A Message To The 1%: Be Careful What You Wish For!

The 1% have made it their daily mission to fleece the middle class of every cent they can. Middlemen and corporations everywhere are standing between you and your healthcare, your phone, your television, your car, your money, your internet, your power, banking fees, brokerage fees, ATM fees, phone fees, insurance companies, property tax, everybody is taking a piece of the action on the middle class. The middle class is the great fatted calf.

But that shift in concentration of wealth while all fun and games for those who can buy congress and design the tax laws to their favor are sinking the majority. Students are getting crushed by for profit schools, and the middlemen issuing loans.

Our tax dollars are being siphoned off and misdirected and hoarded. The powers that be squeeze the middle class harder and harder devising new schemes every day to fleece us don't forget nursing homes and end of life care. But that leaves the middle class without enough capital to grow the markets.

Demand creates growth and jobs so the continual squeeze and downward trend of wages ends up hurting the national economy and making a whole lot of people desperate.

Those in power should be mighty careful about the unintended consequences of their internal game of whoever has the most toys wins. Number one its a stupid mindset without real fulfillment and number two the better at the game the 1% get the closer we all get in destroying the game altogether.

Alvin Lee and The Road To Freedom

"There are many forks on the road to freedom and the road to nowhere is one of them" - Graham Alvin Barnes

Alvin's post Ten Years After career moves must have been a jolt to his fans from the Woodstock days.  He shredded all over two continents and worked his tail off but pulled up in 1972.  "I was in danger of joining the dead before 30 club" he said in his last albums liner notes.  Those liner notes from Still On The Road To Freedom are a wonderful final thought to his tried and true fans that hung his posters and played his music not only for themselves but to others as often as they could.  He wanted freedom from long tour schedules playing every night in huge arenas where "the sound echoed like a freight shed" and "security was armed police with cotton in their ears".  He wanted a life outside of all that and I'm happy for him and his family that he orchestrated that for himself. 

As a player you want your audience as quiet as possible so they can hear the nuances of your singing, playing and tone.  You're putting your heart and soul into it you don't want someone blabbing about how drunk they got last week down front.  Then there are the managers who view you as a commodity.  Alvin wanted freedom from "satisfying other peoples greed" as well as the freedom to make his own music.  He didn't want his music to be "commercially premeditated" and he has in the vault twenty more tunes from the past four years in some various form of finality.  The thirteen on his last album he said he liked the best.

Alvin wanted the music to speak for itself and I can totally get behind his attitude of playing what he wanted whether it was his mad love affair with 1950's rockabilly or even a little fiddle music.  Far from the flat out shredding which I personally loved and he obviously enjoyed his post TYA career is a musical menagerie as if listening to a satellite or college radio station mixing one format after another.  His post TYA carrer is perfectly bookend by his first album On the Road to Freedom and Still on the Road to Freedom.  Drop these two discs into any player and you will have a cornucopia of solid sounds, peaceful tunes, back porch picking, wonderful lyrics and as always some serious shredding flying from all manner of fret boards. 

For new fans or old fans to get a grip on an output that went unnoticed by most but included at least forty one albums (at last count) I'm going to offer up a short suggested Alvin Lee Catalog. 

Shhh - Ten Years After
Undead - Ten Years After (2002- Decca Records)
Cricklewood Green - Ten Years After
Essential Ten Years After - (Chrysalis E2 21857) (the one with the flaming guitar)
On The Road To Freedom
Pure Blues
The Best of Alvin Lee (Rep 5257) (the one where he looks like a 1950's greaser)
Still On The Road To Freedom

Shhh is right up there with Cricklewood Green - I love this album its gritty, it floats, there's a tremendous version of Good Morning Little School Girl, there's a John Lee Hookeresque tune called The Stomp that will make you sit up and take notice.  I Don't Know, That You Don't Know is that soft quiet acoustic number that always fits so well juxtaposed to his high energy singing and playing.  Two Time Momma sounds like something Canned Heat would have done (Goin Up The Country).  Its a great album recorded in 1969 a year before Cricklewood Green.

Undead is a live album that they rushed out because of fame and fortune and well I'm glad they did.  It is a snap shot in time of Ten Years After recorded live in front of a small audience.  It swings, it shreds, its the raw blues, it jams, its the young voice, its the excellent drumming and bass work, its the essence of rock n' roll with all its rolled up sleeves, attitude and energy.  Get the reissue because it includes four additional tracks from the show.  How Alvin just rolls through those live licks is astounding.  It includes the tunes Spoonful, Summertime, Woodchopper's Ball, and Crossroads.  The lads are just in their mid-twenty's, and great liner notes from drummer Ric Lee.

Cricklewood Green is such a great album I've devoted another article to it on a previous post.  The two collections Essential and Best of neatly wrap up the Ten Years After catalog and his post TYA career respectively.  If you need help working out or cleaning the house put Essential in and power through it immaculately.  Essential is a tour de force of high energy Ten Years After spanning their catalog and blistering your speakers.  Alternatively Best of is an outstanding double disc with a breadth of playing styles that will not disappoint.  His cover of I Want You (She So Heavy-Beatles) is phenomenal, crunchy and just plain impressive.  It will grab you right away.  Of course The Bluest Blues is here a song with his neighbor George Harrison to which Alvin was especially proud.

Pure Blues pulls together tracks from his entire career opening with an all acoustic number including both TYA tunes and Alvin Lee solo project tunes.  Thirteen choice cuts across various labels that's a must have and a complete no brainer when it comes to appreciating Alvin's talents and completing your catalog.

And then there is 2012's:
Still on the Road to Freedom what a wonderful farewell to his friends, family and fans.  There's multitude of riffs and formats represented here but it all hangs together wonderfully.  Shades of Mark Knopfler come to the top in the opening cuts and then a blues riff that Little Walter would have been proud of dove tails into a 1950's bop Elvis and Carl Perkins would have fought over.  Walk on Walk Tall is another slight gear shift acoustic finger style number followed by a blues finger style number and then quiet horns introduce Song of the Red Rock Mountain.  Song of the Red Rock mountain is just a beautiful number no lyrics, but stylish playing, that evokes a little spanish/western feel to me with shades of Leo Kottke.  He could have put out a whole album like this and the acoustic, new age folk fans and labels would have had an epiphany.  Still on the Road to Freedom closes out with Love Like a Man Pt. 2 and Alvin unmercifully, unleashes his trade mark power guitar to our delight.  But wait as if to say goodbye there's a surprise and a beautiful quiet hidden track takes a bow at the end.

I'll miss Alvin Lee but I'll never stop listening to his music.  His Crickelwood Green Poster has followed me from home to home, studio to studio and will always have a presence where I create and where I live and remind me what to bring on my road to freedom.

Walk On
Walk Tall
Be Strong
Don't Fall
Walk On
To the End
Be my Friend

(It's a deal Alvin)

Alvin Lee - Cricklwood Green

I was just a kid riding around in the back seat of a fast back mustang when my older brother popped into his eight track player Cricklewood Green.  Up popped Sugar the Road with its stabbing opening riffs, in your face lyrics, "what about the people that scream and shout just give em fifty years and they might work it out" and by the end of that four minute song with its blistering leads I was hooked.

The next song Working on the Road chugs in and at the one minute and fifty mark unleashes a torrent of Alvin Lee licks surrounded by a melodic chorus.  Well then who started rap was it the jazz scat singers who cares Alvin is spitting out lyrics and licks as fast as humanly possible that defy the chugging rhythm section and I'm rockin hard my fifteen year old head.

I'm having a good time headed somewhere in the aftermath of the sixties all in on the peace and love.  I mean hell the President and then his brother, the Vietnam War, dead bodies coming home all over the news along with actual war footage and Nixon being impeached, acid, pot, the summer of love, Woodstock, Selma Alabama and righteousness seems like a helluva lot better way to go than bullshit violence to me 50,000 miles Beneath My Brain.

Screaming at the Stars the intro weaves its way in slowly and the build up is immense and intense with a ferocious bass riff launching into a fuzzed up and out of this world riff that just keeps driving and driving, the bass launching an attack, the guitar answering back all in the tonal fuzz of the time...."yeah, yeah, yeah" never sounded so good.

Can you love me with a thousand eyes?
Can you see right through my bones?
Can you kiss me with a thousand lips?
Can you melt a solid stone?
Can you hear me from a thousand miles
When you're screaming at the stars?
Can you pull me up to jupiter
When I'm all hung up on mars?


And then the rollicking, rolling riff that ties up the end.  Holly shit this music has my attention and "Why the hell have you been hiding this from me"!  My brother tells the story to this day.

A false fade out with another taste of the furious 50,000 mile ending then a sonic intro to a classic Nashville 50's rockabilly back beat, with classic 60's lyrics and blistering Chet Atkins riffs just flying off the fret board.  What the what?  Just relentless playing back in the mix fast and clean shwee. 

Me and My Baby Never Get The Blues....Me and My Baby Never Get Uptight... Me and My Baby Never Do a Damn Thing Right.  I mean how perfect is that sentiment for righteous, rebel love.  Me and My Baby Always Feeling Good Love Each Other Sure No Reason Why We Should the righteous ha in your face lyrics couched in a bouncy up beat swing session and two upbeat songs in a row have you feeling pretty snappy and then in drops the bomb!

Love Like a Man:  Another quintessential riff rumbles along and around the two minute mark builds with organ and slashing full chords and Alvin just takes off flying with shearing rock riffs dashing off the fret board sent through a wonderful distortion and delay and how it builds in a cataclysmic orgy of sound busting through any preconceived notions knitting Hendrix and the Doors together in an aha moment of hey this is what all music should sound like. Forget Clapton is God Alvin Lee has tapped into the consciousness of the cosmos.

Circles comes floating down next through the ethereal with an acoustic guitar.  This is a hall of fame closing song for any concept album a thoughtful introspection with Zepplin like acoustic embellishments and its a beautiful moment, a beautiful outro to a blistering album framed in an atmospheric tonal sense and universe worthy of Arvo Part.

I have got what I once dreamed of As a child, so long ago  
But my life just goes in circles ’Cause one answer I don’t know
Does it matter what I do  
Who will hear me if I cry?  
Does it matter what I do 
Does it matter if I die?

Wow rinsed and complete, cool fresh air filling your lungs after an other worldly immense workout.  But wait Cricklewood Green isn't over it deftly brings back the meaningful heaviness.  As The Sun Still Burns Away slowly comes to the fore an ode to our unconsciousness attitude "as few say thank you for the day".  Alvin is letting us know we aren't living in the right frame as affects of the industrial world stomp through his classic rock n' roll wail blowing apart the soft landing of Circles.  

The beauty of eight tracks is that they wind right around to the beginning again and in moments we're having a good time baby having a ball.  

"Keep Working for your pension until your sixty five don't dig it at all, no, no don't dig it at all"  and has much changed?  

Back in the day when albums were works of art from beginning to end Cricklwood Green sits up on the top shelf.  Alvin Lee has left behind some phenomenal music and we will always have it with us if we are smart enough to look behind the glare of the current media and pop rock commercial fame machine which he stepped away from.  I'm so glad he enjoyed his freedom.  I highly recommend revisiting his catalog his music stands the test of time and Cricklwood Green is his most fully realized album.    
  

Despite the Hype - Guns Are Not Cool Fool

Guns aren't cool - they never have been.  Somehow this machismo has grown up around guns.  But guns are not cool they never have been and they never will be.  What is so cool about waving a gun around?  What is so cool about not being able to resolve differences without violence?  What is so cool about not being enough of a man on your own that you need a prop?   What is so cool about bloodshed?  What is so cool about hurting someone else?  What is so cool about not being able to cope with life and lashing out?  What is so cool about intimidating nice people?  None of it is "cool", calm or collected.  Not the culture, not the shiny bullets and handles, not the cost, not the attitudes, not the anger, not the ear splitting shooting ranges and not the darkness.

 

People can be stupid, clueless, unaware, mistaken, misunderstood, unenlightened, violent, angry, impatient, mean, bipolar, schizophrenic put a gun in their hands and those attributes that we all have become lethal.  Guns weren't cool when I was growing up they were decidedly uncool, not mellow, not righteous, not genuine, not peaceful, not loving and not honest, not easy and not laid back.  They were for crack pots, attention getters and criminals not anybody you would go with to surf.

Allman Brothers and Outlaws - Best of the Rest

The Allman Brothers occupy a full shelf in my library tons of CD's Studio, Hits compilation, Mycology is a good one, Box sets, Decade of Hits is also good and live releases including last years show in Raleigh.  There are several albums which had great songs on them but did not make it onto official collections so I am closing the loop so to speak.  There are also a string of albums I would rather forget during the Arista years when Clive Davis tried to milk some more money out of them and turn them into the Dobbie Brothers.  Clearly needing a break creatively the bands sound got homogenized with horns, fiddles and back up signers and lots of synth for the mass market and lost its bearing.  The well was a bit dry but the albums that came before and later Win Lose or Draw, Enlightened Rogues and Seven Turns have some outstanding tracks.

Mycology grabs the strongest tracks off Seven Turns but as an album that came next Shades of Two Worlds is a monster tour de force overlooked powerhouse that sits nicely next to Filmore East.  If you are an Allman Brothers Fan you need to own this entire disc!

The Outlaws are another story they split up before they could get rolling.  Their first two albums Outlaws, and Lady in Waiting have a great variety of strong tracks, vocals, harmonies and fierce playing.  Their third album Hurry Sundown seems to predict their demise or unconscious desire to get away from each other.  Whether they were too busy counting their money or in a power struggle with Henry Paul I do not know.  Even though they derailed themselves those first two albums were a lot of fun when they came out and still stand up very well.  Henry Paul released a nice solo album around this time that is also worth owning.  There is an outstanding Best of the Outlaws: Green Grass and High Tides collection that captures most everything and is a must have but for me it left a few sweet cuts off from the first three albums.  Hughie Thomasson, and Billy Jones sounded great together and the original 1970's line up is worth hearing.

What I did with this Best of the Rest collection was mix in one Outlaw number in between two Allman Brother numbers.  I kicked the whole thing off with Keep Prayin' Everythings Gonna Be Alright by the Outlaws.  This disc is a proud, strong, spirited addition to my collection and closes with Dickie Betts saying, "lets do this one for the two brothers".  Here's the track list.  If you go for it you will find some unearthed nuggets that will put a big old smile on your face.  It all fits on an 80 minute disc and mixes real well.  Without further adieu here's the Allman Brothers and the Outlaws - The Best of the Rest!


Keep Prayin - (Outlaws)
Pegasus - (Enlightened Rogues)
Need Your Love So Bad - (Enlightened Rogues)
Just For You - (Lady In Waiting)
Nevertheless - (Win Lose or Draw)
Can't Lose What You Never Had - (Win Lose or Draw)
Hearin' My Heart Talkin - (Hurry Sundown)
Win, Lose or Draw - (Win Lose or Draw)
Gamblers Roll - (Seven Turns)
Song in the Breeze - (Outlaws)
High Falls - (Win Lose or Draw)
True Gravity - (Seven Turns)
Aint So Bad - (Lady in Waiting)
Sail Away - (Enlightened Rogues) 

Bruce Springsteen The Promise vs The Darkness

What to do Bruce Springsteen is starting to amass a massive catalog.  Darkness on the Edge of Town being the last point for me in trying to keep up.  Other music beckoned but Bruce and the New Jersey Shore have always held a special place in my heart.  The Promise now out has more selections from the Darkness era and I like it better.

I thought that would get your attention.  While Darkness is a great album there are a few tunes that don't do it for me. I was on board from the beginning with Greetings but after Born to Run I slowly drifted away. The River never took hold for me and the whole Born in the USA thing struck me as a Pepsi commercial.

That being said if that's what you liked more power to you and I'm not here to dissuade any of you we all have personal taste.  The Promise is right in my wheel house.  When I first heard this album I thought WOW Bruce is back and then I realized what this disc is all about. (See I'm not an obsessive fan).

I will add that those that think these are fourth tier songs after 18 Tracks (which I like and own as well) I would add not so fast. Obviously these were bare bone tracks that Bruce & Co. wanted to go back in and tweak. Rough cuts that maybe he planned on re-recording a long time ago and didn't get around to doing until now. The other more complete tracks released in the meantime. I have no way of knowing. But I really do think the batch of songs on The Promise are accessible and track after track I think top Darkness.  Believe me I think Adam Raised a Cain is a tour de-force and one of my all time favorite efforts ever by Bruce but while Promise doesn't contain any throat grabbing tracks like Adam/Cain or Candy's Room it is more consistent from the first to last track.  I can't say that about Darkness. Again just my opinion but maybe useful for others out there.  The Promise is a strong consistently good album from beginning to end.

In putting a Bruce Springsteen Collection Together I would stick with the first releases Asbury Park, The Wild and The Innocent, Born to Run, The Promise, 18 Tracks and Live/1975–85. 

In any event I took the opportunity to reacquaint myself with Bruce's huge catalog and threw together a Bruce Best of Volume II so to speak cherry picking off his massive collection after Born to Run.  Here are the songs and sequence.  It turned out real well thought I would share.

Adam Raised a Cain
Badlands
Prove it All Night
Lucky Town
Your Own Worst Enemy
Girls in Their Summer Clothes :)
Brilliant Disguise
Tunnel of Love
Candy's Room
One Step Up
Old Dan Tucker
Cadillac Ranch
Long Walk Home
The Promised Land
Radio Nowhere
The River
My Beautiful Reward
Worlds Apart

That all fits onto one 80 minute disc largely taken from Darkness on The Edge-Magic also Lucky Town, The Rising, The River, Tunnel of Love and Seeger Sessions. Impossible to stay current on Bruce's career unless you are all in devoted and his releases after Born to Run have been spotty for me. But now that he has so many discs out you can pull gems off of everything and make yourself a really nice disc. Bruce is still kicking out some great music.  It might not be wall to wall on one album but the man keeps working and this Mp3 disc, Promise and the albums above square me with Bruce Springsteen and are a proud addition to my collection.  Now we need the weather to just get a little nicer and spring to get here!

Paul McCartney Monkberry Moon Delight

Paul McCartney is another like Van Morrison and Bruce Springsteen his output and arc is massive.  That's a good thing - lots to choose from - that's a bad thing no one disc is going to be an epic greatest hit or like the the first few.  Its a hit and miss proposition.  I mean this is a man who recorded Ebony and Ivory as well as Monkberry Moon Delight.  Yikes Paul you are not going to please everyone all the time.  So outside of a few albums I would say burn your own collection.  Not every song is going to be a masterpiece and certainly its the rare album that's going to be mind blowing one song after the next.   Be that as it may Paul has some beautiful work out there its just up to us to assemble it into our own collections.  Watch the cost be stingy and you can distill it all down to a few albums you must have (Ram - Wingspan) and a compilation or two.

Here's my compilation mp3 ideas and sequence for "Sir" Paul It fits on to one 80 minute disc:

Accentuate the Positive
Little Woman Love
Sunshine Sometime
Riding into Jaipur
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five
The Song We Were Singing
Baby's Request
My Very Good Friend the Mailman
Souvenir
Dance Tonight
Used to be Bad
Cut Me Some Slack
Big Barn Bed
We Can work it Out
Blue Moon of Kentucky
Honey Hush
Letting Go
Reception
Spin it On
That Would be Something
Hey Diddle
You Gave me the Answer

The albums the selections came from are: Band on the Run - Driving Rain- Flaming Pie - Kisses on the Bottom - McCartney - Memory Almost Full - Ram Deluxe - Red Rose Speedway - Run Devil Run and Unplugged. Good luck out there Paul's got some gems - you just have to wade through a lot of song samples - hope this helps.

Van Morrison Where To Begin Look at the Man

Van Morrison's musical and lyrical arc is so massive and extensive that his various phases and growth don't please all the people all the time and his catalog is a bear to navigate.

It's impossible to catch this breadth in any greatest hits compilation (Still on Top having been recently released).  Van really is an artist where you should just burn your own compilation.

Van's got some great albums that work well as an album concept but again after decades of output not every album is going to hit the note track after track.  That's just a creative and physical impossibility if you are making music for a living.  Not that the artist with integrity doesn't try.  Its what makes the muse so elusive and dynamic if catching lightning in a bottle hasn't been used to death.  So after you purchase a core group of albums save your money you will never listen to it all and download some hand selected mp3s that speak to you.  For instance Moondance has a stellar side one but side two is weaker (albums remember we had to flip them well no one flipped Moondance.  That's how good side one was so that album is perfect for ripping mp3's.

Here's my suggested albums to own followed by my two 80 minute mp3 collections.  I'm just putting this out there for those new to Van or old timers who gave up keeping up because his output is so ridiculously huge and covers a lifetime.  Suggested albums to own in their entirety are as follows:

Tupelo Honey - Hard Nose the Highway - It's Too Late to Stop Now (Live) - Veedon Fleece - Common One - Hymns to the Silence - Down The Road - At The Movies - Philosopher's Stone - His Band and Street Choir

Some people are more into the early years (Gloria) but I'm more into the mystic/secular vs the overtly religious (that's just me) I wouldn't argue taste.  Van's like a 100 flavored ice cream store so pick your favorite albums and burn the rest.  Some people are ga, ga over Avalon Sunset.  I say rock on with your bad self but not for me.

Here's my suggestion compilation and order Disc One fits an 80 minute disc:

Dweller on the Threshold
And it Stoned Me
Moondance
Crazy
Caravan
Into the Mystic
Domino
Here Comes the Night
Brown Eyed Girl
Gloria
Green Mansions
Pagan Streams
The Way Young Lovers Do
Have I Told You Lately
Wavelength
Troubadors
Bright Side of the Road

I made that disc years ago - here's my recent compilation, sequence and it fits onto an 80 minute disc as well:

Across the Bridge Where Angels Dwell
Precious Time
I've Been Working
Blue Monday
The Healing Game
I'll Be Your Lover Too
Sweet thing
Crazy Face
Someone like You
The Way Young Lovers Do (apparently I like that tune)
Saint Dominics Preview
Stranded
Close Enough For Jazz
In the Garden
Inarticulate Speech of the Heart (part 1)
Celtic Swing
Scandinavia

The albums these cuts came from are Astral Weeks - Beautiful Vision - Born to Sing - His Band and Street Choir- Inarticulate Speech of the Heart - Still on Top.

Good luck out there hope that gives you some ideas to explore.

The Second Amendment Directs US to Regulate.

Here's the Second amendment exactly as it appears in the Bill of Rights.  No punctuation has been added or changed, no words deleted this is what it says exactly including which letters are capitalized and where the period is placed:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."  Adopted December 15, 1791.

Gun advocates routinely disregard and ignore the context of the clause and the first thirteen words?  They are wrong to do so.  Beginning with the capital "A" and ending with the period after the word infringed the clause is to be understood in its entirety. 

Arms in the context of the time of 1791 are muskets and pistols and the Founders were talking about the security of a free state by forming "well regulated" militias.

The word regulation is not limited in anyway except to the extent that outlawing the undefined word "arms" is not allowed.  The definition of what those arms are is entirely up to the present day citizens to define and the clause itself gives us the authority to regulate them.

The gun manufacture billionaires making up the Board of the NRA don't want us to read the whole amendment.  Profit over people.  Until we get our priorities right we are going to continue to fail our children.