Men of Steel: Big Country's Steeltown (1984)

 

I can't remember what I wrote this for or exactly when, just that it was written a long time ago. I'm posting it now because this album always reminds me of the week after Christmas, seeing I bought it then back in 1984...

Merry Chrisknowlesmas!

It's that time of year - for the secret history of rock n' roll Christmas songs! Well, kind of. It's more the secret history of rock n' roll songs that fill me with wistful holiday nostalgia. 

Let's get this party started. Crank it up, you mad dog! 

Fire from Heaven, or Guitar as Invocation

This is a companion piece to the one now up on the Sun, commemorating Geordie Walker's recent passing. I have no idea when I originally wrote or what for, I just know it was sometime back in the early 90s. I posted it here way back in the day and I'm posting it again now.

Scottish Sunday: It's Never Quite that Simple

Once upon a time, the Simple Minds were not the dreary U2 wannabes they became. Before they broke everyone's hearts, they were one of the most exciting and innovative postpunk acts in the world. Before they chased around the almighty pound/dollar/deutschmark (nearly as fervently as they hungered after Bono's dingleberries), the Simple Minds were a neo-Teutonic, proto-Industrial leviathan powered primarily by Derek Forbes' monstrous post-funk bass. 

Oh What a Night, mid-November, Back in Eighty-Three

The early Eighties really were as magical and awesome as you’ve been led to believe, even if the seeds of our future heartaches were being planted in the dark. Me, I was 17 in November of 1983, and it’s a lost mystical land I like to escape to when the stars are just right ever since. 

Get Off Your Knees, Generation X

Sure, we're mocked, erased, ignored, and discarded, but guess what? We had the Nineties, and a lot of us also had the Eighties. 

We had the bloodiest pits, the craziest raves, the shoe-iest gazers, the gnarliest grungesters, the cutest manic pixie dream girls. 

WE HAD THE FRIGGIN' X-FILES, BITCHES.

So we win and motherf**kers lose.

Watch King Crimson Play Every Note That Has Ever Existed and then Invent Some New Ones.

Fripp sez, "Alan Holdsworth, Alan Schmoldsworth. I'll show you how to play a million notes a second without hammering or tapping."

Don't be fooled by the impassive demeanor. I saw Fripp do a Frippertronics show at the Winter Garden in the World Financial Center back in the day. He reduced thousands of stock brokers to tears. Very odd duck.

"FraKctured" is a sequel to "Fracture" from the John Wetton lineup. It took that chap 22 years to learn the latter. It will probably take him 44 years to learn the former.

I used to listen to this stuff when I was working on a particularly-complex vector rendering that needed maximum left-brain input. I recommend the practice.

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock

Stoner Rock AKA Stoner Metal AKA Doom Metal AKA Sludge Metal AKA Whatever. The names don't matter one single bit. What matters is this: do you ROCK or are you schlock?

These dudes ROCK.