RXTT's Top Ten VAN HALEN Deep Cuts

There was once a band from southern California that somehow combined precision heavy riffs, complex melodic harmonics, and the infectious party enthusiasm of a 16 year old at their first kegger.  That band was Van Halen. (For the purposes of this post, and for my own sanity, I will not be delving into the "Van Hagar" era after the departure of Diamond Dave.)

Everyone who likes rock music knows their big hits, and boy were they big, but Van Halen was never a band that padded their albums with trifling shit and third-class songs.  Some of the most inventive guitar-work and amazing tracks can be found digging deep in the albums.  Here are my ten favorite.

♦

 
VAN HALEN - Girl Gone Bad
(This track off of the album 1984 starts off with those sweet overtone harmonics that Eddie Van Halen was so righteously famous for.  It then kicks into a balls-to-the-wall rager with some amazing riffage.)




 
VAN HALEN - Unchained 
(From the album Fair Warning, this track starts off with a riff that I have yet to get over.  No matter how many times I see this video I always wish I was able to see Van Halen in their prime live.)
 


 

VAN HALEN - Beautiful Girls
(As the ultimate party band ever to exist, Van Halen had many tracks that were not face-melting guitar freakouts.  Songs like this one, with that sexy-ass swing, helped Diamond Dave entertain the fans just as much as the guitar wizardry of Eddie.  These lines basically define Dave's persona, "Now, I'm a seaside sittin'/ just a smokin' and a drinkin'/ I'm ringside / on top of the world / I got a drink in my hand / I got my toes in the sand / All I need is a beautiful girl")




 
VAN HALEN - Drop Dead Legs
(Speaking of FAT riffs, the one that anchors this sultry track is one of my faves.  That "brown" sound that Eddie worked up through his guitar effects was amazing. Everyone tried to copy it, and diluted its impact.)






VAN HALEN - Somebody Get Me a Doctor (In the midst of all the hard riffs and drums and screams the guitar does a great mimic of a chugging locomotive, something that harks back to old country blues tradition, where the rhythm of the guitar was to mimic the rhythm of the old steam trains.  Love the various changes in it, and Diamond Dave can be heard cheering Eddie on in his bad-assery!)





 
VAN HALEN - D.O.A.
(Van Halen's 2nd album has so many amazing riff-heavy rockers.  The sound you hear at the beginning of this track is the sound of the RAWK GAWDS announcing their presence.  Love how this track gets faster and faster and faster...)





VAN HALEN - Little Guitars
(The Van Halens were classically trained musicians at a very young age, who switched over to guitar and drums the better to rock us all.  From time to time Eddie would show off his classical guitar techniques, such as the intro to this track.  This track off of Diver Down is fun AF and melodic and just beautiful.)




 
VAN HALEN - Hang 'Em High
(A rager from the word GO.  Everything blasts forth.)





VAN HALEN - House of Pain
(Not many Van Halen tracks can be categorized purely as Heavy Metal.  This track from their mega-hit 1984 album contrasts wildly with the more pop-melodic hits like Jump and Panama.  SO AWESOME.  SO HEAVY.)





VAN HALEN - I'll Wait
(One of the albums I would listen to on my Walkman headphones while mowing the lawn as a kid was 1984, and this track started off side 2, so when I would flip the cassette, I knew I was gonna go off in my head.)

Some REM Tracks that Rock.....so hard!

          Before they bored the world with their devolution into adult-contempo mope-folk-balladry in the mid-1990's, Athens Georgia's REM were a band that refreshed what rock music could sound like.  Their first 15 years as a band saw them expand on a sonic vocabulary that took the then out-of-date pastoral sounds of the Byrds and similar acts and created a new brand of rock music. They were the original "college rock" band, called that by music press people who did not understand what to make of them.  Many of their songs were straight-ahead, powerful rockers, contrary to their image as a folksy, country-music act.  These songs were what first drew me into REM, allowing me to explore the rest of their music, and deepening my love for their classic albums.

          Here are some of the most ROCKING REM SONGS EVER!

REM - I Believe
(This song from the amazing LP "Life's Rich Pageant" starts off with a funny little Banjo line, a musical joke to distract from the hard-hitting song that follows.  "Change is what I believe in.")


          

REM - Pretty Persuasion
(This is my favorite REM track, and to this day, after listening to it hundreds of times, I have no idea what Stipe is singing for about 3/4 of the track.  No matter.  This is so GREAT.)



REM - Get Up
(From the album "Green," which was at the time their most "rockinest" album, comes this roarer.)



REM - Radio Free Europe 
(Off of their first full-length, Murmur, this one always makes me turn it up LOUD)



REM - Auctioneer (Another Engine) 
 (This one builds and builds and is so awesome)

 


REM - Driver 8
(I love songs about trains and REM sang a lot of songs about trains) 



REM - Begin the Begin
(The album Life's Rich Pageant begins with the best 1-2 punch of any REM album.  First, this track, which starts off with a heavy groove and builds, and then the next track, which rocks me out every time)

 

REM - These Days
(I love this song.  I LOVE THIS SONG.)


  
REM - Strange
(This is a cover of a song from Wire's LP, Pink Flag.  I did not know this until I heard Pink Flag a decade later.  Turns out many 80's college rock and alternative bands covered Wire songs, cuz Wire is the greatest.)

 

REM - Turn You Inside Out
(Another gem from Green, this one rocks....so hard.)  
 
  

RXTT's Top Ten Neil Young Tracks

I do not remember when it was that I actually started to like Neil Young's music. As a youngster I thought everyone associated with his early era, the folk rockers, the Crosby Stills and Nashies of the musical world,  were so fucking boring.  I needed to hear chaos and aggression and most of all energy.  Around my sophomore year in college my friend Barnaby Struve (former VP at Three Floyds Brewery, and currently working at Stigberget in Gothenburg, Sweden) left me in his room chillin' with Neil Young's Harvest Moon playing.  Around the time Neil started singing about a lonely night spent with his dog I was swept up.  I could not believe it.  Since then I have explored Neil Young's records and found so much skronk, so much distorted, angry rock n roll, in equal parts to his soft and wise and funny folk and country tunes. I love hearing the man play guitar. He brings it all Live.


Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Cortez The Killer (Live 2001)


Neil Young - Like a Hurricane (Live 1982)


Neil Young - Harvest Moon (Live 2010)


Neil Young - The Needle & The Damage Done (Live 1971)


Neil Young - On The Beach (Live 1999)


Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Cinnamon Girl (Live 1991)


Neil Young - The Loner (Live 2002)


Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) (Live 1991)


Neil Young - Ambulance Blues (Live 1998)


Neil Young - Cowgirl In The Sand (Live 1971)

 

RXTT Favorite: CHUCK BERRY! Ten Faves

Chuck Berry

On Tuesday, October 18, 2016, my main man Chuck Berry will turn 90 years old.  I have always loved Chuck Berry tunes, ever since, as a little kid, I would play old Chuck Berry 7" singles on people's turntables.   I distinctly remember dancing around with friends from church to My Ding-A-Ling...  Ha!
Chuck Berry is Rock & Roll to me.  As I grew up and listened to more music and read more about musicians, I often heard mention of Chuck Berry as a primal, seminal influence on people.  He was one of the first to combine Soul music, Country music, and Rhythm & Blues music into the fiery, energetic, driving music that became Rock & Roll, and he was most definitely the BEST.  Chuck Berry's music does what the best, the very, very best of music does, and that is to make you feel ALIVE! 

CHUCK BERRY - COME ON


CHUCK BERRY - TOO MUCH MONKEY BUSINESS




CHUCK BERRY - THIRTY DAYS (TO GET BACK HOME)


CHUCK BERRY - YOU CAN'T CATCH ME


CHUCK BERRY - AROUND AND AROUND


CHUCK BERRY - LITTLE QUEENIE


CHUCK BERRY - REELIN' AND ROCKIN'


CHUCK BERRY - NO PARTICULAR PLACE TO GO


CHUCK BERRY - JOHNNY B. GOODE


CHUCK BERRY - NADINE