Crabb Bits: Borders Dubuque, Amy Winehouse, Storms, Boston

Some people are a ticking time bomb to die.  Mr. Cobain was one, Layne Staley another and now Amy Winehouse who was found dead at her flat under the suspicion that she overdosed on drugs.  Guess Rehab didn't work for her and she meant that in her song.  I didn't much get into her music but thought she had talent but always was on the wrong side of things be it love or substance abuse. While some people will look at her as one of the best singers in this era, I look at her at the same way I do Cobain, Joplin, Hendrix, great talent wasted by what could have been.  No need to say anything else except...drugs are bad.  mmmmK? 

You can always tell when The Great Jones County Fair comes around for the third year in a row another big windstorm came and did some damage to the area. I think last night Lady Antebellum rocked the place down and the damn hurricane that blew though just about tore it down.  Power went out here at 9:25 and didn't come back on till 12:25, another three hours of being in the dark for my brother.  These fucking power outages are playing havoc with my computer to which I left on thinking we went going to get a GD monsoon but when we have stalled fronts every fucking month I should expect this shit.  I don't expect 90 degree temps today since it still raining at noon but perhaps it will be winding down when I head up to Dubuque to see if the vultures left anything for me to buy at Borders.  More about that later on a followup.  Stay tuned.

Needless to say The Borders In Dubuque was somewhat picked clean despite only having their sale starting from yesterday but still I found a couple of Sly & The Family Stone CDs and Weather Report's first album for 20 percent off.  Also picked up a Dave Brubeck Best Of and thought it was cheap till Moondog had it at the same price.  Still, with Borders closing they did have the new Gillian Welch CD but decided I'd wait on that for a while longer.  Yes it was Saturday and Borders was packed with plenty of bargain vultures picking up bargains left and right.  But I have to say that I will miss Borders simply of the fact that it was on the way to the other music stores in Dubuque on JF Kennedy Drive.  After all the West end of DBQ seems to be where I hang out.

Got a kick out from the dude at CD's 4 Change as he informed me that Primus was coming to Madison soon and a couple other places and he was celebrating that and the new Primus by playing some of their old stuff.  I remember seeing Primus opening up for Rush during the Counterparts tour and even though most fans didn't get Les and company, I thought they were exciting.  He must have been a newbie, never seen him before.  Guess his GF called him up from Best Buy and they got into something that he tried to explain.  And then rented some Chinese food and off to Moondog Records to pick up the latest Hot Tuna and the Starcastle LP that I didn't have.  A fun but somber day with Borders closing but the logical thinking that some new bookstore will take over Borders by the end of the year.  The coffeehouse closed down before the fire sale so the smell of hot coffee was missed.  Contrary to rumor there's no Barnes & Noble up there....

One thing about Collector's Choice Music is that I never had any problem with them sending things out, in fact they sent me 2 of the four cds that I ordered, alas the ones they didn't send out were the ones that were on sale for 5.98.  I have hope they will fulfilled the rest of the deal otherwise send a refund.  The logical guess remains that anything on CCM Records will be a thing of the past.  Perhaps I may have waited too long to get the six dollar bargains and should have ordered up once I got the catalog and not three weeks later. My bad. However, CC Music if you want the latest, they seem to have it, it's usually the sale priced stuff that they tend to not have about 50 percent of the time. 

Yes FM radio sucks and basically Drew was right that the great advertisers are the ones being blamed for the continuing overkill of the classics we all grew up with.  Funny, I turn the channel when Hotel California comes on, or Sweet Home Anamosa (pun), or Black Dog but although they sound stale and overplayed on the radio, on my cd player they sound better.  Am I so used to hearing so much from my collection that my tolerance of what's on the radio is hairline at best?  I can take Hungry Like The Wolf once every other month but not every fucking day as KOKZ does.  Basically the bottom line is that money talks and bullshit walks and people with better taste in music has their own MP3 or CD player to escape the overplayed classics, no matter how much you might like Purple Haze or Crazy On You, it's Chinese Water Torture for the open minded, while comfort tunes for the less inclined.   For a different viewpoint, my music chat bro TAD has this take on this http://tadsbackupplan.blogspot.com/2011/07/wanted-alternative-playlists.html

Curtis from the Curtis Collects Vinyl Blogspot made a comment that Boston Third Stage should have been the end of Boston as we knew it but if you really think about it and read the notes to remastered first two Boston albums that basically it was the Tom and Brad show. and that the first Boston album might be the ultimate Basement Band album ever since Tom pretty much did most of the work and Barry and Sib contributing some guitar bits here and there although Let Me Take You Home Tonight might be the only Boston recording featuring everybody including Fran the forgotten bass player.  Yes, Tom Scholtz does have a bit of ego, since he invented the Rockman Amp and was a great inventor of things.  Recording albums every seven years didn't help him all that much and when Brad Delp got too bored he would hook up with Barry Gourdeau and made the half good half bad RTZ.  You can make a argument that Walk On isn't vintage Boston due to Brad not being on that (Fran Cosmo, another Barry Gourdeau music buddy who played on Orion The Hunter is on Walk On) but perhaps it turned out to be the Tom's music hobby and only toured when cattle plodded.  Too bad I didn't get to see Boston when they played Jones County Fair about five years ago.  The first two Boston albums made nice royalties checks which enabled Tom to fool around on the seven year plan of making albums.  And being a Boston Band fan, I still like the first two (despite classic rock radio overplaying them), found that Third Stage that Tom was trying too hard to make a big statement and failing (Cool The Engines rocks though) and never paid much attention to Walk On although Corporate America I liked fine, even the female singer on the folkish track.  The 2nd edition Boston Greatest Hits was a bit better but not enough for me to trade the first copy in (although Epic/Sony finally did away with Living For You).  And Brad Delp can never be replaced as lead singer although Tom tired the dude from Stryper and it wasn't the same thing at all.   For one of rock's greatest vocalists, Delp remained a big mystery and although I don't recall a solo Delp album, he did showed up on Barry Gordeau's albums and band projects.  Kinda of a shame that Tom Scholtz didn't offer more band involvement on the Epic albums outside of Brad.  Barry's 1980 Portrait album I actually thought was Boston album.  And I still like the first three songs from RTZ Return To Zero before they deteriorated into 3rd rate Foreigner or 4th rate Bad English.  Nevertheless while Tom continues to work on the next Boston project, we all know that once Brad Delp silenced himself that it cannot be the Boston that I know and love but all along Boston has always been more Tom's project than anybody elses.  Even though Boston didn't sound like anybody else, hard to believe or imagine that most of what you hear came from the basement of Tom Scholtz which is remarkable considering there was no pro tools or cheap 4 tracks back in those days and those consoles and mixing boards may have cost a few bucks for Tom, he did reap the rewards of big record sales and invested accordingly that he really doesn't need a real job anymore.  But he's still inventing, in one way or another.....