Top Ten Of The Week:Craptastic Weather

The Piece Of Shit award goes to Mark Sanford, the skirt chasing two timing, stalker of his ex wife and the idiots of South Carolina voting this winner back into congress and back to an open seat in the US House. In other words, business as usual in that redneck state.  Funny how people want change and then when they get that chance they go right back to the craptastic Conservative freak who took time off to go walking the Appalation (sic) Trail to Argentina  to get some nookie on the side and lied about that as well. But then again Sanford won in a district that was Red all the way and of course the usual gang of idiots backing him along the way (Lindsay Graham, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley anybody?) and put together the best campaign team of advisers money can buy too.  Hell, I like to have that team working for me if I was two timing my significant other too. But then again he wanted it more than Elizabeth Colbert Busch too.  Congrats Sanford, now you can go chase more tail and do nothing just like the rest of the do nothings in congress.

 


Four more months till our time in Printing ends.  On Monday marks one year since Boone Novy passed away, so to honor him I did the interstate clean up last weekend.  Lotta crap on the interstate side, broken car parts from crashes,  porta port jonnys, about a dollars worth of pop and beer cans, somebody lost a cellphone shoes and jewelery and of course some dead roadkill.  They ran out of bags but at least it's that part looks nice till the litterbugs throw shit their shit out.



By now, the metal world is moaning the loss of Jeff Hennenman of Slayer who died at age 49 from liver failure brought on by a spider bite a couple years ago.  I never been a Slayer fan but if you like your speed metal, Reign In Blood is a headbanger's classic.


And now let's hear it for Cumulus Corporate Radio.  KDAT y'all.

Plenty Of Top Ten Action here.  Let's get to it.


1.  White Bird-It's A Beautiful Day 1970  Hello, I'm Quaalude, eat me! Hippie Dippy never got any better than this track which was a Beaker Street staple from it's inception onward till the end and two years and three months later it's becoming a distant memory.  Even the facebook site has been very quiet of late about it coming back. Maybe Clyde Clifford decided he liked Sunday Nights off after all, can't blame him.  King Prick Matthew Katz pretty much ruin this band like he ruined Moby Grape, both band's albums that made it to cd were deleted as he put them out in inferior sound on his own label but I did find a 2 on 1 cd of the first two IABD albums on a import and forgot all about it till I wanted to take it to work and then tore up the house trying to locate it.  Finally found it when I wasn't looking for it, just like the Sweet Dreams Soundtrack.  Perhaps I should at least put my music in order eh?


2.  Little Man-Sonny & Cher 1966  A great arranger in the style of Phil Spector, Sonny Bono was the weakest link in vocals, he sounded goofy back then, still is today God rest his soul and Cher just basically trying to find her way as well.  Probably the only time we ever heard an oboe being the lead instrument but this is my fave Sonny N Cher song.  Came out on a chopped version of 22 Groovy Hits that predated K Tel. Bought the Best of CD years ago but never sat down and listened to the whole thing till I took it to work the other night.  Of course most of who played on this was part of Phil Spector's Wrecking Crew which means it's not a throwaway by far.


3.  Out Of Hand-Deep Purple 2013  Here at Senior Citizen Rock we still try to do our best to follow our favorites from the classic rock era, the 70s and it's fading away four decades into this abyss we call rock music. But you gotta admire Deep Purple to continue to rock on while acknowledging that radio won't play this.  Off the new ironic titled Now What?! album and it does have its moments but you all know what songs will get played on Cumulus Corporate Radio don't ya. (Do I have to say it?!)

4.  You Run-The Call 1988  I read somewhere that the late Michael Been' son has reformed that band (his son is also part of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club too) and maybe doing double duty but when Mike was alive The Call was a hard to figure band, where they alt rock, christian rock, bombast rock in the key of U2 or Peter Gaberial and they had a couple sizable hits in Let The Day Begin and The Walls Came Down.  Universal cherry picked the best known to put out their patented 20th Century Masters Collection and it's the one that I have.  You Run, the second single from Let The Day Begin didn't fare that well on the charts and I think the only radio station played it back then was KFMH if anybody ever did.

 

5.  The Lizard King-17 Candle 2009  Hey they were from Iowa and managed to scrap up enough money to put out a CD that nobody knew about till I found it for two bits in the Clarance bins which is why I do this type of stuff.  Once in a while you might find an album that captures your fancy from a band nobody knows about. Other past winners are the fabled Randy Cliffs and their neighbors The Pulltops.  17 Candle is lead by Ben LeFleur's vocals who kinda remind me of the guy from The Hangdogs or Roger Clyne of the AZ Peacemakers (Refreshments). Outside of that, this band is more mysterious than The Townedgers.  Their album had to be pretty good, it was produced by Iowa legendary Bob Dor.....not him but Tom Tatman the guy that runs Catamount Studios in Cedar Falls (that's in Iowa y'all).  For all the kudos and praise that they got, this is the first time I ever heard of them and they're no longer together.  As for Ben LeFleur, he started up a country band called Crawford County. Google their name and you'll come across a few things but in the meantime... http://tradeusforabus.webs.com/17candle.htm



6.  The Happy Organ-Dave "Baby" Cortez 1959  Growing up in my youth, I always had a soft spot for instrumentals, in fact most of my 45s consisted of no speak music, from Johnny And The Hurricanes to Duane Eddy but this is was one of the songs on the jukebox that forever screwed me up from ever making anything of myself in the working world and focused my attention of records for fifty years of this life.  Back in the late 50s, this was considered House Rocking music which meant down in the bad side of town they turned this up to full blast.  Strange mix even on the stereo version to which they miked Cortez' organ up front and everything in the back as the guitarist and sax player fight it out to be heard.  Found this as a scratchy 45 at our junior high's Liberian's garage sale with a few others.  Record Collector had this on LP.

 

7.  Shazam!-Jim Nabors 1965 Gomer Pyle sings!  I know, what the hell Crabb?!  Let me explain, this is the only time Jim Nabors did his Gomer Pyle act on any recording and don't laugh but it's quite listenable.  It's done in the style of Roger Miller who wrote a few songs on this album as well from the likes of John D Loudermilk and Buddy Edd Wheeler, three of the best country songwriters out there and three songs were written especially for Jim by one Dave Gates, to which he would form one of the best pop bands of the late 60s and early 70s with Bread.  Saw this record for a dollar at the Crowded Closet and had to hear it for myself.  Too bad Jim Nabors never followed this up but he did go on to do muzak pop type of music for Columbia, which he could do it all, but  I never bother nor cared to go seek them out.  I'll settle for Gomer Pyle anyday.


8.  Wilma's Rainbow-Helmet 1994  Imagine that, after Jim Nabors, we go Nu Metal from Helmet.  Cumulus Radio would never hire me.  Helmet remains the first and only great Nu Metal band of the 1990s but once they lost Peter Mengede they lost that intense edge that made their first two albums perfect to put a fist through somebody's face.  This is off Betty, the 1994 album that got luke warm reviews and basically the last good Helmet album. I love Page Hamilton but anything after Betty bored me.  Diggy Kat played this as a request from yours truly at Radio Buzz'd.   He loves me too.



9.  Down, Down Down-Tom Waits 1983  A gifted songwriter but always borderlined on freaky singing styles, when Asylum dropped Waits, he took his music and style to a whole new level when Chris Blackwell signed him up to Island and for all intent purposes Sword Fish Trombones, Rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years are alternative music galore. Waits rocks out with intensity on this 2 minute track.  I know the last three songs on this top ten are really really different.   And you wouldn't want that any other way.

10.  The Outlaw Torn-Metallica 1996  Load really turned off a lot of the metal heads out there and still is looked upon as the worst album that Metallica ever made but I disagee a lot on that.  I think they started becoming more hard rock than metal on the black album and Load took them further into a Southern rock catagory that didn't mix well with the fans.  Even the half wit at All Music Guide gave Re Load a better grade to which I don't even think the dude even listened to it, perhaps it was the short hair and cigars that the band was smoking in the album cover.  Yes it's a mess of a record but they never came up with anything that was hooky as Hero Of The Day or creepy as Poor Twisted Me or bitching as King Nothing all great songs in my opinion.  The band crammed so much music into Load that they had to do an edit of nine and half minutes since the limit of a CD is 80 minutes (thus they had the promo sticker of 78:59).  A full ten and half minute song came out on The Memory Remains single CD. (not 45 I don't think, there's never been a 10 minute song on 45 without doing the usual part 1/part 2 edit).

A final note:  The longest CD that I have was EMI Best Of The 70s to which the CD is a mind blogging 82:14 running time.  There's CDs that I do have that flirt with the 80 minute cutoff mark and The Best Of Luna and The Who's Kids Are Alright CD (the complete Version) both go over 79:30 mark and tend to skip at the end of their songs which makes it frustrating to say the very least.  Back in the early days of CDs, the cutoff point was 74 minutes which explains why some 2 record sets got some omissions on the CD version.

Bonus Track: Townedger's Lament-Vufcup 2008  Amazing how Diggy Kat managed to turn the majority of Townedger titles into a nifty little song, he may have to do an update since there's a few more new titles to add.  Love ya bro!  http://vufcup2.bandcamp.com/track/townedgers-lament

What else are we listening to (just pick five)

Solid Ground-Tom Keifer 2013
Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams-Nico 1967
Corbrastyle-Teddybears featuring Mad Cobra 2006
Grand Wazoo-Frank Zappa 1972
Take It Back-Face To Face 1996



CD Review:  Pistol Annies  Annie Up (Sony Music Nashville/RCA)

For a side project that was Miranda Lambert's the Annies have become more of a group effort, not that Hell On Heels wasn't, but it seemed to me that the best songs that Miranda wrote came from that record than on Four The Record, which might be her least but still it's a four star album.  However, the rising star that is Ashley Monroe is becoming more Oblivious, her Like A Rose album was a bit more country sounding than Four The Record and she even had Blake Shelton put to good use as well.  Shelton could learn a few more things from his wife and the Pistols themselves if he wants to be good country and not focus on the corn.

There seems to be more of a solidarity to Annie Up, the new album than Hell On Heels, but all three Annies, Lambert, Monroe and Angalenna Presley contributed to all 12 songs, which continues to deal with the seedy side of life and the trailer court and being Unhappily Married to which a couple does their best to make it work in a faltering marriage, they're in it for the long haul.  Until Damn Thing comes along to which they hope there's enough beer to get through the night before the POed woman is ready to kill his significant other.  Lambert to continues to let lose her bad side that she didn't show much on her record, Dear Sobriety to which is a strong armed prayer to end the evils of drinking, one of more depressing numbers on this.

I have heard comparisons of the Annies to The Dixie Chicks and although they have the vocals to match, the one advantage is that they don't oversing like Natalie Maines does at times (BTW speaking of her, she does have a new album out this week as well) and their backing band is more country rock and roll than the bluegrass slant that the Dixie Chicks do as well.  And the Annies write much better as well, not a slam on the Chicks at all, but it's a bit more straight forwarded.  And then the usual songs that make the Annies what they are. songs about sex, sinning and being pretty ain't pretty (as one song suggests) and a song Hush Hush to keep things in check, even though that they're not. And Trading One Heartbreak For Another is an old time country like number about a baby crying for a dad that left and never came back.  This is not Florida Georgia Line talking about the good times, this is stone cold reality.  And probably something you won't hear on KHAK anyway.

Their loss.  Annie Up is all things we know and love about Ashley, Ang and Miranda but they saved the best for last.  An eternal love song    I Hope Your The End To My Story, to which the bottom line is that we all wish we all can grow old together.  Even after the pratfalls of the songs that is Annie Up.

Grade A-