Speculative Nonfiction: music

Bruce Dickinson with flamethrowers. From Rolling Stone.

I went to see Maiden in September in Sacramento (and thanks to Mr. Black for inviting me.) It was one of the best shows I've been to; I saw them in 2003 and don't remember them being this good, and I've seen the Iron Maidens tribute band and sad before that they actually put on a better show. (Still a good show, still worth seeing.) But before I saw them I was forced to confront an uncomfortable fact. I consider myself a pretty big Maiden fan. Yet, my knowledge of them is really four of their (far more numerous) albums - Number of the Beast, Powerslave, Somewhat in Time, and Seventh Son. Yet I didn't realize until recently that Powerslave was after Number. I didn't realize that Nicko didn't join until after Number. And I had never listened to Piece of Mind at all! (Except for the Trooper, and somehow I never thought too much about where Trooper came from when it wasn't on the other four albums.) And I had never heard Paul Di'Anno or any of the post First Dickinson Era songs. When I like things, I like to be able to organize the information and parse those things linearly. So finding out there were such holes in my Maiden knowledge made me feel as if I'd been lying to people for years about being a fan. So before I saw them, I set out to listen to all of Iron Maiden's catalog, so I would appreciate anything they played at the show.

In this endeavor I failed spectacularly, realizing the morning of the show I still had 9 albums to go. But let's be honest: Iron Maiden has a lot of goddamn albums, and some of those albums suck hard. For example, I couldn't get all the way through even the first Blaze Bailey record, because every time he sings I cringe. (He sounds afraid to be captured in a recording, and with good reason.) I saw no reason why the second one with him would be any better. And in point of fact, my interest in this project was spurred by Maiden being an awesome band whose early albums I thought I knew but realized I had missed some - so not only did I avoid Blaze Bailey, this doesn't even include anything after the first Bruce Dickinson era. Yes I know that's about half their albums. If you're a Maiden fan and you think I'm missing some good Second Dickinson Era work, please comment below.

I did this once before when I filled in a gap in my metal history by binge-listening to Led Zeppelin's entire catalog, but this project differs from my Zeppelin binge-listen in many ways. First, I was already a Maiden fan (or at least of their core work), whereas I was almost completely ignorant of Zeppelin. So with Zeppelin, it was worth trying as closely as possible to replicate the experience a Zeppelin fan might have had at the time when the record came out, and I would avoid reading anything about the album album until after I'd listened to it. No such restrictions in this post.

FIRST: THE SHOW, AND MAIDEN

I would only spend this much time writing about Maiden if I loved them, but of course the stuff that comes to mind when we sit down to write is often criticism. This is not a Maiden hit piece, because they're one of my favorites. But my number one band has always been Metallica. That said, Maiden makes for an interesting comparison and clearly out-competes Metallica in certain regards, namely, stage show and output. Maiden pre-dates Metallica by 6 years and they're in a category all their own. Are they NWOBHM? No, too early for that, plus they're still here. Do you group them in with Sabbath and Deep Purple? No, too much like modern thrash for that. And who else decides, when one guitarist leaves and they recruit another one and then the original guitarist comes back, to just have three guitarists and six people total? And who else uses keyboards to this extent without distracting from the rest of the music and shifting uncomfortably toward pop a la mid-80s Rush? (More on this later.)

Metallica thinks of itself as predominantly a live band, who obtains and solidifies fans this way. This is wrong, period. Their concert movie Through the Never attempted to capitalize on this false belief with predictable failure. And here's the comparison - 9 months before I saw Maiden at GoldenOne in Sacramento, I saw Metallica at the same venue. (Talk about controlled conditions.) And I literally left the Metallica show early because I was bored. I hadn't seen them in over 10 years so maybe that's why it struck me, but - Metallica basically just stands there and plays. Do you know what Iron Maiden had? The show opened with a life-sized P-51 Mustang hanging over the stage with propellers turning. Eddy comes out literally larger than life, and Bruce has a saber duel with him, and of course Bruce actually knows how to fight with a saber. There are costume changes. There are backdrops. And (and this cannot be emphasized enough) at one point Dickinson comes out with not one, but two flamethrowers and he's shooting out fire while he's singing. And the band's energy is unassailable, for guys in their sixties or otherwise. It was clear to me five minutes in that I would not have been able to physically keep up with Dickinson's running and climbing. I should add that Lars Ulrich admitted the reason they started putting up stage props (ie collapsing Lady Justice) was to compete with Iron Maiden. Conclusion: Iron Maiden puts on a much better show than Metallica.

My studies also gave me a chance to read up on the personnel. I'd always thought that Harris was probably the core of the band, which sets up a conflict with the vocalist.

On Bruce Dickinson: after this show it's obvious he's the best front-man in the history of metal, period. As much as I love him, I do have to temper the adulation a bit: he's not as brilliant a vocalist as he's made out to be - he doesn't hold a candle to Chris Cornell - but his confidence in his delivery, staying power during a show, and (obviously) breath control are outstanding. He also demonstrates that music is on one side about performing and on the other composing, and (like Dave Lombardo) shows that you can be a great performer with being a great composer. His solo work isn't spectacular, and the songs he contributed to tend to stick out. Can I Play With Madness especially comes to mind as my least favorite on Seventh Son. He doesn't seem to have too bad a case of LSD but it did always strike me as odd that at some points he has tended to talk about the other band members in third person (rather than first person) plural, which obviously suggests distance, but they seem to be having a lot more fun together now that at any point before.

On Steve Harris: the bass player actually has to know how music is constructed. And people talk a lot about the galloping bass - Maiden does use crunch guitar a bit, but the gallop takes the place of crunchy riffs in driving songs, yet another unique aspect of Maiden. I think Maiden's progressive cred is not as strong as is usually suggested, and some songs have very jarring verse-to-chorus differences in the vocal melodies which might work in a slower tempo prog song but driving as fast as they do, with Dickinson's voice delivering that in the front, is unique but not a positive for me. As I learned more about Maiden's history, Harris came across as kind of an introverted super-focused music savant and this interview suggests to me that is the case, and no it's not his barely penetrable (for this Yank) accent. (Not a put-down. I subscribe to the theory that greatest-ever rock climber Alex Honnolt is on the spectrum as well, and I love that guy too, and if I didn't, why should either of them care, given what they've accomplished.) Finally, Harris (like the other blokes) is an unapologetic patriotic Englishman, which is real. (What was it George III said to John Adams about national attachments?)

On Paul Di'Anno: both due to his unreliability and low skill level, they made one of the best decisions in rock history to dump him and bring in Dickinson. Reading about him, he strikes me as someone with a personality disorder and associated substance habits which have resulted in repeated legal difficulties and now, very bad chronic health problems. Kurt Cobain was similar except he actually had some talent, though that's independent of the substance problem. (Character pathology is not.)

I'm...not sure how to feel about this. From imgur.
THE ALBUMS

On the plus side, Maiden has been incredibly productive. On the down-side, you can tell that there are very few riffs which are left on the cutting room floor. Dickinson has alluded to this by saying that Rod Smallwood* packages everything for sale (advisable as a commercial strategy, not to keep median quality of art high) and Harris commented on one album (I believe Fear of the Dark) that it was unusual that they had actually cut material.

Iron Maiden - Not bad for a first offering in that era, both in performance and recording quality. Phantom of the Opera sticks out. A lot of the riffs on this album would be right at home in early Bad Religion, so when Harris denies a punk influence (if only starting out; listen to Running Free, please) I have to laugh, and honestly metal has a tendency to get too ponderous and slow and self-important, and punk has saved metal from itself on at least two occasions (NWOBHM, and the early 2000s as outlined here.)

Killers - Nothing really stuck out to me about this one except they were starting to sound like Iron Maiden. (Hear also the Kill Em All to Ride the Lightning transition with Metallica. The most Metallica-sounding song is the Diamondhead cover.) I always thought all the history topics were from Dickinson but here's an instrumental about Genghis Khan before Dickinson set foot in the studio with them. By the way, I used to like Rollins, but his routine about Iron Maiden is pretty long-winded an un-funny. He's turning into loud music's William Shatner, and I was saying that before I knew he was friends with William Shatner. But I digress.)

Number of the Beast - Classic album, with far more strong than weak songs and moments (those being Invaders and Gangland.) Run to the Hills and Hallowed Be Thy Name, obviously. 22 Acacia Avenue is a greater song than anyone gives it credit for. Back in the Village two albums later is a better "The Prisoner" homage than the song here. Incidentally, note the themes on Metallica's Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets, two to four years later: someone waiting to be executed. Organized crime/gangs. Horror (Cthulhu vs Children of the Damned.) Being trapped in a place where people control your mind. This is inadequately addressed in the Maiden vs Metallica rivalry, which has grown over the long term among fans, as opposed to the Megadeth rivalry.) You know that weird outro on Garage Days Re-Revisited after Green Hell? Yeah, that's Run to the Hills - maybe Maiden wouldn't give them permission. Has Maiden ever covered a Metallica song, even obliquely like this?

Piece of Mind - this is the album I had entirely missed except for the Trooper. I'm not 100% sad; this is definitely the weakest of the 1982-88 era. The Trooper is indisputably great but Flight of Icarus and Where Eagles Dare sort of drag on, and this is one of the moments where Dickinson's vibrato is too much.

Powerslave - Little need be said about this. Aces High, Two Minutes Till Midnight, Back in the Village, and the under-rated Flash of the Blade. In the chorus of Powerslave is the first hint of the band's use of more ambient atmospherics (a very under-exploited part of music in metal; see Tool for much more of this.)

Somewhere In Time - and here are the keyboards - not Geddy Lee, I'm tired of playing bass so let's do something poppy kind of keyboards, but supporting the overall mission. This is also really where Maiden's famous thirds make their first really prominent appearance (title track, Deja Vu, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.) I have to say: I was exposed to the "Hellenization facilitated later Christianization" by the song Alexander the Great. I also reasoned that Loneliness was actually about the Sillitoe short story by that name, but realized when I read the story it wasn't really. Also, in Venice when I was 18 I bought a giant silkscreen banner of the cover of Somewhere in Time for like US$12 that was on my ceiling all through college and for a few years thereafter. Goddammit I wish I know what I did with that thing.

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son - a masterpiece un-improved by further adulation. One of the greatest metal albums of all time. This is a true unified concept album, to the point where playing a single song in isolation at a concern seems somehow wrong. Where Seventh Son breaks out into the guitar solo is specifically one of the greatest moments in metal, from there right to the end. If you listen to anything for the first time as a result of this blog post, listen to this record, all of it, in one go.

No Prayer for the Dying - it's a tragedy that this album followed Seventh Son. How, how could such a masterwork be followed by such a lackluster offering? After listening I actually thought in terms of alternate history how metal would have been different (and better) if Maiden followed up Seventh Son with a more worthy recording. I never got this in high school because the other Maiden fans I knew felt the same as I now do after I listened to it. Everyone, including the band, beat up on the sound on this record; it was made in a barn that Harris had converted (or by some descriptions, was still converting) to a studio. (It seems consistent with what I know of Harris that once he gets an idea in his head - like recording in a barn - he would carry it to conclusion.) Compositionally, overall this sounds like Seventh Son or Somewhat in Time tracks left on the cutting room floor, and without keyboards. That's the first problem. The second is not so much the recording. To my ear, sure, the drums sound mushy, the mixing is not great (which is not the recording) but what really kills it is Dickinson's performance. It's a combination of "caricature of himself" and "banged it out in one take and let's go get a pint", and these flaws are all the more apparent for the extreme prominence he's given in the final mix. Harris has in the past suggested Dickinson was performing live half-assed or otherwise phoning it in, which Dickinson has always denied, but listening to this album I can see why that might cross someone's mind. There's really no standout moment for me on this one. Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter seems almost like a joke song, more worthy of Motley Crue or some glam rock band trying to sound just scary enough to boost sales, and of course was brought in as one of Dickinson's solo projects.

Fear of the Dark - Fear of the Dark is a great song and sounds very similar to Seventh Son material (Harris has four modes: nice melodic minor melodies like this, Celtic-sounding bits in 3, galloping parts, or filler.) I like one of the Charlotte songs and From Here to Eternity is fun, but it sounds like a hard rock song, and I was shocked to learn it's a Harris number and not from Dickinson.

Aside from getting douche-chills from Blaze Bailey for a few songs, and the first song on Brave New World, that's where my project ended. What else should I listen to?

*If the manager in Spinal Tap had been named "Rod Smallwood," you would think it was too ridiculous. Yet here we are.

There are many reviews out there, and few were kind. The show was sold out for quite a while. Relative to the '99 Metallica symphony show, the crowd definitely leaned more toward regular-symphony-goer types, but that could just be because it's 15 years later and the metalati are getting old, i.e. they ARE the symphony-goers anyway. Overall I think it was better than the Metallica SF symphony show, because it was more risk-taking. In execution, maybe not so much. Most of it was just the symphony, and the parts where Dave was on stage, he was the only extra-symphonic performer, and he didn't play his own material, and he didn't dominate the sound and make the symphony superfluous like Metallica did.

Set list:
Berlioz, Roman Carnival overture

Bach, Air (with Dave)

Vivaldi, Four Seasons, Summer and Winter movements (Dave joined them for Spring, playing the first violin part)

Dvorak, New World (4 movements)

Encore:

Megadeth, Symphony of Destruction (two main riffs, played by the symphony, without Dave)

Wagner, Ride of the Valkyries

Dave was fairly humble and magnanimous. He said that it was very intimidating being in front of so many accomplished musicians, and several times the pickups on his guitar cut out (which marred the performance) but he didn't seem to get upset. He was using a guitar with a wood body that looked like a violin. There were several places where his fretwork got sloppy and honestly the Pergamum version of the Summer movement on Youtube is superior. To be honest my favorite part was Dvorak!

As with the Metallica symphony show, the regular conductor was too cool to be there. I would argue that the conductor contributes the least of anyone in a symphony, so ih.