5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #70

5 Songs to Get You Through the Week is a feature I run on Young Ears, Fresh Perspective on Sundays/early hours of Monday morning where I pick out 5 tunes that I think are notable and tell you a bit about them. The point is to give you some rocking music to help you deal with your weekday blues. You can either listen to one each day, listen to them all at once, or any other combination that you feel. As long as you can get through the week without the man getting you down, that's all I care about. Without further ado, here are the 5 tracks I've picked out for this week:

Quick Notice

Tomorrow there will be NO Young Ears, Fresh Perspective post. Instead, it will be moved to Tuesday when I would normally take a day off. I know, I know. You're all devastated. The reason for this however is because I will be attending a Buckethead concert in Chicago! That said, you guys will be getting a review of the show this coming Tuesday on the blog! I'm pretty stoked myself. This is a concert I've wanted to go to for nine years. Unfortunately I've missed opportunities due to stupid reasons and then there was Buckethead's four year hiatus from touring. That said, this week on 5 Songs to Get You Through the Week it's Buckethead Week!

1. Welcome to Bucketheadland, by Buckethead

I once read somewhere that this was originally supposed to be a cover of Crazy Train, by Ozzy Osbourne. I can kind of notice the resemblance, but the two are entirely different overall. This is the track that for many Buckethead fans introduced them to the madness and creepiness that is this masked guitar playing wonder that adorns a chicken bucket atop his head. Even if the Buckethead story isn't really what you're into, it has some heavy hitting riffs and some finger blistering guitar solos for you to rock out to.

2. Interlude, by Buckethead & Friends

In 2005 Buckethead put out an album called Enter the Chicken where he and a bunch of his musician friends collaborated to make an album. Each song has a different singer/vocalist. This song in particular doesn't even have Buckethead on it at all. It is just Dan Conviser singing and playing  ukulele. Even though it is only an 18 second song, it is one of the most charming tunes I've ever heard. I could have it on repeat for a while and not get sick of it.

3. Hog Bitch Stomp, by Giant Robot

You a fan of chicken pickin' at all? If you are then Buckethead will knock your socks right off with some of the speediest and cleanest sounding blue grass you have ever heard in your life. I guarantee your jaw will hit the ground pretty quickly because there aren't a whole lot of people around who can do that kind of thing. To make it better, it's actually somewhat musically complex if you listen to it close enough; especially given how many parts are woven together to make Hog Bitch Stomp what it is.

4.  Nottingham Lace, by Buckethead & Friends

Time to delve back into Buckethead's more weedily high speed in your face guitar stuff. Also from the Enter the Chicken album, this is a straight up regular Buckethead tune with no vocals. Be that as it may, he does what he does best: big eccentric riffs, lightning quick leads, and haunting melodic solos. The solo in this song is in my opinion one of the absolute pinnacle moments of his recording career. It's epic, long, and in a way is like a song in itself. It even has a bit of an All Along the Watch Tower kind of vibe to it at certain moments.

5.  Jordan, by Buckethead

How many of you remember Guitar Hero II? If you don't, then this is the video game that got Buckethead a lot more exposure from the main stream. For the game he was asked to come up with the most difficult guitar solo he could, so as to give players a real challenge. Needless to say, Buckethead was up to the task. The tune is filled with some of the fastest and craziest playing he can muster in multiple styles. In addition to that, it's actually a pretty good song too. The riff though repetitive is catchy.