Music Releases Diary 1/28/2022

                I haven’t gotten all the way through last week’s releases, but I did get through Dream Theater, Keb’ Mo’ and AURORA‘s albums, the first two of which were pretty good examples of hard rock and acoustic blues, respectively.  The Ferrymen also had a pretty good album, though it really just whet my appetite for his work on the Leslie West Tribute album at the end of March.  AURORA’s album wasn’t anything special for the most part, but Brittney Spencer, an up-and-coming African-American woman country singer, has some great music already released over the last few years.  A pair of exceptional releases last week were the live version of “Boyfriend” by Tegan and Sara and Carrie Underwood’s song for the Cobra Kai soundtrack, which is apparently a TV show that spins off from the “Karate Kid” movies.  I also heard Satriani’s first single from his new album, it was nice, but not as fun as the singles from Steve Vai’s album have been.

 

               Speaking of, Steve Vai’s album releases tonight at 9:00, with a tour delayed until October/November due to a recent injury.  Eric Gales, a great African-American blues singer and guitarist, also has an album releasing tonight, and the Summer of Soul soundtrack, an album of the 1969 Harlem music festival, is also getting released.  This event was often called the “African-American Woodstock,” featuring B.B. King, Gladys Knight, Sly and the Family Stone and Nina Simone, and looks like a lot of fun.

 

               I’ve also seen more than a few posts on “mental health” and decided to lend my voice to them, saying, “Mental Health is a regular uphill climb for me due to my anxiety and depression disorders, but what helps immensely is the medication my psychiatrist prescribes.  What also can help me may be YouTube videos, video games and especially listening to music.”  I hope that can help other people in similar situations to me.  Also, emotional release video games like Fire Emblem; Three Houses and Persona 5 Strikers are best.  I would recommend the Black Eagles route, but I’ve been told the Blue Lions route is also helpful (in that you help someone battling their mental demons), though I think you get more of a sense of battling homophobia/lesbophobia/biphobia and the resulting corruption when Church and State Marry in the unholiest of matrimonies in the Black Eagles route.  It ultimately depends on how angry the last 6 years have made you, if you’re mad enough to smash something just to let the anger out or if you’re not and feel that doing so in a video game is ethically wrong.  Personally, I did get mad enough and I will say the game does offer the solution that at the end, you may WANT to smash your enemies, but what you NEED is someone who loves you, regardless of what choice you make or what reason you made them.  SPOILERS; when Byleth and Edelgard kill The Immaculate One, Byleth then presumably dies.  Edelgard has everything she wanted at this point, and she cradles Byleth’s body and weeps.  Sothis then leaves Byleth, causing her to be restored to life and hug her empress.  Edelgard wanted to end the government that looked the other way on what ruined her childhood, but really needed someone who loved her as she is, not demanding she change to be different in any way, but a helper who would be there and be a supportive ear, a friend who was close enough to become family.  Becoming that someone was liberating and helpful for me (because I can relate to that need and that sense of fury from pain), but if it doesn’t work for you, I think the Blue Lions route may, because you help Dimitri with his mental issues.

 

               On the less spoiler side of video games, I tweeted at Elizabeth Maxwell (voice actress of Ymir in Attack on Titan, Urbosa in Legend of Zelda, Winter in RWBY and Sae Niijima in Persona 5) when she tweeted that she was giving her cats silly names, to which I responded that one reminded me of “Snoogy Woogy” from an old Calvin and Hobbes strip.  She replied that she missed the comic, and I like that I got replied to, that tends to happen only when I’ve brought up old Tara Platt merchandise and YouTube videos (she and Yuri Lowenthal have a channel with videos such as “Out of Time” and “Topsy McGee and the Sky Pirates,” which are impressive for a budget of pocket change, I’d recommend them if you’re curious and have less than 10-15 minutes to kill, especially since they have low views.  The second also has John deLancie, as in Q from "Star Trek; TNG," Discord from "My Little Pony; friendship is magic" and a one-episode role in "Touched By An Angel" where he was mad enough at God to try suing Him because his town was facing severe drought).

 

               I feel I should say something about the latest death in the music business, Meat Loaf.  I wasn’t a big fan, but in 2014, I saw Blue Oyster Cult at the Emerald Queen Casino with Kasim Sulton on bass.  He was also the bass player on Meat Loaf’s “Bat out of Hell” album and also worked with Todd Rundgren and Joan Jett.  He’s an impressive bass player and someone who recognized his talent should be honored for that, if nothing else.  It took me until now to articulate this because life can get pretty cyclical and irritating, with athletes and actors who want to be known for their “faith” making themselves more known for their homophobia, racism and/or misogyny, which makes us all look bad, even if we reject these “ideals.”  This can wear me down because it makes the world untrustworthy and a lot more painful than it already is and it’s gotten worse in the last few years, being bolstered by fascism and what I can only describe as a hunger for genocide in the Republican party.

Music Releases Diary 1/21/2022

               Last week saw quite a few good releases across music, with great songs from Slash, Eddie Vedder, Cristina Vee, Casting Crowns and Skillet, “Call off the Dogs,” “Brother the Cloud,” “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,” “Scars in Heaven” and “Valley of Death,” the first three being great rockers and the last two being good soothing songs about God’s kindness.  Last night also featured a new single from an upcoming Tribute to Leslie West of Mountain fame, "Theme from an Imaginary Western," by Dee Snider and Eddie Ojeda of Twisted Sister and Rudy Sarzo of Ozzy Osbourne's Tribute album, Quiet Riot, Whitesnake and Dio on bass.  This week will include a collaborative single featuring K.Flay, who I plan to see in March on the 9^th, but that’s only the beginning as this is the first busy release week of 2022.

 

               There are scheduled to be albums by various artists this week/tonight at 9:00 pm across several genres.  Bluesman Keb Mo has one with collaborations with Kristin Chenoweth and Darius Rucker, AURORA, who was the call in the song “Into the Unknown” in Frozen II, also has an album, hard rock group The Ferrymen with Ronnie Romero (ex-Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow) has another, part-Canadian hard rock group Dream Theater (who has several great Classic Rock covers) has an album of demos from 1986-1987 coming out, Herman Rarebell (former Scorpions drummer/co-writer of “Rock You Like a Hurricane”) has an orchestral album coming out and there is also a 1970 live performance by rock group Cactus (famous for their rendition of Blues song “Evil”) seeing release.  I don’t know much beyond those little things, but each one sounds worth a listen, and also Joe Satriani has released the first single from his next album, due out April 8^th.  I will listen to them through Spotify during the next week.

 

               I’d like to end on the note that legalism cannot help you generate compassion to respect people, at least, it didn’t in my experience.  It makes you just obey what’s written and doesn’t inspire you to show true compassion, which comes when you care about the other person’s existence and well-being.  When you care about someone, you then begin to respect them and not treat them as a hollow pawn to put your personality inside.  All people need that, as we are all unique.

Life-changing JRPG Heroines

 Last night, I got into a debate with my brother and Mom over not choosing one of the other routes in Fire Emblem; Three Houses for my second playthrough.  The simple answer was this playthrough was to see how Annette fits into the Black Eagle house and I finally decided to do it after a KickStarter project featuring Tara Platt (Edelgard) and Abby Trott (Annette) went live (it was the final push I needed, the project didn't succeed, though), but after getting some anger control through a helpful therapy website, I decided to elaborate on it.  Also, don't worry, if I do it a third time, I doubt I'll play the same route, I can't think of more units to recruit unless you can recruit Catherine in the Black Eagles route, which I doubt you can.

I understand my family’s desire to broaden my horizons, but I don’t want to play those routes yet, because this route helped me with my emotions and loneliness when facing right-wing radicals.  I felt like we were defeating the systems of racism, homophobia and misogyny that I’m seeing too often in the news and that I could spend time away from the battlefield and just enjoy the company of soft-hearted individuals like Edelgard, Petra, Dorothea, Leonie, Lysithea and Annette.  In the end, the route becomes less about conquering the continent and more about healing Edelgard from her trauma, she becomes fonder and fonder of you throughout the game and even cries when she thinks you’re dead, something she earlier in the game claimed to no longer be able to do.  Maybe it’s just that I saw a Let’s Play of Persona 3 years before this, and Tara Platt as Mitsuru and Edelgard in the first half of the first act presents the “cool, unshakeable, willing to do anything to make things right” leader.  Then you hit the first C rank with Edelgard and hear that voice vulnerable, scared.  It’s so shaking and unsettling you want to draw a sword to protect her with your life.  You then hear all her trauma, the last time I heard things like this was when Naomi Ban visited my Middle School and detailed her time in Auschwitz.  Something snapped inside me in that conversation, it said, “I don’t care what you do, I’m going to make it so you never have nightmares like this again.  I will make you happy.”  I honestly wish I had met someone in real-life who made me feel that way and we’d date and get married.

 

The last time I felt this way with a JRPG character was ten years ago in Persona 4.  At the time, I was obsessed with Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato.  This game had its own J-Pop idol, Rise Kujikawa.  Here I finally started to understand the crap Miley and Demi go through.  The Pop music industry places someone on a pedestal for as long as they can be useful and as soon as they display something the industry doesn’t like, they shove them in the trash bin and move on to the next in line.  Rise Kujikawa becomes a victim of that by saying she wants to retire, watching someone else brought into her spotlight, given her sponsorships, her music and a movie she was in talks for.  This is ultimately too much for the young teenager, who starts breaking down in tears before the protagonist.  He can choose to hug her here.  Doing so causes Rise to let out an emotive, wailing sob.  It was between this and her pole-dancing shadow (a representation of her fear of losing herself in the Pop Business) that her voice actress truly impressed me.  I looked up the game on Wikipedia and found out it was Laura Bailey.  Almost ten years later, I routinely watch her every Thursday night playing Dungeons and Dragons with fellow voice actors in the show Critical Role.