Category: Guest Contributors

War Pig – Second Amendment and Gun Registration and Licensing

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Ok, here’s one I recently wrote on the FoxNews site about the Second Amendment and gun registration/licensing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We don’t have to register to exercise our free speech (unless we’re conservatives on a liberal college campus). We don’t have to register or be licensed to enjoy freedom of religion, nor freedom of peaceful assembly.

I postulate that speech has killed more people than private citizen’s guns. How many people did Hitler kill, himself, I mean? How many times did he pull the trigger and take a life? No record on if he ever did it in WWI, and as far as we know, he only ever pulled the trigger on one person – himself. Yet he used words, speech, to create hatred for millions of people and gave orders, which are words, to exterminate over 6 million people who had no guns to defend themselves from his words. Sticks and stones may indeed break bones but words can cause a Holocaust.

If the pen indeed be mightier than the sword, then maybe we should start registering pens and speech, forcing practitioners of free speech whether verbally or in writing to comply with odious licensing procedures and taking away the pen and speech whenever someone waves a “red flag”. I bet you’d see CNN and MSNBC howl then.

Portly Politico – A Very Dokken Christmas, Part III:  Under Lock and Key

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1985 was a great year.  President Ronald Reagan began his second term in office, The Portly Politico was born (not the blog, just me), and Dokken released their finest effort to date, the start-to-finish gem Under Lock and Key.

 

Their third studio album was also their most commercially successful up to that point, perhaps due in part to a more commercial sound.  That said, Under Lock and Key isn’t just a Def Leppard sound-alike, or full of crowd-pleasing power ballads.  It’s an album that rocks consistently, and even the mid-tempo material is full of fist-pumping fury.

 

Take the opener, “Unchain the Night.”  Just like Tooth and Nail’s “Without Warning,” Under Lock and Key kicks off with a brief but effective instrumental intro (albeit part of the title track, instead of a separate tune), this time with synthesizers.  I crank this part up as far as my Dodge minivan’s sound system will allow for the full, gut-punching effect—after a slow synth arpeggio drop, the guitars kick in full blast, and “Unchain the Night” truly begins.

 

I don’t know exactly what Dokken is trying to convey when he sings, “Never unchain the night/don’t tell me that the love is gone/never unchain the night/’Cause tomorrow’s another turn,” but it’s powerful, and a powerful earworm.  I also can’t help but note the contrast with Breaking the Chain’s title track, which is all about breaking free of personal and emotional chains (a later chorus in “Unchain the Night” ends with “I’m never gonna set you free”—dang).

 

“The Hunter” is an equally effective second track.  It’s the perfect song before heading out for a night on the town, as it’s all about being a hunter on the prowl, “Searching for love on these lonely streets again.”  A common theme in rock ‘n’ roll is the pantheric nature of the wandering troubadour, never fully satisfied with his lot in life and love, constantly stalking the concrete jungles for a shot at romance—or unbridled lust.  It’s not as intensely sexy as Whitesnake’s “Still of the Night,” but it gets the point across well.

 

The third track, “In My Dreams,” is a solid track, and was a minor hit for the band.  Here the fullness of the band’s ensemble vocals is heard from the get-go.  It’s a strong rocker, and one that showcases the band’s overall style and range well.

 

But for money, the best track on the album is “Lightnin’ Strikes Again,” a furious, intense, full-throttle rocker that never lets up.  Like sitting through a raging thunderstorm, you can feel this track in your bones.  It features an incredible, multi-measure drum fill that sounds like acoustical lightning, and some of Don Dokken’s finest vocal work as he leaps to seemingly impossible heights, with a call-and-response, “Lightnin’!/Lightnin’ Strikes Again!” repeats until the end.

 

The rest of the album is solid throughout; if anything, my failure as a reviewer is how hooked I am on “Lightnin’ Strikes Again.”  When I listen to Under Lock and Key, I force myself to listen to the last five tracks, not because they suck, but because “Lightnin’ Strikes Again” is so good.  “It’s Not Love” is a fun song about breaking with an obsessive girlfriend (not fun if you’ve ever experienced, but the song handles it cheekily).  “Will the Sun Rise” is a brooding, beautiful, sad tune about warriors setting off in a post-nuclear war, and asks dolefully if they’ll ever see the sun or sky again.

 

Most reviewers recommend Under Lock and Key as a good place to start with Dokken, and I will repeat that advice unabashedly.  It represents a mature version of the band, and it has something for almost any taste (as long as you’re broadly into hard rock and heavy metal from the 1980s).  It remains one of my favorite albums of all time; if not in the Top Five, it’s definitely in the Top Ten.  Highly recommended.

Portly Politico – A Very Dokken Christmas, Part II:  Tooth and Nail

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We continue our yuletide celebration of Dokken with the 1984’s Tooth and Nail.  After the tepid performance of 1983’s Breaking the Chains, Dokken found themselves in debt to the tune of a cool half-a-million, and Elektra contemplated dropping the band.  Don Dokken and his management convinced the label to give the group one last shot; thus, the tenacious title.

 

That tenacity paid off, and is heard in every riff of Tooth and Nail.  If Breaking the Chains had some gems, Tooth and Nail shines like a diamond throughout.  Indeed, it’s a testament to the band’s songwriting that their third album, Under Lock and Key, would improve upon Tooth and Nail’s sonic attack.

 

Simply put, this album rocks, while also offering up more pop-oriented tunes.  Dokken opens the album with an atmospheric instrumental opener that’s just the right length.  I’m a big fan of extended instrumental introductions, so long as they lead somewhere.  “Without Warning” lives up to its title, as it seamlessly, suddenly transitions into the full-frontal assault of the title track, “Tooth and Nail.”

 

“Tooth and Nail” is the kind of opening rocker that should start every metal album.  The track is fast and fun, with an excellent, memorable chorus.  Don Dokken had been working with a vocal coach in Germany, and his improved range and technique are evident on “Tooth and Nail,” as he hits a stratospheric “Straight to the top!” toward the end of the song.

 

There are several other standout tracks, including the power ballad “Alone Again,” a song that helped boost flagging album sales.  Some listeners scoff at power ballads, but I love them if they’re executed well, with solid dynamic contrast, memorable choruses, interesting bridges, etc.  “Alone Again” doesn’t quite get to the level of, say, Heart’s “Alone” by these metrics, but it’s fun to sing in your car.

 

For my money, though, “When Heaven Comes Down” is a solid, underappreciated rocker, one that demonstrates the strength of the backing vocals.  Don’t underestimate the power of good backing vocals (see also:  Michael Anthony on almost every Van Halen song).

 

“Bullets to Spare” and “Turn on the Action,” the album’s closer, are similarly rockin’ affairs, though I’m partial to the latter.  “Bullets to Spare” is the kind of cheeky tune that makes me love the macho humor of glam metal, but “Turn on the Action” sounds like the kind of tune that could have come on the heels of “Tooth and Nail” to make for the iconic double-rocker-opener that I crave.

 

Ultimately, Tooth and Nail helped get the band off life-support, and set the stage for the exquisite Under Lock and Key—the subject of our the third and final album in our series A Very Dokken Christmas.

Portly Politico – A Very Dokken Christmas, Part I:  Breaking the Chains (1983)

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To celebrate the Christmas season, I’d like to explore 80s hair metal giants Dokken’s first three albums, starting with their 1983 debut, Breaking the Chains.  The story of this album is curious in itself, as there are actually two versions:  one recorded in 1981, then in another with the classic Dokken line-up of Don Dokken, George Lynch, Mick Brown, and Jeff Pilson (Pilson played bass on the tour, but not on the album).  The best treatment of that story is The Rageaholic’s Metal Mythos: DOKKEN video; indeed, that video first turned me on to Dokken, a band I’d almost entirely missed in past forays into 80s metal.

 

This review will cover the 1983 album, as that’s properly when “Dokken” as such began (some pressings of 1981’s Breakin’ the Chains—note the dropped “G” in the ’81 version’s title—listed the artist as “Don Dokken”).  Also, I haven’t heard enough of the ’81 cut to comment upon it adequately.

 

Breaking the Chains kicks off with its excellent title track, a tune that’s both rockin’ and sleek.  It’s central riff—built around a persistent transition from E minor to D to C, and back again—is simple but effective, and resolves nicely into the G major of the distinctive chorus.  Like much of 80s hair metal, the tune effortlessly combines a brooding sense of rock ‘n’ roll machismo with a catchy, radio-friendly chorus.

 

The album’s second track, “In The Middle,” is another mid-tempo rocker, but feels like a missed opportunity.  The opening track itself, while exquisite, is already a slower tune.  The decision to follow that up with another andante selection makes for a lackluster double opener.  Dokken would perfect the “rockin’-double-opener” approach on future albums, but the best tracks on Breaking the Chains await.

 

Really, the album doesn’t really get cooking until the fifth track, “Live to Rock (Rock to Live),” an unapologetic rocker all about, well, rockin’ out.  I’ve yet to give this track the “drive test” I referenced in my Down to Earth review, but I’m sure it would pass.  Speaking of the drive test, Dokken follows “Live to Rock” with “Nightrider,” which sounds like driving a sports car with a panther on the roof through the rain-slick neon of an 80s night.  These two tracks should have appeared a bit earlier on the album.

 

The album closes with a live recording of “Paris is Burning” from a 1982 show in Berlin.  That track rips open with a George Lynch guitar solo that sounds like Van Halen’s “Eruption.”  That kind of guitar pyrotechnics is missing from most of the record, so this live recording is a welcome addition to the album.

 

Much of this initial effort is enjoyable but forgettable, but there are some real gems on Breaking the Chains, not just the title track.  All in all, it’s a solid record that points to the intensity and power of future Dokken releases.

The Portly Politico’s Review of Rainbow’s Down to Earth

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The good folks at Orion’s Cold Fire have generously allowed me the opportunity to contribute to the site.  I write primarily about politics, economics, and history at https://theportlypolitico.wordpress.com, but as a “semi-pro” musician (and a full-time music teacher), I enjoy occasionally critiquing music.  The purpose of this feature is to review classic 70s and 80s-era hard rock and heavy metal albums.  Why such a specific genre and time period?  Essentially, I believe this genre represents the pinnacle of rock music.  With its confluence of blues, acid rock, country-western, and all the other distinct musical “flavors” of the mid-twentieth century, rock and roll reached its greatest artistic and technical summits during the “classic rock” era.  I’ll write further about that contentious claim at a later date; but now, let’s boogie!

When considering an album to review, I more or less use this criteria:  does it sound like hard rock/heavy metal?  Have I listened to it enough to comment upon it?  And does it rock?  That’s not the best criteria, as it predisposes me to writing glowing reviews of every album, but there you have it—the highly unscientific approach I take to writing about music I generally love.

All that aside, my first album review for Orion’s Cold Fire was a no-brainer:  1979’s Down to Earth by Rainbow.  This album perfectly encapsulates the direction of rock music at that crucial turning point between punk and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

Down to Earth was the first and only Rainbow album to feature Graham Bonnet on lead vocals, who replaced legendary metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio.  Rainbow’s guitarist and mastermind, Ritchie Blackmore, was notorious for sacking musicians on a whim, so most of the album’s personnel was wildly different than even the previous Rainbow release.

Regardless, this album rocks.  While he’s no Dio, the songs on Down to Earth are uniquely suited for Bonnet’s vocals—probably because he wrote the melodies after the band had already recorded all of the tracks.

The album’s big hit—and Rainbow’s first hit single—is “Since You Been Gone,” a Russ Ballard-penned tune that strikes the right balance between rock and pop.  The chorus is catchy as the flu, but like any good hard rock song, the pre-chorus build really sets up the triumphant release of the chorus beautifully.  Listen to the bass and guitar after the line “Your poison letter, your telegram” and you’ll see what I mean.

That said, my favorite tracks are the opening and closing numbers, “All Night Long” and “Lost in Hollywood,” respectively.  Musically, they rock, and “Lost in Hollywood” passes what I call the “drive test”—I drive much faster when listening to it.  It also features some of Rainbow’s signature neoclassical embellishments, pointing to the rise of neoclassical metal.

Lyrically, they’re fairly depressing commentaries of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, not to mention the Sexual Revolution.  “All Night Long” is sung from the point of view of a jaded, lonely rocker, searching the crowd for a babe to spend the night with him (the most poignant line, from the third verse: “I know I can’t stand another night on my own”).  “Lost in Hollywood” describes a man so dedicated to rock, he’s lost the woman who makes it all worthwhile.

There are some less memorable tracks—the neoclassically-inflected “Eyes of the World” is a commentary on humanity’s rapacious capacity for violence and waste, but is a bit ponderous; “Makin’ Love” has its moments, but is forgettable—but, from start to finish, Down to Earth is as good an introduction to classic hard rock as I can conceive.  Crank it up!

22NOV2018 – War Pig’s Posts – The Deterioration of the US Media

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The only places you will find this on the Internet are a couple of Cold War casualty websites. The news is remarkably blank on the subject as they were caught doing bad reporting (no reporting at all, really). The news media at the time basically ran a story based on what they heard, not an investigation of the facts (sound familiar?).

 

I was stationed in (then) West Germany when this happened. There was some difference of opinion whether or not it was over a card game or a love triangle, but the rest of the facts were clear. A GI put a sabot round into his M60 tank’s gun and fired it into another M60 directly behind him at the rail head.

 

By the time the story got back to the USA and the American media coverage was repeated on Armed Forces Radio and Television, this story would not have been recognized by its own mother. It was variously portrayed as a terror attack, as communist infiltration within our ranks, in fact, almost everything but what it was.

 

I admit I trusted the US media when I was young. Walter Cronkite and the rest. That trust was shaken during Vietnam and finally destroyed in West Germany. The reporting in Vietnam was slanted, we all realized that, but the reporting from West Germany on this incident was so far off the mark I realized they were just making it up. And it as all of them back then. All three networks. I’ve never trusted the Fourth Estate since. I always insist on backup, then backup for the backup. Having the mainstream media decide what you should hear and how it should be spun is a bad idea. That’s why I like the Internet. It can, and has, held the media’s feet to the fire and caught them being wrong, lazy, and out & out lying and/or making stuff up. That is also why I am worried about the big Internet companies censoring people for political views which hold the liberal media up to scrutiny. We need freedom to challenge opinion, even (or especially) the media’s. I find it strange that the big Internet companies allow flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers free forums, yet censor conservative political views.

 

Here’s the real scoop from the Association of the 3rd Armored Division. I looked all morning for news reports on this but there are none I can find. Only other Cold War casualty websites:

 

 

1980

 

SP4 Gregory “Frank” Montoya & SP4 Patrick Romero, A Company 3rd Battalion 32 Armor. were killed on 4 November 1980 at the Hohenfels rail head when (name deleted) climbed into a tank during rail loading, loaded the M60A3 main gun with an armor piercing round (Sabot) & fired the main gun into the tank behind his. All tanks are rail loaded with the main gun in a travel lock position over the back deck. There was apparently a lot of confusion about the whole incident with reports of a lighting strike causing rounds to explode. The incident was finally solved when the tank main gun rounds were counted & inventoried. SGT Jeffrey Young & PVT David Park were also badly burned during this incident. *****The SOB convicted of this murder was sentenced to 20 yrs in Leavenworth but only served 8 years!!

Additional information provided by CPT Mark S. Atwood: The 1980 incident in 3/32, when the sabot round was fired into the turret of another tank during movement by rail, it is my understanding there was bad blood between the shooter and some/all members of the other crew over a card game. During rail movements the troops played cards, D and D, etc to pass the time. The shooter had been the big loser and I believe, thought he had been cheated. Here is additional information on this incident from Ken Armstrong: I served with 3/32 in 1979-1981 and was stationed in Freidburg at Ray Barracks. I also served with Greg Montoya and Pat Romero and was present when they were killed in November of 1980. Pat was a good friend and we drank many a beer together. Additional information on this event from Richard Zipse: I didn’t know Pat Romero but Frank was not only a great guy but getting very short. It was sad indeed that the filthy **** that killed him got out of Germany, much less Leavenworth, alive. As I remember it, he had been chasing a section 8 for months. I’m pretty sure Sgt. Young and I were on 14 together for a bit before he made rank and moved over to the third platoon; and, also that Park was very new to the unit and had just arrived as they needed crewmen. I’m thinking SSGT Able got him out of the smoked vehicle but not certain…also I’m thinking he was flown to Walter Reed Hospital due to the extent of his burns and later passed on….though this obviously may be incorrect.