Al Di Meola

There are guitar players .... and then there are guitar musicians !

Andreas Vollenweider

Jon Gomm is AWESOME

Jon Gomm is an English singer-songwriter and performer. Using a single acoustic guitar to create drum sounds, bass lines and melodies simultaneously, his songs draw on a range of influences and styles including blues, soul, rock and even metal.

Pink Floyd's Timeless Lyrics

There is no other music that hits me so emotionally hard than Pink Floyd. And the tears haven't gotten any weaker or subsided with the passage of time, I think it's gotten worse.

And I don't even have to hear all of the song for it to grab me. I never saw Floyd in concert with a long lost babe (Vera!) so it can't be that.

And it isn't just the music, or just the lyrics that's the singular cause. My symphonic Us and Them CD will do it not very long after it starts to play. It's something I don't understand, but then I don't really want to understand it. Instead I use this feeling as a barometer to how good a new piece of music really is. If it gets me 'choked-up' or starts to, then I know it's good. Or, if I start to hum the new song later in the day, or in a few days, I'll call it good and worthy to be in my top-ten list. No, Rap doesn't do it. I listen to that for the poetic protest message.

Even if I start to hum one of Floyd's masterpieces my eyes will soon fill. I can't have a Floyd tape or CD in the car or I will miss turns or forget where I am going on that trip. (Floyd = short term memory loss?~) . And it's not that the songs remind me of somebody, or fills me with any regret I might have from my past, though I have that feeling that it may be somehow 'reminiscent' in origin. But I'm not a 'shrink.'

Another thing with Pink Floyd, their lyrics stick with me. Their poignant words have been known to pop-up at the most opportune time and fit right in with the current events, though they were written thirty years before.

For instance, yesterday I heard something, another thing, that government screwed up or started to do to screw up, to many to remember, but sure enough this rang in my head.

From 'Animals:'

Hey you, Whitehouse,
Ha ha charade you are.
You house proud town mouse,
Ha ha charade you are
You're trying to keep our feelings off the street.
You're nearly a real treat,
All tight lips and cold feet ....
There are allot of Floyd song that sing anti governmental lyrics. Could it be that there is so much, never ending, material to choose from? .....duh
from 'The Final Cut:'
What have we done, Maggie what have we done?
What have we done to England?
Should we shout, should we scream
"What happened to the post war dream?"
Oh Maggie, Maggie what have we done?
Brezhnev took Afghanistan.
Begin took Beirut.
Galtieri took the Union Jack.
And Maggie, over lunch one day,
Took a cruiser with all hands.
Apparently, to make him give it back.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, Reagan and Haig,
Mr. Begin and friend, Mrs. Thatcher, and Paisly,
"Hello Maggie!"
Mr. Brezhnev and party.
"Scusi dov'è il bar?"
The ghost of McCarthy,
The memories of Nixon.
"Who's the bald chap?"
And with America becoming more and more a 'police state'.......
from 'Pigs:'
Big man, pig man, ha ha charade you are.
You well heeled big wheel, ha ha charade you are.
And when your hand is on your heart,
You're nearly a good laugh,
Almost a joker,
With your head down in the pig bin,
Saying "Keep on digging."
Pig stain on your fat chin.
What do you hope to find.
When you're down in the pig mine.
You're nearly a laugh,
You're nearly a laugh
But you're really a cry.
And when I get all 'flighty' and try to make everything in my life work out how I want it to, 'The Dark Side of the Moon' is the way for me to go. It will ground me in no time.
Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.
And also with 'Eclipse'
All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.
And with that damn thing called 'Time'
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
And with the fear of death: 'The Great Gig in the sky.'
"And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I
don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying?
There's no reason for it, you've gotta go sometime."
And when I feel the 'money hungry's,' 'Money' saves the day, and gets me back on track.
Money, it's a crime.
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're
giving none away.
And, yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find that I wasn't alone with Pink Floyd lyrics haunting my current events in my life, and helping me to explain life to me. It seems that prisoners that are locked up alongside serial child molester Jerry Sandusky taunted him his first day at Centre County Correctional Facility, singing "Hey, teacher! Leave those kids alone!" Hopefully this will be the extent of their harshness. But I don't think so. He will certainly make their decades, if he lasts that long.
We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

• Inmates taunt Jerry Sandusky with Pink Floyd lyrics, ‘Hey, teacher! Leave those kids alone!’ - NY Da
  Jailed thugs locked up alongside serial child molester Jerry Sandusky ridiculed him during his first stint at Centre County Correctional Facility, singing lyrics from a Pink Floyd song: "Hey, teacher! Leave those kids alone!"

DAVID GILMORE - real guitar hero - guide to the worlds best guitarists, by Julie-Anne Amos

My Favorite Band (YES) ~!

"YES."
"What's the name of the band?"
"YES."
"Now whats the name of the band?"
"YES."
"No, what's the name of the band?"
"It's YES! YES is the name of the band."
According to Jon Anderson (from video) this is how it first started, over the phone.

I liked rock sure, but the songs were too short for me. I just started to get into a song and by then it was over. I needed more than three or four minutes of enjoyment. More than just a short and sweet little poem. After getting into the development in a symphonic way of a song, it left me hanging and hunger for more. As to why I liked Jazz and Classical so much.

I could put a Jazz album on and sit down and enjoy this progression for at least twenty minutes or so without the band starting a new song for me to start over and get into, or to have to get up and out of my chair, a bean-bag chair, and start the song over again. Or without standing and hovering over it and moving the stylus back to hear it again. I dug the progression and the improvisation. I certainly found this with Jazz and certainly found this with classical music.

There were a few bands that broke this mold of mine later on, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Iron Butterfly, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Tangerine Dream, but when I first heard YES it blew me away. Tears rose in my eyes. This was the best of both worlds. Yes YES was for me and nothing ever came close, unless it was jazz. But Jazz and Classical were some how 'dated' for me. YES will always sound 'now' or 'futuristic' to my ears, even after all the members die off. And no band has ever wrote a song called, 'Arriving UFO.' And when 'they' do arrive, out in the open, what band would you think would be to their liking?

Mind you, there was no other band that I played, except for Floyd, that my parents came into the room and said, "who's that," with enthusiasm on their faces. "Play that again." Before this it was a, "would you turn that down." Or even just a shaking of the head and closing of the door nice and tight. And YES is the only band my parents wanted concert tickets to. The atmosphere wasn't that conducive to their liking, but they certainly didn't want to leave until it was over. Still, like everybody else, they were there on their feet for an encore, twice. Or was it three times. And they told me to always let them know when these guys came back to town.

http://johnwindbell.hubpages.com/hub/My-Favorite-Band-YES