Top Ten Of The Week-The Strange Case Of Bobby Fuller

Ready for another top ten?  Well too bad anyway, you're getting another one.

But first a website to tell you about. http://www.somanyrecordssolittletime.com/
Kevin Patrick was once part of the Island Records A & R department, compiled the two cd Traffic Smiling Phases CD that got me to get into their music, anyway, he has a bigger love of 45 than I do and spends many a time picking and choosing them for his site.  Check it out and dig it.

Another interesting read was the sad strange case of Bobby Fuller, one of my influences in the music that I used to make before never getting off the couch or in front of the computer (like I am doing now).  The original blog story got deleted so had to find a replacement link: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/16/the-short-life-and-mysterious-death-of-bobby-fuller-rocknroll-king-of-texas
The perfect murder mystery.



Once again this week brings out the strange and bizarre findings of new music and in the half priced Clarence bins at Half Priced Books.  Friday they ended up putting a lot of the old Time Life Classic Rock Series in the dollar bins.  By this time I pretty much have most of that collection and anything would have been dupes or repeats of stuff I already have times 2 or 3.  By now, Tad has gotten my Big Box of CDs in his mailbox and I'm sure he's sorting through all what's out there.  Basically no set of rules Tad, just pick and choose and listen to the best of them and if the others don't cut it, you can always donate them to the local Goodwill or thrift store.  Tad's review of some of the more interesting stuff:  http://tadsbackupplan.blogspot.com/2012/10/599-this-1s-4-crabby.html

Ratings are slightly up but still hovering around 1300 views.  It's all about the ratings I guess http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-10811-for-fm-94_9-it%E2%80%99s-about-the-ratings.html

Top Ten Of The Week:

1.  Wanted (Dead Or Alive)  Brownsville Station 1972  It's been a month since I did the Arizona trip and still haven't listened to all of the stuff that I bought back home on CD.  I'm always what am I looking for when I go on these bargain hunts, the answer is basically what looks good an on the cheap, anything under 5 dollars and in the cutout bins and mostly what I don't have on Wounded Bird or Collector's Choice Music.  For a time Wounded Bird reissued most of Brownsville Stations' album that were on Big Tree, Warner Brothers and Epic but for some reason couldn't get their best album the S/T on Private Stock on CD and that remains the only album that hasn't been issued although a couple songs did make the Rhino Best of.  Had a friend who was related to Cub Koda and he was gracious enough to sign a copy of Yeah to which I still have.  Before Yeah, Brownsville was very exciting live band but their studio albums weren't that great although No B.S. had some nice cover versions on it.  Night On The Town remains the bland number 2 album and problem was the songs didn't stand out, although this was released as a single.  Michael Lutz did the majority of the vocals on NOTW and once I had the album and didn't think of much it.  On CD a second listen hasn't changed my opinion of it, the recording is bland as the songs themselves so I can't recommend the album.  But Yeah, the next album, Doug Morris took over production and got them to cover some great songs (Question Of Temperature, Barefootin', Love, Love Love and Let Your Yeah be Yeah) and Cub Koda took over lead vocals much of the album.  And of course they got a hit with Smokin In The Boys Room.

2.  Whenever You're Ready-Brian Auger & Oblivion Express 1973  FM radio in the 70s played them a lot, especially the college stations but his albums I never got into to, till I started seeing them in the dollar bins.  Auger was more jazz than boogie blues like the majority of bands I was into at that time.  I did find a couple of his Atco singles for the cheap too (remember Julie Driscoll?), I Want To Take You Higher got airplay on the gospel station which boggles the mind.  Moving on to RCA, he begin to do more jazzy numbers and ended up getting the annoying Alex Livengood on vocals (He moved to Santana for Zebop!) but for a time Livengood left and Auger took over vocals for the classic Closer To It album. One Way reissued the RCA stuff, then later got reassigned to Fuel 2000, when One Way closed up shop.



3.  Back To The Stone Age-KISS 2012  Just like Love Gun, or Rock And Roll Over or KISS Live, this is how I remember them, glam rock guitars sound, dumb lyrics, screaming lead guitars, more dumb chorus before they took off their facepaint to become another hair metal band of the 80s. When Peter and Ace returned to the band in the 1990s for the farewell tour and that god awful Psycho Circus album, it was a money making ploy to say the very least and fucking awful, kinda like the overblown grunge experiment Carnival Of Souls-The Final Sessions (yea right).  However, I have to say that I did enjoyed their last album Sonic Boom and the new album Monster is more of the same.  Tom Thayer and Eric Singer have done a good job replacing the departed Ace and Peter and perhaps Gene is right that this band is firing on all cylinders and leaving the song doctors out of this.  It doesn't need to be all everything like Bon Iver or Animal Collective, just three chords rock and roll and silly lyrics will work for me thank you very much.  Keep rocking.

4.  I've Been Loving You Too Long-Kitty Wells 1974  Earlier in the year Kitty Wells passed away and of course she'll never top It Wasn't God That Made Honky Tonk Angels but when the hits dried up, MCA turned her loose and she found herself at Capricorn to which Johnny Sandlin and Paul Hornsby got some southern musicians and got her to cover this Otis Redding chestnut.  Aretha Franklin also turns in a fine performance on the Young Gifted And Black album on same song.

5.  Four Horsemen-Gamma 1980  Ronnie Montrose after disbanding Montrose the band and doing a couple of fusion albums got back in the rock and roll field with three albums for Elektra, the best I thought was the second album featuring some crazy artwork. Out of the three albums it was the most heaviest thanks to Denny Carmissi who was with Montrose during the glory years. Wounded Bird reissued the three albums but now have fallen out of print. If you find them especially the second album pick them up.

6.  One Of The Boys-Mott The Hoople 1972  Almost forgot to include this since Bob Lefsetz brought them up on his Rhino cast this weekend.  You may question his thought process at times but he's always had a keen eye and ear for music of the late 60s and early 70s and I continue to give him credit as well as Mr. Dorr even though I swore off his Backtracks showcase in favor of Pawn Shop Classics, a regular album show via my imagination.  I recall the DJ at KLWW FM (now KFMW) saying that somebody tucked the new Mott album in a basket with blanket over it and proceeded to play it most of 1973.  At that time I had no recollection of who Mott The Hoople was and wouldn't know till getting the Rolling Stone Record Review book.  One Of The Boys was one of earliest albums I bought during my junior year at Record Realm, the cover was beat up but it only cost 3 bucks at the time.  On the radio I got thrown off by the phone ringing on that song and was bitching about the DJ cutting in like he usually did, but it was the recording. Columbia butchered it on a 3 minute edit on the 45 record.

7.  Little White Lies-The Motley Blues Band 1966  Sometimes finding obscure 45s of the past may uncover a lost classic, a should have been a hit, or just plain meh.  When I first seen this I thought it was the original version of a key track off the first Romantics album till when I got in the car found out The Romantics wrote it themselves.  So the thought became maybe this is a garage rock classic although The Motley Blues Band is not related to Motley Crue (no shit sherlock).  Which is good in my book.  File this under New Vaudeville Band in terms of the sound and perhaps their label wanting a Winchester Cathedral version of their own.  Nevertheless the single bombed.  B side Ain't That A Funny Thing was the better side but more garage pop than garage rock.

8.   Back At The Funny Farm-Motorhead 1983  Having Brian Robertson replacing Fast Eddie Clarke was a head scratcher for Motorhead fans, it was a change in style, the album Another Perfect Day was better than the Fast Eddie finale of Iron Fist, instead of louder and faster, Phil Taylor the drummer had to slow it down on some of the bluesier numbers and One Track Mind may have been the slowest song they ever done.  Believe it or not this got some airplay on KRUI (certainly not KUNI, Bob Dorr would have a heart attack). I didn't pick up the album till I heard some of the best moments off No Remorse, the original best of Motorhead that came out on Bronze/Island a year later and backtracked.  Nevertheless, (don't you just love me using that word all the time?) after a tour, both Phil Taylor and Robertson would exit, and Lemmy would carry on with two guitar players Michael Burston (Wurzel) and Phil Campbell who still remains the second longest lasting member of Motorhead.  Side note: Phil Taylor would return up till 1916, the 1991 album.

9.  Tomorrow's Dream-Black Sabbath  1972  The basic complaint is that Cumulus radio owned KRNA or The FOX continues to think that Sabbath's only albums of note was Paranoid and Iron Man which is off Paranoid and what pisses me off about the narrowmindedness of Cumulus and their chase for the dollar by playing 40 year old songs in regular rotation and not change their GD playlist.  I like Iron Man but not in daily listening doses for the past 20 years of KRNA's 'modern' rock bullshit.  Sometimes, Mr. Egobob Dorr has been known to play The Wizard on his radio show Backtracks (there ya go Dorr, I promoted your show again against my better wishes).  But as the lovely Linda demonstrates, she knows her music (hey honey how bout playing some Supernaut?)   Better looking than EgoBob too.  BTW, I don't know her (too young) and this picture comes from Strictly Vinyl a FB site that showcase more scantly clad ladies peaking through albums at various record stores and showing off their cool record collection.  The ones you can never get right Doug Bonesteel?

 


10. Kowalski-Primal Scream 1997   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l-V6KygkFU
Bobby Gillespie's tribute to Vanishing Point the movie. They never been as catchy creepy as this little trippy number.  Primal Scream was one of those rave bands that got mucho alternative press and really didn't care much about them till I picked up the album Vanishing Point which remains an underrated P.S. classic.  They could be trippy and they could also do Rolling Stones Type rock and roll and turn around and make such abrasive noise on their S/T album for Creation before Screamadelica. Fun Fact: Bobby Gillespie played drums on the first two Jesus And Mary Chain Albums.

Five more things to temp your turkey:

Oh Atlanta-Little Feat 1974
Houston-Dean Martin 1965
True Love Leaves No Traces-Dead Famous People 1991
No Excues-Alice In Chains 1993
Bird Has Flown-Deep Purple 1969

Reference link:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/strictly-Vinyl/231350803002?ref=ts&fref=ts

Bobby Fuller Four: Let Her Dance (Liberty Version which sounds different from the Mustang Version)
http://www.somanyrecordssolittletime.com/?p=4662