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.
