Top Ten Of The Week-Snow & Cold

The two words used a lot around this area. Yeah it's been snowing and it's been cold and now I'm catching a cold.

I hate this time of year.

The Top Ten Of The Week:

1. When I Look In Your Eyes-The Romantics 1980 About thirty years ago they had a modest hit with What I Like About You, didn't hear it much on the radio but today, it's played at arenas and keeping the royalties rolling in. Or so it is said. This was the followup single to their big hit and the reason I bought their album in the first place. The airplay was less and it if broke the top 100 it didn't go past 90. Such a shame though. Great song.

2. Continental Highway-Fresh Air 1973 One of those bands that got signed to a major and made one album to which I have a promo copy of this. I think I got it for free or my mom did. The other two was Murray Head's Nigel Lived, a strange concept album from the dude who played Judas on Jesus Christ Superstar and the other which will be reviled later in this list. I'm sure none of you out there know who Fresh Air was, but they were a country rock band that was a bit more laid back than Poco and they took their name from the Quicksliver Messenger Service hit of Fresh Air. Columbia released this album and this could have been a sizable FM hit had the brains at CBS Inc promoted it. BTW, the other freebie we got was Robey, Falk & Bod-Kentucky Gambler which came out on Epic and reissued via It's About Music. Personal to the It's About Music folk, Fresh Air sounds like music right up your alley.

3. Evidence-John Cale 1984 Lou Reed got more press and more followers but John Cale sometimes could come up with a winning and rocking album. I tend to believe his eccentric state of mind can come up with winning albums (Slow Dazzle, Vintage Violence) but also erratic ones as well (Music For A New Society, Caribbean Sunset). I also believe he did his best stuff for Island too but this comes from his second go around with Island/ZE which his albums were freaking hard to find and everytime I inquired to the dumb clerk at Record Bar or Camelot about if they had John Cale Comes Alive, I ended up with blank stares. I eventually came across this, in the cutouts at the old BJ Records in Iowa City (RIP). For you Cale fans, SPV issued a 2 CD set of Cale performances at Rockpalast around 1983 and 1984 and this version is the ever more ragged. And eccentric. And Erratic.

4. Mrs. Rita-Gin Blossoms 1992 One of a few top ten hits from our boys from Tempe AZ. Did ya know that there is a tarot reader named Mrs. Rita down there off University not far from ASU and a couple doors down from the Zia Records Store? Long ago and far away that used to be my hanging out grounds when I lived there back in the late 80s? I moved away to get away from the snow back then, so why the hell am I back up here in snow and cold land?

5. Dead Souls-Joy Division 1980 I'm not the biggest fan but I do listen to some of their more harder rocking stuff. Someone take these dreams away...they point me to another day......

6. Kings Of The Party-Brownsville Station 1973 Your generation has Nickleback and your Hinder, we had Foghat and these party guys from Detroit. In fact, I knew a neighbor that had Cub Koda as a relative and I got an autographed copy of of Yeah in the process. Cub was a super knowledgeable rock and roll and he did reviews and a column for Goldmine back in the 90s. Alas he passed away a few years ago. Got to see Brownsville open up for Blue Oyster Cult in 1979 at then the new Five Seasons Center in C.R. Great times, great fun, first concert I ever went to. From album School Punks and poorly recorded by one Doug Morris who would become label head of Atlantic, later Universal and soon to be head of Columbia Records.

7. I Belong To You-Jessie Frederick 1973 One of my favorite 45s of long ago and far away (AM Radio mid 70s) but couldn't find it till I seen a promo at Rock N Bach in the early 80s. This did some airplay and charted on the KCRG Super 30 but I'm sure it was much lower on the Billboards. Frederick recorded one album for Bearsville/Reprise and as far as I know this was only a single only. Sounded a bit like Dave Edmunds. Produced by Nick Jameson later of Foghat fame. Anybody remember this song now? Yes? No? ???

8. Two People In A Room-Wire 1979 From 154, the third and final Wire of the first era. Art punk rockers going for a more bigger drum sound. When I first got this album I dismissed it as total crap but then again it grew on me with each listen and nowadays when I want to hear Wire, I usually put on 154 to scare the neighbors away.

9. City Pride-Robey, Falk & Bod 1973 They recorded a one off for Epic and there's a country rock influence of Poco, CSN, Buffalo Springfield and even Redwing (who recorded a few albums for Fantasy). Kind of like Fresh Air but with a harder edge. My Aunt Cindy would end up taking this record when she moved out but she returned it a few later the album was warped and so I had to wait about 20 years to find another copy in the dollar bins at Mad City Music Exchange. And then It's About Music put it out on CD.

10. Tarkio Road-Brewer & Shipley 1971 Found the 45 in a bunch of old Juke Box Records that the old Town Square Book Shop used to sell up in downtown Marion in fifth grade. Most of the records actually came from the jukebox down the road at Ole's Ham & Egger or at the old Marion Laundromat that I used to go bike riding and when nobody was inside would play the jukebox for a spell. Back in those days, you could do that but sometime around 1975 thereabouts, a bunch of fucking drunks came in and broke the jukebox to pieces. Ole's was a 24 hour grease pit that served the Amtrak crowd back when we had rail service in Marion but after the passenger train station closed up, Ole's cut back on their hours. Used to go down there and play the pinball and they had the juke turned up full blast. Sometime around the late 70s they had a major fire that closed the book store down and eventually Ole's, did reopen but would close sometime in the late 80s. Here's to you Ole's, I ate there and lived to tell about it.