Re: Rediscoveries of the week

People I've not listened to for years, but have pulled out the discs this week and am enjoying the heck out of them:

Kissing the Pink
Joan Armatrading
Bill Nelson
Toni Childs
Blind Mr. Jones

I pull out Bill Nelson's "Vistamix" comp every few years for a listen and always enjoy it, especially that song with Mick Karn.

I listened to "Candy Apple Grey" this morning for the first time in most of a decade and was surprised at how blah I found it (of course, after listening to "New Day Rising" a few days ago, perhaps my expectations were a little too high". Reminded me though that when CAG came out, a friend of mine fearlessly predicted Mould's imminent suicide because some of his lyrics were so damn bleak.

for me so far this week it's been:

rickie lee jones (debut & pirates)
quadrophenia
peter gabriel (3rd)
simple minds (new gold dream)

I probably play CAG more than any Husker Du record except for Flip Your Wig nowadays - I like the variety on it.

Anyway .....this week I've been playing stuff I haven't in a while too:

Trashcan Sinatras "Cake"

Cavedogs "Joyrides for Shut-Ins"

Graham Parker & The Figgs "The Last Rock and Roll Tour" (a surprisingly kick ass record from 1997 with a setlist spanning his career to that date).........The Figgs provide plenty of wallop in support.

Nice call on the Cavedogs, Mats -- a truly great album. Boston still remembers them! My rediscovery this week:

Jawbox - My Scrapbook of Fatal Accidents: I heard this 10 years ago when it came out but didnt pay any attention to it. I think it took that long to clearly distinguish Jawbox and Jawbreaker in my mind. Scrapbook is just a posthumous odds ands sods collection but there is hardly a track out of 22 that deserves less than the 4 star rating. If you cherish old Dischord-style punk before emo got taken over by the WB crowd, you have to enjoy this album.

del fuegos, split enz, lyres, buzzcocks - makes me want to find pete shelley's 'homosapien.'

I've been listening to The B-52's a lot this past week. One thing that's occurred to me is that, for a group so widely regarded as a party band, a lot of their best songs focus not on fun, but on fun that's taken a distressing turn somehow. That's especially true on the first two albums: "Party Out of Bounds," "Quiche Lorraine," "Private Idaho," "Hero Worship," "6060-842" and "Devil in My Car" all reflect that fun-gone-wrong theme. Even "Rock Lobster" — regarded by so many as one of the all-time classic party songs — is about a sea monster attack at a beach party. I'm sure I'm not the first to notice this recurring theme, though.

They B-52s' new album is the best thing they've done in 15 years.

Okay, it's the only thing they've done in 15 years, but I'm not holding that against them. It's a damn good disc.

It was Rutles Week in my car this past week. I played both albums back 'n forth from work. The first album is thee classic Beatles parody, while the second one is OK, if a bit labored.

My Link Wray station on pandora just played "Mr. Anello" by Manfred Mann. Pretty cool.

Speaking of the Rutles, I saw Eric Idle's Rutlemania and it was pretty good! He casted four guys to play the Rutles who actually sang and played every note themselves. They re-eneacted key moments in Rutles history on stage in between screenings of film clips above the stage.

Its not the Rutles but an incredible simulation!



[buddylove.us]

I used to have all of New Order's albums. Now I have just one CD, Republic, and I think its their finest work.

Agree with Reno, about the quality of the new B-52's disc.

I'm going to see the band next month, as part of their "club tour." Can't wait!

"No Good To Cry," The Wildweeds
"What The Hell I Got," "Lovin' You Ain't Easy," "Some Sing, Some Dance," Pagliaro

I still am a big Huskies fan.

However, I like their earlier stuff. Warehouse: Songs and Stories is too poppy for me. My favorite discs: Zen Arcade, Everything Falls Apart, Metal Circus, New Day Rising, and Flip Your Wig. Yes, it's a miracle that Bob Mould is still alive.

I've actually been digging more backwards than forwards lately:

The Sound (From A Lion's Mouth) - I failed to put this great Sound album on my best sophomore LPs list (and I have a feeling I'm going to come across many more omissions as time goes by). Nevertheless, it's as good or better than anything released by the similar but more heralded Echo & The Bunnymen.

Neko Case (Furnance Room Lullaby) - Breno's mention of Case's FRL in that 2nd LPs thread has had me digging back into her albums and although Blacklisted is generally regarded as her best, I don't think she's ever sung with more vigor and conviction or sounded as high and lonesome as she does on this album. It may lack the atmosphere and ambiance of Blacklisted but at the same time, it's more energetic and has more peaks and less valleys. Check that, FRL has no valleys.

Screaming Blue Messiahs (Bikini Red) - Wilma! I suppose this should have also been on the best sophomore LPs list too. Oh well.

Tav Falco's Panther Burns (The World We Knew) - A bad motorcycle of an album, indeed and the winsome and sentimental title track should have been covered by Engelbert Humperdinck and placed on one of his subsequent greatest hits packages.

REM (Monster and Automatic For The People) - My recent re-purchase of AFTP has me going back to these back-to-back releases. Although AFTP has garnered a far better reputation than Monster I see the two as similar in nature, if not sound. Both albums were supposed to move REM in a new direction and break new ground but in my opinion neither was fully successful as both albums were marred by inconsistency and unmemorable tracks despite containing some superb ones at the same time.

Original Sins (Big Soul) - Listening to this one recently I came to the conclusion that Just 14 and Why Don't You Smile, Joan? are one of Rock's greatest ever album bookends.

Mazzy Star (She Hangs Brightly) - Their best.

>
> Original Sins (Big Soul) - Listening to this one recently I
> came to the conclusion that Just 14 and Why Don't You Smile,
> Joan? are one of Rock's greatest ever album bookends.
>


except "just 14" wasn't on the album originally. just a single side tacked onto the cd. errrr, and they must've fiddled with the track order, too, if "why don't you smile, joan" is last...

the true bookends, "not gonna be all right" and "i want to live".

but it doesn't really matter, still a great album!

Wish to heck the Screaming Blue Messiahs albums were more easily available digitally. I've been predicting a SBM revival/rediscovery for years now and it stubbornly refuses to happen.

I never had the original pressing of Big Soul only the reissue and thought I read a while back that the last 6 songs were tacked on as bonus tracks and the first 12 made up the original album. I researched this further since your clarifying post and now I read that tracks 1, 8, 9, 16 and 17 are bonus tracks? I'm totally confused now since I thought the last six tracks were the bonus ones added to the original CD including I Want To Live.

I'll have to look into this further. I still don't know the original track listing. Like I said in the Replacements reissue thread a little while back, bonus tracks can mar albums especially in instances where some genuis came up with the idea of integrating them at the beginning or the middle of an album.

> the original pressing of Big Soul
>
> the
> original track listing.

not gonna be all right
can't feel a thing
possession
all in my head
your way
my mother's mirror

help yourself
read your mind
why don't you smile, joan?
inside/out
big soul
i want to live



Post Edited (04-18-08 01:41)

Thanks for this.

As great as it is, putting Just 14 as the opening track is bewildering enough but then putting Road To Emmaus and The Party's Over Now smack in the middle of the original release is absolutely befuddling. If they're going to go bonus track happy as least they should do it correctly.

Not Gonna Be All Right and I Want To Live are pretty darn good bookends too.

In this case, it's more like Discovery of the Week. I celebrated Record Store Day late on Monday (since I had to participate in Going To My Job Day on Saturday) & I picked up the Moby Grape comp that came out back in '93. This is the first time I really have listened to them & it's pretty good stuff so far, very tight for a 60's San Francisco hippy band. It's too bad that their career imploded & that they are still stuck w/legal problems (w/several of their recent Sundazed reissues being withdrawn almost immediately after being issued).

That is a good comp; have it. Few people have written and recorded songs better than "8:05" or "Omaha."

The '93 double Moby Grape comp is much better than the more recent 20-track single disc mainly because it has all of the first album, which was easily the best. One great track from their third LP is on both, though - the Skip Spence song "Seeing," a heated psych direction they never followed up.

Every so often I have to go back and inundate myself with albums by Family (except maybe the second and third), and maybe their successor band, Streetwalkers (with one of the great titles of all time, Vicious but Fair). Why? Hard to say. They were a feel band, with some great songs and a bunch that . . .were really only good in the context of the albums. In fact, even their best stuff really works best that way.

And in a totally different direction, I really enjoy Gen X's much maligned Valley of the Dolls album. It took a long time to get into it, though, so I can't recommend it as I would the first album (which as I recall played nearly incessantly at the TP office for quite some time after it came out).

"Seeing" is a great track, but the one I get a kick out of is "Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot", with Arthur Godfrey doing the intro. It's wild that a San Fran psych band would have Arthur Godfrey, who was probably the squarest of the square back then, on one of their albums. That's going into Bonzo Dog territory.

That Del Shannon Liberty Years CD is an amazing thing to rediscover, also:
Dion
(Lane Steinberg's) The Wind
darlene love
ducks deluxe
stiff records
pere ubu

Tubular Bells 2003

a Note for Note recreation of the original Tubular Bells, but this time with modern production.

Not to be confused with Tubular Bells II which was a mid 90's Trevor Horn produced "Parallel" version which echoed the themes of the original but with completely differrent music.

Both are FABULOUS!



[buddylove.us]

Cobra records box set.
holy sweet home chicago is that shit great.

As the resident Idol worshipper here on this board, I find Valley Of The Dolls unfairly maligned as well. Yes, it's certainly not on the level of the debut but the majority of that album is solid and a few of the tracks on it (English Dream, King Rocker) are among my Gen X favorites.

That being said, both Idol and Andrews have expressed dissatisfaction with the way it turned out from Hunter's production to the direction the band took. Idol said they went backwards to a more classic rock sound and Andrews said they drowned in their own influences commenting that he wanted to be to be Ronson/Kossoff, Idol wanted to be Springsteen and Laff, Keith Moon. You can kind of hear that on the more extended "artistic tracks" like Paradise West and Prime Of Kenny Silvers. Tony James? Well, he was just a huge Mott fan.

Regardless, I like the fact that it's not a carbon copy of the first album and it's pretty darn good in its own right.

"No Good To Cry" by the Wildweeds is one of the songs on a Sundazed comp called Don't Press Your Luck that I found in the (greatly reduced) CD bins of my local Borders.

Yes.

They were all over the radio back in my high school days of the late 70s / early 80s. Although I loved hearing them on the radio, I never bought a proper Yes album. However, I scorned them when I went to college and opened up my ears to hardcore, new wave, ska, and other styles. I forgot about them when I graduated and still listened to 80s "alternative" (hate that word!)

When I moved out to West Chester, Pa., and met my girlfriend Jen, I found out she was a big fan of Yes. She even went to a Trevor Rabin concert. During that time, I was listening to negative, angsty music. Sometimes I would make fun of Yes's lyrics, and Jen would make fun of my narrow viewpoint. Years later, we split, but not because of differing musical tastes.

Now I find myself listening to them and enjoying them again. I wish I had Jen's number so I could say, "Yes...I have finally found the answer to...Yes!"

I also used to make fun of Yes lyrics, such as "In and around the lake, mountains come out of the sky, and they stand there!"

However, as a big fan of Echo & the Bunnymen, I must admit that lyrics like "You are a dying breed, you are a dying breed/you once was an Inca now you're a Cherokee/Cu-cu-cu-cucumber, ca-ca-ca-cabbage, C-c-c-cauliflower/Men on Mars, April Showers" are as bad.

Hell, I can come out and admit it. They're worse.

"I still remember the dream bear."

I could never quite figure that out. Was it a grizzly or a black bear, I wonder.

Everyone knows dream bears are white, and a species unto themselves- neither polar nor blonde grizzly nor albino.
And sometimes they stand upright, clothed and hooded, and pose as your mother.



Post Edited (07-22-08 02:33)

Echo (post-McCullough) played in Norman one time, and I ran into them at the corner conveneince store. They were amazed at the amount of pornographic magazines (soft-core) it had.

My rediscovery of the week is The Kids Are Alright, which played on TCM Friday night. We just recently moved, so I had to find the CD to listen to it. Great comp., and an amazing film. Interesting that Wes Anderson used the Rolling Stones' Circus version of "A Quick One" in Rushmore instead of the studio one. Actually, not interesting, completely understandable, since the thing rocks harder than granny in her chair on meth.

Anderson also gave the Creation a great bump in that film by featuring "Making Time."

Great (rare) live Creation clip, with violin bow/guitar sequence: [www.youtube.com]



Post Edited (07-22-08 10:03)

Thanks for the Creation clip, Erik. YouTube is like early MTV w/the added bonus of choosing what videos you want to watch. It's amazing what groovy stuff you can find. Also, Mr. Anderson does loves his Kinks. The reason I decided to see his last film, the Darjeeing Limited, was the fact that there were several songs from Lola v. Powerman & the Moneygoround on it. Finally, I have a DVD copy of the Kids Are Alright & watched it several weeks ago. It's a great movie (I remember seeing it when it first came out in '79; my friends tried to smuggle a six-pack, but were caught). It's sad to realize it's going to be 30 yrs. since Moonie took his act to the hereafter in a couple of months.

No kidding. Is there anyone out there that combines that sort of manic, front-man-behind-the-drums personality of Moon's with the gigantic amount of talent he had? I actually started to feel sad when it got to the end of Kids, because he was as much a singular personality as Elvis or any other rock star was, and bloody funny, to boot. Has anyone heard his solo stuff? I've heard a few bits in retrospectives, but nothing to really give me a decent picture.

I hear there's a Keith Moon movie in the works. Mike Myers supposedly has his grimy hands on it (groan).

Mike Myers could possibly do pretty well in it.

From what I've seen, give Myers a "character" to play (such as Wayne or Austin Powers) and he usually does a good job. He even did a good job playing Steve Rubell in 54. Let him play a regular Joe, and he's boring as hell (So I Married an Axe Murderer).

Nah. This Keith Moon vehicle is better suited for an unknown. Speaking of which, why does the male cast of Hannah Montana, with the exception of Billy Ray Cyrus, sport Keith Moon hairdos? I guess its a sign that they want to play the part too.

I agree with the chigg, give it to an unknown. Afterall, look what meyers did to jad fair in waynes world.

The Individuals - Fields. FINALLY reissued. You'd think when a band's lead singer and songwriter runs a record label he might get around to reissuing it quicker than 26 years later.

Anyhow, Fields has been probably the album I regretted trading in the most, as I never saw it again in the 25 years since I stupidly bartered it away at DJ's Records. And it sounds even better now than I remembered it - even after not hearing a note of it for 25 years, I'm surprised how many of the songs I still remembered. And I had definitely forgotten how great Janet Wygal's bass playing was - it slithers around all around and through the melodies. Wish to hell I'd bothered to buy the Wygals CD back when I had the chance. Now I'm going to be obsessed with tracking down a copy of that. EDIT: Didn't have to be obsessed long. Amazon had a used copy for $2, as well as Wygal's Splendora album. Had forgotten that they did the opening theme for the great DARIA.

And I had no idea that Jon Klages was Enoch Light's grandson. God bless the liner notes on re-issues!

Speaking of which, just grabbed the reissue of Boy by U2. Well worth picking up, especially the bonus disc of the early singles. It really puts U2 back in their original context, as followers of PiL, the Banshees and Joy Division.



Post Edited (07-29-08 21:30)