Music Diary 4/1/2022 and Some General Thoughts

                Well, it’s that time of week again, people who are reading this, Thursday.  As usual, I’ll start with last week, and what a week it was.  The Leslie West Tribute was all I could’ve hoped for, with special shoutouts to Zakk Wylde on “Blood of the Sun,” Dee Snider on “Theme from an Imaginary Western” and “Never in my Life,” Ronnie Romero on “Why Dontcha,” “Sitting On A Rainbow” and “The Doctor” and Slash on “Mississippi Queen.”  Summer Walker, SZA and Cardi B released a good adult R&B song to get couples in the mood and Joan Jett released a great full-length acoustic album, with highlights including “Victim of Circumstance,” “Crimson and Clover,” “Androgynous” and “Light of Day.”  There were also great tracks off the Machine Gun Kelly album that reminded me of what I listened to in Middle School/High School through Evanescence being on the radio and others being used in Kaiju Music Videos on the internet.  He even name-dropped Trapt in one of the songs, their song “Headstrong” was used in a video of Ultraman Powered footage.

 

               Before going on, I feel I must discuss the tragic loss last Friday.  Taylor Hawkins, the drummer and occasional singer for the Foo Fighters, died at age 50, rumored to be from drug overdose.  I think everyone I follow on Twitter had some sadness and grief to publicly state, from Glenn Hughes to Ozzy Osbourne to Aly & AJ to Miley Cyrus.  Taylor had drummed on her duet with Billy Idol, “Night Crawling,” and also teamed with Nancy Wilson of Heart and Duff McKagan of Guns N Roses for “Party at the Angel Ballroom” off Nancy’s solo album last year.  He also sang a cover of the Bee Gees’ “Shadow Dancing” when the Foo Fighters dedicated half an album to tributing the Bee Gees, as well as doing stellar work on their ”Medicine at Midnight” album and “Dream Widow” death metal album.  I bought MP3s from that just to help preserve the memory, as well as the time he and Dave Grohl tributed Rush.  It’ll be some time to be all right again, but I know I’ll do it.

 

               This week features a couple of amazing releases and a few other ones, as well.  Miley Cyrus is releasing her first live album, recording at her performance around the Super Bowl this year.  Her Dad is also releasing a collaboration with Snoop Dogg.  No, I’m serious, his Twitter said so and had photos of a video shoot, so I doubt this is a prank.  The Dead Daisies are releasing their third live track recorded on their tour last year, as well and Daryl Hall seemingly didn’t get enough with an album with John Oates last week and is releasing an album by himself this week, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are also releasing their new album.  Also, a band named No Resolve is releasing a cover of “Surface Pressure” from Encanto, while Rina Sawayama is releasing a collaboration with Pabllo Vittar.

 

Here are my top 10 guitarists and drummers playlists, continuing from last week, as well as idealized concert lineups, based on a question asked at my Grandpa’s Birthday party last Saturday:

 

Top 10 Drummers (Remember 1=10 and 10=1):

1.)    Sink the Pink-AC/DC

2.)    Rainbow in the Dark-Dio

3.)    Steal Away (The Night) (Live 40^th Anniversary Blizzard of Ozz Edition)-Ozzy Osbourne

4.)    Who Are You? (Live at the Royal Albert Hall, disc 1)-The Who

5.)    Gimme Three Steps (Live, Cardiff, Wales, 1975)-Lynyrd Skynyrd

6.)    My Generation-The Who

7.)    Jason Solo/Moby Dick (Live)-Sammy Hagar and the Circle

8.)    Iron Man (Live, Birmingham, UK 2017)-Black Sabbath

9.)    The Ocean (Live, Madison Square Garden, 1973)-Led Zeppelin

10.) Yellow Submarine-The Beatles

 

Top 10 Guitarists:

1.)    Poundcake (Live)-Sammy Hagar and the Circle

2.)    Cold Gin-Ace Frehley feat. Mike McCready

3.)    Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love-Van Halen

4.)    Sweet Child O’ Mine-Guns N Roses

5.)    Bustle and Flow (Live from Daisyland)-The Dead Daisies

6.)    How Many More Times-Led Zeppelin

7.)    Whipping Post-Generation Axe

8.)    Well I Never-Whitesnake

9.)    Crazy Train (Live 1981)-Ozzy Osbourne

10.) Free Bird (Live, Fox Theater, Atlanta, GA, July 1976)-Lynyrd Skynyrd

 

 

Ideal Concert Lineups:

Metal:

Opener: Slash with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators or Sammy Hagar and the Circle

Headliner: Judas Priest

 

Pop:

Opener: Ariana Grande

Headliner: Miley Cyrus

 

Festival:

-Slash with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators

-Sammy Hagar and the Circle

-Ariana Grande

-Judas Priest

-Miley Cyrus

-Ozzy Osbourne

 

I think I should also mention I have grown an irrational fear that someone on Twitter or somewhere online is looking at my posts and thinking, “This idiot likes Edelgard/Tara Platt, Rise Kujikawa, Yang and Blake and Fairy Tail.  He’s a disgrace and has forfeited his right to be called human.  He’s a retarded SJW fag, I will hunt him down and beat him until he’s an unrecognizable corpse.  I will be doing humanity a favor and get a medal for this.”  And then that happens.

 

My main plans for the upcoming month are visiting my brother the weekend of the 22^nd to the 24^th, getting the Midnight DLC for My Hero One’s Justice 2 (a fighting game based on My Hero Academia, Midnight is an older character voiced by Elizabeth Maxwell, who also voices Winter in RWBY, Urbosa in Legend of Zelda; Breath of the Wild and Hyrule Warriors; Age of Calamity and Sae Niijima in Persona 5 and Persona 5 Strikers.  I have had enough of a Twitter conversation with her to know she likes Calvin and Hobbes), and getting the new Funko Pops of Erza Scarlet and Mirajane Strauss, two of my favorite characters from Fairy Tail, and I tend to pair them romantically due to Mirajane’s cutesy/flirty attitude towards Erza (taking excess clothes off her hands, hugging her from behind when she thinks Erza’s not looking, getting involved in bondage/spanking…I don’t understand it, but every couple is different)

 

I also decided to do some baseball predictions:

 

2022 MLB Predictions:

AL East: Toronto Blue Jays

AL Central: Detroit Tigers

AL West: Seattle Mariners

 

NL East: New York Mets

NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals

NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers

 

World Series: Mariners beat Dodgers 4 games to 2.

Music Diary 3/25/2022 and assorted thoughts

                Last week was quite an experience musically, as several great songs were released, causing me to run out of budget for the month.  First and foremost was the Kaiju Crescendo album, which featured the first times I can recall Michiru Oshima’s Godzilla themes were released in the West.  It also had a good medley from The Mysterians, a formative movie for both Koichi Kawakita (special effects director; Godzilla vs. Biollante to Godzilla vs. Destroyah, Rebirth of Mothra 1 and 2, his love of the film is why Mogera is the robot in Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla) and Shinji Higuchi (assistant special effects director; Godzilla 1984, special effects director; Heisei Gamera trilogy, director/special effects director; Attack on Titan parts 1 and 2, Shin Godzilla, friend of Hideaki Anno, the character Shinji Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion is named after him).  I always loved the military march in this movie and am glad it’s getting more recognition.

 

               Other good releases included the song “3 Way” from Chip Z’nuff’s solo album, “Ghost Story” by Carrie Underwood, Rush’s 1981 live version of “Limelight,” Def Leppard released the first single, “Kick,” off their new album, due out in late May, which they will play parts of on the Stadium Tour, which I bought a ticket to in January 2020.  Frontiers Records Supergroup Skills, featuring Brad Gillis of Night Ranger on guitar and Billy Sheehan of Sons of Apollo on bass, released their second single, a powerful love ballad comparable to Whitesnake or Bon Jovi, thanks to impressive vocals by Renan Zonta, their singer from Brazil.  Apocalyptica, Franky Perez and Geezer Butler (of Black Sabbath and Ozzy’s 1989 tour fame) released a nice ballad called “I’ll Get Through It,” while K-Pop singer Solar released an amusing throwback song called “Big Booty,” ironically timed as a video of a young Korean woman telling a massive bodybuilder she wants “a big fat butt, like Western women,” with her arms gestured wide, has been making the internet rounds.  This is also funny to me, because I knew a girl in 6^th grade who once declared “I like big, fat butts!”  Though I think she was probably talking about American football players.

 

               This week has a few interesting-sounding releases.  First and foremost is the long-awaited (by me) tribute to Leslie West.  His death occurred towards the end of 2020, when two covers of his song “Never in my Life,” were released, one by Ace Frehley, the other by metal supergroup BPMD.  On this album, it will be performed by Dee Snider and George Lynch.  He is also famous for writing “Mississippi Queen,” a song covered in studio by Ozzy Osbourne and live by Billy Ray Cyrus.  This time, Slash will be providing the guitar, I am unfamiliar with the singer.  The two other tracks I’m looking forward to on the album feature Ronnie Romero, who had a great cover of Foreigner’s “Girl On The Moon” earlier this week.  Here, he teams with The Doors’ Robby Krieger for West Bruce and Laing’s “The Doctor,” and Dixie Dregs/Deep Purple’s Steve Morse for that band’s “Why Dontcha?”  Machine Gun Kelly’s new album is due out, as is a new album by Hall and Oates.  Reba McIntyre has a new Gospel collection scheduled for release, and lastly, Joan Jett has an acoustic album (rather, rock album with acoustic instruments, in her words) planned featuring acoustic versions of some of her well-known and not-so well-known songs and covers.

 

               I have managed to play Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, and counting ports, it is my 4^th favorite Switch game.  The fighting with beloved characters like Rise Kujikawa and Mitsuru is fun on its own, but they have a story mode to learn more about why the characters would fight at all.  My favorite parts have been Yukiko’s storyline for reminding me that even when you feel alone, you still have friends and family rooting for you, and when Rise meets Elizabeth, not just because Laura Bailey and Tara Platt have an incredibly well-acted conversation, but because it reminds you to keep going until you’ve truly exhausted all options, don’t let despair get the better of you.  And in this dark time of homophobic and transphobic legislation is Texas and Florida, blatant racism in the Senate and the war in Ukraine, these lessons are needed now more than ever.

 

I also have something to confess; I am scared of Twitter; it reminds me too much of DeviantArt.  I think every time I post an opinion, a joke or something that makes me happy that isn’t classic rock, someone’s going to come out of the woodwork and trash it, calling me stupid, retarded, an SJW fag, a communist and a satanist all for what I think, feel and like.  I have to leave after I post the Fire Emblem Warriors; Three Hopes screenshots.  I also only have the storage space on my Switch for 3 more games, that one, Pokémon Legends Arceus and Splatoon 3.  I don’t want any others and I don’t want to be any more involved than I already am.  Much as I love the serotonin from Laura Bailey, Tara Platt, Yuri Lowenthal, Brittney Karbowski, Faye Mata, Elizabeth Maxwell, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Erin Fitzgerald and Cristina Vee, the flak I get for liking Edelgard and the DCEU and the actresses in it is so intense I just want to stop, and I know there are people looking to “educate me” on politics and religion through violent lectures where they tear down video games, comic books and anything Democrats use for entertainment.  I’m sorry, but this is my resignation notice for them.  I will still be on my blog and Facebook.

 

If there’s any interest, I made the best possible (in my opinion) version of the Top 10 Favorite Bassists playlist:

Note, it starts at 10 and goes to 1, so 1 is 10 and 10 is 1:

1.)    I Don’t Know (Studio version)-Ozzy Osbourne

2.)    Another One Bites The Dust-Queen

3.)    Hollow-Alice in Chains

4.)    The Crow-Black Country Communion

5.)    Breath-Pearl Jam

6.)    The Crunge-Led Zeppelin

7.)    Eat Me-Ozzy Osbourne

8.)    Crazy Train (Live 1981)-Ozzy Osbourne

9.)    Mikey Bass Solo (Live)-Sammy Hagar and the Circle

10.) NIB (Live…Gathered in their masses version)-Black Sabbath

 

Also, here’s the Top 11 Favorite Singers playlist.

 

1.)    Be Yourself-Audioslave

2.)    Iron Man (Live, Birmingham 2017)-Black Sabbath

3.)    Doctor, Doctor-Jeff Scott Soto and Michael Schenker

4.)    Nothing Else Matters-Miley Cyrus, Andrew Watt, Elton John, Robert Trujillo, Yo Yo Ma, Chad Smith

5.)    Stormbringer-Whitesnake

6.)    Like No Other 2021-The Dead Daisies

7.)    I Can’t Drive 55 (Live)-Sammy Hagar and the Circle

8.)    Simple Man (Live, Fox Theater, Atlanta GA, July 1976)-Lynyrd Skynyrd

9.)    Stairway to Heaven (Live, Los Angeles, CA, 1972)-Led Zeppelin

10.) Jet City Woman-Queensryche

11.) Breaking the Law (Live, Wacken, 2015)-Judas Priest