LISTEN TO JAMES DAUBENEY
ON
A successful career in engineering and business never blunted his true passion for Rock and Roll and somehow he managed to balance it all. This book is about music powered by electric guitars, growing up surrounded by it and all the interesting characters that were thereby associated. James cares deeply about this amazing music and tells the story of his life against the backdrop of what was happening in the Rock ‘n’ Roll universe at the time. The Story of Rock and Roll is one man’s perspective of the music and has the power to take you back so that you too can remember the good times and the songs that defined the era!
THE TIMELINE
The Big Chill Alex’s Funeral This may seen out of place in the timeline but I start with it because in the Introduction to The Story of Rock and Roll I use it to explain just how powerful great music can be and how it can transport you from terrible lows to…
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Yesterdays Hero John Paul Young John Paul Young released Yesterday’s Hero in 1975 and it blew my mind. I heard it on my little transistor radio and used to wait all day to hear it again. I was 9 at the time and in Chapter 1 of The Story of Rock…
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Rock On David Essex David Essex had some big hits, he was sort of a teen idol but there was a lot more to him than that. My best friend Mike and I picked up on him on a sound track to the film That’ll Be the Day. He went…
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Revolution The Beatles The Beatles were all characters, everyone had their favourite, they were recognisable even by silhouette. As a kid I liked Paul the best but in later years I started to prefer John. George was an early guitar hero of mine and yep, Ringo was a drummer, a…
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Simon & Garfunkel Richard Cory Simon and Garfunkel were huge in our household, Mum took these records out at the Benoni Library and we would have two weeks to listen to it to death. My best track was Richard Cory, once again in hindsight because it was a bit heavier…
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ZX Dan Radio Rats I explain the importance of the Radio Rats in Chapter 1. They are unsung heroes in my view, they probably had more influence on the SA music scene than most bands. A lot of bands in SA in the 70’s played covers. I was too young…
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Big Shot Billy Joel The first album I ever bought was 52nd Street which is a bit embarrassing considering the way my music taste was heading. I loved the song ‘Big shot’ and it was enough to get me to part with cash and start a life time of me…
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Rosalyn David Bowie ‘Hey Rosalyn’ was track one on the album Pinups, the second album I ever bought. This time I hit a home run and this was an album I could be proud of. Pinups was quickly followed into my record collection by the incredible album The Man Who…
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Roxanne The Police Such a special song, those opening Gm F6 Gm Dm7 chords, the bass line, a little laugh and then that unearthly high vocal. The Police took the UK and then the world by storm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T1c7GkzRQQ&feature=emb_title Outlandos d’Amour the debut album by the police was released in 1978…
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Someone’s Looking At You Boomtown Rats In the book I explain how I happened to find the Boomtown Rats when I was really shopping for the Police. This was probably the most serendipitous moment of my life. ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ was a huge hit for the Boomtown Rats but…
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Davy’s On The Road Again Manfred Mann There was something fantastic about this song. I just loved that simple driving bass line. I first heard it on the radio and it blew me away. Manfred Mann was a South African so we claimed him as our own. He had a…
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Street Fighting Man The Rolling Stones I got into The Stones a bit late because obviously when they first started making waves I was about 2 years old. The Stones struck a chord with me because they were so much more, for want of a better word, dangerous than the…
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My Generation The Who Dave Cooke (RIP) who was in Standard 8 when I was a newboy at Potch gave me an album by The Who. I am not sure why he gave it to me but I am forever grateful to him for the magnanimous gesture. I think he…
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Detroit Rock City Kiss The book details the importance of Kiss in my life. They were the first band to turn my world upside down. The importance of Kiss in TSORR is immeasurable, without Kiss maybe none of this would have happened. Detroit Rock City was the first song I…
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Working For The People Rabbitt ‘Working for the People’ was on the end of the Kiss Destroyer tape a friend gave me. Like a doos I thought it was Kiss, the detail of that event is explained in The Story of Rock and Roll. It is a fantastic song and…
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Jamie’s Crying Van Halen Van Halen! Where showmanship meets talent in one giant supernova of brilliance. For me Van Halen took everything to a new level. They had the flash of Zeppelin without all the self indulgence. You cannot listen to Van Halen and be in a shit mood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOjm4I7LRgY&feature=emb_title…
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Beyond The Realms Of Death Judas Priest Judas Priest will always be the band that I credit with being the fathers of Heavy Metal. I love Sabbath and Zeppelin but to me no-one epitomised Metal like Priest.Judas Priest will always be the band that I credit with being the fathers…
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Death On Two Legs Queen I was listening to Queen II from around 1976 and it was just the most perfect album ever. Freddie and Brian in particular were just so good on that album. A Night at the Opera was released in 1975 but I took it to boarding…
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Hey Joe Jimmi Hendrix I was late into Hendrix as is hilariously detailed in The Story of Rock and Roll. I didn’t even know who he was in 1979. Once I found out I never looked back, to this day he is probably the most influential guitarist in the world. …
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Open Invitation Santana I discovered Santana after a particularly hair raising uitkak from a matric while I was a new boy at Potch Boys High. The hilarious detail can be found in Chapter 2 of The Story of Rock and Roll. This song was one that got played over and…
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Hanging Around The Stranglers The Stranglers were my favourite band for about 3 years and they took me down the Punk Rock path opening doors to the Pistols and the Clash. All the detail can be found in The Story of Rock and Roll and you will read why they were…
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Bat Out Of Hell Meatloaf Bat Out of Hell is a rock classic, it was just one of those special unique albums that artists occasionally pull out of themselves. It was unlike anything else at the time or since. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QGMCSCFoKA&feature=emb_title Check out the DVD on the making of Bat Out…
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Rock And Roll Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin are one of the most influential bands the world has ever seen. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant set the standard by which future guitar heroes and frontmen respectively would be measured. I loved the first 3 Led Zep albums, they are simply brilliant.…
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Mama Weer All Crazy Slade Slade are highly underrated in my opinion, in their day they were seriously heavy when compared to most of the stuff on Top of the Pops. Noddy Holders’ rough vocals were totally out of the normal and got me preferring guys like Bon Scott and…
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Feel Like Makin’ Love Bad Company Out of the ashes of Free came Bad Company. Free had done well but in-fighting and the usual substance abuse issues that plagued most bands of this era caused Paul Rogers and Simon Kirke to walk away and from Bad Company in 1973. If…
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Stargazer Rainbow The Story of Rock and Roll details how important Rainbow was to me because of my friend Roger’s love for the band. The fact was that for the first time I had someone who could really explain to me what was actually going on musically. The first band…
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Ballroom Blitz The Sweet We used to listen to ‘Ballroom Blitz’, ‘Little Willy’ and ‘Wig Wam Bam’ when we kids on the MFP Sprinbok hits compilation albums. These albums were made by SA session musicians and our folks used to buy them and play them at parties when we were…
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Baby I Love Your Way Peter Frampton Peter Frampton got huge thanks to Frampton Comes Alive. The album was everywhere and Frampton became famous for making his guitar talk. I don’t think Frampton will ever be able to disassociate himself from the Talk box, he is almost synonymous with it. When the…
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N.I.B Black Sabbath So much has been written and said about Sabbath, sometimes you gotta just shut the fuck up and listen to it again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiY2JsGXrtM&feature=emb_title Formed in Birmingham in around 1968 Sabbath would probably have won a ‘least likely to succeed’ award, unless you saw them…. Then you would…
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Bullfrog Blues Rory Gallagher Hard drinking Irish guitar virtuoso, Rory Gallagher really just wanted to play his guitar. He didn’t have time for stardom or all the rock star trivialities. In my opinion his best stuff is on his live albums, he just seems to do the most amazing guitar…
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All The Way From Memphis Mott the Hoople There are some bands that just never seem to ‘make it’ but then 10 years on all the bands that are really doing well credit that band with being one of their biggest influences. Bands like Diamond Head, The New York Dolls,…
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Aqualung Jethro Tull For many years I considered Jethro Tull’s Bursting Out Live to be the best live album I had ever heard. Tull took musicianship and witty live banter to new levels of excellence and that album made me buy Aqualung which in its day was considered a heavy…
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Dream Deceiver Judas Priest Judas Priest are legends, in my view no-one put metal on the map the way Priest did and they kept it alive during the lean years. With all that disco crap going on in the 70’s you could rely on Judas Priest to keep delivering album…
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God Save the Queen Sex Pistols ”I started the album, volume up full and the opening chord to ‘Anarchy in The UK’ nearly made the welding crack on the burglar bars. The Pistols were just brilliant, mainly only three chords but each chord was thick, crunchy and necessarily over-overdriven. I…
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White Riot The Clash The Clash’s third album London Calling was voted the best album of the 80’s and the 8th best album of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. It went platinum and sold over 5 million copies. The music was no longer Punk Rock, they were now a…
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Going Underground The Jam Although classic songs like ‘Eton Rifles’ and ‘Going Underground’ are probably better examples of the Jam in full cry, ‘That’s Entertainment’ was the first track I actually heard. Once again it was on Pop Shop, or Fast Forward as it became, that I first saw them. …
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Suspect Device Stiff Little Fingers ”When I heard Inflammable Material my brain once again exploded. This album was twice as fast and twice as aggressive as any other punk album and Jake Burn’s voice was like a hot glass – he didn’t sing he shouted, and when he shouted he…
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Schoolboy The Asylum Kids Along with Wild Youth and Dog Detachment the Asylum Kids were the SA punk bands that were just kicking it up at the time. You could catch them at the various Varsity Rag days but I never had the pleasure of seeing them. Once Robbie Robb…
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Teenage Lobotomy Ramones I was very late into the Ramones and the details of how I got into them are covered in The Story of Rock and Roll. There was just something about them that was amazing. It wasn’t the musicianship, it wasn’t the lyrics, they just had a way…
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Rat Trap The Boomtown Rats I have already discussed The Boomtown Rats so I’ll keep this short. Rat Trap is a fantastic song which I had missed and found it by accident when I was given a tape with no information on it at High School. One side had the…
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Sunday Papers Joe Jackson Joe Jackson was a real oddity at the time, he was a classically trained musician who won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. His true love was jazz and classical so to suddenly become a pop star was strange. Joe said that his album…
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Sultans Of Swing Dire Straits In The Story of Rock and Roll I talk about Dire Straits a lot and in Chapter 4 it’s all about what a good album Making Movies was. I switched out the songs here because So much of what Dire Straits started out to be…
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Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away) Motley Crue I discovered Motley Crue in 1983, The Story of Rock and Roll details that experience and the disappointment I felt when I finally put an imported copy of Shout At The Devil onto my turn table for the first time. The…
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The Ace Of Spades Motorhead Motorhead are and will always be an iconic band. It’s all about Lemmy and that larger than life character that he was. Lemmy knew everybody and they all knew him. In the hundreds of articles and stories I have read about him over the years…
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Rock You Like A Huricane Scorpions German metal is great, the Scorpions and Rammstein are sure to be the most successful bands the country has ever produced. Scorpions managed what most metal bands strived for but only a handful succeed in doing i.e. becoming massive in the USA. For UK…
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Far Beyond The Sun Yngwie Malmsteen ”Yngwie Malmsteen was phenomenal. He came out of obscurity from Stockholm after he sent a tape to Mike Varney of Shrapnel Records who was releasing all these incredible shred guitarists. Guys such as Tony MacAlpine, Vinnie Moore, Paul Gilbert, Jason Bekker and Mary Friedman. …
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Fast As A Shark Accept “It started with a sort of Heidi hi ho lo la German folk intro which lasted about four bars before there is a massive sound of the needle scratching through that shit and a barrage of drums, guitars and the unearthly sound of Udo Dirkschneider…
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The Number Of The Beast Iron Maiden Discovering Iron Maiden is covered in detail in The Story of Rock and Roll. When I first heard them Paul Di’Anno was on vocals and, as you should know, it was only when Bruce Dickenson left Samson to join Maiden and they released…
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Crazy Train Ozzy Osbourne ”Back at school for another term and there was serious shit going down. Ozzy had been thrown out of Sabbath and had started his own band. Sabbath were going to carry on but they were going to use Dio on vocals. What the fuck? We couldn’t…
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Heaven And Hell Black Sabbath Ronnie James Dio (RIP) in Black Sabbath was amazing. No-one could really imagine how it would sound and in many ways the line-up was written off before they started. That all changed once the album came out and it is safe to say that Heaven…
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Bringing On The Heartbreak Def Leppard There are better videos than this one, its about as ’80s cheesy as you can get but as I explain in The Story of Rock and Roll, there were other good uses for this song. The fact of the matter is that the only…
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Lights Out UFO This may seen out of place in the timeline but I start with it because in the Introduction to The Story of Rock and Roll I use it to explain just how powerful great music can be and how it can transport you from terrible lows to incredible highs.…
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Back In Black ACDC We thought ACDC were finished after Bon Scott died, no-one anticipated just how massive the band would become with Brian Johnson on vocals. Back in Black is one of the top selling albums of all time. 36 years later is sounds as fresh as the day…
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Atlantic City Bruce Springsteen I put this song up and it all just came crashing back the way I remembered it. It’s amazing how 35 years later I can still feel exactly the same way I did the first time I ever heard Bruce sing Atlantic City. What makes him…
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Undefeated Little Steven I may have fucked this up, when I found this video I was a bit taken aback to see the dude with the white Mohican playing guitar. I was looking for the original video I saw in the mid 80’s where as I describe in my book…
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Helpless Neil Young Neil Young is a legend for me. There are many who can’t stand him but I find him one of the most amazing artists ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2z7LXpAX3Q&feature=emb_title I’ll probably change this clip quite often because there is just so much of Neil to see. This particular clip is…
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I Wonder Rodriguez There isn’t any good old footage of Rodriguez in his hey day that I could find. The reason is pretty simple as I explain in the book, he never had a hey day because he never even knew he was a star. Thankfully due to the efforts…
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It Says Here Billy Bragg Not a lot of people I know even really know about Billy Bragg, I discovered him in about 1984 and was immediately hooked on his Brewing Up album. Billy sings his songs of love, socialism and revolution without any drums or bass, just his electric…
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Cum On Feel The Noise Quiet Riot I got hold of Quiet Riot in early 1983 and it was the start of some golden years of metal. Their cover of ‘Cum On Feel the Noize’ went straight to the top of the charts and the anthemic album opener ‘Metal Health’…
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Turn Up The Radio Autograph I got into this band while I was in Hornet, it was one of those songs that we were all trying to subliminally replicate. Songs like this were suddenly all over the US charts and guitar solo’s were king. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8CcTYsMHYU&feature=emb_title The budgets for the video’s…
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You Got Lucky Tom Petty Tom Petty had been around for a long time, His breakthrough album Damn the Torpedoes was released in 1979 and he was a great favourite at high school. Tom Petty was one of the artists who really made some great video’s and the MTV explosion…
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Free Bird Lynryd Skynyrd Skynyrd were really a 70’s band and the matrics at school were listening to them when I first went to Potch. It was only after I finished school that I could actually afford to get some of these albums. Len and I used to sit in…
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Gimme All Your Lovin ZZ Top ZZ Top are probably the least likely band to suddenly become international superstars after being around since 1969 and not really getting anywhere. While most bands were pretty much broken up or in the twilight of their careers the ”Little Ol’ Band from Texas”…
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Hurts So Good John Cougar John Cougar never wanted to be called John Cougar he wanted to be called by his real name John Mellencamp. The record company didn’t want to hear fuck all about John Mellencamp so he was marketed as John Cougar. It didn’t take long to hit…
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I Wanna Be Somebody W.A.S.P. W.A.S.P. were designed to shock, their whole image was such that it was going to cause controversy. The buzz saw blades and the blood and songs Like ‘Animal (F__k Like a Beast)’ were certainly going to get a reaction from organisations from the PMRC. I…
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Fall Of Rome James Reyne I heard the video for ‘fall of Rome’ when I walked past the TV when Pop Shop which became Fast Forward was on . I’d stopped watching because they were playing so much crap but when I heard the opening chords of this track it…
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Working Class Man Jimmy Barnes Jimmy Barnes was another discovery thanks to the record reviews in Scope magazine. Scope was the closet thing you could get to porn in apartheid South Africa, there were many people who were part of ‘the struggle’ in different ways and as school boys we…
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Cheap Wine Cold Chisel Cold Chisel was Jimmy Barnes first band and I only got into them quite a few years later. They were massive in Aussie and basically nowhere else which is why Jimmy needed a solo career later. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUGlWCCVA4M&feature=emb_title This is quite an odd video and I found…
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Jump In The Fire Metallica I discuss the first time I heard Metallica in some detail in The Story of Rock and Roll. The fact of the matter is that Metallica was exactly what I needed to find in the early to mid 80’s when Bon Jovi were riding high…
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Aces High Iron Maiden Iron Maiden were on a roll by 1984, Bruce Dickenson was firmly entrenched in the band and they had completed the mammoth World Slavery Tour which was one of the largest and most complex tours undertaken by any band ever. By 1984 Iron Maiden were pretty…
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Defenders Of The Faith Judas Priest Defenders of the Faith was an incredible album. It raised the bar for all metal bands. It was amazing then that after such a strong album they took a huge hit from fans with the release of the next album Turbo. Metal heads were clearly not…
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Animalize Kiss By the end of the ’70’s and into the 80’s Kiss had lost the plot. They were still making an album a year which is amazing to think of now in a world where bands can take 5 to 10 years between albums. Dynasty, Unmasked and Music from…
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1984 Van Halen When Van Halen put out 1984 ‘Jump’ was a huge hit, to be honest I wasn’t impressed, I didn’t like the keyboards and it seemed to have swung too much Dave’s way where the showmanship was out of balance against the songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuKDBPw8wQA&feature=emb_title ‘Panama’ was the best…
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Perfect Strangers Deep Purple Deep Purple are one of the Classic UK Rock bands of all time. They had it all, huge musical talent with Lord and Blackmore and a drummer who was up there with John Bonham and Keith Moon. Ian Gillan helped set the standard by which metal…
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The Price Twisted Sister Twisted Sister had to go to the UK to get discovered, for some reason although they were huge on the live circuit the record companies were not interested. They looked more like the New York Dolls than anything else and while all the other bands at…
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Round And Round Ratt All preening and poncy, Ratt epitomised the vanity and pomp of hair metal. Bands like Ratt and Poison had so much make-up and spandex that the lines became blurred between the sexes. Hair metal pulled chicks into metal like nothing before or since. Bands like Bon…
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Life Goes On Poison On the other side of things Venom were coming. They released their debut album Welcome to Hell in 1981 and they really played the whole Satanic thing and took it to a new level. Like the Ramones their influence on other bands compared to their own…
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Live 1985! Venom On the other side of things Venom were coming. They released their debut album Welcome to Hell in 1981 and they really played the whole Satanic thing and took it to a new level. Like the Ramones their influence on other bands compared to their own success…
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747 Strangers In The Night Saxon Saxon are a British institution. Along with iron Maiden they spearheaded the New Wave of British Heavy metal. They never rose to the heights that Maiden have but then no-one has, so if you factor out Maiden then Saxon are probably the most successful…
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Don’t It Make Ya Feel HeadPins The Headpins formed in Canada and released two multiplatinum selling albums. The impression that Darby Mills made on 16 year old school boys cannot be over stated. We thought she was the best thing ever, Debbie Harry was hot but she sang pop songs,…
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Faithfully Journey Journey were huge in the US, they epitomised stadium rock. They hit a golden era between 1978 and 1983 when they released, in quick succession, Infinity, Evolution, Departure, Escape and Frontiers. With the eye catching futuristic scarab beetle artwork on all their albums and a continuous string of…
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Don’t Tell Me You Love Me Night Ranger Night ranger had a huge hit with Sister Christian. I wasn’t smitten though, it was a bit light for me at the time other than by the guitar solo. Robin Gallagher played me albums before Midnight Madness and then I was completely…
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Take Hold Of The Flame Queensryche Queensryche came out of Washington in the early 80’s and the release of their album The Warning heralded their arrival as a band to watch. There was a lot going on that album and I listened to it a lot but I just couldn’t…
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Yankee Rose Dave lee Roth Dave Lee Roth is a legend. When I was growing up he was the first front man that I saw who was just larger than life. Dave was the coolest, he dressed the best, he moved the best and he always had a killer chirp…
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Wanted Dead Or Alive Bon Jovi I don’t give Bon Jovi more than a passing mention in The Story of Rock and Roll and it’s not because I didn’t like them, it’s really because they just got so fucking huge that they lost relevance to me. Once you have dewy…
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Dream Warriors Dokken Dokken were a completely dysfunctional band, they could not get on at all. They made some great music but I could always feel that lack of cohesion and the fact that they hated each other just held them back. For me there was only really one reason…
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Sweet Child O’ Mine Guns n’ Roses This may seen out of place in the timeline but I start with it because in the Introduction to The Story of Rock and Roll I use it to explain just how powerful great music can be and how it can transport you from terrible…
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Don’t Know What You Got (Until It’s Gone) Cinderella Cinderella were great at the time, they had some cool stuff but they didn’t really have the charisma of some of the other bands. The one thing Cinderella did have was the voice of Tom Keifer. He just has a certain…
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Love Song Tesla Tesla were part of the hair metal scene just by virtue of being around at the time. The Stranglers had the same problem with being considered punk and getting lumped in with the negative side of the movement. To me Tesla were far better than most of…
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I Remember You Skid Row Skid Row were probably my favourite hair metal band. They were a lot heavier than the other guys and the combination of the twin guitars of Scotty Moore and Dave ‘the Snake’ Sabo gave us some of the coolest, most emotional guitar solo’s ever. And…
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin Warrant Warrant were the prototypical 80’s hair metal band. They had it all – the look, all bright colours and make-up, the big hair and pretty faces and they certainly had the songs. Through a combination of relentless touring and MTV saturation bombing they rose to great…
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Can I Play With Madness Iron Maiden The release of Seventh Son of a Seventh Son showed me that Maiden were not just going to churn out the same fucking album over and over again. It was very different to what we were used to and it was awesome, in…
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Painkiller Judas Priest Priest released Ram It Down in 1988 at the same time as Maiden released Seventh Son. I was over the moon about getting these two albums but the rest of the world seemed to receive them differently, almost with a resigned sense of boredom. Something was happening…
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South Of Heaven Slayer I confess that when I first heard Slayer I didn’t get it. Reign In Blood was just too fast and too atonal, basically too shouty. I wanted to like it but I like melody and harmony and this just seemed like fast noise. ‘Angel of Death’…
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Hangar 18 Megadeth Megadeth are pound for pound a better band than Metallica. They have released consistently high quality albums for over 30 years. In my opinion there has never been a bad Megadeth album. Dave Mustaine is a true rock god, love him or hate him it cannot be…
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Cowboys From Hell Pantera Nothing could compare with the power and aggression of Pantera. When Cowboys From Hell came out in 1990 they literally saved metal. Dime and Vinnie were still old school Van Halen style rocks stars but Phil was an anti-hero and arguably changed the whole metal frontman…
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Enter Sandman Metallica This may seen out of place in the timeline but I start with it because in the Introduction to The Story of Rock and Roll I use it to explain just how powerful great music can be and how it can transport you from terrible lows to incredible highs.…
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November Rain Guns ‘n Roses People, and rightly so, will hail Appetite For Destruction as one of the greatest Rock albums of all time. Personally I enjoyed the Use Your Illusion twins even more. Given what would happen to G ‘n’ R I am just so fucking grateful that they…
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The Road To Nowhere Ozzy Osbourne Without a doubt one of the strongest albums Ozzy has ever made. In my view largely as a result of Zakk Wylde. Once again Ozzy managed to find the best guitarist around. When Ozzy dumped jake E. lee I was a bit surprised. Jake…
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Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana Nirvana were impossible to ignore, one day they just arrived on our radio’s. It was like an alien spaceship had landed. One day they were not there and the next they were and the world would have to deal with it. With the release of…
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Alive Pearl Jam Pearl Jam were great, more than any other band at the time they symbolised the whole Seattle vibe and the type of kids who couldn’t identify with spandex and make-up and just wanted to get back to a more down-to-earth sound and play music. Just like Punk,…
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Rusty Cage Sound Garden Sound Garden put out some really good stuff, their sound started to morph into something other than grunge in the later albums and it started to become clear that Chris Cornell would have to do other stuff like solo albums and Audioslave. Badmotorfinger was actually their…
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Rooster Alice in Chains One of my favorite albums the Grunge years. Dust is simply put an absolutely perfect album in space and time. Just like Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, it would seem that Jerry Cantrell didn’t get the memo about no guitar solo’s in grunge. Dirt…
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Mama Tequila Circus of Power Circus of power was a Vas discovery, Vas and I were good mates and the details can all be found in The Story of Rock and Roll. He played me a tape by this band and it immediately went into the tape deck in my…
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Crazy Aerosmith Aerosmith are one of the USA’s true great rock bands, they have seen it all and done it all. I always kind of had them down in my head as the poor man’s Rolling Stones but that’s just me. There is no denying the success that they have…
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Refuse/Resist Sepultura Sepultura were awesome, like Machinehead they were building on that powerbase that had started with the success Pantera were having and they were one of a handful of really good bands that were also unsociably fucking heavy. Sepultura’s Beneath The Remains was a land mark release but it…
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Trigger Inside Therapy? Therapy? Released Troublegum in 1994 and it was a big album for them. It had a lot of hooks but it was seriously aggressive and had a guitar sound that was fantastic. I felt they lost their way after this and that really they were a one…
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Lightning Crashes Live Throwing Copper was a massive album. Live seemed to come out of nowhere and then there was this amazing album which started with an opening track where the band went on Tilt and then just became an absolute masterwork of well written songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANV_fEKbSzs&feature=emb_title The video is…
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Closer NIN Trent razor and Nine Inch Nails almost signify the mid 90’s in my mind. It was a strange period and it almost felt like everyone had run out of ideas. It just seemed like the same shit being repeated but not as good. NIN hit the scene and…
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Love Is Strong The Rolling Stones The Stones were back in 1994 with a stunning new album Voodoo Lounge. This was a real return to form and resulted in a massive worldwide tour. I was fortunate enough to have tickets to see them at Ellis Park on 24 Feb 1995. …
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Davidian Machinehead Machinehead were a serious kick up the arse for everyone. This band were really heavy and the debut album Burn My Eyes was a monster. I think Machinehead actually deserve a lot more success than they have had. Pound for pound they are one of the best Metal…
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A Tout Le Monde Megadeth I have nothing bad to say about Megadeth, they have consistently put out great music for the best part of 30 years. Youthanasia, which was released in 1994 carried on where Rust in peace and Symphony of Destruction had left off. These 3 are arguably…
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Jagged Little Pill Alanis Morissette Not my cup of tea but this song was a tour de force when it was released and was the catalyst for a whole lot of angry rocker type chicks. Alanis was clearly far too talented to be held back, once she got into the…
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Electric Head PT1 White Zombie Astrocreep 2000 White Zombie wasn’t the sort of band I would normally like because it was a bit, for want of a better word ”dance-y”. There was an undeniable power to it and once I got the album I really started to like it. Another…
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Some Might Say Oasis Brit Rock became the new big hope for the UK in the mid 90’s. Oasis basically tapped into that vein of sulky short haired rebellious UK youth and went for it. Definitely Maybe was a great album but What’s the Story was massive and went on…
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Horisontaal Valiant Swart This may seen out of place in the timeline but I start with it because in the Introduction to The Story of Rock and Roll I use it to explain just how powerful great music can be and how it can transport you from terrible lows to incredible highs.…
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Baby Murdered Me Springbok Nude Girls The Nudies were the best band in the country by a mile for a few years. We used to watch them at places like Mercury Live or the River Club and they were fantastic….. or they weren’t. It just depended on what happened on…
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Gasoline Seether Saron Gas came blasting out of Jo’burg in about May 1999 and it was quite obvious very quickly that they were way to big for South Africa. They played probably their last gig under the name Saron Gas at the Whammy Bar and as documented in The Story…
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Single 12th Avenue When I met 12th Avenue they were just a bunch of lighties playing at the Whammy bar and local bars in Tableview like Breakers and that pool bar that the Uninvited got shut down for being too loud in. Without doubt 12th Avenue were all about Mark…
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Reconciliation Day Koos Kombuis I first saw Koos at Wingerstok in about 1997, he played a blistering show with a full band and it was as energetic as it gets. He ran around with an SA flag as a cape and drank his bottle of Tassies. He took us through…
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Goeie Nag Generaal Piet Botha and Jackhammer This may seen out of place in the timeline but I start with it because in the Introduction to The Story of Rock and Roll I use it to explain just how powerful great music can be and how it can transport you from terrible…
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Tevrede Fokofpolisiekar The most influential band in South Africa is how I would describe Fokofpolisiekar. The impact they had on teenagers and specifically white Afrikaans teenagers is massive, as could be seen by the proliferation of copycat bands in the mid 2000’s . This is well documented in the Story…
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Safe As Houses Aking This came a bit later chronologically, as explained in The Story of Rock and Roll once we got into SA music in a big way we never stopped listening to it after that so anything coming out from Valiant onwards we would just snap up. Aking arose from…
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Moregloed Van Coke Kartel The other half of FPK started Van Coke Kartel and obviously I loved them from day one but I have to say that at the outset Aking were a more polished outfit with better songs. In typical Francois fashion he just grafted and grafted and through…
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Pinball Map In Flames In Flames are known to me and my friends as ”Johnny’s Gift”, you’ll have to read The Story of Rock and Roll to find out why but when I heard these guys I went seriously nuts. The earlier albums Whoracle and The Jester’s Race were so…
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Miss You, Hate You Joe Bonamassa Joe Bonamassa is a phenomenal guitarist, he has almost single handily put the blues back on the map. He has to one of the most prolific artists around today in terms of album releases. You can pretty much guarantee that Joe will give you…
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My Own Prison Creed Coming out in 1997 Creed got extremely popular very quickly. They were clearly a cut above everyone else and it was really down to song writing. When they broke up and turned into Alter Bridge with Myles Kennedy in the place of Scott Stapp they were…
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Monkey Wrench The Foo Fighters The Foo Fighters have become one of the greatest rock acts in the world. They have a load of haters for some reason but to they have just improved with every album. It is safe to say that when Nirvana died with Kurt no-one really…
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Sugar Stuart Sevastos / CC BY. System of a Down System of a Down are a very special band. Sometimes there is a chemistry between band members that makes them unique, bands like Queen, Rammstein and Van Halen have their own sound and its these bands that really drive the…
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Lit Up Buckcherry At the end of the 20th century there was a bit of a good time party rock is dead feel. The Nu Metal thing was starting to happen and all that shit was great but some of it was really depressing and miserable, like it had a…
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The Sickness Disturbed Metal had hit a bit of a low patch at the turn of the century, grunge killed off hair metal but then when grunge kind of ate itself there wasn’t really anything else to fill the gap. The old guard classic bands would always be putting out…
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Bodies Drowning Pool You could make a case for one hit wonder here. Drowning Pool were good but they weren’t ever going to reach the heights that the ‘A’ level classic metal bands were at. It was pretty clear to me that they were never going to be headlining or…
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Iowa Slipknot Suddenly the 21st century seemed to come alive and there was nothing like Slipknot to announce this metal renaissance. I’ll be honest here and say that I didn’t get it initially, it didn’t have the melody and the whole horror mask thing just seemed a bit gimmicky to…
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Feuerfrei Rammstein Rammstein will always be a big favourite of mine, they are just so different to everyone else. Somehow they manage to make it really heavy but still have all these weedy keyboard fills in there. Obviously it helps that you have a baritone Till Lindemann growling through everything…
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Get Inside Stone Sour Slipknot burst onto the scene in the early 2000’s and were widely considered a gimmick band by many. They managed to dispel this perception through hard work and endless live shows where their presence and showmanship moved them to another level. In early 2001 the name…
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Beast And The Harlot Avenged Sevenfold It’s weird how many haters this band have. I keep thinking that the guys who hate them must just not understand guitar at all. The twin leads of Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance are as good as any of the celebrated world class guitar…
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American Idiot Green Day I got Dookie when it came out but it wasn’t really big with anyone else I was hanging with. Green Day put out a couple of albums that were not as good and then they kinda disappeared. In 2004 they released American Idiot and I bought it immediately…
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Fall To Pieces Velvet Revolver Out of the collapse of Guns ‘n’ Roses briefly came Velvet Revolver. With both Slash, Duff and Matt in the band they put out a surpisingly good debut album. Replacing Axl was always going to be an impossible task but with the inclusion of Stone…
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My Apocalypse Arch Enemy Arch Enemy are a really great band, the first thing that floored most people was the fact that the inhuman gutteral death vocal was actually being done by a female vocalist. Angela Gossow reset the standard by which female metal vocalists would be measured in future. …
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The Mother Lode Mastodon I got into Mastodon in 2004 when they released their monstorpiece Leviathan. The album received critical acclaim with magazines like Kerrang and Metal Hammer punting it like cray. I was very impressed and it took a good number of listens to get it all in. A…
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The ’59 Sound The Gaslight Anthem The Gaslight Anthem are an incredible band, I explain how I found them in The Story of Rock and Roll but if you haven’t checked them out they are one of the best bands I have heard in the last 20 years. Sadly they…
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