Bend It Like Bender! – Devin Townsend Project from Addicted
Blue Cheadle – Cheer-Accident from Fear Draws Misfortune
Cruisin’ With The Deuce – Quarterflash from Quarterflash
Elegy – Bob Belden from Black Dahlia
Hard Shoulder – Mark Knopfler from Get Lucky
Love’s Got A Lot To Answer For – Nick Lowe from At My Age
My Blue Heaven – Django Reinhardt from Django in Rome 1949-1950
Never Mind – Minster Hill from MiNsTeR HiLL
The Road To Hell – Chris Rea from The Road to Hell
Rocks In The Ocean – Al Stewart from 24 Carrots
Take Me Back (Deja Vu) – Van Halen from Balance
That Old Black Magic – Louis Prima and Keely Smith from Capitol Collectors Series: Louis Prima
What She Wants – TDF from Retail Therapy
Witch’s Promise – Jethro Tull from Original Masters
Wooden Planes – Art Garfunkel from Watermark
One day, if I’m lucky enough to have kids as geeky as I am (seems kind of inevitable), I’ll sit them down and tell them about the improbability of this song’s success. Sure, I’ll have to explain terms like “double album,” “record label” and “radio,” but I think it’ll be worth it. I’ll explain to them how Peter Frampton managed to remain on a major record label, A&M, despite the fact that his first three albums (as well as his first eight singles) didn’t even crack the Hot 100 (”what’s the Hot 100, daddy?”) and his fourth album peaked at #32. And that despite these failures, A&M decided that his next release should be a live album — and when he turned in the live album, the head of the record label (Jerry Moss) complained that it was too short (!) and should be a double album (!!). And so Frampton — who had recorded most of the album at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, went to record more tracks live at SUNY Plattsburgh, better known as the least sexy of all the NY State-owned colleges. (I know. My dad went there.) “Do You Feel Like We Do” was one of the tracks recorded on the college campus. Unedited, it clocks in at 14:15. And children, guess what? “Radio stations,” as they were known back then, actually played the full, unedited version of the song! “Disc jockeys,” who were the people who actually had some control over what songs were played on the radio, used the song as an excuse to go to the bathroom or do other things that I’ll tell you about when you’re older. A&M understood that some stations might not want to play a 14-minute song, though, so they reasonably edited the song…to 7:19. 7:19 was considered reasonable, children!
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Well, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve done one of these. Sometimes I figure out which song I want to write about, but have no idea what angle to take other than “This song rules!” Then another song pops into my head and I think, “That’s the one.” Without getting into the backstory, that’s what happened to me the other day with “Barrier Reef.”
This week’s Way Out Wednesday brings you that video game icon, Donkey Kong. This album gets credit for trying to give Donkey Kong a little backstory (as improbable as at might be). Interspersed through the story are some songs. We’ll feature some of the songs here, and I’ll do my best to fill you in on the story.
John Schneider