynde, that iconic, beloved rock great famous for the brass in her pocket. (She dislikes that song.)

Hynde is sixty-six. She may be a living legend, but she doesn’t live like one. The American expatriate (she hails from Akron, Ohio) has long resided in the west London district of Maida Vale, where she bought a house in the early eighties. It’s a quiet, residential, unostentatiously tony part of the city where she can go out and about in public and, like any longtime denizen of a comfortable neighborhood, be mostly left—to return to where we began—“Alone.” The song opens with Hynde speaking rather than singing over a pulsing rock backing track. Her voice is lazy and laconic, as though she’s yawning and stretching her way out of bed in the late Maida Vale morning:

What am I gonna do today? Walk to the newsagent, check out the war zone, check the listings, see what’s good on. Oh, there’s one I’ve been wanting to see. Anyone up for a movie? I am.”

If not, no problem: she’ll go to the theater by herself, singing, “I’m at my best, I’m where I belong, alone,” one of the few rockers in history to sing the praises of solitude. Hynde has been a long-walker since her youth, and it’s easy to imagine her continuing on from the newsagent “along by the canal,” as she described Maida Vale’s well-known waterway in an earlier Pretenders song (“You Know Who Your Friends Are,” from 2002’s Loose Screw). The southern part of the neighborhood is also known as “Little Venice.” Houseboats are moored there, near the graffiti “sprayed across the tunnel walls” and “the remnants of last night’s reverie.”

Does she ever walk to Ladbroke Grove? It’s just two miles northwest of Maida Vale along the canal, and it’s where Hynde’s fledgling career took its first major steps back in the mid-seventies. Despite Ladbroke Grove’s proximity to her current home, it’s a very different part of London. Even its years of quite evident gentrification haven’t entirely buffed the scruff off the neighborhood, which is the legendary gravitational center of the original London counterculture. Ladbroke Grove was immortalized by Performance, Nicolas Roeg’s 1970 cult film starring Mick Jagger, and much more darkly that same year by Jimi Hendrix, who died of a drug overdose while living in the area. For a decade, from the hippie mid-sixties into the punk fever of the seventies, Ladbroke Grove was where London came to drop out and turn on—and especially to tune in. Music was always central to the scene. Eric Clapton formed Cream here, and—fatefully for Chrissie Hynde—the space rock pioneers Hawkwind were born in Ladbroke Grove in 1969. That band’s early seventies leader, Lemmy Kilmister, later connected Hynde to the original members of the Pretenders.

Before its bohemian bloom, Ladbroke Grove had been an outpost for Rastafarians drawn there partly by its cheap housing. When punk recolonized the area in the mid-seventies, its adherents soon found common cause with reggae as marginalized black-and-white comrades against gray English conformity. You can, of course, hear reggae in the music of the Clash, who formed in Ladbroke Grove while Hynde was living there as a starving artist in her pre-Pretenders days. (She befriended them and tagged along on their first tour.) It was then and there that she likely wrote “The Phone Call,” “The Wait,” and “Tattooed Love Boys”—all soon to be on the Pretenders’ debut album—along with an uncharacteristic country lament called “Tequila,” which wasn’t committed to record until 1994’s Last of the Independents.

By then, fifteen years after forming her band, Hynde was making her second comeback a decade after making her first with Learning to Crawl (1983) following the deaths of Pretenders guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bassist Pete Farndon. In 1994, the top ten singles “I’ll Stand by You” and “Night in My Veins,” both cowritten with a pair of professional hitmakers (or schlockmeisters, if you prefer), restored Hynde’s popularity, but she and the Pretenders haven’t had a hit since. Most casual listeners consider them disbanded, and if they think of Hynde at all, perhaps it’s as a venerable retiree.

Hardly—and this objection is the springboard for the following playlist (and, partly, for my new book, Chrissie Hynde: A Musical Biography). It may be true that “domesticity is the enemy,” as Hynde wrote in her 2015 memoir, Reckless, but her struggle against it has continued to yield music. The Pretenders’ ¡Viva El Amor! (1999), Loose Screw (2002), Break Up the Concrete (2008), and her solo debut Stockholm (2014) are rich and strong albums. She also collaborated with a Welshman named JP Jones on the album Fidelity! (2010), and spent time last decade in South America playing with Moreno Veloso, son of the legendary Caetano. She has never stopped making music.

The short and straight line from Ladbroke Grove to Maida Vale is the extended metaphor here, the image that draws the live connection from the defiant, profane punk urgency and violence of “Precious” in 1979 to the mature but no less potent work of her later years. Hynde can and does still tap into the waters that flow directly from her past to her present. She may have left Ladbroke Grove and moved up in the world long ago, but she remains elementally connected to her musical home.

Taking Hynde’s lead, this playlist omits “Brass in Pocket,” as well as big Pretenders hits like “Back on the Chain Gang,” “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” and “I’ll Stand by You.” Those chestnuts don’t need additional anthologizing. (The latter can be heard in a Progressive Insurance ad.) Instead, the handful of early Pretenders songs that open this chronologically arranged mix are mainly lesser known cuts that dig some of the overlooked but seminal roots out of Hynde’s catalog: clues to her worldview and her personal history. The rest are drawn from the largely unexplored riches of her post-stardom phase, which is nearly three decades old now, a vast trove. See—and hear—below. 

Get the playlist here.