How did this ever fly under my radar? This is too wonderful for words. The original version of Highway to Hell before those assholes from AC/DC ruined it. fnord

[Tiny Tim from his mythical Rock album]

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Addendum –

Insatiable culture junkie that I am, I simply had to find the rest of Tiny Tim’s Rock album. I am forced to reevaluate someone who I always dismissed as a token novelty freak that was just cashing in for all those times he got beaten up in school for being a freak by exploiting his freakishness. But no more. Tiny Tim is one of the great musical geniuses of our time.

I present to you his interpretation of Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell – all 23 minutes and 38 seconds of it. This is without a doubt one of the most awesome pieces of music I have ever heard –

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NME reminds me why I stopped reading it shortly after puberty –

Tiny Tim – Highway To Hell video

Cover of Tiny Tim Sharp’s work graced Tiny Tim Rocks, a disappointing mélange of the singer’s high falsetto and ill-fitting hard rock. In 1989 his version of AC/DC ‘s ‘Highway To Hell’ was released to modest sales. During the 90s known as Mr. Tim, the singer returned to the USA to live in Des Moines, Iowa, ‘because it’s clean.’ In 1993 he married for a third time, he and ‘Miss Sue’lived in Minneapolis until his death in 1996.

Whilst In Music We Trust tell me they “get it” –

Tiny Tim
Rock (Regular/Festival Records)
By: Gary “Pig” Gold

I’ve often been criticized for being a bit too hard on those musicians who choose to toil in the, shall we say, h.metal idiom. Well, with all due respects to Lord Lemmy of Motorhead, you know why I sometimes get down on metal? Coz I rarely, if ever, hear it done RIGHT anymore. Meaning a dark wardrobe and scary band logo can only cut it so far, now that a quarter century’s passed since the last decent Sabbath album did it all first. Meaning, basically, heavy metal’s been by and large just pissing lemonade into the wind for quite some time.

Imagine my shock, then, when a strange package from down-under arrived the other day, containing sounds so purile and vicious that after one play through the first song I didn’t see my cat for three whole days (The true test of metal’s mettle, I’ll have you know). Each and every selection herein clocking in at well over the 15-minute mark (“Rebel Yell” hits a jaw-dropping 23:38 – could Mr.Idol ever keep it up for that long?) there are notes screeched throughout that Rob Plant may only dream of, and the entire cataclysm is topped off with a positively demonic reading of the classic “Eve Of Destruction”, appropriately enough.

You may very well have to write off to far off Australia – to AC/DC’s people, in fact – to secure your very own copy of this masterwork– that is until some domestic so-called h/c label scrapes up sufficient balls to issue it here. In the meantime, I defy any of you heavy pansies out there to show me one other act, or one other record, Tiny Tim Rock couldn’t eat for breakfast.


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