MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Recommendations, discussions, questions & debates regarding the godly Metal of olde...
Post Reply
User avatar
nightsblood
Posts: 2427
Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2007 6:11 pm

MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by nightsblood »

I recently got the 2 LP comp 'NWOBHM at the BBC Friday Rock Show Sessions vol 2'. First band on side 1 is MORE.
Ugh.
MORE? Really?! That's how you wanna start your NWOBHM comp?!

Back up about 27 fucking years ago and I was buying my second NWOBHM album, the 'Metal Explosion' comp featuring tunes from the BBC radio sessions. Not the best sophomore purchase for an aspiring NWOBHM fan perhaps, but it was 1992, I was 17, and I was looking for British vinyl in the rural Southeastern US; the fact that I found this one comp in a used LP bin at a record fair was the highlight of the entire summer. It did feature a couple of great tracks by TRESPASS and ANGEL WITCH, but it also included some real duds. The worst offender was, arguably, MORE's 'Soldier', a slow, plodding, blues-rock number that seemed to embody the 'dinosaur rock' mentality that the NWOBHM was meant to dispense with. Even at that embryonic point in my NWOBHM development I understood that this song had no business being on the same album as 'Extermination Day', MORE was on my Shit List, and mentally they became my poster child for 'stuff labelled NWOBHM that has no fucking business being called NWOBHM'. Lame name, lame logo, signed to Atlantic, shitty blues-based rock sound. Yep, they suck. Paul Mario Day's lackluster WILDFIRE project did nothing to earn MORE a reevaluation (those WILDFIRE LPs weren't awful but they did nothing for me).

Back to 2019. So now I have to sit through 4 more MORE (ha!) songs, including the hideous 'Soldier', before getting to the GIRLSCHOOL tracks. Y'know, I had ALMOST forgotten why I disliked MORE so much, but then it all came rushing back as I opened the new album.... oh yeah, it's THAT song all over again. Okay, let's get this over and done with.
Track 1, 'Atomic Rock'.
Wait a fucking minute, this doesn't sound like 'Soldier'.......
Wait a fucking minute, NONE of these other songs sound like 'Soldier'...... these songs actually sound pretty good!

If, when I woke up this morning, you had told me that I would be spending my afternoon looking up MORE's 'Warhead' on Youtube, I would have pelted you with the stack of DEBBIE GIBSON CDs that my wife refuses to dispose of. And yet, here we are.

The moral of the story kids, and one worth remembering in this day and age of disposable digital music: don't base your evaluation of a band on a single song, even if the band does have a lame name and lame logo and was signed to a major label.

Now, can someone please explain to me why in the blue hell the folks behind the 'Metal Explosion' comp decided to include 'Soldier' over 'Atomic Rock'? You're calling your compilation 'Metal EXPLOSION' and one of the bands did a song for your show called 'ATOMIC ROCK'. You can't get more perfect than that! How did you miss that?! You're British! Shitty puns and not-so-clever wordplay is what your nation's entire sense of humour is built upon! You, you just can't miss fruit hanging that fucking low! It's so very bloody obvious!

And I'm thus left to wonder, what if 'Atomic Rock' had been the selected track for 'Metal Explosion'? Even a 17-yr-old nightsblood would've dug that track. Would 'Warhead' have wound up on my very first vinyl want list? Would I have ordered 'Warhead' instead of some other NWOBHM album back in the day? What if 'Warhead' had replaced 'Death Penalty' on one of my early NWOBHM vinyl orders and I then spent years digging MORE and didn't wind up hearing WITCHFINDER GENERAL until I got the 'Soviet Invasion' EP, which I didn't like and traded away? Would I have bypassed the mighty WITCHFINDER GENERAL, or JAGUAR, or some other band because my limited income forced me to chose the album that features 'Atomic Rock' over a different album? Would I have turned into a Paul Mario Day fanboy and leaned into other post-NWOBHM major label releases? Would I be sitting here today with a stack of nothing but GIRL, MORE, and BAD COMPANY albums? What would have happened to my fucking life?!

Hmmm, maybe including 'Soldier' wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Or maybe this is another instance of the Time-Travelling Discography Manipulators at work. In 2031 a certain 59-year old disillusioned Paul Mario Day fanboy invented time travel and went back through the ages and convinced Tommy Vance to put 'Soldier' on 'Metal Explosion' instead of 'Atomic Rock', thus ensuring that the time traveller's 17-year old self would reject MORE in 1992 and instead travel a path of much tr00er steel.

I think we're through the looking glass here fellas!

End rant.
"I'm sorry Sam, we had real chemistry. But like a monkey on the sun, our love was too hot to live"
-Becky
User avatar
Khnud
Posts: 2621
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2007 7:45 pm
Location: Lund, Sweden

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by Khnud »

Haha, I had a listen to "Atomic Rock" and it ain't bad, but it's not exactly HOLLOW GROUND either.
Welcome to our dream
Welcome to our night
I can make you scream
I can make you fight
User avatar
bigfootkit
Posts: 3140
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:32 am
Location: Scotland
Contact:

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by bigfootkit »

This made me laugh heartily & got me dewey eyed with nostalgia at the same time.
As a young, (probably only about 11 years old at the time) music obsessed kid with scant funds there was a dog eared copy of the Atomic Rock/We Are The Band 12" that i used to pick up every time i was in my local branch of John Menzies, but i would return it to the rack every time as i'd always find something else that offered greater bang for my limited metal quid.
Fast forward 6 or 7 years and i spied that familiar logo, (which i always read as 'Cmores'), on the cover of an album called 'Warhead' in the £1 bargain bin of a long-gone record shop in Partick. I picked it up, but it took me a few days to give it a proper listen and when i did i filed it under 'alright for a pound, might be a few songs worth taping before i trade it away'.
However through repeated plays i came to really enjoy the record, (or more accurately i loved 70-80% of it and tolerated the remainder), despite (or perhaps because) how different it was to the faster harder bands i was then listening to.
The music had enough balls to it, but that old school feel was there too, and the singer and guitarist in particular were stronger than many of their peers in other bands of that era
At some point however it disappeared from my collection, though i've no recollection of where it went or why, and i'm sorry to say that i sort of forgot about it over the years.
With the dawn of iffy file sharing networks like KaZaa, Morpheus, Win MX & the like, i became digitally reaquainted with 'Warhead' (& it's underwhelming follow-up 'Blood & Thunder'), and discovered that it still stands up well as a good debut LP.
One of these days i'm gonna have to seek out the remastered version Rock Candy put out a few years back, if only to blare the excellent one-two of 'Depression' & 'Road Rocket' for old times sake from time to time.
Oddly overlooked nowadays, if they'd only put their 4 best songs out as an EP on the Guardian label and then disappeared, you know they'd be spoken of in hushed reverential tones and yer troo cvlt types would be sporting bootleg shirts and 'Cmores' tattoos.
Looks like they could cut it live too:

[youtube]vWetxP4ORJA[/youtube]
I cannot, I shall not, I will not obey.
Avenger wrote : I'm not a copyright office nor a judicial entity.
User avatar
nightsblood
Posts: 2427
Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2007 6:11 pm

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by nightsblood »

Great story 'kit, as always! Maybe the time-travelling, disgruntled Paul Mario Day fanboy had to make a quick temporal stopover in your neighborhood to remove your copy of 'Warhead' from the timeline for reasons that I can't quite fathom.

It's always a bit sad when you check your record racks and discover that you no longer own something and realize you completely forgot when you got rid of it. It happens to me on occasion, as I sold off a couple of big chunks of my collection in my days as a poor college student. Having to move crates of vinyl to a new apartment about twice a year gets old after awhile. I can safely say most of the stuff I jettisoned I haven't missed that much, and there's only been a few items I later felt the need to re-aquire.
"I'm sorry Sam, we had real chemistry. But like a monkey on the sun, our love was too hot to live"
-Becky
wicked keeper
Posts: 355
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 1:03 pm

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by wicked keeper »

Paul Mario Day lives in Australia now , saw him supporting Ripper Owens with his band Crimson Lake about 7-8 years ago and spoke with him after their set...sid he was "just a wee lad" when he was in Maiden & More...mainly talked about his time with The Sweet and the '85 Bar Room Blitz Tour of Oz and their appearance on a local comedy/variety tv show and how they made fun of his spandex outfit..reckoned he wore it for a bet....had a good laugh about it.... :lol:
User avatar
nightsblood
Posts: 2427
Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2007 6:11 pm

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by nightsblood »

wicked keeper wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 4:47 am Paul Mario Day lives in Australia now , saw him supporting Ripper Owens with his band Crimson Lake about 7-8 years ago and spoke with him after their set...sid he was "just a wee lad" when he was in Maiden & More...mainly talked about his time with The Sweet and the '85 Bar Room Blitz Tour of Oz and their appearance on a local comedy/variety tv show and how they made fun of his spandex outfit..reckoned he wore it for a bet....had a good laugh about it.... :lol:
Cool story, thanks for sharing! I had no idea what had become of him
"I'm sorry Sam, we had real chemistry. But like a monkey on the sun, our love was too hot to live"
-Becky
User avatar
DaN
Administructor
Posts: 7222
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:19 am
Location: Stockholm Metal Underground
Contact:

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by DaN »

Alan's Regretful Timetraveller-theory got me thinking:
Was it actually a 70-year-old me, depressed from a lifetime mediocrity, without a calling and purpouse, who travelled back in time to 1984 and sabotaged the tapedeck of a 12-year-old Dan (no, I wasn't DaN yet...) who just got it into his confused, prepubescent head that "I guess I'll check out this pop-music-thing and make my own mix-tape since all the other kids are doing it..." just a week or 2 before someone gave me a tape of Dio, Twisted Sister and Black Sabbath? I remember I was devastated at the time but it all makes sense now... :shock:

Concerning MORE:
Already 10-or-so years ago I started to finally check out all the regular bargain-bin HR/HM releases that an Obsküre Metal Collector would naturally have avoided since (re)birth, and both MORE albums were 2 of the better discoveries as I remember it. At least it felt so at the time. After seeing them at HOA 2011 they kinda lost their shine after not playing "Way Of The World". Weird how a seemingly petty detail like that can ever so slightly twist your perception of a band... ("Were they in fact one-hit-wonders all along??" wonders my petty subconscious..)
User avatar
bigfootkit
Posts: 3140
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:32 am
Location: Scotland
Contact:

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by bigfootkit »

nightsblood wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 2:47 am Maybe the time-travelling, disgruntled Paul Mario Day fanboy had to make a quick temporal stopover in your neighborhood to remove your copy of 'Warhead' from the timeline for reasons that I can't quite fathom.
I like that theory Alan, can i also blame Paul Mario Day for my place frequently being such an untidy mess in the early '90's too?
Look at the nick of this place!
Oh no, Paul Mario Day's been round again!
:lol:
When my friends & I were younger if someone made a bad decision the excuse was always referred to as 'Lars Ulrich's idea', :D, so having Paul Mario Day as someone else to retrospectively blame for my youthful shortcomings would be a great addition.
I cannot, I shall not, I will not obey.
Avenger wrote : I'm not a copyright office nor a judicial entity.
User avatar
nightsblood
Posts: 2427
Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2007 6:11 pm

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by nightsblood »

'kit- You should absolutely blame Paul Mario Day for everything that ailes you and society today.
After all, everyone knows Brexit got PMD'ed.
Harry & Megan got SO PMD'ed it's not funny.
And don't even talk to me about how PMD'ed the most recent PAGAN ALTAR album was. Classic case of PMD if ever there was one.

Dan- I see what you did there, and I'll raise you one more....
After a 59 year old disgruntled PMD fanboy went back to 1980 to convince Tommy Vance to replace 'Atomic Rock' with 'Soldier' on the 'Metal Explosion' compilation to ensure that the 18-yr-old version of the PMD fanboy would buy 'Death Penalty' instead of 'Warhead', the 18-yr-old now-non-PMD fanboy grew up increasingly attached to the Metal.de heavy metal data repository as a lifeline of information. When that site closed in 2018 all the data was lost, and he was so devastated that he travelled backward in time to meet a certain college-aged, pop-music-loving, mix-tape making fellow and took him back in time to bear witness to the birth of the heavy metal scene in the UK and Europe in the earliest 1980s. The reformed pop-music mix tape maker then had to travel back in time to sabotoge his younger self's tape deck to prevent him from ever making pop music mix tapes so that he would instead discover a certain Dio-Sabbath tape introduced surreptisiously into the timeline by the time-travelling non-PMD fanboy. While the mix-tape maker thought he was merely setting his younger self up to have better musical taste, the non-PMD fanboy knew the Dio-Sabbath tape would actually begin a series of events that would culminate a couple of decades later in the reformed tape mix maker deciding to build an online community dedicated to preserving knowledge pertaining to obscure heavy metal. This ensured that, when the metal.de site was closed in 2018, there was now a site that all the data could be transferred to before it was lost forever. The grown up site administrator, who had never been a maker of pop music mix tapes, would end up somewhat overwhelmed by the data influx and would thus seek out the help of the non-PMD fanboy, who had spent the past decade ingratiating himself to the site admin by supporting the community, and the non-PMD fanboy would thus be invited to write new reviews for whatever items from the metal.de data dump that needed an updated review.
That's right son, you've played right into my hands. Dance, puppet, dance!

Now, I gotta get back to that Solar Eagle review before my editor chews me out for being behind schedule........
"I'm sorry Sam, we had real chemistry. But like a monkey on the sun, our love was too hot to live"
-Becky
User avatar
DaN
Administructor
Posts: 7222
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:19 am
Location: Stockholm Metal Underground
Contact:

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by DaN »

My doG...
All along...
It was... YOU :shock: :shock: :shock:

Quick! Get Chris Noland on the phone! And could we get that Shyamalan-guy to go over the script? Is Jason Momoa free for The Mixtape-maker? Maybe Eddie Deezen as The PMD Fanboy? No?
User avatar
Khnud
Posts: 2621
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2007 7:45 pm
Location: Lund, Sweden

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by Khnud »

This is about to reach "Back To The Future"-size proportions with regards to disruptions in the space-time continuum...
Welcome to our dream
Welcome to our night
I can make you scream
I can make you fight
wicked keeper
Posts: 355
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 1:03 pm

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by wicked keeper »

Here's his infamous Oz TV appearance with Sweet that we reminisced about so fondly(video is blocked from being embedded):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SmIlC0 ... atch_on_yt

:lol:
User avatar
nightsblood
Posts: 2427
Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2007 6:11 pm

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by nightsblood »

Wicked- cool, thanks! People can say what they will about The Sweet, PMD, 'Fox on the Run', and 1980s fashion sense, but gawddammitt it takes a man who is very secure in his heterosexuality to wear THOSE pants!

Dan- Awwww, it was all fun and games until you brought Deezen into it. Now I gotta go back in time to get a young Eddie hooked on HGH while also ensuring that Jason is raised on a strict schedule of math homework and sousaphone lessons. How foolish will your comment look then?!

NP- ORANGE GOBLIN 'Time Travelin' Blues' (I'm not making that up!)
"I'm sorry Sam, we had real chemistry. But like a monkey on the sun, our love was too hot to live"
-Becky
User avatar
bigfootkit
Posts: 3140
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:32 am
Location: Scotland
Contact:

Re: MORE, 'Metal Explosion', and Time Travel

Post by bigfootkit »

wicked keeper wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2020 4:22 pm Here's his infamous Oz TV appearance with Sweet that we reminisced about so fondly(video is blocked from being embedded):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SmIlC0 ... atch_on_yt
:lol:
:shock:
How did that lyric go?
'You. You don't look the same. The way you did before.'
Very apt.
:lol:
Still, all things considered, that video was a welcome & highly amusing distraction from all the time travelling shenanigans.
I think i pulled a muscle in my head trying to understand all that.
Even in their pomp Sweet were a really odd band. On the one hand they were ultra-camp shlocky glam-pop hitmakers, but were also capable of proto-Metal 'screaming dizbusters' like this weighty beast from 1975:

[youtube]T8ZVsgxsk1I[/youtube]
I cannot, I shall not, I will not obey.
Avenger wrote : I'm not a copyright office nor a judicial entity.
Post Reply