It would make sense to call the Beatles a boy band except, lyrically,
they fall pretty far short of the One Directions of the world. Songs
like “Hello, Goodbye,” “She Loves You,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
could have been written by three-year-olds. It says all you need to about this group that the most famous thing
they ever did was walk across a street together. FACT: “Beatlemania,” in reality, was a heavily produced marketing ploy by Brian Epstein. In short, the term “Fab Four” actually is pretty fitting regarding the group - although if we wanted to steer closer to reality, that “fab” connotes not “fabulous,” but “fabricated.”
BLACK SABBATH
Most people can name more animals that Ozzy Osbourne has bitten the head off of than actual Black Sabbath songs.
JOHNNY CASH
People think it’s cool to like Johnny Cash because unlike his
contemporaries, not all of his songs were about how he wanted to fuck
his sister. But if you look back at his discography, it’s a fiery
garbage hole of inane alcoholic ramblings that devolves into that hack
who started Def Jam convincing him it was a good idea to cover Nine Inch
Nails.
CREAM / ERIC CLAPTON
White man discover guitar. White man like guitar. Guitar fun. Guitar make good noise. Cocaine!
THE DOORS
Jim
Morrison wrote a lot of poetry, and most of it was shitty, pretentious,
regrettable, faux-intellectual diarrhea. But Morrison's high-school emo
poetry isn't the only reason that The Doors suck. Nearly fifty years
after the release of their self-titled debut album,
they remain one of the most over-romanticized and over-mythologized
bands of that decade. the only real influence the Doors have ever had is
inspiring a
generation of college freshmen dudes to learn how to play three chords
on
their dad’s acoustic classical guitar through ultimate-guitar.com.
MARVIN GAYE
How big of an asshole do you have to be to have your own dad shoot you?
WHITNEY HOUSTON
More like Shitney Houston, right?
JANIS JOPLIN
Patient Zero for the trend of white girls thinking they can sing like black women and an inducted member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—both unforgivable sins.
TOM PETTY
Tom Petty looks like what would happen if The Muppets made a man.
PINK FLOYD
Fun fact!! If you sync up Dark Side of the Moon with The Wizard of Oz, it still sounds like unlistenable horseshit. You probably went through a "Big Pink Floyd Phase" at some point in your
life. Yeah this "phase" is known as Sophomore year of college when you
ate mushrooms once a week. If you are past the age of say 22 you should
no longer have an appreciation for Pink Floyd. Their music serves no purpose other than to serve
as the soundtrack to your group tripping experience in a dark dorm room. If you are listening to a Pink Floyd album, you are only enjoying
yourself if you are tripping in a dark room watching a light show. You
can't throw on Dark Side of the Moon at a 4th of July BBQ and enjoy
yourself.
RADIOHEAD
Radiohead, the kings nerdy, boring, tuneless rock music, are on top of
the world. They’ve proven time and time again that they can piss
directly into your open mouths, and you’ll frolic and gargle in the
yellow stream like God himself was giving you a nectar-bath. Loathsome
pseudo-intellectual college boys used to have ponytails; now they have
Radiohead. God help you, you stupid, gullible infants.
SONIC YOUTH
Sonic Youth albums aren’t as popular now as they were in the days of
cassettes. That’s because now it’s a lot easier to say, “Hey this song
is going fucking nowhere, skip it.” Every single Sonic Youth song is a
“skip it” song. Every single one. Unless, of course, you enjoy hearing
Thurston Moore sound like he’s dicking around with effects pedals at
Guitar Center.
STEVIE WONDER/RAY CHARLES
Pretty sure the history books only need one blind dude playing boring
songs on piano. So one of them sucks, the other is redundant. You pick.
WU-TANG CLAN
Oh cool, a bunch of nerds rapping about kung-fu. Shaolin’s probably not even a real place.
Definitive proof that rock ‘n’ roll is the only place where you can be a
professional 12-year-old for 40 years and have it be a totally normal,
OK thing. It's great that they built a discography singing about how
great their penises were, but let's not forget that Jack Black and a
band of actual ten-year-olds in School of Rock did a better job with their music.
BEACH BOYS
This is a glorified barbershop quartet that a bunch of record store
nerds convinced themselves were cool because they sang about surfing and
record store nerds don't know how to surf.
BEASTIE BOYS
Obnoxious, ironic white boys taking the hot sound of black America,
white-washing it, and half-assedly farting it back on over to the
suburbs? Is that a description of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis? Nope! It’s
the Beastie Boys. If the Beasties came out in 2014, we’d all fucking
hate them.
THE CURE
This band just made music about crying, which makes sense considering their lead singer looks like a fat, wet baby.
BOB DYLAN
And when did Bob Dylan become Future Adam Sander?
Bob Dylan is possibly the most self-absorbed, self-mythologizing piece
of shit to ever pick up a guitar. By writing inscrutable songs that
pretend to elevate the byzantine dramas of his whiny, privileged life to
some sort of self-construed poetry, Bob Dylan paved the way for our
current vapid culture of appreciating personal expression over any form
of talent. He couldn’t sing, he made a bunch of terrible gospel albums,
and he sold out his core folk fan base and its laudable values of
anti-commercialism by going electric. Although he was seen as a voice of
change, he demonstrated himself to be selfish at every turn of his
career. And worst of all, he has two first names.
FOO FIGHTERS
Foo Fighters are a band for people who want to listen to “rock music”
but only have an FM radio and an IQ of less than 75. They are the
musical equivalent of the politician who will say whatever people want
to hear to get elected. Foo Fighters are the Mitt Romney of rock music.
GRATEFUL DEAD
Dear Dad,
You need to stop sucking up our bandwidth downloading hour-long
bootlegs of “Dark Star” while I’m trying to watch porn. You’re 58 now.
Have you ever stopped to consider that Jerry Garcia has been dead for 20
years? I was an all-conference cross-country runner and you couldn’t
even be bothered to show up to the awards banquet because you were
smoking weed. I don’t love you anymore, and it’s all Jerry Garcia’s
fault.
Love,
Your teenage son
GREEN DAY
The worst thing would be if you died and they played that “Time of Your Life” song at your funeral.
GUNS N’ ROSES
The only thing good about this band is that it made it possible for you to get laid simply because of your Guitar Hero skills.
JIMI HENDRIX
This guy could only play one instrument.
IRON MAIDEN
666, number of the beast? More like number of times their fans have tried and failed to lose their virginity.
JUDAS PRIEST
Pretty much the only cool thing that ever happened to this band was
when Rob Halford came out of the closet and bummed out the homophobic
metal dummies.
KISS
The only thing worse than a talentless egomaniac is four of them. The
only thing worse than four talentless egomaniacs is four talentless
egomaniacs in clown make-up who slap their dumb-ass logo on every square
inch of product they can get their paws on.
LYNYRD SKYNYRD
Lynyrd Skynyrd is a band for clueless 60-year-old music executives who
frame LPs and hang them as art in their million dollar condos and dudes
who name their trucks. No matter what kind of Skynyrd fan you are, the
Confederate Flag is still corny, requesting "Freebird" at concerts still
isn't funny, and this band is a still a soundtrack for racists.
BOB MARLEY
One thing about Bob Marley’s music, when it hits you do feel pain. (Because Bob Marley’s music is bad.)
METALLICA
Sure, Metallica’s material since the 90s has been sub-par. But let’s
also not forget how bad they were in the 80s! And how lame is it to name
your band after the genre you’re in? Who the fuck would listen to a rap
group called Rappica?
VAN MORRISON
It’s amazing to think that Van Morrison made Astral Weeks at the age of 23. Most people don’t lose touch and make terrible adult contempo music until they hit 40.
WILLIE NELSON
This loser cowboy couldn’t hold a tune if it were wrapped in a double strength raw hemp Zig Zag rolling paper.
STEVIE NICKS
This dude sucks.
NINE INCH NAILS
Trent Reznor almost did the noble thing of quitting music when he first
disbanded Nine Inch Nails in 2009, but instead kept releasing godawful
soundtracks to even worse movies, and his shitshow vanity project How To
Destroy Angels, therefore solidifying his legacy as the guy who makes
music for the smartest guy in the trailer park.
NIRVANA
What has more brains than Kurt Cobain? The wall behind him!
PEARL JAM
“OoooOOOOhhhWaaaauUUUuuuGGgggHHHHHeeeeEEEEEaaaaaMMMmmmmUUUUuuNn.” There, you now have a thorough knowledge of Pearl Jam.
THE POLICE
Why would you name your band after a group of militarized, racist thugs?
ELVIS PRESLEY
At an absolute low point in his bloated, erectile malfunction of a career, Elvis Aaron Presley diarrhea’d out Having Fun with Elvis on Stage,
a record consisting of 37 minutes of Elvis’s stage banter, which is
widely regarded as the worst album of all time. That’s giving the vocal
diarrhea of his other albums a lot of credit.
PRINCE
Isn’t he the guy from Chappelle’s Show?
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
Rage is a band for the dude who just took a poli-sci class at the University of Phoenix Online.
THE ROLLING STONES
Wow, it must have taken a lot of creativity to just blatantly rip off a
bunch of black guys from America and do a bunch of drugs. Cool dance
moves, Mick Jagger.
RUSH
Rush is the soundtrack to being a fucking dork.
THE SEX PISTOLS
Oh, congratulations, you’re the pioneers of music’s dumbest genre.
SLAYER
A lot of music sounds like shit, but Slayer’s guitars literally sound
like a cluster bomb of diarrhea hitting the sides of the toilet bowl,
and the vocals literally sound like the sighs of a 300-pound man voiding
his bowels.
SMASHING PUMPKINS
Billy
Corgan is like the Samson of music. Cut his hair off and he loses
his ability to make popular, navel-gazing, whiny 90s alt-rock and
starts going off the deep end of insanity. Somewhere in between starting
a wrestling foundation, dating Tila Tequila,
and looking like what happens when Hellraiser and middle-aged Charlie
Brown have a baby, Billy has managed to ruin any shred of dignity the
Smashing Pumpkins had by reuniting the band with zero original members
and putting out 128-part concept album box sets that even he wouldn’t
listen to.
THE SMITHS/MORRISSEY
This is music for people who need to get the fuck over themselves made by a dude who really needs to get the fuck over himself.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Mumble-mouth anthem king Bruce Springsteen is the most talented person
to ever come out of New Jersey, which is like being the skinniest person
to ever come out of a Cheesecake Factory.
ROD STEWART
Rod Stewart is kind of like if scientists did an experiment in which
they crossed the genes of Hulk Hogan, a glass of bad cognac, and your
creepy uncle.
TOOL
There’s a strong correlation between this band’s name and the type of
people who listen to their MC Escher butt rock. Hopefully it will be
10,000 more days before they release another album.
U2
The only time U2 sounds good is when they’re being played from a
U2-branded iPod plugged into the sound system at a charity event for
people who suffer from the rare disease where they can’t take their
sunglasses off.
VELVET UNDERGROUND
Velvet Underground is proof that if you want to create something truly
terrible, you just need to start by telling a bunch of burnouts that
they're artists. Then let them fire away, get hooked on heroin, and keep
perpetuating the cycle by influencing new generations of shitty wannabe
artists. It's the greatest conceptual art prank Andy Warhol ever
pulled.
THE WHITE STRIPES
Responsible for the worst stadium song ever recorded and a two-person
band in which both members look like the sex offender of the week on an
especially dark SVU episode.
YES
No.
NEIL YOUNG
The only thing that sucks harder than Neil Young’s whiny cat squeal of a
voice is people who put his music on road trip mixtapes for
“adventures” they have into the mountains with their pals while the
entire group does a singalong. Old man, take a look at your life and
shut the fuck up.
FRANK ZAPPA
Honestly, this list just needed a “Z,” and this person probably sucks.
5. “Crazy Bitch” – Buck Cherry It’s pretty obvious why
this song still gets played. It gives the band an excuse to bring all
the “crazy bitches” on stage to dance. Well, I can’t blame you. I never
complain when a 20 something girl gets on stage and shakes her
moneymaker. But, just listen to the song! I can’t take it seriously. Not
to mention that just playing it kind of makes me feel like I need to
take a shower 4. “Sweet Home Alabama” – Lynyrd Skynyrd A cover band
staple for decades now, this song is played often and often played
poorly. Far too many times I’ve heard bands reduce this classic Skynyrd
song to a 5 minute jam on D, C and G. There’s way more to it than that!
If your band is going to do it, at least do it right. No one needs to
hear another half-assed rendition of this song ever again. 4. "Brick House" - The Commodores Who'd have thought that calling a woman a brick house could be a compliment. But, damn, when the Commodores say it, it sure is! but when you're shitty bar band plays it it's just lame, boring and unoriginal. 3. "Play That Funky Music" - Wild Cherry In case you were unaware, Wild Cherry were basically white guys with jewfros who thought they were black. This song is literally played by every bar band in the world. 2. “Brown Eyed Girl” – Van Morrison Van Morrison himself
was once quoted as saying, “It’s not one of my best, I mean I’ve got
about 300 songs that I think are better.” This song has been done to
death! Maybe take it from the songwriter himself and choose another song
from his catalog. 1. “Mustang Sally” – Wilson Pickett If the band at the
bar is playing this song, they’re probably all eligible for an AARP
membership. The women dancing to it probably are too. This song was over
played like 30 years ago. It’s time to give this tired old song a rest.
These are songs your shitty bar band needs to stay away from. There are a bunch more songs like this to but these are the first five I could think of.
There are two schools of thought when it comes to bar band cover songs.
PLAY WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT: A cover band makes money playing covers and to be a successful, working cover band means playing what people want to hear.
The first time a harmless, rich drunk lays down $500.00 and requests you
play Turn The Page or Cocaine for his lovely 300 pound wife because she
wants to hear it, it will get your band marketing brain into gear very fast amigos. I once heard a story about this band playing this biker festival somewhere and kept getting requests for Born to be Wild.
The singer, who hated the song, kept insisting that they didn't know
it. After a while, someone hands him a note saying "Play Born to be
Wild or you won't make it out of here alive". The singer turns to the
band and says "I don't know what song you're playing next, but I'm
playing Born to be Wild".
BUT DO PEOPLE REALLY WANT TO HEAR THAT? The same tired old songs played over and over again. Maybe you should pick cover songs that are just as cool and rocking but that people don't know about. Maybe you think you have that perfect song to cover that will blow people away like Van Halen did with "You Really Got Me" or "Pretty Woman." Or maybe you just refuse to fall in line and do what all the other sucessful bar bands are doing. Rock and Roll is about rebellion, and the overwhelming conformity and unoriginality of everyone playing the same shitty songs just makes you sick.
So what do you do?
The Fuck if I know...
However, the public is what you are paid to entertain. You wanna be successful?
A cover band should play to the crowd and entertain them. They aren't musicians and don't
think in sophisticated la la land theory about which songs suck and
which songs kick ass. They all want to party or hook up with someone.
It's not rocket science. But that doesn't mean you have to play the same shitty old songs, unless of course that rich drunk drops a couple C-Notes to hear Mustang Sally so he can dance with the pretty girl who he has absolutely no chance in hell with. Or a gnarly biker dude about three times your size insisting, and I mean
insisting, that you play "House of the Rising Sun." He may tip you big time and even refrain from kicking your ass.
Now, if you were playing to a club full of musicians...? That's different story for another day. I'll leave you with the worst cover of Pink Floyd ever.
This documentary was made three years after Jimi Hendrix's untimely death. It's by no means the definitive tale of Seattle's favorite son, but it's still engaging and highly recommended. Jimi Hendrix comes to vivid life in funny and touching
recollections by family, friends and other legends of rock like Eric
Clapton, and Mick Jagger.
Oh yeah, and there's Lou Reed, interviewed in his all-white leisure style suit with his tight 'fro. Yes, this film was definitely made in the 70s.
And, there's also priceless and hyperactive Little Richard footage where he talks about how he never got to tell Hendrix he knew he'd make
it. Check it out here, guaranteed to crack you up:
This movie is fantastic because
of all these memories and stories that paint Jimi Hendrix as an
actual person-- not just an axe-wielding, drug addicted God. Some of
the musical footage in the film we've seen a zillion times now, but if
you get your head back to 1973, when the movie was made, you realize
footage was not as readily available as it is now.
Movie crowds back
then were eager to take in Hendrix' spectacular guitar work at Monterey
and Isle of Wight, which sadly for many of us has paled only because in
our era of instant gratification we have been completely oversaturated
with it. Watching this movie made me wish I had lived during that time and also
brought new depth to Hendrix's genius.
The musical portions of the film show Hendrix at Monterey ("Rock Me
Baby," "Hey Joe," "Like a Rolling Stone," "Wild Thing"), Berkeley
Community Theater ("Johnny B. Goode," "Purple Haze"), Woodstock ("Star
Spangled Banner" again), Fillmore East ("Machine Gun" with the Band of
Gypsies), Isle of Wight ("Red House," "In From the Storm"), the Marquee
Club in London ("Purple Haze") and a fine acoustic solo on 12-string
guitar ("Hear My Train a-Coming") filmed in London in 1967.
and here it is here for your viewing pleasure, enjoy.
I'm officially a guest author on www.guitar.answers.com. I've written my first article on whether or not parents should buy a cheap or expensive guitar for their child. here's a link to the article
If you read it be sure to give it a good rating. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep writing for them. When I was first approached, I was told that my writing was unique and my original input would be appreciated. However, my writing was immediately criticized for being too opinionated, and sounding more like a blogger than a serious writer. The final article that emerged was extremely edited and all of the images I submitted were rejected except for the one image that you see with the article. I like the fact that I can write whenever I want and there are no expectations of me as to how much I want to write and when I want to write it. I'm more of a binge writer and I'm not really one to write on a consistent basis. The thing is I don't like being edited so I'm not sure if I will write anything else. They really want informative articles that are uncontroversial, politically correct and un-opinionated. Not really my style but I might try it again in the future.
Perhaps being forced to write in a more conventional format will improve my writing and maybe open doors for me that would not have been opened otherwise. Who knows?
Todays blog features a favorite of mine, Roger Waters "In the Flesh" tour video from 2000. I actually saw this tour and it was amazing. For those that didn't know, Roger Waters was the bassist and main songwriter for Pink Floyd. The DVD was filmed live at the Rose Garden
in Portland, Oregon back in June 2000. It is a 3 hour long concert and covers all of the
Floyd classics such as Time, Comfortably Numb, Wish You Were Here,
Money, Dogs, and many more. It also features a "best of" of Rogers solo
work. It comes with a 30 minute long documentary on preparing for the
tour, one of the few DVD side documentaries worth watching. Other than
that, it's kind of a no-frills deal, as are most concert DVDs.
Most notably in my opinion and the reason I'm blogging about this dvd today is the guitar playing of Doyle Bramhall II. Not only is he a left handed guitar player, but he doesn't reverse the strings for left handed playing. That means he's literally playing upside down with the low strings on the bottom and the high strings on the top.
As this quote from Bramhall himself says, playing left handed and upside down presents its own challenges when it comes to playing, transposing and music theory.
I play by ear, so it could be the same and have no challenges for me. However,
the different challenges for me are chords and transposing chords, because there
are no instructions or music books out there for the positioning of the fingers
for a left-handed, upside-down player. All the theory and technique doesn't apply
to me because I would have to transpose it completely, as opposed to if I strung
left-handed. Then all the finger positions on the first, second, third, fourth,
fifth fret would all be the same. But for me, it's useless. - Doyle Bramhall II
However, I think Bramhall does a nice job of playing both staying true to the original Pink Floyd guitar style while at the same time bringing his own style of playing and making the songs his own. Its a fine balancing act to do that correctly and I think he pulls it off.
Here is the setlist of the dvd
01. In The Flesh 02. The Happiest Days Of Our Lives 03. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) 04. Mother 05. Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert 06. Southampton Dock 07. Pigs On The Wing (Part 1) 08. Dogs 09. Welcome To The Machine 10. Wish You Were Here 11. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-8) 12. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun 13. Breathe 14. Time 15. Money 16. Pros & Cons Of Hitch Hiking Part 11 17. Perfect Sense (Parts 1 & 2) 18. The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range 19. It's A Miracle 20. Amused To Death 21. Brain Damage 22. Eclipse 23. Comfortably Numb 24. Each Small Candle
Sure Roger Waters solo career has some questionable tunes and they're definitely not the highlight of the dvd. But guitar players will like this dvd for the unique playing of Doyle Bramhall II. Pink Floyd fans will like the song selection from such underrated albums like Animals (a real guitar players album in my opinion). Enjoy.
Now when I think of Yngwie Malmsteen, I think of two things. One is the time I got to meet him on his tour bus during the 1990's. More on that later.
The other is Phrygian modes, Harmonic Minor scales and more Phrygian modes over Eb Minor songs played at supersonic speeds.
Now I'm not saying that he sucks. For what he does, which is shredding over a scale he has already played 10 times on the same album,
or playing a riff that sounds exactly the same to another riff
that is on a previous album, with the exception of one different note, he does it extremely well.
Yes he's good, but personally I don't care how good he is, it just doesn't interest me. What interests me is not technique, but originality and creativity.
being really really fast is okay, but do a little something different every once and a while. Write a nice melody, try actually playing a chord. Focus on writing a really good song instead of focusing on "how many notes can I fit into the next three minutes." Is that asking too much?
9 minutes of Yngwie Malmsteen playing guitar. Think you have what it takes to sit thru this in its entirety and pass the Yngwie Malmsteen Challenge?
and to elaborate from earlier let me tell you my Yngwie Malmsteen story.
It's the mid 1990's and I used to work with a girl who used to model with his wife (I have no idea if they are still married). When Yngwie came to town I went to the show with some of my friends who were huge fans of his. I was more curious than a fan actually.
The girl sees me at the show and introduces me to the wife. I asked her if I can meet Yngwie and she says yeah but only me and the girl I work with. My friends had to stay behind.
He's sitting down in one of those restaurant booth seats you sometimes see on large buses like this. He's wearing black leather pants with no shirt and his gut is hanging out over his pants and he' watching tv. His wife introduces us and he just mumbles and doesn't take his eyes away from the tv. I extend my hand so I can shake hands with him but he doesn't even acknowledge me and leaves me hanging.
I tried asking him about a recent guitar magazine interview he did but as I'm asking him he gets the remote for the tv and turns up the volume full blast to drown me out. Then he starts yelling at his wife to find his hairbrush so she can brush his hair.
What a dickhead, but then again I can imagine how I would feel if I'm about to play a show and am just trying to chill out and enjoy some quiet time before the insanity begins and some fucking kid I don't even know comes into my tour bus, MY home away from home asking me questions n shit. I might be a total dick too. I get that.
But he's still a douche. A very fast playing technically sound douche - yes. But still a douche.
