Hi friends and welcome to another Simpson Sunday post. Sadly, we have another death to talk about which relates to The Simpsons. Martin Landau passed away last week at the age of 89. He of course is best remembered for such films as: Ed Wood and The American TV series Mission: Impossible, which also had Simpsons guest star Leonard Nimoy as a part of the cast at one point. He also guest starred in the season 22 episode The Great Simpsina as the illusionist The Great Raymondo. RIP and thanks for being a part of the history of The Simpsons.
Yet another death this week in music has occurred, in the form of Chester Bennington of the bands Linkin Park, Stone Temple Pilots and Dead by Sunrise. Like Chris Cornell, he was also found to have died by suicide by hanging and also on Chris’s birthday. What the hell is going on? this is the second suicide by hanging death of a major rockstar in two months and two days, to be exact. Chester was 41 years old!
There is a connection to The Simpsons in that Linken Park worked with Hans Zimmer, on producing the score, for the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This also gave us the single New Divide in 2009 and thankfully, it is available either on the soundtrack, or as an EP on iTunes, with the song, an instrumental verson, an Acca Pella and live version of the song. Oh, let us not forget that he also worked on The Simpsons Movie in 2007, so there is the connection to both Chester and Linken Park.
Anyway, RIP Chester and thanks for all the music and love you gave all of your fans around the world, as well as your Friends, bandmates and fellow celebrities.
This is yet another encore post which of course will have some more additional text added to it.
Earlier on when I had begun to compose blog entries on The Simpsons, I began to realize how much the shows scope extends to many many different areas of show business, time periods and life in general. If you look at all the people who have guest starred on The Simpsons you will know what I mean. From time to time I have devoted posts to bands and people who have been on the show and this week is no exception.
This week I’m going to talk about another of my favourite Heavy Metal bands, the very influential, Judas Priest. They have been around for over 40 years and have released 17 studio albums, with their latest album Redeemer Of Souls being released three years ago. They have shifted styles of metal over the years from time to time but have always stayed heavy. Of course, they wouldn’t be where they are today without singer Rob Halford and his high pitched operatic singing style. He guest starred on The Simpsons on the episode Steal This Episode, parodying the classic Priest song Breaking The Law, singing instead “Respecting The Law.” On the show they were called a death metal band and some fans didn’t like that. The Simpsons producers apologized for this but I had no problem with it.
The fact that they were mislabeled is not a slap in the face but a sign of being misinformed and well, I guess, ignorant. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the producers of The Simpsons were even close to being misinformed or ignorant by any means. This is a comedy and sometimes you can get a laugh by stretching or distorting the truth.
Actually, Judas Priest does play some songs which are quite fast in the vain of Motörhead and early Metallica in the form of songs like: Exciter and Freewheel Burning. When you stop and think about it, speed metal is related to death metal and other extreme sub-genres of this form of music so it’s not that far from the truth. Also, the band we’re also liked by the punks in the 70s during the first wave. So, why are we surprised when The Simpsons calls them a death metal band? Also consider that the Simpsons family were at the Swedish Embassy and if you know your Swedish metal you know that country has an abundance of death metal bands. One band I recommend checking out is a band called Opeth, Who’s singer Mikael Åkerfeldt not only uses death growls but can sing with clean vocals as well. This shows that the bands music is not only rooted in death metal but also progressive metal. Anyway, I digress. Another example of a death metal or rather, a melodic death metal band is Arch Enemy, who had a female singer named Angela Gossow, Who is actually born in Germany. Their singer is now Canadian born Alissa White-Gluz, Who was born in Montreal Quebec. They are a supergroup made up of members of such bands as: Carcass, Carnage, and Spiritual Beggars and other extreme metal bands.
The fact that Judas Priest were called a death metal band is funny to me because of the whole Swedish Embassy seen and the a4mentioned glut of Swedish death metal bands. It exposes some people’s miss categorization of a specific genre, dew to geography. It’s hard not to associate Seattle with the grunge explosion in the 90s or Los Angeles with the Glam metal scene in the 80s, for example.
Something else that could factor into miss labeling of a genre is the generation gap. When you get to a certain age, you think anything that sounds a certain way is all the same or just noise. There are people who actually still think Van Halen is heavy metal. Well, maybe they are but they have stretched out their sound over the years and are much more tame than more current bands like: Pantera, Lamb Of God, Slipknot, Trivium, Avenged Sevenfold, Korn and many others from the mid 1990s to today.
If you want an example of a real death metal band, check out Cannibal Corpse. They are both musically and visually very very disturbing. Check out the movie Metal: A Headbangers Journey. There is some stuff in there that even scares me, and I am a fan of this kind of music. I’m not going to get into detail about burning churches and other things discussed because it would take up space and we are getting away from The Simpsons. So, I digress.
Of course, Judas Priest isn’t The Simpsons first metal band. Don’t forget that Metallica guest starred in Season 18 as themselves and they were naturally funny. When I heard that Rob Halford was going to guest star I was like “wow! now The Simpsons is the coolest show ever.” I wonder if anyone from Slipknot will be on the show. If they do choose to get on, they will be the only characters I have met in real life. I have detailed this in a very early post.
Oh, let’s not forget that Spinal Tap also were on the show during the Season 3 episode The Otto Show. If you know the band well, you know that Harry Shearer who is one of the principal voice actors on the show, also portrays Derek Smalls, the bass player for Spinal Tap. If you want to get technical, they were the first heavy metal band on the show, ever. But if you really want to get precise on the first hard rock band two guest star, it is of course Aerosmith in the season three episode Flaming Moe’s.
Before I get onto other stuff I will pose this question to you. If there was no Judis Priest would there be a band like Pantera? I don’t think so because of the influence on their first album Cowboys From Hell. You can hear some Rob Halford type vocals in most of the songs with high screaming parts. Oh, you can also connect Pantera to The Simpsons through: singer Phil Anselmo. One of his other bands Superjoint Ritual, which features bass player Hank Williams III. On the episode The Last Temptation Of Krust, his Father Hank Williams, Jr. sings the song Canyonero. Well, it’s true and i’m so glad that I was able to make the connection.
On the birthday front, Jon Lovitz turned another year older on Friday. He of course is best known for his work on Saturday Night Live and has guest starred on The Simpsons a number of times. I think his most important roll, despite being a nasty unlikable character and have an adversary a role in the relationship between Homer and Marge,is Artie Ziff. He has of course voice such characters as: Professor Lombardo in the episode Brush With Greatness, Aristotle Amadopolis in the episode Homer Defined, Llewellyn Sinclair and his sister Ms. Sinclair in the episode A Streetcar Named Marge and Mr. Seckofsky in the episode The Way We Was, among other one time voice characters. As I mentioned earlier, who is most important role in The Simpsons as a voice actor is his main character Artie Ziff, for his role in the lives of Homer and Marge Simpson. In fact this character helps explain how the two match and if you watch the episode The Way We Was you will know what I’m talking about and why he is so important.
Well, that’s about it for this weeks Post. In the mean time, I recommend checking out my other blog, which has older posts relating to The Simpsons, along with a lot more interesting stuff about my favourite bands and other things. http://blindgordieblog.wordpress.com
Also, check out Chris Ladesma’s blog. He is the Music Editor for The Simpsons and has been since day 1.
http://simpsonsmusic500.wordpress.com/author/simpsonsmusic500/
Also, check out Yeardley Smith’s blog at http://gobbingoff.tumblr.com
Don’t forget about Marchez Vous, which is her women’s shoe designer company, which she started earlier in the decade. You can check out their website at
Additionally, for more news on The Simpsons, you can go to http://news.simpsonswiki.com/
You can also comment here or you can email me at blindgordie@gmail.com and I will reply as soon as I can to all messages I receive. If you follow me on Twitter or are my friend on Facebook you can comment directly to me that way too.
You can follow Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean on Twitter and his Twitter handle is @AlJean.
He has ran the show since Season 13 and has ran it during Seasons 3 and 4.
Anyway, I’ll talk to you again next Sunday.
Simpsons on Sundays 