We’re going to jump right into the songs this week as we have an extended post in order to finish up the letter E in just two weeks. Enjoy the 26 tracks below as we continue digging through the bottom of the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

Dave Edmunds
“Almost Saturday Night” — 1981, #54 (download)
“High School Nights” — 1985, #91 (download)

I’d love to hear a remastered version of “Almost Saturday Night.” It’s a good song written by John Fogerty, but it would be nice to see how great it would be with better production. “Almost Saturday Night” was off Twangin …, which would be Edmunds’s final album with his group Rockpile. In 1985 Edmunds put together the Porky’s Revenge soundtrack, which included the theme song “High School Nights.”

Dennis Edwards
“Don’t Look Any Further” — 1984, #72 (download)

This is an absolute classic R&B song from Edwards — one the lead singers of the Temptations. This is another one of those ‘80s R&B tracks that I feel has been used in a billion samples in the past few decades. The only one I can pick out off hand is 2Pac’s “Hit ‘Em Up” but I know there must be more. It was actually covered unnecessarily in 1988 by the Kane Gang. The female voice in this is an artist we will get to very shortly - Siedah Garrett.

Walter Egan
“Fool Moon Fire” — 1983, #46 (download)

Walter Egan is pretty much known for one song, 1978’s “Magnet and Steel” but this cool track was his fourth and final charting single. According to the ”official” Walter Egan website this song charted in the Top 40. Who am I to call bullshit on that? Wait, I guess by posting this I’m doing just that.

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Remember when the Hustle swept through discos everywhere?  People were taking Hustle classes, the nightly news reported on the fad, there were instructional records and books.  Hey, remember when everyone did the bump to, say, “Lady Bump?”  How about in 1977, when everyone was doing the latest dance, the “Crazy Thing,” to Jeff Lynne’s “Doin’ That Crazy Thing?”

No?  Oh, sorry.

Creating a new dance craze was definitely on someone’s mind when Jeff Lynne took a short break from leading the Electric Light Orchestra to release this forgotten single.  “Doin’ That Crazy Thing” (download) was released with the mugshot picture sleeve overseas, but here in the States the 12″ version can with a sleeve complete with step-by-step instructions on how to do the “Crazy Thing,” the new moves that were destined to sweep the nation.  Except, like, they didn’t.  The copy I found was sadly saddled with a generic Jet Records sleeve, damn it.

“Doin’ That Crazy Thing” was a strange detour for Lynne, a downtempo, straight-ahead disco tune slipped out under his own name rather than ELO’s, even though the group would flirt with and nearly fully embrace disco a short two years later.  You don’t hear about the one-off solo single, it’s never been released on CD (to my knowlege) and along with its almost identical B-side, “Goin’ Down To Rio,” (download) it’s been written off in Lynne/ELO history. (more…)

Once again kids, yours truly is handing over the mixing duties to Jack Feerick — who brought us a mix that “gave the drummer some.” This week’s mix celebrates a season that, at least for me in the Bay Area, lasts from May to October. I’m talking about summer, and all the good (and not-so-good) things that go with it. See ya next week!

–Ted (AKA Py Korry)

DOWNLOAD THE FULL MIX HERE

There’s a website I like, called One-Minute Vacation. The content is simple enough—an ever-growing collection of digital field recordings donated by the site users themselves—but even more than the clips themselves I love the idea; that sound alone, even out of context, can transport us, can take our heads somewhere else in space and time.

It’s not just ambient sound that does this. We’ve all got our personal pantheon of “summer songs,” and it’s about this time that the blogs and the corporate sites start running polls about our favorites. (Not so long ago, it would have been the radio stations doing that.) But what’s a “summer song,” anyway? Is it a song that sounds best when you hear it in the summertime? Or is it a song that, whatever time of year you hear it, reminds you of summer? Or is it a little of both?

Try this; download this mix, and wait a while. Wait until winter comes to your hemisphere, for a day when the sky is the color of slate and the wind is rattling around your windows. Then listen. Close your eyes, as appropriate; where do you end up?

Open on the sound of the Campo del Principe in Granada, Spain, on a sunny day in May. You’ve got the morning free and you’re meeting your best friend at the café across from the park. She’s got a table on the terrace; the day is already hot, and she’s already ordered you iced coffee, sweet and creamy. (more…)

Discovery = Disco? Very!

That was the joke around rock critic circles when Electric Light Orchestra unleashed Discovery upon a disco-obsessed public in 1979. With the singles “Shine a Little Love” and the more-rock-stomp-than-disco “Don’t Bring Me Down” cracking the Top 10, the album, lambasted critically as a complete sell-out for the once Beatles-worshiping band, found plenty of favor with music buyers.

The record was so popular that a third single, “Confusion” (download), was released, a relative rarity in those days. Probably the least disco song on an unashamedly disco album, the straight-ahead rock ballad is awash in tinkly keys and a synthesized woodwind instrumental hook that sounds suspiciously like something Wings would do (imagine that). Jeff Lynne did his usual vocal stacking to excellent melodic effect, but the song failed to move up any further than a wimpy #37, surprising since the album’s previous single topped out at #4. “Confusion” has become somewhat of a forgotten ELO hit, not garnering the after-the-fact acclaim that other similar charting ELO singles like “Mr. Blue Sky” have attained in the years since.

This wasn’t the end of the road for Discovery, however, since a fourth single, “Last Train to London,” probably the most disco song on the record, was released. It charted even more dismally, squeaking in at #39 for one measly week at the start of 1980 — that’s why it’s not featured in this post (the single sleeve pictured above is the UK version of the single, which was released as a double A-side with “Confusion”). Rules is rules, people!

“Confusion” peaked at #37 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart in 1979.

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