Self Care – Emerson, Lake, and Palmer Play Karn Evil 9 (YouTube Video)

Since Mondays are Great Guitar Solos day on this blog, today’s Self Care theme is music.

I’ve already highlighted a bit of this in my GGS series here (1st Impression, Part 2). So now, I want to share the entire suite with you. It’s a masterclass in Progressive Rock, and is just incredible to listen to. Karn Evil 9 is made up of 3 Impressions, and the 1st Impression is split up into two parts.

I was hoping to bring y’all a live performance, but, sadly, I can’t find a full live cut of the song with video; I can only find audio. And the point of posting a live cut would be for y’all to watch the musical mastery of Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, and Carl Palmer. Since I couldn’t find that, here’s audio of the full studio version, from the album called Brain Salad Surgery. Since there’s no video here, you can just listen.

It’s a full 29 minutes and 39 seconds long.

Great Guitar Solos – Pink Floyd Plays Shine You Crazy Diamond

I hope you have 25 minutes and 33 seconds to spare, because that’s how long this one is. And it has multiple guitar solos, and they are all amazing. But of course they are; it’s David Gilmour.

This one is audio only, so you don’t have to watch anything.

The first guitar solo starts at 2:09 and ends at 3:34. The second guitar solo starts at 5:11 and ends at 6:27. The third guitar solo starts at 7:34 and ends at 8:38. There some amazing little licks during the verses. Then some amazing saxophone solos. The fourth (slide) guitar solo starts at 15:43 and ends at 17:53. After the verses, there’s a really cool synthesizer solo that ends the song.

So turn off the lights, get yourself into some comfortable clothing and/or pajamas, light up a joint, pour a glass of your favorite alcohol to drink neat or on the rocks, take out your favorite picture of Syd Barrett, press play…

… and enjoy!

(It’s funny, but I could fill this series up with nothing but David Gilmour and Jimmy Page… so next week, how’s about some Jimi Hendrix?)

 

Great Guitar Solos – Lenny Kravitz Plays “Are You Gonna Go My Way?” (feat. John Paul Jones on Bass!)

Sadly, I do not know the name of the lead guitarist on this way (if anyone can tell me the names of his lead guitarist and his drummer, I’d really appreciate it), but I actually really like this solo. It’s short and sweet, but it just… it works for the song. It’s a perfect fit.

This is live at just about the only awards show I ever enjoyed, the 1993 MTV Music Video Awards (and yes… I may have been a fresh 6 years old at the time [turning 6 only four months earlier], but I did actually watch bits of it live… I have subsequently seen the entire thing in later years). And you know I love the fact that John Paul Jones, of Led Zeppelin fame, joined them on the bass. This whole thing is awesome…

The solo starts at 2:41 and ends at 3:12. Enjoy!

Quick warning about my next post: it’s gonna be Pink Floyd’s “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”… it’s a very long one.

Hazel Scott; a Piano Prodigy (4 Videos Embedded in Post)

(It’s almost 8:00am. I finally managed to get tired enough around 4:45am to go to bed, only to wake up a couple hours later coughing due to an itchy throat caused by post-nasal drip. I’ve been like this for at least three weeks now… 🙁 )

There are 4 videos embedded here; 1 from Twitter and 3 from YouTube. Beware in case they autoplay.

So… I realize I missed this past Monday’s Great Guitar Solo, and I haven’t brought the Astronomy Picture of the Week series back. Hopefully I’ll be fixing that this coming Monday and Wednesday, respectively. In the meantime, I have another music post for y’all, this time highlighting the supremely talented Hazel Scott.

How I stumbled on her is actually really funny. I’m a huge fan of this podcast called The Read. So naturally, I follow the hosts, Kid Fury and Crissle, on Twitter. After the debacle that was Mariah Carey’s NYE performance, I was very very curious to see what they had to say. Sadly, they didn’t say anything. However, I did find a pretty funny tweet that Kid Fury had retweeted…

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Great Guitar Solos – Cream Play Crossroads Live

Often, when you love an artist, you eventually end up discovering that they really aren’t a great person. This has held true with Eric Clapton. It kinda sucks that this amazing guitarist who, like many other amazing guitarists, made his money playing the music of black people (the Blues), was also pretty damn racist (and considering the fact that he’s never actually apologized for those remarks, and actually reiterated his support for Enoch Powell over 30 years later, probably still is). Sadly, I can’t hold up one of his greatest guitar solos without at least mentioning his racism.

With that in mind, his guitar solos on their cover of Robert Johnson’s Crossroads is pretty damn incredible. Proof that “Slowhand” was more a misnomer than a nickname; he had speed.

(This video, BTW, was made by taking the track from Cream’s album “Wheels of Fire” and matching it with video from another show of them playing this same song.)

The first guitar solo starts at 1:28 and ends at 2:11. The second guitar solo starts at 2:32 and ends at 3:36.

Enjoy!

Merry/Happy Something or Other! Got Any Good Holiday Music?

I was originally going to write this big rant on all this bullshit about “Happy Holidays” and “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Kwanzaa” and “Happy Yule!” and “Season’s Greetings!” and whatnot and about how I will never understand why anyone gives a shit about what greeting is used during this time of the year, because isn’t it the sentiment behind it that matters? But ultimately decided that wasn’t worth my time because… really… I’m over it.

Say “merry Christmas!” to me, and I’ll say it back. Say “happy holidays!” to me, and I’ll say it back. Say any variation of “happy/merry [insert holiday celebrated in December here]” and I’ll say it back because the sentiment matters more to me than the frickin’ words we use.

But anyways…

After various discussions with people, I realized that I am a bit bah humbug about elements of this season…

I mean, I do sort of hate that, in our capitalist society, we have to start “celebrating” Christmas before Halloween ever gets around, but that’s not what this is about.

No.

It’s about the music.

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Great Guitar Solos – David Gilmour Plays This Heaven Live in Gdańsk

I really like this one. This Heaven is such a great song to begin with, and it’s such a really good guitar solo. Here’s Gilmour and his band (including Richard Wright [RIP]) playing this song at the Gdańsk Shipyards on August 26, 2006.

There are, technically, three solos in this song, but the first two are more just short bridges. The third and main solo starts at 2:31:

Enjoy!

Great Guitar Solos – Nirvana Plays Aero Zeppelin

Oh! Hello! How is everyone? Are y’all all right?

I’m better. Still angry, still fighting, but… better.

Decided that it was time to clear out the cobwebs and start this one up again.

This time around it’s… yes… Nirvana. Nirvana holds a rather special place in my heart. Before Nirvana, I pretty much listened to children’s music, boy bands, and mainstream pop crap. Then a friend introduced me to Nirvana, and that changed literally everything for me in terms of how I listened to music. Sure, Led Zeppelin’s my all-time favorite band, but they wouldn’t be if not for Nirvana.

We’re starting back up with the solo from their song Aero Zeppelin. It starts at 3:14 and ends at 3:44.

Enjoy!