Today, April 28 in l978, Cheap Trick recorded the first of two shows from which  Cheap Trick at Budokan  was culled. Initially a Japanese only release, it proved a popular import and was released domestically in early l979. It was my first real album purchase aside from some Beatles and Beach Boy ‘Best Ofs” and...um... Paperlace (when I was 8). I remember the booklet that came with the album  ––  the lyrics were in English, there were some tour photos and everything else was written in Japanese. Five (and a half) of the album's lO songs were from  In Color . I read somewhere that the band wasn't happy with that LP's slick production, and wanted a do-over. It certainly worked with " I Want You to Want Me " and " Clock Strikes Ten "...the other three songs on this expanded version do not disappoint. Later, during the summer of '79, my dad took me and three friends to see Cheap Trick. The Pez Band (later Off Broadway ) opened up. Dad was over 4...

For this week's show we'll go back to April 26, 1971 , to the Young Vic Theatre in London. The Who had set up residence with free weekly shows to showcase the material that would make up the majority of Who's Next , which would be released in August. Most of the songs come from the Lifehouse project. A sci-fi rock opera concept wherein people don't leave the house due to pollution. Instead, they interact with the world through "the grid"....crazy, right? Pete Townshend....what a nutter! The whole thing could've made a double album, but eventually, they shaved it down to one disc's worth, with most of the extra tracks coming out as singles, Townshend  solo tracks , and cuts on the Odds and Sods release. The running order of songs, again, comes from Setlist.fm . Most of the songs were released on a super deluxe release of Who's Next (sorry, I can't keep track of which one). "Bony Moronie" is from the Thirty Years of Maximum R...

In 1983 Iggy recorded the title song to Repo Man . It's great: dynamic drums, droning guitar, driving bass, dumb lyrics. A Doorsy monologue in the middle about "the desert sand"....points to why he was once considered as Morrison's replacement...probably my favorite Iggy tune.... ....except for something off of the first  Stooges  album. That one sounds like midtempo Ramones- maybe  Subterranean Jungle   - or the Sex Pistols: crunchy and simple. The latter's cover of  " No Fun " - a b-side  - was on the mark. I didn't find the later albums as compelling. I guess  Funhouse   is an acquired taste....like a Nuggets garage band, devolving into noise and stretched out over an album.  Raw Power ,  The Idiot ,  and  Lust for Life  had their moments...but what if Iggy were to connect with a classic punk band? He did...well, kind of. Reading up on Repo Man: Steve Jones from the Pistols played guitar....Harrison and Burke fr...

With everything still closed, this week we take in the Velvet Undergound from San Fransisco's storied  Matrix  club, recorded on the venue's in-house 4-track machine in late November, 1969. I had thought to run one of these shows earlier, but which one? The band had been touring its third, eponymous , album and was in the midst of a residency at the club. They were playing two sets a night, and  The Complete Matrix Tapes  captures their shows from November 26th and 27th. The question is, which set? I sat down with the four of them on a long, cross-country drive this week and, honestly, you can't go wrong. We have four versions each of "Heroin", "Some Kinda Love" and "We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together"; three apiece of "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "There She Goes Again"; and doubles of several others. Which is the best copy of each? With "Heroin", it's hard to tell...maybe the shortest on...

The clubs have yet to reopen. For this week's concert, I suggest we visit the original Five Spot Cafe'  - which was demolished in 1962 - to catch the Thelonious Monk Quartet on August 7, 1958 . Get a bottle of something nice, and make plans for dinner. It is serious jazz, but of the type that can serve as background music. Last week's jazz offering, from It's About That Time: Miles Davis at the Filmore East , was the type of jazz that elicits "the question" from The Wife: "Honey...what are we listening to?" It's not really a question...she's actually telling me to turn this shit off...and during OUR time I actively choose music with an aim toward avoiding it. The things we do for love. This week's show was recorded during Monk's second six-month residency at the club. The band included Roy Haynes on drums, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass and Johnny Griffin on tenor sax. Griffin had played several of the tunes on Art Blakey's Ja...

No more Beatles...miss them, miss them. Paul announced the breakup. It was sad, I am sure, although I don't remember it. We now know that Dave D had already left, leaving George, Mickey and Tich to finish off I Me Mine. Consider, also, that obvious collaborations between Lennon and McCartney after  Rubber Soul  are arguably few - a snippet of one's song would occasionally be inserted into another's. From the White Album  on the Beatles  were largely a backing band for each member's "solo" tracks.   Then, they officially break up. It's not like John, Paul and George suddenly lost their ability to write,  but the magic was gone. Or was it? What is missing? Several things come to mind. The guitar sound....who got the Leslie? George Martin wasn't producing anymore. Paul's tunes no longer have Ringo's drumming. John and George no longer have Paul's bass lines behind them. None of them have the Beatle harmonies on back up. George and John no ...

I remember reading about the collaboration between Elvis and Paul : Costello and McCartney. There was some speculation that there'd be an album....which never came to pass. Too bad, I thought. Paul hadn't made a compelling album in years and I'd long since lost track what Elvis had been putting out. In all, they wrote 14 songs together - "Back on My Feet", "Veronica", "Pads, Paws and Claws", "My Brave Face", "Don't Be Careless Love", "That Day is Done", "You Want Her Too", "So Like Candy", "Playboy to a Man", "The Lovers That Never Were", "Mistress and Maid", "Shallow Grave", "Tommy's Comming Home", and "Twenty Nine Fingers" -  releasing the first 12 officially between 1987 and 1996, with the last two released in original demo form on a McCartney archival release in 2017. In addition, Paul plays bass on "...This Town...

About 50 years ago Miles Davis opened for Neil Young at the Fillmore. First of our lists here is Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the Fillmore , from March 6th and 7th, 1970. This tour, in support of Everybody Knows This is Nowhere , was the last undertaken with Danny Whitten before his sad death from an overdose of...well...horse. Neil actually played four shows over the two days, from which this release was put together. One song, Cinnamon Girl, did not originally appear but was subsequently released as part of the Neil Young Archives. Setlist fm  shows that the song appeared before Cowgirl in the Sand at each show. The Youngians among you will note two songs that had yet to see an official release: Winterlong - which came out on the Decade retrospective, and Wonderin' which came out on Everybody's Rockin' ' during the Geffen years. "Why is the set so short?" you ask. It is short because Neil played a solo acoustic set - not included here - before bring...

To expand upon yesterday's post, we look today on the period pieces created by Retro Bogus Bands . In honor of his passing, and in celebration of his work, we'll lead it off with That Thing You Do , written by Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger, who passed yesterday from complications of Covid-19. In addition to the Oneders , we include Ruben and the Jets , a Zappa project that - reportedly - some thought was a real doo wop group, period pieces by Spinal Tap (please see the Rocklopedia Brittanica for their history), the Rutles , the  Dukes  and a project by Rundgren's Utopia .

April Fools Day, 1985....and XTC releases 25 O’Clock , a six-song EP under the pseudonym Dukes of Stratosphear. Conceived 6 years earlier, the band got to work on the project in 1984. Modeled on 1967-68 British psychedelia, no more than two takes were allowed on any tune, vintage instruments   - including an old mellotron picked up on the cheap – were used when possible, and the madcapery was laid on thick . The joke, though, was on them, as the resulting EP – 25 O’Clock – outsold the previous XTC release, The Big Express . What we have today,  Dukes of Stratosphear & Sources ,  is the 25 O’Clock, coupled with the Dukes’ subsequent album, Psonic Psunspot. Each song is followed by the track (or tracks) that it evokes, at least for me. Some connections are instrumental, some thematic,  and yet others stem from the use of effects and treatments that were, as they say, “of their time.”