Mountain Song by Jane's Addiction

If one band owned alternative rock in the late '80s it was Jane’s Addiction, who crossed exotic decadence with the timeless appeal of monster guitar riffs.

“Mountain Song” is notable as the first song that the quartet ever played together; it grew out of a riff that was developed during their first informal rehearsal. This thundering epic—which ran four minutes on disc and much longer in concert— also bears out the band’s longstanding love of Led Zeppelin.

At the time it seemed unlikely that singer Perry Farrell would become a Lollapalooza entrepreneur, or that guitarist dave Navarro would wind up with a TV career.

The last song that Jane’s Addiction recorded before their 1991 breakup was a Grateful Dead song for a tribute album.

This is one of the rare songs that makes the bassist play chords; the bass part has a lot of hammer-ons but the rhythm is consistent save for an extra hit at the end.

Guitar is the easiest instrument; with the solo being a good ice-breaker for getting into Expert mode. There is a fast strum in the middle of the solo; the crowd will get riled if you mess it up but you have time to recover without failing.

The drum part also keeps steady patterns without major shifts, long as the tom fills don’t trip you up you’ll be fine.

Split up and reunited twice so far, in 1997 and 2001. Then the band was long given up for dead, until they launched another round of secret comeback rehearsals in fall of 2008.