4 Years Ago (2018)
I overdosed on “A Love Unreal” from Black Label Society.
Since 2014, I have been playing “Angel Of Mercy” non-stop. It’s made my 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 end of year lists. It’s always in my Top 100 Spotify songs I play each year. The guitar solo on it is “guitar hero” level. With “A Love Unreal” Zakk has orchestrated another candidate. The guitar solo on this song is a 10 out of 10 for me.
It’s a song within a song. God damn, the whole solo section is 1 minute and 20 seconds long. There are pop songs on the charts which are 2 minutes long.
8 Years Ago (2014)
The Grammy’s is not about the awards, it is about the performances. The Grammy organisation exists solely to sell a TV show and advertising.
The music websites back then wrote about the performances, and how Metallica mashed up “One” with classical pianist Lang Lang. And they got a 125% boost in Spotify streams for the song “One”. Overall, across their whole catalogue, their Grammy performance gave them a 63% increase.
No one wrote about the actual winners in the Best Metal category.
Who was it again?
That’s right, it was “God Is Dead?” from Black Sabbath, And it didn’t get any traction after the awards.
We overpay for music in Australia.
The ACCC, our competition watchdog launched an inquiry into the pricing. The techies went in front of the commission and stated that they didn’t set the price for music in Australia and that the price was set by the Record Labels.
It was found by the Commission that there should be no reason why Australians should pay more for software and music.
However, nothing has changed in relation to the prices. If anything, with the labels pushing vinyl, the prices have quadrupled, with a brand new double vinyl set going for $80.
And music sites would talk about the return of vinyl, but its miniscule compared to what digital brings in. Music is about data. It’s not about how many albums or songs are sold.
Are people listening, sharing and talking about your music?
And if they are, where are these people located, so you can organise ways to tour there and monetise.
I don’t see myself as depressive, but I do have a lot of songs in playlists that are classed as depressive or sad. So I wrote about some of the songs. The link is more in depth however I will summarise.
“Give Me A Sign” is from the album “Dear Agony” by Breaking Benjamin released in 2009. “Break Away” is from the album “The Illusion Of Progress” by Staind released in 2008.
“What A Shame” is from the album “The Sound Of Madness” by Shinedown released in 2008. “Broken Bones” is from the album “Light Me Up” by “The Rev Theory” released in 2008.
“Let Me Be Myself” is from the self-tilted Three Doors Down album released in 2008. “Alias” is from the album, “A Sense Of Purpose”, released in 2009.
“Wake Up” is from Story Of The Year, who are a very underrated band in the metal community. From the outset they got labelled as Emo. However, to me I always saw them as a metal band. This song is from the “The Black Swan”, released in 2008.
“That Was Just Your Life” has so many familiar bits, like the “Enter Sandman” riff backwards, the harmony guitars at about the 5.50 minute mark ripping Thin Lizzy rip offs and a section in which they plagiarise “Jump In The Fire”. Call it a great song, to open up the “Death Magnetic”.
“The Forgotten” is from the last album of the Howard Jones/Killswitch Engage era released in 2009 and what an album it is.
“The Unforgiven III” is another Metallica classic.
Set sail to sea, but pulled off course
American Hustle and The Wolf Of Wall Street
These two movies are for all the people who believe that if you work hard, get a good education and put in the 12 hour days, that somehow, success will work itself out and befall on them.
But it doesn’t really happen that way at all. Everybody is putting a scam in motion.
What these movies have shown is that it doesn’t matter what level of education a person has. It doesn’t mean that they will win. Quitters never win and it is the winners that write history. The winners write history because they bend the laws and they twist social morals to suit them. People may not like it, but it’s the truth.
Oblivion
I love it’s eeriness.
This movie is for the people who only believe what they are told and even when they come across something that questions that belief, they re-frame it and twist it, so that it conforms with what they believe in, because that is all the know. Whatever Mission Control said was the truth and the whole truth.
We life in an information society right now with everything at our fingertips.
Don’t be a fool. Do your own research and question everything. Don’t just follow. Whereas “The Wolf Of Wall Street” and “American Hustle” reflect the hustling mentality of life, “Oblivion” reflects our servitude to institutions.
Now You See Me
This movie is a sleeper hit. For a movie that cost $75 million to make and promote, it has returned over $350 million.
World War Z
I wrote back then how we have had a pretty clean run in relation to pandemics compared to previous centuries. I guess it was a bit premature.
In “World War Z” the virus needs a viable host to spread and therefore it is found that people inflicted with various diseases are immune from the zombie swarms as they cannot spread the disease.
Respect our world is the message that I get from WWZ. The more we disrespect it and pollute it, the more we and our future generations will suffer.
And the rich pharmaceutical companies care about treatments. There is no money in cures for them.
I found an Hot Metal article from November 1991 on Richie Sambora, so I did the painstaking task of typing it all up and adding my own comments. The interviewer is Stefan Chirazi and it was part of Sambora’s press campaign for his first solo album “Stranger In This Town”.
1991 was three years after “New Jersey” came out and five years after “Slippery When Wet.” The band Bon Jovi was on hiatus meanwhile Jon Bon Jovi had another hit with “Blaze Of Glory.” This was a crucial time for the artist known as Richie Sambora.
Here are some quotes from the article;
“I don’t consider myself a rock or pop star, I consider myself a musician and I would like people to consider me as an artist.”
“At the time Blaze Of Glory hit, Jon said he didn’t really know if he wanted to go on with the band again. That kind of left me in a difficult position because I didn’t have a record contract and I didn’t have a contract with Bon Jovi.”
“Then, at the end of our last tour, we had some disagreements about different things. I owned the record company which is now Jamco and used to be The Underground – Jon and I and Doc McGhee owned it all together. And I didn’t wanna be part of that anymore because I was so tired and beat up from being out there so long.”
“Bon Jovi’s sold 30 million records and I can’t even evaluate that or relate it to real terms. All I know is that I work as hard as I can, and at this stage of my career I’m still working this hard.”
1992 – The Year That Hard Rock Forgot
1992 was the year of transition.
Once the year was over; hard rock, melodic rock, glam rock and so forth would never be the same. In relation to hard rock releases, what a year it was. So many great albums got released, however according to the record labels barometer of success, those albums failed miserably.
One of the best releases from 1992 was “Blood and Bullets” by Widowmaker. Not only is it a great album, it was also the first “official” album to feature Dee Snider from Twisted Sister after Twisted Sister.
Along with the self-titled Lynch Mob album, “The Crimson Idol” from W.A.S.P., “Dog Eat Dog” from Warrant, “III Sides to Every Story” from Extreme, “Sin-Decade” from Pretty Maids and “Revenge” from Kiss, it formed my decadent seven wonders of heavy rock.
My metal tastes got serviced by “Countdown to Extinction” from Megadeth, “Fear of the Dark” from Iron Maiden, “The Ritual” from Testament, “Dehumanizer” from Black Sabbath, “A Vulgar Display of Power” from Pantera and a new band from Seattle called Alice In Chains” and their excellent “Dirt”.
Dream Theater blew me away with “Images and Words” while Yngwie Malmsteen delivered the excellent “Fire and Ice” and no one outside of his hardcore fan base heard it. Another neo-classical shredder Tony MacAlpine released “Freedom To Fly” and boy didn’t he fly with it.
“Hold Your Fire” from Firehouse, “Five Wicked Ways” from Candy Harlots, “Don’t Tread” from Damn Yankees, “The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion” from The Black Crowes, “The Wild Life” from Slaughter, “Nothing Sacred” by Babylon A.D., “Hear” from Trixter, “Tangled In Reins” from Steelheart, “Double Eclipse” from Hardline and “Adrenalize” from Def Leppard satisfied by hard rock cravings.
And the record labels just abandoned this music.
Smith and Myers cover this song.
I didn’t like “Even Flow” or “Alive” when they hit the air waves back in 1991. They just didn’t connect with me at that point in time. In addition, I was really anti-grunge because all of the rock bands that I was into started to disappear.
So I was staying loyal to my team. The hard rock team.
Then in 1993, I saw a live performance of the band on MTV doing “Jeremy” and then they went into “Rockin In The Free World” with Neil Young and suddenly, I was interested. Loyalty to hard/glam rock was still strong, however in the end I am a fan of music and if there is great music to hear from other genre’s I will dig deep and hear it. So I asked a previous hard rock friend of mine who switched to the grunge side to copy the album onto a cassette for me.
Oh, the shame of admitting defeat.
And that’s another wrap for another week.
destroyerofharmony 
Cool find on the Sambora article. His debut was awesome. Better than Jon’s debut solo album.
I agree. I like how Sambora kept it hard rock and still brought in blues and soul.
They don’t even give out the Best Metal award on the Grammys broadcast, they hand it out before anyone gets there. Seems like it’s used as a lifetime achievement award too a lot of the time.
My brother bought Widowmaker as he loves Petrlllii on the guitar
Your bro has great taste. Pitrelli is a great guitar player and it’s a shame that he was that good that people kept using him as a studio musician or as a touring musician.
As I wanted more original stuff from him.
My Bother loved his playing on the live Coop video of the Trash Tour
Same. He was solid on it.
Great post! I actually have Pearl Jam’s debut album because I liked “Alive” and “Jeremy,” and I found it for $5 at the Book Off. I listened to it once and I fell asleep. I kind of don’t want to listen to it again because I have more exciting things in my collection to choose from. That’s interesting to know that Jon considered breaking up the band after the success of the “Blaze of Glory” single. What do you mean by Richie Sambora not having a contract with Bon Jovi at the time?
Jon Bon Jovi had the recording contract initially and there was a band agreement in place during the recording contract as to how the other members would be paid.
We’ll all of that finished up with New Jersey. So the band was a hot property to resign a new recording contract and negotiate a new band agreement but they took a break.
Then Jovi was given the solo opportunity
Ok so that first recording contract was initially for Jon Bon Jovi, but that was changed to a contract for the band, so that they would get paid?
That contact ended with New Jersey, which is why Richie said he didn’t have a contract with Bon Jovi in that interview? Because instead of getting a new contract, the band went on hiatus?
After New Jersey, that’s when the solo opportunity came about for Jon?
If music is too expensive in Aussie, come to the States! The prices are better, and since we’re allowed to own guns, if you’re immoral, then you can get it for free!
Hahaha