9-2-10 
Good Times Roll - The Cars, 1978 (The Cars)
Ric Ocasek of The Cars was 29 years old when his band's debut album arrived in the Summer of 1978. Six years later he would meet his future wife - a then 19-year-old supermodel by the name of Paulina Porizkova, one of the hottest chicks on the planet at the time.
Not sure if you've ever seen a picture of Ric Ocasek, but lets just say he ain't gonna win any "Sexiest Man Alive" contests, but he might do ok in an "Ugliest Man" contest.
We kid! We kid! We love the guy. But you could easily make the case that Ric Ocasek + Paulina Porizkova = One of Life's Many Injustices. Just sayin'.
Nonetheless, let the good times roll!
9-1-10 
Head First - The Babys. 1978 (Head First)
For some reason The Baby's we're 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.
8-31-10 
Rolling Stones, 1972 (Exile On Main Street)
Exile on Main St. is the tenth studio album by The Rolling Stones. Stylistically it was all over the place; from rock & roll and blues, to country and soul.
Today's Classic Vinyl track, Rip This Joint, is a flat-out rocker with just a touch of rockabilly. It's one of the fastest Stones' songs ever and, at 2 minutes 23 seconds, is absolutely frenetic from beginning to end.
Rip This Joint takes us on a journey around the backroads of America with the Bay Area even getting a mention: listen carefully as Mick Jagger says, "From San Jose down to Santa Fe, Kiss me quick, baby, wont'cha make my day."
8-30-10 
Cold Ethyl - Alice Cooper, 1975 (Welcome to My Nightmare)
You can always count on Alice Cooper to make fun of 3 things: sex, death and money.
1975's Welcome to My Nightmare contains all three, while today's Classic Vinyl track, Cold Ethyl, has the first two 'Coop fetishes covered, sex and death.
The song begins with Alice in a make-out session with a very attractive skeleton by the name of Ethyl, under the refrigerator light.
If you haven't guessed by now, Ethyl's pretty dead.
Come on and freeze me babe.
8-27-10
Black Betty - Ram Jam, 1977 (Ram Jam)
Ironic that such a hard rocking song like Black Betty was produced by a couple of guys who had a string of classic bubblegum hits like Yummy, Yummy, Yummy and Chewy, Chewy.
But Ram Jam had a huge hit with the song Black Betty, an old Lead Belly blues standard, the first track on their first record.
Black Betty is about either a Civil War rifle, a bottle of whiskey, or a hooker.
You decide.
8-26-10
Somebody Get Me a Doctor - Van Halen, 1979 (Van Halen II)
The second album by Van Halen came out in 1979, just a year after their spectacular debut album arrived to conquer the planet. A lot of the songs on this record we're actually around prior to the release of the first album, and today's Classic Vinyl track was even on the famous demo recorded in 1975 by Gene Simmons of Kiss.
With word that Eddie Van Halen has recovered from delicate hand surgery due to a bone spur, a twisted tendon, and a cyst in the joint of his left thumb, all his bandmate and 2011 tourmate, David Lee Roth can say is, Somebody Get Me a Doctor.
8-25-10
Can't You See - Marshall Tucker Band, 1973 (Marshall Tucker Band)
The Marshall Tucker Band got their name from a key to an old warehouse where they used to rehearse in Spartanburg, South Carolina in the 70's. On their way out to dinner one night, somebody noticed a tag on the key to the door that said, "Marshall Tucker." The name would turn out to be that of a blind piano tuner who had rented the space previously.
One of their biggest hits, Can't You See, track 2, side 1 of their debut record, tells the story of an old hippie cowboy who's been dumped by his woman, and just wants to find himself a hole in the wall, and crawl inside and die.
8-24-10
I Just Want to Make Love to You - Foghat, 1977 (Foghat Live)
Foghat is a band that specialized in simple, hard-rocking blues-boogie, they toured incessantly, and they had tons of best-selling records.
The biggest of which was Foghat Live, selling over 2 million copies. It's success was due in no small part to their cover of the old Willie Dixon blues song, I Just Want to Make Love to You.
It was a big hit for Muddy Waters in the 50's, it was a hit for Foghat on their first record in the early 70's, and it was an even biggert hit for Foghat on this record, where guitarist and vocalist Lonesome Dave tells the story of a fellow that ain't exactly looking for a housekeeper.
8-23-10
Rock Candy - Montrose, 1973 (Montrose)
Ironic that the debut Montrose album wasn't that successful in the beginning - some say their record company had no idea how to market the group and their sound. However, as you know from the gazillion times you've heard it on the radio, Montrose has undergone a bit of a renaissance since then - the album eventually went platinum.
Track 2, side 2, Rock Candy, along with Bad Motor Scooter, it's probably the best known Montrose song. About "Reaching for your dreams" and "Taking a chance" in life, Rock Candy starts out with a brutal drum beat courtesy of Denny Carmassi and of course one of Ronnie's most famous guitar riffs.
8-20-10
All My Love - Led Zeppelin, 1979 (In Through the Out Door)
In Through the Out Door is the eighth and final studio album by Led Zeppelin. It was also the last of three Zep records that was completely original.
It was also a very tragic time. In 1975, Robert Plant and his wife Maureen were seriously injured in a car crash in Greece. Two years later their oldest son Karac died at the age of 5 of a stomach infection when Plant was on tour with Led Zeppelin in the U.S.
Karac's death later inspired him to write the song All My Love in tribute.
Robert Plant did the vocals all in one take.
8-19-10
Tales of Brave Ulysses - Cream, 1967 (Disraeli Gears)
On the second Cream record, their sound was less bluesy and more psychedelic. In 1967, you could take pretty much anything and make it psychedelic - in the case of today's song - it was the Greek tragedy Ulysses.
Cream's Tales of Brave Ulysses was pure hippie/Summer of Love. With lines like "tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers," it was definetly time to roll a doob and put Disraeli Gears on the turntable.
The song actually came about in a London club when Eric Clapton ran into an Australian artist who happened to live in his building.
Clapton mentioned that he had some music that needed lyrics, so the guy wrote out a poem he had composed on a napkin and gave it to Clapton, who recorded it as Tales of Brave Ulysses.
8-18-10
Heartache Tonight - Eagles, 1975 (The Long Run)
Heartache Tonight is a song written by Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bob Seger and J. D. Souther and appears on the Eagles album, The Long Run.
When Glenn Frey was a 19-year-old up-and-coming musician in Detroit, Bob Seger took him under his wing and helped get his music career started. J. D. Souther, who is sometimes considered an "Unofficial Eagle," was the first person Frey met when he moved to Los Angeles in the late-'60s.
Heartache Tonight, Track 2, side 1, reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, stayed there for only one week, but sold a million copies, and won a Grammy.
8-17-10
Us and Them - Pink Floyd, 1973 (The Dark Side of the Moon)
Pink Floyd's great keyboardist, Richard Wright passed away almost 2 years ago. This guy was an absolutely vital part of the Pink Floyd sound from the very beginning.
David Gilmour said he and Rick had a "musical telepathy" and happily the two of them share vocals on todays song, Us and Them.
There's a great story that goes along with this. Us and Them was originally written by Rick Wright on the piano for the movie Zabriskie Point in 1969. Director Michelangelo Antonioni said, "It's beautiful, but too sad, you know? It makes me think of church."
The song was put on the shelf until The Dark Side of the Moon.
We join a London pub conversation in progress as track 1, Money, winds down and Richard Wright saunters in on Hammond organ.
And in the end it's only round and round and round.
8-16-10
Ready Steady Go - Generation X, 1978 (Generation X)
In the late 1980's, the term "Generation X" arrived in popular culture and was used to describe the angst of kids born between roughly 1960 and 1965.
Billy Idol was born in 1955 and formed the band Generation X in 1976, named after a 1965 sociology book, a copy of which was owned by Billy's mother.
Ready Steady Go, track 4 side 1 of the debut Generation X record is the name of one of the first English pop-rock-music TV shows.
Hmmm....music TV show.....in the 60's?
Everybody's grandmother and dog was on Ready Steady Go in the 60's - The Beatles, The Kinks, The Stones, the Who, the Beach Boys, and the show was largely responsible for breaking Jimi Hendrix worldwide.
Ready Steady Go, on BBC TV every Friday night with the by-line "The weekend starts here!"
8-13-10
Black Friday - Steely Dan, 1975 (Katy Lied)
Katy Lied is the fourth album by Steely Dan, released in 1975. Steely Dan are pretty much two guys, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. They wrote everything together and always recorded with top-notch studio musicians.
Well, maybe not when they played together in college. Becker and Fagen were in a band called The Bad Rock Group, which included future comedy star Chevy Chase on drums.
These two were a little quirky. Their previous album was called Pretzel Logic. They toured for just two years, then announced that they would be a studio-only band, in the process losing guys like Jeff "Skunk" Baxter to the Doobie Brothers.
The real quirkiness though, comes from Steely Dan's lyrics. I've come to the conclusion that you're not supposed to know what any of it really means. Like this, the first track on Katy Lied, Black Friday.
8-12-10
Turn It on Again - Genesis. 1980 (Duke)
1980's Duke album from Genesis was the line between the "new" and the "old" Genesis. When Peter Gabriel left the group a few years earlier, they auditioned singers like Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy, Peter Frampton and David Cassidy.
Wisely, they settled on their own drummer, Phil Collins, whose vocals transformed Genesis from theatrical, progressive rock to radio-friendly pop over the next ten years.
Track 1, side 2, Turn It on Again, is the story of a guy obsessed with his television set. He's a TV junkie, "I get so lonely when she's not there," sings Phil.
Thankfully, even though all this fellow needs is a TV show, he'll take that, and the radio.
8-11-10
L.A. Woman - The Doors, 1971 (L.A. Woman)
Today on Classic Vinyl, The Doors, L.A.Woman. You've heard the song a gazillion times, what with all that Jim Morrison/mojo risin' stuff, but let me just say that if your only exposure to the term "mojo" was in an Austin Powers movie, you probably get the idea anyway.
An old blues singer says he's got his mojo working; he's saying he's gonna get lucky with the ladies that night.
Same thing in 1971 when Jim Morrison and The Doors took us on a full-throttle journey through the underbelly of Los Angeles, driving around, looking for little girls in their Hollywood bungalows.
8-10-10
Soap on a Rope - Chickenfoot, 2009 (Chickenfoot)
Chickenfoot is a band that came together quickly and may one day end just as quickly.
According to Sammy Hagar: "[Chickenfoot] started off with me, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith jamming at my club, Cabo Wabo, in Mexico. Then people started asking us when we were going to tour, make a record, etc. So I said if we're going to do this properly then we're going have to get a guitarist, so let's talk to Joe Satriani. As far as I'm concerned he's the best guitarist in the world."
Nobody is arguing the point.
Side 1, track 2, Soap on a Rope, from Chickenfoot's debut album.
Satriani rips!
8-9-10
Jacob's Ladder - Rush, 1980 (Permanent Waves)
Permanent Waves was the breakthrough record for Rush - an undisputed hard rock classic - just what they needed to become arena headliners. They released it on January 1st, 1980.
Shrill-voiced Geddy Lee actually lowered his singing register slightly for this album, and Neil Peart's songwriting would only get better.
The last track on side 1 of Permanent Waves, right after The Spirit Of Radio and Freewill, is called Jacob's Ladder, a reference from the Old Testament, wherein Jacob has a dream about a stairway that begins on earth, then reaches to the heavens, with the angels of God ascending and descending.
According to Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart, "This song simply describes the phenomenon of the sun breaking through the clouds in visible rays, as it sometimes does after a rain or on a cloudy day."
He should know. He wrote Jacob's Ladder.
8-6-10
Stop Draggin' My Heart Around - Stevie Nicks, 1981 (Bella Donna)
With monster hits like Rhiannon, Dreams and Landslide, Stevie Nicks was pretty much the centerpiece of Fleetwood Mac in the latter half of the 1970's.
In 1981 she released her first solo record, Bella Donna, which went straight to #1, leaving no doubt that she could function quite well without the help of her friends, and sometimes lovers, in Fleetwood Mac.
Side 1, track 3, Stevie's duet with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Stop Draggin' My Heart Around, is the story of a nasty breakup. It begins with a sweet Mike Campbell guitar riff and a misguided knock on somebody's front door.
8-5-10
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd, 1975 (Wish You Were Here)
Wish You Were Here is the title track to Pink Floyd's 1975 album of the same name.
In the original vinyl version, Wish You Were Here segues from the song Have a Cigar as if a radio had been tuned away from one station, through several others (including a radio play and one playing Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony), and finally to a new radio station where Wish You Were Here is beginning. The radio was recorded from David Gilmour's car radio.
He then processed the twelve-string guitar intro to sound like it was playing through an old transistor radio.
8-4-10
On The Road Again - Canned Heat, 1968 (Boogie With Canned Heat)
Canned Heat were a boogie band plain and simple. They came on strong in the late 60's with rocking' appearances at both Monterey Pop and Woodstock.
Track 3, side 1 of their second record was an international hit, On The Road Again, and features an Indian instrument, the tambura, which gave the song a hypnotic-psychedelic and yes, boogie effect.
Canned Heat. On The Road Again.
8-3-10
Fade To Black - Metallica, 1984 (Ride the Lightning)
Today, an all-time metal classic from Metallica's second record, Ride The Lightning. Up until this point, these guys really defined what thrash metal was all about.
Then they broke with convention and recorded their first power ballad in Fade to Black. It soon became a huge concert favorite and was one of the few Metallica tracks to get radio airplay in the mid- to late '80s.
"Life it seems, will fade away," sings the birthday-dude, James Hetfield.
8-2-10
Eight Miles High - Steve Hunter, 1977 (Swept Away)
If you've ever heard the live Lou Reed Rock 'n' Roll Animal record, then you've heard Steve Hunter's awesome guitar work. Steve Hunter was also Mitch Ryder and Alice Cooper's guitarist and he's worked with Peter Gabriel, David Lee Roth, Aerosmith and many others.
The same year he played on the first Peter Gabriel album, 1977, Steve Hunter came out with a solo record called Swept Away. The opening track is a rockin' instrumental version of the Byrds' Eight Miles High.
9-2-10
Good Times Roll - The Cars, 1978 (The Cars)
Ric Ocasek of The Cars was 29 years old when his band's debut album arrived in the Summer of 1978. Six years later he would meet his future wife - a then 19-year-old supermodel by the name of Paulina Porizkova, one of the hottest chicks on the planet at the time.
Not sure if you've ever seen a picture of Ric Ocasek, but lets just say he ain't gonna win any "Sexiest Man Alive" contests, but he might do ok in an "Ugliest Man" contest.
We kid! We kid! We love the guy. But you could easily make the case that Ric Ocasek + Paulina Porizkova = One of Life's Many Injustices. Just sayin'.
Nonetheless, let the good times roll!
9-1-10
Head First - The Babys. 1978 (Head First)
For some reason The Baby's we're 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.
8-31-10
Rolling Stones, 1972 (Exile On Main Street)
Exile on Main St. is the tenth studio album by The Rolling Stones. Stylistically it was all over the place; from rock & roll and blues, to country and soul.
Today's Classic Vinyl track, Rip This Joint, is a flat-out rocker with just a touch of rockabilly. It's one of the fastest Stones' songs ever and, at 2 minutes 23 seconds, is absolutely frenetic from beginning to end.
Rip This Joint takes us on a journey around the backroads of America with the Bay Area even getting a mention: listen carefully as Mick Jagger says, "From San Jose down to Santa Fe, Kiss me quick, baby, wont'cha make my day."
8-30-10
Cold Ethyl - Alice Cooper, 1975 (Welcome to My Nightmare)
You can always count on Alice Cooper to make fun of 3 things: sex, death and money.
1975's Welcome to My Nightmare contains all three, while today's Classic Vinyl track, Cold Ethyl, has the first two 'Coop fetishes covered, sex and death.
The song begins with Alice in a make-out session with a very attractive skeleton by the name of Ethyl, under the refrigerator light.
If you haven't guessed by now, Ethyl's pretty dead.
Come on and freeze me babe.
8-27-10
Black Betty - Ram Jam, 1977 (Ram Jam)
Ironic that such a hard rocking song like Black Betty was produced by a couple of guys who had a string of classic bubblegum hits like Yummy, Yummy, Yummy and Chewy, Chewy.
But Ram Jam had a huge hit with the song Black Betty, an old Lead Belly blues standard, the first track on their first record.
Black Betty is about either a Civil War rifle, a bottle of whiskey, or a hooker.
You decide.
8-26-10
Somebody Get Me a Doctor - Van Halen, 1979 (Van Halen II)
The second album by Van Halen came out in 1979, just a year after their spectacular debut album arrived to conquer the planet. A lot of the songs on this record we're actually around prior to the release of the first album, and today's Classic Vinyl track was even on the famous demo recorded in 1975 by Gene Simmons of Kiss.
With word that Eddie Van Halen has recovered from delicate hand surgery due to a bone spur, a twisted tendon, and a cyst in the joint of his left thumb, all his bandmate and 2011 tourmate, David Lee Roth can say is, Somebody Get Me a Doctor.
8-25-10
Can't You See - Marshall Tucker Band, 1973 (Marshall Tucker Band)
The Marshall Tucker Band got their name from a key to an old warehouse where they used to rehearse in Spartanburg, South Carolina in the 70's. On their way out to dinner one night, somebody noticed a tag on the key to the door that said, "Marshall Tucker." The name would turn out to be that of a blind piano tuner who had rented the space previously.
One of their biggest hits, Can't You See, track 2, side 1 of their debut record, tells the story of an old hippie cowboy who's been dumped by his woman, and just wants to find himself a hole in the wall, and crawl inside and die.
8-24-10
I Just Want to Make Love to You - Foghat, 1977 (Foghat Live)
Foghat is a band that specialized in simple, hard-rocking blues-boogie, they toured incessantly, and they had tons of best-selling records.
The biggest of which was Foghat Live, selling over 2 million copies. It's success was due in no small part to their cover of the old Willie Dixon blues song, I Just Want to Make Love to You.
It was a big hit for Muddy Waters in the 50's, it was a hit for Foghat on their first record in the early 70's, and it was an even biggert hit for Foghat on this record, where guitarist and vocalist Lonesome Dave tells the story of a fellow that ain't exactly looking for a housekeeper.
8-23-10
Rock Candy - Montrose, 1973 (Montrose)
Ironic that the debut Montrose album wasn't that successful in the beginning - some say their record company had no idea how to market the group and their sound. However, as you know from the gazillion times you've heard it on the radio, Montrose has undergone a bit of a renaissance since then - the album eventually went platinum.
Track 2, side 2, Rock Candy, along with Bad Motor Scooter, it's probably the best known Montrose song. About "Reaching for your dreams" and "Taking a chance" in life, Rock Candy starts out with a brutal drum beat courtesy of Denny Carmassi and of course one of Ronnie's most famous guitar riffs.
8-20-10
All My Love - Led Zeppelin, 1979 (In Through the Out Door)
In Through the Out Door is the eighth and final studio album by Led Zeppelin. It was also the last of three Zep records that was completely original.
It was also a very tragic time. In 1975, Robert Plant and his wife Maureen were seriously injured in a car crash in Greece. Two years later their oldest son Karac died at the age of 5 of a stomach infection when Plant was on tour with Led Zeppelin in the U.S.
Karac's death later inspired him to write the song All My Love in tribute.
Robert Plant did the vocals all in one take.
8-19-10
Tales of Brave Ulysses - Cream, 1967 (Disraeli Gears)
On the second Cream record, their sound was less bluesy and more psychedelic. In 1967, you could take pretty much anything and make it psychedelic - in the case of today's song - it was the Greek tragedy Ulysses.
Cream's Tales of Brave Ulysses was pure hippie/Summer of Love. With lines like "tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers," it was definetly time to roll a doob and put Disraeli Gears on the turntable.
The song actually came about in a London club when Eric Clapton ran into an Australian artist who happened to live in his building.
Clapton mentioned that he had some music that needed lyrics, so the guy wrote out a poem he had composed on a napkin and gave it to Clapton, who recorded it as Tales of Brave Ulysses.
8-18-10
Heartache Tonight - Eagles, 1975 (The Long Run)
Heartache Tonight is a song written by Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bob Seger and J. D. Souther and appears on the Eagles album, The Long Run.
When Glenn Frey was a 19-year-old up-and-coming musician in Detroit, Bob Seger took him under his wing and helped get his music career started. J. D. Souther, who is sometimes considered an "Unofficial Eagle," was the first person Frey met when he moved to Los Angeles in the late-'60s.
Heartache Tonight, Track 2, side 1, reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, stayed there for only one week, but sold a million copies, and won a Grammy.
8-17-10
Us and Them - Pink Floyd, 1973 (The Dark Side of the Moon)
Pink Floyd's great keyboardist, Richard Wright passed away almost 2 years ago. This guy was an absolutely vital part of the Pink Floyd sound from the very beginning.
David Gilmour said he and Rick had a "musical telepathy" and happily the two of them share vocals on todays song, Us and Them.
There's a great story that goes along with this. Us and Them was originally written by Rick Wright on the piano for the movie Zabriskie Point in 1969. Director Michelangelo Antonioni said, "It's beautiful, but too sad, you know? It makes me think of church."
The song was put on the shelf until The Dark Side of the Moon.
We join a London pub conversation in progress as track 1, Money, winds down and Richard Wright saunters in on Hammond organ.
And in the end it's only round and round and round.
8-16-10
Ready Steady Go - Generation X, 1978 (Generation X)
In the late 1980's, the term "Generation X" arrived in popular culture and was used to describe the angst of kids born between roughly 1960 and 1965.
Billy Idol was born in 1955 and formed the band Generation X in 1976, named after a 1965 sociology book, a copy of which was owned by Billy's mother.
Ready Steady Go, track 4 side 1 of the debut Generation X record is the name of one of the first English pop-rock-music TV shows.
Hmmm....music TV show.....in the 60's?
Everybody's grandmother and dog was on Ready Steady Go in the 60's - The Beatles, The Kinks, The Stones, the Who, the Beach Boys, and the show was largely responsible for breaking Jimi Hendrix worldwide.
Ready Steady Go, on BBC TV every Friday night with the by-line "The weekend starts here!"
8-13-10
Black Friday - Steely Dan, 1975 (Katy Lied)
Katy Lied is the fourth album by Steely Dan, released in 1975. Steely Dan are pretty much two guys, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. They wrote everything together and always recorded with top-notch studio musicians.
Well, maybe not when they played together in college. Becker and Fagen were in a band called The Bad Rock Group, which included future comedy star Chevy Chase on drums.
These two were a little quirky. Their previous album was called Pretzel Logic. They toured for just two years, then announced that they would be a studio-only band, in the process losing guys like Jeff "Skunk" Baxter to the Doobie Brothers.
The real quirkiness though, comes from Steely Dan's lyrics. I've come to the conclusion that you're not supposed to know what any of it really means. Like this, the first track on Katy Lied, Black Friday.
8-12-10
Turn It on Again - Genesis. 1980 (Duke)
1980's Duke album from Genesis was the line between the "new" and the "old" Genesis. When Peter Gabriel left the group a few years earlier, they auditioned singers like Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy, Peter Frampton and David Cassidy.
Wisely, they settled on their own drummer, Phil Collins, whose vocals transformed Genesis from theatrical, progressive rock to radio-friendly pop over the next ten years.
Track 1, side 2, Turn It on Again, is the story of a guy obsessed with his television set. He's a TV junkie, "I get so lonely when she's not there," sings Phil.
Thankfully, even though all this fellow needs is a TV show, he'll take that, and the radio.
8-11-10
L.A. Woman - The Doors, 1971 (L.A. Woman)
Today on Classic Vinyl, The Doors, L.A.Woman. You've heard the song a gazillion times, what with all that Jim Morrison/mojo risin' stuff, but let me just say that if your only exposure to the term "mojo" was in an Austin Powers movie, you probably get the idea anyway.
An old blues singer says he's got his mojo working; he's saying he's gonna get lucky with the ladies that night.
Same thing in 1971 when Jim Morrison and The Doors took us on a full-throttle journey through the underbelly of Los Angeles, driving around, looking for little girls in their Hollywood bungalows.
8-10-10
Soap on a Rope - Chickenfoot, 2009 (Chickenfoot)
Chickenfoot is a band that came together quickly and may one day end just as quickly.
According to Sammy Hagar: "[Chickenfoot] started off with me, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith jamming at my club, Cabo Wabo, in Mexico. Then people started asking us when we were going to tour, make a record, etc. So I said if we're going to do this properly then we're going have to get a guitarist, so let's talk to Joe Satriani. As far as I'm concerned he's the best guitarist in the world."
Nobody is arguing the point.
Side 1, track 2, Soap on a Rope, from Chickenfoot's debut album.
Satriani rips!
8-9-10
Jacob's Ladder - Rush, 1980 (Permanent Waves)
Permanent Waves was the breakthrough record for Rush - an undisputed hard rock classic - just what they needed to become arena headliners. They released it on January 1st, 1980.
Shrill-voiced Geddy Lee actually lowered his singing register slightly for this album, and Neil Peart's songwriting would only get better.
The last track on side 1 of Permanent Waves, right after The Spirit Of Radio and Freewill, is called Jacob's Ladder, a reference from the Old Testament, wherein Jacob has a dream about a stairway that begins on earth, then reaches to the heavens, with the angels of God ascending and descending.
According to Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart, "This song simply describes the phenomenon of the sun breaking through the clouds in visible rays, as it sometimes does after a rain or on a cloudy day."
He should know. He wrote Jacob's Ladder.
8-6-10
Stop Draggin' My Heart Around - Stevie Nicks, 1981 (Bella Donna)
With monster hits like Rhiannon, Dreams and Landslide, Stevie Nicks was pretty much the centerpiece of Fleetwood Mac in the latter half of the 1970's.
In 1981 she released her first solo record, Bella Donna, which went straight to #1, leaving no doubt that she could function quite well without the help of her friends, and sometimes lovers, in Fleetwood Mac.
Side 1, track 3, Stevie's duet with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Stop Draggin' My Heart Around, is the story of a nasty breakup. It begins with a sweet Mike Campbell guitar riff and a misguided knock on somebody's front door.
8-5-10
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd, 1975 (Wish You Were Here)
Wish You Were Here is the title track to Pink Floyd's 1975 album of the same name.
In the original vinyl version, Wish You Were Here segues from the song Have a Cigar as if a radio had been tuned away from one station, through several others (including a radio play and one playing Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony), and finally to a new radio station where Wish You Were Here is beginning. The radio was recorded from David Gilmour's car radio.
He then processed the twelve-string guitar intro to sound like it was playing through an old transistor radio.
8-4-10
On The Road Again - Canned Heat, 1968 (Boogie With Canned Heat)
Canned Heat were a boogie band plain and simple. They came on strong in the late 60's with rocking' appearances at both Monterey Pop and Woodstock.
Track 3, side 1 of their second record was an international hit, On The Road Again, and features an Indian instrument, the tambura, which gave the song a hypnotic-psychedelic and yes, boogie effect.
Canned Heat. On The Road Again.
8-3-10
Fade To Black - Metallica, 1984 (Ride the Lightning)
Today, an all-time metal classic from Metallica's second record, Ride The Lightning. Up until this point, these guys really defined what thrash metal was all about.
Then they broke with convention and recorded their first power ballad in Fade to Black. It soon became a huge concert favorite and was one of the few Metallica tracks to get radio airplay in the mid- to late '80s.
"Life it seems, will fade away," sings the birthday-dude, James Hetfield.
8-2-10
Eight Miles High - Steve Hunter, 1977 (Swept Away)
If you've ever heard the live Lou Reed Rock 'n' Roll Animal record, then you've heard Steve Hunter's awesome guitar work. Steve Hunter was also Mitch Ryder and Alice Cooper's guitarist and he's worked with Peter Gabriel, David Lee Roth, Aerosmith and many others.
The same year he played on the first Peter Gabriel album, 1977, Steve Hunter came out with a solo record called Swept Away. The opening track is a rockin' instrumental version of the Byrds' Eight Miles High.