Hard Vision |
March / April 2008Donovan | Rick Wakeman | Jetboy | The Smiths | Freakhouse | Metallimania | How to Play Blues & Blues Rock Guitar | Tad | Flipper | American Speedway Donovan This guy was around back in the 60's and here he is with a DVD. I always try to be open minded about music and stuff, but this just bored me to tears. The songs were way too mellow for me. I will say this the camera work is excellent and he still has a pretty decent voice for his age, but these songs just about put me to sleep. If your a fan of this guy, you'll love this DVD, but as for me, I did not. Info: http://www.mvdb2b.com Rick Wakeman I don't think Rick Wakeman will find an audience for this release on a rock 'n' roll website. "Amazing Grace" features, as the press release states, "a timeless collection of beautiful, inspiring, instrumental arrangements of traditional hymns." That's pretty much all there is to say about this release. I mean, the disc has a great sound. The songs are crystal clear and played to perfection. It's a nice album to listen to when you wanna sit back and relax. His performance is so rich, it does take you to another world. The DVD features "live studio performances from Rick Wakeman on the Grand Piano, crafted with motion pictures, high end graphics and emotive imagery to bring to life stunning visual interpretations shaped from a collection of material that many will be familiar with." The highlight of the DVD comes at the end, when Rick performs the title song with his daughter, Jemma Wakeman, and The English Chamber Choir providing vocals. In between each song, Rick gives you a little information on each track. http://www.rwcc.com JETBOY I hated this band back in the 80's and after hearing this I still know why. Now that I am older I can appreciate a few of the good glam/power bands such as Poison, Ratt, Motley Crue, etc, but this is like a 5th rate Poison with some awful songs. The songs just plod along and aren't very good and that is probably why they never sold big. To write a pop tune, you need hooks and this didn't have many and the singing was just plain awful. The DVD is from 1986 and features more hair, make-up and awful goodies ha ha. This band to me is a 5th rate bad version of Poison, who at least had some good songs. This band in my opinion has no good songs and listening to them after all this time again doesn't change my opinion. Info: http://www.cleopatrarecords.com MIKE JOYCE & ANDY ROURKE I am not a Smiths fan by any means, but if your a fan this is an incredible DVD. This is the story of the band told by 2 of the members of the band. Andy talks about his drug use (which I am sure tons of musicians were doing in the 80's and there is many other things going on. While seeing some of the pictures and stuff I remember this band from back in my high school days and stuff. If your a fan of The Smiths this is A MUST HAVE. I am not even a fan of the band and most of this stuff was pretty interesting to say the least. Info: http://www.mvdb2b.com FREAKHOUSE This is a sort of combo DVD/Cd release of modern metal. The music was OK and was nothing special soundling like Puddle of Mudd or any of those new rock/metal bands that you hear on the radio. The songs weren't bad and the band were heavy and inject some melody to the tunes as well. The video I saw was kinda cool and this is cool that you can play the actual CD in your DVD player and I would say this band is pretty good for the style of music they are playing and are better than some of the crap I hear on the radio. Info: http://www.freakhouse.com Killing Time Productions This release was originally produced back in 1996 and, according to the press material, this is the first time that it's been available on DVD. Can't say that I ever heard of it before. But, since I had nothing better to do when it arrived in my mailbox, I sat down and watched the whole 109 minutes and I can't say that I was really all that impressed. Well, maybe a little. It's billed as a documentary. But, I wouldn't call it a serious documentary. Now that I think about it, it's more like a comedy. Actually, I'm trying to come up with a creative way to describe what I just watched and it doesn't seem to be working out all that well. So, I'll just give it to you straight. It's basically some dude with a microphone walkin' around talkin' to Metallica fans. He seemed to be drawn to the ones who were either stoned or highly intoxicated and he didn't really ask any serious questions. It was actually quite funny in some places. Bottom line...it's a collection of drunken fan worship. Only the hardcore Metallica fan would probably want this. Well, maybe there's a slightly bigger audience. I mean, I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore Metallica fan. But, I'll keep this one in my collection so that I can watch it again in the future. It did amuse me. It's fun to watch people make a fool of themselves in public and it really doesn't get any better than this. It's like a home movie that you're ashamed to let your friends watch, especially if you got sober and/or off the drugs. There's very little Metallica on here. There is a nice clip at the end of Metallica performing with Rob Halford, who also makes an appearance. There's also a clip of Slayer's Tom Araya, Jim Martin of Faith No More, members of Anthrax and Queens Of The Stone Age. Hell, even Madonna makes an appearance. That was pretty cool...at least I thought so. Like I said, it's drunken fan worship. If you can sit and watch that for more than an hour...well...you'll get a kick out of this release. That's pretty much all there is to say. http://www.killingtimeproductions.com/content/metallimania How To Play Blues & Blues Rock Guitar Over all I found the guitar instructional DVD from Guitar World "Play Like A Blues God In No Time" was great. Starting with the basics, instructor Andy Aledort quickly gets into the styles of some of the great blues players. Andy Aledort is quite good at imitating and demonstrating these great players including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King and a host of blues and rock legends. The tab is good and follows the action on the screen and I referred to it often. I was also impressed with the slide section. I am normally a finger player, but I have fooled around with the slide over the years, with little success. This DVD revealed a lot of secret slide techniques and opened a lot of doors for me in that area. I would recommend this DVD for intermediate to advanced players; even though the instruction starts very basic the beginner could get lost, it quickly moves into some difficult stuff. So, to sum it up this DVD is a good investment for any guitar player (even the beginner who really wants to learn) interested in studying the art of Blues-Rock TAD Oh this is one of the best DVD's I have ever reviewed. TAD were and still are one of the heaviest bands ever, and do yourself a favor and search out and buy their music. This is an awesome DVD as it takes you through the whole history of the band, and it's ups and downs as told by the band members. While watching this you will understand why they got dropped by several labels, not due to the music, but due to other things. You also get 5 music videos and this is just an incredible releases and don't dismiss TAD as some grunge band, as they are so much more than that. Buy or fry! Info: wwwmvdb2b.com FLIPPER LIVE I had really not heard this bands music much, but I always saw their name floating around City Gardens when I would go to shows there in Trenton, NJ. There is 2 live shows on here, plus a video. The music is very chaotic, out of control, early hardcore music sort of like old Black Flag in spots. The quality is pretty good considering the 2 shows were filmed back in the early 80's. The 2nd video even has the guitar player smashing and destroying his guitar. If you were around in the early days of the punk scene, this will being back memories and if you weren't, this will show you a bit about what is was like back then and those were some awesome times for me I know that, at least here on the East Coast. Info: http://www.mvdb2b.com American Speedway American Speedway has a video up on YouTube and I was asked to check it out and write a little something on it. I just got done watchin' it and it's not too bad. It's a performance video that's pretty straight-forward. The band's rockin' out with a sound that's a mixture of in your face rock 'n' roll and screamo style vocals. They don't waste any time gettin' to the point. They turn it up loud and they hit you as hard as they can. I think you can take a few minutes out of your day to check it out. |