Do you have a large record collection? Do you know someone who does? Jive Time Records makes housecalls for used vinyl collections in the Northwest. We travel to Everett and Tacoma, Bellevue and the Peninsula, and all points in-between for quantity used vinyl! If you have a large collection (preferably 500 or more) or know someone who does, call us at (206) 632-5483 to discuss our process. We also buy CDs and DVD’s. Learn more›
Most people today remember Twisted Sister as the spearhead of the Hair Metal movement with their poppy bubble gum anthems all over rock radio. In truth the band dates back to the 70s and began as a hard rock glam act before vocalist Dee Snider arrived and introduced the music of Judas Priest, AC/DC, Sabbath, and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. This debut is far removed from what will follow two albums later with 1983’s breakthrough album, “Stay Hungry”, containing a sound that is raw and mean, stripped down and primal.
Each track is a classic of it’s kind: “What you Don’t Know, Sure Can Hurt You” is an awesome Alice Cooper inspired anthem (echoes of his “Hello Hooray!”) that welcomes us into their metal world. Rebellious and insidious, this is a perfect way to set up the heavy album. “Run For Your Life” features a great melodic spoken intro by Snider that recalls Zeppelin before the song gets heavy and speeds up to the level of Priest brutality. “Sin After Sin” is clearly titled as a tribute to the Priest masterpiece of 1977 of the same name. And the song very much recalls the same sound from those 70s records, clearly showing the band was capable of such. “Shoot Em Down” rocks like heavy Kiss but features a more UFO inspired chorus. “Under The Blade” is Twisted Sister’s best song and my personal favorite, this is the one all Manowar loving metalheads reach for first. Guitarist Jay Jay French’s riff is one of his best and the lyrics are among the best the band ever wrote. “Tear It Loose” is a speed metaller that is inspired by Motorhead. Motorhead’s ace guitarist, Fast Eddie Clark, even contributed a solo to the classic. Another album standout.
Under the Blade ranks as one of the great debuts of Heavy Metal and one of the best albums of 1982. It’s one of my personal favorites, and one that is a must for fans of the NWOBHM and Traditional Metal. An absolute Metal essential that will have the committed headbanger going back for many more trips “under the blade”. —James
The no-frills cover shot of the heads-down Status Quo frontline on Piledriver tells the story via the show-of-force image and the big, bold group logo in bright red. With no-holds-barred aggression, the major label debut from the boys in blue is a steamrollin’ onslaught of early seventies three chord boogie, blooze and rawk. Recorded live in the studio, the aptly titled Piledriver rolls into action behind the chuggin’ combo platter of “Don’t Waste My Time” and “Oh Baby”, while adding the five-minute slow ridin’ “Unspoken Words”, the chucky drive of “Big Fat Mama”, the short “Paper Plane”, and the lengthy closing cover jam of “Roadhouse Blues”. Pile on! —Jon
In the spring of 1968, Laura Nyro’s Columbia Records debut Eli and the Thirteenth Confession unleashed something very unique and beautiful onto the scene. Unfortunately, the album fell on mostly deaf ears, peaking at #189 on the Billboard 200. Nearly thirty years later, Laura Nyro is still woefully unknown to the public, although the potency of her music remains.
While the instrumentation and influences evident in Eli and the Thirteenth Confession are mostly familiar, new perspectives and directions make the album into the radical experience that it is. Reviewers commonly refer to the music as an amalgamation of Soul, Pop, Jazz, Broadway, and whatever else, but these styles are so expertly fused into something wonderfully new, that naming the possible components just isn’t worthwhile. “Sweet Blindness” may sound age-old, but there’s never been another drinking song remotely like it. “Poverty Train” goes to more places, and back again, than any of Bob Dylan and company’s “protest” songs. Sexual revolutions and all, a woman ending her album by screaming “love my lovething” had to have been something original. Throughout the record, Laura’s voice, piano, and guitars careen and writhe all over, tempos and chord structures being swept to and fro at her pleasing. But originality is only half of the story. The energy and sincerity of Laura’s songs is at once confounding and life-affirming. If we’d like to use the term, Laura Nyro had a hell of a lot of soul. Her voice alone creates much of the appeal of the record, at times sorrowful, grumbling, at times joyful and chirping, but at all times infinitely human.
This is a definition of a master in one space in time, and a model for the kind of innovations that can be borne of Popular music. Maybe in another thirty years Laura will have the audience she always deserved. —Matthew
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It is hard to believe that upon its release in 1971, Bark was poorly reviewed. In retrospect, its musical closeness to Jefferson Airplane’s earlier work, especially 1969’s Volunteers, is striking. “When the Earth Moves Again” is a collective, anthemic song in the same mould and of the same quality as “We Can Be Together,” and “Crazy Miranda” is clearly by the author of “rejoyce.” What makes Bark special is the move of Slick and the astonishingly under-valued Jorma Kaukonen to the foreground and the new casual, almost frayed approach to performing and recording. Also new is a shift away from the already-qualified counter-culture sentiments of Volunteers towards a more resigned, knowing worldview: “Third Week in the Chelsea” is painful in its directness, but gorgeous in its craftsmanship and execution; Slick’s “Law Man” projects a tired, slightly annoyed, spirit that Slick could tap into so well. New to the band was the funky and sensual punch of tunes like “Feel So Good” and “Pretty As You Feel,” which project a randy-to-sultry adult sexuality absent from their more whimsical “love” songs of the ’60s. Confirms that the early ’70s were the high water mark for the extended Airplane family. —Toolshed4
Based on the title, I was expecting some blistering, fast-paced jazz, probably dominated by squalling saxophone and so on. For those of you who have listened to Destination Out! already, you will know that I found this not to be the case. Perhaps I should have taken more heed of the exclaimation mark, because in many ways I can draw similarities between what Jackie does here and what Eric Dolphy was doing on Out To Lunch! Admittedly, this tends not to have the skronkier qualities of that album, but firstly, the replacement of piano with vibes is obvious, and then there’s the combination of weird, staggering music that’s somehow also really accessible and exuberantly fun to listen to. This is often cited as a pretty essential jazz album, especially in the context of post/hard bop, and honestly, I can really say it is. There are few albums which really nail experimentation and accessibility at the same time, but the sophisticated and restrained, often atmospheric playing on Destination Out! means that even with the odd rhythms and wonderfully wonky playing this is still a pleasure to listen to over and over again. A classic. —Timmay
Houses of the Holy finds Led Zeppelin happily accepting their status as king of the mountain rock gods, operating on a level far above and beyond the bluesy cock-rock of their contemporaries. A grander Zeppelin is on display from the get go, with Page’s swooping battalion of guitars and Plant’s sped up elfin vocals sending “The Song Remains the Same” on a whirlwind tour of the stars, while epic entries like the lush, mellotron orchestrated “The Rain Song” and eerie creeper “No Quarter” prowl similarly heady terrain. The acoustic ditty turned bruiser “Over the Hills and Far Away,” Bonham stomp of “The Ocean,” and summer nights hippie haze of “Dancing Days” provide more folds to the Zeppelin mystique, while tongue in cheek offerings like the reggae meets 50’s doo-wop of “D’yer Mak’er” and funky filler “The Crunge” find the band working well outside the box. Factor in the album’s beefy, yet crystalline production job, and their most bizarre album graphics yet, and Houses of the Holy solidifies Zeppelin’s lofty stature. —Ben
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I find it utterly astonishing that, even based purely on the strength of this album, Atomic Rooster are not hailed as Gods of 70s hard rock. Now, I really enjoyed their debut, a prog rock classic, but Death Walks Behind You is fucking phenomenal! Seriously, any fan of hard/psych rock needs to hear this one right now. Where the debut was mostly a prog album with heavy leanings, light on guitar, but employing King Crimson-esque melancholy in the songwriting & structure, this album just goes all out, with the late great John DuCann firing out blazing riffs & solos that rival many of his contemporaries in the likes of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and so on.
Opening with the dark, doom-laden title track, with it’s clever blend of rockin’ riff & crazy hammond organ, it should have you hooked. But it only gets better from there. Moving on to the crazy Jethro Tull style instrumental “VUG”, this should please anyone who thought AR had left their prog roots behind. “Tomorrow Night” should be farmiliar to some rock fans, and is a cheery, superbly infectious tune withc a catchy piano track. “7 Streets” is another melancholy hard prog track in the vein of the title track, with a superb dirty rock riff to lead in atop the creepy organ. My personal favourite is the seriously amazing “Sleeping For Years”, easily one of the most epic 70s rock anthems I’ve ever heard, with a brilliantly air-guitar riff, catchy vocals and a lurching psychedelic freakout in the middle, it should be hailed as a legendary track for all to here. “I Can’t Take No More” sounds almost like AR were jamming with The Stooges, very gritty, garage-esque street rock. “Nobody Else” is another piano driven tune, and is haunting and marvellous. Ending with the Crimsonian “Gershatzer” instrumental, which is a prog classic, meandering mechanically like the best math-rockers of the time.
All in all, this album should be preserved as a lost treasure, and deserves to be heard and worshipped at the altar of rock for all of time. Go out there and get listening!! —MetroidVania
Here’s a band operating on their own plateau, located in the center of a triangle formed by King Crimson, Pink Floyd, and the sacrificial altar of Crom, Pawn Hearts is not so much three distinct tracks as one elongated inner monologue of madness courtesy of Peter Hammill and company. While there’s those who would portray dementia through scatterbrained ramblings, Pawn Hearts is all the more harrowing and impressive in it’s focus and lucidity, it’s makeup of dense keyboards and saxophone sounding both ancient and timeless, with Hammill’s overwrought expression giving the proceedings an air of theatricality without resorting to parody. If at times the journey through these catacombs winds up at a dead end, particularly during moments of the side-long “A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers,” there are too many glorious moments here to ignore, and the lack of reliance on stock progisims set this one apart. —Ben
“Relics” is a collection of very early Pink Floyd singles and rare tracks, covering the band’s first couple of years from 1967 to 1969. Consider it “Pink Floyd: The Early Years,” if you like. Five tracks come from the group’s first three albums: the classic, trippy instrumental “Interstellar Overdrive” and the half children’s song/half freak-out number, “Bike” (both from “Piper At The Gates Of Dawn”), the breezy “Remember A Day” (from “A Saucerful Of Secrets”), and a pair of tunes from the “More” movie soundtrack: the eerie “Cirrus Minor,” and the thunderous rocker, “The Nile Song.”
All superb stuff, but the main selling point of “Relics” are the six rare Floyd tracks that make up the remainder, such as the classic early singles “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play,” both great little blasts of late-60’s psychedelic pop, the jaunty “Paintbox,” and the lovely, mysterious atmosphere of “Julia Dream.” Also included is the original studio version of “Careful With That Axe, Eugene,” an outstanding Floyd instrumental that’s probably more famous in it’s live version from the “Ummagumma” album. Although the live version of “Eugene” IS more monstrous and powerful, as the Floyd were able to slowly build it up and expand on it in concert, the slightly-faster studio version is nothing to sneeze at either, and the band give it a studio performance that’s very impressive, skillful, and passionate. And finally, there is what is quite possibly the happiest, most upbeat song in the entire Pink Floyd catalog, “Biding My Time.” Although the song starts out softly, before long the band turn it into a full-throttle jazz-rock rave-up, complete with horn section! Sounds to me like the Floyd had a grand ol’ time in the studio when they recorded this number, and it shows. Love it!
Pink Floyd’s “Relics” may indeed be, as the album cover says, “a bizarre collection of antiques & curios,” but oh, is it good. Floyd fans everywhere should definitely add this album to their collection. —Alan
