Is it cool, or is it cool?

Well, the Brothers Johnson might not have to arbitrate this, but I had a little fun recently by merely kicking back and thinking about some of the really nifty shit I've done during my 45.8 years on this here planet.  My list is by no means all-inclusive, and I highly encourage you to compile your own list.  Keep in mind that it doesn't matter how big or small your items/events are, so long as they are important to YOU!  Meantime, here's my list (in no particular order).

Since my arrival on this sphere we call Earth on 6/11/64, yours turly...

• Attended the first regular season game ever played at Royals (now Kauffman) Stadium (1973)
• Met The Who's John Entwistle/Got his autograph (1998)
• Walked on the parquet floor at Boston Garden (1994)
• Stood at the top of Pike's Peak (1993)
• Attended 16 Kiss concerts (1979-Present)
• Talked on the radio—a lot! (1987-89)
• Swiped-tagged Ace Frehley of Kiss on the arm (1994)
• Could recite all 50 U.S. state capitals and point them out on a map by the time he was five (1969)
• Witnessed two championship sporting events in person (Kansas City Attack indoor soccer team, 1993/1997)
• Walked on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (2008)
• Saw Hank Aaron hit a home run in person (at Royals Stadium as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers, June 11, 1976—my 12th birthday)
• Met George Carlin/got his autograph (1987)
• Chanted "Yankees suck! Yankees suck!" along with the assembled multitude in Crown Center the night the Royals beat New York in the ALCS (1980)
• Got within ten feet of/almost got to shake hands with President Gerald R. Ford in Independence, MO (1975)
• Was the last voice ever heard on a radio station (at KKJC, "The Mighty 1030" in Blue Springs--January 31, 1988 @ 9:59 P.M.)
• Spoke into the same microphone as Wolfman Jack once did (also at KKJC, 1987)
• Kissed a beautiful woman at the top of the Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas (1999)
• Partied at the Country Club Plaza/Westport when the Royals won the World Series (1985)
• Visited the famed Motown recording studio Detroit (2006)
• Met/chatted with Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & The Raiders/got his autograph (2001)
• Experienced "The Roar" at Chicago Stadium (1990/1994)
• Attended 108 concerts (1979-Present)
• Got kicked out of Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto for buying a stolen season ticket (1994)
• Toured the studios of KMOX-AM, St. Louis [the Mercedes-Benz of radio stations]/Touched Jack Buck's mail slot (1990)
• Saw Elton John blow Starlight Theater apart with an outstanding concert (1982)
• Saw Wayne Gretzky play in person/Get stoned by the goalie on a breakaway (1990)
• Attended George Brett's final home game as a Kansas City Royal (1993)
• Visited the gravesites of Harry S. Truman, Johnny Cash, Curly Howard and Jimi Hendrix
• Spoke to Hank Stram on the phone (1994)
• Drove through the ghettos of Chicago (at night in a 1982 Cadillac) and lived to tell about it (1985)
• Attended Game 3 of the 1985 ALCS at Royals Stadium when G. Brett hit two home runs and beat them Toronto Blue Jays (1985)
• Witnessed the Kansas City Comets FINALLY beat the St. Louis Steamers in a playoff series (1985)
• Rode to the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis (numerous times, 1971-Present)
• Saw Mario Lemieux score a goal in person (1994)
• Almost met Harry Caray in St. Louis (1988)
• Edited box scores for The Kansas City Star (1995-98)
• Visited the hallowed Sun Records recording studio in Memphis/touched the same microphone Elvis Presley, Bono, Carl Perkins, et al, once sang into (2007)

W.W.S.D.?

(What Would Scooby Do?)

Rut-row, Raggy!  Alright, you meddling kids—it’s been far too long since I’ve authored one of my trademark multi-topic blog posts, so let’s get caught up on some current folderol, shall we?

HE BANGS?!?
Say it isn’t so, Ethyl!!  Ricky Martin is gay?!?  Talk about another delusion shattered!  Okay, I’m being facetious—my reaction to this earth-shattering revelation is the same as when Freddie Mercury and George Michael outed themselves:  Meh, kinda figured.  Ricky’s timing is rather suspect, tho—why admit this now?  Most likely because it’s become so fashionable to come out to the media these days.  And since Martin hasn’t had a hit in almost ten years (and even that was a duet with Christina Aguilera), this is merely a desperate attempt to keep his name in the papers.  To mark the occasion, perhaps his next single should be a remake of “Go Away Little Girl”…

BULLOCK BOLLOCKS
Why oh why does everyone seemingly have their panties in a wad over actress Sandra Bullock’s crumbling marriage?  I don’t even know who this Jesse James goomer is that she’s married to, anyway.  I’ve never been overly impressed with her either, both in terms of her looks and her acting prowess, although I have yet to see her Oscar-winning gig in The Blind Side.  And while she’s not all that UNattractive to me, and I doubt I'd ever kick her out of my bed, she doesn’t really blow me away, either.  Much ado about nothing...

On the other hand, it's come to my attention that my girl Kate Winslet is about to become a free agent again.  Kate, dah-ling, if you're reading this, let your soon-to-be ex- have custody of your kids and come see me sometime!

“(YOU’RE A) DANCIN’ FOOL…”
Frank Zappa’s classic tune could actually be applied to most any of the so-called “stars” on ABC’s “Dancing With The Stars”, but it’s especially apropos for the Queen of The Limelight Whores, Kate Gosselin.  Exactly what is it about this woman that makes her a star?  To me, notoriety alone doth not a star make.  And evidently she’s being the same total control freak be-yatch with her dance partners on "DWTS" that she was with her family on that reality show.  All I know is Kate better not play the “Please respect my privacy” card anymore after all this…

THREE C-SPANS, GRACIE?
Can someone please explain to me the existence of C-Span 3?  Nobody even watches regular C-Span, do they?

“JUST TO KNOW WHO IS DRIVING, WHAT A HELP IT WOULD BE…”
Interesting tidbit I learned the other day about my man, the late John Entwistle of The Who.  Even though he owned a flotilla of fancy cars, the boy never actually learned to drive any of them!  “I drink in them,” he was once quoted.  Strangely enough, this phenomenon is not all that uncommon amongst Rock musicians.  It was only a few years ago that Gene Simmons of Kiss finally got his driver’s license (he's 60 now), and neither the late Eddie Cochran nor the late Marc Bolan of T. Rex ever learned to drive—yet both ironically were killed in car accidents in which they were passengers.

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #122
“Break Every Rule”—TINA TURNER (1987)  “I’m always singing your praises…”  Or as I initially interpreted the line, “I’m always singing ‘You’re crazy!’…”  Very underrated track, btw…

TACO BELL, YOU'RE SO DINGY!
Does Taco Bell really expect me to believe I’ll ever actually be waited on by a pretty/perky white girl at one of their stores like in their current TV ads about the 89-cent burritos?  Uhhh, I’ll take Science Fiction for $200, Alex!  My odds of winning the lottery are better than to encounter behind their counter one these modeling agency chicks.  I consider myself lucky if I ever get waited on by a Taco Bell employee who even speaks proper English…

I SEE DEAD PEOPLE!—PART 1
I posed this question about eight months ago, but to my utter dismay, it bears repeating:  Does anyone besides me find it just a tad crass that they’re still running those annoying Billy Mays TV ads?  The “Voice That Activated a Million Mute Buttons” has been dead for what, nine months now?  Yet his commercials still air on cable TV.  He’s a corpse now—let him freakin’ rot, already!  Pretty damn pathetic…

I SEE DEAD PEOPLE!—PART 2
My recent library visits have yielded a couple of very thorough and interesting reference books about deceased music people, including the one I'm currently perusing, Heroin, Hanguns And Ham Sandwiches—The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars by British author Jeremy Simmonds.  Lots of fascinating facts and trivia about people's careers (not just their demises) and some very intriguing quotes.  To wit:  "Don't worry—it's not loaded, see?"—Terry Kath, Chicago, January 23, 1978, just before he blew his brains out.  "If I could put into one words what the essence of The Yardbirds was—it would be 'electricity'."—Keith Relf, Yarbirds lead singer, who was electrocuted in 1976 while playing guitar in his basement.

DON’T BE CRUEL…AND QUIT RUNNING THESE ADS!
Youse animal lovers out there might be taken aback by what follows here, but please hear me out on this one.  I don’t mean to seem like an insensitive clod, but I’m sick to death of this latest spate of TV ads pleading for us to send money to stop animal cruelty.  You know the ones, these tear-inducing/grab-your-hanky/tug-at-your-heartstrings commercials featuring Sarah McLaughlin, Wendie Malick, et al, that show these poor unfortunate critters in the kennels and animal shelters.  The "charities" proceed to lay out the big guilt-trip and want you to send them $20 a month to ostensibly put an end to animal cruelty, even though some of these animals they depict aren’t even mistreated at all, like the one-eyed cats and three-legged dogs—those are birth defects, not the result of abuse!  Don’t get me wrong, I don't mean to damn the cause, here—I, too, feel that mistreatment of animals is totally uncool.  Still, I have issues with the way these ads manipulate the viewer into thinking their hard-earned money is actually going to change anything.  And I wouldn't be a good cynic if I weren't extremely distrusting of these “charities” that supposedly benefit children and animals (Feed The Children, Christian Children’s Fund, St. Jude Children’s Hospital, et al), especially the ones who always seem to have a specific set monetary amount in mind for you to send them every month.  I’ve heard too many horror stories about how once these “charitable” outfits latch on to you, it’s damn near impossible to get them to leave you alone once you decide to cease contributing, for whatever reason.  They’re just money-grubbing rackets to me, not charities.  As the esteemed philosopher Fudd always cautioned, “Be vewy vewy caweful!”

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME?
Speaking of rackets, I don’t suppose there’s such a program as “Cash For Mold” anywhere, is there?  If so, I could make a fortune—my crawlspace is usually brimming with it this time of year!

"Sorry to have taken so long--It must've been a bitch while I was gone..."

…as the ol’ Kiss song goes.  Now's the time for you to "reacquaint yourself with my style"...

Again, my profoundest apologies for the lack of activity here, but I simply haven’t had the time or creative spark lately to put any blog entries together.  While my father’s death a month ago definitely sidetracked me, I’ve also been busy with another project that eats up a lot of my free time, so the blog unfortunately has been on the back burner of late.  But, it’s time to hop back in my armchair music critic saddle, and in the spirit of comebacks, I present to you a compilation of my favorite Comeback Albums of all-time.  This isn’t a ranking this time, just a nice little round-up in no particular order.

NOTE:  I've only included albums that are actually in my collection.  I’m sure there are other worthy candidates by folks like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Crosby Stills Nash and/or Neil Young, et al, but I don’t have enough of their stuff to properly comment on them.

Double Fantasy—JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO (1980)  JL had spent the better part of five years playing daddy and househusband and just plain taking a well-deserved break from the limelight from late, ’75 through late, ‘80, all the while re-charging his creative batteries.  Since this was a collaborative effort with Yoko, I don’t really consider this a full-fledged comeback, per se, but it was close enough.  Also, this album has always been hard to judge on its true merits because of all the emotions associated with John’s senseless murder.  While John had traded in some of his edge for a more melodic and even nostalgic sound, his songs were very poignant and personal here, especially “Watching The Wheels”, “Woman” and “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)”, the latter written for his young son, Sean.  “Cleanup Time” was an underrated cut, too.  I know JL would disagree, but I really could’ve done without Yoko’s songs on here, apart from maybe “Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him”—her voice just grates on me like fingernails on a blackboard and sitar music do.  One wonders how much better Double Fantasy would’ve been had it been called Single Fantasy and featured John exclusively.

Spirit Of The Wild—TED NUGENT (1995)  Oh, how the mighty had fallen!  Fifteen years earlier, The Nuge was at the top of the Rock ‘N’ Roll heap, but the ‘80s weren’t kind to Sweaty Teddy at all.  He got off on the wrong foot with the mediocre Scream Dream in 1980, and followed that with his putrid 1981 live album, Intensities In 10 Cities, which was inexplicably ranked #9 on the Guitar World Top 10 Live Albums list—uhhh, better lay off the cough syrup there, fellas.  Ted rebounded a bit when he switched labels from Epic to Atlantic in 1982 with Nugent, then a major malaise infected Nugent’s career, marked by constant personnel changes in his band and a string of mediocre-to-dreadful albums through the rest of the decade.  Things got so bad that Nugent was even willing to share the spotlight for once by joining forces with Jack Blades and Tommy Shaw to form Damn Yankees in 1989.  DY showed promise as a steady unit early on, but disbanded after only two albums in the early ‘90s, with Blades subsequently returning to Night Ranger, Shaw doing likewise with Styx, and Nugent going solo again.  Ted wisely reconvened with erstwhile lead singer/rhythm guitarist Derek St. Holmes in 1995 for Spirit Of The Wild, and the result was easily Nugent’s best LP since 1979’s State of Shock.  St. Holmes sounded great on “Heart And Soul” and the title track, and Ted was his old cocky self again on “Kiss My Ass”, even though it was a diatribe against liberals of all stripes.  However, I merely substitute Bill O’Reilly for Janet Reno while singing along to Ted’s little “roll call” at the end of the song, and we get along just fine.  “I Shoot Back” was another standout track, and the album also included a slightly-remixed version of his 1989 hunter’s anthem “Fred Bear”.  I’m not much of an outdoorsy-type, but it’s a cool song, all the same.  Sadly, all Nugent’s done since that album is be a moronic right-wing extremist bigot and talk out of his ass instead of with his guitar.  In the words of Fred Sanford, “I used to like you…dummy!”

Permanent Vacation—AEROSMITH (1987)  Like Nugent, Aerosmith was also at the top of the Rock heap in the late ‘70s, but drugs and apathy derailed their career big-time after 1977’s Draw The Line.  Guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford both defected in the early ‘80s and were replaced by two nobodies for an album or two until singer Steven Tyler cleaned up his act (sort of, anyway).  The comeback was initiated with 1984’s Done With Mirrors (which featured a killer remake of Joe Perry’s solo tune “Let The Music Do The Talking”), and was completed with Permanent Vacation, an album that caught a lot of people by surprise.  It contained some cool under-the-radar stuff like “Simoriah”, “Heart’s Done Time” and an instrumental, “The Movie”, as well as yielding several huge hits, including “Rag Doll” and “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)”.  Unfortunately, the success of one hit, “Angel”, sent Aerosmith barreling down a bad path they have yet to return from—all their albums since then have contained one or more predictable sappy power ballads, thus rendering most of their output from the last 15 years or so to be almost unlistenable.

Lap Of Luxury—CHEAP TRICK (1988)  Ironically, Cheap Trick reached the pinnacle of their career with a power ballad long about the same time Aerosmith did with “Angel”, scoring their first and only #1 hit with “The Flame”.  The big difference here is “The Flame” is a far superior song, but also Trick found themselves pigeonholed by the song and found it impossible to duplicate its success.  Just as well, I prefer CT as a rockin’ band instead of balladeers anyway, and they found their mojo again on Luxury after a string of spotty releases throughout the ‘80s in the wake of 1979’s classic Dream Police album.  Lap also marked the return of bassist Tom Petersson from an extended absence.  This record was much more focused than the prior few, and while it had a slick ‘80s sheen to it, I’ve always been partial to it.  In addition to “Flame”, the album included a remake of Elvis’ “Don’t Be Cruel” that was a total hoot, as well as the weepy/bluesy “Ghost Town” (on which guitarist Rick Nielsen turns in a credible George Harrison impression in his lead solo) and “All We Need Is A Dream”, which would’ve slotted in perfectly on most any ‘80s teen romance flick.  The best track, however, was the Who-like closer, “All Wound Up”, featuring Petersson’s Entwistle-like rumbling bass and Nielsen’s Townshend-like crashing power chords throughout.

The Razor’s Edge—AC/DC (1991)  Angus and the boys spent most of the ‘80s in the shadow of their 1980 behemoth, Back In Black. Although their ‘80s albums had their moments now and then—namely “For Those About To Rock”, “Heatseeker”, “That’s The Way I Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll”, “Shake Your Foundations”, “This Means War” and “Flick Of The Switch”—AC/DC just couldn’t put together any really consistent albums until The Razor’s Edge.  I think the reason for this might be in part because late singer Bon Scott was a much better (and wittier) songwriter than his replacement, Brian Johnson.  Johnson’s voice had lost a lot of its high end by this point, too, but he sounded a lot better on this record than the previous few, and the material was much better this time round, like the radio hits “Thunderstruck” and “Moneytalks”, as well primo tracks like “Fire Your Guns”, "Rock Your Heart Out" and “Are You Ready?”.  They even threw in a yuletide tune, “Mistress For Christmas”.  It would be another 17 years before AC/DC made their next consistent CD, 2008’s Black Ice.

Heaven And Hell—BLACK SABBATH (1980)  Some hardcore Sabbath fans regard the post-Ozzy era as absolute heresy and totally dismiss Heaven And Hell altogether, but that’s just sour grapes more than anything from all the Osbourne sycophants.  His Ozz-ness had become more of a liability than an asset since about the time of 1975’s Sabotage album, and was booted from the band after 1978’s Never Say Die! (which actually had its moments here and there, IMHO), and was replaced by former Rainbow lead singer Ronnie James Dio.  H&H was a killer record, especially Side 1 (back when albums had sides, remember kids?), and came charging out of the gate with “Neon Knights”, one of my favorite metal tunes ever.  “Children Of The Sea”, “Lady Evil” and the title track filled out the rest of this splendid side, and Side 2’s “Die Young” didn’t suck, either.  Too bad the Sabs couldn’t maintain the momentum with the follow-up, Mob Rules, in 1981, which soon triggered the constant revolving door of Black Sabbath lead singers—Dio, Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, Tony Martin, Dio again, Rob Halford (for one gig, anyway), Tony Martin again, Ozzy again, Dio again, etc.

Trash—ALICE COOPER (1990)  Big Al had been lost in the musical wilderness for well over a decade, and his career was all but dead by the late ‘80s.  Too much alcohol—not to mention playing golf with the likes of George Burns and hanging out with too many Hollywood-types—had dulled Alice’s senses and he lost his edge, big-time.  He totally wimped-out by the late ‘70s with mushy ballads like “You And Me”, “Only Women Bleed” and “How You Gonna See Me Now?” (the latter co-written by Bernie Taupin during his hiatus from working with Elton John), then AC dabbled in New Wave with 1980’s trippy “Clones (We’re All)” before gradually drifting back to his Hard Rock roots.  It took him a few albums to really hit his stride again, and Trash was an outstanding heavy metal slab that included the radio hits “Poison” and “House Of Fire”, along with a couple other gems like “Why Trust You?”, "Spark In The Dark" and “Bed Of Nails”.  The album received assists from Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Joan Jett and Steven Tyler, as well.

Perfect Strangers—DEEP PURPLE (1984)  Now here was a Rock ‘N’ Roll reunion that made you wanna say “What took you guys so long?!?”  It had been well over ten years since singer Ian Gillan left Deep Purple following their landmark live set Made In Japan, after which DP endured numerous lineup changes (only drummer Ian Paice has made the entire journey with the band) and by the late ‘70s, the group had disappeared altogether.  Sometime in late ’83, someone in the group said, “Whaddya reckon we do this again?” and I have a hunch that Gillan probably jumped at the chance to escape the mistake he’d made by joining Black Sabbath for the ill-fated Born Again album.  With old differences put aside and fences mended, the classic Deep Purple Mach II lineup consisting of the two Ians, bassist Roger Glover, keyboardist Jon Lord and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore reformed to produce one of the better albums of 1984, Perfect Strangers.  As “Rockline” radio host Bob Coburn proclaimed, “The reality turned out better than the fantasy.”  Other than technology, not much had changed sonically for the band in ten years, and it was almost as if they’d never split up in the first place.  “Knockin’ At Your Back Door” and the title track were radio hits, and I loved other cuts like “Nobody’s Home”, “Mean Streak” and “Not Responsible”.  The reunion lasted through another album, 1987’s The House Of Blue Light, which wasn’t a bad follow-up, but Gillan split the band again and was replaced by erstwhile Blackmore’s Rainbow singer Joe Lynn Turner in 1990.

Cycles—THE DOOBIE BROTHERS (1989)  In a similar “What took so long?” scenario, it was almost as if the Brothers Doobie had invented time travel, because if I didn’t know any better, I coulda swore it was 1974 all over again when I first heard this excellent (and very unappreciated) reunion album.  The Doobies broke up in the early ‘80s after singer Michael McDonald had neutered them into a wimpy Jazz/Fusion hybrid instead of a true Rock band, but original singer and co-founder Tom Johnston (who has a far more soulful voice than McDonald, IMO) decided he was ready to get back in the game in 1989.  TJ got back together with longtime stalwart guitarist Pat Simmons, bassist Tiran Porter, drummer John Harte and percussionist Bobby LaKind (who would die of cancer a couple years afterwards, sadly), and the result far exceeded my expectations.  While it’s true that the lead track and first single, “The Doctor”, was clearly a “China Grove” clone, the rest of the record had some really tasty stuff like “One Chain (Don’t Make No Prison)”, “Wrong Number”, “Too High A Price”, "Time Is Here And Gone" and a spiffy cover version of the Isley Bros.’ “Need A Little Taste Of Love”.  As with most reunion albums, however, the inertia didn’t last long once the novelty wore off, and the follow-up, 1991’s Brotherhood was pretty flat, for the most part.

Tango In The Night—FLEETWOOD MAC (1987)  The Fleetwoods never fully recovered from the monster that was Rumours in ’77, as the subsequent releases Tusk and Mirage paled in comparison, but this album probably came the closest to recapturing their former glory ten years later.  Tango yielded several hit singles, including “Big Love” (where it sounds like Stevie Nicks is burping in places), “Everywhere”, “Little Lies” and “Seven Wonders”.  “Little Lies” and my personal favorite track, “Isn’t It Midnight?”, may well have been Christine McVie’s best vocal performances ever, apart from “You Make Lovin’ Fun” from Rumours.  Lindsey Buckingham’s whispery “You & I” closed the album out, and offered a taste of his future 1992 solo album Out Of The Cradle.

Cloud Nine—GEORGE HARRISON (1987)  Don’t mean to pick on Brother George’s religious beliefs here, but I still think it’s fair to point out that his devotion to Hare Krishna teachings and Eastern enlightenment totally bogged down his solo career from the mid-‘70s onward, rendering many of his albums to be preachy and/or morose (not to mention downright boring) at times, thus it was so refreshing to hear the boy lighten up and put out some fun and cheerful music for a change on Cloud Nine, not to mention hearing his trademark slide guitar abounding once again.  “Got My Mind Set On You” ain’t much of a song, lyrically (to the point where Weird Al Yankovic later parodied it in “This Song’s Just Six Words Long”), but it was catchy and radio-friendly—a Harrison quality sorely lacking for nearly a decade.  “Devil’s Radio” was a minor hit too, as was the nostalgic “When We Was Fab” (on which Ringo Starr played the drums), and the album also received welcome assists from Elton John, Gary "Dream Weaver" Wright, Eric Clapton and ELO’s Jeff Lynne, who co-produced the album.  The latter collaboration led to even more fun with the Traveling Wilburys just one year later.

Heart—HEART (1985)  Like so many other popular ‘70s FM Rock bands, the Wilson sisters and Co. hit a rough stretch in the early ‘80s when New Wave took over following their ‘70s heyday, and Epic Records dropped them after the disappointing Passionworks LP in 1983.  Ann and Nancy kept longtime keyboardist Howard Leese, but jettisoned their old rhythm section in favor of ex-Spirit/Firefall bassist Mark Andes and ex-Montrose drummer Denny Carmassi and landed on their feet at Capitol Records.  Not much was expected out of them, but their self-titled album was not only one of the biggest surprises, but one of the biggest records period in 1985.  Working with producer Ron Nevison, who had previously engineered The Who’s Quadrophenia and would later produce albums by Ozzy Osbourne, Damn Yankees and Kiss, Heart came through big-time with a very slick-sounding effort that resulted in four Top 10 hit singles (“Never”, “These Dreams”, “What About Love” and “Nothin’ At All”) which were also aided and abetted by heavy rotation on the MTV.  As good as those songs were, the “B” stuff here was even better, like “The Wolf”, “Shell Shock”, “All Eyes” and my personal Heart favorite, “If Looks Could Kill”.  Ann and Nancy also kept the train a-rollin’ through their next two releases, Bad Animals (1987) and Brigade (1990) before the well finally dried up.

The One—ELTON JOHN (1992)  After doing seemingly no wrong in the mid-‘70s, the bottom finally fell out for Elton during the Disco era, with his nadir being when he actually tried doing disco—an ill-advised dance version of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” in 1979.  EJ gradually rebounded in the early ‘80s and regained some of his former glory with Jump Up (1982), Too Low For Zero (1983) and Breaking Hearts (1984).  From the mid-‘80s onward, however, that “cat named Hercules” fell into a comfortable rut wherein his albums all kinda sounded the same and he was churning out mediocrity.  Some LPs had their moments, and some sold better than others, but he and lyricist Bernie Taupin seemed fairly uninspired most of the time.  After taking a break for a couple years after 1989’s fairly bland Sleeping With The Past, the creative spark returned and the result was The One, on which Elton sounded fresher and more relevant than he had in probably 15 years.  The album opens with the nice combination of the seductive “Simple Life”, followed by the hit title track.  The twangy “Whitewash County” was a nifty change of pace for Elton, as was his duet with Eric Clapton on “Runaway Train”.  The album’s closer, the very moving “The Last Song”, all about a gay man reconciling with his estranged father while dying of AIDS, was John/Taupin’s most poignant song since 1982’s “Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)”.  EJ’s next CD, 1995’s Made In England wasn’t too shabby, either.

Creatures Of The Night—KISS (1982)  I covered this one already in my Kiss album countdown last year, so I won’t belabor the point here.  After futzing around for five years with solo albums (two good, two not-so-good), two lightweight Pop-ish records and a bizarre concept album that even the band didn’t fully understand, Kiss finally emerged from their self-inflicted fog-machine haze and put out a fresh slab of crunchy Heavy Metal.  It’s even more amazing that this album was as good as it was when you consider that Kiss didn’t even have an official lead guitarist while it was recorded.

No Guts, No Glory—MOLLY HATCHET (1983)  Molly Hatchet was poised to replace Lynyrd Skynyrd as the top Southern Rock band by virtue of their outstanding first two albums—Molly Hatchet (1978) and Flirtin’ With Disaster (1979)—but internal squabbling led to singer Danny Joe Brown’s departure from the band (NOT his ongoing problems with diabetes, as their “official” story went).  Brown was replaced in 1980 by the rotund Jimmy Farrar, who wasn’t a bad singer at all, but just not quite right for the Hatchet sound—he’d have been a better fit for someone like, say, Marshall Tucker Band.  And apart from “Beatin’ The Odds”, “Sailor”, “Bloody Reunion” and a cover of C.C.R.’s “Penthouse Pauper”, the two albums MH recorded with Farrar (Beatin’ The Odds and Take No Prisoners) were forgettable.  Thus, the band and Danny Joe “buried the hatchet”, you might say, and he returned for ‘83’s sadly overlooked and underrated set, No Guts…No Glory, my favorite Hatchet album of all.  The “Free Bird” clone “Fall Of The Peacemakers” was the album’s centerpiece, sandwiched between hard-rockin’ cuts like “It Just Doesn’t Matter”, “Ain’t Even Close”, “What’s It Gonna Take?” (the story of my love-life) and “Under The Gun”.  No Guts… sold poorly, causing the band to panic by adding keyboards and horns and such on their next album, 1984’s The Deed Is Done, which wasn’t nearly as satisfying.

Long Distance Voyager—THE MOODY BLUES (1981)  The Moodies came back from their prolonged absence following their ‘60s/’70s halcyon days seemingly from out of nowhere with this one.  Citing burnout and exhaustion, the band ceased touring and making records after 1972’s Seventh Sojourn, Justin Hayward and John Lodge hooked up again in ’75 for their highly-regarded Blue Jays album, and the full group reunited in ’78 for Octave, but keyboardist Mike Pinder’s heart just wasn’t in the band anymore, so he left halfway through the sessions and was eventually replaced by synthesizer whiz Patrick Moraz.  While not nearly as atmospheric and deep as the output from the Moody Blues’ glory days, LDV did have some good stuff like the hits “The Voice” and “Gemini Dream”, along with Lodge’s “Talking Out Of Turn” and Ray Thomas’ “Veteran Cosmic Rocker”.  While the Moody Blues' '80s material didn't even come close to the quality of those first seven albums, it was still nice to have them back.

Orgasmatron--MOTÖRHEAD (1986)  After their initial run of success from 1978-82, Motörhead went through some personnel changes and record company hassles in the mid-‘80s.  Original guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke left the band to form Fastway, and was replaced by ex-Thin Lizzy axeman Brian Robertson for one album, the flaccid Another Perfect Day in 1983.  “Robbo” fit in about as well as I would at an Osmond family reunion, so Uncle Lemmy sacked him and opted to replace him with two lead guitarists, Phil Campbell and Mick Burston, better known as “Würzel”.  Original drummer “Philthy Animal” Taylor also left in 1984 and was replaced by ex-Saxon skinsman Pete Gill.  Following the greatest hits package No Remorse that featured four all-new tracks to fulfill their obligation to Bronze Records, Motörhead eventually landed on GWR in 1986 and unleashed Orgasmatron, which was my introduction to this wonderfully raunchy band.  In spite of the some rather murky production, all nine tracks on this beast are killers, especially “Deaf Forever”, “Dr. Rock”, “Mean Machine” and “Ridin’ With The Driver”.  Without Motörhead, there would be no Metallica, so how come Lemmy and the boys aren’t in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame?

Some Girls (1978)/Voodoo Lounge (1994)—THE ROLLING STONES  After several middling studio albums and a totally lifeless double-live release in the mid-‘70s, Mick and Keith and Co. put out their best album in years with Some Girls.  Like Kiss and Cheap Trick after them, the Stones dabbled in disco a bit with “Miss You”, but it somehow worked anyway.  They also dabbled in old-school R&B with a nice remake of the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination”.  They also even dabbled in C&W with the hilarious sing-along, “Far Away Eyes”.  And rest of the album was classic Stones, with the venerable favorites “Beast Of Burden”, “When The Whip Comes Down” and “Shattered”.  Several more mediocre-to-average studio albums and a couple more crappy live albums ensued throughout the ‘80s before the Stones put together another truly consistent set, Voodoo Lounge in ’94. Voodoo most definitely was not doo-doo, as virtually all 15 tracks were quite sturdy, especially for a band this long in the tooth.  The standouts of the lot were “Love Is Strong”, “You Got Me Rockin’”, “Sparks Will Fly”, “I Go Wild” and the weepy “Out Of Tears”, but they saved the best cut for last, the Chuck Berry-esque “Mean Disposition”, wherein Keith Richards was shredding licks that even Chuck would be impressed with.  Something tells me that this was probably the last really good record the Stones will ever make.

Tug Of War—PAUL McCARTNEY (1982)  Big Macca fell into a slump in the late ‘70s after the highly-successful Wings At The Speed Of Sound, putting out a couple clunkers (London Town and Back To The Egg) before finally clipping Wings for good and going back to being a solo act.  1980’s McCartney II was so-so, but apart from the insipid “Ebony And Ivory” duet with Stevie Wonder, Paul was born-again hard on Tug Of War.  Another duet with Wonder, the funky “What’s That You’re Doing?”, was a lot tastier, as was Paul’s duet with the late Carl Perkins on “Get It”.  Come to think of it, wouldn’t Perkins have made an excellent replacement for Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys?  Anyway, “Take It Away” sounded like vintage McCartney, and “Ballroom Dancing” was another fun track, and Paul was back to making music that was worthy of his legacy.  Pity it didn’t last, because he fell right back into the same old rut in ’83 with Pipes Of Peace, featuring another insipid duet, “Say, Say, Say” with Michael Jackson.  Oy!

Degüello—Z.Z. TOP (1979)  After a dandy six-year run, that Little Ol’ Band From Texas took a break following 1977’s Tejas! album and pretty much disappeared for almost three years.  Back in those days, it was rare (and risky) for any band to go more than a year between album releases, for fear of losing their audience. Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill apparently became allergic to razors of any kind during their hiatus and grew the trademark beards that served to re-invent the band’s image, while the guy named (Frank) Beard decided he didn’t want to look like those two polecats and simply maintained his moustache instead.  Meantime, Z.Z. Top picked up where they left off with a potent little platter filled with classics like “Cheap Sunglasses”, “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide”, “Manic Mechanic”, a remake of Sam & Dave’s “I Thank You”, and the bluesy “A Fool For Your Stockings”.  Another fun track was “She Loves My Automobile” which featured saxophones for the first time on a Z.Z. Top record.  Not wanting to hire outside musicians, Billy, Dusty and Frank actually learned to play the saxes themselves.  While they didn’t give the guys in Chicago (the band) anything to fear, the “Lone Wolf Horns” were certainly serviceable.  Degüello also set the table for Z.Z. Top to dominate the early ‘80s on Rock radio, and was followed by three more classic albums, El Loco, Eliminator and Afterburner.  Have mercy, Miss Percy!

Luther E. Holland, 1922-2010

This is a bit lengthy, so I appreciate your indulgence if you choose to read on...

As my regular readers know, my father has been in ill-health in recent weeks, thus partially accounting for the dearth of activity on this blog.  I promise, the blog will be back better than ever in the not-so-distant future, but we (my family) have had a lot to deal with in the Reality Dept. lately, and Dad finally succumbed in the wee hours a week ago Friday morning to complications from pneumonia and prostate cancer at age 87.  To date, Dad lived longer than anyone else in his extended family did, and he died almost exactly two months shy of his 88th birthday.  We buried him today, and his passing is as much a relief to us as anything, as it was hard to watch him decline so rapidly after being relatively healthy for most of his life.  I'm not sad that he's gone now, so much as I'm sad for the life that Dad led overall.  He endured many hardships growing up, and was a somewhat tormented soul who never fully learned how to enjoy life.

Before we proceed any further, a little background:

Luther Earnest Holland, Sr. was born on April 26, 1922 in Earle, Arkansas (about 30 miles west of Memphis), and was raised in what Stevie Wonder once deemed "Hard-time Mississippi" during the heart of the Great Depression, and as my sister Renee noted in Dad's obituary, the Holland family story was something right out of The Grapes of Wrath.  I'm not all that much into Astrology, but it seems only appropriate that Dad was a Taurus, given his stubborn and staunch nature.  Dad's nickname amongst his siblings was "Buddy", although I'm not real sure how that originated.  He was the third of nine children born to Henry Grady Holland and Eddie Mae (Savage) Holland.  The couple's first child, a baby girl, died at birth in 1919, and two more sons later died during early childhood.  The family drifted from town to town in northeast Arkansas and northwest Mississippi, living in abject poverty most of the time, but they somehow eked out an existence by picking cotton and doing other farm work for meager earnings, which is no doubt where Dad picked up his steady work ethic.  Dad never finished high school because he was forced to go to work to help support the family in his late teens, and he eventually wound up working in Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps, a gig that took him all the way to Oregon in the late '30s, from which he sent his earnings back home to help the family.

Several years ago, Dad sat down at his Royal manual typewriter (which he still used right up until his passing) and wrote a somewhat-rambling narrative featuring recollections about his formative years from 1932-36, and the winter of 1932-33 was particularly traumatic for him when he came down with the flu around Christmastime:

"There was a raging influenza epidemic in the area at the time.  Very few households were spared it.  Every member of our family contracted influenza within a few days of my coming down with it...Since I was the first felled by influenza, I appeared to be the first of us to shake it off and start recuperating.  Soon after, I felt well enough to be out of bed part-time and walk around inside the house, someone informed us that a mother cat had given birth to kittens out in our barn.  I, being a curious 10-year-old, just had to see those kittens.  So I went without a coat to the barn through a cold drizzle and the mud and water on the ground.  The resulting consequence of my exposure to the foul weather was a relapse of the influenza, which was more severe the second time around.  I was bedridden altogether about three weeks and was terribly frail and weak from being sick."

And here's the single-most important poignant part of the story that would not only impact Dad's life, but our entire immediate family's lives in one way or another:

"Mama took to bed with influenza, followed a few days later with pneumonia and hematuria (kidney failure).  She died on January 7, 1933.  Since we were all in bed with influenza, none of us were able to attend Mama's burial in New Hope Cemetery up in the hills.  Although there was the influenza epidemic in the area at that time, I have always harbored a guilty feeling that I was responsible for bringing influenza to the family."

Keep in mind, dear friends, Dad dragged this shit around with him for the remaining 77 years of his life and never quite totally forgave himself for it.  It also doesn't help matters any that his mother's birthday was the day before his.  Even though he wasn't to blame, can you imagine what that must have felt like?  I wouldn't wish this kind of guilt-trip on anyone (except perhaps the wrong Rev. Fred Phelps, Rush Limbaugh and other selected human fecal matter).  If only Dad had a Sean Maguire-type (Good Will Hunting) person to come along and stress to him "It's not your fault" a few thousand times, then maybe his life might have been a much happier one.  As for Dad's poor mother (my paternal grandmother), it's also important to point out that this woman went through eight pregnancies (one with twins) in a 13-year span.  I'm not judging here or anything, but during that time and place, they didn't know any better and there wasn't much else to do for fun but fuck a lot.  My grandmother was only 16 when she gave birth to that first child who didn't survive, while my paternal grandfather was a good 13 years older than her.  My point here is the poor woman was already worn out from having all those children, so it's no wonder that she was so easily susceptible to the flu, and she died at the tender age of 29.  Sadly, we don't even have a photo of her (that I know of, anyway), so I'll probably never know what the woman looked like.

Another source of guilty feelings for Dad is the fact that he didn't see action in World War II like his brothers did.  Dad served stateside in the U.S. Army because of a medical deferment for the slight deformity in his left elbow.  I've never quite understood why this would prevent him from being a fighting solider—his deformity wasn't even all that noticeable unless you were looking directly at it, and I wasn't even aware of its existence until I was in college!  Nonetheless, he served as a Tech. Sgt. over here while his older brother Tom was a prisoner of war in Japan for over three years.  In fact, Tom was a P.O.W. for exactly one day longer than Dad's entire military hitch lasted.  Amazingly, my Uncle Tom was one of the 10% who survived that particular POW camp, and he told fascinating stories about it, and in spite of the unspeakable crap he endured, the man overcame the trauma and lived a long life raising a large family in Jackson, Mississippi until he died of Alzheimer's disease in 2007.  Getting back to Dad, the fact that he had such a cushy gig stateside while his brother suffered so much just gnawed at him no end...

It's also interesting to examine the disparate personalities amongst Dad and his siblings who survived into adulthood.  Dad was very stoic and reserved most of the time, although his sense of humor would seep through the stodgy veneer on occasion.  Uncle Tom was a bit more gregarious, and he would even tell me and my brother dirty jokes now and then!  Dad's sister Ruby (who lived in Florida and just passed away back in January) was a rather elegant and friendly lady, but for whatever reason, she and her late husband had no children like her other siblings did.  Dad's younger brother Alton (better known as "Uncle Dee") from Charleston, Mississippi (about 90 mins. south of Memphis) is the comedian of the bunch, and one of the most easy-going people in my extended family, in spite of losing two of his three daughters already (one was killed in a 1979 plane crash, and the other died unexpectedly last year).  Because of geographic distance, I never got to know Dad's other brother Kenneth (from St. Charles, Louisiana) quite as well, but the few times I've encountered him, he seemed fairly likeable, and there's an eerie similarity in his voice to Dad's.  Kenneth's twin brother Finnis was one of the early casualties in the family, passing away at barely six months in 1929.  Another brother, Edgar, only made it to age 3, and died in October, 1933.  Dad's youngest sibling, his late sister Lillian Ruth (aka, "Boots"), was born barely five weeks before their mother died, and was (for the lack of a better term) the "black sheep" of the family.  She was actually raised by some other relatives after my grandmother died, and never seemed to totally fit in with the rest of her siblings, so it's no surprise that in later life she became rather reclusive in North Carolina, where she died basically alone in 2001.

Just to finish up on Dad's early years, after WWII he went to work for the Army Corps of Engineers' Waterways Experiment Station, which eventually landed him in Waterloo, Illinois (about 20 miles SSE of St. Louis), which is where he met his future wife/my mother, one Gayle Marie Glotfelty of Valmeyer, Illinois (about 10 miles west of Waterloo). Knowing Dad the way I did, he was hardly a Romeo/Lothario, and I've always been mystified as to what exactly drew him and Mom together in the first place because they seemingly had so little in common, but Renee has opined that when he had to, Dad could talk a good game, and from Mom's point of view, he was her meal ticket out of small one-horse-town Valmeyer.  Thus, they were married in Valmeyer on May 23, 1954, and soon moved to Ravenna, Ohio (about 30 miles SE of Cleveland and just down the road to the east of Kent State) when Dad went to work for Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff, the architectural firm who (among other things) helped design the Truman Sports Complex here in K.C., as well as numerous other stadiums, bridges, highways and airports, etc., around the nation.  Dad worked in the HNTB Marketing Dept., helping to prepare the various brochures and pamphlets for said stadiums, bridges and other projects the company was responsible for.  My sister, Gayle Renee Holland, was born in Ravenna in July, 1955, and not long after that, the company transferred Dad to their Kansas City office, where he remained with the company until he retired in 1987 after 33 years of service.

Mom, Dad and Renee resided in a small house at 4100 Brooklyn Ave. (19 blocks south of old Municipal Stadium) in K.C. for a couple years, and my brother Earnie (Luther Earnest Holland, Jr.) was born the day after actor Humphrey Bogart died in January, 1957.  In the fall of '58, one of Dad's co-workers tipped him off about the house across the street in Raytown from him being for sale, so Dad snapped it up and it became our family home in January, 1959.  Oh, and about 5.5 years later, yours truly crashed their little party and was born on June 11, 1964 at 7:35AM—highly ironic, since I'm most decidedly NOT a morning person! Mom and Dad apparently ran out of "Junior"-type names, so they came up with the slightly uninspired "Brian Robert" Holland for reasons I still don't know to this day.  I say I "crashed their little party" because I'm pretty sure that my birth was an accident.  Dad was too much of a tactician, bean-counter and strategist to have another child on purpose so long after his first two (I'm nine years younger than Renee and seven years younger than Earnie), so unless I was some sort of tax write-off, my guess is someone forgot to wear a condom in mid-September, 1963.  Can you say "Fumble!"?...

At the service today, Renee described Dad as a bit of a "contradiction" in that he was always concerned about the welfare of his family, whether it was his siblings growing up or when he raised his own family and even in later years as his siblings began passing away one-by-one, yet for whatever reason, he was unable (or perhaps reluctant) to show affection with people.  One of my favorite episodes of TV's "M*A*S*H" is called "Sons And Bowlers" from 1982 where Hawkeye Pierce worried and fretted while his father back home underwent delicate cancer surgery.  Major Winchester (of all people) lent him some welcome support and comfort while Hawkeye awaited news on the surgery's outcome, and even opened up to him for one of the rare times.  "You're lucky that only distance separates you..." Charles said, "My father and I can be 12,000 miles apart in the same room.  My father's a good man—he always wanted the best for us.  But, where I have a father, you have a Dad."  That line has always resonated with me because, for better or worse, it pretty much sums up my relationship with my father—he was a great leader and father-figure, but he was a rotten "Dad" to us, even though (ironically) we called him "Dad."

My longtime friend John is real close with his dad, and I've always admired their relationship because they have several shared interests and still do things together even today.  I always feel envious of guys whose fathers take their sons out drinking now and then or take an interest in their son's careers or activities.  Dads are supposed to be your best friend too, but sadly, I never had that kind of connection with my father.  My old man rarely—if ever—even played catch with me in the back yard or ever encouraged me to chase girls (let alone get laid) during my teen years or ever comforted me when I had a major disappointment like most dads do (so I hear, anyway).  Hell, he never even had the "sex talk" with me—I had to figure all that shit out on my own!  It didn't help that Dad was 42 years old when I was born, and thanks to his prematurely grey/white hair and receding hairline, he's always seemed like an old man to me.  About the only shared interests I ever had with my father were our unwavering loathing of the Notre Dame football team and disdain for organized religion.  In a nutshell, my father was a very good person with an excellent sense of right and wrong, a stellar work ethic, and his heart was certainly in the right place, but in terms of affection and emotional support, he was almost a total ice cube.  I know that sounds a bit callous of me to say, but I'm being honest here, and I really feel like I missed out on something in my life because of it.

It also saddens me that Dad never seemed to have anyone in his life that you could call his "best friend".  I've been so lucky to have four people in my life that I consider to be best friends (three male and one female—you know who you are), but about the closest Dad ever came to having one was an old Army buddy who lived in Ohio, but even then they only got to see each other very infrequently after their days in the military and his friend died of cancer several years ago.  Dad was also highly-resistant to change (a trait I inherited from him that I've really struggled to overcome) and this is best illustrated by how long Dad held out using his old rotary-dial telephones at home before he had no choice but to switch to push-button models.  I mentioned earlier how Dad still used a manual Royal typewriter, and he was very reluctant to replace his aging 1984 Zenith 27" TV until Mom finally pressed the right buttons about a year ago to rope him into getting a 42" flat-screen behemoth and—to my utter shock—cable TV!  Even with all those extra TV channels at his disposal, he still insisted on watching the same crappy local TV newscasts and "Wheel Of Fortune", et al, every night.  Dad also became very jaded about a lot of other things in life—he didn't even have any favorite type of music!  Y'all know how passionate I am about music, so maybe my viewpoint is a bit skewed here, but I just can't see how you can live without music touching your life in one way or another.  Dad certainly never got why I became the rabid record/CD collector that I am, and I know I drove him crazy with my Kiss bank checks, too!

Dad was also a major creature of habit.  He hated eating out for dinner (I'm just the opposite—I love it) and hated being away from home for any length of time, even when visiting his brothers and sisters on road trips.  He preferred doing the same old routine at home every night.  It's as if that childhood experience with the kittens and his troubled upbringing just sucked the sense of adventure right out of him, because he never cared to go sightseeing or do any tourist-y things while on "vacation".  Before I was born, the family went to Florida to visit Aunt Ruby, and Earnie and Renee just begged Dad to take them to DisneyWorld while they were there, but he refused—all he ever wanted to do was visit relatives.  I seem to recall a scene in National Lampoon's Vacation where the Griswolds are crossing the Mississippi River in St. Louis and Chevy Chase says, "Look kids, there's the Gateway Arch!"  One of the kids says, "Can we go up in it, Dad?"  "No!"  That's a pretty good microcosm of a Holland family road trip back in the day, although we actually did get to go up in the Arch when I was about six, and that metallic monolith has enchanted me no-end ever since.  Even after retirement when Mom and Dad were totally set financially and they had all the time in the world to actually see the fucking world, they rarely went on vacations that didn't involve visiting relations.  Once back in the '80s, they drove all the way out to Oregon to hit some of Dad's old haunts from his C.C.C. days, then drove down to California to see L.A. and returned to Kansas City—all in EIGHT days!  Folks, I FLEW to California year before last and spent eight days there, and barely scratched the surface on stuff to see and do out there—about all Mom and Dad did on that trip was drive, drive and drive some more.  So much for sightseeing...

Dad also struggled with owning anything that might be considered a luxury.  Ever since she was a little girl, Mom dreamed of having a Cadillac of her very own, and Dad finally broke down and bought her one in the early '80s, but he still felt obligated to "justify" such a purchase to neighbors and relatives by reeling off this litany of reasons (good mileage on road trips, room for more passengers, etc.) instead of just being able to enjoy the fruits of his labors.  Ironically, once he realized what a good car Mom had, he went out and bought another Caddie for himself a couple years later when our old Chevy station wagon finally bought the farm.

The other thing I never could reconcile with Dad was how he didn't encourage his offspring to be whatever we wanted to be.  None of us could gain his approval in our chosen career fields, no matter how successful (or not, in my case) we might have been.  My brother always loved cars from the get-go, so it's only natural he became an auto mechanic (and a damn good one), but Dad tried to dissuade Earnie from pursuing it in the beginning.  My sister sought a degree in Microbiology, which Dad was also skeptical about, and initially it didn't work out for Renee, but she later went back to school and became a nurse.  As for me, I was supposed to be "His son, the accountant" so imagine his utter dismay when I set out to become a radio disc jockey, spinning all those Kiss platters ad nauseam...  My radio career tanked after a couple years, but I had to fall flat on my face and find that out for myself, didn't I?.  Charlie Daniels once said in a radio interview something to the effect of "Let's say you have the talent to be a nuclear physicist and that's what your Daddy wants you to be, yet you want to be a ditch-digger, then hell, be a ditch-digger.  Your Daddy can’t live your life for you…”  Dad never understood this, and to this day, I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up…

I don't mean to sound like I'm bashing my father here, but these are some things I needed to get out of my system.  There are lots of things I inherited from Dad that I've always appreciated—my fairly immaculate handwriting skills, my punctuality, my incredible penchant for remembering dates and past events, my organizational skills and my blue eyes are all things I'm damn proud of.  And there were also many many good times in our family when I was growing up, and he and Mom did a fine job raising their children to be respectful and to know right from wrong.  It's just a damn shame that Dad was never able to just let go of his dark past and learn to enjoy himself a little in life.  I truly hope that his internal war is now over for good and that he's finally at peace.  S'long, Dad—it wasn't your fault...

Just call me Nostradamus...

I was digging through my archives this week and found an interesting little gem.  Back in the year 1985 during my bright college days, I found myself bored to death during a particular lecture and started jotting down my proposal for a 32-team National Football League.  The NFL had 28 teams at the time, but several cities were clamoring for teams, so since it wasn’t my money anyway, I decided to play armchair commissioner…

Just as with today’s NFL, I divided the league into eight four-team divisions (based solely on geography), and one of mine was exactly as it is today—the AFC East, comprised of Buffalo, Miami, New England and the New York Jets.  My scheduling format was quite similar too, with each team playing a round-robin within their own division (6 games), 4 games vs. a division of the other conference and two games each vs. teams from the other divisions of their own conference (determined by the previous year’s standings).

What’s really wild are the expansion teams I granted.  Oddly enough, I didn’t feel sorry enough for Baltimore to grant them a replacement for the recently-departed Colts, but I had the forethought to place a team in Jacksonville, which I called the “Swampers”—sort of an ersatz tribute to J-ville natives Lynyrd Skynyrd.  The Raiders were still in L.A., so I gave Oakland a new franchise and dubbed them the “Enforcers”.  And since we still had the St. Louis football Cardinals at the time, Phoenix got an expansion franchise as well, which I unpolitically-correctly called the “Arizona Shieks” (don’t ask me why!).  Now here’s the scary part:  I awarded the fourth and final expansion franchise to Memphis and named them the “Maniacs”.  Flash ahead to 2001 and the infamous XFL:  the Memphis team in that league was known as the Maniax!

Here were my proposed divisional lineups:

AFC Pacific Division
Los Angeles Raiders, Oakland Enforcers, San Diego Chargers, Seattle Seahawks
AFC Midwestern DivisionDenver Broncos, Houston Oilers, Kansas City Chiefs, Memphis Maniacs
AFC Central Division
Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers
AFC Eastern DivisionBuffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New York Jets

NFC Western Division
Arizona Shieks, Los Angeles Rams, Minnesota Vikings, San Francisco 49ers
NFC Midwestern Division
Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, St. Louis Cardinals
NFC Southern DivisionDallas Cowboys, Jacksonville Swampers, New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Bucs
NFC Eastern Division
Atlanta Falcons, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins


Yours truly,
Commissoner Holland

Yes, I'm still here...

Just wanted to do a quick post before someone does an autopsy on my blog here, plus I wanted to move Lynyrd Skynyrd off the top, as well.

Again, please bear with me for a while longer, as I have not had the time, energy or desire to post anything lately because of my father's grave illness.  It ain't much fun just waiting around for him to die, but that's where we find ourselves at this point.  He's 87 years old, and was hospitalized three weeks ago with his second bout of pnuemonia in two months.  The first bout nearly killed him, and while this second one wasn't quite as severe, his system is just rapidly wearing down, not to mention the fact that he was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, for which he's not a candidate for treatment.  We had him transferred two weeks ago to the hospice facility where my sister (who is a nurse) works to ride out his remaining days.  The good news is Dad's not in any pain at this point, but he's not really cognitive anymore, and is now down to only consuming liquids, thus probably won't last more than 4-5 more days.

I do plan to do a post soon about my Dad and my somewhat-strained relationship with him, which I hope will shed some light on why I am the way I am.  All in good time, after I've had a chance to do some reflection, and I promise this blog will live on eventually...

"Let's play some old Honk!" (revised)

So sorry for the lack of posts here lately, especially in light of my recent vow to keep on plugging away while the rest of blogdom snoozes.  However, a series of crises on this end—not the least of which is my old man being hospitalized with pneumonia again—has stifled my creativity and limited my free time, hence the relative silence from yours truly.  I can’t guarantee when the clouds will clear at this point or when I’ll be able to post more frequently, but in the meantime, enjoy my re-worked band tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd, which I originally posted in the spring of ’07, and have decided to expound on a bit more…

I recently read two books from the library about Lynyrd Skynyrd, one good, one not so good.  The good one was co-written by a former member of their road crew and a close friend of the late Ronnie Van Zant, Gene Odom, entitled Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering The Free Birds Of Southern Rock, and it’s totally worth it for his first-hand account of their tragic 1977 plane crash alone, during which Odom lost an eye and suffered other serious injuries.  The other book, Freebirds: The Lynyrd Skynyrd Story by Marley Brant was more expansive and also covered more of the group’s post-plane crash history, but was loaded with factual errors, gossip/hearsay and misspellings galore (for instance, ‘Van Zant’ was spelled numerous ways throughout the book, including ‘Vanzant’ ‘VanZant’ and ‘Van-Zant’) and former bassist Larry Junstrom (later a member of .38 Special) was listed as Larry ‘Jungstrom’.  Pretty sophomoric effort, there, Marley…

When I first heard Skynyrd on AM radio in ’74, I naturally assumed they were from Alabama, based on “Sweet Home”, but of course, LS hailed from Jacksonville, Florida.  I was fairly ambivalent about the band during the ‘70s for the longest time—I liked some of their stuff, especially the monumental “Free Bird”—but I was rather put-off by the brawling biker-bar mentality the group projected for so long (much of which was fairly true, based on my reading).  But, when I looked a little deeper and learned more about them, I discovered there was a lot more to this band than I realized, singer Ronnie Van Zant, in particular.  Far from the macho gun-toting redneck I pictured him to be, RVZ was actually a fairly ordinary guy who shunned the limelight and disdained being famous, just as the song “Don’t Ask Me No Questions” indicates.  Actually, all of the band members were hardly your typical Rock Star material—they were just regular working-class folk who were talented enough to make a go of it in the music business.

Mr. Van Zant was well-spoken and a far better wordsmith than I initially gave him credit for being, and had a knack for coming up with lyrics and never committing them to paper.  It was like he had this internal Rolodex in his head that he filed ideas and phrases in, and just dialed them up at will.  Just about every account you read about Ronnie portrays him as a “fine Southern gentleman” who was well-respected by his peers, almost to the point of granting him sainthood.  No disrespect intended to the dearly-departed, but this is the same man who would routinely get fucked-up on alcohol and beat people up who crossed him, including his own bandmates—late keyboardist Billy Powell lost numerous teeth to Ronnie’s fists once.  Doesn't sound very “gentlemanly” to me.  He seemed to be fairly unapologetic about it, too, making it all the more confounding.  Alcohol is no excuse, either—you don’t go around beating up your friends.  If you beat me up, you’re no longer my friend, but I digress…

The rest of the band was full of characters too, like late bassist Leon Wilkeson, better known as “The Mad Hatter” for his humorous onstage headgear, ranging from English “Bobbie” helmets to “Cat-In-The-Hat” hats.  I think the boy was a little mental, too, because when I saw Skynyrd in concert in 2001—just weeks prior to his death—he wore these bright red latex pants onstage in searingly hot weather.  Lead guitarist Allen Collins was extremely underrated—I find it amazing to this day that he dreamed up and played the entire legendary solo on “Free Bird” by himself, with only an assist or two from Ed King and Gary Rossington in places.  Sadly, Collins was probably the most self-destructive member of Skynyrd, and his post-plane crash life was full of tragedy.  His wife died suddenly during childbirth in 1980, and six years later, he got drunk off his ass and wrecked his car in which his girlfriend was a passenger, killing her and leaving him paralyzed from the waist-down.  Some say Allen had a death wish in the years following the plane crash, and even though he tagged along on the ’87 Lynyrd Skynyrd reunion tour as a “musical director”, not being able to play guitar and be on-stage with his friends must have just sucked the life right out of him.  Collins died of pneumonia on January 23, 1990 at age 37—done WAY too soon.

Another tragedy amongst the many this band has had its unfair share of was guitarist Steve Gaines, who joined in the summer of ’76.  Skynyrd was in a slump following two so-so albums (Nuthin’ Fancy and Gimme Back My Bullets), which led to the departure of Ed King in late ’75.  They carried on with just two guitarists for a time until back-up singer Cassie Gaines (of the “Honkettes” as Ronnie dubbed them) recommended her brother as a replacement for King.  In a most unusual move, the band decided to “audition” Steve right there onstage at a Skynyrd show at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas—talk about a baptism by fire!  Gaines was so good, though, that Van Zant took to him right away, and Steve was inserted into the lineup just in time to record their live album, One More From The Road.  Gaines was a much-needed shot in the arm, and he brought a new dimension to the band with his almost jazz-like playing.  You can hear him prominently on their final studio album Street Survivors on tracks like “That Smell” and “I Know A Little” (which he wrote) and that’s him sharing vocals with Ronnie on “You Got That Right”.  You might say that Steve Gaines was another Stevie Ray Vaughan in the making—who knows what he might’ve gone on to do…

Steve seemingly re-energized Collins and Rossington, who both suddenly realized they needed to elevate their playing just to keep up with this guy, and all seemed to be right in Skynyrd-land again until that fateful day, October 20, 1977, just three days after the release of Street Survivors.  During that time, I was just beginning to make the transition from Top 40 radio over to Album Rock, and I just happened to be tuned into the old KY-102 that night when the DJ (Ray Sherman, I wanna say) broke the bad news, and it turned into an all-night vigil as the details trickled in.  I also clearly remember the next night when Walter Cronkite committed his fairly infamous gaffe on the “CBS Evening News”, “Three members of the Rock group Len-yerd Skin-yerd died yesterday…”

What sucks the most about the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash is it could have and should have been averted.  Their plane was over 30 years old, and the pilots knew there was something wrong with one of the engines, but arrogantly decided to hold off on fixing the problem until they reached Baton Rouge, where a mechanic from Houston was due to meet them and make the necessary repairs.  Even worse, there was no compelling need for Skynyrd to arrive in Louisiana on the 20th—their next concert wasn’t scheduled until the next night, and they could’ve taken alternate transportation from South Carolina, where the doomed flight originated.  Basically, the plane ran out of fuel about 50 miles from its destination, and ironically, if they’d run out of fuel a bit sooner, they may well have been able to land the plane in a flat field to a much lesser impact, but unfortunately, the plane dropped right into a grove of trees in swampland.  Both pilots were killed on impact, as were Ronnie Van Zant, Steve and Cassie Gaines, and tour manager Dean Kilpatrick, all of whom were seated at or near the front of the aircraft.  The other 20 passengers suffered numerous injuries of varying degrees of severity, and drummer Artimus Pyle—with broken ribs and bleeding profusely himself—was able to make a run through the rugged terrain to summon help from the locals.  Mr. Odom’s blow-by-blow account of the crash in his book is as riveting as it is chilling.

For a band that always prided itself on being a “family”, Lynyrd Skynyrd sure has been a dysfunctional lot ever since the 1977 tragedy.  Now, I’ve never been in a plane crash, and I hope to hell I never will be, so I have no idea what it’s like or how horrific it can be, but the way these people have treated each at times over the years has been downright baffling.  Keyboardist Billy Powell raised eyebrows and caused some hurt feelings amongst the Gaines family when he embellished the plane crash aftermath story on VH-1’s “Behind The Music” in 2000, claiming that Cassie Gaines “died in my arms and Artimus Pyle’s arms”, not to mention that her neck was slit from ear-to-ear.  Neither claim was true, and Powell’s story didn’t hold water anyway, considering that Pyle was off seeking assistance, therefore she couldn’t possibly have died in both sets of arms.  He also claimed that Ronnie Van Zant “didn’t have a mark on him” (there goes that sainthood stuff again) when Van Zant indeed died of massive head injuries.

I also find it rather sad that the surviving band members turned their collective backs on Pyle when he was accused by his whacked-out girlfriend of child molestation with the daughter he fathered with this woman.  Pyle was forced to register as a sex offender for a time, and no one in the band stood up in support of him, and they basically just threw him under the bus and his reputation is ruined for good.  There seems to be an especially nasty rift between Pyle and guitarist Gary Rossington, the lone surviving original Skynyrd member.  At least AP was invited to attend and perform at Skynyrd’s induction ceremony for the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 (as was original drummer Bob Burns), but there was one glaring no-show that night that I’ve always been curious about.  Charlie Daniels, who often championed the Skynyrd cause and was a close friend of Ronnie Van Zant, was nowhere to be found that night.  Considering how Daniels honored Ronnie’s memory in the poignant 1979 C.D.B. song “Reflections”, I would’ve thought for sure Charlie would be the obvious choice to induct the band into the Hall, but we got stuck with Kid (C)Rock doing the honors instead—talk about a downgrade!  Makes one wonder if there’s a rift between Daniels and the band now, too.  I also have issues with Van Zant’s widow, Judy, who owns and controls the band’s name and interests, for selling Ronnie’s songs to TV ads to help Col. Sanders sell chicken, etc.

My All-Time Lynyrd Skynyrd Top 15:
15) Workin’ For MCA (1974)  As proud a man as Ronnie Van Zant seemed to be, evidently he wasn’t above doing a little sucking up to his record company with this song.  Actually, it was all tongue-in-cheek, and not a bad tune all the same.
14) Crossroads (1976)  Rather difficult to tell Skynyrd’s version (off One More From The Road) from Cream’s classic 1969 rendition, but I’ll take Skynyrd over Cream here, if only because Van Zant was a better vocalist than Eric Clapton.
13) Simple Man (1973)  This was a very personal song to Mr. Van Zant, with the “Mama” in it actually being his grandmother who counseled him during his youth.  One can only imagine Ronnie doing somersaults in his crypt when they started using this song in TV beer commercials.  And for a cheap, crappy brand like Busch?  Pure heresy…
12) Gimme Back My Bullets (1975)  Nice and rough (as Tina Turner might say) with a nasty rumbling riff.  Don’t let the title fool you—the song’s not about firearms or ammo…
11) I Know A Little (1977)  One of the rare times Skynyrd did a song with lyrics not written by Van Zant (other than cover songs).  Young master Gaines had written this one some years before joining Skynyrd.  I love the punchline:  “I know a little—baby, I’ll guess the rest…”
10) What’s Your Name? (1977)  This one came out as a single in advance of Street Survivors and it’s the one that made me finally embrace the band.  I found the way Ronnie sang “Little girl” in the chorus rather endearing, for some reason, and the song is funny in places.
9) The Needle And The Spoon (1974)  The first of several cautionary tales that Ronnie Van Zant put into song.  Pity some of the band members didn’t heed it…
8) Don’t Ask Me No Questions (1974)  Another personal song from RVZ, all about wanting to get away from it all when returning from the road.  I imagine all Rock stars go through this in one way or another with their family and friends, which makes me kinda thankful I’m not famous.
7) Saturday Night Special (1975)  In which Ronnie and the boys take an anti-handgun stance—most unusual when you consider that a good chunk of Skynyrd’s fan base are NRA members.  Nasty riffing from Collins and Rossington here too.
6) Tuesday’s Gone (1973)  Excellent tear-jerker that features a beautiful Mellotron solo in the middle, which was usually the province of Moody Blues and Elton John records back in the day.
5) Gimme Three Steps (1973)  Probably Skynyrd’s funniest song, all about that “fella with the hair colored yella”.  Van Zant kinda sorta based this one on actual events.
4) You Got That Right (1977)  Not only did Steve Gaines impress everyone with his guitar playing prowess, he wasn’t a bad singer, either, thus he got to duet with RVZ on this one.  Love the attitude here, especially, “I’ve tried everything in my life/The things I like, I try ‘em twice…”  The line “You won’t find me in an old folks home” was prophetic, too, as Van Zant had often predicted he wouldn’t make it to the age of 30.
3) That Smell (1977)  An even more haunting cautionary tale, and again, it’s a pity some of the band members failed to heed it, especially the late Allen Collins.
2) Call Me The Breeze (1974)  The Muscle Shoals Horns (aka ,“The Swampers”) totally make this already cool song cook even more.  How it was omitted from the first Skynyrd compilation album, Gold & Platinum is a mystery.
1) Free Bird (1973)  Just like The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” and Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody To Love”, no matter how much this thing gets played to death on the radio, I never tire of hearing it.  This song ended virtually every Lynyrd Skynyrd concert from day one.

NOTE:  Yes, I know, “Sweet Home Alabama” didn’t make the cut here.  Classic song, yes, but there are a few classics I just don’t care for that much and this is one of them.  Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In The Wall” is another example.  And unlike “Free Bird”, I’m pretty burned-out on constantly hearing “Sweet Home” on the radio…

Ain't too proud to blog...

Ain’t too proud to bitch, either…

TEDDY PENDERGRASS, 1950-2010
We lost Teddy Pendergrass this week at age 59 to colon cancer—as if being paralyzed from the chest down for the last 28 years wasn’t bad enough for the man.  As comedian Eddie Murphy once accurately pointed out, Teddy’s masculinity compelled many of his female audience members to throw their panties on the stage when he performed.  Before becoming a solo artist, TP was lead singer of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes (which makes one wonder why they weren’t called Teddy Pendergrass & The Blue Notes, but I digress), and their classic “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” may well have been Ted’s finest hour.  S'long, Teddy—you were bad (in a damn good way)…

WENDALL ANSCHUTZ, 1938-2010
Those of you outside K.C. won’t know this name, but Wendall was a longtime local TV news anchor here—one of the best we ever had—and he died of throat cancer week before last.  A native of Kansas, Anschutz started at KCMO (now KCTV) Channel 5 in 1966 as a cub reporter (as they called them back then) and worked his way up through the ranks.  By the late ’70s, he was the station’s chief news anchor and he paired up with Anne Peterson to form one of the longest-lasting anchor duos in TV history, working together for nearly 20 years and scoring mighty high ratings.  WA retired about eight years ago, and one of the tributes in the Kansas City Star referred to him as the “Walter Cronkite of Kansas City”, which is pretty accurate.  He was certainly one of the last of a vanishing breed in TV news—a trustworthy substance-over-style news anchor—and I have no doubt that it pained him greatly to watch his former station devolve into the sleazy tabloid-y “Live, Late-breaking, Investigative…” irritative news outfit it has become in recent years.  Everything I’ve heard about Anschutz says he was a classy guy off-camera as well as on.  Rest in peace, Wendall, ya done good…

OOPS!  HE DID IT AGAIN…
The very wrong Rev. Pat Robertson just couldn’t wait to play his “they had it coming to them/this is God’s wrath” card again in regards to Tuesday's tragic earthquake in Haiti.  Just as he did in the wake of 9/11 and Katrina, instead of being a healer like a good religious leader should, Rev. Jagoff pointed fingers instead, saying the poor island nation had “made a pact with Satan” (or some such bullshit), hence this latest in a string of disasters for Haiti.  I know I shouldn’t let this Neolithic dipshit get under my skin, but it’s totally irresponsible for someone who’s this influential (whether he deserves to be or not) to go around making such outrageous claims just to further his own religious/political agenda.  While he was at it, I’m surprised he didn’t also try to blame the gays for the Haitian calamity.  Just for once, I would really like to see someone prominent from the conservative side (Limbaugh? O’Reilly? Beck? ANY Republican politician?) come forward and condemn this douche-bag and take him to task for this crap, but they won’t do it for fear they’ll lose votes or alienate their radio/TV audiences.  Predictably, Robertson’s camp went into spin-doctor mode, claiming that Pat was misinterpreted and/or misquoted.  Hell, they’ll probably deny he ever said it in the first place.  I’ll say one thing for this yutz—he’s as consistent as he is ignorant.  And the band played on…

WAKE ME WHEN IT’S OVER, PLEASE
Is anyone else as nonplussed as I am about the whole Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien thing?  I’ve long been burned-out on the whole late-night talk show thing anyway—they all kinda seem the same anymore (even Letterman) and I rarely tune in much these days.  I say put on some old Johnny Carson reruns—I bet they’d easily outdraw Leno and Letterman in the ratings.  I’m just about burned-out on today’s TV offerings in general—it’s a barren landscape of “reality” shows and “CSI”-type dramas in prime-time, “Andy Griffith Show” and “Roseanne” reruns on TV Land, sensationalism, lies and general bullshit on the news channels, infomercials all night long, and even sporting events are losing their allure with me.  About the only new stuff worth watching anymore are animated shows like “Family Guy”, “Squidbillies” and “Robot Chicken”, and even those can get tired after a while.  Is it any wonder I try to time-travel so much with old-school ‘60s, ’70s and ‘80s escapist fare via the DVD trail?  I’ll gladly take a cheesy “Love Boat” rerun over 95% of what airs on TV these days.  Even “B.J. & The Bear” or "The Misadventures Of Sheriff Lobo" would be a step in the right direction…

SPEAKING OF TV THINGS…
As mentioned, I’ve spent quite a few hours lately watching ‘70s crime drama shows on DVD like “Hawaii Five-0”, “The Rookies”, “S.W.A.T.” and “The Streets Of San Francisco”.  As much as I love the ‘70s, I’m still a bit embarrassed by some of the lingo and dialogue from that era.  For instance, when was the last time you referred to law enforcement officials as “Pigs” and/or “The Fuzz”?

While watching a “Mannix” episode the other night, I thought I was hallucinating when Joe M. attended a swanky dinner party at the home of his client, a home which looked amazingly like that of the Brady Bunch! Evidently the folks at Paramount decided to save a little money on set-building and simply farmed out the Brady household to the “Mannix” folks for one ep in 1970.  Not-so-coincidentally at that time, actor Robert Reed had a concurrent recurring role as a cop on “Mannix”—when he wasn’t busy with three boys of his own…

SPEAKING OF POLICE THINGS…
Just as I feared, the palooka who stole my checkbook out of my car last month tried to pass one of my checks for himself at a local Walmart store that I haven’t set foot in in well over three years.  I got a notice last week in the mail from some collection agency who intervened on Walmart’s behalf saying I owe them 144 bucks, so to prove my innocence in the matter, I went to the K.C. Police Department to obtain an official copy of the report filed by the off-duty officer at the library where my stuff was stolen.  Imagine my surprise when they informed me it would cost ten bucks to get that report!  Talk about a kickback.  I’m the fucking victim here, yet I have to pay to prove my innocence?  As my soccer hooligan friends in England are known to say, “Bollocks!”

Oh, by the way, Walmart—I don’t suppose you bothered to check this asshole’s I.D. when he wrote that check, eh?

GETTIN’ OUT WHILE THE GETTIN’S GOOD…
No big shock that USC coach Pete Carroll has bolted for the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, seeing’s how he has (in the words of Gen. Taylor in Good Morning, Vietnam), “left a trail of shit behind him that would fertilize the Sanai.”  Major NCAA sanctions most likely loom for USC for various rules violations during Carroll's watch, but ol’ Pete’s high-and-dry now, claiming he just couldn’t resist the “challenge” in the Great Northwest.  Easy to forget that Carroll was a monumental flop in his first two NFL head coaching gigs with the Jets and Patriots.

Meantime, Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin didn’t even wait for Carroll’s seat to cool down before taking the USC gig after just one year in Knoxville.  What’s up with this one-and-done crap with college coaches now—don’t these guys have contracts to fulfill?  College athletics is becoming every bit as corrupt as professional boxing these days…

SPEAKING OF CORRUPTION…
So Mark McGwire finally came clean about the steroid thing?  YAWN!!  I don’t know about y’all, but I personally don’t even give a damn who did what anymore.  It’s become such a worn-out topic and there’s nothing we can do about it now, other than put an asterisk next to the ‘90s and early ‘00s in the record book and just misremember the whole damn steroid era.

WHERE FOR ART THOU, ROMEO?
The Chefs hired former Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel as their new defensive coordinator yesterday.  Might be a great move, might not, but between that and the hiring of Charlie Weis as offensive coordinator, at least they ain’t standing pat with the coaching staff after this train wreck of a season.  In his usual negative manner, K.C. Star columnist Jason Whitlock poo-pooped both moves.  The guy’s forever bitching that black coaches never get hired, yet even when the Chefs hire one, he still pisses and moans.  The University of Kansas also recently hired its first black football head coach, Turner Gill, and he ripped that move too.  Can’t have it both ways, Jason…

TODAY IS JANUARY 16th…
…so those of you who still have your outdoor Christmas lights turned on are a few neurons short of a synapse—Christmas was over three weeks ago!  I understand perfectly if the recent crummy weather prevents you from taking down your decorations right away, but you can at least turn them off.  In spite of what most retailers would have you believe, the yuletide season is NOT a year-round event, folks…

Takin' off and landin' with Jefferson Airplane/Starship

The first Rock ‘N’ Roll song I ever remember hearing on the radio that was NOT a Paul Revere & The Raiders record was Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody To Love” when I was a wee three years old.  It’s a timeless classic that would easily make my Top 100 songs (probably even my Top 10) of all-time list, if I ever get around to making one.  The Airplane was one of the mainstays of the Rock world in the late ‘60s, but they were quite the dysfunctional lot, and it’s amazing they stayed together as long as they did, given all the ego trips, in-fighting, back-biting, sniping and just plain animosity they inflicted upon each other.  When the Airplane finally ran aground in the early ‘70s, it morphed into the Jefferson Starship and enjoyed another round of success in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s before it became the neutered just plain Starship in 1985.  Like their contemporaries the Grateful Dead, JA/JS/S did indeed take “a long, strange trip,” which is chronicled in the very fine book I just finished entitled Got A Revolution!  The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane by Jeff Tamarkin, who also authored the write-ups in the Airplane CD box set and the re-issued Airplane/Starship CD catalog.  I’ll spare you the minutiae of the band’s history (hell, read Tamarkin’s book if you want that—it’s well-written and holds one’s interest throughout) and I’ll just throw out some random observations and thoughts about the band(s).

As I’ve stated before, as much as I like Jefferson Airplane—not to be confused with the “Jefferson Hairpie” from Cheech & Chong lore—I still feel that their overall body of work is a skosh overrated, and not quite Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame-worthy.  While “Somebody To Love” and “White Rabbit” (or “White Wabbit” in Fudd-ese) were landmark recordings, and the albums Surrealistic Pillow (1967) and Volunteers (1969) both hold up quite well, the rest of their 1966-72 output was inconsistent at best and the post-Volunteers era was short-circuited by drugs, indifference and lack of musical direction.  I would even go as far to proclaim that the Jefferson Starship era from 1974-82 was far more prolific than the halcyon Airplane days.  Then again, I’m a child of the ‘70s, therefore I prefer that style of music over some of the meandering improvisational stuff the Airplane often dabbled in.  More succinctly, I’m more partial to structured songs that sound like they are going somewhere and/or have a point to make, as opposed to mindlessly rambling around in no particular direction, which was often the Airplane’s in-concert style, as well as on vinyl.

Co-founder Marty Balin is a great singer and a decent songwriter, but he has this irritating penchant for playing his victim card a lot.  Far too often in interviews, he goes into Rodney Dangerfield can’t-get-no-respect mode when he jealously talks about how Grace Slick always overshadowed him on record and on-stage.  And while some of his songs were pretty good (“Volunteers”, “Miracles”, “Plastic Fantastic Lover”, etc.), a lot of his stuff was rather wimpy and repetitive and he got very one-dimensional with his wooing and crooning, especially as the mid ‘70s wore on.  In fact, I remember guitarist/co-founder Paul Kantner stating in a radio interview after Balin left Starship that he (Paul) was tired of the band getting smoked in concert by upstart opening acts like Foreigner and Journey because the Starship’s stuff had gotten so stale and wimped-out, thus inspiring the much edgier Freedom At Point Zero album in late ’79.

And then there’s the inimitable Grace Slick, the Bea Arthur of Rock ‘N’ Roll.  I’ve always known she was outrageous at times and a little on the crazy side, but I’ve also tried to give her the benefit of the doubt in the hopes that there’s a nice person underneath all the macho bravado.  But, based on the book, what you saw is pretty much what you got—it seems like Grace has an axe to grind with most everyone, including her own bandmates and lovers (which included every member of the Airplane except Balin, at one time or another), and was often a total bitch (Brother Raley, care to chime in, here?)especially when she was drunk, which was quite often.  There were also many times when she would do totally tasteless crap like dressing as a Nazi and doing Hitler salutes on-stage and appearing in blackface on the “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” during the height of the Civil Rights era and the tensions therein, not to mention her infamous '78 drunken meltdown on-stage in Germany where she took the audience to task for the Holocaust.  Still, she possessed one of the most distinctive voices in Rock history, and back in the day was an incredibly striking woman (before she started wearing that ‘80s crap anyway), and I always liked her confident smile, the rare times she flashed it, anyway.  This photo of Grace with Janis Joplin (informally known as “Ice” and “Fire”, respectively) is a classic, too.  Hard to believe she's 70 years old now...

It’s easy to forget that Grace wasn’t the original female Airplane vocalist.  Another cute brunette, Signe Anderson, filled that role for the debut LP Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, but left the band soon after its release when she had her first child in ’66, thus becoming the answer to a great trivia question.  Some early Airplane fans of the band were quite pissed that this Grace person replaced her, but Signe was soon forgotten anyway.  Based on what little I’ve heard of her voice, she reminded me a bit of Spanky McFarland of late ‘60s pop group Spanky & Our Gang.




I was really surprised (and disappointed) to read that the band considered 1982’s Winds Of Change—one of my Jefferson Starship favorites—to be “a dog” of an album.  I thought it did a nice job of maintaining the continuity that began with Freedom At Point Zero and Modern Times, and it was certainly the last really good record JS ever made.  They started losing me with 1984’s flaccid Nuclear Furniture (after which Kantner split the band and took “Jefferson” with him), and their albums got progressively wimpier and more plasticine to woo the MTV crowd after that.  They lost me even more with 1985’s Knee Deep In the Hoopla—when “We Built This City” came out, I’ll never forget a guy I used to work with exclaiming when he first heard it, “Oh my God—they sound like ABBA now!”  To this day, I’m astounded that Bernie Taupin co-wrote that hunk of roach droppings!

Then Starship lost me altogether with 1987’s insipid “Nothin’s Gonna Stop Us Now”, from that cinematic classic Mannequin, starring Andrew McCarthy and a pre-“Sex And The City” Kim Cattrall.  I had to endure constant playings of that bloody thing during my first year in radio at the “Mighty 1030”, KKJC-AM in Blue Springs, and even though I thought Mickey Thomas’ and Grace Slick’s voices blended quite nicely together when they sang duets (“Stranger” from Modern Times being a prime example), “NGSUN” was just too saccharine for me.  Slick looked like a total sellout singing this mindless schlock, and Grace herself later admitted it was pretty ludicrous for a 50-ish veteran of failed (not to mention volatile) relationships to be singing such lovey-dovey teen-oriented drivel.  While the song did hit #1, and netted her and the band a big fat paycheck, Grace seemed so out-of place and looked like a fool.  I cringe every time I see this photo of her, and I have no doubt she’s more than a little embarrassed by the clothing and bad hairstyles she sported back then.

I have a retraction of sorts in regards to Airplane/Starship co-founder Paul Kantner.  When I spoke of Winds Of Change in my rundown of 1982’s best albums that I posted about a year ago, I chastised PK a bit for how he pissed and moaned about the direction of the band at the time, even though (in my view) it was HIS band, so why didn’t he do something about it?  Well, after reading all about it, it seems that as Mickey Thomas and (to a lesser extent) Craig Chaquico rose in stature and had more say-so, there was a seismic power shift within the band.  Slick tended to side with those two more and more, thus Kantner was often out-voted and outmoded when it came to musical decisions, and he more or less became a non-factor and subsequently left the group.  Now that I see where Paul was coming from, I take back what I said about him, and I apologize for calling him a “whiny bitch”.  I still think he’s a bit too acerbic, petty and spiteful, but I do enjoy his wry sense of humor, and Kantner still rates highly with me just for writing “Stairway To Cleveland” alone.
I was also surprised to learn how latter-day Starship drummer Donny Baldwin rearranged singer Mickey Thomas’ face (literally) during a 1989 tour.  Baldwin and Thomas were longtime friends, having both been members of the Elvin Bishop Group (that’s Mick singing on Elvin’s 1976 classic “Fooled Around And Fell In Love”), but they’d had some brouhahas during this tour and after a night of heavy drinking, Baldwin beat the livin’ shit out of Thomas, who required major reconstructive surgery and installation of titanium plates in his face.  So much for DB’s career with Starship, eh?Their flight? was just about over by then, anyway.  Ironicially, if you scan back up to the group photo two paragraphs back, it looks like Baldwin has Thomas all teed-up to kick him right in the face!  Meantime, over in the other camp, the critics gave the 1989 Jefferson Airplane reunion album the same treatment Baldwin gave Thomas’ face, but I didn’t think it was such a horrible record, really.  I snagged a copy of it for a buck at a used CD store a couple years after it came out, and while it’s hardly Surrealistic Pillow, Volunteers or even Red Octopus, it’s at least listenable.  In both cases, though, these were rather ignominious ends for both factions of this once-proud musical franchise.

The most underrated member of the Airplane/Starship conglomerate was guitarist Craig Chaquico (pronounced cha-KEY-so), who was literally a teenager when he climbed aboard the Starship (wait, that’s a Styx song, ain’t it?) in ’74, but he was already light years ahead of many seasoned veterans, and was a perfect fit for the band.  CC provided many distinctive solos and hooks over the years, as well as giving J. Starship some badly-needed edge, especially in the early ‘80s.  Craig has since moved on to a very successful career in the smooth jazz genre, and some of his instrumental stuff is quite tasty.  Not something I’d get the urge to listen to every day, mind you, but good stuff to relax to and/or work by.
Bassist Jack Casady and guitarist Jorma Kaukonen (pronounced YOR-ma COW-ko-nen) were pure musicians, and just loved to play and play, so when they got bored with the Airplane stuff in the late ‘60s, they formed a sideline band called Hot Tuna that specialized mostly in folky blues.  Their albums and shows were known for their extended jams which some music-lovers enjoyed, but I often have trouble with.  As I hinted above, 10-, 15-, 20-minute jams bore me, and I’m more partial to actual songs in concert.  I did see Hot Tuna open for George Thorogood at a show in ’95, and they weren’t bad as a 45-minute opening act, but I don’t think I could stand three hours or more of them, which is how long their headlining shows often lasted.  Great musicians, Jack and Jorma are, but just not quite my cup of tea.










Jefferson Airplane/Starship went through more drummers than Spinal Tap throughout their storied history.  I counted at least nine after reading the book:  Jerry Peloquin, Skip Spence, Spencer Dryden (pictured here), Joey Covington, John Barbata, Aynsley Dunbar, Donny Baldwin, Kenny Aranoff and whoever replaced Baldwin in Starship before the group dissolved in ’91 (he/she wasn’t mentioned by name in the book).  Dunbar might be the most well-known of the lot, having also played for Journey and Whitesnake, among others, and Baldwin had the longest tenure (1982-89), while none of the others lasted more than about three years with the band(s).  The late Skip Spence left after Takes Off and later formed Moby Grape before alcoholism and mental health problems did him in.  Spencer Dryden was dismissed not long after JA played at Woodstock, and he later joined New Riders Of The Purple Sage in the early ‘70s and died of cancer in 2005.  To my knowledge, everyone else who was a member of Jefferson Airplane/Starship is still living.

My All-Time Jefferson Airplane Top 15:
15) Embryonic Journey (1967)  Nifty little instrumental by Jorma Kaukonen off Surrealistic Pillow, and a hint of what he would go on to do with Hot Tuna.  I normally don’t go for acoustic stuff, but this one wasn’t too shabby.
14) Won’t You Try/Saturday Afternoon (1969)  I get a kick out of listening to Paul Kantner try to sing.  While he’s not quite as tone-deaf as The Doors’ Ray Manzarek, he ain’t exactly Robert Plant, either.  Still not a bad song, though.
13) Crown Of Creation (1968)  Title track off the fourth Airplane album, which was slightly better than the third record, After Bathing At Baxter’s.
12) She Has Funny Cars (1967)  Ignore the title—it’s pure silliness.  Opening track off Surrealistic Pillow, which featured some nice interplay between Marty and Grace, as well as between Kaukonen and Casady.
11) Other Side Of This Life (1968)  Airplane often opened their live sets with this one.  Not a bad choice for a lead-off hitter.
10) How Do You Feel (1967)  Sounding almost Mamas & Papas-like, in places, I’m surprised this wasn’t a hit single.
9) It’s No Secret (1966)  One of the better pre-Grace Slick Airplane songs, and a prototypical romantic Marty Balin song.
8) Plastic Fantastic Lover (1967)  Before Balin found his niche (or rut, if you will) of writing mushy love songs, his stuff had a lot more bite to it, and this one is a good example.
7) We Can Be Together (1969)  This one has risen rapidly up my chart after I finally sat down and listened to the lyrics, which for whatever reason, I never paid much attention to before.  I always thought this was just another love song (based mostly on the title, I guess), but in reality it was a protest song, and very timely for 1969 America.  Even more surprising for me, I never even noticed the potty-mouth language in the song (“Up against the wall, motherfuckers”, et al).  Caught me napping on that one…
6) 3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds (1967)  Marty apparently got the title from reading the drag race results in the paper, and he does utter this line near the end of the song, which rocks out quite nicely.
5) Wooden Ships (1969)  Co-written by Kantner and David Crosby, Kantner went uncredited so Crosby Stills & Nash could also record the song and not have to endure the legal hassles JA was dealing with at the time with their ex-manager.  Both group’s versions of song are quite good, with slightly-differing lyrics.
4) White Rabbit (1967)  Pretty hard to leave this timeless classic off the top-echelon of the list, which no doubt left skidmarks in the collective underwear of the parents whose kids listened to it back in the day.  Go ask Alice, indeed…
3) Greasy Heart (1968)  When I was little, because of this song, I thought Grace Slick’s name was “Grease” and/or “Greasy” Slick!  It’s a very cool and vastly underrated cut from Crown Of Creation that was inexplicably omitted from the JA box set, all about superficial and phony people.  Could easily have been written about today’s “Reality” TV generation.
2) Volunteers (1969)  The perfect bookend opposite “We Can Be Together” on the Volunteers album and one of Marty Balin’s ballsier songs.  The excitement and fervor he generates from the get-go (“Look what’s happening out in the streets…”) is rather infectious, and made you want to get off your ass and do something.  Again, very timely for 1969…
1) Somebody To Love (1967)  Is this not a KILLER fucking record?  Catchy chorus, crashing guitar chords from Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady’s rumbling Entwistle-esque bass lines and (arguably) Grace Slick’s finest vocal performance ever.  Even though it’s been played to death on the radio over the last 43 years, I NEVER tire of hearing it.

My All-Time Jefferson Starship Top 15:
15) Miracles (1975)  Probably Marty Balin’s finest hour, one that even Papa John Screech—er, uh—Creach couldn’t ruin with his shrieky fiddle playing.  I know that Papa John was beloved by the band and some fans, but I always thought he was as out-of-place with this group as Kid Rock would be on the "700 Club".
14) Find Your Way Back (1981)  Album Rock radio classic off Modern Times that still garners quite a bit of airplay today.
13) Ride The Tiger (1974)  Best track off the first Starship album, Dragon Fly, and it succeeds in spite of silly lyrics.  “Look to the summer of ’75—all the world’s gonna come alive…”  Really?  I don’t recall that happening.  Don’t get me wrong—’75 was great year, but the world hardly came alive.  I also had problems with the couplet “A tear in the hands of a Western man—tell you about salt, carbon and water/But a tear to an Oriental man—tell you ‘bout sadness and sorrow and the love of a man and a woman.”  Uhhh, you’re saying we Americans don’t have soul?  I beg to differ, Mr. Kantner.  If anything, we’re just the opposite—Western people are far more emotional than our rather stoic Oriental counterparts.
12) Modern Times (1981)  Underrated title track off a rather underrated album.
11) Runaway (1978)  Even though the Balin-era Starship was starting to run on fumes at this point, I always liked this song, which showed off Craig Chaquico’s melodic side quite well.  Was also a nice respite from all the Disco that permeated Top 40 radio that summer.
10) Jane (1979)  I couldn’t believe my ears the first time I heard this song, and was most impressed with this Mickey Thomas guy.  The Starship was born-again hard, and for a while, people were actually uttering, “Grace who?”
9) Keep On Dreamin’ (1982)  Great track off Winds Of Change that makes me think of a cute chick I had the hots for at the time.  It mystifies me why this wasn’t a hit single.  Nice guitar work again, from Mr. Chaquico.
8) Out Of Control (1982)  One thing I always looked forward to on Starship albums was at least one really whacked-out song, and this one features Grace.  It hasn’t aged very well over the years, but I still have a soft spot for it anyway.
7) Stranger (1981)  When Grace Slick emerged from some much-needed time on the sobriety wagon between 1978 and ‘81, she took baby steps getting back into the band, and this song is where it started, an excellent duet between her and Thomas.  Their voices complimented each other well, and more duets (for better or worse) followed later on down the road.
6) Winds Of Change (1982)  Another underrated title track from another underrated album.  One of Grace’s better vocal performances during the Starship era too.
5) Can’t Find Love (1982)  Story of my life, unfortunately.  Love the attitude near the end from Grace (“She’s got a fat ass, no class…take some, make some, do it ‘til you make her come, but don’t say no…”).
4) Save Your Love (1981)  One of Mickey Thomas’ finest vocal performances, and outstanding guitar outro by Chaquico.
3) Rock Music (1979)  “Rock ‘N’ Roll is good-time music,” the song sez.  No need to argue that point.  Another FM radio favorite too.
2) Freedom At Point Zero (1979)  I really liked the positive attitude of this song, and how tight and together the band sounded at that time.  More great vocals from Thomas.
1) Stairway To Cleveland (1981)  This one would also make my Top 100 of All-Time list, if I ever get around to compiling it.  I love songs with rapid-fire vocals, and “Stairway” is brilliant in its satirical view of the history of the Airplane/Starship franchise and the slings and arrows it had suffered at the hands of music critics worldwide.  Have to love the motto, “Fuck you! We do what we want!” which is the basic credo of this blog, too.  As the song repeatedly sez, "Whatcha gonna do about it?"  Also the only Rock 'N' Roll song with Walter Cronkite in its lyrics.  And that's the way it is...