Toy Dolls: Dig That Groove Baby

Man, I haven't had this much fun listening to an album in a long time.  I actually find myself singing through these songs in my head, realizing I don't do them justice, and heading back down stairs to put this back on the turntable.  Hell, I'm listening to it again right now with my son who's digging it as well.  

A lot of people who've spoken to me after one of my band's gigs usually remarks on how much energy the band has on stage and how much fun it looks like we all are having.  I gotta say, we've got nothin' on these guys!  Jeez, their whole album sounds like it was a party to record.  I can't imagine a world where it didn't happen that way!  I don't want to imagine a world where that wasn't the case.

In a nutshell Toy Dolls are a fun-punk band.  I don't mean like your Clash or Ramones or Sex Pistols. The Clash were actually quite "message based" for their time, one of the first bands like that and musically excellent.  The Ramones were less musically excellent but were produced very well, loud and pretty badass.  The Sex Pistols were pissed, anti-establishment, sort of middle ground musically and really lived that punk life that we all associate with this sort of music.  

The Toy Dolls are completely different.  Musically quite accomplished with some fascinating chord choices (think a punk song about a guy named Archie from Brooklyn but with chords reminiscent of Pachelbel Canon/Puff the Magic Dragon).  The guitarist is innovative, creative and his lead singing is irreverent with a completely over-pronounced, stuffy nosed yet nasally Cockney that brings forth such classics as Nellie the Elephant (my daughter's favorite), Blue Suede Shoes (with a geometrically ascending guitar break) and their original (and my favorite) which titles the album, Dig That Groove Baby.  This tune makes me think of what Buddy Holly would have sounded like had he put out a punk album in the early 80s.  

I had to look all the way to Germany in order to find an original pressing of this one.  Believe it or not it landed in excellent though it's quite staticky.  Could just be our crap weather right now.  Everything is dry, cold and brittle.  This album's really heating it up in this house though... time to turn it over! 

Grateful Dead: Skeletons from the Closet

I'm about to admit something that I'm not particularly proud of.  Back in 1995 when I heard that Jerry Garcia had died (it's one of those times, I remember exactly where I was... I was driving on the dirt road to the summer camp where I worked, it was a warm, sunny day in August and I was coming back from my day off listening to the radio when I heard the news) I remember thinking, "at last". What was my rationale?  I had seemingly forever lived with Grateful Dead obsessed stoners who thought of little else but the Dead and weed.  At camp, the handful of us who were not Dead-Heads had to fill in for the unbelievable number of staff who requested the weekend off to attend the historic Dead concert in Highgate, Vermont.  My college suite was constantly awash in reefer-smoke while strains of the Dead and Phish came thumping through thin dorm walls accompanying the smoke that drifted from under the doors.  A part of me thought that if Jerry Garcia were dead, maybe all the madness would end.   

Now 20 years later I'm left feeling rather bad about my initial reaction and now that I'm able to listen to the Grateful Dead on my own terms, not those of my room-mates or co-workers I find that there is a lot about the Dead that I can appreciate.  For one is very lightness of the music, and I don't mean in an adult contemporary or easy listening kind of way.  The harmonies, the chord progressions, the melodies and the grooves, Skeleton's From the Closet is nice way to spend part of your weekend whether you partake or not.  This album is like listening to a great batch of old Americana recordings except they're not tunes pulled from the 20s and 30s but from the 60s and 70s.  I also find that this record pulls at my nostalgia strings quite a bit.  Like I said I heard these tunes many, many times during my high school/college career and, whether I like it or not, these songs bring about memories of summers spent with friends, bonfires, music pouring out of cars parked in the dark woods with folks having fun and spending summer nights together.  I would also throw into this lot the music of Cat Stevens and Van Morrison.  Seems I spent a lot of time with hippies.  All these albums now live in my collection and when the weather is below freezing and it just seems like the snow will never go away I can throw on the Grateful Dead and all of a sudden it's summer again, my hair is longer, I'm a bit skinnier, there's a fire going in the middle of the woods, the beer is crappy but everyone's happy.  

Buster Poindexter: Buster Goes Berserk

Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite time of year is Christmas time and one of my all time favorite Christmas movies is Scrooged starring Bill Murray and that some of my favorite quotes from the movie are spoken by David Johansen as the Ghost of Christmas Past ("Niagara Falls Frankie Angel", "Which floor?" and "Go back to Jersey you moron!").  David Johansen, the cross dressing lead singer for the New York Dolls decided in the late 80's to pull a 180 degree switch, adopted the persona of Buster Poindexter and started releasing albums completely unrelated to his New York Dolls discography.  His most well known release was the first Buster Poindexter album which contained the hit "Hot, Hot, Hot".  This album has his version of "Hit the Road Jack" which also became a minor hit but that's not why you listen to this album.  It's a little lounge, a little Carribean, a little swingin' bluesy and Johansen's voice lends itself particularly well to all of it.  Many of the tunes are covers of songs from the 40's but ends with a couple of originals that meld in well with the rest of the tracks.  This is a good record to throw on the turntable on a snowy Sunday.  I'll keep this one.

The Clash: Combat Rock

According to Aria, who sat and listened to this with me, she likes it because it's not really hard rock but it's also not Disney music.  Not to mean that she doesn't like Disney music, she just happens to like this because it isn't.  Make sense?  Her favorites on here are Should I Stay or Should I Go and Rock the Casbah (though she pronounces it as Rock the Cash Bar).  She is also a particular fan of Red Angel Dragnet.  She was horrified at the lyrics to Straight to Hell and refers to it as Straight to Not-Heaven.

As a kid I recorded Rock the Casbah off the radio multiple times on my little Sony Cassette recorder.  It's only now that I write this do I realize what the song is about.  Religious fundamentalism trying to control the populace.  Some things never change.  For those new to the Clash, this is as good as any an album to start with.  No two songs sound alike.  Their musicianship and creativity far out pace your typical punk band and their music-with-a-message was pretty much un-heard of for groups like this back then.

Mick Jones went on to form Big Audio Dynamite and had a hit with the song Rush back in 1991, just as I was graduating high school.  Sadly at the time I wasn't interested in hearing anything new and the Clash roots of BAD was lost on me.  Joe Strummer died suddenly in 2002 of heart arrhythmia after a very active career which even included a stint with the Pogues filling in for Shane McGowan.  I've got a couple more Clash albums in my collection, sadly I don't yet have a copy of London Calling.  I think I had one once but cleared it out with some other albums in the 90's when I was more stupid than I am now.  I look forward to adding that one back into the fold and to listening to the other albums in my collection soon.

Ella Fitzgerald: the Rogers and Hart Song Book Vol. 2

Going through some records today on this lazy Saturday.  Mostly lazy because I'm shirking all sorts of responsibilities and tasks that I really should be doing.  Listening to Ella singing some of the greatest songs ever written reminds me that every once in a blue moon I should really slow down and just be human for a little while.  It also reinforces my rationale for visiting thrift stores and coming home with $.25 gold in dusty, basementy smelling piles of mildewed records needing a bit of cleaning, some new record sleeves and plastic protectors.  I just spent 45 minutes in  a different place, a different time and I didn't even leave my couch except to get this laptop.  The song I was looking most forward to on here?  Blue Moon.  Nobody sings it like Ella... nobody.