"24 Seven" column, by Dan Lorenzo - Feb 27, 2002

If you grew up in the 70's/80's listening to old Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin it's kind of tough to get too excited about any new bands out now. Alice In Chains and Clutch are probably the only 2 bands to release "perfect records" in the 90's. Yeah, there have been some bands who wrote a handful of great songs, but nobody releases "perfect records" any more. The thought process of bands today is: write a couple of songs that would fit on K-Rock, record another 7 "filler" songs, promote, tour, repeat. Like I said, if you grew up wearing out the vinyl listening to "Highway To Hell" how in the hell are you going to get excited by mediocre bands like Drowning Pool, Fuel etc.. Anywho....I sell advertising for a living, I write for free. I started writing to 1) Piss people off 2) Get free stuff. Accomplishing both has it's downside. Every day I've got wacky publicists calling, mailing me lame ass cd's. After years of being disappointed with most cd's I've received it takes longer and longer to open up a disc and actually listen to it. I recently got a disc and calls from a guy pushing a local artist named Bumblefoot. I opened his press kit and found out the guitarist/vocalist Ron Thal is a real musician. A virtuoso. Now I hate real musicians because they can never seem to write great songs. To make a long story short....Oh my God! What have we here? His new cd 9.11 is unbelievable. Probably the best guitarist I have ever heard, bizarre, fascinating songs. The guy's pretty well known in Japan and Europe - I'm sure if there is any justice in the sleazy world known as "the music business" this dude will be huge.     Visit www.bumblefoot.com


  
AXE magazine

FEB 2002 (ITALY)