Chillin!

No real reason for it, this week parts of Brenda Russell's quiet storm classic "Piano In The Dark" has been on my mind. It's a nice song to be sure with a relaxed mood. I've even seen it performed live, back in the late 80s I saw Russell open for Chicago while this was still a hit. It's a chill song. Chillin!

Read wiki on Russell, I did not know she wrote "Get Here" which was a big smash for Oleta Adams.

Tunnel Of Love

The other day on the treadmill this song popped up on my Ipod. I hadn't played the track in a long while, sounded great. The Boss takes the obvious metaphor of the County Fair Tunnel Of Love ride for a relationship and works it into a detailed journey of jealousy and doubt. So many great lyrics like "Fat man sitting on a little stool, takes the ticket from my hand while his eyes take a walk all over you" and that's just the start of the song!

"Tunnel Of Love" is interesting to me in a music trivia sort of way too, since I've assumed the song is written about Springsteen's first marriage to actress Julianne Phillips. The album Tunnel of Love was released while he was married and has wailing background vocals by his mistress / future second wife Patty Scialfa. In 1988 I saw Springsteen play in support of this album, it was after the tabloid pictures had broke making Springsteen / Scialfa's relationship public. Maybe because of the press my strongest mental image from the show was the two of them harmoninzing face to face at the microphone in the center of the stage (I think that was during "The River"). Their romantic chemestry was visible from where I was standing. With Scialfa singing a lot at the end of "Tunnel Of Love", it sort of makes an unintentional statement that Springsteen's tunnel of love starts with Phillips and ends with Scialfa. Or maybe I just read too much into trivial stuff.

Speaking of Julianne Phillips, the woman who I will always remember as the girl in 38 Special's "If I'd Been The One" video, I think I remember her being on a tv show in the late 80s called Sisters. It had Swoozie Kurtz in it too. Anyway, I used to like that show.

What's A Dawes?

I was reading best albums of the year lists a month ago on one of my favorite websites Popdose and they recommended a group called Dawes. They said it would be perfect for someone who thinks good music stopped at 1972 or something to that effect. Anyway, I checked out the album...aw crap, I can't remember what the album is called. Just the same, it turned out to be just as good a disc as they said it would be. 70s styled California rock, really nice stuff. This song in particular was the one that got me hooked on the disc, "Time Spent In Los Angeles".

A Surprising Angle

Earlier last year The Strokes released their 4th album Angles, which I was kinda ho-hum about. I liked the first three albums, yet it had been so long since the previous one that I wasn't too enthused about new music from them. And the reviews I read were on the fence and the lead single "Under Cover Of Darkness" didn't sell me right away so I put off getting it. After Christmas I got Angles and have found it to be an addictive listen including that same song "Under Cover Of Darkness". I liked how The Strokes were able to mix some 80s sounds into their familiar brand of sloppy indie rock. I've had this album play on my rotation regularly for weeks now.

Saint Sammy Strikes Again

Finally got around to listening to the recent Chickenfoot disc III, it's strong rockin stuff and surprised me with the best socially conscious rock song I've heard in a long while. "Three And A Half Letters" has Sammy Hagar reading what I assume are fan letters to him explaining their inability to find work and how it's leading to rising homelessness in America. The screaming desperation in the chorus nails the point home perfectly. I like how the song rumbles while Hagar intensely reads the stories before launching into the chorus. "Three And A Half Letters" really captures a feeling there.

Tramp Stamp

So Van Halen has released their first new song since...I can't remember exactly when that Sammy Hagar took place but it was a long time ago. It is definitely their first release with Diamond Dave since 1996. Tough to listen to this track objectively given this info. My kneejerk impulse is to declare it the best thing ever with exclamation points!!!

At the same time, I'm a little cool on the new song "Tattoo". It has that big slow groove VH loved to do in the Sammy Hagar days which takes time to grow on me. The song hook ("Tattoo Tattoo" refrained in an offhand way) isn't an instant grab. But to be fair, it took time for "And The Cradle Will Rock" to grow on me and in a roundabout way "Tattoo" reminds me of that track. Great to hear EVH's solo though. Too soon to tell if I'll love this (or the new VH album) yet I am so totally psyched to hear more.

...This is my rewrite

2012, time to start posting in the new year. I haven't posted a lot lately and I think it's because I've pretty much ran out of things to say that's new. When I'd try to post things I'd find I was writing the same stuff over and over. Like the Boss once sang "I'm so tired and bored with myself". Not to say I'm like Bruce Springsteen. On top of that, a lot of my interest has boiled down to individual songs. So I'm going to try posting just individual songs I like for whatever reason and explain what I like and so on. See if it leads anywhere.

To kick off this is Paul Simon's "Rewrite" from last year's excellent So Beautiful So What disc. It has a nice mellow vibe and an amusing "internal voice" sort of vocal. I think the song is about moving forward with an optimistic view of the future. Anyway that's my take away.