Debbie Stab-You-Now!!!! She hates babies.

Coldplay vs. Joe Satriani

Coldplay, a pathetic pop band, ripped off "If I could Fly" by Joe Satriani (one the the world's most talented guitar players) for their Grammy-Award winning song "Viva la Vida." He sued them, like he should have. They're saying that the similarity is not enough to warrant charges, and besides, Satriani's music "lacks originality" and therefore should not receive copyright protection. Excuse me, Coldplay? What do you know about music? Joe Satriani has been creating complex and challenging instrumental rock for decades, and you want to come in here with your ripped-off formulaic pop fluff and say he's not original? Besides, their arguments are pretty much, "We shouldn't be prosecuted because the song sucks & we didn't rip it off too much." Hey Coldplay, if it lacks originality and you plagiarized it, what does that make you? Apparently they liked it enough to record it. Again. Without permission. And win a Grammy for "Most Popular Piece of Crap." Seriously, who judges the Grammys? Anybody with any musical knowledge? The public isn't qualified to judge musical superiority, as evidenced by the charts these days. Right now, "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga is Numero Uno- I heard it on the radio this morning, and one of my friends played on the way to Higher Ground a couple of days ago. Dumb song "about sex and gambling." Oh, to return to the days when Kansas, Foghat and Yes were popular.....I am disgusted by this pathetic band. GO JOE SATRIANI!!! Since he composed much of it, he deserves a slice of that Grammy. Check out his new band Chickenfoot.

Animal on the Muppets

Animal on the Muppet Show is part of the fictional band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem and in Episode 38 he dueled Buddy Rich, who some call the greatest drummer in history. I'd just like to see him duel Neil Peart or Mike Portnoy.
Watch the video here.

Elton John

It's incredible that Elton John wrote the music to Lion King- that's fabulous! I went to see it last might at the Wharton and woooowwww!!!!!
I might have to give him a listen now.

A Bass Post

Les Claypool, Cliff Burton, Flea, and Victor Wooten are the most talked about bassists on YouTube. I will state my opinion:
1. Les Claypool is a monster slapper with great stamina and coordination (he sings at the same time)!! Everything about his playing is different and groundbreaking, he's just a joy to listen to. But the best? No. Few people can do all he does, but I have a feeling that he can't play like Victor Wooten.

2. Cliff Burton was the bassist for Metallica in the 80's. People herald him as groundbreaking, but he was not that groundbreaking really. He's seen as a "bass shredder" but Billy Sheehan would make him cry. Metallica was and is a popular band, so people think he's the best because all other popular music has poor bass representation.

3. Flea is like a modern-day Cliff Burton. He's excellent, no doubt, but the only reason he's heralded as the best is because people a. think showiness=quality and b. the Red Hot Chili Peppers are very popular. A few months ago my friend who plays keyboard challenged me to find a better bassist than Flea. Of course I pulled up Victor Wooten on YouTube, knowing that he would never appreciate Jaco Pastorius (or James Jamerson). What I quickly garnered from his reaction to Victor was that he sought the flashiest player. That eliminated Stanley Clarke also. So I brought up Stu Hamm, whose intricate tapping was not perceived as more difficult than rapid slapping. I figured out that my friend pretty much only liked bass and thought it was awesome whilst slapping- like most of the population. Forgetting about Les Claypool, I brought up Jonas Hellborg, but he still didn't concede. I knew he would hate Alex Webster and Billy Sheehan, so I just let him drown in ignorance and self-righteousness. I didn't know about Franck Hermanny back then. Here is a list of bassists that I believe I could surpass in my lifetime:
John Myung, Flea, Alex Webster, Juan Alderete, Chris Squire, Cliff Burton, and Paolo Gregoletto.

New Almost Favorite Band

Spastic Ink is an amazing progressive metal band that sounds like a cross between Citriniti and Blotted Science, and overall much more coherent than Behold...the Arctopus. I heard their song "Multi Masker" during the credits of this video, and went over to Project Playlist to hear some other songs. They are way more technical than Dream Theater usually is. It makes sense that it sounds like a less-heavy version of Blotted Science, because it's the same guy running both trios: Ron Jarzombek. He's an incredible player - he might be the most progressive musician I've found. His songs are incredibly complex, but he also does concept albums and writes music to go along with video clips. They're so awesome!!! The bass gets at least one long solo per song, and the rest of the band doesn't insult him by dropping out.

Unique Web Site

Search for "semmai serkil" in Google, and I guarantee that this is the only website to contain those two words. It's like "Semi Circle", except spelled differently. I now officailly reserve it for an album title, Google searchers.