another case of the cover being better than the original.

I've been meaning to listen to this tune for some time since Enter Sandman is the only Metallica song I really enjoy listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXUYGraNtHU

Metallica
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-E-LDc384

It's my opinion the Excel guys deserve a writer's credit at least.

This puts me in mind of the lawsuit over Spirit vs Led Zeppelin. Randy Craig Wolfe of Spirit never took Led Zeppelin to court over this. It was his surviving family members that did. The court ruled that the Spirit song could not be played for the jurors in the lawsuit so Led Zeppelin won the suit.

Taurus by Spirit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd8AVbwB_6E

Do I really need to link Stairway to Heaven?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkF3oxziUI4

Made my next two choices for the new rock wars. I was also inclined to nominate White Room by Cream and Rat Bat Blue by Deep Purple but so many of the participants seem to actively dislike true rock music, so I held off on those and picked two that likely had a better chance for the brass ring.

I was surprised to discover a Captain Beyond tribute album put out in 2017 by various artists. I decided to buy it, but I haven't listened to it yet. I also bought the first two Captain Beyond albums on iTunes because I hope to get a device that allows me to listen to my iTunes library in my car. Since the advance of technology prevents me from making CD mixes and I refuse to do streaming because they won't pay the artists what they deserve.

I was just talking to potential client in Kirkwood, Missouri and we talked a little music and he told me that local legend and ex David Bowie sideman, David Sanborn has passed away. Here's a tune with Ian Hunter from Mott the Hoople, Sanborn and Jaco Pastorius kicking arse.

All American Alien Boy

Maybe the best bass solo you've ever heard in your life.

Long live rock.

I think I can blame these types of threads for songs like this showing up in my YouTube feed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhz3D6GZN3g

David Sanborn doing his own thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfqIIIOX8_4

I think we are supposed to not like this, but the more I listened, the more I went “I think that there is something here”. Flavors of early Alice Cooper, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Stooges, and more. Sure the screaming vocals are a bit weird and off putting at first, but the music is basic, raw, and sort of hypnotic. I listened to another of their songs “On The Chain” and liked it a little better.

I never heard of Killer Kin before, but am shocked that I am going to dig into them a bit more. When we share, never can tell what may strike a chord somewhere out there.

It's good. Not amazing but I can dig it. The vocals remind me of early Slayer but Slayer did it better. I am still searching for color songs. It is a lot more difficult than I anticipated but I think it is because I am trying not to nominate songs that are very well known, like White Room or Blue Suede Shoes.

Green Machine Kyuss

Green Onions Booker T & the MG's

Creepy Green Light Type O Negative

I was really wanting to get White Room nominated because I think it should be in this Rock Wars but then I remembered a Pretty Things tune and I couldn't resist getting one of their tunes included. The Pretty Things is one of those forgotten bands I think people need to be reminded of.

Around 1967 one of the first great albums that I bought for myself was “Disraeli Gears” by Cream. At 14 years old, I had a limited budget, so around 1968 gave their next double album “Wheels Of Fire” to my 12 year old sister as a present. I guess sneakily since this meant I got to enjoy it too. Enjoyed “White Room” and all the other great songs on it.

The twist came shortly after when my fundamentalist family went through one of the occasional anti-rock, evangelical spells, where their church decided to have a rock album burning service. My sister’s album was scheduled for execution. Fortunately, I was able to convince her(them) to let me swap out something else to spare the Cream album. Don’t remember what I sacrificed, but I do still have that Cream album.

I'm being nice to my family and NOT nominating the following songs for the latest Rock Wars (at least one member of Clan Grinner HATES each song), but I wanted to share them, so...

I'M GOOD (BLUE) (David Guetta and Bebe Rexha)

MAMMY BLUE (Roger Whittaker)

FOREVER IN BLUE JEANS (Neil Diamond)

One of the things that always surprised me about the people that frequented this site was that so many of them were comic book fans but never had any interest in science fiction, fantasy or horror or even adventure novels. A lot of them had a working knowledge of the movies but I guess reading something other than comics never occurred to them.

To me, metal and prog absolutely lend themselves to those genres. Metal probably has a lock on horror more than prog does and prog lends itself to fantasy but they both seem to fit well with science fiction.

Rocket Man by Elton John was based on Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man" for instance and I gave one example before of a song inspired by "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein but neither of those were prog or metal.

Blue Oyster Cult clearly was heavily influenced by these genres in nearly all their songs. There are at least three songs of theirs's inspired by Michael Moorcock and I know that one was inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. I'm sure there's more. maybe other authors.

Hawkwind has done a couple of songs that were inspired by another favorite author of mine named Roger Zelazny but I'm going to share an entire album of that I think was clearly devoted to Michael Moorcock's Eternal warrior concept. I've heard that Moorcock even used to participate in some of Hawkwind's concerts.

This album is one of two albums driven by Moorcock in my opinion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrLi...Ps2KwG_elaphDQ

The other album influenced by Michael Moorcock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w50vHVgnHPA

I've never owned a Hawkwind LP, I always just kinda assumed they were more-or-less joined at the hip with Moorcock.

Similarly, I never owned a Rush LP, but a lot of their stuff is clearly based on various SF/Fantasy works... the Ayn Rand influence is obvious on listening to the lyrics.

Led Zeppelin of course has their fantasy-infused pieces. The fantasy prog-mate who I like best is Jon Anderson, especially on Olias of Sunhillow... which I did own, and I believe was essentially a new fantasy/Sf collaboration.

I'll always have a bit of a soft spot for Iron Maiden, as there wasn't much they wouldn't accept as inspiration.