Artist Playlist: Transona Five

Transona Five began playing together in 1994 and were most active in the late ‘90s through the early ‘00s.

We were incredibly lucky to be part of the somewhat underground music scene in Denton, Dallas and Fort Worth with bands like Comet, Mazinga Phaser, The Theater Fire, My Friend the Atom, Lift to Experience, Stumptone, Light Bright Highway, The Reds, Cave Dweller, Centromatic, The Baptist Generals, Go Metric USA, Gropius, and other Texans: American Analog Set, Windsor for the Derby, Sixteen Deluxe, Furry Things, You Will Know Us…, Schrasj, Black Lipstick and more.

But even before this we were listening to music that was inspiring us to pick up our own guitars. This is a brief sampling of some of that music.

Artist Playlist: The Riven

Here are some of our favorites.

Enjoy!



Here’s a classic one! Sgt. Peppers had just been released two days before and Jimi decided to play that song before jumping on stage. McCartney was in the audience and you can imagine his face! After the crazy solo at the end Hendrix had to ask Clapton (who also happened to be in the audience!) to help him tune up the guitar.

Artist Playlist: Escape Is Not Freedom

Alice in Chains - "Junkhead"

Early Alice In Chains had the perfect combination of heavy and melody. This song encapsulates that really well. It's also a great example of how talented of a vocalist Layne Staley really was.

 

Artist Playlist: Sail

We are Sail, and we listen to a whole bunch of different music.

We've got a lot of love for sludge and post-rock - this shows in the music we create - but our individual tastes spread far and wide.

The four of us come from different musical backgrounds and we've all got different favourites; here's a quick selection.

 Deep Purple - Burn


[Charlie] The song that made me want to pick up a guitar all those years ago.

The riff is fantastically simple and to-the-point, a real earworm and powerful as all hell. Deep Purple have such a cool progressive vibe whilst still writing grade A songs and I was instantly hooked.

I still remember when I first heard the track and listening to it now gives me exactly the same feeling as it did back then - a very important song indeed.

Artist Playlist: Arriver Shows Us The Metal

Disclaimer: as an "All-Time Favorites” list, this necessarily focuses on things I’ve been listening to for years, rather than newer music that has jumped out at me so don’t assume I checked out in 2008.

Also, this list is tailored toward the Heavy-Rock-Metal crowd, and criminally neglects John Fahey, Doc Watson, Bert Jansch, Steeleye Span, Songs: Ohia, the first Dire Straits album and loads of other classics that aren’t quite so bellicose.

Bad Brains “The Messengers” Quickness

I'll take Quickness over I Against I. Dr. Know’s best record, also Bad Brain’s best sounding record.