It started with watching Pete Pardo talk about Van Halen on his inaugural entry for Sea of Tranquility’s Favorite Albums to Listen to in Summertime. I’m already planning a “Summer Playlist” in two weeks when I leave for a lengthy (for me) vacation, but Van Halen lingered, and it was a simple matter to put together some kind of “deep cuts” playlist filled with what are – to me – some of the biggest bands I happen to love. So that’s where we’re going this week. Warning: some of these might not be traditionally “deep cuts” – they’re not all buried in the sequencing. Some are favorites from reviled or unpopular albums, at least one was a big hit for another band. And of course one is a Zappa cut. Enjoy the weekend and let’s dig in.

• Van Halen – “Drog Dead Legs”
• Cream – “Outside Woman Blues”
• Pink Floyd – “What Do You Want From Me”
• AC/DC – “This Means War”

When an album is as massively huge as 1984, is any track a deep cut (this is going to be a recurring theme here)? Despite the massive, well-tread hits on Side 1, I find myself drifting over the years to the other tracks on Van Halen’s Phase I finale. This could have easily been “House of Pain” but something about the guitar on the main verse always stayed with me…Cream was one of the first bands I played guitar to, and despite Disraeli Gears being festooned with brilliant and evergreen tracks like “Sunshine of Your Love” it was “Outside Woman Blues” I learned to play in its entirety first…I recently finished Martin Popoff’s Pink Floyd: Album By Album and developed a new appreciation for the band’s final studio album, The Division Bell. “What Do You Want From Me” isn’t a deep cut, but it’s a late, great one, and not enough people pay attention to the band’s post-Waters output…I don’t know anyone who really likes Blow Up Your Video from AC/DC, but there’s gold to be had on the album’s closing track, a barnburner with a killer Angus Young lick.

• Scorpions – “Hell Cat”
• The Who – “Black Widow’s Eyes”
• The Kinks – “Stop Your Sobbing”
• Black Sabbath – “All Moving Parts (Stand Still)”

Second verse same as the first? Last week I talked about reviewing the early Scorpions albums, and the delight had in my introduction to the Hendrix-inspired pyrotechnics of Uli Jon Roth. If you know, you know, and in that case “Hell Cat” isn’t a deep cut, but for folks who only listen to the later albums this will be a cool left turn, especially hearing Roth take the lead vocals…Count me as one of the fans who really enjoyed the return of The Who with Endless Wire. There were a few options here (I almost went with “A Man in a Purple Dress”) but ultimately I liked the way “Black Widows Eyes” mirrored some of my favorite Who tracks from their heyday…Do people know how many incredible songs The Kinks wrote? I thought about any of the numerous tracks Van Halen covered as a sort of connective tissue, but ultimately went with this gem, a favorite of my wife’s and covered by the great Chrissy Hynde and The Pretenders…I’ve already solidified my view that Black Sabbath is more than just the first six albums with the recent Tony Martin boxset, but hopefully this track off of Technical Ecstasy will show the tank wasn’t completely empty with the Ozzy-led band after Sabotage.

• The Rolling Stones – “Soul Survivor”
• Led Zeppelin – “Candy Store Rock”
• Queen – “I Can’t Live With You”
• Judas Priest – “Conquest”

Confession time: I am not the biggest fan of Exile on Main Street. I’m all for a shaggy album, but this is so shaggy in truth it bores me. Maybe it’s because I came to The Rolling Stones late as a fan, and it was tighter albums like Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed that grabbed me. So maybe “Soul Survivor” isn’t a deep cut for fans, but it’s the last track on an album I almost never listen to, so it works for me…I know there are Led Zeppelin fans that love Presence, but it’s another album that feels disconnected for me in their discography – I’ll go to In Through the Out Door way more often than this. This Side 2 cut has some of the boogie found on Physical Graffiti and feels like a cousin, and has always been a favorite on the album…Count me among the fans of Innuendo, the final album from Queen, especially the killer rock of “I Can’t Live With You” with it’s infinitely catchy sing-along chorus…One thing I WON’T do is convince anyone that Nostradamus, the double disc concept record from Judas Priest is anything but a bloated mess. But it’s Priest, and the last hurrah for the Tipton and Downing combo, and on its own “Conquest” is a pretty good song.

• The Beatles – “Savoy Truffle”
• Def Leppard – “Ring of Fire”
• Metallica – “Shoot Me Again”
• Frank Zappa – “Doreen (Live)”

Do The Beatles have any deep cuts? Who knows? The Beatles (aka The White Album) is probably their deepest cut album, but with so many bangers it was hard to choose one I haven’t heard a ton of times already, so I went from this deep cut on the second disc which has a great rocking Ringo rhythm, some weird production effects, those classic harmonies, and John taking lead…I first heard “Ring of Fire” on Retro-active, which collected a number of b-sides and alternate mixes and it quickly became one of my favorite Def Leppard songs of all time. If Hysteria had a bunch of tracks like this, “I Wanna Be Your Hero” and the original “Tear It Down” I would probably still listen to it…Snare be damned, I like St. Anger. I (briefly) stood up for it back in the day over at Nine Circles, and I still go to bat for the first two tracks as latter-day classics for Metallica. “Shoot Me Again” is a deeper cut and one I’ll still put on when I want some nasty garage aggression…Finally you can argue that maybe EVERY Frank Zappa track is a deep cut. But I think the general consensus among fans is nothing tops the late 60s and early 70s output, so I went 80s, picking the live cover of “Doreen” from You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 5. One of the best vocal performances ever, and just the sharpest hooks coming from Zappa’s love of 50s and 60s pop.

Be safe, and see you next week.