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Wednesday, Mar. 23, 2005 | ||
What do you think of this story? | More eggs for the basket of lifeIn that time honored tradition I have made my own (OK, Ive only done it one other time!), this Easter season sees me hunting through my vast collection of music for another half dozen songs that are buried between the grooves of filler. Its my way of making the springtime holiday a little more fun if not a whole lot more annoying. If you find these songs out there somewhere, I hope it will be worth the hunt. This time I begin with a familiar name, Boz Scaggs. On one of his earlier, lesser-known records, My Time, Scaggs sandwiched a little jewel called Freedom For The Stallion. Its two and a half minutes of sweet balladry with a pop sensibility and a message. Freedom for the stallion I had to search out a copy of this record just so I could have that one song. The double disc retrospective of Scaggs career is excellent, but omits this tune to my utter bafflement. Thats what makes it a prime example of a musical Easter egg. Turning to my real obsession, music from England, I offer up The Motors. Overlooked in this country (big surprise) during their brief career in the late 70s and early 80s, the quartet had shrunken to half its size by the time of Tenement Steps. The single from that record, Love and Loneliness, a great song in its own right contains a b-side worthy of being flipped over. Time For Make-Up plays on the triple-entendre of a woman powdering her nose, reconciling ones grief, and changing ones life. The whole thing is done with an upbeat piano beat reminiscent of Madness at their most romantic and energetic. Think of The Proclaimers if it were possible for them to get a date. Youre the stage director and creator We return to this side of the pond for a third morsel of music, Jefferson Airplanes oddly entertaining album, Bark. Late in the Airplane career, Kantner, Slick, Jack Cassidy and Jorma Kaukonen had just about had enough. The Starship years were yet to come, along with a new sound more in line with the changes wrought by the exit of Peter Gabriel and the rise of the beast, Phil Collins. Bark does contain the occasional standout tune, but the gem here is Third Week In The Chelsea. Penned by guitarist Kaukonen and sung as a duet with Grace Slick, the song chronicles the disintegration of one of Americas most creative bands. All my friends keep telling me that it would be a shame Kaukonens unmistakable voice combines with the deep warble of Slicks to create a haunting and touching portrait of the price of fame. The simple guitar and harmonica backing are reminiscent of early Dylan and worthy of the comparison. Before Butch Vig and company went on to bigger fame as Garbage, the original trio existed as Fire Town, a pop/rock outfit with a country flavor. The title song from their debut LP The Good Life, had the sound production to be a hit single. Sadly, the downbeat lyrics about the dangers of banality may have doomed this record to life in the cutout bin, a fate it did not deserve. Now the shopping mall boys are sleeping Not exactly We are the World, but still a lot of fun to sing along to. Now for a real obscure track to give this list some actual credibility. Pink Turns Blue, those fun-loving Yugoslavians put out one record I know of. I would have sold it for a song, except that I had to keep it for one ultra-cool cut, Your Master is Calling. The rest of this murky platter has dirges like The Curse, Darkness, and the ever-cheery Faces of the Gone, but the seven minutes and forty-three seconds of Your Master make it all better. A driving bass and twangy guitar follow the persistent drums in a brave effort to wake up the listener who has fallen into a deep funk from the previous tracks. I suppose these guys thought they were being really Goth. The front cover looks like a photograph of Count Draculas summer home. Whod have guessed it had such a killer song on it? Finally, return with me to 1983 and the pop wimpiness of Industry. Remember them? They were so cute and cuddly in a new wavy kind of way. Their layered clothing and fashion-victim haircuts promised music at least as sweet as a-ha if not The Three Oclock. Too bad they only wrote one pop song worth playing incessantly. State of The Nation bounces along with synth melodies and plenty of artificial soul, but once again, the message is not so cute. I see them marching off to war- Now how could such nice boys write such a grumpy lyric? I suppose it was their attempt at being relevant because the rest of their record is filled with junk like Romantic Dreams, and Shangri-La. Oh well, they cant all be hits. I need to get off my duff one of these nights and request the video for State of the Nation on VH1s request show. Its a true lost classic with the four of them mincing around in a submarine like spastic teenagers. Oh wait, they were spastic teenagers, they deserve to be ignored. | |
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