Great Metal Albums of 1988: King Diamond- Them

Let me say straightaway that “Them” by King Diamond, in the sense of concept albums, isn’t as good as his previous album, “Abigail,” nor it’s partner in my ranking of heavy metal concept albums, Queensryche’s “Operation Mindcrime,” as joint favourites in this field. I will say that “Them” is definitely good enough to make King Diamond the king of heavy metal concept albums and up there as my favourite black metal artist. So, like I have done with previous concept albums, let’s have a look at the tracks and the stories they tell.

Track Listing:

1. Out of the Asylum- This short opening track sets the tone for the story. Backed up by some eerie horror movie like piano and keyboards, we hear the ghosts of the house waiting for the return of King’s (principal character), grandmother. They love the fact that Grandma’s room will be open and they’ll be free again. Besides, the ghosts do say she makes a good cup of tea.
2. Welcome Home- Some great guitar riffs and King’s unmistakable falsetto voice greet Grandma as she returns to her old house. Unknown to the grandchildren, Missy and King, who were told she was on vacation, she has been in a mental asylum. The lyrics are welcoming to Grandma at least but in the middle of the song, there are a couple of dynamite guitar solos. Furthermore, what I learned very recently was that this track along with “Invisible Guests” appear on the soundtrack of “Clerks II.” Note to self, I have to watch that movie.
3. Invisible Guests- Some really fast guitar riffs and an opening guitar solo, full marks to guitarists Pete Blakk and Andy LaRoque. King hears some strange voices and goes to investigate. He sees Grandma appearing to be having a tea party but no one is there. After inviting him in and letting him sit in her chair, she sends him back to bed and instructs him to forget what he say. All done between more wicked guitar solos, including a great trade off between Pete and Andy.
4. Tea- Power chords followed by a more melodic guitar sound bring in “Tea.” One night, Grandma awakens King and promises to tell him about the House of Amon over a cup of tea. She explains that Amon is the teapot with the power to take control or communicate with whoever drinks from it. The change in tempo from melodic to near speed metal stamp the song’s authority and yes, more cool guitar solos.
5. Mother’s Getting Weaker- Grandma cuts King’s sleeping mother’s hand as the voices, Them, require a blood sacrifice. The blood is added to the teapot and the voices affect King putting him into a drug effected state. Missy tries to get King to call for help but King is so addled that he refuses and cuts the phone line. The rhythm section keeps this track ticking along nicely but there are also some good drum fills
6. Bye, Bye Missy- At tea time, Missy expresses her concern about her mother resulting in Grandma attacking her. In retaliation, Missy breaks the teapot, thus angering Them. They take action and chop Missy into pieces with an axe and throw her remains onto the fire. The fast paced tempo, guitar riffs and guitar solos combined with King’s vocals make a song about chopping someone with an axe sound so good.
7. A Broken Spell- With their focus no longer on King, the spell is broken and he stumbles outside to recollect what has transpired. After another cool guitar solo, King realizes that ‘Their’ powers are weakened outside the house. Therefore, he lures Grandma outside and kills her. This track is at a faster tempo with a guitar solo tradeoff and a very amusing line at the end: “Oh, I hate that bitch!”
8. The Accusation Chair- King is arrested and questioned by the police. While being interrogated, the voice of Amon continues to haunt him. The tracks starts slow with a little keyboards and then picks up after the guitar solo.
9. Them- A brief acoustic number with the voices of “Them” calling out to King.
10. Twilight Symphony- A strong, steady riff and Mr. Diamond’s falsetto vocals bring in this track very nicely. We learn that after being questioned by the police, King is sent to an asylum. King Diamond’s ability to switch back and forth between his normal voice and falsetto has always been amazing and he demonstrates it here and there are more guitar solos.
11. Coming Home- The albums closes as it opens with a very short track. Years later, King is released from the asylum and returns to the old house to find the voices very much still alive.

King Diamond

King Diamond- lead vocals, keyboards, guitar

Andy LaRoque- guitar

Pete Blakk- guitar

Hal Patino- bass

Mikkey Dee- drums

Robert Falcao- keyboards

King Diamond gave us another brilliant concept album with “Them.” There are very few others who can tell such a story and put it to such great music.

Next post: Guns ‘N’ Roses- GNR Lies

To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com

To sign the petition for a knighthood for Bruce Dickinson, click the link: https://www.change.org/p/special-honours-committees-for-knighthoods-a-knighthood-for-bruce-dickinson?redirect=false

Gone and Done It!

There’s another objective achieved, another scratched off my ‘to do’ list. I spent the weekend in Paris and had a really nice time. My main objective, if you haven’t already guessed from the photo above, was to visit Jim Morrison’s grave. Unlike what you see in the film, “The Doors,” there is no graffiti around the grave and it’s now behind a fence. Thank God for mobile phone cameras which let you zoom it. Ever since I got to Europe 36 years ago, it was something I always wanted to do. Covid prevented me from doing so on my 60th birthday but now I’ve done it, hooray!

I don’t know who this derelict is standing in front of Jim’s grave. Oh wait, that’s me.

My daughter Rowena and future daughter in law, Eline

After my objective was achieved, I let my daughter and her fiance pretty much decide the rest of the weekend. On the Saturday, we spent several hours at The Louvre doing all the touristy things. We saw the obvious attractions, The Mona Lisa and the statue of Venus DeMilo as well as many other objects of fine art. A few years ago, I posted about my trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum but The Louvre eats that one for breakfast and lunch. Unless everyone really wants to see it, I won’t post all the photos from there but there was one painting, I can’t remember the artist, which really caught my eye. The reason was that the painting reminded my so much of the video for the song “Mystery” by Dio.

It’s always a mystery.

There are two other interesting happenings over the weekend which are worth me sharing. In my hotel room on the Friday night, I caught a French album show on TV. Most of them weren’t to my musical tastes until the last two. First of these was a band called Indochine. Judging from the video performance where they played to a packed out arena, they’re very big in France. Having just read their biography, this band has been around since the 1980s! Why haven’t I heard of them? They’re considered soft rock/new wave and they sounded quite good. Closing out the album show was a band I introduced last year, Maneskin, from Italy who won last year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The video was of their latest song, a power ballad called “Loneliness” and it’s very good.

Indochine

Måneskin during Rock am Ring at Nürburgring, Nürburg, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany on 2022-06-03, Photo: Sven Mandel

As for the second happening, I feel that I would be letting everyone down if I hadn’t discovered a cool heavy metal bar while in Paris. Fortunately I did. It is called Le Black Dog and is located about five minutes walk from The Louvre. It’s not a very big place and unfortunately they were all booked up so we couldn’t sample the cuisine which is said to be very good. I did enjoy a new beer called Polar Dog and they played some great death metal. Another interesting note, there was one guy in the bar who could have been the result of a liaison between Lemmy and a female Motorhead fan. He did look a lot like him. So, if you’re in Paris, you know where to go for a good metal time. I just wished we could have stayed longer.

Patrons of Le Black Dog

My refreshing pint of Polar Dog

Some more cool decor, I took this photo from my stepson Teal

Overall, I had a great weekend in Paris and I hope you all enjoyed reading about it. At least, should you ever go there, you know of a great place to go to and yes, I didn’t have a bad meal the entire weekend.

Next post: Virgin Steele- Age of Consent

To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com

To sign the petition to give Bruce Dickinson a knighthood, click the link: https://www.change.org/p/special-honours-committees-for-knighthoods-a-knighthood-for-bruce-dickinson?redirect=false

Thank You All!

Today, Mrs 80smetalman along with her eldest son, youngest daughter and granddaughter and I made the 350 round trip to Sheffield Children’s Hospital to visit baby Paisley. I am happy to say that things are looking good. She’s on the mend and hopefully will be out of the hospital next week. From the bottom of our hearts, my wife and I would like to thank all of you for sending your prayers, thoughts and vibes.

Paisley today

Paisley with her step-grandfather

Rest in Peace Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck

It looks like 2023 is going to suck for sure. Last night, guitarist extraordinaire, Jeff Beck, passed away in hospital in Southern England from Meningitis. He was 78. Beck’s music spanned many decades and you can click the link below to read about his amazing life in music. While I have always known him to be a fantastic guitarist, his appearances on 80smetalman featured his 1985 album, “Flash” and his appearance on Rod Stewart’s 1984 album where in the video for the song, “Infatuation,” he pops up in a hotel room to play his guitar solo. Of course, according to the most famous roadie, Del Preston, in “Wayne’s World 2,” Jeff found a sweet shop so Ozzy could fill a brandy glass with brown M&Ms.

To read about Jeff Beck’s amazing career: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/arts/music/jeff-beck-dead.html

Rest in peace Jeff Beck.

Rest in Peace Sebastian Marino

Unfortunately, my prediction for 2023 has come to pass. Just three days into the new year and we have our first musical icon leave us for the great gig in the sky. It is my very sad duty to announce the passing of Sebastian Marino who died at the age of 57. Sebastian played for Canadian legends Anvil and New Jersey thrash legends, Overkill.

FFI: https://consequence.net/2023/01/sebastian-marino-guitarist-overkill-anvil-dead/

Rest in peace Sebastian

Dead Musicians Bands

Dio

When I wrote “Tee-Bone Man and Superdeke’s Time Travelling Adventure” for Mike Ladano’s blog, the biggest challenge in discipline for me was not to get totally carried away with all the possible collaborations between musicians who have left us. It doesn’t take too much smarts to realize that the possibilities are endless and I could have filled many pages with them and that’s just the ones I would like to see!

Lemmy

First, I am quite convinced that every deceased musician would love to sing or play with the King, Elvis and that includes Lemmy. It would be an interesting song, that part’s for sure. Of course Lemmy wouldn’t be left out as many would like to get him to play bass on their song or sing with them and I’m not just talking about metal musicians. Why couldn’t he lay down a bass line for Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin? Then we can take it to the complete other extreme and have Lemmy do a song with Whitney Houston. Why not?

One combination I mention in the story would almost certainly happen. I firmly believe that Ronnie James Dio would have hooked up with former bandmates from Rainbow and the connection of that band to Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and formed a band with Jimmy Bain on bass, Jon Lord on keyboards and Cozy Powell on drums. Furthermore, I stand by my choice for guitar in the group as I strongly feel that Criss Oliva of Savatage fame would be the best fit for the above combo. Of course, you are all welcome to put forward alternatives.

The Fab Four

The Who

One combination which I thought of putting into the story but didn’t was a collaboration of the two deceased Beatles and two deceased members of The Who. John Lennon and George Harrison on guitars, John Entwistle on bass and Keith Moon on drums might be something to hear. We can even make it more interesting by throwing in the two deceased members of The Rolling Stones. Then again, we can get Brian Jones and Charlie Watts to play along with the two dead Doors! Like I said, the possibilities are endless!

The teacher in me has now taken over and so, here’s your assignment. Put together your own bands, duets or collaborations of deceased musicians and post them here! There are no right or wrong answers. Maybe the Righteous Brothers song I featured last week can motivate. After all, they have a point: “If there’s a rock and roll heaven, you know they’ve got a hell of a band.”

If you missed it last time, you can read the story here: https://mikeladano.com/2022/10/05/the-adventures-of-tee-bone-man-chapter-8-tee-bone-dekes-time-travelling-adventure-by-80smetalman/

To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com

To give Bruce Dickinson a knighthood, click the link: https://www.change.org/p/special-honours-committees-for-knighthoods-a-knighthood-for-bruce-dickinson?redirect=false

Donington 1988: Triumph and Tragedy

As per normal, through each year of the golden decade of heavy metal, (which is closer to the end than the beginning), I reflect on the triumphs and tragedies which occurred during that year. There have been great concert memories and artists whose lives were tragically shortened. In 1988, the triumph and tragedy occurred on the same day, at the Donington Festival.

You only need to look at the poster above as see that with the lineup, the day was going to be a complete triumph. Iron Maiden, KISS, David Lee Roth, Megadeth, Guns N Roses and Helloween made for what history will recall a great day for metal. Personally, I can’t speak for Helloween and Guns N Roses but I will get to that in a moment but the other four bands totally kicked ass!

Tragedy struck on the day during Guns N Roses’ set. A crowd collapse involving fifty people fifteen yards from the stage happened causing Guns N Roses to stop playing while concert security went in to attend to the injured. By the time they were fished out, two people, Alan Dick aged 18 and Landon Siggers, 20 were found laying down in four inches of mud. They were taken to hospital and pronounced dead. It was a tragic event which put a dark shadow on what was a glorious day for metal.

Of course, the metal hating newspaper, The Sun, spent more time focusing on the so called rowdy behaviour of the concert goers, making it out that somehow heavy metal caused the tragedy. Yes, it’s a load of BS.

On personal reflection, the reason I missed Helloween and Guns N Roses and half of Megadeth was because of a three hour plus traffic cue to get into the venue. It caused a lot of tension within the car although I can now see why my then wife would get a bit annoyed at me constantly saying, “I bet if it was a Madonna Festival, the roads wouldn’t have been so backed up.” The thing was the way metalheads were sometimes treated back in the 80s, it wouldn’t have been too far from the truth. Anyway, here are performances and a pre festival interview with Dave for you all to enjoy.

Next post: Scandals of 1988

To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com

To sign the petition for a knighthood for Bruce Dickinson, click the link: https://www.change.org/p/special-honours-committees-for-knighthoods-a-knighthood-for-bruce-dickinson

Rest in Peace: Steve Grimmett

Man, it keeps coming! Once again, we have to say farewell and rest in peace to yet another from the music world. Former Grim Reaper singer, Steve Grimmett, has passed away, aged 62. FFI: Click the link: https://www.metalsucks.net/2022/08/15/grim-reaper-singer-steve-grimmett-dead-at-62/

Grim Reaper

Grim Reaper rode in on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the early 80s. They gave us three albums, one I will be posting about very shortly. After the disbandment of the band, Steve went onto sing with other bands such as Onslaught and Lionheart. Messages of condolence have been coming out. My sympathies go to his family and friends.

Rest in peace Steve Grimmett

Rest in Peace Olivia Newton-John

The world is morning the passing of Olivia Newton-John. She was a great singer, actress, entertainer and few other things rolled into one. Back in the 1970s, her music was more country leaning, crossing over to mellow out rock. In 1978, she made her film debut as Sandra in the film “Grease,” one of the top grossing films of all time. It’s not my favourite film but I fully applauded her in it. It was after “Grease” that she caught my attention with her album, “Totally Hot.” Olivia decided to shed her goody two shoes image and this album went more rock. It’s the only album of hers I posted here and you can read it below.

Great Rock Albums of 1979: Olivia Newton John- Totally Hot

If you read the comments in the post, you will see that I was accused of being misogynist because I went back to my then 17 year old self when the album came out and remembered that Olivia had put on a little weight after “Grease” and looked good for it. I did apologize to the commenter for my crystal ball not working. If I had known when I wrote the post in 2012 that I would cause offense in 2021, I wouldn’t have commented on her weight. Whatever the case, a true musical legend has left us and gone to the great gig in the sky and let us remember her for that. This is my all time favourite ONJ song.

Rest in Peace Nicky Moore

Nicky Moore

Once again it is my sad duty to report another great rocker who has departed this life and gone to the great gig in the sky. Former Samson and Mammoth lead singer Nicky Moore has passed away at the age of 75. Reports say that Nicky had been suffering from Parkinson’s Disease for several years and spent his final years in a nursing home.

Samson

Nicky is best known for replacing Bruce Dickinson in Samson after Bruce left to join some band called Iron Maiden. You might have heard of them. Nicky recorded three albums with Samson, taking the band from their NWOBHM sound to a more bluesier one. He would leave Samson to form the band Mammoth in the late 80s. FFI- click the link: https://www.yahoo.com/video/r-p-nicky-moore-singer-143624728.html

So another rocker is taken from us and is joining that ever growing ensemble in a better place.

Rest in peace, Nicky Moore.