Bon Scott: Retrospective

I am at the end of an era.  I have made it through multiple listenings of the Bon Scott ACDC era.  I've made a playlist of my favorite songs from this era and listened to it almost daily.

Bon Scott was every bit the rock and roll singer he sung about being.  I do not doubt his authenticity in leading the kind of life that is reflected in his songs.  These songs are sung from experience, a kind of life that by all accounts the entire band lived during this era.  The music of the band in the earlier days was very Chuck Berry inspired, but toward the end started branching into harder blues and Little Richard energy.  The latter part, I can only assume was Bon Scott gaining more influence in the band.  Bon Scott's rock and roll hero was Little Richard.  Scott's screeching howl makes more sense when you think about this fact.

My favorites that feature Bon prominently are the ones where he gets "real" with us.  I like "Its a Long Way to the Top", "Ain't No Fun", and "Let There Be Rock".  I also like the songs where he stretches his singing ability a bit, like "Highway to Hell", "If you Want Blood", "Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be", and "Rock and Roll Damnation".  Finally, I can't forget his sleaziest, most witty songs "Big Balls"  "Whole Lotta Rosie" and "The Jack".

Bon was also every bit as sleazy and dirty as I had heard growing up.  He does not disappoint, coming up with very smart ass and very nasty word play in his lyrics.  There is no making a saint out of Bon Scott, and that unapologetic attitude just makes him that much more a rock and roll legend.  The thing is, there are a couple of songs where he seems to bare his soul a bit.  An early example is "Its a Long Way to the Top", but the best example of this is "Ride On", and I feel like he was growing to have some maturity to him by then.  Like with all life cut short, I have to wonder what we missed out on when he left.

Growing up, without the internet around, I heard all sorts of stories about how Brian Johnson became the new lead singer of ACDC after Bon's death.  I had heard that he was a cab driver for them, and the band liked the way he yelled.  I speculated later that he probably was not a cab driver like we think, but was just driving them around from a studio or gig they both had taken part in.  There are some more less credible stories as well.  The truth, I found out, was that it was Bon that picked him.  One night Bon came back from watching a show, and told the band about this singer he had just seen.  He told the band that this singer really howled on stage, got on the floor and tore up on stage.  He told the band that this singer really had "it", he had that Little Richard mentality, he really knew what rock and roll was about.  It just so happened, that was the night that Brian Johnson got appendicitis and he was genuinely howling in pain.  Anyway, after the band realized that Bon would want them to go on after him, and continue being a band, the first name that came to Malcolm and Angus' mind was Brian Johnson, because they felt he had been given the "ok" by Scott all those years ago.

Mutt Lange, more than his marriage.

I wrote earlier that I was surprised that the "ACDC" sound was established in Powerage instead of Highway to Hell.  It may have sounded like I did not give Mutt Lange enough credit for the work he did with the band.  This can not be further from the truth.  Listening to the albums he did with them(Highway to Hell, Back in Black, For Those About to Rock) has given me a lot of insight.

In Highway to Hell I hear Mutt's influence in many places.  While the band seemed to learn how to play together in Powerage, Mutt had a huge influence on Bon Scott's vocals.  The lyrics are tighter and less loose, and there are backing vocals used in the background.  The songs seem to take on a less nebulous structure, and get even further away from the rockabilly sound that defined early ACDC.

The reason why I know this is Mutt's influence?  Because of Def Leppard.  You see, after his stint with ACDC, Mutt was hired to work for Def Leppard.  Their most important 3 albums were done by Mutt, and all the songs you likely know from the band had Mutt at the helm.  You can hear so much a similar tone.  The recording, the song structure, and most of all, the backing vocal tracks, are pure Mutt Lange.  You can hear it across all those ACDC and Def Leppard albums.  Def Leppard was a huge influence through the late 80's, as were the ACDC albums of his era, so you can hear this whole Mutt Lange style everywhere from Poison to Motley Crue.  There is a lot of hub bub over the Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" era of music recording, and I do not think Lange gets enough credit for his style taking over in the late 80's.

By the way, I know I have some good ole country folk in my social circles, I don't know if readin' this is your thing, but Mutt Lange is THAT Mutt Lange that married Shania Twain, and produced her biggest albums.

Powerage by ACDC

I started this journey through ACDC with a few preconceptions.  Many of them were true.  I thought the Bon Scott era was a dirty era with songs about wild rock and roll life; this was true.  Some preconceptions were not true.  I thought Bon Scott had only done 3 or so albums.  I now know that Scott was there for many more hits and albums than I had previously thought.

I knew that early on ACDC took lots of inspiration from the 1950's rockers, like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.  I had figured that the "middle" era of classic hits and THE "ACDC" sound came about largely as the influence of Mutt Lange producing Highway to Hell.  The first couple of albums only reinforced this, as these albums are very much rock and roll, and not yet "hard rock".

Boy was I surprised when I listened to Powerage.

Powerage is the album BEFORE Mutt Lange met up with the guys.  Powerage was produced and mixed by the same guys that had always did the ACDC albums before; Angus and Malcom's brother George, and his friend Harry Vanda.  From track 1 to the last, the sound is much more what I hear as "ACDC" than what came before.  Instead of quick power chords, the guitar tones are allowed to breath.  Instead of a bluesy sort of solo, there were some fast play, and unless I"m mistaken there was some tapping.  Instead of a Chuck Berry ripoff(that everyone from Jimmy Paige to Keith Richards have admitted to doing, its not a black spot to get lent a song by Chuck), there were ACDC riffs.  Its like Malcom and Angus finally let go of their hero's inspiration and started paving their own road.

This has surprised me and given me MORE respect that I already had for the band.  They have admitted that they are a band that need direction from a producer.  Famously they disliked Rick Rubin's approach.  Rubin made a career of getting put in charge of bands that have been dicked around by record companies, and using his clout to give them freedom.  Brian Johnson complained, "we hardly ever saw the guy".  This wasn't neglect, he was doing what he does, he was letting the band do whatever they want.  Anyway, I had assumed that the big transition from an early blues rock band to the biggest hard rock band of all time was because Mutt Lange had taught them a thing or two about recording, and the success of Highway and Back in Black lead to them keeping that voice.

Now I know they came up with the sound themselves as a natural evolution of their touring, writing, and chemistry as a band.

Album Thoughts: Black Sabbath 13

My first album thoughts post.  I suppose this is going to be a kind of "History of the band and I", then "track by track listening", and then "final summations".  Let's see how it goes.

First up, a little personal history with Sabbath, yea?  I mean, I'm not a magazine "journalist" or anything.  If you're reading this, I suppose you're a friend of mine.  So let's do this.  Sabbath is on my short list of all time favorite bands, and for sure the 70's era Sabbath is my favorite metal band of all time.  As of today, when you hear me play "metal" on my guitars, you probably hear more of Toni Iommi in my playing than anyone else.  Slow, pounding riffs interspersed with a tempo change, and maybe a solo.  I would have to say that in my own playing, "Into the Void" is tied with Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" for biggest inspiration.  My favor of the Gibson SG has just as much to do with my favor of Iommi as my favor of Angus.

I have to add a note here, and this will become important as you read my Album Thoughts, I listened to the Spotify version.  Come to find out, the Spotify version lists a selection of "bonus" tracks that aren't a part of the initial album release.  So my tracklist looks as follows:

1. "End of the Beginning"
2. "God Is Dead?"  
3. "Loner"  
4. "Zeitgeist"  
5. "Age of Reason"  
6. "Live Forever"  
7. "Damaged Soul"  
8. "Dear Father
9. "Methademic"  
10. "Peace of Mind"  
11. "Pariah"
*12.   "Dirty Women(live)"
*previous Black Sabbath song from older album

My first listen through, I could not help but hear earlier songs in the songs as I listened to them.  End of the Beginning has a strong semblance to the original song "Black Sabbath", Zeithgeist takes very clear inspiration from "Planet Caravan".  Is this bad?  Well the first parts of the album are not going to be any game changing songs for me, but you know what?  It sounds like Black Sabbath.  Probably my favorite part of the first 4 songs is "Give me the wine, you keep the bread".  At first it sounds like something a drunk would say, but remember that wine is also blood in the Christian communion.  That's classic Sabbath lyrical content right there.  End of the Beginning and God is Dead get a lot of promotion, which I think is sad because its the least interesting songs of the album. The next 4 tracks get away from this "We gotta sound like Black Sabbath" formula stuff.  Age of Reason is probably my favorite of these 4 tracks.  Its epic and varied.  Live Forever is musically sound, and well done, but I dislike the lyrics to the song and so its a killer for me.  Damage Soul reminds me of the earlier tracks of this album, but with the lyric style of the last few.  A pass for me.

So if you're connecting the dots here, this is not looking good for the album.  I was thinking the same thing, in fact that's where I stopped listening to it the first day.  I had other stuff to do.  The next day I was out smoking my pipe and decided to lug my tablet outside to listen to the rest while I smoked.  I re-listened to Damaged Soul just in case I had listening fatigue yesterday mess with my thoughts.  My thoughts pretty much staged the same.

Then.  It happened.

Dear Father started.  This... ok this sounds listenable... no wait, this is AWESOME.  FINALLY a song I think I will listen to more than once... probably alot.  If you look at the title and think we've gotten some Ozzy solo bleed over, some kind and sad song, you are mistaken.  This is a song about a priest living with the conscience of a sexual predator.  Probably 30 years too late to being "edgy", but the lyrics do hit home without beating around the bush.  No subtleness here, "you left my life in ruins", "you knew just what you were doing".  The riff is AWESOME.



And here is what I found out this morning as I sat down to write this.  This was the last track in the initial release.  WHAT?  You're telling me that if I bought the album as it was, I would get this great song and be left with no where to go? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Luckily we have 3 more tracks.

Methedemic.  It starts out all acoustic, and I let doubt creep in my mind.  Then, we get this fast tempo Sabbath song.  Not the typical Sabbath that the public thinks it is... and... and holy crap, did Geezer Butler wake up?  I think this might be the first time in the album I've heard him stand apart from Iommi.  Well Butler getting into it must have woke Iommi up too.  Let's see if this ride continues

Peace of Mind.  The next song starts out like a Sabbath song, like maybe it's going to be more "we need to sound like us"... for about 2 seconds, then the riff kicks in.  YES!  THIS IS A NEW SABBATH SONG.  This is fresh like their stuff in Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, but without SOUNDING like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, is that confusing?  It doesn't sound "derivative" of their old stuff like End of the Beginning, it sounds like "new" Sabbath during their best.  Geezer is playing all over the place in a good way, Iommi is keeping up while not stepping on his toes.

Pariah.  A song about cults with Geezer and Iommi sped up.  Another quick playing song like Methademic and its good.  Geezer is nuts on this song too.  Where the hell was he in the first half of the album.. Wait, did I say first half?



How about the whole "real" album.  How did these "bonus" songs not get put on the album?  They are easily the best.  Look, I have owned albums by these guys outside of Sabbath.  Iommi's self titled was amazing, he had so many fresh and new ideas in it.  The whole initial 8 song release(until #8) I wondered where that Toni was.  Hell, Geezer is one of the best bassists of all time, and I forgot he existed while listening to the first parts of the album.  I was really worried, and the reason I stopped listening on track 7 yesterday is because I thought to myself "are there any songs you'll be re-listening to?" and I had to answer "no"  Then Dear Father kicked in, and the band showed up.  I have to wonder if the first tracks were some of the earlier recordings, and the last bit of the album was when they got serious about releasing it?  I can only speculate.

I've listened to Peace of Mind 3x during writing this and reading news this morning.  That wins as my pick of the album.  If this is the last of the new stuff from Sabbath, I feel like they did great.  I complain a bit about the beginning of the album, but really, there is nothing grossly rejectable.  By the end, the band shows why they are the Godfathers of Metal.

The Flute; Expanded

I was watching Cave of Forgotten Dreams last night, when the talk changed from cave drawings to paleolithic tools.  This was when I first found out about paleolithic flutes, and particularly the oldest one ever found.  The flute was carved from vulture bone, and was also found in the workshop of some paleolithic Da Vinci.  Carbon dating all the tools and pieces of art in the are gives evidence that the flute is 40,000 years old.

Made by a Master

The flute itself is a 5 hole flute.  The cool thing about this flute is that it is not only the oldest undisputed flute as of the movie, it is not just a simple hollow tube with holes.  This flute was the making of an artisan.  There are notches all along the sides.  The reason for this is that the bone was cut in half, long ways, and hollowed out using stone tools.  This, using the notches as a guide, the two pieces were put back together and sealed with an air tight sealant, perhaps a primitive animal glue.

The Sound

The flute was created with only the thought to sound pleasing to the ear of the maker.  The 5 holes do have markings, but it is believed these markings are just guidelines from the artisan, rather than a "known" system of flute making.  The closest approximation to modern instruments is that it is a Pentatonic based note pattern, instead of a chromatic or diatonic flute.

Some Time

To put this in perspective for myself, I looked up a few known facts about something made so far back.  When this flute was made, there were lots of animals that no longer roam the Earth.  The big cats; Sabertooth tigers and Cave Lion, were still alive and well known to the maker.  Tribes related to the maker would soon make cave drawings of Woolly Mammoths and Cave Bears.  The world certainly did not look the same, as the English Channel was a barren, dry piece of land because there were glaciers over the alps that were many thousands of feet thick.  The flute is twice as old as potter, thirty thousand years older than the oldest known bow, and it goes without saying that it pre-dates written languages, walled cities, and when this flute was made wheat was nothing but a wild grass.

Audience

Another animal that was still around when this flute was made was the Neanderthal.  It is virtually impossible that Neanderthal man did not have contact with homo sapiens of this era.  We can only speculate if it was peaceful or horrendous.  There is possibility that Neanderthals have heard us make our music with our instruments.  It is impossible for us to know if Neanderthals had their own music, but evidence suggests that if they did, it was voice or percussion based.  One of the distinguishing features of Humans is that our paleolithic sites have tools and art created out of bone, while Neanderthals have no such trinkets at their sites.  Therefore, one of the distinguishing features of modern humans compared to the neanderthals that died out is that we have complex music, and they did not.

Using tools to make music is a heritage of all humanity.

Day 60

I'll start by saying this:

The 60 Day Challenge is to set up some Facebook-like Ubisoft thing and keep it updated.  It is also to play an hour inside the game.  My Ubisoft page did not like to update, so it says I have a grand total of... 9 hours played, which is horse-shit.  Next, I did not stick to playing the whole hour inside Rocksmith.  I am going to practice wherever it inspires me to practice, and some days it was figuring out how far I can push my amp's tone shaping abilities; some days it was practicing unplugged on my porch while I watched it snow.  Some days I spent 4 hours doing nothing but Session mode.  Some days I did 45 minutes of Guitarcade and then switched to my amp.  So technically I did not take the 60 day challenge "correctly" so take that how you will.

Day 60

Before...

It has been 60 days since I started using Rocksmith.  When I began, I had some theoretical knowledge of what I was supposed to do with a guitar.  I had some years of experience playing bass guitar.  I could fake my way around to sounding like I could play something resembling blues.  I have a sound file of me trying to make what I understood as "power chords" sound like a song.  It is pretty terrible now that I listen to it.  My fingers were awkward past the strings that my bass had.  My picking was super sloppy, and so "wrong" that my finger nails were scrapping against the strings and hurting for days.  Fretting on the thinnest strings hurt like hell, and felt like the strings were going to shred my finger tips.  If someone showed me where to play, I could do some stuff... mostly sounding like a bassist trying to play guitar, but I could not come up with stuff on my own in a "correct" way.

After...
(next paragraph omits things I already learned by playing bass, the lists include only things I learn and attribute to Rocksmith)

After 60 days I have knowledge of the Pentatonic scales and how to use them in a band setting.  This is directly attributed to Rocksmith because I practiced with the bands in the Session section of the game.  I can improv play lead in whatever key a song calls for.  My picking has come full circle, I now have a much better attack on the strings, especially strumming.  My fingernails never touch the strings.  My fret hand no longer hurts when I use them all around the neck.  My fingers were numb for weeks while they got used to playing, but now have full feeling back in them, and retain their toughness with dealing with strings.  I have a few pages of chords that I know from memory and can switch between many of them fast enough to play songs.  I can sight recognize chords being played by people I watch.  I can improv in blues, rock, heavy metal, and I can imitate 60's psychedelic rock, 70's hard rock, 90's indie alternative and punk, and several types of metal.  I can do a little funk.  I now can palm mute, use double stops effectively, play harmonics and somewhat tremolo pick.

What of Rocksmith?

I know I'm forgetting to list stuff.  I think that's pretty good progress for 60 days with a "video game".  I can fully recommend Rocksmith 2014.  I also encourage people to not get the original 2013 edition, because all the things I highly love and have highly helped me are not features in 2013.  Easily the most amazing thing about Rocksmith 2014 is the session mode, followed by Guitarcade and then the tone designer.  I think that as time goes by I will find the Riff Repeater to be invaluable as well.  Things in Rocksmith 2014 have pushed me further than I could have gone on my own by just practicing an hour a day by myself.  I am much further than I thought I would get in the 60 days, not only in music theory and knowledge, but application as well.

Do I consider myself a guitarist?

That's a hard question.  I do consider myself a bassist.  So do I know as much on Guitar as I do on Bass?  I think perhaps so.  But then why will I not call myself a guitarist... it has got to be my hangup on chords.  I just will not consider myself a guitarist till I can sit in with someone and have them say "its (insert chord progression) in the key of (insert key)" and be able to play that.  In reality... if I have the balls to call myself a bassist, then I should be able to call myself a guitarist too.  If I was asked, I would say "I could play a little guitar".  So yea... I guess I'm a guitarist of the beginner variety.  I do not know if I approached this as a beginner guitarist would though.  I came at the game wanting to learn to be good at jamming and session stuff.  I'm not here to learn some songs, I'm here to learn what to do during ALL songs.  I'm not here to learn what someone came up, I'm here to learn how to come up with my own stuff.  My musical goal is not to have a band, and play concerts.  I want to get together with some friends, have some beers, and do some jam room rock.  I'm well on my way to being able to do that.

Where do I go from here?

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog.  I had fun doing the 60 day challenge, and I really hope to keep this pace in learning guitar.  If this inspires you to get Rocksmith, let me know, it would make my day.  Posts here will slow in pace.  It will be added into rotation in my main blog that I link to my real life friends, and so perhaps one post a week.

What about your playing?

I am going to continue playing the Guitarcade, especially because it is fun.  I am going to continue through the lessons as I come to things I need to know or practice.  Songs I am going to do differently.   I am going to come at the songs in game with a hybrid Rocksmith/Youtube approach.  The session mode is still my #1 source of practice and would be worth buying the game for alone.  60 days are over, but I know I've only begun, as cheesey as that sounds today.  The challenge never said that after 60 days you'd be a guitarist and know how to play a million different chords with only your pinky.  It is a great start, however, and I certainly could recommend a beginner to do a 120 day challenge.  Then a 180 day challenge, whatever keeps them practicing and playing.

Any final words?

Rocksmith is not a effortless method to learning guitar.  Someone that is used to figuring out video games and working on accomplishing achievements and moving on is going to have problems.  You can not approach it like a video game.  You have to approach it like learning anything else.  You have to redo lessons, you have to redo practice tracks, you have to repeat things over and over until it becomes muscle memory, and then do it again.  Rocksmith is a lesson plan, it is a teaching tool, it is a learning device and a guitar technique encyclopedia.  It is not a "get rich quick" scheme.

Do not under estimate the value of Ducks Redux.

Make something new.

Be creative.

If you're not creating,

you're consuming.

Be a creator, bring something new to this world.

Justin.

I had a friend once that owned an Epiphone Les Paul like the one pictured above.

His name was Justin.

Of all my friends I feel like Justin and I had the same love of 70's rock music, taste in beer and wine, video games, cooking and pipe tobacco. His blue Les Paul had this big square Led Zeppelin sticker on the top, behind the bridge.  He took it off later, and it left this big faded square there.  He ended up sanding the finish and kind of destroying the guitar lol.  We used to be out under the garage, him with his guitar and me with my bass, and we used to noodle around a bit.  He did teach me to play a version of Sunshine in Your Love once, probably the 2nd song I learned on any instrument.

Justin passed away a few years ago.  Every single time I feel like I'm getting better at guitar, my heart hurts, physically it has pain.  Every time I pick up my guitar, I feel one of the only regrets I have.  I want to play guitar with my buddy so badly, but I can't.  I have dreams where I meet him and show him that I'm learning.  In my dreams, with him watching, is the only time that I can play 100% perfect.  I know he would have bought Rocksmith as soon as it came out, I"m sure of it.  He would have had so much fun with it, and I know he would have came over and we would have played the multiplayer stuff in game together.

I used to give him so much shit about liking the band KISS.  I am not a huge fan of KISS, they're just not my thing.  A bit theatric, and they had a disco album.  We once watched a live concert of KISS while having a few beers, and Paul Stanley came up and said his famous line "You wanted the best, you got the best" and I mimicked that except I said "You wanted the best, but all we have is KISS!" and I used to say that all the time to Justin, just to give him shit, and laugh.

He got the last laugh though.  Because one day I'm going to have a Les Paul style guitar in blue.  And every time his birthday comes around, I'm going to play a new KISS song in his memory.

Day 59

Just a practice day.  Nothing new to report.  I"m playing around with staying in the same key, moving from minor to major Pentatonic.  I feel like I need to look up some suggestions and advice on doing so.  I feel like I'm on the edge of where i need to seek out advice in general too.  There are things I see players do, or things I hear them do, in their jam sessions that I really need to learn.  Its hard to learn such a thing unless you're there.  Its hard to articulate what you're asking unless you are there and they are playing and you say "that, that right there, show me how you did that".  Search engines are kind of too ambiguous to be able to do that.  The best you can do is look up "tricks" on youtube and hope the thing you want to know is one of them.

Saw something on Rob Chapman's channel today.  If you read this frequently, I talk about loving to play in the key of G, and how I really think the G chord sounds great to my ears.  Chapman put up videos about the new Gibson 2014 line of guitars, and in it he says to Cap-10 "I swear, maybe I'm crazy, but I swear that G sounds the best on a Gibson SG", which is the guitar I use.  So I wonder if I would have liked G so much if I had been playing another instrument instead?  I just think its weird that this comes up weeks after I first said I liked G.  Makes me think maybe I have a better ear than I thought?  Who knows.

Tomorrow's post will be my 60 day recap.  I don't really know what I'm going to write, but I'm assuming I'm going to outline where I'm going on my blog in the future, if I decide to continue it.  The blog has helped me keep at it as much as having Rocksmith itself.  Anyway, tomorrow, whole post dedicated to my 60 day challenge ending.