Ten Albums: Number 8 - August and Everything After by Counting Crows

What starts silence and ends with change, change, change  with some king of the rain, blue buildings that may or may not be perfect in Omaha, some dreaming musician named Jones and a ghost train in between?

It was Friday November 5^th, 1993 and I was on a Red Line CTA train with five other DePaul University freshman, headed to the Metro, a two stop ride from our Lincoln Park dorm. We were there to see Cracker, who had just released Kerosene Hat. Maybe you remember me talking about that one. We got there early so we could be right up front. I also liked seeing the opening acts. Sometimes what they played stuck. And that night it stuck.

Counting Crows was the opening act and I had never heard of them before that night. . But from the first note of the first song, I was hooked.

$13.50 for a ticket!

The single guitar line, a very mellow three notes over and over, the lead singer with these messy dreadlocks, a brown jacket with tassels, such emotion in his voice, in the lyrics. Just a beautiful song. Another mellow song. Then one that stuck in my head, as much for the way the singer danced and sway and swung his dreadlocks while singing.  Ah, the first time I heard Mr. Jones.

 

They were the opening act so they only had about forty minutes, but they played nine songs, and ended with A Murder of One, a great way to close. (The joys of setlist.fm made it so I could find the setlist from that show. It opened with the first song on August and Everything After and closed with the last song on August and Everything after. Whoa!)

 

The next night I saw them again, with a different set of five freshman. They played a slightly different setlist but I still loved it. The next day I hiked the five blocks east to Tower Records at Webster and Clark and bought the Album – August and Everything after.  It was the perfect album for winter in Chicago. Some mellow songs, some upbeat songs to get you moving and get you warm again. Right after that show, my roommate, Paul, apartment sat for his boss. His boss lived in an older brick high rise on Lake Shore Drive and encouraged Paul to have people over. So we all went there on a Friday night in late November, dark early, cold, looking out over Lake Shore Drive. I brought August and Everything After and it was the perfect album for that type of night, just a group of us hanging out in a fancy apartment we didn't really belong in. 

It starts with twelve seconds of silence before the echoey guitar riff starts the song, three notes over and over.

Step out the front door like a ghost

Into the fog where no one notices

The contrast of white on white

 

Omaha, get right to the heart of matters

Ah, Mr. Jones. A song about chasing success

When I look at the television, I want to see me staring right back at me.

 

Oh boy, was Adam Duritz right because a few months later he was on TV everywhere. He got so popular he date Rachel and Monica!

Anna Begins: There was a girl in my freshman creative writing class named Anna. I thought of her every time I listen to this song. 

Time and Time Again, the Rain King. The superbly sad and mellow Sullivan Street covered frequently by the best known DePaul house party cover band, Azure Blue (ah, costume shop parties). Ghost Train and Raining in Baltimore, keeping things mellow until the final song.

A Murder of One.

Boom, you’re back up on your feet. The Crows have been lulling you into a state of mellowness and now they are bringing you back up.

All your life is such s a shame,

All your love is just a dream

You don’t want to waste your life.

 

You’ve been mellow, you’re sitting in that couched knocked down, tired, and now the Crows are urging you to get up and go to something about. Go ask out that girl Anne from your creative writing class you thought was cute (I never did). Go chase those dreams of music stardom (still doing that in the suburban dad band way that I can.).

By January I’d listed to this album as much as Cracker’s Kerosene Hat. I learned how to play most of the album on guitar and would whip out Mr. Jones  or Round Here to impress the ladies (it didn’t work, well, except once).  I’m pretty sure my roommates were tired of both albums, but August and Everything After became my album to fall asleep to.  It still is regularly in the rotation (like last night for instance).

You know its my CD because of the MS on the UPC

It would be nine years before I saw Counting Crows again, at the UIC pavilion in 2002. I haven’t seen them live since, although I do have everything they’ve ever released. WXRT still has Mr. Jones in the rotation, but my favorite Counting Crows song isn’t even on that album (It’s Angels of the Silences if you were wondering.

 

Every time I listen to this album, I’m taken back to that Counting Crows show at The Metro, to my freshman year at DePaul, room 305 of Seton Hall, all the things that happen that first year, new friends, new things, new music.  Everything in the future. All the things ahead. 

You don’t want to waste your life.

Thanks for reading

Bonus Feature: The Setlist from that show back in November of 1993

Round Here

Another Horsedreamer's Blues

Mr. Jones

Anna Begins

Rain King

Time and Time Again

Open All Night

A Murder of One

 

Ten Albums: Number 7- Kerosene Hat by Cracker

Tom Petty’s ‘Free Falling’ was the first song I learned to play on guitar. It’s a simple two chords song, with a pinkie note added to one of the chords. That’s pretty much it.

“Teen Angst” by Cracker was the second song I learned to play on guitar. It is all of three chords, with a slight change in chord order from verse to chorus. The Iron Potatoes, my first band, played that song nearly a million times when I was in high school.

I stole my brother’s copy of Cracker’s first album, aptly named “Cracker” and played it so much that I had to buy him a replacement copy because I scratched it so badly it would get stuck. Songs from that album made in on dozens of mix tapes I made for myself and my friends, creatively labeled “Recorded at Mikesmo Studios.”

I loved that album. And everyone around me knew that I loved it because I made them listen to it so much. In my car, on the bus going to cross country meets (not as much as Rush – Roll The bones) and, well everywhere. So, when my friend Brian V, who worked at a record store, told me he could get me a promo copy of Cracker’s new album Kerosene Hat in the summer of 1993, I was stoked. I delivered him a blank cassette tape (I was partial to Maxell XLII-90s) and a few days later, I had the album, a full month before it was officially released until August 24^th. By then I knew every word of every song.

The album starts out with Cracker’s most well-known song “Low,” the Johnny Hickman sticky intro guitar riff repeated throughout the song, and David Lowry’s smokey voice. It’s just four chords, over and over, but the video, featuring Sandra Bernhard boxing Lowry, got heavy airplay on MTV. Cracker was become big time.

Track two, ‘Movie Star,’ another blazing riff by Hickman, Lowry’s witty lyrics, a blazing solo. Movie Star became a staple of my college cover band, Phat. To this day, when I hear the last chord of Low fade out, I hear the into to movie star in my head.

Track three, ‘Get off This’ just one of many Lowry kiss-off songs. Another catchy riff, another song of just a few chords over and over.

Boom, Boom, Boom, three hits right in a row. Guitar riffs everywhere. But Cracker likes to mix things up, slip in some slow songs, some ballads.  Track four, Kerosene Hat, the title track. A sweet sad acoustic song. Years ago, David Lowry started a blog called 300 songs where he tells of origins of his songs, including Kerosene Hat.

Lots of words so far and I’m on track four. But there’s more.

“Nostalgia,” a song about Stonewall Jackson’s arm. It’s buried on some farm. “Sweet Potato,” the Johnny Hickman penned “Lonesome Johnny Blues.”  And finally, a cover of the Grateful Dead’s ‘Loser’, which was the Grateful Dead song I’d ever heard that I liked. And that was it. Twelve great songs, just like on my bootleg cassette tape.

I knew it was mine cause it had my initials

But, wait, there was more. “Hi Desert Biker Meth Lab,” a forty-one second mix of bits from the recording of the album. And that was, wait…the CD is still playing.

Kerosene Hat was the first CD I’d bought that had hidden tracks. Tracks 16-18 were each three seconds of silence. Then, track 69 (because, why not) was “Euro-Trash Girl” the epic eight minute song from the hard to find “Tucson” EP. Tracks 70-87, again 3 seconds of silence each, then track 88, “I Ride My Bike” tracks 89-98m, more silence the track 99, an outtake of Kerosene Hat.  Cracker had snuck their previous EP on this disc. Sneaky.

You could never leave this CD in your multidisc player on random, because you were very likely to hear lots of three second silent tracks.

After a month of listening to my bootleg tape, then a few weeks of the CD before headed to start my Freshman year at DePaul, I was all Crackered up. I listened to that album every day. My roommates must have hated it. Cracker played two shows at the Metro in October of 1993 and I bought 6 tickets to both shows, bringing a new crew of people with me each night. One night, the band almost got into a fight with Metro security when a bouncer accidentally tackled Johnny Hickman on stage while trying to keep stage divers off the stage. Cracker played "Don't Fuck Me Up (With Peace and Love)" then took a quick break to regroup before continuing the show. There was also this opening band that really stuck in my head (more on that later in the top 10).

I’ve seen Cracker dozens of times. For a while, I think they recognized me when I was standing at the rail for every show in Chicago. I’ve got everything they have ever released. It’s been a long time since I have seen them live and when the world stops sucking in 2021, I’ll go see them again.

Oh, and I could totally be in a Cracker cover band. I know every note of the first two albums and lots of others beyond that. Maybe, someday, when they are touring, Dave and Johnny will call me up on stage to play Kerosene Hat with them and I will nail it so well, they will add me to the band. You know, if they need a third guitar player.

Thanks for reading.

Ten Albums: Number 6 - Rush - Clockwork Angels

Listen, it could just as easily be Moving Pictures, often regarded as Rush's best album. Or it could be their self-title first album, the rawness of a new band who showed hints of Led Zeppelin. Or, for me, Grace Under Pressure, the 1984 album which was my introduction to Rush. Or Roll the Bones, the first Rush album I bought when it came out and which featured prominently in my life during my junior year of high school (ask the Buffalo Grove High School Cross Country Team). Or Counterparts in 1993, which came out the same day as Pearl Jam's Vs (I stood in line at Tower Records at midnight on release day, outnumbered by Pearl Jam fans 25 to 1) .  Or the epic 2112. Or the awesomeness of Signals and the first notes of Subdivisions. Or even Fly By Night, with Geddy screeching the title song.

You see, when Rush is your favorite band, it's hard to pick just one. It changes all the time, sometimes daily.

But there's something about Clockwork Angels.

The nineteenth and final studio album from my favorite band came out on June 12, 2012 (happy birthday, Sis). A concept album with a themed story running through all off the songs. The theme, well, I'll get Kevin J. Anderson, a friend of Neil Peart, describe it (Anderson wrote a novelization of the album):

"In a young man's quest to follow his dreams, he is caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos. He travels across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk, and alchemy, with lost cities, pirates, anarchists, exotic caravans, and a rigid watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life."

Whew.

Just like the last ten or so Rush albums, every Rush fan bought it on release day, me included, and it hit number 2 on the Billboard Charts. I eagerly listened to it several times the first few days, between work, home, kids, and whatever the else we had going on (I find it is much harder to focus on listening to music now that when I was younger).  And after a few listens, it didn't really stick. I put the album to the side for a little while.

Then the tour started. Rush was set to play the United Center on September 15 2012. ACK!  I had a wedding so I missed a Rush show in Chicago for the first time since the late 80s. But I couldn't not see Rush, so my brother and I secured tickets to the show in Sta. Louis the next weekend.

We listened to Clockwork Angels a few times on the way down, and I started getting more into it. But it was really the show that cemented my love of the album. Rush added a ten piece string ensemble to play with them on this tour, and this was not a sit properly with perfect posture string section. This was a stand-up, rock your face off string section, playing the string parts from the songs on the album.

As the story unfolds through the songs, Rush is at their best. The blistering pace of The Anarchist and Carnies, the quiet sadness of rejection in The Halo Effect, the bass riff that opens the blistering Headlong Flight, seven minutes and twenty seconds of Rush as it's rocking finest, as the narrator looks back his adventures:

        "I wish that I could live it all again."

And then finally the album's closer, The Garden. 

Where to start? The opening, just Geddy's bass accompanied by a string section, then Alex joining on guitar as Geddy sings. A full verse and chorus before Neil's drums join the song. Looking back on the past, what is the future.  It can best be told by the song notes from the album:

"There is a metaphorical garden in the acts and attitudes of a person's life, and the treasures of that garden are love and respect. I have come to realize that the gathering of love and respect- from others and myself- has been the real quest of my life."

I could quote the entire song here. It's almost as if Neil knew that would be the last song he every wrote.  The last lines?

The future disappears into memory

With only a moment between

Forever dwells in that moment

Hope is what remains to be seen

Starting in 2004 with the R30 Tour, it felt like every Rush show I went to could be the last. So I started seeing them in other places besides Chicago. I dragged my family to Colorado so I could see Rush at Red Rocks. I had a friend in Dallas who invited me to shows there. Milwaukee was close. My brother and I went to St. Louis, too.

The last of the 32 Rush shows I attended was June 12, 2015 at the United Center. I didn't think it would be the last but it was one of the best I'd ever seen.  That tour still had six weeks of dates and I was hoping they would come back the next spring.  I happened to be in Los Angeles during the last two shows, one in Irvine and the final show at the Forum in LA. I considered staying another day and scoring a ticket, but I didn't. Knowing what I know now, I should have.

R40 in St. Louis, MO, May 2015

It took a few years, but by 2018 Rush said they were done. On January 7, 2020, Neil Peart died from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer that he had been battling for three and half years. In typical Neil Peart fashion, the world didn't find out until three days later when the band announced Neil's death on their website. It was hard to reconcile the death of someone I'd never met in person but who I felt I knew. I re-read Neil's book "The Ghost Rider" written from the dark place he was in after his daughter and wife both died in a period of nine months. I listened to a lot of Rush. 2020 has pretty much been a shit show from the get go. At least there is still music.

 "Now we must tend to our garden."

Thanks for reading

Ten Albums: Number 5 - Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

A friend tagged me in a Facebook challenges to post 10 albums that have influenced my musical taste. One record a day for ten days. No explanation, no review, just the cover.

Yeah, I can't do that without an explanation. Plus, it gives me something to write about. So, here, over the next ten posts will be my ten albums followed by a bunch of words.

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

Siamese Dream came out in July of 1993, the summer before I started college. I had not listened to the Smashing Pumpkins much after Gish came out in 1991. But, when I moved into the Seton Hall dorm at DePaul when school started, this really cool kid who lived on our floor was a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan and played this album all the time. Since he was cool and I wanted to be cool, I listened it all the time, then went Tower Records to buy it for myself and my roommates were just happy to hear something that wasn't Cracker's Kerosene Hat album (more on that later).

This was alternative rock prime time, although to me, Siamese Dream still sounded like a prog rock album, which was a lot of what I had been listening to (I was happy to find a bootleg with Billy Corgan playing an acoustic version of Rush's Limelight). This album was everywhere my freshman year, and since we were in Chicago, they seemed even bigger. 

Cherub Rock, the great opener, the happy sound of Today, with lyrics that are not at all happy, the almost nine minute blistering epic Silverfuck, the sweet come down of Luna to end the album. The album had dynamics, loud songs, slow songs, quiet songs. My favorite by far is Mayonaise (it drove me nuts that many of Billy's song titles seemed to not be easily related to the lyrical content). Starting with a multiple clean guitars playing a simple before a blazing into a wall of distorted guitars ablaze. And the lyrics. Wow.

Fool enough to almost be it

Cool enough to not quite see it

Doomed

Pick your pocket, full of sorrow

and run away with me tomorrow

June

Great lyrics, a great solo, quiet, loud, quiet, loud, quiet loud.

No more promise no more sorrow

No longer will I follow

Can anybody hear me?

I just want to be me.

Billy sure had some angst when he wrote the lyrics for this album. And then rerecorded the other guitar and bass parts. I became a huge Pumpkins fan, burned through the backlog and saw them live for the first time at Redbird Arena on ISU's campus, a great show at the height of Siamese Dream's popularity, stood in line at Tower Records in Chicago at midnight when Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness came out with several hundred others. I've seen them play many times, but I've seen as many bad live Smashing Pumpkins shows as I've seen good ones. And Billy Corgan is kind of a dick, which I guess we all kind of knew anyway.

Besides Siamese Dream. I don't listen to the Smashing Pumpkins much anymore. Nothing after Mellon Collie (which probably could have been condensed to a single disc) stuck with me much, and I listened to everything before I wrote this. I do still really love the song Drown, which appeared on the Singles Soundtrack (and not the crappy 4 minute version with the solo edited out. 

Ten Albums: Number 4 - Dada - Puzzle

Ten Albums: Number 4 - Dada - Puzzle

A friend tagged me in one of those annoying, yet fun, Facebook challenges to post 10 albums that have influenced my musical taste. One record a day for ten days. No explanation, no review, just the cover.

Yeah, I can't do that without an explanation. Plus, it gives me something to write about. So, here, over the next ten days will be my ten albums followed by a bunch of words.

Dada - Puzzle

I've never been to Disneyland. In all the times I've been to Southern California, mostly for work, I've only ever been to Anaheim once, and that was to see the Ducks play. Not the kid Ducks. The professional ones. 

The song Dizz Knee Land (see how they did that so WDC wouldn't sue them) I've heard thousands of times, played the riff on guitar a thousand times, been in someone's living room with Mike Gurley, the singer and guitar player from Dada, accompanied by my brother on guitar, and sang along to Dizz Knee Land with the forty others squeezed into the house party. I've made every band I've been in learn Dada songs. I've sat at Gamekeepers with my brother and the three guys from Dada after they played across the street at the Park West. I learned how to play Surround in college because the girl I liked loved the song and wanted me to play it for her. I still have the first Dada concert t-shirt I bought, the green one with the dirty song lyric on the back. I've seen Dada live more than any band except for one. And I can't for the live of me figure out why this band wasn't more successful.

My brother had this CD (are you getting tired yet of hearing how my brother shaped my musical tastes? Don't worry, it's my sister's turn soon). Back then my car only had a tape deck, so I put pretty much every CD we had on tape. I didn't listen to this much until one day, when I was mowing the lawn, I wanted something new to listen to. So I popped the Puzzle tape I'd made into my Magnavox Tape player (sorry, the Sony Walkman was too expensive) and listened as I cut the grass.

Power. Pop. Perfection. A three piece band, highly melodic, vocal harmonies throughout, face melting guitar solos. Radio ready singles. No songs to skip. My favorites are the opener, Dorina, Dizz Knee Land, Dim, and Moon, the angsty track that builds up to a blazing solo that ends the album.

Why don't more people know about dada? Why have their five studio albums not sold better? 

Dada fans are pretty nuts and very loyal. Going to a Dada show is like a fan reunion where everyone knows and recognizes each other. My brother knows most of them. They know my brother. He did some photography work for them, including for the Live: Official Bootleg (vol 1) CD. One of his shots also ended up on a t-shirt.

Photo by Dave Smolarek, signatures by Joie Calio, Phil Leavitt, and Michael Gurley

Dada isn't touring right now. They started recording new material in 2011 but stopped. Mike Gurley has been battling carpal tunnel syndrome for 25 years and he's had to adjust how he plays and during shows and dunking his hands and arms in buckets of ice kept near the stage.  We're all hopeful something new happens. Until then I keep Puzzle on regular rotation.

Ten Albums: Number 3 - Marillion - Marbles

In the time of pandemics, we all seem to have a bit more free time. For me, the cancelling of, well, everything has really killed my writing routine, where most of my writing was done at coffee shops while my kids were at sports practice. I haven't been able to adjust and man is it frustrating.

But a friend tagged me in one of those annoying, yet fun, Facebook challenges to post 10 albums that have influenced my musical taste. One record a day for ten days. No explanation, no review, just the cover.

Yeah, I can't do that without an explanation. Plus, it gives me something to write about. So, here, over the next ten days will be my ten albums followed by a bunch of words.

Marillion - Marbles

Where to start with this one. Well, you probably wonder who the hell Marillion is, so let's start there. Well, they are a British prog-rock band. Um, they've been around since 1982. They have released 19 studio albums. Their history can be split into two, the first 8 years with lead singer Fish, the second, with lead singer Steve Hogarth, who replaced Fish in 1989.

Marillion is the band that I've successfully gotten zero other people to listen to. They are totally not cool. Anytime I wear a Marillion t-shirt, people don't even try to ask me who they are. They don't even try! But Marillion fans are dedicated. For nearly twenty years, Marillion has been hosting Marillion weekends in Europe where they play different sets over multiple nights and thousands of people travel the globe to go see them.

Some Smolareks in the Album liner thank yous.

Marillion was the first band to crowdfund the recording of an album way back in 2001 before it was cool. Marbles was also available for preorder and if you did, your name was listed in the album notes. I even let them call me Michael, although my brother went by Dave. And I wouldn't have listened to Marillion without my brother's influence. Hell, I've never been to a Marillion concert without my brother.

But you don't care, and that's fine.

Marbles was released in 2004. It's a two CD album that clocks in at 98 minutes and 44 seconds, and starts with a thirteen minute song, ends with a 12 minute song and has an 18 minute song to close the first disc. There's mellow tracks, rockers, epics songs, short snippets bringing back theme with variation. The opening song, The Invisible Man, is fantastic. The slow, quiet build of Fantastic Place to its string driven crescendo as it ends is majestic. The back to back punch of the The Damage and Don't Hurt Yourself.  The closing song, Neverland, (yes, Peter Pan) is my favorite Marillion song off all time. 


Marillion played the Park West in Chicago when Marbles came out, playing most of the album as part of their set that night during one of the best live shows I've ever been to. How great was it? When Marillion finished their second encore, no one in the Park West left. They had to be retrieved from the tour bus to play a third encore for the crowd that wound not leave.

Listen, I know you're never going to listen to this album. Who has nearly two hours to listen to music? Wait, we all do right now. But it's okay if you don't listen. I'll listen to it for you over and over and over and over again.

So don't listen to it. It might not be for you. And that's okay.

Ten Albums: Number 2 - Toad the Wet Sprocket - Fear

In time of pandemics, we all seem to have a bit more free time. For me, the cancelling of, well, everything has really killed my writing routine, where most of my writing was done at coffee shops while my kids were at sports practice. I haven't been able to adjust and man is it frustrating.

But a friend tagged me in one of those annoying, yet fun Facebook challenges to post 10 albums that have influenced my musical taste. One record a day for ten days. No explanation, no review, just the over.

Yeah, I can't do that without an explanation. Plus, it gives me something to write about. So, here, over the next ten days will be my ten albums followed by a bunch of words.

Toad The Wet Sprocket - Fear

There was this girl I liked in high school who was huge into Toad the Wet Sprocket. She was also super cool, liked college rock and new tons of bands I had never heard of. She pressed me to listen to Toad's their prior release, Pale, which I liked, but it was sort of a sad record. Then this came out.

I mean, come on people, it starts with Walk on the Ocean, ends with I Will Not Take These Things for Granted. The songs are all so different, and take on some heavy themes, like Hold Her Down, a song about rape. The angelic voices during the last minute and a half of Pray Your Gods. And the big hit, All I Want, which I still love, even after it became a staple on the 101.9, The Mix as a contemporary adult hit. The afore mentioned girl and I wrote in a notebook together for most of high school. When we got tired of writing, we'd put in song lyrics that the other person had to guess. This album was probably the most quoted album in those notebooks and it's because there is not a bad song on the album. This was also not like anything else I was listening to at the time, a steady diet of Rush, Queensryche, Cracker, Tesla and Stevie Ray Vaughan (but really mostly Rush). It pushed me towards music that wasn't as mainstream

Toad went on a tour of colleges to support the release of this album, including a show at Harper. The girl had an extra ticket at the last minute and asked me to go, but I was already at work at La Roman's Kitchen and I couldn't get someone to work for me.  Fear not, for Toad played a million college campuses over the next few years and I went to seem them at many, including a Tuesday night at ISU while we were juniors. I'm still trying to remember how I talked my mom into letting me go to that.

Toad became a band I saw every time they toured and bought their records at midnight at Tower Records the minute they were released. I remember my immense sadness when they broke up in 1998, although they performed some one off shows and mini-tours on and off before getting back together for good in 2009.

Of course, you are more likely to hear Walk on the Ocean or All I Want through the overhead speakers when you are at Jewel today than on a radio station.

In the breakup years, Glen Phillips wrote, recorded and toured frequently. The shows were in smaller venues, usually just Glen and his acoustic guitar. A few years into dating, my wife and I went to see Glen at the Black Orchid Nightclub at Piper's Alley. I had a hockey game right before the show and I raced back from the game, hurriedly showered and got ready and was still sweating a little bit by the time we got settled into our seats and ordered drinks. It was such a great night, a great show, a night we talk about frequently, a show all other Glen Phillips shows are measured against. It's a night I could relive again and again.


The lyrics of I Will Not Take These Things For Granted are relevant right now as we are all trapped inside:

but if it's frightening, I'll bear the cold
and on the telephone
your offer warm asylum
I will not take these things for granted

Ten Albums: Number 1 - Huey Lewis and the News - Sports

In time of pandemics, we all seem to have a bit more free time. For me, the cancelling of, well, everything has really killed my writing routine, where most of my writing was done at coffee shops while my kids were at sports practice. I haven't been able to adjust and man is it frustrating.

But a friend tagged me in one of those annoying, yet fun Facebook challenges to post 10 albums that have influenced my musical taste. One record a day for ten days. No explanation, no review, just the over.

Yeah, I can't do that without an explanation. Plus, it gives me something to write about. So, here, over the next ten days will be my ten albums followed by a bunch of words.

Huey Lewis and the News - Sports

My first record. Well, besides Sing along with Sesame Street.

I vividly remember riding my bike up to The Flip Side (okay, no one called it "The" Flip Side, it was just Flip Side) with my brother to buy this album and the Weird Al Yankovic "Eat It" single. I can assure you that my brother was not buying a pop rock album as he was more of a progressive rock fan (more on that later) but he was there to help introduce me to record stores. Even when he wasn't directly influencing my musical tastes, he was helping me dip my toe into the wonderful world of music.

By the time I bought this album, "The Heart of Rock & Roll" had been played millions of times on radio, and the video was a staple on MTV, and saxophone solos were cool, a trend that continued throughout the eighties until alternative music killed it. We had a record playing in our living room and I listened to this record hundreds of times there. Then I got a boom box and I wanted to listen to this in my room. So I put a cassette tape in the boom box, stuck it up to one of the speakers of the stereo attached to the record player and dropped the needle on Sports. I paused the tape to flip sides of the record, restarted the recording and in forty minutes, I had all nine songs of Sports on side a of a Maxwell CR-90. Then my brother came home. I proudly showed him what I did. He shook his head and told me to play the tape. I rewound to the beginning and started the tape. It took seemingly forever before the heartbeat into to The Heart of Rock & Roll to start. Plus, it didn't sound right, like half the parts of the song were missing. That's how I learned about stereo. Turns out, different parts of the music come out of each speaker. My brother taught me how to record correctly, and for countless nights, I listened to that Maxwell CR-90 through my crappy Kmart bought boom box, propped between the headboard of my bed and my pillow. I usually feel asleep before "I Finally Found a Home" and always woke up to the click of the play button stopping as the tape reached it's end.


"Walking On a Thin Line" is my favorite song on the album. I also loved the closing song, a cover of Hank Williams's "Honky Tonk Blues." But there are no tracks to skip on this album.

The picture is the original record I bought at Flip Side way back in1984. I still have it and I'm listening to it while writing this. Back when album art matter because, well, records were huge, this was a classic. Huey in the foreground, jacket slung over his shoulder, top button undone, skinny 80s tie slightly loose, the rest of band seated at stools around the bar eyes focused at the camera,  bassist Mario Cipollina working the bar, wearing the sunglasses he always wore, a San Francisco 49ers game on the TV. Then, flip to the back, everyone but Cippolina is gone from the bar, and the band is shown on TV, the previously clean rack of pool balls in motion across the pool table.  Cool. The adult in me now sees the bottle of Maker's Mark and wants a bourbon with a splash of coke.

I still know every word of every song on this record. I still love it. I still listen to it. I've never seen Huey Lewis and the News live and probably never will, now that Huey is dealing with Meniere's disease, which damaged his hearing making him unable to perform. But I'll always have Sports. The Heart of Rock & Roll is still beating.

Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart

Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this in 2003 when it first came out in 2003 and decided to read it again after Neil Peart's death in January of 2020. It's hard to read something and not relate it your own life. I've been a Rush fan most of my life and seeing Rush on their Test for Echo in summer of 1997 marked the start of a new part of my life as I took my last final, graduated from college saw Rush live and started a new job all in a span of four days. Right after that tour, Neil's life changed forever in a much more dramatic way than my life had as his daughter died in a car accident on her way to college and his wife died of cancer within a 10 month span. Thus, starts the ride of the Ghost Rider across Canada, up to Alaska, back through the US and south through Mexico and Belize, in an effort to keep moving, to try to make some meaning out of what happened. There's some hard feelings in this book as Neil fights through his grief, weaving in descriptions of his rides, the scenery around him what he is feeling, and letters he writes, including to his close friend Brutus, who get send to prison early in Neal's travels. What does the Ghost Rider and the other parts of his baby soul find along the way and when does the travel end? Well, I don't want to give away the ending. A must read for any Rush fan, a great read for anyone interested in one person's battle through grief.

View all my reviews

How I Ruined Christmas

I ruined Christmas last year. Okay, not everyone’s Christmas, just for my oldest, the twelve-year-old boy. You see, he is still a believer. Well he was. He isn’t anymore. Until December 23, 2019 he fully believed in Santa Clause and the magic of Christmas until I ruined it.

How did I ruin it, dear reader?

Well, when you have children and you need to wrap gifts, you do it under the cover of night, after the children have gone to sleep and somewhere far away from where they sleep. And perhaps after wrapping a mountain of gifts, then hiding them in places where the children won’t look, like in closets where they are supposed to hang their clothes and coats, or behind cleaning supplies, you leave one gift out on accident, one gift that you didn’t notice on the stool in the kitchen where you wrapped last night, or in the morning while you were eating your breakfast in the semi-darkness. But when he wakes up, the twelve-year-old spies the gift and being inquisitive, he looks at it, looks at the gift tag and sees that the gift is from Santa. And it’s sitting in the kitchen. On December 23^rd.

Dear reader, did I mention that I was at work on this fine morning, thus leaving the aftermath of this shocking discovery to my wonderful wife. Since she doesn’t like to bother me at work with something as trivial as shattering our children’s belief in a made-up entity, she texted me.

B: You forgot to give me one of the presents that you wrote from Santa. The boy saw and is so upset. 

Me: Oops.

Me: sorry.

B: He still didn’t want to believe it wasn’t magic. He says we always tell him we can’t afford things.

Me: I’m sorry I have made your day even harder.

I should pause here and go back in time a few months. I mentioned how the twelve-year-old is still a believer. That belief extends beyond Santa Clause to other mythical beings whose tasks of giving gifts are really performed by parents, including the tooth fairy.

The twelve-year-old lost a tooth a few months ago. As dutifully as ever, he plopped the tooth in a plastic baggie and slid it under his pillow, eager to trade it for whatever small bills the tooth fairy might have in his wallet (is this why my mother always had a notebook will various denominations of cash in her desk, for these last minute tooth fairy emergencies after banking hours?). Unfortunately for the boy, the tooth fairy is often harried and tired on a week night and often can’t remember to pull the car off the street and into the driveway to avoid an overnight ticket, let alone remember to swap a few dollars for a tiny tooth. Simple put, the tooth fairy, both of them, forgot.

Not the real tooth fairy!

Luckily for me, I was again off at work that morning when the boy sulked into the kitchen after waking up to a tooth still in its bag, not swapped for cash.

“The tooth fairy didn’t take my tooth,” he reported as he dropped the baggie on the kitchen counter.

“Sometimes the tooth fairy forgets,” my wife said. She was being truthful, but that didn’t assuage the boy. He pouted all through breakfast, while making his lunch and while getting his bag ready for school. Finally, my wife had enough and sent to two younger kids upstairs so she could talk to the twelve-year-old alone.

“The tooth fairy isn’t real. I’m the tooth fairy. I’m the one who takes your teeth and replaces them with money, me and your dad.”

He looked at her in disbelief.

“No, that’s not true, mom.”

The conversation continued buts let’s just say she was unable to convince him that there was no tooth fairy. It certainly seemed like his believe was not just about the money. He really, really believed.

Later that day, the twelve-year-old lost another tooth. Come on, what are those odds that he loses a tooth on back to back days! When he got home from school, he added that tooth to the bag containing the tooth from the previous day.

“Now I get money for two,” he said.

“What are you going to do?” I asked my wife.

“I dunno.”

After we put the kids to bed and watched a little TV, we headed upstairs. She hadn’t really decided what to do and I could see she was torn. Eventually what she decided to do was to avoid a disappointed and disillusioned child by tiptoeing into his room and swapping the two teeth for a five-dollar bill. The next morning was a win, win, win for the boy. He had five bucks, he was happy, and he still believed.

So, back to Santa, back to the fateful morning of December twenty third. The truth is, the boy should have already lost his believe in the tooth fairy months ago, and once one crumbles, they take the others with them. Tooth Fairy: not real. Santa: not real. Easter bunny: not real. That goddamn elf on the shelf doesn’t lose his magic when you touch him, shots at the doctor’s office DO hurt, we DO have a favorite child, we’re just not telling you because it can change daily.

So they boy finds the wrapped gift from Santa. This time my wonderful, again left to deal with this on her own because I'm at work, doesn’t have much to say. There’s nothing to say. He’s figured it out.  No way to cover for this.

He still really wants to believe. He said he always tell him we can’t afford things (I just don’t want to buy him everything he wants because, well, getting everything you want will just set you up to be disappointed when you don’t get what you want. Let me tell you about the GI Joe Cobra Rattler). He wants the magic, he really does.

Does anyone still have their Hatchimal?

I want him to want the magic, too. As you get older and the magic is gone, Christmas can feel like nothing but work; shopping and wrapping and cleaning and cooking and decorating and guests, and staying up late to wrap and trying to find that goddamn Hatchimal that never gets played with after New Year’s day,   and too much to do and not enough time to do it and hiding gifts and lying about what’s in the bag and why does Amazon deliver a box every day and what’s in there  and Santa’s handwriting looks a lot like dad’s even though Dad is really trying to make it look different than his own handwriting but’s he’s really tied and school plays, and holiday programs and work holiday parties and orchestra concerts and unwrapping and bags and bags of the wrapping you spend hours on now just piled four garbage bags high and BAM  it’s over!

But when they wake up and rush downstairs and are excited by what they got, the things they said they wanted, and sometimes even more excited by the things they were surprised the got and didn’t ask for, that’s the fun. The magic.

My wife told him that now he gets to be part of the magic. He gets to help keep it alive for his youngest brother (the youngest always know the truth at the youngest ago as inevitable in a fit of anger, an older sibling ruin it for them). He still believes.

I never noticed it was already opened

What about my other child, my daughter, the poor forgotten middle child? Well, one of her friends told her that her dad told her when she was in second grade that Santa wasn’t real, and he and her mom did all the Christmas shopping and gift giving. She brought this up separately, first to my wife, then to me. I avoided answering, just saying “What do you believe?” but she’d already made up her mind that Santa wasn’t real, so I just turned up the music and we talked about nothing.

So now they are both part of the magic, hopefully keeping their brother a believer for a few more years. I just hope their part of helping with the magic is a bit different that my older brother. One year he opened and played with some of my gifts before my mom had wrapped them, then resealed them in their boxes. I never noticed.

My son did have one final question for his parents:

What did you do with my teeth?

Thanks for reading.