Classic Metal Class This Weekend - Metal In America in the 1970s!

 

We have a session of our monthly classic metal class coming up this Saturday at Noon Central Time. I'll be joined again by Scott Tarulli - professor of guitar, studio and gig musician and bandleader, and fellow metalhead - and this time we're discussing more music history (and veering into some philosophy as well).

The topic this session is heavy metal bands, music, and identity in the 1970s, specifically in America.  So in addition to tracing out the influence British metal exercised in catalyzing American metal in the 1970s, we're also going to be tracing out the development of distinctively heavy metal scenes (like that of LA in the late 70s and the early 80s.  And we'll engage in some analysis - maybe even some argument between us - about what American bands really qualify as "heavy metal" and which are better described as "metal-adjacent" or "kinda metal" hard rock.  We might even indulge in some wild counter-factual speculation about how metal might have developed differently if Jimi Hendrix hadn't met his untimely death (we'll see!)

So it'll be a mix of music history, sociology, philosophy, and musicology, all centered around American bands and musicians.  To give a little foretaste, I'm going to claim that bands that are definitely American metal in the 1970s include Sir Lord Baltimore, Bang, Pentagram, Montrose, KISS, Twisted Sister, Riot, Van Halen, Cirith Ungol, Mickey Ratt, Quiet Riot, and the Plasmatics.  There's also a part of the story to be told about Dokken as well.

We're also going to discuss how we ought to classify acts ranging from Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, Blue Oyster Cult, Aerosmith, Foghat, Ramjam, Mountain, Y&T, The Runaways.  Does their music in the 1970s qualify as "metal", or should they be just lumped in to the larger genre of "hard rock"?  (I like to call them "metal adjacent")

So, High Noon (my time), this Saturday, February 20!  Here's the Zoom link for the session.  I hope to see you there!

Classic Metal Class Session 8 - NWOBHM and Metal Identity

We are starting off the 2021 year of monthly Classic Metal Class sessions this Saturday with a discussion that continues delving into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) in the early 80s.  This time the focus is on how the musicians and fans were involved in something that was not just a musical movement, but involved developments of what we can call a more and more self-conscious "metalhead" identity.

There are a number of aspects to this, and I'm sure the conversation - as always - will stray a bit past the limits of these topics, but what we plan to discuss include:

• the progressive formation of consciousness of self as "metalheads"
• the thematization of heavy metal as a type of music and experience within song lyrics
• the development of and influence on genres of metal by bands in this period
• the continuities between older British, American, and European metal and the NWOBHM

As always, I'll be joined by my cohost and special guest, Berklee School of Music guitar professor and fellow metalhead-since-childhood, Scott Tarulli (you can check him out here).  We'll kick the ideas back and forth for half an hour or so, and then start responding to questions and comments - we always get some great ones from participants!

Here's the Zoom link for the session - the session is this Saturday, 12:00 PM Central Time.  Hope you can join us for what will be a rich conversation about classic heavy metal!

Classic Metal Class Session 8 - Delayed To The New Year

Ordinarily on the second Saturday of the month, my co-host Scott Tarulli and I would be holding Classic Metal Class around noon.  We had lined up a session in which we'd be following up some threads of thought started in last month's session, focused on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, but we decided just a few days ago to

In addition to having our own businesses and clients, Scott and I both teach at the college level, and this semester has been simply a SLOG!  We talked it over and decided that we both need a bit of downtime before doing another Classic Metal Class.  It's not a matter of planning and preparation so much as a question of bringing energy to the sessions - and right about now, our reserves are a bit tapped out.

We'll be starting up the classes again in the new year of 2021, and we hope that you can join us for that.  I'm also planning to get in a bit of writing here in the blog, once the bulk of my final academic grading is behind me.  So I'll see you in the weeks to come!

Classic Metal Class Session 7 - New Wave of British Heavy Metal

We started our discussion of a major movement in the development of heavy metal - the New Wave of British Heavy Metal - in Classic Metal Class session #7.  We turned over so many interesting topics that we'e going to return to it in the next session.  If you missed the class session when it took place, and you'd like to watch or listen to the discussion, here's the recording

The Fall semester is at last starting to wind down as well, so I'm hoping to be able to start writing posts regularly here again in Heavy Metal Philosopher.

Classic Metal Class This Saturday - The Ethics of Farewell Tours

Right now, due to Covid-19, tours and even one-off concerts are largely on hold.  But there's already talk of tours starting up once we eventually find a way to deal with the pandemic.  And some of those tours - you can guarantee it - are going to be carried out by metal bands that already did their farewell tour (in some cases, more than one!)

Some time back, we examined the question "Farewell Tours - Can You Repeat Them?" This was provoked by one of Dee Snyder's interviews, in which he criticized bands that, after announcing and doing a farewell tour, went back out on tour again, making a solid case for this practice being unethical on a number of counts.

Snyder has been a consistent voice and example on this issue, and weighed in on it in a number of interviews over this last year (for example here and here).  Eddie Trunk also weighed in recently with a quip.

The only band I can now think of that did a Farewell tour and has yet to ever play together since is @TwistedSisterNY .. so they are now on the clock haha. And they played 100% live and real right till the end !

Last year, Chris Krovatin authored a good piece on the topic of farewell tours in Kerrang!

So my co-host of Classic Metal Class - Scott Tarulli - and I decided that this would be a good topic to examine in depth for session six. You can join us on Zoom for the session this Saturday, Noon Central Time.  

We'll be recording the session, and we'll be reading and responding to questions and comments from the participants - so if you're there, your contributions will make their way into the class video.

Videorecording of Classic Metal Class Session #5 - British Mid-Late 1970s Metal

We held Session 5 of Classic Metal Class several weeks ago.  This time, we intended to return to a focus primarily on music history, but we ended up going into a lot of discussion about technological and sound development aspects of the period we were discussing.  I won't say "strayed" or "digressed" because all of that discussion - led primarily by my co-host Scott Taruli - was both very well-informed and extraordinarily useful for understanding the development across the sound vectors that we call "heavy metal".

The official topic for this session was mid-late 1970s British heavy metal - so all the major bands,  developments, tours, continuities and changes in sound in England, Scotland, and Wales.  I used whether or not a band managed to bring out at least one more-or-less metal album in those years as a proxy for whether to include them in the discussion.

Those years were a time, of course, in which the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) was coalescing, growing, and getting ready to burst forth.  Saxon did manage to get their first album out by 1979 (as did the somewhat less favored Samson), but some of the other really key players in the scene - like Iron Maiden - hadn't yet got to that stage.  So 1979 winds up being a good cut-off year.

We'll be revisiting some of these bands in later sessions - particularly Motorhead and Judas Priest - and we'll also be devoting some sessions to the NWOBHM movement.  But it was really worthwhile to focus in on those 1970s years in the development of British heavy metal.  Here's the videorecording of the session!

Our next classic metal class session will be coming up later this month, on Saturday, October 10.

Classic Metal Class Session 4 Coming Up On Saturday

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We took this last month off from Classic Metal Class, but we've got a really interesting session coming up this weekend, specifically on Saturday at Noon Central Time  We'll be focusing on an age-old issue in the arts, the role of Mimesis.  That's a Greek term that can be translated as "imitation," and discussions about the nature of art (including music) have long viewed it as involving - or even at its core, just being - mimesis.

There are a number of other issues connected with this that we'll likely explore in upcoming episodes, but the one that we're going to focus on here is rather specific.  There's a phenomenon that is essentially one of imitation in metal, and that is Tribute Bands.  

We've all seen them either live or in other media like YouTube videos - bands whose entire purpose and point is to imitate another band, going past just covering their music to imitating their appearance, their style, their ethos.  Sometimes, they're dead-on.  Sometimes they're from the originals.  Sometimes they rock. And sometimes they suck.  

But there's thousands of tribute bands out there, so we're going to discuss what distinguishes tribute bands from other ones, and examine the range of values they provide, deal in, or exploit - and what their relationships are with the original metal bands they imitate.

Guitarist and Berkelee School of Music professor Scott Tarulli will be joining me as a special guest again for this session.  I hope you can join us for it! If you can, you get to participate in the discussion.  Here's the ZOOM LINK to join us at Noon Central.

We will be recording the session as well, just like the three previous class sessions, all of which you can view here.

Classic Metal Class #3 - Metaphysical Identity of Bands in Changes

We had our third session of the Classic Metal Class earlier in June, discussing a number of metaphysical issues that arise when we are considering what a "band " or "group" is, and whether it remains the same basic thing in the course of changes.  These most often have to do with musicians going in and out of the ensemble - changes of personnel - but we also discussed other ways that bands can change over time as well, for instance when the band shifts in its style or basic approach.

We'll be revisiting many of these topics in future sessions, and when I can set aside the time for writing, I'll be doing some posts here as well.  For now - for those who missed the session and would like to watch it (so far, over 700 views!) - here it is.

Classic Metal Class Session 2 Tomorrow Noon Central!

We're doing another of the online Classic Metal Class sessions tomorrow, Saturday May 16 at Noon Central Time, and anyone who wants to attend is invited! 

If you'd like to register for the session - which you'll need in order to get the Zoom link and the cool handout on the topic for this session - just click here and fill out the form.

I'll be joined again by special guest, Scott Tarulli - guitar professor, band leader, studio and gig musician, and a good friend and colleague - and we'll be discussing the "Black Sabbath-Deep Purple Nexus".

By that admittedly strange term, what I have in mind is not just the early metal music they composed, played, and recorded, and not just their massive influence on so many other metal acts that were to follow.  I also mean the musicians they took in from other bands, developed, and then spun off and out into other bands.  There's a lot of connections between these two main poles of the nexus and the other acts that fit into it.  These include three important metal solo bands - Gillan, Ozzy Osborne, and Dio - and two other major bands - Rainbow and Whitesnake.

So join us tomorrow for a conversation that will range over classic metal music history, philosophical ideas and speculations, and most likely a lot more (including a kids' cartoon)!

Recording of Classic Metal Class #1

Our first session of the new online Classic Metal Class went very well.  Feedback from the participants was that they had a great time, and are looking forward to the next session, and I'll say that I - and my special guest, Scott Tarulli (who will be joining me for additional sessions coming up) really enjoyed the conversation as well!

We discussed the beginnings of Heavy Metal, looking particularly at 1970, and then continuing the narrative up to 1974.  1970 was a massively important year, with a number of early metal bands bringing out albums, and going on tour (sometimes with each other). Black Sabbath, of course, is the most influential and central band, but there are some others that play a major role in forming and fomenting this developing genre - Deep Purple, UFO, Uriah Heep, sir Lord Baltimore, and Led Zepplin each bring out important albums in 1970.  And in 1971, that expands to Budgie and Flower Travellin' Band.  1972 adds the Scorpions, Blue Oyster Cult, Alice Cooper, and Bang to the mix.

There's a lot more to be said, but it was in the session!  So here's the videorecording:

Watch for an announcement about the next class session coming up soon!

Classic Metal Class - Session 1 This Saturday!

Classic Heavy Metal - the stuff from the 70s and 80s - has been a major part of my life since I was a kid, and before I even knew what that kind of music was called.  I've also been either studying or teaching philosophy for three decades now.  Those areas have bled over into each other from time to time, and I've been fortunate to have friends and colleagues - including Scott Tarulli, Blitch 66, and (my wife) Andi Sciacca - with whom I could "talk metal" in deep, detailed, and animated conversations.

In addition to enjoying heavy metal as a fan, I've also long been researching the history of the genre.  I've been wanting not just to engage in writing about classic metal, but also to engage in some teaching and interactive discussion about it.  So I'm starting that up this weekend with a the first 1-hour session of Classic Metal Class - and you're invited!

I'll be hosting the class on Zoom at Noon Central Time, Saturday April 25.  Here's the signup page (our Zoom is capped at 100 people).  I'm planning on presenting for the first 20 or so minutes, and then we'll open it up to discussion and Q&A - and guitarist, bandleader, and professor Scott Tarulli will also be there as a special guest, participating in the discussion!

The topic I've selected for this first session is a basic but also controversial one:  the early years of metal (1970-1974).  "Controversial?" you might ask?  Yep!  There's quite a few "origin stories" to heavy metal, and the simpler they are, usually the more wrong they turn out to be.  We'll be discussing the "it was just Black Sabbath at the start" narrative (usually coupled with "and then it was Judas Priest"), and showing how much richer, more complex, and more interesting the real story of metal's early years is! 

We'll also be touching on some more explicitly philosophical issues like how and whether we can define music genres; what the essence of heavy metal is (if there is one); what makes a band "important" or "influential"; and why this music caught on in the first place.

So join us this Saturday for what promises to be a lively discussion of this music we love!