Something 4 The Weekend # 164

The Dream Syndicate: Medicine Show: "John Coltrane Stereo Blues" [mp3]

The Dream Syndicate still has a small but very loyal fanbase among GenX, and in general, the critics have been very kind to the Los Angeles band since their earliest days in the Paisley Underground movement of the mid-'80's out there in southern California.

Try as I might, "John Coltrane Stereo Blues" is the one and only Dream Syndicate song I like. It was the freshman dorms at UW, vinyl LPs were selling for $4.99 at The Den, and I was smoking alot of really good weed that was migrating up from the fourth floor.

I wasn't listening to much (or any) Jazz that year, no Coltrane on my stereo, not like I would in a couple short years from then, but I did listen to to this one cut off Medicine Show an awful awful lot, and I drank my share of wine... Glorious wine! Glorious song!

Blather.

Hotcha! Hank

Stiff Little Sideways Raygun Maneuver

This video pretty well illustrates one of the uglier aspects of PUNK, and likewise, one of the greater failings of this HOT POOP blog - this idea that one history is somehow more important than any other history. Punkers are always so fucking righteous about their music and their scene, which bands are better, which bands are purer (don't I always mention "true believers"?), and we all know at least four aging, self-proclaimed punkers who likes to talk about what bands mattered first and most in their own particular city/scene, to say nothing of Punk as a monolithic thing that apparently matters. And they're always so fucking humorless about it. Perhaps you know me.

This is almost the same as being able to namecheck the most obscure band possible. For example, I'll never forget the time my band, The Nadz, opened for Finger Phil at that bonfire party out at Rudy's farm, and my cousin Chico broke his ankle trying to jump the fire. You weren't there? Oh man, you had to be there!

My nostalgia is better than your nostalgia, and I've got just enough delusions and desperation to write about it here.

But I'm not unique. My kind is not unique. Greasers. Hippies. Punks. Slackers. Hipsters. Each generation in the rock era has their douchebags.

You're soaking in it.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 161

Saccharine Trust: We Became Snakes: "Effort To Waste" [mp3]

I could blather about buzz runs circa 1987...Parked and chilled out at Rabbit Ridge...Girls, green, and tape machines loaded with all sorts of shit on SST...I could say that even a Minutemen junkie like myself needed a break from San Pedro's finest from time to time, and Saccharine Trust were a quality sideways maneuver in that regard...

Hell, Mike Watt, the Minutemen's bassist, produced this album, and this is Bob Fitzer playing his own bass like he's got Jaco running right through his own hands, trying to beat Watt at his own legendary thudstaff game...

Meanwhile, Jack Brewer is singing about being hungover at church, and whatever spiritual implications that might have...At least I think that's what's happening...

It doesn't matter...I told myself I wouldn't blather...I wouldn't "vomit nostalgia" as Brewer says in this song...

I'll just say, Saccharine Trust holds up pretty damn well...Ayup.

It's kinda like Jethro Tull for GenX punks. Or Fusion for Fauxhemians.

Kinda. Whatever.

Hotcha! Hank

A Band By Any Other Name Still Smells Like The Drummer's Sweatband

The new issue of Alternative Press (#261 if yr counting) contains their annual compendium of 100 bands we need to know about this year, and as I have done the past couple of years, I'd like to take this opportunity to list some of the very ridiculous and sometimes outright horrible band names found within.

As I've mentioned before, I've always been fascinated by band names. So much so, that I've accumulated my own extensive list with the help of friends and enemies over the past 25 years. Further, I'm willing to admit that our own list contains at least 75% ridiculous and horrible band names that no sane person would ever use to conquer popular culture. Plenty are inside jokes (never a good idea for a band name) while others are merely the result of substance abuse.

(Also - I was once in a band called Those Amazing Foreheads, which is probably worth keeping in mind...)

The difference is - the bands on the following list ARE trying to make a living as professional musicians, and in my own opinion, have one huge strike against them from the get-go by choosing the monikers they have chosen. Hindsight should inform us that at least 90% of these bands will never have any lasting relevance in pop culture, and this failure has almost nothing to do with the music (some of these bands are very good at what they do) and almost everything to do with luck...and their names. I've listed 40 of these 100 bands here, but I could have named a many, many more that aren't half bad, but aren't really half-good either.

Anyways, I realize that after 60 years of Rock'n'Roll, it's become a bit difficult to come up with a cool and original name, but it's not impossible. These kids today, they're either trying too hard, or not trying hard enough. I dunno - you be the judge.

Canada Water (huh?)
Abandon Kansas (first there was Kansas, then there was Bleeding Kansas...)
Zlam Dunk (Slam Dunk might not have been so bad, but that fucking Z!)
Worn In Red
Flood Of Red
The Bigger Lights (What does this mean?)
We Are The In Crowd
We Are The Union
Two Hours Traffic (ugh)
Litany For The Whale (the worst band name on this list)
Freelance Whales (a close second)
Exit_International (underscore essential)
DD/MM/YYYY (meh, maybe not that bad, but certainly a mouthful - "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome dee dee, em em, why why why why!")
Inhale/Exhale
How Dare You (choose such a weak sauce name)
Nightmares For A Week
Those Who Lie Beneath
Cymbals Eat Guitars (Snares Chew Pianos...Rototoms Regurgitate Double Bassoons)
Let's Get It (Get what? I don't get it.)
The Riot Before
The Joy Formidable (Can a band with "formidable" in their name actually ever succeed? Let's find out.)
A Silent Film
All The Day Holiday (???)
Sent By Ravens (Why? Sent for what purpose? What do these ravens want? Why can't these damn ravens do it themselves?)
The Phenomenal Handclap Band
Free Energy
1,2,3 (I maintain that 15,16,17 is as good a name)
The Wonder Years (naming your band after a movie or TV show is almost never a good idea)
Stray From The Path
Here We Go Magic
Breathe Electric
The Downtown Fiction (as opposed to The Uptown Non-Fiction, The Suburban Biography, and The Rural Self-Help Manual)
Stereo Skyline
Red Knife Lottery
A Loss For Words (Indeed, I am...)
Brian Bonz & The Dot Hongs (I assume this is a play on "Hot Dongs", but that still doesn't make this name any better in my mind)
Goonies Never Say Die (really? REALLY? REALLY??? )
The Color Turning
Miss May I
Averkiou

Hotcha! Hank

HANK RANKS No. 29

My 12 Favorite Groucho Marx Character Names


The Marx Brothers made 12 films together (Love Happy, the 13th, finds Groucho only narrating), about half of which still stand as absolute classics of the Comedy genre, and which still are absolutely hilarious after 70 years. One of my favorite aspects of these films are the names of Groucho Marx's characters. This is a ranking of those twelve names, complete with a little blathering about each.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

12: Gordon Miller; Room Service [1938]
The most pedestrian name of the bunch. I'd venture to say that maybe after 8 films, Groucho Marx was just getting tired or lazy, but character names from two of the Marx Brothers last four films are much higher on this list.

11: Captain Spaulding; Animal Crackers [1930]
There's nothing necessarily funny or unusual about the name Captain Spaulding, but at least this character has a title, and not just some beige suburban name like Gordon Miller.

10: Quentin Quale; Go West [1940]
A couple points for alliteration, and another couple for using the letter Q, which everybody knows is the fifth funniest letter in the alphabet. Minus one point because Go West is my least favorite Marx Brothers film.

09: Rufus T. Firefly; Duck Soup [1933]
Duck Soup was the first of four Marx Brothers film in which Groucho's character had a middle initial in his name, so you'd think this name would be higher on this list, but I'm going to justify the ranking by suggesting that Groucho was just getting warmed up with this maneuver. Not that it really matters, and everybody already knows this, but T is the 18th funniest letter in the alphabet.

08: Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff; Horse Feathers [1932]
In this film, the one immediately prior to Duck Soup, Groucho's character uses his full middle name, and not just the initial, and it works not only as an allusion to President John Quincy Adams, but also to elongate the name to funny proportions without turning into outright absurdity. This was 1932, after all. BTW and FTIW - Horse Feathers is my favorite Marx Brothers film.

07: Wolf J. Flywheel; The Big Store [1941]
This was the fourth and final time Groucho would use a middle initial in his character's name, but as you can tell by the rankings, I'm not willing to contend he had perfected the maneuver, or at least improved upon previous efforts. Still, the combination of the words Wolf and Flywheel is pretty ridiculous, and of course everyone knows J is the sixth funniest letter in the alphabet.

06: Groucho; Monkey Business [1931]
By naming his Monkey Business character "Groucho" after the name he had used since his old vaudeville days, Julius Henry Marx was perhaps actively trying to blur the lines between Groucho the flesh and blood man, and Groucho, the broad, ridiculous, larger-than-life character he portrayed consistently through all twelve Marx Brothers films. Nah. Groucho's a hilarious name when you think about it.

05: Hammer; The Cocoanuts [1929]
Hammer is a great name for a Groucho character because when you imagine a character named Hammer, the last person you'd expect outside of Don Knotts is Groucho Marx.

04: Attorney Loophole; At The Circus [1939]
Like most of you, I get fairly irritated by most puns and punnish names. Attorney Loophole is a rare exception. Too bad At The Circus is one of the weaker films in the Marx Brothers filmography, despite the potential of the movie's setting.

03: Ronald Kornblow; A Night In Casablanca [1946]
I've never personally known a Ron who went by his full given name of Ronald. I suspect that anybody who goes by the name Ronald, well, the rest of us secretly believe might be a little slow. Kornblow is fantastic. This was the Marx Brothers last film together with Groucho in the starring role.

02: Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush; A Day At The Races [1937]
I'm pretty fucking sure this name is supposed to be dirty. Bonus points because I appreciate a nice bush. Plus, I don't have to tell you that Z is the fourth funniest letter in the alphabet.

01: Otis P. Driftwood; A Night At The Opera [1935]
This was the second of four times Groucho's character had a middle initial, and obviously, the highest ranked of the four, but that's because of Driftwood. It's probably only me, but I find Driftwood to be a perfectly silly name, especially when hitched to another doofus name like Otis. Considering the character is a greasy, weaselly business manager, Driftfood also serves to suggest a man who lacks a moral center. An ethical anchor. Also, P is the third funniest letter in the alphabet, as everybody knows.

Blather.

Hotcha! Hank

The Belle Sinking Sideways

See, here's one of my greatest fears, of which I have many...Phobias might be a better word, but whatever...

I have an almost deathly fear of water, of large bodies of water, and of being submerged in said bodies...

And I'm an Aquarius, babycakes!

I've had a reoccurring dream since about the age of six or seven, of barely treading water out in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a black, black night. I've had this dream at least two dozen times in my life, and half of the time the dream is nothing more than that - me floating in the ocean at night - except to say that there is an overwhelming feeling of helplessness, that the situation will never change, a feeling that borders on dread. What is in the dark, dark waters beneath my feet? What toothy death awaits?

Like I said, half the time I wake up before anything happens, though there have been variations of the dream. At some point in my teens, I began dreaming that there was a door in the sky, just out of my reach, a few feet above the water. So of course, there was hope in the dream now. Hope that my paddling and the fate of the swelling ocean would lift me to this door.

Which it did, eventually. On the other side of the door, I found myself in a long, white corridor. Extremely clean and brilliantly white like a brand-new hospital, except it was also extremely empty. At one end of this long corridor was a glass counter, and behind counter was a voluptuous Hispanic woman in a nurse's uniform. Ahh, puberty...

I walked the long corridor towards the woman, passing door after door on both sides, until finally she stood in front of me. I spoke to her, asking her the questions you might expect me to ask - Who are you? Where am I? What the fuckity fuck fuck is going on? Are you God? Goddess? Can I see your boobs?

The Goddess never spoke and never showed me her boobs, but she did hand me a fairly large, black spider encased in amber, and at this point I should note that I have a fairly strong fear of spiders.

I turn and walk down the hall away from the woman. Some of the doors are now open, revealing random scenes of life on earth, including the middle of the black ocean at night. I keep walking towards the opposite end of the corridor, which is so far away at this point as to be a brilliant white pinpoint in the distance.

I've never made it anywhere near that brilliant point, but I do have to mention that one time about ten years ago I had this dream, and the door from which I had came from had another guy floating in it as I passed, and I heard his yelling, and so I lay down on my stomach, dangling my arms down towards him who was splashing about no more than twenty feet down and away from me.

This went on for awhile, until the fate of the ocean took him out of sight and sound of me and the door...

Then I woke up.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 136

The Jim Carroll Band: Catholic Boy: "People Who Died" [mp3]

One night, when I was fifteen or sixteen, I climbed up on the roof of our garage and masturbated under the moonlight. I did it because Jim Carroll wrote about doing the same on the roof of his apartment building in NYC when he was a teenager. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does, really. The raw primacy of the act outdoors - it was quite a powerful experience, and one that stayed with me...There's nothing quite as exciting as outdoor sex, I don't think - fucking like animals...

Anyways, The Basketball Diaries blew my teenaged mind, and is definitely one of the most influential books I've ever read...Sex, drugs, basketball - that was essentially my teenaged life, although I never had to sell my mouth and ass for heroin money...Instead, I worked a dishwashing job for $3.75 an hour for weed and booze money, which I often smoked and drank at the basketball court on 3rd Ave...

The Basketball Diaries was influential because it was one of my earliest forays into adult fiction, and led my reading to what might be considered the more transgressive writers - William S Burroughs, Hunter S Thompson, the Beats, JG Ballard, Kathy Acker...It was an autobiography that seemed to give me permission to experiment, as it were...Now, I never got strung out on smack at 13, let alone 43, but when I was young, I never shied away from trying any drug at least once, including heroin...Most drugs I never did again, including heroin, but two or four were worth repeating...Sex too - just about anything goes, you know, and you never know when a favored safe word might come in handy.

Anyways, Jim Carroll died last Friday, though I didn't hear about it until Tuesday...Go figure...

This song selection is the obvious one, but it truly is a great song and worth hearing again...What is Rock'n'Roll if not a raging against the dying of the light?

RIP, Jim Carroll...

"I just want to be pure."

Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: Parliament-Funkadelic

05: Funkadelic: Maggot Brain [1971]
Featuring..."Maggot Brain", "Hit It & Quit It", "You & Your Folks, Me & My Folks","Wars Of Armageddon"

Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time...For y'all have knocked her up! I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe...I was not offended! For I knew I had to rise above it all...Or drown in my own shit! Come on Maggot Brain! Go on Maggot Brain!

(I wanna know if you can get to that!)

I want you to hit it! Good god, hit it and quit it! I want you to (hooo-whoaa) Oh mama, hit it! Good god, hit it and quit it!

If you and your thing dig me and my thing, like me and my thing dig you and your thing, and we all got a thing, yeah, and it's a very good thing...

(We are back in our minds, again!)

More power to the people, more power to the people, more pussy to the power, more pussy to the people, more power to the pussy, more pussy to the power...Power to the pussy!

(Right on, brother...)

04: Motor Booty Affair [1978]

Featuring..."Mr. Wiggles", "Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)", "The Motor Booty Affair", "Deep"

DG was the only black kid in my middle school, circa 1977-1979...The comfortably numb white middle-classed suburbs of Grafton...DG's family had moved to our languid town from the north side of Milwaukee, an area I knew well on account of my grandparents...

Stereotypes be damned, DG excelled at basketball and boxing...During recess, out on the playground, playing hoops, he'd take it to the rim and totally smoke some taller, gawky kid of ambiguous Nordic descent, and just to make things clear that the only black kid in the school wasn't to be trifled with, he'd start shuffling his feet like Ali when he was done with the rope-a-dope, and start jabbing and dancing, jabbing and dancing, getting in a quick lick or four, and then take off running in the opposite direction of Mr. Stangle.

I was a decent enough basketball player myself in those days, and smart enough not to get sucked into any boxing matches with DG, and so we became pretty good friends...Good enough friends that Stan, Paul and me would go over to DG's house during lunch sometimes, and we'd sit in his bedroom in the basement, passing around a bottle of rhubarb wine his mom had made, and listen to Parliament and Bootsy Collins records...

Never any Funkadelic, for some reason, though...I got into them via the One Nation Under A Groove album, which I bought for myself after DG had schooled me in the ways of George and Bootsy and the rest of the P-Funk crew...

I was a 12 year old white Polack in the suburbs, getting drunk on Parliament! So it shouldn't be so strange to consider the 43 year old white Polack in hipster Madison getting high on Parliament right now?

"I got a string on my thing, rhythm in my thing (Wind me up)... I can do my thing underwater!!! I got a string attached to my thing, when you pull my string, I can do my thing like I oughta!!!"

03: Mothership Connection [1975]

Featuring..."P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)", "Mothership Connection (Star Child)", "Unfunky UFO", "Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)", "Night Of The Thumpasaurus People"

Back in those same middle school years, I used to go with my parents to rummage sales, and one breezy Saturday morning I was rummaging through crates of vinyl, both 7 inch and longplaying varieties in some crumpled uncle's garage, and I happened upon a promotional 45rpm of Parliament's "P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)" with an extended, somewhat dirty version on the flipside...Rather rare these days, and you bet yr ass I got that baby tucked away in a sturdy case in the front hall closet...

Imagine a middle-aged man of ambiguous Nordic descent selling a Parliament 45 to a 12 year old kid of Polish descent out in the whitewashed bedroom community of Grafton!

And damn if I didn't jam that sweet sweet single frequently, full volume in my big fat KOSS cans, bouncing around at the foot of my bed, watching the neighborhood girls ride past and thinking about teenaged sex...

"Good evening. Do not attempt to adjust your radio, there is nothing wrong. We have taken control as to bring you this special show. We will return it to you as soon as you are grooving. Welcome to station WEFUNK, better known as We-Funk, or deeper still, the Mothership Connection. Home of the extraterrestrial brothers, dealers of funky music. P-Funk! Uncut Funk! The BOMB!!!"

02: One Nation Under A Groove [1978]

Featuring..."One Nation Under A Groove", "Who Says A Funk Band Can't Play Rock?", "Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo-Doo Chasers)", "Into You", "Lunchmeatphobia (Think, It Ain't Illegal Yet!)", "Maggot Brain [Live]"

So wide can't get around it! So low you can't get under it! So high you can't get over it! Do you promise to funk, the whole funk, nothin' but the funk??? One nation under a groove, gettin' down just for the funk of it! One nation and we're on the move...Nothin' can stop us now!

'Bout that time they asked me where was I going, ya know? I, said, " Well, you have to be reasonable...So you know I've never been away from home before...And, uh, besides, they gave me a good deal, and I think that, uhhhh, Funkadelica is...you know... the nation, uhhhh, you know, I would like to, live under..."

(What in the world is this boy talking about?)

The world is a toll-free toilet...Our mouths neurological assholes...And psychologically speaking, we're in a state of mental diarrhea...Talking shit a mile a minute! Or in a state of constipated notions, can't think of nothin' but shit...And in this world of stinky futures, shitty memories and constipated 19 now-nows...Emerges from the hiney of your head...The doo doo chasers!! The Promentalshitbackwashpsychosisenemasquad!!! The prune juice of the mind! The doo doo chasers!! Friends of roto-rooter!!! Bringing you music to get your shit together by...The band in the tidy bowl of your brain!

(Fried ice cream is a reality!)

You know, it was in my hands, it was in my feet...I got it all over me! Yes, I did! I got it all over me! Got to go, got to go, got to go with the funk!

01: Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome [1977]

Featuring..."Bop Gun (Endangered Species)", "Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk", "Wizard Of Finance", "Funkentelechy", "Placebo Syndrome", "Flashlight"

What I consider the greatest Funk album ever made...Six fat, sick slabs of groove and hardcore funk, bookended by arguably the two best songs in the entire Parliament catalog...Or at least the two best-known and most-sampled...

I guess it isn't much of a surprise that two of my favorite Hip-Hop albums, Ice Cube's Death Certificate and Digital Underground's Sons Of The P, infringes upon this album hardcore...

I don't know what else to say at this point, about my favorite album by a band you might never expect would mean so much, and run so deep, for a guy like me...What might I have missed if I hadn't been such good friends with the only black kid in Grafton in the 1970's? Would we have jammed Grandmaster Flash on the boombox in the JV football locker room a couple years later? Would I have loved Run-DMC if they hadn't teamed with Aerosmith? What about Fela Kuti?

Of course, they were on the same label as KISS, so maybe all of this was inevitable...

"Everybody's got a little light under the sun!"

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 135

Woods: Songs Of Shame: "Military Madness" [mp3]

I shouldn't have to tell my fellow Americans (and most others around the world) what today is, so I won't...

The question has been asked before by others, but where have all the anti-war and protest songs been this past decade? Aside from Bright Eyes' "When The President Talks To God", I'm having a hard time thinking of any others...

("Military Madness" is a Graham Nash song from 1971, btw...)

While the Cheney administration was bullshitting the American public into a nasty war against the wrong country/regime (Iraq) at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars and untold human lives, it would seem the opposition was mostly ineffectual...It's not necessarily true that the anti-war people were completely quiet, but underlying the opposition (at least to me) was the feeling that we were helpless and powerless to do anything, and so we mostly did nothing...

Until the 2008 elections, when the majority of voters put the Democrats back into Congressional power and gave Barack Obama the presidency, which seems to me to be a fairly strong repudiation of the past 8 years...

And now President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress are attempting to pass some health care reforms, including a public option and insurance coverage for those of us who cannot afford insurance in any form, and dammit if Republicans and those with conservative political ideologies aren't storming town hall meetings and screaming bullshit talking points and trying to stifle any sort of rational dialogue. These are the same people who saw no problem with funding DEATH and WAR to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, but believe that taking care those who cannot take care of themselves, improving their quality of life, and in some instances, SAVING LIVES, is a waste of money, and even worse, SOCIALISM...

Words cannot express the ridiculousness of it all...Maybe that's why there are no decent protest songs these days. Cognitive dissonance is a stone-cold bitch.

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways BURB Maneuver

Tape Jazz Massacre haven't done any videos, so I offer you this trim and sarcastic bit of nostalgia, called "War Bonus", courtesy of my friend Nort Weston down in the flatter lands west of Chicago...His music/video unit is called BURB...

Now excuse me while I blather a bit...

Remember the days when the wrong t-shirt got a loony liberal forcibly removed from Town Hall Meetings or campaign rallies if he or she had even gained access with that wrong t-shirt in the first place?

Remember when Dick Cheney was the only person who could bring a gun to a political function without question or repercussions?

Remember when Dick Cheney shot his billionaire friend in the face?

Remember the days when the government spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a War On Terror (the ultimate Death Panel), and if a person even questioned any of it (the war, the cost of the war, the justification for the war), let alone raise their voice in any sort of protest, they'd be called a traitor and worse?

Remember when waterboarding and the other assorted means of interrogation as used at Abu Ghraib were rationalized, justified and accepted, and if you didn't agree, you hated America?

Remember when the government would intercept any phone calls, emails, text messages and Pony Express messengers they felt like, and we better like it...Or else...??????

Remember those days?

Nowadays, the very idea government-provided healthcare for those among us who needed the most (one of the most fundamentally Christian things we can do as a society, I'd say) is called "Socialism" by those among us who are most Christian, and often enough in need of the very kind of health care they oppose violently in these Town Hall Meetings...

In the end, I guess I can only ask - why wasn't there that kind of vitriol in 2003? 2004? Where was that kind of passion when they tapped our phones and told us war and death was the only path to glory? Where were the viciously angry words in public forums when the Bush administration lied to us? Time and time again?

Who championed de-regulation in the financial markets, and why didn't anybody raise a bigger stink before it all came crashing down?

At this moment in time, what right does ANYBODY on the conservative/Republican side of the political aisle have to bitch and complain about ANYTHING? Their elected officials have been fucking up seemingly everything they touch, and spending us into the poorhouse all the way, and now they've lost an honest election and their political power...If they can't sit down at the table, so to speak, and discuss their opposition to the policies of the Obama administration and this Democratic Congress in a rational, civilized manner, they ought to sit at home, ride it out, and most importantly, just shut the fuck up...

Why healthcare?

Hotcha! Hank

HANK RANKS No. 27

29 Chicks On Bass

If I've learned anything at Jezebel, it's that plenty of women of today don't like the term "chick", but then again, I suppose plenty of women weren't too keen on that word long before there were websites where they could voice their disdain...Now, I don't think there is a blinding hatred for the term "chick", but among women who care about the soft misogyny of this kind of word, I believe "annoyed" might be the proper adjective. Now, "chickie" might elicit a more heated response, but this ain't the Rat Pack era, and nobody really uses that term anymore...

So, maybe I'm some sort of tool for calling women "chicks", but I'm a tool that reads Jezebel...

I'm also a dude who posted a picture of Ali Larter's ass two days ago, so who the hell knows what to make of all this except I'm making entirely too much of all this...

Here's the thing, babycakes (a term of endearment I often use that is directed at both genders) - "chick" isn't really meant as a demeaning, belittling term - not by me, and I dare say, not by most men who use the word liberally in casual conversation...It's nothing more and nothing less than a female version of "dude", and I don't believe there's a dude alive who gets offended when other dudes (and chicks) call him "dude".

And here's where we get to the tender heart of this matter - women who play bass in rock bands are exactly the kind of women who deserve to be called "chicks", who often get called "chicks", and who have really earned the right, I'd say. Most of the women I've known who might rightly be called "chicks" were pretty fucking righteous, and yeah, a couple of 'em played bass (thanks to Kim Deal). I wasn't cool enough to get close to most of 'em, and the two or three I managed to attract didn't stay interested for long.

Those are chicks.

I could have listed more than 29 chicks on bass. Alot more, but I think at 29, I've made some sort of point. That point being - damn, there are a hella lot of chicks who play bass. Why is that? Maybe Billy Corgan could give us a clue - he's had at least three chicks working the low end for him over the years...

How many chicks are there on bass? So many that I came up with the band name ...And You Shall Know Us By The Chick On Bass, which is somewhere on my NAME THAT BAND list...

Anyways...The #1 all-time greatest chick on bass was never in question, and nows a good time to mention that I do believe that "the world moves on a woman's hips"...

The rest are ranked according to a complex matrix of musical ability, historical importance, personal taste, sex appeal, units shifted, footwear, and caprice.

See below...

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

29: Sean Yseult: White Zombie
28: Donna Dresch: Team Dresch
27: Kristin Pfaff: Hole
26: Jill Cuniff: Luscious Jackson
25: Suzi Quatro: solo artist
24: Josephine Wiggs: The Breeders
23: Vicki Blue: The Runaways
22: Tracy Wormworth: The Waitresses, The B-52's
21: Maya Ford: The Donnas
20: Rachel Haden: That Dog, The Rentals, Todd Rundgren
19: Melissa Auf der Maur: Hole, Smashing Pumpkins
18: Gina Birch: The Raincoats
17: Paz Lenchantin: A Perfect Circle, Zwan
16: Jennifer Finch: L7
15: Johnette Napolitano: Concrete Blonde
14: Kathy Valentine: The Go-Go's
13: Meshell Ndegeocello: solo artist
12: Naomi Yang: Galaxy 500, Damon & Naomi
11: Britta Phillips: Luna, Dean & Britta
10: Laura Ballance: Superchunk
09: D'Arcy Wretzky: Smashing Pumpkins
08: Tessa Pollitt: The Slits
07: Kim Gordon: Sonic Youth, Free Kitten, Ciccone Youth
06: Nikki Monninger: Silversun Pickups
05: Kim Deal: The Pixies, The Breeders, The Amps
04: Micki Steele: The Runaways, The Bangles
03: Kira Roessler: Black Flag, Dos
02: Sara Lee: Gang Of Four, The B-52's
01: Tina Weymouth: Talking Heads

Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: The Kinks

05: The Kinks Kontroversy [1965]

Featuring..."Milk Cow Blues", "Gotta Get That First Plane Home", "Till The End Of The Day", "Where Have All The Good Times Gone?", "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion"

In their early years The Kinks were more of an American Roots Rock and R'n'B-fueled band than the versatile Britpop band into which they would soon evolve, and I felt it was only right to include one of their early albums that reflects this rawer style. In this respect, The Kinks Kontroversy is certainly the strongest longplayer of the kind, with the more primitive songs like "Milk Cow Blues" and "Til The End Of The Day" mixing smoothly with the more sophisticated songcraft that would become Ray Davies trademark on songs like "I'm On An Island" and "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion". In the end however, it's the heavier Rock and Blues stylings that rule this album, a solid and satisfying representation of the classic Kinks sound, before they became absolutely legendary...

04: Something Else By The Kinks [1967]

Featuring..."David Watts", "Death Of A Clown", "Harry Rag", "Love Me Till The Sun Shines", "Waterloo Sunset"

Something Else By The Kinks was the last Kinks album produced by Shel Talmy, which seems like a good enough reason to include it on this list, rather than the equally good album, Face To Face...

The album sits at an pivotal crossroads for the band...They had quit touring, if for no other reason than they had been denied permits to tour America by the American Federation Of Musicians because of constant onstage fighting between band members...Off the road, sitting in England, Ray Davies had begun formulating ideas for the story which would eventually become Village Green...Meanwhile, he got the band in the studio to keep their skills sharp, and give Davies himself a chance to learn some producing and engineering skills from Talmy.

The Kinks had been a pretty prolific singles band, as alot of popular groups were back then in the UK, and Davies had viewed the songs recorded during this period of '66/'67 to be nothing more than singles and B-Sides, but wouldn't you know it, Davies had already been turning his lyrical eye more and more towards English life in all it's various glories and failures, and when some of these songs were collected to form Something Else By The Kinks, dammit if they didn't end up with a loosely conceptual album with a really solid form and personality...

And musically, this was also the period when Davies songwriting skills really started to develop, when his palette really expanded far beyond simple, straight-ahead Rock and R'n'B...

And it all ends, with the lovely and hopeful "Waterloo Sunset", which many Kinks fans, especially among the British, consider Ray Davies single best composition. I'd say "Big Sky" maybe, but no, I won't argue.

03: Arthur (Or The Decline & Fall Of The British Empire) [1969]

Featuring..."Victoria", "Yes Sir, No Sir", "Brainwashed", "Australia", "Shangri-La", "Mr. Churchill Says", "Arthur"

Another reason why The Kinks are perhaps my favorite band is that when they entered their most creative period in the late 1960's, starting with The Village Green Preservation Society, Ray Davies had fully embraced the "concept album", which is a term I kinda hate because I believe any and all albums should have some sort of conceptual threads running through 'em, however subtle they may be...A bunch of songs collected together on a single piece of media just because they were recorded during the same studio sessions is NOT an album in my world...That's artistically lazy.

Arthur (Or The Decline & Fall Of The British Empire) was the second concept album The Kinks delivered, a suite of songs about the life of a poor carpet-layer (Arthur) in post-war England, and the lack of opportunities for the working class...Arthur fondly remembers a brighter England before the wars, and contemplates the promises offered in Australia, where plenty of British people were emigrating after the wars...Once upon a time the sun never set on the British empire, but that simply wasn't true anymore...

Musically, there are some great songs here, including the hard-rocking "Victoria" and "Brainwashed", which hearken back to the band's early years, when they invented Heavy Metal. But mostly the songs are undeniably melodic, stylistically varied, and impeccably performed...Not quite as brilliant as it's predecessor, Village Green, but still an ambitious and incredible album in every sense of those words...

02: Lola Versus Powerman & The Moneygoround, Part One [1970]

Featuring..."Lola", "Top Of The Pops", "This Time Tomorrow", "Rats", "Apeman", "Powerman"

Arthur might very well be a "better" album than this one, Lola Versus Powerman & The Moneygoround, but this one's got "Lola"...

Plus, this might just be the heaviest album in The Kinks' entire catalog..."Rats" and "Powerman" in particular, are live wires, thin and hot and dangerous...

And yes, this is another concept album, this time a poisonous and funny expose of the music industry, wherein Ray Davies leaves no stone unturned, attacking managers, agents, record label accountants, vacuous television and radio personalities, publishing houses, unions unions and more unions, groupies, sycophants, and life on the oftentimes boring road for the fragile egotistical rockstars...Contenders and pretenders...

Great fucking stuff, and another suite of sophisticated rock music...Some of my absolute favorite Kinks tunes are here - the aforementioned "Rats" and "Powerman", plus the sweeping "This Time Tomorrow", the catchy island rhythms and singalong chorus of "Apeman", and the Country Rock closer "Got To Be Free"...The Kinks might have invented Country Rock.

Plus, this one's got "Lola".

01: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society [1968]

Featuring..."The Village Green Preservation Society", "Do You Remember Walter?", "Picture Book", "Johnny Thunder", "Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains", "Big Sky", "Animal Farm"

One of the five greatest rock albums ever made, wherein Ray Davies invents Britpop over the course of 15 brilliant songs that flow effortlessly from one to the next, slowly painting a vision of an older kind of British life that was being plowed over and under by the kids of that 60's generation, his own generation...A distinct loss of innocence, in the same way Vietnam and the explosion of psychedelics had fundamentally altered the American landscape...

Speaking of America, I always wonder how huge The Kinks might have gotten here in the States if they hadn't been denied those permits during the most artistically fertile 4 years of their career (1966-1970), of which this album is the stunning peak...It was still a pretty big world in 1968, and The Kinks might have been larger than life in the UK, but here they just couldn't find the big time...No stateside touring, no American TV appearances...No chance to show this great big land of ours just how fucking great they had become...It was nearly impossible to stake their claim to the British Invasion throne from the other side of the Atlantic...

But this is about The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, and what an essential album it is for any respectable record collection, nevermind how damned good it is - how irresistible each and every song is, how rich and colorful Ray Davies' lyrics are, how versatile and tight the band had become in a few short years...This is one of those albums that hooks you upon first listen, and before long, you find yourself humming melodies from this album in the bathroom at work, cuz a song like "Animal Farm" deserves that kind of acoustics...

A MUST!

Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: Elvis Costello & The Attractions

05: Blood & Chocolate [1986]
Featuring..."I Hope You're Happy Now", "Tokyo Storm Warning", "I Want You", "Honey Are You Straight Or Are You Blind?", "Poor Napoleon"

Elvis Costello was 9 years and 9 albums into his recording career when he unleashed two stellar longplayers in 1986 - King Of America and Blood & Chocolate...They had arrived at exactly the right time, I would say, after his previous two albums, Punch The Clock and Goodbye Cruel World, had been met by bored critics and disappointed fans. And with good reason - 20+ years later they still sound like slightly-faded facsimiles of good/great Elvis Costello, which is to say that the songs weren't horrible, it's just that the lyrics, the music, the band - it all just sounds kinda tired on those two albums, like they all needed an extended vacation, perhaps... "Congratulations! You just bought the worst album of my career."

(I mean, 7 good to stunning classic albums in his first 5 years, babycakes...Who does that anymore?)

Anyways, it's 1986, and since Elvis and his Attractions apparently weren't gonna take that vacation, well, then they had something to prove, I'd say...another album or two of diminished returns, and maybe he fades away completely...But no, Elvis Costello stands and delivers two great albums in one year...King Of America kinda lives up to the title, with Costello deftly weaving American countryfolk and roots rock into his decidedly British pop sensibilities, making it neither a straight Country Western record like 1981's Almost Blue, nor yr typical Attractions affair, which is probably why they were billed as The Costello Show featuring The Confederates, and not Elvis Costello & The Attractions.

Blood & Chocolate IS an Elvis Costello & The Attractions album however (the last billed as such for the next decade, in fact), and on this one Mr. Declan McManus is calling himself Napoleon Dynamite, and indeed, this is a raw and unforgiving record. The sound itself is big and brash and direct, and the lyrical concerns are as bitter and caustic and sad as any in his chapbook...And when he finally slows things down on track five, with "I Want You", it's like a poison running through the veins, bringing on a darkness you can't swim out of...Costello had certainly written a ton of bitter, cynical songs in his career, but for me, "I Want You" distills it all down to the simplest essence, slowing down the music until it's as painful as the words. In the middle of an album full of really good songs, "I Want You" is the only reason Blood & Chocolate made this list instead of King Of America....Taken together, these two 1986 albums represent the exact year when Costello cemented his place in the pantheon, and why he's so damned respected and relevant today...

04: My Aim Is True [1977]
Featuring..."Alison", "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes", "Less Than Zero", "Mystery Dance", "Watching The Detectives"

I had a hard time deciding between this album and Armed Forces for #4 on this list, and ultimately went with this one because the really good songs on My Aim Is True are greater than the really good songs on the other...I mean, "Alison" and "Watching The Detectives" are truly indispensible, and "Less Than Zero" and "Red Shoes", nearly so...

Also, what's interesting about this album, and what clinched it's spot on this list, is the fact that the backing band wasn't The Attractions, but rather, California Country Rock band Clover, which included Huey Lewis. Now, Huey wasn't a part of these recordings, for better or worse, but yes, Clover would go on to become The News behind Mr. Lewis.

Attractions or no Attractions, My Aim Is True is a stunning debut by a fully-formed artist and songwriter, and is the first impressive volley in a run of FIVE consecutive classic-to-perfect longplaying albums to start what is now a 32 year career of high artistry and consummate professional entertainment.

03: Trust [1981]
Featuring..."Clubland", "Lover's Walk", "Strict Time", "Watch Your Step", "From A Whisper To A Scream", "Big Sister's Clothes"

It's entirely possible that my feelings for Trust are woven too deeply into Bret Easton Ellis' novel, Less Than Zero, a novel that had deep importance to me once upon a time (not so much anymore), and if nothing else, is one of the best representations of the 1980's as I witnessed, experienced and understood that decade...In the novel, the protagonist Clay has a huge poster of this album cover above his bed, and it's an image that shows Mr. Costello peering up and over the top of his rose-colored glasses (looking towards God?) signifying that he doesn't trust, because if he did, he'd be staring straight through those sunglasses of his...Trust (or the significant LACK thereof) was an important issue in Less Than Zero, and this image a huge symbol of all that, and therefore rife with meaning for me as a fan of both the book and the musician...

Anyways, Trust is loaded with Costello's usually poisonous pen, as he explores the uglier sides of love and lust once again. I can't argue that this is truly his third best album except to say that three of my all-time favorite Costello songs are here - "Lover's Walk", "Strict Time", and "Watch Your Step", and it's hard to argue with myself about that...An oft-overlooked gem in Declan McManus' catalog...

02: Get Happy! [1980]
Featuring..."Love For Tender", "Opportunity", "King Horse", "Clowntime Is Over", "New Amsterdam", "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down", "Beaten To The Punch", "Temptation", "Riot Act"

Costello's fourth album, Get Happy! , finds Elvis working R'n'B, Motown, and Memphis Soul into his New Wave Britpop style, and from the bouncing opener, "Love For Tender", to the slow-building closer, "Riot Act", I believe it's safe to say that this is the man's most upbeat and buoyant album, at least musically, helping Costello live up to the album's title quite admirably...In fact, Elvis and the band don't take a breather until "Motel Matches", the fifteenth song on a 20 song album...

Twenty, count 'em, twenty songs! (Yes, in accordance with the cover art above, the 2003 Rhino CD reissue includes 30 bonus tracks) That qualifies Get Happy! as truly EPIC in any artist's catalog, including Elvis Costello's, and this album is a non-stop onslaught of uptempo New Wave goodness, without a truly weak song in the bunch. Astounding and outstanding!

01: This Year's Model [1978]
Featuring..."This Year's Girl", "The Beat", "Pump It Up", "Little Triggers", "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea", "Lipstick Vogue", "Radio, Radio"

This Year's Model is pretty much a perfect album from start to finish - not only are the songs brilliant, one right after the next, but on his second longplayer, Costello had assembled a band worthy of the material, The Attractions, and out of the gate the band is wound tight, and playing at their absolute best...Steve Nieve's organ is all over this record, and it's a big organ, babycakes...Bassist Bruce Thomas offers up some of his best grooves here, and drummer Pete Thomas does what drummers are supposed to do - keep the damn beat and not get in the way too much. What else needs to be said? It's one of my five favorite albums of all time, and a record I believe belongs in everybody's collection. A classic! A MUST!!

Hotcha! Hank

A Word With Moshammer's Ghost

blather

Function: verb, noun

Etymology: Old Norse blathra; akin to Middle High German blōdern to chatter

Date: 1524

01: (verb, 1524) to talk foolishly, at length; "Reverend Screamin' Ben wouldn't stop blathering about O.J.'s innocence."

02: (noun, 1719) voluble nonsensical or inconsequential talk or writing; "Hot Poop is the epitome of blather!"

Hotcha! Hank

HANK RANKS No. 22

The 6 Van Halen Albums
Straight to the point - The only Van Halen I believe in, the only Van Halen I consider legit, is the original line-up with David Lee Roth. I liked Sammy Hagar well enough as a solo artist and his stuff with Montrose, but when it comes to Van Halen, the Diamond Dave lineup is the only one that exists in my world, and the only one that matters on this list.


Now this HANK RANKS might look suspiciously like those silly HOT FIVES I've started doing lately, and it really is a HOT 5+1, but Diamond Dave did SIX albums with the band, and that doesn't add up to FIVE...I'm just trying to keep the Van Halen Math real here.


Hotcha! Hank


HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP


06: Van Halen II [1979] Featuring: "You're No Good", "Dance The Night Away", "Bottoms Up!", "Light Up The Sky", "Women In Love", "Beautiful Girls"

All Van Halen albums are short, and Van Halen II is the second shortest of 'em all, clocking in at a trim 31:14...Of the ten songs on this shortplayer, the only two I truly love are "Light Up The Sky" and "Beautiful Girls", and these days "Beautiful Girls" almost sounds like a novelty tune...At the age of 13 I thought "D.O.A." was the shit, mostly because Diamond Dave sings that line about the sheriff finding "a dirty-faced kid in a garbage can", but nowadays I mostly hear a mediocre riff bled to death over 4+ minutes, and a bloodless tale of modern rock'n'roll cowboys in the new wild west..."Dance The Night Away" still holds a few charms, and was one of the band's first music videos, but all I get is DLR trying to prance around the studio with a cast on his foot...After the massive bombshell of Van Halen's debut album, VHII was an equally massive disappointment...Plus, more points subtracted for the absolutely lame fucking cover.

05: Diver Down [1982] Featuring..."Where Have All The Good Times Gone?", "Hang 'em High", "Secrets", "(Oh) Pretty Woman", "Dancing In The Streets", "Little Guitars", "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)", "The Full Bug", "Happy Trails"

Holy shit! You'd think with me listing damn near every song on this 31:24 album, Diver Down would rank near the very top of this list, but really only four of those are originals, but damn, what originals they are..."Hang 'em High" explodes after the Kinks' cover that opens the album with some of the punkiest playing since "Atomic Punk"..."Secrets" features chiming guitars and a bit of falsetto courtesy of Diamond Dave..."Little Guitars" is a museum of Eddie tricks and styles, and "The Full Bug" finds the band at their boogie best, and Diamond Dave strutting around, bragging about his dick...The rest of it, though, all those cover songs, they're just so tame and pointless, save their ability to make serious bank...The band's Kink's fixation just seemed weird and inappropriate by this point, and their version of "Pretty Woman" is a huge, cash-generating joke, complete with the appropriately stupid video in heavy rotation on MTV...And if Jan Van Halen, Alex's and Eddie's dad, wasn't playing clarinet on "Big Bad Bill", the song would be inexcusable...And then there's "Happy Trails"...Diver Down...Diamond Dave...Yeah, this was the band's Roth Album, if there is such a thing...The one album in every rock band's catalog when the singer writes too many of the songs and exerts his vision...This is generally a bad idea. I'm wondering if at this point in the band's life, Eddie was maybe the Diver Down, jacked on booze and pills and coke...At least Dave exercised.

04: 1984 [1984] Featuring..."Jump", "Panama", "Top Jimmy", "Hot For Teacher", "I'll Wait", "Girl Gone Bad"

Diamond Dave was still a fucking goofball on 1984, but at least Eddie had fucking taken control of the band and the songs once again, for this, their last album with the original line-up. It's certainly the best-sounding album in the Van Halen discography, helping put a fine shine on Eddie's masterful playing...By this point, the man can pretty much do anything on guitar, and he's apparently getting bored, so he starts noodling around with synths, and he frontloads the album with I believe is the biggest hit of the band's career, "Jump", an irrestibly stupid synthpop confection with lyrics so utterly inane that they never registered, but damn if a Chevy Nova full of teenaged boys weren't singing along like a bunch of fucking goofballs every time..."Panama" is just as lyrically insipid, but who fucking cares when the guitars are so tasty?..."Hot For Teacher" had that insane and legendary fucking video, of course, but the song itself is one of the great ragers in the Van Halen playlist...Elsewhere, "Top Jimmy" smokes, and "Girl Gone Bad" features some of my favorite riffs and playing ever by Eddie...TT = 33:08

03: FAIR WARNING [1981] Featuring..."Mean Street", "Dirty Movies", "Sinner's Swing", "Hear About It Later", "Unchained", "So This Is Love?"

At 30:58, Fair Warning is the shortest album in the Van Halen catalog, which almost isn't a strike against it because six of the first seven songs are outstanding...It's only the last two songs that are failed experiments that do nothing signficant but add 4 minutes to the album length, and track #6, "Push Comes To Shove", a muted, midtempo faux-shuffle with David Lee Roth actually trying to sing, and maybe only half-succeeding...But it's those last two tunes that scar the whole thing..."Sunday Afternoon In The Park" is Eddie's first released synth noodlings, and this one's bad, second-rate Gary Numan stuff, and I was never much of a Numan fan to begin with, if you must know..."One Foot Out The Door" is an interesting enough stab at Synth-Punk, but once again, Diamond Dave's singing just doesn't work in this context...A horrible, deflating way to end an otherwise kick-ass Van Halen album...

02: Women and Children First [1980] Featuring..."And The Cradle Will Rock...", "Everybody Wants Some!", "Romeo's Delight", "Take Your Whiskey Home", "Could This Be Magic?", "In A Simple Rhyme"

Women & Children First is easily the fucking heaviest Van Halen album, and also the first to feature all original compositions...I love this album, and it's a righteous return to form after the disappointment of VHII...Hell, I even love the spastic "Loss Of Control" at the heart of this monster slab of Cock Rock, wherein Diamond Dave pretends he's a WWII fighter pilot...It somehow works...And every other song on this album burns and shines...If their debut album weren't so shocking and game-changing, Women & Children First might very well be the purest and finest example of Van Halen caught on tape..."Everybody Wants Some!" remains my absolute favorite VH tune...A MUST at 33:13!

01: Van Halen [1978] Featuring..."Runnin' With The Devil", "Eruption", "You Really Got Me", "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love", "Jamie's Cryin'", "Atomic Punk", "Little Dreamer", "Ice Cream Man"

Eddie played with his back to the crowd in the early years of Van Halen so that other hotshot L.A. guitar players couldn't cop his riffs and style...To my way of thinking, he's the second great rock guitarist after Jimi Hendrix, the second game-changer, and words really cannot describe how earth-shaking this album was to my 12 year old ears...This is the only album I've ever owned on 8-track, vinyl, cassette and CD...It's all about Eddie, of course, because while I still say David Lee Roth is the greatest frontman I've ever seen in concert, Van Halen albums were showcases for Eddie's playing, and his songs...In terms of the shocking newness of the sound and the songs, and even the channel separation of the recording itself (rhythm guitar on the left, vocals and guitar solos on the right, rhythm up the middle), I consider this a Punk album. Hell, even in terms of overdriven Bubblegum, the Ramones had nothing on "Feel Your Love Tonight" or "Jamie's Cryin'"...And I feel like I've taken alot of unfair shots at Diamond Dave in this post, so let me just say here, at the end, that he's at his yelping, howling best on this album, but his singing was never the point anyways...The dude was, and remains, larger-than-life - a fast-talking, booze-swilling, groupie-fucking entertainer who was always dynamite in interviews, and knew how to put on a fucking SHOW...

By the way, at 35:15, Van Halen I is the band's longest album.

Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: The Rolling Stones

05: Some Girls [1978] Featuring..."Miss You", "Some Girls", "Far Away Eyes", "Before They Make Me Run", "Beast Of Burden", "Shattered"

Well, I love the Some Girls album because it was the first Rolling Stones record I ever bought, and it was a fun and interesting record to buy because they released different versions of the cover art, with different colors in different orders for those four "rows", and depending on the color on the top row, the albums were of varying value on the collectors market...As for the songs themselves, this album found the band confronting Disco and Punk/New Wave straight on, with the slinky "Miss You" at the front (a song that stands up exceeding well), and the pulsing and slightly ragged "Shattered" at the end (which still sounds great as well)...In between, the band returns from the relative dryspell following 1972's high-water mark, Exile On Main St., with a really solid, entertaining set of songs...This was the second album with Ron Wood on guitar, and this is where he really gels with the band as a whole, helping sculpt the third, more polished version of the band that continues to this day...For me, personally, this album still excites me as much as the bands' more iconic and better-regarded recordings...At #5, for better or worse, it pushes Between The Buttons or possibly Aftermath from this list, the two best representations of the Rolling Stones first incarnation with Brian Jones, when they were still mostly just a very good British R'n'B-infused rock band...

04: Beggars Banquet [1968] Featuring..."Sympathy For The Devil", "No Expectations", "Street Fighting Man", "Stray Cat Blues", "Factory Girl"

To Be honest, Beggars Banquet is far from the most solid collection of songs in the Rolling Stones discography, but it makes this list on the strenght of two songs, really..."Sympathy For The Devil" and "Street Fighting Man", two indispensible Stones songs, to be sure...Beyond them, however, is the scrappy and undeniable "Stray Cat Blues", the lovely and plaintive "Factory Girl", and the slightly odd-yet-endearing "Jigsaw Puzzle"...Points must be given for experimentation...In the wake of the previous year's misguided attempt at Psychedelia, Their Satanic Majesties Request, on Beggars Banquet it would seem the Rolling Stones took a step back and assessed their strengths, and found a better way to incorporate new ideas and sounds into their distinct brand of Blues Rock and R'n'B...So the congas and bongos and mellotrons and pedal steel add texture to the songs without overpowering them...This album marks the beginning of the second, and greatest phase of the band's history, and is the last with Brian Jones...From here on in we've got Mick Taylor putting his indelible stamp on what Bob Dylan calls "the greatest Rock band of all time and forever"...I guess if I consider what "Rock'n'Roll" truly is, at it's roots, I'd have to agree. The Stones are the template.

03: Sticky Fingers [1971] Featuring..."Brown Sugar", "Wild Horses", "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'?", "Bitch", "Dead Flowers", "Moonlight Mile"

Sticky Fingers isn't running a distant third, not by a longshot...In fact, there's the thinnest of lines separating the top three Rolling Stones' albums on this blathering list of mine...I mean, there's just a ton of great, even iconic songs, on this album, including my personal favorite of the entire lumpen, the haunting and lovely closer, "Moonlight Mile", which I think is a bit of a lost gem in their catalog...Overall, it's as solid and strong an album as any in their catalog, and perhaps most notable as the first Stones album with Mick Taylor in full effect...

02: Let It Bleed [1969] Featuring..."Gimme Shelter", "Love In Vain", "Live With Me", "Let It Bleed", "Midnight Rambler", "Monkey Man", "You Can't Always Get What You Want"

Let it be known that Let It Be is my favorite Stones' album, though I'm willing to admit it isn't quite their best...But shit, it starts off with "Gimme Shelter" for fucks sake, ends with "You Can't Always Get What You Want", and in between stacks up 9 of the rawest, grimiest blues rock songs in their canon...It boogies plenty, and cries so sweetly at other times, and finds this British band finally figuring out American music, chiefly the Blues and Country, including one of the finest approximations ever of a blues standard by a bunch of white British art-school lads, Robert Johnson's "Love In Vain"...What's perhaps most interesting about Let It Bleed is that there's very little Brian Jones on this album, who only contributed some percussion on two tracks, and very little Mick Taylor, who only shows up playing guitar on two other tracks, making this the most pure Kieth Richards album in the band's catalog...A MUST!

01: Exile On Main St. [1972] Featuring..."Rock This Joint", "Tumbling Dice", "Sweet Virginia", "Sweet Black Angel", "Happy", "All Down The Line", "Stop Breaking Down", "Shine A Light"

In the Rolling Stones' discography, Exile On Main St. is truly Epic...This double, gatefolded LP unfolds regally over 66 minutes, it's 18 songs covering all the usual Rolling Stones bases - Blues, Shuffle, Boogie, Rock, R'n'B, Country - but I think what sets this collection of songs apart from any of their other albums is the laid-back and joyous nature of many of the songs, and the recording itself...Hell, I daresay Exile On Main St. could be called a Gospel album! Of course, it would be a Gospel album fueled on heroin and indescriminate sex in a mansion in the French countryside, but those are God's creations too, if yr inclined to such beliefs..."So come on, come on down, sweet Virginia...C'mon, honeychild, baby you...Come on, come on down, you got it in ya, uh huh...You got to scrape the shit right off yr shoes..." It's just my own observations, but it seems to me that Exile On Main St. isn't nearly the most popular in the Rolling Stones catalog, perhaps because "Tumbling Dice" is the only major hit on the entire album, which is a shame because this is the album on which the band finally perfects their appropriation of all their musical influences, and they do it without really trying and in spite of all sex and drug distractions...In the end, I believe it's the relative "obscurity" of most of these great songs that makes this album still sound the freshest and most exciting today...Try not to sing along...

Hotcha! Hank