Jimmy Hendrix

Now out of all groups of rock you know, count on Jimmy to beat them all in the consummation of any type of drugs. He is a big hit during his concerts were he would grab his guitar, hump it a few times then lite it on fire. The backfire to this is that when he's all sobered up, he can't play any of his songs for reasons like and from my point of view "HE WAS PROBABLY HIGH WHEN HE THOUGHT ABOUT THE SONGS!!!!!" Jimmy Hendrix mostly talks about love and whatever else he can think of that sounds great to his ears and to my ears as well. He plays the guitar and sings his songs. He sang blues type songs and all of his songs had a rhythm to it. That type of rhythm that makes you feel relaxed and happy. He toured around most of the U.S and England. But in September 18th 1970 he was found dead in his apartment in London, England. It was ruled out that he was assassinated by Micheal Jeffrey who forced Jimmy to take a type of drug named "Vesparax" and a mixture of alcohol which caused him to drown in his own vomit. He was only 27 when he died and so he was placed in the "27 club" that commemorates all rock artists that died at the age of 27 for example Kirt Cobain. now here is the song "All Along The Watchtower" by your friend Jimmy.

Pearl Jam

Now this peculiar band has been a big hit during the 1990's and even today you might hear about them if you go to any local guitar shop. They are in the grunge type of rock and from the magasine " US Today" is quoted as they are consisted of  Eddie Vedder that sings, plays the harmonica, the ukelele and the rythm guitar. Mike McCready who plays the lead guitar, Jeff Ament for basse, Matt Cameron as drummer and Stone Gossard as another Rythmic guitarist. Personally they are a great band to listen to since they are mostly open to most ideas and they basically help out one another with writting lyrics for thier songs. Now from Wikipedea, it sais that their were four other members that were part of the group for a certain time. It was four different drummers first off is Dave Krusen in 1991, then Matt Chamberlain in 1991, followed by Dave Abruzzese in 1994 and finally Jack Irons in 1998. They started with Ament and Grossard who were in their own band called "Mudhoney" until Andrew Wood joined and they renamed the band as "Mother Love Bone" until Wood dies of a drug overdose before the release of they're first album "Apple". To honour his death, Chris Cornell from "Soundgarden " and made an abulm with the rest of the group. Now back to Pearl jam itself. The name was inspired by the story of Eddie's great grandmother named "Pearl" and one "Jam" came from the inspiring Neil Young who played "Jams" of ten to twenty minutes long. And now they still play to this day to show some of their great hits. Here is "Last Kiss" from Pearl Jam to you.

Aerosmith

Now all of you should know about Aerosmith. They are one of the best rock bands to have ever existed in this world and they know how to make better love music than any other band that talk about love. They are mostly looked up to for theirs songs that talk about mostly anything that either involves love or sorrow. They started in 1970 with Joe Perry (The lead guitarist) and Tom Hamilton (The bassist). Steven Tyler, the signer, Joey Kramer at the drums and Ray Tabano joined soon after, but in 1971, Tabano was replace by Brad Whitford. Personally I think it was wise to kick Ray out since he wasn't really that great as back up guitarist. I'm not sure why he got kicked but he must have been horrible or high. Either way they made their first album in 1973 with "Eponymous Debut Album" with the record company  Columbia Records. They made many platinum albums like "Get Your Wings" in 1974 and "Toys In The Attic" in 1975 and in 1976 they came out with "Rocks". Now that is most of what I have learned about them now from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerosmith, I learned that because of drug addictions and disputes between the band members,  Joe Perry and Brad Whitford left in 1980. Miraculously they both came back in 1984 after sobering up and finally getting along they came back into the rocking business and climb for the rock and roll hall of fame in 1993. Now to give you a taste of their success, here is  the song "Toys In The Attic".

Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols is a punk rock band. For those who don't know the difference between punk rock and normal rock. Punk is basically teenagers that rebel against everything (Parental controls, politics, religion, even war.). Punk culture is commonly popular in European countries like England, France and Germany.
The Sex Pistols is the band that started it all. Most of today's punk bands follow what their creator has left behind. But the Sex Pistols didn't have the greatest cooperation. They had to replace their bass guitarists four times!!!! And each time they switched was because the previous one died of drug overdose!!!! You would think that they would be against drugs, but they didn't care. In fact they always seemed to be high before their gigs and after. They brought out their first album "Never Mind the Bollocks...Here's The Sex Pistols" in 1977. They started out with no money at all and managed to become one of the most famous bands of all time. How cool is that. But lots of arguments and controversy started when Glen Matlock left the band. He left for his own reasons and talked about it with the band. When they officially confirmed Matlock's resignation, they started a war of words. Enough of that and back to their music. Now the second album the brought out was "God Save The Queen" which caused a lot of controversy since it was "anti-royalist" to those that supported the queen. Basically to make a long story short, they weren't the most lovable band in history. Now there is a lot more to the Sex Pistols and if you are interested in learning more, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Pistols. that is where I got my info. Here's the song

Audioslave

Audioslave is a post-grunge genre of music. They mostly talk about how to forget how bad the world is in their song "Doesn't Remind Me" and that no matter where you go, as long as you enjoy the good times and try to put the bad times behind if you can. They also talk about a long lost love and how they will never be able to be together in the song "Like A Stone". This is one of my favorite rock bands because they use distortion sounds for their guitar solos since they are a post-grunge type of band. Personally, I prefer to listen to their songs when I feel down because it helps me bring my spirit up. They basically tell you to enjoy the little things  around you. But sometimes they will go out of that and bring out the big guns like "Show Me How To Live" where they talk about how someone wants to learn from someone close how to live their own life. Now for some little facts from wikipedia. Audioslave was made from former band members of Rage Against The Machines like lead guitarist Tom Morello, base Tim Commerford, and the battery: Brad Wilk and former signer of Soundgarden Chris Cornell. Also, they are the first american band to ever play live in Cuba. I think that is pretty amazing since Cuba and the U.S don'T really see "eye to eye". Now heres some photos and a relaxing song from Audioslave, here's "Doesn't Remind Me".

Time for change of subject...how about rock!!!!

For the next few blogs, I will talk about different rock bands. Now when I'm talking about rock bands its not these newer ones that keeps signing about their love life...Who really cares about that!!!! No, I will talk of the bands that have talent like The Who, the Ramones, Police, Jethro Tull, Foghat, Aerosmith, Audioslave, and many, many more. Right I will just summarize what i will be talking about in my future blogs. Now like heavy metal, there are different types of rock, like Punk rock, hard rock and progressive rock. Those are the top three types of rock i like to listen to. Here are a few songs to give you a taste of these three genders of rock. I shall start it off with progressive rock. Here's "Aqualung" by Jethro Tull

 


A fact that I have recently learned is that Jethro Tull played the flute and sings in all of his song "Bungle In The Jungle".But my favorite song is "Aqualung". Now here's some punk rock. This is "Anarchy In The U.K." by Sex Pistols. Now this band is what started the punk revolution in the world.


Now for the last song which will represent hard rock will be *DRUM ROLL* QUEEN!!!! Now since i made most of suffer extremely harsh heavy metal songs, I will cut you all some slack and play the song "Bicycle Race".

Fan's of Metal

Well now I will talk a bit about their fans. I, as a fan of metal, i prefer to listen to it loud. Metal is meant for pumping your adrenaline and to be less afraid of  the world. Some ways of doing that is by putting your i pod to full blast so that you can't hear the people on your school bus complain about their boring lives that no one really cares about. Now if your like me, people that interrupt the guitar solos of your favorite songs should be punched in the face.

When you  can hear the person beside you saying that your music is to loud...It sure as hell ain't loud enough. I get yelled at by people because my music is too loud but when I turn around and say their music is too loud, I get insulted in Arabic since they are aloud to do whatever they please. For any metal fan being oppressed this is my advice: Don't listen to those that complain about your music because they don't understand your music like you do!!!!!! And if they keep on harassing you about it then tell them to shove a cork in their mouth. They might think Miley Cyrus is an awesome signer but to me, someone signing about an american party is because she can't make  up a real song worth while to listen to. Now if you feel like your the only metal fan these days because of that Justin Bieber crap but trust me. as long as there is someone signing about chaos and destruction there will be millions of metal fans. What we must do is regroup and crush these new songs they call music. And get MEGADETH back together to lead us back into popularity. Most metal fans can't stand rap, hip hop or jazz. Also we do not like being annoyed with people trying to act like they are metal fans just because they know a song made by a heavy metal band. All metal fans know the history of at least  one metal band (Members, songs, albums, when they started, if they broken up etc...). Well now I will leave a song for you guys to listen to. Here is "Killed By Death" by Motorhead.

Guitar Styles

All groups of metal have different "looks" for their guitar. To give you guys ideas of what I'm talking about, I will put numerous pictures of different guitars and name them for you guys.



guitar #1: The Firebird. Its a guitar in shape of a "z" but the edges are more circular than straight. The picture below is the actual "look".

As you can see, the edges aren't really straight. Personally, I always dreamed of having a guitar like this. Now to show the " EXPLORER" which is a straighter version of the Firebird.

Guitar #2: The EXPLORER is a commonly used guitar in certain metal bands like "In-Flames" and "MEGADETH".

Now I looked for the same colored type guitar for the Firebird but they didn't have one. This is what you would call a "Vintage-Sunburst". Vintage is an old guitar that lost a bit of its color but the added sunburst gives the red a nice cherry color which I think is very nice and guitars like these ones sound much better than their newer brethren.


Guitar #3: Stratocaster is a guitar that looks like a Les Paul but instead of having only one part of the top sticking out, both side do. this will show you what I'm trying to say. Kirk Hammett from METALLICA uses this type of guitar. Also my guitar at home is a stratocaster  as well.

Now to show you another type of guitar. How about the "Flying V".

Guitar # 4: Flying V is a guitar in a shape of a "V" obviously. The band "Scorpions" has a Flying V.

It has the look of someone with two pegged legs but still looks like  "V" upside down.

And now the father of all guitar looks.

Guitar #5: Les Paul is the very first guitar to be used by rock and metal bands. It is the most famous guitar ever invented but sadly  the creator of this magnificent guitar passed away last year. But no rock or metal band that understand their history can never really appreciate what this man did for the rocking community. And for those who don't know who the creator of the Les Paul guitar is, well its Les Paul himself. He started the guitar company Gibson who made a huge variety of guitars, there are hundreds of different looks but I'm only naming the top five guitar styles. Now here is the picture of the very first guitar look.