By Steve Newton
If you’ve been visiting Ear of Newt for the last year or two you’ve no doubt figured out that I’m not a big fan of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I mean, Jann Wenner and his jackass buddies piss me off the way they totally ignore some of the most worthy candidates for induction and instead pay homage to acts that are about as far away from rock and roll as you can imagine.
Heck, I even created a category called This Is Where We Slag the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which I update with new posts whenever the Rock Hall ticks me off enough.
I wasn’t even planning to slag them tonight, but yesterday I did a phone interview with guitar legend Marty Friedman, and when I realized that I’d reached him in Cleveland–where he was playing a show at the Beachland Ballroom–I started ragging on the RRHOF. Turns out he feels exactly the same!
“Well we could talk for hours on that,” he said with a chuckle. “Why are the Bee Gees in there and not Rory Gallagher? Which one rocks harder?”
“But anyway,” he added with an audible shrug, “that’s a whole ‘nother topic.”
Indeed it is another topic, Marty. A topic, as it turns out, for this very blog.
And the good news, of course, is that last June my own institution, Newt’s Rock Hall, inducted Gallagher–along with Deep Purple, Johnny Winter, Iron Maiden, and Link Wray.
And one day I might just induct Marty Friedman, too.
I mean, before he made all those awesome solo albums, he played the guitar solo on “Symphony of Destruction”, right?
And I’m pretty sure that rocks harder than the Bee Gees too.
(Don’t forget to see Marty Friedman on his current North American tour. He plays the Rickshaw in Vancouver on September 26.)