Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#984 in the Series) Big Star, Third/Sister Lovers This one goes down as one of the great enigma’s of rock music, an album by a band which had pretty much split up by the time it was recorded, which had no title and which didn’t even have a finalized track listing. For years it was, just like The Beach Boys “SMiLE”, more of a rumour, a myth, than an actual record. Thankfully it was eventually released, in an albeit limited capacity, and fans were finally able to hear what all the fuss was about. Was it worth it? Hell yeah. Big time. Big Star were founded in Memphis by  three friends who were deeply...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#980 in the Series) is Cheap Trick, In Color The mid to late 70s were really a fun time to be a music fan for me. Seeing bands in clubs around Chicago, and then seeing some of them release albums and becoming even more successful, some of those success stories would even reach world-wide. Cheap Trick was one of those bands. They would make the 90 minute or so trip from their Rockford, Illinois home to Chicago every so often. Once or twice they’d even play tiny “Luigi’s” in Chicago Heights.  We were underage but we’d get in. The first Cheap Trick album was released in early ’77.  To me it’s never been...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#979 in the Series) is Led Zeppelin, Presence.  If you’ve been with us for a while you’ll notice some common themes that I referred to on a regular basis. One of the more popular ones is my tendency to be a big fan of a band’s album from a tour that I happened to see. I don’t know why this is true, because often those aren’t anywhere near the band’s best piece of work, but for some reason those albums consistently have always stuck with me longer. One of my early great live rock ‘n roll experiences was seeing Led Zeppelin at the Chicago Stadium on the Presence tour. Back then I...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#978 in the series.) is  Old and In The Way. Five great musicians getting together for some great pickin’ and singin.’ I guess you could call it bluegrass but there’s more than a hint of old fashioned mountain music thrown in. For those of you not familiar with this project, Old and In the Way were Peter Rowan (guitar, vocals), David Grisman (mandolin, vocals), John Kahn (bass), Vassar Clements (fiddle) and Jerry Garcia (banjo, vocals.) Can I name a stand out cut? No, not really since EVERY track is a must listen. There’s no filler on this classic. This live album was recorded and released in October, 1973.  One you should be familiar...

Today’s Cool Album Of the Day (#976 in the Series) is Genesis, Seconds Out. How much do I like this album? Well, if I could only take ten albums to a desert island, I might have to take two copies of this and then eight others. This was the album that made me fall in love with Genesis.  I don’t know why I didn’t get into them earlier. After this was released I did go back and loved all the Gabriel era works. For some reason I missed it when it was happening.  I remember seeing all those ads about them playing the Auditorium for three nights. I can kick myself now for not going. I guess I did...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (# 974 in the Series) is Blood, Sweat and Tears, 3. In many ways, this album had more to do with long love affair with music, than any other album ever released. When I was a wee lad, my sister gave me copy of this. It was actually on cassette. It was right when those lovely pre-recorded cassettes first hit the market. I had a player and played it over and over and over. I even remember starting and stopping the songs over and over so I could write out the lyrics. I was hooked. I had to get more of these! Blood, Sweat and Tears 3 contained some of the bands...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#972 in the Series) is Richard & Linda Thompson, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. This is an album I’ve went back to recently and it’s captivated me, full to the brim as it is with wonderfully bleak, world-weary and fascinating songs. I actually found my old cassette copy of it and realized that I hadn’t played the full album in years, most of my Richard Thompson stuff is on compilations. Well, I’m glad I put it on because this is one of the best adverts you could ever get for the Keep The Album Alive! campaign, it’s magnificent from start to finish. Thompson, one of the very best British...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#968 in the Series) is Ten Years After,  A Space In Time When you are three pints in, and the conversation as it inevitably does, turns to the greatest guitar players of all time, and the usual suspects Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and the rest are shouted out from around the bar, the name Alvin Lee is largely and criminally ignored.  As one of the early pioneers of Blues Rock, Lee and his band Ten Years After were mostly known for their spacey psychedelic blues jams that were groovy enough to grab the ears of concert promoter Bill Graham, who brought the band to San Francisco for a series of...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#967 in the Series) is Traffic, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys. Back in 1986, my friend Bruce Embree and I went to see Steve Winwood in concert. He was touring in support of his Back In The High Life album.  We had second row-center seats.  That was a treat considering I nabbed them via phone order!!   On the way to the show we had discussed ‘what were our chances to hear any Traffic tunes?’ This was one of the first solo Winwood tours that I had remembered. We certainly had not seen him before.  So we weren’t sure what to expect. Some artists will play quite a number of songs from...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#960) is Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Live Rust If I read it one more time I’m going to hurl.  Now what would that be? Well that would be that Live Rust was recorded on Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s tour supporting Rust Never Sleeps. No, No a million times no! Most of Live Rust was recorded at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on October 22, 1978.  Rust Never Sleeps was released,  June, July  1979. Live Rust was released on Nov., 1979.  How wrong is the statement that Live Rust was recorded to support Rust Never Sleeps? Well, some of Rust Never Sleeps was recorded during the Live Rust tour. Live Rust was...