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Electric Light Orchestra (blog yellow vinyl and bird edition) — 505, 504

Yellow vinyl on ELO disc entitled OLE.

ALBUMS: Ole’ ELO (1976); Outta the Blue (1977)

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$$$ Blue 4.5/$$$$$

My countdown continues with yellow vinyl.  Is that a sign?

You may have heard about the yellow bird.

A beautiful yellow cardinal, the result of a rare genetic mutation, has been photographed and videotaped here in the Birmingham area.

Now the bird is fathering babies. I hope they are each a different color.

So there’s the yellow bird flying free having babies and I have the yellow vinyl.

It’s a yellow record called ELO OLE, an early greatest hits album from the multimillion selling supergroup the Electric Light Orchestra. The yellow disc and ELO’s ‘Out of the Blue’ album are my NP (Now Playing) portion of my column.)  I will follow this NP with five records culled from deeper in my blog. Overall, since last September I have reviewed 169 records on the way to 678.  It’s all to bring awareness to Lewy body dementia, which I have. On with the Yellow Vinyl.

I recollect that it was approximately 1978 in Athens, Ga., when the local AM radio station, WRFC I believe, asked for caller number something would get this record. I called and I got it. I’ve opened it and have played it just a few times, left the shrink wrap on because thought it was special.

It was a promotional DJ copy and it is a little rare. Worth about $60 in this great condition, according to my perusal of the Internet. It’s good music too (as a bonus).

Jeff Lynne and ELO wanted to make music that combined grand symphonic features and flourishes. They fancied themselves taking up where the Beatles left off in such pieces as ‘A Day in the Life’ or ‘Magical Mystery Tour.’

And they did well. This yellow disc compilation of early ‘hits’ is a fascinating look at how the group was blending orchestral instruments with rock and roll. You can almost hear them testing the waters with OLE. On ‘10538 Overture’ and ‘Kuiama’, they are very much in ‘prog’ rock territory. Cellos and violins and synthesizers sweep around on various floors of this musical building. As the album progresses you can guess where this group is headed: Hitsville baby.

I got proof of that in my other  ELO album, ‘Out of the Blue,’ which was a two-record worldwide hit that seemed to spawn endless amounts of Top 40 hits.

Now there’s no question these guys were good at what they did – but they couldn’t ever really get the respect? Was it an Eagles thing I’ve addressed before? Or like Dire Straits, they just got so big they weren’t ‘cool’ any more? Again. I say it’s an undeserved lack of respect. They sell multimillions of records by being bad? Like Yogi Berra said, nobody goes there anymore it’s too crowded. That said, they started going for the pop  life about the same time I was moving away from it. So songs like ‘Strange Magic,’ though catchy, is not something I’d choose on a jukebox. ‘’Boy Blue,’ maybe.

Addressing this lack of respect issue I can’t help but remember this unfortunate moment about ELO. At the George Harrison tribute concert, a band of superstars commenced  playing ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps.’ Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and their respective band members, and Harrison’s son, Dhani Harrison. Anyway, the ELO guitarist is just jamming away, soloing, picking, doing a pretty good job.

Then Prince emerges from the other side of the stage. Prince had reportedly left the rehearsal of the song in a huff, fired his sound guy, so there was a lot of uncertainty what if anything Prince’s performance would be.

Here’s description from a New York Times story:

The Petty rehearsal was later that night. And at the time I’d asked him to come back, there was Prince; he’d shown up on the side of the stage with his guitar. He says hello to Tom and Jeff and the band. When we get to the middle solo, where Prince is supposed to do it, Jeff Lynne’s guitar player just starts playing the solo. Note for note, like Clapton. And Prince just stops and lets him do it and plays the rhythm, strums along. And we get to the big end solo, and Prince again steps forward to go into the solo, and this guy starts playing that solo too! Prince doesn’t say anything, just starts strumming, plays a few leads here and there, but for the most part, nothing memorable.

So when the real thing went down, some didn’t even know Prince was playing.

More NYT:  The group featured Tom Petty and two other members of the Heartbreakers, as well as Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood, Dhani Harrison (George’s son) and Prince, himself an inductee that year. Marc Mann, a guitarist with Mr. Lynne’s band, played Eric Clapton’s memorable solo from the album version of the song. But Prince, who essentially stood in the dark for most of the performance, burned the stage to the ground at the song’s end.

The ELO guy didn’t know what hit him. Probably still doesn’t. Petty’s mouth hung open. Harrison’s son shook his head with a huge smile.

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My Vinyl Countdown Top Posts (update)

I’ve reviewed 167 albums on my way to knocking off the 678 that makes up my collection. That means 511 to go. I do them and post them in alphabetical order, for the most part. That number you see beside the reviews is where that record fell in the countdown.

For example King Sunny Ade is 678 and 677 because his two albums I own made up my first post.

Below are my Top 10 music countdown posts based on hits (pageviews). The next Top 10 are my blog essays on various topics often related to my dealing with having Lewy body dementia.

My top 10 vinyl record reviews.

Dave Davies — 544, 543

Dolly Parton — 556, 555, 554 

The Allman Brothers Band — 671

Dickey Betts — 649, 648

King Sunny Ade — 678, 677

The Alarm – 675

Bo Diddley — 531

When Particles Collide — 606

The Beatles Mystery– 644, 643

Aerosmith — 676

 

Top 10 Posts that Were Not Countdown Music Reviews

 

Another hugging, this has got to stop

Saying goodbye to the Rev. Shannon Webster at First Presbyterian Church Birmingham.
 Some People are Mean

My brief encounter with a mean person.
Porter and Me

Lessons for me from a youngster who had a fatal genetic disease.
Today is Silent Saturday

I found out what Silent Saturday means.
How the heck am I doing?

I’m doing fine or not so fine.
Words, don’t fail me now

My biggest challenge and biggest fear.
Yellow Bird sighting. Is it a sign?

A rare yellow Cardinal spurs wonder at the  universe.
Me and My Old Boss

Upon seeing my former boss in memory care facility.
I Have to Laugh (To Keep from Crying)

It’s true. I tell how I keep laughing.

 
Gordon Hayward, broken bones and Lewy body dementia

 

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Walter Egan — 506

ALBUM: ‘Not Shy’ (1978)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$

This Lindsey Buckingham-produced album is a perfect cutout. High expectations for this. It  had one ‘hit.’ A couple of good songs. The rest, fodder.

Plus it had a big portrait of the artist’s face on the cover, similar to the cover of a Buckingham solo project I reviewed here.

The hit was ‘Magnet and Steel’ which sounded nice —  the whole album  had high production values but the analogy?

‘You are the magnet and I am the steel.’

Two albums, two different people. but you think Lindsey Buckingham (L) who produced Walter Egan’s album, and Egan went to the same photographer for cover shoot>

Really? I’m trying to quit the use of ‘Really? But really? Go away simplistic and utterly useless metaphor. It conjures up scenes from  a car junkyard with that big old magnet thing coming down from crane: Whomp, I am the magnet, you are the crumpled  up steel that used to be a car. How about you are the honey I am the bee, or, bear, or, you are the pile, I am the fly. OK being gross. But didn’t any one of his Fleetwood Mac buddies say anything?

I was a senior in HS. I remember going what? Sounded like a TV show. Tonight’s episode of  “Magnet and Steel’ will see our crack detectives solve another crime and then come together like, well, “Magnet and Steel.”

If this is a sexual reference as I saw one commenter suggest, then this  critique may be a little harsh, in other words, at least it has a two-level meaning for ‘steel.’

Now there are a couple of songs I do like. ‘Make it Alone’ is good stuff. Hard riff, break-up song, guitar driven.  ‘Hot Summer Nights‘ was on the radio momentarily. My favorite though is ‘Just the Wanting,’ a torrid little piece of a love song with one-bended guitar string all the way through. (see video below)

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Scientists find top song to lower anxiety, sounds a little like Pink Floyd

A website, Hack Spirit, has thrown out a headline I can’t resist riffing off of.

Neuroscience says this one song reduces anxiety by 65 percent

Given the venom I’ve seen spewed toward the Eagles, I’d guess it’s not ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling.’

I don’t know the science behind it but I do know music has helped me tremendously in my fight against Lewy body dementia, a degenerative brain disease (cousin of Parkinson’s).

I can think of lots of records/songs that help me relax, like George Winston or the soundtrack to Local Hero or some Miles Davis. Catherine, my spouse, has CDs specifically designed to help her meditate and relax

So what  about this one song Hack Spirit is telling us about?

The website writes:  A team of UK neuroscientists conducted a study on sound therapy. Participants had to attempt to solve puzzles, which induced stress, while wearing sensors attached to their bodies. They then had to listen to different songs while researchers measured brain activity and recorded their heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure, reports Inc.com and Ideapod.

According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top track to produce a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date was “Weightless” by Marconi Union.

Well, I listened to the song and it sounded like the quieter parts of a Pink Floyd album. You know where they just  drift off into a low rhythm space. It’s just like that — though at any moment I expect to hear David Gilmore’s guitar phase in. Tangerine Dream might be another reference point for you aging Baby Boomer rockers.

I did feel relaxed and almost felt like a nap after listening to ‘Weightless’

Kind of cool. If you’re feeling extra stressed Hacker Spirit has found nine more sleep inducing tunes and have posted them on their site hackspirit.com, including one by Adele and one by Coldplay.

I can believe it about Coldplay. Zzzzzzz.

Here’s the top ‘scientific’ pick:

 

 

 

 

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The Earl Slick Band — 507

ALBUM: Razor Sharp (1976)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

I remember exactly why I got this record but not where.

Earl Slick played guitars on one of my all time favorite albums, Tonio K’s ‘Life in the Foodchain.’ The wall of guitar sound on songs like the title song are amazing.  Of course that album also had legendary surf rock guitar  player Dick Dale, and country guitar great Albert Lee, among others, so that was a good picking group.

The Slick album is fairly generic hard rock. Kind of like Bad Company without the great hooks, or UFO without the in-your-face blasts of metal guitar.

But Slick can play.

Some of his solos mid-song really made me sit up and listen.  As a guitar fan,I will keep this record out and play it some more.

I could definitely hear that distinct wailing guitar sound he contributed to Foodchain. (Dale I believe contributed the clucking chicken guitar noise to  Foodchain’s ‘Funky Western CIvilization.’)

Slick played on several tours with David Bowie and also worked with John Lennon post-Beatles.

The unusual thing about the  Slick’s record, ‘Razor Sharp,’ and probably one of the things that pushed me to buy it is it’s odd cover.

It has a  three dimensional depiction of a  razor blade with what is obviously supposed to be blood dripping and a slit, an actual slit, in the front cover as if the razor had made it. (See the pictures).

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My lesson in racial profiling

Every Saturday I post a round-up of this blog for readers of AL.com

Here’s this week’s top of the story. Click on link at bottom to read full piece.

It’s Saturday and time for my vinyl countdown AL.com update.

I have five artists here taken from my collection of 678 records, which I am trying to count down (review and list) before my degenerative brain disease makes it impossible. I have so far reviewed more than 150 records on myvinylcountdown.com blog. I encourage you to explore that blog for the countdown plus essays on life, journalism, basketball and whatever might be on my mind.

But every Saturday I do a catch-up, reaching back into the archives, for those who may not be following my blog regularly, and offering up condensed versions of those on my blog. Today I have five widely divergent records (remember I collected these in the ‘1970s and 1980s when I was in my teens and 20s.) As regular readers know I also do a NP (Now Playing) to show the latest reviewed piece.

In the Kurtis Blow review I recall an incident that inspired my headline: Lesson in racial profiling.

The numbers represent where the albums are in the alphabetical, descending countdown format.  In other words 678 would be the first record I reviewed (King Sunny Ade, whose A-name put him first in line).

Go here for full  story on AL.com story.

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The Easybeats — 508

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ALBUM: The Easybeats ‘Friday on My Mind’ (1985, compilation)

MVC Rating:  4.0/$$$

I can’t quite figure out the Easybeats, the 60’s-era band from Australia. This could be framed as a tale of two videos by the Aussie band, one bad beyond redemption, one amazing beyond compare. But more on that later.

Billed as Australia’s answer to the Beatles, they had two truly great songs:  ‘Friday on My Mind” and ‘Good Times’ are rock songs that  rank among the best, dare I say, or at least in the better category in our historical referencing language. ‘Friday’ is No. 726 on Dave Marsh’s list of the top 1001 songs of all time. Looking at that list, which I have in the form of an actual 1989 book, I’d move ‘Friday” up and put ‘Good Times,’ which isn’t even on the list, higher than Friday or at least on par.

‘Good Times’ probably loses points for inane lyrics, but the old film footage of the band doing this song has rock screamer lead vocalist Stevie Wright doing a flying knee drop at the right time. Not to be missed although the singing doesn’t always match the lips, if you know what I mean.

In the pantheon of rock songs, these two songs are hanging out at Itchycoo Park. (Damn that’s bad writing). But that Small Face pantheon, er, or park is not a bad place to be. OK let me just say it. Good Times wins by sheer force of it balls-out music and singing. Friday wins by capturing in words and music the powerful promises of an upcoming weekend.

But still it’s hard, as I said earlier, to understand this band, which is later linked to AC/DC through band members George Vanda and Harry Young.  Young was the older brother of Angus and Malcolm of AC/DC and were connected to that group through songwriting and production work. I’ll have more about V&Y when I review Flash and the Pan, a bizarre Vanda and Young project that generated several albums.

Back to the Easybeats. My main issue is that as good as those two songs are, I expected more hidden gems on this greatest hits albums. Instead I wander through what sounds like early Kinks outtakes or Dave Clark Five b-sides. Sounds like the band came unglued, torn between a hard-rocking psychedelic-tinged sound (Heaven and Hell) and hitsmakers a la early era Beatles thing (She’s So Fine.)

Their version of the much covered ‘River Deep/Mountain High’ is decent enough. I don’t know what to think of ‘Heaven and Hell’ whose title and lyrics got it banned in some places. It’s riveting in a rendition done on French TV but riveting in that your frozen in place if this could be heaven or this could be hell.

‘Come and See Her,’ which is not on the album fortunately but is captured on YouTube is  inexplicably bad. What are they doing? I can barely watch it. Is this the  band that has a live performance of ‘Good Times’ which I think is one of the best rock songs of that era. (INXS covered it years later, but the song never got the notice it deserved). Maybe it was all too easy. Easy fever.

Here’s their most popular song:

So two videos. One hideous and one brilliant. Either way, enjoy them here:

 Worst video.

Did you  catch the young woman dancing in the background at the end? She appeared to have pulled  her arms out of the socket or something. Anyway, here’s what I think is their best rock song (performance). CLICK HERE.

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The Eagles –511, 510

ALBUMS: Eagles Greatest Hits (1976), Hotel California (1976)

MVC Rating: Hotel 4.0/$$; Hits 4.0/$$

Get over it people. The Eagles are the most maligned great band of all time.  And that’s not right.  And these records, both from 1976, are two of the biggest selling albums of  all time.

Part of this venom comes from  cooler-than-thou anti-commercial snobs. That sentiment hounds all bands that get popular or have a song or two go into the stratosphere. This whole attitude was famously and hilariously sent up in the movie The Big Lebowski when the Dude screamed to turn off the radio: “I hate the f——g  Eagles.”

I believe  the Coen brothers were poking fun at this superiority rip that some get on with popular music. That said, the line would not have worked as well with Beatles subbing for Eagles. Why? I seriously wonder. It’s too easy to say the Beatles were better. The Beatles were pioneers. The Eagles were hitmakers trodding on the familiar ground of country-rock.

Hotel California is a great multi-faceted song instrumentally, and lyrically it opens itself up for numerous interpretations. That’s a good thing (see Dylan). When this song came on the radio and you were 17 in high school, it meant the night was kicking in. It means the door was open for just about anything. Funny, a song about decadence and greed in a subculture of Los Angeles could find common ground with Georgia southern boys and girls. But that’s how I remember it in high school in Athens, Ga.. in 1976-77. We didn’t have ‘ a dark desert highway’ but we had pine forest backroads.

Then music emanating  from a cassette tape in your car, you’d turn it up as ‘Life in the Fast Lane ‘ kicks in.

Other great songs? ‘Take it Easy,’ ‘Witchy Woman’ ‘Lyin’ Eyes,’ ‘Desperado, and on. (Not a fan of ‘Best of My Love,’ though.  Too slow and syrupy.)

Madeleine Chapman on The Spinoff, a blog from New Zealand (see this hate debate  has made it around the world), says this:

…. Half of the people who claim to hate the Eagles today just say so because their too-cool-for-soft-rock-I-only-listened-to-David-Bowie parents hated the Eagles. … There’s no logic besides if even my lame Dad hates them, they must be bad. And that would be totally fine if people weren’t so proud of their hate.

The Eagles get tagged with being misogynistic. A quick Google around and I saw their name linked to misogyny but no good examples. They write a lot about broken relationships. There are some obvious break-up songs e.g. ‘Lyin’ Eyes.’ Is ‘Witchy Woman sexist?’ ‘ Raven hair, ruby lips, sparks fly from her fingertips?’

“It’s a girl my Lord in a flatbed Ford turning around to take a look at me” from ‘Take it Easy.

Here’s one from ‘Hotel California:’

Her mind is Tiffany twisted, she got the  Mercedes Benz/ She got a lot of pretty pretty boys she calls friend.

Dunno.

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Sayings to live by, or adjacent to, or in the same block of

NOTE: A different version of this is posted on AL.com here.

One day recently, I happened to be hanging around with myself and overheard some of the things I say. I’m a fan of Steven Wright so some sounded like him. Some sounded like Mark Twain on a day when he wasn’t feeling well. Will Rogers? Well Will he?

Anyway here they are. My joy would be that you stick them on that refigerator called Facebook.

  • I have a memory disorder. I remember things before they happen. After they happen?  Not so  much.
  • Heard of food for thought? Well I’ve got some thoughts give me some food.
  • One of the symptoms of Lewy body dementia is hallucinations. I had one yesterday but it turned out I was dreaming that I was  hallucinating.
  • Digital divide, digital first, digital upload, middle  digital.
  • Life is what happens when you’re sitting in traffic.
  • I’m learning to feel deja vu on demand.
  • I know it sounds paranoid, but I’m paranoid.
  • I believe in God because I don’t want to have to learn quantum physics.
  • Think quickly, speak slowly
  • I don’t want to get out of my comfort zone.
  • Where is my comfort zone?
  • Eat early  and often.
  • Love is not saying you have a pimple on your nose. But do you have to say your sorry if you do?
  • Freedom is just another word for having left your cell phone at home.
  • Dylan said you got to keep on keeping on but  I’m not sure what I’m keeping on.
  • I like writing quotes from myself because I don’t have to fact check them.
  • A simile is like a word/ a metaphor is a word. That’s my analogy anyway.
  • Mark Twain said everything except for  those things Will Rogers said.
  • My guilty pleasure philosopher is Socrates because he was too lazy to write all of his sayings down. Instead, he enlisted Aristotle and Plato.
  • Steven Wright asks if you are in a spaceship going  the speed of light, what happens when  you turn the lights on.? I ask what happens if your going the speed of sound and you turn the radio on?
  • I see a lot of dogs walking people these days.

If  you like those, then, well, read them again. I got no more. At least right now.

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My Vinyl Countdown Updates — Hoops, summer reading, CD’s

UPDATE ON UPDATE: Am planning on making my train song announcement by end of day tomorrow. WEDNESDAY.

 

Coupla, three, four  things:

Mike practices his stand-up.

We are working on putting together the second  annual Mike’s Madness 3 on 3 basketball tournament to raise money and awareness for Lewy body dementia. Keep checking for details  here, but should be in and around late July.

I am publishing tomorrow on AL.com  an expanded stand-up comedy routine which I was playing around with in December. Watch for it. This could lead to an actual stand-up, or sit down  in front of real people. Here’s the link.

I’ve had so many bosses. Mostly good. One of the best, Michael Ludden hired me away from the Birmingham News in 1987 to work for the Orlando Sentinel. He was involved as an editor in a Pulitzer Prize winner in the investigative category about asset forfeiture, a pioneering work in its day done by friends/colleagues Steve Berry and Jeff Brazil.  Anyway he’s got a novel out that I’m going to read. This is saying something because Lewy body dementia  isn’t great for book-reading. You read five chapters and then pick it up two days later and, damn, where was I? So I have waited for some time off to dive into this one, which looks like a page-turner.

I have a beach trip coming up and I’m taking this and finishing this in between big grouper sandwiches and body surfing. Check his book out. It’s on Amazon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CD’s. I do a vinyl record blog but while hanging out in my ‘Man Cave’/listening room today I started going through some boxes of CD’s I have a lot. Unfortunately I had many hundreds in giant jukebox CD player. So my CDs are all pulled out of their plastic cases and the paper inserts are pulled out as well. Bottom line:  a big mess of lots of CDs that needs an assembly line to get done.

Without the covers, the CD’s lose most their value. So, I”m thinking on what I should do here. All the while maintaining my LP countdown.

Lastly I posted on AL.com  today the weekly Saturday countdown story here.