Showing posts with label Judas Priest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judas Priest. Show all posts

Wednesday 19 May 2021

The Devil Has All The Best Tunes

I am actually writing , well typing and not dictating, this draft article on my Google Pixel 2XL phone. Dictating gives me too much editing and fixing, but this is the first article I have done completely on the phone and am surprised that it is basically rather good. Not as convenient as a computer keyboard , but more than adequate and very fit for purpose.


While the title obviously refers to Christianity , this concept is prevalent 8n most religions, anything that brings us pleasure is wrong, and the right way is whatever the controlling body says is the way , hence subservience. We see it today when raising money for good causes ,where the very rich and powerful give nothing themselves but tell the "lower castes" to give and donate to help the less fortunate. Helping others is a worthy pursuit but when you think Jeff Bezis and Elon Musk could probably eradicate world poverty and not leave themselves short you see the issue I have. On a lesser scale Gary Barlow has evaded tax yet still partakes in money raising events (it gives him exposure) , but Mr Barlow is not "The Devil's Music" , far from it.


This article is very unresearched and is just coming from what's 8nmy head and my past experiences, so apologies for any glaring errors. It also contains a lot of my opinions and, despite what lots of people get on their high horses about, opinions and ideas mean nothing unless they are logically argued and backed up by facts. 


However a lot of what is going down here is not provable , I may say I think song A is the devil's music and song B isn't , that is my opinion and thoughts on the subject and you may disagree and since The Devil is not here to question I  have to assume and opine.


One of the earliest associations between modern popular music and the devil is that the blues singer Robert Johnson wet to the crossroads and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for being able to play guitar. Enough to damn him in the eyes of the church. 


Lots of popular music from the late 1800s which then became fused and influenced by and with African and swing rhythms would often implicitly and explicitly refer to ess ee ecks , an the "great and good" , were very disapproving of that.


This music often came from "the other side of the tracks" that was usually the black quarter , again you start to see the racist elements in the disapproval and terming of "the devil's music". 


During the wars soldiers were given time off for rest and recreation which is the same acronym as rock and roll , an African American label for that old ess ee ecks , and around 1951 DJ Alan Freed appropriated it for a musical style supposedly kicked off by Jackie Brenton's "Rocket 88" which , I believe also featured Ike Turner on guitar .


Crooners like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra were also frowned upon in certain circles , though it was ironic that "Rock Around The Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets and used as theme to the film "Blackboard Jungle"  sparked riots and wrecking of cinemas ,  but Haley was a middle aged man with a receding hairline leading a white western swing band , hardly the blueprint for the devil's music.


With media such as radio , television and cinema helping spread the word, or the sound , Elvis Presley , The Beatles and The Rolling Stones outraged many just by their existence , but they covered and were influenced by black music which gave a reason for certain organisations to attack them. When John Lennon said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus that stoked record burnings and protests in the USA , though to burn them they had to buy them. 


The Stones "Sympathy For The Devil" was an obvious candidate for the devil's music.


Heavy Metal and it's various exponents took on Satanic overtones exemplified by bands like Black Sabbath , and then genres such as Black Metal and Death Metal.


Religious organisations also decided that playing records backwards revealed Satanic instructions and messages and this was cited when a young man committed suiced and Ozzy Osbourne's "Suicide Solution" was cited as the culprit, but you don't need to play that backwards and obviously the young man had other problems.


Also in this case Rob Halford of Judas Priest quite rightly said "If we could influence people using hidden messages , it would be BUY MORE OF OUR RECORDS , not  Kill Yourself."


There is so much good music and it is always progressing, it takes in all influences. 


If you listen to "Tubular Bells" it is an impressive and beautiful piece of music but was used (without Mike Oldfield's permission)  in the film "The Exorcist" so does that make it Satanic? I think not but anyone can put any interpretation on what they hear.


The thing is WE have the best music , because WE take inspiration and create music that can be described as how it affects us and others.


Thursday 28 June 2018

Turn This Crazy Bird Around


I switched on the radio this morning and that line came out of the speakers sung by Joni Mitchell singing "This Flight Tonight" from her album "Blue". I think my first introduction to this song was hearing Nazareth's excellent heavily rocked up version with Manny Charlton's ghostly guitar solo which I bought as a single, but was on their album "Loud'n'Proud".

Soon after Judas Priest did the same to "Diamonds and Rust" penned by Joan Baez on their "Sin After Sin" album although it doesn't have the intensity of the Nazareth cover.

But these are two iconic songwriters covered by two iconic metal bands and it is an excuse to play these songs.

These albums haven't been on my playlist as I have a few more racked up to listen to but last night I listened to "The Prison" by Michael Nesmith which I will dedicate a future post to.

A couple of weeks back I bought some vinyl on albumwas "Electric Warrior" by T. Rex with it's incredibly cool cover, and it came with a download code. Surprisingly I haven't got it on CD, so I decided to download the album and was surprised that it was in WAV rather than MP3 format resulting in significantly larger files but without sound loss. One of te songs was like 24Mb for a two minute song. That is 2.5 times the capacity of my first hard drive computer which I got from my friend Chris Brough. How times change.

Anyway enjoy all this, I'm off to Scotland for the weekend.



Sunday 8 February 2015

Numbers


Just having a peruse of my blog stats and the average number of hits per page is 93 with highest about 450 , I'm not sure about the lowest , but it's probably about 20. As I've said before I'm sometimes surprised by the people who read and enjoy the blog, as most of it is me blathering on about nothing.

Also most of the visitors seem to come from the USA although that maybe just something to do with routing.

Winter Sun
The weather today has been a lot of very cold fog, I don't know if it was freezing , but I got very cold. This was counteracted by hot chocolates and trying to stay indoors, although I wasn't too successful in staying in.




Anyway it's not a great idea to start writing a post at midnight so maybe I will just stop and choose the Judas Priest song Livin' After Midnight as the song for this post. Thank you and good night.

Saturday 6 September 2014

First Week Of September - Judas Priest and Sodom and Gomorrah



..and I've been lax in my posting, but actually busy. Work quietened down so I could actually take a day of to enable me to go for a job interview, however I had also to fit in a visit to the plastic surgery bit of the RVI to follow up my visit to casualty last Saturday and all seemed good and they gave me a new supply of big plasters for my elbow.

Rebellious Jukebox
Because the interview was finished by twelve I had a half day to myself and wandered into down , finally ending up at the The Laing Art Gallery to see a couple of exhibitions , including Kelly Richardson's amazingly hypnotic "Mariner 9" which I'd seen before at Whitley Bay's Spanish City. Also the excellent "All That Is Solid Melts Into Air" with some brilliant juxtaposed images such as John Martin's "Sodom And Gomorrah" close to Judas Priest's "Unleashed In The East". There was also a brilliant jukebox setting which I wasn't supposed to photograph but did anyway.


Incidentally you can explore The Laing online here which gives you an idea where I was.

Today I'm off to see Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick at the Tyneside Irish Centre which should be a good night.

The weather is great and rainy , but it is September so what can you expect. But all in all an excellent week and if you are in Newcastle this weekend get yourself along to the Laing to see some amazing exhibits.