Bands That I Like

 117 George Harrison George Harrison George Harrison will forever be the patron saint of rock ‘n’ roll underdogs. The “quiet Beatle” took his inner conflict between fame and privacy, secular and sacred, and turned it into a huge body of work. George Harrison’s rich inner life yielded a prolific oeuvre that introduced the Western world to Eastern musical and spiritual influences. In a not-so-distant, black-and-white age the world clapped and screamed as four dark-haired lads from Liverpool ascended the dizzying ladder of gain and glory we now expect all our rock stars to climb. They got the hits and the headlines; got the money and the movie roles; got the cars, gorgeous girlfriends and wives. Then one of them - the youngest Beatle - reached one rung higher and got religion. Or a deep spirituality, to be accurate. Today, when the name of one deity or another is so easily dropped in award speeches and CD liner notes, public acknowledgment of the divine can seem a rote exercise. W

 116 Genesis   Genesis The prog-band to end all prog-bands. One of the only bands to lose their lead singer and songwriter only to have the drummer step up from behind the kit and take over song-writing duties & lead singing. Even the bassist scored a number one hit in his SIDE-PROJECT! If that doesn’t explain the music superiority that is Genesis than I don’t know what does. Their history is just as complex as their music. The members consisted of keyboardist Tony Banks, lead guitarist Steve Hackett, bassist Mike Rutherford, lead singer Peter Gabriel and drummer Phil mother fuckin’ Collins. What a god damn band. Unfortunately, prog rock was often ignored by the head-bangers and classic-rock enthusiasts, so even to this day, Genesis does not get the proper respect they deserve. They might as well be the Rodney Dangerfield of the rock ‘n’ roll cannon. It would take until 2010 until the band got inducted into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame, even though they’d been eligible

 115 Gary Burton   Gary Burton I have always been fascinated by vibraphonist. Perhaps it is because I see it as the intellectual man's drum-set. Being able to use 4-mallets at a time to make music only imagined (before) on piano is a special skill, one that takes talent. The vibraphone is a beautiful instrument and one that has spoken to my soul for quite sometime, so it wasn't long before I was introduced to Gary Burton. Gary was named the Downbeat Magazine's Jazzman of the Year in 1968- the youngest person to ever receive the award. Calling him a living legend would be selling him short. He has won multiple Grammy awards throughout his long, prolific, and stylistically wide-ranging career in music. He has taught music at Berklee College of Music for thirty-plus years. He's written a book: Learning To Listen: The Jazz Journey of Gary Burton . He's a jazz-master, what else is there to be said? I suppose I should mention the music... but it's hard to do that with

 114 Gang Gang Dance   Gang Gang Dance This spaced-out New-York-based fusionist band released their first album Revival of the Shittiest in  2003. They were in the same freak-out scene of the early oughts, along with other N.Y. based bands. They would go on to release three more albums before I jumped on board as a fan: 2004's sophomore self-titled album , 2005's God Money & 2008's Saint Dymphna . All these releases saw the band (& specifically lead singer Lizzi Bougatsos) refining & ultimately crystallizing their sound, topping out with 2011's Eye Contact . The album opens up with the track " Glass Jar ," a song that has synth and piano arpeggios shining through in stereo, percolating through a filter of jazz percussion before setting into an Eastern groove. It's a song about reincarnation. And that's only the first track! The whole album takes the listener on a trip through many fields: Hard techno, soft rock piano, polyrhythmic dance