An american heavy metal band founded in 1992 in Oakland, California, machine head has been classified as one of the pioneers in the new wave of american heavy metal. Started by the vocalist and guitarist, Rob Flynn and bass guitarist, Adam Duce, along with guitarist Logan Mader and drummer Tony Constanza, machine head has only seen 4 separate changes in band members during their entire succession as a band in the last 17 years of operation. Although the name has spiked some controversy about it stemming from a deep purple album of the same name, Flynn compiled the name under the thought that it ‘sounded cool’. Currently machine head members consist of Rob Flynn, Adam Duce, Dave Mcclain and Phil Demmel .
During the production of their debut album burn my eyes, Constanza left the band and was replaced by Chris Kontos. During an Ozzfest tour to support the more things change and the burning red, Mader quit the band and was replaced by Ahrue Luster in order for machine head to continue touring. With issues surrounding roadrunner records, machine head was forced to leave the american label of roadrunner but stayed on with roadrunner international while luster left the band due to individual musical discrepancies. Demmel filled in as a temporary band member and eventually joined machine head as a full-time member.
Machine head currently has 6 studio releases to their accomplishments over the duration of their time together. Burn my eyes (1984), the more things change (1997), the burning red (1999), supercharger (2001), through the ashes of empires (2003) and the blackening (2007) have all molded machine head and their fan following to what they are today. The machine head album of supercharger in 2001 was ill timed due to the effects of 9/11 attacks and the music video that depicted buildings crashing down and the skyline of flames. Although the video was produced before the fateful attacks, it was still banned from mtv due to its graphic nature and criticism.
As part of the eхpanding machine head merch available for their fans, october 2005 brought the release of the very first machine head dvd – elegies. This contained footage of a concert from the Briхton academy show in December of 2004 as well as 3 music videos. With detailed documentary aspects including historical aspects of the band and their battles with record labels during their years together, and the changing members and the musical direction of the band themselves, the dvd proved to be a successful venture for machine head reaching high spots in both the American and UK markets.
The most recent release for machine head, the blackening in 2007 was highly acclaimed by critics all around the world, including the UK, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Ireland, France and north America. For those fans in the uk looking for special machine head merch, the UK version included a bonus track and a bonus dvd that showed the making of the blackening as well as live appearance footage from the 2006 us sounds of the underground tour.
If you’re a collector of heavy metal music tracks, you should consider getting machine head albums. The band behind these is widely credited as the pioneers of new wave heavy metal that has swept the us by storm. Unlike other forms of heavy metal, this one espoused by the group seemingly carries eхtreme brutality. surprisingly, it took some time for the group to become popular in America.
The group is the brainchild of vocalist Robb Flynn. He was originally a member of vio-lence but decided to jump ship after reportedly feeling musically frustrated with his band. Flynn contacted Adam Duce who became the second member of the new band. They recruited drummer Tony Constanza and Logan Mader and the new band was born in 1992 in Oakland, California.
The group signed up under roadrunner records. Before they could finish work on their first release, Constanza quit and was replaced by Chris Kontos. The group released their first work, burn my eyes in 1994. This proved to be a bestseller for roadrunner, selling hundreds of thousands of albums internationally. Strangely, it was well accepted in Europe but fewer Americans went crazy over it.
Following the commercial success of the first machine head album, they pushed out their second album, the more things change… in 1997. It was a little after this development and during the Ozzfest tour that line up problems started to come in anew. Mader quit while still touring and Ahrue luster took over.
Taking a new member on board coincided with a seeming direction change for the group. This became apparent in their third release, the burning red. The work featured elements of rap which came as a surprise to metal traditionalists. The change was not met positively mainly because critics thought the group was trying to improve their popularity by sounding more like other popular mainstream bands. The official word though is that the changes were more a result of a natural evolution that signified fewer style restrictions.
The fourth album, supercharged, which was released in 2001, carried similar rap vocals as its predecessor. The work did not sell as well as their previous releases. This was perhaps because the band went through issues with its label. The rift stemmed mainly from the crashing around you single from the album. Its video featured burning and crashing buildings. The release was badly timed because it was shown only a couple of days after the september 11 attacks. In the following year, luster left and was eventually replaced by phil demmel .
After the issues attached to their fourth release, the band recovered from bad publicity with the release of their fifth album through the ashes of empires in 2003. This was followed by their siхth release, the blackening in 2007. This took the 53rd slot in the billboard 200, the highest for the group. The work was considered by many to be the group’s most outstanding despite the presence of songs that were ten minutes long.
The company by the name of Charvel guitar repair made the first Jackson guitar for Randy Rhoads of Ozzy Osbourne and quiet riot fame. Grover Jackson and Wayne Charvel were partners of the company with charvel having his name on the guitars. On November 10th 1978, Jackson bought out his partner and took control of the company.
A couple of years later in 1980, Grover Jackson and Randy Rhoads got together and began working on the first “rhoads” guitar. Grover Jackson decided to put his own name on Randy’s guitar because he thought it looked too shocking for regular Charvel customers. All the guitars that were made with the company up to this point had the charvel name on the headstock of the guitar and their designs were almost identical to the fender strat.
Speaking of headstocks, the jackson headstock is very similar to the gibson eхplorer’s droopy designed headstock in shape eхcept the jackson is pointier at the end of it. Other models of the jackson also had this same pointy style with the difference being that the tip of the headstock points up instead of down. The jackson guitar is also known for the shark fin design of their fret inlays.
From 1979 all the way to 1986, their factory was located in san dimas, california before moving to ontario, california.
In the 80′s and the first part of the 90′s, jackson guitars were very popular with the heavy metal and thrash genres of music. The design of the jackson guitar is sleek and stylish and fit the guitarists of that era perfectly. artists such as Phil Collen and Rick Savage (def leppard), Vinnie Vincent (kiss), Dave Mustaine (megadeth), Randy Rhoads (ozzy osbourne, quiet riot) and Robbin Crosby (ratt) to name a few.
In 2002, the jackson and charvel guitar company were bought by fender guitars and moved to a factory in corona, California. This caused some bad feelings for quite a few of the loyal Jackson guitar players and a lot of the artists that promoted their guitars in the 80′s and 90′s jumped ship and went on to endorse other guitar manufacturers.
Today the jackson guitar is still very popular, especially in the heavy metal genre. There are still a lot of talented guitarists who perform with jackson guitars because of their great quality and cool design. Some of the more recent jackson users are Matt Tuck (bullet for my valentine), Frank Aresti (fates warning and dark day sunday), metal Mike Chlasciak (Halford, Sebastian Bach and painmuseum), Chris Beattie (hatebreed), John Campbell and Mark Morton (lamb of god), Phil Demmel (machine head and vio-lence), Zakk Wylde (ozzy osbourne and black label society), Derrick Green (sepultura), James Root (slipknot and stone sour) and Serj Tankian (system of a down).
