Old Enough to Forget

When I first bought There Goes the Neighborhood I knew who Joe Walsh was, but other than a couple of songs on the radio I hadn't had the opportunity to hear any of his solo records. This was also true of the Eagles, but that's only tangentially related. The first Eagles record I'd pick up was Eagles Live in 1980 which more or less cemented my appreciation for Joe Walsh as a player. When Joe released There Goes the Neighborhood in '81 it would be my gateway into his solo career. I didn't quite know what to do with this one when I first heard it - this was a weird album. To me Joe Walsh was the rocker who wrote "In the City" for The Warriors soundtrack and was the guy who did "Rocky Mountain Way" and despite my teenage protestations that Triumph did it better - in the long run, Canada's other power trio couldn't hold a candle to the original. Of course "Life's Been Good" is pretty much the quintessential Joe Walsh song, bu...

John Cougar had been around for a while already when he dropped this one in '82, but for most of us American Fool was his coming out party. Heck, John even made an appearance on the legendary SCTV (I saw it and was suitably impressed) and played "Jack & Diane," which to me was a big deal. It's funny though, as much as I liked the big songs here, "Hurts So Good," "Jack & Diane" and to a lesser extent "Hand to Hold On To," I didn't buy the album. I would pick it up a few years later, and by that time he was hitting his halcyon days and frankly that era was okay, but didn't resonate with me. There was an irritating element to his cock of the walk self aggrandizing posturing wrapped in rockin' Americana that just bugged me. I have softened on this quite a bit over the years, and can really appreciate a lot of what he was doing, and that he was part of what was going on, without being part of what was going on musically. He...

Don Felder is a hell of a guitar player, and a passable singer when he stayed in his lane. By 1983 Mr. Henley and Mr. Frey were getting some traction with their solo careers, and Joe Walsh was doing his thing and seemed to be chugging along to his own little drummer (although things weren't as chipper as they appeared, but that's another story, and one I frankly am not qualified to tell), so it seemed like it was Don's turn to try out a solo album. A couple years earlier Don Felder had provided the killer title track to the Heavy Metal soundtrack, and a year after that contributed "Never Surrender" to Fast Times at Ridgemont High , and it was a decent song - I was eager to hear more from him. In 1983 he released Airborne and I ate it up. I thought this was an awesome record. The album opens with "Bad Girls," which always felt a bit like a reworked "Life in the Fast Lane," but I didn't care - it's a song I still really like. Vocally,...

By 1983, I was already a huge fan of Joe Walsh. He was the court jester who also managed to be the king of his castle. I knew he was an Eagle, and he and Don Felder were the Wonder Twins thanks to "Hotel California," but what sealed it for me was his 1979 contribution to The Warriors soundtrack, "In the City" - a song that hit me in the feels and, to this day, is one of my desert island songs. The Eagles' version was okay too, but it didn't have the same kick in the happy sack as the original. Fast forward to the spring of 1983, and Joe Walsh released Y ou Bought It - You Name It , which to me is one of his best releases ever. As much as I like his other stuff, when I go to a Joe Walsh album, it's this one. Go figure. I guess I was primed for this one, given that one of my favourite songs from the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack (the same soundtrack that introduced me to Oingo Boingo) was his throwaway track "Waffle Stomp." When I lost...