Since Nicole has moved down here, I have not have much time to scope out anything new, unless it's on the way home from work and usually that's Wally World. Didn't find much in terms of Half Priced Book's 20 percent off sale last weekend but did noticed that Wal Mart added a couple more cd's in their cheap bins. One being Boston's Don't Look Back and something from Rhino/Flashback called Flashback With The Grateful Dead. I used to recall that Boston's Don't Look Back ushered in the 8.98 era when CBS assigned the FE prefix to it back in 1978 but 34 years later it has been regulated to the five dollar bin at Wally World either shows how old it is or how CD's are now becoming so passe.
Maybe Bob Lefsetz is right when he says the time has been long past for the CD and we should embrace anything new from the great jukebox on the internet skies. And that it's 1967 all over again. Wrong Bob, radio is still stuck in that classic rut for the past 30 years and new rock is crud anyway.
We've seen many of Grateful Dead best ofs and what have you. The Best Of The Grateful Dead has been replaced by a more up to date version so what does Flashback With The Grateful Dead have to offer? Truckin' and Touch Of Gray are the two best known songs here, plus you get US Blues and the rocking Alabama Getaway, perhaps the only good track off 1980's Go To Heaven LP. I basically got it for Throwing Stones, their minor 1988 hit off In The Dark. I'm guessing The Music Never Stopped was a tie in to the movie of the same name, therefore it's appearance here. But then again I wasn't that fond of this particular track either.
So in the end Flashback With The Grateful Dead serves only as a sampler of their music and not to be taken as a best of. After all, most cheap five dollar best of stuff out there is one or two hits and the rest filler. But I'll grant them this, Truckin' as never sounded more fuller and more fun than on this version.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Top Ten Of The Week-June Bugs
We have now moving into the halfway part of the year, weather getting warmer, the bugs are out. Can't go mowing the yard without a GD gnat in your face or a skeeter trying to bite you as well. I'm learning to adjust to my new life as having a GF around. I don't sleep all that much since when she leaves for work, Chloe cries and I have to go keep her company till Nicole gets back. Chloe will lay in the waterbed but she tends to moves around and I never get much sleep anyway.
Went to Half Priced Books over the weekend and found Johnny Nash I Can See Clearly Now and The New Christy Minstrels Ramblin for 2 bucks. I'm sure if we went on Thursday I would have found a few more but basically I have it all, anything else is just extras.
Well the lightning bugs are a week early but have yet to see the dammed earwigs. They'll be here in another two weeks. Or sooner.
Not a lot to talk about music wise. Roger Waters says he don't forsee a Pink Floyd reunion anything soon. But there might be some appearances by David Gilmour and Nick Mason if you keep an open mind....Don't expect a full blown Faces reunion either till Ronnie Wood gives up his job as money grabber for The Rolling Stones according to Rod Stewart....And New Black Stone Cherry this weekend. Just because I have a GF doesn't mean I've given up on new music. Even though Bob Lefsetz would want me to.
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/05/30/its-the-money/
The Top Ten Of The Week.
1. Hello Old Friend-Eric Clapton 1976 Long time ago I bought this at one of the Goodwill stores here (I am thinking the old one at Marion Shopping Center) and still have a fondness for this forgotten top forty tune. Certainly one cannot the importance of 461 Ocean Boulevard but sometimes I think there's more to E.C. besides the same ole same ole you hear on the FOX.
2. There Are More Questions Than Answers-Johnny Nash 1972 While doing this top ten, my wonderful GF pops wakes up from her nap and is throwing suggestions to me about who to consider on the top ten. In fact, I think I woke her up by playing Stir It Up. After 10 different suggestions I told her she should do her own top ten and she replied I gave you about 20 suggestions. So I went with this failed single from Johnny Nash to which I'm sure she has never heard before. Once upon a time, Nash was marketed as a teen idol for ABC Paramount then went to Jamaica and did the reggae classic Hold Me Tight and then hit number 1 with I Can See Clearly Now to which is heard anywhere in the road. Bob Marley figured in the music on this. Here in Crabby Land we tend to go for the more obscure. Thank you hon for the suggestions now go back to sleep! ;)
3. It Happened Today-REM 2011 Funny how new music gets released one month and then the next is forgotten. This came out in March and already been committed for the archives. Yes I played it, then filed it and then got it out to listen to on the way to work but had to play this track twice in a row. REM has seemed to got their groove back, made two back to back decent albums for the first time since Monster and New Adventures In Hi Fi. And yes I liked both albums. But I also think that Gareth (Jack Knife) Lee had been the best suited Producer for them since Scott Litt too.
4. Life In London-Pat Travers Band 1990 Originally recorded in 1978 but I went with the 1990 version to which Pat hooked up with Jerry Riggs and Mars Cowling for his best band since Pat Thrall and Tommy Aldridge were in it. Still if you haven't checked it out, PT has his own Facebook site. http://www.facebook.com/pattraversband
5. Ramblin-New Christy Minstrels 1963 I bet your parents or had a neighbor that had this on LP. I know a neighbor did and borrowed it to tape record Green Green and never paid much attention to the rest of the album till Collector's Choice Music picked the best for that 2 CD Definitive Collection which had some decent songs on it but also a lot of crappy ones too. Could done without the French or German versions but this was probably as close to rock and roll as they got. Ended disc one of Definite and lead off as the title track to Ramblin. They also benefited from Barry McGuire's presence.
6. White Trash Millionaire-Black Stone Cherry 2011 New music bands I really have a passing interest but their lasting value is about as much as chewing gum, unless you like Flaming Lips or Radiohead. One reason I like BSC is that some of them are related to The Kentucky Headhunters. The new album seems to be their heaviest and it seems to have more of a Godsmack sound and Nickelback to boot, which means it won't get much airplay around my house but this would sound at home on a Kid Rock album.
7. Can't Stop The Bleeding-Lock Up 1989 Long forgotten band that made an album for Geffen and I don't recall if I added this one before but too lazy to look it up on the archives section but I'm sure I had. Best known for Tom Morello's first band before moving on to Rage Against The Machine and even back then he had his guitar noises down pretty good. Lock Up's only album Something Bitchin This Way Comes came out on Geffen and later reissued via Manifesto.
8. Baby What You Want Me To Do-Jimmy Reed 1959 The blues as we know it is getting more and more in the background but Bob Dorr played this on his blues show the other night when me and Nicole were out and about and I think I spent half that time cussing out the GD shit speakers that didn't work in the rear of the purple car. But then again we don't get cars that make it to 285,000 miles, certainly not here in the great rustbucket we call Iowa.
9. Ghost Riders In The Skies-The Outlaws 1980 When Freddy Salem joined up, they got to be a bit more heavy metal as case in point of their last top forty hit. Funny how when classic rock radio plays Outlaws it's usually this song and then they call them a one hit wonder. Doesn't anybody remember Green Grass & High Tides?!?
10. Highlands-Bob Dylan 1997 Concluding this top ten is the long 16 minute episode from Time Out Of Mind to which Dylan encounters a bitchy waitress that he is mistaken as a artist and get mad when she finds he did a stick drawing, or that how I interpreted it. Perhaps I could have done a second top ten of Dylan's songs and maybe I'll do it for later top tens. Anyway I prefer this over Brownsville Girl, the long looping side ender of his flop Knocked Out Loaded album of the late 80s. Too bad he didn't decide to do a complete album with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers as originally thought.
Review: Black Stone Cherry-Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea (Roadrunner)
I guess you can still call them southern rock although with each album they continue to slide into modern rock territory. White Trash Millionaire wouldn't sound out of place on Kid Rock's album and Killing Floor screams more of Godsmack than Kentucky Headhunters or Blackfoot. Blame It On The Boom Boom more Hinder than CCR but that's the fun of trying to figure out BSC. The ballads tend to echo a bit too much Nickleback and while to my ears tend to be the weakest songs on this album, they're good enough to justify a top ten single if Roadrunner decides to put them out to radio. Like Saliva, they switched producers: from Bob Marlette to Howard Benson, perhaps in a attempt to break more into mainstream and the polished production belies the goodtimeness of The Kentucky Headhunters to which John Fred Young is the son of the guitar playing Richard Young. But unlike Saliva, whose time may have passed, BSC still is capable of growing into one of the best post millenium new rock bands thanks to Chris Robertson's vocals which is a dead ringer with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden fame. Although there's no songs that stand out like Please Come In or Reverend Wrinkle that made their last album my go to album, they do rethink Toy Caldwell's Can't You See into a nifty little heavy metal number. All I'm Dreamin Of could be reinvented into a country song if BSC decides to go that way. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea tends to be their most heaviest album as they would like to tell you to believe but it's also more simple minded lyric wise too. I'd say this is their weakest album but I wouldn't count them out yet. Unless their meddling label sticks them with Glen Ballard the next time around. To which I hope that doesn't come true.
Grade B-
Pick Hits: White Trash Millionaire, Such A Shame, Can't You See, Let Me See You Shake
Went to Half Priced Books over the weekend and found Johnny Nash I Can See Clearly Now and The New Christy Minstrels Ramblin for 2 bucks. I'm sure if we went on Thursday I would have found a few more but basically I have it all, anything else is just extras.
Well the lightning bugs are a week early but have yet to see the dammed earwigs. They'll be here in another two weeks. Or sooner.
Not a lot to talk about music wise. Roger Waters says he don't forsee a Pink Floyd reunion anything soon. But there might be some appearances by David Gilmour and Nick Mason if you keep an open mind....Don't expect a full blown Faces reunion either till Ronnie Wood gives up his job as money grabber for The Rolling Stones according to Rod Stewart....And New Black Stone Cherry this weekend. Just because I have a GF doesn't mean I've given up on new music. Even though Bob Lefsetz would want me to.
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/05/30/its-the-money/
The Top Ten Of The Week.
1. Hello Old Friend-Eric Clapton 1976 Long time ago I bought this at one of the Goodwill stores here (I am thinking the old one at Marion Shopping Center) and still have a fondness for this forgotten top forty tune. Certainly one cannot the importance of 461 Ocean Boulevard but sometimes I think there's more to E.C. besides the same ole same ole you hear on the FOX.
2. There Are More Questions Than Answers-Johnny Nash 1972 While doing this top ten, my wonderful GF pops wakes up from her nap and is throwing suggestions to me about who to consider on the top ten. In fact, I think I woke her up by playing Stir It Up. After 10 different suggestions I told her she should do her own top ten and she replied I gave you about 20 suggestions. So I went with this failed single from Johnny Nash to which I'm sure she has never heard before. Once upon a time, Nash was marketed as a teen idol for ABC Paramount then went to Jamaica and did the reggae classic Hold Me Tight and then hit number 1 with I Can See Clearly Now to which is heard anywhere in the road. Bob Marley figured in the music on this. Here in Crabby Land we tend to go for the more obscure. Thank you hon for the suggestions now go back to sleep! ;)
3. It Happened Today-REM 2011 Funny how new music gets released one month and then the next is forgotten. This came out in March and already been committed for the archives. Yes I played it, then filed it and then got it out to listen to on the way to work but had to play this track twice in a row. REM has seemed to got their groove back, made two back to back decent albums for the first time since Monster and New Adventures In Hi Fi. And yes I liked both albums. But I also think that Gareth (Jack Knife) Lee had been the best suited Producer for them since Scott Litt too.
4. Life In London-Pat Travers Band 1990 Originally recorded in 1978 but I went with the 1990 version to which Pat hooked up with Jerry Riggs and Mars Cowling for his best band since Pat Thrall and Tommy Aldridge were in it. Still if you haven't checked it out, PT has his own Facebook site. http://www.facebook.com/pattraversband
5. Ramblin-New Christy Minstrels 1963 I bet your parents or had a neighbor that had this on LP. I know a neighbor did and borrowed it to tape record Green Green and never paid much attention to the rest of the album till Collector's Choice Music picked the best for that 2 CD Definitive Collection which had some decent songs on it but also a lot of crappy ones too. Could done without the French or German versions but this was probably as close to rock and roll as they got. Ended disc one of Definite and lead off as the title track to Ramblin. They also benefited from Barry McGuire's presence.
6. White Trash Millionaire-Black Stone Cherry 2011 New music bands I really have a passing interest but their lasting value is about as much as chewing gum, unless you like Flaming Lips or Radiohead. One reason I like BSC is that some of them are related to The Kentucky Headhunters. The new album seems to be their heaviest and it seems to have more of a Godsmack sound and Nickelback to boot, which means it won't get much airplay around my house but this would sound at home on a Kid Rock album.
7. Can't Stop The Bleeding-Lock Up 1989 Long forgotten band that made an album for Geffen and I don't recall if I added this one before but too lazy to look it up on the archives section but I'm sure I had. Best known for Tom Morello's first band before moving on to Rage Against The Machine and even back then he had his guitar noises down pretty good. Lock Up's only album Something Bitchin This Way Comes came out on Geffen and later reissued via Manifesto.
8. Baby What You Want Me To Do-Jimmy Reed 1959 The blues as we know it is getting more and more in the background but Bob Dorr played this on his blues show the other night when me and Nicole were out and about and I think I spent half that time cussing out the GD shit speakers that didn't work in the rear of the purple car. But then again we don't get cars that make it to 285,000 miles, certainly not here in the great rustbucket we call Iowa.
9. Ghost Riders In The Skies-The Outlaws 1980 When Freddy Salem joined up, they got to be a bit more heavy metal as case in point of their last top forty hit. Funny how when classic rock radio plays Outlaws it's usually this song and then they call them a one hit wonder. Doesn't anybody remember Green Grass & High Tides?!?
10. Highlands-Bob Dylan 1997 Concluding this top ten is the long 16 minute episode from Time Out Of Mind to which Dylan encounters a bitchy waitress that he is mistaken as a artist and get mad when she finds he did a stick drawing, or that how I interpreted it. Perhaps I could have done a second top ten of Dylan's songs and maybe I'll do it for later top tens. Anyway I prefer this over Brownsville Girl, the long looping side ender of his flop Knocked Out Loaded album of the late 80s. Too bad he didn't decide to do a complete album with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers as originally thought.
Review: Black Stone Cherry-Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea (Roadrunner)
I guess you can still call them southern rock although with each album they continue to slide into modern rock territory. White Trash Millionaire wouldn't sound out of place on Kid Rock's album and Killing Floor screams more of Godsmack than Kentucky Headhunters or Blackfoot. Blame It On The Boom Boom more Hinder than CCR but that's the fun of trying to figure out BSC. The ballads tend to echo a bit too much Nickleback and while to my ears tend to be the weakest songs on this album, they're good enough to justify a top ten single if Roadrunner decides to put them out to radio. Like Saliva, they switched producers: from Bob Marlette to Howard Benson, perhaps in a attempt to break more into mainstream and the polished production belies the goodtimeness of The Kentucky Headhunters to which John Fred Young is the son of the guitar playing Richard Young. But unlike Saliva, whose time may have passed, BSC still is capable of growing into one of the best post millenium new rock bands thanks to Chris Robertson's vocals which is a dead ringer with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden fame. Although there's no songs that stand out like Please Come In or Reverend Wrinkle that made their last album my go to album, they do rethink Toy Caldwell's Can't You See into a nifty little heavy metal number. All I'm Dreamin Of could be reinvented into a country song if BSC decides to go that way. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea tends to be their most heaviest album as they would like to tell you to believe but it's also more simple minded lyric wise too. I'd say this is their weakest album but I wouldn't count them out yet. Unless their meddling label sticks them with Glen Ballard the next time around. To which I hope that doesn't come true.
Grade B-
Pick Hits: White Trash Millionaire, Such A Shame, Can't You See, Let Me See You Shake
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Crabb Bits On The Memorial Day Weekend.
It's been a very busy week week for me in my new state of adventure. With my GF now moved down here I've been trying to adjust the best way possible between dog sitting and work and still trying to maintain some kind of music observation here. I'm still planning to see what Half Priced Books has for 20 percent off this week.
Vincent Price would have been 100 today. I grew up watching most of his horror films with Roger Corman and my favorites remain the Edgar Allen Poe stuff (The Raven, Pit & Tales Of Horror come to mind) but he also starred in The Ten Commandments, and he stayed active up till Edward Scissor-hands. He also played a music role, doing the voice over on Michael Jackson's Thriller and Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare. But I never get tired of watching his movies, even the Dr. Goldfoot goof fests.
Next week is the Iowa City Art Festival to which I think I told you about Alejandro Escovedo, The Bottle Rockets, Teddy Thompson and a few others will be playing but it looks like we may have to work this weekend. And I'm not too happy about that, looks like I might be cheated out of seeing the Bottle Rockets again. But I'm sure we'll also trying to get my GF moved into her new place.
It's funny how word of month has gotten The Rock N Roll & The Brains blog come out of nowhere to become the number one all time read blog here at the Crabb site. Somebody is getting the word out and really don't know who but it took over first place and leaving the last blog in the dust.
As I type this, my little adopted daughter is taking a snooze on the couch. I never thought I'd be cut out to be a step dad once again but Chloe seems to be taking it all in stride. I told Nicole that if her daughter didn't like me this would not work out but the little bugger first saw me and then curled up in a ball on my lap. Chloe is a five year old beagle mix, a little bit watch dog and little bit lap dog. She loves going in the car and going bye bye, and whatever she can find on the floor. She's very good natured and has a way of stealing your heart if your not careful. She misses her mom when she goes to work, she likes to stare out the window. I was sleeping this morning when her whining to get in the waterbed and had reservations about it but she got herself situated quite well and since I'm the only person around, she follows me around. Right now the little furball is napping on the pillow on the couch that Nicole has been sleeping on.
I don't know, I'm still trying to get over the shock of having my GF down here so soon but Chloe seems to have done a much better job of that. I dated women over the internet and gotten nowhere with the majority of them but Nicole is that rare exception of knowing what she wants and chasing him till she got him. She's known me for about 11 years and started chasing me till I finally agreed to meet her in St Louis in 2009 and here we are.
Guess her daughter gave her seal of approval looking at her now ;).
Vincent Price would have been 100 today. I grew up watching most of his horror films with Roger Corman and my favorites remain the Edgar Allen Poe stuff (The Raven, Pit & Tales Of Horror come to mind) but he also starred in The Ten Commandments, and he stayed active up till Edward Scissor-hands. He also played a music role, doing the voice over on Michael Jackson's Thriller and Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare. But I never get tired of watching his movies, even the Dr. Goldfoot goof fests.
Next week is the Iowa City Art Festival to which I think I told you about Alejandro Escovedo, The Bottle Rockets, Teddy Thompson and a few others will be playing but it looks like we may have to work this weekend. And I'm not too happy about that, looks like I might be cheated out of seeing the Bottle Rockets again. But I'm sure we'll also trying to get my GF moved into her new place.
It's funny how word of month has gotten The Rock N Roll & The Brains blog come out of nowhere to become the number one all time read blog here at the Crabb site. Somebody is getting the word out and really don't know who but it took over first place and leaving the last blog in the dust.
As I type this, my little adopted daughter is taking a snooze on the couch. I never thought I'd be cut out to be a step dad once again but Chloe seems to be taking it all in stride. I told Nicole that if her daughter didn't like me this would not work out but the little bugger first saw me and then curled up in a ball on my lap. Chloe is a five year old beagle mix, a little bit watch dog and little bit lap dog. She loves going in the car and going bye bye, and whatever she can find on the floor. She's very good natured and has a way of stealing your heart if your not careful. She misses her mom when she goes to work, she likes to stare out the window. I was sleeping this morning when her whining to get in the waterbed and had reservations about it but she got herself situated quite well and since I'm the only person around, she follows me around. Right now the little furball is napping on the pillow on the couch that Nicole has been sleeping on.
I don't know, I'm still trying to get over the shock of having my GF down here so soon but Chloe seems to have done a much better job of that. I dated women over the internet and gotten nowhere with the majority of them but Nicole is that rare exception of knowing what she wants and chasing him till she got him. She's known me for about 11 years and started chasing me till I finally agreed to meet her in St Louis in 2009 and here we are.
Guess her daughter gave her seal of approval looking at her now ;).
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Top Ten Of The Week-Is It Rolling Bob?
Tuesday it will be Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday which is hard to believe that he has survived that long. And for his effort I dedicate a full top ten of music to Mr. Zimmerman. I'm sure he'd care less what I think or what the masses think but first and foremost Dylan has always been a big fan of music. Just listen to his XM show it goes way back to the early years.
It's hard to categorize the man. He started out a Woody Guthrie like singer and then blew up bigtime with albums such as The Freewheeling Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, Blood On The Track, Time Out of Mind, Modern Times. While some people find fault with Self Portrait, I tend to listen to that one a bit more than Blonde On Blonde if you can believe that. But then again I don't expect you too, Self Portrait usually doesn't get played that much here either. But it is on my shelf for reference. Still his greatest two record set may be The Basement Tapes to which didn't come out till 1975 and still made best ofs on just about every magazine out there. For every Blood On The Track, there's a Knocked Out Loaded, for every Oh Mercy, there's a Under The Red Sky and for every John Wesley Harding, there's World Gone Wrong. Certainly Down In The Groove and Empire Burlesque doesn't hold up to say Highway 61 Revisited but I can find I can listen to those. And what about those Born Again albums? Saved and Slow Train Coming are for the believers and the hardcore Dylan followers who follow wherever he takes you. Sometimes it may not be the best road traveled but the road less traveled to me the always the way to go.
This top ten isn't the best Dylan songs ever, but rather the ones that I have noted and have played and if I don't include Rainy Day Women #12 and 35 or Like A Rolling Stone, it's not that I don't like them but I do think everybody has those on their best of Dylan songs. But if you don't agree with what I have down, your are free to compile your own best of Dylan songs. I'm sure he won't mind.
1. Knockin On Heaven's Door (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid Soundtrack or Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3) 1973 When I hear this version on the dreadful money grab Dylan & The Dead it makes me forever disown this song but when when I hear the original 2 minute single version it stands out as Dylan classic. Makes you believe that long dark cloud is coming down upon you.
2. Highway 61 Revisited (Real Live) 1984 I didn't pay much attention to Dylan in the 80's except for this money grab live album that featured Mick Taylor on guitar and sounded a bit like Dylan doing the Rolling Stones (Compare Jumpin Jack Flash from Get Your Ya Yas Out for reference). KUNI played this when the album got released in 1984 a few times. Nothing does beat the original version I guess but this showed that Dylan could get his rocks out if he wanted to. But I do admit the way he sings this, he ain't giving it a second thought.
3. Tweedie Dee & Tweedie Dum (Love & Theft) 2001 If Time Out Of Mind was his dark album, Love & Theft was his comedy album and he lighten up to show a sense of humor with a nod and a wink. But in some way I always considered this song to be a nod at Dubya Bush and Neo Nazi Cheney to which I'm sure Dylan won't say it was but I'm sure he was thinking of them that way. I believe I gave this album an A plus and it still earns that grade, I think it still remains A plus over Blood On The Tracks or Blonde On Blonde. One of the best bands that Dylan ever played in.
4. Shot Of Love (Shot Of Love) 1981 By then Bobby D was beginning to tire of the sacred songs that he was singing around that time and although Shot Of Love is considered the final of the scared albums, I don't look at that record as gospel like Slow Train Comin but still this song could be considered Gotta Serve Somebody Revisited and Rewritten. Robert Randolph does a fine cover of this last year.
5. Most Of The Time (Oh Mercy 1989) Between Shot Of Love and Oh Mercy, the 80s showed Dylan in search of a style and song. The year before he scared most of his fanbase away with contractual obligations such as Knocked Out Loaded, Down In The Groove or Dylan & The Dead, probably the worst thing he ever done (unless you count the 1973 Columbia finale Dylan while he moved to Asylum for Planet Waves or 1979 Budokan fiasco) but Oh Mercy, while not completely perfect was at least a return of what made him what he is today. This song pretty much got me through a bad breakup with an ex high school sweetheart which tells it better than I ever could. Daniel Lanois adds a spooky dark overtone which enhances the song quite well.
6. It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (Bringing It All Back Home) 1965 The beginning of his classic electric years and yes like Highway 61 Revisited this is just about a perfect album but in light of all I enjoy this acoustic classic. Was more familiar with the Roger McGuinn version that can be heard on the Easy Rider Soundtrack.
7. On A Night Like This (Planet Waves) 1974 Yeah there are much better Dylan songs out there but I have this one of 45 that I bought years ago in the cheap bins. I guess you have to be a real record collector or audiophile to have something from Asylum Records.
8. Lily, Rosemary & The Jack Of Hearts (Blood On The Tracks) 1975 What Bob Dylan can do is write a story that takes you into the whole scene like a movie and this song always gives me the image of being in that town and watching the story unfolding between the players involved. A good song will provide you with your imagination. This was before MTV. We did well before it came.
9. The Ballad Of Hollis Brown (Live At Brandeis University) 1963 From a then unreleased performance recently reissued, you can feel the tension builds from Bob's two note guitar sound and the tale of impending doom of a desperate unemployed farmer whose ready to take the easy way out. At this time, Bob was just an unknown folk singer but bigger things were on the horizon. And sooner than expected.
10. Like A Rolling Stone (Live 66) 1966 I wasn't going to include this song since it is already in everybody's top ten and then some. But the more I thought about it the more it was needed to be pointed out that the most interesting version of this song came at the tail end of a frustrating 1966 concert in the UK. The first set, Dylan was alone with guitar and the fans went wild but on the second half he bought out The Hawks with the future Home Improvement actor playing drums (Micky Jones would go on to play in Kenny Rogers and the First Edition) and turned things up and slowed the songs down some. Certainly the 6 minute single version was a much more jollier affair, this version sounded like a death march as somebody yells "play fucking loud" and they did. But perhaps the chilling part of the song is the ending to which song is over, there's a mild applause and the strange silence of the crowd as they shuffled out the door wondering what they just heard.
To have Bob Dylan still alive and celebrating his 70th Birthday is a celebration of a musician who continued to break the rules and challenged his listeners to follow him for the good or the bad and of course that Christmas Album to which he pays back Mitch Miller. Who thought that the folk singer on Bob Dylan (the first album) would become the electric folkie (Highway 61 Revisited) and go Nashville (Nashville Skyline) and make a 2 record set of arguably his best (Blonde On Blonde) or worst (Self Portrait) and then return to his folk roots (Blood On The Track) before losing himself in the late 70's and most of the 80's before Oh Mercy showed the world he still had a good album in him and Time Out Of Mind and Love & Theft still make a classic album as well. So for all that effort of the past maybe he was entitled to make a turd album such as Knocked Out Loaded or Under A Red Sky or even Christmas In The Air. He's earned that right.
In short, Bob Dylan makes timeless music because it's what he was feeling at the time. And that's all right by me. Happy Birthday Mr. Zimmerman.
It's hard to categorize the man. He started out a Woody Guthrie like singer and then blew up bigtime with albums such as The Freewheeling Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, Blood On The Track, Time Out of Mind, Modern Times. While some people find fault with Self Portrait, I tend to listen to that one a bit more than Blonde On Blonde if you can believe that. But then again I don't expect you too, Self Portrait usually doesn't get played that much here either. But it is on my shelf for reference. Still his greatest two record set may be The Basement Tapes to which didn't come out till 1975 and still made best ofs on just about every magazine out there. For every Blood On The Track, there's a Knocked Out Loaded, for every Oh Mercy, there's a Under The Red Sky and for every John Wesley Harding, there's World Gone Wrong. Certainly Down In The Groove and Empire Burlesque doesn't hold up to say Highway 61 Revisited but I can find I can listen to those. And what about those Born Again albums? Saved and Slow Train Coming are for the believers and the hardcore Dylan followers who follow wherever he takes you. Sometimes it may not be the best road traveled but the road less traveled to me the always the way to go.
This top ten isn't the best Dylan songs ever, but rather the ones that I have noted and have played and if I don't include Rainy Day Women #12 and 35 or Like A Rolling Stone, it's not that I don't like them but I do think everybody has those on their best of Dylan songs. But if you don't agree with what I have down, your are free to compile your own best of Dylan songs. I'm sure he won't mind.
1. Knockin On Heaven's Door (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid Soundtrack or Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3) 1973 When I hear this version on the dreadful money grab Dylan & The Dead it makes me forever disown this song but when when I hear the original 2 minute single version it stands out as Dylan classic. Makes you believe that long dark cloud is coming down upon you.
2. Highway 61 Revisited (Real Live) 1984 I didn't pay much attention to Dylan in the 80's except for this money grab live album that featured Mick Taylor on guitar and sounded a bit like Dylan doing the Rolling Stones (Compare Jumpin Jack Flash from Get Your Ya Yas Out for reference). KUNI played this when the album got released in 1984 a few times. Nothing does beat the original version I guess but this showed that Dylan could get his rocks out if he wanted to. But I do admit the way he sings this, he ain't giving it a second thought.
3. Tweedie Dee & Tweedie Dum (Love & Theft) 2001 If Time Out Of Mind was his dark album, Love & Theft was his comedy album and he lighten up to show a sense of humor with a nod and a wink. But in some way I always considered this song to be a nod at Dubya Bush and Neo Nazi Cheney to which I'm sure Dylan won't say it was but I'm sure he was thinking of them that way. I believe I gave this album an A plus and it still earns that grade, I think it still remains A plus over Blood On The Tracks or Blonde On Blonde. One of the best bands that Dylan ever played in.
4. Shot Of Love (Shot Of Love) 1981 By then Bobby D was beginning to tire of the sacred songs that he was singing around that time and although Shot Of Love is considered the final of the scared albums, I don't look at that record as gospel like Slow Train Comin but still this song could be considered Gotta Serve Somebody Revisited and Rewritten. Robert Randolph does a fine cover of this last year.
5. Most Of The Time (Oh Mercy 1989) Between Shot Of Love and Oh Mercy, the 80s showed Dylan in search of a style and song. The year before he scared most of his fanbase away with contractual obligations such as Knocked Out Loaded, Down In The Groove or Dylan & The Dead, probably the worst thing he ever done (unless you count the 1973 Columbia finale Dylan while he moved to Asylum for Planet Waves or 1979 Budokan fiasco) but Oh Mercy, while not completely perfect was at least a return of what made him what he is today. This song pretty much got me through a bad breakup with an ex high school sweetheart which tells it better than I ever could. Daniel Lanois adds a spooky dark overtone which enhances the song quite well.
6. It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (Bringing It All Back Home) 1965 The beginning of his classic electric years and yes like Highway 61 Revisited this is just about a perfect album but in light of all I enjoy this acoustic classic. Was more familiar with the Roger McGuinn version that can be heard on the Easy Rider Soundtrack.
7. On A Night Like This (Planet Waves) 1974 Yeah there are much better Dylan songs out there but I have this one of 45 that I bought years ago in the cheap bins. I guess you have to be a real record collector or audiophile to have something from Asylum Records.
8. Lily, Rosemary & The Jack Of Hearts (Blood On The Tracks) 1975 What Bob Dylan can do is write a story that takes you into the whole scene like a movie and this song always gives me the image of being in that town and watching the story unfolding between the players involved. A good song will provide you with your imagination. This was before MTV. We did well before it came.
9. The Ballad Of Hollis Brown (Live At Brandeis University) 1963 From a then unreleased performance recently reissued, you can feel the tension builds from Bob's two note guitar sound and the tale of impending doom of a desperate unemployed farmer whose ready to take the easy way out. At this time, Bob was just an unknown folk singer but bigger things were on the horizon. And sooner than expected.
10. Like A Rolling Stone (Live 66) 1966 I wasn't going to include this song since it is already in everybody's top ten and then some. But the more I thought about it the more it was needed to be pointed out that the most interesting version of this song came at the tail end of a frustrating 1966 concert in the UK. The first set, Dylan was alone with guitar and the fans went wild but on the second half he bought out The Hawks with the future Home Improvement actor playing drums (Micky Jones would go on to play in Kenny Rogers and the First Edition) and turned things up and slowed the songs down some. Certainly the 6 minute single version was a much more jollier affair, this version sounded like a death march as somebody yells "play fucking loud" and they did. But perhaps the chilling part of the song is the ending to which song is over, there's a mild applause and the strange silence of the crowd as they shuffled out the door wondering what they just heard.
To have Bob Dylan still alive and celebrating his 70th Birthday is a celebration of a musician who continued to break the rules and challenged his listeners to follow him for the good or the bad and of course that Christmas Album to which he pays back Mitch Miller. Who thought that the folk singer on Bob Dylan (the first album) would become the electric folkie (Highway 61 Revisited) and go Nashville (Nashville Skyline) and make a 2 record set of arguably his best (Blonde On Blonde) or worst (Self Portrait) and then return to his folk roots (Blood On The Track) before losing himself in the late 70's and most of the 80's before Oh Mercy showed the world he still had a good album in him and Time Out Of Mind and Love & Theft still make a classic album as well. So for all that effort of the past maybe he was entitled to make a turd album such as Knocked Out Loaded or Under A Red Sky or even Christmas In The Air. He's earned that right.
In short, Bob Dylan makes timeless music because it's what he was feeling at the time. And that's all right by me. Happy Birthday Mr. Zimmerman.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Notes On Tornadoes
This year has been the most deadliest of terms of super tornadoes such as the case of this weekend's Joplin/Minneapolis super outbreak. Even here in Iowa there was a tornado on the ground to the north and west of North Liberty at around 3:45 PM. If we thought the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham was bad, the Joplin tornado slammed into the Joplin Hospital and it looked like something out of nuclear bomb destruction. Today, Greg Forbes has given a 9 on a 10 scale to the area from east of Oklahoma City to Kansas City. I have included the ten most deadliest and the ten biggest outbreak of Tornado Days. The deadliest ones are here.
- Mar. 18, 1925 (Tri-State Tornado): 695
- May 6, 1840 (Natchez, Miss.): 317
- May 27, 1896 (St. Louis, Mo.): 255
- Apr. 5, 1936 (Tupelo, Miss.): 216
- Apr. 6, 1936 (Gainesville, Ga.): 203
- Apr. 9, 1947 (Woodward, Okla.): 181
- Apr. 24, 1908 (Amite, La., Purvis, Miss.): 143
- May 22, 2011 (Joplin, Mo.): 156
- Jun. 12, 1899 (New Richmond, Wisc.): 117
- Jun. 8, 1953 (Flint, Mich.): 115
And now the 10 biggest outbreaks
- April 27, 2011 (Ala., Tenn., Ga., Miss., Va.): 315
- April 3, 1974 ("Super Outbreak"): 307
- April 11, 1965 ("Palm Sunday Outbreak"): 260
- March 21, 1952: 202
- June 8, 1953 (Flint, Mich., etc.): 142
- May 11, 1953 (Waco, Tex, etc.): 127
- Feb. 21, 1971: 121
- May 22, 2011 (Joplin, Mo...Mpls./St. Paul, Minn.): 119
- May 25, 1955 (Udall, Kan., etc.): 102
- June 9, 1953 (Worcester, Mass.): 90
- The Joplin Tornado is now number 7 on the list of most deadly tornadoes.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Crabb Bits:Iowa City Music Fest , GF, Even More Brains/Delta Moon
On the subject of:
This year's Iowa City Music Fest, slated for June 4 has got to be one of the all time best that they ever put together. I thought the Richard Thompson 2006 show was the be all well, this year his son Teddy Thompson will be playing there. Along with The Bottle Rockets (EEEEEK!) and the legendary Alejandro Escovedo, one time Rank And File and True Believer and now having a cult status as a solo artist (his last album Street Songs Of Love highly recommended) will be here on that Saturday. Weather permitting and with or without my GF I'm going.
Which brings us to the shock of the week. My girlfriend of almost a year and a half called up and said that she found a job down here and is moving down here on Sunday, which is today, which is I'm still in shock of having this come about. Never mind the fact that it has been a long distance relationship to which we would see each other every five months and then keep it up by email tag and the internet. The original plan was to have her here around July, hopefully past our peak printing season and she couldn't pick a more inconvenient time to do this although the Texas project got finished up to the point that I didn't have to work Sunday.
This is a new beginning for me. For years I have had relationships that last three weeks at most. The one that lasted the longest 3 years almost ended up getting me in the poor house with a shit credit rating. The last woman I was with had snakes for pets and a nasty drug habit she couldn't break out of and it eventually ended in the chatroom where she was telling whoever was listening that I left her for somebody else and I confronted her about that. Basically that was it, I wasn't going get myself into another going nowhere relationship to which the bottom line was money grabbing druggies or two timers or golddiggers trying to get dollars out of me and only getting pennies and nickels. The only exception was Nicole and I banked on the fact that I was too old for her at that time we got together at a singles party in 2000, when she was with somebody else and I was with Snakelady. But we kept in touch throughout the years, even after when our collective significant others moved on. I have to say that Nicole was chasing me more than I was with her. In my time of isolation, I was comfortable in my surroundings of being in the basement out here in the country and the usual bargain hunts and summer trips out to Vegas or Phoenix. Not having a GF was high on my list of things.
Till Nicole decided to take things up a notch and see where it lead. So in 2009 after a late night chat she decided that she wanted to be a bigger part of this life than she's actually was. So we threw a dart in the US Map and it landed on St. Louis and we met there in September of 09 and to my surprise she became the next significant other. And now she's moving down here to be with the love of her life. Which will lead us down the road to togetherness. She's a stubborn woman to the point of giving her life up in Michigan to be down here in Cowpie Iowa with a cantankerous Crabb with a penchant for the bargain hunts and buying 2 dollar albums and cd's and making a blog about it. I know I have to change some part of my thinking. It's not going to stop me from hitting Madison from time to time but anything else we'll wait and see how its done. I'm sure I may have uproot my surroundings for a place for her and I to be in together. So many decisions to be happen in the coming summer but it won't mean the end of the Crabb Blog of Music Top Ten and Forgotten Bands Appreciation Society. It's only the beginning..........
With all the ratings going on for The Brains segment that's been out for over 3 and a half years it has now made it's way into the top 5 all time and setting its sights on the Best Of 2009 and the famous My GF Thinks I Should Blog More Often bitchfest which has been either 1 or 2 before the explosion of Best Of 2010 overtook it. It's a big deal to me when I get comments from musicians that I have loved and respected from listening to their albums. I know in 2006 when the internet became a vast information of the lost and forgotten and while talking to Margaret who maintained The Brains' My Space Website that she sent me some old demos of The Brains recordings of the past. Since Universal has sat on the 1980 album for so long, I ended up just copying a cassette copy into CD with Dancing Under Streetlights and Tanya for bonus tracks and lived with that instead. In the end Margaret kept in touch for a while but I haven't been on My Space at all and whatever My Space touts as The Brains music, ended up to be two other bands, one punk and one Limp Bizkit like nu Metal, these are not The Brains of Money Changes Everything.
In the CD era, The Brains are long forgotten whereas Motley Crud gets their albums reissued every other year, we get expanded editions of other bands. Hell, even Scott Wilk & The Walls and Gary Myrick got their albums reissued on CD whereas Universal doesn't seem to care anything about The Brains which really rakes the fans off. I actually emailed Andy McKaie, the dude behind the reissues of Hip O/Universal (which controls Mercury Records) if you just reissue 1,000 copies or even 2500 I would probably spring for about 100 of them and I know other collectors would do the same. But in typical major label attitude, he never replied or see the need to. However, hardcore collectors will not let The Brains die for there are plenty of their songs on You Tube (but be careful, The other Faux Paus Brains bands are on there too). Through Margaret she did introduce me to Charles Wolff one day and he did wished me a happy birthday in 2007.
The music world is a messed up biz. We pay too much attention to the overexposed and not enough for the ones that got me through my life. Motley Crue didn't save my life, neither did Radiohead or the pop tart autotuned rats of today. The lesser known such as Paul Collins Beat or Treat Her Right or The Godz and The Brains kept my world rocking long after the mainstream gave up on them. In 2006, while looking up whatever happened to the members of The Brains, took me to Delta Moon and the reinvention of Tom Gray to National Steel Guitar but by then Delta Moon had been around for most of that time. And got me reconnected with him and the band once again. Yes there is life after The Brains but you would never hear that from Rolling Stone or Spin or Pitchfork. Or Bob Lefsetz for that matter. In the case of Delta Moon I discovered them from the internet and by accident. And judging by the spike of people reading The Brains piece that was written almost four years ago, fans and the hardcore don't forget. And if Andy McKaie don't get it when people email him about reissuing Money Changes Everything the Album, the hell with him. In fact, Tom Gray did redid Money Changes Everything in a smokey blues setting and it sounds as good as the original.
Being a music fan, discovering all the side bands, did make me check out The Swimming Pool Q's who made a few albums for A & M and DB/Capitol in the late 80s and still play today. Delta Moon continues to defy the mainstream with their back to basics rock and blues. If it takes a small blog from a music bargain hunter to get the word out, I'm honored to do so. Blog writing is usually hit and miss but when it strikes a chord with somebody and the ratings go up, then the blog takes a meaning of its own. And when I get a comment from on my favorite bands, then it really makes my day.
And it really did. Thanks Tom!
Working on the next Top Ten which will deal with Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday bash and some of the songs that made him what he is today. I'm sure mine will be a bit different than the Rolling Stones 70 Greatest Songs Of Dylan, might even include something from Down In The Groove just to piss them off. So there.
Update: Rock n Roll And The Brains are flying past the top ten at number, ready to overtake My GF Thinks I Should Blog blogsprout. Still it's got a long way to before overtaking the number 1 post of Best Of 2010. Thanks for reading folks. When you read them, you're supporting forgotten music.
Update 2: The Brains blog has overtaken the second spot and is within 18 spots from the number 1 position. I can't imagine where everything is coming from but still amazed of how many fans of the band are reading this three year old piece. Now if Universal would get off their fat major label ass and reissue The Brains.....
FINAL UPDATE: The Brains blog has taken over the top spot of all time most read. I'm sure some of y'all Delta Moon fans had something to do with this. The Best Of 2010 seemed to be forever on top but it has been knocked down to 2nd. Somewhere out there Margaret is smiling.....
This year's Iowa City Music Fest, slated for June 4 has got to be one of the all time best that they ever put together. I thought the Richard Thompson 2006 show was the be all well, this year his son Teddy Thompson will be playing there. Along with The Bottle Rockets (EEEEEK!) and the legendary Alejandro Escovedo, one time Rank And File and True Believer and now having a cult status as a solo artist (his last album Street Songs Of Love highly recommended) will be here on that Saturday. Weather permitting and with or without my GF I'm going.
Which brings us to the shock of the week. My girlfriend of almost a year and a half called up and said that she found a job down here and is moving down here on Sunday, which is today, which is I'm still in shock of having this come about. Never mind the fact that it has been a long distance relationship to which we would see each other every five months and then keep it up by email tag and the internet. The original plan was to have her here around July, hopefully past our peak printing season and she couldn't pick a more inconvenient time to do this although the Texas project got finished up to the point that I didn't have to work Sunday.
This is a new beginning for me. For years I have had relationships that last three weeks at most. The one that lasted the longest 3 years almost ended up getting me in the poor house with a shit credit rating. The last woman I was with had snakes for pets and a nasty drug habit she couldn't break out of and it eventually ended in the chatroom where she was telling whoever was listening that I left her for somebody else and I confronted her about that. Basically that was it, I wasn't going get myself into another going nowhere relationship to which the bottom line was money grabbing druggies or two timers or golddiggers trying to get dollars out of me and only getting pennies and nickels. The only exception was Nicole and I banked on the fact that I was too old for her at that time we got together at a singles party in 2000, when she was with somebody else and I was with Snakelady. But we kept in touch throughout the years, even after when our collective significant others moved on. I have to say that Nicole was chasing me more than I was with her. In my time of isolation, I was comfortable in my surroundings of being in the basement out here in the country and the usual bargain hunts and summer trips out to Vegas or Phoenix. Not having a GF was high on my list of things.
Till Nicole decided to take things up a notch and see where it lead. So in 2009 after a late night chat she decided that she wanted to be a bigger part of this life than she's actually was. So we threw a dart in the US Map and it landed on St. Louis and we met there in September of 09 and to my surprise she became the next significant other. And now she's moving down here to be with the love of her life. Which will lead us down the road to togetherness. She's a stubborn woman to the point of giving her life up in Michigan to be down here in Cowpie Iowa with a cantankerous Crabb with a penchant for the bargain hunts and buying 2 dollar albums and cd's and making a blog about it. I know I have to change some part of my thinking. It's not going to stop me from hitting Madison from time to time but anything else we'll wait and see how its done. I'm sure I may have uproot my surroundings for a place for her and I to be in together. So many decisions to be happen in the coming summer but it won't mean the end of the Crabb Blog of Music Top Ten and Forgotten Bands Appreciation Society. It's only the beginning..........
With all the ratings going on for The Brains segment that's been out for over 3 and a half years it has now made it's way into the top 5 all time and setting its sights on the Best Of 2009 and the famous My GF Thinks I Should Blog More Often bitchfest which has been either 1 or 2 before the explosion of Best Of 2010 overtook it. It's a big deal to me when I get comments from musicians that I have loved and respected from listening to their albums. I know in 2006 when the internet became a vast information of the lost and forgotten and while talking to Margaret who maintained The Brains' My Space Website that she sent me some old demos of The Brains recordings of the past. Since Universal has sat on the 1980 album for so long, I ended up just copying a cassette copy into CD with Dancing Under Streetlights and Tanya for bonus tracks and lived with that instead. In the end Margaret kept in touch for a while but I haven't been on My Space at all and whatever My Space touts as The Brains music, ended up to be two other bands, one punk and one Limp Bizkit like nu Metal, these are not The Brains of Money Changes Everything.
In the CD era, The Brains are long forgotten whereas Motley Crud gets their albums reissued every other year, we get expanded editions of other bands. Hell, even Scott Wilk & The Walls and Gary Myrick got their albums reissued on CD whereas Universal doesn't seem to care anything about The Brains which really rakes the fans off. I actually emailed Andy McKaie, the dude behind the reissues of Hip O/Universal (which controls Mercury Records) if you just reissue 1,000 copies or even 2500 I would probably spring for about 100 of them and I know other collectors would do the same. But in typical major label attitude, he never replied or see the need to. However, hardcore collectors will not let The Brains die for there are plenty of their songs on You Tube (but be careful, The other Faux Paus Brains bands are on there too). Through Margaret she did introduce me to Charles Wolff one day and he did wished me a happy birthday in 2007.
The music world is a messed up biz. We pay too much attention to the overexposed and not enough for the ones that got me through my life. Motley Crue didn't save my life, neither did Radiohead or the pop tart autotuned rats of today. The lesser known such as Paul Collins Beat or Treat Her Right or The Godz and The Brains kept my world rocking long after the mainstream gave up on them. In 2006, while looking up whatever happened to the members of The Brains, took me to Delta Moon and the reinvention of Tom Gray to National Steel Guitar but by then Delta Moon had been around for most of that time. And got me reconnected with him and the band once again. Yes there is life after The Brains but you would never hear that from Rolling Stone or Spin or Pitchfork. Or Bob Lefsetz for that matter. In the case of Delta Moon I discovered them from the internet and by accident. And judging by the spike of people reading The Brains piece that was written almost four years ago, fans and the hardcore don't forget. And if Andy McKaie don't get it when people email him about reissuing Money Changes Everything the Album, the hell with him. In fact, Tom Gray did redid Money Changes Everything in a smokey blues setting and it sounds as good as the original.
Being a music fan, discovering all the side bands, did make me check out The Swimming Pool Q's who made a few albums for A & M and DB/Capitol in the late 80s and still play today. Delta Moon continues to defy the mainstream with their back to basics rock and blues. If it takes a small blog from a music bargain hunter to get the word out, I'm honored to do so. Blog writing is usually hit and miss but when it strikes a chord with somebody and the ratings go up, then the blog takes a meaning of its own. And when I get a comment from on my favorite bands, then it really makes my day.
And it really did. Thanks Tom!
Working on the next Top Ten which will deal with Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday bash and some of the songs that made him what he is today. I'm sure mine will be a bit different than the Rolling Stones 70 Greatest Songs Of Dylan, might even include something from Down In The Groove just to piss them off. So there.
Update: Rock n Roll And The Brains are flying past the top ten at number, ready to overtake My GF Thinks I Should Blog blogsprout. Still it's got a long way to before overtaking the number 1 post of Best Of 2010. Thanks for reading folks. When you read them, you're supporting forgotten music.
Update 2: The Brains blog has overtaken the second spot and is within 18 spots from the number 1 position. I can't imagine where everything is coming from but still amazed of how many fans of the band are reading this three year old piece. Now if Universal would get off their fat major label ass and reissue The Brains.....
FINAL UPDATE: The Brains blog has taken over the top spot of all time most read. I'm sure some of y'all Delta Moon fans had something to do with this. The Best Of 2010 seemed to be forever on top but it has been knocked down to 2nd. Somewhere out there Margaret is smiling.....
Friday, May 20, 2011
Crabb Bits: The Brains, Rapture (Updated)
Interesting to see in my ratings in the number one most viewed this week is the 2006 Tribute to The Brains, the great 1980's band that gave us Money Changes Everything. I'm hoping with the more views that this will give another chance for the band to finally get their album reissued on CD or digital format. God knows I have been trying to get the Universal folk to reissue it, even if it's a limited copy run of 1000, I'd buy a hundred myself. Tom Gray is still rocking them down in his band Delta Moon which doesn't sound like The Brains but if The Brains were playing steel slide guitars instead of keyboards they would sound like Delta Moon. I look at it this way, a view on that blog is a support for The Brains. As of Saturday, this post has managed to crack the all time top 5 most view blogs . Thanks again and I'm sure if Tom Gray gets the memo he'll thank you too.
I thank it may have been a big mistake naming the Top Ten Full Moon Fire since I have had that song stuck in my head all week. Even on my favorite songs I hate them getting stuck in my head for countless hours. I'm really tempted to rename that blog if this keeps up.
The Sahara Hotel in Vegas has closed its doors on Monday. Basically the last of its kind going back to the days of the Frank, Dean and Jerry Lewis to which this Labor Day Telethon for MDA will be his last after 45 years of hosting it. The Sahara had been my choice of staying when I was in Vegas and was there when Mingles hosted their 2004 and 2005 get togethers. Even in 2005 it did seem to be a relic from the past but the buffets were first rate and always enjoyed their music in the background from the golden age of rock. I will miss the Sahara. RIP.
Been a stressful week. The end of the world is coming this weekend. Also my GF is moving down here. I knew she was coming down here this summer but thought it would be more into July but she informed me that she found a job next week and that has thrown things into a tizzy. As they say life happens. Couldn't pick a more inconvenient time with Texas coming up and even maybe a threat of working Memorial Day Weekend. But it won't matter if the Rapture happens tomorrow (Saturday). But Ole Crabby will be keeping an eye on things to see if Jesus does come down from the heavens. He's always welcome to stop by....
Update: It's 5:30 CDT. The sun is shining and everything looks like it did beforehand. Sorry Harold Cashing. You failed again.
Loser.
I thank it may have been a big mistake naming the Top Ten Full Moon Fire since I have had that song stuck in my head all week. Even on my favorite songs I hate them getting stuck in my head for countless hours. I'm really tempted to rename that blog if this keeps up.
The Sahara Hotel in Vegas has closed its doors on Monday. Basically the last of its kind going back to the days of the Frank, Dean and Jerry Lewis to which this Labor Day Telethon for MDA will be his last after 45 years of hosting it. The Sahara had been my choice of staying when I was in Vegas and was there when Mingles hosted their 2004 and 2005 get togethers. Even in 2005 it did seem to be a relic from the past but the buffets were first rate and always enjoyed their music in the background from the golden age of rock. I will miss the Sahara. RIP.
Been a stressful week. The end of the world is coming this weekend. Also my GF is moving down here. I knew she was coming down here this summer but thought it would be more into July but she informed me that she found a job next week and that has thrown things into a tizzy. As they say life happens. Couldn't pick a more inconvenient time with Texas coming up and even maybe a threat of working Memorial Day Weekend. But it won't matter if the Rapture happens tomorrow (Saturday). But Ole Crabby will be keeping an eye on things to see if Jesus does come down from the heavens. He's always welcome to stop by....
Update: It's 5:30 CDT. The sun is shining and everything looks like it did beforehand. Sorry Harold Cashing. You failed again.
Loser.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)