The Tolling Of Demon Bells

In the purest sense, rock n roll isn't wholesome by any means. It's rebellious, chaotic and downright evil. Least to some groups. But what Elvis did all those years ago is tame by today's standards. When rock first started some people were scared that it would corrupt the youth leading them down the devils path. Sadly some fifty years later people still believe than non-sense.  Music in general should be a little dangerous, hell even some classical music was considered evil. Music continually evolves, sometimes going in crazy new dimensions, while others sometime return to a simpler sound and time. The day music stops evolving will be the day the music died.

In my last post I mentioned Metallica opening the heavy metal doors to me. Eager to explore what was out there, I got into some older metal, bands like Motorhead, older Iron Maiden and Diamond Head. Now if you're familiar with Metallica, you know they've always done cover tunes. In fact early shows from them included covers from Savage, Diamond Head, Misfits, and a handful of other New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) bands. In '98 they released a follow up if you will to their 'Garage Days' EP, which was an EP of covers. Two covers of Diamond Head and The Misfits, and a cover from Killing Joke and Budgie. 'Garage Inc' was a double album of covers. The first CD was new covers from Sabbath, Bob Seger, Diamond Head, Discharge, Blue Oyster Cult, etc. The second CD was old stuff, the original 'Garage Days' EP, mixed in with B-sides of covers from the past.  Lot of people panned it, wanting a new album of original material instead of covers. I see the point, but I've always been a fan of covers. There's a few out there better than the originals.

The album gave me a chance to explore the original versions some more. I went out I picked up some Motorhead CD's, dusted off the Blue Oyster Cult, fell in love with the NWOBHM bands. Probably the most played cut off the record is 'Turn The Page' an old Bob Seger classic. Personally I have a love/hate thing with the song, but just my opinion. I remember the original getting more airplay on the rock stations and my Dad making it a point to tell me that's the real way to play that song.

There was one track that stood out to me. The 11 minute opus 'Mercyful Fate', a medley of old Mercyful Fate songs from their first EP and album. Strung together it's 'Satan's Fall', 'Curse Of The Pharaohs', 'A Corpse Without Soul', 'Into The Coven' and 'Evil'. The first time I heard it, I thought how delightfully evil. How Satanic is this, there was a band the embraced the devil? I didn't really know of any bands that were so evil at the time. Now of course I can't help but chuckle at em. Musically it was just epic, so much going on, I kept listening to it over and over again. I wanted to hear the original and began thumbing through mail order CD catalogs and local record shops, but to no avail. I waited for a while and kinda forgot about it.

Living in the desert you didn't really have access to a whole lot of record shops, you had to travel down into the valley to find anything good. One trip down we had stopped at a Border's Bookstore. I had made it a habit to always pick up something worthwhile there, since oddly they had a decent metal selection. Thumbing through the CD's I found a copy of 'Melissa'. It was like finding gold. I didn't realize the album at that point was over 15 years old, so I really wasn't sure what to expect. Remember this was pre internet days, didn't have the luxury we do now. I bought it and we headed back up. I always traveled with a portable CD player as a teen, kept me occupied and I had a tendency to sleep on long car rides. I opened it up and dropped the CD in. The cover, just a glowing skull almost, couldn't really tell what exactly it was. Opened up the booklet, 7 songs, strange looking pic of the singer in corpse paint with an inverted cross. Oh boy I thought, this is going to be different. Even the singers name, King Diamond, wow I thought. I pressed play and it was just so different from anything I ever heard. The opening riff to 'Evil' the scream, the lyrics. Then the scream, the falsetto. What the hell I thought, his nuts in a vice, getting kicked in the balls as he sings, what the hell is this. I couldn't stop listening, it sucked me in, threw me against the wall and left me in awe. Every song more and more evil and musically epic. Leading into the final two tracks, the epic saga of 'Satan's Fall' and the haunting 'Melissa', sealed it for me. This was the dark side, this is what I was told to stay away from. From there on out I embraced the darkness. To this day I am still a fan, even though it's been 12 years since the last Mercyful Fate record. Yes the 'new' versions of 'Evil' and 'Curse Of The Pharaohs' are great and I'm glad 'Evil' was included in the Metallica Guitar Hero game. Years ago now I had the pleasure to meet King Diamond before a show in Los Angeles and he is one of the nicest musicians I've had the pleasure to meet.

So for tonight's cut, it's 'Melissa', the debut album from Mercyful Fate. Now there are a few different versions floating around out there. The only version for me is the Megaforce Records version. Which as I type is currently spinning on vinyl. This version doesn't add extra vocals on the final track. Useless fact, which ties it together, Metallica thanks Mercyful Fate in the liner notes of their 'Ride The Lightning' album.

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Frayed Ends

Some people come out of the womb banging their head. I wasn't one of those. My journey through music was and continues to be a diverse one.But for the majority of people that know me, know me as a metal head, a head banger, etc. I wasn't always one though.

I got into Metal around my Freshman year in High School. I was into the grunge and the alternative stuff still, didn't real dig the heavy stuff. During the year I became friends with this transfer kid who was into punk and metal. I remember walking home one day listening to The Misfits and Iron Maiden. From there it was all downhill. I fell in love with the music, the complex rhythms, the bass lines, it was like discovering the best thing ever. I'm not even sure what Misfits record it was, might have been Collection I, and I think the Maiden record was Number Of The Beast. Over time I started to get into other Metal bands. Eventually I stumbled onto Metallica and that's where the beast grew.

I was aware of Metallica for some time now, their monster 'Black Album' was still being played in heavy rotation some 4 years after it's release. Now of course any metal head has a point where Metallica started to suck. Most people say the 'Load' era, others the 'Black Album', for me I don't really have a point. Each record has a high point and a low point. I got more and more into the band and started to abandon listening to grunge and alternative. It was time to update the collection some. The first Metallica record I bought was '...And Justice For All'. Bought it at one of the best record stores in the states, Poobah's. Seriously if you ever find yourself in California, do yourself a favor and check out Poobah's. Used to be a little house out in Pasadena crammed wall to wall with vinyl and CDs. I haven't been to their new shop yet, the old one was a trip. I came home threw the record on and I think my jaw hit the floor. I memorized the lyrics, I played the shit out of that CD, so much in fact I actually had to replace it a few years back. From there I was hooked, I got into many other bands because of Metallica, too many to name. I'm still a huge Metallica fan and finally got around to seeing them a few years back in AZ. Great show, great band.

So the selection is sort of a play on my first metal record. The great complaint about the Justice record was you couldn't hear the Bass. Granted this was the first album after Cliff died and they had a new Bassist in Jason Newstead. Whether or not the bass was purposely turned down remains up for debate. But years ago a bootleg surfaced called '...And Justice For Jason'. It was the same record with one adjustment, the Bass was turned up so you could hear it. Record actually sounded better too. Useless fact for the selection. The guy that apparently put this together is a roadie for System Of A Down. Enjoy...

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