It's been a dry spring so far this year and that's the way I like
it. But we are in the rainy season and I'm sure we'll get more than our
share of stalled stationary fronts. And then that will be one more
thing that I'll bitch about. Thanks everybody for your support of The
Top Ten. It has been renewed for another week.
I finally tried
the Jimmy Zack's Pizza Joint for buffet today, they only do it on
wednesday and friday of the week and I have to say that Jimmy Zack's
reminds me of Zoey's or Pizzeria Uno, pizza that fills you up. It was a buffet and the price wasn't too bad (6.35 includes pop-cheaper than
Cici's) and I only had three big slices of pizza. Goes to show you they
were big pizza slices. Nothing still competes with Naso's but Jimmy
Zack's is a nice change of pace. Don't care for Cranky Hank's in
Lindale though. Reminds me a bit like Rocky Roccos when we had that in
Iowa City years ago. Steve Rasmussen would disagree, Rocky was better.
We
are almost done with April, a third of the way through this year and I
still have yet to compile ten notable albums of this year. Nothing
really stands out although I do like the new JJ Cale Roll On, and
Queensryche American Soldier although I seem to space that album out
when its time to choose road music CDs. The new Bob Dylan will get a
spin, likewise Heaven And Hell (Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio) and
Radio Moscow's new one IF fucking Best Buy will stock it. Otherwise
we'll have to Amazon it. There's no real plans to go back up to Madison
till later in summer.
The Top Ten.
1. Kick Out The
Jams-MC5 1968 The first forty five I've bought new in years and it came
during National Record Store Day as one of those special order things.
Original single was the Brothers and Sisters Version, but Rhino went
with the MF version guarantee to piss off parents. I bought this album
for 2 bucks in the cutouts in 1975 and my old man didn't like it at all,
especially with the noisy side two and Starship. I think he ordered me
to quit playing it after two minutes of that song. Thankfully he
didn't bust it later.
2. Shot Of Love-Bob Dylan 1981 I had a
choice of this or something from the Basement Tapes but since I added a
song from that album to a different top ten (Seen at Multiply.com) I
decided to go with the titled track off Dylan's 1981 album. The last of
his Born Again period, he does start to rock out on this album. Not as
bad as Rolling Stone Magazine would like you to think.
3. Big
Yellow Taxi-The Neighborhood 1971 The only top ten song from this 8
piece choral group who made an album for Big Tree known for their note
for note rendition of MacArthur Park. Seemed like everybody did that
song. Big Yellow Taxi, is a cover of Joni Mitchell's version and I like
The Neighborhood's better. Anything else The Neighborhood's Debut
album we can all live without and that includes MacArthur Park.
4.
Drift Away-Humble Pie 1974 Yes that version and it's off Thunderbox,
the Pie's flop 1974 album. By then Peter Frampton was long gone and
Steve Marriott and company were spinning their tires in lukewarm R and B
and Boogie. But Greg Ridley does the vocal on this number and it's
better than Uncle Kracker's version. I'm sure had Uncle Kracker been
around in 1974, he would have been the guest vocalist on this track. In
terms of Humble Pie I'll take their Frampton years over the Marriott
boogie years. It's called inspiration.
5. Get Stoned-Stone 1988
Heavy Metal Spinal Tap guys from Finland of all places. Harder and
funnier than Metallica and Anthrax combined, Sal at BJ Records was
playing this CD and I had to hear the rest of this album. It was a one
off, made on MCA Records' metal label Mechanic and this has been a HM
secret. Were these guys serious or were they trying to be funny? Or
was a big Finish FU to the Hair Metal MFs of Sunset Strip? Certainly
MTV never played this although this was recorded at the Helsinki MTV
studios. Riki Richtman never commented on them on his Headbanger's Ball
back in the late 80s, back when MTV played music videos and not this
fucking awful reality crap potato they call programming. Yes I missed
those days too, I was 27 and had the rest of my life in front of me.
Later in this album, Stone destroys The Final Countdown before blowing
it out of the water with Overtake. Why am I telling you this? You'll
never hear this album unless you go through a 100 pages of Amazon used
CD titles to get to Stone.
6. Black Shuck-The Darkness 2003
Remember these guys? They were the rage of the UK and for a short time
in America got airplay on the radio. Sometimes KRNA plays one of their
tracks but I had to get the clean copy of this album, simply of the fact
that Justin Hawkins redid the naughty words and adding something that
rhymes with the F bomb. The choice word you ask? I don't give a Duck.
;-) The Darkness nevertheless were the most rock sounding of all modern
bands this decade. And they're still around in the UK, with a recent
new album but so far Atlantic has no intentions of releasing that in the
US. They figured that the buyers should stick to AC DC, Bad Company or
Queen. With Freddie Mercury that is and not Paul Rodgers.
7.
Small Beginnings-Flash 1972 Peter Banks was the main guitarist for YES
till he got bounced out of the band due to being too much of a party
animal and Steve Howe replaced him. Banks remains pissed off about it to
this day and refuses to participate in any YES reunions. This was the
only hit that he got from Flash, which sounded a bit like YES including
the vocalist. Tony Kaye, also booted from YES plays keyboards on this
album although he'd move on to Badger. Flash would go on to make three
more albums before imploding after an off night in Albuquerque one
night. Banks would have a solo career and would stuck top ten gold in
1983 with After The Fire and Der Kommisser. But even that song when it
peaked, ATF broke up anyway.
8. Hot Dog-Buck Owens 1989 A top
ten country hit for Buck on his second go round with Capitol Records but
he recorded it as Corky James around 1955 or 58 (too lazy to look it
up) as a rockabilly hit. This version is a bit more honky tonk. First
of three albums he did with Capitol/Curb before retiring again in 1992
from recording.
9. Neat Neat Neat-The Damned 1977 The first punk
band to record a punk album, beating The Sex Pistols by about a month.
Got Nick Lowe to produced it and it came out on Stiff Records in the
mid 70s, (Later on Castle/Sanctuary before Sanctuary went belly up this
decade). I find The Damned to be a bit too much and all over the place
after listening to the MCA 1987 Light At The End Of The Tunnel Best of
but I guess they deserved their place in history although not on my
shelf. They're still touring although they have excommunicated Rat
Scabies (the original drummer) on anything after 1992. Fun fact, if you
do come across the first Damned album called Damned Damned Damned, you
will noticed that Castle added the mistake photo that was on the
original Stiff album. To which the back photo wasn't The Damned but
rather Eddie And The Hot Rods, another pub punk band that did well in
the UK but was ignored in the US. But I was a fan of Eddie and the Hot
Rods.
10. The Red Telephone-Love 1968 From Forever Changes, the
best non Beatle album ever to come out of the 60s. While Love is a rock
band, they mostly used acoustic guitars on this album and got great
arrangements from David Angel. Unfortunly, Arthur Lee would break up
the band and add new members and went into a more hard rock/funk
direction with less satisfying results. And this song we leave you with
this observation...."We are all normal and we want our freedom".
So do I.
Jeff Gilbert writes on Satellite radio and how it's getting to suck.
I'm
not happy with the direction satellite radio is taking. I really liked
the "cross country" station on XM, but since the XM/Sirius merger it's
been replaced by "outlaw country," which, to my tastes at least, is a
little too county and not enough "alt." I also think The Loft station on
XM/Sirius is becoming a bit too mainstream. It's getting harder and
harder to find good new discoveries.
