Top Ten Of The Week-Racing With The Full Moon

After a week of hearing Walter Egan's song, I decided I had enough and renamed the blog to a different name.  Here's finally hoping I don't have to hear that fucking earworm song again till I play it when I want to hear it.  Enuff said.

I like this time of month when there's no rain, the skies are clear blue and when the sun sits the moon rises from the south east.  It's perfect when I can open up the curtains and see the moon from my desk and keyboard. We haven't had the big rains of the year, it has stayed very cool most of the spring.  I guess you can call me the moon child since I was born in the night, in a blizzard but certain under the full moon cycle.

With winter gone I can now say that this winter I didn't get sick with a sore throat or hacking cough, first time that's happen in years and no I didn't get a flu shot.  If I get a bit of a sore throat I took about 4 Vitamin C pills and Night Quill.  Somehow that got me through a long and cold winter.  But this springtime was the latest I have seen the Tulips pop up, most didn't start budding till last week of April.  Even the leaves didn't sprouting on trees till this weekend.  Supposed to have more frost tonight but that's okay by me.  The nice weather should last till the weekend when we'll get another stalled front and have rain for the next week.  Hope it don't happen.  But for now I'll enjoy the Moon making its way across my window pane for the next hour.

It was 32 years ago that I graduated from high school, which meant I was finishing up my freshman year.  I hated high school, too many bullies, too many fights and too many stuck up floozies. I still have hatred for the class bully which shall remain nameless.  I feel sorry for the people who get bullied upon.  Couldn't go anywhere without Mr. Greg  and his buddies throwing tomatoes at me and then taking an air gun another time.  Should have reported the bastard to the higher ups but I know nothing would have gotten done.  If I had the same frame of mind I do now, it would be his funeral or me giving him a good kick in the nutz so he wouldn't never breed again. But that's history and we'll never have to deal with him again. But I'm sure if we ever met again, he would be fearing me.  The problem with being a freshman in high school and the bully a couple grades higher.  High school years were the worst although junior high wasn't worth a shit either.

Still watching the moon slide ever so slowly past the trees and thinking of moon songs, The Moonbeam Song from Nilsson, Off Broadway usa Full Moon Turn My Head Around, and of course Water Egan's Full Moon Fire. Or Moon Child by King Crimson although it goes on too long.  Which reminds me that Robert Fripp turned 65 on Monday and Bill Bruford turned 62.  Roger Earl turned 65 too.  All our classic rockers are hitting the golden age, the retirement years, The Medicare Years.  I doubt if I'll see that, by then the damn country will be bankrupt and we'll be out in the street.  I told my GF that she'll be my caretaker one of these days.  She seems to be looking forward to that.  I begin to dream more about moon songs, Bad Side Of The Moon by Elton John, Moon Shadow from Cat Stevens,  still watching the moon as it now goes behind the crabapple tree.  And realizing I'd better get back to my music news and views and top ten of the week.

If everyday could be this nice.

I was reading Bob Lefsetz  giving praise to part of the new Stevie Nicks album and I agree with him that the album a bit too long with too many songs, but had she paired it down to 8 or 9, it would have been her best ever.  But then again in this day and age, the concept of the album is much different than it was 10 or 20 years ago.  Which is why I haven't recorded much new music for my band.  It's a whole new ballgame out there but it's also for the younger folk.   Speaking of which, the son I have never had Diggy Kat's birthday is this Saturday.  Happy Birthday Son! ha ha ha ha ha ha

If anybody cares, Hollywood Records will reissue Queen's album in expanded 2 CD form.  Really that's for hardcore fans only.  I don't indulge of the buying each and every album all over again although I did enough of that for the Derek and the Dominoes Layla album and Love's Forever Changes, although the latter only cost me 5 bucks.  The major labels would rather reissue things in expanded edition over and over but will not promote and groom the new artists out there.  I bought the Queen albums when they were found in the used bins and remain happy with those, as well as the Universal reissued Thin Lizzy albums.   For all this shit, I'd rather much have 20 years back of this life to relisten to everything out there again.  You can always get more money or more stuff but you can't buy time back.  And my time is limited, as well as yours.

The Top Ten Of The Week.

1.  Howling At The Moon (Sha la la)-Ramones 1984  Holdovers from last week, I chose this minor hit from their 1984 Too Tough To Die which this song was produced by Dave Stewart who did the new Stevie Nicks project as well.  I'm thinking KRNA did play this late night.

2.  Sleepwalking-Golden Earring 1976  Forever blessed (and cursed) by Radar Love and The Twilight Zone, Golden Earring never made much impact on the radio here although MCA continue to put out their albums in the 70's.  Released as a single but never heard this anywhere.  In my first trip ever to Arizona, some forgotten record store had this on 45 that I bought.  I'm guessing the reason why it didn't sell was that it sounded a bit too much like Radar Love.

3.  Hanging By A Moment-Lifehouse 2000 Time has gone by so freaking fast that it's hard for me to believe that this came out 11 years ago!  The price we pay for spending most of our waking hours on the net I guess. This CD always seems to find its way back to my CD collection, got rid of it twice before and here it is again. I think this is probably their best single.  One of the early artists signed to Dreamworks then moved over to Geffen/Interscope after Dreamworks folded.

4.  Who Shot Sam-Roger Miller 1960  Written by George Jones but I'm more familiar with this version by the late great Roger Miller.  Has a nice rocking honky tonk piano and wouldn't been out of place on a Dave Edmunds/Rockpile song had Dave known about this.  My dad has a copy of 25 all time great country hits, which was a mail order album and I played this song a lot.  The folks at Starday have reissued this song on various Roger Miller cheapo compilations a few times.  Fun stuff, although the one LP I got, The Amazing Roger Miller has 10 songs and a running time of barely 20 minutes.

5.  Sad Song-The Cars 2011  New Cars?!?  Alrighty then.  Move Like This is very good although Ben Orr is sadly missed, the guys used his bass guitar on the song so Orr was there in a way.  I didn't pay much attention to them after Shake It Up, I wasn't a big fan of Heartbeat City and Door To Door but I did buy Ric Ocasek's solo stuff and Ben Orr's The Lace, to which I still have the vinyl copy.  Although Greg Hawkes has played on some of Ric's solo albums, this is the first time the original living guys got together since Door To Door.

6.  Shadow Boy-Scruffy The Cat 1987  I miss the days of Alternative rock of the late 80s and Scruffy The Cat was highly touted although my favorite song of theirs Happiness To Go never appeared on a CD but on two EPs to which my friend Bruce had on Cassette and he wouldn't tell me who or what the album was but I eventually figured the songs out and found them on album.  Moons Of Jupiter is highly thought of but I like Tiny Days a bit more, it's not as polished and more fun. Charlie Chesterman went on to a cult solo career in the 90s.  If he's still playing I'm sure he'll leave something in the comments for y'all to read.  It may happen, after all Bob Wiseman stopped by to let us know he's still alive.

7.  The Changeling-The Doors 1971  I was never so broke that I had to leave town, I just moved back home for a few! Ray Manserek's keyboard work I dig on this a lot.

8.  How Long Must You Keep Me A Secret-Leroy Van Dyke 1962  More honky tonk from Leroy as he tried to follow up his monster 1961 hit Walk On By and basically the same song with a different set of lyrics.  Did fairly well on the country charts.  Actually heard this one day at Cracker Barrel which kinda surprised me. Side note: found this on a scratchy 45 that I brought for my dad at a church sale along with the infamous and harder to find One Beer by Chuck Murphy.  Side Note Two: Barry Mann famed songwriter of Who Put The Bomp and You Lost That Loving Feeling co-wrote this.

9.  Black Sheep-Saliva 2007  Nu Metal heads that I didn't care much for at the time.  Basically rap nu metal does nothing for me but I liked their Blood Stained Love Letter enough to buy the album and play it from time to time and followed them ever since.  I guess it's better than Hinder.

10.  Spanish Moon-Arc Angels 1992  This should have been a classic.  Little Steven produced it, Tonio K co wrote some songs with Charlie Beat So Lonely Sexton and Doyle Bramhall II making a great team.  And of course Double Trouble, it proved that there could be life after Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Bramhall ended up getting into drugs, Charlie Sexton started jamming in Bob Dylan's band and Double Trouble moved on to David Grissom and Storyville.  Yeah the album goes on forever but for that hour there's not a wasted jam on this album.  Children this is rock and roll.  Too bad you missed out.

And as the moon disappears into the night, so does me.

Reference:
http://www.globaldogproductions.info/m/mercury-72000-series.html