Old Enough to Forget

I was dragged to the mall so my wife could do some returns . What she says is, "I bought a bunch of stuff and am taking it back." What she means is, "Everything that fit is still upstairs in the closet." Oh well. Our mall has one of those money laundering stores that sells posters and music. I have no idea how these places keep the lights on. With the resurgence of vinyl they actually have a decent selection, but boy howdy I am not paying thirty to sixty dollars for a new record that I paid ten for back in the day. However, the last couple of times I've been in there's a little section of clearance items, and lately clearance means 75% off. Which means this is more often than not a lot cheaper than buying a decent used record. The last couple of times I've actually taken chances on newish stuff, and the other day guess what was staring up at me? Why it was Melissa Etheridge of all people. Not that long ago I'd spent quite a while revisiting her debu...

Journey released Frontiers in '83 and the band was messing around with their winning recipe. The band had always been good, but the addition of Jonathan Cain, who took over keyboards from Gregg Rolie after 1980's Departure  gave the band an extra gear. Jonathan co-wrote all of the songs on Frontiers except for "Faithfully" which he brought to the band. Heck he was all over Escape too, but that's another story. You can read it here if you want ... or not. The band had gone diamond with Escape , a nearly impossible feat to replicate and I'm sure there was more than a little tension in the studio as they cut the tracks. I know that Journey was supposed to be Neal's band (according to Neal), and in many ways it is, but when Steve Perry arrived it was Neal and Steve, and then with Jonathan he became the third leg of the milking stool. I'm not dismissing Ross or the other Steve. Those guys were integral to the band's sound ... right up to when they weren...

I've sort of slept on this one for decades. Oh don't get me wrong I bought this when it came out. I actually got  Diamond Sun first and then worked backwards to the band's debut. It was "I'm Still Standing" that jumped out of the speakers the first time I heard it. I've always been a sucker for an acoustic intro, in this case a simple 12 string chord progression that suddenly blows up into a fantastic rock song. The album was good and I pulled "I'm Still Standing" off a couple of times to populate mix tapes. I gave the record a couple of cursory spins, enjoyed it and then put in on the shelf.  I recently found the album and figured, "Why not?" I must have been in a receptive mood when I dropped the needle: "Holy shit, this is awesome." I said. Then someone asked,  "Tell me are you a fan child?" And I said, "Yeah, I am tonight." - with apologies to Mister Marc Cohn  Glass Tiger was one of those band w...

Stealing Fire released in '84 was one of those rare albums that managed to be as awesome as it was perplexing. Despite my mixed reactions to some of his stuff there was a slice of time during the '80s where I kept up with him in real time. I know there's a shit load of love for his 1979 hit "Wondering Where the Lions Are" and despite his appearance playing the song on SNL I never really like it all that much. Oh it got under my skin in the same way that Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown" irritated me as a kid. In a scene worthy of Python where they're accusing Connie Booth of being a witch, I had been a musical newt ... I got better. Although I still revert from time to time. Regardless, I think the point I was trying to make before I distracted myself by thinking of Monty Python, was that for a little while I considered myself a fan, still do - just a tad more casual and less invested than some. I started my journey with T he Trouble with Normal , an...

After four albums it was time for the mandatory live record. Coming on the heels of Pat Benatar's Get Nervous Tour she released an odd hybrid album titled Live from Earth . The album was 80% live and two new studio tracks: the awesome "Love is a Battlefield" and the throwaway "Lipstick Lies" that is perplexingly bland. The band here was tight, Neil Geraldo on guitar, Myron Grombacher on drums, Roger Capps on bass and Charlie Giordano on keyboards. Neil runs the band through its paces, and for the most part the results are pretty decent, and in a couple of instances spectacular. His guitar tone at times was questionable and overly processed, but heck it was the early '80s and that was a thing. At the time it was cool. The album as you'd expect mines a little more from her latest album, but that's not a bad thing, it was top of mind to her audience. What was weird though was the omission of "Shadows of the Night" one of the best songs from th...

REO Speedwagon was back in '84 with Wheels are Turnin' and indeed the wheels were still turning. They may not have been able to attain the giddy heights they achieved with their 1980 release Hi Infidelity . It was an impossibly high bar, but REO Speedwagon had enough momentum to be able to crank out double platinum albums back to back. First with Good Trouble and again with Wheels are Turnin' .  I saw the video once for the lead off single "I Do' Wanna Know" and thought it was hilarious ... I never saw it again, and I don't think I heard it very often on the radio. However when they dropped "Can't Fight This Feeling" was a huge hit and seemed to be on the radio all the time. It's a song I still like. Heck, if you're going to write a syrupy sucky ballad this is how you do it. Gary Richrath seemed to revel in laying down rock solos on everything the band recorded. Slow song. Cool. Time to melt a face or two. One rock solo comin' u...

"Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to the Universal Amphitheater. Well, here it is the late 1970's going on 1985. Y'know so much of the music we here today is pre-programmed electronic disco, we never get a chance to hear master blues men practicing their craft anymore. By the year 2006, the music known today as the blues will exist only in the classical records department of your local public library. So tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen, while we still can, let us welcome from Rock Island, Illinois, the blues men of Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues - The Blues Brothers." - Elwood Blues As a kid I remember seeing them on SNL and they were amazing. I was a tad perplexed as I thought there would be a punchline ... this wasn't a joke. This was reverence and it may have been wrapped in a performance piece, but this was serious stuff and it was delivered like a love letter. From what I've read it was Dan Aykroyd who was the music aficionado, and introduced Jo...

Back to the Egg was supposed to be the return to form for Wings. Released in the summer of '79 all I remember about this album is the cover. One of the older guys (I think he was maybe 22 or 23 if that) I worked with that summer said he heard it and didn't think much of it. It was a casual comment that stuck. It would be the last album attributed to Wings. Over the years I've picked up a few albums by Wings and they've always been sort of hit and miss for me. There was a joke in the '70s that kids were too young to remember the Beatles and to them Paul McCartney was that guy who had been in Wings. Over time Wings became a footnote, and any of the classic songs by Wings were assimilated by Paul McCartney, the guy who was once in The Beatles. He was chief cook and bottle washer relegating Wings to a supporting role that was merely comprised to a floating cast of characters. It's strange how pissy I get with Wings. The number of truly amazing songs they produced o...

A year after "Eruption" changed everything Van Halen dropped their follow up aptly titled Van Halen II . For me this was my actual introduction to the band. The summer of '79 I turned 16 and I had been sent off to the Bowron Lakes to work with the Park Service's Youth Crew. It was an amazing summer, and while I didn't bring any music along with me, I did bring my guitar. Others though did bring music, and that summer I was introduced to Styx and Van Halen II. I heard Rush for the first time when someone played "Bastille Day" and I loved it. We also argued about Journey's "Wheel in the Sky" just being a lame rip off of "Layla" and we all agreed that disco sucked, but "Heart of Glass" by Blondie and "Driver's Seat" by Sniff 'n' the Tears got a free pass. We also agreed that we all loved "My Sharona" at one time but were thoroughly sick of it. Van Halen was cool. It was the perfect blend of r...

I had no idea who Walter Rossi was when I picked up Diamonds for the Kid . The name felt familiar, but I was probably confusing him with Gary Rossington. Who knows, I can't figure out how my brain works. Frankly it was the cover that caught my attention. My goodness that cream Les Paul Custom looked so cool. The Bigsby B7 and the missing middle pick up and the distinctive pots and mystery switch just looked awesome. There was Walter standing impatiently, looking a little like Al Di Meola (it reminded me of the Elegant Gypsy cover without the woman in black), with his hands on his hips with his shirt unzipped, probably down to his belt buckle, giving the camera a look that could wilt flowers and scare children. He may have looked like a middle aged guy with thinning hair who had seen it all and kept the receipts but he was only thirty three years old at the time. Walter was, as you may have guessed from the cover, a guitar player. In the '60s he earned his stripes playing with W...

Switchfoot is a band I've been long curious about. I know they have a tenuous connection to the Christian music machine and that at one time they were a pretty big deal. Heck their 2000 release Learning to Breathe went gold when they were on Sparrow records* a smaller imprint without the benefit of corporate muscle outside the weird Christian bookstore model. Their next album The Beautiful Letdown was distributed to the great unwashed outside of the CCM bubble by SONY BMG back in 2003 and the band went triple platinum. Kind of a holy shit moment for them I'm sure. A couple years after that Nothing Is Sound would be their highest charting album on the Billboard 200 reaching #3 but the album would only go gold ... only , sheesh most acts would love a gold record. As time went on each album would sell fewer copies than the copy before. They'd change labels a few times, and in 2021  interrobang would be their second album on Fantasy Records. I wonder if they asked John Foger...

This was the shit when I was a kid. The album was legendary, and the two killers "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" were so good they were essentially career defining. I could stop right now and that would be enough. Mic drop and walk off.  ... I'm back.  I wanted to just jot down a few things because it's sort of my thing. It may be worth it. Maybe not, you never know ... this isn't a cheese shop, I could be deliberately wasting your time. Regardless, pull up a chair, or at least watch where you're walking if you're on your phone. I have vague memories of the cool kids talking about the song "A.C.D.C." and "Sweet F.A." and then giggle knowingly. I didn't have the album and I never heard them so I wasn't in on the joke. I knew what the album looked like. I would see it when I would browse through records dreaming about what I'd like to buy. Even then it was a long list ... it seemed long to me at the time. That ...