Damn Zatopeks

While they're only a trio, the Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band deliver a sound that lives up to their name, with thick, bass-heavy, blues-based guitar figures accompanied by muscular but minimal drumming and the metallic percussive scratch of a washboard (making them one of the first rock bands to regularly feature the latter instrument since Black Oak Arkansas).
The group was formed by guitarist and singer Josh "Reverend" Peyton, who was born and raised in Indiana, and first exposed to music through his father's record collection, which was heavy on Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan - all artists with their own take on the blues…

The members of supergroup Damn Yankees were all stellar players – besides Ted Nugent, they boasted rock & roll veterans Tommy Shaw (Styx), Jack Blades (Night Ranger), and Michael Cartellone (Dixie Dregs) – and clearly stood over most of their peers. Still, patching together two albums' worth of highlights and calling it "essential" is a somewhat ludicrous concept. Anyway, both of the band's albums delivered solid if unspectacular rock radio-friendly singles such as "Coming of Age," "Don't Tread," and, of course, the group's über-power ballad "High Enough." This is the best place to start your Damn Yankees collection.

"Play That Damn Guitar", the appropriately titled, mega-awesome 3rd solo studio disc from this amazing, gifted blues/rock axeripper features 11 tracks (58 minutes) of Classic, mind-blowing, over-the-top, bad-ass, killer, bluesy, Hendrix-inspired, heavy guitar power trio riffage from a true axemaster that will rock your world into the next musical dimension. Jay Jesse Johnson (Triple J) reigns supreme on the guitar and proves that he is the real deal as he takes his "Damn Guitar" to new levels of insanity and beyond on this tremendous Grooveyard Records disc. A truly remarkable and prolific, hard-hitting bluesy heavy guitar masterpiece.

Well, that awkward goth phase didn't last long! With all the impatience of an ADD-riddled teen rebel, Avril Lavigne ditched the gloomy façade of her sophomore Under My Skin and dove back into the well-scrubbed mosh pit for her third album, The Best Damn Thing…

Damn Yankees were an American rock super group formed in 1989 consisting of Tommy Shaw of Styx, Jack Blades of Night Ranger, Ted Nugent of The Amboy Dukes and a successful solo career, and Michael Cartellone (then an unknown drummer who would later join Lynyrd Skynyrd). Don't Tread is the second and last studio album released by hard rock supergroup Damn Yankees. It features their second highest charting single, the power ballad "Where You Goin' Now" which peaked at number 20. The album itself reached number 22 in the Billboard 200 album chart.