Top Ten Of The Week-Nobody Loves You

I thought maybe if I add something catching to the eye that I get more ratings to my top ten.  Hell it worked for Sick Of Summer Ready For Fall or My GF Thinks I Should Blog More Often (even if my digits fall off).  So if I got you to check this blog out, heh heh heh, it just a teaser to tell ya it's the latest edition of the Top Ten Of The Week.

It was five years this date that we had the infamous Iowa City tornado that rambled through Iowa City and took out Sweet Living Antiques, one of the stores that got me interested in collecting vinyl once again.  Closer to home, we had a tornado that ripped through the southern edge of US 151 which came down from the hill, crossed the Wapsipinicon River, tore down the barn and Veterinarian Place but the tornado spared the new Wal Mart uphill.  Tornados are a way of life here in the great state of Iowa, on Saturday, a EF3 tornado ripped part of Mapleton and left a trail of damage and flatten houses.  Down here where I was at, we didn't get any bad weather, it stayed away and on Sunday the front went through.  So we missed out on the storms, but there's always next week.

Smells like cowpie outside.  Farmers must be planting their crops.  Of course it doesn't help knowing that gas prices are once again high and ready to be the most we had to pay since 2008, no thanks to Obama and the oil barons out there.  It won't stop me from going someplace for National Record Store Day but when it takes 50 dollars to fill the car up, we won't be doing much of anything this year.

Record stores are getting few and far between.  I came to find out that almost two years ago that Cellophane Square closed up their Seattle store via the web.  10 years ago, I went out to Seattle on a blind date and ended up going to this place in the University District of Seattle and found that they had a huge Clarence bin of CD's five bucks or less and stocked up on some plus some piece of shit recording from Bliss 66. But for two bucks managed to get Head Candy's 1991 album on Link/Elektra and Titanic Love Affair  plus a few others. One record store across the street had the latest Verve Pipe for 2 bucks, I can't think of their name but I'm sure they're a thing of the past.  Just like Cellophane Square and Wherehouse Music and Tower.  Great times great memories of cd hunting up there. Everyday Music is around that area I gather but I remember them most from a Portland trip the year before.  I've heard the Everyday Music cd selection is very good but don't look for me to get up there anytime soon.  Just a slight problem of too high plane fares.

While putting together the Music Of My Years The 90s, I didn't realize how vast and wide open the music I was listening to really was, and even in my second attempt to add what was missed, I tended to overlook about 30 more albums.  I did leave some albums out; if they weren't mentioned I either wasn't interested or had them at the time.  In terms of REM, I did buy Monster and liked it the best but the rest were found in pawnshops later and perhaps I'll make an effort to add what was found in the next segment of MOMY.  In this day and age a lot of the  junk cds that I do see in the buck bins were from the 90's and there some great songs off crap albums, which was another why I didn't include some that you may have thought I omitted. Whatever the case may be, perhaps the 90s was the most versatile decade to all there was so much music out there to be discovered, only to have corporates like Cumulus and Clear Channel, with the blessings of the Telecomm Act of 1996 buy just about all of the stations and gave us the overplayed or crap formats from the likes of KDAT or Modern Rock or Alternative Rock.  I don't think there's been anything as Alt rock since 1993.  Perhaps the Telecomm Act of 1996 was actually the day the music died, but then again the Polygram buyout by Universal and Limp Bizkit didn't help things either.   And no, I still can't get myself to sit through Three Dollar Bill Y'all, which may have been the best  album title that Fred Durst came up. And Faith is actually somewhat funny itself, at least it gave George Michael enough royalty music for to him to hang out at the park in his restroom hijinx.

The Songs Of The Week:

1.  Hang Straight Up-I Love You 1991  They looked like hippies and the guy sounded like Eric Bloom of Blue Oyster Cult fame but their music a bit dark and funkier than BOC boys.  Jerry at Relics had a copy of this he was playing and I liked it fine but not to pay 8 bucks for it.  Found a cutout of it for 3 dollars at Camelot Music.  I Love You got good reviews but perhaps it was the name itself that people shied away from. No heavy metal person in their right mind would buy something from I Love You, they be thinking it must be a Air Supply spinoff eh?   Geffen Records sat on the album and most of the copies went to the cutouts but somebody liked them enough to give the go ahead for another album, All Of Us, which was produced by Chris Goss of Masters Of Reality fame.  That sold even less, hell I found a promo copy at BJ Records in 94.  There's a video to Hang Straight Up on You Tube but you have got to type in the whole song and whole band just to have it come up.  That was work upon itself.  Martin Popoff, noted metal review guru gave both albums high marks.  The band broke up in 95.  Any album afterward was not by them.

2.  The Stealer-Free 1970  This was the followup to All Right Now, and our radio station played it a lot. More so than the major stations I gather since it bombed.  It does sound like All Right Now Part 2 if you listen to the lyrics that Paul Rodgers wrote and sang but Andy Fraser adds more funky bass to Paul Kossoff's rocking guitar riffs.

3.  Hate Me-Saliva 2011  And rock and roll as we know it 40 years down the road.  These guys started out as Nu Metal Rap Heads but I noticed with each album they tended to show more rock in them than say Limp Bizkit or Korn but they tend to keep an eye on the modern rock radio better than say, Incubus.  No, this is not their cover of Blue October's crappy song but rather their own.  They'll never be critics darlings but at times I do enjoy their music to which Blood Stained Love Letter remains the go to album.  Still waiting for Universal to provide their own ICON best of in the near future.

4.  Orange Blossom Special-The Stanley Brothers 1955  Who dares goes from modern rock to classic bluegrass outside of me let them speak up or forever hold their embarrassment.  Next to Flatt & Scruggs, The Stanley Brothers redefined the high lonesome sound of Mountain Soul aka Bluegrass although this selection I came across via the cheap Pickwick Dueling Banjos album of 1973, remixed in fake stereo which actually sounds better than the mono recording.  But then again I'm probably deaf too. Mercury 70663 Catalog number, try to find it on 45 if you dare.

5.  It Must Be Hell-Rolling Stones 1983  Play some Rolling Stones my significant other says and I do but of course I had to pick a selection from the worst Stones album ever, Undercover.  An album so bad, it made the cutouts six months after release.  I still like the title track and this final number but everything else is a piece of poop turtles.  Keith Richard was so bankrupt for ideas that he recycled this riff from Soul Survivor (Exile On Main Street).  Hell I was to deaf back then that I actually gave this a B Plus. Upon further review, I was way off the mark and a change of batteries in my hearing aid helped too.

6.  Space Oddity-David Bowie 1973  Came out in 1969 on Mercury Records and sold squat till a change in labels and RCA reissued this in 73 and got better results.  Gus Dudgeon produced this and Paul Buckmaster did the arrangements, both would go on to help a certain English Diva find his mark in modern music.  Side note:  the Mercury single is going for triple digits on EBAY.  Side note 2:  The only time I ever seen any Bowie Mercury albums they were either on 8 track or cheap cassettes.  Can't recall seeing any vinyl though, if I did they were on the RCA label.  Even back then, the Mercury vinyl albums were fairly rare.

7.  Easy Evil-John Kay 1973  Later in the year, this was this minor hit from the former leader of Steppenwolf still struggling to make a name for himself in the country rock field. Written by Alan (Undercover Angel) O'Day who played keyboards on this song.  The highlight is the beat played backwards on tape, still sound pretty damn mysterious in this day and age.  I recorded this on on a cheap cassette player my dad brought for Mother on Christmas and I ended up using it more than she did.  Heard it on Beaker Street around 74.  For you Beaker Street fans, yes it's been two months since the last broadcast.  Sad to say that perhaps Clyde may not be coming back after all.  The ducks are not lining up in the pond at all.

8.  Long Haired Guys From England-Too Much Joy 1991  Smart assed pop punkers that got in trouble for performing 2 Live Crew As Nasty As They Wanna Be album in its entirety at some bar in Florida and got arrested for their trouble.  They made three enjoyable albums for Giant/WB in the early 90s and how this album managed not to the get the dreaded Parental Advisory sticker is beyond me.  They dropped a couple F bombs on this ode to Short hair US Guys losing out the the long haired UK freaks that the girls only wanted to (should I say it? why not) fuck long hair guys from England.  Until Oasis and Blur came around then it was short hair guys from England. Something to that effect.

9.  Sister Havana-Urge Overkill 1993  I was dating my high school sweetheart for a second time and like the first time we got together in 1989 it wasn't what it used to be.  Especially when she was a bartender at The Keg at that time and having guys coming on to her and of course some of them she did take up their offer. Well idiot me thought not once but twice of getting back together with her and both times came up a even more disappointed than before.  That's why they are called Ex.   And her music taste was strictly country and nothing else.  Imagine my surprise when we took a Thanksgiving trip to her relatives that I got zero sleep due to somebody snoring and farting up a storm (not me for a change) so I played The Flying Burrito Brothers and she called it church music?!?   And she didn't like the new Nirvana nor Smashing Pumpkins either, so I threw this on and the second side of the cassette starting out with Crack Babies to which she covered her ears and said WTF is this noise?!?  I told her she can damn well walk back from Bennett to Marion for all I cared.  The sorry assed second attempt of reunion of us ended not too long but I look at Urge Overkill with extreme fondness and even a song I didn't care much for (Crack Babies) became a favorite by default.  However Sister Havana was the alt rock hit and it turned out to be their big shining moment.  The next album Exit The Dragon I didn't care much about.  As for me and the ex, she did marry somebody else and surprise they are still together although my brother has to put up with her when she gets her car fixed.  Took me and her 11 years to finally be on civil terms.

10.  Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights) Pat Travers Band 1979  We go with the live version.  Tuesday PT turned 57 years old and still rocks like he's 27.  He recorded for Polydor and Go For What You Know Live was his biggest selling album although Crash And Burn also went gold.   I got to see PT live at Dillons in 1990 and he had a great band with Mars Cowlings on bass and Jerry Riggs on guitar, my favorite lineup of his bands.  Got to shake his hand when he came off stage along with Riggs and Cowlings too.  Only the drummer declined to interact.  I think he left the band soon after.  Anyway, PT does have a Facebook page and he does interact with fans from time to time.  He still hangs in Florida but he did make a weekend trip to play some shows up around Lake Dundee Illinois and Minneapolis.  Of course the l979 recording features Pat Thrall and Tommy Aldridge with Mars too.  We love ya PT.

To the spammer who throws spam Anonymously the title is dedicated to you.  Nobody loves you.