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.