Comfort Stand Recordings — Iron Metal - Iron Metal I/Rock on the Hole

	Iron Metal - Iron Metal I/Rock on the Hole

	catalog: csr024
	time: 24:48
	release: 05.03.04
	audio: 192k mp3

	download: zip (44MB)
	stream: m3u or flash

Produced by Jim Rock and Iron Metal. Notes by Perry Amberson.

I was reading a while back about this guy called Mingering Mike who, back in the 70s, created a whole fictional recording career for himself and his friends. He hand-painted album covers and disc labels and recorded a cappella cassettes of his original compositions. It got me thinking back to my own imaginary music career, as Yugoslavian heavy metal singer/guitarist Jim Rock, leader of the band Iron Metal.

The germ of the idea was formed during repeated viewings of a videotaped nightclub performance by the Swiss heavy metal band Krokus, a program shown innumerable times on the fledgling USA network during 1982. By December of that year, I had developed a minor obsession with the show, especially frontman Mark Storace's mangled attempts at stereotypical heavy metal between-song patter ("See this little shitty newspaper bit? The Brooklyn Zoo rocks tonight!") After watching it with my best friend, Tim, we hit on the idea of forming our own imaginary metal band. The idea was to be from an even less likely country of origin than Switzerland, so we made our "band" natives of Yugoslavia and gave them the cleverly redundant name Iron Metal.

01	Intro/Rock the Cops to Town	1:57
02	Whiskey Wine Woman	1:33
03	Band Introductions/Love of My Woman	1:07
04	Get Rockin'	2:10
05	Cocaine Nose	0:58
06	Devil Hell	2:09
07	Steaming Bridge	1:52
08	Rock on the Hole - Side 1	5:38
09	Rock on the Hole - Side 2	3:56
10	Rock on the Hole - Side 3	3:17
11	Rock on the Hole - Side 4	5:11

	slimline

I had only started teaching myself guitar a year earlier and still couldn't play chords. A friend had shown me an open E tuning, and I'd developed a small amount of skill for making a bar across all six strings and moving from one fret to another without pausing too long to think about it. Tim and I took turn writing lyrics, using the four-line-verse-four-line-chorus template of the first Ramones album and concentrating on the most metal-oriented subjects we could think of-sex, alcohol, drugs, the devil, policemen and their nuts, and bridges engulfed in steam-all expressed in the English-as-a-second-language style of Krokus.

I hastily picked out a sequence of "chords" for each song and wrote down a number to represent the appropriate fret on which to lay my meaty ring finger. Then I plugged my no-name hollow-body electric guitar (purchased in a pawnshop a year earlier) into my distortion device-an old cassette deck which wouldn't play tapes anymore but could still pass a signal-and sent the output into a retired home stereo amplifier which pumped 10 watts per channel into an old pair of car stereo speakers that I'd inherited. Two mikes were plugged into my new cassette deck, and Tim and I made like two wacky Zagreb-born rock stars for around 11 minutes.

Who knew 1982 would be such a banner year for imaginary metal? That was the year that three American comic actors and technically proficient musicians-alumni of the Credibility Gap and the National Lampoon shows-and TV's "Meathead" were in L.A. shooting a feature-length improv comedy about the declining fortunes of a once-hot British hard rock band; a continent and an ocean away, some of the leading lights of the British "New Wave of Comedy" were making a short film for the 'Comic Strip Presents...' series, concerning a barely competent young band in the Def Leppard mode. Meanwhile, in my bedroom in my parents' house in northeast Alabama, two musically challenged hillbillies were conjuring up minimalist metal with our two growly voices and one poorly played guitar.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of all this is not that we were both legal adults at the time of this first Iron Metal session, but that we continued to make recordings in this vein for the next nine years. (I eventually learned how to play actual chords!)

When I listen to these early recordings now, it's difficult for me to separate them from the severe head injury I suffered in a car wreck a few months before Iron Metal was born. My period of recovery was a scary and disorienting time, but it turned out to be quite productive. I made several new and enduring friendships then, and my altered brain chemistry allowed me to devote a surprising amount of time and energy to the kind of idea that normally would have been nothing more than a throwaway gag in a soon-to-be-forgotten conversation.

The material you have here represents a triple-album set (in just under 30 minutes!) composed of the group's first set of recordings, the 11-minute 'Iron Metal I' from December 1982, along with the more ambitious double-album set 'Rock on the Hole' from about six months later. Much as George Michael's UK solo hit "Careless Whisper" was released in the States as a Wham! record to help build brand-name recognition, this Jim Rock solo album is now being released under the Iron Metal banner. I apologize to any purists who have been offended.

IRON METAL I (1982)

1. "Rock the Cops to Town" (Rock)

Gone drinkin' the whiskey bar
And crash the rockin' car
The police chase our guts
Swinging their police nuts

Gonna rock - rock the cops to town
Gonna rock the cops to town

2. "Whiskey Wine Woman" (Rock)

My woman is big and strong
She loves to rock and roll
She drinks the whiskey down
And wine is in her soul

Whiskey wine woman - so Goddamn fine
You're my woman - whiskey wine

3. "Love of My Woman" (Head - Rock)

I love this girl, oh yes I do
And when I'm not lovin' I get too blue
My woman, my love, my mind

My woman
We make love every night
My woman
Makin' love is so right

4. "Get Rockin'" (Head - Rock)

Hey everybody
Come in tonite
We all get rockin'
Rock the daylight
If you know this,
Rock is o.k.
Get rockin'
But we all rock this way

Say it - rock, rock, rock, etc.

5. "Cocaine Nose" (Rock)

Rock and roll this cocaine nose
Party all the night
Is in all of our souls
Cocaine we get it right

Cocaine - powder lover
Cocaine - my only lover

6. "Devil Hell" (Rock)

Gotta burn - burn in Devil Hell
Burn - 'cause I did not act all well
Devil stick me with his fork
'Cause Hell is the Devil's sport

Goin' to Devil Hell
Burn - I was not well

7. "Steaming Bridge" (Rock)

Don't walk over Steaming Bridge
Is where my family dies
Not on that Steaming Bridge
Is all the Devil's cries

Steaming Bridge - you take my home away
Steaming Bridge - I always want to stay

ROCK ON THE HOLE (1983)
(All Songs Written by Jim Rock)

1. "Rock on the Stage"

Rockin' on the stage tonight
Everybody audience rocks
Bitches sweating wet hot tits
Rockin' mans with man beards

Rock is on the stage tonight
We don't give a Hell
Rock yourself o.k. tonight
We are not all well

2. "There Is a Hole"/"The Fall"

Iron Metal really rocks
On the Zagreb stage
Jim Rock just does not see
The hole in front of him

He falls into the longest hole
That any man has seen
And Leather Head is looking
In the hole and saying, "Damn!"

The fall it is a long way
For rockin' Jim to go
The fall it is a long way
And it is not all slow

3. "Jim on the Bottom"

Here is the bottom I am at
I don't know what I see
Is it from drugs that I have take
Or just a fantasy

I'm on the bottom
Where can I be
Who will save me
From this destiny

4. "Hole Man Is Here"

While I lay upon the ground
The middle of the earth
A little man walk up to me
He is two feet tall

I am the Hole Man
Follow me to Hole Land
I am here to help
So you won't be on the shelf

5. "I Will Follow"

I will follow Hole Man
To his tiny home
There is also a Devil Hell
Not far from his home

I will follow you
But not near Devil Hell
I will go to Hole Land
But only if is well

6. "Devil Man Looks at Me"

While I laid asleep that night
In my Hole Land shack
Feel the Hottest Fire breath
Is the Devil on my back

Takes me to Devil Hell
I never seen
Always in Devil Hell
Is just a dream

7. "Rock 'n' Roll Hell"

Here is Jimi Hendrix
Here is Janis Joplin
Here is Jim Morrison
Here is Elvis Presley
Here is Jim Rock in...

Rock 'n' Roll Hell - got to stay
Rock 'n' Roll Hell - no two ways

8. "Hole Man Is Back"

Here I am in Devil Hell
With the stars of old
Little Hole Man yells my name
"Jim Rock, come along!"

Hole Man - he is back
To put me on the right track
This has got to be
A new reality

9. "Dust in the Wind"

Back in Hole Land
I am alone
There is no ring
No telephone
I think, yes, now
Of many things
And of my home
And everything

People are just like dust in the wind
People are just women and men
People us are dust in the wind
Every since people begin

10. "Meanwhile on the Surface of the Earth"

Meanwhile on the surface of the earth
Leather Head watches his bitch-wife give birth
It is a man baby - with a cock
Leather says, "We'll call him - Jim Rock!"

11. "We Got to Have Jim Back"

Out on the streets of the city
Iron Metal fans are so gritty
And on every street in the city
Iron Metal fans sing so pretty...

"We got to have Jim back
With not him the world is black
Jim Rock is got to return
Or the city we all burn
Burn, burn, burn, burn"

12. "City's Burning"

City is on fire you know
Iron Metal fans burn it down
Because we have to get Jim back
Nothin' too strong for this rock 'n' roll crown

City's burning - is on fire
City's burning - like a wire

13. "Stop This You Kids"

Stop this you kids
Something will be done
Jim Rock will be saved
And every one

I am a Government Man
Who always speaks
Now I will send for
The Genius of Sheets

14. "Genius of Sheets"

Here I come to save the day
Seven of them are a weeks
I know everything like that
I'm the genius of sheets
I know how to save Jim Rock
The king of rock 'n' roll
We tie all the sheets together
Drop them in the hole
The Genius of Sheets
He is the hero of the day
He will save Jim Rock
And then will go away

15. "Give Us Your Sheets"

Iron Metal fans demand to you
Give us all of your sheets
We need them for a mighty dude
Jim Rock is who we speak

Give us your sheets
Rock 'n' Roll
Give us your sheets
Whiskey bowl

16. "Here Are the Sheets"

Everyone around the world
Giving up the sheets
Save Jim Rock before too late
All the people speaks

Here are the sheets
Save Jim Rock
These are the sheets
Do not stop
(Repeat 40 Times)

17. "The Rescue"

The sheets are all together
To be thrown in the hole
Leather Head is here too
Screaming rock 'n' roll

"Jim Rock will be saved
Because it has to be
And when he is saved
Will rock 'n' roll with me"

18. "Down in the Hole"

The sheets go down into the hole
And fast do they fall down
But then we see something is wrong
No one held the other end

Oh my god - the sheets are gone
What can we do now
Oh my god - Jim Rock is still
Way down inside the hole

19. "We Have the Magic"

I am Jim Rock sitting in Hole Land
I see the falling sheets
And then I see the other end
What will I do, oh my god

Then the Hole Man comes to me
And says we can help you
We'll use our magic power
To send you out the hole

"Yes we have the magic
Because we wanted to
We will use the magic
Just to help you"

20. "Coming Up"

Here I come up through the hole
I pass the layers of earth
I'm coming out the hole now
There is the entire earth

There is Leather Head
His bitch and little child
The baby says, "I'm Jim Rock"
I just say, "Oh my god"

Coming up out of the hole
Here's the world and rock 'n' roll
Iron Metal rocks again
Metal men will rock till when

21. "What Was It Like"

All the people ask me
What was it like in the hole
All that I can tell them
There was no rock 'n' roll

There was Hole Land and Devil Hell
And all the little Hole Men
I only know that if I do
I won't go back again

What was it like
You don't smoke, you don't drink
Don't ask about my sex life
I'll hit you again

22. "Rock and Roll Reunion"

We are back together
Jim Rock and Leather Head
Rock and roll forever
Until we both are dead

With little Jim Rock junior
Playing rocking drums
And Leather Head's bitch-wife
Dancing to the drums

Rock 'n' roll reunion
Forever rock 'n' roll
Rock 'n' roll somebody
Cover up the hole