I have been a little obsessed with Apocalypse Now! since I first watched it in my second year at university. I bought the soundtrack after Ades told me he had seen it in HMV in Oxford Street. This time being the early 90s there was no email really, no mobile phones that were cheap or small and no tweets! To find an album you had to search through record shops!
Ades informed me he had seen this and I rushed off to the tube station and got to HMV. I bought it. Happy person!
What I would really like is a full length version of The End by The Doors with all the naughty words in but I can’t find it so I’ll just have to cope with the version on this album.
To appreciate the album you need to be a fan! Considering I only watch the film when I’m feeling a little messed up it shouldn’t surprise you that the soundtrack isn’t played that often but it is an important part of my collection!
Angst – Reaper
Reaper – a band I found out by searching for more aggrotech. I like this album, it’s got a dirty dance sound (that’s more an unclean sound rather than lots of songs to which you can dance dirty). There isn’t much in the way of vocals and what lyrics there are seem to be from movie soundtracks. Obviously it’s all rather dark and gory. That just makes it all the better.
HELLectro!
Angel Dust – Faith No More
I knew of Faith No More from their hit song “Epic” and so asked for this for a present. ER bought it for me, I think for an Xmas in the early 90s. I think it was one of the first CDs I owned, even before I had a CD player. I know ER was rather distraught at the pictures of hanging cow carcasses on the inside cover.
This album provided a great deal of the soundtrack through my second and third years at university. I saw the band one when they supported Guns ‘n’ Roses at Wembley Stadium.
My favourites from this one are:
- Be Aggressive
- Caffeine
- Midlife Crisis
- Smaller And Smaller
All in all this is an excellent genre-busting album. Not quite metal and not quite anything else.
Amorica – The Black Crowes
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.
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.
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!