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PerformanceKlok: What you say about his compan-whatnow?

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

Rush’s failed attempt to play “Tom Sawyer” on Rock Band, back stage at The Colbert Report:

And then there’s the 11-year-old girl who plays YYZ on organ:

Posted in PerformanceKlok | 1 Response »
Tags: Rush

Top 5 underrated rock musicians

Monday, September 28th, 2009

……

When I thought about doing a Top 5 list of underrated rock musicians, I quickly realized that this could easily become a Top 100 list. I’m sure we’ll see a reoccurrence of this category, but for today’s post, I’m listing the Top 5 my mind keeps coming back to.

1. Roger Taylor
Queen is a band of giants – gigantic talent, gigantic stage presence. So it can be hard to stand out against the larger-than-life Freddie Mercury or guitar-god Brian May. But listen to any one of Queen’s numerous live recordings, and Taylor’s presence is essential where his raspy harmonies are as constant as his high hat/snare combos. When Taylor and May toured as part of Queen + Paul Rodgers, Taylor got to step out from behind the kit to sing lead on such immortal numbers as his own “Radio Ga-Ga.” Speaking of which …

2. Paul Rodgers
Rodgers‘ ubiquitous presence on classic rock radio as part of Bad Company means that he’s synonymous with ’70s standards such as “Can’t Get Enough” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love.” Look beyond the El Camino-rock, though, and you’ll find an artist who has had an enormous influence on early blues-rock (think Free’s “All Right Now”) and a singer with a power voice with an impressive range.

3. Extreme
The Boston quartet’s 1989 debut seemed heavily influenced by Van Halen and and hair spray. But underneath all that Aquanet was a band with killer chops (lead by Nuno Bettencourt’s blazing guitar) and harmonies as formidable in the studio as on stage. Extreme’s sound would later encompasse elements of folk, funk, blues, and even the symphonic, but all with a hard-rocking edge, and would run the lyrical gauntlet that took them away from sexploitation tunes like “Teacher’s Pet” and “Li’l Jack Horny” towards introspection and religious and social commentary.

4. Screaming Trees
Screaming Trees deserve more than to just be a foot note in the decapitated history of the Seattle grunge scene. The band never became as legendary, but their sound evokes the best of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam – earnest and sorrowful without any pretension.

5. Alex Lifeson
Nothing sent me into a white-hot rage faster than when I saw Rolling Stone excluded Lifeson from its list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. I immediately set about collecting as much dog waste and lighter fluid I could find. My goal was to have at least 400 pounds of canine feces in paper bags that I would set alight in the lobby of the magazine’s New York offices. It would be up to Jann S. Wenner to stamp out said flaming bags, as required by his role as editor and publisher, and whoa, would he get a surprise!

Ultimately, the logistics involved with getting that much dog crap into Manhattan proved too much. Chances are the editorial department would be too preoccupied with fact-checking stories on Diablo Cody and with its Megan Fox photo shoot to notice several hundred pounds of burning dog feces in its foyer.

So, to summarize, Alex Lifeson rocks.

underrated

Posted in Top 5 | 4 Responses »
Tags: Alex Lifeson, Bad Company, Brian May, Extreme, Free, Paul Rodgers, Queen, Queen + Paul Rodgers, Roger Taylor, Rush, Screaming Trees

Top 5 failed experiments merging pop and hip-hop

Friday, September 25th, 2009

The Beastie Boys and Run-DMC were always on a Quixotic task of exposing the so-called “suckah emcee.” Perhaps their charge was inspired by some of these Top 5 failed experiments merging pop and hip-hop:

1. “Come With Me,” Puff Daddy
To actually give Senior Diddy credit for this song is ludicrous, despite Jimmy Page’s complacence. “Come With Me” simply reworks the instrumental tracks of Led Zepplin’s “Kashmir” as Puffy coughs “uh, uh-huh, yeah” repeatedly between sets of nonsensical lyrics. It was fittingly released on the horrible 1998 American remake of Godzilla, another pop culture giant that destroys all in its path.

Come With Me (feat. Jimmy Page) (live) – Puff Daddy

2. “Do the Bartman,” Bart Simpson
Around the time of The Simpsons’ second season, a huge effort was made to capitalize on the show’s popularity with all manner of merchandise – the one and only Bart leading the charge. Animated or not, and Michael Jackson notwithstanding, you don’t give a yellow suburban fourth grader a mic. Thankfully, both the show and Bart himself not only survived this onslaught of fame but flourished.

Do The Bartman – The Simpsons

3. “Roll The Bones,” Rush
Canadians are great at a lot of things. Their hockey players are legendary, their maple syrup and bacon products are far above par, and their Terrence & Philip cartoons are a delight. But our neighbors to the north ought to be steered a way from attempting to rap. Their own Rush injected a number of rhymes in 1990’s title track to Roll the Bones, with such memorable lines as “Let’s kick some gluteus max” and “The night has a thousand saxophones.”

Rush |MTV Music

(Say what you want, the world would be a better place if all our music videos included rapping skeletons. Yes, I know all the words to this song by heart. No, I will not apologize.)

4. “Radio Song,” R.E.M. feat. KRS-One
It’s depressing to think that the worst part of “Radio Song” is its defining element – the bellows and shouts of hip-hop legend KRS-One. A song with excellent potential that fails in its task to be everything to everyone. Indeed, the DJ sucks.

R.E.M. |MTV Music

5. “Rapture,” Blondie
Kudos for Blondie for experimenting in what was largely unknown territory in 1981. Now, about this “eating cars” thing? In retrospect, Debbie Harry sounds pretty silly as she attempts to rap, but the chart-topping success of “Rapture” brought an untried art form a step closer to the masses.

Blondie |MTV Music

Posted in Hate Week, Top 5 | 1 Response »
Tags: Bart Simpson, Blondie, Debbie Harry, Jimmy Page, KRS-One, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson, P. Diddy, Puff Daddy, R.E.M., Rush

Top 5 “what the hell were they thinking?!” moments on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

disc

Rolling Stone has listed what it claims are “The 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time.” Rather than come up with the definitive list, however, the article simply fans the flames of a long-running debate.

Many music critics would say that sound and inventiveness trumps technique and skill. Serious musicians could counter that even if you stun listeners across the nation with your songs, it doesn’t mean your playing is any good, never mind sophisticated.

The RS list appears to lean toward the former argument. That’s fine, but in reading its list, one can’t help but feel mislead. If they called this list “100 Great Artists Whose Guitar Is Their Primary Instrument,” then, yeah, you could get behind that. But to give props to Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil because he used dropped-D tuning, but exclude technically superior musicians like Eric Johnson and Alex Lifeson … that just seems wrong.

One thing is for certain; Rolling Stone’s list leaves a lot of head-scratching.

Top 5 “what the hell were they thinking?!” moments on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time:

1. Eric Clapton

clapton

No. Sorry. He’s not the fourth greatest guitarist of all time. I’m not even sure if he’s the fortieth. Yes, he’s incredibly popular; yes, he’s been around for a bit; yes, he deserves a huge thanks for giving the blues a British renaissance; and yes, the baby boomers love him. But as my old guitar teacher once said, any kid on the street corner can play his licks. The pentatonic scale is just not that hard. If he’s “God,” then my dad’s God … and he’s not.

2. Kurt Cobain

cobain

Cobain helped to give the music industry an enema just when its hair band-impacted bowels needed it, and we’re all better off for that. But Cobain was not that great of a guitarist, he just wasn’t it. If you need to recognize a guitarist representing the early ’90s alternative/grunge music, why not Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready?

3. Johnny Ramone

Ramone

Punk is a good and almost necessary form of music. But its very nature shuns the technical know-how of its contemporaries such as prog-rock. The Ramones is New York punk through and through, but you didn’t go to CBGB to hear an exercise on symmetrical augmented scales.

4. Keith Richards

KeithRichards

One of the most overrated guitarists from the world’s biggest overrated band. The Rolling Stones did not do much to innovate. They came along at the right time, tweaking the Beatles sound with a bit more sex and drugs, and most of them had the good fortune to stick together and not die. Richards is a decent guitarist, but he’s not one of the all-time greatest.

5. Neil Young

young

As a singer-song writer, he’s fine. But like Cobain, he’s simply not that great of a guitarist. If you want to talk musicianship with a flair for songwriting, give me Paul Simon any day of the week.

Runners up: George Harrison (#21); The Edge (#24); Ron Asheton (#29); Tom Morello (#26); John Fogerty (#40); Clarence White (#41); Joni Mitchell (#72); Joan Jett (#87).

Posted in Top 5 | 3 Responses »
Tags: Alex Lifeson, CBGB, Clarence White, Cream, Credence Clearwater Revival, Derek and the Dominos, Eric Clapton, Eric Johnson, George Harrison, Joan Jett, John Fogerty, Johnny Ramone, Jonie Mitchell, Keith Richards, Kim Thayil, Kurt Cobain, Mike McCready, Neil Young, Nirvana, Paul Simon, Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, Rolling Stone, Rolling Stones, Ron Asheton, Rush, Soundgarden, The Beatles, The Byrds, The Edge, The Ramones, Tom Morello, U2, Yardbirds

Top 5 Tunes About Photography (longform)

Monday, July 6th, 2009

LENS If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how come the dictionary doesn’t have more pictures? It’s stupid questions like that which keep you up at night. But music has always inspired visual art and vice versa.

That said, we’re having an Irish wake of sorts for out old pal, Kodachrome, a Kodak film immortalized by Paul Simon. Kodak announced on June 22 that is taking our Kodachrome away, and is retiring the company’s standard bearer of color film.

To mark this event, theFiver presents:

Top 5 Tunes About Photos & Photography

1. “Kodachrome,” Paul Simon

Off the album, “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon,” although “Rhyming” and “Simon” do not, technically, rhyme. Useless trivia: Kodak, the makers of Kodachrome film, required the album to note that Kodachrome is a registered trademark. So now, who knows if they still require a little ™ next to the track listing? Simon also plugs Nikon in his song about time and memories, although any photographer worth his salt ought to be shooting with Canon using Fuji film (we recommend a low ISO of 100).

2. “Pictures Of You,” The Cure

Despite its use by HP to hock inkjet printers, this is still a lovely, lovely song.

3. “Photograph,” Def Leppard

My own personal read into the subtext: Photos are great because they don’t get offended when you leer at them.

4. “Take A Picture,” Filter

I guess it’s a song about photography, but the only lyrics I can understand are “you wanna take my picture, ’cause I woan ream (inaudible).”

5. “Bad Day,” REM

Personal note – I was a photographer for a small newspaper for a few years, and every time I had to shoot an accident, a fire, a perp walk, I always thought of the chorus: “It’s been a bad day, please don’t take my picture.”

Top 5 Tunes About Photography

Runners up: Camera Eye, Rush; Pictures of Lily, The Who; Camera, REM; Picture Book, The Kinks. So what 5 tunes make you wanna say “cheese”?

Posted in Top 5 | 5 Responses »
Tags: Def Leppard, Filter, Paul Simon, REM, Rush, The Cure, The Kinks, The Who

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