Category Archives: music

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Ozzy throws Tony and Geezer under the bus and says he didn’t enjoy final Black Sabbath reunion… my thoughts…

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Interesting. Black Sabbath is officially done and over with. They released one final studio album in 2012 and they just completed a final tour titled, “The End”. Why did Sabbath suddenly decided to break up? Maybe it was because Ozzy didn’t enjoy being in the band anymore?

Ozzy says that he kept getting bad vibes from Tony and Geezer. I think what Ozzy was trying to say is that Tony and Geezer saw him as a singer, Ozzy saw himself as more than that. Tony and Geezer didn’t appreciate Ozzy being Ozzy meaning being part of the celebrity pop culture. Ya know, Ozzy turned himself into a TV star like with “The Osbournes” and he kept doing other projects with the Osbournes. Ozzy is also an author and has books out too. He’s also currently doing a TV show with his son Jack on the History Channel.  So Tony and Geezer just sees Ozzy as a rock singer and not seeing him as celebrity Ozzy is that what Ozzy is mad about???

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/ozzy-osbourne-black-sabbath-reunion-not-fun/

I love Ozzy Osbourne but I’m not afraid to admit that he is a bit of an egomaniac and narcissist and this should be good enough to prove that. I always saw that Ozzy sold himself out when he did “The Osbournes” TV show. He’s supposed to be a rock singer and metal guy. Instead, he turned himself into a TV star and Hollywood celebrity. That’s how people see Ozzy now. They don’t see him as a rock singer anymore.

Tony and Geezer don’t keep up with the times… they don’t get themselves into this reality TV garbage. They see themselves as musicians, not celebrities. It seems to me that Tony and Geezer don’t appreciate Ozzy doing all that celebrity stuff… trying to be a celebrity and not a musician. I can see where Tony and Geezer are coming from so I’m on their side for sure.

I believe Ozzy destroyed his rock star image when he did the Osbournes which to me was pretty sad and disappointing. Black Sabbath went out on a positive note and it was pretty low of him to talk negative stuff about Tony and Geezer but oh well, what do ya know? It’s the music industry… there’s gonna be huge egos all over.

Fans will always see Ozzy as a celebrity and not a rock singer. Ozzy did that to himself. He needs to get over himself already!

Kev

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Greta Van Fleet and Ghost are two of my favorite new bands right now… I love both of them!

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I am not into today’s music that much but there are a few rock bands of today that impress the hell out of me. They are Greta Van Fleet and Ghost. In my opinion, these are the two best bands going in today’s rock music industry.

I admire Greta Van Fleet ’cause they simply rock and I respect the fact that they are just young talented kids trying to bring “rock n’ roll” back into the mainstream. Their second EP “From the Fires” is really good shit and I’m always listening to it all the time. I see that the band are working on their first full length album so I can’t wait for that. A lot of people think they sound very much like Led Zeppelin… they do sound like Led Zep some, but they have other styles of music going on in there too. I do respect the band Greta Van Fleet a lot and I predict one day Greta Van Fleet will help bring rock n’ roll back into the mainstream again. I think the reason a lot of people respect Greta Van Fleet ’cause they’re simply fed up with country, pop and rap still dominating the industry and the people just wants to support something different by bringing rock n’ roll back. We want to see rock n’ roll back and we believe Greta Van Fleet can do that. They are a killer band and I love ’em.

As far as the Swedish band Ghost goes, I’ve been admiring them for a long while now. The first album I bought by them was “Infestissumam” which was pretty amazing stuff and I listened to that album quite a lot. Now I got two other albums by them called, “Meliora” and their newest album, “Prequelle”. I thought all three of those albums were really good shit. I still gotta get their first album, “Opus Eponymous”, though and I will. The reason I love this band so much is ’cause they know how to make their songs sound so melodic. They make songs that can never leave your head and it stays there. The guys in Ghost know melody is important and when you listen to them, it shows. Not only the vocals are very melodic, all the instruments are very melodic too… the guitar playing, the bass, the organ, etc. The band writes beautiful stuff. They are exploding in the industry and they seem to be getting more popular each album they put out. They seem to be getting better each album they put out too. The band’s singer Tobias Forge who goes under many different names in the band is a really good singer… I love his voice. I hope one day to get to see Ghost live ’cause I would love that and yes, they are playing in Albany this year at the Palace Theater in Dec. and I would love to try and go.

Yeah, these two bands are my favorite right now and I’m always listening to them. I would love to buy a t-shirt of both of these bands too. If you’re looking for some good music to listen to, you should check out these two bands too. You won’t be disappointed.

Kev

music

I love the Grateful Dead, they are the best…

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A lot of people can’t see it but yes, I am a huge fan of the Grateful Dead. Always have been. I don’t know if you’ll consider me a true Deadhead or not ’cause what a true Deadhead is a Grateful Dead fan who has owned all of their studio albums, owned a lot of their live albums and has seen them in concert many times. A true Deadhead is someone who owns a lot of the band’s merchandise like T-shirts, posters and other types of memorabilia. A true Deadhead is someone who wears tie-dye shirts and looking like a hippie and stuff, ya know? I don’t really look like that… but I do consider myself a huge Dead fan if that makes any sense.

I’ve always had a huge interest in the band. I’ve had other cousins in my life who were true Deadheads and my interest in the band grew from them. That’s how I got turned on into listening to the Grateful Dead ’cause family and friends were obsessive fans. More obsessive than I was.

I bought a few of their albums in the past before and bought a few of their live albums on CD but I either got rid of them or family members borrowed them from me and never gave them back. Thanks for the Ipod and Itunes, I’m now starting to collect all Grateful Dead studio albums. The Grateful Dead has a total of 13 studio albums and so far, I have 9 on my Ipod Touch.

The Grateful Dead studio albums I own by them so far are: “American Beauty”, “Anthem of the Sun”, “Aoxomoxoa”, “Blues For Allah”, “Grateful Dead” (self-titled debut), “In the Dark”, “Shakedown Street”, “Wake of the Flood” and “Workingman’s Dead”.

The only Grateful Dead albums that I need to get left are: “Built To Last”, “Go To Heaven”, “Terrapin Station” and “From The Mars Hotel”. I’ll buy those from Itunes pretty soon.

I have also read a few books on Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia in the past before so my interest in the band is pretty immense. I don’t need to look like a hippie and don’t need to do drugs to enjoy the music. I listen to them ’cause I enjoy the music. End of story.

My only regret is never being able to see the band live back when Jerry was alive. I still want to get a chance to see the Dead & Company w/ John Mayer, though.

The Grateful Dead are one of my favorite bands in the history of music. Honestly, they’re one of reasons I became a musician. Other than Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead also helped sparked my interest in guitar playing. They helped sparked my interest in improvisational music ’cause I love improv jams. That’s just me.

Yeah, I do love the jam band genre too. I do love the Allman Brothers and I do love Phish too.

Back to the Grateful Dead though, even though the band’s been gone for so long since Jerry died, they’re still extremely popular, though. We will always love the Grateful Dead and we will never forget the band ever. I guess that’s why Bob Weir wanted to bring Grateful Dead music back with the Dead & Company ’cause he knows the fans still love Grateful Dead music after all these years.

The Dead were an amazing band and I’m a huge fan too.

Kev

music, Random/off topic posts

Really getting into jazz music as I get older, really incredible stuff… wish I got into jazz a long time ago…

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I think my tastes in music is slowly changing as I age. I’m in my 40’s now and I’m just starting to listen to other types of music besides rock and metal. I still love rock and metal — I always will and will never lose interest in that but you can’t listen to rock/metal all the time, ya know? I’m slowly starting to find other types of music to listen to like jazz music. I’ve already been listening to jazz music for the past several years now. I got my start in listening to jazz music by getting into Al Di Meola at first which I really like and I own like 7 or 8 albums of his on my Ipod.

Miles Davis “Bitches Brew” is one of my favorite jazz albums of all time and I have that album in my CD collection. I’ve had that CD in my collection for a long time. Another jazz artist I’ve just started listening to is John Coltrane and I’m sure you’re all familiar with him too. I have two studio albums by Coltrane on my Ipod Touch which are “Blue Train” and “Love Supreme” which both albums are pretty fucking sick.

I really love jazz music and really trying to get into it full time. There are a lot more jazz artists that I really want to get into. When it comes to jazz music, I do want to listen to other jazz guitarists but I also want to listen to jazz artists that plays other brass instruments like the saxophone, trumpet, etc. Miles Davis was a trumpeter and Coltrane was saxophonist and both were genius’s on those instruments.

I still need to listen to other jazz artists like Wes Montgomery, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Django Reinhardt, George Benson, Billie Holiday, etc. I’ll get to all them.

I can’t listen to loud guitar music all the time. Sometimes I got to listen to relaxing music and I do that. When I want to listen to relaxing music to calm me down, I’ll listen to jazz and blues. I try to get into classical music but I can’t see myself listening to that all the time. Jazz and blues is what I prefer more.

I’m also a huge fan of blues music… I’ve listened to a lot of blues over the years of my life. I’m trying to get into jazz and blues music for more guitar playing inspiration pretty much ’cause I’m trying to make my playing sound more jazzy and bluesy. I also listen to jazz and blues music ’cause it’s just enjoyable music to listen to. As for who my favorite blues artists are, I would say: Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, SRV, Eric Clapton, BB King, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Jimi Hendrix and Joe Bonamassa.

Jazz and blues are not popular genres anymore like they used to be but they are still around. One day I would like to make an instrumental jazz album myself and yes, I am trying to learn jazz guitar here and there.

Kev

music

The new Stone Temple Pilots album was pretty damn good, I was pretty surprised by it!!!

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The new Stone Temple album is surprisingly really really good. Freakin’ loved it. Listened to it while working out at the gym today. When these guys kept going on without Scott Weiland, I have had my doubts and didn’t think they would be able to do it without him but they did. They still kill it and they still sound like STP even without Scott on vocals. The new singer sounds pretty close to Scott anyways.

Only very few iconic bands can go on without their original singers successfully for example Van Halen did it with Sammy Hagar, AC/DC did it with Brian Johnson, Genesis did it with Phil Collins and now STP did it with Jeff Gutt.

STP got a lot of backlash trying to move on without Scott but give them a chance. The new singer took a while to grow on me. Now I’m a fan of STP again.

I think I’m going to be listening to this album a lot. It’s a keeper for sure!

Kev

music

The Smashing Pumpkins covers “Stairway to Heaven” live on stage… pretty good but Billy’s voice doesn’t fit the song…

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Well the Smashing Pumpkins reunion tour begins and this live performance was taken from their first show on the tour. As you can see here, The Pumpkins tries to cover “Stairway to Heaven” which is Led Zep’s most iconic song.

I thought the band played the song pretty well but like the title of this blog topic says, Billy’s voice doesn’t fit which is understandable. “Stairway” is a very difficult song to sing vocally. I noticed the band transposed the song to a lower key so it can fit Billy’s voice ’cause I know Billy has a pretty low range singing voice. At the “As we wind on down the road” part, Robert sings really high in that part but Billy sang it his way.

Are the costumes, gimmicks and the video screen in the background really necessary? I understand that Billy is trying to make the Smashing Pumpkins shows more theatrical like but that is not needed. How about focusing on the music?

Other than that, the band played the music well like I said. I thought the best part was Jeff Schroeder nailing the solo. That Schroeder dude is a great lead guitarist for sure.

Kev

music

Led Zeppelin to reunite one more time after all??? Here’s hoping…

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Some of you may already know that Led Zepprelin are my musical heroes. They were the ones who helped me get into music in the first place and they helped me inspire to pick up the guitar. Led Zep hasn’t played another reunion gig or a tour since their one-off Dec. 10th, 2007 gig which happened 11 years ago.

Many fans begged Led Zep to do a full tour after that; however, there was a slight problem. Jimmy Page was down for another Led Zep tour, John Paul Jones was down too and Jason was down as well except for Robert who kept repeatedly saying he never wanted anything to do with Led Zep ever again. What’s ironic about Robert’s statement is that Robert keeps performing Led Zep songs with his solo band aka the Sensational Space Shifters.

Led Zep got together to work on a book to celebrate their 50th Anniversary and because of this, rumors swirling around again that they might do one more show and it might be at Glastonbury 2019.

LED ZEPPELIN "Heavily Favored" To Be Headlining 2019 Glastonbury Festival

Could Led Zep reunite one more time after-all? We’ll have to wait and see. Yeah, Robert is the only member in the band who no longer wants anything to do with Led Zep but who knows, maybe Jimmy convinced Robert to change his mind somehow?

I think Led Zep should do one more show… that way they can play more songs live that they haven’t played at the 2007 show. I would like to see them do “Achilles Last Stand”, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”, “Nobody’s But Fault But Mine”, “Friends”, “The Rain Song”, “Gallows Pole”, “The Immigrant Song” and so much more to choose from.

They should give it one more shot and Glastonbury sounds like the perfect place for them.

Kev

music

Kanye admits he had an ego problem in the past and said he’s about to change…

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https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/1007239893481766912

https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/1007242171362054144

It’s pretty well-known that Kanye has said  and done some pretty egotistical things about himself over the years. Like the Taylor Swift MTV VMA’s incident and things like that. Maybe Kanye looked back at all the stuff he has said about himself in interviews and felt guilty about it.

Yeah, a lot of music stars out there have huge egos but most of them will never admit it. I give Kanye props for finally admitting it. How can you tell that you might have an ego problem? Well, if you have other musicians and even music fans looking at you with pure disdain then that’s a sign that you might be an egomaniac and narcissist.

I think other music artists and bands out there could learn from Kanye here. There are even plenty of local bands and unsigned talent with huge egos too. There are music artists and bands of all levels that think they’re so talented and great… they are not afraid to speak out about it but is it a great idea? No, not always. Having an ego problem could turn a lot of people off.

It’s understandable that you are talented and you’ve had successes in your music careers, but there’s no need to jerk yourselves off about it publicly. How about being humble? If you want to be taken seriously as a musician and want people to like you more then being “humble” is key. You don’t always have to think you’re talented and great all the time. If you believe that you suck and not all that great musically then you shouldn’t be afraid to say it ’cause most people won’t care anyways. With my own music, I know I’m not all that great musically, I just play music ’cause that’s what I do and I just do my thing.

Knowing how to be humble, just don’t act like you’re bigger and better than everyone else ’cause I hate when musicians have that attitude and they are everywhere even local musicians have that problem. There’s no need to be full of yourselves.

Admittedly, I can have an ego too sometimes but we all do in some form of another. It’s actually good to have an ego sometimes, it’s just that there are certain ways to go about it. There’s nothing wrong with liking your own music and being proud of what you do, but what you don’t want to do is go around acting like you’re a music god or something.

You should go to youtube and watch Jimi Hendrix’s interview on a talk show. If you want a perfect example of a humble musician then there you go. Jimi once said: “I don’t consider myself to be the best… I don’t like compliments, they distract me”.

There’s something for you to think about.

I like Kanye even more now for deciding to change for the better. His new album, “Ye”, is fucking great, btw. I’m planning to buy my own copy soon.

Kev

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Led Zeppelin reunited again but it’s not what you think… it’s for a book!

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Led Zeppelin got together again to celebrate a new book that the band has been working on lately. It’s a book to help celebrate the band’s 50th Anniversary. The book will feature rare photos of the band on stage and off stage of their career. The book will also feature art work from the band’s archive and contributions by photographers. This book will be kind of similar to the Jimmy Page photo book.

As a huge Led Zeppelin fanatic, I’m probably gonna buy this for sure. Led Zeppelin maybe done touring but I’m sure the guys will put on some event for the book’s release like maybe an autograph signing and meet & greet ’cause that would be pretty cool if they did that.

They’re still looking good together, though. I will always love Led Zeppelin no matter what people says or thinks. They had a great career and a great run. Let them retire. I would like them to go on another tour but if they don’t want to, that’s fine with me. I wish people would leave them alone and let them do what they want to do.

I wish Jimmy Page would go solo again… it would be nice if he put a new project out. I actually want a new Jimmy Page solo album more than another Led Zeppelin tour and I really mean that.

Kev

music

The Smashing Pumpkins are back with a new song that just dropped!

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Just listened to the new Pumpkins song like 5 times straight and it’s fucking awesome. The Pumpkins are back and the band are back in their true form! This is how we want to hear the Pumpkins… heavy and hard rocking! I’m glad James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin are back.

This song definitely reminds me of their earlier days for sure. The song is definitely a tie between “Siamese Dream” and “Mellie Collie”.

I hope the rest of the new album sounds like this. Can’t wait to get the new Pumpkins album. I’ve been a long time Pumpkins fan. Have been since the very beginning.

Kev