catapult magazine

alright, the “what’s spinnin” topic wet my whistle, but let’s cut the crap and get to the good stuff.

top five albums.

the criteria is whatever you want it to be. i personally have been thinking about this for a couple of days now and have decided that my picks will try and walk that middle ground between personal enjoyment and craftsmanship.

#5: pink floyd “wish you were here”

“dark side..” is probably the better album, but this one is no cream puff. the flow is nice and it never fails to hit me where it counts. (fav. track: “shine on you crazy diamond” all parts)

#4: neil young “after the goldrush”

he whines, he rocks, he thinks about having a yard sale. all the bases are covered. neil shows us that he can jam out (“southern man”) and get pretty (“birds”) all in the context of great song writing. (fav. track: “don’t let it bring you down”)

#3: cream “wheels of fire”:

the “in studio” half of the album keeps it lively by going from the avante (“passing the time”) to the blues (“sitting on top of the world”) to the downright silly (“pressed rat and warthog”) while the “live” half is a blues rock improvisational manifesto. oh yeah, and if i did drugs i’m sure the album cover would be really far out too. (fav. track: studio “deserted cities of the heart” live “spoonful”)

#2: the band “the band”

music americana at it’s very best. made by canadians. it’s folk-rock-progressive-country music and is an album that seems perfect in it’s flaws. a very hard thing to accomplish and type. the genius is that i believe that’s exactly what they were going for. (fav. track: “jawbone”)

#1: led zeppelin “led zeppelin”

anyone who knows me knows that zeppelin had to be #1 and with good reason. on this particular album they do exactly what it is i look for in music. they took a familiar base (the blues) and proceeded to screw it up i their own beautiful way. i firmly believe that good artists create and great artists steal. not to mention the band is powerful and tight like a tiger. (fav. track: “how many more times”)

well, there it is. i applaude anyone who was able to read the entire thing, and would love to hear what you come up with for this top five jive.

Its good to get to know you all a little better.

1. U2: Achtung Baby – I put this in when I want to wiggle
2. Rage Against the Machine: Evil Empire – I put this in when I want to hit something
3. Bob Dylan: John Wesley Harding – this goes in when I want to cry
4. Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life – I put this in when I want to jubilate.
5. Brahms: German Requeim – I put this in when I feel like I don’t want to hear any drum beat ever again but still want to listen to music. (actually lost my recording of this a while ago and I can’t recall who recorded the version I had)Text

I’m actually a bit tired all of these but I think they best define the musical side of my personality

Anyone else picturing Space wiggling with “Mysterious Ways” playing in the background?

Um. Me neither.

Too late to edit that one…. oh well.

And that’s wiggle, singular. One long wiggle.

A large whistle wetter — thats what this topic is.

Top 5 is so tough depending on what your feeling during the course of a certain day/week/month but here is a shot.

Let me know what you think:

5. Bruce Springsteen – THE RISING: I would have to say for it’s blatant patriotism alone this would be one that I would not readily choose. Problem is, it is bloody awesome. Picks you up when you are down, and you hear something new with every listen. I love those albums. Easily the best release, that i heard in 2002.

4. Radiohead – OK COMPUTER. Howaboutit? The smoothest singing voice to grace the rock world since edwin mccain (i’ll be) or mr. big (be with you) {joke by the way}. The cleverness of the whole thing. An epic of sorts. After this, they tailed off …while i appreciate experimentalism, I don’t appreciate the new Radiohead. They should pull a Seinfeld and pull out when the going is good.

3. Zepp — 1-4. Yeah I know. Four albums, but come on. How can you compare them. Pickin a Zepp album is like picking your favourite food. They are all good. But, i think it is II with Ramble on, Moby and the like. That is music. That is drumming.

2. Pearl Jam – Yield. Something about being in a car with this turned WAY up and getting the heck outta dodge. Just for the raw 4/4 of it all . . .and actaully there is some 5/4 on that album too . . .

1. Ben Harper – Fight for You Mind. Stumbling across this was the biggest blessing in a lifetime. Soothing, rageful, angry and unconditionally loving all in one 6×6 package. Amen Ben.

Honorables —

Coldplay – A rush of blood to the head
Lenny – Lenny
Oasis – Definitly Maybe
Nirvana – um, anything
phish – billy breathes
tone loc – loced after dark
janes addiction – janes addiction

well, i normally wouldn’t comment upon someone’s top 5 as i feel it is something personal and not really meant to be analyzed, but since you asked…

i was pretty disappointed with the way you started things off. springsteen is fine, but i had the opportunity to listen to “the rising” more than a few times this summer (mostly thanks to space), and found it to be quite underwhelming.

from there you moved onto radiohead who i haven’t listened to all that much, but from what i have heard (which includes your album of choice) seem to be highly over-rated. for music made in the last decade i suppose they don’t suck all that much.

now here’s where you won it and lost it all at the same time. you chose zeppelin 1-4 which is blatant cheating, but you gave a marvelous explanation for this discrepency. so now i know you have some taste. you’ve heard the power of zep and you’ve put them on your list and if you would have stopped there you would have been golden, but you didn’t.

you proceeded to confuse me and enrage me all at once by rating pearl jam and ben harper above zeppelin. ABOVE?!!

pearl jam and ben harper are good stuff. especially ben harper. i don’t know about this “best guitarist” stuff, but he’s diverse and very talented. however, both of these acts pale when compared to the glowing beacon of rock history that is led zeppelin.

you asked, and that’s how i feel (with a little exaggeration for dramatic effect).

now please go to my list and tear it apart. if you think you’re man enough.

now, lopez, is it, while I appreciate your comments, since you did ask, I also found them to be quite scathing. One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. Or something like that. that really doesnt apply here, but I find the dagger that you stuck in my back there leaving quite an aching welt. Hows that for drama?

I know the power of zep. probably better than you think. i know that they are a beacon of rock history and all of that. But what I also do know is that Pearl Jam is going to be, in 20 years, what zep is to us now . . . my question to you is this — what all the revelling in the past? See while you look to the past and enjoy a band like zep, which is fine, you also show no insight or foresight rather into is and what will be. They way that I look at it — Pearl Jam IS going to be a beacon of rock history in their own right. What other band survived the early ninties intact? None. Death, drugs, and creative differences tore apart what had cast potential. Look death and vomit tore apart what could have lasted until today . . .zep anyone. So while agree with you about their status in the vaults of rock, I don’t find you looking for that next one.

As for ben harper. Solid guitarist, yes. I am not so sure I meant “best of all time, cream your jeans, watch him slowburn” I was just commenting that I think he is a very underrated/underrecognized artist who has a vast musical knowledge and this shows in his music. He is versitile.

You know the funny thing is, that today my top five would have probably changed dramatically. Call me fickle. But I know that PJ, Harper, Zep, and the like would all be on there, maybe a different order, maybe different albums. But I will sstick to my guns.

springsteen is also a rock icon by the way. but seeing as you were blinded by the glow of zeppelin, I shouldnt have expected you to notice this.

But I like who I like, and you like who you like. Try something new tho — you may find out that “you still havent found what you’re looking for . . .”

Now here is my next question: What about this growing entity they call Christian rock?

re-reading lopez, found me not calling harper “the best guitarist” at all. But you have to admit he is original.

well done eddie.

i would like to start by apologizing for wrongfully accrediting you with the statement that ben harper is one of the best guitarists around. i’d also like to concede that he does have an interesting style, but i will also have to say that i believe ben harpers true strength lies in his diverse songwriting.

that being said i will now bring down the “hammer of the gods”(obscure led zeppelin reference).

pearl jam. ben harper. phish. these are all bands that i trully enjoy and appreciate, but they are not tommorows zeppelin. they are attempts at re-creating and, occasionally, expanding upon past musical motifs. to put it metaphorically: they are fresh tracks in snow that fell long ago. and the snow is melting.

tommorows zeppelin is someone i don’t listen to and probably wouldn’t care to listen to. people like eminem and moby. people i don’t know very much about except that they seem to be the folks who are taking the currently popular and modern modes of music, claiming it as their own, and taking it somewhere that is new and exciting for people who can appreciate that particular sonic mode.

rock and roll is played out. i just happen to think that it’s been played out for the last 30 years peaking between the years of 1968-72. by peaking i mean that is the time in which everything came together at it’s maximum potential for rock music. the musicians were stellar and prolific and most of all they were open. open to other sound and cultures and it came through beautifully and finally during this 4 year period. folk, blues, indian. it’s all there and it’s all done with just the right nuances of authentic classic rock and roll.

i will listen to ben harper and i will listen to pearl jam because it is a sound i recognize and appreciate and, as i said, they occasionally surprise me and do something original, but for me rock music will never again be as interesting and vital as when it was played by bands like cream, the band, traffic, and especially the mighty led zeppelin.

as for the christian music scene i could probably sum up my feelings better with a bodily noise rather than words. an exception to this rule however (if we’re classifying "christian music: as music created by christians) would be the powerful rock trio phil keaggy played with called glass harp. they were an incredible band and peaked with their album “live at carnegie hall” recorded in, surprise surprise, 1969.

I have to put my two cents in on this Ben Harper and Led Zeppelin discussion. I will admit that i probably know more about ben harper than i do about led zeppelin, however, i am a fan of both, and i think to say that ben is just copying them or any one else i feel is a false statement. Yes, Ben does borrow from zep, as have many other band, and so also did zep borrow from other bands. That is the nature of music. But Ben has borrowed from so many other places as well, and has taken all his influences, mixed them together and made something almost no one could do. I would not call him or pearl jam or any one the Led Zeppelin of the future, because the will always only be one Led Zeppelin. THey will however be the Ben Harper and the Pearl Jam of the future, because that is who they are. I think Ben is so great not because he is an amazing guitarists or an incredible vocalists or a wonderful songwriter, but because he has all of those abilities and can put them together into one unified piece. Led Zeppelin had the same thing. An Amazing guitarist, an incredible singer, and a great songwriting ability (not to mention arrangements)

To conclude, it’s probably my biggest pet peeve when people compare musicians/actors/poets/writers/artist/whatever to someone before them. The greats never become the next “insert name here”, they redefine greatness.

i would like to publically thank ethan for his support on the matter. what i do want to make clear though is that i am by NO means saying that these musicians that i speak of are the “next” so and so. i, too, detest those kinds of psuedo-comparisons for lack of better terming. what i was basically trying to say in the whole matter was that today’s “classic-band-of-the-god’s-rock-and-roll-super-force” may be zep (or any other powerhouse to come out of the era (the who, stones, etc . . .)may be forgotten down the road for the finer things of this time (which will then be classic) like 30-40 years from now. that was my main point.

the point was not at all to take away credibility from a band like zep — remember when this all begain they were number 3 on my list. (and frankly i know more about their history and discography than i let on . . .) my point was to say, hey, these are my top five of the moment. i mean really we are comparing apples and oranges here, and this space time continum (sp?) will keep rolling onward with more bands than every now (now you just have to weed the garbage out a lot more . . .)the classics of yesteryear will be slowly phased out and the classics of the future will come into effect. i would find it hard to believe that 30-40 years from now, lets say 2038, your local classic rock station will be playing “dazed and confused” “song remains” or “dancing days.” fat chance. their playlists will be made up of the stuff of today and (sadly) the 1980’s and 1990’s. one man opinion.

so in conclusion, i meant NOT to call ben or pearl jam the zep of the future and a moniker or a label — like lopez said those are big shoes to fill, but rather to logically point out that the muysic of today will be the music that is considered classic 30 years from now. why? cause our kids will call it that cause we listened to it when we were kids. figure that out.

yabba dabba.