Dio - Holy Diver, 1983

01 - Stand Up And Shout
02 - Holy Diver
03 - Gypsy
04 - Caught In The Middle
05 - Don't Talk To Strangers
06 - Straight Through The Heart
07 - Invisible
08 - Rainbow In The Dark
09 - Shame On The Night

Strength is not a function of size, and he wasn't tall. But the strong one he is. Ronald James Padavona, known to most of us as just Dio (meaning “God” in Italian) – the man this world has lost only few years ago; the man to stay remembered for how he enriched the rock music.

Brought up on opera records, a self-taught vocalist with a strength of a million. It was his voice to support me whenever things were getting really bad, his strength I could always rely on. It was him to replace Ozzy in Black Sabbath, him to become a landmark voice of Rainbow, him to record some of the greatest parts for The Butterfly Ball… Progressively moving towards heavier and heavier sound along the career, he didn't record a single soft song with his band of the same name Dio for the first 13 years since this debut in 1983 till the closing track of The Angry Machines in 1996.

So let me offer to your attention what I find to be the best Dio's album – Holy Diver. Not too much sense in going through the tracks – they're all brilliant if you ask me. From Stand Up And Shout to Shame On The Night. Rainbow In The Dark is quite an anthem. And on and on… Just note the line-up: Jimmy Bain, former of Rainbow; Vinny Appice whose rhythms always build up around Dio’s part, constructing one whole together; and of course Vivian Campbell - the one to replace Steve Clark in Def Leppard few years after.

Here is the quote from RJD himself on the time of recording:
“It was a good time to be in that band. It was perfect for us. Everything just fell into place. The ethic in rehearsal was amazing. The effort in the recording was just as good. Everybody wanted it to be great. We really believed in what we were doing and couldn't wait to get that product out and have people hear it."

Thus I advise you to get to it and enjoy – it's a wonderful heavy album. And note Murray on the cover – the band's mascot to appear on every early record's front.

And just to embed a piece of YouTube – here is the original promotional video for the title track (quite funny visual by today's standards – 80's – what can you do...):




Full album's text at DarkLyrics

Wikipedia: Album|Artist 

Wayne Kramer next time.

Animusic - Part 1

First of all, I would like to thank both of you, my loyal readers, for the patience and tolerance shown so far. And then, after a notable pause, goes not yet another album, but that very visual intermission mentioned the last time.

Since the day I've learned of it about ten years ago, the Animusic project did influence me significantly as a visual artist. Now, revealed by a memory flash, it just seemed unknown and cool enough to share over both of my blogs (laziness rules).

They have released 2 films back then and are working on finishing the third one now after the successful kickstarter campaign.

Pipe Dream is probably the most fascinating piece in these collections of bizarre awesomeness. Trying to think about it - I guess it is seeing the sounds before they appear, that makes the experience and impression that unique and strong.



Check out their website www.animusic.com

And a couple of insights into the graphics involved are coming in the second part at www.the-working-man.org

The great and mighty Dio next time.

Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Angel Station, 1979

01 - Don't Kill It Carol
02 - You Angel You
03 - Hollywood Town
04 - Belle" of the Earth
05 - Platform End
06 - Angels at My Gate
07 - You Are - I Am
08 - Waiting for the Rain
09 - Resurrection

I am only the working man (as my other blog suggests) and yes - fitting sixty-something hours into a five-days working week under a decent flu does slow me down with posts a bit. Nevertheless, here goes (just as was promised the last time) something more classical.

I guess the people are right and it is Nightingales and Bombers which should be considered Manfred Mann’s shiniest record. But may be because Spirits In The Night is actually a cover and was known too well to me before getting to hear the album, or may be because Angel Station just sounds more unusual, I am choosing it to represent Manfred Mann and his Earth Band in my List of Recommended Rock Albums.

This LP is a surreal and gentle riddle. A puzzle set in Maurits Escher’s space, just like the brilliant artwork suggests (not that easy to find the proper credits, but I would guess it should be shared between Martin Poole and John Shaw).

Don’t Kill It Carol - the opening track - is the essence of strange beauty. Fastest piece of the album, very poetic in the text and arranged with that synthesized sound of 1970’s, which would totally lose its appeal in the following 1980’s. This mixture produces a cognitive dissonance of a sort - a feeling that carries throughout the tracklist. As if a noir film director would have shot a love story set in the rich cumulus cloudscape. And then the whole thing sounds surprisingly pop.

Well, this is Manfred Mann - The Great Experimentator with a track record in pop, rock, electronic and jazz fusion. One person understanding and feeling the Music and the Universe through it. In case you’re not familiar with, tonight’s Wikipedia references at the post’s end are particularly worthy. I find the album article especially interesting with the insight into the structural aspects of the Angel Station (which I can at least loosely try to understand thanks to the magic film on how music works).

Was thinking of throwing in more epithets to describe this MMEB’s masterpiece, but though even have found them, I'd rather suggest you just press play and listen to the record. In no rush, lights dimmed and with maximum comfort achievable wherever you are at the moment.

A sort of visual intermission next time.



Manfred_ Mann's_Earth_Band_Angel_Station_lyrics_1979.txt

Wikipedia: Album|Artist 


P.S. Went on listening to Masque after Angel Station while writing this - the Mann is really good.

Gas Huffer - One Inch Masters, 1994

01 - Crooked Bird
02 - Mr. Sudbuster
03 - More of Everything
04 - Stay in Your House
05 - 14th & Jefferson
06 - Walla Walla Bang Bang
07 - Appendix Gone
08 - Chicken Foot
09 - What's in the Bag?
10 - Hand of the Nomad
11 - Quasimodo '94
12 - No Smoking
13 - Action/Adventure
14 - Goat No Have

Now when Lemonade for Vampires has arrived and I became a happy owner of Gas Huffer's complete studio discography (not too easy thing when you live in Europe), I can confirm that One Inch Masters is the best of their albums to me. Melodic diversity and overall quality of the material are the points which make this record stand out most significantly in the band’s body of work.

Gas Huffer is another artist I've got introduced to through my Prague's favorite Maximum Underground. A garage/punk quartet from Seattle – the mother-town of grunge music. They possess both the great energy and tons of irony blending into the sparkling songwriting - “goofing around” as they put it themselves.

Formed in 1989 and disbanded in 2006, GH is one of those groups which never went through a lineup change. There is something very right in it.

The frontman Matt Wright wouldn't probably get a prize for his vocal talents alone, but that charismatic energy he's putting into the performance generously compensates for all possible lacks. I mean, Mark Knopfler also doesn’t have that much of a voice and still he sounds.

Sincerely brilliant record. What’s In The Bag?, 14th &Jefferson, Stay in Your House, Crooked Bird... - the whole tracklist is outstanding indeed. How many songs do you know about the contents of a bag or discarding an appendix in general? And then how many good ones? These are the ones.

Guess it’s too late to order, but for every album release prior to the 6th album they were creating a comic book which included the lyrics as well. (The bassist Joe Newton is also known as a deputy art director for Rolling Stone magazine by the way). Without those at hand, I managed to scratch together only few tracks’ lyrics from the record - thus would appreciate anyone willing to share some texts.

And just in case someone would care to check on my humble opinion, here goes the rest of them sorted by the level of personal appeal:

One Inch Masters, 1994 - see above.

The Inhuman Ordeal of Special Agent Gas Huffer, 1996 - Tiny Life is a gem.

Lemonade for Vampires, 2005 - more serious, still wild.

Just Beautiful Music, 1998 - a touch softer, as the cover suggests.

The Rest of Us, 2002 - no, it’s not a compilation.

Integrity, Technology & Service, 1992; Janitors of Tomorrow, 1991 - the two first albums from Empty Records are punkier and noisier than later work - not exactly my style, but I imagine might be the opposite for someone else.


Gas_Huffer_One_Inch_Masters_lyrics_incomplete.txt

Wikipedia: Album|Artist 


Next time - something more classical from The List.

How Music Works

How Music Works with Howard Goodall is an exciting journey through the fundamentals required for understanding music with a brilliant guide. Four episodes of the show cover the key aspects: Melody, Rhythm, Harmony and Bass.





The only similar show I know is Understanding The Fundamentals of Music by Professor Robert Greenberg.

Next time: Gas Huffer.