@LinerNotes

Well this is an excellent way to start the day and to close out Yesvember. Award-winning classical pianist Vika Yermolyeva and her solo piano take on Deep Purple's classic rhythm and blues rocker, "Lazy" in extremely admirable fashion. After you watch Vika's performance, come inside to check out the original, especially if it's never penetrated your ears before and to learn about Vika's other unique performances.

The Japanese Popstars are neither Japanese nor pop stars, if you are using Pop in the literal sense. They are in fact a trio of gentlemen from Ireland who's sophomore album is an exciting blend of House and Electronica which should definitely earn them star status in the electronic music world. Having just live-tweeted my first listen to the album, here are some deeper thoughts on the sounds found inside.

It was 20 years ago today, that U2 went from being one of the biggest bands in the world to THE biggest band in the world. November 19th, 1991 was when the legendary Achtung Baby first released. It was a departure in sound and style, a revolution even, yet was still U2, in a re-imagined sense. It wasn't just a revolution in the recorded sound of the band but in how they presented themselves on stage. The massive, multimedia spectacle of The Zoo TV Tour became the benchmark by which all large-scale tours and concert performances (including their own future tours ) would be compared to. And while hindsight may be 20/20, it was not the passage of 20 years that made Achtung Baby one of the single most important album releases of all time.

Well this definitely qualifies as a Yesvember post. This young bloke from England named Scott has taken Jeremy Soule's "Sons of Skyrim", the theme to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim video game, and run it through ye olde metalizer. The result can be summed up in one word: YES! Scott has numerous other video game and nerd culture music themes which he has done metal remixes of on his YouTube page , quite well I might add. So, if casting a heavy metal spell over the music of Harry Potter or the recently uploaded "The White Hand of Saruman" (from The Lord of the Metal Rings , natch) is your cup of mead, then crank it up and throw the horns for sbeast64's geek-tastic metal themes! Tweet Follow @LinerNotes    

As if 11/11/11 couldn't get any more metal, the original line up of Black Sabbath today officially dispelled long-running rumors and announced their reunion. This will be no mere "let's get back together and play the hits" tour either.

Today is an historic day. It is a first-ever celebration of its kind. This is a limited edition holiday that we can only celebrate once! Unless we get pills that keep us forever young. This isn't one of your run-of-the-mill card holidays. This is actually very serious! Turn it up to 11 and turn to the closest person to you and wish them a "Happy Nigel Tufnel Day!"

One of the most notoriously awesome rock instrumentals of the 1970's was a lengthy ditty by Dutch rockers, Focus. Powered by a full tilt Jan Akkerman guitar riff and featuring the maniacal yodeling of Thijs Van Leer, this is a song that you may well be familiar with or not at all. But one thing is certain. You've probably never heard it played as if it were the backing music for a level in a Mario Bros. game.

Sometimes, a bit of music is just so incredibly cool/fun/unique that the simplest way to describe it is, YES! So, in the spirit of Yesvember (Hey, cut me some slack. I never once used the term Rocktober last month!) a great big YES! goes to this video of a gentleman covering Iron Maiden's galloping rhythm classic "The Trooper" on a traditional Japanese instrument.