Top Ten Of The Week: Waterlogged

 

This winter has been a bitch, especially after Ground Chuck Ground Hog predicted a early spring.  Sure in the hell hasn't happened here.  Had a very crappy weekend, two inches of rain and quick snowmelt and frozen ground equals water in the basement although it was manageable.  But what really pissed me off was the damn standing water in the gray car.  Must have plowed though the Wapsi onward to Anamosa Saturday Night and in the process forgot my wallet at El Ranchito.  Thankfully the owner was understanding and kind enough to let me pay for it next time I came into town but since I had to go to the grocery store made a second trip into town only to get wet shoes and a Lake Crabb in the driver's side of the car.  Made four trips to the damn Car wash to use the power vacuum just to dry the fucking thing and then have it come right back all wet down the road.  I was ready to strangle a FB friend about being thankful of rain and pray for more since we're in the drought.  Uh, sweetheart, not here,  this isn't SW Kansas with 16 inches in the red. I know we're not dry anymore and keep the rain down in your area.  3 words: Flood of 2008.  That's why I don't wish for rain anymore.  BTW, this is typical of March up here, ice jams in the Red Cedar River making a mess of things.

 Nobody still has the Richard Thompson Electric album in town, or in Iowa City.
 
BTW here's Samantha Fish for ya.

The Townedgers new album is becoming reality, the drums are finished, now all that remains is pairing down the song selection to a workable 14.  In the meantime, Maier Records reissued the 2009 Townedgers Country this week.

I had a couple news items here but the links expired and the pictures disappeared. Usual bullshit happenings, moving on.....


The Go Go's have booted Kathy Valentine out of the band.

Which leads to:






1.  Rattlesnake Blues-Krokus 2013  They actually do AC/DC better than the actual band on their latest Dirty Dynamite CD.  Never paid much attention to these guys back in the 80 although I did buy One Vice At A Time simply of Long Stick Goes Boom, a silly AC/DC rocker but Marc Storace can do a mean Bon Scott.  Only Rhino Bucket comes close although I'll give Airbourne credit too.  When you are old as I am, anybody that does straight hard rock blooze of the 70s gets a listen.  Sure beats anything that Pitchfork or NME touts.


2.  Blue Thunder-Galaxie 500 1989  They were alternative rock but they owe a lot to The Velvet Underground.  I did warm up to Dean Wareham and Luna enough to pick a Galaxie 500 album when it became available and On Fire was chosen.  Great album that earns it's hype.

3.  Gotta Keep Rockin-Royal Southern Brotherhood 2012  Devon Allman has moved on to his new solo album to which I heard good reviews but once again since no record store has it in stock, it's basically nonexistant, so we fall back upon last year's minor supergroup which features Cyrill Neville and Mike Zito being the three prong attack next to Devon Allman.  I don't play RSB at home all that much but it seems to get some spins when I'm at work and it sounds good.


4.  The Daily Planet-Love 1967  Tad talks about this album and promotes it a lot on his website too. Probably the best album that Arthur Lee ever put out with the original members of Love which imploded after this record didn't take off.  Mostly done with acoustic guitars with an electric lead from time to time, I never heard anything about this album till I got the Rolling Stone Review Guide and Tower Records had this on record when I ventured out in my ill fated Arizona 1986-87 residency.  Never did find a job out there but found plenty of great lost album classics in the used bins out there.


5.  The Money Will Roll Right In-Nirvana 1992  From Live At Reading and at times they could have been the best rock n roll band of the 90s and then Kurt Cobain would do something to revert them back to noisy punks again.  I think he intentionally messed up the lead guitar intro into Smells Like Teen Spirit and his Star Spangled Banner is awful awful.  It's Nirvana live for better or worse and you had to be there.  The 1992 Reading Festival was a who's who of bands, from Ride to Public Image Ltd to Screaming Trees to Charlatans UK but Nirvana was on the day they had Nick Cave, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney playing.  Again you had to be there. Wish I was.

6.  On My Own-Under The Influence Of Giants 2006  They were.  This was the bonus track on a bonus disc and perhaps they should have included it on the original album.  It's the hardest rocking song that they ever did.  I guess you could called them Bee Gees influenced with a Micheal Jackson style too although Scissors Sisters probably did this type of music better.  I like the album but they were never heard from again in the US although I'm sure they made more of an impact in the UK.

7.  Small Beginnings-Flash 1972  Peter Banks died.  The original Yes guitar hero moved on after the lackluster Time And A Word album to form Flash and made three great to good albums, their first remains their best, the edited version got some FM airplay and managed to make it on a even more edited form on a  K Tel record 22 Explosive Hits, one of a handful of albums that my brother took from my collection.  I hardly noticed it was gone.



8.  I Don't Want To Cry Over You-The Strikes 1957  Contrary to rumor garage rock in the 50s was going fairly strong although it wasn't played on the radio all that much.  The Strikes recorded  a couple sides for Imperial Records and this was the B side to their best known song Rockin, to which I have never heard on the radio at all.

9.  Sad, Bad, Glad-Stick McGhee  1953 thereabouts.  The sad fact that Stick McGhee was part of the early R and B scene with Drinking Wine Spo O Dee for Atlantic in 1949 but never hit the big time over there so he moved to King for another unsuccessful try at the charts.  Most of his songs seemed to be about booze or loaded dice or bad women but nowadays nobody really don't care about dead R n B artists and the ones that do are fighting a losing battle.  I can see it everytime I try to research these things.  This comes from a Highland quickie comp of a long ago quickie comp from Audio Lab which was part of King Records and had one side of music to Stick and the second side to John Lee Hooker, it's called Highway Of Blues and the cover art is like that of a 1.99 record.  Think I picked this CD up in Arizona in 1989 or 1990 at Tower Records.  Say what you want about Tower but they always seem to have the more obscure for music hounds like myself (see Forever Changes by Love).

 

10. The End-The Doors 1967  I find it hard to believe that The Townedgers would actually cover this song but you can do anything in music if you put your mind to it.  Even when I hear the end results I have to ask did they really cover it?  The Doors are/were my go to bands during the growing up years and anything they put out on 45 I usually would get, I somehow gotten two copies of Love Me Two Times and misplaced them both.  There's more Doors best ofs than actual albums and I remember wasting dollars on Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine and playing it a couple times before replacing it with the 2 CD Very Best Of The Doors.  Strange Days was the first Doors album I got, which was a quarter at the Salvation Army and it seen better days with all that snap crackle pop a Rice Krispies album. At a flea market a few years later I did score a copy of the first album and still have that in my collection.  Nico did a cover version of The End for Island in the 70s, it's more unsettling. John Cale plays a role in that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htemHKtbkU0

Five songs that The Townedgers have covered.

Midnight Rider-Allman Brothers 1970
Jet Airliner-Steve Miller Band 1977
Love's Made A Fool Out Of You-Bobby Fuller Four 1965
Tell Him No-Travis & Bob 1959
Pale Blue Eyes-Velvet Underground 1969

 
Talk about irony:  I was playing Negativeland's 1997 Dispepsi CD and left the house and drove down the road, only to have a Pepsi Semi coming across the curve who waved at me.  Saw another Pepsi truck down highway 1.  What's the odds of that happening?
 
 
2013 is not becoming a memorable year for new music or reissues although I did buy the new David Bowie Next Day album just to piss Bob Lefsetz off.  Doesn't seem to be a lot of interesting things for me outside of that. New Shooter Jennings could be his best ever. 80 year Petula Clark has a new album coming out, her first English album in 15 years called Lost In You (The End Records), Dicky Betts 1989 Pattern Disruptive gets reissued via Floating World (never heard of that label), Steve Earle's new one drops on April 16th. April 30th seems to be the best date for new music, new Deep Purple Now What?! (Ear/Eagle Rock), Blue Oyster Cult's Imaginos gets a third reissue via Real Gone Records to which I have say I have yet to buy anything from Real Gone, what they reissued I did have via Collector's Choice Music. But I might spring for the Cats On The Coast/On The Level that Real Gone will drop on the 30th.  May 7th is another interesting date for new releases from the Goo Goo Dolls (are they still around you ask?  Sure they are but they have 4 different producers which may not bode well for them).  Must get is the Pistol Annie's 2nd offering called Annie Up (did Blake Shelton had a hand in naming that?), less interesting is Rod Stewart's first rock album in years on Capitol (Universal or Sony, doesn't Capitol exists anymore?)  May 14th new Alice In Chains, the return of the Spin Doctors (on Ruf Records) and Snow Patrol's Greatest Hit(s).  Next week, AC/DC wannabees Airbourne put out album number 3.  I actually like their No Guts No Glory album still.  By then we'll know if we're Minnesota bound, Arizona bound, or heading off into the sunset.  Lord knows I need a vacation or new line of work.......