Little Games

The Yardbirds - "Little Games" (1967) - Sundazed

Hello Friends,

We're listening to this great 180-gram vinyl reissue of The Yardbirds' fourth and final studio record.

It sounds great on vinyl, especially the Jimmy Page guitar parts!  An overlooked record that sounds closer to something found on Led Zeppelin I rather than on previous Yardbirds releases! 

It's probably best known for its sugary title track and the british invasion minor hit, "Tinker Tailor". 

The instrumental track, "White Summer", would be featured by Jimmy Page at Led Zeppelin concerts throughout the 70's (usually paired as a medley with "Black Mountain Side"). 

"Smile On Me" is a searing rhythm & blues tune.  

Side One's closer "Glimpses" is a cool psychedelic instrumental with some Gregorian chanting thrown in for good measure.  It almost sounds like something to be found on Pink Floyd's More soundtrack or Atom Heart Mother.

Side Two's opener, "Drinking Muddy Water" is another driving blues tune that most closely resembles earlier Yardbirds songs.

"Puzzles" (a bonus track on this LP's release) and "No Excess Baggage" both sound as if they could have been an outtake from The Who Sell Out. 

The old timey sounding "Stealing Stealing", a Gus Cannon cover, is annoying.  As is the original LP's closer, "Little Soldier Boy" and the second bonus track, "I Remember The Night".  It really sucks when a gritty, down-to-earth blues rock band with an ear for melodies and a talent for song-structure gets too creative for their own good and wind up sounding showtuney!

The pensive "Only the Black Rose", penned by singer Keith Relf, again sounds like nothing else in the Yardbirds library, but there's something strange and hypnotic about it.  Its almost like a Bee Thousand-era Guided by Voices tune. 

One might wonder what would have happened if the band stuck around for another album or two.  Unfortunately, it probably would have been an increasingly scattered affair with a lack of structure and focus.  By 1967 everyone in the band seemed to be going in a different direction and, unless you were The Beatles, that usually doesn't make for the greatest results! 

RATING: 4 rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief out of 5

Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

Leadbelly - "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (2009) - Stardust Records

Hello Friends,

Lordy, lordy.  We've got some great country-folk-blues on the turntable tonight courtesy of Mr. Huddie William Ledbetter.

Perfect soundtrack to a booze-soaked, hot and swampy Memorial Day Weekend while sitting under a tree with a cold cocktail in one hand and the leash of a mangy mutt in the other! 

This compilation contains the hits "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", "Bourgeois Blues",  "Goodnight Irene", "Looky looky Yonder / Black Betty / Yellow Women's Doorbells", "John Hardy" & "The Gallis Pole".

Yes, "Black Betty" is that "Black Betty" and Led Zeppelin did, um, borrow heavily from "The Gallis Pole" for their own, "Gallows Pole".

RATING: 4.5 heads were found in driving wheels but his body was never found out of 5

Having a Heatwave

Heatwave - "Central Heating" (1978) - GTO Records

Hello Friends,

Heatwave is a 70's-era disco-funk band that featured a real Benetton ad of a line-up that looked more like a Model UN meeting rather than an on-the-rise boogie band.  Their "classic" lineup featured members from Dayton, Ohio, a U.S. Serviceman stationed in Germany, guys from England, Switzerland, Jamaica, Briton & Czechoslovakia.  

Central Heating would be the band's second album and probably captures them at their creative peak.  (In 1979, founder and lead-singer Johnnie Wilder would be paralyzed in a car accident which would severely limit his ability to perform with the group he founded!)

Overall the sound of the record is pretty middle-of-the-road disco.  What's most interesting about the record is probably the fact that there seems to be one or two guys in the band who were more into early Genesis than they were, say, Donna Summer.  So you do get some weird, tricked out guitar/keyboard flourishes throughout.  (For instance, the fills on the opening track, "Put the Word Out" or the opening arrangement on the title track.)


Side Two's opener, "The Groove Line" was a big hit and probably the album's standout.


The aforementioned title track, unfortunately, sounds like it could be a poorly-produced television ad for a local HVAC company.

"Mind Blowing Decisions", "The Star of the Story" & "Leaving for a Dream" are buttery-smooth ballads with some fine vocal harmonizing making them sound closer to something by The Carpenters, Earth, Wind & Fire or even Steely-Dan-On-Downers!  In fact, at times we think this album is closer in sound to a particularly-funky Steely Dan or Bee Gees record rather than some of the grittier stuff being done at the time by The Ohio Players, The Village People or anything by Giorgio Moroder.

FUN FACT: Hey kids, did you know that Heatwave's keyboard-player and main songwriter, Rod Temperton would go on to write some HUGE hits for Michael Jackson like "Off The Wall", "Rock With You" and "Thriller"?

RATING: 3.5 better get your central heating don't get left out in the cold, no use trying to save it for later, got to turn on that old radiator* out of 5 

* these are actual lyrics

Heatwave - "Groove Line" (1978)

Hello Friends,

"Groove Line" is from Heatwave's second LP, Central Heating.  It reached as high as #7 on the U.S. Billboard charts however its probably best-remembered as Nick Andopolis's big dance number in the final episode of Freaks & Geeks.

Boogie-oogie-oogie-oogie.

Cruisin' (for a bruisin')

Village People - Cruisin' (1978) - Casablanca Records

Hello Friends,

The weather is finally getting nicer and the tiki bar is bouncin'.

Cruisin' is the third release by late 70's disco-sensation Village People.

Another kitschy & supremely upbeat record featuring the songs "YMCA", "The Women/I'm a Cruiser Medley", "Hot Cop", "My Roomate" & "Ups and Downs" (a fisting fist-pumping drug anthem complete with Star Wars laser sounds!)

And make no mistake about it friends, the title of record does not refer to driving around with your friends on a Friday drinking milkshakes and crackin' wise.

We still can't believe that even after their Macho Man release earlier in the year, that some fans still didn't realize the incredibly in-your-face gay subtext behind it all.

If the hit song "YMCA" wasn't enough (with thought-provoking lyrics like: "They have everything for you men to enjoy / You can hang out with all the boys / Its fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A." it surely isn't a song about a pick-up basketball game); what about the song, "Hot Cop"?  Featuring a manic, driving beat and such Shakespearean locutions as:

Cuz he's a hot cop
Hottest cop that you'll ever see
I bet you never meet a cop
As funky as me...
Party, boogie, boogie,
Boogie, boogie, get on down...

Yowsa!  I wanna wear leather chaps just hearing this!

"Its not personal, Sonny.  It's strictly business."

And speaking of leather chaps, if there was still any doubt about the subtext here, minds were surely blown just two years later when Al Pacino (aka The Godfather part 2) starred in the William Friedkin movie Cruising about a New York City cop who goes undercover and cruises for gay sex in the steamiest, stickiest and sleaziest of gay nightclubs.




RATING: 4 yellow hankies in left rear pockets out of 5

Bob Mould - "Hold On" (2016)

Hey kids,

Nice to see Bob Mould is still at it.  It seems that every year or so he graces us with another great record!

Enjoy!