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Music
Let me start with a little rant (anyone that knows me would expect it). One of the things that I find useless about music reviews (or any other reviews for that matter) is that you have no idea at all what kind of music the reviewer generally prefers. If the person reviewing a new album by Cold Play considers Garth Brooks to be the savior of modern music I would not take the review to heart (although a Garth Brooks fan probably should). I am not saying it is not a fair or valuable review. All reviews are fair, as long as you remember they are personal opinion, and all reviews are valuable, as long as you know the musical preferences of the person doing the review. I think that all reviews should be prefaced with a list of the reviewers favorite three albums of the last year and top three albums of all time. Ten would be obviously much better but I would imagine ten would be to many to print in magazines. Having said that, I am going to start my music page with my "Ten albums to take with me on a desert island". This is not a top ten albums list, the difference being that I do not have to put them in any particular order. This way I can just name the Ten Greatest Albums of All Time (according to me). So here it is, but remember it is in no particular order. That part is important. I reserve the right to change this list (on a daily basis) if need be.
1. Rubber Soul - The Beatles
2. King Bee - Muddy Waters
3. Selling England by the Pound - Genesis
4. Meat is Murder - The Smiths
5. Low Life - New Order
6. Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
7. Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division
8. Aja - Steely Dan
9. Hounds of Love - Kate Bush
10. Century Flower - Shelleyan Orphan
When I look at this list I realize ten is not enough, and it is may be more of a list of my favorite musicians or bands. I surely would be much happier if I could take the entire catalog of the bands mentioned above with me, but I guess I made the rules and will have to stick by them. Realistically though if you have an iPod as long as the island has some type of power source on it, you are set. Speaking of iPods, If you are interested here is my iTunes music library.
Now to the important stuff. The following are some of the people that I think are very important to the history of music as well as some friends that play excellent music.
Muddy Waters
If it were not for this man we would not have had the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Then were would we be? Nowhere good that is for sure! He is simply the greatest. This is one of my favorite songs by Muddy Waters. Johnny Winter plays guitar on this song. It's from the album "King Bee." If you do not have it you should.
James Jamerson
This is James Jamerson. He is the greatest bass player that ever lived. The bass he is playing is a 1962 Fender Precision Bass. He was the bass player on most of the Motown hits. There is a woman that does not even deserve to have her name mentioned that claims to have played some of these bass parts. I was not there so I cannot say if she did or did not. But plenty of people that were there have stated that she did not. That is good enough for me. Here are some samples of his amazing bass playing. Check it out.
Bernadette - The Four Tops
It's a Shame - The Spinners
I was made to love her - Stevie Wonder
Happy Apple
This is a Jazz band based in Minneapolis/St. Paul. They put on great live shows and their records are top notch as well. If you get a chance to see them live you should definitely check them out. If not buy their CDs. I took Bass lessons from their Bass player, Erik Fratzke. He is an amazing musician and really an all around nice guy. They released an album in February of 2005 called "The Peace Between Our Companies."
Daisuke Niiyama
This is my friend Daisuke. He writes great pop songs. Check out his web site. Here my favorite song of his.