The music has all been reviewed, the observations duly noted. A few reminders to myself to do next year.
Review the Ashton Shephard album. If Freedom Du Luc sez it's better
than the James McMurtry album and if Miranda Lambert likes it, then
perhaps it is worth a look. But then again, I did take a listen to the
songs on Amazon and though it's a nice record and worthy of praises, I
just didn't see the need to rush down to Wally World before midnight to
review it before the year is out. Perhaps if I find a used copy, I'll
give it the go ahead.
Take a more closer look to the recordings of Paul Kelly. He's very
big in Austrailia and a cult artist here. I have some of his A and M
albums and finding a 1998 album at Goodwill for two bucks makes me think
that I'm missing a few pieces of the puzzle there. But I'm not about to
blow fifty bucks on the latest import. Which is why I didn't get to
review the latest Living End album, it wasn't released in the US.
Watch a lot less Judge TV shows. Always seems like I have been
basising my day around Divorce Court, or Joe Brown or Judge Alex
Ferrar.
Revisit the archives more often than I do. I buy and buy but reserve
time to listen to music less and less. And something ain't right on
that equation.
Other final year thoughts to consider.
The FYE Store in Crossroads/Waterloo is closing so everything was off
fifty percent. Which meant that I got the Jesus And Mary Chain Power
Of Negative Thinking box set for 30 bucks. Which will leave Best Buy as
the only place to go for new CDs and CDs Plus up there to find them
used. The pawnshops have nil for used CDs anymore. Maybe they have
gone by the way of 8 tracks.
Somebody didn't care much for Portishead 3, since I found it for two
bucks at Goodwill used Monday and decided to revisit that record. It
sounds better with each new play, it sounds like a lost horror
soundtrack but for some prevered reason it sounded good on the way home
from Coralville. I am also not that sure that Ray Davies last album was
worth number ten on the ten best albums of this year.
The owners of the mexican restraunt in Sycamore Mall and the one in
Independence are owned by the same people. Irony at its mad best but
when I was up at Indpendence last night at 7, I was the only one there.
As was Taco Time this afternoon. I'd really like to see more people
frequent Taco Time, cuz I rather not drive two and half hours to Ames
for a crunchy taco. And the manager up there is very nice,despite
hearing the opposite from some disgrunted worker on break up there.
Perhaps next year I'll try to be a bit more selective in terms of
finding music that nobody cares about, but I love a good two dollar
bargain like y'all do. Even in the age of downloading, I still remain
impressed of what people get rid of in terms of cds and we all know that
the next trip to Madison or AZ, I'll always find something that will
make me go wow. But as for you dear readers, you're free to pick and
choose at your own free will. Such is life and ain't it wonderful?
Happy new year y'all.
Replies from The Vinyl King.
While I was doing my update to my pages I realized that my music buying
has going in the toilet. I used to buy a ton of music in Reno, but this
music wasteland I call Walla Walla is pathetic. Two music stores. One
has a limited amount of music, and the other charges prices that you
would think they were made of gold. The thrift shops have a non-existent
music selection. Heck in Reno I could luck out once in awhile in a
thrift shop. One place was five import Zeppelin, one place a ton of
sealed or pristine Stax and Enterprise albums, and the list goes on.
Most of my music has come through trades for albums I've been looking
around for years.
Lizzy Williams (Liz Chaffe) says.
Well, if you have to quit doing your Top 10 of the week so be it..so long as you still do Blogs.
I like to read them and think that you should consider a Talk Radio Show
for the local musicians in the most musically populated area near to
you or like a College Radio Show.
Didn't you do that once before? Like recently?
Anyway, that's all I have to say. :)
Love ya Liz!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Top Ten Of The Week-Last Call for 2008
Greetings one and all, all for one.
We made it. Another year another top ten. Six years of giving y'all the insight of what the cd player was playing here on the crabb player. You think ten songs, fifty two weeks a year comes out 520 songs but take into consideration 6 years of this and you come up with a amazing 3120 songs. The mind boggles if we did a top thirty.
Everything has a beginning has a end. Just as life is. Or a tv show. Or buying out the music stores, there's a beginning and there's a end. Putting together a top ten does take a commitment and a dedication and a love for records to show the world what's in the player. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it didn't. I did a top ten in the mingles' site one time and people looked at me as if I was a freak. Sure didn't get any dates out of that mess. But I know in the first two years of the Roose and one year at My Space I did managed to trade top tens with some of my good friends and everybody learned something new. I didn't expect to get this far six years later. I was surprised with myself it survived the first year. Imagine my surprise when it made five years running.
I remember in my young age that The Gazette Newspaper would put out a KCRG Super 30 survey an for all intent purposes I would clip them out and I did managed to save most of 1971. It was fun to see what type of songs were on the list and sometimes when we all made the big trip downtown to Woolworth's I'd pick up the KLWW top 30 which varied just a bit but growing up me and my friends would fight to see what station we listen to, 1600 or 1450. Back when music was great, back when we had AM stations that played the latest and sometimes sneek in a blast from the past. Back then we all lived for the radio and the chance to run down to the record store to pick up the latest forty five. And make up our own top ten lists. I even did that when I was in the fifth grade, dedicated enought to put a top 30 of my own. I had lots of ambition then.
My Top Ten was only a window to my world, an extension to share to you the wonders of what's out there besides the usual overplayed stuff that we got tired of long ago before the umpteeth classic rock station came on board. Sometimes we all got a good laugh and good discussions on some of them. Some weeks, I can go back as far as the 1920s for a selection as well as pick out a song from the latest. All for the love of good music. And hopefully got you my friends to seek out the album. I know some tracks that some of y'all put down managed to get me to search for particluar cuts. Certainly some of the suggestions that Hoop or Harvey or Starman or Brooksie talked about figured into this. Even got me to complete The Ocean Blue output that way.
1. Gonna Send You Back To Walker-The Animals 1964 The first forty five that I have ever had when I was type, or at least the first one that I noticed, I remember my folks having this record and I played it on my record player and after that breaking it just a three year old brat not knowing what he did and was mad I couldn't play it anymore. Oh I tried to find another copy but the next animals record i got was Inside Looking Out to which I didn't break. But I managed to find a good copy on EBAY and can't wait to finally get this record back into my collection, forty four years after the fact. Perhaps you can go home again.
2. Tallahassee Lassie-Freddy Cannon 1959 Did ya know that there's a longer version of this song off the Best Of 50s Party CD? The longer version goes up to 2:30 but on Freddy's Rhino best of, it's the 2:10 edit. But this was one of many records that my mom had in her collection of 45s. The CD that I got at Half Priced books seemed to be autographed by Freddy himself but then again I may have said that last week. Song is so good I had to add it twice already.
3. Come On Come Over-Sam and Dave with Jaco Pastorius 1976 By then, the great soul Atlantic artists were dropped from the label or just moonlighting such as this little funk fusion number done by the Jimi Hendrix of the Bass guitar, whose talents were wasted 12 years later by too many drugs and a bad attitude. Eventually Sam and Dave would break up after a nasty fight themselves but Sam Moore still lives and plays on.
4. I Get So Weary-BB King 2008 The last of the original bluesmen, BB continues to amaze and amuse us by still playing the blues the way they're meant to be played. I wouldn't say this is the comeback album of the year but again to be 85 years old and still making decent records is nothing short of a miracle. BB outlived John lee Hooker for goodness sakes. And guess what? This album has no cameos by Carrie Underwood or the flavor of the day on it either. Carrie wouldn't understand the blues. Take that Miss Everything.
5. Just Pass It On-Joe Cocker 2008 Joe can sing the telephone book in his own way and if you think about it, his voice hasn't changed in the forty years he's been around. Only Lemmy from Motorhead still sounds the same after all these years too. Yeh, I know, you don't care too much bout either one but at least Joe Cocker managed to find some cool cover versions this time out. And left the U2 song catalog alone for a change.
6. A Piece Of What You Need-Teddy Thompson 2008 Yes, I have been playing a lotta albums from this year this month and it does show up on this list. There's still good music out there but it's not on TV or on The Radio, but it is getting to be a chore trying not to buy American Idol inspired pap. This song has a horn chart dating back to Sgt Pepper, but the music is today rather than yesterday. His mom is Linda Thompson, his dad Richard but Teddy sounds a lot like Rufus Wainwright. Certainly in this decade there hasn't been too many artists and bands with staying power but Teddy seems to have done fairly well.
7. Doctor Gee-The Len Price 3 2007 Out of all the albums that I played this year that I enjoyed the hell out of, this British band ranks up high. With vocals that recall early Who and this song that sounds like a cross between the Byrds and Kinks, this song was forty years behind the times and AM radio. I'd wouldn't mind hearing more from these guys but i'm sure the next album their damn record label would put it in a oversized digipak. And did I mention that digipak sucks?
8. Sixteen Tons-Bo Diddley 1960 This year we lost a lotta people and nothing was more major than Bo Diddley who never recovered from a stroke he had last year. Bo was a big influence on my music but also in the music that I've listened to.
9. Heaven Help Us All-Stevie Wonder 1970 Once everything is said and done, I think my favorite years of music still remain the 1965 to 1975 range. I think it had to do with 45s and AM radio and hearing Stevie play this song on the transistor that I snuck into bed around that time. Why does it seem that back then we had more music then we do now with more channels but less music? Doesn't make sense.
10. Ride In Peace-The Marshall Tucker Band 1982 And so we come to the final track. I can't think of any other songs that could put things in perpective than this little tribute that MTB did 26 years ago. Kind of reminds me being on a train that goes from coast to coast and comes to the end of the line. A strange adventure going from peaks to valleys in a single setting. The type of songs that would get me fired from a regular radio station since I'm from the time that being a DJ would be able to select what he think the public would like and not the corporate CSers that have killed radio as we know it today.
And thus endth the 2008 season of top tens from here in Crabbland . Thanks to countless emails to continue this journey of music, we shall return next year with weekly reasons to give argument that Music is your best entertainment value. After all we shouldn't kill something that for six years has been the alternative to the garbage that passes as top ten elsewhere on the net or those hopeless crap Best Year Ever things that 40 something still living at home rent free.
At least I moved out of the house and into my own basement to which we're paying rent. HAHAHAHAHAHA.
We made it. Another year another top ten. Six years of giving y'all the insight of what the cd player was playing here on the crabb player. You think ten songs, fifty two weeks a year comes out 520 songs but take into consideration 6 years of this and you come up with a amazing 3120 songs. The mind boggles if we did a top thirty.
Everything has a beginning has a end. Just as life is. Or a tv show. Or buying out the music stores, there's a beginning and there's a end. Putting together a top ten does take a commitment and a dedication and a love for records to show the world what's in the player. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it didn't. I did a top ten in the mingles' site one time and people looked at me as if I was a freak. Sure didn't get any dates out of that mess. But I know in the first two years of the Roose and one year at My Space I did managed to trade top tens with some of my good friends and everybody learned something new. I didn't expect to get this far six years later. I was surprised with myself it survived the first year. Imagine my surprise when it made five years running.
I remember in my young age that The Gazette Newspaper would put out a KCRG Super 30 survey an for all intent purposes I would clip them out and I did managed to save most of 1971. It was fun to see what type of songs were on the list and sometimes when we all made the big trip downtown to Woolworth's I'd pick up the KLWW top 30 which varied just a bit but growing up me and my friends would fight to see what station we listen to, 1600 or 1450. Back when music was great, back when we had AM stations that played the latest and sometimes sneek in a blast from the past. Back then we all lived for the radio and the chance to run down to the record store to pick up the latest forty five. And make up our own top ten lists. I even did that when I was in the fifth grade, dedicated enought to put a top 30 of my own. I had lots of ambition then.
My Top Ten was only a window to my world, an extension to share to you the wonders of what's out there besides the usual overplayed stuff that we got tired of long ago before the umpteeth classic rock station came on board. Sometimes we all got a good laugh and good discussions on some of them. Some weeks, I can go back as far as the 1920s for a selection as well as pick out a song from the latest. All for the love of good music. And hopefully got you my friends to seek out the album. I know some tracks that some of y'all put down managed to get me to search for particluar cuts. Certainly some of the suggestions that Hoop or Harvey or Starman or Brooksie talked about figured into this. Even got me to complete The Ocean Blue output that way.
1. Gonna Send You Back To Walker-The Animals 1964 The first forty five that I have ever had when I was type, or at least the first one that I noticed, I remember my folks having this record and I played it on my record player and after that breaking it just a three year old brat not knowing what he did and was mad I couldn't play it anymore. Oh I tried to find another copy but the next animals record i got was Inside Looking Out to which I didn't break. But I managed to find a good copy on EBAY and can't wait to finally get this record back into my collection, forty four years after the fact. Perhaps you can go home again.
2. Tallahassee Lassie-Freddy Cannon 1959 Did ya know that there's a longer version of this song off the Best Of 50s Party CD? The longer version goes up to 2:30 but on Freddy's Rhino best of, it's the 2:10 edit. But this was one of many records that my mom had in her collection of 45s. The CD that I got at Half Priced books seemed to be autographed by Freddy himself but then again I may have said that last week. Song is so good I had to add it twice already.
3. Come On Come Over-Sam and Dave with Jaco Pastorius 1976 By then, the great soul Atlantic artists were dropped from the label or just moonlighting such as this little funk fusion number done by the Jimi Hendrix of the Bass guitar, whose talents were wasted 12 years later by too many drugs and a bad attitude. Eventually Sam and Dave would break up after a nasty fight themselves but Sam Moore still lives and plays on.
4. I Get So Weary-BB King 2008 The last of the original bluesmen, BB continues to amaze and amuse us by still playing the blues the way they're meant to be played. I wouldn't say this is the comeback album of the year but again to be 85 years old and still making decent records is nothing short of a miracle. BB outlived John lee Hooker for goodness sakes. And guess what? This album has no cameos by Carrie Underwood or the flavor of the day on it either. Carrie wouldn't understand the blues. Take that Miss Everything.
5. Just Pass It On-Joe Cocker 2008 Joe can sing the telephone book in his own way and if you think about it, his voice hasn't changed in the forty years he's been around. Only Lemmy from Motorhead still sounds the same after all these years too. Yeh, I know, you don't care too much bout either one but at least Joe Cocker managed to find some cool cover versions this time out. And left the U2 song catalog alone for a change.
6. A Piece Of What You Need-Teddy Thompson 2008 Yes, I have been playing a lotta albums from this year this month and it does show up on this list. There's still good music out there but it's not on TV or on The Radio, but it is getting to be a chore trying not to buy American Idol inspired pap. This song has a horn chart dating back to Sgt Pepper, but the music is today rather than yesterday. His mom is Linda Thompson, his dad Richard but Teddy sounds a lot like Rufus Wainwright. Certainly in this decade there hasn't been too many artists and bands with staying power but Teddy seems to have done fairly well.
7. Doctor Gee-The Len Price 3 2007 Out of all the albums that I played this year that I enjoyed the hell out of, this British band ranks up high. With vocals that recall early Who and this song that sounds like a cross between the Byrds and Kinks, this song was forty years behind the times and AM radio. I'd wouldn't mind hearing more from these guys but i'm sure the next album their damn record label would put it in a oversized digipak. And did I mention that digipak sucks?
8. Sixteen Tons-Bo Diddley 1960 This year we lost a lotta people and nothing was more major than Bo Diddley who never recovered from a stroke he had last year. Bo was a big influence on my music but also in the music that I've listened to.
9. Heaven Help Us All-Stevie Wonder 1970 Once everything is said and done, I think my favorite years of music still remain the 1965 to 1975 range. I think it had to do with 45s and AM radio and hearing Stevie play this song on the transistor that I snuck into bed around that time. Why does it seem that back then we had more music then we do now with more channels but less music? Doesn't make sense.
10. Ride In Peace-The Marshall Tucker Band 1982 And so we come to the final track. I can't think of any other songs that could put things in perpective than this little tribute that MTB did 26 years ago. Kind of reminds me being on a train that goes from coast to coast and comes to the end of the line. A strange adventure going from peaks to valleys in a single setting. The type of songs that would get me fired from a regular radio station since I'm from the time that being a DJ would be able to select what he think the public would like and not the corporate CSers that have killed radio as we know it today.
And thus endth the 2008 season of top tens from here in Crabbland . Thanks to countless emails to continue this journey of music, we shall return next year with weekly reasons to give argument that Music is your best entertainment value. After all we shouldn't kill something that for six years has been the alternative to the garbage that passes as top ten elsewhere on the net or those hopeless crap Best Year Ever things that 40 something still living at home rent free.
At least I moved out of the house and into my own basement to which we're paying rent. HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
The Music of 2008-The Best Records Of The Year
For what it's worth. My ten best of albums of 2008.
10. Ray Davies-Working Man's Cafe (New West) Working with Nashville studio musicians, Davies still managed to make one hard rocking effort which does improve from his Other People Lives solo of a few years ago. He's getting to be one old crank but even old cranks can be entertaining and rocking at the same time.
9. BB King-One Kind Favor (Geffen) He might be 85 years old but this record is a back to basics blues that BB haven't done in forty years. Credit John Henry (T Bone) Burnett if you want but also Howlin Wolf, the other T Bone (Walker), and The Mississippi Shreiks for inspiration. Wish I could sound this good when I'm 85 but chances are that I'll be dead before then. If that's the case, see that my grave is kept clean too.
8. Teddy Thompson-A Piece Of What You Need (Verve) This album Teddy come into his own with some excellent and off the wall production from Marius De Viles. He certainly does Mom and Pop Thompson proud too. And I'm sure Dad plays guitar on a couple of these numbers too.
7. Coldplay-Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends (Capitol) The surprise of the year. Critics poo pooed this and finally after hearing about Jon Parales rip into them, I had to check this out. At least they're adding a bit more rock to their music instead of the usual Radiohead and U2. I'm sure in some way Joe Satriani gave them some new musical input in his own way.
6. Mudcrutch (Reprise) Tom Petty returns to his original band and with a more country rock sound. Crystal River is a song that's crying for the old FM underground radio station of long ago and far away.
5. The Townedgers-Pawnshops For Olivia (Radio Maierburg) Perhaps the most ragged album the band ever made, Rod Smith revisits memories of a old time girlfriend and just about alienates the whole band in the process. Not for the faint of heart but not all gloom and doom. And perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel is beyond the sun as the final song suggests.
4. Steve Winwood-Nine Lives (Columbia) This record recalls the long grooves of the old Traffic years via Low Spark and even gets Eric Clapton to play the best guitar he's ever played in thirty plus years in Dirty City. Nine songs total just about 57 minites. And he can still sing pretty good too.
3. The Sound Of The Smiths (Sire/Rhino) Certainly there are other Smiths compliations out there but this one finally gives the best picture and sound of what Morrissey and Johnny Marrs did for Brit guitar music of the 80s.
2. Alejandro Escovedo-Real Animal (Manhattan/Back Porch) This album is somewhat like The Boxing Mirror but on this one, Escovedo rocks out and fondly remembers The Nuns and Rank And File, the most forgotten of the early americana bands of the 80s. He certainly paid his dues to get this far in life and this is his most assured album.
1. James McMurtry-Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod) James remains the best protest singer of the Bush era, that is if you can call him a protest singer. Cheney's Toy is even more bitter than We Can't Make It Here Anymore. If he was throwing shoes, he would have scored a direct hit on Mr. Cheney Do. But also McMurtry can rock too on Bayou Tortous and make a good story song on Ruby And Carlos. But still, nobody has have a better viewpoint of the evil Bush empire than James. This is the best album of the year.
Honorable mentions
11. Mettallica-Death Magnetic (Warner Bros)
12. Snow Patrol-A Hundred Million Suns (Fiction)
13. Jordan Zevon-Insides Out (New West)
14. The Roots-Rising Down (Def Jam)
15. Bo Ramsey-Fragile (BR Recordings)
10. Ray Davies-Working Man's Cafe (New West) Working with Nashville studio musicians, Davies still managed to make one hard rocking effort which does improve from his Other People Lives solo of a few years ago. He's getting to be one old crank but even old cranks can be entertaining and rocking at the same time.
9. BB King-One Kind Favor (Geffen) He might be 85 years old but this record is a back to basics blues that BB haven't done in forty years. Credit John Henry (T Bone) Burnett if you want but also Howlin Wolf, the other T Bone (Walker), and The Mississippi Shreiks for inspiration. Wish I could sound this good when I'm 85 but chances are that I'll be dead before then. If that's the case, see that my grave is kept clean too.
8. Teddy Thompson-A Piece Of What You Need (Verve) This album Teddy come into his own with some excellent and off the wall production from Marius De Viles. He certainly does Mom and Pop Thompson proud too. And I'm sure Dad plays guitar on a couple of these numbers too.
7. Coldplay-Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends (Capitol) The surprise of the year. Critics poo pooed this and finally after hearing about Jon Parales rip into them, I had to check this out. At least they're adding a bit more rock to their music instead of the usual Radiohead and U2. I'm sure in some way Joe Satriani gave them some new musical input in his own way.
6. Mudcrutch (Reprise) Tom Petty returns to his original band and with a more country rock sound. Crystal River is a song that's crying for the old FM underground radio station of long ago and far away.
5. The Townedgers-Pawnshops For Olivia (Radio Maierburg) Perhaps the most ragged album the band ever made, Rod Smith revisits memories of a old time girlfriend and just about alienates the whole band in the process. Not for the faint of heart but not all gloom and doom. And perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel is beyond the sun as the final song suggests.
4. Steve Winwood-Nine Lives (Columbia) This record recalls the long grooves of the old Traffic years via Low Spark and even gets Eric Clapton to play the best guitar he's ever played in thirty plus years in Dirty City. Nine songs total just about 57 minites. And he can still sing pretty good too.
3. The Sound Of The Smiths (Sire/Rhino) Certainly there are other Smiths compliations out there but this one finally gives the best picture and sound of what Morrissey and Johnny Marrs did for Brit guitar music of the 80s.
2. Alejandro Escovedo-Real Animal (Manhattan/Back Porch) This album is somewhat like The Boxing Mirror but on this one, Escovedo rocks out and fondly remembers The Nuns and Rank And File, the most forgotten of the early americana bands of the 80s. He certainly paid his dues to get this far in life and this is his most assured album.
1. James McMurtry-Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod) James remains the best protest singer of the Bush era, that is if you can call him a protest singer. Cheney's Toy is even more bitter than We Can't Make It Here Anymore. If he was throwing shoes, he would have scored a direct hit on Mr. Cheney Do. But also McMurtry can rock too on Bayou Tortous and make a good story song on Ruby And Carlos. But still, nobody has have a better viewpoint of the evil Bush empire than James. This is the best album of the year.
Honorable mentions
11. Mettallica-Death Magnetic (Warner Bros)
12. Snow Patrol-A Hundred Million Suns (Fiction)
13. Jordan Zevon-Insides Out (New West)
14. The Roots-Rising Down (Def Jam)
15. Bo Ramsey-Fragile (BR Recordings)
Friday, December 12, 2008
Crabb Bits: Revolutions In Sound, Bette Page
To me, box sets are something that I play one time and file away.
Most of the time box sets have the best moments plus album cuts or
alternative or live versions and you get a decent booklet. Sometimes a
box set can be worthwhile but the catch remains if you can find it used
so it doesn't cost you a second mortage on your home. And sometimes a
box set can be too much.
Revolutions in Sound: Warner Bros. Records - The First 50 Years is a mammoth 10 cd box set that glorifies fifty years of the WB being a record label but in the first ten years, Warner Brothers Records was laughable. In fact, their biggest selling albums at that time were comedy albums from the likes of Bob Newhart, Allan Sherman, Bill Cosby (who somehow doesn't have a track on this set) and Tom Lehner. Warner Brothers managed to get the Everly Brothers from Cadance Records for a million bucks but the Everly's, despite getting a number one hit with Cathy's Clown had more misses than hits for the WB. Warner Brothers also did fairly well with folk music with Peter Paul And Mary getting top ten hits likewise although The Folk Quintet and The Mitchell Trio (featuring John Denver) are not on this box set. Fact of the matter was that Reprise (formed by Frank Sinarta) was the place that had the hits although mostly pop from the likes of the Rat Pack (Frank, Sammy and Dean) and gritty girl pop from Nancy Sinarta and other oddites from Don Ho and Napoloen XIV. It's strange to hear Tiny Bubbles and then They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha Haa! on one disc.
Hearing the first three disc of this big 10 cd set you can trace the beginnings of a Label spinning in the mud and finally getting a groove but the majority of the early year cuts come from Reprise to which Mo Ostin gave the artist creative freedom to do their type of music, long before the corporate stuffsuits changed the rules and mergers cheapen the music to being nothing more than videos rather than videos in the mind. With the beginning of Jimi Hendrix and the Electric Prunes and Grateful Dead, Warner/Reprise became the cool label to be on, and even more cooler when Fleetwood Mac came over from Epic (if you remember back that far) or Jethro Tull (Originally on the Big R label)or even Roxy Music (first album on Reprise, second came out on WB). You can feel the change after Sammy Davis Jr's I Gotta Be Me going into Oh Well by The Mac and Peter Green. If nothing else, the first two CDs of this set remain the best definite collection of what made Warner Brother Records great. The diversity and the ability to go from schmaltz (Tiny Tim's Tip Toe) to soul (JJ Jackson's But It's Alright) to psychedelia (Norman Greenbaum's Spirit In the Sky) to prog rock (Locomotive Breath) to boogie (Face's Stay With Me) although Black Sabbath is nowhere to be found on this compilation.
Disc three begins the drive from classic hard rock to corporate rock beginning with Smoke On The Water to School's Out to Captian Beefheart to Little Feet and then goes south. Classic rock is the theme with Hello It's Me (Todd Rungren) to Summer Breeze (Seals And Croft) and the unescapeable China Grove. But for all good songs, there's schmaltz (Midnight At The Oasis). But we get satallite labels from Bearsville (Todd Rungren, Foghat), Curtom (The Staple Singers yucky Let's Do It Again) Capricorn when they were WB distrubted (Allman Brothers Blue Sky, Elvin Bishop Fooled Around And Fell In Love), Geffen (Asia), Sire (Talking Heads, Yaz, Modern English, Ramones), Island (Grace Jones, Steve Winwood), Slash (Violent Femmes, Los Lobos) and even Def American (Sir Mix A Lot).
For every good song, we are reminded why WB sucked at times (You Light Up My Life-Debby Boone's insufferable 1978 hit), (Take On Me-A Ha) (The Taste Of Ink by The Used), and why they are revered (Someday Somewhere, Marshall Crenshaw), (Once In A Lifetime-Talking Heads), (Alex Chilton by The Replacement). You get jazz (Tutu-Miles Davis, IGY, Donald Fagen), country (Big and Rich, Travis Tritt, John Anderson), new wave (B 52s), alternative (Uncle Tupelo, Green Day), Nu-Metal (Disturbed, Faith No More), Girl singers (Michelle Branch, Alanis Morrisette, Paula Cole) and Rock and roll hall of famers past their prime (Elton John, Eric Clapton, John Fogerty, Tom Petty) and of course, Metallica with a new track off their WB album to sum things up.
In other words, this is a big mammoth 10 cd box set with loads of your favorite tunes and a shitload of crappy songs but it does put in perspective that Warner Brothers does have a rightful place in the history of music. From Tab Hunter to Metallica, even I couldn't program such a massive stock of musical things. Certainly there are artists who were left out of the fold (The Music Man, Jennifer Trynin, Husker Du, Chicago), and there are some that should have been forgotten but Revolutions In Sound does get it right in what made the WB label the coolest label this side of Atlantic. But nobody can afford this.
But it's worth four stars just reading the titles alone.
http://50th.warnerbrosrecords.com/
Bettie Page, the original pin up naughty girl of the fifites has died from a heart attack. She was 85. Funny how fifty years ago she was the sex bomb of that era and her pictures, though bawdy still were tasteful. Unlike the so called pop tart sex bombouts of today such as Britney, or Paris or Jessica Simpson. Bettie Page was sexy and smart unlike the Brits or Paris or Jessica who are sexy and just plain dumb. A quote from her... "God approves of nudity. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were naked as jaybirds."
Revolutions in Sound: Warner Bros. Records - The First 50 Years is a mammoth 10 cd box set that glorifies fifty years of the WB being a record label but in the first ten years, Warner Brothers Records was laughable. In fact, their biggest selling albums at that time were comedy albums from the likes of Bob Newhart, Allan Sherman, Bill Cosby (who somehow doesn't have a track on this set) and Tom Lehner. Warner Brothers managed to get the Everly Brothers from Cadance Records for a million bucks but the Everly's, despite getting a number one hit with Cathy's Clown had more misses than hits for the WB. Warner Brothers also did fairly well with folk music with Peter Paul And Mary getting top ten hits likewise although The Folk Quintet and The Mitchell Trio (featuring John Denver) are not on this box set. Fact of the matter was that Reprise (formed by Frank Sinarta) was the place that had the hits although mostly pop from the likes of the Rat Pack (Frank, Sammy and Dean) and gritty girl pop from Nancy Sinarta and other oddites from Don Ho and Napoloen XIV. It's strange to hear Tiny Bubbles and then They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha Haa! on one disc.
Hearing the first three disc of this big 10 cd set you can trace the beginnings of a Label spinning in the mud and finally getting a groove but the majority of the early year cuts come from Reprise to which Mo Ostin gave the artist creative freedom to do their type of music, long before the corporate stuffsuits changed the rules and mergers cheapen the music to being nothing more than videos rather than videos in the mind. With the beginning of Jimi Hendrix and the Electric Prunes and Grateful Dead, Warner/Reprise became the cool label to be on, and even more cooler when Fleetwood Mac came over from Epic (if you remember back that far) or Jethro Tull (Originally on the Big R label)or even Roxy Music (first album on Reprise, second came out on WB). You can feel the change after Sammy Davis Jr's I Gotta Be Me going into Oh Well by The Mac and Peter Green. If nothing else, the first two CDs of this set remain the best definite collection of what made Warner Brother Records great. The diversity and the ability to go from schmaltz (Tiny Tim's Tip Toe) to soul (JJ Jackson's But It's Alright) to psychedelia (Norman Greenbaum's Spirit In the Sky) to prog rock (Locomotive Breath) to boogie (Face's Stay With Me) although Black Sabbath is nowhere to be found on this compilation.
Disc three begins the drive from classic hard rock to corporate rock beginning with Smoke On The Water to School's Out to Captian Beefheart to Little Feet and then goes south. Classic rock is the theme with Hello It's Me (Todd Rungren) to Summer Breeze (Seals And Croft) and the unescapeable China Grove. But for all good songs, there's schmaltz (Midnight At The Oasis). But we get satallite labels from Bearsville (Todd Rungren, Foghat), Curtom (The Staple Singers yucky Let's Do It Again) Capricorn when they were WB distrubted (Allman Brothers Blue Sky, Elvin Bishop Fooled Around And Fell In Love), Geffen (Asia), Sire (Talking Heads, Yaz, Modern English, Ramones), Island (Grace Jones, Steve Winwood), Slash (Violent Femmes, Los Lobos) and even Def American (Sir Mix A Lot).
For every good song, we are reminded why WB sucked at times (You Light Up My Life-Debby Boone's insufferable 1978 hit), (Take On Me-A Ha) (The Taste Of Ink by The Used), and why they are revered (Someday Somewhere, Marshall Crenshaw), (Once In A Lifetime-Talking Heads), (Alex Chilton by The Replacement). You get jazz (Tutu-Miles Davis, IGY, Donald Fagen), country (Big and Rich, Travis Tritt, John Anderson), new wave (B 52s), alternative (Uncle Tupelo, Green Day), Nu-Metal (Disturbed, Faith No More), Girl singers (Michelle Branch, Alanis Morrisette, Paula Cole) and Rock and roll hall of famers past their prime (Elton John, Eric Clapton, John Fogerty, Tom Petty) and of course, Metallica with a new track off their WB album to sum things up.
In other words, this is a big mammoth 10 cd box set with loads of your favorite tunes and a shitload of crappy songs but it does put in perspective that Warner Brothers does have a rightful place in the history of music. From Tab Hunter to Metallica, even I couldn't program such a massive stock of musical things. Certainly there are artists who were left out of the fold (The Music Man, Jennifer Trynin, Husker Du, Chicago), and there are some that should have been forgotten but Revolutions In Sound does get it right in what made the WB label the coolest label this side of Atlantic. But nobody can afford this.
But it's worth four stars just reading the titles alone.
http://50th.warnerbrosrecords.com/
Bettie Page, the original pin up naughty girl of the fifites has died from a heart attack. She was 85. Funny how fifty years ago she was the sex bomb of that era and her pictures, though bawdy still were tasteful. Unlike the so called pop tart sex bombouts of today such as Britney, or Paris or Jessica Simpson. Bettie Page was sexy and smart unlike the Brits or Paris or Jessica who are sexy and just plain dumb. A quote from her... "God approves of nudity. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were naked as jaybirds."
The Music of 2008
Nobody needs to tell you that this year was a downer in everything. Nobody needs to say that the music of 2008 was probaly the worst it has ever been in the history of music. Sales were even worse than last year, the quality of top forty was twice more than last and all it generated to me was a big headache. But actually the wheels were beginning to fall off back in 2005 when SONY/BMG and EMI gave us copy protected CDs that ended up making our computers a big virus magent and once credibility was lost, CD sales went down year by year. Let's face it, the CD is just about dead, but downloading lives on and thrives! Thus signaling the end of the CD buyer since Wal Mart and Target are providing less cd shelf space and more for DVDs and the independent record store can only be found in college towns. Doesn't mean that's that end for the CD bargain hunter since Half Priced Books in town continue to have a decent used CD selection but even the minimum wage earner at CDs Plus is even lamenting about the impending death of the CD.
Let's face it, there's still a lotta music released this year, most of it sucks. There's hardly any outlet for new music to be heard from the rock artist. The Telecommunications act of 1996 killed radio to which nobody can get their new music out there unless you become a big hit on My Space or You Tube. The Telecom 1996 gave Clear Channel, Cumunius (SIC), and other media overlords to buy up the alt radio stations and now everything sounds the same today. And you can blame Bill Clinton (and the Republicans that were in office back then) for the downfall of music today. Not that everything sucked, there's still a lotta good music out there, you just don't hear it on the radio all that much.
I think it was five years that Mya made that godawful My Love Is Like ...Woo that popped up as one of the most annoying songs of 2004. Four years later, you have to google that song since top forty radio played it and moved on to the flavor of the month. At least twenty years ago you can remember a top forty song but try to remember anything from this year outside All Summer Long or I Kissed A Girl and you'll be doing better than I am. Used to be that I would slam Kid Rock on every turn but listening to his past couple albums and it appears that he's more in tune with Rock n Roll than what is played on KRNA or Rock 108. But Kid Rock had the brains to merge Warewolves Of London and Sweet Home Alabama to create the perfect sing along song of summer. And although Katy Perry is destined to be a one hit wonder artist with her Benetar lite version of I Kissed A Girl and championing the wonderful taste of Cherry Chapstick on a female, to which I'm sure guys (and dolls) probaly stocked up on Cherry flavored Chapstick. Maybe it might work for me. Probaly not.
This year, the music world had the better artists on the country side of things. Not all the hats won out, Taylor Swift came out to be the IT girl for a year with a big selling debut of two years ago that kept selling right up to her new release of Fearless and still remains the IT girl. In some ways Taylor wins over Katy Perry in terms of being honest and there for her fans, fact was that she was the first performer to perform in Cedar Rapids after the historic and destructive floods of 2008. Most of the year we were treated to too much Hanna Montana and just in time to be replaced by the odious and isn't her fifteen minites up yet Britney Spears who represents the worst of music and why people don't pay attention to anything new anymore. Because what the major labels promote, or the reality channel MTV or VH1 no longer are music first but rather bores us with spoiled rotten has beens, never was or TMZ approved trainwrecks who can't keep a marriage after six months. Who use MTV to try to make themselves look good and in the process managed to get their album debut at number 3 on the Billboards before it slides off the charts, and into the dollar bins at all finer pawnshops.
This year we finally got to witness Guns And Roses Chinese Democracy after 17 years and countless release dates and canceled release dates and it didn't mean squat, although most music best of lists put the damn thing on their ten best list of the year. I listened to three songs and thought that was two songs too many to listen to. True Axl Roses still screams like a baying mule then and maybe some critic will call it a lost classic but in essence The Spegetti Incident will remain GnR's epitaph, unless the original members get back together. And anything is possible. Even The Smiths since Morrissey and Johnny Marrs are on friendly terms now.
But there were much better albums out there this year. AC DC came back and made the same album they been doing for over 30 years but it turned out to be their best album in twenty five. Mettallica finally quit plandering for the radio and returned to make their most intense album in twenty, only to have it blown by a crappy mix. On the local front, Bo Ramsey made his first album of orginal material in ten years and was more rock and roll than John Fogerty's last album. Senior citizens Willie Nelson and 84 year old BB King made their most enjoyable album in years. Even old crank Wreckless Eric Goldman married cult artist Amy Rigby and put out a decent album. There was no shortage of dinosaur rockers this year, Steve Winwood, REM, Motorhead, John Hiatt, all made good albums and for a brief moment Winwood's Dirty City got airplay on the radio for a change.
But the majority of top ten best albums this year, that are on SPIN or Pitchfolk Media will not be on my faves. And begs the question why is Universal is more prone to promote TV on The Radio more than The Fratellis. Even what No Depression posted as their best, most I heard with passing interest but not enough to buy it. I did buy The Hold Steady Stay Positive, played it a few times and shrugged them off although the guy I sold the CD to called it "Their best ever". And the new Ryan Adams Cardinology was met with indifference,not unlike his EP of last year. And the Felix Cavalarde/Steve Cropper Nudge It Up An Notch, which was raved on by another name magazine, when I heard it, I felled asleep and have to play a couple more times and still couldn't keep awake. And the Kings Of Leon still remain a bit overrated although they may have given us their most rocking song since their EP.
This year I bought 69 albums to review of this year, the lowest amount of reviews since 1984 when I didn't have a job and couldn't review as much as I wanted to. This year, with shotty digipaks that fell apart when I got them home, and continuing manipulation by the major labels with expended editions, reissues with bonus tracks not on the original album and simply just bad music all around, it was a chore trying to even listen to what I bought. Certainly not a lack of music, lots of music around but perhaps way too much music and way too many My Space bands trying to get me to listen to their music, and though some of it did catch my ears, the majority of it just wasn't that memorable. And the biggest problem was if there was music out there, Best Buy didn't it, nor Wal Mart. So I didn't review the latest Blue Mountain album simply of the fact that it wasn't availble or it may have been a digipak that was flimsey. Also trying to find the Coolest Songs In The World series, I had to go to FYE instead of Best Buy since BB ended the promtion of Wicked Cool Records but with Wicked Cool going with a very bad digipak that scratched up the CD upon getting it out, chances are not good that I'll continue to review anymore of The Coolest Songs In The World series from Little Steven. Screw with the public and they're save up their bucks in time for the next great depression which is happening now.
If the major labels are worried now about crappy sales all I can say it going to get worse next year. Sony/BMG did slash prices on a lot of their back catalog to which you can buy on the cheap at Amazon.Com and some titles at Wally World but it's too late for them. I think in the end people are fed up, and there's much more in life than going to Best Buy for some crappy, overcompressed sounding new cds anymore. Music is no longer the main thing anymore. Once upon a time we listen to the radio for the new hit single or go to the independent music store to hear a album to impress us to get it. Not anymore. Radio continues to stink, playlist of rock radio are about thirty/forty years old and even the "real rock" stations play more Nirvana than Theroy Of A Deadman or ;-) the new Guns And Roses. We don't hear the new music like we once did, and since the old baby boomers don't care or like the new rap which has been the same old rap for 20 plus years that you hear on top forty, they don't listen to radio or bitch about it when it's played at work. They don't wanna hear it. Even the new kids today would rather fire up a old Led Zep song or Beatles since that music still remains as fresh as it did back then.
Which comes back to the question of My Love is Woo. That 'song' just doesn't have the same staying power as I Wanna Hold Your Hand or Rock n Roll. Which comes back to Rehab by Rhianna, it's a product of this time and it's product not music and nobody will remember it a year from now. The young generation has a big problem now and it's they don't have anybody that will make music with staying power and that includes Kanye West or Britney. Kanye remains the Terrill Owens of music/rap, all mouth and no substance. Britney is like the rash that keeps coming back at certain times, you think you're rid of her then she returns, triumphed in knowning that she scored the number three album of this week. Misson accomplished baby.
Music is no longer the choice of a new generation unless they're jamming to a faux paus band in Rock Star on the Playstation jamming to songs from the past. Maybe someday radio will grant the younger generation their own Kurt Cobain or Elvis Costello, or Presley, or even Jeff Buckley. But judging from what I see or read in the papers/net, or hear that's not going to happen anytime soon.
And so it goes.
Let's face it, there's still a lotta music released this year, most of it sucks. There's hardly any outlet for new music to be heard from the rock artist. The Telecommunications act of 1996 killed radio to which nobody can get their new music out there unless you become a big hit on My Space or You Tube. The Telecom 1996 gave Clear Channel, Cumunius (SIC), and other media overlords to buy up the alt radio stations and now everything sounds the same today. And you can blame Bill Clinton (and the Republicans that were in office back then) for the downfall of music today. Not that everything sucked, there's still a lotta good music out there, you just don't hear it on the radio all that much.
I think it was five years that Mya made that godawful My Love Is Like ...Woo that popped up as one of the most annoying songs of 2004. Four years later, you have to google that song since top forty radio played it and moved on to the flavor of the month. At least twenty years ago you can remember a top forty song but try to remember anything from this year outside All Summer Long or I Kissed A Girl and you'll be doing better than I am. Used to be that I would slam Kid Rock on every turn but listening to his past couple albums and it appears that he's more in tune with Rock n Roll than what is played on KRNA or Rock 108. But Kid Rock had the brains to merge Warewolves Of London and Sweet Home Alabama to create the perfect sing along song of summer. And although Katy Perry is destined to be a one hit wonder artist with her Benetar lite version of I Kissed A Girl and championing the wonderful taste of Cherry Chapstick on a female, to which I'm sure guys (and dolls) probaly stocked up on Cherry flavored Chapstick. Maybe it might work for me. Probaly not.
This year, the music world had the better artists on the country side of things. Not all the hats won out, Taylor Swift came out to be the IT girl for a year with a big selling debut of two years ago that kept selling right up to her new release of Fearless and still remains the IT girl. In some ways Taylor wins over Katy Perry in terms of being honest and there for her fans, fact was that she was the first performer to perform in Cedar Rapids after the historic and destructive floods of 2008. Most of the year we were treated to too much Hanna Montana and just in time to be replaced by the odious and isn't her fifteen minites up yet Britney Spears who represents the worst of music and why people don't pay attention to anything new anymore. Because what the major labels promote, or the reality channel MTV or VH1 no longer are music first but rather bores us with spoiled rotten has beens, never was or TMZ approved trainwrecks who can't keep a marriage after six months. Who use MTV to try to make themselves look good and in the process managed to get their album debut at number 3 on the Billboards before it slides off the charts, and into the dollar bins at all finer pawnshops.
This year we finally got to witness Guns And Roses Chinese Democracy after 17 years and countless release dates and canceled release dates and it didn't mean squat, although most music best of lists put the damn thing on their ten best list of the year. I listened to three songs and thought that was two songs too many to listen to. True Axl Roses still screams like a baying mule then and maybe some critic will call it a lost classic but in essence The Spegetti Incident will remain GnR's epitaph, unless the original members get back together. And anything is possible. Even The Smiths since Morrissey and Johnny Marrs are on friendly terms now.
But there were much better albums out there this year. AC DC came back and made the same album they been doing for over 30 years but it turned out to be their best album in twenty five. Mettallica finally quit plandering for the radio and returned to make their most intense album in twenty, only to have it blown by a crappy mix. On the local front, Bo Ramsey made his first album of orginal material in ten years and was more rock and roll than John Fogerty's last album. Senior citizens Willie Nelson and 84 year old BB King made their most enjoyable album in years. Even old crank Wreckless Eric Goldman married cult artist Amy Rigby and put out a decent album. There was no shortage of dinosaur rockers this year, Steve Winwood, REM, Motorhead, John Hiatt, all made good albums and for a brief moment Winwood's Dirty City got airplay on the radio for a change.
But the majority of top ten best albums this year, that are on SPIN or Pitchfolk Media will not be on my faves. And begs the question why is Universal is more prone to promote TV on The Radio more than The Fratellis. Even what No Depression posted as their best, most I heard with passing interest but not enough to buy it. I did buy The Hold Steady Stay Positive, played it a few times and shrugged them off although the guy I sold the CD to called it "Their best ever". And the new Ryan Adams Cardinology was met with indifference,not unlike his EP of last year. And the Felix Cavalarde/Steve Cropper Nudge It Up An Notch, which was raved on by another name magazine, when I heard it, I felled asleep and have to play a couple more times and still couldn't keep awake. And the Kings Of Leon still remain a bit overrated although they may have given us their most rocking song since their EP.
This year I bought 69 albums to review of this year, the lowest amount of reviews since 1984 when I didn't have a job and couldn't review as much as I wanted to. This year, with shotty digipaks that fell apart when I got them home, and continuing manipulation by the major labels with expended editions, reissues with bonus tracks not on the original album and simply just bad music all around, it was a chore trying to even listen to what I bought. Certainly not a lack of music, lots of music around but perhaps way too much music and way too many My Space bands trying to get me to listen to their music, and though some of it did catch my ears, the majority of it just wasn't that memorable. And the biggest problem was if there was music out there, Best Buy didn't it, nor Wal Mart. So I didn't review the latest Blue Mountain album simply of the fact that it wasn't availble or it may have been a digipak that was flimsey. Also trying to find the Coolest Songs In The World series, I had to go to FYE instead of Best Buy since BB ended the promtion of Wicked Cool Records but with Wicked Cool going with a very bad digipak that scratched up the CD upon getting it out, chances are not good that I'll continue to review anymore of The Coolest Songs In The World series from Little Steven. Screw with the public and they're save up their bucks in time for the next great depression which is happening now.
If the major labels are worried now about crappy sales all I can say it going to get worse next year. Sony/BMG did slash prices on a lot of their back catalog to which you can buy on the cheap at Amazon.Com and some titles at Wally World but it's too late for them. I think in the end people are fed up, and there's much more in life than going to Best Buy for some crappy, overcompressed sounding new cds anymore. Music is no longer the main thing anymore. Once upon a time we listen to the radio for the new hit single or go to the independent music store to hear a album to impress us to get it. Not anymore. Radio continues to stink, playlist of rock radio are about thirty/forty years old and even the "real rock" stations play more Nirvana than Theroy Of A Deadman or ;-) the new Guns And Roses. We don't hear the new music like we once did, and since the old baby boomers don't care or like the new rap which has been the same old rap for 20 plus years that you hear on top forty, they don't listen to radio or bitch about it when it's played at work. They don't wanna hear it. Even the new kids today would rather fire up a old Led Zep song or Beatles since that music still remains as fresh as it did back then.
Which comes back to the question of My Love is Woo. That 'song' just doesn't have the same staying power as I Wanna Hold Your Hand or Rock n Roll. Which comes back to Rehab by Rhianna, it's a product of this time and it's product not music and nobody will remember it a year from now. The young generation has a big problem now and it's they don't have anybody that will make music with staying power and that includes Kanye West or Britney. Kanye remains the Terrill Owens of music/rap, all mouth and no substance. Britney is like the rash that keeps coming back at certain times, you think you're rid of her then she returns, triumphed in knowning that she scored the number three album of this week. Misson accomplished baby.
Music is no longer the choice of a new generation unless they're jamming to a faux paus band in Rock Star on the Playstation jamming to songs from the past. Maybe someday radio will grant the younger generation their own Kurt Cobain or Elvis Costello, or Presley, or even Jeff Buckley. But judging from what I see or read in the papers/net, or hear that's not going to happen anytime soon.
And so it goes.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Crabb Bits: Britney, Julieanne Hough, 3rd Street Live Closing
It must be decemeber, must be time for Britney to crawl out of that
hole she's been hiding in and declaring that she's the kinder and
gentler Britney Spears. Yeah and they don't call her BS for nothing.
Leave it to MTV and the taboids to continue to extend the fifteen minites of fame that has expired a long time ago on this overexposed pop tart. Now she's yapping about wanting to get married and finding a "father figure" for her children. More BS from BS, Kevin Federline has been a better dad than the poor excuse of a mother that had them. How about being a "mother figure" for once in your life BS. And cover up when you go out too, I've seen more of your C section than I'd care to. I'm sure this also has something to do with a new BS album that came out this week and if Britney plays it right, it may sell more than the Guns And Roses Chinese Dudbomb that had all the rats running out of Best Buy last weekend. But even so, this year sucked for new music anyway, Britney ain't going save the music industry no way or how. Please, MTV, TMZ and The Enquirer, just leave Britney alone. We'll be better off for it.
Another sign of torture was hearing Julieanne Hough's country debut at CDs Plus last week. More country cliches and semental Hallmark like BS from a person, whose shining moment was winning Dancing With The Stars. Good looks, faux paus country twang, check and check. Somewhere along the Nashville dives, there must be a female country singer that can write and sing them the honest way but since she didn't win Dancing With The Stars or American Idol, she has to earn her living the hard way. Having your own My Space site doesn't grant you instant fame and fortune, just ask The Townedgers on that one. If you want sheer country honesty, well you can't go wrong with Miranda Lambert or Ashton Shepard (although I have to admit that I didn't review the AS album due to deadlines and though she writes her own songs, there was a bit more country cliche that made me decide to pass on it). Or if you love that country cliche 8.1 well Carrie Underwood come on down. But I get stone cold on the chick country of today, too many pinups and no substance for music. Strange to say that Elizabeth Cook is now considered a elder, although her Hey Y'all album is about six years old. But I'm off topic as is.
But EC remains a more viable country star than the Julie Houghs of the world, readymade pinup Barbie dolls that make flavor of the day country cliches and disappear a year from now. Which will be the fate of Julie Hough. But if Universal Music drops her from the roster, I'm sure she can get her old job back. Or try to latch on with the Carrie Underwood trainers out there. Dreams can come true for American Idol winners if they pick the right niche. Way things been going for CU, you can say it's like her winning the lottery.
You don't have to be good, just lucky and at the right spot. Just like Carrie.
On the subject of 3rd street live becoming 1st Avenue Live.
A Letter from Rocky
To our frien
Leave it to MTV and the taboids to continue to extend the fifteen minites of fame that has expired a long time ago on this overexposed pop tart. Now she's yapping about wanting to get married and finding a "father figure" for her children. More BS from BS, Kevin Federline has been a better dad than the poor excuse of a mother that had them. How about being a "mother figure" for once in your life BS. And cover up when you go out too, I've seen more of your C section than I'd care to. I'm sure this also has something to do with a new BS album that came out this week and if Britney plays it right, it may sell more than the Guns And Roses Chinese Dudbomb that had all the rats running out of Best Buy last weekend. But even so, this year sucked for new music anyway, Britney ain't going save the music industry no way or how. Please, MTV, TMZ and The Enquirer, just leave Britney alone. We'll be better off for it.
Another sign of torture was hearing Julieanne Hough's country debut at CDs Plus last week. More country cliches and semental Hallmark like BS from a person, whose shining moment was winning Dancing With The Stars. Good looks, faux paus country twang, check and check. Somewhere along the Nashville dives, there must be a female country singer that can write and sing them the honest way but since she didn't win Dancing With The Stars or American Idol, she has to earn her living the hard way. Having your own My Space site doesn't grant you instant fame and fortune, just ask The Townedgers on that one. If you want sheer country honesty, well you can't go wrong with Miranda Lambert or Ashton Shepard (although I have to admit that I didn't review the AS album due to deadlines and though she writes her own songs, there was a bit more country cliche that made me decide to pass on it). Or if you love that country cliche 8.1 well Carrie Underwood come on down. But I get stone cold on the chick country of today, too many pinups and no substance for music. Strange to say that Elizabeth Cook is now considered a elder, although her Hey Y'all album is about six years old. But I'm off topic as is.
But EC remains a more viable country star than the Julie Houghs of the world, readymade pinup Barbie dolls that make flavor of the day country cliches and disappear a year from now. Which will be the fate of Julie Hough. But if Universal Music drops her from the roster, I'm sure she can get her old job back. Or try to latch on with the Carrie Underwood trainers out there. Dreams can come true for American Idol winners if they pick the right niche. Way things been going for CU, you can say it's like her winning the lottery.
You don't have to be good, just lucky and at the right spot. Just like Carrie.
On the subject of 3rd street live becoming 1st Avenue Live.
A Letter from Rocky
To our frien
Monday, December 1, 2008
2008-The Worst Year Ever
As I sit here and try to summerize a year that has been one of the most extremes in history it boggles the mind to see how crappy this year was. Musicwise, it was perhaps the worst in terms of new music. The final tally was 69 albums reviewed this year, I reviewed 92 last year, 122 in 2006. Can't blame it all on illegal downloading with all the majors did was release crap after crap album this year, and nobody bought much of anything. The new Guns And Roses album has been a bust, moving only 220,000 copies. That's pretty bad for something that was hyped up after 17 years of waiting for it, and going to Best Buy to hear it, it deemed a waste of time and line to even comment on it. Looks like future rock and roll hall of famer Kanye West will have the top spot.
The year started out crappy with the 2nd most snowiest winter on record to which I was sick most of the first two months of this year. And then we ended up getting one of the wettest spring on record. Rained every day it seemed starting in April, melting that 59 inches of the white crap and each of the next three months, ended up having water in the basement every other weekend. And then, the Parkersburg/New Hartford tornado wiped out half the area around highway 20, and then two straight weekends of 10 inch rainfall and the Cedar River wiped out most of downtown Cedar Rapids. 31 feet of raging Red Cedar, and Czech Village was history. And five months later, parts of CR remain a warzone although there is hope with the opening of Sav A Lot and Erine's in Czech Village but it's a long way to go. The Wapsipinicon River wasn't too kind either, moving up to 26 feet in Anamosa and doing a bit of damage there too. Basically, we didn't have much of a summer here, since everybody had to clean up all the flood damage around the floodplains. Had I still lived in the old Broadcast Manor Duplex on N Street, I'm sure we would have lost most of what we got. Looking at the river now, it's hard to fathom 31 feet of angry river, since the rains finally let up around August and we managed to stayed dry.
It was a bad year for driving here. I blew out three tires and on a trip to Madison, one of the replacement tires got a knot on the sidewall so had to replaced that. On top of having the transmission repaired and now having a leaking brakeline, I'm hoping the car will survive another winter, I'd rather not buy a new car, only to have it being rusted out by all the salt and winter crap due to our first snowfall already this year.
In August, my best friend's house caught on fire and they lost two cats in the smoke. But at least their dogs survived and the only cat that did survived the fire was Smokey who was outside on the prowl. Earlier in the month, one of our maple trees split apart and took out what remained of our raspberry plants (which we lost when we had to put a new septic system couple years ago) and then the next week, I was outside and seen the other part of the tree split and took out more fence. We lost part of another tree due to a icestorm earlier in the year but I sit and wonder if the other side of that tree will fall and take out part of the neighbor's house next door. Hope to God that doesn't happen anytime soon.
This year we also seen our greedy government run us all into debt. Gas prices driven by speculators and greedy bastards raised the price up to an ungodly 4.19 a gallon by summer. And then the bottom fell out. It's now at 1.69 a gallon but with jobs cuts left and right, nobody did much driving in these times. These are dark times but with Obama becoming president, he has to undo the shite that the Bush cronies got us into. It's been a two year depression actually, but it took everybody till October to finally see that things were not going well. And now we have to bailout the overpaid CSers at Wall Street and I think we got taken. I see it when I turn on a soccer game and see some team being sponsered by AIG. Money well spent, not.
So, as I try to assess the final observation of this year, I don't have a favorable opinion of this year. It sucked from day one and the sooner this year ended the better. As the month moves on, I'll try to find some highlights.
But not now.
The year started out crappy with the 2nd most snowiest winter on record to which I was sick most of the first two months of this year. And then we ended up getting one of the wettest spring on record. Rained every day it seemed starting in April, melting that 59 inches of the white crap and each of the next three months, ended up having water in the basement every other weekend. And then, the Parkersburg/New Hartford tornado wiped out half the area around highway 20, and then two straight weekends of 10 inch rainfall and the Cedar River wiped out most of downtown Cedar Rapids. 31 feet of raging Red Cedar, and Czech Village was history. And five months later, parts of CR remain a warzone although there is hope with the opening of Sav A Lot and Erine's in Czech Village but it's a long way to go. The Wapsipinicon River wasn't too kind either, moving up to 26 feet in Anamosa and doing a bit of damage there too. Basically, we didn't have much of a summer here, since everybody had to clean up all the flood damage around the floodplains. Had I still lived in the old Broadcast Manor Duplex on N Street, I'm sure we would have lost most of what we got. Looking at the river now, it's hard to fathom 31 feet of angry river, since the rains finally let up around August and we managed to stayed dry.
It was a bad year for driving here. I blew out three tires and on a trip to Madison, one of the replacement tires got a knot on the sidewall so had to replaced that. On top of having the transmission repaired and now having a leaking brakeline, I'm hoping the car will survive another winter, I'd rather not buy a new car, only to have it being rusted out by all the salt and winter crap due to our first snowfall already this year.
In August, my best friend's house caught on fire and they lost two cats in the smoke. But at least their dogs survived and the only cat that did survived the fire was Smokey who was outside on the prowl. Earlier in the month, one of our maple trees split apart and took out what remained of our raspberry plants (which we lost when we had to put a new septic system couple years ago) and then the next week, I was outside and seen the other part of the tree split and took out more fence. We lost part of another tree due to a icestorm earlier in the year but I sit and wonder if the other side of that tree will fall and take out part of the neighbor's house next door. Hope to God that doesn't happen anytime soon.
This year we also seen our greedy government run us all into debt. Gas prices driven by speculators and greedy bastards raised the price up to an ungodly 4.19 a gallon by summer. And then the bottom fell out. It's now at 1.69 a gallon but with jobs cuts left and right, nobody did much driving in these times. These are dark times but with Obama becoming president, he has to undo the shite that the Bush cronies got us into. It's been a two year depression actually, but it took everybody till October to finally see that things were not going well. And now we have to bailout the overpaid CSers at Wall Street and I think we got taken. I see it when I turn on a soccer game and see some team being sponsered by AIG. Money well spent, not.
So, as I try to assess the final observation of this year, I don't have a favorable opinion of this year. It sucked from day one and the sooner this year ended the better. As the month moves on, I'll try to find some highlights.
But not now.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Gobble Gobble Gobble-The Annual Turkey Shoot
Thanksgiving is coming. That must mean that it's bout time to review the albums of this year.
And usually we start things out with the turd albums of the year. Since I've only reviewed 68 albums this year, I try not to buy crappy albums. Which means that Guns and Roses missed out with Chinese Democracy. I heard enough songs off that album to decide that it wasn't worth reviewing, which means I've saved 12 bucks and a spot on the top ten turkeys of the year.
At this point in my life we try to look at the good parts of these albums. The worst album is a C plus, which isn't bad but for reasons of my own choosing something stood out that made me put it on the list. Like last year I don't think I have 10 turkey albums, call them the Zoey Pizza Top Ten. A bit too much and leaves the listener bloated. Not that I'm ragging on Zoey's Pizza, lot of folks swear by them but I still like Naso's Pizza better. It's a Marion Iowa thingy.
And now the albums of subpar.
1. The Black Crowes-Warpaint (Silver Arrow)
Back in the 90s they were the best thing for rock and roll but as the years progressed onward, they seemed to lose their edge and after they left American Recordings, they have done a Led Zeppelin tribute album with Jimmy Page and two tuneless albums in this decade. Warpaint is heavy on the ballads and when they do rock out, you can't remember the songs. In some ways they probaly do remind one of the boogie sonics of The Small Faces but did they have to minic the late 70s version of that band?
2. Pat Monahan-Last Of Seven (Columbia)
Say what you will of Train but they do have some good moments of hookery and charm. With Pat's first solo album, he adds way too many slow to medium tempo songs and even Train fans didn't buy this album either. Okay but too much of an yawnfest.
3. Ringo Starr-Liverpool 8 (Capitol)
A return to his own label and a falling out with Mark Hudson during the recording led him to tap Dave Stewart to remix and redo some of the songs for this album. Best song was a song about death and the afterlife, but for the most part, the usual songs about Love and Choose Love. But Ringo didn't help himself when he lashed a tirade about not signing any more autographs after October 20, which fans gave him a big FU. Although Mark Hudson may have gotten Ringo some airplay in the past ten years, Hudson also helped shape up some real awful albums as well. Liverpool 8, though not that bad, wasn't memorable either. Perhaps Ringo should look up the guys who helped him on Time Takes Time, his 1991 comeback album.
4. Asia-Phoenix (EMI)
Yup they did regroup, the original lineup and left John Payne in the dust with his own Asia tribute band. Again it's not that bad, but I only played it twice all year and it goes on too long (64 minites). But at least we are spared with John Payne's shriek.
5. Bruce Springsteen-Magic (Columbia)
This was done in by a very bad CD mix and the usually reliable Brendan O'Brien gives a bad overproduction. Starts out with a great song and then the wheels fell off. And the bad digipak didn't help either.
6. Felix Cavalire/Steve Cropper-Nudge It Up A Notch (Stax)
A meeting of legends, the guitar hero of the Memphis Sound and the vocalist of The Rascals, getting together to make a dull recording of mid tempo soul music. It's better than Taylor Hicks though.
7. Candlebox-Into The Sun (Silent Majority)
Still rocking like it was 1993. First two songs they had some F Bombs to the lyrics for shock value. I still perfer them over Hinder (who's last album bombed two weeks after it's release) or Buckcherry or latter day Puddle Of Mudd. And so it goes.
8. The Charlatans-You Cross My Path (Cooking Vinyl)
They decided to go toward more the outdated dance music of the Manchester scene of the early 90s and a lot of the songs have a unfinished feel. But this album makes the turkey list due to a crappy digipak packaging.
9. Kooks-Konk (Virgin)
Overrated brit pop but with a couple of decent songs. I guess this is why people are downloading singles rather than albums, the ability to pick their favorites and leave the less satisfying numbers. Again The Kooks have their moments but for this type of music, I'll stick with The Kinks. Or Blur. Or The Fratellis, Or The Stablizers.
10. Waylon Jennings-Waylon Forever (Vagrant)
And finally, about 10 years ago Waylon was recording songs with his son Shooter and shopped it around and got no takers. Appently Waylon had some demos laying around and so his son shaped his band's music with Waylon's demos and this was the end result. At 35 minites it's not very long but the music by Shooter and his band sounds more desperate than desperados and the worst song of the year was something called I Found The Body and had some chick screamer at the end singing like Clare Torry on Great Gig In The Sky from Dark Side by Pink Floyd, which is why I never bought that album. Waylon Forever the album has good intentions and a labor of love but in the end the songs go on forever and even Waylon thinks the outlaw shit got out of hand years ago.
Of course opinions vary. Such as from Diggy Kat on Waylon Forever, Take it away DK!
speaking of Waylon, like i always am, i bought Waylon Forever, overall absolutely loved it! thought Ain't Living Long Like This never sounded better! Lonesome On'ry And Mean is one of my all-time ever fave songs by him and sounds amazing in this rendition too. i loooove the new version of Outlaw Shit, even better than the original! never cared much for Jack Of Diamonds, but this version is better. i skip Are You Ready For The Country because it makes me breathe too fast lol, i feel they were trying to come off with a Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" type feel, but it makes me feel all a-panic! lol Waymore's Blues, nothing can beat the original, but great to hear Shooter. i always LOVED White Room! amazing job! i really like I Found The Body but i hope they don't find that woman's body at the end of the song =
And usually we start things out with the turd albums of the year. Since I've only reviewed 68 albums this year, I try not to buy crappy albums. Which means that Guns and Roses missed out with Chinese Democracy. I heard enough songs off that album to decide that it wasn't worth reviewing, which means I've saved 12 bucks and a spot on the top ten turkeys of the year.
At this point in my life we try to look at the good parts of these albums. The worst album is a C plus, which isn't bad but for reasons of my own choosing something stood out that made me put it on the list. Like last year I don't think I have 10 turkey albums, call them the Zoey Pizza Top Ten. A bit too much and leaves the listener bloated. Not that I'm ragging on Zoey's Pizza, lot of folks swear by them but I still like Naso's Pizza better. It's a Marion Iowa thingy.
And now the albums of subpar.
1. The Black Crowes-Warpaint (Silver Arrow)
Back in the 90s they were the best thing for rock and roll but as the years progressed onward, they seemed to lose their edge and after they left American Recordings, they have done a Led Zeppelin tribute album with Jimmy Page and two tuneless albums in this decade. Warpaint is heavy on the ballads and when they do rock out, you can't remember the songs. In some ways they probaly do remind one of the boogie sonics of The Small Faces but did they have to minic the late 70s version of that band?
2. Pat Monahan-Last Of Seven (Columbia)
Say what you will of Train but they do have some good moments of hookery and charm. With Pat's first solo album, he adds way too many slow to medium tempo songs and even Train fans didn't buy this album either. Okay but too much of an yawnfest.
3. Ringo Starr-Liverpool 8 (Capitol)
A return to his own label and a falling out with Mark Hudson during the recording led him to tap Dave Stewart to remix and redo some of the songs for this album. Best song was a song about death and the afterlife, but for the most part, the usual songs about Love and Choose Love. But Ringo didn't help himself when he lashed a tirade about not signing any more autographs after October 20, which fans gave him a big FU. Although Mark Hudson may have gotten Ringo some airplay in the past ten years, Hudson also helped shape up some real awful albums as well. Liverpool 8, though not that bad, wasn't memorable either. Perhaps Ringo should look up the guys who helped him on Time Takes Time, his 1991 comeback album.
4. Asia-Phoenix (EMI)
Yup they did regroup, the original lineup and left John Payne in the dust with his own Asia tribute band. Again it's not that bad, but I only played it twice all year and it goes on too long (64 minites). But at least we are spared with John Payne's shriek.
5. Bruce Springsteen-Magic (Columbia)
This was done in by a very bad CD mix and the usually reliable Brendan O'Brien gives a bad overproduction. Starts out with a great song and then the wheels fell off. And the bad digipak didn't help either.
6. Felix Cavalire/Steve Cropper-Nudge It Up A Notch (Stax)
A meeting of legends, the guitar hero of the Memphis Sound and the vocalist of The Rascals, getting together to make a dull recording of mid tempo soul music. It's better than Taylor Hicks though.
7. Candlebox-Into The Sun (Silent Majority)
Still rocking like it was 1993. First two songs they had some F Bombs to the lyrics for shock value. I still perfer them over Hinder (who's last album bombed two weeks after it's release) or Buckcherry or latter day Puddle Of Mudd. And so it goes.
8. The Charlatans-You Cross My Path (Cooking Vinyl)
They decided to go toward more the outdated dance music of the Manchester scene of the early 90s and a lot of the songs have a unfinished feel. But this album makes the turkey list due to a crappy digipak packaging.
9. Kooks-Konk (Virgin)
Overrated brit pop but with a couple of decent songs. I guess this is why people are downloading singles rather than albums, the ability to pick their favorites and leave the less satisfying numbers. Again The Kooks have their moments but for this type of music, I'll stick with The Kinks. Or Blur. Or The Fratellis, Or The Stablizers.
10. Waylon Jennings-Waylon Forever (Vagrant)
And finally, about 10 years ago Waylon was recording songs with his son Shooter and shopped it around and got no takers. Appently Waylon had some demos laying around and so his son shaped his band's music with Waylon's demos and this was the end result. At 35 minites it's not very long but the music by Shooter and his band sounds more desperate than desperados and the worst song of the year was something called I Found The Body and had some chick screamer at the end singing like Clare Torry on Great Gig In The Sky from Dark Side by Pink Floyd, which is why I never bought that album. Waylon Forever the album has good intentions and a labor of love but in the end the songs go on forever and even Waylon thinks the outlaw shit got out of hand years ago.
Of course opinions vary. Such as from Diggy Kat on Waylon Forever, Take it away DK!
speaking of Waylon, like i always am, i bought Waylon Forever, overall absolutely loved it! thought Ain't Living Long Like This never sounded better! Lonesome On'ry And Mean is one of my all-time ever fave songs by him and sounds amazing in this rendition too. i loooove the new version of Outlaw Shit, even better than the original! never cared much for Jack Of Diamonds, but this version is better. i skip Are You Ready For The Country because it makes me breathe too fast lol, i feel they were trying to come off with a Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" type feel, but it makes me feel all a-panic! lol Waymore's Blues, nothing can beat the original, but great to hear Shooter. i always LOVED White Room! amazing job! i really like I Found The Body but i hope they don't find that woman's body at the end of the song =
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Top Ten Of The Week-City Of Five Smells
Peter Greenburg wrote a book called "Don't Go There" and appently we
made the list of five cities not to go visit. Good thing he didn't
visit here when we had the Wilson Meat Packing plant, it would have been
the city of six smells.
Cedar Rapids is a stinky town for sure. Out by highway 30 you have the sewage treatment plant, in town you have Quaker Oats, Penford Products and Cedar River Paper and perhaps the biggest stink place of all is PMX Industries. Driving by there on the way to Taco Time, the smell is damn gastly that I just about lost my lunch. It makes anyplace else smell like roses. Anyway, here's a link about our distinction. Or Dis Stink Tion ;-)
http://petergreenberg.com/2008/11/17/dont-go-there-5-stinky-places/
1. Right Place, Wrong Time-Dr John 1973 Thought I start you out with a modern day classic rock song from the good doctor. Recorded with the glorious Meters.
2. Atomic Hearts-Secret Machines 2008 Contrary to rumour, I'm playing the new Secret Machines album and think it's a improvement over Ten Silver Drops. Critics don't seem to like them since they sound too progressive rock and have plenty of Hawkwind influence. What do they know? Despite it being a digipak I did picked it up and am grooving to it.
3. Ain't No Fun Waiting Around To Be A Millionare- AC DC 1976 From Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, this shows more boogie from Bon and the boys than usually considered. Hard to figure that Bon was only with the band for seven years while Brian Johnson has been there for 28.
4. Lightning Strikes/Can I/Face To Face-Yes 1999 The Ladder is one of the best later day Yes albums that came out that nobody heard much, although Beaker Street plays this medley from time to time. Hearing the live House Of Yes made me go back to pull out The Ladder and hear it again. For a prog rock band Yes could sound pop at times.
5. I Wonder-The Townedgers 2008 Probaly one of the more unfriendler TE albums out there, I did listen to it on the way to work yesterday and still think it's one of the best albums that they put out. But only a select few of you know that.
6. Legend Of The USS Titantic-Jamie Brockett 1969 Too bad Celine Dion never did a cover of this song. ;-)
7. Come Back June-Pussy 1969 That's right kiddies, there was a band called Pussy that made a import only album that only a few diehard Prog Rock fans knew about and made enough waves for it to be issued on CD. Certainly you're not going to see this come from Rhino or Hip O Select, hell the Hip O folks don't seem to think The Brains are worthy of reissue so what makes you think they're going to reissue Pussy? This band sounded like a cross between Uriah Heep and Pink Floyd via Piper at The Gates Of Dawn. If you're looking for the album it's called Pussy Plays and it was the only album that they ever released in their short career. Starman sent me a copy of this album since I have to hear it and knew if I wanted it from Amazon I'd have to pay thirty bucks for it. (now kiddies, this is where you insert funny punch line here.........)
8. Perfectly Good Guitar-John Hiatt 1993 Probaly the only time John beat Neil Young in this Crazy Horse sounding number which got some airplay on worthless real rock station KRNA back around the early 90s. Don't get me started on KRNA, for more about that you can read the blog Dammed By The Radio at rscrabb.multiply.com. (Patronizing promo there folks)
9. Midnight Mary-Joey Powers 1966 Little known top forty number from somebody that you could hear on the better oldies radio stations out there. I like to sing along with the chorus sometimes.
10. Whatever You Decide-Randy Van Warmer 1980 Best known as Just When I Needed You Most, the late RVW had this followup hit that didn't chart but it's a nice forgotten power pop classic from a 45 that I got cheap at the old Marion TV and Records store. Collector's Choice Music reissued Randy's albums on 2 on 1 CDs last year. Go out and discover it. ;-)
And congratulations to the Marion Girls Volleyball Team for beating Mount Vernon to win the 3A Title. If I was in high school 30 years ago, I'd have been down at the five seasons center to root them on. Go Indians!
Results for the great chili cookoff at Pearson 2008
Interesting to be name judge of the Pearson annual Chili Cookoff this month. I got a chance to test four different kinds of chili and have to say that it was very hard to pick a winner but the winner will be announced on Monday. Of course Steve, our senior at work, found out about my judging and told me which one was his (the spicy one). One had chicken and corn bits to it, the other my boss cooked up and it was kind of a mild flavor and easy on the guts. The Chicken Chili wasn't too bad but the one I picked had enough onions and tomato to make it pretty tasty, but everything tasted better when I combined all four of the chilis into one bowl. Yum. The biggest complaint was that the crackers were stale. Yuk.
Again thanks be to the kind folk for letting me judge a bit and getting a good meal out of it (although I did kick in another two bucks for seconds) ;-)
And the winners are.
Runner Up: Jeff Pauley
Cedar Rapids is a stinky town for sure. Out by highway 30 you have the sewage treatment plant, in town you have Quaker Oats, Penford Products and Cedar River Paper and perhaps the biggest stink place of all is PMX Industries. Driving by there on the way to Taco Time, the smell is damn gastly that I just about lost my lunch. It makes anyplace else smell like roses. Anyway, here's a link about our distinction. Or Dis Stink Tion ;-)
http://petergreenberg.com/2008/11/17/dont-go-there-5-stinky-places/
1. Right Place, Wrong Time-Dr John 1973 Thought I start you out with a modern day classic rock song from the good doctor. Recorded with the glorious Meters.
2. Atomic Hearts-Secret Machines 2008 Contrary to rumour, I'm playing the new Secret Machines album and think it's a improvement over Ten Silver Drops. Critics don't seem to like them since they sound too progressive rock and have plenty of Hawkwind influence. What do they know? Despite it being a digipak I did picked it up and am grooving to it.
3. Ain't No Fun Waiting Around To Be A Millionare- AC DC 1976 From Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, this shows more boogie from Bon and the boys than usually considered. Hard to figure that Bon was only with the band for seven years while Brian Johnson has been there for 28.
4. Lightning Strikes/Can I/Face To Face-Yes 1999 The Ladder is one of the best later day Yes albums that came out that nobody heard much, although Beaker Street plays this medley from time to time. Hearing the live House Of Yes made me go back to pull out The Ladder and hear it again. For a prog rock band Yes could sound pop at times.
5. I Wonder-The Townedgers 2008 Probaly one of the more unfriendler TE albums out there, I did listen to it on the way to work yesterday and still think it's one of the best albums that they put out. But only a select few of you know that.
6. Legend Of The USS Titantic-Jamie Brockett 1969 Too bad Celine Dion never did a cover of this song. ;-)
7. Come Back June-Pussy 1969 That's right kiddies, there was a band called Pussy that made a import only album that only a few diehard Prog Rock fans knew about and made enough waves for it to be issued on CD. Certainly you're not going to see this come from Rhino or Hip O Select, hell the Hip O folks don't seem to think The Brains are worthy of reissue so what makes you think they're going to reissue Pussy? This band sounded like a cross between Uriah Heep and Pink Floyd via Piper at The Gates Of Dawn. If you're looking for the album it's called Pussy Plays and it was the only album that they ever released in their short career. Starman sent me a copy of this album since I have to hear it and knew if I wanted it from Amazon I'd have to pay thirty bucks for it. (now kiddies, this is where you insert funny punch line here.........)
8. Perfectly Good Guitar-John Hiatt 1993 Probaly the only time John beat Neil Young in this Crazy Horse sounding number which got some airplay on worthless real rock station KRNA back around the early 90s. Don't get me started on KRNA, for more about that you can read the blog Dammed By The Radio at rscrabb.multiply.com. (Patronizing promo there folks)
9. Midnight Mary-Joey Powers 1966 Little known top forty number from somebody that you could hear on the better oldies radio stations out there. I like to sing along with the chorus sometimes.
10. Whatever You Decide-Randy Van Warmer 1980 Best known as Just When I Needed You Most, the late RVW had this followup hit that didn't chart but it's a nice forgotten power pop classic from a 45 that I got cheap at the old Marion TV and Records store. Collector's Choice Music reissued Randy's albums on 2 on 1 CDs last year. Go out and discover it. ;-)
And congratulations to the Marion Girls Volleyball Team for beating Mount Vernon to win the 3A Title. If I was in high school 30 years ago, I'd have been down at the five seasons center to root them on. Go Indians!
Results for the great chili cookoff at Pearson 2008
Interesting to be name judge of the Pearson annual Chili Cookoff this month. I got a chance to test four different kinds of chili and have to say that it was very hard to pick a winner but the winner will be announced on Monday. Of course Steve, our senior at work, found out about my judging and told me which one was his (the spicy one). One had chicken and corn bits to it, the other my boss cooked up and it was kind of a mild flavor and easy on the guts. The Chicken Chili wasn't too bad but the one I picked had enough onions and tomato to make it pretty tasty, but everything tasted better when I combined all four of the chilis into one bowl. Yum. The biggest complaint was that the crackers were stale. Yuk.
Again thanks be to the kind folk for letting me judge a bit and getting a good meal out of it (although I did kick in another two bucks for seconds) ;-)
And the winners are.
Dan Moyer-1st place
Steve Rasmussen-2nd place
John Allen-3rd place
Sunday, November 16, 2008
November Gray Days
We haven't seen the full moon this week. I think it came out a little bit last night but for the most part it's been one grey day and night.
I usually do things on a full moon cycle or on the early quarter moon. That way if I go into a city or town I can see the moonlight on the highway and when the moon is out you can see a different landscape. I still have four days left of vacation but it's been so cold and so cloudy that I haven't had much urge of going anywhere. Fact was that I stayed home all weekend and vegged out on the sofa watching ball games. I guess this has come down to this in my life. Close to being 48 and not having much interest in things anymore.
Nine years ago this week, I managed to go out to Portland to see who would be my girlfriend for about three months, although we talked on the net for six and had a great time. And wondered where did the nine years gone by so fast? Well, being on the net 24/7 might have something to do with that but since having the internet at home, I do find time goes by faster than it did before discovering the net.
Perhaps if i could have been a bit more outgoing or headstrong, I could have somebody in this life but it has been seven years, over seven years that is. But at this particular point I quit looking a long time ago. Thank God for the net, I haven't dated anybody in this area in 11 years! There was somebody in another department at work but she didn't show any interest and she's probaly a lesbian. And everybody else is too young for me anyway. Bizarre to note when me and best friend Russ would go to Iowa City, we'd scan for the girls down there and once in awhile we'd get a look or a smile. Now, it's sad to see that I'm old enough to be their dad now.
November in Iowa is usually more gray days than sunny days and it sure felt like it last week. We're halfway through, and the temps only get colder and eventually it will snow and we'll have to deal with winter. I probaly won't do anymore bargain hunts after Thanksgiving, can't stand the same christmas crap songs that the Malls play. So all I do now is order a pizza on the weekend and watch some football and get fatter.
Just another fact of life that I'm getting older.
I usually do things on a full moon cycle or on the early quarter moon. That way if I go into a city or town I can see the moonlight on the highway and when the moon is out you can see a different landscape. I still have four days left of vacation but it's been so cold and so cloudy that I haven't had much urge of going anywhere. Fact was that I stayed home all weekend and vegged out on the sofa watching ball games. I guess this has come down to this in my life. Close to being 48 and not having much interest in things anymore.
Nine years ago this week, I managed to go out to Portland to see who would be my girlfriend for about three months, although we talked on the net for six and had a great time. And wondered where did the nine years gone by so fast? Well, being on the net 24/7 might have something to do with that but since having the internet at home, I do find time goes by faster than it did before discovering the net.
Perhaps if i could have been a bit more outgoing or headstrong, I could have somebody in this life but it has been seven years, over seven years that is. But at this particular point I quit looking a long time ago. Thank God for the net, I haven't dated anybody in this area in 11 years! There was somebody in another department at work but she didn't show any interest and she's probaly a lesbian. And everybody else is too young for me anyway. Bizarre to note when me and best friend Russ would go to Iowa City, we'd scan for the girls down there and once in awhile we'd get a look or a smile. Now, it's sad to see that I'm old enough to be their dad now.
November in Iowa is usually more gray days than sunny days and it sure felt like it last week. We're halfway through, and the temps only get colder and eventually it will snow and we'll have to deal with winter. I probaly won't do anymore bargain hunts after Thanksgiving, can't stand the same christmas crap songs that the Malls play. So all I do now is order a pizza on the weekend and watch some football and get fatter.
Just another fact of life that I'm getting older.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Top Ten Of The Week-alternative radicalness
Continuing the losing battle for alternative radical radio. What's
torture to you? Torture to me is top forty radio and classic rock radio
with a playlist of 200 songs every damn day.
To the faithful thank you for your support, to the newbies and casual readers the rules are simple. Ten songs off ten albums that I've played during the week and I made comments on the songs. Your job is to go out and get these recordings. Ready? Let's play!
1. To Be Free-Health And Happiness Show 1995 Forgotten alt americana rockers that made two records for Bar None, first record most country, second album a bit more Wilco without the weirdness. Perhaps Sirius or XM is playing this song somewhere in their 100 channels of music.
2. Makers Mound-The Dexateens 2006 Americana music today from a band that got their album produced by Patterson Hood of DBTs. That's Drive By Truckers to y'all that don't know the abbreivation. I think they remind me more of the Damnwells more than Drive By Truckers, in terms of music and being regulated to second string. Some good songs here and there but doesn't make a consistant album listening. But then again, I'm a boring old poop crabb. Don't like it? Make your own top ten and give a counterpoint......I'm waiting.....
3. Little Picture Playhouse-The Stillroven 1966 One of many many garage bands of the 60s that did mostly covers but once in a while could sneak in an original on the b side of a obscure 45. They were from Minneapolis, they could cover obscure stuff such as Little Games by The Yardbirds, or Signed DC and get their inspiration of Hey Joe from Love and not the Byrds. Well enough to capture the attention of Bob Irwin and Sundazed Records to get their stuff issued on CD back in the 90s to which I found their compliation in the 2 dollar bin at Sam Goody in Westdale a few years ago. Back when Sam Goody was still around and still doing business at Westdale, aka the Mall Of Death. Does anybody give a shit about Sam Goody anymore? No, not really.
4. Bomb The Twist-The 5,6,7,8's 1996 Japenese all girl guitar band whose big hit was used for Vontage. Actually it wasn't a hit for them, but for The Rock A Teens. Also known as the band that appeared in Kill Bill a movie that I watched in pieces but never the whole way through. Fun loving geisha girls as they are called. Yup.
5. Satellite Blues-AC DC 2000 Another track from the band of the month. I love these guys but damn I'm so sick and tired of hearing For Those About To Rock in the damn background while trying to watch a football game on saturday. This is from the lackluster Stiff Upper Lip album. I'll try to do better next week in choosing the next song from the Young brothers and may include Bon Scott as well. And on a side note it was thirty years ago that I discovered AC DC via If You Want Blood You Got It and then after that picked up all the rest of the albums, including (on import only at the time) Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.
6. Shannon-The Sinartas 1991 Some wisecracker at Pravda Records decided that the world needed a alt rock answer record to K Tel and their storied 70s collection of 20 Explosive Hits etc etc to make something called 20 Explosive Dymatic Super Smash Hit Explosions and get alt rock bands of that day and age to do cover versions of K Tel hits. Some would good, some were okay, but the majority of them sucked (Cheer-Accident's crapfest Theme From Shaft; Isaac Hayes should have sued the fucks) but this was actually a cool version of the 1976 Henry Gross hit. Appently this record sold enough for Pravda to issue another K Tel tribute album but with better results. Why should you care about this? I donno, just a way to say free your ears and your brain will follow.
7. Stomp And Buck Dance-Crusaders 1975 They were known as the Jazz Crusaders and made a few albums for World Pacific Jazz before moving to Blue Thumb and moving toward a funk fusion sound. This actually got some airplay on G100, which used to be the underground FM station here in the mid 70s before eventually selling out and becoming the increasingly bland classic rock 100.7 The FOX. And no, the FOX don't play this type of music anymore. Did I mention that I hate listening to the radio? Just wanted to see if you're paying attention.
8. Hide Away-Freddie King 1961 From my 18 King Sized Rhythm and Blues hits that i've had on vinyl for almost forty years and now the damn record skips on the next track. Be a long freaking time before I can find another copy of that album ever again, and I've only seen it one time and I bought it.
9. The Night Chicago Died-Paper Lace 1974 For good campy fun, you can't beat this bubblegum classic to which No Empathy covered it for the Pravda Comp said earlier in the top ten. I think somebody made the siren out of one of those starter circult board sets that Radio Shack used to put out years ago. I tell you young whippersnappers that even though we didn't have BlackBerry or the net, we did managed to keep ourselves amused fairly well. Such as buying 45s of one hit wonder bubblegum bands. Na na na na na nana to you too.
10. Travels In Nihilon-XTC 1980 The first time I was exposed to this band was buying Black Sea when I saw it in the cutout bins at Record Realm around that time. Virgin Records back then was a import label but couldn't find a label to hang their hat on but this album was released on RSO and came with a green sack cover like Led Zep's In Through the Out Door. Damn record used to skip all over the place so I finally replaced it with the Epic label when Virgin changed labels. The drums boom all over the place and it sounded great when you turn the bass up all the way but I have to admit it wasn't one of my favorite albums. Like Wire, XTC took a lot of plays for me to finally get it and now I have all the XTC albums in my collection. And most of the worthwhile Wire too. Cool music for the cool music collector.
RIP Herb Score, famed pitcher for Cleveland back in the 50s.
Also, RIP Mitch Mitchell, famed drummer for Jimi Hendrix who died of natural causes yesterday at age 61 or 62 in some papers.
And once again proving that the CMAs are a joke, Carrie Underwood won best female vocalist again. Is Simon paying off the CMAs or Clive Davis? Once again we get more phoney baloney, not that Carrie probaly earned it. But you can't tell me that she had a better year than Taylor Swift, and of course we knew Miranda Lambert was a long shot anyway, she wrote her own songs and was a bit more rock than country. So we get yet another Carrie "who me?" speech and that she was a long shot in the industry bla bla. Nope, just good old American idol plandering Carrie baby. It's all about the music and where things will be leading a year or two from now and if they're still playing something from Some Hearts or Carnival Ride, then maybe then I'll shut up about Carrie's fortay into being the new Queen of Country Music, but till then she remains prefabicated and artifical as top forty radio. I don't buy it then, nor I do now. Carrie remains the most successful American Idol winner but until she shakes off the manufactured music of her label, I still call her the Queen of Artifical Country Music TM.
And finally Chet Flippo gets the last word on Miranda Lambert's CMA performance.
For me, it was watching Miranda Lambert sing an original song with her own guitar accompaniment. Lambert is known to many as the hell-fire girl, the scorched-earth vixen who will burn your playhouse down, baby. But just give a listen to her on her "More Like Her" and, if you've just been a casual listener to her, you'll have a new appreciation of her. And of what current country music can be. This is a very serious singer-songwriter with much to say. I feel certain she will be a factor in the future of country music.
That song contained what I wasn't hearing a lot of on the CMA Awards show: substance. And style. And personality. And grit.
.....And that's why I think Miranda is better than Carrie Underwood too. There's way too much fakery from the likes of Underwood who for three straight years took the CMA's top award, to which I don't get. Miranda is the real deal and as long as she can write them and play them out, I'll listen to her stuff. Carrie Underwood just don't convince me. She has a good voice granted, but some of us don't like the hear all octaves in a final chorus. But she has yet to compile a album of decent songs to convince me and untill she gets into a studio with session players like Lambert's and write songs of depth I'll ignore Underwood and continue to question her winning the CMAs, or Grammys. So there.
To the faithful thank you for your support, to the newbies and casual readers the rules are simple. Ten songs off ten albums that I've played during the week and I made comments on the songs. Your job is to go out and get these recordings. Ready? Let's play!
1. To Be Free-Health And Happiness Show 1995 Forgotten alt americana rockers that made two records for Bar None, first record most country, second album a bit more Wilco without the weirdness. Perhaps Sirius or XM is playing this song somewhere in their 100 channels of music.
2. Makers Mound-The Dexateens 2006 Americana music today from a band that got their album produced by Patterson Hood of DBTs. That's Drive By Truckers to y'all that don't know the abbreivation. I think they remind me more of the Damnwells more than Drive By Truckers, in terms of music and being regulated to second string. Some good songs here and there but doesn't make a consistant album listening. But then again, I'm a boring old poop crabb. Don't like it? Make your own top ten and give a counterpoint......I'm waiting.....
3. Little Picture Playhouse-The Stillroven 1966 One of many many garage bands of the 60s that did mostly covers but once in a while could sneak in an original on the b side of a obscure 45. They were from Minneapolis, they could cover obscure stuff such as Little Games by The Yardbirds, or Signed DC and get their inspiration of Hey Joe from Love and not the Byrds. Well enough to capture the attention of Bob Irwin and Sundazed Records to get their stuff issued on CD back in the 90s to which I found their compliation in the 2 dollar bin at Sam Goody in Westdale a few years ago. Back when Sam Goody was still around and still doing business at Westdale, aka the Mall Of Death. Does anybody give a shit about Sam Goody anymore? No, not really.
4. Bomb The Twist-The 5,6,7,8's 1996 Japenese all girl guitar band whose big hit was used for Vontage. Actually it wasn't a hit for them, but for The Rock A Teens. Also known as the band that appeared in Kill Bill a movie that I watched in pieces but never the whole way through. Fun loving geisha girls as they are called. Yup.
5. Satellite Blues-AC DC 2000 Another track from the band of the month. I love these guys but damn I'm so sick and tired of hearing For Those About To Rock in the damn background while trying to watch a football game on saturday. This is from the lackluster Stiff Upper Lip album. I'll try to do better next week in choosing the next song from the Young brothers and may include Bon Scott as well. And on a side note it was thirty years ago that I discovered AC DC via If You Want Blood You Got It and then after that picked up all the rest of the albums, including (on import only at the time) Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.
6. Shannon-The Sinartas 1991 Some wisecracker at Pravda Records decided that the world needed a alt rock answer record to K Tel and their storied 70s collection of 20 Explosive Hits etc etc to make something called 20 Explosive Dymatic Super Smash Hit Explosions and get alt rock bands of that day and age to do cover versions of K Tel hits. Some would good, some were okay, but the majority of them sucked (Cheer-Accident's crapfest Theme From Shaft; Isaac Hayes should have sued the fucks) but this was actually a cool version of the 1976 Henry Gross hit. Appently this record sold enough for Pravda to issue another K Tel tribute album but with better results. Why should you care about this? I donno, just a way to say free your ears and your brain will follow.
7. Stomp And Buck Dance-Crusaders 1975 They were known as the Jazz Crusaders and made a few albums for World Pacific Jazz before moving to Blue Thumb and moving toward a funk fusion sound. This actually got some airplay on G100, which used to be the underground FM station here in the mid 70s before eventually selling out and becoming the increasingly bland classic rock 100.7 The FOX. And no, the FOX don't play this type of music anymore. Did I mention that I hate listening to the radio? Just wanted to see if you're paying attention.
8. Hide Away-Freddie King 1961 From my 18 King Sized Rhythm and Blues hits that i've had on vinyl for almost forty years and now the damn record skips on the next track. Be a long freaking time before I can find another copy of that album ever again, and I've only seen it one time and I bought it.
9. The Night Chicago Died-Paper Lace 1974 For good campy fun, you can't beat this bubblegum classic to which No Empathy covered it for the Pravda Comp said earlier in the top ten. I think somebody made the siren out of one of those starter circult board sets that Radio Shack used to put out years ago. I tell you young whippersnappers that even though we didn't have BlackBerry or the net, we did managed to keep ourselves amused fairly well. Such as buying 45s of one hit wonder bubblegum bands. Na na na na na nana to you too.
10. Travels In Nihilon-XTC 1980 The first time I was exposed to this band was buying Black Sea when I saw it in the cutout bins at Record Realm around that time. Virgin Records back then was a import label but couldn't find a label to hang their hat on but this album was released on RSO and came with a green sack cover like Led Zep's In Through the Out Door. Damn record used to skip all over the place so I finally replaced it with the Epic label when Virgin changed labels. The drums boom all over the place and it sounded great when you turn the bass up all the way but I have to admit it wasn't one of my favorite albums. Like Wire, XTC took a lot of plays for me to finally get it and now I have all the XTC albums in my collection. And most of the worthwhile Wire too. Cool music for the cool music collector.
RIP Herb Score, famed pitcher for Cleveland back in the 50s.
Also, RIP Mitch Mitchell, famed drummer for Jimi Hendrix who died of natural causes yesterday at age 61 or 62 in some papers.
And once again proving that the CMAs are a joke, Carrie Underwood won best female vocalist again. Is Simon paying off the CMAs or Clive Davis? Once again we get more phoney baloney, not that Carrie probaly earned it. But you can't tell me that she had a better year than Taylor Swift, and of course we knew Miranda Lambert was a long shot anyway, she wrote her own songs and was a bit more rock than country. So we get yet another Carrie "who me?" speech and that she was a long shot in the industry bla bla. Nope, just good old American idol plandering Carrie baby. It's all about the music and where things will be leading a year or two from now and if they're still playing something from Some Hearts or Carnival Ride, then maybe then I'll shut up about Carrie's fortay into being the new Queen of Country Music, but till then she remains prefabicated and artifical as top forty radio. I don't buy it then, nor I do now. Carrie remains the most successful American Idol winner but until she shakes off the manufactured music of her label, I still call her the Queen of Artifical Country Music TM.
And finally Chet Flippo gets the last word on Miranda Lambert's CMA performance.
For me, it was watching Miranda Lambert sing an original song with her own guitar accompaniment. Lambert is known to many as the hell-fire girl, the scorched-earth vixen who will burn your playhouse down, baby. But just give a listen to her on her "More Like Her" and, if you've just been a casual listener to her, you'll have a new appreciation of her. And of what current country music can be. This is a very serious singer-songwriter with much to say. I feel certain she will be a factor in the future of country music.
That song contained what I wasn't hearing a lot of on the CMA Awards show: substance. And style. And personality. And grit.
.....And that's why I think Miranda is better than Carrie Underwood too. There's way too much fakery from the likes of Underwood who for three straight years took the CMA's top award, to which I don't get. Miranda is the real deal and as long as she can write them and play them out, I'll listen to her stuff. Carrie Underwood just don't convince me. She has a good voice granted, but some of us don't like the hear all octaves in a final chorus. But she has yet to compile a album of decent songs to convince me and untill she gets into a studio with session players like Lambert's and write songs of depth I'll ignore Underwood and continue to question her winning the CMAs, or Grammys. So there.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Crabb Bits: Taylor Swift, Nash Bridges,Jack Jonas
Taylor Swift is a bit more believable than Carrie Underwood.
Whereas Carrie will go down in history as the most successful product coming from American Idol, Taylor did it the old fashioned way. Lots of hard work and lots of videos that get played on GAC if and when they show videos and seems to be more accessible than Miss Underwood. And writes her own songs.
And is only 18 years old.
If I was thirty years younger, I certainly would have a high school crush on her. In some ways Taylor reminds me of my old high school flame, tall for her age, has those curly locks but unlike the old high school flame, could write a song and play some guitar in the process.
Taylor is America's sweetheart and as I read the reviews of her latest album, there's a real good chance that Swift might hang around a while in the country music field. Alas, she hasn't found the Prince Charming or the Romeo to her Juliet, since she was kinda with one of the Jonas Brothers Jack, and Jack blew her off in a twenty second "it's over" call. Ah, teenage love you can't beat it. But Mr Jonas did raffle a few feathers from the country side of the things, mostly from Hazel Smith, the CMT columist. Well perhaps twenty years from now, when Taylor is the new Queen of Country Music and Jack Jonas is in one of many Disney's where-are-they-now flash in the pans, picking up trash in Orlando's Disneyworld. But then again Taylor only 18 years old, she'll have plenty of time for boys and realtionships. Just revel in the moment that's she is the new Country IT girl, and hopefully her staying power will be twice more longer than Miss Underwood and that plastic cheesey smile Underwood is famous for.
I don't plan to review her new album, too many fiddles for my liking but I'll root for her to keep being a positive part of Country and at least trying to smack sense into Kelly Pickler once in a while.
Other thoughts: After consideration I decided to pass on the new Brad Paisley album but I give him points for making for keeping Buck Owens' spirit alive on a demo that Buck did before he died and giving to Brad. Perhaps, if I see the new album used I'll take a listen to it. I consider Brad one of the good guys, even though when he grows a goatee he looks odd.
Our guilty pleasure of the day is reruns of Nash Bridges simply of the fact that Cheech Marin plays Don Johnson's sidekick. Plus Mr. Johnson gets to have Yasmine Bleeth as his love interest too although it is doomed to fail. Season one is out on DVD.
http://www.lowtek.com/nash/
On the subject from Jack Jonas who says
"I never cheated on a girlfriend. It might make someone feel better to assume or imply I have been unfaithful but it is simply not true. Maybe there were reasons for a breakup. Maybe the heart moved on. Perhaps feelings changed. I am truly saddened that anything would potentially cause you to think less of me."
He goes on to say: "For those who have expressed concern over the '27 second' phone call. I called to discuss feelings with the other person. Those feelings were obviously not well received. I did not end the conversation. Someone else did. Phone calls can only last as long as the person on the other end of the line is willing to talk. A phone call can be pretty short when someone else ends the call. The only difference in this conversation was that I shared something the other person did not want to hear."
So before we jump on anybody's bandwagon or take sides let's hear it from both sides. Young love especially.
Whereas Carrie will go down in history as the most successful product coming from American Idol, Taylor did it the old fashioned way. Lots of hard work and lots of videos that get played on GAC if and when they show videos and seems to be more accessible than Miss Underwood. And writes her own songs.
And is only 18 years old.
If I was thirty years younger, I certainly would have a high school crush on her. In some ways Taylor reminds me of my old high school flame, tall for her age, has those curly locks but unlike the old high school flame, could write a song and play some guitar in the process.
Taylor is America's sweetheart and as I read the reviews of her latest album, there's a real good chance that Swift might hang around a while in the country music field. Alas, she hasn't found the Prince Charming or the Romeo to her Juliet, since she was kinda with one of the Jonas Brothers Jack, and Jack blew her off in a twenty second "it's over" call. Ah, teenage love you can't beat it. But Mr Jonas did raffle a few feathers from the country side of the things, mostly from Hazel Smith, the CMT columist. Well perhaps twenty years from now, when Taylor is the new Queen of Country Music and Jack Jonas is in one of many Disney's where-are-they-now flash in the pans, picking up trash in Orlando's Disneyworld. But then again Taylor only 18 years old, she'll have plenty of time for boys and realtionships. Just revel in the moment that's she is the new Country IT girl, and hopefully her staying power will be twice more longer than Miss Underwood and that plastic cheesey smile Underwood is famous for.
I don't plan to review her new album, too many fiddles for my liking but I'll root for her to keep being a positive part of Country and at least trying to smack sense into Kelly Pickler once in a while.
Other thoughts: After consideration I decided to pass on the new Brad Paisley album but I give him points for making for keeping Buck Owens' spirit alive on a demo that Buck did before he died and giving to Brad. Perhaps, if I see the new album used I'll take a listen to it. I consider Brad one of the good guys, even though when he grows a goatee he looks odd.
Our guilty pleasure of the day is reruns of Nash Bridges simply of the fact that Cheech Marin plays Don Johnson's sidekick. Plus Mr. Johnson gets to have Yasmine Bleeth as his love interest too although it is doomed to fail. Season one is out on DVD.
http://www.lowtek.com/nash/
On the subject from Jack Jonas who says
"I never cheated on a girlfriend. It might make someone feel better to assume or imply I have been unfaithful but it is simply not true. Maybe there were reasons for a breakup. Maybe the heart moved on. Perhaps feelings changed. I am truly saddened that anything would potentially cause you to think less of me."
He goes on to say: "For those who have expressed concern over the '27 second' phone call. I called to discuss feelings with the other person. Those feelings were obviously not well received. I did not end the conversation. Someone else did. Phone calls can only last as long as the person on the other end of the line is willing to talk. A phone call can be pretty short when someone else ends the call. The only difference in this conversation was that I shared something the other person did not want to hear."
So before we jump on anybody's bandwagon or take sides let's hear it from both sides. Young love especially.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Rock n Roll and Lou Reed
Did anybody see the the Spin Interview with Lou Reed (or read it what I'm trying to say)?
I always been a Lou Reed fan but I don't think I would want to meet him anywhere. He tears up the interviewer and makes them look like idiots and himself an asshole of sorts. His go around with Lester Bangs is legendary. He got into it with a NY Times person earlier in the year about his Sirius radio show.
But then again I don't think we have to worry about ever crossing paths with the guy much less interview him and having him ham on me about Berlin, his much maligned 1973 album to which he did a new live version of every song off that album.
I heard bad things about that album and didn't care much for the selections that made it to his 1995 Different Times compliation. But FYE had the remastered Berlin in the cutouts for half a year and since there was no takers, I decided to revisit it and come to the conclusion that while it's not the masterpiece that Lou wants you to think it is, it's not as bad as the critics make it out to be. It's one of those albums to which the songs sound better in context on Berlin than on any other best ofs to which the songs came up.
Lou Reed does things his own way, if you like it fine but if you don't (especially Berlin) you'll join the enemy list. Heck if you like any of the Velvet's stuff or New Sensations you would get a look of disgust and a few triades thrown your way. Lester Bangs called Berlin "the most depressing album" he's ever heard but then again Bangs loved Metal Machine Music which is nothing more than four sides of feedback guitar on vinyl or a hour's worth of it on CD. It's still in print while New Sensations or Legendary Hearts is out of print in the US (some things you can't explain). I don't think Reed is a walking contradiction as people make him out to be, he knows what he wants and he sticks to the principals. Even though he's now married to Laurie Anderson, he still is King Crabbass number one but I do admire his musical tastes, playing the Easybeats' Falling Off The Edge Of The World a hundred times at the local jukebox back in the VU days.
Perhaps I'll check out the Live Berlin album, which came out on Matador Records, which also means that he's no longer on Sire Records and probaly better off for that. And I'll still play the VU albums when I get a chance and (yes) New Sensations too. But if Lou does get my number and wants to do an interview, just tell him I took the garbage out and never came back.
And a final thought, I wonder who was the wise guy that yelled out "lou reed sucks" at the end of Berlin's Sad Song off the Lou Reed Live album of long ago. There's probaly four million suspects out there in New York that could have.
Maybe a critic.
I always been a Lou Reed fan but I don't think I would want to meet him anywhere. He tears up the interviewer and makes them look like idiots and himself an asshole of sorts. His go around with Lester Bangs is legendary. He got into it with a NY Times person earlier in the year about his Sirius radio show.
But then again I don't think we have to worry about ever crossing paths with the guy much less interview him and having him ham on me about Berlin, his much maligned 1973 album to which he did a new live version of every song off that album.
I heard bad things about that album and didn't care much for the selections that made it to his 1995 Different Times compliation. But FYE had the remastered Berlin in the cutouts for half a year and since there was no takers, I decided to revisit it and come to the conclusion that while it's not the masterpiece that Lou wants you to think it is, it's not as bad as the critics make it out to be. It's one of those albums to which the songs sound better in context on Berlin than on any other best ofs to which the songs came up.
Lou Reed does things his own way, if you like it fine but if you don't (especially Berlin) you'll join the enemy list. Heck if you like any of the Velvet's stuff or New Sensations you would get a look of disgust and a few triades thrown your way. Lester Bangs called Berlin "the most depressing album" he's ever heard but then again Bangs loved Metal Machine Music which is nothing more than four sides of feedback guitar on vinyl or a hour's worth of it on CD. It's still in print while New Sensations or Legendary Hearts is out of print in the US (some things you can't explain). I don't think Reed is a walking contradiction as people make him out to be, he knows what he wants and he sticks to the principals. Even though he's now married to Laurie Anderson, he still is King Crabbass number one but I do admire his musical tastes, playing the Easybeats' Falling Off The Edge Of The World a hundred times at the local jukebox back in the VU days.
Perhaps I'll check out the Live Berlin album, which came out on Matador Records, which also means that he's no longer on Sire Records and probaly better off for that. And I'll still play the VU albums when I get a chance and (yes) New Sensations too. But if Lou does get my number and wants to do an interview, just tell him I took the garbage out and never came back.
And a final thought, I wonder who was the wise guy that yelled out "lou reed sucks" at the end of Berlin's Sad Song off the Lou Reed Live album of long ago. There's probaly four million suspects out there in New York that could have.
Maybe a critic.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Top Ten Of The Week-Change
It's finally over. Come tomorrow we can all turn on the TV and not
have to see another political commerical for a couple months. We can
finally put to end eight years of dumbass arrogance, of finally seeing
the light at the end of the tunnel of the worst two term president that
we have had the misfortune to suffer through. I hope to God that in
someway, there will be happier days in store, I hope that we can somehow
get back into the good graces of the rest of the world and maybe start
making good on promises of getting off the oil that we have to buy from
oil bandits such as Sucko Chavez and the rest of the OPEC bandits to.
I didn't vote a straight party line, just for the ones that I thought that would work in my best interests and most got elected. I still think if McCain would have chosen right VP instead of the flakey Palin, it would have been much closer. But Obama wins it and we have seen the first black president of the US. I hope all the best to him. Still, some idiots got relected once again, notibly Steve King, which means I don't plan any trip to Council Bluffs anytime soon. Or any red state. Which means I'll hang around either Wisconsin, Illinois or Minnesota. Or Nevada.
And I never thought I would see the day ever again of going to the gas station and seeing gas prices under 2 dollars a gallon. First time since 2005. It's at a 1.97. Even with cheaper gas, we still remain skeptical at best and probaly won't do any major drives anytime soon. But at least it's nice to fill up under thirty bucks for a change.
The songs of the week.
1. Heaven And Hell-The Who 1970 B side to Summertime Blues, this is actually one of a few John Entwistle songs that The Who did play live. John did a much slower version of said song on Smash Your Head Against The Wall, but nothing compares to Keith and Peter pounding along.
2. Low Ridin' Man-Geronimo Black 1972 And now another musician has departed this earth. Jimmy Carl Black, former drummer of Mothers In Invention and leader of this band has passed away after losing his battle with cancer. He was 70. I know we all get older but this year it seems that we have been losing a lot of our favorite artists as they become senior citizens and their bodies begin to fall apart due to wear and tear of life. This weekend, Yma Sumac, the five and half octave singer died and she was 86 years old. Yma probaly was the inspiration of Mariah Carey, but that was one thing. Jimmy Carl is another and it's strange to see his appearance on 200 Motels, playing the cowboy last weekend and now he's dead. And 200 Motels was one of the strangest movies that I've ever seen. But I love his most famous line about Frank Zappa by saying that when Frank joined the band, he was going to make them rich and famous. JC Black says he was half right, but we sure in the fuck never got rich. But they did become famous. RIP
3. Mood Indigo-Nina Simone 1957 Another artist who you could not pigeonhole, Nina did any song that came to her mind, Tin Pin Alley, Avant Garde, pop, soul you name it. But when she did this song, she was playing straight up jazz on a Duke Ellington number. Everybody should own a Nina Simone album. That includes you Russ. ;-)
4. Spice Of Life-Lizzy Williams 2005 Congrats to Lizzie for getting nominated for a award for best folk song. And a heartfelt thank you from myself for keeping in touch and taking a look at our top ten when she gets time. I don't want to sound too patronizing but I continue to say that Lizzie remains more committed to her My Space friends than most other bands out there. And I still cannot wait for her next album to come out over here, be it album or EP. I'll always will save a place in my shelf for the next Lizzy Williams album.
5. American Life In The Summertime-Francis Dunnery 1994 Cult artist that used to be the leader of It Bites, and then moved to a solo career. He has played guitar in Robert Plant's touring band of Fate Of Nations 1993. Made a couple albums for Atlantic then others. Speaking of which, his old band It Bites is still around but with a different lead singer. They kinda of remind me of Marllion but with a more pop rock edge than progressive.
6. If You Can Want-Smokey Robinson And The Miracles 1968 This was a top thirty hit, and I should know. There's a snippet of this song that was on one of my old cassettes that I was messing around with. Found their Greatest Hits CD for three bucks which I was happy but not too happy when I found out that the damn record label used the 45 mono mixes. 45 mono mixes only sound good on 45s, not CDs that's for sure.
7. Annie Use Your Telescope-Jack's Mannequin 2008 Goddam that Bob Lefsetz. He blows up praise bout this band, gets me to check out their songs on My Space and gets me to buy this record only to find out----that I bought a freaking Emo album. Andrew McMahon played in Something Corporate and that should have been the tipoff, never did like that band. Have to say, this is a good song and McMahon knows a decent hook, but I just can't stand that whiny voice of his. Gag.
8. Don't Look At Me-Rick Nelson 1981 I really like Rick's Playing To Win album of said year but Capitol Records didn't promote it whatsoever and this turned out to be the last album that Rick would make in his life. The songwriter of this song is actually the one that wrote Girls Just Want To Have Fun for Cyndi Lauper.
9. 2 + 2 = ?-Bob Seger System 1968 A excellent protest song by Bob and actually the first single that he did for Capitol. The first version of this song has a freaky guitar break at the end before Bob goes back to rocking out. However there is a second version of this song was done in stereo with instrments going left and right, unlike the original mono mix 45 to which I heard on EBAY while somebody trying to unload their original copy. I guess that why I like this song alot, they don't overkill it, like they do with Old Time Rock N Roll or Main Street. And back around 1968, Bob rocked a lot harder than he did in 1975. Jes saying.
10. Landslide-AC/DC 1983 From the band of the month, this is perhaps the most fastest song that they ever attempted to do. Sounds a lot like Motor City Madhouse by Republican Ted Nugent and a highlight off Flick of The Switch. But they don't do this song live. Appently Phil Rudd can't play that fast anymore.... ;-)
Well neither can't we.
Lizzy Williams speaks:
Hey Crabby,
I thank you for the kudos's on the Award. It should be a very exciting night. The Award Show is geared around Music in Film and Television. These are the days when this kind of Media is the only way or one of the best ways for an Artist to gain some leverage for their music. I am really excited about it because it is possible it will lead to the song getting a decent placement. You'll be the first to know.
I didn't vote a straight party line, just for the ones that I thought that would work in my best interests and most got elected. I still think if McCain would have chosen right VP instead of the flakey Palin, it would have been much closer. But Obama wins it and we have seen the first black president of the US. I hope all the best to him. Still, some idiots got relected once again, notibly Steve King, which means I don't plan any trip to Council Bluffs anytime soon. Or any red state. Which means I'll hang around either Wisconsin, Illinois or Minnesota. Or Nevada.
And I never thought I would see the day ever again of going to the gas station and seeing gas prices under 2 dollars a gallon. First time since 2005. It's at a 1.97. Even with cheaper gas, we still remain skeptical at best and probaly won't do any major drives anytime soon. But at least it's nice to fill up under thirty bucks for a change.
The songs of the week.
1. Heaven And Hell-The Who 1970 B side to Summertime Blues, this is actually one of a few John Entwistle songs that The Who did play live. John did a much slower version of said song on Smash Your Head Against The Wall, but nothing compares to Keith and Peter pounding along.
2. Low Ridin' Man-Geronimo Black 1972 And now another musician has departed this earth. Jimmy Carl Black, former drummer of Mothers In Invention and leader of this band has passed away after losing his battle with cancer. He was 70. I know we all get older but this year it seems that we have been losing a lot of our favorite artists as they become senior citizens and their bodies begin to fall apart due to wear and tear of life. This weekend, Yma Sumac, the five and half octave singer died and she was 86 years old. Yma probaly was the inspiration of Mariah Carey, but that was one thing. Jimmy Carl is another and it's strange to see his appearance on 200 Motels, playing the cowboy last weekend and now he's dead. And 200 Motels was one of the strangest movies that I've ever seen. But I love his most famous line about Frank Zappa by saying that when Frank joined the band, he was going to make them rich and famous. JC Black says he was half right, but we sure in the fuck never got rich. But they did become famous. RIP
3. Mood Indigo-Nina Simone 1957 Another artist who you could not pigeonhole, Nina did any song that came to her mind, Tin Pin Alley, Avant Garde, pop, soul you name it. But when she did this song, she was playing straight up jazz on a Duke Ellington number. Everybody should own a Nina Simone album. That includes you Russ. ;-)
4. Spice Of Life-Lizzy Williams 2005 Congrats to Lizzie for getting nominated for a award for best folk song. And a heartfelt thank you from myself for keeping in touch and taking a look at our top ten when she gets time. I don't want to sound too patronizing but I continue to say that Lizzie remains more committed to her My Space friends than most other bands out there. And I still cannot wait for her next album to come out over here, be it album or EP. I'll always will save a place in my shelf for the next Lizzy Williams album.
5. American Life In The Summertime-Francis Dunnery 1994 Cult artist that used to be the leader of It Bites, and then moved to a solo career. He has played guitar in Robert Plant's touring band of Fate Of Nations 1993. Made a couple albums for Atlantic then others. Speaking of which, his old band It Bites is still around but with a different lead singer. They kinda of remind me of Marllion but with a more pop rock edge than progressive.
6. If You Can Want-Smokey Robinson And The Miracles 1968 This was a top thirty hit, and I should know. There's a snippet of this song that was on one of my old cassettes that I was messing around with. Found their Greatest Hits CD for three bucks which I was happy but not too happy when I found out that the damn record label used the 45 mono mixes. 45 mono mixes only sound good on 45s, not CDs that's for sure.
7. Annie Use Your Telescope-Jack's Mannequin 2008 Goddam that Bob Lefsetz. He blows up praise bout this band, gets me to check out their songs on My Space and gets me to buy this record only to find out----that I bought a freaking Emo album. Andrew McMahon played in Something Corporate and that should have been the tipoff, never did like that band. Have to say, this is a good song and McMahon knows a decent hook, but I just can't stand that whiny voice of his. Gag.
8. Don't Look At Me-Rick Nelson 1981 I really like Rick's Playing To Win album of said year but Capitol Records didn't promote it whatsoever and this turned out to be the last album that Rick would make in his life. The songwriter of this song is actually the one that wrote Girls Just Want To Have Fun for Cyndi Lauper.
9. 2 + 2 = ?-Bob Seger System 1968 A excellent protest song by Bob and actually the first single that he did for Capitol. The first version of this song has a freaky guitar break at the end before Bob goes back to rocking out. However there is a second version of this song was done in stereo with instrments going left and right, unlike the original mono mix 45 to which I heard on EBAY while somebody trying to unload their original copy. I guess that why I like this song alot, they don't overkill it, like they do with Old Time Rock N Roll or Main Street. And back around 1968, Bob rocked a lot harder than he did in 1975. Jes saying.
10. Landslide-AC/DC 1983 From the band of the month, this is perhaps the most fastest song that they ever attempted to do. Sounds a lot like Motor City Madhouse by Republican Ted Nugent and a highlight off Flick of The Switch. But they don't do this song live. Appently Phil Rudd can't play that fast anymore.... ;-)
Well neither can't we.
Lizzy Williams speaks:
Hey Crabby,
I thank you for the kudos's on the Award. It should be a very exciting night. The Award Show is geared around Music in Film and Television. These are the days when this kind of Media is the only way or one of the best ways for an Artist to gain some leverage for their music. I am really excited about it because it is possible it will lead to the song getting a decent placement. You'll be the first to know.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Happy Trails Dr. John Becker
I don't watch much television when it comes to shows. The only show I
do watch is The Sheild and watching Vic Mackey's world crashing down on
him. With only four shows left each and every show is a nailbiting
cliffhanger that I have to rewatch it on the weeekend. For reruns, I've
been fascinated by the Ted Danson Becker show that for four and half
seasons follows the life of a bitchy but caring doctor and his friends
who put up with his rant and raves. I think I can identify him a lot
since I act lot like Becker.
And the first two seasons he had plenty of love interests but as the show unfolded it would be Regina Kostas, or Reggie, a failed model who inherited her dad's crappy restrauant to which she shares with Jake, a blind newspaper peddler. Certainly Becker had love interests or friends with benefits, including with a doctor that saves Becker's life (Frances Farmer) that eventually ends when she leaves for a job in Chicago. Eventually, Chris Connor (Nancy Travis), a woman that tries to put a smile on everything figures into the mix but Reggie though attractive to John, would trip on herself trying to get to courage to ask john out and it takes up to the finale to which Reggie sleeps with John one night and then realizes her mistake and then disappers afterward. To which the next season and half show Chris and John fighting each other, hating each other but down inside love each other to which on the last season, John tries to adapt himself to at least learn to live with her as boyfriend/girlfriend but still living in seperate apartments.
I started watching Becker when TBS had it at the 11 oclock AM slot and then after that, come home from work and watched it on WGN at 11 30 PM. I'd sit through the whole beginning as Becker goes from contankerous crabbass to a content crabbass at the end. While critics blasted this show (after all it was created by the guy who gave us the less interesting WINGS), I found that each and every charater was believable and though some were annoying and dingy, they too eventually became the person I rooted for. The dingy Linda, the dumbass Bob, the caring Margaret, who manages the doctor's office, the nice guy Jake who can't find a decent woman to save his blind self and to newcomer Hector, whose money making ideas don't work out but you root for him anyway. And the love interests such as Reggie, who cares but not enough to substain a long lasting relationship and bails out (although Terry Farrell, the CR native who played Reggie actually wasn't invited back the next season due to reasons unknown). Chris is more rooted even though her realtionships were doomed to fail, she refuses to give up on such a pathethic person such as Becker. And in the last episode she confronts Becker on this to which he admits for the first time he's happy with their relationship and we leave them on the balcony outside John's apartment, ready for a life of togetherness that we would never see.
To which WGN showed the other night and announceing that Bob And Tom, the comedy duo with their own tv show would replace John Becker at that time slot. Although Becker will be moving to the afternoon show, it's time for us to bid adieu since I'll be working at that time and pretty much know most of the story line enough not to see it again. (I think I probaly watched the show over and over about seven times). But Becker actually parallels quite well with the life of Crabb although unlike John, the Crabb's lovelife isn't there.
So on that, we toast a final toast to Chris and John and wish them a happy life in rerun land as they once again go back to start and find their way to each other in four and half seasons of madcap fun.
Cheers Becker ya old Crabb.
And the first two seasons he had plenty of love interests but as the show unfolded it would be Regina Kostas, or Reggie, a failed model who inherited her dad's crappy restrauant to which she shares with Jake, a blind newspaper peddler. Certainly Becker had love interests or friends with benefits, including with a doctor that saves Becker's life (Frances Farmer) that eventually ends when she leaves for a job in Chicago. Eventually, Chris Connor (Nancy Travis), a woman that tries to put a smile on everything figures into the mix but Reggie though attractive to John, would trip on herself trying to get to courage to ask john out and it takes up to the finale to which Reggie sleeps with John one night and then realizes her mistake and then disappers afterward. To which the next season and half show Chris and John fighting each other, hating each other but down inside love each other to which on the last season, John tries to adapt himself to at least learn to live with her as boyfriend/girlfriend but still living in seperate apartments.
I started watching Becker when TBS had it at the 11 oclock AM slot and then after that, come home from work and watched it on WGN at 11 30 PM. I'd sit through the whole beginning as Becker goes from contankerous crabbass to a content crabbass at the end. While critics blasted this show (after all it was created by the guy who gave us the less interesting WINGS), I found that each and every charater was believable and though some were annoying and dingy, they too eventually became the person I rooted for. The dingy Linda, the dumbass Bob, the caring Margaret, who manages the doctor's office, the nice guy Jake who can't find a decent woman to save his blind self and to newcomer Hector, whose money making ideas don't work out but you root for him anyway. And the love interests such as Reggie, who cares but not enough to substain a long lasting relationship and bails out (although Terry Farrell, the CR native who played Reggie actually wasn't invited back the next season due to reasons unknown). Chris is more rooted even though her realtionships were doomed to fail, she refuses to give up on such a pathethic person such as Becker. And in the last episode she confronts Becker on this to which he admits for the first time he's happy with their relationship and we leave them on the balcony outside John's apartment, ready for a life of togetherness that we would never see.
To which WGN showed the other night and announceing that Bob And Tom, the comedy duo with their own tv show would replace John Becker at that time slot. Although Becker will be moving to the afternoon show, it's time for us to bid adieu since I'll be working at that time and pretty much know most of the story line enough not to see it again. (I think I probaly watched the show over and over about seven times). But Becker actually parallels quite well with the life of Crabb although unlike John, the Crabb's lovelife isn't there.
So on that, we toast a final toast to Chris and John and wish them a happy life in rerun land as they once again go back to start and find their way to each other in four and half seasons of madcap fun.
Cheers Becker ya old Crabb.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Crabb Bits:Led Zeppelin Reunion?, Dingbats & Raging Rivers
A couple things that are on my mind.
Looks like while Robert Plant will sit out on the big money making venture known as Led Zeppelin, rumours have it that Alter Bridge lead throat Myles Kennedy will be the one singing Karoke Zeppelin. Alter Bridge used to be known as Creed before Scott Stapp left to do a failed solo career and if the stars align right there may be a Creed reunion in the future.
I've heard Alter Bridge's stuff and don't care for their music although it is a step up from Creed. In fact Creed remains a joke upon itself. I do wish Jimmy, John Paul and Jason all the best but if you decide upon Myles as your vocalist of choice I'll sit this one out too. But if Robert Plant decides to do another album with Alison Krauss, I'll sign on. Likewise Zep.
It's November and we finally close another successful couple months of nice sunny weather. With daylight savings time now over, the sun goes down at five PM and when the sun does go down, it goes down fast. Went out to Matsell's tonight and about five thirty I was in the darkness of that place but got to do a nice walk among the The Wapsipinicon River, which is so peaceful and so low tide, after four months ago, it was raging everywhere. I like walking by rivers if they're not flood stage, The Wapsi counterpart The Red Cedar is also around four feet deep, far from the 31 foot of mad flood that changed the face of CR. The weather has been quite warm, about 70 degrees which is nice but you have to deal with biting asian beetles and damn gnats that try to go into your eyeballs. Record highs tomorrow and then chance of snow on thursday night. Weather in Iowa in November. Ridiclous but not as bad as it gets in the rainy season.
Don't know about y'all but we have one more day of poltical add bullshit and then on Tuesday we can vote for the lesser evils. If you think that McCain and Palin is the answer then check them, if Obama is the answer then vote for him. We have gone through eight up and down years with a dumbass president and an endless war and fucking four dollar gallon gas and record profits from EXXON. We once had a surplus before this idiot became president, now we'll all eighty thousand in debt. If McCain got a better VP in there, it would have benefited him but Palin I just don't like too much. Palin reminds me of Wynna Wittmer, some bimbo chick that I worked with at NCS years ago. This chick would show interest in me but when I did ask her out a couple times, she reminded me that she had a boyfriend and not interested but still would flirt from time to time. In fact Wynna does look lots like Sarah Palin and probaly just as psycho too.
I don't have a fond memory of Wynna, but the last time I've seen her, I was walking across the street from NCS to the HandiMart (RIP) to get a coke and a hot dog and I heard this honking from behind me and lo and behold there's Wynnie, boring the hell out of me about her ass kicking life. She married her boyfriend who ran unsuccessfully for Muscatine Country Sheriff and had a baby in the back of the car. She never did shut up enough to ask about my life, perhaps she never cared. But I did wish her well in her life and endeavors but I also thought that if there's a God that I'll never see her again. It has been 14 years ago and hopefully maybe more. Out of all the relationships that I have been with, I believe Wynna was the biggest mindfuck I have ever known. That's the feeling I get when I see Sarah Palin and then she makes me think of Wynna.
Sometimes getting a taste of something sweet only to see it disappear is worse than never tasting it at all.
Which, I guess, is what's going through the minds of Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones right around now. How else to explain why the excitement from last December's Led Zeppelin show at London's O2 Arena — by all accounts the rare triumphant reunion that actually lived up to its unfathomable ballyhoo — and subsequent tour rumors have now deteriorated, nearly a year later, to this:
The dude who replaced the dude from Creed might be the new lead singer for Led Zeppelin.
There's no amount of times that one can re-read the previous sentence before it makes a modicum of sense. But rather than wait on Alison Krauss' duet partner to get the bluegrass out of his system, which doesn't seem close to happening yet, Page and Jones appear willing to fritter away their legendary band's entire mythos on The Guy Who Isn't Even Scott Stapp for a big-bucks world tour.
This would be hilarious if it weren't reportedly close to being true. Jones, in particular, seems eager to paint Robert Plant as the villain in this story -- the stubborn holdout selfishly depriving his fans of a treasured experience and his bandmates of, well, treasure.
But -- and this is merely speculative, as Plant hasn't yet told me -- it just may be that a 60-year-old man who now more closely resembles the Cowardly Lion than a bare-chested golden god in too-tight jeans wants to preserve that bedroom-poster image, and his dignity, rather than treat us all to the mental image of the juice dripping down his leg. (Who among us wants to hear rock's gnarliest bit of double-entendre turned into a Depends gag?)
Or, maybe he just has enough fucking money, thanks.
Plant's ambivalence is not what's shocking. What's shocking is that Page and Jones can't abide by this reasonable, if disappointing notion. And it wouldn't be the first time Page hired a Plant manqué, but at least David Coverdale and Paul Rodgers had their own sizable, if still inferior, pedigrees. Hell, at least Coverdale had long, curly blonde hair. From the back row, if you squinted just so…
But, with all due respect to Myles Kennedy, who may well have a set of pipes and a set of balls up to the unenviable task, his "joining" "Led Zeppelin" feels closer to Journey trolling YouTube for a replacement Steve Perry than a personnel decision worthy of the name on the t-shirts waiting to be sold.
And certainly the box office for this compromised version would be a fraction of the bonanza that could be expected if Plant were on board, but are the numbers still low enough to keep this nothing more than a bad idea rampantly overblown on the Internet?
The song remains the same. Here's hoping sanity prevails and everything else does as well.
Looks like while Robert Plant will sit out on the big money making venture known as Led Zeppelin, rumours have it that Alter Bridge lead throat Myles Kennedy will be the one singing Karoke Zeppelin. Alter Bridge used to be known as Creed before Scott Stapp left to do a failed solo career and if the stars align right there may be a Creed reunion in the future.
I've heard Alter Bridge's stuff and don't care for their music although it is a step up from Creed. In fact Creed remains a joke upon itself. I do wish Jimmy, John Paul and Jason all the best but if you decide upon Myles as your vocalist of choice I'll sit this one out too. But if Robert Plant decides to do another album with Alison Krauss, I'll sign on. Likewise Zep.
It's November and we finally close another successful couple months of nice sunny weather. With daylight savings time now over, the sun goes down at five PM and when the sun does go down, it goes down fast. Went out to Matsell's tonight and about five thirty I was in the darkness of that place but got to do a nice walk among the The Wapsipinicon River, which is so peaceful and so low tide, after four months ago, it was raging everywhere. I like walking by rivers if they're not flood stage, The Wapsi counterpart The Red Cedar is also around four feet deep, far from the 31 foot of mad flood that changed the face of CR. The weather has been quite warm, about 70 degrees which is nice but you have to deal with biting asian beetles and damn gnats that try to go into your eyeballs. Record highs tomorrow and then chance of snow on thursday night. Weather in Iowa in November. Ridiclous but not as bad as it gets in the rainy season.
Don't know about y'all but we have one more day of poltical add bullshit and then on Tuesday we can vote for the lesser evils. If you think that McCain and Palin is the answer then check them, if Obama is the answer then vote for him. We have gone through eight up and down years with a dumbass president and an endless war and fucking four dollar gallon gas and record profits from EXXON. We once had a surplus before this idiot became president, now we'll all eighty thousand in debt. If McCain got a better VP in there, it would have benefited him but Palin I just don't like too much. Palin reminds me of Wynna Wittmer, some bimbo chick that I worked with at NCS years ago. This chick would show interest in me but when I did ask her out a couple times, she reminded me that she had a boyfriend and not interested but still would flirt from time to time. In fact Wynna does look lots like Sarah Palin and probaly just as psycho too.
I don't have a fond memory of Wynna, but the last time I've seen her, I was walking across the street from NCS to the HandiMart (RIP) to get a coke and a hot dog and I heard this honking from behind me and lo and behold there's Wynnie, boring the hell out of me about her ass kicking life. She married her boyfriend who ran unsuccessfully for Muscatine Country Sheriff and had a baby in the back of the car. She never did shut up enough to ask about my life, perhaps she never cared. But I did wish her well in her life and endeavors but I also thought that if there's a God that I'll never see her again. It has been 14 years ago and hopefully maybe more. Out of all the relationships that I have been with, I believe Wynna was the biggest mindfuck I have ever known. That's the feeling I get when I see Sarah Palin and then she makes me think of Wynna.
why led zeppelin should not reunite by Steve Kandell
Which, I guess, is what's going through the minds of Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones right around now. How else to explain why the excitement from last December's Led Zeppelin show at London's O2 Arena — by all accounts the rare triumphant reunion that actually lived up to its unfathomable ballyhoo — and subsequent tour rumors have now deteriorated, nearly a year later, to this:
The dude who replaced the dude from Creed might be the new lead singer for Led Zeppelin.
There's no amount of times that one can re-read the previous sentence before it makes a modicum of sense. But rather than wait on Alison Krauss' duet partner to get the bluegrass out of his system, which doesn't seem close to happening yet, Page and Jones appear willing to fritter away their legendary band's entire mythos on The Guy Who Isn't Even Scott Stapp for a big-bucks world tour.
This would be hilarious if it weren't reportedly close to being true. Jones, in particular, seems eager to paint Robert Plant as the villain in this story -- the stubborn holdout selfishly depriving his fans of a treasured experience and his bandmates of, well, treasure.
But -- and this is merely speculative, as Plant hasn't yet told me -- it just may be that a 60-year-old man who now more closely resembles the Cowardly Lion than a bare-chested golden god in too-tight jeans wants to preserve that bedroom-poster image, and his dignity, rather than treat us all to the mental image of the juice dripping down his leg. (Who among us wants to hear rock's gnarliest bit of double-entendre turned into a Depends gag?)
Or, maybe he just has enough fucking money, thanks.
Plant's ambivalence is not what's shocking. What's shocking is that Page and Jones can't abide by this reasonable, if disappointing notion. And it wouldn't be the first time Page hired a Plant manqué, but at least David Coverdale and Paul Rodgers had their own sizable, if still inferior, pedigrees. Hell, at least Coverdale had long, curly blonde hair. From the back row, if you squinted just so…
But, with all due respect to Myles Kennedy, who may well have a set of pipes and a set of balls up to the unenviable task, his "joining" "Led Zeppelin" feels closer to Journey trolling YouTube for a replacement Steve Perry than a personnel decision worthy of the name on the t-shirts waiting to be sold.
And certainly the box office for this compromised version would be a fraction of the bonanza that could be expected if Plant were on board, but are the numbers still low enough to keep this nothing more than a bad idea rampantly overblown on the Internet?
The song remains the same. Here's hoping sanity prevails and everything else does as well.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Scariest Music Ever Made
In the great tradition of Halloween, it's time to that special top
ten that will freak you out more than Sarah Palin showing up your
doorway. Usually, at this time, I do celebrate the day by playing War
Of The Worlds (to which is the 70th anniversary of that infamous
broadcast of martians coming to attack and in the mist of an hour
managed to take over the world, blow up the armies and destroyed the
world only to be killed by antibodies within a whole hour) and sometimes
put up a Halloween best of that celebrates the ghost and ghouls. But
in the meantime, trying to figure how to scare the hell out of people by
putting a top ten from Hell. And believe me, there's plenty of songs
to choose from.
I've had some suggestions out there, Hoop writes to put in a word for Robert John's Sad Eyes which was a MOR hit back around 1980 but scares the neighborhood dogs with that hi falsetto that gives us images of the forthcoming of Jeff Buckley or that lead singer of flavor band of 2004 The Darkness. But I will think of sticking with the original ten songs that will clear the room of sane people, or drive me out of the local thrift store if and when they come on. Again, your list of the scariest songs will vary but these ten Zombies will forever haunt your brain, if you let these earworms invade your thought pattern. It's so easy to add a Mariah Carey song with her twenty octaves and she uses them all on the chorus, or Britney Spears who can never sing and after ten plus years is still around to torture the F out of us. I'd add a Sheryl Crow to this mess but I tend to agree with her on some things of life so she is spared but that doesn't mean that I will run to the door if I hear her damn songs at Arby's. Or Carrie Underwood, the manufactured country artist if there ever was one. Or Mike Bolton, or Kenny G? Oh we can go on and on but these ten songs that are in this list are the ones that I will forever associate with being in Halloween Radio Hell. And will forever leave me screaming for a stake through the heart whenever I hear them. You want We Built This City on this list? Make up your own please.
I've had some suggestions out there, Hoop writes to put in a word for Robert John's Sad Eyes which was a MOR hit back around 1980 but scares the neighborhood dogs with that hi falsetto that gives us images of the forthcoming of Jeff Buckley or that lead singer of flavor band of 2004 The Darkness. But I will think of sticking with the original ten songs that will clear the room of sane people, or drive me out of the local thrift store if and when they come on. Again, your list of the scariest songs will vary but these ten Zombies will forever haunt your brain, if you let these earworms invade your thought pattern. It's so easy to add a Mariah Carey song with her twenty octaves and she uses them all on the chorus, or Britney Spears who can never sing and after ten plus years is still around to torture the F out of us. I'd add a Sheryl Crow to this mess but I tend to agree with her on some things of life so she is spared but that doesn't mean that I will run to the door if I hear her damn songs at Arby's. Or Carrie Underwood, the manufactured country artist if there ever was one. Or Mike Bolton, or Kenny G? Oh we can go on and on but these ten songs that are in this list are the ones that I will forever associate with being in Halloween Radio Hell. And will forever leave me screaming for a stake through the heart whenever I hear them. You want We Built This City on this list? Make up your own please.
And now in terms of Halloween we gonna set you up with the Scary Top Ten.
I mean these songs are so scary, they will stand your hair on end.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
1. My Heart Will Go On-Celine Dion (ARRRROOOOOOO)
2. Take On Me-A Ha (OOOOOOOOO earworms from hell)
3. Broken Wings-Mr Mister (can it be that 1985 was the scariest
year ever for this? Will somebody shoot this tuneless bastard now?)
4. You're Having My Baby-Paul Anka (somebody bring a exorcist)
5. Boot Scoot Boogie-Brooks N Dunn (BOO dammitt)
6. Afternoon Delight-Starland Vocal Band (EEEEEEK)
7. Feelings-Morris Albert (Somebody please make it STOP)
8. You Light Up My Life-Debby Boone (the inspiration of My Heart Will Go On)
9. Do You Hear What I Hear-Vanessa Williams (just because it's
Halloween doesn't exclude that there are annoying Christmas songs out
there, Xmas is coming)
10. And if you read this far
BOOOOOOOOO!
Torn Between Two Lovers-Mary McGregor (DIE DIE DIE)
and watch out for wrong way spooks OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOB.
Happy Halloween everybody
From RS Pumpkin Bars Crabb
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Rock n Roll and Cheap Oil
While driving today, I saw something that I didn't think I was going to see again.
The gas price today was 2.19 a gallon.
It has not been this cheap in two years. Last year at this point it was 2.67 a gallon and back then we thought we were getting a bargain even then.
We are all skeptical that it will remain 2.19 a gallon. Sure it's a nice not having to pay fifty bucks to fill up but this doesn't mean that we should all start going back to driving freaking Hummers and SUVs and clog up the highways with 10 mile a gallon old tanks. Good thing I don't have the old 67 LTD anymore. Heck it would cost me 20 bucks to fill it up back in 1979 when it was 73 cents a gallon.
When my car was in the shop a few years ago, I had to borrow Mom's station wagon and even with 1.74 gas, it took 60 bucks to fill up and it would only last three days at best. At four bucks a gallon this summer it would have cost me a paycheck to fill it up!
So far this month we have seen the gas price fall almost a dollar fifty from 3.64 to 2.19 a gallon. And although the newscast think it could fall under two bucks, you can bet our OPEC buddies and Castro wannabe Hugo Chavez will turn off the oil faucet for that to ever happen. In fact I've seen the barrel price go back up to 67 bucks today, a five dollar increase from yesterday. If it's cheap gas for now, it won't be and we all know it.
So I would suggest to congress to continue to look for alternatives for oil, and not be so cavalier. They had a big chance to change back in 98 when gas was a dollar a gallon and the days for four dollar gas was predicted and the big solution was SUV's and Hummers. I wouldn't mind seeing gas at 2.19 a gallon but one knows that when springtime comes along next year it will once again go up.
We've seen history and the four dollar gas. We know it can and will happen again if we get to conplacement. Be happy for 2.19 a gallon gas but remain skepital.
The gas price today was 2.19 a gallon.
It has not been this cheap in two years. Last year at this point it was 2.67 a gallon and back then we thought we were getting a bargain even then.
We are all skeptical that it will remain 2.19 a gallon. Sure it's a nice not having to pay fifty bucks to fill up but this doesn't mean that we should all start going back to driving freaking Hummers and SUVs and clog up the highways with 10 mile a gallon old tanks. Good thing I don't have the old 67 LTD anymore. Heck it would cost me 20 bucks to fill it up back in 1979 when it was 73 cents a gallon.
When my car was in the shop a few years ago, I had to borrow Mom's station wagon and even with 1.74 gas, it took 60 bucks to fill up and it would only last three days at best. At four bucks a gallon this summer it would have cost me a paycheck to fill it up!
So far this month we have seen the gas price fall almost a dollar fifty from 3.64 to 2.19 a gallon. And although the newscast think it could fall under two bucks, you can bet our OPEC buddies and Castro wannabe Hugo Chavez will turn off the oil faucet for that to ever happen. In fact I've seen the barrel price go back up to 67 bucks today, a five dollar increase from yesterday. If it's cheap gas for now, it won't be and we all know it.
So I would suggest to congress to continue to look for alternatives for oil, and not be so cavalier. They had a big chance to change back in 98 when gas was a dollar a gallon and the days for four dollar gas was predicted and the big solution was SUV's and Hummers. I wouldn't mind seeing gas at 2.19 a gallon but one knows that when springtime comes along next year it will once again go up.
We've seen history and the four dollar gas. We know it can and will happen again if we get to conplacement. Be happy for 2.19 a gallon gas but remain skepital.
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