Led Zeppelin: The Lords of Rock Return

Well my favorite band of all time pulled off an amazing reunion concert, and all I have to say is they better come to the states.

The main question on my mind was “Can They Still Rock”. Unfortunately previous half hearted reunion attempts led me to believe they couldn’t match their former selves. Plant’s vocals on Page & Plant’s No Quarter Unledded didn’t seem on par with his previous vocal abilities. Page was really hit or miss with his guitar playing since the demise of Zeppelin no were near his playing levels that we all know.

Well my awesome girlfriend found me pretty much every song (bootlegged on youtube) the next morning. I must say even from the less than perfect camera footage. The band sounds great, Plant hits those oh so important high notes but his vocals now have that age and experience which ads a whole new dynamic to his vocal delivery. More importantly to me Page’s “guitar army” is in full force and truly made me feel like it was back in the old days even with his silver gray hair replacing his signature jet black curls.

Here are some videos from the epic 2 hour plus show.

“Kashmir”

“Stairway to Heaven”

Art Tatum: A Piano God

In the world of music, true prodigies and geniuses come around every so often. One, Art Tatum, may hands down be the greatest piano player of all time. His technical prowess, skills for improvisation, ear for the melody, and shear playing speed make him a marvel to listen and watch.

He was a Jazz pianist who developed a lot of techniques that were adopted by later Jazz Musicians, and is said to have a major influence on the BeeBop era. He played professionally from the early 30’s until his death in 1956.

His greatness is really appreaciated by musicians, and is sometimes misunderstood by non-muscians, but there is no doubt that he is one of the greats. Fats Waller once told his audience, as Tatum walked in to one of his shows, “I just play the piano, but God is in the house tonight”.

New Ghostbusters Game = Happy Jay

For anyone that knows me for more than 5 minutes, knows that I am a huge Ghostbusters fan. In fact my first website endeavor was a Ghostbusters one. Since being involved in the online GB community for many years, there have been rumors of a third film. After a while the movie idea died and for the “Ghostheads” our hopes were smashed.

Then recently over the past year major rumors started to circulate over a new video game or computer generated 3rd film. Well recently it has been announced and confirmed we are getting a new video game. This news in itself is great, what really has me giddy as a kid on christmas morn is that all the original actors including the elusive Bill Murray will be lending their voices to the game.

 

To make things even cooler Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd will be penning the script and it will be based a few years after the events of the 2nd movie. So this will be like our 3rd movie that fans have been waiting for and I’m really excited.

If you haven’t seen it yet , here is a nice clip from G4tv about the game.

Look for more updates and thoughts about this highly anticipated game.

Kaki is King

After watching August Rush I did the normal thing I do and look it up on Wikipedia. I found that Kaki King was the hand double for little August when he played the hell out of the guitar. Naturally I then had to look Kaki King up and I was blown away. She has an awesome approach to the guitar, and I love it when a girl can kick ass at a male dominated instrument.

Here are a couple vids of my favorite songs so far.

Kaki King: Playing With Pink Noise

Kaki King: Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers

Man I really need to get a nice loop pedal, I wanna play!!

Veronica Rush: A Pretty Awesome Week

This past week my lovely girlfriend Colleen came down to stay with me at my college appartment and we had a great time. What did we do you say? Well we watched the entire 1rst season of Veronica Mars.

Just about every minute of free time was spent watching and I must say the show is awesome. I was hooked early on, and my mind was spinning trying to figure out the many mysteries on the show. So chalk another TV show that Coll has gotten me hooked on. If you haven’t checked the show out, please do you will enjoy.

This past saturday we went to see August Rush, a feel good “chick flick” about an orphan boy trying to find his parents, and the power of music that brings the boy and his parents together.

I really enjoyed it, it definitly had some gaps in continuity, but the overall premise of the power of music really moved me since I am a musician myself. So for any musicians out there who need a good date movie, check this one out.

I had an amazing week/weekend and I am sad its over, but i’ll be in New York at the end of December and I can’t wait. I’ll also be in California before Christmas, and finals are this week. So its gonna be a pretty hectic and exciting month.

Jay’s New Blog!

I figured the myspace blog that i’ve been using for a year or so now just isn’t cutting it for me. So hopefully this place will work out nice to throw out my opinions on Music, Movies and TV, and my Life in general. As for the Url of the site I totally stole the idea from Colleen, but since she’s my girlfriend I hope she lets it slide 😉

So Enjoy!

Jay