Hair Band Friday - 6/24/22

1.  "Sometimes She Cries" by Warrant

2.  "Loving You Sunday Morning" (live) by Scorpions

3.  "Up All Night" (live) by Slaughter

4.  "Feel Your Love Tonight" by Van Halen

5.  "Heart the Hunter" by Great White

6.  "In America" by Britny Fox

7.  "Alone Again" by Dokken

8.  "Don't Cry" (live) by Guns N' Roses

9.  "Hysteria" by Def Leppard

10.  "Dream Until Tomorrow" by Lynch Mob

Retro Video of the Week: "The Look of Love" by ABC

Other than Hair Band Friday in a couple days, this will be my last post until after our fair country celebrates its 246th birthday, as I have various things going on the rest of this week and then will be spending next week forgetting about all the things that I'll have to do the following week.

Anywho, yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the release of English pop/new wave band ABC's debut album, The Lexicon of Love.  It was a pretty immediate success for the band, reaching #1 on the album charts in their native UK, as well as on the album charts in Finland and New Zealand.  It also went Top 10 on the album charts in Australia, Canada, and Sweden, and to #24 on the Billboard album chart.  Four songs from the album reached the Top 20 on the UK pop charts, including three Top 10s.  Two songs were also Top 25 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 -- "Poison Arrow" (#25) and "The Look of Love" (#18).

I consider "The Look of Love" to be one of the band's signature songs, so I'm going with that.  It's a nice little synth pop classic, complete with a super early '80s video.

CoronaVinyl Day 430 (P): The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein by Parliament

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "P," and I got funky with Parliament's fifth studio album, 1976's The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein.

Parliament are the kings of funk, in my opinion, and this album is a classic, featuring an appropriately weird spaceship-themed album cover and horn arrangements by none other than James Brown's band member Fred Wesley.  Dr. Funkenstein was one of George Clinton's several funk-related alter egos, and the album is just straight classic '70s funk.

The album reached #3 on the Billboard R&B album chart -- their second of five Top 5 albums in a row on that chart -- and #20 on the Billboard album chart, their second Top 20 album in a row on that chart.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Dr. Funkenstein"
The de facto title track showcases Welsey's horn arrangements, which provide the backdrop for a classically weird funk classic.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Everything Is On The One"
"The one" is first beat of a measure, which was usually not the beat that was emphasized in music until James Brown came along, and then "the one" became the focus of what made funk music funky.

Gall's Well That Ends Well

As you may have noticed, I didn't post at all last week.  I was super busy at work Monday and Tuesday.  Then, Tuesday night after dinner, I started to get what I assumed was indigestion.  The pain started getting worse, and it was spreading to the right side of my abdomen, so I thought it might be appendicitis.  It was bad enough that I went to the ER.

The "welcome" sign on the front desk in the ER said that the average wait time before being seen was 3-4 hours.  Surely that was meant to scare people with non-emergency-room-caliber maladies, I foolishly thought.  I checked in, went through triage 15 minutes later, and then went back to the waiting room.  The pain continued to crescendo until I was experiencing what was undoubtedly the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my life.  It felt like Mike Tyson was continuously punching me in the stomach.

The pain eventually got bad enough that I asked for some pain meds while I waited, and the nurses mercifully gave me an IV of anti-inflammatory meds, which seemed only to increase the pain.  A little while later, I began to feel like I was going to pass out, so I asked if there was anywhere I could just lie down while I waited (other than the floor).  There was not.  But there was an open double wide chair, and the nurse said she could bring me some blankets that I could use as a pillow.  I went over to the chair, curled up in the fetal position, and wrapped my legs around the chair next to me (since they're all connected to each other and can't be moved).  Over the next several hours, I tried to adjust myself, but no position was comfortable.  I puked twice -- loudly and violently, as that's the only way I know how -- much to the chagrin of the 30 other people in the waiting room.  I was confident my appendix had burst and I was on the brink of death, as it was undoubtedly poisoning my innards.  I tried to fall asleep, but was just basically lying there moaning like a dying goat.

Finally, at around 1:30 a.m., well over four hours after I arrived, I heard my name called.  I popped up as much as I could at that point, limped over to the nurse, and then was finally given a room in the ER.  The doctor that saw me almost immediately predicted that it was a gall stone, based on the location of my pain.  Most importantly, I got some morphine, which is, quite simply, a wonder drug.  Then I got a CT scan and then an ultrasound, and sure enough, I had an infected gall stone that was completely blocking the opening to the gall bladder.  So with that, I was admitted, set to have surgery to remove my gall bladder, ensuring the elimination of not only the stone, but any of its progeny.

By the time I was admitted, it was already past 7 a.m., and they couldn't schedule me for surgery until the following day because everything was already booked up, so I basically had a full day of just lying in a hospital bed and watching TV.  The Sox played a day game, and then there was a Die Hard marathon on AMC, and then I watched the very exciting Game 1 on the Stanley Cup finals, so it wasn't all bad.

During the course of the day, I was texting various people, and one suggested I name my gall stone.  As a man who lives for plays on words, this just made sense, so I took to Facebook to ask the hive what I should name my gall stone.  The suggestions were nothing short of remarkable.  My friends certainly answered the gall.  Here they are, in alphabetical order:

• The 1994 Montregall Expos
• Another Brick in the Gall
• Anthony Michael Gall
• Archie Bunker
• Austin Powers in Galldmember
• Battlestar Gallactica
• Better Call Gall
• Bile the Kid
• Biley Cyrus
• Boutros Boutros Galli
• Chagall
• Charles DeGall
• Conrad Dobler
• David and Galliath
• DeGall University Blue Demons
• Gall and Oates
• Gall Godot
• Gall Goodman
• Gall In the Family
• Gall Konerko
• Gall McCartney
• Gall My Children
• Gall of Duty
• Gall Rosenberg
• Gall State Cardinals
• Gall With the Wind
• Gallbert Godfried
• Galldfinger
• Galldylocks
• Gallileo Gallilei
• Gallimimus
• Gallipoli
• Gallnold Schwarzenegger
• Gallt Disney
• Gallter Payton
• Gally
• Gally Madison
• Jonathan Livingstone Seagall
• John Gallt
• Joe B. Gall
• Kids in the Gall
• Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Lauren Bagall
• Lavar Gall
• Legends of the Gall
• Liberté, égallité, fraternité 
• The Mad Bladder
• Persian Gallf
• Raphael Nogall
• Robert Dugall
• Sir Gallihad
• Steve
• Steven Seagall
• Svengalli
• Sylvester Sgallone
• Tigall Woods
• Two Galls One Cup
• Vincent Van Gall
• The Wolf of Gall Street
• Zooey Deshegall

At the end of the day, I went with none of them, and named it Willie Gallt, who met its fate Thursday afternoon, or so I assume, based on the scars on my abdomen.

I spent Thursday night in the hospital recovering, as the pain after surgery was just about as intense as the pain Willie Gallt caused me Tuesday night.

The most pressing issue -- other than the extreme physical pain I was in -- was that I had tickets to see The Strokes at the Metro Friday night.  It was a special fundraising show for a local congressional candidate, and it was supposed to have been May 30, but then one of the guys in the band got COVID, so they had to reschedule.  I was very pumped for the show, as I assume I won't have the chance to see The Strokes in such a small venue ever again.  But given how much pain I was in Friday morning still, I was becoming pessimistic that I would be able to go because if anyone bumped into me at the show, I would have fallen to the ground in pain.  Then my lovely wife emailed the Metro and got me on the list for the ADA section.  Even though I didn't have the best view, it was still a fantastic show.  Presumably as a nod to my choice to attend, the band's first song was "Bad Decisions."  They sounded amazing, and I am glad I muscled through it, coming out unscathed by any errant elbows or shoulders.  My only gripe is:  what the fuck is with millennials needing to record every single song at a concert?  Just enjoy the fact that you're there and have an organ that produces bile, for Christ's sake.

For the next 4-6 weeks, I'm not supposed to do any heavy lifting (so I have to sit down when I pee), and I can't submerge myself in water.  The pain has dulled into more of an ever-present discomfort now, as I'm just waiting for the post-surgery swelling to subside and the scars to heal.  Now I begin the next phase of my life, which I call:  What can I eat that won't cause me to shit my pants?

Hair Band Friday - 6/10/22

1.  "Send Her To Me" by Autograph

2.  "Saints in Hell" by Judas Priest

3.  "Lady Strange" by Def Leppard

4.  "One Step Away" by Ratt

5.  "Miles Away" by Winger

6.  "Farewell to You" by White Lion

7.  "The Power" (demo) by Warrant

8.  "Feel Like Makin' Love" by Dangerous Toys

9.  "Paint It Black" by W.A.S.P.

10.  "99 in the Shade" by Bon Jovi

Retro Video of the Week: "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses

For most of the first 15 years of my life, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was probably the best music video ever released.  But thirty years ago this week, that all changed, as Guns N' Roses released the video for "November Rain."  It was, at the time, the most expensive music video ever made, costing $1.5 million, and, whether intentional or not, it stood as a poignant "fuck you" to the stripped down sound and videos from grunge bands that had begun to dominate MTV.

The song itself is nearly nine minutes of majesty, with Axl Rose on the piano, a string orchestral accompaniment, slowly crescendoing into madness as Slash wails on multiple solos.  The video is just as epic, complete with an open-mouthed kiss between Axl Rose and then-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour, a wedding where someone jumps into a cake, Slash playing his amazing guitar solo outside a random church in the middle of the desert with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, Seymour's character's unexplained death, and a funeral.  It's glorious.  The Brothers Weeser* (minus Tim and Dan) sent me a link to a great article about the making of the video and some of the still-unexplained or confusing themes and scenes in the video.

The song went to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the longest song at the time that had ever cracked the Top 10.  The video has over 1.88 million views on YouTube, making it the most-viewed video released in the '80s or '90s, and it was the first video released before YouTube was founded to reach the one billion view mark.  Most importantly, because of this song and video, whenever anyone says "nothing lasts forever," no matter the context, the next words in your head are probably "even cold November rain."

CoronaVinyl Day 429 (M): Bobby McFerrin by Bobby McFerrin

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "M," and my choice was Bobby McFerrin's self-titled 1982 debut album.

McFerrin, of course, is best known for his 1988 #1 hit a cappella song "Don't Worry, Be Happy," but he had already been releasing music for six years before then, mostly jazz.  His debut album was released when he was already 31, and he had been honing his own style for several years before laying it down on vinyl.

The album is a mix of vocal jazz, jazzy covers of a few big hits by other musicians -- The Drifters' "Dance With Me," The Miracles' "You Really Got A Hold Of Me," and Van Morrison's "Moondance" -- and a couple more straightforward soul songs.  Over the course of the album, McFerrin scats, uses his voice like a percussion instrument, and sometimes just sings (which he does quite well).  It's definitely not necessarily the type of music I would normally listen to, but it's interesting.  The album went to #41 on the Billboard Jazz album chart.  Also, future American Idol judge (and session musician) Randy Jackson played bass on the album.

In addition to his fame with "Don't Worry, Be Happy," he performed the theme song for Season 4 of The Cosby Show, has scored and performed music on TV and film, has voice acted, and makes regular stops to famous symphony orchestras as a guest conductor.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Feline"
McFerrin shows that he's not just a scatman on this one, which is a soulful acoustic ballad that sounds like it's from a 1992 alt-rock album more so than a 1982 jazz album.  It appears to be about longing for a cat that left -- unless it's a euphemism for female genitalia.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Sightless Bird"
This is another one that's less of a jazz song and more of a soul ballad.  It's kind of trippy, and again, I could imagine this song on like a Temple of the Dog album (or, I guess, the Temple of the Dog album, since there was only one) or being played at some dingy club in Seattle in 1990.

CoronaVinyl Day 428 (L): Best of Nils Lofgren by Nils Lofgren

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "L," and I listened to Nils Lofgren's 1981 Best Of album.  This is one that I got from my neighbor, and at some point, he had some sort of music-related job that allowed him to get promotional albums.  This is one of those, but the cool thing is that inside the album were two review sheets that the recipient was supposed to fill out after listening to the album and then return it to the music store that provided the promotional copy.  I posted a picture above.

Lofgren is best known as Little Steven Van Zandt's replacement in the E Street Band.  Lofgren has been a member of the E Street band since 1984 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the rest of the band in 2014 (15 years after Springsteen himself was inducted).  He got his start as a member of Neil Young's Crazy Horse in the early '70s at the ripe old age of 19.  After that, he was in the band Grin, before launching a solo career in 1975.

The Best Of album is a compilation of Lofgren's solo work from 1975 to 1981, as well as a song from the Grin era.  I've never listened to any of his solo stuff prior to today, and it's pretty good.  As you might imagine, there are some heartland rock undertones, but it's mainly just straightforward rock and roll.

Even after joining the E Street Band, Lofgren has continued to release solo material over the past four decades, and he also reunited with Neil Young and Crazy Horse to release a couple albums over the last few years.

The album is not on Spotify or YouTube, so I just embedded my favorite song from each album below.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Rock and Roll Crook"
This one is from Lofgren's 1975 self-titled debut album, and it's a nice, mellow rock song.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Back It Up"
I guess I like songs from Lofgren's debut, as this one is also from that album.  It's another straightforward pop rock song, bordering on power pop.

CoronaVinyl Day 427 (K): Unmasked by KISS

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "K," and I went with another album whose cover seems to go smashingly with the Turkish rug in my living room, KISS's eighth studio album, 1980's Unmasked.  Today was the first time I've listened to this album in its entirety or heard some of the songs on the album.

Unmasked was recorded and released at a time of transition and uncertainty for the band.  The year before, they had big success with Dynasty, but "I Was Made For Lovin' You" -- while at #11 hit for the band -- alienated a lot of hardcore fans, as KISS was venturing into disco rock.  Peter Criss had left the band and had no involvement whatsoever with Unmasked, but he nonetheless appears on the cover and was still credited as a band member.  Anton Fig actually handled the drumming on the album.  Despite the name of the album, the band was, in fact, still wearing their make up and would not remove it in public for another three years.  I will also note that the track listing on the back of the album cover does not match the track listing on the actual album, which irks me beyond reproach.

The album is another venture into realms where the band shouldn't have gone.  It was pretty clear they were trying to make a more pop-oriented album and bow to the styles of rock more popular at the time (which were softer than the band's normal fare).  The result is a schizophrenic album that was generally panned by critics, and the fans seemed to agree.  After five platinum albums in a row -- Destroyer, Rock and Roll Over, Love Gun, Alive! II, and Dynasty -- Unmasked has only gone gold.  It also peaked at #35 on the Billboard album chart, which was the band's lowest-charting album (studio or live) since their sophomore album, Hotter Than Hell, in 1974.  Unmasked did better internationally, where it went to #1 on the album charts in New Zealand and Norway, as well as Top 5 on the album charts in Australia, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands.

The album's biggest "hit," if you can call it that, was a soft rock song co-written and sung by Paul Stanley called "Shandi."  As I've said before, this is probably the cheesiest KISS song of all-time and could very well be the theme song to an early '80s sitcom about a stripper with a heart of gold who's just trying to make ends meet.  It reached #47 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The band would reach a musical low point the following year with their ill-conceived concept album, Music From "The Elder," a soundtrack to a film that was never made and an album that performed so poorly the band didn't even tour to support it.  That, along with booze and drugs, prompted Ace Frehley to quit.  Then the band got Vinnie Vincent and Eric Carr to reenergize their sound and push them into '80s hard rock with 1982's Creatures of the Night.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Talk To Me"
It's slim pickin' on the first side, but I guess I'll go with Ace's lone contribution on this side, "Talk To Me."  Being an Ace song, it's a little more rock-oriented than the other songs on the side.  Ace has a nice solo, and Fig has some delicious fills.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Tomorrow"
The second side starts out with a nice little power pop offering from Paul.  He was generally more pop-oriented than the other guys in the band, and while not all of his ventures away from hard rock worked, I think this one is pretty good, even if it's not what the band would normally play.

CoronaVinyl Day 426 (J): The Best of Blind Willie Johnson by Blind Willie Johnson

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "J," and I listened to the 2017 American Epic "Best of" release of Texas gospel blues legend Blind Willie Johnson, a compilation of 16 songs recorded between 1927 and 1930.

Johnson was a blues man, an influential slide guitarist, and an evangelist (hence the "gospel blues" label).  Like others of his time -- Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Blind Roosevelt Graves, Blind Willie Davis, and Blind Willie McTell, to name a few -- Johnson was without sight, commonly believed to have been caused by his stepmom when Johnson was seven.  During a domestic dispute, in which Johnson's father confronted his stepmom about cheating on him, Johnson's stepmom splashed Johnson with a lye water solution that blinded him.  Fucking a.

As I mentioned back in late November when I discussed the Lead Belly album I bought and in March when I discussed a blues compilation album I bought when I visited Third Man Records in Detroit in early November (both from the same American Epic series).  As with the other two albums, the engineers performed a phenomenal restoration of these songs.  

Johnson's voice is often rather gruff, though that is offset on several songs by the backing/co-lead vocals of his then-wife, Willie B. Harris.

With his gospel blues style and Biblical themes, many of the songs have an eerie and apocalyptic quality to them.  Like many blues men of the '20s and '30s, Johnson was not wealthy during his lifetime, but became highly influential posthumously.  If you're a fan of the blues or even the blues rock revival of the '60s, then you've likely heard some of the songs on this album.  

• He was the first to record "John the Revelator," which was famously recorded by Son House in the '60s and also used in The White Stripes' song "Cannon" from their 1999 debut album.  
• "It's Nobody's Fault But Mine" was reworked by Led Zeppelin in 1976 as "Nobody's Fault But Mine" on the Presence album.
• "Mother's Children Have a Hard Time," which is also sometimes called "Motherless Children," was rearranged and recorded under the latter by Eric Clapton on his 1974 album Motherless Children.
• "Jesus Make Up My Dying," which is also known as "In My Time of Dying," has been covered by Led Zeppelin on Physical Graffiti in 1975 and Bob Dylan on his 1962 self-titled debut album.
• In my March post referenced above, I highlighted "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground," a haunting song from 1927 with just Johnson playing his bottleneck slide guitar and humming and moaning, like a Delta funeral dirge.  It was one of 27 samples of music included on the Voyager Golden Record strapped to the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts, so, you know, aliens are listening to this shit.

Johnson died in 1945 after his home in Beaumont, Texas burned down and he continued to live in it anyway and contracted malaria, but no hospital would admit him, likely because of the color of his skin.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "It's Nobody's Fault But Mine"
Johnson's vocals are strained (in a good way) as he belts out this one, accompanied only by his slide guitar and whatever anguish Johnson had in his soul.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning"
Were this song title not a reference to the Bible, I would assume it was a subtle suggestion to his ladyfriend.