Crowded House

View the NEW Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

What I Spun:  "Temple of Low Men" (LP) by Crowded House

Best Use for This Record: Explore it, it's worth exploring.

Filed Under: Post-Wave (Australian)

Would Go Well With: John Lennon, The Talking Heads, INXS, toad the wet sprocket

If You've Never Heard This Band, Start With:
Better Be Home Soon, Locked Out, Something So Strong

I remember when Better Be Home Soon came out.  I only heard it a few times, but I really liked it.  Those were the days before I became obsessive about learning who was singing any song that piqued my interest, so I just knew it as that simple acoustic thing resonated with something in me, sung by... somebody.  [shrugs.]  But soon, as is the nature of pop music, it lapsed out of airplay and thus faded from my memory like The One Ring from the thoughts of Middle Earth's inhabitants.  Eventually, I forgot this song had ever existed. 

I'm sure it must've popped up periodically on adult contemporary or flashback radio stations, but we failed to cross paths again for twenty years.  Until...

VH1 Classic is one of my favorite TV channels.  I was juiced when our cable provider finally added it.  It's still my go-to for background music when I'm in the living room.  And one day when I had it on, I heard the singular voice of an over-reverbed acoustic guitar that could have only existed in the late eighties or early nineties.  Ahhh.  "That's a sound that takes me back and just cradles me in a warm place," I thought.  Then the lyrics came in, and here was where the great power of music shown through.

Like I said, I had totally forgotten about this song; I literally hadn't heard it in two decades.  But by the end of that first verse, I knew exactly what it was.  And I was grinning because I knew what was coming next.  "And I know I"m riiiiiight for the first time in my liiiife!"  I belted it out along with the TV.  That secret, buried nugget that I would have sworn had vanished had only been lying dormant, waiting to take me back to something I had long thought forgotten.  Here was a new song for me to love with the added bonus of also being a song I already knew.

Armed with that joy, I always kept Crowded House on my radar when I started collecting vinyl, and have picked up a few of their records.  It turns out that they had several singles I had really relished singing along to when they came out -- I had just never known this was the band that made them.  So, old and new at the same time again.  It also turns out that they had a lot of really interesting album tracks that are new discoveries when I play one of their LPs.  So, new good stuff too (new to me anyway).  That combination is part of what makes spinning records so great.

Let My Love Open the Door

“When everybody keeps retreating, but you can’t seem to get enough...”

 

What I Spun:“Empty Glass” (LP) by Pete Townsend

 

Best Use for This Record:

Listen to it, it’s pretty good.

 

Thank you, Random Number Generator! I really can’t think of a better place to start the new leg of “Revisiting Vinyl” than with this.  I remember exactly where I was the first time I ever heard the song Let My Love Open the Door.

 

At best, I’m only a casual fan of The Who.  At worst, I’m a detractor who thinks they have one of the most obnoxious fan bases of all time.  (Seriously, when you became famous thanks totrendy rich kids on scooters, where do you go from there?)  So, my knowledge of their catalogue is pretty much limited to whatever plays on classic rock radio and oldies stations.

 

And movies. 

 

1997 marked the point when we were far enough removed from the eighties that nostalgia for the decade became appropriate and chic.  Movies like “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion” and “The Wedding Singer” offered little more than (Mira Sorvino’s cleavage and) “hey, remember this thing from fifteen years ago?”, but the formula worked really well.

 

My favorite film from that weird little genre is “Grosse Point Blank.”  It’s not just a reminiscence of the eighties.  It’s also about a hit man returning to his hometown to complete a job.  And it’s about the oddness of going back home after you’ve changed, but those who stayed really haven’t.  But mostly, it’s about music.

 

I have mentioned before that another John Cusack film, “High Fidelity”, is just one big love letter to pop music.  “Grosse Point Blank” is clearly the rough draft for that.  Music pervades every aspect of the movie.  The best joke in the picture is nothing more than a Guns n’ Roses song, and it’s a great joke.  “GPB” marries sound and image so beautifully and absolutely that I will never hearUnder Pressure again without seeing a smiling baby.  And that happens with several of the songs used in the film.

 

Every time I hear one of those songs, my memory bank instantly uploads a visual cue – people dancing or a car driving down the highway or an odd-looking thug getting slammed into a locker and stabbed with a pen.  Okay, so sometimes it’s a little weird, but it’s also kind of fantastic. 

 

I can’t really explain it, but the story is at such a great place when Let My Love Open the Door’s little synth intro starts, it just makes you smile uncontrollably.  It’s a good scene that has been building for a while, but when you add the perfect piece of music onto it, it transcends to something amazing.  I highly recommend checking it out.  There are too few things that just make you smile uncontrollably. 

Premise and Ground Rules - 2014

I love music.  Period.  There are two rooms in my housed dedicated to it - jammed full of tapes and CDs and vinyl, packed with guitars and amps and drums, laden with artwork and books and the like.

 

I love music.  Period.  I am unable to process the statement, “I don’t like music.”  Furthermore, I am unable to process the statement, “I like music.”  You should love it! 

 

Music helped me get through the hard times.  Music made the good times better.  It has always been there for me, without fail, willing to offer up whatever I needed from it.  Music obliges without judgment or condescension - even if what I want at a particular moment happens to be Mambo Number Five by Lou Bega. 

 

They say smell is the most powerful sense attached to memories.  I must respectfully disagree.  I have soooo many memories associated with a specific piece of music or song – each one its own unique Venn diagram of the five basic emotions. 

 

And that is my new goal with “Revisiting Vinyl.”  I want to talk about my strongest memory associated with a particular artist or album or song.  Sometimes, it will be the first time I heard him / her / it / them.  Others, it might just be my favorite or most vivid encounter with him / her / it / them.

 

So, that’s the game plan.  Here  are the rules:

 

Nothing is off limits.  It can be old or new.  It can be an LP or an EP or a 45.  It can even be a mixture of music and spoken word (comedy LPs and the like).  Compilations and soundtracks are back on the table.  (Now I don’t have to worry about justifying “Purple Rain” if it comes up…)

 

I will continue to use the random number generator for my selections, but I am giving myself some limited veto authority.  So, if I’m just not feeling Lynn Anderson or smooth jazz at the moment, I may reroll the virtual dice and see what happens.  I might also decide if I want to hear 33 1/3 or 45 RPMs beforehand.

 

As before, I may take some detours and tangents, but I will always attempt to relate my strongest personal memory regarding whatever I spin.  I want to share what has made music so intrinsically important in my life because, the truth is, I love music.  Period.

"What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye (1971)

"Talk to me, so you can see what's going on."

I have been spinning (but for some reason not writing about) a LOT of good music lately.  Actually, I've been spinning a lot of required listening lately -- from Dylan's "Bringing It All Back Home" to R.E.M's "Document" -- and it has been a blast.  But something magical happened when I played this record.  This LP is beyond required, it's soul-enriching.

"What's Going On" is a record for all times that is absolutely of it's time.  This work details one individual's account of a very specific struggle, and yet it is as universally relatable as any art could ever hope to be.  Inner City Blues rings true forty years later to a country boy in Kentucky.

This is what happens when an iconoclastic artist has so much to say that words alone won't suffice.  There is a feel -- an essence -- to these recordings that seeps into the core of your being and just hovers there, acknowleding and daming all the problems while simultaneously assuring you that it's going to get better.

"What's Going On" is brimming with unabashed, profound humanity.  It shows the best of what we can be by shining a light on the worst.

"All Things in Time" by Lou Rawls (1976)

“Mmm mmm mmm, Baby.”  (Trust me, when Lou Rawls says it, it’s awesome.)

 

Disco Hit Dedicated to the Ladies:

You’ll Never Find another Love like Mine

 

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:

Highly Recommended (3.5/4 stars)

 

Unlike the last entry, this one was one of those great surprises.  Going in, all I knew was that the big disco hit (and that was mostly from an episode of The Simpsons).  It ended up being forty minutes well spent that I’m sure I will revisit again.

 

A big chunk of what makes “All Things in Time” so good is that willingness to mix and match – a prerequisite for quality silver age R&B.

 

The vocals have the automatic depth of soul blended with the introspective heart of standards and torch songs.  The sounds are built with the energy of bebop laid over the formality of the blues.  The tracks intercut the dancibility of disco with the steamy heat of a sauna.

 

When all of that is combined with a voice so smooth you could skate across it, it adds up to a really good time.

 

On a different note, what’s up with so many seventies artists covering songs from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”?!  Is it, in fact, the “Wizard of Oz” of its generation?  That being said, this version of Pure Imagination made me smile the whole time it played.

 

So, is it an album?  Yes.  All of those pieces are expertly melded within each song.  There’s never a jolting transition or any sort of disconnect, despite all of the influences apparent on the record.  Instead, “All Things in Time” just sails along on top of that wonderful soup.

 

Up next, I get to hear another amazing voice.  This time, it’s Emmylou Harris with “Blue Kentucky Girl.”

"Bulletin Board" by The Partridge Family (1973)

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Don't bother.  Seriously, just don't bother.

There was not a single interesting moment musically on this record, so this time around I'm going to talk exclusively about the LP jacket.  Why not?

First, there is a shameless promotional plug right smack on the front that reads "Memo: Our New TV Time!  8 PM SATURDAYS (7 PM Central Time)."  Mind you, this is not a sticker or something attached later; it's actually part of the photograph taken for the cover.  I can't think of a more obvious way of announcing "hey everybody!  This product is completely disposable and will be of no use in six months!"  At least they were honest about it...

Except that they weren't.  The cover collage also includes a photo of the actors from The Partridge Family TV show, even though none of them play a single instrument on this LP.  If you look closely, it does clarify "Starring Shirley Jones * Featuring David Cassidy," so they're at least acknowledging that neither that dreamy Susan Dey nor that dreamier Danny Bonaducci appear anywhere other than in that goofy family portrait.  But that statement is also a big ol' load of crap.  The starring/featuring bill was true for the show, but when they bring it over the the LP it's just not accurate.  David Cassidy is featured alright, he sings the lead vocal on EVERY SINGLE SONG.  And there are only three moments on the the entire thing when you can even tell that the backup singer is actually "star" Shirley Jones.

But I suppose my expectations are too high for a creative project that sounds like it was titled at the last minute by a frantic record exec, rattling off the first office supply he saw hanging on the wall.  Ah, if only that were true... However, the back of the jacket shows that it was actually a creative decision strung over several years.  The other PF LPs are listed there with titles like (I am NOT making this up): "Crossword Puzzle," "Notebook" and "Shopping Bag."  I haven't looked into what records they released after this, but I think I can make a pretty acurate guess.  Next, they entered their experimental phase with "Water Cooler."  After that came the poorly received double LP "Pencil Sharpener / Tape Dispenser."  Then they rebounded with their magnum opus "Stapler!"  Personally, I think "Trash Can" would have been a much more appropriate title.

On a positive note, the cover art is a realistic portrayal of a bulletin board, so points for that!

So, is it an album?  No.  I just told you, it's a bulletin board.

Up next, we get some sexy R&B talk-singing with "All Things in Time" by Lou Rawls. 

"A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean" by Jimmy Buffett (1973)

 

“Some of it’s magic and some of it’s tragic.”

 

Songs That Also Appear on the Greatest Hits LP “Songs You Know by Heart”:

He Went to Paris, Grapefruit – Juicy Fruit, Why Don’t We Get Drunk

 

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:

Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

 

“A White Sport Coat…” plays like a perfect storm of the country-folk-singer-songwriter scene that was exploding at the time it came out.  And it all seems very much by Jimmy Buffett’s design.

 

For starters, he surrounds himself with some heavy hitters in the genre.  He co-wrote one of the tracks with Jerry Jeff “Mr. Bojangles” Walker.  Also, Steve “City of New Orleans” Goodman plays in Jimmy’s backup band, The Coral Reefers.  And so does fiddlist extraordinaire, Vassar “I did that cool stuff on ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’” Clements.

 

And on this release, Buffett tends to write songs in the idiosyncratic style of his contemporaries – one track at a time.  I triple-checked the authorship of Peanut Butter Conspiracy to make sure Tom T. Hall hadn’t actually written it.  I Have Found Me a Home sounds like a John Denver tune.  Death of an Unpopular Poet is a great imitation of  Jim Croce at his best.  And there are smatterings of John Prine throughout.

 

But then there is He Went to Paris.

 

That song is 100% Jimmy Buffett.  And it’s one of the best examples of why his fan base is so ravenous.  It’s set (partially) in the islands.  There’s booze.  It’s got a healthy dose of homespun folk wisdom without coming across as disingenuous.  And somehow, it has no pretenses or pretentions whatsoever.  Yeah, He Went to Paris is a great song.

 

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Although the quality and style of the songwriting vary greatly, the sound, attitude and ideas never waver.

 

Up next, we stay in 1973 with “Bulletin Board” by The Partridge Family.

"Songs in the Key of Life" by Stevie Wonder (1976)

 

Editorial Note: The “bonus record” was not spun for this entry.

 

Fun Fact #1: I know he’s blind, but the cover art for this LP looks like a picture taken during a colonoscopy.

 

Fun Fact #2: In what has to be the goofiest beef in the history of music, Coolio got mad at Weird Al for ripping off one of his songs that Coolio himself ripped off from “Songs in the Key of Life.”  For the record, Pastime Paradise is phenomenally better than Gangsta’s Paradise.  And so is Amish Paradise.

 

SIDE I

“Music is a world within itself with a language we all understand.”

Key Tracks: Have a Talk with God and Sir Duke

Rating: Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

Kicks Off With: Soulful vocal oohs.

Sounds Like: The Gospel according to Stevie – what’s important to him is 100% in the forefront.  Sir Duke plays like a horn-soaked mission statement.

 

SIDE II

“Smokin’ cigarettes and writin’ something nasty on the wall.”

Key Tracks: I Wish and Pastime Paradise

Rating: Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

Kicks Off With: A thumpin’ funky bass line

Sounds Like: The ghetto according to Stevie – and also romance.  It’s really hard to reconcile those two concepts.  He paints a raggedly vivid picture of the first and a hackneyed, on-a-pedestal version of the second.

 

SIDE III

“You’ve brought some joy inside my tears.”

Key Track: Isn’t She Lovely

Rating: Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

Kicks Off With: A baby crying

Sounds Like: A continued contradiction, but with a harmonica – finally!  A harmonica in Stevie Wonder’s hands is a declaration of pure joy.  Too bad he doesn’t keep that up here…

 

SIDE IV

“It fills you up without a bite and quenches every thirst.”

Key Track: As

Rating: Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)
Sounds Like: A message of hope.  There’s nothing more I could say about that.

 

So, is it a double album?  Yes.  “Songs in the Key of Life” is an archetypal double album in the classic “White Album” sense.  It jumps across a dozen genres, twisting on the whim of an artist who can’t be pigeonholed. 

 

Up next, Jimmy Buffett in country mode is a lot of fun, especially when it’s “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean.”

"Second Album" by The Four Tops (1965)

“It’s the same old song, but with a different meaning…”

 

Soul Classics on This LP:I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) and It’s the Same Old Song

 

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:

HIGHLY Recommended (3.5/4 stars)

 

When I was a kid, it seemed like my family was always on its way to somewhere.  The car was our temple and the radio was our swinging censer of jasmine.  And Solid Gold Saturday night was a weekly ritual.  It hooked me on oldies and exposed me to a lot of really good and really diverse music.  My education was so thorough that I can still remember the show’s jingle and call-in number.  It’s going strong these days with the original DJ, Mike Harvey – only now it’s called Super Gold and they play way too much disco.  I have nothing against disco, but for me, “oldies” music stops dead in 1974.

 

My dad also kept about 20 eight tracks (and later, cassettes) in the car at all times, in case the radio hit a streak of songs he didn’t like or we drove out of reception – this was always a possibility in our particularly rural neck of Eastern Kentucky.  When I was about six, I latched on to a couple in particular.  My request was always for Sam Cooke’s Greatest Hits, the one with the yellow and black cover.  Being a big Sam Cooke fan, but also growing tired of playing the same thing over and over, Dad introduced me to similar music he thought I might like. 

 

And so, between Solid Gold Saturday Night and my father’s music collection, an undying love for soul music was born.  And it grew.

 

One of my first music purchases was a cassette with the best of The Four Tops on one side and the best of The Temptations on the other.  I played that thing until it broke.  For a long time though, I couldn’t distinguish between the two groups, since they were mingled together on the same tape (I had a similar problem with BTO and Grand Funk Railroad).  But now, there’s no comparison whatsoever.  The Temptations had some great songs, but not nearly as many as The Four Tops.  Also, The Four Tops tie The Beach Boys in my book for best, most consistent use of the baritone saxophone ever.

 

Like I said before, I love this type of music.  There’s just something… primordial going on in those early Motown records and their ilk – you can’t not be moved by them.  It’s like they took the blues and infused them with a spark of hope, even in the most hopeless of songs.  That’s an impossible, yet impeccable equation.  And nobody has ever been able to recreate it.  Nobody has ever even come close.

 

So, is it an album?  Yes.  It’s tight, it’s focused and it’s guaranteed to make you smile.

 

Up next, we stay in our R&B vein with Stevie Wonder’s double-album opus, “Songs in the Key of Life.”

"Denim and Leather" by Saxon (1981)

Be Forewarned: This will be a heavy-metal geek-out entry.

 

“Where were you in ’79 when the dam began to burst?”

 

Personal Favorites:

And the Bands Played On and Denim and Leather are both phenomenal songs about the emergence of heavy metal in the popular consciousness.  Play it Loud is about playing it loud and is also amazing.

 

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:

REQUIRED LISTENING (4/4 stars).  Seriously, if you like any type of remotely heavy music and you haven’t heard this LP, you are really missing out.

 

The LP’s lyrics make references to several bands, including Deep Purple, Rainbow and UFO.  And those influences are apparent all over “Denim and Leather.”  It has Ritchie Blackmore guitar sensibilities and shares UFO’s acumen for crafting radio-friendly heavy music.  And that blending is what set Saxon and their contemporaries apart and got the world’s attention. 

 

I have mentioned before that fellow NWOBHM band Iron Maiden is a great starting point for a journey into heavy metal.  Saxon also works well in this capacity for the same reasons.  First, their songs are full of great hooks; you can’t go wrong with great hooks. Secondly, they are readily accessible the first time you hear them.  That’s a big deal and it’s something that none of their metal predecessors (like Sabbath) were ever able to boast.  Also, they teeter right on the precipice between hard rock and heavy metal, making them an easier pill for many to swallow, as opposed to a group like Venom that was much heavier and a precursor thrash and death metal.

 

Let me clarify that last statement.  I have very specific criteria for what I myself consider to be heavy metal music as opposed to hard rock.  I love both genres, but I do think there’s a clear distinction.  Led Zeppelin is not heavy metal.  Deep Purple (or any other Blackmore project) is not heavy metal.  Kiss and AC/DC are not heavy metal.  Those are all hard rock.  Which is great, I love hard rock too.  But for me, metal crosses into something that is continually thicker and darker; metal lurks in the fringes and shadows.  It’s not even about the sound, it’s about the attitude.  All of the bands I just listed made songs with that attitude, but it was never a consistent (or even regular) thing for any of them.

 

Saxon has both feet firmly on the metal side, but the band is clearly still looking back across the chasm.  And it makes for some great music.

 

So, is it an album?  Yes.  It flat out rocks from stem to stern.

 

Up next, we finally get back into the R&B world with the second album by The Four Tops, creatively titled “Second Album.”

"All American Boy" by Rick Derringer (1973)

Fun Fact:
Per the liner notes, there is a thing called a hair-drum... and Rick Derringer knows how to play it.

"There's a lotta sexy girls out there and I've got a built-in cosmic need for a TEENAGE LOVE AFFAIR."

Rock-and-Roll-Hoochie-Classic:
Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo

Song That Makes My Brain Melt and Ooze out of My Ear because it Exists:
Hold

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Average (2/2 stars)

"All American Boy" sounds almost exactly like what you would expect from a one hit wonder.  Of course it opens with Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo.  After that, there are a few oases of interesting bits scattered  throughout an otherwise choppy and uneven bunch of space fillers.  Oh yeah, and there are songs with titles like The Airport Giveth (The Airport Taketh Away) and Slide on over Slinky  that get devliered without a single drop of irony whatsoever.

Except that...

Joe Walsh shows up and plays on a couple of tracks.  Okay, I get that.  Joe Walsh played on pretty much everybody's stuff in the early seventies.

And Edgar Winter does keys on a few more.  Fair enough.  That crazy albino Texan  probably should have been on more stuff in the early seventies.

And then, of course, Derringer cowrote one of the songs on this LP with Patti Smith.  3... 2.. 1... Wait, what?!  Yes, THAT Patti Smith.  The protopunk icon who did Horses and Gloria also helped pen the most schmaltzy and terrible ballad on this LP (and trust me, that's saying a lot).

Additionally, Toots Thielemans plays harmonica on one number.  I no idea who he is, but with a name like that, he's got to be awesome.

So, is it an album?  No.  As the cover art suggests, "All American Boy" can't decide whether it wants to be rock or pop, so it just keeps bouncing back and forth between the two... except for when it shifts into smooth jazz mode, which it totally does every now and then.

Up next, do you NWOBHM?  Well, you're about to as we explore "Denim and Leather" by Saxon.

"Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits (1985)

Fun Fact:Mark Knopfler writes more songs about people singing songs than anybody I can think of.  There are three in a row on this LP.

"I want my MTV."

Songs You Might Have Heard on the Radio (or seen on MTV) from this LP:So Far Away, Money for Nothing, Walk of Life, Brothers in Arms

"Brothers in Arms" insists on being an eighties album.  At the time it was released, it was resolvedly grounded absolutely in its time.  When people think about the big hits from this LP, they think of the technology of the time.  I want to point at right here and now that there's a helluva lot more going on here than just Reagonomics and Max Headroom.

But it seems Dires Straits doesn't want us to think about that because they (or somebody, but Mark Knopfler is the first producer listed) force fed it to us when "Brothers in Arms" came out.

The best example and worst offender here is Walk of Life.  What's the first thing you think of when I mention that song?  Okay, now what's the second?  I don't know the order, but I'll bet good money that the two answers were: that opening synth riff and that great, iconic video.  And I have to admit, they both hooked me and reeled me in every time it came on the tube.  Let's face it, sports bloopers were awesome in the days before "America's Funniest Home Videos," and that's just one of those primordial sequences of notes that grabs you.

But here's the thing -- all of the technology overshadows some other (really great) aspects of that song.  For starters, it's an infectious twelve-bar guitar shuffle.  It also has some incredible lyrics.  For your reading enjoyment: "after all the violence and double talk, there's just a song in all the trouble and the strife."  See what I mean?  I have sung that line probably over a hundred times, but I had never processed it until I read it in the liner notes today -- and all because of that infectious keyboard melody.

So I do have to concede that all that tech makes for a really fun experience.

Still, The Man's Too Strong never had a video and it doesn't have much at all in the way of synths, but it does have TWO VERY ANGRY GUITARS.  And it's hands down my favorite cut.  You should go listen to it right now.  I'll wait.  Yeah, you can't beat The Man's Too Strong.

...until you get to Brothers in Arms.  And it turns out to be an astounding marriage of guitars and keyboards -- registering a whopping 9.2 Pinks on the Floyd scale.  Each instrument elevates and amplifies the other, until they pierce your soul in beauteous rapture.  Brothers in Arms is a phenomenal song, and it's not even about people who sing songs.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Say what you want about the synths (and the sax -- a sax can damn near ruin a song in a sixteenth note), but this thing is clearly one man's vision.

Up next, we check out a one-hit rocker from the seventies.  It's "All American Boy" by Rick Derringer.  Something tells me it'll be heavy on the Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo...

"Bustin' Out" by Pure Prairie League (1972)

Classic Rock Radio Staple: Amie

Another Song That Is Also Pretty Good: Jazzman

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Above Average (2.5/4 stars)

My friend Doug used to insist that you could never buy a full-length release on the strength of one single -- he had apparently been burned too many times by that particular bait and switch.  When No Scrubs came out he commented that he liked the song and then stubbornly refused to buy the CD.  But the second he heard Unpretty, he ran out and scooped up "FanMail."  Typing this now, I realize that those are both good songs, but they're also both very girl-powery.  You go, Doug!

If Jazzman had been released as a single, "Bustin' Out" would have met Doug's goofy criteria.  It's a good song.  And Amie is a great song.  However, there's not much else going here on besides that.  Doug would have been disappointed in "Bustin' Out."  Hell, it may even have changed his whole way of thinking, possibly upping the stakes to as many as three good songs required before purchase.  I can see Doug now ratlling off the hit singles like The Count in Sesame Street as he stands in the line at Best Buy, waiting to purchase his copy of "Oops.. I Did It Again" (I'll stick with the theme he established).  I then imagine him -- two hours later -- changing the requirement to full listening disclosure before purchase.

Anyway, Pure Prairie League is definitely not aiming for the fences here.  There's one song with a discernable electric guitar, but otherwise all the tracks sound pretty much the same.  There's a tune called Angel No. 9 and another one just called Angel; and the tracks don't even have anything to do with each other (as opposed to Tom Petty's copout on "She's the One" with Angel Dream  (No. 4) and Angel Dream (No. 2) -- that's a whole lotta similarities for not a lot of value).  Additionally, Falling in and out of Love with You and Amie share so many lyrics and melodies, PPL would have been much better to just slam them together into a single song.  Or, preferably, they could have just leve FiaooLwY off completely.

But in the end, I sat in my chair and bopped along because this is a kind of music I really enjoy.  It sounds like the Allman Brothers when they're not being bluesy or jammy.  Next time though, I'll just listen to the Allman Brothers.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Surprisingly, its narrowness of scope makes it remarkably cohesive, albeit pretty dull.  I guess being an album is not necessarily a positve thing.

Up next, we definitely gets some bluesiness and jamminess as we swing back to the eighties with "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits.

"Faith" by George Michael (1987)

"People -- you can never change the way they feel.  Better let them do just what they will."

Charting Singles from This LP:Faith, Father Figure, I Want Your Sex, One More Try, Monkey, Kissing a Fool

The fifties exploded pop music.  The sixties perfected it.  The seventies carried its torch through a coke-riddled haze.  And the eighties evolved it into something immensely more massive and ferocious; the eighties gave us Super-Pop.  This was the age when giants roamed the Earth -- the Madonnasaurus, the Veloci-Prince, the fearsome Jackson Rex. 

This LP fits right in with those juggernauts.  In the sixties, it was about taking the recent singles and compiling them into an LP.  In the eighties, it was about crafting an LP that was overloaded with potential pop hand grenades. 

As a result, it took George Michael two years to make "Faith."  In contrast, The Monkees released five whole LPs in a single two-year period.  And his diligence paid off.  Of it's nine tracks, seven were released as singles.  Four of them were number one hits on the pop chart.  Two more broke the top five.  Juggernaut.

The best proof I can offer is this... "Why do I have to share my baby with a monkey?" should not be a line from the chorus of any non-novelty pop hit.  I get that that the monkey is an obvious metaphor for addiction, but that only makes it about ten times less pop-friendly.  And yet...

God bless the eighties.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  "Written, arranged and produced by George Michael" pretty much says it all -- except that he also sang it and played a bunch of the instruments (sometimes all of them).

Up next, we go "Bustin' Loose" with the Pure Prairie League.

"Harmony" by Three Dog Night (1971)

Songs you might know from this LP:
Never Been to Spain, An Old Fashioned Love Song, The Family of Man

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Above Average (2.5/4 stars)

When I was in college, I went with my parents to a Three Dog Night concert near the small town where I grew up.  My mother had called the box office the minute it opened and scored us front row seats.  As we waited for the show to begin, we began speculating about which song they might open with.  When everything settled down and this particular incarnation of the group finally started playing, turns out it was The Family of Man.  None of us had guessed it, but we all still bopped in our seats and sang along to Sly-Stone-lite for the next four minutes.  That moment represented the culmination of my being educated in the band; the first lesson had started many years earlier.

Three Dog Night was safely funky, so my dad dug 'em.  They could also be pretty bubble-gummy pop, so my mom was on board too.  And if both of my parents were spinning (different) 45s by these guys, they got ingrained really quickly in my psyche.  I learned the tunes everybody knows before I can even remember, but I was also schooled in less AM-friendly cuts.

This usually occurred when my dad would reference some song of theirs and I would frankly admit that I had never heard it.  "You HAVE to have heard that song.  You've heard it, you just don't remember it."  Then I would be treated to a few a capella bars that were as heartfelt as they were tone deaf.  After each one, I was doubly certain that I had absolutely never heard that song before.  And let me tell you, tunes like Eli's Coming and Pieces of April have zero chance of ever living up to that kind of hype once you actually hear the original recordings.

When we migrated to CDs in the late eighties, a Three Dog Night's greatest hits was among the first purchases my dad made.  It stayed in the prestigious "six" slot on the CD changer until... actually, I think it's still in there.

So, is it an album?  No, but it sure kicks the nostalgia filter into high gear.

Up next, if I gotta have Faith, it might as well be George Michael's...

"Sounds of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel (1966)

REBOOT:

Since I have completed my initial hundred LP review, I am dropping  the self-imposed restrictions I originally set for this project.  However, if something I spin still meets those original parameters, I’ll still weigh in on whether or not it’s an album or just a compilation of songs.  I'm also giving myself some limited veto authority over the random number generator.

 

Fun Fact: I have a theory that A Most Peculiar Man and I Am a Rock are different versions of the same story, told from a third person and first person point of view, respectively.

 

“I don’t know why I spend my time writing songs I can’t believe.”

 

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:REQUIRED LISTENING (4/4 stars).  Seriously, if you haven’t heard every song on this LP, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

 

There is a definite arc to the Simon & Garfunkel catalogue.  They made: one folk record, two folk rock records and two psychedelic rock records.  Four of those records are required listening.  The folk LP is a good effort, but it didn’t all come together until their sophomore release – “Sounds of Silence.”

 

The song The Sound of Silence actually appears on both.  The two versions couldn’t paint a clearer picture of the surprising distance between folk and folk rock.  Turns out it’s not just about adding drums a more instrumentation; there’s a paradigm shift when it comes to mindset and attitude.  The folk sound of the early sixties was driven by innocence and hope with large amounts of naivete.  The sound that evolved into folk rock, on the other hand, usually drew from an attitude that was grounded, experienced and skeptical.  The noticeable change in the versions of The Sound of Silence comes from the way Paul Simon speaks the exact same lyrics – there is a heaviness to the remake that was not present the first go around.

 

Blessed and Richard Cory are two good examples of tracks that probably started as folk songs, but seem to have been repurposed into folk rock tunes.  They both carry a heavy dose of maturation and are delivered with a cynical snarl.

 

April Come She Will is really the only true folk song on “Sounds of Silence.”  It also happens to be the only song Art Garfunkel sings solo.  My guess is that Paul Simon was no longer doe-eyed enough to do justice to something so simple.  This track is very much the exception that proves the rule on “Sounds of Silence” – the sound had to grow as the artists did.

 

So, is it an album?  Yes.  The aforementioned heaviness runs through most everything, even in songs like We’ve Got a Groovey [sic] Thing Goin’.

 

Up next, "Harmony" by Three Dog Night.

"Reign in Blood" by Slayer (1986)

EDITORIAL NOTE: I began writing this last week, but got sidetracked and had almost forgotten about it.  After hearing the sad news of Slayer guitarist/songwriter/cofounder Jeff Hanneman’s passing, I really felt the need to finish what I had started.

I grew up in the last days of dangerous music – when large numbers of adults were legitimately concerned that songs could corrupt their children to the point of destruction.  My parents and their friends used to have conversations about the perils of this new genre of music that was becoming popular.  “You know that band Kiss?  Well their name is an abbreviation for ‘Knights in Satan’s Service.’  And AC/DC?  That’s ‘After Christ, Devil Comes.’  I heard that Ozzy Osbourne fella performs an animal sacrifice to Satan at the end of every one of his shows.  Judas Priest has a song with a coded message that makes kids kill themselves.”

These discussions confused my ten-year-old brain because I had heard songs by some of the groups they mentioned.  Sure, those guys who sang Beth looked like dingy clowns, but their music had never made me feel afraid or worried.  Since I couldn’t process this information, I filed it away and kept taking mental notes over the next few years. 

…And there were lots of notes to take. 

There were the kids a couple years older than me sifting through the cassettes in our local store and freaking themselves out with the “Holy Diver” cover art.  “Dude, when you turn the Dio logo upside down and read it, it TOTALLY spells ‘devil.’”   “Dude, put it down.  Just put it down.”

There was my dad buying a record collection at a yard sale, discovering “The Number of the Beast” among the titles, and promptly smashing it to pieces with a hammer.

There were the countless stories on television about some teenager driven to desperate, lethal madness by heavy metal music, reported as though we mere mortals were helpless against its dark powers. 

Fear was palpable in the airwaves, and it fascinated me – even then.  Without any context, my mind imagined things far more horrible than the overblown, misrepresented realities that no one seemed to bother fact checking.  Eventually, I would find myself seeking out those darker things in music.

But it began in middle school with Bradford Merville Blair.  Brad transferred in to my school for reasons never fully explained or understood.  He used to bite holes in soda cans; he had a monumentally absurd, filthy sense of humor and no recognition of any immediate need for authority figures.  We were fast friends.

Brad lived out in the county and didn’t have cable.  Instead, a huge fiberglass monstrosity of a satellite dish was planted in his yard.  That thing picked up channels from all over, of every size and dimension imaginable. 

One of the music channels played things way out of the safety of the MTV primetime box.  There were all sorts of sounds I had never encountered before.  The newness of them intrigued me, but one in particular took hold and wouldn’t let go.  It was that thing I knew I had been missing, but had not yet found.  I cannot remember what song it was, but I remember what happened next.

“You like the metal, huh?” Brad asked.  I nodded, slack jawed.  “Then you need to hear this.”  Over the course of the next two hours, I inhaled every riff and every shrill wail of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” (twice).  Something had stirred deep inside me, and it was hungry… hungry like a man who didn’t even know the meaning of the word until just now because he had never truly eaten before.

But for all their snarling virtuosity and Lovecraftian subject matter, Metallica still creates very melodic, very accessible music (excepting “Saint Anger”).   I think that’s part of why I latched onto it so quickly. While they did not lead me all the way to the dark place my soul was craving, they were a solid starting point.  Metallica, like Iron Maiden, makes for a perfect gateway band into metal.  I kept digging deeper and finding heavier things until I ultimately discovered Slayer’s “Reign in Blood.”  To a thirteen year-old boy raised on top forty, it sounded like the death roll of the apocalypse.

The follow-up, “South of Heaven” (along with most of the Slayer catalogue), is also excellent, but it doesn’t come close to the sweat-soaked lunacy that is “Reign in Blood.”  Truth is, very little can.

I tend to process music in terms of its extremes.  When I think about punk, I think of hardcore.  When I think about rap, I think of gangsta rap.  When I think about heavy metal, I think of death metal – in particular, I think of Slayer.  There is an upper limit for aggression and speed in guitar-driven music and Slayer found it thirty years ago.  Others have matched it, but no one has ever surpassed it.  

Play someone a Slayer song and it immediately either repulses or resonates.  Very little music truly polarizes listeners in such a visceral way.  It is violent, insistent and profane – not just in its lyrical content, but also in the noise it makes.  Hanneman, King and company were the smiling composers of soundtracks for Darkness.  There is something deeply fulfilling about their songs on a pagan level – something that nourishes the id.  Slayer was the band my parents never knew they were afraid of; Slayer was the last of the dangerous music. 

Necrophobic by Slayer

In Memorium: George Jones

"If we all could sound like we wanted to, we'd all sound like George Jones."
--Waylon Jennings

There were large chunks of seminal country music missing from my formative years.  So, my first introduction to George Jones involved early CMT videos of I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair and High-Tech Redneck.  They were entertaining (and more than a bit goofy), but I didn't get what all the hype was about.  But as I got older, I started digging deeper...

And I realized just how many George Jones songs I loved that I never knew were George Jones songs.  The man was probably the most enduring voice in the history of country music.

Across the span of over six decades, he kept making himself relevant time and time again by persistently and insistently being... well, himself.  He created classic after classic by delivering something so seemingly simple and yet so excruciatingly elusive to so many.

Whenever he sang Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes, he was singing as much about himself as he was anybody he mentioned in the song.  The man gets my vote for inventing (or at least popularizing) the country duet -- a category that still persists.  He also gets my vote for recording one of the greatest moonshine songs ever (it's called White Lightnin'; if you didn't know that, why are you reading this?!).

And very few people could say that they had their biggest hit 25 years after they first charted (He Stopped Loving Her Today; seriously, everybody ought to know that one...).  Even fewer can say that their vocal stylings garnered the envy of both Waylon Jennings AND Frank Sinatra.

The truth is, there are dozens of songs I could link to here that are quintessential George Jones, including: Tender Years, She Thinks I Still Care and The Race Is On.  However, the truth is also that you either already know all of those songs or you need to listen to all of those songs.  So instead I'll just link to one -- it's a a song that exemplifies not just what I love about George Jones, but one that's what I love about country music itself.  It takes what should be maudlin and churns it around until it gets delivered in a way that is an absolute expression of human existence... 'cause that's what G.J. could do.  It's a song that reminds me why I keep pushing on, and I can't give him any greater compliment than that.  Thanks, George.

Where Grass Won't Grow -- George Jones

Talk about the Passion: Wrapping up the First Year

View the orginal Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

So, there’s been a definite lag on me writing my conclusions from the past year.  I wasn’t fuzzy on what they were, I’ve been compiling them since about March or so.  Honestly, I just wasn’t feeling it.  And I am so glad I waited.  Something happened this morning that put it all into perspective.

 

I walked into my cubicle at work and literally gasped out loud.  A friend had dropped off an unexpected early birthday present for me.  It’s an LP by a band I really, really love and one I have never seen on vinyl.  I spent the next twenty minutes just holding it and checking it out, spellbound like a shaman in a fever dream.

 

Let’s start with the title.  The layout does nothing at all to help you figure out if it’s supposed to be called “Fables of the Reconstruction” or “Reconstruction of the Fables” or “Reconstruction of the Fables of the Reconstruction of the...”  (Keep in mind, you couldn’t just google it to find out back in 1985.)  To further confuse the issue, the packaging is all laid out so that it can be read either way.

 

Speaking of packaging, both sides of the jacket look like cover art, and neither is oriented normally in regard to the spine.  A small barcode is really the only thing that distinguishes which one should be the back cover.  And it’s not a square package.  It’s slightly rectangular, so the insert will only go in sideways from the way that would seem to make sense – and again, not in any clear orientation to the sleeve.

 

And then there’s the LP itself.  One side is labeled the A Side (it is titled “Fables of the Reconstruction).  There is no B Side.  Instead, there is Another Side (it is titled “Reconstruction of the Fables”).

 

Not to mention all the cryptic word games and bizarre marginalia in the liner notes.  The whole thing feels like some sort of weird puzzle box.  It is totally awesome.

 

R.E.M. isn’t alone when it comes to creative packaging.  Led Zeppelin wins that category hands down.  I can’t really describe it or even post an image because most of their covers were interactive in some way.  And Steve Harris still brags that people bought early Iron Maiden records not because they had heard the music, but because they were intrigued by the artwork. 

 

So even though I’ve had the clearly titled “Fables of the Reconstruction” on CD for almost twenty years now, I was utterly excited about my gift this morning.  Vinyl is a very different beast.  There is absolutely a sense of discovery and a feeling of something when you hold an LP in your hands.  Very little of that ever translates to CDs, and none of it to thumbnail images on an MP3 player.

 

And that’s what I think some of us feel like we’re missing when we lament the passing of the album and the onrush of the digital age.  It’s taken me a hundred records and over a year to realize that my original notion of what constitutes “an album” didn’t include the full picture.  It’s not just about a cohesive sound.  It’s about a listener’s commitment to a time and a place; it’s about involvement of four senses rather than just one.  To me, it’s about wonder.  And wonder, it seems, is a decidedly analog quality.

"Abracadabra" by Steve Miller Band (1982)

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"Bet our love until you lose, then give back what you've been stealing."

Key Tracks: Abracadbra, Give It Up

Surprise Gem: Young Girl's Heart

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses: While I'm Waiting

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

Growing up without cable or a decent radio station, some of my earliest exposure to new music came at our local skating rink.  (It also provided my exposure to forgotten video game gold - Kangaroo.)  That's where I was first creeped out by the video to Rockwell's Somebody's Watching Me as it was projected onto a wall in the corner of the rink.  That's where I developed PTSD from a seemingly endless loop of Chubby Checker's Limbo Rock as scores of children careened onto their butts.  That's where I first heard Prince and Madonna.  That's where I learned to hate the hokey pokey.  Seriously, who ever thought the hokey pokey on rollerskates was a good idea?!

And that's my strongest memory of Steve Miller's Abracadbra.  Turns out, it's a really good song to skate to.  I guess it's that little chorus of "round and round."  Funny thing though, Ratt never caught on there.  Abracadbra played every weekend I was there for at least two years.  And it never got old.  It's just a fun song, even if never mentioned black panties... which it totally does.

Long story short, I really liked the song.  But, popular music being just that, it dropped out of circulation and out of my mind.

Until...

Stupid Sugar Ray.  I don't even have anything against Sugar Ray in particular.  I mean, they weren't great or even pretty good, they were just kind of there.  But they had to go and do something that I didn't understand at all so I will call it stupid.  They made an almost note-for-note remake of Abracdabra.  There was nothing new, no interpretation, nothing.  Just a "hey kids, this is a song from when we were kids and you may not have heard it and we didn't feel like writing another track, so here ya go!"  Total cop out.

To contrast, their version came out right after one of the most left-turn, devisive covers of the time.  I am speaking of course of Alien Ant Farm's post-punk rendition of Smooth Criminal.  Whether you loved that song or hated it (I was in both camps), you took notice when it came out.

So, my question is: why Sugar Ray?  You certainly didn't make any money off of it, and Steve Miller didn't need the money.  Why couldn't you just have like worn a Steve Miller shirt onstage or dropped his name in some interview?  Ugh.  But anyway, I really liked the song... the first go around.  And Mark McGrath is still paying pennance on Extra.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Even though Steve Miller only wrote two songs on "Abracadbra," and they stand head and shoulders above almost everything else, everything still sounds distinctly Steve Miller.

Up next... whoa.  This was the hundredth LP.  My yearlong experiment is over.  So, up next we have the results and conclusions.  And after that... remains to be seen.

"Natural High" by The Commodores (1978)

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"The memories are all in my mind."

My Favorite Tracks:
X-Rated Movie and Such a Woman

Disco Wedding Mega-Anthem:
Three Times a Lady

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
Flying High and Visions

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Average (2/4 stars)

The Commodores are a walking contradiction - or maybe they were just trying to corner all the R&B markets of the late seventies.  The same band that wrote Brick House also wrote Easy... and on the same LP no less.  While neither of those tracks are on "Natural High," the dichotomy is gratingly apparent here.

The Rosetta Stone to this mystery is, unsurprisingly, Lionel Richie.  He writes music to make sweet love by.  The rest of the guys in The Commodores write songs for gettin' your swerve on.  Granted they're both genres dedicated to making nookie.  However, they are lightyears apart.  It's kind of like comparing Tony Bennett to Motley Crue.

Motley Crue wins that cage match in my book.  Similarly, I gravitate to The Commodores' funk much more than their ballads.  Unfortunately for me, Lionel writes or cowrites over half of the songs on "Natural High," bringing the whole thing down to slow groove level about one and a half gold-plated-medallions-swimming-in-a-sea-of-chest-hair away from creepy.  When they do slip in a funk tune, it's downright jolting.

One last completely tangential note: the bridge and chorus on Flying High sound eerily like they belong in a song by Yes.

So, is it an album?  No.  It's six different guys coming up with their own ideas and then meeting in the studio to try and fit it all together.

Up next, Steve Miller works his magic with "Abracadabra."  I wanna reach out and grab ya...

"Aerosmith" by Aerosmith (1973)

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"Nobody knows where it comes and where it goes."

My Favorite Tracks:
One Way Street, Mama Kin, Movin' Out

Classic Rock Mega-Anthem:
Dream On

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
Write Me a Letter

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

I came of age in the eighties, and so my understanding of Aerosmith is filtered throught that.  The first time I heard Walk This Way was as a duet with Run DMC.  The first time I heard Sweet Emotion, it had a video with James Spader in it.  And the first time I heard Dream On, it was done in an over the top live performance along with a full orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen.

Dream On seemed like a really odd song to me at the time; it didn't feel at all like the same band who had done Love in an Elevator and Janie's Got a Gun.  At the time, I chalked it up to a sound they must have had back in the seventies that I didn't know about.

But since I have gotten into their earlier catalogue, I realize that Dream On really doesn't sound like ANY other Aerosmith song.  It's piano heavy.  Steven Tyler has stated that he intentionally changed the sound of his voice when he recorded this song.  He wrote the lyrics when he was seventeen.  And it's absent the swagger and bravado of pretty much everything else they do.  AND IT'S NOT BLUESY!  I don't mean to try and pigeonhole a band this signficant, but everything they have ever done has drawn a direct reference to the blues - whether as obvious as a twelve-bar shuffle or as subtle as an attitude.  Dream On exists in it's own little universe.  Basically, it's a Led Zeppelin song that got written by the wrong band.

Personally, I've never been a huge fan of the song - at least not the first three minutes.  The words sound like bad high school poetry (because they are), the guitar part is uninspired and the rhythm section sounds plain bored.  But then it starts building for the last 90 seconds, and what a 90 seconds it is.  Dream On is one of the all-time great crescendo songs.  Much like the 1812 Overture, it's a whole lot of something that's just sort of there - not really bad but not really great - until those few final moments of sheer carthatic explosion.  And that's what I love about Dream On.

So, is it an album?  No.  Dream On isn't the only song where it's clear that the band is still finding their footing on this debut.  But I do think that if they had done a few simple things like replacing one or two tracks and changing the play order, it could have been an album.  Seriously, why would you kick off your introduction to the musical world with anything other than Mama Kin?!

Up next, we put on our platform shoes and slink into the world of R&B and funk with "Natural High" by The Commodores.

"The Cry of Love" by Jimi Hendrix (1971)

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"Bourbon-and-Coke-possessed words and 'Haven't I seen you somewhere in Hell?'"

My Favorite Tracks:
Freedom, Night Bird Flying, Angel, Belly Button Window

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
REQUIRED LISTENING (4/4 stars).  Seriously, if you haven't heard every song on this LP, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

What could I possibly say about Jimi Hendrix that hasn't been said already?  Absolutely nothing, that's what.  Along with Chuck Berry, he's the most influential electric guitarist of all time.  We all agree he's awesome - except for one friend of mine who shall remain nameless.  This friend makes the following statement about Jimi's music: "I really dig his voice, I just don't care for his guitar playing."  It should be noted that said friend also says the EXACT OPPOSITE thing about Led Zeppelin.  To each his own I guess...

So, instead of trying to write something new about Jimi Hendrix, I'm gonna tell you how I happened to pick up "Cry of Love" on vinyl.

Every year, I check out my town's tiny section of the multi-state "world's largest yardsale."  I have always found titles that just don't pop up on the cheap at our local peddler's malls and used record stores, and I am always faced with some impossible decision like do I get "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" by Joan Jett or do I get "Forever Your Girl" by Paul Abdul.  Seriously, that was a really hard decision.  (I ended up choosing JJ and now have a good degree of buyer's remorse.)

Point is, there's always good music to be found.  Last year started slow.  The first area we hit was full over vendors who were overpriced and understocked.  But then when we popped into the next shanty town of folks selling the crap they didn't want anymore, I hit paydirt.  I noticed a small stack of about twenty LPs on a table.  The small stacks are the best.  You can flip through them quickly and move on if there's nothing to be found. 

I asked the guy how much his records were.  I always base whether it's worth my time on the price point, not the which artists I see on top.  It's been my experience that EVERYBODY who bought records always had that one left-field LP that was not like anything else in their collection.  So, even if it's 95% Andy Williams and Sha-Na-Na, a small stack is always worth checking out if the price is right.  Sometimes it doesn't pan out; sometimes it's Pink Floyd's "Meddle."

So, I asked the guy how much his records were.  "A buck each."  A dollar is my sweet spot (I have literally spent hours at a time flipping through piles of dollar records) so I dove in.  Within the first three I found the Beatles' double LP collection of later singels.  JACKPOT!  At this point, the day is already a success.  But I kept digging.

I found Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kiss LPs that I didn't already have.  I'm a passive Kiss fan, but I pick up pretty much anything of theirs at the right price.  I don't know what it is about Kiss, but they trigger something deep in the lizard brain of the dirt mall population.  I swear, I have heard this statement at least three times.  "My records all cost (x), except for the Kiss records.  They're all (some multiple of x)."

I was a happy lad.  And then I came across a loose record in the pile.  I'm not usually big on sleeveless vinyl, but this one was Jimi.  "Would you take fifty cents for this one without a jacket?" I asked.

"Depends.  Who is it?"

My brain sighed.  "Um... Jimi Hendrix?"

There was a long pause.  "Sure."

Me out loud: "Cool."  Me inside my head: "AWESOME!!!!"

I gave the guy a five and got a buck fifty back.  I used the buck at the next place I stopped to pick up "Purple Rain" still in the shrinkwrap.  They also had "Hotter than Hell," which is one Kiss record I do really want.  Unfortunately, the lady told me that everything was a dollar except for the Kiss records.  They were all ten.

Up next, we keep rockin' the early seventies with Aerosmith's self-titled debut.

"Just a Game" by Triumph (1978)

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Filed Between: Randy Travis and The Troggs

"We wait and watch and wonder just which puppet they'll select... It's just a game and all I can do is play."

Key Tracks:
Movin' On, Just a Game, Hold On

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
HIGHLY Recommended (3.5/4 stars)

Every time I find music I haven't heard by Triumph, I really enjoy.  It's always big and ballsy and a good bit smarter than most of its peers.  They are a lost jewel in the crown of classic rock.

So, why didn't they make it into the canon?  I think it comes down to four letters: R - U - S - H.  Let me describe a band to you - they're a Canadian power trio who sometimes use keyboards and sometimes address philosophical and/or political subject matter.  They also happen to have a great song about the music business.  Sound familiar?  Just so you know, I was actually talking about Triumph.  On paper, they look like long lost man-in-the-iron-mask twin brothers, but they're really not all that close at all.  Triumph is more like... well, nobody.  They are always their own band.

I happened across them when a late night DJ on our local Clear Channel classic rock station went on a tirade about how good and underappreciated they are and then he spun one of their songs (which I assume resulted in a flailing because it wasn't The Black Crowes).  I had to check them out. So when I got into vinyl they were high on my radar. I was not disappointed.

Do yourself a favor, go check out Triumph.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  There's a clear vision and definitely a hand guiding everything here.

Up next, sweeeeeeeeeeet!  We get to check out my vote for the best guitarist of all time!

"Two for the Show" by Kansas (1978)

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Filed between: Judas Priest and KC & The Sunshine Band

This one's a double-live LP, so...

SIDE I
Rating: Above Average (2.5/4 stars)
Best Track: Icarus - Borne on Wings of SteelKicks of with: a heavy dose of instrumental superprog
Sounds like: a collection of the band's most proggy tunes.  It even has their proggiest hit - Point of Know Return.  This side highlights Kansas' weakness on tracks like Song for America, but also their strengths when they can balance the synths with raging guitars, as heard on Icarus.

SIDE II
Rating: Above Average (2.5/4 stars)
Best Track: Carry on Wayward SonKicks off with: a crashing drum beat
Sounds like: straightforward hard rock.  The guitars lead the charge here and the synths are just used for accents and flourishes.  They even crank the preachy Portrait (He Knew) up to a fun level by playing it heavy and fast.

SIDE III
Rating: Above Average (2.5/4 stars)
Best Track: Mysteries and MayhemKicks off with: the famous riff from Dust in the WindSounds like: a bunch of fingering exercises.  It's all about showing off technique here.  There's an extended acoustic guitar solo AND an extended piano solo.  And they're back to back.

SIDE IV
Rating: Average (2/4 stars)
Best Track: [not available]
Kicks of with: organs fading in
Sounds like: two excruciatingly long songs.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  "Two for the Show" isn't great, but it's consistent.  Honestly, Kansas seems to function better when they're not trying (and often failing) to weave a thick, thematic web with a studio album.

Up next, we continue in our exploration of late-seventies power rock with a band that should have been more popular.  It's "Just a Game" by Triumph.