Top Ten Of The Week: Teabaggery

My goodness the ratings for the last five blogs sure stink.  Ain't had none of the recent ones go over 20 view since the 800th post.  I'm sure we'll continue that glorious streak once again.  Anyway the Printing era is now over, I'm now officially in Scanning, still employed thank God but adding another 20 miles to route of going to work and back and winter is coming.  Friday we had some big storms and tornadoes that made a mess out of Macy and Wayne Nebraska, Jefferson South Dakota and Quimby and parts of Molville Iowa.  And Sturgis had about 20 inches of snow.  Thankfully, down here the front went through without major storms.  Save that crap for springtime.




The big mess is Congress shutting down and the Teaquda aka the Tea Party Texans have been looking out for their own interests.  Fuck you and me, one Texas senior prick Randy Neugebarger chided a Washington park Ranger for denying people to enter the WWII War Memorial, after he and the pricks shut the damn government down themselves.  Never since the 60s have we have seen such polarizing forces, helped by big lobby money and the Koch Brothers to help themselves and leave the poor out to fend for themselves.  Most of the assholes are from Texas.  Somebody mentioned that maybe we should give Texas back to Mexico, I don't think the Mexicans want them back either.  Don't get me wrong, I have friends down in Texas that have supported my blogs from time to time and most of them shared my feelings.  But there's creep, Ted Cruz who is making a mockery of democracy by yammering on a 21 hour bullshit rant rave about the Affordable Health Care Act and even read his children a bedtime story...at taxpayer's expense no doubt.  This is the kind of BULLSHIT that has plagued us since 9/11 and the Teabaggers and the Koch Brothers are doing a fine job destroying the US from the inside, them and that John Boehner, Speaker Drunk of the House.  Too bad we can't vote them out but then these pricks would redraw the line so that the more Conservative votes will fall into their area.  Just like Steve King, A hole from the other side of the state and too damn bad that F4 tornado didn't blow his ass away to oblivion.  And meanwhile some bitch woman (Republican no doubt) complains that she should get paid, even though congress is shut down.  Say hello to Republicant Do Nothing Renee Ellmers.  (She has since backtracked from that remark but there's another yayhoo that complains he can't make his nice house payment from a shutdown (Republican from Nebraska Lee Terry, they're all Republicans, WTF Terry, Koch Brothers ain't paying you enough?)   Terry is from the other side of the Missouri to which the other side has Steve King.  No wonder I don't go out to that area.  Too many Koch Heads out there.



The Top Ten Of The Week:



1.  Bare Trees-Fleetwood Mac  1972
     When You Say-Christine Perfect 1970
I'm sure you heard about Christine McVie rejoining Fleetwood Mac on one song during their swing through the UK last month and as much as I like Don't Stop is that it's not a song that I'll be playing on my own anymore, classic rock radio ran it into the ground just like most of the stuff off Rumours. But four years before hand McVie joined the band around the time of Kiln House and seeing Jeremy Spencer go bye bye and Bob Welch hello hello.  Bare Trees turned out to be final goodbye for Danny Kirwan who would get booted out due to freaky behavior.  Bare Trees got plenty of FM airplay in the mid 70s and that turned out to be one of the first albums that I bought on my own.  Around 1970 Blue Horizon put out The Legendary Christine Perfect Album (later issued by Sire a few years later) and is the most blues and soul based from the future Mrs. McVie and upon hearing it once again it still holds up quite nicely.  Perfect covers this song, originally done by Fleetwood Mac on the Then Play On album.  Something sounding similar to  Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention had they cover this song.



2.  One Little Victory-Rush 2002   Ever so much the black eye of their catalog, Vapor Trails when it came out fell victim to a very LOUD and very distorted mix on CD that made it unlistenable for me so the guys decided to do a new mix and call upon Bill Bottrell to fix it.  Still mixed in the red but at least you can listen to it and hear that actual sound although there's a bit of variation from the original.  Not going to revisit the old CD to listen to, I don't have that much time nor hearing anymore, I think I'm getting deaf in my left ear (another of life's practical jokes of being around loud music all these years).  Still even while better sounding, Vapor Trails suffered from too many filler songs and Neil Peart refuses to listen to it since the inspiration came from the bad luck Peart suffered at around that time, losing his wife and daughter and decided to take time off and go see the country from a bike.  I think I like Test For Echo better than Vapor Trails even though the folks at Popdose didn't like that album, nor fave track Virtuality.  People's taste do vary ya know? http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/geddy-lee-dives-into-rushs-video-timeline-20131007



3.  Married Woman-Big Joe Turner 1953   While I was cleaning out my locker on the last day of being in printing, I came across one of those cheaply made radios that tune in the closest radio station, which turned out to be KCCK, the jazz/blues station. I have had this contraption in my locker for a good 10 plus years, when the old NCS gave these things out as a freebies.  Of course bringing this home, it amazes me that KCCK remains the only station this thing picks up but they played this old Joe Turner blues classic on Blues Before Sunrise and I have always been a big Joe Turner fan ever since doing a research paper on the blues while going to Kirkwood, which is home to KCCK. But back then they didn't play the blues like they do today.  And too bad I never broke in radio at that time.



4.   I Can't Get No Nookie-The Masked Marauders 1970  2001 But I guess this came out in around 1970 and was hyped as a get together of Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Van Morrison and a few other notables but it was basically a bunch of soundalikes just jamming and making it up along the way.  The liner notes are a hoot to read but you need a magnifying glass to read them since it came from Wounded Bird and was once part of the Rhino Handmade series. But then if you want jamming, you're better off with Jamming With Edward, a bunch of jams between Jagger, Ry Cooder, Nicky Hopkins, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts.  As for the Masked Marauders themselves, this was issued by Reprise, back in the era that anything goes and not as Corporate driven and whored out as bands today are.  Nookie was released as a 45, if you can ever find it.  If not, that version is a bonus track.  Nothing to hear here move on.



5.  Stick It Where The Sun Don't Shine-Nick Lowe 1982  To me Nick Lowe was my favorite artist to listen to in the late 70s and early 80s with Dave Edmunds till they broke up big time after 1980's Seconds Of Pleasure. But Lowe goes all the way back to Brinsley Schwartz, a band that started out sounding lot like CSN and The Band but with a more slanted sound edge and dry irony to boot.  An all star band so to speak, Nick ended up hanging with Dave Edmunds in the mid 70s and then turned more into a Punk Pop Rocker.  Things changed big time although Nick did used Rockpile (or the reminder band members of it) on Nick The Knife, on this song it does sound like Billy Bremner on guitar and Terry Williams bashing on the drums and the Ex wife Carlene Carter singing backup too.  Lately, Lowe has moved away into more of a MOR country pop type of music and although his efforts have been creditable, none have really captured my fancy unlike the golden days.  To which I wish we can all return to.




6.  I Remember When-The Coral 2002  It's been 12 years since The Strokes appeared in the music world and plenty of copy cat bands have come and gone.  Never really got into The Strokes although I did buy and listen to the first four albums (money thrown away although Room On Fire to me was better than the ironically titled Is This It?). But anyhow, I was in Las Vegas at a Super Pawn and they had a copy of the first Coral CD and so since the rental had a CD player, I bought this just to escape the blah radio stations.  The Coral was what I would call a throwback band, a band that had its heart and place in the early 70s between prog rock and pop radio and they were a little bit more harder edge than Franz Ferdinand but not as druggy as say The Bees.  Not for everybody but I can listen to them.  Probably the best of their 4 albums recorded for Deltasonic, the oddball UK label.

7.  If You Dare-AC/DC 1990   It probably would have been easier to add Thunderstruck just for shits and giggles but I decided to dig deeper in the album known as The Razor's Edge which was their comeback album and dig out this final track of said record.   Produced the late Bruce Fairbairn who did wonders for Prism and YES but also Aerosmith.



8.  Bearing Witness-Dreams So Real 1988  Their claim to fame was Rough Night In Jericho but their album based on that hit song had 10 songs that had the same beat and basically the same chords and melody but different words.  But in some ways they kinda remind me of a more simple Fire Town or Outfield.  Even though there's not much variety or alterations to the formula I do like RNIJ, the album.  Haven't heard their second and final Arista platter and probably never will.



9.  Wham!-Lonnie Mack 1963  One of Stevie Ray Vaughn's heroes, Lonnie sounded like Freddy King when he sang but like Freddy King I enjoy Mack's instrumentals more than his singing the songs.  Stevie Ray would produced Lonnie's 1985 Strike Like Lightning album (recommended) and may have had a hand in getting Lonnie signed to Epic for the forgotten gem Road Houses And Dance Halls.  Back in the early 90s, it was rumored that Mack would venture up here in Iowa  to go fishing on the Wapispinicon outside of Waubeek when he was touring around that time. 





10.  South Side Of The Sky-Yes 1972  One of the earliest albums that I ever bought on it having Roundabout and since I couldn't find the single decided the album would be better and got the full 8 minute version of it.  However, my fave is We Have Heaven, a Jon Anderson vocal charade which leads into door slam, either a horse trot or somebody walking away into a burst of howling wind till Bill Bruford kicks it off with a drum solo intro.  I think the only station that ever played this version was Clyde Clifford and Beaker Street off KAAY.  But anyway as a forth grader I managed to buy this when it on sale at the soon to be gone K Mart off Collins, back when they sold records.  Wasn't much into Yes back then but Fragile was a classic album upon itself.  I remember the first time they issued this on CD how crappy it sounded and a second remaster was a bit better soundwise.  Atlantic has reissed it twice more for you audiophiles that got to have everything.

Late Additions:

I forgot to tell you that I did buy the new Elton John album and basically it's bland. It's not bad, there's craft to it but it just doesn't jell for me.  In the state of the music today, everybody's cramming for your attention, everybody's crying to some kind of cred and perhaps EJ should retire to Las Vegas and play out his hits. After all they're still playing Daniel whereas nobody is touching The Union, his last album with Leon Russell. In the words of Andrew Loog Oldham....i do understand how much elton enjoys being in the studio. it’s like going back to the safety of the womb, but sometimes you just gotta stand in the alley and jerk off …..

 

Best Buy shrunk their CD section to a single aisle at Dubuque making it not even worth going there.  Plus they raised the price of CDs as well.  Oh and if you go to Moondog Music in Dubuque be sure to bring a fly swatter, there was so many of them, you thought the toilet overflowed or the incense they were bringing was attracting more to them.   Book A Million had Greg Allman's autobiography for 7 dollars in the bargain bin.  BAM also had more of a CD section than Best Buy did.  The end times are coming. 



The world of cellphones and texting is taking a whole new level of stupid sometimes, especially when you go to Wally World. I had some dumb bitch driving in the the parking lot chatting on a cellphone on the parking spot and then when I got in there, the fucking C word was up my ass gesturing at me while I saw her still yacking on the phone, I pretty much yelled at her to pick a fucking direction and get off my ass......I may not be emotionally stable to even do St Louis if I have to contend with jackasses from Dubuque and their GD phone yacking away.  Of course I hit just about 80 percent of the fucking red lights in there too.  It will be 3 times as bad going to the house of Busch. http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2013/10/06/the-new-me-decade/

 Morrissey gave his approval on the the Tumblr site This Charming Charlie, which pairs up The Smith's words into the Peanuts comics, which is amusing most of the time.  Johnny Marr had issues I guess but since Morrissey wrote the words and gave thumbs up and it's in the fair use argument, nothing Marr nor Warner Chappell or Universal can do anything about it.  Things can always change.  http://thischarmingcharlie.tumblr.com/





Five years ago a letter to the editor on Pisshead cell phone yackers.  It has gotten more worse today.  Right Mr. Solomon? ;-)

EDITOR:

I am sure that many people, and not just me, don't care to listen to one side of a private conversation between two equally rude people talking on cell phones in public places, like restaurants, hotel lobbies, the movies, the library, in church or any public place you can think of. And it is becoming an epidemic in our society.

Text messaging, even without the loud talking, is just as rude. While attending a movie recently, cell phone lights were turning on and off at numerous locations in the movie theater during the entire movie. If you are there to see a movie, have a little consideration for others around you and turn off your cell phone. If you must use your cell phone, take it outside the theater to the lobby or the restroom. Don't disturb everyone around you. Everyone who has a cell phone could use some manners instruction on the use of the cell phone in public.

While you are driving, show some common sense. Don't talk on your cell phone while you are driving. It could be hazardous to your health or to the health of someone in another car. Pull over, if you must talk on your cell phone. It is very easy to become distracted while on your cell phone when driving. Is your conversation really worth the risk of having an automobile accident?

John D. Solomon

Prescott

Oh and by the way Boehner.