Listomania: Air Guitar Heroes

Forget about all that macho shit
and learn how to play guitar.
from "Play Guitar" by John Mellencamp

I was taking a shower the other day, and doing some thinking while I was in there. Now, I shower pretty much every day, and I think every day as well (my wife would disagree with the thinking part), but the shower I refer to here was taken about 3 days ago, and I refer to it because I was making a mental list while cleaning my personal exterior.

The end of a year is always a time to make lists. You see them in the newspapers and magazines, on TV and the Internet: 10 most memorable news stories, 10 most influential people of the year, etc. The lists are almost always in groups of ten, even though there are twelve months in the year. And it’s always the most memorable of something, or the best of something else. Who decides this, and quite frankly, who gives a damn about any of it?

Well, now I’m going to give you something that you can give a damn about. While I was showering the other day, I was reflecting on a matter truly important in the grand scheme of things: What are my favorite songs to play air guitar to?

Not that you’ll ever catch me playing air guitar. It’s an act I performed with far greater frequency in my misspent youth, but there are still occasions when I hear a song on the radio that still makes me want to pretend to strap on an imaginary guitar and be a hero in front of a crowd that’s nowhere else but in my mind.

Here then, fresh out of the shower stall and still dripping wet, is that list:

1. "Crossroads" from Wheels of Fire by Cream. Always loved this song, always will. It's simple blues based hard rock, and the two solos by Eric Clapton are fairly simple as well, nothing tricky, nothing fancy. Just fast fingerwork and that feeling of immediacy that you get with a live performance. Every time I hear "Crossroads" I want to strap on my pretend Fender Strat and go to town. Even if I'm in the car, which leads to some interesting driving.

Cream, from their farewell concert in 1968. Kind of fun to watch the lads, all bad teeth and pasty complexions:


2. "White Room," again from Wheels of Fire by Cream. The best wah-wah pedal on any song, ever. Clapton's use of the wah-wah here is just so much more melodic than anyone else could have done, before or since; it's sounds like an intrinsic element of the song, rather than the contrivance that the wah-wah sounded like so often back in the late '60s. When you hear the wah-wah kick in on "White Room" you won't be able to resist stepping on that imaginary pedal yourself as you play your imaginary guitar. I know I can't.

Jack Bruce sounds like crap here, also from their farewell concert, but the music sounds great:


3. "Great White Buffalo" from Double Live Gonzo by Ted Nugent. This guy was gonzo alright. He was fast and loose and just plain crazy. He was indeed the Motor City Madman. Now, I'm not a huge fan of Nugent. A lot of his schtick seems a little lame, especially his antics from back in the day: swingin' around the stage like a Midwestern Tarzan, shacking up with a teen-age chick, all very silly. Still...on "Great White Buffalo" Terrible Ted makes his axe sound both awesomely heavy and beautifully delicate. Really quite impressive for someone who thinks he looks good in a loin cloth.

4. "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" from Electric Ladyland by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. No other guitarist is so revered in rock n' roll, not even Clapton, and for good reason. This song may have some of the best guitar work ever captured in a studio. There is experimentation and performance of the highest (and I do mean high) caliber, without any boring excess. Nothing, not the guitar work nor the song itself, goes on for too long. Everything is just perfect on "Voodoo Child." How could anyone listen to this song and not want to play guitar, real or air, like Jimi? Oh, lawd, yeah, I'm a voodoo chile...

Hendrix was pretty adept at the wah-wah pedal too. From Woodstock:


5. "Summertime Blues" from Live at Leeds by the Who. Hearing this song always makes me want to smash something. I want to run, I want to jump, I want to windmill my arms and mistreat my guitar until it makes a wonderful noise. This song must be played loud for maximum effect!

Let's face it, Pete Townshend is not cut from the same cloth as a Jimi Hendrix or an Eric Clapton, but he knew how to get such deleriously delightful noise from his guitar, like an angel playing a jackhammer, and it never sounds better than on this cover of the Eddie Cochran song on Live at Leeds.

From Woodstock:


I do have to give a great big shout out to "In a Hand or a Face" from The Who by Numbers. The electric guitar sound on this song, particularly at the beginning, is a pure rock sound, a sound of metal scraping against metal. Do what you have to to obtain The Who by Numbers, beg, borrow, cheat, or steal, but by God, obtain it and blast it out through both speakers, play it all night long.

6. "God Save the Queen" from Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols by the Sex Pistols. Truly the finest hour of British punk. One of the greatest rock albums ever, Never Mind the Bollocks is chock full of great straight forward rock and roll. "God Save the Queen" in particular is just so full of insouciance, and it sounds damn good. Steve Jones is really one of the most underrated guitarists, probably because he really doesn't have too much more than this album on his musical resume, but does any man really need more? "God Save the Queen" is a full frontal assault on the senses; to Jones' credit, he wasn't a one note wonder and was able to change style slightly from one track to another, playing with a wee bit of, dare I say it, subtlety on "Pretty Vacant" while being totally in your face, in a plodding Black Sabbath sort of way, on "Anarchy in the U.K." Every cut is a winner on this classic album, and "God Save the Queen" never fails to get me moving.



7. "Paranoid" from Paranoid by Black Sabbath. From the millisecond I hear the guitar intro by Tony Iommi I want to bang my head. 'Nuff said.

Original music video for "Paranoid"; too funny:


8. "Black Dog" from the untitled fourth album by Led Zeppelin. I suppose one shouldn't compile a list of air guitar heroes without mentioning Jimmy Page. Listen, I have a complicated relationship with Zeppelin. Love some of their stuff, like about half of Physical Graffiti, hate some of their stuff, like "Stairway to Heaven." If I never hear that song again, it will be too soon. While songs like "The Rover" and "Trampled Underfoot" I think represent some of the greatest work in rock, others, like the aforementioned "Stairway' represent some of the worst in self-indulgent excess. But I digress. I came to praise Jimmy Page for his muscular sounding guitar at the end of "Black Dog," not to bury him. That bit Page plays at the end of the song sounds like a guitar on steroids. It sure is fine, man, it's something else.

9. "Mother Knows Best" from Rumour and Sigh by Richard Thompson. Thompson isn't a guy who normally comes to mind when ranking guitar greats, but there aren't too many that are better. And he certainly doesn't look like a guitar god; he looks like an actuary or an accountant or a professor. Whatever. This is a great song with some of the finest playing I've ever heard. There is a fluidity to the sound, sort of like an electric current of water. Thompson has been around since the late '60s and I think you can hear a bit of him in Mark Knopfler's playing.

I like the sepia tone of this film, odd since it was shot in 1991, not 1891; it's grainy and hummy, but you get the gist of Mr. Thompson's genius:


10. "Junior's Farm" by Paul McCartney and Wings; originally released as a 45 (you know, one of those small pieces of vinyl), it can be found on the Wingspan collection. Whaaa...? Wings? What the...? I love this song. I don't care who knows it. It's got great guitar work by the late Jimmy McCulloch and whenever I hear it I imagine myself in front of a crowd, blazing away on my axe like McCullogh did. So there.

I guess the song takes me back to a time, back to whatever was good about my childhood, and that glorious period of time when I first discovered great rock 'n roll:


Honorable mentions: Toys in the Attic is filled with great work by Joe Perry from beginning to end, and the album is, I think, Aerosmith's finest moment, but the brilliance of "Adam's Apple" in particular must be acknowledged. The guitar, especially at the beginning of the song, is like barbed wire being wrapped around your brain. In a good sort of way. And on "Sweet Emotion," when the guitar slams in after almost a minute of foreplay, well, that's just too cool for school.


The sound of Ron Asheton on Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges is the blueprint by which Steve Jones worked. The playing itself is nothing fancy, but "Raw Power" and "Search and Destroy" always gets me to my feet and jumping around, not playing air guitar so much as leaping like an electrocuted lizard, like an Iggy Pop.

On a more refined note, the playing by Adrian Belew and Robert Fripp on King Crimson's Beat LP is outstanding, particularly on "Neal and Jack and Me." Check it out, if you can find it.

Who wouldn't want to be Keith Richards? I mean, not all the time, that would be a bit much, but just once in a while, like when he's playing "Happy."

I could go on, but I'll stop with Neil Young. Most people probably don't think of him in the guitar god mold, but check out his monster chops on Rust Never Sleeps. The guitar on "Hey Hey, My My, (Into the Black)" sound positively heavy metal, but the delicate fluidity on "Powderfinger" is something to behold.


I'm such an addendummy: In my original post, my brain froze and I forgot to mention AC/DC. What better band to play air guitar to than these Three Stooges of rock 'n roll. Any song will, because they're all essentially the same but if I must pick one: While I played "Rock 'n Roll Damnation" every day before high school my junior year, I think no one born with a living soul can sit perfectly still while listening to "Whole Lotta Rosie." That song was meant for head banging and air guitar playing.

Eartha Kitt 1927-2008

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Merry Christmas

The 25 Videos of Christmas: What Christmas is all About, Charlie Brown

The 25 Videos of Christmas: The Lone Ranger, the Meatball, and Love

I watch "The Late Show with David Letterman." Beneath Letterman's offputting persona you will find a sentimental man, a man who believes in tradition, especially Christmas traditions. "The Late Show" Christmas tradition is a three-part affair. Part one, Jay Thomas tells "The Lone Ranger" story:



Part two, Jay and Dave try to knock a giant meatball off the top of a Christmas tree with a football:



And part three is the great Darlene Love performing "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)."



When I've seen the Letterman Christmas show, I know Christmas is here.

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Put a Little Love in Your Heart

Everybody looked young and pretty darn good twenty years ago, especially Annie Lennox. The song is from one of my favorite Christmas movies, "Scrooged."

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Irish Drinking Song!

The 25 Videos of Christmas:Frosty the Snowman

Yo yo yo, gonna do it old school again, y'all. Yeahhh, boyyy, it's "Frosty" before the makeover.

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Winter Wonderland?

Winter wonderland, my ass. Winter hasn't even officially begun and I'm already sick of it. Here's some unedited video from earlier today on the Chicago roadways.



OH MY GOD!!!!!!! The following video is even more horrible than any weather or traffic today could possibly be! It is one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen.



Ozzy's voice is so horrible now in his decrepitude that he makes Jessica Simpson sound great. Well, wash your eyes and ears out with Jewel singing a lovely version of "Winter Wonderland."

The 25 Videos of Christmas: The Bells of St. Berwyn

Christmas is the season when you hear those bells ringing and no bells ring louder than "The Bells of St. Berwyn."

For those of you not in the know, or not from Chicago, or both, this is Son of Svengoolie, host of a show that presents low budget horror movies, as well as old-time classics like "Frankenstein," on a local TV station. Berwyn, if you have to ask, is a suburb of Chicago.

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Suzy Snowflake

Another blast from the retro cartoon past, "Suzy Snowflake" is not necessarily one of my favorites, but my wife likes it. Must be a girl thing.

The 25 Videos of Christmas: The Twelve Pains of Christmas

Once again, here's Bob Rivers, this time with his Twisted Christmas take on "The Twelve Days of Christmas." This video certainly has a home-made quality about it, but it is clever and surprisingly captivating.

The 25 Videos of Christmas: The Twelve Days of Christmas

Here's an a cappella group called Straight No Chaser. Talented and humorous, they do an interesting version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Incidentally, they were founded at Indiana University, and one of their founding members is Dan Ponce, who is not only a TV news reporter in his own right, but son of Phil Ponce, host of the WTTW (PBS) news program, "Chicago Tonight."

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Bing Crosby "Ave Maria"

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Good Will to Men

"Good Will to Men" is the Hanna-Barbera remake of the 1939 animated short, "Peace on Earth." When "Good Will" was made in 1955, the world had something it didn't at the outset of World War II: nuclear weapons. The nuclear option instilled fear in people because these new and terrible bombs could accomplish in a matter of minutes what man had yet to do in thousands of years, which is totally and completely destroy itself. "Good Will to Men" shows us, in animation of remarkable quality for Hanna-Barbera, what the world might look like if those fears become reality.

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Hardrock, Coco and Joe

A blast from my past. I misspent my youth watching television. Now I'm misspending my middle-age watching YouTube.

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Return of the Thin White Duke

Bing Crosby and David Bowie. A strange pairing, but it works.

The 25 Videos of Christmas: White Christmas

The Illinois governor has disgraced himself, his family, and pretty much everyone in the state of Illinois. (Just remember, we're not all corrupt here, just the politicians.) One of the corrupt acts Blagojevich is accused of is introducing a bill to the Illinois legislature that would provide Children's Memorial Hospital with $8 million in funding. When the chairmen of the hospital board didn't agree to a massive "donation" to Blago's campaign fund, the gov tried to kill the bill. Just in time for Christmas, we find out exactly who Scrooge is.

Well, to paraphrase Paul Harvey, wash your eyes and ears out with this: Bing Crosby singing the classic, "White Christmas."

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Merry Christmas, Governor Blagojevich

The Feds gave Illinois Governor Rod Blagojech an early Christmas gift. He was certainly deserving.



Additional video:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Rod Blagojevich Is a Jagoff

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Do They Know It's Christmas Time?

Don't look now, but it's 1984 again! It's Band Aid! Feed the World! "There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas-time." Well, duh. It's Africa, not Chicago.

But seriously, folks, Band Aid was a noble effort, put together by Bob Geldof, to help African famine victims. "Do They Know It's Christmas Time?" is actually not a bad song, and the video is a hoot to watch. Bono, Boy George, the guys from Duran Duran, the chicks from Bananarama. How young they all looked. How stupid Sting's haircut looked. Speaking of hair, Phil Collins still had some!



The unfortunate flipside to hope is despair: 1984, 2008, how different are things? Africa is still a continent devouring itself, still rife with famine and disease, warfare and bloodshed. "Tonight, thank God it's them instead of you."

The 25 Videos of Christmas: White Winter Hymnal

The band is Fleet Foxes. They are indie, and their sound is groovy. The song is "White Winter Hymnal." While not directly about Christmas, it does indeed sound hymn-like, and puts you in the mind of Christmas, or at the very least, Festivus. The video, however, seems to be about protecting your forest grown mushrooms from the cold weather. Whatever. I still like the warm feeling this song gives me.

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Peace on Earth

"Peace on Earth" is an MGM animated short (fancy talk for "cartoon") from 1939. It's fairly dark for a Christmas cartoon but 1939 was a dark time for this planet. Little did the animators know how bad things would actually get in the next few years, and how close this cartoon came to being an actual portrayal of what might have happened.

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Happy Repeal Day!

Today is Repeal Day. On this great day in 1933 the 21st Amendment was ratified, thereby returning to Americans the God given right to get falling down drunk. That's right, one of the greatest evils foisted on American citizens, the constitutional amendment known as Prohibition, was done away with. Prohibition made no one happy, except for the lily-livered busy bodies who tried to force us to stop drinking, and the Mafia, who became wealthier and more powerful than they could ever have imagined by illegally importing alcohol, or making it themselves, and selling it to a grateful public. Anyway, in celebration, here is Bob Rivers and "Carol of the Bartenders."

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Batman Meets Santa Claus

As Batman and his girlfriend Robin are climbing the Batrope up the side of a skyscraper, who would they chance to encounter but good old Santy Claus. Gotta admit, this Santa looks a little creepy and sounds a little like Andy Devine (an actor in many a cowboy movie and TV show, to those of you not in the know).

The 25 Videos of Christmas: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

And now, a musical interlude from Jewel. I have to ask though, why is Ossie Davis in this? Not that I mind, but how did he get roped into doing a video with Jewel and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra?

The 25 Videos of Christmas: I Am Santa Claus

The 25 Videos of Christmas: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Christmas spirit? One person trampled to death, others wounded in a stampede of early morning shoppers at a Long Island Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving. Two men shoot each other to death at a California Toys-R-Us. Why, yes, it is indeed beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

December

Here's the deal: I'm going to take December off, sort of, from sharing the Voices in my Head. I need to re-think, recalibrate, reconfigure what I do with this blog and then I'll be back in January renewed and rejuvenated, able to use words that don't begin with the prefix -re and better than ever. Or I'll still suck. Or I won't come back at all. We'll see. Whatever it will be, it will hopefully be something better thought out than it has been. Perhaps fewer, more thoughtful pieces. Or perhaps thoughtful will be thrown out the window and replaced by an hilarious and sarcastic cynicism.

However, December is far from a total loss. It is, you may know, the most wonderful time of the year, and to get in the mood for the holidays I offer: The 25 Videos of Christmas. Yes, a holiday video each and every day right through Christmas Day. Between these videos and the 24-hour Christmas music on the radio and the Christmas music in all the stores and everywhere else you go, you will be sick, sick, sick of Christmas by the time it actually gets here.

Just kidding. Who could get sick of Christmas? Don't answer that, it was a rhetorical question.

I'll be back with deep thoughts in January. In the meantime, check out the videos; if you want to see my football picks and the occasional sports rant, go to my Training Days blog; and don't forget about Other Voices for poetry, fiction, etc.