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The Boomtown Rats — 629

ALBUM: A Tonic for the Troops (1978)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

Half of this album, the first side, is pretty good. Starting with Rat Trap, which is not a bad little  Springsteen knock-off with some Meatloaf thrown in. The next songs on side 1 flow  righteously through I  Never Loved Eva Braun to Like Clockwork. She’s So Modern ( ‘she’s so 1970s’ — ha ha) is one on the other side I like.

So I guess I need to explain because I was there, and into music at the time. The Boomtown Rats of Ireland were no huge deal, in fact just another one of many young groups rejecting the so-called dinosaurs of classic  rock, as defined by the Beatles, the Who and the Rolling Stones. The punks, like Sex Pistols, too often eschewed  musicianship in exchange for energy and the democratization of the performer-listener partnership or focused anger at traditions and institutions. New Wavers like the Rats took the energy from the punks but added funky wardrobe and perhaps actually played their instruments well.  In the end rock and roll evolved and came full circle. All rockers have their touchstones and nine times out of 10 it is the blues, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley electric guitar chords as reinvented by kids long ago like John Lennon, Keith Richards and Pete Townshend.

Inject Bob Dylan’s and other influences from folkies and country into that mix and suddenly the words accompanying the music were important. The Rats? Enigmatic, literary, befuddling  and silly lyrics. They were clearly headfirst into New Wave with its higher level of musicianship and production. Which is OK if the songs were good. Quality is king unless you go the garage band route or the punk route — and that’s just taking off the filters and directly channeling Diddley, Berry, et. al.

Other notes: Perhaps ironically, Bob Geldolf, lead vocalist, went on to organize the benefit concert Live Aid, one of the largest fund-raising events of all time featuring many of the biggest acts of the time. It focused on hunger and starvation in Africa. The Rats also wrote and performed the worldwide hit about a California school shooting called, “I Don’t like Mondays” in 1979.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of a degenerative brain disease

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BoDeans, Blue Rodeo, The Bongos — 634, 633, 632

ALBUMS: Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams (1986)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$

I’m going three for one here on posts. Here are three albums, not much alike but a little. All produced in the mid-to-late 1980s, when music was straddling New Wave synth sound and the early throes  of what some call Americana. BoDeans was definitely pre-Americana or maybe not even pre.

Some of these three groups did well, but none became widely, wildly well known. Some cult-following fans may argue otherwise. (I have to say it takes a few seconds to get over the BoDean’s lead vocalist’s nasal sound,  which briefly sent me back in memory to our falsetto guy in Bread and Butter. Just brace yourself.)

The album,  produced by T-Bone Burnett (yes he gets around) named after a Mick Jagger proclamation in”Shattered,” wanted to set a bar, perhaps too high.

I  must say though, the first two songs on the album were the best  one-two opening of an 80s record album I’ve ever heard. The songs steam along, sounding as if they were one song with the ‘keyword’ being runaway or fadeaway. See video  of just one of those songs and I think you’ll get it.

ALBUM: Outskirt (Blue Rodeo, 1987)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

Now if the BoDeans were fledgling Americana pioneers, Blue Rodeo was Canadian and not so new sounding, despite their name.

They were pretty much traditional country, from north of the border. Pleasant songs that surely seem to have been a good road for them. This is the first album  of about 20 they have recorded. Nice, relaxing, tuneful most of the time but every now and then they’ll turn the rock amp up to 7 and show some chops. ‘Pirhana Pool’ is a nice jazzy country playground for keyboards and restrained guitar accents.

ALBUM:  Beat Hotel (Bongos, 1985)

MVC Rating: 3.5/ $$$

So what is with these Beat names. Earlier I’ve reviewed Beat Radio, the Beat Farmers, and the Beat. Now the Bongos are in front of me with Beat Hotel, their album. You think they would use a  little imagination to separate themselves like, oh I don’t know, the Beatles.

This album is certainly not Americana or country in anyway. They are a talented band coming into  the 80s where rock music was transitioning between the commercialization of punk, the glorification of album rock or so-called classic rock and destruction of the democratization of radio. That’s a fancy way for me to say that everything started to sound the same on the radio. The Bongos had some nice tunes, kind of a tamer Beat. But of the three reviewed here the Bongos sound most dated,  now sure to make a nostalgic comeback as I write this.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Big Country — 641, 640

 

ALBUMS: The Crossing (1983), Steeltown (1984)

MVC Rating: The Crossing 4.0/$$; Steeltown: 3.5, $$

The fact that I have two Big Country albums means I must have liked them a lot. Or at least the first one to make me buy the second one. I do like Big Country although haven’t listened to this band in years.

They sing in Scottish accents and make their guitars sound like bagpipes in a wall of sound that is rousing and dare I say, war-like

On a scale of their contemporaries the Alarm and the Waterboys, I’d place them ahead of the Alarm and behind the Waterboys purely subjective because I like all three.  I got into the Waterboys because they walked to the precipice of something new – big music — thanks to Mike Scott.

Probably my two favorite BC cuts are “In a Big Country’ off the Crossing and ‘Where the Rose is Sown’ off of Steeltown. These are killer songs.

And both sound alike.

Which is my critique. Powerful sounds, roaring Scottish guitars in riff driven waves make them sound good. But up creeps a sameness that I think took away from how good these songs are. They wouldn’t be the first group accused of milking a successful song/sound. I mean there is no artist (except the elite of the elite who can make basic rock and roll sound new again all the time. The sound Big Country milks is especially good. Just don’t expect something that continues to evolve.

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Beat Rodeo — 657

ALBUM: Home in the Heart of the Beat (1986)

MVC Rating: 3.0/$$

Well, I don’t even know what genre this is. Easy listening power pop with fresh commercial country thrown in?

It’s on IRS records with Scott Litt (REM) producing.  I had some high hopes going into revisiting this 1980’s album.

It’s not bad, it’s just kind of, well, (whisper) boring.

Probably not a good thing to say about a rock band.

I think ‘It Could Happen here’ and ‘Song for an Angry Young Man’ are solid and nearly excellent songs. But there’s a lot of filler here.

I actually enjoyed this video more than the album.

Counting my 678  vinyl records down before I die of  brain disease.

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The Best Worst Song Ever (Winner)

A  couple of weeks ago  I posted my runnner-up for Worst Best Song Ever. The competition is stiff but 1964’s ‘ ‘Bread and Butter’ by the Newbeats  had the right ingredients: inane lyrics so bad they are funny; a catchy ear worm tune that you wish you could purge from the jukebox in your head.

And, if you remember this post, Bread and Butter had a secret weapon. A happy looking grown man with a falsetto that sounded like the noise coming out of Linda Blair’s mouth when her head  did a 360.  And there was video evidence that the three young men could not dance.

But that  was only good enough for second all time.

The winner contains similar ingredients: inane lyrics; catchy earworm tune so powerful  a prescription is required just to listen to it.  People I have tested it on have wandered around for hours with glassy eyes singing softly Na Na Na Na.

(‘And then we can Na Na Na’, indeed, double entendre much?

The frightful video features  a Dutch Mountain Man with a powerful voice trading vocals with a sprite of a woman with a delicate voice who alternately seems afraid of and playful with  her King Kong partner. He covers his face and plays peek-a-boo with his violin.

Ultimately for no reason, he picks her up like a sack of potatoes.

Words cannot capture the virus that is this song . Check out the video below to see Mouth and  MacNeal (yes that’s their name) ‘perform’ “How Do You Do.’

An experiment at a children’s pre-school  showed powerful  results of the song’s mind controlling properties as nearly every child after only one listen began chanting ‘How do you do Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na.’

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The Beat — 658

The Beat (1979)

MCV Rating: 4.0/$$$

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.

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Joan Baez — 659

ALBUM: blessed are … (1971)

MVC Rating: 3.0/$$

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.’

Her sister, Mimi Farina, who lived north of San Francisco in Marin County, died of cancer in 2001. She, though overshadowed by Joan, was an excellent singer in her own right. As a Marin resident myself at the time, I read the local press and learned a lot about Joan and Mimi, including great charity work through Bread and Roses. At that time I was at the Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times. Paul Liberatore is an excellent columnist for the Marin Independent Journal (which later became our sister paper), He, was Mimi’s significant other.

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.

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Barefoot Jerry — 660

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.

But like the younger  uneasy rider, Barefoot Jerry seem to be about 65 to 35 on the Grateful Dead-Allman Brothers scale of hippie guitar bands.

By the way, which one is Pink?

Er, I mean Jerry?

(Oh Jerry, now I get it)

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

To learn more about what this is about go to my About Me page, or just go to the homepage and scroll/explore.

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Bangles– 661

ALBUM: All Over the Place (1984)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

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.

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Bad Company — 663

ALBUM: Straight Shooter (1975)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

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.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.