Topic: Website
We're celebrating today, AGTA is now two years old! 
I'd like to thank everyone who has visited the site during that time. Much appreciation also goes to those who have returned on a regular basis to see what's new. And for those who have requested tabs, thanks for the show of faith. I've tried my best to do the requests that I can. Over twenty tabs currently on the site were done specifically by request.Visitors to the site have played a key role in making it better through their suggestions and requests. It's always interesting to hear from fellow guitar enthusiasts, whether it's someone who has just surfed in for the first time, or someone who's been visiting since the beginning.
So thanks very much to all of you, and I hope you continue to visit the site over this next year, as well.
Posted by planet/zerofret
at 1:49 AM EST
Updated: Thursday, January 29, 2009 1:53 AM EST
Post Comment | View Comments (4) | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Thursday, January 29, 2009 1:53 AM EST
Post Comment | View Comments (4) | Permalink | Share This Post
"Painted Ladies" was Ian Thomas's first, and biggest, hit single. It was drawn from his 1973 self-titled debut album (pictured), which reached #30 on the Canadian RPM Chart. The single itself climbed to #34 on the Billboard Chart and rose all the way to #4 on the RPM 100 Singles Chart in December of 1973. This success earned Thomas the 1974 Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist.
Originally, I started doing this song with the intention of it being a chord chart. I had been working on a chord chart for a different song, and it was proving troublesome, so I shelved it (temporarily, at least) and did this one instead. The plan was for it to be a chord chart with some tab included. But when I was close to being finished, I realized that if I just tabbed the fills for the final Chorus, I would have all the guitar parts in the song transcribed, making it a full tab. So I added in the extra fills. 
It seems very fitting that a band as quintessentially English as Girlschool would eventually write and record a song that's an affectionate tribute to the city that represents England to the world -- their hometown of London. "London" first appeared on the CD 21st Anniversary: Not That Innocent. The disc was recorded primarily in 1999, the band's 21st Anniversary year, but wasn't released until 2002. It was lead guitarist Kelly Johnson's sixth and final album with the band (five studio albums, one official live album).
First tab entry of the New Year. 
"Step Into Christmas" was released in 1973, likely the most prolific and succesful year of Elton John's career. He began that year with the January release of the album Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player. Then, in October, came the release of the legendary Good-bye Yellow Brick Road double-album. The two albums combined produced a total of six hit singles, two from the former album and four from the latter. In late November of that year (after the first two single releases from GYBR), "Step Into Christmas" was released as a non-LP single. It reached #23 on the UK charts. Later, when the 1974 album Caribou was remastered and re-issued in 1995, the song was included on the CD as a bonus track. It's also been included on other Elton John compilation CDs.
ELP's "I Believe In Father Christmas" is probably my favourite contemporary Christmas song by a pop/rock act. After doing the tab of it, I was surprised when I looked on YouTube and couldn't find a copy of the version I had tabbed. The song has had three lives just with Greg Lake/ELP alone. The first version was Greg Lake's recording of it, released as a solo project. (
It's interesting to read comments at YouTube about this song, plenty of people saying that it's anti-religious, anti-Christmas, anti-Christian, etc. I think they mostly object to the first few lines of the second verse. It isn't the cheeriest Christmas song you'll ever hear, but I don't think it's any of those above named things, and Lake has made it clear in interviews that it's not meant to be any of those things. But I think it's a song of its time (written in 1974), a time when "message" songs were the order of the day. The Vietnam war was still ongoing. In the video of the orginal version, Lake sings the last line, "The Christmas we get we deserve", then there's a montage of video clips of the Vietnam war, finishing with a clip of a soldier arriving home and his young son running into his arms. Lake says the song protested the over-commercialization of Christmas, but to me it seems more like a loss of innocence song about how at Christmas adults fill childrens' heads with idealistic platitudes about peace on Earth and good will to men. But as those children grow up they realize that wars and crime and social ills go right on, even at Christmas time. I don't see the song as bitter or depressing; it just seems to be saying that Christmas itself isn't a magic panacea that makes the world a wonderful place. People have to do that. People have to make those platitudes about peace and good will mean something by their actions. The "Christmas we get we deserve" line suggests that the world is only what we make it. Which means there's always the option to make it better. So for me, the song sounds a note of hope and possibility, too. My two cents worth, anyhow.