Category: Music

Paul Di’Anno

We got some sad news from the land of British Heavy Metal from the 1980’s. Paul Di’Anno passed away.

Paul Di’Anno was the original singer in Iron Maiden. Well… original? Not sure, but he’s the singer on their first two records and their original demo and all that good stuff. He was either fired or quit or maybe a little bit of both in about 1982 or so, I think. He was replaced by Bruce Dickinson who quickly became a legend and the band exploded in a huge way after he was gone. I’ve heard the story from a bunch of different vantage points and they all are different enough that I don’t really know what happened. All I know is they were pretty big before he left and huge after.

Di’Anno was in a slew of bands after leaving Maiden. None of them were anywhere near as big, but he seems to have pretty much always been working. I think there was some jail time in his past somewhere too, and in recent years he had a bunch of health issues. He seemed to reconnect with some of his old band mates in recent years and everyone seemed happy to be in touch with him again.

At this point I will do what I always do when a public figure dies. I will make it all about me. Sorry for the narcissism.

I first heard Iron Maiden when I was in Junior High School. In seventh grade our bus driver, at the request of one of the eighth graders, would play The Number of the Beast album during our bus rides. He only ever played side two and we only ever heard the title song and Run to the Hills, but he played the cassette almost every day. It wasn’t for me. Ironically, it was Bruce Dickinson’s voice that really turned me off. I eventually came around, but at that time I was not digging the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Sorry.

Fast forward to my senior year in high school. All of my friends… all of them (I think)… were Maiden fans. I was the odd man out. Once in a while someone would force me to listen to something, and it was the then-current release, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, that almost brought me into the fold. It’s basically a prog-rock record disguised as metal. It wasn’t bad. I didn’t hate it, but as with Number of the Beast, it just wasn’t for me. Close, but not quite.

Not long after that, my soon to be college roommate Larry took one more shot. He told me that the very first Iron Maiden record had a different singer and the sound was much more raw. He put the album on and that was it. It was less grand and (dare I say it) operatic and more… punk? I think the band used to get pissed when people said they were punk-ish, but that’s what I was hearing… and that’s what I was liking. What sold me on that album was two things, really. The lack of production value (ironic since I was about to go to college to study audio engineering) and the singer. Paul Di’Anno. Bruce Dickinson is better in literally every measurable way, but I will go to the end of my days preferring Paul Di’Anno. It’s not you, Bruce, it’s me.

I devoured that first album. Then I checked out the second album, Killers. The production values went way up and the energy changed. I really liked it, but not in the same way as the first album. I found a copy of the Maiden Japan live ep and that was better. The rawness was back. I ate those three records alive for a while and eventually I started opening my tiny little brain up to some of the post-Paul Di’Anno stuff and by then I was ready to give in to it and Maiden became one of my favorite bands.

Their run of releases up to 1990 was unbeatable. I saw them for the first time in 1990, which was unfortunately when the wheels were sort of falling off the bus a little. I saw them again in 2000 when they were very much finding themselves again. I saw them a third time in 2019, a few months before the pandemic arrived, and while they are senior citizens now, they still have it. Whatever IT is, they still have it. I am going to see them for a fourth time next month. I’m looking forward to it.

And it is all thanks to Paul Di’Anno’s performance on that first album. That’s what opened the door for me. That’s what opened my brain.

Paul Di’Anno has passed away at the age of 66. Rest in Peace. Thanks for the music. Thanks for the energy. Thanks for the grrrrrrrrrrr. Most appreciated.

CD

The CD player on Dad’s stereo thing that I’ve been using to listen to all of my Rush records on vinyl works.

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I started listening to everything in order yesterday. Presto, from 1989, is the first Rush studio album that I don’t have on vinyl (did it ever come out on vinyl? I don’t think so) and when I got to that point in the catalog… I just had to listen to it. I don’t have another album on vinyl until Vapor Trails, from 2002. So I guess it’s CDs for the next four releases.

Am I a nerd? Why yes, yes I am.

Records

Yesterday I started listening to every Rush record I own on vinyl, in release order. I have everything up to 1987, after which they stopped releasing their music on vinyl (in large quantities at least). I have a couple of 21st century releases from when vinyl became a thing again. I’m in the office today so I won’t be playing that game again until tomorrow. I did take some Hipstamatic Shake to Shuffle style pics while I was packing up my laptop. Just because.

I’m not one of those people who thinks that vinyl is some magical thing. I just like the vibe. I also like having my father’s record player in my work from home space. It’s nice. I’ll start the Rush thing over again tomorrow at the start of the work day. It’s like having a big playlist from a streaming service except that I have to keep flipping the records.

2024 50/90 Challenge Day 90/90

This year’s challenge is now officially over. 90 days in the books. Thanks for coming along on my journey through silliness.

The next internet based musical songwriting/recording challenge kicks off on November 1st. National Solo Album Month. I’m not sure if I am going to play along this year. 50/90 took a lot out of me. We’ll see.

2024 50/90 Challenge Day 89/90

This year’s 50 songs in 90 days challenge equates to more like 57 songs in 89 days. I am done. I mixed the last four songs. I didn’t mix them well (just quick and dirty) but they are done and now so am I. I hit all of my goofy little goals.

  • 50 songs
  • 10 songs started and finished within each calendar month
  • More songs than any of my previous 50/90 successes (my record was 52)

And there we have it, folks. My forth successful summer challenge. I guess the next step is to pick around 10 songs that aren’t as awful as the rest and edit, rewrite, and rerecord them into a sort of album-ish project. Maybe that will be my task for day 90. We’ll see.

2024 50/90 Challenge Day 88/90

I think I am going to miss these first thing in the morning posts once this year’s challenge is all over. I always try to do this but I’ve never managed to do it for the full 90 days. Another challenge completed? Sort of.

Yesterday, day 88, I put vocals on four songs. Then I put both rhythm and lead guitars onto two songs. Finally I mixed three songs. All that’s left now is to mix the last four. I technically have two days to do it but I sort of see this little project as needing to be over before the calendar strikes October. We’ll see if I can wrap it up tonight (day 89). Today is a work-in-the-office day so I lost a lot of time to my commute.

53: 106%

I have mixed three songs so far tonight. I’m up to 53 songs complete for the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. 106% complete.

I still have four songs to mix. Will I finish tonight? Probably not. Tomorrow seems pretty likely. Success is fun, even if it is for something incredibly stupid like 50/90. Incredibly stupid and endlessly pointless. Yippee, bro.

Tracking is Done (Again)

I think it was at some point last week when I declared that tracking was done for the 50/90 Challenge. Then I added four more songs because I’m a doofus. Now today, once again, I am declaring that tracking for the 50/90 challenge is done.

I put all guitars onto two songs that I started writing yesterday. They both got vocals earlier this morning and now every song I’ve come up with for this stupid internet songwriting challenge has had all of the parts recorded on their individual demoes. Hallelujah, Holy Shit.

I am now left with seven songs to mix. If I finish them all before Tuesday then I will finish the 50 songs in 90 days challenge with 57 songs… again, because I am a doofus.

Car Music

I did some singing in the car today. Nice. I put vocals on four songs. Two of those songs still need some guitar parts but that’s all that’s left for 50/90 challenge tracking. I still have seven total songs that remain unmixed and I have until Tuesday to get to them all. Crazy, right?

Since coming home from car music at about 9:00am (three hours ago, approximately), Jen and I have been sacked out on the couch watching episodes of Parks and Rec and New Girl because it’s Sunday and we’re flipping a big eff-you to responsibility today.

Jen’s going to have lunch now and we’re going to watch one more episode of New Girl and then she’s going to do some work because we can’t be flipping the big eff-you to responsibility all day… I guess. I’ll finish the guitar tracking then. I should have lunch but I had a snack at around 11:00 and I am stuffed. I way over did it. My tiny little re-wired stomach pouch thing is a little cheesed off with me right now, but it will be okay. We’ll get through this, stomach pouch. We’ll get through it together.

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