Clang & Clatter

My first Five after having (finally) updated to iTunes 11, and it seems my library is in a weird mood. Besides offering me a Caedmon’s Call sandwich, I get a couple of tracks I haven’t heard in quite awhile.

Caedmon’s Call - “Lead of Love” (Caedmon’s Call, 1997)
The opening track from their major-label self-titled debut, “Lead of Love” (if I’m not mistaken) is the song that broke Caedmon’s Call to a national CCM market. Prior to that they were a Houston-area indie-folk band that played bible studies, worship services, and coffee houses.

Led Zeppelin - “Heartbreaker” (Led Zeppelin II, 1969)
It’s strange not hearing this song immediately followed by “Living Loving Maid.”

Whitesnake - “All Or Nothing” (Slide It In, 1984)
Jon Lord delivers an excellent Hammond solo amidst the drama that surrounded the recording and release of this album as Coverdale groomed the ‘snake for its big U.S. breakthrough. As big as the 1987 self-titled album was, I think this is the better album. My only problem is that I never know if I’m listening to the original version with Micky Moody on guitar or the re-recorded, remixed version with John Sykes since I acquired the album through dubious means at best after my cassette had long given up the ghost.

Ty Tabor - “I Know What I’m Missing” (Rock Garden, 2006)
This track from the King’s X guitarist’s fourth solo album (if you count his independently-released Naomi’s Solar Pumpkin, which I always do) actually sounds like two different songs fused in the middle by a weird instrumental break with backwards-looped vocals, neither half much resembling the other. Each part is quite good and could have both been fleshed out to create stand-alone tracks.

Caedmon’s Call - “This World” (My Calm // Your Storm, 1994)
My Calm // Your Storm was originally released as a cassette-only demo in 1994 that has been re-issued twice since then. I got my CD copy at a show they played here in Memphis not long after they released their second major-label album. I actually prefer the more stripped-down version that appears here than the polished arrangement that made its way onto the self-title debut.

Photo © 2013, Joyce Chow/PRPhotos.com

Friends, fans, and family are currently raising money to help King’s X frontman Doug (dUg) Pinnick pay for a much-needed hernia surgery. Ever the consummate professional, Pinnick has been “playing through the pain” as it were because, as with most career musicians, he doesn’t have health insurance. Just like with drummer Jerry Gaskill’s health scare last year, fans have stepped up to stand in the gap and help give back to someone who has given them so much over the years.

As of this writing, and with 84 days remaining in the fundraising campaign, 344 donations have been made, totalling just over $16,000 of the projected $25,000 necessary to cover the procedure. If you want to participate, head on over to GiveForward to pledge your support for the “sweetest guy in the industry.”

After a week of vacation and a long week of after-vacation catch-up, I’m back with a Friday Five. I know you’re excited.

Dio - “The Last in Line” (The Last in Line, 1984)
One of my favorite Dio songs, and Vivian Campbell just rips on that guitar solo. Too bad the video was so cheesy. Cyborg overlords harnessing the power of teenagers playing video games?! But hey, it was the 80s.

Queen - “You Take My Breath Away” (A Day at the Races, 1976)
Beautifully melancholy tune that is reminiscent of Sheer Heart Attack’s “Lily of the Valley” in places.

Led Zeppelin - “Hots on for Nowhwere” (Presence, 1976)
Boogie number that I nearly always manage to skip when listening to Presence. It’s not that it’s a bad song, but how in the world can you top “Achilles’ Last Stand”?!

Poundhound - “Rev” (Massive Grooves From The Electric Church Of Psychofunkadelic Grungelism Rock Music, 1998)
“Have you ever been to the electric church?” 21-second opening track from Doug (dUg) Pinnick’s Poundhound solo project that may have been the inspiration for his “Welcome to the First Church of Rock ‘n’ Roll” speech during the middle section of “Over my Head” on recent King’s X tours. I love Doug in the context of King’s X and even most of his side-projects, but for some reason I’ve never really been able to fully get into his solo stuff. By the way, he has new solo album called “Naked” due out in May. Not necessarily my cup o’ tea, but it might be yours. And with that, I have written more about a throwaway intro track than any other song in my Five. Meh.

Anthrax - “Packaged Rebellion” (Sound of White Noise, 1993)
Some Bush-era Anthrax closes out today’s Five. I didn’t quite get this album at the time, what with the departure of Belladonna and the change of style, but I’ve grown to really like it over the years. “If you say it, mean it; if you mean it, do it.”

Queen, KISS, King’s X, Spock’s Beard, and Saxon? Hard to ask for a better Friday Five!

Queen - “Flick of the Wrist” (Sheer Heart Attack, 1974)
I have expressed my love of Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack here, haven’t I?! I thought so. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about anything on this album, especially the 3-track mini-suite in which “Flick of the Wrist” is sandwiched. Stellar performances throughout by all the members of the band.

KISS - “Got to Choose” (Alive, 1975)
From my favorite Queen album to one of my favorite KISS albums. I love the solo Ace lays down on this one. It shows his genius as a guitarist despite his lack of technical prowess. And please let me continue to pretend that this was completely live with no overdubs.

King’s X - “We Are Finding Who We Are” (Austin Acoustic, 1991)
This comes from a 10-track bootleg of a 1991 in-studio recording of King’s X at Austin’s KBLJ 93.7 FM. If you can overlook the piezo “quackiness” of the guitars, it’s a great performance of a collection of tunes up through Faith Hope Love.

Spock’s Beard - “Waste Away” (Beward of Darkness, 1996)
My discovery of King’s X in the late 80s raised the bar for me and completely changed how I viewed and judged music. That band, combined with a few others that I had been listening to at the time like Metallica, Anthrax, Queensrÿche, and a few SST bands, opened me up to an appreciation of music with complex rhythms, thoughtful lyrical themes, and in some cases, completely oddball song structures. This appreciation led me later to bands like Dream Theater, Atomic Opera, and Spock’s Beard, one of my favorite bands of the 90s prog revival. Founder and frontman Neal Morse—my primary reason for liking the Beard—has since moved on, and unfortunately, so has my love of the band. “The Doorway” is my favorite from this album, but “Waste Away” is another bright spot, catchy, driving, and a bit more of a rocker than the rest of the album.

Saxon - “Voice” (Into the Labyrinth, 2009)
NWOBHM front-runners Saxon have been slogging away for 35 years. Later this month they will release their 20th studio album, and based on what I’ve heard, it sounds like a great one (minus a couple of so-so songs and one dud), proving they still have something to bring to the table. As for “Voice,” it’s one of the better tunes from a somewhat mediocre Saxon release—not bad, but not necessarily all that good either. Your mileage may vary.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - “Something’s Always Wrong” (P.S. (A Toad Retrospective), 1999)
One of my favorite Toad songs. I also like the versions Glen would do as a “duet” with the audience as part of his live acoustic shows early in his solo career.

Armored Saint - “Terror” (Raising Fear, 1987)
It’s hard to beat these early Armored Saint tunes, even with a clueless label like Chrysalis at the helm (they actually forced the band to include the horrid cover of Skynyrd’s “Saturday Night Special”). John Bush had such a great voice for the band. Too bad Chrysalis didn’t know what to do with the Saint, didn’t know the potential they had, or just didn’t care. I can’t decide which is worse.

King’s X - “Julie” (XV, 2008)
Great Jerry Gaskill tune dedicated to his long-time girlfriend (now wife). As with most of Jerry’s songs, this one has a shiny coat of Beatles inspiration all over it. His voice melds perfectly with Ty’s and dUg’s when they break out the three-part harmonies, but I wish Jerry had more of an opportunity to sing lead like he does here.

Superchunk - “Learned to Surf” (Majesty Shredding, 2010)
A certain Rock ‘n’ Roll Snob turned me onto this, and boy am I glad he did. This is my favorite from the album. I love the rhythm, the melody, and all the guitar parts battling for my attention in the stereo separation. And I swear if I ever start a band, I’m going to have a female bass player.

P.O.D. - “Three in the Power of One” (Snuff the Punk, 1994)
From the indie-label remaster of P.O.D.’s even idie-er first release, this song shows a young P.O.D. cutting its teeth on the hardcore rap-metal sound it would master and become identified with only two albums later. As such, much of the material on this album lacks the direction, maturity, and diversity that fueled the band’s success on The Fundamental Elements of Southtown or Satellite.

Anberlin - “Down” (Dark Is The Way, Light Is A Place, 2010)
Acoustic-based number from one of my guilty pleasures, although Dave Grohl recently said there should be no such thing is a guilty pleasure. You should simply like what you like. I like that idea.

King’s X - “Everywhere I Go” (Faith Hope Love, 1990)
A low-key, laid-back, soulful track from a band that I definitely feel no guilt for liking. I adore Ty Tabor’s guitar solo and his volume swells in the breakdown immediately following. The first 4 King’s X albums should be required listening for any rock fan. Since it’s rainy and dreary here, I’m hoping this mellower mood holds out through my entire Five.

Jughead - “Yesterday I Found Myself” (Jughead, 2002)
So we move from mellow to a slow-tempo psychedelic groove (featured previously in this Five) from this Ty Tabor side-project. That is until we hit the chorus, which is pure sugar-coated power pop. I can deal.

KISS - “Black Diamond” (Alive!, 1975)
Another slow-starting rocker that needs no introductions. My brother and I used to pretend to be KISS along with some friends and “perform” certain cuts from Alive! on tennis rackets and pillows for drums. “Black Diamond” was our encore and was fully choreographed, complete with a “salute a rising American flag” ending. Not too different from how I would imagine an actual KISS concert.

Skillet - “Come On To The Future” (Invincible, 2000)
…Aaaaand the mood is totally ruined. And I was really enjoying this Five, too. I used to really like the Memphis-based CCM act Skillet when they were a heavy 3-piece band produced at Ardent Studios. Then they moved to a more industrial NIN-ish sound, lost a couple of core members along the way, and evolved into a bleepy-bloopy, alt-industrial/electronica Christian FM praise band, not that there’s anything wrong with that if you’re into that sort of thing.

Sparta - “Tensioning” (Porcelain, 2004)
I came late to the At the Drive-In party, about the time they released their swan song Relationship of Command, so I was understandably bummed when I found out the band had called it quits before I even had the chance to take a deeper dive into their back catalog. So I loved Jim Ward’s post-ATDI Sparta from the beginning (well, except for the final album Threes; I’ve never been able to get into that one for some reason). I absolutely love “Tensioning” as well as the entirety of Porcelain, which contains one of my favorite Sparta tunes, “Breaking the Broken.” The whole album is a nearly perfect amalgamation of pop, swagger, noisy guitars, emo/screamo, navel-gazing, and aggression, and it became my gateway drug into other modern noisy pop bands like Mae and Anberlin.

Smashing Pumpkins - “Blue” (“Unplugged” 100% Pure Acoustic Performances, 1993)
One of my previous Fives featured a song from this collection of bootleg acoustic Pumpkins tunes, which is uneven and spotty at best. This is not one of the better songs or performances.

Rush - “Losing It” (Signals, 1982)
For some reason it has become popular to dismiss this album from Rush’s synthesizer period, but honestly, it’s one of my favorites from the band. Songs like “Losing It” have a lot going on behind Geddy’s vocals and the synths that seem to float to the top. If you don’t take the time to really listen, you miss out on some very tasty guitar work from Alex and the funky high-hat-based groove Neil lays down on this song in particular.

King’s X - “Don’t Believe It” (Gretchen Blows Through Chicago 9/14/1989)
Performance of one of my favorite Gretchen Goes to Nebraska tunes from a very muddy King’s X bootleg. Man I wish I could have seen these guys live during that period.

Ginger - “Can’t Drink You Pretty” (Yoni, 2007)
This song popped up in my September 21, 2012 Five. One thing I failed to mention that time was that the album title Yoni comes from a Sanskrit word for… well… a woman’s “down there” area, and nearly every song is about women, relationships, and yes, sex. It also features much of the same cast of characters that Ginger worked with on the albums he released (or is in the process of finishing) this past year.

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Photo © Steve Thorne, Getty Images

2012 has proved to be an interesting and challenging (to say the least!) year for King’s X drummer Jerry Gaskill, from the massive heart attack he suffered that left him in a medically-induced coma for two weeks to marrying his girlfriend of ten years to Hurricane Sandy destroying nearly everything the couple owns. His wife Julie recaps it this way:

What a banner year it’s been for us. First you died, then we got married, and now we’re homeless.

Gaskill takes a look back over the past 12 months in his Modern Drummer blog and discusses the events that make him think 2013 will be better than ever.

During the month of November, KissFAQ.com is focusing on possibly the most polarizing album KISS ever released, Music from ‘The Elder’. Admittedly an interesting idea, the month-long retrospective unfortunately goes under the horrific moniker NovElder. Upon hearing about this feature, I immediately dismissed it based on the name alone, but my interest was piqued when I found out that KissFAQ.com’s Tim McPhate had recently conducted an interview with King’s X guitarist/vocalist Ty Tabor, a self-proclaimed fan of the controversial concept album.

In the interview, Tabor recalls loving the album upon its release and not understanding why other people weren’t “getting it.” He remembers his first impressions were that KISS was “really getting serious” and “branching out” with the songwriting on The Elder. Ty also discusses some of his favorite KISS albums, Ace Frehley’s influence on his as a guitarist, and King’s X’s near inclusion in the KISS My Ass “tribute” album.

The interview is a good read for any KISS, King’s X, Ty Tabor, or The Elder fan, and even if you hate the album, the NovElder feature might still be interesting from a historical perspective.

Yesterday Metal Underground posted a pretty good history lesson and career retrospective on King’s X. It’s a little light on in-depth details, but it’s a good primer for anyone not already intimately familiar with this criminally underrated and overlooked band, and there are a few links to YouTube videos to boot.