Top Ten Of The Week-Sick Of Summer Ready For Fall

Hope everybody is enjoying the summer. Wish I can say that I am, but we have too much rain for me to to enjoy this summer. In fact, we are our fourth straight wet summer. Once again we have about six days of 14 here in July of rain, and of course monday, we had four inches of the wet crap in two hours, flooding roads and the entrance to Marion on old 151. We all wonder when the hell it's going to dry out, we have had above normal precipitation since October of last year and basically if it never rained again it wouldn't break my heart. But it will.

So this brings us to another edition of Crabb's Top Ten Of The Week. To which I take my mind off the rain and flood and onto the one thing I enjoy most. Tunes and finding them. And this week there's no shortage of that thanks to our buddies at Half Priced Books who continue to stick things in the clarance bins that I overlook and have to get.


And I guess that Marco's Pizza is done in the Cedar Rapids area. Such a shame. I loved their pizzas best. I can't say if Little Ceasar's drove them out of town with the five dollar specials or Dominos 5.99 special or Pizza Huts 2 for 10 but I'm sorry to see them go. I miss their buffets, so I guess it will be back to Naso's. Or Leo's Pizzeria if they can stay in biz.

RIP Harvey Fuqua, the leader behind the old doowop band The Moonglows and later a producer for Motown, died of a heart attack at age 80.

The songs of the week.


1. I Think She Likes Me-Treat Her Right 1988 Gotta love a band that took their name from Roy Head's biggest hit. Mark Sandman, the late great leader of Morphine was part of this band and he did this cult favorite and he sounds more like a nasal Mark Knopfler. Treat Her Right made two albums for RCA and one for Rounder before calling it a day and Sandman and the drummer would do the jazzgrade Morphine before collasping on stage in 1999 during a concert. Side note: THR was one of many bands that I discovered in the cheap bins at Mister Money pawnshop in Davenport. This place had boatloads of forgotten cds of forgotten bands of the 80s and 90s and you can buy them 10 for 20 dollars. Which explains why I have such a big collection then.

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2. The Ocean/On The Rocks-Lez Zeppelin 2007 An all female band doing suggestive Zeppelin covers and getting it produced by Eddie Kramer. Certainly you can't fault the girls for that, most chicks can sing like Robert Plant if done right (Ann Wilson comes to mind and (don't laugh) Gretchen Wilson too) but this band comes across like lesbians for Led Zeppelin or Bi chicks, probably the latter. But I donno, the best female Zeppelin tribute band remains Moby Chick. Lez Zeppelin ain't bad but it's not something I'd play over and over. I would stick with the original source of inspiration.

3. Tell Them Willie Boy Is A'Comin-Tommy James 1972 Without the Shondells mind you, TJ went to Nashville to do a country album and had it produced by Pete Drake, the guy behind the talking steel guitar and would produce Ringo Starr and Slim Whitman and a few others. This doesn't sound country, it has that signature Tommy James sound and the Nashville Session Guys and The Nashville Edition, that backing vocal group would sound like The Shondells which is no small feat in itself. From the My Head, My Bed And My Guitar reissue that came out on CD for the first time this year.


4. Good Feelin To Know-Poco 1973 Country music today as we know wouldn't exist if it wasn't for this forgotten supergroup and the spinoff The Eagles. Poco has always had great harmonies but their albums were spotty at best. Whereas The Eagles had better songs and of course Best Of My Love and Lyin Eyes to which the best Poco would come up would be this top forty hit and You Better Think Twice a couple years earlier. Used to hear this on underground FM radio and better rock stations around the area before Clear Channel and Cumulus bought everything up and made the radio station cookie cutter soundalikes.


5. Here's To You-Dio 1994 Last Friday, was Ronnie's 68th birthday. From Strange Highways this could have been a hit had it been promoted right but Martin Daniels tells me that it sounds more like Stand Up And Shout Part 2.

6. The Last Of The Steam-Powered Train-The Kinks 1968 For the sake of argument The Kinks may have rivaled The Beatles in great albums of the 1960s although The Kinks records did not sell well here in the states. In fact, most of their albums that I did find was in the cutout bins. During the late 60s, the Kinks made three five star albums, Something Else, Preservation Society and Arthur and I love them all but I think Preservation Society would be my desert island album of choice if needed to choose one Kinks album. This track was the hardest rocking of that album. That's what I think.



7. Better Than Nothing-Jennifer Trynin 1994 Dammed by bad timing, Jennifer was supposed to be the next big girl singer except a certain Miss Morrisette came out with Jagged Little Pill and all promotion went to that album, leaving Jennifer and her Cockanamie album in the dollar section in record time. But so kind of Warner Brothers to give Jennifer another album chance before dropping her soon after that got released. This song can be heard on finer 90s retro stations on the net. But not on your local radio station.

8. The Ugliest Girl In The World-Bob Dylan 1988 From the lost weekend album known as Down In The Groove and nobody liked that album all that much. In fact, I don't think Bob gives that album much thought either. Co written with Robert Hunter and features the oil and water rhythm section of Steve Jordan and American Idol judge Randy Jackson, who really is a great bass player. But so another Randy Jackson who plays for the 80's Rush soundalike band Zebra too. I don't think Down In The Groove is the all time worst Dylan album, (that honor goes to Dylan & The Dead or Bob at Budokan). Like Self Portrait it has a charm all its own. But like Self Portrait, not something I would play all the time.

9. Baby Ran-54-40 1985 25 years ago, 54-40 came from canada to record their first album for Reprise/Warner which has been only availble on CD as a Canadian import till Wounded Bird Records is finally reissuing it here for the first time. They pingponged between the R and WB for their albums before moving over to Sony Canada and having most of their stuff stay north of the border. Another band that I discovered via the Pawnshop.

10. Whole Lotta Rosie AC/DC 1977 Radio wasn't too kind to them in the late 70s. In fact, I didn't think I heard AC DC on the radio till Highway To Hell but I remember buying Powerage at K Mart as one of those curio buys and then bought them all soon afterwards. Come to think of it, the first AC DC album I ever bought was the 1978 live If You Want Blood You Got It. These guys were not punk, nor progressive but rather the same three chords played over and over with sly winking lyrics from Bon Scott. But in the end, my fave album remains the muddy sounding Let There Be Rock and even when George Marino cleaned up the mix a bit for CD reissue, it still sounds like the amps were all the way up to ten. I also like Let There Be Rock the album most of all since radio doesn't overkill it the way they do Back In Black. Even though Bon Scott has moved on in the great drinking establishment in the sky, AC DC still is around, still banging out those same three chords that they been doing the past 35 plus years. And we wouldn't want it any other way either.