There’s nothing weak about WEAK13
“Best piece of documentation on my band done by an author or journalist.
Thank you Paul Merry.” Nick J Townsend, WEAK13.
BLUESMUSE33
Ethiopian delineating in the
1820s and 30s
Minstrelsy from the 1840s to
1900s
The abominably-named coon songs
of the 1880s and 1890s
Ragtime between the 1890s and
1912
 |
| The power trio who started heavy metal, Cream. |
guitar ace, Jimmy Page, immediately spotted the gap in the market.
Page founded Led Zeppelin in 1968 especially to fill the massive void left by Cream’s departure. Zeppelin, of course, went on to wow the world with their powerful brand of blues rock.
heavy rock band was formed, Black Sabbath, who rate, along with Led Zeppelin,
as the founding fathers of heavy metal.
around Birmingham in England’s West Midlands, as did all of Sabbath, one wonders
why rock music from Birmingham is so powerful. Some say metal’s in the psyche
there. The sound comes from the non-stop
banging of anvils and steam hammers from the days when Birmingham was known as
the workshop of the (British) Empire; and the area around it was called the
Black Country on account of its smokestacks, soot and smog.
Samuel Sydney in the nineteenth century described the Black Country as a place where no birds were seen and ‘furnaces continually smoke, steam-engines thud and hiss, and long chains clank’. The author David Smith in his latest books writes about the sound of the Black Country. ‘Think of a giant drum kit, a slow bass beat interspersed with a high-hat, at maximum volume, and you have something like it’.
A year after Black Sabbath thundered out
of Birmingham (see the Brummie Blues post in April’s archive), Judas Priest
also formed in Brum to crank out more heavy metal. Six years later, Lemmy Kilmister,
from nearby Stoke-on-Trent, founded Motorhead, sparking phase two of the genre.
another heavy metal band from England’s West Midlands is making a bit of a noise
or, should I say, creating a truckload of it. Like Cream, the band who started it all, this outfit is also a hard rock power trio.
carpet town of Kidderminster, 17 miles from Birmingham, WEAK13 isn’t so much
garage rock as industrialized factory mash. Founder, main songwriter and frontman,
Nick J. Townsend, must have
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| Power trio WEAK13 with Nick J. Townsend centre. |
the most eccentric haircut in rock, having shaved
off half of his beard and shoulder-length hair in 1999 as a protest against
society. He sings like he’s protesting against society, too, with a voice sometimes reminiscent of AC/DC’s original singer, the late, great (but
tiny) Bon Scott.
you can have a look at Nick with WEAK13, and check out their music and videos, by clicking on their official Australian WEAK13
fansite link now.
I don’t know but WEAK13 also have a following in the USA, having appeared on
American heavy metal-themed TV show InsaniTV a couple of times.
Again, you can catch WEAK13’s strikingly theatrical stage show by logging onto their fan club link above.
know who matches WEAK13 for grinding industrial rock is Nick Cave’s Grinderman
from Down Under. If you like your rock rock-hard, take a listen to this one,
too.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=how+blues+evolved
