Kittens are often small, sometimes silly. Kittens smell good. Unless they go roll around in poop, then they don't smell good at all. Kittens have a tendency to get in trouble. Kittens are purry furballs, full of love or downright stupidity. Kittens, they are baby cats.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Savatage - Fight For the Rock
Another total debacle for cuckoo land sayeth I to the Lard, and verily the Lard doth reply:
"What? Would you not fight for the rock?"
I remember being horrified by this album. I'd never heard it until one day in a local record store I decided to shell out about five bucks, and just by the cover I knew this was no "Dungeons are Calling," "Hall of the Mountain King," or "Gutter Ballet." But it IS a Savatage record after all, and one from 1986 and therefore it must have something worth hearing on it? Mustn't it? I mean no matter what it sounds like it'll still be better than that copy of "Life's a Bitch" by Raven that I paid three bucks for that one day because I was utterly mad with the need for some new metal on vinyl? Surely it's not as terrible as its reputation and there must be something good about it?
The album kicks off with the title track, about what you'd figure I guess, "You better fight for the rock n roll!" "Don't live your life in a frustration/Get rock dedication!" with shouty choruses and and these lyrics you can imagine what it sounds like...except for the killer riffs and beauty of the Oliva brothers' instruments, and that's the hook on this album. Yes, some of the songs are slow and kinda glammy ballady, and the title track is a silly fist pump metal track...but this is SAVATAGE making a record like this and no matter how much it's tarted up with what will soon be the biggest sound in the land, it's still a Savatage record, which means metal, true metal and not much more (at this point).
Living in the American South during the Satanic Panic of the 80's, which was spearheaded by the Washington Wives led by Tipper (the other reason Al lost the election) Gore, and shows like Geraldo and Oprah with their "Rock is Evil" very special episodes, and shows like "Diff'rent Strokes," especially the episode where Arnold's friend Dudley was kidnapped by an evil clown who crucified him on an inverted cross over a pit of alligators to feast on his blood, but luckily Arnold remembered the address through hypnotism and they rescued Dudley just as a 12 footer was about to bite his head off...well, maybe that wasn't in this reality, but still, fighting for the rock was most necessary even if it seems a little cheesy now.
Get this straight. Some busy body "concerned" bitches (of whom there were many in the mid 80's in the US) decided that the music a select group of mostly teenage boys were listening to was "bad for them," and took it to court, had hearings, had to call people to the stand to testify, etc...and inadvertently gave many of us our first taste of the stupid, surreal soap opera that is American politics. I had no idea the lengths and levels of depravity, stupidity, and lying for the "greater good" the hounds of morality would commit without batting a perfectly elongated eyelash. About the same time the books started appearing everywhere, the books about the evils of rock n roll and especially metal, written mostly by evangelical preachers who themselves had once been under the influence of the terror of rock n roll. In fact it was so disturbing that the authors often had to spend hours listening to this depraved music so they could tell others how truly evil it was. And then over the course of a long, scary paragraph about how evil Black Sabbath really are, they would misquote the lyrics (like anyone who read it would ever check these things, I knew these books were crap when the line to "Paranoid" was misquoted as "Can you help me/ Yea Blow out my brain!") and draw conclusions about how your favorite band really wants you to commit suicide because that's actually their goal because the Devil wants you to buy a record and kill yourself, go to hell, because he is a harvester of souls and hates us, which is why he wants us in hell with him. Guess it makes sense if you really buy into the whole Christian thing on that knuckleheaded Jesus Camp level, but probably doesn't make sense to anyone else though.
An aside, then I'll talk about the record again. I was rather tolerant of the zealous conservative Christian folk around me before the PMRC stepped in. I didn't consider myself a satanist or anything of the nature, I knew I didn't "get" Christianity, but it was a part of life that I couldn't separate as it surrounded me like the sea, I swam in the piss warm waters of Jesus every day and didn't even realize I was drowning...until they tried to take the music away. To me, before that part, the metal was really no different than a horror movie, most of the songs were about nuclear war and hypocrisy, some were about the devil, but I read William W. Johnstone's horror books and I was steeped in Satanic Evil Horror all the time. It wasn't that scary, and was kinda silly but entertaining. The music and the books together with the movies were like this tripod on which I could rest my rather disturbed acne headed life, but they attacked the music on the most basest of level, and what was weird of course is that they didn't attack the books, they didn't attack the movies and by far the least offensive of them all was the music. Yes you get songs like "Angel of Death" or "South of Heaven" or "Feel the Fire" with some pretty racy parts, but the books I was reading had hordes of demons coming out of the ground with giant engorged cocks going around raping virgins for the devil until the great God sent (literally) hero came and vanquished the demons and their huge phalli. So what happened next? I realized that the religious freaks around me were all a bunch of hypocritical liars, a bunch of fucktarded assholes who "knew" they were doing "what was best" for me, and I also stopped being able to put up with them.
***A Day Later***
It's funny, I started this early yesterday before the SCOTUS decided to push us back years in the whole human rights category. I wanted to finish this up with an actual review of the record, but what with political stupidity and a weird night last night that was rather fun but left me somewhat drained, I can only sort of stare blankly at the universe and try to comprehend the news. Life? Eh, yes, here we are and look at where we are! So much good happening on one hand and now an understanding that no matter how much progress we make, this SCOTUS will never, ever pass marriage equality, they will never, ever do anything "good" for the humans who are actually humans who live in this here piss boot we call the USofA. While disheartening, I must insist that we keep ourselves up as well as we can because there is always hope at the bottom of the box of tricks.
Anyway to finish the review, yes, this is not a "great" album by any standards, a pretty bad cover of of a Badfinger song, a pretty good cover of a Bad Company one, a few pretty decent rockers, some middle of the road crap. Overall worthy of a listen, but nothing to write home about.
"What? Would you not fight for the rock?"
I remember being horrified by this album. I'd never heard it until one day in a local record store I decided to shell out about five bucks, and just by the cover I knew this was no "Dungeons are Calling," "Hall of the Mountain King," or "Gutter Ballet." But it IS a Savatage record after all, and one from 1986 and therefore it must have something worth hearing on it? Mustn't it? I mean no matter what it sounds like it'll still be better than that copy of "Life's a Bitch" by Raven that I paid three bucks for that one day because I was utterly mad with the need for some new metal on vinyl? Surely it's not as terrible as its reputation and there must be something good about it?
The album kicks off with the title track, about what you'd figure I guess, "You better fight for the rock n roll!" "Don't live your life in a frustration/Get rock dedication!" with shouty choruses and and these lyrics you can imagine what it sounds like...except for the killer riffs and beauty of the Oliva brothers' instruments, and that's the hook on this album. Yes, some of the songs are slow and kinda glammy ballady, and the title track is a silly fist pump metal track...but this is SAVATAGE making a record like this and no matter how much it's tarted up with what will soon be the biggest sound in the land, it's still a Savatage record, which means metal, true metal and not much more (at this point).
Living in the American South during the Satanic Panic of the 80's, which was spearheaded by the Washington Wives led by Tipper (the other reason Al lost the election) Gore, and shows like Geraldo and Oprah with their "Rock is Evil" very special episodes, and shows like "Diff'rent Strokes," especially the episode where Arnold's friend Dudley was kidnapped by an evil clown who crucified him on an inverted cross over a pit of alligators to feast on his blood, but luckily Arnold remembered the address through hypnotism and they rescued Dudley just as a 12 footer was about to bite his head off...well, maybe that wasn't in this reality, but still, fighting for the rock was most necessary even if it seems a little cheesy now.
Get this straight. Some busy body "concerned" bitches (of whom there were many in the mid 80's in the US) decided that the music a select group of mostly teenage boys were listening to was "bad for them," and took it to court, had hearings, had to call people to the stand to testify, etc...and inadvertently gave many of us our first taste of the stupid, surreal soap opera that is American politics. I had no idea the lengths and levels of depravity, stupidity, and lying for the "greater good" the hounds of morality would commit without batting a perfectly elongated eyelash. About the same time the books started appearing everywhere, the books about the evils of rock n roll and especially metal, written mostly by evangelical preachers who themselves had once been under the influence of the terror of rock n roll. In fact it was so disturbing that the authors often had to spend hours listening to this depraved music so they could tell others how truly evil it was. And then over the course of a long, scary paragraph about how evil Black Sabbath really are, they would misquote the lyrics (like anyone who read it would ever check these things, I knew these books were crap when the line to "Paranoid" was misquoted as "Can you help me/ Yea Blow out my brain!") and draw conclusions about how your favorite band really wants you to commit suicide because that's actually their goal because the Devil wants you to buy a record and kill yourself, go to hell, because he is a harvester of souls and hates us, which is why he wants us in hell with him. Guess it makes sense if you really buy into the whole Christian thing on that knuckleheaded Jesus Camp level, but probably doesn't make sense to anyone else though.
An aside, then I'll talk about the record again. I was rather tolerant of the zealous conservative Christian folk around me before the PMRC stepped in. I didn't consider myself a satanist or anything of the nature, I knew I didn't "get" Christianity, but it was a part of life that I couldn't separate as it surrounded me like the sea, I swam in the piss warm waters of Jesus every day and didn't even realize I was drowning...until they tried to take the music away. To me, before that part, the metal was really no different than a horror movie, most of the songs were about nuclear war and hypocrisy, some were about the devil, but I read William W. Johnstone's horror books and I was steeped in Satanic Evil Horror all the time. It wasn't that scary, and was kinda silly but entertaining. The music and the books together with the movies were like this tripod on which I could rest my rather disturbed acne headed life, but they attacked the music on the most basest of level, and what was weird of course is that they didn't attack the books, they didn't attack the movies and by far the least offensive of them all was the music. Yes you get songs like "Angel of Death" or "South of Heaven" or "Feel the Fire" with some pretty racy parts, but the books I was reading had hordes of demons coming out of the ground with giant engorged cocks going around raping virgins for the devil until the great God sent (literally) hero came and vanquished the demons and their huge phalli. So what happened next? I realized that the religious freaks around me were all a bunch of hypocritical liars, a bunch of fucktarded assholes who "knew" they were doing "what was best" for me, and I also stopped being able to put up with them.
***A Day Later***
It's funny, I started this early yesterday before the SCOTUS decided to push us back years in the whole human rights category. I wanted to finish this up with an actual review of the record, but what with political stupidity and a weird night last night that was rather fun but left me somewhat drained, I can only sort of stare blankly at the universe and try to comprehend the news. Life? Eh, yes, here we are and look at where we are! So much good happening on one hand and now an understanding that no matter how much progress we make, this SCOTUS will never, ever pass marriage equality, they will never, ever do anything "good" for the humans who are actually humans who live in this here piss boot we call the USofA. While disheartening, I must insist that we keep ourselves up as well as we can because there is always hope at the bottom of the box of tricks.
Anyway to finish the review, yes, this is not a "great" album by any standards, a pretty bad cover of of a Badfinger song, a pretty good cover of a Bad Company one, a few pretty decent rockers, some middle of the road crap. Overall worthy of a listen, but nothing to write home about.
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