With a new Iron Maiden album imminent, I figure it’s time to take yet another plunge into the band’s catalog. Listening to just the studio albums is never enough for me though, so I’ll also be listening to live albums, bootlegs, singles, basically as much Maiden as I can fit in the next 5ish weeks. In this thread I’ll be going through Maiden’s recorded (authorized and unauthorized) history year by year with an update roughly every day (we have exactly enough time to get through every year if we do one year a day, but of course not every year was filled with Maiden activity). I might look at some solo albums too. This isn’t meant to be a super regimented thread. No expansive posts or track by track reviews, but just something to get some retrospective discussion happening to build hype for Senjutsu. I’m also not necessarily going to be covering everything. If you all want to talk about stuff that I didn’t mention, that’s fine, just stay on topic to the extent of whichever year we’re on.
We’re starting with 1979 because that is when Maiden released their demo, The Soundhouse Tapes. It’s a nice starting point and there’s a lot of really cool archival material from this period. I want to draw attention to the demo and an essential live recording from that year.
The Soundhouse Tapes
I’ve always enjoyed some of the earlier recordings of songs that made it on the debut more than the album versions. ‘Iron Maiden’ is a little slow, but I feel that the playing is a lot tighter and, ironically, there’s a bit more energy as a result. The bass sits very nicely among the guitars. ‘Prowler’ same thing, a little slower but in many ways more enjoyable than the studio version. This very much captures the raw live energy of Iron Maiden. Anyway, who played second guitar on this?
Invasion is weirdly ahead of its time and behind its time. Of course they recorded this song twice, but it never made it onto an album. It has a lot of roughness that was later smoothed out as the band started polish their sound more, but it also has historical lyrics that became more commonplace when Bruce enjoyed in addition to some really tight twin guitar harmonies. I can see how it never made it onto the album, but it’s definitely not a throwaway.
Live at the Ruskin Arms 10/79
This is a historical performance for a few reasons. You’ve got (someone correct me if I’m wrong) Tony Parsons on guitar and Dave Sampson on drums. You also get some interesting performances. The big thing here is the live Ides of March, as in they didn’t play it through the PA. You also get Invasion, Strange World, and early versions of songs like Another Life and Innocent Exile.
The band hadn’t yet recorded a studio album so the songs are pretty rough around the edges, but at the same time they had also been gigging for years and probably played more shows than some established bands today have. That shows, the band is super tight and is clearly a professional outfit. The songs are also remarkably studio ready. Very little changes between what you hear in this recording in terms of arrangement and writing compared to the final products on the first two Maiden albums. The playing is also flawless. I’ve noticed few, if any, mistakes.
Another thing to note about the early songs is how slow they are. We all know Steve likes to push the tempo, but it seems that their tempos were pretty restrained at least until Clive Burr joined. These performances are surprisingly steady. The instrumental of Remember Tomorrow, for example, pretty much stays the same tempo, rather than the big jump up that typically happens. I’m not sure if I like it, but it’s pretty interesting to listen to if you’re used to the way these songs are normally played. Despite the slow tempos, the energy is unmistakeable. And the audience has clearly heard these songs many times already.
I think you can also gleam a lot about Maiden’s Setlist decisions from this period. By the time Maiden got to recording an album and touring internationally, they already had 4 or 5 years of nonstop gigging under their belts. You’ll also find that the set lists in the early years are pretty much always the same and the fixtures (Phantom of the Opera, Wrathchild, Sanctuary, Another Life) remained as late as 1982. They found what worked for them early on and seem more concerned about pleasing large audiences than experimenting with Setlist choices. As someone who plays in small clubs with several different bands, I can see where this idea comes from. When you’re trying to keep an audience engaged for a whole 90 minute set, you really need to make sure the song selection is perfect. There’s not a lot of room for error.
This bootleg, while not talked about often, is essential listening. It’s early Maiden in their prime, on the precipice of blowing up. Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s hard to listen to this collection and not think that Maiden were obviously going to be the biggest thing to come out of the NWOBHM. The songs, the performance, the playing, it’s all there.
We’re starting with 1979 because that is when Maiden released their demo, The Soundhouse Tapes. It’s a nice starting point and there’s a lot of really cool archival material from this period. I want to draw attention to the demo and an essential live recording from that year.
The Soundhouse Tapes
I’ve always enjoyed some of the earlier recordings of songs that made it on the debut more than the album versions. ‘Iron Maiden’ is a little slow, but I feel that the playing is a lot tighter and, ironically, there’s a bit more energy as a result. The bass sits very nicely among the guitars. ‘Prowler’ same thing, a little slower but in many ways more enjoyable than the studio version. This very much captures the raw live energy of Iron Maiden. Anyway, who played second guitar on this?
Invasion is weirdly ahead of its time and behind its time. Of course they recorded this song twice, but it never made it onto an album. It has a lot of roughness that was later smoothed out as the band started polish their sound more, but it also has historical lyrics that became more commonplace when Bruce enjoyed in addition to some really tight twin guitar harmonies. I can see how it never made it onto the album, but it’s definitely not a throwaway.
Live at the Ruskin Arms 10/79
The band hadn’t yet recorded a studio album so the songs are pretty rough around the edges, but at the same time they had also been gigging for years and probably played more shows than some established bands today have. That shows, the band is super tight and is clearly a professional outfit. The songs are also remarkably studio ready. Very little changes between what you hear in this recording in terms of arrangement and writing compared to the final products on the first two Maiden albums. The playing is also flawless. I’ve noticed few, if any, mistakes.
Another thing to note about the early songs is how slow they are. We all know Steve likes to push the tempo, but it seems that their tempos were pretty restrained at least until Clive Burr joined. These performances are surprisingly steady. The instrumental of Remember Tomorrow, for example, pretty much stays the same tempo, rather than the big jump up that typically happens. I’m not sure if I like it, but it’s pretty interesting to listen to if you’re used to the way these songs are normally played. Despite the slow tempos, the energy is unmistakeable. And the audience has clearly heard these songs many times already.
I think you can also gleam a lot about Maiden’s Setlist decisions from this period. By the time Maiden got to recording an album and touring internationally, they already had 4 or 5 years of nonstop gigging under their belts. You’ll also find that the set lists in the early years are pretty much always the same and the fixtures (Phantom of the Opera, Wrathchild, Sanctuary, Another Life) remained as late as 1982. They found what worked for them early on and seem more concerned about pleasing large audiences than experimenting with Setlist choices. As someone who plays in small clubs with several different bands, I can see where this idea comes from. When you’re trying to keep an audience engaged for a whole 90 minute set, you really need to make sure the song selection is perfect. There’s not a lot of room for error.
This bootleg, while not talked about often, is essential listening. It’s early Maiden in their prime, on the precipice of blowing up. Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s hard to listen to this collection and not think that Maiden were obviously going to be the biggest thing to come out of the NWOBHM. The songs, the performance, the playing, it’s all there.