George Lynch And Dokken

Imagine my surprise when, last night, I walked into the J&R Music Store only to see none other than George Lynch, formerly of Dokken, on a stage with his guitar, giving a guitar clinic. It was already in progress when I came into the session. He talked a lot about his career and played some solo instrumental versions of some of his songs. He had an excellent solo about fifteen years ago called, I think, Sacred Groove. At least when I was there he didn't play any of his Dokken material, I am sure given his not so cozy association with Don Dokken, that there are some bad memories there.

George must be praised as one of the best guitarists of the '80s metal scene and it was certainly a pleasant surprise to find him there, even though I wish I could have seen the whole session.

The A-Team

Recently I finally accomplished a goal that I am sure I share with a lot of people out there, or maybe not these days. In the '80s it would be something to brag about! I finished watching the five seasons of the A-Team and have now seen every episode of the series! The real irony is that I rarely watched the show when it was airing with new episodes. Then when it was in syndication I started to watch episodes but that was when the show was long off the air. The wondrous creation of DVD's finally allowed me to catch up and see all of the shows.

It was a production of the great Stephen J. Cannell, maker of shows ranging from Renegade to the excellent Rockford Files. Not really a cerebral show, it based its entertainment factor more on fun plots, over the top villains and a cast featuring none other than the late, great George Peppard as the smooth leader Hannibal. There was the real star of the show, a fresh off Rocky 3 Mr. T as BA Barracus. Face and Murdock rounded out the cast. One point that always sticks out to me is that they should have kept Amy Allen in the cast. I read somewhere that George Peppard didn't think it was a good idea to have a girl regular on such a "masculine" show. I think it was a big mistake to get rid of her as not only was she a strong female character but she was also easy on the eyes. The shows with her overall are better than the ones without her except for the Hulk Hogan appearances in the fourth season, the Rick James/Issac Hayes episode and the infamous Boy George episode. Other than those shows, it's probably better to stick to the first two seasons featuring Amy Allen. The only mistake with her was that bad haircut she received in the second season. I don't know what anyone was thinking giving her that. In the first season she was perfect.

Chickenfoot

Last week I picked up the debut album from the new band, Chickenfoot. Despite the awful name of the band, I knew this album had potential. It's a music "supergroup" made up of Sammy Hagar, who between Montrose, Van Halen and a lengthy and at times very underrated solo career, Joe Satriani, one of the guitar greats, former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith.
Sammy Hagar had a couple of real top notch solo albums in the early '80s in Standing Hampton and Three Lock Box. I just recently bought these albums and have been playing the heck out of them. Why they didn't become even bigger hits than they did is a mystery to me. With that great Keith Olson early '80s production they fit right in with the pop rock scene of the time with bands like Journey, Night Ranger, Foreigner, etc. In 1997 Sammy had an excellent comeback solo album with Marching To Mars, where he vented on some songs about the acrimonious split with Van Halen and that gave the material a certain edge rarely heard from him. Unfortunately he released an album in 1999 that was terrible and I wasn't too crazy about the material I heard from later albums and sort of lost track of Sammy.
Joe Satriani is the reason I got into playing guitar in the first place back in 1989. I bought both Not Of This Earth and Surfing With The Alien and was extremely impressed with how he made great songs out of guitar instrumentals. Later that year Flying In A Blue Dream came out and was a worthy followup to those earlier albums, despite a few vocal tracks that we didn't really need, to put it mildly. Joe's had a very solid solo career and has released many albums by now, none of them are bad and most are really good.
When I heard that these two were working on an album together I became very curious, especially to hear how Joe would sound in a band context. I have to say I've been playing this album all week at the exclusion of almost everything else. Sammy, particularly in his more recent career, has written some cringeworthy, corny lyrics. Try "Shag" or "Sympathy For The Human" from 1999's Red Voodoo for examples of what I mean. There are some lyrics on Chickenfoot that aren't very stellar. Now lyrical content does not have to be quite Bob Dylan or Van Morrison but I shouldn't be cringing at certain lines either. That said, the songs are so good they more than make up for what are at times awkward lyrics. The album is a heavy, perfect summer record, the type that used to come out quite often but that we rarely get anymore. The rhythm section is very tight and Joe Satriani, while he doesn't let loose with technique like he does on his solo albums, holds back just right within the band context and adds little musical elements to the songs that enhance the song without taking the risk of overwhelming it. He comes up with some killer riffs, especially on "Get It Up" and "Avenida Revolution". Sammy Hagar is 61 years and sounds great. His voice has held up tremendously and he really lets loose on some of the tracks. I don't know what the single off Chickenfoot is but "My Kinda Girl" would have made a very good choice if it is not the single. It would be a good summer single that would probably have had a chance on the charts back in 1989 or 1990.
Those who know me know that I am much more of an '80s guy than I am with the current pop/rock scene. I like great hooks and grooves and melodies and I don't hear as many of those in this day and age. That said, I can wholeheartedly recommend Chickenfoot as an excellent, fun record and probably next to Dylan's Together Through Life and the new Depeche Mode, the best album of the year so far.

Nixonland by Rick Perlstein

I am reading an excellent book called Nixonland by the author, Rick Perlstein. This massive tome, something like 750 pages plus ample helpings of endnotes, is easily one of the best descriptions of the mid '60s to early '70s in America that I have come across. The book frames that period of time in the manner of the battle between the radical counterculture (Black Panthers, hippies, student radicals, war protesters and other groups) with the so-called Silent Majority for control of the country. Starting with the Watts Riots in LA in 1965, the book goes into enormous detail about the increasing deterioration in the social order that occured in the US and how Richard Nixon, viewed as a loser by his party based on the 1960 presidential election, the failed 1962 California Gubernatorial election and his rejection by the GOP in the 1964 presidential election, gradually build up his support and used the ongoing turmoil to appear as the candidate for law and order and win the White House in 1968. If you have time on your hands and want to learn more about a turbulent time, I highly recommend Nixonland.

The New Dr. Who

I have been getting the episodes of the new Dr. Who series from Netflix and not long ago finished season three. I have been discussing the show with my friend and we both liked the original series. The original series is a classic show with some very compelling episodes mixed with some not so spectacular episodes. It had a twenty-six year run so there were bound to be some duds in there but some of the stories, like Inferno, Genesis of the Daleks, War Games, Planet Of Evil, The Caves of Androzani, Brain of Morbius and many others are great television and great science fiction, if you like that sort of thing. Of course the joke that always applied to Dr. Who is that the special effects were rather underwhelming, to put it mildly. Styrofoam boulders and aliens with cheap looking masks made the show seem more comical than intended.

Now, the new show changed all that. The special effects look really good. Sets look more impressive and the aliens look a lot better. That said, there is something missing from the new show. I watch the episodes and am fairly entertained but not incredibly so. In the first three seasons there hasn't been one single episode that I would refer to as a classic. Episodes may not reach the lows of the worst shows of the original series but they come nowhere near the highs. Not too long ago I pulled out Tomb Of The Cybermen from the original show from all the way back in 1967 and that holds up very well. No, it doesn't have incredible special effects but it works well as a low budget horror movie. That coupled with a good story gives it an edge that I haven't seen the new show come close to.

Neil Young Archives

The Holy Grail of the music industry has finally arrived! At least Volume One arrived! For close to twenty years the massive Neil Young career collection, referred to as the Neil Young Archives, has seemed to be a rumor or postponed so many times that its release seemed improbable. On that account, I was quite surprised to find that the first volume arrived in stores so I actually bought it.

This is only Volume One, and I think there are supposed to be four volumes eventually released. Volume One covers the beginning of his career in the mid-'60s all the way through to 1972. The fact that this set is eight discs just covering those years shows how prolific he has been in his career. I am not crazy about the digipack storing of the individual CD's in the set(I bought the CD version, not the more expensive DVD or Blu-Ray versions). It's easy to scratch the discs when removing them from the digipacks as opposed to using jewel cases to store the set. Also I thought the booklet that came with the set would have more information. For a set this vital, I thought there might essays or comments from Neil rather than just a list of who played on what song. Those are the negatives and they are outweighed by far by the positives.

Three live albums are included in the set, 1969's Live At The Riverboat, 1970's Live At The Fillmore East, and 1971's Live At Massey Hall. All three are well worth checking out if you like Neil's music. There are moments with him playing solo (the Riverboat set has him in a very intimate setting with lots of casual banter) and there is the more intensive material with Crazy Horse (check out the epic version of "Down By The River" from the Fillmore East set). The other five discs cover his early stuff with The Squires, Buffalo Springfield and the period covering his albums, Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After The Gold Rush and Harvest with unreleased material, alternate takes, etc. There is so much material here that I haven't even had the chance to check all of it out yet. Also, I like the outer packaging. You can store the set on your bookshelf as a cube or the set folds out into a longbox, depending on how you want to store it. Overall, a big thumbs up to the Neil Young Archives, Volume One and I am looking forward to the other volumes in the series. Hopefully it won't be a long wait until Volume Two!

The First Post of a New Blog

This is something that I've been thinking of doing for awhile. After a few weeks of thinking about how I am going to format this blog, I finally decided to get it going. I will be posting my views on here about books that I read, music that I listen to, movies and TV shows that I watch and other random thoughts that might come to mind. There will be a lot of obscure topics discussed on here as I always have something different in mind. Please feel free to comment on what I discuss. Back and forth discussion is what keeps the world interesting.

Now, a little about me. I am a writer by trade who has written three books, two of which should be published in the near future (hopefully by a major publishing company, independently on lulu.com, if not), the other a long way from being completed. I will discuss these books and even include samples in the course of this blog. I have a few screenplays that I enter in contests on occasion. I am into exercise. Pushups, crunches, weight lifting, medicine ball work, pull ups and shadowboxing all make up elements of my workout routine. One of the benefits of living in New York City is that I can go on long walks and always notice something new and unique. I play guitar and bass. It was twenty years ago last month when I started playing guitar and I took about a ten year break from it but am recently getting back into playing again. I have a little recording studio in my apartment that I sometimes toy around with.

It will be fun to pull out obscure albums and tv shows that people rarely watch and discuss them and read the comments anyone out there might have.