Ok, we're on two entirely different levels. I barely dare call you friend. lol
 
For a worthless art-school drop-out like me, 40K a year was a huge achievement. They called me "business analyst" and all I had to do was to use my brains. Nothing complicated. The equivalent of lifting boxes, only, intellectually... What helped drag me out of the pit was that I could speak english. For whatever reason, the basic lessons we had in school worked for me. Most of my friends remember nothing but 3 words - Yes, No, Toaster...  I walked out of french school speaking english. Thanks rock music.
 
My wife comes from a similar background, but she knew what she was worth. In fact, no - IMHO, she should be earning 25 times as much as she is earning. But who am I to argue about that...
 
 

I love Judas Priest, brings back memories of those years I was heavily into this sort of music, performing, recording 'live' and as sole writer for the band I was in when I was just 17 yrs old.  It's funny, my nephew is into this similar sort of Heavy Metal stuff 'now' but more of a guttural vocal style.  

But Judas Priest has more depth and talent, quite astonishing even to this day --- all whilst today's music has lost it's popularity for a number of various reasons, one example; rehashing of old styles but not done as well and on the other side of style perspective; more cliche pop driven by super hyped marketing for which all this can be a real turn-off. {Meh} Let's play Halo (game) instead!! * What is needed now is totally fresh "innovative" material that is done right and won't bore listeners to death. 

BTW, Judas Priest -Defenders is totally awesome and still holds it ground even to this day and probably into the next century.... yeah up there in a space pod in the year 2086 traveling at warp speed when all of a sudden, the Defenders come on loud and clear over the ship-wide sound system in glorious awesome sound quality complete with giant holographic images of the band. 

Now you're talking my language Krist 
 
I first saw Judas Priest (with Quiet Riot) in 1983 at the Birmingham Odeon, on the back end of the World Vengeance tour, and if my dim and distant memory isn't playing me tricks, they played Freewheel Burning and The Sentinel and Rob announced they were off their upcoming album.
 
Defenders of the Faith is a great album, there isn't a duff track on it, and I'd place it as my 3rd favourite Priest (studio) album after Painkiller (2), and the incomparable Sad Wings Of Destiny (#1). And on all their albums, I don't think Ian Hill's bass has ever sounded better.
 
I don't know if any of you Priest fans have come across it before, but this site - Judas Priest Info Pages - has an incredible amount of info about the band, including tour dates and venues. It hasn't been updated to included the last few albums because I believe the guy who put it all together sadly passed away a few years ago.
 
 
 
 
 
 

I enjoyed three Priest albums last night (Defenders of the Faith, Screaming for Vengence and Turbo), but now feel the need for another trio today (Painkiller, Sad Wings of Destiny and Living After Midnight).  I actually listened to Tame Impala (three albums), After Forever (Remagine) and Al Stewart (Best Of) of all things last night as well.  Nothing like mixing up my genres, eh?
 
(Say, have you heard about the new terminally bland heavy metal band called MegaTesh?)

I've been listening to the excellent new Megadeth album CD (Super Collider) in the car for the last couple of days, and the new Priest DVD/BluRay (recorded on the recent Epitaph tour) on the TV. Metal everywhere!!
 
Me and Sid Strummer saw them on the Epitaph tour at their 'home town' gig in nearby Wolverhampton, and the concept of them revisiting and playing at least one song from each of their studio album back catalogue (apart from the two CDs Tim 'Ripper' Owens featured on) was really well thought out and certainly delivered the goods.
 
See what I did there

And if anyone's interested, my top 10 list of Priest studio albums in order of preference:

1. Sad Wings Of Destiny
2. Painkiller
3. Defenders Of The Faith
4. Sin After Sin
5. Screaming For Vengeance
6. Angel Of Retribution
7. Killing Machine (aka Hell Bent For Leather in the US)
8. Stained Class
9. British Steel
10. Ram It Down

Flying V's are a lot like KFC. Visually appealing and tempting, but once you have it you wonder what you were thinking.

Seems like I have plenty of catching up to do. The most recent album by them I've listened to/owned is Turbo. I'm vaguely familiar w/ Painkiller, which my wife adores. But mostly after Turbo I started getting into older stuff, The Beatles and all. 
 
And that's the thing - you get into the Beatles and those band and a lot of the music you used to listen to start sounding a bit juvenile and not necessarily all that well-written, performed or produced. Since I had not listened to Defenders in all those years, I figured that I'd enjoy it on the basis of nostalgia. You know how often you listen to old albums you dug as a kid and you: man, that is bad! lol 
 
But Defenders is the exact opposite. It was a great record.
 
Sad Wings remains my favorite, but re-listening to Defenders certainly got me interested in catching up w/ Priest again.

I used to work less than a half-mile from home so, during lunch hours and the occasional after-work affair, we used to come to my place and take over the studio for awhile.  One of the songs we would always include was Priest's version of Peter Green's song Green Manalishi - loved that one!

Green Manalishi, by Priest - that's one of the first songs I've learned on the electric guitar. Well, the basic riff. That's one of those ones, like The Zoo by Scorpions or Symptom of the Universe which you could play for hours... lol