Music Journal-9/30/2022

                Last week had some good releases, like a duet version of Noah Cyrus’ song “Noah (Stand Still)” with Billy Ray Cyrus.  This feels appropriate, since Noah mentions her father in the lyrics and Billy Ray wrote, sang and still performs a song called “Stand Still,” which served as the theme song for DOC (which started Miley and Noah’s careers) and I heard live when I saw him in concert.  Guns N Roses released a live version of “You Could Be Mine,” which was recorded on May 16^th, 1991, my 2^nd Birthday.  The band sounds great, but Axl sounds hoarse and like he needs a lozenge through the song.  He even admits this by saying after the performance “I need a ****ing stiff drink.”  Dolly Parton released a single of “Silent Night” as her Christmas album from 2020 with Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus and Willie Nelson has another go-around, though with bonus tracks like this I can’t complain, while nonbinary artist Sam Smith and transgender woman Kim Petras teamed up to make a song called “Unholy.”  I feel it is long past time for our conservative, make your choices for you attitude to be dropped so people can go out, make mistakes and come back if they choose, or determine what their relationship with God means and how it impacts their identity and which parts.  God calls me to be compassionate and help the downtrodden by trying to entertain or cry with those who cry, he doesn’t seem to care about my gender or orientation.  Unfortunately, the current political atmosphere suggests my generation’s great-grandchildren will be dead before significant headway is made in this area. 

 

               Dio released two live albums, one from 1983 and one from 1987.  Both were great listens, I especially liked the versions of “Neon Knights,” “Heaven and Hell” and “Man on the Silver Mountain” from the 1987 album and “Stand Up and Shout,” “Straight Through the Heart,” “Rainbow in the Dark” and “Man on the Silver Mountain” in the 1983 one.  Band-Maid, from Japan, also made an intense hard rock album that was fun to listen to.

 

               I have had discussions and realize a lot of my current issues are due to my binary way of thinking in terms of actions and the fact that I have let people down and angered them through my life.  It is hard for me to see actions of any kind as neutral or anything other than good or bad as is, and I also worry other people in my complex can hear me and judge me.  I have let people down in various ways through my life, so it shouldn’t upset me as it does, but that’s what clinical depression and anxiety do, they remove logic and reason from your thoughts and make you think if you let someone down, you are evil.  They start to demand perfection from everyone around me or that I’m entertained by for security, or they’ll either throw them out or gloss over their problems.  But it’s unrealistic to expect another person to live by your moral code just as it is unrealistic to think you can live without ever thinking of sex, doubts, worry, anger or other things we try to pretend don’t exist.  I realized right now I simply want to create safety and security in leisure and the rest of life for myself and those who matter to me, and this current extremism threatens that due to how diverse my friends, inspirations and loved ones are.  I worry about people saying “you can’t listen to Miley Cyrus or Judas Priest or BabyMetal or Ozzy Osbourne or FLETCHER” or “you can’t play with Edelgard, Erza Scarlet, Kiria Kurono, Samus or Melony” or “you can’t watch Aquaman or Wonder Woman or Birds of Prey or Friday the 13^th part 6” because how they see the world becomes law.

 

               This week looks to be a busy one.  Sammy Hagar and the Circle and The Dead Daisies are both releasing their new studio albums, which means lots of passionate Hard Rock vocals from Sammy Hagar and Glenn Hughes.  There is also a new Alice Cooper live album featuring a reunion of the original band, except one guitarist who is no longer with us, who is replaced with more recent Alice Cooper guitarist Ryan Roxie.  Brandi Carlile’s deluxe, stripped-down version of last year’s album with a bonus version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” also came out earlier this week, I actually have already heard the renditions of “Mama Werewolf” and “Space Oddity” and they were fantastic.   Paramore has a new single, their first new music in five years, which is dreamlike in the verses and loud and crunchy on the chorus with a dance beat, the album will likely be an early favorite of next year.  Vanilla Fudge has a Led Zeppelin cover album coming out and that George Michael Deluxe album I talked about weeks/months ago is getting released tonight.  Just like two weeks ago, this will be a very busy week for me.

Music Journal 9/23/2022

     This was an exceptionally busy week, as I stated it would be last week.  Every album I was looking forward to had standout tracks, Noah Cyrus, FLETCHER, Ringo Starr and Death Cab for Cutie had the strongest showings of pop, emotion, crunchy rock at times and fun, while there were some great blends of pop and alternative rock from Rina Sawayama, Creedence delivered the Classic Rock goods and Smith/Kotzen played some great Hard Rock that made me hunger for a show so long as energetic bassist Julia Lage is on stage.  There was also a nice surprise of David Bowie medley-ing The Jean Genie with Love Me Do live with Jeff Beck on guitar.  Also, Maggie Lindemann brought some Evanescence vibes to her album with tracks that would start soft, then become raucous.  This week alone will keep my MP3 budget busy for the next few months, luckily, October seems relatively quiet so far.

 

Yesterday, I had a meltdown of all the tension and worry I've been holding back.  I let some of the issues loose on Twitter this morning and actually received some support, which made me feel a lot better.  I guess the real issue is that my fears have been stoked by the rigidity of my old Church and the excessive snark of a decade of DeviantArt and memories of certain YouTube reviewers, making me afraid to be who I am because who I am isn't popular and isn't going to win any popularity contests.  And the big worry is I will die without friends, family or a funeral because I'm too scared to connect with people I don't know too often in the real world and I'm afraid if people online knew more about me, they'd hate me and stop talking to me.

 

Anyway, onto happier things.  This week has a new single by Guns N Roses from their “Use Your Illusion Super Deluxe Edition” release, scheduled for Veteran’s Day.  It is from the first live disc, which was, strangely enough, recorded on May 16^th, 1991, my 2^nd Birthday.  Japanese all-girl rock band BAND-MAID released an album on Wednesday, so I’ll be checking that out, and Bethel Music has an interesting looking Praise album I want to look into.  Two live Dio albums are also going to be re-released, one from 1983, the other from 1987, and the last release of note is a Billy Idol EP.  Not as busy as last week, but that’s fine, next week looks to be a busy one, too.

Society vent

     Something I just had to let out, bad feelings causing me depression and anger:

 

I’m getting lots of support on Twitter for my rock and roll/metal opinions, as well as likes from voice actors I like, mostly Tara Platt (her name is actually pronounced Terra, like Earth, as revealed in her Halloween greeting with Yuri Lowenthal, who also likes my tweets from time to time), Abby Trott, Xanthe Huynh and Brittney Karbowski, and those times that Colleen Clinkenbeard and Colleen O’Shaughnessey liked my tweets mean a lot to me.  Despite that, the trending topics are wearing me down due to an image I saw where someone compared Miley Cyrus and Amber Heard to Osama bin Laden, listing them as 3 of his 10 least favorite famous people.  Because a pop singer and an actress accused of abuse (though making claims of abuse that, to me, seem too volatile and vulgar to be made up) are comparable to man who killed 3,000 people in one day and thought nothing of it.  That is the nature of the internet, where entertainers are considered worse than politicians, considered equal with mass-murderers and I think it’s only a matter of time before these lunatics make their own SEAL team 6 and raid Los Angeles, murdering actors, singers and directors in grotesque fashion to “purify America.”  Heck, the right-wing message right now encourages such behavior; “slaughter those you disagree with so there will be only one thought process in this nation, none other!”  And they’re gaining power day by day, they have the money, they have the power, if they lose now, they’ll just try again every two years until we’re too worn out and the impressionable younger generation puts them in charge forever! I worry I will lose the voice actors if they knew I've looked at cheesecake art of characters they've voiced/written cheesecake/softcore erotica about them if they're of age because I have no idea how to ask a girl out because she might be dating, married, engaged or a lesbian and that I will spend my days friendless, acquaintance-less and alone, being mocked and beaten with words until I die!

 

I honestly need a job, to stop staring at this screen that fills me with such paranoia.  I get loads of left-wing fundraising emails, tons of messages that just scream “WHERE ARE YOU?!  WHERE’S YOUR MONEY?!” when I can’t afford it because I’m spending it on self-care, presents and/or food.  Meanwhile, the internet teaches us to mock those who suffered sexual assault and say “how were you dressed, maybe you subconsciously wanted it,” so the men are absolved of all blame and go on to be President, Supreme Court Justice, Oscar-Winning Actor or Kicker of a Pro football team.  We are too poor to make a difference in this society and it is only going to get worse.  The only solution is to limit our internet use to 2-4 hours a day maximum and consider seceding from the union.