As hard as it may be to believe at this late date (check your calendar), some cricket dicks still don’t have the slightest clue as to what Heavy Metal is, much less what it’s all about. Like all other dumb labels for music (New Wave, Southern Rock, $7.98) it’s nearly impossible to define and none of the groups ever really fits the definition anyway. So the next time somebody stops you on the street and asks, “Hey, Bernice, what is Heavy Metal?”, it’s generally best to just say that Ted Nugent is and Horslips isn’t; “Whole Lotta Love” is and “Mandy”—well, if it gets that far, just tell ’em to go stick their ear to a lawn mower and listen.

Heavy Metal is rock ’n’ roll that gives your ears the urge to make voodoo dolls of your stereo speakers. It’s as LOUD as having an eviction notice nailed to your forehead, as SCREECHY as a rusty craniotomy saw in the hands of Moe and so HEAVY that it can sometimes only be listened to while curled into a modified gagging dolphin position. Add some lyrics that are as memorable as your most unforgettable blackout and production values that vary between thin and asleep-at-thewheel, and you achieve a certain transcendental cruddiness that can make grown men and women jump up on aluminum folding chairs and holler IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA!!

What it’s all about is the love/hate relationship between fan and fan’s brain. Sure, there are times when you want to just squat on your beanbag and moo out to some soft stuff that would bring on moping even in minnows. But e! sulko is only good for a while before those primeval blot instincts take over and the human animal must face the ooze and GET DOWN. As deep as possible, maybe even devolving into coal or petroleum.

Unfortunately, that’s getting harder to do all the time. The established HM plowheads have either broken up or been reduced by middle age to fumbling flyfarts who don’t know a power chord from a loose showerhead anymore. And each year’s crop produces fewer contenders, as new groups shoot for idiotic concepts like “originality” and “airplay.” As reknowned Stooges expert Dick Van Patten recently observed, “I see disquieting signs of a who, me?’ attitude around here,” and he was right, as usual.

In this useless disco era of Fry Babies, matching shoes and haircuts and the test tube filing cabinet, God and Ritchie Blackmore know that we need music that makes us feel like a milky pool of snail droppings violently buffeted by deranged wave’s of maltreated sewage and semi-intelligent industrial wastes in order to help us get in touch with our own inner emotional fish puke. Maybe the GasCo is right when they say “The Future Belongs To The Efficient,” but let’s scope the junkyard of still-living groups anyway and see if there are any signs of Future Thud on the Heavy Metal horizon.

LED ZEPPELIN:: Here’s the one band that immediately comes to mind when you think Heavy Metal. Well, them and Badfinger. Led Zep made the unfortunate mistake of releasing THE perfect HM album, numero //, which had more steaming chunks of white-hot metal than a burning stove dump. After this stigmatize flash of dumdum genius, there truly was n. place to go but downhill, a task they engaged upon with characteristic zeal. Lately, the lemongrowers’ delight have made an effort at some basic home improvements, resulting in music nearly as stimulating as a tire fire. This is one hot air device that’s never gonna leave the ground again, particularly now that old Crisco lungs sounds like he’s singing through a fish tank filter.

BOSTON:: While the high tech approach of basement madman Tom Scholz has produced some interesting songs with disguised cabinets and hidden stairways to heaven, what they really need to install is at least one new chord progression. Best rumor of the year was that singer Brad Delp was apprehended at a New York hospital while trying to make off with a surgical garbage can full of that week’s vasectomy trimmings.

BLUE OYSTER CULT:: Although continually victimized by their “critic’s band” label (most of said critics having since turned predictably hateful towards them), BOC keep heavin’ them ingots live and expanding their webs on record. With Buck Dharma,,stili faster than a shithouse mouse on guitar and lyrics reminiscent of the probable sex life of Boney M., the Cult’s sound is just like that new camera blurb on TV: so advanced, it’s simple. The best description of their material I’ve ever seen is this plot description ojf an old episode of Thriller: “The Trashers move into a grim, unpleasant old house—where all the mirrors are hidden away in an attic,'”'.":

REO SPEEDWAGON:: As much as I’d like to embrace this Midwestern entry that was formative in my own early experiments at littering gymnasium floors with tiny pieces of tin foil, they’re so damn pedestrian I’m surprised they don’t wear WALK/DON’T WALK signs around their necks. Catch ’em live sometime and you too can experience the emotions of a white line . on pavement.

HEART:: The Wilson sisters and their buckskin slaves have shown the capability to injure the atmosphere, but their recent Dog & Butterfly LP was a real dogfly. As a viewing attraction however, watching those two shake and bake up there gives the male portion of their audience the feeling that someone has just dumped an entire Banana Republic down their pants.

TED NUGENT:: The all-time hero of rivetbrains and cruelty-to-animals specialists alike, Terrible Ted is still chopping block steady but getting as formulaic as a meat processing plant. Nobody but nobody comes within a hair-trigger of this mental missing link when it comes to onstage audience desecration, though in Real Life there are many who would like to shoot and mount his mouth. But listen, you think they’re ever gonna name a pinball machine after Budgie?

WISHBONE ASH:: With a rhythm section as heavy as a narcoleptic five-year-old tapping on a tenement bannister with a chicken bone and trademark twin leads that rival recent Florida worm migrations for dim slither, Wishbone’s sleepwalk is nearing the end. Good psych-up music for enemies of the turtle.

PAT TRAVERS:: Weird case here. One minute it’s wet brakes on the Stratocaster Van, the next it’s Rundgreny slipknots with anorexic vocals. But if his badly decomposed tunes ever come to life, it could be Night Of The Living Canucks all over again.

BLACK SABBATH:: Satan’s Pigeons have lately speeded up their unpartjtioned ryiung heaps in a senseless effort to “get with it.” Forget it, chumps, you were always at least 40 m.p.h. behind it and that’s why you were great. Since their material is the very epitome of a Grave Disservice, I’d go along with the guy on Flash Gordon who complained'to the king of the Clay People, “I’m sick and tired of gettin’ pushed around by a bunch of mudpies.”

STARZ:: The ongoing game of Stratego that is Starz’ career has lately ta|en a turn towards radio visibility, which is OK, although I miss their collapsing bleachers of Thorazined iron like “Pull The Plug.” Drama with a capital Duh. Singer Michael Lee Smith has the best screamers since' Stevie Tyler plopped on his first electric goose, so lookout.

BAD COMPANY:: I think Paul Rodgers’ old band Free played the leading role in deadending the HM approach, with their sloweddown hay rotters that dribbled along1 like blood exiting the nose of an O.D.ing downer freak. BadCo seems intent on carrying on that tradition with all the imagination of a slipcover. Their latest LP, Desolation Angels, does show signs of life, but then.so does my dead underwear pile.

URIAH HEEP:: Once a thundering pieplate full of swandive bass throbs and back-projected keyboards so cheesy that the Heep were named The Dairy Farmers’ Friend, this group has since been reduced to Ken Hensley’s plaything. I wish somebody’d get him some Colorforms or some -thing before he breaks Rod Stewart’s record for most consecutive indistinguishable LPs.

MONTROSE:: Is this now, or was it ever an actual group? Ronnie M. has his hot dog in so many campfires you never know what to expect. And you know what they say, inconsistency is the hobgoblin of mindless avatars, so I wish Mr. Montrose would either pick, the crud out of his teeth or stop blocking the mirror.

DICTATORS:: With a collective IQ slightly lower than the produce section at your local supermarket and Handsome Dick Manitoba’s great canvas-burned vocals, the late great Dies are the definitive example of the Cheap Debbie maxim, “It’s OK ,to do stupid, things if they work.” Laboratory tests have shown that Adny Shernoff’s bass lines give rats an uncontrollable urge to mate'with anything that won’t crawl off the plate.

STATUS QUO:: They may be dumber than the Dictators—shit, they make Slade look like Jeopardy champs—but they never take their paws off the panic handle. With their granite Morse code boogie thud, the Quo are such reliable bin busters they make ZZ Top sound like the McGarrigle Sisters.'

FOGHAT:: This band’s Monty Hall approach to bloato blooz is like a Southern police dog’s approach to integrationists, but it’s all in good fun. And if their version of “Take Me To The River” had been a hit, there may never have been a David Byrne. Such is life.

KISS:: Stop laughing, shuddup, c’mon, you in the back, wipe that look of this-guy-has-completely-iost-his-shit off'your face. The first couple Kiss LPs can rub weinies with any of these other bands without haying to avert their chops, although everything released since then smells like burnt robin. Big deal, I’d sell out if I was them too—hey, Aucoin, you need any copy hacks or anything?

THIN LIZZY:: Another case of being too hot too soon, the Lizzies peaked in 76 with their Jailbreak LP and the ultimate motivational single of all time, “The Boys Are Back In Town.” I bat .900 at pinball with that tune on the box. Plagued by personnel shake-ups, untimely illnesses and a disturbing trend toward allowing saxophone players near their studio, I’m not sure whether to go fluff up the pillow on their deathbed or hang in there and wait for Phil Lynott to bring the snakes back to Ireland.

AEROSMITH:: If this band can survive their fans’ current penchant for hurling explosive devices at them, they’re the Great Skinny Hope for consistent rump-punting metal. Survived a, dud studio album (Draw The Line) by releasing a killer live set so perfect it almost sounds accidental. Hey, you don’t think. . .

AC/DC:: All Aussies ever do is sit around on their stupid little beaches, drinking Obtuse Aborigine Beer and belting each other around with surfboards because there’s barely enough surf to even paddle out in. They need good drowning music down there and this band contains no lifeguards. Bearing down with mangy curtains of cancerous sludge, AC/DC make Black Sabbath sound like nerf Heavy Metal. Great stuff, comparable to cleaning out a septic tank with a toothbrush.

ANGEL:: After a slow start as the next Uriah Heep, Angel had a sudden brainstorm last year not unlike that immortal moment in the premier episode of The Partridge Family when Reuben first calls Danny a “forty-year-old midget.” The idea now is to drop the fat ladies and be Cheap Trick with lips. They’ll probably end up becoming the next Brady Kids.

RITCHIE BLACKMORE’S RAINBOW:: Deep Purple didn’t break up, Blackmore just took his chrome amoeba full of riffs down South, absorbed an entire band (Elf) and then spit out everybody but the singer. Now, DP was one of the greats, but accepting this outfit is like taking “Smoke On The Water” from a dribble glass.

/QUEEN:: So Freddie Mercury can peel a hardboiled egg and read Rock-A-Rama at the same time, whoopee shit. Some of their earlier stuff briefly filled" the Led Zep gap, but their last couple of albums packed all the wallop of a wet teabag. Excellent background music for looking over wallpaper samples or just plain becoming a sissy.

NAZARETH:: Used up all their material on two fine early LPs (Loud TV’ Proud, Hair Of The Dog) and have been dragging Riff River ever since for new bodies. Their cool was further damaged by singer Dan McCafferty’s solo album, the response to which was so, uh, lowkey that you could almost hear his career collapsing in the background.

RUSH:: Though originally labeled as the Canadian Led 2ep (heaven forbid), Rush cranked out a couple goodies before they turned to miniseries about futuristic Alex Trebek types. It’s also hard to ignore the voice of Geddy Lee which sounds like snip ’n’ fix time at the kennek

VAN HALEN:: One of the very few promising new practitioners of slash and burn agriculture around. The Netherland-bred Van Halen brothers somehow managed to avoid the Dutch national character (twerpyfness) and singer David Roth howls like he left something stuck in a dike as well. Good shot at reinventing the lemon-squeezer.

JUDAS PRIEST:: Sometimes referred to as the poor man’s Blue Oyster Cult, these limeheads gun their acid tractors faster and louder, but with all the imagination of Naval Jelly. Casper the Friendly Ghost in leatherette.

WHITESNAKE:: Here are the true keepers of the Deep Purple vapor trail, especially now that late-DP singer David Coverdale has lured Jon Lord fthe originator of weightlessness-inducing keyboards) at least temporarily back into the fold, spindle and mutilate. One of the few current bands with an inarguable insight into creative tunnel-vision, and as Cincinnati expert Richard Riegel has observed, “ideas whose times have come all over the wall aren’t easily discarded.” But is that why they picked a name that’s black jive for pindick?

MOLLY HATCHETT:: Not so much HM as Erectorized swamp echoes. You never know when one of these Southern-bred fanciers is gonna fall into a tub o wah-wahs and achieve airship nirvana though, so don’t unleash the iron buttflies just yet.

UFO:: Currently the top purveyors of jailhouse rock on the prison barge, UFO have refined gearhead and reductivism down to its purest chunka-chunka. Recent live disc tends to get cross-eyed at times, but they still get my vote for sharpest hooks in the meathouse.

MAHOGANY RUSH:: With Frank Marino’s multiple guitar devices, which are set up onstage to look like an elaborate electric train playground, this troop can sometimes be amusing live, but their records should come with gas meters. NEWS FLASH: A teenage youth in Connecticut hospitalized with an overexposure to Jimi Hendrix records, claims that the spirit of Frank Marino has entered his fingertips. Quick, Doc, the knife!

RUNAWAYS:: No more wolf tickets for these limp sisters—being Big in Japan is insult enough. Their vocals recapitulate the history of minor mouth pain, and the band’s entire catalog is currently being played to apes in a San Diego zoo to teach them to writhe in pain.

GODZ:: These pukepots deserve a mention for their honorably repellent “I’ll scrape the bottom of your barrel if you’ll scrape the bottom of mine” attitude. Brightest hope around for bringing back nerve-shattering tinniness, since both their albums sound like they were recorded in a fire hydrant.