what makes metal, metal........

[Dreadbelly]

I understand what Dread is trying to say. I was never a huge metal head but there was definitely a different vibe to the metal of the early 70's than what you hear today. "Heavy Metal" to me will always be bands like Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Iron Butterfly, Judas Priest and even AC/DC. They created the genre and then the hair bands came along and tried to make everything generic. I really don't "get" a lot of the stuff today that is being passed off as metal. Speed Metal? Might as well be some of the techno pop that I can't listen to either. While I still listen to a radio station that plays alternative music (including some modern metal), I will still revert to my 70's punk collections when I'm home alone but that's a whole different debate on what happened to punk over the years.

I think you got it.

Metal did get a start in the 60s though. And like it or not, bands like Sabbath, LZ, BOC, they did define "metal" which was not much more than blues laid out to hard rock riffs. There is a lot of debate among actual metalheads as to what the last metal album really was... Some say it was And Justice for All, others, Appitite for Destruction. After that... The sound just sort of died. Everything went to power ballads.

Oh. And to really hear what that sound is, spend a day or two listening to the sugary pop from the 60s. Incense peppermints and what not. All that happy shiny flowery CRAP that just grinds away on my last nerve. After your brain has been damaged from all of that... Turn the stereo to 11 and turn on War Pigs by Black Sabbath. The doomsday whistle... Grinding riffs. The contrast from the shiny happy times just previous to War Pigs... Here is were words fail. I can't describe it. Or CSNY and the anger in some of their music... Like Ohio. Proto-metal.

Oh... And since he was mentioned... I LOVE ZAPPA. Nanook of the North, don't be a naughty Eskimo.

And don't abuse the sausage patties at St Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast either.