Bruce Dickinson

Black Abyss Babe said:
It was called fencingforum.com and it has apparently since closed, so my link won't work (it may have been archived somewhere but so far I have been unable to find it).

My memory of the comments is as follows:
  • Someone recalled fencing against him for an extended period (I forget how long exactly) because "everyone else was too starstruck to get on the strip with him" - this guy won most of the time at foil, while Bruce won most of the time at epee.
  • Bruce is very fast and accurate.
  • Someone advises that "if you ever fence against him, his favourite formula is *some gibberish that only another fencer would understand*"
  • Various people recall him wandering around afterwards, signing autographs and chatting to all and sundry.
  • One person cast doubt on Nicko's claim that Bruce was invited to join the Olympic team ("probably for a drink or something. It's called eulogising")
  • Someone claimed that they often get invited backstage at Maiden concerts if they turn up wearing a Duallist shirt - this was followed by various people expressing their intention of acquiring such a garment as a matter of urgency (so if the original poster was Bruce or someone representing him - result!)
  • But what they all remember most was what a nice bloke he was.
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Many thanks!
 
KidInTheDark666 said:
There's clearly something missing there. If he can do all that while attending Hartlepool matches, then I'll be satisfied.
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He'd better learn to astral project then - that or Maiden will have to play all their future gigs at Harlepool's ground.

"Victoria Park - home to Hartlepool United and Iron Maiden"
poolie.gif
:D
 
CA Bryers said:
It's not SUPER Country & Western, but he sorta did dabble with it in the quite stupid "Cadillac Gas Mask."

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I see what you mean but for the most part this just sounds like fairly standard, uninspired American cock-rock to me.

I know that CGM was one of the ones that got away but even the main album "Balls to Picasso" is kind of patchy. It contains "Tears of the Dragon" which is outstanding and "Sacred Cowboys" which is just odd, but the rest of the album is more or less uninspired cookie-cutter fare - nothing wrong with it but nothing particularly remarkable either. It's almost like Bruce wasn't really sure what he wanted to achieve by it. For all he goes on about leaving Maiden because he wanted to do something different it does seem like he didn't start out with any clear idea what form that would take. At the very least it took him a while to "find his feet".
 
Black Abyss Babe said:
I see what you mean but for the most part this just sounds like fairly standard, uninspired American cock-rock to me.

I know that CGM was one of the ones that got away but even the main album "Balls to Picasso" is kind of patchy. It contains "Tears of the Dragon" which is outstanding and "Sacred Cowboys" which is just odd, but the rest of the album is more or less uninspired cookie-cutter fare - nothing wrong with it but nothing particularly remarkable either. It's almost like Bruce wasn't really sure what he wanted to achieve by it. For all he goes on about leaving Maiden because he wanted to do something different it does seem like he didn't start out with any clear idea what form that would take. At the very least it took him a while to "find his feet".
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Completely agree. I used to love Balls to Picasso a hell of a lot, but apart from a few standouts it just kind of plops in the middle ground of being a safe, unremarkable record.

It's funny when you kind of try and patch together the Keith Olsen album, and you really see Bruce flailing about in the wind as far as which way to go. You've got a stab at sort of World Music with "Tibet," outright noise with "Over and Out," a touch of goth rock in "No Way Out...continued," a Native American flavor in "Fire Child," the less said about "CGM" the better, and then stuff that's more in his wheelhouse like "The Breeding House" and the weird, long version of "Tears of the Dragon." It would've been a bizarre album had it ever been released, and likely would have killed his solo career flat had he not started from (mostly) scratch and released BtP. Somewhat uninspired as that one is, at least it wouldn't have sent his remaining fans fleeing the way the Olsen album likely would've.
 
CA Bryers said:
Completely agree. I used to love Balls to Picasso a hell of a lot, but apart from a few standouts it just kind of plops in the middle ground of being a safe, unremarkable record.

It's funny when you kind of try and patch together the Keith Olsen album, and you really see Bruce flailing about in the wind as far as which way to go. You've got a stab at sort of World Music with "Tibet," outright noise with "Over and Out," a touch of goth rock in "No Way Out...continued," a Native American flavor in "Fire Child," the less said about "CGM" the better, and then stuff that's more in his wheelhouse like "The Breeding House" and the weird, long version of "Tears of the Dragon." It would've been a bizarre album had it ever been released, and likely would have killed his solo career flat had he not started from (mostly) scratch and released BtP. Somewhat uninspired as that one is, at least it wouldn't have sent his remaining fans fleeing the way the Olsen album likely would've.
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The Breeding House and Fire Child are not from the Keith Olsen sessions; they were part of the first attempt at making an album with the late great Chris Tsangarides producing and Skin as Bruce’s backing band.

On a related note, I quite like Balls to Picasso and there are some great tunes in the album. Tears of the Dragon is the obvious standout track, but Cyclops, Gods of War, Sacred Cowboys and Laughing in the Hiding Bush are top-drawer material if you ask me.
 
I don't think I've ever even listened to Balls to Picasso all the way through. I get bored and distracted by the second song or so and just stop. It's not a very good album.
 
BTP definitely shows that Bruce left Maiden without having a slightest idea of what to do next. And I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons why everyone in Maiden was pissed at him, at the time. He did not have a musical direction, but he knew Maiden isn't a part of it. It does come out as disrespectful.

Songwriting is nothing special compared to what Bruce and Roy would achieve later on. Was that whole chemistry set back by the fact that Z wasn't producing it, or did it only affect the sound of the album? In any case, we got what we got and it's OK.

Usually the Marquee tracks are way better than the originals :

 
It's way better than Tattooed Millionaire or Skunkworks at least. I take Balls to Picasso over Tyranny of Souls as well. Really great album.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Jer
I’m with those who consider BTP the worst Bruce album. It’s good, but not even at the same level as TM (fun at least, even if it’s not brilliant). Calling it better than Skunkworks is blasphemous. :p
 
Zare said:
BTP definitely shows that Bruce left Maiden without having a slightest idea of what to do next. And I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons why everyone in Maiden was pissed at him, at the time. He did not have a musical direction, but he knew Maiden isn't a part of it. It does come out as disrespectful.

Songwriting is nothing special compared to what Bruce and Roy would achieve later on. Was that whole chemistry set back by the fact that Z wasn't producing it, or did it only affect the sound of the album? In any case, we got what we got and it's OK.
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According to the liner notes of the special edition, he'd been hooked up with Tribe of Gypsies to try to add some extra songs to the Keith Olsen album. He hit it off with Roy so much that they ended up basically writing a whole new album with him and the Tribe, with only Tears of the Dragon surviving from the KO album, albeit in an altered form.

I'm guessing for Balls, Roy followed the direction that the KO album had, which was a sort of directionless album. Balls is FAR more focused than the KO album, but it's still middle-of-the-road--not too heavy, but not as experimental as the KO album was. It wasn't until after Skunkworks fell apart and Bruce was considering quitting music when Roy played him some metal material he'd been working on and told him to fly out (I used to collect magazine interviews pretty obsessively, and read this when he was promoting AoB). I think that's when we got the Bruce/Roy collab that most loved with Roy likely taking the lead on songwriting, not his diluted take on what Bruce was going for with Balls. Just a hunch.

Another interesting snippet from one of my many interviews I'd amassed was Bruce kicking an idea around he'd had with Roy post-Chemical Wedding that they wanted to re-record "Cyclops" at some point using the Molossian guitar they'd used on CW. Obviously it never came to be, but that song would've sounded nice and massive if they'd gotten around to it.
 
Well, I'm glad you mention Cyclops...It is a good track but it would need more than re-recording. That's a sort of a gist of my entire post. It would need more work put to it, songwriting, composition, arrangement, whatever works. Most BTP tracks, including Cyclops, are too simple, two riff tracks + a breakdown of sorts.

The average AoB/TCW track is developed more. Even the ones with simpler structure. Starchildren has 4 distinct riffs from start to first chorus. One of those, the bridge, has more variation between repetitions than the entire Cyclops track.

This applies to the entirety of the album. If you write two riffs they need to be catchy as hell. But some of those on BTP - to quote Lars - are 'stock'.

Btw. thanks for putting that Cyclops rerecording bit here. I'm 98% sure that's new to me.
 
Balls to Picasso is probably my third favorite Bruce album behind AOB and CW. While there's one or two songs that are a bit goofy, songs like Gods of War (that chorus is fucking amazing!), Cyclops, and Tears of Albi The Racist Dragon are all stellar tracks. Skunkworks is the one album I haven't really listened to all the way through. I'm ashamed to say that, because I really do enjoy the album when I do listen to it.
 
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