Tuesday, July 26, 2011

AC/DC For Those About to Rock

AC/DC: For those About To Rock, We Salute You (and others)

My first exposure with AC/DC was in grade school seeing long haired scary teenagers wearing shirts with the logo on it. Most of them were probably named Rob or Travis and drove what would now be considered classic Chevy Cameros and Monte Carlos.

I first became aquainted with AC/DC's music in 1982 or 1983 when MTV put the title track to this record in semi-regular rotation. I remember loving the sound of the guitars, the riffs and especially the cannons. Even though AC/DC has been hugely successful they have never become generic celebrities like Aerosmith, Metallica, Green Day or Ozzy Osbourne. So I still have a lot respect for them for that.


It is often said, even by the band, that AC/DC has released the same record over and over since their debut. (There is some truth to that but some are definitely better than others)

In the spirit of that observation, I will be talking about more than one AC/DC disc. AC/DC was a huge part of my musical life and will always be connected with 1986 - 1992 to me.


1986:I spent this year buying as much AC/DC on cassette as I could. Most of the money came from lawn mowing. During the summer of 1986 I was mowing at least 4 lawns a week from $5 to $10 a pop. My grandfather was the only person paying me $10.00 but he did have a pretty big lawn. I managed to get Back in Black, For Those About To Rock, Fly on the Wall, and Who Made Who. I also remember watching Maximum Overdrive every chance I got when it was on Showtime, which is still one of the great horrendous sci-horror movies of all time. AC/DC was one of Steven King's favorite bands and had them do the sound track to Maximum Overdrive. Early printings of the record emphasized this, later printings de-emphasized this. I also remember various people denying this connection existed in college.


1988: My first disillusionment with AC/DC came. "Blow Up Your Video". I'm not a huge fan of the disc even to this day. It has 2 good songs and the rest was filler. I was still a pretty big fan though and even learned how to play a song or two by them.


1990: Saw them live with my friend Matt Socey at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. I remember being underwhelmed because a large part of the set was Bon Scott era material that I wasn't as familiar with. Also, some of the dragged out versions of songs got annoying. One or two extended songs is fine but they did at least 2 or 3 songs that passed the 10 minute mark. I felt the pacing got a little tiresome. The opening act was also pretty lame, Love/Hate. Ironically, the Razor's Edge came out in 1990 which is when AC/DC had officially lost their edge, although this disc was MTV gold and made them piles of money.


1991: Saw them again on the same tour as before at an outdoor venue and I did enjoy it more because I was a little more familiar with the Bon Scott era songs. I remember going to the show with a guy I worked with at the time and running into one of my college friends and his girlfriend. This was also the year my college friend's band really got going and they played at least 3 or 4 AC/DC songs a night which always went over well. L.A. Guns opened for them this time around who have 5 or 6 songs that I really like, but I'm definitely not a fan of them.

1992: AC/DC's live 2 disc set comes out. I think this was actually the point where my fandom with AC/DC peaked. This was the last AC/DC disc I went out of my way to buy. I still like AC/DC but I don't go out of my way to get the new discs and I haven't seen them live since 1991. I guess that's the risk of making the same disc over and over and over. Certain devoted fans will move beyond what you are doing and seek out something different.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Iced Earth: Alive In Athens

2000 Iced Earth: Alive in Athens

I got this disc during the summer of 2000, 5 or 6 months after the Y2K bug was supposed to have ended civilization. I spent the summer of 2000 working as a temp doing accounts payable for the Indiana Pacers and this was the year they made it to the NBA Finals. For the past couple years I had been doing similar accounting jobs. The biggest difference was that sometimes names like "Reggie Miller", "Derek McKey" or "Austin Croshere" would show up on invoices. I didn't get to meet any players in any real way, but occaisionly I did see Al Harrington, who now plays for the Denver Nuggets, the afore mentioned Derek McKey and Brian Cardinal, who now plays for the Dallas Mavericks. I did manage to see a few memorable games for free too.

But back to Iced Earth. They are a legendary power metal band thoughout Europe who are chart toppers in Germany and Greece. This disc is as great as any of the classic live metal albums of the 1970s and 1980s. (Live After Death, Alive I and II, World Wide Live, Unleashed in the East etc) But what is really crazy is that these guys at that time were living outside of Columbus, Indiana. I found this out when my friend and bandmate Greg went to see Dio live at a bowling alley that was converted to a bar. I just happened to run into their lead singer Matt Barlow and their guitarist Jon Shaeffer. I saw three people wearing Iced Earth T-Shirts after the show and I asked them kind of sarcastically "Are we having an Iced Earth convention here?" and suddenly I realized I was looking at lead singer Matt Barlow, but my brain is telling me, "That's Impossible!" Matt then tells me that he lives in Columbus, IN because that's Iced Earth base of operation because Jon Shaeffer lives there too. We also met Ronnie James Dio, Jimmy Bain, Craig Goldy and Simon Wright that night too. More on that later.

Academically, I was kicking ass and taking names as a student of computer technology. Not only was I understanding the subject matter, I was getting A's as well. For the first time ever no one could accuse me of slacking off academically. Conventional wisdom says that older students will do much better than their younger counterparts and this really was the case for me. This actually led to first real position as a software developer.

Musically, this was also a disc that proved that metal was still alive, even in the darkest days of boy bands, grunge rock, alternative and all of the other manufactured musical trends of the 1990s. Better days for metal were just around the corner.