AC/DC, Let There Be Rock . . . There was fifteen million fingers, learning how to play . . .
Headstones, Absolutely . . . First of a few today from bands/artists that will be playing at this week’s Kitchener Blues Festival. Love these Canadian rockers.
The Kinks, Holiday . . . Holiday Monday in Canada, hence this one from the Kinks’ brilliant and to me best overall album, Muswell Hillbillies, 1971. It bombed, inexplicably, to me. No big hit singles the likely reason.
Steve Earle and The Del McCoury Band, Texas Eagle . . . This one’s for my old high school and college chum, who goes by 4C, a clever play on his surname. He’s a big Steve Earle fan, and I like Earle a lot too but did not have The Mountain album, a bluegrass record. I do have it now, and it’s terrific. Whenever I think of bluegrass music I think of being in college, late 1970s and going to the Carlisle, Ontario bluegrass festival with a couple buddies. None of us were bluegrass fans at the time we just went for the party. We had planned to drink Purple Jesus (alcool and grape juice) but forgot the funnel to mix the booze with the juice, so we just passed the alcool bottle back and forth, got totally shitfaced on what is essentially 95 per cent booze, and spent most of the weekend sleeping it off. We might have heard some music.
The Rolling Stones, Blinded By Rainbows . . . I’m reading a thriller novel and the hero is talking about Semtex bombs. So it tweaked my brain to this Stones’ song, about the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland but could be about any war. Compelling, thought-provoking anti-war lyrics sung forcefully by Mick Jagger, a nice guitar solo by Ronnie Wood and the late great Charlie Watts’ drumming propel the song.
David Wilcox, Breakfast At The Circus . . Played Wilcox last week, and he’s coming to Kitchener for the blues festival again, so here you go.
Tim Curry, Charge It . . . It’s 1979, I’m in Sam The Record Man on Yonge St. in Toronto and this song comes on in the store. I had no idea, to that point, that Tim Curry released albums/songs other than his time as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, of which I was a big fan. So, the Fearless album became an instant impulse buy and I wound up getting all of Curry’s stuff.
Queen, Bring Back That Leroy Brown . . . I played Tenement Funster/Flick Of The Wrist/Lily Of The Valley from Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack album recently so, to quote the title of an obscure but good Stones’ song I should play sometime, Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind, the Queen album stuck in my mind. So here’s a nice little up-tempo ditty from that record. Which, naturally, leads to . . .
Jim Croce, Lover’s Cross . . . Another beautiful ballad from the late great artist.
Drive-By Truckers, Marry Me . . . Last in today’s series from acts appearing at this week’s Kitchener Blues Festival. I had an interesting chat with the owner of my favorite local – and likely the world’s best – music store late last week, lamenting the fact the festival has the Truckers and Headstones, two acts I want to see, on at practically the same time. Headstones start a half hour after the Truckers do. No, he said, that’s actually brilliant scheduling and come to think of it, as we wound up agreeing, he’s right. “Start with the Truckers; you’ll get bored after half an hour, then go to Headstones.” And he wasn’t crapping on the Truckers, merely suggesting, correctly, that I really like Headstones better, but want to see Truckers, so I’ll dip into them for a bit, then go see the H-Stones. Well, it made sense during our conversation, anyway. Ha! But seriously, folks, that’s the thing about a festival, you cruise . . . In any event, if the Truckers play this up-tempo guitar showcase, who knows, I might stay for their whole set. And they do have cool album covers.
Blood, Sweat & Tears, Children Of The Wind . . . A typical blast of horns introduces this one from a band that, along with Chicago and Lighthouse, really brought jazz-rock fusion to the fore in the early 1970s.
Gary Moore, Drowning In Tears . . . Moore dabbled in many genres during his too-short life and career both as a sometime member of Thin Lizzy, and otherwise. Rock, metal, blues, to which he returned for this slow-burning epic, from his Back To The Blues album, released in 2001.
Television, Marquee Moon . . . Title cut from one of those ‘influence’ albums raved about by music critics that I just never ‘got’ until one day a few years ago. I was in a used CD store and they had this track playing. I asked the clerk who it was, since it had never before resonated with me and I had long since traded the Television album in for, who knows, cash or some Slayer thrash/speed metal album I needed to help get me through blizzards on Ontario’s highway 401 when I was commuting to work before the marriage breakup. Anyway, I rebought the album specifically for this epic track with the cool, hypnotic guitar and go figure but somehow, I ‘get’ it all now about this record. Weird how that can work, particularly since the album came out in 1977, I was deep into all the new wave and punk stuff that was big then, yet somehow missed the boat on Television. Better late than never.
Rush, 2112 . . . Playing lots of long tracks today. This is the longest – the epic title cut. To quote the Quint character memorably played by Robert Shaw in Jaws: “You get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.” All 20:34 of it. Long, for sure, but epic, never boring and embodies all that Rush was.
Atomic Rooster, Death Walks Behind You . . . My favorite Atomic Rooster song, played it before but playing it again today because I was inspired by hearing it this past week in a local used bookstore I frequent. That’s what I love about independent stores be they books, music, whatever. The people running them do as they wish, play what they want and so on, no corporate BS rules or whatever, because when has anyone ever heard anything other than Muzak or some hits playlist in a mainstream store of any kind, unless it’s sort of after hours late? I say that because I recall one time being in a chain grocery store, a 24-hour outlet or at least one that was open until 11 pm or so and hearing AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie blasting over the sound system because the young staff was in charge on the night shift. I saw one of the youngish clerks, gave him the thumb’s up. I remember thinking, all we need now is the ‘mom’ in Frank Zappa’s Joe’s Garage to yell “turn it down!”.
Deep Purple, You Keep On Moving . . . Great cut from the one and only great album Purple did with Tommy Bolin on guitar, Come Taste The Band, 1975. Bolin was replacing Ritchie Blackmore, who had bailed to form Rainbow as he didn’t like what he termed Purple’s ‘shoe shine music’ direction fostered, in Blackmore’s mind, by the likes of bassist Glenn Hughes. Which has always perplexed me. Not that I give too many shits about it but I am a huge Deep Purple fan and Blackmore was the acknowledged leader, he got Hughes in the band, he played guitar, he was great on the previous (his last) Stormbringer album that he didn’t like . . . so if he didn’t like the direction why wasn’t he stronger in directing the band back to what he thought they ought to be? Sounds to me like he preferred to just bitch about it, but that’s Blackmore, the mercurial genius. Whatever. Great song. Purple would never have done it with Blackmore.
Groundhogs, Split (Parts 1-4) . . . Epic 20 minutes from the English blues rock band, something of an underground act but well known to music aficionados. Split can be consumed separately, in each of its parts, as separate songs of 4-5 minutes each, or as I’m presenting it today in its full form in all its hard rock, blues and progressive rock glory. And on that note, I’m splitting outta here. Thanks for listening and following.