Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers - I'm Not Your Man

Cover Songs Worth Examining: Seven Nation Army

Seven Nation Army has to be the best riff written in 20 years. A couple of gutsy interpretations here.

Three Awesome Songs By Failure

Words can't express what a huge fan of these guys I am / was. The Tool-like sound and mix is not a coincidence, Ken Andrews, Failure's lead singer, collaborated and produced many of Tool's albums. Failure's cut from the same cloth, but I think they're more melodic. Enjoy!

Another Space Song

Frogs

The Nurse Who Loved Me

Wake Up Song: Stratovatius - Bloodstone

It's rare when a cover is as good as the original. See the post for the original by clicking "wake up songs" below.

Def Leppard - Run Riot

I watch a lot of soccer. And read a lot of soccer Web sites, most of them English. They love to say that a team that wins in a rout "ran riot" all over their opponents. And every damn time I read that phrase, this song pops into my head. So, in honor of Liverpool demolishing Man U Saturday, I present this little ditty.

Wake Up song: Judas Priest - Bloodstone

Audio only. This is considerably better than yesterday's wake up song, which will remain nameless.

Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train

Since we've already got one guitar god on the blog tonight, had to add the boy wonder as well.

Van Halen - Romeo Delight

These guys were famously rip-roaring drunk during this show, and it shows. This is very sloppy, but they were so mighty that the crowd didn't give a damn. Listen to that roar.

Extreme - Get the Funk Out

Not bad, for a Michigan White Boy. Van Halen 3 and More Than Words jokes aside, Extreme actually had a tendency to kick ass from time to time, and funk rock is an underrated genre.

What is it with metal videos and dancing little people?

Blue Murder - Jelly Roll

Mentioning John Sykes below made me remember his spinoff Blue Murder. Apparently they put out several albums, but the only one I remember was this one. The first two thirds of this song almost make up for the pudding ending.

This is an impossibly awful video, too.

Whitesnake - Slow An' Easy

You know, before they became a punchline, and while John Sykes was a major part of the band's songwriting, Whitesnake actually put out some really cool tunes.

Soundgarden - Rusty Cage

A lot of grunge music is starting to sound dated these days, but these guys and their music never age. Sometimes it's easy to forget what a tremendous band Soundgarden was.

Foo Fighters - My Poor Brain

Audio only. This one hit me when I complained about my brain in the last post.

Dirty Pretty Things - You ... Love It

THREE CHORDS AND A CLOUD OF DUST.

I thought of this song when I dropped a pizza tray and it sounded just like the clatter at the beginning of this song. Somebody save me from my brain!

Fine Examples of Instrumental Rock

An underrated genre, this. I think every guitar wizard I grew up with dreamed of being Joe Satriani. Me, I wanted to be Stu Hamm. Hope you like these.

Joe Satriani - Friends

Stu Hamm - Linus and Lucy

Eric Johnson - Cliffs of Dover

Steve Vai - Bad Horsie

A Trio of Van Halen Songs

Big ups to Steve, who turned me on to Van Halen Asteroids while at work today. Screamingly (pun!) funny. So it's time to shake off the cobwebs and get back to the whole reason I love Music in the first place.

WARNING: VERY MIGHTY

Hot for Teacher

So This Is Love

House of Pain (Demo Version)

Cover Songs Worth Examining: Spiderbait - Black Betty

OH GEEZUS HELL YEAH THIS VERSION OF BLACK BETTY THUNDERS AND ROARS. IT'S SO DAMN LOUD I HAVE TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS TO MAKE SURE YOU CAN READ IT. TAKES THE RAM JAM VERSION OF THE SONG, SHREDS IT INTO LITTLE PIECES AND STUFFS IT DOWN YOUR EAR CANAL SO HARD THAT YOUR SINUSES ARE STILL CLOGGED THREE DAYS LATER.

The original, for comparison's sake:

Wake Up Song: Europe - Final Countdown

You wake up, you hear the phrase "final countdown to the inauguration," and you get a song stuck in your head that you prefer just slightly to rats digging in your ear canal and eating your eardrums. Sometimes I hate my brain.

David Lee Roth - Sensible Shoes

Honestly, I have no idea whatsoever why I have this song in my head.

Explaining the Radio Station References

A couple of folks have asked me about the WAVA, WHFS references in the labels under every post. Growing up in DC in the 80s, you had a choice of radio stations that clearly defined who you were in the social strata of West Springfield High School.

Q107 was the top 40 radio station. Sure, others came around later on, but their "Top 10 at 10" was a show that you were not allowed to miss if you wanted to hear what the hot girls were listening to.

WHFS was the "alternative" station. far and away the coolest station around, even if you didn't really understand what the music was about. Lots of the bookish girls I had crushes on listened to this station, and even if I didn't understand it, at least they played lots of REM and pre-Joshua Tree U2.

WAVA was the AOR station that was DC101's younger, brattier brother. It also eventually went Top 40 (and later became a Christian station), but for a few short years, it was the station to hear all the hard stuff that was too gritty for DC101 and had better reception than 98Rock out of Baltimore. If you watched Beavis and Butthead, Todd would listen to WAVA. West Springfield had a hell of a lot of Todds.

WCXR was the Classic Rock station that came along in about 1985 or so. I actually worked there for a couple of years between my first and second attempt at college. Classic Rock was a new format at the time, and was the most eye-opening format ever for me. Up to that point the only place you could hear the Beatles was on Oldies stations, and you never heard Jimi Hendrix, the Stones, or CCR on the radio until it came along. everyone loved it, and it was a unifying presence in high school.

So if you're confused about the kind of music you think you'd like, keep this in mind and click on the appropriate label on the right to find stuff you think you might like.

RESPEK