Adabisi said:
The whole Norwegian standard of tremolo riffs over endless blastbeats never really clicked for me. The early Hellenic scene is my was entry point - Rotting Christ, Varathron and Necromantia. From there is was Master's Hammer, Countess, Samael, Mortuary Drape, Burzum, Root and a ton of others. Like you say, if I had never ventured beyond the Darkthrone/Mayhem/Emperor style I would have bailed on the genre without giving it another thought. Perverted Ceremony, Evilfeast, Havukruunu, Yellow Eyes, Malokarpatan, Summoning and Cultes des Ghoules all had some amazing albums in the last couple of years and I never would have considered them if not for the intro to Hellenic scene.
You should check out Mgla and Kriegsmachine. They'd be right up your alley, I think. Yellow Eyes is awesome. Also, if you don't dig on Emperor, you'd probably like Ihsahn's solo stuff (he was Emperor's frontman, if you didn't know). He goes way more experimental with it, adds Pink Floyd style ambiance and chord progressions, a jazz saxophone, 80's synthwave influence, it's all over the place but man is it incredible. Not a bad album in his solo discography at all.
Possessed said:
Hey if somebody wants to talk about how perfectly amazing amd majestic stevie ray vaughan was for a while, I'm totally down.
Sure his music wasn't very original or groundbreaking, most of his songs were covers anyway. But he just performed everything so amazingly well and with such passion and emotion you didn't care. He was amazing. Amd he was a great singer and most every cover he did outclasses the original, even (especially?) hendrix voodoo child. As awesome as it was stevie just blew it out of the park
SRV's music may not seem groundbreaking now, but he got boo'd offstage at his first performance at the Montreaux Blues Festival. It got him enough studio time to cut
Texas Flood, but the crowd hated him. He lit a fire under older blues musicians like Buddy Guy to reenergize their sound and adapt, and as a result, the blues scene in the late 80's early 90's had the biggest boom it had seen in decades. Vaughan didn't really do anything
original, per se, as Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, and a ton of other greats had toyed around with the ideas SRV used, but he knew how to put all the pieces together into something great. One of a kind in so many ways.
Moe_Syzlak said:
To me there is no contest. SRV does a decent tribute to the Hendrix Voodoo Chile while not really adding anything new or coming close to reaching the emotional impact of the original. And don’t get me started on Vaughn’s Little Wing.
Riviera Paradise >>>>> Little Wing.
Adabisi said:
But far and away, my favourite blues artist is Blind Willie Johnson. He had a voice like no one else. He was doing the whole harsh/clean juxtaposition 70 years before Mikael Akerfeldt.
How in the hell have I missed this all my life!? I'm a real big fan of Robert Johnson and Albert King, but this is some next level innovation. Damn, this is good. Thanks for posting it!
Possessed said:
Couldn't stand the weather, life without you, Riviera paradise
Plus there's that his blues is just so GOOD.
But I won't argue that he's far less diverse musically. However Life without you genuinely makes me want to cry.
I remember reading a story in the SRV issue of Guitar Legends (a spinoff magazine from Guitar World) where the recording engineer told a story about recording Riviera Paradise. I'll see if I can find it and post it, it was a good read.
As far as non-metal stuff, because I have a really terrible habit of babbling about metal for hours on end, I'm a real big fan of the 70's Motown scene. My wife inherited a ton of old records when her mom passed, and she took them when we got married and moved in together. Tons of good stuff in there. Diana Ross, Jackson 5, Issac Hayes, tons of good stuff. I'm a big fan of jazz and bebop, as well. John Coltrane was an idol of mine when I played sax in high school.