Two videos for this Friday. Both are from the recently released documentary ‘Soul Power.’ Put it in the ole netflix queue now. It’s a great story, but the music…wow. Only complaint, each band only gets about 1 or 2 songs in the film.

An amazingly funky version of “Thrill Is Gone” from BB King. ouch!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vWL8jAWbP8]

some incredible drumming from Big Black:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8FPADf3yaQ]

Nick Loss-Eaton and I had the pleasure of going to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Monday – Peter Wolf was there to perform his incredible song “Tragedy,” from ‘Midnight Souvenirs,’ with Shelby Lynne. The performance was dynamite, watch it here!

A pic of Peter on the cover of Rolling Stone, framed and hanging in the ‘Late Night’ green room. Peter signed it!

Peter, Shelby and band before the taping:

A post-show pic with Peter, Shelby, and Jimmy.

Nick and I also saw a porcupine wandering around the backstage area. Neither of us volunteered to put him back in his cage. No photo of that, unfortunately.

It’s one of the oldest traditions on this here blog, and this seemed like a good Friday to bring back another installment. Pun intended, and just terrible, by the way. Sorry.

Anyways, you could make a full time job out of posting mash-up type music related videos off of YouTube, but this one struck me as particularly inspired:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLkOYHYQ2tc]

Death Metal and classic Armstrong, matching those two was just a matter of time right? I have to confess, though I did have a pretty serious taste towards the heavier side of rock as an adolescent youth with hair (first concert ever attended: Guns’n'Roses, 1987, opening for Aerosmith just after Appetite for Destruction came out, woo hoo!) I could never really get with death metal.

I kind of wanted to like it, I mean it seems so “real” in that absurd completely fake 13 year old worldview way at least. And one of my closest friends and fellow bandmates back in those days was a total fanatic for it — but well, taste is taste and you like what you like. I can sometimes get into the playing (especially some of those insanely fast drummers) but at the end of the day, I don’t own the albums.

But, it’s a good segue though to another great YouTube video to round out today’s installment. That aforementioned friend went on to grow up and be old like we all did, but did not compromise one bit and has continued to rocks the death metal to this day, a habit that’s actually responsible for one of the most viewed videos ever posted on YouTube, this stone cold classic:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJJHk4hSFB4]

Brilliant. And actually there’s an interesting story behind this video, well worth a read.

So here’s to a happy YouTube Friday, and may you have fields of green and skies of blue this weekend.