With the hot weather out and about, our bug friends the earwigs are making their summer trek into the house and on my lap, never seemed to get them over at the old place. Nevertheless it's going to be a very hot week with 90s and above all week. The electric bill might be even bigger than the house payment this month.
Another icon dead, Andy Griffith passed away Tuesday morning at age 86. Everybody wishes they could lived in Mayberry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyKvMDYeQmo BTW he could sell a mean Ritz Cracker too. MMMMMMM Gooooood cracker.
With the 4th of July coming up, it also means we're on the downward slide to winter although y'all will be wanting this weather when December rolls around and we'll be below zero. Not looking forward to that. In the meantime life goes on, the chick from Civil Wars popped a baby out, Adele has one in the oven, Rudy Sarzo has left Blue Oyster Cult (didn't even know he played in BOC), Kasim Sulton (Utopia) takes his place and it was one year ago that I lost my good friend Dennis Pusateri to which his mom followed him in the Great Beyond and joined him and Matt three weeks later. Life and death, one dies another one is born. The summer Mad City bargain hunt will be sometime this month, hopefully if temps go around 80 or so but I still haven't finalized any Arizona trip as of this writing. As they say, life goes on and so begins another top ten of songs off the player. Don't know why I keep doing it but we'll call it a force of habit and it's fun too. Keeps me out of trouble.
1. Let The Music Begin-Linn County 1970 And what better way to start out the top ten with a rebel rousing call to arms tune about tuning up and letting go from a band that came from Linn County. Of course you can read about them in my other blog The Music Consortium. A case of small town band makes good, signs a big 50 thousand dollar contract and goes out to San Francisco to fit in and so on. The hippies used to rave about Linn County in the late 70s when I go down to the record store and seek out new music but their albums were very hard to find and when I did find one, it was all scratched up and so so. I did find the 45 to this song at a Goodwill store and picked it up on a whim and it just might be one of the best songs Stephen Miller ever did. Very country and gospel sounding unlike the hard driven blues that the band was more famous for. At times they sounded like Quicksilver Messenger Service with a sax player. But I doubt if Universal will ever give us that elusive Linn Country 20th Century Masters Collection that we demand. It's probably on line with The Brains as to be released on June 31, 2013. There's sarcasm in that last line.
2. Going Going Gone-Information Society 1992 Hard to figure these guys out. They have a massive hit based on a Leonard Nemoy Star Trek moment and then they lose their chick singer to The Golden Palominos and turn around and made a album more Neu than Downtown Julie Brown and everybody got off the bus by the time Peace & Love Inc came out. In some ways it's like the first album but with more of the better bits from Hack for experimentation and at the tail end of the CD pays tribute to Lou Reed's Unlistenable Metal Machine Music (300bps, N,8,1) which might rid all the rodents and earwigs from a three block radius when played. For dance pop, the words really do hit home (Now she's going going gone, and I did nothing wrong). I think the dark lyrics had something to do with the song not making it on the charts but at least you can dance to it with tears in your eyes. Produced by Mike Throne who produced Wire's historic EMI albums of the late 70s.
3. Best Of Both Worlds-Van Halen 1986 To which the new guy Sammy Hagar takes over for Diamond Dave and gives the boys a much needed boost and a platinum record too. Sammy wore out his welcome very quickly since OU812 is one album I never bought since what I heard I didn't like much. 5150 was what we begin to expect from Van Hagar, hard charging rockers and prissy ballads with plenty of cheese keyboards that Eddie was doing but when he put the keyboards down and the guitar back up, he could still wail away. 5150 remains the best non Diamond Dave project from the Van Hagars, (although I originally like F.U.C.K album it sounds more juvenile and dated).
4. Traveling Shoes-Elvin Bishop 1973 Me and my old lady ain't been getting along sings the Ol' Devil. Bishop was part of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, then went out on his own for Bill Graham's Fillmore label (Sundazed issued those albums a few years ago but now out of print) and the highlights might still be on Crabshaw Rising that Sony Music put out. Bishop made his best stuff for Capricorn in the 70s starting with Let It Flow and ended with the classic Struttin My Stuff with the general annoying Micky Thomas who moved on to Starship. No Mickey on the early years and on this fun song which got some airplay, but then again Elvin Bishop has always been more about fun and rocking the blues than Thomas who pretty much bored the crowd up at the Dubque Riverfest last month.
5. The Nature Of The Game-Dan Fogelberg 2009 Time flies when people pass on and can believe when it's been just about 5 years since Dan moved into the Great Beyond but he was working on a set of songs that didn't get released till after he died. And it turned out to be one of the best albums he's ever done although it sold nil. Yeah he had the soft rock sounds down pat and while I loved some of his stuff (Phoenix) and didn't care much for the 2 record Innocent Age and High Country Snows was overrated. Netherlands underrated and you get the picture. But what I didn't expect that Love In Time turn out to be the perfect swan song for a artist that never got his due and of course Mr. Pussy Pants Jann Wanner would never get him into the rock n roll hall of fame either. But this song reminds me of Blues Man, from the Manassas album that Steve Stills did and it shows a different side of Fogelberg we rarely see. An moody piece, just Dan and his 12 string. Too bad you never heard this album folks. You'd remember it too. Probably one of the best albums to come from a decade of waste that nobody remembers.
6. That's All Right Baby aka Roll em Pete-Big Joe Turner 1938 If you go by what the compilers on the Hoy Hoy Rock Before Elvis Collection you would get the feeling that Big Joe is really the founder of Rock & Roll and with Pete Johnson playing the 88's they certainly were boogie pioneers just themselves. This comes from the landmark 1938 Carnegie Hall showcase From Spirituals To Swing. But Big Joe would revisit this song a few more times in his lifetime and The Blasters even did their own version of said song.
7. Runaway-Love And Theft 2009 Pity the poor country artists who live for the moment and are gone the next. I remember I used to tout the praises of Jennifer Henson who had a hit with Beautiful Goodbye and have her label mess with her before releasing the album a good 7 months after that song hit the charts. Come to think of it, it was 10 years ago that Elizabeth Cook made her major debut with the charming Hey Y'all but Atlantic closed their Nashville doors (at that time) and Cook found herself on Warner Brothers who did their best not to promote it. Henson hasn't been heard from although Universal South screwed her over with a digital only album that nobody got to hear but Cook has done much better on a independent label that at least promotes her, her new gospel album is quite good. But Love & Theft got plenty of press around 2009 and their World Wide Open remains a fun listen three years later, take away the fiddles and steel guitar and banjo and they had a album that the Gin Blossoms would die for. Runaway did make the top ten here at KHAK and a respectable 65 on the pop charts but their main problem was being on the worst country label this side of Curb, Hollywood's Lyric Street/Carolwood label. Losing a band member Brian Bandas, the remaining two have continued to record, with a new album coming out July 26 on RCA/Sony Nashville. Will it be any good? Stay tuned.
8. Magic Fingers-Frank Zappa 1971 From 200 Motels. Featuring Flo And Eddie on lead vocals, this era of Mothers remains very hard to take at times and nobody told me about the 2 CD which is more opera than rock opera. TCM showed 200 Motels late night last year which I tried to watch but ended up falling asleep and I missed most of it. One of those rare CDs that I spent twenty bucks on used just to see what the fuss was about. This was a bonus track to the Cd. Originally on United Artists but later came out on MCA Classics which may had something to do with MCA owning the MGM catalog at the time. Rykodisc issued it on CD but hard to tell if Universal will ever put it out to the masses again. They tend to sit on things as we know too often.
9. Shining Light-Toots & The Maytals 1964 thereabouts Heartbeat Records was Rounder's Reggae label and they issued a few things from various Jamaica label that were part of the developing sound known as Ska and there was a cutout comp called Go Ska Go which featured early to mid 60s cuts from the likes of Toots and Bob Marley And The Wailers and many more that were on Coxsome Dodd's Studio One label. Everybody had to start somewhere right? And Toots has been one of the longest lasting Reggae artists of the past 50 years but at that time they toiled in somewhat obscurity before Chris Blackwell and Island Records took notice. Toots Hibbert has been known as the Reggae Otis Redding which is all you need to know how good he really is. And still is today.
10. Fourth Of July-Dave Alvin 1988 It's that time of year again. Thought you might like to know.
Some other time five
Sinsemilla-Black Uhuru 1980
Hand Picked-Richard Betts 1974
Tragedy-For You-Front 242 1991
Town's Edge Rock Again-The Townedgers 2007
Did You See Her Eyes-The Illusion 1969
Finally, another passing to tell you about. RIP Big Bad Ben Davidson, former terror of the Oakland Raiders who tried many times to rearrange the face of Joe Namath and Len Dawson (you can't forget the Chief/Raiders series of the late 60s and early 70s and of course the infamous Heidi Bowl game of 1968). If you google his name and see images you'll probably will see the one that Davidson kept giving Bob Griese some mud facials in the 1970 Mud Bowl in Oakland. Davidson passed away from prostate cancer at age 72. He also was famous for having a bitching handlebar mustache and being part of the famous Lite Beer Commercials of the 1970s. He will be missed.
No comments:
Post a Comment