Today’s Cool Album of the Day is Rockpile’s, Seconds Of Pleasure. Dave Edmunds (guitar) and Nick Lowe (bass) must have recorded about 6 albums together in the late 70’s or early 80’s. However, this was the only ‘official’ release of the band named they used, Rockpile. Due to some weird contracts, they never released another official album. So what they did was take turn releasing solo albums. And then they would play on each others release. So one album would be called Nick Lowe, and it would feature Dave Edmunds and the next would be Dave Edmunds, and it would feature Nick Lowe. Rockpile also included Bill Bremmer on guitar and Terry Williams on drums. Terry Williams went on...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day  is the debut album by “The Psychedelic Furs.” Dark, eerie, creepy etc etc. This album has been described by all those great words. But I think it’s a wonderful body of music. It’s amazing how many times I like a bands debut album the best. But how many times have I heard the ol’ saying, ‘You have your whole life to write your first album, a year to write the second.’ Great dark sound. Kinda like a pissed off Roxy Music. Some exception saxophone work highlights the sound. Favorite tracks? ‘India’ and ‘Sister Europe.’ The Psychedelic Furs was mostly produced by Steve Lillywhite and the band. It reached number 140 on the Billboard...

Today’ Cool Album of the Day is “Zenyatta Mondatta” by The Police. How great is this piece of music? It’s really hard to pick a favorite from that early Police period, but I’m going with this one. Highlights, we got a few. ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me, When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around, Canary in a Coalmine, Man in a Suitcase’ and my fave mainly because of Andy Summers scorching guitar solo, ‘Driven To Tears.’ This 1980 release peeked at #5 in 1981. It hit the charts again in 1983 and had a cup of coffee at #129. It won two Grammy Awards. The Police were inducted into the Rock...

Today’s Cool album of the Day is Peter Gabriel’s album, “Peter Gabriel.” OK, now that we’ve established that, the next question is…..which one? After Peter departed Genesis, his first four solo releases were all titles simply, Peter Gabriel. Why, he wanted them to be looked at as renewed releases of a magazine. Why did he stop this tradition with his fifth album, “So?” Well, you’ll have to ask David Geffen that question. He pulled rank. (Note: Even thou the fourth edition of the Peter Gabriel magazine collection was labeled as just ‘Peter Gabriel,’ it was widely known as ‘Security.’ So again you ask, Larry? Which one? Well here it’s going to be the third solo album. Sometimes even called,...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day is Utopia’s, “Adventures in Utopia” For those of you that don’t know, Utopia is a band led by Philadelphia native, Todd Rundgren. He was joined by Roger Powell on keys, John ‘Willie’ Wilcox on drums and Kasim Sultan on bass. Everybody sang. This was their release of 1980. They were just spitting out the music back then. And Todd, well he was at one of his busiest periods between mid 70’s and say, 1983. Some of my favorite music by him was done during that time. ‘Adventures in Utopia’ follows my pattern of, ‘The tour I saw was often my favorite album by that artist.’ But I’m not sure which was the chicken...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day  is Jimmy Hall, “Touch You.” I’m going a little more obscure today with an album that if you don’t have it, you’ll probably never be able to find. “Touch You” is a 1980 release by Jimmy Hall. Jimmy Hall? Jimmy Hall? Where have I heard that name before? You’re right, you have heard that name. Hall was the lead singer of the great Mobile, Alabama band, Wet Willie. (Keep on Smilin’) Following in Wet Willie tradition, “Touch You” was also another funky country album. This had a little more blue eyed soul than when he was in the band. THE song on the album was ‘(I’m Happy That) Love Has Found You.” It’s...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Under Heavy Manners” by Robert Fripp with David Byrne After the demise of King Crimson in 1974, Robert Fripp spent several years laying low before entering a period of high activity from 1977-1980, resulting in some of his most interesting collaborations. Starting in 1977, Fripp joined Brian Eno in Germany to add guitar parts to David Bowie’s “Heroes.”  This was followed by Fripp’s production of albums for Daryl Hall (Sacred Songs), Peter Gabriel (his second album with the “Scratch” cover) and the eponymously titled album by The Roches, plus sessions with an amalgam of like-minded artists including Peter Hammill (of Van Der Graaf Generator), Brian Eno, Blondie (on Parallel Lines),...