Well, let's see now... First some housekeeping matters.... In response to some good suggestions from those trying to organize their iTunes and such, I do plan on re-posting a bunch of stuff in "album" format as zip files. Also, the rock onslaught will subside shortly, as I have some acoustical things to post. But first....
Links for iPads and such, go here and click "download" at top right:
http://www.box.com/s/yhugtebje3tqsopbmgoz
http://www.box.com/s/sxmjco8o5vsizbymppqk
Speaking of albums and rock, the next few posts will be some covers done by me and John Stackpole, a great high school buddy of mine, and member of my earliest quasi-band (along with the legendary Dillo, from whom we'll also be hearing soon). Anyway, Stag and I managed to get back in touch a few years back and he's made a yearly trip up to Harpswell, at which time we try and get a few recordings in the can. God bless the internets for allowing such conections to happen with so little effort! The first time we say down to play after 20+ years off, it was like we hadn't missed a day, except we'd both improved quite a bit, which was fortunate, to say the least. In a much-needed departure from the weird, claustrophobic, stressful, metronome-driven world of solo recording, it's great fun to stretch out and go with the dynamics of a song and see where you land up.
Not surprisingly, the songs we take up are straight out of the old-school classic rock that permeated our otherwise fairly drab suburban New York lives in the early '80s. Man, we used to live for those records, and Stag had (and has, in the very same room!) an absolutely tremendous collection. We learned some great things up there spinning those records and diving deep into the details. All the tropes of us vinyl obsessives certainly apply here. And when it wasn't those walls of well-cared-for records, it was tape decks in whatever car we were tooling around in (his Corolla, my Nova, Dillo's Nova, Bill's Malibu) or whatever boombox we had handy. Anything to keep the mostly vast wasteland of FM radio at bay.
For listening to, and certainly for jamming on and trying to impress our friends (and the girls we would've liked to be our friends), Creedence Clearwater Revival was often the go-to. Yep-- The ladies love cool Creedence! OK, maybe it was not the most stylin' choice, but we had workboots and flannel. Creedence songs were bountiful, easy to play, and EVERYBODY knew about 20 of 'em. "Effigy" is a deep cut off of "Willie and the Poor Boys" from '69. It's a hell of an anthemic burner, brimming with the palatable kind of Sixties outrage.
The flipside of this "single" is "Lover of the Bayou", a sorely unknown gem from the late-era Byrds (1970's "Untitled"). After Gene Clark left, and David Crosby too, and Gram Parsons came and went, and Chris Hillman left to form the Flying Burrito Bros. with him, Roger McGuinn soldiered on. By the early '70s the Byrds weren't making any good records (total stinkers, matter of fact), but they were a terrific live act, and this song was a creepy highlight of their sets. For me anyway, that 12-string Rickenbacker is just hardwired to my brainstem. We never played any Byrds with the bands back in the day but, man, we should have! Andy O'Brien even had the Rick, though he just used it for strumming. That, however is another inexplicable story...
Effigy (CCR):
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