My track-by-track tales follow this bare-bones list.

1. Fight, Into The Pit
2. Queen, We Will Rock You (fast version, from Live Killers)
3. Alannah Myles, Rock This Joint
4. Triumph, Rock ‘n’ Roll Machine
5. Montrose, Space Station #5
6. Stray, Feel Like I’ve Been Here Before
7. Hawkwind, Silver Machine
8. Judas Priest, Painkiller
9. KK’s Priest, Hellfire Thunderbolt
10. Ted Nugent, Stranglehold
11. The Beatles, Helter Skelter
12. The J. Geils Band, Musta Got Lost (live, including Peter Wolf stage rap, from Blow Your Face Out)
13. Midnight Oil, Redneck Wonderland
14. Status Quo, Big Fat Mama
15. Deep Purple, Lady Double Dealer
16. The Rolling Stones, Lies
17. Budgie, Crash Course In Brain Surgery
18. Black Sabbath, Supernaut (Ozzy Osbourne vocals)
19. Black Sabbath, Neon Knights (Ronnie James Dio vocals)
20. Black Sabbath, Digital Bitch (Ian Gillan vocals)
21. Black Sabbath, Get A Grip (Tony Martin vocals)
22. Thin Lizzy, The Rocker
23. AC/DC, The Furor
24. Headstones, Flight Risk
25. Iron Maiden, 2 Minutes To Midnight 

    Set list with my track-by-track tales:

    1. Fight, Into The Pit . . . A thrash metal scorcher from Rob Halford’s short-lived band, early 1990s, during a period when the lead singer left Judas Priest. Priest carried on for two studio and a couple live albums and concert video releases with Tim “Ripper” Owens, a Halford sound-alike recruited from a Priest tribute band, on lead vocals. Owens departed when Halford returned but has since returned to the Priest fold as that band has splintered. Owens is now lead singer for former Priest guitarist KK Downing’s band KK’s Priest, a track of whose I’m playing later in the set.
    2. Queen, We Will Rock You (fast version, from Live Killers) . . . I’ll never forget them opening with this when I saw the Jazz album tour at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens in early December, 1978, a couple months after the album’s release. In those pre-internet and instant information availability days, the speeded up arrangement version was a total, fantastic surprise in what was one of the best concerts I’ve seen. Blistering. Queen closed the show with We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions in the version as it appeared on the double single from 1977’s News Of The World studio album, followed by their usual instrumental closer, God Save the (then) Queen.
    3. Alannah Myles, Rock This Joint . . . The song and the title fit my mood in putting this show together. It’s from her 1989 debut album, the one featuring the blockbuster single Black Velvet.
    4. Triumph, Rock ‘n’ Roll Machine . . . Title cut from the Canadian hard rockers’ second album, released in 1977. I’m not a big Triumph fan. I thought a lot of their later stuff – when they were actually more commercially successful, certainly in the US market – suffered from 1980s overproduction, although I probably haven’t investigated it thoroughly enough although I just checked out one of their, apparently, hits, A World Of Fantasy (it’s on their first compilation album) and, ugh but it’s approaching Starship schlock, to my ears. To each one’s own of course but how does such shit appeal to people?All that said, I do like Triumph’s earlier material, like Rock ‘n’ Roll Machine. I suppose it comes down to four Triumph tracks, for me, counting Rock ‘n’ Roll Machine. The other three, in no particular order, if anyone’s interested:

       * Lay It On The Line – which, music often being a place and time thing, reminds me of a college girlfriend and our relationship. I remember the song playing one night, on the radio, when I was at her place and how it resonated. We broke up soon after, maybe due to the song, maybe not, but in some ways, although never look back, one of those ‘what-if’ scenarios albeit in what was in the end an insignificant, early relationship.
       * Rocky Mountain Way, Triumph’s cover of the Joe Walsh/Barnstorm band tune.
       * Blinding Light Show/Moonchild, an epic hard rock/prog combo track from the debut album that I’ve previously played on the show, and will again.

    5. Montrose, Space Station #5 . . .Well, I spent way too much time on Triumph than I intended to. Might happen with Montrose, too. It’s how my mind sometimes works. Originally, I just had that Rock ‘n’ Roll Machine was the title cut of Triumph’s 1977 album, but reconsidered and thought I should say more, so then my stream of consciousness thought process got the better of me, perhaps. On to Montrose, which reminds me of what I love about music, almost as much of the actual music and that’s the various threads and connections, which results in people (not me, so far) making money from things like designing and writing about rock family trees. It’s true of any industry, of course, but music is a popular culture thing so it’s arguably of more interest, especially to obsessives like me. So . . . Guitarist Ronnie Montrose, the titular head of the band, was originally a session musician and played on such albums as Van Morrison’s Tupelo Honey (one of my favorites), which was produced by Ted Templeman, who produced the first Montrose album, and later produced the early Van Halen albums and then co-produced For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, by which time Sammy Hagar, Montrose’s original lead singer, was three albums into and firmly in place replacing David Lee Roth as Van Halen’s singer. Montrose was also in Edgar Winter’s band, specifically for the album They Only Come Out At Night and hit singles Frankenstein and Free Ride. As for Space Station #5, the title says it – a ‘spacey’ rocker, and a good one.
    6. Stray, Feel Like I’ve Been Here Before . . . Perfect song, because I’ve said this before but bears repeating. I discovered Stray via a compilation, I’m A Freak, Baby – A Journey Through the British Heavy Rock and Underground Scene, 1968-72 that a friend excitedly recommended to me years ago now. “You have to get this!’ he advised me one night on Facebook Messenger. So, I got it, the 3-CD compilation that was released in 2016. Later, I was the one recommending he get the subsequent “I’m A Freak Baby 2” comp that came out three years later, expanding the palate to include 1973. And there’s a ‘Freak Baby’ third compilation, issued in 2021, all of them excellent. As for Stray, I liked the band so much via the one track – All In Your Mind which I’ve played before – on the original Freak Baby comp that I bought a Stray anthology, from which I discovered this ‘galloping’ track. Future Iron Maiden members were probably listening, and planning.
    7. Hawkwind, Silver Machine . . . Lemmy Kilmister’s band before he formed Motorhead. And, in a hard rock show, I forgot to play Motorhead, today at least. Next time. Which might be as soon as Saturday morning’s show. Or not. I might go totally singer-songwriter acoustic, depends on mood. Stay tuned.
    8. Judas Priest, Painkiller . . . And so it is, intentionally, that after my opening cut, by the Rob Halford-led Fight, we come ’round to Judas Priest via the thrash metal title track to arguably Priest’s heaviest album, from 1990. Intense stuff.
    9. KK’s Priest, Hellfire Thunderbolt . . . And intense is also this, from the aforementioned band formed by former Priest guitarist KK Downing, featuring former Priest singer Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens. As someone on YouTube commented: ‘there’s now 2 Priests? I’m in heaven!’ Or hell. I agree.
    10. Ted Nugent, Stranglehold . . . Heavy, hypnotic riff. Not necessarily a fan of the man’s politics but his music that I like, I like, a lot. Always cracks me up with some people who, when an entertainer comes out with views they might disagree with, state (usually in self-righteous public fashion these days on social media) that said entertainer is dead to them. Fine, whatever. But you’re going to give up what entertains you simply due to a differing point of view? 1. Sounds strange and narrow-minded to me. 2. I doubt such people actually do give it up, although they’d never admit to it.
    11. The Beatles, Helter Skelter . . . The Beatles were often trailblazers and some have suggested this might be the first heavy metal tune, from 1968’s White Album albeit I’d dispute that given some prior work by the likes of, say, Link Wray and so many others. It’s actually hilarious, at least in one video I’ve seen, which purports to reveal who originated heavy metal but no answer is arrived at after the host goes through just about anyone with even the slightest connection to the genre. Put it this way: stuff evolves; everything is influenced by everything else, the present is built on the past. In any event, obviously a great tune, blisters on Ringo’s fingers included.
    12. The J. Geils Band, Musta Got Lost (live, including Peter Wolf stage rap, from Blow Your Face Out) . . . This might actually be the slowest-paced song among all these fast songs today, in part due to the inherent slowdown of Geils’ lead singer Peter Wolf’s classic rap to open the song, which was one of the fairly successful hit singles Geils had before the massive commercial heights of the Freeze Frame album era that featured such hits as Centerfold.
    13. Midnight Oil, Redneck Wonderland . . . One might not typically think Midnight Oil belongs in a hard rock set but they went close to metallic on this title cut from the Australian band’s 1998 album. Love it. And I love the cover art – a kangaroo toting a rifle. Two years later, I was covering the Sydney Olympics for my newspaper and saw such a kangaroo employed as security. Just kidding. I did see kangaroos, in an enclosure at the media village. No rifles.
    14. Status Quo, Big Fat Mama . . . Another kick-butt rocker from the appropriately titled Piledriver album.
    15. Deep Purple, Lady Double Dealer . . . Aren’t they all? Kidding. Maybe. From the Stormbringer album. I, and I think a lot of Purple fans, have never understood Ritchie Blackmore’s dislike of the 1974 record, the last of the so-called Mark III version of Purple with Blackmore on guitar and featuring lead vocalist David Coverdale and bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes. Too funky for Blackmore’s tastes yet, and I’m no guitar expert, his playing seems more than fine to me including on this rocker. Who can truly know the creative, mercurial mind? In any case, Blackmore was soon on to form Rainbow.
    16. The Rolling Stones, Lies . . . Stones go particularly punk on this one from Some Girls. I used to consider it one of the weaker cuts on the excellent album, too overtly an attempt at putting it to the punk rockers who had called out by then establishment bands like the Stones, who of course were among the original punks, but it’s grown on me over time. Had it been, say, a Ramones song, it likely would be on a greatest hits compilation by that band which, while great and influential and I like them, arguably just did the same song over and over.
    17. Budgie, Crash Course In Brain Surgery . . . Short, sweet, typically great riff rock from Budgie.
    18. Black Sabbath, Supernaut (Ozzy Osbourne vocals) . . . I probably play this too often but can never get enough of it and that great riff courtesy guitarist Tony Iommi. First of a set of four Sabbath tunes, with four different singers, over time and various lineup changes.
    19. Black Sabbath, Neon Knights (Ronnie James Dio vocals) . . . Ozzy leaves, in comes Dio, at the time most recently with Blackmore’s Rainbow. As with any big band getting a new singer, people wonder. So the band places this as lead cut on the Heaven and Hell album and, people no longer wonder. Sabbath sailed on.
    20. Black Sabbath, Digital Bitch (Ian Gillan vocals) . . . An almost out of control vehicle of a song screeching along, on the one and only Sabs album fronted by Deep Purple’s most renowned singer. Gillan apparently joined the band sometime amid a drunken evening with Sabs’ guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler, after which Gillan’s agent lamentably advised Gillan to please consult him in such future decisions. In any event, out came the what I think is the brilliant Born Again album in 1983, all of this despite Gillan’s hilarious struggles with lyrics and such on the subsequent tour – read his book, Child In Time, or various other accounts of a tour which at least in part inspired the classic rock spoof movie This Is Spinal Tap. The amp goes to 11! Etc.
    21. Black Sabbath, Get A Grip (Tony Martin vocals) . . . The Tony Martin era, where Tony Iommi soldiered on with assorted players, with original bassist Geezer Butler in and out on various albums, is generally considered the runt of the litter of the band’s output but I like the Martin albums as much as those done with the other various vocalists. Really. Worth checking out, if one has an open mind. Some of Iommi’s most prodigious riffs lurk, largely unheard, on many of the Martin records.
    22. Thin Lizzy, The Rocker . . . Title says it all, really. What a great band Lizzy was, so much more than The Boys Are Back In Town. “In walks this chick and I knew she was up to something . . . “ Probably would be held to account on misogynist grounds for such an obvious realistic situation lyric, these days. It’s the birds and the bees, you know? Amazing guitar, too, by Eric Bell.
    23. AC/DC, The Furor . . . Love this cut from Ballbreaker, just the way it opens, the arrangement, the lyrics, Phil Rudd’s solid, serve the song drumming, all of it. Saw the tour. Great stuff. Two hours of power, as the friend I went with termed it.
    24. Headstones, Flight Risk . . . Another blistering cut from Headstones, this the title cut from their most recent, late 2022-released album. I’ve said it before, but a very consistent band, rarely an easily-dismissed track, their albums are always good, front to back listens, to my ears.
    25. Iron Maiden, 2 Minutes To Midnight . . . I suppose I should have played this on my Saturday morning show, which was New Year’s Eve. But, I didn’t. In any event it’s about war, the threat of wars, not new years, none of which ever seem to change much.

My track-by-track tales follow this bare-bones list.

1. 1. Pearl Jam, Spin The Black Circle
   2. U2, New Year’s Day
   3. Graham Parker, Mercury Poisoning
   4. Jimi Hendrix, Manic Depression
   5. Nirvana, Polly
   6. Smashing Pumpkins, Drown
   7. Alice In Chains, Dam That River
   8. Soundgarden, Jesus Christ Pose
   9. Mudhoney, Overblown
   10. Mother Love Bone, Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns
   11. Dead Kennedys, The Man With The Dogs
   12. Megadeth, Anarchy In The UK
   13. Nash The Slash, Dead Man’s Curve
   14. Ike & Tina Turner, Sexy Ida – Part 1
   15. Ike & Tina Turner, Sexy Ida – Part 2
   16. Blackie and The Rodeo Kings, Folsom Prison Blues
   17. Johnny Cash, Solitary Man
   18. Jason and The Scorchers, 19^th Nervous Breakdown
   19. The Rolling Stones/Mick Jagger, Memo From Turner (Performance movie soundtrack version featuring Ry Cooder on slide guitar)
   20. David Baerwald, Hello Mary
   21. Fludd, Cousin Mary
   22. Tommy James, Draggin’ The Line
   23. AC/DC, Dogs Of War
   24. James Gang, The Bomber
   25. Alice Cooper, Devil’s Food/The Black Widow
   26. Joe Cocker, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (live, Mad Dogs & Englishmen album version)
   27. The Guess Who, Coming Down Off The Money Bag/Song Of The Dog
   28. Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town
   29. Pearl Jam, Last Kiss

Set list with my track-by-track tales:

1. Pearl Jam, Spin The Black Circle . . . Pearl Jam goes punk about their love for vinyl records amid ambiguous lyrics arguably, depending on various interpretations, comparing addiction to music to drug addiction. All songs, if one digs into them, have interesting histories and backgrounds as does this one, from the band’s Vitalogy album, 1994. Not all band members, apparently, were on board with the punk rock direction the song took, but it was an outlier, for the most part, amid the album overall.

2. U2, New Year’s Day . . . I don’t usually play hits, it’s a deep cuts show as I probably say too often in perhaps trying to ‘excuse’ playing hits. Thing is, though, that this song is 40 years old now (!!??) and 1. The show is called So Old It’s New (so, theoretically, this could be new to some). 2. one of my catchphrases for the show has forever been “old bands, old tracks, old bands, their new stuff if they’re still active plus occasional singles one may not have heard in a long time’. And by that I mean singles from not only very prominent bands but singles from others like, dunno, say Stray or Savoy Brown or The Velvet Underground or whoever, that never charted. In any event, so, I present to you New Year’s Day with the great – and almost always true – opening verse lyric: Nothing changes on New Year’s Day. And it usually doesn’t, just as on Christmas or any other ‘special’ day, stuff still happens, good and bad. They’re all just another day amid the flawed human condition, albeit all of them celebrated for obvious reasons and the idealistic hopes and dreams they promise and, sometimes, deliver.
3. Graham Parker, Mercury Poisoning . . . The then very angry young man’s diatribe about his former record label. And it’s good, musically, too, so you actually listen to it. And by that I mean, there’s many great songs lyrically but if you don’t have compelling music to carry it, nobody’s going to listen to/hear it.

4. Jimi Hendrix, Manic Depression . . . Look at the track listing for Hendrix’s 1967 debut album Are You Experienced and it’s essentially a greatest hits album, but then that was the case for the three Experience studio records. Amazing stuff, amazing artist. Anyway, Manic Depression is one of the tracks and I’m using it for two reasons. 1. It’s great and I like it. 2. It introduces a ‘depressing’ Seattle grunge sounds set from the 1990s when bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden and so on broke big with great music and often depressing, lived-life lyrics. Not that other artists had ever written about such things, they had, but the Seattle sound seemed ALL about that to the point that one was like, people, try to be happy and they probably were but perhaps it was also a clever marketing tool. In any event, great music resulted. A lot of those bands, some who made it bigger than others, were featured on the 1992 Singles movie soundtrack album, from which I’ve drawn much of the succeeding set.

5. Nirvana, Polly . . . I’ve always loved and hated this song. Check that. Hated is too strong a word. I’ve always been uncomfortable with liking it, perhaps better expressed, and that’s due to its subject matter which is of course what makes great art – we can love it but it can also make us uncomfortable. It’s a compelling and arresting song, musically, but it’s about the abduction, rape and torture of a 14-year-old girl returning home from a concert in Tacoma, Washington, in 1987. Horrible.
   
6. Smashing Pumpkins, Drown . . . I don’t play guitar – have one but have been too lazy to learn, maybe a 2023 resolution – but love the what I’ll term the ‘scratchy’ guitar on this one. It’s the extended version of the track, from the Singles soundtrack of Seattle sounds that broke big via Nirvana, that I mentioned earlier.

7. Alice In Chains, Dam That River . . . Hard, bleak, brilliant. “Maybe I don’t give a dam anyway’. Yeah.

8. Soundgarden, Jesus Christ Pose . . . Kick butt tune from Badmotorfinger, the 1991 album that first brought Soundgarden to mainstream notice before their blockbuster breakthrough with 1994’s Superunknown album and hits like Black Hole Sun and Fell On Black Days.

9. Mudhoney, Overblown . . . Hard, fast stuff from one of the somewhat less well known Seattle bands, still around, always interesting reading about the family trees of such groups which, in Mudhoney’s case, featured future members of Pearl Jam – Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard.

10. Mother Love Bone, Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns . . . See my thoughts on Mudhoney, re the band. As for the music, a great extended track – it’s I suppose grunge if one wants to categorize such things but it’s also at parts progressive, ‘naked’ vocals just out there over a bed of largely acoustic instrumentation at first, just a cohesive, interesting, compelling track.

11. Dead Kennedys, The Man With The Dogs . . . If you need a head shred to, as Funkadelic once titled a great album I’ve drawn from, free your mind and your ass will follow, I suggest playing the Dead Kennedys. Crazy good.

12. Megadeth, Anarchy In The UK . . . Kick ass cover of the kick ass Sex Pistols tune.

13. Nash The Slash, Dead Man’s Curve . . . Screeeech on the brakes and turning the musical wheel as we negotiate the curve, musically, from the grunge and such to this as always interesting in whatever Nash The Slash did, cover of the 1964 Jan and Dean hit. On to some funk.

14. Ike & Tina Turner, Sexy Ida – Part 1 . . . As I said, funk. Crazy good. Tina, perhaps more, justifiably, celebrated as a performer, wrote this sexy sucker.

15. Ike & Tina Turner, Sexy Ida – Part 2 . . . Tina wrote this continuation, too.

16. Blackie and The Rodeo Kings, Folsom Prison Blues . . . Cover of the Johnny Cash tune by the brilliant Canadian combo of Tom Wilson, Stephen Fearing and Colin Linden. Another of those instances where a side project becomes a working band.

17. Johnny Cash, Solitary Man . . . Somebody covers Cash, Cash covers somebody. In this case, Neil Diamond on what is my favorite Neil Diamond song and just a great tune, regardless and no artist could eff it up. Nor does Cash.

18. Jason and The Scorchers, 19^th Nervous Breakdown . . . I find it interesting that my favorite band, The Rolling Stones, don’t often play this great tune live yet it’s been covered by many, including this, er, scorching version by The Scorchers.

19. The Rolling Stones/Mick Jagger, Memo From Turner (Performance movie soundtrack version featuring Ry Cooder on slide guitar). . . . Interesting history on this tune. This is the version, essentially a Jagger solo version and likely the best known as it appears as a Rolling Stones track on some compilations, from the movie Performance. Ry Cooder shines on slide guitar. The Stones did their own, jauntier, arguably rawer since Keith Richards was on guitar, version which later appeared on the grab-bag Metamorphosis compilation issued during the Stones/Allen Klein/Abkco Records battles, but the Performance version likely remains the best take.

20. David Baerwald, Hello Mary . . . From one of the two Davids (the other, Ricketts, went into production work) from the one and only brilliant David + David Boomtown album release in 1986. Baerwald, amid film soundtrack and other work, has released sporadic albums since, this one from his first solo release, Bedtime Stories, in 1990. He did a few widely-released albums released via conventional physical means after that but since then any new music, so far, from him has been released only on the web and even so it’s difficult to find.

21. Fludd, Cousin Mary . . . From the ‘old singles you haven’t heard in a while so they fit in a deep cuts context’ file.

22. Tommy James, Draggin’ The Line . . . As with the Fludd tune. He had lots of hits but this is likely my favorite.

23. AC/DC, Dogs Of War . . . From the 2014 album Rock Or Bust, the first to feature rhythm guitarist Stevie Young, replacing his uncle Malcolm, who was ailing at the time and eventually died. Stevie had also replaced Malcolm, then battling alcohol abuse, during the band’s 1988 Blow Up Your Video album tour.

24. James Gang, The Bomber . . . Extended killer cut from the Joe Walsh-led band’s second album, Rides Again, 1970.

25. Alice Cooper, Devil’s Food/The Black Widow . . . Vincent Price is, er, priceless near the end of the first tune, and a great rocker it is, from Welcome To My Nightmare, the first Alice album after the breakup of the original band which was a name Vincent Furnier adopted but also the name of the band to that point. Great combo track.

26. Joe Cocker, She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (live, Mad Dogs & Englishmen album version) . . . Beatles cover, of course. And brilliantly done by Cocker, arguably one of the kings of covers.

27. The Guess Who, Coming Down Off The Money Bag/Song Of The Dog . . . Such a fantastic ditty from the Share The Land album. It came after Randy Bachman left the band, which then increasingly became the Burton Cummings band as he asserted dominance albeit within the context of brilliant post-Bachman guitarists like Kurt Winter, Greg Leskiw and, later, Don McDougall.

28. Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town . . . Cover, done by many but I think this is the best one, for me at least, since it’s a more rock-oriented take, of the Mel Tillis tune. I always think of my late dad when I hear it. I remember him playing it, was first time I heard it. He emigrated from Europe after World War II, was into classical and opera but interestingly developed a love for country and country-ish music, from whence I by osmosis got into such artists as Johnny Cash and Glen Campbell. And this tune. An old work colleague once told me he thought it was a shitty song. What? Ridiculous. Also, interestingly, the ‘crazy Asian war’ in the lyrics is usually assumed to be about the Vietnam War but Tillis always said it referred to the Pacific war in World War II, mainly the USA vs Japan although other countries like the UK and its then-empire were heavily involved.

29. Pearl Jam, Last Kiss . . . Cover of the 1961 hit by Wayne Cochrane. And on that note, a last kiss to 2022 as we embark on 2023. Back on Monday, Jan. 2. Happy New Year, everyone.

Set list with my track-by-track commentary follows the bare-bones list.

1. Chicago, Sing A Mean Tune Kid
2. Van Halen, Mean Street
3. Black Sabbath, Warning
4. April Wine, Crash and Burn
5. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Flat Broke Love
6. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, F*!#N’ Up
7. Atomic Rooster, Stand By Me
8. Budgie, Parents
9. Golden Earring, Stand By Me
10. Warren Zevon, Nighttime In The Switching Yard
11. Savoy Brown, Hellbound Train
12. Rainbow, Man On The Silver Mountain
13. Deep Purple, The Mule
14. Electric Light Orchestra, Poker
15. Them, One Two Brown Eyes
16. The Rolling Stones, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking
17. Yes, Heart Of The Sunrise
18. Led Zeppelin, Achilles Last Stand 

    Set list with my track-by-track tales:

    1. Chicago, Sing A Mean Tune Kid . . . Extended funky jazz-rock fusion track that was the lead cut on Chicago III, 1971.
    2. Van Halen, Mean Street . . . Speaking of mean tunes. . . . Best song on Van Halen’s dark 1981 album Fair Warning. Played it too recently but, it fits the theme.
    3. Black Sabbath, Warning . . . A fair number of long tracks today, including this one from the debut Sabbath album. Spooky.
    4. April Wine, Crash and Burn . . . Longtime great Canadian band goes proto-metal in attempt to break the US market in 1981 via The Nature Of The Beast album. It worked, although I largely prefer the earlier stuff. Kick butt tune, though.
    5. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Flat Broke Love . . . I watched an excellent documentary on Randy Bachman the other night. So, naturally . . .
    6. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, F*!#N’ Up . . . And Neil Young, Bachman’s longtime friend and sometime collaborator, was in the documentary but what really prompted me playing this was that I was talking with friends the other night about Young’s ‘distortion’ album Ragged Glory, although for the life of me (might have been the beer) couldn’t at the time remember the name of the album. None of my friends, did, either but then again we flit from topic to topic so fast who could be expected to keep track?
    7. Atomic Rooster, Stand By Me . . . Not the Ben E. King tune, covered by so many. This is an entirely different song, by the Brit prog/hard rockers.
       
    8. Budgie, Parents . . . Another of the extended pieces in tonight’s set, 10 minutes of slow, fast, soft, hard stuff of the type Budgie did so well.
    9. Golden Earring, Stand By Me . . . Again, not the Ben E. King tune, covered by so many. This is an entirely different song, not by the Brit prog/hard rockers Atomic Rooster that I played earlier, either. Can’t people think of unused song titles? Especially with well-known classics like Stand By Me. Many people might assume your song is a cover and not give it a chance because they figure, correctly in many cases, that the original can’t be improved upon. But what do I know? Nice guitar work, though.
       
    10. Warren Zevon, Nighttime In The Switching Yard . . . I’m playing this not only because it’s one of my favorites from Zevon’s Excitable Boy album (actually, every song from that terrific album is) but because the lyrics mention trains and I’m shamelessly using it to set up the next track. 
    11. Savoy Brown, Hellbound Train . . . Kim Simmonds, the only constant member of Savoy Brown from its formation in 1965 to 2022, died of colon cancer on Dec. 13. The band had still been active live and on record throughout, including studio material as recently as 2020, until in August of 2022 Simmonds announced all activity was ceasing as he was undergoing chemotherapy for stage four of the disease. A sad loss for blues rock. I saw Simmonds and his band at the Kitchener Blues Festival in 2013. Good show, with some video evidence of it and of course other shows, albums and assorted songs, on YouTube and other online sources.
    12. Rainbow, Man On The Silver Mountain . . . From the first Rainbow album, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, 1975, the first of three featuring Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals. After that, Blackmore wanted to go in a more commercial, almost pop, direction, Dio lost interest, and so did I – although I’m a big Blackmore fan.
    13. Deep Purple, The Mule . . . From Fireball. Inside joke I share with a good friend, on this one. It’s probably petty, I realize, but I know someone I call the mule due to their narrow-mindedness and the fact that talking to them and trying to get them to even remotely consider alternate points of view – you know, have an open mind – is like talking to a brick wall since they’re stubborn as a, well, mule.
    14. Electric Light Orchestra, Poker . . . Another from my ‘recent conversation inspiration’ files. Was out with the boys the other night, music inevitably comes into the conversation along with everything else under the sun and moon, and ELO was a brief topic. None of us are huge fans, but all of us remembered – but didn’t go see – when ELO on their late 1970s Out Of The Blue album tour had a stage set that included a flying saucer the band played under, the saucer housing the lights and such. ELO was a massive concert draw then, one of the biggest acts in the world at the time. A reported 70,000 people filled Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium to see them. Poker, quite the rocker, at least for ELO, isn’t from Out Of The Blue but from an earlier album, 1975’s Face The Music which yielded the hits Evil Woman and Strange Magic. 
    15. Them, One Two Brown Eyes . . . From 1965, I’ll call it a hypnotic shuffle rocker, written and sung of course by Van The Man Morrison. It appeared on an album simply titled Them in the US. In England, the album was more creatively called The Angry Young Them, but One Two Brown Eyes wasn’t on that version, back in the days when US and UK releases of the same album were often quite different in content, title and artwork.
    16. The Rolling Stones, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking . . . Keith Richards’ hellacious opening riff kicks off the song, one of three tracks I’ve played before but not for a long time. I could (and have) listen to that opening riff, and then Charlie Watts’ drums coming in, bap bap, countless times without getting tired of it. And then of course Mick Taylor with his extended Santana-esque coda. From Sticky Fingers. 
    17. Yes, Heart Of The Sunrise . . . One of the many tracks that puts a lie to the claim made by some that progressive rock isn’t really rock. Try that opening riff on for size. And it repeats throughout this epic from Fragile.
    18. Led Zeppelin, Achilles Last Stand . . . Back to the boys in the bar and my ‘recent conversation inspiration’. Another guy in the group and I have radio shows and we were chatting about song selections and such. I mentioned that one time, I was doing a double show, four hours, filling in the slot behind me for a DJ who was ill or whatever, and after my first two hours I put Zep’s Achilles on, great extended opener to the Presence album. Next thing I know, an old high school and college pal with whom I’ve reconnected via my show and our shared love of music, sends me a message saying ‘bathroom break?” Yup. So this is, in part, for him.

A Christmas show for Christmas Eve morning, at risk of being a show, at this busy time of year, that perhaps poses a variation on the question “if a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s there, does anyone hear it?” I’m leading off with classical guitarist Liona Boyd’s wonderful instrumental sampling of various carols. The set is anchored by Jethro Tull’s Christmas album, released in 2003 and featuring some traditionals and other re-recorded Tull tracks by the version of the band, in terms of personnel, as it then existed. As Tull leader Ian Anderson writes in the album’s liner notes, if you fancied the song Bouree, from Stand Up, and the Songs From The Wood album, you’ll likely enjoy the record. It is a truly fine Christmas – or any other time – set of songs.

Speaking of Christmas records, I forgot to include one of my favorite artists, Bob Dylan, croaking his Dylan-esque way through various carols on his 2009 Christmas In The Heart. Perhaps next year. Merry Christmas, all.

1. Liona Boyd, Christmas Overture
2. The Payolas, Christmas Is Coming
3. John Lennon, Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
4. Elton John, Step Into Christmas
5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, I Believe In Father Christmas
6. The Kinks, Father Christmas
7. The Who, Christmas

The Jethro Tull Christmas Album (2003)

8. Birthday Card At Christmas
9. Holly Herald
10. A Christmas Song
11. Another Christmas Song
12. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
13. Jack Frost And The Hooded Crow
14. Last Man At The Party
15. Weathercock
16. Pavane
17. First Snow On Brooklyn
18. Greensleeved
19. Fire At Midnight
20. We Five Kings
21. Ring Out Solstice Bells
22. Bouree
23. A Winter Snowscape

24. Paul McCartney & Wings, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reggae
25. Argent, Christmas For The Free
26. McKenna Mendelson Mainline, Don’t Give Me No Goose For Christmas, Grandma
27. AC/DC, Mistress For Christmas
28. Tom Waits, Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis
29. Chuck Berry, Merry Christmas Baby
30. Ramones, Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)
31. Canned Heat, Christmas Blues

Set list with my track-by-track commentary follows the bare-bones list.

1. Black Sabbath, Turn Up The Night
2. Pantera, Cowboys From Hell
3. Metallica, Of Wolf And Man
4. Megadeth, Kill The King
5. Slayer, Dead Skin Mask
6. Judas Priest, Beyond The Realms Of Death
7. Van Halen, Atomic Punk
8. Link Wray, Climbing A High Wall
9. The Rolling Stones, Living In A Ghost Town
10. George Harrison, Brainwashed
11. Ian Hunter, Lisa Likes Rock ‘n’ Roll
12. The Clash, Pressure Drop
13. Rockpile, Play That Fast Thing (One More Time)
14. Elton John, Your Sister Can’t Twist But She Can Rock and Roll
15. T. Rex, Hot Love
16. Gordon Lightfoot, Make Way For The Lady
17. Iggy Pop, Nightclubbing
18. Otis Redding with Carla Thomas, Tramp
19. Queen, Get Down, Make Love
20. Pat Travers Band, Material Eyes
21. Bad Company, Master Of Ceremony
22. The Firm, Fortune Hunter
23. Shirley Bassey, The Fool On The Hill
24. Can, Spoon
25. April Wine, Mama Laye
26. Blackfoot, Road Fever (live)

    Set list with my track-by-track tales:

    1. Black Sabbath, Turn Up The Night . . . In a hard rock/metal mood, at least for the first few songs tonight. If you don’t like it, wait, as Mick Jagger once told a concert audience, on the Love You Live El Mocambo side, if memory serves. My mood changes. You’ll see. This rocker kicks off the second of the Sabbath albums, 1981’s Mob Rules, with Ronnie James Dio replacing Ozzy Osbourne, to great effect.

     

    2. Pantera, Cowboys From Hell . . . Title cut from the 1990 album from whence Pantera shed its original glam metal roots for the harder, metallic/thrash sound for which they came to be known. Very Metallica like, to me. A good blueprint to follow, obviously. Speaking of which . . .

     

    3. Metallica, Of Wolf And Man . . . One of these days, when I play Metallica, I’ll play something from their early thrash metal days. Which I like. But I suppose I’ve been playing 1991’s so-called Black Album on up through Loads I and II because they’re just as good, albeit obviously more commercial, than their predecessors, despite some fans’ continuing carping that the band ‘sold out’. As if Of Wolf And Man is ‘selling out’. Yeah, maybe, but if you can get more people to listen to you and buy your stuff, that gives you the freedom to later – as Metallica has – go back, at least somewhat, to your thrash roots. Smart business practice, really. And you can always play all of it, live.

        

    4. Megadeth, Kill The King . . . This machine-gun delivery type track first appeared on the, as far as I have researched, since deleted Capitol Punishment contractual obligation final record with the label. It was a best-of album Megadeth released in 2000. It’s since appeared on various newer collections issued by the band on current labels. A rare, perhaps, example of a track recorded for a compilation that is actually well worth hearing and not just a cheap inducement to buy other songs one already owns. This one’s definitely worth it.
    4. Slayer, Dead Skin Mask . . . If you don’t like thrash/speed metal, find it too intense/relatively tuneless and non-melodic, best not listen to Slayer. I like the band, every album, their brand of metal freed my mind somehow for instance seemed to focus me, bizarre as that may sound, driving through blizzards when I was commuting. But I’ll admit to this day, part of me thinks of some of their stuff (and Pantera’s) as “is this even music” while other parts of me are “yeah!”. But if you do want to sample the band, I’d suggest the album from which I pulled this track, Seasons In The Abyss. It’s more melodic, such as it is, and is essentially just good,  listenable hard rock. The title cut, which I’ve played before, is also well worth a listen.
    4. Judas Priest, Beyond The Realms Of Death . . . Power ballad rocker from the Stained Class album, one of those great fusions of guitar with Rob Halford’s typically powerful vocals. And that’s the thing with bands like Priest, which I was discussing with a friend and fellow fan of the band over beers the other week. People who haven’t heard them, or enough of them, consign them to some hard rock/metal place they may not want to visit, yet the band also has beautiful songs like this which, yes, ascend in parts to metal heights but actually within a ballad context well worth exploring. And remember, this is the band that covered Joan Baez’s absolutely beautiful Diamonds and Rust, rocked it up for a hit, then later did it acoustically, more faithful to the original Baez version, to great effect. Priest can do such things thanks to its amazingly versatile singer, Halford.
    7. Van Halen, Atomic Punk . . . Wild intro leads into one of the heaviest cuts on Van Halen’s debut album, 1978.

     

    8. Link Wray, Climbing A High Wall . . . He sings! Link Wray, I mean. Usually he just plays the instrumental shit out of his guitar, which he does here, too. The dean of distortion leans hard into this one from 1969’s Yesterday-Today album, a combo record of previous material on one side of the original vinyl and new, to that point, songs like Climbing A Wall on the other side.

     

    9. The Rolling Stones, Living In A Ghost Town . . . Stones’ pandemic single, issued in 2020 when everyone was under lockdown. A good song, regardless and to my knowledge and research, the last studio song by the band, to date, on which the late great drummer Charlie Watts appeared. The Stones played it as part of their set lists on their most recent, first tour without Watts, Steve Jordan now on the drum stool with Watts’s blessing.

     

    10. George Harrison, Brainwashed . . . Many years later, 2002, Harrison essentially channels old mate John Lennon’s lyrics from Working Class Hero from 1970 on this title cut from Harrison’s final studio album, issued after his death in 2001. The difference being, Harrison seems to perhaps see God as the ultimate answer where Lennon addressed that, too, in an obviously different way, in his own song titled God.

     

    11. Ian Hunter, Lisa Likes Rock ‘n’ Roll . . . Although this isn’t rock. It’s more Clash-ish reggae/dub/etc, not surprisingly as it comes from Hunter’s 1981 Short Back ‘n’ Sides album, produced by The Clash’s Mick Jones at a time Jones’ band was dabbling deeply into Caribbean island sounds.

     

    12. The Clash, Pressure Drop . . . Speaking of which, here’s the Clash’s cover of the Toots and The Maytals tune. A friend of mine was talking about the Clash version a fair bit of time back and I meant to eventually get to playing it on the show.

     

    13. Rockpile, Play That Fast Thing (One More Time) . . . A Nick Lowe-penned and sung tune from Seconds Of Pleasure, the one and only Rockpile album but not the only album the band recorded. What, you say? Well, Lowe and Dave Edmunds were the principals in the band and at one point in 1979, Rockpile backed Lowe on his Labour Of Lust album and also Edmunds on his Repeat When Necessary. I’m simplifying things in the interests of brevity but then they all reassembled for the one and only standalone Rockpile album, 1980’s Seconds Of Pleasure.

         

    14. Elton John, Your Sister Can’t Twist But She Can Rock and Roll . . . Speaking of fast songs . . .Here’s one of EJ’s fastest, from the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album. Elton came to mind via a recent chat with my two sons, one of whom is going to be in the UK in the new year and will be seeing EJ on his farewell tour.

     

    15. T. Rex, Hot Love . . . Interesting how things happen. I was watching a documentary on the dinosaur and it occurred to me I hadn’t played the band in a while.

     

    16. Gordon Lightfoot, Make Way For The Lady . . . Nothing necessarily to do with music but Gordon Lightfoot does, or did, pay his TV cable bill on an annual basis. How do I know this, as I related last week to my beer-drinking, chicken-wing scarfing fat-inducing weekly group of great pals I’ve foolishly (fitness wise) rejoined recently? Well, someone in the group raised the point of people maybe foolishly paying by the year. So I said, that may be true but you know, Gordon Lightfoot does – although I doubt he has to worry about financial concerns. At least he did pay annually, at one point up to recently and perhaps even now. I know he did at least at one point, because I briefly in my retirement had a part-time gig in a call center and, lo and behold, one afternoon who calls up to renew, not Gord himself but his wife. True story. As for the music, this beautiful song is from his 1980 album Dream Street Rose, a somewhat under the radar release in that it yielded no big hit singles and arguably marked the beginning of a commercial though not necessarily creative decline after 1978’s Endless Wire album.

     

    17. Iggy Pop, Nightclubbing . . . Inspiration comes from everywhere, quite often conversations, which is often a lot of the fun in putting together shows. A good buddy told me he had a crazy week so, out came a glass or two of his beverage of choice and on went the music. I’ve always said the best bands/artists ever are the ones you are listening to, right now, if you like them, because it’s all so subjective, rendering ‘best ever’ lists irrelevant, albeit interesting to discuss, in my view. So Iggy Pop’s The Idiot, which my friend recently purchased on a prized pristine vinyl copy, went on his platter so I figured I’d play this cut from the album in both his and Iggy’s honor. It’s a great album, The Idiot, not idiotic at all but rather creative, industrial in spots and interesting, David Bowie, Iggy’s pal, is on it, helped write some tunes.

     

    18. Otis Redding with Carla Thomas, Tramp . . . And then artist 2 inspiration from my friend. He was listening to an Otis live album which I don’t have, nor could I find it in the station computer so I went with this fun collaboration with the Queen of Memphis Soul.

     

    19. Queen, Get Down, Make Love . . . Long been one of my favorite Queen tracks from News Of The World and among all the great cuts in the band’s catalog. I couldn’t begin to describe it. Start, stop? Yes. Great drumming? Magnificent. Vocals? Progressive-type sounds? Yes. Ah, hell, you know it, listen to it. From back when albums were a thing and, among the great bands at least, every cut on a record was usually well worth listening to – hence deep cuts shows like mine.

         

    20. Pat Travers Band, Material Eyes . . . Somewhat experimental, musically, progressive in spots track. It’s from Travers’ Crash and Burn album. I saw him at a recent Kitchener Blues Festival. Good show.

     

    21. Bad Company, Master Of Ceremony . . . Another of those extended, groove-type pieces you’ll never likely find on a compilation and I’m not down on compilations by any stretch. I own my share. But this is a great example of a deep cut by a band that had many hit singles yet had much depth in its albums via tracks like this one from Burnin’ Sky.

         

    22. The Firm, Fortune Hunter . . . Here’s a similar track from the Bad Company singer, Paul Rodgers, during his 1980s teamup with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page for what became a two-album project. This Zep-like extended cut was on the second and final Firm album, Mean Business, in 1986. To me, it could easily have fit on Zep’s Presence album. It was written by Rodgers, Page and Chris Squire of Yes, who had collaborated on an unreleased demo of the track with Page for the aborted 1981 XYZ (for ex-Yes/Zeppelin) project that also included Yes drummer Alan White.

         

    23. Shirley Bassey, The Fool On The Hill . . . I’ve always loved Bassey’s Goldfinger, the theme song to the James Bond movie which I’ve played before and likely will again at some point. To wit, at one point I bought a CD featuring all the Bond themes, then decided I’d dig deeper and bought a Bassey compilation, of which this Beatles’ cover was part.

     

    24. Can, Spoon . . . They’re cracking down on plastic spoons in Canada soon. Here’s what the band Can thinks. No, not really. But anyway . . .

     

    25. April Wine, Mama Laye . . . Forever For Now, April Wine’s 1977 album, is a diverse release featuring country, blues, rock and this Caribbean-type track. The album had a sort of delayed effect, only gathering momentum months after its January release once radio and the public discovered what became the band’s biggest hit single to that point, You Won’t Dance With Me.

    26. Blackfoot, Road Fever (live) . . . Smoking hot live version from an album, Highway Song Live, that initially appeared only in the UK. It’s from an early 1980s tour by the southern rock stalwarts led by Rickey Medlocke. He was the drummer in an early version of Lynyrd Skynyrd, before they released an album, later becoming a full-time guitarist in the post-plane crash version of that band.

1. The Rolling Stones, Flip The Switch . . . One of those great kick butt album openers by the boys. At that point, it was 1997’s Bridges To Babylon album, the latest in a line of bracing opening tracks including Sticky Fingers’ Brown Sugar, Exile On Main St.’s Rocks Off, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll’s If You Can’t Rock Me, Start Me Up from Tattoo You and One Hit (To The Body) from Dirty Work. And then in 2005 came Rough Justice, from the band’s most recent but to this fan hopefully not last full album of original recorded material, A Bigger Bang.

2. Jefferson Airplane, Blues From An Airplane . . . Opening cut from the band’s debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, in 1966. Written and sung by Marty Balin, before Grace Slick joined the group. Signe Anderson was the female vocalist at the time – with powerful lead singing on the record’s Chauffeur Blues – before quitting to raise a family. Yeah, I know. Why didn’t I play Chauffeur Blues, then? Didn’t think about it. Soon, perhaps.

3. Status Quo, Paper Plane . . . Good rocker from the appropriately titled Pile Driver album. It made No. 8 on the UK singles charts.

4. The Kinks, Give The People What They Want . . . Title cut from the band’s 1981 album. I like the tune, great lyrics as always from Ray Davies, but I’m playing it deliberately to set up a request I had after last Monday’s show.

5. Ry Cooder, Tattler . . . That request was for some Ry Cooder. No song specified, so I randomly picked this one from Cooder’s 1974 album Paradise and Lunch, featuring his typically fine guitar work. Linda Ronstadt covered the tune, written by American gospel artist George Washington Phillips under the title You Can’t Stop A Tattler, as The Tattler on her 1976 album Hasten Down The Wind.

6. Bert Jansch, Angie . . . Wonderful acoustic guitar picking instrumental from the influential Scottish artist and founder of the band Pentangle.

7. The Doobie Brothers, Steamer Lane Breakdown . . . Aside from the song Takin’ It To The Streets, I’m not big into the Michael McDonald-fronted, massively commercially successful version of The Doobie Brothers. But there’s a track here and there amid what I consider largely schlock that I like, like this toe-tapper instrumental by founding and forever band member Patrick Simmons.

8. Black Oak Arkansas, Jim Dandy . . . He’s not a household name, especially all these years later from the band’s1970s heyday, but were it not for Black Oak frontman Jim “Dandy’ Mangrum, Van Halen’s David Lee Roth might never have existed, so to speak. Check out some old live clips of Black Oak Arkansas.

9. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Lost In The Ozone . . . One drink of wine, two drinks of gin, I’m lost in the ozone again.

10. Pete Townshend/Ronnie Lane, Nowhere To Run . . . From one of those albums, 1977’s Rough Mix, you pick up at random because you’re a Who and Faces fan and are endlessly rewarded for it to this day and forever. One of the best albums of all time, period.

11. Leon Russell, Out In The Woods . . . Love this funky gumbo type stuff.

12. Steve Winwood, Night Train . . . Such a talent. Winwood played every instrument on his breakthrough 1980 solo album Arc Of A Diver, from which this track comes.

13. Supertramp, Brother Where You Bound . . . Epic, 16-minute title track from the band’s 1985 album, the first after the split between chief songwriters Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, who departed for a solo career leaving Davies in charge. The group produced arguably a harder-edged album than some of the syrupy commercially-oriented material that had brought them mainstream success with Breakfast In America, and this song is indicative of that. David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame guests on guitar.

14. Danny Kirwan, Ram Jam City . . . Up-tempo ditty from the late former Fleetwood Mac guitarist’s debut solo album, Second Chapter, released in 1975.

15. Warren Zevon, Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead . . . From the Mr. Bad Example album, 1991. I was chatting with fellow music fan friends the other night, we were talking about great session players populating myriad albums and there he is, drummer Jim Keltner, on this track.

16. UFO, Mother Mary . . . Three words: Guitarist Michael Schenker.

17. Nick Lowe, Switchboard Susan . . . A minor hit single, in Canada at least, from Labour Of Lust, the album that got me into Lowe during my college days.

18. Headstones, Supersmart . . . Typical raunch and roll from one of my favorite bands, Canadian or otherwise.

19. Bob Dylan, Ballad Of A Thin Man . . . Because something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? Poor Mr. Jones. So much available literature on this song. Worth reading.

20. Junkhouse, Down In The Liver . . . Harrowing lyrics by Tom Wilson, the subject matter reminiscent of Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.

21. Rush, Cinderella Man . . . One of my favorite Rush songs, from probably my favorite Rush album, 1977’s A Farewell To Kings. It’s one of the few songs whose lyrics weren’t written by drummer Neil Peart after he joined the band after the debut album, replacing John Rutsey as the group went in a more progressive rock direction. Bassist/singer Geddy Lee wrote the words.

22. Kansas, The Pinnacle . . . American prog from a band likely best known to the masses for the hits Carry On Wayward Son and Dust In The Wind but a catalog with far more depth than those two excellent songs. Kansas is celebrating its 50^th anniversary (!) in 2023, with a comprehensive new 3-CD career-spanning compilation just out to mark the milestone. It covers from their first release up to their most recent studio work, the 2020 album The Absence of Presence.

23. King Crimson, Red . . . British prog. Sort of. The highly-influential Crimson is a bit of everything, really, isn’t it? Metal, hard rock, ballads, inventive progressive stylings, often all in the same song. It’s what’s made them consistently great, amid myriad lineups under the direction of leader Robert Fripp, since the debut album in 1969.

24. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Trilogy . . . More British prog, featuring beautiful piano from Keith Emerson on a track that eventually highlights the prowess of all the players including the ethereal vocals of Greg Lake.

25. The Beach Boys, Shut Down . . . OK, that’s enough. Here come The Beach Boys to shut down that indulgent prog stuff with a short rock and roller that was the B-side to Surfin’ USA and later a hit single in its own right.

26. T Bone Burnett, Kill Switch . . . Stones open with Flip The Switch. T Bone closes with Kill Switch. Outta here until Monday. Take care, all.

Set list with commentary follows the bare-bones list.

1. The Beatles, Taxman
2. Richie Havens, Here Comes The Sun
3. Love, You Set The Scene
4. Chet Atkins & Mark Knopfler, There’ll Be Some Changes Made
5. Doug and The Slugs, No No No (Nobody But Me)
6. The Guess Who, When The Band Was Singin’ Shakin’ All Over
7. Little Feat, Lafayette Railroad
8. Grand Funk Railroad, Sin’s A Good Man’s Brother
9. Hindu Love Gods, Raspberry Beret
10. Simon and Garfunkel, A Hazy Shade Of Winter
11. The Motels, Suddenly Last Summer
12. Procol Harum, Pandora’s Box
13. The Clash, Spanish Bombs
14. Flash and The Pan, War Games
15. Deep Purple, Sun Goes Down
16. The Rolling Stones, Take It Or Leave It
17. Joe Jackson, The Old Songs
18. Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode/Carol/Promised Land (Live, Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival 1969)
19. Canned Heat, Can’t Hold On Much Longer
20. The Steve Miller Band, Mercury Blues (Live at Monterey Pop Festival, 1967)
21. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Homemade Wine
22. Gerry Rafferty, Get It Right Next Time
23. Pink Floyd, Echoes
    
    Set list with my track-by-track tales: 
    1. The Beatles, Taxman . . . I read somewhere once where, during the early 1960s, Bob Dylan was talking to John Lennon and Dylan said that while he liked The Beatles, he told Lennon that ‘your songs don’t say anything’ because they were to that point what songs often typically are about, love and relationships. And that’s of course fine, and Dylan did and does write such songs too. But the slight criticism no doubt sparked Lennon, and The Beatles, to writing more topical, often politically-charged songs. Like this one, actually written by George Harrison, with some help on lyrics from Lennon and great and innovative musically with that ridiculously great guitar solo between 1:12 and 1:24, played by Paul McCartney. It’s the most effective sort of solo, too, in my view: short, compelling, leaves you wanting more which is often such a key to great art even though you want it to go on but in the end realize it’s better short, like CCR’s song Fortunate Son, for instance. Taxman (later covered by Stevie Ray Vaughan) was the lead cut on Revolver, which has recently been re-released in a big box set treatment, the latest in a series of such remastered/remixed Beatles re-releases.
    2. Richie Havens, Here Comes The Sun . . . Speaking of George Harrison, here’s Havens’ treatment of Harrison’s Abbey Road cut. Havens, who opened the Woodstock Festival (apparently wasn’t supposed to but other performers were stuck in traffic en route) to great acclaim, had that distinctive heavy acoustic guitar strumming that, to me at least, is instantly identifiable. A commenter on YouTube on this song perhaps put it best: “this is acoustic but it’s the most electric song I know.”
    3. Love, You Set The Scene . . . Another of my periodic digs into Love’s great Forever Changes album. It’s one of those records that is critically-renowned, didn’t sell much, one wonders what all the fuss is about, then one buys it and it’s like, OK, yeah, I get it, why wasn’t this massive commercially? Of course, then there are other critically-acclaimed albums one does that with and comes away with the thought, huh? The mysteries of life.
    4. Chet Atkins & Mark Knopfler, There’ll Be Some Changes Made . . . What a fun shuffle from the Neck and Neck 1990 album collaboration between the two great axemen. The song itself goes back a century, well worth reading up on, and has been covered by countless artists including Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett and in various styles and genres, often with adapted lyrics as on the Atkins-Knopfler version. Their extended take includes name-dropping Prince and Michael Jackson as well as fun references to their own songs and guitar playing. Just a great tune from a terrific album.

        

    5. Doug and The Slugs, No No No (Nobody But Me) . . . Written by members of The Isley Brothers, the track is one of the few cover tunes in the Slugs’ discography of which the vast majority were written by lead singer Doug Bennett. The Slugs’ version was the third single from Music For The Hard Of Thinking, released in 1982 but didn’t chart in Canada, although to me it’s arguably better than the Bennett-penned charting singles Who Knows How To Make Love Stay and Making It Work. I liked Doug Bennett’s work, and the album was nominated for a 1983 Juno Award although I’ll always prefer the debut release, Cognac and Bologna. And as I recall from a recent documentary I watched on the group, Doug and The Slugs and Me, by the Time Music For The Hard Of Thinking was released, the band members felt their creativity was being compromised by record company demands (a typical music industry story) and the decline set in although the original group continued on for several years, recording several more albums and backing the late Bennett on his solo album Animato, released in 1986. Bennett, a lifelong heavy drinker, died in 2004 of liver cirrhosis at age 52. By that point, the original band had long since broken up but Bennett was still fronting a rotating group of musicians, still billed as Doug and The Slugs. The original group reunited in 2009 and now does live shows with new lead singer Ted Okos. I highly recommend the documentary, which seems to be getting regular rotation on The Documentary Channel in Canada and apparently will get wider release on CBC TV sometime in 2023 and, hopefully, online.

        

    6. The Guess Who, When The Band Was Singin’ Shakin’ All Over . . . From 1975’s Power In The Music, the last album on which Burton Cummings sang lead vocals and featuring Domenic Triano on guitar in his second outing with The Guess Who, the first being the previous year’s Flavours album. The song references a time when, indeed, The Guess Who, then known as Chad Allan and The Expressions, had covered the Johnny Kidd and The Pirates’ tune, taking it to No. 1 in Canada in 1965.
    7. Little Feat, Lafayette Railroad . . . I feel like I’ve played this too recently. Ah, well, one can never get enough Little Feat, I say.
    8. Grand Funk Railroad, Sin’s A Good Man’s Brother . . . Last time I played a Grand Funk tune an old journalism pal good-naturedly ripped me but that’s the kind of thing the band itself dealt with from music snobs throughout their career. I like ’em – especially the earlier stuff – and ain’t apologizing.
    9. Hindu Love Gods, Raspberry Beret . . . In which Zevon and R.E.M.’s Bill Berry, Peter Buck and Mike Mills, who backed Zevon on his Sentimental Hygiene album in 1987 and were already a largely unrecorded R.E.M. side project, get drunk one night during the Hygiene sessions, record a bunch of blues standards and this Prince tune. It all came out three years later on the self-titled Hindu Love Gods album. I prefer the Love Gods’ reiterpretation but then while I respect him and have tried, I’ve really tried, I’ve just never ‘gotten’ Prince.

        

    10. Simon and Garfunkel, A Hazy Shade Of Winter . . . Interesting how you can be going through a band or artist’s work and immediately it’s like, oh yeah, this one. I know it was a top-20 hit, almost top 10 (No. 11 in Canada) but dunno, I had somewhat forgotten about it. Silly me. Here it is.
    11. The Motels, Suddenly Last Summer . . . I had The Motels on vinyl when I was out west in Alberta early 1980s but over time had gotten rid of the couple albums I owned. Then, a couple weeks ago, I was in my favorite friendly neighborhood record store and somebody had just dumped a pile of used CDs on them, including a Motels’ compilation. So, now I have the Motels again in my collection and yes I could just listen online and I do, but I still like owning physical copies. Anyway, I like this track which was a successful single but, perhaps contrary to some opinions, it has nothing to do with the Tennessee Williams play, nor the 1959 movie adapted from it, starring Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. Good flick. Pure coincidence, according to the Motels’ Martha Davis, who had not read the play nor seen the movie until long after the song was released.
    12. Procol Harum, Pandora’s Box . . . From Procol’s Ninth, signifying the band’s ninth album (eight studio works) to that point, 1975.
    13. The Clash, Spanish Bombs . . . My younger son has of late taken great interest in the histories of various wars and international relations that bred them, which led us to talking a bit about the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. It’s a conflict touched on, among other things, in this song from London Calling. So that’s probably why, unconsciously, I decided to play it, besides the fact anything from that album is, as the English soccer/football commentators say, quality.
    14. Flash and The Pan, War Games . . . From Headlines, 1982. Great lyrics.
    15. Deep Purple, Sun Goes Down . . . Kind of a heavy ballad, if that’s such a thing, from the 2003 album Bananas. It was the first to feature Don Airey on keyboards, with the blessing of Jon Lord, who had retired.

         

    16. The Rolling Stones, Take It Or Leave It . . . Back I go to my likely tiresome US/UK Aftermath/Between The Buttons/Flowers compilation discussion, as I’ve been mining those albums for Stones songs of late. It stems from back when track listings often differed depending on what country one was in. This song appeared on the UK version of Aftermath in 1966 but not on the version released in the colonies across the pond. I first heard it on the Flowers compilation put together by London Records, Decca’s North American distributor, that my older sister owned.
    17. Joe Jackson, The Old Songs . . . Another song that could be my theme song, along with Free’s Songs of Yesterday which I played recently. This is from JJ’s 1991 Laughter and Lust album, which came up in a discussion with friends last week. The lyrics are likely appropriate to many relationships including my long-over marriage. It sticks out because I saw the tour at Toronto’s Massey Hall with my then-wife but what started as a fun night went off the rails. Why? Well, we spent most of the day in Toronto, ate an early dinner then split up (before we actually split up 10 years later) to go shop our respective interests on Yonge St. Naturally, I went to Sam The Record Man where they happened to have a big sale on CDs, including those by The Rolling Stones, my favorite band. Bear in mind that back then, CDs were still new and expensive, but the store had the Stones’ stuff on for $10 each as I recall, so I bought 6 as I was in the process of replacing my vinyl. Ooh, that did not go over well. Here we were, combined making damn good money, but $60 plus tax was an undisciplined expense, apparently. And sure, I was let’s say a bit cavalier with money then but we never wanted for anything nor did our kids, you only live once and what, spend $60 for 6 or wait and spend, at the time, $20-$25 each, over time? I’ll take the bargain when it presents itself. Whatever. So, I got the silent treatment as we watched JJ from row 2 at Toronto’s Massey Hall. I still had fun. Turned out a solo ticket holder came down and sat beside me, he was a big JJ fan so we spent the evening chatting and enjoying. It pissed her off and we were talking again by the end. Ah, marriage/relationships.
    18. Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode/Carol/Promised Land (Live, Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival 1969) . . . Ever since Jerry Lee Lewis died a while ago and I played some tracks in tribute to him, plus a full live album on my Saturday show, I’ve really been back into the 1950s rock and roll greats. Like Chuck Berry, whose performance at the 1969 Toronto festival is now available on CD, which I picked up recently. Great medley, here, You can watch it, too, on YouTube where film of the performance – and Jerry Lee’s and Little Richard’s energetic sets at the same event – has long been available. This of course was the show, also with Chicago, Alice Cooper and The Doors among others, which featured John Lennon and his Plastic Ono Band, immortalized in film and on the Live Peace In Toronto album.
    19. Canned Heat, Can’t Hold On Much Longer . . . From Vintage, with the cool (or hot) cover of flames coming out of a can. I picked it up on CD recently. I’ve got two truly comprehensive Canned Heat compilations, one a 2-CD and the other a 3-CD version with not a lot of duplication, and Hooker N Heat, their collaboration with John Lee Hooker. So I’ve really seen no need to get the other individual albums but I saw this in a used rack and had to have it, largely for sentimental reasons in memory of my late older brother. He was such a musical influence on me, as I often mention in these missives, and who I remember having the record on vinyl. RIP, Rob.
    20. The Steve Miller Band, Mercury Blues (Live at Monterey Pop Festival, 1967) . . . Way different than the slower, recorded version on his later album Fly Like An Eagle and different again from perhaps the most well-known version by David Lindley. All three versions are well worth a listen.
    21. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Homemade Wine . . . Best known for Jackie Blue (great song which actually is arguably uncharacteristic of the band’s output) and If You Wanna Get To Heaven, the Daredevils are so much more than those two songs and worth checking out for their countryish southern rock. A great toe-tapper, this one. And, speaking of homemade wine, 3 things. 1. Forget it, buy from the liquor store. 2. My late uncle made his own, got better over the years but still, buy it from the liquor store. 3. Had a neighbor once, made wine and beer. Offered it to my then-wife and I. Great guy. But again: buy it from the liquor store. Sorry, I’m sure there are great home wine makers, distillers and brewers but I’ve yet to experience any such product.
    22. Gerry Rafferty, Get It Right Next Time . . . Speaking of drink, another victim, sadly. Anyway, great tune from his 1979 Night Owl album, was a successful single and I’m going to stop saying I rarely play singles because while this is a deep cuts show, I do play singles – just ones that may not have been massive hits or that you, me or we haven’t heard in ages. Like this one. Great stuff from a period when the former Stealers Wheel member was enjoying great solo success with 1978’s City To City album and its 1979 follow-up Night Owl, the two albums featuring such great singles as Baker Street, Right Down The Line (both from City To City), Days Gone Down (Still Got The Light In Your Eyes) and Get It Right Next Time (from Night Owl).
    23. Pink Floyd, Echoes . . . Always good to have a 23-minute cut in hand when you’re behind on the day, rushing to put the show together and need to fill time. But it’s not just for that reason I’m playing Echoes (again). I love the track, most people do, how could you not, and I was discussing the Meddle album with an old friend and work colleague the other day. So, here we go.

Three classics for this Saturday: Elvis Costello’s 1977 debut My Aim Is True, The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet from 1968 and Lou Reed’s Transformer, from 1972.

Elvis Costello – My Aim Is True

1. Welcome To The Working Week
2. Miracle Man
3. No Dancing
4. Blame It On Cain
5. Alison
6. Sneaky Feelings
7. Watching The Detectives (UK single, added as last track on original side one of North American vinyl release)
8. (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
9. Less Than Zero
10. Mystery Dance
11. Pay It Back
12. I’m Not Angry
13. Waiting For The End Of The World

The Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet

1. Sympathy For The Devil
2. No Expectations
3. Dear Doctor
4. Parachute Woman
5. Jigsaw Puzzle
6. Street Fighting Man
7. Prodigal Son
8. Stray Cat Blues
9. Factory Girl
10. Salt Of The Earth

Lou Reed – Transformer

1. Vicious
2. Andy’s Chest
3. Perfect Day
4. Hangin’ ‘Round
5. Walk On The Wild Side
6. Make Up
7. Satellite Of Love
8. Wagon Wheel
9. New York Telephone Conversation
10. I’m So Free
11. Goodnight Ladies