Pizza and Beer

Yes please! Weekly Doyal time again! I hope that everybody has had a wonderful holiday whether it was last week or the one before, either way it’s over now and no-one really cares. Move on. This week is old school week. It’s the time when we   show you what you’ve missed out on cause you probably weren’t alive, or you were too young to pay attention to grown up things like music or taxes or what time the news is on. Anyways! This list hasn’t been taken off of Rolling Stone top 5 or Bono’s iPod’s most played list or anything. This is my top 5 old school songs that I think made an impact on the music business scene (Van Morrison reference, use it, don’t use it), both as songs as well as bands. So crank your volumes, close your doors, maybe hook up your aux cables to a sweet old boom box or something cause we going back in time baby!!

1. Radiohead – Paranoid Android

Not my favourite Radiohead song by a long shot, but I felt that this song carried enough importance to trump quality. Radiohead, the band of bands. If you have never heard of Radiohead then please get off your chair, walk around your computer and pull out the big fat cable that gives it life (or pull out your phone battery, whateverwhatever it’s poetic license). When I first started getting into my music, and it was time that I spent my own money on an album, an older friend of mine told me that if there was one album that everyone in the world should own, it was this one (OK Computer). So I bought it, obviously. I can still remember sitting on my bed listening to this album on repeat for about 3 hours straight, trying to soak it all in. Radiohead have influenced so many huge bands it’s scary. Coldplay, Muse, Travis and recently Alt-J, all list Radiohead as a primary influence. So listen to this song, then go and buy/download Radiohead’s discography and live a fuller life.

2. Led Zeppelin – Immigrant Song

Here, we start getting a lot more old school, moving into the 60’s and 70’s. Growing up, before I had the incentive to spend my own money on any albums, I just listened to whatever music my parents had lying around. There were about 2 or 3 years where the only two albums I ever listened to was Led Zeppellin – Remastered and The Best of The Doors. When I started playing guitar I pretty much modeled myself on the electric guitarist, Jimmy Page (If I’m honest I still do), and made it a personal mission to learn every one of the 26 songs on the Zeppelin album. I found it really difficult to find a song that rounds these guys as a band, this is the best I could do so I suggest you go listen to couple more afterwards for some clarity!

3. Jimmy Hendrix – Bold As Love

You probably thought this song was a John Mayer song right? Wrong!! Do not pass go! Do not collect 200 dollars!! If you’ve heard of Hendrix then I don’t have to start a whole essay about what a crazy guitarist he was and how influential his style was. I mean let’s be real John Mayer covered him on one of his most successful albums (and not just one song either “Wait Until Tomorrow” was another as well as “The Wind Cries Mary” from Mayer’s other album “Room For Squares”). I’ve attempted to learn this song multiple times but I end up giving up after the first couple bars every time. It’s almost as if he improvises the whole song, but does exactly the same thing every time he plays it. Nothing really repeats itself. Genius!

4. The Rolling Stones – I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction)

I feel like I might be selling out by featuring this song, just because if I mention the Stones, this is the only song that people know, and this blog is meant to educate! But this song is that cool. It was voted the number 2 song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine (sounds biased though?). The Stones are one of the only bands from their time where the members are all still alive, despite the fact that they all look like dinosaurs. Keith Richards, the electric guitarist, has an autobiography that reveals a lot about their lives that everyone already knew, but like to hear again. He is still so cooked on drugs, that for 2 years he thought Johnny Depp was a drug dealer. The actor was good friends with the rocker’s son and he says that eventually “one day he was at dinner and I'm like "Woah, Scissorhands." Depp say’s that Keith Richards is the inspiration for Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribean, and Richard’s even played Jack Sparrows father in the third film.

5. The Who – Who Are You?

I want Roger Daltrey’s hair. The lead singer from The Who has a mane of glorious proportions. It’s not just the fact that there’s a lot of hair, it’s that it so quaft yet so rock ‘n roll at the same time. These guys are pretty crazy (also cooked on drugs, like every single band I’ve featured here). When I say crazy though, I mean destructive, mental, instrument- destroying, reckless crazy. The drummer, Keith Moon, is probably the most loopy musician I’ve ever heard of. On his Wikipedia page, there is an entire section called “Destroying instruments and other antics”, which is actually a very enjoyable read Moon the Loon. Pete Townshend (guitarist) recalls that Moon “once drove his car through the glass doors of a hotel, driving all the way up to the reception desk, got out and asked for the key to his room.”

Bonus: The Beatles – Tomorrow Never Knows

Ah! You didn’t think I would get through an old school week without featuring the most successful band in history?! Well I didn’t. I feel like anything I say about The Beatles will be preaching to the choir, so I’m not going to say too much. I hadn’t heard this song until I was watching an episode of Mad Men (series set in the 60’s) and the main character leaned over and let this track rip on his sweet vinyl player. When I googled the episode to find out what song it was, I discovered that it holds the record for the most cash money paid for one song to be featured on one episode. Apparantly paying anything over $100 000 for a song is unheard of, but Mad Men agreed on a casual $250 000 for this song. It is one of the only times that one of The Beatles has ever been featured on TV.

Thanks for sticking around, and hope you enjoyed the different post this week. 

“I’m not God but if I were God, ¾ of you would be girls, and the rest would be pizza and beer.”
Axl Rose of Guns n Roses - 1989