Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Top Ten: Homecoming Queen Is A Queen!

This must have been gay pride weekend, since I've seen a couple of guys holding hands up at Best Buy Friday, the first time I have ever seen this here in town.  Probably a no brainer out in San Francisco or New York but here in Cowpie Iowa, still unheard of.

Waited for a half hour for a meal at Long John Silver's and there was a black guy that was gay that waited on me as well, apologized for the long wait and gave two extra pieces of chicken and two pieces of something so damn hard I threw away to go with the fish at hand.

 

Homecoming for Solon showed them scalping Marion 42-0 in perhaps the worst Marion lost in years.  Up at Northern Iowa University, the homecoming queen, was a queen, transgender Steven Sanchez.   This is not going very well with the Christian values people, I'm surprised Steve King, Republican looney from the other side of the state hasn't bashed on this.  But then again this DOES NOT affect the way that I live anyway, nor does you.



For fun and games, type a person's name on Google and then add is to the fray and you'll get a whole bunch of Hilary to enjoy.  Here's how it works, let's try Luke Bryan is a...... and see what you get for an answer.  In number one Luke Bryan is an douche, 2) jerk 3) girl.  Type in Ted Cruz next. 1) Is a idiot  2) Jerk 3) Moron.



 Ginger Baker has one all his own and that's Ginger Baker is a prick.  Now way into his 70s, Baker has had unkind words for plenty of people, Jack Bruce which he played many times before has raised his ire, the late Gary Moore, unkind drunk that had the volumes so loud he blew his ears out and freaked out Chris Goss to the point of not touring that the breakthrough Masters Of Reality album Sunrise On The Sufferbus bombed which Goss called it a worst decision he ever did, not tour since Baker didn't want to tour.  Well the old cantankerous grouch strikes again, torturing (deservedly)  a Rolling Stones reviewer and calling the Stones untalented except for Charlie Watts.  Although I wasn't that influenced by Baker all that much (Moon, Bonham, Jerry Shirley, Lonnie Washburn were my main faves) Baker was very expressionistic drummer which may have part in the playing of Neil Peart and Mike Portenoy as well.  I'll give him this though, he is the World's Greatest and Grouchiest Drummer ever.  Second to none. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/q-a-ginger-baker-on-why-the-rolling-stones-are-not-good-musicians-20131011



Just in case if you don't hear from me rest of the week, here's the latest installment of the Top Ten Of The Week:



1.  How Come-The Pogues 1995  Philip Chervon passed away who was part of this band but gone by the time The Pogues limped home with the Pogue Mahone farewell that Mesa/Rhino picked up and although there's no Shawn MacGowan (he went on to from The Popes) this record is much better than drab Waiting For Herb.  At least I thought so.



2.  Fool's Gold-Graham Parker & The Rumour 1976  I recall Bob Lefsetz wetting his pants over Heat Treatment in a blog of his and I did have the CD but forgot all about it, till I took it with me on a ill faded Dubuque trip.  And he's right, Heat Treatment was a better album than Howlin' Wind and perhaps credit is due to Robert John Lange who at that time was producing some of the finest pub rockers out there (The Motors) and does get a little something more out of the band than Nick Lowe did.   I also credit Dave Charles, future Dave Edmunds drummer and engineer max who got a nice sound out of the record.  In the face of the music out there of the late 70s, Graham Parker gets overlooked....a lot.  http://www.rhino.com/article/bob-lefsetz-welcome-to-my-world-heat-treatment



3.  Now You're In Heaven-Julian Lennon 1989  Julian Lennon? Bwahahahaha!  No really.  Julian Lennon gets raked over the coals just because he was John Lennon's son.  But yeah, his Valotte album I have no use of, and the followup was a turd from the word go, but Mr. Jordan  his 3rd Atlantic platter is a dollar classic.  Hell, nobody did a better Bowie soundalike than Julian did on this failed hit and was actually better than anything Bowie was doing at the time.  Produced by David Leonard, who had a side project called Toy Matinee with the late Kevin Gilbert which Julian added some background vocals.  Later on Mr. Jordan there's a bit of a Toy Matinee sound which makes this somewhat listenable.  But knowing the majority of y'all out there, you will never listen to it.  You're missing out!



4.  (I'm) Stranded-The Saints 1977  Ah punk rock and it sprung up everywhere, even Australia.  This song and the album was a very big deal although EMI didn't issue it in the US, Sire Records did.  They owed more to Raw Power Stooges than The Ramones I believe but that's in the mind of the beholder.  Some label called Amsterdamned Record issued this when EMI passed on the deal.  Includes a hilarious take on Lipstick On Your Collar, which Chris Bailey leaves the lyrics intact.  Thus showing their alliance to New York Dolls.



5.  No Stranger To Love-Black Sabbath 1986  Tony Iommi wanted to bill this as a solo album but Warner Brothers said no way and issued it under the Black Sabbath banner.  Betcha didn't know Sabbath had two vocalists that used to be in Deep Purple eh?  This time out it's Glenn Hughes which everybody seems to have a love hate affair with.  Actually, I can tolerate Hughes about 75 percent of the time on this album which is actually more than Stormbringer or all of the Black Country Communion albums that he played and screeched on.  Future KISSer Eric Singer plays drums.  This sounds a bit more Bad Company than Sabbath though.



6.  Asphalt Rising-Fu Manchu 1996  They call it stoner rock but these dudes are from the same area that spawned Kyuss and actually has Kyuss, bottom heavy riff rock down pat. For a short time in the mid 90s Fu Manchu took over the stoner rock banner after Kyuss called it a day (they have since reformed under another name Vista Chino and have a new album out which recalls Kyuss).  I recall the skate board crowd of the mid 90s here bought their albums left and right.  Found a couple of their albums during a late night raid at Stuff Etc. where I also picked up a forgotten alt band Jacob's Mouse, which sounded like a cross between loud Husker Du and Helmet but devoid of any melody.  Fu Manchu was much better.

7.  Country Pie-Bob Dylan 1969  Nashville Skyline, the beginning of the confused period to which Dylan went Nashville and started throwing more curveballs at the faithful.  Hell, he's even smiling at the camera for the cover art and got Johnny Cash to duet on Girl From The North Country.  I donno, some days I like Nashville Skyline, other times I don't and although John Wesley Harding preceded it I had reservations about that album too.  History has been more kind to Skyline than when it was released but if the faithful had a hard time with that, they were about to be blindslided with Self Portrait the next year.



8.  Black Heart-Stone Temple Pilots/Chester Bennington 2013   Scott Wieland pissed them off for the very last time, so he got the boot and they ended up having the Linkin Park frontman Chester doing lead vocals and of course there's a slight stepdown in that although Bennington holds his own on an uneven 5 song EP that reminds me of a lukewarm Shangri La Dee Da, their least interesting album.  And that reminds me; I need to upgrade the Stone Temple Pilots blog at the Consortium.

9.  That Girl Can Sing-Jackson Browne 1980  If you want a best of Jackson Browne, you're better off making a mix tape or Mix CD of your own, all of his best ofs have left something of that I enjoyed a lot (Chasing You Into The Light I have yet to see on a best of)  From his problematic Hold Out which still remains uneven as hell, even though the two best songs were picked as singles.  You can guess the other one fairly easy.



10.  Dark Visions-Sonia Dada 2004  A cult fan favorite, Beaker Street played their their 2nd album a lot and you probably have seen their first album in bargain bins which Jarrod Neimann best known hit was a cover of Sonia Dada.  They stayed active up till Test Pattern which this song comes from but they kinda disappeared off the map since then.

 

Hell No. Go fucking away!

BTW, Toto Rocks: http://ultimateclassicrock.com/steve-lukather-interview/

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