Old Enough to Forget

Here was chugging along into August, and I have to admit that my self imposed schedule of cranking out two of these a month may have been a tad ambitious. It's likely I'll take a step back and go to once a month. I mean, I'm spending a lot of time jotting down my meandering thoughts that frankly for the most part are just on this side of being coherent ... I'll let you pick a side. Still, I've been grinding my way through my pile of records. Up for grabs this time out are another gaggle of odds and sods and repeat offenders. Let's get right to it ... are you seated comfortably? Chilliwack – Look In, Look Out (1984) Neil Diamond - Love At The Greek: Recorded Live At The Greek Theatre (1977) Pete Townshend - All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982) Loverboy - Wildside (1987) T Bone Burnett - The Talking Animals (1988) Chilliwack – Look In, Look Out (1984) At the time this felt like a reset for the perennial Canadian stallwarts who'd been cranking ou...

I bought this on CD when this came out. Back in '86 this was a really strange album and for me, it was almost a country album (I didn't know what Americana was), and it was fitted in right alongside all of the rock that was filling up my shelves. T Bone Burnett for whatever had a special place for me, he was his own genre. Going back to Trap Door , and Truth Decay , I was expecting quirky, roots oriented music, but with this self titled effort Mr. Burnett took it up another level and stripping things down to the bare essentials. The album was recorded live to two track analog and two track digital June 24, 25,26 and July 15, 1986. It is an amazing album, and when I found it on vinyl I figured, "Oh why not?" This was the first time I'd really paid attention to the stellar dobro and lap steel work of Jerry Douglas. It's really a shame that the instrumental version of "I Remember" as to me it was the centrepiece of the album, and I'd always pair it ...

Oh boy here we are with the twelfth instalment of Stylus Over Substance. What was supposed to be the short bite sized impressions of stuff I didn't feel like waxing all nonsensical over and wasting too many words.  I've not always been successful, or coherent. Does it really matter? Probably not, you're either in, or you're out. It's all good. Sometimes it's better. I'm still working my through the piles of records I got for Christmas, and the additional pile I just got for Father's Day will eventually get my attention. Sit back, put your feet up, let's celebrate the fifty five other entries that came before, and get to the next five. Howard Jones - Action Replay (1986) Martha and The Muffins - Trance and Dance (1980) Terry Jacks - Y'Don't Fight the Sea (1975) Barney Bigard & "The Pelican Trio" - Barney Bigard & "The Pelican Trio" (1978) The Alpha Band - Spark in the Dark (1977) Howard Jones - Action Replay (19...

I first heard of T-Bone Burnett when he was with the Alpha Band with Steven Soles, and David Mansfield. I had a friend who had one of their albums, I can't remember which one as I only heard it once, but it was quirky and caught my interest. Then I bought a copy of his 1982 E.P. Trap Door and pretty much played it to death. I loved the fact that he was self effacing enough to make a joke about his passing resemblance to Eric Idle. The office where I worked used to have copies of People magazine I like to read - for the record reviews, and in one issue there was an article where Mariel Hemingway said her favourite album was T-Bone Burnett's Proof Through the Night . Well, I wasn't sold because of her endorsement, I was sold because I'd just realized there was a new T-Bone Burnett album. I remember talking about this with my girlfriend at the time who absolutely loved The Who, and The Monkees (she had great taste in music) and she casually mentions that she saw T-Bone ope...