I guess it's common knowledge that I should continue the Top Ten Of The Week(R), since I heard from my trusted sourses that it keeps me sane and I need to do this otherwise, I'm not worth a shit being around with. So as Les Emerson sang a long time ago, "Here I am again, knocking on your door"......
The big news is that for the first time in 35 years I will be making a visit to Michigan for a week up there. Basically this falls under the things we do for love but since my other half have sacificed her time to come down here twice I figure it's time to return the favor. I'm hoping that I can get the chance to find some of those music stores up there to check out and perhaps to see Ann Arbor, the college town in that area. Mostly it's to introduce myself to my GF's relatives since they been hearing such great things about me and it's time for me to set the record straight. Maybe we'll do some roller skating up there, which would be the first time in over 25 years that I've been at a roller rink. Never been to Detroit but I have been up to Jackson Michigan and was on that road that supposely went by Ted Nugent's property.
The other news is a tentative, but I'm also working on returning to Arizona one last time, as a retirement party to going to the music stores down there. Alliegiant Airlanes is having their annual 89 dollar one way fares to Phoenix in the summer again and I'm 98 percent ready to go there again. I like to do the full week thingy, that way I can hit Kingman for a day or two and Flagstaff and hang there and do the Arizona 66 trip but have till the end of May to commit to this project. Which means Hastings Music that this will my final farewell to your stores if I can hit up there. Which means FYE in Fiesta Mall area, you'll get one last look as I spend 3 hours sorting through your cd section, that is if you still have a cd section. Which also means ZIA Records will get a visitor from Iowa one more time. If I do this trip it will be around September.
But the Michigan trip is a reality whereas the Arizona trip is still a dream.
Outside of that I did enjoy Betty White's SNL performance. I don't think I laugh that much since Belushi was still alive. Good job Betty.
The Top Ten Of The Week:
1. Stand And Deliver-Bram Tchaikovsky 1981 From one of my favorite albums Funland, Bram was part of The Motors and then branched out as a solo artist and made two albums for Polydor and Funland for Arista which didn't sell shit. But I played the hell out of this album back in the early 80's. Not on CD.
2. Take A Pebble-Emerson, Lake & Palmer 1970 Never had this on record till I found a copy of it for a dollar at Half Priced Books last weekend and this is the worse excuse of over the top progressive rock that critics hated about this band. Actually I find parts of this album and Tarkus somewhat amusing.
3. Hustle And Cuss-The Dead Weather 2010 Perhaps these guys are the new ELP judging by their over the top and noisy music. Can't say it's rock and roll but it is noisy.
4. Trenchtown Rock-Bob Marley & The Wailers 1975 Live, to me pretty much sums up what makes Bob Marley so great, plenty of energy and plenty of good vibes that it can bring you out of any bad mood that you might had. "One good thing about music is that when it hits you feel no pain, so hit me with music......
5. Mad Jack-Baker Gurvitz Army 1975 Another album found in the dollar bins, Ginger Baker hooks up with Adrian & Paul Gurvitz and made a so so album. Sure wasn't the second coming of Cream.
6. Norman-Sue Thompson 1961 Campy one hit wonder. Found a Best Of Sue Thompson on CD for 2 bucks and thought I'd check it out. Had a few other minor hits penned by John D Loudermilk who was one of the major songwriters of the 60s and later on she dueted with the late Don Gibson on some top 30 hits for MGM/Hickory.
7. Give Praises-Yabby You 1978 Taken from the In The Red Zone-The Essential Collection Of Dub that Shanachie issued in 1997, Dub is that echoey, bassy rhythm tracks that lots of folk smoke their cannibis to.
8. Everybody Crying Mercy-Mose Allison 1968
9. Graveyard Shift-Uncle Tupelo 1990 While some people like Wilco or Son Volt more, I still perfer the original cowpunkers.
10. Raising Steam-Jethro Tull 1987 From the Heavy Metal Grammy Winner Crest Of A Knave, the only time that Ian and company get to heavy metal is when they add a bit of ZZ Top guitar on this album. If nothing else it was a good comeback album for Jethro Tull, after giving us the awful Under Wraps. The production shows its 80s roots but it still holds up very well, even though it's not exactly our ideal of Heavy Metal.
RIP Danny Brown
