A Trip Thru Your Grooves

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 12 Release Date: 26-July-1975 Genre:  Rock/Blues-Rock/Reggae Producer: Tom Dowd Label: RSO Records Time: 43m 21s Review Date: 28-November-2018 Format: LP Side One Motherless Children Give Me Strength Willie and the Hand Jive Get Ready I Shot the Sheriff Side Two I Can't Hold Out Please Be With Me Let it Grow Steady Rollin' Man Mainline Florida Review:  Eric Clapton caught a lot of crap when he released 461 Ocean Blvd. It was entirely undeserved. At times it was almost piling on: he did some reggae and he sounded like a whiny British guy trying to do reggae; it was his first album where he used all studio musicians; producer Tom Dowd took away Clapton's edge and his blues roots, resulting in a very sterile album; Clapton sounded better on heroin -- yup, people really said that. Oh my. And look, I wasn't much of a fan of EC's cover of I Shot the Sheriff , and though Bob Marley said he liked it...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 11 Ahhh... records. I just love everything about them. My new favorite downtime thing to do is to go to Acme Records in Bayview, WI, grab an LP, put it on a turntable and listen through a pair of real headphones. The link to Acme Records is in the left margin. Let's meet sometime and shop together! Oh, and before I get started, I am taking donations. This gadget-ma-thing here will be at the top of every blog. Donation Toward Purchases Used Album $5.00 USD New Album $10.00 USD Collectable $20.00 USD These are the albums that I have picked up or have been donated to me since I started this. I'll do an update every month. Incidentally, today is the 13th anniversary of the night my house burned down and I lost all my music.  Sad night. Not just for me, but for music. A lot of work goes into making an album, and no matter how many are pressed, the eternal loss of even one is a sad thing, indeed. November Adds: Sha...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 10 Release Date: 20-July-1976 Genre:  Rock/Singer-Songwriter Producer: Nick Lowe Label: Vertigo/Mercury Time: 42m 02s Review Date: 22-November-2018 Format: LP Side One White Honey Nothin's Gonna Pull Us Apart Silly Thing Gypsy Blood Between You and Me Back to Schooldays Side Two Soul Shoes Lady Doctor You've Got to Be Kidding Howlin' Wind Not if it Pleases Me Don't Ask Me Questions Review:  It's almost sad that the music industry has gone back to the singles-driven model that prevailed at the start of rock and roll. It's easy to blame the MP3, but music has been shooting itself in the foot since it allowed the release of greatest hits LPs. It's a sad testament to the industry that its leaders have allowed the fragmentation of its product because it shortens the careers of some of its better artists. The Beatles changed the paradigm that radio, and its need for three-minute singles, coul...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 9 Release Date: 17-October-1988 Genre:  Rock/Super Group Producer: Otis & Nelson Wilbury Label: Wilbury Records Time: 36m 22s Review Date: 17-November-2018 Format: LP Side One Handle With Care Dirty World Rattled Last Night Not Alone Anymore Side Two Congratulations Heading for the Light Margarita Tweeter and the Monkey Man End of the Line Review:  Before I get started, let's just all admit there has never been a super group - in the history of music - that is as super as the Wilburys. Bob Dylan as Lucky Wilbury Jeff Lynne as Otis Wilbury Tom Petty as Charlie T. Wilbury, Jr. George Harrison as Nelson Wilbury Roy Orbison as Lefty Wilbury Think about it for a second; there is six decades of iconic music that spans the careers of those gentlemen, and most everything they recorded can be found on any number of all-time greatest lists. I don't think a band with a stronger pedigree than the Wilburys...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 8 Release Date: 25-October-1975 Genre:  Rock/Folk/Singer-Songwriter Producer: Paul Simon, Phil Ramone Label: Columbia Records Time: 36m 25s Review Date: 16-November-2018 Format: LP Side One Still Crazy After All These Years My Little Town I Do It For Your Love 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover Night Game Side Two Gone at Last Some Folks Lives Roll Easy Have a Good Time Your Kind Silent Eyes Review:  One thing you'll see as I go through a review of my record collection is that I own a lot of music that was released in 1975. Not only was it a great year for music, but in 1975, Saturday Night Live launched, and it was my first exposure to a lot of music I had not heard previously. Of course, everyone knew Paul Simon as the lead singer and songwriter of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, and the second episode of season one of SNL is devoted entirely to Simon. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you find it a...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 7 Release Date: 07-January-1980 Genre:  Rock Producer: Chris Thomas, Nick Lowe Label: Sire Time: 47m 04s Review Date: 15-November-2018 Format: LP Side One Precious Stop Your Sobbing Up the Neck Tattooed Love Boys Space Invader The Wait Stop Your Sobbing Side Two Kid Private Life Brass in Pocket Lovers of Today Mystery Achievement Review:  Dropping the needle on the debut album by the Pretenders is something I should probably do more frequently. As great as side two of this LP is - Brass in Pocket and Mystery Achievement were both industry and publicly praised - side one is arguably the most groundbreaking and underrated album side of anything released in 1980. With it, Chrissie Hynde flipped a big middle finger to the music industry and the misogyny that prevailed among the major labels through most of the 1970s. As far as female artists were concerned, up until 1980 the music industry was really ab...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 6 Release Date: 10-November-1986 Genre:  Rock / Live Recording Producer: Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin, Bruce Springsteen Label: Columbia Records Time: 3h 36m 13s Review Date: 13-November-2018 Format:  5-LP Box Set Side One Thunder Road Adam Raised a Cain Spirit in the Night 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) Side Two Paradise By the "C" Fire Grown' Up It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City Side Three Backstreets Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) Raise Your Hand Side Four Hungry Heart Two Hearts Cadillac Ranch You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch) Independence Day Side Five Badlands Because the Night Candy's Room Darkness on the Edge of Town Racing in the Street Side Six This Land is Your Land Nebraska Johnny 99 Reason to Believe Side Seven Born in the USA Seeds The River Side Eight War Darlington County Working on the Highway The Promised Land Side Nin...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 5 Release Date: 11-November-1973 Genre:  Rock Producer: Mike Appel, Jim Cretecos Label: Columbia Records Time: 46m 47s Review Date: 12-November-2018 Format: LP Side One The E Street Shuffle 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) Kitty's Back Wild Billy's Circus Story Side Two Incident on 57th Street Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) New York City Serenade Review:  There was a time during the mid-to-late 1960s where record labels were trying to get bands to release Bob Dylan-like albums. The Beatles' U.S. release of Rubber Soul on Capitol Records is a great example. Springsteen's first album, Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, was as Dylan-esque as it gets, and his follow up, The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle leaned heavily on the same formula for the most part. On this sophomore release,  though, Springsteen's writing and arrangements show a gigantic leap in maturity. Incident on 57th Street...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 4 Release Date: 13-May-1985 Genre:  Rock Producer: Neil Dorfsman, Mark Knopfler Label: Warner Bros. Time: 55m 10s Review Date: 10-November-2018 Format: LP Side One So Far Away Money for Nothing Side Two Walk of Life Your Latest Trick Side Three Why Worry Ride Across The River Side Four The Man's Too Strong One World Brothers In Arms Review:  So much to debate with this record. Though it's a Dire Straits release it genuinely feels like a Mark Knopfler solo project. Further, the original LP is a two-sider with many of the songs truncated in order to fit on one vinyl disc. That's because Knopfler recorded it in full-digital format with CD listeners in mind. Brothers in Arms was the first album to sell one million copies in digital format and the first to outsell its LP version. For what it's worth, I went with the newer release which is a two-album version. There's not much loss in the trans...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 3 Release Date: 28-February-1979 Genre:  Rock / Jazz / Storyteller Producer: Larry Waronker, Russ Titleman Label: Warner Bros. Time: 41m 45s Review Date: 08-November-2018 Format: LP Side One Chuck E's In Love On Saturday Afternoons in 1963 Night Train Young Blood Easy Money The Last Chance Texaco Side Two Danny's All-Star Joint Coolsville Weasel and the White Boys Cool Company After Hours (Twelve Bars Past Midnight) Review: I think few people get that this is a musical diary entry of a day on the Los Angeles streets circa 1979, narrated in a way that compares favorably to Tom Waits, sans the gruff exterior. The attitude is there, especially on songs like 'Coolsville, ' Easy Money,' and 'The Last Chance Texaco.'   It's similarly resounding on ' Weasel and the White Boys Cool,' which could have easily been a Paul Simon song if Simon had just the slightest bit of West Coast bea...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 2 Ahhh... records. I just love everything about them. My new favorite downtime thing to do is to go to Acme Records in Bayview, WI, grab an LP, put it on a turntable and listen through a pair of real headphones. Oh, and before I get started, I am taking donations. This gadget-ma-thing here will be at the top of every blog. Donation Toward Purchases Used Album $5.00 USD New Album $10.00 USD Collectable $20.00 USD Thank you kindly. Look, I am not going to do a standard record review. Those tend to be cold, filled with a lot of excessive adjectives, and can be downright boring if I say so myself. What I want to do is to bring back the warmth to reading about music, similar to the warmth that vinyl long players provide with each listening experience. A collection of records should reside in your personal pantheon, organized, easy-to-find and something with which you are intimately familiar. The only thing better than listeni...

A Trip Thru Your Grooves - Episode 1 Before I get started, it is important to know that I am not collecting vinyl as a means of unearthing rare gems at discounted prices that I can flip for profit. It's just that in a world that has become so digitally compressed I long for the days of listening to my music at a speed of 33 1/3 RPM through real speakers instead of as MP3s through my AirPods. The act of collecting records is an extremely personal one, and though there are some records that belong in every collection, regardless of anyone's stated preferences as an audiophile, I'd be more interested in finding a beat up version of 'Nighthawks at the Diner' by Tom Waits than a near mint version of 'Illmatic' by NAS. Why? I am going to be listening to my purchases and I just prefer Waits. And though some classics never get old, newer spins exist that are perfect for lounging in headphones while staring at the ceiling, thinking about how funny (wonderful, s...