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Northern Pikes –300

ALBUM: BIg Blue Sky (1987)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

There’s a lot of good things going on north of us. Canada has consistently over the years produced some fine rock artists. Such as?

Well, Gordon Lightfoot, Alanis Morrisette, Bare Naked Ladies, Neil Young, Beat Rodeo, Jeff Healy, Bryan Adams, Joni Mitchell, kd lang, the Guess Who/Burton Cummings, Crash Test Dummies, Leonard Cohen, Rush, Bruce Cockburn, Bachman-Turner Overdrive — and I could go on. (In fact I would be interested in hearing who your favorite Canadian artist is. (And Anne Murray and Celine Dion — God bless them, they have their good points– aren’t really very near the Rock/Folk/Soul/ that I’m focusing on. But if those are your faves, that’s cool. We are inclusive here. Oh, forgot a good one: Most of The Band (Robbie Robertson).

I received this Northern Pikes album from a Canadian relative; it was their first studio album with a major label. Since its inception in 1984, the Northern Pikes have put out about 10 albums and charted many times in Canada. But as far as I can tell virtually unheard of in the states.

I have to admit I haven’t followed them and I don’t know my own album very well. One of those that gets overlooked when thumbing through hundreds of records to play something.

I was pleasantly surprised. It took me back to the jangly guitart sound of the REM-styled New Wave and the power pop trip of the Plimsouls, the Nerves and the Beat, which were California groups that shared members over time. But none, I think are still going at it like the Pikes who are still cranking albums and playing live.

Here’s a video of Teenland off their first album, followed by one of their highest charting songs called She Ain’t Pretty.

teenland sounds like plimsouls

80s sound but not the bad synth stuff good Cars-like guitar

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Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels — 302

ALBUM: ‘Wheels of Steel’ (10-inch 1983)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

A rare 10-inch record, the Mitch Ryder and Detroit Wheels album ‘Wheels of Steel.’

Yikes we are still in the ‘M’s. I believe this Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels record is the last one. That was a lot of M’s, but we need to keep going so I’m lining up my N’s — for artists like Neutral Milk Hotel, November Group, Harry Nilsson, and and others.

Remember I’m counting down my records — which when I started about two years ago– stood at 678.

Going with M for Mitch (alphabetizing the band not just Ryder).

For Ryder and band I have a 10-inch “collector’s” edition featuring the group’s best known works. ‘Devil with a Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly’ — said to be the best one-two punch combo in rock. Other raucous party tunes are ‘Jenny Take a Ride,’ the always fun party dance tune, ‘Shake a Tail Feather.’ Here’s line-up:

Side One
Jenny Take A Ride
Sock It To Me Baby
Little Latin Lupe Lu
You Get Your Kicks
Side Two
Devil With A Blue Dress On/ Good Golly Miss Molly
Breakout
Shake A Tail Feather
Too Many Fish In The Sea/ Three Little Fishes

Ryder was a real deal hard rock blues guy from Detroit –and possibly a little underrated.

According to AllMusic (which calls Ryder “the unsung hero” of Michigan rock and roll), Ryder withdrew from music after experiencing throat trouble,[1] moving to Colorado with his wife and taking up writing and painting. In 1983, Ryder returned to a major label with the John Mellencamp-produced album Never Kick a Sleeping Dog.

Interesting footnote from Wikipedia: Ryder was the last person to perform with Otis Redding, they performed the song “Knock On Wood”, on December 9, 1967, in Cleveland, Ohio, on a local TV show called Upbeat. Redding and four members of his touring band, The Bar-Kays, died in a plane crash near Madison, Wisconsin the following day, December 10, 1967.

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Puzzle? It’s my MVC Daily Journal, Oct. 18, 2019. (Got a clue? edition. )

My little puzzle appearing in my post on song lyrics Saturday is still unsolved — at least officially. Some people have indicated they now know the hidden theme. So, if you do klnow the answer, I say you need to either post it on comments on the lyrics story, Tweet it out (make sure I see Tweet), FaceBook it — or somehow get the word out what the secret theme is and how you found it hidden in my story.

ADDENDUM: There’s a 2nd level complexity to this that I don’t believe most will understand so I am asking for those who have uncovered the hidden message (1st layer), to let people know (or challenge them to find it.)

A curtain rises on someone thinking in concert.

As for the lyrics story itself, here’s some postscript suggestions from guitar man, Willie Moseley of Vintage Guitar Magazine.

 Last verse of “The Boxer” 

“In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders f every glove that laid him down 

or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame
‘I am leaving, I am leaving’ but the fighter still remains”

————————————–

Third verse of Billy Joel’s “Miami 2017”

“They sent a carrier up from Norfolk and picked the Yankees up for free

They said that Queens could stay, they blew the Bronx away

And sank Manhattan out at sea.”

(I recommend the live version of “Miami 2017” on Joel’s Songs in the Attic album)

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MVC’s best lines in songs story has a hidden message; Sleuths, share please

On Saturday I pulled the best lines that I could find in a reasonable amount of time and compiled them in a post on AL.com.

I broke them up into 10 categories of 5 song lyrics with the artist and name of the song on each one.

People weighed in via comments or emails some of their favorites. All good and fun. But no one to my knowledge has gotten it yet — it, being a larger message, a not-so-hidden message.

It’s as if one needs an Oracle to find the message.

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Joni Mitchell — 303

ALBUM: Court and Spark (1974)

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$

A poet, a poetess,

Does she know it, Heck yes.

Sorry, I couldn’t help that. Mitchell was one of the more literate pop stars in the 1970s and 80s. And the confidence in her word selection and playfulness in her jazzy delivery makes me think: She knows she is good.

She also is considered a top guitar player, usually playing on her acoustic.

“Free Man in Paris,’ and ” Help Me” were all over the radio in the mid-1970’s. Up until then she was known for ‘Big Yellow Taxi.” (They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.) It was a minor hit in the U.S. in 1970. (Counting Crows covered it not too many years ago.)

I was 14 or so and was discovering Queen, Aerosmith, Cream and Jimi Hendrix. Actually Elton John was a favorite as well. But to be honest the beauty of Court and Spark failed to hook me at that age. They were pleasant jazz/pop songs with intelligent lyrics. I must have absorbed it in the car. many years later before I found this album — her best I’m told — for about $4.

I’m not fond of the cover though. Mine is Tang-colored with art that is too small and too faded. Looks like a tattoo on a recipient with mottled yellow orange skin. Maybe QT accident.

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Daily journal Oct. 6, 2019 (‘Could 7 strings be the new 6 edition)

Here’s part of a post by Vintage Guitar magazine senior writer about a classic 7-string guitar and an Alabama man who owned one. In fact the Alabama man was integral in having it created.

Here’s a snippet written by Willie Moseley. Click on this link to see entire story on AL.com

Certain locations in the middle portion of Alabama are often cited as part of “Hank Williams Territory,” and for good reason—two thirds of a century after the country music icon’s passing, legends still abound regarding memorable Williams performances, as well as people and locations that inspired his songwriting.

However, one hasn’t heard too much about famous jazz musicians that hail from the same region, although Nat King Cole was born in Montgomery, and trumpeter Andres Ford, who was also from the Capitol City, gigged with Duke Ellington.

While musical genres such as country and western, rhythm and blues, rock and pop are usually saturated with (primarily-electric) guitars, notable jazz guitarists—Wes Montgomery being an obvious and handy example—have always had to compete with pianists, saxophone players, and other talented musicians plying their trade on their own respective instruments.

Jazz guitarist Relfe Parker Jr. (1918-2002) wasn’t famous, but he stuck to his guns regarding the music he loved to play. Moreover, he was the first guitarist to order and play a seven-string guitar handcrafted by a famous guitar builder (such artisans are known as a “luthiers”).

A resident of Wetumpka, Parker aspired to play jazz music for most of his life, even though he was compelled to perform other styles of music at times.Again you can click here for full story.

Also online at AL.com right now is a revisit to a song that one scientific study is the best they had found for lowering anxiety. Listen to the extended version (30 minutes) of the song and see if you can stay awake. There is a 24-hour version which I’ll try to find and post here. That means you could have reduced anxiety — by 65 percent these scientists say — all day long. (They should put it in dentists and doctors’ offices or wherever there is a stressful environment.

Here’s link. Remember don’t operate heavy machinery after listening to this: ‘Weightlessness.’

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Who really is the best rock guitarist?



We love lists in the media business. Readers sometimes complain about list stories but then read them voraciously.

But if you came for a list story here, you aren’t going to get one. This is more a Behind-the-List Story story.

They are very subjective, you know. Lists, rankings. Take best guitarists.

Is Eric Clapton really better than Carlos Santana? Was Jimi Hendrix really better than Stevie Ray Vaughn?

How about Nick Drake and Leo Kottke with their innovative acoustic folk, blues, rock? Is Pete Townshend on rhythm better than Keith Richards or their teacher, Chuck Berry?

I’d be hard pressed to find a better rock guitarist than Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin but there’s some old(er)-timers our there that say Alvin Lee of 10 Years After was the man. Listen to this live version of Woodchopper’s Ball.

Slow down, I’m getting to the point here. These lists usually encapsulate three things going on:

(1) Popularity of the artist and his or her songs, Clapton and Page are famous for working with some of the biggest selling bands of all time. Are they truly better guitarists than Steve Morse. Who? Steve Morse who played with the Dixie Dregs and is now with Deep Purple. He can play. Glenn Phillips, of the Atlanta area, is pretty much the best guitarist you’ve never heard of. In the same neighborhood, his student Bob Elsey of the Swimming Pool Q’s plays tasty licks without walking over anyone. How many of these guitarists can play Nancy Wilson’s intro to ‘Crazy on You.? Probably most of those in this company, with time and study, but I would venture to say Nancy’s would be the best version..

(2) Speed and long solo skills A lot of guitarists get noticed because they can shred. That is, hit X number of notes in x number of seconds, usually going up and down scales. That’s a useful skill set especially in metal, hard rock, punk and even guitar-based jazz. But it’s one tool. The best shredder may be mediocre playing folk blues, for example.

(3) Flamboyant style. Jimi Hendrix was truly innovative but it wasn’t all flamboyance in the cause of the music, it was aimed at the ‘show.’ I’m pretty sure Hendrix can play better with his fingers than his tongue. But tonguing a guitar solo will leave people with their jaws hanging.

These three factors I’m saying play a role in these ranking and probably should. But before you start talking about who is better, Eddie Van Halen or Yngwie Malmsteen, Prince or Queen’s Brian May, the Schenker brothers of Scorpions and UFO fame, let me proffer that perhaps the best guitar players are those that do what’s best for the song. Delivering a fine song with a guitar solo that lasted 5-minutes too long is not necessarily being a great guitarist.

So it comes to this: Duane Allman.

I’m not saying he’s the top guitarist of all time or anything. But he had an unusual grasp of what sound to put forth while playing a song. How loud. How soft. When to fill and when to cut loose. The story goes that Duane was doing some session work at like age 22 or so, at Muscle Shoals studios, backing the great Wilson Pickett on a cover of the Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude.’

Listen for the guitar in this as it starts. You have to concentrate because it’s in the background.

But it’s perfect, the fills. And as Pickett winds up, Allman with electric guitar is right there supporting the singer, whip snapping Pickett into his famous ‘yow’ screams.

“He stood right in front of me, as though he was playing every note I was singing,” Pickett said months later. “And he was watching me as I sang, and as I screamed, he was screaming with his guitar.”

Duane’s legend was picking up steam.

[If you secretly do like list stories and want to take a peek at the most underrated artists, albums and songs in my collection. CLICK



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His and Hurricanes (Part 11)

This is a serial story.

Scene: The Ocala People’s Forest in which lies Alexander Springs. Prosby tries to get to the portal in his efforts to go Underground to rescue Burneese. But dangers, such as lightning fast gators and the killer Abe Lincoln robot await.

Prosby was on high alert now. He’s was lucky to get out Boybando, even though he believed he could  have killed Justy with two well placed blows. He was walking the old 441 highway under a misty dark day. It was always a dark day these days, but this one was particularly dark. He passed Zellwood. He got close enough to Lake Apopka to smell it.

And hear the gators.

The gators over the decades had adapted to the algae choked body of water full of bones and submerged cars. They were smaller than the 10-footers you used to see there. But they were twice as quick and had more endurance when running.

A good 5 or  6 -foot  gator could top out at 25 mph for about 40 yards. The old way to escape a running gator was to serpentine, run side-to-side while continuing to go forward. The old big -300-pound-beasts beasts couldn’t follow the cuts and wore out after about 15 yards. But over hundreds of years there were fewer of the slower, big birds to catch and gators evolved to catch the smaller faster ones. Also squirrels, racoons, wild dogs and the occasional stupid human.

These new ones could catch you at about the 15 or 20-yard mark, bite off your foot so you couldn’t go anywhere, and drag you by your remaining foot to the lake . There they would submerge you in the water and let you rot for a few days in the pea-soup of a lake until the flesh fell off the bone – kind of like a cross between pulled pork and rotten sushi.

Prosby scanned the dark wooded area near the lakefront for the orange orbits that signal shiny gator eyes Seeing none, he kept walking.

The Ocala People’s Forest was no place to let your guard down as he passed by the towns of Eustis  and Umatilla. On the fringes of the forest in makeshift shacks lived drug makers who constantly fought each other, the meth makers versus the psychedelics producers who had a symbiotic relationship with the forest people, the descendants of generations of Hippies, societal dropouts who have camped in the forest for hundreds of years — and always stayed one step ahead  of the law, both local and federal. They lived deep in the enormous forest and at any given spot they were watching you – you couldn’t see them, but they could see you.

Prosby heard a voice, deep, forceful, robotic.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field …”

It was Abe Lincoln the DIzney Bot. The  killer Dizney bot walked like Frankenstein out of a dense wooded area into the clearing about 20 yards from Prosby. The Lincoln bot droned on.

“We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground.‘

Prosby noticed the bot didn’t really have hands – but at the end of one arm was an 18-inch dagger, and on the other was a small whirling circular saw that he kept turning off and on. WHHHRRRR WHRRRR.

The bot was walking at quite a pace toward Prosby.

Prosby tried engaging. “Hey Abe, whassup? Nice morning to recite the Gettysburg Address, no:?’

Honest Abe didn’t appear to be lying when he said, “I am programmed to kill you and I will kill you.”

Prosby knew the portal – Alexander Springs — was about 100 yards into the thick wooded area where the bot had just emerged. He figured better now than ever and decided against running away. He would run, taking an arc around the bot, dive into the spring and make it to the portal. Getting inside the portal required a rather deep swim downward. You have to able to hold your breath for at least a minute to break on through to the other side.

Prosby ran.

The bot followed, stiffly but swiftly still speechifying:

“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

Prosby saw the still waters of the spring and heard the WHHRRR behind him. There was little pain as the circular saw sliced into Prosby’s back like an electric knife carving a Thanksgiving turkey. It was a non lethal  wound Prosby thought. Defense was on his mind. He turned about 10 feet from the water to face the fake Abraham Lincoln who was running and winding up to do more carving. With the whirring buzzsaw advancing swiftly toward Prosby’s  face, he dropped to the ground on his sliced-up back and placed both feet firmly in the 250-pound life-sized robot’s midsection and pushed. Using the bot’s momentum against him, he pushed his legs like a squat sending Abe catapulting through the air. The bot completed a spectacular full flip before landing feet first in the spring.

Oh yeah. Prosby remembered with a smile, you never see Dizney bots swimming. In fact full submersion fries the bot’s circuits. Sparks shot out like Fourth of July fireworks. Abe thrashed around before slowly sinking like a melting witch.

The robot died gurgling the words of a long ago president who dreamed a dream for America. That the evil of killing, brothers and sisters, will be somehow turned to good.

’… that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, (gurgle) under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the (gurgle) people, for the people, shall not perish from ..(gurgle) …(silence) …..”

“The earth.”

Posby finished the last two words as the robot sank into the springs like just another stolen car into Lake Apopka.

Prosby drifted into unconsciousness.

This is the 11th in a series. Meant to be read in ascending order from 1 to 11 ….

To be continued …

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Daily Journal Thurday Sept. 5, 2019

Checking in to organize my thoughts. With the blog I can do these things — kind of like thinking aloud. As always appreciate help from the cheap seats. (There are no luxury boxes in my forum, sorry).

I’m working on a piece outlining my strategy to beat Lewy body dementia, based on my trial and error successes so far. I think it will be worthwhile for patients, caregivers, family and friends. This should be ready by Monday if not sooner, keep checking.

On the music front, I’m going to take a look at the most underrated albums, artists and songs in my collection (emphasis on IN MY COLLECTION). I’m still trying to figure out the format and the content. As always, I appreciate suggestions. I’m hoping to drop this over the weekend in close proximity of my regular My Vinyl Countdown column which points out that, in a way, Lewy body dementia is underrated in that it is often overlooked, misdiagnosed, misunderstood and not given credit for being the devastating disease it is.

NP: Gayle McCormick

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The Meters/Neville Brothers/Aaron Neville (solo) — 310, 309

ALBUMS: Fire on the Bayou (Meters 1975); Fiyo on the Bayou (Neville Brothers 1981) Make Me Strong (Aaron Neville, 1986)

MVC Rating: Meters, 4.5/$$$$$; Neville Brothers 4.0/$$$$; Aaron Nevile 4.0/$$$$.

Before the Neville Brothers were the Meters, playing New Orleans bayou roots music or whatever you may call it. I call it ‘swamp funk’ because there was some funky music going on. Art and Cyril Neville were in the Meters and the Neville Brothers.

Aaron Neville, who went on to become the best known of the four Neville brothers, as his voice, described as that of an angel singing, seeped into the public consciousness in a big way in during the 1980s. The Aaron album here is a compilation of early songs including the hit “Tell It Like It Is.” It might be the least expensive record here if you can find it. The Meters album is a collectible that will likely cost more than $25 (see MVC ratings explained) depending on condition.

Unfortunately my Meters record has a crack in it. Yet it still plays with very little surface noise right over the crack. I’ll keep it but likely will limit its playing time as I am worried it might damage my stylus. You should be able to find the Neville Brothers album for $10 to $15 in good condition (VG+).

I think I have reader in L.A. who might enjoy this Neville Brothers singing a classic ‘Brother John’ melded with Iko Iko (see video below).