Addison Russell, now known as the Nacho man after going into the stands to get a foul ball only to knock over a Cardinal fan's nacho snacks (he did give the guy a double order of nachos later) smacked a three run home run on Wednesday Night to provide a 5-1 victory and back to back division titles for the first time this century. You have to note that it's not easy to win back to back division titles but by winning Wednesday Night they eliminated The Cards from the wild card As one disgruntled Cardinals fan said after watching the Cubs celebrate in their stadium that this really sucks and I'm sure a couple other Cardinals themselves shared the same view. The Cardinals were supposed to challenge the Cubs for the division and managed to sign Dexter Fowler from the Cubs to do so, The Cubs ended up going after John Jay. Jason Heyward turned his season around and did some collective damage to the Cards in the series getting key hits and scoring runs. Last time we touched base, the series between the Brewers and Cardinals would dictate the outcome of who wins the division title and who stays home. By taking 6 out of 8 games, both Milwaukee and St Louis will have to watch the playoffs on TV. For their reward of winning, The Cubs will play a hot Washington Nationals team. Winning the World Series last year was the shot heard around the world. It's going to be much more difficult to repeat this season. But the Cubs can do it, all they have to do is win the last game of the year. It's that simple.
Still in denial, Wednesday's losing pitcher Mike Wacha, despite having the Cubs win the head to head matchup 14 games to 5 and losing 11 out of the 13 meetings this season, insisted that the Cardinals were a better team. But then again that has been said many times before of other teams. The problem was the Cubs had a better batch of players overall, and surely the Cardinals did show up to play but simply didn't have enough to win the games. The Cubs have now won back to back division titles and have made the playoffs three straight seasons. The Cardinals might be in rebuilding mode and questions remain if Mike Matheney will be around. For 6 innings Wacha pitched lights out, then the 7th came around and the Cubs started hitting him, with Addison Russell's home run the main play. If nothing else, St Louis can bask in the glory of eliminating Milwaukee with a come from behind victory on Saturday, coming from a 6-0 deficient to win 7-6, thus inviting the Brewers to come watch the playoffs with them on the couch. Wacha might be betting on the next season that the better team will have the pitchers to get it done. While the Cubs managed to get good hitters from triple A, the pitching has not come through, especially in the bull pen, that might be their weakest link for next season. But we won't talk about next season till after this season is done. Personal to Mike Macha: unless you go 49-25 in the second half, score 423 runs after the All Star Break (including a mind blowing 17 runs in 3 games in that time frame) and win the division, then your talk is cheap. Something to consider for 2018.
Life goes on ever after we are all gone. The end of the world didn't happen as rumored last week but we lost a few notables. Red Miller, the Denver Broncos coach who guided them to their first super bowl passed away from a stroke, he was 89. Joe Tiller, the last winning coach at Purdue died from a lone illness, he was 74, his Purdue teams featured Drew Brees, who could have been the best QB for the former San Diego Chargers, but was jettisoned in favor of the half wit Phillip Rivers. While Rivers has had a erratic career with the Chargers, he totally stunk up the place last week throwing more passes to Kansas City DBs than Charger WRs, Brees has done much better at New Orleans, even winning a Super Bowl among the way. Tiller retired after the 2008 season and Purdue hasn't had a winning year since then.
At a outdoor country concert at Maladay Bay in Vegas, 64 year old home grown terrorist Stephen Paddock went on a shooting rampage and systematically killed at least 50 people. They were watching a concert by Jason Aldean, when Mr. Paddock came up and start shooting. Then the pussy went back to his hotel room and shot himself. You can't blame ISIS nor BLM on this, although ISIS took credit for it and claimed Paddock converted to Islam. Fake news, ISIS would have beheaded this sonofabitch for being too white. Jason escaped without any injury but was shaken up by the event. As would be anybody else. But alas this is the worst mass shooting in US history, done by one of more cowardly cock suckers ever known to man. A special hell should await each and every person who does this. Paddock should never experience a decent afterlife ever again.
Marilyn Manson was playing Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This in concert when he fell and his props then fell on him injuring him and making him cancel a few dates of his tour. He'll be fine again within two weeks.
Michigan State whopped Iowa 17-10 as the Michigan State punter was MVP, keeping Iowa deep in their own territory and Iowa's punter had a very short field to punt. By then MSU streaked to a 14-0 lead and never looked back. Stanford ended Arizona State's one game winning streak with a 34-24 victory. They're still looking for a defense that can hold a team under 30 points. Doesn't look that way this season.
(E online)
The big story was Hugh Hefner, the man behind Playboy, the ultimate Playboy and the person we all idolized (all them playmates and only one of him to go around) left the Playboy mansion for the final time, he died of natural causes on "hump day" at the age of 91. If you grew up before the internet, the ultimate joy was sneaking a peek at the latest Playboy magazine and seeing who the playmate of the month was. Hefner was instrumental of bringing new music to the format, his late night show Playboy After Dead did feature the likes of Deep Purple and The Grateful Dead and also he made jazz sound cool too. Without Hugh Hefner and Playboy we still be living in the dark ages.
Monty Hall, the let's make a day host, passed away from a heart attack Saturday (9/30) he was 96 and was in poor health. He lost his wife of 69 years earlier this summer.
(Wisconsin State Journal file photo)
Eric Tiesberg, owner of Resale Records, a record store I knew nothing about in my travels to Madison but existed on Commerical Avenue, passed away on Sunday from a heart attack. He was 61. http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/resale-records-owner-eric-teisberg-dies/article_b520217d-61b8-5a45-af16-bc531de81ba7.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=wisconsin+state+journal
Leave it to John Fogerty to continue to reissue his past masters with regularity, (except his long forgotten S/T album for Asylum that did have the wonderful Almost Saturday Night on it). His third attempt of reissues will be on the revived BMG Rights with the albums originally on Warner/Reprise, Dreamworks and Geffen will be reissued on BMG, you can guess which ones they are. Plans are in effect for the 20th Anniversary edition of Blue Moon Swamp, which a couple bottom of the barrel scrapers to make you buy the damn thing over again. Unless you're inclined just to scour the 2.00 Clarence bins at Half Priced Books, to which I found the Geffen version with two so so bonus tracks. And I can't tell the difference between the Warner and Geffen reissues in terms of sound. Fogerty hasn't impressed me all that much anyway with revisits to his CCR catalog, to which the original band still have the superior versions.
On the retail side of things, it's been one year since Hastings Entertainment closed their doors and leaving the few cd buyers out in the cold or to scour the thrift stores. It may not seem much to you dear reader, if you never had a Hastings store in your area, but to me Hastings was the ideal place next to Half Priced Books in terms of finding diamonds in the rough. While today's Zombie world waste away hours staring at their small screens or texting to the person next to them, the old guard like myself would end up going to Hastings or FYE to look for the off the wall CDs and albums. Part of the Arizona trip fun was to return to the Kingman Hastings store or Prescott or Flagstaff or Lake Havasu City, they really did serve a purpose in this life. But it's a whole new world and not for the better, especially when we have a fool president who is too busy wasting time on Twitter and playing golf on the weekends. A trip to Hastings was to discover the forgotten gem or what was in the fifty cent bargain bins. But once 2000 came around the big box stores begin to disappear, or got bought out by other stores and then disappear too (see FYE). But I have continue to find off the wall CDs and stuff on my weekly trips to thrift stores and Half Priced Books. Oh, there are still some good record stores in the area, Moondog, Ragged Records, Analog Vault but the only other music store with the lure of suspense and finding things remains Half Priced Books. Hastings is a distant memory a year removed but yes I remember. And continue to remember.
(end of an era-former FYE store on Hampton, St Louis)
Years ago there was something called Warehouse Music and Phoenix used to have at least seven or eight in town, thus making cd bargain hunts the stuff that dreams are made of. Then in the 2000s, Corporate CSers Trans World Entertainment bought them up, renamed them FYE and then begin to close them down one by one. Coral Ridge Mall had one up till 2011, Davenport had two of them, then closed them up, the closest one was in Des Moines but that too closed up earlier this year. At the turn of the century St Louis had six of them, the best one was on Hampton Ave. Last time I was down there was 2014. Alas, there are no FYEs left in St Louis, the Hampton store closed earlier this spring. Which means the only ones still open are the one in Quincy Illinois (and it's not worth driving four hours just to spend 20 minutes going through Britney Spears used crap still selling for 8.99) and one in Peoria and Bloomington too. It could mean a trip to backwards thinking Lincoln in the near future but if I have better luck finding stuff at Stuff Etc close by, then it's best just to stay close to home. Besides Trans World Entertainment (who owns the less than 240 FYE stores still in business) sucks. It'll be a matter of time before they join Hastings Entertainment in the archives of music history. Let's face it kids, it's not like what it was 20 years ago, and we thought those days of endless bargain hunts and new music would never end. They haven't but the stores I used to go to are gone, corporate radio still plays the same shitty songs of long ago and streaming on your smart phone is not the same. I don't believe we live in the best of times, but rather convenience. We have more radio stations and more tv channels but less and less content and the same ole same ole. If you look at things, you really don't have a choice, you might have more to choose from but it amounts to more crap and less useful information. The internet has opened up new and exciting things to check out, but it also opens up so many bands and so many music from all over the world we don't have time to really scope them all out. It's a shame really, there will be great bands that will never be heard of due to too much out there. And I can think of one band that falls into that catagory of never to be heard anywhere. I think I play in that band.
Barhopping on a Saturday Night, I sat in on drums on Dreams I'll Never See for local favorite band Four Day Creep. I started out the day watching Cocked N Loaded, for about an hour before moving to the Shack and seeing Crankshaft till sundown and trying to dodge mosquitoes in the process and got to meet with Kip Wieland, the eccentric keyboardist of that band. Joe Hutchcroft sat on in a couple numbers and while people talk about Kip's off the wall behavior, Mitch Smith might be just out there in left field. Somebody stuck a 16 oz beer can down Mitch's saxophone and they couldn't get it out of the sax. Another dumb drunk antic that probably cost a few dollars getting it unlodged. Mitch pretty much packed everything up and left while they finishing up with Born To Be Wild. No more sax for you tonight.
Off to Crossroads Bistro for Chinese, and this place is the best place for Chinese food and ended up chatting with an old co worker Emma Aquino. Funny of her to mention that she had a crush on me back in the working days, (she's married now) but I sat and listened before asking who she was before she said her name. Afterwards it was back to Aces And Eights to hang with Four Day Creep. It was a interesting night for sure, I had some woman come and sat alongside me most of the night and her complaining about Amanda's hair and how the band was too loud. In the meantime some drunken fool who ran into our table trying to dance ended up punching his girlfriend in the stomach, prompting the bouncers to pounce on him and throw him out the door. Another biker, who was with another woman was then trying to pick up the woman sitting next to me, to which she declined. Upon on taking Troy's spot on drums for Dreams he warned me that the drummer's throne he was using was broken and will slide down when you sat on it. I sank about 2 feet downward before the song, Terry McDowell later joined in on the fun before closing time. We joked about starting up a go fund me page to replaced the broken drummer's stool. With Terry, Troy and Mike there, three of the best drummers in town was in the bar that night. Terry will take over for Mike on Smokin Guns next weekend, while Mike plays in Cocked N Loaded. Still, I lost track of the time and didn't get out of the bar and got home till about 3 AM. I probably still be up if I had to tear down the equipment if I was playing. A great time, great jams and as usual, the usual strange bullshit of drunks and freaks as well.
(Photo: Noel Anderson, Resale Records)
Reviews:
Ringo Starr-Give More Love (Universal 2017)
Strange how the 75 year old Starr can still put out albums about the same rate as Paul McCartney, to which they both team up on a couple songs including lead off track Back On The Road Again which might be one of the more hardest rocking songs they ever came up with. And the usual all stars or still living rock and rollers come to help out, Joe Walsh, Steve Lukather, Richard Marx, Jeff Lynne, Peter Frampton etc. In the past Ringo relied way too much on outside help and most of the albums were bland, Mark Hudson did him no favors or for that matter Dave Stewart so Ringo steps up to the producer's chair (along with help from Dave Sugar) and he made his most stripped down album since Beaucup Full Of Blues, even though the backing vocal all star choir makes it a bit more polished. There's no getting over the fact that Ringo will continue to sing silly love songs as with the title track but it's catchy enough to sing the chorus unlike Silly Love Songs from his former Beatles bass player. Show Me The Way is not the Peter Frampton written song but a more mellower number. Most of Starr's original songs are not all that memorable, but having Joe Walsh or Steve Lukather and Peter Frampton around do make the rockers sound worth revisiting a few more times. Given the missteps over the years on other albums Give More Love is remarkable on how it keeps my attention through the 52 minutes, but outside of On The Road Again, the best numbers remain the revisits of previous song including the demo of Back Off Boogaloo which even for a first take 1972 demo that's a bit rough sounding, it has a rockabilly sound unlike the 45 single. And a version of Photograph (not with major stars but rather the band Vandaveer) that reveals itself a nice Americana ballad. Yes a little Ringo and a little love go a long way but I have found him this good and this listenable since 1992's Time Takes Time.
Grade B+
The Sweet Inspirations-Sweets For My Sweet/Sweet Sweet Soul (Spy Reissue 2002)
In the CD era, if you looked hard enough a lot of specialty labels managed to license some of the soul and blues albums from Atlantic Records, a far cry from the label that now gives you Ms Cash Me Outside Girly and one of the lesser known but as important groups of that time was the Sweet Inspirations, a band led by Cissy Houston, later mom to the late Whitney and Myrna Smith. David Nathan, the self proclaimed ambassador to the blues and soul compiled a few albums for SPY in the 2000s and came up with another Sweet Inspirations 2 fer that's probably harder to find Sweets For My Sweet is the better of the two, as they were backed by the famed Muscle Shoals Swampers band (David Hood and Roger Hawkins the most soulful rhythm section this side of Duck Dunn and Al Jackson) and Sylvia Shemwell did a lot more of the songs to balance off the vocals of Cissy and Myrna. I think their version of But You Know I Love You is the best of them all (Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton etc) and Get A Little Order is a sassy original. Sweet Sweet Soul, Atlantic tries for a Philadelphia soul, and send them up to work with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff and ended up having another producer instead (U.Dozier), but the early development of the TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia) sound is heard here. Sweet Sweet Soul is a stepdown from the Muscle Shoals R and B, too much on ballads and not enough on r and b workouts (Shut Up!) but it is a treat to hear the two part (gotta find) A Brand New Lover a template for later extended version songs of other groups (I Love Music, The Love I Lost etc) on how Gamble/Huff extended the groove. Cissy Houston would quit soon after this album was made, they made better money backing Elvis Presley up when he was alive but if you want to know how Whitney got her mom's voice, listen to the final track That's The Way My Baby Is. That would pave the way to late 80s R and B, for better or worse.
Grade B+
Elton John-Diamonds (Universal 2017)
The Who-Maximum As and Bs (MCA 2017)
I may as well lump these box sets in since we are talking about reissuing rehashing. And Universal has never done a better job of revising both artists best ofs every other year. It's been documented that Universal has always shorted The Who's best ofs, leaving off key tracks and favorite numbers. And as much as I would like to spring the 50 dollars for the massive Who set, it appears that this box set is more on the UK side than US side. If I can just get one of the CDs off this money grab it would be the third CD with the whole 6:14 of Baby Don't You Do It along with The Relay. The Who from 1971 to 1973 were better than Rolling Stones in making great singles and albums. Beginning on the next disc, Universal decides on the UK model and leaving off a lot of the later singles and John Entwhistle gets stiffed again (his singles Postcard and Trick Of The Light are left off), The Real Me isn't on this, nor is Slip Kid and quibbles continue. For the Warner Brothers version of Emenice Front, the B side was One At A Time, a much better Entwistle song than It's Your Turn, which was a UK Best of. We do get the Atco version of Substitute and a much clearer picture of the early Who which included forgotten gems like Dr. Jekeyll and Mr. Hyde and Someone's Coming from John but also Keith Moon's Dogs Part 2, a wild two and twenty one second drum solo that still is the best Moon drum solo ever. But you also get Shel Talmy's crappy Bald Headed Woman and Talmy's revenge on the Who, Waltz For A Pig, which is done by the Graham Bond Band featuring Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. Disc 5 is a a total fuckwaste, to which if this was the reason why the mid to late 70s singles got omitted for the inclusion of the forgettible Wire And Glass EP then this not the essential Who overview that we been waiting for so long. And you can remix I Can't Explain all over again for the 50th time and it still will not bring back Keith nor John. And why my mix tape remains the better choice.
As for Elton John's Diamonds, John first box set To Be Continued was better, but that came out in 1990 and EJ did managed to have 25 years worth of music to consider. And like The Who set, Diamonds comes up short too but at least we're not stuck with subpar and half assed EPs like Wire And Glass. Diamonds sticks close to the overplayed radio hits but leaves off lesser known ones like Lady Samantha, Border Song, the funny Ego, the lovely Chloe, and Grow Some Funk of Your Own. This also shows the EJ' cheesy side as well, with That What Friends Are For, the duets with Leanne Rhnes, and Paravotti and this comp stops at This Train Don' Stop There Anymore from Songs From The West Coast, EJ's classic album from 2001, but outside of the PNAU mashup of Good Morning To The Light, the rest of this century's albums are ignored. Which tends to make one wonder if EJ didn't give two shits about Peachtree Road or The Captain Or The Kid or his last album Wonderful Crazy Nights or even The Union, his collaboration with Leon Russell. If Box sets serve any purpose they should focus on not only the hits but other songs that make these guys classic rock icons. Rehashing and adding nothing new or just one or two things is not going to warrant me to pony up 67.99 just to hear Waltz For A Pig or Relay or Baby Don't You Do It, that's why I still have my vinyl around. And if Elton and Bernie Taupin's musical relationship hasn't been any better than today \than why isn't anything after 2001's represented? No doubt that Rocket Man and Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting and The Bitch Is Back is fun 70s rock and roll. I guess that's why they call it the blues one of the best songs of the 80s he's done and I Want Love is proof that in this century they can come up with a great song. It is more cost effective just to seek out the greatest hits that came out in the 70s and the Volume 3 for the 80s. It's penny foolish just to pony up bucks for "remastered sound" and a few crumbs off the table or in the vaults when most of the lesser known isn't that great.
Elton John and The Who got me through the 70s with each new album and single they issued and while Keith passed away and the Who became former shells of themselves I kept hanging on and buying the less interesting albums before drawing the lines on Tommy and Quadaphenia live remakes. E.J. I gave up for a while and then welcomed him back when Songs From The West Coast came out and continue to support his cause right up to Wonderful Crazy Nights, an album that Elton calls the last new album he'll ever make. But for these overpriced new box sets, I have no use for. And today's music buyers won't pay attention to either, hell they won't even notice these will be out. The Hastings stores are gone, FYE is shrinking and Best Buy and Wally World won't have them. So once it's like Steve Miller's Ultimate collection. a nice overview if you don't have the original best ofs but they really serve no value, unless you're willing to give Universal your hard earned cash just to hear the same old songs you have heard before on other comps and best ofs. Essential, not really, pointless, yes. A luxury you can live without.
Grade C+
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