Kuttings Korner 5 – Halloween Arrives Early

We’re off to the Wellington pub in Radcliffe, Greater Manchester this week for an unseasonal Heavy Metal Halloween, courtesy of DJ John Brent.

Sadly, nowadays, “Almost Every Weekend At The Wellington Pub Radcliffe We Have Nites On Where Mc’s Can Join In And Show Of There Skills, Featured Mc’s Are Mc MORTY And McD, All Other Mc’s Are Welcome.” So I suspect that Mr Brent may no longer be welcome.

So, I’ve randomly picked three numbers out of a hat, and they were 2, 3 and 15. Which means you’re in line for some Triumph, Atomic Rooster and Edgar Winter.

I always had a sneaky wee liking for the melodic Maple mayhem of Triumph, even if they did seem like a bunch of egomaniacs back in the day.

Anyone who knows me will know that I am one of the worlds leading authorities on Atomic Rooster having written (and published) articles in international magazines. Even in Finland! My ludicrously large Rooster vinyl collection would shame someone who knew what shame was. Which leaves me out of it.

Finally, it’s Edgar Winter. Hurrah! I spent last Saturday night watching a DVD of a concert he die with Leon Russell back in the eighties, and make no apologies for digging out a jazzy version of ‘Frankenstein’.

Enjoy.

MP3 one – Triumph – Magic Power
MP3 two – Atomic Rooster – Devil’s Answer
MP3 two – Edgar Winter – Frankenstein

A wee bonus as well. You can never have too much Judas Priest, so here’s one of my favourites from waaaaaaay back in the day. @Genocide’ from “Sad Wings of Destiny”. A gem!

MP3 three – Judas Priest – Genocide

And here’s The Wellington, in all its glory! I wonder if Albert used to run the travel agency?

See Edgar Winter on the Old Grey Whistle Test below;

The Pomptastic Death Disco 2009 Part 16

The Pomptastic Death Disco 2009 Part 16

Welcome back to Mr H’s Death Disco 2009

If you’re confused about what this entails, then take a look back at Part 1 for guidance. Otherwise, prepare yourself for the next track listed down below.

For once, todays installment isn’t my fault. For sure, it was going to be utterly pomptastic with a symphony orchestra accompanying Dennis De Young on a totally OTT version of the Styx classic ‘Lorelei’. But thanks to an interfering Scotch exile, I’ve changed my post death plans and headed in another, equally pomptastic direction.

So without further ado, I present the latest part of the 2009 Death Disco! Time to get your satin flares out, prepare to mount the jet propelled keyboard pack, and click to download. Or you can play them all as they arrive in the Death Box over on the right hand side of your screen.

And here’s your carefully selected pictogram clue for today.

Wednesday Wimphem Death Disco 2009 Part 12

Welcome back to Mr H’s Death Disco 2009

If you’re confused about what this entails, then take a look back at Part 1 for guidance. Otherwise, prepare yourself for the next track listed down below.

Todays artiste fits beautifully into the Wednesday wimphem edition of Death Disco 2009, having served up thousands of slices of melodic mastery since way back in the eighties, selling literally a gazillion albums along the way, more than the Beatles and the Stones combined, and which would stretch from junction 12 at Newport Pagnell, all the way to Junction 16 on the M9 and back again, thirty two hundred times! S’mazing.

As before, a beautifully designed pictographical clue is down below somewhere to assist you in the identification of the delicate and fragrant artiste.

So without further ado, I present the latest part of the 2009 Death Disco! Apply perm here, and click to download. Or you can play them all as they arrive in the Death Box over on the right hand side of your screen.

Pictogram representation somewhere below here.

It’s Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! … part 6

It’s time to have something for the ladies out there. We’ve been rocking hard of late, but sometimes it’s nice to sit back, relax, picture an attractive Swedish lady, perhaps relaxing in a jacuzzi, clothesless and, possibly, naked.

Maybe she has been birching herself, and needs someone to reach the places she can’t manage herself. It could be she needs a good hard pumicing, a volcanic rock that is a solidified frothy lava, not uncommon in Sweden.

Um, what was I talking about? Oh, yes, Nina Persson, the Cardigans vocalist who has the dreadfully named side project A Camp, with Sparklehorse fella Mark Linkous. Although I have no idea what that last bit is. I nicked it from Wiki. Anyway, the fragrant and possibly polished Nina has recorded ‘Silent Night’, especially for you, the plebs, this Christmas.

So today’s Christmas classic is ‘Stille Nacht’. You can hear it here.

Come Christmas Day, I’ll be broadcasting Christmas joy to the world on GRTR between 8 and 10pm GMT, and broadcasting Christmas Blues to the world on Boxing Day.

Should be good.

A Camp are here.

The Dr Evil of Wimphem – Aldo Nova

Once upon a time, a young Canadian called Aldo Caporuscio changed his name to the catchier Aldo Nova, and released his debut album in 1981. It was a modest success and the single “Fantasy”, got to number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100, over in the American colonies

After his next album, “Subject…Aldo Nova” only managed a minor hit with “Monkey on Your Back,” he seemed to vanish off into that strange world of failed wimphem rockers, with a third album going unheard outside of the Caporuscio household. But…hold hard.

Bitter at the lack of solo success, Caporuscioi vowed revenge on an uncaring world, summoning up the spirits of his Italian forebears, cursing at the world that rejected him.

He fooled us early on by giving Blue Öyster Cult the quite stunning “Take Me Away”. But then he went on to work with [shudder] Jon Bon Jovi in both the early and late 1980s. But that was just a taster for the evil he would unleash upon the world.

For Nova went back to Canadia, writing songs and producing for…..Celine Dion!

It’s true. This was the punishment the world would endure;

Céline Dion Partout je te vois
Céline Dion Have A Heart
Céline Dion Des mots qui sonnent
Céline Dion Dreamin’ Of You
Céline Dion I Love You
Céline Dion Your Light
Céline Dion You And I
Céline Dion A Song For You
Céline Dion Can’t Fight The Feelin
Céline Dion Fade Away
Céline Dion Shadow Of Love

Not even a concerted effort to lure him away with a second stab at solo success worked, as the world rejected “Blood On The Bricks” in 1991, unaware of the backdoor evil he was perpetuating elsewhere. If Celine wasn’t evil enough, he even worked with the recently gay Clay Aiken, the American Idol alumni, co-writing “This is the Night” a US #1 hit and the best-selling single of 2003. For shame.

He now lives off his ill gotten gains in Monaco, surrounded by a harem of clown-feeted midgets, plotting more evil “A New Day Will Come” type monstrosities upon the world. See below for pictorial evidence of getting into bed with the Devil can do.

It’s your fault. You should have made him a star when you had the chance.

Listen to “Lay Your Love On Me“

You can get a Best Of CD here.

Watch some prime time eighties AOR below;

The return of Wednesday WIMPHEM

I know you’ve been eagerly awaiting the return of Wednesday WIMPHEM, so it only seems fair to carry on with King Wimps,. the mighty STYX!!!!

The mighty STYX!!!! actually began over a humdred years ago, in 1861, when the members worked on a boat out of Chicago, Illinois called “The Tradewinds”. They needed to find something to fill in the long nights searching for the open sea, unaware as they were of Chicagos landlocked status, so brothers Chuck Panozzo and John Panozzo and Dennis DeYoung began singing barber shop tunes on board. They soon added the brilliantly nicknamed James “J.Y.” Young and John Curulewski to the lineup, adding instrumentation along the way.

One night, Thomas Edison came aboard on business, and amazed at what he heard, signed them to his Wooden Nickel Record label, something that saw the band adopting the name The mighty STYX!!!! because, says DeYoung, it was “the only one that none of us hated”.

They recorded four releases on Mr Edisons Cylinder Phonograph – Styx, Styx II, The Serpent Is Rising and Man of Miracles before coming to the conclusion that there was no future in barber shop music, and when their early stab at WIMPHEM, “Lady” (from Styx II), began to earn some steam powered radio time, nearly two years after the album had been released, and subsequently went top ten on the sheet music charts, the switch to WIMPHEM was assured.

Steal a copy of “Lady” here.

After their hit, all the cylinder companies wanted a piece of their action, and they signed up with the Alpert & Moss Company, something that saw John Curulewski leaving the band due to a typographers strike, being replaced by the font friendly Tommy Shaw.

“The Grand Illusion” was the group’s breakthrough album, with more than three million (3,000,000) of Her Majestys Colonials buying into their adult oriented rock stylings, with “Come Sail Away” hitting the Toppermost of The WIMPHEM Poppermost. Steal it here.

The good years kept on coming with the mighty STYX!!!! insinuating themselves into every American home aroud the time of “Paradise Theater”, a loose concept album that became their biggest hit, reaching number one on the album chart and yielding two top ten singles in the shape of “The Best of Times” and “Too Much Time on My Hands”.

But it was all about to fall apart as Dennis DeYoung started to believe he was a Robot from the planet Eglantine and a California religious group and the PMRC accused the mighty STYX!!!! of backmasking Satanic messages in their anti-cocaine anthem, “Snowblind.” Really! The mighty STYX!!!! The cracks were starting to show and disaster was looming. A disaster called Kilroy….more soon…ish

Buy my favourite Styx album here.

Buy the cheapo best of here.

Watch The mighty STYX!!!! perform “Babe” below

It’s WIMPHEM Wednesday

It’s WIMPHEM Wednesday!

WIMPHEM was a phrase invented by the late* Derek Oliver waaaay back in the days when Kerrap! magazine was something you could actually read. Unlike nowadays when it’s sole purpose is to prevent Classic CRock being the worst music magazine on the planet.

Basically, WIMPHEM, was when a TITAN of RAWK would make a record so utterly girly, that it would often come wrapped in pink ribbons and smelling of Lesbian Diet Coke (the late, lamented vanilla flavour, since you asked). The kind of thing that makes you regret those homemade KITTEN slippers. Of course, this was also open to non-titans, but they rarely managed to hit the heights that we here at WIMPHEM Wednesday will be concentrating on.

To begin with, we’re treating you to not one, but two TITANs of RAWK came together in an orgy of WIMPHEM. Of course, if you factor in Ann Wilsons current body weight, it’s probably closer to four TITANs. Mind you, deduct the skinny factor variant inherent in Robin Zanders genes, and it might bring back down to about three.

Yes, it’s Ann Wilson from Heart and Robin Zander from Cheap Trick! Their own bands had moments of WIMPHEM greatness, and we may return to them another time, but when they collided, a moment of magic was created. Once Zander got out of traction, that is.

Taken from the truly dreadful movie “Tequila Sunrise”, the WIMPHEM is upped even further by the fact that it was written by King Wimp, Richard Marx, who will definitely be returning to this page! The joy!

“So, baby, surrender to me.
There’ll be no holding back now.
So, baby, surrender to me tonight.”

I feel moist just thinking about it. It got all the way to number 6 in the US charts back in the day, and now you too can feel your quiff rising by listening to it here, or by stealing it here. The album is long out of print, but you can buy 2nd hand copies here. However, should you want to spend 2 hours in the company of Mel Gibson, Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer, you can always buy the DVD. With Arabic subtitles!

BONUS VIDEO

Just for extra dribbling pleasure here’s a live duet by Canadian chanteuse Lara Fabian & Richard Marx recorded in 1996.

* I have no knowledge of the here, there, or after whereabouts of Mr Oliver, although I did buy some rare southern rock albums of him a few years back.