CHAPTER 11

SHOWING ALL 12 RESULTS

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 car and stayed there for about 3 months.  That is probably a record.

Circus of Power were very successful in bringing in that whole swampy Southern style slide guitar into heavy rock. It’s very common at the moment with bands like Black Stone Cherry leading the way but at the time they managed to pull in that Skynryd type Southern guitar smack into some serious blues metal and it sounded fantastic.
JAMES DAUBENEY
Aerosmith

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 had.  After a lengthy patch of pretty crap albums and then a long break they shot back to stardom with the release of Permanent Vacation in 1987 which they followed up with the massively successful Pump and Get a Grip.

Freshly cleaned up, drug and alcohol free Aerosmith leap into the video age and put out some absolutely brilliant cutting edge stuff incorporating concepts like virtual reality and computer gaming with cornfields and tractors and busting out of class, it was highly entertaining stuff. They probably launched the career of Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler with these video’s that they put out in support of the multiplatinum Get a Grip album. The band were on a roll again and it was good to have them around.
JAMES DAUBENEY

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 was clearly built around an international sound and the Cavellera brothers childhood influences of Motorhead, Priest, Sabbath, Zeppelin etc., basically the influences everyone had.  It was only on the release of the absolutely brilliant Arise that they started to chart their own unique course.  They followed Arise with Chaos A.D. and then Roots.  Each album built on the one before and bought in new dimensions of sound and song writing.  Being a Brazilian band they had a whole treasure trove of indigenous cultural music to draw from and it was showcased on Roots which was released in 1996.  Unfortunately that was the same time Max left the band and I always felt they lost their way a bit after that.

This is a great video, it just shows how big this band are n their home country. Imagine a SA metal band getting this level of support, sadly it would never happen. Metal is a cultural phenomenon it doesn’t matter who you are or your racial background if you get it then you are part of the clan and you are metal for life. watching these scenes of rioting and state crackdowns it always makes me wonder why this kind of music has never come out of places like Tembisa or Diepsloot or Alexandria. God knows there is enough pain and suffering to be able to channel into something liberating like Sepultura.
JAMES DAUBENEY
Therapy?

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 album wonder.  Whatever your views about that the fact remains that Troublegum is a classic album.

Not a great video but it gets the idea across, the best thing to do if you like the song is to listen to Troublegum in it’s entirety at extremely high volume. Therapy? Lost their way despite massive support both critically and from other bands they didn’t live up to expectations and I was a bit disappointed because from where they got to with Troublegum they should have been huge. They were even opening for Metallica FFS !
JAMES DAUBENEY
Live

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

The video is a bit of a shocker when Adam Duritz comes on, couldn’t believe the size of him 🙂 . I have seen Live a few times and the Secret Samadi Tour was one of my best live gigs ever. I am sorry they broke up.
JAMES DAUBENEY

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 brought in this really technically competent use of computers, drum loops and production effects and mixed it with a huge dose of sick fuck misery.  For a while it just seemed that whatever Reznor touched would turn to gold and together with producer Flood it seemed like everyone wanted to work with them.  They were hugely influential and a whole raft of Industrial Metal bands hit their stride riding on the back of the success NIN were having.

This is horrible, I struggle to watch it. A friend once said that she like 30% of what NIN release 100%. I would agree with that and this song is a classic. The video however is a struggle for me to watch. Trent is strange dude but I absolutely love what he did for Marilyn Manson and sometimes you need all that angsty misery in your life. Well maybe you don’t
JAMES DAUBENEY

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.  It was one of the best shows I have ever seen and there is nothing to beat a malevolent looking Mick Jagger in his top hat and shades swaying and strutting to Sympathy For The Devil.  When he sings ”Please allow me to introduce myself” the fucking place went nuts.  Being part of a crowd of 85 000 fans and witnessing that was and still is one of my favourite Rock and Roll memories.

As usual the Stones pulled off something cutting edge in support of their new album, the video for Love is Strong is a classic. Shot in black and white and using two contrasting camera scales it is really cool to watch. The best part is the way they interspersed the Stones with the other supermodels in the clip. A wasted looking Ronny Wood swaying and strutting with his guitar slung low is exactly what the Stones are all about. Keith with a Tele and Ronnie with a Strat, Charlie drumming on factory storage tanks it’s a very, very cool video. The Stones are to this day probably the most influential band when it comes to how rock stars are supposed to look.
JAMES DAUBENEY

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 bands around in the last 20 years.  It’s seriously heavy but still retains that riffing rock melody that stops it just becoming an atonal mess.  The bottom line is that the songs are good, very fucking good.

Davidian is based on the story of David Koresh and the Branch Davidian cult that holed up in Waco and got the shit shot out of themselves for their troubles. It’s a great track and like all classic metal anthems it has that killer hook that causes 20 000 headbangers to scream back at you live ”Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast” \m/
JAMES DAUBENEY
Megadeth

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 Dave’s finest work and it is the second last album featuring what is widely regarded as their best line-up: Mustaine, Freidman, Ellefson, Menza.

One of the best Megadeth songs written. Before there was Google or even Google Translate I asked an aging work colleague who had studied some French what it meant. He said it meant ”To all my friends, to everyone, I have to go, goodbye”. Ron was pretty close apparently it means ”To everyone, to all my friends, I love you all, I have to go”
JAMES DAUBENEY

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 public eye she became a big star very quickly.

This is a classic, gotta love this. It is not representative of the rest of the album so for me Alanis is a one hit wonder.
JAMES DAUBENEY

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 big draw card was Rob Zombie himself who turns out to be a very smart dude.  If you need proof watch the interviews with him on the brilliant DVD Metal: A Headbangers Journey.

There are a lot of White Zombie vid clips to choose from, this one is here for one reason…. Sean Yseult,
JAMES DAUBENEY

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 to sell over 22 million copies worldwide, it went Platinum all over the world and sold 4.8 million copies in the US alone.

There was a lot of stupid shit in the UK press at the time, Oasis vs. Blur, and a lot of perceived competitiveness between the two bands. Personally I dont know how you could even compare the two bands but really its all about selling newspapers and records so the press clearly wanted to try and stoke up a Beatles vs. Stones type rivalry. The bottom line is that Oasis were a good band and this was a fantastic album.
JAMES DAUBENEY