Playlist-What I'm Listening To

Imagine my surprise to find that 152 hits were noted on the ratings on Monday, first time I hit over 100 views since God knows when.  Halfway through July, we're getting Seattle weather.  60 degrees for a high on July 15 is something you don't see often and maybe the new ice age is coming.  What we are hoping for is some dry days since we have had rain on the weekend, either on Saturday or Sunday or both since April. Meanwhile California burns and dries away, and out here we're getting flooded time and time again.   RAGBRAI starts up next week, closest place they'll be would be Independence on Friday Night but I won't be in the neighborhood.  This week is The Great Jones County Fair and for the first time in years, they won't have to worry about monsoons.  Miranda Lambert, bro country music star Luke (Country Girl Shake It For Me), Kid Rock and Chris Tomlin are the headliners.  Both Lambert and Bryan are sellouts, but none of the opening acts are worth a shit, Lambert getting Bro country psycho Tyler Farr and Bryan having Lee Brice as opener.  Only Kid Rock would be consider the rock act. The prices are outrageous, if you want to see Mr Shake Them Buns Bryan, it will set you back 60 to 75 dollars, Kid Rock just as pricy 50 to 60 dollars and Miranda the cheapest of the major stars at 40 to 50 dollars. Only Chris Tomlin 22-27 dollar price is the cheapest.  Tomlin is the Christian artist with Colton Dixon, a Billy Idol lookalike, opens.

It's been two weeks since we had straight line winds tearing up the place and knocking most of our trees down.  My brother and a tree expert have done double duty chopping and chainsawing their way through the brush and branches to make this place not so much looking like a war zone.  For the most part I have donated over 200 cds to various thrift stores and adding more selection to their crappy cd section.  As for selling cds, that's another story.  It's not a buyers market and I haven't sold very many.  Of course it don't help when I do sell that the USPS short changes me and they send them back with due postage and put it over the address to where it's supposed to go.  It pisses me off to think that I'm made out of money, just like the GD dentist that sent me a 26 dollar bill for something I didn't get.  I can't save any money where people and things are nickel and dimeing me to death.  It adds up and not in a good way.  Workwise, we should be back in Cedar Rapids in about a week.  The scanners are still not working up there but that's not my worry if they can't get them going.  But in the meantime, my manager has treated me well and our group managed to go out for supper a couple times last week.  I don't believe they were impressed of going to Eastwood's in Solon, after all it was  a bar and the personal pan pizza was from Tombstone and the flies were thick inside but the fish sandwiches and tenderloins were good from what I heard.

I was thinking of taking a break from water detail in the basement and head to Madison for the annual Summerfest this weekend, the weather is supposed to be dry and see what's going on up there.  Which means I'll be dropping off more unwanted items and picking up more things I don't need but I remain a bargain hunter regardless. With waterproofing taking all of the summer budget this year it will be the only vacation that I'll get till fall.

In defense of the CD: http://grantland.com/features/the-case-for-cds/

Another musician has passed away: Johnny Winter, best known as one of the best blues rock guitarists (although some mag called him the 63rd best guitar player ever WTF?) died at age 70.  He was in the process of starting a late summer tour and a new album coming out September 2 called Step Back.  He had a great backing band in the early 70s that featured Rick Derringer and Bobby Caldwell, but Johnny was instrumental of jump starting Muddy Waters' career with the 1977 Hard Again album with a classic version of Mannish Boy.  Winter's YEAH yelling gives it more power.  He had recorded for Columbia, Blue Sky, MCA, Point Blank/Virgin and Megaforce.  And now is jamming with Muddy Waters once again. RIP. 

Reviews:

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac Live At The BBC (Fleetwood/Castle/Sanctuary)

A collection of performances that were around the end of Green's tenure with the Mac and Jeremy Spencer's Kiln House sessions  the first CD starts out rocking with Rattlesnake Shake/Searching And Fighting For Madge and never lets up.  I rather play the rocking CD rather than the tedious blues Cd that is disc two.  Even though Jeremy Spencer has a genuine love of Elmore James, I prefer his Buddy Holly tributes more even down to that trademark Holly hiccup.  Danny Kirwan gets shortchanged but they do pick the best of his numbers from Then Play On, (Although The Sun Is Shining, Like Crying). The Kiln House songs begin to reveal a new Mac, more intent on playing rock and going away from the blues that was their calling in the early years.  It does point the way to where Fleetwood Mac would wind up, but their journey is just starting.   Not essential but is worth hearing.

Grade B

Grateful Dead-Dick's Picks Vol 18. (Madison, Cedar Falls Feb 1978) (Real Gone)

Legend has it that this is the best bootleg show of The Dead and it captures them in the dead of winter, traveling through blizzards in Madison and Milwaukee before coming to our neck of the woods, The Uni Done in Cedar Falls.  A very lengthy 3 CD set (over 3 and half hours of Dead music), Dead heads will tell you that the second cd that runs 70 and half minutes has a medley of them playing over an hour without taking a break.  And then disc three going through yet another hour long medley before concluding with Around and Around.  They tended to rely on Chuck Berry to end sets, Johnny B Goode ends disc 2.  But with 65 minute medley of Estimated Prophet/Eyes Of The World/Playing In The Band/The Wheel with Dark Star thrown in there, this is where you can picture Dead Heads dancing in the strobe lights while Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir trade off guitar leads.  While the reviewer says the songs on disc 1 are not as good, I beg to differ, they do ride the groove on Good Lovin, Passenger and Deal sound a bit more intense than on the 1982 Dead Set that Arista put out.  None of the songs are under four minutes, shortest being Johnny B Goode and Bob Weir kinda overdrags It's All Over Now but for going with the groove, the band was quite on.   Another note is that Donna Godchaux is almost absent, you hardly hear her except for the chorus and sometimes an oh yeah here and there, a far cry from her presence on Europe 72 Volume 2 to which you wanna turn her mic off, to which maybe somebody did on these 78 concert showings.  If you enjoy Jerry Garcia's lead guitar going into other space, you'll love the second CD, but if you're not a fan you'll be bored.  But still, when they played Dane County and the Uni Done, The Dead were sounding inspired and unified. Maybe I should have been there to see these shows, but didn't care for the foot of snow that hit Madison that night either.

Grade B+

 

Mailbag

 

On the Subject of Mach Five, I wrote a review about this band in Amazon years ago and forgot somebody did a reply to it.  Larry Davis responds to the original review posted here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R31V8O6OFL4HB0/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000006DI4&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=5174&store=music#wasThisHelpful

Hey, true that this should have been more successful than it was, BUT you didn't get the impression that M5 were Britpop-sounding?? If anything, this NY band was like Oasis but more straight-up powerpop. "Shiny Shirt" shoulda been a single. The 2 songs that really should have cracked it were "This And Back Again", a PERFECT powerpop gem completely, and "Here's A Call", driven by Beatlesque horns, shoulda been deemed a classic.

Here's the thing though...most people (if any) that know of the band locally in NY, knew that Jeff & the boys never stopped making music after being dropped...Jeff is prolific with his own studio...the band recorded 2 followup EP's themselves..."Tie Me Up & Hold Me Down" and "Save Your Soul", with more killer tunes like "Maybe You're A Product" and "Had About Enough"...drummer Don DiPaolo left the band for his own solo career and self-released a great record called "Everything You Wanted". All the band needed was a better publicist because the label was not enough and Jeff is like McCartney, in quality and prolificness, with his NY Britpop tunes that kill. I will make copies of the followup if needed...and Jeff fell off the planet it seems...he's a powerpop genius.

I do know that drummer Don DiPaolo, besides releasing a solo album became a DOCTOR...and Jeff, he supposedly changed the band's name to Varispeed or it was a new band entirely, but I THINK he left the music business...I found him on Facebook a couple years ago and he apparently entered the corporate world...the pic was him with a shirt and tie on, like you wouldn't think he was a musician at all or in a band...either he got fed up (chewed and spit out by the music biz), or pressure from his wife to get a "real job"...I HOPE he didn't sell his studio or guitars...

William Thibault on Three Dog Night review: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2TWWEICSMX5YY/ref=cm_aya_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00000DWFS#wasThisHelpful

I always tripped out at the fact that It's for You was on here, but never heard that there was a longer version out there. Did they just extend the jam at the end? One of the most underrated songs is their version of Nobody, which i think was the first single. Didn't chart high, but they did a great version of it.

Since I managed to get over 100 views in a day, for your reward I get to tap into my playlist of songs that I have been playing over the week.  I get bored very easy with Satellite radio since they tend to overkill lesser songs of bands who classic rock overkill is the problem of free radio today.  Being somewhat retired from the top ten biz, I do like to share what's on the playlist:  Why not, if it gets people to seek them out on their own then I did my job.  That's all that matters eh?

 

PLAYLIST: (Photo: Jerry Doucette)

Let's Stick Together-Bryan Ferry (Let's Stick Together)
All That You Dream-Little Feat (Waiting For Columbus)
Trampoline-Joe Henry (Trampoline)
Living Through Another Cuba-XTC (Black Sea)
Samson And Delilah-Grateful Dead (Dick's Picks Volume 18)
I Fought The Law-The Crickets (Still In Style)
Ghost Riders In The Sky-Johnny Cash (Silver)
Although The Sun Is Shining-Fleetwood Mac (Then Play On)
Thoughts-Vanilla Fudge (Complete Atco Singles Collection)
Mama Let Him Play-Doucette (Mama Let Him Play) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfGTA-kkf2o

 

One For Charlie Haden and for Tommy Ramone

38 years ago, a band from Forest Hills/Queens came out and made perhaps the most simple rock album ever.  Who would ever thought that Blitzkeg Bop would end up being one of the more overplayed jock jams at local stadiums?  Hell, the C.R. Kernels always seem to play HEY HO LET'S GO every other time.  Anyway, you know this simple rock band as The Ramones and their 1976 Sire album would rewrite the book on punk rock. Although I consider them to be more garage rockers than punk rockers.  Now, with Tommy Ramone passing away from cancer at age 65, the original Ramones are now rocking in the great CBGB's in the sky somewhere.  Tommy Erderyi (probably misspelled) was also a producer who produced Tim by the Replacements and a album for Redd Kross but also helped recorded Jimi Hendrix when Jimi was alive.  But will forever be known for giving the Ramones that simple but had to play drum beat.  Later Tommy would leave to do production and later would form a bluegrass duo. With Tommy gone, there are no more original Ramones left.  But we still have Ritchie, Marky and C.J. around.  Mark Prindle interviews Tommy Ramone from a few years ago: http://markprindle.com/erdelyi-i.htm

From Legs McNeil: http://www.spin.com/articles/legs-mcneil-remembers-tommy-ramone-rip/?utm_source=spinfacebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=spinfacebook

Another passing to tell you about is Charlie Haden, best known for his works as a solo artist and taking part of Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz album, and father to the Haden triplets  who played in that dog, also departed to the great beyond Thursday at age 76. In Free Jazz, Haden served as the one who kept the main notes going while Don Cherry, and Coleman would improvise, thus coining the phase Free Jazz.  Originally starting out as a country bass player (He played in Ozark Jubilee way back when), he went to a Charlie Parker concert than got turn on the jazz.  He has also jammed with Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheney and Jim Hall as well.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/12/arts/music/charlie-haden-influential-jazz-bassist-is-dead-at-76.html?_r=0

Notes: Steve Fry, John Spinks, Cliff Hoad

Funny how when disaster hits you, you don't know what is going on elsewhere.  After last week's monsoon, tornado hurricane whatever that took all the trees down here and flooded the basement, I missed the 4th of July celebrations around the area although our dumbfuck neighbor Allen was shooting off dynamite at 2 AM in the fucking morning and the neighbor methhead across the street was shooting one firecracker at a time. Some people take this fireworks shit to the extreme.  Nevertheless while trying to pick up tree limbs and trying to get over back spams I missed the Iowa City Jazz Festival Saturday (in a all day rain of course) and the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival in Davenport as well.  I haven't been much in a celebratory mood anyway. Dealing with the basement mess will do that to you.  And I probably will be to donating more CDs in the weeks forthcoming as well.  If you're looking for a certain cd, I just might have that for sale via rscrabb at Amazon.com.  Nevertheless, the Dubuque Goodwill got a major CD upgrade from the crap that they had for sale.

Oh yes, there's still a few things that I did buy and regretted.  Leon And Mary Russell Wedding Album (Wounded Bird) for one.  Leon lost his way on this lovefest to his later ex wife Mary McCreary and it just sounds fucking weird.  Nick Lowe was raving about Jim Ford The Unreleased Capitol Album (Bear Family) and he did cover 36 Inches High and Bobby Womack (RIP) covered Harry Hippie but I come to find the album to be somewhat of a snoozefest.  Oh it starts out well, a groovy cover of Sam Cooke's Chain Gang a highlight but the problem of the album is that it needed a fadeout on some of the songs that go on forever, You Just A is about 3 minutes too long.  Big Mouth USA is probably my fave track off this album but it's your typical A and B side album, with side A has the best songs, and side B wonders all over the place.  The Johnny Cash/Carl Perkins/Jerry Lee Lewis The Survivors (Razor And Tie) is interesting for Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis making to a 1981 Johnny Cash show in Germany and did a bunch of sing along gospel songs like they did when they were at Sun Records and Elvis was alive.  It sounds tossed off, since Carl and Jerry Lee improvised on the spot, Cash's songs are the best with Get Rhythm starting off.  But sing along gospel numbers may have been fun, you had to be there to witness this and they haven't aged very well after the fact.  Best part is the Johnny Cash penned liner notes talking about Jerry Lee on his deathbed and Johnny and June Carter Cash were there to help him through. But Carl Perkins and both Johnny and June Carter have gone beyond the sunset and Jerry Lee Lewis ended up being the sole survivor.  He'll probably outlive me...or you.

Speaking of which...I lost another friend and classmate over the years.  My good friend Steven Fry died Monday from lung cancer  I think he was 54.  Same age as Dennis Pusateri.  Steve and I became friends in junior high, he was always the smartass, the guy that told the funny and dirtiest jokes out there, but he eventually would drop out of school and started a life of construction work and would eventually locate down around Sigourney Iowa.  We would meet up during high school reunions or at the John Wayne Festival in Winterset and bullshit a while.  He was a hard living guy, and perhaps what did him in was a love of Marlboro Reds, which seems to be the suicide of choice of smokers. A few of my other friends who died of cancer smoked them nasty things.  Anyway, on our 30th reunion get together, Steve did mention that he wouldn't make it to the 40th reunion, saying that he didn't think that he'd be alive to be there. Sad to say that turned out to be true.

I was thinking about Dennis the other day, and fell asleep on the couch, only to wake up and see his picture on the newscast.  Of course, Dennis left us three years ago, but it seemed like he was a victim of a hit and run, he was riding his motorcycle and a car or SUV pulled out in front of him and he ended up on the pavement.  Ended up having a blood clot on his brain that eventually ended his life.  Three years later, he still does not have a headstone up on his grave site to which I think he's buried with his parents and brother Matthew, who was murdered in 1988 and the killer remains at large to this day.  I guess the bar Dennis used to hang out, well his step son is trying to raise funds to get that long deserved headstone for Dennis. And was hoping that KCRG would repeat that story, but they never did.  And there's not a link either.  At least not for now.  But I'll keep searching just in case somebody has it up.  Whereever that might be.

Life is a fleeting moment, even while I'm bitching away cleaning up the water mess in the basement for the 50th time this decade and cussing each and every rainstorm that comes here.  But death is always around the corner and we all die but don't know when that time comes.  So we continue to do what we do best. Music and records.  And when you're my age, time becomes shorter and shorter by the minute of every day.  Things could be a lot worse, you could be in Gaza or Africa or some war torn nation.  Or living by the ocean in the Philippines and hoping that a tycoon don't blow you into oblivion.  But everybody shares one thing and that everybody dies. And you can't take your money nor your CD and LP collection with you either.  I have no idea how this life is going to pan out in the years, or when the music stops, the music stores all go away and the only way to hear music is the dreaded Spotify or streaming.  But this has always been my life and I simply don't see that going away anytime soon.

So I'll make a toast to the memory of Steve Fry, knowing that he is no longer suffering from cancer.  And hopefully I'll get to meet him and Dennis in the great beyond, telling bad jokes and listening to music as well.

RIP brothers.

(due to limitations of the links, I copied and paste the obituary from the local papers)

  Steve Wayne Fry, 54, died July 7, 2014 at University Hospital and Clinics in Iowa City, Iowa. He was born February 15, 1960 at St. Luke’s Hospital to Richard Dean and Betty Flanegin Fry. He attended Marion High School. Steve worked construction and did carpentry in the Marion and Cedar Rapids area He moved to the Sigourney over 30 years ago and was a self-employed carpenter and handy man. Steve loved the outdoors, he enjoyed hunting, fishing, mushroom hunting and making wine. 

    He is survived by his mother Betty Fry of Hayesville, two brothers Doug Fry of Ottumwa, Tim Fry of Hiawatha, and his loving companion of 18 years Deneal Walraven of Hayesville and her children April Dumermuth of What Cheer, Joseph Walraven of Williston Tennessee, of Sharmin Koppes of Waterloo.

Graveside Service: Friday 10:30 A.M. Conner Cemetery Sigourney

Visitation: Thursday 5:00 – 8:00 P.M. Holm Funeral Home Sigourney

A memorial fund has been established

Steve Fry

Ottumwa Courier
---- — HAYESVILLE — Steve Wayne Fry, 54, died July 7, 2014, at University Hospital and Clinics in Iowa City.
A graveside service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Friday at Conner Cemetery, Sigourney.
Visitation will be from 5-8 p.m. Thursday at Holm Funeral Home, Sigourney.
A memorial fund has been established.

HAYESVILLE — Steve Wayne Fry, 54, died July 7, 2014, at University Hospital and Clinics in Iowa City.
A graveside service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Friday at Conner Cemetery, Sigourney.
Visitation will be from 5-8 p.m. Thursday at Holm Funeral Home, Sigourney.
A memorial fund has been established.
- See more at: http://www.ottumwacourier.com/obituaries/x1927850156/Steve-Fry#sthash.uKw6asmq.dpuf

STEVE FRY
Hayesville

Steve Fry, 54, died July 7, 2014, at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City. Graveside service: 10:30 a.m. Friday, Conner Cemetery, southwest of Sigourney. Visitation: 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Holm Funeral Home, Sigourney.
Surviving are his mother, Betty Fry, Hayesville; two brothers, Doug Fry, Ottumwa, and Tim Fry, Hiawatha; and companion, Deneal Walraven, Hayesville.

- See more at: http://thegazette.com/article/20140709/Obituaries/307099985#sthash.XNBzwXFU.dpuf

STEVE FRY
Hayesville

Steve Fry, 54, died July 7, 2014, at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City. Graveside service: 10:30 a.m. Friday, Conner Cemetery, southwest of Sigourney. Visitation: 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Holm Funeral Home, Sigourney.
Surviving are his mother, Betty Fry, Hayesville; two brothers, Doug Fry, Ottumwa, and Tim Fry, Hiawatha; and companion, Deneal Walraven, Hayesville.

- See more at: http://thegazette.com/article/20140709/Obituaries/307099985#sthash.XNBzwXFU.dpuf

STEVE FRY
Hayesville

Steve Fry, 54, died July 7, 2014, at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City. Graveside service: 10:30 a.m. Friday, Conner Cemetery, southwest of Sigourney. Visitation: 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Holm Funeral Home, Sigourney.
Surviving are his mother, Betty Fry, Hayesville; two brothers, Doug Fry, Ottumwa, and Tim Fry, Hiawatha; and companion, Deneal Walraven, Hayesville.

- See more at: http://thegazette.com/article/20140709/Obituaries/307099985#sthash.XNBzwXFU.dpuf

Music Review:
JUDAS PRIEST-Redeemer Of Souls (Epic)

One thing about Rob Halford, he hasn't lost any of the vocal power, he can go from growl to scream in a matter of seconds.   But still Redeemer Of Souls is Judas Priest's best album since Point Of Entry, although these songs are more metal sounding than of said album of 33 years beyond.  Richie Faulkner has replaced retired and future golfer K K Downing and his playing inspires the band.  In some ways Redeemer Of Souls is like Black Sabbath's 13, both are metallic and doomy (March Of The Dammed and Crossfire do sound like they could fit on 13 had B.S. written them). But once Halford hits those high screaming notes on Halls Of Valhalla you know it's vintage Priest.  Even though it does goes over an hour total performance wise the whole album is somewhat a better listen than Nostradamus,  it's not as labored and the band sounds a bit more committed to ROS.  However the surprise track is The Beginning Of The End, which ends things on a subwhat mellower note, in some ways like Planet Caravan is to Sabbath (again).  There's a expanded edition of five more songs but for myself I'll settle with the single album and keep a positive thought that Judas Priest is back with a vengeance.  It could be the comeback album of 2014
Grade A-

THE CRICKETS-Still In Style (Bear Family)

Why we love Bear Family; they tend to dig deep in the archives and they do it very well on this CD of life after Buddy Holly.  Earl Sinks does have that Lubbock hiccup down pat although the biggest complaint was he couldn't do ballads very well.  Sonny Curtis was more country sounding than Earl judging by the alt takes of Smooth Guy and and So You're In Love, and more professional sounding too.  This collection goes beyond the original Coral release and is the missing piece between Buddy Holly and the just about forgotten Liberty years which was more pop than rock, including the last Norman Petty produced sessions, one Love's Made A Fool Out Of You stems from a Buddy Holly demo and a work in progress judging by Jerry Allison's drumming.  Legend has it that the band had a falling out with Petty after this got released as a B side to the ho hum Someone Someone and they never worked with him again.  Anyway, Still In Style collects all (with the exception of a couple lost maters) of the Earl Sinks, and Sonny Curtis sessions and although this pales next to you know who, the songs still remain top notch garage rock country.  It's important to note that this version of Love's Made A Fool Out Of You and I Fought The Law would be the songs that Bobby Fuller would cover to greater effort and of course covered by the likes of Hank Williams Jr and The Clash. But credit must be given to David Box who sings on The Crickets last single Peggy Sue Got Married/Don't Cha Know, the former featuring one of Jerry Allison's best drumming in his career.  And that somebody at MCA thought so highly of this song to include it on the 20 Greatest Hits that came out in tribute to Buddy Holly in 1978.  But like Buddy, David would end up on an ill-fated flight that would claim his life a few years later. Of course Still In Style will pale in comparison to The Chirping Crickets but that doesn't mean the music is less interesting.  In fact it does rock as hard at times, I Fought The Law for 1959 could be punk rock in that day and time.  As always, Bear Family liner notes and discography is first rate, the sound quality better than the scratchy old 45s. They may have lost Buddy but they always found the right vocalists to keep the Buddy Holly sound going.  And God bless David Box, and Earl Sinks wherever he may be.
Grade A-

John Spinks, the songwriter from The Outfield has passed away from liver cancer at age 60.  While The Outfield might be considered disposable corporate power pop, I have come to enjoy most of their albums. While Play Deep is their best known, my favorite remains Voices Of Babylon.  They later recorded for MCA, Platinum, and Side Winder where their About Time album in the late 2000's might have been their best.   Since radio didn't play it, we'll never know. RIP.

I see our Russian spam ref site xolodremont are back inflating the non existent ratings here again. Worthless pieces of shit that they are. 

Cymbal Talk from Clifford Hoad:

A fello drummer mate just asked me this question - 

"Debating on changing cymbal brands.... From Zildjian to Sabian ....I started on Paiste, then to Zildjian..Thoughts ?? "

MY ANSWER -
" In my opinion , don't do it !!! As far as sound is concerned Avedis Zildjian are superior boasting a shrillness, plus full bodied sound , they are tempered at a much higher heat to get this, it does make them more brittle and more prone to cracking. Sabians are a much more economical cymbal tempered at a lower degree , more flexible not so brittle . With each cymbal being similar or the same in their casting just like Paiste. Avedis Zildjian on the other hand tend to all be different . This was told to me by one of the guys in the Zildjian factory in the USA . If you like to wack into your cymbals without a worry, go the Sabian , but if its the SOUND you want , recording etc, I would go the Avedis for a more personalized vibe. Avedis were originally a Jazz cymbal Buddy Rich etc and were never hit that hard but if you wanna hear classic Avedis sound , check out Doug Clifford's 16 inch Avedis Zildjian Crash on the track "HEARD IT THOUGH THE GRAPEVINE" by Creedence Clearwater Revival . MAGIC !!!! A Sabian will never sound like that !!!. The downside of this is in Australia, there is not much of a choice concerning Avedis Zildjian Cymbals & buying on the net could be disastrous as they are inconsistent in their sound where Sabian like Paiste an 18 inch crash will sound like a 18 inch crash . Its taken me 30yrs to get my fleet of cymbals. I recently bought a 26 inch ride , the seller sent me a soundscape on my request, this way I could hear it, thankgod when it got here, it sounded the same, unbelievable, its on my new album ROCK TIL YA DIE ! p.s. One other thing that bothers me about all the new cymbals is the mist of clear lacquer warding off dirty finger marks but suffocating the metal trying to breathe when its being hit , the great old Jazz drummers never cleaned their cymbals, I know Ginger Baker never cleaned his, I've seen some photos of where they looked green probably a build up of the smokey rooms of the past !
Kings Of The Sun - Clifford Hoad

I always thought that Doug Clifford played Paiste on the classic CCR recordings and that he favored a 602 16 inch crash.  Doug is known for having a hi hat set up of 18 inch cymbals as well.   Cliff Hoad on the other hand has been a Zildjian user for all of his recordings, most notably off the wall china and sizzle cymbals.  The latest Townedgers album, yours truly resorted back to an vintage Zildjian lineup.  Nothing wrong with the other cymbals, The Paiste lineup has its own sound but if one is brought up on a certain type of cymbals, they tend to stick to the old and vintage.

Notes: Shit Weather Part 3, Vanilla Fudge

So far 2014 summer is shaping up to be the worst in history.  The fucking monsoon floods, washed out roads and two weeks straight of water in the basement and more fucking rain coming.  Which was one reason why I didn't do vacation this year.

Don't know where to start but Saturday, it was Pearson night at the ball club and I managed to fork over 20 dollars for all you can eat burgers, hot dogs and whatever comes to mind.  Biggest complaint was that the ball club went from 16 oz bottles of RC to 12 oz of Dr. Pepper.  Nevertheless mother nature showed her PMS and rain started up around the fourth inning and despite a half hour rain delay they got the game in despite more fucking rain and being wet from standing out of it.  Kernels won 9-5 and all around cool guy Jason Kanzler was out in the rain taking to some wet fans and then before they called the game about 10 Kernels players did their Rick Dempsey tribute by sliding up and down the tarp.

Sunday Night, another fucking monsoon storm came out around 10 PM and gave us another 6 inches of the fucking not needed shit, flooding the basement and in the process of trying to move a shelf, about 50 CDs fell into the water.  CD's are fine but the liner notes and inserts all got water damaged.  Therefore I say goodbye to most of my Dio, King's X, Steely Dan and Little Feat.  It's tough enough to try to move shit and pull carpets up to let the fucking river go through the living room and laundry area.  Nevertheless, mother nature may have finally convince me that I have way too many CDs and need to cut this in half.  Therefore if you get around the CR/I.C area you might come across a gold mine of classic rock favorites.  I don't need them anymore, they're always on the radio.  But the worst was not over.

Monday afternoon: 3 PM. My brother calls up and says that he is seeing green clouds rolling out this way. KCRG is warning the power is going to go out.  The computer gets shut down and I took a look outside to see some real dark clouds heading this way.  And then Hell erupts.  At 3 15, the winds howled up to 90 MPH, rain was coming from all directions and I begin to see trees uproot from their areas going everything  Straight line winds a river of flood going through the driveway and then the old dead pine tree came falling down upon our house in front of me, just lodging underneath the power line.  The other pine tree also toppled upon the side and the old piece of shit tree that kept dumping branches and shit over the year, that too came unbuckled from its side and took out our fence but thankfully not our house or our fuckface neighbor next door.  Piles of shingles were blowing in the wind, somebody's metal shed was scattered about in the yard and most of everybody lost their trees in this town.  I don't believe it was a tornado but rather straight line winds was the cause of this. And hope to fuck we never have to go through this shit ever again.

And then the power did go out.  And we were in the dark for 18 hours.  By then, the second wave of water in the basement came and went everywhere.  I have a fighting chance to deal with this shit if we have power, but when it goes out. you cannot do a fucking thing.   The fucking hurricane experience finally ended a half hour later to which we came out to see leaves and branches and trees scattered all over the place.  But we were not the only place.  Anamosa was dark except for McDonald and Wal Mart and the one single gas station place open and a line of cars went all the way back to 151.  A semi was overturned down on 151, Shaw Rd you couldn't get through due to a large maple tree blocking the road and somebody's driveway got washed away.  On hwy 1, part of the road got washed away at a culvert, and the bridge over a creek in the backway got washed away too.  Cedar Rapids got hit hard in the usual spots with flood waters.

With all this record fucking rainfall for the month 15 inches, all time record and every year we seem to top it (fucking global warming climate change bullshit).  And we're back in the usual shit of floods on the Wapsi, floods on the Cedar and now flooding on the Iowa river that affecting Iowa City/Coralville.  And any other river that is in this part of the state.  

So once again I'm back down to clean up yet another fucking water mess and dealing with ants, earwigs, flies and other annoyances around the house  I may as well keep the fucking carpets off the floor.  It's defeating the sense of purpose and you can't have nothing nice anyway.  I'm not in the mood to go bargain hunting but rather trying to see what CDs or LPs that I'm not going to listen to anymore and donating them or try to sell them and get pennies back on return.  Seems like every fucking weekend we have rain either on Saturday, Sunday or both.  The west is burning up, but here we're drowning in this mess, or having a fucking monsoon or tornado go by.  We NEED dry days and not one dry day and 10 wet days in a row.  This is bullshit.

Or if you don't hear from me, it's either a tornado blew me away or I got drowned in the basement.  Maybe we'll talk tunes next time around.  But I'm sure it will be another bitch about the fucking weather blog.

IF YOU READ THIS FAR, MUSIC NEWS:

Steve Walsh is leaving Kansas, he resigned as lead singer/keyboardist.  His last show will be in Sioux City IA August 16th (weather permitting).

So far the new Robert Plant single is boring.  Different yes, but boring.  The new Yes album has been labeled very boring.  This doesn't bore well for them.

And it was three years ago on the 4th that I lost one of my best friends Dennis Pusateri. And still miss him.


Review:

The Vanilla Fudge-Complete Atco Singles Collection (Real Gone)
Psychedelic Sundae-The Best Of The Vanilla Fudge (Rhino)

I tend to have mixed feelings about The Fudge and their recording legacy.  Were they pomp rock or prog rock?  Where they supposed to slow down You Keep Me Hanging On to a crawl, I tend to think that song may have inspired The Melvins in one way or another.  Anyway, the folks at Real Gone Music managed to take the time to once again come up with an ace introduction of Vanilla Fudge's ATCO singles and most of them are in mono sound.  And it starts out with You Keep Me Hanging On, a three minute edit of their most famous cover version, a deconstruction of the Supremes' Motown hit. And then following it up with a whacking of Patti Labelle and The Bluebells' Take Me For A Little While (I do have their version too).  While the record label chopped the hell out of Shotgun (a 2:30 edit of a 6 minute jam), they kept the full 7:42 seconds of Some Velvet Morning, the Lee Hazelwood cover which does echo prog rock and is longer than Mac Arthur Park.  Which, come to think of it, too bad the Fudge didn't attempt to do Mac Arthur Park.  Although I wasn't too keen on Come By Day, Come By Night, the B side to the reissued Keep Me Hangin On, I come to enjoy it more in my older age but Thoughts, Vince Martell's song actually does bring to mind what Uriah Heep would do later on when David Byron was still alive.  And screaming away.  However, sometime the over the top ness gets a little annoying, more so on The Windmills Of Your Mind which Dusty Springfield still owns.  Or People.  While some people welcome the 1984 failed single Mystery from their flop comeback album of that year I tend to find The Fudge sadly out of the times.  But give Real Gone credit for adding that song, and of course a chopped bonus single edit of Some Velvet Morning.

But in the 80s, Atco, put together The Very Best Of The Vanilla Fudge and it cherry picks the hits and gives us the whole 6 minutes of Shotgun (Carmine Appice plays his butt off on that track) and includes the Shadow Morton poetry reading on Season Of The Witch  but that album also  includes the annoying Illusions Of My Childhood which weaves in and out of You Keep Me Hangin On and Take Me For A Little While.  10 Years later, Rhino revisits and puts out the Psychedelic Sundae best of and also runs close to the Complete Atco Singles, with People, Windmills Of Your Mind and the 1984 singles left off. But all it's worth, it's the perfect overview of what the Fudge could do album wise.  And I do find their albums to be very spotty. And so did they, they disowned The Beat Goes On, which was Shadow Morton's idea.   And giving the world 23 minutes of Break Song from Near The Beginning showed that they were running out of ideas before Rock And Roll and adding four so so tracks from that to Sundae, Need Love almost the same arrangement as Shotgun.  But still I do get a kick out of their attempt to go gospel with Lord In The Country and Faceless People (from Renaissance) showed they could give Cream a run for the overblown jams.  That said, if you have an open mind and a love of 45 mono sound The Complete Atco Singles can't be beat.  I bought Sundae instead.  It was cheaper and a good overview.  But you could blame them for giving the world Pomp rock too.

Grade B+

Best Of The Sand Rubies and Rock Sidewinders (San Jacinto)

They finally threw in the towel after the disappointing Mas Cuacha but they will forever remain the best rock band to come out of Tucson Arizona.  Rich Hopkins' stinging guitar lines and David Slutes' angry vocals have always been the trademark but their band is the stuff of what many bands went through, cult following in town, getting noticed by the labels, signing with an up and coming independent label, made two albums before getting sued by a fucking cover band of all things, losing their contract, signing with another independent label that went under before the record got done, finally signs on another label, gets record out, record stiffs, they break up and then get back together off and on and made a couple more.  The Best Of The Sand Rubies/Rock Sidewinders is everything that I know about this band and all their best known stuff is on here, beginning with their first album which they called Shit, which wasn't that.  Hopkins always had that desert dry wit to go with his Neil Young on Steroids guitar leads. Solitary Man is hard garage rock and remains the best cover of that Neil Diamond song, and also they do cover the other Neil,  Young on Interstate which appears on their 1993 flop.  Originally, a band that featured fairly good female drummers, Andrea Curtis and later Diane Padilla, when they got Bruce Halper pounding away on the second version of What She Said (from Witchdoctor) they found their sound right then and there.   Their big hit was We Don't Do That Anymore, which managed to get some airplay on KFMH and MTV's 120 Minutes and that was from their best album 1990's Auntie Ramos Pool Hall.  Goodbye from their Sand Rubies debut should have been just as big on the radio too.  While Hopkins continues to record with the Luminarios (he has a new album out which I have not heard, the Luminarios' albums tend to be all over the place), the Sidewinders/Sand Rubies band is his testament and legacy to what could have been if luck was with him and not having some shit cover band taking the wind out of their sails and some band up in the hell hole called Tempe not beat them to the charts (that would be the much beloved Gin Blossoms). Most anything you could want is on this best of.  But if the price is a bit too deep for you, you can still find Witchdoctor, Auntie Ramos Pool Hall and The Sand Rubies for about half the cost.  Buy two just in case you lose one.

Grade A-

Notes:Global Dog, Kings Of The Sun, Best of 2000

Allow me to bother you one more time before the month is out.  Ya think that those who do these June festivals would hold off another month.  Glastonbury got buried in much rain over the weekend but to those who went there probably think it was worth the effort to see Jake Bugg, Jack White, Metallica, The Libertines and Lana Del Ray to mention a few.  Over here, no shortage of rain and more fucking rain. The Rhythm and Booms on the lake in Madison actually got done without any rain delays but not me going to the Cedar Rapids Kernels game on Pearson night, having two hamburgers and a hot dog and cussing out the weather as the rains came and stayed throughout the shortened game.  Bryan Haas hit 2 home runs and a grand slam  and CR won 9-5.  Although the rain delay showcase the Kernels having a grand time sliding on the wet tarp and the Kernel Strike Force happily dancing about in the rain, yours truly was not amused of Mother Nature's bullshit of rain and being soaked.  I make no bones about how much I hate rain, hate it even more when I go to outdoor events and even more so when it pours for two fucking hours.  Stalled fronts and continual heavy rains for the past three weeks makes anybody grumpy.  But then again for the past 11 years the world has known how much I hate rain so that's nothing new.  Our hope is for July to come around and dry out like it did last year.  I recalled a year ago being out in the Arizona sun and fun and having the basement have a fucking river going through it.  Which is why I didn't partake into a Arizona getaway this year.  If we waterproof the mutherfucking basement and not see no more rain come in that would help. A lot.

http://www.globaldogproductions.info/

I came across this site by accident from a record collecting friend.  Global Dog Productions really does a fine job in putting together discographies from labels of yesterday on 45s.   More throuough than 45 cat if you can believe that.

The Kings Of The Sun to me were one of the best bands to come out of Australia in the 80s and made two sloppy excellent albums for RCA and a third that may have been their best.  Led by Clifford and Jeffery Hoad, Serpentine and Drop The Gun should be playing on the classic rock stations around here.  The Hoad Brothers continued to make music throughout the years but Jeff decided he had enough of the rock and roll lifestyle and retire but Clifford Hoad has been working his ass off trying to spread the word that the Kings Of The Sun are still around. Their latest Rock Till Ya Die brings back the energy of the first two KOTS albums of long ago and Cliff has turned out to be a decent vocalist in his own ways but still remains one of the best bad ass drummers out there.  One of the very few that ever followed me on Facebook, Clifford spends a lot of time on Facebook and having updates and new pictures and videos.  One of the hardest working dudes in rock but hardly anybody around here knows about him.  I'm doing my best to get the word out.  http://www.kingsofthesunband.com/

While sorting through piles of hoarder shit around here, I found some archival stuff of note.  When Cal Menge was reissuing The Sand Rubies stuff on his Contingency label in the early 2000s, he had a list of folks that would submit the year's best and I gave him two lists.  The Best of 2000, and 2001.  Now in the 14 years since the first one I noticed that some of the best CDs I don't have anymore.  Elastica and The Royal Crowns number 1 and 10.  For nostalgia's sake the best of 2000

1.  Elastica-The Menance  (Atlantic)
2.  The Backsliders-Southern Lines (Mammoth)
3.  Steve Earle-Transcendental Blues (E Squared)
4.  Chumbawamba-WYSIWYG (Universal)
5.  Bad Religion-The New America (Atlantic)
6.  Ass Ponys-Some Stupid With A Flare Gun (Checkered Past)
7.   MXPX-The Everlasting Moment (A&M)
8.  Big In Iowa-Banging And Knocking (Blue Rose)
9.  Randy Weeks-Madeline (Hightone)
10. The Amazing Royal Crowns-Royal (Time Bomb)

Best of 2001

1.   Love And Theft-Bob Dylan (Columbia)
2.   Green Day-International Superhits (Reprise)
3.   Jerry Butler-The Complete Philadelphia Sessions (Mercury)
4.   Fresh Young Fellows Vs Minus Five-Because We Hate You (Mammoth/Malt)
5.   Blue Mountain-Roots (Blue Mountain Music)
6.   Yayhoos-Fear Not The Obvious (Bloodshot)
7.   Puddle Of Mudd-Come Clean (Geffen)
8.   Elton John-Songs From The West Coast (Mercury)
9.   Doyle Bramhall-Welcome (RCA)
10. Stevie Ray Vaughn-Live At Montreax (Epic)

With Elastica and The Royal Crowns I just outgrew that type of music and like the rest of the folks out there donated them to charity.  There's not much in documenting of that time either, I didn't have a working blog so therefore the turds of 2000 and 2001 were not considered.  I do recall hearing The Strokes Is This It? up in Seattle and wondering what the fuss was all about.  And Coldplay and The White Stripes were still under the radar.  3 of the 10 from 2001 were reissues whereas 2000 wasn't.  I had a few in mind that would replace the now jettisoned Elastica and Royal Crowns: Best Of Blur and the Best Of John Hiatt the A&M Years.  The sore thumb album would be Puddle Of Mudd, their first album I still like to this day although the lead singer has becomed a drug addicted asshole but at that time, he had his Nirvana/Layne Staley influences down pat.  Not a substitute  for the real thing mind you but it wasn't that bad.  Until he repeated himself from thereafter. Chumbawamba, best known for Tubthumping made a much better album with W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G. but the fragmented songs and anti corporation rants turned everybody off waiting for a Tubthumper followup. But taken as a whole, the putdowns of Reality TV really foretold more of the future than it did back then.

For some reason I also listening to a lot of punk pop back then and most of it has dated quite badly years later.  MXPX for example carried on the Green Day type of music although the drummer played faster and sloppier than Tre Cool and I don't know if anybody still plays Life In General anymore, their 1996 album that had alternative hits like Move To Bremerton and Chick Magnet.  A&M signed them up and MXPX made three albums, the best was The Everlasting  Moment which for that brief moment actually topped Green Day's effort and was helped by Dave Grohl on a couple numbers.  My Life Story probably their best song ever to which I bopped around town playing at full volume and having oddball looks from people.   The record didn't sell and MXPX last album for A&M found them to be second rate Good Charlotte, which guys from that band produced that album.  MXPX is still around but the guys are now pushing into their late 30s and have families to boot but still do put out the occasional album from time to time.

For the old farts, Elton John came back with Songs From The West Coast and made his best album in decades.  After dinking around with a rewording of Candle In The Wind and the slow and bore of The Big Picture, Elton found some inspiration, partly from the senseless killing of Matthew Shepherd and dealing with his own demons but does help when Davey Johnstone adds more guitar to the mix too.  Next album Nigel Olsson returned back to the drums and part of the classic E.J Band reunited (except for Dee Murray who passed).  Peachtree Road was uneven, the Captain And the Kid was better but for me the best E.J. record of the 2000s was Good Morning To The Night, a remix album with P'nau.

But I donno.  The 2000's became the decade of the most corporate and least essential music ever.  With auto tuner, pro tools sucking the life out of the music. And the major labels not even attempting to carve out careers for the starving artists, just forgettable singles that the most of us have forgotten.   Or would rather stick with what we grew up with in the 50s on to the 90s.   Today's musicians do have their work cut out, you have to compete with whats' out there in the internet that your practically competing against just about everything that has been recorded that you can find.  The EDM Bro Country hasn't help either.  But I don't think looking at these best of 2000 and 2001 are the demise of the music world.  I do play The Backsliders or Bob Dylan or Steve Earle or even Chumbawamba from time to time. 13 years ago things were a lot different than they are now.  At least we have record stores in town to go to and Wherehouse Music was still around as well as the overpriced but fun to go into Tower Records.   It doesn't make any difference but these archival finds of the best of those years showed that my tastes in music was at and have been altered a bit today.

And so it goes.

Notes: Deadshirt, CD Donation, Gary Glitter Pedophile

But first let's talk about  the weather.  It sucks.  Water in the basement again. A tired old tradition that I can do without. I plan to waterproof this motherfucking place but before we do we have to pray for no more rain.  To which the forecast for rain chances for the next two weeks.  Unfuckingbelieveable.  And of course river levels are past flood stage. The Cedar in CR will crest at around 17 and half feet.  Not 2008 historic levels but still ranks in the top 28 all time high river stage.  Meanwhile out west, the sun continues to shine and the dry winds and lightning continue to burn that part of the country down.  BTW The Linn County Fair starts this week, Alien Ant Farm, who was supposed to play last year's canceled Fair (Due to um...too much rain) comes back to play the Thursday show.  John Michael Montgomery is the country act for Friday.

Teeny Hodges, one of the cornerstones of the Hi Music Band under the watchful eye of Willie Mitchell and can be heard on the classic Al Green recordings passed away at age 68.  Another victim of too much smoking.

Meanwhile Wellmark Blue Shield says no to Obamacare and raises the rates once again. Thus providing that the terrorists picked the wrong places to crash and burn.  Yep our country, all for the profit line and not for the working man.  CEO can't afford his jet, so somebody's gotta pay for it.  That's right, it will be you. My mom says you can tell when a company is full of shit they'll have more commercials on the TV.  Kinda like insurance companies. The more they advertise, the more likely they'll deny you when something happens to you.

Another website to tell you about. Deadshirt.  I'm still looking for off the wall websites as you can tell. http://deadshirt.net/

Over the weekend, I donated a bunch of CDs and LPs back to Goodwill in a attempt to clean house and make room for the waterproofers to come next month but it doesn't even look like I done anything.  A lot of CDs went out the door this time.  Candlebox, Wallflowers, Train all gone.  Hell, even most of the CDs that I did find and bought at Stuff Etc went back to the donation bin. It's harder getting rid of albums but I think about 40 of them got donated too.  I'm sure they'll all be picked up fairly soon.

One of the LPs donated was Glitter And Gold by Gary Glitter.  Once upon a time,  I played Glitter a few times, Baby Please Don't Go, I didn't know I loved you till I saw you rock and roll and later stuff like Leader Of The Gang but Gary is in trouble again with the law. Imagine that.  Although the charges date back to the 70s the statue of limitations didn't ran out.   That said, it should be reminded to those who play his Jock Itch Jam Anthem Rock and Roll Part 2 that everytime they do this, it puts money in his pocket and he can go out and prey upon the young again.  A sad part of life, even back then old Paul Gadd looked a bit creepy in that glam outfit he could barely get his fat ass in on that Glitter album.   Never again.

record reviews



Chad And Jeremy-Of Cabbages And Kings (Columbia)

They really got weird at the end of the 60s.  The guys that gave us A Summer Song and those lush harmonies, later gave way to what Simon And Garfunkel were doing around the Bookends time.  I also think that Gary Usher played more of a role too, with the Sagittarius Present Tense thing he did with Curt Boehetter which is a collector's item.  Rest In Peace the leadoff track could find a home on Present Tense or Moody Blues for that matter.  But there's a standoffish approach from Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde that kinda puts me off as well. I'll Get Around To It When And If I Can, if you think it's a droll title, wait till you hear them sing it.  Side 2 is the overblown Progress Suite 1-5 which is much ado about nothing. Paul Kantner may have right: Paul Simon could have done it better in a three minute song rather than taking up a whole side of the album.  And Simon did,  It was called Fakin' It.
Grade B-

Babe Ruth's Greatest Hits (Griffin/EMI)

In short their best moment was The Mexican which got airplay on FM radio.  Griffin Records cherry picks 7 tracks from various Harvest/Capitol albums and most of them grate on your nerves. (Black Dog, not the Led Zeppelin version)  Jenny Hahn had a powerful voice that's for sure and on Jack O Lantern she sounds like Geddy Lee.  As an overview album it's okay but not something I'd listened to a lot.  However Jenny and Alan Shlockrock are still around playing from time to time.
Grade B-

The Townedgers-Forthcoming Trains (Radio Maierburg)

The last album 30 was a return to the self-styled garage rock of Town's Edge Rock.  Which 30 years ago last year begin a long journey of self-styled garage rock.  The Townedgers are Iowa's answer to Crazy Horse without Neil Young, a enjoyable though faceless band that nobody ever heard of outside of this blog or Radio Buzz'd which plays The Townedgers from time to time.  Forthcoming Trains, is a more return to the 2000's type of TEs, a mixed blend of acoustic numbers to go with the electric.  Leading off with an mellow ballad How Hard It Is, shows the unpredictable side: not too many folks would lead the album off with a slow ballad.  And then moving on the unrelenting Midnight Run.  Last few albums the Townedgers added more cover versions to the music with mixed results (Country, the 2012 album Soul Biscuits) this time out, they cover themselves with 6 remakes from previous albums.  But since practically nobody ever heard the originals versions anyway,  I consider them new songs.  The major differences between Midnight Run 85 and 2014 is that Rod Smith's drumming is not as radical as it was once was.  Three decades ago, he'd find a way to throw a Keith Moon drum roll crash in the mix, this time out, stays more faithful to the guitar riffs.  Or Just Enough Love to which more cymbal accents are used rather than full drum rolls. Although Forthcoming Trains could be argued for a repackaged remakes of certain songs, it also addresses the present and the future in typical disdain.  The usual love gone wrong songs such as Light Years Away, Smith shrugs it off in the chorus of You cannot lose what you never had, that love is gone and light years away, even if the ex love interest is still trying to find her methadone at the pizza place all these years.    The newer Townedger songs, Faygo and Home addresses the lack of musical success with irony.  Don't know why I promoting this, nobody is buying it anyway, Smith sings on Faygo.  And on Home, it ties the past, present and future with bemused bitterness of lack of success in music. And singing songs in an empty bar that nobody knows, but in my mind I am a star goes one lyric and in the final lines sums up the album and the career with these parting shots: Yes I know I got no expectations, I'm dealing with life's frustrations, the more I try, the more I fail, it's getting old, leave me alone, I'm going home.  And in the end result, still falling on deaf ears.

Nevertheless Forthcoming Trains for all the irony and dry wit dark side of humor of Home or Faygo, The Townedgers still have come up with a very good recording and that might rank with the best of their catalog.  While the rest of the world contends with Bro Country crap and faceless EDM, The Townedgers continue to do what they do best, economical garage rock and tearing up the back roads at the same time.
Grade A-

2014 is half way through and so far the new music has ranged from great to passable to freaking bad but my favorites of the year are Beck Morning Phase, Drive By Truckers English Oceans and The Strypes Snapshot albums.  Black Lips and Against Me also figure into this. But the worst album of 2014 is Lana Del Ray's Ultraviolence and doubt that will change much.  Unless I decide upon reviewing the new Love And Theft album; which won't happen.



If the rains hold off there's plenty of things to do around the area.   The CR Bar B Q Roundup, a ripoff upon itself that you pay a fee to get in and then play double for the Bar B Q stuff happens this week at the newly modeled McGrath Amphitheater which kicks off Freedom Festival 2014, provided if the Cedar River doesn't spill over its banks. Brook Hoover, Kevin BF Burt, 8 Seconds and The Nadas are part of the local bands providing musical relief from all that Bar B Q.  In Madison the first ever Rhythm And Booms Festival makes its way from Warner Park to up and down John Nolen Drive around Monona Terrace and it's going to be a madhouse this week and parking will be scarce.  For 10 dollars you can get a upfront view of things from Monona Terrace but if you're cheap like me or finding that your finances went towards parking, there's free admission around certain areas around John Nolen Drive. Fireworks will be seen all along Lake Monona and it should be a fun time.  Weather permitting of course.  Big Head Toad And The Monsters is the main band. But other local bands will be playing at certain venues.  Mr. Zero from Mad City Music X says there'll be some bands playing in the ped mall where the record store is located.  Parking will be extremely limited so get there early. 

Notes: Platteville Tornado, Casey Kasem

When Casey Kasem died on Father's Day, it ended yet another chapter in the era of radio.  Kasem's American Top 40 was one of the more listened to shows on radio back in the 70s and 80s.  Kasem did voice overs for Hanna Barbera, him being the voice behind Shaggy.  He also participated in the Jerry Lewis MDA telethons as well.   The infamous side of Casey was his profanity laced tirade about the death of Snuggles the dog.  Negativeland  did a cut and paste version of that into a song.  I had the CD of that album This Band Is From England And Who Gives A Shit, which the band also does four different takes of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. But it was U2's management and SST that put a stop to that and the Kasem radio outtake meltdown.  Casey didn't know anything about it till later and although the band said he was gracious and kind, he didn't sign off on the release of that song.   Next to Dick Clark, Casey Kasem was the voice of radio and the American Countdown.

What Record World is famous for outside of the now forgotten top ten listings and forgotten bands and album reviews is that we talk about tornadoes a lot here.  It's that time of year, where stalled fronts cook us with sun and humidity by day and monsoon storms at night flooding every GD things in sight.  By now, you have seen the twin tornadoes that gutted a tiny Nebraska town (Pilger) on Monday, which was the start of the night of the twisters here in this area.  While the Elkhart Twins were from the same storm, the Pilger Twins were from separate storms.  You can compare them from the photos.  Yes this is the famed Paul Huffman photo of the Elkhart double monster.

 Which brings back memories of 1965 and the infamous Elkhart Indiana Palm Sunday Twin Tornado.  The number is two.  As in two tornadoes that hit Clarksville in Iowa and then crossed into Wisconsin where two tornadoes wrecked Platteville, making a mess of UW Platteville and causing havoc along Business 151 aka Junk Food Row where the Shell Station got destroyed and half of Taco Bell got blown to bits.  And a half hour later, an EF3 tornado  hit Verona, wrecking a school and causing major damage along the northern side of town.  Madison had a EF2 Tornado that hit the SW side of town.   The Platteville twisters were EF1 and EF2.  And then Tuesday night another midnight monsoon caused more wind damage around Sun Prairie which is north and west from Madison.  And more storms to come from this stalled front that will continue to play havoc in this area for the rest of the week.  Don't we all just love this weather in June?  Fuck no.



The bigger headache remains the heavy rain after the storms hit and all across the region Flood watches and warnings are going on.  Minnesota has seen 6 to 8 inches of the wet shit.  Owatonna got 8 inches of it Monday Night and flooded the low lying areas.  Once again the heavy rains are making farmers miserable. Once it starts you can't stop it and the fields are becoming swamps.  Good old climate change, it fucks up everybody's plans.

For new music I haven't noticed it till now but it seems that even I don't know most of the new bands that are up and coming anymore, or what the NME or Rolling Stone is touting.  The NME keeps touting Kasasbian but from what I had heard from these guys I'm not impressed.  The Bro Country phenomenon sucks and the EDM top 40 is even less.  The wave of the future and basically here to stay.  So you may as well stab yourself in the ears before going to the hardware store so you don't have to hear Florida Georgia Line or Luke Bryan.  But since I mentioned their names, I just put money in their pockets.  Suppose I should demand a cut for the promo?  But the return to the rock and roll that I remember has gone via the way of Big Band music and Pre War Blues.  A curio for the rest of the world but hardly mentioned anymore.

Reviews:

The Big Bang-Best Of MC5 (Rhino)  As a mix CD, it cherry picks without much thought.  You get side 1 of Kick Out The Jams, a good helping of Back In The USA, poorly recorded and produced by one Jon Landau and throws in the worst song they ever did, Miss X from High Time and the rarities have been on better comps out there (Babes In Arms although that CD was too, poorly recorded and sequenced). The MC5 stand out in my mind for pissing my dad off when he heard side two of Kick Out The Jams and called it the worst crap he's ever heard in life and I'm surprised that he didn't break the record after that.  Why Rhino didn't add the single Borderline is beyond me, maybe they couldn't find that record or maybe Wayne Kramer didn't have it.   Back In The USA, even in 1970, the bassless recording makes it almost unlistenable despite some great songs on it (High School, Shakin' Street, Tonight) and I still have the vinyl to that.  High Time, was the MC5 doing it their way and the jams are wonderful, but Miss X sucks all the fun out of this, even moreso on the best of.  They should replaced that POS with Future/Now which led off side 2.  And it ends with a track from the Thunder Express album, which was live in the studio remakes of Kick Out The Jams and I managed to find that in the cutouts at the former Musicland in Dubuque.  Since the MC5 really didn't have any hits, this serves as a sampler, and Brother Crawford speech at that beginning of Ramblin Rose also sucks the air out of the room before the band comes alive to show they were radicals and great to be seen live.  You're better off with the live album and collective Atlantic albums rather than this overview.
Grade C+

The Joe Meek Story (Not Now)   I consider Joe Meek in the same league with Jim Gordon, some of the finest people who played and recorded music, but then ended having meltdowns and killing people, Gordon with his mother but way before that Meek offing his landlady and then playing the shotgun crescendo on himself to bloody results.  But Meek could make anything sound cutting edge, I can hear it on The Outlaws instrumentals and Johnny Remember Me and of course his maniacal infatuation on Buddy Holly to which 8 years after Buddy's plane went down, Meek ended his and the landlady's lives. The best Meek album out there remains Razor And Tie's now deleted It's Hard To Believe (the Dennis Diken liner notes are worth the price alone) and this overview leaves out the signature hits (Telstar by The Tornadoes, Have I The Right by The Honeycombs) but really provides a more in-dept look at the lesser knowns, the Buddy Holly soundalike Mike Berry, the English actor John Leyton-Meek's answer to Frankie Avalon, The Outlaws, Meek's answer to The Ventures which may or may not have featured Richie Blackmore on guitar, The Fabulous Flee Rekkers, Meek's answer to Johnny And The Hurricanes (which had Micky Waller on drums, one of most sloppy drummers ever, you can hear on Rod Stewart's first three albums).  I think this 2 CD set goes a bit overboard on the teenage pop dreck that Meek favored, or the Buddy Holly soundalikes of Berry or Micheal Cox and not enough on the weird side of things.  Screaming Lord Sutch's outrageous Till The Following Night which could be the first true goth song ever made and a even more wilder Good Golly Miss Molly which makes Little Richard sound like Liberace.  Or Meek's side project The Blue Men which oddball sound effects brings to mind early Pink Floyd, Entry Of The Globbots does sound like Syd Barrett on Pow R  Toc H (compare those songs).  And then there's Cliff Bennett And The Rebel Rousers, some hard driving piano rock in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis, only wilder.  Not enough Cliff and Screaming Lord Sutch.  A tale of two different extremes, not enough wild rock and instrumentals and too much pop fluff weirdness that dates itself to 1959.  Plus the liner notes aren't that great.
Grade B

Lana Del Ray-Ultraviolence (Polydor)

You know this record is in trouble when Kanye and Kim West say they love this.  Since Dan Auerbach decided to produce this mess, I thought I'd check it out to hear the end result and the end result is worse than I thought.  At least her debut Born To Die had some interesting songs, all of this album is very slow tempo and Lana doing her best Yoko Ono imitation. Or is it Kate Bush, I don't know.  Anybody can hype a album but to hype a album of 50 plus minutes of mundane melodies and mopy lyrics reminds me of a female Morrissey and not in a good way.  The only song I can stomach through was Old Money which sounds like a rewrite of A Time For Us (from Romeo And Juliet).  She loves to say fuck a lot, she even titled a song called Fucked My Way To The Top.  And also a few more F bombs on the lead off track Cruel World.  This record may just be the most overblown overhyped record of the year.  It's also the worst.
Grade D




Another worthless spam reference site continues to be found in my most view by department, Webchat.Freenode. net #dedicatedpool has been number one in the traffic sources department coming in here at 24 views just today. Whoever the fuck they are. We are not the only one this refer spam site has been visiting.  Patrick Boone gives us the lowdown of yet another troublesome website that if you click on it, you'll get more spam and shit that you don't need. I need real viewers not spammers. http://from-the-sidelines.blogspot.com/2014/06/chatty-spam.html

The folks at Campbell Steele which has a retail art shop on 7th Avenue in Marion is ending their retail art sales in favor of a working art studio and music hall at the old Memorial Hall spot a half block down.  As well as British type of pub on the first floor.  In my younger years of walking in that town when I lived there I always thought that Memorial Hall would be a good place to have bands play at.  Campbell Steele is also known for the much missed Liar's Theater, Iowa's version of Prairie Home Companion but with a more emphasis on jazz and pop vocal.  To which you can still find Cds from Liar's Theater artist in the cutouts around town.  Campbell Steele Art Gallery has hosted regional artists from time to time from Michael (Bluer Than Blue) Johnson to You know Who and the Blue Band to Funk Daddies. Correction:  Jeanne and Paul Matthews are buying Memorial Hall and enlisting the Campbell Steele folk to help with the art gallery and have an English Pub in the back of the building and plan to live on the second floor.  Good luck to them. The story from the Gazette reads as follows:  A business decision by the owners of the Campbell Steele Gallery in Marion has created an opportunity for the owners of a historic building in the community. After 23 years of selling artwork, Craig Campbell and Priscilla Steele plan to transition away from a retail sales gallery to a working art studio and performance venue. Steele said the change will allow her to focus on her artwork. “I will be working up front with my print etching press as well as cultivating the performance end of the business,” Steele said. “Our timeline for this transition is fairly generous. I hope that the artists we have represented will consider transitioning to a gallery that Jeanne and Paul Matthews plan to open in Memorial Hall.” Campbell said the retail art sales will end no later than Dec. 31. Steele is planning four exhibits of her artwork in the gallery through the end of 2014, along with additional exhibits in Cedar Falls, Des Moines, Fairfield and Waterloo. As far as the entertainment side of the business, Campbell said 25 music performances are scheduled at Campbell Steele through Feb. 14, 2015. The venue has developed a reputation for the quality of its light and sound production studio, attracting performers such as Michael Johnson, Bob Dorr & the Blue Band, the George Jazz Group and Funk Daddies. With the encouragement and support of Campbell and Steele, Jeanne and Paul Matthews expect to have an art gallery open in about 90 days on the first floor of the renovated Memorial Hall, built in 1899 at 760 11th St. “The first floor will be divided into two suites,” Jeanne Matthews said. “The gallery will be located in the front of the building where there is premium storefront space and I think we’re turning the back into a British pub. “We plan to live on the second floor of the building.” Matthews has contacted many of the artists who have been represented by Campbell Steele and all but one have expressed interest in moving to the new Memorial Hall art gallery. “Some of the art is so valuable that it will be held by Campbell Steele until we’re able to literally transfer it across the alley to the new gallery,” Matthews said. 

A business decision by the owners of the Campbell Steele Gallery in Marion has created an opportunity for the owners of a historic building in the community.
After 23 years of selling artwork, Craig Campbell and Priscilla Steele plan to transition away from a retail sales gallery to a working art studio and performance venue. Steele said the change will allow her to focus on her artwork.
“I will be working up front with my print etching press as well as cultivating the performance end of the business,” Steele said. “Our timeline for this transition is fairly generous. I hope that the artists we have represented will consider transitioning to a gallery that Jeanne and Paul Matthews plan to open in Memorial Hall.”
Campbell said the retail art sales will end no later than Dec. 31. Steele is planning four exhibits of her artwork in the gallery through the end of 2014, along with additional exhibits in Cedar Falls, Des Moines, Fairfield and Waterloo.
As far as the entertainment side of the business, Campbell said 25 music performances are scheduled at Campbell Steele through Feb. 14, 2015. The venue has developed a reputation for the quality of its light and sound production studio, attracting performers such as Michael Johnson, Bob Dorr & the Blue Band, the George Jazz Group and Funk Daddies.
With the encouragement and support of Campbell and Steele, Jeanne and Paul Matthews expect to have an art gallery open in about 90 days on the first floor of the renovated Memorial Hall, built in 1899 at 760 11th St.
“The first floor will be divided into two suites,” Jeanne Matthews said. “The gallery will be located in the front of the building where there is premium storefront space and I think we’re turning the back into a British pub.
“We plan to live on the second floor of the building.”
Matthews has contacted many of the artists who have been represented by Campbell Steele and all but one have expressed interest in moving to the new Memorial Hall art gallery.
“Some of the art is so valuable that it will be held by Campbell Steele until we’re able to literally transfer it across the alley to the new gallery,” Matthews said.
- See more at: http://thegazette.com/subject/news/campbell-steele-ending-retail-art-sales-20140620#sthash.mfNq6RcQ.dpuf

A business decision by the owners of the Campbell Steele Gallery in Marion has created an opportunity for the owners of a historic building in the community.
After 23 years of selling artwork, Craig Campbell and Priscilla Steele plan to transition away from a retail sales gallery to a working art studio and performance venue. Steele said the change will allow her to focus on her artwork.
“I will be working up front with my print etching press as well as cultivating the performance end of the business,” Steele said. “Our timeline for this transition is fairly generous. I hope that the artists we have represented will consider transitioning to a gallery that Jeanne and Paul Matthews plan to open in Memorial Hall.”
Campbell said the retail art sales will end no later than Dec. 31. Steele is planning four exhibits of her artwork in the gallery through the end of 2014, along with additional exhibits in Cedar Falls, Des Moines, Fairfield and Waterloo.
As far as the entertainment side of the business, Campbell said 25 music performances are scheduled at Campbell Steele through Feb. 14, 2015. The venue has developed a reputation for the quality of its light and sound production studio, attracting performers such as Michael Johnson, Bob Dorr & the Blue Band, the George Jazz Group and Funk Daddies.
With the encouragement and support of Campbell and Steele, Jeanne and Paul Matthews expect to have an art gallery open in about 90 days on the first floor of the renovated Memorial Hall, built in 1899 at 760 11th St.
“The first floor will be divided into two suites,” Jeanne Matthews said. “The gallery will be located in the front of the building where there is premium storefront space and I think we’re turning the back into a British pub.
“We plan to live on the second floor of the building.”
Matthews has contacted many of the artists who have been represented by Campbell Steele and all but one have expressed interest in moving to the new Memorial Hall art gallery.
“Some of the art is so valuable that it will be held by Campbell Steele until we’re able to literally transfer it across the alley to the new gallery,” Matthews said.
- See more at: http://thegazette.com/subject/news/campbell-steele-ending-retail-art-sales-20140620#sthash.mfNq6RcQ.dpuf

A business decision by the owners of the Campbell Steele Gallery in Marion has created an opportunity for the owners of a historic building in the community.
After 23 years of selling artwork, Craig Campbell and Priscilla Steele plan to transition away from a retail sales gallery to a working art studio and performance venue. Steele said the change will allow her to focus on her artwork.
“I will be working up front with my print etching press as well as cultivating the performance end of the business,” Steele said. “Our timeline for this transition is fairly generous. I hope that the artists we have represented will consider transitioning to a gallery that Jeanne and Paul Matthews plan to open in Memorial Hall.”
Campbell said the retail art sales will end no later than Dec. 31. Steele is planning four exhibits of her artwork in the gallery through the end of 2014, along with additional exhibits in Cedar Falls, Des Moines, Fairfield and Waterloo.
As far as the entertainment side of the business, Campbell said 25 music performances are scheduled at Campbell Steele through Feb. 14, 2015. The venue has developed a reputation for the quality of its light and sound production studio, attracting performers such as Michael Johnson, Bob Dorr & the Blue Band, the George Jazz Group and Funk Daddies.
With the encouragement and support of Campbell and Steele, Jeanne and Paul Matthews expect to have an art gallery open in about 90 days on the first floor of the renovated Memorial Hall, built in 1899 at 760 11th St.
“The first floor will be divided into two suites,” Jeanne Matthews said. “The gallery will be located in the front of the building where there is premium storefront space and I think we’re turning the back into a British pub.
“We plan to live on the second floor of the building.”
Matthews has contacted many of the artists who have been represented by Campbell Steele and all but one have expressed interest in moving to the new Memorial Hall art gallery.
“Some of the art is so valuable that it will be held by Campbell Steele until we’re able to literally transfer it across the alley to the new gallery,” Matthews said.
- See more at: http://thegazette.com/subject/news/campbell-steele-ending-retail-art-sales-20140620#sthash.mfNq6RcQ.dpuf