Music Releases of Note This Week

After an off-week last week (especially because I figured no one knew who Trapt is), I'm ready to give this another go.  Last night, I heard a couple good singles from the last two weeks, too, Eric Church's "Stick That In Your Country Song," a commentary about how commercialized music can get and how it tends to turn the misery of the masses into profit for people who often aren't voting for the right party to cause the necessary change.  It's the boldest Country Song not by Billy Ray Cyrus I've heard in a while, ranking up there with BRC's 1994 song "Enough is Enough," which I've played quite a bit in the last month and a half.

David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame also released a nice single that reminds me of his days with the band and it's always nice to hear classic rockers still contribute to today's music.

Here are some releases I've had my eye on for this week:

Cristina Vee-Songs I Sing (When I'm Alone In My Car): A cover album of Broadway songs and a few movie songs, such as "Show Yourself" from Frozen II.  It was actually released last night, so I'm listening to it right now on Spotify and Cristina Vee has a good voice.  Her big experience has been a Voice Actress, she dubbed the female lead in the first two films of the Godzilla anime trilogy (I actually didn't like those films, the first was so boring and full of anime clichés I almost shut it off before it was over and after reading the second didn't improve things, I decided not to even give the next two a chance)  but she also was the dub voice of Sailor Mars in the DVD re-releases of the Sailor Moon series.  This also featured Stephanie Sheh (Hinata from Naruto and Tharja from Fire Emblem; Awakening) as Sailor Moon, which I felt was good casting (however, I've just watched it subtitled because that's how I found the show on YouTube in 2005-2006).

Enuff Z'nuff-Brainwashed Generation: I've seen this hair metal band reminiscent of Cheap Trick twice in my life, and they had two hits the year I was born, "Fly High Michelle" and "The New Thing."  The first time I saw them, the mixing wasn't good enough to identify the music, but they did announce it was the guitarist's 60th birthday (6/12/2015, for reference sake), between shows, he had been replaced by two other guitarists.  The second time, in February 2017, Chip Z'nuff (bassist and now lead singer) declared Seattle "home of the greatest coffee and marijuana in North America" and the band played those two songs, plus a cover of "The Jean Genie" in memory of David Bowie, who died the previous year.  Chip also got back on stage during Ace Frehley's encore to contribute backing vocals to "Detroit Rock City," which was nice to see.

Billy Preston-The Classic Collection: A compilation of songs by the African-American keyboardist who collaborated with The Beatles and John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in their solo careers.  Included is a cover of "Eight Days A Week," and there are a few other covers, like "My Girl," "Slippin' and Slidin'" and "Stop in the Name of Love."  I covered Billy Preston in a mini-bio during my Pride Month celebration last month, he's in the second post, if you need more details about his life, but I suppose I can just say, he has one of the happiest smiles I've ever seen.

The HU-The Gereg (Deluxe Edition): The HU is a Mongolian Heavy Metal-type band that performs using what look like traditional Mongolian Folk Instruments.  Their guttural voices, heavy percussion and well-placed instrumentation make them a heck of a live act, I should know, they opened for BabyMetal last October.  Around this time, they started teasing collaborations with American Heavy Metal artists, with singers like Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach singing English translations of their lyrics.  In Late Winter/Early Spring or so, they released one with Lzzy Hale of Halestorm, which revealed these were add-ons for a Deluxe Edition of their debut album.  I highly recommend "Shoog Shoog," "Yuve Yuve Yu" and "The Great Chinggis Khan" from the basic version of the album.

Some Optimism

It's been five days since my last post and I've been on a bit of a whirlwind since then.  I don't regret giving these issues the gravity they deserve, but I must also admit, I've been exposed to more than a small amount of evil in my time.  Honestly, the last post may have been influenced simply by the fact that Stryper's releasing another album in September (Spotify notified me the week before that post).  I used to love them for opening the door for Heavy Metal for me, Heavy Metal asked me to have compassion on the different, the strange, the outcast.  Stryper betrayed that by endorsing Trump in 2016 and I don't think they've experienced enough to feel that was the wrong decision.  Seeing Christians commit this kind of blasphemy hurts more than they will ever know.

There were some good singles last Thursday, namely, Tony Harnell and Joel Hoekstra teamed up in a new Rock Project called the Echobats whose first single sounds like 60s Pop.  You can search up a socially-distanced music video of the group performing in their homes with their families on Youtube, just search "Echobats Music Video."  Also, Gary Clark Jr., one of my favorite African-American Musicians, released a probable cover of "A Change Is Gonna Come."  You might be familiar with Gary Clark Jr. even if you don't think you are, he provided the cover of "Come Together" for the Justice League movie.  This song shows off more of his tender, bluesy side and he is the African-American musician I've bought from the most since late May.

I also live in Western Washington and last night, finally got to sit down and watch the Mariners Social Justice video where broadcaster Dave Sims had a video chat with J.P. Crawford, Dee Gordon, Kyle Lewis and Shed Long, Jr.  This was helpful to understand what African-Americans sometimes have to go through, and how difficult it is to be a baseball player of that ethnicity; society expects you to play football or basketball.  The Mariners currently have 10 African-Americans on their 40-man roster, the last time this happened on any Major League Club was the 1971 Pirates.  This was informative to me and I love what Mariners manager Scott Servais said, the best advice to people who want to help African-Americans, the LGBTQ+ community and all others under attack from xenophobia, "Listen and Learn."  I am also proud to hear that Braden Bishop is standing up for his fellow teammates and it makes me wish I could be as active with those who think "status quo is good enough."

Yesterday, speaking of xenophobia, I received the disturbing news that voice actress Laura Bailey (Lucina in Fire Emblem Awakening/Super Smash Bros., Rise Kujikawa in Persona 4) is receiving death threats over playing a transsexual named Abby in the game The Last of Us Part II.  Laura Bailey has always been one of my favorite voices since I heard her as Rise in a Let's Play of Persona 4 almost a decade ago and she deserves to be commended for playing a character of a group that doesn't get much attention in media.  This reminds me of the hate Barbara Dunkelman and Arryn Zech received over their characters in RWBY when they came out of the closet February 2019, for me, seeing Bumbleby become canon was the gift of a lifetime, especially since I was seeing the subtle hints since 2014's season 2 where Yang tells Blake she'll "save her a dance" and Blake takes her up on the offer.  And unlike some TV shows (don't get me wrong, I love Korra and Asami), it's not limited to the finale episode.  I'm wondering if the cast of Fire Emblem; Three Houses had to put up with the stupidity of homophobia, since at least in the Black Eagles route, every character seems to be capable of romantic interests of either gender (and if you play as a girl and side with Edelgard, you effectively see the most obvious lesbianism in a Nintendo game, she hugs you, pants your portrait and in the A Support Rank, asks you to call her "El," as her parents and sisters did before they died).  These should be celebrated, commended and declared milestones for the LGBTQ+ community in media, not hated on by some narrow-minded jerks who are too myopic to see they've become fascists.  Hopefully, the creators will continue undeterred, as they have done.  I certainly believe so, and I do believe we can make the world, or at least our communities, better places if we can band together and stand up for each other.

"What you did for the least of these, you did for Me."

Frank thoughts in July

There's nothing too spectacular getting released this week, but I have to vent something.  I frankly think Joe Biden doesn't stand a chance of winning this election.  I wouldn't be surprised if the red and blue map of this country resembles the one from the 1984 election, in all honesty.  Trump supporters live all around and in my apartment, grumpy old men with red hats and stickers saying the racist phrase "All Lives Matter."  Of course, if you were ask them what they think about the LGBTQ+ community, they'd say it needs to be genocided out of existence, which is what will happen in the second term and every member of a reconciling congregation will have to go to the death camps to endure a life of torture with them or lose their place in the hereafter. 

I just spent the last eight years of my life on a deplorable website called DeviantArt, a website full of nothing but peer pressure.  They wouldn't let me do anything I wanted without punishment or unbearable consequences.  Only a few of my posts were liked at all, what they wanted was for me to be a request slave.  I at first thought I needed to fill these as a religious person, but they were spoiled brats who demanded an endless list of stupid junk I don't feel like elaborating on. 

Then 2016 hit.

Racism and homophobia went from being a puny minority on the website into an army of NeoNazi Trump fanatics, giving me death threats for being an LGBTQ+ rights supporter, denying my any praise for my stories about lesbians aside from a small few praises from actual lesbians, which wasn't enough to undo the damage they wrought with their sheer hatred.  The only time they'd let me have more praise was if the story descended into pornography, mind you, the sex was only between married couples, but pornography means "public fornication," so it's still wrong to let that on any website.  One suggested story for art trades, only it became clear he wasn't planning on fulfilling his end of the bargain after a few times, effectively cheating free stories, requests, out of me.  I tried writing stories about LGBTQ+ people with them not being seen as strange, fantastic beings or demons, just the ordinary people they are, and the majority of users rejected me, I would get no praise or comments, save some hate comments.  They also told me what I should like and dislike.

For the first time in my eight years, people were telling me what to do with my life outside of the website.  They told me to restart Fire Emblem; Three Houses on a different route, purely because they despised Edelgard.  The Black Eagles Support Ranks, plus the units I've recruited (Leonie, Lysithea, Shamir and Manuela) make the force seem less like a military group or political group and more like a family.  I felt like I was part of a compassionate family that cared about my right to decide for myself, no pressure to do something I didn't want to do.  So I chose freedom, but this experience, to me, shows what is at the heart of this country; selfishness, stupidity, racism and homophobia.  And that's not going away, it's only been rewarded by the devil and his puppets in this administration.  So these people will ignore the warnings of COVID, ignore the chance to be compassionate to their brothers and sisters and neighbors and re-elect the monster currently residing in the White House.  Democracy is doomed and we are going full-speed towards a Nazi Dictatorship that will call itself a theocracy and genocide. 

I ask everyone reading this to vote for Joe Biden.  He is our last chance at preserving liberty in this country, otherwise, there will be no more elections, there will just be fanatical murder in the name of Trump.

Memories 2019-2020 Playlist

Due to the worldwide Pandemic, I won't see any live events this year.  However, I did get through technology access to Local and Global events organized in response to COVID and Racism and in these times, I consider those to "count," as we will likely remember these days as long as we shall live.

Memories 2019-2020

1.)    Already Gone (Eagles cover, Don Felder 3/22/2019)

2.)    Victim of Love (Eagles cover, Don Felder 3/22/2019)

3.)    Heavy Metal (Taking A Ride) (Don Felder 3/22/2019)

4.)    American Rock N Roll (Don Felder 3/22/2019)

5.)    Megitsune (BabyMetal 10/16/2019)

6.)    Elevator Girl (English) (BabyMetal 10/16/2019)

7.)    Distortion (BabyMetal 10/16/2019)

8.)    KARATE (BabyMetal 10/16/2019)

9.)    HeadBangeeeeerrrrr!!!!! (BabyMetal 10/16/2019)

10.) THE ONE (English) (BabyMetal 10/16/2019)

11.) Road of Resistance (BabyMetal 10/16/2019)

12.) Highway To Hell (AC/DC cover-Hell's Belles 12/7/2019)

13.) If You Want Blood, You Got It (AC/DC cover-Hell's Belles 12/7/2019)

14.) Shoot To Thrill (AC/DC cover-Hell's Belles 12/7/2019)

15.) Thunderstruck (AC/DC cover-Hell's Belles 12/7/2019)

16.) All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover in the style of the Jimi Hendrix version, The Black Tones, Concert for COVID relief stream, 6/24/2020)

17.) The Story-Brandi Carlile (Concert for COVID relief stream, 6/24/2020)

18.) Modern Girl-Sleater-Kinney (Concert for COVID relief stream, 6/24/2020)

19.) Dance of the Clairvoyants-Pearl Jam (Concert for COVID relief stream, 6/24/2020)

20.) Can’t Hold Us-Macklemore (Concert for COVID relief stream, 6/24/2020)

21.) Help!-Miley Cyrus (The Beatles cover, reminiscent of Dolly Parton’s, Together at Home 6/27/2020)

22.) I cry-Usher-(Together at Home 6/27/2020)

23.) Sale el Sol-Shakira-(Together at Home 6/27/2020)

24.) Together-For King and Country, Tori Kelly, Kirk Franklin-(Together at Home 6/27/2020)

25.) Hotel California (Eagles cover, Don Felder 3/22/2019)

Pride Month Musicians Final, 27th-30th

June 27th: Desmond Child

Date of Birth: October 28th, 1953

Genre: Classic Rock/Classic Good Music in general

What he identifies as: Gay

Where is he from: Gainesville, FL

A classic songwriter from the 1980s, Desmond Child is probably responsible for at least one song you like.  He helped write Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like A Lady” and “Another Last Goodbye,” Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name,” Kiss’ “I was Made For Lovin’ You,” Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself For Loving You,” Alice Cooper’s “House of Fire” and “Poison” and even Ricky Martin’s “Living La Vida Loca.”  He still works as recently as 2015 and lives in Nashville with his husband and two sons.  He has also worked with modern Pop icons like Kelly Clarkson, Selena Gomez and Katy Perry.  This man is an amazing songwriter and I love a lot of music he has made over the years, listening to it frequently.  One of my favorite albums from my birth year was Alice Cooper’s “Trash,” the entirety of which he co-wrote, and he also co-wrote one of my favorite Joan Jett pieces with “I Hate Myself For Loving You,” which was performed by Jett and fellow member of this list Miley Cyrus in 2011 and featured in the opening of the Birds of Prey movie earlier this year.  Desmond Child released a live album last year featuring him and some lesser-known singers performing some of his bigger songs to a small audience, including a medley of “Dude Looks like a Lady” and “You Give Love A Bad Name,” the bands Bon Jovi and Aerosmith being his favorites to work with.

Recommended Songs:  All listed above



June 28th: Charles “Chuck” Panozzo

Date of Birth: September 20th, 1948

Genre: Classic AOR Rock

What he identifies as: Gay

Where is he from: Miami Beach, FL (stated by Tommy Shaw in Live in Vegas album, “all the way from Miami Beach, Mr. Charles Panozzo!”)/Chicago, IL (birthplace according to Wikipedia)

The original bass player for classic rock band Styx.  Chuck Panozzo still performs with Styx from time to time and campaigns for gay rights and AIDS awareness as he has HIV.  When he isn’t the bass player for Styx, Ricky Phillips is the current bass player.  Chuck’s biggest performance with the band lately was on their 2015 Live at the Orleans Arena Las Vegas album, where he played “Foolin’ Yourself (The Angry Young Man).”

Recommended Albums: The Grand Illusion (also the name of his autobiography), Live at the Orleans Arena Las Vegas (track-Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man), introduced on track “Too Much Time On My Hands”), Pieces of Eight



June 29th: Kesha

Date of Birth: March 1st, 1987

Genre: Pop

What she identifies as: Bisexual

Where is she from: Los Angeles, CA

A fierce force in Pop music today, Kesha (also known as Ke$ha) has been around since the late 2000s.  She has sung duets with Alice Cooper, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Dolly Parton and Seattle-area rapper Macklemore, filed suit against producer Lukasz Gottwalt for abuse and been a furious force for women’s rights in the music business.  Honestly, force describes her well, because she doesn’t let anything stop her.  I first heard her cover Bob Dylan on the Dylan covers album for Amnesty International that Miley Cyrus, Adele and Sinead O’Connor also contributed to, but Kesha since launched into a career that has been like fellow musician Lady Gaga, though more impressive since Kesha is younger.  Kesha released an album at the start of this year and it has been one of the better Pop showings thus far for this year.  This album also featured a track credited to Kesha feat. Ke$ha, I’m not entirely certain what that means, but it probably refers to the fact Kesha raps briefly on the track as she did more often when she was under the Ke$ha moniker (and in one episode of Robot Chicken and her duet with Alice Cooper in Welcome 2 My Nightmare).  Last Thursday, she posted a cover of a Marc Bolan/T. Rex song for an upcoming tribute album due out in September, which will also feature Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, U2 with Elton John and both Julian and Sean Lennon.

Recommended Discography: I Need A Woman To Love (for Universal Love - Wedding Songs Reimagined album, Janis Joplin cover (yes, Janis Joplin was also a lesbian, I just didn’t research her)), Old Flames Can’t Hold A Candle to You (with Dolly Parton, also a Dolly Parton cover), Good Old Days (with Macklemore), High Road (album), Children of the Revolution (Marc Bolan/T. Rex cover)



June 30th: Sam Smith

Date of Birth: May 19th, 1992

Genre: Pop

What they identify as: Gay, genderqueer, non-binary

Where are they from: London, UK

Smith has sung duets with Brandi Carlile, Normani and Pop superstar Demi Lovato, and doesn’t appear to be slowing down to rest on their laurels anytime soon.  A feminist influenced by Adele and Amy Winehouse; Sam Smith has been one of the best voices in Pop in the last decade.  They are also a cousin of Lily Allen and also influenced by Chaka Khan and Christina Aguilera.  They also are non-binary and prefer they to gender-specific pronouns.  This is important to respect in these days, please do so.  They have given me such great songs and I hope they continue at the current peak they’ve achieved.

Recommended Songs: I’m Ready (with Demi Lovato), Dancing with a Stranger (with Normani), Party of One (with Brandi Carlile)

Weekly Spotify Summary: 6/26/2020

Last week was a very intense week on Spotify.  In addition to the albums I mentioned, there were new releases for Neil Young and Bob Dylan and I decided to try out new releases by Electric Lady and Jinka, as well as an old live album credited to the Monalisa Twins with a lot of Beatles covers and other classic rock.  Also, due to Juneteenth, I decided to look through more of Gary Clark Jr.’s discography.  Also, an album I’ve had for a month by Hell’s Belles lead guitarist Adrian Conner finally made it to digital media/streaming, so I went through that again.  Most of the music was great, I just feel Dylan and Young may not be up to what I was used to from them when they were younger, as their albums were fairly flat and uninteresting with about one solid piece each.  Last night also featured a Concert for All In Washington, a charity coalition dedicated to stopping the Corona Virus, helping the homeless and support the African-American and LGBTQ+ communities with performances by Brandi Carlile, Sleater-Kinney, Pearl Jam and Macklemore from their houses, plus I also got to see The Black Tones cover Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of “All Along The Watchtower,” which was superb, and Mary Lambert collaborate with Allen Stone, which makes me want to delve deeper into Mary Lambert’s discography beyond her collaboration with Macklemore, so I added a few of her songs to my Unheard playlist on Spotify and found she’s collaborated with Julien Baker and K.Flay.

This week features 3 major releases I’m looking forward to and thus far, they seem enjoyable.

Grey Daze-Amends: I pre-ordered this album back in February, because this is a posthumous release for Chester Bennington, best known as the lead singer for Linkin Park.  I thoroughly loved their songs in the first three live-action Transformers movies and was terribly saddened in 2017 to hear of his suicide, which may have been prompted by the suicide of his friend Chris Cornell, he hung himself on Cornell’s birthday.  One of his last projects was to reassemble his first band, Grey Daze, and provide them some vocals for songs he intended to finish.  The rest of the band carried on without him, finishing the album for release this year.  It was originally scheduled to be released in March, but COVID pushed back its release date until now.  The singles have been nice to listen to, a good example of Alternative Rock, and I expect the same from the whole album.

Various Artists-Street Survivors Soundtrack: This is a soundtrack release to a movie currently on Netflix that details the last few hours of the original Lynyrd Skynyrd band.  With blues-rocker Pat Travers contributing a cover of “Call Me The Breeze” and original band member Artimus Pyle and his family contributing most of the rest of the rock songs, this sounds like an exciting, yet bittersweet release.

Eric Clapton and B.B. King: Riding With The King (Deluxe Edition): Two giants of blues met twenty years ago to record this album, now, it’s being released again, enabling younger people like me to hear it in its entirety, plus some bonus tracks, like “Come Rain or Come Shine” and “Rolling and Tumbling.”  It also features the two collaborating with recordings either had done in the past, such as “Key To The Highway,” featured on Clapton’s Derek and the Dominos album, or “Three O’clock Blues,” which King had previously recorded.

Pride Month Musicians, 23rd to 26th

June 23rd: Halsey

Date of Birth: September 29th, 1994

Genre: Pop/Alternative Rock

What She Identifies As: Bisexual

Where is she from: Edison, New Jersey

Halsey, real name Ashley Frangipane, is a singer famous for how blunt she can be with her music and her shifts between some sweet, soft tracks and aggressive metal tracks.  In this year alone, she contributed the thrash metal style “Experiment on Me” to the film Birds of Prey, where it was used when Harley Quinn has to break Cassandra Cain out of a holding cell and beat up the other inmates, and collaborated with country singer Kelsea Ballerini on “The Other Girl,” a sweet, pop song that I could easily see be listened to on family road trips.  Halsey has many tattoos, used to dye her hair blue in the early stages on her career, and in addition to being bisexual, has also been diagnosed as bipolar.  When discussing the song “Nightmare,” she mentioned that in the current times, musicians could either make happy songs to distract people from the news or protest songs to try to spur on change, and neither approach was wrong.  Doing both fits Halsey’s discography at this point, as well as a few other artists, both on this list and straight, cisgender artists like Billy Ray Cyrus and Sammy Hagar.

Recommended Songs; Experiment on Me, The Other Girl (with Kelsea Ballerini), Nightmare



June 24th: Miya Folick

Date of Birth: 1989 (even Wikipedia doesn’t know the exact day)

Genre: Folk Rock

What she identifies as: Lesbian

Where is she from: Santa Ana, CA

If you remember earlier, Miya Folick is K.Flay’s girlfriend.  She is half-Japanese and half-Ukrainian and a competent musician in her own right.  Her debut album, Premonitions, was released in 2018, after which she has been on tour and released a few more singles.  She was raised Buddhist; this also means she was taught to play Taiko Drums due to her denomination.

Recommended songs/albums: Premonitions, Malibu Barbie



June 25th, Long John Baldry

Date of Birth: January 12th, 1941

Genre: Blues-Rock

Date of Death: July 21st, 2005

What he identified as: Gay

Where was he from: Northamptonshire, England

Many people know Long John Baldry for two things, voicing Dr. Robotnik in the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon, where he is best known for the lines “I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!” and “Snooping as usual, I see!”  The other is the morose song “Let the Heartbreaks Begin,” which is about losing a cherished woman.  However, Baldry actually wasn’t into women and dated Dave Davies of The Kinks for a time.  He was also responsible for Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” which recounts how Baldry and Bernie Taupin convinced Elton John not to commit suicide over an engagement he didn’t want to go through with.  The songs line, “Sugar Bear” refers to Baldry.  Baldry also covered the famous blues song “Going Down Slow” during his career, which has also been covered by Led Zeppelin as part of their live “Whole Lotta Love” medley and Peter Frampton with Steve Morse for his farewell Blues album.

Recommended Songs: Let The Heartaches Begin, Going Down Slow, A Thrill’s A Thrill



June 26th: Rita Ora

Date of Birth: November 26th, 1990

Genre: Pop

What she identifies as: Bisexual

Where is she from: England

Rita Ora was born in Turkey, actually, but raised in England by her parents, one of which is Catholic, the other Muslim.  She considers herself more spiritual than religious and the lyrics of her song “Carry On,” used in the credits of Pokémon; Detective Pikachu, oddly reflect the “Footprints” story told of Jesus carrying us during our hard times.  Rita unintentionally came out in 2018 when she recorded the song “Girls” with fellow Pop Stars Charli XCX, Bebe Rexha and rapper Cardi B, the chorus proclaiming “Sometimes I just wanna kiss girls, girls, girls.”  Hayley Kiyoko, a lesbian, felt this was “lesploitation,” sexualizing girl-girl relationships to pander to a male crowd.  Rita responded that she was rather, expressing her own bisexual feelings and didn’t mean any offense.  Rita also had a small role in Pokémon; Detective Pikachu as a scientist studying Mewtwo in a flashback hologram.  She also appeared on Miley Cyrus’ Bright-Minded YouTube/Instagram series, making her one of two people to appear in Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros/Toho Co. Ltd. movies to do so, the other being Millie Bobbie Brown, who starred in Godzilla; King of the Monsters, released to theaters by the three companies three weeks later.

Recommended Songs: Poison, Let You Love Me, Doing It (with Charli XCX), Girls (with Charli XCX, Bebe Rexha and Cardi B), Your Song, How To Be Lonely, How To Be Lonely (Live)