Does anyone remember seeing them do this at some festival in Kelso around '93 maybe?

About halfway through the second time through the main figure that I thought 'they lifted this riff from "Into The Void"'. They were playing it so slowly I didn't recognize it. It wasn't until King Buzzo started singing the first verse that I realized they were performing 'Into The Void' itself. It was brilliant.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1425085&id=36413251007&ref=mf

Buy Bill Milkowski's Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius!

This tune appears on 'Secret Treaties, a record I bought on a trip to Seattle with my parents and sister some time around 1982. That sounds like a long time ago, and it is, but consider that at the time that album was already at least seven years old and sold in the overstock bin with a 'Nice Price!' sticker at $3.99. That's about $8.50 in 2008 dollars. You can buy the CD used at Amazon.com right now for $9.00, including shipping. 26 years later you can enjoy this hard rock classic in crystal clear, indestructable digital sound for the same price I paid for a warped, thin, cheaply pressed vinyl LP in 1982.

My friends, this is progress!

Buy 'Secret Treaties'!

Ear plugs won't save you, but bring them anyway.

Reviewer Tom Carson concludes:

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! is a brittle, small masterpiece of Seventies pop irony, but its shriveling, icecold absurdism might not define the Seventies as much as jump the gun on the Eighties.

That sounds about right.

Wing is a singer from New Zealand who fearlessly tackles pop material from AC/DC to the Beegees. And Elvis of course.

Wilson and Alroy have reviewed most of her body of work and found it to their liking.

Buy Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984

Does anyone know if the following singles are still in print?:

'Skank Bloc Bologna' (1978)
'2nd Peel Session' (1979)
'4 A-Sides' (1979)

When I was in high school Judas Priest was at the peak of their musical and commercial power and between my friends and I we had copies of almost all of their albums. But there was a legendary long out-of-print album called 'Sad Wings of Destiny' that was told to be more rocking, more mighty than any other Priest work (except possibly 'Screaming For Vengeance' of course).

There was no Internet and our little town did not have a thriving used record market, so when a title was out of print, you were out of luck. Whereas everyone had heard about the legendary awesomeness of 'Sad Wings', no one we knew had heard even one note of it. The studio release was like a holy metal grail. And the terrible power in the album's name: 'Sad Wings of Destiny'. How could you not spend all your time and energy trying to track that sucker down? Answer: you can not. You must find that lost metal codex. And the album rocked indeed. It lived up to every ounce of anticipation.

I invited my good friend from back then and today, Andy Welker, to talk about the day he and his brother finally completed the quest to recover a copy of 'Sad Wings of Destiny'.

The quest as recalled by Andy

Doug asked me to describe what I could of the day I bought a used cassette copy of Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny--their second full-length album. This was over twenty years ago, so I am grateful that I can remember any of it.

I think I bought that cassette in the spring of 1986. I sort of remember using my little brother's money. If it wasn't that cassette, I know that I wheedled him into spending his money on some cassette or another in those years. Neither of us had much cash then, so it took no small amount of pressure from my friends and me to make deals like that happen. Make no mistake, my brother was a Judas Priest fan, but I'm certain he would rather have spent his cash on treats. And I can't now ascribe ersatz nobility to conning my brother, as if we'd taught him tough lessons. It was only conning.

In those years, some combination of the following people would have been party to any cassette-buying trip: Me, Doug Manis, Sean Florance (who surely was there, because he was always driving everybody for every reason), Bryan Fuller, Lem Gaswint, and David Welker (my aforementioned little brother). My brother and I only bought cassettes then and we only had a few, a great percentage of which--probably 4 out of 15--were Judas Priest cassettes. Like Screaming for Vengeance. Like Sin After Sin. Defenders of the Faith, I think. We knew about Sad Wings of Destiny, but hadn't heard any of the songs from it. But we were eager to know.

We ultimately found the Sad Wings of Destiny cassette at the now-defunct Roadrunner Tapes and Records. Roadrunner didn't stay in business long. I think they suffered from the same problem many used stores have--suck-ass inventory.

I'm sure we tried Kelly's Comics before Roadrunner. Kelly's Comics was in the converted living room of a house just a few doors from the Florance family home. Was the inventory at Kelly's suck ass? Check. I remember wondering, before my first trip to Kelly's Comics, if the store was operated by Kelly Slaybaugh. Anyone who grew up in Clarkston during that time knows what a stupid, adolescent fantasy that was. Kelly Slaybaugh was my age and a cheerleader from 7th grade through 12th. Probably not a fan of either comics or used music. The real Kelly of Kelly's Comics looked a bit like a shorter, fatter, and homelier version of Peter Jackson. He was also always grumpy. I wish him good luck.

Anyway, we got the cassette from Roadrunner. What I remember best about that trip was that a kid my age farted near where I was browsing. He walked away and someone I was there with came up to see if Id found anything good. He smelled what he thought I dealt.

That fart was unforgettable. So was the cassette. Sad Wings is a Priest fan favorite and certainly my first or second fave of the Priest oeuvre. I remember, however, thinking my copy was inferior because it was used and released not on Columbia but on Gull Records. It looked like a bootleg, with a yellow sticker for a label vs. the superior direct-to-case printing found on most cassettes.

And the cassette was inferior. Gull or whoever hadn't punched the safety tabs on that tape, rendering it recordable. And some previous owner taped over a portion of the song Island of Domination--a rocking romp of a song that is best heard without interruption. The interruption on my cassette was the voices of two dudes, one of whom said I'm tired. The other responded by saying, Man, I was tired when I woke up. These dudes sounded like typical dudes from the 1970s-1980s. Possibly both were stoned a little. I picture them looking like Refugee-era Tom Petty.

That's it. I remember more than someone my age has a right to remember. I can't recommend Sad Wings enough. Some of it (Epitaph) is laughably somber; some of it rocks quite hard. The themes are familiar to any early metal listeners--quasi-occult references, sadism, and love. Good listening.

Coda

Somehow the two sleep-deprived stoners on Andy's cassette just added to the charm.

I subscribe to emusic.com where I pay them $15/month and they give me 90 MP3 downloads each month. Indie rock dominates the catalog, but there is also lots of blues, jazz, classical, bluegrass, and other non-mainstream music that the big labels don't provide much of. They also have a lot of oddball stuff like film soundtracks, spoken word, and just one-off out-of-print recordings from tiny labels that I think are trying to squeeze a little more revenue out of back catalog.

One day I logged in and spied 'Sad Wings of Destiny' listed in the 'Newly Added' column. I clicked one button, waited 10 minutes, and just like that I had 'Sad Wings of Destiny' on my iPod. I hadn't heard that record in at least 10 years, probably closer to 15, and it rocked so much that I let it loop all afternoon. I can't get over that 20 years later, after all the work Andy and Dave did to research and excavate that metal relic, I was just bopping around the Internet one day and boom I was enjoying 'Island of Domination' on my iPod, sans sleepy stoners. God bless the Internet, man.

While you're soaking in metal nostalgia, see if you can spot the factual error in the concert summary. Faithful Priest acolytes should spot it right away.

You're welcome.

The program includes selections from "Airbag" and "Paranoid Android" from "OK Computer" and "Optimistic" and "A National Anthem" from "Kid A".

The arrangements are impressive. Nearly all of the guitar parts are covered note for note and the drum corp is playing basically the same patterns you hear on Radiohead's records. My favorite part is the high-note trumpet duo harmonizing Thom York's vocal melody on "Airbag". "The National Anthem's" bass line lends itself nicely to military band low brass, and the band's version of "Paranoid Android's" second section is actually more effective than Radiohead's version, I think, because of the brass' power.

You can judge a pop tune's craftsmanship by the number of genres it can be arranged in and still sound good. The further the genre is from the original version, the better the song is written. Radiohead comes off looking pretty good here.

Not-to-be-believed Blue Oyster Cult trivia: Michael Bolton opened for B.O.C. in Puerto Rico's Hiram Bithorn Stadium in 1983. I see that you do not believe me. Do not take my word for it, behold the shocking evidence of this unholy union for yourself.

Las señoras, encienden tus motores!

Click a song title to launch iTunes and listen to a 30-second sample from the iTunes Music Store. iTunes seems to offer about half of the music we own, but the ratio is getting better as their catalog grows.

For a random sampling of the Manisfam music library, visit Big Daddy Dougo’s Manis Mojo Party Mix!

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When you've cast your ballot, order The Valley album online.

"Seattle Weekly’s 2006 Music Awards: The Valley has been nominated in a couple of different categories for this years SWMA`s, please take a minute to check it out and cast your vote now!"

http://www.seattleweekly.com/promos/swma2006/home.php

(Via The Valley.)

(iTunes seems to offer about half of the music we own, but the ratio is getting better as their catalog grows.)

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Buy a song from the iTunes music store and the Manisfam gets a nickel!