(no subject)

[miko2]

Today's Song: Heart Full of Soul by Rush

I bought some cds at Half Price Books last week. One was a Tiki Lounge music cd. It's fun. ^_^ Another was a greatest pop hits of the 1930's. It has Somewhere Over the Rainbow on it. Then there was a "Dick Clark's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Collection vol 4" or something like that, which had a lot of good songs on it. I was showing my cds to Belvedere at work (Belvedere is not her real name, but what a coworker calls her - he calls me "Polo" as in Marco Polo)... anyway she freaked out when she saw that this cd had Hot Child In the City by... whoever that was by... on it. I guess she loves this song and it's not available on iTunes. It also had Year of the Cat by Al Stewart, and other songs I liked, including two by the Yardbirds.

But as it happens I also got a 2-cd set of the best of the Yardbirds. My boss said, "Oh, I think I've heard of them." D just laughed at that, he's a die-hard hard rock guitar player and fan of all things related to 60's and 70's guitar playing. You don't have to tell him why the Yardbirds are so well remembered... because their second guitarist, after the original one left, happened to be Eric Clapton... and when he left, he happened to be replaced by Jeff Beck... and when he left, he happened to be replaced by Jimmy Page (actually for a short period both Beck and Page were in the band together -- they toured a bit and recorded at least one studio song while both were in the band).

So... the Yardbirds launched the careers of three of the biggest rock guitarists ever. They were a British blues rock band that experimented with fuzz tone, feedback, distortion, improved amplification, and complex guitar pieces. They were one of the first bands to do each of these things and were quite experimental... but after all that's why Clapton, Beck and Page are so well known today. The final chapter of the Yardbirds is that after their last show the band broke up, but they still had unfulfilled tour committments in Scandinavia that Jimmy Page wanted to honor. He decided to recruit new band members. The new lead singer was an unknown performer named Robert Plant. He reccomended his friend John Bonham as a drummer. John Paul Jones, who had worked with the band before, became the new bassist. They did the tour as "the New Yardbirds" and went on to record a record, but fights over who owned the name forced them to choose a new one. The new name they chose was Led Zeppelin. The rest, as they say, is rock 'n' roll history.

The last of the cds I got last weekend is a 3 cd set of Goth music from the 1980's. It doesn't include Bahaus, or Sisters of Mercy, or any so-called "proto Goth" music such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, but it does have a lot of other Goth bands, most of which I don't own anything by. I think the only one I have cds of is Mission UK. Other bands on the set include All About Eve, Christian Death, Alien Sex Fiend, Cradle of Filth, Nico, Fields of Nephilim, Adam & the Ants, Psychadelic Furs, the Damned, Kill Switch... Klick, Switchblade Symphony, and oddly enough, Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

So anyway, I ws listening to these cds today. One thing that made me laugh was the Yardbirds doing a cover of "I'm A Man" which is probably more familiarly known as "Mannish Boy" by Muddy Waters. When Muddy sings it in his low forceful voice, you KNOW he's a man. When the Yardbirds sing it it's sped up and sung in a much higher range, and they sound much more like what they are... skinny white British boys wearing ties. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work, or compare well to the Muddy Waters version. ^_^

The Yardbirds are known for some very big hits though, including For Your Love, The Shape of Things and Heart Full of Soul. but I found that I really prefer the more recent cover of Heart Full of Soul by Rush. It's a very good cover of the song.

Heart Full of Soul - Rush (live accoustic)
Heart Full of Soul - The Yardbirds
Heart Full of Soul - The Yardbirds (much better sound quality)