Friday, July 23, 2004
What starts with Air Guitar.
What you see there is the tracklist for the World's Greatest Air Guitar Album... Ever! Disc 2. The whole album is a conundrum, and I shall use the second disc to explain why I think so.
Air guitar, at least to me, is all about two things: rocking and guitar work. It's about rocking irrespective of whether or not you have the means to do so. It's about wanting to reproduce some of the greatest guitarwork ever conceived, even if it's just in your head. It means that you do not have a band, you might not be able to play a note, but somewhere deep inside, you feel the need to put on a show. You feel the need to rock. You feel the need to make the strings of the guitar simply wail with musical glory. You let it out in a ludicrous pantomime of the real thing, but with every ounce of the heart and soul of ROCK. It's all effort, no substance. Therefore, in order to be an air guitar album of the highest order, as this claims to be, it must rock.
The trick is, that in order to rock, you need rock,* and this album, well, some of it kinda rocks. On the other hand, some of it can only be expressed by an acronym,** and some of it is just dreck. I mean, Hendrix, Motorhead, Metallica, ZZ Top, Queen, Cream - all are excellent choices for air guitar. They have the solos, they have the energy and they have some pretty good guitar. But then you have stuff like Hash Pipe by Weezer and More Than A Feeling by Boston. They're not horrible songs, but they are hardly candidates for air guitar. There's music, yes, but there isn't anything worthy of being cranked up to eleven either. It's like the plain oatmeal of rock. Lastly, we have the stuff like Paul McCartney doing a cover of All Shook Up. We have Wheatus doing Teenage Dirtbag. We have Eddie Cochran's Summertime Blues. We have T-Rex. There are two problems here: one, they are not so much rock, but more like rock chosen by someone who has no idea what rock is, and two, they suck. Wheatus? Yeah, it's the best song out of this category, and it's censored***. This is like what the marketing guys threw in to the tracklist and because they were the ones doing the selling and providing cash, what they said stayed. I have no idea how one could consider Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry to be rock. Rock and Roll, yes, but that isn't the same thing. All is not lost though, since I did hear a gem that I would not have otherwise heard, that being Let Me Entertain You by Robbie Williams. I was mighty impressed by that track, such that I will be seeking his albums in the future. Still, if anyone thinks that this album really is the World's Greatest Air Guitar Album... Ever! then they are sorely mistaken.
* It's like filters. Filters filter; rock rocks.
** F, W and T, not necessarily in that order.
*** Don't even get me started on censored rock and punk. Rock and punk are about freedom - to stand up for what you believe in, to play what you want and sing what you like. To censor it is to suck away the essence of the music, leaving only a foul smell where there should have been music.
Run for the hills! Canada is being verbally attacked by the Drug Czar! Apparantly our marijuana is a greater danger to the States than heroin or meth. Maybe all the pot smokers down there should start shooting up smack, since it's that much safer than weed, right?
Looks like the big J is making the rounds again. I remember the appearance he made on the wall of the Tim Horton's out east. Funny what people will see after their 17th coffee...
Wait, downloading music isn't the whole story behind record sales? You don't say.*
* I hope the totally sincere lack of surprise is conveyed in that statement. I would hate to leave the wrong impression...
Ok, the INDUCE Act? Stupid. Trying to overturn the Betamax decision and make VCRs illegal? Just plain retarded. How do these people get in power? How do they stay in power? It's a mystery.
So you might have heard about the Liberal government's decision to decriminalize pot here in Canuckleland. I for one think it's a great idea, and the little mini-tirade I had in an email yesterday:
My opinion still stands. The only addendum I have to add is the fact that the "spinoff crimes" are a direct result of prohibition. How many gangs do you see around nowadays bootlegging alcohol?
Anyways, it is almost quitting time, and I don't think I can think of more to talk about right now. Well, I probably could, but it would be something silly like Attack of the Killer Cheerios or the Further Adventures of Meat Paste or something. So I'll go enjoy my weekend, thankyewverymuch.
¶ 2:45 p.m.
01 - Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child.mp3
02 - The Who - My Generation.mp3
03 - T-Rex - 20th Century Boy.mp3
04 - Paul McCartney - All Shook Up.mp3
05 - Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode.mp3
06 - Weezer - Hash Pipe.mp3
07 - The Shadows - Apache.mp3
08 - Motorhead - Ace Of Spades.mp3
09 - Eddie Cochran - Summertime Blues.mp3
10 - Free - All Right Now.mp3
11 - Robbie Williams - Let Me Entertain You.mp3
12 - Fleetwood Mac - Oh Well.mp3
13 - Metallica - For Whom The Bell Tolls.mp3
14 - ZZ Top - Gimme All Your Lovin'.mp3
15 - Boston - More Than A Feeling.mp3
16 - Cream - Crossroads.mp3
17 - Status Quo - Down Down.mp3
18 - Bad Company - Can't Get Enough.mp3
19 - Whitesnake - Here I Go Again ('87 Remix).mp3
20 - Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag.mp3
21 - Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody.mp3
What you see there is the tracklist for the World's Greatest Air Guitar Album... Ever! Disc 2. The whole album is a conundrum, and I shall use the second disc to explain why I think so.
Air guitar, at least to me, is all about two things: rocking and guitar work. It's about rocking irrespective of whether or not you have the means to do so. It's about wanting to reproduce some of the greatest guitarwork ever conceived, even if it's just in your head. It means that you do not have a band, you might not be able to play a note, but somewhere deep inside, you feel the need to put on a show. You feel the need to rock. You feel the need to make the strings of the guitar simply wail with musical glory. You let it out in a ludicrous pantomime of the real thing, but with every ounce of the heart and soul of ROCK. It's all effort, no substance. Therefore, in order to be an air guitar album of the highest order, as this claims to be, it must rock.
The trick is, that in order to rock, you need rock,* and this album, well, some of it kinda rocks. On the other hand, some of it can only be expressed by an acronym,** and some of it is just dreck. I mean, Hendrix, Motorhead, Metallica, ZZ Top, Queen, Cream - all are excellent choices for air guitar. They have the solos, they have the energy and they have some pretty good guitar. But then you have stuff like Hash Pipe by Weezer and More Than A Feeling by Boston. They're not horrible songs, but they are hardly candidates for air guitar. There's music, yes, but there isn't anything worthy of being cranked up to eleven either. It's like the plain oatmeal of rock. Lastly, we have the stuff like Paul McCartney doing a cover of All Shook Up. We have Wheatus doing Teenage Dirtbag. We have Eddie Cochran's Summertime Blues. We have T-Rex. There are two problems here: one, they are not so much rock, but more like rock chosen by someone who has no idea what rock is, and two, they suck. Wheatus? Yeah, it's the best song out of this category, and it's censored***. This is like what the marketing guys threw in to the tracklist and because they were the ones doing the selling and providing cash, what they said stayed. I have no idea how one could consider Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry to be rock. Rock and Roll, yes, but that isn't the same thing. All is not lost though, since I did hear a gem that I would not have otherwise heard, that being Let Me Entertain You by Robbie Williams. I was mighty impressed by that track, such that I will be seeking his albums in the future. Still, if anyone thinks that this album really is the World's Greatest Air Guitar Album... Ever! then they are sorely mistaken.
* It's like filters. Filters filter; rock rocks.
** F, W and T, not necessarily in that order.
*** Don't even get me started on censored rock and punk. Rock and punk are about freedom - to stand up for what you believe in, to play what you want and sing what you like. To censor it is to suck away the essence of the music, leaving only a foul smell where there should have been music.
Run for the hills! Canada is being verbally attacked by the Drug Czar! Apparantly our marijuana is a greater danger to the States than heroin or meth. Maybe all the pot smokers down there should start shooting up smack, since it's that much safer than weed, right?
Looks like the big J is making the rounds again. I remember the appearance he made on the wall of the Tim Horton's out east. Funny what people will see after their 17th coffee...
Wait, downloading music isn't the whole story behind record sales? You don't say.*
* I hope the totally sincere lack of surprise is conveyed in that statement. I would hate to leave the wrong impression...
Ok, the INDUCE Act? Stupid. Trying to overturn the Betamax decision and make VCRs illegal? Just plain retarded. How do these people get in power? How do they stay in power? It's a mystery.
So you might have heard about the Liberal government's decision to decriminalize pot here in Canuckleland. I for one think it's a great idea, and the little mini-tirade I had in an email yesterday:
[I]t's about bloody time. I mean, you can buy the stuff over the internet here! I think it will be interesting how the US will react though. Either they follow our lead, which is really freaking improbable (as in the odds are better that I get hit by a meteor) or they will crack down even more. It would be hard, (I mean, they're already doing no-knock raids, handing out 20 years to life for possession of a few grams, racial profiling, arresting little old ladies who smoke pot for cancer treatment, etc) but they could. Personally, I think the ticketing thing will wind up creating more enforcement, as cops only need to whip up a ticket and move on (rather than apprehend you, take you into the station, do paper work all night, etc) which means they'll be more inclined to stop and bust you. I would also much rather see them decriminalize the laws on growing for personal use, since I'm pretty sure seeds are legal, even though plants aren't. Plus, anyone who grows their own circumvents all the drug dealers, which in turn circumvents all the spinoff crime like gangs and such. But it's a good start.
My opinion still stands. The only addendum I have to add is the fact that the "spinoff crimes" are a direct result of prohibition. How many gangs do you see around nowadays bootlegging alcohol?
Anyways, it is almost quitting time, and I don't think I can think of more to talk about right now. Well, I probably could, but it would be something silly like Attack of the Killer Cheerios or the Further Adventures of Meat Paste or something. So I'll go enjoy my weekend, thankyewverymuch.
¶ 2:45 p.m.
