Led Zeppelin doesn’t get a whole lotta love or credit for their live shows from many music historians, but here is some evidence, that they probably deserve a bit more. Check out the pretty great solo section, with some real nice understated work from the dynamic duo of Bonham and Jones (there are none heavier a rhythm section). They flip the beat here and there which creates some really cool tension in the song, and are just rock solid all the way through. Thnx to Ketogah for the link, and don’t forget to revisit the Viking Kittens for more Immigrant Song fun…

What’s in a good cover you say? Well my experience leads me to believe it’s a few things. First off what it is not, is just taking someone else’s song and trying to reproduce it exactly like the original. Basically you’ve worked hard to create an original sound for your band right? So taking another song and reconstructing it in your new fresh style is generally the idea…I think one of my favorite cover songs is Devo’s version of “Satisfaction”. Here we have this theory of the cover song expanded one step further…Take a famous band’s style and reproduce a different famous band’s hit song…Thanks to Mr. Fink for the link.

I’m not a huge Mars Volta fan…which some of my friends find disappointing, I mean they rock hard as fuck, but I think the vocals just remind me too much of Styx (on steroids of course) or something. This is a pretty fun video for the song Goliath (the sporadic interruptions are what sold me on it), which is a pretty kickass little number for sure. So if you can keep the image of Tommy Shaw out of your head and enjoy the instrumental madness check it out… Incidentally, you’ll have to visit Youtube directly as “univeralmusicgroup” has disabled embedding…because they are fucking retards, who don’t understand online promotion. I’d be much more likely to research your band and provide links to their music directly if you’d let me load their crappy compressed video directly on my blog…morons.

I was laughing at a recent post on Digg touting the skills of Neil Pert, and proclaiming him the best living drummer. This sent me searching for King Crimson videos and I dug up this gem from 1981 of them playing Discipline, and a few snippets of Fripp and Bruford chatting about it. You gotta love the dynamic of Fripp and Belew, so awesome paired together. Both are so cool in very different ways, and Bill Bruford is such a great understated drummer.

It sure is funny to see a gaffe this big amplified tenfold on a monstrous professional tour…Van Halen of course have finally, after what can only be described as a never ending ego retard soap opera, sort of re-united with David Lee Roth back at the helm as front buffoon. There is no denying he once was a great showman and now seems to have lost most of his reality faculties, HOWEVER it isn’t old Diamond Dave who is wreaking havoc on this crappy song (Van Halen has some kick ass tunes, this is not one of them, just because it won the popularity contest)…Apparently, uh VERY apparently, the synths are about a half step out of tune from Eddie’s guitar…just close your eyes sit back take a deep breathe and listen…It’s pure magic, and you have to give him props for not bothering to try and fix it, he just plows on through it like a trooper.

When you think of Queen, the first image that comes to mind is obviously flamboyant frontman Freddy Mercury with his glam costuming and amazing operatic vocals. However you can’t ignore the guitar genius of Brian May, he really pioneered an original sound and worked a few amazing tricks using delay pedals, creating some of the more instantly recognizable rock solos. In recent news he finally handed in his thesis for Astronomy which is rather richly entitled “Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud”. Sounds like an operetic prog rock title to me, maybe there will be an accompanying stadium tour. Below is a clip of May demonstrating some fun stuff with guitar and delay, which earned him an honorary PhD in rockin’ dude. Good luck with that thesis review pal!

Brian May phD- BBC article
Wikipedia- More info on Red Special (his infamous guitar he made with his dad)

Damn…I remember seeing Queen on this Flash Gordon tour in what seems like another lifetime ago. I think Billy Squier was the opening act (remember that guy? Stroke Me Stroke Me). Queen was probably around the height of their popularity at this time, and no other band could really pull this off in all seriousness as well as they did. I vaguely remember some kind of large spaceship on stage that opened with much smoke and fanfare. Here is a pretty good video of Queen preforming the theme song.

Queen- Flash Gordon

So I was wasting time on Youtube when I should have been working…it’s OK I am kind of the boss, so I’ll take it out of my own bonus this year thank you. However I “stumbled upon” this interesting video from Miho Hatori, who was a member of NY hipster group Cibo Matto. Miho is originally from Japan and she creates music that has an interesting South American electronica flavor to it. Anyway the name of the song is…Barracuda, now you probably know there is ALREADY a song called Barracuda, and fans of the classic rock mainstays Heart may take offense to this name hijack…so let’s have a poll. Watch the videos, and vote…and make sure to tell your fellow fans as this could change the course of rock n’ roll forever…*I added an extra option to the poll for those complete geniuses among us who of course hate EVERYTHING and are way too cool for school*

Miho Hatori Barracuda

Heart Barracuda:

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Rhino UK is releasing a two-disc CD combining two of Nico’s releases, and adding a bunch of addional outtakes demos etc. which will mostly entice collectors. Both the Marble Index and Desert Shore include music by John Cale…who is simply one of the finest musicians of our time. 1969 must have been a really interesting time to be a crazy hippy in NY. Check out this video for Nico’s haunting beautiful song “Frozen Warnings” featuring Andy and most of the fun bunch from the Factory. If you have never read Nico The End it’s a great book about the demise of a rock icon by James Young who was her keyboard player on some of her final tours.

Via Pitchfork: Nico