As I get older, I tend to find that the old body doesn't work the way it used to be, especially when I had my gallbladder removed back in 2002, I find that if I overdo the buffets I tend to make a 50 yard dash to the bathroom. Nowadays even a can of soup does that too. Not sure about the advantages of growing old. But in my nighttime travels, I have come to go to either Perkins or IHOP for midnight pancakes. We don't have a Denny's anymore and Happy Chef is a thing of the past. If I was up in a town that has it, I do stop at Dennys for the grand slam. The Village Inn does have a breakfast menu all day but I don't think they're open when I get off work. Which leaves only IHOP or Perkins. I tend to find IHOP's pancakes to be more like sinkers, they stay in your stomach longer and makes you feel full more than Perkins and their Buttermilk Five which does the trick. But I'm sure my GF does make a mean set of Pancakes from time to time. But when she's not around and I haven't eaten all day, then I truck on down 380 to Perkins for a midnight snack.
And so begins the next edition of The Top Ten Of The Week, to which I pick 10 songs of note and make a comment or two and then put it up for special viewing and await comments. But I usually preparing the next blog since I don't get much commenting outside of the usual spam at the usual places.
Thanks to everybody that enjoys my Growing Up series to which I pick out a certain decade and remember the good times. Be assured that I will continue to put them out from time to time but not all at once. I have to relive and remember what I did back then and coming to find out that I remember more about my childhood years than the 80s which was a blur and the 90s much worse. It's hard to understand the mind and why I can remember the grade and high school years better than living at the old duplex in Cedar Rapids in the 90s. As I get older I tend to be more in a fog and feeling like Grandpa Simpson. If this is the shape of things to come, then I better jot everything down now as it happens cuz we all know come tomorrow I'll forget it all.
The Top Ten Of The Week.
1. See-The Rascals 1969 Despite what Lenny Kaye thought of this album, I thought it rocked pretty damn good although the best songs found their way on 45. The title track even at 4:34 was a edit of the 5 minute song and it got plenty of airplay on the old Old Gold 108 FM station years ago. Back then FM radio did play most of the oldies and not the usual overplayed. The flip side, Away Away, features some of the most complex drumming Dino Danelli ever played. How the hell he did those continuing drum rolls is beyond me.
2. Got Love Cause You Need It-Steve Miller Band 1969 To which the space cowboy becomes the Swing Cowboy. I tend to think it was a throwaway but Tim Davis throws a nasty groove to it. Miller dedicated the song to Richard Nixon at one point.
3. Looking For A Girl-Teddy Thompson 2011 Critics have been calling his new album his best yet but that's a bit too early but I'm rooting for Richard and Linda's talented son. This would make a wonderful song to hear on Soft Crap station KDAT but they're too busy playing Train or Sheryl Crow or that song about drunken sex, I think it's called Need You Now and it won a bunch of Grammys TM. Anyway, Teddy has been on Verve Forecast for 4 albums now, which is double more than anybody else but Bella (the album) is worth checking out. Perhaps Teddy should borrow the A and R dude behind Lady Antebellum. Or Train.
4. Pretend We're Dead-L7 1992 Hard to believe that the era of grunge is now 20 years behind us which shows how fast time flies when you spend over half that on the net blogging about music like I have been. And getting nowhere in the process. L7 was this alt grunge all chick band that made three albums for Slash/Reprise before returning to the independent underground scene. Butch Vig produced this.
5. Can't Explain-Long-View 2005 One of the best songs that Coldplay never made, this came from a shoegazer band that was 15 years removed from that time. Actually heard this playing at Hardee's one day a few years ago and was amazed it got even played at all. They recorded one album for Columbia and disappeared but I think this is a better love song than Lady Antebellum Need You Now. Maybe it's not a love song but I love the chorus of I waited for Hours, Hours turn to days, days turn to years and I'm still here. Sony/BMG didn't think it would sell so it was one of those rare albums of 2005 that didn't get that dreaded rootkit Copy protected CD disease which started the downfall of CD sales.
6. Wishing Well-Nick Lowe 1985 Elvis Costello, God bless him, when he went into the rock and roll hall of fame he said that Nick Lowe should be there too since Lowe started before him and wrote the songs before he did. Lowe has been around forever, beginning with pub rockers Brinsley Schwartz and then becoming a punk rock producer for The Dammed and becoming a witty punk popper with So It Goes and Heart Of The City and then started the greatest band of the late 70s, Rockpile with Dave Edmunds till they had a falling out and Lowe started up a new band with Paul (How Long) Carrack and made four decent albums together which The Rose Of England was the best of the bunch. This was one of the lesser known numbers off Rose Of England and tacked on the latest Best of called Quiet Please, The New Best Of Nick Lowe. And I forgotten how good this song was till I heard it again. FYI: Yep Roc, Lowe's US label is reissuing Labor Of Lust next month. Here's hoping they add Rose Of England to the reissue department.
7. Got To Get Better In A Little While-Derek And The Dominoes 1971 Not released till 1987. The find of the week was Eric Clapton's Crossroads, that massive 4 cd box set that I found for 8 bucks at Half Priced Books over the weekend. Now I really didn't need it except for the fact that I don't need to rebuy the 40th Anniversary of Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs which will be out in March. GD it I bought the 20th Anniversary edition as well as the remastered Layla. Anyway, this track was supposed to be part of the aborted 2nd album from Derek/Dominoes but EC was so wacked out on heroin that he was in no shape to continue it and would spend another couple years getting cleaned up. Bobby Whitlock wasn't part of this song so his vocals and keyboards were not on this version. However, they did play this in concert and they jammed on it for just about 14 minutes. A tour de force.
8. Questions Of My Childhood-Kansas 1976 B side to Carry On Wayward Son but I think I played this just as much as that one when it came out on 45.
9. It's Over-Boz Scaggs 1976 More then just Lowdown,Silk Degrees is Boz Scaggs coming into his own as a good white soul artist although when he was with Steve Miller he was more rock than soul but times changed. CBS promoted four singles off this album to which this was the first that came out. I remember buying this album at the old Zaire's store in Lincoln Illinois for 3.99 the next year.
10. Gator Country-Molly Hatchet 1978 Molly Hatchet came on the heels of the 2nd wave of Southern Rock after Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash that took Ronnie Van Zant from this world and Danny Joe Brown takes a lot of his songwriting from Van Zant. Molly Hatchet was a bit more heavier than the Skynyrd boys and I remember KUPD playing this cut a few times when I lived in AZ in 86.
The last buys at Real Records Documented
Social Distortion-Hard Times And Nursery Rhymes (LP)
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band-Clear Spot (LP)
Martin Mull & His Fabulous Furniture In Your Living Room (LP)
Otis Redding-The Soul Album (CD)
Oh Boy Records Presents Joe Tex (CD)
The Primitives-Buzz Buzz Buzz The Complete Lazy Recordings (CD)
Thanks for the memories Craig!
4 comments:
Crabby: You're right, "See" & "Questions of My Childhood" R both classics. I thot "It's Over" sounded better coming out of the radio than it did on the turntable, something about that compressed tinny-speaker AM radio sound.... But "See" wails, & "Question" has that great, silly little loopy keyboard part I always wait 2 hear repeat. Nice Top 10, as always....
Hey TAD, It's Over reminds me of the waning days of AM radio. Sounds much more at home there than on the player. I'm surprised KDAT, the overplayed crap station hasn't gotten this on the airwaves.
Kansas, like Rush was one band I didn't care much in high school but they do now. In a way it sounds like a condensed Song For America but it was this B side to a major hit and it rocks.
I was *so* gonna say that Stevie Guitar Miller dedicated Number Five to Nixon "'cause he needed it," but you had it covered.
I was 9 when Nixon resigned, so all my memories of Nixon are in retrospect. But hearing Nixon's name definitely makes me think of the back of Number Five where Miller does his dedication, it's got a picture of the Space Cowboy kneeling down and talking to his kids.
I think of the Neil Young album back, Neil's On The Beach staring at the sea, and the newpaper flotsam blowing by tells us Nixon Resigns.
I think of Hunter Thompson talking football with Nixon in the back of the limo, I think of hearing Steve Martin doing his monolog about Nixon walking along the San Clemente beach in his lumpy Bermuda shorts.
And I think of the spray painted slogan that hung at the bus stop on Coral Way and 82nd Avenue during my junior high school years, big, bold, black letters that said NIXON '80.
I recall hearing that remark that Miller dedicated Number 5 to Nixon "we love ya cuz you need it" but forgot it was on Number 5 till you pointed it out Rastromonicals. Thanks for clarifying that.
The Nixon era was full of Watergate this and that most of 73 and 4 till he resigned. I remember in fifth grade we choose up sides and I was on the Nixon side and all my friends were on McGovern side.
That was the last time I ever voted Republican ;)
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