No movie review tonight. To my surprise, Grimsley asked if we could watch another "Twin Peaks" episode, so I showed him #3 which I had previously seen and reviewed a couple weeks ago. I thought Grim had given up on TP because he complained about the violence in the first two episodes and he just generally didn't seem to like it. For the record, there isn't much violence at all, but there are a few brief scenes that are graphic. Mostly what TP is, is weird, as we've noted. Episode 3 is the weirdest of the bunch so far, and Grim was once again silent after the show ended. As we walked out to our cars, he didn't say a word. So I am guessing he didn't like it once again, but we'll see.
I went to Best Buy this afternoon to Buy the new Judas Priest. It's hard to judge a record after one listen, so I will say that I am happy with it. The biggest problem is that KK Downing is missing, and as talented as Richie Faulkner is, he is a different type of guitarist from a different era. It is clear that he is being given a chance to contribute to the songwriting, and he comes up with catchy guitar lines to be sure. He never overdoes it with the shredding. Overall, if KK had to be replaced, this was the guy for the job. But it did change Priest's sound, even if only slightly.
Rob still sounds great. He doesn't reach for the high register any more, but his mid-range is as strong and evocative as it ever was. He enunciates his lyrics and makes you feel them.
The production was done by Tom Allom and Andy Sneap. Allom produced all the Judas Priest classics from the 1980s, which had enormous sound. On "Firepower", some of that guitar sound is back, and the Big Drum sound is also back (and thank goodness they got the drummer to stop doing that double-kick bass drum thing which is more appropriate for a speed metal band), but there is a slight problem with the overall sound being a bit "digital", if you know what I mean. It sounds a bit "punched in", to a computer as it were. For comparison, go back and listen to "Screaming For Vengeance". That sounds more real, but hey......
I'm not complaining. I think Richie the new guy played much of the guitars on the album, due to Glenn Tipton's illness. I can tell who played what. Tipton probably wrote most of the riffs and melodies, as he always has. Rob is singing his butt off. It's formulaic, so the songs have a sameness in style, but what are you gonna do? The guys are almost 70 (Glenn is 70 as of last October), and they have been making albums for 44 years.
Considering all of those things, it's a pretty good album. The songs are catchy at least.
KK Downing is really the missing ingredient, but it's also the passage of time and the limited formula that Priest have been working with since the "Painkiller" era of the late 80s.
I have a ticket for the concert on April 22, though I am undecided if I will go. On the one hand, it will likely be the last Judas Priest tour, but on the other hand, as we have discussed, it really won't be Judas Priest without KK and now Glenn Tipton too. Ahh, such is life. Thank God for Judas Priest, whose music will never die, much like Bach, Beatles and Spanish Organ Music.
You should start listening to Organ Music if you haven't already, be it Spanish or French (the two best kinds), or German or English which are also good.
This is one of those nights when I have no main theme to write about, so I am just winging it. I wanna write about 1989 again, and I will, but I can't do it unless I am feeling it. I won't compare myself to a war veteran or a holocaust survivor, but to use those two extreme examples of human experience, I imagine that even people who have lived through the Holocaust or fought in war, do not feel driven to talk about it all the time. Or perhaps they do, what do I know....
I only know my own experience. I was a kidnap victim, a person who was held inside the house of a psychopath for about 24 hours. While my experience does not compare to a holocaust survivor, it still without a doubt made a mark on my life, a lasting mark that never goes away.
I don't know about holocaust survivors or war veterans, how they feel about talking about their experiences, but I do want to talk about mine. I want to talk about what happened to me because it changed my life. My life has been okay, it has been good, but I have never been the same since 1989.
To say "my life has never been the same" makes it sound like I've been damaged by my experience, or that I've been weakened, and am less then whole since then.
That is not the case. I would say, just speaking for myself, that I am stronger in almost every way as a person since my 1989 experience. So when I say that "my life has never been the same", it means something different. It does not mean I am damaged or have been weakened, but it does mean that I have a huge weight on my shoulders ever since that year, because I literally don't know what my life means.
Now, that is not entirely true either. I do have an idea, but it is very supernatural and would not be easy to understand if I were to write it out for public consumption.
It has to do with my childhood, and something like 1989 happening when I was a little kid, perhaps in the years of 1965 and then again in 1967.
I have memories from my childhood that seem like dreams, and are far more strange than anything from 1989 - almost beyond comprehension really. But in some way, I know they are real.
I first experienced the memories in 1996 when I was living at Burton Street in Reseda. At the time, I had not lived in Reseda since 1967, and I had forgotten all about the first seven years of my life there.
I call these memories "The Lorne Street School Story" (my first elementary school, before we moved to Northridge), and I first wrote them out in a 120 page story in 2007.
Thus I feel like 1989 was a carryover or a followup to something strange from my childhood.
Other 1989ers may feel that way too. I am always trying to encourage a dialogue.
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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