Guitar Tournament - Round 3 - Round of 64

The third round of the Guitar Solo Tournament is up. You can access the survey now.

This round will continue through Saturday, May 4 (sometime in the late afternoon). We're down to 64 songs in total; but you can always do some of the survey and save your work, and come back to it later.

From here, it just gets easier (in terms of time) - we'll be halving the number of songs each round. On the other hand, the choices, almost certainly, will become more difficult.

For comparison sake - remember that in the first round, there were 28 bands with three or more songs. Here's the current list of bands with 2+ songs:

5: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Van Halen
3: Eric Clapton
2: Def Leppard, Pink Floyd, The Beatles

ZZ Top - went from 5 songs to just 1. The Black Crowes went from 4 songs to just 1. And a whole lot of surprises happened in the last round.

One of my *favorites* to win the tournament was bumped (Pink Floyd's "On The Turning Away" -- in fact, it got only ONE vote (mine!)). Other surprising eliminations included No Rain (Blind Melon), Be Yourself (Audioslave), Let's Go Crazy (Prince) and Rest in Peace (Extreme), as well as Kenny Wayne Shepherd's "Blue on Black."

But, ultimately, they all would have fallen at some point. Only one can be the champion, and now, we have one bracket to track.

I'd be lying if I told you it was getting easier.

Remember - this round ends this Saturday!

Guitar Tournament - Round 2 Kicks Off

The second full round of the Guitar Solo Tournament is up. You can access the survey now.

This round will continue through Sunday evening (4/28) -- remember, even though there are a decent amount of songs (128 in total) -- you can always stop and continue the survey later (from the same computer). No need to do it all in one sitting.

From here, it just gets easier (in terms of time) - we'll be halving the number of songs each round. On the other hand, the choices, almost certainly, will become more difficult.

For comparison sake - remember that in the first round, there were 28 bands with three or more songs. Here's the current list of bands with 3+ songs:

8: Van Halen
6: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
5: ZZ Top
4: The Black Crowes
3: Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones

Guitar Tournament - Play-In Round

The second play-in round is up  -- this is where we see if the Modern Rock tracks can match up with their Pop/Mainstream Rock counterparts.

This survey closes Sunday evening, with the next round up Monday.

Guitar Tournament - First Round - Part V (the last part)

The link to the survey for the final batch of 64 solos vying for the title of "Greatest Guitar Solo Ever" is up now.

Why are there now FIVE groups? Turns out, I'd forgotten one chart -- the Alternative/Modern rock chart. So, there are now 64 more songs, courtesy of that chart. I don't think many of them will advance particularly far; but a few of them may surprise.

Interestingly - today's Modern Rock chart is basically the closest to the 80s guitar rock that inspired this poll. Mainstream Rock (which used to be guitar rock) has transformed. Back then, it used to be Huey Lewis and the News; today, it's Godsmack.

Modern Rock - early days - had a lot of synth, and, truth be told, there's not a lot of all-out guitar solos (in many cases, the guitar work is happening while the singer is singing).

In any event, the addition of these songs means there'll be one more round -- these winners will be merged into the field for "play-in games" - and then we'll resume with a new field of 128 (total) and head towards our Final Four.

These songs also change the "leader board" for bands with the most songs in the list. Here's an updated tally (only those with 3+ songs):

11: Van Halen
8: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty (and Heartbreakers)
6: Beatles, Black Crowes, U2, ZZ Top
5: Rolling Stones
4: Bon Jovi, Collective Soul, Eric Clapton, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Pink Floyd, REM, Shinedown
3: Aerosmith, Bryan Adams, Bush, Def Leppard, Green Day, Huey Lewis and the News, Jane's Addiction, John Mellencamp, Nirvana, Richard Marx, Rush, Stone Temple Pilots

Remember - you're voting on the guitar solo; not the song, itself. You should be listening to the solo, because you may be surprised that some songs you remember had some pretty great guitar solos. You may like one song more, but find the guitar work is better in the other song. Of course, you can listen to the whole song as well, but the poll isn't about the song; just the guitar.

Why would you listen to the whole song?
1. You want to rediscover the song.
2. You want to learn something new about it.
3. It's reminiscent.
4. You have nothing better to do than listen to 320 songs (this is a judgment-free zone).
 
Here is the bracket for this group (the New Order division):

So, at last, here are ALL the links to all the surveys. These surveys will close on Wednesday, April 17, around 10:30pm EST.

Hendrix Division (part I)
Satriani Division (part II)
Emmett Division (part III)
Malmsteen Division (part IV)
New Order Division (part V)

Guitar Tournament - First Round - Part IV

The link to the survey for the next batch of 64 solos vying for the title of "Greatest Guitar Solo Ever" is up now.

You can access the survey, here.

Here is the bracket for this batch:

This constitutes the full 256 "songs" vying for the crown  ... or so I thought. I realized, late last evening, I may have overlooked one chart. I'll know for certain tomorrow if there'll be one more round, merging those songs (if there even are any) with these. In either event, the next round will kick off with 128 songs.


Stay tuned!

Guitar Tournament - First Round - Part III

The link to the survey for the next batch of 64 solos vying for the title of "Greatest Guitar Solo Ever" is up now.

You can access the survey, here.

Here is the bracket for this batch:

Guitar Tournament - First Round - Part II

The link to the survey for the next batch of 64 solos vying for the title of "Greatest Guitar Solo Ever" is up now.

You can access the survey, here.

Here is the bracket for this batch:

Introducing: The All-Time Greatest Guitar Solo "April" Madness Tournament!

I mentioned on Facebook about a week ago that I would be starting a pretty indepth "survey" again. We'd done this a few years back, when we elected Freddie Mercury the all-time greatest frontman for a rock band.

I've had this idea for a while, and I just knew it would be a lot of work (and it was a LOT of work). Trying to nail down the all-time greatest guitar solo is a daunting task.

So, there were a few guidelines. The song had to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 *OR* the Mainstream Rock 100 charts (that still left more than 1300 songs). I narrowed that down to 256, and rated them (which is how the seeding is established). Originally, I'd thought I could have room for some darkhorses, but eventually, mostly just the cream of the crop remained. I did remove any songs that essentially constituted nothing more than screaming (goodbye most of the Mainstream Rock from the past decade) and also any where the videos were simply disturbing (thankfully, there weren't many of those left, once the screaming songs were discarded).

The survey is set up into FOUR groups of 64 (which will be combined into one, after the first two rounds). I'll put up ONE group of 64 each day for the next four days, and all of them will close NEXT Wednesday. You can save and continue at a later time.

Clicking on the song title will bring you to the video of the song; or you can click on the next link and see JUST the solo (which, after all, is what we're talking about). I urge you to listen to the songs (or at least the solos) - you may be reminded of some long lost memories; or you may even find that songs had pretty sick solos that you wouldn't have expected. I was also surprised at which bands aren't even really represented (either because they didn't end up with a lot of #1 songs (Kiss) or because they weren't really guitar-driven bands (Nirvana, Linkin Park)

Here's a little trivia before we get started (future posts will simply have the link to that day's survey). Here is a list of the bands that had more than one song on the list (no surprise at the top):

11: Van Halen
8: Tom Petty (and Heartbreakers)
6: Beatles, Black Crowes, ZZ Top
5: Rolling Stones
4: Bon Jovi, Collective Soul, Eric Clapton, Metallica, Pink Floyd, Shinedown, U2
3: Aerosmith, Bryan Adams, Def Leppard, Huey Lewis and the News, John Mellencamp, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Richard Marx, Rush
2: Audioslave, Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, Cars, Chicago, Creed, Dire Straits, Don Henley, Eagles, Grand Funk, Green Day, Hall & Oates, Heart, Ozzy Osbourne, Pearl Jam, REM, REO Speedwagon, Santana, Soundgarden, Steve Miller Band, Stone Temple Pilots, Theory of a Deadman, Three Dog Night, Tommy James and Shondells, Velvet Revolver, Yes

And, with that, here's the link to the first group of 64.

Here are the brackets for this first group:

P.S. - Regular blog posts, of a more professional nature, will return, once this contest/tournament is completed!

I Still Don't Know What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

I've certainly said this before. In so many ways, I'm quite jealous of my wife. From a young age, she knew what she wanted to be, professionally, in her life (a nurse). She pursued that career and became one of the best. She's succeeded everywhere she's been, and she's been routinely promoted due to her exceptional skills.

I've not had a similar experience.

When I was very young (and I don't mean young like, "I want to be an astronaut" or "I want to be the third-baseman for the Yankees."), I mean younger than I am now -- but old enough to be aware of what a career is, I wanted to be a sabermetrician.

Interestingly, today, that wouldn't be met with as much skepticism as it was back then. Now, with films like Moneyball, and the public awareness of pioneers like Bill James, it's a viable career (albeit, still a difficult one to break into). But, in the 1980s, no one knew what I was talking about.

While I was in ninth grade, I participated in an independent study project, in which I decided I was going to write a book, similar to James' seminal "Baseball Abstract" works. In my research, I reached out to James (but he refused to take my calls). I did, however, make a great connection with Craig Wright, who became a pretty influential force for a year.

As an aside, I should mention, throughout this time, my *dream* was to work in sports; in many ways, working as a statistician for the Elias Sports Bureau was my perfect setting. It combined my fascination with statistics and sports into one nice little box.

But, in one discussion with Craig Wright, my entire career trajectory changed. I asked him what courses I needed to focus on, so I could do what he was going as a career. I assumed he'd say Statistics or some mathematics course (or, even an accounting course). Instead, without hesitation, he said, "English." When I questioned him (to ensure he understood what I was asking) he responded, "If you cannot effectively communicate your findings, it's as good as never having done them." Wow.

I marched out of the library (where I'd phoned him) and headed to the Journalism teacher's office, and signed up to be a sports reporter for the high school paper. I continued with that vision throughout college, eventually taking over as editor-in-chief (despite the fact that I never wanted to do anything but write about sports). And then, on my "exit interview" from college, my faculty advisor outlined what I could expect, salary-wise, from my career. And I decided I wanted more.

I don't begrudge anyone who's followed their dream -- a good friend of mine definitely took the long road; working for small weekly and daily papers, before finally becoming a major player in the sports journalism world. For me, I didn't have that patience.

And, so I ended up in magazine journalism. I worked in several industries for my first publishing company: woodworking, plastics formulation and finally, janitorial product distribution. I devoted myself to the magazines, ultimately becoming the youngest editor-in-chief the company had (although, subsequently, younger editors have certainly been in place). I was a "shining, rising star."

Ultimately, power went to the head of my editorial director (who had actually been a friend at one time) and in a capricious move, we had a parting of the ways (in related news, the magazine, which I'd helped dramatically increase advertising revenue through a new approach, had folded less than two years later). I headed into NYC where I took the lead role of a start-up magazine on the commercial shallow-draft maritime industry and helped it become profitable.

Again, hungry for more, I left that role and took over the lead editor role of a magazine about lighting design, helping that magazine turn a profit for the first time in several years. Sadly, 9/11 then happened, and our discussions about reducing staff became a more pressing matter. Rather than eliminating lower-level editorial staff; the decision was made to cut from the top, and I was gone.

At this point, I decided print journalism wasn't really for me any longer. I'd done a great deal -- accomplished a lot, and succeeded at every level. I headed to graduate school to become an English teacher, but realized my heart wasn't in it (and, unlike the previous industries, where I could still be extremely successful without *loving* the industry, I felt it was imperative to be passionate about teaching).

I started with a company in their marketing department and then found a growing need for internal communications and operational efficiency in the company. I put together a comprehensive job description and pitched the role *and* myself to the higher-ups at the company, ultimately being named to the role, and eventually winning an award for my communications strategy and plans.

Much like the last job I recently held, this was a new position. It was a role that was totally unfamiliar to most of the company, which didn't recognize how important the role should be (and how successful companies use this role). Consequently, more of my day was spent evangelizing and justifying my existence, as compared to actually *doing* the vital work. This is a taxing existence.

Part of it was a hesitation for "something new" (but, of course, we all know how that story ends ... companies that don't want to change, well, end up closed, eventually ... especially in today's economy which is more fluid than ever before ... hell, Google doesn't even have a 5-year plan. I remember reading that they don't plan more than 3-6 months, in fact.

The other difficulty was a lack of planning -- this type of role requires access to executives (my first week, the CFO idly said, "perhaps you should be in our executive meetings" ... two years later, I was still awaiting an invite). It also requires one of two approaches:

1. The freedom to do what I think is necessary and support of the higher-ups to accomplish those goals.
2. Definitive tasks as established by the executives (in other words, nothing as vague as "change the culture" - far more specified tasks.

I did learn quite a bit about myself and my abilities. The CEO certainly considered me a valued counselor; not only in matters of communications, but in matters of business importance as well. I regret that I didn't have as much opportunity as I thought I had, because I think we could have done great, great things there; but again, the lack of a cohesive plan (and the fickleness of our economy) didn't provide that.

Where does that leave me? I have time, now, to analyze things (and I'm certainly no closer). Do I move to Canada (where my wife's family lives) and think "Oh, they'll be ecstatic to hire me, because I'll come with NY credibility" (sometimes, life needs a drastic reboot -- I did this when I left high school and headed to college, and I never looked back).

The one negative (that is still prevalent today) is the tendency of companies to not look at "what *can* you do" but rather at "what *have* you done." Worse still, this isn't even a reflection of skills, necessarily; but rather, the industry where you've worked. I've had more than a few companies/recruiters consider me to not be a valid candidate *solely* based on the companies I've worked for (even though my responsibilities were exact matches for the positions for which they were recruiting). Again -- companies that aren't willing to look at potential and change and doing things slightly differently than they've done in the past, aren't really sticking around as much.

I'm still optimistic though; and I'm still well aware that it only takes *one* yes; one progressive company that sees my skills, traits and abilities and says, "Please do for us what you've done your entire career." I'm ready.