Top Ten Of The Week-Last Call For A Lost Cause

After seven and a third years of delievering some type of top ten, I have decided to take a break from this. The purpose was to document all types of music out there that corporate radio seems to overlook and what the major labels don't want you to hear. This has been a labor of love but it takes about an hour and half to research the songs, make observations and try to discuss them with eager readers. In other words, I'm getting bored with this and I need to do something more with my time. Plus I was getting tired of using the backspacer to redo mistakes or wrong words. To my readers, thank you for your support.

Some news of note.

I'm not sure what to take about Jeff Berlin turning down joining Van Halen if it's a publicity stunt to promote his new album or if he couldn't take the egos in that band. Never heard anything from him although having Bill Bruford playing drums would be worth a listen to.

I can't into these new bands that SPIN or Rolling Stone or Pitchford tout. MGMT played SNL and the first reaction was this sounds the same as many other bands that are flavor of the week. I do like the new Airbourne No Guts No Glory album since I always am a sucker for the three chords and turn it up throwback sound of the vintage AC/DC.

Coming June 11-13 in Dubuque Three Dog Night and Blood Sweat & Tears will be playing the Riverfest. And the Three Dog Night will return in September for Fryfest in Iowa City. Danny Hutton and Cory Wells are still part of 3 Dog but outside of David Clayton Thomas, I have no clue who else is in BS&T.

Let's just call the new Hole album a Courtney Love solo record under the Hole banner. Courtney seems to rub people the wrong way, even those who try to reach out and help her. Billy Corgan bashed her a good one in Twitter. Only good thing about America's Sweetheart was the artwork of Olivia De Bertinis, famed erotic artist known for her Bettie Page drawings. America's Sweetheart is one of those rare albums to which you buy for the artwork and not music.

The Top Ten of The Week.

1. Manifesto-Roxy Music 1979 While some people complained that reunited Roxy Music wasn't as glam as before, I always thought that this album was a bit more listenable than Siren, which is considered to be their masterpiece. This kinda reminds me of a bummed out party at the old Studio 54. Your thoughts may vary.

2. Desert Dream-Tangerine Dream 1977 This past month I've been listening to a wide variety of music, going from punk to rock, to country and jazz and kraut rock. While getting bored out of the usual classic rock rot, I've been turning my attention to these guys whose side long albums and suites are not for the faint of heart but this does remind me of a horror picture at the beginning of this number. With Peter Baumann in, this was the classic lineup although Edgar Froese has continued the Dream way into the new millenium.

3. Behind The Wheel-Shades Apart 2001 What to make of somebody who goes from Tangerine Dream to Shades Apart but that has been the way of thinking all month. This band started out as hardcore before signing to Universal and losing their ID on their flop Sonic Boom. What does it mean that the best song off this album came from Seeing Things and remade again? Sonic Boom became a sonic bust and the band was never from again.

4. The Shadow Of Night-Jason & The Scorchers 1995 Upon talking about music stores with my GF, I made a point and bitched about how Best Buy doesn't have a decent music section to which she mentioned that if you want to get anything, you have to order online from Best Buy which defeats the sense of purpose of even going up there anymore. So I ordered the albums off Amazon and are much cheaper. In this case if you can get the new Jason & the Scorchers CD right from the band themselves and avoid the major label middleman. This is from their 1995 reunion album.

5. Diddy Wah Diddy-The Remains 1966 Great cover of the Bo Diddley chestnut by Barry Tashin and gang.

6. A Month Of Sundays-Sick Of It All 2010 Last hardcore band standing? SOIA has been around for over 20 years and while trends come and go, their NY hardcore punk hasn't changed a bit. Although they do throw in another chord to this song it's pretty damn melodic. But of course not enough to be heard on modern rock radio. No freaking way.

7. 5:15-The Who 1973 I keep hearing rumours that The Who will have to retire since Pete Townsend's is losing his hearing which is a shame. But really The Who hasn't been a real band since 1978 when Keith Moon checked out and definly after John Entwistle 2002's passing.

8. Nice To Know You-Incubus 2001 A band that I bought some and play some and traded some away. Brendan O'Brien didn't give them all that much that Scott Litt didn't do better and you can hear the difference on their ignored Monuments & Melodies best of. But I do have a soft spot for Make Yourself and Morning View though.

9. Atlantic City-Bruce Springsteen 1982 Did I read it right that Little Steven said that Born to Run sucked? I know a lot of folks would disagree with that bigtime. I always perferred The River or Tunnel Of Love over Born To Run myself but I also like bits and pieces of Bruce's Nebraska album including this haunting track this is number 9 on the top ten of the week.

10. Steel Town-Airbourne 2010 And in the final anaylsis, SPIN may include Actung Baby as the best album of the past 25 years but that's their opinion. My favorite album of the past 25 years I don't play very often either and I told you about it, you wouldn't know anything about them. While people rave about Yeah Yeah Yeahs or MGMT or anything with Dangermouse DJing, I will in the end will go with the three chords and turn it up to ten mentality when I want to rock out. AC DC has the idea down pat and Airbourne isn't doing anything different. In fact it's a good AC DC knockoff with nonsense lyrics and chorus but a rowdy bunch singing in the background. I was surprised to hear this on Real Rock 93.1 instead of Nickelback. It's nonsense, it's loud and it's fun, unlike anything on KDAT or 96.5 or top forty.

In short, The Top Ten Of The Week is compliation of what was played at home or in the car or heard on the radio. Anybody can do a top ten, I only done this the last 7 and a quarter years as examples. Good music is timeless and it's out there.

Check it out.