AMON DÜÜL (I + II) (ABO #196)

AMON DÜÜL
A GERMAN MYTH
(1969-1983)

Here's another great part of history of music. With Can and Kraftwerk, Amon Düül became famous abroad from their home country, Germany. When Kraftewerk took an electronic touch and Can a more avant-garde one, Amon Düül travelled in many styles : Psychedelic, Space, Avant-garde... But by the mid-70s, although they were as inovative as at their beginnings, the band fell into oblivion and nearly disappeared in the early 80s until a final album recorded with Hawkwind (Hawks Meet Penguin). After that, nothing was really much interesting as this compilation has to stop in 1983.

My Amon Düül TOP3 :
1. Wolf City (1972)
2. Yeti (1970)
3. Tanz Der Lemminge (1971)

My Amon Düül BOTTOM3 :
1. Kobe (Reconstruction) (1996)
2. Die Lösung (1988)
3. Only Human (1979)

MANOWAR (ABO #195)

MANOWAR
THE LAST WARRIOR

Manowar are the epitome of Power Metal a.k.a. Heavy Metal that adds a little cheese to the mix, that is both epic and bombastic and kind of ridiculous when looking at the lyrical content. An american band formed in 1980 that has, to this day, released 10 studio albums and sold over 9 million copies worldwide without ever compromising to the mainstream.
On this 2 cd compilation, I've tried to portray the band's musical evolution throughout its almost three decades of activity. In my humble opinion, they are one of the best classic Heavy Metal outfits from the USA, able to offer grandiloquent warrior hymns (Heart of Steel, Courage) as well as straight out Heavy Rock'n'Roll (All Men Play on 10, Return of the Warlord).
Sadly, their last two albums lacked the band's initial energy focusing too much on orchestral "Pomp" Metal rather than their on old rocking sound. Yet, there are still a few tracks worth the effort.
Enjoy "The Last Warrior" and make sure to comment on the selection, artwork, etc.

Blood of My Enemies


Courage (Live)

My MANOWAR Top 3
1 - Louder Than Hell (1996)
2 - Sign of the Hammer (1984)
3 - Hail to England (1984)

My MANOWAR Bottom 3
1 - Gods of War (2007)
2 - Warriors of the World (2002)
3 - Fighting the World (1987)

WISH YOU WERE ANIMALS (VAC#022)

VARIOUS ARTISTS
WISH YOU WERE ANIMALS

Yeah ! 2 for the price of 1 ! In fact, until the end, I thought I would have been able to make two separate Floyd cover albums for Wish You Were Here and Animals, but the first one was really too short and I had to fuse both. Everything fits in the 80 minutes of a CD and are really complete. Even Shine On You Crazy Diamond, part 2 that was really hard to find : until the last time, I only had David Gilmour version, which cannot be taken as a cover version. In fact, this one is from a Tribute band called Off The Wall and is not very different from David's one. For the Animal part, I was amazed how much this album has been covered, but hardly found as interesting as Les Claypool's version. One of the highest points, to my point of view, is the version of Dogs, only with acoustic guitars : It's simply outblowing !
As a bonus track, I wanted to feature another, short, female-voiced version of Shine On You Crazy Diamond that I found great

EGG (ABO #194)

EGG
OMELETTE

Egg were an English progressive rock band formed in January 1969. The founding members of the group were Dave Stewart who played organ? Mont Campbell on bass and vocals and drummer Clive Brooks. The band emerged from an earlier quartet formed whilst at City of London Boys School called Uriel with guitarist Steve Hillage. After Hillage left the band in August 1968, the other three continued as a trio. Having signed a deal with the Middle Earth club's management branch, they were advised to change their name to Egg, allegedly because Uriel "sounded too much like 'urinal'". In mid 1969 the band signed a deal with Decca's 'progressive' sublabel Deram and released their debut album in March 1970 on their short-lived Nova series.
While not a commercial success, it was received well enough for the label to finance the recording of a follow-up, but when the time came to release it, they got cold feet and it was all but shelved, until producer Neil Slaven's lobbying finally resulted in The Polite Force coming out in February 1971. Now signed to The Groundhogs' management company, Egg finished the year with an increased touring schedule, but in spite of accumulating enough material for a third album, were unable to secure another record deal, and called it a day in July 1972.
In 1974, Stewart, now signed with Virgin as a member of Hatfield and the North, got a deal for Egg to record their unreleased material, which resulted in the farewell album The Civil Surface.
A great catch and what better band could we have found for the Easter post than a band named Egg?

MADNESS (ABO#193)

MADNESS
PARTYTIME
(1979-2005)

For many people, ska is not an old music style, it's just a white reggae. That's a big error. In fact, ska is a black music much older than reggae, and at the origin of reggae ! Just because the 80s where to begin, a band of young white english people had to wish a ska revival. What a surprise in that punk era to ear some clean soft dancing songs, completely the contrary of what was punk. Madness was much a surprise as England hardly imported exotic music. The band were nearly the first to. At that time of 'no future' thoughts, Madness gave a lighter point of view to life and brang joy and happiness to any party. The most popular Madness stuff lives in their first 3 or 4 LPs. After that, they had progressively become a simple pop band and ska disappeared once again, until younger bands gave it another live with, O surprise, punk in it !
This is a panorama od Madness history. Hope you'll enjoy it and dance all night !

My Madness TOP3 :
1. One Step Beyond (1979)
2. Absolutely (1980)
3. Keep Moving (1984)

My Madness BOTTOM3 :
1. Mad Not Mad (1985)
2. The Madness (1999)
3. The Dangermen Sessions, vol 1 (2005)

RAINBOW (ABO #192)

RAINBOW
SELF PORTRAIT
(1975/1995)

As I'm sure many of you already know, Rainbow were an English hard rock and heavy metal band formed by former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore in 1975. In addition to Blackmore, the band originally consisted of former Elf members; lead singer Ronnie James Dio (later to join Black Sabbath), keyboardist Mickey Lee Soule, bassist Craig Gruber, and drummer Gary Driscoll. Over the years Rainbow went through many lineup changes for better or for worse.
This compilation is a two-sided monster. The first CD displays studio works (from the remastered editions) while the other focuses on live recordings. Rainbow was a very jammy live act that is why I thought it was necessary to do so. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Tarot Woman


Spotlight Kid

My RAINBOW Top 3
1 - On Stage
2 - Rising
3 - Difficult to Cure

My RAINBOW Bottom 3
1 - Bent Out of Shape
2 - Stranger in Us All
3 - Straight Between the Eyes

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE & TOM RAPP (ABO#191)

ONCE UPON A TIME
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE
&
TOM RAPP
(1965-2003)

With high school friends Wayne Harley (banjo, mandolin), Lane Lederer (bass, guitar) and Roger Crissinger (piano, organ), Tom Rapp wrote and recorded some songs which were inspired by the Fugs. They were quickly signed up, and recorded One Nation Underground (1967), featuring songs of mysticism, protest, melancholia, and some controversy in the case of “Miss Morse”, which spelled out an obscenity in code.
The more mysterious-sounding and strongly anti-war Balaklava (1968) followed, inspired by the Charge of the Light Brigade. Rapp has said "The first two albums are probably considered the druggiest, and I had never done any drugs at that point. I smoked Winston cigarettes at that time, so these are all Winston-induced hallucinations." The album covers featured paintings by Bosch and Brueghel. The records themselves included interpretations of the writings of Tolkien and Herodotus as well as archive recordings from the 1890s, with innovatively arranged songs using an eclectic variety of instruments.
The band signed for Reprise Records in 1969, although by this time the other original members had left and the band name referred to Rapp. The five albums on Reprise were generally more conventional in sound, but contained a unique blend of humanistic and mystical songs, with some whimsical touches.
Two albums followed, released under Rapp's own name until a final appearance in 1976 supporting Patti Smith.
he re-appeared in 1997 at Terrastock, a music festival in Providence, Rhode Island, with his son's band, Shy Camp, and began recording again with 1999's A Journal of the Plague Year.

(source : Wikipedia)
thanks to one-time contributor Stevesstuff for having selected the songs for that baistophe

DEVO (ABO #190)

DEVO
WHIP IT!

Devo is an American rock group formed in Akron, Ohio in 1973. They are best known for their 1980 hit "Whip It", which made it to #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Their style has been variously classified as punk, art rock and post-punk, but they are most often remembered for their late 1970s and early 1980s New Wave sound.
Devo's music and stage show mingle kitsch science fiction themes, deadpan surrealist humor, and mordantly satirical social commentary via sometimes-discordant pop songs that often feature unusual synthetic instrumentation and time signatures, and their work has proved hugely influential on subsequent popular music, particularly New Wave, industrial and alternative rock artists.
Devo was also a pioneer of the music video, creating many memorable clips that were popular in the early days of MTV, although their use of the video medium dates right back to their very first appearance on stage at Kent State University in 1973, which was recorded with an early black-and-white portable video system.
A new album should be released in the fall of 2009 (their first in almost 20 years!) that's why I thought it was crucial to give you this compilation of their finest tracks which focuses on the first four albums with picks at the following repertoire.

Devo - Satisfaction

Devo - Whip It

My DEVO Top 3
1 - Q:Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978)
2 - Freedom of Choice (1980)
3 - Duty Now for the Future (1979)

My DEVO Bottom 3
1 - Total Devo (1988)
2 - Shout (1984)
3 - Smooth Noodle Maps (1990)

HEAVY METAL KIDS (ABO#189)

HEAVY METAL KIDS
BORN TO ROCK
(1973-2003)

The Heavy Metal Kids were formed in 1973 & with the line-up of Gary Holton, Keith Boyce, Ronny Thomas, Danny Peyronel (later to join UFO) & Micky Waller. The band's brand of good-time rock was never really heavy metal, and they even shortened their name to The Kids for their second album 'Anvil Chorus'.

Lack of commercial success lead them to change to the RAK label for the final album 'Kitsch' in 1977. However, Gary Holton's over-the-top perfomances lead to frictions in the band - by the time 'Kitsch' was released, the band had already split. Despite rumours that Gary would join either Boxer or Uriah Heep, neither came to anything, and he moved onto a career in TV acting. He almost became a household name when he got a role in the TV series 'Auf Wiedersen Pet', but this was cut short when he died in 1985, victim of heroin addiction.

The Heavy Metal Kids shortly came back in 2003 for a swansong CD called Hit The Right Button (source: rock-photos.co.uk)

My Heavy Metal Kids TOP3 :
1. Anvil Chorus (1975)
2. Kitsch (1977)
3. Hit The Righ Button (2003)
4. Heavy Metal Kids (1974)

SLAYER (ABO #188)

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO
SLAYER
IN 18 BURSTS

Afer Metallica a few months back and Sepultura a few days ago, BAISTOPHE gives you another hugely influential thrash metal act with californian's 4 piece commando Slayer.
Out of the 9 studio albums the band has released, I've selected 18 essentials tracks that I think make a perfect introduction to the band's corrosive art and a nice way to review their classics while waiting for their new album scheduled later this year. Enjoy!

South of Heaven

My SLAYER Top 3
1 - South of Heaven (1988)
2 - Seasons in the Abyss (1990)
3 - Show No Mercy (1983)

My SLAYER Bottom 3
1 - God Hates Us All (2001)
2 - Diabolus in Musica (1998)
3 - Christ Illusion (2006)