Another short Phone it in Friday: YouTube Roundup for you, dear readers. I’ve largely recovered from my bout of food poisoning, but I’m still struggling with the fatigue that comes with retching violently for hours on end.
Instead, here’s some vocal retching for your aural enjoyment—my brief cover of a classic from Dio-era Black Sabbath:
Yours portly is on his way back from a family trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, where I very likely rode The Mummy, an exceptional indoor rollercoaster based on the 1999 film of the same name.
As such, it seemed appropriate to feature the first track from Spooky Season III, “Heavy Metal Mummy“; it’s a really fun jam to kick off the album, and I particularly love the spaghetti Western vibe it has, especially in the B section of the piece.
There won’t be many animated films on my list—I don’t think!—but this week’s selection is the major exception. If you like sword and sorcery, low fantasy carnage, outrageous science fiction, and classic hard rock, you’ll love 1981’s animated anthology Heavy Metal.
Heavy Metal is one of those flicks that won’t appeal to everyone, but it’s one that I find myself returning to routinely for repeat viewings. I’ve always been a sucker for anthologies, and while some of the stories are a bit uneven, the effect of the whole is a colorful, musical ride through a fantastical, dark, humorous worlds.
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Last week I rode up to Silverado’s in Black Mountain, North Carolina, with my younger brother and his wife to hear Swedish neoclassical metal guitar god Yngwie Malmsteen.
Boy, it was an amazing concert. He even played some Mozart! Yngwie also played one of my personal favorites, “Albinoni’s Adagio“:
It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a full-fledged rock ‘n’ roll concert, and Yngwie delivered for a solid ninety minutes of neoclassical decadence.
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Last week I celebrated MAGAWeek2022, my annual observance honoring the people, places, things, events, concepts, etc., that have, in their own ways, made America great (again).
For this extremely lazy edition of Lazy Sunday, here are the four entries from this year’s illustrious list of greats:
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
Here’s hoping everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. I’m pretty sure my foot is broken, but I’m hoping to see an orthopedist this week. I’m also borrowing an orthopedic boot from my mom, who had foot surgery back in January. The boot works pretty well, and makes me feel like a cyborg—a low-rent, non-threatening RoboCop (1987). I’ll keep y’all updated, but I think I am going to be fine.
Speaking of mild tragedies, my #9 pick for my list of my Top Ten Worst Films is 1984’s Rocktober Blood, a visually low-quality, goofy film with great songs.
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This past week I hosted the first of two summer camps I’m putting on in June. Next week is the ubiquitous, ever-popular Minecraft Camp, but this week saw the first inaugural Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp at my little school.
I’m not sure why I didn’t conceive of this idea sooner. It’s not an original one, as rock ‘n’ roll fantasy camps have been around for awhile. I’m not Ted Nugent teaching middle-aged yuppies how to play “Stranglehold” in the woods, but porting that concept to rockin’ out with kids is not difficult to do.
But last summer my headmaster kept forwarding me e-mails from a local country club, which was itself hosting a summer rock camp. He did not include any commentary or suggestions along the lines of “you should do this camp,” but I got the message. So when it came time to put together our summer camp catalogue, I tossed Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp into the mix.
My headmaster’s implied suggestion was a good one: the camp was really wonderful. Indeed, it exceeded my expectations, in large part because of the small but talented group of campers who attended. We only had three kids sign up this year, but I’ve had semester-long ensemble classes with that few students, so I knew we could make some musical magic even with a small group. Indeed, we had the perfect number for a classic garage rock band: four (including myself).
Here’s some of the details about the camp—how long it lasted, a breakdown of our days, and the songs we played. Hopefully it will provide a useful blueprint for other music educators looking to host their own camps.
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Another week is dawning, and it’s time to look at the sun setting on some excellent individuals. 2020 was a rough year for many reasons, not least because of the deaths it brought. Here’s hoping this week’s titans are resting in the arms of Jesus:
That’s it for another macabre edition of Lazy Sunday. Happier retrospectives to come in March.
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
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I’m out of town for a few days, so I’m resorting to something I rarely do: a week in review post. Some bloggers feature these weekly, such as my blogger buddy Mogadishu Matt. I sort of did one back with “Lazy Sunday LVIII: Spring Break Short Story Recommendations Recap,” but that was more a review of a week-long series of posts, not a review, per se, of the week itself.
Ah, well. That’s just nit-picking. Here’s what I wrote about this past week:
That’s it for this edition of Phone it in Friday. Here’s hoping I wrote some material good enough that you don’t mind reading it (and reading about it) again.
Happy Friday!
—TPP
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It is with a heavy heart that we bid a fond farewell to the Mozart of our time, Eddie Van Halen. Van Halen passed away after a lengthy struggle with lung cancer. He is survived by his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, and his son, Wolfgang Van Halen, who joined the band as its bassist in 2006.
Van Halen was truly one of the guitar greats of the twentieth century, the second half of which witnessed the rise of many guitar heroes to the pinnacles of superstardom, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s.
But Van Halen’s licks didn’t stop with memorable riffs. He could play neoclassical passages with ease, weaving them into songs about partying and and lusting after one’s teacher. Learning his signature solo, “Eruption,” became a rite of passage for budding guitarists in the 1980s and beyond. Van Halen also dominated on the keyboards—much to the chagrin of perennial showman David Lee Roth—as is clear from the entire album 1984, one of the best albums of all time. Who can resist jumping when hearing the opening strains of “Jump“?
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