Top Ten Of The Week-Had Any Lately?

I'm getting so behind in the blogs and trying to keep up on the latest from y'all. TAD keeps blogging them out left and right, Miss Melissa Mae is having fun with "the fireman" which I now got the George Strait song playing in my head. And I'm think I am coming down with a damn springtime flu, just in time for 70 degree temps and some nice sunny and windy days. Sorry to hear our friends on the east coast getting flooded out; I feel for y'all. Been through that all too much last four years. This month actually has been somewhat dry but I see dark clouds for the weekend. Let's hope we don't get rain on Easter, otherwise we'll be stuck with 7 straight weeks of the wet shit.

Iowa's new men's basketball coach is Fran McCaffery, the Siena coach who promises a more uptempo offense and unlike the last two coaches promises to bring back former Iowa players for their input. He sounds like the real deal, maybe then I can watch the Hawkeyes then and not fall asleep. I'm sure he'll turn it around, or at least win more than the football team.

And now, this week's songs of note. Comments are welcome.

1. Whenever You're Ready-Brian Auger Oblivion Express 1973 Unlike the boogie bands of that era, Brian was more into jazzier numbers and I did find a copy of Closer To It on vinyl a few years ago and then the CD in Madison last week. Upon further listenings I come to find that while good, I think I'm more interested of playing of the vinyl album more than I do of the CD. I think this was his biggest selling album for RCA but he made this after the departure of Alex Livengood and Robbie McIntosh, who went on to the Average White Band before suffering a drug overdose. The bass line at the end of the song recalls John Coltraine's A Love Supreme. The CD adds four alt takes.

2. Hittin' Where It Hurts-Webb Wilder 1989 I remember KFMH (99.7 in Muscatine, an old album rock station before they were bought out and became a crappy country station and later even worse top forty station) playing this song and I went out all over creation trying to find the album. I think I bought it at BJ's in Iowa City. Anyway, this was Webb's biggest selling and only album for Island, which was a strange fit. But then again that was tame to nowadays. I don't think Chris Blackwell would ever sign Mariah Carey or Justin Bieber to his label if he was still heading it. BTW, Miss Carey turned the big 40 last weekend. Time is flying people.

3. The Light-Humble Pie 1971 With Peter Frampton still in the band, The Pie was still somewhat split between the pop/rock stylings of As Safe As Yesterday and not yet the boogie monsters they would be with Rockin The Fillmore or Smokin but certainly once Frampton left the band, Steve Marriott took them down the boogie woogie highway. I guess there was talk that Frampton was ready to rejoin the Pie around 1990 before Marriott's unfortune passing. But you'll be happy to know that Frampton does have a brand new album coming out late April if all goes well. And I'm sure they will.

4. Don't Waste My Time-Status Quo 1973 Ah, the golden age of album rock and roll, 1973 to 1976, seems like I get more top ten songs up from that era more than anything else. The Quo never broke big in the US, Nixon probably saw to that the Quo were commies and not to be trusted. Or was it Spiro Agnew? After years of being hippy dippies, The Quo decides to rock out and do more blues and boogie with Piledriver,the first of many Quo albums to hit the UK top ten. In the US, this was the first of 3 albums to be on A & M Records to which one wonders why Humble Pie was topping the charts with Smokin, while The Quo was under the top 100 radar. KWWL FM had a underground rock show and sometimes they would play The Status Quo. The Quo remain rock gods in the UK, but over here nobody gives them much thought outside of me. There are two different versions of Piledriver out there, the Mercury Reissue (UK) has a live version of Don't Waste My Time, the Repitoire CD has two B sides Joanne and Lonely Night. Jes saying.

5. The Devil's Been Busy-Travelin Wilburys 1990 While trying to compare albums between this and George Harrison's Cloud 9, the aforementioned track was on the Volume 3 album of the T. Wilburys and once upon a time their CDs where hard to find cheap till Rhino reissued them with bonus cuts, which fans upgraded. The original thought was that Del Shannon would replace Roy Orbinson when Roy passed away but it never did happened. Del shot himself 2/8/1990, over twenty years ago. However, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty did help and play on Del's final album Rock On, to which Petty issued on his own Gone Gator label in 1991 (Silvertone in the UK).

6. Southern Girls-Saliva 2008 Nu Metal rockers trying to go for a more rock and less rap sound to which didn't sell and it does sound like a rewrite of Girls Girls Girls by Motley Crue but with a ZZ Top overtone. Too bad they didn't include this on their greatest hits album. It rocks.

7. Sun Hits The Sky-Supergrass 1997 These guys managed to hang around EMI for a good 15 years (although two of their albums were issued on Island/Def Jam) and made some very good glam rock of the 1990s which got them some airplay on the old MTV staple 120 Minites. I'm sure they were signed on the wave of Green Day Wannabes but Baz Coomes sounded more like Billy Corgan to these ears. Alongside Blur and Idlewild, Supergrass was one of the best to come out of the UK in the late 90s. One band that I didn't get into till real later on their career.

8. If I Had A Rocker Launcher-Bruce Cockburn 1983 The big hit was Wondering Where The Lions Are but this record did placed in the later half of the top 100 and the video got played on the old TBS's Night Tracks show, which played music videos after midnight. Ted Turner had plenty of ideas back then didn't he? But Night Tracks only lasted about two years. No realtion to the USA Network much missed Night Flight, one of the most cutting edge music shows that hit cable before the popularity of MTV.

9. Do Unto Others-Paul Revere & The Raiders 1969 The version I am familar with is on All Time Greatest Hits, which was a 2 record set that came out in the early 70s and I think this made it on Greatest Hits Volume 2 but the cheap bastards at CBS in 1990 failed to included it on that bloated Legend Of Paul Revere compliation. Would have settled for All Time Greatest Hits to be issued on CD but however the fine folks at Collector's Choice Music included it on the Complete Singles set that came out last year.

10. And I Like It-Jefferson Airplane 1966 If you have the Takes Off album you're familar with the three minite version but on the expended CD of Takes Off, you get the 7 minite version and I'm sure due to time restrictions, RCA decided to pass on this version, which is the most blues sounding and pointing to the later day Airplane and Hot Tuna syle. On Takes Off, Marty Balin is hands on but with each ensuring album his presence would be more in the background. With the arrival of Grace Slick on the next album, the Airplane would put San Francisco on the map and the place to be for the hippies and free love and so on but mostly on Takes Off, they were electric folkies with a purpose.

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