2017 - August 31 - Zerstörte Stelle

Yesterday, as I was playing Einstürzende Neubauten's Fünf Auf Der Nach Oben Offenen Richterskala (Five On The Open-Ended Richter Schale) at work - probably a little bit too loud - Brandy, my partner in counseling crime, asked what the hell I was watching, thinking I was watching a scene or three from Game of Thrones or something similar rather than enjoying some good music while I was working. I have had the album for some time, but not really listened much to it, so I was really excited to discover how great the album really is. However, I'll gladly concede that it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

The opening track is Zerstörte Zelle, which translated to English means disturbed cell. While my German is shaky at best, I can still recognize the emotional impact of this very disturbed performance, and that is what I respond to.

2017 - August 30 - Mr. Crowley

Sometimes the good old days really were that good. Yngwie Malmsteen has often been seen as the man who brought the neoclassical guitar to the forefront, although fans of Ritchie Blackmore will probably argue that he has elements of it as well (although that might have been more courtesy of Jon Lord - but that's another discussion). In picking today's song, I found a bridge between the two in Randy Rhoads. He was the extremely gifted guitarist who played with Ozzy Osbourne following his ouster from Black Sabbath. Their output together is pretty small - only two studio albums and one live album - but it is powerful. Their collaboration started in 1980, but was cut short in an accident with a small airplane after Rhoads was a passenger during several passes over the tour bus where a wing got clipped on the roof of the bus and the plane careened into a tree in 1982, 35 years ago. This sent Ozzy into a massive downward spiral again (remember, they kicked him out of Black Sabbath), and he is marked by this death to this day.

One of my absolute favorite Ozzy Osbourne solo tracks is from his debut album as a solo artist, Blizzard of Ozz. It is about old British occultist Aleister Crowley, and while there are lots of references to Satan in the lyrics, it is not a satanic song. I sense a loneliness in the song more than anything else. I found a live tv clip from 1981, and by then the band was Tommy Aldridge on drums, Rudy Sarzo (best known from Quiet Riot) on bass, journeyman Don Airey (who know plays in Deep Purple, filling Jon Lord's seat), and Randy Rhoads on guitar (he also got his start in Quiet Riot like Rudy Sarzo). Watching Ozzy perform this piece is about as lonely and tragic as the figure Aleister Crowley - but Randy Rhoads is on fire. And - what I always expected to be tapping in the guitarsolo is actually picked. It is amazing. Please enjoy Mr. Crowley. I wonder what could have been if Randy Rhoads had lived longer.

2017 - August 29 - Sweet Child O' Mine

Ahh - to be 15 again and experience Appetite for Destruction for the first time. It's been 30 years since the album was released, although I think I might have turned 16 by the time I heard it for the first time. Back then, I only appreciated it for the straight forward unabashed rock'n'roll it provided, but this weekend I was reminded of another quality of the album: how incredibly smart and well played it is.

Today's song, Sweet Child O' Mine, showcases the brilliance of the band more than anything - and Slash and Duff McKagan in particular. The intro guitar riff started as a guitar warm-up exercise for Slash - and his signature guitar tone is all over it. Then, the magic first starts happening when Duff comes in with his warm bass tone, playing a nice little run on top of the guitar figure. The bass is all over this song, providing some great lines all the way through, showcasing just how much Duff McKagan has a great ear for melody - it isn't technical as much as it is exquisitely tasteful, and I will take tasteful over technical any day of the week.

THEN... When Axl Rose starts singing "oh oh oh sweet child of mine" you have to ignore his voice and listen to Slash's guitar with the same tone as the intro. It is mixed in the background, but he starts playing around with the guitar figure, inverting it a little to fit the chord structure, yet building tension before it is released by a return to the initial figure once Axl is done with his singing. Beautiful. Stunningly beautiful. And the solo - the slow, searing guitar that burns its way through your eardrums and etches itself onto your soul. That is the solo that was cut from the video. That should be criminal...

The final breakdown takes the song from sweet to menacing and turns things on their head. The song is brilliant, but I was not aware of that when I started listening to it 30 years ago. Back then I just liked it, but listening to it now, I hear so many more layers. It is so clear to me that GnR was a band that loved playing music. They still do, even though it's not the same band anymore. With Slash and Duff back, I am actually interested in seeing them, but not at any price...

There are three autobiographies written by members of GnR: Slash by Slash, My Appetite For Destruction by Steven Adler, the only member of GnR kicked out for doing too much drugs (that should tell you something), and It's So Easy and Other Lies by Duff McKagan. This trio of books are great reading for anyone interested not just in GnR, but in any music from this era - and it provides interesting and differing points of view for the band's history. Duff McKagan's is easily the best written one - he has become a columnist in addition to a musician these days, and it shows - but the other two are great as well.

But for today we are back to those days of 1987, when Sweet Child O' Mine was all over the radio and Guns'n'Roses ruled the world.

2017 - August 28 - Pariah

Steven Wilson has a new album out. So far I like it, but I need some more time with it before I deliver my final judgment. But the first track released still really hits home... Pariah is a duet with Ninet Tayeb, and her voice cracks just perfectly. The new album is To The Bone - and if you like this song, it is not a bad idea to take a listen...

2017 - August 27 - Eternal Rains Will Come

I needed a good excuse to play some Opeth, and hurricane Harvey (now a tropical storm) gave me just what I needed. I hope Opeth is wrong and that everyone in the areas affected by the storm is ok. Opet's 2014 album Pale Communion opened with this gem filled with throwback harmonies that really gives me Blue Oyster Cult vibes... Eternal Rains Will Come.

2017 - August 26 - Oops I Did It Again

Today I just feel like straightforward pop music. And who knew that this Britney Spears "classic" actually hid a nice little song? Richard Thompson did. And his version of Oops I Did It Again makes me smile. And the day after our racist in chief pardoned a genuine piece of human excrement for detaining people based on ethnicity and nothing else I need to smile...

2017 - August 25 - Rosenborgsangen

Yesterday my hometown soccer team beat old Dutch great team Ajax and qualified for Europa League, the second biggest European soccer tournament after Champion's League. While this Ajax team isn't as spectacular as they were in their olden golden days, it is still quite an accomplishment. They beat them in the Netherlands and they beat them at home. And with that in mind, I found Rosenborgsangen from 1988 as they were getting ready for the finals in the Norwegian cup that year. Is it great music? Nope. But it's great fun!

2017 - August 24 - Ten Tons

So I've been a little experimental and Norwegian lately. Today's song is also by a Norwegian band, but this is straight forward rock'n'roll - Ten Tons of it, to be exact. Stage Dolls is a great Norwegian power trio with Torsten Flakne on guitar and vocals, Terje Storli on bass, and Morten Skogseth's on drums. Their debut album, Soldier's Gun, was released in 1985, but it was their third album, simply called Stage Dolls, that reached a broader audience. They released it in the US as well, and the song Love Cries reached #46 on the Billboard singles chart. Not stellar, but enough to raise eyebrows back in Norway.

For me it was exciting that a band based in Trondheim actually did ok for a Norwegian band in the US, but while I did like them, I wasn't liking the Bon Jovi-ey slickness on the Stage Dolls album. I always had a soft spot for a song from their debut album. It was not a single, but I get goosebumps every time I hear the intro riff - and to me it delivers all Ten Tons of rock'n'roll.

2017 - August 23 - Kalhoz

Today's song is from another classic album in Norwegian rock history. De Press was a trio featuring Andrei Dziubek Nebb on bass guitar and vocals, Jørn Christensen on guitar, and Ola Snortheim on drums. Andrei Nebb was a immigrant to Norway from Poland, and, as you will see in the video, was missing two fingers on his left hand, which influenced his bass playing significantly. De Press had massive energy, which was captured fully on Block to Block, their debut album. The lyrics are... well... they are... hard to understand, maybe? There are traces of English and Norwegian there - and then there is Polish. The opening track from Block to Block was Kalhoz, and I found a live version from the Norwegian TV music show ZikkZakk - which really did capture a lot of what was going on in Norway and the world. I have absolutely no clue what they are singing in this song, but I know that I love the energy they exude. (For a complete set of De Press, you can check out Nattrock from April 30, 1981 - Norwegian TV had this idea that all the vandalism and rioting that Norwegian youth did the night leading into May Day, May 1, could be solved if they just played a good rock concert on TV).

2017 - August 22 - Oppned (UpsideDown)

From 1988-1990, no Norwegian band was even remotely close to having the kind of success DumDum Boys had. They won Spellemannsprisen - the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammy for rock music for each of their three first albums, and while their debut has the raw excitement of a band ready to rumble and their third album cemented their mass appeal, to me, their second album, Splitter Pine is the most complete of the three. It has most of the energy from their debut while starting to find more mass appeal through the title track without the excessive polish of their third album - and it takes you on a journey that starts with middle eastern weapons and violence (this was 1989, mind you, and given the political climate in Trondheim at the time, I am thinking the song Boom Boom had the Israel/Palestine conflict in mind - but I could be wrong) and ended with a warning about the issues with the ozone layer. In between we have songs about sex, love, and youthful exuberance - and then there is this gem about really transitioning into the adult stages of life ("twenty-something is still kind of young, but oh my god, I feel old"). Oppned is one of the more hidden gems on the album - sandwiched in between Boom Boom and the magnificent title track, but it gives the air the album needs between two very heavy hitters. It is a great song from one of the best, if not the best Norwegian album not made by Motorpsycho.