Played Cream Of The Crap Volume 1 on my flight from Chicago to Philly tonight. This song makes me want to hijack the plane every time. First the orig, then the Hellas. Notes:
1) The Victims has a clever vocal (guy from Hoodoo Gurus – never knew that) and a cool guitar sound. Hellacopters rocks it exponentially maniacally (as usual). “Rocks like a moose” says a youtube comment (Provocative Moose perhaps?).
2) If you’re not sick of this chorus by the end of these two plays, you’re a better man than I.
3) Old people music.
4) Guy next to me started watching the football game tonight on his tablet, which was extra good along with Cream. Then he switched to Food channel. Really?
1. Bluesy-riffy guitar.
2. Another bluesy-riffy guitar playing at the same time.
3. Repetitive, droning chord pattern.
4. Screamy/melodic high-pitched vocal.
5. Bashing, driving drums, such that make one want to march.
6. Wah-wah. (Does any popular music these days use wah-wah?)
All of which are featured on the debut track of Graveyard’s debut album, which I got with my Amazon birthday gift card. I got six CDs and this is the one I want to play most.
Things to look forward to:
Still one Graveyard album I don’t yet have. God I hope – even though they seem kind of tame live – they don’t break up before they tour the US again. (Discovered them shortly after they went home after playing Coachella.)
I came to Black Sabbath late. Took me until my 20s to discover them. I think, as a churchgoing young lad, they scared me. Then, while I was in the throes of punk, I got away from stoner music for a while.
So it took me a long time – first Paranoid, then Masters of Reality. I didn’t even get the first album until a few years ago. But they are all excellent.
I was kind of aware that it never gets better than those first three, but, with a recent birthday Amazon gift card music haul I included Black Sabbath Vol 4.
Now I know why there’s no reason to venture from the first three. Granted, there’s some good stuff on 4, but geez, to get through this? Not worth it.
How do you go from “Into The Void” to this in the space of one album? And what makes rockers want to write dippy tunes like this? My ex-wife always wanted me to write a song for her and I was always like, “I can’t write crap like that.” I guess that’s why I’m divorced.
I guess I identify with Bon Scott who told the story of his wife asking him to write her a love song. He said, “So I wrote ‘She’s Got Balls’ and she divorced me.”
I often forget how much I love The Raspberries. I kind of think on the whole they kick the snot out of the other Beatle-y first wave of power poppers – Badfinger, Big Star, etc.
Eric Carmen (try to forget solo Eric Carmen) is a fantastic singer, Wally Bryson is a fantastic harmonizer and occasional lead vocalist (like on this one). Wally’s guitar is clever and often rips. The drummers – both of them – are primo Keith Moon minus the annoying over-the-top.
The Rasps made four albums and an argument can be made that each album got a little better than the last. Don’t know any other band I can even begin to say that about.
Had to go to NYC today on business and picked Raspberries (actually the fairly recent reunion “Live On Sunset Strip” which is quite good for oldsters recreating old memories) on the bus ride home.
This is my personal favorite in the category of band-breaking-up song. From their final album:
Why don’t they just officially change the name at this point?
Music hasn’t been a big part of Shandlerfest for me, but this song stands out.
My usual crew were cruising Scottsdale looking for something new a few years ago when we stumbled into a new bar that had just opened. Shotgun Betty’s was a rock ‘n’ roll misogynist dream – top-notch beautiful girls in the skimpiest of daisy dukes alternating between pole dancing and bartending, with loud, mostly classic rock blaring. It’s wasn’t a strip bar, “classier” I guess and the girls were all enthusiastic and friendly. We went there every night of that particular trip.
Unfortunately, the next time we got there (spring or fall, I forget), the top-notch beautiful girls weren’t there anymore, replaced with unenthusiastics and unfriendlies. We stop maybe once every couple of trips anymore, but the place never comes close to that original visit.
This song caught my ear that first night and perhaps gets at a little of what Peter always talks about with the in-the-moment bar setting, although I’d happily listen to this at home too. Nothing original here, owing completely to “LaGrange” and “Boom Boom” and surely a million other Delta bluesmen on stools. But it sure is nice to see a bunch of average-looking guys in drab clothes kicking the shit out of what the usual Hot Topic Adam Levine lookalikes with generic tribal tattoos (oooh) and earrings in their lips (aaah) are doing.
Unfortunately, I’ve explored more Clutch and I don’t think anything else compares to this either:
Even though you are verbose and some of your music sucks.
In your absence, I’ll post one of my all-time favorite vids. Not actually the cherished Turbonegro Ass Cobra version, this is a cover by The Real McKenzies (with bagpipes). I dare you to watch just once.
Chose this Top 50 classic for my errand run last night. Was particularly touched by this tasty brontosaurus burger of a riff. If you wanna call this the greatest riff of all-time, I will not argue.
To this, I like to imagine my team lumbering over the rest of the league’s dead, decaying bodies in the XFL at the conclusion of the 2015 season.
