Song of the Day: Bloodrock's 'D.O.A'
Reason number 54,233 to appreciate Satellite Radio.
XM's Seventies on Seven channel, like all of XM's spots on the dial, frequently augments the usual familiar Bell-Bottom Era fixtures with obscurities from lesser-known acts and one-hit wonders. That a Satellite station can gift a big old music geek like me with a Top-40 hit from the seventies that I've never heard before--never mind a hit this unsettling and strange--is a very, very good thing.
Bloodrock was a Texas hard rock band from the early seventies, and their lone entry into the lower rungs of the Billboard Top 40 (number 36, to be exact) was this eight-and-a-half minute dirge describing a plane-crash victim's final minutes in excruciating, amazing detail. With its foreboding organ, vivid lyrics ("The sheets are red and moist where I'm lying, God in Heaven teach me how to die"), and lead singer Jim Rutledge's soaring, anguished vocals, 'D.O.A' packs a body blow more potent than any ten death metal tracks. It also prefigures the Goth Music movement by a good seven years. You can hear an audio sample at Allbutforgottenoldies.net.
It's a wonderful universe in which a bunch of shaggy-maned Lynyrd Skynyrd lookalikes can beat Bauhaus to the Doom Rock punch by a country mile.
XM's Seventies on Seven channel, like all of XM's spots on the dial, frequently augments the usual familiar Bell-Bottom Era fixtures with obscurities from lesser-known acts and one-hit wonders. That a Satellite station can gift a big old music geek like me with a Top-40 hit from the seventies that I've never heard before--never mind a hit this unsettling and strange--is a very, very good thing.
Bloodrock was a Texas hard rock band from the early seventies, and their lone entry into the lower rungs of the Billboard Top 40 (number 36, to be exact) was this eight-and-a-half minute dirge describing a plane-crash victim's final minutes in excruciating, amazing detail. With its foreboding organ, vivid lyrics ("The sheets are red and moist where I'm lying, God in Heaven teach me how to die"), and lead singer Jim Rutledge's soaring, anguished vocals, 'D.O.A' packs a body blow more potent than any ten death metal tracks. It also prefigures the Goth Music movement by a good seven years. You can hear an audio sample at Allbutforgottenoldies.net.
It's a wonderful universe in which a bunch of shaggy-maned Lynyrd Skynyrd lookalikes can beat Bauhaus to the Doom Rock punch by a country mile.
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