What is a loved band from your past you just don’t care for?
I can’t think of any music I have ‘grown out of’. IE… I listen to as much Metallica – and James Taylor – as I did 35 years ago. I guess I don’t listen to the Smashing Pumpkins or Led Zeppelin too much. Why? I over did it. There is virtually nothing left to squeeze from the experience. I mined it for everything and it treated me well. its like… you don’t need to hear anything from Zeppelin 4 on the radio ever again, do you? It’s played out. There is depth to Zeppelin, but it isn’t on the radio. No sir, its on Physical Graffiti. I listen to so much Zeppelin and Pumpkins that effectively I was taught guitar growing up by Jimmy Page and Billy Corgan. I am not saying Pumpkins and Zeppelin are equal in their body of work and impact. I am saying I just don’t need anymore of either for a while.
What is your favorite music genre?
That changes daily, if not hourly. Let’s hop over to my Spotify app and see what I have played the most recently. Not sure how everyone uses their Spotify, but I use mine for playlists. I listen to music about 50% of the time I listen to anything, the other 50% being books on tape. Perhaps I have betrayed my age calling them ‘books on tape’. I remember books on tape, and the experience sucked, here is why. Listening to a book read to you on cassette tape was awesome… except every 42 minutes you had to flip sides or change tapes. At least with CDs I think they got that to about 82 minutes a pop.
Sorry, we were talking about music. Looks like the last few things I have listened to is my U2 Live at the Fleet Center playlist (a DOPE ass concert that is free in Audible, a Cat Stevens mix, and an Ozzy mix. The Cat Stevens mix is decently predictable, so I won’t bother you with that. My Ozzy mix, I feel, is terrific. It goes all the way back to Sabbath, and is as current as a recent duet Ozzy did with Elton. Yeah, Ozzy and Elton did a song together and is REALLY good. Here, look. Wait, first my Ozzy mix
What is the best cover version of a song?
Oh man, that is too broad a topic to give you a one song answer. I wrote an article about that here. BUT… tell ya what. You deserve an answer so I’ll give you one pertinent to only today. In my list of Ozzy songs above, you will see ‘In My Life’. This is Ozzy covering the Beatles and he kills it! Ozzy more than loves the Beatles… Black Sabbath began as a Beatles tribute band, know that? Yeah, they were called ‘Rare Earth’. Point being, Ozzy knows his Beatles. Those knees up top? They are Ozzy’s. Know what’s even better.. and weirder? He gave them to himself. In prison!
What is the worst cover version of a song?
Prolly that cover of John Cage’s 4 minutes of silence. Go ahead and read that sentence again, I’ll wait. John Cage recorded, and so licensed and copyrighted, 4 minutes of silence. Someone else covered that song (by performing and recording their own 4 min and 33 seconds of silence… and John Cage sued their ass for copyright infringement. I can’t even try and explain it again, but I wrote about it here. In retrospect, this true story reads like the set up to the next Monty Python project.
So, folks, what’s new for you so far in 2023?
That remains to be seen, but some travel for sure. Heck, I’m traveling now. I write this from Phx, AZ.
Diary of a Madman
Shot in the Dark
You can’t Kill rock and roll
Killer of Giants
Mama I’m Comin home
Goodbye to Romance
Tonight
Ordinary Man *featuring Elon fuckin’ John!!!!!
Close my Eyes Forever
Dee
Changes
In My Life
Sweet Leaf
Working Class Hero
Fairies Wear Boots
NIB
I am Correct 