Top Ten Of The Week-More Than I Can Stand

The Top Ten Of The Week:

1.  Love Is What You Make It-The Grassroots 1973  As I started this blog, I heard that Rob Grill, the vocalist of this band died from a stroke at age 67.   Sunday, we lost Mike Burston aka Wurzel who was part of Motorhead in the late 80's and early 90s from a heart ailment at age 61.   And of course last week, my good friend Dennis Pusiteri from a sudden illness at 53.  Gawd we are losing too many good people while assholes like Newt Gingrich, Sarah The Screech Palin continue to breathe.  Everybody dies eventually but still....Rob Grill's passing won't make much of a dent in the music publications since he was part of the early rock and roll years and nobody really cares about the surviving bands that are playing at your local casino or county fair.  Anyway, The Grassroots made great singles but mostly forgettable albums.  I thought their 45s got better and bought this song when it came out but it got no higher than number 55 on the Billboard charts of 1973 (although here it placed on the KCRG Super 30 chart).  Never did see the album it was on (Alotta Mileage) till I came across it at Dubuque's Moondog Music a couple years ago and finally bought it.  And it's nothing to write home about.  By then, ABC Records dropped them and Rob Grill and company moved on to Dennis Lambert/Brian Potter's Haven/Capitol for the excellent Mamacita which stalled at a disappointing number 71. A return to MCA didn't do much either.  Still I have to thank our radio station for continuing to support the Grassroots with Love Is What You Make It and followup Where There's Smoke There's Fire. And RIP Mr. Grill.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw89aMdLKR0

2.  FM (No Static At All)-Steely Dan 1978  Great song from the crappy 1978 movie, I got to see the movie once and it hasn't held up every well.  MCA put together a K Tel like soundtrack with some stuff from the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Billy Joel, and James (Your Smiling Face) Taylor.  As well as Dan Fogelberg's There's A Place In This World For A Gambler.  Steely Dan never bothered to put this on record but rather on a 2 LP Greatest Hits which has been replaced a few times over.  Side note: I did buy the 2 Record FM Soundtrack for 3 bucks at Target in 1979 thereabouts just to be cool.

3.  My Sunday Feeling-Jethro Tull 1968  Perhaps the most blues sounding album that Ian Anderson ever made but then again Mick Abrahams was more blues than Ian really wanted.  So Mick left to form Blodwyn Pig and Martin Barre joined up and Tull went for a more prog folk feel.  Ignore the haphazard three star rating all music guide gave This Was Jethro Tull, it's a four star album in my estimation.

4.  Maxine-Mike Rutherford 1982  Where Phil Collins got all the hits and credo, Mike quietly put out a solo record called Acting Very Strange which had Stewart Copeland from The Police playing drums although it sounds more like a uncredited Phil Collins but then again that might be from the dazzling recording technique of Nick Launay who later would become a highly sought after producer.  Atlantic released this as a single to which didn't get any airplay, nor did the followup Halfway There.  Mike would have better success with Paul Carrack and Paul Young from Sad Cafe doing the vocals on Mike and the Mechanics albums.  Maxine remains a guilty pleasure.

5.  For A Girl-Mike Eldred Trio 2011 If radio was like it was 30 years ago, KRNA would be playing it.  Actually I thought Greg Allman was doing the vocals on this song till I found out that wasn't so.  Features the rhythm section from The Blasters.  Which always helps.

Ya bored?  Read this then! http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/07/11/quotes-or-lack-thereof/

6.  Put Some Hurt In You-The Boss Martians 2002  From The Coolest Songs In The World Volume 1.  Little Steven's Underground Garage is still the best thing going on radio although none of our lame assed radio stations has it on here. In 2007 Little Steven struck up a deal with Best Buy to put out some compilations of the lesser known garage rocks out there along with some known and at times he stuck it great with bands like Len Price 3 and the Stablilizers whose garage punk made it fun to buy music again but The Coolest Songs In The World Series was even more fun, but Little Steven never topped Volume 1 in terms of garage rock coolness and I don't know much about The Boss Martains except I thought I was playing The Mooney Suzuki instead.  After a couple years, Little Steven took his Wicked Cool acts and comps to FYE inc for another year but hasn't put anything new lately since the last Len Price 3.  Of course, moving to those crappy Digipaks didn't help either.

7.  She's Got The Mojo And Say So-The Blue Band 1993  A silly little tune from Bob Dorr and company although Jeff (JR) Petersen wrote this.  The Blue Band has been around for over 30 years and although they got more well known players into the fold (Turk E Krause, Billy Lee Janey and his son), the lineup that did the album Love's Sweet Poison had Ellery Temple and Dan Magarrell plus Bryce Loshman on drums.  Better seen live than on album but Mojo & The Say So is more fun than Elvis In Paraguay or Get Your Shit Together (what the funk is matter with choo?).  Old story; got to meet Ellery Temple at Rock n Bach on Ellis Blvd years ago and the guy compliment me on buying Canned Heat's Future Blues.

8.  Hit Single-Joe Jackson 1991  Still remains as true today as when he wrote it back then.  Only problem was it wasn't a hit single for Joe Jackson.  In fact, it bombed.

9.  Growing Up (won't bring us down) The Maine 2010  I know y'all don't care much for the new music out there. When your on a major label they steer you into pop land with hopes of scoring that elusive hit single that Joe Jackson didn't get in 91.  On the day that I found out about my good friend's passing via a surprise read in the online obit section, I took the rest of the night off and pretty much took the long way home and played this song which isn't about death but rather growing up and hanging at the beach from this band out in the great desert of Tempe.  But in the end, like a photograph or a memory of a good friend, gives us something to hang on to.

10.  Small Price-The Angels From Angel City 1984  They should have been just as big as AC/DC but Doc Neeson was more geared toward the dark and murky side of life rather than rock and roll ain't noise pollution hell's bells of Back in Black.  Angel City (The Angels in the land down under) like AC/DC was part of Albert Production Records and then signed on to CBS/Epic to which they had a hit with Marseilles and Face To Face (US Version) turned out to be a best of the Aussie albums but with John Boylan giving it a more clearer mix.  Darkroom the followup, was even better but CBS never promoted it and after the failure of Night Attack, The Angels moved over to MCA Records with the dark masterpiece Two Minute Warning, with a new drummer and a much harder rock sound.  Like Epic, MCA never promoted it and the Angels went back down into the underground, and except for a half an half with Chrysalis, never scored in the US again.  The US loss.  1991, Metal Blade managed to convince Warner Brothers to license the MCA album and Two Minute Warning came out on CD for about two weeks.  Thankfully you won't have to pay 50 bucks for a used CD, you can always find them a bit cheaper via Australia imports.  You can still find the MCA album in the dollar bins at your local clueless record store if they're not paying attention.  And chances are, they usually don't.