29 April, 2011

Uh... huh...

Sometimes you browse through the CD section of a store, and you notice things. I took pictures with my cell phone, but they came out crappy, so I had to consult the internet.

This shows how much I pay attention to other band's CDs, but the cover for the Kings Of Leon album, Aha Shake Heartbreak...



Looks an awful lot like...



A Night At The Opera. At the very least, it uses a similar font.

Although the cover for Escape The Fate's self-titled album...



Intentionally looks like...



Queen II.

In this interview, Max Green of ETF says "I wanted something that was bold and made a statement, but didn't want anything too flashy. I didn't want something that said "We are selling out, we signed to a major label," so this is what I came up with."

So... he went with the concept for Queen II (which, by the way... Wikipedia Mick Rock's just sayin'). I guess it was either that or Spinal Tap's Smell The Glove cover...

I tend to look down upon this shit because it, to me, shows a lack of creativity or effort. Not that I'm the most creative person on the planet, but I'd like to think I'm above taking iconic concepts from relatively recent popular culture and making them my own. But really, I guess I shouldn't expect too much from Escape The Fate. I haven't even heard of them until yesterday, but their lyrics are worse than the shit I used to write in school.

I've tried finding out more about the Kings Of Leon cover, but Google failed me.

25 April, 2011

Yay links!

I got asked to check out Queen Poland, which is a pretty excellent site from what I've seen so far. Check it out if you have the time. If nothing else, look at all the fantastic pictures!

If you would like me to check out and mention a Queen/Freddie-related site or blog here, or whatever - I would love and prefer an email (zander8605 at gmail dot com), rather than see the same comment on multiple posts. That's spam, kids. But I want you to get in touch with me! I don't have much going on so I will respond to you!

24 April, 2011

One for the kids

I suppose since Queen's music appeals to all ages I should make at least one child-friendly post.

Fun fact time! The voice of Mr Krabs from Spongebob Squarepants is none other than Clancy Brown who played The Kurgan in the film Highlander.

So the guy who voices a cartoon crab that sings this cute little ditty and has an unhealthy obsession with money...



Has also done this Oscar-worthy scene.



By the way, the priest at the end of that clip was played by a Rabbi. Anyway! Now when you're watching Spongebob and your friends giggle over how silly that Mr Krabs is with his frugal ways and breaking US labor laws, you can think of the film Highlander and how the voice of that crab is a fucking murderer/violent rapist... and then soften the blow of that harsh reality by thinking about the stellar use of Queen's music throughout that film. I'm pretty sure it would have failed really hard had Russell Mulcahy not recruited Queen to write some tracks.

Happy Easter, kids! I'm sure I'll be getting angry emails from your parents very soon!

20 April, 2011

19th anniversary of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert

19 years ago today there was what may arguably be one of the greatest concerts in history. And nine years ago, that greatness was commemorated with a poorly edited DVD with a great deal of footage taken out for what I can only assume are arbitrary reasons. Seriously, who honestly thought that people would only want the performances directly involving Queen?! I have to go on fucking Youtube if I want to see Extreme's Queen medley! It should be on the DVD with the rest of the concert, but no. Fuckers.

"Freddie Mercury was an incredibly innovative singer and frontman for the band. He was a very good friend of mine and it was my privelege to have known him for some of his life. He was very funny, extremely outrageous, very kind and he was a great musician, one of the great frontmen of rock'n'roll bands... Quite simply, he was one of the most important figures in rock'n'roll in the last twenty years. I will miss him, we will all miss him, for his music, his humanity...We will remember that Freddie Mercury was something special." - Elton John

"If I didn't have Freddie Mercury's words and lyrics to hold onto as a kid, I don't know where I'd be...I never really had a bigger teacher in my whole life." - Axl Rose

"We will all miss him a lot. Together with his band he made a great contribution to popular music." - David Bowie

"When we lost Freddie, we not only lost a great personality, a man with a great sense of humour, a true showman, but we lost probably the best. The best virtuoso rock 'n' roll singer of all time. He could sing anything in any style. He could change his style from line to line and, God, that's an art. And he was brilliant at it." - Roger Daltrey

"Every band should study Queen at Live Aid. If you really feel like that barrier is gone, you become Freddie Mercury. I consider him the greatest frontman of all time. Like, it's funny? you'd imagine that Freddie was more than human, but ... You know how he controlled Wembley Stadium at Live Aid in 1985? He stood up there and did his vocal warm ups with the audience. Something that intimate, where they realize, 'Oh yeah, he's just a fucking dude'." - Dave Grohl

16 April, 2011

Further proof that American Idol sucks

So I was doin' my thing, searching for Queen covers on Youtube, and suddenly here's this clip from Idol (Sweden) of this guy rocking the shit out of The Show Must Go On!

Maybe it's because I hate Ryan Seacrest, and it could very well also be how fucking creepy Steven Tyler is, but typically when a contestant on the American version of the show attempts a Queen song, I get super disappointed. Except by Adam Lambert. I love him. By the way, Kris Allen won that year (only because Fox(?) took issue with Adam making out with guys) but I haven't heard from him since then. And Adam Lambert is a big, flaming, perverted success! Fuck yeah!



Dear America, GET OVER IT! This is precisely why Queen lost their popularity in the US with I Want To Break Free and why conservatives today are losing their shit over a boy with painted pink toenails in a J Crew ad!

Anyway, I decided to see how Erik Grönwall's performance of The Show Must Go On compared to Carly Smithson's. Yeah, I like the Swedish guy a hell of a lot more. Jag bugar inför dig, o svenska kungar! (I originally typed in "Swedish Overlords," but Google translated that to "Swedish Gentlemen," so I switched it to "kings")

14 April, 2011

Traniwrock

In the Boston area there's a cabaret/burlesque show called Traniwreck. I've only been once, but it was a pretty good time. Since its inception, the word "tranny" is no longer acceptable as it's derogatory, even (especially) in trans-friendly spaces. But while I'm queer and really involved in my local LGBTQQIA et all communities, trans politics don't have much to do with Queen.

Anyway, there's a show tonight that I didn't have the energy for, but the promotional poster made me giggle with delight. I found it while walking with a friend in Somerville.



As an added bonus, here's a video of a performance by Johnny Blazes (who's a regular performer at Traniwreck) and M Hanora on September 4, 2008.

12 April, 2011

Indecision

I'm not sure how I feel about Electric 6's cover of Radio Ga Ga. I'm not sure I've ever felt purely ambivalent about a Queen cover before. You know that thing, "if a tree falls in the woods and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound" and how that's supposed to clear your head, or blow your mind or some shit? That's what this cover is doing to me right now.

I think I should mull it over by listening to Gay Bar for a while. Or Dance Commander. Or the Live Aid version of Radio Ga Ga.





Ah, that's better.

This is probably one of those things where I just need to take a couple days before I officially decide how I feel.

10 April, 2011

Poetry and art and stuff

I got an email this morning from Eminor Publishing telling me about a collection of poems and art called Thomas Kent - An Art Book by Eliza Witte. It's dedicated to Freddie, which I'm assuming is the reason it was emailed to me, and the cover of the book is the door to the gate of Garden Lodge. From what few pieces I've seen on Amazon, it looks pretty fantastic.

Although I must say that my favorite poet is Rachel K Zall. For real. Check her out. When she's not being a kickass poet, she's being a kickass advocate for the Boston trans community. And she also got me into The Mountain Goats!

Support the (good) arts! If you don't, you get shit like:



and this fucking awful mess!

I very strongly encourage folks to email me anything they think I'd be interested in (it's a really wide range, try me!) or if you might want to discuss stuff one-on-one, etc. Despite how I may come across, I'm really nice and enjoy interacting with people - especially other Queen fans!

07 April, 2011

Bands these days have it easy

I caught the video for ET by Katy Perry, featuring Kanye West and it got me thinking. First of all, I don't have a totally solid opinion about Katy Perry, but I fucking hate Kanye (I realize this article I've linked to is from 2008, but still. Also, I don't condone the use of the word "douchebag"). Anyway, my brain immediately went to the video for Under Pressure because it was said at the time that Queen and David Bowie were too busy to make a "proper" video for the track. I'm not saying anything bad about Katy Perry and Kanye West having time to do shit, I'm just noticing that it's probably really bad form if they didn't make a video.

This also got me thinking about when I first heard Evanescence in high school and I was super pissed and resentful toward them because I have my own Bastard Queen Fan moments and I was a moody teenager at the time. It seemed like their debut album got tons of attention and promotion, and their first music video got attention and a big budget. Keep Yourself Alive had fucking stock footage! It felt like musicians (I'm going to keep it simple and not split hairs) of my generation seemed to get a pretty hefty leg-up right away (seriously, who the fuck decided to sign Ke$ha?!) whereas Queen had to bust their asses off for four years before they even started making money and becoming successful.

And you know, I wasn't there at the start of Queen's career, so maybe there was tireless promotion from the start, and maybe they were noticed right away. I'm probably talking out of my ass. Except those parts about Ke$ha and Kanye West. Although there's another point that I've always wanted to make, but I could never find the words, and then Cracked.com beat me to it. See #1 on this link which conveniently sums up my thoughts precisely. Only the writers of Cracked do a lot of research, where I just do a quick search on Google and have my head up my ass.

05 April, 2011

Believe me, life goes on and on and...

I just read today that News Of The World, Jazz, The Game, Flash Gordon and Hot Space are being re-released in the UK and Europe on June 13th this year. My guess is they'll be re-released in North America sometime in August.

For the past three days I've been listening to In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited on repeat. I'm not sure what that's about but I seem to be noticing the instrumental parts for the first time, particularly the guitar bits.

If you can read tabs, you can see that it's pretty simple to play (unless, like me, you have coordination issues). It just goes to show, being a brilliant musician doesn't mean you have to always make shit painfully complicated. But yes, I enjoy rediscovering songs I already loved!

01 April, 2011

Moral of the story: Don't piss off Roger Taylor



--

"Queen On 'Rolling Stone'
Stunned, shocked, amazed and asleep upon perusal of your "in-depth" story of Queen in South America ("Queen Holds Court in South America," RS 345). I am a member of said group and extremely fucking proud of its music (not all) and its achievements. I don't even write to my mother, since the written word seems worth less in this day of the telephone and publications such as yours and the National Enquirer.
Your peculiar 1970-time-warp attitude, coupled with an innate, congenital miscomprehension of rock & roll, continues to fascinate and annoy. Thank you, oh thank you, for the pseudopolitical slant and personal dishonesty that you continue to peddle in your outdated, opinionated, down-home rag.
Thanks also for the finely tuned musical assessment of my group from our sound check! Grow up. You invented the bitterness. I pity you. You suck. You are boring and you try to infect us.
Awaiting your charming review of my current album in about eight months!

Roger Taylor
London, England

This letter was written on an airline motion-sickness bag. - Ed.

--

I read this a long time ago, but it's still one of my favorite things in the whole world.