Overly ambitious?

Posted by admin on Mar 17, 2010 in Featured | 0 comments

I set myself up for a Herculean task. Post a new deign every day. So far, that comes to 77 designs or “projects”.
Some are good, some are stuff I pulled from the archive and three or four have really been good (opinions are of course mine).
So this is a shot of all the designs completed thus far in 2010. Whew! Looks fairly impressive, and again that is just my opinion.

three 16 10

Posted by admin on Mar 16, 2010 in Featured | 0 comments

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, electric guitarist, record producer, and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, electronic, orchestral, and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.

In his teens, he acquired a taste for percussion-based avant-garde composers such as Edgard Varèse and 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands—he later switched to electric guitar. He was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often impossible to categorize. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. His later albums shared this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was one of rock, jazz or classical. He wrote the lyrics to all his songs, which—often humorously—reflected his iconoclastic view of established social and political processes, structures and movements. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech and the abolition of censorship.

Zappa was a highly productive and prolific artist and he gained widespread critical acclaim. Many of his albums are considered essential in rock and jazz history, and he is regarded as one of the most original guitarists and composers of his time; he remains a major influence on musicians and composers. He had some commercial success, particularly in Europe, and for most of his career was able to work as an independent artist. Zappa was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

Zappa was married to Kathryn J. “Kay” Sherman from 1960 to 1964. In 1967 he married Adelaide Gail Sloatman, with whom he remained until his death from prostate cancer in 1993. They had four children: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen. Gail Zappa manages the businesses of her late husband under the name the Zappa Family Trust.

three 15 10

Posted by admin on Mar 15, 2010 in Featured | 0 comments

The Yardbirds are an English rock  band that had a string of hits in the mid 1960s, including “For Your Love”, “Over, Under, Sideways, Down” and “Heart Full of Soul”. The group is notable for having started the careers of three of rock’s most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page, all of whom were in the top fifteen of Rolling Stone’s 100 Top Guitarists list (Clapton as #4, Page as #9, and Beck as #14). A blues-based band that broadened its range into pop and rock, The Yardbirds were pioneers in the guitar innovation of the ’60s: fuzz tone, feedback, distortion, backwards echo, improved amplification, etc. The band’s disintegration led to the formation of the rock band Led Zeppelin, by Jimmy Page in 1968.

The bulk of the band’s most successful self-written songs came from bassist/producer Paul Samwell-Smith who, with singer/harmonica player Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty and rhythm guitarist/bassist Chris Dreja, constituted the core of the group. The band reformed in the 1990s, featuring McCarty, Dreja and new members.

threefourteen

Posted by admin on Mar 14, 2010 in Featured | 0 comments

X is an American punk rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1977. Established among the first wave of American punk, the original members are vocalist Exene Cervenka, vocalist/bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom, and drummer DJ Bonebrake. They released seven studio albums from 1980 to 1993. After a period of inactivity during the mid to late 1990s, they reunited in the early 2000s, and currently tour.

X achieved limited mainstream success, but are considered one of the most revered punk rock bands and, by some critics, one of the best rock bands. One critic also suggests that X are one of the all-time greatest live rock performers. The band received an Official Certificate of Recognition from the City of Los Angeles in acknowledgment of their contributions to Los Angeles music and culture. They were also influential on various genres of music, including punk and folk rock.

In 2003, X’s first two studio albums, Los Angeles and Wild Gift, were ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as being among the 500 greatest albums of all time.

three thirteen

Posted by admin on Mar 13, 2010 in Featured | 0 comments

Joseph Fidler “Joe” Walsh (born November 20, 1947) is an American musician, songwriter, and actor. He has been a member of three commercially successful bands, the James Gang, Barnstorm, and the Eagles, and has experienced notable success as a solo artist and prolific session musician.