Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives

Message board

* FAQ    * Register   * Login 



Reply to topic
Author Message Previous topic | Next topic
LegendMaker
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 11:24 am
Posts: 1872
Location: France
PostPosted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 12:27 pm 
 

Most metalheads looked up metal's origins at one point or another, even as a brief check. We're all at least somewhat familiar with the cliff notes of (Led Zeppelin ->) Black Sabbath -> (Deep Purple ->) Judas Priest -> (Motörhead ->) Iron Maiden. And the idea that it started somewhere around the late 60s and early 70s but really took off in the late 70s and early 80s.

For many of us, this was never enough and more and more digging and theories ensued over the years, like some side quest to our love for metal and our drive to uncover the whole (hi)story of it. This is something that comes up periodically in discussion threads, but it always stops relatively quick after the big names and a few lesser known acts have been mentioned and compared. I don't think there's one big definitive "answer", and that quest will never be fully completed. And looking at this period of early formation and evolution too strictly can be counterproductive. At the end of the day, I'm neither expecting to establish once and for all who invented what nor am I as interested in that than I am in discovering more relevant bands and material of that period.

That's why I think an open-ended recommendation thread where we can share, discuss, and help each other find more pieces of the puzzle or maybe see known ones in a slightly different light makes a lot more sense to scratch that itch than an nth discussion thread on this broad topic that wouldn't last. On the plus side, this would be a centralized and ongoing thread for anyone interested or even just a bit more curious than usual for metal's (pre-)history and infancy. I'm looking forward to that, and I hope many of you will join in on this never-ending quest and have fun contributing.

It seems obvious given the context, but please don't limit yourselves to stuff that is or isn't "on the archives"; in fact it's best to leave this bias at the door. Apart from a few borderline bands that were specifically included on MA because of their influence (Deep Purple, Rush, Rainbow...), most bands get included in the Metal Archives once they already have at least one predominantly metal release according to the admins and mods. The purpose of this thread is to focus largely on the era before "a metal album" was really a thing (for the times), up to the time it started being one. Furthermore, knowing for instance that Thin Lizzy is "on the archives" or that Led Zeppelin is "not on the archives" can easily favor biases we'd rather avoid to really look at everything that was happening in the music world from the mid/late 60s to the mid 70s that in many different ways and to various degrees helped shape the genre we all know and love.

I'm open to any and all recommendations, here. Better to bring up something you're not 100% sure is relevant than to be too picky, as any additional element might be worth knowing, at least for some of us. For me specifically, I prefer to hear for myself, and I ran out of good "leads" on my own, so I'll be appreciative of anything someone brings to the table. We shouldn't avoid the big names either, though I don't doubt they'll come up naturally.

To jump-start this, I'd like to share a related question I've been asking myself for a while now. What's the deal with the first half of the 70s? Am I simply missing huge chunks of history from that period (which I hope and would be awesome to explore)? Or is my current impression founded that, after many acts had been toying with the notions of hard and heavy around 68-71, once it was "done", the novelty and competition around the idea lost its hype and most bands moved on to other things?

While Sabbath was doing most of its seminal 70-75 run, it seems that almost no one else was taking a similar or convergent path, aside Budgie, until the big 1976 explosion (and the few signs leading up to it the year prior). What am I missing and/or what can explain this big gap?

Which band(s) other than Sabbath or Budgie were doing mostly "heavy metal" (for the times) between say, 'Satori' and 'Rising'?
_________________
Osore wrote:
I would like to hear some recommendations of black metal bands/albums that sound depressive, yet sad and melancholic at the same time.

Top
 Profile  
peterott
Metalhead

Joined: Sun May 02, 2004 4:34 pm
Posts: 1310
Location: Germany
PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 7:15 am 
 

Have you checked this thread?
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=113986
_________________
Tradelist: www.metal-archives.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=10942
=> also MORE good traders noted there. Latest ones: 666Cadillac666 / Vampallens / lordrul

Top
 Profile  
DoomMetalAlchemist
Veteran

Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2010 6:10 am
Posts: 2858
PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:38 am 
 

Thanks for posting this thread LM!

One awesome proto-metal band I discovered recently is Orang-Utan from the UK who released their self titled (and only) album in 1971. Just this year it got it's first ever OFFICIAL CD release! The label that released it also reissued the vinyl this year too (as well as previously in 2014). The label is "Sommor" from Spain.

Speaking of reissues I am late to the party, but in 2020 Sir Lord's Baltimore's entire discography got reissued in a 3 CD box set, called "Complete Recordings 1970-2006." I believe this release is legit, but I am not ABSOLUTELY certain.

Top
 Profile  
LegendMaker
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 11:24 am
Posts: 1872
Location: France
PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 1:04 pm 
 

peterott wrote:
Have you checked this thread?
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=113986

No, but I will now. It looks like there were a lot of links posted back then, so thanks for that. Seeing that this dates back to 2016 and it lasted two pages before fading away, this is also a good illustration of why I think this topic is best suited for Recommendations rather than Metal Discussions.

DoomMetalAlchemist wrote:
Thanks for posting this thread LM!

One awesome proto-metal band I discovered recently is Orang-Utan from the UK who released their self titled (and only) album in 1971. Just this year it got it's first ever OFFICIAL CD release! The label that released it also reissued the vinyl this year too (as well as previously in 2014). The label is "Sommor" from Spain.

Thank you for joining in!

Never heard of this band, I'm definitely going to look it up.

I'm familiar with the two early 70s albums by Sir Lord Baltimore, but I had no idea more material had come out in 2006. Judging by the MA page, it's a very obscure release. Good to know it might be more available now.
_________________
Osore wrote:
I would like to hear some recommendations of black metal bands/albums that sound depressive, yet sad and melancholic at the same time.

Top
 Profile  
Ill-Starred Son
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 8:10 pm
Posts: 1420
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2022 8:20 pm 
 

I love this kind of stuff, and I've spent a lot of time on and off over the years researching it.

I just got back into a phase relating to this kind of stuff and just ordered albums by: Night Sun, Horse, Buffalo, Toad, Socrates Drank the Conium, Randy Holden and Bolder Damn.

@ LegendMaker: Although I'm lazy about looking up dates right now and don't remember them all by heart, from my memory by no means was there any real lack of heavy rock/proto-metal bands from the period between 1970--1975.

Just a few examples would be: Icecross, Jerusalem, Pinnacle, Iron Claw, The Flying Hat Band (had Glenn Tipton of Judas Priest), Night Sun, Toad, Buffalo, Socrates Drank the Conium, Bolder Damn, Atomic Rooster, Bloodrock (despite being a piece of shit, Bobby Liebling wrote all his early stuff with Pentagram and other bands like Bedemon during those years, though most wasn't released till later) Horse, Randy Holden, Necromandus, Monument, Zior, Lucifer Was, Lucifer's Friend, Captain Beyond, and a whole bunch of others whose names escape me right now.

All of those bands released albums between 70-75 I believe, though you did specify Flower Travellin Band's Satori, which was released in 71, so that would narrow things down more if we were talking 72-75, but still, there were a number of heavy rock/proto-metal albums released during those years, it's just that many of them were very obscure and didn't get much recognition.

Honestly, this thread makes me wonder what Metal Mike Saudner's metal radio station was like, which I believe he started running out of the college he went to in 1971. He played in the Angry Samoans and is actually credited as having been the 1st (even before Lester Bangs, who used the term ironically, whereas Saunders was serious) to coin the term "Heavy Metal" when writing about Humble Pie in Creem magazine in 1970, and then used the term again for Sir Lord Baltimore in 1971.

Bangs didn't actually like metal music but Saunders did, and I believe he's the true one to coin the term from what I've read.

I've often thought that if I had a time machine I'd like to be a fly on the wall in Metal Mike Saunder's radio station in the early 70s. I mean imagine being there for the very first metal radio station and getting to hear the birth of metal. I'm quite curious as to a lot of what he played and what bands he may have considered metal that we might not think of these days.


Last edited by Ill-Starred Son on Wed Jun 22, 2022 9:15 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Top
 Profile  
Ill-Starred Son
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 8:10 pm
Posts: 1420
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2022 8:37 pm 
 

@LegendMaker: what would some of the first bands be that you consider to have ushered in the "1976 explosion" that you mentioned (other than obvious bands like Rainbow or KISS)?

While I know a fair amount of 70s rock and metal, I have to admit I'm not entirely familiar with what bands started around that time. Obviously 78 was the beginning of the NWOBHM, but that's not what you're talking about. I'm sure I know many of the bands you're talking about but just never thought of them as part of an "explosion" as you referred to it.

Top
 Profile  
LegendMaker
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 11:24 am
Posts: 1872
Location: France
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2022 10:29 pm 
 

@Ill-Starred Son: Thanks a lot for your input! Most of the bands you mentioned don't actually ring a bell, so that's pretty exciting. Those who do are mostly from the very early 68-71 phase, yeah. My general impression is that everybody and their cousin were trying to outdo each other in terms of distortion and heaviness (with most other criteria still way up in the air) around the time Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple Mk II, Uriah Heep were starting out, but then most of these bands largely lost interest in that. As if the race had been fun, but it was over and while Sabbath carried on and made its seminal run, it almost seems like the bulk of their early competitors just let them have this as their sound, and touched it either much more sparingly or left it behind altogether.

There were a few newer bands who already started out directly influenced by the initial quest for heavy metal participants, and primarily by Sabbath, but I can't really find much in terms of bands going in a similar direction as both their main sound and differentiating themselves from Sabbath until Sabbath themselves moved away from the sound for a time, and then all of a sudden boom! Thin Lizzy quits vaguely hard rock-ish folk music and puts out 'Jailbreak' (there was a transition, with 'Fighting' and even 'Nightlife' to a lesser extent, but damn). Scorpions, Judas Priest, Rainbow, Rush, Heep to an extent, all release much more refined and unapologetic hard n heavy stuff with tons of new ideas and passion, between late 75 and all of 76. And it was a more or less simultaneous move, as most of them were previously in a more classic rock direction, some with progressive, hard rock and even metal elements, but nothing like they turned right after Sabbath was done with their seminal run.

It's very possible that I'm simply drawing conclusions from an apparent gap that only stems from my missing a lot of pieces from that specific part of the 70s. Again, I'm going to track down all the bands I'm unfamiliar with that you've mentioned, and looking forward to discovering more!

I gave a good first listen to the Orang-Utan album. Pretty cool for the time. It's uncanny how much their dual lead guitarists sound exactly like Tony Iommi did on a number of cuts from the first few Sabbath albums, when he overdubbed himself doing solo over solo over solo.

From the 2016 thread linked to earlier, I've explored Clear Light in particular, which I didn't know about at all and I went down a bit of a rabbit-hole with that proto-doom song on their one and only album from 67. It says a lot of how close some of these acid/psychedelic rock bands were from metal even earlier than McCartney's "Helter Skelter", Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" and so on. What's fascinating is that these were accepted elements of their sound, but only here and there, even more sporadically than Uriah Heep or Deep Purple (aside from 'In Rock') would be. And it made me wonder again about all the things that were different in how people approached and consumed music back then, and how records were made and released.

The whole "there's a UK version and a US version", and the singles aren't on the albums, and it's perfectly fine to make mostly covers or songs provided by external songwriters and still be a distinct and legit band. That "Street Singer" track was written by a couple of folk singer songwriters, one of whom recorded a radically different strictly pop-folk version on his own one and only album in 68, a year after giving it to Clear Light. They made it so different that apart from the lyrics and overall sadness of the main chord progression, it's hard to even recognize the two versions as the same song. And on the same album (and a few months apart from The Doors' freaking debut, and on the same label and produced by The Doors' manager), they make multiple Doors-like songs, and lots of eclectic stuff that sound like it's almost a different band from one song to the next. It's really hard to grasp from our perspective. But the idea of an album as one thing that you simply release in the same form in every country, as an artistic endeavor in its own right, didn't really gel with record companies, and I imagine bands and the audience alike, until the end of the 70s. I mean, even AC/DC didn't make a real album that's the same with the same tracklist and artwork until as late as 'Highway to Hell' in 79.

Anyway, I'm rambling a bit but it's super nice to have more of you guys join in and I'm really excited to explore and share more of this era.
_________________
Osore wrote:
I would like to hear some recommendations of black metal bands/albums that sound depressive, yet sad and melancholic at the same time.

Top
 Profile  
Ill-Starred Son
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 8:10 pm
Posts: 1420
Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:33 pm 
 

@LegendMaker

I have actually never heard of Clear Light or Orang-Utan before so I need to check them out. And when you mentioned "Deep Purple Mk II", was "Mk II" a Deep Purple album I haven't heard of or a band?

Also, what other bands are you talking about that released really heavy material before 1970 in the late 60s?

Because in all my searching I've found only a select few bands that have, and in most cases it wasn't an entire album that was heavy but only a song or two.

There were so many bands in the 70s and some in the late 60s that would have a metal sound on a track or two but the rest of the album was tame by comparison, and also, while there was a lot of heavy stuff, a lot of it wasn't actually "DARK" like Sabbath or "Doomy". Finding early stuff that was actually as dark and heavy as Sabbath is quite difficult.

But the best place to start for me for stuff like that, and really obscure stuff too, is the "Downer Rock Genocide Compilation."

I'll provide a link, but man, one of the best comps I've ever heard and really all about the darkest heaviest most obscure bands of those years.

Another band to take note of it you want really heavy early dark stuff is Bloodrock, especially their song D.O.A. off their 2nd album from 1971. Really eerie song about a plane crash that King Diamond said influenced him in an interview I read years ago.

The interesting thing is that it just wasn't possible to get all that heavy before around 1966, and I tend to wonder whether or not some kind of guitar effects peddle or something of the nature was created around the time, because you simply can't find anything from say, 1962, that is heavy the way stuff got to be around 1970, or even 1967. There were also some very heavy dark psych bands, some that were one hit wonders and others that had great full length releases, who did stuff that, while not exactly proto-metal, could be thought of as equally tripped out and dark.

I'm talking stuff like The Calico Wall's 1966 song "I'm a Living Sickness", The Electric Prunes 1966 song "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night" (too bad the rest of the album is weak by comparison) Hunger's "Strictly From Hunger" 1966 (or might have been 67) album which was AMAZING, dark, trippy and heavy, The Fly-Bi Nites 67 song "Found Love" also has a nice dark trippy feel to it, and the obvious stuff like Strawberry Alarm Clock's Incense and Peppermints, but there were others as well.

One other band to check out is THE ORIGINAL Iron Maiden and their only album "Maiden Voyage" from 1970. That they aren't on this site is a crime and I'd go through the whole process of trying to get them admitted but I've never done that before and don't know what's involved so maybe at some point I'll do it.

They formed under the name "BUM" in 1966, changed their name to Iron Maiden in 1968 and released their only album and then broke up in 1970, but man what an album. They even referred to themselves as "doom metal" in an interview in the early 2000s and the guys are well aware of what they were doing.

There were far more bands out there than can even be mentioned, and so many I still haven't heard but many I've heard about.

Check out this compilation and let me know what you think: https://youtu.be/M4A07vUZO8I

Top
 Profile  
LegendMaker
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 11:24 am
Posts: 1872
Location: France
PostPosted: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:28 pm 
 

Wow, even more stuff to check! Thanks a ton, man. This will take a little while to go through and digest, but that's super interesting. And as I said in the OP, don't hesitate to mention anything regardless of whether you think it's too obvious (or might not be heavy or relevant enough). We all have different bits of info and references, I'm sure, and some stuff obvious to you might be unknown to me and so on. Case in point: you say "the obvious stuff like Strawberry Alarm Clock's Incense and Peppermints" yet I've never heard of this band, let alone song. ^^

Mk II (Mark II) is just the way to specify the classic Deep Purple line-up which started in 1970, with Ian Gillan and Roger Glover. No other band I'm aware of ever did that, but Purple specifically have a whole nomenclature to identify each of their various line-ups over the decades. Deep Purple Mark II is the most relevant, successful and important I think in general and for this topic in particular, but Mk III or IV or whichever is the one with David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes who made "Buuuuuuurn" in 74 is well worth checking as well.

Well, before 1970, it was almost always just a song or two or a few at most. That's basically the big "finishing line" I'm referring to in what I describe as a "race" or a "quest" for heavy metal until actual full-blown, mostly cohesive albums started coming out in 70-71. Before that, no one was making it their main sound, even those who were hyped by some of the press at the time for being the "heaviest, loudest, wildest" ever, like The Who (insane as it may seem looking back now ^^). So for one of the most obvious examples (to me at least), The Beatles were obviously never even a really hard rock band, but they had many hard rock songs, psychedelic songs, and even a few really influential proto-metal songs, most notably "Helter Skelter" and the angrier and faster version of "Revolution" (both from 68), as well as "I Want You (She's so Heavy)", and parts of "Oh, Darling" (69). Hendrix was mostly chill but he (and his awesome original rhythm section) did play around with a number of ideas, sounds and ways to play that would have a significant influence as well (most notably on "Foxy Lady" for guitar work, "Highway Chile" for bass, "Fire" for drums, and "Purple Haze" for the whole package, basically). Led Zeppelin's first four (especially II and IV) definitely broke new grounds and established the new gold standard for hard rock from then on, while also contributing to proto-metal's development more directly (besides the production values and loud as hell for the time sound) arguably across their first three, with a few key songs like "Communication Breakdown", "How Many More Times", "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" (I), "Heartbreaker", "Bring it on Home" (II), and "Immigrant Song" (III). The first Stooges album made quite a mark for sound and aggressive, amateur-sounding approach in general, but nothing else on it compares to the ominous as fuck "I Wanna be Your Dog" from that. Stuff like High Tide's debut has loads of metal moments for 69, especially on the overlong yet somewhat mesmerizing instrumental "Death Warmed Up", although it was almost incidental to them and not what they were going for at all. And so on.

And yes, gear limitations, custom-made or otherwise modified guitars, amps etc. were a very big factor throughout the 60s. Hard rock arguably only really started being a thing beyond the punchier cuts of The Rolling Stones and others when and because Ray Davies of The Kinks started slashing parts of his amp cabinet with razor blades to get an unprecedented amount of distortion circa 64-65 and then unleashed riffs like "You Really Got Me" and "All Day And All of the Night" on the music world. Even The Beatles, as insanely popular, successful and rich as they were by the mid-60s, and willing to experiment along with George Martin, had to go through all kinds of workarounds to bypass or transcend studio limitations of their time. They started out when the norm was recording everything on 4-track tapes and in freaking mono. Every step of the way from there to what would eventually become the new norm by the late 60s and early 70s was an uphill battle, for them and even more so for less supported and wealthy bands. The first time they got to record in stereo was kind of like when 3D became a possibility for video games, including the initial "well, that's neat but how the fuck should we use this thing?" stage and all its trial and error (including tons of early stereo Beatles recordings that literally have the lead singer and say, guitars entirely on the left, drums bass and piano entirely on the right, and just some backing vocals daring to blur the line, which is awkward as hell looking back ^^). Bands jumped through hoops to get the privilege to record on 8-track for the first time, even when neither they nor the engineers really knew how to make use of all that extra space. Among many others, Tony Iommi was told by his endorsing brands multiple times that such and such type of strings, or necks, or amps he requested "couldn't be made", only to McGyver prototypes for himself and then eventually get the brands to make real versions.

That's equal parts baffling and inspiring, in retrospect. Especially in this day and age where there was never as many possible variations as readily and easily accessible for anything and everything, and yet most records sound the fucking same (and often too loud, too clinical and too well, "fake" in a way). Back then, you couldn't sound like X even if you were even aware of X, because you needed access to their weird-ass unique gear and record in the same bathroom with the same crazy microphone set-up for that. And you were too busy sounding unique just because of your own unique gear limitations yourself anyway. ^^
_________________
Osore wrote:
I would like to hear some recommendations of black metal bands/albums that sound depressive, yet sad and melancholic at the same time.

Top
 Profile  
DoomMetalAlchemist
Veteran

Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2010 6:10 am
Posts: 2858
PostPosted: Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:43 pm 
 

LM is right about the Kinks and Davies slashing his amp to get the heavy distorted sound, but another factor was the fuzz pedal which debuted in the 60s and became popular. Hendrix among others were known to make use of the fuzz pedal to sound heavier. The fuzz pedal was the very first kind of distortion guitar pedal.

Top
 Profile  
Ill-Starred Son
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2011 8:10 pm
Posts: 1420
Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Jun 23, 2022 9:35 pm 
 

@LegendMaker:

Good stuff. Yeah, I knew a fair amount of that already, but your recap was good.

I went on youtube and listened to Clear Light and Orang-Utan and liked them enough that I ordered copies of both their debut albums: Clear Light on vinyl and Orang-Utan on cd.

That Clear Light album had one song in particular around the 6:00 mark that really did sound very proto-metal, especially for 1967.

Other bands to mention are Coven's "Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls" from 1969 (not entirely a metal album, but the first track, interestingly titled "Black Sabbath" was IMO) and Iron Butterfly's first album "Heavy" which IMO was much better than Inna-Gada-Davida, especially the songs "Unconscious Power" and "Possession" which were very proto-metallish IMO.

Top
 Profile  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Reply to topic


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 19 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

 
Jump to:  

Back to the Encyclopaedia Metallum


Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group