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Saturday, April 18, 2015

Piece of mind


It was the summer of '86 and I had just gotten a copy of 'Piece of Mind' by Iron Maiden. It was the era of cassette tapes. I was so excited, it was my first original cassette tape by my favourite heavy metal band. Actually it was the only metal band I was listening to at the time, and the album actually came out in 1983, so I was a bit late.
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The drums had a big sound, the bass was rolling and the guitars were delicately intertwined, the tone was rugged but melodic and the vocals were just perfect for that era of metal. It was raw as I could get at the time.

Messrs McBrain, Harris, Smith, Murray and Dickinson were my first Rock Gods. I got their posters, hung it up in my room. Scared the living daylights out of my parents.

I started playing air guitar in my room, bought a real guitar soon enough. I swore Adrain Smith and Dave Murray were the best guitarists ever.

Unfortunately, I didn't know that tapes warp and stretch when played too much.

I hit rewind and fast forward so much between songs like 'Where Eagles dare', 'Die with your boots on', 'Sun and Steel' and my favourite 'To Tame a land', that eventually the tape just gave up.

'To Tame a land' was a haunting number, based on an eastern scale. That tune had such great dynamics and a major breakdown towards the middle of the song that set the stage for a huge crescendo and interchanging guitar solo section between Smith and Murray. The song finally climaxed with a twin lead until it ended how it started, with a lead melodic line over clean tone guitars. I didn't understand it all at the time, how it was written, all those intricacies. I just knew that I liked it a lot.

But.

Some 30 odd years later, I can still listen to that album on my iPod and appreciate what Iron Maiden created so long ago.

Not only as a fan, but as a musician as well. Those guys knew what they were doing and they did a damn good job of it.

I wonder how many pop stars or 'bands' from this modern generation of 'music' will have that sort of effect and staying power 30 years from now?

Miley Cyrus? Beyonce? Jay-Z? Kanye? One Direction? The list can go on and on.

I seriously doubt it.


1 comment:

  1. Legends will always be Legends no matter what..

    http://serendipityofdreams.blogspot.in/

    ReplyDelete