I'm still fairly new to this whole blog affair. Still sounds to me like something that could be remedied with perhaps a little more fiber. And Twitter? Tweeting? What is this bullshit?

A least a blog can be approached logically and conventionally, even if there's more room to rant and ramble than in the pages of the newspaper. Hell, I'll even write this evening's entry with chapters; chapters that though they sound like shows off of Animal Planet, all presented themselves to me tonight at Water Street Music Hall as I witnessed (for the second time) legendary heavy rockers Mountain.

The trio featured founding members, guitarist Leslie West and drummer Corky Laing, and a guy on bass with a ponytail on top of his head which he spun around continuously like a helicopter. I bet he practices this at home.

Chapter I: When whales sing opera

When West wasn't positively shaking the mountain of amps behind him, he noodled around with delay and various hands-on stunts. The old trick of striking the note while the volume is down then rolling it up emitted a lonesome atmospheric moan - kind of like how I imagine opera would sound if sung by whales under water.

Chapter II: When elephants tap dance

The cat with the helicopter haircut was a solid bass player and proved it with an extremely thunderous, mountain-moving bottom end. He shook the walls kind of like a herd of tap dancing elephants. His dexterous and actually kind of baroque-sounding take on "Over The Rainbow" was a left turn and rather cool as well.

Chapter III: When pigs fly over the rainbow

So as far as pigs flying over the same rainbow as Judy Garland, you would have had to be there with me last night, along with about 500 rock fans, as West, besides quoting Robert Johnson and his own classics (like the encored "Mississippi Queen") threw in the guitar line from Michael Jackson's "Beat It." Surreal for sure.