Yep, he's got three or four songs on Free-for-All. I believe he came in because Ted was in one of his pissy little feuds with Derek St. Holmes.He also sang on one of Ted Nugent's early albums as well.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Ian Beabout
Mixing and mastering engineer. See ya at ProgDay !
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.co...m/bakers-dozen
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.co...-and-holland-3
colouratura.bandcamp.com
Has the rockulmentory given you more explanation of Hair??
AFAIAC, this is one of the best testimony of the "age of Aquarius" hippie movement... This Broadway show was played in many countries and offered a fair bit of chances to local young artistes around the world. For ex: French singer Julien Clerc had his first shot at stardiom in the French version of Hair
Milos Forman's movie is also superb in its kind, and the music received a fantastic funky upheaval as well.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Bat Out Of Hell is a masterpiece. Never heard anything else by Meatloaf which came close. Sometimes you strike gold just the once. That mixture of high camp, oddball humour and emotional/musical grandiosity found its perfect producer in Todd Rundgren.
That's what's/who's missing on, say, Dead Ringer. Some of the songs are quite good (some also are not!), but the magic isn't there. I also remember being startled by the change in the vocals; when I first heard 'Peel Out', after knowing BOOH so well, it sounded like a different guy! (I later found out he'd had some trouble in that department, within that 4 year gap.)
There was an hour-long documentary shown on BBC4 recently covering his career. Well worth a look.
Last edited by JJ88; 04-11-2016 at 06:54 AM.
I think Meat Loaf said that his first theater job came when he went to a theater attempting to get a job as a valet. The director of whichever musical or whatever that was being performed saw him and asked if he'd ever done theater before. That's how he first got on the stage. He said that when he was doing Hair, anyone who took their clothes off at the end of the first act got paid extra, and he decided he was being paid enough he didn't need to participate that part of the performance.
Since we're talking about his acting work, he was in a great...well, maybe great isn't the right word, certainly entertaining film in the early 80's called Roadie. He plays a truck driver who gets hired by a concert promoter (played by Don Cornelius) due to his ability to fix anything. Meat's character eventually ends up transporting a groupie to NYC so she can meet Alice Cooper (who I think was in between rehab visits at the time). There's a hilarious scene at a little bar in Texas, where a brawl breaks out during a Hank Williams Jr concert. Hank calls Roy Orbison up onstage, "Hey, Roy, you're from Texas, you know how to deal with these people!". So Roy gets onstage, and starts singing The Eyes Of Texas Are Upon, and everyone stops fighting, turns to the Texas state flag (hanging over the bar) and starting singing along, with their hands over their hearts.
I saw that film when it was first released. I liked it. Meat was hilarious. There's this one scene I remember where this punk rock band refused to go on stage until they got some "snow" (cocaine). Meat confronts them and "persuades" them to play....Since we're talking about his acting work, he was in a great...well, maybe great isn't the right word, certainly entertaining film in the early 80's called Roadie.
Wow, was that in Chicago? I saw him in a Chicago club in the late 80's which I read later was his first gig after his career had plummeted and he took a hiatus. He mentioned at the show he was working with Steinman again on a Bat II album. And like you, this was easily one the best concert experiences of my life. I never saw a performer give so much in a show, absolutely stellar performance by the whole band, and the crowd went nuts and sang along with most of the songs. I never really went to see him at a big venue because I knew it would never equal seeing him in that club.
Even though Brislin is playing with him this tour, I bowed out after watching recent video of Meat Loaf. His voice is completely gone these days. I really wanted to see him again, but I do have breaking point with singers and he reached it unfortunately.
No, it was Grand Rapids Michigan, but I bet it was the same tour as I remember him mentioning Bat II being recorded. It may have been the late 80’s and not early 90’s now that I think more about it.
I have not seen him in a long time, but yea Axis or Palladia was showing one of his concerts a while back and his voice sounded pretty bad.
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
I was in a living situation back in 1980-81 where the people I was with listened to Bat out of Hell in its entirety many a night and I got to know that album very very well and I have to say I grew to hate that piece of shit with a white-hot burning passion. Great people, great times, high times marred only by that stinking slab of meatloaf.
I have only heard snippets in the intervening 25 years and even that was WAY too much...
Exhibit A:
I gotta know right now
Before we go any further
Do you love me?
Will you love me forever?
Let me sleep on it
Baby, baby let me sleep on it
Let me sleep on it
And I'll give you an answer in the morning
Instructions: rinse and repeat until you puke.
I can understand a pimply pusillanimous pubescent grooving to this putrescent pap, but somebody would have to explain why an adult, literate music aficionado would give this the time of day!
Ahhhhhh - I always feel better after a good spleen venting...
Ok, a running commentary of the doc I have.
Meat answers the question of "When you close your eyes" and he guesses how old he is when he sings the lyrics he says he is as old as the person in the song. Because he has no fucking idea( he says that, with the profanity) of what he is doing.
Texas, being a rebel state, it's funny his childhood friend would say it's not a place to be a rebel, and at the same time they show Meat's high school assembly, with a confederate war flag in the background. Interesting hypocrisy there.
Marvin Lee Aday, or M.L. on his locker in high school, supposedly is the genesis of his moniker. Or, it's a high school football coach who gave him that name.
Of course they had to play that song from Booker T and the M.G.'s that I totally dislike, but why not?
Dad's name was Orvis, he says, and also makes a joke about that being worse than Meat.
He nearly killed his dad, because he deserved it then left home. So he bolted to Los Angeles.
At this point it's like a movie, not real. He just up and bolts to LA, with no contacts, no real idea of what he's going to do.
As it says, a guy who needed his car parked got him in hair. For what reasons, it doesn't make clear other than it happened.
Stoney and Meat Loaf. Love to hear that.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show. God's, how that became what it is escapes me but eating him for dinner is one of the greatest cinema scenes. Tim Curry was also in Hair.
And Meat says, "NO fucking way".
Never knew Eddie was one of Frank N. Furters designs and he was assembling them together. Like the plot of RHPS is decipherable.
Love the saxophone.
"One from the vaults".
Jim Steinman. Always thought of himself as a combo of Little Richard a Wagner.
"I bet you say that to all the boys".
Why was the original Meat Loaf act so scary?
The simple song wasn't good enough for the record companies.
Then Meat gets called Ethyl Merman.
Todd. Well, he happened.
"And I never see the curve 'til it's way too late".
The movie that is BOOH. Why it got slagged, and still gets slagged, is beyond me. The story it tells, beginning with the ending, I never realized.
Opening gig in Chicago, Meat loaf comes out - this large guy in a tux. Can't help but laugh. "Get off the stage, you fat fuck".
Jim Vs. Meat. Fucking egos.Not unknown in Rock and Roll.
The Old Grey Whistle Test. Karla. "She could tolerate being mauled by him onstage each night".
Not mentioned is Phil Rizzuto. I'm still unsure what first base nor second and third, are, exactly in the whole game of sex.
"Stop right there!".
"Oh, shut up bitch".
"Fuck you!".
Hot fun in the summertime, as the host of OGWT said.
The next record. BOOH 2. Who did Jim leave with that helped or caused Meat's breakdown? Why did Jim think he could do it on his own?
The clips of Jim are sad.
Kulick - "Meat Loaf was the monster, the personification of what Steinman needed to do his songs".
Dead Ringer. Why this failed I have no idea. Never heard it. He was anathema in the States at that time, why?
Bonnie Tyler. WTF, CBS? Totally love her reaction - "Ha ha ha ha".
Legal bs now ensues. Managers and such.
Meat says piss off, I can still perform, and does until Jim decides to try it all again.
BOOH2. I Would Do Anything For Love. Fuck yeah. It charted wildly."When Lorraine sang it, she owned it".
Fight Club. Prosthetic boobs and all.
So what about the other Meat albums?
Duet with Marion Raven(WHO?) in 2006 was a hit.
He's old and frail, yet still keeps giving it night after night.Jim is still involved. Who need the young? is a song Todd tossed from BOOH but Meat is performing it nowadays. Lovely scene with a fan who cries saying his music kept her alive.
How he appreciates those of us who like his tunes and go see him is incredible. He overcame all that is and ever could be, and became successful. I do believe he's a really good person, and I applaud him for not becoming a rock and roll star, a piece of shit.
"They mean more to me than myself. I don't mean anything, they do", meaning the fans. I get that.
I crossed off the only song I had on my bucket list, that Hot Chocolate song but one artist/band I've never seen and really need to is Meat.
Thus endeth the most painful post I've ever done. Research is tiring. I so hope someone gets something out of this. Why I even did this, well, I'm a glutton for punishment and I was totally enthralled by this doc. My only hope is others can fill in the gaps to this story and that I may have dropped a fair bit of knowledge for some folks.
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
Damn, that's one hell of a post.
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
^That's the documentary the BBC showed.
'Paradise By The Dashboard Light' is a song I've always struggled with. It's definitely the most 'Rocky Horror' song on it, really far too much like a Broadway/musical theatre version of rock 'n' roll than the real thing, at least to me. And the very hammy, mugging OGWT performance only makes that feeling stronger.
They way overplayed the success of his recent work. I didn't think that version of 'It's All Coming Back To Me Now' was a hit in the UK...turns out it wasn't! It had been a hit here for Celine Dion about 10 years earlier, I didn't even know Meatloaf/Aday had done a version. I've never really heard anything from his last few albums.
I haven't heard anything either but I'm in Las Vegas which is a cultural wasteland so my opinion means terribly little.
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
^Bat Out Of Hell will in some ways always be a millstone for the Meatloaf name. Other than Dead Ringer- which got where it did on BOOH's momentum, I'd venture- the most successful Meatloaf project has been, you guessed it, Bat Out Of Hell II.
Steinman had some major success with Bonnie Tyler in the 80s, at least. And he was involved with a platitudinous boyband ballad 'No Matter What' which was a big hit here (it was written with Andrew Lloyd Webber for one of his musicals, again showing me where Steinman is probably really most at home).
Steinman and Aday themselves have clashed many, many times over the years. But at the same time, I think there's also a strong bond between them.
I have an old Melody Maker where a snotty British elite reviewer who hated him and Bat Out of Hell---referred to "Mr Loaf" ---and said something like "more cliche filled lyrics than..." I forgot the whole quote although I agree with him---it was funny---there are A LOT of cliches in those lyrics.
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