Top Ten Of The Week: Goodbye Charlie

Since the keyword pussy has been subjected a lot in the past few weeks here in Crabbland, I decided to go with the people's taste and add a bit more pussy into the spotlight.  For you fans, here's the original grumpy pussy, Morris the Cat http://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/morris-the-cat-was-the-original-grumpy-cat



Elections 2013 have come and gone and basically there has been some change although not much.  The Virgina Gov got ousted, which meant the lesser of the evils won.  The women vote counted bigtime against big time loser Ken Cuccinelli, big time asshole and teaparty pussy. On the other hand Chris Christie won New Jersey Governor again.  Here in the home front, halfwit Ron Corbett won by a vote of 2 to 1 against the challenger and the Lost Option Sales Tax for road improvement won.  Corbett promised to use the money to fix the city's roads and he damn well better.  Getting tired of having my car out of alignment due to the craters in the streets.

This fall hasn't been one of my best either.  For most of September and all of October I had a painful muscle spam in my shoulder blade and when I was getting better, I ended up getting a fucking flu bug and cold for the past two and half weeks and there's not even any snow on the ground.  It made the Quincy/Kirksville bargain hunt a chore to go through with my hacking and coughing and getting lost on the roads didn't help either.  However, I did managed to score another copy of Sparks Angst In My Pants, their out of print 1982 CD so if anybody wants a cheap copy although a bit played (thanks to the previous owner) contact me at this address and we'll talk.



And now the amazing shrinking CD section at your local Best Buy, Shrunk again. Why bother to go there anymore for new releases?  



Nobody mentioned this in the music mags or websites but Charlie Chesterman passed away from cancer last week. He was only 53.  Chesterman was the leader of Scruffy The Cat, a alternative rock band of the late 80s and made a few great EPs and LPs and CDs in their time of being.  Chesterman after Scruffy The Cat kept a nice music career going with a couple of decent records and reformed Scruffy in 2011 but never really got going due to his ongoing cancer problems which finally claimed him sad to say.  An overlooked musician who should have gotten more praise than just indifference since he wasn't Bono or Michael Stripe: http://caughtinthecarousel.com/citc-mourns-loss-scruffy-cats-charlie-chesterman/

The days of watching the Chicago Cubs on WGN will be coming to an end as Mr. Ricketts decided to opt out after 2014 and seek another channel to peddle this 100 plus year old losing franchise to another channel. I'm sure plenty of Cubs fans will pony up on the dollars to see each and every game, but I think I payed enough years of my life watching the subpar performance of The Cubs over the years.  Too bad I can't get back 40 years of watching the lovable losers.  At least the Boston Red Sox have won 3 times in the century, whereas if the Cubs did make the playoff, they got swept.   And you can't keep blaming Bartman over their woeful playing.  Used to be that you could watch just about every game on WGN on the Cubs but the past twenty years, they been cutting down to a 70 game season.  And half the time, I end up shutting the damn game off.  Rick Renertia is the new manager. Good luck Rick, you're going to need lots of it considering what you have to work with.

The Yellow Dogs came from Iran and moved to Brooklyn in an attempt to free themselves from the harsh realities of living in Iran and a hardline Government that frowned upon their type of music.  Never heard of them myself but Monday two of the band members were shot and killed by a rival band member from the unheard of The Free Keys to which the pussy took the easy way out and killed himself, thus saving tax payers from paying his worthless ass in prison. Don't know how the link will be up (they seem to expire after a certain time and you get the usual 404 errors) but you can read the story at here: http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/11/justice/iranian-underground-band-members-shot-dead/

or a better one there: http://observer.com/2013/11/celebrated-iranian-band-killed-in-bushwick-by-ousted-musician/


Band Statement: http://pitchfork.com/news/52997-surviving-members-of-yellow-dogs-and-free-keys-release-statement-about-murder-suicide/
And for a limited time, another top ten of the week of music that has been playing in the player.  Somebody cares.



1.  Blue Wind-Jeff Beck 1976  Having fun in the studio with Jan Hammer this has been one of my favorite Jeff Beck numbers of all time. One of those 3.99 specials at Hastings that prompted a trip down there I guess. They also had Quiet Riot's Mental Health album for 2.99 but thank your lucky stars I didn't pick that one up.



2.  Don't Knock My Love-Dennis Coffey 2011  After this year, you'll probably miss me talking about albums that got away that nobody knew anything about since Best Buy didn't stock the damn album.  Sometimes it's fun to discover what was missed the first time but sometimes others are not as rewarding (See MGMT-Congratluations something found for 2.50 in the Hastings cutouts).  Dennis Coffey goes back to Motown and the freaky petal effects he would use on some of Norman Whitfield's wild productions with The Temptations, but in 1971 he branched out as a solo artist and took a few Funk Brothers with him on the top ten Scorpio for Sussex and made a few other like minded instrumentals before going new age in 1989 with a forgettable album for EMI.  Fast forward 22 years and Coffey returns to the funky Motown groove and visions of the late Norman Whitfield with a fine solo album that I saw in the cutout bin at Half Priced Books.  Bill Kopp gave this a great review and basically I trust his judgement.  It gots the beats that rappers would love to steal and make on their own recordings.  Pay the man.

 



3.  Eat That Gun-Motorhead 1996  Love them or hate them, Motorhead is no BS rock and roll and as you can tell I've been listening to a lot of their music this month.  The Phil Campbell/Mikkey Dee/Lemmy lineup has been the longest lasting lineup, far more than the classic of Fast Eddie Clarke and Phil Taylor, who may have been the most sloppy/good drummer the world has known since Keith Moon although Dee is the better drummer.  The only time Motorhead stumbled was the mid 80s after the one off with Brian Robertson of Thin Lizzy fame and the underrated Another Perfect Day, and never did find their proper way back till 1993's Bastards.  Since then, not a bad record in any of them, some are better than others but I'm not telling you which ones.  You'll have to figure that one out by yourself.

 



4.  Strobe Light-The B 52s 1980  There's more to them than just Love Shack.  Jes saying.  One of the lesser known tracks off Wild Planet.

 


5.  It's Working-MGMT 2010  Queen meets The Chipmunks.  At least that's what I hear from this band.

 



6.  Broken Hearted Savior-Big Head Todd And The Monsters 1993  I can't believe this is over 20 years old now.  The time that we wasted on the internet had we not done this, it probably be 2008 thereabouts.  But the joys of making top tens of the week that 20 people read will do that to you, time slips away while you're staring into the screen and making your carpel tunnel even worse.  Todd Park Mohr was a big deal back then, and got a top thirty hit on the modern rock side but now he can't get arrested and most of his output is in the dollar bins.  He deserved a better fate than this.

 



7.  Why Can't You Be Nicer To Me?-The White Stripes  2000  Not sure if they were the second coming of garage rock, Led Zeppelin, the blues or just perfect timing but you have to give kudos to Jack White for keeping interest in the blues with Paramount Masters coming out later which keeps the memories of Blind Blake and Blind Willie McTell alive.  Meg White could never cut it with any other band but somehow her offbeats make the songs work more often than not. Of course Jack White could take his own masters to Warner Brothers later in the decade but they originally recorded for Sympathy For The Record Industry label to which Hastings had a used copy for 10 dollars but the Warner reissue was 6 dollars new.  Brooksie made me a copy years ago but can't seem to locate it anywhere.  

 


8.  Lost In Loveland-Farrenheit  1987  Charlie Farren got his start in the second Joe Perry Project album I Got The Rock And Rolls Again which was a dropoff from the first Joe Perry Project album and then moved on to his own band which made one album for Warner Brothers and had a bubbling under hit with Fool In Love which didn't chart. Which is surprising considering how much the song got played on KRNA in their CD's only era, that meant they only played CDs and not vinyl.  Which turned out not to be very much.  Farrenheit sounded like what The Babys were doing back in the late 70s, with hints of Honeymoon Suite and Bryan Adams thrown in for entertainment value.  A clash of differences in the hair metal craze of the late 80s but the record has held up quite well over time.  Farren sounds better here than on the Joe Perry Project album.  Go figure.  David Hull plays off and on in various Joe Perry Projects, subbed for Tom Hamilton on a Aerosmith tour and played on Pete Droge underrated 1998 album for Epic.

 



9. Go To Hell-Samantha Fish & Paul Thorn  2013  Haven't heard her duet with Devon Allman on the remake of Stop Draggin My Heart Around on Devon's latest but she stirs up some wicked fun with Paul Thorn on this duet.  Sam's going back across the pond for some dates in Switzerland with the Royal Southern Brotherhood, after taking it easy fighting the fall flu just like you and me.  And I'm still dealing with this shit 2 and a half weeks later. Flu shots don't do shit.

 



10.  Goodbye To You-Charlie Chesterman 1997  Goodbye Charlie. We'll miss you too.





Other Notes:

 

Weaver D's which has the line Automatic for the people that REM took for their 1993 classic is closing their doors in Athens after 27 years.  Last change to get your fill of squash casserole. 

Tad is been mighty busy and has finished his first e book via Amazon. Should be a great for you to read. http://tadsbackupplan.blogspot.com/2013/11/723-nothing-is-easy.html

From Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Guaranteed-Great-Music-Tracy-Deaton-ebook/dp/B00GK9M3O6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384281723&sr=8-1&keywords=Tracy+deaton

Monday;  another snowstorm that dumped about a half inch of snow on the ground   Still too early for this shit.  Even though it's the middle of November. 

From the pawnshop: Thelonious Monster-Beautiful Mess (Capitol 1992)  I heard good reviews of their previous efforts so I kept my eyes open for any of their albums and came across this 1992 effort.  And it sounds like a last chance for alternative rock status but sad to say they cast their lot with Joe Hardy's very dated 1990s drum sound. Also Pete Anderson produces on four other tunes which don't vary much but the Tom Waits duet on the Al Kooper produced Adios Lounge is oddball but fun due to Wait's warbling.  Tom never does wrong.  Most of songs sound a bit closer to Soul Asylum (Of course, Dave Pirner guest stars on this too) and at times remind me of Gear Daddies, kinda tongue in cheek, kinda smart assed as well.  Just not as memorable as say, Soul Asylum or Gear Daddies.  But the title of the album sums the record up quite nicely don't ya think?  

Grade B-

So here we are in the strange day of 11-12-13 and I thought about putting up a blog about it but really didn't have enough words to say to make it a blog.  Basically all 11-12-13 is nothing more than a nice beautiful but chilly sunny day here in Iowa with temps not even at the freezing point.  Just a subtle reminder of what's to come this winter.



PROMO: VUFCUP-Orbs, Spheres And Realms


http://www.mediafire.com/download/bbuzdvhzr2294k5/Vufcup-OrbsSpheresAndRealms2013.zip
My good friend Diggy Kat has put out a brand new free album to download. His band is Vufcup, and the new effort is Orbs, Spheres And Realms and I have to say it's his most trippy music yet.  He was very kind enough to say that The Townedgers was an influence on him but I do think he was listening to a bit of Hawkwind and Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd.  Highly recommended to those with an open mind.