Jimi Hendrix? #1 for originality. Duane and Gregg? Southern hometown favorites. Eric Clapton? Yes, yes, yes: Acoustic or all plugged in, Eric C is righteous. But who is my Ultimate #1 All Time Fave Guitar Hero?
Luke Breland.
Never heard of him? Too bad.
He can play it all. 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and beyond. He can set the stage on fire (on the TV screen)with his cherry red Gibson SG or his ice white futuristic Gibson X-Plorer---although he was having a bit of trouble this past weekend with the game bundle that accompanied the X-Plorer.
Maybe Luke's my fave because I had an almost private audience with him and his genius this past Saturday night. Just me, my husband, and Luke's wife (my daughter)during the half-time break of the televised Alabama/LSU game. Luke had just bought Guitar Hero III, the popular video game in which the player holds an actual 'guitar' and mimics the motions of playing,and was dying to try out some new sets, a welcome change I thought from the usual ESPN half-time blather. He plugged everything in and soon we were munching snacks to the sounds of songs by Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, and Cream. After the abysmal finish to the ballgame, we drowned our sorrow in Van Halen, Guns N Roses, Deep Purple, Wolfmaster, and of course "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Luke was up very early the next morning, serenading us again, probably because he is in a pattern of arising very early so that he can make it to school in time. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa last spring, with a 4.0 in Anthropology and Chinese, Luke is postponing graduate work in order to teach public school ninth graders how to read and write. It is not an easy job. He cannot wear his vintage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle t-shirt to class, for instance. And even if he could, his students could not relate.
So for doing this very important, thankless job, Luke ranks high on my list of people I admire. And if he needs to play a little rock and roll air guitar in his spare time to help ease the pain, well, I can think of worse things he could be doing.
For instance, karaoke.
2 comments:
Hey, Mrs. Garner. This is Trey. I got a blog spot and hope to blog over Christmas. I liked the Guitar Hero comment. You should check out the game Rock Band which is singing, playing drums, and playing guitar at once. It has better songs on it.
Hi, Mrs. Garner! Found you and finally commented. Guitar Hero is a great way to relax... until you get mad, break the guitar, and then go back to step one of being stressed. You should really give it a try sometime. Or like Trey said, give Rock Band a go. You can always play it for free at Wal-Mart.
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