Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Top Ten Of The Week-Happy Thanksgiving

Top Ten Of The Week-Happy Thanksgiving

It's been a very trying month here in Crabbland.  A wasted trip to Ames/Des Moines, then getting just about ran over from some dorkfish from J & K Trucking to which they have yet to send a payment for that accident.  Then have some psycho Trucker trying to do his own version of Duel 2 the next week.  Figuring in with a damn toothache and a fucking wayward eyelash into my eye and nothing going right at work and you can come up yet another shitty November here in my life.  Yep, it's true, I might end up getting either a stroke or a heart attack or both but we're doing our best to stay sane.  In the meantime, we have about five more top tens to go before the year is out. 

This week's tunes are as follows.

1.  Gardenia-Kyuss 1994  Before Josh Homme started hanging out with Those Crooked Vultures, he was in this stoner band that made four uneven albums for Dali/Elektra.  Relics Records sold a ton of Welcome To Sky Valley and I did find a used copy later to see what's the fuss was about.  All guitars were turned up loud and John Garcia's vocals was buried way back in the mix somewhere.  This probably could have been a hit if Garcia wasn't rapping "get back, get back you mutherfucka" at the fade.  Still I think Kyuss was a bit more fun than Homme's Queens Of The Stone Age projects.

2.  Inside Looking Out-The Animals 1965  Hooray for Beaker Street for playing this song the other night.  I think I wore the grooves off my forty five of this song.  The Animals jammed out and at 3:47 it was considered an epic song before Bob Dylan raised the bar with something called Like A Rolling Stone.

3.  Get Behind The Mule-Tom Waits 2009  From his new live album and better seen than heard.  As a bonus on the live album, Waits was kind enough to add 35 minites of stage banter as a bonus disc titled Tom's Tales to which Tom pretty much becomes ask Mr Wizard.

4.  Wasting Time-Kings Of Leon 2002  Hooray for Kings Of Leon breaking big time with their album of last year but I still perfer their EP Holy Roller Novacaine, which sounded a bit more rough and a lot more rock and roll and lot less Coldplay sounding.

5.  Waited Up-The Samples 1990  A jam band from Golden Colorado that somehow managed to get their debut snapped up by Arista and then dropped almost as fast.  Sean Kelly has that Sting via way of Tony Lewis high voice that annoys most people but on this song the whole band sounds like they're having a fun jam time.  Nobody hears much from The Samples anymore but for a time they were supposed to be the next big thing.  Anyway I was trying to hear this album on the way to work while trying to out race some psycho truck driver that I think I cut off by accident.  Told him I was sorry but since he was trying to stick his damn semi up my ass, all bets were off and he got the number one.  I said I was sorry for cutting you off dumbfucker.

6.  Wheels-Foo Fighters 2009  New song from the Foo's Greatest Hits album.  It all goes to show that Dave Gorhl can write catchy singles but made subpar albums.  Only Foo Fighters album I cared that much about was the debut which was powerhouse pop and roll and while The Colour And Shape had it's moments I didn't like that one all that much and each ensuring album was mundane.  So perhaps The Foo Fighters needed a Greatest Hits just to remind me that they do write a good song or two from time to time.  And Wheels is a very good track.

7.  Candyland-James McMurtry 1992  Title track from his 2nd album which was produced by John Mellencamp and played with his band.  I don't think Mellencamp's band was perfect for McMurtry songs, they came across a bit heavy handed but as the years progressed on, James McMurtry would write better songs, namely the song of the decade We Can't Make It Here Anymore.

8.  Good Day In Hell-The Eagles 1974  It seems like this song is perfect for the kind of month that I have been having dealing with J & K Trucking trying to flatten my car into a beer can and the wrong place at the wrong time luck that seems to be norm for myself.  It doesn't get any easier now we are into the Xmas season and I'm sure the weather will get colder and suck even more.  Some days we have good days in this hell we call Cowpie Iowa and most of the time it's usually bad.  What am I saying? Hell I don't know, I'm just blabbling on.  On to the next song.

9.  I Want You Back Again-The Zombies 1966  One of the lesser known hits for this British band that Tom Petty has covered live in concert and you can hear it on his 4 CD Live album that came out this week.  Appently Best Buy has a 10 CD 4 DVD blue ray set that makes Springsteen Live 1985 album look like an EP.  Thought I had The Zombies version somewhere but i didn't but you can find it on Absolutely The Best.

10.  Top Of The Pops-The Smithereens 1991  By then The Smitereens were ready to get gone from Capitol but not before they had this top 50 single that came out in 91.  Alas, this song never did get up to the Top Of The Pops, it barely made it halfway.  Rock and roll that's still fun.  So they say.