It's Only Rock & Roll...

Greetings Boys & Girls,

I started writing this episode of The Sermon two weeks ago. I had just found out that an old buddy of mine was able to secure a couple of tickets for us to go see Iron Maiden in concert in June. I was so excited that I just wanted to share my joy with everyone I know. Unfortunately, the friend who will be accompanying me to the show is one of only a couple of people I know (Duane and Dustin are the only two who come to mind.) who appreciate Iron Maiden the way I do. I got to thinking about this, and then I decided to just write about my favorite music and what it means to me.

What I have done, is compiled a list of twenty five of my favorite artists. The list is not all-inclusive (I was just looking at music I own right now, which means I could quite possibly have forgotten someone), nor is it compiled in order of importance. It is arranged alphabetically, and is designed to give you, the reader, a little bit of insight into just what makes me tick - since music is such a HUGE part of my life.

Let's give it a go, shall we?

1.) AC/DC - I never started to really appreciate AC/DC until the last few years. Lately, though, I've been listening to them an awful lot, and I realize that they are the embodiment of hard-rock - in all of its simplistic brilliance. You always know what you're going to get with AC/DC; yet somehow, instead of coming off as predictable, they come off as dependable. Even with different frontmen, the band can be trusted to faithfully deliver a tight groove and some rock-solid guitar work. Bravo, boys.

2.) Alice In Chains - Like far too many of the bands on this list, Chains burned out way too quickly, and I never got to see them live. While I was in high school, I was convinced that Layne Staley was a deity. Maybe not the God, but definitely a god. At that time, Alice In Chains had a sound that no other band had. It was the perfect mix of sinister metal darkness and Seattle's grungy despair. The band was heavy as shit, but instead of being fast and furious like the razor blade attack of most of their metal predecessors, they were slow and brooding, like a drill press creeping toward your temples. Jerry Cantrell's guitar work and formidable harmony vocals formed the perfect foundation, as Layne Staley's beautifully malicious voice slithered through the songs like a lurking dragon, poised to explode into the most incendiary rock vocals I've ever heard.

Most of the people in my high school didn't know what to do with Alice In Chains. I knew what to do with them. I bought everything I could find with Alice In Chains on it. I can sing Facelift, Dirt, Sap, and Jar of Flies from front to back in my sleep. During my sophomore and junior years in high school, Chains rained supreme. Damn you, heroin, for taking Layne from us. I haven't heard the recently re-formed Chains, with their new frontman, as of yet. Something just tells me it will never be the same.

3.) Bad Religion - Again, this is a band that I have only recently discovered, but I instantly loved them. BR reminds me that music can be a powerful tool for social reform. The furious guitar work and raw conviction in the vocals keep me coming back for more - and are turning me into an honest-to-goodness punk rock fan.

4.) Candlebox - There are very few bands that I will get excited about seeing live. This is one of them. I saw them for the first time on their reunion tour in September of 2006. To date, Candlebox have only released three studio albums. All three contain a fantastic barrage of hard-hitting guitar work and beautifully romantic lyrics. Peter Klett will always have a place among my top ten favorite guitar players, and Kevin Martin's voice is the perfect blend of Robert Plant and Paul Rogers.

Candlebox got signed at the end of the Seattle Grunge rush of the early 90's. Like Alice In Chains, most people I knew back then didn't know what to do with them. They were from Seattle, but they didn't sound like any other Seattle bands. You could almost compare them with Pearl Jam, but they didn't have the political unrest driving them the way PJ did. Totally unique, and unfortunately, completely underrated. They are, however, back together and recording again, so look for them, because the musical times just may have caught up with their sound and the public might just be ready this time.

5.) Eric Clapton - Wow. What can I say about Eric that hasn't already been said? My favorite comment about Clapton came in a Rolling Stone article. I don't remember the author, but he said that Eric Clapton has done more in his career for Rock & Roll than any other guitar player in history. I thought that was a pretty assumptive statement until I realized that Clapton was signed and touring before anyone had ever heard of Jimi Hendrix, or Led Zeppelin for that matter. Upon thinking about this, I popped in a copy of the 2001 live album One More Car, One More Rider. After giving it a very careful listen, I could hear in Clapton's playing in the voice of all of the great guitar players that have come after him. Almost everybody has taken lessons from a Clapton album - including myself. Try it out. Listen to your favorite guitar player and then listen very carefully to Clapton. I can almost guarantee you'll hear some striking similarities.

6.) Counting Crows - Now, it may seem sacrilegious to put Counting Crows after Eric Clapton, but as I said, the list does not indicate order of importance. I love Counting Crows because they are like an old friend. They've been there for me during some of the most trying times in my life, reminding me that life is full of ups and downs and that is what makes it beautiful.

They are brilliant live musicians, although I've never seen them live. I have heard several recordings of their live performances, and the thing that always gets me is the fact that they almost never play a song the same way twice. The band instinctively follows Adam Duritz's lead, carving out a wake of dynamics in each song that just grabs you and keeps you like some hypnotist in a traveling show. I've taken a lot from them as a songwriter and a guitarist. The Crows helped me to learn that sometimes less is more, and then sometimes more is more - and it's ok to have both.

7.) The Doors - There are only a couple of exceptions to my hatred of the keyboard as a lead instrument in Rock & Roll. The Doors are the most notable. The Doors were the first classic rock band that I ever really got into. They taught me that it was ok to like music that was made before I was born. They also taught me that poetry could become lyrics, and that you don't always have to come out and say exactly what you mean when you write a song. And for that, I'm willing to forgive Jim Morrison all of his shortcomings.

8.) Bob Dylan - My very first rock concert experience was seeing Bob Dylan in Riverfront Park in Spokane, WA in June of 2005. I new a couple of Dylan tunes back then, but I wasn't a huge fan yet. A few years later, after I'd listened to Highway 61 Revisited a few hundred times, I went to see Bob again and it was nothing short of amazing. Here is another guy, like Clapton, who has influenced just about everyone else I listen to. Bob Dylan can craft lyrics like nobody else on Earth, and, like any great rock star, he makes no apologies for who he is, no matter what stage of life he is in. From folk hero, to bluesy electric songwriter, to born-again Christian, to converted Jew, it seems like Bob has always been driven to try it all in this life, and then tell the story through his songs.

9.) Eagles - When Hell Freezes Over came out, it was one of those albums that just didn't leave my 5-disc CD changer. I learned to play just about every song on it, and learned to appreciate the value of seasoned musicians at their best. Today, I listen to the Eagles and I just marvel at their three and four part vocal harmonies. Absolutely amazing. Also, the ability of Don Henley and Glen Frey to write simple, effective, pop-rock songs is uncanny. If I had to pick one Eagles song to be the only Eagles song left in existence, I would pick The Last Resort. In the words of Don Henley, it's "...a song about how the West was lost," and it's stunningly beautiful.

10.) Fear Factory - Fear Factory is an acquired taste, to be sure. They are EXTREMELY heavy, but not completely inaccessible. I fell in love with them when I heard the song Resurrection, off of the album Obsolete. The band's sound is a perfect blend of beautifully textured synthesiser arrangements to compliment a rhythmic foundation that can only be described as heavy, cold, and mechanical - as precise and eroding as a CNC machine, carving perfectly intricate sonic textures into the blank slate of the song. Burton C. Bell's vocals are the perfect compliment to the music. He switches from raw, guttural barking to a smooth singing voice that is completely void of vibrato, which makes it sound almost synthesized. They are completely unique among their metal colleagues, which is why I love them.

11.) Guns N' Roses - GNR is like the first shot of heroin that got me forever hooked on hard-rock/metal. They were the gateway drug. They led to other bands, which led to all-out addiction. I think Joe Perry (Aerosmith) nailed it when he said of GNR that "...they reminded us that you can't have the Rock without the Roll." Axl, Slash, and the boys proved to be the corridor between the reigning Glam bands of the 80's and the raw sound that would eventually take over in the 90's. I actually discovered GNR when my cousin brought over a tape copy of Use Your Illusion II and I heard Civil War for the first time. I would never be the same person again. GNR's in-your-face, "Fuck You!" attitude woke up a dormant part of me that would help me to become the person I am today. Every time something I say offends you, you can thank Axl Rose for it.

12.) Jimi Hendrix - Jimi hasn't quite had the direct impact on my life that most of these other artists have, but, like Clapton, he's influenced just about everyone who has. Of course, I have, like just about every other guitar player, borrowed licks from Jimi here and there. I also have to give him credit for thinking of a lot of the studio tricks that producers are still using today. Listen to Purple Haze, All Along the Watchtower, and Axis, Bold as Love, and you'll see what I mean.

13.) Iron Maiden - First off, I have to say that I have been listening to Maiden the entire time I've been writing this. Iron Maiden and Pink Floyd are my two favorite bands of all time. I have been listening to Iron Maiden since my sophomore year of high school. I only know a couple of people who love Iron Maiden as much as I do. Everybody else I know either hates them, or is indifferent to them. While I don't think I'll ever be able to completely explain what it is about Maiden that I love so much, I will do my best here.

First off, I think I love Maiden for some of the same reasons I love the Discovery Channel. Most of their songs are about history, philosophy and the like. Their lyrics, though not really very deep, are at least academic. They are the only band I know that can make a great song about a movie, or a famous historical battle, or long distance running, for that matter.

I had been listening to bands like Megadeth and Metallica for a couple of years before I heard Iron Maiden, but Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, and Janick Gers were the first guitar players that made me stop and notice what I have come to affectionately call "Guitarmonies." These three are the undisputed masters of two and three part guitar harmonies. The guitar lines are as much the life force of the songs as Bruce Dickenson's vocal melodies are.

Speaking of The Bruce... what an amazing human being!! If there were ever a rock star to really look up to, I think it would be Bruce. Besides having one of the most powerful, mesmerising voices on the planet, Bruce is the type of person who just does what he wants to do. Period. And not in an obnoxious way, like the guys in Jackass. No, I'm talking about the fact that he's just got his hands into so many different things that it really inspires me. Besides being an international rock star, he's competed in the Olympic games as a fencer, he's a published author, a syndicated radio host, and he's a licensed pilot who actually flew the band's jumbo tour jet around the world this last year for the A Matter of Life and Death tour. I should also point out that his solo album The Chemical Wedding is better than whatever you think is the best metal album of all time. It is true metal perfection. Period.

I simply love everything about Iron Maiden, and I am soooooooo excited to FINALLY see them in concert in a couple of months!

14.) Led Zeppelin - Again, what can I say that hasn't already been said? If The Doors turned me on to classic rock, Led Zeppelin definitely made me fall in love with it. The mighty Zep were simply fearless. They did whatever they wanted to do. Period. And most of the time it was brilliant. This is the band whose sound coined the phrase "Tight, but loose." If you don't know what that means, listen to Black Dog, The Ocean, or Over the Hills and Far Away, and then you'll know exactly what it means. Every one of the original members of Led Zeppelin has earned an eternal place in Rock & Roll heaven.

15.) Metallica - The words "Bass Solo: Take One..." made me decide to become a musician. The late Cliff Burton said those words before forcing my jaw to the floor with the most amazing sonic attack I'd ever heard in the fall of 1992. By that time Cliff had been dead for almost 8 years, and the recording I was listening to of Anesthesia: Pulling Teeth was almost 10 years old. Within about a month, I went with my dad to a pawn shop and got my first bass guitar. I learned how to play it and after a year or so, I started taking guitar lessons. From there, it has been rock and roll all the way.

People always ask how I got so good at playing guitar. The simple answer is Metallica. I wasn't allowed to go out and do a whole lot as a teenager, so I stayed in my room and learned to play every Metallica song I could. The first five albums are hallowed ground for metal fans. Each of those first five albums are different enough to be interesting, yet completely Metallica. If you listen to them chronologically, you'll go on this uncommon journey - in which you actually hear the band mature from drunken skate-punks to hardened professional rock stars. If a normal person wears his heart on his sleeve, Metallica definitely wear their souls on their songs.

The problem is, sometimes that kind of honesty can be controversial, and I like many other fans now have a kind of love-hate relationship with Metallica. I love each of the first five albums - yes, even the Black Album. Then Load and ReLoad came out. I bought Load, and sold it about a week later. I'd sworn off the band until S&M came out. Then I fell in love with them again. Even the songs from Load and ReLoad. Then came the Napster controversy, and the whole group therapy trip, and St. Anger. I just hope their new album (due out this summer) doesn't suck.

16.) Motorhead - I didn't grow up with Motorhead. That said, I loved them from the moment I first heard them a few years back. They are so honest. They embody the whole "Fuck You" biker attitude without overdoing it. I think the key is Lemmy's understated demeanor. When I saw them in concert a couple of years ago, Lemmy came on stage and simply said "We are Motorhead. We play Rock & Roll." and then unleashed the fury that has made him a legend. It would be like Rocky Balboa coming out and saying "I'm Rocky Balboa. I'm a boxer." before beating his opponent senseless in an epic 15 round title bout. If you've never listened to Motorhead, don't be afraid. I'm telling you, you don't know what you're missing.

17.) Nirvana - Nirvana wasn't the first band to sound like they did. They just happened to be the ones to throw it out in front of everybody in a way that the rest of the world couldn't ignore. Think back to when Smells Like Teen Spirit first broke loose. I remember watching GNR, Metallica, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, and all of these other mass-produced rock bands on MTV, and then all of a sudden, there was Kurt Cobain in a school gymnasium that looked like it had been converted into a garage. It was fresh, and it was time. I could go into all of the detail about Kurt's lyrics speaking to me and all of that, but it's all been said already by the millions of other people who miss it. I remember saying to myself, upon passing up on the opportunity to see Nirvana live in February 2004 "Oh, I'll see them next time they come to town." Turns out...

18.) Pink Floyd - I mentioned earlier that Pink Floyd shares the "My Favorite Band" spot with Iron Maiden. In the midst of all of the other furious music I was listening to in my teens, The Floyd came in and taught me that angst does not have to be loud, fast, or heavy. Roger Waters lyrics built on the foundation that Jim Morrison had laid earlier and taught me that not only do you not always have to say exactly what you mean when you write lyrics, but that you can use sarcasm and satire to cut right to the bone. Roger's lyrics have chilled me to my core more than any other lyricist I've ever listened to. Listen to the song Two Suns in the Sunset off of The Final Cut if you don't know what I'm talking about. Actually, you really need to absorb the whole album to get it by listening to it, and I don't quite trust you to make that kind of effort. So I'll lay it out for you.

The Final Cut is subtitled "A Requiem for the Postwar Dream." It's a political statement more than a concept album, centered around Roger Waters' frustration with Cold-War global politics. In the song The Gunner's Dream, Waters outlines a dream about a world with "A place to stay, enough to eat - somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street, where you can speak out loud about your doubts and fears, and what's more - no one ever disappears, you never hear their standard-issue kicking in the door. You can relax on both sides of the tracks and maniacs don't blow holes in bandsmen by remote control. And everyone has recourse to the law, and no one kills the children anymore... no one kills the children anymore." This song appears early in the album, and when Waters closes the albume with the song Two Suns in the Sunset he paints a lyrical picture of a man driving East when a nuclear blast lights up the horizon in front of him. He describes the man's life of memories flashing before his eyes in a chilling bridge: "Like the moment when the breaks lock, and you slide toward the big truck. You stretch the frozen moments with your fear. And you'll never hear their voices, and you'll never see their faces. You have no recourse to the law anymore." To add to this lyrical assult on our fragile sense of security, he and the producers decided to overlay sound bites of a little girl yelling "Daddy Daddy!!!" and then crying over the top of this section. Absolutely brilliant. It gets me every time.

This is just one of myriad moments through out the auditory history of Pink Floyd that keeps them seated on the throne for me. I haven't even mentioned David Gilmore yet. David taught me that playing the guitar fast is overrated, and that a man who can make you cry with one note is a more valuable musician than the man who can cram 128 notes into a single measure. David has done more to influence my guitar playing than anyone else.

Also, let's not forget that Dark Side of the Moon still holds the record for staying on the Billboard Top 100 for longer than any other album in history. Again, I could write a doctoral thesis on Pink Floyd, but I'll have to cut it short here. Essential listening: Meddle, Dark Side..., Wish You Were Here, The Wall. This will give you a bare-minimum understanding of what The Floyd is all about.

19.) The Rolling Stones - Ah, the Stones. If Bruce Dickenson is a perfect example of a POSITIVE Rock & Roll role model, Kieth Richards is most certainly a perfect example of a NEGATIVE Rock & Roll role model. Both men do whatever they want to do, but while Bruce's activities sometimes accidentally offend and annoy people, Keith's activities intentionally offend and annoy people. A while back, I wrote another blog about a story that was going around about Keith Richards snorting his dead father's ashes. I said that even though Keith denied the story, the fact that the story is out there, and plausible, makes Keith the greatest rock star of all time.

Now, when it comes to The Stones' music, I think the only way I can really describe it is that they are soooooo good at being bad. They took the "tight but loose" concept and just threw the "tight" part right out the window. Their music is like a Jackson Pollock painting. On the surface it seems like just a bunch of crap, but after you stare at it for a while, you really start to get it, and understand the method to the madness. I saw The Stones in Tacoma in 2002 and loved it. They were more energetic than I could have possibly imagined a bunch of, for all intents and purposes, burned-out sixty-year-olds could have been. I can't even hope to move as well as Mick Jagger still can when I'm sixty. I should also point out that Sticky Fingers and Some Girls are two of my favorite albums of all time.

20.) Soundgarden - I said earlier that Layne Staley (Alice In Chains) had the "most incendiary rock vocals I have ever heard." And I stand by that. Chris Cornell, on the other hand, has the greatest voice in Rock & Roll. Hands down. The man has such a powerful range of stylistic quality! He can go from low and bluesy to the most increadible rock scream in an instant. As for the rest of Soundgarden, it took me a while to get into them. For whatever reason, I wasn't able to hear the beauty in the utterly unique arrangement of songs like Fresh Tendrils, Limo Wreck, Tighter & Tighter, and Boot Camp until a few years ago. I never really understood Kim Thayal's place in the world until then either. Now I can't get enough of them. Incidentally, I love Audioslave, but not quite as much as Soundgarden.

21.) Stone Temple Pilots - Core and Purple are albums that will be forever etched into my memory, note for note. STP encompassed such a huge range of genres that I think, again, a lot of people just didn't know what to do with them. Every time you compared them to one of their contemporaries, the next track on the album would play and blow your argument out of the water. When Plush hit the airwaves, for example, people said "Oh yeah, they're kind of a Pearl Jam rip-off." but then Sex Type Thing would play and you had to say "Wait a minute, not Pearl Jam - Alice In Chains instead." I personally thought that they used the best parts of all of the music that was out there to create a fantastic sound that was all their own. Scott Weiland is also responsible for teaching me that you can have a rather ordinary sounding voice and still be a rock star.

22.) The Tragically Hip - Not a lot of Americans know about The Hip, but they are national icons in Canada. I first heard them in 1995 when my cousin (who imigrated to Canada) brought down a copy of Day For Night on a visit. The song Nautical Disaster just blew my mind. Later that summer I went to Canada on a family vacation and bought the album. I now own several Tragically Hip albums and would run into a burning building to save them. There are songs on each album that instantly grab you, but the albums as a whole just grow and grow on you. Gordon Downie's lyrics are uniquely poetic. The only other lyricists that I can compare him to are Adam Duritz (Counting Crows) and Bruce Springsteen. The Hip are definitely a guitar band, but the guitars are somehow understated, and serve the song, rather than the song serving the guitars. If you've never heard of them, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

23.) U2 - This is a bit of an interesting choice for me, since I really only love three albums by U2, but man, how I do LOVE those three albums. The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, and All That You Can't Leave Behind are each so amazing. The thing about U2 is that they only put out a great album every so often, but when they do, it becomes an instant classic. Also, I've always liked The Edge's philosophy on guitar playing, which is "Notes are very, very expensive...and I don't have a lot of money."

24.) Van Halen - Dave or Sammy? Doesn't matter. Eddie's a drunken egotist either way. But damn it, he put out some great songs. For Unlawful Carnal Knowlege was the first Rock & Roll CD I ever owned, and Van Halen 1 was like a crown on my adolescent education in guitar work. I am a little bitter about VH, since they were terrible when I saw them in concert a few years ago, but again, their music is amazing, so I have to forgive them.

25.) The Wallflowers - I have actually only heard one Wallflowers album, which of course, is Bringing Down the Horse, but that album literally made up the soundtrack of my life for about two years during some very troubling times for me. Jacob Dylan is definitely a chip off the old block, but like any good heir, he's different from his father. He's the next generation, and his lyrics move me. The musicianship is amazing on that album as well. Listen - I mean, really pay attention - to the guitar solo on Josephine. It will melt your heart.


Ok, so there you have it. My twenty five favorite artists...for now. I hope you get a little something out of this blog, for having taken the time to read it. I hope maybe it helps you to better understand where I am coming from on some things. I also hope that you might have read about an artist that you'd never heard of, or taken the time to appreciate, and that maybe you'll give them a shot. I certainly believe that all of these artists are worth it.

So for now, I'll say goodnight. Never forget the indescribable power of music, and take some time to really dig in to the music you like. Sometimes, even songs you know very well can surprise you.

Oh, and P.S. I'll definitely be writing a blog about the Maiden show. Consider yourself warned.

P.P.S. This version has been updated to acknowledge Dustin's love of Iron Maiden.

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