Happy Birthday To Hall Of Fame Drummer Chad Smith

Many attribute Chad to here in Michigan but believe it or not, born in  Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Michigan connection is that Chad Smith spent most of his childhood in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan where he graduated high school from  Lahser High School in 1980

Not having a single drum lesson did not deter Chad from playing in local rock bands growing up. One of his  Lahser High School bands was Paradise and even won a battle of the bands contest. Other bands included Pharroh, then out with some success with Detroit band and club favorite Toby Redd including a record release LP, "In The Light." Chad Smith has played two wonderful reunion shows with still long-time friends in Toby Redd. Dennis Martz, Tony Cutino, Ron Dettloff, Denny Backos.  Chad is currently working on a release of a lost Toby Redd album that was finished but never released.

Chad Smith went on to join the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1988. Smith was one of the last drummers to audition for the band Red Hot Chili Peppers after they had fired their drummer D.H. Peligro in 1988  Nonetheless, the band was blown away by his skills. Chad has played along with many bands including Chickenfoot with Sammy Hagar, and His own Bombbastic Meatbats, Will Ferrell, and a very respected session drummer for so many artists.

Chad Smith and Hollywood actor,  Will Ferrell, star of almost every big comedy of the last 20 years, look so alike it's almost scary. In 2014, Late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon brought them together to have the drum off that Ferrell had been asking for for months. The rules were simple as explained by Jimmy Fallon: “Whoever whacks, smacks, and slaps the skins the best wins.” The Drum-Off made for some of the best TV late night had ever seen. The question everyone asks is. Who Won? Watch the following clip and judge for yourself. The ending is epic!

I LOVE HALLOWEEN ROCK!

I may have mentioned this once or a THOUSAND TIMES.  Halloween is my favorite holiday. It's fun, there's candy and a tremendous amount of JAMS! It wasn't easy to narrow my favorites down to ten, but I did. Which songs would you put in your top ten?  There are so many to choose from!  Alice and Ozzy are MUST HAVES on any list.  I found a great Halloween playlist on AZCentral.com.  Their list has 30 songs and many are different than my picks, but it's a great list.

I chose my songs based on Halloween party vibes.  I love the slower Halloween songs, like The Eagles' "Witchy Woman," but I wanted to keep the list to ten, so I chose songs I could hear being played at a party. I also threw some curveballs in.

The great thing about music is that you can take it anywhere and it adds to the moment... everything is better with music.  Happy Halloween!

Here's hoping for good trick-or-treating weather!  It's hard to argue the sensibility of Trunk or Treat when we had a beautiful weekend and our usual TRASH weather for Halloween.  Reminds me of my Michigan childhood... those cheap K-Mart costumes that you couldn't breathe through and my mom making me wear my winter coat over the plastic shirt part. LOL- Whatever!  I've got candy!  Come and get it, kids!

The original MTV video is awesome, but the only one I could find looked like someone recorded it with a VCR recorder in the '80s.  Instead, here's the very cool, Tim Burton video.

THIS.. is Halloween. I love it!

This video features an impossibly young Dick Clark and Bobby performing live... he OWNS it.

Pure Alice.  It's so hard to choose just ONE Alice Cooper song to represent the Halloween feels.  I chose "Welcome to My Nightmare" because it is the epitome of a scary Halloween movie and the video is amazing.

You can't have Halloween classic rock without Warren Zevon.  Amazingly, this song started out as a homework assignment from the Everly Brothers.  You can get the story behind this song and 12 other intentional Halloween rock songs HERE

Who doesn't associate a full moon with Halloween?  Make it a BAD moon and you've really got the Halloween feels going.

Nikki Sixx pushes his boundaries on this one.  Originally the song was "Shout With the Devil" but management asked Motley Crue to tone it down a bit.

Donovan was WAY AHEAD of his time.  This song is more about a drug bust than witches (a witch hunt).  Such a great song and a time capsule of early rock.  I found this cool edit/alternate version for the video. Enjoy!

This song, to me, is the EPITOME of Halloween rock.  As a teen of the '80s, I still love this song, not just on Halloween, but EVERY DAY (see what I did there).

"Thriller" crosses all boundaries... it's pop,R&B and it ROCKS.  Halloween night, no one is leaving the dance floor when this song comes on. It is a classic and it rocks.... and the video is THE BEST!