RECORD STORE TALES #1232: Let the Music Do the Talking? The List of Bands that Made it…and Some that Didn’t

At the end of the day, does it really matter why we got into a band?  Just as long as we did discover any particular group, if it turned into true love, then the “hows” and “whys” really don’t need to be defended.  They can be interesting stories, or even just an anecdote, but if you got into Kiss because you thought they looked cool, or Iron Maiden because of Eddie, it really doesn’t matter.  It’s the fact you love Kiss, or Iron Maiden, that matters.

So, here are some stories and anecdotes that may give you a glimpse at how shallow I was as a metal kid in the mid-1980s.  Image mattered more than music sometimes.

I had a list, an actual list, of the bands I “liked”.  If I “liked” a band, that meant I’d be interested in getting an album, and would record any music video I found on MuchMusic.  I still love all those initial bands that I “liked”.  Quiet Riot, W.A.S.P., Twisted Sister, Helix, Kick Axe, Kiss, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Dio, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Van Halen, ZZ Top, Triumph, AC/DC, Accept, Lee Aaron, and oddly enough, Kim Mitchell were all in the original lineup.

I remember hearing about a band called Hateful Snake.  I didn’t know who they were, except they were supposed to be good.  They had a cool name at least.  As it happens, Hateful Snake were a Toronto band that got some video play on Toronto Rocks in 1983.  Toronto Rocks was the pre-MuchMusic show of choice before the Pepsi Power Hour existed.  All the kids watched it, and it had a huge influence in my neighbourhood.  The Hatedful Snake video for a song called “Are You Ready” was low budget but incredibly fun, and you can hear the band had potential.  With a New Wave of British Heavy Metal sound and feel, and a capable lead singer with that high voice, I get a Diamond Head feel.  Brian Simpson was the voice.   They also had the chops, as the lead guitar player shreds a cool AC/DC style solo while snaking his way down Yonge Street in Toronto.  I would have liked Hateful Snake, had I ever seen the video.

I never did see it.  Hateful Snake were all but a blip in my world.  Just a pair of words whispered from one rock friend to another and eventually to me, without ever having a chance of catching that music video.  Still, I added Hateful Snake to my list of bands I liked, on a tentative basis, just to beef it up a bit.

It was a pretty exclusive club, and all but one artist (Kim Mitchell) would be classified as “heavy metal” at the time.  Now those of you who have been reading since the beginning know that Styx was in fact the first rock band I ever liked; what happened to Styx?  In my exclusivity, I removed Styx from the list and excised my copy of Kilroy Was Here from my collection.  That’s why I don’t have it anymore.  It probably got filed with my parents’ records and sold at a garage sale, because they don’t have their records anymore either.

It was a game changer when MuchMusic entered the music video game in 1984.  Suddenly, there were more bands:  Other bands joined in as I discovered their music, such as Killer Dwarfs, Thor, Autograph, Loudness, Armored Saint, Anvil and Queensryche.  Loudness and Queensryche may have been the first metal groups I discovered on my own, without the help of my friends in the neighborhood.  There were some bands that definitely did not make my list.  Venom:  Far too heavy.  Motorhead:  Heavy, and scary.  Metallica:  Mythical.  I never had the chance to hear their music, because they didn’t have any music videos.

Given that I was sitting there in my basement watching music videos, it is inevitable that some bands made my list for trivial reasons.  Superficial, even silly reasons.

Aerosmith:  Joe Perry had a transparent plexiglas guitar in the music video, and I never saw anything like that before in my life.  I knew Bob Schipper would love it.  I hit the “record” button on my VCR.

Sammy Hagar:  The Ferrari!  “I Can’t Drive 55” was also a hilarious video, but it was the car.

Cheap Trick:  The five-neck guitar that Rick Neilson wields in “The Flame”.  Five necks!  I had to have that in my VHS collection.

David Lee Roth:  He had removed himself from my list when he did “California Girls” and left Van Halen.  This wasn’t rock!  But he got himself back in when I saw him in the smokin’ “Yankee Rose” video.  If Roth didn’t return to rocking, he wouldn’t have been on the list.

Lionheart:  This British band made it on the list as one of the first “side project” expansions to the list.  The band included Dennis Stratton, the guitarist who appeared on the first Iron Maiden album and in the “Women in Uniform” video.  That allowed them entry onto my list, the first of many such expansions.

Yngwie J Malmsteen:  Reputation alone.  The announcers on television said he was the next big thing, so I thought I better get this guy on tape.  He could play.

The exclusive club that was my list grew and grew.  Today it’s not so exclusive.  Yet, like a band, there’s something about those original members.  Listening to the original member bands of my list is always a rich, nostalgic experience.  I tend to back to the originals a lot.  Any chance to relive the golden years, if only for the length of an LP!