Revisiting the Music Library
I was remaking my Stones CDs for the car last week since I gave away my last set to a nice young man who had 'never heard a whole lot of the Stones.' Well, I fixed that for him. [Just as I fixed young Nate Fowler's lack of Beatles. I don't understand how someone can call himself a musician - a ROCK musician - and NOT like the Beatles. Well, at least he found a song to like - John's I'm Only Sleeping. My gateway to the Beatles was Hey Jude... when I was 12!] And since I couldn't use the stored projects on my external - new computer, drive letters changed, DON'T ASK- I wound up doing them again from scratch. Which is kind of fun because you really have to go through the catalog again to fill out 4 CDs [27 albums on my drive - almost 50 years for the Stones! And their last, A Bigger Bang really isn't bad. For comparison, I did 3 Beatles CDs for the car off 15 CDs. But I love the Beatles that much!]
When I got to disc 4, I noticed I had a lot of tracks from Exile On Main Street. And they kept off some of the stronger tracks from the late 70s albums [Black & Blue, Some Girls, Emotional Rescue]. Now a lot of critics and 'people who know' things will tell you that Exile the Stones best, but I have never agreed. It's very very good in spots, but the Stones loose energy about three quarters of the way through it - just where the album needs an energy boost. But, since I hadn't listened to the album in its entirety in a long, long time, I loaded it into the MP3 player this weekend.
The first two sides [or tracks 1 - 9 on you CD] contain some of the Stones best music. Add track 10, Keith's Happy, which used to kick off side 3 of the vinyl and it's a brilliant album on its own. Rocks, Off, Rip This Joint, Casino Boogie, Tumbling Dice [!!], Torn and Frayed - just absolutely classic Rolling Stones. Sweet Virginia is okay, Sweet Black Angel, less so, could probably have been cut. But after Happy, you get Turd On the Run - interesting as an upbeat blues, good harp work from Jagger, but ultimately mediocre [and with a rare songwriting credit for Mick Taylor]. Ventilator Blues is okay - much like filler that would pop up on Emotional Rescue or Black and Blue - maybe better than Hey Negrita from the latter. I Just Want To See His Face is just awful. Let It Loose is a track I like, but I could see it being cut. The album closes again with a blast of classic Stones again - All Down the Line, Stop Breaking Down, Shine A Light and Soul Survivor.
I have to say the experience of having the album up close in my earbuds hasn't changed my opinion of the album as a whole. I appreciate the difference between Keith Richards and Mick Taylor a whole lot - Taylor plays the really pretty parts in the left ear while sometimes Keith is muddy in the right ear but really locking everything down with little licks. Check out the difference on Rocks Off. Both play really excellent slide but in different styles. Also in the earbuds, background vocals become clearer. Still, this needed to be a three sided album, like Johnny Winter's Second Winter, or trimmed to one really strong single album. Lord knows Goat's Head Soup would have been improved with a few of these songs.
On a separate note, as part of my ongoing conversion of my vinyl to MP3, I had a chance to review Billy Idol. Rebel Yell is an extremely good record,. but it was the follow up, Whiplash Smile, that really scrunched up my nose. And I know why, now. All the good stuff is on side one! Side one - World's Forgotten Boy, To Be A Lover, Soul Standing By, Sweet Sixteen [merely okay] and Man For All Seasons - all good strong rock and roll stuff. But side two? Maybe worst complete side ever. All the songs have ten or fifteen second fade outs and there's not a real drum on the whole side as far as I can tell. There seems to be no emotion to it at all. I probably played it like twice when I first got the album and never played it again. Did Idol know he only had to grab you with the first side? Who knows?
NHL Notes
As we enter the last week of the regular season, my Pens sit in 2nd in the east and atop the Atlantic Division. Which is great because it means we'll get some team struggling to enter the playoffs like the Rangers or Boston. I'd hate to see Montreal because their goaltender is getting hot. Speaking of goaltending, I think it's biting the Philadelphia Flyers at exactly the wrong time. You cannot go 2 - 6 - 2 down the stretch like this. I don't think they're going to make the playoffs. Which should be fine because Ovechkin and the Caps would have destroyed them in the first round anyway.
In the west, Marty's Nashville Predators are solid in 5th place and unlikely to get passed. Unfortunately, that's going to put them up against the Cinderella Story of the owner-less Phoenix Coyotes, who haven't made the playoffs in a decade! I told all of you Dallas Stars fans that Dave Tippett wasn't the problem and did not deserve to be fired! But because you did, he's taken these nobodies - well, Shane Doan. Ilya Bryzgalov, Ed Jovanovski and a bunch of nobodies - all the way to 4th in the conference. he even had them as high as second and leading the Pacific division when San Jose went into their tailspin coming out of the Olympic break. How's Dallas doing? Oh yeah - 12th in the conference and missing the playoffs - AGAIN! They need to rebuild anyway. They have no puck moving defenseman since Sergei Zubov went back to Russia. The top five in the west remain strong - teams that no one wants to face - but Detroit remains a dark horse at number six. They've been riding rookie goalie Jimmy Howard [25 games in a row - and apparently for good reason because Chris Osgood is losing to the Flyers in the third right now] and they are the best team since the break.
