I Pulled Into Nazareth

R.I.P. Levon Helm of The Band

Another Random 10

The Zune player had good taste on this morning's first 10 random songs.

1. In The Jailhouse Now - Willie Nelson and Webb Pierce
   
2. Fool About You - Hank Williams. Not Jr. Not the third. Hank.
   
3. Exodus - Marley
   
4. Subtarranean Homesick Blues - Dylan
   
5. Love Child - Diana Ross and The Supremes
   
6. Winner Takes It All - Sammy Hagar
   
7. I Don't Know - Andrew "Big Voice" Odom
   
8. Little Wing - Jimmy Hendrix
   
9. Working My Way Back To You - The Four Seasons
   
10. Up On The Ridge - Joe Ely
    

Musical Random First 10 + 1

Switched the Zune over to random music when the Red Line went underground this morning.  The results:

1.  Suspicion by Elvis
2. Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain by Willie
3. This Hard Land by Bruce
4. The Fool On The Hill by The Beatles
5. Johnny B. Goode covered by Dr. Feelgood
6. Little White Lie by Sammy Hagar
7. Feather Pluckin by The Presidents Of The United States of America
8. Happiness by Blue Nile (skipped*)
9. Crawlin King Snake by John Lee Hooker
10. Gee Baby, Ain't I Good by Ella
11. There'll Never Be by Switch

* I burned a bunch of music from a friend who was living with me for a while.  The Blue Nile was one of many bands I didn't know.  Christiany crapola.  I really need to remove it from the player.

Who Knew?

I went to pull the crossword out of the paper today and I saw an ad for The Venue at the Horseshoe Casino.  Huey Lewis And The News is playing in March.  Who knew they were still a group?

Happy 70th

Neil Diamond turns 70 today. He's one of those artists I feel like I should like more but I just don't. I've gone through a couple youtube videos and I just don't care that much for his music.  Still, it's no denying he is a cultural touchstone.

Birthdays

The dead one.

Yes, people, he's dead.  Dead. Dead. Dead.  Even if he wasn't dead he would be dead by now.


The Weird One.

I Got The Rockin' Pneumonia,

It has been said that you cannot choose one person as the inventor of Rock And Roll.  However, if you are forced to pick one you could do worse than Chuck Berry.

He was scheduled to play a show in Chicago last night.  I didn't know about it until yesterday morning and by that time I already had plans.  Otherwise I would have gotten tickets.  Sadly, it may have been best that I didn't go.  A friend said she waited 2+ hours for him to take the stage.  At that point she estimates he only played for 20 minutes while "forgetting lyrics."  She said he then spent 30 minutes tuning instruments before collapsing.

Here is Chuck Berry explaining what happened.

I have a short list of early blues and rock and roll acts that are still alive and I would like to see.  Berry is certainly on that list but I wonder now.  It may be best to remember and listen to the music as it was.  I know Berry still has a club in St. Louis he plays on occasion but duck walking may be best left to those younger than 84 years of age.

Who?

At breakfast this morning I read through The Onion.  The AV Club section had a feature, The Best Music of 2010, that counted down their top 15 albums.  In no particular order, other than their rankings, the list is:

15.  Wavves.  King of the Beach
14.  Deerhunter.  Halcyon Digest
13.  Dum Dum Girls.  I Will Be
12.  The Black Keys.  Brothers
11.  Frightened Rabbit.  The Winter of Mixed Drinks
10.  Robyn.  Body Talk
9.  Vampire Weekend  Contra
8.  Superchunk.  Majesty Shredding
7.  Big Boi.  Sir Lucious Left Foot... The Son of Chico Dusty
6.  Janelle Monae.  The ArchAndroid
5.  The Roots.  How I Got Over
4.  LCD Soundsystem.  This Is Happening
3.  The National.  High Violet
2.  The Walkmen.  Lisbon
1.  Kanye West.  My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

My reaction, who?  The only artists on that list I've ever even heard of are The Black Keys and Kanye West.

Kick Out The Jams, MF

Scrolling through the list of events for Nov. 4 on wikipedia I saw that Fred Smith died on this day in 1994. Smith was married to and collaborated with Patti Smith and was the inspiration for the Sonic Youth, named after him.

It stuck out to me because he was a guitarist for the MC5, hard rock band credited with being an early entrant into the punk scene. One of the exes, The Drummer, introduced me to the MC5 when her band opened for Wayne Kramer. Brother Wayne was a founding member of the band and was on a solo tour at the time.