1. Murray McLauchlan, Hard Rock Town . . . not the hardest rocking tune, but appropriate to introduce the rest of this week’s ‘wake up the neighbors’ hard rocking show. I plan to get back to full commentaries for this new Saturday show (in addition to my 8-10 pm ET Monday show), next week. 
2. Judas Priest, Delivering The Goods
3. Blue Oyster Cult, Before The Kiss, A Redcap
4. Accept, Balls To The Wall
5. AC/DC, Let Me Put My Love Into You
6. Soundgarden, Birth Ritual
7. Black Sabbath, A National Acrobat
8. Pantera, Drag The Waters
9. Slayer, Dead Skin Mask
10. Queen, Brighton Rock
11. Led Zeppelin, Communication Breakdown
12. Whitesnake, Ain’t Gonna Cry No More
13. Rainbow, Gates Of Babylon
14. Mountain, Back Where I Belong
15. Deep Purple, Bad Attitude
16. The Rolling Stones, Lies
17. Headstones, Hindsight
18. Aerosmith, Nobody’s Fault
19. Pink Floyd, The Nile Song
20. April Wine, 21^st Century Schizoid Man
21. Metallica, The Outlaw Torn
22. Megadeth, Tornado Of Souls
23. The Amboy Dukes, Flight Of The Bird
24. Iron Maiden, Where Eagles Dare

1. Keith Richards, Whip It Up . . . From Richards’ first solo album, Talk Is Cheap, 1988. Solo albums were something Richards previously had said he didn’t want or need to make because he could fulfull his creativity within The Rolling Stones. But, as is well-documented, by the 1980s the relationship between him and Mick Jagger was almost (but thankfully not) irreparably frayed so Richards finally relented, almost in response to Jagger’s debut solo album, She’s The Boss, of the previous year. Mick won the sales battle, Keith that of the critics, many referring to his album as the best Stones album in years. By 1989, they were back together for the Steel Wheels album and tour, the reunion coming with the realization that band members, particularly the two chief songwriters, could do solo work without sinking the mother ship.
2. George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Howlin’ For My Baby . . . Typical Thorogood raunch, from the Haircut album.

3. Styx, Prelude 12/Suite Madame Blue . . . Not a Styx fan, really, one of my younger brothers was major into them during the 1970s and I know and like their hits. But this well-known but arguably deep cut may be my favorite.

4. Garland Jeffreys, 96 Tears . . . Great cover of ? And the Mysterians’ big hit. It prompted me to buy Jeffreys’ Escape Artist album, to further reward.

5. Johnny Winter, Memory Pain . . . I played Edgar last week, so here’s Johnny, this week.
6. Love, Signed D.C. . . . Beautiful song, my favorite by Love, about a harrowing subject, heroin addiction.

7. Aerosmith, The Hop . . . From Done With Mirrors, a relative commercial failure from 1985. It was the last release, and a down and dirty one it was, from Aerosmith before their big comeback, often using outside writers, via such albums as Permanent Vacation, Pump and so on. All good stuff, but I still prefer the earlier material. As someone on a rock show I watched the other day said, the more cleaned up from drugs and booze the boys in Aerosmith became, the worse their music got – at least to those of us more fond of the raunchier stuff.

8. Buckwheat Zydeco, The Wrong Side . . . From Memory Motel: Inside The World Of Keith Richards, a collection of the Rolling Stones’ guitarist’s favorites, from various artists. I have own a Buckwheat compilation but pulled this one from a rock magazine I bought some years ago. It was on one of those promo CDs stuck to the cover. One never knows where one finds music, which is the beauty of it.
9. Pretenders, Bad Boys Get Spanked . . . Pretenders II didn’t have the immediacy, or the hits, of the self-titled debut by the band, but it’s still a solid record, evidenced by this propulsive track. Concrete Blonde, a band I like very much, might have been listening in 1981 when this was released, because Ghost Of A Texas Ladies Man, released in 1992 on their Walking In London album, seems very much influenced by it. 

10. Van Halen, Dirty Movies . . . No bit hits on it aside from Unchained, but Fair Warning might be my favorite Van Halen album, although that’s a dangerous thing to say because, as I often say and believe, the best album or band or artist ever is the one you are listening to right now, if you like it. And I like the deep, dark tone of this record, and this tune.

11. Alice Cooper, Luney Tune . . . I’ve mentioned it before and it’s obvious but nevertheless amazing/crazy how the brain works. Or maybe it’s just me. Somehow or other the other day, while perusing YouTube in watching a music show I like, I happened upon some old Flintstones cartoons – Fred and Barney were bowling – which then got me thinking about old cartoons, like the classic Looney Tunes stuff (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, The Roadrunner, Tweety and Sylvester, etc.). Which then brought me to this deep Luney Tune, different spelling, from the School’s Out album.

12. Patti Smith, Midnight Rider . . . Back to the Twelve album I go. It’s the covers album Smith released in 2007 and well worth checking out. This time, she tackles the great Allman Brothers Band tune.

13. The Allman Brothers Band, Can’t Lose What You Never Had . . . Speaking of which, the Allmans themselves tackle a cover, in this case a Muddy Waters song. It appeared on 1975’s Win, Lose or Draw album.

14. Steppenwolf, Desperation . . . Bleak yet hopeful “think positively’ lyrics set to an appropriately dark arrangement on this one, from Steppenwolf’s debut, 1968. The album gave us Born To Be Wild as well as The Pusher and Sookie Sookie, among others.

15. The Tragically Hip, Bring It All Back . . . Bluesy, raunchy, great guitar on this terrific cut from Road Apples.

16. Fairport Convention, Sloth . . . I’m feeling lazy. I think I’ll listen to Fairport Convention for nine minutes and change.

17. Graham Parker and The Rumour, Empty Lives . . . Great tune, great lyrics including the line ‘on the up escalator going down all the cracks’ that gave its parent album, The Up Escalator its name and was my full blown intro to Parker in 1980, having somehow at first missed the previous breakthrough, Squeezing Out Sparks. Anyway, I quickly caught up, went back and then forward with the then ‘angry young man” but soon enough, he found domestic bliss, the music got worse the happier he became and I lost interest. But, good for him on the home front. I have no idea what he’s up to, at home or on record, since about 1991. That’s when, after several albums I bought by habit and loyalty until I realized I was wasting money, I gave up. He’s still out there, though, and I’m not usually so judgemental so perhaps I should pay an old friend a visit sometime. OK, I just did. Verdict? No. Sorry GP. Cloud Symbols, from 2018, cool album cover but…and you know you’re pretty much done commercially when you redo Squeezing Out Sparks, acoustically, as a 40^th anniversary reissue for 2019. As well, it’s trouble when you can’t even link to any albums on Wikipedia since 1991. I think I’ll stick to my early stuff plus the terrific compilation Passion Is No Ordinary Word: The Graham Parker Anthology, from 1993. I’m not really that down on GP, just having fun because one could say similar things about lots of longtime artists and I do have immense respect for the fact they’re still out there and in many cases still very successful. Just not necessarily for me, anymore. And the stuff they did that I do like is obviously readily available to listen to at any time. “He passed it on” as Keith Richards has said about musicians’ legacies.

18. Robert Plant, Like I’ve Never Been Gone . . . So, it’s two years after John Bonham dies and Led Zeppelin calls it quits and Plant does what one would think would come naturally and kudos to him, he pursues a solo career with a terrific first album, Pictures At Eleven, from which I pulled this song. And more has consistently come, from Plant, up until the present day. Meantime, his partner in songwriting/plagiarizing crime Jimmy Page spends his time trying to get Plant to reunite while dabbling in some semi-successful bands like The Firm and Coverdale-Page while endlessly remastering and reissuing Zep albums. OK, rant over. Next!

19. Aretha Franklin, The Weight . . . Aretha does The Band’s tune, helped by Duane Allman on guitar on one of many sessions he did outside and often before forming The Allman Brothers Band. I’ve mentioned it before but there’s two terrific Duane Allman collections out there – An Anthology and An Anthology 2 – featuring the band’s work but arguably more interestingly, his session stuff. Find them, by however means. You won’t be disappointed.

20. Elvis Costello, Riot Act . . . Speaking of angry young men like Graham Parker who I eventually gave up on. . . Well, as with every artist, we have what they’ve left behind in recorded form. Terrific cut from Get Happy!

21. Bruce Cockburn, What About The Bond . . . I’ve probably played this too recently, but so what? I love the Humans album, arguably Cockburn’s best, and I’ve always liked this track. So, here it is.

22. Warren Zevon, Genius . . . This is a superb song. Lyrically, of course, because Zevon was such a great writer. So much so that sometimes, his lyrics arguably overshadow his music and you need good music to pull people into listening to your lyrics. Mission accomplished here. The late great must have liked the song a lot himself, bccause one of his compilations, released in 2002 a year before his death, was titled Genius: The Best of Warren Zevon. It originally appeared on the studio album, My Ride’s Here, released earlier the same year.

23. The Who, However Much I Booze . . . I was discussing drinking with a friend the other night. This is the result, at least in terms of my set for this show.

24. Joni Mitchell, This Flight Tonight . . . A big hit for Nazareth, of course, so much so that Mitchell took to jokingly introducing it as “a Nazareth song’ when she played it live. It’s one of three examples that come immediately to my mind of a hard rock band taking a folk tune or ballad, rocking it up, getting a hit out of it and, arguably, redefining it. The others are Jimi Hendrix with Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower and Joan Baez’s tearjerker Diamonds and Rust reinvented by Judas Priest. All of which tells you a further cool thing; it doesn’t matter what genre you actually work in, most people listen to everything with an open mind and in the case of musicians, obviously think, “We can do something with that.” And they do, with often wonderful results although I like Dylan’s original a lot and Baez’s Diamonds and Rust, her paean to former flame Dylan, often brings tears to my eyes.

25. The Guess Who, Bye Bye Babe . . . As we say bye bye for another week, on Mondays at least. Starting this Saturday morning, Sept. 24, I’m beginning a new show, So Old It’s New 2, from 7-9 am. The station has some available slots open, so I’m filling one and going to wake up the neighbors with more of the same of what I currently do but I’m also going to use the extra slot for stuff that I can’t cram into my Monday show, or I may do some themed shows like heavy rock/metal, or reggae, or punk/new wave, or full album plays. It’s a blank canvas I plan to fill by following my muse.

1. Stray, Feel Like I’ve Been Here Before . . . Yeah, like last Monday evening, I was here before, playing tunes. OK, I stole the line from a Star Trek The Next Generation episode. Cause and Effect, where the Enterprise crew is caught in a time loop and keeps repeating the same scenario during which the ship is destroyed during a collision with another vessel, also caught in the loop. As the crew begins to experience deja vu, Lt. Worf, during the officers’ weekly poker game, says that he feels like he’s done this before to which First Officer Riker says, ‘yeah, last Tuesday night.” But all soon deduce that something is up. As for the song, it’s a riff rocker by Stray, a band I’ve played before and discovered some years ago now via a terrific compilation called I’m A Freak, Baby – A Journey Through The British Heavy Psych and Hard Rock Underground Scene, 1968-72. There’s since been a I’m A Freak, Baby 2 and, I discovered the other day, a No. 3 I’ll have to pick up. A great way to discover some great, obscure music.

2. Edgar Winter, Give It Everything You Got . . . Funky rocker from the White Trash album, 1971.

3. Blue Oyster Cult, Stairway To The Stars . . . From the debut, self-titled BOC album in 1972. It’s the first of three from the so-called Black and White period covering the first three records (Blue Oyster Cult, Tyranny and Mutation and Secret Treaties) even though there’s red in some of the album covers. Many fans consider the first three albums the zenith of BOC’s career, before the big hits like (Don’t Fear) The Reaper and Burnin’ For You when the band went more commercial. I like all of it but the first three records are spookier and more experimental, certainly for the time, and therefore were influential on the hard rock and metal scene.

    

4. Steve Hackett, Star Of Sirius . . . Guitarist Hackett was still in Genesis when he issued his first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte, in 1975. It features bandmates Mike Rutherford on bass and drummer (and lead singer on this track) Phil Collins. As such, it could be a Genesis album and in some ways, lead singer Peter Gabriel having departed, set the stage for the next phase of Genesis’s career, as Hackett relates in the liner notes to a 2005 reissue of his album. “Phil Collins sang lead vocals on Star of Sirius, which in hindsight might be seen as perhaps paving the way for him taking over as singer in Genesis . . . The album was very well received and I think all of us in the band felt that if there was such an amount of interest in my solo career, then there would certainly be a large amount of interest in anything the four of us (including keyboard player Tony Banks) as Genesis could produce.” Hackett was right on two counts – his record gave the band the confidence to produce the excellent first post-Gabriel album, A Trick of the Tail, and also gave him confidence to fully strike out on his own, which he did after Wind and Wuthering, which followed A Trick of the Tail.

5. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Born To Move . . . Ridiculously great band, CCR, and so much more than their many hits, as this funky, jazzy jam tune from the Pendulum album confirms. Remarkably prolific, remarkably consistent, and obviously great, Pendulum being the band’s second studio album of 1970. The lazy bastards were slacking off after releasing three, 3! studio records in 1969.

    

6. Jack Bruce, How’s Tricks . . . Funky title tune from The Jack Bruce Band’s 1977 album, which was trashed by critics, many of whom, of course, are not progressing past the admittedly great Cream records on which Bruce played such a large part. Two critics’ quotes I pulled from the web about the album: “An uninspired set of 10 lacklustre tunes.” and “A journeyman effort hardly worth dredging up.” Whatever. Did you actually listen, more than once? Didn’t think so.

7. Dave Edmunds, As Lovers Do . . . As we enter the, by titles at least, “relationships gone bad’ phase of the set via this country-ish Edmunds’ tune. “We’re just falling out of love, as lovers do.” Some lovers. Some stay together, despite everything; some dissolve, despite what in retrospect may have been easily overcome issues.

8. Ry Cooder, Alimony . . . And then, sometimes, comes what Ry is ruminating on and the lawyers all go home richer.

9. Genesis, Robbery, Assault and Battery . . . You just knew I’d get back to Genesis after playing the Steve Hackett tune and mentioning the A Trick of the Tail album earlier, didn’t you? Regular show followers, if they know me at all, had it nailed right off but were just wondering whether I’d get to it immediately after Hackett (which is just what one might be expecting) or wait a bit. I waited. And the title could fit into the relationship theme.

10. The Kinks, To The Bone . . . As could this fine Kinks’ tune, as in taken financially to the bone. It’s the title cut to a terrific, somewhat unplugged, live album that became the band’s final release, in 1994. The album features myriad Kinks’ hits pulled from their 1993-94 US and UK tours, plus some played to a small audience at the band’s Konk Studios. To The Bone was a new studio track recorded at that time by the band and, to me, says they had much of value left in the tank. The Kinks are one of my favorite bands, often criminally overlooked against the widespread appeal of their original British Invasion mates like The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Who. I’ve continued to follow the careers of the Davies brothers, Ray and Dave, via their solo work but I’d submit that, as with the similarly often at odds Gallagher brothers of Oasis fame, the solo work doesn’t hold up against what they produced together. That said, I’d prefer both bands leave things as they were because reunion studio work, as so often happens, would likely leave fans disappointed given the passage of time, musical directions and, perhaps, lost chemistry.

11. Ten Years After, 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain . . . Another of my favorite bands, TYA, I have not revisited in a while. Long overdue.

12. Lou Reed, Busload Of Faith . . . Transformer is arguably, probably obviously, Lou Reed’s masterpiece as a solo album but I’d put 1989’s New York album up there with it. It’s brilliant, musically and, as usual with Reed, lyrically as evidenced by this rocker. I remember buying New York upon release, sight unseen and unheard, based on a review I read in a magazine or newspaper, and have been forever rewarded.

13. Queen, The Prophet’s Song . . . Not a fan of the monarchy – a ridiculous anachronism in my view – although I don’t begrudge those who are fond of it. But, I suppose, contrary to my nature, I should at least acknowledge Queen Elizabeth’s passing in some measure, so I will by playing this epic by Queen, from A Night At The Opera. I did think of playing the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen but I played the Pistols just a few weeks ago so, no. Another obvious option would have been The Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead but I’m not into The Smiths. I’ve tried them, and Morrissey and I know they’re loved by many but, sorry, I don’t get it.

14. The Rolling Stones, I Am Waiting . . . I’ve been on an early Stones’ kick of late. Here’s another cut, from 1966’s Aftermath album, that could be a completely different band (and I suppose was) from the ‘classic’ band they became via the so-called Big Four albums – Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. They’ve been around 60 years so it’s natural but still amazing, the variety and depth of the Stones’ music.

15. Eagles, Long Road Out Of Eden . . . The band was just in Toronto this past weekend, prompting me to play this title cut (which they didn’t play) from their likely final studio work, from 2007. It’s the only studio album since The Long Run in 1979 and the band’s original breakup, and it’s essentially the Don Henley band now, he being the lone original member left, but so be it. I find that, with longstanding rock bands, after a period of time members who were not original members (in the Eagles’ case, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit) eventually have been around long enough that they’re almost ‘original’, as with, say, guitarist Rickey Medlocke and singer Johnny Van Zant in Lynyrd Skynyrd. Skynyrd gets criticized (unlike, unless I’ve missed it, Eagles) for being a glorified cover band and I can appreciate that, yet since 1991 has continued to release new studio work up to 2014. In any event, as far as the Eagles go, this extended piece is a great song, lyrically and musically.

16. Steve Miller Band, Journey From Eden . . . From Miller’s pre-commercial hits period. I like his hits but his stuff before that, tracks like this progressive, ethereal work, is worth investigating.

17. The Firm, Fortune Hunter . . . Sounds like Led Zeppelin. But why wouldn’t it, given Jimmy Page was in The Firm, along with singer Paul Rodgers of Free and Bad Company fame.

18. Led Zeppelin, The Wanton Song . . . Speaking of Zep . . . I was reminded of this track, from Physical Graffiti, via a rock ‘album reviews’ show I was recently watching on YouTube.

19. Ian Hunter, Old Records Never Die . . . The So Old It’s New theme song, arguably. Great stuff from a great artist, still rocking, as of this writing, at age 83, with studio work as recently as 2016.

20. Moxy, Time To Move On . . . Featuring Tommy Bolin of Deep Purple, James Gang and solo fame on guitar solos in his only appearance with the Canadian hard rockers, on their Moxy 1 debut in 1975. I pulled this from my terrific Bolin box set Ultimate: The Best Of Tommy Bolin, released in 1989.

21. Chicago, Liberation . . . I can hear my (RIP) older brother saying, ‘this is acid rock’. He usually was referring to Jimi Hendrix but Hendrix admired Chicago guitarist Terry Kath so it fits, this terrific, lengthy, almost completely instrumental track from the debut Chicago album, when they were known as Chicago Transity Authority. Released in 1969, the song, and album, showcases all that early CTA/Chicago was – guitar, jazz, horns. Sublime.

1. Chilliwack, Are You With Me . . . Not too many studio recordings I can think of, off the top of my head, anyway, that start with a drum solo. This one’s by the late guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Brian MacLeod, who sadly died age 39 of brain cancer. MacLeod, who later formed the band Headpins, played drums, in addition to guitar, on most of the 1979 Breakdown In Paradise album’s songs as Chilliwack was in a state of flux in large measure due to the demise of their record label, Mushroom Records. Mushroom also was home to Heart in that band’s early days, which gave Heart, originally from Seattle, a large part of its Canadian connection that also included Ann Wilson dating a Vietnam War draft dodger and following him to Canada, where Heart set up shop in Vancouver.

   But enough about Heart. Chilliwack co-founder and stalwart Bill Henderson was, at the time of the Breakdown album, the only other full-time member. When I see the title of this song I think of concerts. Why? Because George Thorogood often yells “are ya with me?!” before launching into some song or other during his shows. It works for him, but not so much for others I’ve heard on live albums from bands I like but have not actually seen live, partly for this very reason, and I place these two in the annoying category: 1. Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, or as a solo act, screaming “Scream for me (insert country/city; he’s even got a solo live album called Scream For Me Brazil. Hey, Bruce, make them scream via your music, if you have to ask, maybe your music’s not moving anyone). 2. Ozzy Osbourne with his “clap your effing hands…” Hey, Ozzy, see my comments on Bruce: shouldn’t your music prompt people to clap their hands on their own? Shut the eff up, speaking of the F word, and sing.

   Oh, right, back to Chilliwack. I saw them, Henderson at the helm, at the Kitchener Blues Festival in 2016; excellent show and not surprising, given their extensive list of hits. And they’re still out there doing it, most recently in Kelowna, BC, in early August. Which got me thinking: if you’re a band or artist with, say, 10 songs worthy of putting on a compilation, and Chilliwack has 13 on one of theirs, you can do a good 90-minute show. Play the 10 or so tracks, extend some of them, throw in some obscurities like Are You With Me, maybe a cover or two and bingo, done. And now I’m done with Chilliwack, a band I like but would never have thought would inspire a long ramble like this. Next!

2. The Who, Getting In Tune . . . From Who’s Next, one of those classic albums that is wall-to-wall great, from opening cut (Baba O’Reilly and no, some folks, it’s not called Teenage Wasteland, that’s part of the lyrics to the song, memorable for sure but not the title) to Won’t Get Fooled Again, the closer on the original release, before the inevitable remasterings and repackagings pushed the album from nine to 16 tracks. Anyway, this gets us in tune for . . .

3. Rush, Working Man . . . The opener of my little Labour Day set, Canadian/Brit spelling with what I think is the ridiculous and unnecessary ‘u’, whether the songs truly have anything to do with working or not. Why didn’t I open the set with this today, Labour Day? Because I did last year for Labour Day and that’s . . . just what you’d be expecting.

4. Bruce Springsteen, Factory . . . Haunting song from Darkness On The Edge Of Town. It’s a depressing song for the most part yet somehow, I also find it uplifting. I do remember working construction, and then at a moving company, as a student and thinking, Jesus, how can these guys stand this stuff, day after day, as a career while at the same time having immense respect for people doing such sometimes hard labor and more so, in most cases the ability to work with one’s hands, a skill I lack outside of bed, just the self-sufficiency of that ability.

5. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Work Song . . . Extended cover of the standard written by jazz musician Nat Adderley, showing off the guitar tandem of Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop, plus Butterfield’s own harmonica playing.

6. R.E.M., Finest Worksong . . . Nothing really to do with Labor Day, US spelling this time for a US band, but the title works, and I like the song. It was the third single (made No. 50) from Document, the 1987 album that, via the hit single The One I Love, broke the band to a wide audience. The middle single from the album was It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).

7. John Lennon, Working Class Hero . . . Classic from Lennon’s first solo album proper (not counting the Two Virgins avant garde releases), Plastic Ono Band, 1970. Said it before but I’ll bore you again – a hugely influential song and album to my young (age 11) at the time way of thinking, along with God from the same album and, a year later, I Just Want To See His Face from the Stones’ Exile on Main Street album.

8. AC/DC, The Razors Edge . . . Dark, menacing, arugably somewhat uncharacteristically spooky track from the boys and the title cut from the 1990 album that brought us the well-known songs Thunderstruck, Are You Ready and Moneytalks. It also displayed AC/DC’s cheeky defiance of punctuation, as the song indeed is named The Razors Edge, no apostrophe in Razors.

9. Flash and The Pan, Down Among The Dead Men . . . This was on my menu for last week. Didn’t make the cut in the shaving down for my two-hour show, as it didn’t fit, thematically. Then again, Flash and The Pan is so relatively and wonderfully unique, their work tends to always be square peg in round hole stuff, and brilliantly so.

10. Collective Soul, Blame . . . I was sorting stuff and came across an old Collective Soul/Bush compilation I burned ages ago. So, expect to hear some Bush stuff soon, perhaps, although all that I burned and know are their hits, so I may have to make one of my periodic exceptions to the deep cuts nature of So Old It’s New. Interestingly enough, I was at the gym this morning and a Bush song, Machinehead, came on the sound system.

11. David Wilcox, The Natural Edge . . . Love the sort of stair step arrangement of this one, the title song from Wilcox’s 1989 album.

12. The Marshall Tucker Band, Blue Ridge Mountain Sky . . . A jaunty paean to the mountain range, some of which is in the state of Virginia – setting up my next song – although the lyrics in this tune focus on the Carolinas.

13. The Rolling Stones, Sweet Virginia . . . Speaking of Virginia . . . geez, I’m full of shit clever and so maybe ought to follow the band’s advice: “Got to scrape the shit right off your shoes.” From Exile on Main St.

14. Leslie West, Dreams Of Milk and Honey . . . That earworm by Anthony Newley, “Gonna build a mount-ayn” also covered by Sammy Davis Jr. and turned into an earworm now via a commercial for a Canadian hardware store likely prompted me playing Leslie West/Mountain. That, and I was watching a show on YouTube that was rating Mountain’s albums, so here we go. Actually, the song is from the 1969 album Mountain, credited to West, after which he and Felix Pappalardi, who played bass and produced the record, formed the band Mountain.

15. The Doors, The WASP (Texas Radio and The Big Beat) . . . Love Jim Morrison’s vocals on the LA Woman album, this track being great evidence of what I mean. What a terrific song.

16. ZZ Top, Heaven, Hell or Houston . . . Can’t talk about Texas radio without playing that little ol’ band from Texas. A cool track, too, from 1981’s El Loco album. It’s similar, to my ears, to Manic Mechanic from the previous studio album, 1979’s Deguello. “So farewell, my darling,’ Heaven, Hell or Houston concludes, “Perhaps we’ll meet again on some sin-infested street corner in Houston, Texas.”

17. Dr. John, Loop Garoo . . . Typical funky gumbo from the doctor.

18. Alan Parsons Project, (The System Of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether . . . From the 1976 debut, the Edgar Allan Poe-inspired Tales of Mystery and Imagination album.

19. The Amboy Dukes, Dr. Slingshot . . . I struck up a chat with a random fellow in a music store a few days ago when he recognized Bald Boy in his secret identity of Karlo Berkovich. It was the type of thing where you’re flipping through albums, can’t help but comment on some good one someone beside you has pulled out, worry for a moment they’ll ignore you or take offence to your butting in, then all’s well and you spend the rest of your browsing time musing about music. Somehow or other, the conversation came around to the Amboy Dukes, where Ted Nugent first made his name. But I cannot tell a lie. Dr. Slingshot also came up because I was searching Dr. John songs in the station’s computer system, although the Amboy Dukes’ cut reminded me of the fun record store discussion. So, you see the result in the set with various ‘doctor’ tunes.

20. Parliament, Dr. Funkenstein . . . Appropriate title for this workout.

21. Chris Isaak, Blue Hotel . . . He’s best known for the sultry 1989 hit Wicked Game, which got me and likely many people into his music. But Isaak is much more than that one song.

22. Frank Zappa, Crew Slut . . . “The Central Scrutinizer’ introduces more Zappa zaniness, from Joe’s Garage.

23. April Wine, Electric Jewels . . . Propulsive title cut from the band’s 1973 album.

24. Traffic, Roll Right Stones . . . Extended piece from Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory. I’ve always liked the album cover, too.

1. 54-40, Music Man . . . My kind of tune, funky, nice bass line, wah wah guitar. From 1992’s Dear Dear album, which got me into 54-40 via the hit singles She-La and Nice To Luv You. Music Man was also a single, but didn’t do as well. Hence, it’s a deep cut, for my purposes.

2. Santana, All Aboard/Conquistador Rides Again (live) . . . All Aboard is a fiery instrumental from IV, the 2016 album that reunited most of the surviving members of the original Santana band of the early 1970s. I merged it with Santana’s extended interpretation of jazz drummer/bandleader Chico Hamilton’s Conquistador Rides Again, from the Live at The Fillmore ’68 album that didn’t see official release until 1997.

    

3. Little Feat, Day Or Night (live) . . . From one of the great live albums, Waiting For Columbus.

4. Elton John, Boogie Pilgrim . . . Speaking of Little Feat, EJ does a good impersonation on this funky jam from Blue Moves, a sprawling double album I largely dismissed upon its 1976 release. And except for the massive single Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word it did signal the start of a decline in Elton John’s commercial and critical fortunes. But, it’s one of those albums that, over time and repeat listens, continues to reveal its many gems.

5. Moby Grape, Changes . . . Haven’t played these guys, from the 60s San Francisco scene that also bred the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, among others, in a while. So, here you go with this up-tempo tune from their 1967 debut.

6. Gov’t Mule, Birth Of The Mule . . . One would think the band would have put this on their first album, the self-titled debut in 1995. But it’s on their second studio work, Dose, from 1998. Then again, a different song, Mule, is on the first album. Anyway, this one’s a tribute to Miles Davis and his Birth of The Cool album.

7. Budgie, Black Velvet Stallion . . . From one of my favorite bands, the arguably underappreciated yet influential Budgie. This came out in 1976 and the Eagles may have been listening, as Those Shoes (one of my favorite Eagles’ songs, from 1979’s The Long Run album) is similar.

8. Procol Harum, Bringing Home The Bacon . . . So much great music out there, so (relatively) little time in a weekly two-hour show so it sometimes feels like I’m on a long, circular track or winding road, with various band/artist stops along the way that I eventually get back to. Like Procol Harum. This is from 1973’s Grand Hotel album. Nice guitar work from Mick Grabham, who replaced Dave Ball, who had replaced Robin Trower.

9. Billy Gibbons, Desert High . . . Spooky, bluesy track from Gibbons’ third solo album, Hardware, released in 2021. He’s said ZZ Top will be releasing new studio work, although we’ve had nothing since 2012’s La Futura. Bassist Dusty Hill, who died last year and has been replaced by his bass tech Elwood Francis, did apparently leave behind recorded instrumental and vocal tracks for a new album of original material.

10. Headstones, Do That Thing . . . Love the stop-start pace of this one, from the 1997 album Smile and Wave. Typically fun Headstones’ lyrics: “We got Jesus, He’s drinkin’ beer, He’s playin’ cards, He’s shootin’ dice, He’s drinkin’ whiskey and He beats his wife; and it’s the same song He always sings, He’s got it all ’cause His dad’s the king . . . ”

11. The Rolling Stones, Complicated . . . Inspired by a recent chat with a friend about the Stones’ early stuff, during which I mentioned how much the Between The Buttons album has grown on me over the many years since its 1967 release. It’s a very inventive record, from which I pulled this song.

12. Supertramp, A Soapbox Opera (live) . . . Originally on 1975’s Crisis? What Crisis?, this is the live version from the Paris album, released in 1980 and recorded on the massive Breakfast In America album tour, which is when I saw the band in Toronto.

13. Eric Clapton, The Core . . . Slowhand is such a great album, every track a worthwhile listen, full of hits and well-known tunes like Cocaine, Lay Down Sally, Wonderful Tonight and Next Time You See Her. Yet this extended, nearly 9-minute workout, with Marcy Levy sharing lead vocals with EC, might be my favorite of them all. Depends on time, place and mood, of course.

14. Spooky Tooth, Weird . . . 1967 psychedelia from another band I haven’t played in a while but really like. Gary Wright on lead vocals, eventually to go solo and give us the mid-70s hits Dream Weaver and Love Is Alive. He wasn’t in the band in 1967, but future Foreigner mastermind and guitarist Mick Jones (different guy than The Clash’s Mick Jones) was in Spooky Tooth in a later incarnation, 1972-74.

15. Grateful Dead, Attics Of My Life . . . From American Beauty. Sounds like/could be The Byrds, to me, songs like that band’s He Was A Friend Of Mine, and the Dead was hanging out a bit with former Byrd David Crosby at the time and were admittedly influenced by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

16. Vanilla Fudge, All In Your Mind . . . More psychedelia, from 1968.

17. Bob Dylan, What Was It You Wanted . . . From the brilliant, Daniel Lanois-produced, Oh Mercy album, 1989. Who are you, anyway? – Dylan.

18. Peter Frampton, I Wanna Go To The Sun (live) . . . From, what else, the 1976 ubiquitous monster, Frampton Comes Alive! Another in a long list of big and in some cases career-defining 1970s live double albums, like Little Feat’s Waiting For Columbus, which I played earlier, Bob Seger’s Live Bullet, Kiss Alive, Wings Over America . . .

19. Dire Straits, Where Do You Think You’re Going? . . . It’s interesting reading reviews of Dire Straits’ second album, Communique, from which this song is drawn. Many such reviews suggest it’s a pale imitation of the debut. I disagree. A remarkably consistent band over the course of their six studio albums.

20. The Animals, Baby Let Me Take You Home . . . The band’s first single, 1964. It made No. 21 in the UK, No. 102 in the US and didn’t chart anywhere else. Yet, it’s an influential track and makes for interesting reading in that it’s similar to the traditional folk tune Baby Let Me Follow You Down as covered by Bob Dylan on his 1962 debut album, and the Animals’ electric treatment of it was apparently an influence on Dylan going electric.

21. George Harrison, Bye Bye, Love . . . Another revamping, this one Harrison’s interpretation of a song made famous by The Everly Brothers, from the Dark Horse album, 1974.

     

22. John Mayall, Looking Back . . . Mayall’s version of the Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson tune. “I was looking back to see if she was looking back to see if I was looking back at her.” So true.

23. J.J. Cale, Thirteen Days . . . Like Dire Straits, which he greatly influenced, Cale is to me another artist whose work is/was remarkably consistent. Every album and song sounds somewhat the same but in a reliable yet different sort of way, always compelling, never boring.

24. The Allman Brothers Band, End Of The Line . . . And we reach the end of the line for another week.

1. The Rolling Stones, Hold On To Your Hat . . . I can’t remember what song it was, not this one, but I recall reading a review of a Rolling Stones’ album once, about a particular track, and it was described as “a typical Stones’ belter.” Anyway, Hold On To Your Hat, from the Steel Wheels album, is another of those. It’s a stripped-down Stones, Keith Richards and (yes) Mick Jagger on guitars, Charlie Watts on drums and Ron Wood on bass in place of the absent Bill Wyman, who was probably off whining about being denied song credits or something – which his for the most part bland solo albums show was the right thing to do, just have him shut up and play bass on Stones’ material. Ah, I remember the other ‘typical Stones’ belter’ now. Interesting how that happens, one thought prompting another. The other song is Sad Sad Sad, with the ‘typical Stones’ belter’ reference coming from my trusty The Rolling Stones Complete Recording Sessions book. Wyman doesn’t play on Sad Sad Sad, either. Actually, he was in Antigua at the time for a press conference to discuss his then upcoming 1989 marriage to Mandy Smith, who was age 13 at the time they met, 18 when they married and now 52, which was Wyman’s age on wedding day. They divorced after 23 months. Later, Wyman’s age 30 son married Smith’s mother, then age 46. That one lasted a couple years. On to the next tune.
2. Ramones, Journey To The Center Of The Mind . . . Not sure why but some critics, and even the band members themselves, savaged Acid Eaters, the band’s 1993 covers album of songs from their favorite artists of the 1960s. I like it, including this version of the Amboy Dukes’ hit.

3. Sex Pistols, Pretty Vacant . . . From, of course, Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols album, the shooting star band’s one and only official studio album. That’s it, that’s all, we’re done, folks. But what a legacy we left.

4. Dead Kennedys, Holiday In Cambodia . . . Not sure how I got into this punk phase on the show, it just happens as I let my muse move where it might take me, which can be all over the place which is the fun of it. Anyway, played this one before, probably too recently, but I like it, so here it is.

5. Link Wray, Jack The Ripper . . . I watched a great documentary the other day about how indigenous music mingled with black music to help fuel rock and roll. It was very enlightening, both from a musical and social point of view. It was called Rumble, after Link Wray’s most famous tune, which popularized the power chord and distortion. He had so many great tunes, Jack The Ripper being another of them.

6. The Monkees, You Told Me . . . So many songs, so little time each week, relatively speaking. I had this one pegged for last week’s show but in putting it together, I got up the next morning, saw I had forgotten it to include it, didn’t want to reshuffle my song order, so pushed it ahead to this week. Another good one written by Mike Nesmith, who went on to a country music career among other diverse pursuits to do with entertainment.
7. Joe Jackson, A Slow Song . . . A counterpoint, from a guy who started out as an angry young man punk/new wave rocker, to that sort of thing, and all aggressive music. Even JJ would acknowledge, though, that music is all about mood, and deliberate changes of direction – for instance going from Link Wray to the Monkees to a contemplative Joe Jackson.

8. Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills, Really . . . From the first side, or half on CD, of the Super Session album featuring Al Kooper and guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills. Bloomfield does the honors on this one. He checked out and went home after the first day of sessions, saying he’d been unable to sleep, which was how Stills – heeding Kooper’s desperation call – wound up on the album.

9. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Midnight Moses . . . Could be an AC/DC song, or vice-versa. Harvey beat ’em to it, though, with this riff rocker that originally was released in 1969 on Harvey’s solo album Roman Wall Blues, then was re-released in 1972 on the Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s Framed album. Nice riff, great vocals.

10. Ian Dury & the Blockheads, It Ain’t Cool . . . Funky tune from the final Blockheads’ album, Ten More Turnips From The Tip. It was recorded at various times over a 10-year period and finally compiled and released in 2002, two years after Dury’s death. As the story goes, Dury’s wife found a list of songs under what became the album title in her husband’s papers and gave the surviving band members her blessing to complete the album.

11. Peter Tosh, 400 Years . . . Written by Tosh, it first appeared on The Wailers’ Catch A Fire album in 1973. Tosh later re-recorded it and it came out as an extra track on a reissue of Tosh’s 1977 album, Equal Rights. Space doesn’t permit, but the convoluted history of the Wailers, Bob Marley and The Wailers, their record releases and how they were labelled, does make for interesting reading.

12. Bob Marley and The Wailers, Concrete Jungle . . . Speaking of that convoluted early Wailers’ discography . . . This one is from Catch A Fire, which was a Wailers’ album. Or a Bob Marley and The Wailers album. Different covers, too. OK, you can read all about it at your leisure. I’m moving on.

13. Deep Purple, Nobody’s Home . . . From the very successful 1984 reunion album of the so-called Mark II version of Purple – Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice and Ritchie Blackmore, the first time they’d recorded together since 1973’s Who Do We Think We Are album. It sounded like they’d never been away.

14. Lee Harvey Osmond, Blade Of Grass . . . Tom Wilson is an amazing artist. I say that often. He’s demonstrated it with Junkhouse, on his own, as a member of Black and The Rodeo King and with his Oswald, er, Osmond project. That’s it, that’s all.

15. Big Brother and The Holding Company, Combination Of The Two (live at Monterey Pop Festival) . . . A version of this was on the Cheap Thrills studio album, which was dressed up with crowd noise recordings to sound like a live album. This version actually is Janis Joplin and company, live at Monterey.

16. Queen, Good Company . . . Written and sung by guitarist Brian May, many of whose songs are among Queen’s best. He also plays ukulele. Great Dixieland-type tune.

17. Bad Company, Nuthin’ On The TV . . . From 1982’s Rough Diamonds album, the last studio work featuring the original lineup of singer Paul Rodgers, guitarist Mick Ralphs, drummer Simon Kirke and bass player Boz Burrell. Another in a line of rock songs that dismiss TV, among them the ‘Thirteen channels of shit on the TV” lyric in Pink Floyd’s Nobody Home and Bruce Springsteen’s 57 Channels (And Nothin’ On), both of which I’ve played recently. 

18. Ten Years After, Hold Me Tight . . . TYA wrote the song but it could easily be a Jerry Lee Lewis number. Well done, too.

19. Kansas, Bringing It Back . . . Good, tight rocker from the debut, self-titled Kansas album in 1974.

20. Moon Martin, Hothouse Baby . . . If you only know Moon Martin from his well-known hit Rolene, or Robert Palmer’s version of Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor), you’re only scratching the surface of a good, usually rocking, artist’s ouvre.

21. Dave Loggins, Please Come To Boston . . . This one, from 1974, came out of nowhere. Or, more accurately, from me perusing songs I’ve loaded into the station computer system over time. It was a big hit for singer/songwriter Loggins and also for Joan Baez. I hadn’t heard it in ages, was reminded of it, so I’m playing it. So Old It’s New, and all that. Oh, and Dave Loggins is the second cousin of Kenny Loggins.
22. Five Man Electrical Band, Absolutely Right . . . See previous thoughts re Please Come To Boston.

23. Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Things That I Used To Do . . . SRV’s cover of the Guitar Slim (Eddie Jones) 1954 hit. It appeared on SRV’s second album, Couldn’t Stand The Weather, 1984.

24. Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band, New Coat Of Paint . . . Singles choices from albums are often interesting. Seger didn’t pick this excellent cover of a Tom Waits’ tune as a single from his 1991 album The Fire Inside. I think it, along with his own Take A Chance, are the best songs on the record – better, to me, than the actual singles, The Real Love and The Fire Inside.

25. Alice Cooper, Unfinished Sweet . . . I’ve always loved the “I come off the gas’ return to Alice singing, off the instrumental break, in this tune from Billion Dollar Babies.
26. Pink Floyd, Dogs . . .Epic from one of my favorite Floyd albums, Animals. Inspired by new neighbors who just moved into the unit across the hall from me. They have dogs. How do I know? Just about every time I leave my place now, I hear barking as my movements apparently stir the dogs to action. I met them for the first time the other day as I was leaving my unit just as the dogs, two monsters, came out of their unit to take one of their humans for a walk.

1. Triumph, Street Fighter/Street Fighter Reprise . . . Two-part rocker that transitions into a softer, then back to rock reprise piece at the 3:35 mark. It’s from the self-titled debut album in 1976, later re-released on CD with a different cover and re-titled In The Beginning.

2. The Rolling Stones, Who’s Driving Your Plane? . . . Bluesy, Dylanesque boogie-woogie B-side to Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow? Relatively unknown to all but Stones’ fanatics, it’s appeared on some unauthorized Decca/London Records compilations like No Stone Unturned, released by the band’s old label when they acrimoniously terminated their contract with Decca in 1971. It also appears on the 3-CD Singles Collection: The London Years package when the pre-1971 Stones’ albums came out in remastered versions in 2002.

    

3. Klaatu, Around The Universe In Eighty Days . . . Prog rock from the Canadian band that, at first, some people in the mid- to late 1970s thought was The Beatles under an assumed name. The rumors started when a US journalist speculated that Klaatu’s at least somewhat Beatles-sounding music might be the Fab Four operating under a pseudonym. I like what the UK’s New Musical Express wrote about the rumor, according to Wikipedia: “Deaf idiot journalist starts Beatle rumor”.

4. Bruce Springsteen, Meeting Across The River . . . Haunting track that was the B-side to the Born To Run single, featuring terrific trumpet playing from Randy Brecker, a bandleader and session player whose work appears on countless albums in a diverse career covering jazz, funk, R & B and rock. It’s quite amazing when one looks at his discography. The song itself is about a small-time criminal needing to borrow money from his friend, Eddie, and having to meet a man ‘across the river.” I like most of Springsteen’s stuff, particularly the trilogy of albums comprised of Born To Run in 1975, Darkness on the Edge of Town in 1978 and The River in 1980. But I’m not on the level of fan to know every detail of his catalog and can’t find any references to it, but it strikes me that the song might have been inspired by the 1973 movie The Friends Of Eddie Coyle, starring Robert Mitchum and based on a 1970 novel by George V. Higgins.

5. Muddy Waters, Deep Down In Florida (live) . . From Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live, with Johnny Winter on guitar. It’s a song that first appeared on Hard Again. That was the first of three late 1970s albums from Muddy produced and played on by Winter, released in 1977. Then came I’m Ready in 1978 and King Bee in 1981.

6. Roger Waters, Amused To Death (live) . . . Live version, from In The Flesh, of the title cut from Waters’ 1992 album which was inspired by Neil Postman’s seminal 1985 book, and one of my bibles, Amusing Ourselves To Death. It posits that it was more Aldous Huxley than the more celebrated, and obviously prescient, George Orwell, who more accurately described in Brave New World where the human race was headed. From the forward: “What Orwell feared was those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.” Etc. The forward goes on in more depth and, in this short attention span world, for those not inclined to read the full 163-page Postman book, I’d recommend finding it in a library or bookstore or wherever you can, and just reading the page and one-quarter forward, it tells you all you ought to think about.

7. Humble Pie, As Safe As Yesterday Is . . . Or isn’t. Sometimes the album title and its title cut are listed with the ‘Is’, sometimes not. In any event, I find it a great, almost prog tune in spots, from the Steve Marriott-Peter Frampton-led band’s debut album, 1969.

8. Tom Waits, A Sight For Sore Eyes . . . Lots of great old-time baseball player references in this one. And a good song, too, in typical Waits fashion.

9. Steely Dan, Green Earrings . . . Funky tune from 1976’s The Royal Scam album that, it never occurred to me before prepping it for this week’s show but in some ways presages the later Talking Heads ‘world music’ sound from that band’s Remain In Light period. Maybe I’m wrong, but just what I heard on most recent listen.

    

10. Free, Heavy Load . . . Can never get enough of Free’s bluesy sound, or Paul Rodgers’ voice.

11. Midnight Oil, King Of The Mountain . . . Third single from the Blue Sky Mining album that made only No. 76 in Canada compared to No. 3 (alternative) and 20 (mainstream) on the US charts. I find that interesting in that Canada embraced Midnight Oil long before the US did, which also happened with, for instance, another Aussie export, Men At Work. Even the Aussie charts only took it to No. 25. Good song, regardless.

12. The Jeff Beck Group, Rice Pudding . . . Beck, on guitar of course, Ronnie Wood on bass and session man to the stars Nicky Hopkins display their prowess on this instrumental from Beck-Ola. To quote a Dire Straits song title, heavy fuel.

13. The Mamas & The Papas, Free Advice . . . Too lazy to check but I feel like I’ve played this song far too recently. But, so what? The title leads perfectly into the next track, title-wise anyway, in today’s show.

14. Rod Stewart, You’re Insane . . . Funk rock tune from Footloose and Fancy Free in 1978, shortly before Stewart went totally schlock.

15. Ohio Players, I Want To Be Free . . . Speaking of funk . . .

16. David Bowie, Somebody Up There Likes Me . . . I’m sure loads of people, ‘up there’ if there is an ‘up there’, do like Bowie and all the others in heaven’s rock band.

17. Peter Green, Seven Stars . . . Speaking of which, a spiritual song, lyrically, from Green’s In The Skies album. And what mellifluous guitar playing, which of course was to be expected from the late great Green.

18. The Specials, Rat Race . . . A top 5 single in the UK that, as has been the practice there, did not appear on the second Specials album More Specials, although it was on the album here in the colonies. A great tune musically and lyrically, about the realities and arguable unfairness of privilege, accidents of birth, that type of thing.

     

19. The Byrds, Satisfied Mind . . . Cover tune, written by Joe “Red’ Hayes and Jack Rhodes, done by many including the Byrds, great interpreters that they were, on the Turn! Turn! Turn! album. Essentially, the song says, money isn’t everything, can’t buy satisfaction or happiness, etc.

20. Neil Young, Ordinary People . . . Second week in a row I wrap up with an 18-minute, compelling story song (last week, Foreigner Suite by Cat Stevens). Listen to the lyrics and the song will fly by. Another of those long ones that seem much shorter.

1. The Rolling Stones, Time Waits For No One . . . Stellar solo by Mick Taylor, a hypnotic, continually building line that remains one of his most memorable contributions to the Stones. It came to mind to play this over the past week as the world lost three icons: basketball and human rights pillar Bill Russell, trailblazing actress Nichelle Nichols, communications officer Uhura of Star Trek fame, and sports broadcaster Vin Scully, best known the voice of baseball’s Brookly/Los Angeles Dodgers but also widely acclaimed for his work on national network broadcast baseball games, NFL football and golf.

2. Black Sabbath, When Death Calls . . . Sticking with the death theme . . . From Sabbath’s 1989 Headless Cross album. It’s one of the five Sabbath studio albums featuring Tony Martin on lead vocals, which is more studio albums than Ronnie James Dio appeared on (three) and four fewer than the records with original singer Ozzy Osbourne. The Martin-sung albums were always the runts of the litter commercially and often critially speaking, produced amid ever-changing lineups during periods when guitarist Tony Iommi – the lone fixture on every Sabbath album – was doing his best to hold the band together until Ozzy or Ronnie might be convinced to return. Musically, the Martin albums are good, anyone actually giving them an open-minded chance would I think concede. And, somehow, to my ears anyway, perhaps because the songs aren’t as familiar or overplayed, Iommi’s riffs are somehow more powerful, cascading waterfalls of heavy guitar sound.

3. Rory Gallagher, In Your Town . . .Sometimes I think I should stop doing these commentaries, especially when it pertains to Rory Gallagher, one of my favorite artists. Not sure what else I can say about him, other than it’s mind-boggling he wasn’t bigger, on a wider commercial scale, than he was both while leading Taste and then going solo as on this track from his Deuce album.

4. King Crimson, Eyes Wide Open . . . I read in a YouTube comments field that King Crimson’s The Power To Believe album, which came out in 2003 and from which I pulled this track, is to be their final studio album statement. It would seem so, give that’s 19 years ago now although one never knows what leader Robert Fripp might come up with, or when, and put it under the Crimson banner.

5. Yes, Perpetual Change (live, Yessongs version) . . . One of those happy accidents over the last week. I pulled out the Yessongs live album. Hadn’t played it in ages. Geez, it’s good. It came out in 1973 as Yes compiled it from tracks supporting their then most recent albums, Close To The Edge and Fragile, classics both, although Perpetual Change is from the earlier The Yes Album. Alan White is the drummer on most of the live tracks although founding Yes member Bill Bruford, also noted for his work with King Crimson and live playing with early post-Peter Gabriel live Genesis, shines on this piece.

6. Nazareth, Beggars Day/Rose In The Heather . . . Rocked up version of Beggars Day, a Nils Lofgren-penned Crazy Horse (sans Neil Young) tune, paired with Nazareth’s own Rose In The Heather. It’s from the Hair of The Dog album.

7. The Doobie Brothers, Cotton Mouth . . . From Toulouse Street, during the down and dirty pre-Michael McDonald commercial juggernaut days of the Doobies. I’m not down on McDonald by any means. He’s a great artist, singer-songwriter and one of my favorite Doobies’ songs is his Takin’ It To The Streets and I also like his 1982 solo hit, I Keep Forgettin’. I just like the pre-McDonald Doobies a lot better.

8. King Curtis with Duane Allman, Games People Play . . . Instrumental take on Joe South’s hit, with Allman on guitar. It’s from the saxophone master’s Instant Groove album but also appears on one of two terrific compilations of Duane Allman’s session and some Allman Brothers’ work, titled An Anthology and Anthology Vol. II. Worth searching out; most of it’s available on YouTube.

9. Tracy Chapman, Telling Stories . . . Title cut from her 2000 album. Chapman, who shuns the spotlight, has not released new original studio work since 2008, alas, although she has told media she is not retired. Whatever she decides to do, her musical legacy is secure.

10. The Allman Brothers Band, Heart Of Stone . . . The Brothers do the Stones, in fine style, on their final studio album, 2003’s excellent Hittin’ The Note.

11. Jethro Tull, Fat Man . . . From, arguably, my favorite Tull album, Stand Up.

12. John Mayall, Took The Car . . . Mayall always produces great sounds, doesn’t he? It makes for a nice musical pairing, too, with Tull’s Fat Man, to my ears, anyway. This one’s from USA Union, the 1970 album that, via my older brother whose music influence I often cite, introduced me to Mayall. Speaking of cars but not related to the song: Sunday morning on my daily walk, I’m ambling down the trail beside some homes and I see two cars parked, one in front of the other, in a driveway, garage door closed. Next thing I know, the car in front starts up, lurches, then drives right through the garage door. Big bang. Funny and startling, could barely believe my eyes but I also immediately thought, geez, wonder if the driver had a heart attack or seizure or something, stepped on the gas and, boom. So I stopped and watched what ensued, considered heading over to check until someone emerged from the house, yelled ‘what the (you know what)!” called the driver an idiot and so I figured all was at least relatively well, health wise. I walked on. Not sure what the driver might have been thinking, or if he/she was thinking or drinking (although it was about 10 am) given there was nowhere to go, backwards or forwards. I can only assume the garage door opener didn’t work.

13. Mark Knopfler, Boom, Like That . . . I’ve never much been into Knopfler’s solo work, certainly not to the extent I love his stuff with Dire Straits. It’s just never resonated with me to the degree Dire Straits does. However, I’m starting to get there with Knopfler’s solo material, although the fact this single from his 2004 album Shangri-La was just his second solo Top 40 placing in the UK charts, behind Darling Pretty from his first solo record Golden Heart, maybe says I’m not alone in preferring Dire Straits to their leader’s solo work. This is definitely a good one, though.

14. Faces, Three Button Hand Me Down . . . It was suggested during a chat with friends that a Faces/Small Faces family tree type show would be fun. Such a theme would have many roots and branches: Rod Stewart, Ron Wood/Rolling Stones, The Jeff Beck Group (featuring Stewart and Wood), Humble Pie with Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton/Frampton solo, The Who (Kenney Jones), among others. For another week, perhaps. For this week, just Faces with this nice chugging tune.

15. Uriah Heep, Wonderworld . . . I’m playing this in fun, just to piss of those people who denigrate Uriah Heep. I like ’em, particularly the early stuff although all I actually own is a single disc compilation and comprehensive two-CD collection.

16. Mott The Hoople, Momma’s Little Jewel . . . A nice, er, jewel from the All The Young Dudes album that finally broke Mott The Hoople big via the David Bowie-penned title cut. The band was on the verge of breaking up until the Bowie tune salvaged the situation.

17. Steppenwolf, Tighten Up Your Wig . . . “Just before we go, I’d like to mention Junior Wells, we stole this thing from him, and he from someone else . . . he plays the blues like few before may he play forevermore.” As credited on Steppenwolf’s second album, The Second, the melody is from Wells’ Messin’ With The Kid. Good tunes, both.

18. Led Zeppelin, Black Country Woman . . . Great folk-rock tune from Physical Graffiti that was originally intended for the previous album, 1973’s Houses of The Holy. You can hear a plane flying overhead at the start of the song, as it was recorded outside in a garden at Stargroves, a manor house in the English countryside owned by Mick Jagger during the 1970s. The pre-song chatter is fun, as the band settles on leaving the sound of the aircraft in.

19. Bonnie Raitt, Gnawin’ On It . . . By the time of her 2002 Silver Lining album, the massive commercial success that Raitt achieved between 1989 and the mid-1990s that was so well-deserved as she worked her way up the ladder was gone, but of course she continues to release great music, as she did before radio discovered her. This infectious, snarling tune is an example.

     

20. Cat Stevens, Foreigner Suite . . . Foreigner, the band, came up in a barroom discussion with buddies last week about lousy successful bands, or those that got worse the more commercially successful they became. Bands like Chicago, Journey and some latter-day Genesis, although we conceded their ability to produce annoyingly catchy earworm music. Not playing Foreigner, whose stuff I actually for the most part like, the hits anyway, along with the Double Vision album, which to me is the only one from which I can legitimately draw decent deep cuts like Love Has Taken Its Toll. I’ve played that one on the show, albeit long ago. To finally get to the point of all this, the word foreigner stuck in my head (did I mention earworms?) so here we are with Stevens’ epic 18-minute love song. It’s one of those long tracks that seems shorter as it’s never aimless and one can listen to it for the varied music within, the lyrics, or both.

1. AC/DC, Let There Be Rock . . . There was fifteen million fingers, learning how to play . . .

2. Headstones, Absolutely . . . First of a few today from bands/artists that will be playing at this week’s Kitchener Blues Festival. Love these Canadian rockers.

3. The Kinks, Holiday . . . Holiday Monday in Canada, hence this one from the Kinks’ brilliant and to me best overall album, Muswell Hillbillies, 1971. It bombed, inexplicably, to me. No big hit singles the likely reason.

4. Steve Earle and The Del McCoury Band, Texas Eagle . . . This one’s for my old high school and college chum, who goes by 4C, a clever play on his surname. He’s a big Steve Earle fan, and I like Earle a lot too but did not have The Mountain album, a bluegrass record. I do have it now, and it’s terrific. Whenever I think of bluegrass music I think of being in college, late 1970s and going to the Carlisle, Ontario bluegrass festival with a couple buddies. None of us were bluegrass fans at the time we just went for the party. We had planned to drink Purple Jesus (alcool and grape juice) but forgot the funnel to mix the booze with the juice, so we just passed the alcool bottle back and forth, got totally shitfaced on what is essentially 95 per cent booze, and spent most of the weekend sleeping it off. We might have heard some music.

5. The Rolling Stones, Blinded By Rainbows . . . I’m reading a thriller novel and the hero is talking about Semtex bombs. So it tweaked my brain to this Stones’ song, about the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland but could be about any war. Compelling, thought-provoking anti-war lyrics sung forcefully by Mick Jagger, a nice guitar solo by Ronnie Wood and the late great Charlie Watts’ drumming propel the song.

6. David Wilcox, Breakfast At The Circus . . Played Wilcox last week, and he’s coming to Kitchener for the blues festival again, so here you go.

7. Tim Curry, Charge It . . . It’s 1979, I’m in Sam The Record Man on Yonge St. in Toronto and this song comes on in the store. I had no idea, to that point, that Tim Curry released albums/songs other than his time as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, of which I was a big fan. So, the Fearless album became an instant impulse buy and I wound up getting all of Curry’s stuff.

8. Queen, Bring Back That Leroy Brown . . . I played Tenement Funster/Flick Of The Wrist/Lily Of The Valley from Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack album recently so, to quote the title of an obscure but good Stones’ song I should play sometime, Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind, the Queen album stuck in my mind. So here’s a nice little up-tempo ditty from that record. Which, naturally, leads to . . .

9. Jim Croce, Lover’s Cross . . . Another beautiful ballad from the late great artist.

10. Drive-By Truckers, Marry Me . . . Last in today’s series from acts appearing at this week’s Kitchener Blues Festival. I had an interesting chat with the owner of my favorite local – and likely the world’s best – music store late last week, lamenting the fact the festival has the Truckers and Headstones, two acts I want to see, on at practically the same time. Headstones start a half hour after the Truckers do. No, he said, that’s actually brilliant scheduling and come to think of it, as we wound up agreeing, he’s right. “Start with the Truckers; you’ll get bored after half an hour, then go to Headstones.” And he wasn’t crapping on the Truckers, merely suggesting, correctly, that I really like Headstones better, but want to see Truckers, so I’ll dip into them for a bit, then go see the H-Stones. Well, it made sense during our conversation, anyway. Ha! But seriously, folks, that’s the thing about a festival, you cruise . . . In any event, if the Truckers play this up-tempo guitar showcase, who knows, I might stay for their whole set. And they do have cool album covers.

11. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Children Of The Wind . . . A typical blast of horns introduces this one from a band that, along with Chicago and Lighthouse, really brought jazz-rock fusion to the fore in the early 1970s.

12. Gary Moore, Drowning In Tears . . . Moore dabbled in many genres during his too-short life and career both as a sometime member of Thin Lizzy, and otherwise. Rock, metal, blues, to which he returned for this slow-burning epic, from his Back To The Blues album, released in 2001.

13. Television, Marquee Moon . . . Title cut from one of those ‘influence’ albums raved about by music critics that I just never ‘got’ until one day a few years ago. I was in a used CD store and they had this track playing. I asked the clerk who it was, since it had never before resonated with me and I had long since traded the Television album in for, who knows, cash or some Slayer thrash/speed metal album I needed to help get me through blizzards on Ontario’s highway 401 when I was commuting to work before the marriage breakup. Anyway, I rebought the album specifically for this epic track with the cool, hypnotic guitar and go figure but somehow, I ‘get’ it all now about this record. Weird how that can work, particularly since the album came out in 1977, I was deep into all the new wave and punk stuff that was big then, yet somehow missed the boat on Television. Better late than never.

14. Rush, 2112 . . . Playing lots of long tracks today. This is the longest – the epic title cut. To quote the Quint character memorably played by Robert Shaw in Jaws: “You get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.” All 20:34 of it. Long, for sure, but epic, never boring and embodies all that Rush was.

15. Atomic Rooster, Death Walks Behind You . . . My favorite Atomic Rooster song, played it before but playing it again today because I was inspired by hearing it this past week in a local used bookstore I frequent. That’s what I love about independent stores be they books, music, whatever. The people running them do as they wish, play what they want and so on, no corporate BS rules or whatever, because when has anyone ever heard anything other than Muzak or some hits playlist in a mainstream store of any kind, unless it’s sort of after hours late? I say that because I recall one time being in a chain grocery store, a 24-hour outlet or at least one that was open until 11 pm or so and hearing AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie blasting over the sound system because the young staff was in charge on the night shift. I saw one of the youngish clerks, gave him the thumb’s up. I remember thinking, all we need now is the ‘mom’ in Frank Zappa’s Joe’s Garage to yell “turn it down!”.

16. Deep Purple, You Keep On Moving . . . Great cut from the one and only great album Purple did with Tommy Bolin on guitar, Come Taste The Band, 1975. Bolin was replacing Ritchie Blackmore, who had bailed to form Rainbow as he didn’t like what he termed Purple’s ‘shoe shine music’ direction fostered, in Blackmore’s mind, by the likes of bassist Glenn Hughes. Which has always perplexed me. Not that I give too many shits about it but I am a huge Deep Purple fan and Blackmore was the acknowledged leader, he got Hughes in the band, he played guitar, he was great on the previous (his last) Stormbringer album that he didn’t like . . . so if he didn’t like the direction why wasn’t he stronger in directing the band back to what he thought they ought to be? Sounds to me like he preferred to just bitch about it, but that’s Blackmore, the mercurial genius. Whatever. Great song. Purple would never have done it with Blackmore.

17. Groundhogs, Split (Parts 1-4) . . . Epic 20 minutes from the English blues rock band, something of an underground act but well known to music aficionados. Split can be consumed separately, in each of its parts, as separate songs of 4-5 minutes each, or as I’m presenting it today in its full form in all its hard rock, blues and progressive rock glory. And on that note, I’m splitting outta here. Thanks for listening and following.

1. The Clash, 1977
2. Elvis Presley, A Little Less Conversation
3. The Rolling Stones, Rip This Joint (live, 1977 El Mocambo club version)
4. The Beatles, Birthday
5. Peter Gabriel, A Wonderful Day In A One-Way World
6. The Police, It’s Alright For You
7. King Crimson, 21^st Century Schizoid Man
8. Pink Floyd, Careful With That Axe, Eugene (live version, from Ummagumma album)
9. David Gilmour, I Can’t Breathe Anymore
10. David Wilcox, Drop Down Baby
11. ZZ Top, Backdoor Love Affair
12. Jeff Beck, Let Me Love You
13. Rod Stewart, Passion
14. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Flat Broke Love
15. Billy Joel, Stiletto
16. David + David, A Rock For The Forgotten
17. Canned Heat, Harley Davidson Blues
18. Warren Zevon, The Long Arm Of The Law
19. Eagles, Teenage Jail
20. Spirit, Animal Zoo
21. Neil Young, Albuquerque
22. Golden Earring, Sleepwalkin’
23. Talking Heads, Blind
24. Jethro Tull, The Zealot Gene
25. Queen, Tenement Funster/Flick Of The Wrist/Lily Of The Valley
26. Led Zeppelin, In My Time Of Dying
27. Bryan Ferry, It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

Set list with my song-by-song commentary:

1. The Clash, 1977 . . . “No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones in 1977” So I’m going to play some – and I love The Clash.

2. Elvis Presley, A Little Less Conversation . . . Elvis, who died in 1977, is replying to The Clash, in advance, on this 1968 original version of the song. A remixed sort of techno version, at nearly twice the original 2:14 length, was released as a bonus track on the 2002 Elvis 30 #1 Hits compilation. It’s interesting, but I prefer the original.

3. The Rolling Stones, Rip This Joint (live, 1977 El Mocambo club version) . . . Here’s the Stones out-punking the punks on this 1,000 mph/km/h even faster version of the Exile On Main Street cut, from the recently-released and very good full Toronto El Mocambo shows. And, as far as The Clash went, Joe Strummer, who obviously was being deliberately provocative and contrarian about artists who inspired his band, later said he enjoyed all eras of the Stones.

4. The Beatles, Birthday . . . For my older son, who turns 34 today. It’s interesting that The Beatles, particularly John Lennon, who called it ‘garbage’ considered it something of a throwaway track, one that they came up with from scratch in the studio while recording The White Album. Some bands would kill for The Beatles’ throwaways.

5. Peter Gabriel, A Wonderful Day In A One-Way World . . . I was putting the show together on Saturday night and had notes scribbled all over the place but was tired, went to bed relatively early and now I can’t find the ones I scrawled about this tune. Maybe I forgot to even jot anything down. I think so, actually, as I see every other song in my set list represented. Anyway, a funky tune, from Gabriel’s “Scratch’ album, his second of the first four that were all simply called Peter Gabriel although they’ve come to be known, due to their covers, in order as “Car’, “Scratch’, “Melt” or “Melted Face” and “Security”. Security, the fourth album, was also self-titled in the UK and elsewhere but the record company, with reluctant approval from Gabriel, slapped the word ‘Security’ on it as a sticker for the US and Canadian markets. Post-2010 reissues of the album have reverted to its original title. I suppose it could go by “Distorted” or “Distorted Peter” or some such because that’s what the cover is, a distorted image of Gabriel taken from an experimental video. Oh, and back to A Wonderful Day In A One-Way World. Fun lyrics: “Oh, there’s an old man on the floor, so I summon my charm; I say ‘hey scumbag, has there been an alarm?” He said, “Yeah, been selling off eternal youth, they all got afraid ’cause I’m the living proof. My name is Einstein, do you know time is a curve?” I said, “stop old man, you got a nerve, ’cause there’s only one rule that I observe; time is money and money I serve.” Glad I couldn’t find, or didn’t actually write, any notes for the Gabriel track on Saturday night. I wouldn’t have gone off on this nutty tangent writing this on Sunday afternoon, otherwise.

6. The Police, It’s Alright For You . . . A fairly well-known Police track I think, could easily have been a single from their second album, Reggatta de Blanc, but it wasn’t. Instead the band went with Message In A Bottle and Walking On The Moon, to big success, slightly less so with the third and fourth singles – Bring On The Night and The Bed’s Too Big Without You.

7. King Crimson, 21^st Century Schizoid Man . . . This one, from the brilliant debut In The Court Of The Crimson King, embodies everything the influential band brings to the table – progressive rock, jazz rock, hard rock/metal. I like all of King Crimson’s work but their first album remains, for me, their best.

8. Pink Floyd, Careful With That Axe, Eugene (live version, from Ummagumma album) . . . The live stuff on Ummagumma (the album is split between live versions of existing material and new studio originals) arguably outdoes most of the original studio versions that appeared on previous albums. This is an example but in any incarnation, this spooky stuff is terrific. Great title, too.

9. David Gilmour, I Can’t Breathe Anymore . . . You’ve noticed the pattern, as I go playing with song titles again? From Birthday to here? No more hints. It’s pretty obvious. Anyway, nice one from Gilmour’s self-titled debut album, 1978. Starts as a slow, beautiful ballad, then ramps up with some frenzied guitar.

10. David Wilcox, Drop Down Baby . . . I like these sort of spoken-word songs by Wilcox. He’s great at it. He’ll be appearing, yet again and that’s good, at this year’s Kitchener Blues Festival coming up in a couple weeks, Aug. 4-7. And off we go again, on a song title tangent. Just can’t help myself.

11. ZZ Top, Backdoor Love Affair . . . ZZ Top just released a new album, Raw, comprised of new studio versions of many of their classic songs. I’ve listened to some of it, it’s good because ZZ Top is a good/great band and being the completist I am I’ll probably pick it up at some point while also wondering, what’s the point? I’d rather hear new original material from my favorite bands and I can’t say for sure of course but I think most fans feel the same way. Anyway, Backdoor Love Affair goes way back, to the first album which was called – wait for it – ZZ Top’s First Album. Clever and cheeky, those Texas troupers.

12. Jeff Beck, Let Me Love You . . . The cover tunes – Shapes Of Things, Morning Dew, You Shook Me and I Ain’t Superstitious – seem to get most of the attention on the Truth album. They’re terrific, of course; the whole album is killer. But I’ve also always loved this one, written by Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart, featuring the propulsive rat-a-tat attack of instrumentalists Beck, bassist Ronnie Wood and drummer Micky Waller. Interesting, perhaps, side note to Truth: It was credited to Jeff Beck but it is the Jeff Beck Group, first version of the band, featuring Stewart and Wood as constants on vocals and bass. The second album, Beck-Ola, was credited to the full group as were the two subsequent Jeff Beck Group albums, Rough and Ready and the self-titled fourth album, both issued after Stewart and Wood had gone on to Faces.

     

13. Rod Stewart, Passion . . . Stewart went Chicago-like schlock after the late 1970s, the rot starting to set in, musically after brilliant beginnings to a career, with the massive disco hit single Do Ya Think I’m Sexy (admittedly catchy) and that’s when I gave up on him. But, in fairness, understandably, one supposes, from a creative point of view many artists would think, and I get it, why repeat yourself once you’ve done albums like the earthy, excellent ones Every Picture Tells A Story, Gasoline Alley and such between 1969 and 1974, backed by Faces as Stewart maintained parallel careers. And his work remained good, albeit more slick, from 1975’s Atlantic Crossing on, once Stewart went completely solo backed by crack session men. Arguably the only band that shamelessly repeats itself is AC/DC, whose genius is its ability to repeat itself yet actually still sound fresh and different each time out because despite what critics say, every AC/DC album and song is NOT the same. In any event, back to Rod Stewart. Even into the 1980s, for me, while I stopped buying his albums I did enjoy some of his singles; like this one that you rarely nowadays hear. It’s from the 1980 Foolish Behaviour album. All hail compilation albums, from which I pulled this, not being so foolish as to actually buy the Behaviour album. Nowadays, of course, pretty much everything is available in some form or other via the internet.

14. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Flat Broke Love . . . Have I often enough said I think Randy Bachman is a great composer, bandleader and guitarist but a for the very most part shitty, embarrassing singer? Rock Is My Life And This Is My Song, anyone? Ugh, I mean Christ Almighty nice tune but give it to Fred (C.F.) Turner to sing for crying out loud. Yes, I have said as much. So I say it again. And yes, RB has some ok to decent vocal performances like Takin’ Care Of Business and You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet but overall his vocals are just too weak and ‘thin’ for me. So, goes without saying I prefer the Turner stuff, like this Turner-penned and sung track from the Four Wheel Drive album. Great bass line, too, naturally enough, since Turner played bass in the band. Egomaniacs, all these guys.

     

15. Billy Joel, Stiletto . . . I loved Piano Man and The Stranger but was starting to part ways with Billy along the time of 52^nd Street but still a quality album, and this one is one of my favorites of his. Some big hit singles – Big Shot, My Life, Honesty – came off the album but Stiletto remains for me the best track. The title cut is cool, too, short, sweet, smoky bar type bluesy, I’ll have to play it sometime. In fact I thought about it for tonight but went with Stiletto.

16. David + David, A Rock For The Forgotten . . . I know I harp on this album – by the firm of Davids Baerwald and Ricketts – as being a maybe unknown absolute gem but all who know it, love it. Every song is great, lyrically and musically. Here’s another example.

17. Canned Heat, Harley Davidson Blues . . . I was watching a documentary on William Harley and Arthur Davidson and their motorcycle company and I love Canned Heat so . . . It also stemmed from a chat I had with a friend about Altamont, the ill-fated Stones’ concert, “policed’ by the Hell’s Angels which got me thinking about motorcycles so I watched the documentary and, here we are.

18. Warren Zevon, The Long Arm Of The Law . . . I love Zevon for his music but obviously to anyone who knows his stuff it’s his lyrics, too. Like in this song: “After the war in Paraguay, back in nineteen ninety-nine; I was laying low in Lima, working both sides of the borderline.” It’s Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner type stuff, akin to “he found him in Mombassa in a barroom drinking gin; Roland aimed his Thompson gun – he didn’t say a word but he blew Van Owen’s body, from there to Johannesburg”. And in The Long Arm Of The Law it’s the music, too, how he comes in with that Paraguay line after the first chorus at the 1:05 mark. Brilliant. This is creativity of the highest order, melding history and whatever else with music and few if any ever did it as brilliantly as Zevon. I suppose it appeals to me also because several of his songs reference Latin America and I spent nearly four childhood years in Peru, unforgettable life-shaping years in terms of outlook towards life. And when Zevon writes of those places, the turmoil, the exploitation by great powers, etc. it truly resonates. Anyway, this one’s from his 1989 Transverse City album and it features one other perhaps obvious but brilliant lyric: Only the dead get off scott free. RIP, Warren Zevon.

19. Eagles, Teenage Jail . . . I’m not going to go into again how I think The Long Run, despite critics’ and even the band itself’s thoughts, is a brilliant album the equal of Hotel California. It just is, to me. And what a great, spooky, dark track this one is. “Loaaa-sst (lost) in the teenage jail” great vocals, lyrics, music.

20. Spirit, Animal Zoo . . . I was going through Spirit songs and was having difficulty settling on one so I thought, eff it, I’ll pick this one because it’s from Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus and I recall some time back playing a Spirit track and an old work colleague of mine raving about the album, which is a great one and from which this song comes. You may expect some Spirit songs over the next few weeks though, we’ll see, because it was a tough choice as I went through their stuff for tonight’s show, so much great material.

21. Neil Young, Albuquerque . . . Typically dark sort of tune, and a good one, from an album of darkness and drugs, Tonight’s The Night. That said, can’t help myself but every time I hear of the city Albuquerque the first thing that comes to mind is ill-spent youth watching The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour full of Looney Tunes cartoons including Bugs always going off course in his burrowing and uttering the line “I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque”.

22. Golden Earring, Sleepwalkin’ . . . They’re so much more than Radar Love, the entire Moontan album from which it came, and the later hit Twilight Zone. Great band. Nice boogie tune.

23. Talking Heads, Blind . . . One of those tunes where, back in the physical product buying days, you’ve long since given up on a band you liked but you pick up a comprehensive compilation and you find tracks like this you were unaware of but find you really like and of course most stuff is now available online to explore. It was the lead single from the Heads’ final album, 1988’s Naked. It was a minor success but, given its hypnotic groove, probably would have been more successful had it been on, say, the band’s first world music type album, the breakthrough 1980 release Remain In Light. Naked in fact was considered a return to that form, but the band broke up. The next release was the double disc compilation to which I refer, Sand In The Vaseline: Popular Favorites. It contains some previously-unreleased material along with the hits.

24. Jethro Tull, The Zealot Gene . . . Politically-charged Ian Anderson’s views of the world on this title cut from 2022’s Tull album, the first under the band moniker in 20 years or so. It’s good. Not much different than Ian Anderson’s recent solo stuff and Martin Barre is no longer there on guitar but somehow, not sure why that is, but I find I’ll listen to and enjoy a Tull album more than an Ian Anderson one. Perhaps, and I plead guilty, I haven’t given his solo work proper the requisite listens although I own it all, but nothing’s really compelled me to re-listen after first go. Yet I’ve listened to The Zealot Gene many times since release. Weird, maybe.

25. Queen, Tenement Funster/Flick Of The Wrist/Lily Of The Valley . . . Separate songs seamlessly weaved together from the Sheer Heart Attack album, 1974. It simply has to be listened to as an entire piece. So many great parts to it but the one-minute mark “ooh, give me a good guitar…” Sublime.

26. Led Zeppelin, In My Time Of Dying . . . One of those traditional blues tracks recorded as early as 1928 by Blind Willie Johnson that Zep shamelessly credited to the band itself but anyone who knows music knows all about that stain on Zep’s reputation. Bob Dylan covered it on his 1962 debut album and credited as ‘traditional, arranged by Dylan’. But Zep? No. So be it, they got and continue to get away with it other than various out of court financial settlements, and made and/or ‘adapted’ great music. Why they shamelessly stole, and are obviously uncomfortable in talking about it as many excuse/rationalization interviews over time suggest, only the band members, particularly Page and Plant, truly know.

27. Bryan Ferry, It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue . . . Another show is over and, speaking of Dylan, here’s Ferry’s cover of his classic, a speeded up version from, appropriately enough, the Frantic album. Ferry, like Rod Stewart, is a great interpreter and usually peppers his solo work with cover tunes. His first solo album outside Roxy Music, 1973’s These Foolish Things, was all covers and in 2007 he released Dylanesque, a full-blown Dylan covers album. Like Stewart, Ferry’s selections are usually well-chosen and he makes the songs his own, in his own way.

1. Camel, Freefall . . . A debut entry, progressive rock band Camel, on the So Old It’s New show. Not sure why I haven’t played them before, probably couldn’t find my CDs in my music mess that never seems to get resolved but I have come to believe helps my creativity given my proclivity for ‘top of the pile of CDs to file’ shows – CDs that never get refiled, of course. Anyway, here you go with a great track from the band, from what many consider their finest album, 1974’s Mirage, the song featuring nice guitar from Andrew Latimer who is the lone remaining founding member, from 1971 in a band which continues to tour but naturally nobody wants to listen to new albums by old bands these days so Camel has not released any new studio work since 2002 and that’s fine. I was inspired to play Freefall after watching a documentary on extreme parachutists, some with parachutes, some without, in, er, freefall. So that leads me into my usual song title madness, as will be described in the commentary on the next few songs. Enjoy, or not.

2. Elton John, Medley (Yell Help/Wednesday Night/Ugly) . . . Played it before, didn’t want to play it again but I have a very sensitive friend (kidding) with an easily bruised ego who suggested it some weeks ago. But I had already planned the show, so I didn’t play it but promised to, in time, so here it is but you must know, as stated when fragile friend suggested it, that if I’m going play it, everyone’s going to have to listen to even a truncated version of my story for this song and the album from whence it came – 1975’s Rock Of The Westies. That’s because it’s like a longtime band not playing tried and true ‘warhorses’ they might be sick of playing in concert: The diehards want to hear deep cuts but the band is in something of a bind since they risk someone seeing them for the first time not hearing a song they came to hear. So, the story, again: me and my football-playing teammates, lifting weights in our high school gym, 3 albums available to us to play on the school ‘record player’. The Beatles’ US compilation Something New, The Rolling Stones’ compilation Through The Past, Darkly (Big Hits, Vol. 2) and Westies, the lone studio album of original music in the lot. And that’s how I got into what is a terrific EJ album although it marked the beginning of his 1970s commercial decline. But heck, the guy was, by contract, releasing two albums a year, the creativity had to wane at some point and it matters not anyway, because the legacy has long since been left. Oh, and the Yell Help part of it refers to the previous song, by Camel, Free Fall so the jumper is yelling help, get it? Yeah, I know, enough, already.

3. U2, Last Night On Earth . . . A relatively underperforming single, the third one released from the Pop album, which divided fans and critics due to U2’s shift to electronica and such. This song is arguably less in that genre but regardless, it’s a great song, I like the album and so be it. As mentioned numerous times, I stick with bands I like on their creative travels, until and unless they totally lose me, like post-Terry Kath Chicago which, by the way, just released a new album, Born For This Moment. I discovered this new release had happened during a trip the other day to my favorite local music store. The new Chicago album is ok, I guess, and since I do like the band’s early work I always at least try their new stuff even while having given up on them. And, fortunately, there are means by which to sample music without feeling you’ve wasted money on something you don’t like although I do support buying artists’ material and am still into physical product. Anyway, the new Chicago sounds to me like the same type of shit they’ve been doing since the 1980s and I do admire the songwriting, but it’s just not the groundbreaking type jazz-rock fusion stuff they did early on. Which is interesting because if you look at Chicago set lists, they know where their bread is buttered as the majority of the songs they play live to this day are from the first three albums, plus the hits up to the end of the Kath era, 1978 and then some of the requisite huge hit schlock stuff. The first song on the new album is called If This Is Goodbye; wonder if that means Chicago is done, recording new stuff-wise, anyway. And how did I spend most of a U2 song segment on Chicago? Well, it’s done and was fun.

4. Pantera, Cemetery Gates . . . Don’t fret, listeners who may know that Pantera is a very heavy, extreme to a degree band. I agree, to my ears at least. I remember when I first tried them out during the 1990s at an HMV store (remember them?) where they had listening posts and I was curious. I put on a Pantera album, Far Beyond Driven it was, their 1994 album that was a new release at the time and I thought, ‘this isn’t even music’ as I listened to this just heavy heavy stuff complete with growled, yelled vocals. Yet, I got into it as time went on. But not all their stuff is that way and Cemetery Gates is an example, it’s a ballad, of sorts, gets heavy but certainly palatable to most ears I would think. In any event, it fit, title-wise, into my Freefall, Yell Help, Last Night On Earth you get the picture, things not going well for whoever as death calls, ha.

5. Slayer, Seasons In The Abyss . . . I’ve gotten back into Slayer recently. And my thoughts about them fit what I just said about Pantera. If you listen to, say, Slayer’s breakthrough album Reign In Blood it’s high velocity speed/thrash metal from start to finish, almost too much to take which is maybe why that album is just five seconds under 29 minutes long. Yet, the band could also slow things down, Black Sabbath-like, as with this title cut from their 1990 album and the preceding work, 1988’s South Of Heaven – a title I always remember my older son laughing about. Hellish, indeed.

6. Wishbone Ash, Phoenix . . . Just a bloody amazing epic from a band who, with their much-ballyhooed twin lead guitar attack, inspired and influenced bands ranging from Iron Maiden to Lynyrd Skynyrd. This track features so many styles but you can definitely hear, at points, where Maiden was inspired to its ‘galloping’ approach. Oh, and the set has now risen from the phoenix, so to speak.

7. The Rolling Stones, Brand New Car . . . It’s hilarious to read YouTube comments on this song, from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge, about being inspired to buy a car after listening to it. It’s about women; the lyrics are an old blues technique – as other commenters point out to the great unwashed/inexperienced. Anyway, critics savaged the track for its lyrics while apparently ignoring the nice wah wah guitar. I’ve always liked it, critics be damned, of course.

8. The Lovemongers, Battle of Evermore . . . So I dug out my Singles soundtrack to a movie I never saw nor care to see, most of it from Seattle grunge bands of the 1990s. It’s an excellent album, and I play a Mother Love Bone track that appeared on Singles, later in tonight’s set. Heart, though, was also from the American Northwest, worked out of Vancouver, BC in their early days, loved Led Zeppelin, covered Zep in concert and had a side project, The Lovemongers, who nicely did this Zep track.

9. Joe Jackson with lead vocals by Marianne Faithfull, Love Got Lost . . . I mentioned some time back, after playing a JJ tune from the 1983 Mike’s Murder soundtrack that was essentially a stylistic sequel to Jackson’s 1982 masterpiece Night and Day album, that he did do a Night and Day II, in 2000, and that I’d get to some stuff from it eventually. Tonight’s the night, as JJ pairs with Mick Jagger’s former lover for this torch tour de force.

10. David Bowie, ‘Tis A Pity She Was A Whore . . . I originally had Bowie’s Always Crashing In The Same Car, from the 70s Low album, in my set as part of my death or risking death title openers, which also prompted me to then play the Stones’ Brand New Car, as life had risen like Wishbone Ash’s Phoenix and a new car/woman was out and about. But I realized I’d played the earlier Bowie tune fairly recently so I decided to go with this to me great up tempo tune from the late great Bowie’s final album, 2016’s Blackstar. It was released just four days before Bowie’s death. He went out on top, creatively.

11. Taj Mahal, Satisfied ‘N’ Tickled Too . . . Taj, title-wise coming out of a session with Bowie’s whore from the previous song. Seriously, this is from 1976 and reflects Mahal’s unique approach to the blues. Brilliant artist.

12. Patti Smith, Smells Like Teen Spirit . . . From a covers album, Twelve (songs) I continue to revisit both for my own listening pleasure and for the show. A terrific reinterpretation of the song that made Nirvana a household name. I love female rock singers and Smith is one of the best ever.

13. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Mystery Man . . . Love that Petty drawl or however one would describe it on this one, a nice lazy groove tune from his debut album in 1976.

14. Lee Harvey Osmond, Cuckoo’s Nest . . . Not sure what else I have to or can say about Tom Wilson, the great Canadian artist behind Junkhouse, Lee Harvey Osmond, solo work and his contributions to Black and The Rodeo Kings. There’s nothing he’s involved in, musically, I don’t like.

15. T. Rex, Jewel . . . Great stuff, guitar and otherwise, from the late great Marc Bolan’s band. Hypnotic.

16. Gillan and Glover, Telephone Box . . . I suppose we in Canada could have used more of what are now considered relics, telephone booths, last week during one of our providers’ embarrassing, ridiculous, largely indefensible and poorly responded to outages. Anyway, good tune from a side project by the Deep Purple singer and bass player. Accidentally On Purpose was the name of the album by Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, released in 1988. Dr. John plays piano on the album; noted session man Andy Newmark is the drummer.

17. Mother Love Bone, Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns . . . Pulled this one, as mentioned previously in the set, from the Singles soundtrack. Extended piece, almost sounds like Guns ‘N Roses, vocally at least, in spots. To me, anyway.

18. Atlanta Rhythm Section, Jukin’ . . . Nice southern rock, or just rock in general. Saw these guys eons ago, first Rolling Stones’ show I ever saw, July 4, 1978 at Buffalo’s NFL football stadium as they opened for the Stones on the Some Girls tour.

19. John Lennon, I Found Out . . . Propulsive track from Lennon’s deeply personal 1970 album, Plastic Ono Band.

20. Traffic, Freedom Rider . . . I imagine I would have eventually become a Traffic fan regardless, but my older brother bringing home the one and only Blind Faith album in 1969 sped up the process. Steve Winwood of Traffic was in the band along with Cream members Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker, plus Ric Grech, most notably of Family. Cream I already knew about but Blind Faith spurred me to check into Winwood and Grech’s other bands.

21. Genesis, Eleventh Earl Of Mar . . . I find inspiration for the songs I play in many things. Things I hear, see, read, songs I know that are favorites, people I talk to about music, it can happen in the snap of a finger. That’s the wonderful thing, to me. This one was inspired some weeks ago, by a chat about a previous set list with an old high school and college friend with whom I’ve reconnected via the show. He didn’t mention this track, specifically. But the inspiration for playing it remained with me after I played a Genesis song from the And Then There Were Three album and my friend asked “is that from the first album they did without (guitarist Steve) Hackett?” I replied yes, but Hackett stuck in my mind and I thought of playing some of his solo stuff, which I have before but instead settled on this, from his last album with Genesis, the 1976 Wind and Wuthering release. It was the second post-Peter Gabriel on lead vocals album, after the very successful A Trick of the Tail proved Genesis would remain a force after Gabriel. Wind and Wuthering was arguably the last record where Genesis was for the most part still leaning more towards the earlier 1970s progressive rock direction than the increasingly pop music avenues they later followed, to huge commercial success.

1. The Kinks, Juke Box Music . . . A single from the 1977 Sleepwalker album that, as with so many great Kinks’ songs it seems, didn’t chart. Absurd! So, it’s a deep cut, says me.

2. New Barbarians (Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards and assorted members of Rolling Stones, Inc.), Rock Me Baby (live) . . . Drunken, stoned, ramshackle, sloppy, raunchy, beautiful rock and roll on the blues standard tune by the New Barbarians. That was the band Wood put together to tour in support of his 1979 album, Gimme Some Neck. The lineup of Wood, Richards, jazz fusion bassist Stanley Clarke, drummer Joseph Zigaboo Modeliste of funkmeisters The Meters, Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan and Stones’ henchman saxophonist Bobby Keys toured the United States but first appeared at a show I somehow was lucky enough to get tickets to, the April, 1979 Oshawa charity concert Richards did for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind as penance for his 1977 drug bust while the Stones were in Toronto for their El Mocambo shows. Those two nights were famously captured on one side of the Love You Live album and, more recently, the full club show release, which is excellent. The Barbarians opened the Oshawa concert, then on came the Rolling Stones for a short set, maybe an hour which is interesting because Mick Jagger long ago was quoted as saying that the best concert would be an hour or less, hit ’em hard, in, out, leave them wanting more. Which is what the Stones did that day. Anyway, I pulled this not from that show, which has never been officially released (many bootlegs available) but from a 2006 release on Wooden Records (get it?) called Buried Alive: Live In Maryland, from the Barbarians’ U.S. tour. The one-off group later opened for Led Zeppelin at Zep’s final big show, the Knebworth Festival in August, 1979.

3. Carlos Johnson, Out Of Control . . . From a covers CD I picked up some time back in my music travels, Chicago Plays The Stones. This is a, I’ll call it rockabilly blues reinterpretation by guitarist Johnson, and I love it, of the Stones’ tune from their 1997 Bridges To Babylon album. Which proves two things: Reinterpretations are worth listening to at least once (and more, in this case) and that latter-day Stones’ albums – like those of many major artists still doing it – are well worth anyone’s open-minded while.

4. Tommy Bolin, Bustin’ Out For Rosey . . . Great riff and song from the late great guitarist, often a replacement member (Deep Purple, James Gang) but an amazing talent in his own right. His playing is well worth checking out on Purple’s Come Taste The Band album, his James Gang records and his solo stuff – this one from the Private Eyes album.

5. AC/DC, Sweet Candy . . . So, having played Bustin’ Out For Rosey as the previous track, one would expect me to, if going with an AC/DC song next, to play Whole Lotta Rosie, no? Well, no. Hah. I admit I did consider it of course but . . . that’s . . . just what you’d be expecting. So I went with a more recent AC/DC tune, from 2014’s Rock Or Bust album. It’s a good one and fits with my show mantra, old bands, old tracks, old bands, their new stuff if they’re continuing to produce material.

6. The Beatles, Wait . . . I was listening to Rubber Soul the other day. So . . . Want to hear my story – again – about how my sister had the album when it came out, which is how I got into it? Well, that’s pretty much the story. And she liked dancing to it, as mentioned before; she even wrote she liked dancing to it on her copy of the album. “Good dances”. Enough. On to the next track.

7. Pretenders, The Wait . . . I was watching one of my Pretenders’ concert DVDs the other night once I got tired of reading and couldn’t watch TV due to my we’ll let them go unnamed but everyone knows who it is, internet provider’s screwup, and the band did a rousing version of this live so I decided to play the studio cut, from the debut album.

8. Led Zeppelin, Baby Come On Home . . . Blues track that was recorded in 1968 but did not appear officially until the 1993 Boxed Set 2 compilation.

9. Graham Parker and The Rumour, Empty Lives . . . The Up Escalator, the 1980 album from which this song comes, tends to get critically trashed, especially in comparison to Parker’s previous offering, Squeezing Out Sparks. To each their own; I like both albums equally and in fact was introduced to Parker via The Up Escalator.

10. Eagles, The Sad Cafe . . . Same thoughts as with the Parker tune and album, above. This one’s from The Long Run, which followed the monster Hotel California and was critically panned and also criticized by the band itself, yet I like each album equally, little to choose between them, for me. And The Long Run made No. 1 as well in most countries, so . . . ?

11. Chicago, Loneliness Is Just A Word . . . From the pre-schlock glory days (my opinion) of Chicago, the first three albums especially, this one from III, and up until Terry Kath’s passing.

12. Jefferson Airplane, Lather . . . The typewriter song. Listen, you’ll hear it, along with Grace Slick’s typically great vocals.

13. Bruce Cockburn, Understanding Nothing . . . Spooky track from his 1988 Big Circumstance album.

14. Elvis Costello, Beyond Belief . . . This one, from Imperial Bedroom, is on various Costello compilations yet while well known, wasn’t a single. Could easily have been.

15. Headstones, Pretty Little Death Song . . . Perhaps they’ll play this upbeat (ha) tune when they play the Kitchener Blues Festival in August.

16. Link Wray, Climbing A High Wall . . . I can only smile in appreciation and admiration of the razor-like guitar assault on this tune, one of the few with vocals from one of the fathers of distortion. The guy was amazing and so influential to the point where one thinks, this is Hendrixian stuff yet Wray came first, so maybe Hendrix, who I really like, was in many ways Wray-ian.

17. Iggy Pop, Cold Metal . . . Had to play this one when, while playing the Wray track online, I noticed a comment suggesting Iggy Pop/Stooges ought to be paying Link Wray royalties. A worthy thought. This one’s from Pop’s 1988 Instinct album. The record company expected a pop album, given, er, Pop’s previous pop-oriented and commercially successful Blah Blah Blah album. Naturally, Pop ignored the company and delivered a hard rock/metal record. Good for him.

18. Black Sabbath, Eternal Idol . . . Title cut from the band’s 1987 album during a state of flux period where guitarist Tony Iommi was the lone remaining original member. Yet while unsuccessful commercially without the lead vocals of original singer Ozzy Osbourne or great replacement Ronnie James Dio, it’s still a great album. Lead vocals by Tony Martin, for anyone with an open mind willing to listen to it and many of the Sabbath albums of the period. And that’s a testament to Iommi’s perseverance and, of course, amazing heavy riffs.

19. The Electric Flag, Another Country . . . From the Mike Bloomfield-led psychedelic jazz blues band. I love the transition around the 4:15 mark of this extended piece, from psychedelia back to more conventional jazzy rock.

20. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Country Home . . . Raunchy track, typical of the distortion-heavy 1990 album Ragged Glory. It was originally recorded in the 1970s but didn’t appear on a studio record until Ragged Glory.

21. The Guess Who, Old Joe . . . Obscure one from Canned Wheat, but that’s what we’re about here – often obscure but nevertheless great tunes, this one written by and featuring typically great Burton Cummings vocals.

22. Buddy Guy, She Got The Devil In Her . . . Guy’s Sweet Tea album, 2001, is so good. Here’s yet another example.

23. George Harrison, Behind That Locked Door . . . A rare country-ish tune by Harrison, from All Things Must Pass and apparently written for Bob Dylan as encouragement for Dylan to return to the concert stage, which he did for Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh. Dylan hasn’t stopped since on what’s become known as the Never Ending Tour.

24. Bob Dylan, Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands . . . Forever memories for me of getting into the Blonde on Blonde album in 1981 (yes I know, late to the 1966 party despite my older brother’s influence), lying on a couch in a shared residence with friends, alone as everyone else was out on a Sunday afternoon, listening to my buddy’s cassette tape of the album. I knew Dylan’s hits of course, but that day prompted me to go back and get all the studio albums I’d missed, and moved on with the artist from there.

25. Dickey Betts, Long Time Gone . . . Ramblin’ Man-ish tune (and why wouldn’t it be, he wrote it) from the Allman Brothers Band guitarist, from his 1974 debut solo album, Highway Call. And on that note, we call it a night, for another week.

1. The J. Geils Band, (Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party (live) . . . “We are gonna blow your face out!’ is singer Peter Wolf’s intro to this song, giving the live album from whence it came, its name. And they did. As always, J. Geils Band best served live via this album, the earlier Full House and the later, less-renowned but very fine, Showtime! There’s also a great latter day from the archives CD release of a Rockpalast show from Germany, plus of course various songs and gigs available online at YouTube and elsewhere.

2. Bruce Springsteen, Independence Day . . . It’s July 4. Of course I’d play this, for my American friends in what is a sort of Can-Am show, given that Canada Day kicked off the weekend.

3. John Mellencamp, Justice and Independence ’85 . . . And this, re Independence Day, title-wise, anyway.

4. The Tragically Hip, Yawning Or Snarling . . . A brooding track from 1994’s somewhat dark Day For Night album.

5. Rush, Jacob’s Ladder . . . From Permanent Waves, it embodies the progressive side of Rush on an album that to some was a move away from that aspect of the band to tighter, more commercial songs – which ironically is what they started with before drummer Neil Peart joined the band after the first album.

6. Ted Nugent, Writing On The Wall . . . A then relatively unknown Meat Loaf handles lead vocals on this one, from the 1976 album Free-For-All. A year later, Meat Loaf unleashed Bat Out of Hell on the world while Nugent carried on with albums and songs like Cat Scratch Fever.

7. The Beach Boys, Hang On To Your Ego . . . Alternate version and original title of I Know There’s An Answer, from Pet Sounds. Written by Brian Wilson about an acid trip, the lyrics were rewritten after singer Mike Love refused to sing it as originally presented due to his objections to drug use. Space doesn’t permit, but it’s worth reading about the song which, musically, I like in both versions.

8. The Doors, Waiting For The Sun . . . Another of those songs, like Sheer Heart Attack by Queen, or Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin, where an apparent title cut isn’t on the album in question but is placed on a later album. Waiting For The Sun, the song, appeared on Morrison Hotel, two years and two albums after Waiting For The Sun, the album. Houses of the Holy was originally recorded for that album, which was released in 1973, but the song was shelved because at the time it was thought to be too similar to other tracks, like Dancing Days, on that album. Sheer Heart Attack, originally intended for that album in 1974, was unfinished so was delayed until the News of the World album in 1977.

9. Aerosmith, Bone To Bone (Coney Island Whitefish Boy) . . . Coney Island is where the annual US Independence Day hot-dog eating contest is held so, in keeping with my somewhat Can-Am theme today, here’s the Aerosmith tune from the raucous Night In The Ruts album.

10. Led Zeppelin, Hot Dog . . . Speaking of hot dogs, here’s Zep in fun rockabilly mode from In Through The Out Door.

11. The Guess Who, Orly . . . A fairly successful single, it made No. 21 in Canada in 1973 although it’s arguably relatively underplayed, if not at the time certainly by now when all you’ll likely hear on classic rock stations by The Guess Who is Undun, American Woman and No Time. I happened to be listening to it a while ago on a Guess Who personal compilation I made of hits, lesser hits and album tracks, so decided to play it. Good tune and another indication of how Burton Cummings is one of those distinctively great singers whose voice is an instrument in itself, more than that of most vocalists outside of people like, say, Van Morrison.

12. FM, Black Noise . . . Prog/space rock, this 10-minute title cut from the debut album, in 1978 of the Canadian band from whence Nash The Slash came.

13. Eric Clapton, Mean Old Frisco . . . Cover of the Arthur (Big Boy) Crudup blues track that Clapton cut for his 1977 release, Slowhand.

14. Peter Tosh, Legalize It . . . Tosh won, though he didn’t live to see pot being legalized in many countries by now. Title cut from his 1976 album.

     

15. David Wilcox, Blood Money . . . I played What’s The Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying from the 1970 Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack last week, resulting in me playing this track this week. Why? Because of how my mind works. One of the songs on the JC Superstar record is Damned For All Time/Blood Money, where Judas, performed outstandingly by Murray Head, is tormented by his coming betrayal of Christ. And that track was under my consideration for last week’s show. I didn’t play it, as it’s so difficult for me to choose from that amazing soundtrack. It stuck in my mind, though, hence the Wilcox tune, if that makes sense. It does to me.

16. Steve Miller Band, Baby’s House . . . Miller is deservedly well known for his irresistibly catchy big hits of the 1970s starting with The Joker and proceeding through the Fly Like An Eagle and Book of Dreams albums that made him a fixture on top 40 radio. But his earlier, progressive/psychedelic and bluesy stuff, like this extended piece from 1969’s Your Saving Grace album, is equally compelling in its own way, and it’s as if by a completely different artist.

17. Bobbie Gentry, Apartment 21 . . . I only played this because she references my favorite band, The Rolling Stones, in the lyrics. No, not really. It’s just another cool cut by an artist who is fascinating to me and many. A woman known of course for her amazing 1967 hit song Ode To Billie Joe but she was so much more, such great music but more importantly a woman who took charge of her own career during a time when it wasn’t a woman’s place to, for the most part, write, produce and record her own material. Gentry did so, was a star for a while, then did another cool thing – she essentially disappeared off the face of the earth, having had enough of that life.

18. The Band, Back To Memphis . . . A live cover of the Chuck Berry tune that appeared on the now out of print double-CD To Kingdom Come compilation, although this version of the tune is available on YouTube and other online avenues. I already had this in my show but it’s interesting in that later, after my planning was done, a buddy of mine over the weekend sent me a shot of his day 1 of vacation fun, a glass of of some sort of whiskey, can’t remember what, probably Scotch of some sort after a séance (inside joke) sitting beside his turntable while playing a Chuck Berry album. This friend of mine is often an inspiration as our music chats tweak my brain to things but don’t tell him because then he’ll start or keep offering more and more suggestions to which I then have to put my foot down and say, yeah, thanks but it’s my show, I’ll put it under advisement, I’ve probably already thought of it so shut up and leave me alone to create.

19. The Rolling Stones, Crazy Mama . . . Great Stones ‘belter’ as saying goes, or at least I read from a rock critic once, from Black and Blue. As often mentioned here, it’s a diverse and excellent album trashed upon release now considered a classic, but albums age like fine wine, as Keith Richards has said and he’s right. Many of the critics who originally carved Black and Blue to pieces now rank it as at least a 4 out of 5.

20. Steppenwolf, Renegade . . . Great tune, lyrics about lead singer John Kay’s fleeing, with his mother, his dad having been killed during World War II, from the then East Germany and the Iron Curtain of Soviet oppression in 1949. Previous to that, in 1945, Kay and his mother had fled the advancing Soviet troops, not knowing then that where they wound up would fall under the Iron Curtain. Eventually, of course, he settled in Canada, moved to California and Steppenwolf was born.

21. The Allman Brothers Band, It’s Not My Cross To Bear . . . Gregg Allman-penned blues cut from the debut album that, unless one knew Allman wrote it, could easily be misconstrued as another brilliant cover of the many blues artists the Allmans rightfully worshipped and were inspired by. As Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones has said, perhaps the best thing that an artist can do, or the best that can be said about an artist, is that ‘they passed it on’. Message received, by the Allmans, proven by this track, and then they obviously passed on their own genius.

22. The Doobie Brothers, I Cheat The Hangman . . . Great stuff from the Stampede album, well before the Michael McDonald schlock stuff set in. That said, and I’ve always said, McDonald is a brilliant artist who saved the band in the late 1970s by stepping in on lead vocals as founding member Tom Johnston’s health faltered. And his Takin’ It To The Streets remains one of my favorite Doobies tracks. After that, they went schlock but like Chicago in similar fashion, were more commercially successful but mostly to a new audience as the old guard fans abandoned their new sound. The Doobies have been back together for some time, with both Johnston and McDonald in the band, touring and releasing new studio albums, the most recent in 2021. The music is a sort of hybrid between the earlier, rockier Johnston-led sound and the later soulful stuff with McDonald. Decent, to me. But not worth me buying. Good thing the internet exists.

23. Paice Ashton Lord, Ghost Story . . . Cool track from the one and only album, 1977’s Malice In Wonderland, by this short-lived one-off offshoot of Deep Purple, featuring drummer Ian Paice and keyboard player Jon Lord along with singer/keyboardist Tony Ashton. Although not credited in the band name, soon to be Whitesnake member Bernie Marsden is the album’s guitarist as the family tree of Deep Purple expanded in various ways to include Rainbow, Whitesnake and Gillan/The Ian Gillan band. Nazareth, meantime, later used the same album title for its 1980 release that featured the hit Holiday.

1. Jesus Christ Superstar A Rock Opera (various artists, 1970 version), What’s the Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying . . . Ian Gillan of Deep Purple fame as Jesus, Murray Head as Judas, Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene, etc including Mike D’Abo – who wrote (and sang) the classic Handbags and Gladrags as brilliantly interpreted by Rod Stewart – as King Herod and the late Spooky Tooth, Grease Band and Paul McCartney and Wings guitarist Henry McCullough. Fantastic, timeless album, one of my all-time favorites by anyone.

2. Max Webster, Battle Scar . . . I wanted to play a Rush song this week, and a Max Webster tune. So in the end, I combine the two – all three members of Rush – singer/bassist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart – helping out on this wonderfully heavy track from Max’s Universal Juveniles album.

3. The J. Geils Band, Sanctuary . . . Take It Back was the single from the Sanctuary album, was hailed by critics but naturally for Geils during their brilliant but pre-hit 1970s days it did nothing on the charts. Perhaps they should have released the title cut, a much better song – tougher, grittier, better groove – in my opinion.

4. Elton John, Tower Of Babel . . . I must subconsciously be into various forms of religious or spiritual imagery today given I’ve delved into Jesus Christ (Superstar) and now the Tower of Babel. I’m actually a-religious or, in the fun phrase I’ve long since stolen from an old friend, a recovering/recovered Catholic but in any event, been meaning to get back to some Elton John the last few weeks but haven’t managed to, until now. From Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirty Cowboy. Next week? Maybe Medley: Yell Help/Wednesday Night/Ugly from Rock of the Westies, which a good friend of mine raved about to me on a text trip down memory lane last week. To which I replied, yeah, thanks bud, all good, played it before, does not preclude of course me playing it again. But, if I do I’ll have to, as is my custom, regale and/or bore readers and listeners with my tales of tough workouts with football teammates in the high school weightlifting gym where Rock of the Westies was one of just three albums we had to play, and endlessly did – the other two being a Stones’ compilation, Through The Past, Darkly (Big Hits, Vol. II) and a Beatles’ US Capitol Records compilation, Something New. Or, I may ignore Elton John altogether next week, just to piss my friend off – the likely scenario.

5. Spooky Tooth, Fantasy Satisfier . . . Rocker from The Mirror album in 1974, after which the band split (only to later reunite, of course, as bands do) with guitarist Mick Jones (not the Clash’s Mick Jones) going on to form Foreigner while Gary Wright went solo to big success with the Dream Weaver album and title cut single, along with Love Is Alive.

6. Eric Burdon & War, Pretty Colors . . . What a combination of talents that gave us the funky, soulful albums Eric Burdon Declares War and The Black Man’s Burdon, this one from the latter record.

7. Billy Joel, Travelin’ Prayer . . . What a great banjo-fueled kick-butt country/bluegrass tune, a single that went relatively nowhere, didn’t crack the top 50 anywhere, from Joel’s 1974 Piano Man album which of course yielded his first big single, the title cut. That said, maybe surprisingly because it’s so well known, but Piano Man made ‘just’ No. 25 but that’s actually true of many hit singles people tend to assume made No. 1 when they didn’t, although they were major hits and naturally the artists who wrote or performed them include them in their concert sets.

8. Chris Whitley, Narcotic Prayer . . . Whitley did a 180 on his second album, Din of Ecstacy. He pivoted from the brilliant acoustic blues rock of his debut, Living With The Law in favor of the grungy guitar attack of the appropriately-titled Din. Critics disparaged it, I like it. But I’m like that with artists I like, appreciate and admire. I’ll travel with their muses, if and until they lose me, which rarely happens.

9. The Guess Who, Friends Of Mine (alternate version) . . . This is the alternate, about a minute longer, darker lyrically version of the 10-minute Doors-inspired cut that appeared on Wheatfield Soul. It’s terrific psychedelic stuff, un-Guess Who like if all one knows of The Guess Who are their brilliant singles. They were brilliant in long-form material, too. This is from the outakes, demos and other early stuff release, The Guess Who? This Time Long Ago compilations that came out in 2001.

10. Budgie, Breaking All The House Rules . . . Typically great extended rocker from the brilliant but, sales wise, underappreciated if influential Welsh wonders.

11. T Bone Burnett, Trap Door . . . Title cut from an EP the noted producer but a great artist in his own right released in 1982. Great lyrics.

12. The Beatles, Savoy Truffle . . . Came upon this one while searching for Savoy Brown songs. The George Harrison-penned Beatles’ track from the White Album, about Eric Clapton’s sweet tooth, came up in the computer system, I listened to it again for first time in long time and, yeah. So, I’m playing it.

13. Joni Mitchell, The Reoccurring Dream . . . About the shallowness of consumerism. Mitchell apparently pieced it together by recording TV commercials for two weeks. The track appeared on her 1988 album Chalk Mark In A Rain Storm and she put it on her “Misses” deep cuts self-selected compilation that accompanied her “Hits’ release in 1996.

14. Saga, Book Of Lies . . . From my hometown of Oakville, Ontario comes Saga, a Canadian band somewhat in the vein of, say, Rush yet not nearly as successful although, given their progressive rock stylings, Saga has been hugely popular in various European countries, Germany in particular. And Puerto Rico, go figure. This track, from their 2007 release 10,000 Days (yes, they’re still at it) is a fine combination of prog and rock elements including great guitar soloing by Ian Crichton.

15. Savoy Brown, Money Can’t Save Your Soul . . . Thought I’d forgotten about Savoy Brown when I mentioned them a while back, during my Beatles’ song commentary, didn’t you? It is to laugh. I have a great memory and creative mind if one permits me some bullshit arrogance, with a twinkle in my eye, of course. Anyway, one of my favorite Savoy songs, with obvious relationship-resonating lyrics for anyone, depending on one’s own circumstances.

16. Marianne Faithfull, The Blue Millionaire (extended version) . . . Eight-plus minute version of the 5-mins and change track that originally appeared on her 1983 album A Child’s Adventure. I’m forever fascinated by the creative process, given I create, in a manner of speaking, myself. It’s just interesting how many song forms there are that are appealing, like this hypnotic song, no real chorus or hook, arguably like some Dylan trips, yet all so compelling for that fact.

17. Concrete Blonde, Walking In London . . . Haven’t played Concrete Blonde in a while but, thankfully, stumbled upon the band in my usual prepping show trip through songs I’ve loaded into the station’s computer system. I can never get enough of Johnette Napolitano’s powerhouse, sexy, sultry and seductive vocals. For evidence, check out the transition at the 1:11 mark of this spooky title cut from the band’s 1992 album, then again at 3:27 – Desire!! Why this band wasn’t bigger than their one brief moment in the sun, 1990’s Bloodletting album and the single Joey, is one of music’s mysteries. Napolitano now apparently lives quietly in California, composing music for films, working as a gallery artist and tending to horses.

18. Family, Between Blue and Me . . . Love the somewhat tortured vocals by guitarist and band leader Roger Chapman. John Wetton, before becoming a longtime member of King Crimson and Asia with pit stops in Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep and Roxy Music, handles bass and background vocals duties. Which reminds me, as I keep trying to remind myself, about time I got back to some Wishbone Ash. We’ll see. As I often say, in just two hours per week, so much music, so little time. But eventually I get to all I want to get to. Usually, given all the myriad show ideas that run through my undisciplined mind.

19. Pete Townshend, Time Is Passing . . . It is indeed, isn’t it, time passing I mean. From Townshend’s first solo album, 1972’s Who Came First. Terrific stuff, but then most Townshend tunes are, Who or otherwise.

20. The Moody Blues, Eternity Road . . . Another band I’ve been trying to fit in over the last few weeks and finally today is their time. Overdue. Sounds crazy, perhaps, in terms of fitting songs into the two-hour slot, ie just put the damn things in but easier said than done. Why? Because you have thoughts in mind, you plug songs in, others come up and it’s like, yeah, haven’t played/heard that in a while either and before you know it, given the flow of the show or even if there’s no deliberate flow, you’re soon at 22-26 songs which typically is the two-hour song length, and it’s on to the next week which I always ‘push ahead’, to be filtered, or not, for the next show. Enough pseudo-creative babble. Ride on to the next track.

21. The Rolling Stones, Ride On, Baby . . . From the Flowers compilation which my older sister owned which, along with Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) she also owned, is how I got into what became and remains and always will be my favorite band. She was, as all young people were then, major into The Beatles and, slightly less so, the Stones and also The Monkees (whereas big brother was the Zep, Tull, Hendrix, Cream, Purple etc. influence and glad for it). And, beating Billy Idol’s Dancing With Myself by many years, my sister went dancing with herself to the various albums she owned. You should have seen her going, in 1971, to Led Zep’s Misty Mountain Hop which I’ve mentioned before but anyway . . . I’ll always remember her ‘rating’ note scrawled in black magic marker on the back cover of Flowers: “some good dances”. Rubber Soul by The Beatles had “good dances’ written on it, so I discerned from that, that she liked Beatles better. At least for dancing. No competition, I love both bands but was interesting 10 years or so later when, for my 16^th birthday I got The Beatles’ 1967-70 ‘blue album” compilation and the Stones’ ’70s comp Made In The Shade as presents and all sister wanted to play was the Stones. Of course, she had just seen them on their 1975 tour appearance in Toronto so, obviously, she was on a concert high and major into them. Funny thing was, The Beatles’ tunes were more familiar to my younger brothers and I then so we wanted to hear the 67-70 album more than the Stones sbut for my youngest brother and me, that quickly shifted to Made In The Shade, the buying of every pre- and post-Stones actual studio albums and the rest is history.

22. Steve Winwood, Night Train . . . I love Traffic (and have played them a lot although not lately, see ‘so much music, so little time”) but not so much into Winwood’s solo stuff aside from Arc of A Diver album. The rest of it is too overproduced for my taste/ears, and Arc borders dangerously on that overproduced precipice but avoids it enough to make for a great album, great track. I feel I’ve played it too recently but so what, if so? And off into the night, on this train, we go . . . until next week. Cheers and take care, all, and thanks for listening/following.

1. Johnny Winter, Rock and Roll People . . . Written by John Lennon, from Winter’s 1974 album John Dawson Winter III.

2. David Bowie, Let’s Spend The Night Together . . . Faster version of the Stones’ hit, from Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album released in April 1973. I like both versions. Interesting that just six months later, with his record company wanting another album by Christmas 1973 to cash in on Bowie’s commercial success,he released a full-blown covers album, Pin Ups.

3. Blue Oyster Cult, Cities On Flame With Rock and Roll . . . I stole this apropos comment about BOC from a YouTube field: “A versatile band – as heavy metal as Iron Maiden, dark and ominous as Black Sabbath, as progressive as Pink Floyd, as smart as Rush and as pop as any top 40 band.” Great riff to this one, too.

4. Rainbow, Gates Of Babylon . . . a great one, but aren’t they all, from the Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals era of Rainbow.

5. The Rolling Stones, Miss Amanda Jones . . . Down and down she goes. Great tune from Between The Buttons which, over time, has become one of my favorite Stones’ albums. I read it derided once by a critic as being too Kinks-like but so what if it is, and what’s wrong with the Kinks and besides it’s a cool, funky, diverse album, the last of their poppier ones before Satanic Majesties and then the deeper, dirtier blues rock of Beggars Banquet and subsequent albums.

6. The Mamas & The Papas, No Salt On Her Tail . . . Beautiful harmonies on this one.

7. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Stayed Awake All Night (extended version) . . . Eight minutes plus version of a this pulsating, driving rocker from BTO’s debut album. The extended cut was released on the 2-CD BTO Anthology that came out some years back and featured a few unreleased tracks. I usually much prefer BTO songs where C.F. (Fred) Turner takes lead vocals with his gruff, tough style but this is one where Randy Bachman shines. There’s a nice live version of this available on YouTube featuring the Bachman-Turner (sans Overdrive) band that segues into American Woman, from a concert in Rama, Ontario – with Turner howlin’ up a storm. If you’re up for some great Bachman-Turner stuff featuring some Guess Who tracks as well, highly recommended is Bachman & Turner Live at the Roseland Ballroom, NYC, available on DVD and YouTube.

8. Bruce Springsteen, 57 Channels (And Nothin’ On) . . . Told you I was going to play this soon. If you don’t follow the show, you’ve no idea what I’m talking about but a few weeks ago I played Pink Floyd’s Nobody Home from The Wall, which contains the lyric “I’ve got 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from” and I mentioned Springsteen picked up on that theme years later on his 1992 Human Touch album. And, by now there’s unlimited channels of, often, nothing of substance on the tube and streaming services.

9. Paul Rodgers, Cut Loose . . . Title cut from Rodgers’ first solo album, 1983, after the original version of Bad Company broke up. Sounds like Bad Company, which is good, and why wouldn’t it, since Rodgers was the exquisite voice of that band and, of course, Free before it.

10. Rory Gallagher, A Million Miles Away . . . Heard this playing in a music store the other day so I decided to play it, besides which I love Rory Gallagher’s music. Always loved this tune, the lyric “this hotel bar is full of people, the piano man is really laying it down…even the old bartender is high as a steeple . . . ” Just puts you in a smoky booze joint, late at night, with all that entails and what might ensue from it.

11. Joe Jackson, Zemeo . . . Jazzy, extended (11 minutes) instrumental cut from an album I often return to, JJ’s soundtrack to a movie few people (including me) ever saw, starred Debra Winger, Mike’s Murder, 1983. Essentially a musical followup for Jackson from his chart-topping Night and Day album of the year before. It’s a terrific listen.

12. Bryan Ferry, A Fool For Love . . . What would the word be, luscious, in terms of the sound of this track from Ferry, from his 2002 album Frantic.

13. Jethro Tull, Bends Like A Willow . . . Blow me down. I’m a big Tull fan but didn’t realize until I decided to play this song from the 1999 album J-Tull Dot Com that it was the single (went relatively nowhere) from that album. A ‘dated’ album title now given how ubiquitous the internet has become, but interesting in terms of the context and year of the album’s release. Essentially, the title trying to encourage people to visit the band’s then relatively new website. Also a significant album for me because I saw the tour with my then age 11 son, who quickly became my Tull-concert going partner.

14. Love, A House Is Not A Motel . . . A band I, er, love but one I have not played in a while. Great lyric: “The news today will be the movies for tomorrow” – and of course distorted usually beyond recognition by Hollywood, yet becomes for so many people the actual (often false) narrative of people and events they describe. For instance, there’s a new Elvis Presley biopic coming to theatres soon. I hate biopics. Never watch them. No interest. They’re not real, and yeah it’s ‘just a movie” yet too many people form their opinions of the people they depict from Hollywood’s ‘creative licence” descriptions. Such is life, I guess.

15. Cry Of Love, Peace Pipe . . . Why this 1990s band wasn’t bigger remains a mystery to me. Free-like. But then, besides All Right Now, Free was never a big commercial success, either.

16. Gordon Lightfoot, Cherokee Bend . . . Not as celebrated as, say, Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald but, musically and lyrically (in a different context), just as touching and meaningful. Brilliant artist.

17. Genesis, Ripples . . . From A Trick of the Tail, first album post-Peter Gabriel when people wondered about the future of Genesis. They had one.

18. Steely Dan, Dirty Work . . . One of my favorite Steely Dan tunes. For whatever reason I always think of a bar band/Steely Dan tribute band playing this in a pub when I hear it. Probably because I never saw Steely Dan live.

19. Streetheart, Miss Plaza Suite . . . Three things. 1. This is a great song. 2. Someone on YouTube, in a comments field on this song, said Streetheart was an underrated band. I really wish people would learn the difference between underrated and underappreciated. Streetheart had lots of hits. They weren’t underrated. Underappreciated, maybe. 3. They also had great album covers. Check out Meanwhile Back in Paris, Under Heaven Over Hell and Quicksand Shoes, for starters. The album Miss Plaza Suite comes from, simply called Streetheart, has a good cover, too, but the aforementioned three are my favorites.

20. Santana, Blues Magic . . From the IV album, released in 2016 and a reunion of most of the original Santana band members who made the band’s first three albums, which remain my favorites. IV is right up there and naturally would be, given who made it and how it sounds in a throwback way. Gregg Rolie does his best Peter Green vocal impression on this track to the point where I continue to check the liner notes to see if it actually wasn’t Green singing. And of course Green, via Fleetwood Mac, gave Santana its biggest early hit with Black Magic Woman.

21. Canned Heat, Lookin’ For My Rainbow . . . Gospel artist Clara Mae Ward, beautifully, shares lead vocals with the Heat’s James Shane on this one, from the band’s 1973 album The New Age.

22. Beck Bogert, Appice, Black Cat Moan (live) . . . From the power trio’s live album, issued only on Japan so something of a rarity although that album is available online and this track also is on Jeff Beck’s Beckology box set.

23. Linda Ronstadt, Rescue Me . . . From her self-titled 1972 album which was a landmark in leading to the formation of the Eagles, whose original members – Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon – had backed Ronstadt on a tour and then were among the session musicians on her record.

1. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Come On In . . . Back to my song-title connection ways, but hey, they’re all good songs. Like this short single from Butterfield and the boys, Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop on guitars. About time I got back to the Butterfield Band. So much music, so relatively little time each week.

2. Trooper, We’re Here For A Good Time (Not A Long Time) . . . A hit single, which I typically am reluctant to play since it’s a deep cuts show, but followers/listeners know every now and then I’ll play a single. And by now they are, er, So Old It’s New, and in this case fits the early set list theme. But you probably picked up on that.

3. Ry Cooder, On A Monday . . . Cooder gives to me what sounds like the Little Feat treatment to this Lead Belly tune. It appeared on Cooder’s 1972 Into The Purple Valley album.

4. Van Halen, Push Comes To Shove . . . Nice bluesy cut, one of my favorites from the somewhat dark, which is why I like it, Fair Warning album. David Lee Roth’s spoken word intro, asking for a cigarette, another swig if anything’s left in the bottle, makes the tune.

5. Bill Wyman, Every Sixty Seconds . . . Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman is my Rolling Stones, Inc. selection this week. Critics seem to like Wyman’s first solo album, 1974’s Monkey Grip, much more than his second, Stone Alone, which was released in 1976. I imagine because I heard Stone Alone first, I’ve always liked it better, and this is one of my favorite tunes from it. The album is called Stone Alone – which Wyman later used as a book title for one he wrote about the band – but the personnel list to the record is bursting with big-name musical friends. Among the contributors are Van Morrison, Joe Walsh, Dr. John, Bob Welch, Ronnie Wood, Nicky Hopkins, Jim Keltner, on and on. Wyman later re-recorded Every Sixty Seconds for one of his Rhythm Kings albums with R&B/soul singer Beverley Skeete nicely handling lead vocals.

6. Tom Wilson, What A Bummer . . . From Wilson’s 2001 solo album, Planet Love. Typically great stuff from one of my favorite artists and mainstay of such bands as Junkhouse, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings and Lee Harvey Osmond.

7. Jimi Hendrix, Lover Man . . . There are so many different versions of Hendrix songs around given the ongoing re-release program by his estate. This dynamic version of Lover Man was cut live in the studio by the Band of Gypsys (Billy Cox on bass, Buddy Miles on drums) about two weeks before their appearance at New York’s Fillmore East on New Year’s Eve, 1969 that resulted in the Band of Gypsys live album. This version is available on 2018’s Both Sides Of The Sky compilation of previously unreleased material. 
8. The Black Keys, Howlin’ For You . . . However it was I got into the Keys, I’m glad I did. Probably hearing them in a music store and asking the staff who it was on the sound system. Or just reading about them, in search of new music (for me). I don’t have or know all their stuff, being a 60s/70s classic rocker coming relatively late to the party, but what I have I like given the raw, distortion-fueled sound of much of their stuff. This one’s from Brothers, in 2010. They recently released their latest album, Dropout Boogie. I have some catching up to do on my listening. I just gave it a quick listen online, no real impression yet but fans seem to think it’s mediocre. They do seem to have smoothed out their sound, to my ears, since Brothers, though. I like the distortion stuff best.

9. AC/DC, Soul Stripper . . . Pulsating, hypnotic track from the smokin’ hot ’74 Jailbreak EP.

10. Blodwyn Pig, Dear Jill . . . Great blues from the band guitarist Mick Abrahams formed when he left Jethro Tull after their first album, This Was. Abrahams wanted to continue in a blues direction. Ian Anderson had other ideas and obviously has been hugely successful with them. I like both sides of their ‘argument’.

11. Goddo, Drop Dead (That’s Who) . . . The funny intro, ‘take 75’ is almost worth the price of admission from these Canadian rockers.

12. Alice Cooper, Killer . . . Title cut from the 1971 album, by the original band. Dark, epic, eerie, spooky, superb.

13. Blue Cheer, Out Of Focus . . . B-side to the band’s breakout 1968 single, their raucous cover of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues. Not quite as heavy, perhaps, but heavy. Blue Cheer was an interesting band, maintaining their heaviness throughout but getting more progressive/psychedelic as time passed. I was going to explore some of that side of the band tonight, and will at some point, but being in a more rocking mood, at least as far as Blue Cheer goes . . .

14. Gary Moore, World Of Confusion . . . Moore, who we lost to a heart attack at just 58 in 2011, was so very eclectic. He was in Thin Lizzy for a time, of course, did lots of hard rock and metal and broke big to a wider public during one of his many excursions over time into the blues, with his 1990 hit album and song, Still Got The Blues. This hard rocker is from the self-titled and only album release from the trio, Scars, he formed in 2002. Wicked guitar work.

15. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ramble Tamble . . . I like when CCR did stuff like this seven-minute rant and raver from Cosmo’s Factory.

16. Paris, Black Book . . . After leaving Fleetwood Mac following their 1974 album Heroes Are Hard To Find, Bob Welch formed a power trio with former Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick and Thom Mooney, who had worked with Todd Rundgren. Three guys, made a good noise. Black Book is an example.

17. Grateful Dead, Estimated Prophet . . . One of my favorite Dead tunes. I just like the groove, and the lyrics about false prophets.

18. Stone The Crows, Big Jim Salter . . . And so we go real deep with Stone The Crows, a band whose name – a homage to the Brit/Aussie expression of amazement or disgust – I’d always thought was cool but whose music, before the internet age, I had not taken the time (or money) to explore. I finally did via one of two amazing compilations I picked up, on the recommendation of a friend, a few years ago. This is from I’m A Freak Baby 2, the second of two 3-CD collections exploring the British heavy psychedelic and hard rock underground scene from 1968-73. Scottish belter Maggie Bell, who some see as the UK’s answer to Janis Joplin and I definitely hear it on some tunes, handles lead vocals on this one. She’s also known for ‘vocal abrasives’ as credited on Rod Stewart’s title cut to the Every Picture Tells A Story album. Other noted members of Stone The Crows were Alex Harvey’s brother Les, who was electrocuted on stage and later died after touching a mic that was not grounded while his other hand was on his guitar strings. Others who passed through the band were Jimmy McCulloch, later lead guitarist with Paul McCartney and Wings, and bassist/singer James Dewar, later a member of Robin Trower’s most commercially successful lineup during the 1970s, and one of my favorite rock singers. 
19. Warhorse, Back In Time . . . From the same I’m A Freak Baby compilation, although I do have some Warhorse stuff. Of course I would; Deep Purple is among my favorite bands and Warhorse was a hard rock/psychedelic Deep Purple offshoot group, this track being a perfect example of their work. Warhorse was formed by Nick Simper after the bassist was sacked by Purple along with singer Rod Evans when Roger Glover and Ian Gillan were brought in as the so-called ‘classic’ Mk. II lineup of Purple moved to a heavier rocking sound and went on to greater glories.

20. Bob Seger, Bo Diddley . . . Before The Silver Bullet Band, from Seger’s 1972 Smokin’ O.P.’s album of mostly down and dirty cover tunes, hence the title – Smokin’ Other People’s Songs, derived from ‘smoking other people’s cigarettes’ (hence the album cover) but I wouldn’t know, never having smoked. OK, I did, once, as a kid, age 9, with a gang of my friends. We stole a carton of my parents’ cigarettes but mom caught me, finding a cigarette butt in my pants pocket while doing laundry, and I promised never to do it again – and didn’t as I started getting into physical fitness. Interestingly, mom and dad smoked, as did my older brother and sister of the five kids in the family. Different times.  
21. Cat Stevens, Drywood . . . From Stevens’ 1975 album Numbers, a sci-fi concept album of sorts that the record company didn’t like because it didn’t produce ‘catchy’ hits like Moonshadow, Peace Train, Morning Has Broken etc. As a result, it didn’t sell as well as his previous work. But this is art, dammit! Which is what Stevens argued. Besides, I think Drywood is pretty catchy and the pop charts are often infested with dreck ear candy without substance or lasting value, so I’m with Cat.

22. Maria Muldaur, It Feels Like Rain . . . Bluesy, swampy, sultry version of the John Hiatt song. Muldaur is a great artist, so much more than her lone big pop hit from the 1970s, Midnight At The Oasis. Buddy Guy also covered the song, as the title cut to his 1993 album.

23. Warren Zevon, The Overdraft . . . Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac fame provides backing vocals on this rollicking ride from Zevon’s 1982 The Envoy album. Waddy Wachtel, session man to the stars, provides typically great lead guitar, as he did on so many Zevon albums.

24. The Joe Perry Project, South Station Blues . . . From the Project’s second solo album, 1981’s I’ve Got The Rock & Rolls Again. Catchy intro. As with the debut, Let The Music Do The Talking, it was done during the period when Perry quit Aerosmith as the drug and booze-addled band splintered during the sessions for 1979’s Night In The Ruts album, although Perry still played on most of the tracks. Perry had a singer-rhythm guitarist in his band, Charlie Ferren, but handled lead vocals himself on this up tempo shuffle whose genesis was Shit House Shuffle, a 36-second instrumental Aerosmith used as a warm up before recording sessions. It’s available on the Pandora’s Box boxed set, and online. A slightly revamped Let The Music Do The Talking became an Aerosmith song on 1985’s Done With Mirrors album.

25. Neil Young, For The Turnstiles . . . From Young’s introspective 1974 album On The Beach, prompted by his discomfort with the superstardom his previous studio album, Harvest, brought. Heart of Gold from Harvest was a No. 1 single for Young, as was the album, but in the liner notes to his excellent Decade compilation, he addresses the feelings of wanting to retreat that success fostered in him, and how it led him to produce darker followup albums like On The Beach and Tonight’s The Night. “This song (Heart of Gold) put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there.”

26. Badfinger, Carry On Til Tomorrow . . . Beautiful track, with some great guitar in its rockier parts, from the band’s 1970 debut album as Badfinger (they released one previous album under the name The Iveys). Magic Christian Music was on Apple Records as the band had an association with The Beatles, much of their early work produced or co-produced mostly by Paul McCartney, some by George Harrison and Beatles associates Geoff Emerick and Mal Evans.

1. Mick Jagger, Too Many Cooks (Spoil The Soup) . . . Funky tune, produced by John Lennon, that Jagger recorded with a host of big-name musician friends that finally saw official release on The Very Best of Mick Jagger compilation in 2007. Jack Bruce of Cream fame lays down a great bass line. Others featured on the recording are Al Kooper and noted session guitar aces Danny Kortchmar and Jesse Ed Davis and drummer Jim Keltner. Singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, one of Lennon’s sidekicks during the 18 months of his ‘lost weekend’ separation from Yoko Ono, sings backing vocals.

2. Steve Earle, Snake Oil . . . Nice one from Copperhead Road, starts slowly but quickly builds into quite the raver.

3. George Thorogood and The Destroyers, One Way Ticket (live) . . . Smokin’ version of the John Lee Hooker tune from Thorogood’s Live in Boston 1982 album that was re-released in 2020, now containing the full show.

4. Bruce Springsteen, Adam Raised A Cain . . . I like most Springsteen but tend to mostly go back to the three outstanding albums of his I grew up on – Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town, from which I pulled this track, and The River, all of which came out in that order. Quite the run.

5. Elvis Costello, Blame It On Cain . . . From his debut, My Aim Is True, in 1977 and an appropriate title for an album that hits the target in every tune. The title is also in the lyrics to the hit Alison.

6. Graham Parker, I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down . . . Written by Memphis songwriter Earl Randle, Parker’s version, and a good one it is, appeared on his 1977 album, Stick To Me.

7. Midnight Oil, Surf’s Up Tonight . . . From the Breathe album, 1996, some see it as a tribute to The Beach Boys but of course surfing is hardly just a California thing.

8. The Clash, The Magnificent Seven . . . Third single from the wildly and wonderfully diverse, and sprawling, Sandinista! Apparently inspired by the New York hip hop and rap scene. I don’t consider that I’m into either of those genres, but I do like when rock bands I like delve into other sounds and approaches.

9. Bob Dylan, The Ballad Of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest . . . From Dylan’s 1967 John Wesley Harding album I remember my older brother bringing home. It’s somewhat unique in that it’s a long story song, without a chorus, but typically interesting Dylan lyrics. And it was the inspiration for the next band in my set’s name.

10. Judas Priest, Exciter . . . Just because you’re hard rock/metal doesn’t mean you don’t listen to or are inspired by artists from other genres. Life would be boring were that the case. The Dylan song inspired Priest’s band name. “Fall to your knees and repent if you please” is such a memorable line in this scorcher that some people have been known to think it’s the actual title.

11. Motorhead, Speedfreak . . . Appropriate title for this cut from the Iron Fist album, the last featuring the so-called classic lineup trio of Lemmy Kilmister (vocals/bass), “Fast” Eddie Clarke (guitar) and Phil “Philthy Animal Taylor (drums).

12. Black Sabbath, Megalomania . . . I wanted to play a Sabbath song tonight but had trouble picking one, since with great bands like this I could easily do – and maybe should – a show consisting of only their material. In any case, I wound up settling on this epic from the Sabotage album.

13. Nazareth, Psycho Skies . . . I mentioned a couple weeks ago, while playing Nazareth’s Red Light Lady from their debut album in 1971, that the band had a new album out, their second with lead singer Carl Sentance. He replaced the retired from touring Dan McCafferty a few years ago. The new album, Surviving The Law, is very good in my opinion, and this song, written by Sentance, is an example of its quality.
    
14. Deep Purple, Child In Time . . . The epic that was the centerpiece of In Rock, with Ian Gillan in all his vocal glory but the whole band is typically on fire.

15. Groundhogs, Strange Town . . .From the English blues-rock band’s 1970 album Thank Christ For The Bomb, engineered by the late Martin Birch, whose extensive and impressive production resume included Deep Purple, mid-period Fleetwood Mac, Wishbone Ash, Rainbow, Whitesnake mostly during their early, more blues-rock oriented period, Black Sabbath during the Ronnie James Dio years, Blue Oyster Cult, Iron Maiden, on and on.

16. Dire Straits, In The Gallery . . . From the sterling debut album, 1978. Of course, what Dire Straits album isn’t sterling? Amazingly consistent band during their time.

17. Led Zeppelin, The Lemon Song . . . Great song but as was typical of Zeppelin, one of the many where they liberally ‘borrowed’ from and ‘adapted’ songs like Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor, took full credit, got sued and wound up having to, on later releases of Zep II and other albums, give the old blues greats they pilfered from due credit. I like Zeppelin’s music, a lot, but why they felt they had to do some of the sleazy things they did in terms of songwriting, and think they could get away with it, and they sometimes did, remains beyond me. And yes, I ‘get’ that credits on many old blues tunes were pretty fluid over time, even the old blues artists borrowed from each other, but Zep usually never even attempted to give credit where it was due, until forced to by lawsuits.

18. Duane Allman, Goin’ Down Slow . . . In addition to his typically brilliant guitar playing, Duane handles lead vocals, a rarity, with fellow future Allman Brother Berry Oakley on bass on this blues cover recorded in 1969 for a proposed solo album that was never completed. I pulled it from one of two Duane Allman anthologies that came out ages ago, are likely out of print but worth searching out if you’re still into physical copies. The two double albums feature Allman’s session work with such artists as Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin, among others, plus his time with the Allman Brothers.

19. Jethro Tull, Hymn 43 . . . Always loved this rocker, and its lyrics, from Aqualung.

20. Spirit, 1984 . . . I read something in a YouTube comment field on this terrific psychedelic rocker I agree with. “Growing up in 70s LA, there were two bands you listened to if you were really in the know: Spirit and Love. Didn’t matter what anyone else thought.” Love was actually more a ’60s band but the writer’s sentiment is accurate I think; two arguably underappreciated but influential bands.

21. UFO, Dance Your Life Away . . . Haven’t played these guys in a while, good rocker, nice Michael Schenker guitar as always, from the Force It album, 1975.

22. Pink Floyd, Nobody Home . . . “I got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from . . . ” Well, it was 1979 and most of us did have only about that many channels available to us. Things got better, or worse, by the time of Bruce Springsteen’s 1992 song 57 Channels (And Nothin’ On) which I should dig up and play and now it’s unlimited, pretty much, channels available and nothing on. 
23. Headstones, Cut . . . From 1993’s terrific debut album, Picture of Health. Headstones will be at the 2022 Kitchener Blues Festival although scheduling them at about the same time as Drive By Truckers at another stage irks me as bit, since I like both bands.

24. The Rolling Stones, Till The Next Goodbye . . . Beautiful ballad from the It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll album to close the show and deliberately frame it all in between two cuts from Rolling Stones Inc.; started with Mick Jagger, ending with the full unit.

1. Nirvana, Lounge Act . . . Nirvana’s Nevermind is so front-loaded with its hits/well -known songs – Smells Like Teen Spirit, In Bloom and Come As You Are open the album – that great, punkish tunes like Lounge Act are often overlooked. That’s why radio has deep cuts shows.

2. King Crimson, Frame By Frame . . . From Discipline, which in 1981 marked the return of Robert Fripp and friends to recording under the King Crimson banner after being dormant since 1974. And, typical of ever-changing Crimson, this was a different beast with a new-wave type sound, somewhat derivative of Talking Heads of the same period, yet still uniquely Crimson.

3. The Monkees, You Just May Be The One . . . A Mike Nesmith-penned and sung tune, and a good one, from the Headquarters album.

4. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Leave My Girl Alone . . . About time I played some SRV again.

5. The Rolling Stones, Almost Hear You Sigh . . . One of the best, in my opinion, latter-day Stones’ tunes, from 1989’s Steel Wheels album. Co-written by drummer Steve Jordan, now in the Stones touring unit upon the passing of Charlie Watts, it was originally destined for Keith Richards’ first solo album, Talk Is Cheap. It didn’t make the cut, Richards played it for Mick Jagger, who made some lyric adjustments and it wound up being the third single released, after Mixed Emotions and Rock and a Hard Place, from Steel Wheels. Arguably the best song on the album, it nevertheless only made the top 50 in the US. The Netherlands liked it. It made No. 11 there. Whatever, good songs are good songs, the best song in the world is the one you’re listening to now, if you like it. Charts are statistics.

6. Five Man Electrical Band, Hello Melinda, Goodbye . . . Infectious tune, it was originally an A-side single with Signs, the band’s most well-known song, as the B-side but the 45 bombed first time around. Later, with the band on the verge of breaking up, Signs was re-released as an A-side and the rest is history.

7. Eric Clapton, Old Love . . . There’s a lot of overproduced dreck on Clapton’s 1989 album Journeyman what with synthesizers and various forms of instrument programming but this bluesy track is an exception. There are, according to the song credits, synth piano and synth strings on the song but I don’t hear them, or can’t discern them, thankfully.

8. Aerosmith, Shela . . . From Done With Mirrors in 1985, the last album of the old Aerosmith before they brought in outside writers and ascended to greater commercial heights while losing their early raunch and roll grit, for the most part. I still like the later stuff that doesn’t descend into overproduced schlock, but prefer the consistently down and dirty earlier stuff. Mirrors didn’t do so well, at least by Aerosmith standards, charting at No. 72 in Canada and No. 38in the US. Sales weren’t helped by initial pressings, and I remember having it on vinyl when it was released – everything on the album was written backwards so you had to use a mirror, get it, to read the lyrics etc. I’m all for creativity but it was frustrating, it just didn’t work and the misjudgment was soon rectified. Good musically, though.

9. Colin James, Freedom . . . Blues and R & B great Mavis Staples shares vocals on this nice groove tune, from James’ 1995 Bad Habits album, for which he won a Juno Award as Male Vocalist of the Year.
10. Free, Broad Daylight . . . From Free’s second, self-titled album. Was released as a single. Went nowhere. Absurd.

11. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Insider . . . Stevie Nicks provides backing vocals on this one from Hard Promises, 1981. Music is so much place and time, of course, and the album – and its cover – always reminds me of California, as I was spending some time in the San Francisco Bay Area when it came out. The cover, with Petty in a record store, reminds me of one of my younger brothers and I browsing in a record store and hearing the album, which I bought, along with Phil Collins’ Face Value, which was also on the sound system – I Missed Again was the song I remember being played.

12. James Gang, Ashes The Rain & I . . . Beautiful, musically and short and sweet lyrically, from Rides Again, the second album from Joe Walsh and the boys.
13. Fleetwood Mac, I’m So Afraid . . . Rumours gets most of the hype but the self-titled Fleetwood Mac album that preceded it, the first featuring Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, while not approaching the sales figures of Rumours, is just as good and itself was a No. 1 record. This track originally was scheduled for a second Buckingham-Nicks album but became a Fleetwood Mac song when the duo joined the band.

14. Guns N’ Roses, Better . . . Best song on Chinese Democracy, in my opinion, and the reconstituted band, again featuring Slash on guitar, continues to play it in concert.

15. Van Morrison, A Sense Of Wonder . . . Beautiful title cut from Van the Man’s 1985 album, went nowhere as a single but it’s one of those tunes, perhaps because he put it on his personally-selected Best of, Volume 2, that when you hear it, you recognize it.

16. The Byrds, Lover Of The Bayou . . . A live version is the one usually found on Byrds compilations, and it’s good. But so is this longer studio version, originally recorded for the Untitled album in 1970. The studio cut didn’t come out officially until the Untitled/Unissued re-release in 2000.

17. McKenna Mendelson Mainline, Mainline . . . Blues, from an album, Stink, that seems to be in every music-loving Canadian home.

18. The Black Crowes, Thick N’ Thin . . . It’s been a long time since I listened to the Crowes, let alone played them on the show, but as usual was filleting CDs, looking for something new, different or not played in ages, and here we go. Nice one, from the debut album, Shake Your Moneymaker, in 1990. They’ve got a new EP out, featuring covers of songs from 1972 called, wait for it, 1972. Six songs – Rocks Off by the Stones; The Slider (T-Rex); You Wear It Well (Rod Stewart); Easy to Slip (Little Feat); Moonage Daydream (David Bowie) and The Temptations’ Papa Was A Rolling Stone. I’ve heard it, nothing earth-shattering. For me, most covers albums are sort of, ok, that’s interesting, I probably won’t listen to it all that often, how about some new original material, folks? That said, just the Crowes having fun paying homage to their heroes.

19. Frank Zappa, Wonderful Wino . . . Good rocker from one of Zappa’s more accessible releases, the 1976 album Zoot Allures.

20. George Harrison, Awaiting On You All (live, The Concert For Bangladesh) . . . Good live version of one of the best tracks from an album full of great ones, All Things Must Pass.

21. Men At Work, Down By The Sea . . . A somewhat uncharacteristic song, if all one knows of Men At Work is their two big hit singles, Who Can It Be Now and Down Under. It’s longer, a shade under seven minutes, somewhat bluesy and definitely hypnotic, just a great track, for my money.

22. Sea Level, King Grand . . . Funky tune from the Chuck Leavell-led Allman Brothers jazz-rock fusion offshoot, with multi-instrumentalist Randall Bramblett taking lead vocals.

23. Otis Redding, You Don’t Miss Your Water . . . Take the Stax house band Booker T. & The M.G.’s, augmented by studio aces The Mar-Keys, The Memphis Horns and young at the time session pianist Isaac Hayes, record everything but one track in a 24-hour span in May of 1965 and you have the great album Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul. The woman on the cover of the album has, according to what I’ve read, never been definitively identified but is thought to be German model Dagmar Dreger. Apparently, the record company thought that putting an attractive white woman on the cover would help Redding’s crossover appeal.

24. Stevie Wonder, Race Babbling . . . The Secret Life of Plants had one hit single, No. 4 Send One Your Love but other than that, the concept album that was a soundtrack to a documentary of the same name, threw people. But Race Babbling is one cool, hypnotic, experimental adventure lasting just under nine minutes. Good lyrics, too.

25. Rita Coolidge, Superstar (live, from Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen) . . . From Cocker’s 1970 traveling road show album, co-written by Leon Russell, who was a member of the band, and Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney and Bonnie fame. The Carpenters turned it into a worldwide hit in 1971.
26. Buffalo Springfield, Go And Say Goodbye . . . Country rock pickin’ from the debut album, 1966.

1. AC/DC, That’s The Way I Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll . . . AC/DC had been in commercial decline but 1988’s Blow Up Your Video album, from which this top 30 single comes, signaled a rebirth that was fully realized with the next album, The Razors Edge and such hits at Thunderstruck, Moneytalks and Are You Ready. Not that I listen to commercial rock radio anymore, in fact its predictability – endless repetition of the same songs – is what long ago motivated me to do this for the most part deep cuts show, but I don’t recall hearing this single much at all when it came out.

2. The Beatles, You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) . . . Fun music hall track, typical Beatles’ humor. It was the B-side to Let It Be in 1970 but goes back to initial sessions in 1967 and a final one in 1969. Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones helps out on saxophone.

3. Can, She Brings The Rain . . . Conventional, lovely ballad from an unconventional band.

4. Deep Purple, Our Lady . . . From the critically-panned Who Do We Think We Are album in 1973. One wonders whether rock journalists actually focus on the music or, in this case, on the fact that the band was fraying due to the forever enmity between singer Ian Gillan and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore – in which case, an album of such quality is remarkable. I like the record, as do most Deep Purple fans I know. I mean, c’mon, critics: Woman From Tokyo, this track, Mary Long, every song is good. Certainly not going through the motions, as one critic wrote and besides, how would he know unless he was in studio with the band.

5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Knife-Edge . . . Terrific B-side to Lucky Man and arguably more indicative of ELP’s progressive rock approach than that more mainstream, albeit excellent, single is.

6. Fairport Convention, She Moves Through The Fair . . . Sandy Denny. One of those singers who, when you hear her, think, that’s the voice of an angel. Just beautiful.

7. Rory Gallagher, Calling Card . . . Title cut from the late great guitarist/songwriter/bandleader’s 1976 album co-produced by Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover, who had met Gallagher when Rory opened for Purple on an American tour.

8. Hawkwind, Space Is Deep . . . A song about space, and humanity, from the space rockers.

9. Iron Maiden, Strange World . . . Uncharacteristic Maiden, a bluesy cut from their first, self-titled album featuring pre-Bruce Dickinson lead singer Paul Di’Anno.

10. Jethro Tull, Nothing To Say . . . I have nothing more to say that I haven’t already, this week anyway, about Jethro Tull, one of my favorite bands. From Benefit, the band’s third album, 1970.

11. Kansas, Paradox . . . Amazing how many time signature changes and other such progressive rock elements Kansas can cram into this four-minute track.

12. Led Zeppelin, Friends . . . Nice acoustic one from Zep III.

13. Metallica, The Struggle Within . . . The Black Album divided people as Metallica went more commercial via singles like Enter Sandman, The Unforgiven and Nothing Else Matters, which introduced them to a massive wider audience. That didn’t sit well with at least some longtime fans who preferred their earlier thrash metal stuff. So this one, from that somewhat controversial album, is for them. And me, although I appreciate all Metallica.

14. Nazareth, Red Light Lady . . . Love this multi-faceted tune from the self-titled debut album in 1971. And they just released a new one in April, Surviving The Law. It’s not groundbreaking, but rocks hard and is the second one featuring new singer Carl Sentance, who replaced original singer Dan McCafferty. McCafferty retired from touring with the band in 2013 due to health reasons although he released a solo album, Last Testament, three years ago although to be honest I only found that out while giving a listen to the new Nazareth record. As for Nazareth overall, there’s just one original member left, Pete Agnew on bass, which like many bands continuing to soldier on leaves them open to criticisms of being essentially a tribute act. I hear it but, besides Sentance, the other guys in the band, including Agnew’s son Lee on drums and guitarist Jimmy Murrison, have been in the group for nearly 30 years and they do continue to release new music and if it’s good, and still has some connection to the original band, I don’t have a huge issue with it.

15. Ozzy Osbourne, S.A.T.O. . . . Kick-butt rocker from Diary Of A Madman, the second solo Ozzy album and the last featuring the late great guitarist Randy Rhodes. The title either stands for Sharon Arden (maiden name of Ozzy’s wife, who is the daughter of music industry mogul Don Arden) and Thelma Osbourne, his first wife, or Sailing Across The Ocean, which is what the lyrics reference. Apparently, it was initially called Strange Voyage but after some battles within the band that resulted in bass player and co-songwriters Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake being fired, Ozzy and Sharon changed it. Oh, and sato, non-acronym, is also a Thai rice wine.

16. Pink Floyd, Julia Dream . . . From 1968, written by Roger Waters and sung, for the first time on a Floyd track, by new at the time guitarist David Gilmour. This ballad was the B-side to It Would Be So Nice, a song written by keyboardist Richard Wright that was, to be charitable, not very good. “Effing awful, wasn’t it” drummer Nick Mason was quoted as saying. Well, in fairness, the Floyd was in transition after the departure of band co-founder and early chief songwriter Syd Barrett and finding their legs, so to speak, before Waters became the dominant writer.

17. Queen, Drowse . . . I’ve always liked this one, written and sung by drummer Roger Taylor, from A Day At The Races. The title fits the laid-back vibe of the tune.

18. Keith Richards, Heartstopper . . . Up-tempo tune from Crosseyed Heart, Richards’ third, and most recent, solo album that came out in 2015. Seven years ago already.

19. Stephen Stills, Blind Fiddler Medley . . . A beautiful blending of a traditional folks song, Blind Fiddler, with two of Stills’ own tunes from his first and second solo albums, respectively – Do For The Others and Know You Got To Run. The medley was released on his 1991 album, Stills Alone, for the most part just him and his acoustic and electric guitars. It’s a great listen.

20. Thin Lizzy, Opium Trail . . . Bad Reputation, including the title cut which I’ve played before, is such a solid Thin Lizzy album, one of my favorites by the band but then I’m a big fan and of course they’re so much more than The Boys Are Back In Town. Opium Trail is another winner from the album.

21. U2, Acrobat . . . A fellow DJ mentioned he liked this song when we got discussing deep cuts from Achtung Baby a while ago after I played a different song from that album. I do, too. So, here we are.

22. The Velvet Underground, Lonesome Cowboy Bill . . . The Velvets go country on this one from the Loaded album. It was so named because the record company wanted an album ‘loaded’ with hits. The album still didn’t chart but the Velvets were never a commercial hit – it’s been said that few people bought VU albums, but those that did formed bands. Two of their more widely-known songs, Sweet Jane and Rock & Roll, did emerge from Loaded.

23. Tom Waits, Frank’s Wild Years . . . Short and sweet spoken word brilliance, a shade under two minutes, from Swordfishtrombones in 1983. Two albums later came the Franks Wild Years record, no apostrophe but otherwise connected with the original song.

24. XTC, Science Friction . . . Devo-ish punky stuff from 1977 before they broke big, to the masses at least, with their 1979 album Drums and Wires and the Making Plans For Nigel single.

25. Yes, Starship Trooper . . . A bit of a challenge getting a longer tune into what had to be a 26-song set list due to today’s alphabet motif, but we managed. This is from The Yes Album, the first to feature guitarist Steve Howe and where the Yes all who know and love them (or loathe them) truly emerged. Such was the relative commercial failure of their first two albums, Yes and Time and A Word, that the band was at risk of being dropped by Atlantic, their record company. But they survived and thrived.

26. ZZ Top, I Need You Tonight . . . The lone bluesy cut from 1983’s Eliminator, the album where the band fully embraced synthesizers and other technology to great commercial success but to the distaste of some/many of their longtime bluesy raunch and roll supporters. This song could easily have fit on any of the early ZZ albums.

1. Joe Jackson, 1-2-3 Go (This Town’s A Fairground) . . . Uptempo tune from the terrific soundtrack to Mike’s Murder, a movie starring Debra Winger that bombed. The soundtrack album was released in 1983 and is, musically, essentially a sequel to JJ’s 1982 Night and Day record. That is, until JJ actually released a Night and Day II in 2000. Night and Day II is a good album but naturally suffers in comparison to the brilliant original, and Jackson has said he regrets naming it as a sequel for that reason. I’ll play something from it sometime soon.
   
2. Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick . . . Monster single in the UK, it didn’t chart in the North American colonies but remains one of Dury’s best-known songs. I remember getting Dury’s Do It Yourself album simply because it included a 45 of Rhythm Stick which, in typical (at least up to then, 1979) UK fashion, wasn’t on the album proper.
   
3. Flash and The Pan, Atlantis Calling . . . My fun Aussie friends kick off a three-song set somewhat to do, title-wise anyway, with H2O.

4. Elton John, Crazy Water . . . A relatively unknown single, arguably, released only in the UK where it made the top 30. It’s from the 1976 Blue Moves double album which, aside from the massive single Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word, signaled the beginning of a commercial decline for EJ. It’s maybe my favorite from the album, an uptempo tune with catchy percussion and bass work.
   
5. Blind Faith, Sea Of Joy . . . Dum dum dum dum, dum dum, dum dum dum dum, dum dum … dum … pitter pitter patter pattter (drums). That’s my typewritten interpretation of the intro to this excellent track from the one and only album by the supergroup of Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Ric Grech. Heck, every song on the album is excellent.

6. Little Feat, Old Folks’ Boogie (live, Waiting For Columbus version) . . .Well, the show is called So Old It’s New, and I’m getting up there, most so-called classic rock listeners/follower are, so what the heck. And one can never get enough Little Feat, particularly live. Saw them in a small club in Hamilton in 2004.

7. The Band, Across The Great Divide (live, Rock of Ages version) . . . Difficult to choose between this live version and the studio cut that opens ‘The Band’ album. So I flipped a coin. The live version is about a minute longer with more prominent horns via a five-man section augmenting the core group.
   
8. David Bowie, The Supermen . . . I like almost all Bowie but his early stuff is not only great but prime fodder, I find, for a deep cuts show like mine. Like this track from 1970s The Man Who Sold The World. Great vocal performance, cool sort of stair step mantra from a tight band featuring guitarist Mick Ronson in his first of five 70s albums teamed with Bowie as Bowie – and Ronson as a well-known guitarist – ascended to superstardom.

9. Bruce Springsteen, Racing In The Street . . . “I got a ’69 Chevy with a 396 fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor.” I always remember sitting around my college newspaper’s newsroom shooting the breeze one day and one of the editors, an upperclassman, just impromptu launched into the lyric. A song about so much more than drag racing in the street, of course.
   
10. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Children Of The Wind . . . A David Clayton-Thomas penned number from 1968 that didn’t see the light of day, officially at least, until the 1995 compilation What Goes Up!
    
11. Sniff ‘N’ The Tears, Gold . . . Lovely ballad from the band best known for their great hit Driver’s Seat. The song, about a relationship, perhaps resonates with me due to – although they’re about conquest – the lyrical references to Latin America, having spent part of my youth in Peru.
    
12. Robin Trower, Alethea . . . What a team during the 1970s, Robin Trower on guitar and the late James Dewar, who you rarely hear about when great rock singers are discussed, on bass and vocals. Trower is still going strong, releasing an album every year or two right up to 2022 with his No More Worlds To Conquer release. I admit I have some catching up to do but what can you with these old energetic farts like him, Van Morrison and Neil Young who just keep pumping stuff out?! Thank god for the internet.

13. Humble Pie, Live With Me . . . Not a cover of the Rolling Stones’ song from Let It Bleed but rather an eight-minute slowly-building blues workout with typically great vocals from the late great Steve Marriott, speaking of great singers.
    
14. Peter Frampton, Lines On My Face (live, Frampton Comes Alive version) . . . And here’s Marriott’s old mate, once he went solo, from his blockbuster live album.
    
15. Heart, White Lightning and Wine . . . Love early Heart. Great lyrics about a one-night stand, ending with “in the morning light you didn’t look so nice guess you’d better hitch hike home.” Akin to the Faces’ “Just don’t be here in the morning when I wake up’ in Stay With Me.

16. Coverdale-Page, Absolution Blues . . . For all the catty comments that went back and forth, mostly from Robert Plant, when David Coverdale of Deep Purple and Whitesnake fame got together with Jimmy Page, I say they produced a damn fine album.

     

17. Rare Earth, Child Of Fortune/One World . . . 13-minute bluesy cut that, after an organ break, goes almost progressive.

18. Van Halen, Mine All Mine . . . From the OU812 album, second of the Van (Sammy) Hagar era. They opened with this when I saw them at a Canada Day show in Barrie, Ontario in 1993.

19. The Rolling Stones, All Down The Line (live, El Mocambo 1977 version) . . . Well-known Stones’ track from Exile On Main St. and played often on various tours. I’m playing it today because this is a terrific version from the must-have for Stones fans just-released full El Mocambo set, four blues covers of which first appeared on 1977’s Love You Live. Love the Stones, but especially when they’re stripped down, like here, to basically the core unit, and firing on all cylinders.

20. Genesis, Deep In The Motherlode . . . And Then There Were Three tends to get short shrift in the Genesis catalog, but I’ve always liked the album. It’s not my favorite, I’d say A Trick of The Tail and of the Peter Gabriel era, Selling England By The Pound likely but with music it’s obviously subjective and often depends upon one’s mood and/or time and place memories. I always say the best band/artist or album/song ever is the one you are listening to now, if you like it. But I do have a soft spot for And Then There Were Three, likely due to it being the first Genesis album I really got into, via the single Follow You, Follow Me, before going back, and forward with them from there. And yeah, I even like most of the pop-oriented stuff aside from, yecch, the title cut to Invisible Touch although I do grant that, as a musician friend of mine has said, it’s a very well-constructed song.

21. David Gilmour, So Far Away . . . From the Pink Floyd guitarist’s first, self-titled solo album, 1978. Nice piano (played by Gilmour) dominated ballad, good for a late night with a refreshment.

22. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Comin’ Home . . . Beautiful, haunting, life-lived lyrics to a great tune.

1. Glenn Miller, In The Mood . . . My sentiments exactly, as I was rummaging through some oldies CDs. And who doesn’t like/can’t resist this timeless tune?

2. Warren Zevon, Johnny Strikes Up The Band . . . Lead cut and the first single from the Excitable Boy album that didn’t break big until the third single, Werewolves of London made Zevon a household name. The title track was the second of five singles released from the record which has grown, over time, into essentially a greatest hits release.

3. Paul McCartney & Wings, Spin It On . . . Paulie goes punk on this short rocker from 1979’s Back To The Egg album. The original vinyl LP release sides were labeled Sunny Side Up and Over Easy.

4. April Wine, Crash and Burn . . . April Wine goes almost metallic on this raver from 1981’s The Nature of The Beast, by which time the band had adopted a harder-rocking arguably simplified sound catered to the American market. And it worked, as the album went platinum in the US – although their earlier stuff is better, to my ears. But it’s all worth playing.

5. The Rolling Stones, Parachute Woman . . . Another one of those songs whose only bad point is it’s too short. Great cut from a great album, Beggars Banquet.

6. John Mayall, Possessive Emotions . . . Another from the ‘albums my older brother introduced me to” – Mayall’s 1970 release USA Union. It featured former Canned Heat members Harvey Mandel on guitar and bassist Larry Taylor along with violinist Don “Sugarcane’ Harris. And no drummer, which my brother proudly advised me of and I found fascinating at the time, age 11. Funky tune, yet another example of the interesting sounds Mayall and friends always achieve.

7. Jackson Browne, Fountain Of Sorrow . . . A relationship song. It could be about Joni Mitchell. It could be about Browne’s deceased wife. It could be about any one of his former flames. Depends on what you read, if you read about it on songmeanings.com or other such sites. In any event, lyrics that could apply to anyone and their relationships.

8. Fleetwood Mac, Brown Eyes . . . I came across this one via word searching Jackson Browne for the previous track. It’s a beautiful, relatively unknown Christine McVie-penned gem from the Tusk album. Mac founding guitarist Peter Green was invited to play on the song by Mick Fleetwood although his playing is only included in the fadeout.

9. Mott The Hoople, The Moon Upstairs . . . Raw, raunchy rocker from 1971’s Brain Capers album, the one before the band finally broke big with All The Young Dudes, the album and single, a year later.

10. George Thorogood, New Hawaiian Boogie . . . I’ve never heard definitively that Link Wray was among Thorogood’s influences, but based on his raw playing on this Elmore James tune, I’d say so.

11. Link Wray, Big City After Dark . . . Speaking of Wray . . . I can’t do better than a description of this tune I read in a comments field on YouTube: “It sounds like he’s playing barbed wire strings with a switchblade knife.”

12. Tommy James and The Shondells, Sweet Cherry Wine . . . Psychedelic top 10 hit in Canada and the US in 1969.

13. Roy Buchanan, After Hours . . . Fantastic guitarist who lived a troubled life of addiction, died young at 48, ruled a suicide, hanged himself in jail after being busted for public intoxication although family and friends disputed the finding. His musical tree includes playing with Ronnie Hawkins and, as a result, tutoring Robbie Robertson of The Band fame.

14. Ten Years After, I Woke Up This Morning . . . Haven’t played one of my favorite British blues rock bands in a while. So, here we are. From Ssssh, in 1969. I’ve probably said it before but while TYA leader Alvin Lee was justifiably celebrated for his guitar playing, I’ve always liked his singing, too. Great blues rock voice.

15. Chicago, At The Sunrise . . . I like the contrasting vocals between Peter Cetera and the raunchier Robert Lamm. From the Travel Suite segment of Chicago III, inspired by life on the road for a touring band. Do I have to say I love early jazz-rock fusion Chicago before the schlock shit show they became after Terry Kath died or have I said that too often? Heck, even they recognize it. If you check their set lists, they’re dominated by the early stuff and justifiably so.
    
16. Gregg Allman, Wolf’s A Howlin’ . . . One of the few non-cover tunes from what I think is one of Allman’s finest solo records, 1997’s Searching For Simplicity. And a nice setup for my next two tracks.

17. Gov’t Mule, I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline) . . . I love the original but can’t get enough of this 9-minute, heavy reinvention of Howlin’ Wolf’s tune. It’s from Heavy Load Blues, an album of covers and originals released by the Mule in late 2021.

18. Howlin’ Wolf, Three Hundred Pounds Of Joy . . . Speaking of the Wolf . . .

19. Neil Young, Dirty Old Man . . . Good rocker from Chrome Dreams II, 2007. Funny, or depressing, lyrics depending on one’s perspective. “I like to get hammered on Friday night sometimes I can’t wait so Monday’s alright. It’s a battle with the bottle I win it alright but I lost another round in the bar last night. . . . Yeah I’m gonna get fired for drinkin’ on the job got caught with the boss’s wife in the parkin’ lot.” Etc.

20. Aerosmith, Hangman Jury . . . From the big comeback album, Permanent Vacation, which came out in 1987 and was also, for old time Aerosmithians, the beginning of the descent into commercially-successful schlock what with outside writers and so on. Still, this one’s a keeper, featuring nice harmonica playing and vocals from Steven Tyler.

21. Stray, Yesterday’s Promises . . . Spooky, psychedelic track from the relatively unknown English hard rockers. I discovered them a few years ago via a compilation of obscure songs from the UK hard rock and psychedelic scene of the late 1960s to early 70s. I liked the Stray track on it – It’s All In Your Mind, which I’ve played before on the show – so much I picked up a 2-CD compilation of Stray’s material.

22. Jon Lord with The Hoochie Coochie Men and Jimmy Barnes, Green Onions (live) . . . From a great album of mostly covers, Live At The Basement, a renowned Sydney, Australia blues and jazz club, released in 2003. It featured Lord, the iconic Deep Purple keyboard player, Scottish-born Australian singer/musician Barnes and the Aussie blues band The Hoochie Coochie Men.

23. Deep Purple, When A Blind Man Cries . . . There’s no figuring out the mercurial Ritchie Blackmore. But he is interesting. He didn’t like this great bluesy ballad, recorded during the Machine Head sessions and the B-side of the Never Before single from the album that gave us Smoke On The Water. “Ritchie no like” I remember singer Ian Gillan saying in some documentary. So, Purple never played it live while Blackmore was in the band, although it’s a fixture in most of their set lists since guitarist Steve Morse replaced Ritchie in the mid-1990s. Yet Blackmore plays, typically, brilliantly on it, as he did on Purple albums like Stormbringer he didn’t like because they were too funky for his taste. Which has always made me wonder why, as arguably the key member of Purple, he didn’t pull rank so to speak and steer the band back in the more hard-rock direction he professed to want and did take with Rainbow. That is, before he turned Rainbow into pretty much a pop band (ugh) in search of mostly US commercial success after singer Ronnie James Dio left, which was why Dio left. Creative differences and all that. Guitar geniuses. What are we to do with them? Listen, I suppose.

24. Derek and The Dominos, Roll It Over (live) . . . From the Live At The Fillmore album, released in 1994 as an expanded version of the band’s In Concert album that was recorded in 1970 and released in 1973. This track appears on both records.

25. Savoy Brown, Leavin’ Again . . . As we take our leave, until next week.

1. Max Webster, Here Among The Cats . . . Another selection derived from CD cleanup, up popped a Max Webster disc, realized I hadn’t played them in eons, so here we are.

2. The Stooges, Down On The Street . . . Down and dirty rock from Iggy and the boys.

3. The Stone Roses, Love Spreads . . . A lot of their other material has grown on me over the years but this remains the band’s best song, to me. Great riff/rocker with a sort of dreamy, drowsy hypnotic effect.

4. Janis Joplin, Get It While You Can . . . From her final, posthumously-released studio album, Pearl. It’s another album, and artist, I thank my older siblings, in this case my older sister, for playing a lot and getting me into in my youth. I was 11 when it came out in 1970.

5. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Flat Broke Love . . . One of my favorite BTO tunes and, as you can see, we’re in yet another “Bald Boy song title connectivity” thing.

6. Ohio Players, Love Rollercoaster . . . Many of the songs in tonight’s set result from personal CD cleanup and shelving. Along with the Max Webster CD mentioned earlier, I came across a bunch of personal mix CDs I had burned years ago, from which I pulled this and several others that follow. So, although many of the songs were hits, often one-hit wonders, and this is almost always a deep cuts show, it’s also called So Old It’s New – and many of these tunes are 40, 50 years old now, dating to 70s and 80s and in some cases, the 60s. So, enjoy. I am.

7. Billy Preston, Will It Go Round In Circles . . . One of his big hit singles I most remember from the 1970s, the other being Nothing From Nothing.

8. Supertramp, Another Man’s Woman . . . From Crisis, What Crisis and thanks again to my older brother for getting me into Supertramp – at least for the great run of albums starting with Crime of The Century, then Crisis followed by Even In The Quietest Moments. Then came the monster commercial success of Breakfast in America, whose tour I saw and was great, but the album itself I’ve always ranked below the other three mentioned. Most of the Breakfast songs are overplayed, the album is in many places way too poppy for me (says the guy playing lots of pop tonight from his old burned CDs) and just doesn’t measure up to the previous three more progressive records. And Breakfast, like hugely successful albums can sometimes do (J. Geils Band’s Freeze Frame is an example), led to a split in the band. The next record, Famous Last Words, indeed was just that, the last word for that incarnation of the band. It was total schlock but Rodger Hodgson wanted to continue in that pop direction, Rick Davies didn’t, and Hodgson left. Davies carried on with the Brother Where You Bound album, an excellent record, but after that, while still releasing some more albums, Supertramp sort of just faded away in terms of wide public awareness.

    

9. Eurythmics, Would I Lie To You? . . . First time I’ve ever played a Eurythmics song on the show. Why? Because it’s a deep cuts show and none of their non-singles does anything for me. But, I do have a singles collection, which I like, and Would I Lie To You popped up on one of my mix discs, too, so here you go. Good rocker, one of my favorites by Eurythmics.

10. Thomas Dolby, She Blinded Me With Science . . . Science!! Always liked how he belts out that word at various points in the song.

11. Soft Cell, Tainted Love . . . An old tune, written by Ed Cobb of The Four Preps, who originated in the 1950s. Gloria Jones had a hit with it in 1964, worth checking out in her more R & B/soul version than the synth style Soft Cell used for their big hit. Jones was a keyboardist and vocalist in T. Rex in the 1970s and was in a relationship with Marc Bolan. Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to get T. Rex into the last few shows, haven’t played them in a while. Perhaps next week.

12. The Human League, Don’t You Want Me . . . Remember when all this sort of stuff was huge in the early 1980s? The Human League is actually still around, blow me down. Probably playing this to open concerts, then in the middle, then as the encore. Just kidding. They did have other hits, like Mirror Man, for instance.

13. Simple Minds, Don’t You Forget About Me . . . Easily my favorite Simple Minds tune but then I don’t know many of them besides this. Aside from this song, not typically my type of music but it’s all a matter of taste, of course and that’s cool. Was in The Breakfast Club movie, which I never saw but I’m not a movie buff.

14. Naked Eyes, Always Something There To Remind Me . . . My mom (RIP) loved this version of the song, a standard by Burt Bacharach/Hal David. A top 10 hit for Naked Eyes, it’s been done by many, including Dionne Warwick and US soul singer Lou Johnson, who took it to No. 49 on Billboard in 1964.

15. Bonnie Raitt, Spit Of Love . . . Great groove on this one, written by Raitt, whose albums are usually covers-heavy which isn’t a criticism, since she’s always put her own unique and appealing stamp on them.

16. Big Sugar, Dear Mr. Fantasy . . . Speaking of covers . . . Big Sugar’s heavier, distortion-fueled version of the Traffic classic.

17. Re-Flex, The Politics Of Dancing (extended mix) . . . Another hit single by a synth pop band used in a few movies, apparently, none of which I’ve seen. Best part of the song, to me: “the politics of . . . ooh, feeling good.” Nice hook.

18. Men Without Hats, The Safety Dance . . . This Canadian band, huge with this song of course, are also still around as are many of these arguable one-hit wonders.

19. The Buggles, Video Killed The Radio Star . . . And then once they killed radio, a couple members of The Buggles – singer and bassist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes – joined Yes in a move that raised eyebrows but produced an excellent Yes album, the sometimes often almost metallic Drama, in 1980.

20. Gary Numan, Cars . . . Another from college days . . . 1979. One of so many great new wave singles around that time.

21. The Rolling Stones, Sweet Virginia . . . “Got to scrape the shit right off your shoes.” This might be the one track, aside from the hit Tumbling Dice, I’ve never played up to now on the show, from likely my favorite Stones’ album if forced into the impossible task of picking just one: Exile On Main St.

22. Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Jackie Blue . . . Great tune. And they’re still around with, perhaps surprisingly, several members still hanging in from the band’s beginnings in 1972.

23. Kim Carnes, Bette Davis Eyes . . . Always reminds me of being in California in the spring and part of the summer of 1981. San Francisco Bay Area, having helped my dad do the driving from Calgary after he was transferred for work. It was all over the radio along with stuff from The Moody Blues’ Long Distance Voyager album and Blue Oyster Cult’s Fire Of Unknown Origin record.

24. Argent, Hold Your Head Up . . . The big hit from the band formed in 1969 by Rod Argent, keyboardist in The Zombies.

25. The Lemon Pipers, Green Tambourine . . . Two studio albums, one massive single, this one No. 1 for the Ohio band in 1968.

26. Albert Hammond, It Never Rains In Southern California . . . I suppose I should have put this before or after the Kim Carnes tune, since that one reminded me of California. But, I was living in Northern California, not Southern. Good tune, another from one of those pre-recorded mix CDs of hits that I later burned onto one of my own eclectic compilation discs.

27. Santana, Blue Skies . . . From Santana’s 2019 album, Africa Speaks, which features Spanish singer Buika and is very good, sounding to me much like very early Santana including this 9-minute epic. It starts slowly, building into some fiery guitar before settling down again towards the end.

1. Van Halen, Everybody Wants Some!! . . . Well-known Van Halen tune, although it wasn’t a single, from the Women and Children First album, 1980 complete with David Lee Roth’s fun bedroom rap about lines up the backs of stockings, sexy women’s shoes and so on. Hadn’t heard it in ages but happened to have one of my Van Halen personal mix CDs on in the car the other day, it brought me to laughter, so I decided to play it.

2. Jerry Lee Lewis, Breathless . . . Continuing with the sex-type thing, er, theme, as you’ll notice from the next few titles. I just get going on this title/song content/theme connectivity stuff and can’t stop, what can I say?

3. Elvis Presley, Baby, Let’s Play House . . . An Elvis B-side (of I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone) in 1955 that is one of his B-sides to chart, making the No. 5 spot on the US country list.

4. Powder Blues, Nothin’ But A Tease . . . Slow blues from the Vancouver band, led by transplanted Chicago musician/producer Tom Lavin, that broke fairly big in Canada at the start of the 1980s via up-tempo singles like Doin’ It Right, Boppin’ With The Blues and Thirsty Ears. Lavin has also produced records by Canadian bands Prism and April Wine as well as Long John Baldry.

5. Buddy Holly, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore . . . So, if you’re following along the song title connectivity thing, he wanted some, didn’t get it, was left breathless and she, who was nothing but a tease, didn’t want to play house so it just doesn’t matter anymore. Time to move on. In putting together the beginning of this set, what a reminder of how good Elvis, Jerry Lee and Buddy Holly were. Just so much great stuff. And in playing Holly, I got reading about him again and was reminded of the plane crash that took his life and that of Richie Valens and “The Big Bopper’ J.P. Richardson. It was a winter tour package of bands, people were getting sick on the tour buses so Holly decided to charter a plane to the next stop. The Big Bopper, ill with the flu, swapped spots with Holly’s band member Waylon Jennings while Valens won a coin flip with another Holly band member, Tommy Allsup, and took his seat on the ill-fated aircraft. Fate: take this path, or that one?
   
6. Blondie, Accidents Never Happen . . . One of my favorite Blondie songs, nice beat, nice groove. It wasn’t a single from the Eat To The Beat album although a video was done for it so perhaps a video single but I’m not much into videos. Unless they’re straight ‘performance’ videos of the band playing its song, videos to me are like when a book becomes a movie and re-releases of the book come with whoever plays the lead character on the cover. I like to form my own images of what characters look like, or interpret song lyrics for myself, although I have seen the Accidents video and it’s a simple band ‘performance’ thing.

7. R.E.M., The Wake-Up Bomb . . . I prefer R.E.M.’s rockier stuff. Like this one from the New Adventures In Hi-Fi album, 1996. Critics tend to rave over 1992’s Automatic For The People album, and it’s good, but I tend to listen to New Adventures more, there’s more songs on it that I like than is the case with Automatic. Music is all about personal taste, of course, but apparently singer Michael Stipe considers New Adventures as his favorite. So there.

8. Pretenders, Complex Person . . . I had left the Pretenders behind in the early 1980s, after 1983’s terrific Learning To Crawl album as far as new studio releases went. But a few years ago, likely fueled by seeing Pretenders open for The Who and because their stuff was so cheap in a used CD store, I caught up on the discography and am fully up to date, including Chrissie Hynde’s solo albums. And, at least to me, they’re one of those longtime bands/artists that continue to produce worthwhile music up to the present. This now 20 year (!?) old song, from 2002’s excellent Loose Screw album is an example.

9. The Kinks, Complicated Life . . . The Kinks’ Ray Davies and Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde were once a couple, so I put them back-to-back in my set, talking about complicated complexities. This one’s from a Kinks’ masterpiece, 1971’s Muswell Hillbillies which, criminally, didn’t even chart in the UK and made just No. 100 in the US. Ridiculous to me, because the album – like many underappreciated except for Kinks’ fans albums – is brilliant. Country rock, blues, music hall, they could do it all.

10. The Guess Who, Life In The Bloodstream . . . Fairly well-known Guess Who track but it wasn’t a single. It’s from 1971’s So Long Bannatyne album but I pulled it off a personal Guess Who favorites CD of hits and deep cuts, two volumes, I burned years ago. And in going over those tracks as I planned this show, once again obvious was how the depth in quality of The Guess Who’s output is astounding.

11. Murray McLauchlan, Sweeping The Spotlight Away . . . Title cut from the Canadian folk rocker’s 1974 album, which yielded one of his biggest hits, Down By The Henry Moore.

12. George Harrison, It’s What You Value . . . I’ve always liked this pop rocker from Harrison’s 1976 album, 33 1/3. The lyrics are about Harrison paying noted session drummer Jim Keltner with a Mercedes in lieu of money, for playing on Harrison’s 1974 tour. It took some convincing for Harrison to get Keltner to go on tour, but he finally got him by promising Keltner a new car to replace his old van. Or so the story goes. According to Harrison’s liner notes on remastered versions of the album, the rest of his band members then moaned that all they got was money for playing, while Keltner got a Mercedes. If it were me, I’d want money and then spend it on what I want, even maybe a Mercedes. First world problems, as the saying goes.

13. John Lennon, God . . . One of Lennon’s finest, musically and of course lyrically, from the Plastic Ono Band album. I’ve played it before, deliberately played it again to set up . . .

14. U2, God Part II . . . U2’s fine, rockier sequel, which appeared on the Rattle and Hum combination studio-live album.

15. J.J. Cale, Call The Doctor . . . This song is why you buy – or in the modern world, investigate online – studio albums, not just compilations, if you’re deeply interested in an artist. Typical J.J. Cale, as was often the case with him, a short, bluesy shuffle leaving you wanting more. But you’d have to have, or listen to, his 1971 debut album, Naturally, to hear it. One of my personal favorites, I find it amazing it’s not on any of the various J.J. Cale compilations.

16. Dire Straits, Where Do You Think You’re Going? . . . One of my deja vu moments. I feel like I’ve played this too recently but, my research indicates no and in any event, my new thing is, so what if I did? Great tune, from the band’s second album, Communique, but of course Dire Straits was so consistently good throughout their six studio albums.

     

17. Jim Croce, New York’s Not My Home . . . This wasn’t a single, although it appears on Croce’s posthumously-released greatest hits album. Good tune, as is most of this late artist’s work, sadly lost to us in the early 1970s, like Buddy Holly many years before him, in a plane crash flying between tour stops.

18. Eagles, King Of Hollywood . . . I’ve said it before but I like The Long Run album, even though critics, and the band members themselves, have tended to dismiss it. I suppose, when you’re trying to follow up Hotel California, anything will pale in comparison but in some ways I find The Long Run rawer, edgier – like this tune – and better, which can tend to happen when a band is fried, fraying, having a difficult time in recording, etc. Conflict and difficult circumstances often makes for great art. All a matter of taste and opinion, of course.

19. Steve Earle and The Dukes, The Tennessee Kid . . . Second time in 2-3 weeks I dig back into Earle’s 2015 Terraplane album, a terrific record I’ve only recently gotten into – and into it major I am – thanks to a recommendation from a music acquaintance on Twitter. Spoken word opening transitions into a pulsating groove overlaid with not so much singing but more of an ongoing spoken monologue.

20. Bob Dylan, Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again . . . It’s Dylan. Seven minutes, nine verses of typically great lyrics as only Dylan can enunciate them, with that great chorus, love the drumming, the playing, the feel, the song. All a matter of taste of course and some people, still, say Dylan can’t sing. Well, he’s distinctive, certainly not cookie cutter, and simply great – the best Bob Dylan singer there ever was or will be but, sure, not to everyone’s taste. I had always known Dylan, largely via my older brother who was a big fan and as I’ve often mentioned, a huge musical influence. I remember him bringing home the John Wesley Harding album when it came out, 1967. But I had been only a compilations collector of Dylan’s stuff until truly getting into this song, and the Blonde on Blonde album, one afternoon in Peace River, Alberta, 1981. Fresh out of college and having moved west in pursuit of my journalism dream, I was living in a house with several other people. Fun times, one of those life instances where you become friends with people by moving in with them to share rent, instead of becoming enemies by moving in with friends, as can happen.

    Anyway, everyone was out and I happened to be alone, lying on the couch, reading, when I saw one of my roommates’ Blonde on Blonde pre-recorded cassette sitting on a coffee table. I popped it in the player and soon enough, as is the case with me and Dylan, down went the book because I can’t do other things when I listen to Dylan, he pulls me in to full attention. So I just lay back and took the whole album in, and the rest is history. I didn’t have to buy it for a while, because we all shared our music in that house, but soon enough, I was on my own and the album was a regular visitor to my turntable as were Dylan’s other studio works as I collected his entire output.

21. Them, I’m Gonna Dress In Black . . . Early Them fronted, of course, by Van The Man Morrison. It’s largely due to the organ in this bluesy track but it struck me, in picking this tune, how some Them songs sound like early Animals or, I suppose, vice-versa. I pulled it from a wonderful 3-CD (including a rarities/outtakes disc) Them compilation I own – The Complete Them 1964-1967, with liner notes written by Van the Man. Morrison can often be, or come across as, a curmudgeon, but he’s obviously justifiably proud of Them’s work, ending his insightful notes with “I think of Them as good records. The best part was actually doing the tracks: the best part, and the most enjoyable. There’s a lot of good stuff here.” Indeed.

22. Johnny Cash, Man In Black . . . Back to my song connectivity thing: The Them song title sets up this famous call to make things bright, as my set list actually grows darker, if anyone’s following along. I still am, ha. We’ve gone from sex to God to travel and approaching the dark side . . .

23. The Rolling Stones, Dancing With Mr. D . . . via this Stones’ pseudo-sequel to Sympathy For The Devil. It was the opening cut on 1973’s Goats Head Soup album.

24. Mike Oldfield, Tubular Bells, Part One . . . The first part of Oldfield’s masterpiece was used, of course, as the theme music to the horror film The Exorcist, which naturally boosted sales of Oldfield’s album. According to Wikipedia, Exorcist director William Friedkin had decided to scrap the original score for his movie, written by Lalo Schifrin (perhaps best known for the iconic theme music for the original Mission Impossible TV series) and was seeking alternatives. Friedkin decided on Tubular Bells when, on a visit to Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun’s office, Friedkin saw the album lying around and put it on the stereo. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. I figured I’d play all 25 minutes of Part One by the same sort of happenstance. I was going through CDs, Tubular Bells popped up, I hadn’t played it in ages, did so, realized how much I still like it, how others might, too, and decided to go with it. So now I suppose I’m committed to playing the rest of the album, Part Two, at some future point, perhaps in another long song show. We shall see.

1. David Wilcox, That Hypnotizin’ Boogie . . . From Wilcox’s debut album, Out Of The Woods, released in 1980. I was working in a bar, putting myself through college at the time and remember him playing this, before the album was released. As soon as the record was released, I bought it and have been a Wilcox fan since.

2. Foghat, Chateau Lafitte ’59 Boogie . . . Speaking of boogie. . . I saw Foghat at the Kitchener Blues Festival some years back, good show.

3. Paul McCartney & Wings, Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five . . . One of the great deep cuts from Band On The Run but I suppose, given how solid that album is, it’s a fairly well-known track.

4. The Plastic Ono Band, Blue Suede Shoes (live) . . . From Live Peace In Toronto 1969, the Rock ‘n’ Roll revival concert that featured such ’50s fathers of rock as Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Little Richard as well as Chicago, Alice Cooper and The Doors. I love the MC’s intro to the song: “Get your matches ready” (nowadays it would be, get your smart phones ready” and then John Lennon’s slightly sheepish “OK we’re just gonna play numbers we know, you know, cuz we’ve never played together before and mumble mumble . . . ” And it was true, that version of The Plastic Ono Band – Lennon, Eric Clapton, bassist Klaus Voorman, drummer Alan White (later of Yes) and singer-in-a-bag Yoko Ono, was put together quickly when Lennon was invited to play the show, rehearsed on the plane and the result is a fine, raw live album and a historic moment in rock and roll history.

5. Traveling Wilburys, Tweeter and the Monkey Man . . . Bob Dylan handles lead vocals on this one, backed by his Wilbury brothers George Harrison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, with session drummer to the stars Jim Keltner on skins. Roy Orbison, the fifth Wilbury, sat the session out. There’s varying opinions on who actually wrote the song – which Canada’s Headstones rocked up to great effect on their debut album Picture Of Health in 1993. The song is registered to Dylan’s publishing company, but Harrison said it was co-written by Petty with some lyrical input from him and Lynne. Who really knows; I’ve always considered it a Dylan song but in any event it’s a great one.

6. Graham Parker and The Rumour, Devil’s Sidewalk . . . It wasn’t a single but it’s always been my favorite song from The Up Escalator album. That opening guitar hook did its job, reeling me in forever from the first time I heard it. It’s a great album, features Bruce Springsteen on backing vocals on the song Endless Night and E-Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici throughout. I’m a huge Parker fan and I’d put the record in a tie with Squeezing Out Sparks as maybe Parker’s best, although The Up Escalator didn’t meet with the widespread positive reviews Sparks did. Of course, then there’s earlier albums like Howlin’ Wind, Heat Treatment and Stick To Me so let’s just say that, early on, Parker was near-perfect. I suppose The Up Escalator resonates best with me, as much music does for anyone, because it was a time-and-place record and the first album of his I actually owned, although I knew his earlier hits like Local Girls from Sparks.

    

7. Moon Martin, Bad News . . . Moon Martin is one of those artists largely known to the masses by one song, his 1979 hit Rolene. But he was great, beyond that. For one thing, he wrote Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor Doctor) that Robert Palmer turned into a hit. Anyway, Martin started his music career as a rockabilly artist and he incorporated the genre into much of his work, including this cut from his 1980 album Street Fever.
   
8. The Rolling Stones, I Got The Blues . . . “At three o’clock in the morning I’m singing my song to you.” I always think of that line when I think of this song, from Sticky Fingers. A slow blues tune maybe best in fact listened to at 3 a.m., half drunk, headphones on, lamenting a lost love.

9. Peter Tosh, No Sympathy . . . Followers of the show have often detected a symmetry, at least sometimes, to my set lists and despite my internal reservations that I risk being contrived, I find I just naturally make certain connections between songs and artists in my shows. That’s whether it be by title, by lyrical content or, as in this case, by artists’ collaborations and song title. Peter Tosh, likely, being the straight shooter he was, would have had no sympathy for someone lamenting a lost love, and he also later collaborated with and opened for The Rolling Stones. So, here you are, from his fine Legalize It album in 1976, the album before he was signed to Rolling Stones Records and opened for the band on their 1978 tour. I saw that tour but alas, Tosh wasn’t on the bill I saw on Buffalo, July 4, 1978. I got April Wine (which we missed due to a traffic jam coming into the stadium), Atlanta Rhythm Section (great show) and Journey (meh, Tosh would have fit well there, instead). A later journalism colleague of mine saw the same tour, in Cleveland three days earlier I found out nearly 40 years later, and he got Tosh as an opener.

10. Aerosmith, Reefer Headed Woman . . . Sometimes listed as Reefer Head Woman – in fact most of the YouTube posts refer to it that way although on Aerosmith’s Night In The Ruts album itself it’s listed as Reefer Headed Woman. Whatever, it’s a great Aerosmith treatment of an old blues cut from an album most critics dismissed but is in fact a kick-butt ‘Smiths album.

11. Van Morrison, Big Time Operators . . . My favorite Van the Man cut many people may not know, a bluesy track from 1993’s Too Long In Exile album. It’s a great lyrical ‘eff you’ to the music industry with great lead guitar from Van himself.

12. Steve Earle and The Dukes, Better Off Alone . . . I like Steve Earle, lots, got into him via the Copperhead Road album and single way back when and went back and forward with him and have most of his stuff. But I didn’t have, and hadn’t heard, his Terraplane album, from 2015, until a Twitter music acquaintance of mine suggested it and so here we be. Fantastic, all-originals bluesy album.
    
13. Billy Joel, The Stranger . . . Title cut from his breakthrough album in 1977, was a single in some countries, notably Japan where it hit No. 2 but in any case just another great song from a great album.

14. Townes Van Zandt, Brand New Companion . . . Playing a Steve Earle tune reminded me of Townes Van Zandt because Earle did a whole album of Townes tunes, called Townes, in 2009. This track was on it and this is the late great, troubled but appealingly warts and all human Van Zandt’s original.

15. Free, Be My Friend . . . Great song from the band’s 1970 album Highway and a long overdue return to playing the band on the show.

16. Bad Company, Heartbeat . . . And playing Free naturally, due to the band connections (Paul Rodgers especially on lead vocals) brought me to Bad Company.

17. U2, Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World . . . I was trying to figure out a semi-deep cut from the Achtung Baby album to play which is arguably difficult since most of the tracks on the record are, deservedly, so well known. It came down to this one, or Until The End Of The World, whose lyrics I love, but that was a fairly successful single in some countries and this is supposed to be a deep cuts show and I’ve played it before. So, I’m playing this.

18. Steely Dan, Aja . . . Jazzy title cut from the album.

19. Stephen Stills, Treetop Flyer . . . Neil Young, and he’s great, is often more critically acclaimed than the other members of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young but really, each guy has done fine work on his own, particularly, I would submit, Stills as with this one from his excellent 1991 Stills Alone album.

20. Roxy Music, Re-Make/Re-Model . . . Great funky freaky tune from the early, more experimental days of Roxy Music and a deliberate choice because what follows are a couple cover tunes that indeed are remakes/remodels of well-known songs, which as I’ve often said are my favorite types of covers – they become new songs, essentially.

21. Patti Smith, Smells Like Teen Spirit . . . An acoustic reinterpretation of the Nirvana song that broke that band big. It’s from an excellent album I’ve periodically mined, Smith’s 2007 covers album Twelve.

     

22. Jose Feliciano, Light My Fire . . . I remember seeing Feliciano on some variety-type show my parents watched in the late 1960s or early ’70s. I didn’t get into him at the time but never forgot his performance and so, as let’s say a music explorer, eventually found my way back to him. The same thing has happened, maybe a function of age, who knows, for me with various artists my parents listened to – Tom Jones, Glen Campbell, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash . . . on and on. It’s a cool thing.

23. Golden Earring, Kill Me (Ce Soir) . . . Said it a zillion times, Golden Earring so much more than the two hits they are best-known for, especially in North America – Radar Love and Twilight Zone.

24. Frank Zappa, Muffin Man . . . “He turns to us and speaks. . . . Some people like cupcakes better. I for one, care less for them.” “Goodnight Austin, Texas, wherever you are.” Great Zappa madness, great tune, amazing guitar, what a fantastic artist and brilliant, thoughtful, no BS man he was.

1. Yes, Awaken . . . Somehow or other, tonight’s set, which was going to begin with Otis Redding’s Satisfaction (which is later in the list) morphed into a prog-rock show, at least for the first several songs. Like this one, the lone epic-length (15 minutes) track from Yes’s 1977 album, Going For The One, which saw the band record mostly shorter tracks.

2. The Alan Parsons Project, In The Lap Of The Gods . . . Spacey stuff from Parson’s 1978 album Pyramid, a concept record centered around Egypt’s pyramids and, apparently, the fact pyramid power was something of a ‘thing’ around that time. In fact I recall then-Toronto Maple Leafs’ hockey coach Red Kelly being into it but ultimately it still didn’t win the Leafs their first Stanley Cup since 1967, and they’re still trying.

3. Jethro Tull, Mine Is The Mountain . . . I’m a big Tull fan anyway so I’ll tend to find value in everything the band releases, and I’m really liking the new album, The Zealot Gene and this to me is one of the stronger tracks on it. My liking of Tull includes even the sythnesizer-heavy 1984 album Under Wraps which I hated at first but has grown on me over time as yet another example of how I like when bands I like try different things. The new album is more let’s say traditional, recognizable Tull and it’s terrific, already after a relative few plays having embedded itself into my brain.

4. King Crimson, Red . . . Heavy, metallic instrumental title cut from Crimson’s 1974 album, after which leader Robert Fripp put the band on hiatus until they returned with an updated, Talking Heads-type new wave sound for the Discipline-Beat-Three Of A Perfect Pair trilogy of albums starting in 1981.
5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Toccata . . . ELP introduced many rock fans to, or reminded them of, classical music, this track an adaptation of Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s piano concerto. It appeared on the Brain Salad Surgery album. It’s also probably the type of mind-bending track, especially the last two minutes, that a friend of mine was fearful of during college days when, stoned together, someone in our group sitting around my apartment suggested I put on some ELP and said friend – who moments earlier had been swimming the crawl stroke on my carpet – shrieked, ‘no, no, please, not that!” Luckily for him, I didn’t have any ELP handy at that point. Instead, I put on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, which was likely worse for my friend’s psyche. If I recall, he then transitioned to swimming the backstroke. Just kidding about that, but he really did do the crawl. Fun times.

6. Emerson, Lake & Powell, Step Aside . . . Drummer Carl Palmer wasn’t available due to contractual obligations to the band Asia when Keith Emerson and Greg Lake wanted to reform ELP in the mid-1980s. So, Emerson’s friend and drummer to the stars Cozy Powell stepped in for a new ELP’s lone, self-titled studio album from which I pulled this jazzy track.

7. Saga, Wind Him Up . . . Second single from the Canadian band’s successful 1981 album, Worlds Apart which also gave us their top-30 Billboard single On The Loose.

8. Rush, The Twilight Zone . . . From 2112 and a tribute to the classic TV show, the Rod Serling-created original one, not the 1980s remake, which I gather was not bad, or the god-awful, mercifully canceled 2020-21 version.

9. Black Sabbath, Air Dance . . . Jazzy, progressive-type tune from Sabbath’s Never Say Die album. If you didn’t know it was Sabbath, you wouldn’t know it was Sabbath, in my opinion. I like it.

10. Queen, Good Company . . . Yet another great Brian May-penned Queen song, this one a Dixieland jazz-type tune from A Night At The Opera.

11. Neil Young, F*!#in’ Up . . . Not much to say aside from the chorus says it all.

12. The Tragically Hip, Opiated . . . From the first full Hip album, 1989’s Up To Here, which followed their earlier self-titled EP. I bought this one, sight unseen, pre-internet, from a magazine review that said it was Stones-like and before songs like Blow At High Dough and New Orleans Is Sinking from it became hits. So it was kinda cool when they did, because I was rewarded by taking a chance on the review of what is, top to bottom, an excellent album.

13. George Harrison, Let It Down . . . I’m having one of those deja vu moments again, feeling like I just played this in a recent show but, searches indicate not the case and in any event, so be it if so. Harrison originally offered this a Beatles’ tune during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions but, like the title cut from what became his All Things Must Pass album, it was rejected by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, which contributed to Harrison leaving those sessions for about a week as detailed in the Get Back documentary. He just up and leaves at one point, telling the rest of the guys “I’ll see you around the clubs.” The next day, when John, Paul and Ringo reassemble, Lennon seems to shrug it all off, musing “if he’s not back by Tuesday, we’ll get (Eric) Clapton in.”

14. John Lennon, Meat City . . . A beautiful noise, I’d call this rocker, which was the B-side to the title cut Mind Games single from Lennon’s 1973 album.

15. Jefferson Airplane, Blues From An Airplane . . . Lead cut from Takes Off, the Airplane’s 1966 debut album, sung by Marty Balin. Spooky sort of psychedelia, only problem with it is, it’s too short at two minutes, 10 seconds. Then again, good to leave people wanting more.

16. Otis Redding, Satisfaction . . . The Otis treatment of the Stones’ classic and apparently, with the horns, the way Keith Richards initially envisioned it. I’m glad the Stones’ version turned out the way it did – although they’ve long incorporated horns on it on various tours – but also great that we have Redding’s interpretation. What an artist he was.

17. The Rolling Stones, Jump On Top Of Me . . . This boogie rocker was the B-side to the 1994 Voodoo Lounge album’s second single, You Got Me Rocking (which has become a Stones’ concert staple). Jump On Top Of Me was also in the soundtrack to the movie Pret-A-Porter (Ready To Wear), a somewhat obscure, critically-carved movie I’ve never seen but it does feature an all-star cast that includes Sophia Loren (who received a supporting actress Golden Globe nomination), Tim Robbins, Julia Roberts and Kim Basinger, among many others.

18. The Flying Burrito Brothers, High Fashion Queen . . . When I think of or play the Stones, the Burritos often come to mind due to Keith Richards’ friendship with the Burritos’ late leader Gram Parsons. So, here’s the country-boogie Burritos.

19. Joe Cocker, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood . . . First recorded by the immortal Nina Simone (I’ll have to play her version sometime) and turned into a big hit by The Animals, this is Cocker’s also terrific interpretation. It’s from his 1969 debut album, With A Little Help From My Friends.

20. Fleetwood Mac, Future Games . . . I’ve said it many times: the mid-period Fleetwood Mac featuring American guitarist/singer/songwriter Bob Welch is terrific, if often relatively underappreciated in between the original blues band led by founder Peter Green and the later Stevie Nicks-Lindsey Buckingham commercial juggernaut. This extended, Welch-penned ethereal title cut from the band’s 1971 album, Welch’s first with the group, is an indication. Welch later re-cut it, at less than half the eight-minute length,for one of his solo albums.

21. The J. Geils Band, Monkey Island . . . A friend of mine texted me last week, excited over his purchase, after all this time (about time, bud, ha) since its 1972 release, of J. Geils’ terrific Full House live album. I’ve mined it for probably all of its eight songs, over time. Great band, and our discussion prompted me to play this spooky title cut from the band’s 1977 album, which didn’t do so well commercially but is for the most part a terrific deep, dark, moody work.

22. Doug and The Slugs, Drifting Away . . . And we drift away into planning for next week’s show via one of my favorite relationship tunes, a time and place one for me as I was going through an, in the end, definitely ‘for the best’ breakup with a college girlfriend – although she was the one who introduced me to the Slugs.