Archive for September 22, 2009

KING DIAMOND – METAL BLADE TO REISSUE “THE GRAVEYARD” and “THE SPIDER’S LULLABYE” on OCTOBER 13, 2009!

Posted in 1980's heavy metal bands, 1980's heavy metal music, 1980's metal music, 1990's heavy metal albums, 1990's heavy metal bands, 1990's heavy metal songs, classic heavy metal, classic heavy metal albums, classic metal, collecting music, cool album covers, creepy album covers, current heavy metal albums, current heavy metal music, current metal albums, essential heavy metal albums, essential metal music albums, extreme metal music, Heavy Metal, heavy metal album covers, heavy metal album reissued, heavy metal albums, heavy metal albums 2009, heavy metal bands this decade, heavy metal guitarists, heavy metal music, heavy metal music 2009, heavy metal solo artists, heavy metal this decade, heavy metal vocalists, horror metal, king diamond, Metal, metal blade, metal blade records, metal music, metal music today, metal odyssey, Music, new heavy metal album, old school heavy metal, scary album covers, spooky album covers, spooky metal album covers, vintage heavy metal albums, vintage heavy metal bands with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 22, 2009 by Metal Odyssey

King Diamond - The Spiders Lullabye large imageKing Diamond, the legendary Metal front man for Mercyful Fate and Horror Metal/Heavy Metal icon. King Diamond and his band have left more than a mark on Heavy Metal history, a chunk of Heavy Metal history is King Diamond. On October 13, 2009, the infamous Metal Blade Records will reissue two King Diamond Classics… The Graveyard and The Spider’s Lullabye. Very cool. Just in time for Halloween… very cool again. Both albums have been re-mastered by King Diamond guitarist Andy LaRocque. The Spider’s Lullabye was originally released in 1995, with The Graveyard originally released in 1996. Bonus live bootleg footage will be available for download, for those who purchase either of these two reissues. The bonus footage for download will be these three King Diamond songs: The Spider’s Lullabye, Trick Or Treat and Up From The Grave. Reissue’s are always great, especially when they include new songs and/or videos – downloading the bonus content for these albums is fine with me, especially when King Diamond is looking at giving the fans the highest quality in sound and video. Man, I better start saving up some spare change or my Christmas want list is going to be very long with all of the new Metal CD’s that are coming out next month! Metal rules. King Diamond is a big reason why. King Diamond is delivering a Happy Halloween to his fans and all fans of Metal on October 13, 2009.

You can find out more about these reissues and King Diamond by visiting the official King Diamond/Mercyful Fate site and King Diamond’s MySpace page:

http://www.covenworldwide.org/
http://www.myspace.com/kingdiamond

King Diamond - The Graveyard large album image

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Where Have You Gone, UGLY KID JOE? Come Back!

Posted in classic rock, Hard Rock, hard rock bands, Heavy Metal, heavy metal news, metal music, metal odyssey, rock music, rock music news with tags , , , , , , on September 22, 2009 by Metal Odyssey

Ugly Kid Joe "America's Least Wanted" small album picBack in October of 1991, Ugly Kid Joe released their debut EP – As Ugly As They Wanna Be. 1991 was a year smack in the middle of the Grunge Music invasion… Ugly Kid Joe didn’t seem to care in the least. The mix of Hard Rock, Funk Metal and Heavy Metal had me more than interested in Ugly Kid Joe, I bought As Ugly As They Wanna Be and it served me right – back in 1991. Parodies aside, I could care less about what the titles of Ugly Kid Joe’s albums were making fun of… it was the funky heavy grooves of their songs that mattered most to me. Everything About You was a song that sounded unlike anything I was into back then, (Thrash, Death, Speed and mainstream Heavy Metal was what I was used to). When I first heard Everything About You, the first bands that came to mind that I was familiar with, in the Funk Metal genre, was Living Colour and Anthrax when they did I‘m The Man. White Zombie for certain had some Funk happening in their Metal back then too, yet this Ugly Kid Joe was not the dark side of heavy Funk either. This band was not as flamboyant as Faith No More, there seemed to be more of a street level accessibility to Ugly Kid Joe back in 1991-92.

Ugly Kid Joe made the funk in their heavy come out and smack me offside the head. Metal Music be my saving grace, I became hooked by Ugly Kid Joe, both by their music and persona. 1991 and 1992 were turning points with Metal Music, so many great Metal Bands were still around and largely ignored by the mainstream media… Ugly Kid Joe busted onto the scene and was very hard to ignore, in my Metal opinion.

Ugly Kid Joe - group photo promoObviously the freshness of Ugly Kid Joe caught on with MTV and FM radio, it had to. Ugly As They Wanna Be and America’s Least Wanted (from 1992), both sold over 2 million copies each, this Ugly Kid Joe sound really caught on, an undisputed Metal fact indeed. Ugly Kid Joe was not just about putting the funk into Heavy Metal, no sir. Their cover version of the legendary Black Sabbath’s classic Sweet Leaf exemplified their fondness for the heavier side, all the while paying tribute to their Heavy Metal influences. Ugly Kid Joe was not the refined and glamorous Hair Metal Band nor were they an extremely pissed off Extreme Metal Band. This was a band that was not even in the middle for they were so unique.

What Ugly Kid Joe brought to the masses was a mixture of Heavy Metal genres, almost as if they grabbed ahold of the very best of what these genres possessed and intertwined them all into their very own sound. To the best of my Metal memory, Ugly Kid Joe was not a copy cat band and no other Heavy Metal Band followed after, that sounded like Ugly Kid Joe either. (Maybe there was, I just never heard of them and they never lasted very long).

In 1992, I bought America’s Least Wanted and could not have been happier about it. Listening to Ugly Kid Joe cover the late Harry Chapin classic Cat’s In The Cradle only solidified the diverse musical nature of this band. I was astonished as a Metalhead back in 1992… here is Ugly Kid Joe, covering songs from Black Sabbath to Harry Chapin. Cool. I had bought a Harry Chapin greatest hits album in the late ’80’s, (keeping it a secret amongst my Metalhead buddies), yet Ugly Kid Joe made it known to the Metal world they dug Harry Chapin – I realized then that music is one big connected family.

I really look back on the first two Ugly Kid Joe albums with the utmost Metal fondness, this band was different, a Heavy Metal band that was fun without ever displaying any artificial pose to their music or appearance. Menace To Sobriety was released in 1995, followed by Motel California… I gave both albums their justified listens and due, yet I still uphold the first two Ugly Kid Joe albums as their finest moments.

The Metal bottom line is this, with all of the revivals going on in the Heavy Metal genres, especially with reunions and reunion tours, it would be cool to once again see and hear Ugly Kid Joe. It is not my intent to say that Ugly Kid Joe was the best thing since light beer, rather they were a cool band to choose from the Heavy Metal buffet… and still are. So many bands from the 1980’s and 1990’s are huge again, making albums and touring… Ugly Kid Joe would most likely be quite the hit with this new generation of kids that are just getting into Hard Rock and/or Heavy Metal. The Ugly Kid Joe look and sound is all around, as I meander around in public, (especially the Malls) in 2009. This now vintage band would fit right in today…  what once was old is new again – yet this is only my Metal opinion… and I am sticking to it.

Ugly Kid Joe:

WHITFIELD CRANE — vocals 

KLAUS EICHSTADT — guitar

DAVE FORTMAN — guitar 

CORDELL CROCKETT — bass 

SHANNON LARKIN — drums 

Ugly Kid Joe "As Ugly As They Wanna Be" large EP pic

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