Top Ten Of The Week-New Same Old

For a audiophile like myself I have become to be resigned to the fact that we're not going to get any big special reissues anymore.  There comes a time in life that you reach a certain point and that saturation of the the same old becomes obvious that you pretty much have it all from the music and stars of yesterday.  There might be some scrapings from the bottom of the barrel that will make you fork over $$$ to get that one unreleased demo but for the most part, it's all rehash.  Case in point: The Jimi Hendrix re re issues that Sony Music has been touting.  South Station Delta next month?  Hell, I got that on MCA Vinyl from my best friend.  I can't get excited over that.  If the Hendrix estate wanted to really wow us how bout reissuing the missing Reprise albums that got replaced by these Experience Hendrix Reissues?   They may have been flawed; they may have been a money grab back then but at least they were not re reissued like everything I've seen from their partnership with Sony Music.  Except for Valleys Of Neptune and West Coast Seattle Boy.

If you have noticed about Universal's ICON series which is actually replacing the 20th Century Masters Collection as bare bones best of which means that you get practically the same overplayed hits with a replacement of one lesser known numbers therefore it doesn't do me any good getting the Buddy Holly Icon, nor Rush Icon nor Lynyrd Skynyrd Icon but sometimes they will add a new band to all this.  Case in point we finally get a true reissue of War's Greatest Hits as War Icon including Spill The Wine or Bloodhound Gang's Show Us Your Hits or Puddle Of Mudd Icon (quit laughing).  Next up is Local H Icon to which should be interesting since they only recorded four albums proper for Island.   Used to be greatest hits packages gave you a very good song sample of major hits and cool cuts (Best Of The Doobies come to mind, even Lynyrd Skynyrd Gold & Platinum) but most of the greatest hits packages are overdone and I'm sure The Doors have more best ofs than actual albums when Jim Morrison was alive.

The music news of today is lame.  Usually it's the same old same old, Steven Alder ex GnR drummer and full time drug addict back in rehab for the 27th time calling attention upon himself once again.  The poor victim of drugs and booze, never mind he got thrown out of GnR for not keeping a beat.  Really we don't care, we don't care about Adler's Appatite or his GnR tribute band, perhaps the dude will OD' from too many drugs or get cirrhosis from too many Four Loko and Jack Daniels or ink poisoning from too many tattoos.  May have looked sexy back in 1988 but 20 plus years later it makes you look much older than you are.  Either sober up or fuck off Adler we have too many other things on the plate to worry about.

You may not care about this either but it sounds like The Darkness might be regrouping again.  You remember them don't ya?  They were a fun over the top band from the UK with loud guitars and Justin Hawkins falsetto that reminded one of Queen, or Spinal Tap, either way they made two Atlantic albums you can find in the dollar bins and they are still pretty good.  I always thought that their PG version of Permission To Land was great fun, more fun than the PA version.  But then again they ended up being on Atlantic Records which didn't know how to promote them.  Atlantic 2003 is a far cry from the Atlantic of the classic rock years and after two albums they imploded.  But they might be back for world domination, or at your local county fair this summer.

New forthcoming releases from the likes of a reformed Face To Face (Century Media on May 17) and the 3rd from Black Stone Cherry to which they switch from Bob Marlette to Howard Benson.  That comes out on the 31st of May.

And Johnny Preston passed away at age 71.  He had a big hit with JP Richardson's Running Bear for Mercury in the late 50s.  In fact Richardson (aka Big Bopper) arranged it and did the woops and hollers in the background.  Late note:  JP Richardson finally became the third and final member of the infamous plane crash in Clear Lake to make it to the Iowa RnR HoF last year.

This week's Top Ten of noteworthy.

1.  California (Hustle & Flow) Social Distortion 2011  Mike Ness and Social D you know your going to get three chord hard edge rock and roll with a punk edge.  And though I have a love/hate affair with some of his albums the new one Hard Times & Nursery Rhymes is a keeper and if you buy the vinyl you get two bonus tracks and a CD of the album.  This track he finally gets to sound like the Rolling Stones (or Black Crowes if you add the soul chick singers) and actually does it better than The Stones (latter day kiddies).  If there was still a thing called AOR radio this would be getting plenty plays.

2.  MacDougal  Blues-Kevn Kinney 1990  Suggested by Brooksie over the weekend and it got me to thinking about playing this album on her suggestion.  Kinney, the longtime dude behind Drivin' n Cryin actually recorded this as a solo artist although the DnC boys did provide minimal backup support on this Island album. Somewhat a folk rock album 30 years removed from the folk scene to which I'm sure Kevn was a toddler and too young to get there.  Produced by Peter Buck of REM fame, the album didn't sell very well but those who heard it recommended it.  Found it on vinyl for a dollar than of course found the CD soon afterward.  Kinney would try to repeat the performance on his 1994 Mammoth Down Out Law CD but with little success.

3.  Soon-My Bloody Valentine 1990  If you think time hasn't passed you by figure this, Loveless came out 20 years ago and even though folk say it's a noisy classic, I think it's a noisy mess most of the time.  Nevertheless MBV should be inducted into the RnR Hall of fame just for the inclusion of this song, which might be the best song that ever came out of the 90s.  After Loveless, the followup is still being worked on.  So they say.

4.  Beatles & Stones-Beady Eye 2011  You have to admit Liam Gallagher knows his Beatles and how to sound like them.  Although I'm sure it's wishful thinking to think this will have lasting power as The Beatles and Stones but I do like this song and the album fine myself.  Question remains when Oasis will get back together again.  And there's always a next time when both parties are still alive.

5.  Foolish Questions-Johnny Cash 1966  From the 2011 Bootleg 2 Memphis To Hollywood CD.  The first cd is historical for his 1955 radio broadcast of his show and the demos of his Sun hits okay but to me the second side is better of him having a full band and the Man In Black always had a sense of humor such as this 1966 outtake which predates Bill Engvall Here's You Sign, or Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.

6.  She Don't Love Nobody-Chris Hillman & Desert Rose Band 1988  What ever success that eluded him during The Flying Burrito Brothers, country music made up for it in the late 80's when Hillman and Herb Petersen formed Desert Rose Band and recorded a few top ten hits for Curb Records.  This was a number three hit for them, written by John Hiatt who wrote many great songs back then.  Secret weapon was John Jorgensen on guitar who could play with the best of them.  Nick Lowe also does a killer version of said song.

7.  I Got Five Dollars And It's Saturday Night-George Jones & Gene Pitney 1965  One of the strangest pairings in country music this did hit number 15 on the CW charts.  Back then Pappy Dailey would pair George up with just about everybody for duets.  In fact I found a Musicor compliation of duets to which it was Gene Pitney and George teaming up with Melba Montgomery on some duets.  However this was taken off a cut out cd for Time Life called 40 Years Of Duets with George Jones and for the most part most of the fun stuff was in the 50s and 60s when George was dueting with Gene or Melba Montgomery or others.  However the best duets were with Tammy Wynette to which four songs were picked from.  Jones didn't do much rock and roll and this was as close as he would come, till a wild 1980 duet with Johnny Paycheck on Maybellene.

8.  Woman-Free 1969  More to than just All Right Now, Three Dog Night actually covered two songs of Paul Rodgers and Andy Fraser for their albums, I'll Be Creepin was on Naturally and this song was off Golden Bisquits and It Ain't Easy.  Why do i know this?  I'm a big Three Dog Night fan and they did choice covers from the Island Records roster.  Spooky Tooth comes to mind as well.  However this song is a little more slowed down and more funky than 3 Dog Night.  Basically I found Free to make very spotty albums (Heartbreaker remains my Go To when I want to hear Free) and half the time they're farting around but when they get their act together such as on Woman they do earn their Rock n Roll Stripes.

9.  Young Man's Blues-Elton John 1973  B side to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road one of the fun things about EJ in the 70s is that on his singles he would add a B side not available on the album and this actually came from the 8 track only Lady Samantha album that DJM put out around the mid 70s to which I used to have a copy but it died.  Since the invention of the CD that album actually got reissued in the early 90s to which I got as a import and paid about 20 buck for it new.  Later Island Records remastered the classic Elton John albums they did put bonus track that were B sides to the 45s that time.  Fun fact:  Norman "Hurricane" Smith, the legendary producer who had a hit with Oh Babe What Would You Say plays sax on Young Man's Blues.  Not the real title, MCA fearing backlash retitled it Young Man's Blues.  Actual song title: Screw You.  A fun song to request on the juke box when there was a juke box at the old eatery I used to hang out in Marion in the mid 70s.

10.  The Journey-Mott The Hoople 1972  Finally, our last offering of the week comes from the Brain Capers album, the final album that Ian Hunter and company recorded for Island in the early 70s (released on Atlantic in the US on a license deal).  If you get the reissue of the Angel Air Brain Capers you'll get to read that when they did Brain Capers, Guy Stevens got the guys all drunk and recorded the album on an 8 hour blur to which Dale Griffin aka Buffin actually passed out on the drums on one track, which wasn't this.  However in the archives they swear there's a much better version that never got released proper and it might have been lost forever, who knows?  It starts out mellow and then breaks up into a rockin bridge before returning to the mellow part of the song.  In fact it could have been the best Mott song ever, if Guy Stevens would have done more than one take of this song.  So in the end, around the 8 minute mark they return to the rocking bridge of the stop and start of Mick Ralph's guitar and the Verden Allen's keyboard cranked all the way to ten.  Part 2 of The Journey is retitled The Wheel Of The Quivering Meat Conception to which The Journey ends up being a trainwreck and the band smashing up guitars and amps or sounding like that before everybody passes out in a drunken stupor.  Thus ending their Island/Atlantic years.  However a few months later, David Bowie would come to their rescue, give them a song entitled All The Young Dudes and finally making that classic album that would finally give them some recognition.  But you know, I think I enjoy their sloppy drunk Brain Capers and the rest of their Island/Atlantic output just as much if not better.  And so did a few other fans. Atlantic did have their first album in print most of the time and did reissue all four of the Island albums on CD in the 90s.  Still remains in print as imports and worth seeking out.