NOTE: This is my blog version of that which appeared on AL.com today. It has some bonus sayings. (No I didn’t say boneheaded sayings, but they are there too).
When I make up my mind to do something, then by golly, I may do it.
We all need to hurry up and slow down.
Buy LOW, sell HIGH? Dang. All these years I had it backwards.
Is it redundant to say ‘pain hurts?’
Is it redundant to ask if something is redundant when you know already it’s redundant?
How come bald men can grow beards?
True fact: The person who invented scrambled eggs did it by accident.
They say everybody bleeds red. But that’s anecdotal evidence.
You know ‘misspell’ is one of the most mispelled words.
You know I still get blown away by this fact: Fish breathe underwater.
Is there anything harder than forgiving yourself?
Why I think dolphins are smarter than humans? Dolphins don’t try to blow each other up.
So the smart folks say there’s more stars in the sky then there are grains of sand on the beach. But they forget there are endless beaches on endless planets in endless solar systems. Whenever you think you’re finished counting, there’s another beach full of sand to count. So, I’ll call it a tie.
If God is male does that mean he refuses to stop and ask for directions?
If God is a woman, well wow, talk about shattering the glass ceiling.
Can you believe popcorn was invented before the microwave?
What if Father Time and Mother Earth switched jobs? Mom would enforce bedtime curfews and dad would mow the world.
‘Let it Be Me’ was a good song, ‘Let it Be’ was a great song, I can’t wait for ‘Let It.’
Hey Johnny Cash, I shot a man in Reno then ran like hell.
I always thought healthy was two words – heal thy.
Hey Johnny Cash, I hugged a man in Reno just to see the expression on his face.
Hey Johnny Paycheck, take this job and try to keep it, you know you need a paycheck, Paycheck.
Anybody ever wrapped a cell phone in cellophane?
Is life practice? Or the game.
If life is a game how do you know if you won?
The Bible in Acts says ‘your old men will dream dreams.’ Dream dreams? Is that redundant?
Why do we have toenails?
I said it once and I’ll say it again. Soon as I remember.
Do you ever look into somebody’s eyes and get the notion that they know you are secretly a Cowsills fan and that because of that they think you are weird but they don’t say anything, they just look into your eyes? I don’t either.
Wow, did you know the chance of monkeys typing the complete works of Shakespeare is really low but eventually, if given infinite time, they will do it? That’s according to the ‘infinite monkey theorem.’ Not sure how long I have, but I’d appreciate it if they could knock out a few columns for me before tackling Shakespeare.
I sure hope the blue moon of Kentucky keeps on shining.
Lust seems so naughty.
What’s up with trial and error? How about no trial and get it right the first time. Sheeeez.
My cell phone voicemail: Can you hear me now? (pause) Can you hear me now? (pause) Can you hear me now?
A regular columnist at AL.com, Mike Oliver can be reached at moliver@al.com. He chronicles his degenerative brain disease here and on his blog www.myvinylcountdown
This column is dedicated to Emily, my middle daughter, who as a youngster used to sit around with me and laugh as we tossed off all the Yogi Berra sayings we could find (and then make up our own). We finally came to a fork in the road, and, of course, picked it up.
This Lindsey Buckingham-produced album is a perfect cutout. High expectations for this. It had one ‘hit.’ A couple of good songs. The rest, fodder.
Plus it had a big portrait of the artist’s face on the cover, similar to the cover of a Buckingham solo project I reviewed here.
The hit was ‘Magnet and Steel’ which sounded nice — the whole album had high production values but the analogy?
‘You are the magnet and I am the steel.’
Two albums, two different people. but you think Lindsey Buckingham (L) who produced Walter Egan’s album, and Egan went to the same photographer for cover shoot>
Really? I’m trying to quit the use of ‘Really? But really? Go away simplistic and utterly useless metaphor. It conjures up scenes from a car junkyard with that big old magnet thing coming down from crane: Whomp, I am the magnet, you are the crumpled up steel that used to be a car. How about you are the honey I am the bee, or, bear, or, you are the pile, I am the fly. OK being gross. But didn’t any one of his Fleetwood Mac buddies say anything?
I was a senior in HS. I remember going what? Sounded like a TV show. Tonight’s episode of “Magnet and Steel’ will see our crack detectives solve another crime and then come together like, well, “Magnet and Steel.”
If this is a sexual reference as I saw one commenter suggest, then this critique may be a little harsh, in other words, at least it has a two-level meaning for ‘steel.’
Now there are a couple of songs I do like. ‘Make it Alone’ is good stuff. Hard riff, break-up song, guitar driven. ‘Hot Summer Nights‘ was on the radio momentarily. My favorite though is ‘Just the Wanting,’ a torrid little piece of a love song with one-bended guitar string all the way through. (see video below)
Neuroscience says this one song reduces anxiety by 65 percent
Given the venom I’ve seen spewed toward the Eagles, I’d guess it’s not ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling.’
I don’t know the science behind it but I do know music has helped me tremendously in my fight against Lewy body dementia, a degenerative brain disease (cousin of Parkinson’s).
I can think of lots of records/songs that help me relax, like George Winston or the soundtrack to Local Hero or some Miles Davis. Catherine, my spouse, has CDs specifically designed to help her meditate and relax
So what about this one song Hack Spirit is telling us about?
The website writes: A team of UK neuroscientists conducted a study on sound therapy. Participants had to attempt to solve puzzles, which induced stress, while wearing sensors attached to their bodies. They then had to listen to different songs while researchers measured brain activity and recorded their heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure, reports Inc.com and Ideapod.
According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top track to produce a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date was “Weightless” by Marconi Union.
Well, I listened to the song and it sounded like the quieter parts of a Pink Floyd album. You know where they just drift off into a low rhythm space. It’s just like that — though at any moment I expect to hear David Gilmore’s guitar phase in. Tangerine Dream might be another reference point for you aging Baby Boomer rockers.
I did feel relaxed and almost felt like a nap after listening to ‘Weightless’
Kind of cool. If you’re feeling extra stressed Hacker Spirit has found nine more sleep inducing tunes and have posted them on their site hackspirit.com, including one by Adele and one by Coldplay.
I remember exactly why I got this record but not where.
Earl Slick played guitars on one of my all time favorite albums, Tonio K’s ‘Life in the Foodchain.’ The wall of guitar sound on songs like the title song are amazing. Of course that album also had legendary surf rock guitar player Dick Dale, and country guitar great Albert Lee, among others, so that was a good picking group.
The Slick album is fairly generic hard rock. Kind of like Bad Company without the great hooks, or UFO without the in-your-face blasts of metal guitar.
But Slick can play.
Some of his solos mid-song really made me sit up and listen. As a guitar fan,I will keep this record out and play it some more.
I could definitely hear that distinct wailing guitar sound he contributed to Foodchain. (Dale I believe contributed the clucking chicken guitar noise to Foodchain’s ‘Funky Western CIvilization.’)
Slick played on several tours with David Bowie and also worked with John Lennon post-Beatles.
The unusual thing about the Slick’s record, ‘Razor Sharp,’ and probably one of the things that pushed me to buy it is it’s odd cover.
It has a three dimensional depiction of a razor blade with what is obviously supposed to be blood dripping and a slit, an actual slit, in the front cover as if the razor had made it. (See the pictures).
Every Saturday I post a round-up of this blog for readers of AL.com
Here’s this week’s top of the story. Click on link at bottom to read full piece.
It’s Saturday and time for my vinyl countdown AL.com update.
I have five artists here taken from my collection of 678 records, which I am trying to count down (review and list) before my degenerative brain disease makes it impossible. I have so far reviewed more than 150 records on myvinylcountdown.com blog. I encourage you to explore that blog for the countdown plus essays on life, journalism, basketball and whatever might be on my mind.
But every Saturday I do a catch-up, reaching back into the archives, for those who may not be following my blog regularly, and offering up condensed versions of those on my blog. Today I have five widely divergent records (remember I collected these in the ‘1970s and 1980s when I was in my teens and 20s.) As regular readers know I also do a NP (Now Playing) to show the latest reviewed piece.
In the Kurtis Blow review I recall an incident that inspired my headline: Lesson in racial profiling.
The numbers represent where the albums are in the alphabetical, descending countdown format. In other words 678 would be the first record I reviewed (King Sunny Ade, whose A-name put him first in line).
That’s the stated mission as we started the day late last week.
I was leaving the office for a road trip from Birmingham to Sumter County in western Alabama.
Destination: Epes.
Road trip with two of my favorite people: my wife, Catherine, kin to Mamie Willis. And dear friend Mary Porter.
But first we had to stop in Livingston. Catherine and Mary, both Presbyterian pastors, had to be there for a church meeting. Livingston’s close proximity to Epes gave Catherine the idea to go check out some family lore and see Miss Mamie.
I resisted at first.
Epes? I know native Alabamians who say, ‘Oh you mean Opp.”
“No, Epes.”
“Spell it.”
E-P-E-S.
Epp-es. EEEPS.
No, one syllable Epes, soft ‘e’.
I think you mean Opp.
Every town around here is 20 miles apart, that’s how far the horses could go in a day, an Epes resident said.
I decided I’d like to go. I thought about how much I enjoy seeing the rural south (having lived in Alabama, Georgia and Florida for a combined total of about 35 years of my 58-year-old life).
First Presbyterian Church in Livingston where we began our search for Miss Mamie.
First stop a pretty small town white-painted church, First Presbyterian Church in Livingston, next to the University of West Alabama.
I was a little worried about the church meeting. Was I even allowed to be here? Don’t make me stand up and introduce myself, I thought. This was an actual church service, complete with preacher, communion, the whole nine yards.
Then there was a meeting about the business of the Presbytery of Sheppards and Lapsley. This is the governing body in the region if central Alabama for Presbyterian USA churches. This was a room full of preachers. Fun fact: Lady Bird Johnson attended service at this church once with a friend back in the 1960s, I learned.
A tall, thin and quite young looking man, the Rev. Barrett Abernathy, was the church’s pastor. I must admit when I saw the sermon title “Interpreting the Tongues” I kind of shrank down in my pew. Place was packed. How do I escape? Catherine caught me eyeing the door and grabbed my hand.
Then the pastor made a joke about the sermon title and rolling around on the floor and I interpreted that as we were NOT going to do that. Heh heh, I chuckled nervously. Then I remembered they were serving barbecue for lunch. I can do this.
“Give me Jesus,” Quincy White sang beautifully. “When I come to die. When I come to die. Oh when I come to die, give me Jesus.”
And then the pastor read scripture Acts 2:1-21.
I was feeling a little light headed. It was about time for my LBD medication.
A sudden storm was blowing hard winds and rain outside.
The pastor read from the text: “And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.”
How did he do that? I wondered.
“Cretans and Arabs–in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power. All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?'”
That’s what I was thinking. Then I got it. The passage was about communication. A journalism sermon. Communication foments relationships, takes emphasis off differences.
Then he read: “…and your old men shall dream dreams.”
I snapped from my reverie. Barbecue time. Church had ended. We went to lunch.
The barbecue, from a secret recipe, was awesome. I found out that this area in the Black Belt has 7 barbecue clubs.
Valerie Burnes, who teaches at the university, told everyone about the clubs as we were chowing down….mmmm sauce so good with the pulled pork. The clubs are set up differently from club to club but most meet at a community center and cook up a bunch of barbecue. They do this once a month as a community event. Some cook whole pigs, Burnes said. I made a note to look up a public TV report on the clubs.
But we were late to look for Miss Mamie. The rain had let up. We found a guide in the church office administrator Janice Greenwood who lives in Epes, so we would follow her there. It was some distance as the crow flies, was my only understanding.
Janice, who has a dog named dammit (get off the couch dammit!), said in the old days this used to be a thriving community. Before the Depression.
“There was a boarding house-hotel, three banks, a drug store and a stockyard,” she said.
There’s nothing there in downtown Epes. (Oliver)
The town’s name came from a doctor named John W. Epes, who sold the land for a depot to the Southern Railroad, according to encyclopediaofalabama.org
Now Epes is a dying town. In 2000, population was 210; in 2010, 192; 2016 estimates: 169.
Epes is where people die or people leave and don’t come back. It’s a geographically beautiful area on the Tombigbee River sitting on the white cliffs, Jones Bluff. It’s the same kind of chalky limestone exposure that was made famous in the song “White Cliffs of Dover.”
We stopped in what used to be downtown. Guess it still is downtown except there’s nothing there but empty buildings and a train track that you can follow down to the Tombigbee River and the white cliffs. Somewhere the town folks say there is a place they call ‘the waters’ where folks bathe for its healing powers.
Catherine’s father, William J. Willis, grew up in Epes. The 95-year-old Navy veteran served on a ship during World War II in the Far East. He has all kinds of fishing stories about the Tombigbee.
The white cliffs of Epes on the Tombigbee. (Oliver)
The water moccasins, he said, would climb up the limbs of the riverbank trees and drop into your boat.
Moving away from downtown, we continue our mission to find Miss Mamie. With help from Janice, we found the site of Miss Mamie’s schoolhouse. It had burned down some years ago. Now, near where the school used to be, there’s a somewhat decrepit fire station, which doesn’t look ready for business.
School house where Mamie taught, now gone. (Oliver)
So where do we find Miss Mamie? Janice gave us directions down an overgrown backroad white with the chalky limestone. But she said she wasn’t going any farther. Good luck, she said.
Man this is off the beaten path, I thought, kind of eerie. Did anyone notice how Janice didn’t come down the dirt road with us? Don’t be silly my wife said. She was driving. Mary and I absorbed the almost surreal beauty of the green pastures, deep woods and the sound of nothing but birds. Deeper in we went to the point we wondered if we’d ever get there. Catherine talked about Miss Mamie, which is what her students called her. Way back in the day when 2nd graders sat next to 4th-graders sitting next to 6th-graders. One room.
Then in a beautifully green clearing on the left, we had reached our destination.
Here it was, surrounded by a chain link fence. Unlocked. We entered.
Henagan Cemetery, Epes, Ala.
The flat grave marker of Mamie Willis, mother of William, grandmother of Catherine was easy to find. She was amongst an outcropping of old Willis headstones. She was buried in1990. Not enough time for the ravages and decay of time on her grave marker.
Her marker read:
Mom
Mamie A. Willis
August 24, 1895
February 26,1990
Other Willis headstones, though big and impressive, didn’t fair so well with the weather. Some were barely readable.
Some dated back to the 1800’s. What a discovery: a line of Willis’ all resting in one beautiful place. Catherine was pleased. It’s a goldmine of family ancestry information. Catherine’s sister, Martha, the family historian will likely take lead on whether there are new family insights found here.
Mamie’s marker
rNew insights or not, it was a lovely spot and a lovely day. I said I might reconsider my cremation plans and get planted in this oasis of rural western Alabama.
Bye Bye Miss Mamie
Thanks for teaching us that the journey means more than any destination.
ALBUM: The Easybeats ‘Friday on My Mind’ (1985, compilation)
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$
I can’t quite figure out the Easybeats, the 60’s-era band from Australia. This could be framed as a tale of two videos by the Aussie band, one bad beyond redemption, one amazing beyond compare. But more on that later.
Billed as Australia’s answer to the Beatles, they had two truly great songs: ‘Friday on My Mind” and ‘Good Times’ are rock songs that rank among the best, dare I say, or at least in the better category in our historical referencing language. ‘Friday’ is No. 726 on Dave Marsh’s list of the top 1001 songs of all time. Looking at that list, which I have in the form of an actual 1989 book, I’d move ‘Friday” up and put ‘Good Times,’ which isn’t even on the list, higher than Friday or at least on par.
‘Good Times’ probably loses points for inane lyrics, but the old film footage of the band doing this song has rock screamer lead vocalist Stevie Wright doing a flying knee drop at the right time. Not to be missed although the singing doesn’t always match the lips, if you know what I mean.
In the pantheon of rock songs, these two songs are hanging out at Itchycoo Park. (Damn that’s bad writing). But that Small Face pantheon, er, or park is not a bad place to be. OK let me just say it. Good Times wins by sheer force of it balls-out music and singing. Friday wins by capturing in words and music the powerful promises of an upcoming weekend.
But still it’s hard, as I said earlier, to understand this band, which is later linked to AC/DC through band members George Vanda and Harry Young. Young was the older brother of Angus and Malcolm of AC/DC and were connected to that group through songwriting and production work. I’ll have more about V&Y when I review Flash and the Pan, a bizarre Vanda and Young project that generated several albums.
Back to the Easybeats. My main issue is that as good as those two songs are, I expected more hidden gems on this greatest hits albums. Instead I wander through what sounds like early Kinks outtakes or Dave Clark Five b-sides. Sounds like the band came unglued, torn between a hard-rocking psychedelic-tinged sound (Heaven and Hell) and hitsmakers a la early era Beatles thing (She’s So Fine.)
Their version of the much covered ‘River Deep/Mountain High’ is decent enough. I don’t know what to think of ‘Heaven and Hell’ whose title and lyrics got it banned in some places. It’s riveting in a rendition done on French TV but riveting in that your frozen in place if this could be heaven or this could be hell.
‘Come and See Her,’ which is not on the album fortunately but is captured on YouTube is inexplicably bad. What are they doing? I can barely watch it. Is this the band that has a live performance of ‘Good Times’ which I think is one of the best rock songs of that era. (INXS covered it years later, but the song never got the notice it deserved). Maybe it was all too easy. Easy fever.
Here’s their most popular song:
So two videos. One hideous and one brilliant. Either way, enjoy them here:
Worst video.
Did you catch the young woman dancing in the background at the end? She appeared to have pulled her arms out of the socket or something. Anyway, here’s what I think is their best rock song (performance). CLICK HERE.
I feel like this is one of those records I discovered. Before anybody else was hip to Steve Earle, I had this, his first album. ( A lot of people jumped in at Copperhead Road).
Of course I am being facetious. Earle’s star was growing with this first album. I have several other digital albums and Earle songs but I certainly have a fondness for this vinyl LP.
But here’s a question that lingers with Earle: Was he authentic? Dumb question? But I get the sense sometimes that his songs and singing style were, let’s just say showing a lot of influences.
So that nags at me a little but truth his he plays good music. He picks good songs to cover.. He sings well. And he writes well. Check out the title song from this album (below).
Gotta keep rocking while I still can/ gotta 2-pack habit and a motel tan.
From Someday: There ain’t a lot that you can do in this town You drive down to the lake and then you turn back around You go to school and you learn to read and write So you can walk into the county bank and sign away your life
Yep, small town southern living pretty much encapsulated.
And to argue with myself, aren’t we all a product of our influences?
As an artist you just don’t want to wear influences in such a way as to be a cover band or Elvis impersonator. It’s all in how you synthesize the influences. Earle went on to record 15 albums after this one so he’s done well. And I don’t know if his addictions and jail time made him more authentic in his music but it certainly seems like it put the blues and the outlaw into his country-folk- rock sound.
. And I discovered him.
By the way if you are reading this and wondering where the numbers went on last couple of countdown posts, hang on. I’m trying to recalculate a couple of outliers and will have it up and counting soon.
ALBUMS: Eagles Greatest Hits (1976), Hotel California (1976)
MVC Rating: Hotel 4.0/$$; Hits 4.0/$$
Get over it people. The Eagles are the most maligned great band of all time. And that’s not right. And these records, both from 1976, are two of the biggest selling albums of all time.
Part of this venom comes from cooler-than-thou anti-commercial snobs. That sentiment hounds all bands that get popular or have a song or two go into the stratosphere. This whole attitude was famously and hilariously sent up in the movie The Big Lebowski when the Dude screamed to turn off the radio: “I hate the f——g Eagles.”
I believe the Coen brothers were poking fun at this superiority rip that some get on with popular music. That said, the line would not have worked as well with Beatles subbing for Eagles. Why? I seriously wonder. It’s too easy to say the Beatles were better. The Beatles were pioneers. The Eagles were hitmakers trodding on the familiar ground of country-rock.
Hotel California is a great multi-faceted song instrumentally, and lyrically it opens itself up for numerous interpretations. That’s a good thing (see Dylan). When this song came on the radio and you were 17 in high school, it meant the night was kicking in. It means the door was open for just about anything. Funny, a song about decadence and greed in a subculture of Los Angeles could find common ground with Georgia southern boys and girls. But that’s how I remember it in high school in Athens, Ga.. in 1976-77. We didn’t have ‘ a dark desert highway’ but we had pine forest backroads.
Then music emanating from a cassette tape in your car, you’d turn it up as ‘Life in the Fast Lane ‘ kicks in.
Other great songs? ‘Take it Easy,’ ‘Witchy Woman’ ‘Lyin’ Eyes,’ ‘Desperado, and on. (Not a fan of ‘Best of My Love,’ though. Too slow and syrupy.)
Madeleine Chapman on The Spinoff, a blog from New Zealand (see this hate debate has made it around the world), says this:
…. Half of the people who claim to hate the Eagles today just say so because their too-cool-for-soft-rock-I-only-listened-to-David-Bowie parents hated the Eagles. … There’s no logic besides if even my lame Dad hates them, they must be bad. And that would be totally fine if people weren’t so proud of their hate.
The Eagles get tagged with being misogynistic. A quick Google around and I saw their name linked to misogyny but no good examples. They write a lot about broken relationships. There are some obvious break-up songs e.g. ‘Lyin’ Eyes.’ Is ‘Witchy Woman sexist?’ ‘ Raven hair, ruby lips, sparks fly from her fingertips?’
“It’s a girl my Lord in a flatbed Ford turning around to take a look at me” from ‘Take it Easy.
Here’s one from ‘Hotel California:’
Her mind is Tiffany twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz/ She got a lot of pretty pretty boys she calls friend.
