CANT DANCE AND IT'S TOO WET TO PLOW

CANT DANCE AND IT'S TOO WET TO PLOW

Rick Johnson

Heavy metal vocalists don't get much respect. Many listeners think these singers are so many in-terchangeable faucet parts, and band-hopping hooters like Ian Gillan and Ronny James Dio only reinforce that concept.

Simply referring to someone like Ozzy Osbourne as a singer is usually treated with the same sort of disbelief as Radio New Zealand's accounts of the entire city of Auckland being buried under a massive deluge of threepacks of men's cotton briefs. Sexist poops, they'll oc-casionally accept a female as a "vocalist," but we're gonna tackle the women at a later date with a stronger team.

Obviously, it's time to educate these doubt-ing spores. I mean. I think the guys can sing. It's like Frank Zappa said a long time ago-even if all you're doing is kicking three dif-ferent garbage cans, you're creating a melody.

Faucets, garbage and elastic waist-bands-are you starting to get the picture? It's time to address all this nonsense about metal singers definitively. But first, a word from our sponsor.

THE HUMAN VOICE: NOW RUBBLE?

The very notion that people can sing is o a par with great ideas like the Glade spin fresh toilet roll air freshener. It's not as if anything with a mouth can deliver "Dazed And Confused" in the key of whoa! Grackles and parakeets are one thing, but when was the last time you heard a giraffe sing, or a trout? The true encyclopedia of rock, the World Book claims that "most higher animals can bark, cry, howl, groan, growl. or chirp." Where does this leave Dee Snider?

Like most major annoyances, it all starts with the voice box, or larynx. a hunk of nine cartileges (medically speaking) with two small bands of tissue called the vocal cords strung across like very tiny pink tow straps. The more tightly they're stretched, the higher the sound and vice versa.

Actual crooning requires the use of diaphragmatic breathing. sometimes referred to as the Bellows Effect.

Since we're only dealing with the guy voices here, there's one little quality that's peculiar to the male animal. Besides Steve Perry. We're talking about puberty, a once in a lifetime experience, like dying on an operating table.

why this was named after the bad doc on / Dream I Jeannie is beyond me, but it probably has something to do with the deification of Larry Hagman. Anyhoo, when the air stored in the lungs whooshes over the vocal cords, they act like a reed and vibrate, producing sound. Wouldn't that be a great cut-down line? Hey buddy, make like a reed and vibrate, will ya?

OK, we got the air supply. we got the reed. what's the World Book's next ingredient „oh yeah The Space—that we've got plenty of. What they mean basically is the throat and mouth, although many of the highest notes are produced by resonances in the skull cavities. All this under one roof!

IT'S SNIP-SNIP TIME, JUNIOR!

When boys "reach" puberty—no matter how tall a shelf it's on—their larynx takes off on a growth spurt. As the vocal cords get longer, the sound they produce becomes lower. There's only one way around these teenage shenanigans. Even though it's real special and you get to join a no-girls-allowed club and everything, it's still not a very popular career move.

The Castrati is the club we're referring to, or in the polite words of my depth de-fying source:"removal of the sex organs in boyhood to keep the voice from chang-ing." No matter which way you slice it, it's not big today, although it was a quite popular solution to the shortage of choir-boys in the 16th century.

Important Historical Fact: the world's last castrato. essandro Moreschi. died in 1922, much to the stonishment of his non-existent grandchildren.

MISS CRUMP BEGS TO DIFFER?

When it comes to the history and development of the heavy metal vocalist. it is necessary to refer to the h & d of heavy metal itself. NO! NO! NOT THE HISTORY OF HEAVY METAL AGAIN!. the readers begged. Hey. listen-I know you people think you're a bunch of very heavy duty slaves-turned-botanists and all, but that's too bad! If you don't cut the crap and get with the program. I'm just gonna have to ask you to leave!

In a podshell. the earliest metal nightingales were English blues sissies like Roger Daltrey and the fashionably late Keith Reif of the Yardbirds. They weren't all of the castrati persuasionJack Bruce of Cream is one notable-if-dimwitted exception-but no matter which way ya stacks 'em. they adds up to Robert Plant.

Bobby. Bobby. Bobby. where did you get those pipes? Was it that afternoon in the Black Forest when you found yourself on the wrong end of a splitting wedge? Or perhaps the time you lost that anatomically correct glass figurine of a ferret in your sleeping bag?

No matter. Mr. Plant unwittingly established the Screamer School. the main branch of the heavy metal tree. One mutant offshoot, the Squealer School (as best expressed by Geddy Lee). had its day in the bun but has since been declared genetically invalid.

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The only other major branch, or should I say twiglette, are/were the Opera Dupes (OD for short) like Freddie Mercury, who’ve either had professional vocal training or sound like they wish they had.

While the Screamers and the ODs pretty much evolved into their present day counterparts unassisted, there were some slight detours along the way.

Rod Evans, who preceeded Ian Gillan as croak voke of Deep Purple, was reportedly booted from the band precisely because of the nerve-wrenching tinniness of his voice. So they switch to screamin’ Ian instead, which makes about as much sense as caffeine suppositories. Too bad they didn’t switch in time to prevent thousands of would-be metal belters from taking after him.

Paul Rodgers, erstwhile Bad Co. and Free dumdum, uses a J. Bruce-like growl to much better effect. Underrated for at least the past 10 marble seasons, maybe the Firm will “break” him all the way.

Then there are the minor influences of Jimi Hendrix (to account for the Phil Lynott Effect) and Van Der Graaf Generator’s dreaded Peter Hamill, not to mention second generation bloatotypes like Bon Scott. Ian Hunter. David Coverdale and even lip-gripper Stevie Tyler. They’re all in there because of the numero uno rule of heavy metal music: sooner or later, somebody likes everything.

ASSAULT AND PEPPER

I guess that brings us up to date, as you, the occasional kegler, somehow knew it would as you sit there humming “Theme From C.H.U.D.” (can ya dig it?) and debating whether or not to join Radio Shack’s Free Battery Of The Month Club. That’s fine, but where do you go for assault?

But enough of this history shit, it’s time to check out the metal singers our readers want to hear about. And what better way to slim down the field than to refer to the lastest CREEM Readers Poll? That’s right, the same warped election that established Eddie Van Halen as Best Keyboarder. FOUR FUCKING NOTES, people—where are your brains? Do you realize that if you were the Electoral College, Angus Young would now be our President?

With a little switching around of categories here and there to eliminate names like Bruce Springsteen and Bono Vox (let’s sound it out: Booooonoooooo...) these are the readers’ picks as best heavy metal vocalist:

#10: Ozzy Osbourne—so what if the man sometimes forgets to observe proper udder control? He’s still one of the Screamer School’s finest products, with a merciless shriek not unlike the whine of a plastic surgeon’s fat vacuum.

#9: Joe Elliott—Joe did a lot better back in his chub days, when he was so plump, about all he had was pan pals. C’mon now, this is the soldier who got hit on the head with a twoby-four in Providence, R.l. and still came out for the encore! Don’t blame me, I was aiming for the bass player!

#8: Dee Snider—Dee's not the brightest guy. In fact, before he became a singer, he wanted to be a professional snake venom milker, but could never find a short enough stool. Still, about all you need to tweet metallic is a suitable gear ratio, and that he’s got.

#7: Paul Stanley—despite handling most of the vocals, Paul will always be second to Gene Simmons in the “minds” of Kiss fans. That’s about as big a deal as being the second most prominent ex-frogman criminal attorney in Wichita.

#6: Stephen Pearcy—the girls choice for crotch wagger supreme is headed for the top spot in next year’s poll, but I still say all his bulge-poodle machinations demonstrate his need for a rod manager, now!

#5: Ronnie James Dio—he reminds me of a Century 21 real estate salesman, a good friend in a gold coat. “If you look inside my songs,” the gnome-dome told Kerrang, "you’ll still find the same old Ronnie James Dio who doesn’t seem to be making a point.” Upped a rank for honesty.

#4: Billy Squier—no excuse for this bore placing so high. As if it’s not enough that he waddles around the stage like a sea turtle in an egg-laying trance, half the time it sounds like he’s singing through a set of thermoback drapes. Let’s just attribute it to temporary ballot insanity and move on.

#3: Robert Plant—he doesn't really belong in this group anymore, but you gotta give ol' transvestite-lungs credit for his transition from metal wang tooter to anesthetic lollipop. A possible case of screech impediment.

#2: Vince Neil—all right, so he comes off like a 3-D film released "flat" on a bad night, Vince usually displays no iron deficiency whatsoever. Until his name achieves the status of a clinical term, we'll just have to settle for his skid-resistant trademark woof. Let’s just hope he knows all the words to "Jailhouse Rock.”

#1: David Lee Roth—not only does DLR display the same vocal range as practitioners of risheh ne'ameh (the ostrich tail), but he's the only metal mouth who’s sexually sophisticated enough to know what it means. You will never find the mark of Snorro on anything Roth’s involved with. And to settle this Battle of the Bulge nonsense once and for all: if David Lee's jockstrap were dropped from a bomber, it would level an entire metropolitan area. Boom.