Chula Vista

During the second half of the 60s there's were literally hundreds of bands that formed in the wake of The Beatles. Most of these never realized much success while still others did achieve minor fame and plodded along pretty nicely for a while.

But then there were those who soaked up everything that was going on from 67 on, got some good gigging experience, maybe released an album or two of decent, but unoriginal songs and then BAM! found their own unique niche and then expertly mined it for lots of gold.

I can't think of a better example of this than......


I've heard no better explanation for AC than from Alice himself:

"We realized that there were no villains in rock and roll. Everything was hippies, peace and love, and flower power. A lot of Peter Pans and no Captain Hook. I had the face for it, I had the look for it… and we were definitely not hippies."

While you were proud to talk openly about bands like Zeppelin and Grand Funk with your friends, it was a bit different with this album. And you definitely didn't turn up songs like Dead Babies when you were listening at home. This was scary and depraved stuff.

And I loved it!

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Moss

I went through a huge Alice Cooper phase. Love it.

Chula Vista

I was fortunate growing up near Boston. Because of the large number of surrounding colleges there were tons of young people who reached out to support the biggest FM station of that time - WBCN. They were truly one of the first AOR stations in the country and prided themselves on breaking new bands to the greater Boston area. Zeppelin gives tons of props to WBCN for helping them explode in New England since the station had been spinning LZ1 well before it was officially released. (Peter Wolf, lead singer of J. Geils was the nightime DJ at WBCN at that time).

So anyway, WBCN's signal finally found its way to our little town 50 miles north of Boston and every kid I knew would tune in at night to hear the next new rock band.

No-one knew at the time that "METAL" was lurking right around the corner...........



I'm shutting my trap now since it's all been said here a million times already. And there's no need to post any song clips. This one is part of everyone's DNA, whether they know it or not.

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Chula Vista

The hammond organ. Not sure who did it first but the sound of one of these plugged into an overdriven amp became the trademark of quite a few of the bands of this era. The first time I got into it was with this album which I got turned onto by one of my sister's guy friends. The other thing with Heep was the unique vocals which would later become a staple with a lot of the NWBHV bands that would surface towards the end of the 70s.

Heep's next two albums were their peak but this one came first for me. This is one of those that listening to it now it's easy to go "meh". But when it first hit the scene it was pretty damn groundbreaking.




The slide guitar on this blew my mind at the time! So freaking heavy.

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Unknown Soldier

Six albums in and all six are high up on my lists, I'm still waiting for an album that isn't on my list

btw how can you select two songs from Look at Yourself and not include "Shadows of Grief".

__________________
Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Chula Vista

At this point I'm pretty sure it ain't gonna happen.

Quick sidebar: In the late 70s my band Trilogy did a lot of gigs with another local band named Strider's Wrath. They had a hammond organ and a leslie. We'd always help each other with setup and breakdown.

That organ and rotating speaker are two of the heaviest (weight-wise) pieces of gear ever made!

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Plankton

^^^Hell Yeah!^^^

One of my favorite albums of all time. Every song on that album still stands strong today, and I've done my share of learning/forgetting, then relearning quite few of them. "Make It Last" gets a regular spot on my playlist rotations. Have you checked out his other solo stuff?

__________________
See location...

Chula Vista

Thanks for the tip. I'll check them out.

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Chula Vista

Led Zeppelin goes soft...........

The reviews for Zep's third album were even more brutal than what they'd gotten on the first two. The band had taken a break from the non-stop touring and spent time in the English countryside writing the songs for III around campfires. The result was a very diverse album that hinted at what was to come....



Soft? Uhm, OK.

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Isbjørn

III is the stuff, man. My favourite Zep album. Of those I've heard, anyway. That reminds me of how I should totally listen to more Led Zeppelin.

__________________