Twisted City was one of Singletons albums and just look at my title.Original link isn't it?
Twisted Sister is a glamrock metal band founded in the 70's but most succesfull early 80's. Most bands from that time have split are have changed band members regularly. Not so for Twisted Sister. The only changes took place in the early years where most of the time the drummer was being replaced. But as they had their first succes with the albums Under The Bladze (1982), and You Can't Stop Rock 'n Roll (1983) they haven't changed their line-up ever since. Jay Jay French and Eddie Ojida were the founding members shortly after joined by Dee Dee Snider in 1976. Dee Dee would take care of the songwriting and vocals. Mark Mendoza joined in 1979 followed by drummer number seven, A.J. Pero. These five guys are Twisted Sister.
The first two albums were followed in 1984 by the Stay Hungry album which would become their best selling album ever. Twisted Sister was at that time a huge rockband and in the early eighties they even toured with a young Metallica as support. The later 1980's album Come Out And Play and Love Is For Suckers were less successfull and the band was put on hold afterwards. Each of the members went their own way but they kept in touch remembering the golden years of Twisted Sister.
They'd break up for a period of 10 years between 1987 and 1997 but recorded the title song for the movie Strangeland in 1998. Some more compilation and live albums were recorded and released for the next six years followed by a re-recorded Stay Hungry in 2004. This newly recorded old album would be released under the name Still Hungry.
Twisted Sister is still performing on small tours whenever and wherever they like. Mostly on various festivals around the world. They're not performing with tha make up and costumes anymore since 2009 but if you ever want to see them at cheap ticket prices you might want to look out for the band Bent Brother which actually is Twisted Sister performing practicing locally before a planned tour.
Not much to mention about this song except that Chris Singleton is a Dublin born artist. So far he released two albums. Twisted City in 2006 and Lady Gasoline last year (2010). This last album contains only three singles of which the one posted here obviously is the title track and the album is supposed to tell the story of a lustfull muse.
Twisted City on the other hand is a journey through with the London tube through the city and his impression on different stops of the underground metro.
Nothing about the band this time since my time to write this is limited but let's give some background information about the song.
It's a typical Irish drinking song fom the southern counties Cork and Kerry. It is actually sung like this by Thin Lizzy and Metallica while The Dubliners sing 'far farmed Kerry mountains'. It's a song about betrayal as well by the main character being a thief and robber but also about the woman he loves who betrays him with another man.
The song should origin back to 1650 since it has much similarities with a song called Patrick Flemming. Other sources say it originates to another song. We'll never know for sure I guess. It was also a very well know drinking song in America but there it got wraped by using mainly American characters. It appears on numerous albums since the 1950's around the globe. It even has Israëlian, Swedish and Russian versions so the least you can say is that it's very very very well known.
Easy link off course espacially since I've mentioned it in my earlier blog. Tool was mostly formed by members and co-workers from Green Jelly. Jaymes Maynard is a big my hero and Tool is probably my second best favourite band ever. I've seen 'em live at Pukkelpo a few years back but too bad I was a bit drunk at the start of the concert. I did enjoy the later part twice as much since I remember a huge lot of the songs they played at the end of the session. That's also a bit why I've chosen to post their songsober although it's not my favourite Tool song.
Founded back in 1990 by James Maynard Keenan, guitarplayer Adam Jones, bassplayer Paul d'Amour and James' neighbour Danny Carey on drums. With a first EP called Opiate, released in 1992, they made their first babysteps in the music industry. This first EP was followed by the later CD Undertow, basically a release of the first EP with some extra songs added. Paul would leave the band in 1995 but Tool never sat still. Aenema got released in 1996 and it's an album with lyrics about clensing of the human soul. The titelsong is untill now still one of my favourites and it's about tidal waves cleaning out the world as we know it. It also contains the great 46 and 2 song about evolution of mankind into a species with an extra chromosome. Great song, great lyrics.
After the release of Aenima the band members were more busy with their individual side projects (James is also lead singer of A Perfect Circle) and rumours began Tool would end. But none of that was true. BAck to back in 2001 and 2002 they released Salival and Lateralus, their third and fourth CD. Especially 'Schism' is one of the outrageous great songs on one of these albums. But again the fans had to wait a long time for the latest album which came in 2007. "10.000 Days" would strike like a bomb when released with more great songs such as The Pot, Rosetta stoned or Vicarious, as ong about the nature of mankind being attracted by nothing but negative news.
As you can read, Tool is creating songs with debt and with a metal sound undertow although I wouldn't call them a metal band. To me it's most of the time listening music which is strange whe n it comes to music like that. The inner spirit of mankind is often the subject and James sings about it in many different ways.
I can only hope you'll enjoy the choice I've made by going for Tool and maybe, just maybe someone out there discovers a great new band.
First of all, sorry to have let my readers a bit down. Been busy with other things which were a bit more important than my blog. Normally I'd try and recover for the lost songs but I'm a bit way behind which makes it difficult too catch up. I won't even try. I do promise to post a link every other day untill next friday just to make up for a little bit of the lost songs.
Green Jelly and Little Pig is a song which brings out memories to my teens. It was a huge hit in Belgium when I attended my last year in secondary school and I also remember that me and one of my schoolmates were singing it during mathematics class just to ennoy the teacher .... Good memories. The link with B-A-B-E is simple since Babe is also a movie pig. I didn't want to pick another soundtrack song though.
Green Jelly was an eighties and nineties self claimed New York comedy punk band which at all time consisted of four members. The members switched during the years and I won't list them up. Founded in 1981 their goals was to become the worst rockband in the world. When starting to play a few theatrical gigs they weren't that good of musicians. It was even that bad that the bass player had to colour up his guitar frets to memorize the colours while playing. They were that bad.
Their stage acts were violent and soon the band got banned around New York city but then they changed their stage names to American Jell-O Party only to try and get back into the banned clubs. Apparantly it worked and they got banned once more in several clubs so they changed the name back into Green Jello.
A first EP followed in 1984 called "Let it be". Inspired by the original Beatles EP. It wasn't a big succes but their stage performances became famous. eg Green Jello once asked their fans to bring clothes to iron on stage, which they did while singing. The also appeared on The Gong Show but were gonged that quickly because they were that bad. It was their first national exposure though. A second album was recorded in the later eighties with multiple vocalists. Amongst them James Maynard Keenan, current lead singer of Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. This is also my next link since more Green Jelly members would join Tool later on in their careers.
Early nineties they'd release a third album called Cereal Killer which contains this song. Yes it's that a that old song. The Little Pig song became their biggest succes reaching the charts in the USA, Great-Britain and in most European countries like mine. The video was directed by Fred Stuhr who also directed the video for Tool's song Sober. Another link with Maynard's band.
Mid nineteen nineties they recorded a final album called 333 but that wasn't a big of a succes. Green Jelly also started up different projects such as their own production house. Also that never became the biggest succes although they recorded a song for the movie Dumb and Dumber and the soundtrack for the movie Born to be Wild. Green Jello never split but all of them would go their own way.
In 2008 a reunion took place and the band re-released their last two albums, later followed by a new album called Song to Insult Your Intelligence By. The band went back on tour late 2008 and 2009 followed by a Parental Advisory Tour in 2010. The band is nowadays still alive and kicking.
And now I will relive a little part of my teen years and sing along "Littel pig little pig let me in ...."
