Tis the season for year-end "Best Of" lists--"Mad Rocker" Top 10 - 1984

(click the list to view it all)

"Orwell's year is here" - Golden Earring "N.E.W.S."

I happened across this one from 25 years ago and thought I'd put it up. A pretty impressive list, I must say. Just a few notes on the less obvious...

• Matt Johnson's debut as The The, releasing great records the entire decade
• would swap Icehouse for Split Enz if I could do it all over...had become an Icehouse fan after 1982's Primitive Man
• Freur later became Underworld
• The Expression was another Australian band that went nowhere...I remember emailing a road trip soundtrack to Erik Dennison of "Sunday Night Vinyl" http://www.wtks.com/pages/sundaynightvinyl.html that included this and he replied that he and I were two of the five people in the US who have it!

Now some notes on the Honorable Mentions...

• Sweet Dreams...
• from New Zealand Mi-Sex final album - first 3 albums were better - influenced OMD
• Headpins - a Chilliwack spinoff from Canada
• About Face
• featuring Paul Weller - My Everchanging Moods
• More Aussie pub rock aka Cold Chisel - produced by Vanda & Young
• another Aussie band - female vocals - "Heaven" was the single
• Instincts w/ Girl in Trouble is a Temporary Thing
• debut album All the Rage
• gave us Stacey Q a few years later
• Perfect Strangers

Masters of Reality "Pine/Cross Dover"

This band's debut album some 20+ years ago absolutely blew me away. Bluesy, stoner rock from a band with a Black Sabbath-inspired name. Played it consistently for two years, awaiting a new release. Little did I know that five years would pass before Sufferbus appeared, and since then about every five years later for a followup (not counting live recordings). It's not that Chris Goss was lazy, quite the opposite. He was busy with Kyuss in the 90's and Queens of the Stone Age this decade. I've heard of a bluesy band called Duke Spirit that he worked with last year, but as of yet not listened to it. Anyway, fans of QOTSA should check this out. "Pine" is certainly a rock album, not as bluesy or Zeppish as earlier records, but subtle and deep nonetheless. Nary an acoustic guitar to be heard. My buddy Pete Gill said it sometimes took years for him to grasp the intelligence of a Masters record. If you like your rock music simple and easy, then you'll give up on this early. I will absolutely have a heart attack if terrestrial radio ever plays any of this, and that's a shame since every track is 3 to 4 1/2 minutes long. Except for the final track, Alfalfa, which clocks in at just north of 12 minutes. This instrumental track is so Phish-like that I thought I had made a mistake and put one of their new tracks in the queue when burning this to disc. Play "Pine" often for optimum enjoyment.

7 Worlds Collide

Reading this title in a New Release section of a music site, I had to investigate, knowing that line from a Crowded House song. Sure enough,

it's a Neil Finn production involving members of Wilco (Tweedy and his son included...see previous post about HOF for this guy), Radiohead, Johnny Marr (whose contributions are the strongest on the record...HITS), KT Tunstall, additional Finn family members, and other New Zealand stars. If you know me at all, you know I consider the Finn brothers the second best songwriting team of all time behind the Liverpool guys. Though Tim has sort of disappeared (he does have one track on this two-record set), Neil has been active throughout and organized this gathering last Christmas in NZ for all involved and their families. Imagine hanging out in this group for a couple of weeks. There is a whole website detailing this charity project, so I'll let you learn more about it there. Suffice it to say that every track from this release should be programmed on the Loft (eclectic rock) channel on XM/Sirius. If you are remotely fond of anybody on this record, and that should be a large crowd, get this album for yourself for Xmas and in turn support this cause (Oxfam). It may not be local to us, but if these artists felt strong enough about it to participate, it should be.

Finally, the right environment for "The Incident"

MJ was out of town so the house was mine... Obtained the proper state of mind while preparing a beautiful rainbow trout, opened some vino, and cranked up the db's. I'm telling you folks, this is every bit as good as classic Pink Floyd. The track "Time Flies" is a dead ringer for "Dogs" from "Animals". If you ever believed yourself to be a fan of Floyd in the seventies, this record is for you. The guitar and keyboards echo Gilmour and Wright (RIP), but the drums and bass are more along the style of Peart and Lee of Rush. How the heck can you go wrong? If Porcupine Tree comes to your town, do your ol' rocker self a favor and check them out. I hope they come back here soon.

Phish "Joy" & Fanfarlo "Reservoir"

OK, this comes from someone who considered Phish one of the great bands of the 1990's. Since then they've been spotty, calling it quits a few years ago. I've come to enjoy all the various solo releases, and completely loved the "It" DVD. But this "reunion" album is not getting the complete add to the long list of Phish releases in my collection. I told a friend it sounds like it's for the money, but since it's their own label, guess not. It's not without highlights as I'm keeping three tracks, but I just could not convince myself to retain it all.

Fanfarlo is a band I heard of earlier in the year and I picked it up after sampling the first thirty seconds of a few of the songs. They are a British band with all the elements I seem to like in
my intellipop music, but it just did not quite mesh into a cohesive release for me after the requisite three spins. I'm going to keep a track (The Walls are Coming Down) to remind me to give their next album a try.