It's All About Connections

Do you ever stay up at nights, thinking of ways of stumping - no, humiliating - your rock-snob friends? I do. As a true-blue rock-snob myself, I can't stand appearing less informed than my snob-peers.

One of the best ways of acheiving total stumpdom is to play "connect the bands". As an example, connect Steely Dan to Rolling Stones. One's from the 70s, the other from the Pleistocene era, one's American, the other British....no connection, you say?

HA! FOOL!!

Jeff Baxter played with Steely Dan. Baxter also played in "Four on the Floor", whose bassist was Glenn Hughes. Hughes played bass on Deep Purple's "Burn" (he's also that thin-voiced "bridge" singer on the incendiary title song). Blackmore was the lead guitarist on the album, and was also the lead (naturally) for the Ritchie Blackmore Orchestra, in which the piano/keyboards duties were handled by Nicky Hopkins who once played with the Jeff Beck Group (if you don't know who Nicky Hopkins is, please, take up some other hobby.) Who was the guitarist in that band? Ron Wood. Which other band did Wood play in? Elementary, my dear rock-snob...

Since most mortals are not blessed with an in-built encyclopedia, there's this cool site that lets you connect two random bands.

Now, don't *ever* lose a quiz because you couldn't connect Elvis Presley to Cream (c'mon...that one's way too easy!)