Today's big news was Jani Lane, best known for his work in Warrant, one of the many hair metal bands of the late 80s was found dead in his hotel room the other night. He was 47. If anything Warrant is best known for Cherry Pie, which includes Bobbie Brown, the floozie blond in the video and it's good camp fun although the song reminds me of third rate Def Leppard and their shout along song such as Pour Some Sugar On Me. Greg Warren, the Vinyl King felt a sense of loss in his passing, myself not so much since I wasn't a Warrant fan, in fact the only song I liked was Down Boys. Most of the time Lane was featured in the Sleeze Rox site, mostly tabloid talk but usually the you don't want to make the news the hard way, being reported that you died in a motel room. Guess the demon alcohol got to him and Lane's liver gave it up. In the end Lane was still recording and playing live. I think I more identify with Don Chandler, the old GB Packer kicker who passed away at age 76 from cancer more than Jani Lane, or Amy Winehouse for that matter.
Davenport, like Madison and any other place I have gone to, has proven one thing to me and judging by the lack of decent used cds at Co-Op Records, that the CD era is now over and fading into the past. We can't go wrong with Captain Beefheart's Spotlight Kid with Clear Spot as a 2 on 1 cd but the only used CD that I did find was the Magic Lanterns Retrospective CD (you can't call it a greatest hits since they only had one with Shame Shame) but the great mystery remains if The Mike 'Oz' Osbourne is the same Ozzy that is known and loved in Black Sabbath and his solo career. If you take a good long look at the photo one of them does look like Ozzy. However for more fun and giggles, the Black Sabbath album notes that the songs written by John Osbourne Even if Mark Marymont, the dude who wrote the liner notes for Collectibles Record would try to convince you Ozzy played in the Lanterns history has shown that I've never seen John Michael Osbourne ever pick up a bass guitar in Sabbath or the Ozzy Band. If anything, the best known fact of the first period Magic Lanterns band was a couple of their Atlantic sides arranged by John Paul Jones. Or that Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood would join the second edition of The Magic Lanterns and recorded a bunch of failed singles for Big Tree and did managed to get one of their songs played on WLS in 1971 with Country Woman a single that Aunt Cindy considered buying but never did. The Magic Lanterns broke up soon after and Hammond would go on to a solo career and MOR songwriter. We all knew what happened to John Michael but whatever happened to Mike the Oz?
The more I go to the FYE in Moline the more I miss the old one that was in Coral Ridge. I wonder how FYE stays in business with their cd prices so damn high, what you see there for 13 bucks, you can get for 5 at Best Buy or less at a used Amazon CD sale. Ended up getting a a DVD of Storefront Hitchcock, the 1996 movie of Robyn Hitchcock but passed on a Chris Montez Best Of that came out on Sandstone and would have paid for my gas money getting back home rather than the Sneakers CD that what I thought I could sell is only getting two bucks on Amazon. I guess the Monogram sides show him searching for a Latino rock sound via Richie Valens although Chris didn't have the vocal range and when he got to A and M for the second half went toward a more pop jazz feel. The More I See You best example. FYE turned out to be a bust and for dinner took my chances to Habaneros for Mexican, which the food was okay but the head waiter was a great guy. In fact if the food was as good as he was, it would be like El Ranchero (Iowa City location). In fact the guy didn't want the change for a 11.17 meal. Can't beat that although I did leave him a better trip than the change it seems.
Since I was in the neighborhood, their Borders was still open so decided to stop in and pick up a few things for 30 percent off (and even more since Sly & The Family Stone Fresh and the Mike Ferris EP was both under four bucks). Thiry pecent off meant that I could get the new Ricky Skaggs and Phil Spector Best of for 8.50 and the new Robert Fripp at around 11 bucks. Even a month into closing, the Davenport store seemed to have a lot more in its state then the Dubuque store that I went to on day 1. Things are not planned out, you only hope there's something to get there and then go. Gas prices were varied there with the cheapest at 3.39 a gallon. And most of the stuff at Goodwill and Salvation Army there was no different than up here although I did find a 54-40 CD that I didn't have (2005's Yes To Everything)
Other Observations.
The World's Largest Truck Stop in Walcott is a must see if your in that neck of the woods and they are open all night. Nothing more wonderful than going there around 11 PM or Midnight, kinda like Wally World but without the freaks that you see on the People Of Wal Mart Site.
I tend to do bargain hunts on the eve of the full moon or from the first quarter simply of the fact that you can see the moon's reflection off the Mississippi or off Lake Monona, but of course we always tend to get that young frisky couple making out by the edge of the river, judging from the two that I saw going back to the car.
With 12 weeks at number one, I still yet to hear anything from Adele.
The new Fefe Dobson Joy album is the best example of major label fucking up. She made a decent album out in 2003 and her followup took over seven years and an aborted second album and still Island/Def Jam or Chris Smith Management still has no clue on what her sound is supposed to be like. Is it the Katy Perry Autotuner pop fluff? or the R and B beats? hard to tell but only on the Benetar sounding I'm A Lady or Didn't See You Coming that Dobson gets some kind of her own sound. Make no mistake Dobson knows how to write them and knows how to sing them. And since the release of Joy, Miss Dobson still sits on the sidelines as the autotuned queens such as Lady Gaga or Katy Perry continues to chart top while lack of record promotion hurts Fefe. I still think there's a place in the world for a female black Pat Benetar or Joan Jett. But so far Island/Def Jam has proven if there's such a thing, they're not promoting it and taking a tax write off in the process. Next album, get Howard Benson to produce it all the way through, let Fefe write with Benetar or Jett or Jennifer Finch of L7 and then let it see where it goes. Hell even get Miss Opportunity Sheryl Crow to contribute. I'm sure it will be a hoot to hear.
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