Max Webster - Here Among The Cats

Some Music for a wet fall Day!

Now that the cooler wet weather has entered our lives again and winter is almost here you may staying in a little bit more and want to either discover or re-discover some music. The following are 12 albums that require some time and patience to listen to, but are well worth the effort. So again in no particular order are my choice for the 12 albums for a late fall day.

1.Love-Forever Changes[1967] Still the best album from the early psychedelic period.

2.Eric Andersen-Ghosts upon the Road[1988] A album of lost lives and loves from one of the best Singer/Songwriters of my Generation.

3.Loretta Lynn-Van Lear Rose[2004] What a comeback! The perfect blend of country,folk and Rock ably assisted by Jack White

4.Nick Drake-Five Leaves Left[1969] Haunting vocals and sparse instrumentation make this a classic.

5.Richard and Linda Thompson-Shoot Out the Lights[1982] Listen to a marriage fall apart, both artistically and personally.

6.Lenny Gallant-The open Window[1994] East coast singer’/songwriter at his Canadian best.

7.Todd Snider-Songs for the Daily Planet[1994] The Who’s My Generation has never sounded so good as on this album.

8.David Ackles-American Gothic[1972] Fighting for the American Dream[and not finding it] “The Montana Song” is a classic.

9.John Stewart-California Bloodlines[1969] The former member of The Kingston Trio makes the perfect country album for the new decade.

10.Laura Nyro-Eli and the 13th Confession[1968] Others may have had bigger hit’s with her songs, but the original is always better.

11.John Gorka-Out of the Valley[1994] Alternative Country’s leader, “Good Noise” is the best anti Republican song I have heard.

12.Gram Parsons-Return of the Grievous Angel[1974] The grandfather of Country Rock’s Finest Moment. Ass kicking country and tender love songs. True American Cosmic Music.

Rik and Me( A Canadian Ballad)

Brushes with famous people happen with all of us, we encounter millions of people in our lifetime and sooner or later we intersect with someone who can be called famous. They may not be famous at the time, but become famous later in their lives and your little encounter will be forgotten by that person but in your mind it remains. And that is the heart of this story, a brush with someone who would become famous in the Music world, Rik Emmett of the Canadian Classic Rock Band Triumph. I am sure he has forgotten this encounter, but for some strange reason i can still remember it(cue the fade out and fade in)
 It was the spring of 1976 and i was a 18 year old brash kid from Hespeler with a penchant for lippiness when i drank, and in this case a lot of drink. Drinking started early on that Saturday night for the gang as we were getting ready for a great night at the Coronet Motor Hotel. Rush were playing and Max Webster were opening for them and it was going to be a Rock and Roll night for the hespeler Boy's, and nothing was going to get in our way. We got there early to make sure we got a good table and proceeded to down a few more beers, when the news arrived that pissed me off, Max Webster had to cancel their appearance and some new Canadian band called Truimph would open the show instead. After the getting over this we proceeded to look for some women to hit on and I found one particular good looking gal that i could try my Hespeler moves on and while it was a slow process after a few Zombies i thought i was making headway when Triumph took the stage and ruined my evening. Islagged the band through their whole set and called the lead guitarist a wimp(or something like that), which i found out was a mistake. The young lady waited till just after the set ended and as the band was leaving the stage i made another rude comment about the guitarist and the band when she threw a drink in my face and the guitarist suddenly showed up beside me. It seems that the gal was Rik Emmett's girlfriend and he was not too happy that i was hitting on her during his entire set and upon hearing how i ripped the band, that made him even more upset and he wound up, trying to take a swing at me, i ducked and fell over backwards into the waiting arms of the bouncers, Luckily they held me back as i am sure i would have done serious damage to him and ruined the bands career(that's my opinion). I was quickly escorted out of the Coronet, but managed to get a little pride back as I wound up puking on the bouncers boots and after getting my bearings back after the little shot to thehead he gave me,i found the Van that Triumph were driving, and of course got my revenge on them, the van wasn't locked and let's just say that wasn't beer spilled on the seats. But i wound up with a hate on for Rik Emmett and the rest of the band that took me a long time to get over.

Suzanne

This is the first of a series on the Woman behind the song.

One of a songwriters main inspiration point is the women in his life, usually a girlfriend that they have loved and lost. Sometimes they are about fictional women that were inspired by real woman but the ladies make up many of the songs over the last 100 years or so. One thing that I have always wondered about is who is the woman that is being sung about, what made a songwriter write about her? And while it is not as earth shattering as some other things being discussed in town I still find it interesting and hopefully so do you.

In 1967 Leonard Cohen released SUZANNE, one of the truly great Canadian songs of all time and in true songwriter tradition the main character was real. Her name was Suzanne Verdal, the then wife of Canadian Sculptor Armand Vaillancourt and she lived in Montreal. The song describes the City of Montreal in all it’s splendor as well as giving us an image of SUZANNE that to this day still sits in my mind. The real Suzanne claims that she and Leonard never had sex despite what some think the song represents and as a matter of fact Cohen himself has said that there was neither the opportunity nor the inclination to actually go through with it, and according to Suzanne she has only seen Leonard twice since the song was released, once in the 1970′s and once in the 1990′s.

Today Suzanne lives in Venice Beach California and is an on again off again homeless person living off the good intentions of friends and artists that call the beach home

Suzanne in 1967   and in 2008

The Radio

The radio on my boyhood dresser was an old tabletop model with tubes. The top was cracked and at high volume, the busted brown plastic made it screech. My father got it when a great-aunt died i think, and it looked like the type of thing you would get at a junkyard. But,It was one of the greatest treasures he ever gave me. For with that radio he opened a new world that was hard to forget. As a ten year old the sounds that came out of that cracked jewel on my dresser changed my world. The Everly brothers, the Righteous Brothers, Simon and Garfunkel,Marvin Gaye came pouring out of that box like Angels from heaven. I had discovered music that my parents did not listen to. Sure my older brother and sister played their records and listened to their radios, BUT, THIS WAS MY RADIO,and no one was going to tell me what to listen to anymore. Elvis was the other generation and when i heard She Loves You by the Beatles and the first scream by my Dad and Mom to TURN IT DOWN i knew i had found my calling. Music,MY MUSIC, would be my salvation, it would set me free and make me different from my big brother and sister,it would allow me to define myself and create a world that i could call my own. It was CHUM,CHAM,CKWR,CFTR, all radio stations playing MY music. The Beatles, the Monkees, Neil Diamond, songs like Louie Louie, Gloria, Satisfaction,Go all the way and Moondance would be my break from reality. I could drift away in a Rock and Roll Lullaby. And as the ’60s morphed into the ’70s, music defined my teenage years. Pink Floyd,Led Zeppelin and Rush may have replaced the Doors, the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, but that radio, even though long gone,still held in my soul a very special place. Now in 2010 i am listening to my CD’s on my surround sound system, i still think back to that night when i first turned on that radio in 1967 and the strange noise began to emerge from that box. The voice sounded so sad,the sound so rich, the melody’s so tight i was dumbstruck by it all”You’ve lost that loving feeling”. I can tell you i have never lost that loving feeling for the world of music. All thanks to my Father and that old cracked music box. Somewhere out in the stratosphere and the cosmos an old radio is playing”break on through to the other side”

Ode to Billy joe(an Evaluation)

It was the third of June,
another sleepy, dusty Delta day.

With those words, Bobbie Gentry began a debate in 1967 that still has not been answered to this day! What was thrown off of The Tallahatchie Bridge and why did Billie Joe MacAllister jump?  Now we all know it is fiction, and made a great tune that is still considered one of the great Pop and Country songs of all time, but those questions still linger for music fans everywhere, myself included. Was the song about abortion, a subject that at that time was as controversial as ever, was it about inter-racial romance that led to the suicide of the young man?  That is the theme that seems to stand out to me, for some of the lyrics do hint at that..
I was out choppin’ cotton
and my brother was balin’ hay.…since the song takes place in the deep south and has no real time frame to it, the majority of black’s back then would have been on plantations picking cotton,
Mama said to me “Child, what’s happened to your appetite?..the use of the word child was a Negro saying more than whites, but could be also used by the real poor whites of the time, so that one is iffy. But perhaps the biggest theme running through the song is the indifference that the family has to Billy Joe
Papa said to mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas,
“Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense,
pass the biscuits, please.”I’ll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don’t seem right….These lines lead one to think that perhaps Billy Joe was slightly mentally challenged and that his life was not of much importance, but it also comes back to the abortion angle, as perhaps rape was involved and Billy Joe forced himself on the narrator, but to protect Billy Joe she kept it hidden and wound up getting the abortion and when Billy Joe found out he jumped to his death. But it comes back to the question at the center of everything, What was thrown off the bridge? A fetus? I don’t think we will ever know as even Bobby Gentry has kept the secret of the meaning of her song.  But it has kept musicologists thinking and kept the song in many memory’s, and that is a good thing.
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge,
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

The Vinyl Revolution

As a child of the 60′s and 70′s the vinyl record was one thing that we took for granted, whether it was hearing my older brothers Elvis 45′s or having to listen to my Older sister play her Donny Osmond Albums, heck even hearing my Dad play his Glen Miller 78′s, Music back then was on Vinyl and of course we took it for Granted that it would always be around. The trips to Records on Wheels or heading to Toronto to Sam the Record Man where a right of passage for every generation, find the newest single by The Stampeders or pick up a copy of Alice Coopers latest album were the highlight of anyone’s day. Unlike the CD you could actually read the Liner notes on the Album and of course the legendary artwork on many of the albums were worth the price alone, something that the CD does not have. And if you only wanted a single song you could just buy the 45 and listen to it, hell I remember buying a single by Jim Gold’s Gallery called “Nice to be with you” and playing the hell out of it. But, like anything the vinyl record began to fade away as the cD came into being and of course they became popular as they were easier to store and you could put a disc on without having to flip it over half way through. And as Disc’s grew in popularity the Vinyl record seemed to just stay on the outside of popularity not quite obscure but known to only a few hardcore audiophiles. But the vinyl’s time is back and I for one am glad to welcome them. A number of current artists are releasing new albums and the record player is slowly becoming a viable option in the music world again. Browsing through used record stores to find the old albums of my youth has become fun again and as I did when the CD’s took over I will rebuild my library with the music that I love. And it is with pleasure that I tell you that Hespeler has its own Record store again, Millpond Records and Books is now open on Queen Street, so when downtown give ‘em a shout and maybe you will find a treasure amongst the music.

Tales from the Vinyl Jungle [6 albums that changed my life]

As the 60′s turned into the 70′s i entered High School and as my life changed so did my music. Growing up i had always loved music and the radio was where i got my references from, But in High School i discovered other forms of music such as Jazz,Blues and Folk. The following are my 6 albums that changed the way i looked at and listened to music. They made me expand my mind and track down the the other forms of music that was out there. Sure i listened to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, The Guess Who and other top acts of the era, but there was something else out there and i was determined to find them. So here goes the 6 albums in no particular order.

The Flying Burrito Brothers=Gilded Palace of Sin[1969]

A Girlfriend introduced me to this album in grade 10. Up until then Country music was off limits, but she insisted i hear this new style of Country so grudgingly i did. Next day i went out and bought this one and “Burrito Deluxe” as well. The sound of Country, Folk and rock combined to give a blast of Cosmic Joy. This of course led me on a path to discover Gram Parsons[a founding member as well as an ex-Byrd] and the outlaw movement in Country. Waylon, Hank Jr,Willie and eventually the Man in Black himself. Poco, Little River Band and the Eagles followed. Don’t know where that Girlfriend went but all these bands are in my CD collection.

LOVE=Forever Changes[1967]

At a party one night a friend of mine threw his big brothers album on the turntable and the world sounded different. The guitar work,lyrics and the folk sensibility seemed to call to me. Everybody had heard of the dead and Jefferson Airplane and of course the Doors but LOVE showed me there were other bands that were involved with the California sound. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Moby Grape, Spirit and Pacific Gas and Electric were just a few of the bands that soon found there way into my record collection.

Miles Davis=Kind of Blue[1959]
What can i say. Music appreciation class, Grade 11. The Teacher brought this album in and threw it on the turntable and said, if you don’t like this you don’t know or like music. John Coltrane soon arrived in my Collection as well.

Velvet Underground=Velvet Underground and Nico[1967]
More commonly called the banana album, this album opened the ears of a generation to a sound that was as raw as it was powerful. Not the slick sounds of the Beatles or led Zeppelin. Not even the raggedness of Black Sabbath, this was different, this was truly something unique. The NewYork Dolls, NRBQ and the Stooges were later but without this album i may have never found the others.

Eric Andersen=Blue River[1972]
Sure i knew who Bob Dylan was but i really didn’t listen to him as folk music was not my scene,or so i thought. When i first heard this album in early 1972 at Sam the Record Man i was hooked. The lyrics, melody’s and emotions sank into me quickly and made me change my mind about the folk scene. It allowed me to check out and fall in love with not only Andersen and Dylan but also with Tim Buckley, Richard Thompson, Arlo Guthrie and many more.

Frank Sinatra=In the wee Small Hours[1955]
Thats right Sinatra. OK you can laugh as i did when my Dad would play this but in the summer of 1979 the music world sucked and i was looking for something different. So i headed to a record show in Toronto and started to check out the collections available. I got into a discussion with one of the dealers and he grabbed this album and shoved into my hands, told me i could have it for free, but with one request. I had to listen to it honestly. Well i did and before you could say New York New York I bought another Sinatra Album. Dean Martin, Tony Bennett and Sammy Davis Jr all entered my collection before the end of the year.

So there you have it. Six albums that changed my life. They may not be the best and only one still sits in my top 25 of all time[LOVE] but i own them all on disc and still play them today. So do yourself a favor and open your listening spirit to allow other forms of music in, You won’t regret it.