Latest Episodes for this Channel
Thu November 20 2008
Sister Hazel - All For You I was watching the morning news on the Boston Fox station, and I heard some familiar music accompanying one story. I couldn...
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Sister Hazel - All For You I was watching the morning news on the Boston Fox station, and I heard some familiar music accompanying one story. I couldn't identify it right away and that always drives
me nuts. When the segment ended, I just kept humming the tune to myself. I knew it was a nineties hit, so I tried like hell to spark my memory. Lil Sticks used to love this song, and I knew it was a
hi...
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Sister Hazel - All For You I was watching the morning news on the Boston Fox station, and I heard some familiar music accompanying one story. I couldn't identify it right away and that always drives
me nuts. When the segment ended, I just kept humming the tune to myself. I knew it was a nineties hit, so I tried like hell to spark my memory. Lil Sticks used to love this song, and I knew it was a
hit when he was in junior high. Finally, the band name snapped into my consciousness: Sister Hazel. That's the ticket! It's from the 1997 release,... Somewhere More Familiar, which was the band's
second album. All For You reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. I do own the album, but I can recall only a couple of standout songs. The rest was fairly pleasant, but average. I do remember loving
the final cut on the cd, Starfish, which Wii Lad relished as a dance-along tot song. Today, it's a bonus song in the flashback.
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Sun November 16 2008
Derek And The Dominos - Bell Bottom Blues One album wonders, Derek And the Dominos released what has become a monster classic album, Layla and Other A...
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Derek And The Dominos - Bell Bottom Blues One album wonders, Derek And the Dominos released what has become a monster classic album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, in 1970, but it didn't garner
much attention until Layla became a hit single in the US and the UK in 1972. This song was the B-side of Layla, and it is one of my favorite Clapton songs. I like to think of 1969's hippie gathering
a...
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Derek And The Dominos - Bell Bottom Blues One album wonders, Derek And the Dominos released what has become a monster classic album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, in 1970, but it didn't garner
much attention until Layla became a hit single in the US and the UK in 1972. This song was the B-side of Layla, and it is one of my favorite Clapton songs. I like to think of 1969's hippie gathering
at Woodstock as the last hurrah of sixties psychedelia, and I also like to think of this song as Clapton's bye-bye to it all. You could quibble with me about that and tell me that Clapton was writing
a love song about a girl in bell-bottomed jeans, since the rest of the album is about his unrequited (at the time) love for Pattie Harrison, but I think he knew that things were changing for his
generation, and that the groovy good times were slipping away. He didn't want to see that fade away. It actually took some time to fade. The US was steeped in the Vietnam war until 1975, and protests
continued, but were riotous. Bell bottoms were still the cool thing well into the late 70's, and rock and roll was still the music of the youth culture. Hippies, however, became infinitely less cool
and relevant, and eventually became the butt of countless jokes. There's a bit of controversy over the songwriting credit for BBB, but it is a lone Clapton credit on the album cover. Bobby Whitlock,
one of the Dominos, maintains that he cowrote it, but that Clapton demanded a larger number of songwriting credits on the album and omitted Whitlock's cowriting credit. I'm sure I could research that
to death and get no real authentication, so I'll leave it up in the air. Duane Allman appeared on the Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs, but not until song four, so it's a lone Clapton lead on BBB.
Whitlock is on keys, Jim Gordon plays drums, and Carl Radle rounded out the group on bass.
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Fri November 07 2008
Graham Parker - White Honey This week, I spent so much time focusing on the election hoohaa that I pretty much zoned out everything else. To remedy th...
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Graham Parker - White Honey This week, I spent so much time focusing on the election hoohaa that I pretty much zoned out everything else. To remedy that, I listened to Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey cd
in the car, since it seems that is where I do my best listening. (By the way, I highly recommend Morrison to soothe your soul and reclaim your brain. Trust me.) In typical ADD fashion, my mind
wandered...
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Graham Parker - White Honey This week, I spent so much time focusing on the election hoohaa that I pretty much zoned out everything else. To remedy that, I listened to Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey cd
in the car, since it seems that is where I do my best listening. (By the way, I highly recommend Morrison to soothe your soul and reclaim your brain. Trust me.) In typical ADD fashion, my mind
wandered to Graham Parker's White Honey. Parker pays homage to Morrison's style by invoking the blue-eyed soul, complete with warbly keyboards, driving bass line, and horns. This is one of those
Parker songs that I love love, since it's got all of that, plus his snarly vocal. I couldn't wait to get home and drag out Parker's Howlin' Wind album and give it a whirl in the cd player. Whew. My
brain was saved. What election?
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Fri October 31 2008
Yesterday, I shopped in this very stodgy gift shop in the swanky new section of the Natick Mall, errr, I mean The Natick Collection. (Hoity-toity enou...
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Yesterday, I shopped in this very stodgy gift shop in the swanky new section of the Natick Mall, errr, I mean The Natick Collection. (Hoity-toity enough for ya?) This is the kind of store that
usually features music like Yanni or Enya or something else from that blah, new-agey, mind-numbing genre in their overhead play, so you'll forget about why you're there and buy an overpriced Willow
Tree ange...
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Yesterday, I shopped in this very stodgy gift shop in the swanky new section of the Natick Mall, errr, I mean The Natick Collection. (Hoity-toity enough for ya?) This is the kind of store that
usually features music like Yanni or Enya or something else from that blah, new-agey, mind-numbing genre in their overhead play, so you'll forget about why you're there and buy an overpriced Willow
Tree angel. You know the store. It's the one with the sales lady that wears prissy sweater sets, reeks of Shalimar, and has sports bifocals hanging from a chain around her neck. I strolled in to look
at greeting cards, and I was astonished to hear actual rock music. I had to look around! Am I in the right place? I could swear that's Sonic Youth I'm hearing. This, of course, shook my world. What
if I walked into Hot Topic and heard Barry Manilow singing Can't Smile Without You? What if I headed into Gymboree and heard Slipknot blaring while mommies shopped for outfits for their kidlets? That
would happen in bizarro world! Perhaps the gift store clerk flipped the wrong switch and had no idea how to rectify the situation, or maybe she was just a rock and roller under all of the mall sales
lady clothing. Who knows. But hearing Teen Age Riot while I skimmed through the birthday cards was a rare treat that I'm certain will not reoccur. This leads to the flashback. I was tempted to play
that great Sonic Youth song, but during the drive home, I started thinking about when it was released. 1988. Lots of good, lasting tunage came out that year, including Tracy Chapman's debut,
Fisherman's Blues from The Waterboys, and The Traveling Wilburys' Vol. 1. I think the Pixies' released Surfer Rosa in 88, as well. I'm know I'm leaving out some choice releases, but I had to focus on
the traffic and avoid the Massholes surrounding me, waiting to cut me off at any moment. Today's flashback is from The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1. I've chosen a couple of deep cuts from the album,
Tweeter and the Monkey Man, featuring Dylan on lead vocal and a definite Jeff Lynne production sound, and Not Alone Any More, the Roy Orbison showcase song.
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Sun October 26 2008
July - Dandelion Seeds British band, July, began their career as a skiffle* band named The Playboys, morphed into an R & B outfit, and after sever...
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July - Dandelion Seeds British band, July, began their career as a skiffle* band named The Playboys, morphed into an R & B outfit, and after several other name/genre changes, finally ended up as
an influential psych-rock band. Dandelion Seeds kicks off as a rather funky blues-based jam song featuring some nice guitar grooves and a touch of bongo, but at around the 2:23 mark, the song shifts
in...
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July - Dandelion Seeds British band, July, began their career as a skiffle* band named The Playboys, morphed into an R & B outfit, and after several other name/genre changes, finally ended up as
an influential psych-rock band. Dandelion Seeds kicks off as a rather funky blues-based jam song featuring some nice guitar grooves and a touch of bongo, but at around the 2:23 mark, the song shifts
into hazy dream-like keyboard part, then shifts back to the funky stuff. It seems all rather Pink Floydish to me, and that's perfectly fine. The lyrics are all plenty trippy, too: up above the trees,
looking down on leaves, birds fly by my side, people look up hopelessly at dandelion seeds. I can't remember the last time I looked up hopelessy at dandelion seeds, but, um, whatever. Duuuuude, I
want what he's smokin'.
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