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Rock Around the World

Home For The Holidays Sound Track Various Artists. Mercury. NR.
This soundtrack has a pleasant, brown and yellow leaves blowing in the Autumn Wind feeling you get if you've ever raked leaves under the massive oaks of Long Island...nobody ever seemed to develop a rake made specifically for the acorns...forget about the pine needles.

When I hear this soundtrack the muse really kicks in and I can totally relate to the theme of the Movie, Home For The Holidays, which for me, I think that Thanksgiving is an altogether different thing back East. I mean it's a Pilgrim Eastern Seaboard sort of holiday that the rest of America seems to dig. Back East we never ate the day before Thanksgiving because we knew that there'd be 5 or 6 homes we'd be crashing in on to sample the stuffing, cranberry sauce and all sorts of pies. You know, and then we'd grab a beat up football and play 3 on 3 "touch" football to work off the calories and then cool out in time to catch the Knicks or the Rangers or whatever team was playing on the tube.

I actually called my mother back East and told her I'm coming home for the Holidays this year. That's how strong the vibe is from this album, ...imagine what it's going to be like when you see Home For The Holidays, which goes into wide release on November 3rd and hear the awesome soundtrack through the Dolby Surround, DTS, or THX setups they have in some of the finer theaters in this country.

Mark Isham has splendidly scored this soundtrack and his treatments "fit" the context of the movie like a deerskin glove on the hand. Jodi Foster tends to involve herself in quality productions with a certain vibe. I'm hoping to go see this movie and see Jodi's work while popcorn falls between my legs and under the seat. Jodi, I dig your work and its sincerity...Apple pie with a slice of sharp, cheddar cheese...Apple Cider...

The East Coast Rules! Nat King Cole is the supreme holiday voice.
Internet Listening Pleasure: Holidays Blues, Candy, It's Not Unusual, Blue Nights, Birth Of The Cool Whip, Trouble In Mind, The Very Thought of You, Piece Of My Heart.
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Sonny Landreth South Of I-10. Zoo. NR.
Some people utilize the slide guitar for effect only. Others like Bonnie, John Mooney, Kelly Joe Phelps, ...and Duane Allman use the bottle to convey feeling from the Soul.
Sonny Landreth is in their company, playing around the campfire, semi-circle.
It's great to hear that classy piano of Allen Toussaint.
Internet Listening Pleasure: Creole Angel, Native Stepson, Congo Square, Turning Wheel, South of I-10, Mojo Boogie, C'EST Chaud.
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Self Subliminal Plastic Motives. Spongebath/Zoo. NA.
Sort of a Ty Tabor/King's X guitar tone meets grittier Scritti Politti Vocalizing with alternative undertones.
Internet Listening Pleasure: Borateen, Sophomore Jinx, Stewardess, Lucid Anne, Mother Nature's Fault, Big Important Nothing.
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Little Feat Ain't Had Enough Fun. Zoo/BMG. NR.
I'm still Waiting For Columbus...Great album with my buddies, the Texacali Horns blowin' righteously on this one.
Internet Listening Pleasure: Blue jean blues, Cadillac hotel, Big bang theory, Heaven's where you find it, Rock & roll every night, Shakeytown, Ain't had enough fun.
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David Bowie Outside. Virgin. NR.
It is very strange how few have mentioned the Thin White Duke's impact on Alternative Music. The Tin Machine Segue for Bowie was a masterful hint at what was to be, way back in 1989. I mean TM's tone was Alternative to my ears at a time when FYC were doing that masturbatory, weak guitar flailing and making a hit out of some sorry shit.
Go back and listen to that first Tin Machine album with everybody in super 100's suits on the cover. It must be a great burden to be Avant Garde in a world full of lemmings. Bowie has Always been a touchstone of musical trends. If you want to know where music is going and are just the least bit visionary... tune in to Bowie.

Bowie had the grapefruits to use an as yet unknown commodity in SRV on lead guitar on his pivotal Let's Dance album. Thanks for that call, David. I saw SRV on Austin City Limits back in '79, but never got his name. When Let's Dance came out in '83, I immediately knew Bowie was using the cat that was biting a beat up brown Strat on that TV show. Major respect for giving SRV the popular break he needed to bust open Blues.
On Outside, Bowie has created an ultra-cinematic sonic masterpiece that has some of the reasons why I took an interest in Rock and Roll. The Doors' American Prayer album did it for me. Outside is very much the same sort of cinematic vibe American Prayer gave to me when I first heard it in 1980.

I've always appreciated the cinematic capacity Rock and Roll offers. It does not hurt to have Brian Eno jockeying ideas and concepts with Bowie. Eno did that Music For Movies album years ago that is still resting on my mind. Brian Eno is an Aural Architect on the level of a Michael Graves in the structural world of brick and mortar.

You must give yourself the time to absorb this album since it is a soundtrack of movie length. This Album should play very well in NYC since people tend to linger in their homes a bit longer back East. Kick Back and enjoy this album. The Nathan Adler segue is brilliant.
Internet Listening Pleasure: The Heart's Filthy Lesson, A Small Plot of Land, Hello Spaceboy, I Have Not Been To Oxford Town, No Control, Segues 10,12,15,18; We Prick You.
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Lenny Kravitz Circus. Virgin. NR.
Internet Listening Pleasure: Rock And Roll Is Dead, Tunnel Vision, Magdalene, God Is Love, Thin Ice, Don't Go And Put A Bullet In Your Head, In My Life Today.
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Seal Seal. Sire/Warner/ZTT. NR.
I met up with some musician friends that were staying at The Chelsea Hotel and we're coolin out after a John Mooney gig at Tramps.
One of the greatest working drummers out there is Kerry Brown. Kerry comes from the Earl Palmer/Zigaboo Modeliste school of Nawlins drumming. Chillin out in the other bed reading a book he probably re-bound was Glenn Fukanaga, who tours regularly with Joe Ely.
These cats were in town for a Rounder/Bulls Eye Blues record release party that included Mooney, Marcia Ball and the great Charles Brown.
This was all back in 1990.

So it's after the gig and we're suckin' down Heinekens and talking in to the wee hours of the NYC night. The Chelsea does not have very good mattresses, so I felt badly for my buddies cause I had the full support of the floor.
Before we all drifted off to sleep, Kerry starts telling me about this new dude about to come on the scene called Seal... I'm like, What?, Seal?
Yeah, he's some kind of pop singer that's gonna be big, Kerry says to me.

Apparently Allen Toussaint got wind of Seal years ago and was jockeying for Kerry to play drums for this unknown performer.
Well, it's 1995 and the dude has a cut on a soundtrack and an album with credits listing many of the top Aces in the industry, but my friend Kerry is missing from that list.
Hopefully, other albums will have Kerry riding tubs for Seal.
I have not heard any drummer that can chime the very heart out of a Zildjian K like Kerry Brown.
Ask Jimmy Page... Ask Randy Jackson if you think I'm not down. Ask any of the Royal Kings: B.B., Albert, Freddie, Earl.

Seal's album is a loving realization of the Artist's intent by Trevor Horn, supervising a battalion of righteous engineers and mixers that have [sealed] Seal's essence between the laminations of the aluminum cd.

Horn has painted a sonic landscape that reminds me of 10th Avenue all wet down, a light mist settling in around 2 a.m., and I'm shooting up town from well below Canal to drop Gabi and Binaifer Abraham off at Columbia University after one of our epic nights taking a healthy bite out of the Big Apple,... nevermind the maggots.
The thing is, if you catch the lights just right, you can burn all the way up town and find yourself at 60th by the time a red light triggers.
Trevor Horn's production is Green Lights all the way with a sophisticated, urban feeling I'd love to have in my Alfetta making a journey like the one I've just described to you.

I think Gabi's designing housing for 10,000 troops trudging back from the Balkans, and Binaifer advises one of the Kennedy's daughters on International Human Rights; I think she's the one married to Cuomo's son.
Hearing Seal's lush album makes me miss my dear friends so very much...Rumbabas down in Little Italy...Salmon done Country French at The Ear Inn...Herring in the bathroom...Chicken Fried Steak at ACME...44...Frozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity...Tears of Joy, as Kit would say...
Internet Listening Pleasure: Bring It On, Prayer For The Dying, Dreaming In Metaphors, Don't Cry, People Asking Why, Newborn Friend.
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Johnny Guitar Watson Bow Wow. Wilma/Bellmark. NR.
Internet Listening Pleasure: Johnny G. Is Back, Bow Wow, My Funk, Time Change, Doing Wrong Woman, Hook Me Up.
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Working Class Hero A Tribute To John Lennon. Hollywood. NR.
If I were a musician, I wouldn't dare step toward the spirit of John Lennon... no matter how much money you paid me to cover his songs in a tribute album.
You can hear how intimidated by the material a few of these groups are... You don't go hiking up Mount Everest without bringing oxygen.
I think a few of these bands did not really know what they were getting themselves in to. Lennon was deep, wide and high, so the effort put forth is rather valiant.
Go out and buy a Beatles Album... own a piece of The Rock.
Internet Listening Pleasure: I Don't Want To Be A Soldier, Steel And Glass, Imagine; Well, Well, Well; Cold Turkey, Jealous Guy, Instant Karma!, Grow Old With Me, Mind Games.
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G. Love & Special Sauce Coast To Coast Motel. OKeh/Epic. NR.
Internet Listening Pleasure: Sweet Sugar Moma, Nancy, Kiss And Tell, Everybody, Soda Pop, Small Fish.
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Def Leppard Vault-Greatest Hits. Mercury. NR.
The Masters of melodic metal are back with a Greatest Hits package that is sure to remind you of places you were at in life when you first heard these wonderfully crafted, soaring tunes.
The "big" fraternity at my old school was Alpha Omega. When I hear Rock of Ages, I don't think of Elvis singing the hymn, but I think about this hypocrite poser in Alpha Omega that carried a Def Leppard tape in his pocket, but was so afraid of getting caught with it on his person.
The school I went to was like a scene out of Footloose. The guy who had the tape in his pocket became a lawyer.... I got kicked out.
2 years later, I saw him and a few of his asshole buddies at Chastain Park for a Robert Palmer show.
Anyway, look for this worthwhile release to hit the racks on Halloween. It's a real treat.
This music is not for hypocrites.
Internet Listening Pleasure: Every song.
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Dr. John Afterglow. Blue Thumb. NR.
Have you ever heard a perfectly crafted, sonically excellent album?
This one right here, Afterglow, is just such a thing. I'd say if I was on a desert island I could get by with Afterglow, Roxy Music's Avalon, U2's Unforgettable Fire, Bob Marley's Legend, and Traffic's Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, and Don Was/Bonnie Raitt output with a portable Denon CD player and AKG headphones.
I have not heard The Good Doctor in a better setting for his incredible vocal tone and ivory work. Tommi LiPuma knows...how to surround an Artist with the best possible cadre of Ace musicians to take the material farther on up the road. Thanks for being so Wide, Tommy.
Get some q-tips, give your ears a once over, then put on some AKG's and listen to the recording and mix mastery of Al Schmitt.
The cut, carat, and clarity of Al's technique is as a costly diamond. No wonder Al's work is behind so many gold and platinum albums.
Internet Listening Pleasure: I Know What I've Got, I'm Just a Lucky So and So, Blue Skies, So Long, There Must Be a Better World Somewhere, I Still Think About You.

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Ramones Adios Amigos. RadioActive. NR.
From the get-go you realize why this band is not on tour with a lot of bands that plain can't hang.
Imagine how you'd feel having the Ramones open up for your band and your band's [music] has somehow played a part in disfranchising the Ramones.
Lollapalooza is a farse. Who's the idiot/retard that books that show? How could you NOT have the Ramones on with the new bloods? Just on the Holey jeans principle alone...
I remember how weird Tom Swanson looked in holey jeans back in 1979, everybody in the early 90's seemed so passe' to me.
Stylistically, they were on the cusp of fashion that has seeped its way in to mainstream culture for coming on 2 decades now. The Ramones DON'T NEED YOU, they've got the Internet now... 10&1/2D, blue suede, please...
INTERNET Listening Pleasure: I Don't Want To Grow Up, It's Not For Me To Know, The Crusher, Life's A Gas, I Love You, Have A Nice Day, Scatter Gun, She Talks To Rainbows, Spiderman.
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Percy Sledge Blue Night. Sky Ranch/Pointblank. NR.
ANY album that has the liner notes written by Jerry Wexler is cause enough for this young writer to yield the rostrum:
"And so kudos for co-producers Saul Davis and Barry Goldberg for confecting this gorgeous album".
It was Saul, who after hearing Percy's old Warm And Tender Love by accident on the radio, was obsessed on the spot with the need to locate locate Percy and cut a record.
The hunt was on to drum up the requisite financing...Saul lucked upon Sky Ranch Records in Paris, the fiefdom of one Philippe Le Bras e'videmment a funky Frenchman...
It was simply the story of the banks rejecting- and Le Bras saying: yes.
With the bread assured, Saul sounded Barry Goldberg...The record is impeccable. Percy's voice is warmer and rounder than I remembered it and his...'pitch' (to the civilians) is flawless...
Barry's arrangements and control-room jockeying do him proud...Steve Melton, my longtime wizard engineer at Shoals took a listen and flat nailed it...Howinell did you get Glaub's bass sounding so rich and nourishing?
"Makes me wonder if you've been holding out on me..." -Jerry Wexler, East Hampton, Long Island, NY 7/94.
Internet Listening Pleasure: 1 through 11.

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Carla Olson Reap The Whirlwind. Reap The Whirlwind. NR.
This is straight ahed Rock and Roll.
There is so much good music out there in the racks at your local record store and this album is certainly worth your hard earned money.
It starts out with a gentle, Rolling Stones vibe and ends up with classic Chubby Checker type Twine Time.
Internet Listening Pleasure: Reap The Whirlwind, Ups and Downs, Not A Soul To Remember, Honest As Daylight, Bills, Bills, and More Bills.
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Bossa Nova Beatniks Eleven Eleven. Perigree. NA.
If you like the Bossa Nova and Beatniks you've got it right here.
Kinda Mose Allison meets rock, or should we say rockanova.
Internet Listening Pleasure: Route 66, Melcancoly Day.
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