MY LATEST ROCK MIX

I had a music file on my computer with a lot of older music that I hadn’t listened to in forever. As I wandered through the hefty files I imported a bunch of songs into ITunes and created a mix. This is it. It’s  rock stuff, before I got into heavier, growlier (?) hardcore fare (the latter mostly because of Raleigh’s influence). I’ve listed the songs pretty much in order, with a comment or two. Maybe if you like rock, and you haven’t heard that particular song, maybe my comments will influence you to give it a try. I’m not going to do the research to know whether a lot of these bands are still at it but I’ll speak of them in the present tense. One disclaimer. These songs are ones I was listening to before I just about went Christian Hardcore exclusively. So there’s some questionable lyrics here and there, maybe even a couple of explicit. I’ve got a sweet edit program that I used to use a lot back then. ( I remember a few songs, Mobscene by Marilyn Manson in particular, that after editing, there wasn’t much left.) of So if you like one and download off ITunes, get the clean version. Sorry about that.

1) Powerman 5000-Free, Matrix Theme

This band is fronted by Rob Zombie’s little brother, Spider. After I resurrected it the other day, I’ve listened to it about 1000 times, sung it my head ad nauseum, and just about perfected it on my guitar. Matrix Theme, don’t know where I got it but it’s sweet. Am not even positive it is PM5K but I think it is.

Hatebreed- Tear it Down The only really heavy song in the mix. I love the line “for once, stand the #?%* up and fight”. These guys sound a lot like Pantera without Dimebag.

Hed PE- Blackout. Don’t really like anything else I’ve heard by these guys. They’re pretty rough but I love this song. This was a pretty big hit for them back in 2003.

Deftones-My Own Summer (Shove It) This song really slams. Don’t exactly know what ther lyrics are about and prob don’t want to know.

Mudvayne-Digg.  Wow. Before MV went too commercial. Awesome video too.

AC/DC – Fly on the Wall       This one and Shake Your Foundations are among my favorite AC/DC songs.

Sum 41- The Hell Song & Little Know it All. I love these two songs as does Raleigh. The latter features rock legend Iggy Pop.

Fugazi- Waiting Room & Break. If you’ve never heard Waiting Room, it’s a classic, and classic Fugazi. Some long-forgotten DJ on 102.9 loved this song and played it often before he signed off at midnight (I was on night shift then)

Primus- Jerry Was a Race Car Driver. I’m not a huge Primus fan but I really like this one. From the sound of the big, hammering engine with sweet,open mufflers opening the song, to the goofy lyric delivery, to the crunching guitars, I can’t get enough. Too funny too.

Clutch- Texan Book of the Dead. Again, I’m not a big Clutch fan but this song is hilarious and really listenable (?). A little sacrilegious but truly hawhaw funny. Check out the lyric sheet. EiEiOh. Hahahahhaha.

Robert Palmer-Simply Irresistible. This one goes back to 1989. I can remember busting the left front speaker in my little Toyota truck jamming on this song a little bit TOO loud. Good video too.Whew!

Smile Empty Soul-Bottom of a Bottle. A message of hopelessness and addiction but the music smokes.

Soundgarden- Fell on Black Days, Room a 1000 Miles Wide, Rusty Cage FOBD alerted the world that Chris Cornell can BELT it man. I love the last two also. Johnny Cash’s cover of Rusty Cage is one reason I think he was so cool.

Jimi Was the Man

I’m back guys.

After being on strike for four months, discovered blogging,  got back to work but  not having near as much time as before,  stopped blogging for awhile. But I’m back now. I’m definitely going to shorten my posts but blogging is fun so I’m going to try to do it. Hopefully I’m going to try to do 2-3 per week so check in as often as  you can.

My grand re-opening blog is about Jimi Hendrix.In the 3 years in the limelight, he established himself as unarguably the greatest blues-rock guitarist ever. Period. No one has ever had the combination of creativity, dexterity, virtuosity and sonic mastery as he had. When I was a teenager I had every single album out (yes, album) I bought and wore out the album Band of Gypsies 3 times. I could play a lot of his songs and pretty much knew every line, lyric, and lick of every single song. I never got a chance to see him because he overdosed and died in 1970, a little before my time(and his).

In the last few months, I’ve kind of rediscovered Jimi after many years. I’ve downloaded just about all my super-favorites on I-Tunes and just the other night realized that there would probably be some stuff on YouTube. Well, there’s tons of stuff, just about all my favorite stuff is right there!!!YouTube is amazing. As much as I liked Hendrix in my teenage years, I had never seen any of his stuff live, except a little of him in Woodstock, the movie. But that was only the Star Spangled Banner and a little more. Nothing like what’s on YouTube now.

Here’s 4 of my favorites: 3 from Woodstock and the song Machine Gun when Jimi’s  group was called Band of Gypsies, playing at the old  San Fran venue : The Filmore West.

The first one is titled : Woodstock Improv and Villinova Junction. If you lose interest after about 3 min, ff to right before 5 min.That’s where the song Villinova Junction starts. It’s beautiful. It’s amazing that he almost never looked at the fretboard. And when he did, it’s not because he needed to.

The next one : Jam Back at the House, was always one of my favorites. The YouTube version is quite a bit shorter than the I-Tunes version which is better, even though someone’s guitar gets a little out of tune for a second. That version also doesn’t have the drum solo. This song is so cool. It starts as a rock song,  morphs into a jazz kind of thing, turns into something else entirely, then just smokes the rest of the way.

Then there’s Jimi’s version of the Star Spangled Banner. nuff said;

Finally, the last one: Machine Gun. If you’ve got 9 min to just sit there and listen and admire his afore-mentioned mastery of sonics, and his dexterity,please do so. He had been criticized a lot for his stage theatrics so in this concert he just just stood there and played. Wow. Good for us.  I think a lot of this was pure improv.  Enjoy.

Some other of my favorites were and are:

House Burning Down

Ezy Rider

Who Knows

Them Changes

Power to Love

Message of Love

Astro Man

Straight Ahead

Izabella

Culture

As someone I know said about learning to like reggae,”I want some musical culture” (my son Raleigh at a young age), and as another young friend Rosshoss stuck his head up over the top of the back seat and sleepily said as we were barreling down I-10 at midnight after a FSU game, I having turned up my reggae-mix as loud as the Nissan Quest factory CD system would go in order to stay awake,”Mr Donnie,could you please turn that POLKA down!!”

Well ,it’s not Polka but it does have culture. I’ve been in love with reggae since I was 17 years old, when  my brother in law Elton and I were jammin on Bob Marley and Burning Spear while everybody else was saying ” turn that awful stuff off and put some Grand Funk Railroad on!!”

Reggae isn’t refined. It’s usually made by totally uneducated people living in the ghettos of Jamaica under the influence of about 2 daily lbs of ganja. But it’s real, it’s got a sick bass bottom, a killer off-beat drum rhythm ( try beating the time on your dashboard- you gotta hit on the UP Beat, not the down, like our music) and most of the time it’s got a great message about love and peace, and God.

I came to the Lord through the influence of reggae. I started liking it,bought a couple of albums and started reading the  scriptures (old testament) on their album covers ( not cds,they weren’t created yet) and in their liner notes.Because of that I started reading the bible and the rest is history.Never doubt the power of the Word, even when it’s used wrongly it can do great things.

After listening to the same stuff for several years I figured there had to be a lot more out there. So for the last year or two, I’ve been scouring the best of Reggae lists on the Internet, sampling them on ITunes, and downloading them. Well, for sure there is a lot more good stuff out there.

So, if you’ve ever thought of buying a reggae cd but wasn’t sure what to get, or if you kind of like it already, this is a nice start. It’s a little Bob Marley and the Wailers heavy but hey, they were (and are) the best.

Bob Marley and the Wailers

Could You be loved (prob my favorite,check out his son’s version on YouTube)

Slave Driver

Rastaman Chant

Bend Down Low

African Herbsman

Natural Mystic

Trenchtown Rock

Concrete Jungle(good story on the killer guitar solo)

Positive Vibration

Them Belly Full but We Hungry

Bad Card

Roots Rock Reggae

Zion Train

Redemption Song

Damiam Jr Gong Marley

Kingston 12

Me name Jr Gong

Welcome  to Jamrock

Beautiful

And You be Loved

Ziggy Marley

Conscious Party

Look Who’s Dancing

Stephen Marley

Lonely Avenue

Toots and the Maytals

Redemption Song ( awesome song about loving the Lord)

Take me home Country Road ( yep,that’s right, old John Denver remake)

Burning Spear

Marcus Garvey

The Ethiopians

Promises

Augusto Pablo

East of the River Nile

The Gladiators

Solas

Johnny Clarke None shall escape the judgement

The Melodians

Rivers of Babylon (Right out of Isaiah)

Peter Tosh

Downpressor Man

Burial