BEST HARD MUSIC 2013

"BLUE" JIMMY:  HARD MAN

BLIND DOG OZZY: NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  We're a month into the new year and after watching the 56th Grammy Awards, I got to thinking what was some of the best hard music that I liked last year.

BD OZZY:  BOM BOM BOM!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Starting with the Heavy Metal category, I don't think anything came close to matching Black Sabbath's "13".

BD OZZY:  YEAHHH!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  And it's about time peoples!  The last time this lineup of Sabbath recorded, I had hair down to my chest, bell bottoms and a shirt with wizard sleeves.

BD OZZY:  And you should have seen the shoes!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Song after song of molten, headbanging metal with not a weak one in the bunch.  The song "God Is Dead?" even won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.  And I loved how at the awards, you couldn't understand a thing Ozzy Osbourne was saying.  This is the first album I've bought in a long time that I could play all the way through over and over with the volume on 10.

BD OZZY:  Now the neighbor's cat can't have babies.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Best Live Show of the year also goes to Black Sabbath.  Their show at the L.A. Sports Arena last year was, I'm pretty sure, one of the signs of the Apocalypse and their haunted-looking stage show with multi-screens was downright... scary.

BD OZZY:  I came out of there feeling EVIL.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Best Hard Rock album of the year was a surprise.  I picked Black Star Riders' "All Hell Breaks Loose" over all the other great hard rock that came out last year.  The band is basically Thin Lizzy going under another name and they're not afraid to sound like it.  Highlights:  "All Hell Breaks Loose" is the best ass-kicking album opener I've heard in a decade; "Kingdom of the Lost" sounds like it was accidentally left off of the "Jailbreak" LP complete with Irish Folk Festival intro and dueling guitars by Scott Gorham and Damon Johnson; "Hey Judas" and "Someday Salvation" would've been hard rocking hit singles if they were released in 1975 and "Valley of the Stones" strays dangerously into heavy metal territory.

BD OZZY:  The bottom line is that this is basically the Great Lost Album that Thin Lizzy never made and if it had come out in their Phil Lynott heyday, they would be even more legendary than they are now due to some spotty albums in the past.  This one rips!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  On to some Heavy Guitar Blues!  Best Blues albums for me were Popa Chubby's "Universal Breakdown Blues" and Lurrie Bell's "Blues In My Soul".  Popa Chubby's career was almost over before it began because due to some horrible album cover art on his debut, many people thought he was a rapper and his album even got put into the rap/hip hop bins in the record stores.  Since then, he has put out an amazingly long string of albums that show him to be one of the most scorching modern blues guitarists on the planet and "Universal Breakdown Blues" continues the tradition with songs like "I Don't Want Nobody", "69 Dollars" and "Mindbender" which showcase not only his blistering guitar work but also a huge, hurricane of a voice which many so-called Blues guitarists lack.  Add to this a sizzling instrumental version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and you got the whole package.  Lurrie Bell, the son of Blues legend Carey Bell, is becoming a legend in his own right, with "Blues In My Soul" putting his raspy Blues voice and silky smooth and piercing guitar right up front where they belong.  When you hear the agony of songs like  "Blues In My Soul" the roadhouse funk of  "Southside to Riverside" and the Down in the Delta intro  to "My Little Machine",  you just get the feeling you're hearing the Real Deal.  

BD OZZY:  You won't hear this kind of Blues in no Guitar Center hotshot competition where the players never had a beer bottle and ashtray thrown at their head in some mean ass bar.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  So put on the Lurrie Bell album when you want the sound and feel of walking into a smokey, Southside juke joint.

BD OZZY:  And put on the Popa Chubby album when you just want to hear some fat f**ker choking the s**t out of a Stratocaster!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Special mention goes to Rory Block in the Acoustic Blues category for her album, "Avalon:  A Tribute to Mississippi John Hurt" just for the fact that she actually studied with brother Hurt and other original Bluesmen and there ain't nobody can play this way anymore.

BD OZZY:  Go ahead, try it!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The Blues/ Rock category is for those who ain't quite pure Blues but not quite Rolling Stones/ Zeppelin classic rock either.  My hands down favorite is The Russ Tippens Electric Band for their album, "Combustion" which makes me want to go practice every time I hear it.  Tippens' virtuoso guitar  and classy singing style remind me of Robben Ford on hard rocking steroids with a bass and drums rhythm section that can step out and solo whenever they want.  Add to this the fact that they are British and Tippins plays part time in Satan, an early 80's New Wave of British Heavy Metal band that plays muddy, beer-soaked Metal Festivals in Europe and I don't know what to think.  But I haven't heard a new band this good in a long time so check 'em out.

BD OZZY:  And be prepared to practice more!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Well, there's other types of hard music but other people are more qualified to  comment on those bands  than me.  I just picked some of my favorites of the past year.  So pick up some magazines, listen to some radio stations and check out some websites.  The hard music you love is out there...

BD OZZY:  You're just not going to see and hear it on prime time TV!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  "Sake's Alive!"

BD OZZY:  "Wow!  Wow!"

 

R.I.P. ANGEL OF DEATH

"BLUE" JIMMY:  HEADBANGER

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I had to say few words about the passing earlier this month of Jeff Hanneman of the band Slayer, or as hardcore fans say, Slayyyyyyyyyerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!

BD OZZY:  Mas Chingon!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  And it's kind of silly to say that Jeff passed given the nature of his career in a thrash metal band that sang about the most extreme, vile subjects you could imagine.  I should say, He dropped dead, hit the ground and his beer soaked body was split open by maggots as he descended into the flames.  

BD OZZY:  There Jeff.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  His death hits closer to home than I like to think about.  When Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon, Bon Scott, John Bonham and SRV died they were larger-than-life people who lived in faraway places.  Jeff and his Slaymates lived down the boulevard from me here in South East L.A.  Although I never actually met Jeff,  I saw him and Slayer since the earliest days when they were playing backyard keg parties and VFW halls here in the neighborhood.  Their beer drinking was the stuff of legends.  My friend had a homemade video of Jeff at Tom Araya's parent's house shotgunning beers and then showing the band going to the store to get more suds.  

BD OZZY:  Tell them about the show!  

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Then there was that show at The Hollywood Palace in the late 80's where Satan himself showed up and rabid Slayer fans got a little too perky and ripped the place to shreds and the LAPD had to call the riot squad to clear the block.

BD OZZY:  Someone stepped on my tail and puked on the back of my head.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  You were lucky!  I remember walking out of the place with my mouth bleeding from the mosh pit, beer bottles flying everywhere and the LAPD helicopters flying overhead.  My friends left me and I had to take refuge in the building across the street where I had a friend who worked at a late night phone sex place.  The next day I had bruises in the shape of hand prints all over my body.

BD OZZY:  I slept under a bus bench.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Slayer always seemed to bring out the dark side of people but for all their occult trappings and imagery, you have to remember that they weren't a group of Satanic witches sacrificing babies on a foggy moor in Scotland.  They were L.A. DUDES who liked to pound beers, listen to metal and punk in their parent's garage and crank up the amps to meltdown level whereupon, they invented a type of heavy metal that people in the early days, thought had gone way too far.

BD OZZY:  When the "SHOW NO MERCY" album first came out, it scared the s**t out of me.  I thought the tape player had got stuck in fast forward and I'm pretty sure I heard The Devil calling my name.  

"BLUE" JIMMY:  He was probably talking to the other Ozzy.

BD OZZY:  How did Jeff die?  They say it was a spider bite.

"BLUE" JIMMY:   I heard a voodoo priest put a spell on him because other guitar players thought he was playing too fast and too hard and they could never live up to that standard.

BD OZZY:  !!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Whatever happened to Jeff, he went way too soon and Metal will be a little less heavy without him.  Drink a beer in his honor and thank him for destroying your eardrums!

BD OZZY:  And your soul!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BD OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!

DROP D DAMNATION!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  FLATPICKING FOOL & TRAILER PARK CASSANOVA

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I was drinking a cheap beer and listening to the new Aerosmith album today and I was enjoying the s**t out of it ("Music from Another Dimension").

BD OZZY:  Hard rock, bluesy guitar riffs, sweet ballads, Joe Perry & Brad Whitford power rushes -- there's a little something for everyone in this package.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The only thing missing is some rambling acoustic guitar for dessert.  I remember when every hard rock album had at least one track of acoustic guitar breakdown boogie to add texture to the mix, mostly because back in the 60's, all those skinny white boys in Great Britain wanted to be Big Bill Broonzy when they grew up.

BD OZZY:  Listen to the first Humble Pie album man, before they became the bell-bottomed, bootstomping heavy metal boogie men of the "Rockin' the Filmore" album they were sitting cross-legged on the floor smoking a big, fat joint listening to Broonzy, Rev. Gary Davis, Doc Watson, Chet Atkins, Leo Kottke, John Fahey, Bert Jansch and a host of other buskers who were the coffee house rock stars of their time, slaying droves of hippies with a single acoustic guitar and gritty voice.  Then there's the Stones.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Don't get me started.  One of the greatest moments in Rock is Keith and Mick Taylor banging out "Wild Horses" on acoustic guitars.

BD OZZY:  I wish I wrote that tune!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I wish I was in the room when Keith and Mick came up with that chorus at three in the morning after a barrage of beer and cigarettes.

BD OZZY:  I got that part down.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Then there was Led Zeppelin III.  When I first heard that album, I thought the band had lost it but looking back, it was pretty ingenious to put out an album of mostly all acoustic material.  Later on, they would insert a whole acoustic set into their concerts and chicks would throw their undies onstage during "Gallows Pole."  

BD OZZY:  I want to learn how to play!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Here's something anyone can do.  Take your low E string and tune it down to D.  This is called dropped D tuning.  Form some chords and move your fingers around so it looks like you're doing a whole lot even tho' you ain't.  Don't forget to hit the dropped D string once in awhile to give your guitar that wide open, sold-your-soul-to-Papa-Legba sound.  You can fingerpick or flatpick.  In this example, I'm flatpicking unplugged on a fancy-ass Dean acoustic -- look at it shine!

BD OZZY:  I gave it to him for Christmas!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BD OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!

BOYS! IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS! HOW TO PLAY LEAD AND RHYTHM GUITAR AT THE SAME TIME

"BLUE" JIMMY:  GUITAR SLINGER

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY: You can tell a lot about a bluesman from their guitar style.  
For example, if they play a whole lotta slide guitar, they probably came from the Mississippi Delta or the south side of Chicago or were at least influenced by players from that region.  If they do a whole lotta fingerpicking, they probably hail from the Eastern Seaboard.  If they play a whole lotta jazzy chords and licks, the West Coast was their home.  

BD OZZY:  If they play damn loud through a big amplifier, they probably came up playing in raunchy, disorderly roadhouses where they had to fight to be heard.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  And if they sound like two fellas playing at the same time, they probably spent time playing out on the street for tips with just them and one guitar and no one else to back them up.  Players in this style include Robert Johnson, Lightning Hopkins and Snooks Eaglin, guitar players who sat on street corners and played a mix of blues, old favorites and novelty songs to earn a living while competing with other performers for the attention of people passing by.  If you couldn't play lead, rhythm, percussion and sound effects all at once on one guitar, you didn't get no money.

BD OZZY:  No whiskey and no women!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The example in the video is a Texas shuffle combining riffs from a couple of my original songs.  I could've easily played the whole thing on acoustic guitar but this time around I played it on a Fender Stratocaster through a Marshall amp turned way down so you could hear all the pick and finger and string noise.  I'm playing it in the key of E and I'm using a lot of open string lead licks and sliding partial and full chords to get that street corner sound. If you see me on the street, please throw some change in my guitar case.

BD OZZY:  And a swig of whiskey for me!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BD OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!

HOW TO PLAY LIKE HOUND DOG TAYLOR

"BLUE" JIMMY:  SLIDEWINDER

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Theodore Roosevelt Hound Dog Taylor was a bluesman extraordinaire who influenced pretty much everyone who put a slide on their finger and tried to make Hawaiian noises on a guitar.  Born in Natchez, Mississippi with six fingers on each hand, he took Elmore James' style of slamming slide guitar, played it louder and harder and put out a series of albums and live shows that drove big Afro and bell bottom audiences into a frenzy mostly in the 70's.

BD OZZY:  Together with his band The Houserockers, made up of Brewer Phillips on second guitar and Ted Harvey on drums, they literally rocked houses down and were a huge influence on George Thorogood, whose band The Destroyers were modeled after Taylor's band.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  His buck-toothed grin and between-song jive made him a favorite with the audience even though no one could understand a word he was saying.  Then he would take a sip of Canadian Club, put a slide made from the leg of a kitchen chair on his finger and peel the paint off the walls with a cheap, pawn shop guitar through an amp about to melt down with ear-splitting distortion.  The example in the video is played on an Eastwood electric/resonator guitar through a 100 watt Marshall MG series amp on full gain using a tapered, heavy brass slide and a thumb pick.  I'm not sure what tuning Hound Dog played in but the example is in open E tuning which will always give you that electrified delta sound.

BD OZZY:  Skull and glass a whiskey optional.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Copy it as best you can and then take it somewhere with your own style.  That's how Hound Dog would've told you.

BD OZZY:  Maybe someday they'll write on your gravestone what Hound Dog wanted on his:  "He couldn't play s**t, but he sure made it sound good!"

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BD OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!

BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON: BLUESMAN OR EXORCIST?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  BLUES SCHOLAR AND GENTLEMAN

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  One of the most mysterious figures in the history of The Blues is Blind Willie Johnson.  If you ain't never heard Blind Willie Johnson, there's probably a piece of your soul that's never been moved yet.

BD OZZY:  Pretty much everything that's known about BWJ was researched and written about in a book published in 1959 by a man named Samuel Charters entitled "The Country Blues."  It's acknowledged as the first scholarly work ever written about The Blues.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  BWJs scary, otherworldly slide guitar playing with perfect pitch and intonation has never been equaled -- ever.  When God done made BWJ he said, "that's enough!"  His total recorded output is only about 90 minutes but that's all it takes, brother.  

BD OZZY:  Tracks like "Nobody's Fault But Mine" (where have you heard that before) and "God Moves On The Water" (about the sinking of The Titanic) were enough to make BWJ a legend,

 but then he done and made "Dark Was The Night (Cold Was The Ground)", three minutes and twenty seconds of pure, recorded exorcism!  If you got a bad spirit living in your home, play this tune and your house will be cleansed!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Amen!  These old, scratchy recordings make you realize that The Blues comes from a life lived hard and nasty. BWJ roamed the streets of Beaumont, Texas playing for pocket change most of his life, getting messed with by the cops and then when his house burned down he slept on a wet mattress in the ruins until he got sick from pneumonia and died because the local hospital wouldn't admit a black, blind man.  "Blind folks has a hard time ..." his wife said after he died.

BD OZZY:  Que Gacha!

"BLUE" JIMMY:   Next time you think your life is too hard, listen to the recordings of Blind Willie Johnson and realize how good you got it with your comfortable life.  Blind Willie didn't play The Blues -- He lived them.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BD OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!

 

LAY OFF THE WEED!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY: SELF-RIGHTEOUS, POMPOUS, HARD MUSIC CRITIC

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:   I was miles away, playing some serious late night blues on Friday night when I glanced up at the TV and saw some dirty, bearded, old hippie howling into a microphone on Jay Leno.  I hit the mute button out of curiosity and realized I was seeing Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes with his latest project called Chris Robinson Brotherhood.  Good Christ on his Holy Throne of Glory!  What happened to you brother?  

BD OZZY:  Is that the guy always picking up cigarette butts behind the liquor store?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  No man, The Black Crowes; the band that played loud, Classic Hard Rock and partied while the rest of the world were clutching their Nirvana albums and cutting themselves --  That's their singer.

BD OZZY: No way, guey!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Yes, way, guey,  I couldn't believe it either.  T'was a time when this man could sing like Rod Stewart singing Paul Rodgers at Steve Marriot's birthday party.  There he is, looking like a guy tossed out of a Grateful Dead show for being too stoned, singing mild jam rock boogie and pretending to play guitar.  Compare this to the Black Crowes "Sting Me" performance (on youtube) from '92 on Jay Leno.

BD OZZY:  &%*@!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Let this be a lesson to you, young boys, keep to the beer&whiskey and lay off the weed, or you'll wake up one morning and find yourself selling incense and veggie burritos at a Phish parking lot.


"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!


BD OZZY:  Wow! Wow!