Album 12-Neil Young, Ragged Glory

 

When I started my 12 favorite albums project in June of 2024, I didn’t think it would take my this long to get to album 12. I did make other entries, so that broke things up, but really the issue with this is that I kept going back and forth as to which Neil Young album I should include.

I’ve been a Neil Young fan since I was a young lad, with Decade being a favorite Christmas present

from Santa Claus in 1977, and Rust Never Sleeps/Live Rust never being far from my turntable even in the throes of my Punk Rock phase through high school and college. The primal, simplistic playing and the singing always slightly off key, with the hazy harmonies of Crazy Horse, it seemed as Punk Rock as anything else I listened to. I always felt like if I practiced hard enough, I’d be able to play the acoustic songs, which now I discovered is kind of true. I remember reading Robert Hilburn’s review of Neil’s Forum show in ’78, and I thought, damn, I wanted to be there. I gotta see

this guy. The Rust Never Sleeps film gave me an idea of what I missed, and I really looked forward to seeing him at some point in the future.

Rust Never Sleeps has risen in notoriety, first with the mention of Johnny Rotten when it first came out, a rock dinosaur name checking a notorious punk rocker, and then being quoted in Kurt Cobain’s suicide note. But other songs really stuck out to me, too. Ride My Llama just floated around my head, and I wanted to find out what Marlon Brando would say by the fire with Pocahontas (the version of Songs for Judy adds Muhammad Ali, the First Family and John Ehrlichman by the fire as well). Powderfinger is a near perfect song, both here and in a version by the Beat Farmers. And the eternal question-do Welfare Mothers Make Better Lovers? The title would make a great bumper sticker.

As Neil releases his archival tapes, other versions of the Rust era songs have come out, adding more depth. If you’re as big a fan of Rust Never Sleeps as I am, be sure to check out the aforementioned Songs for Judy, Hitchhiker, and Oceanside/Countryside.

I bought the records after Live Rust, Hawks and Doves (Union Man) and Reactor (Opera Star) but could not relate to Trans.

I often feel that I’m the only person who liked Everybody’s Rockin’, and I absolutely loved the video

for Wonderin’, easily one of my favorite Neil Young songs.

I saw Neil with the International Harvesters, touring for the Old Ways album, and I was very disappointed. I wanted to rock, and this was Country, and not even the kind of Country that I liked. Neil was unaware, but I drifted away at that time, though I did pick up This Note’s for You and Freedom.

But then Ragged Glory dropped, and I was back in. Ragged Glory is just raw, with Crazy Horse locking into their groove and banging away. It’s the kind of playing that’s just four guys with their amps cranked, Neil shouting over the top and Crazy Horse shouting back.  F!#*in’ Up is a tremendous song with a sentiment that really appealed to me at the time, and Days That Used to Be has the nostalgia that I now live. 

There are several Neil Young/Crazy Horse collaborations over the years, but these two are the albums that personify their music together, and are a great 1-2 punch. Ragged Glory is the album I put here, but it could have easily been Rust Never Sleeps. Generally, I like songs that are short, which would give Rust Never Sleeps the edge, but as I play Ragged Glory, I don’t feel like any of the songs drag-my complaint about many of Neil Young/Crazy Horse collaborations. Both are solid, but the groove of Ragged Glory gives it the edge.

Oasis-What's the Story Morning Glory?

Oasis-What’s the Story Morning Glory?

 

 

I really like Definitely Maybe, too, and went back and forth on which one to put here. The first two Oasis albums are a great 1-2 punch for Brit-Pop, and a couple of my favorite 90s albums.

In the mid-90s I was living in a small apartment in Pasadena, and I’d finally started making a little money. I decided that it was time to actually learn to play guitar, and so I went to Guitar Center and bought a Epiphone PR-5 cutaway from Korea, which I found to be bright and very playable. Then I headed to a small guitar shop, and hooked up with a teacher, who’d show me some basic blues riffs and scales, which I still use to warm up, and then I’d play a tape of a song that I wanted to play. He’d break it down for me and then write up the tabs, which I would then go home and practice.

I actually got fairly competent, and I could play from sheet music and follow along with other players.

It was the early days of the internet, and America Online had guitar chord forums, and from that I pulled Wonderwall. It’s a simple chord progression, capo on the second fret starting with an Em7, which sounds fancy until you finger the rest of the progression. I was playing it once in a guitar store, and a pretty girl came up and asked what it was, which was really nice. It meant that I was playing something that sounded like a song!

There are many things that I would like to say to you,
but I don’t know how,
except maybe
are you gonna be the one that saves me
and after all,
you’re my Wonderwall

Is something that I would have liked to have written, and the woman I might have written it to then just passed away last week. The video was visually interesting, too, shot in black and white (except for a colored guitar) with Liam singing in a dentist chair placed inside a warehouse and Noel holding a megaphone, singing the chorus in Liam’s ear.

But there are other songs that I really liked, too. Hello starts the album with phased/fuzzed power chords over a bed of acoustic guitars, She’s Electric (from a family full of eccentrics) shows the fighting Gallagher brothers had a sense of humor, and the epic power-ballad Champaign Supernova (where were you while we were getting high?), closes out the album with a touch on melancholy.

Actually, as I listen to the album playing now, melancholy seems to run through many of the songs, like Don’t Look Back in Anger or Cast No Shadow.

Back in the 90s, in spite of the dense sound filling my apartment, I felt like I could play every song on the album. I still feel that way now, making the whole thing relatable.

In  2014, a three disc reissue of the album was released, with remastered sounds, b-sides that I had collected back in the day, and some live performances. I picked it up on eMusic (in the early 00s eMu was a good place to find odds and ends. Not so much anymore) for the price of one disc, and it’s very good.

Social Distortion-Social Distortion

Social Distortion-Social Distortion

Social Distortion is back on the road, coming to town in a few weeks, and I’ll be there.

Social Distortion was a mainstay on Rodney on the Roq, the old KROQ Sunday night punk rock extravaganza, hosted by Los Angeles’s perennially peripheral Rock 'n Roll character, Rodney Bingenheimer, which was where my listening taste graduated to after years of Dr. Demento. Their second single, 1945, was in heavy rotation and appeared on Rodney’s second compilation album.

Then, in December of ’81, my sister talked me into driving her and her friends to Godzillas, a converted wreck of a bowling alley out in the San Fernando Valley. I wedged my girlfriend, my sister and three or four of her friends into my ’77 green Toyota Celica (not the most I ever got into that car-pre seat belt laws were an exciting time for teenage drivers. And the strangest thing was that everyone’s parents were okay with it), and drove the hour or so from Downey to the venue.

I’d guess that my sister wanted to see Salvation Army, the band that would become the Three O’Clock, which I didn’t care for then because my sister liked them, (but I did own all their vinyl-they were good!), and I liked 45 Grave. Social Distortion was a bit of an afterthought.

Godzillas was a mess of a venue, with several large rooms of teenagers, mostly punk, but valley kids, surfers and others. I stumbled into the room where Social Distortion started to play, and it was an amazing set-band leader Mike Ness blistered through songs like Playpen and Mommy’s Little Monster, and though they were totally hardcore songs, there were harmonies, melodies and pretty good guitar solos to go with the punk rock guitar crunch. The show ended when stage divers knocked down the equipment and Ness stormed off stage. Ness was always anti-stage divers, unlike some of the other bands on the scene.

After that, I saw several Social Distortion shows, and from ’81 to ’84  I’d go see Social Distortion, Agent Orange, X and Wall of Voodoo whenever I could. Mommy’s Little Monster (1983) was a great lp, filled with teenage angst and punk rock fury, and Social Distortion was the high point of the Another State of Mind (1984) film. And then they seemed to vanish.

After addiction and a stint in the County Jail, Ness cleaned up and found old friend and bandmate Dennis Danell and reformed Social Distortion with Prison Bound (1988). Not a bad record, but not like their first one. Like the Rolling Stones, Ness started wearing his blues and country leanings on his sleeve.

The Epic Records debut, Social Distortion, jumped out of the radio. Ball and Chain and Story of My Life are simple, three chord country feeling rockers, with producer Dave Jerden mixing acoustic guitars on the bottom and crunching Les Pauls arching over the noise. The flat out punk rock numbers, like Let it Be Me and She’s a Knock Out seem to ride in on a wave of P-90 glory, with Ness’s crude lead lines surfing over the top.

Since then, I’ve seen Social Distortion several times, including being in the club when Live at the Roxy was recorded (I’m also featured on Kiss’s Alive II). I’m about the same age as Ness, and Downey is Orange County adjacent, so we share many influences. In listening, it sounds like Ness was more of an outsider than I ever was-I really did want to belong, but his songs of growing up echo many of the feelings I had about getting older too.

Songwriters that I seem to relate to because we’re about the same age and seem to be going through some of the same issues include Mike Ness, Paul Westerberg and Matthew Sweet. Other people write songs that I can relate too also, but not as consistently.

Every Social Distortion album is solid, and it was hard to choose between Social Distortion and Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell.

 

Mike Ness

12/7/24

Not a review, but just a quick note-Social Distortion last Tuesday was fantastic! For over 40 years, Social Distortion delivers! 

The mosh pit was much slower then back in the day, but it was friendly like it was when I first started going to shows, and I stationed myself in the same spot I did back then, right at the edge, picking people up and throwing them back in. Of course, the people I was (trying) to pick up were much heavier, and I did have some trouble getting my leverage to throw them, but I liked the energy much better than some of the shows I attended in the mid-80s, where it seemed like the moshers just wanted to hurt people and not just fly around running into people. I guess when you move into your 50s and 60s, hurting people isn't a thing anymore.

Social Distortion's Stage Set

Not to argue with Ness, but he kept alluding to how Social Distortion has been around for 40 years, but that's not quite true. Ness has been, but the entire band has changed several times over the years, though the current line-up has been stable for the last dozen years.

The show was opened by the Defiant, a punk rock supergroup that very much sounded like vocalist's Dickey Barrett's previous group, the Mighty Mighty BossToneS, not a bad thing if you liked them, and I picked up their CD in the lobby, getting the signatures of several bandmembers, who were all chatting up the crowd. Dicky Barrett even slid into the pit during the Social D set, coming over and saying something in my ear that I didn't catch.

The show ended at 11:15, and I'd guess that that back at Godzilla's, Social Distortion was probably just starting their set at 11:15. Old folks got to work the next day.

 

Donovan-The Classics Live

 

Donovan-the Classics Live

What seems like 100 years ago, I had a buddy who was living with an artist on a farm in San Luis Obispo. If I recall, she was reasonably well known on the Central Coast, and though her name escapes me now, she collaborated on a few works with Wyland in the early '90s, among other things.

The girlfriend I had back then and I went up to visit him, which turned into a fight because she didn’t want to stay with them. But we did, being put up in one of her kid’s rooms, and when I woke up in the morning, she was painting in the living room with Donovan’s Classics Live playing loudly. There’s a lot of memories in all that, because it turned into a strange weekend for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the artist’s much more casual attitude when talking about my sex life. (“I told M——- that you two would get here and f%$@, so there’s plenty of blankets on the bed.” It was true, even though we were fighting, but my Catholic upbringing would keep me from saying something like that).

I’m not an artist-I’m a writer (though if you’ve been reading, you may have your own thoughts), and spending time with her and some painters that were living in her barn was enlightening. I’d just read Brian Wilson’s now discredited autobiography where he was discussing how he thought generally in music, and that there were always melodies playing in his brain. I also remembered taking Spanish in high school, and Sr. Resor explaining that we needed to think in Spanish, and only one phrase ever came to me faster in Spanish than English, “Yo no sé,” (“I don’t know”).

I asked all the painters how they thought, did they think in pictures or words, and then discussed with them their thought process as they prepared to paint-it was fascinating. They generally thought in pictures, and as you might have guessed, I think in words. They didn't seem all that fascinated by it, but I did.

Back to Donovan. Classics Live is mellow, very very mellow to the point of floating away on a cloud. I’ve found a few reviews online, and the knowledgeable music scholars consider this to be a money grab, an artist well past his prime re-recording his classic tunes with the hope that the unsuspecting will pick up inferior versions of the songs the artist made famous on another label.

And it’s most likely true. The Wikipedia page for this album refers to it as Rising, and gives a complicated history for it's release that I wasn't really aware of until I read it. I did know it was a re-issue with a new title when I bought it, but not much else.

No matter. Donovan was a folk singer to begin with, so playing stripped down, acoustic versions of his classics doesn’t hurt the songs in the least. Donovan’s voice is in fine form, and the three new (at the time) songs blend in well, with “Young and Growing,” being one of the best on the album. Hurdy Gurdy Man, Wear Your Love Like Heaven and Sunshine Superman all benefit in this format.

I’ve played it often, pulling it out on Sunday mornings or times when I want some quiet music playing at a loud volume.

My only complaint is that my favorite Donovan song isn’t on here-no Mellow Yellow.

The Who A Quick One (Happy Jack)/Sell Out

I knew Magic Bus and My Generation, but when I hit High School, the kids were listening to Baba O’Reilly from Who’s Next, and Tommy (the movie soundtrack, not the original). By Numbers was out, but I didn’t really take to it.

 

 

Then came Who Are You at the start of my sophomore year. Licorice Pizza in Downey had a pretty good import section, and I bought the longer import version, which didn’t sensor the “Who the fuck are you?” line.

I alluded in another “12” post about the Wherehouse affiliate store, Big Ben and the Lakewood branch. In the cut-out bins, I came across this two record set, and in my mind, the two are very much linked together. It must have been a good price, and I knew I Can See For Miles so I plunked down the cash and found that I really enjoyed the early Who. Also in the bins was another two discer, Magic Bus/My Generation, which I’m surprised I didn’t buy as well, but I think I bought the imported The Story of the Who instead.

Tommy was long and convoluted, not really making any sense to me-deaf, dumb and blind kid? Really? And though I liked Elton John’s Pinball Wizard, and thought it was strange to see Ann Margret rolling around in beans, the Tommy Movie or the original Who version didn’t make much sense to me. I could follow Quadrophenia better, but not much better.

But the nine or so minutes of A Quick One (While He’s Away) made sense. Moon’s drumming drives home the story of the girl who’s been waiting for her man, get’s tired of waiting and takes up with Ivor the Engine Driver, then her man comes back, forgives the transgression, and everything’s good once more. The tempos and styles change quickly, and to me it represents everything that is the Who. I love the power chording of Townshed’s guitar and the bass runs from Entwhistle. The harmonies are far from perfect, which gives the song the feeling that anyone could shout along.

Cobwebs and Strange, Moon’s contribution, seems to always creep into my head when I need an instrumental, and other songs, like So Sad About Us and Boris the Spider were immediate favorites.
From Sell Out, of course I Can See For Miles is a great Who song, but Tattoo, I Can’t Reach You, and Silas Stingy all contain classic early Who styling. Unlike the longer songs of later albums, these songs are short and to the point.

Keith Moon died while I was in high school, and Who Are You became a huge hit. I liked Trick of the Light and the title track, but it was the short songs of the early years (A Quick One is several short songs crammed together), that I always preferred. I must own four or five versions of A Quick One (While He’s Away)-the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus or the original studio version are my favorites. Early Who-that’s where the power is!

The Rolling Stones-Some Girls

 The Rolling Stones Some Girls

 

I remember bringing Made in the Shade to an 8th grade dance because strangely my Catholic School classmates would only dance to ballads (probably because holding each other drew less attention than ‘shaking your groove thing’), and put on Angie, which was loudly greeted by groans and I took it off right away. I personally didn’t play Made in the Shade that much-I think I bought it because I wanted to
seem more grown up, but found the songs hard to sing along to.

When I started high school, the Rolling Stones were still a big deal with the stoner crowd that I didn’t really hang out with. Black and Blue had just been released, and I wanted to like it, but it didn’t work for me, and I wasn’t going to spend my savings on it.

When Miss You was released I wasn’t as dead set against disco as I would be a few years later-chicks in tight fitting disco clothes will change the mind of a teen-age boy, and somewhere I have the 12” extended version on pink vinyl. At this point, I’m wondering if it’s the same character on both sides-Jagger wandering Central Park on a Friday night, turning down the buddy who wants to take him to meet some ‘Puerto Rican girls’ because he ‘Miss(es) You,’ thumping disco beat coming from nearby clubs, and then flying out to LA, driving through Bakersfield Sunday morning and looking for ‘the girl with far-away eyes’ from NY. Whether that’s true or not, I did play the b-side more.

I bought Some Girls with the original cover filled with women, only some of whom I recognized, and played it often. I liked the way the guitars blended together, with no real discernible lead guitar, and that most of the songs were short. The title track, with what the ‘Black Girls’ want to do, was appropriately taboo for a 16 year old, and Richards’ vocal Before they Make Me Run made me feel better about my own limited vocal range. I was moving into my Punk Rock phase, but the Rolling Stones were still a common touchstone in an American high school. Shortly after, I was rifling the extensive cut-out bins Big Ben’s in Lakewood, where Metamorphisis would regularly turn up, and found Rolled Gold, a cash

grab compilation from Decca focused on the early work of the Stones, and two other compilations (one with a red cover and one with a blue cover) and discovered that I really liked early 60's era Stones, things like Paint it Black, Under My Thumb, and Get Off My Cloud, which led me to buy my second favorite Stones album, Aftermath (US Version-I didn't know there was a different UK version), which didn’t really win me many friends when the stoners at school were listening to Black and Blue or It’s Only Rock and Roll.

When the 2011 Deluxe reissue was released, I bought it curious to hear the bonus tracks from the time. I knew that the best of the outtakes were used for the Tattoo You lp, so I didn’t have high hopes, but No Spare Parts jumped out of the speakers. Another first person narrative like Miss You and Far Away Eyes, it stuck with me immediately. Jagger redid the vocals, and the song is better for it-compare with the original here. His voice is older and works better with the character, and the narrative is leaner, seemingly about an older man driving through the southwest to visit (and care for) his much younger woman. Interestingly, the other outtake high point, So Young, also seems to be older man/younger woman, but here Jagger sounds like the creepy old guy hitting on a teenager at a French arcade. A few of the other tracks are worth a listen as well.

Johnny Cash-American Recordings

 

 

Johnny Cash American Recordings

I’ve always known who Johnny Cash was. He’s Johnny Cash, a mythical figure who’s deep voice and large presence just seemed to dwell in my consciousness. I don’t know of a time when Folsom Prison Blues didn’t exist. I know that I was alive on the release of A Boy Named Sue, but it seems like it was always there. I’d watch Johnny when he showed up on the Mike Douglas Show, which came on after school and would have a variety of musical guests.

From late ’75 to early ’76 I listened to country music station KLAC, and recall two hits of that time, Johnny Cash’s One Piece at a Time and Tom T. Hall’s Faster Horses.

In the 80s, I thought of Johnny as a kind of dinosaur that continued to roam the earth, a larger than life figure that called up a time long past. While I was on the Otter (KOTR) in SLO, my radio co-host and I pulled the new U2 Album, Zooropa and played the Wanderer on a lark. Playing it now, I stand by my original opinion-why? It’s a good vocal performance for Cash, but the synthesized backing track seems gimmicky, and I wonder if the song would have been improved with the synth mixed down and an acoustic guitar mixed up.

A few years later, on a ski trip in Mammoth with a girlfriend and her family, her step-dad pulled out American Recordings, and I listened to Delia’s Gone. I was floored.

For the next few days, I asked to hear that cassette every evening, and bought American Recordings when I got home. This old man (just a touch older than I am now) was singing these amazing songs, just him and his old Martin acoustic. The music was so full, I don’t think I realized that there were no backing musicians. (Like a Bird on a Wire is playing right now, filling the space here in my backyard). A credit to producer Rick Rubin, who somehow managed to capture the fullness of the rooms (Johnny’s cabin and Rubin’s living room) in the recordings.

House of Blues, Sunset Strip

There were a couple of live tracks, Tennessee Stud and The Man Who Couldn’t Cry, played for an adoring crowd at Johnny Depp’s Viper Room, and I’d got to see Johnny at the House of Blues on his birthday in 1996. Johnny commanded the stage in a way that I’ve only seen a few performers do. He started the way you’d imagine-“Hello, my name is Johnny Cash,” and went right into I Walk the Line. June came out and sang a few songs, and it looked like Grandma and Grandpa climbed onstage. June belted songs from the bottom of her feet-it was quite a sight. We were also treated to Carlene Carter and Rosanne Cash, and Johnny looked happy and proud. The encore saw Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Howie Epstein come out for Rusty Cage. By the end, I was convinced that Johnny could have come out and sang the phone book and it would have been awesome.

All volumes of American Recordings are excellent, and Johnny’s version of Hurt, especially with the video, is frightening, showing the frailty of a man near death, and alarming in that wife June is shown gazing at him, and would precede him to the Promised Land. I almost put his VH1 Storytellers album with Willie Nelson on this list as well. I enjoy the 60s era Columbia records, too, but Rick Rubin really seemed to know how to get the best out of Johnny Cash, and as I get older, I’m glad that Johnny Cash did excellent work in his 60s.

Cheap Trick-In Color

 In 1977, I was able to talk my Dad into taking me to see Led Zeppelin at the Fabulous Forum, and then my sister and I were able to talk both my parents to taking us to see Kiss. Somewhere in my Mom’s garage, the “I Was There” button remains, as they were recording the concerts for the Alive II album.

I really liked the opening act, too. There were two total rocker dudes,
the singer/rhythm guitarist and the bassist, and also some nerdy guy with a weird hat and a bunch of guitars playing lead and a balding guy who looked like he should be working at a bank playing drums. In a building full of crazed Kiss fans, the opener, a band called Cheap Trick, held their own.

They were touring behind their second album, In Color, which I bought a few weeks after the show. Something about albums that you don’t get from downloads-the covers were often extremely interesting. In Color had Robin Zander and Tom Peterson (the rockers) sitting astride choppers in color on the front, and Rick Neilson and Bun E. Carlos on mopeds in black and white on the back. Several of the songs from the concert (Rick Neilson standing on a tiny riser playing the opening lick of Clock Strikes Ten at the front of the stage still burns in my memory), were on the album, including one that I thought should be a huge hit and I played if for everyone who’d listen-the studio version of I Want You to Want Me.

I still like the studio version better than what became the hit, the live version from Budokan. I thought the crowd was unnecessary and took away from the sonic textures of the album version. Tom Werman’s production was clean and bright, with guitars and vocals loud in the mix. I Want You to Want Me is a great song, three minutes of pop perfection on an album filled with great pop rock songs.

The opening track, Hello There, I remembered from the concert and still opens their live sets-I now see Cheap Trick regularly on 45 year intervals, having last saw them at the Ventura County Fair two years ago. (Next time, 2067). It’s starts with a tightly strummed power chord, and then a drum cuts through followed by Zander’s “Hello there ladies and gentlemen/are you ready to rock?”

Rick Nielson, the band’s songwriter and lead guitarist, crafts solid three minute guitar heavy pop, and though there are some dark moments (I want to live on a mountain/way down yonder in Australia/it’s either that or suicide/it’s such a strain on you), the gloss on the music might keep you from noticing.

Heaven Tonight, Live at Budakon (I had the original Japanese import) and Dream Police were all good, too. When the original bass player left, the quality dropped a bit, but The Summer Looks Good on You from a couple of year ago is a great track.

I also have and recommend the Steve Albini sessions of In Color, where the band went into the studio with the Nirvana producer in 1997 and re-recorded In Color in a more stripped down version.

Matthew Sweet-Girlfriend

 

In 1992 I quit my LAUSD teaching job in a huff, broke up with my girlfriend and moved in with a buddy in San Luis Obispo. I was 29, and going through an ‘angry young man’ stage of moderate self-sabotage, the chrysalis before my emergence to what I am now, 30-odd years later.

In the year I lived in SLO, I worked several odd jobs, juggled girls, and was the fill in guy at KOTR, a free form FM station where Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend was in heavy rotation. I think I was able to talk the station managers, Drew and Clam Chowder into scoring me a copy, which I played non-stop at home. It seemed to catch my mood perfectly. Guitars both jangly and jagged provided by Robert Quine, Richard Lloyd and Sweet himself, Sweet’s self-harmonizing, Lloyd Cole’s solid bass lines and Fred Maher’s inventive drumming and bright production all served what Sweet called his ‘break-up’ album, and though Sweet would have solid songs on all of his following albums, nothing matched the quality and variety of Girlfriend

The title track has everything, an acoustic guitar hard strumming, a crunching electric rhythm guitar with a lead guitar howling over both, drums and maracas playing, and then the instruments drop out and Sweet’s voice comes in with the opening line of:

I wanna love somebody/ I hear you need somebody to love.

It’s exactly what I was thinking, and exactly the way I wanted to say it.

Other tracks, like the opener Divine Intervention could have been singing right to me-“I don’t know where I’m gonna live/Don’t know if I’ll find a place,” summed up my SLO experience perfectly. The music behind the lyric, though, that was the clincher, an overdriven electric chugging through power chords in a medium tempo, an acoustic guitar matching it, with lots of sonic goodies underneath and Richard Lloyd’s guitar squealing over the top. The false fade of melodic noise also adds to this track. Some God issues, which I was also having, floated through this song and others (Evangeline, Holy War) on the album as well.

The Legacy edition includes the Goodfriends bonus disc, with two more versions (one with piano that's really good) of the title track, as well as demos and live versions of other tracks, which is almost as good, showing that even stripped down the songs hold up.

Sweet’s about my age, and, as is apparent on his “Under the Covers” series with Susana Hoffs, must have the same record collection I did. You can hear his influences-Neil Young’s lead guitar and Beatles-like harmony especially, and though it is definitely a band album, there’s a lot of things sonically happening in the mix. Songs starting as if the guys had been playing something else first and false fades are common, as well as the sound of guitars plugging in and odd percussion elements. The album rewards repeated listening with aural surprises and 30 years later Girlfriend is still my favorite.

And Tuesday Weld is beautiful.

Have I written about Matthew Sweet before? Yes I have, thanks for asking-check right here

Have I written about K-Otter before? Yep, done that too! Check here and here

Locals Only by the Surf Punks

 

   The Surf Punks’ Locals Only might well be the guiltiest of guilty pleasures on this list. It’s not deep or profound, the musicianship is basic, and the songs are simplistic and filled with junior high locker room humor.

    But in my JuCo days I thought it was hysterically funny and I played it all the time. Formed by producer/drummer/singer Dennis Dragon (The Captain of Captain and Tennille’s younger brother) and Drew Steele in Malibu, the surfers/musicians seemed to be hosting the beach party that I wanted to get into. Their first album, My Beach, had a couple of good songs and lots of pieces of other songs, but it was their second one, Locals Only, where it all seemed to come together. Unlike the first album, there was an actual band for the second album, and though most of the songs were written by Dragon/Steele, stand out contributions also came from Mark “the Shark” Miller’s sliding bar chord classic Shark Attack, and Scott “the Valley” Goddard’s I’m a Valley (he wrote Manny Moe and Jack with the Dickies as well as Cowpunk). The musicianship was all pretty basic, but there were a lot of audio surprises mixed into the songs, making the sound of the album far more interesting.

    The live shows were where the Surf Punks stood out. They weren’t true punks like the rest of the LA scene. These were not pasty white guys screaming about how their parents didn’t love them enough and how tough their life was, wearing torn black clothes and safety pins. The Surf Punks were a little bit older, in surf trunks, day-glo tank tops and water polo caps, and instead of angst, they were singing songs showing the hedonistic pleasure of their beach lives. In the title track, their verses of trips to “Diego” ("those boys threw rocks at me!") and Ventura ("they not think we funny!"), end with the party that I wanted to be at: Now we have beach parties, naked girls will do the swim. I knew their naked girls would be big bosomed blonde beach babes and not the frightening looking goth chicks that were on the LA punk rock scene (Susana Hoffs and Jane Weidlin notwithstanding).

    I saw the Surf Punks twice, once in Hollywood and once in “the Valley” and both times they delivered. Drew rode in on his skate board guitar, Jerry Weber walked all over the stage with his keyboard around his neck, Andy the lifeguard came out of his tower-yes, there was a lifeguard tower on stage-to peel off some lead licks, bikini clad chicks coming out to dance to “Big Top” (when are those things gonna pop?) Mark the Shark wearing his fin, Scott the Valley singing his songs, and Dennis keeping a no-nonsense 4/4 beat. It appealed to me and my water polo playing buddys.

    Locals Only catches the wave of the Surf Punks party, and now, over 40 years later when I can go to Malibu anytime, I still want to find where the Spoiled Brats from Malibu hang out.

12 Favorite Albums/iMac Jukebox

What seems like a hundred years ago, I was visiting my in-laws, and I noticed that they had a fancy digital music storage system. They had stacks of cd's, all piled around a massive hard drive. I don't remember what brand it was, but I do remember looking it up and seeing it was pretty expensive.

Years after that, I was updating my home computer, and had an idea-why not store all of my cd's on a computer dedicated to only music. I was about to transfer my data from my old iMac to my new iMac, but the old one was still in reasonably good shape. I figured that if I took everything but iTunes off of it, and kept only iTunes and an external hard drive, it would be pretty much the same thing as my in-laws had, and with a good set of computer speakers, it would work for the living room. It wasn't set up to rattle the walls, but I don't listen to music that way much in the house-the car is a different story-so I didn't need that kind of volume.

So I set it up, and added a few features. The screen saver is set to show pictures of the family, so if the iMac isn't playing music, it's acting like a giant picture frame. Originally, I used an iMac G4 (which is still in the garage doing the same thing) and then switched to an iMac G5 from 2006 that I bought used in 2012 for around $100. I started with just uploading selected songs from the thousand or so cd's that I had, but when I was working on my Master's degree, I realized that it easier to just load the entire cd and then sort out what I wanted later. I would take a stack of cds and upload them whenever I needed to look up from whatever project I was working on.

What I didn't realize initially was that the Mac download was set to 192kbps instead of 320kbps, a sound quality loss that is noticeable with careful listening. I adjusted that about six years ago, and now generally only download things that are at that bit rate. At the end of the pandemic I decided to start taking selected cd's that I had loaded previously and reloading them at a higher bit rate, and it was going pretty well until my external hard drive crashed. The hard drive was old and had been making funny noises-it was the kind with the spinning disk-and then one day it just went belly-up. 

I took the hard drive all over town to see if someone could salvage the files. Many songs I'd picked up off the internet from websites that were only up for a while (Willard's Wormholes was a particular favorite, and I was never quite sure what surprises the WFMU blog would have), and weren't available anymore. But the hard drive truly was trashed.

I had backed up about 3/4s of what I had onto a newer hard drive, and I've been slowly hunting down other things. I think I'm still 4,000 songs short, but it's mostly obscure stuff that I hadn't really listened to, so I don't really know what's missing.

I'm also back to the project that I had originally started, upping the sound quality on the files, and taking a close listen to what I have. I can also see how often I've played something. I've decided to take another look at my favorites-which cd's I'd take with me if I was stuck on an island with an old Walkman, (Side note-I've been experimenting with upgrading a couple of old click wheel iPods-more on that later).

On the right I have a list that I made when I started this blog, and a few I'd still take with me. Girlfriend, Ragged Glory, Rain Dogs, Revolver and American Recordings all still stand the test of time. But I'm not so sure about The Supreme Genius of King Khan & the Shrines, Potatoes, and (gasp) Sinatra's Swingin' Sessions and More.

In my playing history, I'm more likely to pull out Cheap Trick's In Color, Donovan's The Classics Live, The Rolling Stones' Aftermath or Some Girls, or the Who's Sell Out. For reasons somewhat unclear to me, the Surf Punks' Locals Only had crept back into my rotation. I also have a soft spot for What's the Story, Morning Glory? and Social Distortion.

You probably noticed that nothing I've listed has been recorded in this century. I still listen to music, and things catch my ear that I enjoy. Wet Leg's Chaise Lounge and Wet Dream (I had to look up "Buffalo 66"), I find to be very sexy, but the album didn't really move me. I'll watch every video Youtube spits at me of Garfunkel and Oates, but I can't imagine just listening to them. Both Lil Nas X's Old Town Road and Cardi B's WAP are in rotation in my car, but I haven't picked up an album by either of them. The other day I was watching something and Battez Vous by the French artist Brigitte was playing and I downloaded it. I still buy new music when it's released by acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, X, The Rev. Horton Heat, Brian Setzer, Andy Prieboy and Southern Culture on the Skids, (again, all acts from the 80s and 90s) and I'm a big fan of new music compilations from Raiders of the Lost Hook and Ice Cream Man Power Pop and More! I also enjoy Little Steven's Underground Garage when I have access to Sirius XM.

I think I kept pretty up-to-date on music until my mid-thirties. Then I got married, had kids and didn't really have the time anymore. KROQ was my connection for new music, but it's hard to get here in Ventura. I'm not young anymore, but I still like a catchy, three minute song. I just don't relate to songs about girls and school and parties and such unless they remind me of a time when I did relate to girls and school and parties and such. Now it's women, work and retirement-not very rock and roll.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to try to thoughtfully write about my favorite albums. So again, here they are, in alphabetical order by artist:

1. The Beatles-Revolver
   
2. Johnny Cash-American Recordings
3. Cheap Trick-In Color
   
4. Donovan-Classics Live 
5. Oasis-What's the Story, Morning Glory?
   
6. The Rolling Stones-Some Girls
7. Social Distortion-Social Distortion 
   
8. Surf Punks-Locals Only
   
9. Matthew Sweet-Girlfriend
10. Tom Waits-Rain Dogs
11. The Who-A Quick One/Sell Out
    
12. Neil Young-Ragged Glory  

This is going to be writing practice for me, and I don't want to get bogged down on any one entry, so I'm going to keep my thoughts at no more than 500 (or so) words.

Ventura Music Hall

X rocking the Ventura Concert Hall

 

 

 

The Ventura Music Hall opened a few months back in the space that once held The Ventura Bowling Center and then Discovery Bowl on Thompson, walking distance from my house. No more bowling, now it's a straight concert/club venue.

A variety of acts have played the venue and are on the upcoming calendar, and I had given serious thought to seeing both Flogging Molly and Bob Mould, but the thought of seeing long time favorites X was just too much to pass up-especially with a ticket price of $25.

The venue itself is pretty nice. Discovery Bowl had cleaned up the bar area in the front, and the bar served a nice selection of local micro-brews. The ceiling, if you get the chance to look up, is an interesting lattice work of wood-the building itself was built during WW II, meaning that there was no steel used in construction.

 

I first saw X in 1981 at the Roxy in Hollywood, and I remember that show was crazy-it scared me a bit. The mosh pit was huge, and I learned how to stand at the edge and push people back in or twist my shoulders to send people flying-whatever was needed. But this crowd looked to be my age or older-X drew an older crowd then the other bands I saw back in the day-and those same people were probably here. That meant that when the mosh pit broke out, it would last about half a song.

Back in the day, even slow songs got a slower moving mosh pit-that didn't happen here. X never liked stage divers, so of course there was none of that in the geriatric crowd that I watched the show with.

The sound mix wasn't great-the vocals were buried. The instruments sounded awesome-Billy Zoom's guitar lines rang true, and you could feel the power of DJ Bonebreak's drumming, but the harmonies make this band, and John Doe and Exene's vocals were low in the mix. The instruments locked into their groove, playing as well as when I saw them in the 80s. The songs from Alphabetland fit in well-the title track sounded like a vintage X song. For whatever it's worth, however, I miss Billy Zoom's Gretsch Silver Jet. He appeared to be playing a Gretsch Country Gentlemen, but I'm not an expert and could be wrong.
 

X does tour with an additional player, Craig Packham, who comes out when Billy Zoom plays the saxaphone or DJ Bonebreak plays the vibraphone. It's obvious, because DJ usually plays more complicated drum parts then the 4/4 that is being played when he moves to vibes.

Check the ceiling woodwork!

Hopefully, the sound mix was an anomaly, though it was a bummer to not get John and Exene's full harmonies. But the venue was good-good site lines all over the house and not too big. I'll see X again when they come through, and I'd happily see people playing at the Ventura Concert Hall.

The Rock Bottom Boys

The Rock Bottom Boys

For reasons that at this time remain somewhat unclear to me, I like bluegrass, Texas swing, and vintage country. I especially like harmonies. I also like fiddle playing, banjos and country yodeling. And I think I have for as long as I can remember.

This is somewhat interesting in that my parents don't care for any of that type of music, and I don't really remember hearing it when I was young except for maybe the Country Bear Jamboree at Disneyland, or the musicians you'd see at Knott's Berry Farm.

I remember Aerosmith and KISS being my favorite bands in middle school, and moving into a whole LA punk rock thing in the late 70's and early 80's-though I did like country-punk band Rank and File

and X's country tribute, The Knitters. Wait, maybe I could have gone country in a different set of circumstances....

When Toy Story 2 came out, I noticed that there was a Woody's Round-Up CD by Riders in the Sky, which I promptly bought for my son, though I played it myself, and then picked up a few other Riders in the Sky CD's as well. I don't think my son cared one way or the other, but I enjoyed them.

A couple of years ago, I picked up Strummin' With the Devil:The Southern Side of Van Halen, which has a bunch of bluegrass bands taking apart their favorite Van Halen songs (David Lee Roth even sings on a few of them), and really liked it.

So two summers ago, as I was strolling across the Ventura County Fair, I heard a rendition of Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train that I really liked, and I made my kids stop and listen. They didn't know any of the songs that the Rock Bottom Boys were performing, mostly covers of 60's and 70's FM radio staples in a bluegrass style, but I liked them so much that I bought their CD, It's Only Rock and Roll, which I play once in a while. Good harmonies, and the guys can play.

I missed the Rock Bottom Boys last year, though they were at the fair, and this year I made it a point to watch one of their sets, bribing my kids to listen. They're one of those fair type music acts, with bad jokes and hillbilly costumes that make them more likable. I don't know what happened to the washboard player, but now they added a young guy on mandolin-another instrument I'd like to learn to play as poorly as I do guitar and ukulele. 

This post kind of went around the mountain to just say that The Rock Bottom Boys are fun, and I'm curious as to why they don't throw a few more modern songs in their set. If your walking across some county fair and see them setting up, stop in for a spell and give 'em a listen.

The Silvertone Acoustic, H621 pt. 3 Embellishments

If you read my other posts concerning the Silvertone, you know that I left off with the gluing of the bridge back together. I also wanted to customize the guitar a bit. I do think it sounds as good or better than every other acoustic I own, but it still didn't cost me very much. If it were a vintage Martin or Gibson, or a new Taylor, I wouldn't mess with it. In fact, I wouldn't have tried to do anything to it beyond change the strings.

But with an old Silvertone, why not have some fun?

So I started with my initials on the headstock, using some bright red paint I bought last summer. Next, using some stencils that I bought for rock painting, I stenciled a screaming skull in black.


After that, I turned the guitar around to try a flaming bush type stencil on the back. The stencil book suggested using blues and yellows, along with red, for the flame effect. I did that, but I'm not sure I like the result.

The gluing of the bridge seemed to work okay, so I painted the bridge black. Using the Titebond glue, I both glued and screwed the bridge back on the guitar. I jury-rigged my clamps and some wood to get equal pressure across the bridge of the guitar without squeezing so tight that I break it.

Then, tragedy struck.

With all the guitars I have, I've never had the next thing happen before.

My sleeve caught one of the clamps while the guitar was up on my workbench. It fell, and with the extra weight of the clamps, the neck cracked in a jagged fashion, around the truss rod.

I put all this work into the guitar, which I think sounds better than any other acoustic I own, and then I break the neck.


I wanted to cry.

When I cracked the neck, there was really nothing left to do but try to break it as cleanly as possible, and then attempt to glue it back together. It really hurt to do, but sometimes, as they say, you have to go through the hurt to get past the pain. So like digging out a splinter, I gritted my teeth and snapped the neck off, careful not to lose any of the pieces. 

I still wanted to cry.

I had all the pieces, though, so now it was time to get on the internet and find out what to do next.

I had hoped this would be a three part post, too. Oh well.

Andy Prieboy at the Getty

When I was in high school, my Aunt gave me an EP that her boyfriend had recommended called "Wall of Voodoo" that he had told her was selling really well at the record store he worked at. I liked it-it was kind of dark and spooky, as the name "Wall of Voodoo" would imply. The version of "Ring of Fire" was pretty cool, but I was more partial to the song, "Can't Make Love." Either way, I played it often, and even ventured to the Whiskey A Go Go in Hollywood in '80 or '81, and Johnny Thunders came on for an encore of "Johnny B. Goode."

At about the same time, a compilation album called "The Rising Stars of San Francisco" came out, and featured a song from a band called Eye Protection. They did a catchy, new wavish number called "Take Her Where The Boys Are," and I liked it a lot as well. Other than both bands being keyboard driven, I wouldn't say that they had much in common.

I saw Wall of Voodoo several times after, including the days following the their first LP, "Dark Continent," when I took my girlfriend to a late show at the Roxy that maybe 60 people were at, and the opening acts were a band so bad that I don't remember what they were called, and some sort of cross-dressing opera singer. "Me and My Dad," was my favorite song off of that one.

The next album (Call of the West) unleashed "Mexican Radio,"which got a great video on MTV, and made Wall of Voodoo relatively big stars. I saw the Stan Ridgeway led Voodoo for the last time at the Country Club in Reseda, in '82 or '83, in a room that was packed, leading Ridgeway to make some snarky comments about where were we all when their last album tanked. I shouted back that "I was there!"

Then Ridgeway and drummer Joe Nanini left, which I thought would kill the band. Ridgeway and Nanini seemed to have all the personality of the band, talking to each other and the audience all throughout the sets. They were fun to watch-the other guys seemed to just stand there.

While I was attending UCLA, in I think '85, Voodoo played the on-campus non-bar (UCLA was a 'dry' campus, which I remember thinking was kind of lame, since I had just turned 21), and Andy Prieboy had joined the band. Voodoo also had a new drummer, Ned Leukhardt, who played a conventional drum kit, which I didn't care for. Nanini had been more of a percussionist, playing wood blocks, trash can lids and other percussion-type items, with the rhythm coming from cheap drum machines. Still, they sounded good. Prieboy looked like a long-haired western dandy, but he had a deep, rich voice unlike Ridgeway's whine, and I remember thinking that some of the new songs were pretty catchy, especially "Far Side of Crazy."

Wall of Voodoo always had a bit of a western feel-not Nashville, but more like Ennio Morricone western soundscapes, but with Ridgeway, Voodoo sounded a bit sinister. Prieboy rocked 'em up a bit. I bought the first Prieboy led Voodoo album, "Seven Days in Sammystown," and thought the Prieboy penned songs were the standouts. This Prieboy led version of Voodoo soldiered on for a few more years, but I never purchased their final two albums.

In 1990, Tomorrow Wendy dropped on KROQ, and I thought it was a great song, in a style that I don't usually listen to. A piano based ballad, which interestingly references Kennedy the same way "Far Side of Crazy" referenced John Lennon, the song was about a prostitute dying of AIDS, still a new disease at the time. Johnette Napolitano sang back-up, and Concrete Blonde also released a version, but I don't think I ever heard it at the time. I bought the album, "...upon my wicked son," and found that all the songs appealed to me, though I think the word play of "Maybe That's Not Her Head" is what I really enjoyed. (Did I just see her nod her head/Is that not her head?/Did she nod her head?/It could be someone else instead/Maybe that's not her head! I thought I'd know her anywhere/Those beautiful eyes and flaxen hair/That must be her, I could swear/But maybe that's not her head).

"Maybe That's Not Her Head" was indicative of the style that Prieboy would begin to pursue. It's a mini-opera of sorts, a music hall song which conjures up images of performers on a tiny stage working Shakespearean type word-play to get laughs and keep the show moving.

I saw Prieboy doing a solo show at Bogarts, a small club in Long Beach. For reasons lost in the mists of time, I didn't bring the girlfriend I had at the time, but instead brought her cousin's Hungarian girlfriend, who was staying with me before I drove her to Berkeley to stay with her boyfriend. English was actually her third language, but she enjoyed Prieboy's mostly piano based performance. Prieboy was entertaining, singing songs and telling humorous stories, blasting a heckler who wanted to hear a Ridgeway-era Wall of Voodoo song and generally having a good time on stage.

Rita D'Albert

In '95, after his second album, "Sins of our Fathers," I went to see him again, playing with Rita D'Albert, who played the flute and occasionally the bass. Prieboy was dressed like a steam punk dandy, while D'Albert was in a sexy 50's pin-up fashion dress. (Different girlfriend this time, one who's grandfather played the flute in church. "Grandpa would like the flautist." Her grandfather was an 80 something retired elementary school principal, and I didn't see her being the old man's type. Her response, "He likes a pretty girl"). Prieboy had a way of working the stage, and though I didn't know it at the time, he was working on the musical, White Trash Wins Lotto. I have to admit that I spent a great deal of time staring at D'Albert, wondering how she could breath into the flute in a dress as tight and short as the one she was wearing, and how she could maneuver without giving us a different type of show.

About this time, from what I can figure, his record label, Dr. Dream Records, went belly-up, being sold to Polygram, and Prieboy seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle.

And I moved away from LA to Ventura, so though Prieboy would pop up in LA, I was busy doing other things. I did read The Psycho Ex Game, a novel he cowrote with former David Letterman writer and girlfriend, Merrill Markoe, which seems to be about the start of their relationship. According to the internet, Markoe and Prieboy live together someplace in LA.

Since I follow Prieboy on Facebook, I was alerted to the Getty show, and since I missed his summer shows, I figured free was a good price, and the Getty seems like it'd be fun. I burned an MP3 to listen to on the way down, and so my wife would have some idea as to what she was going to hear. I found my black, artsy clothes, and wrote all of the above in advance.

Prieboy

Now, I'm back from the Getty show. It was fancy schmancy, too, a great auditorium for a free show, and I'd happily go see anything that's taking place in that room. A few notes about Saturday Night at the Getty. First, and most important, the shows are free! You can reserve tickets in advance, but seats are first come first serve on the night of the show. I reserved my tickets two nights ago, arrived on this rainy Saturday evening at about 6:30 and checked in at the theatre. The lady found my name on her print out, and then asked, "Would you like good seats?" I briefly entertained the idea of asking for the worst seats in the house, something behind a pillar in the next room if possible, and then said, "Yes."

She handed me two tickets on the aisle in the second row. If I had to pick seats out for myself, these are the two that I would have picked without hesitation. The seats were situated in such a way that I looked straight at the stage, without having to look around anyone's head. They were awesome.

Since I didn't have to pay for tickets, I opted to take the wife to the Getty Restaurant, where we had some appetizers. Here's the thing-I don't go to nice restaurants all that often, and really can't think of the last time I've been to one. I knew that everything was pricey, but we were both hungry, so I figured something from the appetizer menu would tide us over, and we could eat after. I ordered the Grilled Squid and the Cheese Board, along with two sodas, which came out to $40. It was good-small portions, of course, but tasty. The room itself was very nice, darkly lit with art on the walls and a view of the city. I'd never take the kids there, but I'd like to arrive earlier and try a meal.

We finished and walked across the campus just in time, taking a program. The title of this show was Andy Prieboy-A Thousand Gorgeous Lies: A Musical Dissertation on the Inevitable Collision Course of Rock and Romance. I checked Andy's band, and it featured Tony Kinman who I saw when he was in Rank and File back in '84, and David Kendrick, Alan Myers's replacement in Devo. That seemed like a pretty solid backing band.

The program even had the set list for the show! I recognized all the songs, and noticed a couple of my Prieboy favorites, "Psycho Ex", and "Can Not Not-The Stalker Song."

Prieboy hit the stage, hamming it up for an audience of obvious fans-the auditorium was packed! Dressed in a dark, double breasted 8 button coat and amazingly skinny trousers, Prieboy had the look of a 19th Century Mad Professor. His band set up, and for the opener, a song that I hadn't heard before but seemed a great introduction-"The Same Great Guy With A Great New Look."

Playing for about 90 minutes, Prieboy told stories between songs, showed artwork from Judith Schaechter, and seemed to be enjoying himself, which is an interesting contrast to the somewhat dour nature of his songs. He also added three songs not on the set list for an encore-the big hit, "Tomorrow Wendy," and "Build a Better Garden" and a sing along version of "Joliet."

As an aside, there's a lot of Catholic imagery in Prieboy's songs, and he alluded to a Romanian Grandmother. Romanians tend to be Eastern Orthodox, which seems like Catholicism on steroids.

I was trying to figure out what appealed to me so much, because Prieboy's music is unlike what I normally listen to. After seeing him, I think it might be that though the songs are a bit down, he himself seems pretty happy. That seems to reflect my personality a bit too-generally happy with a negative side. Also, I like the style of drumming Kendricks was using, which is light on the snare and cymbals, but heavy on the tom-toms and high hat, jazzy in it's way. I know that I appreciate a good double-meaning, which seems to be in a lot of Prieboy's lyrics. And he's always been responsive to an audience-something I remember from when I first saw him 30 years ago.

Snuck this pic at the beginning of the show

Again, a solid show, and I'd go see Prieboy again, even if I have to pay money. If your a Prieboy fan, his shows are always good. If your not a fan, at least he's entertaining and not too loud.

I took the one picture that I labeled. The other two concert shots were pulled from Facebook, one with the Andy Prieboy in stained glass, and the other from up high, during the song "Build a Better Garden", which he played during the encore. I'm not sure why, but Blogger won't separate the those two pics and the one of Prieboy with glasses, so I left them where they are.

Oh, and one other quick note-This is my 100th blog post! If I were a TV show, I'd now have enough to syndicate! Thanks for reading, and respond if you find something interesting!