Picked up (2003) The Warning remaster today, only ever had the OG CD from many years ago.
I was pleasantly surprised at how good the sounds is and the songs have aged quite well.
Haven't listened to this in at least 25 years, will give it a few spins to fully reacquaint myself with it.
The Warning has always been weird for me. As a young QR fan in the late-80s, when I first heard it, I honestly didn't get it. It sounded weird and not like the band I fell in love with on Rage, but primarily Mindcrime. But after a while, songs poked through, namely Roads to Madness, NM 156, and Take Hold of the Flame. As the years went on though, I loved the songs more. The key moment was the tracklist order though. Once I discovered what it was meant to be, and resequenced that, the album took on a whole different vibe. It was a huge A HA moment for me as a fan. With the originally intended running order, The Warning vaulted into my #2 spot behind Operation: Mindcrime. There's just something about the conceptual nature of that record, and NM 156 and Roads being at the beginning and the end, respectively, and it being a circular thing, where it just explodes to me.
As a kid, it might have flown over my head. But now I just shake my head how incredible The Warning was, particularly as a band's debut album. Had it been released as intended, I'm not sure how better or worse the album might have done, but man, what an incredible debut.
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On the book front, closing in on the end here with Roads to Madness. We're going to be just shy of 600 full color pages. That's almost 150 more than we originally marketed the book as. Today I'm doing the image layout and basic edits of the last 90 pages of the book (Chapter 8, the epilogue, and appendix materials). Then it's on to a final proof of the whole thing. I also just wrote the back text for the dustjacket and the text for the flaps of the dustjacket too.
Really excited.
Please folks, if you haven't pre-ordered and are planning to get the hardcover, make the decision to pre-order NOW (see links below). The hardcovers
ARE going to sell out. They are limited to 200, and we're well past the mid-way point on pre-sales of those. Trust me, the hardcover is the way to go. The paperback will be awesome too. Same book, it's still all in color, etc., but the hardcover, for 20-something bucks more, it's just such a great coffee table book.
Hardcover -
https://nwmetalworxmusic.com/collections/1262739-books-by-nw-metalworx-music/products/36680701-roads-to-madness-the-touring-history-of-queensryche-1981-1997-by-brian-jPaperback -
https://nwmetalworxmusic.com/collections/1262739-books-by-nw-metalworx-music/products/36680692-roads-to-madness-the-touring-history-of-queensryche-1981-1997-by-brian-jAs for release date and all that, the paperbacks should ship around the first week of April. The hardcovers may be a couple weeks later, only because I need to fly up to Seattle once they are in, so Naron and I can sign them (as we promised they'd be numbered and signed). Getting up to Seattle on a weekend Naron and I are both free, can be tricky. I just didn't want to do the stick-in signing sheets. We did that on the QR bio, and I felt that was cheap. If an author signs a book, he or she should sign the actual book, not a stick in book plate. I get it the ease of the latter, but...it's less personal.
So excited to get this into folks' hands. I hope some of the dwindling numbers of QR fans here on DTF pick it up. I really think people are going to love it. The proofs I've been looking at - it's exactly what I envisioned. I couldn't be happier.