johnnyguitar

She's Gone (by same band) would probably be one of my Desert Island Discs....superb song and a wonderful live band, probably the only truly great 'white soul' act ever JMHO

Fly By Night...away from here.... ::

Well, strangely enough, although I am as old as Methusalah...I am probably about a year too young to fully appreciate either the Beatles of the Beachboys...they'd already made their impact on the British scene when I was waking up to music. I was a founder member of the Monkees fan club (true) and the first three singles I bought were...I'm a Believer (Monkees) Wild Thing (Troggs) and something by Herman's Hermits....all the older kids were into the Beatles, but I didn't have an older brother or sister so I wasn't quite in touch with what was 'hip'....I remember being in awe of a friend of mine who went to the Isle of White festival with his older brother (while his parents were away on holiday) and saw Hendrix, the Who, and god knows all what....aaaaagh! ::

Hazey Jane I (4:24) Dave Pegg, bass Dave Mattacks, drums Do you curse where you come from, Do you swear in the night Will it mean much to you If I treat you right. Do you like what you're doing, Would you do it some more Or will you stop once and wonder What you're doing it for. Hey slow Jane, make sense Slow, slow, Jane, cross the fence. Do you feel like a remnant Of something that's past Do you find things are moving Just a little too fast. Do you hope to find new ways Of quenching your thirst, Do you hope to find new ways Of doing better than your worst. Hey slow Jane, let me prove Slow, slow Jane, we're on the move. Do it for you, Sure that you would do the same for me one day. So try to be true, Even if it's only in your hazey way. Can you tell if you're moving With no mirror to see, If you're just riding a new man Looks a little like me. Is it all so confusing, Is it hard to believe When the winter is coming Can you sign up and leave. Hey slow Jane, live your lie Slow, slow jane, fly on by. Makes me cry every time. So Sad

I saw Justin Heyward and John Lodge around about 78/79 and they were about the most tedious thing I'd ever seen (Blue Guitar?)...mind you, it was the height of punk and in the following weeks I saw the Specials and Sex Pistols....so, maybe I wasn't too receptive. :: ::

Mondo Rock ...that was it ....great song...Cool, cool, cool, cool wooooorld.... Thank you. Vocallist sounded a bit Jaggerish to my young ears, but an excellent song. Greatstuff

Anything with 'oil' 'condoms' 'beaches' and 'Foxy' in it has got to be a bit sleazy ...... ::

A good rule for bands (I was in one) is.....play all your covers like they were your own...and all your own like they were covers....worked for us ::

I think this is going to test the experts....

Jeez...I thought Brown Sugar was about the sexual abuse of slaves....just shows how naive I am ::

In about 1982 an Australian (beauty) that I met did me a tape of her fave Oz bands and, if I remember correctly, it had songs like Sirrocco (Australian Crawl) and Chemistry (AC as well?) Cool World (?) and Howzat (Sherbert)...it became one of my fave tapes until my car stereo chewed it up...irreplaceable. I think it had the Little River Band on as well...and jo Jo Zep and the Falcons...Cold Chisel? All great stuff...we owe Australia a lot....including The Police, in a roundabout and trivial way...the original members of the police were in a band formed by two Australians....Strontium 90 I believe.

Top list there....I saw Alvin Lee a few weeks ago and he still knocks out a storming version of 'I'm going Home'...he was supporting Edgar Winter, who knocks out a BETTER version of 'Frankenstein' these days. Rick Derringer did the original studio guitar methinks and Ronnie Montrose played in the early live bands....now, there's a tune to go away and woodshed! :guitar: :guitar:

So...can someone tell me what was so great about the Beach Boys?

If you are going for guitar instrumentals then.... Sylvia (Focus) Scuttle Buttlin' (Stevie Ray Vaughan) Always With You Always With Me (Satriani) Should get you an 'A'

Love them or hate them it is hard to suggest that they aren't the greatest band ever...who were better?...... They were a phenomenon and they still are. They still sell more albums every year than most bands could dream of selling in a lifetime...that doesn't mean they were good, but it indicates the continuing impact that they have had for 40 years plus. A good dinner party question is to try and name two songs by the Beatles that sound the same....very difficult. Any band that you can tell who they are one bar of the song in, and they still sound unique...awesome songwriting. George Martin certainly was the fifth Beatle and, although they would have been successful without him, I doubt that they would have had the impact that they did. I'm not that keen on them myself...but I do accept that, taking everything into consideration, there has been nothing like them before or since....so KUDOS

Never quite got them, I'm afraid. Few nice toons sure...but I couldn't quite get the 'Brian Wilson, a genius' bit....lunatic, maybe, reasonable singer, fine, not bad songwriter...yeah, ok.....Good Vibrations is a top tune, Caroline No (done better by Colin Blundstone)...yeah ok, but knicked sooo much stuff from Chuck Berry and their best musician was Glen Campbell (and he had a better voice)... JMHO

Such a touchy subject....those of us who play a bit of guitar will have different ideas to those who don't. Then there's the question of 'taste' 'innovation' 'speed' 'difficulty' etc. Most of us will have seen, at some time, so called 'amateur' guitarists who can play 'note for note' versions of classic songs. I remember seeing a guy in a pub band play Sultans of Swing absolutely perfectly the same week it hit the charts.....but he was playing his guitar upside down and back to front (ie he was a left hander who played a right handed guitar just turned the other way up, not re-strung for left hands...awesome and unbelievable...but true). I've seen pub guitarists play Satch Boogie with their teeth. There's a band called the Hamsters in the UK and I swear their guitarist can play any solo you care to mention at the drop of a hat at twice the usual speed whilst rolling a fag and having a pint of beer. Technical ability is fine but can usually be learnt fairly quickly....Van Halen was certainly not the man who invented tapping (Jazz guitarists had been doing it for ages) he was just the first to do it at 30000watts in the middle of a rock tune and he wrote a party piece (Eruption) to show it off. Folks ( mostly jazz) were doing chordal tapping for 20 years before Satriani....but he took it to new levels...I've got a mate who could play Always With You within a week of hearing it....mind you, he could never help me with the stretches on the chordal riff...I just can't do them. As for 'innovation''melody' 'facility' etc. or even 'all round ability' my guess is that the best guitarist in the world is probably someone no-one has ever heard of...he probably doesn't even know it himself. When I last saw Satriani his support was an accoustic fingerpicker called Adrian Legg and even Satriani bowed down in supplication to his awesome technique. Satriani couldn't come close to achieving some of the stuff this guy did....but he could do stuff that no-one else could do. No-one has mentioned Jeff Beck, Bill Nelson, Chet Atkins (knocks Mark Knopfler into a cocked hat...their duet album is embarrassing....come on Mark...keep up). As far as I'm concerned Hendrix invented 'rock guitar' as we understand it. Chuck Berry was a talented pimp. Jimmy Page was a very talented thief (and looked soooooo coool) :guitar:Robin Trower wrote three good songs (but they were very good) Clapton is a boring conman (his bass player was more talented and could sing better)and Stevie Ray (ten times better)died after 'supporting' him. Van halen took everything up a notch, Satriaini is a superb technician but has run out of melodic ideas, Vai never had any melodic ideas...he's just a flash git and is not fit to lick Zappa's boots...which is how he started anyways. Eric Johnson is fiendishly good....but so what? My favourite guitarist is the kid down the road who can play absolutely anything he wants to...but insists on playing stuff I just don't understand...I'm sure he's a genius...but his mum keeps screaming for him to turn down.I don't understand it yet....but it sounds like nothing I've ever heard before ::

I can play it rather well by slapping my face and opening and closing my mouth. Always goes down well at parties. ::

Well, now we've broken the ice there's another band that makes me go Cold. Play their songs and I can feel the will to live drain away. ::

I know that this is contraversial so no flaming or falling out about this...but, who do you think are the most over-rated and inexplicably popular bands a)Around b)Of all time I have my opinions, but I'm a bit afraid to voice them just in case, you too, do not agree. Lets hear from those unafraid to voice their dislikes and dismay. I may have left a clue about one of my pet hates. ::

Phenomenon by UFO Axe Victim by Be Bop Deluxe Montrose...Montrose just three off the top of my head...all classic albums ::

I've got 38 of them but within that 38 are several that I've got but don't actually like. I wouldn't pee on Coldplay if they were on fire, Oasis are wildly over rated and I can't believe the Strokes crawled in (Tom Petty must be livid.) I had 'Pronounced Leh-nard Skeh-nard' and thought it was pretty cool....but now Freebird drives me mad. Personally I think all four of Zeps first albums were contenders, especially Zep 2 (although my favourite is Zep 1) Lizzy...Live and Dangerous would've been in there if I'd done the list. All good fun though....opinions, opinions... ::

'....any of you girls got any Irish in you?....would anyone like some? :: (or words to that effect...Thin Lizzy, Live and Dangerous...possibly the best live album ever, IMHO) ::

Good to see Nick Drake in there (he must have been dead 25 years...more like 30)... the album listed is equisite...as are both his other albums.