life ends at 27
“Man was born to love –
Though often he has sought
Like Icarus, to fly too high.
And far too lonely than he ought
To kiss the sum of east and west
And hold the world at his behest –To hold the terrible power
To whom only gods are blessed –
But me, I am just a man”
A great performance of one of my favourite songs from one of my favourite albums by one of my favourite bands: Just A Man, Phoenix Festival 20-7-1997.
A performance of Thank You at the MTV European Music Awards, 2001. Fred Durst was so bad he made Jimmy sound mediocre. Think about that for a moment, he made Jimmy Page, guitar god, sound mediocre. I laughed at the little “you and me” gesture he did because it was so…laughable.
A mini open letter to Fred Durst:
Fred, please leave classic rock alone. You do not have the pipes to carry those songs off. Singing Thank You in a monotone does not make it a reinterpretation.
This is a home video of Johnny Cash’s last public performance. You could tell he was troubled physically, but the humour and the authority, he still got it.
Looks like the album might be released before actual democracy in China, after almost a full decade of work. Probably too much to ask the album to live up to ten years of hype and anticipation, I, for one, will be trying to keep an open mind, and hope it is at least good, and please please please not overproduced, though sadly it will probably be closer to Use Your Illusion II than I.
On a side note, I see that Clay Aiken has a new album out titled A Thousand Different Ways made up of covers of “classic” love songs. Sure, there are a thousand different paths to blandness…
You might consider Dave a titan among men like I do, but pro-Syd and pro-Roger fans can always say they never did anything like the video “Blue Light”.
AC/DC have got an unfair bad rep. Sure they have hardly evolved since the first album, but they are the best at what they do.
I am an especially big fan of the Bon Scott era. This video of Sin City performed in Paris has got everything, leering whiskey poet Bon Scott, crazy duck-walking Angus Young and the bloody tightest rhythm section in rock and roll.
Side note: Angus Young uttered one of the best ever quotes in music. On being told his band was accused of making the same album over and over, 12 times to be exact: “That’s a dirty lie!” Angus blurts, “The truth is that we’ve made the same album over and over 14 times!”
Basically, one guy singing Bohemian Rhapsody with 25 different voices. Amazing, hilarious too. His Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger are particularly impressive, but that shirt has got to go.
Like them or not, Nirvana was the voice of a generation. Their MTV unplugged performance was perhaps their most unusual, and with no small irony the sum of everything they were. Great musicianship, subtle nuances, angst (yes it has become a cliché, so sue me), all their everything.
Of the original compositions, All Apologies was particularly devastating, and of course with those lyrics: “Married…Buried…”. Yes, Courtney, we still blame you.
Actually, just Dave Grohl and his guitar in an outstanding acoustic performance of Everlong, the song that made me go from “Foo Fighters? Yeah they’ve got some catchy songs” into a raving fan boy.
Mark Goffeney was born without arms, but he not only managed to learn to play the guitar with his toes, he plays it well. The only word that describes this man is “amazing”.
This is a video of him playing Tom Petty’s Last Dance With Mary Jane in Bolboa Park, San Diego. Now, I probably (maybe?) can play this particular song as well as he can, but I sure as hell cannot sing as well. Truly inspirational.
Read an article about Mark in Ability Magazine.
