Well it's been a good month for the Rock and Roll And The Brains Blog, over 560 views and still going day by day. In second place, far away but showing enough to overtake the 2009 and 2010 best ofs is the Brian Howe Bad Company blog which was the former Domur Ru crapfest which has now seem to not have much going on for itself. Maybe if we can get that Brains site to 3,000 views we can tell the Universal folks about it and maybe just maybe the fuckers will reissue it.
Anyway a lot of weird stuff coming on, especially Helen Reddy's Ear Candy, the 1977 get together with Kim Fowley and Earle Mankey. A strange pairing with Reddy best known for I Am Woman or You And Me Against The World with Fowley who gave us The Runaways and Earle Mankey who came from the Halfnelson aka Sparks band. It really doesn't stray off that far of what Reddy does best, MOR pop but there's a bit of cajan leading off side two and failed single The Happy Girls sounds a bit like Fowley trying to imitate Phil Spector, but Fowley and Mankey gives a Beach Boys vibe on Midnight Skies. The Sparks influence comes in on Baby I'm A Star (OMG she said shit!). Guaranteed to fail as an album, Ear Candy didn't sell but it is a cult classic on its own.
The Top Ten Of The Week:
1. Tall Cool One-Robert Plant 1988 Can't blame him for finally sampling Zeppelin on this comeback song off Now And Zen which got Plant back into the spotlight after the fiasco known as Shaken n Stirred but that album kinda paved the way for Now And Zen but I can't listen to Shaken N Stirred at all. The closest thing to a Zeppelin reunion, Jimmy Page guests on guitar. Plant would return the favor by appearing on The Only One off Outrider.
2. My Babe-The Fabulous Thunderbirds 1982 Not to be confused with the Little Walter number. Kim Wilson continues to keep the Fab Birds going but when he had Jimmie Vaughn playing guitar they made their most memorable music. Even got Nick Lowe to produce on T Bird Rhythm and then switched over to Dave Edmunds on the next album Tuff Enuff. I think on this one, Lowe wins out in the end, the sound is bit less polished than Tuff Enuff but Edmunds gets the hit and production credit on that.
3. The Last Time-The Rolling Stones 1965 From Out Of Our Heads and basically to me this was the cut that made me turn on to the Stones more than I Can't Get No Satisfaction, both worthy of their status of rock classics but I'm sick of hearing Satisfaction myself. Both feature a catchy guitar introduction but somehow that high pitched sound that Keith Richards got out of his guitar sealed the deal. Probably my favorite all time Stones number but I'm sure your favorite is different.
4. The Walkin' Blues (Walk Right In-Walk Right Out) Jesse Powell Orchestra with Fluffy Hunter 1951 A Risque blues number that our friends at AM 740 in Canada played Monday night. Which we are thankful that we can get AM740 after dark here in the wintertime here. Cuz we all know that fucking Cumulus Radio would never play this song, it's not politically correct.
5. Bright Lights, Big City-Jimmy Reed 1961 Ever since starting the top ten I don't add a lot of blues to the list, not because I'm biased, in fact in the early years of the CD coming out, I tried to buy as many blues cds that I could find. It's basically that with 10 slots open, most of them go for rock and roll music. Anyway Jimmy Reed was boss but he either couldn't or wouldn't read so he had his wife whisper the words in his ear or sometimes she would sing along with him. Later on, Sonny James had a top ten country version of said song.
6. Country Wine-The Raiders 1972 Look, I love Paul Revere & The Raiders just as much as you do but when Mark Lindsay took over production the band became a bit more poppy than rock but by the time this song came out, The Raiders were passe on the charts and Country Wine the album would be their last (not including greatest hits packages mind you). This made to the top twenty on our local radio station but you don't hear this on the radio anymore.
7. Back To Marion-The Townedgers 1991 Diggy Kat, my friend from Radio Buzzed actually played this song on his show a couple weeks ago which really floored me. Any other radio station wouldn't but that's the power of internet radio, you never know what you will hear till you make a comment and somebody gets that comment and plays the song. Thanks again Diggy now where's my birthday greeting at? ;-)
8. Jet Fighter-The Three O'clock 1983 Somebody has called them one of the pioneers of cowpunk which is bullshit, The 3 O'clock owed more to new wave than country and Mike Quercio has one of the more distinct vocals ever. To me he sounds like a cross of Jon Anderson, Robin Gibb and Alvin Chipmunk. This comes from their Frontier debut Sixteen Tambourines produced by Earle Mankey. Later moved over to IRS for two album before Prince signed them on his own label for the illfated Vermillion. Ian Richie's pussy production made them sound even more fruity then before. Best song was done by Jason Faulkner who would move on to other things. Jet Fighter remains a cult classic paisley underground number.
9. Baby Baby-The Vibrators 2010 They have been around forever,mostly in the UK, but they are the last of the original pub punk rockers still led by I.M. Carmicheal (Pat Collier, a former member went on to be a good producer for Robyn Hitchcock and The Candy Skins to name a few). The original version of this song is off 1978's Pure Mania (one of the definite punk albums of the 70s) but a new version is off Punk: The Early Years album that I've seen at Half Priced Books for 10 bucks and comes from the mysterious Vinyl Lovers label. The Vibrators covers most of the punk bands of the past and while they do justice to The Stranglers and The Dammed, their Ramones covers are too tame. But in case you have forgotten they covered themselves and do a fine job considering the source. No liner notes to tell where the recordings came from but the copyright is 2010.
10. Pistol Dawn-Rank And File 1987 The Kinman Brothers started Rank And File and they're considered to be the forefathers of Cowpunk/Americana with the likes of Jason & The Scorchers and The Long Ryders but not the Three O'clock, and Sundown remains their shining moment but they lost a big player in Alejandro Escovedo who formed The True Believers and made a just as good album for Rounder (later reissued via Rykodisc as Hard Road). Later moving from Slash Records to upstart Rhino Records, Rank And File's third album is more blazing hair metal rock than cowpunk and a lotta people got off the bus. But actually I still like that third album, as flawed as it was. This track may have been the most reflective of the early years, if you can overlook the whammy bar specialist playing lead guitar. The Kinman Brothers retired Rank And File and move on to BlackBird which made a strange album for Scotti Brothers in the 90s, but after that they became Cowboy Nation, an acoustic western (not country) band that has recorded infrequently through the years. They're still are great songwriters, Mike Watt covered Big Train in the mid 90s.
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