Five Forgotten Father’s Of Hard Rock

For most of you, you may want to stop reading this now and give it to your dad. I'm sure he'll go "Oh yeah!". Anyways it's a listing of five hard rock bands that "I came up with" that are barely on anybody's radar anymore.

5. The Clash.  I started with the Clash because they are probably the one you're most likely to know.  You probably know their Top 40 hits "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" and "Rock The Casbah", some will know "Train In Vain" because it's been sampled and covered so many times.   There was time they called The Clash "The Only Band That Matters".  These guys ruled everything I did for a long time when "London Calling" came out. There's no dud on the entire double album and the title track still makes me want to kick a hole through something.

4. Pat Travers.  Some of you will know "Boom Boom, Out Go The Lights" or his other radio hit "Snortin' Whiskey".  He was absolutely blistering on guitar. He had already put out four and a half albums before his live smash and has over two dozen releases and untold guest shots on other albums.  Kirk Hammett of Metallica has cited Travers as an influence.  I really liked the album track "Stevie" quite a bit.

3. Jethro Tull.  I have no idea why Jethro Tull hasn't really made the transition to whatever definition "classic rock" means.  There was a time that the band had to be on our list of bands not to play more than once an hour because they had so many hard rock favorites.  Tull is also one of those bands that I kind of didn't experience "in their time", much like Black Sabbath, I discovered them well after their prime.

2. Joe Walsh.  The name Joe Walsh, if you know it at all, probably means something entirely different to you than it does to me.  Walsh had a  crazy popularity streak in the 80's with tracks like "Life's Been Good" and "Ordinary Average Guy".  The Walsh I best remember was on the 1979 album "You Can't Argue With A Sick Mind" when he broke out some of his old James Gang tracks as well as the solo stuff and delivered a brutal, beautiful,  beating of an album.  This was also the last album he made before he joined the Eagles.

1. U.F.O. This is the band that inspired the list.  They are cited on Wikipedia as being a "transitional group between hard rock and heavy metal". The are OFTEN given huge credit as an inspiration for Metallica, but remain one of the few that the band has not covered.  The band featured Michael Shencker, the brother of Rudolf Shencker who is still in the Scorpions today.

I suppose every band will eventually fade away or become someone's dads or granddads favorite band.  I just wanted to take a moment and honor these bands and artists that got me started rockin' hard.