Our Lives In Music… Worshipper

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AC/DC Black in Black I randomly bought this tape before I started playing guitar and without really knowing anything AC/DC or this album, but hoped the music was as evil as the cover made it seem. Well, it wasn’t, but I still liked it. When I finally started playing guitar a few years later, one of the first Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazines I bought had a transcription to the title track, and it was one of the first songs I tried to learn on my own with tablature. I ended up figuring out the rest of the record by ear and it really kind of informed my guitar playing because I spent so much time trying to learn it and really got inside of the songs. Plus, you really can’t deny the pure evil vibes of Hells Bells or Let Me Put My Love Into You. John Brookhouse

Ozzy Osbourne Blizzard of Oz  This is another early guitar obsession for me. I spent hours and hours with this one. I distinctly remember having to play it on my 4 track and pitching it up so I could play along to it because my guitar had a Floyd Rose on it and it was such a pain to tune down a half step just to play along. I think I picked up a ton of stuff from this from a composition standpoint. The more classically-based stuff and mid-interludes that Randy puts in songs like Revelation Mother Earth and Mr. Crowley are things I routinely use as inspiration for our tunes. I know a lot of people prefer Diary because it sounds better, but I actually didn’t even get that one until much later in life. I wasn’t really a musical completist like I am now back then. I would just buy random tapes and never even know they had other ones until later in life.  John Brookhouse

Built to Spill Keep It Like A Secret Not very metal, I know, but hear me out. Basically in the late 90s, early 2000s, I was sort of bummed out in general about the state of guitars in rock n roll. Nu metal made me disinterested in heavy music and Electronic music was creeping into popular music and rock. Guitar solos were passé or non-existent. Then, one day, I randomly checked this out in a Tower Records listening station and was given the spark that I needed to have faith in rock and roll music again.  John Brookhouse

Judas Priest Unleashed in the East   I don’t care if Rob Halford re-did the vocals on this or not. Whatever he did just completely slays. I was kind of a late-comer to pre-British Steel Judas Priest. I feel like it kind of gets swept under the rug a little bit. I love all the guitar sounds on this stuff and it’s a nice little collection of the best stuff from this era. I prefer the live versions of most of these tunes to the originals (not by much, but I just love the rawness these have.)  John Brookhouse

Def Leppard High \’n\’ Dry In 1982, MTV came in crystal clear on channel 6 on my television. Despite my mother\’s attempts to keep me away from it, I was mesmerized by music television. One of the first videos I saw was for the title track from DL\’s second record. I was hooked. I saved my .50 cent/week allowance for almost 2 months and wandered into the local vinyl shop and bought a copy. I still have it. It is scratched to hell but Def Lep\’s 2nd record remains one of my top 5 island records. It\’s essentially a slightly sleeker version of AC/DC\’s \”Highway to Hell,\” with very similar Les Paul-into-a-Marshall-cranked-to-11 guitar sound. The songs are there, too. Each one a classic that pays homage to the hard rock and NWOBH that was happening at the time. This isn\’t the glossy pop-band everyone now knows. In 1982, Def Leppard were young and hard and they meant it.  Alejandro Necochea

Ozzy Osbourne / Randy Rhoads Tribute  This is a live album chronicling the two short years Randy Rhoads spent on the road with Ozzy. Randy was, and continues to be, an inspiration. The guitar tones on this record are incendiary and the performances show Randy at the top of his game as a rock-guitar innovator who incorporated neoclassical arrangements and virtuosity into hard rock and metal. Though Randy left us early his recorded legacy with Ozzy continues to leave his mark on guitarists of any age and era. This is the first album I ever bought on CD. I still have it and listen to it often. Alejandro Necochea

Sparklehorse Good Morning Spider  I bought this record on a whim in 1998 on a friend\’s recommendation. Written mostly from a wheelchair after suffering a near-fatal drug overdose, Mark Linkous creates a sonic album that goes from whispers to crushing. He is my Bob Dylan. His lyrics tend to be Dali\’esque in that sometimes the world he paints doesn\’t seem real. Often his metaphors are heartbreaking and head-scratching make you wonder what torment this man has endured to say the things he does. The music is mostly simple and straightforward, in the best possible sense of the 90s, while also remains dark and haunting. This may not be a metal record but it retains the spirit of metal, for me, in that it adheres to little convention, song-writing-wise, and manoeuvres in and out of typical pop song structures as if Linkous was purposely trying to rid himself of the typical constructs of sad troubadour storytelling. The rules do not apply to him. That\’s metal to me. It may not rattle the speakers like Sabbath but Sparklehorse is heavy. One of the heaviest.  Alejandro Necochea

Metallica Creeping Death 12”  I grew up in the burbs of Boston and there was an amazing record store in my town called Rockit Records (RIP). Rockit was pretty much my home away from home and ultimately shaped me in many ways. I bought all sorts of Iron Maiden, Metallica and Anthrax 12” singles and picture discs there. The Metallica, Creeping Death 12” has terrible airbrush artwork, I guess the only reason I picked it is the because it’s a record sleeve that have vivid memories of my mom completely ruining it (along with the record). She decided to put a bunch of plants on top of the stack of records that were on my record player and slide it in front of  my bedroom window because my room got the best light in the house. She thoroughly watered those plants and my Metallica Creeping Death record which completely ruined the record cover and to top it off the sun warped the hell out of the record. Thanks Mom. Bob Maloney

WASP Animal F**K Like a Beast 7 (picture disc) – This is a die-cut 7” picture disc with a pig’s head on it (or maybe it’s a wild boar?). It’s totally over the top and looks really cool spinning around on the turntable. I’m sure my mom hated it. Bob Maloney

Black Sabbath Sabotage Such a cool album cover with the band standing in front of a mirror, but the reflection didn’t behave like a typical mirror. You saw the front of them again in the mirror. Then on the back you saw their backs and then their backs again in the reflection (not so easy to explain). The one twist to the album art is on the back of the cover, Ozzy is stepping into the frame of the mirror. Woh, mind blown!  Bob Maloney

 

 

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