#shelf 6

A handful of Promo Singles, and five albums in the last of shelf 6.

Two more tracks from Big Audio Dynamite, promo singles for "Looking for a Song" and "I Turned Out A Punk" which the singles were released not quite six months apart, and you'd think they were on the same albums, but alas. Mick Jones, is quite prolific when it comes to writing and recording, because the songs are from two different albums that came out on two different labels.

I saw Big Audio Dynamite in August of '95 at one of KPNT's many Pointfest concerts. They were amazing. They turned the whole place into a big party.

Speaking of big party, that's what I envisioned going to any show by any swing artist that was big back in the late 90's must have been. 

  Big Bad Voodoo Daddy had a number of hits, and even appeared in the movie "Swingers"with a young Jon Favreau and a thin Vince Vaughn. Listening to the album carries you back to the time of swing of the '30's and '40s.

Standout tracks: "Mr. Pinstripe Suit," "You And Me And The Bottle Makes 3 Tonight (Baby)" "Go Daddy-O" and their cover of "Minnie The Moocher"

  When working in radio you get a lot of CD's sent to you and sometimes (more than that actually) you get CD's sent to you that the record label honestly has no real intention of putting any weight behind. That was the case with this band. The single the label was trying to work was "Remember (I.O.U.)" but when the label rep called me about this album what he actually said was "Amy Lee sings backup on track six, just in case you want to play that one, other wise don't worry about it." Well, we were in Little Rock, Amy's home town, I was at the station that gave them their start, so I kept the disc for that reason only.

In 1993 Big Head Todd and the Monsters released their album Sister Sweetly. To this day I've never heard the entire album all the way through, but to this day I still love the single "Bittersweet" and pull the promo single off the shelf to listen to several times a year.

In 1988 after months of hearing about it from the likes of Mary Hart on "Entertainment Tonight"and the movie segment of my local news, I finally sat down in the movie theater across the street from the apartment my mother and I lived in above the Hallmark store and saw "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." I distinctly remember two things about it: 1) my mother walked out of the movie about 35 minutes in, and 2) the opening song. Before the song was over I was making a mental note to watch through the end credits to see who sang it.

  Great Aussie rock, lots of percussion. Standout tracks include: "Breakaway" "Money God" "Hungry Town"

And the last two discs on shelf 6:

  The opening track is one very cool track. Listening through the disc I thought "Man, they sure do sound like Soundgarden" on their track "Look What I Found" and then after reading up on the album, found that front man Ian Thornley did that on purpose. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

In 2003 they released 

  Nothing from the album charted in the US and it did better in Canada than it did here in the States, but if you've heard of the band Thornley, that's the followup to this album, as Big Wreck themselves wouldn't release another album until 2012.

which band or artist's fans like or reblog the posts that they are included in. Some have been surprising and unexpected. Alice in Chains fans like the pictures I posted of the Jar of Flies that came with flies, Courtney Love fans have given me a few notes about the link I posted when someone I knew testified in her trial, and the Bee Gee's have some fans on Tumblr.

It's like with anything I guess, everything you think is going to be a sure fire hit, isn't, and it's the things you least expect that gets the attention.

Just an observation. Curious to see how the rest of the collection goes.

I was away on my two year church mission when "High Fidelity" came out. Two of my friends went to see it in the theater, and as the story goes, mid-way through the movie turned to each other, pointed at Cusack on the big screen and said of his character in unison "That's Gregg!"

They showed me the movie as soon as I got back. It's now one of my favorite movies of all time, I could play it on mute and recite just about every line. I've got the soundtrack but am also trying to compile the rest of the music either played or referenced in the movie. I also own the book and Nick Hornby has become one of my favorite authors.

But Rob Gordon (Fleming in the novel) and I are a lot alike. We have a lot of the same attitudes about music. I was very much a music snob as they are in the movie, esp in the scene where Jack Black drives the guy out of the store (no, not that scene, the other one... okay both...).

(Somebody please tell me they know John Cusack and or Nick Hornby and could send me a movie poster autographed by both of them? No? Okay, worth a shot to ask)

Anyway... the video posted above? I used to do that sort of thing with my co-workers when I worked in CD stores. That scene got me to buy The Three EP's by The Beta Band, just for the song played in the movie.

Oh, we're not done with Ben Folds yet, in case you thought so on the last post...

So back in 1997-'98 when I was working at WCIL, I was on the air at night but would occasionally pop in during the day. I was there one day when the Program Director was going through the mail. He gets to a package and then chuckles and throws it over to me.

"Here," he said. "You can have whatever is in there." A second later, another package. "That one too."

It was addressed to someone I'd never heard of.

The station was in a building that was almost 100 years old, in downtown Carbondale, Illinois. A couple of buildings down, above a restaurant were some apartments.

"That's someone who lives in the apartments above Mary Lou's restaurant," he explained. "He calls record labels, claiming to work for us, then has CD's sent here in his name. Then he comes here, claiming he's expecting packages that were inadvertently shipped to the wrong address. He's trying to scam free CD's."

Well, back before Napster and KaZaA, and youtube and spotify, you had to be more creative to steal/pirate music.

And that was how I got my copies of Air Moon Safari, and Ben Folds Five Whatever and Ever, Amen as well as Naked Baby Photos.

NBF is a compilation of demos, B-sides, live tracks, etc. Their next proper studio album would be

Can I just say, someday I hope I can rock a white suit like Reinhold Messner?

Standout tracks on this one: "Narcolepsy," "Army," "Regrets," "Don't Change Your Plans"

Next is one of the great crooners:

  A CD on my long time want list, is Tony Bennett Unplugged. I know what you're thinking. "Oh great, welcome to the party 20 years late..." 

But I do have this advanced sampler for his 1995 album Here's To The Ladies as well as