As I said in a previous post, I have been trying to read more this year. Less ‘doom-scrolling’ through infinite social media feeds, more feeding my mind with other people’s insights and experiences.
I recently finished reading Frank Bello’s autobiography Fathers, Brothers, and Sons: Surving anguish, abandonment, and Anthrax, co-written by Joel McIver and with a foreword by Gene Simmons of Kiss.
Over the last few years I have read mostly business, productivity and agile-related books that have helped me at work. This year, I have made it a priority to try to read more and to read more widely, from a variety of genres.
Last night I finished reading The Fear Bubble by former Special Boat Service (SBS) operator Ant Middleton.
L–R: Frank Bello (bass), Joey Belladonna (vocals), Charlie Benante (drums), Scott Ian (guitar)
This year, the New York-based thrash metal band Anthrax turns 40.
Over the last two months on their YouTube channel they’ve been releasing a retrospective on their career with interviews with band members, producers, friends and metalheads across the globe. As I understand it they have 40 of these in the pipeline. So far we’ve reached episode 22 which has taken us to 2003 and probably my favourite Anthrax albums, We’ve Come For You All. I saw them live twice on that tour.
This evening (morning UK-time), they celebrated the event with a live stream event with a nearly 2 hours 15 minutes concert spanning most of their entire 40-year, 12-studio album career. (Typically, their John Bush era material was disappointingly missing.)