Early 70's Underground Heavy Metal

I just got back from school. The name of the university is Orexis of Death, and they offer an online course of study in Early Metal. I was under the belief that if I had my Trapeze and Tull, Atomic Rooster, Budgie, Purple, Sabbath and Zeppelin, that I'd have all the bases covered. Well, the instructors at OOD want to inform a brother that there's plenty more of these formative documents that need coveting. The early-to-mid 70's were a period of great growth in the realm of Hard Rock-Heavy Metal and many of these treasures are now up for examination at this wonderful website.

Searching downward on this page you will find a band named, Iron Maiden, that supposedly was very important in the formation of Doom Metal. No, it's not an early, unreleased album from that very famous band you already know, but instead, yet another early proto-metal band that got to the name first. If you're looking for an unreleased album from a very famous group, how about searching on this page for Motorhead's first album, named Parole, which wasn't released until much later. Look for Bedlam, the band where Cozy Powell was hanging out, just prior to joining Rainbow. How about the Baker-Gurvitz Army albums, featuring another famous drummer, Ginger Baker? And, then there's Glenn Tipton's outfit, just prior to joining Judas Priest....an unreleased title from a band called, The Flying Hat Band. There's plenty of great stuff on this page if you look carefully enough. I got my eyes on this band called 'Dies Irae', which looks like an interesting Heavy Prog outfit.

http://orexisofdeath.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
Orexis Of Death

http://www.heartofmetal.net/board-rules-and-announcements-f15/the-board-rules-t7429.htm

Quote :

7 - LINKS
We do not approve links to sites that promote porn, illegal downloading or otherwise incriminationg contents. If you do not own the rights to the material you post, be it picture hotlinking, mp3-files or whatever, don't post it. Please use common sense before spamming the board with litter from other websites.

...or are these "bootlegs" and not "official releases"?

I don't know about all of that. I'm concentrating on the lowdown that the site gives on each and every title. Lots of information.

Marc Mason wrote:

How about that one-off squadron of progsters named Asgard? In The Realm Of Asgard is H_O_T. It's a must, really. Also, love that jazz-infested self-titled release from a unit calling themselves Samurai. Classic all the way. DOES ANYBODY here have Goliath's Hot Rock and Thunder?

I have Goliath's Hot Rock and Thunder. Good album. I also agree on the "Supernaut"demo. That and the un-released "Possessed" album made me very reluctant to buy any more "lost" albums. Who needs somebodies practice tapes from 1973 anyway? Big deal.
I'm just filling up an Ipod with the stuff from this era just now. I'll put the whole list of bands here when I'm done, if I get time to. It'll be about 150 of the heavier albums from before 1973 mostly.

I'm getting there on filling up the Ipod, but man this is hard. It's like surgery sometimes. I have an 8 gig, and I'm trying to stick to the harder, blues based stuff from that era. To do that I've had to resolve to not include some tasty albums. No wierd prog/psych (Grinrolog, Group 1850 etc.); no creepy mellowish stuff (Black Widow, Mad River, etc.); no heavy pop (Doors, Steppenwolf, etc.); and no ahead of it's time mid-70's sounding stuff (A Foot In Coldwater, Poobah, Goodthunder). I even bought an extra 2 gig memory card and am relegating all the mainstream heavy hitters, Sabbath, Purple, Heep, Hendrix, Cream etc. to that just to make sure I get all the underground stuff on the machine. I hope they mix back in with the internal memory when I shuffle. I have to end up buying a bigger external memory card to get everything I want on there.

SAHB Healer wrote:

No wierd prog/psych (Grinrolog, Group 1850 etc.)

Now you've peaked my curiosity about that stuff....

detuned wrote:

SAHB Healer wrote:

No wierd prog/psych (Grinrolog, Group 1850 etc.)

Now you've peaked my curiosity about that stuff....

The best album like that that I had to leave out is Freedom's Children-Astra. If you've ever heard that album you know what a tragedy this is. I think I'm gonna have to just dig deep and buy a bigger memory card.

SAHB Healer wrote:

detuned wrote:

SAHB Healer wrote:

No wierd prog/psych (Grinrolog, Group 1850 etc.)

Now you've peaked my curiosity about that stuff....

Freedom's Children-Astra.to just dig deep and buy a bigger memory card. If you've ever heard that album you know what a tragedy this is.

How can you leave South Africa's finest off.........one of the most incredibly out there bands of the time along with the Flower Travelin' Band.

Freedom's Children MM and Detuned.......

http://www.myspace.com/freedomschldrn

rattpoison wrote:

Freedom's Children-Astra.


How can you leave South Africa's finest off?


[url=http://www.myspace.com/freedomschldrn

http://www.myspace.com/freedomschldrn[/quote[/url]]

I just took the wrong approach to this. I didn't realize the limitations of an 8 gig memory. So I started with Humble Pie and Free and Cactus and Blue Cheer and worked outward. But this ended up as a pretty middle of the road Ipod. About half the bands sound exactly like Mountain or Cactus. It's gonna sound like I downloaded Martin Popoff's brain into it frankly (he's an old guy who writes collectors guides). Oh well, when this Pod crashes I'll know to start with the bizzare stuff next time to make it more interesting.
Maybe what will save this project is the fact that because of the experimental nature of those times there are a couple of naff goofy tracks on almost every album from that era. Maybe I'll delete all those and make room for some stuff with more personality.

Allright. I got the Ipod full and running. Work will be easier with this strapped to my head. I'll delete some songs as I go and clear space for some more diverse stuff. These are the bands I have on there now:

2066 And Then
Alamo
Ancient Grease
Andromeda
Armaggedon ('70)
Art
Atomic Rooster
Aunt Mary
Bakery
Banchee
Bang
BF Trike
Birth Control
Black Sabbath
Blackwater Park
Bloodrock
Blue Cheer
Blues Image
Broughton Band
Budgie
Buffalo
Bull Angus
Cactus
Captain Beyond
Clear Blue Sky
Cream
Crow
CWT
Dark
Deep Purple
Detroit (Mitch Ryder)
Dies Irae
Dschinn/Dischas
Dust
Elias Hulk
Epitaph
Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green)
Flower Travelin' Band
Free
Freedom
Freedom's Children (I sqeezed them in!)
Frigid Pink
Frost
Fuse (Rick Nielsen!)
Fuzzy Duck
Gift
Gods
Golden Earring ('70-'72)
Goliath
Grand Funk
Gravy Train
Groundhogs
Gun('69)
Gypsy
Hairy Chapter
Hardstuff
Hawkwind
Haystack Balboa
Help
Hendrix
High Tide
Highway Robbery
Horse
Humble Pie
Incredible Hog
Irish Coffee
Iron Butterfly
Iron Maiden ('70)
James Gang
Jericho
Jethro Tull
Josefus
Keef Hartley Band
Killing Floor
Kin Ping Meh
Leafhound
Led Zeppelin
Leviathan
Life
Lucifer's Friend
Master's Apprentices
May Blitz
MC 5
Megaton
Morgen
Mountain
My Solid Ground
Necromandus
Night Sun
Nine Days Wonder
Odyssey
Orang-Utan
Pink Fairies
Pluto
Pretty Things ('70)
Procol Harem
Rumplestiltskin
Salem Mass
Savage Grace ('72)
Savoy Brown
Sir Lord Baltimore
Skid Row (Gary Moore)
Spooky Tooth
Status Quo
Steamhammer
Steel Mill
Stonewall
Stray
T2
Taste
Tear Gas
Third World War
Titanic
Trapeze
Tucky Buzzard
Uriah Heep
Vanilla Fudge
Warhorse
Warpig
Wild Turkey
Wishbone Ash
Writing on The Wall
Zior

If this thing crashes I'm gonna be pissed. That was a lot of work loading. 1389 songs.

Great list, I got stuff from about 95% of those bands but...no Hydra, Chase, SRC, Return To Forever or Chicken Shack?

That's a great list SAHB.

Do you like any of the early fusion bands like Tony Williams' Lifetime, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report?

akeldama wrote:

Great list, I got stuff from about 95% of those bands but...no Hydra, Chase, SRC, Return To Forever or Chicken Shack?

Hydra is great, but more mid-70's. They are slated for the classic rock Ipod with Ultra and Point Blank. I love SRC, but they weren't always heavy enough for what I wanted here. Their third album maybe, but all I have is the best of. I've never been sold on Chicken Shack. I have to look into the other two.

detuned wrote:

That's a great list SAHB.

Do you like any of the early fusion bands like Tony Williams' Lifetime, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report?

some individual songs, but I'm not patient enough to absorb their albums. About as far as I get in that direction are the Jeff Beck fusion albums.

I'm in love with this band.

Now, I understand that the subject of this thread is bands that have something to do with Metal's formative years. Agreed upon and acknowledged. We've pointed out some very fine bands, most of which I've given ample attention to in the past few years. Hopefully, the other members here have also inquired into the work of these groups.

But, that early 70's period is significant for more than one reason. And, a whole 'nother cast of bands coming out of that era deserve to be revered and made accessible to the masses. With the ubiquitous nature of the internet, there is no reason why all those well-kept musical secrets need to be hid any longer.

Besides the heavy and proto-metallic outfits, there were also quite a number of bands that did a good job of furthering the union between Rock and Jazz. The years between 1970 and 1974 were not only notable for the surge in both the burgeoning genres of Metal and Progressive Rock, but also for the introduction and initial growth of Jazz Fusion. But, just like with Prog, the growth and lifespan of Jazz Fusion would also be short-lived. Unlike with Metal, this would be Prog and Fusion's greatest era...with the bulk of the very best works coming out of this very short period.

I don't know why that is. The lack of longevity, that is. Scratch that. I do have a good idea of why that is. I'm only perplexed by this because I happen to be a fan of all three genres...of Jazz, Metal and of Prog. Pretty much equally too. To my knowledge, I don't really favor one discipline above the others, although I've been listening to a ton more Metal these days.

I hate to say it, but in comparison to both Fusion and Prog, Metal is a more simplistic form of art. That's not to say that it's weaker or unworthy of comparison to the other two. Nor, is the statement altogether and always true when examining any two bands, where one happens to be Metal and the other one, Prog or Fusion. I'm only stating that, in the past 40 years, Heavy Metal, being the wide and encompassing term that it is, has engendered many more groups that have had a wide, more mainstream, further-reaching and more accessible appeal.

Metal has thrived, whereas both Prog and Fusion have dwindled substantially, because the average person is nowhere as interested in music in general as, say, the attendees of any given internet music forum, like this one. And, 'the average person' greatly outnumbers all the other persons. For the most part, Metal music is a quick, get in, get out proposition. Listen to a few tracks, pound your fist up to the sky and then turn off that sound-system and move onto the next, more productive pursuit. It's a type of music geared for a quick-paced, technological era.

Progressive Rock and Jazz Fusion are much more immersive and time-consuming endeavors than Metal. It takes more time to hear a Prog or Fusion selection, and it takes more time to comprehend what it is that you've just heard. Prog and Fusion are more intellectual and deeper musically (on average), whereas Metal is more emotional, and testosterone-fueled. Again, these are generalities that I'm stating here. I'm sure that we can locate some Dream Theater track that will make some Mahavishnu Orchestra track look like run-o-the-mill, simplistic AC/DC. But, the structure of many of Metal's most notable pieces are formatted in a way which is conducive to radio airplay, whereas most Prog and Fusion ARE NOT.

Although, we know that some of the best Metal out there is distanced pretty far away from the mainstream, this idea of what is 'close to' or 'removed' from the mainstream is always going to be 'relative' to what you're comparing the thing to. And, when most Metal is compared to most Prog and Fusion, the songwriting structure of most of that Metal can only be seen as being much more aligned with that of mainstream Pop culture.

Heavy Metal has outlived and outbred both Prog and Fusion, not because it's a better form of music, but because the format which is most stereotypical of this type of music happens to enable it to continuously reach more people. Well, that factor, and of course, the idea that Metal is a perfect vehichle for the release of pent up frustrations and agression...I was going to post some Fusion music here from that intial period of growth, but maybe later...Firstly, I want to hear if what's stated here makes sense to a few, some, many, all?

At some point when I'm less exhausted I'll write about some of my thoughts on the jazz fusion scene of the late 60s'/early 70's. Tonight I'm just too damn tired.

I have more jazz recordings than any other genre, I spent an entire decade studying it.

In the meantime, go check out this thread:

http://www.heartofmetal.net/let-the-music-do-the-talking-f8/the-fusion-thread-t8977.htm

detuned wrote:

I have more jazz recordings than any other genre, I spent an entire decade studying it.

Must have been a heckuva test.

Critique Oblique wrote:

detuned wrote:

I have more jazz recordings than any other genre, I spent an entire decade studying it.

Must have been a heckuva test.

The test is still ongoing...and it's the only one I've ever really enjoyed taking.