Obscure Heavy Psych/Heavy Rock/Proto-Metal

[DaKillerWolf]

Re: Proto - Metal

This was Billy Joel's ( of piano man fame ) start to his musical career as hard as it is to believe .
He played keys and did the vocal work also. As much as I have always disliked his solo music I have to admit this stuff rocks ,not that it is a truly awesome album or anything ,but if he had a bassist and a guitarist instead of just him and a drummer he might have had something here .His keyboard playing definitely shows some serious chops . From their 1970 self-titled debut

ATTILA :

 

[DaKillerWolf]

Re: Proto - Metal

Thought that I would add this bit of a interview with Joel pertaining to a suicide attempt after his album bombed .



Q: Is it true that after the failure of [your heavy metal band] Attila you tried to kill yourself by drinking a bottle of furniture polish?
A: That’s true. Yeah, I was suicidal. I was 21. It’s a tough age. Things hit you really hard. A relationship with a girl had ended and I was devastated, and then it didn’t work out with the recording we did, and I just figured the world didn’t need another failed musician. You take yourself so seriously—you’ve got your head so far up your ass you can’t see straight.

Q: But why did you use furniture polish?
A: I was just lookin’ for poison. I looked in my mother’s closet and there was bleach, and it had the skull and crossbones, and then there was furniture polish. And at the time I thought, Well, the furniture polish will probably taste better than the bleach, so I’ll drink the furniture polish. And all I ended up doing was farting furniture polish for a couple of days and polishing my mother’s chairs.

 

[LG]

Re: Proto - Metal

I never realized that Billy Joel started out in a hard rock/metal band DKW...you learn something new everytime you open this thread apparently.(I like some of Billy's solo stuff, I have three of his CD's laying about the place.)

I have no idea what to say about his "Furniture Polish" story, except I'm glad the worst thing that came of it was embarrassment and nicely polished chairs.

 

[METALPRIEST]

Re: Proto - Metal

^^ I have an interview disc where Joel talks about starting off in a heavy metal band. This is the first time I've heard Attilla..I enjoyed it. I should have googled this or searched youtube years ago.

 

[joe]

Re: Proto - Metal

^^^That's one piece of vinyl I haven't pulled out for years. I didn't know about the suicide attempt. I actually don't mind some of his solo material.

 

[joe]

Re: Proto - Metal

The Gun s/t debut from 1968 did contain some hard rock numbers but also show cased orchestration passages. Considered somewhat heavy for the year it was released. Race With The Devil was a minor hit. The second album, Gunsight failed miserably and Paul and Adrian Gurvitz then formed Three Man Army with drummer Tony Newman from Jeff Beck and May Blitz.

 

[joe]

Re: Proto - Metal

I had big expectations for this band and was disappointed in all three releases though there was a handful of good tracks. The Gurvitz brothers teamed up with Ginger Baker after the break up of Three Man Army('70-'74).

"If your name is Barbara, how come they call you Butter Queen..."

 

[DaKillerWolf]

Re: Proto - Metal

This album sounds more like something that might have been recorded in 1983 or 84 not 1977.
Doomy atmosphere with ripping leads and an impending sense of dread that only one who is living out a personal Armageddon will project. Either that or has been listening to a lot of Sabbath haha . In 1967 ,a guy named Kirk Byrk ( real name Brykowski ) began play guitar .In the next few years he became obsessed with UK Godz of Thunder, Black Sabbath ,and Tony Iommi influenced Kirk into playing an extreme style of heavy riff orientated proto-metal.
Not that different from a lot of other's story's in this genre but these guys were something very special IMO and ahead of their time . From Chicago, released on a small local record label ....

SORCERY :

EDIT: I forgot to mention they released one more album in 1980 called
Till Death Do Us Part

 

[Foxhound]

Re: Proto - Metal

How about this one?

 

[joe]

Re: Proto - Metal

There's always one in every class