Top Ten Of The Week-Blow It Out Of Your Ass Bob

I haven't been much in a good mood lately.  National Record Store came and gone and I wasn't a part of it.  But then again I ended up mowing the jungle outside of the Crabb house and Geezus Christ it was a mutherfucka to mow.  But that didn't piss me off.

I went to work and ended up dealing with the usual crap printers and cheap assed tape that doesn't hold the form together and comes off in the printer.  I had to resplice and take out the GD tape out of the hot rolls that are at the end of the printer but that didn't piss me off

I then preceded to take out my discman in going to the bathroom only to have it caught in my pocket and fell out on the floor, That pissed me off and I pretty told the man upstairs of what I thought about the luck that I have been getting the past couple years and that Jesus died on the cross one time.  In my case I feel like that I been nailed to the cross about 500 times more than our Savior ever did.  Okay, you can have the made in china tape come apart in the printer, you can let the grass grow so many times that ever half step the fucking mower will die and have to pull the rope to get it started.  But don't you dare ever, make it that I break my discman on the floor due to a GD technicality.  Fuck Bob Lefsetz and his future of I phones or streaming your collection on a GD I Phone, Give me a discman with G protection and I'll be content but if fate makes it that it gets dropped on the floor, I become a Atheist right then and there.  Don't get me wrong I believe in a Higher Power but when my players get dropped to the floor I question things right there and then.

Speaking of Big Mouth Lefsetz.  He goes off on the record and cd collection with this bunch of shit.  http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2012/04/24/seeing-the-future/



More Bullshit from TMZ.  http://www.tmz.com/2012/04/24/kim-kardashian-keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-40-million-deal/#.T5dfenrox9s

If this why cable programming keeps going up, then it's time to pull the plug.  I get tired of seeing the same 5 movies every fucking weekend on crap cable and ESPN's crappy Sports programming that is 20 hours of Sports Center and winner winner chicken dinner.  You don't need to win the big lottery to make it big, just act stupid like the Kadashians and you too can make out like a bandit.  Fuck you too E entertainment.

Not everything is gloom and doom and rants.  There was  a nice article on Record Collector in Iowa City for 30 but the statue of limitations ran out and all we got is a 404 error.  So let me say, that Record Collector continues the only downtown record store in Iowa City and they still get some good things in from time to time, but they also get a black mark for having the wrong Blue Oyster Cult CD in the jewel case when I bought it.  But that's on me, I need to check them before checking out.



Kirk Walther is the last survivor of the Iowa City Record Store Scene, he outlasted all of them.  Sam Goody, BJ's Records, Sal's Music Emporium, Real Records, Co Op, Camelot, Musicland, FYE, and many others too many to mention.  I actually been around Kirk long enough to go back to 1985 when he was on the corner across from the Yacht Club and he's right.  That time was the busiest for him.  He didn't take too kindly of the fact one day that I visited him after coming from BJ's Records that he made a comment that he had the Animal's LP that I got down there, to which afterwards  I never made the mistake of going there after visiting the other music stores in downtown I.C.  But nowadays that's a moot point, Record Collector is the only Iowa City Record Store.  And vinyl sales are better than the CD sales about 60 to 40 on that although I still find some neat Cd's up there from time to time.  And sometimes some interesting vinyl albums as well. Congrats for 30 years Kirk.  You rock.

The Top Ten Of The Week:

1.  I Really Need Love-The Bees 2011   Out of all the British bands of this century, The Bees are the only ones that hark back to the days of Pink Floyd or The Moody Blues but at times updating their sound with a Reggae sound (thank God for spell check otherwise we all be in trouble).  They still haven't topped their Free The Bees album of 2004 problem is The Bees tend to get into a lazy sleepy vibe that tends to make the listener fall asleep.  After three albums for Asterwerks/Virgin they moved over to Fiction Records UK (ATO in the US) and made another uneven album to which the lead off track would make a great song for KDAT if KDAT ever played the GD thing.  Hell substitute and replace their name with Train and nobody would know the difference.  I take that back we would, this song is much better than Hey Soul Sister.

2.  Come On In-Sonny James 1976   Sonny was more pop country than swing when he latched on to Columbia in the 70's and he recorded some mush but this track really is nice rocking tune unbecoming like to James.  His closet thing to garage rock.  Produced by George Richey.

3.  Anna (Go To Him) Arthur Alexander 1962  I bought the 4 CD Beach Music Anthology a few months ago for 3 bucks at HP Books and played parts of it from time to time.  It's a hodgepodge of soul music of the 60's and somehow goes up to the 80s and of course some re recordings of past hits (Barbara Lewis's Atlantic recordings are not featured on this but rather remakes-they sure sound like remakes) but there's plenty of forgotten Chess and Vee Jay Recordings to make this somewhat of a keeper.  The pick from that box set is a song later done by The Beatles and make me think that Alexander is one of the unsung heroes of rhythm and blues.

4.  You Can't Win Them All-Levon Helm 1982   He did the best job of putting Robbie Robertson's words and music for the masses better than Robbie ever did but Helm's solo career was more of a cult following than with The Band.  Never heard the the ABC albums but American Son which came out on MCA got great reviews and of course you all know about his Dirt Farmer album that came out a few years ago and Helm was riding high into the sunset before throat cancer finally got the best of him last week.  This track comes from his 1982 S/T album for Capitol/MSS Records and although it didn't chart very high, somebody thought highly of it to release it on their own cd label with great liner notes and annotation by Paul Williams (former Crawdaddy writer and was part of the RCA reissue series with Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna).  Fun fact:  Levon Helm was guest star on the old SCTV show on NBC and did a couple songs from this album.  Even back then Helm could do it all, actor and singer and musician.

5.  Bad Man Walking-Gov't Mule 2004   I love Warren Haynes.  The guy can do it all and he's been doing triple time with his band, The Allman Brothers and even Phil Lesh and Friends and solo artist (he's got a new live CD on Stax that came out this week).  But Gov't Mule remains his band when he wants to jam out and every Gov't Mule goes over an hour, sometimes up to 75 minutes which tend to grate on the nerves on some that don't get into the jam band mode.  This is off Deja Voodoo, which may be the most heaviest of Gov't Mule albums out there.

6.  Mulling It Over-Blues Traveler 1991  And speaking of jam bands, we cannot forget Blues Traveler.  I remember Jerry at Relics saying how great this record was and he must have loved this record.  He played it all the fucking time but John Popper is one of the all time great harmonica players.  Yes BT have recorded plenty of albums but their first remains their best cause you never know what direction they would be heading.  They would be playing one thing and then turn around and stretch it out longer.  Hell, maybe they influenced Gov't Mule come to think of it.

7.  Two Trains-Charlie Morgan & The Graveyard Blues Band 1999   Truthfully, I played in a jam session with Charlie back in 1993 at the old Attitude's bar next to 3rd Street Live.  It was the first time I got on stage since the 1992 Routers and my old lead singer Mike Swearingen convinced me to check out the blues session he was hosting one night.  In fact, I haven't even picked up a pair of drumsticks in six months so therefore I was very rusty and as the bass player said I was slowing down here and there.  Then again I don't recall the songs that we played (Crossroads maybe but my Alzheimer's is showing and don't really know) but Charlie and I hit it off quite well, he gave me great praise.  The Graveyard Blues Band was pretty active during the 90's and Morgan put out an blues album that captures what made them great.  They were the blues but they had a bit of boogie to them and Morgan could sing like Johnny Winter at times.  As far as I know Morgan still plays here from time to time although Google comes up with not much to go on.

8.  Nervous Breakdown-Ducks Deluxe 1974   The toughest pub rock band to ever come out of that era, the Ducks would have members would go on other bands of note (Graham Parker and The Rumour, The Motors, Tyla's Gang, even Nick Lowe).  They were rock and roll through and through and I think it's Nick Garvey that does the vocals on this Eddie Cochran classic.

9.  Pull Me Under-Dream Theater 1992    Wes Borland had a exchange with Dream Theater fans on Twitter the other day, saying that DT never had anything good out and this comes from the dude that is part of Limp Bizkit, a band that never had a decent song whatsoever but the banter was in good fun.  There's a lot of DT fans out there and like Rush, they are so die hard that they will attack anybody does slams the band.  Myself I'm not a big DT fan but as I pointed to Wes on one exchange that their best album is Images And Words but everytime I write the tweet out I ended up having the title backwards.  After the making the damn mistake a third time, I said fuck it and deleted everything I sent to Wes.  This is their sole hit which got plenty of airplay on the radio but modern rock radio doesn't play this or anything from Dream Theater for that matter.  But they will of Limp Bizkit (WTF indeed).

10.  The Free Electric Band-Albert Hammond 1973   Hammond started out in The Family Dogg and then moved over to The Magic Lanterns and he had a whole different sound before striking out on his own and scored a major hit with It Never Rains In Southern California a song I never cared much for but I love this followup single to which Hammond gave everything up for Music and The Free Electric Band.   Sometimes I think that when I hear this song, it also feels like it's my anthem.

That's all for now. We will try to do better next month.

Ones that didn't make the cut.
Abergavenny-Shannon (Marty Wilde) 1969
Lessons-Rush 1975
Pieces Of The Puzzle-Johnny Law 1991
Backfield In Motion-Mel & Tim 1969
Tart With A Heart-Kimberley Rew 2000

Whatever Bob Lefsetz is listening to..................

PS, Lefsetz gives a tribute to Levon Helm on the latest blog.  Which makes us forgive him for today anyway. http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2012/04/25/levon/