Old Enough to Forget

Money and Cigarettes , Eric Clapton's 1983 album is one of those neither fish nor fowl releases. As a kid Eric Clapton was one of those has beens who was a big deal in the late '60s and early '70s but his output through the rest of the decade to me was spotty. I actively disliked "I Shot the Sheriff" and thought "Cocaine" was stupid. I couldn't see the appeal to "Wonderful Tonight" although my buddy Gord loved it and it was his wedding song. I'm probably just strengthening the argument that I'm just an unwashed Luddite who has no idea which end of a telephone pole goes in the ground. I suppose I should have just said I wasn't really a fan of a lot of Eric's solo work and left it at that.  So why buy this at all? I found it for a buck, and I may not have been much of a fan, but come on - it's Eric Clapton and whether I'm a fan or not the guy is a legend. Besides I'll admit to really liking his late career resurgen...

My only real exposure to Shakin' Stevens comes courtesy of his Christmas song "Merry Christmas Everyone," a truly festive earworm and one that seems to be in constant rotation on Christmas FM out of Ireland when they fire up for their annual broadcast in December. I'm a sucker for rockabilly, and Shakin' Stevens was definitely channelling his inner Elvis Fonzarelli. Just take a look at that smirking, pompadour-sporting, Animal House-era Tim Matheson lookalike. Which is not a shot, not at all . The album itself didn't have any notes, and likely didn't have any to begin with. You Drive Me Crazy is one of those strange North American releases that cobbled together songs from a few of his UK releases specifically to harvest the best tracks and hopefully make an impact with the duller and less sophisticated North American audiences. I'm sure that's not the case, but it would be nice to just have the albums intact to the artist's vision. Regardless,...

A new-to-me release. Many years ago I picked up Romeo Unchained and Notes from the Lost Civilization (not in that order), mainly because they were on WHAT?/A&M, where Mark Heard's iDEoLA project was released. So I figured it was a guilty-by-association sort of thing. It was an indie label after all, so that had to mean something. I remember liking Notes from the Lost Civilization , but honestly, I was getting so much music back then that unless something really blew my hat off, I gave it a listen or two and then filed it away. Here I am years later, and up pops a rather water-damaged copy of Life in the Foodchain . It made me sad looking at it. The vinyl was in surprisingly good shape, but any liner notes and credits were long lost to the gods of misplaced socks. Still, this was an album I had always been curious about, so I brought it home, where it joined the queue of treasures waiting for a turn(table). I popped it on, and the title track was cranked in the cave (everyone w...