I remember three things about the purchase of this record:
I bought it at a used record store in Atlanta.
I bought it the day I went to a Who concert at the Omni, which was July 9, 1980.
I played it so much at the home of a friend of a friend’s house before the concert someone asked, ’Don’t we have any other records?”
These were people I didn’t know well. They were Atlanta friends of several of my Auburn University college buddies. We AU guys had driven up to see the Who and were at a house in, I believe, Dunwoody.
“But it’s the Band, man,” one replied in defense of keeping record going.
Hey, mister, can you tell me, where a man might find a bed?
He just grinned and shook my hand, “No” was all he said.
The other guy, resigned, left the room.
Now the Who are/were legends, even then on the ‘Who Are You?’ tour. “Won’t Get Fooled Again,’ based on attitude, chops and sound, is easily one of the top 10 rock songs of all time, IMHO.
The Band, I suppose, you could call semi-legendary. The Canadian-American band was roots rock, or Americana, before those terms were being tossed out. Most significantly they played and recorded extensively with Bob Dylan and were featured in what many consider the best rock movie of all time, ‘The Last Waltz,’ directed by Martin Scorsese.
These kids — Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm – were all right.
For me it was the perfect warm-up to a Who concert.
Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny, and (and, and) you put the load (you put the load) right on me.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
This is Bad Company’s second album. The best one may be the first but I didn’t need to buy that one. My brother had it and we wore it out in his basement bedroom on Cedar Creek Circle (or Court). I would have had a lot more than my 678 records if I didn’t have a younger brother who was pretty cool, and not a bad drummer to boot. (Wasn’t all that excited about the KISS albums, though, bro.) But David did have debut Dire Straits album with Sultans of Swing and Knopfler’s quietly revolutionary finger picking style.
So I taped (cassette) the first Bad Company and bought the second LP called ‘Straight Shooter.’ Pretty strong hard melodic rock. Perfect music for a high school soundtrack in a Night Moves-y sort of way.
I’d have been about 15 or 16 here. I haven’t listened to this in years, but still know the words to ‘Shooting Star,’ ‘Good Lovin’ Gone Bad,’ and ‘Feel Like Making Love.’ The last song sounds romantic and starts slow, but then segues into a power slam crunchy guitar riff that explodes off a drum beating. Picture four heads in a car, a la Wayne’s World, snapping forward in rhythmic unison. Good stuff.
Paul Rodgers used to get pegged as having one of the best vocals in rock. And it’s true.
I was never a huge fan. My initial take was, what is this?
Village Voice critic Robert Christgau in reviewing this very album called them “the world’s greatest new-wave kiddie-novelty disco-punk band’ – a bit of a left-handed compliment, though he gave the album a B-plus.
The group’s first ‘hit’ on their first album– ‘Rock Lobster– with its undulating yodel chirps and big twang single string guitar (at least that’s how it sounded) would lend to that feeling this is of the novelty ilk destined for Dr. Demento.
I mean they are chortling over a crustacean for goodness sakes.
But the years and several second listens have softened me on the B-52’s.
They were more than a novelty act. Stripping down the instruments, unloading any trace of the blues, the B-52’s simply made people happy. Many people for a long time.
They were the opposite of the venomous Sex Pistols (not saying venom doesn’t have a place.) They wanted to party out of bounds at the Love Shack. The only bad things in B52ville were when you took to living in your own private Idaho or you lose Quiche Lorraine, that doggie dyed green.
Over the years I’ve come to appreciate, in moderation, their chirpy cheery camp and thift-store chic. This is not a record I’d put on to stretch out on the couch and read the paper, but ‘Party Out of Bounds’ off this record or ‘Love Shack’ coming a decade later, are good anchors for any party mixtape (remember those?).
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
One young evening during my freshman year at the University of Georgia I walked next door from my dorm in Reed Hall to Memorial Hall. There was a concert going on, and to these 19-year-old ears calibrated on what would later be called classic rock and southern rock, it seemed out of bounds.
It was a free concert by the Swimming Pool Q’s and the newly famous B-52’s.
This was 1978, nearly a decade before this entertaining, shoestring documentary
In 1987, ‘Athens, Ga.–Inside/Out’ came out with its running commentary by my man Ort.
I had it in VHS, lost it, then DVD, lost it, but I still have the vinyl record.
Now by 1987 this New Wave, alternative, punk thing had been filtering through the music industry for a while, seeping into the mainstream where the masses drink.
The B-52’s truly created a new sound; the Swimming Pool Q’s are still on my turntable after all these years. (Bob Elsey gets my vote for underrated understated guitarist of all time). Love Tractor has a bizarro Christmas album I recommend checking out.
And Ort? Well I haven’t lived in Athens for more than 30 years. But my parents are still there. I went to high school there and did a year at UGA. I have come back to Athens quite a bit over the years. But I haven’t seen Ort in a long time. A downtown Athens fixture, Ort is a music history savant. I used to sit down with Ort and talk about music for hours over beer (me buying).
But neither Ort, nor the Q’s, nor the B-52’s is on this record, which is the soundtrack of the documentary. The documentary chronicles what these aforementioned folks wrought, so to speak. Athens was a hip little cauldron anchored and fueled by the university, surrounded by swimming holes and pine forests. And there was kudzu, the invasive species in the South that greened up nearly every bridge, old barn and derelict wall around. There’s a metaphor growing in there somewhere. REM featured kudzu on its first full album, ‘Murmur.’
REM is clearly the standout on this record, with a cover of ‘(All I’ve Got to Do is) Dream’ and their own ‘Swan Swan H.’ The rest are songs from bands that achieved varying degrees of success at levels well below REM: Love Tractor, the Squalls, Pylon, Time Toy, Kilkenny Cats, and Flat Duo Jets.
The Jets played some wild rockabilly punk, but, alas, Jason and the Scorchers, not from Athens, were better at this. My God, Pylon, considered one of Athens’ most dynamic live groups, blisters with ‘Stop It.’ If that doesn’t make you bang your head, check your pulse.
Time Toy does some stream of consciousness, white rap slam poetry behind the rhythmic guitar sound of Paul ‘Buzz’ Hammond.
I went to Cedar Shoals high school with Paul and was a friend long long time ago. I lent him my acoustic guitar, which I couldn’t play too well. Months went by and he said he lost it. Damn Paul.
He gave me a banjo in return. I never learned to play and sold it cheap to a very happy banjo player (Is there any other kind?)
I lost track of Paul after moving out of state, and starting career, family, etc., but in the late 70s or early 80s I saw him numerous times playing in his earlier band, Little Tigers.
I Googled his name recently and was sad to find his obituary from 2016. RIP Paul.
So what are we to make of this? Athens was an early adapter of this ‘scene’ way of developing and attracting talent. Chapel Hill, Austin, Seattle, among others, followed suit with their own scenes. Athens was a pioneer. It was and probably still is, a special place for creative and diverse ideas because of the ingredients: sleepy southern town, hotbed of matriculation and home of numerous practicing thespians. OK, I’m goofing now.
I don’t know what to make of this thing that just happened — this ‘God thing,’ as my Presbyterian pastor wife Catherine would say.
I’ll admit up front that I’m uncomfortable talking about God. I’m private about my beliefs, though, as mentioned above have been a pastor’s husband for many years. Mainly, I’m uncomfortable because God is, well, hard to explain, at least to my degenerating brain. But I do believe in Her.
As many know I have Lewy Body dementia and I’m using this blog to promote awareness of this disease which has no cure. The backbone of the blog, which I started several weeks ago, are reviews of my vinyl record collection. The number of records I’ve collected over the years is 678.
I have pledged to review them all, disease be damned.
I referenced a well-known study, called the Nun’s Study. The study found that positive thoughts or some other unknown brain stimuli may help avoid the ravages of Alzheimer’s and presumably, other dementias. Even when later autopsies found brains filled with the plaques and tangles that indicate Alzheimer’s disease, some of those nuns showed no symptoms during their lives.
I find this very positive and have mentioned the study before about how I hope my brain can develop ‘workarounds’ to stop or mitigate the damage by Lewy bodies, those unwanted proteins that are killing my brain cells.
Then, scanning the NYT article about the nuns, a number jumped out at me. From the New York Times (the circle is mine).
So got that? The total number of nuns in the study? 678.
Whoa. 678..
That’s the same number of albums I own and will review on myvinylcountdown.com
It was difficult for everyone watching the NBA game last night between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Boston Celtics to see the devastating leg injury suffered by new Celtic, Gordon Hayward.
I winced and touched the screw that protrudes under my skin on my shin bone (tibia).
A multimillion dollar elite professional athlete, Hayward will be treated well and getting advice from the best in the business, doctors, physical therapists and trainers.
But it might be important as well for Gordon to talk to some folks who have been through it.
Gordon could seek out other athletes such as Joe Theismann, Sam Bowie, Paul George or Kevin Ware for insight into their devastating leg injuries.
Or , you could ask me for advice..
Mike Oliver driving at Mike’s Challenge which raised $13,000 for Lewy Body Dementia Associationn (Photo by Trish Crain)
In fact I’ll offer it right now, no charge. And my experience, although gruesome had a positive effect on my game, and my life.
First off, I’m no elite athlete. I’m just a big fan of the game and started playing pick-up 35 years ago, hooping it everywhere from neighborhood playground ball, to the Y, to an occasional league here and there in Alabama, Florida and California.
So I divide my ‘career’ into two phases:
1) Before the break. 2) After the break.
But, first, let me tell you about the break.
I was in a church gymnasium in Leesburg, FL,in 1989. I was a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel. It was lunchtime basketball. We had folks from all strata of life, from lawyers to store clerks to truck drivers to folks you didn’t ask what they did.
I was an unsophisticated player with little coaching but had a good stroke and could run a bit at age 29.
So this one day, halfway into a game, a guy on the other team steals the ball and streaks for a fast break layup.
I turn on the jets in pursuit and leapt as high as I can, which frankly isn’t that high, but at 6’ and lanky I managed to bat the ball off the backboard from behind. It was a legal blocked shot because I hit the ball before it hit the backboard. When I landed on the indoor-outdoor carpet that covered the floor of the gym, my sneaker stuck like it hit a glue spill.. My leg bent but my shoe was intent on sticking the landing.
Whether it was torque, the angle, the hold of the carpeted floor, or simply a lack of vitamin D in my diet, there was no denying the loud sickening ‘crack’ as my leg bones snapped.
I went down but instinctually popped up and tried to walk. Everybody in the gym, including me, heard the crack, but in my confusion I thought I could just pop up and shake it off.
I suddenly realized that my left leg was wobbling and bending in the wrong places. When I tried to walk, I believe, the bone tore the skin.
I laid down.
First thing my adrenaline accelerated brain was telling me: Don’t look at my leg. Keep your head. As we had no doctors in the house, someone motioned the dentist over. Hell, he had a Dr. before his name.
I later learned the dentist knelt down, looked at the bone protruding from my leg and walked outside where he threw up in the bushes.
I stayed calm at the scene, telling folks to call my wife, Catherine, who was 7 months pregnant and caring for our 2-year-old. Tell her it’s a minor injury, I stressed, knowing that Catherine with a nursing degree will quickly figure out otherwise.
I told someone to call my boss and tell him I won’t be in for a while.
I was rushed by ambulance to surgery where they installed an external fixation device. It was made up of a bunch of steel rods (six or eight) half of them were screwed into the bone above the wound, half under the wound with cross beams to apply the pressure.
Like the reverse of some Medieval torture device which stretched your bones until they broke, this device pulled the bones together.
Diagnosis: compound fracture of the tibia – fibula , also called open fracture. That means the bone popped through the skin.
Mike Oliver with daughter Hannah, 2. Mike was in the hospital following surgery to fix a compound tibia-fibula fracture. See broken leg with external fixation device in foreground.
The first few weeks were torture. My leg really hurt. I couldn’t find a comfortable way to sleep. Catherine was a kind but busy caretaker as I could do much of nothing. I was worried I would never play again, or for that matter, even walk or walk right again.
After a number of weeks at home, I went back to work using crutches. The erector set looking contraption stuck out of the side of my left shin. I couldn’t put any weight on that leg. And that was the instruction for about four months. Crutches, no weight.
Then I got a walking cast and it was awesome to get rid off the crutches and start walking.
An aside, the doctor who took my pins out couldn’t find the proper tools when I went in that day to have the external fixation device dismantled and unscrewed from my bones.
I knew I was in trouble when he asked his nurse to bring his toolbox from his pick-up truck..
“Aren’t you going to give me some pain medication?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “There’s nothing really that works on this kind of thing.
Ok,, I said, sitting up on the table as he took out a pair of toolbox pliers.
The first turn is the only one that hurts, he said.
“Yeah, but there are six first turns ” I said.
It took a full year from time of injury to get back on the court again. I still carry around a 1-inch screw underneath a patch of skin with no feeling anymore.
When I did resume playing, I found my left leg very weak. In basketball, for a right-hander, the left leg is the most used. So to preserve my leg, I taught myself to go to my left hand, going up on my stronger right leg..
It opened up a whole new game for me. My left-hand coordination improved through use. I could shoot sweeping lefty hooks and even short jumpers with my left, which meant defenders had to be careful not to overplay one side.
What I did was find a workaround.
Now I don’t mean that Gordon Hayward needs this injury to work on his left hand. He’s already, I’m sure, pretty good with it.
But for me there’s a bigger lesson in my experience.
It’s a progressive brain disease which has symptoms like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. I wrote in an earlier piece on AL.com that there was an Alzheimer’s study of nuns who lived in isolation, which made them good study prospects because it limited the variables. While some nuns got Alzheimer’s there were other nuns who upon autopsy were found to have a lot of the plaques and tangles in the brain that would indicate Alzheimer’s. Yet they didn’t show any signs of the disease in life.
Researchers suggested their brains must have found ‘workarounds,’ physiological fixes.
The thread of this blog is counting down my record collection as a means of telling my story and ultimately bringing more awareness to Lewy body dementia.
The disease has affected my game. For the second time I am challenged to work with a physical deficit in my game. The only thing was that last time I could always limp away from the table, no harm no foul, “take up swimming,” my doctor would say.
Chet Atkins was a guitar legend of the 50s and 60s who could seamlessly drift from country to jazz and spice it up with a little rock and roll and even some blues.
This album was one of those high concept albums.You know one of those superstar summits where all the super heroes trade licks.
It looked good on paper. And even sounds good on vinyl or, in 1985, those newfangled things called CD’s.
Here’s the pitch: Let’s bring a few of the new, great guitarists of the ’80s together and let them jamnoodle with an aging legend. You know flutter about and pick it. Let’s see what you get. The other guitarists were all good, if not up and coming big stars, in their own worlds. They included: Earl Klugh, Larry Carlton, George Benson and Mark Knopfler among others.
No, Pat Metheney wasn’t there, nor Santana. But they had a quorum for first rate guitar playing. All the build-up and, in the end, it was dinner music, good dinner music, mind you.
Champagne tinkling high end instrumental dinner music. Highland Bar and Grill dinner music. But nonetheless, dinner music. Background cocktail partymusic. That’s too harsh. Because these guys, at that point in time, had some of the greatest guitar skills of that era and beyond.
But, alas, if it’s after dinner music you want, If it’s into the evening, staring- down-midnight-music you want, don’t come here. Instead try something like this: Mercury Blues.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
I hugged my old boss one day recently. Out of the blue we embraced.
Funny thing, my most vivid memory of Jim Jacobson is being called into his office with my colleague Rick Bragg decades ago. It was like the principal’s office only I was 26 and the year was 1985. Rick and I got into a bit of trouble for publishing the prisoner’s list of demands from a riot at St. Clair Correctional Facility in which I was somewhat involved in.
Recently I went with Catherine to visit Frances, the mother of Ann, a neighbor of ours. She’s in a memory care unit in Birmingham with the same disease I have: Lewy Body dementia. She is about 20 years or so older than me though.
We had a wonderful talk and shared our experiences. She asked: “Do you ever forget what you were going to say while you are talking?”
Of course, I said. We laughed and shared some more. I noticed her hands shook more than mine. But her lucidity comforted me, even though she had her Lewy moments.
She asked: Did you see Mr. Jacobson? Such a nice man. I told her I did. Down the hall, just a bit ago.
He was sitting in a room with three other residents watching TV.
My old boss looked older of course.
I didn’t really know much about him, though I knew he was a respected journalist, who did some work overseas, including correspondence from Vietnam, and he was an elected member of the University of Alabama communication school hall of fame.
I hadn’t talked to him in 30 years. I had left the paper in 1987, and returned in 2011. He retired in 1997.
I told him who I was; I thought I detected a flash of recognition. We talked and I believe he was telling me about the news business and how it has changed.. But I’m not sure what he said as he spoke softly. My hearing is going downhill fast. And people ask me to speak up a lot – a soft voice is one of the symptoms of my disease and many types of dementia.
We chatted a bit more as I sat there trying to process.
Things often come full circle. That circle is important for reasons I don’t know now other than I know the circles are important..
Upon leaving, he arose from his chair. He hugged Catherine.
I stuck out my hand.
I had been away all this time in Florida and California. Had three kids. I hadn’t thought about Mr. Jacobson in forever it seemed. But now here we were, me and my old boss, here at the end of a circle.
But a circle never ends.
He ignored my hand and opened his arms wide.
We embraced, me and my old boss.
Ron Ingram, Dean Barber, James Jacobson, Tom Arenberg at the Big N, Jan. 1986.
This is a hard one to review. I like, for the most part, the lyrics, or what Roddy Frame is trying do with them. I like the easygoing acoustical music approach.
But, the opus title song, Knife at 9 minutes, is atmospheric to a fault and sounds like an outtake to Mark Knopfler’s music for the ‘Local Hero’ movie soundtrack. Excellent low-key movie BTW and excellent low-key Knopfler music on its soundtrack.. This album Knife, surprise, is produced by Knopfler.
Upon listening after many years of not digging into my collection to pull this one, I have to say some of this comes as a new found revelation. Part of the reason I wanted to do this whole Countdown thing in the first place to remember great songs that I’ve forgotten.. Aztec Camera has songs on this album that could be minor folk/ rock classics, stuff I’d listen to all the time. Stuff played in every corner pub.
But I haven’t been. Playing these songs that is.
And I don’t feel there are a lot of club singers with this in their repertoire. ( Could be wrong)l
Why? I think because those three or four truly good songs on the album get lost in the esoteric Knopflersque mist. Nevertheless, there are quite excellent songs on here, starting with “Still on Fire.”
Maybe the way to go is Best of Aztec Camera. However, I just checked and it didn’t have ‘Still on Fire’ or ‘Just like the USA’ on it, which leads me to wonder about it’s direction. It reminds me of a truth that my years of song collecting has provided: Sometimes all you need to know about a group is in the greatest hits record, or anthology compilation. But sometimes those Best Of records are only starting points to help peel back the layers and find the truly good, even the best, work by an artist.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
Is this name a self-deprecating move? Maybe what they want you to believe is that they are pretty funky for some average white guys from Scotland.
This band is tight. They jam. They make you jump up and shake your groove thang. Dang, these average white boys.
All they did was have a No. 1 U.S. Billboard hit, Pick Up the Pieces that was mostly instrumental funk. Tight. Right?
I think the rest of the album suffers a bit from comparison to ‘Pick Up the Pieces’. I’m a bigger fan of that Southern fried funk country jam folk (for lack of a better description) — of someone like Randall Ramblett: That other Mile.
But Pick Up the Pieces –, gosh the song — with it changalanga rhythm guitar intro joined abruptly by hard stopping trumpet punctuation — should come with a warning label: May cause involuntary muscle spasms in human and other mammals.
But again, the chance of a song in this vein breaking out to worldwide status today is nil. Heck the chances were pretty much nil then in 1974 although Top 40 radio was more diverse, or so it seemed, in styles of music. This is the bottom line ( a cliche’ I know but given the album cover and the excellent bass playing I thought it might work. Bear with me).: AWB played like they meant it, like they loved it, like they felt it.
They weren’t about to just arbitrarily funk it up..
(back cover has this shot of this average white boys’ band.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
