This round brought to you by the grandparents Link. (+a)
Gabby La La - a multi-instrumentalist (mostly sitar, but also tiny guitar, toy piano, and theremin) who slowly worked her way into the world of Claypool. As far as I can tell, her first appearance was a tiny cameo as a child's voice at the end of "D's Diner", on the Frog Brigade's 2002 album Purple Onion. Next were her backup vocals on the album "The Big Eyeball in the Sky", by Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains. She also opened for C2B3 on their tour in 2004. After that, she released her own solo album, one of the few non-Claypool artists to appear on Les' label (though Les plays drums and bass on most of the tracks). Following that, she played a major role on Les' 2006 CD Of Whales and Woe, subsequently touring for two years or so as part of "The Fancy Band". She is currently, umm, off the radar.
Ick. Her appearance on the C2B3 album was tolerable, but her concert performances with them were, uh, not that great. Her album does not qualify as tolerable. It's utter nonsense, so you would assume I would love it, right? Nope. Sorry, Gabby. Again, she fit in well on Of Whales and Woe, adding some slick sitar and theremin, but again again, I thought she was irritating on the Fancy tours. Further, she butchered a solo so badly at one of the shows I saw that the band had to stop and figure out what was going on. oops!
Galactic - waaay funky! Relatively new, too; it's a double-take to catch that they've been busy in the 21st century. I don't have too much to mention, but ugh, the funk is unstoppable.
Garth Brooks - yee haw!
As a holiday present for my roommate freshman year, I learned "Friends in Low Places" on the acoustic guitar and sang it for him. An octave lower than Mr. B, of course. Moral of the story: I'll never be a country star.
Genesis - only here to acknowledge their splinter skills, as they broke up to make solo groups for, umm, pretty much every member. This doesn't imply that any of them were good, though. They can't even dance!
George Clinton - lord, king, ruler of all things funk. His deliciously deep voice can be found rumbling under any group with "Parliament" or "Funkadelic" in the title; in fact, those are usually proceeded by "George Clinton and the". Beyond that, he of course has solo work, as well as co-ops with newer crews like Snoop Dogg. He's everywhere, warning, "failure to stomp will cause hazard to your booty!"
And of course...
"Think! It ain't illegal yet!"
George Gershwin - though he wrote such fully-orchestrated masterpieces as "American in Paris" and "Rhapsody in Blue", the double G is my favorite pianist, dare I say, hands down. It's 100% my brother's fault. I remember so well him whirling out those preludes with absolute perfection... At the end of prelude #2, there is a pretty walk all the way up the keys, a note in the middle, a long pause, and then a soft note way low (C#1) to close the piece; when Tim had mastered that song, he taught me to play that note and expected me to play it for him every time. That was my note.
I tried so hard to learn those preludes, but I could only get the relatively easy second one by the self-teach method. The first and third are just incredible. Someday.
George Thorogood and the Destroyers - make sure to say their name in the monster truck voice! George and his nihilistic pals are classic rock/blues rock essentials, though it's a bit sad that so many of their famous jams are covers. However, it's also quite amusing what they covered that didn't climb that high on the charts... "Willie and the Hand Jive", anyone?
Mr. T can solo quite thoroughly - he has that "can't hit a wrong note" maladie - but it's amazing/amusing/convenient that their songs are so ridiculously simple. It's either twelve-bar blues, or it's just one chord (verify with "Bad to the Bone"). Are they the Ramones of blues rock? I must confess that, minus the "good solos" part, this is inevitably what my non-bass guitar noodling became within five minutes of starting a session. G-C-D major chords for everyone!
The Ghetto Boys - because it feels good to be a gangster.
Glenn Miller - equals big band. "In the Mood", "American Patrol", "(I've Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo", "Tuxedo Junction", "St. Louis Blues March", "Little Brown Jug", and on and on and on; these songs defined the time. They also defined about half of every jazz band's repertoire.
Thanks go to Primus for creating a complete non-cover: "a b c d e f g h I got a gal and she ain't from Kalamazoo"!
Gloria Gaynor - I won't reveal anything overly touching about this song (you know which one), other than that I prefer the deadpan Cake cover, and that I used to play Cake's bass line along with the original (eek, much faster) Gaynor recording. Dorkalicious.
Goldfinger - hmmm, fairly whiny ska. Isn't that why we like it?
Gravy Train - [no] thanks to mle for this techno train wreck. It makes me nervous.
Green Day - a bit too pop-punkified for me, but thanks for remixing "25 or 6 to 4", err, "Brain Stew".
Green Jelly - A+ for introducing Rambo to the story of the three little pigs.
Groove Armada - the name says it all, as far as style is concerned.
Tim gave me this album and told me to listen to "At the River", an extremely laid back song whose only words are an incomplete sentence: "if you're fond of sand dunes and salty air, quaint little villages here and there..." He said, "you know, the song doesn't make any sense, but by the end I'm thinking 'yeah, I like sand dunes...'" He's right.
Guns 'n' Roses - mandatory mention for being ludicrously popular, but your stories are better than mine.
Gwar - so maybe they're excessively obscene and unpleasant "shock rock", and maybe they dumped human excrement on their fans at concerts, but ignoring those minor details, they're great! "Penguin Attack"? "Vlad the Impaler"? Verses such as "dirty, filthy, dirty filthy filthy filthy dirty, filthy, dirty filthy filthy filthy"? Come on. "Why don't you just admit it?", they ask. Ok, they're awful.
Gwen Stefani - that's right. I like it. I can spell "bananas", too. She even gives Japanese lessons. Bring it.
That was awful. Please help.
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