Speed metal is an sub-genre of heavy metal music that originated in the late 1970s from NWOBHM and hardcore punk roots. It is described by Allmusic as “extremely fast, abrasive, and technically demanding” music.
Motörhead is often credited as the first band to invent/play speed metal.[1] Some of speed metal’s earlier influences include Deep Purple’s “Fireball” and Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy” (which was eventually covered by the thrash metal band Metallica), from their 1974 album Sheer Heart Attack,[2] and Deep Purple‘s song “Highway Star“, from their album Machine Head. The latter was called ‘early speed metal’ by Robb Reiner of speed metal band Anvil.[3] Led Zeppelin’s “Communication Breakdown“, first released in January 1969, could also be said to be an early template for speed metal as mentioned in Mac Randall’s.[4]
Speed metal eventually evolved into thrash metal.[5] Although many tend to equate the two subgenres, there is a distinct difference between them. In his book Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal, Ian Christe states that “…thrash metal relies more on long, wrenching rhythmic breaks, while speed metal… is a cleaner and more musically intricate subcategory, still loyal to the dueling melodies of classic metal.”
I’m going to have to say, Queen’s song, Sheer Heart Attack from their LP News of the World does it for me. It’s a mix of punk and metal played at breakneck speed. It is an absolutely furious song that I used to jam out to in my bedroom on my guitar.
Hard rock is a manifestation of garage rock, surf rock and psychedelic rock, and British blues of the 1960s. It was not until the kinks did this kind of guitar sound begin. Old speakers in London clubs provided a banged-up ratty sound. After a while, the bands started to like the sound the punctured and torn speakers in old amps made. That was a growly sound that would get you fired from a club gig until they started to like it and use it to their advantage.
Listen to what Howlin’ Wolf does with a guitar. Early distortion.
Howlin’ Wolf – How Many More Years – 1951
Link Wray – Rumble – 1958
Distortion, tremolo, and the guitar are dominant. It’s a riff.
Surf and garage coming together. Hard rock is developing.
The Chessman – Cant’s Catch Me – 1966
A hard, customized soundsystem. Volume to kick it in. A disaster at Woodstock and Altamont, crowds moving, in the wake of these two concerts. Rock and roll moves into arenas and out of outdoor parks. You can load up with gear and blast out your music.
Let’s go to Australia. AC/DC doesn’t form until 1973. But there’s a working-class youth that’s coming up that wants out of their lives. The bar scene is about rock music. Sounds a little like mid-70s Foghat.
Carson County Band-Morning Train – 1971
Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs -1971
Now we’re talkin’… That’s starting to sound like hard rock for sure. I love this!
Buffalo – Suzy Sunshine – 1972
The Valentines – Build Me Up Buttercup – 1972
Yea, that backup singer is Bon Scott. Hard to believe that one of the premier voices of 70s hard rock started out singing backup and dressed like that!
Marcus Hook Roll Band – Watch Her Do It Now -1973
Malcolm, Angus and their older brother George. So we’ve got two of the founding members of AC/DC. You can already hear the pull in the band between pop and rock happening.
Their older is working on her sewing machine and looks down at the steel label hammered into the machine that says, AC/DC – (alternate and direct current) and suggests it to Angus as a name for his new band. She also suggested the school outfit for Angus. She said he looked so cute in it but it became a snub at authority and school. He only zig-zagged on stage to dodge the bottles thrown at the bands in the hardscrabble roadhouse bars they played in.
Which brings us here…
Oh yea…
There you have it.
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Chock full of colorful characters, constantly adrift on a sea of international adventure and not shy of a plot twist or 25, the rock world feels predestined to generate some of the most horrifying, inspiring, and downright incredible stories imaginable. We’ve stopped short of naming the ‘top 13’ rock biographies – simply because there are literally hundreds out there more than worth your time. Instead, we have listed thirteen of the best rock music books you should read right now.
THE DIRT: CONFESSIONS OF THE WORLD’S MOST NOTORIOUS ROCK BAND (MÖTLEY CRÜE WITH NEIL STRAUSS, 2001)
The classic. A title that’s become synonymous with the bad-boy rock biography, The Dirt feels like the ultimate chronicle of the genre’s ’80s excess. Looking back now, the idea that Mötley Crüe classics like Wild Side and Girls, Girls, Girls only scratched the surface of their unshackled debauchery seems almost unbelievable. A kaleidoscopic odyssey of booze, drugs, groupies, dealers, cops, tour buses, strip clubs, and car-wrecks, both figurative and literal, it’s a tale that needs to be read to be believed. If you only pick up one rock bio today, probably best to make it this one. Devotees should be sure to grab Nikki Sixx’s bleaker but equally essential 2007 follow-up, The Heroin Diaries, too.
TRANNY: CONFESSIONS OF PUNK ROCK’S MOST INFAMOUS ANARCHIST SELLOUT (LAURA JANE GRACE, 2016)
Known, during writing, as Killing Me Loudly, the autobiography from Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace draws extensively from the journals she had been compiling since third grade. Its eventual title ‘Tranny’ is a term the singer hates, but its appropriation here is symbolic of her taking ownership of a personal struggle through which she noted the supposedly accepting punk community were “more closed-minded than the church”. Illuminating. Poignant. Inspiring. It’s equally essential reading for individuals struggling to come to terms with themselves and those same closed-minds struggling to understand.
WHITE LINE FEVER: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY (LEMMY KILMISTER, 2002)
Possessed of a godlike air like few others, Lemmy always seemed like something of an unapproachable icon even for those of us fortunate to make his acquaintance. As such, this exceptionally grounded autobiography – charting the life of Ian Fraser Kilmister, son of an RAF chaplain from Stoke-On-Trent – brought us brilliantly closer to the man behind the myth. Of course, from his early musical exploits with Jimi Hendrix and Hawkwind to decades-long scene leadership at the helm of Motörhead, the man led a life that most of us could even imagine. “It’s a fallacy to say I taught him how to drink,” the legend writes at one point, remembering a young Lars Ulrich. “I actually taught him to throw up, and that’s what he did, all over himself. That’s what he got for trying to keep up with older people’s habits…”
GIRL IN A BAND (KIM GORDON, 2015)
Sonic Youth was never a band to shy away from unpleasantries in their dogged pursuit of beauty and authenticity. Fittingly, bassist Kim Gordon’s chronicle of her break-up with guitarist Thurston Moore and the dissolution of their seminal indie-rock outfit isn’t just a tale of heartbreak; it’s one of the sporadic mundanity, unpredictability and seat-of-your-pants adventure of holding a prime seat on the alt.rock roundabout for the best part of three decades. Girl In A Band proves itself essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in the New York noiseniks – or the scene they helped define.
HAMMER OF THE GODS (STEPHEN DAVIS, 1985)
Another of the classics. It’s probably not that difficult to write a rollicking recount of one band’s tumultuous journey when that band is Led bloody Zeppelin. From quaaludes to bathtubs full of baked beans to the extremely questionable use of one taxidermied shark, many of the anecdotes here have slipped into rock’n’roll folklore, but that takes little from the experience of finding them compiled into this singular volume. It’s best not to spoil them too much further here. Let’s just say this is another must-read addition, for rockers or anyone else with a heartbeat…
THIS IS A CALL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DAVE GROHL (PAUL BRANNIGAN, 2011)
It can be difficult, at times, to get a real sense of what goes on under the surface with The Nicest Man In Rock™. K!’s own Paul Brannigan charts his fascinating story with a dextrous grip on the evolving scenes through which Dave Grohl has endured and a spectacular sense of the adventure he’s experienced along the way. From the kid from the D.C. suburbs who dropped out of school to go on tour with Scream, to the stickman catapulted to superstardom with Nirvana, to the iconic Foo Fighters frontman called upon to play for the Obamas on the White House lawn, few lives share the rollercoaster momentum of Dave’s.
SLASH (SLASH, 2007)
Most rock bios are about the gritty build and the glitzy payoff. Safe to say, the Slash bio is virtually all payoff. Born Saul Hudson in England in 1965 to a white British graphic artist father and a black American costume designer mother, Slash’s story was never going to be that of your garden variety guitarist. Growing up in Los Angeles ’70s bohemia, his mum dated David Bowie, hung out with Joni Mitchell, and taught the youngster that “being a rock star is [about finding] the intersection between who you are and who you want to be”. As the story of Guns N’ Roses’ meteoric rise and incendiary fall-out (their latter-day reconciliation is not part of this 2007 volume) unfold, they seem like simply the logical narrative developments of one of music’s most dramatic life stories.
LORDS OF CHAOS (MICHAEL MOYNIHAN, 1998)
Before you see the movie, read the book. As feels inevitable for any volume skewering the adolescent, corpse-painted pomposity of the ’90s Norwegian black metal scene – and laying bare the narcissistic inhumanity of the suicide, church burnings and murders that followed in its wake – the accuracy of Michael Moynihan’s Lords Of Chaos has been called into question by many of those involved at the time. Regardless, this is a fascinating trip into metal’s most evil sub-genre and a chilling reminder of what can happen when the lines blur between the cvlt theatre and stark reality. Special mention to Dayal Patterson’s Evolution Of The Cult (2013) and The Cult Never Dies (2015) for further deconstructing the scene’s horrifically compelling progression, too.
HEAVIER THAN HEAVEN (CHARLES R. CROSS, 2001)
Much (perhaps too much) has been written about the life and death of Kurt Cobain. This first (arguably definitive) long-form retelling of his life story does spectacularly well to disperse the rumor that hangs around an individual who was, at his core, a musically prodigious slacker from the lower-middle-class of North Seattle. Even better, it charts Nirvana’s explosion of incredible cross-cultural success – one that, we should remember, lasted a fleeting three years – with a remarkable blend of cool analysis and awe. It’s in a chilling final forensic analysis of Kurt’s self-destructive streak, though, that Heavier Than Heaven comes into its own: daring the reader to put aside music and mythos to pass judgment on the individual in the harsh light of the bare facts.
SMASH: GREEN DAY, THE OFFSPRING, BAD RELIGION, NOFX AND THE ’90S PUNK EXPLOSION (IAN WINWOOD, 2018)
It’s strange how the story of ’90s skate-punk has been distorted through the retrospective lens of the last two-and-a-bit decades: its lineage conflated and confused with that of the pop-punk genre it helped inspire. Veteran K! contributor Ian Winwood’s book shatters those perceptions, transporting us back to the poverty, addiction, and unhinged chaos of the era that spawned so many of our favorite bands. Finding The Offspring guitarist Noodles working as a janitor, Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong living in a Salvation Army shelter, and Green Day maestro Billie Joe Armstrong infested with body lice during a debut European tour, it’s a fascinating look at the underground grit and shit before the platinum-rated sheen that followed.
GET IN THE VAN: ON THE ROAD WITH BLACK FLAG (HENRY ROLLINS, 1994)
Something of a gritty yin to The Dirt’s glamorous yang, Get In The Van is a superb, zero-bullshit diary of life on the road with LA hardcore legends Black Flag. Fronting the band between 1981 and 1986, punk’s storyteller supreme Henry Rollins had a drivers-seat view of the violence, squalor, and sheer chaos of hardcore’s early days. From roadies forced into eating dog food to hard-nut cops to borderline psychotic fans, it’s a dirt-beneath-the-fingernails classic unafraid to show the bleak underbelly of life in a touring band – albeit one with an ultimately triumphant arc. Any fledgling rock star wannabes out for fame and fortune should really stop to read this first…
DARK DAYS: A MEMOIR (D. RANDALL BLYTHE, 2015)
On May 4, 2010, in the Abaton club in Prague, during a concert by Virginian metal legends Lamb Of God, 19-year-old fan Daniel Nosek sustained injuries to his head. Over the weeks that followed, he would slip into a coma and pass away. Although following his initial release on bail, legal counsel advised against returning to the Czech Republic to face trial, frontman Randy Blythe insisted he “could not run away from this problem while the grieving family of a dead young man searched hopelessly for answers that he might help provide”. Those events provide the tragic backdrop for the singer’s stunningly frank account of the dark days (and months) that followed his indictment on manslaughter charges and incarceration in a Czech prison. Even years since Randy’s release, it’s a story that delivers gut-churning jailhouse anecdotes, tales of galvanizing camaraderie, and ultimate redemption that even the most optimistic dramatist might’ve struggled to conjure up.
METALLICA: ENTER NIGHT (MICK WALL, 2010)
It’d be unreasonable to compile a list of great rock biographies without including at least one of the biggest metal bands in the world. Tracking a path from the thrash kings’ spandex-clad genesis to their coronation as globe-straddling, genre-transcending megastars, this packs in all the drugs, booze, and drama any self-respecting fan would expect. From early acrimony with Dave Mustaine through the devastating loss of Cliff Burton to the callous early treatment and furious departure of Jason Newstead, all the personal drama is captured. As are the band’s mid-’90s creative swerves, the (ever-more hilariously redundant) Napster fiasco, and the cringing in-studio therapy that formed the basis of seminal rock-doc Some Kind Of Monster. Crucially, though, Enter Night perfectly charts the band’s place in the rock and metal scene forever evolving around them.
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Musicians Josh Brown, Mike Reaves, Kevin Bebout, and Keith Foster all met at Josh Brown’s brother’s tattoo shop in Jackson, Tennessee and formed the band Voodoo Hippies. Jonathan Montoya was the last addition to the band as the second guitarist. While still playing gigs in Jackson, the band caught the eye of rock producer Malcolm Springer (Matchbox 20, Collective Soul).
Before being signed to Island/Def Jam Records, the band changed its name to Full Devil Jacket. There are two stories on how the band chose this name. One is that the band was named after a song written by lead singer Josh Brown, called “Full Devil Jacket”. Another story is that the band simply pulled the name from a magazine article.
While signed to Def Jam Records, the band had a successful career. They first released an EP titled A Waxbox To Put Your Frankenstein Head In… in October 1999,[1] followed by an eponymous LP in March 2000[1] that was quickly certified gold.
After the departure of Brown, Michael Reaves also left the band. Full Devil Jacket recruited a new lead singer (Ben Hatch; then Jamie Martin) and a new second guitarist (Dave White) and recorded an unreleased EP under their new name of WaxBox before dissolving altogether. This incarnation of the band worked on some of the same songs that they started with Brown. The EP included “Shelter”, “All Apologies”, “Superdysfunctional Hero”, and “Sober”.
Reunion
Full Devil Jacket announced a one-time reunion concert on June 19, 2010, in Jackson, Tennessee, to benefit the James Michael Reaves Medical Expense Fund. This led to more live performances as well as recording new material.[citation needed] On July 27, 2011, James Michael Reaves died after battling cancer.[3]Every Mother’s Nightmare guitarist Jeff Caughron joined the band after Reaves’ death.
Brown and Montoya also formed a new band with Jason Null from Saving Abel named A New Rebel. FDJ members Keith Foster and Kevin Bebout were also involved.
In 2013, the band started a Kickstarter page to help fund and promote a new album. On January 14, 2015, it was announced that FDJ signed a worldwide deal with eOne Music. Their album Valley of Bones was released on March 31. It contains 10 new songs and feature cover art of a painting by singer Josh Brown.[4]
In 2000, Brown nearly died of a heroin overdose. While recovering in rehab and working on their second album, he converted to Christianity and left the band, retreating to Jackson, Tennessee.
After several years, Josh Brown re-entered the music scene with his new project Day of Fire which was signed to Essential Records until 2007. Their self-titled debut won a Dove Award for Rock Album of the Year and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Gospel Album. Day of Fire released their second album titled Cut & Move on Sony‘s RED Distribution/Essential Records in 2006. Following two years of going unsigned, DoF signed with Razor and Tie Records, and released their third album titled Losing All in January 2010. In June 2010, the band announced they would be taking an indefinite hiatus.
Jonathan Montoya
After working with some local Jackson, Tennessee projects such as One Less Reason, Montoya formed his current[when?] project Supernova Syndicate. As history would repeat itself, the band recorded a debut CD that was never released. They are currently[when?] back in the studio and working on their debut album again.
Montoya also filled in as a guitar player for the band Saliva on their European tour. He was eventually invited to be a full-time member of the band. On August 30, 2010 he was released from Saliva. As of 2015, he is back with Saliva full-time.
Michael Reaves
After Full Devil Jacket, Reaves toured Europe with a band called Travisty and briefly worked with the pop singer Jasmine Cain. He also wrote and recorded with Randy Lovelace around Jackson, Tennessee. Reaves lived in Dyersburg, Tennessee and was with a band named 3 Legged Dog. He died from prostate cancer on July 25, 2011 at the age of 52.[6]
Keith Foster
After Full Devil Jacket and WaxBox, Keith Foster played drums for Danny Archer in the band Love Over Gravity around Jackson, TN and Nashville, TN. Along with guitarist Greg Scallions (brother of Fuel frontman Brett Scallions) and bass player Brad Singleton, they recorded eight songs with record producer Michael Wagener (Ozzy, Metallica, Skid Row, etc.). The songs were never officially released, but can be found online.
Kevin Bebout
Bebout is currently working for Epiphone as Kramer Project Manager. He is thanked by Jonathan Montoya in Saliva’s latest CD liner notes for endorsing the band with custom Kramer guitars. He also plays bass in the Nashville-based Humorcore band called Holy Crap!. In 2016, Kevin joined pop artist and former co-writing partner of Mike Reaves, Jasmine Cain as part of her touring band.
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If life wasn’t bad enough for me at Fels Junior High, I felt that it was about to get worse. Puberty had erupted all over my body. I was a lousy student, had bad skin, hair, glasses, braces, clothes, etc. I should have just walked around with a target on me so that the bullies, teachers, and parents could always have a clear shot at me. I felt like such a loser.
But it wasn’t all bad. I still had my comic books, my friends, my art ability, and my music. Like everybody else, I’d just have to make the best of it.
But one of the interesting things that happened at Fels was that they finally broke a 20-year tradition at the school. For the first time in two decades, they decided to change things up when it came to certain gender-specific classes they offered at the school.
In 1975 they decided that instead of only boys taking wood and metal shop, now girls would be offered those courses as well. But, that meant boys would have to take cooking and sewing classes.
At first, the boys were outraged that they would be forced to do “girl stuff”. But once we got into it, somehow it wasn’t all that bad.
But before I begin, let me just get a few things out of the way. I’ll tell you what I remember about a couple of the teachers at this school.
Mrs. Lipschutz was my homeroom teacher. When you pronounce her name it sounds like something else. Legend has it that one time she was reprimanding some kid for talking in class and his response was, “If your lip shits, my ass talks!” It’s a juvenile but clever play on words even for a 12-year-old kid.
There was another teacher there who taught algebra named Mr. Dordick. Can you imagine having that as a name working in a junior high school?
There was also a geography teacher there named Mr. Kubell up in room 318. The class was boring to me because all we learned about was Europe. I would always turn to the back of my textbook and read about Australia because it seemed way cooler than anything we were currently learning in class. There was also a story about how Mr. Kubell had been in the military and suffered from shell shock, but I don’t know if there is any validity to that tale.
I had a reading teacher named Miss Ruscoff that I really liked. I was always an avid reader and did well in her class. She actually got married and her new name was Mrs. Dembitzer. My favorite thing about that class was when she brought out an old reel to reel tape player. Every Friday we would listen to old radio shows from the ’40s and 50s. Shows like Suspense and X Minus 1. This was an art form that was before my time. I grew up in a world with television. But I LOVED listening to these old radio shows. They were all based on short stories and acted out in studios and played on the radio back in the day. What I loved about this medium was that you had to use your imagination. Something I had a surplus of in my brain. On TV and movies, it’s all set up for you. But on the radio, you have to picture the scene using only the actor’s voices and the use of sound effects. To this day, I still tune into Radio Classics on Sirius XM satellite radio and listen to these types of old shows. They still hold up to this day and make you use your mind in a different way than you do to consume the entertainment we’re inundated with now.
Another teacher that was beloved at that school was a gentleman named Mr. DiDonato. I think my sister had him as a teacher but I never did. I just remember him being a really nice guy that had the only class that taught something groundbreaking in school. Computers!
I had a couple of good science teachers as well. Sadly I don’t remember their names, but I remember their words. Science class was always one of my favorites.
Anyway, back to the vocational switch.
The first class the boys in my grade were placed into was a sewing course. At first, it was odd to be in a class like that, and I think a bit unsettling to the teachers. But, once we got going on the fundamentals of sewing it was a really cool class. I think the guys would agree with me on this one. I remember the teacher passed out sheets of lined paper to everyone in the class. We all sat at our sewing machines and learned how to operate the motor and see if we could sew in a straight line along the lines on the paper. A solid exercise before touching any fabric.
She also taught us all of the parts of the sewing machine. Remember how you could lean your thigh against that little metal arm that came down and the motor would accelerate so you could sew like lightning? It was kind of cool.
What I liked best about that class was that you were learning something new and working with your hands. Not just sitting in a boring class listening to some old person talk and reading words in a book. Then being tested on the stuff you read. It was really all about memory and never generating any new ideas. Just boring to me.
But in sewing class, you worked through a project that had a beginning, middle, and an end. We all made shirts! I remember you measured and designed the shirt, then cut it into pieces. The final bit was to sew it all together and then turn it inside out so that all of the seams were on the inside. Boom! You just made yourself a shirt. I loved that!
I even enjoyed cooking class. It wasn’t as fun as sewing class but we made some cool things. Mostly baked goods, but it gave us some great fundamentals for life.
I kind of wish junior high had been more like this. Not every kid is suited to sitting in class after class of boring textbook memory stuff. What if it had been half and half? What if every kid was assessed to what their abilities were? If a kid wasn’t good with the schoolwork stuff, give him more classes where he can use his hands. Teach them the basics. Math, science, reading, and history, but lean their curriculum a bit more towards making things. I think the kids would have been happier and there would be less dissent in the classrooms in junior high. It’s a tumultuous time in every child’s life.
I realize now that most kids that were bullies to me were probably getting the crap kicked out of them by older siblings and their parents at home. Maybe if these children could be given the opportunity to have courses that were more suited to their needs they’d act out less. Give them support and activities where they could work out their negative energy and turn it into making something good. Something they could be proud of. Maybe a little hope that things could change for them. But I could be wrong.
Another class I had was ceramics. Everybody’s first project was a pinch pot. Just an exercise to get our hands accustomed to working with pottery. I had already had years of experience working with clay, so I immediately adapted to the task at hand. My second project was a cool ashtray that I ended up using for years until it finally broke.
I heard funny stories from kids in metal shop that worked on their assignments but also made shurikens. (Asian throwing stars) Which I thought was so cool. I loved the TV show, Kung Fu and would have loved to have made one of those things. What boy wouldn’t? I never had metal shop, but it seemed like another awesome class. It’s probably for the best because with my luck I would have ended up putting some kid’s eye out. I was in enough trouble on a regular basis without any lethal weapons on hand.
I finally did end up in woodshop and I really enjoyed working on my projects. It was cool to work with such powerful equipment far beyond anything we had in our toolboxes in our basements. I really learned a lot in that class, and I think my peers would agree with me.
I actually still have the little creation I made in that class 45 years ago. It’s been nearly half a century, and it still looks just as it did so many years ago.
A few pieces of wood glued together and then sanded and planed into a shark. Something I could be proud of that came from a time of such pain. The finished work, something elegant that had been carved by sharp, dangerous objects. It mirrored my own existence in junior high.
So, even though I had a tough time in junior high, I’m glad I went through it. As painful and awkward as it could be at times, we all experienced it together. For better or worse, it’s all part of our collective history now.
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