Beau Gerber's Favorite Bands

Sept. 18, 2009

5: Aerosmith

1. "Sweet Emotion"
2. "Mama Kin (Live)"
3. "Walk This Way"
4. "Come Together"
5. "Dream On"

Aerosmith's appeal to me is their ability to make rock and roll groove. Their music is so full of energy. Every time I listen to them I get the urge to grab my guitar and just play. "Mama Kin" is a song I recently came across while perusing the iTunes store and I fell in love with it immediately. The main riff of that song is so fun to play over and over again. "Sweet Emotion" is a great song too, and every time I hear it I think of that last scene from Starsky and Hutch (the new one with Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller) when they're flying through the air in Starsky's car. Classic.

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4: The Jimi Hendrix Experience

1. "All Along the Watchtower"
2. "Purple Haze"
3. "The Wind Cries Mary"
4. "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)"
5. "Fire"

If this had been a list of my favorite guitarists, Jimi Hendrix would have been in the No. 1 slot, hands down. Having said that, this is a list of my favorite BANDS, so this is where they fall in my hierarchy. Jimi Hendrix had connection with his guitar that was almost spiritual, and if you listen to him you know what I'm talking about. He could take that old-time bluesy feel of B.B. King, add a dash of jazz and give it that up-tempo feel of Chuck Berry to create something that would let you actually feel the notes as he played them. It is music in its truest form and I don't think there will ever be another guitarist like him.

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3: The Rolling Stones

1. "Sympathy for the Devil"
2. "Dead Flowers"
3. "Gimme Shelter"
4. "Brown Sugar"
5. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking"

I have to give credit to my uncle (Chris Holland) for this next group's spot on my list because a couple months ago they wouldn't have been in my top five. I took a trip out to San Francisco where he lives and he shed some light on the band for me. My uncle is a vocalist so he pays more attention to song lyrics than I do and he gave me some insight into the band as a whole. I have always appreciated Keith Richards as one of the greatest guitarists ever, but I now realize that Mick Jagger is a lyrical genius. "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Dead Flowers" I think are perfect examples of this and I could go on for pages about how incredible those songs are, but I'll let you listen to them on your own and hear it firsthand.

Side Note: I love the intro riff to "Can't You Hear Me Knocking." It's up there with the intro from "Sweet Child O' Mine," one of the songs from my No. 2 group.

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2: Guns N' Roses

1. "Sweet Child O' Mine"
2. "Welcome to the Jungle"
3. "Patience"
4. "Paradise City"
5. "Anything Goes"

Guns has always been a favorite band of mine since I first heard "Welcome to the Jungle" in middle school. They play the song a lot at Lloyd Noble Center right before the second half starts and it really pumps me up. My favorite thing about this band was the way that each member complements the other. They just click. The lead guitarist, Slash, has an autobiography out (it's called Slash) and he goes into the detail about how the band wrote many of their songs in less than 48 hours. One member would get an idea going and the others would just build off of it until they had a complete song. I love being part of a team and these guys to me were a great example of a group working together as a cohesive unit. I picked "Sweet Child O' Mine" as my favorite song of theirs mainly because of Slash's solo. In my opinion it is one of the best solos ever written. It starts off very smooth and almost depressing, as if he lost something, and then he changes dynamic halfway through and just lets loose a tidal wave of emotion. Amazing.

Side Note: Slash is now in a band called Velvet Revolver that I really like. I definitely recommend them.

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1: AC/DC

1. "Back in Black"
2. "Highway to Hell"
3. "You Shook Me All Night Long"
4. "Money Talks"
5. "Shot Down in Flames"

The beauty of AC/DC lies in their simple, down-and-dirty, hard rock guitar riffs. They don't do anything fancy or complicated. They just get up on stage, turn the amp up to 11 and throw everything they've got at you. I chose "Back in Black" as my favorite song of theirs because of the motivation that drove them to write it. Shortly after the release of the Highway to Hell album, the band's lead singer, Bon Scott, died of complications with alcohol in a car outside his apartment. The rest of the band was devastated by the tragedy and many people thought it would be the end of the band that was just about to rock the world. Instead of calling it quits and retiring with the hefty payoff from Highway to Hell, they found themselves a new lead singer in Brian Johnson and poured themselves into what would become one of the best selling rock albums of all time. The album Back in Black is dedicated to the memory of Bon Scott and the title track is the band's testament to perseverance through difficult times. I listen to the live version of this song before we head to the tunnel prior to EVERY game.

Side Note: If you like AC/DC and the classic rock genre in general, I recommend reading AC/DC's biography AC/DC: Maximum Rock and Roll.

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5.5: Van Halen

1. "Panama"
2. "Right Now"
3. "Beautiful Girls"
4. "Why Can't This Be Love"
5. "Humans Being"

I know this is supposed to be a top-five list, but I wouldn't feel right leaving off Van Halen because I listen to them ALL the time. So I put them at 5.5. Eddie Van Halen is such a technically proficient guitarist, but he also manages to work a lot of emotion into his solos. David Lee Roth is one of my favorite vocalists of all time. I have nothing against Sammy Hagar, but Dave just fits in this band so well. I picked "Panama" as my favorite song because it just puts you in the mood to party. It has a great upbeat vibe. "Right Now" is a song that could have been No. 1 too. It has a great intro that's really dramatic and kind of sets up the whole song. The lyrics have a way of cheering me up whenever I feel a little down. "Humans Being" is definitely a song worth checking out. It starts out with this almost heavy metal sound that Eddie uses in the verses but then it changes dynamic during the chorus and it has this awesome black/white effect.

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