Icon

  • Thread starter Thread starter Marshall Law
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5 guys running from 3 guys armed with flash lights......

PUSSIES !!! :lol: :LOL:
 
Icon was great,mainly on the 1st album.funny,the youtube song "On your Feet",is the weakest one on the album,imo,yet still a good tune.i have that album,simply entitled "Icon-Icon"(and i have the rare import "cd" version).very,very underated band & album...killer songs on there,like "Under My Gun","World War","Hot Desert Nights","Rock'n'Roll Maniac","Killer Machine",etc... i have loved this first album of their's,since it came out.god,i remember buying it the same week as Dokken's "Tooth & Nail" LP...i still crank this Icon cd,every few months,and it still sounds great.very heavy,saturated,compressed tone-holds its own weight,even these days!!! f**kin' A,man...didnt think too many guys out there remember,or even know this band...too bad the second album went "very commercial".not nearly as heavy as the first one.then,the "final nail in the coffin",was when lead singer,Stephen Clifford,quit the band,became a "born again",and wanted no part of that scene...too bad! i have a friend,out in Mesa,Arizona who knows the lead guitarist,Dan Wexler,and she told me the whole story about the demise of the band.they did put out,one more album in '89(?),i believe,with a new singer...but the magic was gone!!! bummer,dude!!! :no:
 
Oh YEAH!!!!!!! Icon was one of my absolute favorite bands from that era. To tell you the truth, I was in a couple of different bands that freaking worshipped these guys. Their tones on that first album were my some of my favorite heavy rock/metal tones of the 80's. That whole first album just sounded huge. I was under the impression that Wexler was the guitar player that ripped the most out of the two of them but when I saw them live it turned out that John Aquilino was the total monster of the two. Aquilino was 17 years old on that first album. Now it's almost 25 years later, but at the time I didn't think there was one band from that 80's metal scene that was better than Icon.

The second album I also thought was unreal. It was way more melodic metal sounding and polished. Again just two different but brilliant in their own ways albums. After Clifford left the band, we saw them showcase with their new singer at the Country Club in Reseda for their label Capitol. The new singer just didn't cut it. He sounded like 1/10th the man Stephen Clifford was. The band still was so good it was ridiculous but Capitol dropped them after that show. It's almost a crime that they didn't reach the level of a Ratt or a Crue or a Dokken or even a WASP as they were in my opinion better than all of them. If you check out Icon, anything with the second singer just sucks IMHO.
 
I loved the tone and the tunes on the first album !

I talked to Dan about it probably 15-18 years ago. arghhhh time flies!!

He said it was a Musicman RD110 amp being pushed by an ART parametric EQ boosted around 1200hz and the loop had a chorus set to give a stereo signal and fed another amp.

EV speakers..I think Force

Les Pauls with JB pups.

This is all going off memory so it may be off a little, I have notes some where. Dan is way cool. I just called him up one day on the phone and he talked to me for probably 30-45 minutes.

Told me about the stuff he was into at the time, jamming with Alice Cooper. If I remember right he had a Motorcycle shop.


Good times.
 
Cool find...

That is spot on to what Dan told me way back when. Monster crunchy tone!
 
I love ICON but I much prefered the other singer but not on the studio album he cut with them. I was told by a guy close to the band that the new singer had blown out his voice practicing for the album and they ran out of time and he had to record the album with his voice not up to par. Definitely sounds like an excuse but if you hear the album that came out after called an even more perfect union then you will hear what his voice really sounds like. I dont think an even more perfect union ever came out as a real studio recrorded disc I beleive it was realeased by the band after they were dropped from there record label but its my favorite recording of them and the tunes are strong. It also features some remakes of there tunes.
 
yeah,Chubtone! i,too,thought that Dan would have been the "key" guitarist,but,even though he was great,John was the "man"...i've got a dvd copy of that infamous,rare New Year's Eve/Albuquerque,NM show,which was their 1st live show ever!!! it was in Dec '84,i guess.either way,for camcorder,it's a great show.the bands "tone",especially on that first self-titled album was HUGE(even on that live show).no band,out of L.A. had a bigger sound.not Ratt,not Quiet Riot,not Rough Cutt...no one! THEY WERE HEAVY!!! i always love having my stereo on "full volume",when song two,side two(of the 1st LP,yes "vinyl" kiddies...lol)called "Iconoclast",just finishes...then when the opening chords,of the next song,"Rock'n'Roll Maniac" hit and then the drums,bass,and the rest of the band "kick in"...man,that's pure 80's METAL,baby!!! ...and,btw,dont call me baby!!! :lol: :LOL:
 
goldwing68nv":1ptz63qf said:
yeah,Chubtone! i,too,thought that Dan would have been the "key" guitarist,but,even though he was great,John was the "man"...i've got a dvd copy of that infamous,rare New Year's Eve/Albuquerque,NM show,which was their 1st live show ever!!! it was in Dec '84,i guess.either way,for camcorder,it's a great show.the bands "tone",especially on that first self-titled album was HUGE(even on that live show).no band,out of L.A. had a bigger sound.not Ratt,not Quiet Riot,not Rough Cutt...no one! THEY WERE HEAVY!!! i always love having my stereo on "full volume",when song two,side two(of the 1st LP,yes "vinyl" kiddies...lol)called "Iconoclast",just finishes...then when the opening chords,of the next song,"Rock'n'Roll Maniac" hit and then the drums,bass,and the rest of the band "kick in"...man,that's pure 80's METAL,baby!!! ...and,btw,dont call me baby!!! :lol: :LOL:
Click to expand...


:rock:

With that said, id have to humbly disagree. There were a lot of bands comming out of LA that had a huge tone like ICON. To give you a referance, Stryper was one of them. Same boosted parametric EQ tone but it filled up much more bandwidth. There tone was one of the most insane live tones that I have ever heard.

all IMHO!! :rock:
 
i hear ya,Gainfreak...i was never a huge Stryper fan,but i do have their "Yellow & Black Attack" & "To Hell With The Devil" Lp's,which i liked...i guess,to elaborate further,on my "having the biggest sound" comment,is that the 1st Icon album's sound,imo,was bigger than any other typical 80's L.A. metal band(comparing to the sound of their album's tone)...now,"live" perfomances,that's another story...off topic,slightly,but the two other band's that released a REALLY big sounding,heavy album,in 1984 was Accept's "Balls to the Wall" LP..and,a little 'ole obsure "Dutch"(i believe) power metal band called Evil...they released their first EP,on vinyl,called "Evil's Message"(wonder how many of you forum guys remember this band...or have the EP???)...anyways,the sound on this LP was REALLY big,especially for the time...excellent production value!!! anways,back to the main topic...i think we can ALL agree that "Icon" were one of the great 80's metal bands,however "undiscovered"...... "SHE'S A KILLER MACHINE"..."YOU'RE GONNA DIE YOUNG,'CAUSE YOUR UNDER MY GUN"!!!!!!!!!! :rock:
 
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