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Black Uhuru — 628

ALBUM:   Anthem (1983)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$

You’ve got to have money to make money, sings the lead vocalist Michael Rose on Anthem. Not sure how successful they are/were, but Black Uhuru was definitey looking to cross over here. The Jamaican group had significant reggae  cred already.

This album is smooth, some dub, high production values, legendary bottom. And the lyrics, well, the album is called Anthem and has songs called What is Life, Botanical Roots and Solidarity. I think they are going down the traditional reggae road here.

When I first heard Bob Marley, it was like hearing Dylan or the Beatles for the first time. So different, so compelling. I have a few of his albums, (although whomever borrowed my Natty Dread record, I’d like it back now. It was my favorite and I can’t find it.) I also like Jimmy Cliff. The soundtrack to the movie ‘The Harder They Come’ is a good place to start,as an introduction to Cliff or reggae music in general.

Back to Black Uhuru, this album, crying out to expand their audience, is very good. I give it a thumbs up.

And I  especially want to note the ‘bottom’ of all this: Robbie Shakespeare on bass and Sly Dunbar on drums are a legendary rhythm machine. And you just get a taste here. Check out Sly and Robbie, a mostly  instrumental ‘solo’ album if you want to get into a groove. This ‘promotional copy’ I have includes a publicity photo and 4-page press release.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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The Boomtown Rats — 629

ALBUM: A Tonic for the Troops (1978)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

Half of this album, the first side, is pretty good. Starting with Rat Trap, which is not a bad little  Springsteen knock-off with some Meatloaf thrown in. The next songs on side 1 flow  righteously through I  Never Loved Eva Braun to Like Clockwork. She’s So Modern ( ‘she’s so 1970s’ — ha ha) is one on the other side I like.

So I guess I need to explain because I was there, and into music at the time. The Boomtown Rats of Ireland were no huge deal, in fact just another one of many young groups rejecting the so-called dinosaurs of classic  rock, as defined by the Beatles, the Who and the Rolling Stones. The punks, like Sex Pistols, too often eschewed  musicianship in exchange for energy and the democratization of the performer-listener partnership or focused anger at traditions and institutions. New Wavers like the Rats took the energy from the punks but added funky wardrobe and perhaps actually played their instruments well.  In the end rock and roll evolved and came full circle. All rockers have their touchstones and nine times out of 10 it is the blues, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley electric guitar chords as reinvented by kids long ago like John Lennon, Keith Richards and Pete Townshend.

Inject Bob Dylan’s and other influences from folkies and country into that mix and suddenly the words accompanying the music were important. The Rats? Enigmatic, literary, befuddling  and silly lyrics. They were clearly headfirst into New Wave with its higher level of musicianship and production. Which is OK if the songs were good. Quality is king unless you go the garage band route or the punk route — and that’s just taking off the filters and directly channeling Diddley, Berry, et. al.

Other notes: Perhaps ironically, Bob Geldolf, lead vocalist, went on to organize the benefit concert Live Aid, one of the largest fund-raising events of all time featuring many of the biggest acts of the time. It focused on hunger and starvation in Africa. The Rats also wrote and performed the worldwide hit about a California school shooting called, “I Don’t like Mondays” in 1979.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of a degenerative brain disease

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The Blackwood Brothers — 630

ALBUM: The Blackwood Brothers in Concert (1960)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$

I went through a period where I was really into gospel music. Earlier here I reviewed the Birmingham Community Choir and I probably bought  this in the same early 1980s time period in Birmingham.

I have further down on the alphabetical list  some vinyl by Rev. Al Green and some vinyl gospel by Little Richard.

Unfortunately my favorite gospel music is on digital: The Blind Boys From Alabama, the Dixie Hummingbirds and, especially, the Soul Stirrers featuring Sam Cooke. (See video below).

This album is rousing old school gospel.  Yes, and of course, it has How Great Thou Art.

And on Hide Me, Rock of Ages, basso singer J.D. Summer gets low,  slows it down and gets really low. Sounds like a purring tiger.

The back cover shown here has an ad for a high quality stereophonic Victrola. Looking at it. I want it.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Blue Oyster Cult — 631

ALBUM: Agents of Fortune (1976)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

This is heavy but not technically heavy metal. I clearly bought this in high school on the strength of their song (Don’t Fear) The Reaper.

It was their best song and one of the great rock songs. It’s message best I can tell is don’t fear dying because there’s an afterlife. Romeo and Juliet, for example, are together in eternity.  Lyrics help me out here.

Valentine is done
Here but now they’re gone
Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity (Romeo and Juliet)
40,000 men and women everyday (Like Romeo and Juliet)
40,000 men and women everyday (Redefine happiness)
Another 40,000 coming everyday (We can be like they are)

Some controversy in the 70’s over whether song is about suicide. Band said no. But grim is the reaper, no kidding.

Now listening to the song is somewhat disorienting after Saturday Night Live’s famous ‘More cowbell’ skit, in which Christopher Walken doing his best Christopher Walken implores BOC’s new member (Will Ferrelll) to turn up the cowbell– just a titch.

I admire BOC for allowing Walken and Ferrell to desecrate such a serious minded rock classic. Unless they made a ton of money on that, then my admiration is not so much.

But it is a strong song  and album. Rolling Stone wrote in a column called  “40 albums boomers loved that millennials don’t know:” Long before metal splintered into a myriad of genres, BÖC came to fame for its ability to appeal to both head-bangers and chin-strokers.”

Call me a chin-stroker, but I really like the above mentioned and about three other songs,  including ‘This Ain’t the Summer of Love.’

It’s hard to describe the band but I’ll try in 10 words: Jefferson Airplane* plus Moody Blues sprinkled with Rocky Horror  Picture Show.

*I’ve changed this comparison ingredient  for the third time now. First it was Aereosmith plus Moody plus Rocky Horror; then it was Grand Funk; Now I’ve settled on Jefferson Airplane because of the female voice. The Reaper song actually sounds like every other Moody Blues opening so I’m good there. And the vampire tattoo and death songs made me think of Rocky Horror.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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BoDeans, Blue Rodeo, The Bongos — 634, 633, 632

ALBUMS: Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams (1986)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$

I’m going three for one here on posts. Here are three albums, not much alike but a little. All produced in the mid-to-late 1980s, when music was straddling New Wave synth sound and the early throes  of what some call Americana. BoDeans was definitely pre-Americana or maybe not even pre.

Some of these three groups did well, but none became widely, wildly well known. Some cult-following fans may argue otherwise. (I have to say it takes a few seconds to get over the BoDean’s lead vocalist’s nasal sound,  which briefly sent me back in memory to our falsetto guy in Bread and Butter. Just brace yourself.)

The album,  produced by T-Bone Burnett (yes he gets around) named after a Mick Jagger proclamation in”Shattered,” wanted to set a bar, perhaps too high.

I  must say though, the first two songs on the album were the best  one-two opening of an 80s record album I’ve ever heard. The songs steam along, sounding as if they were one song with the ‘keyword’ being runaway or fadeaway. See video  of just one of those songs and I think you’ll get it.

ALBUM: Outskirt (Blue Rodeo, 1987)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

Now if the BoDeans were fledgling Americana pioneers, Blue Rodeo was Canadian and not so new sounding, despite their name.

They were pretty much traditional country, from north of the border. Pleasant songs that surely seem to have been a good road for them. This is the first album  of about 20 they have recorded. Nice, relaxing, tuneful most of the time but every now and then they’ll turn the rock amp up to 7 and show some chops. ‘Pirhana Pool’ is a nice jazzy country playground for keyboards and restrained guitar accents.

ALBUM:  Beat Hotel (Bongos, 1985)

MVC Rating: 3.5/ $$$

So what is with these Beat names. Earlier I’ve reviewed Beat Radio, the Beat Farmers, and the Beat. Now the Bongos are in front of me with Beat Hotel, their album. You think they would use a  little imagination to separate themselves like, oh I don’t know, the Beatles.

This album is certainly not Americana or country in anyway. They are a talented band coming into  the 80s where rock music was transitioning between the commercialization of punk, the glorification of album rock or so-called classic rock and destruction of the democratization of radio. That’s a fancy way for me to say that everything started to sound the same on the radio. The Bongos had some nice tunes, kind of a tamer Beat. But of the three reviewed here the Bongos sound most dated,  now sure to make a nostalgic comeback as I write this.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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AC/DC’s Malcolm Young Died of Dementia

Malcolm Young, the founder along with his  brother, of the globally successful Australian rock ‘n’ roll band AC/DC died today.

Of dementia. His family said that.

So far, all of the news stories report dementia as a cause or contributor to Young’s death  but don’t describe it beyond that.

I wish they would because I have Lewy Body dementia, the second leading type of dementia  behind Alzheimer’s.

I was diagnosed at age 56 more than a year ago. With Lewy  the life expectancy averages 5 to 7 years after diagnosis.

Young was 64.

I am doing three things with  this blog  www.myvinylcountdown.com

  1. I am shouting for more funding for research, for more awareness of Lewy. Some believe the 1.4 million number often used to describe how many are affected  now is vastly understated. Some whom are diagnosed with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s may actually have Lewy body dementia and there are some treatments for these diseases that are contraindicated for another and could be life-threatening. OK, believe it or not that’s one thing. Two more.
  2. Staying alive is important to me — but with my faculties intact. Right now I struggle to write this because my fingers don’t glide along the keys like they used to.  It’s part of the disease which affects me physically as well as mentally. I have set up this blog to review my 678 records (vinyl) that I have collected over the years. This has been a way to stay connected to my past and remember my love of music and music collecting. I look forward to trying to post every day, if not more. Be sure to check out the About Me page, and click on the post’s title if you want to comment.
  3. Now third is having fun. I want to chronicle and laugh about things I still remember. My music, my basketball, my family, my years in the  news business. That’s fun for me and hopefully will tie into my second rationale.

So I’m not really a fan of AC/DC.

I don’t own an AC/DC album. Of course I know their music as did every teen (male?)  in the late 70s with a car radio (w/power booster and 6X9’s in the back). My younger brother whom I’ve mentioned before in these blogs had the album ‘Back in Black,’ if not more. I always thought AC/DC was like asking for a drink of water and receiving a firehose to the face. Some folks like that.

But I did have some records that have a degree of separation connection to the band.

Malcolm’s younger brother was in the band, Angus (the guy in shorts). But his older brother, George Young, along with friend Harry Vanda were founders of the Easybeats, sort of the Australian Beatles. And they were good. Really good, way back when. Friday On My Mind was an international hit.

They later, Vanda and Young, formed Flash and the Pan and they were good and weird. Very weird.

George, who also produced a number of AC/DC albums, died only about a month ago. I haven’t seen a cause of death reported. I have albums — which I will review as I have been in alphabetical order — of Flash and the Pan and the Easybeats.

The Easybeats video that follows is an old favorite  of mine. Stay with it until the end and you’ll know what I mean when I say I hope he has kneepads on.

There’s also a good documentary on Australian rock from the Easybeats to AC/DC.

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David Bowie — 637, 636, 635

ALBUMS: ‘Let’s Dance’ (1983), ‘Fame and Fashion’ Greatest Hits (1984), ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ (1972)

MVC Rating:  Stardust: 5.0./$$$$; Let’s Dance: 3.5; $$$; Greatest Hits: 4.0/$$$

It’s pretty simple. Get the Ziggy Stardust album. It’s so good. It’s one of the top 10 rock albums of all  time IMHO.

Now Bowie was a shapeshifter at the highest level. An artist in the real sense of the word. He was a trans-genre space oddity. He sold millions, changed musical styles like coats, and even had a worldwide Christmas hit duet with Bing Crosby.

If you want to broaden your Bowie collection like me, I would do what I did. Such simple advice. Get ‘’Let’s Dance’ the album and the greatest hits disc Iisted above. And of course as I said, get Ziggy first.

(A live album, David Live is also pretty good or maybe interesting as Bowie rearranged some of familiar songs.)

Now the ‘Let’s Dance’ recommendation might raise eyebrows. “It’s Bowie going disco,” goes the critique.

Well, he sort of pioneered quality disco, didn’t he? Fame and  Young Americans are the rare disco type songs that have shelf life, almost classics.

Bowie was one of the few white artists ever invited to the TV dance show Soul Train, singing Golden Years. Or should I say lip-syncing, not one of his finest performances.

But get this: The lead guitarist on the Let’s Dance album? Stevie Ray Vaughn, one of the best guitarists of all time. He’s scratching it up with his guitar chops over the heavy bass-line in this one. Still very fun to listen to.

Bowie always had good musicians. Guitarist Mick Ronson was on Ziggy.

From my three albums I can come up with a killer 10-12 song  mix, and I’ll do it in order of my favorite songs.

  1. Starman
  2. Five years
  3. Heroes
  4. Modern Love
  5. Young Americans
  6. .Ashes to Ashes
  7. Let’s Dance
  8. Suffragette City
  9. Moonage Daydream
  10. Changes
  11. BONUS: Space Oddity, Fame

Not a bad lineup from three albums. Start with Ziggy.

Counting down my 678  vinyl records  before I die of  brain disease.

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Staying Alive

Requip. Memantine. Sinemet. Vinyl.

Now which of these will help me live longer?

The first three are drugs I’ve taken or am taking to battle my disease. While  they will help with the symptoms, they aren’t proven to stop this disease.

I have Lewy Body dementia and my life is expected to be 5 to 7 years (but varies widely) after diagnosis. I was diagnosed 13 months ago at age 56.

For more of my story click on the About Me button and  read some of the links.

The fourth item, Vinyl, as in vinyl records is what I am banking on. I am reviewing on this  website my collection of vinyl records, mostly from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s’. I have 678 records. I’ve made a vow to  complete my collection before I go to that big used record store in the sky.

So my birthday — which was on Nov. 9 this year* — my sister Julie sends me albums. New vinyl record albums not some rummage sale used discs. And she said there will be more at other events in time. She said they are going to keep me alive longer.

And you know I think she’s right, this project which I am loving will keep me going. And I’ve got a long way to go..

And it’s getting longer. Four more records I haven’t even heard  of. (Well I know Fleet Foxes a little.)

Here’s what Julie and Rob and family sent me. I’ve listened to some but am not ready to review. I will slip them in alphabetically as I am doing. I’m in the B’s right now.

  • “Crack-up” by Fleet Foxes.
  • “Milano” by Danielle Luppis & Parouet Courts.
  • “Relatives in Descent” by Protomartyr
  • “Pure Comedy” by Father John Misty

And one that I picked up at a mini concert on the back porch of a basketball buddy of mine. It’s a husband wife team and the band and album is called:  When Particles Collide “This Town.”

So here’s some exciting new music I’ll be reviewing after I get to know them a bit.

Thanks and much love to  Julie, Rob, Sophie, Rachel, Graeme,  Jake and my lovely daughter Emily.

*Interesting note, but that’s what my b-day was last year.

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Kurtis Blow — 638

 

ALBUM: Party Time (1983)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

This is early, early rap, hip hop or whatever you want to call it.

I’d put this on at a party  and the white boys would actually get up and dance. Throw in a little Grandmaster Flash and it was hopping around time. Bad dancing. (Except for me, of course.)

I remember once at a small dinner party at our  house, I pulled out my rap collection of about three records, feeling kind of impressed with myself that I was on the cutting edge.

I think I put on “New York, New York (Big City of Dreams)” by Grandmaster Flash. This was early 1980s and we were living in Birmingham. This was the very inception of rap as a popular culture sort of thing. (That means white people were discovering it). Flash and Blow were pioneers, with “The Message” by Flash and “The Breaks” by Blow.

Again feeling a little too proud of myself, I asked a black colleague who was at the party how he liked it.

My colleague said he didn’t like rap. He liked hard rock, heavy metal.

Oops, one of those moments. Um, Mike I think it is time to flip the record on your STEREOtype!

 Yes man, and we will be serving the fried fowl a little later. 

But we were cool. He laughed.

I put on some Led Zeppelin.

Counting down my vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Shelley Berman –639

ALBUMS: Outside Shelley Berman

MVC Rating: 3.5/$

Sounds like a 1950’s version of Seinfeld, perhaps crossed with a little bit of Lenny Bruce rage. He euphemizes some sexual content here, very slyly I might add.

He died this year but before that he was a character in Curb Your Enthusiasm, a show everyone recommends but I know little about other than Larry David stars.

Noted for accusing Bob Newhart of copping his one-sided phone routine where he pretends like he’s on the phone with some famous person from history. (See videos).

Bob pretending to be on the phone to Lincoln’s press agent, for example. “Your thinking of shaving? Um let’s  re-think this Abe,  sweetheart.” Or something like that.

I think Newhart won that spat when they realized a number of comics did that schtick.

He seems to be quick with the wit, funny even. A prototype comic of sorts.

But I can’t see flipping through my records and saying I wanna listen to some Berman  right now. I NEED BERMAN RIGHT NOW. No, cant see me doing that.

I prefer what I call the Steven Wright style:

“What’s another word for Thesaurus?”

Counting down my vinyl records before I die of brain disease.