Yeah, We're Talking Heavy Metal.

So just for once, let's talk heavy metal. This is not your heavy metal kind of blog, not usually, but I was flipping by VH1 and there was an early video of Deep Purple doing "Highway Star". Ain't nobody gonna take my car/gonna race her to the grou-ou-ound! The desperation of Ian Gillian, the screeching -- the commitment.

Oooh it’s a killing machine/It’s got everything...

My God the man was in earnest.

But a note on proto-metal bands of that period -- early 70s: they were dirty. As in grimy. Physically unclean. Beads of sweat mixed with iron filings and God knows what. Stringy hair. Underwear not changed for weeks. Sometimes I think that hygene didn't really make it as a cutting-edge cultural phenomenon until like 1981.