Saturday This and That ...

Merlin has recently discovered the cat pointer (ours has both a red and green dot on it) and, like most cats, he loves it! He also enjoys the cat dancer quite a bit. Both toys are good exercise for him when we bring him out of his kitty cage.

Lovin' on my fur baby Merlin James (aka "Little Snookie Bear").

And, it would appear that Leo has decided to take on the role of "cat daddy" as he is constantly watching over Merlin. He is either lying on the floor next to his cage or lounging on top of it ...

Today we will be heading out for a family cookout at a relatives house. It is actually a belated Fourth of July gathering and the weather is suppose to be pretty nice at any rate.

Greta Van Fleet

When I was working at my last job, my much younger co-worker used to hook up his i-pad phone to his bluetooth so that we could get some good music to work by. Since we worked in a mail room and were pretty well sectioned off from the rest of our co-workers, we were allowed to play music as it did not bother anyone else while they were trying to work as well. The radio station we always listened to was Philadelphia's 93.3 WMMR. The afternoon DJ was Pierre Robert who played the best music. He used to jokingly refer to the young Michigan rock group, "Greta Van Fleet" as "Greta Van Zeppelin" because the lead singer Josh Kiszka's voice sounds very much like Robert Plant's. And, he always plays GVF's hit song, "Highway Tune" and Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" back to back which is a really smart comparison actually.

 In fact, if you listen to a live version of GVF's cover of "Immigrant Song", you would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between GVF and Led Zeppelin's vocals. I love Zeppelin and I really do like GVF and so I went out and picked up their new CD, "Black Smoke Rising." GVF has taken a lot of slack from die hard Zep fans for sounding so much like them, but quite honestly speaking and after listening to GVF's CD, they DO have their own sound! In my opinion, the fact that they are so versatile that they can actually perform such awesome cover versions of Zeppelin (not an easy task given Robert Plant's voice range and the fact that Jimmy Page is undoubtedly the best guitarist in the world) gives me even more respect for them and says a lot about the bands' talent. In fact, during a recent interview Robert Plant was asked about any new up and coming bands he liked and he immediately cited GVF saying "They are Led Zeppelin I." Further describing 21-year-old Josh Kiszka as "a beautiful little singer," The 69-year-old Plant playfully added with a smile: "I hate him." When the interviewer went on to note Kiszka's "huge voice", Plant replied, "Yeah, and he borrowed it from somebody I know very well! But what are you going to do? That's OK."

Click here for "Immigrant Song (live)"  Greta Van Fleet 

To hear "Highway Tune" you can click here.

This video clip was from a 2013 live performance of "Stairway to Heaven" when two of the band members (The Kiszka twin brothers, Josh and Jake) were only 16 years of age. This really blows my mind since this was five years ago and these guys were already this good! Enjoy your weekend everyone!!