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 5 - Mid-Late 1970s British Metal

We have another session of our monthly Classic Metal Class coming up tomorrow at Noon Central Time.  Here's the ZOOM LINK to join us!  Guitarist and Berkelee School of Music professor Scott Tarulli will be joining me as a special guest again for this session. 

In Session #5, we will be looking at the mid-late 1970s (1974-1979) and the ongoing development of heavy metal as a more and more self-conscious genre of music. We'll be discussing this ongoing history, features of metal in that era, and how the sounds were getting heavier and harder, leading into early 80s metal.

While many of the main bands that comprise the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (e.g. Iron Maiden, Raven) were active in the pub scene, and producing demos at the time, we're going to be focusing on the bands that were producing albums in this time period.  So, among the bands we'll be discussing will be Judas Priest, Motörhead, Budgie, UFO, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Whitesnake, Gillan, Saxon, Girlschool, Quartz, Nazareth, and Magnum

I hope you can join us for it! If you can, you get to participate in the discussion.  We will be recording the session as well, just like the four previous class sessions, all of which you can view here.

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)!