亂世.強權

沒有最黑暗，只有更黑暗。有人說女方丈更小器，果然不幸言中，得罪她的小朋友都罪加一等；來一首應景歌曲：
 
這個「官方」上載寫道：

地球人在這個大地上用上種種藉口互相廝殺, 各自的歪理今日愈來愈令人類良心道德撕裂

諷刺的是歌手曾被批評轉軚愛國賺維穏費。

Music discovery

I wrote a post about Podcasts recently. That got me interested in subscribing to a few and started listening to them, which I haven't done for a while. The Cool Jazz Countdown has a good combination of smooth jazz and traditional jazz. I have many sources on the latter (e.g., Downbeat magazine, KCSM radio) but not the former. It really experienced a sharp decline. I discovered Eric Darius (who played a sax version of the mega-hit song "Happy" on his album "Retro Forward")

The metal podcast MSRCast introduced me to these 2 bands:
Triosphere

The melodic death band Mors Principium Est has a name that no one can pronounce on the podcast. It's actually Latin for "death is the beginning."

It might sound strange that I "discover" Led Zeppelin just now. Well, my beloved Rhapsody music streaming service just have the entire catalog of Led Zeppelin available! This is huge 'coz I think the band has resisted this for a long time but finally made the deal (must be lucrative) Rhapsody is heavily advertising their latest "crown jewel." This band is definitely among the Top 4 most influential bands (along side the Beatles, Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones) IMO. However, I don't own a lot of their music and only know their biggest hit songs. Why? Here's the story: I became interested in rock ~1988 via hair metal. Believe it or not, some cited Led Zeppelin as their influence. So naturally I bought arguably their most famous album Led Zeppelin IV, which contains their most famous tune "Stairway to Heaven." And guess what? I was hugely disappointed: I expected every tune to be as hard rocking as "Rock and Roll" but the only other tune rock enough was "Black Dog." I barely like Stairway since it took forever to reach the climax, i.e., the electric guitar solo. I couldn't stand the even-more-acoustic "Going to California" at all. It will take a few years until I was actually going to California for good. I finally revisit this album on Rhapsody after more than 25 years, and could appreciate the bluesy and acoustic side of Led Zeppelin. I guess my exposure to acoustic jazz/electric blues and finally acoustic blues during all these years helped. I especially enjoyed the 2 DVD set of live performances titled Led Zeppelin from 2003. Yep, I have definitely become a fan after watching that, even though I still couldn't remember the names of their songs. Now I'm "digging deeper" beyond their greatest hits with Rhapsody's "Deep Cut" playlist and I realized Led Zeppelin's sound was actually closer to the Beatles and the Stones than the harder rocking Deep Purple or Black Sabbath!

The Van Halen brothers inteviewed

... by none other than Van Halen's vocalist, David Lee Roth! Here is the video:

Very interesting! (Came across this while cleaning up old emails from 2012!) As a rock/metal fan, I certainly have listened to a lot of Van Halen's. However, I have never been a huge fan. So I just found out from the video that Eddie lived in the Netherland until he was 7. Their mom was from Indonesia while their dad was a traveling musician. Mrs. Van Halen was very serious about her sons' education, including Eddie's music training, which started with classical piano. In the video he mentioned he didn't actually read the sheet music but instead memorizing the tune (and fingerings) while his teacher played! Yet he was able to win piano competitions back then. Amazing.

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。