Hmmm.

Thanks for the pics...I had envisioned something, uh, different, but it's not all that bad, really.

It kind of seems like we're using The Beatles as a starting point, but I think you really have to go back further to guys like Robert Johnson and Charlie Parker.

I don't listen to any of that stuff, really, but you have to acknowlede that point where jazz and the blues fused with R&B to become Rock and Roll. 

I don't really know where or when that really started, or if one artist in particular can be credited for it, but whereever, whenever, and whomever got it going deserves some credit.

But since I don't know dick about that old stuff, I'll start with The Beatles, too.

1. The Beatles: I don't really listen to these guys either, but both my mom and my wife are huge fans, so I hear them all the damn time.  Their influence can't be denied.

2. The Rolling Stones: These guys I listen to, they kind of took what The Beatles were doing and sexed it up, making rock dirtier.

3. Velvet Underground: I can't believe I omitted these guys from my first version of this list.  Even before Sonic Youth, the Pixies, The Ramones, or the Sex Pistols, Velvet Undgergound were laying the foundations for the artistic and sonic expansion of rock and roll.

4.  Tie: Led Zeppelin: Kind of took what both the Stones and the Beatles were doing, added some J.R.R. Tolkein and some Aleister Crowley, and then turned it all up to eleven.
The Who: Kind of took what both the Stones and the Beatles were doing, and made it artier, more sonic, and amped rock's R&B roots.  My personal favorite of my top four.  I saw somebody saying something about these guys being the grandfathers of punk on VH1.  I think it was doucheface from Green Day.  But Eddie Vedder's kind of said something similar.  I've never figured out that connection, but if Eddie Vedder can make sense of it, then who am I to argue?  So I guess these guys are the grandfathers of punk, too.

5. Tie-The Ramones/Sex Pistols:  More or less killed seventies rock, definitely killed disco, and ignited punk.  Stooges might get an honorable mention in this category, but while they've influenced the cooler punk bands, Ramones and Sex Pistols have a wider reaching influence in today's rock and roll.

7. Sonic Youth/the Pixies: The only rock that matters anymore is "alternative" rock.  It wouldn't exist without these two bands.  I'd like to put both of these bands in front of The Ramones and the Sex Pistols, just because I like Sonic Youth and the Pixies better than I like The Ramones or the Sex Pistols, but in all honesty and fairness, I wonder if we would have had Sonic Youth and the Pixies without The Ramones or the Sex Pistols.

9. Black Sabbath:  The only rock that used to matter was metal, and Sabbath forged it out of what Zeppelin was doing with Beatles/Stones rock and roll.  Now there's this kind of nu-metal **** that all the kids love, which has taken the grungy edge of alternative rock and fused it with the dumbness of glam metal, but all of that can be traced back to Sabbath.  But don't hold that against Sabbath, without whom we wouldn't have acts like Tool.

[Sidenote:  Where the hell is good metal?  And by good, I don't necessarily mean fast stuff like Slayer or whatever.  I don't like poppy metal either, and I hate the rap/rock hybrid nu-metal garbage (which doesn't include Rage Against the Machine, but does include pretty much everything else out there, like **** messiahs Linkin Park).  I guess what I'm saying is this:  Tool is my favorite band in the whole world.  They do stuff that blows me away thematically and sonically.  Where can a Tool fan, who loves Tool but doesn't like A Perfect Circle or Cradle of Filth or any of their clones, find something to hit the spot in between Tool efforts?  And I don't mean hard rock like Local H or At the Drive-In, both of whom I like a lot for what they are...but I want something metallic and blistering loud and rock and scary.

Any suggestions?  Thanks in advance.]

10. Nirvana: By closing the door on hair metal and bringing meaningful rock back into the mainstream, these guys not only caused the explosion of "grunge" (although admittedly they didn't "invent" it), Nirvana changed the face of rock and roll forever.  To be fair on this one, though, I'd have to say that Jane's Addiction is to Nirvana what Iggy and the Stooges are to The Ramones and the Sex Pistols.

Pink Floyd doesn't fit in anywhere, but I love them.

I really don't like U2, but I recognize that they're a very good rock band.  But they have inspired absolute ****.  I blame U2 for Matchbox Twenty and Vertical Horizon and all that crap, so even though I will admit that U2 are talented, I hate them.

Linkin Park soooooooooooo eats my balls.

How can anyone confuse Crazytown with anyone else?  That's...that's like confusing Justin Timberlake with the lead singer from N'SYNC.

Poetic lyrics ("Such a sexy, sexy, pretty little thing;
Fierce nipple pierce; You got me sprung with your tongue ring") over a cribbed and looped Red Hot Chili Peppers instrumental (don't believe me?  download "Pretty Little Ditty" from RHCP's "Mother's Milk" album)?

Gosh damn brilliant.

I'm going with Shifty, too, although a close second would be this one:

Oh, I get it.  Virex likes Wilco, Wilco puts out an album entitled "A Ghost is Born," Virex dies, and "Ghost of Virex" is born.

Something like that?

Holy crap.

Two things:

To make matters even worse, my phone's dying and because of my father's asinine behavior I forgot the car charger.

That is so total bull.  Your dad may have been being a dick, but there's no cause/effect there, man 

And the other thing, I've gotta ask:  compared with your Hurricane experience, does the Rebel Fleet Trooper still suck?

For reals, I'm glad you're alive and hope you had sex with your girlfriend to stay warm.

"KHAAAAAAAN!"

Like a lot of you, country music makes me weep.  I start crying whenever I hear country music for more than a couple of songs in a row, just because it hurts so much to know I'm enduring it rather than just being dead.  It was like that when a friend put on a "Creed" CD, too.

But other than that, the song that makes me tear up is "Step Into the Light" by The Afghan Whigs.  Most personal break-up song ever.

Found one for a reasonable deal.  Thanks, though, to those that were helping me.