Top Ten Of The Week: Taylor Morris Cannot Lose

Hello Brats. Time for your daily dose of my Top Ten Of The Week.  One in a many series of top ten for the past 10 years. But first let us revisit our friends at the Hairball concert last month.  That's me giving the Dio sign in the back ground.  Probably the best profile of myself in years. Too bad you can't see it. picture disappeared due to time limits and I don't feel a need to repost the fucking thing.  On a related subject The Princeton Review called the University Of Iowa top party college in the nation. Which means either they didn't do their homework very well or just threw a dart on the map. Or, looked at the above picture of all those party animals at a Hairball show in the area.  Speaking on behalf of those party people I think the Princeton Review SHOULD  just mail the check to me at U of Ia Party Headquarters in Stone City. (fucking typos)




A freak accident claimed the life of a St. Louis icon Bob Reuter.  A musician and record collector Bob fell down a elevator shaft while moving into a new loft in St Louis. I think I mentioned him before in his KDHX hosting Bob's scratchy records, a record showcase that full of forgotten music over the years. Original picture disappeared too and so did Bob's Scratchy Records at KDHX. Link don't work so that got dropped too. Screw KDHX.



The big event here was Gary Sinese and the Lt. Dan Band doing a tribute show to a Afghan vet who was injured doing his duty Taylor Morris. Proceeds from this concert would go for building a smart house to accommodate Taylor, a quadruple amputee. Kudos to Tunnel To Towers Foundation for helping out a Vet whereas our wonderful government doesn't, unless they're trying to repeal Obamacare for the 40th time in congress.  A waste of time and money and idiots sucking up air in Washington looking after their best interests.   


1.  School Of Hard Knocks-Pat Travers Band 1990  A holdover from last week, PT continues to be searched and searched often here in Crabb's Top Ten Review And Views Site.  Of course his Polydor albums continue to get some airplay but he's been around and still going at it for many a year.  Couldn't get arrested or a record contract in America, so he went to the UK to record the same title of said song for Razor Records, which was part of Rough Trade but later editions of this may have come out on Castle Communcations, his blazing live album Boom Boom did come out for Castle/Essential in 91.  This lineup had PT, Jerry Riggs, Mars Cowling playing at 3rd Street Live (known as Big Dogs) and I actually had a nice view from the top watching Pat kicking it up bigtime.  And what would be a start of something new, PT, Jerry, and Mars I managed to high five and shake their hands coming off stage.  Tell ya one thing, when Pat shakes your hand, he's gives ya a big firm handshake.  Became a fan of his forever after that.



2.  Took It Like A Man-Bart Walker 2013  Another up and coming artist from the folks at Ruf Records (home of Samantha Fish, Oli Brown, Royal Southern Brotherhood and Jimmy Bowskill), they call it the blues but he's more Southern rock along the lines of Gregg Allman and Warren Haynes.  Of course, his new album you can't find in stores but Half Priced Books had this on hand.  Also he has elements of ZZ Top and Rocky Hill in his music as well.  While hoping we can get the new Samantha Fish in before the year is out, Waiting On Daylight will do just nicely.  Produced by Jim Gaines (Stevie Ray Vaughn, Huey Lewis, George Thorogood, many others). A top ten album of the year candidate.



3.  How Long-Blue Rodeo 1989  Canada's answer to Crazy Horse or Poco, they remain a cult following down here in the states and Jac Holtzman thought so much of them when he formed Discovery Records, he reissued the earlier Atlantic albums as well.  I "discovered" them via the pawnshops, where you could find their stuff cheap.  And you know how I did things, I find a Cd, take a chance on it and if I liked them enough, would seek out their discography. Their first album was produced by Terry Brown (Rush) but for number 2, they went to New Orleans and had Daniel Lanois's right hand man Malcolm Burn behind the controls, not exactly a good fit but then again I never cared much for Burn's productions on other bands (Midnight Oil, Better Than Ezra).  I actually do like Diamond Mine, their Sophomore effort  which also contains a couple of Bob Wiseman's piano interludes.  And I think last time I added a Blue Rodeo song we actually did hear from Bob.  You never know who'll come in to read a blog that only 3,000 people read per month.  Over half of them probably from myself checking up on stats and revising blogs (and correcting mistakes as well). On a sad note, James Gray, who took over for Bob Wiseman on keyboards died from a heart attack at age 52 today.



4. It's A Happening-The Magic Mushrooms 1966  One of the songs that found itself on Nuggets, the quintessential garage rock classic compilation that is a must have if you want to understand the beginnings of classic garage rock. Not one of my favorite songs at the beginning but as Lenny Kaye tacked it on as the final track, you can hear just about every garage rock influence on this one off for A&M, to which they got booted off the label once the the heads caught wind of the real meaning of Magic Mushrooms: the secret ingredient in making your steaks taste better har har.  Elements of Gonn, Del Vetts, Blues Project can be heard on this.



5.  Sixty-Elton John Vs P'nau 2012  This would have been a big deal about 20 30 years ago, but hardly anything got mentioned of this combination of a couple guys sampling old Elton John lyrics and songs into a dance album of sorts and of course Best Buy didn't have it either (and they wonder why record sales are down so far this year, lack of product and few and far between record stores).  Good Morning To The Light did get some airplay on top forty (a fluke) but for a 26 minute EP, it really isn't that bad. In fact it should have been the disco album that Elton John should have made instead of Victim Of Love but of course that would have been impossible. P'nau wasn't even born yet, neither one of them. After all these years, EJ finally gets his own release on Casablanca.



6.  Just Like Paradise-David Lee Roth 1988  After taking a two week vacation Bob Lefsetz came roaring back with more of his contradictory blogs and tears a new one in Diamond Dave's butt about Eat Them And Smile (Wasn't Van Halen he said, DUH).  I actually liked Eat Them And Smile more than I did of 5150 believe it or not but Skyscraper, the followup was more pop than rock and that great band of pros Dave had in his band were leaving left and right.  The Bobber talks about his alliance with EVH but he just loves this song. My opinion, he's done better, David Lee that is.     http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2013/08/03/rhinofy-just-like-paradise/



7.  I Feel A Song Coming On-Sonny Rollins 1956  Any jazz scholar will tell you that the best years of jazz came in the 50s. Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins and Louis Jordan will slowly being replaced by the up and coming, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Mingus and so on.  Rollins has played alongside some of the best (Monk) but he came on board for a jazz all star band of who's who called Plus Four that had the late great Clifford Brown on trumpet, George Morrow and bass and Super Max Roach on drums (Richie Powell, no relation to Bud Powell on piano). Any session featuring Max and Sonny playing is worth a listen.





8.  Fight Fire-The Golliwogs (pre CCR) 1966  Before Creedence they were Tom Fogerty And The Blue Velvets and got signed to Fantasy to which the label changed their name to the odious Golliwogs.  The lyrics are kinda slight but the guitar and rhythm section are hard rocking tough. Rescued from obscurity on the Nuggets box set.



9.  Make Me  A Miracle-Jimmie Rodgers  1958  Another forgotten 45 from the original box of 45s that I was exposed to when we went to visit Grandma Ambrose on those Illinois trips.  Always seemed like they know how to keep me in line was to bring out that gigantic box of 45s that Mom and the older dead sister would bring home after going up to downtown Lincoln.  At that time, you could go to at least 5 of them stores uptown (those were the days right?) and see what you can find.  And for years I thought Lincoln was the hot bed of finding out of print 45s, I knew I'd be spending plenty of time up at Woolworth's in the mid 70s. (I really do miss Woolworth's). Not releated to the yodeling pioneering country star, Rodgers' was famous around the late 50s with same sounding songs like Honeycomb or Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, marketed as a folk singer but more pop thanks to dated 50s' vocal arrangement.  B side to Secretly, this varied the Honeycomb sound with an eye toward Harry Belafonte.



10.  Tomorrow Night-Shoes 1979  Ultimate Classic Rock put together a top ten best of power pop songs ever made and of course all the usual suspects were there (Cheap Trick, Big Star, Cars, Knack) but hardly any love was ever showed to the guys that rewrote the book on homemade power pop music Shoes. I sometimes look at Shoes more than Big Star or Raspberries in terms of ultimate power pop music, Go All The Way does have a spot reserved in top ten best power pop songs as wells as Someday Someway-Marshall Crenshaw and I'm On Fire by Dwight Twilley Band which may be number one all time power pop. Hard to pick what would be the best from Shoes but I'd would go with this forgotten Elektra single that I got years ago.

Off the top of my head the top ten all time power pop songs.

1.  I'm on Fire-Dwight Twilley
2.  What I Like About You-The Romantics
3.  Go All The Way-The Raspberries
4.  Don't Bring Me Down-ELO (Think about it folks, Jeff Lynne was good at this genre too)
5.  Tomorrow Night-Shoes
6.  Leaving Your World Behind 20/20
7.  Girlfriend-Matthew Sweet
8.  Someday Someway-Marshall Crenshaw
9.  A Million Miles Away-The Plimsouls
10. Love's Closing In On Me-Tommy James  and
oops I ran out of space:  http://ultimateclassicrock.com/power-pop-rock-songs/




One reason I have so much stuff and may have to do this in the future.



George Duke, the multitasking keyboard singer for Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention and later a solo musician also left us Monday at age 67.  He will be missed.

Brian Keith, (no relation to the late actor) piece of shit jackass was charged with 3 felonies in a failed attempt to rob Kid Rock's house last week.  This is where we give Kid Rock the chance to kick this guy's ass.  Due to the statue of limitations, the link no longer works.

Finally, Iowa Hawkeye football is almost 3 weeks away but Gannett, the evil Corporate hack paper conglomerate that has turned the Iowa City Press Citizen into the worst type of toilet paper out there has decided even though  Iowa is Iowa City based, that it is better to let the folks at the Des Moines Register to write about Iowa Football and the Iowa City folk can just write about high school sports.  The problem of Journalism that has continued to go down hill thanks be to the Tele Com Act Of 1996 that not only killed off radio and music but also gave Corporations to buy out newspapers and dictate what they want to print.  It's a fucking sad day to have to continue to report of the dumbing down of what we depend on for  news.  Make no mistake Gannett sucks.  Ever tried to read a online paper owned by Gannett and having those annoying messages that you have so many free articles to read before you have to spend 19.95 a month for unlimited access.  The Iowa City Press Citizen is owned by Gannett, the Cumulus of Newspapers online. Like they do with the Arizona Central.  A pain in the ass to read, Gannett sucks.

. Ryan Suchomel is out as Sports Editor of the Iowa City Press-Citizen.

Sources have told KCJJ that the move comes after Gannett, which owns the Press-Citizen and Des Moines Register, changed the duties of its Iowa City sportswriters. Earlier this week the company informed Press-Citizen sportswriters that they would no longer cover Iowa Hawkeye athletics, instead turning those duties over to Register staffers. The current Press-Citizen sports staff was told they would exclusively cover high school sports.

Tuesday night Suchomel wrote on his Twitter account: “No longer affiliated with HawkCentral.com or Press-Citizen.com . Unfollow. Seriously. Get out while there's still time.”

Press-Citizen officials have declined comment.

And Taylor Morris still cannot lose: http://words2vomit.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/love-story-a-story-in-pictures-you-wont-forget-easily/