New Tuneage: Snake, Joe B, King’s X

Man, new music never gets old…not the greatest choice of words but you know what I mean. Here are three that caught my ears recently, might be news to you too.

Before getting into it all, just bear this in mind: None of these vids sound remotely like they should, meaning YouTube and the internet aren’t doing them justice. Still, you can hear the good ol’ tone-age on there.

Whitesnake: Forevermore

Don’t know where I was the other day but had the radio on, and it gradually dawned on me that I was listening to a Whitesnake tune I hadn’t heard before. (Am I late to this party? Saw the vid below had been watched 200K+ times already.)

I also was hearing a guitar tone that to me sounded better than anything else Doug Aldrich has done with the Snake. His same muscular distorted tone, but somehow rounder. Almost like the note wraps around the distortion rather than the usual other way around. Kind of Dumble-esque in a way.

I’m only mentioning Doug because apparently he records more of the parts than Reb Beach. But that might’ve changed on the new album – Reb says he plays “90% more” guitar on this album than past ones. I’ll try to track down both guit-slingers, but in a future post will at least get into their published gear details. Enjoy!

(Get a free download of the tune on the Whitesnake homepage here.)

Joe Bonamassa: Dust Bowl

What did I get in the mail recently? Another Joe Bonamassa CD! Really dig the fact that Joe is old school: tour your brains out, put out new music at least once a year. Remember those days?

With new bands – and older, established bands – seems like it’s a new record every couple years and a mega-venue tour to support it. Props to Joe for doing what so many bands in the past have done to be successful – work hard! An approach that seems to have been largely forgotten in the current morose, chase-all-things-digital music industry.

I’ll of course be posting a full review of the new disc titled Dust Bowl as soon as I give it a couple of thorough listenings. But I can tell you that a) it’s good, b) his tone is good (no surprise), c) it ranges from blues to country to even a couple Sabbath-sounding riffs in a blues context, and d) it’s easily worth the bucks at retail.

Here’s the title track – free download here. Heard he has a new drummer, digging the beat on this one.

King’s X: Live in London

Don’t know if the King’s X Live in London DVD qualifies as “new” since it came out in late October of last year, but it’s new to me. My son gave it to me for Christmas, pretty sad that the first chance we had to watch it was this week.

Definitely better late than never – I love it. Love the band, the sound is great, the HD is great – much better than the fuzzy memories I have of seeing the band many times. I’ll also give this a full review soon, but here’s a taste. Long live King’s X!

Category: Doug Aldrich, Joe Bonamassa, King's X, Reb Beach