I have 31 discs of music to listen to now. And a whole lotta other goodies. Here we go!
First up – books. Peter Criss’ Makeup To Breakup, and the latest from Ripley’s Believe It or Not and Guiness’ Book of World Records. I’ve leafed through Peter’s book — all he seems to do is bitch about Paul and Gene. Review will come.
Next, Queen. A total of 8 discs of awesome remastered Queen to listen to: The Miracle, Jazz, A Night at the Opera, and Live Killers!
Next up, Rush. 6 discs in each of these two Sector box sets, including 2 DVD’s in 5.1 surround, plus 2 discs of 2112. Awesome. (I already have Sector 2 and have a review of that coming in the next few days.)
And the rest: The 4 disc Cult Love Omnibus Edition. Thin Lizzy’s Life Live (2 discs), Jon Lord’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra, and the new Rage Against The Machine XX edition (2 discs plus a DVD).
But that’s not all. Check out this Kiss lunchbox, these movies and vintage G1 Transformers 1988 “Bugly” action figure.
Lastly my folks got me this neat Joby camera tripod. This is going to come in handy when I make my next Transformers stop motion animated movie. I did a brief 15 second screen test — check that out too!
Hope your Christmas was filled with happiness, love, joy, and rock!
mikeladano.com 
Santa was very generous! I managed a Toblerone and a holdall. The kids did better though…
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We have no kids so I tend to still get spoiled, as I am a big kid.
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Awesome swag! That lot should keep you very busy…
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I’m taking it one disc at a time so I don’t burn out! I did listen to 2112 in 5.1 surround this morning — a beautiful thing especially when accompanied by the motion comic.
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Yeah cool take in Mike..I got 2112 ,Exit Stage Left( lost it yrs ago) as well,Countdown To Extinction deluxe edition( the live disc from 93 ro
cks)…
Plus two books the Townsend Biography,and No Sleep Til Sudbury by Brent Jensen.
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Sweet Deke!! I wanted that Megadeth set, yet another example of a reissue box set that was simply out of my budget.
Did you get the 2112 deluxe?
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Yeah I got the 2112 deluxe,nice package and it sounds very analogy which is super cool cuz that sound is not heard nowadays in recordings….The booklet is cool as getting The lyrics is something I never got as I only ever owned the cassette version of 2112 so a upgrade was due..hahahaha…not much of a comic book guy but hey it’s Rush and I’m cool with that!
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I liked that Rush were “in” the comic book as well. That was a nice touch for sure. And the lyrics! There were some lines that I never knew what Geddy was actually saying until now.
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By the way I like Queen The Miracle…good record ……underrated …..
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I think so too Deke. The title track, “Was It All Worth It”, etc…it’s a good disc.
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Spoiled rotten this year, Dude! Hot damn, there’s so much goodness there. Of course, we can expect reviews of all of it (even the Sultans), RIGHT!? Right! I am intrigued by the Rage re-release. Man I love that record. I have a buddy in town who got the vinyl box of it, so I’ll check his before I buy! All of this is gorgeous. Happy Ho Ho Ho to you, Mofo!
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I do have to get going on reviews for the new year, but this is all so overwhelming! I think I’ll just go with the flow. Queen – A Night At The Opera will probably come first as I have played that a bit so far!
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That is a nice Christmas haul, Mike. Looks like you’ve got lots of excellent entertainment in your immediate future. I’ll be curious to hear what you think of Queen’s “The Miracle.” I think it’s a monster of an album, with Freddie sounding as strong as ever (even though he was already ill by that time), and Brian was still at the peak of his powers. As far as I know, it was the first album they released where the entire band was credited for writing each song, instead of one writer per track. Quite a show of solidarity so late in the game (no pun intended).
I also look forward to your review of the Rush box sets, and specifically the surround sound mixes. You already know my feelings on them, but you may have a completely different perspective. Because I’ve been underwhelmed by their previous 5.1 mixes, I haven’t considered the 2112 blu-ray, but for the right price I’ll give in and buy a copy. I just wish they would hire Steven Wilson to remix at least one of their albums for surround sound.
Will you even have time to read Peter Criss’ book? If so, I’ll be very impressed. My book-reading time is almost non-existent. I’ve had the Keith Richards autobiography stuck at around page 50 for nearly a year. I always make time for music magazines like Mojo, Uncut, Classic Rock and Prog, but books are another matter.
Happy listening/viewing/playing.
Rich
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I love The Miracle — always have! The deluxe is very nice, plenty of extra material on there. 2 B-sides that I didn’t have previously. I prefer Innuendo to The Miracle, but that was the first Queen deluxe that I purchased.
I can’t wait to dig into the Peter Criss book even though the parts I read through sounded petty and bitter. He even referred to Gene Simmons as “Hitler” which I found to be in bad taste, but Gene’s been pretty unkind to Peter in his books as well.
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