Overend Watts Of Mott The Hoople Bass Player | Passes Away At 69 1947-2017
Overend Watts, bass player for Mott The Hoople, has died at the age of 69.
Peter Overend Watts was a founding member of Mott The Hoople when the band was originally known as The Buddies. In what sounds like a Monty Python sketch they then became the Doc Thomas Group, then The Shakedown Sound, then Silence before settling on Mott The Hoople when singer Ian Hunter joined the band in 1969.
Mott The Hoople were best known for the song ‘All The Young Dudes’, written for them by David Bowie. Bowie would later include the song in his own set.
Between 1969 and 1976 Mott The Hoople released nine albums. The last two were released under the name Mott.In 2009 Watts reformed Mott The Hoople for a 40th anniversary show. They performed five shows. The last Mott The Hoople reunion occurred in 2013 with Martin Chambers of The Pretenders on drums.
Overend Watts released his book ‘The Man Who Hated Walking’ in 2013.
Mott The Hoople would have a strong influence on Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot and Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson. Joe Elliot and Bruce Dickinson would do their own respective covers of Mott The Hoople’s classic All The Young Dudes.
(Joe Elliot’s Down ‘N’ Outz ft. Ian Hunter – All The Young Dudes)
(Bruce Dickinson – All The Young Dudes)
Mott The Hoople singer Ian Hunter announced the passing of Watts. “My extremely eccentric, lovely mate – Peter Overend Watts – has left the building,” he said.
Ever since Cradle Of Filth introduced me to Lindsay Schoolcraft, she has become a very interesting musical enigma to me. For being involved in such a Extreme Symphonic Black Metal outfit, Lindsay’s musical interests are very vast. Her classical music influences contain some of the very legends responsible for modern contemporary music, and classical musical influences that are still very relevant in the 21st century.
In a world culture that places such high and yet superficial regard on appearances, women like Lindsay are challenging the conventional wisdom. Women in Rock & Metal have been measured with a two edged blade on body parts and actual musical talents. In the first installment of this Women In Rock Series, we will talk and focus more about talent and training. We will also see how a young aspiring Canadian musician made her way into one of Heavy Metal’s most legendary bands in Cradle Of Filth.
Thank you Lindsay for joining us. It is great having you.
“Thank you so much for having me!”
What was the very thing that started your musical journey and how long have you been on this journey?
“Music was in my life from a very young age, but I didn’t decide to take it seriously until my mid teens. As cliche as it may sound, I got my biggest inspiration from the movie Josie and The Pussycats when I was 15. It sparked the fire in me and I’ve been hungry about my passion for writing and performing music ever since. Of course many other artists have inspired me along the way to keep going.”
You come from a classical background, who in the world of classical music influenced and inspired you?
“I would have to say Bach, Wagner, and Carl Orff have been the biggest contributors to my love of classical music. My training has been through the Royal Conservatory of Music and they have exposed me to so many composers. I’ve even done studies in jazz and folk through them.”
What metal band , artist or genre allowed you to fork off into metal?
“My first exposure to metal was with Kittie when I was in high school. I had mainly taken a lot of influence from post 90’s nu metal during that time. In my early twenties I was introduced to Kamelot and Nightwish, but I didn’t get extremely passionate about metal until I was shown Dimmu Borgir. They were everything I loved about classical and black metal forged together. I’m still anxiously waiting for their new album.”
Were you inspired by more than just musicians as artists ie, painers, acting, book authors ?
“Absolutely. I’ve always gravitated towards visual arts. There was always a style I had in mind for my drawings and paintings and in high school and then I found out it was very close to the style of art nouveau. I adore Alphonse Mucha and his legacy. There also movies that have inspired me over the years. Mainly the horror rock opera “Repo! the Genetic Opera”. So you can imagine I was over the moon when the creator and main actor Terrance Zdunich contacted me earlier this year and asked me to be part of his new art project: American Murder Song.”
Probably a question most asked, how did you find your way into Cradle Of Filth?
“To this day I still have to pinch myself and ask if it ever even happened, because it’s changed my life forever. I was connected to them by a friend over good old Facebook back at the end of 2012.”
For the musicians out there, describe your musical gear you use in both studio and live in concert.
“In the studio I use my Yamaha portable grand piano with midi through Protools. For vocal and harp tracking we use . You’d have to actually talk to my producer Tyler Williams at Monolothic Productions. He is a real gear head and I am still just learning, slowly. Live I use my Shure in-ears along with my Sennheiser wireless pack. I play a NuMotion Revo 1 keyboard. There is more gear to list, but I don’t want to overly bore the readers with it.”
Is there any current band or artist whom you would like to guest on their project and why?
“There are too many. My top ones would have to be possibly getting a guest vocal spot on a song with Dimmu Borgir, Chevelle, or Kamelot. But I’d also love to collaborate with The Weeknd! I know that sounds crazy, but I enjoy copious amounts of trip hop and, for some reason, The Weeknd’s work really resonates with me. Passion speaks through music no matter what the genre, you can hear it in his voice and songs. And I’ve always wanted to sing a duet with Jon Crosby of VAST and Adam Roth of Broken Iris.”
What are your goals going forward both with Cradle of Filth and solo?
“For Cradle there is less stress on me when it has come to writing our new album together. It is a group effort and we all split up the tasks fairly. I am mainly back to working on strengthening my voice so it can be strong for this next album and live. The live show with Cradle will be my biggest focus this year. As for my solo project there is more pressure and responsibility since it is currently only a two person venture. I am just half way through demoing the new album and working on collaborating with a big name that I think a lot of people are going to be very excited about, once announced. No word of live shows yet, I’d rather just get the album sorted first for going into production this year.”
Thank you for joining us, is there anything else you would like to share with the readers?
“Thank you for having me! Be sure to check out my social media for lots of big announcements and new music coming this year!”
The year is 1967, the first successful heart transplant happens in South Africa, the first ever bank ATM machine comes on to the landscape, the Monterey Pop Music & Arts Festival takes place in Monterey California, the first ever Super Bowl played between the Green Bay Packers vs Kansas City Chiefs plays and the Six Day War In Israel occurs. Meanwhile the USA is involved in the nations first ever televised war in Vietnam.
The war in Vietnam would ultimately lead to the infamous ‘Flower Power’ peace movement birthed in San Francisco California, the United Kingdom would begin to export some that would later be known as Progressive Rock and the United States was still being over run with music of peace from home and longer form progressive music from both the United Kingdom and Germany with ‘Krautrock’. However in the world of music and pop culture that all was about to change.
It was 1965 and two film students from UCLA Jim Morrison and Ray Manzerek would be on a collision course with melodic destiny. On the streets and in the underground of 1965 Los Angeles, Jim Morrison would develop a cult like following as a poet. Though he’d never intended to be a singer, Morrison was invited to join Manzarek’s group Rick and the Ravens on the strength of his poetry. Robby Krieger andJohn Densmore, who’d played together in the band Psychedelic Rangers, were recruited soon thereafter; though several bassists auditioned of the new collective, none could furnish the bottom end as effectively as Manzarek’s left hand. Taking their name from Aldous Huxley’s psychotropic monograph The Doors of Perception, the band signed to Elektra Records following a now-legendary gig at the Whisky-a-Go-Go on the Sunset Strip. Later The Doors of Perception would be shorten to just The Doors.
In 1967 The Doors would release their self titled debut on a Elektra Records and it is that very self titled debut that is the subject of this very ‘retrospective piece’. It is always good to do these retrospectives because it allows for those who were there to reflect in a pool of nostalgia, a possible introduction to the band and album of the generations that would come after and finally to pass the stories down along the lines of posterity. In this particular retrospective I will share some fun song facts I researched for this and to introduce a newer generation to the very fabric of origins of the music we love . This album in a very backhanded way was my gateway into progressive rock and I will explain that later on in this piece.
As far as the dark content and imagery The Doors painted on their debut, it was a total rebellion to the ‘Flower Power’ movement of the day. The Doors were not feeling all the peace and love many of their contemporaries were. The Doors lyrically and instrumentally walked down the darker and less travel road. Their collective mindset deliberately took the road less traveled back in that day and time. The fact they were taking the much darker approach in the music also certainly allowed for the band to not only be as distinctive as night and day among their peers but would garner the attention of watchdog groups set up by both governments and some religious organizations of the day.
A lot of the lyrical content of the album was influenced by the very childhood of Jim Morrison. Constantly challenging censorship and conventional wisdom, Jim Morrison’s lyrics delved into primal issues of sex, violence, freedom and the spirit. He outraged authority figures, braved intimidation and arrest, and followed the road of excess (as one of his muses, the poet William Blake, famously put it) toward the palace of wisdom. Ray Manzarek was the architect of The Doors’ intoxicating keyboard sound. Manzarek’s evocative playing fused rock, jazz, blues, bossa nova and an array of other styles into something utterly, dazzlingly new.
Drummer John Densmore was far more than merely the rhythmic engine of The Doors. Strongly influenced by jazz skinsmen like Elvin Jones and the supple grooves of the Brazilian wave, he brought a highly evolved sense of dynamics, structure and musicality to his beats. Inexorably drawn to music from childhood, Los Angeles-born Densmore honed his sense of dynamics playing with his high school marching band. In the mid-’60s he joined guitarist Robby Krieger in a band called Psychedelic Rangers; shortly thereafter they hooked up with keyboardist Ray Manzarek and Morrison, and an explosive chapter in the development of rock ‘n’ roll began. A raft of paradigm-shifting recordings and epochal live performances would follow. With a flair for wicked bottleneck slide, exploratory solos and gutbucket grooves, guitarist Robby Krieger brought a stinging, sinuous intensity to the sound of The Doors. But he was also a key songwriter in the band and penned some of their biggest hits – notably their mesmerizing #1 hit, “Light My Fire.” Before picking up the guitar at age 17, the L.A. native studied trumpet and piano. The inspiration for switching to guitar came not from rock ‘n’ roll, but Spanish flamenco music. His first guitar hero, however, was jazz legend Wes Montgomery. After Morrison’s death in 1971, Krieger, Manzarek and Densmore carried on as a trio. They released two more albums as the Doors before calling it quits in 1973, though they did reconvene a few years later to create music for poetry Morrison had recorded shortly before his death, released as the 1978 album An American Prayer.
Now some highlights and song facts track by track on the self titled 1967 debut of The Doors, The Doors.
Break On Through (To The Other Side) takes off with some seriously blues laden rock riffs laid down by Robby Kreiger who sets the table for the listener. In this urgent song, Jim Morrison looks to shake things up, a common theme in his songwriting. In 1966, he said: “I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing of established order. I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that seems to have no meaning.” This was the first song on The Doors first album, and also their first single. It got some airplay on Los Angeles radio stations after their friends and fans kept requesting it.
The original line in the chorus was “She gets high,” but their producer Paul Rothchild thought that would limit the song’s airplay potential, and convinced the group to leave it out. Instead, “high” was edited out, making it sound like, “she get uuggh,” but the “high” line can be heard in live versions. You can also hear the song as intended in the 1999 reissue of the album, which was overseen by their original engineer Bruce Botnick. He also replaced Jim Morrison’s “f–k”s on “The End.” These edits went over about as well as the digital revisions to Star Wars.
Soul Kitchen perhaps a highly under rated and hidden anthem for The Doors is a tribute to a soul food restaurant Jim Morrison ate at on Venice Beach called Olivia’s. Morrison often stayed too late at Olivia’s, where he liked the food because it reminded him of home and warmed his “soul.” They often kicked him out so they can close, thus lines like: “let me sleep all night, in your soul kitchen.” “Soul Kitchen” as a restaurant title, would have of course referred to “soul food.” That’s a traditional kind of cuisine popular with African Americans of the mid-20th century, named in harmony with other “soul” affectations. Soul food usually revolved around ham (cuts like hog’s feet and hog jowls), beans, okra, hushpuppies, cornbread, collard greens, and other one-offs of standard American fair. The idea is to that the food is both economical and very filling. People in colder climates (from any culture) may also find soul food comforting in the heart of winter, since you’re going to burn all those calories shoveling snow anyway.
According to the Greil Marcus book The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years, “Soul Kitchen” was The Doors’ own “Gloria,” comparing the steady climb toward a looming chorus. It also quotes Paul Williams’ May 1967 article in Crawdaddy! opining that it was more comparable to “Blowin’ in the Wind,” in that both songs have a message, but the message of “Soul Kitchen” is of course “learn to forget.”
Meanwhile, John Densmore’s book Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrisonand the Doors declares that the title restaurant Olivia’s was a “small soul food restaurant at the corner of Ocean Park and Main.” The author describes a meal there with Morrison, commenting that the restaurant “belonged in Biloxi, Mississippi” and resembled “an Amtrak dining car that got stranded on the beach” and was packed with UCLA film students. Another famous diner was Linda Ronstadt.
The Crystal Ship is clearly a ethereal based track revolving around suggestive imagery and content on a lyrical basis. This song came from poetry written in Jim Morrison’s notebooks. He wrote it after splitting up with his girlfriend, Mary Werbelow, in the summer of 1965. While the “Crystal Ship” is sometimes thought to represent drugs, Ken Rafferty from The Annotated Lyrics makes this case:
This song has nothing to do with drugs and everything about Jim Morrison’s heavy relationship with his first love, Mary Werbelow. As a poet, he did nothing more than use transparent images for his relation to the past. He (Jim Morrison) hasn’t let go of her as evidenced in the first line, “Before you slip into unconsciousness, I’d like to have another kiss.”That means the protagonist had already left her in the physical realm, but has not left her subconsciously. The thought of her still burdens him and he just wants another kiss to somehow make it feel better. “Another flashing chance at bliss, another kiss.” Again, he cannot seem to let go of their love, their relationship, and how much she meant to him. “The days are bright and filled with pain.”He’s moved on and is now doing very well as a singer/songwriter in a rock band in L.A., but he still has feelings for her and this song is his testament to her that he still has feelings for her. “The time you ran was too insane.”Jim was one to mock even his girlfriends- he would tease others, but mostly, he was testing them. This line very well could be a reference to a time he felt bad about verbally teasing her- knowing that it upset her. “The streets are fields that never die, deliver me from reasons why, you’d rather cry, I’d rather fly.”A simple line that confirms the end of the relationship and that the protagonist is willing to move on. The streets are fields are his memories, and because they are vague memories now, they also present a reason why he can forget.
And that last stanza confirms his growing popularity as a lead singer for a rock band with an ever-growing popularity. The beauty of it though is how he is saying to her that no matter how big he becomes, he will still think of her, and even call her, when he gets the chance.
Twentieth Century Fox is perhaps the most humourous tongue cheek song on the entire album. It is definitely something much lighter on the audio pallet in the midst of an album dealing with so much dark yet brooding material. This song is about a fashionable, but unfeeling woman. The title is a play on words – it’s the name of a popular movie studio, but Jim Morrison’s lyrics refer to a girl – “fox” was a popular term for a pretty girl at the time. The movie studio is used to represent the woman in the song, who is glamorous, but artificial.
The studio, 20th Century Fox, is one of the Big Six studios. Fox Film Corporation was founded in 1915, while Twentieth Century Pictures was founded in 1933. They merged in 1935 and became “The Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation.”
Producer Paul Rothchild had the band walk on wooden planks during the chorus to get the pounding effect.
In 2002, original Doors Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek joined former Police drummer Stewart Copeland and former Cult singer Ian Astbury to form a new group which they called “21st Century Doors,” the name being a takeoff on this song. They were going to start touring in 2002, but had to postpone until 2003 when Copeland broke his arm while biking. Krieger and Manzarek replaced him with drummer Ty Dennis, and Copeland filed a lawsuit claiming they broke an oral agreement to keep him as their drummer. The band was also sued by original drummer John Densmore, and by Jim Morrison’s parents, who felt they were misappropriating the Doors name. Krieger and Manzarek eventually changed the name to “Riders On The Storm.”
Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) is another song off the album with more of a pop sensibility. This is a cover of a German opera song written in 1929 by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. It was used in a controversial 1930 German operetta called The Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahogany.
The themes of materialism, despair, and illicit pleasures from the operetta this was taken from would be revisited often by The Doors. The song took on a more literal meaning over the years as Jim Morrison’s drug and alcohol problems became public knowledge. The Doors got the idea for this from an album of German songs their keyboard player, Ray Manzarek, had. In 2000, the surviving members of the Doors taped a VH1 Storytellers episode with guest vocalists filling in for Morrison. Ian Astbury sang on this track, and in 2002 joined Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger when they toured as The Doors of the 21st Century. He fronted their group, which changed names after a lawsuit filed by original drummer John Densmore, until 2007, doing about 150 shows.
Light My Fire next to ‘The End’ is probably the most controversial and dubious song on the album. It would chart on Billboard in America at #1and the United Kingdom at #7. It would also be one of the contemporary rock songs of its time to the present day to have airplay of its original format at 7:14.
Most of the song was written by Doors guitarist Robby Krieger, who wanted to write about one of the elements: fire, air, earth, and water. A fan of the Rolling Stones song “Play With Fire,” he decided to go hot. Krieger came up with the melody and wrote most of the lyrics, which are about leaving inhibitions behind in flames of passion.
At first, the song had a folk flavor, but it ignited when Jim Morrison wrote the second verse (“our love become a funeral pyre…”)and Ray Manzarek came up with the famous organ intro. Drummer John Densmore also contributed, coming up with the rhythm. Like all Doors songs of this era, the band shared composer credits.
This became The Doors’ signature song. Included on their first album, it was a huge hit and launched them to stardom. Before it was released, The Doors were an underground band popular in the Los Angeles area, but “Light My Fire” got the attention of a mass audience.
On the album, which was released in January 1967, the song runs 6:50. The group’s first single, “Break On Through (To The Other Side),” reached just #126 in America. “Light My Fire” was deemed too long for airplay, but radio stations (especially in Los Angeles) got requests for the song from listeners who heard it off the album. Their label, Elektra Records decided to release a shorter version so they had producer Paul Rothchild do an edit. By chopping out the guitar solos, he whittled it down to 2:52.
This version was released as a single in April, and the song took off, giving The Doors their first big hit.
To many fans, the single edit was an abomination, and many DJs played the album version once the song took off. The producers of The Ed Sullivan Show asked the band to change the line “Girl we couldn’t get much higher” for their appearance in 1967. Morrison said he would, but sung it anyway. Afterwards, he told Sullivan that he was nervous and simply forgot to change the line. This didn’t fly, and The Doors were never invited back.
Back Door Man spoke of a issue becoming a epidemic of the day, that being infidelity or adultery. It was easy to see why considering all the ‘Free Love’ propaganda going about in the culture. A Willie Dixon blues song from 1961, this has been covered by John Hammond Jr. and Howlin’ Wolf, among others. The Doors decided to cover this after their guitarist Robby Krieger heard John Hammond Jr.’s version.
A “Back Door Man” is a guy who has relations with a woman while her husband has been out slaving away to provide for her. The usual guilty perpetrator if a wife was caught cheating was a regular tradesman caller (Ice Man, Insurance Salesman etc.). He would then run out the back door as the husband entered the front door. The “Back Door Man”theme has been taken up in several Soul and Blues songs, including “Back Door Santa” by Clarence Carter.
At a show at Winterland in San Francisco, The Doors stopped in the middle of this when their taped performance came on The Jonathan Winters Show. They watched the segment from a TV on stage, picked up their instruments, and finished the song. The Doors played a lot of Blues songs in their early days when they were playing clubs, but this is the only one they recorded until 2 years later, when they did “Crawling King Snake” on LA Woman. The Doors performed this at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. The Doors didn’t play well, as Morrison was worried about his trial resulting from a Miami concert where he was accused of exposing himself to the crowd. Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure, but died while the case was under appeal. In 2010, the governor of Florida granted Morrison a posthumous pardon after a fan requested a review of the case.
I Looked At You was a very pop kind of track at the time. It was a song that could certainly hang with anything The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Mama’ And Papa’s and even The Monkees had put out at that point. But even in what at first sounds like a sunny pop tune, Jim Morrison managed to weave some disturbing thoughts. While the song catalogs an exchange of lover’s looks, smiles and words like any other love song might do, the driving message here is that the lovers can’t turn back, and “it’s too late”. Maybe it’s simply too late for the lovers not to be deeply in love, but the edginess and weariness in Morrison’s vocals suggest a more sinister subtext. Not exactly “Happy Together”.
End Of The Night is a deeply and heavily psychedelic folk rock track. It also is as deeply disturbing on a lyrical front as the emotion conveys through the instrumental portion of the track. This is definitely a song that takes on another life once the lyrics marry with the instrumental. This is a “confession” of Jim Morrison’s aims in life. To the end of the night was his aim through many ways of speeding up death, a kind of death through hallucinations and visions into other worlds (drugs). He was trying to get somewhere nobody had ever been before, a place of complete peace.
The title and some of the lyrics were inspired by the 1932 French novel Journey To The End Of The Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine.
The lyrics:
Realms of bliss, realms of light Some are born to sweet delight Some are born to sweet delight Some are born to the endless night
Are taken almost verbatim from the poem Auguries Of Innocence by William Blake, which includes the passage:
Every morn and every night Some are born to sweet delight Some are born to sweet delight Some are born to endless night
Take It As It Comes Just as George Harrison of The Beatles had developed a friendship with his spiritual leader Ravi Shankar, so had Jim Morrison with The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1917-2008. “Maharishi”. This song is about accepting what life gives you at your own pace. It was dedicated to the Maharishi, a teacher of transcendental meditation, after Jim Morrison attended one of his lectures. The full name of this particular Maharishi is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1917-2008. “Maharishi” itself is just a title meaning “enlightened, spiritual one.” Yogi had a good sense of humor and as he often laughed in TV interviews, he was nicknamed “the giggling guru.” While his teachings, the practice of transcendental meditation, were usually associated with Hindu or Buddhist religions, Yogi was out to advocate meditation itself as a spiritual practice and alternative medicine, based on his interpretation of the ancient Vedic science.
The Maharishi is famous for leading a meditation camp in 1967 attended by The Beatles, Donovan, and Mia Farrow. John Lennon wrote “Sexy Sadie” about The Maharishi.
The End – Journey To The Center Of The Progressive Universe #1-
It was the summer of 1979 and my parents had been in the middle of a nasty divorce. I would eventually end up leaving Ohio and go to California with my dad and new step mother. My dad had just changed out the old 8 track player for a new state of the art cassette player. On our way to California he put in the first cassette at it was the very album I have been talking about in this retrospective, The Doors The Doors.
I remember how utterly scary this was to a 7 year old child at the time. The utter darkness to it. The 11:00 + minutes left me in bewilderment. It really scared the hell out of me but left me in total awe and intrigue. Never before had I ever heard a song that long up till that time. This would give me such a total void into long form music that demanded to be filled. It was in fact off this track that I learned of Yes’s Close To The Edge, Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick, Genesis’ Suppers Ready and even RUSH’s 2112. Much like Dorothy in the Land Of OZ this started my journey into progressive rock/metal. I went through the wormhole and down that yellow brick road and have never returned since.
The End (Revisited) “The End” is death, although the song also deals with Jim Morrison’s parents – it contains Oedipal themes of loving the mother and killing the father. Morrison was always vague as to the meaning, explaining: “It could be almost anything you want it to be.” The Doors developed this song during live performances at the Whisky a Go Go, a Los Angeles club where they were the house band in 1966. They had to play two sets a night, so they were forced to extend their songs in order to fill the sets. This gave them a chance to experiment with their songs.
“The End” began as Jim Morrison’s farewell to Mary Werbelow, his girlfriend who followed him from Florida to Los Angeles. It developed into an 11-minute epic.
On August 21, 1966, Jim Morrison didn’t show up for The Doors gig at the Whisky a Go Go. After playing the first set without him, the band retrieved Morrison from his apartment, where he had been tripping on acid. They always played “The End” as the last song, but Morrison decided to play it early in the set, and the band went along. When they got to the part where he could do a spoken improvisation, he started talking about a killer, and said, “Father, I want to kill you. Mother, I want to f–k you!” The crowd went nuts, but the band was fired right after the show. The Doors had recently signed a record deal and they had established a large following, so getting fired from the Whisky was not a crushing blow.
Morrison sang this live as “F–k the mother,” rather than “Screw the mother.” At the time, the band couldn’t cross what their engineer Bruce Botnick called “the f–k barrier,” so they sanitized the lyric on the album. When Botnick remixed the album for a 1999 reissue, however, he put Morrison’s “f–k”s back in, which is how the song was intended.
This was famously used in the movie Apocalypse Now over scenes from the Vietnam War. Director Francis Ford Coppola had it remixed to include the line “F–k the mother.”
Make no mistake The Doors The Doors goes down as one of the strongest debut albums in rock history. It is one of the original fusion albums perfectly mixing rock, blues, psychedelic, jazz and even folk elements. This is also one of the most experimental debut rock albums in history yielding the 7+ minute Light My Fire and the 11+ minute The End, something unheard of for a American band at the time. This self titled debut instantly cemented the band’s legacy as one we still talk about 50 years later. The Doors The Doors is one of those rock albums and debuts that continually transcends time and generations.
Avante garde : an intelligentsia that develops new or experimental concepts especially in the arts.
– Merriam Webster Dictionary – 2016
I have always looked at avant garde arts, sciences and music as deliberate conceptual ideas that are presented to the desired audience as concepts of purpose. Various elements and portions of avant garde are placed there within the arts, science and music they are intended for. The respective artists within the avant garde community have always applied there ideas to either obtain a desired effect or to innovate a change in the conventional wisdom of what is or is not acceptable.
All the above mentioned narrative applies to Italy’s MindAhead. It has certainly been quite a while since I heard a band so organic with its elements. According to the Official MindAhead Facebook page they explain themselves this way,
“The idea is to merge different aspects, sometimes opposite ones, of the human feeling, gathering them in a variegated personal music proposal, that plunge its roots in musical influences that go from seventies progressive rock to the death metal.”
This is the total truth and nothing but. I would like to think they are a cross between Opeth meets Epica meets Between The Buried And Me meets Delain. The ‘Beauty/Beast Metal’ element of clean sweet ethereal female vocals married to the more abrasive male death metal grunts is probably the most contemporary element to this album. The rest is a organic innovation. The true innovative element is the classical chamber like musical elements laced throughout the album from the first track Reflection to the last track Memories.
The more I have listened to it the better the journey. It is definitely for an acquired audio pallet. This is also not one of those over the top productions that seems compressed nor forced. As I mentioned above every chord progression and passage is there deliberately and has a purpose compared to certain passages and chord progressions other bands use just as a filler which there is many. In MindAhead’s Reflections we also have very vintage progressive elements that hearkened towards the 1970’s with some Pink Floyd to Yes style time signatures.
Now I will proceed to go into depth on MindAhead’s Reflections. This will be a track by track analysis
Reflection is a instrumental track to open the album. It is as if the music is playing in a chamber or open concert hall. It contains elements from both chamber music and early to middle 1970’s Pink Floyd in its atmospheric nature.
Remain Intact picks up with where Reflection left off. Marching to the backbone of double blast beats in the rhythm section and strong male grunts married with a sweet clean female vocal it is more progressive than symphonic. That is something rarely found with the Beauty & Beast elements of metal. Think later more progressive After Forever with more metalcore vocal elements in the grunts. There is a very intricate outro loaded with various time signature progressions.
Mind Control starts off with some dark ambient like atmosphere with a dark piano passage. Soon this track explodes with heavy rhythmic based double blast beats and the female male vocal dynamic. This is a track where the male vocal is not always rest in the grunt or growl narrative but also takes on a cleaner vocal as well. The track drops off at the end and sets up for a seamless transition to On The Dead Snow.
Video Courtesy of ( Revalve Records Official YouTube Channel )
On The Dead Snow fades in with a smooth seamless transition from where Mind Control leaves off. It soon explodes in a full sonic blast. It is a all out audio assault throughout this track. The rhythm section is like a full military assault of blast beats and tuned down bass. The guitar is not always a rhythmic instrument but also a lead stringed instrument. The middle of the track takes on layers and layers of melody and vocal harmony. This is a rare time where the male grunts are very understandable. The middle also serves as a breed ground of various progressive time signatures and off guitar solos. Towards the end the track has some elements of a ballad before the track picks up once again.
Video Courtesy of ( Revalve Records Official YouTube Channel )
Amigdala is the true epic on the album. It opens up with a very Pink Floyd atmospheric passage of great expanse and minimal elements. The bass and drum rhythmic sections kicks in to carry the atmosphere into towards the vocal narrative. This is a true 1970’s inspired progressive track that it continues to build layer upon layer of atmospheres. The vocal work of Kyo Calati has a soulful quality about it. The male grunts are more of a instrumental compliment for the cleaner more ethereal female vocal. The grunts span from death metal, to light grindcore and even have elements of black metal screams. There is such a heavy atmospheric aesthetic that the band allows for the track to breathe and not to lean some much on compression. The guitar solo’s are almost like that of David Gilmore meets Steve Howe of Yes. This track shows the mature depths that MindAhead have as a young band.
Emerald Green Eyes picks up where Amigdala left off with a heavy atmospheric opener before the track takes on a full assault once again with heavy blast beats and male death growls that serve the two fold purpose of a instrument and a harmonic vocal along with the female vocal. This track also takes on light industrial elements with the guitar and bass. At the 3:15 mark the track takes on a very prog rock vibe in the solo.
The Mask Through The Looking Glass (Part 1) starts out with almost a 16th century acoustical element. Soon it is layer with violins and keyboards to form a beautiful instrumental track. The Mask Through The Looking Glass (Part 1) serves as the perfect instrumental intro for The Mask Through The Looking Glass (Part 2).
The Mask Through The Looking Glass (Part 2) opens up with a surprising yet, blistering intro due to how The Mask Through The Looking Glass (Part 1) left off. This track also reminds me a lot of the NWOBHM or New Wave Of British Heavy Metal with the galloping guitar and bass rhythms. The female vocal really lights this one up very well. The entire rhythm section is some of the best I have heard in 10 years on this track. For a track that is only 6:31 this is full of time signatures and insane guitar solos.
Farewell opens up with a very clean and beautiful acoustic guitar intro. It continues to build layers upon layers in the stringed section with the percussive elements of drum and bass subtly coming into the track. The band allows much breathing room for the listener to become immersed in this track. If there had to be a ballad on the album, Farewell would fall into that category. Although it has a heavy ballad element about it, Farewell still maintains the progressive objective and integrity the band has displayed throughout the album.
Three Sides Of A Dangerous Mind opens up with a beautiful acoustic track before taking on a heavy charging assault with brutal double blast beats, the bass serving a two fold purpose of both a stringed and percussive element towards the rhythm section. This track is bound together with a beautiful atmosphere from start to finish. The atmospheric element helps the guitar solos, rhythm section and vocals stand out in a way that every member of the band can be fully heard and understood. This track also bring the album together as a great avant garde metal concept.
Memories is the third instrumental track on the album that closes the album just as cohesive as the opening track Reflection did. It helps the listeners audio senses digest the entire album they just heard as well.
MindAhead are a band of innovation in metal. They are on the vanguard of where avant garde and progressive metal is going into the future. I believe Reflections is opening up another door of true ideas and standards for this kind of experimental metal. They continue Italy’s rich under rated progressive rock and metal tradition. They have a very distinctive and unique sound that will stand out among the current metal landscape. MindAhead’s Reflections is one of the absolute strongest debut albums over the last 25 years. I am giving MindAhead’s Reflections a perfect 5/5.
Label : AMF Records/Germany Release Year: 2016 Country: Germany Genre: Progressive Melodic Death Metal
Band Members
Alexander Otto – Vocals & Lyrics Erik Gaßmus – Lead & Rhythm Guitar Robin Dirks – Lead & Rhythm Guitar Konstantin Voßhoff – Bass Tristan Wegner – Drums Leo Wichmann – Keyboards & Ambient
My first gateway into Melodic Death Metal came in 1995 at the expense of a damn good band called Dark Tranquility. They had been at the head of a new pioneering metal movement out of Sweden called Swedish Extreme Thrash Metal or Swedish Melodic Death Metal depending on who in this industry you ask. Anyway I remember the reoccurring power metal almost doom metal aesthetic it had going through it on the instrumental portion of the music. That would be met with a wall of almost blackened death folk metal vocal that ran side by side with the expert musicianship in the instrumental narrative.
Bands from Sweden such as Dark Tranqulity, Amon Amarth, At The Gates, Children Of Bodom, In Flames, etc… were all part of that Gothenburg Sweden sound that was taking the world in the first half of the decade of the 1990’s . Meanwhile you had the old guard of Grindcore metal in the United Kingdom in the form of Carcass, and later Norwegian Black Metal pioneers Enslaved starting to get more and more progressive in later years on later releases. It just seemed that once the Florida Death Metal scene with bands such as DEATH, Obituary, Morbid Angel, etc … gave birth to the genre as a whole many other parts of the world were placing their flavour and unique individual sounds on it thus making more melodic journeys with the sub genre.
The same can be said for Germany. Many of us who have been listened to progressive rock and progressive heavy metal along with death metal know that once it gets to Germany that it takes on a whole other sound and dichotomy that makes it uniquely German. Bands like the Scorpions, Accept, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Blind Guardian, etc … all have had one of the strongholds on metal particularly in power metal. Now marry the progressive, power and melodic death metal all into a well even balance with a German sound and it gives you a band like Words Of Farewell.
Taking every element from the Swedish Melodic Death Metal, the American Death Metal, the Power Metal of Germany with a taste American Progressive Metal of Dream Theater, Symphony X , Fates Warning, etc.. sound that is Words Of Farewell. In just about 10 years time Words Of Farewell have been able to take many forms of metal and blend them to a sound so distinct and unique you can tell it is Words Of Farewell and not another band out there. The music itself may be an acquired audio pallet however with the proper objectivity a traditional metal listener could absorb the beautiful audio assault provided by Words of Farewell.
Their most recent release from AFM Records titled A Quiet World, is a true tour de force and adventure into more and more melodic layers of melodic death metal. This is also one of the more progressive albums I have heard out of this particular genre or lot of music. With A Quiet World, Words Of Farewell also go into the realms of symphonic metal as well. In doing my research to prepare for this review I wen out and got a lot of the band’s earlier albums to listen in contrast to the current album A Quiet World. Where some bands may change their sound and call it ‘evolving’ Words of Farewell have truly evolved in their unique sound without losing any of the quality of the sound from album to album. The band has maintained and even improved on their sound to produce the best possible product possible to their fan base and future fan bases to come.
Let us look at some highlights off the individual tracks of Words Of Farewell A Quiet World.
My Share Of Loneliness explodes right away with a progressive frenzy of various time signatures and chord progressions that seem more rooted in progressive metal. The chord progression also resemble a light industrial passage that has been very popular in Germany for the last 30+ years. The vocal tracking takes a spoken word element about to enhance the narrative of the lyrical content. The vocals are also tracked with such fullness and brilliance that it gives the illusion of many vocalists involved in reality there is only one.
Gaia Demise begins with a balanced keyboard and heavily drum induced rhythmic section. Soon the vocals begin to play off the drum backbone and follow the rhythmic progressions. The vocal also carries the the track in its initial minute and is as much a instrument as it is a vocal telling a story. There is a wicked hesitation in the rhythm guitar narrative.
Gallows Frame begins with a very eerie atmospheric passage before changing gears into a heavily rhythm based chord progression. The vocals once again play a wonderful part in serving both as a narrative vocal and instrumental. The keyboard is also tuned to play a piano style synth giving the stringed section as much atmosphere as the guitar plays to the drum/bass rhythmic section. This track has a very brooding rhythmic section that generates a further heaviness to the song.
Limit Cycle starts out as a semi film soundtrack style in the guitar passage. Soon the drums come in with subtle beats. There is a steady progression towards a heavier chord progressive passage. The keyboards once again serve a a technical instrument and a piano passage. The vocal is more spoken word until about the 2:00 mark. Then the track takes a wicked step steady progression using both the drum and keyboard narratives as a backbone to the rest of the track. The band really establishes the vocal narrative both as a melodic and a spoken word narrative on this track. The vocal almost leans towards a alight black metal echo as well.
Zero Temperance begins with atmospheric synths combined with grity distorted rhythm sections joined by the stringed portion of the guitar playing as a rhythmic instrument. The vocals remain brutal. The drums have many signatures and time progressions. The band thoroughly maintains the vocal order playing more off the explosive rhythm sections over the stringed sections.
Momentary Life begins with a very on off time signature almost dabbling into Djent. The time signatures are all over the place on this while still remaining on point to the bands primary sound aesthetic. The band clearly has a cohesive vision throughout A Quiet World and this particular track serves as a affirmation to that main objective. There is even some clean vocals serving as echoes off the main grunts.
Oversoul starts with a thick synth atmosphere. That is soon met with a explosive rhythm section that remains a anchor for the atmosphere. The vocals on this one really assault the listeners senses almost in a surround sound register. Although they are grunts and growls the vocals are really thick in harmony. About the 2:35 mark the drums go into a insane blast beat with the vocals playing into a brief spoken word narrative. Much like the rest of the album the guitar solos are very front and center on this as well.
The Farthest Reach begins with a almost Symphonic metal progression with heavy multi stringed guitars and basses. This track is also very heavily industrial in its nature, almost in the vein of a progressive Rammstein. This track also has a heavy oriental middle eastern element within it as well.
This Shadow My Likeness is the epic on the album clocking in at 10:45. It begins with a actual rare piano passage. It is borderline baroque meets progressive metal. The guitar solos rest heavily more on the progressive metal side to enhance the melodic experience. This is one of those typical epics that have a lengthy build up throughout the track. At the 2:55 mark the track is finally joined with vocals. The frame up of this track does not depend on a solid full 10:45 assault. There are some nice breaks for the listener to digest what the audio pallet is being delivered. There is a heavy spoken word element throughout this track as well. The guitar solos show hints of a classical influence as well. There is a nice conclusion to this epic as well. There is a spoken word element that concludes the story at the end.
I believe Words Of Farewell have taken all their influences and forged their own distinct metal sound. They have clearly placed Germany on the map for Progressive Melodic Death Metal. They have not really replaced all the Melodic Death Metal that was pioneered in Scandinavian countries they have enhanced it and taken it into another direction of posterity and evolution. I do not do this lightly but I am giving Words Of Farewell’s A Quiet World a strong 5/5.
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