666

The Number of the Beast goes back to Revelations :

[16]Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, [17] so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. [18] This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred sixty-six.

and has been brought to the fore by such pop-culture creations as Richard Donner's screen adaptation of David Seltzer's The Omen, Monkey Gone to Heaven from The Pixies and, in the Metal World, Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast.

Now there is one aspect of this myth to which I can't find a link, and that's the association with this number that arose at about the same time as Salmon Hater's 6.66 that featured in the Hottest 100 for 2002. That association includes: 

The Neighbour of the Beast - 

- 664, 668 (next door to the beast); 

- 665, 667 (across the road from The Beast);

The Beast at Retail - 

- $665.98 at KMart

- $663.94 at ALDI, etc.......and so on. 

Hence Unveil 616 are closer to town than The Beast, especially if the road on which The Beast lives starts its numbering from the centre of town. 

Peter G Gleeson: Author at OriginalRock.net

Early in June I got chatting to a writer for OriginalRock.net and, after I found my own back-catalogue from the late 90s/early 00s, I wrote to Original Rock myself to see if he would be able to use my work.

He sent me a couple of records, I wrote them up, and now I can claim to be an author on that site!

My first review was posted yesterday for the fantastic new album by Remo Drive and I'm just listening on BandCamp to the back-catalogue for the second review, Ten Foot Wizard's forthcoming album "Get Out Of Your Mind".

Back in the 1990s I was writing about music I was sent and gigs I was either invited to or just turned up at, and the only outlet was my Geocities platform. When whomever discontinued that platform pulled that plug I was willing to let that all go by the by as a closed chapter of my life.

Well Amanda Easton, All But Gentlemen, and Glen Colley's various projects all helped me to keep my eye and ear in during the ensuing period, but the guys at Original Rock obviously saw something in both my old stuff and my new stuff and, well, you can see the results for yourself.

I'll maintain my presence here, of course. My next project is already in the making. But my main outlet, under my actual name, will be over at Original Rock! Stay tuned for more Variosities!

PG (Jacky) Gleeson
27/06/2020

The Big Dirty "Sensual Lover" Single released 26 June 2020

On 14 May 2020 The Big Dirty announced the 17 July 2020 release of their next album, "The Sex". To give us a taste of what we can expect, they tweeted a teaser for the first single the following day and now, inside the last month before the big album release-date, comes the second single "Sensual Lover".

Now, with such an obvious-sounding title, do we expect the usual Big Dirty double-(or, in their case, single)-entendre smut and in-(or in their case on)-your-face full-on hard-rocking? Or do we look forward to something mellow and grown up? The video trailer features guitarist C-Diddy, head bound and bandaged like a war-hero, brandishing an acoustic guitar with the rest of the guys in the desert adding a reenactment twist to the Jon Bon Jovi Dead Or Alive clip-setting.

When you're The Big Dirty, mellowing doesn't necessarily mean growing up, and while Dead Or Alive may set the tempo, the song builds through the vocal echoes and swelling (ooh err!) guitar effects through to the solo which has become these guys' staple. They can tie me to the bed, they will leave me there for dead and, like their version of Chris Isaak's Wicked Games on the hard-copy version of the last album, being haunted in the end is the least of it! You may expect one thing but James and the Northampton rockmeisters deliver something else again, as always.

The Big Dirty "Sensual Lover" - if this is what can be expected in July, pre-order the hell out of it! My copy is in the post and given the right conditions I would swim out to meet that shipment to get it here quicker!

PG (Jacky) Gleeson
21 June 2020

Look what I found at http://www.geocities.ws/p_terg/ (Post 2.0)

While chatting online with a fellow reviewer, I decided to see if my stuff from the 1990s was still online.

When it was announced that Geocities would stop hosting free websites I was willing to let it all go.

But since then, many people, including oocities, reocities, and geocities-ws have mirrored content that was (and I'm paraphrasing here) culturally significant!

Which is lucky for me because I have had a look back and there's a helluva lot of material there!

Here are the categories (some of the links in the page are no longer viable):

• Alternative - music that, before 1991, would only have been played on college, community, or pirate radio. 
• Pop & other - Jazz (be it traditional or new-styled), Nouveau-pop, World music, ‘Pop’ of the traditional ‘three-minute’ variety, as well as anything that isn't quite Alternative but probably could be... 
• Compilations - one of the best ways to get your music in more faces, sometimes at less cost than your own CD. And then there’s sampler CDs from organisations whose sole aim is to promote new music.
• Live - my comment on live gigs at various levels around Sydney from 9 August 1995, including Brian May at Sydney’s old Capitol Theatre; Wave Aid; Amanda Easton: the lady who got me back into this; and the band that caused my tinnitus, Screaming Jets, in December 2000.
• Country -  a selection of country and western releases I have reviewed since starting this writing thing! You might note a significant gap between the most recent and the ones before that... take a look at the Mary Schneider review to find out why!
• The Directory has since gone the way of dead websites. It was a huge list, too big for the Geocities servers to handle, containing every artist reviewed on the site. I really have to make that work again.
• Loud - speaks for itself, really. My favourite form of music.
• MP3s - Planned as a review of all artists A-Z on the mp3.com.au website, an ambitious project that never got past A in the writing but Hero Puppy in the pre-planning. None of the links appear to be viable any more.
• Your Reviews - I invited punters, friends, and colleagues to write and contribute their own reviews. I met Cindy on the Yahoo poker-tables and she became the North American arm of the site; Glen, a friend of my brother-in-law’s, was the basis of Trophy Wives ,  Honest John, Salty, and 3 On The Tree; and Mick is a mate of Glen’s who still loves it quite loud!
• Press - only a couple of these links remain viable; the Dan and Mick Carter ones have died, as have the Alta Vista, Anzwers, Google, Hot Bot, Lycos, MSN, and Yahoo! links as they existed at the time. I have recently even referenced the Country Goss article while chatting with a Swedish-metal guitarist.

I hope to be able to revive this aspect of my life again ... if not for these pages then elsewhere (see also https://peterg-gleeson.blogspot.com/2011/12/music-reviews-website.html)