After a 16 month battle with pancreatic cancer, Frankie Banali has passed away.
His best album, W.A.S.P.’s The Headless Children, will always be a cornerstone of this collection. Metal Health was the first hard rock album I ever acquired and it changed my life for good. To say Frankie was dedicated would be an understatement. His dedication led to a rejuvenated Quiet Riot and some excellent albums with James Durbin on vocals. Against the odds, Banali silenced the critics, myself included.
One of the hardest hitters in rock, Banali has an extensive resume including Hughes/Thrall, Heavy Bones and Faster Pussycat. He was one of those drummers you could identify just by his snare sound. A true original.
Now Frankie rides the wind, forever free. Rest in peace.
This week’s topic comes to you from the originator of the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten series of lists, Uncle Meat himself.
Top 11 Favourite Concerts of All Time!
We may have listed “best concerts” before, but this will be special. Meat, Mr. Books and Superdekes will be joining me Friday night at 7:00 PM E.S.T. with as many facts as we can recall about our favourite concert experiences. There will also be one “surprise” list that will blow you away.
Now fuelled by Streamyard, the shows keep getting better and better! There have been so many great list ideas that we have not got to yet. We have new guests lined up. Critical to this growth has been Kevin/Buried On Mars who hooked me up with Streamyard, vastly improving the quality of the show. I’m very fortunate to have Uncle Meat by my side with his Nigel Tufnel Top Ten concept. I think if Meat didn’t come up with that idea, these live streams might have ended a long time ago! And of course Superdekes, who has gone above and beyond the call of duty on multiple occasions. He doesn’t have to do this, but he loves doing it!
JUDAS PRIEST – Point of Entry (1981, 2001 Sony remaster)
Point of Entry will always be one of those “other” Judas Priest albums. It wasn’t a ground breaker and wasn’t a massive seller. It will always just be “the album that came after British Steel” or “the one that came before Screaming for Vengeance“. It did fine (500,000 US sales) and spawned a killer single called “Heading Out to the Highway”, but it didn’t make history like the other two records.
Coming after British Steel, Priest continued with producer Tom Allom and drummer Dave Holland, and it doesn’t sound like they were overly interested in taking chances. Sonically Point of Entry is a carbon copy, though with less impactful songs. In 2001, it was issued remastered by Sony with two bonus tracks.
For me, Point of Entry occupies an interesting space. Listening to it on a recent road trip took me back to 1987 or 88, when I was in the midst of seriously trying to collect “all the Priest”. From the perspective of a kid in 1988, Point of Entry was what I thought 1981 must have sounded like, though it wasn’t that long before. So Point of Entry takes me back not to the early 80s, but the late 80s. And in the late 80s, it sounded good.
Sure, I was aware that it sounded a lot like British Steel before, but without the massive landmark tracks like “Metal Gods”. But what about “Desert Plains”? Why wasn’t it as important as “Metal Gods”?
To this day, I don’t know.
Point of Entry does boast a few songs that could go toe-to-toe with any on British Steel. Certainly “Desert Plains” and “Heading Out to the Highway” can stand up to the prior album. “Highway” has one of those riffs so classic that I sometimes find myself humming it in a grocery line wondering what song was in my head. As a mid-tempo road song, it does the job. One could argue it’s just a sequel to “Living After Midnight”, but you just try and resist this one.
“Heading Out to the Highway” was made into an unintentionally funny video, mixing on-set with on-location footage in an obvious way. Worse though were the two videos that followed: “Don’t Go” and “Hot Rockin'”. “Don’t Go” features the band playing trapped inside a small room, with a door that leads various impossible locations including outer space. Fortunately the song is better: slow and plaintive, yet with that solid rocking beat and a killer guitar solo. “Hot Rockin'” is high-speed but tends to be forgotten because Priest have better material at this tempo. The video is situated in a sauna, and then a concert stage where Rob’s flaming feet light fire to his microphone, and the microphone to a couple guitars. Funny to look at, but I think it’s one of those cases where we’re laughing at the band, not with them.
“Turning Circles”, and a lot of the rest of the album, fall into various categories. This one fits alongside “Don’t Go” as a slow but hard track. “We’ve all got somethin’ wrong to say,” sings Rob in this song that seems to be about ending a relationship. The “ah ha, ah ha” break in the middle is an album highlight, and to me it sounds exactly like my bedroom in 1987.
It’s “Desert Plains” that really brings it home. There is a pulse to this song, created by Dave Holland and Ian Hill. You don’t associate those two guys with awesome rock beats often, but here it is. “Desert Plains” is an instant classic, and it’s alive with movement. From the verses, to the choruses, to Holland’s drum “sound effects” (like “wild mountain thunder”), this is a Priest classic and shall forever remain so. This side one closer should have been a video way before “Hot Rockin'”.
The second side opens with “Solar Angels”, another track with an interesting rhythm (slow drums, fast guitar chug). The song feels like it could use some more substance, but it’s still enjoyable albeit in a “Metal Gods” knock-off kind of way. Though heaviness is always celebrated, who doesn’t enjoy when Rob Halford gets sassy? That’s “You Say Yes”, an outstanding shoulda-been hit. The verses verge on punk rock as Rob spits out the words as only he can. Then the airy “what I do, what I do, what I do” middle section goes right to heaven — or my room in ’87, I’m not sure which.
Point of Entry ends on three decent but unremarkable mid-tempo tracks, which perhaps always served to weaken the album’s impressions. “All the Way” might be an attempt to rewrite “Living After Midnight”, and although it’s a cool track we all know Priest have better stuff in this vein. “Troubleshooter” might even be more of a rewrite, with that opening drum beat sounding a little familiar. But Rob’s vocals kill it. Finally “On the Run” is a screamy album closer where Rob is once again the star.
As with previous CDs in this Priest remasters series, there are two bonus tracks, one of which has nothing to do with Point of Entry. “Thunder Road” sounds a lot like Ram It Down era Priest, so you can safely assume it’s from those sessions in the late 80s. Clearly outtake quality, almost like a prototype for “Johnny B Goode”. Then there is a live version of “Desert Plains” from what sounds like the 1987 tour judging by the big echoey drums and Rob’s added screams. It’s much faster than the album cut, all but destroying the pulse of the original. Yet the song still kills! Somehow it didn’t make it onto the Priest…Live! album, which was already stuffed full.
In the late 90s, a guy sold a used copy of this on CD to me, but he left something inside. Something I wish I’d kept because it was so bizarre and funny. The back cover features five white boxes in the desert. The guy left a little white piece of note paper inside, explaining what he thought the back cover was about. “Maybe they are graves,” said part of it. I wish I could remember the rest. (I always thought the five boxes represented the five band members, with the large one in the back being Dave Holland and the drum kit.) And speaking of the cover, this album does look better on vinyl. I have vinyl for almost all the Priest up to Ram It Down, and they all look better on vinyl.
Although Point of Entry will always live in the shadows of the towering albums that came before and after, it still leaves a glow behind.
JUDAS PRIEST – Sin After Sin (Originally 1977, 2001 Sony reissue)
“SIN AFTER SIN, I have endured, but the wounds I bear are the wounds of love.”
This lyric from “Genocide” on 1976’s Sad Wings of Destiny would have been little more than a throwaway, if Priest didn’t recycle the words “sin after sin” for their next album title. Though the song may have appeared to be the same, much had actually changed. For the first time, they had a producer that understood that kind of aggressive rock that the young band were trying to create: Roger Glover, ex-Deep Purple, who had already recorded several albums for Elf, Ian Gillan and Nazareth. Perhaps even more significantly, for the first time they had a serious drummer creating the beats: the not-yet-legendary Simon Phillips, who had still already played on a Jack Bruce album. This was just a session for Phillips, but it enabled Priest to break the shackles of rhythm and really start exploring.
Opener “Sinner” might have been the same kind of tempos that Priest were working with before, but there is a new slickness to the drums; an effortless drive with increasingly interesting accents. With a solid backing, Priest sound more vicious. “Demonic vultures stalking, drawn by the smell of war and pain.” The apocalypse has never sounded cooler. As Phillips drops sonic bombs left and right, KK Downing goes to town on what would become his live showcase solo. His growls and trills sound like a beast inflicting wounds on a struggling combatant. At almost seven minutes, “Sinner” is the album epic, and it’s the opening track!
Priest previously recorded a cover of Joan Baez’ “Diamonds and Rust” for Gull records; that early version can be acquired on The Best of Judas Priest or Hero, Hero. The Glover-produced track is the more famous and better of the two. Radio play for “Diamonds and Rust” helped push the album to eventually sell 500,000 copies. Rob Halford’s high pitched harmonies gleam like polished silver.
Ironic observation: I hope by now we all know a light year is a measurement of distance, not time. It is the amount of distance that light can travel in one year (9.46 trillion kilometres). So, really really far. Joan Baez playfully used it as a melodramatic measure of time in “Diamonds and Rust”. (“A couple of light years ago”.) On the next track “Starbreaker”, Halford refers to “light year miles away”, a crudely worded hyperbole for distance. So with Sin After Sin, you get it both ways. Regardless of scientific accuracy (or not) “Starbreaker” is a good track with a slightly flat riff. Though Phillips is brilliant, it could just use a little more pep.
Like with Sad Wings of Destiny, you gotta have a ballad in there somewhere, and on side one that’s “Last Rose of Summer”. This softie isn’t bad, though Priest have done and will do better. Using a ballad to close a side isn’t always wise either, but on CD nobody really notices except us nerds.
“Let Us Prey/Call For the Priest” is a pretty epic side two opener, with harmony guitars playing an opening instrumental anthem. Then a choir of Halfords joins in, and the band break in to what could be their fastest song yet. From the wickedly fast dual guitar solos to the powerful rhythm, this song is a blitzkrieg of metal trademarks. It’s relentless and all over the board, something that 80s Priest rarely was.
Side two keeps getting better with the groove of “Raw Deal”, which was Rob’s real “coming out” to fans in the know. Today he calls it a “heavy metal gay rights song”. It’s actually one of Halford’s best lyrics. Instead of mashing together science fiction words and singing about battlefields, this time Halford paints a hazy picture of what is probably a gay club in Fire Island, New York. It’s vivid but vague: “The mirror on the wall was collecting and reflecting, all the heavy bodies ducking, stealing eager for some action.” It’s also backed by some seriously cool Priest music, almost funky but always heavy. “The true free expression I demand is human rights – right?” It was all there in the lyrics all along.
A second ballad, the dirge “Here Comes the Tears” brings a cloudier mood. An ode to loneliness, “Here Comes the Tears” is the one to play when you just can’t take it anymore. When Halford starts givin’ ‘er at the end with the wildest screams in history, it sounds like an exorcism. The guitars howl, a hint of piano can be heard, and there is an underlying choir of Robs singing sadly in unison. Finally “Dissident Aggressor”, famously covered by Slayer, concludes the album on a violently fast note. “Stab! Fall! Punch! Crawl!” This song is not for amateurs and might be the heaviest thing Priest have ever done. There are plenty of contenders, but “Dissident Aggressor” must be in the Top Five Heaviest Priest Songs Ever. But that being said, they still have the balls to end the song with another multi-layered harmony of Halfords.
The 2001 Sony remastered CD has two bonus tracks, and the first is the best in the entire series: “Race With the Devil”, a cover of a track by The Gun. This version, recorded for the next album Stained Class (Les Binks on drums) could easily have been a B-side all this time. Why it went unreleased until 2001 is unknown. Perhaps it was lost, but now that it has gotten a proper mastering job it is available on CD. This is un-retouched, which cannot be said for other unreleased tracks in the Priest Remasters series. “Run With the Devil” is raw, riffy, fast, and wicked. All it really needed to make it album quality is a better guitar solo. The second bonus track is a live “Jawbreaker” (Dave Holland on drums) from the Defenders of the Faith tour. Out of place, but an excellent song regardless.
Incidentally, Sin After Sin is the last album before Priest adopted the first version of their current logo design.
I was listening to Sad Wings of Destiny recently and wrote up a brand new review before realizing I already reviewed it. Fortunately, I had lots more to say. For my original 2015 review,click here.
JUDAS PRIEST – Sad Wings of Destiny (1976 Gull, 1998 Snapper Music)
1974’s Rocka Rolla didn’t set the world on fire, so back to the drawing board for album #2. Having rid themselves of most of their early bluesy material, Judas Priest went heavier, and more diverse simultaneously. The resulting album, 1976’s Sad Wings of Destiny, is considered an early classic by the band. Some feel they rarely reached these heights again as they took their metal more mainstream in the 80s.
“Victim of Changes”, which opens the album, introduced the world to the high notes that Rob Halford was able to hit. “Whiskey woman don’t you know that you are driving me insaaaaaaaaaaaaaane!” Yet that note is nothing compared with Rob’s final shrieks. This track combines an earlier unreleased Priest song titled “Whiskey Woman” written by original singer Al Atkins with a track called “Red Light Lady” brought in by Halford from his old band Hiroshima. You can hear the moment the two songs are welded together at around the 4:45 mark. Together at almost eight minutes they form a complex, classic Priest track that represents a high water mark. Twisting from a metal groove into ballady territor-y and back again, this is drama the way Priest do it. And they never do it better.
“The Ripper” boasts similar high notes but it’s almost a parody. This riff-based shorty (2:51) is from the perspective of Jack the Ripper (or if you like, Jack the Knife). With a galloping beat from new drummer Alan Moore (who was eventually replaced by the far superior Les Binks), “The Ripper” is as metal as things got in 1976. Its placement as second track is perfect because the next two, “Dreamer Deceiver” and “Deceiver” form a single 8:34 epic. “Dreamer Deceiver”, which forms the majority of the song, is an epic ballad about a supernatural being who tempts those below.
“Saw a figure floating, ‘neath the willow trees. Asked us if we were happy, we said we didn’t know. Took us by the hand and up we go.”
They follow the dreamer through the purple hazy clouds into the cosmos. The intricate acoustic guitars let Rob Halford dominate with his story. Though the track is haunting, it seems the people in the song find “complete contentment” and live without worries. But as the song builds, adding piano, Rob’s vocals become more urgent (and high). Though it seems like a heavenly paradise, the second part “Deceiver” changes the mood considerably.
“Solar winds are blowing, neutron star controlling. All is lost, doomed and tossed, at what cost forever?”
There is always a price when temptations seem too good to be true. This song brings another heavy gallop, the kind which Iron Maiden would later perfect. Solos blast, as Halford warns us all of the “Deceiver”! This is the kind of metal that people associate with Judas Priest, though its’ far more impressive if you consider it part of a larger composition.
Side one can be viewed as just three songs: two epics and a hard rocker. Side two has more to offer, though it opens in epic enough quality. Glenn Tipton’s piano piece “Prelude” is foreboding. As a Sabbath-like instrumental, it serves to set the scene for “Tyrant” (though “Tyrant” is always performed live without “Prelude”). Overdubbed vocals make for a cool chorus, but this one is just a molten metal burner. It wastes no time in laying waste, with guitar solos galore, in both single and dual formations.
“Genocide” is a slower, cooler groove that doesn’t seem to match its violent title. But this is from the perspective of a survivor. “Save me, my people have died, total genocide.” This is the song that gave us the next album title, Sin After Sin: “Sin after sin, I have endured, but the wounds I bear are the wounds of love.” Cool track and a necessary one to give the album balance. Songs of this tempo and style would make up the bulk for Priest albums in the future, yet it’s not simple or blockheaded like some 80s Priest tended to be. It retains some complexity and traverses multiple musical landscapes through its length.
Next: a complete left turn. “Epitaph” (written by Tipton) is a piano-based funeral dirge that sounds a heck of a lot like Queen. It’s beautiful though. With Halford’s vocals layered as a choir, it’s a daring change of pace even though Queen were pretty much the biggest band in the world in 1976.
“Epitaph” fades directly into the final track “Island of Domination”, another metal chug but with an apocalyptic bent. Rob’s lyrics are unusually styled with archaic sounding lines like “‘Twas as if all hell had broke loose on this night.” This could be Rob’s first BDSM-themed song with lines like “Lashings of strappings with beatings competing to win.” If not, then it’s just a brutal battle set to the tune of speedy Priest metal.
It must be said that Sad Wings has a striking album cover, with the angel depicted burning in hell. School teachers worldwide would have loved this cover back in 1976. The angel character would return 14 years later as the Painkilller. The “devil’s tuning fork” necklace that the angel is wearing would become Priest’s symbol on later albums as well.
Though Sad Wings is an essential album for a serious metal collection, and stuffed full with riff after riff of majesty, it is frustrating hard to find good versions on CD. Priest’s albums on Gull records have never been officially reissued by the band. The 1998 CD release by Snapper music is usually rated fairly well. If you’re unsure then get an original Gull vinyl copy. But do get Sad Wings of Destiny and prepare to hear a young, vital and daring Judas Priest just beginning to learn what they can do.
Please welcome Mr. Books himself, Aaron from the KMA. The subject this week: Top 11 Canadian albums of all time. An absolutely epic discussion unfolded with so many different genres being touched upon. As remarkable as the lists were (five in total), it’s also quite astounding when we talked about all the albums we left out!
Lists submitted by:
Derek from Thunder Bay
Mr. Books
LeBrain
Darr
Dr. Kathryn Ladano
With Deke coming in from Lake Superior, Aaron from Georgian Bay, and myself on the shore of Lake Huron, we had three massive bodies of water covered. What should we call ourselves? The Great Lakes Consortium?
For a look at the shape of streams to come, check out the end of the video. We brought in Uncle Meat, Rob Daniels from Visions in Sound, and Kevin/Buried On Mars. While six at a time is a lot, it sure was fun to see everybody together for the first time!
I can’t help but take a little bit of pride in all this. My very first live stream was March 20, the week lockdown began. Eager to make connections with others in isolation, I hit that “live” button on my Facebook app just to see what would happen. It ended up being a lot of fun and it so happened that others liked it too. A few weeks later, we figured out how to get Uncle Meat to co-host and he came up with the now infamous “Nigel Tufnel Top Ten” format.
But there were limitations, because we had to use a Facebook phone app if I wanted to have a co-host. This reduced the scope of awesome people available to share the screen with me. Finally Kevin directed me to Streamyard which solved numerous problems. After months of trying to figure out how to stream to Facebook (where my audience is) without having to use Facebook, Streamyard worked. For the first time after many months of trying, Aaron has finally co-hosted a show. A milestone! So yeah, I’m proud of myself and proud of the awesome friends who have co-hosted along the way. We made something here that is catching on with people. I owe Meat a huge debt for being the first co-host and coming up with the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten concept.
Look at the first stream below, and look where we are now. We’ve come a long way.
The list format returns! It’s another “Nigel Tufnel Top Ten”, and this time it’s a doozy. How do you narrow down the top albums from an entire country, and arrange them on a list? I dunno, but there are some of us that are going to try. Wish us luck.
How you get in on the mayhem? It’s easy. Just go to Facebook: MikeLeBrain on Friday August 14 at 7:00 pm E.S.T. There you can participate in the fun with your commentary, as we count down…
THE TOP 11 CANADIAN ALBUMS OF ALL TIME
No greatest hits; all genres permitted. A monster of a task indeed. Four lists have been submitted. Co–hosts have been booked. If all goes according to plan (which it should due to an hour-long test stream last week) we will have two of the most knowledgeable Canadian music fans on board for what promises to be an epic discussion.
mikeladano.com 