Monthly newsletter 2024
#5
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INTRODUCTION
Welcome to The Story of Rock and Roll 2024. This newsletter covers episodes S7E14 to S7E17. These shows are available on podcasts from this website and all major podcast sites. Quick links to all things TSORR are at the end of the newsletter. Please share the newsletter with anyone who may be interested.
A quick note on the podcast sites where you can find TSORR. It is becoming increasingly difficult for podcasts like TSORR Radio Shows to get listed on the main sites such as Spotify and YouTube Music. These sites are all about money whereas TSORR is all about the love of Rock music and is not a commercial operation. Unfortunately, these two collide so you may be struggling to find the podcast since Google ended their wonderful Google Podcast site and forced everyone on Google Podcast to the YouTube format.
The best place to access the podcasts if you can’t find them is at www.thestoryofrockandroll.com they are all available on the Latest Podcast Episode feed.
The other place where you will always find them is on Buzzsprout. https://www.buzzsprout.com/273305. You don’t need a profile to log in even if it asks for one you can simply click through.
HIGHLIGHTS
It was a busy month with plenty going on. In the New Releases section, you can read about the new Pearl Jam album called Dark Matter.
In other news Tanya O’Callaghan has joined Bruce Dickinson’s band for the live performances of the Mandrake Project. Bruce as always is taking on more than three people can do and is balancing a tour with Iron Maiden with his Mandrake Project Tour of which Tanya plays bass.
Bruce first worked with Tanya on the Jon Lord Concerto for Group and Orchestra in Sarajevo in 2023. We played a lot of tracks off The Mandrake Project on these podcasts.
THE DIABOLICAL CHALLENGE
The Diabolical Challenge features four albums from bands or artists starting with a particular letter of the alphabet. Imagine you are in a record store, a good old-fashioned bricks-and-mortar store like Hillbrow Records or Tower Records. You only have enough cash for one album, and you are going through the alphabetical bins. This month we looked in bins N to Q:
S7E14 = N – Nirvana, Night Ranger, Neil Young, Nazareth
S7E15 = O – Oasis, Ozzy Osbourne, Over Kill, and The Offspring
S7E16 = P – Pantera, Park Way Drive, Pearl Jam, and The Pretty Reckless
S7E17 = Q – Queen, Queensrÿche, Quiet Riot, and Q5
N
The tracks played were:
‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ (Nirvana), ‘(You Can Still) Rock in America’ (Night Ranger), ‘Just to Get Into It’ (Nazareth), and ‘Rockin’ In the Free World (Neil Young). Nirvana’s Nevermind is one of those albums that had a massive impact on the world. It introduced us to the phenomenon that became known as Grunge. Within a year most of the ‘80s hair metal bands had either lost their record contracts or were pivoting to make a Grunge album. Suddenly guitar solos were out thanks mainly to Kurt Cobain who was disparaging about this wonderful art form. Clearly, the guys in Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains didn’t get the memo. The short story for this Diabolical Challenge was that Nirvana was the popular choice.
O
The tracks played were:
‘Killboy Powerhead’ (The Offspring), ‘Lightening Strikes’ (Ozzy Osbourne), ‘Come Heavy’, (Over Kill), and ‘Hello’, (Oasis). For some listeners The Offspring’s Smash had the same impact on them as KISS Alive had on my generation so it got a lot of votes. There was a battle between Smash and (What’s the story) Morning Glory? and it ended up as a tie. Many told me that if I had put in a different Ozzy album, they would have gone for that
P
The tracks played were:
‘Becoming’ (Pantera), ‘My Medicine’ (The Pretty Reckless), ‘Rearviewmirror’ (Pearl Jam), and ‘Vice Grip’ (Parkway Drive). This Challenge was Pearl Jam all the way. No competition at all. I will however say that Pantera and Parkway Drive back-to-back sounded huge and blew the other two off the face of the earth in my view.
Q
The tracks played were:
‘Father to Son’ (Queen), ‘Empire’ (Queensrÿche), ‘Steel the Light’ (Q5), and ‘Metal Health’ (Quiet Riot). There were some interesting reactions to this challenge. It was widely acknowledged that the best album was Queensrÿche’s Empire but for many listeners, the memories associated with Quiet riot’s Metal Health won out. When Quiet Riot went to No 1 on the Billboard Chart displacing the Police’s Synchronicity, they changed everything for hard rock and metal. According to Dee Snider of Twister Sister,” Quiet Riot didn’t just break through. They didn’t just put a hole in the wall. They knocked the fucking wall down” (Beaujour & Bierstock: Nothin’ But a Good Time). Many of us remember getting that album in early 1984 and even more remember the impact QR made on MTV.
The other reaction came from people who see Queen II as their gateway into Rock and Metal in their pre-teen years. I count myself one of those. Queen II was like nothing I had ever heard back in 1974. To be clear, there was really good stuff out at the time, but I needed Queen II to make the eight year old me get off my arse and go looking for it.
THE IMMORTALS
The Immortals, featuring tracks over seven minutes long, started with Bruce Springsteen & the E- Street Band’s ‘Jungleland’ off the magnificent Born to Run. It’s the story of New Jersey streets, reminiscent of the 1984 movie Streets of Fire, and full of Jim Steinman type imagery. Springsteen’s track ‘Streets of Fire’ off Darkness on the Edge of Town was to be used in the film and Steinman stepped in when Springsteen withdrew so there is a link here. But back to Jungleland, the highlight is the Clarens Clemons solo which raises the song to Immortals level. Springsteen did not perform the song live for over a year after Claren’s death, it was just too emotional. The lyric has also been quoted by Stephen King in The Stand
The following week was the turn of Avenged Sevenfold with the title track from their seventh album The Stage. Avenged Sevenfold are headlining Download this year and having seen them at Rock Im Park in 2011 I can attest to how great they are live. I found their latest release Life is But a Dream unlistenable so hearing The Stage again was wonderful and took me back to what I love about the band. Note also that the album released in 2016 was a concept album dealing with Artificial Intelligence which seemed pretty far-out at the time. Look at us now!
On S7E16 we took a long overdue listen to ‘Blackbird’ the title track off Alter Bridge’s second album. It is a near-perfect track, building slowly and peaking with Mark Tremonti’s awesome solo. Myles Kennedy shines as always, and Tremonti’s solo has been voted one of the best guitar solos ever in various guitar magazines. ‘Blackbird’ is to this day still considered by many to be their best song.
The final Immortals for this newsletter was ‘Dry County’ off Bon Jovi’s Keep the Faith album. It is a special song and probably the highlight of the album. It was rated fourth in a Rolling Stone Readers poll behind ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’, ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’, and ‘Runaway’. It builds perfectly and captures the desperation of the times of an oil town that runs dry.
NEW RELEASES & NEW DISCOVERIES & SAD GOODBYES
Dark Matters the new album from Pearl Jam is out and it’s a very good. I rate it the best thing they have done in years. Their best effort was their debut, and each album has been not quite as good as the one preceding it. In fairness, Ten was one of the most groundbreaking albums ever. It ushered in a whole new genre in the form of Grunge which had an impact last felt by the arrival of Punk Rock in 1977. These early Pearl Jam albums were phenomenal and set an impossibly high bar for the band. So, I think Pearl Jam are one of the few bands who have consistently put out weaker and weaker albums and I believe they have bucked the trend this time round.
SOUTH AFRICAN SCENE
I got the chance to play the brand-new track by Chaos Doctrine on the show just before the official release on the Friday morning. It is brutal, Chaos Doctrine are one of the heaviest bands in the world. I played this track shortly after Pantera, Parkway Drive and the new Kerry King, and it is heavier than all of them. If you dig your metal heavy rather than hard then Chaos Doctrine are your band. The new album, Bellum, is now out in all its glory. This is world-class metal people, check it out.
Speaking of Kerry King, we got two tracks from his forthcoming release titled From Hell I Rise. It is a huge welcome back to a founding member of Slayer. Kerry is metal royalty, one of those “Love ‘em or hate ‘em, but you can’t ignore ‘em” characters, so any new output is most welcome.
Even better news is that Slayer will be performing at Louder Than Life Festival in Sept 2024 along with Slipknot, Disturbed, Five Finger Death Punch, and the mighty Judas Priest, (who should be the headliner in my humble opinion). Mötley Crüe and Korn are there as well, it should be a serious jol. Note that Slipknot have announced that their new drummer is Eloy Casagrande, drummers will, excuse the pun, know the impact of that announcement.
CHEERS @#$%’s
The shows discussed in this month’s newsletter can be heard as podcasts S7E10 – S7E13. Feel free to drop me a message on The Story of Rock and Roll Facebook page or via email at thestoryofrockandroll1@gmail.com. If you want to be added to TSORR Central WhatsApp Group, send me your number on this email address and I will send you an invite link.
For those of you who are new to TSORR here are the quick references to find The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show:
THURSDAY’s Live on Rebel Rock Radio from 19h00 – 22h00 South African time. www.rrr.cat
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Take care and keep rocking.
James