Music be the food of love? Yeah, right - music is to rock to and don't you forget it!

I'm a great music fan as well as a musician myself, so I know what I like to hear and I know what I like to play. I think you'll probably find most musicians started out playing some blues, then either fell in love with the blues or moved off into other directions. Many musicians, especially guitarists like myself either stuck with the blues or went across to rock as a way of using that guitar to its fullest capacity.

That's not to say there are not other types of guitarist. Hell no. There are some great classical guitarists, flamenco players, folk players, pedal steel players as well as the usual kind you see on TV standing up there with a real nice guitar strapped around their neck and playing sweet, sweet music!

Well, this is a new hub, so I'm gonna take some time over building it, so that's enough for right now! Be back real soon...

This capsule will be specifically about what I like about the blues:

Well the blues is what I grew up listening to, so it has a special place in my life. As a kid, my parents used to listen to Muddy Waters, BB King, Sonny Boy Williamson, Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley and a whole lot more besides. One of my all time favourites was an old song by Robert Johnson called "Dust my Broom" which was done entirely on what sounded like a beat up old acoustic guitar with no other accompaniment other than Johnson's own high and distinctive vocal.

Later on I got into heavier blues played by the likes of Cream, Led Zeppelin, John Mayal, Buddy Guy and Albert Collins - the latter's "Call it Stormy Monday" a real classic.

A lot of people label Led Zeppelin as a rock band, but their early albums were almost entirely blues oriented with real classics like "Since I've Been Loving You" up there with the all time great blues songs. They even stole some of the much older songa and made them their own. "The Lemon Song" on their second album was almost a total rip off from Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor", plus on their early albums you'll find a song that sound very much like "Rock Me Babe" which was a well known Muddy Waters song.

But the blues encompass so much more than just the music. Its a whole way of life for many people who eat, sleep and live the blues every day of their lives. The songs encompass the depression of losing your loved one to another person, or being mistreated by the one you love in some way. Its about losing someone or something you love or being apart from a special person for way too long. Its about wanting something better, deserving a better life but being stuck in a rut with no way out. Its about being restricted in your life when life is for being free.

The blues is about good music that can bring you down, empathize with your mood, tell you its gonna be alright, comfort you when its not gonna be alright, lift you up and make you feel on top of the world!

The blues is a way of life alright and I love it!

This capsule will be about what I love about rock music!

Yessir, Rock me babe anytime you want! I love listening to and playing rock music. Most of what I like best comes from blues oriented rock, so of course my favourite bands are Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience and the like. All guitar based bands with single guirtarists and little in the way of studio embellishments to their raunchy, raw and powerful songs.

Modern bands simply cannot reproduce that energy in the studio. Why I can only guess - maybe the modern producers are focused too much on musical perfection at the expense of raw power and gutsy performance. If you listen to Led Zeppelin's first album, there are mistalkes aplenty but it doesn't matter because the sheer raw power of the songe create such a strong emotional response in the listener, that the odd mistakes here and there actuall lend more character to the songs.

That's what modern music lacks - character. It might be technically perfect in every way before being committed to teh final digital master, but the studio performances of modern bands are way too perfect. Aiming for such perfection restricts artistic expression and misicians nowadays are restricted from letting go for fear they might maks a mistake. So they play it safe and go for the perfect take, which results in lack-lustre music devoid of teh true soul and emotion of older recordings the likes of Led Zeppelin and Cream etc.

Give me the raw, raunchy git wrenching feel of those classic Fender Guitars wailing out their sweet melodies and screaming solos any day! There are so many guitar heroes from way beack that simply are not matched my anyone today. Sure, you may argue there are some very fine guitarists now, but they've gone down the technical perfection route laid out by people like Steve Vai, Tony McAlpine, Yngwie Malmsteen etc. What I'm talking about is the real feel of the guitarist's work which comes from pioneers who wren't afraid to make a few mistakes to get that live feel into their studio work.

Now I'm talking Jimi Hendrix - who should come at the top of every guitarist's list at the man who can never be beaten! Then you have Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Eric Clapton, Alvin Lee, Peter Green, David Gilmour, Steve Howe... the list goes on!

What do I think about heavy metal music?

Well, let's just say there are two stables which that flavor of music come out of. One is the older, more melodic heavy metal produced by people like Ozzy Osbourne, early Judas Priest, Alice Cooper etc. Now that is the stuff I love to death!

As for the other flavor, the crunch metal stuff - well it leaves me a bit cold. I like music that rocks, sure! But I also like some melody in there someplace! The excellent guitar work of the late Randy Rhoads in Ozzy's first two albums was sweet as much as it was fast and furious. Same goes with Eddie Van Halen's early work. The twin guitars of Gnen Tripton and KK Downing of Judas Priest were just magic to listen to live as well as on vinyl (yep, I still got 'em!).

As for the later stuff to get vomited out of recording studios by producers with the heads stuck firmly up their asses, its ok to hear once in a while, but most of it is tuneless thrash metal stuff that wears my ears out too fast!

Later Judas Priest records went the same way by pandering to the producers idea of what people should be listening to and not what people really want to hear! Same old same old. Metal Online Magazine types and Radio producers have been dictating to us what we should like for decades. Most people are too dumb to figure that one out, but some of us still have some brain cells intact and are able to give the finger to radio producers and tell them that their preference is not my preference!

So play it again, Sammy Hagar and don't spare the riffs!