One day I was waiting on parts deliveries so I could do my job and I decided I'd take my lunch while I waited, and I went to a record store in Cuyahoga Falls I have a love/hate relationship with. Actually it's a like/hate relationship because I think they carry way too many mainstream titles of the Classic Rock variety. I had heard they were going out of business, which is bad. I think what he needs is a smaller store and he'd be doing okay. I don't know for sure, but his store is too big and probably costs a lot. He's a nice guy, though.
So since he has this massive classic rock collection, that's just what you hear in that store. It's pretty seldom I've heard anything I don't know like the back of my hand. Frankly, I don't know how you sit there all day, everyday and listen to essentially the classic rock radio station, an entire cd at a time. He does get some vinyl in there, and he can be flexible on his prices so it's always worth a lunch break to stop in. One day I was flipping through the "new" used vinyl and he was playing a Joe Walsh best of cd. Now, I'm from Cleveland, and I've got Joe's snaky solo's going through my veins like everyone else my age around here. The guy was just cool, and I like him. While I'm flipping through the records Welcome to the Club comes on and I just really, totally got into it. I couldn't remember the last time I heard it. Probably not since Betty Korvan was at WMMS! What a great song, though. While I was digging, I saw a really good looking copy of So What, and I grabbed it. I may have bought a few other things, but when I get to the register to ring it up, another customer is hanging out, not buying anything and just bullshitting (fine by me, record stores are good for that), and he says, "He's got that Joe Walsh album on cd if you don't want to buy an old record."
WTF? I just put four vinyl records on the counter, and never once even walked towards the cd's (because I've been burned there on something), and I only looked in the records. I'm not a vinyl purist by any means, but these days I generally stick with vinyl. So I said, "Yeah, but it's probably not three bucks, and it doesn't have this really cool embossed art and absolutely fantastic inner sleeve." He looks at me like I don't understand, and says in what I perceive to be the most assholier than thou voice I've ever heard, "You can't listen to an album cover."
WTF? I just kind of looked at him, hopefully full of pity and sympathy generally reserved for only the saddest cases of humanity I ever have to meet and I says, "You can just download cd's, and hang out at message boards on the internet and never have to go into a place they sell vinyl records, too." I think he thought I was a dick, and he went and picked through cd's until I got rung out and left. I don't know what choice words he had for me, but I bet the dude that owns the place appreciated me being there more that day than he did the other dude, seeing as how I moved some inventory for him. Ya know, I never say anything to anyone in a store about what they're buying unless I like it. Who needs some toolio pissing on their happy record store moment? No one, that's who.
So What is like most Joe Walsh albums. Which means that the good stuff is great, and the not so good stuff is not so good. Overall I think So What is better than a lot of stuff from 1975 and it's just over half an hour, so it's not overwhelming. Welcome to the Club is a real cool song that got very little airplay except at night around here. The three best songs, Time Out, Turn to Stone and Help Me Through the Night make up side two of Joe's single live album, so people must have liked it. They're great songs, and they hold up well almost forty years later. I wish every album I bought could boast four really good songs, because then I don't mind the not so good ones that much. At least he was trying to not just keep rewriting Rocky Mountain Way.
My copy is pretty good. It's an earlier pressing since it still has the embossed cover, but I don't know if it's original. It's nice and flat and it's not too noisy. I can't see any reason to look for another one, but if I found a really great one, I might buy it. You never know.
I used to have that album on vinyl till it got ruined by a flood in the basement but I do recall the inside album sleeve that you mentioned. Joe Walsh is so hit and miss but I did buy it on the FM station playing Welcome To The Club which I think is a better lead off song than the overplayed Rocky Mountain Way. Falling Down was another album cut played a lot on my player (classic rock never played it as far as I know), but never thought much of the Paverne interlude before Time Out.
ReplyDeleteMost of the album works very well on side 2, with Turn To Stone and County Fair which I heard on XM Deep Tracks. The only song I never much for was Song For Emma, even on CD I never played it but once. But So What remains my fave Joe Walsh LP.
I think I like his live album best, because when Joe gets mellow, he's like a lullabye on me sometimes. Even Joe is sick of Rocky Mountain Way. That's back in my good graces after not listening to it for years. I think there's a clip of him playing it somewhere and afterwards he says, "If I'd known I'd have to play that song every night for the rest of my life, I'd have wrote a different song." He's funny, and I like him quite a bit.
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