Motörhead Monday

Today's Motörhead lyrics come from the song "Cradle To The Grave", another great song that was originally released as a B side to the Eat The Rich single in 1987.

Ain't so bad, ain't so bad, could've been a loser
Ain't so bad, ain't so bad, rather be a boozer
Standing at the crossroads, see where the wind blows
Following the white line, following my nose

Kim Simmonds & Savoy Brown Live in Sherwood Park Feb.26th 2016

Friday night my buddy Buzzard, Char and I went to Festival Place in Sherwood Park for the Kim Simmonds & Savoy Brown concert. Kim and the band are on tour as part of their 50th Anniversary Tour. Now Kim Simmonds is the only original now, his back up band of Pat DeSalvo on the bass and drummer Garnet Grimm were great. Kim has had this version of the band together going on four years now.

This was my second time seeing Kim Simmonds in concert having first seen him back in 1994. Kim is a blues guitar player from London, England and has been doing this forever. He has always kind of been one of the forgotten great blues players out there.

The show on Friday night was excellent, with Kim sounding great in voice and in good character, playing the guitar awesomely, telling lots of stories in between songs. The band did two sets combing for an almost two hour show. I was impressed as well with the back-up players Kim has playing with him right now. Be nice if this line-up can carry on for a long time.

Kim covered songs spanning his 50 year career on this evening. Playing songs from his first album 1967's Shakedown all the way to last years The Devil To Pay. My favorite tunes of the night were Tell Mama and Street Corner Talking from the 1971 album by the same name. Another highlight was hearing Hellbound Train. Kim Simmonds played slide guitar on a few songs and even pulled out the harmonica for a song. I though the show was excellent and look forward to hopefully seeing them again this summer when they close out the Edmonton Blues Festival on Sunday August 21st. Good times!!!

Kim Simmonds and Savoy Brown.

And a big thank you goes out to the anonymous person that helped with getting me backstage to meet the band and get my posters signed from the show Savoy Brown played here in 1994.

Seven Inch Sunday (The Pretenders)

Today's seven inch single is from The Pretenders. This single was released in 1980 on Real Recordings and features the songs Talk Of The Town which appeared on their second album The Pretenders II that came out in 1981. On side two is the song Cuban Slide, a song that appeared on their 1981 E.P. Extended Play. Both are great songs, Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders never got the recognition that they deserved if you ask me.

Side 1 - Talk Of The Town

Side 2 - Cuban Slide

Another One Bites The Dust

So another sad day here in Edmonton as we lose yet another independent record store. This time it's Sound Connection, a record shop that has been around Edmonton in several different locations and several owners, but has been around for 38 years.

Sound Connection is the first record shop that I started to frequent when I was a young teenager. My music collection pretty much started with this store, first with vinyl, then cassettes and eventually CD's and then back to vinyl.

My brother and I use to go to Sound Connection when it was downtown on 101st. every Saturday morning, taking the bus downtown and then walking the ten blocks or so to the store instead of waiting for another bus. This was always good bonding time, talking about what we were hoping to find at the store, and then racing home to listen to our new purchases.

By the time I was in high school, it was the perfect place to go hang out in the afternoon when I should have been in class. I would go to the store and go through everything, all the vinyl, cassettes, European music magazines (Kerrang) and the t-shirts just to kill time. It was also the first place you could pick up UK 12 inch singles, bootlegs and picture discs.

I sure am going to miss Sound Connection, although I didn't frequent the shop as much as I used to, I still managed to drop in at least once every couple of weeks. So we say good-bye to another local record shop, just months after losing Permanent Records. This leaves Edmonton with only three good record independent shops. It was less then 8 years ago that there used to be 5 record shops just in the Whyte Avenue area (so within 6 blocks).

If only I had the money to own my own record shop, c'mon lottery!! This city could use another good record shop, and I do believe it can still make money in this city.

Don't let this happen to your local record shops. Get out and buy music from your local record shop. It's a great way to meet good people and find and get turned onto new music. Support people support.

Good-bye Sound Connection you were good to me over the years. Going to miss ya!

Lita Ford Live at River Cree Casino Feb.20th 2016

On Saturday night my buddy RCD and I went to the The Venue at River Cree Casino to catch the Ladies Of Rock show which featured Femme Fatale, Vixen and Lita Ford, talk about a all 80's ladies glam rock show. The nice thing about this show was that I had never seen any of these bands before and tickets were only 30 dollars. Hard to believe I had never seen them before, but from what I can recall none of them had ever played in Edmonton before. It wasn't the greatest turn out, my estimate would be about 400 people. Maybe if there had been more advertising for this show there would have been a better crowd. I saw no posters for this show and very little print advertising, and for radio, I have no idea if there was any ads on the stations. Posters are the way to go to get the word out. Certainly was none on the station I listen to, which is no surprise. But nowadays, who listens to radio anyways.

The first band of the evening was Femme Fatale, they were an all female band out of Los Angeles that put one album out in 1988. While I remember seeing a video for them back in the day ("Fallin' In And Out Of Love"), I never did own their one and only album, but I did think they looked pretty damn hot. Hey, I was a teenager in the 80's all the above mentioned bands members were hot too me back then. Oh, too have seen them back then. Anyways, this version of Femme Fatale only had one original member, that being lead singer Lorraine Lewis. Like I say, I didn't really know their music, other then the one they did a video for. And I remember back then I thought they weren't very good. Well, seeing them live was a bit better. The drummer Athena was quite good. Lorraine looks a little rough around the edges, but she could still sing which is the main thing. All and all not bad for an opener.

Femme Fatale.

Next up was the band Vixen who got their start in St. Paul, Minneapolis in the early 80's before moving to California in the mid 80's getting in on the glam metal scene of Los Angeles. This version of the band is led by original members or more like the classic line up of Janet Gardner on guitar and vocals and drummer Roxy Petrucci who also played drums for the band Madam X back in the day ("We Reserve The Right"good album too I must say). One of the original members Jan Kuehnemund passed away in 2013 after a battle with cancer.

I remember buying their first album hoping for the best after seeing pictures of them in the metal magazines of the day and thinking they looked good, hopefully the music would be good too. Well, can't say I much cared for the album, it was fluff music, way over produced and polished. Have listened to it again recently and still can't say much for it. But much too my surprise they rocked it really good on this night. Way better live then on record. Lead singer Janet Gardner sounded good and was easy on the eyes too. The crowd seemed to be into the band as well.

Vixen setlist.

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Vixen.

Next up was headliner Lita Ford, yet another musician/band that I had never seen in concert before. Lita Ford got her start in the 70's with the band The Runaways. So she has been around for quite sometime, yet had never played in Edmonton before either. So I was happy to finally get the chance to see her perform live.

Lita and her band hit the stage opening with the song Gotta Let Go from her second album Dancin' On The Edge, which is what I think was her last good album, but then again, I really haven't been buying her stuff since then. And that album came out in 1984. I'm not sure who all else were in her band on this night, but they all seemed to do a good job. The drummer I believe was a guy by the name of Bob Rock, not the producer Bob Rock. And of course he had to do a drum solo which was boring as fuck, as most solos are.

The third song of her set was the Elton John song The Bitch Is Back which suited the show good. She and the band did a damn good job of it too. Other songs she did were Cherry Bomb which was a hit for her first band The Runaways, the crowd was singing along to this one. She also did the song Can't Catch Me which was song co-written with the late great Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead. She and the band cranked this one out almost Motörhead style, lots of spirit in this song, sounded great. She also did the song Close My Eyes Forever which was wrote with the help of Ozzy Osbourne and was a big hit for her in 1988, probably her biggest song I think. A song I really can't stand though, just my opinion. Lita closed out the show with Kiss Me Deadly which went over really well too. For a lady that is 57 years old, she still looks good and sounds great too. All and all this was a fun night out seeing some lady glam metal bands that I never got to see in their hey days. All the bands sounded much better then I was expecting and all played heavier then I was expecting. For thirty dollars for this show, it was a good price for a great show. Good times!!!

Lita Ford setlist.

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Lita Ford.

Ticket autographed by Vixen as the band came out after their set and signed autographs.

Seven Inch Sunday (Flaming Lips/Mastodon)

Today's seven inch single is split seven inch featuring the Flaming Lips song A Spoonful Weighs A Ton from their 1999 album The Soft Bulletin. Side B has the band Mastodon covering the Flaming Lips song. This single was a Record Store Day 2012 release on baby pink vinyl.

Original version by the Flaming Lips.

Cover version by Mastodon.

Seven Inch Sunday (Bob Dylan)

Today's seven inch single was 2012 Record Store Day exclusive release that was limited to 5000 copies. It is the Bob Dylan single for the song "Duquesne Whistle" from his 2012 album Tempest. What really made this single interesting is the B side, which features the song "Meet me In The Morning" an alternate take from the Blood On The Tracks sessions. This song had been unreleased for 38 years at the time.