Top Ten Of The Week-One Thousand Views

Don't know how we did it but this month has been the most viewed for this site ever.  Over 1,025 views and still counting.  Of course just under a half of those have been checking out the Rock & Roll & The Brains site. I pretty much have given up on trying to figure out why some blogs are more popular than others, one in the top five is pretty pointless but it keeps getting hits.  Basically the new blogs and top tens have been in the usual 10 to 15 views whereas RNR & The Brains will go over 450 views and might just make it to the 500 views before it's all said and done.  Is it worth reading?  Yep, Is it worth all those views?  Somebody does.

This month will go down as the most read ever here in Crabbland and I think everybody who put up a link or commented or checked things out.  I really don't know what to do for a encore.  I'm at that thought process that perhaps the top ten has done its job and it is time for me to retire but hell I say that every six months.  The halfway point of the year is next week and while there has been some decent new music out there, I have to also say that most of it sucks or isn't memorable.  No matter how much Bon Iver or the Fleet Foxes changed your lives, they haven't done much to mine.  The younger generation has their tunes, I have mine.

Interesting to see that Best Buy has knocked the price down on the Chickenfoot album to 49 cents and the white album 98 cents.  They also knocked the EPs of the Cars, Bad Company, 3 Doors Down, STP, Weezer and Counting Crows to 49 cents as well. The Chickenfoot album is worth the 49 cents should you consider making a purchase.

Rastro over at La Historia De La Musica Rock made some interesting points about the corporate radio and why it sucks.  http://lahistoriadelamusicarock.blogspot.com/2011/06/brain-damage-part-2.html

I think he did a much better job explaining it better than I could.  And to the readers out there born after 1985, radio before hand actually did play a wide variety of tunes before the Clear Channel buyouts and the Tele Comm Act of 1996 which killed off any attempt to the return of the days of the new and exciting.  AM radio of the late 60s had rock to pop to soul.  And the Rat Pack too.  Nowadays, you're just stuck with the one type of music.  Don't get me started on country.

 And this radio station is the ultimate pits.  http://www.kdat.com/  Anybody that plays Daniel Powter's pukeathon Bad Day is a shit station.  But every damn place around here has it on.  KDAT, today's home for the overplayed Crap.

The Songs Of The Week:
 
1.  You Can't Be True Dear-Mary Kaye Trio 1959   In my time of searching for things, I tend to buy 45's that are in decent shape, especially from the late 50s.  Mary Kaye was a pretty good guitar player who fronted a Las Vegas Band that borderlined on Louis Prima styled songs, but her band was a trio.  I don't think this is on album but not too bad for Las Vegas Lounge type rock and roll.  Norman Kaye the dude vocalist is her brother. Once upon a time in a collection of donated LPs, there was something called Jackpot! to which can be found in thrift stores or EBAY.  Had a goofy cover shot.  But I think one of our neighbors ended up taking it off my hands.  No big loss since it wasn't that great. http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnpurlia/5571331635/

2.  Never In My Life-Mountain 1970  How did me for following Mary Kaye Trio with a flat out rocker from Leslie West and Company?  Once upon a time when I moved to Arizona in 1986 the rock station used to play this on a regular basis.  But that was before Clear Channel bought it out and made it yet another generic classic rock station and this didn't make the 300 song cut.

3.  Ohio-Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young 1971  From the live 4 Way Street album to which I prefer this live ragged version over the more familiar studio recording.  I also remember finding a used album of this at the old Record Realm in C.R back in the late 70s and used to play the electric side more than I did the acoustic part.  Not the place to start if your looking for those CSNY harmonies that you love so much.

4.  Get Started-Queensryche 2011  Like Rush, these guys I didn't care much for till much later in their career and the album that won me over was the Hear In The Now Frontier album to which Toby Wright gave it a turd mix in a attempt to scuff up the sound.  Their albums still remain spotty for me, can't do the screaming years of the mid 80's but like the Empire and Promised Land efforts.  It's been said their new album is more of a return to the glory days (I'm guessing Empire) but it's not a concept album.  Actually I enjoy most of it.  Which probably means that the metal critics out there will think it will suck.  What do they know?  I like this better than say Black Country Communion.  But then again since I'm not into Bon Iver or Radiohead, my critics credentials have been taken away.  

5.  She's A Rocket-Mike Eldred Trio 2011  I haven't too impressed with the new music this year.  I guess it's so bad that the new Radiohead is selling for 6 dollars at Best Buy this week.  I think I have more fun hitting the dollar bins at the used book store to find new stuff.  Big find was the latest from California Blues Rocker Mike Eldred on a little known blues label and he does have that Stevie Ray/Jimmie Vaughn sound down pretty damn good.  Course it helps when he lands the rhythm section from The Blasters too.  Billy F Gibbons gives this guy high praise.  That's good enough for me although this does rock just as hard too.

6.  Born To Run-Emily Lou Harris 1982  In the mid 80s she managed to score a few hits on Country Radio although you wouldn't know that now since Country Radio don't play her too often and if they do, I wouldn't know it.  I do have the forty five to this top 30 hit, written by Paul Kennerly, one of the better C & W songwriters of the 80s, who managed to write songs for Emily Lou plus Dave Edmunds.

7.  Speed Kills-Ten Years After 1969  Dedicated to Ryan Dunne.  Taken from Stonedhedge perhaps my favorite 10 Years After album.  Or close to it.

8.  Burning Airlines Gives You So Much More-Eno 1974  With Rastro's comments on why classic rock radio doesn't play such folk as Nick Drake or Can or Brian Eno  it's because it's too oddball and too obscure for them to even consider that.  Not that I really listen much to Can nor Brian Eno although I do have five of his albums on my collection and finally got around to listen to Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy and perhaps it's true that Eno may have been silenced by Bryan Ferry during the Roxy Music years.  Anyway this song wouldn't give any airplay on the radio, Thought he was saying Virginia but in actually he's singing Vagina!

9.  Turn To Me-Lou Reed 1984  From New Sensations, perhaps Lou was trying to be more radio friendly.  After all he did give a minor hit with I Love You Suzanne but I decided on this little tongue in cheek number.  He would not be so warm and friendly after this effort.

10. Invisible Light-Scissor Sisters 2010  I'm surprised these guys haven't gotten bigger than they are.  Course they never did ever top their Tits On The Radio song from their first album but Night Work overall is their most listenable.  Flashes of Kraftwerk and Neu! can be heard in this album closer.  Which is why you don't hear it on the radio.  No commercial potential.