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It's the world's loudest podcast as hosts Steve Davies, Richard Napthine and Mark Norman take their collective 120 years of worship at the altar of golden era hard rock and heavy metal (1970-ish to 1996-ish), cut the ribbon on their newly-built Hard Rock Hall of Fame - and debate the albums that have earned their places in its gilded rooms.
Episodes
Tuesday Jul 04, 2023
Tuesday Jul 04, 2023
So this episode is all about the albums you bought and lisened to and thought, fuck me that's a great album! Or possibly, fuck me, that's terrible! And then, 30 years later, you discovered your opinion had done a 180 degree turn.
In this episode, Mark revisits he much maligned Black Sabbath experiment that saw Ian Gillan step up to the mic, Steve discovers that Ratt's Detonator tickles his ears a little differently to he wya it did in 1990, and Richard recalls he moment Van Hagar suddenly made sense ....
Monday May 29, 2023
Episode 75 - Drummers (ft. Genesis, Y&T & Toto)
Monday May 29, 2023
Monday May 29, 2023
Yes, Sadfans, we're giving over our 75th episode to the unsung heroes of every band that ever set foot in a recording studio or onto a stage - those apparently indefatigable timekeepers without whom there would be little or no momentum.
Stuck behind the kit at the back of the stage, these are the artisans of the hard rock and heavy metal engine room.
Whether it's a sense of rhythm combined with a diver's boot (h/t to Gillan's Mick Underwood), the professorial science of Neil Peart, or the tour de force blunt trauma approach of Bonzo, these are the men and women who provide the metronome when you're standing with your feet apart and headbanging your way to an early aneurysm.
Naturally, the list of noteworthy sticksmen is ineffably long, so consider this part one of a theme the Sadmen will undoubtedly return to in episodes to come.
But for this episode the lads have picked three drummers who have, to some extent, shaped the technical art of hitting the skins with a lump of wood.
First up, Phil Collins in his second outing with Genesis for 1972's Foxtrot. Having already helped to shape the Charterhouse proggers' sound on his debut release, Nursery Cryme the year before, Collins, Banks, Gabriel and Rutherford return a year later with a release that would achieve immortality in the genre.
The boys' next stop was six years later, as Y&T - then known still as Yesterday and Today - drop their sophomore 1978 release Struck Down. Though three years away from the standard-bearing Earthshaker, this is the album that perhaps best showcases the undeniable talent of their man on the kit, Leonard Haze.
And the lads round off proceedings with Jeff Pocaro and TOTO's commercial juggernaut IV, which boasts the ghost notes on album opener Rosanna that to this day separate the men from the boys when it comes to high drumming art.
Enjoy!
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
Episode 74 - Making Magic (ft. Dokken, Survivor & Piledriver
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
Episode 74 sees the lads tackling the subject of inventions. If ever there was scope to push the envelope on a theme this, surely, is it. And so it proved, as Mark fishes out a set of what can only be described as 15th Century blueprints to qualify Dokken's 1981 debut, Breakin' The Chains.
(Don't get antsy, America - we know the better known version of the album was released in Amercia in 1983 with a title tweak - Breaking The Chains rather than Breakin' The Chains - and a very different running order, but where there's a reissue the Sadmen always take the original release for the review - and, besides, in this case it has a better back story!)
Not for the first time on the podcast, Rich went soft, opting for a post-Balboa and post-Dave Bickler Survivor and their 1984 album Vital Signs (the invention? An oscilloscope ... yeah, yeah ... they're all tenuous on this show, friends).
And (also not for the first time) Steve went hard, opting for a band that has never actually existed with Piledriver's Stay Ugly from 1986. And if you don't know the PIledriver back story, that's worth this episode's admission price alone. (The admission is free, by the way. You know ... just in case that's a dealbreaker).
Wednesday Apr 12, 2023
Episode 73 - Creeping Death (ft. Witchfinder General, Candlemass & Entombed)
Wednesday Apr 12, 2023
Wednesday Apr 12, 2023
The latest episode of the Enter Sadmen podcast finds the boys in more familiar territory as the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes serves up 'Death' as the theme for Episode 73.
End of life certainly offers up a wealth of stuff to go at in the world of hard rock and heavy metal, which makes it even more bewildering that Steve and Rich didn't follow Mark's lead and go with something completly literal.
As it was, Mark arrived at the Sadmen party with an album in another one of those covers that, much like the Scorpions Lovedrive, had post-pubescent teenagers nursing a boner in the record shop.
Witchfinder General's 1982 debut Death Penalty, was a marketing man's dream, yet the band still managed to evade mainstream celebrity. The songs on offer may provide good clues as to why, but Mark argues that there's lots of fun to be had ... if, in 2023, you can get beyond the gratuitous presence of female breasts on the cover.
And so to Steve and Richard,m who could have gone with pretty much anything buit instead chose to plough a furrow in Scandinavia's death metal scene.
First up, Richard with the npw-legendary Epicus Doomicus Metallicus from Candlemass - a 1986 release that was determinedly ignored by the record-buying public until after the band was dropped by its record company - at which point they went out and bought it by the truckload.
And finally, in this episode, Steve puts forward the case for Entombed's Wolverine Blues, now a neo-classic, but then, in 1993, another radar-avoiding old skool throwback.
Prepare for laughter in the face of Death Metal.
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
Episode 72 - I Am, I’m Me (ft. Andy Taylor, Doro & Robert Plant)
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
Sometimes artists feel the need to escape the confines of the environment in which they made their name and give voice to the individuality of their art. Or some such bollocks.
In any event, whether going solo or, in the case of Doro Pesch, being forced by a legal ruling to cease and desist using the name of the band which made her famous, rock and roll's highways and byways are crisscrossed by the tracks of musicians who have wandered off the well-beaten track.
We meet three of them in this edition of Enter Sadmen - an episode in which the lads were sent off to find famous rock musos who, for whatever reason, decided to ply their trade under their own name.
They don't come much bigger than Percy Plant, of course. The erstwhile golden-maned lead singer of demigods Led Zeppelin first tasted artistic life outside that particular juggernaut in 1982 with Pictures At Eleven - and a very successful sojourn it turned out to be. But it is 1990's Manic Nirvana that commands our attention for part of the next 80 minutes.
Doro, still smarting from losing control of the Warlock brand in the courts, was canny enough to know that sentiment aside, she was Warlock and that her fanbase would hang on her every note, regardless of the collective name she and her musicians gave themselves. And no one would be hanging on those words more fervently than Steve.
What wasn't quite so clear, when she released her first 'solo' album - the presumably self-referencing Force Majeure - was why she chose a decidedly iffy cover as the calling card. Luckily, things got rapidly better thereafter.
But first of all we encounter a man who could make girls swoon at the mere suggestion he might be on Top Of The Pops on a Thursday night with the other guys in Duran Duran. Yes, you read that right. Mark turned up to this party with the other Taylor in the Durannies - Andy - and his 1987 solo debut, Thunder.
Now go and look up the word 'eclectic' and see if that don't just sum up Episode 72 ...
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
Episode 71 - Epic (ft. Deep Purple, Motӧrhead & Exodus)
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
Tuesday Mar 28, 2023
So, a question. How maqny albums can you name where the title track is worthy of its status? And of those, how many eclipse even that honour to be classed asd truly epic?
That was also the question that was asked of our hardy rock and roll adventurers by the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes for this, the latest leg of the marathon attempt to review the greatest hard rock, heavy metal, prog (etcetera, etcetera) albums of all time (well, of 1970 to 1995, at least).
It's worth saying from the outset that Steve managed to misinterpret the brief as incorporating title tracks that he simply liked, which is how Exodus's 1985 debut Bonded By Blood managed to find its way into proceedings. But, y'know, hey ho.
Rich and Mark, on the other hand, rocked up - literally and metaphorically - with two bonafide essentials.
First on the turntable for this episode is the first vinyl offering from Deep Purple MKIII, complete with Coverdale and Hughes on shared voal duty -1974's Burn. As with all three albums, the track opens the album's account. But would it be the best of the collection? That was definitely up for debate.
So, too, the question of the title cut from Motӧrhead's 1979 offering, Overkill. Mark unapologetically claims this to be not just streets ahead of the following year's chart-bothering Ace Of Spades, but entire cities ahead. You can judge for yourselves, and see if Steve (a self-confesed Lemmy-sceptic) and Richard agree.
And then there's Bonded By Blood. A criminal omission from what should be termed the Big 5, or just a lot of noise and little substance? Steve dons his gown and wig and presents the case for the defence.
Monday Mar 27, 2023
Episode 70 - A Vulgar Display Of Power (ft. AC/DC, Rush & Tesla)
Monday Mar 27, 2023
Monday Mar 27, 2023
And on we go to Episode 70, in which the lads work to a brief that shouldn't have been too challenging to meet, even for men of singular taste and discernment.
Yes, in this run through another three albums from hard rock and heavy metal's golden era (that's 1970 to 1995, for the uninitiated) the boys were tasked by the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes to find examples of 'Power'. Whether electrical, nuclear, steam, wind, strength or gas was up to them to decide.
And so we end up slap bang in the middle of the 1980s with a trio of offerings spanning six years between 1983 and 1989.
First up come our old friends AC/DC - and yet again it's not the band's uber fan Mark bringing their 8th studio album Flick Of The Switch to the party (go with us, here - it's listed in Wiki as their 10th, but Wiki has counted High Voltage and its derivative and territory-specific alternate versions as three different albums).
An unloved misstep rightly cast into the depths fans' memories? Or a much-maligned and under-appreciated neo classic? You'll get both ends of that spectrum in this episode.
Next up, Rush uber fan Richard doesn't disappoint - although he ducks the obvious Power Windows and instead opts for 1984's Grace Under Pressure, the band's 10th studio release and the first of a quartet of albums that were, to varying degrees, considered disappointing by fans when compared to Rush's earlier canon.
That doesn't mean the Sadmen will also conform to mass opinion, of course. If nothing else they are rarely inclined to toe the party line.
And bringing up the rear - and what a glorious rear it is - Mark pops up with the second offering from Tesla (and we mean that both in terms of their discography and their pod appearances) The Great Radio Controversy from 1989. Hair metal with a gritty edge? Or inhabitants of a genre of one? The boys answer that question, too.
Monday Mar 27, 2023
Episode 69 - Keeper of the Seven Keyboards (ft. Uriah Heep, Kansas & Gillan)
Monday Mar 27, 2023
Monday Mar 27, 2023
For their latest journey down hard rock and heavy metal's many-faceted highway, the Sadmen's destination was that utopian land of pianos, synthesisers, Moogs and mellotrons. Yes, friends, having done vocalists, singers and bass players, it was time to pay tribute to some of the ivory tinklers who help to make up rock's great tapestry.
But if you thought we were going all Tony Banks, Jon Lord, Rick Wakeman or Richard Wright on you, think again, fans.
Yes, in this episode we do touch on some obvious waypoints, but of Genesis, Purple/Whitesnake, Yes and Floyd there is no sign (or is there?) And though Mark and Rich go fully prog rock (or 'prock' as no-one ever calls it), Steve manages to keep it real with a big slice of late-70s hard rock.
With three albums released over a period of just seven years, we start back in 1972 with Uriah Heep who, at this point were shelling albums like peas, yet still managed to trump early successes like Look At Yourself and Salisbury, with the huge cornucopia of Ken Hensley-inspired sound that was Demons And Wizards (their 4th album in just 23 months - and release #5 would follow just 6 short months later).
We follow that another fourth release, this time from Kansas, and an album full of material that, staggeringly, wasn't deemed good enough for the band's previous two issues. Yes, folks, the clue is in the name - 1976's Leftoverture (though the 'after the mayor's ball' nature of the track listing didn't stop it becoming widely recognised as Kansas' seminal release) features the sloppy seconds from Song For America and Masque. Enter, then, one Kerry Livgren (among many others) on keyboard duty.
And you know we said there wasn't a sign of Deep Purple in this show? Well of course, there is, as Steve rolls up with Ian Gillan, now fronting his own eponymously titled band and their second release, Mr Universe, from 1979. On keyboards, and widely appreciated as the man who steered his honey-larynxed boss off a jazz-fusion march into oblivion, one Colin Towns - a man so mercurial that he counts the theme tune to Angelina Ballerina among his many TV theme credits.
So ... it's fair to say an eclectic show lay ahead ...
Sunday Mar 26, 2023
Episode 68 - All White Now (ft. White Sister, White Lion & Anthrax)
Sunday Mar 26, 2023
Sunday Mar 26, 2023
And so following the previous episode, which - according to Rich - featured Diet Cult and Diet Marillion, the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes rumbled ever on and this time spat out a topic which challenged the boys to find albums that had a 'white' theme.
After they all studiously avoided the apparently 'obvious' Whitesnake, they each entered the Sadmen Sound Studio with more white stuff than you'd find at a mid-Eighties Motley Crue after show party.
First up for discussion was Steve's personal comfort blanket - the 1984 debut effort from the crown princes of melodic hard rock, White Sister. After coming through the shock of realising this would be the last time they'd feature in the pod (Episode 39 had already dispensed with the band's sophomore and final effort), Steve rallied gamely to prosecute the case for the eponymously titled debut to be admitted to the highest echelons of the Hall of Fame.
The same year also gave us White Lion's debut, Fight To Survive, Richard swerving the opportunity to deliver the band's career-altering Pride or Big Game to the party. So, would this be a saccharine-laden amuse bouche for those two titans of commercial melodic metal, or would the original lion's roar have a harder edge to it?
And after all of that harmonising, what were the lads to make of the career changing (at least with regard to the direction of travel) of Anthrax's 1993 issue The Sound Of White Noise, their first without Joey Belladonna at the mic? Would the fact it's their biggest-selling album of their career (yes, really) also mean it was their best?
We were about to find out...
Saturday Mar 25, 2023
Episode 67 - This Was My Life (ft. Alice Cooper, Mother Love Bone & Marillion)
Saturday Mar 25, 2023
Saturday Mar 25, 2023
And so to an episode in which Richard, Steve and Mark were tasked with marking important life moments.
Mark and Steve opted for a broadly similar seam to mine - that of parenthood. Rich, on the other hand, eschewed the opportunity to reflect on bringing new life into the world, or discovering love for the first time. He spat in the face of death and pooh-poohed the notions of age, friends and work.
No, it seems that Richard's most notable moment in life is, in fact, stowing a lilo under his arm and heading off to the Mediterranean.
And so it came to be that the lads ended up spending a week or so in the company of Alice Cooper, Mother Love Bone and Marillion.
Steve kicks off the show with a look back at Alice Cooper (the band, not the man - he was just common-or-garden Vince Furnier at the time of this particular release) and their much-admired Billion Dollar Babies from 1973. Over 30 minutes or so the Sadmen try to come to a definitive answer to a simple question: Is it really that good?
Next up is Mother Love Bone, a one-album sensation (thanks to yet another rock and roll overdose that robbed the world of a young talent) that ultimately gave us the behemoth that is Pearl Jam, and their sole 1991 release Apple.
Meanwhile, over in Ibiza, Richard was whacking up the volume on the Steve Hogarth version of Marillion, who were vacationing in paradise in 1992 with Holidays In Eden.
As the show rolls past album 200 in the big list, would these three manage to elbow their way into its upper echelons?