Sweet Jam

Further to that last post on The Charlatans, if you go back to the references you get one awesome jam session:  John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mick, Keef and Stevie Winwood.

Woulda got some sweet sounds out of that supersession!

How High

Do you know the Charlatans?  If not, you should.  Trippy riffs, funky bass, great harmonies and killer organ.

It’s as if Oasis had put a little less Beatles into their music and substituted Traffic – oh, and a healthy dash of Stones.

Sound cool?  It is.  It’s the kind of music that should be forever.

Mind-Blowing Music

Gibson has a list of 10 Classic Albums to Expand Your Musical Horizons, and a message:  get outside your comfort zone.

The list includes work by the likes of Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Black Keys and Tom Waits, with whom I easily relate.

But it also includes artists I have shied away from, such as Coltrane, Hank Williams and Brian Eno.

And, sadly, it contains a few artists I had never heard of but probably should have, like Sonny Sharrock, Junior Kimbrough and Richard Hell and the Voidoids.

Reading the write-ups, I can see that each of these artists would have something to offer that relates to genres and styles I like, but pushes me past where I normally go if left to my own devices.  In terms of lighting that creative spark, it’s a great idea to immerse yourself in something new.

And if I think about it, most of my heroes did/do just that.

Thanks, Gibson.  You’ve given me some homework to do.

This Hell I Live In

With apologies to Mssrs. Lennon, McCartney, Winwood, Waters, Gilmour, Springsteen, Johnson and Anonymous …

The five saddest songs ever written are actually all in Les Miserables.

Arena Rock

The 70’s was (were?) a good time to be a young rock fan, so says the Rolling Stone Readers Poll on the 10 Best Metal/Hard Rock Albums of the 1970s.

Sure.  Until things got a little excessive.  Then again, it was better than disco.

Anyway, here’s the list:

  1. Zeppelin - IV

  2. Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti

  3. Sabbath - Paranoid

  4. Deep Purple – Machine Head

  5. Van Halen

  6. AC/DC – Highway to Hell

  7. Aerosmith - Rocks

  8. Kiss - Alive

  9. Sabbath – Master of Reality

10. Montrose

I know I’m in the minority in my inability to adore Black Sabbath and Kiss, but it certainly isn’t a surprise to find them on the list.  At least Zep and Deep Purple are well represented.

Then again, a strong case could be made for a top ten list than only had Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple albums.  OK, ok, we’d need a couple of AC/DC albums to get to 10, and that wouldn’t hurt one bit.  But you know, Houses of the Holy, Deep Purple in Rock, Made in Japan … these were big records.

Not complaining, just sayin’.