Top Ten Of The Week-RIP Vern Gosdin

Vern Gosdin, the voice they called him died yesterday at age 74 from complications of a stroke.  Vern is best known for Set Them Up Joe and his 1988 CBS album Carved In Stone but goes back as far as 1966 by recording with Gene Clark on Clark's first album since leaving the Byrds, Gene Clark with The Gosdin Brothers.  Gosdin also recorded for Warner Brothers/Elektra, Compleat Records and Columbia.

I do not like the new MSN layout for Christgau's Consumer Guide.  Too damn cumbersome and it don't work on dialup.  Christgau has a thing against  Ryan Adams, he gave both Cardinology and Follow The Lights C grades, but He did give praise for Neil Young's Fork In The Road  (gave it an A minus)

Young's green-car protest album tops his impeach-the-president protest album because he knows more about cars than he does about presidents. In fact, he loves the gas guzzlers of yore so much that he went into the business. His goal: a "heavy metal Continental" that gets 100 mpg on "domestic green fuel." Young's music has never run as smooth as his automobiles, and his Volume Dealers chug along like the reliable transportation they are. But putting his tunes and falsetto into overdrive, he's so into his subject he turns it over 10 different ways. Here be truckers and traffic jams, heroic mechanics and failed bailouts, "the awesome power of electricity" and "cough up the bucks," hoods to get under and worlds to collide. Young sees beyond the "old"--a word that comes up a lot--on-the-road utopianism. But there's not a hint of mea culpa in the guy, or guilt trip either. "Just singing a song won't change the world," he knows that. But songs are his job, and his reserves are apparently inexhaustible. A Minus


Strange email of the day from a woman from Mingles.  And there's a reason why she's still single.  Letter starts as follows...

I'm curious, On the 7th day we rest? You don't happen to know bout clean and unclean food, do you?

Isabella is that you?!? If not, lay off the brown acid baby, it has eaten away most of your brain.

Two thoughts from Bob Lefsetz that make sense.

Miranda Lambert’s "Gunpowder & Lead" is a better rock track than anything by the Hold Steady or TV On The Radio.

Keith Urban can play the guitar better than anybody in Nickelback.

Yeh, I tend to think TV On The Radio is a bit overrated too, mainly their last album which everybody raved about I didn't get it at all.  If you want hear a good album check out the Booker T album Potatoe Hole, with Neil Young and Drive By Truckers helping out.  It's on sale for 8 bucks at Best Buy.

With the side project gaining full steam ahead, I try to keep up on the latest and greatest out there but I seem to be slipping or don't care at all.  But there's some new stuff to talk of.  If it makes you want to buy the music then I did my job.  Besides there is life after classic rock anyway, as I've been trying to tell you the past seven years.

1.  These Things by Tim O'Reagan  2006  Late of The Jayhawks and much later The Leatherwoods, Tim made this tax write off for Lost Highway/Universal and added Gary Louris and Mark Olsen to the recordings.  Didn't sell and made a beeline to the bargain bins. At times sounds alt country like the Jayhawks, other times Matthew Sweet.  Some people still think Wilco is the best rock band of the decade of Y2K.  Me, I perfer The Darkness.

2.  Breaking The Law-Judas Priest 1980  Our cover band is doing this song and had to use this as a reference so that when we go to practice next weekend, I'll remember where the breaks are at.  Never was much into JP as my zit faced classmates of 30 years ago but I think this song was the most new wave sounding Rob Hartford and company got.  On a side note, Gay and Lesbians can now legally get married here in the state of Iowa.  I know channel 9, good for them but I don't want to see that every damn time I turn on the TV.  Have some fucking descendents for a change.  Or when a smoking debate comes up, they gotta show some asshole smoking.  Always amazing when you want to see pics from last weekend's tornado you gotta go online, whereas the newscast is showing smokers or gay married couple.

3.  Yeah Yeah Yeah-The Vibrators 1977  My opinion of the whole thing.

4.  Les Invisibles-Blue Oyster Cult 1988  After the dogpile called Club Ninja, BOC returned with a concept album of sorts and got the original lineup back to do this.  This is more of Albert Bouchard then the rest of the band but Imaginos turned out to be their comeback album but final album with the original lineup.  Fell out of print for years before American Beat Records reissued it along with the much maligned Club Ninja.
5.  You Can't Win Them All-10 Years After 1972  Rock n Roll Music To The World was the last listenable TYA record and Target had this in the three dollar bins.  Alvin Lee was a blazing guitar player but his lyrics were pretty empty most of the time.  But then again comparing this to the crap on KZIA, he's Bob Dylan.  Lotta boogie on RNR Music To The World and I still enjoy it.

6.  Take A Picture-Filter 1999  I never cared much for screamo or whatever Richard Patrick was putting down and listening to his best of The Very Best Things, I'm still not convinced. But the Real Rock Station KRNA continues to play this every day.  They also play that Local H song that's about 15 years old.  I certainly think Local H did better with What Can I Tell You from their ignored Pack Up The Cats album of 1998 to which you can get for a buck (plus 3 dollars shipping and handling) from Amazon dot com.  But then again, I don't think much of the real rock stations, cuz like the top forty stations, there's little substance.  Plus it gives me a fucking headache too.

7.  Be Nice To me-Todd Rundgren 1971  I had a bad month.

8.  39-Queen 1976  The most prettiest song that Queen ever came up and it was the B side to You're My Best Friend.  Sometimes it would be nice to hear this song on the radio but since radio has overkilled the hits, perhaps it's better to discover this yourself in the privacy of your own home.

9.  We Gotta Get Out Of This Place/Don't Bring Me Down/It's My Life Medley-David Johansen 1982  This got some airplay on MTV back when MTV was Music TeleVision and not Moron TV as it is today. Also some airplay on KKRQ in the early 80s.  Johansen you know is the lead singer of New York Dolls (what's left of them) but he did have a cult following in his solo years. He does the Animals proud, in fact does a better version of these songs then Eric Burdon did with the reformed Animals around that time.  Johansen almost blew his street cred with Buster Poindexter with his Hot Hot Hot single a few years later but have reformed the New York Dolls (what's left of them) and actually had made a decent album a few years ago.  Also there's a new New York Dolls album coming out in May with Todd Rundgren producing.  Will it be good you ask?  Stay tuned.

10.  It's All Good-Bob Dylan 2009  New Bob Dylan and no he can't sing, never really did, but has such an understanding of American music and the blues that you can forgive him for that reedy, shotty voice.  Together Through Life it's called and yes we have gone through life together.

Who knows,maybe we'll do better next week.  Stay Tuned.

Crabb Bits: Creed, Flaming Lips, Iowa's Gay Marriage Law

Here something to wet your pants over...Creed has reunited once again for a summer tour and new record.  Just like Limp Bizkit, the crap bands are mounting a comeback.

I have no opinion of the Flaming Lips Song Do You Realize being the Oklahoma rock theme state song.  Never cared much for the Flaming Lips then or now.  She Don't Use Jelly killed it for me.   I'm sure there's a better Leon Russell song that could have been used or The Tractors but my vote still goes for Dwight Twilley's I'm on Fire.

If Jason Aldean is country so is The Flaming Lips.  I know some of y'all out there like Jason's stuff but to me it sounds too cliche and too rock for country.  Of course they gotta stick a loud steel guitar or fiddle to call it country.  Those who asked me to, no I have no intentions of reviewing Jason's latest record.  Unless you like to see me bash it.  Which again I have no intention to.


The next time some weather asshole says on TV that we need more rain I'm going down there personally and smack them upside the head. 

It could have been worse, we got about an inch and half of rain, places to the west of here got around 4 to 5 inches (round Waterloo) but this area got the tornado instead.  Around 5, there was one that rip around Alburnett and Central City, causing a bit of damage to Flying Squirrel area around Pinicon Ridge Park.   Too close for comfort.  Over three years ago, there was a tornado that made a mess out of the Shaw Rd area outside of Anamosa but lifted enough to miss the Wally World.  And the Iowa City Tornado that happened the same day.  But this is the reason why I hate springtime here.  Stalled Stationary fronts, endless trains of rainstorms, flooded basements, misery.  So far this spring the storms have not been as bad as the ones last year, one after another of heavy rain and more ulcers and cusswords.  We have had three weekends of clouds or rain or snow or tornados this year but none of the monsoons, although this weekend was the wettest since the first week of march.  But we were never in a drought as those idiot weathermen were saying.  It's fucking springtime dumbasses, the rainy season is in full effect.  Fuck off on the need rain whine.  We don't need anymore for about two more weeks.

If your gay or lesbian, you can now get married here.  And nothing more that I want to see less is two fat lesbos talking it up on the news.  Just like anything when it comes to smoking, the newscast has to show people smoking, now we get to see lesbos talking bout how happy they are and good for them but this is the kind of shit that should be regulated to the web and not on the 6 oclock news.  Why is it that if you want to see tornado pictures you have to go to the web but have to look at lesbians on TV?  No wonder why the news sucks, too many minites going for Kaplan University snake oil commericals and junk news and not enough of the important things.

Band news, I showed up in a fowl mood, having to deal with the turtle and hare traffic.  You know that, the turtle is the fuck for brains going 10 miles an hour and the hare is the asshole behind you going twenty miles faster.  I think Russ finally got the fact that Brandi isn't going to be a part of our supergroup (not that she ever was), and finally got to sing out Dead Flowers but kept fucking up on the final last lines of both verses.  This is not like singing for the TEs whereas you fuck up on the words you get to rewind and start again.  They said it sounded pretty good but next time I need to remember to bring the freaking words so I don't have to guess.  Don't know how singers do this, but then again they have more brain cells than I do.  And more patience.  Each week we do have some sense of direction but it is a week by week basis for me.  Working nights may still prohibit me from doing this fulltime but the guys know that.  Everybody seems to have a lot of tolerance for me it seems.  Even the faithful readers of Crabb.

I'm getting behind in responding to emails to my friends and I hope to get around that in the coming days.  Like Brooksie who used to do a rival top ten till she got promoted in her job and doesn't have much time for it anymore.  or Diggy who talk about maybe spending some time out where he's at and maybe jam out  there.  We'll have to see, only have so many vacation days and not enough time to do what I want.  But it is tempting.

As I write this, I see our very first tulip popping up for the first time this year.  Perhaps the tulips are getting smarter.  Last year they popped up the first week of April and got buried in snowfall the next day and washed away the next weekend.  Hopefully the rain is over....probaly till thursday when another stationary front decides to call this home and the next battlefield of tornados and thunderstorms.
And that's not what we want.

Top Ten Of The Week_Anger Issues

It's been a dry spring so far this year and that's the way I like it.  But we are in the rainy season and I'm sure we'll get more than our share of stalled stationary fronts.  And then that will be one more thing that I'll bitch about.  Thanks everybody for your support of The Top Ten.  It has been renewed for another week.

I finally tried the Jimmy Zack's Pizza Joint for buffet today, they only do it on wednesday and friday of the week and I have to say that Jimmy Zack's reminds me of Zoey's or Pizzeria Uno, pizza that fills you up.  It was a buffet and the price wasn't too bad (6.35 includes pop-cheaper than Cici's) and I only had three big slices of pizza.  Goes to show you they were big pizza slices. Nothing still competes with Naso's but Jimmy Zack's is a nice change of pace.  Don't care for Cranky Hank's in Lindale though. Reminds me a bit like Rocky Roccos when we had that in Iowa City years ago.  Steve Rasmussen would disagree, Rocky was better.

We are almost done with April, a third of the way through this year and I still have yet to compile ten notable albums of this year.  Nothing really stands out although I do like the new JJ Cale Roll On, and Queensryche American Soldier although I seem to space that album out when its time to choose road music CDs.  The new Bob Dylan will get a spin, likewise Heaven And Hell (Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio) and Radio Moscow's new one IF fucking Best Buy will stock it.  Otherwise we'll have to Amazon it.  There's no real plans to go back up to Madison till later in summer.

The Top Ten.

1.  Kick Out The Jams-MC5 1968  The first forty five I've bought new in years and it came during National Record Store Day as one of those special order things.  Original single was the Brothers and Sisters Version, but Rhino went with the MF version guarantee to piss off parents.  I bought this album for 2 bucks in the cutouts in 1975 and my old man didn't like it at all, especially with the noisy side two and Starship.  I think he ordered me to quit playing it after two minutes of that song.  Thankfully he didn't bust it later.

2.  Shot Of Love-Bob Dylan 1981  I had a choice of this or something from the Basement Tapes but since I added a song from that album to a different top ten (Seen at Multiply.com) I decided to go with the titled track off Dylan's 1981 album.  The last of his Born Again period, he does start to rock out on this album.  Not as bad as Rolling Stone Magazine would like you to think.

3.  Big Yellow Taxi-The Neighborhood 1971  The only top ten song from this 8 piece choral group who made an album for Big Tree known for their note for note rendition of MacArthur Park.  Seemed like everybody did that song.  Big Yellow Taxi, is a cover of Joni Mitchell's version and I like The Neighborhood's better.  Anything else The Neighborhood's Debut album we can all live without and that includes MacArthur Park.

4.  Drift Away-Humble Pie 1974  Yes that version and it's off Thunderbox, the Pie's flop 1974 album.  By then Peter Frampton was long gone and Steve Marriott and company were spinning their tires in lukewarm R and B and Boogie.  But Greg Ridley does the vocal on this number and it's better than Uncle Kracker's version.  I'm sure had Uncle Kracker been around in 1974, he would have been the guest vocalist on this track.  In terms of Humble Pie I'll take their Frampton years over the Marriott boogie years.  It's called inspiration.

5.  Get Stoned-Stone 1988  Heavy Metal Spinal Tap guys from Finland of all places. Harder and funnier than Metallica and Anthrax combined, Sal at BJ Records was playing this CD and I had to hear the rest of this album.  It was a one off, made on MCA Records' metal label Mechanic and this has been a HM secret.  Were these guys serious or were they trying to be funny?  Or was a big Finish FU to the Hair Metal MFs of Sunset Strip?  Certainly MTV never played this although this was recorded at the Helsinki MTV studios.  Riki Richtman never commented on them on his Headbanger's Ball back in the late 80s, back when MTV played music videos and not this fucking awful reality crap potato they call programming. Yes I missed those days too, I was 27 and had the rest of my life in front of me.  Later in this album, Stone destroys The Final Countdown before blowing it out of the water with Overtake. Why am I telling you this?  You'll never hear this album unless you go through a 100 pages of Amazon used CD titles to get to Stone.

6.  Black Shuck-The Darkness 2003  Remember these guys?  They were the rage of the UK and for a short time in America got airplay on the radio.  Sometimes KRNA plays one of their tracks but I had to get the clean copy of this album, simply of the fact that Justin Hawkins redid the naughty words and adding something that rhymes with the F bomb.  The choice word you ask?  I don't give a Duck. ;-)  The Darkness nevertheless were the most rock sounding of all modern bands this decade.  And they're still around in the UK, with a recent new album but so far Atlantic has no intentions of releasing that in the US.  They figured that the buyers should stick to AC DC, Bad Company or Queen.  With Freddie Mercury that is and not Paul Rodgers.

7.  Small Beginnings-Flash 1972  Peter Banks was the main guitarist for YES till he got bounced out of the band due to being too much of a party animal and Steve Howe replaced him. Banks remains pissed off about it to this day and refuses to participate in any YES reunions.  This was the only hit that he got from Flash, which sounded a bit like YES including the vocalist.  Tony Kaye, also booted from YES plays keyboards on this album although he'd move on to Badger.  Flash would go on to make three more albums before imploding after an off night in Albuquerque one night.  Banks would have a solo career and would stuck top ten gold in 1983 with After The Fire and Der Kommisser.  But even that song when it peaked, ATF broke up anyway. 

8.  Hot Dog-Buck Owens 1989  A top ten country hit for Buck on his second go round with Capitol Records but he recorded it as Corky James around 1955 or 58 (too lazy to look it up) as a rockabilly hit.  This version is a bit more honky tonk.  First of three albums he did with Capitol/Curb before retiring again in 1992 from recording.

9.  Neat Neat Neat-The Damned 1977 The first punk band to record a punk album, beating The Sex Pistols by about a month.  Got Nick Lowe to produced it and it came out on Stiff Records in the mid 70s, (Later on Castle/Sanctuary before Sanctuary went belly up this decade).  I find The Damned to be a bit too much and all over the place after listening to the MCA 1987 Light At The End Of The Tunnel Best of but I guess they deserved their place in history although not on my shelf.  They're still touring although they have excommunicated Rat Scabies (the original drummer) on anything after 1992.  Fun fact, if you do come across the first Damned album called Damned Damned Damned, you will noticed that Castle added the mistake photo that was on the original Stiff album.  To which the back photo wasn't The Damned but rather Eddie And The Hot Rods, another pub punk band that did well in the UK but was ignored in the US.  But I was a fan of Eddie and the Hot Rods.

10. The Red Telephone-Love 1968  From Forever Changes, the best non Beatle album ever to come out of the 60s.  While Love is a rock band, they mostly used acoustic guitars on this album and got great arrangements from David Angel.  Unfortunly, Arthur Lee would break up the band and add new members and went into a more hard rock/funk direction with less satisfying results.  And this song we leave you with this observation...."We are all normal and we want our freedom".

So do I.

Jeff Gilbert writes on Satellite radio and how it's getting to suck.

I'm not happy with the direction satellite radio is taking. I really liked the "cross country" station on XM, but since the XM/Sirius merger it's been replaced by "outlaw country," which, to my tastes at least, is a little too county and not enough "alt." I also think The Loft station on XM/Sirius is becoming a bit too mainstream. It's getting harder and harder to find good new discoveries.

National Record Store Day

I associate Record Stores with Drive Ins. In my youth they were commonplace, and every other day I'd spend lots of time combing through the 45s up at Marion TV and Records and then walk to Town Square Books to pick up the jukebox records that used to play at Ole's Ham n Egger and the Marion Landromat on the edge of town. Back in those days, you could walk into the place, nobody's around and play the jukebox for a while. Back when the landromat was 24 hours, before the idiots would come in after dark and vandalize the place. Even back then you couldn't have anything nice.

But like the drive ins, the record stores in town are now a distant memory. Cedar Rapids used to have Krackers, Record Realm, Record Bar, Record Store, Marion TV, Relics, Rock n Bach and Omni, Co Op Records and Big Apple. I used to consider Relics my second home and paid Saturday Night visits to Rock n Bach before going next door to Desoda's to either get drunk or pick up ladies, mostly the former. All the independend record stores are out of town. Iowa City has two of them, even Dubuque has two stores going on, CDs 4 Change and Moondog Music. The Internet may have killed off all chances of opening up any new stores around here and that's a shame. The only store I consider to be a record store is Half Priced Books in town and that has been a Godsend for the bargain hunter and music collector. In fact, HP Books still amazes me in terms of albums that I have bought there, including last night finding Humble Pie's 1974 flop album Thunderbox, Redd Kross Neuroica and Mose Allison Your Mind Is On Vacation, his 1976 jazz album. I also found some 45s of note from Spike Jones and the late great Earl Palmer. Just like the good old days of lore, I still find them. A gift from the Good Lord and from somebody cleaning out their house.

I decided to stay within a hour driving distance and went to Iowa City to visit the folks at Record Collector and Real Records. to which I bought Billy Paul-360 Degrees of Billy Paul and The Dammed Light At The End Of The Tunnel 2 CD set for MCA back in 1987. And then Real had a vinyl copy of Buck Owens Hot Dog and a CD from Flash, the band that had Peter Banks and Tony Kaye from YES in it. Plus I got a Record Store Day 45 of the MC5 Kick Out The Jams. Even FYE had some bargains as well. So it was a good day for me. Finding more music and to celebrate the second annual National Record Store Day and the turnout was actually pretty good for these record stores I mentioned. I'm sure Moondog and CD's 4 Change had a good turnout as well but I can only go to so many places.

But I'm also sure next year when we had National Record Store Day again I'll be driving old reliable to the music stores of unknown destination. I live for the tunes.

Top Ten Of The Week-RIP Rocky Hill

Saturday is national record store day.  For the faithful, there is still some record stores out there but none are here in Cedar Rapids.  So patronize Moondog Music and CDs 4 Change at Dubuque, Downtown Discs in Platteville Wisconsin, Record Collector and Real Records in Iowa City, and Mad City Music Exchange, Strictly Discs, Sugar Shack Records  B Sides Music and The Exclusive Company in Madison.  Weather calls for clouds and rain this weekend so I may not make it to any stores.  But support your local record store, for that next year they might not be around.

Another musician passed away this week.  Rocky Hill, older brother of Dusty Hill and best known for I Won't Be Your Fool Anymore, 1988 hit on Virgin Records died on Monday.  He was 62 years old.

Billy Bob Thornton's Boxmasters Canadian Tour got canceled and basically of the fact that Billy Bob raised a big stink on a CBC show.  The Boxmasters were opening up for Willie Nelson, and got booed off the stage a couple times before they pulled the plug on the tour.  I may pull the top ten here if ratings continue to tank as well.  Speaking of which, this is the latest installment of the seven year experiment known as The Top Ten Of The Week, with the usual hit and misses from my player.  Gawd I miss Brooksie and her counterpoint, three years after the fact.

1.  More More More (Part 2) Andrea True Connection 1976  Dedicated to Marilyn Chambers who passed away Monday, Andrea True was a porn star that had a off the wall hit with this song. Buddah Records named the disco version part two and it doesn't vary all that much from the three minite edit.  A very saultry number but time hasn't been too kind to Andrea judging from the way she looks now after VH1 did a story on her one hit.  But then again, nobody stays young and beautiful thirty years after the fact and certainly not after all those x rated films either.

2.  Drinking Wine Spo Dee O Dee-Sticks McGee 1949  A very early Atlantic hit from this blues singer and later covered by Jerry Lee Lewis for a 1973 hit himself.  When I did some blues research at Kirkwood back in 1982, this song was 33 years old.  Come to think of it, Andrea True's song is 33 years after the fact too.  Time flies and it stays the same while we all get older.

3.  Heatseeker-Ac/Dc 1988  The great lost AC DC album was Blow Up Your Video.  Funny how when Wal Mart had that sale on the AC DC back catalog that I couldn't find Blow Up Your Video, nor Fly On The Wall or even Flick Of The Switch which wasn't that bad of an album. Blow Up Your Video suffers from a very bad mix.  Sounded like shit in the car and not much better on the stereo either.

4.  If We Can't Be Lovers-The Star Spangles 2003  Wasn't much of a market out there for a band that sounded like the offspring of the NY Dolls and Iggy Pop. They made one album for Capitol and then disappeared just like that.  Really isn't that bad of a album, but then again it wasn't no match for the real thing of the NY Dolls or Iggy or The Heartbreakers (Johnny Thunders band not Tom Petty).  Somehow, David Johansen reformed what's left of the NY Dolls and made a comeback album a couple years later.  The Star Spangles made another album for a indee label and then broke up it seems.  But then again not too many people care about bands from the decade of 2k0 which is this decade.

5.  Green Onions-Roy Buchanan 1976  A 7 minite jamout with Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn with David Galbardi sitting in for Al Jackson on drums.  Roy does a lotta showing off on guitar. Still gets played a bit on Beeker Street.  Alas, Roy would hang himself in jail in 1988 a sad ending to one of the best guitarist you never heard of.

6.  Drive-Incubus 1999  You know you're getting old when this song is now ten years old.  Hard to believe that Incubus is still around.  Even harder to believe they're still on a major label too.

7.  Shutting Down Detroit-John Rich 2009  The protest song of this day and age. And basically the truth although I don't agree with a lot of John Rich's ideas on his album Son Of A Preacher Man.  A bit too much right wingness.

8.  Superstition-Beck,Bogart & Appice 1973  Deconstuction of a Stevie Wonder hit.  Got played a bit on the underground FM stations of the 70s.  Album got terrible reviews and my opinion of that record is mixed.  This song, sloppy but fun.

9.  I Don't Know Much-Billy Pilgrim 1995 This band made two decent Atlantic albums in the 90s and their harmonies reminded me of a more grounded Rembrandts or Jayhawks but never paid much attention to this duo till I found their album in the dollar bins at HP Books and it's better than Dog Eye View or Matchbox 20. Don't know what happened to Andrew Hyra but Kristian Hall would grow a goatee, put on a cowboy hat and hooked up with Kristen Hall and Jennifer Nettles to form Sugarland and that has paid better dividens for Mr. Hall.

10.  Ordinary People-Neil Young And The Blue Notes 2007  Yes, he is a old crank but dammit we love the old crank just as much as y'all love the old cranky crabb.  Supposely this was done for a possible Blue Notes live album but Neil had a change of heart and sat on this song for 2 decades before putting it out on Crome Dreams 2, perhaps the best record he's done this decade.  Which isn't saying much if you compare it to forgettible stuff such as Are You Passonite? or Prairie Wind and so far the jury hasn't been too kind to his Fork In The Road album released last week.  At 18 minites it's longer than In A Gadda De Vida by Iron Butterfly and a bit more interesting.  My question to y'all is how could Neil remember all these words to this song. 

 "The record store is the livery stable where I can tie up, feed and groom my ears."    Tom Waits

Death Has No Mercy: Harry Kalas, Marilyn Chambers, The Bird

RIP to Harry Kalas, one of the best voices in sports history who passed away prior to the Phillies playing at Washington.  He was 73.  Harry was also the voice over of NFL Films, and the Chunky Soup commercials as well. I also remember him doing Notre Dame Basketball games back when WGN sports showed them in the early 80s.  Next to Jack Buck, Harry Carey, Jack Brickhouse and Mel Allen, Kalas was just as good as they were.  Kalas also was the voice of Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl.  He will be missed.

Marilyn Chambers, the Ivory Snow pitchwoman who became a porn star also passed away.  She was 56 and of course best known in the movie Behind The Green Door and "ahem" Inside Marilyn Chambers.  Later did some B movies and TV Series but never could top her porn performances.

Mark The Bird Fidriych, whose shining moment was his 1976 season with the Detroit Tigers, won 24 games but then injuries ended his career.  Later hooked up with The Orioles for a spell.  Died from a truck repair accident.  He was 54.

As you all know Ed Podolak will return back as commentator for the Hawkeye Football team.    Although I have reservations about meeting the guy a long time ago, I still think he remains a top notch announcer and he does bleed black and yellow.  Here's hoping he will overcome the demons that plagued him to take a semi retirement and get his act together. 

Crabb Bits: Madison 2009, Clarise 15 years later, Reviews

So much for another trip to Madison.  I think there's a reason why I try to make it a two day thingy rather than one.  The feeling of getting up at 7 to get to ready and take off around 8:30 to make the two hour twenty minute commute.  It marks the 15th year of going there on a yearly basis.  I got it now that I avoid the beltline altogether.  To get to the west side from college town, just follow Regent to Speedway to Mineral Point and it will get you there.  To the east side it's 151 although once again they're tearing up Washington Avenue.  So I didn't go to the PrePlayed store on that side of town.  Didn't want to deal with the rush hour and road construction.  Plus I can only take so much of the dumbass students who seem to walk out in front of cars every chance they get and of course I got more than my share of them.  If they only had a brain.

Highlight was being in Goodwill just in time for the power to go out.  But part of the east side of Madison didn't have working stop lights and it was rush hour and of course, traffic was full of dumbasses as well.  Don't know if there were any accidents but I took the back way into town and avoided most of that and did come back into working stop lights about a mile down the road.  Of course they were red.

Again hindsight tells me that I should have spent another day up there.  We finally got the two days of sunshine that I wanted but due to my impulse judgement I called in work and went out to the road.  Got a awful Breakfast Burrito at McDonalds in Platteville and paid the price all day.  Had a Pollo En Mole at the Los Benevidas before going home but they gave me beef in mole sauce and it was pretty tough.  Should have stuck with their king sized burrito.  And after a day of going through most of the record stores that I knew about and all the HP Books and Frugal Muse Book Stores, I did the walk around Lake Monona before pushing old Purple back on the road, back to home.  In another couple months, I'll venture back up there for a extra day of bike riding and to see if I can bike ride around Lake Monona and get rigor mortis all over again by drinking not enough water.  Funny how 15 years ago, I could do this without any problems, but this one day event tired me out big time.  And I didn't find all that much in terms of bargains either.

Other things of note-A woman out in California bought a Keb Mo Cd from me the other day and I mailed it off Thursday in Cascade before heading to Madison.  She got the cd the next day!  People bitch about the USPS and so do I but I have to admit that I'm very impressed on how they got that cd to California in a day.  Hell, I can't drive that far that quickly.  I definitely need to thin out more cds and after I get done writing this blog, I'll go do that.  It's time for the annual Crabb Easter Day Donation and it's time to give the gift of music to the needy.

April 12, 1994.  I met the one woman who would be a part of my life for just about three years.  I can't remember dates very well, I don't remember her birthday nor her children but I remember that day.  I was downtown CR, bopping around the skyway and I ran into Clarise at some lawyer's place.  She was coming out and I was bopping along as said.  I used to see her at the old DeSoda's hangout and we'd dance a while and cuddle but she then disappeared around the time of the floods of 93 and thought that was the end of it.  But we managed to trade phone numbers and then became a couple.  First two years were fun and things were going well but cracks begin to show around the time my appendix almost brust and starting signing on dotted lines on things that I should have not signed on.  I also remember the Forth Of July 1996, when we got into our first argument and things started to slowly go downhill after that.  Thought about getting married after coming back from the Vegas/Phoenix getaway 96 but we were drifting apart.  I also remember  February 12, 1998, our breakup date.  She was seeing somebody else for the past six weeks and finally told me.  Sure there was tears and sadness but the next couple years I had to find ways of getting my name off the damn trailer and had to get old Purple back after she didn't make the last three car payments and damn near tanked my credit rating.  I still have memories of when things were great and I still think Clarise is a good woman and mother.  I think both her sons have graduated from Prairie and Jesse, the third child will turn 15 in May and wonder if his dad has anything to do with him.    I don't venture much into the trailer court where she lives, it's out of the way.   I do know when I did picked the car back up that the guy she left me for, she booted out of the trailer for abusing her kids.  Which is why I never moved in, her boys would find ways to try my patience.  I haven't seen her in a decade but I'm sure she'd be impressed that I remember a nice sunny day in April and for three years we did our best to be together.

But she could never tame the bargain hunter that was me and she never understood why I jump in a car and go far for more cds.  You can't change fact of life and i'm sure in the end she resented it to the point of accusing me of sleeping around.  To which I replied I got barely time for you, I sure don't have time for anybody else.  Some people like food, or booze or messing around. I just love music.  That's all.

I ask myself how long am I going to review new music and seek bargains.  It's has been a labor of love for 22 years in the CD era but I'm beginning to tire of buying new music in shitty digipaks and  have decided that after the Bob Dylan album (which will probaly be in a shittypak as I now referred them-the Neil Young Fork In The Road and it's sharp corners didn't impressed me) unless it's a band that I follow, that I'm not going to review anymore cds in shitipaks. I know it's a fact of life that most bands don't care for standard jewel cases and more power to them but that's why I didn't spring for the Pearl Jam Ten reissue, even though I saw it for 8 bucks used.  The reason is that try driving down the road and trying to fish out a damn CD that's in a double fold shittipak and just about losing control.  I got rid of a couple decent albums cuz of that.  I don't have the time nor patience for this.  Better just to make a damn copy and sell the cd off and let somebody else scratch it up.  I also noticed that Bob Dylan's reissues of New Morning, Dylan And The Dead, The Basement Tapes and Before The Flood are in this new and unimproved digipaks.  So I'll review the new Bob but anything after this in digipak your on your own.

And finally I got to hear John Rich's Shutting Down Detroit and I found his new album in the two buck bins at HP Books.  The reason why it was two bucks that the Cd was already scratched but not the point of being unplayable.  I think it's the best thing that Rich has done even with Big Kenny out of the picture for this new album but anything after that song is the usual Nashville grandstanding cliche.  And Rich is very right wing although not as bad as Ted Nugent or Rush Dumbass.  While he sings about the Trucking Man or the Solider fighting the wars, he also complaining about folks trying to be him without being in his shoes and paying dues in Nashville.  Only problem is Rich was part of the Lonestar band, that odious pop country band that had a big hit after Rich left the band.  And the usual redneck anthem, To Turn A Country Boy On, (Put on some Wrangler's and cut them thigh high, Crank The Hank and the football game and chug a ice cold beer (and later put out)).   Drive Myself To Drink is a big band arrangement that is out of the ordinary but for the most part John Rich's Son Of A Preacher Man isn't anything to write home about outside of Shutting Down Detroit.  A good reason why there's Itunes anyway.  In other words, your typical country crock of cliche and half inspiriation.

Hoppy easter everybody!

Album grades

Neil Young-Fork In The Road (reprise) B-
Neil Young-Chrome Dreams 2 (reprise) B plus
John Rich-Son Of A Preacher Man (Warner Nashville) B-