I downloaded this album in the last year or so. I first saw the Black Crows at the Monsters of Rock festival in 1991. They opened the show to be followed by Queensryche, Mötley Crüe, Metallica and AC/DC. I was really impressed with them and bought their first album.
I became aware of this album in my last year or so of living in London. I remember seeing posters in tube stations of the cover of the album. If you are unaware it is a close up of a woman’s bikini bottoms with some pubic hair showing. I understand it caused some controversy in the USA when It was issued and the record company had censored covers ready!
I never got around to buying the album in 1995 or so as I was moving out of the blues/hard rock genre into a more rap/metal mix (Senser and Faith No More). I was quite happy just listening to the band’s first two albums.
As for now, I’ve listened occasionally to this but nothing stands out. I might need to listen to it more but as I mentioned before most new music just sits on the edges of my memory core and doesn’t sink in. There are some exceptions, mind!
All Hell’s Breaking Loose At Little Kathy Wilson’s Place – Wolfsbane
I saw Wolfsbane support Iron Maiden at some time, I think. I’m trying to remember how I got into them but apart from possibly seeing them as support I have no idea. I bought this EP (kinda) on music cassette originally. It is easily the best British Heavy Metal album of the early nineties. There might only be six songs on this record but they are seriously worth having.
My personal highlights from the track listing are:
- Steel
- Paint The Town Red
- Loco
- Hey Babe
- Totally Nude
- Kathy Wilson
The only slightly wobbly song is Hey Babe and that’s still good in comparison to all the other stuff out there. Seeing Wolfsbane live was great and I think I saw them at The Marquee many moons ago. Apart from the song Manhunt on another album it’s just worth getting this EP.
It took me a while to find this on CD. When I was going through a phase of digitising my collection and replacing all my music cassettes and vinyl albums I searched for Kathy Wilson everywhere. I think I finally bought it from an Italian trader on eBay. The volume is a little quiet but then I think that is how the early CDs were made. In recent times it appears that they have cranked up the volume. In reality they’ve just added 5 to all the volume levels, I’m not sure you get better sound quality.
All Beauty Destroyed – Aesthetic Perfection
There are two bands I consider to be the lead players in the aggrotech / hellectro sound. Combichrist and Aesthetic Perfection. One of the saddest things about me finding this style of music is that I started with the best two bands and the rest just don’t quite match up. More in later editions of album review.
All Beauty Destroyed is an awesome album. The beat is perfect for running. The tunes are memorable and the lyrics freak me out. It’s perfect. Favourite songs are:
- A Nice Place To Visit
- Hit The Streets
- Mother*
If you don’t want to kill yourself before listening then this could help you on your way. It’s a fresh approach to dance music with catchy upbeat tunes and samples and then some sick and gravely vocals over the top. It’s all rather over the top and brilliant. It’s emotional gone crazy.
Alice In Chains – Alice In Chains
I bought this album from iTunes during a “catch up with bands I used to like” phase. I had already downloaded the album “Black Gives Way To Blue” by Alice and decided to see what else they had. I like the slowness of the songs and the haunting vocals. This album didn’t disappoint but it’s not one I know backwards.
I’m pretty sure that all the new music I listen to just sits in the top of the memory part of my brain and I find it hard to deeply learn these songs! All the stuff I’ve been listening to for the last thirty years is stuck in there, unwilling to budge. Maybe my brain has filled to the point of only superficially remembering new things and only long learnt memories are able to be retained.
After The War – Gary Moore
After The War by Gary Moore was bought for me as a vinyl album for my seventeenth birthday by SJR. Not sure why some album gifts and purchases really stick in my mind but this one does. Obviously, I taped the album so I could listen to it on my Walkman cassette player while at school and work and eventually I bought the album from iTunes to digitise my collection.
I don’t like the iTunes album because it starts with a non-vinyl appearance of Dunluce, Pt 1. This kinda ruins the opening of the album for me, although I won’t delete it. I don’t think this album has a bad song on it. I like them all. Interestingly I had never really heard any Led Zeppelin before this album and the song Led Clones which was meant to sound like them started me investigating who Led Zeppelin were and what their music was like.
This is just a good British rock album by an excellent artist.
Ace Of Spades Best Of – Motorhead
I honestly have no recollection of purchasing this album. Considering there is only ONE Motorhead album worth owning I’m surprised I’ve got this one. Maybe I got it to have the studio versions of some Lemmy classics:
- Bomber
- Iron Fist
- Metropolis
- No Class
That’s it. That’s the great songs on this album. It’d be better to just have the ONE album.
NO SLEEP ‘TILL HAMMERSMITH
Access and Amplify – Icon Of Coil
Strictly speaking this is an EP and so does not qualify for my “Album information” section but I am going to write about it anyway.
Icon of Coil are one of the projects of the main protagonist of Combichrist, Andy LaPlegua. I am still in a phase of really enjoying the “hellectro” and “aggrotech” sound and Icon of Coil were listed on Wikipedia as an influence on Combichrist. So I downloaded this EP. What struck me firstly about it was it has much more of a clean dance feel to it that the Combichrist material. The EP consists of two songs and three re-mixes of Accerss and Amplify. I don’t often listen to the EP as a stand-alone source of music but I do hear the songs now and then while I’m listening to an aggrotech shuffle when I’m on a run. Ultimately it’s well constructed music but just not quite my type. It’s not so bad that I’ll skip the songs when they come on though!
AC/DC Live – AC/DC
As music is quite a large part of my life and the things I like to do I thought I would start a series of communications extolling my thoughts on the albums I own. I am only going to cover albums, no CD singles or anything like that, I wouldn’t want this to be an unmanageable project!
All of the albums listed in this section are currently on my iPhone. There are some that are not and I might get around to writing about them one day but not in the next while. My iPhone informs me there are currently 444 albums in my library, but some of those contain single songs, again, I will only cover whole albums I have bought.
AC/DC Live – AC/DC
This live album was recorded at the 1991 Monsters of Rock festival at Donington Park. I bought this album because I was there in the crowd with my sister. It was a great concert. AC/DC were (and still are) a fantastic live band.
This recording was the first live recording of AC/DC since “If You Want Blood” with Bon Scott on vocals. I think it would be fair to say that this recording of AC/DC has become iconic. The twin CD pack included 23 songs and proved that AC/DC were masters of the universe. Hearing “For Those About To Rock” with 21 real guns going off in the background gives a real sense of what the concert was like. This album gives a sense of the peak power of AC/DC. It was the tour to support “The Razor’s Edge” album and finally AC/DC had returned to the good form that was missing for a bit of the 1980s.
Personal highlights from this album have to be:
- Sin City
- Jailbreak
- Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
- High Voltage
- T.N.T.
It’s great to hear newer versions of these classics. It puts a real energy back into the songs. Oh, and it reminds me of a great day in the summer of ’91!
Scrolling Direction
I think a new convention is needed. Being a somewhat literal interpreter of language and also because I like playing devil’s advocate I cause confusion when asked to “scroll up” my computer screen. As part of my job I regularly project my computer screen and write on the display using Microsoft OneNote. Sometimes it is requested of me to show more of my previous writing because those who should be following my work are a little slow.
Can you scroll up please
This is what I will be asked to do and although I understand the intention (to see what I wrote earlier) I irritate by moving the display on the screen so that the “paper” moves up. This is, of course, the opposite of what was being asked.
My argument to my followers is that in the days of paper scrolls being asked to scroll up would have moved the paper up and so would allow more of the bottom of the paper to be seen. I honestly do not know what should be the correct way to move the “paper”. If I was asked:
Can you move the scroll bar up please
I would say that is pretty unambiguous. Moving the scroll bar up has the desired effect. Or perhaps if I was asked:
Could you move the screen down so I can see the earlier work please
Again, it is quite clear what the intention of this statement is. I guess one of the lovely things about language is how vague and foggy it can be. It takes time and clarity of thought and interpretation to say exactly what you mean.
The offending item:
