The S-R Ten

Let me apologize in advance for this post. It’s self-serving and of little interest to anyone but me. My excuse for posting it (besides narcissistic vainglory) rests in the reactions some readers will have when they get a snapshot of things that have faded away: newspapers, particularly as arbiters of culture; purchasing music instead of streaming it and on vinyl; a picture of the music industry as older people knew it–record labels pressing LP’s right and left, when any band with long hair could get a contract; and sending those LP’s to newspapers, radio stations, magazines, etc., to get a hopefully-positive review; and most of all, a snapshot of three months in 1972 when certain labels pushed certain artists and released certain albums.

In 1972 I graduated high school. A close family friend happened to be the City Editor for the Spokesman-Review, one of the two daily newspapers in my hometown. The S-R came out in the morning, the Daily Chronicle in the afternoon/evening. He stopped by shortly before my graduation to offer me a copyboy position for the summer. Their current copyboy planned to move on to college or a newspaper, I frankly don’t remember.

I should have paid attention to how little pleasure I derived from the job. It would’ve saved me years of study and employment. Ah well. One pleasure I did derive stemmed from the fact my desk butted up against the desk of the S-R music and arts critic. In those days no mainstream newspaper would accord rock and pop music any serious stature, but the marketing trends being what they were, someone must have told them, “Listen, these kids buy stuff. You at least had to review these dratted things.” On the S-R, that guy turned out to be Ed Coker. Ed, I hope somehow you know how much those three months meant to me because of working beside you. You were young then, but obviously a dedicated reporter/writer. You were nice to me. I appreciated that. I saw you decades later, and you seemed to have risen in stature on the Spokane cultural scene.

No matter. Back then record companies would send free copies of records (LP’s, younglings) to a newspaper and hope someone would review it positively. Ed had a policy: he would listen to a record, and if he didn’t want to keep it for himself, he would put it on top of his out box. Lord, most of you don’t know what those are either, do you? When everything was paper, a person had an inbox (hence the email term, younglings) and an outbox to facilitate the movement of said paper. People like me, the copyboy, would move the paper around. It was a real job, okay? One more thing: Ed seemed to listen to records on and off all week, but he would just accumulate them and drop a stack on the basket around Thursday. I became attuned to that.

The copyboy shows up before most of the reporters. They had to work through about 11 p.m. to revise copy for the final edition of the paper whereas I got to leave shortly after the first edition got distributed, somewhere around 8:30, 9 p.m. Reporters didn’t show up until 2 p.m. at the earliest, and 3 p.m. was perfectly acceptable. I, however, showed up about noon as I recall, maybe 12:30, and therefore got first dibs on the records! Over the course of that short summer I nabbed ten records. They are, in no particular order…

David Bowie	The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks	Striking It Rich
Great White Cane	Great White Cane
Bob Seger	Smokin’ O.P.’s
Highway Robbery	For Love Or Money
Heavy Cruiser	Heavy Cruiser
Hot Tuna	Burgers
Peter Kaukonen	Black Kangaroo
Glass Harp	It Makes Me Glad
Jim Post	Slow To 20

My S-R 10 from 1972

The (Almost) Total Losers

I had to insert the “(Almost)” because the total losers went back to the editorial room of the S-R, so I must’ve heard something worth listening to in these albums…

Heavy Cruiser by Heavy Cruiser

All I remember from this album is a snatch from “Wonder Wheel” and I’m surprised in looking at the track listing that this album had “Louie Louie” on it. In reading today about the band I learned that it seems to have been an offshoot from some group named Mama Lion, and the driving force in the former didn’t want band members’ names on this album because he felt they would detract from Mama Lion. Although I digitized most of my albums, this one never made the cut…and it was a low bar.

The Great White Cane by The Great White Cane

The cane and fighting ring fold down to reveal the band. Collection of K. Pilcher, June 2024.

The best thing about this album was that the White Cane image above folded down. It overlaid the image of the band. The second-best thing I didn’t even realize until about 40 years later: the lead singer was Rick James who wrote or co-wrote all of the songs. Nevertheless, it sucked. Where the Heavy Cruiser album at least hit a rock ‘n’ roll hot spot for me, this combined “rock, funk, and soul” as described by Discogs and that wasn’t my groove at the time. My interests expanded over time–my interest in this album did not. Bad funk really isn’t very good. Bad rock will be better than bad funk, every time.

The ‘Meh’ Group

I acknowledge the talent of these releases, but they never really grabbed me. I gave them a listen once in a while. I’m not sure they’re available on streaming services or not.

It Makes Me Glad by Glass Harp

Yes, long hair. Everyone, pretty much. Collection of K. Pilcher, June 2024.

This album still resides in my digital library. It has a Christian overtone to it. “Do Lord” is a traditional tune, but most of it is a mostly folk album. Pretty but not compelling. It’s good, but band turmoil/churn apparently led to a different lineup after this album which took off into the King Crimson/Moody Blues universe. Too bad. They might’ve become something if they had stuck with what they were.

For Love Or Money by Highway Robbery

The band’s only album. They made a minor ripple in the pool of public perception with “Mystery Rider” a song which demonstrates what a lot of bands were attempting to do at the time. The latter half of Grand Funk’s career, Uriah Heep, and other power rock groups heavily influenced Highway Robbery. If you let the “Mystery Rider” track play out on YouTube, it segues into “Promotion Man” which grabs my attention more. Another good one was “Ain’t Gonna Take No More”, a song I sang many a times as a young lad.

The Hey-This-Sounds-Good Group

Mathematically-inclined readers have realized that six albums remain, so I made out pretty good with these freebies. I knew little of these acts, and that’s a statement I want you to keep in mind as you encounter them. I’ve listed them in reverse order to my (limited) knowledge of them at that time…

Slow To 20 by Jim Post

Artists and music labels can block certain albums from appearing on streaming services which remains one of my biggest disappointments with those services and explains why I still use a digital audio player (DAP), a jukebox program (MediaMonkey), and my digital library of nearly 20,000 tracks (1680 albums). I learned just within the past few years that Jim Post came from the upper Midwest folk scene which included John Prine, Steve Goodman, and others whose names I don’t recognize. He charted a song “Reach Out of the Darkness” in 1968 which I’ll need to search out–right now, this album is all I know of him, sonically. He’s got a rambunctious, jazzy infusion to his folk, similar in energy but not style to Jackson Browne. I find myself singing many of his songs more than fifty years later. But…he later recorded a lot of children’s music. Whether this is the reason none of this early stuff appears on Tidal or whether it’s a music-rights issue, I don’t know. It’s disappointing though. This is a good album.

Black Kangaroo by Peter Kaukonen

Kaudonen presumably in Australia. Not shown: big black kangaroo. Collection of K. Pilcher, June 2024.

It’s a tossup whether I knew this guy or the next one less (more?). I dimly recognized the last name. Peter is Jorma’s brother, and Jorma had a pretty good career in Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, and then as a solo artist. I discovered just today that Peter played in Hot Tuna in an early incarnation of the band but he apparently left to do a bit different music than their bent toward traditional country blues. The music on this album is decidedly different. Peter leans into the electric side of blues-rock-pop and indulges several sci-fi type topics. “Billy’s Tune” tells about Billy who has given most of his body parts away and lives in jar. I still think of “Barking Dog Blues” every time I listen to the three hunting dogs in the lot behind me race up and down their fence line snarling at the German shepherd in the next yard over. Peter played with Jefferson Airplane a bit, too, I learned on Wikipedia, and with Johnny Winter, and with Link Wray. Black Kangaroo is actually the name of his band. The inside of the album cover features a black kangaroo flipping everyone the bird. Real listenable music, but not as good creatively-speaking as the Jim Post album.

Striking It Rich by Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks

Had I vaguely heard of Dan Hicks before landing this album? I doubt it. And if you haven’t heard of him either, you owe it to yourself to listen at least once. My personal favorites on this album are “O’Reilly At The Bar,” “Canned Music,” “I’m An Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande),” and “I Scare Myself”. As Wikipedia puts it, “His idiosyncratic style combined elements of cowboy folk, jazz, country, swing, bluegrass, pop, and gypsy music.” Two of his best-known songs are in those four I just listed. He’s the guy who wrote “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?” Basically he channels the swing vibe of Django Reinhardt and others. This was his third album. Here, listen to this. The play of violin, that weird background from the Lickettes (yeah, that’s their other name), and the minor key juxtaposed against his lyrics…man, that’s just great!

Smokin’ O.P.’s by Bob Seger

Despite the one-eighth inch chunk missing from the edge of the record when I pulled it out, this became one of my favorite rock ‘n’ roll albums. I didn’t ditch the LP until I switched over to taped versions of all my records in the mid- to late-80s. My college roommate Motorhead, a smoker, provided the insight that “O.P.’s” are other people’s cigarettes. “Smokin’ O.P.’s” means you’re bumming smokes from everyone. The album is made to look like a pack of Lucky Strikes. And the extra meaning comes from all of the songs coming from other composers instead of Seger. At the time I snagged this one, I had heard of Seger and The Bob Seger System, but I hadn’t heard him–he was still a regional act at the beginning of the 70’s. [I must correct that: “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” charted up to #17 in 1969–a national hit.] A great version of “Bo Diddley” opens the record, and it’s followed by “Love The One You’re With,” “If I Were A Carpenter,” which reached #76 in the US, and “Hummin’ Bird”, plus a re-release of “Heavy Music”. Seger’s music is still rocking the Hammond organ on this LP. I lament that Tidal (and previously Spotify) doesn’t have this record. Too many royalties to pay?

Burgers by Hot Tuna

Yep, that’s a crap photograph–but it’s the only one I could find which looks like the one I got with the Radio DJ label slapped on it. While some of these records had small stickers that said “Promotional Copy” or somesuch, this was the only record which put the entire track list on a 3×5 label right over the name of the record and the act! This is the band Jorma Kaukonen started. He remained a country-blues artist even though he let Marty Balin convince him to play with Jefferson Airplane. All of the songs are good–I sing them regularly. I particularly like the opening of “99 Year Blues”: Well now bring me my pistol, I said three round balls. I’m gonna shoot everybody I don’t like at all. I take it glass-half-full, that there are only three persons who piss him off! “Keep On Truckin'” and others just really hit a musical sweet spot.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars by David Bowie

You can tell this album was handled a lot. Collection of K. Pilcher, June 2024.

Looking back, there occur wondrous moments when you first tripped over a famous artist before he/she/it/they became known. In the summer of 1972 the single “Starman” had been released, but it had yet to hit the Top 100. Bowie had only had one charting single at that time, “Changes”, which I don’t remember having heard while still in high school. (As I’ve stated, our insular market didn’t always hear the top music.) I therefore had no idea who this strange-looking guy was, and I didn’t know what to make of that voice! But I’ve never forgotten how despite my skepticism, I found myself humming the tunes from this album. I listened again. And again. And again. You couldn’t deny David Bowie, then and now. And I got it free because the music critic didn’t think enough of it to hang onto it. Sweet.

Finland or Turkey?

Melting on a mid-July afternoon. Benny, left, and Charlie enjoy the heat sinking into their bones. July 2024.

You know you’re in the sauna and That Guy insists on pouring ladle after ladle of water on the hot rocks? Your ‘dry sauna’ experience is turned into a nostril-searing cross between a Turkish steam bath and the original intent of the high-temp Finnish experience? Yeah, that’s our past week or two here in Raleigh, NC. The photo above captures Tuesday the 16th when we were somewhere around 100 degrees and the relative humidity made you feel like a water-soaked towel had been removed from a vat of boiling water and then wrapped around your body. I’ve been in worse–I’m looking at you Kansas!–but this turns most days into hot temperature versions of Snow Days, especially when a thunderstorm might occur.

Why two fur-encased creatures would want to spend hours melting into the planks of the deck in this weather boggles my mind. In No Banners, No Bugles by Edward Ellsberg, the Rear Admiral opens his book of World War II ship salvage with a description of him and his crew attempting to raise ships in the Red Sea where the temperature is in the 120’s (Fahrenheit). He goes back to his apartment and the poor A/C box unit has only been capable of cooling to 92 degrees. Nevertheless, it raises goosebumps on him due to the 30-degree temperature differential. I felt the same when I walked into a house being cooled to about 78, 79. (Ellsberg’s book is surprisingly readable and would make a good movie. I am not much of a history buff, but this book really held my interest when I read it.)

Benny got smart a day or so later, and spent his days in the basement where the temperature never gets higher than 70-72. Charlie finally succumbed today. He spent the afternoon in my office right up until I said I was posting this. Apparently he’s shy? Embarrassed? Ambivalent?

Your graduation playlist!

[An update to my post which contained comments about the hits which were playing as I finished high school.]

As I prepared to graduate high school in 1972, the recent months had been kind, musically speaking. Eric Clapton as Derek & The Dominos had just clocked in with “Layla”. Graham Nash and David Crosby posted “Immigration Man”. The armed service brats who formed America had popped out two hits, “I Need You” and “A Horse With No Name”. (Name the damn horse! He’s taking you across a desert for crying out loud!) Paul Simon had a “Mother and Child Reunion” while “Sylvia’s Mother” was being pestered by Dr. Hook and his Medicine Show. Some newish guys–Elton John, David Bowie, Kenny Loggins, and Todd Rundgren–were starting to establish themselves.

Some songs make my playlist for personal history reasons, not so much because I really, really like them, but because I liked them enough that they were the background music to my life at that time: “Conquistador” by Procol Harem; “How Do You Do?” by Mouth & MacNeal; “I’m Movin’ On” by John Kay and Steppenwolf; “Sugaree” by Jerry Garcia; “Family Affair” by Sly & The Family Stone. Others I don’t remember having heard back then, but they sum up that time quite well: “Hallelujah” by Sweathog; “Baby Won’t You Let Me Rock n’ Roll You” by Ten Years After; “Move ‘Em Out” by Delaney & Bonnie; “In A Broken Dream” by Python Lee Jackson, an Australian group with Rod Stewart sitting in on the vocals; and Roberta Flack’s version of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” (hauntingly slow and soft).

I’d like to go on and on, but it’s just some old guy talking about why he likes certain pieces of music. I remember the uncle of my ex-wife who had tables of old records in his barn. Every garage sale and estate sale he went to he would scoop up all the records. We’re talking stuff from the 1920’s through 1940’s mostly. He and I would “shoot the shit” for hours as he talked about “Minnie the Mooch” and all the other great music from back then. It’s fun to appreciate music through someone else’s love of it. Should anyone think there’s something worthwhile like that here, let me know. I don’t want to bore ya.

Meanwhile, here’s a mirror image of what I looked like when I was listening to those tunes, and the other 80 I didn’t mention:

Selfies were more difficult back then… Taken with my newly purchased Honeywell Pentax SP 500 SLR. Boy, I wish I could hold a camera that steady these days. May 1972.

While you were ignorant…

From YouTube track for The Spiders. Note the composers’ names. Vince Furnier anyone?

Not long ago I waxed on about the songs of 1966 when I left 6th grade and pre-pubescence at the same time. In high school and college I listened to Alice Cooper, never knowing I could’ve been listening to proto-A.C. when I was MUCH younger! (Link to YouTube pictured above.) Extra special weirdness: every band member on this recording (except maybe the drummer) didn’t just come from the same high school, they were all on the cross country team as seniors! I know from peripheral experience that long distance runners are a wacky, different breed, but…really?

After moving to Los Angeles, renaming themselves Nazz and then because Todd Rundgren already had taken that name, to Alice Cooper, they were still capable of emptying a paying establishment in ten minutes. That’s when a middleman more or less said to himself, “boy, Frank Zappa would love these guys,” and routed them to Zappa. He turned them into the Alice Cooper we know and love. Of course, they had to move to Pontiac, Michigan, to gain acceptance. “L.A. just didn’t get it,” Cooper said at the time. “They were on the wrong drug for us. They were on acid and we were basically drinking beer.” [info and quotes courtesy of Wikipedia]

Independent thoughts

Spatial reasoning still a problem…

I attempted to explain that turning 90 degrees would align his body with the patch of sunlight, but Benny was having none of it. Either he’s indifferent or simply doesn’t understand geometry. I’m going with indifferent. July 2024.

6th grade was better…

About a month ago I posted about how 1966 proved seminal in my life for appreciating music, a year when I ‘woke up’ musically. Virtually every song in the Top Ten made me smile and say, “yeah…” and almost every one of them wound up on a 1966 playlist. Today I thought, “let’s see what 1972 held for me as I approached graduation from high school.” Holy. Crap. No wonder I felt adrift for much of the year–and I had thought it could be chalked up to teenaged ennui. In the Top Ten for the first week of January I encountered artists I still don’t like more than 50 years later: the really young Michael Jackson; David Cassidy; Donny Osmond. One song I had never heard before today: “Scorpio” by Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band. I did get to add the top four songs to my new list: “Brand New Key” by Melanie; “American Pie (Parts 1 and 2) by Don McLean; “Family Affair” by Sly and the Family Stone; and “An Old Fashioned Love Song” by Three Dog Night.

By the second week of January the Top 40 contained two versions of “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony)” now known forevermore as The Coke Song. A last gasp Sonny and Cher song, “All I Ever Need Is You” didn’t make the cut. Likewise anything by The Stylistics, Al Green, and who the heck is Betty Wright? Thankfully other artists were riding high or coming into their own: Van Morrison, Rod Stewart, Rare Earth, Three Dog Night, Bread, Grand Funk, The Who, T. Rex, and Elton John. Oh, yeah, and this group called Led Zeppelin put out its fourth album. “Black Dog” hit the January 8th chart.

It will be interesting to continue through the year. I distinctly remember Alice Cooper put out “I’m Eighteen” when I turned 18 myself. Just after graduation I picked up a free copy of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars wondering who the heck this David Bowie guy was. At least there’s that to look forward too. Oh, and Neil Young…and Humble Pie…hmmm…maybe this won’t be so sad after all.

The annual lily surprise

Every year this lily pops out in the middle of a row of azaleas, bringing a surprised smile. July 2024.

The week ahead

Duling-Kurtz Inn at dawn. Exton, PA, July 2024.

We attended a wedding over the weekend in our old haunts around Philly. Our first ‘historic’ inn left a lot to be desired, but this one really delivered. Added plus: stupendous restaurant just to the right of this photo.

Association in black

Paint It, Black
“I’ll have a black-and-tan”
I’m way too close to that Doberman….
Your Tax Dollars At Work (and a 15-minute delay on the highway)
“And this was the artist’s Black Period, noted more for its playful use of browns and other earth tones than for the use of black which of course prevailed throughout his career.”
Lava still looks hot–don’t touch!
I think I saw Spock do a mind-meld with that thing.
Huh! Next time I won’t pre-heat the cast iron on the BBQ before I put in the cornbread batter.

The Tale of Bayou and Chingu

A simple tale...with apologies for contributing to the millions and billions of cat photos on the Internet.

Once there were two kittens: Bayou…

…and his brother Chingu…

Bayou and Chingu were brothers. They were born in June 2015. They did (almost) everything together.

One day in August, not long after they quit drinking milk from their mother, Bayou and Chingu were put up for adoption. This meant they now lived together in a small cage at a local animal shelter until someone would adopt them. They lived there almost four months. Finally they were adopted by a couple who spoke Korean. They named the pink-nosed one Friend (Chingu). They named the black-nosed one after the ancient kingdom Buyeo where the ancestors of all Koreans lived.

Or maybe the people who adopted them weren’t Korean. Maybe a nice person at the shelter spoke Korean and thought, “These cats need special names because they’re really special.” But if so, they didn’t know how to spell Buyeo. Or maybe the first story is true and the shelter just didn’t hear it right. Whatever the reason, the black-nosed cat became Bayou.

Bayou visited the animal shelter in 2014 when he got sick, but in May 2015 he and his brother were given back to the shelter and put up for adoption again. Their human “mother” had developed allergies to cats. They soon found another home with a man who already had two cats. He tried to like them, and maybe his other cats did too, but when it came to cats, Bayou and Chingu only liked each other.

They beat up the man’s cats. Worse, they ganged up on them. In August 2015, just a couple months later, they were back at the shelter again. They started beating up all the other cats in the common room. “What should we do?” worried the volunteers. Their supervisor said, “We must put them in foster care. It will only be until we can find new parents for them.” But four months went by, and no one wanted the two brothers who liked each other but no one else.

The calendar turned through those months: September. October. November. And halfway through December, I spotted their photograph. “They look spunky. They look like fun. They look like they need a home because who wants three-and-a-half-year-old-cats as a package deal?” My wife agreed. We went to the shelter just before Christmas and asked to see them.

“Oh, they don’t live here,” said the person at the desk. “They weren’t very well behaved so we put them in foster care. We will have to get them for you. Come back tomorrow.” We went home both happy that we still might get them and sad because we hadn’t seen any other cats we would want to be friends with. What if they didn’t like us? Or what if we didn’t like them?

On December 20th we came back with a great big carrier. We met Bayou and Chingu. They were friendly but in different ways. They didn’t indicate if they wanted to go with us, because they were just happy to be out of the large cage where they had been living for four months. We took them home and showed them the room with the dirt, which is very important for cats. They had different reactions. Bayou wanted out of that room immediately. “Okay, fine, I’ve seen the dirt. Now let me explore,” he said.

Bayou meets the neighborhood. December 2015.

Chingu said, “I see dirt but right now I need a very dark place.” He chose the linen closet. A little later he discovered a bed.

Chingu eyes his situation. December 2015.

Today I only know two Korean words: Buyeo and Chingu. Eight years ago I didn’t know any. I said, “We have to change their names.” My wife nodded. “I know!” I said, “this black-nosed one is so open and friendly, he’s got to be a Benny!” “Yes!” she agreed and asked, “but what about the pink-nosed one who likes me?” I thought about how he raced around the house, especially when he seemed scared. “Well…we could call him The Jet.” My wife frowned. “You know, Benny and The Jet?” I grinned. To my surprise she agreed to try it. We didn’t like it, and neither did Chingu. “His name should start with a C-H anyway,” I admitted. “Let’s call him Charlie. He seems a bit neurotic, kind of like Charlie Brown.”

We got them a big condo to play on, but Charlie indicated he mostly would be sleeping there…a lot.

They had spent their previous year in cages for much of the time. They seemed to delight in finding new places to sleep:

Benny the audiophile, appreciating a fine stereo amp. March 2016.

Charlie demonstrates his lifelong passion for freshly-dried laundry. January 2016.

Benny likes bags and baskets:

Benny prefers baskets. Charlie (L) doesn’t totally get it. April 2016.

Square or round, makes no difference to Benny. January 2016.

Mostly, Charlie likes sleeping on Benny:

Benny (L) and Charlie. April 2016. [previously published]

In their first eight months with us, Benny and Charlie spent two vacations at the vet (in tiny cages again), and then they endured a move to a new house. Benny, of course, enjoyed it and helped out:

Benny supervised the move and checked boxes for food. September 2016.

Charlie got very stressed. First he hid under the kitchen sink. Then he climbed on top of the cupboards and stared at us and panted.

It had three floors. They liked to race around in it and slide on the throw rugs covering the hardwood floors. We didn’t tell them this house was temporary. Eight months later we moved again. Now they have fewer windows to look out of, but they have…..a screened-in deck!

Charlie (L) and Benny thank their human servants for buying them a deck. June 2017.

The boys have settled in over the past seven years. Charlie can’t believe he now gets to eat almost every time he wants to (which is often). He has gained five pounds. Benny still weighs the same. Benny licked off his fur in patches, spent years on medications, and finally decided to stop. It might have been allergies. It might have been a psychological problem. Charlie started licking off his fur in patches last year, so there’s that. They’ve settled down now that they’re 12 years old.

They hope Dad keeps taking their photos and making them famous, so long as it pays for the super-expensive cat food they’ve insisted is the ONLY BEST kind. Their story isn’t over, but this tale is. Benny and Charlie would send you their best, but they only like each other–and now, Mom and Dad.