The Agriculture Show

episode 279 agriculture show april 12 2022

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Krista Cressman is our guest today on The Agriculture Show. Krista works at the Turkey Farmers of Ontario head office. https://turkeyfarmers.on.ca/   Our playlist:

  • Heroes by David Bowie
  • Let Love Rule by Lenny Kravitz
  • Sunshower by Chris Cornell
  • Mehcinut by Jeremy Dutcher
  • All People by Michael Franti

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Shows, So Old It's New

So Old It’s New set list for Monday, April 18/22: on air 8-10 pm ET

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1. Tony Joe White, Even Trolls Love Rock and Roll

2. The Jeff Beck Group, Jailhouse Rock

3. David Baerwald, All For You

4. Soundgarden, Spoonman

5. Stone Temple Pilots, Vasoline

6.  Alice In Chains, Dirt

7. Bob Seger, Ain’t Got No Money

8. Stampeders, Then Came The White Man

9. Queen, White Man

10. Steppenwolf, Don’t Step On The Grass, Sam

11. Johnny Rivers, Where Have All The Flowers Gone

12. The Marshall Tucker Band, 24 Hours At A Time

13. April Wine, Juvenile Delinquent ( from Live at the El Mocambo)

14. The Rolling Stones, Sister Morphine

15. Ike & Tina Turner, Come Together

16. Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant Massacree

17. Spirit, Mechanical World

18. The Amboy Dukes, Migration

19. Klaatu, Little Neutrino

20. Billy Cobham, Stratus Continue reading So Old It’s New set list for Monday, April 18/22: on air 8-10 pm ET →

Shows, Wadio Wam!

Wadio Wam! Episode 8 – Sampled

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Hey y’all! Hoping you’re enjoying your easter if you celebrate!

Sam wasn’t around last week, but here is last week’s episode where I looked at some of my favourite samples and sampled songs! Pretty fun episode.

This week there will not be a new episode due to Easter and both of us being busy, so we will be replaying our road trips episode from April 3rd, so if you missed it or wanna catch it again live then check it out. Have a great weekend, Wam on!

So Old It's New

So Old It’s New set list for Monday, April 11, 2022 – on air 8-10 pm ET

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  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.
  1. Foghat, Chateau Lafitte ’59 Boogie . . . Speaking of boogie. . . I saw Foghat at the Kitchener Blues Festival some years back, good show.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.

     

  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. Bad Company, Heartbeat . . . And playing Free naturally, due to the band connections (Paul Rodgers especially on lead vocals) brought me to Bad Company.
  1. 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.
  1. Steely Dan, Aja . . . Jazzy title cut from the album.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.

     

  2. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
Shows, Wadio Wam!

Wadio Wam! Episode 7 – Roadtrip!

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Hey y’all! Here’s last weeks episode where me and Sam looked at our favourite road trip songs. Give it a listen if you’re interested or if you’re going for a nice drive! We have a fun show planned for next week (hint: does that sound familiar?) so be sure to tune in on Sunday at 1PM.  Wam On!

Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4WeYL02iybxJ02avOetmCC?si=2152d4d63e0f47df

So Old It's New

So Old It’s New set list for Monday, April 4, 2022 – on air 8-10 pm ET

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  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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. Queen, Good Company . . . Yet another great Brian May-penned Queen song, this one a Dixieland jazz-type tune from A Night At The Opera.
  1. Neil Young, F*!#in’ Up . . . Not much to say aside from the chorus says it all.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.”
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
Shows, Wadio Wam!

Playlist’s are live!

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Hey y’all!

Just here to update the peoples that our Spotify playlists are officially live! If you now go to an episode’s homepage, you’ll find a link to that week’s Spotify playlist. Hopefully this allows everyone to access the setlist’s they love at the drop of a hat! Thank you for tuning in, if you haven’t checked out Episode 6 yet, I would recommend it, probably one of my favourites yet. Wam on!

Link to our homepage: https://radiowaterloo.ca/wadio-wam/?highlight=wadio%20wam

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Wadio Wam! Episode 6 – Girls Rule, Boys Drool

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Here’s the latest show from Wadio Wam, where we looked at some of our favourite women in music! Wam on!

Also, if you’re a Spotify listener, we have a link to this week’s playlist! we’re working on getting the rest of the playlists up, but I will post when it happens

Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2WSObiLrkt0PhxaDnsHHng?si=66e061d4b2b34296

So Old It's New

So Old It’s New set list for Monday, March 28, 2022 – on air 8-10 pm ET

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  1. Lou Reed, Rock ‘n’ Roll (live, from Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal) . . . From the liner notes of the year 2000 remastered edition of Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal: “Lou Reed sucks, but Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal rules.” – unsolicited customer review on Amazon.com . . . It wasn’t me, honest! For one thing, if and when I do use Amazon, I use Amazon.ca since I’m in Canada although I have been known to go to .com if I can’t find something here. Secondly, I like most of Lou Reed’s stuff and that of the Velvet Underground, most of whose songs he wrote. Like this one. Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal does, indeed, rule. And this live version kicks butt, featuring great twin guitar work by Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, the latter of Alice Cooper fame.
  1. The Rolling Stones, My Obsession . . . Staccato-type track featuring terrific drumming by the late great Charlie Watts, from 1967’s Between The Buttons album.
  1. Johnny Winter, Silver Train . . . The first of several cover tunes, great artists doing other great artists’ songs, in tonight’s set. This is Winter’s version of the Rolling Stones’ song from 1973’s Goats Head Soup album. The typically Winter-ized version actually preceded the Stones’ release, as the Texas guitar slinger heard a demo of the tune and released it on his Still Alive and Well album that preceded Goats Head Soup by a few months. The song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in 1970 but was shelved before being polished for Goats Head Soup. Winter, who mined the Stones’ and Bob Dylan catalogs for such tunes as Jumping Jack Flash, Highway 61 Revisited and Like A Rolling Stone, also covered Let It Bleed on Still Alive and Well.
  1. Marianne Faithfull, Truth, Bitter Truth . . . From 1981’s Dangerous Acquaintances album, which didn’t do as well as the hard-act-to-follow Broken English. Faithfull herself said Dangerous Acquaintances was a difficult recording, everyone concerned with the project – Faithfull, her session players and the producer – weren’t always on the same page. Nevertheless, I think it’s a pretty good record, featuring such songs as the singles Intrigue and Sweetheart plus For Beauty’s Sake, Easy In The City, Tenderness and this one, a seven-minute epic that starts as almost spoken word before transitioning nicely into the main tune 1:15 in.
  1. Nazareth, Empty Arms, Empty Heart . . . As someone on YouTube commented, yet another great song (by anyone) that most people will never hear. That’s why Bald Boy is here, to dig into deep cuts like this one from Nazareth’s debut, self-titled album in 1971. It’s almost progressive hard rock, at least in terms of how many time signature changes they cram into a three-minute, 12 second song.
  1. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, The Letter . . .A song The Box Tops took to No. 1 on the charts in 1967 and was later covered by Joe Cocker and Al Green, among others. BTO’s rocked up version, whose main riff calls to mind Neil Young’s Southern Man, was recorded in 1971 as Brave Belt morphed into BTO but wasn’t officially released until the 2-CD BTO Anthology came out in 1993.
  1. Paul McCartney and Wings, Let Me Roll It (live, from Wings Over America) . . . Originally on the Band On The Run studio album, it was the B-side to Jet but may as well have been a single, as it’s one of Wings’ best-known tracks and one McCartney almost never fails to play in concert to this day – it appears on five Macca live albums.
  1. Led Zeppelin, Candy Store Rock . . . A shuddering sort of rockabilly tune, apparently one of Robert Plant’s favorites from 1976’s Presence album. It was a difficult album for Plant, who had suffered serious injuries in a car accident and sang from a wheelchair during the sessions.
  1. Budgie, Napoleon Bona Part One & Two . . . Clever, or silly, title, depending on one’s point of view but nevertheless another excellent almost progressive metal offering from the Welsh pioneers who influenced the likes of Iron Maiden and Metallica. Metallica has covered Budgie songs Breadfan, with its hellacious riff, and Crash Course in Brain Surgery. I’ve played Breadfan before but this reminds me to get to Crash Course in Brain Surgery at some point.
  1. Red Rider, Napoleon Sheds His Skin . . . Having fun with Napoleonic titles but aside from that, this is one of the many good tracks on Red Rider’s 1983 Neruda album.
  1. Patti Smith, Changing Of The Guards . . . Another cover, this one of the Bob Dylan song from his Street Legal album in 1978. Smith did it for her all-covers Twelve (for twelve tunes) album, released in 2007. I’ve played things like the Stones’ Gimme Shelter and Hendrix’s Are You Experienced? from it before but definitely an album worth returning to soon. It’s full of interesting Smith interpretations of such songs as the Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit and Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, among others.
  1. Blood, Sweat & Tears, 40,000 Headmen . . . The BS & T jazz-rock fusion treatment, applied to the Traffic tune in a nice version from the ‘3’ album. I remember getting the album when my older sister, brother and I were in the Columbia Record Club in 1970 via which we also got Chicago’s second album and Santana’s Abraxas. Things were different, then, but I suppose a record club is really not much different than ordering online now. Speaking of Abraxas, great album: 1. I need to return to it for some songs soon. 2. I always remember playing charades and our mom hilariously doing pantomime trying to describe the poster of the band members that came with the album. We didn’t ‘get’ what she was trying to describe and were in hysterics, but just more evidence that mom was pretty cool.
  1. Traffic, Light Up Or Leave Me Alone . . . Jim Capaldi wrote and sang this one from The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys album while usual lead singer/multi-instrumentalist Steve Winwood provides some nice guitar licks. 
  2. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Pagan Baby . . . Some might consider it repetitive. Others, hypnotic. Or, hypnotically repetitive, which to me is a good thing on yet another CCR deep cut that shows that while they were an amazing singles band and are well-served by compilations, the full picture – as with many bands – is revealed via the individual studio albums. This one’s from 1970’s Pendulum.
  1. Faces, You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything (Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings) . . . Not sure what’s better, the song or the fun title, the in-parentheses part of which is not always used, but I like to be thorough. I like the song, a typically fun, shambolic Faces outing, which was their charm. It was the final Faces single, peaking at No. 12 in the UK charts.
  1. Gordon Lightfoot, Me and Bobby McGee . . . From Lightfoot’s 1970 album Sit Down Young Stranger, the title later changed to If You Could Read My Mind when that song from the record became a big hit. Lightfoot’s spare version, which was No. 1 on the Canadian country charts and No. 13 on the pop singles list, is one of the first recordings of the Kris Kristofferson song that soon after became a posthumous No. 1 Billboard hit for Janis Joplin. Roger Miller was the first to record it, taking it to No. 12 on the US country charts in 1969. Charley Pride, Jerry Lee Lewis and Kristofferson himself are among the many others who have covered what is simply a great song. Lewis had a No. 1 US country hit with it, a version I played on the show some time ago.
  1. The Grateful Dead, Throwing Stones . . . From the Dead’s 1987 album In The Dark which was a big commercial success thanks in large measure to the hit single Touch of Grey. This extended, jaunty piece about humanity, with lyrics like “a peaceful place, or so it looks from space; a closer look reveals the human race” was also a single but didn’t chart to my knowledge.
  1. Headstones, Cemetery . . . Hard rocker with upbeat lyrics (kidding) from what is still likely my favorite Headstones album, the debut Picture of Health, from 1993. And I have all of this consistently good Canadian band’s material. So we go, deliberately, from Throwing Stones to the Headstones in a cemetery. Yeah, I know, enough nonsense, Bald Boy. Next! Ha.
  1. Steppenwolf, Power Play . . . Little did I know, when at age nine in 1968 a friend played The Pusher from Steppenwolf’s debut album and our group of friends marveled that the lyrics said “god damn”, that I’d become a lifelong fan of the band that originated in Canada as The Sparrows. I’ve just always loved the band’s gritty sound and John Kay’s vocals. Steppenwolf was far more than the endless plays of Born To Be Wild and Magic Carpet Ride one hears on commercial radio. Great songs, but dig a bit, folks.
  1. Drive-By Truckers, 3 Dimes Down . . . As mentioned last time I played the Truckers, I quite enjoy their stuff, like this rocker from their 2008 album Brighter Than Creation’s Dark. Or maybe I decided to play it because of the album title, given I had just watched a documentary about the cosmic dawn, the period when light emerged, millions of years after the Big Bang, to illuminate what had to that point been a dark universe. On the other hand, if I played songs inspired by what documentaries I watch, then I would have played McCartney and Wings’ Spirits Of Ancient Egypt today since I had also recently watched a show about how we’d build the pyramids today as opposed to how the ancient Egyptians (or aliens, or helped by aliens) did it. I thought of doing just that, but then decided Let Me Roll it is a better Wings’ song than Spirits Of Ancient Egypt, so I played that instead. To refresh any failing memories, the Wings’ tune is No. 7 in tonight’s set.
  1. Uriah Heep, Bird Of Prey . . . A friend of mine occasionally has ribbed me when I play Uriah Heep but, what can I say, we all have guilty pleasures I suppose and I don’t even consider Heep a guilty pleasure. I like their stuff, especially the earlier material like this track from 1971’s Salisbury album. Depending on my mood I can do with or without the late singer David Byron’s operatic oohs and aahs but there’s no doubt bands like Queen and, much later, The Darkness were influenced by it.
  1. Rory Gallagher, Ride On Red, Ride On . . . Gallagher’s smokin’ cover of the song from Louisiana Red’s 1963 debut album, The Lowdown Backporch Blues. It appeared on Gallagher’s 1982 album Jinx.
  1. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, Get Out Of Denver (from Live Bullet) . . . As we, too, get out of here, for another week, riding the rhythms of Seger’s outstanding first live record.
So Old It's New

So Old It’s New set list for Monday, March 21, 2022 – on air 8-10 pm ET

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  1. The Beach Boys, Add Some Music To Your Day . . . From 1970, when The Beach Boys were past their surfer-hit prime but still making good music that was often ignored. This was a single, only made No. 64, from the Sunflower album.
  1. Chicago, A Hit By Varese . . . Jazz-rock fusion from Chicago V in 1972. Saturday In The Park was the big commercial hit from the album but it’s this kind of funky/jazzy groove tune that made early Chicago so great. Written and sung by Chicago keyboardist Robert Lamm, it’s a tribute to influential composer Edgard Varese, who counted Frank Zappa among his biggest fans.
  1. Electric Light Orchestra, So Fine . . . Ooh la ooh la ooh la ooh . . . Up-tempo tune from 1976’s A New World Record album. Wasn’t a single – tough competition from what were singles from the album, Do Ya, Telephone Line and Livin’ Thing – but a pretty well-known track nonetheless, especially the ooh la intro and the African drumming/percussion middle section played by ELO drummer Bev Bevan on a then-cutting edge Moog processor/synthesizer. Quick side note on Bev Bevan in terms of how versatile musicians can be in what may seem disparate associations: he also played drums/percussion for Black Sabbath during the 1980s, the period between Ronnie James Dio’s and Ozzy Osbourne’s stints in the band when Sabbath carried on, led by forever guitarist Tony Iommi and a sometime cast of thousands.
  1. The Beatles, Dig It . . . Just thought I’d throw this 50-second snippet, the one that appears on the Let It Be album, in front of I’ve Got A Feeling. It segues into Let It Be on the original album. The Dig It that appears on the original Let It Be album is actually a snippet within the longer, four-minute version of Dig It available via the Get Back documentary and on various expanded re-releases of the original record.
  1. The Beatles, I’ve Got A Feeling . . . From Let It Be and the famous rooftop concert. I just (finally) watched Get Back, the current documentary reworking of the original Let It Be movie. It’s excellent and does show that, at least musically, The Beatles (particularly once they repaired to their Apple studio from the cavernous Twickenham) were still an excellent functioning band despite the tensions that tended to be the focus of the original Let It Be movie. The new documentary is broader and, I think, provides a more complete picture. There’s no doubt the band was fractured by this point but musically, when push came to shove, professionalism and shared vision in the fact they knew who they were and what standards they had set, took precedence in producing yet more great music.
  2. Bruce Cockburn, And We Dance . . . From Cockburn’s typically excellent 1981 album, Inner City Front. No particular reason for playing the song, other than it comes from an album thta happened to be on top of a CD pile and therefore in line with tonight’s ‘floor show: top of the ‘to file’ pile’ theme, but one never needs an excuse or reason to play Cockburn’s music.
  3. Garland Jeffreys, We The People . . . Reggae tune from Escape Artist, his 1981 album that featured various members of Bruce Springsteen’s band and Graham Parker’s Rumour.
  1. Leon Russell, Stranger In A Strange Land . . . It didn’t occur to me before programming this song for this week but, and I haven’t read anything to that effect in reading about Axl Rose, but it strikes me that the Guns N Roses singer seems influenced by Russell’s vocal style, albeit in a different milieu.
  2. Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane, Street In The City . . . I don’t like repeating myself, or at least not too soon between repeats, not that I suppose anyone is necessarily keeping score, but this might be one of the few tracks from the great 1977 Rough Mix album that I have not yet played on the show.
  3. Neil Young/Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere . . . Title cut from his 1969 album, a country rocker that seems to indicate that, at that point, apparently disillusioned with his life in California, at least from what I’ve read, Young pondered a return home, to Canada.
  4. Mick Jagger, Hang On To Me Tonight . . . The type of ballad I think Mick Jagger does so well, from his excellent – and most Stones-like – 1993 Wandering Spirit album. Nice harmonica break, too, from Jagger, late in the song, proving what Keith Richards has said, that the purest Jagger is when he plays harmonica.
  1. Buddy Guy with Mick Jagger, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) . . . A bluesy reinvention – with Jagger on backing vocals – of one of my favorite Stones’ tunes, the second single, behind Angie, from 1973’s Goats Head Soup. Guy’s version came out on a wonderful 2018 compilation, Chicago Plays The Stones, that apparently was a tribute response by Chicago blues artists to the Stones’ own 2016 blues tribute/covers album, Blue and Lonesome. Wonderful stuff, all of it.

  2. Dusty Springfield, Tupelo Honey . . . Perhaps surprisingly, Dusty’s lovely 1973 cover of one of my favorite Van Morrison tunes didn’t make much of an impact on the charts.
  1. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Nightwatchman . . . Funky one, and one of my favorites, from Petty’s 1981 Hard Promises album.
  1. Genesis, Watcher Of The Skies . . . Nightwatchman to Watcher, clever, no? From Foxtrot, 1972. The album truly fit my ‘top of the pile’ theme for tonight but it’s also nice to be able to play this because, as it happens, a Genesis tribute band, The Genesis Experience, was in Waterloo last week. By all accounts, including photos from a friend of mine, the group gave a terrific performance – both musically and visually, a key component of that period of Genesis – that included Watcher Of The Skies. I’m not a shill for tribute bands, but the highly professional ones I’ve seen in my time, Beatles and Pink Floyd for instance, tend to be really good.
  2. Pink Floyd, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun (live, Ummagumma version) . . . Speaking of Floyd . . . Great version from the live, and I maintain best, side of 1969’s Ummagumma album.
  3. Emerson Lake & Palmer, Bitches Crystal . . . Continuing the prog theme…from Tarkus. I thought of playing the title cut, which I have before and will again, but at 20 minutes, the show would be over now. Maybe one day, particularly if I’m feeling lazy, I’ll do a five-song show – Tarkus, Genesis’ Supper’s Ready, Yes’s Close To The Edge, Pink Floyd’s Echoes and then, just to change things up to southern rock/jam band, the Allman Brothers’ 33-minute live version of Mountain Jam. Come to think of it, I’ve over time played each of those epics, just not all within the same show.
  4. Arthur Lee with Band-Aid, You Want Change For Your Re-Run . . . Arthur Lee of Love fame had talked with Jimi Hendrix about possibly collaborating, although they never officially did. But, a couple years after Hendrix died, here came Lee with a solo album, Vindicator, backed by a band of session players he branded as Band-Aid in honor of a name that might have been used for a Hendrix-Love union. Vindicator is a very Hendrix-like album, different from the Love sound of, say, Forever Changes, as evidenced by this track.
  1. Oasis, The Shock Of The Lightning . . . Pulled it from an Oasis comp that was laying atop one of my CD piles. Apparently the first/only Oasis single, from their final album, that didn’t debut at No. 1 in the UK.
  2. Gov’t Mule, Game Face . . . Typically great hard, bluesy rock delivered Mule style.
  1. Status Quo, Gerdundula . . . Great Celtic boogie. I have no idea what the title means, despite searches. Might be some German connection, apparently.
  2. The Allman Brothers Band, Come And Go Blues . . . Wasn’t at the top of any pile of CDs in terms of tonight’s theme but came up while I was plugging in other songs and, well, one can never have enough Allman Brothers, I say.
  3. Deep Purple, Drifter . . . Come Taste The Band album was often derided as being too funky, or soulful, for Deep Purple, when it came out in 1975 after Ritchie Blackmore left to form Rainbow. His replacement, Tommy Bolin, was different, sure, but great in his own way, as was Purple. Great album cover, too, five guys’ faces in a glass of wine and then the glass, empty of course, on the back cover.
  4. Elton John, Sixty Years On . . .One of those examples from EJ’s 1970s period up until 1975 or so, where his deep cuts were as good, often arguably better, as his big solo singles.
  1. AC/DC, Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution . . . I second AC/DC’s motion.
CKMS Community Connections, Newsroom, Shows

CKMS Community Connections for 14 March 2022 with Barbara Schumacher and Jim Stewart of WRHC

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Show Notes

Screencap of a web conference with Barbara Schumacher (top) and Jim Stewart (bottom)
Barbara Schumacher and Jim Stewart of WRHC

Barbara Schumacher and Jim Stewart of the Waterloo Region Health Coalition join Bob Jonkman on a web conference to talk about the Ontario government’s creeping advances to privatized health care, the diminishing level of health care in Ontario compared to other provinces, ideas to improve public health care, the effects of having private hospitals, and an announcement of the upcoming Waterloo Region Health care Privatization Summit.

We had some technical difficulties during the live broadcast, but the podcast cleaned up nicely, although the web conference created some dropout in the audio at some points.

The interview starts at 5m08s.

Online:


Ontario Health Coalition | Protecting public healthcare for all

See also:

Upcoming Events

Previous shows with WRHC

Podcast

Download: ckms-community-connections-2022-03-14-episode093.mp3 (38.9 MB, 40m27s, episode 093)

Index

Time Title Album Artist
0m00s Theme for CKMS Community Connections ccc and show introduction by Bob Jonkman CKMS Sunflower logo (yellow petals surrounding a black centre with white wavies all on a teal background)
CKMS Community Connections		 Steve Todd
1m07s Boy Beast & Fish | The Day Is Gone (two boys in silhouette playing on a grassy field)
The Day Is Gone		 Beast & Fish
5m08s Introductions: Barbara Schumacher is a retired physician and the former Medical Director of the University of Waterloo Health Service; Jim Stewart is the chair of the Waterloo Region Health Coalition. WRHC is a chapter of the Ontario Health Coalition, a non-partisan public watchdog for health care. Provincial legislation is introducing privatization of health care by stealth; result of insufficient funding for the health care system. Canadian Doctors for Medicare has done studies of the administration of private health care: Canadian public health has half the administrative cost of private health care.
13m37s Ontario is dead last among the provinces in funding public health care: fewest hospital beds, fewest nurses, and funding hospitals at the lowest rate of any province. We need to look for ways to invest in public health, not take funds out and drive them into profit-driven “Independent Health Facilities”. Federal health care transfer payments have dropped from 50% to 20%. There is a massive reduction in provincial health care spending. Federal government transfer payments are intended to administer a provincial health care system, not deliver health care. In 2019 the Ontario People’s Health Care Act created a super agency with powers to restructure the public health care system, now there is a patchwork across the province, different in Waterloo Region from Windsor, Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Sudbury.
17m14s How to make things better? Focus on public health care, we paid for this over decades, why throw it out? Comparing England, where NHS privatized, but the private company went bankrupt and left. How sustainable are private companies for delivering health care. But Scotland’s NHS rejected privatization and focused on public infrastructure and create a strategy for sustainability for the NHS in Scotland. As a result, Scotland is a world leader in reducing wait times, reduction of hospital acquired infections, and reducing re-admission rates. They used four strategies: 1) Redesign and transform capacity on population-based requirements; 2) Information (linked electronic health records); 3) Planning strategy, including continuous quality improvement; 4) Peformance Management Strategy, holding regional health units accountable when they don’t reach targets. Canadian Doctors for Medicare has a lot of studies on how our Canadian health care system can be reformed. Private health care is not the only alternative. Private clinics primarily focus on profit, that’s what they’re designed to do.
25m00s On 1 February 2022 the Ontario Health Minister, Christine Elliot, gave a press conference where she said “Let independent health facilities create private hospitals.” This is an alarming announcement, it speaks to the complete coring out of our public hospitals, having them recall diagnostic and surgical services, to be reconstituted in private clinics. In private hospitals the simple procedures and uncomplicated patients get drawn in the private system, then the public hospitals are left with the more expensive cases requiring more intense professional care, so public hospitals have expenses that far exceed those of private hospitals. Private hospitals also pull professional expertise out of the public system, but since there will be no additional doctors it leaves public hospitals with fewer resources. Private hospitals only benefit people who can afford it; poor people will go to underfunded, understaffed public hospitals. Public hospitals have a flat-fee system to compensate doctors; all neurologists or all obstetricians are paid the same. In a private system there can be a differential fee scale according to expertise. The public system doesn’t reinforce holding on to quality, we see physicians with specialized skills move to the US, draining the public care system. But some Canadian physicians find the private system in the US burdensome (health insurance costs, tracking down overdue payments, take orders from health insurance corporations) so their ability to deliver high-quality health care is diminished significantly, and they return to Canada.
30m33s WRHC is trying to warn the Region of Waterloo what is happening with privatization. They are holding an emergency summit on Tuesday, 5 April 2022, at 7:00pm register with Zoom. Speakers include Natalie Mehra, Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition. Find out what’s happening so people can make a decision a the voting booth in June.
31m48s Discussing the politics of health care. WRHC is non-partisan, but there’s no need to have a political affiliation, almost all parties support the public health care system. It’s not a political position, it’s a social position. Discussing the scope of health care delivery: Eye care, hearing care, dental care, pharmacare, and mental health care. “Health care above the neck.” Pharmacare on a large scale gets better competitive pricing, but the strong Pharma lobby is holding us back.
36m16s Jim Stewart gives the WRHC contact info and Bob gives the credits as Extended Heatwarning plays out to the end of the podcast. Ponysapien (clouds over water, coloured with a spectrum of colours)
Ponysapien		 Ponysapien

CKMS Community Connections Hour One airs on CKMS-FM 102.7 on Monday from 11:00am to Noon, and Hour Two airs on Friday from 3:00pm to 4:00pm.

Got music, spoken word, or other interesting stuff? Let us know at office@radiowaterloo.ca or leave a comment on our “About” page.

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Bonus Footage

YouTube: CKMS Community Connections for 14 March 2022

Show notes and podcast interview content is Copyright © 2022 by the participants, and released under a CC BYCreative Commons Attribution Only license. Copy, re-use, and derivative works are allowed with attribution to Radio Waterloo and a link to this page. Music selections are copyright by the respective rights holders.

Shows, Wadio Wam!

Wadio Wam! Episode 3 + 4 – The End Of The World

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Hey y’all! Here’s our 3rd episode recorded March 6th. Songs for the end of the world! Sorry for the delay with the upload.

By mistake, we forgot to record our 4th show, which was songs for dancing by yourself (I know, I’m just as disappointed as you are), but we’re working on getting our setlist’s/playlists live so if you missed the show you’ll at least be able to see what was played. We got a good show lined up for next Sunday (1-2PM) so be sure to check that one out, but in the meantime here’s songs for the end of the world. Wam on!

Spotify Link for Episode 3: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7rt8sI7cR9K8PLW4nYjCdm?si=0222ff5152474698

Spotify Link for Episode 4: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50er5MjG1YxJeRZ7oZ9zCT?si=b9867356cf78410d

81 82 83 84, Shows

81 82 83 84 Season 1 Episode 29: Every Word Means No

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It used to be no words could come between us
Any time was right for secret meetings
It’s different now and when you speak
Every word means no

Gang of Four’s opening song at the Granada Theater in Dallas Texas on March 16, 2022:

So Old It's New

So Old It’s New set list for Monday, March 14, 2022 – on air 8-10 pm ET

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  1. Triumph, Blinding Light Show/Moonchild . . . From the Canadian band’s 1976 self-titled debut, later re-released and retitled In the Beginning. Fast, slow, acoustic interlude, progressive hard rock/metal, great stuff.
  1. Little Feat, Let It Roll . . . Rollicking title track from the band’s 1988 album, a return to studio recording for the band after a nine-year hiatus following the death of founder member and leader Lowell George.
  1. Aerosmith, Round and Round . . . Led Zeppelin-like relentless pounder from Toys in the Attic. As allmusic.com reviewers have said, Aerosmith, sometimes considered an American Rolling Stones, actually is more a Stones/Zep combo, resulting in something that is . . . Aerosmith.
  1. Blackfoot, Train, Train . . . Great harmonica intro by Shorty Medlocke, a blues and bluegrass musician who wrote the song and was Blackfoot leader Rickey Medlocke’s grandfather. The younger Medlocke was originally in an early version of Lynyrd Skynyrd, playing drums, before leaving before the band’s first official studio album to become guitarist and frontman for Blackfoot before winding up back on guitar, and the man can really play, in latter-day versions of Skynyrd. Rickey Medlocke’s drumming with Skynyrd eventually appeared on the archival release, Skynyrd’s First . . . and Last, which was itself eventually expanded and re-released as Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album.

     

  2. ZZ Top, Goin’ Down To Mexico . . . Late great bassist Dusty Hill handles lead vocals on this typical blues rocker from ZZ’s first album. It’s called, wait for it, ZZ Top’s First Album.
  1. Lighthouse, Hats Off To The Stranger . . . From what could be termed Canada’s own jazz-rock answer to early Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears. Or, just a great jazz-rock band, a version of which continues to tour to this day while many of its members have gone on to be successful in various aspects of the music industry and beyond.
  1. The Guess Who, Sitar Saga . . . Early stuff from the band, a cool instrumental with Randy Bachman on sitar and Burton Cummings, who had apparently just learned how to play the instrument, on flute. The track was inspired by the next one in tonight’s set, by a Liverpool mystic.
  1. The Beatles, Within You Without You . . . George Harrison’s song from Sgt. Pepper, reflecting his immersion in Hindu teachings, backed not by his Beatle mates but London-based Indian musicians. It’s interesting how one’s tastes change. I can remember in the original vinyl days, and I wasn’t alone among my friends, picking up the needle to skip this song when playing Pepper. Then I got into Ravi Shankar at least a bit via Harrison’s Concert For Bangladesh and I’ve never skipped Within You Without You since.
  1. John Lennon, Steel and Glass . . . Likely my favorite song on Lennon’s Walls and Bridges album. Unless Old Dirt Road is, or the hit single, Whatever Gets You Thru The Night, or . . . Today, it’s Steel and Glass. Great track from a great album.
  1. J.J. Cale, Hey Baby . . . Typically cool shuffle by the master. Eric Clapton and Dire Straits send thanks for J.J.’s influence on some of their works.
  1. Jeff Beck Group, Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You . . . The second, 1970s version of the Jeff Beck Group, with Bobby Tench instead of Rod Stewart on lead vocals, turns Bob Dylan’s country-ish tune from the Nashville Skyline album into a more bluesy, soulful tune. Both versions are excellent.
  1. April Wine, Slow Poke . . . Great bluesy tune. Myles Goodwyn’s lead vocals were actually slowed down in the studio, to better fit the song.
  1. Paice Ashton Lord, I’m Gonna Stop Drinking Again . . . From the one and only album from Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice and keyboardist Jon Lord, and a good one it is, 1977’s Malice In Wonderland. The project also featured late English singer/keyboardist Tony Ashton, whose credits included sessions with Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Jerry Lee Lewis before he found his way into the Deep Purple orbit via some collaborations on the various members’ solo projects. Nazareth used the same album title for its 1980 release, the record featuring the hit single Holiday.
  1. The Rolling Stones, Do You Think I Really Care . . . Dead Flowers-ish country tune that got official release status on the 2011 expanded re-issue of the Stones’ Some Girls album.
  1. The Who, Cry If You Want . . . I confess I don’t listen to The Who’s It’s Hard album, from 1982, all that much. I don’t know anyone who does. It’s not a bad album but arguably not up to previous standards as, by that time, Pete Townshend seemed to be holding back his best material for his own solo albums like 1980’s smash Empty Glass and the good but not quite as, 1982 release, All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. But, all that said, Cry If You Want, featuring nice drumming by Kenney Jones and angry vocals by Roger Daltrey (maybe pissed at Pete for holding his best stuff back), along with the classic Eminence Front, are top-notch tunes from It’s Hard.
  1. Thunderclap Newman, Accidents . . . Speaking of The Who and Townshend, he produced and played bass (under the fun pseudonym Bijou Drains) on Hollywood Dream, the only Thunderclap Newman studio album. The band, championed by Townshend and Who manager Kit Lambert and featuring future Paul McCartney and Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch, is best known for the hit Something In The Air. This is the 9-plus minute album version of Accidents, a pop/progressive piece that was shaved down to three minutes and change and released as the album’s second single.

     

  2. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Framed . . . Title cut, written by the hit factory that was (Jerome) Leiber and (Michael) Stoller, from the Harvey band’s 1972 debut album. It’s amazing how many hit songs – more than 70 chart hits – Lieber and Stoller penned including Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock. Also amazing is how much like Harvey AC/DC’s Bon Scott sounded, at least to my ears and, at least, based on this track as compared to, say, AC/DC’s Jailbreak.
  1. T-Bone Burnett, Shut It Tight . . . From T-Bone’s 1983 release Proof Through The Night which featured a host of all-star friends including guitarists Pete Townshend, Mick Ronson and, on this track, Richard Thompson on guitar and mandolin. Which is probably why, with Thompson, it could easily be, sounds like, a Fairport Convention song.
  1. Tom Waits, Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard . . . Jaunty, up-tempo tune from the Blue Valentine album, 1978.
  1. Dire Straits, Single Handed Sailor . . . What a great song, about sights and sounds around the Greenwich area of London, England, including the 19th century ship the Cutty Sark – which I first knew to be a brand of whiskey, from a spy novel whose name I can’t remember, read in my early teens. I never developed a taste for the so-called hard stuff so never did try Cutty Sark but perhaps I should. I’ll ask some friends of mine who are into Scotch but I sampled some stuff with them once and they banished me from the room because I kept spoofing their treatment of the tasting as some sort of seance-like religious experience. I didn’t get it, obviously. We’ll see how it goes. If and when they read this, it probably won’t go well. But hey, if you can’t disagree with and have fun with your friends, what kind of friends could they possibly be?
  2. Mountain, For Yasgur’s Farm . . . Dedicated to Max Yasgur, who owned the farm where the 1969 Woodstock Festival was held. He died young, just age 53, of a heart attack in 1973.
  1. Rainbow, Gates Of Babylon . . . Closing out tonight’s set with some harder rock, this epic from Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll, the last Rainbow album, in 1978, featuring the late great Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals. Aside from the songs All Night Long and Since You’ve Been Gone from 1979’s Down To Earth album with Graham Bonnet on lead vocals, only Dio Rainbow is good Rainbow, in my opinion. Aside from the two tracks I just mentioned, and even they are somewhat dubious, the rest of Rainbow (aside from maybe, maybe, the harder-edged 1995 rebirth Stranger In Us All album with Doogie White on lead vox) is way too poppy and overproduced, blatantly, for the American market at the time, pretty much utter shit. What was Ritchie Blackmore thinking? And then, horrors, he brought his latter-day Rainbow singer Joe Lynn Turner into Deep Purple for one ill-fated album, 1990’s one good song (King Of Dreams) disaster, Slaves and Masters. What in god’s name, Ritchie? People rightly called the album Deep (post-Dio) Rainbow. Sell your soul for rock and roll, I guess.
  1. Black Sabbath, Falling Off The Edge Of The World . . . Here’s Ronnie again, fronting the next band he joined, Black Sabbath. I’ve always said that, while I like Dio with his own band, Dio, I’ve always preferred his work with Rainbow and Sabbath. Seems to me he was best working with outstanding guitarists/songwriters like Ritchie Blackmore and Tony Iommi.
  1. UFO, Lights Out (live) . . . Notice how we started tonight’s set with a Blinding Light Show and conclude it with Lights Out? Clever, huh? God, I’m good. Or silly. From UFO’s terrific 1979 live album, Strangers In The Night. See ya next week, thanks for listening/following.

Community Radio in Waterloo Region