Thirty Years Of CD Collecting

Time flies.

Time has a way of getting away from us.  It might be due to the fact that I spend too many hours wasting away on the internet blogging about my band and playing somewhere and documenting it but here at Record World I have kept a fleeting moment or two letting the world know about what music came into my collection or somebody passing away.  This week Dick Gregory, activist comedian of the 1960s who took a bullet in a knee defending somebody during a peace walk.  Couple weeks ago Don Baylor, former Orioles star and future Rockies and Cubs manager also departed from this world. And yet among the insanity of news we still get alternative facts from both the left and right.  No wonder I quit watching TV last year.  And all for the better of it.

It's hard to fathom that 30 years ago, I was down at B J's Records, at that time the best place to buy records anywhere in the state that they had a small CD section of new albums which cost about 20 dollars for most of them.  The one that stood out was something called The Very Best Of Vee Jay Records that came out ironically on Motown, and at that time Barry Gordy was committed to issue just about every decent Motown album on CD, including some 2 on 1 sets, two albums on one CD.  Which at that point was somewhat radical.  At that time CD players sold for like 500 dollars for the more state of the art ones, but back then you had to deal with plenty of skipping issues.  One speck of dust and the player would hiccup. So I took a look at the Discman's which sold for 200 dollars and ended up buying one of them just to get the Vee Jay Greatest Hits.

That wasn't the first CD I ever bought, it was the third.  The first two was Lynyrd Skynyrd Nuthin Fancey for 10 dollars and a cutout of Pete Townsend's Deep End Live for 7 at the original Best Buy location, on the property of the former Twixt Town Drive In.  It's strange how I can remember such trivial nonesuch such as that.   CD's were created around 1982, but the first ones I even seen were at Target and at 20 dollars for one.  But they touted better sound, better longevity, more durable screamed the major labels.  And we bought into that.

Over time CDs would come down in prince and although the jury is still out on if they were better sounding some CD's did have better sounding albums and it had to do with whoever mastered them.  The best came from Steve Hoffman who did wonders for the MCA Vintage Collection of the late 80s, from the catalog of MCA associated labels. Hoffman worked behind the scenes of certain MCA releases, Steely Dan's Aja first generation CD master sounded like him mastering it and some still prefer it over later editions.  Hoffman was also in charge of a up and coming label called Dunhill (Later DCC) which showed him work his magic on Beach Classics and a Ted Nugent/Amboy Dukes comp. Rhino Records with Bill Inglot remastering put out some sonic sounding albums, the first Bobby Fuller Four Best Of makes you feel like you're in the same studio hearing them record it as it happens. Reissues of classic albums from the major labels were hit and miss.  Capitol got it right the first time when they put out Pink Floyd's The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and even if Jimmy Page may have improved Led Zeppelin's catalog with each remaster, I am still drawn to the first Led Zeppelin album recorded in a murky type of recording, the way I remembered it from the album.  Sometimes upgrades were needed.  Secret Treaties, suffered from a hiccup on Cagey Cretins, the second remaster corrected that.  The first Steppenwolf album was a blotched job from the beginning, I'm sure Universal corrected that but I opted for a Mobile Fidelity Gold Master which made the album sound ten times much better.  Polygram blotched all of the Moody Blues albums before a remastered made them sound much better.  And so on and so forth.

The best part of CD collecting was to purchase albums that were out of print on vinyl, MCA restored most of 3 Dog Night's albums but like vinyl most got thrown in the cut outs.  Camelot Music really did expand my CD collection via the Cut Outs, mostly WEA products, which the Reprise Roxy Music albums were acquired that way.  Still used cds sold at 7.99 at most stores, 5.99 if they had scratches or of lesser known bands.  In fact the 1990s were the golden age of bargain hunting for used cd's and Cedar Rapids has two Relics stores, a Rock And Bach, A Co Op, Camelot, Disc Go Round, even Best Buy took a stab at selling used CDs.  But around 1996 I discovered pawnshops had s nice collection of off the wall CDs.  And if a place I knew that had off the wall CDs I would frequent that place till I got most of them. Mr. Money in Davenport had some of the forgotten cd's of the 1980s that all ballooned my collection.  That's how I discovered bands like 54-40, Blue Rodeo, Danny Wilde and others.

But in 2002, the decline was beginning to set in.  People were not buying CDs as they once did and record stores began to close up. Relics was done by 2003, Rock N Bach held on for another two years and Co Op never did well outside of Moline.  The Compressed and Loud sounding CD was a turnoff, the copy protected CD two years later was the end as the Sony Root Kit CD had a virus that would make computers useless.  The major labels morphing into three mega giants and not promoting new artists.  And continuing to reissue albums that we bought two or three times over were beginning to turn people off.  When Emerson, Lake And Palmer issued their album for the fifth time on another label that would be grounds to quit buying right there and then.  Pawnshops then quit taking in used collections, nobody really wants old rap acts that nobody listens to or having 200 copies of Cracked Rear View or Chris Gaines Greatest Hits.   And then the big box stores begin to close.  Wherehouse Music got bought out by FYE and then FYE started closing shops left and right.  Hastings Entertainment which somehow would get cutout copies of Velvet Underground live at Max's Kansas City and Love's Forever Changes for under five dollars closed up shop last year.  And Best Buy and Wal Mart have shrinked their CD section down to almost nothing. 30 years onward, we have seen the best years of the CD go by.  And sad to say it will never be like it once was.

Even in the declining years of the CD, I still continue to find new music and old releases that I haven't heard yet.  I still did get a couple of Eagle reissues of vintage live Rolling Stones albums and despite the shitty digipacking of CDs nowadays, still buy them.  I rather much have jewel cases but for the most part if I'm still interested in hearing new music I have to buy them.  I just don't do Spotify or streaming.  I'm too old fashioned to give up the art of looking for something I don't usually buy full price.  I may not be around for CD 40 or beyond but rest assured that as long as I'm alive and as long as it's fun, I still come up with more new music.

Late news: Jerry Lewis passed away, he was 91.  While he is famous for being part of the Martin/Lewis movies with Dean Martin and the Nutty Professor, to me he'll be forever known for the host of the MDA Labor Day Telethon which he hosted from 1966 to 2010, to which he would stay up for over 24 hours to raise money and at the end he would try to sing You'll Never Walk Alone only to break down and cry, eventually he did managed to sing it the whole way through.  He could be very demanding, he knew the ins and outs of the entertainment industry and got it his way most times than not. Jerry died from natural causes on Sunday 8/20/17 http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/legendary-entertainer-jerry-lewis-dead-91-article-1.3427487


Some reviews:

Del Shannon-The Dublin Sessions (Rock Beat 2017)

For historical purposes, the Dublin Sessions remain a bootleg classic.  Del couldn't get arrested in the late 70s, he didn't sell out to the disco era like most and continue to write his own music, which borderlined on the dark side of love and to the end he remained true to his vision.  Which is fine and dandy.  It's not a dud album, Del's back up band knew what they were doing, the problem remains there wasn't anybody to give him that extra kick to make it a classic.  Drop Down And Get Me is a classic due to Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.  And while Jeff Lynne might have made these songs better, the problem is that there's more of a Roy Orbinsen sound that Del was trying to get out of, case in point a version of Oh Pretty Woman, which is one of the better songs. And of course Del could find classic covers to do too, Los Brovos' Black Is Black and Merle Haggard's Today I Started loving You Again, which would foretell Del's country period to which Warner Brothers would issue a couple singles but not a complete album.  Maybe in the future Rock Beat can put that one out there too.  My favorite tracks are The Best Days Of My Life and One Track Mind, the latter vintage Del Shannon heartbreak songs.  The rest have good moments but not enough for me to give this than a passing nod and a smile and then moving on to other things.
Grade B-

Ladies And Gentlemen The Rolling Stones (Eagle 2017)

Mick Jagger contends this is the best of the the live Stones I concur.  Get Your Ya Yas Out is that document where sloppy fun and hard rock and blues come into play but Ladies And Gentlemen, is still a sloppy fun album.  Recorded around the time between Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street, it's interesting to hear how Sweet Virginia and Dead Flowers play the country rock mode, through they seem a bit boring to me.  The whole fun starts later on when Charlie Watts ups the ante for All Down The Line and Midnight Rambler is so damn loose the wheels damn near fall off the car. The band is not exactly on the same page judging on how Jumpin Jack Flash ends, but Street Fighting Man ends things and does lay claim that the Stones could be the best rock and roll band in the world. As for myself, as long as Live At Leeds from the rival Who and Get Your Ya Yas Out, Ladies And Gentlemen falls a bit short on that argument.
Grade B+

Dan Johnson-Out Of The System (Hot Fudge 1998)

Dan has always been the champion-er of live music. He's one of the hardest working musicians out there and continues to play every chance he gets.  He hosts The Parlor City Blues Jam, he hangs with legends such as Tony Brown, Skeeter Lewis, Billy Lee and Bryce Janey and Dennis McMurrin and The Blue Band with Bob Dorr and Jeff Petersen the two guys that been with that band since day one. Johnson also played with Made You Look, Men Working (later changed to Men Rocking due to a certain Aussie band that had a 1982 hit with Who Could It Be Now), Falcon Eddy and so on. Dan recorded a few songs and highlights that Dorr put out on Hot Fudge in the late 90s that was on my wish list to get.  In some ways this is the companion to Tom Giblin's Choice Cuts, but unlike Gibby's album, Dan does dab in the blues but shows a more nod to his favorite band The Beatles, which works sometimes (Sister Blue), and sometimes goes on too long for its own good (Song For A Loved One). Dan is more at home with the blues nowadays and tends to play That's Where My Money Goes at blues jams (I actually played this song with him one night), Blues Song and even gives Little Richard his due at the end.  Unlike Choice Cuts, Out Of The System has a bit too many filler songs and segments that don't exactly work (I Love You Madly, a strange disco number with a couple false stops, 98 Seconds-an answer to Free Jazz and Conversations With Diamond Ray, less said the better). But it does provide a nice insight into the music of one of Iowa's best musicians out there.
Grade B+

Toni Basil-Mickey And Other Love Songs (Razor And Tie 1995)

Like Josie Cotton, Toni made a couple hook driven singles but her albums like Josie, was bubblegum 80's new wave.  No use of escaping Micky, forever a part of the MTV generation and oldies stations and skating rinks across America.   If you're not careful, Mickey is a ear worm that will eat your brains out if you're not careful.  Most of this best of is better than Josie Cotton's, at least Toni had Devo helping her out on a couple songs (Be Stiff one of them) but once hackmaster Ritchie Zito pops up on the final four songs, it's piss poor dance music.  And if you stayed and listen to this best of that far, you got to hear Mickey sang in Spanish. Collector's item for those hard up to listen to a one hit wonder and nothing more.
Grade C+

Music of my youth: Humble Pie-Smokin (A&M 1972)

In the early years, The Pie dabbled into some sort of country blues to add with their rock and then later abandoned it for straight boogie and if anything Rockin The Fillmore may have ruined them for life. Case in point: I Don't Need No Doctor, that starts out with 3 minutes of hard rocking boogie then desecrates into a 7 minute I gotta take a pee break that puts people to sleep before returning with one minute back to the beginning riff to wake everybody up.   By then Peter Frampton gave up and went solo, Clem Clempson joined.  Smokin' was one of those albums you had to get back in 1972 but the fact of the matter remains that the record had dated itself.  With this new found boogie, The Pie had two chart placements in Hot And Nasty and 30 Days In The Hole, the latter song I had on 45 but a bad needle scratched the record into being unplayable.  Anyway, most of the songs on Smokin must have came from jamming, there's a very loose feel on Hot And Nasty (#52 1972), not much thought but its still fun.  30 Days In The Hole (uncharted) is better, and it has been heard more often than not on classic rock radio than the charted Hot N Nasty.  You're So Good For Me, might have been a ballad classic, some stations did play that song, as long as Greg Ridley was still part of the band he did managed to curtail Steve Marriott's boogie tendencies. Sweet Peace And Time, the b side to 30 Days In The Hole is a more darker and slashing boogie rocker but it follows on the album what might be the nadir of the album, an slow and plodding version of  I Wonder that makes Brenda Lee's version sound punk rockish.  Try to stay awake on that one.  And Cmon Everybody, the Eddie Cochran number goes from his rockabilly, to Pie Boogie sonics, Jerry Shirley smashing cymbals left and right.  And that's pretty much the highlights and lowlights of this album,  Alas, Smokin would usher in Steve Marriott's soul and boogie era with mixed results. Tinderbox came out the next year and it would improve more on r and b and less on boogie but with Street Rats, the wheels fell off. Reunited with Andrew Loog Oldham, the title track rocked hard and Greg Ridley's cover of Terry Reid's Let Me Be Your Love Maker was the best track. But Steve Marriott did something nobody ever thought of doing, and he turned two of the better rocking Beatles numbers (Drive My Car, Rain) into plodding and damn near unlistenable tracks that turned that album into pure drivel.   No wonder Humble Pie called it quits for five years before returning in 1980 with the hard rocking Fool For A Pretty Face single (#52 1980),  On To Victory with a new lineup (Bobby Tench and Snooty Jones joining Marriott and  Jerry Shirley) but the album suffered from poor production and Marriott's vocals shot to hell (Further On Down The Road and why he attempted Otis Redding's My Lover's Prayer I have no idea why)  Go For The Throat (1981)  Gary Lyons managed to polish up Steve's shot vocals into something more tolerable, but by then, the public moved on to other things and Humble Pie once again went into mothballs although Jerry Shirley and Greg Ridley have revived the band a couple times since Marriott's passing. With Go For The Throat, Marriott does return back to glory days of Rock On by varying the songs  and does a nice revamp of Toy Soldier (it made #58 on the rock charts in 1981 but no radio station ever played it) and Restless Blood.  Nevertheless, Marriott's health issues and other things led to Atco dropping the band not long after the album got issued. Given the scathing reviews and history Atco issued it on CD and Collectibles added both Victory and Throat as two on one CD.  But in the end, the beginning of the boogie with Smokin was the accumulation and downward spiral of Humble Pie in the 70s, as Marriott was playing the boogie man.  The strengths of Hot and Nasty and 30 Days In The Hole continue to make Smokin a better album than it is but after that, The Pie would become second tier boogie rockers from here on out.

Grades:
Smokin (1972) B
Tinderbox (1973) B
Street Rats (1974) C
On To Victory (1980) B-
Go For The Throat (1981) B-

(Note: Both On To Victory and Go For The Throat are graded more favorably than other critics.  I tend to find Side 1 of both albums quite listenable and I do enjoy the lesser known, You Soppy Pratt, Infatuation and a hard rocking Baby Don't You Do It, to which Jerry Shirley copies Keith Moon's cymbal patterns and to Get It In The End.  However, Savin It, sucks, the Pie tries for a reggae feel and falls flat on their face, and Marriott should have left Otis Redding's song alone. Go For The Throat also has a decent side one, with a riff roaring All Shook Up, somewhat in the style of Rolling Stone and Driver they managed to pair up Z Z Top and Bo Diddley into a over the top boogie monster.  On the other side, we get the strange Lottie And The Charcoat Queen and while Restless Blood is a good Richie Supa song, Aerosmith still owns Chip Away The Stone. Both records still warrant a B grade but in reality they're probably more a C grade and don't waste your time unless you're a fan of their music.  And I remain a fan, in fact I think they hold up more than Smokin but Smokin had the more memorable and better singles)