Happy New 2024!

2023 is over and 2024 is about to begin. This past year has been interesting in several ways. It started early when, after living in Europe for over 36 years, finally went to Paris and visited Jim Morrison’s grave. However, that wasn’t the only good thing to come out of the Paris trip. While I was there, I discovered France’s best kept musical secret, Indochine, a band that has been around since the 80s and are virtually unheard of outside France but pack stadiums in their country.

Indochine

While I didn’t go to any major concerts in 2023, I did get to see a couple of tribute bands. Thin Lizzy tribute band Limehouse Lizzy totally rocked Gloucester and AC/DC tribute band, Hells’ Bells never disappoint. In addition, I went to Edinburgh, Scotland in June and saw a number of cool bands at a great rock bar known as the Banshee Labyrinth. The management liked my post so much, they said to come back again.

Limehouse Lizzy

Hell’s Bells

The Banshee Labyrinth

I must also thank Mike Ladano, John Snow, Harrison Klopp and the others for allowing me to contribute to the Tee-Bone Man and Superdekes Adventures. It has been a great opportunity to really stretch out my imagination and let it go wild. Spoiler alert: I will begin working on my next contribution, Satan’s attempt to take over Rock Heaven. So, 2023 has been a pretty eventful year.

Things seem set to continue for 2024. First, some non-music related news. On January 31, my daughter Rowena is getting married and of course, I’ll bore you with all the wedding photos. In musical news, my big discovery from 2018, Lebanese heavy metal outfit, Slave to Sirens, will be putting out an album called “Echoes of Silence,” which I’m looking forward to. Furthermore, America’s best kept secret, Hannah Wicklund, has also been active so we might get an album from her. A lot to look forward to. In the meantime, here’s a track from Slave to Sirens.

With that, I wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year.

Next post: Deep Black Rainbow’s full performance

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

Once again, Bruce Dickinson has been overlooked for a knighthood. To right this wrong, click the link: https://www.change.org/p/special-honours-committees-for-knighthoods-a-knighthood-for-bruce-dickinson

Great Rock Albums of 1989: Pandora’s Box- Original Sin

Back when I was starting to collect my list for 1989 albums, someone, (I can’t remember who) informed me of this “Original Sin” album by Pandora’s Box. Intrigued, I added it to the list and now that I’ve had several listens to the album, I’m quite impressed. The album flopped commercially, big time but many of the songs would be covered by future artists, including Meatloaf on his “Bat Out of Hell 2” and “3” albums.

Jim Steinman

Pandora’s Box was an all female singing group put together by Jim Steinman in the 1980s. The singers appeared on “Bat Out of Hell” and Fire Inc, who sung on the soundtrack of the film “Streets of Fire.” The band included:

Elaine Caswell

Ellen Foley

Gina Taylor

Deliria Wilde

Jim Steinman

Like I mentioned, many of the songs would found themselves being covered by future artists. Two songs of note would be “Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)” and “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” would appear on Meatloaf albums and “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” would also be covered by Celine Dion. Still, the originals here are done very well. There is also a cover of The Doors song, “Twentieth Century Fox” but the gender pronouns have been switched. There is also a brief intro alluding to the Jimi Hendrix classic, “Foxy Lady.”

The best song on the album and also the hidden gem because the only attempt at a cover would be a demo on an ill fated album by Canadian vocalist Karrine Hannah is “Safe Sex.” The song is sung solo by Gina Taylor who attacks the song with loads of heart. It’s a power ballad type which really hits home. Another interesting track is the spoken word monologue by Ellen Foley called, “The Want Ad.” On this track, Ellen moans about the men who have taken advantage of her or the good ones who wouldn’t answer her ad. It’s all done very brilliantly as her monologue on the opener, “The Invocation.” Jim also does a monologue on “I’ve Been Dreaming Up a Storm” and that’s okay too.

Various short instrumental tracks are performed by various orchestras. The Warsaw National Orchestra performs on “Requiem Metal.” The New York Philharmonic plays on “The Opening of the Box.” Furthermore, Ellen Foley is backed up by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra on “Twentieth Century Fox.” It all adds a new interesting content to the album. Commercial flop or not, full marks should be given to Jim for his noble effort here.

Track Listing:

1. The Invocation
2. Original Sin (The Natives are Restless)
3. Twenty Century Fox
4. Safe Sex
5. Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)
6. Requiem Metal
7. I’ve Been Dreaming Up a Storm Lately
8. It’s All Coming Back to Me Now
9. The Opening of the Box
10. The Want Ad
11. My Little Red Book
12. It Just Won’t Quit
13. Pray Lewd
14. The Future Ain’t What it Used to Be

You got to give Jim Steinman credit for a brave effort. He put together a great album here even if it didn’t do well commercially. However, it did provide future ways to success to other artists and I can hear why.

Next post: Repeat Offender

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

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France’s Best Kept Secret- Indochine

Indochine

When I made my historic trip to Paris back in January to visit Jim Morrison’s grave, I also included another discovery made during that weekend. When watching a show about albums on French TV, I came across a very interesting band I had never heard before, Indochine, pronounced Ondo-sheen. In the video, they were playing to a packed out arena with a lot of fans, mostly female, screaming their appreciation of the band. I came to the conclusion they were a huge sensation in their native country, which my good buddy, The Vintage Toy Adviser, has since confirmed. The video for “Station 13” will confirm it even more.

Indochine in the early days

Indochine formed in 1981 and by 1983 were considered the hottest new wave band in France. Throughout, the 1980s, they would release four successful studio albums and maintain a steady lineup. However, that would change in the 1990s with what seemed to be a revolving door of drummers and guitarists. Fortunately, the new millennium would bring renewed success and the band continues to ride on that wave. For their full history, click this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indochine_(band)#Discography

Here’s further evidence I could be mellowing with age. If I had heard of the band back in the mid 1980s, I most likely would not have been interested in them as they were not metal. Fortunately, these days I am more opened minded and I was very impressed with what I had heard on that TV show and that has led me to explore them further and become even more impressed with this band. Their brand of new wave is definitely unique, if I were to try to make a comparison to another band, the closest would be Simple Minds but I still prefer Indochine.

Now for the big question: Why aren’t Indochine bigger outside of France? True, they are known on Continental Europe and have played in Montreal and are even considered huge in Peru. Why haven’t they made a dent in the US or UK? I can hear some people shouting out that if they sang in English, then they would be huge. My response is, Why should that matter? Okay, I know their fellow countrymen, Gojira, sing in English and have conquered the heavy metal world. Well you know what? I would still love Gojira if they sang in French because their music is that good. No artist should have to sing in another language just to make it. It’s a given that music transcends language barriers. Furthermore, Indochine get my respect for not doing so, I get the feeling that if they tried to sing in English, it would sound out of place. But don’t take my word for it, have a listen and tell me what you think.

Indochine’s current lineup

Nicola Sirkis- vocals, guitar, synthesizerm harmonica

Marc Eliard- bass

Boris Jadel- lead guitar

oLi dE SaT (Olivier Gerard)- keyboards, rhythm guitar

Ludwig Dalberg- drums

Note: Dimitri Bodiansky played saxophone with the band 1981-89

So there it is, Indochine is France’s best kept secret. Hopefully after this post, they won’t be such a secret anymore.

Next post: 1989- The Final Year of the Golden Decade

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

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

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

Great Punk Albums of 1987: Gaye Bykers on Acid- Drill Your Own Hole

Everyone’s question when they see the name of this band is: Is it just a clever name? Originally, I thought the answer was ‘yes’ because two people I know saw them live opening for such greats as Motorhead and both said that Gaye Bykers on Acid were rubbish. Therefore, for many years I ignored them. However, since I began blogging, I realized that I shouldn’t just let someone else’s opinion deter me from checking out a band on my own. Whether people like it or not, Gaye Bykers on Acid were a part, albeit a small part, of music history in 1987 and that’s why they are getting their spot here on 80smetalman.

What I like about their debut album, “Drill Your Own Hole” is that it doesn’t fit nicely into any preconceived pigeon holes. Wikipedia attempts to define the album as ‘noise rock’ or ‘neo psychedelic rock’ and I see small arguments in both cases. The opening track, “Motorvate,” gives weight to the argument as is sounds like The Doors going post punk. On the other hand, although there is no mention of it in what I’ve read about the band and this album and it could prove my insanity, I detect a strong Dead Kennedys influence on many of the tracks. Tony Byker’s guitar licks sound very much like East Bay Ray’s from the Dead Kennedy’s “Frankenchrist” album.

One track which is way out there is “Zen Express.” The intro sounds very similar to that of the theme song to “Friends” but goes more like a punked up version of The Monkees after. Another comment from a critic way back then is that the Gaye Bykers on Acid sound is the collision of punk and hippy psychedelic rock. That collision is abundantly clear on this track. The track which follows it, “Git Down,” is more like the Kennedys sound but with some wild soloing from Tony. But the track also has a bit of a swagger to it as well.

“World War 7 Blues” would be a great song for a cover from a heavy metal band. There is a definite metal vibe which you can surely bang along to. Just add some power chords. Saying that, Tony’s riffs are good on this one as well and this brings me to my next point. The glue which holds the album together is the strong bass lines from Robber Byker. You have probably already guessed that the band is all surnamed Byker but anyway, Robber does a fine job on the album.

It’s Jim Morrison meets Madness on the track “After Suck There’s Blow.” That’s the only way I can describe this track except unlike Madness, there’s no horns on the song. The remainder of the album goes out on pretty much the same vein with lead singer Mary Byker sounding like a punk Jim Morrison, interesting guitar riffs from Tommy and Robber and Kev Byker laying down a strong rhythm section. On top of that, they take the piss out of TV evangelists on “Drive-In Salvation.” I always tip my hat to anyone who does that. So, while they might have sucked live, “Drill Your Own Hole” is a decent album in its own right.

Track Listing:

1. Motorvate
2. Call Me a Liar
3. All Hung Up
4. Zen Express
5. World War 7 Blues
6. Git Down (Shake Your Thang)
7. After Suck There’s Blow
8. So Far Out
9. Drive-In Salvation
10. TV Cabbage

Gaye Bykers on Acid

Mary Byker (Ian Garfield Hoxley)- vocals

Tony Byker/Phlegm Lubricant/Tony Shuttleburger/Sven Eleven (Tony Horsfall)- guitar

Robber Byker (Ian Reynolds)- bass

Kev Byker/Cubehead Buffalo Hyde/Gavina Hyde/Kenny Pride (Kevin Hyde)- drums

Another amusing point in regards to the “Drill Your Own Hole” album is that the first 1,000 pressings came without the hole in the centre. So, in order to listen to the album, you had to do what the album title said. After much thought and several listens to the album, I have come to the conclusion that this is a good album but you need an open mind and a sense of humour to fully appreciate it.

Next post: Motorhead- Rock and Roll

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

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Great Rock Albums of 1983: Modern English- After the Snow

Originally, my plan was to post the “After the Snow” album from British post punk, new wave band, Modern English, after the album from INXS. My reason was because back in 1983, I would often confuse the two bands. Worse, I would further confuse INXS’s single “Don’t Change” with the big single from this Modern English album, “I Melt With You.” Both bands sound very similar and it is possible that Modern English could have had a song on the “Rock Star” soundtrack.

I have come to the conclusion that one reason why Modern English never got the success they may have deserved was down to my beef with the 1980s. Too many people wanted to put their music into categories or genres. “After the Snow” offers a mixed bag of musical styles that makes categorizing them difficult. Track two, “Life in the Gladhouse,” is a more progressive rock song while the very next track, “Face of Wood,” might be a candidate for the “Rock Star” soundtrack. However, the track that makes my point is the one after that, “Dawn Chorus.” This song sounds like Jim Morrison came back from the dead and joined The Cult. The guitar intro at the beginning of the song definitely sound like the named band, whose albums I will be visiting a little more down the line and the vocal style could almost be Jim. Saying all that though, I really like the song as I do all of the ones on the album.

Some critic of the “After the Snow” album claims that the single “I Melt With You” is not indicative of the rest of the album. Well it certainly does stand out from the other songs but I think it goes well with the album. It provides a different turn and keeps you from getting to familiar with the album. I like the fact that you don’t know what to expect with each song and if you listen to it without stressing out over what category it should be put in, then the album becomes that much more enjoyable.

Track Listing:

1. Someone’s Calling
2. Life in the Gladhouse
3. Face of Wood
4. Dawn Chorus
5. I Melt With You
6. After the Snow
7. Carry Me Down
8. Tables Turning

Modern English

Robbie Grey- vocals

Gary McDowell- guitars

Stephen Walker- keyboards

Michael Conroy- bass, violin

Richard Brown- drums, percussion

“After the Snow” by Modern English goes against the 1980s belief that you had to put a band into a category in order to appreciate. Their mixed bag of hard rock, post punk, new wave and progressive rock all goes well on this album. Listen to it with that in mind and you’ll definitely enjoy the album.

Next post: Journey- Frontiers

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