I grew up next door to my best friend...... we grew up riding tricycles, toy tractors, played ball together, had HO train sets, converted our stingrays to BMX, rode BMX, shot BB Guns, and learned to play guitar together...... we were close buddies through HS....
Long before guitar tabs and guitar tutorials on youtube, we'd learn to play our favorite songs on our guitars by ear......... When Judas Priest came out with British Steel and Point of Entry we learned every song on both sides of these albums on the guitar.....
My buddy had this ceramic bong of the Grim Reaper that held a six shooter rotating pipe..(it had a pipe that had room for 6 bong hits) ...........We would get nicely primed, hook up our Gibsons to our yellow MXR Plus Distortion pedals and play our guitars to Judas Priest.........
I remember, listening to "Hot Rockin" on the Point of Entry album for the first time.....That song is pure Raw power that was tight and clean with a simple driving backbone, yet with massive crunch distortion on the guitar.... the double guitar solo between KK Downing and Glen Tipton perfectly dovetailed the music....... I always was and still am a big fan of Van Halen's early stuff, but this Judas Priest recording struck a chord with me..... it sounded killer.......
back in 1983 Judas Priest played in South San Francisco ....... I was working graveyard at the time at a local Silicon Valley company and I asked my boss for the night off to see the show......boss said no.....but I went anyway and I remember calling in sick from a pay phone at the Cow Palace with the crowd and music playing from the opening band in the background to play hooky to see Rob Halford rev his Harley on stage to support the Screamin' for Vengeance album.....they rocked the house..... great show....
Judas Priest never recorded any corny ballads, they didn't play the weird boring prog stuff, no crazy speed metal drop D tuning Goth stuff. just killer sounding metal music, .....hard rock and roll....Judas Priest main streamed metal....
it's a shame that the "Deadliest Catch" didn't use a Priest song for their opening.........
