This is page #198462967, I'm Peder

About Music...
People ( DJ's and alike especially) often categorize music and adjust their listening to a category they are familiar with and know they like. To me there are three types of music : Bad, Indifferent and Good ( hmm... BIG... nice acronym )
Well how do I classify these items then ? OK, so what kind of music do I like ?
Frank Zappa
The first Zappa tune I ever heard was of course "Bobby Brown" ( I wonder what Mrs W. Huston's hubby thinks about that song ? ) even though I did not realise that until I bought "Sheik Yerbouti" many years later. Instead it was "We're Turning Again" and "Alien Orifice" from "Frank Zappa meets the Mothers of Prevention" that got me hooked. As noted on the Net and elsewhere Zappa-fans tend to fall into certain categorys ( now we're there again ) reflecting the different types of music Mr Zappa has written : Comedy Music, Jazz oriented stuff, Symphony music, Synclavier and so on...
Personally I fall into two categories : The vocal oriented material , where the focus lies on the vocal arrangements and lyrics ( songs like "Sharleena", "Fine Girl", "The Man from Utopia" among others ) and the Ever-So-Hard-to-Play stuff ( "RDNZL", "What's New in Baltimore", "G-Spot Tornado" "The Black Page" et al. )

Mike Keneally
Having bought Zappa's "Broadway the hard way" and skimmed through the liner notes regarding personel I noticed Ike Willis, Chad Wackerman, Scott Thunes, Bobby Martin, Ed Mann and noone else more or less . In 1992 (I seem to recall) swedish TV broadcasted a concert by Zappa's Universe fronted by the 1988 guitarist who impressed me quite a bit (Fun coincidence: The night of the broadcast I was at the jazz-club Fashing in Stockholm listening to Georg Wadenius or someone and also attending were Mats Öberg and Morgan Ågren, keyboardist and drummer in ZU). I heard a rumour that Gail Zappa was looking into sueing Mike for the music on his first solo album "hat" for being too similar to Frank's. I think Steve Vai's mother should have a bigger chance of winning such a lawsuite, comparing "hat" to Vai's "Flexable"

Kevin Gilbert
Following Mike Keneallys career I sort of stumbled into Kevin Gilbert. Through the ever-so-helpful Napster I managed to pile up most of his work and it gradually blew me away (yes I have bought the CD:s now, which I probably wouldn't hadn't there been for Napster). Great hard pop! Only too bad he isn't that well recognized by the masses and that he died so prematurely. Get "The Shaming of the True", Toy Matinee and the Giraffe compilation immediately!

Genesis
Following the departure of Peter Gabiel in 1974 they , in my opinion, drifted towards the Indifferent category ( somewere between Good and Bad ) but they have still been able to produce great albums ( Duke, recorded in Stockholm ) and songs ( "Home By the Sea", "Abacab"; the song not the album, "Domino" ). Unsuperceeded however are "Foxtrot" and "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway", to my mind two of the best albums ever recorded.

Emerson, Lake and Palmer
The early albums "Tarkus", "Trilogy" and "Brain Salad Surgery" are great mixtures between classic music and avantgarde rock ( Stravinsky meets Jimi Hendrix ? ) but the reunion in -92 ( ? ) hasn't been as sucessful. I still like the Emerson, Lake and Powell album that came in -86 though.

King Crimson
Great musicians, great music even though it takes a while to get into it. A band that has managed to split up and reunite on a number of occations and still been able to keep their musical integrity. Their first record was released in 1969 and the latest in 1995 ( hmm... Does anybody remember for how long Milli Vanilli existed ? Siegue Siegue Sputnic ? Scotch ? ).

Voi Vod
A canadian band that started out as one of the "worst" thrash metal bands ( songs like "Slaughter in a Grave", "Fuck Off and Die" and "War and Pain" ) but has since evolved to something I call techno metal ( not techno as in Techno. ...does this make any sense ...? ). The album "Dimension Hatröss" is recommended as a first listener.

Marillion ( the Fish era )
Marillion is often dismissed as beeing just a Genesis clone. To some extent I agree, with similarities beeing charismatic singers ( Fish and Gabriel ) who liked to dress in bizarre ways, often sang in a high pitched voices and decided to leave the band at the peak of its carreer; the same settings : guitar, bass, drums and keyboards; the same type of music including theme albums and odd timings and so forth, but if that constitutes beeing a clone then what about many of the artists today ? Put "Misplaced Childhood" in your CD player and shut up !

Pat Metheny Group
I can't say I like everything Mr. Metheny has done ( what in god's name made him record and even worse release "Zero Tolerence for Silence" ? Hybris ? Dementia ? Who knows ... ) but the songs he has recorded with Lyle Mays and the rest of the Group are some of the most beautiful fusion-jazz songs I have heard. I was fortuned enough to bee able to attend a concert in 1992 and for a couple of hours he made the most beautiful landscapes of light and sounds come alive. It was true magic.

Other favorites of mine are King's X, Rush, Pink Floyd, Yes, It Bites, Allan Holdsworth, Extreme ( "III Sides..." ), Meshuggah ( I have to, I know the guys... ), Van Morrison, Pet Shop Boys ( "Behaviour" ), Motörhead ( with Fast Eddie and Animal Taylor ) and many more.

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