Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal - Softcover

Konow, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0609807323 ISBN 13: 9780609807323

Verlag: Crown, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

“Bang your head! Metal Health’ll drive you mad!”
— Quiet Riot

Like an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music on steroids, Bang Your Head is an epic history of every band and every performer that has proudly worn the Heavy Metal badge. Whether headbanging is your guilty pleasure or you firmly believe that this much-maligned genre has never received the respect it deserves, Bang Your Head is a must-read that pays homage to a music that’s impossible to ignore, especially when being blasted through a sixteen-inch woofer.

Charting the genesis of early metal with bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden; the rise of metal to the top of the Billboard charts and heavy MTV rotation featuring the likes of Def Leppard and Metallica; hitting its critical peak with bands like Guns N’ Roses; disgrace during the “hair metal” ’80s; and a demise fueled by the explosion of the Seattle grunge scene and the “alternative” revolution, Bang Your Head is as funny as it is informative and proves once and for all that there is more to metal than sin, sex, and spandex.

To write this exhaustive history, David Konow spent three years interviewing the bands, wives, girlfriends, ex-wives, groupies, managers, record company execs, and anyone who was or is a part of the metal scene, including many of the band guys often better known for their escapades and bad behavior than for their musicianship. Nothing is left unsaid in this jaw-dropping, funny, and entertaining chronicle of power ballads, outrageous outfits, big hair, bigger egos, and testosterone-drenched debauchery.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Konow has written for publications such as Guitar World, Creative Screenwriting, and Psychotronic. He is the author of Schlock-O-Rama: The Films of Al Adamson. Konow lives in Southern California.

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your head! Metal Health’ll drive you mad!”
— Quiet Riot

Like an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music on steroids, Bang Your Head is an epic history of every band and every performer that has proudly worn the Heavy Metal badge. Whether headbanging is your guilty pleasure or you firmly believe that this much-maligned genre has never received the respect it deserves, Bang Your Head is a must-read that pays homage to a music that’s impossible to ignore, especially when being blasted through a sixteen-inch woofer.

Charting the genesis of early metal with bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden; the rise of metal to the top of the Billboard charts and heavy MTV rotation featuring the likes of Def Leppard and Metallica; hitting its critical peak with bands like Guns N’ Roses; disgrace during the “hair metal” ’80s; and a demise fueled by the explosion of the Seattle grunge scene and the “alternative” revolution, B

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In the Beginning

Tony Iommi, guitarist for Black Sabbath, the band that started it all. “Let’s face it,” said former metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio. “Sabbath was the first heavy metal band, a band that stepped on buildings when they came to town.” (John Harrell)

You can tell what bands have staying power when you go into the headshops and you see who’s putting posters out. If you’ve got a blacklight poster, you’ve been immortalized. —Former Anthrax and White Lion drummer Greg D’Angelo

THE END OF THE SIXTIES was filled with equal amounts of promise and terror. The Woodstock festival, which began on August 15, 1969, in Bethel, New York, was the culmination of the peace-and-love generation; hundreds of thousands of hippies came out to celebrate. But by December 6, 1969, a similar festival at the Altamont Speedway in Northern California, headlined by the Rolling Stones, ended in violence and death when a Hell’s Angels security guard killed a fan in the audience.

We would have a man on the moon before 1970, just as President Kennedy promised, but back on earth, the Manson slayings and the threat of Vietnam proved how inhumane the world could be. Musically, there was a new British Invasion brewing, but its message was a harsh reflection of a troubled world, not an escape from it.

The music that Black Sabbath and the other fledgling heavy metal bands were playing at this time was far removed from the feelings of hope and promise of the 1960s. The members of Black Sabbath may have looked like hippies with their long, wavy hair parted down the middle and their huge bell-bottoms swallowing up their feet, but there was nothing peaceful or flowery about their music.

In the ’60s, the smell of incense filled the air, and everyone was singing about peace and love. And John “Ozzy” Osbourne wanted to puke. He thought to himself, What’s all this flower shit? I got no shoes on my feet. Taking a trip to a magic land full of peace, love, and sunshine seemed as realistic to Osbourne as taking a trip to Mars. The world was taking a dark turn at the end of the ’60s, and the music began to reflect that. “We got sick and tired of all the bullshit, love your brother

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page playing a classic Les Paul guitar with a violin bow. When Page put his band together, he wanted a strong unit where everyone was a great musician. Led Zeppelin proved that great band line-ups are one in a million. (Neil Zlozower)

and flower power forever,” said Osbourne. “We brought things down to reality.” England became the giant petri dish where the germ of heavy metal music developed and grew.

Black Sabbath came out of Birmingham, England’s second-largest city. The four original members, Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Terry “Geezer” Butler, and Bill Ward, grew up in working-class families within a mile of each other in the town of Aston. The entire area had been bombed heavily during World War II and was still struggling to rebuild and recover during the years that the members of the band were growing up.

Drummer Bill Ward had fond memories of his youth in Aston, recalling the steam trains coming into the city, the factories, the Victorian-style homes, and the 450-year-old local mansion Aston Hall. “There was a lot of pride coming from Aston,” said Ward. “The people there were very resilient. Most people were just regular factory workers; they got by, and they made do. They would clean the front steps of their houses [and] make sure the brass was shining on the doors.” It’s not surprising heavy metal was born in a working-class environment. Heavy metal often carries the message of standing up for yourself, standing strong against impossible odds and overcoming them.

Growing up in Aston, there were only three options, according to Ward: Work in a factory, join a band, or go to jail. For Osbourne it was almost the last. He lived with his two brothers and three sisters in one room. His family barely got by. “It used to tear me apart to see my mother crying because she hadn’t got enough fucking dough left to spend on bills and things.” Eventually Osbourne turned to a life of crime. “I had to,” he said. “It was down to basic survival.” When he was caught burglarizing a clothing store and fined the equivalent of $60, Osbourne’s father decided not to bail him out, figuring that spending a little time in jail would teach his son a lesson. He spent six weeks in jail, where he tattooed the letters O-Z-Z-Y on his own knuckles.

During his stay in jail, Osbourne was locked up in solitary for several days for fighting another inmate, leaving him with a lifelong fear of being alone. Mixed in with murderers and hardcore criminals, the only thing that kept Osbourne from being beaten or raped was his sense of humor. When he got out, he decided to try to make a living as a singer. Osbourne put up an ad at a shopping center where he used to cop dope, and guitarist Tony Iommi saw it. Iommi had once known an Ozzy, but he didn’t think it could possibly be the same Ozzy he used to beat up in school. When Osbourne showed up at Iommi’s door, it turned out it was.

Iommi had been playing the guitar since he was a teenager, first jamming with Sabbath drummer Bill Ward when both were fifteen. When he was eighteen, Iommi was working in a factory when he got an opportunity to tour Germany with a group of musicians. According to Iommi, he came home after working only half of his last day at the factory, but his mother forced him to go back and work a full day. The guy who normally operated the metal press at the factory had not shown up, so Iommi was asked to fill in until the end of his shift. Soon after he resumed work, his fingers were caught in the metal press machine. He yanked his hand out, leaving behind the ends of his right middle and ring fingers. Obviously, Iommi didn’t go to Germany, and a doctor told him to find something else to do with his life besides music. Iommi wouldn’t hear of it. He had an incredibly strong will and was determined to play again no matter what it took. Because of his injury, and being left-handed, he had to relearn the guitar from scratch without the tips of his fingers. Iommi made thimbles out of melted plastic to keep his fingers from being torn up by the guitar strings.

Unable to feel anything when he played, Iommi learned his way around the fretboard by ear, which could have strengthened his improvisational skills. The plastic tips, however, were clumsy and often slowed down his playing, making it harder to get around the fretboard quickly. He sometimes became so frustrated that he’d smash his guitar against the wall.

The manager at the factory brought over a Django Reinhardt album for Iommi to listen to. Reinhardt was a famous jazz guitarist whose left hand was paralyzed except for two fingers, and he inspired Iommi to keep playing. At first he played with only two fingers, which helped him develop a number of techniques he might not have discovered otherwise. Supposedly he was one of the first guitarists to play just the low strings of a major chord instead of all six strings, which produced the “power chord.” “The guy had a lot of barriers to overcome just within himself,” said Osbourne. “For a while he thought he would never play again, but he mastered it.”

The four members of Black Sabbath first came together as a group in 1967, just as the blues-band scene in England was coming to an end. Most of the English hard rock and metal bands had strong roots in the blues, but each band gave it a unique interpretation that set it apart. On their debut albums, both Led Zeppelin and the Jeff...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Crown
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0609807323
• ISBN 13: 9780609807323
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 496
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: MUSIC STORE professional GmbH; 022188841282; Lars.Mueller@musicstore.de; ; Istanbulstr. 22-26; Köln; 51103; Deutschland