The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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Khnud
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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Noisenik wrote: Mon Dec 26, 2022 10:24 amWell, for those that claim really sought after items give them hard-ons, Khnud was on the spot. So 10 hard packages ... :lol: :lol: :lol:
Haha, pun completely unintended in this case!
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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bigfootkit wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 3:34 am
Khnud wrote: Thu Jul 21, 2022 1:19 pm Interesting question, and I don't have a good answer.
I must put the question to Alan Nightsblood, he's bound to have an interesting theory (that may or may not somehow involve time travel). :D
Funny, I just had this same conversation with a collector re: NWOBHM bands doing the same sort of thing.
I agree with your general premise 'kit; I think these bands were trying to play both ends and see which style- the Heavy Side or the Mainstream Side- got the most attention. If a label or manager gravitated to one song but not the other, then the band could seek fame and fortune on that particular path.
But yeah, did it ever actually work?
We could not come up with many good examples of this strategy succeeding in the NWOBHM, and the US scene seems even less likely to have born fruit in this manner. There were two potential cases, however, we thought of that might have driven bands to this strategy.
#1- Iron Maiden 'the soundhouse tapes'.
#2- Def Leppard 'the def leppard EP'
These two bands got signed very early on and rose to superstardom pretty quickly; one in the Metal Universe and one on FM radio & MTV.
Now, neither of these bands' singles featured a killer on one side and a filler on the other side, but they could have impressed upon the youth of that era that "make DYI single = get record deal" was a real plan for making it to the top.

It's also possible we're being too cynical and the singles were just meant to help earn a bit of cash selling them at local shows to fans. The different musical styles featured may be little more than showing off different parts of their set list. These small, local bands likely needed some 'accessible' tunes in the set list to get gigs, and such tunes had a relatively wide appeal at the time.

....we also shouldn't rule out the idea that in the original time line Steve Harris gave up bass and went to barber school while Joe Elliot lost his tongue in a freak glazing accident resulting in heavy metal never getting off the ground, which resulted in the 1980s being dominated by a mainstream neofolk revival. Driven to the brink of madness by 1988, a desperate Brian Slagel- the only person in SoCal wearing a 'Hell Bent for Leather' T-shirt (because Rob Halford found Jesus while on tour in Japan, thus causing 'Priest to disintegrate) invented a time-travel device in his garage and he went back to 1979 to keep keep Rob from wandering into that Christian bookstore in downtown Kyoto and while knocking about decided to skip over to the UK to convince Steve to give it one more go and ensure that Missus Elliot needed help dealing with stranger trying to sell her counterfeit crisps so that Joe missed his pottery class that evening. These few tweaks, paired with mysterious sound problems at the Newcastle NeoFolk festival that year involving an infestation of Japanese wood beetles and the draconian enforcement of a Victorian-Era statute regarding flogging of unwashed minstrels, ensured musical history followed a different course moving forward and inadvertently resulted in the fetishization of 7" releases which Brian, being in the know, bought in bulk so that, by the 1990s, he could brag about owning every single NWOBHM single much to the annoyance of every poor wanker trying to scrape up enough dosh for a copy of DUMPY'S RUSTY NUTS.
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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nightsblood wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 4:45 am Funny, I just had this same conversation with a collector re: NWOBHM bands doing the same sort of thing.
I agree with your general premise 'kit; I think these bands were trying to play both ends and see which style- the Heavy Side or the Mainstream Side- got the most attention. If a label or manager gravitated to one song but not the other, then the band could seek fame and fortune on that particular path.
But yeah, did it ever actually work?
We could not come up with many good examples of this strategy succeeding in the NWOBHM, and the US scene seems even less likely to have born fruit in this manner. There were two potential cases, however, we thought of that might have driven bands to this strategy.
#1- Iron Maiden 'the soundhouse tapes'.
#2- Def Leppard 'the def leppard EP'
These two bands got signed very early on and rose to superstardom pretty quickly; one in the Metal Universe and one on FM radio & MTV.
Now, neither of these bands' singles featured a killer on one side and a filler on the other side, but they could have impressed upon the youth of that era that "make DYI single = get record deal" was a real plan for making it to the top.
It's also possible we're being too cynical and the singles were just meant to help earn a bit of cash selling them at local shows to fans. The different musical styles featured may be little more than showing off different parts of their set list. These small, local bands likely needed some 'accessible' tunes in the set list to get gigs, and such tunes had a relatively wide appeal at the time.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
I should be far more careful what i wish for. Your epic time-travel flight o' fancy was a thing of beauty that made me laugh aloud several times. Your absurdist sense of humour is much missed as a regular fixture 'round these parts.
I've given the initial question a fair bit of thought over the months since i first pondered upon it & i'm inclined to largely agree with your assessment that the Maiden & Leppard examples served as huge beacons of hope & opportunity for the up & coming bands of the era. I'd also throw the lkes of Tygers Of Pan Tang, Fist, Diamond Head etc. into the mix as inspirations. Both the former signed to major labels in the wake of their debut 7"s whilst it took DH a few indie 45s & an LP to achieve 'signed' status. For a while at least, all looked to be bound for varying degrees of success, but of course we have the benefit of knowing how their stories played out whilst their near contemporaries were looking at things in real time & trying desperately to get in on the action.
I'd also factor in the indie to major stories of more commercial US groups like Ratt, Twisted Sister & Motley Crue as something that probably turned that speculative early private pressing/indie release trickle into a flood later in the 80s, and may well have encouraged the all-too-familiar heavy side/wimpy side bet-hedging nature of many of those mid-80's 45s. One for the fans, one for the potential label in other words. Show 'em we can write a hit.
The idea that you could play a more commercial track to a potential booking agent or club owner in order to get gigs makes a lot of sense too. A melodic trojan horse to get your foot in the door & once they see the end-of-night bar receipts that loud music won't matter nearly as much as the oodles of moolah.
I might also add a certain 'keeping-up-with-the Joneses' mindset as a further factor in the phenomenon, where you have contemporary bands seeing each other put out records & simply following the leader as they feel like it's 'the next step' or somehow befitting of their status or their own perceived level of popularity perhaps.
It's certainly an interesting area for speculation, though we're unlikely to ever have more than a best-guess 'answer'. On the rare occassions you do see olde band members asked specifically about this they tend to give completely different reasons for releasing these records, or perhaps more commonly, they can't recall exactly the thought process behind it at all.
Whether the whole 'business-plan' was sheer folly or not, we really do have to thank Beelzeebub that it happened at all, or our record collections/i-pods/mix-tapes would be far less interesting places.
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

Post by doomedplanet »

One thing to consider is the relative economics of the 7" format. If a band opts to press one back then, because they could scrape the cash together on top of recording, well they were pretty cheap to make in those days, around a buck. Going back to the 1960's a lot of studios even offered "packages" :D (sorry I don't know if they were 'hard' or not): studio time and get a 7" pressed for one flat rate. I'm sure this still existed into the 80's as a offer at some studios. Recording a 7" would also be easier due to time limitations too. No Rime-of-the-Ancient-Mariner type jams for this format.

And of course the obvious thing to mention: the Heavy/rocking side and the lighter side (or crap side as we call it now). Most likely this was to allow the band to show a potential purchaser/listener or radio station or manager that they could do "more" than just grind out that heavy 'noise'.

How much 'plan' can be attributed to most of these things have to be as variable as the weather.

There was very little, domestic distribution for these singles in the states (I cannot speak of elsewhere). A few years ago I was having a chat with the former owner of the local metal record shop in my city in the 1980's (lasting into the 2000's but the vinyl had mostly vanished). I know he has some sort of collection at home, so I was kind of feeling him out on his stock or maybe if he had anything I could offer to buy(that went nowhere). During that conversation I mentioned collecting old metal 7" singles from the 80's. His comment: "There weren't any"! This stunned me. This guys record shop was almost all metal at its peak around 1986, the place was the size of a small grocery story back then. And to hear him tell it no singles ever sold through there. Crazy. Anyway the point to that is most bands making a 7" would have to self distribute though gigs or local shops that might take them. After that there was almost nothing unless they somehow had a mailing list to also sell through.
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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doomedplanet wrote: Tue Jan 03, 2023 5:31 pm One thing to consider is the relative economics of the 7" format. If a band opts to press one back then, because they could scrape the cash together on top of recording, well they were pretty cheap to make in those days, around a buck. Going back to the 1960's a lot of studios even offered "packages" :D (sorry I don't know if they were 'hard' or not): studio time and get a 7" pressed for one flat rate. I'm sure this still existed into the 80's as a offer at some studios. Recording a 7" would also be easier due to time limitations too. No Rime-of-the-Ancient-Mariner type jams for this format.

There was very little, domestic distribution for these singles in the states (I cannot speak of elsewhere). A few years ago I was having a chat with the former owner of the local metal record shop in my city in the 1980's (lasting into the 2000's but the vinyl had mostly vanished). I know he has some sort of collection at home, so I was kind of feeling him out on his stock or maybe if he had anything I could offer to buy(that went nowhere). During that conversation I mentioned collecting old metal 7" singles from the 80's. His comment: "There weren't any"! This stunned me. This guys record shop was almost all metal at its peak around 1986, the place was the size of a small grocery story back then. And to hear him tell it no singles ever sold through there. Crazy. Anyway the point to that is most bands making a 7" would have to self distribute though gigs or local shops that might take them. After that there was almost nothing unless they somehow had a mailing list to also sell through.
Good points Rob, the financial consideration was likely a huge deciding factor on whether to make 45s over LPs (a choice which also preserved the bulk of your written material for the inevitable major label debut album that was sure to follow once the suits got a load of your kick-ass 7").
The 'distribution network' was almost-non-existent here in the UK too, though you did have larger indie shops such as Small Wonder, Bullet & Shades who'd learned lessons from the punk era & were prepared to take a punt on some NWoBHM records & select North American imports, particularly if they'd garnered good reviews in Sounds or Kerrang! Ads for their shops appeared in both mags, so you could read Geoff Barton's latest rave review then look up the Small Wonder ad in the same issue & mail order the record instantly & those highly prized Violation or Anvil Chorus 45s were soon winging their way to you. Beyond these avenues though the distribution network was just as poor as it seems to have been in the U.S. Even larger UK-based indie labels like Neat or MFN were very spottily distributed. Bizzarely Guardian Records 45s were however routinely stocked in my local independent record shop here in small-town Scotland, so it was likely all down to geography, availability & a myriad of other factors.
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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Good points guys.

Rob- you're right, the time and cost should not be overlooked as a reason for why bands did singles. And singles were getting pretty obsolete by the 1980s. As a kid, neither me nor my friends ever bought vinyl singles; we just bought the full album. So your record store owner acquaintance may be right that not many singles were ever sold in his place. To this day lots of people do not like singles. I only got into them when I got interested in NWOBHM and realized, via compilations, that there were lots of great bands that never made an album. I distinctly remember that, when I started doing mail order with guys like John Allinson & Al Spremo, I had to reconcile myself to that fact that I had to buy singles if I wanted to hear more songs by bands like Crucifixion. Now of course folks can buy the anthologies with all the demo/live/rehearsal cuts.... if only I'd waited another 30 years before digging into the genre I could have lived a singles-free life LOL

Kit- Tygers is indeed another great example of 'indie single gets you signed to MCA'! That would have made an impression on other bands in the early days of NWOBHM. Fist too I suppose, though I never cared for them much.
You're also right that 'follow the leader' mentality was no doubt part of the equation. I've always been amused that metal heads, who fancy themselves as rebels and mavericks out to buck 'The System', quickly latch on to whatever the hot new trend is within their own subculture. It's no wonder that lots of bands traded in their studs for feathers as soon as Ratt and Crue started racking up the MTV views.

One last point- for some bands it may have also just been a 'cool factor' to make a record, even if it was just a single. "I'm in a band and we made a record!" had to impress some of the local punters and birds, eh? (I think I just mixed British and Canadian jargon but whatever).
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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nightsblood wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 1:45 pmif only I'd waited another 30 years before digging into the genre I could have lived a singles-free life LOL
The... HORROR! :shock:
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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nightsblood wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 1:45 pm Kit- Tygers is indeed another great example of 'indie single gets you signed to MCA'! That would have made an impression on other bands in the early days of NWOBHM. Fist too I suppose, though I never cared for them much.
Time hasn't been very kind to Fist's legacy but for a brief time they seemed poised to become a big time band, as far-fetched as that notion seems now. Their Name, Rank & Serial Number/You'll Never Get Me Up In One Of Those 45 & places on 3 key compilations of the era (Brute Force, Lead Wight & 60 Minute Plus) saw them signed to MCA, release a rather good debut LP & complete a major UK tour supporting UFO before 1980 was done. Their speedy rise however was sadly followed by an equally swift decline in fortunes from which they never recovered.
Another band that really should have been mentioned in the same breath as Maiden, Tygers, Leppard etc before now is Girlschool who also followed the classic NWoBHM blueprint of starting out with an indie 7" before having a lot of early success on the still-independent-but-distributed-by-a-major Bronze Records. Their 1st & 3rd LPs hit the top 30 on the UK album charts with LP #2 'Hit n Run' cracking the top 5 after the success of the Motorhead/Girlschool 'St Valentines Day Massacre' EP on the singles chart (also #5). So big were Girlschool in 1981 that they headlined their own UK theatre tour and topped the bill on the opening night of that year's Reading Festival.
With a certain amount of justification, Metal of this era was often accused of sexism, but here was an all-girl band, not playing up their sexuality, actually playing their own instruments & writing their own material, being embraced & supported by a predominantly male audience to such a degree that they were festival headliners?! Show me a comparible act in any genre at that time who were doing that kind of business and completely on their own terms?
There should be documentary films & retrospectives celebrating them as the trailblazing feminist icons they undoubtedly were, and i suspect that there would be if only they hadn't been playing 'that 'orrible racket' that we love so much.
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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Yes, Girlschool is a good example; I wasn't sure if their first single being on Cherry Red disqualified them.

Based on this conversation and chats with some of the YouTube content creators on this topic, I'm posting a video on the LET'S TALK METAL Youtube channel on Tue 1/7/22 about this topic. Thought it would be a fun one to add to the channel since not many folks besides myself discuss a lot of heavy metal singles on YT.
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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nightsblood wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 6:45 pmBased on this conversation and chats with some of the YouTube content creators on this topic, I'm posting a video on the LET'S TALK METAL Youtube channel on Tue 1/7/22 about this topic. Thought it would be a fun one to add to the channel since not many folks besides myself discuss a lot of heavy metal singles on YT.

Excellent idea. It's an interesting but litle discussed topic that i'm sure will fit your format perfectly. Looking forward to watching the episode.
nightsblood wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 6:45 pm Yes, Girlschool is a good example; I wasn't sure if their first single being on Cherry Red disqualified them.
Apologies if i repeated many of my thoughts on Girlschool from an earlier 1-to-1 e-mail to & fro we had ages ago Alan. Didn't mean to labour the point(s) but as they seem so unjustly sidelined/overlooked in the reckoning nowadays i thought some of the facts bore repeating.
I always thought the 4 variations of 'Take It All Away' on City Records were the original pressings; (orange sleeve/red vinyl, pink Sleeve/red vinyl, pink sleeve/clear blue vinyl, pink sleeve/black vinyl).
Not sure why being on Cherry Red would disqualify Girlschool from the conversation anyway but of the 6 pressings listed on discogs only one of them (the black vinyl/red pic sleeve version) has any reference to Cherry Red on the credits.
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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bigfootkit wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 2:30 am
nightsblood wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 6:45 pmBased on this conversation and chats with some of the YouTube content creators on this topic, I'm posting a video on the LET'S TALK METAL Youtube channel on Tue 1/7/22 about this topic. Thought it would be a fun one to add to the channel since not many folks besides myself discuss a lot of heavy metal singles on YT.

Excellent idea. It's an interesting but litle discussed topic that i'm sure will fit your format perfectly. Looking forward to watching the episode.
nightsblood wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 6:45 pm Yes, Girlschool is a good example; I wasn't sure if their first single being on Cherry Red disqualified them.
Apologies if i repeated many of my thoughts on Girlschool from an earlier 1-to-1 e-mail to & fro we had ages ago Alan. Didn't mean to labour the point(s) but as they seem so unjustly sidelined/overlooked in the reckoning nowadays i thought some of the facts bore repeating.
I always thought the 4 variations of 'Take It All Away' on City Records were the original pressings; (orange sleeve/red vinyl, pink Sleeve/red vinyl, pink sleeve/clear blue vinyl, pink sleeve/black vinyl).
Not sure why being on Cherry Red would disqualify Girlschool from the conversation anyway but of the 6 pressings listed on discogs only one of them (the black vinyl/red pic sleeve version) has any reference to Cherry Red on the credits.
Not sure which version came first, but i have the Irish Mulligan pressing of "Take it all away" too (never with picture sleeve though) & as far as i know, this came out before the Cherry Red pressing. I got this from Kim McAuliffe's Mam, whom my brother used to lived next door to (True Story).
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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Hey guys, sorry to be a party pooper, but can we limit this thread to North American Heavy Metal 7" records? :mrgreen:
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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Khnud wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 8:48 pm Hey guys, sorry to be a party pooper, but can we limit this thread to North American Heavy Metal 7" records? :mrgreen:
Sorry Khnud, we did start on topic but drifted off course somewhat. Right across the ocean in fact.
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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Alan did finally make his video mentioned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4ETda4i7eg&t=1867s

He does flash a US metal 7" rarity a few times but does not talk much about them. Close enough to stay on topic? :twisted:
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Re: The North-American Heavy Metal 7" Guide (Ye Olde Obscure)

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Updated with the following bands:

Uforia
Sterling Cooke
Voltz
Tora Orphan
Roland Quest
Gavaldon
Salty Dog Band
Rocking Horse
Web
Child
Syprus
1Way
Lost Breed
Paragon
Shyzgifter

Make sure to check the site regularly, as Sampler volume 2 is soon to be released!
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