Steve Ray Vaughan

WHAT IS your definition of a musical legend? Is it someone who has peer respect? Someone who has the virtuosity-like command of his instrument? Someone who has the ability to mesmerize the crowd? Someone who inspire others? Someone who makes a comeback after succumbing to substance abuse? Or is it someone dies in his peak leaving a strong legacy?
By any of these benchmarks, Steve Ray Vaughan (SRV) is a guitar legend. Born in 1954, SRV formed his blues-rock band Double Trouble in late 1970s. His distinctive sound, partly due to his use of heavy 13 gauge strings, his battered Fender (which he affectionately referred to as his No. 1), his fiery live performances and of course, his trademark cowboy hat had made him a strong local draw by the early 80s. However, he was still an underground wonder desperately trying to make it big time.
In the summer of 1982, SRV got his break at the Monteux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Although he played songs like “Pride And Joy”, “Texas Flood”, “Collins Shuffle” (all future hits) as if there was no tomorrow, the audience was indifferent and couldn’t care less. With each passing song, the crowd grew restless and began booing and hissing; they just could not bear the fact that there was a white man on the stage playing electric blues. By the time his set over, SRV was heartbroken and bewildered.
Fortunately, also in the audience were David Bowie and Jackson Browne. They were so enthralled by his raw talent and his unbounded passion that Bowie asked him to guest on his Lets Dance album and tour, while Brown asked Stevie to record in his studio (free of charge). It was in Brown’s studio that Stevie recorded his debut album Texas Flood.
Released in 1983, Texas Flood won both critical acclaim and commercial success, with the song Pride and Joy reaching the top 20-s. The follow-up albums couldn’t stand the Weather (1985) and Soul to Soul (1985) met equal success. In 1985, he returned to Monteux not as the up-and-coming player he had been 3 years back, but as a headliner of the Blues Night at the Festival. The crowd, now familiar with Stevie’s songs treated him as a guitar god and gave him a hero’s welcome. With every passing day, SRV’s popularity was increasing and it seemed as if nothing could stem the tide of his growth.
However, the fast life that came along with the stardom took its toll on SRV and he started turning to drugs and alcohol for solace. By 1986, he had become so mired in substance abuse that he collapsed on stage. Later the year he checked into rehab and successfully recovered from his addictions. Upon returning, he recorded In Step (1989) which won him a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Record.
On August 26, 1990, he played what would become his last concert. At Alpine Valley Music Center, Stevie Ray Vaughan captivated the audience with his repertoire of songs like “Couldn’t Stand the Weather”, “Pride and Joy”, “The Things I used to do”, “Cross Fire” and concluded with a thrilling version of “Sweet Home Chicago” with other Blues legends like Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray and his Brother Jimmie Vaughan. The very next day, the helicopter carrying him out of the event crashed and led to an untimely death. His death was likened by one critic to that of “a soldier who makes it through a war without a scratch, and then is killed on his way back home”.
Robert Cray famously said, “There will be a thousand guitarists who can play the same songs as Stevie, but there will never be anyone who can play them with the same fire”. While his potential got snuffed in its prime, SRV’s legacy still lives on. A string of posthumous releases following his death, including a duet album Family Style with Jimmy Vaughan on 1990, met with strong commercial success. Jimmy Vaughan later recorded Six Strings Down, a tribute to SRV, which featured song by his influences (Albert King, BB King) and his peers (Robert Cray). Since 1991, the state of Texas has been celebrating October 3 as Stevie Ray Vaughan Day. In 1992, Fender released SRV signature Stratocaster and in 1994, his statue was placed at Auditorium Shores in Austin Texas. His influence on up and coming guitarist cannot be underestimated; he is credited by artists ranging from as diverse backgrounds as Mark Cole of Charge and Kenny Wayne Shepherd as being their prime influence.

EVOLUTION OF THE MASKMEN

Slipknot was brought together by Paul with Shawn along with Andres Colsfni (ex-singer) in Des Moines, Iowa in 1995. The band has been through the changes since then to reach the current 9 member status it has now. Slipknot considers them as a family unit and each of the nine members are assigned a number between 0-8. The group masqueraded the metal scene in their individual masks, each representing a personality, and their draping jumpsuits. Rather than hiding themselves, slipknot feel they are showing their true personalities and inner selves with the masks which also add to the flavor and intensity of the music due the sheer awkwardness of the masks. The band started wearing the mask when Shawn (no.6), one day brought a clown mask he had to their practice. After that other members brought what they had and thought reflected their individual personalities. Just as what many bands do, slipknot’s music also has evolved. With their music their masks also had evolved. But this doesn’t mean that they’ve donned a new mask but they’ve stuck to their original theme and made some changes only. Looking back at the old day’s mask and the new one they have, one can point out the differences easily.

BURZUM

The Mystery Project

Ever since its origin, everything has been mysterious with Burzum, from the fantasy its music is said to create, to the controversial arrest of Varg Vikernes, the only man behind the whole project. Burzum, one of the earliest Scandanavian Black Metal Bands had its origin in Norway in 1987. As a solo-project of Varg Vikernes (aka Count Grishnackh), Burzum is regarded as one of the most notorious band in the scene of Norwegian Metal espicially due to the arrest of Vikernes for the murder of Oystein Aarseth ( Euronymous ) of Mayhem and controversial incidents including arson of churches and involvement in Anti-Christian movements.

Varg Vikernes was first involved in a band named Kalasnikov ( later named Uruk-Hai) which he left because he thought that the bandmates were just of the normal sex, drugs and rock n roll attitude and he needed some serious and dedicated bandmates. That was when he met the band members of Old Funeral ( Later Immortal) and involved in it from 1989 to 1991 which he then left because he thought it transformed from a cool technocrash band to a boring Death Metal group.

After leaving Old Funeral, Varg brought the concept of Burzum into existance inspired by the magic of fantasy. He thought that Burum would act as a vessel to stimulate the fantasy of mortals by leading their spirits to a higher musical altitude which would be based on fantasy and magic. The term Burzum literally means Darkness in Judeo-Christianity terms but that darkness of Christianity stood for light in terms of Varg. Even the nickname Grishnackh which Vikernes had taken was inspired by the famous J.R.R.Tolkien fiction “The Lord of the Rings”. The reason of popularity of the music of Burzum is its so-called magic of fantasy. As Varg himself states “The songs are spells and albums are arranged in a special way to make the spells work”. According to him, the albums are made to be listened in the evenings when sun beams can’t vaporize the power of magic, preferably during bedtime before falling asleep. The songs are arranged to prepare, exhaust and then calm down the listener. Whether the spells work or not varies upon the listener. According to Varg, the project is not like other braindead drugs, sex and rock n roll attitude bands who just play to laid and get popular. The music of Burzum seeks impressions from Norse mythology, pagnism and Tolkien Fiction. Varg himself regards the music of Burzum as monotonous, mostly uncomplicated and also melancholic. According to Varg, the whole message of Burzum is summed up in the first track from the Aske album, “Feeble Screams from the Forests Unknown” and all other songs are just regarded as footnotes of the song.

Black metal was on the rise in Norway around the late 80’s. It was a period of bands like Darkthrone, Enslaved, Myhem, Morbid Angel, Death and others when Burzum entered the scene. Burzum debuted its first self-titled album Burzum/ Aske in 1991. The reason Burzum came to so much focus in the early 90’s apart from the music it created was the controversy that surrounded Varg. Varg was imprisoned in 1993 for the murder of Oystein Aarseth (Euronymous) of another popular Norwegain Black metal band, Mayhem; arson of 4 churches and storage of 150 kg. of explosives which brought the end of so-called Golden era of Burzum. Though the government and media describes the murder as an intended murder with an incomprehensible motive, Varg denies the accusations and describes that Euronymous’ murder was done for the sake of self-defense.and it was Euronymous who had actually plotted to kill him. Many fans of the Scandanvian metal scene regarded this murder the result of the power struggle and idealogical differences between the two popularly rising bands in the scene. Others regarded it as a trifle over the sum of money that Varg had lent to Euronymous for his DSP ( Deathlike Silence Prductions) records through which Burzum had released its previous albums too.
Although the golden era of Burzum ended with the imprisonment of Varg for 21 years, the albums and songs Burzum created are still regarded as the best of Black metal. The first mini-LP Aske (1991) evokes a dark and emotional despair that is suppresed fear within human existance. Vocals are lengthly screams that spread the hoarse demon screech over several notes. On being asked about his best album, Varg refers to Hvis Lyset Tar Oss (1992) because of its originality, consistency and closest to what he wanted to achieve when he made and recorded it. He remarks, “This album is the first album I played music, instead of just playing different instruments”. In Det Som En Gang var (1994), the music is dark, simple and rough but well played and obviously planed and sensed. Filosoferm (1995) includes the first ever Burzum track, Dunkelheit (the German version for Burzum). The album was mixed/ produced while Varg was in prison. Living and hypnotic music radiates from the simple, defintive riffs with a flexible technique that smears a disorted flow of notes into chords and melodies. Daudi Baldrs (1997) approaches to a more complex ideal of song stucture and the songs range from the pop-like melodic tendencies of the previous Burzum album to classically-inspired ambient looping sructures. Hlioskjalf (1999) sounds as if Burzum hs evolved from raw black metal to an atmospheric style of classical music that reflects powerful concept and design. So every new album gives a sense that Burzum has grown into a more mature Ambient Black Metal band.
In October 2003, Vikernes failed to return to his low-security prison in Tonsberg, Norway after having been granted a short leave. After hijacking a car, Varg was pprehended by the police. He was caught with an unloaded assult rifle, a handheld GPS system, military uniforms, and camouflage clothes. He received an additional senence of 13 months for the incident, and has been moved to a maximum-security prison in Trondheim. Tough laws have changed since his imprisonment and the new laws suggest his release around August 2006, Varg isn’t much positive about his release. Burzum has released its two ambient albums, Daudi Baldrs and Hlioskjalf in prison which boh focus on Norse mythology. In prison, Varg devotes his time espicially in studing ancient Aryan and Pagan religion and complains that he has been denied with facilities and equipmensts to create music. He has also published two of his books, Vargsnal I and II along with other shorter works namely Irminsul and Germansk Mythologi og Verdensanskuelse. He denies himself of being a Satanist as reffered by many media and says he neither believes in God nor Satan. On being asked his plans for the nearest future, he comments that apart from the computer programming and translating books, he plans to buy a small farm somewhere in Norway and live there, write books, make music, enjoy nature, get some peace and so forth.
I wonder how winter will be with a spring that I shall never see
I wonder how might will be with a day that I shall never see
I wonder how life will be with a light I shall never see
I wonder how life will be with a pain that lasts eternally
(Beholding the Dughters of the Firmament)
Albums:
1. Aske (Ash or Cinder)
2. Hvis Lyset Tar Oss (If The Light Take Us)
3. Det Som En Gang Var (What Once Was)
4. Filosofem (Philosofem)
5. Daudi Baldrs (The Death of Baldr)
6. Hlioskjalf (Hidden Opening Intro Asgardr or Secret Ritual-Site)

LORDS OF CHAOS VIII

SOUNDLY TRASHED
The late ‘80’s saw the brief ascendancy of Trash Metal, exemplified by bands like Anthrax, M.O.D., Metallica, and even the more extreme slayer. In Europe, the German groups Kreator and Sodom left a strong mark, along with Swiss ensemble Celtic Frost, who started out as the seminal outfit Helhammer. Sodom toyed with satanic themes on their first few albums, and band members adopted pseudonyms of “Angelripper”, “Witchhunter”, and “Grave Violtor”-the last of these bearing an ominous ring in light of the real life activities Black Metallers would partake in a few years later. Helhammer/Celtic Frost flirted with darker occult subjects for lyrical fodder, but eventually turnd into something resembling a metalized Art Rock band. Like any style hyped incessantly by the music industry, Thrash Metal’s days were ultimately numbered. The genre became too big for its own good and major labels scrambled to sign Thrash bands, who promptly cleaned up their sound and lost their original focus in self-indulgent demonstration of technical ability.
Peter Steele of gothic Metal band Type O Negative (and former front-man of the late 80s neo-barbarian Speed Metal act Carnivore) accurately characterizes Thrash Metal as a form of “urban blight music”, a pale-faced cousin of Rap. His remark is astute and it wasn’t long before Thrash bands like Anthrax actually began collaborating with Rappers and incorporating elements of Hip Hop into their songs. The less compromising underground watched such developments with dismay, and eagerly awaited for its phoenix to arise from the ashes of the now dead Thrash.
Innovation in the larger forms of music have almost always come at the hands of the fans – fans who pick up instruments of their own, determined to do one better over their mentors, or disgusted with seeing their favorite music swamped in the wake of commercial sell outs and corporate record labels meddling in the affairs of the underground. Speaking about the longevity of extreme Metal, Abaddon of Venom observes, “This kind of music always fractures, but the most important thing is that it, from the fans which keeps it together. It’s the power of the fanbase that will always keep it there”.
DEATH THRONES
Concurrently emerging in the both the U.S. and Europe, Death metal was the antidote the underground had awaited, reintroducing a sense of immediacy and danger otherwise lost after the early demise of Thrash. Death Metal took the speed of both Hardcore and Thrash to build its skeleton and fleshed this out with churning, down-tuned guitars and a growling style of singing which provided a dramatic antithesis to the falsettos and high-pitched lead vocals dominating mainstream Metal at the time. Death Metal’s subject matter was not far off from that of the Misfits, but instead of B grade ‘50s horror, one now found the Z-grade slasher movie violence of the ‘70s and ‘80s served up in endless rotation. Songs detailing infinite varities of murder, torture, rape and dismemberment were spewed out from the going Army of Death Metal acts around the globe. The related genre of grandcore, more heavily indebted to the politics of English anarchist and “peace punk” pioneers like Crass and Rudimentary Penni, produced its own massively popular Extreme Noise Terror, Napalm Death and Carcass and the latter are noteworthy for their graphically nauseating cover art on records like Symphonies of Sickness – collaged photographs of butchered meat and human autopsy photos, accompanied by lyrics drawn from text book on medical pathalogy.
The two world capital of Death Metal were the unlikely locations of Tampa, Florida and Stockholm, Sweden. From these extremes of fire and ice, the genre produced its most influential acts, Entombed, Hypocrisy, Dismember and Unleashed from Sweden; Morbid Angel, Death, Obituary and Deicide from the Swampy neither world of Florida. Other areas of the States also spat out bands of notoriety – misogynist gore fans Cannival Corpse from the upstate New York, equally rude and savage Autopsy from California – but the true aforimentioned cities had specific recording studios and record poducers which indelibely shaped the sonic boundaries of the genre. Death Metal eschewed the theatrics of its musical predecssors, instead opting for a “dude next door” look which remainded unchanged on stage or off. Ripped geans or sweatpants, high-top sneakers and plain leather jackets became the Death Metal uniform, and band members were assured of neighbour being recognised by fans of the street since they looked no different than a thousand other sallow-faced urban hoods.
A few exceptions came from the overtly Satanic bands who made up a small segment of Death Metal overall. The flamboyant singer of Deicide, Glen Bentton, Ceremoniously branded upside-down cross into his fore head, threw bloody antralis into concert crowds, and sported homemade armor on stage; fellow Floridians Morbid Angel begain donning paramilitary clothes for their live appearances, courting a neo-fascist demeanor, and reinforcing it with inopportune and illiberal comments on magagine interviews. For the most part however, the genre rested on its laurials of unbridled sonic brutality and lyrical glorification of all things morbid and decaying.
As Death Metal gained momentum, only a few bands from the Thrash days remaind who commanded any respect from the younger generation. Slayer continued to be reverted as godfathers of the scene, and in turn the band kept fans interested as they shifted subject matter from juvenile Satanism to an open-ended fascination with violence in general. Serial killers, genocide, religious persecution and other apocalyptic topics all became grist for Slayer’s lyrical mill. Additionally they often employed the long standing Metal tradition of invoking specters of Nazism and fascism in their lyrics and packagings. Slayer’s fans were dubbed the “slaytanic Wehrmacht”. Nazi eagles were incorporated into the band’s logo, songs were penned about Josef “angel of death” Mengele, and Jeff Henneman adorned his guitar with photos of concentration camp corpses. They gained an added following from neo-Nazi skinheads as a result, but it would be difficult to take much of this seriously upon closer examination of the group – despite his last name there is nothing remotely “Aryan” about lead singer Tom Araya, who in fact comes from a Hispanic South American background.

Origin of the band names

DEICIDE:
Decide was formed in Florida in 1987, first playing under the name Carnage. After Glen Benton joined, the name was turned to Amon. During this time they released two demos: Feasting the Beast (1987) and Sacrifical (1989). In 1989 the band’s name was changed to Deicide by force of Roaddrunner records, as Amon was the name of the house in the King Diamond album “Them”. Deicide literally means “killing of god”.



OPETH:
The name Opeth was taken from the book Sunbird (1972) by author Wilbur Smith, and was originally spelled Opet. In the book, Opet is the city of the moon.



ATHEIST:
The legendary progressive metal band Atheist was originally founded under the name R.A.V.A.G.E. (which stands for Raging Atheists Vowing A Gory End).


AMON AMARTH:
The Viking metal band Amon Amarth took its name after a location in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Middle –earth”. The name “Mount Doom” in Sindarin.

Randy's birth place

Randall William Rhoads was born on December 6, 1956 at St. Johns Hospital in Santa Monica, California. With one brother (Doug) and one sister (Kathy), Randy was the youngest of three. When Randy was 17 months old his father, William Arthur Rhoads, a public school music teacher, left and all three children were raised by their mother, Delores Rhoads.

Passion of Randy Rhoads

Randy started taking guitar lessons around the age of 6 or 7 at a music school in North Hollywood called Musonia, which was owned by his mother. His first guitar was a Gibson (acoustic) that belonged to Delores Rhoads father. Randy and his sister (Kathy) both began folk guitar lessons at the same time with Randy later taking piano lessons (at his mother’s request) so that he could learn to read music. Randy’s piano lessons did not last very long. At the age of 12, Randy became interested in rock guitar. His mother, Delores, had an old semi-acoustic Harmony Rocket, which at that time was "almost larger than he was". For almost a year Randy took lessons from Scott Shelly, a guitar teacher at his mother’s school. Scott Shelly eventually went to Randy’s mother explaining that he could not teach him anymore as Randy knew everything that he (Scott Shelly) knew. When Randy was about 14, he was in his first band, Violet Fox, named after his mother’s middle name, Violet. With Randy playing rhythm guitar and his brother Doug playing drums, Violet Fox were together about 4 to 5 months. Randy was in various other bands, such as "The Katzenjammer Kids" and "Mildred Pierce", playing parties in the Burbank area before he formed Quiet Riot in 1976 with longtime friend and bassist Kelly Garni. Randy Rhoads and Kelly Garni (whom Randy taught to play bass guitar) met Kevin Dubrow through a mutual friend from Hollywood. How they actually got together is a different story with many variations: