ace of spades

Motörhead bit the bullet and pushed up the ante to bring the hammer down in this fast and loose rock and roll conflagration.  The trio had established themselves at the forefront of the new wave of heavy metal in the UK with their high octane sound.  Bassist and founder Lemmy Kilmister had been ousted from Hawkwind and wanted to "concentrate on very basic music: loud, fast, city, raucous, arrogant, paranoid, speedfreak rock n roll ... it will be so loud that if we move in next door to you, your lawn will die."

Their first album On Parole  was recorded in 1976 for United Artists, but not released until 1979 because the label thought it would not sell.  Motörhead came out in 1977 on Chiswick.  In 1979, they moved to Bronze Records to record Overkill and Bomber with producer Jimmy Miller.  

For 'Ace Of Spades' they worked with Vic Maile at Jackson's Studios in Rickmansworth, England.    The sessions lasted just over a month and featured  Lemmy Kilmister on bass and lead vocals;   "Fast" Eddie Clarke on guitar, backing vocals on "Emergency";  and  Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor on drums.   Maile's soft-spoken approach defused the band's typically wild studio behavior and helped to create a sleeker sound.  

Taylor: "Even if he was angry, [Vic] was angry like this: (assumes soft-spoken tone) 'You're not supposed to do it like that', or 'Stop that boys' ...He got me playing more solid"

Clarke:  "[Vic] didn't drink, he didn't smoke, and he was very delicate because he was diabetic. He had to have his Ryvita at six o'clock. We couldn't get heavy with him, couldn't fucking shake him, you know what I mean? He might die! So we had to listen to him...We only thought of ourselves as a good time rock 'n' roll band, really...But we weren't trying to get a message across, apart from have a good time, you know: get pissed, get stoned, and fuck a chick. And that'll do...[On 'Ace of Spades' you can finally hear everything that's going on."


Kilmister:    "He used to own a mobile studio — Hawkwind hired it out to do Space Ritual and he came with it...Vic was a great man and a great producer, really brilliant...Those were good times; we were winning, we were younger, and we believed it...Vic was great. He was the first one who told us we were all cunts and work harder. He had a very dry personae: 'Is that really the best shot you've got?'...Vic got me singing instead of just shouting all the time"

'Ace Of Spades' went to number four in the UK and helped to break the band around the world.  It became an influential cornerstone in the development of thrash metal.  





http://imotorhead.com/



lyrics:
http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/motorhead/aceofspades.html




"Ace of Spades" 
Lemmy says:  "I used gambling metaphors, mostly cards and dice — when it comes to that sort of thing, I'm more into the slot machines actually, but you can't really sing about spinning fruit, and the wheels coming down. Most of the song's just poker, really: 'I know you've got to see me read 'em and weep, Dead man's hand again, aces and eights' — that was Wild Bill Hickock's hand when he got shot. To be honest, although Ace of Spades is a good song, I'm sick to death of it now. Two decades on, when people think of Motörhead, they think Ace of Spades. We didn't become fossilized after that record, you know. We've had quite a few good releases since then. But the fans want to hear it so we still play it every night. For myself, I've had enough of that song."



If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man,
You win some, lose some, all the same to me,
The pleasure is to play, makes no difference what you say,
I don't share your greed, the only card I need is
The Ace Of Spades

Playing for the high one, dancing with the devil,
Going with the flow, it's all the game to me,
Seven or Eleven, snake eyes watching you,
Double up or quit, double stake or split,
The Ace Of Spades

You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools,
But that's the way I like it baby,
I don't wanna live for ever,
And don't forget the joker!

Pushing up the ante, I know you wanna see me,
Read 'em and weep, the dead man's hand again,
I see it in your eyes, take one look and die,
The only thing you see, you know it's gonna be,
The Ace Of Spades







'Ace Of Spades'
full album:





All tracks composed by Ian Kilmister, Phil Taylor, Eddie Clarke

side one
1. Ace of Spades 
2. Love Me Like a Reptile 2:48
3. Shoot You in the Back 6:12
4. Live to Win 8:50
5. Fast and Loose 12:30
6. (We Are) The Road Crew 15:52
side two
7. Fire Fire 19:03
8. Jailbait 21:49
9. Dance 25:22
10. Bite the Bullet 28:00
11. The Chase Is Better Than the Catch 29:40
12. The Hammer 33:57
bonus 
13. Dirty Love 36:45
14. Please Don't Touch 39:41
15. Emergency 42:31

paranoid

Black Sabbath looked into the abyss to satisfy their iron vengence and pacify the poison of porcine paranoia with the dark hand of doom.   With the success of their eponymous debut the band went back into the studio only four months after it had been released.   The sessions were produced by Rodger Bain with engineers Brian Humphries and Tom Allom at Regent Sound Studios and Island Studios in London with  Tony Iommi on guitar and flute;   Geezer Butler on bass guitar;   Ozzy Osbourne on vocals;   and   Bill Ward on drums and congas;    with   Tom Allom adding piano on "Planet Caravan".  The working title for the album was 'War Pigs'.  

Iommi:  “I think the reason this record turned out so well was that we had a long time to work out all the material. We were playing seven 45-minute sets each day in a dusty old club in Switzerland, in front of anywhere from three to two dozen people...Rehearsing like that for six weeks really tightened us up. It also enabled us to experiment more because we really only had enough songs for one set each day—certainly not seven. It gave us a chance to make stuff up and rearrange existing songs.”

Butler:  "We literally went in and played as if it was a live gig. We didn't know anything about studios or production or engineering. We just went in, set up and played live in the studio and they recorded us. We did it all in less than a week. It sounds easy, but it's actually a really hard thing to do -- to record a band live in the studio and get the whole feeling across. A lot of producers tried that, but dismally failed. But Rodger and Tom just had the knack of doing it. And they'd just come up with a few suggestions here and there, and we'd do it...We really weren't doing anything back then besides sharing the occasional joint. We couldn't afford it. We couldn't even afford booze, so none of us were drinking yet. The music we were making was more a reflection of what we were thinking and experiencing at the time. We weren't into flower power and good vibes. That was crap to us, because from where we were, everything was bleak and dark...'Electric Funeral' was about the Cold War at the time. It was always touch and go whether Russia would drop the atomic bomb on us or we would drop the atomic bomb on them. So atomic war was always imminent, we thought. So we were as far removed from hippy flower power as you could get. We were four working class people in the most industrial part of England, and all we had to look forward to was dead-end jobs in factories. And we thought at any second we'd be called up to drop in to the Vietnam War, because it looked like Britain was going to get involved in it as well. So there wasn't much future in anything for us."

Osbourne:   "I don't understand war.  If you're on one side, and I'm on the other, and you get killed and I get killed, we've both lost. I'd have thought people would have learned, humanity would have learned. But I'm not turning into one of those fuckers, green people you know, going around Hyde Park, saying "Stop the War". That's not me...My job, if you can call it that, was to make kids have fun ... We were just four guys from Birmingham who couldn't even write our own names playing raw fucking music...I remember what  a thrill it was to go  from the back streets of  Birmingham to Madison  Square Garden in New  York...it's like playing  on Mars. You can't  buy that."

'Paranoid'  became the band's greatest success, going to number twelve in the US,  five in Norway,  two in Germany, and number one in the Netherlands and the UK.    In the US, the album wasn't released until 1971, so as not to compete with the debut still on the charts.    

http://www.blacksabbath.com/

https://qello.com/concert/Classic-Albums-Paranoid-5388

"Paranoid" became a breakthrough smash for the band, going to number sixty-one in the US (with virtually no radio airplay), six in Norway, four in the UK, three in Austria, two in Switzerland, and number one in Germany.   Butler:   "The whole story of how we created that song is funny. It became the most popular song from the album, but it wasn't something we though much of when we wrote it. In fact, we finished the record and then the producer told us we needed one more song to finish up the album, so we just came up with 'Paranoid' on the spot. Tony [Iommi] just played this riff and we all went along with it. We didn't think anything of it. And then later the record company said, 'Hey guys, this is the best song on the album. Let's call the record Paranoid.' But we had originally wanted the record to be called War Pigs, and that's what the record company was planning as well when [they] came up with the record cover, which is really horrible to begin with. We didn't like it at all, but the label put it together, so we were stuck with it. The cover was bad enough when the album was going to be 'War Pigs' , but when it was 'Paranoid' it didn't even make sense [laughs]."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkXHsK4AQPs


Finished with my woman 'cause she couldn't help me with my mind
People think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time
All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy
Think I'll lose my mind if I don't find something to pacify
Can you help me, occupy my brain?

Oh yeah
I need someone to show me the things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness, I must be blind
Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel and love to me is so unreal

And so as you hear these words telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life I wish I could but it's too late

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiKdFqnIzw









"War Pigs"
Butler:   "The song was written as 'Walpurgis,' which sounds a little like 'War Pigs.' But 'Walpurgis' is sort of like Christmas for Satanists. And to me, war was the big Satan. It wasn't about politics or government or anything. It was evil. So I was saying "generals gathered in the masses/just like witches at black masses" to make an analogy. But when we brought it to the record company, they thought 'Walpurgis' sounded too Satanic. And that's when we turned it into 'War Pigs.' But we didn't change the lyrics, because they were already finished."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQUXuQ6Zd9w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piy8d7rgNXM


Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death's construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh lord yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor

Yeah

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait 'till their judgment day comes
Yeah!

Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgment, God is calling
On their knees the war pig's crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
Oh lord yeah!




"Iron Man"




I am iron man
Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all,
Or if he moves will he fall?
Is he alive or dead?
Has he thoughts within his head?
We'll just pass him there
Why should we even care?

He was turned to steel
In the great magnetic field
Where he traveled time
For the future of mankind

Nobody wants him
He just stares at the world
Planning his vengeance
That he will soon unfold

Now the time is here
For Iron Man to spread fear
Vengeance from the grave
Kills the people he once saved

Nobody wants him
They just turn their heads
Nobody helps him
Now he has his revenge

Heavy boots of lead
Fills his victims full of dread
Running as fast as they can
Iron Man lives again!










'Paranoid' 
full album:


http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xs7bot_black-sabbath-paranoid-1970-album-completo_music

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAb2lmNIYk_6tn554W4Dl4Iy18kME3IxK



All lyrics written by Geezer Butler, except where noted, all music composed by Black Sabbath (Iommi/Butler/Ward/Osbourne).

Side one
1. "War Pigs/Luke's Wall"   7:57
2. "Paranoid"   2:53
3. "Planet Caravan"   4:32
4. "Iron Man"   5:56
Side two
5. "Electric Funeral"   4:53
6. "Hand of Doom"   7:08
7. "Rat Salad"   2:30
8. "Jack the Stripper/Fairies Wear Boots" (lyrics by Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler) 6:15






 live at L'Olympia Bruno Coquatrix in Paris 12/20/1970
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yZA4TC_pt4


0) Show intro / setting up for concert
1) Paranoid
2) Hand of Doom
3) Iron Man
4) Black Sabbath
5) N.I.B.
6) Behind the Wall of Sleep
7) War Pigs
8) Fairies Wear Boots




liner notes:  


Black Sabbath emerged from the industrial slums of Birmingham, England, in 1966. Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass), Bill Ward (drums) and John ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne (vocals and harmonica) originally comprised a blues band called Earth, which won a small but fanatical following in and around their home town.

Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut album, with its occult overtones and wall of sound, was released in early 1970 in the U.K., where it shot into the Top 20. American success was no less impressive for a group with an “underground” reputation. Black Sabbath reached Number 23 on the album charts and eventually sold more than one million copies.

The breakthrough came later that year with Paranoid, a pioneering heavy metal offering. Laden with Iommi’s driving guitar riffs, Ozzy’s eerie vocals and the thundering rhythm section of Butler and Ward, Paranoid reached Number One on British charts and Number Eight in the U.S. where it remained on the charts for more than a year and reached Platinum status. The title track, a harrowing descent into madness, was an FM radio staple. At the end of 1970, Black Sabbath embarked on a successful American tour, establishing themselves as a major concert attraction for years to come.

Paranoid introduced themes that would recur throughout Black Sabbath’s career – doom, destruction and realms beyond the grave. Its selections of original songs, including “War Pigs,” “Iron Man,” “Electric Funeral” and the album’s centerpiece, the six minute-plus “Fairies Wear Boots,” would set standards for countless heavy metal hopefuls to follow.

© 1970 Warner Bros. Records Inc. Printed in U.S.A.

alive!

Kiss hit rock bottom and had nothing to lose when they recorded this wild and crazy double-live album and saved their record company.    The sales of their first three studio albums (Kiss, Hotter Than Hell, and Dressed to Kill)  were disappointing and the band felt that they failed to tap into the energy of their onstage performances.  To make matters worse,  Casablanca Records was overextended by printing too many copies of a Johnny Carson monologue album.  The solution was to record a live album, which would be cheaper than the studio and would finally capture their dynamic live sound.  

'Alive!' was culled from shows at Detroit, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; Wildwood, New Jersey; and Davenport, Iowa  with  Paul Stanley on rhythm guitar and vocals;   Ace Frehley on lead guitar and backing vocals;   Gene Simmons on bass guitar and vocals;  and  Peter Criss on drums and vocals;    with  introduction by JR Smalling.     Eddie Kramer produced the album and oversaw the studio overdubs that were used to fix errors in the performances and accentuate the sound of the audience.  

'Alive!' went to number fifty-six in Japan, forty-nine in the UK, thirty-one in Norway, twenty-two in Sweden, thirteen in Australia, nine in the US, and three in Canada.  It spent over two years on the Billboard album chart.  







http://www.kissonline.com/








"Rock and Roll All Nite"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIB6-BCXdxo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFMD7Usflbg




VH1 Ultimate Albums documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTDLwoeRBpU



Midnight Special
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5ZxJ5jJG-g





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYeo8am2iyc


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwBhWs4C6PI






'Alive!' 
full album:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg6tYYDm8NjkBqFaJeBgSrkWk4X_PLoGm





Side one
1. "Deuce"   (Gene Simmons) lead vocals:  Simmons 3:56
2. "Strutter"   (Paul Stanley, Simmons)  lead vocals:  Stanley 3:22
3. "Got to Choose"   (Stanley) lead vocals:  Stanley 3:40
4. "Hotter Than Hell"   (Stanley) lead vocals:  Stanley 3:30
5. "Firehouse"   (Stanley) lead vocals:  Stanley 3:50
Side two
6. "Nothin' to Lose"   (Simmons) lead vocals:  Simmons, Peter Criss 3:33
7. "C'mon and Love Me"   (Stanley) lead vocals:  Stanley 3:05
8. "Parasite"   (Frehley) lead vocals:  Simmons 3:34
9. "She"   (Simmons, Stephen Coronel) lead vocals:  Simmons, Stanley 6:56
Side three
10. "Watchin' You"   (Simmons) lead vocals:  Simmons 3:49
11. "100,000 Years"   (Stanley, Simmons) lead vocals:  Stanley 12:12
12. "Black Diamond"   (Stanley) lead vocals:  Criss, intro by Stanley 6:16
Side four
13. "Rock Bottom"   (Frehley, Stanley) lead vocals:  Stanley 3:21
14. "Cold Gin"   (Frehley) lead vocals:  Simmons 7:16
15. "Rock and Roll All Nite"   (Stanley, Simmons) lead vocals:  Simmons 3:59
16. "Let Me Go, Rock 'n' Roll"   (Stanley, Simmons) lead vocals:  Simmons 5:45






Cobo Hall 1/26/1976
full show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XauUeYaU5Pc



Winterland, San Fransisco 1/31/1975
full show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btcjTsUsTDM

deep purple in rock

Deep Purple partied to save their souls and spread the word around with this hard lovin' heavy metal ricochet.   The second lineup of the band had recorded the live 'Concerto for Group and Orchestra' with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Arnold before recording 'Deep Purple in Rock' at IBC, De Lane Lea, and Abbey Road Studios.   The band produced the sessions with engineers  Andy Knight (IBC Studios), Martin Birch (De Lane Lea), and Phil McDonald (Abbey Road Studios).  The lineup featured Ritchie Blackmore on guitar;   Jon Lord on keyboards and organ;   Ian Paice on drums and percussion;   Ian Gillan on lead vocals;   and  Roger Glover on bass.   

Blackmore looks back: "I became tired of playing with orchestras. In Rock was my way of rebelling against a certain classical element in the band. Ian Gillan, Roger Glover and I wanted to be a hard rock band - we wanted to play rock and roll only. So off we went in that direction. I felt that the whole orchestra thing was a bit tame. I mean, you're playing in the Royal Albert Hall, and the audience sits there with folded arms, and you're standing there playing next to a violinist who holds his ears every time you take a solo. It doesn't make you feel particulary inspired...I'd seen the James Cotton Blues Band at the Fillmore East, and the guitarist in the band played with the vibrato bar. He got the most amazing sounds. Right after seeing him, I started using the bar. Hendrix inspired me, too...I went crazy with [the whammy bar]. I used to have quarter-inch bars made for me because I'd keep snapping the normal kind. My repairman would look at me strangely and say, 'What are you doing to these tremolo bars?' Finally, he gave me this gigantic tremolo arm made of half-an-inch of solid iron and said, 'Here. If you break this thing, I don't wanna know about it!' About three weeks later I went back to the shop. He looked at me and said, 'No - you haven't.' And I said, 'Yes I have.' In graphic detail, I explained to him how I would twirl the guitar around the bar, throw it to the floor, put my foot on it and pull the bar off with two hands. He was a bit of a purist, so he wasn't amused...If I remember right [during the final solo of "Hard Lovin' Man"] I was knocking my guitar up and down against a door in the control room. The engineer looked at me oddly. He was one of your typical, old-school engineers. Like my repairman, he wasn't amused, either."


 'Deep Purple in Rock' became a big breakthrough for the band, charting at number one hundred and forty three in the US, five in Norway, four in the UK, and number one in Germany and Austria and going gold in Argentine, France, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US.  







http://www.deeppurple.com/






"Child in Time" became one of their finest moments.  Gillian reveals:    "That was written such a long time ago. There are two sides to that song - the musical side and the lyrical side. On the musical side, there used to be this song 'Bombay Calling' by a band called It's A Beautiful Day. It was fresh and original, when Jon was one day playing it on his keyboard. It sounded good, and we thought we'd play around with it, change it a bit and do something new keeping that as a base. But then, I had never heard the original 'Bombay Calling'. So we created this song using the Cold War as the theme, and wrote the lines 'Sweet child in time, you'll see the line.' That's how the lyrical side came in. Then, Jon had the keyboard parts ready and Ritchie had the guitar parts ready. The song basically reflected the mood of the moment, and that's why it became so popular."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wAPTsjhrjM







"Black Night" was a non-album single recorded during the sessions.  It went to number eight in the Netherlands, and number two in Germany and the UK.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHlODWd4GeM










 'Deep Purple in Rock' 
full album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h54-WWqlSt4



All songs written by Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice.

Side one
1. "Speed King"   5:52
2. "Bloodsucker"   4:16
3. "Child in Time"   10:18
Side two
4. "Flight of the Rat"   7:53
5. "Into the Fire"   3:30
6. "Living Wreck"   4:31
7. "Hard Lovin' Man"   7:11




Ian Gillan interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu_BPML6-qI