Music History Time Travel

[Jack the Stripper]

Often when I’ve travelled overseas I’ve gone on my own little musical tours & pilgrimages, visiting cities/clubs and venues where famous bands played or started out or where musical movements/genres kicked off. I’ve also seen bands as some iconic venues as well.

It’s something that’s always interested me and I’ve always made time for in my holiday itinerary to do. I’ve visited Liverpool and retraced the Beatles early history, done  the magical mystery tour and all, also been to London and visited some of the pubs Maiden played when starting out like The Ruskin Arms and the Cart & Horses. Visited all the famous clubs on the sunset strip and retraced Motley Crue’s steps and happenings in their early timeline as well as been to the Haight-Ashbury and venues in San Francisco as well as famous haunts of the the early Bay Area thrash scene.

Sometimes I’ve often fantasied about having the ability to go back in time to be at the forefront of musical movement/scene/genre in a city where that movement/scene/genre started.

My question to everybody, If you could time travel back, what part of musical history/movement/scene/genre/bands would like to relive it as it was happening?

I want something more expansive than just seeing Randy with Ozzy at a particular show or Hendrix at Woodstock etc..

[Tyr66]

1- First of all, being in San Bernardino on Sunday May 24th, 1983 at Heavy Metal Day during US festival '83. THE place to be.
2- Be part of the lucky audience at Costa Mesa on November 14th, 1992 and see Rob Halford on stage with Black Sabbath.
3- See Rainbow on stage in 1976 during the Rising tour, no matter the date.
4- Wednesday March 28th, 1979, Paris. Scorpions is in France for the Lovedrive tour. Michael Schenker is then lead guitarist for a few more dates. The group will play Doctor, Doctor and Lipstick Traces from UFO and Michael will set "We'll Burn the Sky" on fire. A rare moment.

5- See Venom during a date of The Seven Dates of Hell Tour concert in 1983.
6- June 11th, 1984. Heavy Sound Festival in Poperinge- Belgium :  on the bill : Mercyful Fate, Motörhead, Metallica, Manowar, Twisted Sister. The beginning of the golden years.


7- Poperinge again but the year after, May 26th: Slayer arrives for the first time in Europe. The public does not understand what is happening in front of them!

8- and of course, August 5th, 2006. Celtic Frost has made a big comeback at Wacken festival since their reunion 4 years earlier and the release of the timeless album "Monotheist".

[Charger]

Very interesting question. I'm going to have to think about this one...Few come to mind right away but I want to put proper thought into this one.

[Vyn]

Thoughtful question.

Initially, I'm struck by the thought that in most cases it wouldn't be quite so evident that one was on the forefront of a scene/genre/etc. It would take a little notice from outside the scene before those involved might be able to reflect and realize they were involved in something cool. But during the initial phase of something like that, I think that by its very nature those involved would be so sucked into the moment that they would be having the best time.

For me, I think it would have to be Kingston, Jamaica in the mid-late sixties, early seventies. The place was a shit hole of poverty and oppression; it wasn't so much that there was a lot of crime as it was an accepted way of life. And in the midst of all that, a completely new style of music was being developed. Going to clubs, backyards, on the beach and listening to those sounds as they were being fine tuned and standardized.

And I'm not just talking about reggae, but the music that it evolved from and how those sounds meshed with each other on a live stage to eventually define reggae. Working under a default ceiling of "no opportunity", those folks created an entire genre of music and their fans propelled it to the rest of the world. They were the underdogs, so to speak, and they broke through that fake ceiling.

[Jack the Stripper]

That’s a very cool and interesting choice Vyn. Was not expecting that and Tyr some great and legendary gigs/bands you’ve listed there especially Belgium Heavy Sound festival in 84. Gig wise I’ve always fantasied about what it would’ve have been like at the Eastern Front at Aquatic Park in Berkeley California 1984.

You can check out some cool photos and stories from the day here
https://blog.bazillionpoints.com/2014/08/27/thirty-years-ago-slayer-exodus-and-suicidal-tendencies-played-on-a-plywood-stage-the-woodstock-of-thrash-metal/

However Tyr I’m loooking for more a musical movement/culture/scene that you would've loved to have been at the heart of when it was forming.

For me I’d like to be transported back to the sunset strip around 81-82. The end of punk and the start of the glam metal explosion before it became over saturated and bloated. Seeing bands like Motley Crue and W.A.S.P or Blackie Lawkess’s earliest incarnations at their rawest and most unaffected, Dokken, Quiet Riot, Jake E Lee playing with Ratt, even catching Metallica there before they upped and relocated to the Bay Area in SF where they helped create a scene and movement  of their own. The celebrities, parties, girls, the debauchery. Also, there were a few famous comedians that were regulars or cutting their teeth at the Comedy Store around that time as well.

The Bay Area thrash scene in 82/83 would’ve been an awesome & exciting time as well. Checkout some of these flyers and posters of the time.
https://www.metallipromo.com/ex.html

[Charger]

Well I've been giving this some thought and I can't really think of anything other that I'd like to witness than the birth of heavy metal in the late 60s early 70s with Sabbath and Purple and likes in the UK.

I would so love to see the real reactions of people hearing heavy music for the first time and what they thought of it...and most importantly what I would have thought of it at the time.

Seeing some of those early gigs from Sabbath and Purple with Gillan would have been something insane at the time I think.

Seeing the audience reactions in this video tell a lot of why I'd want to be there:

Most of the crowd is like "What the heck are we hearing here!??!!?  "

[Zzzptm]

I lived in Austin in the mid-late 80s as a college student. I covered the country scene there for The Daily Texan. Austin was the heart of the Outlaw Country movement, every bit as much as Texas as barbecuing beef brisket instead of pork. It had gotten underway in the late 70s and was still forming and finding its way in the 80s, and I loved being able to roll up to a club, say I was with the press, and waltz on in for free to hear some great, great music.

Outlaw country had a lot more rock and heaviness in it than the Nashville-centered country music ("Nashburg muck" we called it), so of course it was the best way to do country, if you ask me about it.

What made it even more fun was that my mom played that stuff up in Dallas on KNON. I'd go back for an interview after a set and say, "My mom's Ranger Rita" and they'd all light up and give thanks to her for spinning their platters and generating interest. I did my part, writing reviews of their shows and albums for the UT daily, which had a huge reach in Austin - we pushed 50K copies a day, available for free.

I got to meet loads of people, from guys killing it at open mikes but unable to do more because of their day jobs all the way up to greats like Rusty Wier and Guy Clark who had gotten national exposure. My favorite was Gary P. Nunn, because he always bought me lunch down at the Kerbey Lane Cafe, down by The Broken Spoke. He was also my favorite because he had the biggest smile and the best stories - I think he also did the fewest drugs when on the road... Although Steve Fromholz had a great quote about that lifestyle: "Between all the cheeseburgers and cocaine I did on the road, I think it was the cheeseburgers that did the most damage."

I got to meet a great talent that wound up getting mangled in the music machine and another kid like me just starting out who was able to survive and hit it big. I sometimes think about how great Will T. Massey could have been and I'm always glad to think about how well Robert Earl Keen has done since I first saw him playing a set at The Cactus Cafe.

So, I totally get you, Jack, when you ask about being *there* as a scene was happening and active. I really don't think it matters what the music is, as long as you're able to dive on in and appreciate it as much as the people making it.

One that I'd go back in time for would be to hang out with the New Orleans musicians of the 1950s, guys like Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino, Pete Johnson, Bobby Marchan, Huey "Piano" Smith, and the crowd they ran with. They were cooking up some of the best Rock and Roll of the day, and they got to back up majors like Little Richard as they hit #1 with their own tunes. Memphis would be another great spot, both for Sun as well as Stax/Volt. Memphis also has Corky's BBQ on Poplar, an added plus.

And that's a great city for a musical tour - I highly recommend going out to see Sun studios, Poplar Records, and the Stax museum.