Top ten of the week-December

We have crossed over into the final month of this wonderful year. Be prepared for the march of the snow and icestorms and below zero temperatures that await us in this icebox we call Iowa. I know our friends out in Wisconsin and Washington state have beaten us and yes we are late in arrival of the snowy shit but once December has rolled around I'm sure we will get and surpass you in total of the winter weather crap that puts an hour on driving home in it. But in the meantime, no shortage of tunes in the box that warm us up and gives us faith and hope that there's is better music then the overplayed stuff on the radio.

Signs we're getting older: Dick Clark, the world's oldest teenager turned 81 last weekend. That's 18 backwards mind you.

And the big news, you can get The Beatles on I Tunes. Of course I'd rather have them on physical format but you do what's right.

1. Hold On/Surf City Crack The Sky 1975 If your local classic rock or if your even more luckier to have one, AOR radio and they play you Crack The Sky email me where that station is at and I'll listen to it online. Question is was they a prog rock band or a pop rock band? Most of my albums from them came from the budget bins from forgotten record stores (BJ's, Krackers, K Mart) and there was a nice little compilation that came out on CD about ten years ago that's now OOP and hard to find. These two tracks would be a live staple to which they used The William Tell Overture or The Lone Ranger Theme in the jam part of Surf City. Live Sky is one of the amazing live albums that would have been fun to seen live.

2. Some Fun-The Raindogs 1991 Album rock radio didn't completely die out in the 1990s but as Clear Channel and Cumulus brought every underground radio up and down from the up yours Telecommunications Act of 1996, the day the music really died up and coming bands that had chance to play on the album rock stations did for about a day or two. Such is the case of this band that made two decent albums for Atco and can be found for a buck or two in the cheap bins at the junk shop. We don't have record stores anymore, so it's second hand or junk shops. The Raindogs had a violin player who passed away about five years ago and they got Don Gehman to produce this and they had cameo appearances from Harry Dean Stanton on this track and Iggy Pop on another and it didn't sell. I simply brought it from the title alone Border Drive In Theater and having an old drive in screen for cover picture. The record still sounds pretty good today.

3. How's Your Bird/The World's Greatest Sinner-Baby Ray & The Ferns 1963 Baby Ray is Ray Collins, later of The Mothers Of Invention fame and this was one of the earliest singles coming from the mind of Frank Zappa. If you catch the Steve Allen program that showed Zappa teaching Allen how to play bicycle you would hear Frank putting in a plug for these songs. Frank passed away in 93 but Collins recently just turned 72 and still doing fine from what I hear.

4. Shelling Rain-Alejandro Escovedo 2010 As I was compiling the best of 2010, I was once again listening to the CDs bought and yes his album made the list, Street Songs Of Love it's called and I thought it was better than his last two albums but both of them were very good indeed. This time out, he pretty much told the cello player to take a vacation and most of this album is hard rocking guitar fun. Too bad it didn't sell all that great unlike the new Kanye West debuting at number 1 on the outdated Billboard site. Perhaps Alejandro should have used autotuner then? Naw, let's keep it real.

5. Pictures-Len Price 3-2010 I know you don't know them folks but these guys revoke memories of the mid 60s of high energy British rock like a hungry early Who or wacked out Kinks and a more wilder version of The Creation but on this track they add a bit more Green Day Dookie era and it still sounds like 1965 all over again. From Little Steven's Wicked Cool Records.

6. In America-Charlie Daniels Band 1980 Dedicated to Eddie Montgomery whose battling prostate cancer and his faithless wife who served him divorce papers in the process. Stand by your man honey. Amazingly back in the 80s where you can still hear interesting songs on top forty, this did get airplay on Z102.9 used to be Q103 back when they were good. In the early days of having cable tv, we had a public access channel that would give us news and the stock market report and I recall hearing this song in the background as the Dow Jones wisked away. Guess you could call it our music video so to speak.

7. Little By Little-Robert Plant 1985 From Shaken & Stirred probably the worst piece of crap album Plant ever put out. He said it was an experimental album. It was and it tried many people's patience. This was the hit off that album. Plant would get much better after this crapfest of an album.

8. Spanish Eyes-Al Martino 1966 Of course radio wouldn't play this today, certainly not top forty, no auto tuner in this. But this is what I remember from AM radio of the 60s, Al could fit in along with Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, The Kingsmen and Iron Butterfly in one setting. Amazing how we have all this music and radio is so limited in what they play. And today's format radio sucks. Certainly Al Martino is my guilty pleasure, didn't like it all that much when i was young but do now. That must mean I'm turning 50 very soon. Heard this on KAHM FM online, the radio station from Prescott that plays the mellow side of things.

9. Back Again-The Townedgers 2002 My GF says that I don't play them enough. She has a point. Another band that you won't hear or get mentioned anywhere but here. That's what I do, I sing the praises of forgotten bands. Somebody's got to.

10. Twilight Zone-Golden Earring 1983 They have been around for 4 decades but the only songs you ever hear from them are Radar Love (1974) and this one which was their highest charting hit and still gets many plays on the classic rock stations. And of course had a bit of help from the old MTV which played this video a lot around 1983. Back when MTV was watchable. Back when cable was more watchable and had about 6 hours less commercials than today. Money well wasted on today's "programming". Didn't think the IPad commercial was programming myself.

A final farewell to Leslie Neilsen who passed away from Phenomena complications. He was 84 and of course best known as the straight faced doctor on Airplane! and Frank Derbin on The Naked Gun series. He could do serious acting and he can do slapstick comedy. He will be missed.