#0084 The Anthropological Series, 1978-1984: The Legend of Gray Ghost

[Kevin] The idea behind the Anthropological Series is to capture what the DJ and those around her/him were listening to at the time, perhaps in a particular location or phase in life. I made a play list like this last year but lost it in a drive crash, so then when I saw by accident that Anvil had a movie coming out, I threw the mix back together, and here it is. The focus is early 80s metal and hard rock.

The Gray Ghost was the over-dramatic name given to my family’s 1978 Chevy Impala, a V8, flat-gray rocket with bench seats that my dad purchased after its life as a sales company car for Continental Can Company. This photo of it is from my high school photography class. The car’s standard FM/AM radio was limiting to my musical tastes so I would seat-belt my boom box in the back seat and blast mix tapes that I made at my buddy Todd’s house, because he had a nice stereo and I didn’t. These were songs I heard in my car and at high school parties, or that I would drum to in my basement or band.

Metal and hard rock “back then” were really limited to a few good bands, nothing like the huge spectrum of today. Most of these bands I listened to extensively and nearly exclusively. One of them was Anvil, a band that was good in the early 80s but never made it. Robb Reiner’s drumming was inconceivable to me and ahead of his time, and as a teenage drummer it blew me away. I’ve included two Anvil songs in this mix, because yesterday they released a movie about Anvil, the story of why they never made it big. You’d think with sex-obsessed lyrics and songs like “Motormount,” “Heatsink,” “Backwaxed,” and “Bushpig,” they would have shot threw the charts, but not so! I stopped listening to new releases from Anvil after 1984, so I have no idea what their later stuff is like.

So, if you like this kind of music, enjoy this ode to a 15-year old’s daily life metal soundtrack, back in nineteen hundred and eighty-ish. As Twisted Sister used to print on their releases…”PLAY IT LOUD MUTHA!”

1. Saxon – Princess of the Night
2. Rose Tattoo – Scarred for Life
3. Accept – Fight it Back
4. Anvil – Mothra
5. Black Sabbath – Children of the Sea
6. Scorpions – Another Piece of Meat
7. Motorhead – (We Are) The Road Crew (Live)
8. Judas Priest – Rock Forever
9. Ozzy Osbourne – S.A.T.O
10. Twisted Sister – The Kids are Back/Like a Knife in the Back
11. AC/DC – Bad Boy Boogie
12. Riot – Swords and Tequila
13. Iron Maiden – The Prisoner
14. Anvil – Motormount

No samples or audio. And I pomise to take a Motorhead break for a while.