No fish catching for the first time in my last three or four outings at Smith Lake. That’s all well and good. I forgot my gloves and pliers, and I was worried about having to barehand the fish while digging a deep set hook or lure out of its mouth.
I always felt kind of bad for throwing fish back after doing that to them. I mean, here I am, using trickery to rip a bass out of the water while it pursues its constitutional right to seek food smaller than itself.
The sudden change of environment must seem to the fish like it has entered a different dimension.
Upon throwing the fish back in, I imagine it would feel a lot like I did last week before the getaway to the lake. I went to the dentist and received two crowns and replaced a bridge. At times during the two-hour- tooth chiseling, it felt like a hook was in my mouth. (Props to my dentist, though, for a job well done.)
As I was saying, I didn’t catch anything so that was one less worry off my mind as my wife and I sank into vacation mode. Vacation mode is where you put things into perspective and push sad thoughts away.
We sat on the dock, fishing poles by our sides, and inhaled fresh air. The trees were fiery, oranges, yellows and reds. They seemed to have been painted by children using water colors.
On our first day, a beaver swam close to Catherine who was standing on the dock. She said, ‘Aren’t you a cute little otter?’
And that’s when the animal turned over and smacked his tail like a paddle in the water.
I was not an eyewitness.
But she made sure I would see the red moon.
On Friday, she woke me up around 2:30 a.m. to go stand outside and gaze at the moon, which by golly was red or reddish. I was in a daze. I was wearing shorts, a bathrobe with no shoes or slippers. It was freezing. My feet kept finding the sharpest rocks.
I said in my Chevy Chase at the Grand Canyon voice: ‘Beautiful, time to go now.’
But it’s the longest lunar eclipse to occur in nearly 600 years, she said, obviously thrilled with her job as tour guide of the night sky from somewhere near Arley, Alabama.
I wondered: How did I get so lucky to be in that small fraternity of people who get to stand on shards of granite and peer into the sky in 38 F weather, looking at something — now get this — named the Beaver Moon.
It was a good ‘vacay’ though. We built campfires, made S’mores, read books and watched much of the first season of ‘Bewitched’ on TV.
Oh. and just one tip to somehow tie all this into music: Don’t start thinking about the instrumental theme song of ‘Bewitched.’ It gets stuck in your head.
ALBUMS: Skylarkin’ (1986); Waxworks — Some singles 1977-1982 and Beeswax — Some B-sides 1977-1982 (NOTE: B-sides album came with the purchase of Waxworks).
XTC’s songs hold up well because of their songwriting craft. The band managed to inoculate themselves from the excesses of the synth pop vs. protopunk scene in 1970s and 1980s England.
A Rolling Stone critic called XTC alternative music for people who don’t like alternative music.
The Waxworks collection shows how their songwriting evolved to beat the stigmatization of being labeled ‘alternative music.’ By the time the band issued Skylarkin, it was being compared to the Kinks, the Who and the Beatles.
That’s heady company, and it wasn’t all happy times. The band was involved in a years-long contract dispute with its label due to an unfavorable contract signed in their youth which gave them no ownership of their music.
Though they didn’t ever really hit the big time, they did make the Top 40 chart a few times. The band also became hot on college radio stations following a song on Skylarkin’ called ‘Dear God,’ with provocative lyrics such as: I won’t believe in heaven or hell, no saints, no sinners, no devil as well, no pearly gates, no thorny crown, you’re always letting us humans down ….I don’t believe in you, dear God.
The song’s irony is that it’s framed as a prayer to God, invoking the phrase ‘Dear God’ throughout, something I would suppose required a certain level of belief. I think that was the writer, Andy Partridge’s intention.
The album produced byTodd Rundgren has a great sound and flow with Beatlesque sound production.
His voice sounds like Bob Dylan with a chest cold. His songs, full of muted horns, and simple piano tinkling, hearken back to Tin Pan Alley with a venture into beatnik culture.
From ‘Down in the Hole,’ which became part of the theme music of the acclaimed mini-series ‘The Wire:’ If you walk with Jesus, he will save your soul, got to keep the devil, down in the hole.
This lyric from I’ll Be Gone: Tonight I’ll shave the mountains, I’ll cut the hearts from pharoahs, I’ll pull the road off the rise, I’ll tear the memories from my eyes, And in the morning I’ll be gone.’
If you are intrigued by Joe Cocker singing jazzy Frank Sinatra style songs with enigmatic Dylan-like lyrics in a smoky San Francisco beatnik bar, Waits is your man.
My 1987 album on vinyl is kind of rare. You can pick this up on CD for $10 or $15 but the original 1987 press will likely set you back more than $50, at least.
You know who I thought of after listening to the album over several days. He sings like Louis Armstrong –the always hoarse ‘Satchmo.’
I’m kind of surprised I don’t have more Who records. I was a fan of their rock operas: ‘Tommy’ and ‘Quadrophenia,’ but I guess I listened to them so much with friends who were Who fanatics, I just never bought them. (How I don’t have ‘Who’s Next’ is unforgiveable though.)
I do have Tommy as performed by the London Philharmonic but I obtained that just recently so I’m not counting it in my Countdown.
For my money Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy is one of the top greatest hits compilations of all time. It captures all the early stuff like ‘My Generation,’ ‘I Can See for Miles,’ ‘Substitute,’ ‘Pinball Wizard,’ and even ‘Magic Bus.’
These early song reveal a quartet of great musicians playing original songs (mostly by guitarist Pete Townshend).
Re-listening to the songs again after all these years had me focusing on the rhythm section — one of the best in rock music. John Entwistle on bass had few peers. Go put a Who song put it on and try to focus on the bass. He died several years ago. And Keith Moon — also deceased — was a maniac on the drums. Add lead sing Roger Daltrey and guitarist extraordinaire Pete Townshend and you had nearly the perfect band.
I think I sort of burned out on the Who after seeing them in concert in the 80’s and they were loud to the point of distortion and hearing loss. ‘Who Are You’ was an album I decided not to buy. The presage to this moving away from the Who was the movie version of Tommy. Roger Daltrey movie star and overexposure was starting to creep.
In 1975, I bought The Who by Numbers, which was low key and really good (probably one of their most underrated.) But radio picked up on ‘Squeeze Box, a novelty tune, and played it to death.
My wildcard in all of this is ‘Odds and Sods,’ a collection of early outtakes, alternate takes and just lost-in-the-vault songs.
The surprising thing was it had some real strong songs such as ‘Pure and Easy,’ ‘Too Much of Something,’ and ‘Put the Money Down,’ and ‘Faith in Something Bigger.’ My wife, then girlfriend, Catherine’s favorite ‘Now I’m A Farmer’ (And I’m digging, digging, digging, digging). The song is about getting out of the city and growing vegetables, even gourds. This was the Who’s back-to-nature song akin to the Kinks‘ ‘I’m an Apeman.’
Well, he gets an A for effort but have mercy, this is a whiplash record. You get whiplash from the sudden shifts from smooth Top 40 style cuts to hard experimental jazz to soul shout outs and guitar histrionics.
Winter has his bluesy brother Johnny along for the ride. For that matter he has much of his regular band which records as the Edgar Winter Group, including Rick Derringer and Dan Hartman. That band was known for its top 40 hits ‘Free Ride’ and ‘Frankenstein.’
The brothers Winter were born with albinism (a deficit of skin pigment) and on the cover and on inside art, photos show both men sporting long white locks. Edgar started his career in a band called White Trash.
This album produced no break-out hits but had several cuts that seem like they could have — most notably the maudlin, but catchy, lead song ‘Tell Me In a Whisper.’
‘Hello Mellow Feelin’ and the rocker ‘Shuffle Low,’ also stand out.
The World Party record I reviewed yesterday had a song called ‘Ship of Fools.’ I remembered I also had a song with the same name on a Robert Plant solo album, and, I had one with yet again the same name on a Bob Seger album.
None of the songs on vinyl were the same song. They just shared the same titles.
A little Google research and 10 minutes later I found that Levi Asher writing for Litkicks.com discovered the same thing by looking at his Apple playlist. He had Seger, Plant and World Party but he also found songs entitled Ships of Fools by the Grateful Dead, the Doors, and John Cale.
He used his discovery to trace the usage of the phrase Ship of Fools which goes back to Plato. It’s fascinating but we aren’t doing that here. See this link if you want more on that.
Let’s get a little inter-active here. Below I am linking to all of these versions. And I’d like you to tell me which one you like best. I’ll tell you my pick at a later date. Mainly because I need to refresh my memory on some of these or most of these.
Southern fried blues rock at its best. While Bobby Whitlock is best known for his work as a band member or side musician, he has done some fine solo work as well.
The credentials are impressive for this husky voiced pianist.
He tasted his first piece of success as a member of Delaney and Bonnie where he met Eric Clapton who was in his band-hopping stage.
He then played, as did Clapton, on George Harrison’s magnum opus ‘All Things Must Pass.’
One of the best songs on Rock Your Sox off is ‘Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad’ with its onslaught of guitar rock/blues. The song was originally recorded by Derek and the Dominos, which included Whitlock, Clapton, Jim Gordon, Carl Radle and Duane Allman. Penned by Whitlock and Clapton, the song was one of the highlights on one of the best all time albums, ‘Layla’ by Derek and the Dominos.
Whitlock reinterprets the song a bit but remains mostly faithful to the original.
Four guitarists played on this Whitlock-Clapton penned-cut: Jimmy Nalls, lead guitar; Dru Lombar, electric guitar; Larry Howard, acoustic guitar; Ricky Hirsch, slide guitar.
Nalls, a prolific and respected guitarist, died of complications from Parkinson’s disease in 2017 at the age of 66; he died following a fall at home, according to his website.
Birmingham native Chuck Leavell (Allman Bros., Sea Level) sits in on keyboards on three of the album’s eight tracks.
In a footnote, Whitlock recently has been on social media blasting the re-mastering job for ‘All Things Must Pass.” It’s stirred up a hornet’s nest of an internet debate which of the re-mix is the best. There’s the original mix, the 30th Anniversary mix and the 50th anniversary mix.
I just bought the 50th Anniversary edition and it sounds very fine to me, if not a little smoothed over. But it’s clean, and I think the voices have been pushed up in some songs.
The producer’s and engineers, including Harrison’s son, Dhani Harrison, pushed back Phil Spector’s original ‘wall of sound’ version. I’ve never had this album so I don’t really have anything to compare with. Check back in a year or so and I’ll let you know.
Who said life is boring? From another person’s view, my life is pretty boring. I am somewhat limited by my brain disease. So I don’t drive, I can’t (or, at least, I’m not supposed to) take walks near or far by myself.
I’m going to lead you through a ‘boring’ day for me in an effort to show that living with Lewy body dementia doesn’t mean you can’t smile as the hand of God stirs the pot.
It was Monday, earlier this week, and my youngest daughter, Claire, called me to see if I wanted to go shopping for shoes, among other things. Why sure, I said.
Shopping with my grown- up daughters usually consists of walking around with the daughter for about 10 minutes then hastily seeking a chair. This pattern proved true on this day. I sat in a chair at the front of the store and watched people. That is really more fun than it seems, but its excitement has a short expiration date; luckily Claire arrived in a short time with some items. I’m pretty sure she bought some shoes.
Then we went to Target where she continued to shop for clothes. I wandered over to the section that had vinyl records. Little known fact, you can get some get good records — high quality re-mastered slabs of vinyl at Target and other like-minded stores such as Bed Bath and Beyond. There’s not a huge selection, mostly current best sellers. But they usually have the new re-issued classsics.
I saw George Harrison’s classic ,three-record box set called All Things Must Pass. I had to have it. (Remember we are living in the moment here.) This was a hefty box recently released on the 50th anniversary of its original recording release, and I guess they charged by the pound as it was $69.99. Whew, I dropped the box like it was on fire.
Dang, can’t say that I’ve ever spent that much on a record. If you follow my blog, you will know that about 75 percent of my collection are used or cutouts, or lucky finds at garage sales and thrift stores. With $75, I could probably find 10 good albums at a well-stocked record store or thrift shop.
And this is the smallest version of the set issued in several iterations at higher prices including a crate.
I have sold a couple or three records for that amount and above, so I do have an inkling for what records are worth. In this case you have a classic recording, re-mastered for sound quality, lyric sheets, a poster and, a booklet with photos and such.
I started seeing this as a good value. I’ve wanted this since about age 16, but it was pricey and for the reasons mentioned I felt better spending that money on several records.
I was in a kind of reverie or brain drain as I held the album and shook it ever so lightly to see if it had all the ‘stuff’ in there. I walked away without the album and went to look for Claire. Couldn’t find her. That was the sign I was waiting for.
I went back and snagged the album, found Claire and hustled to the check-out line before I changed my mind. Claire made some comment like ‘whoa’ when she saw the record and its price tag. I had a $50 bill and some other paper money in my wallet — but not enough. I dug through the cubby holes in my wallet and rooted around in my pockets. A few bucks brought me up to about $60 on a $75 purchase. I asked Claire for money, but she doesn’t carry cash like most young adults her age.
So as the chatter got louder in the ever-growing line I negotiated a deal where I split the purchase into two payments by credit card and the rest in cold hard cash.
The clerk said something like ‘They said vinyl records wouldn’t last but they are going strong.’ ‘Yup.’ I said.
On the way home Claire said to me ‘I see what you did there. Break the payments into two receipts, and show Mom just one.’
What? I said with fake indignation. Who have I raised here? She would think that I would try to hide a purchase from the mother of my children? How could she even come up with that idea?
I let out an evil laugh, or maybe just an evil snicker: “Exactly,’ I said.
I think my daughter was wagging her finger at me. I was waiting to hear what Claire’s blackmail demands would be when I had a thought.
I’ll tell Catherine it was my birthday present from her.
Catherine met us at the door and she immediately asked how much?
‘Um, well, let’s see …” I started digging through my pockets for one receipt. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell a lie. I told her it was sixty-something which was either a half-truth or half-lie because it was really seventy-something. But take away the taxes and bingo I have a sixty-something dollar record, right? The rules are loose in this deft game of deception.
Then … a breakthrough.
I told her it would be my birthday present, upcoming in November. She said that’s perfect, “I’ve been struggling trying to figure out what to give you.’
She was happy, I was happy. I now have a classic record, considered the best solo project from a solo Beatle.
That night as I was making a song request to Alexa — the feminine robotic DJ — to play something, she suddenly got the urge to ask me help her fill out a profile on me and asked some pretty intense questions like what kind of music I like. And then she played some seductive love song by the Avett Brothers.
I looked at my wife and asked ‘Where did that come from?’
Catherine rolled her eyes and said, ‘She’s flirting with you.’
I felt a little dizzy and turned the volume down of the song as Catherine laughed.
So, as I look back over this, yes, it could have been a boring day. Home to store and back again.
Yet somehow it wasn’t.
We are given only a finite number of days. Enjoy them while you can. Because all things must pass.
New wavers of the 1980s run to your closet, pull out that box of vinyl and find the Woodentop’s very excellent album, ‘Giant.’
If you did what I did oh so many years ago, you played it once or twice and put it in the closet without any real testing. Very good album with all sorts of swirling rhythms. Drummer Benny Staples is excellent for this upbeat, bopping music.
They have a subdued B-52s feel, with a British accent. Like Morrissey on happy juice.
