Paul Altobelli R.I.P.

Seconds before I was tragically killed by 10,000 balloons.

Top Five Records: Great Song Outros

1. Layla - Derek & The Dominoes - The granddaddy of great song endings.  Dominoes drummer, Jim Gordon, contributed the elegiac piano coda for this close.  He later went to hatchet his mother to death.
   
   
2. Starship Trooper - Yes - Starship Trooper is actually comprise of three songs:  Life Seeker, Disillusion and The Würm.  The Würm is a continuous cadenza of chords (|G-Eb|C|) that my buddy Tim Weaver taught me to play on the guitar.  It's only one of two songs I can play on the guitar.  The other is Louie Louie.
   
   
3. I Want You (She's So Heavy) - Beatles - This song held the title for the "world's coldest ending" until Townshend released "Face the Face."
   
   
4. Drop Dead Legs - Van Halen - One of the all time greatest guitar solo outro fades
   
   
5. Austraila - Kinks - The beginning of this tune is a typical very British sounding late sixties Kinks song.  Then, it morphs into an extended guitar jam that will leave you speechless. 

Honorable mentions:

• Rock and Roll - Velvet Underground
  
• Good Morning Good Morning - Beatles - Lennon asked engineer Geoff Emerick to arrange the animal noises heard at the end of the song so that the animal was capable of devouring or frightening the animal that came before it.
  
• Won't Get Fooled Again -THE WHO - Beginning with the line, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
• She's The One - Bruce Springsteen - live version
  
• 40 - U2 - For years U2 would end their concerts with this song.  I vividly remember walking out Brenden Byrn Arena singing the final chorus, "How long to sing this song?".

Dishonorable mentions: 
Stevie Wonder has a thing for extending songs two or three minutes longer than they should be.  "Golden Lady" is like one long-ass 6:53 outro.  It goes on and on and on.  Another song he kills is with an extended outro is "Maybe Your Baby".

Please feel free to comment and give me your Top Five.

Remembering Rick Wright

Rick Wright has passed on to The Great Gig in the Sky. He was 65 years old.

Top Five Records: Great Song Intros

A few weeks ago my friend Beth Mann, ask me me to list my favorite great song intros and closers. It took me a while to come up with my list because there were so many to choose from. At the same time I'm finishing reading Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. A book featuring many Top Five lists. So, between Beth's question and the book I decided to start including my favorite Top Five lists to my blog. I'm doing this because 1) I believe it will be fun to come up with Top Five lists and 2) they're easy to write. So, with a nod to Beth, I give you my Top Five Great Song Intros. Please feel free to comment and give me your Top Five.

1. Hell's Bells - AC/DC - Can you think of any other song intro that is as cool as this one? Really. Even today, almost thirty years later, this song intro still gives me goosebumps.
2. Baba O'Riley - The Who - One of the great all-time song intros. I think I like the intro more that the song.
   
3. Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix - For me, this song (more so than Purple Haze) defines the essence of Hendrix's soul. It combines rock and blues and throws in the Wah Wah intro for extra spice.
4. Money, Time - Pink Floyd - These two intros were actually assembled and engineered by Alan Parsons. Yes, that Alan Parsons.
5. Eruption into You Really Got Me - Van Halen - These two songs - and especially the transition from Eruption into You Really Got Me - have probably accounted for more kids picking up the guitar than any others in the history of rock.

Honorable mentions:

• What I'd Say - Ray Charles
• Am Trying to Break Your Heart - Wilco
• Welcome to the Jungle" Guns'n'Roses
• Tomorrow Never Knows - Beatles
• Monkey Man - Rolling Stones
  

Dishonorable mentions: 
I think Al Green is great.  I love his music.  Many of his songs, however, start wimpy and end incredibly strong including:  Love And Happiness and Beware.

43 Things

I can recall two times in my life when I actually wrote down realistic goals I wanted to accomplish in a short time period. The first list was 1992 and it included "buy a home" and "figure out what I want to do with my life." A year later I living in my first home and getting ready to go back to college. My second list included "quit smoking" and "lose weight." I haven't really smoked in eight years and I lost 30 pounds. So, my point is that I seem to meet my goals when I write them down.

A few days ago I discovered 43 Things or 43things.com. 43 Things is a social networking web site that is ask users to list a number of goals or hopes; these goals are connected to other people's goals that are constructed with similar words or ideas. So far I've come up with seven goals. One of which is to contribute to my blog on a regular basis.

Top Five Records: Hurricanes

In what I hope will become a regular feature on my blog - here is the first in a series of my "Top Five" lists. With a nod to the "mother of all storms," Gustav, here are my Top Five Records about hurricanes in no particular order and without including the obvious.



Listen / Download:
Lena Horne - Stormy Weather
Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
Billy "The Kid" Emerson - When It Rains It Pours
REO Speedwagon - Ridin' the Storm Out
ELO - Standing in the Rain

My Beatles related / Abbey Road photos

August 18 - 22, 2008

Two weeks ago a lifelong dream came to fruition. I walked across the most famous cross walk in the world: Abbey Road. Abbey Road is located in a section of London called St. John's Wood. To get there I took the Tube and listened to side one of the album names after the street. While sitting there I took pictures and listened to side two. Once "Her Majestry" was over I listened to "Great Gig In the Sky" - the Pink Floyd classic from Dark Side of the Moon - an album also recorded at Abbey Road. It was an amazing day.

Here are the photos from that day and I also included a few shots from 3 Savile Row - site of the Beatles "Rooftop Concert."

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but this is ridiculous. Here's few of my favorite Abbey Road "covers."

Longua de Trapo

"Vinte e Um Anos na Estrada"

Paul McCartney

"Paul Is Live"

The Rutles

"Shabby Road"

Benny Hill
"Best Of Benny Hill"

Booker T. & the MG's

"McLemore Avenue"

A cover album of Abbey Road songs, released a few months after the Beatles album.
McLemore Avenue is the location of Stax Records.

Kanye West

"Late Orchestration: Live at Abbey Road Studios"

Find more Abbey Road cover parodies by visiting http://stupidd.blogspot.com

Listen / Download:
Beatles - Oh, Darling
Pink Floyd - Great Gig In The Sky
Beatles - Get Back (rooftop concert)

Concert Ticket Stubs

Twenty Plus Years of Rock Shows

Here is my collection of Philadelphia and Washington DC rock show concert tickets that include The Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Kinks, and THE WHO.

2008 Altobelli Family Vacation

ocean city,md

Little Gram's Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

the greatest of all cookies

I love cookies. I love everything about cookies. I love the shape and the smell and the taste of cookies. I’ve eaten all kinds of cookies - store bought cookies, Christmas cookies, really BIG cookies, and cookies I baked myself. None, however, can compare to my Little Gram’s Chocolate Chip Cookies – the greatest of all cookies.

These cookies are made with chocolate chips, crushed peanuts, brown sugar, shortening, flour, baking soda, and four eggs. All these ingredients are mixed together, molded into about 60 raw cookies, and baked at 400 degrees for thirteen minutes. Believe it or not, this simple formula makes the perfect chocolate chip cookie. They’re practically a food group.

To properly eat this circular blob of perfection, I perform the “Ritual of the Perfect Cookie.” First, I get a large glass of milk. Then, I take the red, slightly dented cookie-filled tin and slowly remove the lid. Inside lay the precious delights. I look for the best one to eat first; its about an inch in diameter and speckled with chocolate chips and peanut chunks. Smiling, I baptize it in the milk and swallow it whole. I eventually consume as many as my mortal body can hold. This is my ritual for eating my Little Gram’s Chocolate Chip Cookies.

When I am eating her cookies I taste sensations that I never dreamed possible. Waves of deliciousness orally enter me, spreading rapidly through my body, and I experience a burst of energy unknown to most humans. I feel as if I have a perfect body, perfect vision, and even perfect spelling. I am mentally and physically a better person, at one with the world. And that is after only one cookie!

It sounds as if I am exaggerating, and maybe I am…just a little, but my Little Gram’s are the best darn cookie I’ve ever eaten. One ingredient of the cookie I failed to mention is also the most important: love. My great grandma’s love gives the cookies shape, taste, character, and that’s why Little Gram’s Chocolate Chip Cookies – are the greatest of all cookies.

Little Gram’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
4 eggs
1 lb of flour
½ lb of brown sugar
1 cup of chopped peanuts
6 oz. of chocolate chips
½ of shortening
¼ tsp of baking soda
¼ tsp of baking powder

Beat shortening then add sugar. When light and fluffy, add eggs. When fluffy add flour and beat. When it gets too heavy for beater add flour by hand. Add nuts and chips. Bake at 14 minutes at 375 or 13 minutes at 400 according to which is best for your stove. Makes approx 60 cookies.




Click here to download / print this chocolate chip cookie recipe.