Of Black Sabbath (film) and Ace Frehley

With the Halloween season upon us I had the urge last night to settle in and watch some horror. I spent the better part of 10 minutes scrolling through hundreds of titles on demand before landing on Black Sabbath (1964).

I like modern horror but my preference is the older stuff. Not so much the classic black and white Lon Cheney films, but rather 60-80s, Hammer and on up. I enjoy the slow pace, the gothic visuals, the garish colors, the practical special effects and real props. Black Sabbath had it all thanks to the talents of director Mario Bava.

This turned out to be a pretty good little trilogy of films wrapped up in one production, woven together with Boris Karloff as narrator. I love Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt and their ilk, in collections of shorts you’ll often find more creativity, unexpected twists and bad ends often not possible in a feature length film.

Black Sabbath is full of nasty little shocks. All three shorts were good. The first, “The Drop of Water,” is the creepiest and features a corpse with a truly terrifying frozen death-mask face, but the third, a nice little vampire story, was my favorite. I enjoy it when the monsters sometimes win. I too would not have resisted the beautiful female vampire of "The Wurdulak,” which seems to have inspired at least one scene from ‘Salem’s Lot. The film is visually stunning with beautiful and eerie landscapes and gothic set pieces, like this:

After watching the film I did a bit of research and discovered the Americanized version was neutered of some of its bloodier elements, and the middle story, “The Telephone,” badly altered to remove the main character’s backstory as a prostitute in a lesbian relationship. The Italians were a lot less prudish in the early 60s, it seems.

In hindsight these elements make the plot hang together far better so I’ll probably seek out the original at some point.

Recommended.

***

As I was writing this the news hit that Ace Frehley passed away.

I’ve seen Ace in concert many times, including twice this year alone. He was diminished as all 70s rockers are but still putting on good performances and rocking to the end. Ace was the most charismatic member of the band and its most talented musician. He wrote a few of their classic songs (“Cold Gin” and “Parasite," among others), lent the band an early swagger that made KISS so badass in the 70s, and of course, was responsible for many classic solos delivered with an inimitable, unique style. Loose and jangly, big rings banging off the guitar, but always fitted to the song itself.

Ace was a notorious drinker and drug user and nearly died back in the early 1980s in a car wreck while driving under the influence. He was not the best bandmate and later got into pissing matches with Paul and Gene that lasted to the end of his life. But most fans loved him. I count myself in that group. Watch KISS’ classic interview with Tom Snyder, Ace steals the show with his one-liners and trademark cackling laugh. I also recommend his autobiography No Regrets. How he lived this long is a mystery; the stories of him being driven around New York in the back seat of a limousine with John Belushi and spilling out into club after club for one drunken escapade after the next are legend.

My favorite Ace memory is seeing him in 1994 at The Underground in Lowell after pounding a 12-pack of Zima with my buddy Wayne. We were hammered and so was Ace. I later told this story to my very amused friends at work, left for a long weekend, and returned to find my office plastered with cutout pictures of Ace and Zima bottles. 

Ace would have approved.

You may not like KISS but you cannot deny they did their brand of party rock better than anyone. The number of hits they wrote dwarf the output of most rock bands. Dozens of talented guitarists admit that Ace was the guy that got them to pick up their axe in the first place, among them Slash and Dimedag Darrell.

Say a prayer for his soul and his family and loved ones.

Ace Frehley lead guitar! The coolest.

Addendum: For anyone feeling nostalgic for a lost Ace, I HIGHLY recommend this great interview… he talks about The Elder, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, his relationship with the band members, getting into music, alcohol use, and none of it is mean spirited. He’s full of laughter in it:

A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap

Tap crossed that line... which way?

There is a picture of me going to see KISS on their hotly anticipated, sold out 1996 reunion tour. In it I’m standing on my parents’ front lawn with two friends and my brother. All four of us are in KISS makeup.

I’m wearing a Spinal Tap t-shirt.

I love KISS, they’re a fun band who have written some rocking hits. But I also recognize them as ridiculous.

If you've read any of my metal posts here you know I’m a fan. I love the music, I take it seriously. But I also laugh at it. Metal is sometimes awesome, sometimes terrible. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes dumb. Powerful, but sometimes just too damned loud.

Hard rock and metal can be mocked. They should be mocked. Mockery and the ability to absorb it is the sign of a healthy genre, and rock and metal can take it.

Some genres and their fans take themselves too seriously. I see this sometimes in sword-and-sorcery circles; call John Jakes’ Brak or Lin Carter’s Thongor or Gardner Fox’s Kothar what it is—derivative and often dumb, though fun and something I will read and enjoy—and panties get bunched.

But we need good-natured mockery. Parody is a sign of respect that you’ve made it. S&S can take the likes of Mention My Name in Atlantis, and heavy metal can take Spinal Tap. Spinal Tap took the piss out of metal better than anyone before or since in their 1984 mockumentary. And metal bands (most, anyway) love them for it.  We all could use a little more laughter in our lives. Even if the world is ending (it’s not, though one would think so scrolling any social media app) the remedy is laughter.

I just finished reading A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap, and experienced quite a few chuckles. Laughter is rare to pull off in the written form, I have found. This book made me laugh. But I also learned a lot. I love the film, and when I saw there was a memoir coming out penned by director Rob Reiner I knew I had to have it. Published by Gallery Books, my copy at least came signed by Reiner himself, complete with certificate of authenticity. Cool to have a signature of the man who not only gave us the best metal mockumentary ever, but also The Princess Bride, Stand by Me, and a Few Good Men, among others.

Reiner’s signature is not the only cool and unique feature of the book: It’s also double-sided, like the old Ace Doubles. Flip the book over and “book 2,” Smell the Book, is 60 pages of “interviews” conducted by director Marty DiBergi with band members Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins, and Derek Smalls--an oral history of the band in their voices. Which is pretty funny. You get lines like this:

David: I was at Sacred Sacrament. My mom was a big Catholic.

Marty: Religious?

David: No, five foot ten.

Or old album titles like “Jap Habit” and “Bent for the Rent,” the latter a British expression for what you do for the landlord when he’s bugging you and you can’t pay him, so you do him a favor…

But the meat of the book is the memoir portion. A breezy but well-told history of how the principals came to meet each other, make the film, its reception, and lasting legacy. It offers an illuminating, behind the scenes look, and I learned several things I did not know. For example:

• Spinal Tap barely made it to the screen. The studios to whom Reiner pitched the film did not know what to make of it, just about everyone passed on it.
• It made very little money upon its release and Reiner and co. made almost no money even on licensing until a lawsuit spearheaded by Harry Shearer was able to wrest the rights to the film back and amend missing royalty payments. One city in which it was well-received right out of the gate, I’m proud to say, is Boston, in which it played continuously for a solid year.
• Spinal Tap played real shows before the movie came out to sharpen their playing, including at Gazzarri’s on the Sunset Strip—with opening act Iron Butterfly. No one knew who they were or suspected that they were a parody act (this is circa 1982-83, pre-film, and new metal acts were showing up in the scores.) Spinal Tap was just another unknown metal band.
• Reiner refers to several hilarious-sounding scenes that didn’t make the final cut, as 40+ hours of film was ultimately reduced to a lean 82-minute run time. There were often 3-4 versions of a given scene. Apparently some of these deleted scenes are on a special edition that I need to seek out (my copy is believe it or not VHS). For example, originally the band had an opening act called the Dose, who had a beautiful and easy female lead singer; her dalliances with Tap explain the famous scene where the band has unexplained cold sores on their mouths during a record launch party. But this subplot was left on the cutting room floor.
• The dialogue is almost entirely unscripted and improvised. Reiner, Christoper Guest, Shearer and Michael McKean scripted scenes and had the outlines of the movie plotted, but the actual dialogue was ad-libbed, and many of the verbal jokes utterly spontaneous expressions of the characters they created. Even a young Fran Drescher, then 25, fell into her role and extemporaneously came up with “Money Talks and Bullshit Walks.” That’s talent.

Spinal Tap 2 is just hitting and I’m a little worried. I know someone who got invited to an early screening and he was underwhelmed; he described it as just OK, certainly not terrible but lacking the punch and wit of the original. I will see it for myself, but regardless of whether it holds up as a worthy sequel we’ll always have the OG. The ultimate documentary, if you will, rockumentary, of the world’s loudest band.

Atom and Evil, Black Sabbath*

A day late on Metal Friday but today a close look at Ronnie James Dio’s lyrics for “Atom and Evil,” the opening track off The Devil You Know (2009). These are sufficiently abstract that interpretation is required.

Blue skies, once upon a dream

All eyes, never in between

We all once looked to heaven for answers, not to this middle earth.

Then into the garden came the spider

“I’m here for you,” said the spider to the fly

And when I’m through, you can open up your eyes to see

Eden corrupted by the spider/serpent, offering honeyed poison as “truth.” We’ll be masters of the world if we just follow him.

Your world on fire, and the liar won’t let go

Atom and Evil

Atom is an allusion to the biblical Adam but also atomic energy, the development of weapons of Armageddon. And perhaps technology more broadly. The world is on fire as technofascist overlords develop AI Agents to unburden us from grocery lists.

One more promise

We can tame the sun

And then we’ll shine forever

The old promise, of Marx and Ray Kurzweil, that technology will fix all our problems, and we’ll have utopia. Also a reference to the scientists (many of whom were pacifists) who built the bomb, whose release was described as brighter than a thousand suns.

Someday you can cry for everyone

We’ll burn when you were clever

The technologists build bunkers; they’ll shed crocodile tears and count their money as we burn.

Expand your mind, we’ve got a place for you

Just make believe that one and one are always two

Science has all the answers, just “expand your mind bro” and listen to its words. The physical world is all there is, technology doesn’t require governance, or principle.

When into the parlor comes the spider

Just say no!

Atom and Evil

Don’t fall for the sale, the deadly pitch.

Falling’s easy

Rising will never be

So we must rise together

Here are the changes

Powerful harmony

But then there’s no forever

Atom and Evil.

It’s much easier to bend and accept “progress” (which leads to the fall) than to reject it, stand for principle, preserve and protect what is good, live by values. “But then there’s no forever” is a hard lyric to come to grips with; does rejecting atomic technology mean we reject the possibility of man-made utopia/singularity? Is there no way out? Unless…

Maybe if we cry together

Maybe if we cry as one

The tears will fall to chill the fire

And keep everyone from 

Atom and Evil

… we unify.

Dio’s vocals are awesome BTW and I love the heavy doom of this track.

A fun aside; surely Dio must have been aware of the presence of another “Atom and Evil,” a gospel song performed by Golden Gate Quartet in 1946. It too is about the dangers of atomic war. “We’re sitting on the edge of doom” never sounded so harmonious and be-bop friendly: 

I'm talkin' 'bout Atom, and Evil

Atom and Evil

If you don't break up that romance soon

We'll all fall down and go boom, boom, boom!

*Yes, Black Sabbath, not Heaven & Hell, because that’s what this band is. 

Godspeed to a lighthearted Prince of Darkness

Unreal, less than three weeks after “Back to the Beginning,” the end of the road for a once in a generation frontman.

Farewell Ozzy Osbourne.

Ozzy was not a musical genius, save his voice, which was awesome and inimitable. He resides firmly in this old and flawed Top 10 heavy metal vocalists list which I should probably update. 

He was the face of heavy metal, and its soul. If not its brightest talent its center, the sun around which the rest of the metal universe revolved. His charisma was off the charts. The world turned out to see him and Black Sabbath off in Birmingham, which you don’t do for assholes.

I've never known a world without Ozzy Osbourne. Four of Sabbath's legendary first six albums were out before I was born. His loss is immeasurable.

I think some of Ozzy’s solo material is overlooked. Certainly not “Crazy Train,” “Bark at the Moon,” “Mr. Crowley” or “Mama I’m Coming Home,” but how about “Fire in the Sky,” “Mr. Tinkertrain” or “The Ultimate Sin”? 

As I noted in my Black Sabbath post our metal heroes are dying off, and the list is getting longer. Lemmy, Dio, EVH, Paul Di'Anno, and now Ozzy. That’s how it goes, none of us are getting out alive.

It makes me sad of course, but also reflective, and expansive. Paradoxically death opens my heart. See enough of it, and you realize life is too short for grudges and pettiness and trying to “own” each other. How about more celebration of the good, of reading and taking a few notes from the “Diary of a Madman” who wrang every fucking bead of sweat out of this life?

Maybe if we can all stop hating each other for five minutes and realize that we’re walking a finite and short path on a spinning ball of rock in the darkness of an unfathomably massive void we’d all be … a little happier? Or at least more appreciative of the miracle of our own lives. Ozzy had his dark moments and transgressions and addictions, but the outpourings of support confirm a few common traits: He laughed a lot, he cared about his friends, and he was hopeful.

Maybe it’s not too late

To learn how to love, and forget how to hate

We are called to live: A night with Wildside in Dracut MA

Take a ride on the Wildside. 

Many/most 50+ year-old men were probably at home watching the Celtics playoff game last night. I was called back to the 1980s, and fantasy, and a late night with Wildside.

I decided on the spur of the moment to see an 80s hair band tribute. They were playing at a place called The Boat in Dracut, where I’d never been. I felt the call. On Thursday I texted my buddy Wayne, whom I’ve known since grade school and has been my wingman at countless metal shows. Yesterday he let me know—he was in. The night was on.

I never go to Dracut. I have never had a need to go to this odd town far off any major interstate, accessible only by driving through 20 minutes of woods and farmland. Which feels like undiscovered Lovecraft country in a state this small. I navigated past rusted grain silos and empty fields and then battered mill buildings and then I was there.

The Boat as it turns out is located on the shore of Mascuppic Lake. To be frank it looks a little rough on the outside, a windowless concrete bunker with a weathered deck off to one side. You have to pass through a steel door to enter. 

Meat Raffle ... and Wildside

I knew I was in for a Spinal Tap sort of evening when I pulled into the parking lot, cut the engine, and glanced up at the marquee. Top billing was given to a Meat Raffle, with Wildside the second act. Had there been a puppet show Wildside would have been no. 3. I insisted Wayne take my picture in front of it, and wouldn’t you know it I had remembered to wear my Spinal Tap shirt.

Inside it was the place to be, if you like blonde women in tight leather pants swaying on the dance floor. Or overweight dudes, one wearing a Kix t-shirt and another a sleeveless denim vest with “The Warriors” emblazoned on the back. That Warriors, of the 1979 film. Very dark, biker-ish, but clean and well maintained, with a great center stage where the action unfolded. Kudos to the owners of this establishment and any club owner who hosts local rock and metal. 

Wildside was great. The lead singer is Ron Finn, who also sings for a Judas Priest tribute band I twice hosted at my home. I am very familiar with his work. The guy can sing, with a wonderful stylistic range and high top-end register that works for everything from “Still of the Night” to “Lick It Up” to “Screaming in the Night” (Krokus). And everything in between. AC/DC and Guns-and-Roses, Van Halen, and some fantastic Def Leppard covers. 

We heard it all, listening after midnight. Here's an upload from my phone, an excerpt of "Bringing on the Heartache."

Women and some men swayed on the dance floor, thrust fists to the heavens, air guitared along to the break in “Running With the Devil.” I did too.

A thought crossed my mind: Should I be home? No. Not for a $10 cover charge. Budweisers are $4.50. Tripoli’s beach pizza cooked hot, topped with a slice of melted provolone cheese for $5. That’s fucking living right there. I need nothing else.

Looking around, I know it’s all ridiculous. But life is ridiculous. I am ridiculous. And I love it. I love it all.

I’m going to wring every fucking last drop out of life. Why else are we living?

I am never so alive than when I’m at a metal show. I feel electric. 

It’s worth the 1 a.m. bedtime next-day fatigue and the dry mouth hangover. 

Don’t pass it up. Go to the show. Live.

Rock and metal shows starting to accumulate

When the year began I had just one show on schedule, Ace Frehley on Jan. 30 at the Tupelo Theater in Derry, NH. Possibly a second in Lotus Land, a Rush tribute, though that might have been an early year purchase.

After committing to Blind Guardian on Wednesday, Nov. 26 at the Worcester Palladium a couple days ago, I’m up to eight. In this age of artificiality I crave live performances. I need a regular metal and hard rock fix, and Spotify alone doesn't cut it.

I’ve never seen Bruce Dickinson solo so that one intrigues me the most. Hairball (a band that covers various 70s-80s metal acts, including costumes etc.) should be a blast in a wild venue. Foreigner’s Journey is another tribute act of, as you might guess, both Foreigner and Journey. I’ve seen them once before and the lead singer sounds uncannily like Steve Perry, less like Lou Gramm.

And yes, I did see Ace Frehley 2x this year. I might yet add 1-2 more (shows, not Ace Frehley).

Thursday, Jan. 30

Ace Frehley

Tupelo Theater, NH

Friday Feb. 14

Lotus Land

Cabot Theater, Beverly

Saturday March 15

Ace Frehley

Blue Ocean, Salisbury

Friday June 13

Foreigner’s Journey 

Blue Ocean, Salisbury

Thursday Sept. 11

Bruce Dickinson

Citizens House of Blues, Boston

Friday Sept. 26

Judas Priest and Alice Cooper

Holmdel, NJ

Saturday Oct. 11

Hairball 

Hampton Beach Ballroom Casino

Wednesday Nov. 26

Blind Guardian

Worcester Palladium

The Ring of the Nibelung/Roy Thomas and Gil Kane

The Ring is mine!

Over the course of my lifetime I’ve been exposed to Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung in many and various ways. The story, or pieces thereof, from the Old Norse literature upon which the operas are based. The thematic content from modern works like The Broken Sword and The Lord of the Rings. Even the music, which I’ve heard in various and sundry films including Apocalypse Now ("The Ride of the Valkyries") and Excalibur (“Siegfried’s Funeral March," "Prelude to Parsifal").

But I haven’t ever seen the opera nor read a full literary treatment of the work. And was overdue to scratch this niggling itch … but wanted to have some fun, with a low bar to entry. And so, I scooped up a treatment I did not know existed until quite recently: Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung, the complete graphic novel as adapted by the great Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, with Jim Woodring.

This was enjoyable. I plowed through it in just a few hours over a few nights. It’s a product of DC Comics, released in 1991, and checks in at a relatively hefty 191 pages. It includes some welcome introductory material, including a foreword introducing the biography and talents of the authors, and an introduction to Wagner’s opera cycle by Brian Kellow of Opera News.

The Ring of the Nibelung is a somewhat complex story, with four acts/operas (Wagner prefers music dramas) spanning long periods of time, told through different sets of characters ranging from gods, giants, and dwarves to the heroic albeit mortal race of humans known as Nibelungs. It starts with the creation of the world, and ends with its downfall at Ragnarok. The centerpiece is the story of Siegfried, a mortal hero sent to slay a dragon, reclaim the gods' stolen gold and rescue the Valkyrie Brunnhilde. These stories are bound together by a golden ring that grants its wearer dominion over the world. Yes, there are some Tolkien parallels here, which JRRT denies and to be fair he likely drew on Wagner’s common influences, not the operas. But we’ve got a greedy dragon hoarding wealth, a precious ring fought over by two brothers (one of whom kills the other to take it for himself), a broken sword reforged, and many other familiar elements.

Overall it's a gorgeous, epic, deeply thematic story well told by Thomas—and as you’d expect from his pen, it moves. Kane’s artwork is marvelous, beautiful, comic booky and muscular but not garish. The men are jacked and the women beautiful. Rather than me attempt to word-paint here are some of the panels:

What does it all mean? There’s a lot to dig into, too much for me after one rapid reading of an adaptation in graphic novel form. But The Ring is undoubtedly a Great Story, and like all great stories contains truth. I’m quite fond of Sir Roger Scruton’s “Reflections on The Ring of the Nibelung,” which he describes as a story for “modern people, for whom the path to heroism is overgrown.” 

From that essay:

Wagner’s story of gods and heroes, of giants and dwarfs, is not a fairy tale. It is addressed to modern people, who have lost the ways of enchantment, and for whom the path to heroism is overgrown. It is a story in which law and love, power and property are all caught up in a life and death struggle between the forces that govern the human soul.

Love without power will not endure, and power without law will always erode the claims of love. We live this paradox, and without the gods to maintain the moral order the burden of it falls entirely on our shoulders. 

Gods come and go; but they last as long as we make room for them, and we make room for them through sacrifice. The gods come about because we idealize our passions, and it is by accepting the need for sacrifice on behalf of another that our lives acquire a meaning. Seeing things that way we recognize that we are not condemned to mortality but consecrated to it. Such, in the end, was Wagner’s message. Yes, the gods must die, and we ourselves must assume their burdens. But we inherit their aspirations too: freedom, personality, love, and law. There is no way in which we can achieve those great goods through politics, which, if we put too much faith in it, will inevitably degenerate into the kind of totalitarian power enjoyed by the dwarf Alberich. But we can create these things in ourselves, and we do this when we recognize the sacred character of our joys and sufferings, and resolve to be true to them.

For more reading and listening, check these out:

Reflections on “The Ring of the Nibelung”

Wagner Götterdämmerung - Siegfried's death and Funeral march Klaus Tennstedt London Philharmonic

Gone to the Wolves by John Wray, a review

80s metal... take me back.

Heavy metal ebbs and flows in my veins—but never runs dry. Even as alternative forms of audio entertainment from podcasts to YouTube videos compete for my time, it resurfaces in my workouts, or on long drives where I need to decompress. It is the music I grew up with, it is still the music I listen to most today, and it will remain my favorite genre forever. 

These days metal claims a larger portion of my mind. In part because, as readers of this blog know, I’m writing a memoir about growing up in the context of this unique genre of music. But also because I just finished a wonderful work of fiction on the subject—John Wray’s Gone to the Wolves. 

I’ve read a fair number of works of heavy metal non-fiction, including history (Sound of the Beast, Ian Christe, others) sociological studies (Heavy Metal: The Music And Its Culture, Deena Weinstein), and autobiographies (too many to count). But I can’t say I’ve encountered a work of literary fiction in which heavy metal plays such a starring role.

Gone to the Wolves begins in Florida in the late 80s, a region and a point in time that saw an underground surge of death metal, the emergence of bands like Cannibal Corpse and Death. It shifts the action to the LA Strip and glam/hair metal, before finishing with a third and final act in Norway, home of black metal. We get the time, the culture, and the place of these three culturally and geographically diverse areas, all done well.

And we get the music. There is a lot to like here. Wray is a very good writer, but has a unique talent for capturing sound and the emotion it engenders in its subjects. Reading the book feels like going to a concert, and at times casts a potent spell.

But, more than music Gone to the Wolves is really about the unique friendship shared by its three main characters. The protagonist is Kip, a teen who leaves an out of state broken home to move in with his grandmother in Venice, FL. There he befriends Leslie, a gay, black, nerdy teenager with a big brain for metal. The two later meet Kira, a wild, untamed thrill seeker and Kip’s love interest. The characters don’t speak like any teenagers I know, or knew of; they are too articulate, too smart, too informed. But it works in a dramatized novel.

The dynamics are fun, the characters work, and the story pulls you in. The trio fall into the underground of Florida death metal, graduate high school and leave for L.A. and the crazy party scene on the strip. When that begins to spin out of control and Kira loses patience with its falsity, she ultimately ends up in Norway in the early 1990s. Which as anyone who knows heavy metal’s history was home to some crazy shit—church burnings, an attempted overthrow of a Christian nation, and the revival of the pagan gods of the old north.

I love the details and the commentary of the time. A character named Jackie launches into a soliloquy about the division in metal, one side Dionysian ecstasy and the other set the chaos of Set, as played out in chick friendly hair metal vs. the heavy, real shit, thrash and death metal. It struck me as true. As did the early scenes of hanging out in the middle of nowhere, crowded around a fire with friends, drinking and living for today. I had similar experiences.

I also identified with Wray's portrayal of metal fans as the outsider, apart from the conversations about popular music and fashion-seeking, but instead embracing loud and commercially unfriendly bands, adopting their fashion and making it and the metal lifestyle, well, everything. 

I recognize these kids.

But I did have some issues with the book, and a look at Goodreads indicates that others had similar.

It feels like too much is crammed between its covers, in particular the third and final act which morphs into a dark crime thriller. Its tonally different and a bit jarring after the character studies and bildungsroman of parts 1 and 2.

Kira is suffering from deep trauma that is not given adequate treatment, leaving her feeling a bit like an archetype rather than a believable character. And yet, Kira is possessed of something I recognize—the need for authenticity, to move beyond the falsity that papers over so much of life. This was a big part of metal subculture, the battle of true vs. false metal, as sung in explicit fashion by the likes of Manowar. Wimps and posers, leave the hall.

Metal bands fall along on a spectrum, from the tongue-in-cheek “evil” antics of Ozzy Osbourne to actual death worshipping bands like Mayhem and Burzum. So if you’re a metal fan you know which direction the book is heading—toward Norway, drawn by Kira’s authenticity seeking. Wray seeks to explore metal’s darkest recesses but it requires a bit of a stretch to get the action there. Overall I enjoyed the first 2/3 of the book a lot more, which felt true, and the latter section something of the false. But I get why Wray went went there.

I’ve got my limits and black metal is a bridge too far; some of it has atmosphere I can appreciate but it’s too one note/wall of sound for me, as well as genuinely disturbing, even enervating. I made it to Slayer and Sepultura and that was far enough. Metal has dark corners I don’t need to explore and the characters in the book come to feel the same: “This isn’t where I thought my love of rock ‘n’ roll was going to take me,” Kip says at one point, as they pursue Kira’s trail into the heart of Norway, toward a possible rendezvous with death.

Metal remains an untapped source of literary expression, and with Gen-X in the ascendancy and the Boomers and the Beatles mercifully in the rear-view mirror it’s time to reflect on what it all meant. Wray’s novel is a welcome addition to the conversation.

Celebrating Rob Zombie, graphic artist, at sixty

Master of many arts, including graphic.

Editor's note: We don't get many offers to guest post here on The Silver Key, but here's a rare exception--my old Cimmerian and DMR Books collaborator Deuce Richardson. And he's chosen a subject who hails from a city about a 5 minute drive from my house. Enjoy! And thanks Deuce.

By Deuce Richardson

Rob Zombie turned sixty yesterday. Where have the years gone?

I don't wish to discuss Rob's musical legacy (some excellent stuff, but very uneven), nor his cinematic work (I haven't seen enough to have an opinion). No, I'd like to examine his creative endeavors in the realm of graphic arts. 

Let's start at the start. Robert Bartleh Cummings--the Man Who Would Be Zombie--was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the heart of Lovecraft Country, to a couple of carnies. That's correct; his parents worked for a carnival. That ended in 1977 when a violent riot broke out at the carnival, with Mr. and Mrs. Cummings deciding to find a better line of work and a better environment for their children.

Rob lived most of his childhood and teen years in the 1970s. It was a decade of grooviness, decadence, schlock and pop culture masterpieces. His young brain soaked all of it up like a sponge. Musically, he gravitated to theatrical bands like Alice Cooper and KISS. Cinematically, Italian horror movies and the oeuvre of John Carpenter. 

When it came to the graphic arts, the Seventies were also bursting at the seams with groovy energy. There was Frazetta, of course, but Marvel comics and the horror mags over at Warren as well. In addition there was plenty of gonzo art in ads aimed at kids. I vividly remember seeing such in comics ads from that period. This was the era of Jack Kirby, Big Daddy Roth, Basil Gogos and Jim Phillips. Rob has name-checked all of them as artists he admires. I don't see much of Gogos in his own work, but plenty of the others, plus a little bit of Bernie Wrightson. 

So, there was Robert Cummings growing up in the white trash section of Haverhill--not that far, incidentally, from an even younger Brian Murphy---dreaming lurid Technicolor dreams and working on his art skills. Upon his graduation in 1983, Rob packed up for New York City and enrolled at Parsons School of Design. Almost immediately, he formed White Zombie with Sean Yseult. 

White Zombie released Soul-Crusher in 1987 and Make Them Die Slowly in 1989, along with a couple of EPs. Rob's art was featured on all of those, as well as on playbills and promotional materials. Incidentally, 1989 was when he adopted the "Rob Zombie" moniker.

Below is the original artwork from the 1985 Gods on Voodoo Moon EP, which came out before Soul-Crusher.

Rob seems to have really come into his own, art-wise, in the run-up to the release of 1992's La Sexorcisto. White Zombie fans would see a flood of art from Rob Zombie for the next few years. Below is the inside artwork for La Sexorcisto. 

Rob not only did art for the band. In March of 1993, he was invited onto Headbangers Ball. He proceeded to paint, in real time, various gonzo macabre art on the divider screens of the set. None of it was Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, but it was certainly cool. A great demonstration of Rob Zombie's raw talent.

Rob Zombie on Headbangers Ball - March 6, 1993

Mike Judge played a big part in breaking White Zombie via Beavis and Butt-Head. He took it one step further, bringing on Rob Zombie to come up with the art for the "Peyote Sequence" in 1996' Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. It was a match made in White Trash Valhalla. As Rob said in an 2018 interview:

“The best time I ever had was, I was driving around Austin with Mike Judge, and he was trying to explain something to me, and he was doing it in [Beavis and Butt-Head’s] voices. He’d do one, then do the other, just back and forth. Really bizarre to watch the two different voices come out of him,” Zombie chuckles. “It’s like Billy Bob Thornton doing the Sling Blade voice. You just can’t believe that’s the same person, that this is happening.”

 “I had the script, and it just said, ‘Beavis hallucinates the greatest music video of all time.’ That was all it said. And then he let me just come up with whatever crazy stuff I came up with. I was on tour, and I was drawing all these designs, and I kept faxing them to Mike Judge at that time. And that was the sequence. … It was just crazy stuff, like monsters playing guitars, TVs morphing into creatures; I don’t know, it was just supposed to be some trippy LSD thing. … Seemed to work out OK!”

It certainly did. I remember sitting in the theater and seeing that sequence and telling my bud, "Rob Zombie did that. I guarantee it!"

Rob Zombie's art output slacked off sharply after that. I have no idea why. It coincided with the break-up of White Zombie. History seems to indicate that we usually get about five to ten years of top-drawer work from most artists. I'm just glad to have been there when Rob was cranking out his cool retro-groovy-shock art.

Below, you can find a gallery of Rob's work.

The Silver Key: 2024 in review

Life is pretty good these days, both personally and creatively. Even though I slowed down a bit on the blog, I’m making an impact.

Life is imperfect and hard and 2024 was no exception. My body continues to age, and hip and knee pain have made a dent in the formerly carefree way I could train with heavy weights. Yet it’s manageable and I keep pushing.

My wife and I are dealing with aging and increasingly infirm parents. My dad is 81, immobile and prone to falls, and I spend a lot of time helping him with day-to-day life. My father-in-law, 85, has early-stage dementia and now requires 24-7 in-home assistance. We’ve got some good external help, but you can imagine what that means for us, and in particular my wife. She spends a lot of time caretaking. We both do. 

But, despite these challenges I can say unequivocally that life is good. 

Why?

We’re grateful to be in a position to take care of our parents when they need us.

I’m blessed beyond measure with two wonderful daughters and a healthy marriage and a good job.

At age 51 I’m at ease with myself at a depth and surety I’ve never previously experienced. I am no longer plagued by unrelenting self-doubt. I know my value, I know where I stand on most issues, and I know what I value. I know enough to say when I don’t know (which is often), and I know when to keep my mouth shut.

This is what true wealth looks like.

My posting here on the blog has declined, but for good reason. My forthcoming heavy metal memoir is taking serious shape, and I know it will see publication this year. Either with some third-party publisher, or more likely self-published. I still sometimes wonder why I’m bothering with a relatively banal story of a no-name heavy metal fan, but I keep pushing, because I believe it’s an important story others might enjoy and learn from. It’s my life, shared in the context of a style of music that has meant so much to me.

But, between writing the memoir, aging parents, work and careers, maintaining friendships on and on, something has to give, and in 2024 it was my posting on The Silver Key. As it publishes this will be my 59th and possibly final post of 2024. 

Last year I had 65 posts, and the year prior 101.And yet somehow my blog traffic has … gone up?

Per Google Analytics, I had 29,352 total post views in 2023, and this year through Dec. 28 I have had 45,230 views. That’s a 54% increase YOY.

How did that occur? I don’t know. Perhaps someone with knowledge of search traffic trends and Google’s air-tight algorithm can offer some insights. I’m at a loss.

It had nothing close to a viral post, but if you look at my top 10 posts by views of 2023, the numbers are significantly higher across the board this year than last. Even though I don’t monetize this blog in any way it’s nice to know people are reading.

On to the show.

Most popular posts of 2024

Normally I do a clean top 10 type post in this spot, but in 2024 I had 17 posts with more than 400 views each. Last year I only had 3 posts exceed the 400 mark. So I’m listing all of these, lowest to highest.

Going Viking at DMR Books, 404 views. A review of the Saga of Swain the Viking, vol. 1.

Of internet induced “Panic Attack” and Judas Priest’s Invincible Shield, 413 views. My review of Judas Priest’s latest, awesome studio effort.

A review of Metallica, August 2nd 2024, Gillette Stadium, 450 views. I knocked out I believe four concert reviews this year, all of which pick up regular seach traffic and occasional traffic from Reddit.

Death Dealer 3: Semi-enjoyable (?) train-wreck, 467 views. So bad its good, I am “enjoying” the Death Dealer series and am reminded I need to review vol. 4.

Ruminations on subversive and restorative impulses, and conservative and liberal modes of fantasy fiction, 482 views. I liked this essay and am glad others did too, which I believe successfully navigated a fraught political line. 

A review of Iron Maiden, Nov. 9 2024, Prudential Center, Newark New Jersey, 483 views. Glad I got see Maiden perform a heavy dose of my favorite Maiden album Somewhere in Time, and one of the final performances of drummer Nicko McBrain.

Prayers for Howard Andrew Jones, ardent sword-and-sorcery champion, 490 views. A terrible tragedy and I continue to wish the best for Howard and his family.

Our modern problems with reading, 499 views. The first of a couple rant-y type posts, people do like these (and I find them easy to write, they come out in a rush) but I’m often left with a feeling of guilt, like I’m adding yet more negativity to an ocean of internet awfulness. But I try to keep rationality at the foundation.

Not all books need be movies, 500 views. See above, I still get irked by everyone wanting a movie made out of every book or literary character. Books can just do some things better.

50 years of Dungeons and Dragons, 559 views. A big round anniversary for a game that’s meant a lot to me.

A review of Judas Priest, April 19 Newark NJ, 586 views. It’s amazing these guys are still doing it.

Some observations while reading Bulfinch’s Mythology, 605 views. Possibly the biggest surprise, a semi-review/scattered observations on an old book of mythology made my top 6 posts of 2024.

The Shadow of Vengeance by Scott Oden, a review, 634 views. A review of a book in the Heroic Signatures line by a writer with an ear for Howard’s prose style.

More (mediocre) content is not better than no content: A rant, 689 views. A true rant, I stand behind my message but need to reiterate I believe everyone should create if the urge arises. I wish I had targeted it more at the major studios and the “franchise-zation” of everything good that ultimately tarnishes art.

And now the top 3:

50 years of Savage Sword of Conan, and beyond, 776 views. SSOC was my gateway to Conan and S&S and I couldn’t let its silver anniversary slip by. One of these days I might get around to completing my collection.

Organizing my bookshelves: How I do it (YMMV—no hate), 878 views. Not sure what happened here—this post was picked up by a blog with bigger traffic and that drove many views, but I think it’s a topic that all of us book collectors can appreciate. 

The Savage Sword of Conan no. 1, Titan Comics: A review, 1388 views. SSOC is an important title, both historically and today, and overall I’m pretty happy with what I’ve seen from Titan. Though as my review points I had some issues with no. 1 (in particular the printing). But this one brought in the most eyeballs of 2024, both out of the gate and continues to do so. I’m reminded I need to pick up issues 5-6.

To sum up: People like shit posting/rants, they like reviews about Conan, they enjoy advice on how to shelve books (?), and they like heavy metal. All these things bring me great joy and I’m glad they seem to bring joy to you, too. I do very much welcome comments on the blog, and thank all my regulars, but the numbers have a power all their own, and demonstrate that which resonates with a broader audience. I’m not a numbers chaser at all and I write what I enjoy, but nevertheless I find the numbers interesting.

As always I welcome comments here about what you like, don’t like, or what you want to see more of in 2025 and beyond. 

The Battle of Evermore and the timeless nature of fantasy

(early metal-ish Friday)

That it is told in the language of fantasy is not an accident, or because Tolkien was an escapist, or because he was writing for children. It is a fantasy because fantasy is the natural, the appropriate language for the recounting of the spiritual journey and the struggle of good and evil in the soul.

--Ursula LeGuin, “On Fantasy and Science Fiction”

The critics who have dismissed fantasy as juvenile escapism have failed to recognize that fantasy grapples with real and eternally pressing issues, albeit wrapped in metaphor and fantastic trappings.

The same critics who worship at the altar of realism and extol the virtues of novels about average people in familiar times cannot admit their darlings have rapidly aged and are fast losing their relevance. While the classics of fantasy remain as fresh today as the day they were written.

That’s because the language of fantasy is unbound by time, or place. It deals with the big issues—conflict within and without, love, sorrow, friendship, the inevitable march of time, pain, decay and death—in poetic abstraction, and in heroic meter and timbre. Modern novels that reference an author’s time and place will confuse the modern reader with surroundings that grow increasingly abstract and impenetrable with the passing years, while the Hyborian Age or Middle-Earth remain eternally familiar and inhabitable even as their authors slip further into the past. They are distanced from the ordinary, but close to the human heart.

The Battle of Evermore will still be played 100 years from now, though perhaps never as well as this version by Heart. Because we all grasp its emotional depths, and understand the meaning of the plaintive cries.

The apples turn to brown and black

The tyrant's face is red

Oh war is common cry

Pick up your swords and fly

We’re always trying to bring the balance back. It’s the eternal struggle never won, but once in a while we experience the blessed peace of equilibrium.

The Battle of Evermore will still be played 100 years from now, and remain as unspoiled as Lothlorien, because it is the timeless matter of fantasy.

The analog kid—some reflections on music and technology and Into the Void

Spiraling into a (digital) void...

I recently finished Geezer Butler’s biography Into the Void. A fun and interesting read for many reasons. It’s mainly as you’d expect a detailed look into Geezer’s time with Black Sabbath, in which he served as bass player and principal lyrics writer. Geezer experienced a wild rock and roll lifestyle, including a roller coaster ride to the top in the early to mid-70s and subsequent plunge to the bottom in the late 80s and early 90s. But along the way Into the Void offers some interesting commentary and a glimpse into how radically the music industry has transformed from 1969-today. Largely due to the rapid adoption of new technology and the corresponding shift from analog to digital.

I am of Generation X (born 1973) and have the benefit of living in two worlds. I grew up in an analog era of tapes and stereos, but also had a front seat to the rise of computers and digital music, and later Napster and YouTube and Spotify. I rode that lightning. 

With that perspective I’ve come around to the belief that technological adoption results in both progress and regress. It is not a universal good, each step an advance toward some Star Trek utopia espoused by deluded techno-utopians like David Brin. Nor is it an evil, each advance in technology removing us further from some mythical Garden of Eden and closer to a digital Hell. 

It is just Change, for better and for worse.

Music used to be harder to access. You had to plunk down hard-earned coin to buy it. There were fewer options, no carefully curated song lists built around your mood or vacation destination. Unless you wanted to go through the considerable trouble of making a mix tape.

But analog music was (and remains, with the right equipment) of a better sound quality than compressed digital, richer and more resonant. And friendlier to the collector. With your analog purchase comes physical art, albums with foldouts and liner notes and the like.

Many things got better for music with the advent of digital. With Spotify Premium ($10.99/ month, soon to be $11.99) I have access to essentially every piece of music ever recorded. I can go to YouTube and watch any music video I formerly had to pray Headbanger’s Ball might play. I can watch hundreds and thousands of concerts I’ve never been to, and documentaries and fan videos, when before the only options were to buy a VHS copy of Live After Death or take a gamble on a bootleg.

Tapes were never a great way to preserve music, and records and CDs can warp or scratch. Digital is “forever” (as long as you pay the monthly fee).

In short, digital was great for me, the fan and consumer, in many ways. I benefit it from it in a small way here on the blog, with my ‘Metal Friday” posts where I can link to videos and share them with like-minded metal fans.

Nevertheless, I prefer the way the music industry used to work. Or at least, enough of it to tip the balance toward the analog era. I’m aware I’m a trader in nostalgia, but like Geezer Butler I believe have some legit arguments to back me up (which makes us both geezers, I suppose).

In the pre-digital age recorded music was not a commodity. It had to be committed to physical objects—records, tapes, CDs—in order to be distributed. Albums had controlled pricing and were marked up to create profitable margins. And because artists could and did make real money on album sales, that meant live shows served a different purpose. They were a way to promote new albums and drive records sales. They were cheaper. 

But for the artist, digital distribution is a nightmare. Butler in his book scoffs at the royalties he receives from Spotify, despite the fact Sabbath has sold more than 75 million albums. Says Butler:

While bands in the sixties and seventies got robbed by dodgy managers, modern artists and groups get robbed by streaming services like Spotify, who pay a fraction of a cent per play. It’s not even worth looking at Sabbath’s income from Spotify, it’s so small.

The only way to make up for the loss of album sales is through touring, which has led to exorbitant concert prices.

Some will argue that the unlimited choices offered by Spotify and YouTube are an unmitigated good for the consumer. But I don’t necessarily see it that way, even though I have found bands on these platforms. Research has found that people like choice, but from a limited, selected set of options. Unlimited choice is crippling, which is why we need curation. Kerrang or Headbanger’s Ball served this purpose back in the day, but today who are the arbiters of taste? It’s harder to find new music when there’s no curated selections in record stores. It used to be a handful of your local rock radio stations would bring you the latest bands, now you have to subject yourself to the whims of algorithms or corrupt search engines.

But access to music just scratches the surface of the massive impact of digital.

Electronic drum machines and autotuned voices massively lowered the bar for who could record an album. It undercut raw ability and negated craft gained through sweat equity, trading it out for dance moves and good looks. Manufactured music gave birth to the rise of pop performers who captivated audiences through sex appeal and dance moves. This kicked off at the turn of the new millennium with the rise of Britney Spears, N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, and the Spice Girls, and continues unabated today.

Before the advent of digital, record labels gave bands like Rush and Black Sabbath several albums to find their sound. It was a risk, but a calculated one, because these bands had paid their dues in clubs, built followings, and could perform. They were talents that then required promotion. 

Of course there were exceptions. Record labels were and are out to make money and signed many shitty bands purely because they were part of a hot music movement. But in general the labels had a longer leash and more patience for artists. When the emphasis is on the music, who cares how the band members look? 

If four ugly dudes from Birmingham England with an experimental new sound that didn’t follow pop formula (and certainly could not dance) were born in 1999 rather than 1949, could they become rock stars? Does anyone think we’d have had Black Sabbath today? Butler doesn’t:

People tend to ask me: Could Sabbath happen now? The truth is, probably not. The odds of four working-class lads coming together in a rough place like Aston, writing very heavy songs about their gritty reality and making it in the music industry are slim to none. They wouldn’t look “right,” they wouldn’t sound “current” and they’d be too much of a risk for major record companies.

Digitalization renders music into a commodity, cheap and disposable, no longer holy. We don’t have to queue up and wait for the new Guns and Roses albums as we once used. My daughters love Taylor Swift and pay big $ to see her in concert but don’t own her albums. The entire concept of an “album” is practically meaningless.

I don’t believe this is better, or healthier, for music. 

I am heartened that analog still has a place. You can still find music stores and new records for purchase. I smile when I see young kids buying records and admiring the artwork, and enjoying the look and feel of a physical object in their hands instead of a vaporware download. But buying physical music is a novelty, not a necessity.

While something was gained in the switch to digital, something was lost along the way. 

Why we need fantasy: Some thoughts from a Blind Guardian concert, May 11, 2024 at the Worcester Palladium

I'm in there! Somewhere back left...

No one ever dares to speak

It's nothing else but fantasy

It's make believe,

Make believe

No one ever dares to speak

It's nothing else but fantasy

But One day it will all come to life

--Blind Guardian, Fly

How did you spend your Saturday night? I was in a hall you might know, called … VALHALLA!

Or maybe it was the Worcester Palladium. 

Either way, I was somewhere else. And that’s a good thing. 

We need fantasy in our lives.

Blind Guardian lead singer Hansi Kuersch screams at the end of “Valhalla,” No, we can’t live without gods! He and his bandmates put to powerful music what many of us who breathe deeply of this type of thing have come to know: 

We can’t live without fantasy. It is indispensable as air or water:

Songs I will sing of tribes and kings

The carrion bird and the hall of the slain

Nothing seems real

You soon will feel

The world we live in is another Skald’s

Dream in the shadows

--Skalds and Shadows

We’re all just telling stories. Reality is what we make of it. 

Blind Guardian knows this, and takes us to other places, fair and perilous lands where magic is real. Lands we once knew, but have forgotten. As we age our fantasies wither. We prioritize work and money, and embrace conformity and dull routine. 

Stranded in the real world

Left in the world

No place for daydreams

Serious life

I fall into

I fall into a dark hole

And I can't come out

Do you know if Merlin did exist

Or Frodo wore the ring

Did Corum kill the gods

Or where's the wonderland

Which young Alice had seen

Or was it just a dream

I knew the answers

Now they're lost for me

--Imaginations From the Other Side

But fantasy calls, from the other side.

We might be lost, but Blind Guardian knows there is another world. Which can break down the walls around your heart. For a short time on Saturday at least.

Blind Guardian delivered on this stop on The God Machine tour. They were great. The setlist is below.

As always it’s a privilege to see a band of their magnitude in a place like The Palladium, which has a listed capacity of 2660. Blind Guardian plays to much larger crowds overseas.

Take a bow, dudes. 

Maybe you don’t need German power metal bands in your life. That’s OK, with a good book or a well-done movie you can get (some) of what Blind Guardian offers. Enchantment, to restore a disenchanted world.

What you don’t get in a book or a movie however is the power of being in a big group of like-minded people, all experiencing the same powerful call. Chanting, “Valhalla, Deliverance!” like Viking warriors of old.

Where was I Saturday night? The lands of Faerie, or Worcester? 

Both my friends.

Setlist

Imaginations from the Other Side

Blood of the Elves

Nightfall

The Script for My Requiem

Violent Shadows

Skalds and Shadows

Deliver us from Evil

Secrets of the American Gods

The Bard’s Song

Majesty

Traveler in Time

Sacred Worlds

Time Stands Still (At the Iron Hill)

Valhalla

Mirror Mirror

Here's a bit of "Nightfall" from my cell phone:

Metal spring (and summer) kicking off, plus metal memoir update

This spring and summer I’ve got four bands/five shows on the docket. We get started this Friday with the legendary Judas Priest, touring in support of their killer new album Invincible Shield. Time to break out the denim.

• Friday April 19: Judas Priest (with opening act Sabaton), Prudential Center, Newark NJ

• Saturday May 11: Blind Guardian, Palladium, Worcester MA

• Friday August 2: Metallica, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough MA

• Wednesday, Nov. 6: Iron Maiden, DCU Center, Worcester MA

• Saturday Nov. 9: Iron Maiden, Prudential Center, Newark NJ

Coupled with a pair of shows I’ve already seen (tribute bands Foreigner’s Journey and Lotus Land) that’s seven concerts this year. And who knows, I may add one or two yet. Not bad for an old fart.

Are you going to see any of these shows or bands? Which excite you the most? I’m sure I’ll have some after reports here on the blog.

***

The heavy metal memoir continues. This is easily the most difficult work I’ve attempted … which is not necessarily what I expected when I began. The challenge is trying to tell a well-paced, compelling story, with the right amount of detail and audience applicability. All while avoiding needless details and navel-gazing. I’ve been writing my whole life, but I’ve come to realize that journalism, academic work, and non-fiction are different disciplines altogether than memoir. 

Plus, many of the details of the book are obscured by time and the haze of alcohol.

Not easy, at all.

But I’m pushing, a few times a week, and making progress. I’m working on a second draft now. My goal remains to have it finished by the end of the year.

Of internet induced “Panic Attack” and Judas Priest’s Invincible Shield

False metal cowers before this shield.

Even as I’m feeling dragged down by the state of “reality” such as we know it, I’m buoyed, once again, by the new Judas Priest release.

The boys from Birmingham haven’t let me down, yet. Heck I even like Turbo. 

Could they do it again?

Yes they can, and they have. Rob Halford is 72 years old and this is JP’s 19th studio album. They’ve earned the right to do nothing, even coast on mediocrity… but they’re still bringing the heat.

Really, the new album is a marvel.

If you’re a true fan you’ve probably already read the reviews. Invincible Shield is about as good as the press it’s getting. I say “about” because I still perhaps enjoy Firepower a bit more, but that might be because I’ve listened to it far longer. I need a new more spins of the new disc before I decide. 

It’s way better than I hoped.

I was trying to think of how to review the album and honestly, there’s not much I can say that hasn’t already been said. Though I have said something, and you will find that below. I lack the technical music vocabulary to be a good music critic. I know what I like (classic metal) and Invincible Shield is it.

What you might not have heard so much about (at least I haven’t, though admittedly haven’t gone digging, either) is the lyrical content of the opening track, “Panic Attack.” Which to me is a brilliant critique of almost everything that’s wrong with the world today.

(note: if you don’t want to hear this semi-rant and just get the review skip to the section break)

I actually think there isn’t nearly as much wrong with the world today as we believe there is. With one massive exception. The internet.

Judas Priest isn’t necessarily known for its thoughtful lyrical content as compared to say, Iron Maiden. Priest is more apt to write up tempo rockers, songs about motorbikes on the highway, powerful metal warriors, or gay sex (I love “Eat Me Alive” BTW, no bigotry here). 

But of course Priest can write thoughtful stuff from time to time, and “Panic Attack” is one of these songs. I’m not saying it’s Neil Peart level lyrical content, but it is an on-point critique of the internet fueled panic that I believe is the root cause for the high rates of teenage anxiety and depression, and adult political division, we’re seeing today.

Really, are things actually worse today than they were in say, 1940? Or 1860? Or 1660? Do you actually believe this?

You know the answer. They’re not.

We are wealthier, healthier, in almost every measure today than we have been at every point in our history. But I don’t blame you if you don’t agree. You’ve been programmed to think that way.

So have I. So have we all. 

Yes, we have problems today. I’m not making light of foreign wars, terrorism, global warming, bad politicians, inflation, on and on.

But what you don’t hear about are the rapid elimination of poverty. Medical improvements. We’re wealthier, better fed, live longer lives, with higher IQs (YouTube comments to the contrary).

But we’ve all been deluded by the virtual reality we live in, which is rapidly becoming reality. At least in our minds.

If everyone in the U.S. had a cellphone in 1863, or 1918, we would not to be able to get out of bed. We’d be watching thousands slaughtered on the battlefields of the South, or dying in the millions from the Spanish Flu. 

Things aren’t great all over, there is cause for alarm… but the world is getting better overall. But our mindsets? Worse. 

I always say when you’re looking for an answer to a complex problem, follow the $. Bad news attracts eyeballs, it’s part of our flawed human nature, so news outlets and independent creators on YouTube focus on telling these stories and sewing division to get more ad revenue. The platforms want you to spend every waking hour on them, and reward that behavior. 

Politicians know they get airtime when they sling mud or label everything a crisis, or describe the outcome of every election with the solemn intonement “our democracy hangs in the balance.” 

We’re so reduced to soundbites that this is what passes for thoughtful discourse.

The result is an endless supply of apocalypse. On call, 24-7, on your mobile phone. A twisted funhouse mirror on what is actually real, the world outside your window. Until, as Halford sings, “there’s no way left to tell what’s right from wrong.” Unless you “disconnect the system.”

We all need to put our phones down and touch grass. I hate that fucking phrase but there you go.

Division sells. We’re doing this to ourselves, fueled by a constant stream of technology driven negativity. The winners are Google and Apple and TikTok and Facebook.

The Priest has exposed this problem with “Panic Attack.”

The clamour and the clatter

of incensed keys

Can bring a nation to its knees

On the wings of a lethal icon

Bird of prey (aside: is this a Twitter reference?)

It’s a sign of the times when 

bedlam rules

When the masses condone

pompous fools

And the scales of justice tip

in disarray

The good news is that I see some signs of people pushing back on this, booing AI for example, which is as inhuman and fake as it gets.

 

The actual album review 

As for the album? Short review: It kicks ass.

Longer review? It kicks serious fucking ass.

The first time I heard it, I was like OK, “Panic Attack” is killer. Now how about “The Serpent and the King?”

That destroys too. I like it even better. Might be my favorite song on the album. At least at the moment. The guitar behind the chorus mimics the sway of a serpent, I swear. Love it.

Now we’ve got “Invincible Shield.” Title track, so it’s got to be good… and yep it is. It’s awesome.

Surely it must let up at “Devil in Disguise.” Or “Gates of Hell.”

Nope, and nope. If you’re keeping track at home that’s five fucking straight songs of all killer, no filler, for a metal band whose first album, Rocka Rolla, came out FIFTY YEARS AGO. “Gates of Hell” might even be my favorite track on the album.

I even really like song six, “Crown of Horns.” It’s a melodic, slow tempo song, but we NEED it here, to break up the metal destruction. You can only take getting your ass kicked so much.

OK finally, things let up a bit with song seven, “As God is my Witness.” But it’s good. 

The rest of the album is uniformly good, even if it doesn’t rise to the height of the first half. But “Giants in the Sky” is wonderful, would make for a terrific coda to Priest’s career and the end of the metal era (“homage to the legends ‘til the better end, leaving such a legacy my friends.”)

Giants indeed. 

Overall, the production and sound of the album is a 10/10. Halford can still sing (and he’s not what he was circa 1974-87, but who is?). Richie Faulkner is a guitar hero. I’m incredibly pleased with it, and happier yet I’ll be seeing these guys next month and will get to hear some of it, live.

The hellscape of KISS avatars and AI art

KISS (holograms) love you!

KISS just wrapped up a 50-year career in typical KISS fashion.

Selling product.

Not content to leave the stage with a remaining shred of dignity intact, KISS left their fans with a message, and a sales pitch: “The new KISS era starts now!” And unveiled the next era of KISS.

Digitally created avatars.

The new beginning? Artificiality.

KISS presumably means to render themselves, and their income streams, immortal. “The band will never stop because the fans own the band,” explained frontman Paul Stanley.

Paying fans, with their money going to KISS in perpetuity. 

Fuck I hate the world right now.

***

Artificial entertainment is not unique to KISS. We’re being increasingly inundated with images spun out of DALL-E, text spit from ChatGPT. Fake videos with AI trained voiceovers are making it increasing harder to tell what is real.

Now we’ve got AI KISS. Holograms, programmed to move based on training data, not spontaneity.

A nightmare.

I ask, with earnestness: What is the point?

Before the advent of AI, had you asked me why I liked KISS I would probably have answered “the music."

But now I realize, it was also the band members.

People made the music. Putting aside debate about their actual talent, Gene, Paul, Peter, and Ace blended their unique backgrounds and experiences to write songs. They had several false starts and tentative steps toward their final brand image. It was a messy path of false starts, playing shows in high school gyms in front of a dozen disinterested fans, before they finally hit it big.

The end product was, almost miraculously, pretty awesome, at least from an entertainment perspective. 

Paul Stanley is a human being possessed of loves and interests, passions, faults, foibles, and flaws. As were the other members of KISS. Together they wrote great songs and terrible songs. Classic albums and awful clunkers. They did some amazing tours, limped through others, and put out some really shitty merchandise.

I love it all.

I love it because KISS is unique, and every member that served in the band, unique (especially Vinnie Vincent). It’s what makes them entertaining. This humanness is an incalculable part of what makes KISS endearing to its fans. 

KISS is easy to pick on, and mock. “They were already artificial!” OK, fair enough. But they were and are real people who against long odds, built a career most would envy.

The next era is a mockery, and its only just begun.

Will AI generated Paul Stanley paint pictures, bang groupies, have children, fight with digital Ace Frehley on Eddie Trunk? Will the band members write ChatGPT generated memoirs about their “tours”? Inspire new AI artists?

Are we supposed to go to concerts and cheer on holograms?

There is no point to AI generated art. It is soulless in every sense of the term. Because there is no soul behind it, not even a ghost in the machine. Just scraped and aggregated data, vectored and served up.

One small bit of good news is that it appears AI generated art is not copyrightable. And it doesn’t deserve to be, because there is nothing worth preserving in it. It is the pinnacle of corporate, Silicon Valley soul-lessness, a golem of circuitry built from the flesh and blood output of real artists.

If we had any sense as a species, AI would be put to use solving actual big problems like climate change and nuclear fusion. Detecting cancers unseen to the naked eye. Or automating soulless, mind-crushing tasks.

To be fair AI is being used in some of these applications. I hope these succeed. But most of the product development is being applied in the creative industries, and white collar businesses. 

Why? As with any open question about business, the answer is the same here as with any other: follow the money.

Companies are now rapidly training niche AIs and then selling them as subscription products. Businesses are already outsourcing human labor to machines, reducing overhead expense and increasing their profitability to shareholders.

This is commerce, not art.

Worse, kids are using it to write papers, teachers to grade these fake papers, “creators” to fuel their content pipeline. What are we learning? What is more impressive, a guitar virtuoso who has spent 25 years mastering his craft, a generational talent like Frank Frazetta painting with fire, or some kid putting prompts into DALL-E?

People are the losers in the AI race. As are dignity, hard work, effort, and talent.

So is the future. We’re sacrificing that, too. And we’re making a mockery of the past.

A massive part of the appeal of Conan and Solomon Kane and Kull is its creator, Robert E. Howard. Howard was rooted in Cross Plains, possessed of a voracious reading habit, writing talent, and an imagination as big as Texas. He was complex, contradictory, full of great passions, “giant melancholies and gigantic mirths.” All of it formed the wellspring of his art.

AI has none of this. There is no background to excavate, no influences to explore, no literary legacy to debate, no arguments over places in the pantheon. 

AGIs have no history. They never worked on oil fields, felt the sting of lost loves, experienced the alienation of an artistic soul in a town whose residents despised its craft.

AI generated writing is the death knell of literary criticism. How can one say anything about the output of a program, scraping and training itself on massive data sets of already existing content? A hellish, endless loop of sophisticated repetition and large-scale copying, including everything Robert E. Howard ever wrote?

To recap: AI generated art, including images and text, but also AI avatars, AI music, all of it, is void of meaning. It is shallow, empty, and purposeless.

Inhuman.

I will not be part of creating it, or consuming it. 

Neither should you.