Top Ten Of The Week-And The Circus Leaves Town

A new year begins and welcome everybody to my 10th year of blogging about things important to me and a top ten of the week that may or may not entice you to go seek it out on the net or your local record store.  That is if you do have a record store.  per usual, certain pictures have disappeared due to statue of limitations.  This blog looks like a fucking ghost town.




Last week, I was in Dubuque around closing time at CD's 4 Change and the owner gave me a box of records without any covers, some have sleeves but I think he used the jackets for some other things so I told him that I'd check things out and if whatever I like I'd listen to and the rest I'd redonate to a local charity.  Most of the records are in reasonable shape.  In fact I just got done playing a obscure album from Joel Vance called What I Did On My Vacation which came out on the Cadet Concept label, which was Chess Record's Rock label.  It's a strange album for sure, he does a rocking version of Fannie Mae and Slippin & Sliding but for the most part Vance's own stuff sounds like Donovan gone artsy fartsy.  Or something that John Cale would do for Paris 1919.  Anyway, not much is known about Vance, it was a one off for Cadet but the harmonica player is Charlie McCoy.  Some of the stuff was recorded in Nashville, and I'm guessing that the Nashville band Area Code 615 or Barefoot Jerry backed him on this,  Wayne Moss comes to mind.  Other goodies is Colin Blunstone's One Year for Epic, the 2 LP Best Of The Weavers and a Eubie Blake 2 fer.  Kind of a shame not to have the jackets but they were free and some in good shape.  If not, I can always use the inner sleeves for other replacement sleeves for other records I have.  And so on.

The Iowa Caucus are done and Mitt Romney and Rick Santorium are neck and neck with Ron Paul in a close third but don't look at Iowa as the place that will make the next President of the US.  Now they can leave us alone, till June, when the GOP winner comes back and floods the airwaves with more bullshit commercials.
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The top ten of the week is combination of what I have been playing in the player or what sounded good from the radio that wasn't overplayed.  The biggest piss in the pancakes is how bad Cumulus Radio continues to cop the playlist from Clear Channel and vice versa.  Surely there isn't no need of hearing Torn by Natalie Imberaga or Bitch by Meredith Edwards twice in the same fucking hour.  Fuck you KOKZ and KDAT.  At least play Ednaswap just for the original of Torn but you know they won't.  God FM radio is the pits.

My list is better, at least it varies.



1.  Riff Raff  AC/DC 1978  Ah yes Cumulus KRNA, playing anything off Back In Black every GD hour and ignoring the majority of their catalog.  First AC DC album I ever bought was the live If You Want Blood You Got It which really sounds more polished than the rough sewn draft that Mark Opitz recorded for the Powerage album.  I actually started listening to them in 1978 before they broke it big with Highway To Hell and another year before Bon Scott would leave us too early.   Oh yes and BTW as you can tell I hate Cumulus Radio. Them and Clear Channel.  But you already know that.

 


2.  Let The Music Do The Talking-Joe Perry Project 1980  I have all his albums but finding the Raven Best Of Joe Perry Project slimlines everything down to just about everything that you need from I Got The Rock N Rolls Again and the flop 1983 Once A Rocker Always A Rocker to which Raven Records steals the most tolerable moments from that.  But LTMDTT album itself was 10 times much better than Night In The Ruts and it benefitted from Jack Douglas producing.  But that was a toxic event in itself,  Ralph Morman getting the boot and moving over to Savoy Brown for the beyond belief Rock N Roll Warriors.  I still give Let The Music an A, Rock n Rolls Again a B- (Charlie Farren did the vocals and moved on to Fahrenheit that made a 1985 album for Warner Brothers) and the MCA album a C+ at best.

3.  Fannie Mae-Joel Vance 1969   Chess Records in the late 60's was in big trouble.  Most of their great blues artists' best days were behind them and an a attempt to get them up to date, got them to do poor blues covers and cover it with bad Hippy Dippy Psychedelia (Example: Muddy Waters Electric Mud, This Is Howlin Wolf's New Album, He Doesn't Like It...)  Cadet Concept was home to The Status Quo (Pictures Of Matchstick Men) and Rotary Connection and this one off from Joel Vance, who I have no clue is except for that was found on the net or on EBAY.  Not bad from a box of free records.

4.  2000 Light Years From Home-The Rolling Stones 1967  For all the backlash that was Their Satanic Majesties Service, it came close to rival Sgt. Pepper in terms of sound imagery and may have been the most misunderstood album of the Stones career.  This is one of the more fun stereo separation songs ever made, I really can do without the bizarre mellotron on the right side of the speakers, rather going for the more mysterous bass guitar and drum side of the speaker.  A Beaker Street favorite for years.

5.  In Your Arms-Glen Campbell 2011   With Alzheimer's slowly taking the mind and guitar playing of Campbell away, he may have made his most memorable album ever, which is more power pop than country.  Even covers Paul Westerburg twice, Robert (Guided By Voices) Pollard and this number from Teddy Thompson.  Campbell's S/T album on his return to Capitol was the start in this direction but Julian Raymond figures greatly on this album.  Too bad that Campbell will be unable to follow this album up but if you care, Ringo Starr will have a new album out this month.  Well some people do care.




6.  Wear Your Love Like Heaven-Donovan 1967  I promise this year that I'd be focusing more on the music that I grew up with rather than overdoing it on the obscure new stuff of today.  But I tend to think that my favorite music came more from the 90s rather than the 60s or 70s, even though I grew up listening up to the radio back then.  Actually had this on 45 years ago when we lived in Webster City but dammed if I knew what ever happened to the record.

7.   Midnight Hour-? And The Mysterians 1966  B Side to 96 Tears, another 45 gotten at Goodwill in Waterloo around 67 I believe.  Question Mark aka Rudy Martinez came across like a Tommy James/Mark Lindsay vocalwise and basically I always believed that he was too mild mannered to be a lead screamer.  This band originally from Michigan was transplanted Chicanos which might explain the Sir Douglas Quintet sound too.

8.  Always A Reason-The Dirt Drifters 2011   Country Music is the new rock and roll as this band reminds me of the new rock and roll that is Country Music today.  Where Jason Aldean figures into this is probably more poser than the Steve Earle Guitar Town sound that the Dirt Drifters have and they have worked with some of the better hat acts out there.  Being in a major label won't get you very far and I probably would have blown these guys off had I not read the nice review Robert Christgau gave them.  For rock n country this actually beats out The Kentucky Headhunters latest or Mr. Fool Tool Aldean.  Aldean namechecks Johnny Cash, The Drifters get Willie Nelson to cameo himself.  That's country to me.

9.  Late In The Evening-Paul Simon 1980  From One Trick Pony, a movie that I liked back then but the DVD that I got won't play in my outdated player.  Brings back memories but what it failed to do was remind me how freaking boring the soundtrack was till I bought the cd.

10.  I Shall Be Free-No.  10-Bob Dylan 1964   Acoustic Dylan, walking and talking.  Even his throwaways back then were pretty damn good too.

Late additions:
Dave Lifton does a smackdown on Bob Lefsetz's double talk last blog. http://popdose.com/bob-lefsetz-hates-a-lot-of-things/?utm_campaign=Bob

Finally....I haven't clicked on any sites of referring sites but continue to get traffic from Domur Ru, the Russian viruspammer which seems to originate from Dallas Texas.  Must be a Rick Perry ploy or something like that.  Maybe ratings are overrated.  I doubt if we'll go over 1,000 views this month but then again I could be wrong. 13 views this week from a site that we're trying to avoid and ignore?  Fuck off Domur Ru.