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.

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.

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

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.

Wake-up Song: Ratt - Lay it Down

Seems like every morning I wake up with a song in my head and I have no idea why. It's like acknowledging the bad dream you had last night. As screwed up as was, it's all yours and you have to deal with it.

As far as the song goes, I freely acknowledge that I grew up loving hair metal. As ridiculous as most of it is, there are still a couple of bands who could put a good riff together and Ratt was one of them. These guys cracked me up. They all hated each others' guts, but they were a lot better than most of their peers. Enjoy.