I don't have cable at home, as I feel $40 a month is too much to pay in order to waste your time. Since I have been housesitting for the last few days, I have been taking advantage of my absentees friends' cable, clocking as much mindless fluff into each evening as is tolerable. My favorite new program is the Much Music Bio, which I have watched both last night and the night before. Last night the biography spotlight shone on Judas Priest, who are a suprisingly amiable group of lads that you would never suspect play in a heavy metal band. A very articulate bunch, they were happy to explain how they made their riffs sound so heavy. They revealed that on one track, ( I think it was Metal Gods), Rob Halford shook a tray full of silverware to produce a clanging "metal" sound. This was layered perhaps 20 times, to create a sound that would conjure up images of a robot covered in chainmail, roaming a bleak planet and annihilating humanity.......

I was also pleased to learn that chaos, chance and pure dumb luck were part of Judas Priest's success. Having been shut out of America and largely known as a British metal band, Priest were sprung into success with "Living After Midnight", their first US hit. The song was recorded by three of the band members while singer and lyricist Halford was trying to sleep directly above where the guitarists were laying down their riffs. Of course he couldn't sleep, so he wrote the lyrics while lying in bed.