The weekend's TV
1. Seven Ages Of Rock, Saturday, BBC2
Ah, the episode about the birth and development of Heavy Metal. Which didn't mention - and I mean didn't actually mention at any stage in an hour-long programme about the birth and development of Heavy Metal, not even in passing - Led Zeppelin. Well done.
2. Talk To Me, Sunday, ITV1
New four-part drama starring Max Beezley as a late-night DJ. Turned it off about three minutes in when a woman who was late for work ran out of the house still eating a slice of toast.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 9:21 AM
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Apparently they consider Led Zep to be Arena Rock which is next week. I guess that's the problem with these artificial divisions they're inventing for the programme. I cannot consider Motely Crue to be important to the story of heavy metal either, but maybe that's my UKcentric view of such things.
I was in and out during the beginning so I didn't notice the lack of Led Zep, but I did think that the lack of Guns n' Roses at the end was odd.
Also odd is that they put this after the punk episode when surely Black Sabbath were about for a good few years before 1975...
And the amount of time dedicated to Motley Crue confused me as well. I'm sure they played their part but really...
No Motorhead... not even mentioned in passing. Utter rubbish.
Bugger, I missed that 7 ages of rock programme. Just looked it up on the beebs website and it looks as if Led Zep will be mentioned next week in the Stadium Rock programme.
Whilst Led Zep certainly deserve a mention it may be that if they're being covered elsewhere they decided to spend more time on other bands. I presume Black Sabbath were in there - a much more metal band than Led Zep ever were.
It's probably worth spending much more time on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) and how much influence that has had on the metal world. None of the thrash we have now would have been around had it not been for Maiden, Diamond Head, Judas Priest etc.
I agree that if G'n'R weren't in there then something's wrong, but I do think Motley Crue certainly deserve some mention. In the 80's and early 90's there was a very clear distinction between 2 types of metal. Big hair, fun, sex drugs 'n Rock'n'Roll type metal and darker more "serious" metal. Motley Crue were definitely standard bearers for the former. I keep meaning to get some old "Warrant" actually, since playing Cherry Pie repeatedly on Guitar Hero 2.
Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to see it online or something. So gutted I missed this. I did catch a bit of Maiden's Rock in Rio gig the other night on BBC4. Now that rocked! "Run toooo the hiiiiiiiillllsss....."
Seven Ages of Tell Me Something I Don't Already Know more like. Did we really have to have the 'I pissed on the Alomo' story AGAIN from Ozzy?
And Talk To Me was just dull, like it had been written by numbers. You can see where it's going from miles off. Max Beesley is wasted - I find him rather charismatic (with a nice arse).
But it's all so childish - Led Zep are mentioned in next week's show, so we won't mention them in this week's. I understand the Seven Ages motif, but does that mean that no act can cross over into two programmes for fear of the whole edifice coming crashing down around our ears? And to just end at Metallica. Why? Shouldn't some mention have been made of Marilyn Manson and Linkin Park?
I'm not pointing up these ommissions because they're my favourite bands and I want to see them recognised. I just object to the selective history approach. It suits the programme that Heavy Metal is invented in the foundry where Tony Iommi worked, so that's it. Nothing before. And it ends when Metallica, well, get hugely famous. Nothing after. I worry that it's the tail wagging the dog, that's all. The tail being the format. The dog being the history of rock.
Blimey! That wheat intolerance has escalated. You can no longer watch people eating toast on TV?
Blimey!
Valentine S: I don't think it was the toast eating as such that caused AC to switch off it was the cliché used in these dramas to describe morning hurry.
We too sighed at that scene (for the same reason) but didn't make it to the first ad-break. As Clair said Max Beesley is wasted here.
I didn't see talk to me, but i can imagine they took Laura Fraser (who was ace in Conviction), and Beesley (who was ace in Bodies), and create a poor man's Midnight Caller for the new millennium.
not seen any of the seven ages, but how do you distinguish between some heavy metal and some arena rock? didn't def leppard, metallica, maiden, and most of the NWOBHM bands play arenas in their heyday?
presumably Thin Lizzy, ACDC, Foreigner, U2, The police and bands of that ilk or more in line with Arena rock?
Agreed about the silliness of the format which precludes Led Zep and many other acts from a heavy metal show. They've distilled it down to a few bands which fit their carefully exclusive 'history'.
But I hope you saw Jarvis on the South Bank Show, a tonic for the real music fan. All round eloquent and decent person, not ruined by celebrity. Magnificent disquisition on the 'heroic' status of whoever painted the walls on an estate and got the colour slightly wrong ! (and which Jarvis made the cover of his album). And Scott Walker appeared again! Blimey, Scott, overexposure like this will kill your carefully cultivated mystique.
Extract from my blog, Piqued *clang*
This week the 7 ages of rock not only managed to make more of a pigs ear than that of the punk program, it also managed to get facts wrong, actually incorrect. I’m fucking livid…
Whilst Black Sabbath did invent heavy metal we didn’t need to know the rest of Ozzy’s career as it’s not pertinent to the genre. To even discuss Motley Crue is an insult, especially when ‘glam’ was invented by the Finnish ban Hanoi Rocks in the early 80’s, despite being told by Julian Rhind-Tutt (what sort of a fucking name is that) the Crue influenced Hanoi! Fucking unbelievable! I’ll tell you this, a little bit of info they didn’t mention, Vince Neil, the fat Crue frontman, killed Hanoi’s drummer Razzle in a drink driving incident… That’s the only way Crue influenced anyone.
The Judas Priest stuff was barely relevant outside of the duel lead guitar stuff and maybe the idiocies that surrounded the prosecution for subliminal lyrics that resulted in the death of what Bill Hicks called the last garage attendants in the world. Metallica were featured but they didn’t kick the genre off by any means, Venom, even Motorhead, were way before Metallica ever got a record deal. To not mention at least one is ignorant, to not mention fucking either has prompted me to write a letter to the BBC.
I’m not going to write a list of who should’ve been mentioned but it’s worth noting that no attention was paid at all to nu-metal. Kick started when rap and thrash collided it prompted a seismic shift in how ‘metal’ was perceived and encouraged an entirely fresh fan base. Nor did it mention any of the crucial sub-genres, death metal, grindcore, battlemetal… the programme was a fucking disgrace, an insult to fan and musician alike.
Oh, Iron bloody Maiden are a kids entertainment troupe by the way.
It seemed pretty obvious from the programme that no-one at the production company had any interest or knowledge in metal as a genre and couldn't even be bothered to pay a researcher who knew their stuff. Compared with programmes such as Beeb 4's recent Hotel California this series is cheap and shoddy.
Charles Shaar Murray et al were conspicuous by their absence. Probably off writing yet more books about just how important punk was eh?
How long is an age of rock? Shorter than Stairway To Heaven?
And where would Primal Scream go? Jingly jangly indie pop, metal, there's-always-been-a-dance-element-to-our music indie dance crossover...
Was the women putting on her coat whilst eating her toast? One of the worst clichés in television.
Just as long as the woman didn't then get to her job in a bar and start cleaning glasses.
but she should have simultaneously been hurrying two school children into a twelve year old Maestro which only started on the third attempt
Not mentioning Marilyn Manson and Linkin Park was sort of apt really- whilst it was on I think Marilyn M. and Linkin Park were performing to tens of thousands of pallid youths at the festival formly known as Donnington. Amongst these pallid youths was a foolish middle aged friend of mine-who should have been at home on the sofa watching telly about music in the seventies and eighties, where he would , like me, have been tutting at the abscence of Saxon.
I agree about the format being too perscriptive -Whilst not a big fan of Motley Crue I guess they were important in the way HM developed- but so were Van Halen. Maybe they (and Kiss and Motorhead and AC/DC) will somehow get a mention later in the series-
..and I bet they don't reckon grebo was one of the seven ages.
Well, Mister Collins, something about this Rock series has seriously rattled your cage! I wonder, is it because you don't appear in it? But, then you wouldn't, would you, since it is not a TOP 50 METAL BANDS or I LOVE METAL. I guess they didn't need someone reminiscing about Spacehoppers, yet again. Actually, I do think you are being really hard on this. Having read your first rant about the opening episodes, I feel, as a Bowie fan, that I should tell you that the second programme did, in fact, include some rare archive. The live Ziggy stuff and the colour performance of him singing Space Oddity was new. So, you don't actually know everything about music, after all! And, maybe you should take up the issue of why Led Zep were not in the metal film with the band themselves. They certainly don't see themselves as a heavy metal band. But, then, maybe you know better. You did write for the NME, after all ...
Why is it that those who come to criticise me always hide behind the cloak of anonymity? Anyway, you raise some points which I will answer honestly.
1. I have never reminisced about Space Hoppers on television. That would have been I Love The 70s, which I wasn't asked to be on. I was I Love The 80s, albeit nowhere near as much as I would have liked (three programmes out of ten). I make no secret of the amount of nostalgic list/countdown shows I have appeared on since then. Indeed there is an entire chapter devoted to it in my new book. There's no shame in it.
2. In my previous post about this series I had nothing but praise for the quality of talking heads on it, including my friend John Harris, and the preeminent Charlie Murray, whom I know on a professional basis. I'm glad I'm not on it. Once you have contributed to a series, it's impossible to relax into it as a viewer, as you're subconsciously wondering if you'll have made the edit. I like being asked to contribute to documentaries, as it's very flattering, but you wouldn't believe the amount I turn down. My main job remains writing, which is a solitary pursuit, and it's nice to get out of the house and do a bit of talking. If the production companies stopped asking me, I wouldn't kick down their doors and beg to be taken back. Whereas if the writing work stopped coming in, I would be bereft.
3. My criticism of the series is quite clearly about the format, not the content of the programmes. I am a huge music fan in my forties - the target audience surely for a major historical rock documentary series. As I wrote before, I'm watching every episode. Just as I watched every episode of Soul Britannia and Dancing In The Streets and Family Trees and Classic Albums and all the others. I can't get enough of them. But you do see the same old archive again and again and here the same convenient links that wrap things up so neatly at the end. This series takes that neatness to a ridiculous degree.
4. When did I say I knew everything about music? I never said that. I watch these programmes to learn. (Unless you're being deliberately provocative, but I doubt that, as it would be a bit of a juvenile pursuit.) I worked for the NME between 1988 and 1992, during which I knew quite a bit about the bands of the era, and learned a lot more along the way.
5. Led Zeppelin should have been mentioned, is all I argued at the start of all this. I stand by that. Who cares if they saw themselves as Heavy Metal or not? I don't imagine they ever saw themselves as Stadium Rock either, and they're in the next programme.
As a fan of some forms of heavy metal, if someone came to me who'd never heard it before, and said 'play me the quintessential heavy metal song', then I'd play them Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath. That is what heavy metal is, doomy lyrics, clanging church bells, thunderstorms, a wailing singer, a riff that could crush and a fast bit. And that is the reason, I presume, why Black Sabbath were chosen, by this series, as the main focus.
They only have an hour to fill, so if they were going to go into the genre they're covering in great depth then they'd need a full Saturday night's TV.
Which is why, I guess, that it failed to mention that Metallica fused the riffs of the NWOBHM with the attitiude, speed and DIY ethic of hardcore and skate punk bands. But, hey-ho.
Well, Andrew ... I didn't hide behind the cloak of anonymity - I simply thought I had to be registered in some way to put my name, which is James by the way.
I'm not saying this series has got it all right but I do believe it is miles better than most music television today. I am not a fan of list shows - I prefer to be told a story and this is exactly what these programmes are doing. As someone who has absolutely no interest in Heavy Metal, I was fascinated to learn of it's origins and to finally understand what NWOBHM is. I think it is unfortunate that it's been tagged as definitive because it is not. Actually, isn't it called Seven Ages of Rock - not 'The' Seven Ages of Rock so maybe they are not attempting to claim that it covers everything, just seven parts of a bigger story. It is true that much of the archive is familiar; blame that on the reality that there may not be much more out there plus there is a glut of music shows all dipping into the same archive pot. At least they've made an effort to make it look fresh. You said in an earlier post that you were its target audience. Maybe you're not. Maybe - since this is a Saturday night BBC show - that it's aimed at a more general audience who might not have seen this archive before nor heard these tales. And maybe you should consider that the stories end as they do because that is where the stories end ... I spent time living in the USA and was subjected to a diet of the most dire and dum music docs. I think we are perhaps too spoilt - so much so we can't appreciate a good thing. And, I have to say that, for someone who has showed more than a healthy interest in appearing on cheap and no doubt cheerful list shows, you are a bit cheeky criticising the format. But, if what you say is true about you turning down soooo much list show work, then clearly you have learned the error of your ways.
Thanks for the long reply, and for revealing your true identity! (If you read back your original post, you have to admit, it's pretty aggresssive against me personally. Feel free to apologise for that at any stage.) I'll accept, then, that Seven Ages is better than most US music documentaries, and that we may have been spoilt, and that maybe I'm not the target audience. But I stand by my original and very specific criticism that not mentioning Led Zep in the chapter about Heavy Metal because they're featured in the one about Stadium Rock is a case of the tail wagging the dog.
Why is it "cheeky" of me to criticise the format of this series when I have appeared on list shows? It's not a list show. If it were, and I had criticised it for being one, or criticised those who appeared on it, I might be "cheeky" but I don't see the connection. I've been on some shows you don't like, so I'm not allowd to criticise other shows? Where's the logic?
Also - "error of my ways"? Honestly. You'd think I'd fucking killed someone.
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