The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal - Volume 1: The Seventies is a book of 1162 hard rock or heavy metal record reviews covering the '70s, with maybe 60 or so lookin' in on albums from the '60s. Only about a third of these records were reviewed in the original all-decade book from '97, and even then, those that were have had their reviews considerably overhauled, rewritten and/or expanded. Indeed in general, the reviews are longer than those found in my other books, save perhaps for Southern Rock Review.

Because many of the bands included could only be considered heavy in the context of their times (and many just barely: i.e. Mott The Hoople, Free, Grand Funk, Journey, Humble Pie etc.), I've adopted a two grade scale - one for heaviness factor, one for pure merit. Don't freak... it's all explained in the introduction.

All the big expected bands are here in detail, as well as a truly sick number of rarities. As an example, here's the bands that comprise the B section, with almost all having their full catalogs reviewed record by record:
The Babys, Randy Bachman, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Bad Boy, Bad Company, Baker Gurvitz Army, Russ Ballard, Banchee, Bandit (US), Bandit (UK), Band Of Joy, Bang, Bastard, Beck, Bogert & Appice, Bedlam, Bel Ami, Bighorn, Bijelo Dugme, Billion Dollar Babies, Birtha, Birth Control, The Biz, Black Cat Bones, Blackfeather, Blackfoot, Blackfoot Sue, Blackhorse, Blackjack, Black Sabbath, Black Sheep, Black Spirit, Blackstone, Blackwater Park, Black Widow, Bloodrock, Blue Cheer, Blue Goose, Blue Oyster Cult, Blue Phantom, Blues Addicts, Blues Creation, Bodkin, Tommy Bolin, The Boomtown Rats, Boot, Boston, Bow Wow, Boxer, The Boyzz, Brave Belt, British Lions, Edgar Broughton Band, Brownsville Station, Budgie, Buffalo, Bull Angus, Bulldog, Bullfrog, Bux, Buzzcocks, David Byron...

You get the idea (and yes, there's a few punk albums included: Damned Damned Damned is certainly heavier than ANY Alice Cooper album hands down.).

Extras include:

188 album cover thumbnails, many of them very rare.
As well, there's an explanatory intro, plus a special intro by noted historian Rob Godwin, on the invention of metal.
Appendix 1: Not Heavy (six pages of bands I've left out plus often snide comments about those bands).
Appendix 2: Very, Very Occasionally And Slightly Hard Rocky (nine pages of the same thing, addressing bands that might have consistently or routinely received heaviness quotients of 3 or less).
Appendix 3: The Heaviest 100 Albums Of The '70s.
Appendix 4: The Heaviest 100 Obscurities Of The '70s.
Appendix 5: The Greatest 100 Heavy Metal Albums Of The '70s
Appendix 6: The Greatest 100 Obscure Heavy Metal Albums Of The '70s.
Appendix 7: Interview with Peter Jelic of Anjelic Records
A twelve track, 68:37 minute CD sampler of '70s rarities from Monster Records

It's a pretty sick book, really, in my opinion, the best source out there for actually figuring out what really did rock hard in the '70s, what sorta did, and as importantly, just how heavy all those cool name-dropped bands from the rare end of things really were. So yeah, there's a lot of pretty tame stuff included, but like I said, I've given you a grade, a cold single number, to figure out that side of it! And again, the second number looks at sheer quality of the damn record, with the actual review, of course, waxing poetically about all of that, heaviness, history, relative greatness, personnel, trivia... maybe much more info/factual-packed than you might recognize from my reviews. That's it... I think you now know whether you need this thing or not!

Price including shipping (yes, it’s higher than usual, but this is now ordered in very low quantities):

US orders
$60.00
US funds		 Int'l orders
(air mail)
$70.00 US
funds 		Canadian orders
$69.00
Cdn. funds

Books will be signed by me to you unless you wave your arms wildly and tell me otherwise within like half an hour of ordering.



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