3-12-10
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) - Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band, 1973 (The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle)
Bruce Springsteen is one of the great lyricists in rock, but he's also a great storyteller. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) is a kind of autobiographical love narrative that might have even happened to you.
You want this girl oh-so bad. Her mother can't stand you 'cause you play in a rock & roll band, and dad thinks you suck 'cause he knows you don't have any money.
Of course a $25,000 advance from the record company changes all that instantly and the two lovebirds go off to "a pretty little place in Southern California down San Diego way."
Btw, Springsteen never liked his nickname "The Boss." One time I heard him sing in this song: "You can call me Lieutenant, Rosie, but don't ever call me Boss."
3-11-10
X-Ray Spex - Starz, 1978 (Attention Shoppers!)
The band called Starz was a 1970s heavy metal and power pop band from New Jersey. Lets just say they were more pop than metal. Despite a lack of big time success, the band still has a faithful cult following.
Matter of fact, you can still buy a Starz Coliseum Rock Jacket for a mere $75 plus Shipping & handling . Very exciting!
30 years ago Starz was formed out of the remnants of an early 1970s pop band called Looking Glass. Of course you remember their #1 hit single Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) from the summer of 1972.
Starz' third record, Attention Shoppers!, has a "This Side" and a "That Side."
A song called X-Ray Spex, about a guy who thinks he can see right through his girlfriend, is the first track on "That Side."
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Party - Boston, 1978 (Don't Look Back)
Let's say you were a huge fan of the first Boston album - you know, More Than A Feeling, Foreplay/Longtime, Smokin' - If so, then you were bound to be a huge fan of the second Boston album as well because it's almost exactly the same as their debut.
So these guys were sloppin' at the very same trough (again) which, by the way, was lined with gold in 1978. Boston sold over 4 million copies of their second record, Don't Look Back, in the first month of its release.
While that first Boston album was a nonstop party of a record, Brad Delp, their late lead singer, came back on their second to remind us that "Baby, it's a party as long as youre there."
3-9-10
Somebody to Love - Queen, 1976 (A Day at the Races)
Queen's fifth record, A Day at the Races, could easily have been the second disc in a double album alongside it's predecessor, A Night at the Opera.
From the album cover art with the same logo, to the album titles taken from old Marx Brothers films, to the big hit single on each, these two records are harvesting the same crop of rock & roll royalty.
Track 1, side 2, Somebody to Love, is this album's Bohemian Rhapsody, a song which featured an extremely complex layering of vocal tracks.
On it, Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor multi-tracked their voices to create the impression of a 100-voice gospel choir.
Somebody to Love was Freddie Mercury's favorite Queen song.
3-8-10
Double Trouble - Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1976 (Gimme Back My Bullets)
By the time the fourth Lynyrd Skynyrd album came out in 1976, these guys were a little pooped. They'd been on the road constantly, they made three spectacular records, and then they hired a new producer.
Some would say he was not the right guy for the job. Gimme Back My Bullets was the original Skynyrd's only studio album to not reach platinum status.
You've heard the title track a million times, but Double Trouble, track 1, side 2, is a gritty, greasy, bluesy rock number with "born in the gutter" written all over it. Hey, thats what the great Ronnie Van Zandt himself said!
He also ain't afraid to say how many times he's been busted, and how many times he's been to jail.
Double Trouble.
3-5-10
Working Man - Rush, 1974 (Rush)
Rush is everybody's favorite Canadian power trio. One problem - their great lyricist and drummer, Neil Peart, didn't join the band until after this, their first album. Rush was still in their formative stages and were kind of like a Cream/Zeppelin derivative.
Working Man is the last track on their debut album, which they recorded late at night when the studio rates were cheaper.
A Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey by the name of Donna Halper started playing Working Man on her show and it was an instant success - its blue collar theme immediately resonated with hard rock fans and Rush were on their way.
3-4-10
Pat Benatar - You Better Run, 1980 (Crimes of Passion)
Crimes of Passion is Pat Benatar's second record from. It followed her spectacular debut album a year earlier, featuring the mega-hit Heartbreaker. And this one did not disappoint. Some critics have said that Crimes of Passion is the finest recording of Pat Benatar's career.
Little known fact - Pat Benatar, who was once accepted to The Juilliard School of music, worked as a bank teller for three years before attending a Liza Minnelli concert and deciding that she needed to be that woman singing up on stage.
Hit Me With Your Best Shot and Treat Me Right from this record went higher up the charts, but since there's a sticker attached to my copy of the album that says "You Better Run," I thought we'd better play that one, even though in the last line of the song the girl tells the guy, "I can't stand you no more!"
3-3-10
Kashmir - Led Zeppelin, 1975 (Physical Graffiti)
1975's Physical Graffiti album is definitely one of Led Zeppelin's defining works. And Robert Plant has always said that the song Kashmir from that record, not Stairway To Heaven, was the definitive Zeppelin song.
Funny thing is, Plant was nowhere near Kashmir when he wrote the lyrics. Originally called Driving to Kashmir, it was written in an area he called "the waste lands" of Southern Morocco.
Robert Plant wrote Kashmir while driving in the Sahara Desert, 4,000 miles away from "My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon."
3-2-10 
Intro/Sweet Jane - Lou Reed, 1974 (Rock N Roll Animal)
Lou Reed had kind of a crazy childhood. As a teenager, he received electroconvulsive shock therapy, once describing it as putting "the thing down your throat so you don't swallow your tongue, and they put electrodes on your head. That's what was recommended in Rockland County to discourage homosexual feelings. The effect is that you lose your memory and become a vegetable. You can't read a book because you get to page seventeen and have to go right back to page one again."
From his 1974 live double album, Rock N Roll Animal, here are two songs - Sweet Jane from Lou's Velvet Underground days, and the appropriately named Intro, featuring badass guitarist Steve Hunter.
3-1-10
Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane, 1967 (Surrealistic Pillow)
Surrealistic Pillow by the Jefferson Airplane was the first blockbuster psychedelic album by a band from San Francisco, and Somebody to Love became their first and biggest hit.
Somebody to Love is also the title of lead singer Grace Slick's memoirs, which includes the story of how she almost got away with dosing Richard Nixon with LSD.
Somebody to Love is pure Summer of Love, brother.
2-26-10
Call Me The Breeze - Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1974 (Second Helping)
One true test of a group's "longevity potential" is how they come out for round two. Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote the book on Southern rock with Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd, then they nailed it again with Second Helping.
What a great collection of songs. Side one comes out of the blocks with Sweet Home Alabama and ends with Workin' For MCA. Side two opens with The Ballad of Curtis Lowe and ends with my favorite track on the record - the story of a fellow who keeps blowin down the road - he ain't got nobody and he don't carry no load.
Call Me The Breeze.
2-25-10
The Crush of Love - Joe Satriani, 1988 (Dreaming #1 EP)
Most vinyl records, or albums, had about 30 to 60 minutes of music - Queen's A Night At The Opera was 43 minutes in length. They called them LP's, as in "long play."
Singles (one song) had 6 to 10 minutes of music.
But they also had extended play (or EP) records which contained more music than a single, but were too short to qualify as an LP.
Around the time of Surfing With The Alien, Joe Satriani put out an EP called Dreaming #11 with three live tracks on one side, and one new studio track on the other. That studio track immediately became a favorite of Satriani fans everywhere, and we give it a spin on Classic Vinyl.
The Crush of Love.
2-24-10
New York Groove - Ace Frehley, 1978 (Ace Frehley)
In 1978 all four members of Kiss released solo albums simultaneously. The best of the bunch came from their guitarist, Ace Frehley. This was just four years after the arrival of Kiss' debut record featuring Ace's Cold Gin.
By 1978, Kiss had become one of the world's top hard rock bands. They cranked out a string of platinum albums - Alive, Destroyer, Rock and Roll Over, Love Gun - and they regularly played to sold out audiences.
New York Groove was a top 20 hit for Ace Frehley, who was born and raised in The Bronx.
Apparently he liked it there, declaring, "You'd better believe. I'm back in the New York groove."
2-23-10
Loan Me A Dime - Boz Scaggs, 1969 (Boz Scaggs)
Boz Scaggs played guitar on the first two Steve Miller records. The two of them were actually together in a band in grade school, and then college, and then again here in San Francisco in the late 60's.
With the help of Rolling Stone magazine publisher Jann Wenner, Boz Scaggs signed a contract with Atlantic Records and recorded his debut album with the legendary Muscle Schoals rhythm section - a bunch of studio musicians known for their down-and-dirty backup on Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett records.
Occasionally they would use a young session guitarist by the name of Duane Allman. Luckily, the first Boz Scaggs record was one of those occasions, and Duane's guitar playing absolutely smokes on this song, the almost 13 minute classic, Loan Me A Dime.
2-22-10
For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield, 1967 (Buffalo Springfield)
Buffalo Springfield were a short lived but extremely influential country-rock band from the late 60's - two years together, three records - but they had a huge impact on the entire California rock sound.
Today on Classic Vinyl, the first track on the first Buffalo Springfield album (also also their first big hit), For What It's Worth, written by Steven Stills.
It's a common misconception that For What It's Worth was written about the Kent State massacre. Stills actually wrote the song in reaction to escalating unrest between the cops and the kids on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.
Nevertheless, For What It's Worth came to symbolize all the turbulence and confrontational feelings of the 60s in America (translation - the Vietnam War).
2-19-10
The Jack - AC/DC, 1978 (If You Want Blood You've Got It)
By the late 70's AC/DC were pretty much untouchable on stage - their concerts were legendary around the world.
They already had five blockbuster records - TNT, High Voltage, Dirty Deeds, Let There Be Rock, and Powerage - but no live album - until 1978's If You Want Blood You've Got It came out and absolutely nailed the AC/DC concert experience on record.
Recorded on the Powerage tour of 1978, they headlined Day On The Green #3 that summer with Aerosmith, Foreigner, Pat Travers, Van Halen, - Angus pulled down his shorts and mooned the audience with his American Flag underwear.
The Jack, track 4, side 1, of If You Want Blood - you'll notice the lyrics are a little bit different up on the concert stage - like when Bon Scott asks the crowd, "Any virgins in Glasgow?"
2-18-10
Can't You Hear Me Knocking - Rolling Stones, 1971 (Sticky Fingers)
When Rolling Stones' founder Brian Jones, proved to be an unreliable member of the group, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards knew they would need a new guitarist. So they fired Brian Jones and hired 20-year-old Mick Taylor.
Would this guy be any good?
When Mick Taylor was just 16, he and his mates went to see a performance of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton. John Mayall had finished his first set without a guitarist and it became clear that for some reason Eric Clapton was not going to show up that night.
Everybody was wondering, "What's up?"
It was then that Mick Taylor approached John Mayall during the intermission and ended up filling in as the guitarist for the second set, playing Clapton's guitar, which had already been set up on the stage.
Here he is on The Rolling Stones classic 1971 album Sticky Fingers with Can't You Hear Me Knocking.
2-10-10
Ice Cream Man - Van Halen, 1978 (Van Halen)
Even though Gene Simmons of Kiss "discovered" Van Halen, he wasn't able to close the deal and make them famous. For starters, Gene wanted to change the band's name to "Daddy Shortlegs" and had even designed cover art (a daddy longlegs wearing a top hat). The band weren't falling for it and stuck with the name Van Halen.
Then, when Kiss' manager told Gene Simmons that Van Halen "Had no chance of making it," that was it, until a couple of guys from Warner Brothers Records heard them a few weeks later and concluded that they in fact did have a chance of making it.
The debut Van Halen record was laid down in the fall of 1977 with little over-dubbing or double tracking and has now sold in excess of 10 million copies.
Side 2, track 5, Ice Cream Man.
2-9-10
Under My Wheels - Alice Cooper, 1971 (Killer)
Alice Cooper's Killer album came right on the heels of his humongous hit, I'm Eighteen.
In 1971 The Coop was one of the world's top (if somewhat misunderstood) rock bands and concert attractions; his stage shows were positively morbid, and with songs like Dead Babies and Killer, this was a band your parents absolutely despised.
Under My Wheels is the first track on the Killer record, the story of some poor dude who is so henpecked that he fantisizes about running down his girlfriend with his car.
Sick.....and rockin'.
Watch out my friend, the telephone is ringing and it's you-know-who.
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Shout At The Devil - Mötley Crüe, 1983 (Shout At The Devil)
Mötley Crüe makes a long awaited appearance today on Classic Vinyl.
Many of you first heard about these guys in the mid 80's with stories of Vince Neil getting busted at the airport with porn, bomb threats being reported against the band, Tommy Lee throwing a TV out the top story of their hotel, as well as many, many more incidences of debauchery involving women, drugs, and rock and roll.
So here we are in 1983 and the title track to the second Mötley Crüe record, Shout At The Devil, written by the great Nikki Sixx (born in San Jose, btw), a man who was declared dead for a full two minutes in 1987.
Be careful. There's a "wolf screaming lonely in the night."
2-5-10
Whipping Post - Allman Brothers Band, 1969 (The Allman Brothers Band)
Gregg Allman was 21 years old when Whipping Post was first recorded for The Allman Brothers debut album. The song was legendary at their live concerts. Their classic 1971 double live album At Fillmore East, showcases a 23-minute epic rendition which takes up the entire final side of the record.
This, however, is the original studio version of Whipping Post. The song was written very quickly on an ironing board cover with burnt matches by Gregg Allman who said, "It came so fast. I didn't even have a chance to get the paper out.
That's the way the good songs come—they just hit you like a ton of bricks."
2-4-10
Take the Money and Run - Steve Miller Band, 1976 (Fly Like an Eagle)
You could make the argument that Steve Miller's Take the Money and Run is his most famous song. Definitely one of his most fun songs, what with those crazy kids goin' on a robbery spree.....and getting away with it!
But you gotta wonder what they we're putting in Steve Millers' orange juice with all that crazy rhyming of his back in the psychedelic 70's - one verse rhymes "El Paso" and "big hassle". Next thing you know it's "Texas" and "tax is."
Regardless, the Fly Like an Eagle album was a blockbuster, and apparently....robbery does pay!
2-4-10
China Grove - The Doobie Brothers, 1973 (The Captain and Me)
China Grove from the Doobie Brothers 1973 record, The Captain and Me, was written by their singer Tom Johnston, and is based on a real town in Texas with the same name, right near San Antonio, just like it says in the lyrics.
Funny thing is, China Grove was also the name of the ranch owned by the top Confederate General in the Civil War, Albert Sydney Johnston. Hey, same name - Johnston!
Coincidence perhaps, that Tom Johnston wrote that song, and he spells his last name the same way as the General? Maybe these two are actually related and they...don't...even...know...it.
2-2-10
Sunshine of Your Love - Cream, 1967 (Disraeli Gears)
Sunshine of Your Love was Cream's first big US hit. And a lot of it's success had to do with Jimi Hendrix.
In 1967 Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton of Cream attended a Jimi Hendrix concert in London. They were so inspired upon returning home that Bruce wrote the now memorable guitar riff that runs throughout the song. You know - the very first riff they teach you in Garage Band 101?
The lyrics to Sunshine of Your Love were written during an all-night creative session between Jack Bruce and a guy called Pete Brown, who was a a poet who worked with the band.
Jack said, "I picked up my double bass and played the riff. Pete looked out the window and the sun was coming up. He wrote 'It's getting near dawn and lights close their tired eyes…'" Clapton later wrote the chorus ("I've been waiting so long…") which also produced the song's title, Sunshine of Your Love.
And Hendrix was a big Clapton fan. He performed Sunshine of Your Love regularly at his concerts, but this is the original Cream version, direct from The Summer of Love, 1967.
2-1-10
Street of Dreams - Rainbow, 1983 (Bent Out of Shape)
Rainbow is a group that has had many, many lineup changes over the years. Everybody's grandmother and dog has played in this band.
Ronnie James Dio sang in Rainbow before joining Black Sabbath, but Joe Lynn Turner is the vocalist on today's Classic Vinyl record, Bent out of Shape, which was the last studio album released by Rainbow before Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover took part in the Deep Purple "reformation."
The album featured the single Street Of Dreams. The song's video was actually banned by MTV for its supposedly controversial hypnotic video clip - "push repeat button on iTunes, push repeat button on iTunes, push repeat button on iTunes."
Its still a mystery.
1-29-10
Desperado - Eagles, 1973 (Desperado)
The Eagles' second record, Desperado, was a "concept" album, the concept being that they were all just a bunch of badass outlaws - in the 1890's, the Dalton Gang were outlaws who specialized in robbing trains - the Eagles were outlaw rock stars who roamed the canyons of L.A. in the 1970's.
It was during the recording sessions that Don Henley and Glenn Frey began writing alot together, including two of the Eagles' most popular numbers - Tequila Sunrise and Desperado.
Henley actually wrote an early version of Desperado in 1968, when he was just 21 years old - now it's one of the Eagles' signature songs.
Desperado. A little reminder to that fellow who's been out ridin' fences for so long that he "ain't gettin no younger."
1-28-10
Goodbye Stranger - Supertramp, 1979 (Breakfast in America)
Once upon a time in 1969, a young Dutch millionaire by the name of Stanley August Miesegaes gave his acquaintance, vocalist and keyboardist Rick Davies, a "genuine opportunity" to form his own band - he could form the band of his dreams and this guy would pay for it. After placing an ad in Melody Maker magazine, Davies put together Supertramp with a guy named Roger Hodgson.
Problem is, these two guys ended up hating each other.
Despite the turmoil, Supertramp's Breakfast in America was #1 on Billboard's Charts for six weeks in the spring and summer of 1979; by the 1990s, the album had sold over 18 million copies around the world.
Goodbye Stranger is the story a lone sexual encounter, as described by a womanizing Englishman, who has no immediate intention or expectation of establishing a long-term relationship.
Exactly. A one night stand.
1-27-10
Breakdown - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1976 (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)
Tom Petty's first record came out in the bicentennial year of 1976 and was initially unpopular. That didn't last long though, due to the strength of songs like American Girl and today's Classic Vinyl track, Breakdown.
Breakdown was the first single from the album and was the Heartbreakers first hit as well. Pretty sweet for a guy who is looking awfully damn geeky on his album cover.
Listen closely to the line "it's all right if you love me/it's all right if you don't." Talk about geeky sounding! Is this guy trying to sound English? Jamaican? Maybe some kind of weird Tom Petty home-brewed accent.
Go ahead and give it to me......
1-26-10
Beautiful Girls - Van Halen, 1979 (Van Halen II)
Van Halen II came out in 1979, just a year after their spectacular debut album arrived on the planet. A lot of the songs on it we're actually around prior to the release of the first record, and today's Classic Vinyl track, Beautiful Girls, was even on the famous demo recorded in 1975 by Gene Simmons, originally titled Bring on the Girls.
Either way, these guys knew what they we're talking about when it came to women. Eddie and Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth had more groupies in the 70's and 80's than any other band on the planet, especially their, "I'm a bum in the sun and I'm havin' fun" lead singer, Diamond Dave.
You know what Dave used to tell all those beautiful girls? "If you let Dave cool you one time, you'll be his regular stop."
1-25-10
Some Kind of Wonderful - Grand Funk Railroad, 1975 (All the Girls in the World Beware!!!)
in 1974, Grand Funk were enjoying the success of two #1 hit singles, We're An American Band and The Loco-Motion, and they we're under a lot of pressure to produce more hits.
So they switched producers, changed their name back to Grand Funk Railroad, and released the album, All the Girls in the World Beware!!! which showed the band's head-shots (Photoshop wasn't invented yet, so we'll just say) "perched" on top of the bodies of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franco Columbu, who was an old body-building pal of the Governator's.
Must have worked - the record produced two top ten hits - one of them was Some Kind of Wonderful.
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Don't Stop Believin' - Journey, 1981 (Escape)
Journey's seventh studio album, Escape, was certified 9x Platinum and made it to #1 on the charts in 1981. (you had your own copy, right?)
Also, I'm sure you've heard by now that Journey's massive hit single, Don't Stop Believin' from that album, was just certified as the most downloaded song in the history of the universe.
Crazy for a song that's almost 30 years old.
Of course, it didn't hurt that it was featured in the final episode of The Sopranos or in The Wedding Singer or Family Guy or a gazillion other TV shows. South Park, even.
And of course here on Classic Vinyl.
1-21-10
Do You Feel Like We Do - Peter Frampton, 1973 (Frampton's Camel)
You've heard the 16 minute live version of Peter Frampton's Do You Feel Like We Do a million times on the radio - "Bob Mayo. Bob Mayo on keyboards" - but this is the original studio version at less than half the length. Do You Feel Like We Do is the last track on Frampton's second record, the unfortunately titled Frampton's Camel.
Peter Frampton got his first guitar at the age of eight and started taking classical music lessons. At 16 he was lead singer and guitarist for a British teen band called The Herd, at 18 he co-founded one of the first "Supergroups," Humble Pie. At 23, Frampton made this record with "Mick Gallagher on keyboards. Mick Gallagher!"
He wasn't a superstar yet, but Peter Frampton would routinely perform to mobs of screaming teenagers onstage. One day the young Mr. Frampton woke up with one too many hangovers and decided to write a song about it.
1-20-10
Thunderclap Newman - Something In The Air, 1969 (Hollywood Dream)
Thunderclap Newman was a late 1960s one-hit wonder band from England. Their single, Something in the Air, was a #1 hit across the pond and was written by a former Who roadie/Pete Townsend chauffeur, Speedy Keen.
This guy was famous among fans of The Who for writing Armenia City in the Sky, the only song The Who ever performed that was specifically written for the group by a non-member.
But he was really famous for writing this song, Something In The Air, and you know that it's right.
1-19-10
ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL (Part 2), 1972 (The Wall)
Pink Floyd's The Wall is a rock opera that centers on a fellow named Pink who encounters many obstacles throughout his life, including abuse from his schoolteachers, all of which led to Pink's isolation from society, hence the metaphorical "Wall" of the album title.
Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) is a protest song against rigid schooling in general and boarding schools in particular, and when the song was adopted as a protest anthem by black students during the 1980 uprising in South Africa, it was banned by the government.
There are several different versions and today's is from a Pink Floyd record called A Collection of Great Dance Songs.
More on that later. (They're kidding, btw) It's time for some "dark sarcasm in the classroom."
1-18-09
Bad Company. 1974 (Bad Company)
Today on Classic Viny, one of the great bands of the 70's, Bad Company. The name of the band, title of the album, and hit single were inspired by the 1972 critically acclaimed Western, Bad Company, starring Jeff Bridges.
Following the demise of the band Free (All Right Now), Paul Rodgers (who reportedly turned down the lead vocalist job with Deep Purple), put together a new group called Bad Company. Led Zeppelin Manager Peter Grant signed them to the Zep's newly formed Swan Song Records.
"I had to fight to get the management and the record company to accept the name Bad Company," explained Rodgers. "They thought it was a terrible name.
Little did they know that Bad Company's self titled debut would be a runaway sales success easily reaching #1 on the charts.
All of a sudden they we're in pretty good company. And they won't deny it.
1-15-10
Friday On My Mind - Earthquake, 1975 (Beserkeley Chartbusters)
One of the coolest Indie record labels ever was Beserkeley Records out of Berkeley, California. And this was before the term "Indie" was even invented.
From '73 to '75 Beserkley put out only singles, not albums. They had four bands - Greg Kihn (which is where he got his start), a young Berkeley band called the Rubinoos, a very quirky dude called Jonathan Richman, and today's featured band on Classic Vinyl, Earthquake.
Finally, in 1975, Beserkeley put out an album called Beserkeley Chartbusters Volume 1, Home Of The Hits, featuring all four of their artists.
The first track on the disc is Earthquake doing a rippin' cover of those legendary Aussie rockers, The Easybeats, Friday On My Mind, some of the finest power pop of all time.
1-14-10
God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols, 1977 (Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols)
The Sex Pistols might be the most controversial group ever to capture the attention of jolly old England. And the world, for that matter.
In the 70's it was all long hair and bell bottoms until these guys showed up in deliberately offensive T-shirts - probably slashed, ripped and tapered jeans, with safety pins stuck in both their clothing and their body flesh. The day Sid Vicious joined the Sex Pistols, he arrived with green hair and an "I Hate Pink Floyd" t-shirt.
The lads also cultivated an extremely snotty attitude. At the airport in Amsterdam, Steve Jones the guitar player, was accused of "vomiting on old ladies in the preflight lounge."
This song, God Save The Queen, the last track on side 1 of their only record, was their biggest hit. It was also the title of the British National Anthem and arrived during the Queen Mum's cherished 50th anniversary celebration.
Most of the country was not happy with the Sex Pistols. Nonetheless, and in spite of calling the Queen a fascist and saying "She ain't no human being," God Save The Queen reached #2 on the charts.
Rolling Stone magazine actually gave the record a positive review, comparing the sound to "two subway trains crashing together under four feet of mud, victims screaming."
1-13-10
Master of Puppets - Metallica, 1985 (Master of Puppets)
How can you be a Metallica fan and not go completely nuts over their third record, Master of Puppets? Some say it's their greatest achievement, even that it's the best heavy metal album in the history of the universe!
Master of Puppets reached #29 on the Billboard 200 album charts and was the band's first Gold record with, btw, virtually no radio airplay, I'm sorry to say. The album is now 6x Platinum in the U.S., with over 6 million copies sold in the States alone. Next week they're headed to South America where they're also incredibly popular.
Master of Puppets is definitely Metallica's signature song, and, as James Hetfield explained, it "deals pretty much with drugs. How things get switched around, instead of you controlling what you're taking and doing, it's drugs controlling you."
"Taste me you will see, more is all you need."
1-12-10
Bad Motor Scooter - Montrose, 1973 (Montrose)
The first time Montrose recorded Bad Motor Scooter, nobody was happy with it. The song was missing a certain something to make it stand out, and according to guitarist Ronnie Montrose, he finally stumbled upon that "something" while fooling around in the studio with a slide and fuzz box, improvising what became the song's trademark motorcycle rev-up riff.
Unfortunately, the tape recorders weren't rolling at the time, but the producer and engineer realized that Ronnie was on to something big and waved frantically at him to keep going while they scrambled to start the tape machine.
We know where that went.
1-11-10
Welcome to the Machine - Pink Floyd, 1975 (Wish You Were Here)
How do you follow a record of such magnanimous proportions like Dark Side of the Moon?
With Pink Floyd, they simply created another masterpiece, Wish You Were Here, a loose concept album about and dedicated to their founding member Syd Barrett.
You know that Shine On You Crazy Diamond from the album is obviously about Syd's troubled life as a musician, but it was the music industry and the whole of industrialized society that really led Barrett into the depths of madness.
He dreamed of a big star, and he played a mean guitar. And Btw, welcome to the machine.
1-8-10
Feel Like A Number - Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, 1978 (Stranger In Town)
Today on Classic Vinyl, Stranger in Town, the tenth album by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, released in 1978 and subsequently earning six times Multi-Platinum status.
This was kind of the end of an era for Bob Seger. He was always your prototypical hard-working heartland rocker, but by the 1980's, he'd gone all Eagles on everybody and finally got real famous.
Actually, there is an Eagles connection here - Glenn Frey of the Eagles was a very old friend of Bob Seger's and he even played guitar on this record.
Feel Like a Number was one of Bob Seger's last truly great moments as a rocker - the perfect anthem for all the Regular Joe's who feel like "just another spoke in a great big wheel, just another consensus on the street, just another statistic on a sheet."
1-7-10
Beneath, Between & Behind - Rush, 1975 (Fly By Night)
Today on Classic Vinyl, the second Rush record, Fly By Night. Neil Peart, their drummer and lyricist, had just joined Rush from a band called Hush.....seriously - from Hush to Rush.
Matter of fact, Neil Peart joined Rush just two weeks before the start of the group's first US tour in 1974. This song, Beneath, Between & Behind, side 1, track 3, written by Peart and guitarist Alex Lifeson, is actually a nice compliment from our friends in the Great White North - about the discovery of America and the birth of our nation.
Beneath the noble birth
Between the proudest words
Behind the beauty, cracks appear
1-6-10
My Litttle Red Book - Love, 1966 (Love)
We're getting a little love today on Classic Vinyl. The band Love, featuring Albert Lee was one of the first racially diverse American pop bands - Love were rock and roll, garage rock, folk rock and psychedelia all rolled into one.
The first track on their debut album from 1966, My Litttle Red Book, was written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach of Dionne Warwick fame for the movie What's New, Pussycat? starring Peter Sellers and also Woody Allen in his film debut.
But this version of My Litttle Red Book was nothing like the original - Bacharach actually gave Love's version a thumbs down. Nonetheless, they still had a Southern California hit and earned a spot on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.
In the song, a guy loses his girlfriend and immediately searches through his little red book of phone numbers looking for her replacement.
1-5-09
Blue Morning, Blue Day - Foreigner, 1978 (Double Vision)
Double Vision is the second album by American rockers Foreigner, released in 1978. (Mick Jones was a Brit, but the rest of the guys were from the good old U.S.of A.)
Nowadays, Mick Jones is the only original member left (they're playing a couple of dozen dates this spring), but the original incarnation fronted by Lou Gramm was among the biggest rock acts of the late 1970s and '80s, with five consecutive multimillion-selling albums and a whole slew of Top 10 hits, including today's Classic Vinyl track. Lou, btw, has been into Christian Rock lately.
Track 2, side 1, Blue Morning, Blue Day, is a classic tale of man-woman misunderstanding; "You hear me talk, but you dont hear what I say.....Ive always been a patient man, but my patience has reached its end."
1-4-10
Back In The Saddle - Aerosmith, 1976 (Rocks)
Aerosmith Rocks - nice ring to it, don't you think? The perfect title from the best-selling American hard rock band of all time.
These guys have sold 150 million albums worldwide, with 21 Top 40 hits, nine #1 Mainstream Rock hits, four Grammy Awards, and ten MTV Video Music Awards. And they're in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!
Rocks is the album that Slash of Guns N' Roses said "changed my life." And it was one of Kurt Cobain's favorite records.
The first track on the disc, Back In The Saddle, is the tale of a lonesome cowpoke who rides into town one moonlit night looking for a little....female companionship.
He finds it.
12-31-09
Roadhouse Blues - Doors , 1970 (Morrison Hotel)
Roadhouse Blues starts the Doors fifth studio album by kicking ass. And singer Jim Morrison got his ass kicked around alot.
During the recording, Morrison found himself in trouble with the law after harassing an airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see The Rolling Stones in concert. He was acquitted the following April.
Then there was the famous Miami incident where Jim whipped it out on stage and was not acquitted - he was convicted of profanity and indecent exposure. It was hard to get away with stuff like that even in 1970.
Jim Morrison liked to drink, and Roadhouse Blues has been called the ultimate bar song. Perfect for a guy who sang "When I woke up this morning, I got myself a beer."
12-30-09
Changes - David Bowie, 1971 (Hunky Dory)
Today on Classic Vinyl, David Bowie's theme song - Changes. This is vintage Bowie - the first track on his 1971 Hunky Dory album. That would be Hunky Dory, as in "quite satisfying."
Changes was always wildy popular at David Bowie concerts way back in the day. According to Bowie, "it turned into this monster that nobody would stop asking for at concerts: 'Dye-vid, Dye-vid – do Changes!' I had no idea it would become such a popular thing."
The song is ranked at number 127 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Still don't know what we've been waiting for?
12-29-09
Eat It - Weird Al Yankovic, 1984 ("Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D)
It's easy to think of Weird Al Yankovic as a novelty act, but this guy has sold more albums than any other comedy act in history - over 12 million!
He's also recorded more than 150 parody and original songs and has performed more than 1,000 live shows, and he's received three Grammy Awards, one of them for today's Classic Vinyl track, Eat It, which is a parody of Michael Jackson's Beat It.
Just remember - "you won't get no dessert 'till you clean off your plate, so eat it, don't you tell me you're full."
12-28-09
Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin, 1969 (Led Zeppelin II)
Whole Lotta Love is the opening track on Led Zeppelin II. It became their first hit single.
Unfortunately some of the lyrics were "borrowed" from an old Willie Dixon Blues song, You Need Love, a favorite of Robert Plant's and a practice for which the band (plagarism) was all too familiar.
Since they didn't give credit to the author of the song, it would eventually lead to a lawsuit against the Zep, settled out of court in favour of Willie Dixon in 1985.
Plant did the vocals in one take. At one point there was bleed-through of a previously recorded vocal in the middle part where Plant screams 'Wo-man. You need it.' Audio engineer Eddie Kramer said, "Since we couldn’t re-record at that point, I just threw some echo on it to see how it would sound and Jimmy Page said 'Great! Just leave it.'”
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Fat Bottomed Girls - Queen, 1978 (Jazz)
Queen scored a big double-sided hit in their homeland of England in 1978 — a single that contained the fun Freddie Mercury tune Bicycle Race on one side and a sleazy piece of Brian May rock & roll on the other, Fat Bottomed Girls.
The tactic had worked earlier for Queen when they put We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions together, so their record company decided to give the "double A-side" concept another whirl.
It worked!
There was even a double cross-reference between the two songs. Fat Bottomed Girls includes the line "Get on your bikes and ride," while Bicycle Race contains the line "Fat bottomed girls, they'll be riding today, so look out for those beauties, oh yeah."
Queen guitarist Brian May wrote Fat Bottomed Girls about a young lad who learns to appreciate women of substantial girth.
He said "I wrote it with Fred in mind (meaning Freddie Mercury), as you do especially if you've got a great singer who likes fat bottomed girls… or boys."
2-23-09
Any Way You Want It - Journey, 1980 (Departure)
Departure is the name of Journey's sixth album. It was released in 1980 and would mark the final studio appearance of founding member Gregg Rolie who grew somewhat weary of life on the road and made a hasty departure from the journey.
The first track on the record, Any Way You Want It, was an overnight hit on rock radio
According to co-writer Steve Perry, the song was heavily influenced by Irish rockers Thin Lizzy whom they toured with in 1979.
Any Way You Want It gets right to the point - the moment you start your turntable.
1-9-09
Gimme Three Steps - Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1976 (One More From The Road)
Until that tragic plane crash in 1977, Ronnie Van Zandt was the heart and soul of Lynyrd Skynyrd. He was a big reason their live shows were so legendary and, funny thing, he usually performed on stage....barefoot.
After a show at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta on a warm July night in '76 where their live album, One More From The Road, was recorded, Ronnie said, "I sure am glad I don't wear shoes when I'm out there singing - I love to feel that stage burn!"
Ronnie Van Zandt loved the Skynyrd fans.
12-21-09
Head First - The Babys. 1978 (Head First)
For some reason The Baby's were always a few hooks short of a big hit. Even the addition of future Journey superstar Jonathan Cain couldn't quite get these guys into the top ten.
With The Baby's it might have been a case of inflated expectations.
Their lead singer John Waite complained that "We were better than people thought we were."
And there was just plain bad luck. After Cain left and during a performance in Cincinnati in 1980 (the day after John Lennon had been murdered), John Waite was pulled head first from the stage by an overzealous fan and seriously injured his knee.
The Baby's did one more show, cancelled their tour, then disbanded.
Head First - The Babys.
12-18-09
Happy - Rolling Stones, 1972 (Exile On Main Street)
Exile on Main St. is the tenth studio album by The Rolling Stones. And since it's Keith Richards birthday today, we're going to play his signature song, Happy, today on Classic Vinyl.
Keith doesn't sing much. He once said, "It's not the most beautiful voice in the world anymore, but the Queen liked it when it was at its best."
And while Mick Jagger is the guy out front, Keith Richards is really the musical leader of the Stones.
Both Bill Wyman and Ronnie Wood have said that while other rock & roll bands follow the drummer's timing, the Rolling Stones follow Richards: "Onstage you have to follow Keith. You have no way of not following him."
12-17-09
Eruption/You Really Got Me - Van Halen, 1978
As you know, the debut Van Halen record was a groundbreaking piece of work. It was recorded simply and quickly and cheaply and live in the studio - they only overdubbed instrumental tracks on three numbers.
Funny thing is, Eddie Van Halen mistakenly let the band Angel hear his version of You Really Got Me, so Angel wanted to put out the song too. Both bands rushed to get it out first and the rest is history.
Angel who?
12-16-09
Paranoid - Black Sabbath, 1970 (Paranoid)
Paranoid, the second album by Black Sabbath, has been called "the greatest heavy metal album in the history of the universe." It has been certified quadruple platinum with over four million copies sold in the US alone, making it Black Sabbath's best-selling album.
Funny because, as drummer Bill Ward explained: "We didn't have enough songs for the album, and Tony Iommi just played the Paranoid guitar lick and that was it. It took twenty, twenty-five minutes from top to bottom" to record.
So the song was written with no intention of it being a successful hit for the rest of their lives - ironic, because the title track, Paranoid, side 1, track 2, their first single, sends a rather chilling message about a man who loses hope and believes he will suffer for the rest of his life.
12-15-09
The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown) - Judas Priest, 1979 (Hell Bent For Leather)
The Judas Priest version of The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown) is considered by many to be the loudest rock song ever recorded.
Most people know the tune from the Priest's first live album, Unleashed In the East from late 1979, but it actually came out seven months earlier on a record called Hell Bent For Leather.
The Green Manalishi got to be so popular for Judas Priest that everybody thought it was a Priest original when in fact, it was an early Peter Green/Fleetwood Mac cover.
Just before Peter Green left the Mac, he wrote the haunting Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown), wherein a troubled rock star desperately struggles to stop his descent into.....madness.
12-14-09
Been Caught Stealing - Jane's Addiction, 1990 (Ritual de lo Habitual)
Jane's Addiction was one of the first bands to emerge from the early 1990s alternative rock movement to gain mainstream media attention and commercial success. By the time their second record, Ritual de lo Habitual, came out in 1990, they we're close to being finished, though.
Perry Farrell, their vocalist, was in drug rehab during part of the making of the album, while guitarist Dave Navarro later stated he had almost no recollection of working on the album due to his addiction to heroin.
Then there was their bass player Eric Avery who didn't get along with Navarro, so they came in and recorded at separate times.
Things we're an addictive mess, but Jane's Addiction had a monster hit with Been Caught Stealing which begins with a reminder of what happens when you DO get caught stealing.
12-11-09
Live Wire - Mötley Crüe, 1981 (Too Fast For Love)
Too Fast For Love, the debut record from Mötley Crüe, shows off their down and dirty badass bar band roots. These guys were L.A. party animals like no other.
And they had umlaut's in their name. You know - those two dots on top of the "o" in Mötley and the "u" in Crüe?
They weren't the first to gratuitously use the umlaut in their name. Blue Öyster Cult was probably the first. Motörhead "put it in there to look mean," also there was Queensrÿche and even Spinal Tap used an umlaut in their name. Their lead singer said, "It's like a pair of eyes. You're looking at the umlaut, and it's looking at you."
Mötley Crüe's use of the umlaut apparently came from a German beer the were fond of getting plowed on back in the day.
But we digress. The first track on the first Crüe album, Live Wire, is about a guy who apparently wants somebody to "Plug me in."
12-10-09
Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy - Bad Company 1979 (Desolation Angels)
Desolation Angels was the 5th Bad Company record, directly named after the Jack Kerouac book of the same name. Kerouac kept a journal when he was a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascade mountains of Washington state, which had to be pretty desolate.
Desolation Angels is considered to be the last strong album by Bad Company, mostly because it contains the last big hit by Paul Rodgers and the boys, Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy.
"Put your hands together now, and sing it out loud."
12-9-09
Stay With Me - Faces, 1971 (A Nod Is As Good As A Wink...To A Blind Horse)
The Faces' third album, A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...to a Blind Horse, finally gave Rod Stewart, Ron Wood and the boys their much needed breakthrough hit single, but Rod Stewart also had a pretty successful solo career going on at the same time.
Just months apart, Maggie May was a huge hit for "Rod the Mod" and, to make a long story short, things got pretty tense, the group broke up with Rod Stewart going solo and Ronnie Wood heading off to play guitar with the Stones.
The two of them wrote the last track on side 1, a trashy rocker called Stay with Me, about a late-nite deal for a one-night stand with a woman with "red lips, hair and fingernails."
Rod tells her, "Yeah, I'll pay your cab fare home, you can even use my best cologne, just don't be here in the mornin' when I wake up."
12-8-09
Are You Gonna Be My Girl - JET, 2003 (Get Born)
The first album from Aussie rockers JET, Get Born, took it's name from a line in an old Bob Dylan song, Subterranean Homesick Blues - "Get born, keep warm, short pants, romance, learn to dance, get dressed, get blessed, try to be a success."
And it was a huge success. The record went platinum in the U.S., but it went 8 times platinum in the home country.
JET has sold 4 million records worldwide, mostly due to their first big hit, Are You Gonna Be My Girl, track 2, side A, which begins with a numeric countdown to romance.
12-7-09
Heard It On The X - ZZ Top, 1975 (Fandango!)
Fandango! is the fourth album by ZZ Top, a band out of Houston, Texas, possibly named after a hybrid of two popular brands of rolling papers, Zig-Zag and Top.
Possibly.
This record spawned the infamous hit Tush as well as today's Classic Vinyl track, Heard It on the X, which was a tribute to Mexican border-blaster radio stations whose call letters began with an "X", specifically the two that were run by legendary disc jockey Wolfman Jack, XERF in Via Acuna, (near Del Rio Tx.), and XERB, (in Rosarito Beach near Tijuana). Mexican radio stations didn't have to adhere to the power limits of US stations, so they could pump their signal well into the The States.
ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill said they'd, "Sell segments to anybody. There are a lot of preachers on there. I heard them one time selling autographed prayer cloths. They were to put on your radio when you're listening to these programs. But this one was autographed by Jesus himself. Then you'd hear a 15-minute country western show. Then there'd be a blues show."
Side 2, track 5, Heard It On The X. Country Jesus, hillbilly blues; that's where he learned his licks.
12-4-09
We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister, 1984 (Stay Hungry)
Stay Hungry is the third album by one of the great heavy metal band's of the 80's, Twisted Sister.
Their singer and songwriter, Dee Snider, once described Twisted Sister as "Slade meets Sex Pistols". No wonder they we're always getting into trouble - like with the Parents Music Resource Center, the folks who lobbied for those "Parental Advisory" labels on records.
Dee Snider even testified before Congress against censorship and the proposed warning labels and, in one of the funniest moments ever on the floor of the Senate, Dee was addressed formally by the committee counsel as "Mr. Sister".
You know what he told those guys? We're Not Gonna Take It!
12-3-09
Down By The Seaside - Led Zeppelin, 1975 (Physical Graffiti)
1975's Physical Graffiti album is definetly one of Led Zeppelin's defining works.
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote today's Classic Vinyl track, Down By The Seaside, in 1970 as an acoustic piece at a place called Bron-yr-Aur, a little cottage in Wales with no electricity or running water, where they retreated to after a crazy tour of the US. (They played in Oakland that year, btw)
Down By The Seaside is actually a nod to Neil Young and his song, Down By The River. Plant was a big fan of Neil Young's old group, Buffalo Springfield.
Side 3, track 3. Let's see those boats go sailin'.
12-2-09
Werewolves Of London - Warren Zevon, 1978 (Excitable Boy)
Today, Werewolves Of London by the late Warren Zevon. Jackson Browne produced the track, and it featured Mick Fleetwood and John McVie from Fleetwood Mac on backing vocals.
To make it even more incestuous, Zevon was once roomates with Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham also of Fleetwood Mac.
Way before that, Warren Zevon was working with The Everly Brothers. At one point, Phil Everly asked him to write a dance song for the Brothers called Werewolves Of London.
Zevon was strumming a guitar when someone asked what he was playing. Zevon said, Werewolves Of London, and the other guy started howling.
Zevon came up with the line "I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand," and they traded lyrics back and forth until they had their song.
Btw, there really is a Le Ho Fooks Chinese restaurant - right outside the Picadilly tube station in London.
12-1-09
Here Comes My Girl - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, 1979 (Damn the Torpedoes)
If it wasn't for Pink Floyd's The Wall, Tom Petty would have had a #1 hit album. Instead, Damn the Torpedoes ended up #2 on the charts for seven weeks.
Still, a lot of people claim that it's their favorite Petty record.
Track #2, side #1, Here Comes My Girl, features Tom not so much singing the song, but narrating it.
Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell said Here Comes My Girl was interesting because "we had the chorus and Tom wasn't sure how to do the verse, he kept trying to sing it different ways and he finally came across sort of half-talking it, and that's when the song seemed to come to life."
A song about wonderin', waitin', worryin' - About some silly little things that don't add up to nothin'.
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Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band, 1975 (Born To Run)
Born to Run was a critical and commercial success and became Bruce Springsteen's breakthrough record. Good thing, because the title track of the album was Springsteen's last-ditch effort to make it big. Like the lyrics said, "Highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive."
When it came out in 1975, Born To Run was accompanied by much hype, including the famous line from his manager,"I saw rock 'n' roll's future—and its name is Bruce Springsteen." Born to Run immediately vaulted into the top 10 and soon went Gold. Time and Newsweek put Springsteen on the cover in the same week, and the question of hype became the story. Was this guy for real?
Btw, Springsteen said the decision to label him as the future of rock was a "very big mistake and I would like to strangle the guy who thought that up."
"there's no place left to hide...."
11-20-09
Funk #48 - James Gang, 1969 (Yer' Album)
In 1966, the James Gang formed in that hot bed of rock 'n roll, Cleveland, Ohio. Joe Walsh was at Kent State University and joined the group in 1969.
Thirty-one years later, Joe would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Eagles. He wouldn't have to go too far - the Hall of Fame is right there on Rock and Roll Boulevard in downtown Cleveland.
And today on Classic Vinyl, we're going to play track 3, side 1 of the debut James Gang record called Yer' Album.
Their producer said in the liner notes that today's song, Funk #48, “started out as a soundcheck warm-up riff,” adding that the “number 48 [in the title] came out of thin air.” Presumably the same holds true for the follow-up Funk #49, which you've heard here on The Bone a gazillion times.
It's probably your first for Funk #48
11-19-09
Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry, 1958 (Chuck Berry Is on Top)
Today on Classic Vinyl, the song that Rolling Stone magazine placed at #1 on their list of The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs Of All Time, Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode.
Johnny B. Goode is among the most widely covered rock and roll songs in history. Pretty much everybody's grandmother and dog has recorded it - Aerosmith, Hendrix, The Stones, BB King, Judas Priest, Angus Young duck walking across the stage - Pure Chuck Berry. Don't forget Santana, The Beatles, Green Day, The Dead, Marty freakin' McFly did Johnny B. Goode on Back To The Future for cryin out loud!
Want more? I'm running out of time. Buddy Holly, Elton John, Jerry Lee Lewis, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Motörhead, George Thorogood, Twisted Sister mister. And thats only half the list.
And speaking of Angus and AC/DC, remember when he sang on Let There Be Rock, "In the beginning, back in nineteen fifty five"?
That was the year that Chuck Berry wrote this song, Johnny B. Goode.
11-18-09
Crossroads - Cream, 1968 (Wheels of Fire)
Today on Classic Vinyl one of the first and baddest power trios in the history of the universe. That would be Cream, featuring a 22 year-old guitar whiz by the name of Eric Clapton.
One of the liner notes on the record said, "They were one of those bands who shook the very foundation of rock in the sixties."
True enough, and the Cream-arranged version of Crossroads, the Robert Johnson blues classic, would really become the signature piece of Clapton’s career, Layla notwithstanding.
Maybe you've heard the story - so which is it? Some guy just trying to hitch a ride from an intersection as darkness falls, or some guy going to a metaphorical crossroads to meet up with the devil and sell his soul in exchange for becoming a famous blues player?
11-17-09
Bang A Gong (Get It On) - T Rex, 1971 (Electric Warrior)
T Rex was led by a guy called Marc Bolan. Bolan, who told his girlfriend that he didn't expect to make it to his 30th birthday, and who never learned to drive a car, and who had visions all his life of dying in a car crash, died in a car crash in England just before his 30th birthday.
A copy of the New Musical Express (an English music magazine) was found in Bolan's wrecked Mini Cooper, open to an interview with Pete Townshend, the headline of the interview reading, "Hope I Die Before I Get Old."
Today on Classic Vinyl, Bang A Gong (Get It On) from T Rex.
Riffs from this one song have been shamelessly stolen by the likes of Prince, AC/DC, the Rolling Stones and Def Leppard, but this is the original - dirty, sweet, and with a hub cap diamond star halo.
11-16-09
California Man - Cheap Trick, 1978 (Heaven Tonight)
A lot of people will tell you that Cheap Trick's third record, Heaven Tonight, is their best. Their first album was raw and edgy, their second was more pop oriented (with the original version of I Want You To Want Me), but this one is a combination of the two.
Today on Classic Vinyl, track 3, side 1, California Man - it was actually written in the early 70's by Englishman Roy Wood and contains one of the great lines in the history of Rock, "I don't care if your legs start aching, I'm a California man."
11-13-09
It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll) - AC/DC, 1976 (High Voltage)
Today on Classic Vinyl, a group that has sold in excess of 200 million records worldwide.
High Voltage was their first American album and this is track #1, It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll).
It was always a signature number for Bon Scott, who actually played the legendary bagpipe solo contained within.
Yikes! Bagpipes on a rock and roll record? - in 1975? - Why not? Bon Scott was a bagpipe playing champion in his younger years.
Of course he never really had any older years, and because of that you won't hear current AC/DC lead vocalist Brian Johnson singing It's A Long Way To The Top out of respect for his predecessor.
I tell you folks, It's harder than it looks.
11-12-09
Synchronicity II - The Police, 1983 (Synchronicity)
Although the Police's fifth record, Synchronicity, which came out at the end of the vinyl era, circa 1983, would be their most commercially successful album, it would also turn out to be the band's final recording.
The last track on side 1, Synchronicity II, is my all-time favorite Police song.
Everybody's grandmother and dog has a different interpretation of what it's about, but I'm going with the theory of a domestic crisis so anxiety producing that it wakes up the Loch Ness monster.
Put another way, a stressed out father comes home from work one day and kills his entire family.
Seriously.
That's why, "There's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the shore of a dark Scottish lake."
11-11-09
Ramble On - Led Zeppelin, 1969 (Led Zeppelin II)
Led Zeppelin was the definitive heavy metal band. That said, they also incorporated elements of rockabilly, reggae, soul, funk, classical, Celtic, Indian, Arabic, pop, Latin and country influences.
And don't forget J.R.R.Tolkien. Tolkien, born in South Africa, was the father of "high fantasy literature" as exemplified by his wildly popular book, Lord Of The Rings, of which Robert Plant was a huge fan.
Track 3, side 2 of Led Zeppelin II, which came out "years ago in days of old when magic filled the air," is the story of an intrepid traveller who ends up in a place called Mordor, in Middle Earth, where he met a girl so fair......
11-10-09
Life In The Fast Lane - Eagles, 1976 (Hotel California)
Since its release in late 1976, Hotel California by the Eagles has sold over 16 million copies in the U.S. alone. It won a Grammy for Record of the Year and you probably have a copy of your own.
Side 1, track 3, Life In The Fast Lane, is the story of a couple of crazy kids that take their excessive lifestyle to the edge; "They didn't care, they we're just dying to get off."
Glenn Frey of The Eagles says this is a true story: "I was riding in a car with a drug dealer, a guy we used to call "The Count," because his count was never very good. We were driving out to an Eagles poker game. I was in the passenger seat. He moved over to the left lane and started driving 75-80 miles per hour. I said, "Hey, man, slow down." He goes, "Hey, man, it's life in the fast lane." And I thought, "Oh, my God, what a title."
That, and Joe Walsh was now officially in the band and playing lead guitar. They said he "had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude."
11-9-09
Too Rolling Stoned - Robin Trower, (Bridge Of Sighs)
Bridge of Sighs is guitarist and songwriter Robin Trower's second solo album after leaving the band Procol Harum. Released in 1974, it was a breakthrough record for Trower, named after the actual Bridge of Sighs in Venice, Italy.
The album reached #7 on the charts and stayed there for 31 weeks. It was certified Gold almost immediately.
The first track on side 2, Too Rolling Stoned, is about how a little preventive maintenance can eliminate the need for major repairs later.
You know......like a stitch in time?
11-6-09
Swingtown - Steve Miller, 1977 (Book Of Dreams)
Book of Dreams is the tenth album by The Steve Miller Band, released in 1977. Steve keeps rockin' the "Space Cowboy" persona on this record with great tracks like Jet Airliner and Jungle Love and today's Classic Vinyl pick, Swingtown.
So, are there any actual swingers in Swingtown? It's ironic that last year's CBS summer replacement for Without a Trace, a TV show called Swingtown, took place in Chicago where Steve Miller was immersed in the city's blues scene at the time, and whose storyline revolved around a family named Miller.
Let's head out. To Swingtown.
11-5-09
One Of These Days - Pink Floyd, 1971 (Meddle)
One of These Days is the opening track from Pink Floyd's 1971 album Meddle. Thats M-e-d-d-l-e, a play on words; a medal, like what you win at the Olympics, and also meaning "to interfere." Meddle.
One of These Days is an instrumental, although you will hear their drummer, Nick Mason, utter in a distorted death growl, "One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces."
The song begins with double-tracked bass guitars played by David Gilmour and Roger Waters. One of the two bass guitars sounds quite muted and dull compared to the other. According to Gilmour, this is because that particular instrument had old strings on it, and the roadie they sent to get new strings for it wandered off to see his girlfriend instead.
Maybe that's the guy they want to cut into little pieces!
11-4-09
Message Of Love - The Pretenders, 1982 (Pretenders II)
The Pretenders second record, Pretenders II from 1982, would be the final release from the original lineup; half the band would shortly die of drug overdoses.
Nowadays Chrissie Hynde, the group's founder and the lone survivor, operates a vegan restaurant in her hometown of Akron, Ohio, called The VegiTerranean.
Chrissie actually went to Kent State University in Ohio and was on the campus during the infamous Kent State shootings. She knew Jeffrey Miller, one of the fatalities.
Track 3, side 1, channels Chrissie Hynde's inner hippie for a little Message Of Love - you know - how love is good like....Brigitte Bardot!
11-3-09
Back Door Man - The Doors, 1967 (The Doors)
Backstage at a Doors concert in New Haven, Connecticut in 1967, singer Jim Morrison met an 18 year old co-ed from nearby Southern Connecticut State and they started making out in a backstage shower stall. A police officer interrupted them and ordered them out of the stall.
Jim Morrison defied the cop, who thought he was a hippie who had snuck backstage, and eventually Morrison got maced in the face, screaming in pain and, even though his manager explained who he was and the cop apologized, during the last song of the evening, today's Classic Vinyl track, Back Door Man, Jim told the story of the backstage episode and began taunting the police and baiting the crowd.
To make a long story short, the cops surrounded Morrison, dragged him off the stage and arrested him. Jim Morrison was charged with "breach of peace, resisting arrest and indecent or immoral exhibition."
Bob Gover, an author and journalist from the New York Times noted that Jim Morrison had "that invisible something about him that silently suggested revolution, disorder, chaos."
11-2-09
Gimme Some Water - Eddie Money, 1978 (Life For The Taking)
Life for the Taking is Eddie Money's second album. It was released in 1978 and, although it wasn't as popular as his debut record a year earlier, it did include the single Can't Keep a Good Man Down, and track 4, side 1, Gimme Some Water.
Gimme Some Water is the story of an outlaw who shot a man on the Mexican border, and then, because the Sheriff always gets his man, ends up hanging from the hangman's tree.
Hell of a time to get thirsty.
10-30-09
White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane, 1967 (Surrealistic Pillow)
Jefferson Airplane were the only band to have performed at all three of the most famous American rock festivals of the 1960s — Monterey, Woodstock and Altamont.
They were the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success. If you need to put a musical tag on the Airplane, call it "psychedelic rock" or "acid rock." It was the Summer of Love.
Surrealistic Pillow, the group's second record, fit that description perfectly, mostly due to a two-and-a-half minute Grace Slick composition called White Rabbit. It's what you get when you mix LSD and Alice in Wonderland - a psychedelic doormouse screaming "feed your head."
3-12-10
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) - Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band, 1973 (The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle)
Bruce Springsteen is one of the great lyricists in rock, but he's also a great storyteller. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) is a kind of autobiographical love narrative that might have even happened to you.
You want this girl oh-so bad. Her mother can't stand you 'cause you play in a rock & roll band, and dad thinks you suck 'cause he knows you don't have any money.
Of course a $25,000 advance from the record company changes all that instantly and the two lovebirds go off to "a pretty little place in Southern California down San Diego way."
Btw, Springsteen never liked his nickname "The Boss." One time I heard him sing in this song: "You can call me Lieutenant, Rosie, but don't ever call me Boss."
3-11-10
X-Ray Spex - Starz, 1978 (Attention Shoppers!)
The band called Starz was a 1970s heavy metal and power pop band from New Jersey. Lets just say they were more pop than metal. Despite a lack of big time success, the band still has a faithful cult following.
Matter of fact, you can still buy a Starz Coliseum Rock Jacket for a mere $75 plus Shipping & handling . Very exciting!
30 years ago Starz was formed out of the remnants of an early 1970s pop band called Looking Glass. Of course you remember their #1 hit single Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) from the summer of 1972.
Starz' third record, Attention Shoppers!, has a "This Side" and a "That Side."
A song called X-Ray Spex, about a guy who thinks he can see right through his girlfriend, is the first track on "That Side."
3-10-10
Party - Boston, 1978 (Don't Look Back)
Let's say you were a huge fan of the first Boston album - you know, More Than A Feeling, Foreplay/Longtime, Smokin' - If so, then you were bound to be a huge fan of the second Boston album as well because it's almost exactly the same as their debut.
So these guys were sloppin' at the very same trough (again) which, by the way, was lined with gold in 1978. Boston sold over 4 million copies of their second record, Don't Look Back, in the first month of its release.
While that first Boston album was a nonstop party of a record, Brad Delp, their late lead singer, came back on their second to remind us that "Baby, it's a party as long as youre there."
3-9-10
Somebody to Love - Queen, 1976 (A Day at the Races)
Queen's fifth record, A Day at the Races, could easily have been the second disc in a double album alongside it's predecessor, A Night at the Opera.
From the album cover art with the same logo, to the album titles taken from old Marx Brothers films, to the big hit single on each, these two records are harvesting the same crop of rock & roll royalty.
Track 1, side 2, Somebody to Love, is this album's Bohemian Rhapsody, a song which featured an extremely complex layering of vocal tracks.
On it, Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor multi-tracked their voices to create the impression of a 100-voice gospel choir.
Somebody to Love was Freddie Mercury's favorite Queen song.
3-8-10
Double Trouble - Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1976 (Gimme Back My Bullets)
By the time the fourth Lynyrd Skynyrd album came out in 1976, these guys were a little pooped. They'd been on the road constantly, they made three spectacular records, and then they hired a new producer.
Some would say he was not the right guy for the job. Gimme Back My Bullets was the original Skynyrd's only studio album to not reach platinum status.
You've heard the title track a million times, but Double Trouble, track 1, side 2, is a gritty, greasy, bluesy rock number with "born in the gutter" written all over it. Hey, thats what the great Ronnie Van Zandt himself said!
He also ain't afraid to say how many times he's been busted, and how many times he's been to jail.
Double Trouble.
3-5-10
Working Man - Rush, 1974 (Rush)
Rush is everybody's favorite Canadian power trio. One problem - their great lyricist and drummer, Neil Peart, didn't join the band until after this, their first album. Rush was still in their formative stages and were kind of like a Cream/Zeppelin derivative.
Working Man is the last track on their debut album, which they recorded late at night when the studio rates were cheaper.
A Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey by the name of Donna Halper started playing Working Man on her show and it was an instant success - its blue collar theme immediately resonated with hard rock fans and Rush were on their way.
3-4-10
Pat Benatar - You Better Run, 1980 (Crimes of Passion)
Crimes of Passion is Pat Benatar's second record from. It followed her spectacular debut album a year earlier, featuring the mega-hit Heartbreaker. And this one did not disappoint. Some critics have said that Crimes of Passion is the finest recording of Pat Benatar's career.
Little known fact - Pat Benatar, who was once accepted to The Juilliard School of music, worked as a bank teller for three years before attending a Liza Minnelli concert and deciding that she needed to be that woman singing up on stage.
Hit Me With Your Best Shot and Treat Me Right from this record went higher up the charts, but since there's a sticker attached to my copy of the album that says "You Better Run," I thought we'd better play that one, even though in the last line of the song the girl tells the guy, "I can't stand you no more!"
3-3-10
Kashmir - Led Zeppelin, 1975 (Physical Graffiti)
1975's Physical Graffiti album is definitely one of Led Zeppelin's defining works. And Robert Plant has always said that the song Kashmir from that record, not Stairway To Heaven, was the definitive Zeppelin song.
Funny thing is, Plant was nowhere near Kashmir when he wrote the lyrics. Originally called Driving to Kashmir, it was written in an area he called "the waste lands" of Southern Morocco.
Robert Plant wrote Kashmir while driving in the Sahara Desert, 4,000 miles away from "My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon."
3-2-10
Intro/Sweet Jane - Lou Reed, 1974 (Rock N Roll Animal)
Lou Reed had kind of a crazy childhood. As a teenager, he received electroconvulsive shock therapy, once describing it as putting "the thing down your throat so you don't swallow your tongue, and they put electrodes on your head. That's what was recommended in Rockland County to discourage homosexual feelings. The effect is that you lose your memory and become a vegetable. You can't read a book because you get to page seventeen and have to go right back to page one again."
From his 1974 live double album, Rock N Roll Animal, here are two songs - Sweet Jane from Lou's Velvet Underground days, and the appropriately named Intro, featuring badass guitarist Steve Hunter.
3-1-10
Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane, 1967 (Surrealistic Pillow)
Surrealistic Pillow by the Jefferson Airplane was the first blockbuster psychedelic album by a band from San Francisco, and Somebody to Love became their first and biggest hit.
Somebody to Love is also the title of lead singer Grace Slick's memoirs, which includes the story of how she almost got away with dosing Richard Nixon with LSD.
Somebody to Love is pure Summer of Love, brother.
2-26-10
Call Me The Breeze - Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1974 (Second Helping)
One true test of a group's "longevity potential" is how they come out for round two. Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote the book on Southern rock with Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd, then they nailed it again with Second Helping.
What a great collection of songs. Side one comes out of the blocks with Sweet Home Alabama and ends with Workin' For MCA. Side two opens with The Ballad of Curtis Lowe and ends with my favorite track on the record - the story of a fellow who keeps blowin down the road - he ain't got nobody and he don't carry no load.
Call Me The Breeze.
2-25-10
The Crush of Love - Joe Satriani, 1988 (Dreaming #1 EP)
Most vinyl records, or albums, had about 30 to 60 minutes of music - Queen's A Night At The Opera was 43 minutes in length. They called them LP's, as in "long play."
Singles (one song) had 6 to 10 minutes of music.
But they also had extended play (or EP) records which contained more music than a single, but were too short to qualify as an LP.
Around the time of Surfing With The Alien, Joe Satriani put out an EP called Dreaming #11 with three live tracks on one side, and one new studio track on the other. That studio track immediately became a favorite of Satriani fans everywhere, and we give it a spin on Classic Vinyl.
The Crush of Love.
2-24-10
New York Groove - Ace Frehley, 1978 (Ace Frehley)
In 1978 all four members of Kiss released solo albums simultaneously. The best of the bunch came from their guitarist, Ace Frehley. This was just four years after the arrival of Kiss' debut record featuring Ace's Cold Gin.
By 1978, Kiss had become one of the world's top hard rock bands. They cranked out a string of platinum albums - Alive, Destroyer, Rock and Roll Over, Love Gun - and they regularly played to sold out audiences.
New York Groove was a top 20 hit for Ace Frehley, who was born and raised in The Bronx.
Apparently he liked it there, declaring, "You'd better believe. I'm back in the New York groove."
2-23-10
Loan Me A Dime - Boz Scaggs, 1969 (Boz Scaggs)
Boz Scaggs played guitar on the first two Steve Miller records. The two of them were actually together in a band in grade school, and then college, and then again here in San Francisco in the late 60's.
With the help of Rolling Stone magazine publisher Jann Wenner, Boz Scaggs signed a contract with Atlantic Records and recorded his debut album with the legendary Muscle Schoals rhythm section - a bunch of studio musicians known for their down-and-dirty backup on Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett records.
Occasionally they would use a young session guitarist by the name of Duane Allman. Luckily, the first Boz Scaggs record was one of those occasions, and Duane's guitar playing absolutely smokes on this song, the almost 13 minute classic, Loan Me A Dime.
2-22-10
For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield, 1967 (Buffalo Springfield)
Buffalo Springfield were a short lived but extremely influential country-rock band from the late 60's - two years together, three records - but they had a huge impact on the entire California rock sound.
Today on Classic Vinyl, the first track on the first Buffalo Springfield album (also also their first big hit), For What It's Worth, written by Steven Stills.
It's a common misconception that For What It's Worth was written about the Kent State massacre. Stills actually wrote the song in reaction to escalating unrest between the cops and the kids on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.
Nevertheless, For What It's Worth came to symbolize all the turbulence and confrontational feelings of the 60s in America (translation - the Vietnam War).
2-19-10
The Jack - AC/DC, 1978 (If You Want Blood You've Got It)
By the late 70's AC/DC were pretty much untouchable on stage - their concerts were legendary around the world.
They already had five blockbuster records - TNT, High Voltage, Dirty Deeds, Let There Be Rock, and Powerage - but no live album - until 1978's If You Want Blood You've Got It came out and absolutely nailed the AC/DC concert experience on record.
Recorded on the Powerage tour of 1978, they headlined Day On The Green #3 that summer with Aerosmith, Foreigner, Pat Travers, Van Halen, - Angus pulled down his shorts and mooned the audience with his American Flag underwear.
The Jack, track 4, side 1, of If You Want Blood - you'll notice the lyrics are a little bit different up on the concert stage - like when Bon Scott asks the crowd, "Any virgins in Glasgow?"
2-18-10
Can't You Hear Me Knocking - Rolling Stones, 1971 (Sticky Fingers)
When Rolling Stones' founder Brian Jones, proved to be an unreliable member of the group, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards knew they would need a new guitarist. So they fired Brian Jones and hired 20-year-old Mick Taylor.
Would this guy be any good?
When Mick Taylor was just 16, he and his mates went to see a performance of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton. John Mayall had finished his first set without a guitarist and it became clear that for some reason Eric Clapton was not going to show up that night.
Everybody was wondering, "What's up?"
It was then that Mick Taylor approached John Mayall during the intermission and ended up filling in as the guitarist for the second set, playing Clapton's guitar, which had already been set up on the stage.
Here he is on The Rolling Stones classic 1971 album Sticky Fingers with Can't You Hear Me Knocking.
2-10-10
Ice Cream Man - Van Halen, 1978 (Van Halen)
Even though Gene Simmons of Kiss "discovered" Van Halen, he wasn't able to close the deal and make them famous. For starters, Gene wanted to change the band's name to "Daddy Shortlegs" and had even designed cover art (a daddy longlegs wearing a top hat). The band weren't falling for it and stuck with the name Van Halen.
Then, when Kiss' manager told Gene Simmons that Van Halen "Had no chance of making it," that was it, until a couple of guys from Warner Brothers Records heard them a few weeks later and concluded that they in fact did have a chance of making it.
The debut Van Halen record was laid down in the fall of 1977 with little over-dubbing or double tracking and has now sold in excess of 10 million copies.
Side 2, track 5, Ice Cream Man.
2-9-10
Under My Wheels - Alice Cooper, 1971 (Killer)
Alice Cooper's Killer album came right on the heels of his humongous hit, I'm Eighteen.
In 1971 The Coop was one of the world's top (if somewhat misunderstood) rock bands and concert attractions; his stage shows were positively morbid, and with songs like Dead Babies and Killer, this was a band your parents absolutely despised.
Under My Wheels is the first track on the Killer record, the story of some poor dude who is so henpecked that he fantisizes about running down his girlfriend with his car.
Sick.....and rockin'.
Watch out my friend, the telephone is ringing and it's you-know-who.
2-8-10
Shout At The Devil - Mötley Crüe, 1983 (Shout At The Devil)
Mötley Crüe makes a long awaited appearance today on Classic Vinyl.
Many of you first heard about these guys in the mid 80's with stories of Vince Neil getting busted at the airport with porn, bomb threats being reported against the band, Tommy Lee throwing a TV out the top story of their hotel, as well as many, many more incidences of debauchery involving women, drugs, and rock and roll.
So here we are in 1983 and the title track to the second Mötley Crüe record, Shout At The Devil, written by the great Nikki Sixx (born in San Jose, btw), a man who was declared dead for a full two minutes in 1987.
Be careful. There's a "wolf screaming lonely in the night."
2-5-10
Whipping Post - Allman Brothers Band, 1969 (The Allman Brothers Band)
Gregg Allman was 21 years old when Whipping Post was first recorded for The Allman Brothers debut album. The song was legendary at their live concerts. Their classic 1971 double live album At Fillmore East, showcases a 23-minute epic rendition which takes up the entire final side of the record.
This, however, is the original studio version of Whipping Post. The song was written very quickly on an ironing board cover with burnt matches by Gregg Allman who said, "It came so fast. I didn't even have a chance to get the paper out.
That's the way the good songs come—they just hit you like a ton of bricks."
2-4-10
Take the Money and Run - Steve Miller Band, 1976 (Fly Like an Eagle)
You could make the argument that Steve Miller's Take the Money and Run is his most famous song. Definitely one of his most fun songs, what with those crazy kids goin' on a robbery spree.....and getting away with it!
But you gotta wonder what they we're putting in Steve Millers' orange juice with all that crazy rhyming of his back in the psychedelic 70's - one verse rhymes "El Paso" and "big hassle". Next thing you know it's "Texas" and "tax is."
Regardless, the Fly Like an Eagle album was a blockbuster, and apparently....robbery does pay!
2-4-10
China Grove - The Doobie Brothers, 1973 (The Captain and Me)
China Grove from the Doobie Brothers 1973 record, The Captain and Me, was written by their singer Tom Johnston, and is based on a real town in Texas with the same name, right near San Antonio, just like it says in the lyrics.
Funny thing is, China Grove was also the name of the ranch owned by the top Confederate General in the Civil War, Albert Sydney Johnston. Hey, same name - Johnston!
Coincidence perhaps, that Tom Johnston wrote that song, and he spells his last name the same way as the General? Maybe these two are actually related and they...don't...even...know...it.
2-2-10
Sunshine of Your Love - Cream, 1967 (Disraeli Gears)
Sunshine of Your Love was Cream's first big US hit. And a lot of it's success had to do with Jimi Hendrix.
In 1967 Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton of Cream attended a Jimi Hendrix concert in London. They were so inspired upon returning home that Bruce wrote the now memorable guitar riff that runs throughout the song. You know - the very first riff they teach you in Garage Band 101?
The lyrics to Sunshine of Your Love were written during an all-night creative session between Jack Bruce and a guy called Pete Brown, who was a a poet who worked with the band.
Jack said, "I picked up my double bass and played the riff. Pete looked out the window and the sun was coming up. He wrote 'It's getting near dawn and lights close their tired eyes…'" Clapton later wrote the chorus ("I've been waiting so long…") which also produced the song's title, Sunshine of Your Love.
And Hendrix was a big Clapton fan. He performed Sunshine of Your Love regularly at his concerts, but this is the original Cream version, direct from The Summer of Love, 1967.
2-1-10
Street of Dreams - Rainbow, 1983 (Bent Out of Shape)
Rainbow is a group that has had many, many lineup changes over the years. Everybody's grandmother and dog has played in this band.
Ronnie James Dio sang in Rainbow before joining Black Sabbath, but Joe Lynn Turner is the vocalist on today's Classic Vinyl record, Bent out of Shape, which was the last studio album released by Rainbow before Ritchie Blackmore and Roger Glover took part in the Deep Purple "reformation."
The album featured the single Street Of Dreams. The song's video was actually banned by MTV for its supposedly controversial hypnotic video clip - "push repeat button on iTunes, push repeat button on iTunes, push repeat button on iTunes."
Its still a mystery.
1-29-10
Desperado - Eagles, 1973 (Desperado)
The Eagles' second record, Desperado, was a "concept" album, the concept being that they were all just a bunch of badass outlaws - in the 1890's, the Dalton Gang were outlaws who specialized in robbing trains - the Eagles were outlaw rock stars who roamed the canyons of L.A. in the 1970's.
It was during the recording sessions that Don Henley and Glenn Frey began writing alot together, including two of the Eagles' most popular numbers - Tequila Sunrise and Desperado.
Henley actually wrote an early version of Desperado in 1968, when he was just 21 years old - now it's one of the Eagles' signature songs.
Desperado. A little reminder to that fellow who's been out ridin' fences for so long that he "ain't gettin no younger."
1-28-10
Goodbye Stranger - Supertramp, 1979 (Breakfast in America)
Once upon a time in 1969, a young Dutch millionaire by the name of Stanley August Miesegaes gave his acquaintance, vocalist and keyboardist Rick Davies, a "genuine opportunity" to form his own band - he could form the band of his dreams and this guy would pay for it. After placing an ad in Melody Maker magazine, Davies put together Supertramp with a guy named Roger Hodgson.
Problem is, these two guys ended up hating each other.
Despite the turmoil, Supertramp's Breakfast in America was #1 on Billboard's Charts for six weeks in the spring and summer of 1979; by the 1990s, the album had sold over 18 million copies around the world.
Goodbye Stranger is the story a lone sexual encounter, as described by a womanizing Englishman, who has no immediate intention or expectation of establishing a long-term relationship.
Exactly. A one night stand.
1-27-10
Breakdown - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1976 (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)
Tom Petty's first record came out in the bicentennial year of 1976 and was initially unpopular. That didn't last long though, due to the strength of songs like American Girl and today's Classic Vinyl track, Breakdown.
Breakdown was the first single from the album and was the Heartbreakers first hit as well. Pretty sweet for a guy who is looking awfully damn geeky on his album cover.
Listen closely to the line "it's all right if you love me/it's all right if you don't." Talk about geeky sounding! Is this guy trying to sound English? Jamaican? Maybe some kind of weird Tom Petty home-brewed accent.
Go ahead and give it to me......
1-26-10
Beautiful Girls - Van Halen, 1979 (Van Halen II)
Van Halen II came out in 1979, just a year after their spectacular debut album arrived on the planet. A lot of the songs on it we're actually around prior to the release of the first record, and today's Classic Vinyl track, Beautiful Girls, was even on the famous demo recorded in 1975 by Gene Simmons, originally titled Bring on the Girls.
Either way, these guys knew what they we're talking about when it came to women. Eddie and Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth had more groupies in the 70's and 80's than any other band on the planet, especially their, "I'm a bum in the sun and I'm havin' fun" lead singer, Diamond Dave.
You know what Dave used to tell all those beautiful girls? "If you let Dave cool you one time, you'll be his regular stop."
1-25-10
Some Kind of Wonderful - Grand Funk Railroad, 1975 (All the Girls in the World Beware!!!)
in 1974, Grand Funk were enjoying the success of two #1 hit singles, We're An American Band and The Loco-Motion, and they we're under a lot of pressure to produce more hits.
So they switched producers, changed their name back to Grand Funk Railroad, and released the album, All the Girls in the World Beware!!! which showed the band's head-shots (Photoshop wasn't invented yet, so we'll just say) "perched" on top of the bodies of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franco Columbu, who was an old body-building pal of the Governator's.
Must have worked - the record produced two top ten hits - one of them was Some Kind of Wonderful.
1-22-09
Don't Stop Believin' - Journey, 1981 (Escape)
Journey's seventh studio album, Escape, was certified 9x Platinum and made it to #1 on the charts in 1981. (you had your own copy, right?)
Also, I'm sure you've heard by now that Journey's massive hit single, Don't Stop Believin' from that album, was just certified as the most downloaded song in the history of the universe.
Crazy for a song that's almost 30 years old.
Of course, it didn't hurt that it was featured in the final episode of The Sopranos or in The Wedding Singer or Family Guy or a gazillion other TV shows. South Park, even.
And of course here on Classic Vinyl.
1-21-10
Do You Feel Like We Do - Peter Frampton, 1973 (Frampton's Camel)
You've heard the 16 minute live version of Peter Frampton's Do You Feel Like We Do a million times on the radio - "Bob Mayo. Bob Mayo on keyboards" - but this is the original studio version at less than half the length. Do You Feel Like We Do is the last track on Frampton's second record, the unfortunately titled Frampton's Camel.
Peter Frampton got his first guitar at the age of eight and started taking classical music lessons. At 16 he was lead singer and guitarist for a British teen band called The Herd, at 18 he co-founded one of the first "Supergroups," Humble Pie. At 23, Frampton made this record with "Mick Gallagher on keyboards. Mick Gallagher!"
He wasn't a superstar yet, but Peter Frampton would routinely perform to mobs of screaming teenagers onstage. One day the young Mr. Frampton woke up with one too many hangovers and decided to write a song about it.
1-20-10
Thunderclap Newman - Something In The Air, 1969 (Hollywood Dream)
Thunderclap Newman was a late 1960s one-hit wonder band from England. Their single, Something in the Air, was a #1 hit across the pond and was written by a former Who roadie/Pete Townsend chauffeur, Speedy Keen.
This guy was famous among fans of The Who for writing Armenia City in the Sky, the only song The Who ever performed that was specifically written for the group by a non-member.
But he was really famous for writing this song, Something In The Air, and you know that it's right.
1-19-10
ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL (Part 2), 1972 (The Wall)
Pink Floyd's The Wall is a rock opera that centers on a fellow named Pink who encounters many obstacles throughout his life, including abuse from his schoolteachers, all of which led to Pink's isolation from society, hence the metaphorical "Wall" of the album title.
Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) is a protest song against rigid schooling in general and boarding schools in particular, and when the song was adopted as a protest anthem by black students during the 1980 uprising in South Africa, it was banned by the government.
There are several different versions and today's is from a Pink Floyd record called A Collection of Great Dance Songs.
More on that later. (They're kidding, btw) It's time for some "dark sarcasm in the classroom."
1-18-09
Bad Company. 1974 (Bad Company)
Today on Classic Viny, one of the great bands of the 70's, Bad Company. The name of the band, title of the album, and hit single were inspired by the 1972 critically acclaimed Western, Bad Company, starring Jeff Bridges.
Following the demise of the band Free (All Right Now), Paul Rodgers (who reportedly turned down the lead vocalist job with Deep Purple), put together a new group called Bad Company. Led Zeppelin Manager Peter Grant signed them to the Zep's newly formed Swan Song Records.
"I had to fight to get the management and the record company to accept the name Bad Company," explained Rodgers. "They thought it was a terrible name.
Little did they know that Bad Company's self titled debut would be a runaway sales success easily reaching #1 on the charts.
All of a sudden they we're in pretty good company. And they won't deny it.
1-15-10
Friday On My Mind - Earthquake, 1975 (Beserkeley Chartbusters)
One of the coolest Indie record labels ever was Beserkeley Records out of Berkeley, California. And this was before the term "Indie" was even invented.
From '73 to '75 Beserkley put out only singles, not albums. They had four bands - Greg Kihn (which is where he got his start), a young Berkeley band called the Rubinoos, a very quirky dude called Jonathan Richman, and today's featured band on Classic Vinyl, Earthquake.
Finally, in 1975, Beserkeley put out an album called Beserkeley Chartbusters Volume 1, Home Of The Hits, featuring all four of their artists.
The first track on the disc is Earthquake doing a rippin' cover of those legendary Aussie rockers, The Easybeats, Friday On My Mind, some of the finest power pop of all time.
1-14-10
God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols, 1977 (Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols)
The Sex Pistols might be the most controversial group ever to capture the attention of jolly old England. And the world, for that matter.
In the 70's it was all long hair and bell bottoms until these guys showed up in deliberately offensive T-shirts - probably slashed, ripped and tapered jeans, with safety pins stuck in both their clothing and their body flesh. The day Sid Vicious joined the Sex Pistols, he arrived with green hair and an "I Hate Pink Floyd" t-shirt.
The lads also cultivated an extremely snotty attitude. At the airport in Amsterdam, Steve Jones the guitar player, was accused of "vomiting on old ladies in the preflight lounge."
This song, God Save The Queen, the last track on side 1 of their only record, was their biggest hit. It was also the title of the British National Anthem and arrived during the Queen Mum's cherished 50th anniversary celebration.
Most of the country was not happy with the Sex Pistols. Nonetheless, and in spite of calling the Queen a fascist and saying "She ain't no human being," God Save The Queen reached #2 on the charts.
Rolling Stone magazine actually gave the record a positive review, comparing the sound to "two subway trains crashing together under four feet of mud, victims screaming."
1-13-10
Master of Puppets - Metallica, 1985 (Master of Puppets)
How can you be a Metallica fan and not go completely nuts over their third record, Master of Puppets? Some say it's their greatest achievement, even that it's the best heavy metal album in the history of the universe!
Master of Puppets reached #29 on the Billboard 200 album charts and was the band's first Gold record with, btw, virtually no radio airplay, I'm sorry to say. The album is now 6x Platinum in the U.S., with over 6 million copies sold in the States alone. Next week they're headed to South America where they're also incredibly popular.
Master of Puppets is definitely Metallica's signature song, and, as James Hetfield explained, it "deals pretty much with drugs. How things get switched around, instead of you controlling what you're taking and doing, it's drugs controlling you."
"Taste me you will see, more is all you need."
1-12-10
Bad Motor Scooter - Montrose, 1973 (Montrose)
The first time Montrose recorded Bad Motor Scooter, nobody was happy with it. The song was missing a certain something to make it stand out, and according to guitarist Ronnie Montrose, he finally stumbled upon that "something" while fooling around in the studio with a slide and fuzz box, improvising what became the song's trademark motorcycle rev-up riff.
Unfortunately, the tape recorders weren't rolling at the time, but the producer and engineer realized that Ronnie was on to something big and waved frantically at him to keep going while they scrambled to start the tape machine.
We know where that went.
1-11-10
Welcome to the Machine - Pink Floyd, 1975 (Wish You Were Here)
How do you follow a record of such magnanimous proportions like Dark Side of the Moon?
With Pink Floyd, they simply created another masterpiece, Wish You Were Here, a loose concept album about and dedicated to their founding member Syd Barrett.
You know that Shine On You Crazy Diamond from the album is obviously about Syd's troubled life as a musician, but it was the music industry and the whole of industrialized society that really led Barrett into the depths of madness.
He dreamed of a big star, and he played a mean guitar. And Btw, welcome to the machine.
1-8-10
Feel Like A Number - Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, 1978 (Stranger In Town)
Today on Classic Vinyl, Stranger in Town, the tenth album by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, released in 1978 and subsequently earning six times Multi-Platinum status.
This was kind of the end of an era for Bob Seger. He was always your prototypical hard-working heartland rocker, but by the 1980's, he'd gone all Eagles on everybody and finally got real famous.
Actually, there is an Eagles connection here - Glenn Frey of the Eagles was a very old friend of Bob Seger's and he even played guitar on this record.
Feel Like a Number was one of Bob Seger's last truly great moments as a rocker - the perfect anthem for all the Regular Joe's who feel like "just another spoke in a great big wheel, just another consensus on the street, just another statistic on a sheet."
1-7-10
Beneath, Between & Behind - Rush, 1975 (Fly By Night)
Today on Classic Vinyl, the second Rush record, Fly By Night. Neil Peart, their drummer and lyricist, had just joined Rush from a band called Hush.....seriously - from Hush to Rush.
Matter of fact, Neil Peart joined Rush just two weeks before the start of the group's first US tour in 1974. This song, Beneath, Between & Behind, side 1, track 3, written by Peart and guitarist Alex Lifeson, is actually a nice compliment from our friends in the Great White North - about the discovery of America and the birth of our nation.
Beneath the noble birth
Between the proudest words
Behind the beauty, cracks appear
1-6-10
My Litttle Red Book - Love, 1966 (Love)
We're getting a little love today on Classic Vinyl. The band Love, featuring Albert Lee was one of the first racially diverse American pop bands - Love were rock and roll, garage rock, folk rock and psychedelia all rolled into one.
The first track on their debut album from 1966, My Litttle Red Book, was written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach of Dionne Warwick fame for the movie What's New, Pussycat? starring Peter Sellers and also Woody Allen in his film debut.
But this version of My Litttle Red Book was nothing like the original - Bacharach actually gave Love's version a thumbs down. Nonetheless, they still had a Southern California hit and earned a spot on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.
In the song, a guy loses his girlfriend and immediately searches through his little red book of phone numbers looking for her replacement.
1-5-09
Blue Morning, Blue Day - Foreigner, 1978 (Double Vision)
Double Vision is the second album by American rockers Foreigner, released in 1978. (Mick Jones was a Brit, but the rest of the guys were from the good old U.S.of A.)
Nowadays, Mick Jones is the only original member left (they're playing a couple of dozen dates this spring), but the original incarnation fronted by Lou Gramm was among the biggest rock acts of the late 1970s and '80s, with five consecutive multimillion-selling albums and a whole slew of Top 10 hits, including today's Classic Vinyl track. Lou, btw, has been into Christian Rock lately.
Track 2, side 1, Blue Morning, Blue Day, is a classic tale of man-woman misunderstanding; "You hear me talk, but you dont hear what I say.....Ive always been a patient man, but my patience has reached its end."
1-4-10
Back In The Saddle - Aerosmith, 1976 (Rocks)
Aerosmith Rocks - nice ring to it, don't you think? The perfect title from the best-selling American hard rock band of all time.
These guys have sold 150 million albums worldwide, with 21 Top 40 hits, nine #1 Mainstream Rock hits, four Grammy Awards, and ten MTV Video Music Awards. And they're in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!
Rocks is the album that Slash of Guns N' Roses said "changed my life." And it was one of Kurt Cobain's favorite records.
The first track on the disc, Back In The Saddle, is the tale of a lonesome cowpoke who rides into town one moonlit night looking for a little....female companionship.
He finds it.
12-31-09
Roadhouse Blues - Doors , 1970 (Morrison Hotel)
Roadhouse Blues starts the Doors fifth studio album by kicking ass. And singer Jim Morrison got his ass kicked around alot.
During the recording, Morrison found himself in trouble with the law after harassing an airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see The Rolling Stones in concert. He was acquitted the following April.
Then there was the famous Miami incident where Jim whipped it out on stage and was not acquitted - he was convicted of profanity and indecent exposure. It was hard to get away with stuff like that even in 1970.
Jim Morrison liked to drink, and Roadhouse Blues has been called the ultimate bar song. Perfect for a guy who sang "When I woke up this morning, I got myself a beer."
12-30-09
Changes - David Bowie, 1971 (Hunky Dory)
Today on Classic Vinyl, David Bowie's theme song - Changes. This is vintage Bowie - the first track on his 1971 Hunky Dory album. That would be Hunky Dory, as in "quite satisfying."
Changes was always wildy popular at David Bowie concerts way back in the day. According to Bowie, "it turned into this monster that nobody would stop asking for at concerts: 'Dye-vid, Dye-vid – do Changes!' I had no idea it would become such a popular thing."
The song is ranked at number 127 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Still don't know what we've been waiting for?
12-29-09
Eat It - Weird Al Yankovic, 1984 ("Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D)
It's easy to think of Weird Al Yankovic as a novelty act, but this guy has sold more albums than any other comedy act in history - over 12 million!
He's also recorded more than 150 parody and original songs and has performed more than 1,000 live shows, and he's received three Grammy Awards, one of them for today's Classic Vinyl track, Eat It, which is a parody of Michael Jackson's Beat It.
Just remember - "you won't get no dessert 'till you clean off your plate, so eat it, don't you tell me you're full."
12-28-09
Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin, 1969 (Led Zeppelin II)
Whole Lotta Love is the opening track on Led Zeppelin II. It became their first hit single.
Unfortunately some of the lyrics were "borrowed" from an old Willie Dixon Blues song, You Need Love, a favorite of Robert Plant's and a practice for which the band (plagarism) was all too familiar.
Since they didn't give credit to the author of the song, it would eventually lead to a lawsuit against the Zep, settled out of court in favour of Willie Dixon in 1985.
Plant did the vocals in one take. At one point there was bleed-through of a previously recorded vocal in the middle part where Plant screams 'Wo-man. You need it.' Audio engineer Eddie Kramer said, "Since we couldn’t re-record at that point, I just threw some echo on it to see how it would sound and Jimmy Page said 'Great! Just leave it.'”
12-24-09
Fat Bottomed Girls - Queen, 1978 (Jazz)
Queen scored a big double-sided hit in their homeland of England in 1978 — a single that contained the fun Freddie Mercury tune Bicycle Race on one side and a sleazy piece of Brian May rock & roll on the other, Fat Bottomed Girls.
The tactic had worked earlier for Queen when they put We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions together, so their record company decided to give the "double A-side" concept another whirl.
It worked!
There was even a double cross-reference between the two songs. Fat Bottomed Girls includes the line "Get on your bikes and ride," while Bicycle Race contains the line "Fat bottomed girls, they'll be riding today, so look out for those beauties, oh yeah."
Queen guitarist Brian May wrote Fat Bottomed Girls about a young lad who learns to appreciate women of substantial girth.
He said "I wrote it with Fred in mind (meaning Freddie Mercury), as you do especially if you've got a great singer who likes fat bottomed girls… or boys."
2-23-09
Any Way You Want It - Journey, 1980 (Departure)
Departure is the name of Journey's sixth album. It was released in 1980 and would mark the final studio appearance of founding member Gregg Rolie who grew somewhat weary of life on the road and made a hasty departure from the journey.
The first track on the record, Any Way You Want It, was an overnight hit on rock radio
According to co-writer Steve Perry, the song was heavily influenced by Irish rockers Thin Lizzy whom they toured with in 1979.
Any Way You Want It gets right to the point - the moment you start your turntable.
1-9-09
Gimme Three Steps - Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1976 (One More From The Road)
Until that tragic plane crash in 1977, Ronnie Van Zandt was the heart and soul of Lynyrd Skynyrd. He was a big reason their live shows were so legendary and, funny thing, he usually performed on stage....barefoot.
After a show at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta on a warm July night in '76 where their live album, One More From The Road, was recorded, Ronnie said, "I sure am glad I don't wear shoes when I'm out there singing - I love to feel that stage burn!"
Ronnie Van Zandt loved the Skynyrd fans.
12-21-09
Head First - The Babys. 1978 (Head First)
For some reason The Baby's were always a few hooks short of a big hit. Even the addition of future Journey superstar Jonathan Cain couldn't quite get these guys into the top ten.
With The Baby's it might have been a case of inflated expectations.
Their lead singer John Waite complained that "We were better than people thought we were."
And there was just plain bad luck. After Cain left and during a performance in Cincinnati in 1980 (the day after John Lennon had been murdered), John Waite was pulled head first from the stage by an overzealous fan and seriously injured his knee.
The Baby's did one more show, cancelled their tour, then disbanded.
Head First - The Babys.
12-18-09
Happy - Rolling Stones, 1972 (Exile On Main Street)
Exile on Main St. is the tenth studio album by The Rolling Stones. And since it's Keith Richards birthday today, we're going to play his signature song, Happy, today on Classic Vinyl.
Keith doesn't sing much. He once said, "It's not the most beautiful voice in the world anymore, but the Queen liked it when it was at its best."
And while Mick Jagger is the guy out front, Keith Richards is really the musical leader of the Stones.
Both Bill Wyman and Ronnie Wood have said that while other rock & roll bands follow the drummer's timing, the Rolling Stones follow Richards: "Onstage you have to follow Keith. You have no way of not following him."
12-17-09
Eruption/You Really Got Me - Van Halen, 1978
As you know, the debut Van Halen record was a groundbreaking piece of work. It was recorded simply and quickly and cheaply and live in the studio - they only overdubbed instrumental tracks on three numbers.
Funny thing is, Eddie Van Halen mistakenly let the band Angel hear his version of You Really Got Me, so Angel wanted to put out the song too. Both bands rushed to get it out first and the rest is history.
Angel who?
12-16-09
Paranoid - Black Sabbath, 1970 (Paranoid)
Paranoid, the second album by Black Sabbath, has been called "the greatest heavy metal album in the history of the universe." It has been certified quadruple platinum with over four million copies sold in the US alone, making it Black Sabbath's best-selling album.
Funny because, as drummer Bill Ward explained: "We didn't have enough songs for the album, and Tony Iommi just played the Paranoid guitar lick and that was it. It took twenty, twenty-five minutes from top to bottom" to record.
So the song was written with no intention of it being a successful hit for the rest of their lives - ironic, because the title track, Paranoid, side 1, track 2, their first single, sends a rather chilling message about a man who loses hope and believes he will suffer for the rest of his life.
12-15-09
The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown) - Judas Priest, 1979 (Hell Bent For Leather)
The Judas Priest version of The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown) is considered by many to be the loudest rock song ever recorded.
Most people know the tune from the Priest's first live album, Unleashed In the East from late 1979, but it actually came out seven months earlier on a record called Hell Bent For Leather.
The Green Manalishi got to be so popular for Judas Priest that everybody thought it was a Priest original when in fact, it was an early Peter Green/Fleetwood Mac cover.
Just before Peter Green left the Mac, he wrote the haunting Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown), wherein a troubled rock star desperately struggles to stop his descent into.....madness.
12-14-09
Been Caught Stealing - Jane's Addiction, 1990 (Ritual de lo Habitual)
Jane's Addiction was one of the first bands to emerge from the early 1990s alternative rock movement to gain mainstream media attention and commercial success. By the time their second record, Ritual de lo Habitual, came out in 1990, they we're close to being finished, though.
Perry Farrell, their vocalist, was in drug rehab during part of the making of the album, while guitarist Dave Navarro later stated he had almost no recollection of working on the album due to his addiction to heroin.
Then there was their bass player Eric Avery who didn't get along with Navarro, so they came in and recorded at separate times.
Things we're an addictive mess, but Jane's Addiction had a monster hit with Been Caught Stealing which begins with a reminder of what happens when you DO get caught stealing.
12-11-09
Live Wire - Mötley Crüe, 1981 (Too Fast For Love)
Too Fast For Love, the debut record from Mötley Crüe, shows off their down and dirty badass bar band roots. These guys were L.A. party animals like no other.
And they had umlaut's in their name. You know - those two dots on top of the "o" in Mötley and the "u" in Crüe?
They weren't the first to gratuitously use the umlaut in their name. Blue Öyster Cult was probably the first. Motörhead "put it in there to look mean," also there was Queensrÿche and even Spinal Tap used an umlaut in their name. Their lead singer said, "It's like a pair of eyes. You're looking at the umlaut, and it's looking at you."
Mötley Crüe's use of the umlaut apparently came from a German beer the were fond of getting plowed on back in the day.
But we digress. The first track on the first Crüe album, Live Wire, is about a guy who apparently wants somebody to "Plug me in."
12-10-09
Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy - Bad Company 1979 (Desolation Angels)
Desolation Angels was the 5th Bad Company record, directly named after the Jack Kerouac book of the same name. Kerouac kept a journal when he was a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascade mountains of Washington state, which had to be pretty desolate.
Desolation Angels is considered to be the last strong album by Bad Company, mostly because it contains the last big hit by Paul Rodgers and the boys, Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy.
"Put your hands together now, and sing it out loud."
12-9-09
Stay With Me - Faces, 1971 (A Nod Is As Good As A Wink...To A Blind Horse)
The Faces' third album, A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...to a Blind Horse, finally gave Rod Stewart, Ron Wood and the boys their much needed breakthrough hit single, but Rod Stewart also had a pretty successful solo career going on at the same time.
Just months apart, Maggie May was a huge hit for "Rod the Mod" and, to make a long story short, things got pretty tense, the group broke up with Rod Stewart going solo and Ronnie Wood heading off to play guitar with the Stones.
The two of them wrote the last track on side 1, a trashy rocker called Stay with Me, about a late-nite deal for a one-night stand with a woman with "red lips, hair and fingernails."
Rod tells her, "Yeah, I'll pay your cab fare home, you can even use my best cologne, just don't be here in the mornin' when I wake up."
12-8-09
Are You Gonna Be My Girl - JET, 2003 (Get Born)
The first album from Aussie rockers JET, Get Born, took it's name from a line in an old Bob Dylan song, Subterranean Homesick Blues - "Get born, keep warm, short pants, romance, learn to dance, get dressed, get blessed, try to be a success."
And it was a huge success. The record went platinum in the U.S., but it went 8 times platinum in the home country.
JET has sold 4 million records worldwide, mostly due to their first big hit, Are You Gonna Be My Girl, track 2, side A, which begins with a numeric countdown to romance.
12-7-09
Heard It On The X - ZZ Top, 1975 (Fandango!)
Fandango! is the fourth album by ZZ Top, a band out of Houston, Texas, possibly named after a hybrid of two popular brands of rolling papers, Zig-Zag and Top.
Possibly.
This record spawned the infamous hit Tush as well as today's Classic Vinyl track, Heard It on the X, which was a tribute to Mexican border-blaster radio stations whose call letters began with an "X", specifically the two that were run by legendary disc jockey Wolfman Jack, XERF in Via Acuna, (near Del Rio Tx.), and XERB, (in Rosarito Beach near Tijuana). Mexican radio stations didn't have to adhere to the power limits of US stations, so they could pump their signal well into the The States.
ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill said they'd, "Sell segments to anybody. There are a lot of preachers on there. I heard them one time selling autographed prayer cloths. They were to put on your radio when you're listening to these programs. But this one was autographed by Jesus himself. Then you'd hear a 15-minute country western show. Then there'd be a blues show."
Side 2, track 5, Heard It On The X. Country Jesus, hillbilly blues; that's where he learned his licks.
12-4-09
We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister, 1984 (Stay Hungry)
Stay Hungry is the third album by one of the great heavy metal band's of the 80's, Twisted Sister.
Their singer and songwriter, Dee Snider, once described Twisted Sister as "Slade meets Sex Pistols". No wonder they we're always getting into trouble - like with the Parents Music Resource Center, the folks who lobbied for those "Parental Advisory" labels on records.
Dee Snider even testified before Congress against censorship and the proposed warning labels and, in one of the funniest moments ever on the floor of the Senate, Dee was addressed formally by the committee counsel as "Mr. Sister".
You know what he told those guys? We're Not Gonna Take It!
12-3-09
Down By The Seaside - Led Zeppelin, 1975 (Physical Graffiti)
1975's Physical Graffiti album is definetly one of Led Zeppelin's defining works.
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote today's Classic Vinyl track, Down By The Seaside, in 1970 as an acoustic piece at a place called Bron-yr-Aur, a little cottage in Wales with no electricity or running water, where they retreated to after a crazy tour of the US. (They played in Oakland that year, btw)
Down By The Seaside is actually a nod to Neil Young and his song, Down By The River. Plant was a big fan of Neil Young's old group, Buffalo Springfield.
Side 3, track 3. Let's see those boats go sailin'.
12-2-09
Werewolves Of London - Warren Zevon, 1978 (Excitable Boy)
Today, Werewolves Of London by the late Warren Zevon. Jackson Browne produced the track, and it featured Mick Fleetwood and John McVie from Fleetwood Mac on backing vocals.
To make it even more incestuous, Zevon was once roomates with Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham also of Fleetwood Mac.
Way before that, Warren Zevon was working with The Everly Brothers. At one point, Phil Everly asked him to write a dance song for the Brothers called Werewolves Of London.
Zevon was strumming a guitar when someone asked what he was playing. Zevon said, Werewolves Of London, and the other guy started howling.
Zevon came up with the line "I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand," and they traded lyrics back and forth until they had their song.
Btw, there really is a Le Ho Fooks Chinese restaurant - right outside the Picadilly tube station in London.
12-1-09
Here Comes My Girl - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, 1979 (Damn the Torpedoes)
If it wasn't for Pink Floyd's The Wall, Tom Petty would have had a #1 hit album. Instead, Damn the Torpedoes ended up #2 on the charts for seven weeks.
Still, a lot of people claim that it's their favorite Petty record.
Track #2, side #1, Here Comes My Girl, features Tom not so much singing the song, but narrating it.
Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell said Here Comes My Girl was interesting because "we had the chorus and Tom wasn't sure how to do the verse, he kept trying to sing it different ways and he finally came across sort of half-talking it, and that's when the song seemed to come to life."
A song about wonderin', waitin', worryin' - About some silly little things that don't add up to nothin'.
11-30-09
Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band, 1975 (Born To Run)
Born to Run was a critical and commercial success and became Bruce Springsteen's breakthrough record. Good thing, because the title track of the album was Springsteen's last-ditch effort to make it big. Like the lyrics said, "Highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive."
When it came out in 1975, Born To Run was accompanied by much hype, including the famous line from his manager,"I saw rock 'n' roll's future—and its name is Bruce Springsteen." Born to Run immediately vaulted into the top 10 and soon went Gold. Time and Newsweek put Springsteen on the cover in the same week, and the question of hype became the story. Was this guy for real?
Btw, Springsteen said the decision to label him as the future of rock was a "very big mistake and I would like to strangle the guy who thought that up."
"there's no place left to hide...."
11-20-09
Funk #48 - James Gang, 1969 (Yer' Album)
In 1966, the James Gang formed in that hot bed of rock 'n roll, Cleveland, Ohio. Joe Walsh was at Kent State University and joined the group in 1969.
Thirty-one years later, Joe would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Eagles. He wouldn't have to go too far - the Hall of Fame is right there on Rock and Roll Boulevard in downtown Cleveland.
And today on Classic Vinyl, we're going to play track 3, side 1 of the debut James Gang record called Yer' Album.
Their producer said in the liner notes that today's song, Funk #48, “started out as a soundcheck warm-up riff,” adding that the “number 48 [in the title] came out of thin air.” Presumably the same holds true for the follow-up Funk #49, which you've heard here on The Bone a gazillion times.
It's probably your first for Funk #48
11-19-09
Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry, 1958 (Chuck Berry Is on Top)
Today on Classic Vinyl, the song that Rolling Stone magazine placed at #1 on their list of The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs Of All Time, Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode.
Johnny B. Goode is among the most widely covered rock and roll songs in history. Pretty much everybody's grandmother and dog has recorded it - Aerosmith, Hendrix, The Stones, BB King, Judas Priest, Angus Young duck walking across the stage - Pure Chuck Berry. Don't forget Santana, The Beatles, Green Day, The Dead, Marty freakin' McFly did Johnny B. Goode on Back To The Future for cryin out loud!
Want more? I'm running out of time. Buddy Holly, Elton John, Jerry Lee Lewis, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Motörhead, George Thorogood, Twisted Sister mister. And thats only half the list.
And speaking of Angus and AC/DC, remember when he sang on Let There Be Rock, "In the beginning, back in nineteen fifty five"?
That was the year that Chuck Berry wrote this song, Johnny B. Goode.
11-18-09
Crossroads - Cream, 1968 (Wheels of Fire)
Today on Classic Vinyl one of the first and baddest power trios in the history of the universe. That would be Cream, featuring a 22 year-old guitar whiz by the name of Eric Clapton.
One of the liner notes on the record said, "They were one of those bands who shook the very foundation of rock in the sixties."
True enough, and the Cream-arranged version of Crossroads, the Robert Johnson blues classic, would really become the signature piece of Clapton’s career, Layla notwithstanding.
Maybe you've heard the story - so which is it? Some guy just trying to hitch a ride from an intersection as darkness falls, or some guy going to a metaphorical crossroads to meet up with the devil and sell his soul in exchange for becoming a famous blues player?
11-17-09
Bang A Gong (Get It On) - T Rex, 1971 (Electric Warrior)
T Rex was led by a guy called Marc Bolan. Bolan, who told his girlfriend that he didn't expect to make it to his 30th birthday, and who never learned to drive a car, and who had visions all his life of dying in a car crash, died in a car crash in England just before his 30th birthday.
A copy of the New Musical Express (an English music magazine) was found in Bolan's wrecked Mini Cooper, open to an interview with Pete Townshend, the headline of the interview reading, "Hope I Die Before I Get Old."
Today on Classic Vinyl, Bang A Gong (Get It On) from T Rex.
Riffs from this one song have been shamelessly stolen by the likes of Prince, AC/DC, the Rolling Stones and Def Leppard, but this is the original - dirty, sweet, and with a hub cap diamond star halo.
11-16-09
California Man - Cheap Trick, 1978 (Heaven Tonight)
A lot of people will tell you that Cheap Trick's third record, Heaven Tonight, is their best. Their first album was raw and edgy, their second was more pop oriented (with the original version of I Want You To Want Me), but this one is a combination of the two.
Today on Classic Vinyl, track 3, side 1, California Man - it was actually written in the early 70's by Englishman Roy Wood and contains one of the great lines in the history of Rock, "I don't care if your legs start aching, I'm a California man."
11-13-09
It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll) - AC/DC, 1976 (High Voltage)
Today on Classic Vinyl, a group that has sold in excess of 200 million records worldwide.
High Voltage was their first American album and this is track #1, It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll).
It was always a signature number for Bon Scott, who actually played the legendary bagpipe solo contained within.
Yikes! Bagpipes on a rock and roll record? - in 1975? - Why not? Bon Scott was a bagpipe playing champion in his younger years.
Of course he never really had any older years, and because of that you won't hear current AC/DC lead vocalist Brian Johnson singing It's A Long Way To The Top out of respect for his predecessor.
I tell you folks, It's harder than it looks.
11-12-09
Synchronicity II - The Police, 1983 (Synchronicity)
Although the Police's fifth record, Synchronicity, which came out at the end of the vinyl era, circa 1983, would be their most commercially successful album, it would also turn out to be the band's final recording.
The last track on side 1, Synchronicity II, is my all-time favorite Police song.
Everybody's grandmother and dog has a different interpretation of what it's about, but I'm going with the theory of a domestic crisis so anxiety producing that it wakes up the Loch Ness monster.
Put another way, a stressed out father comes home from work one day and kills his entire family.
Seriously.
That's why, "There's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the shore of a dark Scottish lake."
11-11-09
Ramble On - Led Zeppelin, 1969 (Led Zeppelin II)
Led Zeppelin was the definitive heavy metal band. That said, they also incorporated elements of rockabilly, reggae, soul, funk, classical, Celtic, Indian, Arabic, pop, Latin and country influences.
And don't forget J.R.R.Tolkien. Tolkien, born in South Africa, was the father of "high fantasy literature" as exemplified by his wildly popular book, Lord Of The Rings, of which Robert Plant was a huge fan.
Track 3, side 2 of Led Zeppelin II, which came out "years ago in days of old when magic filled the air," is the story of an intrepid traveller who ends up in a place called Mordor, in Middle Earth, where he met a girl so fair......
11-10-09
Life In The Fast Lane - Eagles, 1976 (Hotel California)
Since its release in late 1976, Hotel California by the Eagles has sold over 16 million copies in the U.S. alone. It won a Grammy for Record of the Year and you probably have a copy of your own.
Side 1, track 3, Life In The Fast Lane, is the story of a couple of crazy kids that take their excessive lifestyle to the edge; "They didn't care, they we're just dying to get off."
Glenn Frey of The Eagles says this is a true story: "I was riding in a car with a drug dealer, a guy we used to call "The Count," because his count was never very good. We were driving out to an Eagles poker game. I was in the passenger seat. He moved over to the left lane and started driving 75-80 miles per hour. I said, "Hey, man, slow down." He goes, "Hey, man, it's life in the fast lane." And I thought, "Oh, my God, what a title."
That, and Joe Walsh was now officially in the band and playing lead guitar. They said he "had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude."
11-9-09
Too Rolling Stoned - Robin Trower, (Bridge Of Sighs)
Bridge of Sighs is guitarist and songwriter Robin Trower's second solo album after leaving the band Procol Harum. Released in 1974, it was a breakthrough record for Trower, named after the actual Bridge of Sighs in Venice, Italy.
The album reached #7 on the charts and stayed there for 31 weeks. It was certified Gold almost immediately.
The first track on side 2, Too Rolling Stoned, is about how a little preventive maintenance can eliminate the need for major repairs later.
You know......like a stitch in time?
11-6-09
Swingtown - Steve Miller, 1977 (Book Of Dreams)
Book of Dreams is the tenth album by The Steve Miller Band, released in 1977. Steve keeps rockin' the "Space Cowboy" persona on this record with great tracks like Jet Airliner and Jungle Love and today's Classic Vinyl pick, Swingtown.
So, are there any actual swingers in Swingtown? It's ironic that last year's CBS summer replacement for Without a Trace, a TV show called Swingtown, took place in Chicago where Steve Miller was immersed in the city's blues scene at the time, and whose storyline revolved around a family named Miller.
Let's head out. To Swingtown.
11-5-09
One Of These Days - Pink Floyd, 1971 (Meddle)
One of These Days is the opening track from Pink Floyd's 1971 album Meddle. Thats M-e-d-d-l-e, a play on words; a medal, like what you win at the Olympics, and also meaning "to interfere." Meddle.
One of These Days is an instrumental, although you will hear their drummer, Nick Mason, utter in a distorted death growl, "One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces."
The song begins with double-tracked bass guitars played by David Gilmour and Roger Waters. One of the two bass guitars sounds quite muted and dull compared to the other. According to Gilmour, this is because that particular instrument had old strings on it, and the roadie they sent to get new strings for it wandered off to see his girlfriend instead.
Maybe that's the guy they want to cut into little pieces!
11-4-09
Message Of Love - The Pretenders, 1982 (Pretenders II)
The Pretenders second record, Pretenders II from 1982, would be the final release from the original lineup; half the band would shortly die of drug overdoses.
Nowadays Chrissie Hynde, the group's founder and the lone survivor, operates a vegan restaurant in her hometown of Akron, Ohio, called The VegiTerranean.
Chrissie actually went to Kent State University in Ohio and was on the campus during the infamous Kent State shootings. She knew Jeffrey Miller, one of the fatalities.
Track 3, side 1, channels Chrissie Hynde's inner hippie for a little Message Of Love - you know - how love is good like....Brigitte Bardot!
11-3-09
Back Door Man - The Doors, 1967 (The Doors)
Backstage at a Doors concert in New Haven, Connecticut in 1967, singer Jim Morrison met an 18 year old co-ed from nearby Southern Connecticut State and they started making out in a backstage shower stall. A police officer interrupted them and ordered them out of the stall.
Jim Morrison defied the cop, who thought he was a hippie who had snuck backstage, and eventually Morrison got maced in the face, screaming in pain and, even though his manager explained who he was and the cop apologized, during the last song of the evening, today's Classic Vinyl track, Back Door Man, Jim told the story of the backstage episode and began taunting the police and baiting the crowd.
To make a long story short, the cops surrounded Morrison, dragged him off the stage and arrested him. Jim Morrison was charged with "breach of peace, resisting arrest and indecent or immoral exhibition."
Bob Gover, an author and journalist from the New York Times noted that Jim Morrison had "that invisible something about him that silently suggested revolution, disorder, chaos."
11-2-09
Gimme Some Water - Eddie Money, 1978 (Life For The Taking)
Life for the Taking is Eddie Money's second album. It was released in 1978 and, although it wasn't as popular as his debut record a year earlier, it did include the single Can't Keep a Good Man Down, and track 4, side 1, Gimme Some Water.
Gimme Some Water is the story of an outlaw who shot a man on the Mexican border, and then, because the Sheriff always gets his man, ends up hanging from the hangman's tree.
Hell of a time to get thirsty.
10-30-09
White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane, 1967 (Surrealistic Pillow)
Jefferson Airplane were the only band to have performed at all three of the most famous American rock festivals of the 1960s — Monterey, Woodstock and Altamont.
They were the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success. If you need to put a musical tag on the Airplane, call it "psychedelic rock" or "acid rock." It was the Summer of Love.
Surrealistic Pillow, the group's second record, fit that description perfectly, mostly due to a two-and-a-half minute Grace Slick composition called White Rabbit. It's what you get when you mix LSD and Alice in Wonderland - a psychedelic doormouse screaming "feed your head."