The more I hear from this album, the more I like it.

What album? Why, the forthcoming Queensryche self-titled album, that is….

There was an official premiere of another song from it, “Where Dreams Go To Die,” last night on Seattle’s KISW 99.9, but it was at 11 p.m. Pacific time and I was quite asleep by then…but I heard the song earlier this morning and an official Century Media YouTube clip popped up. Have a listen.

My thoughts? Wow, this is totally badass. It sounds better than pretty much everything I’ve heard from the band at least since 1994′s Promised Land. The twin-guitar harmonies, the vocals…this sounds more like classic, real Queensryche (sort of like Rage for Order meets Promised Land) than what they’ve done since then. And if what I’m hearing is correct, this song was actually written by lead guitarist Parker Lundgren. I’ve said before that I thought it would be intriguing to see what he brought to the table, and he delivered. Man, did he ever. I can hardly wait to hear the rest of it.

I have to wonder why.

Why what? Why Chris Ladd even considers himself a Republican or a conservative anymore. It seems that with every blog post he writes he has something bad to say about Republicans, at least the ones who don’t toe the establishment party line. They might not like what the IRS has to say about why tea party groups were targeted? This seems to imply that the IRS had legitimate interests in targeting these groups. If that’s the case why didn’t the people in charge at the IRS come out and explain themselves, getting out in front of the whole thing?

And we haven’t even gotten into the appalling spin on Gunwalker. The ATF let guns go to Mexico with no effort to track them whatsoever because of allegedly lax gun laws? Sorry, but that’s bullshit too, at least to anyone who’s been paying attention. Fast and Furious wasn’t about tracking guns. It was about padding statistics to push for more gun control.

Honestly, how does he think anyone’s going to take him seriously?

I just can’t get all worked up about that.

A comment from My Kind of Country, about a Rodney Crowell-Emmylou Harris show in which Crowell didn’t play any of the Diamonds and Dirt hits:

Funny that there’s no mention here of Rodney Crowell’s songs from his commercial heyday–”After All This Time,” “She’s Crazy,” etc.–Does he actually give a concert and skip over his string of #1 hits?

It sure looks that way, but I for one can’t get too het up over it. Radio played the shit out of those songs and continues to do so, while all his other stuff gets practically ignored anymore — not just the brilliant stuff from The Houston Kid and the two albums that followed it, but also the music from the albums after Diamonds and Dirt. I didn’t not like all those songs, but the only one I really, actively liked was “She’s Crazy for Leavin’.” To be fair, most of that had to do with their being overplayed, though. Still, though, I would gladly trade any of them for “Telephone Road,” “Earthbound,” or this lost gem from 1989′s Keys to the Highway:

“Look for me, where the four winds blow…”

This does not surprise me either.

Houston Chronicle tech blogger Dwight Silverman:

Shortly after Samsung’s Galaxy S4 smartphone made its way into early buyers’ hands, complaints about its storage capacity began to fill the Web. The 16-GB model comes with just under 9 GB of free space – nearly half of it taken up with the operating system and pre-installed applications from Samsung and carriers.

So it would seem that the same problem that besets Windows PCs also is manifested on Android phones. It would seem that a lot of people are surprised by this, which just goes to show you the public’s ignorance of technology and how it works from the business end. Just as no two Windows PCs are going to work exactly the same, no two Android phones are going to work exactly the same. That sort of thing is generally what happens when you have different types of hardware to choose from.

Of course, I’m a little different. I have to wonder what the big deal is. I’m pretty sure I have most of the space left on my Android (HTC Sensation 4G from T-Mobile, for the record) that was there when I got it, and I don’t even know how much space was on there to begin with. I have a few apps on it that I use, but as far as music and games, my main entertainment as far as that goes is the iPod classic. I know a lot of people are using their phones as their all-in-one device. Of course, a lot of ‘em don’t back it up either and don’t have the slightest idea of how to do so, so they also have that to contend with…

Thoughts? Do any of y’all use your phone as an all-in-one and have space problems?

Fail on top of fail.

Or adding insult to injury, whatever you want to call it…

A House Democrat inspired by the last James Bond movie has offered legislation to produce handguns with “personalization technology.”

The idea is to produce guns that can only be used by the gun’s owners. Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) cited the latest James Bond movie, “Skyfall,” as inspiration for the bill….

Under his bill, guns made in the United States would have to be built with this technology two years after the bill becomes law. Older guns being sold by a business or individual would have to be retrofitted with this technology after three years.

The bill says the cost of retrofitting these older guns would be paid out of the Department of Justice’s Asset Forfeiture Fund, where confiscated assets from criminal investigations are placed.

Wow, this is just beyond the pale. An infringement on the Second Amendment, paid for by funds gathered by infringements on the Fourth Amendment. And of course Tierney would cast it as a gun safety issue. For teh childrenses, natch.

And yes, of course those gun accidents are preventable…by, you know. following the Four Rules and using the brains God gave you. And that would explain everything about why this bill was introduced. Anti-gunners don’t have common sense and they don’t use their brains.

Gah…funded by goddamned asset forfeiture funds! I can almost hear the Founding Fathers screaming in rage!

More blog later, but for now…

…in memory of Ronnie James Dio, July 10, 1942 — May 16, 2010…

As usual, he doesn’t see the connection.

Who? Why, Leonard Pitts, that is:

“They’re trying to take our guns away!” Except that it is now theoretically possible for a mental patient to manufacture his own gun in the comfort of his aluminum foil-lined basement. That’s a sobering development with far-reaching implications barely considered, much less addressed, by lawmakers though this technology has existed for over a decade….

It’s a pity some of the energy that has gone into fighting imaginary tyranny did not go into pondering this real and eminently predictable threat.

Well, this sort of thing is what happens when you not only focus all your efforts on taking guns away from the people who didn’t do anything but also leave the dangerous people out there free to predate at will. As for Pitts’ theoretical mental patient…what would said mental patient be doing with access to such things anyway? If he’s a mental patient he’s likely walled off from society anyway, which should mean he doesn’t have access to things like a 3D printer.

There’s always the chance, of course, that Pitts means to foster a dialogue about keeping mentally ill individuals away from guns and the like. But somehow I doubt that, because he’s been blaming guns and the “easy availability” thereof for a good long time, and I doubt he’s going to stop now — or anytime soon, for that matter.

Not a bad list at all.

Howie Abrams and Sacha Jenkins’ top-10 vocalists in the history of metal:

1. Ronnie James Dio (Black Sabbath, Dio)
2. Rob Halford (Judas Priest)
3. Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
4. Eric Adams (Manowar)
5. Geoff Tate (Queensrÿche)
6. King Diamond (Mercyful Fate, King Diamond)
7. Tom Araya (Slayer)
8. John Bush (Armored Saint/Anthrax)
9. James Hetfield (Metallica)
10. Max Cavalera (Sepultura, Soulfly)

I thought it was pretty well-rounded, anyway. The only quibble I have is the inclusion of Tom Araya. Confession time, maybe: Back when I was dipping my toes into the metal pool, I bought Slayer’s Reign in Blood. I had heard a lot of good things about it and was curious to see how it sounded. Suffice it to say I was not really impressed by it, and Tom Araya’s vocal style was pretty much the beginning and end of the reason for that. It had pretty awesome guitars and all (RIP Jeff Hanneman), but Araya’s…how to put this….half-chant-half-yell just never did anything for me. I would probably have replaced him with Dave Mustaine or Lemmy Kilmister if it had been my list to make. I would guess both of them rank in the top 20…at least I would hope they do, at any rate.

And, yeah, despite his recent crowning as the Eternal Supreme Douchebag of the Metal Universe, Geoff Tate deserves his place on this list. Dude can’t hold a note to save his life anymore, but he was damn near untouchable back in the day. While I am 100 percent behind Queensryche with Todd La Torre — and while I do think Eddie Jackson, Michael Wilton, and Scott Rockenfield are master musicians in their own right — it was Geoff Tate’s vocals that drew me to the band’s music as much as the musical arrangements themselves.

I was quite amused at some of the comments about who should have been included. One commenter suggested the inclusion of Aaron Lewis because of his covers of songs from metal bands like Stone Temple Pilots and Shinedown. Yes, really. I do like both of those bands, but I certainly never thought of them as metal. Another suggestion was Paul Rodgers — and while I think Paul Rodgers is great, the closest he’s ever gotten to metal is Paul Kossoff’s 1957/’63 Fender Stratocaster, which is now played by Iron Maiden guitarist Dave Murray.

I do wonder, though, how the list would look if they just included more current bands like Kamelot or Symphony X, or perhaps just took into account certain bands’ non-original lead singers…

This is such a great observation.

From a commenter at Saving Country Music, on the latest from Blake Shelton:

What really makes me mad though, is how many classic country names Blake drops on this album…the fact that he is talking about all these people that supposedly nobody listens to just makes me hate him even more.

I don’t hate Blake Shelton as a person, but I am — to say the least — not a fan of his attitude toward old country music and his opinions of the genre’s evolution. I said my piece on that here.

But this…this really is a whole new level of hypocrisy. Name-dropping Hank Jr. and covering Conway Twitty and George Jones, among others, but hey, I thought nobody listened to or bought that tired old shit anymore. Apparently the new, better way of respecting the people who came before you is to name-drop them in shitty wannabe rap songs (see also: “Dirt Road Anthem”) as opposed to incorporating their sounds into your own music.

But hey, on the bright side, George Strait’s new album hits the stores on Tuesday.We’re pretty much guaranteed not to have any shitty wannabe rap on it.

It doesn’t have to be like that.

Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French, on playing new music:

People always say, “Why don’t you do new material?” If you play new material, that means you’re taking some standard out. More people are going to be upset over the removal of a standard than will be made happy by a new song.

Well, such might be true for some bands, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be true for all of them, even Twisted Sister. I seriously wonder how many Twisted Sister fans would be ticked off if “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was taken out in favor of a new song. If you’re making good new music, why not play it? I suppose a lot of acts, Twisted Sister included, are happy being nostalgia acts.

And that’s all fine and good, but I don’t see what’d be so wrong about swapping out some of those overplayed songs for new stuff if the new stuff is good. And the last new song I heard from Dee and the guys was actually really good. He’s still sounding great, and the rest of the band still has it too. Going back to one of my favorite examples, I doubt you’d see many real Queensryche fans who’d be mad if they swapped out “Silent Lucidity” and/or “Jet City Woman” for a couple of the songs from their forthcoming self-titled album. (For the record, I’ve heard from sources I trust at The Breakdown Room and elsewhere that said album is really good, perhaps the best thing they’ve done since at least 1994′s Promised Land.)

And the same goes for Accept. Of course, Mark Tornillo and the guys do play “Balls to the Wall,” “Fast as a Shark,” “Princess of the Dawn,” and “Restless and Wild” right along with “Teutonic Terror” and “Stalingrad.” But I haven’t heard of anyone being unhappy with that.

Of course, the above-mentioned bands are both special cases as they’re both forging on without their iconic original lead singers. But you can still insert pretty much any classic metal band with its original frontman that’s still making new music — Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and the list goes on. (From what I understand, Anthrax’s Worship Music is one of the best things they’ve done in years as well. Same is true of Megadeth’s last couple of albums and Metallica’s Death Magnetic.)

So yeah, there might be a few bands that are comfortable with being a nostalgia act, but I don’t see why they all have to be. Some of ‘em are making their best music in years, and the genre would be a lot poorer without it.