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11/26/2010
09/08/2010
Heavy Metal - The origins and myths explained...
Heavy Metal - Often confused with Heavy Rock!A little over two years ago someone mentioned a project aimed at celebrating the fact that the Midlands was the birth place of Heavy Metal. In principle a good idea except for the reference to "metal bands like Black Sabbath and Zeppelin" which infuriated me....just a little, being a bit of an 'expertanorak' on the subject of 60's/70's musicology...
I grew up in the Midlands and was surrounded by rock music from an early age. I was immersed in the culture of rock music, forced (at an early age) to listen to Deep Purple in Rock at what I now know to be dangerous volumes capable of structural damage and dragged to gigs by an older brother until myself starting to play in and promote bands.
With this in mind after 40 odd years reading, listening and 'studying' music via sleeve notes (You remember those don't you), acquiring back copies of rock journals dating back to the mid sixties (Which I bitterly regret giving away) and being a general anorak, I felt qualified to not just have a considered opinion but to challenge and try to inform them of the very important distinction between heavy rock and heavy metal as well as offer some insight into the origins.
I blogged about it and here again are some thoughts on the subject...as far as my research goes.
The origin of the term heavy metal in reference to music are often argued. In terms of popular culture as far back as 1962 the term was penned by William S. Burroughs in his 1962 novel The Soft Machine; itself later to be taken as the name for a band. Burroughs writes of the character "Uranian Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid". Building on this term his next novel in 1964 Nova Express, develops this theme further, heavy metal being a metaphor for addictive drugs (later to also be very popular with rock bands) Another aspect of these novels is the use of recorded sound to free oneself from a programmed life and the alienation caused by an increasingly mechanical world.
"With their diseases and orgasm drugs and their sexless parasite life forms - Heavy Metal People of Uranus wrapped in cool blue mist of vaporized bank notes - And the Insect People of Minraud with metal music" - new bands take note and read Burroughs!
Although unlikely that Burroughs had any intent to relate the term to rock music, however Burroughs' writing may have influenced later usage of the term.
The first use of the term "heavy metal" in a song lyric appears to be the words "heavy metal thunder" in the 1968 Steppenwolf song "Born to be Wild"...
"I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin' with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm under"
...though this still refers to the properties of a piece of machinery rather than in reference to music.
Derivatives of the 'Heavy' terms are evident in relation to beatnik/ counterculture slang when describing something 'serious or profound also in relation to 'Heavy Music' though not as we have come to understand the term in relation to the actual sound and later genre.
As blues music was adopted and played by 'beat groups' of the early 60's the amplification technology that helped developed louder sounds associated particularly with British bands such as The Who, The Kinks and The Pretty Things led to a 'Heavier (Louder) approach to blues. This became Blues Rock - typically slower, more amplified variations of standard popular music developed alongside this.
Two other pieces of the puzzle developed in 1968. Iron Butterfly's debut album was entitled 'Heavy' and Jimmy Page was left to fulfill a Yardbirds tour of Scandinavia with a disbanded line up. He set about calling on his contemporaries to perform as The New Yardbirds (Terry Reid, first Choice for vocals suggesting unknown Midland's Singer in Band of Joy, Robert Plant who in turn brought in fellow Midlander John Bonham) after completing the tour dates, they adopted the name suggested by Keith Moon and John Entwistle (The Who) in the phrase 'You'll go down like a lead balloon" and Led Zeppelin was launched (Or rather Lead Zeppelin (Later amended to Led at risk of being pronounced 'leed'.
In 1969 also in Birmingham, a band called Earth changed their name to Black Sabbath after performing as a 'Heavy' Blues Rock band. The prevalence of bands performing 'Heavy' music around the Midlands, still a centre of industry at the time has led many to suggest the term is largely associated with the culture and industry that formed a backdrop to the birth of these bands. Certainly biographies of The Move have claimed that the sound came from their 'heavy' guitar riffs that were popular amongst the 'metal midlands'.
Others have also laid claim to inventing the term in relation to bands and genre, Sandy Pearlman, original producer, manager and songwriter for the Blue Öyster Cult, claims to have been the first person to apply the term "heavy Metal" to rock music in 1970.
Regardless of anecdotal evidence, the earliest documented use of the term "heavy metal" appeared in May 1971 in an issue of Creem. In a review of the Sir Lord Baltimore album Kingdom Come, critic Mike Saunders used the term "heavy metal" for a musical form for the first time in print (Kingdom Come is the first studio album by American'heavy metal' band Sir Lord Baltimore, released on Mercury Records in 1970) and certainly fellow Creem critics Lester Bangs and Dave Marsh followed Saunders in using the term in reference to bands such as Black Sabbath, Vanilla Fudge, and Led Zeppelin. The album was recorded at Vantone Studios in West Orange, New Jersey, before being mixed by Eddie Kramer and Kim King at Electric Lady StudiosinNew York, New York. Kramer is well-known for his work with such artists and bands as Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, KISS, Led Zeppelin and many others.
Bands who performed 'heavy' music such as Iron Butterfly, Vanilla Fudge, Jimi Hendrix would have an enormous influence on heavy metal. In fact, as pointed out above, Iron Butterfly in turn may have influenced Saunder's choice of the term "heavy metal" for the new music sounds.
Genre wise then, if the origins of the genre are in 'Heavy' or extremely amplified music then there are any number of contenders for the origins of the sound itself Kinks, Pretty Things, The Who as far back as 1964. Blue Cheer' version of Summertime Blues and particularly the Beatles Helter Skelter could be considered more of a prototype than Born To Be Wild which appears tame by comparison - also from 1968!
However, Andy Fraser (John Mayall's Bluesbreakers/ Free) cites producer Guy Stevens in the early days of what was to become FREE as using the term to encapsulate both band and sound with the term Heavy Metal and is certainly, from my research, the earliest use of the term Heavy + Metal in reference to a both band and genre of music.
AF: "Guy Stevens was a complete nutter - functioned on 150 octane all the time, was probably on speed, which I hadn't given a thought to at the time, but a really very nice guy, and very supportive of the band. I believe it was Guy who first suggested that we be called "The Heavy Metal Kids", which we totally resisted. It got to the point where Chris Blackwell (head of Island Records, Free's label) said, that if we weren't going to be called 'The Heavy Metal Kids", Island weren't interested. So I said "OK" and slammed down the phone. He called right back and said "OK, you win", and I've always had a great relationship with him ever since - to this day in fact".
This would therefore be prior to Spring 1968 and their November release of their debut album 'Tons of Sobs' (Also a title coined by Stevens a veritable poor man's George Martin at the time)
Even prior to this, however, may have been the missing piece of the jigsaw that led Guy Stevens to have suggested the title in the first place.
Guy was producer of an album by 'Hapshash & The Coloured Coat' who were protagonists of London's psychedelic boom of 1967. Founded by art students Michael English and Nigel Weymouth they became famous at the peak of the British psychedelic movement for their colorful and surreal posters. The album was released with the title'Hapshash and the Coloured Coat Featuring the Human Host and the Heavy Metal Kids' (Minit, 1967) and was a chaotic assembly of free-form jamming and percussions (the side-long instrumentalEmpires Of The Sun, A Mind Blown Is A Mind Shown The album featured the entire line-up of the Art (Mike Harrison, Greg Ridley, Mike Kellie, Luther Grosvenor) but the main contributions came from the producer, Guy Stevens.
Essentially then we have a term derived of two words Heavy and Metal. We have a genre classification that has become synonymous with that sound and we have the use of the term to describe essentially a form of heavy rock music.
So before you start making air-horned devil signs and being concerned with studded belts and high street fashion reissues of AC-DC tour t-shirts, thinking that Wolfmother are original or being worried that your 45% hair cut hasn't got enough gel, consider this.
The 'Metal' sound referenced today certainly has it's sound derived from 'Heavy Rock' music and owes it's birth to bands who took the heavy music of the late 60's into the seventies stadium fillers and later to the spandex and leather wearing extremes of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. So in that sense, 'Metal' is a product of The Midlands sound but could equally be credited to bands like The Kinks, Pretty Things, Beatles even, as referenced previously. Is heavy metal the same thing as heavy rock. Not in my opinion, it is a sub category of Heavy Rock and latterly a retrospective genre classification associated largely with the critical description of Heavy Rock music. Metal is not rock it is a sub genre and Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were not metal bands, they were heavy rock bands.
The Midlands, whichever way you look at it, has been pretty central to most of the developments of Heavy Rock that led ultimately to a world-wide phenomena that is METAL. The main point I consider is the heritage that led to METAL - in my opinion far more important and interesting a period of music history.
Rock On!
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