Tag: anvil

# 0090 – Recast

[Kevin] This is a mix of covers that recasts the originals. It looks heavier than it really is.

SA_cast_pour

[Kevin] This is a cover mix that looks heavier than it really is. Essentially, it’s a rock / alternative / metal / country mix.

It started with my friend Don Heeter’s “Goofy Sh*t” play list that was basically a list of covers he liked where the original had been redefined by the cover band putting their own spin on the song. The list started with Crowbar’s recasting of Gary Wright’s 1976 radio classic “Dreamweaver” as a cauldron of churning sludge that still sounds pleasing to the ears. If you listen to nothing else on this mix, check out Dreamweaver.

Heeter’s list also had “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” “Orion” (which is a great acoustic version of the Metallica original), “Simple Man,” “Buick McKaine,” and “I Never Dreamed.” One night while drinking we added “I’ve Got the Fire,” “Imagine,” and “Run Like Hell.” Then to round it out I added the rest. Hope you enjoy it.

As always, if you like a song or a band, please support them by purchasing their CDs, LPs, mp3s, or DVDs, and by going to see them when they tour…

  1. Dreamweaver — Crowbar, original by Gary Wright
  2. Sounds of Silence — Ascension of the Watchers, original by Simon and Garfunkel
  3. *Ghost of Tom Joad — Rage Against the Machine, original by Bruce Springsteen
  4. Imagine — A Perfect Circle, original by John Lennon
  5. I’ve Got the Fire — Iron Maiden, original by Montrose
  6. Orion — Rodrigo Y Gabriela, original by Metallica
  7. Simple Man — Deftones, original by Lynyrd Skynyrd
  8. Three Days — L7, original by Willie Nelson
  9. Crossroads — Rush, original by Robert Johnson
  10. Buick McKaine — Guns’n’Roses, original by T. Rex
  11. Get a Grip (on Yourself) — Prong, original by The Stranglers
  12. Run Like Hell — Kitty, original by Pink Floyd
  13. Slip Kid — Anvil & Franky Perez, original by The Who
  14. Evil Hearted You — The Pixies, original by The Yardbirds
  15. Rated X — Neko Case, original by Loretta Lynn
  16. I Never Dreamed — Black Label Society, original by Lynyrd Skynyrd

*Grapes of Wrath (1940)

#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. The focus is early 80s metal and hard rock.

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.