Top Ten Of The Week-Swing To The Right

Imagine my disappointment in the elections yesterday. We booted Chet Culver out and bring back Terry Branstad once again. Guy is going to love those three pension plans he's going to get when he leaves again. May as well give Chuck Grassley the role of king since he's elected to a sixth term and the less said about Steve King the better. But then again, the Democrats have themselves to blame too. Perhaps there's a silver lining to this, when Branstad was Governor I got money back from the state. I'll be counting on that.

Anyway, that's all the politics I can stand, time to put out the week's top ten of the week. Lots of different styles this week, hang on folks, this is going to be one helluva ride.

1. Voices Of Babylon-The Outfield 1989 I have all of their albums and perhaps that's about six too many but I still like Voices Of Babylon the best, kinda reminds me of 90125 by YES (don't ask why) but this record flopped big time and The Outfield were demoted to MCA for a couple albums after that. Patrick Leonard gave it a bright mix typical of the 1980's but I would love to hear this on 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound. Heard rumors that Alan Jackman, drummer during their successful period has rejoined Tony and John once again.

2. Darlin-Tom Jones 1981 Oh yeah, he was Mr. Sex Symbol of the late 60s and early 70s and kept that sex appeal going when he signed to Epic/MAM for a country career that did put out a few hits on the CW chart. Say You'll Stay Till Tomorrow, Green Green Grass Of Home and Darlin which came out on Mercury in the early 80s. I remembered hearing this quite a bit at Super Skate when I went roller skating on Wednesday nights. Tom Jones would return to the pop charts with a remake of Prince's Kiss on Jive and an interesting album for Interscope. His latest album Praise & Blame is more Americana than country and it might just be his best album to date. Check it out when you get a chance.

3. Race With Devil On Spanish Highway-Al DiMeola 1977 Fusion guitar players really don't get the respect they deserve. Steve Morse is Mr. Lightning Fingers with the Dixie Dregs and their albums are hit and miss but the guy can play. So can Joe Satriani and Steve Vai but their music tends to bore me more often than not. DiMeola, part of Return To Forever made some decent albums for Columbia in the late 70s and it may sound rock at times but it's mostly fusion. Later DiMeola started going toward a more Spanish guitar sound and seems to perfer that style but when he picks up a electric guitar he can give the others a run for their money.

4. Beer Can Medley-The Commercials 1989 TVT Records in 1989 put out a album full of commercials from the golden age of TV and you had to be there to truly experience the art of the commercial jingle. We start out When Your Out Of Schlitz, You're Out Of Beer, then on to If You Got The Time We Got The Beer (Miller Beer), and then When You Say Budweiser You Said It All, the latter became When You Say Love, a minor hit for Sonny & Cher in 1972. Next up is My Beer Is Reingold which goes way back to around 1955 and finally we conclude with two Ballantine Beer jingles Make A Ring and the oh so funky Hey, Get Your Cold Beer. The good old days to which beer jingles made you actually want to drink a Miller or Schlitz, before they got dumbed down by bad emo bands, scantly clad babes and dumbass doods who are more interested in seeing their Coor's Light Beer turn blue when it gets cold enough. TeeVee Tunes didn't put out a Commercials Volume 2 since the copyrights probably cost more then they could afford but if you do ever find Commercials Volume 1, pick it up and remember the fun times before everybody just got drunk and stupid.

5. Til The Following Night-Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages 1961 From the bizarre world of Joe Meek, this song predates The Monster Mash and The Cramps and Danzig in terms of singing the praises of vampires and ghouls. More fun than you can handle.

6. It's Good To Be King-Tom Petty 1994 From Wildflowers. Sheryl Crow was so influenced by this album that she would steal the title for her album WildFlower. I'm sure I made it up but anyway TP's Wildflowers remains one of those albums that never grabbed my attention all that much and I didn't care much for this song till recently that I enjoy hearing it once again. The late Michael Kamen did the horns and strings chart.

7. Elementals-Dave Brubeck Quartet 1963 I don't play a lotta jazz but when I do I seem to pull out something from ol Dave and his famous lineup of Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello but this selection which takes up all of side 2 on Time Changes brings Brubeck and company with a full orchestra conducted by Rayburn Wright (no relation to Eugene). Fun to hear Dave counter with what the orchestra is playing, it comes very close to avant-garde in spots. And watch out for the build up towards the end. Found the album for 75 cents at the Salvation Army in Davenport along with Bossa Nova USA, which was only available as a out of print import. I did see a flyer in Collector's Choice Music that Time Changes is part of a 5 CD box set, documenting Dave's experiment in time changes beginning with Time Out, Time Further Out, Time In, Countdown and Time Changes and is reasonably priced. Mr. Brubeck turns 90 in December. Look for another Brubeck number to hit the top ten by then.

8. Obsession-The Godfathers 1988 Guitar driven UK band had a minor hit with Birth, School, Work, Death (or the Packaging Lament at Pearson INC.) and I have all of their albums that are known to exist. From the second album (first for Epic) and produced by the late great Vic Maile.

9. Medusa-Black Country Communion 2010 Who says rock and roll and boogie are dead? Apparently not these guys which include hot shot guitarist Joe Bonamassa, Derek Sherinan, Jason Bonham and former DP/Trapeze singer shouter Glenn Hughes which remakes this song from the Trapeze album called Medusa. Hughes gets a little annoying with his over the top vocals but Bonamassa's guitar riffing and Jason bashing away makes this rock. Jason said that they had so much fun with this album that they're reading to record the second album.

10. Heft-Fastway 1983 Another supergroup of the 80s that never really caught on, it featured Fast Eddie Clarke from Motorhead, Jerry Shirley from Humbie Pie and Pete Way from UFO and an teenaged unknown named David King and they made a classic metal album with Eddie Kramer producing. Way would later bow out to form Waysted and Fastway would go on to make All Fired Up which was basically the same as the first album and then the wheels fell apart on the crapfest Waiting For The Roar, to which Terry Manning took over and throw keyboards after keyboards on that recording. Anything after All Fired Up you don't need but the first album remains their metal best, which includes the gloom and doom Heft! which would reappear on the Trick Or Treat Soundtrack (and basically the last Fastway album for Columbia).

That's all for this week. Tune in again same time same blogsite for the latest in what's in my player.