Rain

KISS - Ladies Room

KISS - Room Service

Kids these days, man... I'm embarassed to say that I've been playing guitar for almost 40 years. I was watching Tim Henson the other day when he popped up in my feed for an Ernbie Ball add. Make what you will of his "boomer bend" remark, but he is an amazing guitarist. I don't really like what he plays, and I like to think that it's not that I'm too illiterate or too old, but still - the kid's amazing. Same with a lot of those young people posting reels on Instagram. I guess it's normal for certain human abilities to improve from generation to generation, but I feel the gap here is quite fantastic. Of course there's always a bunch of geezers putting them down and telling them they have no feel, but, having grown up in the 80's with Malmsteen and all those guys, that's nothing new.

Thank a bunch for these. I'm in a Queen phase right now, and I'm in the middle of the Night at the Opera Classic Album (I know, I know, I should have watched that one ages ago) but these are definitely going on the list.

Queen - My Fairy King

Queen - Great King Rat

Rush - A Farewell to Kings

Fuki - Sacred Bones Riot Man, I'm in love with that woman...

Queen - Dog with a Bone

Amazing. Thanks for posting this!

The Sisters of Mercy - Doctor Jeep

Slayer - Angel of Death (Doctor -> this song is about n*zi physican Joseph Mengele, for those not familiar with Slayer's oeuvre).

Motörhead - Doctor Rock

The series made me reconnect with the album a bit. When I first heard about it, my thoughts were that musically, it was the least interesting album to have documented like that and that maybe this was like a well-intentionned but desperate attempt at making something interesting out of an album that really isn't (musically). A bit like they attempted with the "naked" mix. The equivalent of therapeutic relentlessness. With that in mind, we're talking about the Beatles, so even the "worst" still interests me. I think that some of it is due to the fact that it wasn't finished by George Martin. That man could make you forget that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel at times, so they got away with average songs here and there. That magic isn't there on Let it Be. So while it's nice to see the process, an integral part of what made the Beatles magic in't there - Martin's contribution not being that extensive. Could also have something to do with the fact that I was never really a fan of later years rock and roll, when musicians revisited their RnR roots in the late 60's and 70's. Songs like One After 909 would have been fine on an early album, but that same song played by the late 60's Beatles won't really fly for me. Same for Get Back. I don't really like it. (Well, I still do because it's The Beatles, but it's definitely not up there with Strawberry Fields or In My Life). Watching the series, I could get something out of those songs that I never did before and gain a certain appreciation for them. And I certainly enjoyed seeing my old heroes in the studio - as messy as things got. Overall, the series made me realize that the album was better than I remembered. But that's the thing with Let it Be, I don't tend to listen to it that often, and after some time passes, the impression it leaves reverts to something that's not very positive. Ironically, Let it Be was the first Beatles album that I bought on CD (and my second CD ever, IIRC).

I never used BiaB, but back when I started using Cakewalk Guitar Studio, it featured that thing called The Song Wizard. Part of me thought I should be above using that sort of thing but I eventually did out of curiosity because I wanted to know how to use every part of the program. So I put in the chords for a song idea I was working on and auditionned a few styles - and I was quite shocked when I hit upon something I'd never had thought of but which worked perfectly and brought the song to life. I figured it was a bit like my idiot drummer, throwing arrangment ideas at me that never seemed to make sense - whether it was because he'd been listening to reggae or whatever - stuff that I would never have tried otherwise. But sometimes it'd just work and bring the song to a whole new level.

YouTube actually came up with a brilliant suggestion tonight. I'd not seen this one. There's something so genuine about them - their chemistry, their complicity, their humor, and how much they seem to enjoy working together. Not the type of energy I am used to in that type of documentary.

The Ramones - Something to Believe In

Lenny Kravitz - Believe

Ozzy Osbourne - Believer

David Bowie - Sound and Vision (from one of my favorite albums of all time).

Stone Temple Pilots - Heaven and Hot Rods

Ministry - Jesus Built my Hotrod

Is anybody else inexplicably hungry?

Scorpions - Another Piece of Meat

Faith No More - The Crab Song