Sideshow’s Songs of the Week

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I enjoy music, as most of you know, so I thought I'd post a song everyday during the week using my Blip.fm station and tweet it at the same time (if you wanted to follow at home.) Every week, I'll recap my choices and write a little blurb about them.

This week I am trying a new site for playing the songs called “Grooveshark.” It also allows me to use a website widget that should let you listen to the song right on our site instead of requiring you to click a link. Let me know how it works. Unfortunately, there is no volume control on the widget, so just an FYI.

Check this tag for my other “Songs of the Week” posts.

Hopefully, it's a good chance to hear some new music (or old music) and get my take on it. I do tend to lean towards Heavy Metal and Hard Rock, so most songs will probably be in that general area, but I will veer from time to time. I know music is very much like religion and politics, so I'm not pushing anything onto you. If you don't like something, I respect that. But, if you do, I'm more than happy to get you more info on it, just let me know.

Most entries will have a Wikipedia and Last.FM link at the end for you to get more information and listen to other songs at your leisure.

This week's theme is guitarists. I became a fan of rock guitarists awhile back when first hearing Joe Satriani.

Monday

Joe Satriani – Summer Song – This is the song that started it all for me. They used to play it on the radio pretty frequently and I just had to know who it was. It was on his album, The Extremist, which is also very good. He's since released a bunch of albums and is now playing with a band called Chickenfoot with a few other well-known rockstars. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Tuesday

Gary Hoey – Hocus Pocus – Gary Hoey was probably the second guitarist that I really got into. Though, it wasn't because of his standard albums that I first heard of Gary Hoey, it was because of his Christmas music albums. Every year, for a few years, he released a album of Christmas music done as guitar instrumentals. Even though Hoey was well known for his surf-type music, he did all of the songs in many different styles, but you could also hear his signature in each one. This is the song he is probably best known for. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Wednesday

John Petrucci – Tunnel Vision – John Petrucci is better known as the guitarist of Dream Theater. He has only released one solo album, which was called Suspended Animation. Even though he is well-respected in the guitar world, I've noticed that he doesn't get a lot of respect in some of the media. I have seen countless “Help us pick the Top 100 guitarists of all time” lists that don't even mention him. Just the fact that he has been on the G3 tour more times than anyone else (6) and is usually in the Top 10 of most of the “Top Guitarists” lists. He single-handedly drives a lot of Dream Theater's music since he is their only guitarist. Definitely, one my favorite musicians. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Thursday

Steve Vai – For The Love of God – What is a guitarist list without Steve Vai? Vai started out by getting guitar lessons from Joe Satriani (along with many other well-known guitarists.) I can say that I didn't really start listening to him as early as some other guitar music, but I definitely wish I would have. And if you want to test your chops against him (with a fake guitar) you can download this song from the recently opened Rock Band Network for Rock Band. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Friday

Buckethead – Soothsayer – I totally forgot to tweet this one on Friday, but here it is. I probably ran across Buckethead the same way you did, either from his song in Guitar Hero II or seeing him play with a sad, sad Axel Rose and went, “That dude has a freakin' bucket on his head!” Either way, he's an amazing guitar player, so it doesn't matter what he looks like. Though, you'd think the grease from the KFC chicken would make it tougher to play guitar. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

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