Too Old To Rock'n'Roll, Too Young To Die

No, not the Jethro Tull album (1976).  Ironically, Ian Anderson is still touring today.  So much for that. 

My topic comes up due to Judas Priest replacing Glenn Tipton with Andy Sneap on its current Firepower tour of the US.

Glenn Tipton has Parkinson’s Disease and has had to stop touring (though he did play the most recent JP show…).  There’s some dispute as to whether he’s in the band or not.  My understanding is he’s become like Brian Wilson in the Pet Sounds and later era Beach Boys), contributing in the studio but with a live replacement for the tour.

For the upcoming tour, he’s been replaced by Andy Sneap, much to the annoyance of K.K. Downing (second from left above), who quit several years earlier (2011) and resented not being asked to fill Tipton’s shoes.  This has opened a whole can of worms.  As I understand it, Tipton actually wrote and played on this album, along with Downing’s replacement (and youthful lookalike) Ritchie Faulkner.  As noted, Downing QUIT the band several years earlier, and my impression is that it was under bad terms but everyone concerned kept their mouths shut out of mutual respect and tactfulness.  It was NOT because Downing was too old to tour and had to retire for health reasons, the usual excuse these days.  But when the Tipton/Sneap deal emerged, Downing felt no longer compelled to hold his tongue.  As I said, a can of worms.  One thing is certain:  Sneap, not Downing, has replaced Tipton on the current tour.  We’ll see how well he does and IF Downing can repair any damage.

Judas Priest (Black Star Riders, Saxon), at Anthem, DC.  This is a brand new music venue in Washington DC, on a newly developed pier/wharf district just southeast of 395 and the 14 Street Bridge.  It opened last fall with the Foo Fighters being the first act to play here.  In terms of format it’s a bit like a larger version of the 9:30 Club:  big floor/standing room with seats up on the edges.   The original 9:30 Club at 930 F Street (1980-1996) had a capacity of 200 standing, probably a minority of that standing room actually anywhere near the stage. We saw Faith No More (The Real Thing tour), Hawkwind, Nik Turner’s Hawkwind, and Type O Negative (headlining) (RIP Peter Steele) at this venue.  The new version, at 815 V Street, is much larger: 500-1200, most being floor standing room (except Steven Wilson’s show, which was floor seated), with some upper level sitting areas.  This new venue is much larger: 2500-6000. 

The Black Star Riders went on first, and I immediately recognized Scott Gorham, former Thin Lizzy guitarist, at stage right playing – you guessed it – a Les Paul through Marshalls.  Only one TL track: “Jailbreak”.  Although Gary Moore is deceased, classic Lizzy guitarist Brian Robertson is still alive and playing music.  If anyone knows why he hasn’t played with Gorham in decades please let me know.

They were followed by Saxon, who still have Biff singing and Paul Quinn on guitar, plus Nigel Glockler on drums.  “Heavy Metal Thunder” closed the set.  Thank you.  We’d first seen Saxon back in Paris in the 80s on the Innocence is No Excuse tour.  Along with Iron Maiden and Def Leppard, Saxon are one of the few surviving bands from the so-called New Wave of British Heavy Metal which emerged in England around ’79-81, after the punk movement finally lost steam.  Whereas Def Leppard morphed into a pop band with Hysteria, and Iron Maiden developed their sound without straying too far from their NWOBHM roots, Saxon has been by far the most faithful of the three in trying to remain true to their roots of 1980.  Fortunately we’ve seen them a few times in the past, mostly as headliners in smaller clubs, and they were always honest and high energy.  My brother even got his picture taken wiff Bith. 

And then… The Priest came on, and it was sad seeing two relative unknowns on guitar:  Ritchie Faulkner replacing K.K. Downing, even down to the long blond hair and Flying V; and as noted above, now Andy Sneap on a Gibson Explorer (or clone) (similar to mine before I swapped in EMG81s and a mirror pickguard).   Faulkner joined the band in 2011 and is on Redeemer of Souls (second newest album), Firepower (newest, freshly released album), and the live video Epitaph, which I have on DVD.  Our last JP show was in 2009 at Merriweather, the tour when they played British Steel in its entirety, so this was our first time seeing them live with Faulkner.   Sneap did a fair job of replacing Tipton.  Ian Hill (bass) and Scott Travis (drums) were as solid as ever.  “Painkiller” made it into the set, apparently the band’s most popular late-model song, but I never cared for it.  “Saints In Hell”, a song I much prefer, also made it, for the first time ever since its original release on Stained Class all those years ago (1978); “Beyond the Realms of Death” is my favorite from that album, and fortunately we’ve seen them play it on prior tours, just not this one.   For me the top song of this set was “The Ripper”, but my prayers to have Sad Wings of Destiny played in its entirety instead of British Steel have fallen on deaf ears.  On Epitaph they did play “Never Satisfied”, from Rocka Rolla.  Fingers crossed for “Run of the Mill”. 

Overall set:  Firepower (new); Running Wild; Grinder; Sinner (!); The Ripper (!!!); Lightning Strike (new); Bloodstone; Saints In Hell; Turbo Lover; Angel; Evil Never Dies (new); Some Heads Are Gonna Roll; Breaking The What?; Hell Bent For Leather; Painkiller (zzz); Encore: Hellion/Eclectic Eye; Metal Gods; You’ve Got Another Item On Its Way; Living After Midnight.  Nothing at all from Rocka Rolla, Point of Entry or Ram It Down. 

Ironically, with Halford replacing original singer Alan Atkins (far right in the picture above) ages ago (before the first album was even released) this makes bassist Ian Hill (far left) the only remaining original member left, similar to Deep Purple, Ian Paice being the only member to serve in all lineups from 1968 (Mark I, Shades of Deep Purple) to the present. 

To go a step further, the current touring lineup of Foreigner has NO original members left, though guitarist Mick Jones (getting too old to tour) has played with the lineup in the past and has apparently given his blessing to this one.  I don’t know where singer Lou Gramm is these days.  The Eagles are down to Don Henley, although Don Felder is alive and active (touring separately as he doesn’t get along with Don Henley), and Joe Walsh still tours with them.  Blackfoot is touring without Ricky Medlocke, himself in Lynyrd Skynyrd which only has Gary Rossington left.  Wishbone Ash only has Andy Powell, but that’s because he won’t let Martin Turner into the band.  Ted Turner and Steve Upton are retired.  I don’t know if their absence is because Powell insists on keeping the profits to himself and touring with paid musicians, or whether Ted and Steve would rejoin even if Andy asked nicely and agreed to share $ with them on acceptable terms.   [Mind you, Rick Wright was demoted to paid musician on The Wall tour, but since that tour lost money, he was the only member of Pink Floyd to actually make money on that tour.] 

All these bands are getting old and losing their original members, leading some fans to accuse the current lineups of being little more than officially sanctioned tribute bands.  This is nothing new, though:  the Marshall Tucker Band lost Toy Caldwell ages ago (1993), and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band (SAHB) actually toured without Alex Harvey after his death.  

The fans seem to be split on this.  One segment refuses to see a band under these circumstances, no matter how well the band actually plays on stage; the other segment is willing to see the band IF the replacement members do a respectable job and know their places.  I took a chance and saw Wishbone Ash back in 2002 despite Andy Powell (as noted above) being the only original member, and I’m glad I did.  The rest of the band is competent and they play all the classic songs well.  Holding out for the return of both Turners and Upton means missing some good shows. 

Van Halen recently got David Lee Roth back, but bassist Michael Anthony was not invited back even though he was ready & willing to do so.  I suspect Eddie was paying his son Wolfgang nowhere close to the cut Anthony would be justified in asking for, so it’s money above all.  Having said that, we saw the show with Roth and he was fine.  Then again, we had never seen them play earlier with him (1984 and earlier tours) so the only comparison we had were the OU812 and F.U.C.K. tours with Sammy Hagar. 

Hell, there were people bitching that Tommy Clufetos was touring with Black Sabbath instead of Bill Ward on this final farewell tour.  But Ward has NEVER been consistent since 1978, dropping off tours as early as Mob Rules and Born Again, and only showing up again briefly in 1999.  Expecting him to tour now is downright idiotic, as is a boycott of a tour with Clufetos on drums.  

Finally, the big NO NO here was the infamous Deep Purple tour of 1980.  Rod Evans was the only original member left.  The Mark IV lineup had broken up back in 1976 and the other members were scattered through other bands like Rainbow and Whitesnake; fellow Mark I veteran, bassist Nick Simper, wisely refused to join this fiasco.  Yet they claimed to be Deep Purple and played Mark II and III material as it was their own.  Surely a distinction can be made between this blatant ripoff and an older band trying to bring music to the fans with as many original members as can reasonably get up on stage and play. 

One more thing I’d like to point out.  Not only musicians, but us fans as well are getting older and dying, whereas some fans are younger and had no opportunity to see the band play decades ago with its classic lineup intact.  For the latter group, the current lineup is the only option.   If you’ve seen the band play back in the day and don’t want to waste your money on what you consider a glorified tribute band, save your money and stay home.  As for me, intent on seeing the band in as many different lineups as possible, regardless of how many past shows I’ve seen, I’ll spend the money and see the show and won’t bitch that so & so is too old to tour, is dead, doesn’t get along with the rest of the band, or for whatever reason, good or bad, isn’t on the tour.  And I’ll enjoy sitting in the seat you might have taken if you weren’t staying home.  We all win.

Roommates

As I’ve probably mentioned countless times already, I went to college at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP).  I couldn’t get into West Point, and with my GPA and SAT scores, plus my parents being from Maryland, I was guaranteed admission and in-state tuition at Maryland’s state university.  Moreover, the College Park (main/flagship) campus is huge, beautiful, and conveniently located just outside of DC and close by to Gaithersburg, where I grew up.  Though I had really wanted to go to West Point, I wasn’t too disappointed to be going to UMCP.   I didn’t want a small campus in the middle of nowhere, nor a city campus like Boston University or George Washington University.  UMCP gets on screen for “National Treasure” (Cage’s character consults an expert on campus) and “St Elmo’s Fire” (Frat Row for Rob Lowe’s character). 

Unless you either avoid college or spend it commuting from home, you’ll probably spend it with roommates.  Freshmen start out with doubles, working their way to a single by senior year.  My friends Phil and Baron even went off-campus, which changes the picture slightly.   With my parents overseas all four years of my journey at UMCP, commuting from home was not an option (though my brother still stayed on campus his senior year even with my family back in Gaithersburg by then) and my father deemed living off campus not worth the hassle of giving up the convenient ability to walk to class.  Anyhow.

I’ll use first names, adding last initials if necessary to distinguish parties with the same first name.  The high rise dorms were named after Maryland county seats, e.g. Hagerstown, Bel Air, Ellicott, (though I’ve yet to see a Rockville Hall), whereas the low rise dorms were named after counties in Maryland.   In a double you share the room with a roommate, whereas a single you have to yourself.   Depending on the circumstances, you might have a double to yourself (see below). 

With one major exception, all my experience with roommates was bad.  Part of the college experience is having to learn how to deal with unpleasant people you don’t like, total strangers who you have to live with.  It’s not on the syllabus but it’s part of what college inevitably teaches you, one “benefit” of living on campus.  Just like how to drink irresponsibly. 

Freshman Year (F86/S87).  Hagerstown Hall (high rise) (double).  Mike P., from Mount Airey, Maryland, my only good roommate for those whole four years.   We got along fine.  During the spring semester he was gone substantially due to chemotherapy.   Since he’s still alive today, and friends on Facebook, I’d say he kicked cancer.   We caught the Jimmy Page concert at the Cap Center in 1988.

Sophomore Year (F87/S88). Talbot Hall (low rise, renovated) (double).   Fall:  Greg.  Spring:  Mike B.   Greg wasn’t too bad, but he did get into a fight with my best friend Phil after a party we threw in our suite.  He transferred to Towson State, north of Baltimore; I believe he was from that area.   Mike B. came in from Denton Hall, a high school buddy of Chip & Woody from Hagerstown.  He was a major league asshole, and got kicked out of the dorm system before Spring Break for a prank he pulled in Denton.  He successfully got into Kappa Alpha fraternity and into their house, later getting Woody and others into KA as well.  Because he was kicked out mid-semester, Mike B. was not replaced for that period and I had the room to myself for the remainder of the semester. 

The minor irony here is that these assclowns were all from Hagerstown, Maryland, yet none of them were living in Hagerstown Hall, where I had been for my freshman year.  Years later I had a few court cases in Washington County, Maryland, of which Hagerstown is the county seat.  So I eventually got to see this small, unimpressive town 30 minutes west of Frederick, the latter being the second largest city in Maryland after the big one, Baltimore.  Oh, and my dad died in the hospital in Hagerstown in December 2004.  Life has a strange sense of humor. 

Junior Year (F88/S89).  Talbot Hall (Fall)/Montgomery Hall (low rise, renovated) (spring).   Fall:  Eric S.  Spring:  John.  Not learning my lesson with Mike B., I pulled in Eric S., another of Woody’s Hagerstown comrades.   Eric S. was just as much an asshole as Mike B.   I wound up moving to Montgomery Hall (finally in the dorm named for the county I was actually from!) for the spring semester, only to get another asshole roommate, John, who racked up $300 phone bill arguing with his GF Mary back in northeastern MD.  His parents finally paid the bill for him that summer after his incessant promises to pay were all bullshit.  By the way, I found out the hard way that Maryland, though not a particularly large state by American standards, is large enough that some parts of it qualify for long distance calling rates.  The more you know…

Senior Year (F89/S90).  Montgomery Hall.   A SINGLE.   The guys in the suite next door, with whom I got along fine (see below) let me know that the guy in their big single, Eric T., would not be coming back in fall, making that room available.  Thanks to them, and a letter to Resident Life, I got it.   Not only that, it was a big single.  Fortunately, Gene, who had the small single, didn’t voice any objection.   Finally I had a decent living situation.

Due to judicious scheduling and course choice, I managed to complete 156 credits and two separate degrees, a BA in Government & Politics and a BS in General Business, in 4 years, though it took a full summer with two sessions (4 classes) between sophomore and junior years, and a half session (2 classes – COBOL and Money & Banking, dead end classes which weren’t prerequites for any other classes).  This allowed me to start law school at George Mason University (now the Antonin Scalia School of Law) in the fall of 1990. 

All summer housing was in New Leonardtown, an apartment complex on the other side of Route 1 back behind Frat Row.  Apparently New Leonardtown was easily able to accommodate all the summer students, as the units were half empty during this time.  These had kitchens.  My buddies Dave B. and Ken were living in Old Leonardtown our senior year, an older set of apartments right next to New Leonardtown, so I spent considerable time hanging out with them there. 

Summer ’88.   A single in New Leonardtown for both sessions, from after Memorial Day to the middle of August, and I finished up the summer with my family up in New York City for the end of August.  Jeff & Dave F. (Diamondback photographer) were in one double, the other single and double being empty.  Dave F. articulated the clever and plausible theory that New Coke was Coke’s way of switching from sugar to high fructose corn syrup in Classic Coke without anyone noticing.  Well, aside from those of us like my brother who can taste the difference and make it a point to buy Mexican Coke, which has sugar.  

My brother actually came down from NYC and stayed with me in the suite for much of the summer.  This was also the summer I got my first car, a 1984 Chevrolet Cavalier, which served us well until 1991.  It was a great summer for concerts:  Pink Floyd, Van Halen Monsters of Rock (Metallica, Dokken, Scorpions, Van Halen) at RFK, Iron Maiden & Judas Priest at the Cap Center, and AC/DC at Madison Square Garden.   

Summer ’90.   A double to myself in new Leonardtown.  I can’t recall who else might have been in the suite, and I was only in it for the first session, going back to Paris in mid-July.  That ended my stay at University of Maryland, College Park. 

Suitemates.   The high rises are all doubles and singles.  In the newly renovated low rises, they had suites without kitchens and either three doubles (Talbot Hall) or two doubles and two singles (Montgomery Hall).  So the suitemates are those in the same suite but not the same room. 

Talbot Hall:  Woody & Chip, Bill D. & Scott, then Chris.   Scott was not an issue, though he moved out, replaced by Chris.  I got along with him even though he didn’t actually like me.  Same deal with Chip & Woody, both from Hagerstown.  I had met Woody at Freshman Orientation and been friends with him during freshman year.  It was a coincidence that I wound up moving to a suite in Talbot Hall that he and Chip also moved into.  Bill D was not a problem either, and he was a former roommate of my buddy Dave.   Bill, Dave & I are still friends today, though I haven’t met Bill since college. 

Montgomery Hall.   Senior year:  Marcus & Jay, AJ & Bill M; Gene in the small single.  Except for Gene, they were all Theta Chi brothers.  Jay actually brought me to a 2 a.m. party at Theta Chi.  Had I not been a senior I might have considered rushing Theta Chi, as I actually got along very well with them. 

Other Roommates.  My best friend Phil was on campus at George Mason University for his first two years, and for much of that time his roommate was a Costa Rican guy, Victor.  They got along fine and even wound up living in a house in Centreville with Victor’s fellow Costa Rican, Mariano.  Baron had a roommate for his first year, in Wicomico Hall, before getting a single in the same dorm the next year and then moving off campus for junior and senior year.  While he was living in Bel Air Hall at the beginning of his college experience, my brother Matt had a roommate, Dave K., from somewhere northwest of Baltimore.  He got along fine with Dave K., later getting a single in Montgomery Hall.  So of all of us, I had by far the worst roommate experience.  

Ulysses vs. Jason & The Argonauts

Recently I watched the 1594 Kirk Douglas film, “Ulysses”, which is about the famous Greek hero of the Trojan War.   Thankfully it was shorter than “Spartacus” and easier to tolerate.

Basic story.   A long time ago, Greece and Troy were at war.   Troy was a big city in what is now called Turkey, in the far northwest corner, now known as Hisarlik, close to Canakkale.  It had HUGE walls (huge, I tell you, no one has bigger walls, they were fabulous – we totally got Mexico to pay for them) which the Greeks couldn’t deal with.  So our good friend Ulysses (also known as Odysseus) came up with the brilliant idea of leaving a huge wooden horse behind as a “whatever, we lost” gift.   Like idiots, the Trojans opened their gates, pulled in the horse, and at night the Greek soldiers hidden inside got out, opened the city walls, and let their comrades in to sack and destroy the city.  Game over for Troy.

However, in doing so, Ulysses pissed off Poseidon, aka Neptune, the god of the sea, and so he had a bit of trouble getting home to Ithaca (an island off the west coast of Greece), to his wife Penelope and his now-grown son Telemachus.  His major problems were (A) cyclops (one-eyed giant) who trapped him and his crew in a cave, (B) Sirens who sing, and (C) the sorceress Circe, who turned his crew into pigs.   Ulysses was able to overcome all of these, though it took him 10  years – on top of the 10 years the Trojan War lasted – to finally get home.  His wife was VERY patient.

Finally at home, he had to rescue his wife from a crew of horny suitors trying to replace him.  He did so firing an arrow through a row of axeheads.   Happy ever after.  Aside from Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn is in here as the most arrogant and capable competing suitor. 

Ulysses is not to be confused with another famous Greek mythological hero, Jason, as in “Jason & the Golden Fleece” and the Ray Harryhausen film, “Jason & the Argonauts”.  This stop-action animation film from 1963 is cited by Tom Hanks as his favorite film. 

Jason was a Greek hero who had a ship called the Argo, staffed by his crew of Argonauts.  His goal was to get a Golden Fleece (golden sheep skin) guarded by the Hydra (multi-headed dragon).  Jason also (A) fights huge golem Talon, (B) rescues blind dude harassed by harpies, (C) gets through the crashing rocks, (D) fights skeleton warriors raised from dragon teeth, and (E) hooks up with sorceress Medea.   It seems there was a cyclops in this film too.

Both had a quest, made more difficult by monsters and magic, and both aided and opposed by the gods and goddesses.  The Jason movie had far more special effects, thanks to Harryhausen, though there was plenty of magic in “Ulysses”.  Oddly, the same actress, Silvana Mangano, played both Penelope and Circe.  Both are worth watching and enjoying, particularly if you’re a fan of Greek mythology.