#michaelwhelan — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #michaelwhelan, aggregated by home.social.
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Me encanta #linuxmint.
Es bonito, fácil y estable. Todo lo que se le puede pedir a un sistema operativo.
En mi caso los únicos fallos que he tenido ha sido por culpa de la gráfica de #nvidia. En cualquier caso una vez lo sabes el fix es sencillo, o firmar los drivers de nvidia, siguiendo la guía que hay anclada en el foro de linux mint o deshabilitar secure boot. Yo tras haber firmado una versión antigua he optado por lo segundo con la versión nueva para no volver a tener problemas en el futuro.
Firmar los drivers de nvidia son 3 comandos y un reinicio, no es complejo. Y deshabilitar #secureboot es muy sencillo también, entrar a la uefi y cancelar esta opción. No tiene más.Por cierto la ilustración de fondo es de #michaelwhelan al que podéis encontrar en el fediverso.
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Um das hier glasklar festzuhalten: @nisjasper ist schuld!
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Frost and Fire, Part 2 – Heavy Metal Edition
This past SpaceAce Sunday, we looked at the first of two albums we have on The List that have the same, rather holiday-relevant title of Frost and Fire. While The Watersons’ album actually has a few Xmas/Xmas-adjacent songs, the same cannot be said of the album we are looking at today. But, it’s December 24, and so anything you listen to can be an Xmas album if you want it to be. Or, as they[1] say, “yippie kayak, other buckets!”
Cirith Ungol – Frost and Fire (1981, US)
And so, today we take a listen to number 892 on The List, submitted by Almoehi.
I know that many metalheads are absolutely fanatic about this band, but listening to this album the other day was actually the first I had ever heard of theirs! With the band named after the mountain pass in Tolkien’s Middle-earth that goes through the Ephel Dúath (you know, the one near Minas Morgul in Mordor…), one might expect a lot of LoTR-themed lyrics on this, the band’s debut album. But, perhaps hinted at by the fact that the band name is to be pronounced “sirith ungol” rather than the more accurate “kirith ungol”, the name seems more of a statement of the lyrics being in the fantasy realm, with a loose association to the LoTR books rather than them being an overarching theme. At any rate, I don’t recognize any of the lyrics on this album as being LoTR-themed, so I believe it isn’t until their next album, King of the Dead (1984), that we get to totally nerd out in that respect.
But! Let’s nerd out about the cover! This is the third album we’ve looked at so far on The List with a cover painted by the incredible Michael Whelan (on Mastodon: @MichaelWhelan).[2] The Frost and Fire cover is a crop of Whelan’s 1977 painting titled “Stormbringer”, and was used on the cover of Michael Moorcock’s book of the same name, from his Elric of Melniboné saga. Whelan in fact would go on to provide the art for every single Cirith Ungol album, with all of the paintings also pulling double duty on a Moorcock/Elric of Melniboné book!
Even just based on those credits alone, it’s perhaps no surprise that music journalist and musician Sarah Kitteringham – of the epic doom metal band Smoulder[3] and of BangerTV – is a giant Cirith Ungol fan. Sarah can dance circles around anyone in talking about this band (and, well, probably any doom/heavy metal metal band), and in fact wrote the liner notes for the 40th anniversary reissue of Frost and Fire! So, rather than me regaling you with any Wikipedia-level facts, I would suggest we head on over to Discogs and read through those liner notes together (click to images 2 and 3). If you’re a fan, perhaps also check out these demos and extras that were part of that anniversary reissue.
And so concludes our mini spotlight theme. Stay frosty and/or firey, all. 🤘
[1]Well, Charles Boyle at least says this.
[2]The others being Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell II and Sepultura’s Beneath the Remains.
[3]Fun fact: All of Smoulder’s album covers are also done by Whelan, and both of their LPs either reference or feature Moorcock.#1001OtherAlbums #1980s #CirithUngol #heavyMetal #ListenToThis #metal #MichaelWhelan #music #musicDiscovery #Musodon #powerMetal #protoDoom #protoDoomMetal
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‘Room Taken’ Director TJ O’Grady Peyton On Navigating A “Hopeful Message That Division Is Not The Answer” For His Disability And Unhoused Awareness Themed Oscar-Qualifying Short Film
#News #BridBrennan #ColinFarrell #GabrielAdewusi #MichaelWhelan #ScreenIreland #TJO039GradyPeytonhttps://deadline.com/2024/12/tj-ogrady-peyton-room-taken-interview-1236197023/
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The next spotlight in our new “II Much II Listen II” series is number 786 in The List, submitted by kyonshi. Note for simplicity (i.e., too many – or “II” many – punctuation marks), I shortened the album name in the blog post title from Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell.
In this series, we consider how an album named “II” relates to the “I” that came before it. Bat Out of Hell (1977) was Meat Loaf’s wildly successful first solo album, a concept album developed largely out of Jim Steinman’s futuristic Peter Pan musical named Neverland, written in 1974 (as well as bit from a musical Steinman wrote while in college in the late 60s, The Dream Engine). Steinman and Meat Loaf had met the previous year, when Meat Loaf was cast in another musical of Steinman’s (More Than You Deserve). Following the success of Bat I, they would continue their collaboration – and the storyworld of Bat I – with Bat II, which was both written and produced by Steinman.
A lot could be said about the over-the-top but brilliant Bat albums and the duo of Meat Loaf and Steinman – the trials and tribulations of getting the albums made but then their ultimate success…the duo’s somewhat dramatic (if not tragic love-story-type) of relationship, complete with legal disputes (e.g., to get Bat Out of Hell III [2006] made without Steinman’s direct involvement) and the two dying just months apart…how “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” was originally meant for Bat II but then was replaced by “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”, and then how Céline Dion’s spectacular cover essentially stole the thunder as it came out before Bat III…whether or not Mr. Loaf actually says what the “that” is that he wouldn’t do for love…
While wondering what to focus on for this spotlight, though, Mastodon dropped an utter gem in my lap. As it turns out, Michael Whelan, the renowned sci-fi/fantasy artist whose brilliant work has graced hundreds of book, magazine, and album covers, decided to share a lovely behind-the-scenes look into the development of his original painting created for the Bat II cover, right on Mastodon (his handle is @MichaelWhelan). With Whelan’s permission I’m quoting the text of his 5-post thread here, but make sure you click here to see the art he’s attached to each post, including the final full-sized acrylic painting (BACK INTO HELL [1993], 30″ x 20″) that would be cropped to fit the cover of Bat II.
Like everyone else in the world, I was aware of the epic piece Rich Corben had done for the first BAT OUT OF HELL cover—so my first feeling was a sinking one.
I felt dismay at the prospect of trying to do a follow-up to such an signature effort. I was thinking maybe I could palm off something I’d already done so I wouldn’t have to squeeze in another commission I had no time for.
I showed Meat Loaf a concept sketch I’d done titled BIRD OF PREY, and his eyes lit up. “Yeah, yeah, this is what want, only different!”
As it turned out, he had a rather specific idea of what he wanted, but his songwriter Jim Steinman had a different idea entirely. It took no little back-and-forth before we arrived on a concept that was acceptable to both of them.
In the end I resigned myself to getting little sleep and working round the clock to get the painting done. BAT OUT OF HELL II ended up being a landmark comeback album for Meat Loaf, and it was named Cover of the Year by “CD Review” Magazine.
Whelan has also painted the covers for a couple other albums also on The List (Cirith Ungol’s Frost and Fire and Sepultura’s Beneath the Remains), so we’ll see his work again soon (spoilers: very soon, in fact)! But for now, enjoy the art of Bat II, and, as always, happy listening.
- Songlink: Meat Loaf – Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell
- Discogs: Meat Loaf – Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell
- Website: Michael Whelan
https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/07/23/ii-much-ii-listen-ii-meat-loaf-bat-out-of-hell-ii-1993-us/
#1001OtherAlbums #1990s #conceptAlbum #hardRock #IIMuchIIListenII #JimSteinman #MeatLoaf #MichaelWhelan #rock
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Ooh very cool!
I'm just going to put some # to help people find this.
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Fantasy/SF artist supreme Michael Whelan #BOTD
#MichaelWhelan #Kull #RobertEHoward #REH #ComicBooks #Comics #Fantasy @comics @comicstodon