VIDEO'S OF THE WEEK - Bruce Dickinson Special

[Niels (Mod)]

VOTW - BRUCE DICKINSON Special

It was my intention to do a Paul Di'anno-special, since he is my favorite Iron Maiden-singer, but there isn't much on Youtube besides video's from the first two Maiden-albums, so I decided to do a Bruce Dickinson-special instead, since he has been in two (for me) big NWOBHM-bands, and have had a (kind of) successfull solo-career, meaning so much more to pick from on Youtube, and off course the release of the new Iron Maiden-album has also something to do with it. Since I bought two Samson-albums in the very beginning of the 80's, for me Dickinson will always be the lead-singer of Samson, that suddently became the singer of Iron Maiden, meaning that the Maiden I knew and was a fan of, suddently became a HM-band instead of an original NWOBHM/Punk-band fronted by Di'anno. To this day, I still think, that the two first Maiden-albums are the best, they ever made, but NOTB is a close "second".

SAMSON - BICEPS OF STEEL

Biceps of Steel is a short B movie filmed circa 1980 but only released in 2003. It features the NWOBHM band Samson and two songs from their album Head On (Hard Times, Vice Versa). The film depicts a 'super roadie' who fights evil orange jumpsuit-wearing bouncers stopping a rock and roll crowd from having a good time. He then falls foul of an evil wench who seduces and cuts his hair in order to take away his strength. At the end of the concert the super roadie causes the two towers of amplifiers to fall, exacting his revenge, mimicking the original story of Samson.The film was around 15 minutes long and created in the form of two music videos. It starred Thunderstick as the Super Roadie, with his brother-in-law, portraying the role of the drummer. Later on, clips from the movie were used in the 1981 horror movie The Incubus.

IRON MAIDEN - CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED

The Number of the Beast is the third studio album by the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden, released in March 1982. It saw the debut of vocalist Bruce Dickinson and the final appearance of the late drummer Clive Burr.The Number of the Beast met with considerable critical and commercial success and was a landmark release for the band—becoming their first album to reach No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart, and be certified platinum in the US. The album also produced the singles "Run to the Hills" and "The Number of the Beast", the former of which was the band's first top-ten UK single. The album was also controversial, particularly in the US, due to the religious nature of its lyrics and its artwork.Since the release of The Number of the Beast and its subsequent tour, The Beast on the Road, "The Beast" has become an alternate name for Iron Maiden and was later used in the titles of some of their compilations and live releases, including Best of the Beast and Visions of the Beast.

IRON MAIDEN - IRON MAIDEN

Even though, I saw IM live on their "World Piece Tour" in 1983 (I also saw them on their very first European tour in 1980, opening for KISS), I wish, I had seen them on the "Powerslave Tour" as well, because IMO, that was when Maiden was at the very top. I bought the "Live After Death"-album in 1985, but even at that time, I was getting bored with live-albums, but when the VHS was released a year or so after, I thought it was THE best video of a concert, I've ever seen. Still it's a pretty good view, but I never bought it on DVD, so it's been ages since I saw the whole concert, but back then, I saw it countless of times. Have you seen it?

BRUCE DICKINSON - TEARS OF THE DRAGON

"Tears of the Dragon" is the first single from Bruce Dickinson's second solo album, Balls to Picasso, released on 28 May 1994. The song is talking about the departure of Dickinson from Iron Maiden. Allmusic called "Tears of the Dragon" a "magnificent" track, "by far the album's best song".

BRUCE DICKINSON - MAN OF SORROW

Man of Sorrows is the second single from Bruce Dickinson's fourth solo album, Accident of Birth, released on 3 June 1997. The song was originally written for a film called Chemical Wedding, which existed only as a script at the time (it was eventually filmed and released in May 2008). The original version of the song is included on the Best Of Bruce Dickinson album and was recorded in 1990, engineered by André Jacquemin (who is better known for his sound-engineer work for Monty Python) and with Janick Gers on guitar.In interviews, Bruce Dickinson has stated that the song's lyrics are about the occult English writer Aleister Crowley. The repeated expression "Do what thou wilt!" refers to the motto of the Abbey of Thelema, which the French Renaissance writer François Rabelais invented in his philosophical work Gargantua. In this abbey, men and women live together in peace and harmony according to the principle:In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed, Do What Thou Wilt; because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour.Inspired by Rabelais' ideas, Crowley founded in 1920 a commune called the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily.The title Man of Sorrows refers to a passage in the Bible, in the book of Isaiah 53, which describes a man who takes on the sins of all mankind. According to Catholic teaching, this figure foreshadows Jesus, who died for mankind to redeem them:He was despised and forsaken of men,A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;And like one from whom men hide their faceHe was despised, and we did not esteem Him.Surely our griefs He Himself bore,And our sorrows He carried;Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,Smitten of God, and afflicted.A Spanish version of the song, Hombre Triste, is included on the 2005 expanded edition of Accident of Birth. A radio edit and an orchestral version of Man of Sorrows are included on the same CD.

[RJhog (Admin)]

Not sure if I can finish this this morning.  The songs are quite long, but here goes:

Biceps - So, the song titles are Hard Times and Vice Versa?  The video is so typical of the time period.  Very cheesy.  But cheesy in a way that you still wanna watch it.  I find it funny that he picked the amps up and brought them to the stage, but he could barely muster the strength to topple them.  I guess because she cut his hair.  The songs are pretty good.  I think Vice Versa is a little better than Hard Times, but Hard Time is quite a rocker.  The only times I've seen or heard this band have been here on CRB from Niels.  I wasn't a fan of NWOBHM, so it's not in my wheelhouse, so to speak.  But not bad at all.

Children - This is the very reason I didn't listen to a band like Maiden in 1982.  I was sixteen years old and I was raised in church.  The album title was somewhat blasphemous to me.  Now that I'm older, I understand that you can't judge a book by it's cover, but it just seemed like something I shouldn't listen to back then (by the way, I didn't buy the "Knights In Satan's Service" tag that Kiss received, so they were cool).   This song is terrific.  I'm glad that I'm more interested in this stuff now, wish I would have been then.

Iron Maiden - No, I have not seen it.  I've never seen any live Iron Maiden.  But how cool do the guitars sound in this.  It sounds like two lead guitars performing through the whole song.  And the bass and drums fill in the song very nicely. Dickinson sounds good here live.  Why do bands take so long to end songs when they are live?

Tears - I agree with Allmusic, this is a very good song.  I haven't heard the rest of the album though.  The only Dickinson solo album I have is The Chemical Wedding.  I've listened to it once.  Can't really remember what I thought of it.  The song is structured very well and Dickinson sounds great.  The video is pretty good too.  Surprisingly, it's not cheesy at all.

Sorrow - Yet another really good ballad by Dickinson.  This is probably the overall best song here.  Not so sure I understand all of the back story for the song, but I still totally dig it.  And again, the video is quite cool, with no sign of cheese anywhere.  Nice pick here.

So, for me, I'd go:

1. Man Of Sorrow

2. Tears Of The Dragon

3. Children Of The Damned

4. Biceps Of Steel

5. Iron Maiden

Like I said, Iron Maiden is one of those bands that I wish I had listened to more during my youth.  I do have quite a few of their albums now, but I need to find some time to listen to some of them.  Good choice this week.  And I had time to finish them all, so there is that.

[Niels (Mod)]

I remember, that Maiden was seen upon as "devil-worshippers" in the US around the release of Number of the beast. Off course, they never were, and  around these parts, nobody thought of them in that way.

But I recall being a bit....afraid of buying the Melissa-album by Mercyfull Fate, not because I was going to church, because I wasn't really, but because of I STILL had a fear of "evil stuff" because of had seen The Excorsist 2-3 years earlier. Mercyfull Fate had King diamond in front, and he WAS a devil-worshipper. I had a friend, who knew the drummer in King diamond's band in the 80's, who claimed, weird shit was happening around Diamond, somthing like "somebody sleeping in a bed, but no one was there"-stuff. I only had that MC-album for a few days, didn't like it at all, and threw it out.

I've "been around" King Diamond a few times myself, looking at records in the same shop at the same time and standing next to him, seeing Def Leppard on their Pyromania-tour, and he looked pretty harmless to me

[Scott]

SAMSON ...  Cheesefest!  Hilarious too.  A modern day Samson in the rock concert setting, not sure they pulled that off very well.  The two tunes didn't really help, they were both not very interesting.  It was interesting to watch them try to be epic on shoestring budget however.  Musically, eh...  He definitely need Maiden to sharpen him.

COTHD ...  Interesting to see Burr, maybe that's the most interesting thing to watch.  The tune and album are stellar though.  He is light years away from Samson with just this one album.  So much better.

IM ...  NOTB was my intro Maiden, so to me Bruce is Maiden and the first two albums came later, but it is cool to see him sing this.  I watched their RIO live DVD but that's it, never seen Live After Death.  I bet I t would be cool to see now...

The Two Solo Vids...  I do not own any Bruce solo work, so this will be interesting. I like the first tune, its a departure from the expected, but I'm sure I care for the production.   Could have so much more epic IMO.  The second tune sounded way more evolved and polished in a good way.  Great guitar work and interesting all the way though, but again the mellowness of it is unexpected.  Would like to hear more....

[RJhog (Admin)]

Funny thing happened today.  After watching and listening to these videos this morning, I kind of wanted to hear some Maiden.  But I didn't have any in the truck.  So I switched radio bands to my "hard rock" settings and the first thing I heard on channel 40 (on XM) was...Iron Maiden.  Then the next song was...Iron Maiden.  Then the channel advertisement came on and it was Iron Maiden Radio.  I had heard that they had started an IM channel, but didn't know what channel it was. Now I do.  I just thought that was funny.

[TageRyche]

I couldn't make it through the Samson video.

I'm a huge fan of anything Bruce in Iron Maiden so I love COTD and his version of IM.

And I'm a big fan of his solo work as well. So Balls to Picasso and "Tears" is a favorite.

As for "Man of Sorrows", it is a great song but for me the best track on "Accident of Birth" is "The Magician".

Oh and if you'd gone farther into his solo work, you would find his Tyranny of Souls disc which was my favorite album of 2005.

[Niels (Mod)]

Thank you for watching and making comments, TageRyche 

The Samson-album, that came after the one containg these songs, was the best Samson-album at all: 1981's "Schock Tactics". I still listen to it once in a while. I couldn't find any video's from it, but if I could, I certainly would had posted that one instead.

I've never really listened to his solo-work, but might do it, one of these days. I got tired of Maiden around SSOASS, and besides a double best off, of their "later output", the new Maiden-album is the first I've bought since 1988, and I like it. It kind of reminds me af the releases lately from Van Halen, AC/DC and Black Sabbath: At first, you're blown away of how good they suddently sound, but after a few days/weeks/months, you realize, that it's not at all as strong as their heyday-albums, but for a while, it's nice listening to a good new album by these artists. The Maiden-album has a sure place on my top 10 of this year.

[TageRyche]

My review for the new Iron Maiden album will be up soon.