metal for Mil

[adelaidesean]

I just stumbled across a great article about Judas Priest and really wanted to share it with millisynth, and anyone else who might be interested.

I loved the Priest as a teenager, and still do. Furthermore, alongside Devo, Iron Maiden, Howard Jones, and Gary Numan, Judas Priest was one of the best live shows I've seen in recent times. So they've still got it.

(Seems like all my faves have been touring lately. All I need now is for ELO to reform, and I'd be in heaven. How's about it, Jeff Lynne?)

Anyway, read the article and marvel at their metal awesomeness. And bear in mind that this is what I'll be wearing next Aurealis Awards:

Comments

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Very true! But wasn't his voice amazing? He is such a rock god.

[derekcfpegritz.livejournal.com]

Dear gods, I think you and I grew up listening to the exact same music! And I'd give my left leg to finally have a chance to see ELO live.

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

Dude, I suspect you're wearing that gettup RIGHT NOW!

[tallaudrey.livejournal.com]

OMG if ELO reforms ... HEAVEN!!!! How do we make it so???

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

How did you KNOW? Have you got a camera in here or something?

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Some kind of ritual involving a chicken might be required.

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

a lucky guess

[tallaudrey.livejournal.com]

I am heading up to my parents' chicken coop right now ...

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

You know me too well, clearly.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

I'll have a drumstick. The loa can have the rest.

[tallaudrey.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm, Erzulie love drumsticks!

[evilpaul.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty stoked that Hell Bent For Leather is going to be a track in Guitar Hero: Metallica.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

We were separated at birth, clearly.

The only show I haven't liked lately was the Zappa Plays Zappa tribute, which came through town last year and is coming back in a month or two. I lasted 20 minutes. Despite being a HUGE FZ fan--who used to dream of seeing him play live fairly regularly--it just didn't feel right. Too slick, too fast, no "air" between the notes. Mind you, even FZ himself wouldn't have satisfied me live, late in his career. Give me early/mid-70s Zappa, or give me death.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

That is very cool news! I might buy the game, just so I can rock with Rob.

[derekcfpegritz.livejournal.com]

You know...maybe we were engineered in the same lab. I'm turning 36 this year, and have no idea how old you are, but it seems pretty likely that we were part of the same development group.

Anyway, yeah--early Zappa is quintessential; late Zappa...not so much. Though gods know I love dense, layered, and highly-intricate music, even in such compositions there are usually sounds orchestrated sparsely in order to provide spaces for other instruments to sound through or to just give the listener's ear a break from the barrage of sound. Pink Floyd's "Us and Them" stands as the most perfect example of this principle that I have ever, ever heard: the beat and the Hammond organ provide a continuous, soft landscape of sound through which the bass provides bottom-end accent and over which David Gilmour's voice and Dick Parry's plush sax solo spark and come and go. Most masterful use of a delay peddle I've ever heard.

A lot of the funk that I really get into--P-Funk, Slave, James Brown, etc.--likes to give instruments plenty of room to be heard as well. Funk's not about a wall of sound so much as it is about interlocking melodies and musical parts. And it can't be too perfect, either! Funk's gotta be a li'l sloppy or it sounds soulless.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

You know...maybe we were engineered in the same lab.

That seems quite likely. I'm 42 this year so maybe I was a prototype for your good self.

I had a weird dream the other day that David Gilmour invited me to play rhythm guitar for Pink Floyd's next tour. Was in a real quandary: did I say yes, knowing that I could barely play a note, or say no and miss such a great opportunity? I ended up confessing, and was told, "Fine. We just wanted you to mime it anyway." Whew! It was a great gig. :-)

"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is such an obvious work to cite when talking about PF, but it's a great example of the space between and around the notes being at least as important as the notes themselves. Like negative space in a painting. I don't remember ever being taught about that in music theory, and I suspect a lot of composers never even consider it, to their detriment.

[derekcfpegritz.livejournal.com]

I think it likely that my genome was one of the leftovers from the batch, or maybe a release candidate, that the labs released just for the hell of it.

I was listening to "Shine On" earlier this morning, oddly enough, and I was amazed at how well PF always manages to work well with sonic negative space. When I first started writing music, I was primarily inspired by extremely dense electronic compositions that were basically just tidal waves of interlocking notes and washes of noise. I still primarily write that kind of stuff, but I've learned that even the most dense composition needs breaks or sparser sections simply to give the reader's ear a rest. Even though I LOVE all forms of electronic music, including straightforward dance music, I rarely go out to clubs because the goddamned DJs insist in mixing four, five, six tracks together at once to create this horrendous beehive of sound. I guess people like to just lose themselves in the music (and the drugs), but my hearing can't take it anymore.

So even if Floyd reunited and ask me to take Richard Wright's place on the synths, I couldn't do it, because my ears can't handle all that noise. :)

[millisynth.livejournal.com]

One word... "W00T!"

Oh, and that is the smokingest smoking jacket Ive ever seen!

\m/

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

that is the smokingest smoking jacket Ive ever seen!

Surely is. It would crush a mere mortal! (I only dream of being worthy.)