Judas Priest-Sad Wings Of Destiny

Let me give you a glimpse of teenage life circa mid-80’s in small-town Iowa. During my senior year of high school, I stopped doing stupid things like going out for football, and pretty much any extra-curricular sport, choosing instead to do things like speech and drama. I enjoyed it more than having your Friday nights tied up with out-of-town games, hitting the “sleds” and running “hills” during practice, talking about how Judas Priest was the greatest band ever, and showering with a bunch of sausages. The fact was, speech and drama had a high proportion of chicks and gay boys, which meant that there was a much better chance of getting laid if you happened to be a heterosexual male. It’s mathematics, Holmes. Speech and drama also opened up a huge window of new music too; Judas Priest turned into Joy Division and black eyeliner replaced black AC/DC t-shirts.
But you can’t really take the metal away from horny teenage boys, even if you’re replacing football practice with rehearsals of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.” There were three other likeminded dudes that I hung out with on a regular basis and, there seemed to be a pattern that we developed after school: driving around, smoking weed, stealing candy from the Southside 7-Eleven, and then driving around some more. Here’s how clever we were: we’d mix Slurpee goodness into the Big Gulp cups and pay for the price of a soda. Four of us would enter the store, creating diversionary tactics, until the clerk would give up trying to watch member of the quartet. Then, another customer would walk in to pay for gas and a few of the lads would stuff their Levi jean jackets with Charleston Chews and other loose-item confections. It was brilliant. And we never got caught, just like Jane’s Addiction said…
We’d alternate cars, but there seemed to be one guy who insisted on driving more than the rest of us. He had a diesel Volkswagen Rabbit that was on its second or third engine and on its second or third cassette deck. The problem was, this guy had a very limited music selection, and it seemed that we were always listening to the same things over and over when cruising with him. Fucking Bruce Cockburn was a reoccurring tape, as was Pink Floyd “The Wall” and a, you guessed it, a Judas Priest album. That album was “Sad Wings Of Destiny.” I can tell you why he had this particular album: unlike Priest albums that we all grew up with (“Unleashed In The East,” “British Steel”), “S.W.D.” was usually found in the bargain bins, and being broke most of the time (we bought Bud Light while he would “splurge” on fucking Old Style) this was the only real “heavy” album he could afford. But whatever, S.W.D. turned out to be a pretty good album.
What made it good was the fact that it really didn’t sound like the Priest albums we were accustomed to; while heavy in some places (“The Ripper,” “Deceiver”), it also featured some bloozy jams (“Victim Of Changes”) a mellow ballad (“Epitaph”) and an almost prog-rock exercise (“Dreamer Deceiver”). It’s a pretty versatile album, and it marks the first truly awesome Priest record put to tape.
Priest later teamed up with producer Tom Allom, who managed to capture the band’s badassed fury on tape. And while they’d later, single-handedly re-invent heavy metal under his direction, “Sad Wings Of Destiny” hinted at their ability and provided a glimpse at how fluent Judas Priest really was underneath the leather.
But enough of my wordings: every time I listen to “S.W.D.” I get a craving for Bernie Kozar, Charleston Chews, and a Mountain Dew Slurpee. That fact alone makes it essential.