Alien Jesus Collective

Giving gifts to lizard people of course!

Uh oh, Tom should have given this more thought:

So next time you’re invited to a lizard people housewarming, you may want to just send them a gift certificate instead.

Listen for yourself here (hit play on the widget, then the download link at lower right to download an mp3. Sorry their widget kind of sucks). Then read what our panel of experts thinks!

Hazel Lord
From the Wagnerian inspired intro to the blistering contrapuntal twin axe work of K.K Downing & Glen Tipton and the throbbing rhythm section of Ian Hill and Scott Travis Judas Priest have never sounded heavier. This track (Halford’s vocals in particular) literally drips goblets of sonic testosterone from the speaker. The production values are superior to everything since the 2001 remastered version of “British Steel”. The
verdict is in! Nostradamus kicks ass. Punk Ass metal bands beware! The
Priest is back to reclaim what’s theirs!

Agent Ackme
It’s not Dethklok, but I’d love to hear them do it. Great song, well played! I just hope to God they don’t bring out a two foot high Nostradamus and some midget cheerleaders. “HE’S OUR MAN!”

Martin Luther Gene
So it really is Judas Priest… doing a real concept album! About Nostradamus! I kept waiting for the punchline until I just read they really did just release this AND launching a world tour to promote it. I find it a little odd that their North American Tour only has 1 US concert scheduled:

JULY 2008 North America/Canada Tour
22nd WAMU Theatre/Seattle, WA, USA
23rd Save On Foods Memorial Centre/Victoria, BC, Canada
24th General Motors Place/Vancouver, BC, Canada
26th McMahon Stadium - MONSTERS OF ROCK/Calgary, AB, Canada
27th Shaw Conference Centre/Edmonton, AB, Canada
29th Credit Union Centre/Saskatoon, SK, Canada
30th MTS Centre/Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Come on, the Save On Foods Memorial Centre? Shaw Conference Centre? Credit Union Centre? Doesn’t it sound just a bit too much like the last days of Spinal Tap?

As for the free preview track “Nostradamus”… It reeks of of Pro Tools or some other digital recording / editing software. Sounds too squeaky clean and formatted for old head bangers. Funny how kids doing music today are using old analog equipment found on eBay or adding “vinyl filters” for that “vintage” sound on their digital recordings. It will be interesting to compare a live version to this one once tour footage hits youtube.

I have to admit, I am intrigued. Ok, 1 song about Nostradamus by Judas Priest is par for the course… it made me chuckle. This 2 year project? I’d listen to more if it turns up somewhere on theinternet. I have my “metal” favorites: White Zombie, Anthrax, Rammstein, Powermad just to name a few. Judas Priest just never made on the list. But with lyrics like “Nostradamus… Nostradamus… Nostradamus… he’s our man!”, well like I said… just makes me want to hear more!

Buck Huff
Buck still has the same 8-track of the Outlaws in his Ranchero that he bought at a Gallup, NM truck stop in 1983. He declined to comment on the latest from Judas Priest.

Ava Cairo
On first listen I would have sworn it was the South Park boys, Stone & Parker, mocking an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. The not-quite-metal sound, the silly lyrics (Nostradamus…He’s our Man!) did not conjure images of a leathered Rob Halford taking to the stage on a Harley.

Rob’s vocals sounded strong enough but you’d have to hear him do it live to know if he really does have the pipes after all these years.
The subject matter, Nostradamus, could give them an edge with raising another 14 year old male army of the dark and brooding.
The old fans might be past that phase by now.

I look forward to hearing the entire album. It may have not amused me in the way they intended, but I like it just the same.

Legba
Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian really summed it up: Judas Priest did away with the last shards of the blues present in heavy metal. I think he nailed it, and also nailed why their cover of Johnny B. Goode evokes a level of cognitive dissonance equivalent to Rammstein and Bjork covering late 70’s Fleetwood Mac. When this was released in the late 80’s, you couldn’t help but choose a side when hearing it. But some of the fans driven away by this sacrilegious Chuck Berry cover might remember Priest hits like Breaking the Law, You’ve Got Another Thing Coming or Living After Midnight, and come back for a steaming slice of Nostradamus.

A concept album about Nostradamus from a band like Judas Priest evokes the beloved Spinal Tap, with equal parts Saucy Jack and Stonehenge
present in the finished product. I wonder if Priest manager Bill Curbishley put some ideas in their heads about a property that could be turned into a Broadway musical. Personally, I’m hoping this leads Priest down the road to a Jazz Odyssey.

The band’s guitarists sure sound like they’ve still got the huge rack mounted amp and effects stacks from the 80’s, and they’re giving their modes a workout for the solos. The bridge feels kind of tacked on, but might work with an army of dancers high kicking their way through it, with Rob Halford popping wheelies on a Harley in the middle. Ultimately, only Nostradamus himself could predict the reception this concept album will get.

I’m loving aliens instead

Jon Ronson accompanies big-in-England singer Robbie Williams to a UFO abductee conference in Laughlin, Nevada, and hijinks ensue. With a special guest appearance by alien implant doctor and frequent Coast To Coast AM guest Dr Roger Leir:

“It could be a lot of things,” Robbie says, cutting me off. “So, Dr Leir, this was given to you last night. Are you excited about what it may be?”

“In a word,” Dr Leir replies, “no.”

“Oh,” Robbie says.

“It could be a piece of nothing,” snaps Dr Leir. “I was recently sent an object that was surgically removed from an abductee. I put it under the electron microscope. It looked like an organic compound, so we went to the next level. We did a test that uses infrared spectroscopy. Long story short, it was a piece of wood.”

GQ talks about the battle over James Brown’s estate in a new article. But some of the best stuff is the stories people tell about JB. From long time girlfriend Gloria Daniel:

One night in the summer of 2001, after he’d slathered her in Vaseline (“He liked you all greased up,” she says. “Like a porkchop”) and wore her out trying to come, he gave up and left the room, and Gloria dozed off. When she woke up, Mr. Brown was standing at the foot of the bed in a full-length mink coat over his bare chest, a black cowboy hat, and silk pajama pants with one leg tucked into a cowboy boot and the other hanging out. He had a shotgun over his shoulder and a white stripe of Noxzema under each eye. “I’m an Indian tonight, baby,” he announced. “C’mon, let’s let ’em have it.” Then he dumped a pickle jar of change on the floor, told her to get a machete, and went out to the garage. He took the Rolls, drove ten miles to Augusta, weaving all over the road, clipping mailboxes, smoking more dope, and screaming about being an Indian. Gloria kept thinking she should flag down a cop, say she’d been kidnapped.

Hard to top that, but there are a few other bits that at least match it. Definitely the unvarnished view of the man. Worth a read if you love JB’s antics.

One of us is a Martian with an Acme detonator!

If you’re going to be anywhere near Geneva on April 6th, don’t miss the final opportunity to tour CERN’s Large Hadron Collider:

The Open Day on Sunday, 6 April 9:00 — 19:00, is your one last chance to see the LHC and its experiments. In addition to visiting the surface facilities, you will be able to go underground to see the accelerator and the experiment caverns. Exceptionally, most of the access points around the ring will be open.
An attractive programme of activities on the surface and underground visits awaits you on all the points around the ring, so we encourage you to visit the one closest to where you live.

Limited to 15,000 visitors, not sure how many of those are treadhead seats.

Via Slashdot

A couple of scientists are suing for a time out on CERN’s Large Hadron Collider project, current slated to come online this summer. The LHC is arguably the world’s most advanced particle accelerator (or “atom smasher”). According to the NY Times article:

But Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Phillip Plait (of BadAstronomy.com fame) has a concise and rational response to the concerns about LHC. I tend to agree with his assessment. If you’re going to panic about world destroying science, panic about genetically modified crops.

Four Internet backbone cables have been disrupted since January 30th. Three of them appear to have been cut; the fourth is currently suffering from a power disruption. All are in the Middle East. Is it a coincidence? Read on for the timeline, the facts, and my analysis.

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Did you know that Area 51 has a softball field? It seems employees of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Nevada Test Site knew about it in 1965, when the Area 51 slo-pitch team beat their rivals from Area 12. This satellite image seems to indicate they still play there today. Unfortunately, the team’s record is classified.

There’s tons of other interesting stuff about Area 51 on dreamlandresort.com.

Interesting series of images from Google Earth showing a giant Triangular something over Australia. The article says UFO, but it could also be something on the ground. If the altitudes listed for each photo are accurate, it seems to me that some comparison between the photos could determine whether the object is on the ground or airborne.