Top Ten Of The Week-Big In Russia?

I see that Blogspot has a brand new setting that you can now see who reads your blogs and such. Not that the ratings have been that big but I noticed that I have gotten something like 33 views from our friends in Russia, second only to the 40 views in the US and I'm sure I'm responsible for about half of that with reviewing and editing and adding other thoughts. Anyway, it's good to know somebody out there is reading them.

There's a new Mexican restaurant in town called La Cantina located in downtown Cedar Rapids. Kinda nice to see something new come that way, this town hasn't been much since the damn Floods of 2008 just about killed off anything downtown. I discovered downtown once again after being chased away from the trails outside of town due to the damn gnats and hostile redwings so discovering the walking trail going through downtown CR. I usually park the car at the entrance of Czech Village and use the walking trail that borders the Cedar River to downtown and past Quaker Oats to Cedar Lake and back again. I think it's a five mile walk but it is longer than the C Street from Tait Cummings Park to Highway 30 and back again.

Next week, the annual fall foliage to Madison for the final bargain hunt of the year. After that I stay in town. Now, this weeks bunch of music that has been playing from the stereo.

1. Cuz You're Gone-Goo Goo Dolls 1993 Don't you miss the days that the Goos sounded like a more bastardized Replacements than the popsters that they want to be today although the new album is better than Let Love In, but I still enjoy Superstar Car Wash. I remember Jerry at Relics Records playing this nonstop in the summer of 93 and saying that they would be big someday. And they did and still are if you think about it, but their latest is flying south off the charts and people won't remember it much. The new album started out great with Sweetest Lie and then tried to make a play at corporate radio. And failed to do so.

2. Vampire-Kings Of The Sun 1990 Full Frontal Attack is over 20 years old? Fuck Almighty where does the time fly? Loved this album, still do, it was so sloppy and so loose and made AC/DC sounded polished. On a different subject, I went to see Vampires Suck the movie, and it did. It was me and one other guy in there and I don't we laughed all that much except when the girl hero farted on the screen and knocked her vampire lover out the window. Fifty years old and I still laugh at fart jokes. Maybe that's why I like watching Family Guy reruns on TV.

3. Scorpio-Dennis Coffey & The Detroit Guitar Band 1971 His biggest hit and oh so funky too. Coffey made a couple other minor hits (Taurus, Getting It On) that followed the same pattern of guitar breaks and extended conga solos though I like Taurus better than Scorpio but found a Time Life best of for two dollars and had this forgotten gem on it. Coffey was part of the later 60s-early 70s Motown band I think but he recorded for Sussex/Buddah Records. Later became a new age jazz guitar player and made a CD for EMI in the late 80s which bored me to sleep.

4. Stand Up For Love-The Cross 1988 This was Roger Taylor's baby in the late 80s. I think he was trying to either be a white rapper or trying for dance music in the tradition of Another One Bites The Dust to which over half the songs off this album, called Shove It, sounds like. However when I hear this song I can picture Scissors Sisters doing this song. Sounds tailored (Taylor'ed) made for them.

5. Ship Of Dreams-Nazareth 1980 From Malice In Wonderland. They did tried to update their sound from the metal that was Expect No Mercy or Hair Of The Dog and they got Zal Cleminson from The Sensational Alex Harvey Band on this effort. Jeff Baxter from the Doobie Brothers produced this and it did get credible reviews from critics. Kinda unNazarethlike for them I think but it's one of the highlights of that album.

6. So Far Away-Social Distortion 1990 Mike Ness sells out to the corporate label and makes the first of three for Epic. It's held up the test of time I think.

7. Do It Again-The Kinks 1984 Kink fans have been lukewarm about The Kinks Arista period, to which concept albums were put away and they just turned the amps up to 10 and rocked out half the time. I still like side one of Word Of Mouth and even though if they ripped themselves off by redoing the guitar riff of She's Got Everything so be it. This turned out to be a top 50 hit for them and the first featuring Bob Henrit of Argent fame on drums. Word Of Mouth was the final Arista album and The Kinks moved on to MCA and later Columbia for same sounding and less satisfying albums.

8. All Together Now-The Beatles 1968 The first Beatles album I bought was Yellow Submarine. At that time, I just turned 16 and started to buy albums rather than 45s but like every good music lover would complete The Beatles collection over time. Even with throwaways The Beatles still made damn good music.

9. Hippie Dream-Neil Young 1986 The Geffen years are Neil's lost era and he threw curve balls all over the place. Doing techno Devo rock on Trans, going doowop 50s rock on Everybody's Rocking and straight country on Old Ways and back to rock on Life but Landing On Water seems to be the consensus for all time worst Neil album. Ain't that bad kids, I still like it more than you do and like it more than Le Noise, to which Mark Prindle gave it a high 8. As far as I know, Landing On Water was such a bomb for Geffen/Warner at that time, it became a cut out a few months later. Drums were played by a unknown Steve Jordan.

10. Don't Hold Your Breath-Deep Purple 1996 The band of the month here in Crabbland. Ritchie Blackmore finally leaves once and for all and the band replaced him with Steve Morse. The amazing fact that Perpendicular, was better than The Battle Rages On, to which the battle of egos would be fought and Ian Gillan would win out. I also liked The Battle Rages On too but then again I'm a big Deep Purple fan so any of their albums gets high ratings for me. Except for perhaps Slaves & Masters, the 1990 RCA flop featuring Joe Lynn Turner or 1974's Stormbringer, great title track but the rest floundered under too much of a funk feel and Blackmore might be right on that. Don't Hold Your Breath is the hidden track of Perpendicular and supposedly it may have been spurned on by somebody asking Gillan if Blackmore would be back. But that's just speculation folks. Only Ian Gillan knows the true meaning of that song and he's not talking. This track actually got airplay on the better rock stations, notably KUPD in Phoenix played it from time to time for a few years and me hearing it around 1999.

So it goes y'all. Thanks Russia and Poland for your views.