It strikes me that Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Two Tribes and Warriors of the Wasteland would actually make pretty good metal tunes. Tom Waits's November (from The Black Rider) would also make a good doom metal track.

Joan Baez's Diamonds and Rust works as a metal track (as demonstrated by Judas Priest). I think it'd also make a good jazz standard.

Can anyone think of any other tracks that would work well in a completely different style from the one they were originally written in? I don't mean stylistic mismatches done for laughs like Richard…

Les Paul, the guitarist best known for inventing the solid-body electric guitar, died of pneumonia on August 13, at age 94. Along with the electric guitar, an invention whose importance should be obvious and can hardly be overstated, he also pioneered overdubbing, multitrack recording, and electronic signal processing effects. Nearly every form of modern popular music is built on these innovations; I think it's safe to say that without Mr. Paul, today's musical landscape would be unrecognizable…and considering the cultural influence of rock, from fashion to mores to the very concept of "rock star", the social and political landscape…

Fri 20 Jun – Earth, Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter

This was a good change of pace after the last show I went to (Name, Giant Squid, IntrOnaut, Lair of the Minotaur, and The Ocean at Annie's Social Club), where I banged my head so much that my neck was sore for the next two days (no joke). Earth rocks, but in a very, very slow way. I was actually a little worried that I wouldn't be able to make it because of a cold that'd hit me the Monday before, but by the time Friday rolled…

Sat 16 Feb – Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Estradasphere

Yeah, it's taken me forever to get around to writing this review.

When I went to this concert, I'd just been to another show at the Great American Music Hall a couple of days before (Thu 14 Feb – Buckethead, Kid Beyond), which was both enjoyable and frustrating. I'm not going to write a full review of it, but to sum up: both performances were good, but the mostly metalhead crowd didn't know how to react to Kid Beyond's electronic-inspired beatboxing, and I expected more variety from Buckethead than he…

I'm bored right now so y'all get a pointless meme to clog band journals.

1. King Crimson — I understand the whole thing about not becoming a dinosaur act, but refusing to play the old stuff live, period, kinda sucks. Also, Islands was horrible.

2. Joe Satriani — Please, Joe, do not sing ever again. I thought you'd learned your lesson on Flying In a Blue Dream, but then you put vocals on Is There Love In Space?. Why? Your lyrics are uninspired and your voice is dull. To borrow an album title from Frank Zappa, shut up…

Thu 1 Nov – Battles, No Age

No Age, a guitar and drums duo, opened the show. The drummer was also the vocalist, and played on a very stripped-down kit (just a small bass, floor tom, hi-hat, and one cymbal), while the guitarist played with a looper to fill out the sound. While the arrangement was interesting, the music didn't live up to it. The basic pattern followed by each of their songs seemed to be: long, droning guitar loop intro, drummer suddenly starts hammering away at the kit and shouting incomprehensibly (I was wearing earplugs, but since I…

Wed 31 Oct – Roky Erickson, 1990s

Last year, Roky Erickson played for the first time in decades in San Francisco, but the show (part of the Noise Pop festival) sold out before I could get tickets. Instead, I saw You're Gonna Miss Me, a documentary on his life. The movie was very good, and cleared up some misconceptions I had thanks to the liner notes for Where The Pyramid Meets the Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson), but still, I was kicking myself for missing what could have been a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see one of my…

Sun 28 Oct – Ornette Coleman

A pretty enjoyable concert at the Masonic Center. Ornette Coleman's group is interesting: he was playing (alto sax, but sometimes trumpet and violin) along with his son on drums and THREE bassists—one on upright acoustic, one on an upright acoustic mic'd up and fed through some effects pedals, and one electric (a Fender Bass 6, I think). There was also a second saxophonist who sat in for a few pieces, and who also doubled on a wind instrument I didn't recognize (it had a long straight tube and a funnel-like end, with no…

I bought these CDs a couple of weeks ago, but haven't gotten around to reviewing them until now partly because it took a while to listen to all of them, and partly due to procrastination. Maybe in future I'll buy fewer at a time so I can write up reviews in a timely manner. Anyway, enough of that, it's time for capsule reviews:

• BulletBoys: Freakshow — Found this hair metal album combing through the clearance bin at Rasputin's. Normally, I would have just looked at the ridiculous outfits on the back cover, chuckled, and put it back, but I…

Van Halen closed a concert in Greensboro, NC with their old hit Jump. Except something went horribly, hilariously wrong…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx_GjyXCs4

Apparently the recording of the synth part was played back at the wrong speed, making it considerably sharp. Eddie gamely tries to transpose to match it, but it's sharp by about a semitone and a half, meaning there are no frets for the notes it's playing; Eddie would have to have completely re-tuned his guitar to make it fit. Fortunately, judging by the applause, the audience was too wasted to notice or care.

Found here via a friend on…