Will anybody watch the Sabbath video??

I bet noone will! :P

Okay here goes -

1. Black Sabbath - "Headless Cross"

This one is from a 1989 lineup of Sabbath, featuring Tony Martin on vocals. I think his vocals are simply stunning! I also like the bass on this song.

As many know, Black Sabbath are generally considered one of the founding fathers of Heavy Metal - the other being Led Zep. They're still together (after lineup changes that surpass even Jethro Tull), and a spinoff called Heaven and Hell with Ronnie James Dio on vocals is rumoured to come to India sometime this year!

Here's a paragraph from the Wikipedia article:

"However, some degree of band stability finally came back to Black Sabbath by 1988 with the retention of Tony Martin and Geoff Nicholls and the addition of loyal drummer Cozy Powell, who replaced Terry Chimes. Powell, a legendary drummer, had had success with his own band, as well as with Rainbow, Whitesnake, Emerson, Lake & Powell and many others. With bassist Laurence Cottle replacing Jo Burt, Sabbath released the critically acclaimed Headless Cross album in 1989, their most Satanic and occult-based album so far. An MTV video for the title track received considerable airplay, and was released to mostly positive reviews. After the Headless Cross sessions, Laurence Cottle was replaced by veteran bassist Neil Murray (a former bandmate of Cozy Powell's in Whitesnake). Sabbath released what many fans maintain is their finest album of the Martin era, Tyr in 1990. The group toured extensively throughout 1990 and 1991 to support the Tyr album."





2. Mew - "The Zookeeper's Boy"

I saw this song on VH1 last year and promptly downloaded it - it became a Song of The Month! (On my playlist, that is.) Doesn't sound too good on Yourboob, but still. Nice and quirky.





3. Eric Johnson - "Cliffs of Dover (Live)"

This instrumental piece was voted #17 on a list of "100 Greatest Guitar Solos" that Guitar World magazine brought out a while ago, which is when it caught my attention. The list is composed of mainstream rock songs only, which of course led to a barrage of criticism. However it was a reader-polled list, which goes to show Guitar World's demographic appeal. (It's a great magazine though!)

Here's a blog post about the list (can't find the list itself online) on, oddly enough, an "indie music blog"...

#4 - Comfortably Numb, #3 - Freebird, #2 - Eruption (by Van Halen), and #1 - Stairway to Heaven - can't say I disagree with that order! :D

Anyway, this is the best video of the song I could find. It's terribly long and boring, but not if you follow my timestamp suggestion: watch from 05:00 minutes left to 02:33 minutes left. That pretty much corresponds to the studio version I have.

PS - Eric Johnson has also been a guest of Vai and Satriani on G3 tours. Always worth mentioning, I say!