This was the second album by this ‘alternative’ band fromTsawwassen, British Columbia.
They are described as alternative but they, based on this album seem, more straight ahead guitar driven rock. I almost dismissed them as a generic hard rock band, but I let them seep in. The songs have a nice flow. “Baby Ran’ and ‘Take My Hand.’
“I Go Blind’ was covered successfully by Hootie and the Blowfish. Unexpectedly good guitar runs at time. ‘Me Island’ may be where they got the alternative tag, sounding a little like Buzzcocks meet Sisters of Mercy. Not the best combination, but alternative sounding. And some real freak-out music in ‘Holy Cow.’
‘Alcohol Heart’ is powerful.
Do I still feel all right
Or do I walk on by,
how do I recognize a friend
And when I cover up my eyes I can feel the whole world, I can feel the whole world
The band has apparently done well, with 14 albums since the 1984. I think they are a bigger name in their home country where they have charted numerous times. One song I know off their third album got lots of American college radio play: ‘One Gun.’
Twang. Twang. Twang. What’s that called when the word sounds like the sound it is a word for? Let me run to Google.
Shite, I already had this in my head as the answer but I looked it up anyway. I hate when I do that. Of course it’s onomatopoeia. Meow.
Duane Eddy it seems couldn’t shake that twang thang.
The twang sound was a technique of playing lead on his guitar’s bass strings to produce a low, reverberant ” sound. according to his Wikipedia page.
Dang. I wrote earlier that John Anderson had a twangy voice, broadening the boundaries of the word’s descriptive power. Over three decades or four, Eddy put out 33 albums, a number of which were recycled greatest type packages.
But of those 33, nearly half — 14 — had Twang or some version (Twangin’, Twangy) in the title. So he was all about the Twangin,’ and I’ll proffer here the guy could twang.
This ‘greatest hits’ album I have is frustrating, however. It doesn’t have the ‘Peter Gunn’ soundtrack, a Henry Mancini piece that was the theme song for the self-entitled television show.
‘Rebel Rouser’ is good, maybe not rousing good, but sock hop tuneful.
Raunchy’? Not much. ‘Shangri La’ didn’t get there.
Instrumental music guitar has always been a bit difficult. I admire good music but I also like my words, you know I do. Oops sorry I just had to slap myself, ‘Last Date’ just about twanged me to sleep. “Honky Tonk’ had words but needed women. Now ‘Rumble’ is good in a slow grind way. Nice sax — which is also present and well played on several tracks. And then there’s ‘The RIver Kwai March,’ yes that one that opens with whistling. Actually in Eddy’s cover version, it sounds like a piccolo has replaced human lips. But this upbeat war music piece seems oddly out-of-place here.
Overall, my take is this is background music for a late 50s dinner party. But he is a R&R hall of famer and Grammy winner, so what do I know.
File this one next to the Chet Atkins album I reviewed earlier. Now for some instrumental party guitar, more what Eddy strives for, not Chet (a legend by the way), I will in the future review a little known band called the Raybeats. Now they rock.
Also, I have a copy of an album by a group called the SIlencers from Pittsburgh which has a locked and loaded version of ‘Peter Gunn.” to be reviewed when I get to the S’s in my alphabetical journey.
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.
In the liner notes it says pub rock was no cliche’ in those days.
I’m not sure when or if it has become a cliche’ but this is pub rock by definition.
“Down in the swamp, Daddy put the bomp in my soul.” Don’t know exactly what that means but ‘Daddy was a preacher.’ Later Mama, a Texas lady, taught him how to jive.
This is a compilation of two albums. Kind of odd but that’s the way they did it because theirs was a short-lived pit stop on the way to other bands.
The band was Sean Tyla (later of Tyla Gang), Nick Garvey and Andy McMasters, (both later of the Motors ), Martin Belmont (later with Graham Parker and Rumour). Dave Edmunds was close friends and sometimes a producer.
There is feel-good rock and roll playing here: ‘Coast to Coast’ rocks like nobody’s business. ‘Fireball’ and ‘Love’s Melody’ stand out. Reminded me at times of Danny and Dusty whom I earlier reviewed.
I thought at first that ‘Daddy put the Bomp’ was an early 1960s cover of a song called “Who put the Bomp (in the rama lama ding dong). But apparently it’s two different songs. This came out while I was a senior in High School. Yep. It ages well, if not me. Also seems like this one may be a little collectible as it was a short-lived band that never got much promotion in the US.
Here’s an old Bomp song here by Chuck Prophet (of Green on Red). I think it’s a hybrid re-make of the 1961 version. But not sure.
Cockburn, a Canadian folk singer, is smart, a great musician, serious, not so much the life of the party. A self-proclaimed Christian, Cockburn writes melodic dirges, melodic folk/country and melodic rants. Much is about politics.
Put another way, Cockburn is a dude who reads the NY Times and listens to NPR every morning and absorbs it.
He’s smart and he’s pissed.
To be fair he has also traveled extensively on various human rights causes.
Look and listen to the lyrics of “And They Call it Democracy.’
North, south, east, west Kill the best and buy the rest It’s just spend a buck to make a buck You don’t really give a flying fuck About the people in misery
I-M-F dirty M-F Takes away everything it can get Always making certain that there’s one thing left Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
See the paid off local bottom feeders Passing themselves off as leaders Kiss the ladies, shake hands with the fellows And it’s open for business like a cheap bordello
And they call it democracy And they call it democracy
Have you heard of any other pop artists write songs railing against the International Monetary Fund?
I have to say as much as I admire his writing and Berklee College of Music training, I don’t and/or haven’t listened to this album much. It’s in mint condition. It is packed full of polemics and politics, good music, great guitar playing, but little humor.
Take my old adversary, Robert Christgau, well not yet but once he reads my blog he’ll turn into my adversary, I’m sure. The blatant plagiarism (on both sides). Look what he says about Cockburn in his same review or review of the same album. Here’s his review:
World of Wonders [MCA, 1986] Cockburn’s a very smart guy with as tough and articulate a line on imperialism as any white person with a label deal. Few singer-songwriters play meaner guitar, and as befits an anti-imperialist he knows the international sonic palette. Unfortunately, his records never project musical necessity. The melodies and/or lyrics carry the first side anyway, but though I’m sure Cockburn has some idea what the synthesized pans are doing on the cry of politico-romantic angst and the vaguely Andean fretboards on the Wasp dub poem, what the world will hear is the oppressive boom-boom of four-four drums. B Robert Christgau.
Now that’s what I wanted to say.He stole it. Aha, but I stole it back, slightly altering the lede, the middle and of course came up with a different ending.
I certainly missed the impressive boom-boom of four-four drums. Shame.
One thing to note: His Christmas album, titled just that, Christmas, is excellent. One of the best of my very extensive collection of holiday music (mostly digital).
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
So if you’re walking down the street sometime And spot some hollow ancient eyes Please don’t just pass ’em by and stare As if you didn’t care, say, “Hello in there, hello”
John Prine
Staying on topic again. Lewy body dementia. Quick quiz.
I’ll answer for you.
Do you forget things, names for example? Um, sometimes.
Are you constipated? Um, sometimes.
Do you have muscle and joint stiffness? Um, sometimes.
Do you have vivid dreams? Well the other night I had some jalapenos on my nachos and man I was dreaming of …..oh, so? um sometimes.
Do you see things out of the corner of your eye, turn to look and it’s gone? Um, sometimes but that’s because I have floaters in my eyes.
Do you have Lewy body dementia? I dunno. What’s Lewy body dementia?
I’ve gone over these angles before but I recently read a research paper published in 2015 that generally backs up much of what I’ve been saying. But it does so in other words, which I found helpful.
I was (mis)diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease first in 2016 and then diagnosed with what we are pretty certain is Lewy body dementia a few months later. What was frustrating as a newcomer to these diseases, is how little absolute knowledge there was because everybody is different, brains are extraordinarily complex and what the hell are all these alpha-synuclein proteins really doing in my brain?
Lewy Bodies in the brain. Public domain Wiki.
The research I was reading was posted on the Bio-Med Central website and authored by Brendon P. Boot of Alzheimer’s Research and Therapy.
Boot said while Lewy body has been pegged at being about 4 percent of all dementia patients, the figure is actually much higher.
“Dementia with Lewy bodies is an under-recognized disease; it is responsible for up to 20 percent of all dementia cases,” wrote Boot. “Accurate diagnosis is essential because the management of dementia with Lewy bodies is more complex than many neurodegenerative diseases. This is because alpha-synuclein, the pathological protein responsible for dementia with Lewy bodies (and Parkinson’s disease), produces symptoms in multiple domains.”
This is great stuff. This is why I have been harping about why the medical community needs know about Lewy, what it is and how to monitor. When a 58-year-old constipated man, who ate recently at Pete’s Nachos and who keeps seeing little bugs scurry across the floor comes into your office, let’s assess for Lewy body, as well as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Let’s keep going.
“By dividing the symptoms into cognitive, neuropsychiatric, movement, autonomic, and sleep categories, a comprehensive treatment strategy can be achieved.”
Yes!
“Management decisions are complex, since the treatment of one set of symptoms can cause complications in other symptom domains. Nevertheless, a comprehensive treatment program can greatly improve the patient’s quality of life, but does not alter the progression of disease,” wrote Boot.
That’s what I’m talking about.
Let’s continue.
“Dementia with Lewy bodies is an under-recognized disease. The diagnostic criteria have low sensitivity (12 to 32 %) and high specificity (>95 %) [1], so many cases are not diagnosed,” Boot wrote.
So many cases are not diagnosed. Did you understand the explanation in the that sentence? The thing about the criteria having low sensitivity and high specificity?
Me neither.
Onward.
“Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD) accounts for a further 3 to 5 percent of dementia cases .”
That’s on top of that 20 percent. (But of what? Need to find total number of dementia patients to put 20 plus 5 percent in context.”)
“Both DLB and PDD are due to the pathological accumulation of alpha-synuclein.” Know this already.
“But patients with parkinsonism for 1 year prior to cognitive decline are classified as PDD [4].”
So they have all these umbrella diseases based on the excess of alph-synuclein AKA as Lewy bodies. And they have to make their educated guess on whether it’s PDD, LBD or DBL, or PD, or whatever, by which symptoms are showing and when, in what sequence, did these symptoms start showing.
Now here’s the kicker, and this is why everyone needs to be able to navigate the system as a patient or caretaker.
“Cognitive decline and parkinsonism are insidious, so the distinction can be difficult to draw and may be influenced by the subspecialty interest of the diagnosing neurologist (for example, movement disorder versus behavioral neurology) [1, 7]. Data on the relative frequency of DLB and PDD may be similarly affected by this subspecialty referral pattern. Whether or not the distinction has treatment implications is difficult to determine.”
So what do we know? We don’t know the cause of Lewy. We don’t know of anything that will cure Lewy or slow its progression. We don’t know how to predict its speed or debilitation because ‘everybody is different.”
How many Lewy cases are out there? I want to know. Docs and patients work together to get diagnoses early and often so we can study this disease. Break down silos between memory specialists and movement disorder experts. They should be in the same place, same building, same floor, same parking deck.
Patients be patient but pressing. Time is precious.
I am channeling my focus on improving the treatment and getting more research based on the words of numerous patients and caretakers with a brain disease who have reached out after my public story. My own situation is working well so far.
Getting the Parkinson’s diagnosis first was not unusual for Lewy body patients for reasons I’ve pointed out many times. I have a neurologist who has helped me get to the right balance of medications to treat Lewy. So I’m all right for now, just fine.
Bye. Heading out for nachos.
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ALBUMS: History of Eric Clapton (1972 2-record compilation); EC Was Here (live)(1975); Backless (1979); Crossroads (6-record boxed set 1988)
MVC Ratings: Boxed 5.0/$$$$$; History 4.5/$$$$$; EC 3.5/$$$$; Backless 3.5/$$$$
Do I have too much Clapton?
Like an unbalanced 401/K plan do I need to liquidate some Eric Clapton. Should I re-rebalance my portfolio of 678 records (which I am writing about in this blog) by selling some Clapton.
For example, I could sell some Clapton for Albert King, a key Clapton influence whom I don’t have. But that would almost be like buying more Clapton, an artist steeped in blues music. Or, should I diversify and maybe buy some Django Reinhardt, a Gypsy jazz guitarist from yesteryear who was at least as influential as Clapton but had a totally different style, outside the realm of blues.
As you can see above, I only have four separate Clapton ‘products’ But as you can also see, one is a 6-record box set, and another is a double record chronology. Pretty comprehensive.
That’s 10 vinyl slices totaling about six or seven hours of Clapton. That doesn’t include my two Cream albums, my Yardbirds album and my Derek and the Dominos double album set, all of which have Clapton in the mix. I will review separately when they come up in my alphabetical line-up. (I’m in the C’s so we’ll be doing Cream pretty soon).
I think I will hold off liquidating immediately.
If you are a Clapton fan, it is good to see the arc of his playing.
He is praised for his fluid improvisational guitar solos, mostly in a blues context. And he is cursed for his fluid improvisational guitar solos because they infiltrated rock and roll and pretty soon everybody and their brother-in-law’s cousin was strapping on a Fender Stratocaster aiming to be a lead guitarist.
As the low-solo 50’s melted away to the 1960’s, there was a nuclear arms race over how fast and long that guitar solo should be. Too many times the result was guitar for showmanship’s sake and not for song-sake. Granted these guitar jams tended to be used and abused more in the live concert setting, than in the studio.
In the studio you had a producer saying, ‘Uh, Jimi, I think we are good with that 37-minute version of the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’ You can flesh it out a little more on stage tonight if you want. I sure hope our flag is still there.’
Clapton can be accused of starting it. He and John Mayall developed a cult following in London, immersing themselves in blues.
“‘Clapton is God’ graffiti began appearing around the city, defining a central tenet of the Clapton mythology to this day,” wrote Rolling Stone writer Anthony DeCurtis in the Crossroad’s liner notes.
I don’t have ‘Tears in Heaven’ on any of these records. The soft rock tear-jerker about the tragic death of his child was one of his biggest hits but also fed into this view that he was going ‘commercial or soft as he got older, especially since he used to be such a purist.
Clapton himself said in the biography ‘Clapton!’: “I’m far too judgmental and in those days I was a complete purist. If it wasn’t black music, it was rubbish.”
Now we should give the man the benefit of the doubt on his sincerity behind ‘Tears’ given the subject matter.
But these softer songs and big hit covers like ‘Cocaine’ and ‘I Shot the Sheriff’,’ I think unfairly led to some in my generation and later generations to suggest he was overrated.
Um, no.
Listen to all six vinyl records in Crossroads. That includes his work with Mayall, the Yardbirds, Cream, Delaney and Bonnie, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominoes.
D&D the double record studio production with Duane Allman and Eric trading licks on old school blues tunes and the ever-great title song is one of my desert island albums.
Sure he had some commercial schlock (full disclosure, I and mi esposa like ‘Wonderful Tonight’ as one of the soundtracks of our first dates in high school.) A critical observation may be’ look at what he hath wrought.’
But overrated? Don’t think so.
David Fricke, a rock critic for Rolling Stone magazine, said this:
“Clapton’s economy of style, clarity of technique and improvisatory firepower are the standard by which nearly all electric guitarists, blues or otherwise, have been judged for over twenty years.”
LBUM: Don’t Mind Rockin’ Tonight (1978)
Put another way, Cockburn is a dude who reads the NY Times and listens to NPR every morning and absorbs it.
