I am not bothered at all by old rockers continuing to tour. In fact, I take great solace in having folk from the generation prior to mine still up there getting paid for performing their songs and bringing the joy. Here in the early days of my second half century, I’m pleased as punch to see musicians in their 60s and 70s happily rocking out. I’m not put off by graying/balding heads, added pounds, or knee-protecting, toned-down stage antics. As long as it feels sincere and the band doesn’t half-ass the music itself, I’ll sign on for the ride and be thrilled to do so. I find that such shows validate my continuing enthusiasm for the rock-and-roll dreams of my youth and reinforce the idea that one is never too old to be carried away.
During early 2015, I had the good fortune to see two worthy groups of geezers put their talents on display at a couple of clubs in the Washington D.C. area. On 31 January, it was Blue Öyster Cult at the Tally Ho Theater in Leesburg, Virginia, followed by Uriah Heep at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, on 25 February. Both shows were a blast; I came out of each with voice hoarse from whoo-whooing at the top of my lungs, cheek muscles sore from involuntary over-smiling, and fandom ever-deepened. While similar in effect however, the concerts differed in that one offered a wonderful nostalgic romp through time-tested winners, while the other mixed oldies but goodies with new offerings. I dug both, but I must say it was the band that actively sought to convince me of their still-vibrant creativity that left the longest lasting post-show impression. There’s something to be said for an elder-statesman band confident enough to foist new sounds on an audience even as they pay happy, respectful homage to the past glories that brought out the evening’s crowd.
This was my second BÖC concert, the first having been a 1980 show I wrote about previously. By 2015, only lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist Eric Bloom and lead guitarist/vocalist Buck Dharma remained from the band I saw in 1980, but given their distinctive playing and singing, there was little doubt about the authenticity of the latter-day sound. Eric and Buck were backed up by fantastic players, and there was no quibbling with the set list.
Heavy on enduring stalwarts such as “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” “Godzilla,” “Burnin’ for You,” and “Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll,” the band also made this fan’s night by offering up personal favorite “Then Came the Last Days of May” with its moody, mournful guitar. Including both the space-aliens-as-saviors gallop of “The Vigil” and the absent-love lament “In Thee” from the underrated 1979 album Mirrors was an additional, unexpected pleasure.
Buck Dharma did not appear to have lost any of his unique guitar skills over the years. His trademark chugging riffs and emotive leads were on display all night. An extended run through “Buck’s Boogie” demonstrated clearly that the aging process had not dampened either the speed or the groove in his fingers. Likewise, both Buck’s and Eric’s voices were spot on, with no perceptible fudges or down-tunings apparent. The “newest” tune presented was 1983’s “Shooting Shark,” which along with the previously mentioned “Burnin’ for You” were the only two non-70s offerings in the 15-song set. All-in-all it was a glorious night, fueled by a supportive crowd awash in blissful nostalgia. I’d see BÖC again in a heartbeat.
Blue Öyster Cult (1980): Eric left, Buck second from right
Blue Öyster Cult (2015): Eric left, Buck second from right
While I own an even dozen Öyster albums and have done for 30-plus years, I could only claim two Uriah Heep LPs, both recorded in 1972, as part of my collection as of the February 2015 show. I purchased a vinyl copy of 
Demons and Wizards many moons ago as a teenager and picked up a used copy of The Magician’s Birthday on CD a few years back. I enjoy both albums and also knew and loved all the 70s radio hits, so when I saw the Heep was going to be in town, I didn’t think twice before signing up. A quick internet search informed me that only lead guitarist Mick Box remained from those 1970s glory days but I figured I probably wasn’t enough of a Heep connoisseur to tell the difference. Besides, the tickets were so cheap, what was there to lose?
As it turned out, I didn’t need the nostalgia factor to enjoy the hell out of the
show. The band was six songs in before they played anything I’d heard before and they inserted five songs from the new album Outsider that they were touring behind into their 12-song set. The new songs were hard-rocking tours de force tightly played by master musicians. These old guys sounded as crisp and vibrant as many bands a third their age, with the added seasoning of lived-in experience.
Mick Box
But here’s the kicker: When the 2015 version of Uriah Heep dipped into the back catalog, they did so with a palpable joy and fun-loving respect. One sensed that they were honored to be playing those songs for us. As current singer Bernie Shaw introduced the over-10-minute “The Magician’s Birthday,” he spoke for all of us when he verbalized our sincere gratitude and awe for those gloriously goofy days of yore when such naively progtastic offerings could materialize. “Sunrise” was beautiful, “Stealin’” was rowdy fun, and the encore of “Easy Livin’” had us all standing and singing along enthusiastically. And throughout, a relatively stationary Mick Box made up for his seeming lack of mobility with fantastic, meaty guitar playing, regularly topped off with perfectly-placed elegant flourishes.
Sure, I would have liked to also hear “The Wizard” or “July Morning” but I give these guys their props; they earned my attention to their new music. I’ve since purchased Outsider and, while it is far removed from their prog-rock 70s output, fans of early 80s outlier album Abominog, will find it easily as head-banging but with much better songwriting.
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So, two elderly bands in two months, one milking past glories for all they’re worth but doing so uncynically, and the other demonstrating righteous pride in prior accomplishments while also asking us to consider their current ability to create. I approve wholeheartedly of both visions. I’m happy to be made happy, whether by old or by new. That said, here’s hoping that, for my part, I’m lucky enough to still be throwing fresh ingredients into the pot 20 years hence.
It is funny how sometimes things don’t play out exactly as you expect… and then you wake up alone and befuddled in Cairo.
After a wonderful homecoming from Karachi, and five subsequent joyful months stateside reacquainting myself with family, country, and yard work, I now find myself flying solo again, this time on the banks of the Nile. About a month into a prolonged stay in Egypt, there is a real sense of déjà vu as I settle back into an empty apartment routine and open my cans of dinner.
Unexpected eldercare and family needs have quashed plans for my wife (and personal Cleopatra) to be here with me for now. Happily however — and unlike Karachi — she is not blocked from joining me eventually, be it for short stays or extended residence. Our now-adult kids will also visit, and visions of Nile cruises, Luxor, Valley of the Kings, and Sharm El-Sheikh beaches dance in our heads. I swing these future-memories as a cudgel against the assault of today’s loneliness.
In the meantime, I work, sleep, watch episodes on Netflix of The Story of Film: An Odyssey with its weird, flat narration, and seek to find my footing under the heft of all this history and culture. It’s been pointed out to me that just the right angle out my office window provides a far-off, hazy view of the side of one of the Giza pyramids framed between a pair of buildings.
Being here is heady; ancient history lessons, The Ten Commandments, Elizabeth Taylor, late-night mummies, vivid Begin-Sadat TV memories, and The Bangles give the “idea” of Egypt significant potency for me. I sense myself observing everything as if on a flickering, low-definition screen. I cross over the Nile every day on the way to work, but still don’t quite believe… Is this really where I am?
Thankfully, music steps up, always dependable, to explain, teach, soothe, and guide. Opening up my scriptures iPod, all becomes clear. Alone or accompanied, comprehending or confused, I know everything is going to be ok because…
EGYPT ROCKS!
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Eleven Blue Egyptians – Jason Becker
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Egyptian Danza – Al Di Meola
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Egypt (The Chains Are On) – Dio
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Valley of the Kings – Blue Murder
Also see:
Curse of the Pharaohs – Mercyful Fate
The Pharaoh Sails to Orion – Nightwish
Seven Secrets of the Sphinx – Therion
Pyramid of the Moon – Shrinebuilder
Pyramid – Wolfmother
and why the hell not? Isis – Bob Dylan
Whether part of a larger universal plan guided by some unseen hand or simply a trivial point of human history, Satan was not a part of my formative years. As my independent personality, values, and beliefs first began to develop in the late 60s and then were further refined through the 70s, it was other factors and inputs that held sway. Satan didn’t exist in any tangible way in my world during that influential time. Like many of my peers back then, I was drawn to the music of Black Sabbath and got a kick out of creepy movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen. In fact, as I think back now, I smile at how these particular entertainments, together with “strange but true” and “scary tales” style paperbacks contributed to many memorable, thrilling experiences with friends – followed by surges in nightlight use — as we worked ourselves up around campfires or during sleepovers with proffered “what ifs” on the idea of the devil acting in the physical world. But all this is beside the real point I seek to make here, which is that Satan had no influence in my life or personal evolution during those years.
Looking back from today’s position of informed self-awareness, I can recognize now that, within a year of my graduation from high school in 1982, there existed a real possibility for me to have actively sought out and benefited from direct knowledge of Satan. Unfortunately, this realization is solely in hindsight. If I’m being honest, I must admit to having been completely oblivious to Satan’s offerings and potential to enhance my life back then. I was trapped in ignorance; ignorance that it turns out would continue for decades.
An artist’s depiction of Satan (from leftbehind.wikia.com). Not really what I’m trying to convey here.
If it was simple obliviousness that initially kept me from Satan’s gifts, it was subsequently my missionary experience, undergraduate studies, marriage, grad school, child-rearing, and the work to establish myself in my chosen career field that combined to keep me too busy and otherwise focused to allow for Satan to enter my life. A concurrent lack of disposable income, free-time, and available energy conspired to mute my otherwise inherent exploratory nature. Even when I did eventually become comfortable enough to begin tentative efforts at expanding personal horizons roughly around the time of my first extended overseas work assignment in 1997, I tended toward revisiting past predilections that had gone by the wayside over seeking out completely new alternatives. As such, Satan remained an unconsidered option.
It was only circa early 2012 while serving in La Paz, Bolivia, that I finally made my way into Satan’s welcoming waters. It was the internet that opened the door to Satan for me. There was no specific “eureka” moment, and truth be told I cannot recall any specific instant of discovery, but I somehow found Satan there among the murky blogs and other endless obscurities that inhabit the virtual ether. A mention here led to a click there, and curiosity grew as I pushed deeper into available testimonials, some breathlessly sophomoric and others remarkably erudite. I continued my hungry search for further information until one day, fatefully, I made the decision to stop simply vicariously consuming the opinions/stories of others and to take the steps necessary to bring Satan into my own household.
In the Hollywood version, the next chapter in the story would involve an immediate, life-changing epiphany, but that’s not what happened. I did commune with Satan, and I definitely enjoyed it. However, I was able to truly lose myself in the experience only occasionally, usually in the dark of my closed-door study or when finding myself temporarily alone in the house. I was hindered by the fact that my conservative, God-fearing wife would not have approved. As a result, no full-on embrace of Satan came about from those initial explorations. Other things soon began to fight for my attention, eventually pushing Satan once again into the background.
As an aside, I’ll note here that concurrent with those first forays into Satan’s offerings, I began to read intimate treatises on Hell for the first time. I was intrigued, but never delved deep enough to understand the reality of Hell as a viable option for me. I imagined Hell’s realm as filled with the shrieking screams and the grinding, tortured atmosphere that appealed to those with a proclivity for death. As a result, I made the assumption that Hell wasn’t for me and opted out of a more dedicated investigation.
Fra Angelico’s 15th century vision of Hell (from wikimedia.org). Again, not really reflecting what’s in my mind as I type this.
Fast forward to early 2015 when I returned home following an intense year in South Asia and began an extended leave of absence between assignments. I suddenly found myself awash in available time, with my mind freed to float temporarily unencumbered wherever the wind carried it. Whether by fate or chance, I was drawn back to Satan shortly after my arrival. Picking up where I had left off in Bolivia some two years prior, I quickly sensed that it wasn’t enough; I had to go deeper. I headed back into those obscure corners of the internet where I was sure a path forward would make itself known. It took no time to discover that there was indeed a new, promising avenue for expanding Satan’s role in my life. What’s more, the exploration unexpectedly turned up separate material that led me to reconsider my previous dismissal of the idea that adding Hell to my “portfolio” could also bring emotional benefit. Giddy with anticipation, I jumped in with both feet.
I proclaim loudly here, dear readers, that finally bringing Satan and Hell fully into my life has proven a glorious choice. Moreover, I recommend enthusiastically and without qualm that any who have yet to do so free themselves from ignorance and join me on the bandwagon. In fact, now that I’ve received Satan’s 2013 album Life Sentence into my CD collection and listened to it multiple times both on headphones 
and in the car, I feel comfortable asserting it as among the very best old school metal offerings of recent years. In additionally going back more attentively to Satan’s first album, 1983’s Court in the Act — of which as mentioned above I sadly only became aware circa 2012 while living in Bolivia — I now find it hard to understand why I didn’t embrace it more fully when I first bought it. As for Hell’s Curse & Chapter, also released in 2013 but only added to my library
now, it turns out it is not death metal at all, as I had incorrectly believed, but instead is the kind of straight ahead heavy metal that has always tickled my aural fancy.
Both Satan and Hell boast a semi-theatrical vocal style that appeals to my interior metal nerd but is nonetheless understated enough so as to not come across as affected farce. Each band offers up ample meaty guitar riffage and relentless hammering drums within a soaring melodic structure that reinforces their early 80s NWoBHM origins but without 
sounding dated. These are definitely NOT throwback nostalgia acts; they are vibrant modern practitioners of rousing heavy (non-extreme) metal. I have no doubt that, now that I have embraced them, Satan and Hell will be in my life for a long time to come. They should absolutely be in yours too!
I had lunch with a good friend a few months back when we happened to cross briefly in the same city. We had remained in touch over recent years with occasional emailed updates on family, work, and travels but hadn’t seen each other for probably five years or so. After meeting up on the agreed street corner and walking to a nearby sushi place, we spent about an hour together sharing thoughts on the food we were eating, commenting on our mutual physical aging, and repeating family updates we had already shared over email. It was a perfectly pleasant and enjoyable time… and it left me entirely unsatisfied and with a deep sense of melancholy.
This was a guy with whom in the not-so-distant past I had shared countless hours and exchanged virtual reams of digital paper over the course of many years in mutual joking, confessing, analyzing, lamenting, advising, and bucking up. He is among the closest friends I’ve ever had and probably knows more about me and my internal workings than even my long-suffering spouse. Yet, here we were trapped in shallow small talk, experiencing at best a superficial intersecting of paths before each headed back to our separate parts of the globe and the next five years of cursory updates.
I don’t think this blue feeling of inadvertently lost personal bond has ever been more poignantly captured than by country picker and songwriter Tom T. Hall in his 1969 song “Homecoming.” In its reading of a traveling musician’s brief stop home to see a parent after a long time on the road, I hear a deep, unfulfilled longing for renewed connection with someone dearly loved. The recited conversation, of which we hear only one side, is perfectly pleasant and enjoyable. There is no indication of resentment or falling out, and there is clear love between the participants. And yet, the unintentional shallowness is heartbreaking. The bond of love and caring is still there but the passage of time and non-deliberate inattention has allowed it to go fallow. Behind the words and music, there lurks an unanticipated, but profoundly emotional, recognition of loss.
The song’s simplicity, conversational style, and lack of chorus reinforce its impact. Strolling acoustic guitar and piano chords move on a stable backbeat of cymbal and brushed snare that builds subtly with the addition of what sounds to be high-hat about halfway through. Slight shifts in piano and picked guitar lines punctuate the lyrics without being heavy-handed or judgmental. The listener is never induced, but instead allowed to simply observe. Even so, it seems to me impossible to hear the song’s final lyric, which I’ll paraphrase as “take care and say hi to Barbara if you see her,” and not be affected. Rather than being a joyful renewal, the reunion has instead laid bare a previously unexamined separation, which is only reinforced by the rote nature of the perfectly pleasant farewell.
Listen to Tom T. Hall’s wonderful song below. Then delve a little deeper into this unassuming artist’s extensive body of life-affirming work. It’ll make you happy. Afterwards, maybe reach out to somebody special and make an effort at pushing past the rut in which the two of you have unintentionally become mired.
Tom T. Hall – Homecoming:
I was amazed I hadn’t seen it myself. I knew the album well, having spun it incessantly through the late 70s and early 80s and believing its opening track, “Carry On My Wayward Son,” to be a rock masterpiece. But it was only there in that high Andes café in Huancayo, Peru, listening to Elder Jones as he held forth that I finally recognized the Leftoverture LP by the group Kansas for what it so obviously was, a concept album about the work of a Mormon missionary.
As I went over the record’s songs in my mind, it was as clear as that high mountain sky. It was me and my fellow white-shirted, baby-faced missionaries serving all around the globe who were the proclaimed wayward sons. It was us who had risen above the noise and confusion and were now carrying on despite our weariness to share the good news with a yearning world.
The songs told our story. They voiced our doubts about our ability to effectively share what we held dear while reinforcing our trust that all would work out if we just kept the faith. We would have peace, our crying would be over and heaven would surely wait for us when we were done. “The Wall” was the lamentation of our earthly brothers and sisters seeking a path to the Promised Land but awaiting our arrival to help tear down the barriers that hindered their progress. The uncertain but tentatively hopeful feelings of those who chose to let us inside when we came knocking was reflected in “Miracles Out of Nowhere.” “Opus Insert” was our welcoming message of light and joy, while “Questions of My Childhood” and “Cheyenne Anthem” told of the deeper understanding of life’s meaning that came through further investigation of our offered truth.
It’s a game that I’ve been living, now I need to know what’s real / Can you help me find the answers, can you tell the way I feel?
The idea that our rock and roll heroes could understand us and our mission so deeply was incredibly energizing for our small cadre there in the Peruvian highlands. The Lord worked in mysterious ways indeed, and He was clearly pretty dang awesome too; Kansas was way cooler than all those boring old hymns we sang at Sunday church meetings. Sure, mission rules stated that we weren’t supposed to be listening to “worldly” rock music while serving our mission calls, but clearly the Guy Upstairs got it even if our old fogey leaders didn’t. Rock and roll promoted our faith; it didn’t diminish it.
Yours Truly, wayward and defending in Huancayo, Peru – 1984
Our openness to interpretations and folktales that showed how what we already liked was actually faith-reinforcing did not stop with Leftoverture. I can’t now recall which fellow missionary shared with me the “obviously true” experience of a pair of fellow proselytizing youth serving in the United Kingdom some 7-8 years prior to our time in Peru. The story went that, during an especially spirit-filled meeting to share their testimonies with a gathering of locals, two missionaries had noticed a small group of long-hairs quietly but intently listening in the back of the hall. After the meeting ended and folk were slowly coming down from the spiritual high and heading home, the unkempt but obviously deeply moved rockers approached our missionary friends to quietly pass along that they KNEW the truth of what they had heard but could not openly admit it due to the potential negative impact of doing so on their commercial interests. Yep, here was insider assurance from fellow light-bearers, the specific identities of whom were vague, that even Led Zeppelin secretly knew the truth of our gospel message. Our work was assuredly divine!
Led Zeppelin – Secret Mormons?
It wasn’t just epic hard rock or conceptual progressive anthems that reinforced our youthful certainty in our unique callings. I remember with joy the day Elder Dean, my colleague and fellow covert metalhead – yes, there were limits to the relative tolerance of even “rocker” missionary peers – took me aside during a rare get-together in Lima to share with me the title of the new album released by our graven heavy metal idols Judas Priest in 1984, Defenders of the Faith. “Dude, we’re defending the
faith right now here in Peru. How cool is that!” In that pre-digital age, we wouldn’t actually be able to hear the new album until we got back home in mid ’85, but we knew it was “all about us, man.”
Beautiful, faith-promoting Truth was and continues to be in the eye of the beholder, of course. Whether primary Leftoverture songwriter Kerry Livgren’s compositions resulted from a Mormon-leaning Deity’s spiritual influence or Messrs. Page, Plant, Bonham, & Jones clandestinely carried the torch for Joseph Smith was irrelevant to the positive reinforcement and reassurance those stories gave to us young believers as we undertook our peculiar service far from home and family.
Truth be told, things haven’t actually changed much through the intervening years. I can still be regularly found on any given day, eyes shut tight and rapt, finding reinforcement of some deeply-held truth — whatever that might be at that moment — within an inspired spiritual message flowing forth from the headphones. Isn’t it amazing how music can provide the needed message in the needed moment? Death metal can reaffirm life, stoner rock can clarify the mind, and 70s prog rock can make a wavering 20-year-old certain of his chosen path. Sounds divine to me.
Victim of the Fury 