Welcome to our blog. We love music and hope you do as well.
Feel free to comment and contribute to the conversation. This is a labor of love, so we'll see where it goes.
In Rock,
Su and Mark
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Metallica, Maiden and the making of MotleySu
First, the Metallica: I met their original record company honcho at a flea market in New Jersey in 1984. He ran his label at the flea market! He gave me their “Kill ‘Em All” album, which I played on a heavy metal radio show at the time. He started giving me more albums and I started learning about more metal bands that were trying to break through during that time, including: Anthrax, Raven, TT Quick, Manowar and Venom. I played them all. Met Metallica a few times and have a poster signed by them. They called me “Su-No-E.” Others picked it up for a while, but a party in 1985 cemented “MotleySu” as my permanent nickname. My friend Brian continued to call me “Su-No-E” for years, though, and a small part of me misses that.
Next, Maiden: My friend Mary, who worked with me as receptionists at PolyGram Records, got us tickets for a week of Iron Maiden concerts at Radio City Music Hall. Queensryche opened. We had the most amazing time! We got to go backstage a few times and meet the guys in Maiden. The nicest guys: drummer Nicko McBrain and bassist Steve Harris. I’ve loved the band since ’85 and have seen them in concert a number of times; most recently last summer at White River Amphitheater in Auburn, Washington. This band has only gotten better with time.
The making of MotleySu is a little more detailed. I didn’t discover metal until 7th grade, when I heard the album KISS Alive II. I LOVED IT. I went to see KISS in concert that year. I told my mom I was spending the night with my friend Janice and her dad drove us to the Capital Center to see the concert. A-MA-ZING. That was the same year that I saw a picture of Steven Tyler on the cover of the rock magazine CREEM and realized that he looked a lot different from Leif Garrett, whose posters papered my walls. I think that was when I truly realized that there was a monumental difference between “boys” and “men.”
I moved to Germany in 8th grade, but it wasn’t until high school that I discovered even more great hard rock/heavy metal music to like. AC/DC’s “High Voltage.” Judas Priest’s “British Steel.” Van Halen’s “Women and Children First.” I loved it all and made room for them in my collection alongside my mainstay KISS. The music set the soundtrack for my high school years. It consoled me through heartbreak and tragedy. It buoyed me through success and accomplishment. It brought new friends into my sphere. During junior year, I was introduced to punk, via the California band “Black Flag.” They and singer Henry Rollins remain a favorite to this day.
I still live my life with a soundtrack running through my head. I look forward to sharing that soundtrack with you. In turn, maybe you’ll share yours with me.
Next, Maiden: My friend Mary, who worked with me as receptionists at PolyGram Records, got us tickets for a week of Iron Maiden concerts at Radio City Music Hall. Queensryche opened. We had the most amazing time! We got to go backstage a few times and meet the guys in Maiden. The nicest guys: drummer Nicko McBrain and bassist Steve Harris. I’ve loved the band since ’85 and have seen them in concert a number of times; most recently last summer at White River Amphitheater in Auburn, Washington. This band has only gotten better with time.
The making of MotleySu is a little more detailed. I didn’t discover metal until 7th grade, when I heard the album KISS Alive II. I LOVED IT. I went to see KISS in concert that year. I told my mom I was spending the night with my friend Janice and her dad drove us to the Capital Center to see the concert. A-MA-ZING. That was the same year that I saw a picture of Steven Tyler on the cover of the rock magazine CREEM and realized that he looked a lot different from Leif Garrett, whose posters papered my walls. I think that was when I truly realized that there was a monumental difference between “boys” and “men.”
I moved to Germany in 8th grade, but it wasn’t until high school that I discovered even more great hard rock/heavy metal music to like. AC/DC’s “High Voltage.” Judas Priest’s “British Steel.” Van Halen’s “Women and Children First.” I loved it all and made room for them in my collection alongside my mainstay KISS. The music set the soundtrack for my high school years. It consoled me through heartbreak and tragedy. It buoyed me through success and accomplishment. It brought new friends into my sphere. During junior year, I was introduced to punk, via the California band “Black Flag.” They and singer Henry Rollins remain a favorite to this day.
I still live my life with a soundtrack running through my head. I look forward to sharing that soundtrack with you. In turn, maybe you’ll share yours with me.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Eddie Van Halen ruined my mind!
In the late winter or early spring of 1979 I was sitting on a bus returning from a school field trip when I heard a sound that would change me forever.
A classmate on the other side of the bus had a boom box with speakers the size of dinner plates. The sound that blasted out of those speakers nearly gave me whiplash as I spun around and asked, "what the hell is that?". da nananana chunka nanana, chunka nanana... It was the opening 15 seconds of Van Halen's "You Really Got Me".
I was stunned. I had never heard a guitar make that sound before. I made him play it over and over again.
You see, as a child of the seventies, I was raised on AM radio. FM had yet to make a serious dent into the music universe of Junior High schoolers. It was still mostly the domain of audiophiles and jazz music fans. I don't even think my radio even had an FM receiver.
As I grew up listening to such hits as the Osmonds, "One Bad Apple", Tony Orlando and Dawn's, "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Ole Oak Tree", Glen Campbell's, "Rhinestone Cowboy". Not to mention timeless classics like "Billy Don't Be a Hero" and "The Night Chicago Died" by Paper Lace, among others.
In addition to AM radio, my pop music education was shaped my such TV shows as Sonny & Cher, the aforementioned Osmonds and the Captain and Tennille, never realizing that most of the songs performed were originally recorded by other artists.
You can imagine how I must have felt when News of the World by Queen and Point of Know Return by Kansas entered my consciousness in 1977. I had finally found some music that spoke to me in a way that AM radio failed to.
Then in 1978, we moved to Iran where radio was a vast confusing wasteland of Europop, American Top 40 and "cultural" music.
So when we ended up in Germany in 1979, I was ripe for something new. Little did I know...
What I heard on that bus was a custom built guitar, nicknamed Frankenstein, played through a Marshall amplifier turned up to 10. Eddie Van Halen wasn't the first guitar player to play at full volume, but he was the first one that I heard. That coupled with his unique, classically influenced playing gave me entry into a world of music that I didn't previously know existed.
Through Eddie, I discovered Angus Young, Jimmy Page and Ted Nugent. 1979 was also the eve of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which brought Iron Maiden, Saxon, Def Leppard and Judas Priest.
You see, Eddie Van Halen made me a Metalhead!
What Eddie was saying with that simple riff, a riff I would later discover he didn't even write, was "I can and will do what I want".
A sentiment as old as rock n' roll, and it informs my entire personal philosophy.
A classmate on the other side of the bus had a boom box with speakers the size of dinner plates. The sound that blasted out of those speakers nearly gave me whiplash as I spun around and asked, "what the hell is that?". da nananana chunka nanana, chunka nanana... It was the opening 15 seconds of Van Halen's "You Really Got Me".
I was stunned. I had never heard a guitar make that sound before. I made him play it over and over again.
You see, as a child of the seventies, I was raised on AM radio. FM had yet to make a serious dent into the music universe of Junior High schoolers. It was still mostly the domain of audiophiles and jazz music fans. I don't even think my radio even had an FM receiver.
As I grew up listening to such hits as the Osmonds, "One Bad Apple", Tony Orlando and Dawn's, "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Ole Oak Tree", Glen Campbell's, "Rhinestone Cowboy". Not to mention timeless classics like "Billy Don't Be a Hero" and "The Night Chicago Died" by Paper Lace, among others.
In addition to AM radio, my pop music education was shaped my such TV shows as Sonny & Cher, the aforementioned Osmonds and the Captain and Tennille, never realizing that most of the songs performed were originally recorded by other artists.
You can imagine how I must have felt when News of the World by Queen and Point of Know Return by Kansas entered my consciousness in 1977. I had finally found some music that spoke to me in a way that AM radio failed to.
Then in 1978, we moved to Iran where radio was a vast confusing wasteland of Europop, American Top 40 and "cultural" music.
So when we ended up in Germany in 1979, I was ripe for something new. Little did I know...
What I heard on that bus was a custom built guitar, nicknamed Frankenstein, played through a Marshall amplifier turned up to 10. Eddie Van Halen wasn't the first guitar player to play at full volume, but he was the first one that I heard. That coupled with his unique, classically influenced playing gave me entry into a world of music that I didn't previously know existed.
Through Eddie, I discovered Angus Young, Jimmy Page and Ted Nugent. 1979 was also the eve of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which brought Iron Maiden, Saxon, Def Leppard and Judas Priest.
You see, Eddie Van Halen made me a Metalhead!
What Eddie was saying with that simple riff, a riff I would later discover he didn't even write, was "I can and will do what I want".
A sentiment as old as rock n' roll, and it informs my entire personal philosophy.
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