With Bo Diddley passing on monday, rock music and myself lost a very
important pioneer. Bo Diddley did more to music than you think. He may
have started heavy metal with his space guitar solos, although I think
Louis Jordan may have been the first true rapper, Bo did a lotta rapping
on his songs. If nothing else had there been no Bo, The Yardbirds, and
the Stones wouldn't be who they are and Buddy Holly may have just been a
country star.
Certainly the biggest loss in music since Stevie Ray Vaughn I think. Opinions may vary.
The CD sales shelves at Wal Mart keep getting less and less. The
Beverly Hills, er Anamosa Wally World CD department is now a half for
rock, half for country and the rest and half of those crappy box sets of
remakes that nobody buys that they stuff in steel boxes. Eventually,
it's all going to come down to order things online to which I'm still
waiting for the CD Baby order of indee music that I placed two weeks
ago. I'm sure CD Baby will come through but geez, I could have walked
to Portland and back with the order.
Carrie Underwood continues to not convince me otherwise that all she
is is a tool for the American Idol name. I get a queasy feeling when I
see her on the GAC's Opry Live show, that all she is is nothing more
than flash and eye candy for the horny schoolboys out there. She's the
most successful Idol out there true but that's because they modeled her
to the country folk who has taken to her but all i hear from her is more
Whitney Houston or Celine Dion rather than Loretta or Tammy or even
Martina. Tomorrow when I come up with the latest Top Ten of the Week,
there will be a song dedicated for Carrie Underwood. It fits her
perfectly.
Everybody is sick of storms that have been here ever since April came
around. Even the Wapsi and the Cedar Rivers are sick of being over the
banks with ten inch rainfall up north. We worry about two inch rainfall
on saturated ground, which the water table in the soil hasn't been this
wet since the fucked up 1993 season but on that case and point, the
rains hit from June to July and there was only one road anybody could
take to get home from Iowa City that year. Everybody is sick and tired
of the tornados that have been bigger than usual. I've seen the camera
videos of the Parkersburg Tornado destroy a house and tore up a bank
that weekend. There's no good way of describe it, thank your lucky
stars you wern't there when you see lightning and then a big dark
spinning cloud come on through in a millasecond. Nobody should go
through a F5 Tornado or 10 inch rains in a two hour basis and see
everything you had destroyed. Perhaps my ex GF had her reasons why of
not moving out here, I sometimes wonder about my decision bout being
here. But then again, I work here and therefore must suffer along the
rest of the Iowans bout making a life here. No it's not California or
Arizona, but at least up here you can walk the streets at night and not
have to worry about gangbangers robbing or beating you up (unless you're
in parts of Waterloo or Cedar Rapids and have to deal with bored
teenagers too hung on rap and mountain dew). It's home and untill I can
find a 20 dollar an hour job in the desert, this is where I'll be.
Finally, The Best Of Radiohead is out this week and captures all that
you can ever want of this highly influental British band. I did like
parts of In Rainbows, and thought about checking out OK Computer but I
still remain to my beliefs that Thom Yorke and company were a tad bit
overrated in the music department. Kid A remains their nadir. I still
give it a C plus and leave it to the listeners out there to hear it
themselves.
The Top Songs Of The Week.
1. Bo Diddley-Bo Diddley 1955 Certainly, Bo had it right when he
said that he and Chuck Berry are the two pioneers who started rock and
roll, sure Chuck may have borrowed something from Louis Jordan and the
blues but what Bo did, nobody ever did and put it on record till he did
it. Rewrote the music book in the 50s and then fell off the map, making
illadvised fortays into funk or heavy soul music in the 70s but the man
always put on great shows untill he had that fateful stroke last year
and never recovered. Rocking them bigtime in the great beyond, Go Bo
Go.
2. El Toro-The Woggles 2007 Another of those garage bands that
Little Steven talks about on his Underground Garage show, I figured that
I check out this album. I could have gone to Iowa City and gotten it
for six bucks but waste about ten bucks gas getting there or just go to
the Best Buy and pick it up for ten bucks. We have to be cost effective
nowadays. And basically FYE has started to pick up on the Wicked Cool
artists since Best Buy still hasn't gotten Coolest Songs In The World
Volume 5 but I did get it at FYE last week.
3. Trouble's All I See-Johnny Shines 1975 Acoustic blues done 70s
style, another CD on my list but Half Priced Books had this for five
and a half dollars whereas FYE had it too but FYE is in Coralville. Thus
we saved another trip by finding something up here. Who sez you can't
find deals in Cedar Rapids?
4. Life Begins At The Hop-XTC 1979 A fan favorite and always
requested here at Crabb Radio, I have most of the XTC albums that have
been put out.
5. Can't Be What You Want Me To Be-The Townedgers 2008 New TEs from
the brand new release Pawnshops For Olivia, this may be the best album
that R.Smith and company has ever put out. The title was actually
inspired by Lizzy Williams to which The TEs thought that would make a
nice song. EZ to sing along, thanks for the inspiration Lizzy.
6. Chic n Stu/Innervision/Bubbles-System Of A Down 2002 a medley of
songs from their Steal This Album record which I thought was better than
Toxicity. But then again your opinion may vary.
7. Lie Lie Lie Lie/Dumbing Down-Chumbawamba 2000 Dedicated to
Carrie Underwood. Everytime I hear the bridge on Lie Lie Lie Lie, I
think of Carrie's cornball acceptance speech when she won Country Female
Of The Year. Dumbing Down is dedicated to TMZ and Perez Hilton for
their role in the decline of western civilization. Chumbawamba were way
ahead of their time but this record bombed after the massive sales of
their Tubthumping album.
8. Bayou Tortous-James McMutry 2008 Twenty years on, James is
beginning to break through into the spotlight with his dead on views of
the midwest and the idiot in the white house, (no that not one but the
Nazi VP instead). He's always made great albums I think but he struck a
chord with We Can't Make It Here Anymore three years ago, which too
bad, didn't come out in 2004, otherwise we may have had a change in
leadership. But then again, the Democrats didn't exactly put in the
best man either at that time. Although, yes Obama won the nomination, I
still get the feeling Al Gore might figure into this.
9. Ballad Of A Thin Man-Bob Dylan 1965 Dedicated to FOX news who
are as clueless as Ann Coulter has ever been. The Redeye show is the
most dumbass show I have seen yet and it even makes Rush Limpbaugh look
smart. And that's scary kiddies. I forgot to mentioned that I did see
I'm Not Here, the Bob fantasy movie of sorts. I thought it was dumb
myself and fell asleep an hour a half into it.
10. Sixteen Tons-Bo Diddley 1960 We conclude with a cover by Bo to
which he was supposed to sing on Ed Sullivan but decided to do his own
song which pissed the old man off and he didn't see himself on TV for
seven years after that. But really, Bo does a wonderful version of this
song, a lot more rocking than the Tennessee Ernie Ford version and the
one Don Harrison did back in 76. As I stated before, Bo Diddley was one
of a kind, often imitated, but never duplicated. That's Bo.
RIP
Reviews
7th And Beale-Crossroads And Highways (self released)
A band of music lovers based out in Kingman Arizona getting together
to make a very country/Americana sounding album that's shines when Kathy
Stewart takes the microphone and drives the point home. Mustang Man is
the long lost Patsy Cline track that would have fitted in quite well
with Ms. Cline. In some ways 7th And Beale reminds me of another long
lost arizona band, 35 Summers, whose best songs were done by the female
lead singer in the band. In this case Gilbert Sanchez sounds a bit like
one of the guys in New Riders Of The Purple Sage and takes a bit of
getting used to. But you gotta love the play on the words on Your The
Only Train On My One Track Mind. However the guest drummer gets in the
way and they have better luck with a drum machine. Still they save the
best for last with the remarkable For Lack Of A Better World to which
Sanchez and Stewart harmonize like Gram and Emmylou did back in the
past. Promising. But the digipak sucks. Also, the main songwriter is
Stanford Major. BTW guys, good music is timeless, never dated. Unlike
top forty and rap today. Too bad they didn't let Kathy sing all the songs this would have been a classic!
Grade B plus
Dead Rock West-Honey And Salt (self released)
One thing about CD Baby is that there's no shortage of bands out
there, trying for your hard earn bucks and while most of them are good
and worthy, chances are that it comes down to so many bands, not enough
time. Which is why The Townedgers can't get arrested, great music
shoved down the wayline that nobody ever hears them. Dead Rock West is
somewhat a better known band that has a X like sound or even reminds me
of Billy Pilgrim, the band that made two albums for Atlantic before one
of them moved on to Sugarland.
Cindy Wasserman you probaly heard with Grant Lee Phillips and has a
nice vocal to counterpoint Frank Lee Drennan. Phil Parlapiano has been a
in demand session player and played in TheBrothers Figaros' only Geffen
album. Think The Jayhawks meeting X somewhere along the Lost Highway
and you got a sound of how Dead Rock West sounds. Highlights include a
rockin Highway One and the sassy sounding I Really Wanted You (but
don't like you). Mixed by Richard Dodd for a more polished sound, Dead
Rock West might make it despite the odds.
Grade B+
