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Ian Hunter — 426

ALBUM: “You’re Never Alone With a Schizophrenic” (1979)

MVC rating: 4.0

Hey, who am I to call out anyone for not being politically correct about a brain disorder.  But the album title did kind of make me wince. And wouldn’t it be ‘funnier’ if it was ‘You’re Never Alone When You Are a Schizophrenic.”

Ian Hunter, lead singer of the sturdy, straight-head Mott the Hoople, puts out his fourth solo record here (1979).

This is a good album, that I have neglected playing for years. Backed by members of the Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band, Hunter dishes some radio-friendly rock and roll.

Guitarist Mick Ronson is reasonably understated throughout most of the record. No major show-off solos in songs that had more of a Bowie/Jagger vibe. Ronson likely helped create that sound.

In “Just Another Night,” Hunter does an exaggerated, on-purpose, Mick Jagger vocal.  On ‘Wild East,’  Hunter enjoys hanging out in a  bad neighborhood.

And then there’s ‘Cleveland Rocks’ who many remember was a theme song for “The Drew Carey Show,’  — a rendition by The Presidents of the United States. It’s an anthemic rocker with some of those 80’s gratuitous synthesizer warbles and whoops.

‘Ships’ is the radio ballad, and it is syrup, topped off by a disturbingly bland cliche’. And so it didn’t surprise me that Barry Manilow covered this with some success. (The chorus cliche’? We’re just two ships that pass in the night.)

Live song below where Queen’s Bryan May jumps in.

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How can I hang on to a memory?

This is an opinion column by Mike Oliver who writes about his diagnosis of Lewy body dementia and other health and life issues, here on AL.com and his blog.
This morning I had a memory from my childhood.
That, in and of itself, is not particularly newsworthy. But it did make me think how my brain is working.
I have a degenerative brain disease called Lewy body dementia, and I think my experiences can be useful to the medical community and the care-giving community – or anyone interested in what it feels like inside the head of a dementia patient.
Mike and Catherine Oliver help each other remember.
My memory this morning was this:
I was looking at some pants getting for work, realized the pants were — unlike most of my pants – too loose in the waist. The pants would be literally pants on the ground after about five or six steps.
This triggered a memory: it was a sunny day in Auburn, AL,. I was a 5 or 6-year-old kid going out to play on Rudd Avenue (which I don’t think exists anymore. The road’s there, but the name changed for some reason.)
In my memory I am running to get to the creek we used to play in and then we’d likely walk in the creek to Prather’s Lake.
As I run, I realize I‘m having to hold my pants up. With both hands.
I only had two things on like every Auburn boy on my street in the 1960s: Underwear and short pants. And my short pants kept sliding down. Not cool.
Luckily. I had belt loops on my shorts.
My memory only lasted a split second, but it was very visual. I remembered I found a piece of skinny rope. It was only about 5 or 6 inches long. Not enough to go all the way around my waist. So. I couldn’t use it like a regular belt because it was too short.
I guess the idea just spontaneously erupted in my 5 or 6-year-old brain. I tied two front belt loops together with that little rope. Tailor made! The britches held up nice and tight now.
I don’t remember anybody ever teaching me that trick or ‘hack’ as it would be called using current nomenclature. But, indeed, it was a real ‘necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention’ moment.
I think of this, not because there is anything unusual or profound about it.
But it made me stop and wonder why my brain chose to furnish me this quite vivid memory of a past event with no relevance to anything, other than it was triggered by me looking at some pants.
Is it my brain saying: ‘Hey, here’s some info you used before in a separate waist-fitting pants escapade. Here, see if this will help you,’ my brain seems to be saying. Pretty dang complicated for a brain awash in clumps of protein named after Dr.Lewy, who discovered them.
Or maybe it’s a symbolic lesson about how the answer, the cure, is right in front of you, like the piece of twine.
I’ve got my brain sitting here right now — and at all times — inside my head.
What if thinking alone can literally change the brain?
Wonder where that thought came from?
I’ll try it.
-=-=-=-=–=-=-=-=-=-=
Here are five essential facts about Lewy body dementia from the Lewy Body Dementia Association.
  • LBD is a relentlessly progressive disorder affecting thinking, movement, behavior and sleep. On average people with LBD live 5-7 years after diagnosis, though it can progress as quickly as 2 years or as slowly as 20 years.
  • Despite its low public awareness, LBD is not a rare disorder and affects an estimated 1.4 million Americans along with their families and caregivers.
  • People living with LBD and their family caregivers need a high level of support from family members and healthcare professionals from the early stage of the disorder, due to early and unpredictable frequent changes in thinking, attention and alertness, as well as psychiatric symptoms like hallucinations and delusions.
  • LBD is the most misdiagnosed form of dementia. Getting a diagnosis of LBD typically takes 3 or more doctors over 12 to 18 months. The LBDA Research Centers of Excellence network includes 25 preeminent academic centers with expertise in LBD diagnosis and management.
  • Early diagnosis of LBD is extremely important, due to severe sensitivities to certain medications sometimes used in disorders that mimic LBD, such as Alzheimer’s disease and other medical and psychiatric illnesses. An early diagnosis also empowers the person with LBD to review, pursue and fulfill their personal life priorities before the illness progresses too far, review their legal and financial plans, and discuss their care preferences with their physician and family.
  • Contact Mike Oliver at moliver@al.com Also follow his stories, including his quest to dunk at 58 years old on AL.com or myvinylcountdown.com
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Joe Henderson — 427

By Guy MacPherson – Joe Henderson, CC BY 2.0, 4 WIKI

ALBUMS: Our Thing (1964, RE  Blue Note 1985)

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$$$

Another Blue Note reissue. Another great jazz album.

It’s the bop era, late 50s, early 60s. The drumming is always setting pace. –doh doh doh chicka doe.

A little bass, boom boom de boom. Piano, tinkle tinkle.

Then Henderson blows the sax…. whaa whoa whaa whoa whee whah, wha whump.

There you go my note-for-note rendition of Teeter Totter. which is an up B-flat blues, says a Youtuber. It is the only major key track in the set. I’ll try to pull a video of it.

Meanwhile, however many solos Henderson takes, the light but steady and ready Tap Tap Tap Tap continues on the drum and cymbal. This song I can watch the news to. Of course turning the volume off the TV.

Gordon’s music has a way  of putting the daily disasters in their place.

Its  more fun than progressive rock.

So putting that fun aside, this is seriously good jazz from a jazz rich era. The band is tight and Henderson’s keeps it all reeled in, even when it seems it’s not.

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MVC blog update, through the looking glass

Ever wonder what are those numbers near the title of each My Vinyl Countdown  blog item.

It is there at the top next to the singer’s name. Some know that’s the number of records left to go before having done them all. So for example, Broken Homes is 624 and that means 623 were lef  to review  at the time that was being written. THe Head and the Heart was the last blog I did so it is at the top of the website, counting down in alphabetical order. The H&H is at 429.

So if you knew nothing about the numbering, you could assess which letters I have been through by picking on of the Letter categories to your right.

For example I’m on the H’s now with Jimi Hendrix, Heart, etc. In C’s we had the Carpenter’s, Eric Clapton. There are more than 200 musical posts.

My goal for my records is 678 which I counted before I started this thing about 14 months ago. That number definitely won’t stand as I have been receiving records and yes, occasionally still buying, records. But 678 has been my number I’m sticking to until the end and then maybe we’ll start down an Odds ‘n Ends list with whatever’s left over

TO find older material, the search field works really well on laptop/desktop. Not so sure on mobile.

Upcoming: I’ve decided to file a short update on my fitness training each week, the quest to dunk.

My Bucket List item.

 

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The Head and the Heart — 428

ALBUM:  ‘Let’s Be Still” (2013)

Okay, here’s another from a relative, and a relatively new record at that. The Head and the Heart is the name of this earnest alternative folk group.

There seems to be a real genre beginning with this big band easy folk-rock, atmospheric music. Kind of like a mix of Fleetwood Mac and Fairport Convention. With a hint of and updated sounding Pentangle. (John Renbourne, look him  up).

Other artists such as the Fleet Foxes, Mac DeMarco, and to a certain degree Father Misty (originally in the Fleet Foxes) and Arcade Fire appear to be sharing some of this ground.

Some fine singing and harmonizing on this. Fun to listen to with your eyes closed in an easy yoga position.

Band members, should and probably do understand the increasing competition in their space, maybe due to  higher demand for the sound.

I’m leaving out to play some more of these newer ones that I haven’t listened to as much. This particular album has a very good soft jam thing working here.

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Jimi Hendrix — 434, 433, 432, 431, 430, 429

ALBUMS: The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Axis: Bold as Love (1967); Electric Ladyland (1968); Band of Gypsies (1970);  Smash Hits (1968); Midnight Lightning (1975);  Odds and Ends (1973);

MVC Ratings:  Axis 5.0/$$$$$; Gypsies 4.5/$$$$$; Ladyland 4.5/$$$$$; Smash Hits; 5.0/$$$$$; Midnight Lightning 4.0/$$$$; Odds and Ends 3.5/$$$$

People fall into two camps with Jimi Hendrix — and maybe a third if you don’t call it a cop-out.

Group 1: Loves Hendrix. Thinks he’s the best guitarist ever in the world.

Group 2: Pretty much can’t tolerate Hendrix, says music sounds like so much noise.

Group 3: Admires his ability and innovations but just can’t listen to a lot of the psychedelic, feedback sound he created .

True Hendrix, who was the definition of counterculture at the time, could make some noise. He could do things with distortion and feedback that people had never heard.

At Woodstock, he played the National Anthem on guitar, a scorching version in which he actually made the sound of whistling bombs exploding during the ‘Rockets red glare … and bombs bursting in air’  part.

Another song, Machine Gun, he created the sound of the rapid fire gun with his guitar.

I believe I would be correct if I  said  Hendrix is probably listed as the top guitarist most best-of lists.

That’s not to say there’s not some good argument.

Above link at Debate.org, there’s lots of rational arguments on both sides of this subjective debate. One naysayer wrote:  “There is no denying how innovative the man was. Saying he was the best is just too final of a statement to me. The best guitar players are typically jazz players or metal heads. The former using scales rock and blues dudes never touched; the latter using micro scales like Robert Johnson used to.”

Kind of amazing. Hendrix came out of session music for up and comers at the time like Tina Turner, Sam Cooke, B.B. King, and the Isely Brothers.

These session guys and gals were some of the top players in the game. Hendrix, self-taught, came out blazing.  He was an African – American super hippie from Seattle with a guitar ability no one had seen.

For those on the fence, that third group, maybe even some of the second group, I’m going to link to five songs that will attempt to  change your mind about Hendrix and his ability. I  grew up with the idea that Hendrix was the best and untouchable at No. 1 guitarist that I’m hard pressed to move off of that stand. Hendrix died of Asphyxia due to aspiration of vomit in 1970 at 27 years old. If  you are going to get one album with the big hits, get ‘Smash Hits’ or the first album, Are You Experienced. They have Purple Haze and Foxy Lady.

 5. Castles Made of Sand

4. The Wind Cries Mary

3; All Along the Watch Tower

2. Crosstown Traffic

  1.  Little Wing

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Heart — 435

ALBUM:  Dreamboat Annie (197

MVC Rating: 4.5 $$$$

5)

I owe Heart some money.

It was April in 1980. I was an Auburn University student. I was out walking and heard music from the auditorium or arena or whatever it was called.

Concert going on. I walked closer. Closer. Up a ramp. The door was ajar. Hmmm. Took a peek inside and there appeared to be no one at this particular door. Walked in.

Now this is where it gets fuzzy in my memory. I think I saw Blackfoot as the opening act. I know I saw Heart. My memory fails as to whether this was two different incidents or one. I’m leaning toward one. Anyway, that’s why I say I  owe Heart money — for the ticket I didn’t buy. Maybe I owe Blackfoot too. I’ll pay up if either of the bands’ members contact me.

I heart heart. Or, at least, hearted heart.

I was an early consumer of this hard rocking female-fronted  band. The female Led Zeppelin. I played Dreamboat Annie their debut ceaselessly in high school. Sure there was soft pretty stuff, which I secretly sang along to. But there was real rock and roll and real guitar licks especially in Magic Man and Crazy On You. Check videos below to get sense of their rock and roll acumen.

The reason I said I ‘hearted’ Heart because by college at Auburn, I was over them. I  didn’t particularly like the overplayed Barracuda and was lukewarm to the whole Dog and Butterfly thing.

But I’ll always dig Dreamboat Annie, the album which came out in 1975, the sweet spot of my high school days.

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Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel — 436

 

ALBUM: Face to Face (live, 2  LPs 1976)

I bought it at a community flea market in Athens, Ga.,   because it was cheap, interesting cover and the live album led off with ‘Here Comes the Sun,’ the George Harrison/Beatles song. I listened to it a few times but it never really registered until I got to the last song called ‘Make Me Smile.’

How did I never hear this song before? Cool tune with several long stops and silent holds. Its stop-start delay effect is effective  — and you can dance to it. Love the song. I later found that I had it on a compilation record called Monument to British Rock. I think I probably like the studio version even more with it’s exaggerated Dylan vocal style.

My understanding this band was big in England, even huge in the 1970s.

Not a lot of love in the states though. I’m sure Cockney Rebel–  the band’s name left many Americans scratching their heads. And maybe it is a British thing in the way that British comedy often leaves Americans wondering what they missed.

See the video of Make Me Smile. Fave line:‘Maybe you’ll tarry for a while.’

 

 

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George Harrison — 437

ALBUM: Thirty-Three & 1//3  (1976)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$ (NOTE: I bought several months ago the latest reissue of George Harrison’s classic ‘All Things Must Pass,’ which I mention in another post.

Here the man who was one-quarter of the Beatles seems in good spirits.

He even lets off a little steam with a critique of the court case which found Harrison guilty of plagiarizing. His song, My Sweet Lord, sounded too much like the Chiffon’s ‘He’s so fine.’

And. It did.

But George is going to be passionate in a song defending his side. And George’s ordeal with the legal battle highlights the fine line between borrowing and plagiarism. (See Led Zeppelin.)

Harrison is so easy to listen to. Great, underrated voice and some good solid guitar playing and songs that, while not quite Beatles, you can easily hear at least one-quarter of the  Beatles.

With “This Song’ he  delivers a scathing (for him) rebuke of the plagiarism controversy. Of course George lost that dispute and  the songs do sound very much alike. But I don’t think he did it on purpose.

This Song l

This song has nothing tricky about it 

This song ain’t black or white and as far as I know 
Don’t infringe on anyone’s copyright

When the Beatles broke up I was just becoming aware of who the Beatles were at about 10 years old.  My mother dropped me in downtown Athens at the Georgia Theater – yes that used to be a movie theater before becoming a music venue — where I went in to see ‘Let it Be,’ the bittersweet documentary of the Beatles recording one last time before breaking up. I was alone. Yes that’s kind of weird, but I’d often go see movies by myself as young’un. Saw ‘Vanishing  Point’ my favorite B-movie when I was 12. But I digress.

Billy Preston played on Thirty-three and 1/3.

Beatles became my favorite band and probably shaped  my future view of rock and roll.

When they broke up, it was hit or miss for me in getting their solo material.

My brother had ‘Venus and Mars’ and ‘Band on the Run from McCartney and listened to those sometimes inane — but rockin’ — albums. I never bought a Ringo record, bless his heart. I’ve had several John Lennon albums including his classic, but dark, first solo album.

The one thing I regret is not having picked some more Harrison, especially All Things Must Pass. I am  going to pledge that I will use a coveted bucket list item to listen to  All Things Must Pass all 3  records in the box from start to finish.

On this album, 331/3, ‘Dear One’ is a personal favorite.

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This is My Brain on Random Play (blog version)

This is an opinion column by Mike Oliver who writes about his diagnosis of Lewy body dementia and other health and life issues, here on AL.com and his blog.

Since being diagnosed with a brain disease I think a lot about my brain, with my brain.

Isn’t that a conflict of interest?

My brain could be withholding important information.

Went fishing recently for the  first time in years. I learned: Fishing is meditation.

Getting ‘bobber focused,’ I call it.

I caught this fish at Lake Weiss with a rubber worm. It is either a Crappie or bass, I think. I threw it back. I also caught a couple of catfish with bread. Threw them back as well. It was therapeutic meditation.

People who retire and say they are going fishing mean they are going to do nothing.

Fishing is a lot of nothing. But I believe nothing is something.

In fact nothing is better than some things.

As much as I worship my dog, I sure take his name in vain a lot

So, I see that a 12-pound chunk of moon rock sold at auction for $612,500 or about $51,000 per pound.

Outrage!. That’s earth pounds! Personally, I think it’s only worth its moon weight – which is about 2 pounds — for a total of $102,000.

$612,000? What a rip-off!

I’m careful with my money I tell you. I’m interested now that the Mega Millions jackpot is $1 billion.

I wasn’t interested in going to all the trouble for $900,000,000.

For more go to AL.com: