Wednesday, April 05, 2017

Mein Camp

It's Bad Music Tuesday (actually Wednesday)!

Over the years, among all the folks I've blogged with, they've always regularly posted music they like or just wish to share.  Being a smart bunch, it's often classical music, or something really eclectic, maybe some better pop or punk, a little jazz or bluegrass, usually smart sort of music.  I like a lot of all that, but I have habit I never was able to quit...

I always loved over-the-top, ridiculous, hard rock and heavy metal.  And the stupider the better.  It's the camp of it, for me.  I just find it endlessly entertaining.  The corny, the campy, the hyper-masculine, the intentionally outrageous... I just always loved it.

I was just a kid when I first heard this little gem, from Venom, the British (not Norwegian!) band founded in the late 70's many consider the fathers of Black Metal - "Black" as in Satanic!  It's just so... Say-tannn...



Venom's band members, back then, simply went by names like Cronos, Abbadon, and Mantas.  They even had a Jesus Christ for a while!  They couldn't play, or sing, or write very coherently, but they sure knew how to get attention.  The music critics hated them, but the fans?  They were in on it.  Venom did a concept album early on called "At War With Satan," by which they meant they were with Satan, and in the end of a great war between good and evil, they, and Satan, win!  Gotta love Venom!  And they're still around!

In the 70's, bands like Rainbow and Uriah Heep had a lock on the all-important Wizards, Knights and Dragons market, but heavy metal took the Griffon's reigns by the 80's.  Throw in some hyper-masculine, leather-clad, hairy guys from New York and you get Manowar!  My brother, when he was really young, used to play venues with these guys and I saw and met them a couple times when I was kid.  They were part of the local scene.  But they got big, and they too are still around!  Here's the first song of theirs I remember hearing, on a late Friday night heavy metal radio show out of NY in the early 80's...


In the General Mayhem category, another local figure comes to my memory, Billy Milano, and his bands M.O.D. (Method of Destruction) and S.O.D. (Stormtroopers of Death).  Now, I remember these guys long before they made it (I was introduced to Milano by a friend of mine in a shopping mall when I was a teenager), but I knew the scene they were getting into well, and so did they.  In the 80's, outrageous, utterly and completely politically incorrect and offensive was the ideal!  The Unholy Grail!  And this song... well... Billy Milano was the master of the offensive!


The critics were furious, the music was all over the place, the lyrics were just completely outrageous, but again, the fans were in on the joke.  And again, Billy and his band are still around!

Enjoy!  ;)

JMJ

10 comments:

  1. Yes, I was into Black Sabbath w/Ozzie... but I also went through. a Curtis Mayfield phase...

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  2. I'm either too old or too cultured for this stuff. Wait, as I recall it did't do it for me in the 70's either.

    This might be something me & Free could agree on. 😁

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    1. I put this up to give a taste of the scene I was in in the 80's. I figured most were not even aware the scene existed. But it was a fun, and funny, time poking at societal norms with over-the-top craziness.

      JMJ

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  3. Oh, this stuff was just soooo bad it was great!

    JMJ

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  4. OT, but can you believe Trump? IMO he keeps proving himself a hypothetical buffoon with zreo core values.

    I posted on this today.

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  5. Blogger was down all day for me. I'm finally able to get back on!

    JMJ

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