Top Ten Of The Week-RIP Rocky Hill

Saturday is national record store day.  For the faithful, there is still some record stores out there but none are here in Cedar Rapids.  So patronize Moondog Music and CDs 4 Change at Dubuque, Downtown Discs in Platteville Wisconsin, Record Collector and Real Records in Iowa City, and Mad City Music Exchange, Strictly Discs, Sugar Shack Records  B Sides Music and The Exclusive Company in Madison.  Weather calls for clouds and rain this weekend so I may not make it to any stores.  But support your local record store, for that next year they might not be around.

Another musician passed away this week.  Rocky Hill, older brother of Dusty Hill and best known for I Won't Be Your Fool Anymore, 1988 hit on Virgin Records died on Monday.  He was 62 years old.

Billy Bob Thornton's Boxmasters Canadian Tour got canceled and basically of the fact that Billy Bob raised a big stink on a CBC show.  The Boxmasters were opening up for Willie Nelson, and got booed off the stage a couple times before they pulled the plug on the tour.  I may pull the top ten here if ratings continue to tank as well.  Speaking of which, this is the latest installment of the seven year experiment known as The Top Ten Of The Week, with the usual hit and misses from my player.  Gawd I miss Brooksie and her counterpoint, three years after the fact.

1.  More More More (Part 2) Andrea True Connection 1976  Dedicated to Marilyn Chambers who passed away Monday, Andrea True was a porn star that had a off the wall hit with this song. Buddah Records named the disco version part two and it doesn't vary all that much from the three minite edit.  A very saultry number but time hasn't been too kind to Andrea judging from the way she looks now after VH1 did a story on her one hit.  But then again, nobody stays young and beautiful thirty years after the fact and certainly not after all those x rated films either.

2.  Drinking Wine Spo Dee O Dee-Sticks McGee 1949  A very early Atlantic hit from this blues singer and later covered by Jerry Lee Lewis for a 1973 hit himself.  When I did some blues research at Kirkwood back in 1982, this song was 33 years old.  Come to think of it, Andrea True's song is 33 years after the fact too.  Time flies and it stays the same while we all get older.

3.  Heatseeker-Ac/Dc 1988  The great lost AC DC album was Blow Up Your Video.  Funny how when Wal Mart had that sale on the AC DC back catalog that I couldn't find Blow Up Your Video, nor Fly On The Wall or even Flick Of The Switch which wasn't that bad of an album. Blow Up Your Video suffers from a very bad mix.  Sounded like shit in the car and not much better on the stereo either.

4.  If We Can't Be Lovers-The Star Spangles 2003  Wasn't much of a market out there for a band that sounded like the offspring of the NY Dolls and Iggy Pop. They made one album for Capitol and then disappeared just like that.  Really isn't that bad of a album, but then again it wasn't no match for the real thing of the NY Dolls or Iggy or The Heartbreakers (Johnny Thunders band not Tom Petty).  Somehow, David Johansen reformed what's left of the NY Dolls and made a comeback album a couple years later.  The Star Spangles made another album for a indee label and then broke up it seems.  But then again not too many people care about bands from the decade of 2k0 which is this decade.

5.  Green Onions-Roy Buchanan 1976  A 7 minite jamout with Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn with David Galbardi sitting in for Al Jackson on drums.  Roy does a lotta showing off on guitar. Still gets played a bit on Beeker Street.  Alas, Roy would hang himself in jail in 1988 a sad ending to one of the best guitarist you never heard of.

6.  Drive-Incubus 1999  You know you're getting old when this song is now ten years old.  Hard to believe that Incubus is still around.  Even harder to believe they're still on a major label too.

7.  Shutting Down Detroit-John Rich 2009  The protest song of this day and age. And basically the truth although I don't agree with a lot of John Rich's ideas on his album Son Of A Preacher Man.  A bit too much right wingness.

8.  Superstition-Beck,Bogart & Appice 1973  Deconstuction of a Stevie Wonder hit.  Got played a bit on the underground FM stations of the 70s.  Album got terrible reviews and my opinion of that record is mixed.  This song, sloppy but fun.

9.  I Don't Know Much-Billy Pilgrim 1995 This band made two decent Atlantic albums in the 90s and their harmonies reminded me of a more grounded Rembrandts or Jayhawks but never paid much attention to this duo till I found their album in the dollar bins at HP Books and it's better than Dog Eye View or Matchbox 20. Don't know what happened to Andrew Hyra but Kristian Hall would grow a goatee, put on a cowboy hat and hooked up with Kristen Hall and Jennifer Nettles to form Sugarland and that has paid better dividens for Mr. Hall.

10.  Ordinary People-Neil Young And The Blue Notes 2007  Yes, he is a old crank but dammit we love the old crank just as much as y'all love the old cranky crabb.  Supposely this was done for a possible Blue Notes live album but Neil had a change of heart and sat on this song for 2 decades before putting it out on Crome Dreams 2, perhaps the best record he's done this decade.  Which isn't saying much if you compare it to forgettible stuff such as Are You Passonite? or Prairie Wind and so far the jury hasn't been too kind to his Fork In The Road album released last week.  At 18 minites it's longer than In A Gadda De Vida by Iron Butterfly and a bit more interesting.  My question to y'all is how could Neil remember all these words to this song. 

 "The record store is the livery stable where I can tie up, feed and groom my ears."    Tom Waits