Cheap Trick - In Color

The first time I bought Cheap Trick - In Color, was in 1977 for my brother for xmas.  I wasn't all that familiar with them, but they played them a bit on college radio back then.  I thought they'd be a fun band for a 13 year old to get into.  He seemed to like them for awhile but then eventually he got into The Clash and I'm pretty sure that when push comes to shove they're the only band he listens to, even to this day.  I don't know why he decided he only needed to listen to one band, but maybe that's all the attention span he's got?

This record always kind of sat on the back burner for me.  I liked it.  I didn't love it, but I liked it.  I think I was working at a car wash, and if I went into my brother's room and stole his album (which was something I was allowed to do - he was forbidden to touch my records) before work, I'd have Cheap Trick stuck in my head all day while I dried cars at the end of the wash.  I really liked being up at that end of the wash, because I was allowed to smoke when there wasn't a car, and I had enough time if a car just entered the wash to run next door and get and ice cold Orange Crush.  Man, I loved that stuff when I worked there. Not a big fan of orange pop these days or even ever since, but back then I could smoke a half a joint in the car wash, have a nice menthol smoke and run next door and get an Orange Crush and I thought life was pretty fuckin' great!

This album was kind of funny in that when you played it for someone back then, they didn't seem to interested in it.  But come 1979 and all these songs became standard airplay and big hits with the release of Cheap Trick - Live at Budokan.  I thought it was pretty cool that they got some recognition, but I always liked the way this album sounded more.  They were simple, straight up Rock songs and they had the kind of production that would make those songs just stick in your head.  I always liked Hello There, and I remember reading somewhere that they used to use that song to help the sound guy dial in the sound.  That's why each member comes in clearly on their own in the song.  It's short and simple, but that seemed like a great idea to me, and I like songs that are put together like that for some reason.  I think my favorite song is still Come On, Come On but Southern Girls gives it a run for the money.

I remember hearing I Want You to Want Me from the live album a few years later and arguing with a friend in his car that there was no way I had heard it, because it was "new."  I told him it was on a live album, so odds were pretty good they had some other albums out, you just hadn't heard of them yet.  I remember he was pretty solid in his argument, and then I told him, "But you never heard of Peter Frampton before Frampton Comes Alive, so why wouldn't it be the same for Cheap Trick?"  Lemme tell ya, sometimes you just can't argue with someone when they're high.  I think I even pulled out my ultimate bit of Rock Snobbery and called the album, In Color and in Black and White, because that way I could show my massive superiority of all things Rock N Roll, but he had never seen the album so it was pretty lost on him.  Lemme tell ya, sometimes you just can't argue with someone when you're high.

So I think I found this on the reissued CD in 1998, with some bonus tracks.  I called my brother to come over because I was sure he hadn't heard it in decades, and he didn't even know what album we were listening to!  What?  So I was left in a bit of a funk, lemme tell ya.  The cd is fine and you get a few bonus tracks that won't change your life any.  I found a copy of the record at a record store in Corning, NY for like two bucks (I think that's where I got this, you can get it anywhere, I'm sure).  The record is nice and flat and I think sounds pretty good.  The cover is nice and pretty and it's funny to look at how Cheap Trick was trying to market themselves.  I think it's a fun record, but for some reason a little Cheap Trick goes a long way for me.

Mason Proffit - Wanted

I should probably pick some newer music, but I just haven't felt like it, I guess.  I'm not saying I've been on a Mason Proffit binge or anything, but I have been listening to some old stuff that's made me think of things to say on here.  Maybe that's just because I'm more familiar with it?  I don't know, and I don't really care.  I just noticed I have this album the other day, and I remember buying it not all that long ago.  I bought it because it wasn't like thirty dollars, and I remembered that at a lot of shows long, long ago this was a pretty sought after record in the Cleveland area.  I remember the first time I heard about it, too.  Not the first time I heard it, the first time I heard about it.  There's a big difference.

I've mentioned before that when I was younger (like a teenager) I wanted to be serious about music.  I didn't want to just listen and bop my head and yell, "Crank it!  This is jammin'!"  I wanted to know why it was "jammin'" and I wanted to talk to other people and see if they agreed why I thought it was "jammin'" or not. That conversation really generally degenerates into something like "You just don't know what's good" pretty quickly (my favorite retort was always, "Maybe not, but I know what's bad!").  Every now and then I could find some oddball music nerd like myself that would gladly spend an entire party ignoring all their friends so they could pontificate about what was good and right about music, and what was wrong and inherently evil about the music industry with someone that hadn't heard every one of their theories until they wanted to strangle said music nerd.  Hey, I always knew how he felt, my friends were pretty sick of me, too!

Now Mason Proffit's Wanted isn't a particularly rare and sought after album, but in the late 70's, very early 80's it was out of print and so when you heard someone going on about how Two Hangmen was one of the most powerful statements of the human condition ever, and it was also one of the first songs that blended the not lame parts of Country with all the goodness Rock music had to offer.  The fact that it was kind of obscure and that when you did find a copy it was kind of beat and/or expensive kind of assured certain fanboys of being able to hold the album a little bit above your head.  Anyone that stayed up all night around this part of the world would eventually hear Two Hangmen, and you'd generally have to admit, it was a mostly cool song.  Not quite what some record nerds would have had you believe, but it's pretty good.

The funny thing to me is that while it's fun to talk about some supposed masterpiece that someone else hasn't heard, when that someone finally hears it, they often wish they could get right back into that conversation and say, "Hey!  That record is only about a half hour long, and there's a lot of slow, hippie peace bullshit to wade through!"  Now, don't get me wrong.  I like hippie peace bullshit as much as the next guy, but I wouldn't doubt that even though these guys were on a tiny label called Happy Tiger, I bet they had some other influences adding strings and fucking up their drum sound.  Drum sound is important to me, and the problem here is that it sounds like someone stuffed a pillow in the kick drum.  I hate that.  It just makes it thud.  A lot like the thud of hitting a pillow instead of a drum.  But the strings that get added just remind me of how Damnation of Adam Blessing often had the "hard" part of their Hard Rock sound softened by some label guy that thought the kids didn't like the really hard stuff, and that if a little violin worked for Mozart, it would work for Rock bands, too.  It doesn't.  It just gets in the way.

So getting back to not hearing what other Rock Nerd is talking about, these days you can just pull it up on your phone and try calling the guy out with your shitty 1/8" speakers.  Which isn't fair, but I'm sure it's done. In the case of Mason Proffit, I had to wait a long, long time to find the record inexpensively enough for me to be interested since I had heard Two Hangmen and wasn't sure if I remembered thinking it was totally amazing at 4:00 AM back when I was 22.  As it turns out, I'm probably much more patient with this record these days that I ever would have been back then, but I'd love to get back into that conversation and ask the guy what he thought of Sweet Lady Love, which has a pretty nice, slippery guitar and I think a little smaller pillow in the kick drum.  I think it's much better than Two Hangmen, and it's easily my favorite song on the album.

You know, it's funny the bits of conversations I can remember from decades ago.  These days I think I still take music more seriously than most people, especially because I mostly listen to music made for fun.  I mean, seriously, when's the last time you analyzed a roller coaster ride or a backyard picnic?  You probably don't. They're just fun.  Some are more fun than others and that's all you think about.  But me, I have to sit and remember some conversation I had at a backyard picnic thirty years ago and wish I could sit down with this record nerd I was talking to and see if he still thinks Wanted is a great lost classic, or just rightfully kind of lost.  Hey!  Dude that was talking to me!  Read my blog, maan!

Roxy Music - Viva!

I seem to be stuck in an old part of my record collection right about now.  Maybe because I ordered some stuff and it hasn't come in and I'm trying to make sure I have the funds for it when it gets here (if you order records at your record store and don't pick them up for weeks or months, then you're a dick and they should make you prepay, and if you still don't get them in 30 days, they should put your records out in the sale bin). I guess that listening to old stuff kind of gives me more ammo for these posts, though.  Because they've been a part of me for so long, I might actually have something to say about them, whereas a new record I tend to kind of review it, and lord knows I suck at that!  Viva! Roxy Music is one of those records I've had since I was in Jr, High.  So I should be able to think of something to say about it.

I remember reading about Roxy Music, and I think I had heard Love is the Drug a million times (it was a big hit here on Cleveland FM radio), and I liked how they were described as Art Rock.  I figured back then that anything with that kind of label meant that the music was more mature, and I was more likely to be able to pick someone's brain who knew way more about Rock music than me if I knew something like this.  I had no idea what to expect when I bought this (it was the first Roxy album I ever bought), but the cover looked like modern art and Rock 'N Roll to me, and I loved how the back cover says Viva! Roxy Music - The Live Roxy Music Album.  It seemed serious to me, and I wanted to listen to serious music.  I don't know why I wanted to listen to serious music, in the bicentennial parade in our town I helped a friend tape a big smoke bomb to his bike seat, and we lit it right before the part of the parade where the most people would get blasted with that awful smoke while we rode our bikes around the float our families had made.  Parents were pissed, but they had to admit, it was pretty funny to see kids in Tricorn hats riding in this giant plume of stinky, yellowish smoke.  So I wasn't taking anything else seriously, but I wanted people to know that I took my responsibilities as a Rock Fan seriously, no matter the appearance of frivolity my life actually consisted of.

The best thing about this album is how loud it sounds.  It always sounds loud, even if you're listening quietly.  It sounds loud because the audience is loud.  It sounds loud because when you turn it up to make it easier to hear the quiet parts, the loud parts come in really loud, the way Rock 'N Roll shows should be.  I was never afraid of the Art Rock label again after hearing this record, because I figured it meant killer guitar solo's, pounding drums and weird, wild electric violins.  I was all in (and I still am).  I love the beginning of this record.  The crowd is chanting in unison (I've never been to a show where that happened), and then the crack of that snare drum and it's so obvious that this band means business as it launches into Out of the Blue. Then that crazy finale with the electric violin - you have no idea how many nights I spent playing this record over and over.  I had no idea that this was  actually a somewhat less adventurous (or arty) band than they had been.  All I knew is that this was one of my favorite records, and it still is.

I think the two things that I always thought were as much art as rock were Both Ends Burning and In Every Dream Home a Heartache (did you know that's about an inflatable doll?  do you know what pervs do with those things?).  Now I don't think my parents ever quite caught on to the adult subject matter of the former (because they just tuned it out, not because they were 14 like me), but I know they heard my little GE stereo blasting Phil Manzanera's epic solo after the line, but you blew my mind... I played that all the time, and it just had to be loud for that Maximum Rock Effect.  In fact, my old record (which has been replaced due to abuse) was easy to find where that part of the song was, because I often just played that if I was in a hurry.  Swimming took up a lot of my time, and I hated that I couldn't listen to music while I swam up and down the pool!

Both Ends Burning always just slays me when the girls come in and just shred their vocal cords.  The juxtaposition against Bryan Ferry's always in control voice is perfect.  I knew that that had to be the part that was art.  I know now that just because it's music makes it art, but hey, cut me a break.

I'm still kind of proud of myself for starting my Roxy Music journey here.  There's none of the FM staple songs on this album.  It's a really weird song selection, and it's a pretty short album so you'd think they could have squeezed Love is the Drug on it if they had wanted to.  But those were different times, and I think that Roxy felt (rightly) that these were great performances in their own right, and that people should listen to the record as a whole and get to know a different side of them.  Obviously, no one would ever do that these days!  I mean, how many 14 year olds even listen to anything but a song or two by any artist?  And how fucked up is that?  That means that a 14 year old today is missing out on the hairs standing up on the back of their necks when the girls shred Both Ends Burning.  That kid never learns to love the absolutely epic, weirdly kind of Country meets Progressive Rock 10 minutes of pure delight that's If There is Something.  I feel bad for those kids, and I know with my kids I spent a lot of time trying to explain why it's important to listen to an album.  Not to just play songs.  Because listening to an album is where one day, you find out that the quiet, moody Chance Meeting is one of the songs that has burned into your psyche.  It would be such a shame to not have that happen to you.  It's like trampling through a field of tulips in Holland so you can see a dandelion.

Well, that's enough of that old man shit.  My record is exactly the same as my old one was, except it's playable and sounds terrific.  I think I replaced it in the mid 80's, and I'm pretty sure mine is an original pressing.  It's got the yellow ATCO label like my old one did, and even the cover is in great shape.  I seem to remember wishing there was more stuff written on that cover for me to read while I listened, though!

Linda Ronstadt - Mad Love

I know that if there's an artist from the 70's that has a line of demarcation between good music and who cares, a strong case can be made for Linda Ronstadt.  A lot of people would draw that line right before this album got released, too.  Not me, though.  I love this album.  Maybe it's because I was 18 when it came out and I liked the fact that Linda covered Elvis Costello and pretty much introduced the world to The Cretones (and no one noticed, but it was still a cool gesture), and as mainstream as Linda was, she was saying, "Hey! This new music the kids are into is pretty fucking great!"  So while she ends up missing some of the more visceral aspects of the music that I really go for, she hits the mark more than she misses it, and anything that has a guitar solo as good as Danny Kortchmar's solo on Hurts So Bad has got to have a lot going for it if you give it a chance.  That song wasn't Linda exactly taking chances (she pretty successfully resurrected plenty of old songs her whole career), but Hurts So Bad and Can't Let Go were the only two real "oldies" on the album.  What's great is that Linda lets her band step up and be themselves throughout the album.  I think it's Rosemary Butler with the great backing vocals on Can't Let Go, and there's just a lot of moments on this album where it's impossible not to just love the band she used.  The guys were great.

I think the Elvis Costello songs get the most shit from the cool kids, but I always appreciated the fact that Linda got a lot of my friends to listen to Elvis Costello songs, when I had tried and often failed to get them interested.  Sure, Girls Talk is pretty hostile in Elvis' hands, but Linda adds an outsider feel to it that actually makes it sad.  The other Elvis songs, Party Girl and Talking in the Dark generally work, but for completely different reasons that they work for Elvis (like Girls Talk, I suppose).  Talking in the Dark ends the record on a happy note and Party Girl takes on a whole new persona with Linda taking the role of the Party Girl.  The other songs aren't as good as these five, but they're better than a lot of other choices Linda has made on other albums.  They work for me, anyway.

I went and saw Linda on the Mad Love Tour.  I'm not sure who her band was for that, because I sat on the lawn at Blossom Music Center and it was a long time ago.  I remember I went with a friend, and he drove. He had a cool car, a 67 Fairlane, I think.  It was nice, too.  We stopped at K Mart and bought a big thermos because you could take that kind of stuff, and then we bought a real big bottle of shitty gin and some Vernor's Ginger Ale (still my favorite by a mile) and we just killed that sucker.  Now my friend that drove, he had one of those nights and he got way more of the booze than me.  So towards the end of the show, he looks at me and says, "I'm going down to the front,"  I just knew he'd never get five feet into the pavilion, so I stood there and watched him eyeing the security guys, the drooping velvet rope, and the ramp down to the front of the pavilion.  I could see he was ready to make his move, and I could see three security guards all knew he was coming.

What was great was that they kind of held back, to see what he'd do.  Well, he took off, and hit top speed quickly.  He timed his leap over the velvet rope perfectly, and it was really a thing of beauty.  For a split second, I thought he might make it.  But then his trailing foot caught the velvet rope, which was an impossibly high 18" off the ground, and my friend went face first right into the concrete ramp.  The three security guards and me immediately started laughing, and they actually just helped him up, brushed him off, and gave him back to me.  They didn't even say to keep an eye on him or anything.  Probably because they were still laughing so hard, but then again, it could have been because those guards and me, we developed a special bond at that moment.  There's more stories from the drive home, but I'll just leave you with that one.

My record is nice and flat and sounds great.  I even bought it on cd, but I don't know why.  I saw a copy of this in a used record store for two bucks, and I almost bought it because it looked completely perfect, but as I flipped through I saw another one maybe even nicer for two bucks.  So I figure mine's just fine and I'll save my two bucks, but if you ever find this shopping in a used store, I bet you can get at least the price of this record off your entire purchase if you buy a few things.  So for free, this would be one of the best albums you ever got!

Lou Reed - Rock N Roll Animal

When I think about what I really think Classic Rock is, I think about this album.  I tend to be overly critical of Classic Rock, but this album certainly isn't why I act like that. I act like that because the Baby Boomers so steadfastly refuse to give up the music they grew up with, and they're also the ones that allowed radio stations to all be owned by the same shitty team of accountants that decided if every station in the country was exactly the same, then they could make more money.  Because running at a profit isn't enough, they want to hit the fucking lottery every payday.  But back when I was a kid and the term Classic Rock hadn't been invented (we would just hear Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter playing the live intro to Sweet Jane and say, "Turn it up!  This is a classic!"

So this was sort of my real introduction to The Velvet Underground.  I know, some of you are saying, "That's not VU, ya chucklehead," and I won't try to pretend that it is.  But for a lot of kids in say, 1977 or '78, this was the ubiquitous collection of VU songs that was in everybody's record crate.  The addition of Dick and Steve on guitars kind of smoothed out some of the rough edges of VU, and mad this set a lot more accessible to a lot of people.  I always thought that this was a good thing, because it helped get VU's songs the attention they deserved.  I know they're a big touchstone today, but in 1978, you might read about them sometimes, but you rarely heard them on the radio or found their records in someone's crate, unless that someone was particularly nerdy.

But the great thing about this album is that in making these songs more accessible and radio friendly, a real wide spectrum of people dug this record.  At least here in the flatlands of the Midwest.  I can remember a lot of parties and trunk lids opened up and when the opening intro to Sweet Jane started, so did the party.  It may seem kind of overplayed these days, but it took a lot of years to get us to that state.  The thing is, it seemed like everyone liked that song.  Jocks, burnouts, straight kids - it didn't matter.  Everyone around here loved this album.  Which is cool, because while Ive heard it get panned for being too commercial sounding, it also has a long song called Heroin on it, and the whole thing only has five songs anyway.  So yeah, it has a more commercial sound, but it still required a certain amount of attention on the part of the listener.  The further away from that decade I get, the more I think this is a record Lou Reed should be really proud of.

They played every song on here on the radio.  They played them all at sort of different times of the day.  You could hear Sweet Jane and Rock n' Roll anytime, morning, noon and night.  Heroin would be a night song, White Light, White Heat would be a late afternoon, evening song and Lady Day would be one of those late night, weekend kinds of songs.  How many other albums can boast that kind of radio love?  And like I said, it was in everyone's record crates.  It was definitely in mine, and I think it was one of the first records I bought that I thought meant that I took this music stuff seriously.  I definitely listened to it for fun, but I knew that Dick and Steve were the guitar players and that Prakash John played bass.  This stuff wasn't on the album cover, either.  It may have been on the gatefold cover, but I never saw a copy with that cover until the recent reissue.  The label must have killed that pretty early on, I guess.  I still don't have a gatefold version, but it's also not like I'm looking for one.

I did without this record for years, too.  I remember in about 1987 or 88 I took a stack of about forty records to the used record store and traded them in on cd's.  My plan was to get rid of some stuff I knew I'd replace with cd's for sure.  Fortunately for me, I didn't do that with my whole record collection (I think I'd wake up and cry all day, every day if I did).  But I never did get around to getting this on cd!  I have no idea why, because I think it's truly one of the great Classic Rock albums that everyone should own, but I just never did grab it.  I found a great looking copy of it probably five or six years ago and just grabbed that.  I think it was three bucks.  It's on Dynaflex vinyl, and I think I've mentioned before that I really don't have issues with those.  You have to take care of them, but so long as you have a full size platter, I think they sound just fine.  My copy of this sounds as good as I ever remember it sounding, so I'm okay with it.

I think this is kind of a funny album in that it works for me in the moment, more than as a nostalgic trip.  But the line in Sweet Jane about those being different times when riding in a Stuz-Bearcat (isn't that the best name for a car ever?  I wish I had one) always did make me think about different times, even when I was 16 and this record was only a few years old (but new to me).  It's the rare record that can be this good, this universally loved and this interesting to listen to.  If you don't have it, you should really save up three bucks and get it.  If you do have it, you should grab a beer and put it on!

Shufflin' Around

OK, so here’s an idea I stole from albumblog.net.  They just hit shuffle on their ipod and keep track of the next ten songs and let you know what they were.  Yeah, it’s kinda lazy, but it’s also kinda cool.  They listen to more Progressive Rock than I do, but it’s a cool blog anyway.  I don’t have an ipod, so this is just how my car picked some songs off my USB stick.

1. Big Dipper – Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  I like Big Dipper.  I never really heard of them except for All Going Out Together and San Quentin CA, but they get some love over at Rock TownHall and I got Supercluster when it came out.  This song has some nice, fat chords and some neat picking guitars that sort of follow each other.  The lyrics are weird and funny and strange.

2. Deer Tick – Stung.  I love Deer Tick, and this is one of the kinds of songs that makes me love them.  It’s kind of acoustic and slow and John McCauley’s voice is perfectly worn out for the feel of the song.  So far the drive to where I’m going is off to a good start!

3. Dr. Feelgood – The More I Give.  Cool!  Some killer Pub Rock from my favorite Pub Rock band.  Wilko Johnson is one of my favorite guitar players ever and Lee Brilleaux is one of my favorite singers.  It’s definitely not a cerebral thing with these guys.  It’s a purely physical attraction, and these guys just make me want to be in a bar, with a band and some good beer on draft.

4. Kings of Leon – Taper Jean Girl.  I like KOL.  I know, it’s not cool to like them.  It originally wasn’t cool because they had too much backing them, and now it’s not cool because they sound like U2.  Well, I really like their first two albums a lot, and this is a terrific song with a great garage feel.

5. Dr. Feelgood – I Don’t Mind.   Cool!  I don’t know why, but I swear sometimes the car seems to know when it should go back and play a band again.

6. The Greenhornes – Left the World Behind.  I was kind of glad when The Raconteurs took a break, because I like The Greenhornes a lot.  This is off their last album, which was a long wait.  I like this song a lot.  It’s kind of a psychedelic little three minute trip.  These guys just know what made those weird garage-psych songs work, and they get it right again here.

7. Eddie and the Hot Rods – Get Across to You.  Yeah!  More Pub Rock!  The opening song from Teenage Depression.  Awesome.

8. Roxy Music – The Bogus Man.  This is from their live album.  I love that album, and I only really ever knew one other person that had really ever listened to it, and we used to party to this one up at the baseball field.

9. 22-20’s – Baby Brings Bad News.  Not the best song on this album, but it’s a really good album.  I don’t know what happened to these guys.  I guess they hated each other or something, but there’s no denying they made one really good Rawk album.

10. Modern Lovers – She Cracked.  While I don’t think you need to follow Jonathan Richman too closely, I am the kind of music snob that think the first Modern Lovers album is one of Rock’s almost perfect moments.  This is one of the best songs on the album, and will require that I sit in the parking lot and listen before I go in.  This was actually out of print for awhile, and that should be a crime.

The Rolling Stones - Get Yer Ya Ya's Out

For years this was proclaimed the greatest "live" album ever.  It may still be, but someone has probably released something better.  Many people have released albums that are far more "live" than this one, but I never cared if this had studio edits and completely wiped and new vocal tracks.  The fact is, this is a great record.  Not because The Stones were so great on the 69 tour, but because The Stones know how to make a great record.  A record you can listen to over and over and always find something new to love about it.  If you want a document of what The Stones sounded like in 1969, then find yourself a copy of Live'r Than You'll Ever Be, which is possibly one of the best bootlegs ever recorded (you have to consider the date if you compare it to modern bootleg audience recordings, but it's very well done).

Right from the start this album starts kicking your ass, and it doesn't stop until it's all done.  The difference between Got Live if You Want It! and Get Yer Ya Ya's Out! is night and day.  Where the former pasted screaming teenies over studio cuts mixed with live tracks, the latter completely reconstructs live songs by wiping guitar and vocal tracks as an artistic choice, not because of a bum note or missed cue.  I've heard people complain about that, especially with Jumpin' Jack Flash (Jagger's vocals are completely different from every other show on the tour) and the missing verse on Sympathy for the Devil.  It just doesn't matter. Sure, it's not the way it happened, but you also weren't down in your friend's basement shooting pool while The Stones played right in front of you either.

Which is what makes this record so great.  It doesn't matter that it didn't actually happen like that.  What matters is that afterwards, this record screamed PARTY! like no other record.  Sure, you can listen to it in the dark with your headphones and get your ass rocked off pretty good, but this record is meant to be shared with your friends.  Every song on it was chosen for good reason.  Two Chuck Berry numbers, one on each side, remind you that The Stones are a direct offspring of the master, and in case that isn't quite enough pedigree, they put Robert Johnson's Love In Vain on there, too.  Keith's snaky picking and Mick Taylor's electric slide are mesmerizing.  Perfect for basement party and tailgating party slower moments.  Taylor's guitar solo's sound like they're coming down from the rafters of Madison Square Garden right into your party, and everyone knows there's at least one guy at that party that needs to close his eyes, hoist his beer high in the air, and let Mick take him up to those rafters.  Even if it's his shot on the pool table.  You just have to wait, and when it comes down to it, you don't mind because you get it, too.

Midnight Rambler is the song of greatest debate on here.  Is this the definitive version? Is it the version from Brussels in 1973?  Is it the original studio version (some people immediately dismiss that one as somehow inferior, but they're wrong)?  Who cares?  It's a party and there's no need to make a final decision.  Maybe this Midnight Rambler really is the best.  There certainly don't seem to be any overdubs, so The Stones seemed to be very happy with it.  It doesn't matter.  It kicks ass, it always has and it always will.  That's what great songs on great records do.

Sympathy for the Devil is the other song that just burns it up here.  Even missing a verse, it still doesn't matter.  What matters is that Keith Richards plays the first guitar solo, and gives everyone a chance to play some air guitar and really feel the music.  I've got to say, I always liked how Mick Taylor and Keith never seem to be in each others' way.  But then comes the next party debate - Mick Taylor plays his solo, which gives us all yet another opportunity to use a pool cue for an air guitar.  Is Taylor's solo better?  Is Keith's?  has anything better ever really even happened in the whole history of the world?  Who knows?  Party records don't care about that shit.  They just bring the fun and wait patiently until the next party to bring the fun back out.

I've got a couple copies of this.  I listened to an older London Records version while I was thinking about what to put on my blog.  It's nice - no seam splits, tight corners and a clean record with very little surface noise.  I've also got that ABKCO version from 1987.  It's digitally remastered and supposedly on virgin vinyl.  I always thought it sounded pretty good, but I've heard people rip that.  But then they also seem to hear subtle differences as giant deficiencies.  My guess is the 1987 version can be had pretty cheap, and it will get a party going quite nicely.