Great harmonies good, tasteful but forceful guitar and just a pinch of psychedelia circa 1960s music. Throw that in the mix with a healthy slice of power pop and BAM Birmingham.
Brummies is slang for a Birmingham resident, that’s Birmingham, England. It’s a name that reflects the bands British influence, especially the flood of music during Beatlemania and the British Invasion.
Eternal Reach is a great mix of genres creating a sweet sound full of harmonies and chorus. They cite the Beatles, Elton John, ELO, Blitzen Trapper and My Morning Jacket as being among among their influences.
On the album there are a number of standouts. I like ‘Norway’ which starts with ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come home for your birthday.’ In a few words it sets the tone magnificently.
‘Set You Free’ opens with crunching guitar and is like much of the album, multi-layered . ”Haunted” is possibly my favorite piece on the album, with wide dynamic range, shown off on the opening three or so lines. The radio-friendly, ‘Drive , Away’ includes titillating vocal help from recent Grammy winner, Kasey Musgrave, and is probably most likely a hit.
The whole album is seductive, atmospheric, with just enough lyrical intrigue and musical crunch to sweep you in. It sounds like a long-lost classic, with modern accents.
There seems to be a lot of songs on the album — almost like they had a ‘hidden’ song or something.
You know that feeling you get when you lean back on two legs of a four-legged chair and suddenly you realize you’ve gone too far? You know that feeling? A split second of feeling totally out of control?
I feel like that all the time.
That joke reformulated by me from deadpan comedian Steven Wright is essentially about words.
There is not a word for that feeling.
Sure you can say ‘out of control’ or you can say ‘scared’ but none of that matches or encompasses the specific instance of leaning back in a chair and nearly losing it. There’s no one word for that. In fact, it takes several sentences to explain.
My own word for that? Yikes!
But that doesn’t exactly capture everything. And that’s also the word that describes the feeling you have as the roller coaster begins its descent.
There is a word (or phrase) for a feeling that people report to have that they feel like they have been in a place they had never been or are in a situation that they feel like they have already lived through.
English speakers appropriated the word from France: deja vu.
(Technically that’s two words but those two words, six letters total, go together to represent a complex idea. See how long it took me to explain it.)
Words are symbols formed by assembling letters. What are they symbolic of? Thoughts? Are we not thinking in words, already? Take away the words, what do we have?
A frustrated person.
Catherine told me the story of a 100-plus year old nursing home resident, barely 5-feet-tall, who attacked the staff. I mean she hit and kicked the staff. She had a urinary tract infection and that hurt. But she could not communicate that. Getting physical at a century old was all she had to fall back on. The need to communicate is a strong one. One wonders if our world leaders could better communicate, we might avoid the violence that stains humanity.
Someone asked my daughter what her biggest fear was. And she couldn’t think right away what it was, but eventually hit on one that is a big one for many: Fear of failure.
That used to be my biggest fear, and I think a lot of people live with that.
My greatest fear now? It’s losing my words.
Unfortunately with Lewy body dementia that’s a key symptom. I already find myself struggling to come up with some words. This occurs mostly during speaking and not as much when I write.
In conversation with my colleagues and friends it is subtle but I realize it is there: my struggle for words. It’s like in my brain I am searching a cavernous warehouse for one little item, one little word.
It’s an Amazon.com warehouse only when they push a button to have a robot/machine fetch the item from among a million things, the robot sighs. Like the robot in Lost in Space with its plug pulled. I’m left rummaging through this warehouse. I find a ladder, go up to the top shelf and there it is. My word.
I’ve done this before, it’s deja vu.
Actually, my word is ‘restorative.’
“The ocean’s waters are really …., um, really …) I start this sentence in a conversation about the beach, but I can’t finish because I can’t think of the word. Amazon warehouse thing kicks in. I’m on my ladder looking. Why is it always on the top shelf, I mumble to myself.
Cold? someone offers, you mean the ocean is cold?
RESTORATIVE, I finally answer a little too loudly. Everyone sighs with relief.
I have an aunt who has brain damage from unknown origin. Could have been a high fever as a young child, we don’t know. But she’s been this way as long as anyone remembers and currently lives in a group home.
She can talk but does so only if you ask her questions and typically they must be yes or no questions. She’s now in her 70s but seems like a child. She, now and again, will have a little crying jag, clearly out of frustration that she can’t communicate. She’s got so much to say, she just can’t find the words.
Painting by Jean Gill.
She’s a voracious painter. She has won awards. Here’s one of her paintings.
You may remember my stories about Porter Heatherly the little boy who died at 4 of a rare genetic disease. He never uttered a word in his short life but he was loved by many and spurred fund raising and research to find a cure for GM1.
And you may remember me writing about my former boss, now in a memory care unit. I hadn’t seen him in decades, he recognized me and wanted to talk newspapers. But what came out was word salad. He couldn’t string the right words together. And he knew it. And his eyes showed the frustration.
I don’t want that.
But with me, realistically, it will happen. Hopefully some years from now. But some cases I have read about say it can escalate quickly.
So now, while I can, I want to express myself as I have done all my life through the written word. To those who have cared for me, family, friends, colleagues, parents, cousins. Those I never met or haven’t seen in forever who have offered prayers, contributed to my bucket list trip, my Mike Madness tournament. To all those who have put up with my sometimes morbid sense of humor (to Hannah, Emily, Claire and Catherine.)
ALBUMS: The Byrds Greatest Hits; The Best of the Byrds, Greatest Hits Vol. 2
MVC Rating: Best, 4.5/$$$$; Vol. 2 3.5/$$$
The long-haired redneck wrote and sang: ‘I heard the burritos out in California could fly higher than the Byrds.
Roger McGuinn had a 12-string guitar it was like nothing I’d ever heard
And the Eagles flew in from the West Coast, like Byrds they were trying to be free
While in Texas the talk turned to outlaw, like Willie and Waylon and me
There, in those few lines David Allan Coe gets a lot accomplished. He effectively describes the country, folk-rock intersection which would spawn an enormous number of cross-genres.
In doing so he puts the Byrds front and center and of course gives his ownself a big commercial — Willie, Waylon and Me, indeed.
But the sharp Coe lyrics quickly name check the Flying Burritos Brothers, the Byrds, Eagles, (all on this flying theme.)
The Byrds are the real pioneers in this group, melding and merging Dylan songs, Biblical passages and psychedelic experiences into a new electrically charged folk style with provocative lyrics. Their music influenced many fans, not the least of which was REM and Peter Buck’s Byrd like guitar.
The first ‘Greatest Hits’ is indispensable with Turn Turn Turn, Mr. Tambourine Man, Chimes of Freedom, Eight Miles High, and My Back Pages.
The second album is weaker but still has plenty of good stuff, including Ballad of Easy Rider, Jesus is Just Alright and Chestnut Mare.
With this post, I essentially am through with B’s in www.myvinylcountdown.com (More on that in a blog post coming up.) So, as we go alphabetically counting down my 678 records I collected in the 70s and 80s, I’ve knocked out two letters in a 26- letter alphabet. Dang, got a long way to go. This brain disease is giving me a deadline. Remember it’s ultimatelly about fighting a deadly disease, Lewy Body dementia. Stay with me and I’ll stay with you. (Read About Me for more info).
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
ALBUMS: Singles Going Steady (1979); A Different Kind of Tension (1980)
MVC Rating: Singles, 5.0$$$; Different: 4.5/ $$$
Punk. I’ll be using that word in a totally unrelated way about street basketball. Posting that one in the next few days.
But I don’t have a lot of what you would definitely call punk music. I love the Clash and have some but they were more than punk. Listen to Sandinista. A friend of mine in 9th grade (mid to late 1970s) brought over a record by a new sensation, the Sex Pistols.
God save the Queen, she ain’t no human being, they spat-sang
It was three chords turned up to 11 spewing anger, a response or stand-up to classic rock music played by multimillionaires, Pink Floyd, the Who, Rolling Stones, all aging rock stars who ‘made it.’
The Sex Pistols point was heard, loudly. That point, we’re mad dammit. Angry about the way things are set up in society, so the next best thing to a revolution is to scream about it at volumes sure to sink into our fat heads.
Problem was, the music was pretty much driven by relentless spewed anger, effective on one level but often lacking basic musicality. The older groups, such as the Who actually did do this kind of stuff decades ago, smashing instruments, screaming they won’t get fooled again, and being, well, punks. But of course that wasn’t the point. The point was, the punks said that the music was for the people not the greedy record industry and be angry about that as your starting point.
Enter the Buzzcocks. A most influential band that had clever lyrics, a driving raucous rhythm section (bass and drum) and rock and roll, Chuck Berry, Bo Didley guitar chords.
Lyrics? Well the song ‘Orgasm Addict’ was banned from British radio. My favorite songs off of the two records I have are ‘Hollow Inside,’ ‘Everybody’s Happy Nowadays,’ and the more ambitious songs like ‘I Believe’ and the title track. Catchy punky short songs that some listeners will inevitably say sounds all the same. If really doesn’t, especially when you get to the ‘Tension’ record. Some thought provoking slam music here.
Buzzcocks are an obvious influence of Green Day, those Berkeley garage punksters that actually did become multimillionaires with the Buzzcock sound. For an interesting but silly debate on that influence, go here.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
ALBUMS: Trap Door (1982); Proof Through The Night (1983); T Bone Burnett (1986); The Talking Animals (1987)
MVC Rating: Trap: 4.0/$$; Proof: 4.0/$$; T Bone 4.5/$$$; Talking 3.5/$$
I think I may be the only one in Alabama to have four T Bone Burnett albums. For one thing, Burnett is much better known as a producer than a singer-songwriter. And he is generally better known among fellow record industry folks, albeit as one of the best in the business.
So there’s not a lot folks around with any T Bone Burnett albums, much less four.
His resume is not short on his work for others: Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp, Counting Crows, and the BoDeans are just a few who are recipients of Burnett’s excellent production values and arrangements. He’s won Grammy’s for the movie soundtracks of, among others, Cold Mountain, Walk the Line and O Brother Where Art Thou (one of my favorite movies and one of my favorite soundtracks.)
As for his own recordings, they are interesting, literate and sometimes peculiar.
I got interested in T Bone after reading about him leading a back-up band for Bob Dylan, probably in the 70s or 80s. The Rolling Thunder Review it was called.
I bought Trap Door in 1982 and enjoyed the extended play record. This EP had six songs, more than a 45 but less than an LP, long-playing record.
With sharp guitar from David Mansfield, this was good top to bottom. Burnett obliquely channels some songs through his Christianity, but he is not usually identified as a Christian artist. Although he has often played with like-minded musicians.
Re-visiting these albums I am struck by the fact that the least ambitious, I like the best, and the most ambitious I like the least. My favorite, the self-titled 1986 album is country folk at its strumming best.
River of Love by T Bone deserves to be a classic. Little daughter and I Remember are lovely. Oh No Darling makes you want to do some swinging round the room.
The Talking Animals album, is his most complex and least accessible. He enlists great help, Bono, Ruben Blades, Peter Case, and Tonio K. (More on Tonio later in this blog, he’s one of my favorites.)
Is Purple Heart with Bono on background vocals about Prince?
The Tonio collaboration on the song The Strange Case of Frank Cash and the Morning Paper is a talk-sing sort of parable. I believe they may be making a statement on the nature of truth as revealed in the symbolism of story. You know like the Bible, hence the title of the album.
One Amazon reviewer giving the Frank Cash song five stars called it ‘one of the strangest and most imaginative songs of the 20th Century.’
Looking back I see a stream of morality running through his songs, not moralism per se, but morality in such songs as Ridiculous Man, Hefner and Disney, and the tongue in cheek cover of Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.
Robert Christgau, my go-to critic for succinct wisdom, gave Burnett good reviews in the early years but soured on him over time, specifically over the Talking Animals. Christgau acknowledges and recognizes his intelligence and accomplishments, Grammy’s and all, but “why hasn’t he developed any kind of audience?
“Because for both a roots guy and a Christian guy (converted Dylan, some say), he seems like a cold son of a bitch.”
Aw Christgau, didn’t you hear the sweet song, presumably about his daughter, called ‘Little Daughter? You know the one where he brings her clothes of rayon. Rayon?
Don’t want to give short shrift to Trap Door and Proof through the Night. Some great songs in there, After All these Years, When the Night Falls, I Wish You Could Have Seen Her Dance.
For my money his best record is the ‘O Brother’ soundtrack, an album he produced and one of the great records of all time, as it introduced a whole new generation to bluegrass, gospel and folk-blues.
An interview with the man reveals a lot about his knowledge of recording and production and engineering.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
Retrospective: The Best of Buffalo Springfield (1968)
MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$
Their biggest hit, the Stephen Stills-penned “For What it’s Worth.’ is a cool relic of the 1960s protest era, which will still hit you in the face with its, ‘Stop, children, what’s that sound everybody look what’s going down.’
It does, however, take a little out of my admiration of the protest song, when I find out it is essentially a song about young folks partying loudly in a Sunset Strip neighborhood and the neighbors complaining, leading to counterculture kids protesting and police, perhaps, using a little too much leverage on the billy clubs. Curfew riots, they called them.
‘Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep.’
So I’m thinking Buffalo Springfield on this one was cutting their teeth on this whole protest thing. And a little later, Neil Young, after leaving the Springfield, blew everybody out of the water with ‘Ohio’ the angry tour de force about four college kids shot dead at Kent State. Now that, at the least, is worth an angry diatribe. Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming.
(Memo to myself: write a blog post listing top protest songs.)
Great songs on this retrospective, no need to get anything else from Springfield, unless you are a huge fan or collector. As good of a band as they were, they were only together a few years. Members went on to be in Poco, Crosby Stills Nash and (later) Young. Great incubator of talent. Members of the The Byrds and Hollies were also in that rich cross-polenization.
I tend to like the Young songs best and have remained a huge fan for decades.
Young’s authorship on Springfield songs include, the Beatleesque Mr. Soul, and the fine Broken Arrow. with its relevant Native American references.
Others: the fragile, I Am a Child, the beautiful Expecting to Fly, and Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing.
From Broken Arrow:
“Did you see them, did you see them? Did you see them in the river? They were there to wave to you. Could you tell that the empty quiver, Brown skinned Indian on the banks That were crowded and narrow, Held a broken arrow?”
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
ALBUMS: Songs You Know By Heart : Jimmy Buffett’s Greatest Hits (1985); Living and Dying in 3/4 Time (1974).
MVC Rating: Hits: 4.0/$$$; Living: 3.5/$$$
Middle of the road singer-songwriter. Notice I didn’t say mediocre. I admire, and enjoy, some of these Buffet hits, not just for the broad appeal and overall catchiness, but also for shrewd, descriptive lyrics such as in the rueful A Pirate Looks at 40.:
I made enough money to buy Miami, But I pissed it away so fast, Never meant to last, never meant to last.
He’s sold gazillions. Parrotheads follow and love Buffet like Deadheads did/do for Jerry Gracia and the Grateful Dead. (OK, Phish and Widespread Panic, too, sort of.) The difference in audiences may start at choice of intoxicants but goes beyond that. Buffet is Spring Break for Baby Boomers, with kids and grand-kids and coolers in tow.
I hereby declare Margaritaville to be the No. 1 all time song played by the highly tanned dude in a flowery shirt and acoustic guitar poolside at the oceanfront Holiday Inn.
Some people claim there’s a woman to blame, but I know it’s my own damn fault. (Possibly Buffet’s best line.)
Did Buffett single-handedly boost the now enormous tequila industry?
I always said Buffett made the only song reference to Hush Puppies, the shoe not the cornbread ball, in Come Monday. And he may be the only one to ever rhyme pop-top and flip-flop in a song.
So he has a lot of achievements.
But if I have to hear Cheeseburger in Paradise again, I might consider giving up one of my favorite foods. And if I have to hear Why Don’t We Get Drunk and …. again, I might consider giving up … oh, never mind.
NOTE: SInce I last reviewed Buffet in the above post, I happened on another $1 record find of Buffets album. I’m not going to give it a big review but just to say: It is not bad, a peek at him before he became famous hints of the qualities that made him famous. Those qualities are pleasant semi-story-telling songs that goes good with some beach time and beer time and the smell of coconut sunscreen.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
I thought they were British. And that was by their design. They were cashing in, (nothing pejorative about that) on the British invasion
Beatles, Stones, Who, Kinks, Buckinghams.. There, that last one, they are the British guys, right?
Nope they were from Chicago.
They had a flurry of hits, almost all of them in 1967, and I have their 1969 Greatest Hits record.
They are one of these bands that you can’t recall a song they did but when you hear ithe hits you know all the words.
‘Kind of a Drag,’ Mercy Mercy Mercy, and ‘Hey Baby, They’re Playing our Song’ all fit that bill.
After a few years they broke up and later, in the 1980s they toured on several oldies circuits including one called the Happy Together tour with the Turtles, Gary Puckett, and the Grass Roots.
Personal connection here: I was an acquaintance/friend of Rob Grill many years ago when both of our families lived in Lake County, FL. He was the lead singer of the Grass Roots,. He met a DJ in Central Florida got married and retired to pursue his fishing dreams. But he was still going out on tours now and again. This was late 1980s early 1990s.
The Grass Roots hits included MIdnight Confessions, Sooner or Later, Temptation Eyes, Let’s Live for Today, Two Divided By Love.
When I posted this yesterday, I hadn’t realized Grill died in 2011 in Lake County, the result of a head injury. RIP, brother. He was 67.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
A little fun. Disjointed. Not sure there was a direction. Random Play. (and you know I’m OK with that.)
Lindsey Buckingham was a key vocalist, songwriter and guitar player for Fleetwood Mac, one of the most successful bands in the 70’s and 80’s if not all time. This album sounds like a collection of Tusk and Rumours outtakes — which is not a bad thing, really. Rumours is a classic and its success both critically and commercially is in that rarefied air where the Beatles roam.
There’s just a lack of fluidity on this when you have a Tusk-like song Bwana, with its hints of Africa followed by a mild Fleetwood Mac b-sider-like song, Trouble. Pretty, though it is.
Shadows of the West, which oddly is the only song on the album without its lyrics printed on the sleeve has an interesting line: The setting of the sun scares me to death’ and it made me think of an opposite sentiment by the Rolling Stones in the song ‘Rocks Off.’
The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.
Maybe that’s why the differences between the Stones and the Mac are night and day.
But the teetering album, almost toppled by silliness, recovers with a splendific version ‘A Satisfied Man’ (see Below) Classic.
Last verse:
When life has ended, my time has run out My friends and my loved ones, I’ll leave, there’s no doubt But there’s one thing for certain, when it comes my time I’ll leave this old world with a satisfied mind
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
ALBUMS: Lives in the Balance (1986), Running on Empty (1977)
MVC Rating: Balance 3.5/$$$; Empty 4.5/$$$$
Singer, songwriter, activist Jackson Browne was the perfect 1970s-80s pop rock star:
Good looking, wrote sweet melodies; protested against wars in places ‘we can’t even say the names;’ has a silent ‘e’ at the end of Browne; sang about cocaine; made a splash when he married and later divorced Daryl Hannah.
All of these things: Rock star.
He had bands that were so good. L.A. good, that Eagles thing which not everybody digs. To paraphrase Yogi, ‘They are so popular no one likes them anymore.’
Browne actually wrote the song “Take it Easy” which the Eagles scored big with.
I have ‘Lives in the Balance’ and ‘Running on Empty,’ which was an on-the-road live album with a number of tracks recorded in hotel rooms.. Balance is a protest album against US involvement in Nicaragua, El Salvador and wherever we were messing around militarily in the world. But mostly Nicaragua from what I can tell. As an album it suffers from a few weak songs. The title track and ‘For America’ are standouts.
Given the choice, I’d pick Neil Young’s passionate Living with War if you want to hear some railing against the war.
“You Love the Thunder’ is my favorite on Empty.
But my favorite thing about Jackson Browne is through him I discovered David Lindley, a real excellent guitarist in the band who made a string of solo albums that are among my favorite albums. He was in some ways nothing like Browne. He had long stringy hair and wore plaid pants with stripe shirts. That kind of guy. Much more on him when I get to the ‘L’s.
(Can’t believe I’m stuck in the ‘B’s all this time. Ready for C’s soon).
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
