How did these guys not make it big. Strong tuneful forceful power pop.
‘Rock N Roll Girl,’ the opener should have been a Top Tenner.
‘Don’t Wait Up’ should have melted into teen turntables all over the early 90s.
This was a cross between early Beach Boys and the Cars.
Every song is a mini-power pop anthem with boys singing simplistically about girls coming and going from their lives.
Depth? None.
But framed in sharp tasty guitar chords, they had a formula that had a good beat and you could dance to it. Timing? 1979 was dominated by a slice of power pop in its own right: My Sharona by the Knack. Arguably weaker than ‘Don’t Wait Up,’ which got nowhere near the success of Sharona. They also had some name fight with the English Beat, AKA as the Beat, which played in a ska-band.The Beat had some affiliation with the Plimsouls and Peter Case, which I will get to when their lettesr comes up, like the draft.
Who knows why this egregious over looking occurred. I remember I first received the 7″ promo single for ‘Don’t Wait Up’ in a magazine. Can’t find that yet, but not much later got the full length album on vinyl. Probably from Wuxtry. Probably for a couple bucks.
Counting my 678 vinyl records down before I die of brain disease.
Joan Baez, a double-album. That’s just one breath for Joan. OK, that may be an exaggeration, but she can hold a note through an entire album side, I’m pretty sure.
With one of the most distinctive singing voices of all time, Joan is an iconic figure from the 1960s-70s anti-Viet Nam and civil rights scenes. She wrote some songs in her career but more often, it seems, performed other people’s songs. On this double-disc she covers the Beatles’ ‘Let it Be,’ the Band’s ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,’ and Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night.’
That’s my shaky six degrees of separation from Joan Baez.
But to be honest after listening again to this I am mostly struck by her voice and the earnestness behind it, which is not quite the compliment it sounds. Maybe what I’m saying is I don’t need Joan Baez singing ‘Let it Be.’ The Beatles did a nice job with that.
That said, her life is certainly one of positive energy and activism.
And that voice.
Anyone besides me like to see her and Melanie in a singing showdown?
Counting my 678 vinyl records down before I die of brain disease.
ALBUM: ‘You Can’t Get Off with Your Shoes On’ (1975)
MVC Rating: 3.5/$$
Gosh, I don’t know where these guys came from. I mean I have no memory of where, when or how I came to own this album. Probably true of many more before this quest to review my 678 records ends.
This music is odd Southern rock, with great musicianship, lots of musical solos. Several instrumentals. Kind of a cross between Captain Beyond and Charlie Daniels.
Wait, in fact there’s a Charlie Daniels mention on the BJ album, and Daniels apparently name-checked Barefoot Jerry in his popular ‘The South’s Going to Do it Again:’
Elvin Bishop sittin’ on a bale of hay
He ain’t good lookin’, but he sure can play
And there’s ZZ Top and you can’t forget
That old brother Willie’s gettin’ soakin’ wet
And all the good people down in Tennessee
Are diggin’ barefoot Jerry and C.D.B
Don’t know if in 1975, Daniels, the guy who stuffed his hair up under his hat to walk into the Dew Drop Inn, had already gone all Ted Nugent on us.
OK, I’m introducing a new thing. Actually, it’s an old thing.
A random play, shuffle I-Pod show down, a ‘game’ we used to play when I was at the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek. (Hat tip to Chris, Michelle and Andrea.)
It goes like this, at 5 p.m. we would pick up our music storage devices whether they were I-Pods, cell phones or other and set it to random play all songs.
Then we’d share our lists of the first five songs that show up on the device. We would share via email and argue about who had the best list or laugh at what came up.
I have 7,494 songs on my I-Pod. And due to some kid usage of my 120 GB I-Pod, there are some songs that I can’t explain how they got there or even what they are. I will post my list below and would encourage others to post their results in the comment section (by clicking on the title of this post).
I’m doing this at 8 a.m (Central), for this post, as a warm-up to my 5 p.m. launch (Central time). I am adding my 5 p.m. Five in the comments, not a new post.
I won’t likely do this every day but we’ll see. Remember random/shuffle all songs on the device and write down the first five that pop up.
Here are mine:
“You Will Go Free’ Tonio K. (One of my favorite songs.)
“Dream On’ Aerosmith. (Classic rock.)
‘Haneros Halallu’ Le’eyla (A prayer after Hanukkah candles are lit).
‘Stringman’ Neil Young.(Fairly obscure Neil).
‘Sometimes She Forgets’ Steve Earle. (Country-blues).
So there we go
Let’s see what you got.
Click on this post’s title to submit your top 5 random songs in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
This was where it all started for this retro jangle rock band with its folk-psychedelic electric guitar playing and sweet harmonies. This was before Prince gave them ‘Manic Monday’ and before their big radio hit ‘Walk like an Egyptian.’
This is just good, easy to listen to and fun. “Hero Takes a Fall’ and ‘Going Down to Liverpool’ were two minor hits off this album.
My favorite is ‘Dover Beach’ a fitting piece from a group that identified with a small new wave sound dubbed Paisley underground.
I was in Birmingham, in my mid-20s, and remember this record as one Catherine and I enjoyed together. She didn’t dig the Hendrix cranked up so much.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
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
