Hazel Scott; a Piano Prodigy (4 Videos Embedded in Post)

(It’s almost 8:00am. I finally managed to get tired enough around 4:45am to go to bed, only to wake up a couple hours later coughing due to an itchy throat caused by post-nasal drip. I’ve been like this for at least three weeks now… 🙁 )

There are 4 videos embedded here; 1 from Twitter and 3 from YouTube. Beware in case they autoplay.

So… I realize I missed this past Monday’s Great Guitar Solo, and I haven’t brought the Astronomy Picture of the Week series back. Hopefully I’ll be fixing that this coming Monday and Wednesday, respectively. In the meantime, I have another music post for y’all, this time highlighting the supremely talented Hazel Scott.

How I stumbled on her is actually really funny. I’m a huge fan of this podcast called The Read. So naturally, I follow the hosts, Kid Fury and Crissle, on Twitter. After the debacle that was Mariah Carey’s NYE performance, I was very very curious to see what they had to say. Sadly, they didn’t say anything. However, I did find a pretty funny tweet that Kid Fury had retweeted…

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Great Guitar Solos – Cream Play Crossroads Live

Often, when you love an artist, you eventually end up discovering that they really aren’t a great person. This has held true with Eric Clapton. It kinda sucks that this amazing guitarist who, like many other amazing guitarists, made his money playing the music of black people (the Blues), was also pretty damn racist (and considering the fact that he’s never actually apologized for those remarks, and actually reiterated his support for Enoch Powell over 30 years later, probably still is). Sadly, I can’t hold up one of his greatest guitar solos without at least mentioning his racism.

With that in mind, his guitar solos on their cover of Robert Johnson’s Crossroads is pretty damn incredible. Proof that “Slowhand” was more a misnomer than a nickname; he had speed.

(This video, BTW, was made by taking the track from Cream’s album “Wheels of Fire” and matching it with video from another show of them playing this same song.)

The first guitar solo starts at 1:28 and ends at 2:11. The second guitar solo starts at 2:32 and ends at 3:36.

Enjoy!

Merry/Happy Something or Other! Got Any Good Holiday Music?

I was originally going to write this big rant on all this bullshit about “Happy Holidays” and “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Kwanzaa” and “Happy Yule!” and “Season’s Greetings!” and whatnot and about how I will never understand why anyone gives a shit about what greeting is used during this time of the year, because isn’t it the sentiment behind it that matters? But ultimately decided that wasn’t worth my time because… really… I’m over it.

Say “merry Christmas!” to me, and I’ll say it back. Say “happy holidays!” to me, and I’ll say it back. Say any variation of “happy/merry [insert holiday celebrated in December here]” and I’ll say it back because the sentiment matters more to me than the frickin’ words we use.

But anyways…

After various discussions with people, I realized that I am a bit bah humbug about elements of this season…

I mean, I do sort of hate that, in our capitalist society, we have to start “celebrating” Christmas before Halloween ever gets around, but that’s not what this is about.

No.

It’s about the music.

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Great Guitar Solos – David Gilmour Plays This Heaven Live in Gdańsk

I really like this one. This Heaven is such a great song to begin with, and it’s such a really good guitar solo. Here’s Gilmour and his band (including Richard Wright [RIP]) playing this song at the Gdańsk Shipyards on August 26, 2006.

There are, technically, three solos in this song, but the first two are more just short bridges. The third and main solo starts at 2:31:

Enjoy!

Great Guitar Solos – Nirvana Plays Aero Zeppelin

Oh! Hello! How is everyone? Are y’all all right?

I’m better. Still angry, still fighting, but… better.

Decided that it was time to clear out the cobwebs and start this one up again.

This time around it’s… yes… Nirvana. Nirvana holds a rather special place in my heart. Before Nirvana, I pretty much listened to children’s music, boy bands, and mainstream pop crap. Then a friend introduced me to Nirvana, and that changed literally everything for me in terms of how I listened to music. Sure, Led Zeppelin’s my all-time favorite band, but they wouldn’t be if not for Nirvana.

We’re starting back up with the solo from their song Aero Zeppelin. It starts at 3:14 and ends at 3:44.

Enjoy!

Great Guitar Solos – Stevie Wonder and Jeff Beck Play Superstition

Ah, Jeff Beck. One of the all-time greats. His playing is phenomenal and amazing.

Superstition has an interesting history, in that Stevie Wonder kinda sorta wrote it for Jeff Beck, who released it. Then almost immediately after, Stevie Wonder released it. So, of course, it makes a lot of sense for Jeff Beck to join Stevie Wonder for this amazing song (one of my all-time favorite songs, in fact), and Jeff’s soloing on guitar (and Stevie’s on piano) is incredible.

The guitar solo starts at 1:27 and ends at 2:22. And yes, there’s video to watch, here…

Enjoy!

Great Guitar Solos – Pink Floyd Plays Careful with That Axe, Eugene

I had a time for a bit looking for a good post for today’s Great Guitar Solo. I even asked on Facebook back at the end of September. A spooky song with an appropriately spooky guitar solo and a generally spooky atmosphere…

Wait!

Pink Floyd!

Careful with that Axe, Eugene!

This one features Pink Floyd at their decidedly creepiest. It features Roger Waters whispering some spooky nonsense, David Gilmour singing along with his guitar, Richard Wright providing the amazingly sinister atmosphere on his keyboard, and Nick Mason somehow making even the drums sound creepy.

It also features what I consider to be one of the greatest screams in all of music from Roger Waters himself, which I can only emulate by sucking in (and I’m almost positive that this is how he does it, as well). It’s a hard (and honestly painful) scream to emulate, but it makes this song.

As for Gilmour’s playing… I really shouldn’t have to explain why it’s so good. It’s frickin’ David Gilmour! He always knows the perfect solo to play in a song. And this solo is absolutely perfect. It also showcases his speed, too! Not a shredder, but I think this is some of his faster playing. His solo builds along with the song itself to an absolutely stunning climax that, if you aren’t paying attention, will absolutely be an auditory jump scare… and then slows back down. It follows the song all the way through absolutely perfectly.

I will say this, though… it isn’t on YouTube, but Dailymotion. I couldn’t find this on YouTube, unfortunately. So I apologize for the ad. I have adblocker, so I don’t see it, but if you don’t have adblocker, you will. Also, I don’t know how Dailymotion handles autoplay (I have a Chrome extension that disables autoplay for me), so I’m gonna put it below the fold.

The guitar solo is pretty much through the entire song. So… make sure it’s a dark and stormy night, turn off the lights, maybe light a candle or two, put this on the big screen, and enjoy.

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Need Some Help Finding an Old YouTube Series/ARG Call PodcastEntry

Hello my less than ten loyal readers! How are you?

Any of you participate in and/or follow YouTube series/ARGs?

The creator of one I’m following right now, Andrew Muto (series is Night: Sleepwalking Journal), is looking for an old series that disappeared earlier this year called PodcastEntry. It was dispatches from a police officer keeping tabs on the weird stuff going down in the town he had recently been positioned in, and many watchers thought the weird things going on involved the Rake (content note: that link includes a fictional suicide note).

The YouTube channel no longer exists, and the creator/character had a Reddit account, but it no longer exists, either. Muto’s determined to find any information about the series, as he’s interested in getting in touch with the creator.

If anyone can think of anything that might help provide leads, that would be awesome.