Public Enemy featuring Stephen Stills

You know what I love about music? Just when you think you've heard it all -- a song comes your way that blows you away. As with many bands and artists I tend to lock into a few albums and ignor the rest. Well, for me the same can be said about Public Enemy. I. like most PE fans, fell in love with It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Fear of a Black Planet, and Apocalypse 91...The Enemy Strikes Black. Their follow up to these three albums was the critically dissed Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age. I love that album too. Sadly, I never listend to any other PE songs/albums other than the aforementioned. That was until yesterday.

I'm standing in a deli with my daughter, Rachel, and I hear the great Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth." I thought to myself that this is a timeless song that everyone can sing too. Later that day I come home and I'm checking out my latest stats on AudioScrobbler. Audioscrobbler builds a profile of your musical taste using a plugin for your media player (Winamp, iTunes, XMMS etc..). Plugins send the name of every song you play to the Audioscrobbler server, which updates your musical profile with the new song. Every person with a plugin has their own page on this site which shows their listening statistics. The system automatically matches you to people with a similar music taste, and generates personalised recommendations. I decided to click on the link to the Public Enemy stats. There I notice that the song "He Got Game" is one of the more listened to PE songs (number three). Since I never heard the song before I decided to check it out. Guess what? The song samples the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth!" Moreover, Stephen Stills is featured at the end. Coincidence? I don't know. What I do know is "He Got Game" is a great song.

Check it out:
Public Enemy - He Got Game (featuring Stephen Stills)
Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth

There's a red house over yonder

Interestingly enough -- possibly the greatest "blues" song of all time has red in the title. I am, of course, talking about the Jimi Hendrix classic "Red House." The B-side of his U.K. debut 45, "Red House" is an exercise in fabulous modernist blues playing. A simple, 12-bar chord progression, the song's lyrics are about a simple blues theme: the unexpected departure of a lover. Filled with classic imagery (such as "the key won't unlock this door," among others), it's Hendrix own devastating guitar playing that rightfully dominates the track, and his solos are easily on par with his own English blues instrumental rivals, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

The version I am including here is actually an unreleased, slighlty up-tempo version that blows me away.

Jimi Hendrix - Red House (unreleased)

It was twenty years ago today...

...that I witnessed the greatest concert ever. Live Aid. On that great day I sat stage left along with my girlfriend, Chris DeFranco, and friend, Jay Friel. We sat in our seats for roughly 13 hours and watched rock and roll history unfold before our eyes.

There were so many moments I remember about that day. I recall witnessing the Crosby Stills Nash and Young reunion, Tina Turner performing a duet with Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan made up an acoustic trio with Keith Richard and Ron Wood. Led Zeppelin reformed with Phil Collins and Tony Thompson on drums, Black Sabbath with front man Ozzy Osbourne performing Iron Man at 10 in the morning, and Bo Didley and Albert Collins joined George Thorogood. Also performing that hot day in Philly were Neil Young, Tom Petty, The Cars, Bryan Adams, Hall & Oates with Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin, The Beach Boys, Run DMC, Eric Clapton, Madonna, and Duran Duran and so many others.

On the other side of the pond there we watched Freddie Mercury and Queen's greatest moment. Here we were -- three thousand miles away clapping along with the band as they performed Radio Ga Ga. It was wonderful. The Wembley line-up also included Paul McCartney, Adam Ant, Elvis Costello, BB King, The Pretenders, Paul Young, Spandau Ballet, Cliff Richard, Bryan Ferry, Paul Weller, Alison Moyet, Ultravox, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, INXS and my favorite moment of the the entire day - U2. It was during their performance that I fell in love with the band -- specifically during the song Bad. I remember Bono jumping into the crowd and slow dancing with this girl for what seemed like five minutes. It was rock and roll and its best.

One particular non-music memory includes the fact that, for whatever reason, I wore jeans that day and at one point I tried to use a pen to rip a hole in them so that I could make shorts. I was unsuccessful. So, I sat and listened to the music as I watched the shade move across the stadium towards me. Just about the time we were finally sitting in shade Led Zeppelin took the stage. Stairway to Heaven never sounded cooler.

I've seen many concerts - hundreds - and in my opinion July 13th, 1985 the world witnessed the greatest concert ever.

Enjoy U2's performance of Bad.

It's A Boy!

My wife and I are expecting a baby in December. Today we found out the sex. It's a boy! My daughter and son will now have a baby brother. We're all very excited. However, I feel a little cheated knowing the sex. It's sort of like looking in your parent's closet at your soon-to-be wrapped Christmas presents. You know what I mean? Be that as it may, the doctor confirmed that the baby is healthy and everything is where its supposed to be.

I leave you with a flash back to my radio days: click here

My First Video Post