Top Ten Of The Week: Willie 80

Upon the big news that George Jones has left the world still remains a shock but even at age 81 it remains a feat upon itself that he lived that long.  I spent most of the weekend arguing with the Twitter under 20 crowd to show some respect to their elders for some day you will be 81 and the youngster will look down upon you as well.  The ignorance of the world and the US continues when some brain dead blonde makes a comment like oooh George Jones was a alcoholic country star that would snort drugs and punch out cameramen when he got stopped for OWI.  That was years ago Sweetheart now go back to take more duckface pictures of yourself while you're posting for those cheap porn sites.



Two weeks after the damn rainfest, the downstairs room remains a jungled mess and I can't find half of what I'm looking for.  I was trying to find Becky Hobbs 1988 song Jones On The Jukebox but it's among the 11,000 misplaced CDs around here.  Logic tells me that bargain hunting is going have to become less and less unless I get rid of the stuff that I don't play anymore.  And looking at the cleared space on my entertainment center, I have seen that I have two copies of The Five Americans Progressions CD, thought I had a Western Union CD unless my brother replaced it but I don't think he's into The Five Americans.

 Mark Prindle has a new interview here:  http://this-is-your-life-now.tumblr.com/post/48956231296/mark-prindle-interview

Mark Prindle also announced that he married his long time girlfriend Chloe last weekend. Congrats Mark and here's hoping you and Chloe and your handsome son have a everlasting love and life of togetherness.



I don't have a Linkedin account but I do Tumblr but I hardly post there.  It's usually Twitter or here or Facebook that have drained a lot of my years away.  Ratings here been mighty good, with over 2800 views (2879 final tally, 2nd best all time) and most of it going to the Brains blog which continues to be like Haley's comet and streak away from the rest of the pack. Deleting that blog would send us back to under 1,000 club and we don't want to do that right?  The best top ten ever, Mexican Jumping Beans has its  sights on 3rd place and right behind that is The First And Last Crabb Fashion Show which gets 3 times as many viewers than the The Return Of The Crabb Fashion Show which bombed this month.  Guess we might as well retire that since everybody wants the original.  I get a lot of referring URLs from the questionable sites, Vampire Stats, Filmhill even Viagra Online and Ciaslis For You, which has nothing to do with music at all.  Wish these GD ED drugs get banned from TV, Radio and even here.  Never trust a site that has Viagra or Cilais and especially from any site with a RU in the line either.  That shit poison will kill brain cells and make you go blind but you'll get a four hour erection for your trouble.



The Top Of The Week:

 

1.  Brothers Of The Bottle-George Jones 2012  What do you say that we start out the top ten and pay tribute to the best country singer of our era.  Of course everybody talks about He Stopped Loving Her Today as the best country song ever but I must disagree with that, even Curly Putnam and Bobby Braddock said they wrote better songs, it just that Jones took an average song and shook every emotion you can get out of it.  If you wanted to write a perfect beer song and get somebody to sing it, you'd get Jones to do it. Written by Leon Payne and recorded sometime in the mid 60s, this came out on the Time Life mid priced Heartaches And Hangovers, a somewhat concept album about bars and beer. This sounds a bit like Misery Loves Company by Porter Waggoner who also left this world a few years ago. (photo credit: Farce The Music)

2.  Cold Feelings-Social Distortion 1992  Time and the internet has a way of relieving you and me of what time we have left on this planet.  Before the computer and the net I spent many a time and energy at the local record stores in town and we had at least 7 of them to choose from, nowadays if you want to go to a town that has seven more more music stores you'd go to Madison but thanks to Mother Nature and stalled fronts and 30 hour rainfall straight, I wasted two days cleaning the basement.  And people wonder why I hate rain?!  Getting back to subject Social D was a big deal when their second album came out on Epic and 21 years after the fact it still sounds as vital as before.  As of this writing I'm having somebody trying to convince Jerry Scott to go back into starting up a music store. If he follows through we'll see.


3.  Bombollini-Chris Rea 1984  A cult artist if there ever was one, Chris Rea best known for Fool If You Think It's Over back in 1978 but he's been hanging around for many many years, and enjoyed a comeback of sorts in the 1990s with The Road To Hell and Auberge but Americans never really took hold of him. His guitar playing is Mark Knoplfer and had a whiskey type of vocal but for the most part Rea played it too much MOR ish to be considered nothing more than a curio, however I have about 8 of his albums, even though I haven't paid much attention to him after the flop Expressio Logic for East West in 1993/4.  But his catalog has always been available as imports as with Wired To The Moon to which I don't think got issued in the US, I found this as a 2 dollar bargain bin special and it's all things Rea good and bad.  He always starts out with a great lead off song which Bombollini is, then coasts most of the way through.  Side note: Rea signed with Motown in 1986 with the better Dancing With Strangers album (found that on CD in the cut outs at the old Camelot store in Westdale (the valley of death) Mall in the 90s. Then on to Geffen for the overview New Light Through Old Windows (hits: Working On It, Let's Dance, a Beaker Street staple) and to Atco/East West and then oblivion.

4.  It's Not For Me To Understand-Willie Nelson 1971  From Yesterday's Wine.  Willie has a new album out Let's Face The Music And Dance and for being 80 years old it's a good listen but I thought I go back into the archives and pick out one of his more obscure songs from a classic but overlooked album.


 


5.  We All Get Old-Johnny Law 1991  Basically all but forgotten, Johnny Law came out of the Austin TX music circuit and their Georgia Satellites/Rolling Stones rock booze boogie really didn't stand out much in front.  In fact Brendan OBrien must have thought it was cute to mix Erik Larson's vocals deep into the mix as well.  An oddity in the Metal Blade catalog and released though Reprise Records.  They did sound a lot like Georgia Satellites since they borrowed the drummer to record the album (I'm guessing Brendan O Brien didn't like the original drummer and didn't use him) and Rick Richards plays guitar and sings backup to this

Ron Wood cover.


6.  Two Fingers-Jake Bugg 2013  You know you're getting older when you're hearing an up and coming 19 year old paying homage to the sounds of Bob Dylan, The Everly Brothers and Richie Valens  rather than Justin Beaverbiscuits but it does give me hope that some of today's youth is rediscovering the golden age of rock and roll to bring it to the masses.  I dismissed Bugg as yet another faceless singer till I heard bits and pieces of his new album off the Rolling Stone page and decided to give him a go and his new album is quite good although it kinda peters out toward the end.  I thought he was singing something like I got two fingers up the ass to where the lyrics corrected me about giving two fingers to yesterday. Winston Churchill demonstrates the proper use of the insulting two finger salute.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign





7.  Three Ways From Tomorrow-Spanky And Out Gang 1969  In a perfect world we would be able to get a decent overview from Spanky McFarland and company but Universal continues to fuck them over like they continue to fuck over The Brains but least Spanky And Our Gang managed to get their albums reissued.  Had Spanky Greatest Hit on CD twice but sold them both and ended up finding finally a decent vinyl copy of said album  One of Lefty Baker's better songs, it made Greatest Hit but not the replacement CD Greatest Hits (they added the S on the followup) or the even more disappointing 20th Century Masters to which they omitted a few more songs.  The original album the strange Without Rhyme Or Reason Or Anything You Choose was their best studio album which reminded me a lot of a more poppier Jefferson Airplane crossed with The Association and for many years BJ Records had it in the cut out section an nobody bought it.  I did locate a decent copy at Goodwill years after BJ Records closed down.

 

8.  Sehnsucht-Rammstein 1997  Beyond description Rammstein remains the best German industrial metal band and their second album sold tons and got airplay on KRNA.   They have great influences all around their tunes, Neu! here, Ministry there, Killing Joke and Nine Inch Nails figure greatly as well with a touch of Rage Against The Machine.  They really didn't cater to the needs of the US fanbase, most of their music they sang in German but the music is aggressive upon itself.  Nowadays KRNA nor KFMW will not touch them with a ten foot pole, Cumulus Corporate Radio forbids anything Rammstein it seems.  Side note: I found a few things along with Rammstein at Half Priced Books this weekend in the 2 buck bins,  Steve Winwood's Chronicles on Island/Warner that wasn't a BMG club copy, a piece of crap from aggro/metal punks I AM WAR (after 3 songs I redonated it back to charity) and the Sunrays Andrea.  In other words, your typical hoarder variety of tunes that sounded good at the time.


9.  Tiger In Your Tank-Muddy Waters 1960  One of the more hard driving boogie blues rockers that Muddy ever laid down this is damn near close to heavy metal.  Derek See from his website added this as the song of the day and hearing this convinced me that I should include this on the top ten.  Strange to see out of all the best of Muddy Waters albums out there that this never made any of them including the 3 cd Chess Box set that I bought years ago and really don't play that much.  I managed only to find this on a throwaway cheapo Blues Legends CD that MCA threw out in the bargain bins years ago. Chess 45 1765  http://dereksdaily45.blogspot.com/2013/04/muddy-waters-tiger-in-your-tank.html

10.  Summertime Blues-The Who 1970  Funny how a year changes things including the weather.  Last year it was nice and warm and sunny and no rain although the farmers and the KCRG shrill sister kept crying about needing rain and having stupid shit like signs that say pray for rain. Motherfuckers got their wish and then some this spring to which we are still in early March pattern and forecasts call for more fucking rain all week.  And so we're nervously watching the skies and hoping we don't get another 24 hour straight rainfall to have the GD water in the basement the last two months.  Warm weather what warm weather?  Been fucking chilly all GD spring.  The year sucked from January 5 when I spent the night in a motel room after the car broke down and it hasn't gotten better, in fact it has gotten progressively worse but I'm repeating myself. So I'm going to institute another pray for no more rain prayer and hopefully that will work.  I'm sick and tired of trying to dry out a basement that refuses to stay dry to yet another fucking stationary front and cold fucking weather. In the meantime think good thoughts as we play a track off Live At Leeds, the greatest live album ever made.

 
For the effort of making it to his 80th birthday we'll give some Willie Nelson loving with 5 more favorites from his long and lasting career

I Have To Be Crazy-1976
Uncloudy Day 1974 released 1977
Blue Skies 1978
Across The Borderline 1993
Write Your Own Songs 1984

From Willie himself!

Thank you so much for the many birthday greetings, cards, tributes, videos and gifts that I received from people all over the world for my 80th birthday. I love and will cherish them all.

I would like to especially thank all those who showed up the other night to the benefit concert at The Backyard in Austin and supported the Abbott and West Fire Departments. Being able to help these real heroes was the best birthday present I could have ever hoped for. Thank you again for making it all possible.

Love Willie

And now Pat's pick, Pat Travers song of the week:

God Bird Change-Al Di Meola 1982

I have a cool story to go along with today's "Rx". I was in NYC sometime in 1980 doing some PR and I bumped into my co-producer/engineer Dennis MacKay. He was working with Al Di Meola doing some overdubs for a new album at Electric Lady Land studios and invited me to come down and meet Al. Well I was super excited about being able to finally see the famous studio built by Jimi Hendrix but kind of intimidated about meeting the Reigning Fusion King Guitarist Al Di Meola. Dennis assured me that Al was very cool and would enjoy meeting me. Turns out, as usual, Al was nothing like the snooty Jazz musician I expected and was really a lot like me. We're the same age and he was a cig smoking, beer drinking, F-bomb dropping fool just like me! Anyway, so they take me down to the control room and friggin' Jan hammer is in the recording booth with his Oberheim synthesizer running through a 100 watt Marshall half-stack and he's warming up for an over dub! They rolled this tune on the Studer 24 track tape machine and Jan just blistered through the whole thing in one take. At the end he looked up at the three of us and asked if he should do another one. We all looked and each other and shook our heads in unison "NO"! So let's have us a listen to some classic Jazz/Rock Fusion from 1980/81... for today's "Musical Rx"...Its my good buddy Al Di Meola...from the Electric Rendevouz album..."God Bird Change"

The guy from World Party throws a comment at Bob Lefsetz on the album format (dead but we still buy anyway)

On this album thing…..
Yes its a dead format (especially on the CD) but I would like to think that it is possible to release viable collections of songs
and not just the chart single thing which to my mind is just as marginalized as the album.
We live in a cultural desert. There has to be a way of giving people more substantial musical feed than the bullshit currently offered……
The biz needs to be deconstructed…..musicians need to be interesting and CREATIVE and stop getting seduced by the bullsh*t.
But to say there is no mileage in song cycles of any kind is like saying we only want the first movement of the Eroica and forget the funeral march!!!!!
Karl Wallinger
World Party