2-24-10 Top Ten Of The Week-Stack Of Tracks

As I sit here and listen to Tarkus, the second album from Emerson, Lake & Palmer I can sense the reason why this record wasn't very well liked. The side long track is pompous as it gets. Used to have this on 8 Track and always kept hitting the track button to Bitches Crystal or Are You Ready Eddie? Still perfer Trilogy over them all but it could much worse. Ever heard Love Beach?

The Top Ten Of The Week:

1. Fortified Grapes-Gordon 1999 One album band that made this wonderful song that lead off the album which a guitar riff that borrows a bit from Mrs. Robinson from Simon & Garfunkel. The band was doomed from the start, they lost their lead singer (he didn't want to quit his day job) and nothing was ever heard from them again.

2. Devil In Disguise-JJ Cale 1982 Released as a single and very brief (it barely passes two minites) this is one of my favorite JJ Cale songs ever. Three chords and the truth; how could it be even more simpler?

3. Somebody's Watching You-Little Sister 1970 One of the greatest lost soul classics ever made, Little Sister was Vaetta Stewart who was Sly Stone's younger sister and made a couple singles for Stone Flower, which I think Atlantic Records had some promotion to Little Sister's songs. I remember the single gathering a lotta dust at the old Mays Drug store to which nobody bought. Heard it on KCRG AM way back and it sounded great on the old transistor radio that I used to sneak to bed and listen to.

4. Boys And Girls-Blur 1993 Blur was a big deal in the mid 90s to which I pretty ignored before finding Parklife in the pawnshop for a couple bucks. I think that remains Blur's best album although they moved from a Kinks/Mott The Hoople sound to a Pavement type indee rock that gave them a Jock Jam hit with Song 2 (heard at most sporting arenas). Remember those Blur Vs Oasis battles? Turns out it all ended in a draw.

5. Bulldozer-Fred Schneider 1996 Fun guy from B-52's hooks up with Steve Albini and makes a Alternative hard rock album that nobody bought and nobody cared much for. Except myself to which I enjoyed Just Fred as he rocked his ass off on this song. Still remains a Crabb Radio favorite. Clear Channel should be this adventureous.

6. For The Good Times-Johnny Cash 2010 The last installment of the Johnny Cash American Recording Series comes to an end with Ain't No Grave, another set of covers and inspirational songs that Johnny did with Rick Rubin, and recorded just three months before Johnny joined June in the Great Beyond. Some of you out there think that his American Recordings are just as good as The Sun Records era or Fulsom Prison and you might be right. This is a pretty good cover the Kris Kristofferson number that Ray Price took to number 1 in 1970. And of course, Al Green did a not too shabby version later on. The final chapter in the life and times of Johnny Cash so sez Rubin. But didn't he say that the last album? Anyway, I'm guessing this is it. Had Mr. Cash lived, he would be 78 on Friday. Wear black in his honor.

7. Something To Live For-Barney Bentall & The Legendary Hearts 1988 He didn't break in the US but I think he was better known north of the border in Canada as an Canuck Springsteen and he made a couple albums for CBS Canada, to which this album was the only time CBS USA released it. The album is pretty good I think and I have played it off and on in the 20 years since finding it for a 1.44 at Camelot Music in the cutouts. Produced by David Tickle of Split Enz fame.

8. Heavenly Nobodies-Lush 1996 Dedicated to Roger Ebert who made a comment about this song on his twitter account. Don't know how he called it a beautiful number, it's more punk rock than the trance shoegazer stuff of the earlier Lush albums. Another what I can Pawnshop bands, bands that had cds that found their way to pawnshop's and their dollar bins to which i enjoyed so much that I ended up getting the rest of their catalog. Sad note: Chris Acland, the drummer of Lush committed suicide and the band chose to break up rather than replace him around the end of 96 if I remember it correctly.

9. North Of The Border-Killing Joke 1990 If you haven't noticed, I have been listening to a lot of Killing Joke lately and somewhere down the line I plan to do an anthology of their albums. They made a great debut and then kinda went goth/dance in the 80s before disbanding and returning to make more of an industrial metal type of music. It was a step in the right direction and although I thought that Extremies,Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions was a bit too polished for its own good, it made me of a fan enough to buy their 1994 comeback Pandemonium and everything else. Hosanna's From The Basement From Hell from 2006 is one of my 10 favorite albums of the 2000's

10. Shake Your Moneymaker-Mick Fleetwood Blues Band featuring Rick Vito 2009 I guess we'll never see a reunion of Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer to the Mac anytime soon, so you'll have to settle for Rick Vito. Sure Vito is no Greenie, but he does hold his own and seems to get a kick out of doing the blues standards that made the old Fleetwood Mac Blues Band such a great band. Once upon a ice age, the Mac was signed to Epic and made a couple albums (since been reissued via Blue Horizon/Sire) and if you like these tribute songs off Blue Again, you'll really dig the original Peter Green recordings. Peter Green still tours whenever he feels well enough and even Jeremy Spencer came out of nowhere to do a album for Blind Pig a few years ago.

And so it goes.