Old Enough to Forget

I've had so many records to go through (I still have a couple of piles to play) that I've not really taken the time to root around on the streaming side of things. Recently my Aunt Jeanne, the cool aunt from my childhood who introduced me to a lot of cool music, was in town. We sat in the back yard and talked about old music. Well, I talked and she listened. She's still the cool aunt. It started with me reminiscing about Vanity Fare's "Hitchin' a Ride" a 45 she had when I was a kid. I played that single over and over and over on a little suitcase player, and that song still hits me in the feels. She then mentioned a band she liked that was a little different but was probably so obscure they'd been forgotten, but they were cool. It took her a moment to get the name of the band from her long term memory but eventually she came up with Goose Creek Symphony. She said they did a great version of "(Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me a) Mercedes Benz" and...

"Whisper to a Scream" was one of those songs that was so good once it got under your skin it stayed there. I also recall buying the album and listening to the it all the way through probably a grand total of one time, then passing judgment: in these grooves there be nothing but filler. So on this instalment of A Streaming Pile of Hit - where you put the "s" in hit is up to you, I present for my revisionist listening pleasure the 1984 debut album from The Icicle Works, coincidentally also called The Icicle Works . Since I lost my original copy, this was an album I wanted to find on vinyl. Over the last few years I've come up empty. It's not like I was trying super hard, but I looked. Every so often I'd hear "Whisper to a Scream" and think, there had to be more to the band than just this one song. So I kept looking ... until I gave up and just found it on my streaming service. Why not? It doesn't have to be hard, and while there are a lot o...

Time for another edition of A Streaming Pile of Hit - where you put the "s" in hit is up to you. This time we go deep into the vat of cheese and dip into The Osmonds. Yeah you read this right. The Osmonds baby, and this is worth your time - really. Months ago I found a double album of material by the Osmonds. From the brothers to Donnie and Marie. It was a terrible cover, but on the inside were some surprises. Especially the stuff from the early '70s. I figured why not revisit Crazy Horses this looked like it had the potential to be awesome or awful. Far from being the joke you think you know the punchline to, there was a time these guys were the real deal. The album opens with "Hold Her Tight" a hard rocking song with a heavy driving riff that bears more than a passing resemblance to "The Immigrant Song" released in 1970 by Led Zeppelin. The difference being the smoking horn section and the talk box licks. Heavy metal wasn't a thing yet and whi...

Here we have an album I always looked back on fondly. Digging up the Outlaws on this instalment of A Streaming Pile of Hit - where you put the "s" in hit is up to you.  Los Hombres Malo from 1982 would be the pretty much the end of the line for The Outlaws. I was pretty late to the party having jumped on with their previous release and really didn't know a whole lot about southern rock, and even less about their countrified hybrid. I knew what I liked, and I liked guitars, and these boys were all about guitars. I know that Hughie Thomasson get's a lot of love for his playing, but Freddie Salem was no slouch. Sadly Billy Jones had left the band, and was dealing with personal issues, and eventually he'd succumb to his demons. However, here the band was delivering some pretty heavy riffs, while still managing to incorporate the band's blend of rock and country. The opening track, Freddie Salem's "Don't Stop" is still one of my favourite Outla...

Time for another edition of A Streaming Pile of Hit - where you put the "s" in hit is up to you.  Not sure why I've been going back to the old CCM stuff that I was particularly enamoured with back in the day. Rick Cua had been playing bass in The Outlaws, most notably on a coupe of their later albums: Ghost Riders (1980)  and Los Hombres Malo (1982) and when he dropped Koo'-ah in 1982 I was really looking forward to hearing it. It's weird that this is listed as being from 1985 ... I can't make heads or tails out of where the dates come from. After all both Hughie Thomasson, Billy Jones as well as Freddie Salem from The Outlaws were playing guitar on the album (and killing it by the way), and former Wings drummer Joe English was featured on several tracks. If nothing else there was some pedigree on the album. The songs though were mostly middle of the road, with a little extra punch here and there. I remember wanting to like this more than I did. The songs ...

A Streaming Pile of Hit - where you put the "s" in hit is up to you.  Yeah, a number of months ago I figured I'd get a subscription to a streaming service. Why not? Oh I still have a lot of records to go through, and if that were to get dull I have a few thousand CDs but streaming was that last uncharted frontier for me.  There's something awesome and also sort of mind numbing about being able to just have just about everything at your fingertips. For me it's being able to find the gaps in a lot of my collection, or to revisit things I used to have but haven't heard in years, sometimes decades. It's also being able to discover new stuff without having to wait. The biggest kick with records is finding those treasures that have been forgotten, truly forgotten - there's no second life in the cloud - they have been cut off and left for dead. It's bittersweet but kind of rewarding, but mostly sad knowing that you are among the last ears to bear witness...