Last week saw the release of a live version of “Rise Up” by The Dead Daisies with Glenn Hughes on vocals, taking me back to last October’s concert. It also featured the announcement of a new Halestorm album with “The Steeple,” an intense metal track, and the release of a combined version of K.Flay’s two EPs from last year with two new tracks, “The Muck” being especially good. Tegan and Sara also revealed a re-recorded version of their album “So Jealous” called “Still Jealous” with a nice single of “Where Does The Good Go,” and I got the new Guns N Roses EP yesterday, listening to “Hard Skool” and “Absurd” again and new, live versions of “Don’t Cry” and “You’re Crazy.”
This week looks to be especially good as “Still Jealous” is going to be released tonight. Aly & AJ, who were raised in Seattle and you may know from the Disney Channel in the 2000s or AJ from voicing Catra in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, are releasing a deluxe version of their album from last year. Kim Petras is also releasing an EP and she’s very good at Pop, so it should be good. However, the biggest news are the releases of albums from Slash with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators and Eddie Vedder. Slash (of Guns N Roses and Velvet Revolver fame, he has also guested on albums by Alice Cooper, Sammy Hagar and Ozzy Osbourne) has teamed up with Myles Kennedy and the backing band the Conspirators to release the fourth studio album, aptly titled “4.” I’ve really liked the singles “The River is Rising” and “Fill My World” from the album, and their songs “Anastasia” and “World On Fire” are among my all-time favorites, so this should be another great one.
Eddie Vedder has teamed up with Andrew Watt for his new album “Earthling.” Andrew Watt first appeared on my radar in 2014 as the guitarist for California Breed, working with Glenn Hughes and Jason Bonham. Since then, he has made a name for himself in Pop Songwriting and, over the last two years, produced and contributed guitar to albums by Ozzy Osbourne, Miley Cyrus and Elton John, all of which have been among my favorite releases. Elton John also appears on a track on the “Earthling” album, and the drums are played by Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who has also worked with Glenn Hughes, Chickenfoot (which featured Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani and Michael Anthony) and appeared on the Ozzy, Miley and Elton albums, as well. A great single from this album is “Long Way,” it has a sound similar to classic Skynyrd/Eagles.
I am having to come to grips with some serious mental issues in my personal life. There were people in my past who believed God doesn’t want you to be too happy, support sustainability and raising the floor for the less fortunate or that God lets pain happen to get our attention because something’s wrong in our life. As such, recently I got good news, that there was going to be a new Fire Emblem; Three Houses game, and I couldn’t enjoy it not just because I had just completed a second playthrough and was a little fatigued of going through the world twice, but because the path I picked both times comes with a lot of online flack. I pick the character who wants to stop the suffering caused by the obsession with the power and status an object called a crest gives, while the current theocratic government in the game looks the other way on this and spends its resources silencing criticism. The Archbishop comes across like a blend of Pat Robertson’s “say something horrible in a sweet tone to get it past your radar” and 45’s ruthlessness and refusal to take anything other than obedience and worship for an answer. This game and that character have been therapeutic for me in slaying my mental demons, but now they pushed back, reminding me of the flack so hard I had to stop being a member of a website I loved and that because we had to fight a church, we may have gone against God, since attacking a right-wing, pro-Trump, NeoNazi church isn’t going to solve anything in the real world and may be more Satanic than Godly. It doesn’t help that her voice actress, who liked just about everything I posted to her, didn’t like a tweet I made where I said “I believe God has a sense of humor, look at the platypus.” I know this is childish obsession, like I had with Miley Cyrus ten years ago, but it does still sting, making me ask if, perhaps, I was wrong this whole time. It also makes me ask if I’ve gone completely crazy and need to be locked up before I hurt someone.
I know this all sounds scary, but just writing it out makes me feel at least a little better. Also, I should add I’m more stressed than usual because the “f” and “v” keys have been intermittent on my keyboard, so sometimes I have to copy and paste from elsewhere on the document or from online.
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