Review: “Old School,” by Nils Lofgren

Since 2007, Nils Lofgren has spent two years on the road with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, played the Super Bowl, had hip replacement surgery and lost close friends, E Street Band members, Danny Federici and the “Big Man” Clarence Clemons. Lofgren throws the emotions from these events and more life experiences into one pot and stirs up an excellent 12-track collection called Old School.

On the rockin’ title track, Lofgren gets a little help from former Foreigner frontman Lou Gramm and takes a shot at all those whiners who would rather complain than get out and actually do something. He takes us back to 1985 with “60 is the new 18,” a tune that shows a guy who is just hitting his stride at 60. “Miss You Ray” is a melancholy, country-infected tribute to the great Ray Charles and other lost loved ones who have affected his life. The celtic ballad “Irish Angel” with Lofgren on piano is outstanding and he gets a little help from the legendary Sam Moore on “Ain’t Too Many of Us Left.” The beautiful love song “Just Because You Love Me” has a nice smooth groove with a great hook and the Springsteen-esque “Why Me” has that unmistakable Lofgren tone on the guitar solo.

Nils Lofgren has always been underrated as a guitarist and a songwriter. Old School might not change all that, but it certainly should.

Nils Lofgren Official Website

“Old School” by Nils Lofgren (YouTube)

“Irish Angel” by Nils Lofgren (YouTube)

“Why Me” by Nils Lofgren (YouTube)

“Miss You Ray” by Nils Lofgren (YouTube)

Your Sister’s (Record) Rack: Singles, Part 5

Remember when you had a record player that could stack about five or six 45 rpm singles on a spindle, and they dropped onto the turntable one at a time?  I gotta say, sometimes I feel that modern technology has taken some of the romance out of life.  Ah well, here are some more singles:

Let’s get crazy right out of the chute … Ten Years After was a British blues/rock/psychedelic band from the late 1960s, most famous of course for their 11-minute boogie “I’m Going Home” at Woodstock.  That song originally appeared on the band’s Undead live album from 1968, but after Woodstock the band’s label decided to issue an edit of the song on single.  So here we have “I’m Going Home” in its incarnation as a 1969 single, the Undead track whittled down to about three and a half minutes.

MP3: “I’m Going Home” by Ten Years After

For a long stretch in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, nobody came close to Foreigner for sheer hit-making power.  The band led by journeyman guitarist Mick Jones and leather-lunged singer Lou Gramm scored hit after hit that sounded great on the radio.   Their albums sold in the millions, and one of their biggest was 4, released in 1981.  Foreigner’s only No. 1 album in the United States spawned monster hits like “Urgent,” “Waiting For A Girl Like You” and “Juke Box Hero.”  The band also released the rocker “Luanne” as a single that mysteriously stiffed.

MP3: “Luanne” by Foreigner

Gerry Rafferty was formerly part of the band Stealers Wheel, then he went solo in 1978 and scored big with the album City to City and the soaring hit “Baker Street.”  Rafferty felt a little uneasy about being a rock frontman and he was very reluctant to perform live – as a result his albums probably didn’t sell as well as they should have because he rarely toured.  Snakes And Ladders, an album from 1980, featured “Royal Mile (Sweet Darlin’)” as its opening track and only single.

MP3: “Royal Mile (Sweet Darlin’)” by Gerry Rafferty

Marketing 101: KISS and Wal-Mart

A package of KISS M&Ms at Wal-Mart

On Sunday, we drove our daughter back to college after a weekend home.  She goes to the University of Texas-San Antonio in the city’s northwest side, apparently also a newly developed area for upper-income people.  Anyway, we were in a Wal-Mart (yeah) and I saw this guy plunk down three – count ’em – three copies of the new KISS album Sonic Boom.

We found the Wal-Mart’s “KISS Korner,” where you can fondle the new triple-disc CD/DVD package (12 bucks),  a KISS fleece throw (10 bucks), a bag of KISS M&Ms (6 dollars) and KISS Mr. Potato Heads (10 bucks).   Somewhere back in electronics they had Sonic Boom crankin’, or maybe it was the live DVD.  Surely somewhere else in the store there was KISS makeup for the kiddies on Halloween and some action figures.  So it should come as no surprise that Sonic Boom may well be at No. 1 or close to it on the Billboard Top 100 album charts this week.

Now the idea of rock acts signing up to be “exclusive” with Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, may be repulsive to you.  It certainly was, earlier this year, for fans of Bruce Springsteen, who apologized after marketing his latest Greatest Hits only at the Mart.  But it’s a natural for KISS and the band’s bassist/marketing genius Gene Simmons.  He’s laughing all the way to the bank; in his case, multiple banks to hold all of his money.

You gotta hand it to him – and to bands like Foreigner, Journey, AC/DC and the Eagles – who all inked Wal-Mart exclusives and cashed in.  They are managing to do what our beloved mom-and-pop record stores can’t do, and that’s move physical CDs in the age of downloading.  Yeah, it’s too bad that independent record stores are dying.  But it’s way too late to resuscitate the corpse.  Wal-Mart didn’t kill the corner record store – we did.

Review: “Can’t Slow Down,” Foreigner

After 1970s rock heroes Journey made a successful comeback with their Wal-Mart-only deal last year, Foreigner hopes to hit it similarly big with their new one, Can’t Slow Down.  Of course it’s available only at Wal-Mart (unless you want to download it), and of course it sounds like the old Foreigner.  And of course, there’s a new lead singer.

That’s Kelly Hansen and although he’s no Lou Gramm, he is certainly no slouch.  The title song has the pole position on the first CD (there’s two CDs and a DVD) and you should know it’s some kind of NASCAR tie-in.  No matter: it accelerates out of the gate, propelled by the guitar work of Mick Jones, Foreigner’s only remaining original member.

Even better is “In Pieces,” a cruisin’ song that they don’t make any more.  By the time you get to the third song, “When It Comes To Love,” you know you’re locked in.  Hansen’s voice feels just right, and the sax work (by Tom Gimbel) is just the right hook for this 21st century power ballad.

The rest of the album moves along in a nearly rockin’ mode, offering highlights “I’ll Be Home Tonight,” which sounds like it could have part of Foreigner’s back catalog, and the rocker “Too Late,” which appeared on another Foreigner collection last year.

Rockin’ the Jukebox

Lenny Bruce once said, the one machine made only for fun is the jukebox.   It doesn’t cut anything, or mash anything, or staple anything together, it just plays music.  When I was a kid we used to go over to visit my grandmother in Louisiana, and she operated a small pool hall in Catahoula, deep in the swamps.  I was fascinated with the jukebox – how it found the record you selected, placed it just so on the turntable and guided that needle with precision right to the first notes of the music.  When the record man came every once in a while to change out the 45 rpm platters, she gave the old ones to me and my brothers.  My musical tastes for the rest of my life were influenced by that handful of records from a forgotten jukebox in swampland Louisiana.

If you see a jukebox nowadays, it’s usually a relic stuck away in some corner of a bar.  It could play CDs or it could be one of those new digital models stocked with thousands of downloads (like my laptop).  Or you might find one in the rec room or basement bar of some guy’s house that you’re only going to visit once.   Jukeboxes seem to be disappearing, or at least morphing into something other than the machine that Lenny Bruce romanticized or the motherlode of forbidden music from my childhood.  Let’s drop a coin in the slot and celebrate the jukebox today.

MP3: “Juke Box Music” by the Kinks

MP3: “Let The Jukebox Keep On Playing” by Carl Perkins

MP3: “A-1 On The Jukebox” by Dave Edmunds

MP3: “Turn The Jukebox Up Louder” by Porter Wagoner

MP3: “Jukebox Man” by Dick Curless

MP3: “You’re Still On My Mind” by the Byrds

MP3: “Stoned At The Jukebox” by Hank Williams Jr.

MP3: “A-11” by Buck Owens

MP3: “Jukebox Charlie” by Johnny Paycheck

MP3: “Little Queenie” by Chuck Berry

MP3: “I Love Rock and Roll” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

MP3: “Juke Box Hero/Whole Lotta Love” (live) by Foreigner

Winter

 

MP3: “A Hazy Shade Of Winter” by Simon & Garfunkel

MP3: “Snowblind” by Black Sabbath

MP3: “Snow (Hey Oh)” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

MP3: “A Winter’s Tale” by the Moody Blues

MP3: “Pisshole In The Snow” by the Pernice Brothers

MP3: “Snowin’ On Raton” by Robert Earl Keen

MP3: “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes

MP3: “Winter” by Steeleye Span

MP3: “Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow” by Jethro Tull

MP3: “Snow” by Loreena McKennitt

MP3: “Wizards In Winter” by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra

MP3: “Cold As Ice” (live)  by Foreigner (with Kelly Hansen)

MP3: “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow” by Frank Zappa

MP3: “Thank You, Dreaded Black Ice, Thank You” by Giant Sand

MP3: “In The Bleak Midwinter” by Bert Jansch

MP3: “Snow In Austin” by Ellis Paul

MP3: “California Dreamin’ ” by the Beach Boys

Did Foreigner Miss The Boat?

Foreigner's new lineup

In the late 1970s, the band to beat was Foreigner.  They sold millions of records beginning in 1977 when their self-titled debut spawned the monster hits “Feels Like The First Time,” “Cold As Ice” and “Long, Long Way From Home.”  They have sold 50 million albums around the world, and in their heyday were a powerhouse live act.

So why aren’t they enjoying the same success that like-minded arena rockers Journey is having?  Well, for one thing Foreigner didn’t make a deal to sell their records at Wal-Mart.  Journey and the Eagles made deals with the department store giant and sold millions; AC/DC’s Black Ice, to be released on Columbia Records this October, will be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores. 

Odds and Ends

      

Today we catch up with all the junk cluttering our in-box.  First, a couple of reissues: Blondie‘s Parallel Lines 30th anniversary set, and War from U2.  Blondie was one of the first American punk bands to make an impact at New York’s club CBGB, and they were probably the first to top the charts.  When Parallel Lines came out in 1978, Blondie was a slightly different band with a few more musicians but the spotlight remained on lead singer Deborah Harry.  And rightly so – Harry was an ultra-hot ex-model who put a beautiful face and a not-bad voice on these polished not-so-punk tunes.  “Heart Of Glass,” with its thumping disco beat, hit No. 1 on the charts.  And rockers “Hanging On The Telephone” and “One Way Or Another” were worthy follow-ups.  Anyhow, the 30th anniversary reissue of Parallel Lines includes extra oddities like a French-language version of “Sunday Girl” and remixes of some of the other songs on the album.  Oddly, they didn’t include the original (non-disco) version of “Heart Of Glass,” which appeared on previous CD reissues of the album.  Toss in a DVD of videos and you have a so-so package.  Unless you don’t already own the album that kicked off American New Wave, you can pass this one up.

MP3: “One Way Or Another” by Blondie