Top Ten Of The Week-Beginning Of Summer

It's the Memorial Day Weekend which is the first unofficial start of summer this weekend. And time for another edition of Top Ten Of The Week. The place to find the odd and the oddball and the occiasional classic rock number if I feel like it.


1. I Robot-Alan Parsons Project 1977 While playing this track to lead off my Sunday night showcase, my GD rocker recliner broke on me which means I gotta replace my rocker recliner with another chair. I enjoy rocking out to the tunes but get very tired of breaking cheap assed bolts on the bottom of the chair. Had that damn Berkline recliner for barely four years and it broke 8 bolts, 7 at the lower right side. Next up, getting a Lazy Boy. Had one for 10 years which is 6 years longer than the Berkline. Anyway, getting back to I Robot, bought this on 8 track way back in 77 and still have that. Also have the album, and no I didn't set out to buy all formats of I Robot, it just happened that way.

2. Dirty Side Down-Widespread Panic 2010 Been a slow year for new music but it's been heating up with the likes of STP, Jason & Scorchers and now our favorite jam band with a brand new album. Funny how some of the melody here reminds me of Shambala from 3 Dog Night but I'm sure they didn't intend that way. It's good to see WP return to John Keane to co produce, after all it was him behind the controls for their best albums (Space Wrangler, Ain't Life Grand) and Dirty Side Down is their best since those albums. Although I do like the much maligned Earth To America album of 2K6.

3. The High Road-Broken Bells 2010 Another new hyped project featuring the lead singer from Death Cab For Cutie and Danger Mouse. It's been getting some airplay on the public radio scene and better triple A stations out there. I got it since it was on sale for 7.99 at Best Buy this week and DAMMIT I forgot to look for the latest Elizabeth Cook CD. Damn Damn Dammit.

4. Railroad Days-Poco 1971 I've been pissed off at Sony/CBS for leaving this track off The Very Best Of Poco so I waited till I found a copy of From The Inside to have this on CD. From The Inside is the debut of Paul Cotton, fresh from Illinois Speed Press (who made one long forgotten album for Columbia around 1970) and this is the most rocking track off From The Inside. Can't say I ever heard anything from Ill. Speed Press but Cotton would be one of the mainstays of Poco after Richie Furay would leave after Good Feeling To Know. Poco remains a acquired taste for me but then again I have 3 albums from them, so perhaps they're not such an acquired taste.

5. I Just Wanna See His Face-The Rolling Stones 1972 From Exile On Main Street which topped the UK charts once again last week. The most strangest song The Stones ever made and it is the favorite of Tom Waits. Exile remains the best 2 record set to listen to, all four sides and not on cd.

6. From Hank To Hendrix-Neil Young 1992 Some people think that Harvest Moon was the better album than Harvest and I leave that up to y'all out there. Neil got his second wind in the 1990s and this was one of his best albums of that time, although I still enjoy Ragged Glory more often than not. This song is the best use of James Taylor as background singer.

7. 36D-The Beautiful South 1992 Aka 36 days and it's their most alt rock sounding. The Beautiful South arised from the ashes of The Housemartins and made a bunch of albums that charted in the UK but mostly made the clearence bins in the US. Their best of Carry On Up The Charts spend something like three months at the number 1 position in the UK. And this was found in the dollar bins at Half Priced Books.

8. Fast As I Can-Stone Temple Pilots 2010 They're baaaack. Let the bashing start. I always loved them enough to buy all their albums, even the Talk Show side project (but not Army Of Anyone) and Scott Wieland is an arrogant prick but I dig him in STP and Velvet Revolver and the guy has more lives than a cat. The new STP is their most pop sounding album ever and I'm sure Don Was had something to do with that.

9. Guitar, Cadillacs-Dwight Yoakam 1986 One of the Neo trad country singers that popped up in the mid to late 80s Dwight made honest to goodness honky tonk albums and had plenty of Buck influence to boot. But what made him go over the masses was his great band featuring Pete Anderson playing guitar but once they had a falling out and Dwight replaced him with others, it just wasn't the same.

10. Knockin On Heaven's Door-Bob Dylan 1973 And a happy birthday to Bob who turned 69 on monday. I swear he's going outlive all of us although his voice died a long time ago..............