Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Top Ten Of The Week-alternative radicalness

Continuing the losing battle for alternative radical radio.  What's torture to you?  Torture to me is top forty radio and classic rock radio with a playlist of 200 songs every damn day.

To the faithful thank you for your support, to the newbies and casual readers the rules are simple.  Ten songs off ten albums that I've played during the week and I made comments on the songs.  Your job is to go out and get these recordings.  Ready? Let's play!

1.  To Be Free-Health And Happiness Show 1995  Forgotten alt americana rockers that made two records for Bar None, first record most country, second album a bit more Wilco without the weirdness.  Perhaps Sirius or XM is playing this song somewhere in their 100 channels of music.

2.  Makers Mound-The Dexateens 2006  Americana music today from a band that got their album produced by Patterson Hood of DBTs.  That's Drive By Truckers to y'all that don't know the abbreivation.  I think they remind me more of the Damnwells more than Drive By Truckers, in terms of music and being regulated to second string.  Some good songs here and there but doesn't make a consistant album listening.  But then again, I'm a boring old poop crabb.  Don't like it? Make your own top ten and give a counterpoint......I'm waiting.....

3.  Little Picture Playhouse-The Stillroven 1966  One of many many garage bands of the 60s that did mostly covers but once in a while could sneak in an original on the b side of a obscure 45.  They were from Minneapolis, they could cover obscure stuff such as Little Games by The Yardbirds, or Signed DC and get their inspiration of Hey Joe from Love and not the Byrds.  Well enough to capture the attention of Bob Irwin and Sundazed Records to get their stuff issued on CD back in the 90s to which I found their compliation in the 2 dollar bin at Sam Goody in Westdale a few years ago.  Back when Sam Goody was still around and still doing business at Westdale, aka the Mall Of Death.  Does anybody give a shit about Sam Goody anymore?  No, not really.

4.  Bomb The Twist-The 5,6,7,8's 1996  Japenese all girl guitar band whose big hit was used for Vontage.  Actually it wasn't a hit for them, but for The Rock A Teens.  Also known as the band that appeared in Kill Bill a movie that I watched in pieces but never the whole way through.  Fun loving geisha girls as they are called.  Yup.

5.  Satellite Blues-AC DC 2000  Another track from the band of the month.  I love these guys but damn I'm so sick and tired of hearing For Those About To Rock in the damn background while trying to watch a football game on saturday.  This is from the lackluster Stiff Upper Lip album.  I'll try to do better next week in choosing the next song from the Young brothers and may include Bon Scott as well.  And on a side note it was thirty years ago that I discovered AC DC via If You Want Blood You Got It and then after that picked up all the rest of the albums, including (on import only at the time) Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.

6.  Shannon-The Sinartas 1991  Some wisecracker at Pravda Records decided that the world needed a alt rock answer record to K Tel and their storied 70s collection of 20 Explosive Hits etc etc to make something called 20 Explosive Dymatic Super Smash Hit Explosions and get alt rock bands of that day and age to do cover versions of K Tel hits. Some would good, some were okay, but the majority of them sucked (Cheer-Accident's crapfest Theme From Shaft; Isaac Hayes should have sued the fucks) but this was actually a cool version of the 1976 Henry Gross hit.  Appently this record sold enough for Pravda to issue another K Tel tribute album but with better results.  Why should you care about this?  I donno, just a way to say free your ears and your brain will follow.

7.  Stomp And Buck Dance-Crusaders 1975  They were known as the Jazz Crusaders and made a few albums for World Pacific Jazz before moving to Blue Thumb and moving toward a funk fusion sound.  This actually got some airplay on G100, which used to be the underground FM station here in the mid 70s before eventually selling out and becoming the increasingly bland classic rock 100.7 The FOX.  And no, the FOX don't play this type of music anymore.  Did I mention that I hate listening to the radio?  Just wanted to see if you're paying attention.

8.  Hide Away-Freddie King 1961  From my 18 King Sized Rhythm and Blues hits that i've had on vinyl for almost forty years and now the damn record skips on the next track.  Be a long freaking time before I can find another copy of that album ever again, and I've only seen it one time and I bought it.

9.  The Night Chicago Died-Paper Lace 1974  For good campy fun, you can't beat this bubblegum classic to which No Empathy covered it for the Pravda Comp said earlier in the top ten.  I think somebody made the siren out of one of those starter circult board sets that Radio Shack used to put out years ago.  I tell you young whippersnappers that even though we didn't have BlackBerry or the net, we did managed to keep ourselves amused fairly well.  Such as buying 45s of one hit wonder bubblegum bands.  Na na na na na nana to you too.

10.  Travels In Nihilon-XTC 1980  The first time I was exposed to this band was buying Black Sea when I saw it in the cutout bins at Record Realm around that time.  Virgin Records back then was a import label but couldn't find a label to hang their hat on but this album was released on RSO and came with a green sack cover like Led Zep's In Through the Out Door.  Damn record used to skip all over the place so I finally replaced it with the Epic label when Virgin changed labels. The drums boom all over the place and it sounded great when you turn the bass up all the way but I have to admit it wasn't one of my favorite albums.  Like Wire, XTC took a lot of plays for me to finally get it and now I have all the XTC albums in my collection.  And most of the worthwhile Wire too.  Cool music for the cool music collector.

RIP Herb Score, famed pitcher for Cleveland back in the 50s.

Also, RIP Mitch Mitchell, famed drummer for Jimi Hendrix who died of natural causes yesterday at age 61 or 62 in some papers.

And once again proving that the CMAs are a joke, Carrie Underwood won best female vocalist again.  Is Simon paying off the CMAs or Clive Davis?  Once again we get more phoney baloney, not that Carrie probaly earned it.  But you can't tell me that she had a better year than Taylor Swift, and of course we knew Miranda Lambert was a long shot anyway, she wrote her own songs and was a bit more rock than country.  So we get yet another Carrie "who me?" speech and that she was a long shot in the industry bla bla. Nope, just good old American idol plandering Carrie baby.  It's all about the music and where things will be leading a year or two from now and if they're still playing something from Some Hearts or Carnival Ride, then maybe then I'll shut up about Carrie's fortay into being the new Queen of Country Music, but till then she remains prefabicated and artifical as top forty radio.  I don't buy it then, nor I do now.  Carrie remains the most successful American Idol winner but until she shakes off the manufactured music of her label, I still call her the Queen of Artifical Country Music TM.

And finally Chet Flippo gets the last word on Miranda Lambert's CMA performance.

For me, it was watching Miranda Lambert sing an original song with her own guitar accompaniment. Lambert is known to many as the hell-fire girl, the scorched-earth vixen who will burn your playhouse down, baby. But just give a listen to her on her "More Like Her" and, if you've just been a casual listener to her, you'll have a new appreciation of her. And of what current country music can be. This is a very serious singer-songwriter with much to say. I feel certain she will be a factor in the future of country music.

That song contained what I wasn't hearing a lot of on the CMA Awards show: substance. And style. And personality. And grit.
.....And that's why I think Miranda is better than Carrie Underwood too.  There's way too much fakery from the likes of Underwood who for three straight years took the CMA's top award, to which I don't get.  Miranda is the real deal and as long as she can write them and play them out, I'll listen to her stuff.  Carrie Underwood just don't convince me.  She has a good voice granted, but some of us don't like the hear all octaves in a final chorus.  But she has yet to compile a album of decent songs to convince me and untill she gets into a studio with session players like Lambert's and write songs of depth I'll ignore Underwood and continue to question her winning the CMAs, or Grammys.  So there.