Old Enough to Forget

Fine Young Cannibals disappeared at the height of their popularity ... or at least that's how it seemed. It's a blur now as to when this came out. I know my record and CD (I got the CD first, and just recently found a copy of the album, and couldn't help myself ... although I should have) I know the pressings say 1988, but the songs were on the radio and MuchMusic in 1989. I don't think it matters, but in my mind's eye I think of sunny days and blue sky when I think of "She Drives Me Crazy" so it was probably was in the spring of '89. It doesn't matter. I do remember seeing the video for "Johnny Come Home" back in '85 and it was intriguing enough that I almost bought the album ... didn't, but almost. That album also had a cover of Elvis' "Suspicious Minds" that had a quirky cool vibe. So when a few years later "She Drives Me Crazy" hit, and boy did it hit. Those fat, and I mean FAT guitars that start the so...

Maybe it wasn't the biggest hit in 1986, but dagnabbit it sure did seem to be on the radio all the dang time. "I Wanna Be a Cowboy" may have been viewed as nothing more than a clever one trick pony in terms novelty songs in the "Weird" Al era of parody songs, but there was something infectious about the song that put it up there with some of the best '80s poprock ... ever. Yeah, you may think I'm just spewing a heaping pile of cow droppings but I do mean it. I will even admit that when it came out I wanted to treat the song with disdain and dismiss it as the pile of shit it was - except it wasn't. More on that later as a good friend of mine likes to say. Boys Don't Cry hail from London, England (it may seem obvious, but there are others you know. Like the one in Ontario). The band was the brainchild of vocalist / keyboard player Nick Richards and featured his bandmates Brian Chatton on keyboards, Jeff Seopardi on drums, Mark Smith on bass, and N...

Here we are at the end of Christmas celebrating Epiphany. In addition to the traditional gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh I offer to you John Fahey's 1974 re-issue of his 1968 album The New Possibility . An album that was an unexpected surprise and will no doubt become a record I return to over and over. I had no idea who John Fahey was when I picked up the album, all I knew was it had an interesting cover, that could have been released any time over the last fifty years. It was the definition of simplicity, and it was on Takoma records, a label I knew from Truth Decay by T Bone Burnett way back in 1980. I figured it was likely some acoustic flavoured collection of Christmas carols and that would be just a-okay by me. One of my all time favourite Christmas albums is A Christmas Collection by Neil Hogan that came out in 1989, and featured finger style steel string renditions of popular favourites. The album opens with "Joy to the World" and sure enough it was exactl...

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...

Roger Whittaker and Nana Mouskouri always seemed to me to be two sides of the same coin, except one played a 12 string guitar and was a hell of a whistler. It's funny how you grow up with certain artists but have no idea who they are. Roger Whittaker was simply someone I knew about, but knew nothing about. So when I found his Christmas album I didn't hesitate I just picked it up and added it to my pile. I'm still listening to Christmas music, but in the run up to Epiphany I'm getting to the bottom of this year's pile, and I have to admit with all that's been going on I've spent less time in the basement ignoring my chores and listening to records. Still I did squirrel aside some time to try and take this one in. Eschewing the trend of merely recycling "Jingle Bells" and the other Christmas staples, Roger collects some of the lesser known Christmas songs, as well as a number of originals. As to the whistling, I have to admit old Roger didn't puc...

But Seriously Folks , released back in '78 was Joe's first solo album in a few years, and although I didn't know it at the time it was a pretty typical Joe Walsh record. ... that says nothing and makes no sense. Bear with me, I'm going to see what I can do with that and hopefully redeem myself. I have a pretty good idea what I meant. I'm just waiting for my coffee to kick in. Joe Walsh had been building his solo career after leaving The James Gang (I still remember going to the drive in theatre with my uncle Lloyd and my cousins where we saw Zachariah (if you know, you know) and The Holy Grail in a double feature. I'd see both movies more than once, and of those two I'd see one way more times than I should admit). While his first solo record Barnstorm did okay, it was his next two albums, The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get and So What that would go gold. Joe was setting to be a pretty significant solo artist.  Then he joined the Eagles and put his so...

Here we are in the post Christmas dead space between the turkey and New Year's Eve. It one of my favourite times of the year. We still have the tree up and Christmas music still plays while we lounge around the house. The Christmas Touch is another one of those "who is this guy?" Christmas albums. I got it because the 12 year old goof in me giggled at the album title. I could imagine it being sung to the tune of "The Bad Touch" by The Bloodhound Gang. I'm not proud of myself for this, but it is, what it is. I've accepted the things I can't really change about my sense of humour. I'd not heard of Johnny Tillotson before, but I scanned through some of my '60s collections, and sure enough in the early '60s he'd struck gold with songs like "Poetry in Motion" and "It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin'" with the latter being covered by the likes of Bobby Darin, Elvis, and even Slim Whitman. The album is a collection of mid ...