Even though Tower Records wasn't close by, I went to the stores when I was out in Seattle, Las Vegas and Phoenix. They might have been pricey but I can't think of any other stores that had the complete Status Quo remasters as Tower Records did. http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/music-news-reviews/article203542104.html
Van McLain, was the de facto leader of Shooting Star, a Kansas City based band that made a few albums for Virgin Records in the 1980s but one of those bands that simply were forgotten in the age of classic rock. Run For Your Life was a cult best selling album that I usually bought and sold to the folks at Relics Records. Virgin Records at that time, did distribution deals, and Shooting Star was assigned to Epic, to which their second album was done under the infamous 5.98 emerging artists series. Their first album was produced by Gus Dudgeron (Elton John) and Shooting Star was like a more lighter Journey or Styx. I really wasn't that into that band, but in my last trip out to Arizona, the Goodwill Casa Grande store had about 10 copies of their first album on CD (as well as Burning) and I picked it up and played it once. Since I still have that copy, I play it in tribute to Van who died complications from the Nile Virus.on Saturday.
After 40 years of rocking Chicago. The Loop has been sold to a Christian Broadcast Company for 21 and a half million dollars, which means the rock will stop sometime in the future. Well Corporate Classic Rock has been in the shitter for about 20 years anyway and with Corporations not interested in breaking new acts and just focusing on the Pink Floyd/Zeppelin/Guns N Roses overplayed songs it basically had to end. Gone are the days of Album rock stations promoting the new music but if there's a chance they'll find a way to celebrate older albums, such as Dark Side Of The Moon released 45 years ago last week. But then again, the world needs another Christian Contemporary Station right? http://wgntv.com/2018/03/06/the-loop-sold-to-christian-broadcasting-company/
Tom Waits now owns the Elektra/Asylum masters to his albums and will be reissuing them via Anti-Epitaph. Which means they'll be in glorious digipack.
Anyway, since you're all here. I have reviewed a few cds along the way. Here goes.
Moonshine Sorrow-While You're Drinking (self released 2016)
Let's face it, there will always be a band that plays three chord Rolling Stone inspired songs and song about drinking and fucking and paying for it the next day. As long as I'm alive I'll be happy to hear what they have to say. In the grand style of the bar bands of our lifetime (The Brains lost Tom Gray, gained Dan Baird and became the Georgia Satellites, Blackberry Smoke even Uncle Tupelo) my favorites were the most simple and to the point. The Randy Cliffs made the best bar rock album of this century and if you look hard enough in Madison you can still find a dollar copy of Trixie's Trailer Sales. Closer to home, Waterloo for that matter, we have Moonshine Sorrow, a band that had two different personalities, one is the legendary Rush Cleveland who writes all but two songs on this EP, the best song Walking In Waterloo is about as true as it gets if you live in that hell hole (I did about five decades ago) and Wild N Crazy to which pass the bucket rhymes with Fuck it!. Cleveland has a voice that echoes Jerry Lee Lewis, which does stick out like a sore thumb in the hard country bar rock of M.S. The other is Jason Surratt who echoes Brian Henneman from The Bottle Rockets and gives us Feed Me, Fuck Me, Buy Me Weed, a concert favorite and my favorite track Houser South a little story about a guy who can't get laid but is ready to kick your ass if need be. Knowing that, he's probably a regular at Spicoli's in Cedar Falls. In some ways, While You're Drinking mirrors Trixie's Trailer Sales from The Cliffs, sloppy drums, sloppy guitar leads but a whole rock and roll attitude that is missing from most new bands that get touted on Pitchfork. It may not be pretty but it does sound pretty to me.
B+
The Pipettes-We Are The Pipettes (Cherrytree/Interscope 2007)
British pop girl rock that has a charm of its own at times, and with a Ramones like 16 songs at 39 minutes, most past by without much melody of forethought and the recording is loudness overblown. The favorite is ABC 123 and XTC to boot. A shame they didn't go more into this direction.
B-
Bette Midler Sings The Peggy Lee Songbook (Columbia 2005)
One of those albums that Sony Music decided to copy protect the CD, but Bette has been the subject of a few thrift store finds, basically on the strength of her It's The Girls album from a few years ago. I love Bette for her sassy and spunk on Big Spender and Fever and the Barry Manilow cameo is camp fun too. But it's those ballads that turn this record from great to good. Mr. Wonderful ends things on a blah note, but for tribute albums she makes Peggy Lee proud. I'll see about her Rosemary Cooney tibute album in the future. In other words another uneven Bette album.
B
Jim And Jessie-Dixie Hoedown: The Complete Starday Recordings (Starday/King 2002)
A stop gap along the way for the McReynolds boys but still a important document. Hard Hearted was the best known hit single but the secular songs have a certain amount of charm to them, the title track a hard driving instrumental. Jim and Jesse only did three recording sessions for Starday, two in 1958 and the 1959 session was all gospel material and all of it is worth hearing once. Even for 14 songs the album barely clocks over a half hour. Jim and Jesse had a good backing band featuring Vassar Clements on fiddle, Bobby Thompson on banjo and Don Mchan on bass and backing vocals. Once their tenure at Starday ended, they would move on to Epic Records and their glory years featuring Diesel On My Tail, to which Sony Music left off their best of. No accounting for major label taste it seems. This compilation, thrown out by the indifferent Highland Music company, managed to put some thought into this and provided liner notes and recording sessions. The CD is hard to find but worth a listen
B+
Carrie Underwood-Storyteller (19/Arista 2015)
If you have been a follower for my record review and top ten consortium, you know my love and hatred of the all time best selling American Idol. Yes she can sing but what she does is oversing and throughout her decade of being a part of Nashville music scene she has battled Miranda Lambert head to head on country albums, for myself Miranda always wins of the fact that she doesn't oversing. On the recommendation of Robert Christgau, I decided to listen to her last album. And just as I figured, she oversings on the majority of the songs. But Storyteller is her best album to these battered ears but in the age of Nashville Music the songs tend to borrow way too much of the Mumford and Sons arrangements and overuse of the worthless Chris DeStefano, HOWEVER, was responsible for the two most memorable numbers of this album, the failed single Smoke Break and Clock Don't Stop. She is getting better on the revenge numbers, Church Bells, a interesting story about a woman marrying a rich oil dude, who beats her up and she gets back by poisoning the dude. To be honest, Storyteller is coming of age Carrie, who managed to find some decent numbers, and of course this record beats anything she released beforehand, including her best of. I'll take Christgau's word that she's beginning to relax and not oversing but in my case she still has a long way to go before I decide on taking another chance with her again. Nevertheless, for the first time ever in her record career, she made a better record than Miranda's 2 CD album, which still hasn't wowed me. And probably never will.
B
I think we have had this talk before about Dark Side Of The Moon, my opinion will not waver. I'll never look at The Great Gig In The Sky as anything but fast forward to the next song but some people love it. In this day and age I can tolerate it better than Daniel Powter's Bad Day or Mr Mr. Broken Wings or A ha's Take On Me or Sweet Child O Mine or anything FGL puts out. Another opinion on why Dark Side Of The Moon continues to sell, 45 years after the fact and still used copies aren't that easy to find. I have never owned that on any format but perhaps a day will come when I will succumb to that and buy it for a dollar at St Vincent De Paul http://only-solitaire.blogspot.com/2018/03/pink-floyd-dark-side-of-moon.html
Music from my youth: John Cale-Guts (Antilles 1976)
Originally on Island, it was a small summery of John's tenure with that label, but not a greatest hits since Cale never had any. But a good mix tape so to speak. Again Robert Christgau had issues with two songs, Mary Lou and Helen Of Troy but for myself I liked them a lot and still do. As well as the title track which might be most insane thing Cale ever wrote. Cale has been an acquired taste even on the good days. I do have the 2 CD Complete Island albums that Polygram Island issued years ago but don't play it as much (if at all) than Guts. Life after Island, Cale became more of a cult artist that fell in terms of overrated, the only album that worked for me was the 1985 John Cale Comes Alive, which also welcomed him back to Island (via the ZE sub-label), and his take on Hallelujah, and his version remains the best, even more than Jeff Buckley's version and his 1990 album with Brian Eno, Wrong Way Up, after that, meh. Phil Collins plays drums on Fear Is A Man's Best Friend along with the likes of Chris Spedding, and the rhythm section that backed up Linda and Richard Thompson at that time. Not a bad track on this album, the deadpan Pablo Picasso is more smart ass than Jonathon Richman's version, and Heartbreak Hotel, is the book of Revelation coming true before your eyes and ears. Instead of Guts, Island should have named this Dirty Ass Rock And Roll. Which nails the spirit of this album.
A
Mud Bowl Memories: Cleveland 24 New York 7 (12/9/56) Yankee Stadium
A tale of one dynasty ending and another beginning, Cleveland dominated the early and mid 50s in making to the title game, but in 1956, the New York Giants with Frank Gifford, Charlie Connerly and Kyle Rote would win the division title and a blow out of the Chicago Bears and the infamous sneaker game but on this rain and snow mudfest, the Browns upset the Giants on two Tommy O'Conner touchdowns and throwing a TD pass to Fred Morrison who wore number 32 at that time. The next year, Jim Brown would be the next and last Brown to wear number 32 but that's a different story for another time.
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