WHAT IS THIS THAT STANDS BEFORE ME?

Its been a strange week. A couple of highs. A small act of kindness made me feel valued and appreciated at work today and my Grandkids seem to have got over their recent ill-health. A couple of big lows. A very close and elderly family relative is going downhill fast and Missus Moonbase is struggling greatly with it.

We have been torn as to whether to continue with our long-standing planned holiday this coming long weekend but have decided we might as well worry and fret in a beautiful place rather than stew in worry at home. Because of Covid restrictions internationally, worry and fret is about all we can do anyway so we are going to go away Tomorrow. Blue the Moonbase Mutt will be looked after well by our live-in dogsitter. The ancient castles nestling around the Northern English coast beckon from the far lands and the promise of newly re-opened restaurants will keep us true on our heading North.

In the meantime and prior to packing I am listening to Black Sabbath. I'm a huge fan of Sabbath and have been since I discovered Master of Reality in my older brother's LP stack in the mid -70's. Its only in the last ten years that I've come to appreciate their defining sound and place in rock history as the originators of heavy metal, the musical genre closest to my heart. I have come to love the groundbreaking debut Black Sabbath, the musical mother of metal and equally adore the following three albums, Paranoid, Master of Reality and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. 

In these three LP's we really do find the genesis of a genre which would eventually sweep the world and spawn countless imitators and sub-genres, which are still stomping round today. The pulsing leaden funereal riffs, banshee man vocals and doom-laden lyrics smashed through the beats of the late Sixties and created a sound so heavy that the world wavered on its axis as we stopped to listen to this nunataq of gothic magnificence.

But like all masters of the universe this single glorious vision couldn't last. Like my other great Muses Budgie and Rush the original furious fires in which they forged their majesty faded. It was inevitable. Black Sabbath 4, which came between Master and Bloody Sabbath is a pale shadow of their true coronations and the rot really sets in with what came soon after, Technical Ectasy - which I am currently listening to - and the later doldrums of the waning Seventies and Eighties. Heaven and Hell is a wholly new sound and hardly Sabbath at all and what with Ronnie James Dio at the mic it might as well have been Rainbow.

This dissolution of the true sound is a perpetual battle for all bands as they form, find fame and eventually fall apart. Sabbath's glory is early on and what dark empires we see in their genius.

What do you think readers?

DEEP PURPLE'S BURN

When I was 13 or 14 I was a metal head.

I lived for the solo, the squawk of the riff and the thrum of the Fender bass.

Christmas 1974 was key moment on my journey to Valhalla. My Mum and Dad bought me Burn.

Burn was a Deep Purple album. Its the one with the dripping band-candles cover all in red with the word Burn in blue.

But that's just the cover.

The contents are that rare item. The whole damn package. The rock chops. A perfect thumping thing.

Burn is quite simply one of the finest hard rock albums ever to be fired in the blistering furnaces of Kerrang. 

From start to finish the mix of man and metal is a recipe for head-bangin' Elysium. 

Ritchie Blackmore's noble axe and David Coverdale's regal voice are glorious weapons battling with the forces of tedious pop muzak, grand buttresses of a pounding citadel where all air-guitarists did and do find life-long solace. Paice and Glen are the mighty foundations shouldered by a solid bedrock of titanic steel and skin.

Need I go on? Hard rock is often associated with bombast and pomp. So what! Let the punks moan and the New Romantics wail, this is the music of the gods.

The Rock Gods!

Thanks Mum and Dad wherever you are.

Join me readers and be burned!

NICE ENOUGH TO EAT

Off sick at the mo so chillin' with some old toons from my yoof. here's the class Nice Enough to Eat rock sampler from 1969. I wuz 9 at the time so first heard it a few years later when I started playing my old brothers' LP's! 

I think my fave track is King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man, an early example of heavy metal I would say!

Having said that I adore Jethro Tull and used to cover them in a band I was in back in the early 80's. Their track here, Things We used to Know, always brings a tear to my eye especially 'pretty soon we'll cease to sound'. Some really great lyrics from Tull.

As for Free, what can I say. The best band in the world at the time!

You can listen too if you want!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLJmO8myjKs&list=PLf3LODqwJVH0zjp7u9vhdKWyjA4bZTv0W

FREE: MR.BIG

Regular readers will know I'm a huge rock fan. Being a Seventies teenager my hair still wants to be long and my fingers air-guitar without warning!

The Seventies rock scene was prolific and there were thousands of hairy bands allover the world. One of my faves were Free.

Its hard to imagine now just how good Free were back then. Forget the radio musak of All Right Now, Free were so so much more. Four fabulous teenage rock musicians including the best young rock vocalist and best lead guitarist of their generation. 

They had the swagger of a much older band because they were great, perhaps the best blues rock band ever. They weren't heavy metal like Budgie or Sabbath but bluesy hard like Humble Pie or Cream. Young and destined they blew their own bravura groove before disbanding in 1973.

With just a handful of superb albums and a sliver of sharp singles, Free were as cool as blues cucumbers with the bravado of a band who knew they were brilliant. 40 years before Oasis, Blur, The Strokes and the Killers, Free were that classic young power quartet eating up the stage with mastery and volume.

If you ever needed proof just how special Free where then take a look at this You Tube footage of them playing Mr. Big at the Isle of Wight Festival, England, 1970. Remember, the average age of the band was just 19 or 20! Enjoy!

A ROCKY RACEWAY TO END THE DAY

Ending the day with the Pink Fairies' Raceway, 1973.

Hope you enjoyed it.

RUSH BASTILLE DAY

Just got in from work and drinking a hot chocolate.

Before I do anything else I listen to some heavy rock.

On the deck is Rush's superb 70's album Caress of Steel.

If you're not doing much then check out the blistering opener Bastille Day.

Play it loud!

What do you think?

*

RIP

Neil Peart

CHRISTMAS PROG AND HEAVY

As a young teenager in the early Seventies my Birthday and Christmas was always a time when I was given LP records.

So I always associate the season with albums and more precisely the albums I got back in the early Seventies.

They are as much a part of my Christmasses back then as space toys and monsters had been in the mid to late Sixties.

I'm enjoying listening to some of fave tracks at the mo as its my birthday, courtesy of You Tube. They're all from amazing albums, which I still have on my original vinyls. 

The person I have to thank for all this superb music, all new at the time, is my late great Mum. Armed with my list she would traipse to Brady's Record Shop in Preston and ask the salesperson for the LP's on the list. She once told me she got one wrong and instead of asking for Squawk by Budgie she asked for Budgie by Squawk! ha ha. My dear old Mum. Gone far too long so this and all of these sweet tracks are dedicated to her.

Join me if you have an hour spare over the holidays and rock the mince from your pies:

1. Young is a World by Budgie from the LP Squawk 

2. Anthem by Rush from the LP Fly By Night

3. Throw Down the Sword by Wishbone Ash from the LP Argus

4. Wake Up, Set Your Sights by Uriah Heep from the LP Very Eavy Very Umble

5. Last Rose of Summer by Judas Priest from the LP Sin after Sin

6. Intro - Sweet Jane by Lou Reed from the LP Rock'n'Roll Animal

7. Lay Down Stay Down by Deep Purple from the LP Burn

8. Yours is No Disgrace by Yes from the LP The Yes Album

I DON'T CARE FOR FANCY MUSIC IF YOUR SHOES CAN'T SHUFFLE AROUND

I'm waiting patiently for War of the Worlds to start on BBC1 at 9pm. I loved the original novel, the 50's movie and the Tom Cruise flick was enjoyable.

But BBC1 takes the action back home to Victorian Surrey where HG Wells originally set it. If Steampunk began anywhere, its War of the Worlds!

In the meantime the Missus is catching up on Doc Martin on iPlayer and I've got headphones on listening to some Southern Hard Rock in the form of the mighty Lynyrd Skynyrd's Nuthin Fancy LP.

I adored the Skynyrd in the early Seventies and went to see them live at Lancaster Uni when they were kings. Me and my rocker mate Pete Dewhurst bought all their albums as they came out and I've still got mine.

To balance things out I also loved Neil Young as a teenager and enjoyed their mutual musical battling!

Alas, Skynyrd as I knew them were totally decimated by a tragic plane crash in October 1977. 

The main man Ronnie Van Zant was among the dead. We couldn't believe it. It was like deicide and we cried. 

Their last album as that band, 1977's Street Survivors, had been prescient. Standing in front of a bonfire, the flames reached high behind the band. Those with the highest flames died in the crash. This original 'flames' cover was swiftly withdrawn.

Anyways, I've listened avidly to that original Skynyrd line-up my whole life and in case you haven't had the pleasure of their swamp music then maybe listen to Nuthin Fancy with me, beginning with Saturday Night Special:

INCENSE, SWEETS AND INNOCENCE

Back in the 60's when we were kids in Preston I did everything with mates.

Mates were as important as family back then and formed an essential part of daily life. Everything was done with mates, every major event, every small step, every scrape. Like family, mates were there when it counted.

I snogged my first girlfriend with a mate doing the same near me behind the Catholic Church. I played with my Action Man with mates. I went to the Top Rank disco with mates. My mates were there when I discovered the Lake District. My mates were there when my life fell apart as a teenager.

My mates changed over time. As a younger kid my friends were basically kids who lived on the same road as my family and we did everything together, constantly in and out of each others' houses and gardens all year round. We rode our bikes to the local park and tore around the small wooded hillocks there like the Bash Street Kids! These pals were Robin, Nick and Cass, with the occasional visit from guest mates Mike and Gary. I don't know what happened to any of these special guys and like old air, miss those long lost days of my early childhood years in Ashton-on-Ribble immeasurably.

When I discovered Kung Fu in the early 70's, for some reason, I lost these full-time friends and in a strange osmotic process evolved new ones: John, Masey, Nipper and Crooky with part-time re-appearances of Nick and Cass. We were all members of our very own Kung Fu club, the Powis Road Dojo of Bugei. It was a magnificent time. All around 12 - 13 years old, we all went to see the X-rated Enter The Dragon at the ABC in Preston and life would never be the same. Bruce Lee became the centre of our kicking, blocking, ki-aiing universe and everyone was Kung Fu fighting. The peak of this marvellous gang was the Indian summer of 1976, when we all went to the Lake District for a camping trip, jumping and cartwheeling like shaolin monks. We had one more year to go at School, Ecky Thump was everywhere and everything was perfect.

Alas, within a year it would all fall apart. The worst of all personal tragedies happened to me and I retreated into a world of bottomless grief. My mates tried to help but the long hot summer of 1976 became a distant memory and the strong forces that held us together faded and the group dispersed. 

Some friendships did remain strong, particularly Masey and two brand new friends emerged, brothers Pete and Dave.

It was around this time that I discovered heavy rock and the pounding music of Budgie, Rush and Uriah Heep became the focus of this new band of pals. In the vacuum of a motherless home I would cook hot meals for them on Saturday afternoons, whilst we listened to Budgie's Squawk at full blast and stuffed our faces on chicken pie, home-made chips, processed peas and gravy. It was a rite of passage round that front-room stereogram as we stared at each other licking our chops, trying to measure the yards ahead. School was over and the future beckoned. I didn't know it but those musical Saturdays would become the swansong of a life I'd loved in the home I'd grown up in for 17 years. The house I adored was sold by my Dad as he struggled to make sense of the death of his wife.

When I turned 17 I had a flat on my own. It was situated in a different part of town to where I'd grown up. It was here that I met a new group of pals, whilst staying close friends with Pete and Dave: the chief ones being Blue the dancer and George. Between us and a fluid cast of hundreds of other teenagers in Ashton and Fulwood, the crucial experiments of our late teen years were all made together in a fug of hormonal creativity, beer, parties and and hot adolescent desire. 

Dave and Pete were pivotal to this new 'group' and their enormous shed became the de facto centre of teenage operations. We did it all: home brew, girls, parties, massive heavy rock marathons, Joni Mitchell adoration, Neil Young worship and the emergence of our own latent musical talents. The guitars came out and we began to learn how to play. It was 1978.

From this side-burned riff of patchouli and rock George and I began to busk in Blackpool. We wrote a few tunes and settled on the name Alien Cage. We only made a few quid and ate fish 'n' chips on the prom but it was great fun and we felt like we were kings again that summer. We even gigged in a pub.

George introduced me to his pals Boyley and Raff, who were part of Preston's Sixth Form college scene of talented young rock musicians looking for a home. The most talented guitarist of this teenage milieu was a young wispy haired kid called Nick Dias, who played in a band called Israel Hands if I remember rightly. Boyley and Raff's own zest for playing rock was immense and it was a happy coincidence when we all got together to form a band.

I remember playing a bunch of original tunes to them in one of their parent's homes and them saying pleasant things afterwards like 'great lyrics' and 'like poetry man!'. And so, thanks to George's introduction, Sirius was born.

We practised in the space above my Dad's sofa workshop were he was book-keeper. Being 18 I was one or two years older than the rest of the band - and the only one working - so I bought the amps for the band. We had everything else and with Dave having passed his test and having access to his Mum's mini he became roadie, sound technician and sound recordist.

Being part of Sirius was the most creative period of my life. I wrote songs like they were going out of fashion and along with tunes from the rest of the band we had a great repertoire. A mixture of Free, Sad Cafe and Genesis, sort of, we had a distinct sound of our own with songs immersed in teenage angst, Arthurian legend, space, CND and young love.

Sirius's finest hour came when we gigged at one of local pubs, the Unicorn, in the summer of 1980. We'd invited all our friends and their friends too so the place was rammed. It was a superb night of rock and beer and Dave recorded it all. We felt like the Pink Faeries and I thought we would go all the way. My friends went to Uni instead.

Within six months the glory of the Unicorn was but a run-out groove. My band mates had left for University and Dave and I sat there twiddling our thumbs. It was the end of an era and we knew. I had already met the young lady who would become my future wife and Dave had discovered motor bikes. The writing was on the wall for the final friendship and when I eventually left Preston as well that Winter we said our goodbyes. 

Along with Pete, Dave and I would resume our friendship briefly in 1983 when I returned from the Continent, but the road beckoned and I left for Wales with my girlfriend shortly after and the two brothers emigrated to Australia. We were all around 20 years old. I saw them once again. That was 35 years ago.

From all those deep and important ashes of teenage incense long ago I have at least managed to keep in touch with George, easily my oldest friend now as I begin to stare down the cold loaded barrels of Sixty years of age. Its a strange feeling looking back isn't it.

And so I'll draw this nostalgic postcard to a close. Rather than Wish You Were Here, for some reason a line from a Neil Young song is running round my head as a sign-off. 

'I have a friend I've never seen. He hides his head inside a dream'.

Have your friendships changed over the years readers?

BLACK OAK ARKANSAS ON THE TURNTABLE TONIGHT

Just found a collection of LP's in my loft I forgot I had. No, not astronauts, albums!

Here's a band I've heard of but never heard, Black Oak Arkansas and their Long Player Balls of Fire from 1976 as featured on You Tube too.

Are you familiar with Black Oak Arkansas and their brand of southern rock?

heat up your horlicks with some budgie

Currently listening to my favourite band of the 1970's, the welsh rock trio Budgie, the band I headbanged to for years as a hairy guitar-mad teenager.

If you knew me then you would have heard Budgie!

Here's Zoom Club from their brilliant 1974 album In for the Kill.

Like many of the great hard rock tracks of the decade there's quiet thoughtful bits that build up to a bone-cracking power!

Put it on whilst you make the cocoa!

If you fancy some more, Budgie that is, not cocoa, try the more balladic, melancholic but equally guitar-drenched Young is a World from the earlier Squawk album released in 1972.

what do they say in these songs?

For years I've been listening to songs and thinking ..... 'what did they just sing?'.

Here's a small smattering of them. See if you can decipher what they're saying without looking up the lyrics.  I never have so I genuinely don't know. 

If you don't know then amusing suggestions always welcomed as well as more songs for me to blog!

1. I Ain't No Mountain https://youtu.be/ybpaItOwNXo?t=47s

By heavy rock trio Budgie, what is the line this extract starts with? Its sound like ' while I'm paying my soray'.

2. Blinded by the Light  https://youtu.be/lcWVL4B-4pI?t=1m

By songsmiths Manfred Man's Earth Band, what is the line this extract starts with? It sounds like 'wrap up like a doosh'.

3. Bohemian Rhapsody https://youtu.be/fJ9rUzIMcZQ?t=4m2s

By the almighty Queen, what is the line at the start of this extract? It sounds like ' Beelzebub has a devil for a sad formy'.

4. Paper Plane https://youtu.be/k-ciSfZPneY?t=2m5s

By 12 bar blues rockers Status Quo, what is the line this extract starts with? It sounds like' riding in a green grass doitcher car'.

LET THE FRAY BEGIN: MY TOP 5 HERALDIC ROCK SONGS

Continuing my theme of Seventies hard rock music I would like to share my love of a particular sub-genre, what you might call heraldic rock. This music is steeped in images from the worlds of myth and legend and in particular the paraphernalia of battles. Another name might be chivalric or battle rock.

Many rock bands crafted fine heraldic tracks and in particular songs about battles. These were often fused with a love of Tolkien, Knights, swords and sorcery, which were so popular in the Seventies.

Probably the greatest exponents of this were Wishbone Ash, whose dual guitar technique and sense of Arthurian legend, gave us most likely the single most heraldic of all Seventies rock albums, Argus, from which I have picked a track in my top 5 below.

So, without so much as a change of armour, I give you my top five heraldic rock tracks courtesy of You Tube [apologies for the pesky ads]:

5. Achilles Last Stand by Led Zep 1976

Although the title concerns Achilles, the famous soldier hero of the Trojan War, the song itself isn't directly to do with his battles. However, because the track is so musically dramatic I always imagine a battle scene of legend so it's included. At over 10 minutes its the first of several long players! [this slot could easily have been No Quarter by Zep 1973 as well]. Monumental.

4. Battle of Evermore by Led Zep 1971

One of several Zep tracks inspired by Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, this is by far the most acoustic of my top 5. With classic lines like "I'm waiting for the angels of Avalon, waiting for the eastern glow" and "the drums will shake the castle walls, the ringwraiths ride in black", its guaranteed to get you reaching for your sandals and spiraling your broadsword in figures of eight! Mordorian!

3. Wake Up [Set Your Sights] by Uriah Heep 1970

One of my all time favourite rock tracks from one of my all time favourite albums, Very 'eavy, Very 'umble by the utterly brilliant Uriah Heep, named after a character in Dickens' David Copperfield. Wake Up may not be about a battle but the line "Oh God, stop this killing, said a young man before he died" is sang so emotionally that it sounds like the plea of dying soldiers everywhere. Goosepimpling!

2. By Tor and the Snow Dog by Rush 1975

Things are hotting up now as we reach the summit. By Tor and the Snow Dog vied for the top spot when I started compiling this list as it is quite simply brilliant. From Rush's awesome Fly By Night album, By Tor described, both lyrically and musically, the battle between a huge mythical owl, By Tor, and a snow dog, which I have always taken to mean a white wolf. The song not only introduces us to fantastic words like "The Tobes of Hades", which when I was 15 I'd never heard of, but pits electric guitars against each other like no other track ever had or ever will. The growls and shrieks spilling from Lee's and Lifeson's frets are simply unforgettable. Magnificent!

1. Throw Down The Sword by Wishbone Ash 1972

And now to the top spot. Throw Down The Sword is classic Wishbone Ash and a swash of heraldic rock par excellence and perhaps THE defining moment of the sub-genre. In fact the whole of the album it appears on, Argus, could itself easily be seen as its crowning moment. With its cover image of an ancient helmeted warrior staring into the distance, Argus embodies that Seventies fascination with classical myth and legend, which bloomed at the tail-end of hippiedom. 

Throw Down The Sword is an elegiac cry for peace and pacifism, perfectly tapping into the decade's zeitgeist when counter-culture ruled and CND sponsored the Glastonbury main stage! Not to be confused with chucking out your Project SWORD toys [a bit like Brains in Thunderbird 6!], Throw Down the Sword inspired me to write my own Arthurian eulogy England is Sinking it Seems in 1978 and Sword is THE song I would like to sing onstage with the Ash! Here are the lyrics:

Throw down the sword,

The fight is done and over,

Neither lost, neither won.

To cast away the fury of the battle

And turn my weary eyes for home.

There were times when I stood at death's own door

Only hoping for an answer.

Throw down the sword,

And leave the glory

A story time can never change.

To walk the road, the load I have to carry

A journey's end, a wounded soul.

There were times when I stood at death's own door

Only searching for an answer.

*

Honorable mentions should also go to Queen's Ogre Battle and side 1 of Rush's concept album 2112.

What would your suggestions be readers?

BANGING HEADS: MY TOP 5 SEVENTIES HEAVY ROCK TRACKS

Regular readers of Moonbase Central will know I am a hard rock fan and occasionally discuss this weighty subject on these pages. Having grown up during the Sixties and Seventies baby boomers like me witnessed the birth of rock and were blessed with bearing witness to its first hardening.

So when I embarked on forming a list of my top 5 heaviest heavy rock/ heavy metal tracks of all time I fully expected to find  a slew of Seventies rock acts filling other fans' online lists like those peppering You Tube: bands like Budgie, Rush, Zep, Montrose, Jefferson Airplane, ACDC, Skynyrd, Deep Purple, Cream, Uriah Heep and Rainbow.

I couldn't have been more mistaken. Online rock lists seem to completely bypass the Seventies as it if never happened, skipping over it as a mere footnote whilst rock clambered bandana'd into the posing Eighties. The only exception to this myopia is the seemingly universal adoration of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osborne as the founders of hard rock, with which I won't argue.

Now obviously everything comes down to definitions. When I say heavy rock I mean tracks dominated by pounding guitars, thromping bass, no-nonsense vocals and copious distortion. For me heavy and hard rock are the same thing but I prefer the term heavy. I don't mean soft rock and I don't mean prog.

Now having recently listened to shed loads of Eighties new 'heavy' Metal and modern thrash and deathmetal I willingly acknowledge that the founders of these sub-genres: Van Halen, Slayer, Anthrax, Metallica et al, were themselves pioneers like Sabbath and Zep two to three decades earlier.

However I do feel I need to put the record straight. The Kerrang- MTV generation have got it wrong. The Seventies was THE defining decade of heavy rock and graced with hundreds of mightily hard rock bands. I can safely say what followed were mere posers, screeching, shredding and growling on a bandwagon toward total parody.

OK, I'm biased I know. I grew up with blues-infused heavy rock I hear you say, but the complete omission of Seventies acts from today's rock lists has got me riled.

So, here's my list of the top 5 heaviest rock tracks of  'all time'. OK, the Seventies! Here you will NOT find any Metallica, Pantera, Iron Maiden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Van Halen, Queensryche, Slipknot, Slayer and most definitely no Avenged Sevenfold.  I'm not after pretty riffs and catchy tunes, just full-on electric resonance. Ignore the adverts and enjoy some You Tubery of the hardest kind!

5. Mr. Big by FREE 1970

At the start of the Seventies Free were one of the biggest rock bands in the world and the singles All Right Now and Wishing Well became their famous signature tunes. But Free are much more than two old chestnuts and Mr.Big is taken from their Fire and Water album. With unpretentious rock swagger, Free were incredibly talented and ridiculously young. The late great Paul Kossoff, lead guitarist, was only 19 when he laid down the sizzling heavy blues in this six minute fretburner and paves the way for the heaviness to come. 

4. Beneath, Between and Behind by RUSH 1975

This face melter is from Canadian power-trio Rush's mid-Seventies album Fly By Night. To be honest there are at least two other tracks from the same record that could easily fill this slot: Anthem and By Tor and The Snow Dog. My parents got me this LP Christmas '75 when I'd just turned 15 and it blew the fairy off the tree I played it so loud on the music centre! Rush were a revelation and along with Lynyrd Skynyrd became the North American rockers of choice for me and my headbangin' pals. Beneath, Between and Behind is an explosion of distorted chords, riffs and guitar-drum pounding and with its fantasy-infused lyrics, amply shows off the giant talents of the young Axmeister Alex Lifeson, vocalist and bassist Geddy Lee and drummer/ lyricist Neil Peart.

3. 21st Century Schizoid Man by KING CRIMSON 1969 / 
In a Gadda da Vida by IRON BUTTERFLY 1968

OK, I'm cheating slotting two tracks into the number three spot but I can't ignore these grand swipes of heavy fuzz from hard rock's origins in the late 1960's. Of course I could wedge pioneers like Jimi Hendrix [and I probably should tbh], Steppenwolf, Blue Cheer and High Tide from the birth of the heavy but I'd really be cheating then and might as well list a top twenty!

King Crimson were gargantuans of Brit prog and gave us their magna carta, In the Court of the Crimson King, upon whose regal grooves we find the incinerating 21st Century Schizoid Man. With Robert Fripp's roasting guitar and lyrics like 'Iron Claw', its an unforgettable slab of ironmongery. Even more influential were The Iron Butterfly from California, whose first album in 1967 was even called HEAVY! In A Gadda Da Vida is a 17 minute long sonic skirmish with your senses and for me defines the very essence of heavy rock. This is the short version!

2. After Forever by Black Sabbath 1971

Black Sabbath - Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill - probably invented heavy metal as we know it today: grinding guitars, growling vocals, fuzzbox overload, lethal bass and seismic drumming. I could have picked any track from their first four classic albums in the early Seventies and many rock lists do, where they focus on famous fare like Iron Man and War Pigs. After Forever is off their 1971 Master of Reality album, a searing track of dark tar and slag typically preoccupied with death and decay, but the whole album is like the best day you could ever have in the land of heavy metal. Listen to it all and weep weighty tears of joy. Should you wish to explore the netherworlds of Sabbath's musical legacy, read about Stoner Rock and Doom Metal.

1. Homicidal Suicidal by Budgie 1971

Whilst Ozzie and the boys were breaking the mould in the Black Country, over in Cardiff, Wales, a power trio called Budgie were equally busting to define the heavy metal sound, which they did in spades. Like Sabbath's back catalogue, I could have picked any Budgie track from their first six classic albums for the number one spot. They are all deliriously heavy but the heaviest are probably to be found on their 1971 ground-shaking debut album simply called Budgie. Homicidal Suicidal is an skull dissolving salvo of distortion and is considered the heaviest of the heavy in the Budgie's cage. Shamefully under-rated in their day and lacking the commercial success they deserved, Budgie's legacy includes everything that followed. They were at the beginning and totally blew me away.

What do you think of them and would your five heavies be readers?

FOR THE LAST TIME BY RORY GALLAGHER

In this age of amorphous pap charading as modern music, wrap yer lugs round some proper stuff courtesy of You Tube: For the Last Time by the late great axemeister Rory Gallagher! Subtle celtic balladic rock at its finest from 1971 when, like the mighty hammers of horned lords, electric guitars ruled supreme! There could be only one reason to have moved on from our beloved space toys as the Sixties turned into the Seventies - and that reason was rock music.