***** Maximum Security by Tony MacAlpine - Possibly the Best Shred Album Ever

Move over Joe Satriani.  There is someone who has fewer fans than you and is far more gifted.  Maximum Security is one of Tony MacAlpine’s better albums, and it is far better than anything the far more popular Satch has released.  What makes this album so awesome is the control MacAlpine exhibits over his guitar playing.  He isn’t just playing the notes; he is feeling the notes, such that the subtleties of this album that make it so awesome are probably measured better with microns rather than the larger unit of measurement, the millimeter.  This is a achieved because Maximum Security has a lot of bends and whammy bar work that is exceptionally tonally precise.  If you know anything about music, then you know that there can be more than 12 tones before reaching an octave.  For example, one can bend a note a quarter of a note, which is different than a quarter note of time.  What I am referring to his a quarter of a tone, not a quarter note, which refers to the length of time that the note plays for in notation.  The subtleties of this album probably make such that it would be impossible to tab it or use musical notation to describe the song unless one has heard one of the songs on this album first.  Sit back and listen, and stop guess exactly how much MacAlpine bent the note, and just appreciate the tremendous song writing and virtuosity on this album, which is great from start to finish.

*** Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence by Dream Theater – Dream Theater’s Worst Album

In my opinion, the only good song on this album is the subdivision Solitary Shell, which is a part of the Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence song.   The rest of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence has its moments, but on the whole, with almost every song I feel like there is too much repetition.  It is as if Dream Theater was simply adding filler so that they could release a double album instead of a cd.  That said there are definitely some redeeming parts of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, and that much was demonstrated on later discs, such as Score.  On the album Score, all the parts of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence are astounding.  So perhaps you may think that it is the recording quality that I am complaining about and not the song writing itself.  That is almost certainly not the case, because I have heard 4 Degrees of Radio Edits and every track on that cd blew my socks off.  Four Degrees of Radio Edits essentially takes most of the filler out of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, making the songs more action packed and more impressionable.  So while Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is only a three star album, I would give Four Degrees of Radio Edits five stars.  Likewise, 4 Degrees cuts to the chase and is only 1 cd long, where 6 degrees of Inner Turbulence probably should not have ever been released though it is the favorite album of many of Dream Theater’s fans.  For example, I think Awake is far superior to Six Degrees, but the last I check at allmusic.com Awake was absurdly rated 2 or 3 stars, while Six Degrees was absurdly rated 4 stars.

**** Ayreon 01011001: Planet Y – Like the Other 01011001 Disc It Adds Nothing New To Ayreon

Planet Y is indistinguishable from the other disc of 01011001.  In some ways, that is a strength because both of the 01011001 discs are really good.  However, the sound of each of discs is indistinguishable in style though each of the songs on both albums are easily recognized.  So, what I am not saying is that Ayreon may be summed up to this point in that all their songs are indistinguishable.  In fact, every Ayreon song that I have listened to is easily distinguished from any other Ayreon song.  The problem is that Ayreon seems to be re-releasing the same style of music on his albums, such that there is no need to buy all of them.  I remember as a child my aunt describe this phenomena to me with respect to Pink Floyd in that if you have heard one Pink Floyd album, then you might as well have heard them all even though virtually no person would be incapable of discerning the exact song Pink Floyd is playing in their  catalog.

So, my recommendation with respect to this album is that if you haven’t heard Ayreon before, then this is a great place to start.  However, if you own several Ayreon albums, then you can be assured that you already know what you are going to purchase, should you purchase this album.  So, it comes down to whether or not you have heard enough of the Ayreon sound in my commentary as to whether or not you should buy this album.

As far as the musicianship goes, Ayreon is somewhere between progressive rock and progressive metal, and they are at the top of their genre as far as skill goes.  I am a huge fan of both of these genre’s which are actually very similar.  Like a metal band, they like distortion and spookiness.  However, Ayreon mixes in very well into a shuffled collection of heavy rock too.  I would also say that Ayreon is more than music that only musicians can appreciate.  Pretty much just about anyone can understand this sound, although anyone may or may not enjoy it as a matter of preference.

**** Review of School Days by Stanley Clarke - A Good Album that Changed the Evolution of Music

This album was made in 1976, so it is before my time.  It was made back when jazz musicians where trying to figure out how to fuse rock n’ roll and jazz without losing any musical sophistication.  I can appreciate this one today as a 4 star album, but at its time it was pioneering though it has been all but forgotten in the shuffle of seemingly countless albums that may be purchased.

Stanley Clarke was never really a household name and really it was only commonly known among those that loved bands like Return to Forever and Weather Report, which have also been practically forgotten in musical history.

Unfortunately, for most people their knowledge of fusion doesn’t go much beyond this time period, and there is tons of great new fusion that never achieved the popularity of Stanley Clarke, but for many young kids getting into fusion their knowledge of music doesn’t go this far back extensively.  Those that have heard of him are probably either jazz musicians or bassists that can count themselves among the elite of any genre.  Those that probably love him today are kids that are musically talented and love jam bands, because really there is no difference between a jam band and the genre of jazz known as jazz fusion.

Though this one is relatively unimportant as far as being known to the consciousness of modern music, it is deeply imbedded in the subconscious of modern music.  In fact, if Stanley Clarke came out today, then he probably would have achieved greater popularity than he ever did with this album, and School Days is possibly his most important effort.  My guess is that though people did not know much about what Stanley Clarke was doing at the time he released this album, that he would have been very successful among the Millennial Generation as a jam band.  That is, Stanley Clarke is one of the founding fathers of bands that made good music that would later enable bands like Phish to fill stadiums, and though I often criticize popular bands, I have to admit that Phish is quite talented.  However, Phish does not hold a candle to the musical skill of Stanley Clarke.

Like most good jam bands, Stanley Clarke’s music is capable of inducing a peaceful state of mind comparable to hypnosis.  However, most of the rhythms of music are capable of inducing a hypnotic effect, it is just that Stanley Clarke does it in a way that I would estimate that more people would find pleasant than say heavy metal, and in some ways that makes me a minority.

Stanley Clarke has been called a virtuoso by many musicians, and I won’t subtract that from him.  So, you might wonder why I subtracted a 5^th star in my review.  The album lost the 5^th star is that it suffers a little bit from being artsy fartsy, where this particular style of artsy fartsy is not my favorite, and I tend to like music that sounds heavier, more than music that seeming tranquilizes me into a pretzel of rhythmic thought.  That is, what this music album is any hooks.  It is ultra complicated jazz, and though it does have its regressions, they just don’t seem all that great.  Thus, it is not on complexity that this album loses a star, but in its failure to have any catchy simple parts, such that there never seems to be any building of a foundation, and playing off of that foundation, and when there is a simple foundation given, it is not stupendous enough for the 5^th star to be given.

As the Victor Wooten album says, “Yo!  Victor, you can’t hold no groove unless you have a pocket.”  I don’t seem to be able to find enough pockets on School Days, and when I search for them, and in this way the album seems to put me in a daze.  Thus, it would seem that “Days” in the title is an attempt to play on the word, “Daze,” of which I generally prefer music that makes me feel stone cold sober, if not aggressive.  I would imagine that someone who loves Phish or the Grateful Dead would possibly better be able to progress onto this style, and likewise listen to it with more enthusiasm than I do.  Thus, for a person that may prefer a legal high, as opposed to doing drugs, this album is possibly a cheap high that might put one in a stupor.  As for me, I don’t feel like a free man when I am in a stupor, but rather I feel that stupors are enslaving.  Perhaps, that means I should listen to the album some more, and thus it will probably be the next one to go in my 100 disc changer mix.

The rhythms of this album are comparable to the rhythms of the wind, just a few steps below.  When it comes down to it, though sometimes I like to listen to the rain, and sometimes I like to listen to the wind, buying an album for me that is so artsy fartsy that it might be comparable to these things is beyond me.   That is, why put School Days in the player when you might be able to open your window and listen to the way the wind blows and get the same quality.  Or if it is cold outside, why not just turn on a fan or a microwave and listen to the patterns of their humming instead of listening to School Days?  Thus, this is really just a matter of preference, an opinion only, and that opinion is that I prefer music that has a pocket, or at least seems like it has a pocket, especially as a way for me to enter into the rhythms of the song for the purpose of grooving to it, as opposed to flopping to it.

**** Review of Ah Via Musicom by Eric Johnson – Cliffs of Dover Probably Attracted You, But…

I can still remember hearing Cliffs of Dover on the radio in Falmouth, MA when my parents were taking my too Old Silver Beach.  To say that this song made a lasting impression on me is an understatement.  I was probably only 12 years old, born in 1978.  That song thus makes this album very special to me.

In fact, I actually probably didn’t get it on cd until high school.  This should beg the question: Why 4 stars and not 5?  The answer is that, in my opinion though the rest of the album is good, it is unlike Cliffs of Dover in that the rest of the album is not as good.  That is, this album has 1 5 star song, a few 4 star songs, and a few that aren’t really worth listening to.  It’s all over the place in quality.

The next best track is Desert Rose, which is track 2.  It is different from Cliffs of Dover in that it has vocals, and that the guitar isn’t quite as majestic.  I do enjoy the vocals, and they seem to be intellectual.  In addition, you could listen to any song on the album around children.  Though I’d call Desert Rose a 4 star song, it is somewhat of a letdown from Cliffs of Dover.  I hadn’t heard this song, or any other songs on this album until I actually purchased, so I when I bought it, I thought I was going to get something different than what the album was in reality.  There it is.  Eric Johnson is putting me into the john by track 2.

Track 3 is somewhere between 3 and 4 star quality.  I like to listen to it.  I don’t mind it when it is on.  Generally, when I listen to the album I let it play through, but I don’t put the cd in the player to listen to this song in particular.  That said, between tracks one, two, and three, you may have something that you can put into a car cd player and enjoy, especially with a girlfriend, or wife.  This album is definitely family friendly music..

Before this album, so far as I know Eric Johnson was a nobody.  I have heard some of his early stuff and some of his later stuff, and it is about on par with this album.

I don’t know if I would call Eric Johnson a virtuoso though often he is famed as one.  He is definitely a good guitarist, and he was even included on the first G3 live album, where his contribution is decent.  I think Eric Johnson is about as good as Eric Clapton, no better and no worse.

Track 4 is the first weak track on Ah Via Musicom.  It is terrible.  Though terrible tracks add to the lengths of albums, they detract from the album as a whole.  However, then Johnson rebounds with track 5, which is good enough to call a 4 star track.  I dare you to find one person that will honestly admit to loving this album most for track 4.

Thus, as an album, the quality of the song writing seems to vary drastically.  However, on the whole it is a great album, and it does have Cliffs of Dover, which is one of my all time favorite songs.  Ah Via Musicom is definitely worth purchasing, and if you like sophisticated, family friendly rock, I can almost guarantee that on the whole you won’t be disappointed, but you may decide to skip through the tracks a bit, rather than listen to it as a whole.

2nd Dante’s Inferno – A Response to a Comment Made to My Amazon Account

I am not going to try to invalidate your point because it is a valid opinion.  Thank you for taking the time to comment.  The reason I don’t think very highly of Inferno is that it does not speak to all generations.  That is while this book was influential, it speaks very little to me in the here and now.  It is a has been.  It has been both outdone in antiquity, and it is outdone in modernity too.  That is, authors put out better books than Inferno today, and Inferno doesn’t hold a candle to say a book of antiquity like Plato’s Republic.

Look if you want to get inside this book and read it for the mindset for which it was written, then you are correct.  Inferno is a real shocker.  However, the precise reason you like this book is the precise reason I have not thought it that great.  My opinion is that, if it were a good book, it would speak to all generations, such as a book like Darwin’s Origin of Species, which is as valid today and as controversial today as the day it was written.  Darwin’s books will probably still be as controversial as they were from even a thousand or more years from now.

I should also add that books like Inferno have been outdone by movies.  For example,  in the theater, the recent Tolkien trilogy blew me away even though  I am not a huge fan of fiction books.  Books like The Hobbit didn’t blow my socks off as literature though they blew my socks off in the theater.  Maybe this could be done for Inferno.  I am not incorrect for having that as opinion.  Someone who prefers movies to books with respect to fiction has every right to describe why they think the way that they do.

I am not saying is that this book is beyond recovery out of its historical shell, but I will say that it is fading, especially as time goes by and the history of this time period becomes blurred due to the need doctors of history to come up with new thesis about the way the past was.  Perhaps, Inferno will be able to be reclaimed, such that it speaks to all generations, but as for me and my opinion of Christianity, the same people what worship Christian deities are the descendents of the people that worshipped Greek deities, and the deities before those deities.

Guess what, most people aren’t as knowledgeable these days about Greek or Persian deities anymore as they fall out of popularity.  For example, who would remember a book that was a rebellion against the Zoroastrian priests, but a bunch of college history buffs?  I don’t know if such a book exists, but I do know that Zoroaster created what was at one time one of the world’s major religions, such that some people probably felt the need to rebel against it at times.  Thus, it is such that should Christianity fall out of popularity through replacement by another religion, I think Inferno may be all but forgotten to common people, in the way that any books rebelling against Zoroaster are unbeknownst to me.

I’ll give you another example.  Take for instance the book, “The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors,” by Kersey Graves.  Though some people disagree about the historical reliability of this text, the fact is that myths surrounding all 16 of these supposed saviors exist.  Jesus is one of these saviors, of course, but the point is that the crucifixion myth did not start with the idea of Christianity, but my guess is that most people don’t know all that much about all 16 to the point that it would be difficult to unearth some of these stories even for folks that commonly go to the theater.  In consequence, a book must speak to all generations in order to be remembered for all generations. 

**** Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight Karl Rove – Thought Provoking

Rove would put drugs in Halloween candy if he thought he could get away with it, and then think that he had been a, “Compassionate conservative.”  In Karl Rove’s mind, putting drugs in children’s Halloween would be his way of trying to teach kids that Halloween is an evil pagan holiday, such that they stop celebrating it.

He seems to try to create a hypnotic push and pull in the listeners mind, making it easy to forgive him when he messes up.  His philosophy is a lot like the New Testament, it is difficult to attack it precisely because it has contradictions.  This is his style:  It’s like this.  This is the ideal.  Now it’s that, and I have completely forgot this.  Won’t you forgive me?  If you remind me that I have contradicted myself, then I will remind you of what I have said that is most convenient for me.  I make mistakes.  For example, Karl states his belief in the intelligence of voters before insulting them.  Another example or a peculiarity is as, “Now I, Karl, am a tough gun touting Clint Eastwood type,” and then, “Now I’m a frank intellectual.”

It is no wonder he has gained so many people’s attention.  There is something in him for everyone to like, and something in him for everyone to hate, and in my opinion he uses these emotional appeals in a manipulative way such that people with different ways of operating will overlook the parts of him that they don’t like.  Sometimes I find his emotional appeals distasteful and more importantly the least reasonable choice possible, but the sentiment he leaves to his words is thought provoking because he uses different tones than the usual.  By changing the common tone I often hear words delivered in, it makes for bittersweet thoughts.  I like that.

 The most likable trait about Karl is that he doesn’t fit nicely in a box.   If I had to describe his philosophy, the word, “Jelly,” comes to mind.  Sometimes he will make you angry, and sometimes he is likeable, but be warned Karl seems like the type that acts like a friend so that he can take beat on you in his, “Fight.”

He acts as if he is baffled when he has opponents.   He makes you angry.  Then, he makes friends again.  Next, he gets you fired up, just before he returns back to the same old same old, “Why do they want to attack me?  They must be crazy.  I am such a goody two shoes,” waiting for you to give in so that he can win you over.  The inner workings of this man are much uglier than he wants to believe.  Accurately he is like the Tool song, Sober, if you don’t like him, then this is how he appears, “I will find a center in you.  I will chew it up and leave.  Trust me.”