Thin Lizzy Would Kill Coldplay In A Fair Fight

Machine: Elliptical
Duration:40 Minutes
Calories: 750

Thin Lizzy “Jailbreak” My favorite band. The intense energy and passion of this performance from “Live & Dangerous” is evident from the first note to the last. It’s great hearing it again in the headphones because they seem to accentuate Phil Lynott’s driving bass notes. Yeah, sure some cynics make fun of the song’s lyrics. “Tonight, there’s going to be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town” … Very possibly, it’ll be at the jail, is what they say. But, that bass and Lynott’s awesome performance have you ready to scale the walls and elude God knows what during the full length of this three-and-a-half minute breakout.

For Lizzy fans, there’s supposedly a new Live album coming out in March called “Still Dangerous.” It’s a show from Philadelphia on the “Bad Reputation” tour that I believe has been bootlegged often since it was a King Biscuit radio show. If it’s the one I’m thinking off, it kicks off with “Soldier of Fortune,” including a guns blazing intro that’s just awfully cool. “SOF” was only played on that one tour and despite a lot of searching I still don’t’ have a tour CD/download with the kind of sound quality I’d like. (Yeah, I’ll admit to being a Thin Lizzy degenerate. What of it?)

Since I mentioned headphones, it’s probably worth saying I wear the Old School over-the-ear variety. I tried the in-ear “buds,” but I’m afraid that’s just a quicker route to permanent hearing loss. The thing I couldn’t prevent is there are songs that are super-loud even when you have that Soundcheck setting on that is supposed to normalize the volume across all songs. It doesn’t work on everything to the point that I had to take all my Red Hot Chili Peppers (and, possibly, Metallica’s new CD) off my iPod. Every time a Chilis (or Metallica) song would come on, it would blast my ears at a volume that sounded like it was at least one-third louder than anything else.

Foo Fighters “Statues” One of the thing I really like about the Foos are the tempo changes--the whisper-scream dynamic. This song is all whisper and that didn’t help me get through my sit-ups.

R.E.M. “Supernatural Super-Serious” I don’t how many CDs there are where REM has included one or two of the kind of REM songs I like (think “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?”).and a bunch of songs I don’t care for that much. This is one I really like from the newest CD, whatever it’s called.

Savatage “From the Hall of the Mountain King” The precursor to Trans-Siberian Orchestra show their propensity for over-the-top Broadway theatrics. At times, it’s like a Queensryche/Deep Purple song, but then they come in with the Andrew Lloyd Weber stage laughter and you’re thinking you’ve flipped over the “Phantom of the Opera” soundtrack, but with far better guitars.

Kid Rock “I’m Wrong, But You Ain’t Right” Just as I was waning and needed a kick to get onto a five-minute/100-calorie pace, along comes Bob Ritchie with the propulsive power of this song. Don’t hate the playa, hate the game, Bob.

Foo Fighters “Overdrive” The Foos at their most shiny with an obvious attempt to put a single on the radio (in the early 90s, I think). It worked, but I prefer their more recent, crunchier output.

Green Day “Macy’s Day Parade” Sometimes a song’s rhythm aligns perfectly with the pace you need—or want to be on. It’s something that happens far more often when you’re playing something from their excellent “International Superhits” CD.

Iggy Pop “Cry For Love” My appreciation for Iggy has deepened considerably. He’s the perfect workout companion, and this is one of the best for the elliptical.

Led Zeppelin “Boogie With Stu” A barrelhouse piano pattern is not something you expect from Zeppelin, and it’s not usually the kind of thing I typically enjoy in a workout. But, I’ve been enjoying this along with nearly all of “Physical Graffiti,” a CD I downloaded because I wanted some Zep, but not the songs I’ve already heard 10,000 times.

Black Sabbath “Eternal Idol” The Sabs soldiered on with their fourth or fifth vocalist, Tony Martin through the ‘90s. I don’t dislike him, but regard him as being something like Kentucky Gentleman bourbon. Not nearly as good as the best (which in Sabbath would be Ozzy and in bourbon would be Wild Turkey 101)—but Martin (and Ky. Gentleman) is still better than most of the shit that’s out there.