Old Enough to Forget

File under: TLDR Note to the reader. First sorry, second not really, but I am sorry I don't have the ability to edit. Oh happy Valentine's day.  To celebrate let's take a gander at Meat Loaf's 1977 Bat Out of Hell. Over forty three million people disagree with me but for decades I thought this album was, and continues to be, one giant disappointment. I'll be the first to admit that despite decades of baggage the overwhelming power of nostalgia managed to erode even the hardest of convictions and I found that Bat Out of Hell was one of those albums I wanted to have in my collection, but I wasn't looking all that hard. It was an album I knew more about than I actually knew about. So at this moment in time I'm still holding firm on my long held opinion. But before I get into things, it's time for some meanderambling blurbage ... I remember seeing the cover when I was a kid and thinking it was the single greatest cover I had ever seen. What wonders were to b...

Eight miles high and still going. If I had a Byrds album this is where I'd have put it. Mainly so I could shit on that song and it's horrid 12 string guitar work that everyone else thinks is spectacular. It's the same sound my kids made when they'd get their hand stuck under the strings when they'd mess around in my music room. Anyway, before I drift too far off point. This month is mostly familiar names this time around. Funny I was pulling stuff from the to be filed pile and although bands like The Edgar Winter Group and Wishbone Ash were relatively new experiences for me, it was fun to revisit the Paul Janz album and finally get a chance to go through the final and much maligned J. Geils release. Then of course there's SAGA - man I love SAGA.  Five For Fighting No. 8 The Edgar Winter Group - Shock Treatment (1974) Wishbone Ash - Locked In (1976) Paul Janz - High Strung (1985) The J. Geils Band - You're Gettin' Even While I'm Gettin' Odd (1...

Look at that, six months in, and I'm keeping up with my once a month schedule of dropping five snapshots of albums I've found. This time around it's another mixed bag of goodies, these are all new to me, which is generally a lot of fun. I finally picked up Stan Meissner's debut, and it was a nice score. I also found more Edgar Winter albums, and continue to go down the Rick Derringer rabbit hole - the man was a monster player and while not underrated he was certainly under appreciated by the masses. Probably my favourite album this time out, was finally connecting with Ian Thomas' debut album from 1973 what an incredible album. Yeah, full props to "Painted Ladies" and the drama about the hit that never was, but there is so much more to this Canadian icon. I worry that he will be nothing more than a footnote as time passes as the majority of his work remains out of print and only to be found my looking for old vinyl. Criminal, I say. Shame . shame - shame. ...

1972 was a good year for Mister Winter. In the spring he released Roadwork (which I really liked) and then that fall he'd release They Only Come out at Night with his new band The Edgar Winter Group. The group would feature a young Dan Hartman on vocals, bass, and guitar and a lot of other stuff (he was a wunderkind, his picture looks like it a yearbook photo), and Ronnie Montrose on guitar - a year later Ronnie would leave and start his own band - but it was here that Ronnie honed his rock chops. I'll be honest I got this for two tracks "Free Ride" and "Frankenstein" and if the other eight tracks blow chunks I'd still feel like I got my monies worth. Then again, I found this in the dollar bin - it was a risk as who knows what condition this thing would turn out to be in. Turns out that with a little spit and polish the record looked pretty good. The record leads off with "Hangin' Around" and it's a decent song, and as the first side...

I picked this up in the dollar bin a couple of months ago, and after some TLC the vinyl cleaned up surprisingly well, I mean really well. The gatefold was in decent shape, but if there were any liner notes they were lost to time. This was an album that intrigued me, and the song I most excited to listen to was "Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo" as I was curious to hear how different this was from the version I was most familiar with - that being Rick Derringer's 1973 killer from his solo debut album All American Boy. Oddly enough only a few months after Roadwork was released in 1972 The Edgar Winter Group would release They Only Come Out at Night and the rest as they say is history, as that album would yield two of his biggest hits in "Frankenstein" and "Free Ride" both of which would be forever cemented in the foundations of what would become classic rock.  However, this isn't about that album, this about their double live album Roadwork . I was c...