Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Heavy Metal Shuffle

Back in the early 80's, when I was discovering bands like Def Leppard, Krokus, Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister, one of the records that I took a chance on was Vices from Kick Axe. Hey, I was a 13 year old boy, so a name like Kick Axe seemed very clever and slightly dangerous at the time. They were a good gateway band as I was discovering heavy music, but they quickly paled and probably after a year or so I put them in my rearview mirror as I started to discover harder bands like Maiden and Priest.
A few years ago, I kind of got obsessed with those early 80's bands that introduced me to heavy metal music. I hadn't thought about Kick Axe since the 80's, and I didn't have high expectations when I decided to check them out again. Man, I was surprised with just how much I enjoyed that record. It isn't going to melt your face or anything, but it is a fun album. I mean, the video for On The Road To Rock perfectly captures their early 80's metal cheese, and I fucking love it.
I've been wanting to grab the vinyl for Vices for a while now, and when I saw that my new favorite eBay seller was auctioning off his copy, I knew that I wanted to make a run at it. No sweat. I was the only bidder.
I was recently going through some old notebooks and stuff from school, and I discovered a folder with some old drawings that I had done. I'd completely forgotten how much I used to enjoy drawing as a kid, and it was a kick to find this old stuff. I didn't have a super imagination, but I did like to copy and freehand album covers and Dungeons & Dragons type stuff at the time. Finding my old drawing of the Vices album cover just shows how much of an impact this album had on me at the time.

2 comments:

mcs said...

You can tell I have no job right now, because I spent 5 minutes of my morning the video you linked to. I was expecting something maybe a little heavier after the robot at the beginning gave those classic composers a hard time for their music not being hard enough. Ha!

Oh yeah, and your ebay link just links to your own blog (unless of course this was intentional and you are your favourite eBay seller)

Those drawings are pretty rad. Maybe you should pick this back up again (if you have time in between the arctic exploration missions you seem to be involved in at the moment)

Mike said...

Ha ha...I'm so happy that I was able to get someone to watch that video. It is a masterpiece.

Thanks. I was surprised to see that they were actually pretty good. I don't know if its anything I want to take the time for now...the running and reading keeps the schedule pretty full as it is.