The Winery Dogs

本人算是Jazz Club Yoshi's的常客，雖然近年流失了不少big names給SFJAZZ center，總有不少驚喜，例如父親節的Ginger Baker band（傳奇樂隊Cream鼓手改玩充滿非洲味道的Jazz, 令我有點想看看那套關於他的電影）以及咋天的Hard rock組合The Winery Dogs。這麼多年倒是首次在Yoshi's看非爵士藍調的音樂會。

宣傳資料稱之為超級組合(supergroup)絕不為過，皆因三位成員均大有來頭。大家可能不知早在我玩結他之前我是玩bass，學生時代的bass guitar hero是Billy Sheehan（另一位是Stu Hamm）還記得當年踏遍九龍尋找極度冷門的Billy Sheehan前樂隊Talas的作品（結集成"The Talas Year"，包括名作Sink your teeth into that和Shy Boy)他被香港音樂雜誌譽為King of two-hand tapping。結他手Richie Kotzen在80年代末在專推技術型結他手的Shrapnel Records推出純器樂的處女作一鳴驚人（也在我當年搜索之列），其後加入Poison取代原本的結他手，作曲能力備受賞識。至於鼓手Mike Portnoy（我的Berklee校友:P)，乃係殿堂級前衞金屬樂隊Dream Theater始創成員，也不用多作介紹。

老實說，超級組合往往有雷聲大雨點小的問題，Sheehan和Kotzen兩位均曾為Mr. Big成員，和該樂隊同期誕生的supergroups還有Blue Murder及Bad Land，成績皆強差人意，和期望有一段距離。當然，當時正值金屬沒落Grunge興起，可謂生不逢時; 但另一方面，過份強調技術及樂手名氣而忽略樂曲可聽性亦是一個原因。可喜的是The Winery Dogs全無此問題， 當日我在由新界到小西灣的長途巴士上聽他們首張大碟，就已十分欣賞全碟充滿著回到基本搖擺的精神，而Billy Sheehan複雜的bass line盡顯技術之餘又不會喧賓奪主，襯托歌曲豐富的旋律感恰到好處。有趣的是Richie Kotzen唱主音彈結他，模樣有點像Chris Cornell，其實The Winery Dogs的音樂既有classic rock元素，也似受Soundgarden等grunge band影響。在Yoshi's看live，感覺又更上一層；移走平日最近舞台那排枱作舞池，我和其他觀眾站得離表演者不遠，伸手可及（事實上也和Sheehan握了手）音樂會又cover了Jimi Hendrix名作Hey Joe及encore時段Talas的Shy Boy。

Metallica and good sense of humor

Metallica is one of those band that I really really like before they made a huge hit, i.e, the commercial "Black" album. I just don't care for anything they released after "And Justice for all" I did listen to St Anger and Death Magnetic a few times.  While the former didn't sound anything like their original stuff, and the latter did, I don't particularly dislike one way or the other. To quote one of their song title: "nothing else matters." And their hard stance against Napster only made things worse. It is easy to imagine the negative reaction they got from the fans of the UK Glastonbury Fest (traditionally a metal-less event) It IS surprising to me that Metallica responded with selling a T-shirt with quotes from their haters on their own webstore. I guess any opportunity to make money, even off the haters, work for them. Still, I respect them as a hard working band without too much nonsense.