Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

I have a love-hate relationship with Def Leppard. I loved the first three albums and hate everything since. The exact moment that they jumped the shark was when they released that horrible ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’. If I never hear that song as long as I live it will be too soon.

Since the death of guitarist Steve Clark Def Leppard has had a pretty straight route to Dio.

Clark was replaced by Vivian Campbell who was the very first guitarist in Dio.

Now here’s Def Leppard with my favorite song off of Pyromania, Billy’s Got a Gun.

I know what you’re thinking. Black Sabbath Trench? Really? Yes, really because it allows me to talk about the most underrated Black Sabbath album of all time.

We all know Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules but not enough people know about the 1992 album Dehumanizer. This was the reunion of Dio, Iommi, Butler and Vinny Appice. With the advent of grunge and alternative this album went largely unnoticed by the unenlightened however it is just as epic as the other Dio era Sabbath albums.

Of course as we all know Ronnie James Dio was in Black Sabbath.

Now here is Black Sabbath with Computer God off of Dehumanizer. If you pay close attention to the lyrics you can see that Ronnie was eerily prophetic with this song.

Ripper gets a bad deal sometimes because a lot of people seem to think that he’s just a Rob Halford imitator. Those people are doing themselves a great disservice because in my opinion Ripper is one of the premiere voices in metal. As a matter of fact in my pantheon of metal gods Ripper is only behind Dio himself.

If you have not listened to any of his stuff either with Priest, Iced Earth, Beyond Fear or his solo work you are really missing out.

Ripper has also worked with some of the premiere names in metal. For example he has several short routes to Dio but I took this one.

Vinny Appice appeared on Ripper’s solo album Play My Game. Vinny was also the drummer for the Dio-era Sabbath and Heaven and Hell.

Here’s Ripper and Beyond Fear with ‘My Last Words’

Prior to Balls to the Wall, Accept was one of my favorite bands growing up. They had a great sound and were one of the few bands that the poseurs hadn’t latched on to yet. That was until Balls to the Wall was played like every 5 minutes on MTV. Plus the lead singer’s name was Udo Dirkschneider. Not only is that an awesome name but it pretty much described the way he looked.

So far Accept takes the longest route to get to Dio.

Udo has recorded a couple of duets with Doro Pesch. Doro has recorded a couple of duets with Lemmy from Motorhead. Lemmy was in Motorhead with Fast Eddie Clarke. Fast Eddie was in Fastway with Pete Way. Pete Way played for Ozzy. Ozzy was in Sabbath with Geezer Butler. Geezer was in Sabbath/Heaven and Hell with Ronnie James Dio. Whew.

Now here’s Accept with the classic ‘Fast As A Shark’.