Guilty pleasures volume 437

Oh gawd, I really shouldn't have spouted off about how good the old Genesis albums were going as I ploughed through their voluminous back catalogue - Mex's law dictated as soon as I let slip that frankly ludicrous opinion, the quality of the rest would immediately drop like a Hercules executing the Khe Sanh approach. And, boy, was I right... "...And then there were three" is blander than a Sportscene presenter's after dinner banter and not really worthy of further comment - jeez, I really didn't see 'em missing old Steve Hackett but there ya go - other than to say "Royaume Uni, nil points". Bummer.

However, "Abacab" is, remarkably, even worse - w-a-y worse, a shit sandwich without the bread as the old Tap-ism goes. Horrendous MOR slop of the kind that even their drummer would dismiss from his future solo work as too insipid for human (and progger) consumption. Doesn't help that the last few MP3s towards the end of my copy of said elpee are jumpier than Ashy's vest (another one for the Hillhousians out there) - so much for bloody BitTorrent digital media purchases from legitimate vendors, eh ? Anyways, I won't be re-visiting that one - and I'm not 100% sure about sampling the rest of 'em either now... balls, I've got terrible visions of having to sit through three hours of that shite in July at Old Trafford - aww, crap... just what the fuck was I thinking ???

On a similar potentially unpleasant note, I'm going to see Journey on Saturday at the Armadillo and I'm feeling a fair old bit of trepidation...no, not at the prospect of another two and a half hours of eighties AOR baby-baby-baby lighters-aloft slush (that's a given) but more that the uncanny Steve Perry-a-like on lead vox has been given the Spanish and replaced with Jeff Scott Soto, late of Thingumy Wankstein's band IIRC. Hmmm. AFAIR (from way back in my teenage years, y'understand), this particular fella has a fair set of pipes on him so it does probably pay to give him a chance...but changing squealer mid-stream is generally not a good sign for any band. If the bugger butchers "Open Arms" then it really will cause tears before bedtime in more than one household I can tell you...

Yuck, after all that MOR / AOR talk I really feel like I should rinse out my psyche with something a bit more, um, substantial. Ah, now that's much better. Like taking a good, long, cold shower after sitting for an hour in a bath of warm piss - a delightful image I'm sure you'll agree.