Wow, almost an entire Monday without an update. Well, I assure you I have a very good excuse. The fact is that I started a new/old job today. I went back to work for my old employer in a new position. First day on the job “The Man” had me bustin’ my ass for 10 hours.

With that said, there is also this to say: May 31st will be my last day with Metal Martyr. It’s been a fun [almost] two years of bitching, ranting, misspellings, grammar butchering, hatred, (sometimes senseless) negativity and most important of all interacting with readers both seldom and avid. You guys kick ass and it’s been a pleasure. Between now and then I’ll try to update as often as time allows. The contest is still on and I’ll still announce it on my way out the door. Now, with all that said, here’s a few key things happening in metal today.

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I have to admit, in the past there have been bands that made me want to shoot myself in the face with a shotgun. It was probably for the fact that they annoyed me to a great extent and not because I was a fan and they told me to do it in some secret message.

As we all know, many metal bands get blamed for kids doing ridiculously stupid things, like killing others and themselves. So let’s look at probably one of the dumbest survivors of a metal-induced suicide. How do you try to commit suicide with a shotgun and fail. Kurt Cobain did it while completely O.D.’ing on a shit-load of heroine (debatable). I was reminded of this by whiplashwhiplashwhiplash.com, another metal blog featuring Mike Conte from Early Man and a few others that are probably just as important. It’s a cool blog to read. BTW, grab some popcorn, this one is almost an hour long.

Let’s be honest. No matter how much you try to be open minded, the first thing that comes to mind when you hear that Rob Halford is launching a clothing line, you might think of Gay Biker clothes. It’s hard not to because no matter how much you like the guy and Judas Priest, there is always that thought looming in the back of your mind after he came out of the closet. I don’t think of Rob Halford as “That gay dude that sings for Judas Priest”, but that’s always going to be an issue when his name is mentioned. Sadly, we all have that little bit of ignorance in the back of out minds and for people that are not fans, that is how they think of him.

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As you may know, Judas Priest are coming for a North America tour…with Whitesnake. While they tour they will be playing the British Steel album in it entirety to celebrate it’s 30th anniversary. British Steel actually didn’t come out until April of 1980, but it seems a few bands are celebrating certain anniversaries a bit early. Mayeb it came out earlier in the UK, I really couldn’t tell you. The confirmed tour dates seem to hug the west coat while the south east gets reamed out of seeing Priest. Unless more dates are announced.

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Painkiller is one of my favorite Judas Priest songs and Death’s last album, The Sound Of Perseverance is an under-rated album by the band. No one can sing a Judas Priest song like Rob Halford but Ripper Owens did a fair job during his time. The late Chuck Schuldiner did his best to wail and scream like Halford in this cover of Judas Priest’s Painkiller. Enjoy.

Classic Rock Magazine recently interviewed Glen Tipton of Judas Priest. The subject of some of the questions were Rob’s voice, criticism of Nostradamus and the decision of touring with Megadeth And Testament on Priest Feast. You can read the entire interview HERE, but here is my take on these three questions:

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It’s that time of the year again and the Grammy Nominees for Hard Rock/Metal categories are out and I hope you weren’t expecting anything great. The usual “Big Names” get thrown in the mix just because of their names and history. Nothing groundbreaking here in my opinion.

Best Hard Rock Performance

• Inside the fire: Disturbed
• Visions: Judas Priest
• Wax Simulacra: The Mars Voltra
• Saints Of Los Angeles: Motley Crue
• Lords Of Salem: Rob Zombie

My pick for this category would be Judas Priest simply for the reason that this is a great song and everything else on this list is bovine excrement.

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Rob Halford has had a couple of other post-Priest ventures in metal to include Fight, a band he formed shortly after his departure from Judas Priest and Halford. While I used to dig Fight back in the day, Halford never quite settled well with me. It just didn’t have the same thing that Judas Priest and Fight had.

You can download the “Christmas Ride” mp3 from Halfordmusic.com. Follow that link and click on “Add to cart”. When you get to the next page click “Proceed to checkout”. After that you may have to sign up for a new customer account to complete the download.

Image Source: Halfordmusic.com

If you have the means, always take time to check through pawn shops for little treasures like this. I stopped at a small, new pawn shop last night and saw that they had a load of vinyl on a shelf. I started to go through it, not expecting to find anything good because you rarely find any good vinyl in pawn or thrift shops down in the south. I was actually surprised to find as much as I did. This was the best thing I found and it’s in great condition. 26 years old and this record is still in great condition. They had a bunch more I could have gone through but my wife was out in the car waiting for me and it wasn’t in the best part of town. Sometimes you never know what you’re going to find when you visit pawn shops and sometimes it a diamond in the rough that everyone else is overlooking.

Image source:©metalmartyr.com

Ah, to be a teenager again and not have a care in the world. Except maybe what your parents are going to do to you for getting suspended for smoking on school grounds. Or maybe where you’re going to get gas money to get back and fourth from work after school for the rest of the week, after you blew your paycheck on CD’s/Tapes and cigarettes/pot or whatever. Back when a cd didn’t cost much more than 15 bucks, cigarettes were about $1.70 a pack, gas wasn’t much more than a buck a gallon and a dime-bag was a decent amount of weed. Those were the days. But the times have changed, prices for any one of those is much higher and you grow out of certain things…but the videos remain.

Bet you though I forgot about this new feature again like I did last week. Hell you probably forgot about it too. I’m reaching back into some old school metal here. Everything pre-1994. I’m sure you’ve probably seen them all or at least heard the songs, but their still fun to watch, especially the cheesy Holy Wars video. Enjoy.

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