Stop Making Sense is probably the best concert film ever made.
(Although I think AC/DC’s Live at River Plate is pretty awesome too… for something completely different.)
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Woke up with this stuck in my head yesterday and it’s still there today, so I’m now on a(nother) Magnetic Fields kick for the foreseeable future.
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Featuring some dude from Light Blast.
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Just Like Heaven, The Cure.
For one moment in time I had that. It was brief but it was good. While it lasted it mattered. While it lasted I knew how lucky I was to have it, Most people never get it and it was truly sweet.
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Lately been listening to an artist called Sleeping Phoenix that does relaxing acoustic versions of video game songs. They’re really nice to fall asleep to, but especially if you like Zelda or Final Fantasy music
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This song from the game Klonoa 2 by the name of Stepping Wind is what I listened to, especially since I cleared all 2 Klonoa games this week on the Switch!
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Man, that Nazareth cover takes me back to being a kid. My neighbor and best friend Willie and I idolized his older brother, Don. On occasion, he’d give us a ride home from school in his beater Trans Am. We’d climb in and he’d bark, “Where’s my hairy dog?” That was our command to find his Nazareth eight-track amongst the detritus.
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The car’s on fire, and there’s no driver at the wheel.
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Some bloke Gorgo may or may not have crushed.
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Say, that’s a good idea… doing my laundry, might as well continue with my tour through Nazareth’s albums.
A few nights ago, I listened to Rampant (1974) - which I like, it’s got some top-drawer tunes, though it’s not quite up to the level of Razamanaz or Loud ‘N’ Proud or the God-Tier album that came after, Hair of the Dog
Or as it might have been titled Heir of the Dog… as they weren’t allowed to call it “Son of a Bitch”.
Revisiting it, and boy, chills went down my spine, there’s a reason this tops most Nazareth favorite album lists. That first side is sublime, opening with the title track (one of the all-time great driving songs with a killer guitar riff and plenty of cowbell) and following that with the crunchy, bluesy “Miss Misery”.
Mine is the US version with “Love Hurts” rather than “Guilty” (a Randy Newman cover) and I couldn’t imagine this LP without that power ballad - the track has so much heart and soul, love how Dan’s voice strains and tears through it… which adds such an emotional punch. The A side closes with “Changing Times”, which reviewer Donald A. Guarisco calls “a throbbing hard rock tune driven by a hypnotic, circular-sounding guitar riff.”
Just when you think it couldn’t get any better, the flip side opens with the rocking/spacy twin offering Beggars Day (a cover of the Crazy Horse song) and Rose in the Heather.
For me, it loses a tiny bit of steam with “Whiskey Drinking Woman”, but it rebounds with the synth laced closer, a 9-minute opus titled “Please Don’t Judas Me”, which is a mournful funereal march that sees the band indulging their experimental side.
Guitarist Manny Charlton took on the role of producer from Roger Glover and he starts with a bang. You can’t ask for a better production debut than “Hair of the Dog” - it’s simply one of the greats, Nazareth or otherwise.
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Ya’ll.
If you know, you know.
(I think the random Michael Dukakis reference is my favorite.)
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Poor Man’s Poison. A really cool gritty folk band, if you’re into that style
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Continuing to revisit Nazareth -
Confession time, 1976 was not a good year for me and the band - I flat out didn’t like “Close Enough for Rock and Roll”, it opens decently but after that… It’s not as focused as the previous masterpiece, songs mostly left me cold.
The bluesy “Play ‘n’ the Game” was not much better, and honestly, I was starting to lose interest and might have even quit on the band if not for them finding the heat in 1977
Expect No Mercy cooks, and it’s the shot in arm I needed from these guys - Charlton’s killer licks, accompanied by chugging guitars, bass (Agnew) and drums (Sweet), and Dan using all his snarling vocal powers to great effect. There are catchy rock ballads too, like “Shot Me Down”, which appeals to the hook loving Beatles fan in me. And they haven’t abandoned their love of country, as heard in their bluesy cover of Harlan Howard’s “Busted”. And you get a taste of both in the poppy, western flavored “Place in Your Heart”. (Really, it sounds like the kind of song John and Paul would have written for Ringo, if Ringo had Dan’s range).
At 36 minutes total, with only 1 track exceeding the 4-minute mark, the album is lean and to the point, in gets in, kicks your butt and leaves you wanting more. Listening to this brought back a lot of happy memories.
That cover though, cool as it is, and yes, it signals that you’re about the rock hard with this LP - But I always wondered, how’s that dude going to deliver the killing stroke with those horns getting in the way? HaHa
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Anyone hungry for a glazed donut to go?
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They’re actually foam rubber! They fold right up!
#cosplaytips
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Huh, and here I thought he was a real demon. I minor one, sure, what with him never learning to mind his horns and Satan always scolding “Demon Gary! How many times have I told you…@$#!!!”
Nazareth, No Mean City (1979)
Nazareth closes the 70s with a bang. And a new member is added to the core lineup, guitarist Zal Cleminson. So yeah, this is guitar heavy, hard rock that continues what the previous one started, you even get another metal -see what I had painted on the side of my van!- style cover. It’s a popular one among fans, one of the perennial Top Fivers, though I didn’t like it as much as Expect No Mercy.
The star of the album is the mid-tempo power ballad “Star” - that’s one of my all-time faves from the group.
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Isn’t that one of Frazetta’s Eerie covers?
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