I recently powered through the autobiographies of Rob Halford and K.K. Downing from Judas Priest (Confess and Heavy Duty, respectively). It was interesting seeing their vastly different points of view on their careers and success. I got some definite sour grapes vibes from Downing, but there are a few places where it's also easier to believe his version of events over Halford's. For instance...
Spoiler: more for length and sorta off-topicness than actual spoilers
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Rob Halford's version of the story about why he left Judas Priest in the 90's was that it was basically an accidental misunderstanding that he just... didn't correct for some reason.

Basically, he says he had been wanting for some time to start a side project to test his own creative chops independently of his Judas Priest bandmates. He claims that all of the other band members were aware of this and all gave their blessing. He then says that a record company executive told him that in order to start his contract for his side project, he would have to formally quit Judas Priest, which he thought was just a technicality and not really true, so he agreed to it. Then word got to the rest of the band that he was quitting, and so he... stayed silent about it? Made not one attempt to contact any of them or set the record straight? Didn't call up the record company to say "hey wait a minute, this isn't what I wanted?" Didn't say anything in interviews? That seems a little hard to believe.

Downing says that Halford was adamant about quitting, and that he (Downing) considered solo projects to be a sort of betrayal of the band. Considering that the band lost their contract without Halford and ended up on a smaller indy label, I'm inclined to think there might be more truth to this version of events than Halford's "oops, I never meant to quit but I was too embarrassed to say anything about it, especially when the band announced they were looking for a new singer to replace me."


On the fiction front, I discovered recently that there was a prequel novella to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, specifically a story about the aeronaut Lee Scoresby called Once Upon a Time in the North. I've started reading it, and so far it's... eh. It isn't terrible, but Scoresby is kind of flat as a character, and the story really just feels kinda unnecessary so far. I'm hoping that it will get better, especially since it's supposed to be the story of how he befriended Iorek Byrnison, the king of the bears who was one of my favorite characters in the series (and who I thought was criminally underused after the first book).