The First Ever MAAA

Alright! The votes are in. The most important award since the Heisman trophy is about to be given away. Some people, (W) didn't vote because of really stupid reasons, the people that did vote are done. I am ready to give out the first annual, Fall MAAA.

Before I do, I would like to congratulate some of the awesome bands that unfortunately didn't make the cut.

• Santana
• AC/DC
• Traffic
• Aerosmith
• Cream
• CCR
• Van Halen
• The Jimi Hendrix Experience
• Jeff Beck
• Johnny Cash
• Bob Dylan
• Snakes on a Band
• The Kyle Mandro Experience
• Vanilla Ice

I probably left out a ton, but those are some of the greatest that didn't make my list.

Okay! The votes are in.

And the winner is....................

The Beatles!!!!

Yeah, we knew the winner from the very beginning. The greatest band ever (arguably) takes home the Award. Let's see how the votes turned out.

The Beatles: 4 Votes (Michard, Joe, Liam, Chambers)

Led Zeppelin: 2 Votes (Michard, Alex)

Neil Young: 2 Votes (Joe, Alex)

Lynyrd Skynyrd: 2 Votes: (Pat, Liam)

Pink Floyd: 1 Vote: (Pat)

Well, that's it and that's all. Thanks for voting. Now, we wait till the Spring.

MAAA Part III

This is the toughest Part of the whole thing. Picking the final bands, and also the final way to vote. After thinking a ton about this, I made my decision. Everyone will get two votes, and I will get two also. You cannot vote for the same band twice, although I can if I want to. So, take your time on this, there is no reason to rush, go back, look at the options, look at the bands on this page, then make your final votes.

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Sorry about this racist pick, I had to because Patty was upset about it. But, I do have to admit, Skynyrd was a pretty kick-ass band. Getting voted into the Hall of Fame (2006) has to mean something. Pat needs to get over that they were pretty racist, but on top of being racist, they were good.

One of the first Skynyrd CDs I bought, in fact the only one I own, is The viscous Cycle Tour. It's crazy. The first time I listened to Simple Man, I knew that I was going to like these guys a lot. And it wasn't just Simple Man. It was Free Bird, Gimme Back My Bullets, Trouble Troulble, The Ballard of Curtis Lowe, That's The Way I Like it, They Call me the Breeze, I Know a Little, Mississippi Kid, Red, White and Blue, and some others. It is one of the better CDs that I own.

This band had some changes, in fact, a lot of them. There were deaths and replacements in the band, but the original cast looked like this. Ronnie Van Zant, Bob Burns, and Gary Rossington. This happened after, Ronnie hit a baseball that hit Burns in the head, who was watching the game with Gary. The three later added Allen Collins, Larry Junstrom and Billy Powel. The cast now looks like this: Gary Rossington, (guitar) Billy Powell, (piano) Ean Evans, (bass) Rickey Medlocke, (guitar) Johnny Van Zant, (vocals) and Michael Cartellone on the drums. A little racist, but very good.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young/Neil Young

You have to put Neil Young on a top ten bands list. His stuff with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was amazing, and his stuff today is still awesome. It might not be as rockin as it used to be, but he is still an incredible musician. Lately, I am hooked on Parie Wind. I never realized how good it really was. I really have to thank Alex a lot for getting me involved with Neil. Now, I totally can agree with him that he is one of the greatest musicians of all time.

Crazy Stuff. The list includes, Hey, Hey, My, My, Ohio, The Painter, No Wonder, Cinnamon Girl, Old Man, Heart of Gold, Almost Cut My Hair, Sea of Madness, Down By the River, and a lot more. The only bad thing is he has credit with making some of the worst records in the world, but this really wasn't his fault, he did it just to get back at the record company. In case you were wondering, I think that these albums were called Everybody's Rockin' and Long May You Run. But other than that, the best stuff.

The Eagles

Yup. Some might be surprised at this pick, but they were voted the fourth greatest band of all time. I was kind of shocked by this when I immediately heard it, but then I stopped and took the time to think about the Eagles and their songs. And I don't think that they should be the fourth greatest band of all time, but they're definitely up there.

They were a rock/country rock band with an outstanding sound. Some of the big ones were Take it Easy, Withchy Woman, Tequila Sunrise, One of These Nights, Hotel California, Heartache Tonight, Life in The Fast Lane, The Long Run, and some other top ten and number one hits. Hotel California is one of my favorite songs of all time, and it might win a MAAA for best song ever, who knows.

This was extremely hard. There were so, so many bands that I could've chose. It was one of my toughest decsions since asked what's my favorite Seinfelf episode. But, I've made my decsion.

The Final nominee is...................

The Allman Brothers

Whew. That was wicked hard, but it's over. That's the last of them. I'm glad for the Allman Brothers, they deserve this spot. Although I wasn't really happy with the Meadowbrook concert, they still are such a good band. They have one of the more unique sounds on this list. Kind of a countryish sound, but still a pretty cool rock and roll/blues sound to them. I like it.

The Band, Duane Allman, Greg Allman, Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks, Jai Johanson, was an awesome original crew. Duane Allman, crazy, Greg Allman, awesome, but that soon changed. With Duane Allman's death on OCTOBER 29, 1971, (that's for the record, now we all know) the band took a big hit. Fortunately, they kept on rockin and producing'. Some of their greatests were Little Martha, Statesborough Blues, Wasted Words, Trouble No More, Midnight Rider, Stormy Monday, Jessica, Ramblin' Man, One Way Out, Hot Lanta, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, and for the sake of it, Mountain Jam. Yeah, a deserver of their 1995 Hall of Fame induction, the Allman Brothers definitely could be a top 5 band of all time.

That it! Those are your nominees! Start Voting!

MAAA Part 2

Alright, the second part is underway. I know that I'm doing all of this really fast, but you're in no rush to vote. I think that I've decided that each person will get two votes, and you can't vote for the same band twice, but I'm not to sure yet. Well, here are three more nominees.

The Rolling Stones

Arguably THE classic rock band. This band consisted of some Hall of Famers as well. Mick Jagger, (probably the most recognizable male singer besides Elvis) and Keith Richards, a guitar God of the 70's. From starting in '62, they haven't stopped Rolling yet.

From the get go, you could tell that this band was at least going to be a little different. Just a couple of young, crazy guys involved in the British Invasion, but boy could they play music. The original cast included Mick Jagger, Keith (on Rythm!), Brain Jones on lead, Ian Stewart, (piano) Dick Taylor, (bass) and a couple of drummers, none of them were really perminante.

Their first real hit was a cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On." This was the starter that got it going for the Stones. After that came some of the greatest songs of all time. Satisfaction, Under My Thumb, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Gimme Shelter, You Can't Always Get What You Want, Sympathy for the Devil, Honkey Tonk Women, Paint it Black, Brown Sugar, It's only Rock and Roll. Yeah, tons and tons of 'em. It's crazy. And after 45 years, they haven't stopped! They're doing a Bigger Bang tour right now.

The Who

My original favorite band. One of the first CDs I ever got was The Who: Live at the Royal Albert Hall. I thought it was good. Later I found out that when The Who did this CD, they were all around 70 years old. I was shocked. I immediately went out and got one of their CDs done in their prime. It was awesome. I have the Then and Now CD. It contains all of their hits. It is easily one of my favorite CDs.

This band was crowned the godfathers of punk. Unfortunately, maybe because of The Who, we have Yellowcard today. Damn. Anyway, it was a Hall of Fame band, literally. Keith Moon on drums, Pete Townshend on lead, Roger Dultry on vocals and the greatest bassist of all-time, John Entwhistle. I don't really like bassists, he is the only one I think is amazing. The solos of his were mind blowing. Listen to Live at the Leeds. On Amazing Journey/Sparks go around 4:15 in and listen to the bass solo. I can't describe it. It's crazy.

Some hits were Who Are You?, 5:15, Subsitute, My Generation, Happy Jack, Summertime Blues, Magic Bus, Relay, Bargin, I Can't Explain, Baba O'Riley, I Can See for Miles, Behind Blue Eyes, Squeeze Box, and probably a lot of others that I'm forgetting. Definitely a top ten band of all time.

Pink Floyd

Not exactly a tough decision. Floyd was definitely a defining rock and roll band. Although they were a little different than a typical rock and roll band, I think that that difference helped put them in a different league. No One can honestly say that there is another band like them, and some might argue that there is not a band out there that was as good as they were.

The Band name had always puzzled me. If you really analyze it, it's weird, and not rock at all. But, the name came from two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The members included Syd Barret, lead vocals and rhythm guitar (who passed away this year), David Gilmour, lead guitar/vocals, Nick Mason, percussion, Roger Waters, bass lead vocals and Richard Wright, keyboards and vocals. This is the same band with two of the most famous albums in the world, Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall.

A cool thing about Pink Floyd is that if you count a couple of their hits, the song ties into another one. On Dark Side of the Moon, there are a couple of songs leading up to Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, but they are all just flowing one into another. It's wicked cool. Some hits were Speak to Me/Breath, Brain Damage, Money, Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, Comfortably Numb, Run Like Hell, Wish you Were Here, Have a Cigar, Welcome to the Machine, you get the picture. Roger Waters is still wicked good in concert, go see him.

That's that for Part Two. Sorry I can't get a lot of pics on here.

1st Annual M triple A awards

Okay, since everybody is doing awards lately, I'm going to do some too. The first annual MAAA (Michard's Awesome achievement Awards.) The MAAA will be held every October and also every April, so there will be an MAAA every fall and spring. The fall category for 2006 is....Bands. I am doing the greatest bands of all-time. This is going to be set up kind of weird. There will be four total parts to this thing. First part, this post, the three beginning nominees. Next, another post with four nominees. 3rdly a post with three nominees. The final post will announce the first MAAA ever. It might be decided by me or you, I'm not too sure yet.
Here are this fall's nominees.

Led Zeppelin.
Of course. One of the most successful rock and roll bands. They were the "definitive" metal band. These guys transformed the blues into a new kind of music. Not many bands can be credited with practically creating a new sound.

The band was an all star line up. Jimmy Page, arguably the one of the best guitar players of all time, Robert Plant, who in my opinion is the greatest singer of all time, John Bonham, the greatest drummer of all time, no questions asked, and John Paul Jones. Jones kind of was a standout, put he still could play the bass very well.

This was one of the only bands that you could not name all of their hits. They must have had at least dozens. These included songs like Black Dog, Heartbreaker, Stairway to Heaven, Kashmir, D'Yer Mak'er, The Ocean, Bring it On Home, Over the Hills and Far Away, the list goes on forever. These songs were not all early metal though, it was a range of minor, rock and roll, blues, metal, almost a regge type of sound in D'Yer Mak'er, and major. I think that Zeppelin was the only band having this much range in their stuff, and actually having it all be great.

Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Oh Yeah! You knew this was coming. My favorite guitarist of all time. The greatest blues guitarist ever. Some might say that this can't be a topic because he is a solo artist. Well to those people, you are idiots. He did it with Double Trouble. This consited of drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon, (the ex-bassist for Johnny Winter.)

He dropped out of high school to focus on his music career at the age of 16. This is the biggest risk anyone could ever take, he could have wound up with nothing. But instead it payed off. After a brief stint with the Cobras, SRV and Double Trouble was formed. His first album, Texas Flood, was amazing and received great critical reviews, as did his fourth album In step, the the second and third were good and went gold like the 1st and 4th. Unfortunately, the music world came to a shock after the announcement that Stevie Ray Vaughn was killed in a plane crash that took place on August 27, 1990. He was 45 years old.

He was a genius. There were many accounts from Stevie's wife saying that she could not sleep because Stevie played guitar in his sleep. So think about it, there really was not one point through out the day where he was not playing guitar, and it really showed. Some of his greatest hits included songs like Texas Flood, Couldn't Stand the Weather, Pride and Joy, Crossfire, I'm Cryin', Testify, Tightrope, and some other solo songs like Lenny and Rude Mood. As people in Chicago would say, he's, da best.

The Beatles

Voted the greatest band of all time. Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrsion, and Ringo. Four of the biggest names in music history. This band is a definition of a superband. Although Paul, (or was it George?) said, "We're not great musicians. We're just a bunch of guys singing and playing music." Yeah, I kind of think differently. All of them had to be decent musicians if they were voted as the greatest band ever.

Earlier I said that Zeppelin is a band where you can't even count all of their hits, but it is even more true with the Beatles. Elanor Rigby, Help!, Penny Lane, Yesterday, Let it Be, Hey Jude, Get back, Yellow Submarine, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Come Together, Here Comes the Sun, Hello Goodbye, and these are only a couple. I almost guarantee if you listen to a classic rock station, you'll hear at least a half a dozen Beatles songs by the time the day is done. These guys were awesome. If you search Google images for The Beatles, you'll almost get 400,000 results, Zeppelin, almost a tenth of that, 43,500.

Okay, that does it for the first part. Until the 2nd, Peace.

Guitarists

I recently read an article about the greatest underrated guitar players of all time. I found this thing really interesting and kind of odd. He listed players such as Howard Leese, (Heart) Mick Mars, (Motley Crue) and Steve Clark, (Def Leopard.) Now, I really did disagree with a lot of this. Was it an awful article? No, it was wicked good, but I think that a lot of people might agree with me on these reasons.

One of the guitarists on this list was Elliot Easton of the Cars. The Cars, great classic rock band a couple of good hits, solid vocals, but no absolutely killer guitar. Some might argue that he couldn't really do an awesome solo because of the music style that his band played. It was kind of mellow rock for all of you idiots that do not know who the Cars are. But he could have. I have heard many guitarists do soft solos that are wicked good. Page in some Zeppelin songs, Satriani with some of his softer solo songs, Hendrix with, well, a ton of songs, you could go on and on. I know these guys are absolutely in a different category and they play a lot differently, but the least he could do is add some cool riffs in there somewhere. If he was one of the all time greats you would have a least have heard of him.

This one really pissed me off. Slash from Guns and Roses, and also Velvet Revolver. He is not under rated. And if you don't know anything about Slash, he's now in a Volkswagen playing guitar out of one of their new models. Anyway, that is crazy. If you are into music, and especially if you play guitar, you have heard of Slash. He is one of the people on the list of top 50 guitarists of all time. Yeah, anyone who is on this list is not underrated, is wicked good and is someone people have had to have heard of. Extremely good, from a good band. I really disagree with what the article said. An all time great.

Now, you could really put up some strong arguments against this post. And, what the hell? Go for it, leave a comment about it. I want to hear what you guys think about this.
Free Mumia!!!

V for Vendetta

Now I know I said that I would not be posting for a while, but I have absolutely nothing to do today. I had to delete all of my CDs on iTunes and rip them all over again. It is a pain in the ass. But, at least I have something to post about today. Last night, me, Kyle, Alex, Lee, and Patty went over Chambers house to watch V for Vendetta. This was an awesome movie. I said that Four Brothers was great, and sweet and all of that stuff. It was, but V blows this movie out of the water. It was so good. Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving did so well in this movie. Although, I've gotta add that Alex kept saying how hot Natalie was. Do I agree, of course, but it was kind of annoying.
Michard's thoughts on V:
This was the best movie I have seen in a while. I have been complaining for a little while that there are no great movies anymore, but this shut me up. It was solid all the way around. Beginning, ending, story line, everything. Hugo, who I have really never heard of, did a really good job.
It is kind of freaky though. The movie itself isn't scary, but it is kind of scary to think about. If that stuff really could happen in the future, well, to say at the least, it would suck. The Government controls you. You are scared out of your damn mind by the Government. "The people should not be afraid of it's Government, the Government should be afraid of it's people."
Which brings me to another point. I have never heard so many good quotes in one movie. Sure, "Shake and Bake" and "If you ain't first, you're last," there was like 10 wicked good quotes in there. Here are a couple of them.
"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. There is an idea, Mr. Creedy - and ideas are bulletproof."
"When all your bullets are gone, I better not be standing, because you'll all be dead before you reload."
"Remember, remember, the fifth of November, The gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."
And THE V quote-
"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you, and you may call me V."

A to A+. Go see this movie.

Number 3

Okay, this might be my last post for a little while. I've kind of figured out that blogs are kind of a waste of time. This one is all about the Number 3. Three main topics, on the 3rd day of October.

First topic. Today is Stevie Ray Vaughn's birthday. I think, along with millions of other people, that he is the greatest blues guitar player ever. This guy was amazing. And I can listen to Stevie Ray Vaughn, on my new iPod! That's right, ordered it Friday, came in today. Having some trouble with the videos and photos, but I'll figure it out. Thrid and Final topic, Fantasy Football! This time, I remain undefeated in not just two leagues now, but three. The only 4-0 team in my Yahoo! league (300.33 points, weird, 3 3s, creepy.) I am still 4-0 in my ESPN league, alothough I'm slipping a little bit, I'm in second still. And, to top it all off, I beat Patty really bad for the my first game of my new league. He was talking smack to me all week so this win was very fun/important. Alright, that's it.
PEACE.