October 13, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Paul Simon - Kodachrome

When I moved to "the city," I lived across the road from a park with an Olympic-sized swimming pool. My mom got us kids season passes to it, and of course we spent hours there nearly every day. Nobody had heard of SPF anything, I don't remember using even Coppertone back then, so it's a wonder my brothers and I don't all have skin cancer now. But we don't. Go figure.

Anyway, the pool had the PA system hooked up to a radio that always played Top 40, so we'd get to hear all the latest hits, all day.

When I hear or think 1973, I'm back at that pool and this is the song I hear, because it played so much that summer:

Is it the greatest song? Maybe not, but it's fun and the light, upbeat vibe screams, "SUMMER."

October 12, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Blue Oyster Cult - The Reaper

AKA "Don't Fear the Reaper."

Because it's moody and weird and it has MOAR COWBELL:

And of course, the glorious MOAR COWBELL sketch from SNL, when the show still had a clue about funny:

October 11, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Heart - Crazy on You

It was a sausage factory on radio sometimes in the 70s. Seemed like women rockers were a vanishing breed.

Then came this:

The pipes on Ann Wilson are fricking amazing, and her sister, Nancy, is a terrific guitarist. It seems like too many forget how they were a pivotal force in establishing women as great rockers in their own right.

October 9, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: John Lennon - #9 Dream

To honor what would have been the 82nd birthday of John Lennon, RIP:

I always thought of this beautiful, ethereal tune as the last gasp of the hippie era. Fitting that it came from Lennon.

October 8, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Paul McCartney - Silly Love Songs

I loved this song for about two weeks in 1976. Then it got played so much that I actively hated it. Couldn't stand to listen to it, for over 10 years. If I had to hear it one more time, I would have smashed my stereo.

Around 12 years later, I borrowed some CDs from a friend to make some mix tapes on cassette (remember that?), and somehow McCartney got in there. I didn't listen to the tape with "Silly Love Songs" until I had to take a long car drive in California. This came on, and as I made my way along a twisty part of 680, a brilliant afternoon sun turning the hills and sky orange and gold, I remembered why I loved this song, once upon a time.

Pop.

Perfection.

I also find it amusing how the disco years of 1974-1980 had thumping bass lines everywhere, and McCartney always had to pop in at some point and say, "You call that a great bass line? Hold my beer."

His bass IS the instrumental melody, for most of "Silly Love Songs." And that is simply awesome.

October 8, 2022

Update on San Antonio Cop Shooting

SA drops all charges against the kid shot at McDonald's.

None of the charges involved a stolen vehicle, meaning the cop had no reason to roll up on the poor thing. I bet the pig didn't even run the plate first. He just assumed it was the same car. In a city of over a million people. And who knows how many tourists roaming around. Could be hundreds of cars that looked similar.

The kid will be getting tens of millions for this thug's stupidity.

If he survives University Hospital. Not a guarantee.

https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/10/07/watch-live-bexar-county-da-to-discuss-charges-against-teen-shot-by-former-sapd-officer/

October 6, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Van Halen - You Really Got Me

Because Eddie Van Halen could play the F out of a guitar. And I don't care what anyone says--a big reason VH became so popular was because the ladies L-O-V-E-D pretty-boy David Lee Roth. And he was pretty back then. Not mentally well, but plenty good to look at.

October 5, 2022

My Cat and Videos

I wish I didn't have a bad tremor from my meds, so that I could film my cat doing weird things.

Today, she got fixated on my computer screen when I was playing The Who's "Who Are You?" Then she started kneading her pillow in time to the music. She does this to music on a regular basis, so it's not coincidence. What I don't know is why she picks the music she does for kneading. She'll do it to a rocker like Who Are You, today, but nothing for, say, Led Zeppelin.

She also has a "thing" for watching nail polish swatch videos with me. I put on Kelli Marissa, and my girls' dashing over to watch, too. It's weird and funny and cute.

Anyone else have a cat who watches certain things--really watches?

October 5, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: The Who - Who Are You?

Chosen not because it's the greatest song by The Who (although it's a good one), but because I always like videos with musicians in the studio:

The production quality is also much better than other music promo videos of this era (late 70s). I'm no expert to state this for a fact, but that the images are all super-crisp and the colors so rich and realistic makes it look like it was shot on film stock, not videotape.

When you're a legendary rock band, you can afford good film production.

October 4, 2022

Luckiest Music Generation: Moody Blues - I'm Just a Singer

My poor mother. It was my 11th birthday, and she was at a loss for what to get me. I was outgrowing dolls, and I wasn't old enough for makeup and nail polish (well, too young in 1973). The one thing she did know: I L-O-V-E-D listening to music on the radio. So she tentatively bought one of those "portable" record players for me (with an AM radio built in!). Couldn't find a photo of the one I had, but it looked sorta like this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275482213605?hash=item402404fce5:g:-b4AAOSwpj9ik8L~

Anyway, she realized a record player was nothing without records, and took the scariest step of all for a lounge music lover: Going to a record store.

My younger brother went with her, and said the all-time hippiest of hippie sales clerks came over to help. My mother explained why she was there, my age, and so on. The hippie braced herself and asked, "So what kind of music does she like?" You just know she expected to hear, "Donny Osmond." Or "David Cassidy." Her jaw dropped when my mother replied, "It's a song about a singer in a rock and roll band. I don't understand it, but she nearly breaks my eardrums when it comes on the radio."

And that's how Seventh Sojourn by the Moody Blues became one of the first albums I ever owned. I literally played it to death. And I still love the song, "I'm Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band)," 50 years on: