One Troublesome Tuesday

Regulars will have noticed the omission of Mondays post this week, I'd like to say there was a pre-planned reason for this but simply put I was having computer issues. Still not entirely sure what was wrong but a day of stress and a system restore later and everything appears to be fine again, which leads me to believe it may have been a system update of some sort that did the damage. I was going to make the post from my laptop, but it lacks in music and the only thing even resembling metal on it was in fact rock (Soulwax's "Any Minute Now" album for those who are curious). As it is no longer Monday it would go against the blog's ethos to post a Metal article. However the rock genre is going to be a theme within today's post. What I'm going to do is post 10 more than memorable rock/metal mash-ups. Some of these will be mashed with dance, some with other rock/metal genres and even some hip-hop, all of them are classics and I feel that they all are relevant to a lot of the goals this blog is trying to achieve.

Dj schmolli - Scream Aim Dance (Bullet for Lady Gaga) 
Ruff Muff - La La Her Madly (The Doors vs. Goldfrapp)
Jimmi Jammes - Sgt. Pepper's Paradise (Beatles vs. Guns N' Roses) 
Cheekyboy - Smells Like Compton (N.W.A. vs. Nirvana) 
DJ Moule - Black Sabotage (Beastie Boys vs. Led Zeppelin) 
DJ M.I.F. - Tricky Sandman (Run-DMC vs. Metallica) 
Go Home Productions - Don't Hold Back, Sweet Jane (Chemical Brothers vs. Velvet Underground vs. U2 vs. Sugababes vs. MARRS) 
Divide & Kreate - Always With You (Willie Nelson vs. U2 vs. MARRS) 
The Illuminoids with Donita Sparks - Pretend We're Alala (L7 vs. CSS) 
DJ Topcat - More Than On Point (House of Pain vs. Boston) 

It's also likely that with the Christmas break approaching this weekend the blog may decide to take a short break, this however hasn't really been discussed and may not happen. As regulars know the last Friday of every month is home to the blog's essential Mix, however the last Friday of this month is Xmas Day. We hope to get an extra-special essential selection up on the 25th that will more than likely deviate from previous selections. I hope you enjoy the tracks as they are something slightly different from what has went up previously and are something that will more than likely re-appear in the future.

Easy Like Sunday Morning #5

Regular visitors to the blog will have noticed that I didn't post last Sunday's blog, this was due to the storm that occurred on Saturday evening that fried my router. Nonetheless things are back on track this week.

The first song I'm going to post is one from a band that had a great influence on me about 5 years ago, and whom I still hold a great deal of respect for, even if I'm not a fan of their more recent material. The band in question is the highly successful American progressive metal/rock group Dream Theater. I first came into contact with this band through an instrumental piece from their 1994 album Awake, called Erotomania, also being the song that consciously introduced me to the prog scene in general. The song I'm going to post comes from the bands 2002 concept alum Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, an album which tackles the struggles of life, with the first disc dealing with morality, death, alcoholism, loss of faith and such issues, while the second disc deals with struggles of the mind in the form of mental disorders. The 6th and final track of the album fills entirety of the 2nd disc and is split up into 8 movements, the track I am wanting to profile is the 6th movement of this track, known as Solitary Shell.
The track deals with a person living with autism (degree 5) with the story explaining his life and progression of the illness, starting off as appearing normal then slowly showing signs of the illness, with James LaBrie singing about different aspects of the disease such as extreme concentration and withdrawal from social contact. The song is a typical prog rock piece that seems to appear at least once in every one of Theaters album's to contrast the prog metal that dominates each of them. The song, from the opening chords is very reminiscent of Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill and seems to be an homage to the track (even in name), when LaBrie enters it is clear that his vocals aren’t up to the standard that they had been in previous years, obviously due to the infamous food poisoning incident(however it should be noted that after the tour that accompanied this album, la brie claimed his vocals skills returned after time and trained, which although sounds suspicious, I think was proven with his best work on Ayreon Human Equation album). The song continues to reference the Gabriel song by incorporating a very similar sounding chorus which continues to build up to roughly the 4 minute mark were we have the second instrumental break of the song were we hear a some heavier instrumental work before Petrucci treats us with some flamenco style guitar work. The song continues to build as nears the end of the track which has been written as the lead-in to the next track. This song may be a bit "out there" for some of the people who may visit this blog, but our goal is to ultimately expand peoples horizons and giving the structure of the song I think this makes it a perfect way to open the Sunday post, enjoy.

Dream Theater - Solitary Shell


The second artist I want to talk about is an artist who most for you will be all too familiar with, The Chemical Brothers. Being slightly more upbeat that is usually for the Sunday post I wanted to put this in as I feel it incorporates the feel of a Sunday pretty well, or it at least holds some sort of nostalgic Sunday feeling to it. Star Guitar comes from the Brothers fourth album and was released as a single in 2002 were it gained a lot of prominence in the club scene, the song also re-gained a lot of this prominence in 2007 when Shinichi Osawa did a cover version that took the clubs by storm which also produced many remixes. The song is very typical of the chemical brothers electronica, big beat and very psychedelic sound that the band has become associated with combing and establishing over the years. The song contains a sample of Bowies Starman which is looped and repeated throughout the song, with other instruments mimicking this and then going off into their own musical journey, with vocals coming into it at the halfway point that give the song a depth that only the chemical brothers seem to know how to deliver.

The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar

The next band and song I'm going to discuss is almost a guilty pleasure and a band I haven't actually properly listened to in a long time. Down were formed in 1991 by vocalist Phil Anselmo of Pantera, guitarist Pepper Keenan of Corrosion of Conformity, second guitarist Kirk Windstein of Crowbar, bassist Todd Strange of Crowbar, and drummer Jimmy Bower of Eyehategod. The band seemed have a more southern approach the bands previous endeavors and really concentrated more so on their lives and their where they lived. It was also took a step back from the heavier stuff that each member and their respective bands are known for, even taking an acoustic and more rock orientated approach in many of their songs. The song I'm going to profile is from their first album and is titled "Jail". My greatest memory of this song is when I went to see the band play in June of 2006 in Belfast's Mandela hall, the band dimmed the lights, filled the stage with smoke and Bower came of the drums and went center stage with the rest of the group, brining a bongo with him, Anselmo go the audience to clap in time and the band performed what I thought was probably the best song of the night. They played again a few months back (with Static x), however I felt the group was charging an extortionate amount to see them and I refused to pay it. Jail truly stands out among downs songs as it isn't really like anything they have done since and really does hold a certain atmosphere to it. The song is very reminiscent of music you'd expect to hear in a dream sequence during a movie and I can't quite describe how it sounds so I suggest you listen to it yourself and form your own opinions.

Down - Jail


In 1998 a show was conceived from the mind of Shinichirō Watanabe, an aspiring anime director, created the show "Cowboy Bebop", an anime about bounty hunters (or "cowboys") in space. Without going into too much detail the show basically pursued a bunch of vagabond bounty hunters on their ill-fated and unsuccessful missions within space and on colonized planets within the solar system. One reason I was attracted to the show was because of the washed out and very used look everything seemed to have in the show, everything look like it had been lived in/on and used many times, this wasn't a future presented to us as fresh and out of the box. Another reason I was attracted to the show, was because of the music used within it. Bebop's episodes are self-referred to has sessions, rather than episodes, this being an obvious homage to music in general. Every episode name had a musical theme, wither it be the name of a famous song (Bohemian Rhapsody) or a slight reference to a genre (mushroom samba). The primary attraction of the music within Bebop, is that it's all performed by The Seatbelts, led by Yoko Kanno. The Seatbelts could probably be best described as a handpicked bunch of session musicians, created specifically for the series, the majority of the songs they create are within the blues/jazz genre's, however their songs cover pretty much every genre there is and cross between them creating their own unique sound. I don't want to go into too much detail on the band or their origins as they will definitely be getting a profile piece in the future on the blog. One of my favorite songs of theirs falls perfectly into the Sunday category and has been riffling through my playlists for years. Ask D.N.A is one of my favorite treacks by the seatbelts and has a very upbeat tempo, with a similer sound to the some of the beatles later work. Ask D.N.A is a song that is not actually in the series, however it is the opening theme for the movie and is a easygoing track to define your Sunday.

The Seatbelts - Ask D.N.A

The last song I want to talk about could possibly be considered one of my favorite songs of all time and it is on an album that is being considered for the Excellence of Execution (in close contention with one other by the same artist), but due to the nature of the Sunday post I thought I'd post this particular song now. Also, once again due to the nature of the Sunday post, you'll probably find that this particular artist will be featured many times and probably more than any other, not only because of how ell suit the bill but because of their overall progression as artists and how they moved music on in more ways than one. If you haven't already guessed by now, I'm talking about The Beatles. In JUNKER's first Sunday post he wrote about blackbird from the highly influential self titled album, which many saw as the Beatles truly progressing as an artist by differing from what they had done before with Sgt. Pepper and Mystery Tour, with the former mirroring this very same progression on their earlier work. For me Abbey Road really stands out and I'm still not entirely sure why (im not saying its my favorite, as i don't even think i could choose) , but I believe it is because the Beatles seemed to mature more as a band, appearing and sounding more accomplished and rounded. The Beatles work is unique in that you can look at the albums and see the changes between them, they almost seem like a road trip with it being very evident from the white album that they were beginning to come to the end of their trip.
The song I'm wanting to post about here is the unforgettable Here Comes the Sun, a masterpiece penned by George Harrison with a back story that suitable acts as a prologue to the song . According to Harrison, the song was written during somewhat of a depression for the man, it had been a tough year with him getting his tonsils out, being "busted" for marijuana possession and when their record label was becoming too much of a chore, this on top of a typically long British winter set the stage for Harrison writing the song in spring of '69 while taking a break from work with Apple at a close friends house, with the song obviously talking of the good times ahead. The track, along with the album in general (in particularly the end), contains some of Ringo Starr's best drum work, even though many criticize him on his skills in general, personally I feel Starr's drum work was perfect for the Beatles work, if it had have been any more prominent it probably would have taken away from the content of most of the band's songs. The song , keeping in line with Harrisons style of writing, opens with a single acoustic guitar singing out the main riff of the song with Harrison soon coming into the song vocally singing the title of the song, with McCartney soon joining in backing. The song is one i've listened to a lot and will continue to listen to as I grow older, I hope it rounds of your Sunday is it did mine.

The Beatles - Here Comes The Sun

(Links fixed)

Easy Like Sunday Morning #2

Welcome to the second edition of our weekly update, Easy Like Sunday Morning. This week I will be jumping between genres to find some laidback tracks to make your hangover or whatever else seem more bearable. I've been thinking about this quite a bit, and although not all of my original inclusions will make it onto this list, they will definitely feature in another post sometime in the near future.

First up is Pearl Jam's seminal hit Jeremy. Taken from one of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time, Ten, Jeremy is both famous and infamous. Although it peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks and had similar success on an international scale, the song was tarnished with controversy. After all, it was mainly inspired by a newspaper article about a young student, Jeremy Wade Delle, who shot himself in front of his English class in 1991. This subject matter is depicted in a somewhat raw manner within the music video, which climaxes with Jeremy putting the gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger, submerging his classmates in his blood. Naturally, MTV opted not to show the original ending, deeming it too unscrupulous for TV audiences, but lead singer Eddie Vedder maintains that there was a certain level that needed to be reached to do the article justice, "to give it that action, to give it reaction, to give it importance."

Pearl Jam - Jeremy

Secondly, we have Lupe Fiasco's The Coolest. It is likely that you have heard of Lupe Fiasco, both for his collaboration on Kanye West's Touch The Sky and from his huge hit from The Cool titled Superstar. Even though the latter track received a lot of airplay when it was released, I got a rather lukewarm feeling from it. It wasn't by any means bad, but it certainly wasn't the stand-out track from the album. Although I don't really listen to a lot of more commercial rap artists because they do little for me, Lupe Fiasco is one of the main exceptions to the rule. He is outstanding in almost every sense of the word and The Cool is a testament to that. It has some of the freshest production values seen on a hip-hop record, smooth flows and equally smooth beats. Most people aren't aware of this, but it is actually a concept album based on the darker realities of growing up on the streets and in the game. One of the main reasons I chose this track was because it helped me out on a potentially terrifying plane journey. When we were on our way back from Rock Werchter in Belgium, we decided to smoke an absolutely huge all-weed prerolled joint in Amsterdam just outside the airport. The experience was surreal to say the least and by the time we got on the plane we were incredibly stoned, so when it took off I wasn't expecting it at all and could hardly look out the window. Minutes later I decided to put on some music on my headphones and The Coolest was the first track picked. I went from serious nervous paranoia to absolute bliss in a matter of seconds and the plane ride became one of the most eventful I've ever been on.

Lupe Fiasco - The Coolest

When I woke up this morning and briefly thought about what tracks should be included in this post, the first thing that came to mind was Massive Attack's Teardrop, which is slightly strange as I haven't listened to it in years. The most likely reason for this sudden wave of consciousness is because it is, without a doubt, one of the most laidback tracks of all time. There isn't really much you can say about this track except that if you haven't heard it before, unless you listen to a lot of trip-hop, it will be unlike anything you have heard up until this point. What should be pointed out is that it is a long shot to even assume that people haven't heard this track because it is frequently used in a variety of different media outlets and has been covered by the likes of Incubus and Jose Gonzalez. Featuring Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals and sampling a Les McCann track 'Sometimes I Cry', Teardrop remains a contemporary classic of this generation.

Massive Attack - Teardrop

Next up is Jeff Buckley's Last Goodbye. Despite the fact that the more cynical amongst us would dismiss Buckley's phenomenal debut album, Grace, as an overrated cash-in, I disagree. Even today, Grace still remains both relevant and untainted. The songwriting displayed on the album is far and beyond effectually everything that has came since and the vocals retain a soothing, almost majestic quality. Of course you could put this down to the fact that, like Nick Drake, he died long before his time, but the difference between Buckley and other songwriters is that he knows how to convey the right emotions at the right times. This album isn't solely filled with heartwarming, accoustic ballads. Instead, it focuses on gradual stylistic shifts between heavier and softer tracks. This balance is conserved throughout the entire album and can best be demonstrated in songs such as Hallelujah and Eternal Life. Last Goodbye on the other hand is more difficult to define. It has a beautiful, sentimental quality to it that is never too much or too little. In many respects, it has the perfect equilibrium and that's why it has made it onto this list.

Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye

I've perhaps saved the best for last, The Beatles' classic Blackbird. I personally consider The Beatles to not only be the most influential band of all time, but also the best. They didn't just create songs with feeling, they created songs that would change the musical landscape forever. There are few bands today who don't owe something to The Beatles. Their influence is so widespread that many consider Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band to be the first Progressive Rock work and I'm of the opinion that Helter Skelter was one of the first tracks to have Metal tendencies. Though it is impossible to pick a favourite album by them, The White Album has to be up there, as it is one of their most experimental albums due in large part to their fascination with LSD and other hallucinogenics around the time of recording. The track Blackbird, however, is not based around such activities. It was actually written as a reaction to the racist treatment of black people in America in 1968. This aspect alone validates Lennon and McCartney's songwriting ability because they were able to combine structurally uneven, free verse with a very real message of freedom without compromising the artistic or background functions.

The Beatles - Blackbird