Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#505 in the Series) is Bill Withers, Just As I Am By all rights the Bill Withers album Just As I Am should never have been made. It’s not that the talent was not here, it certainly was, it’s just that it is not often that when a record company needs to take promotional pictures for an album that they have to work around the artist’s break times during his 8-5 job at a Boeing plant making airplane toilets. In 1967 Bill Withers, fresh from a discharge from the Navy and bolstered by his fellow sailor’s encouragement and recognition of his talent, moved to the west coast to make some demo records...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#504 in the Series) is Patricia Barber,  Nightclub A dark , delicious delight of an album. Take a look through Patricia Barber’s career and you’ll quickly see that she likes to be adventurous and do her own thing, rarely the safe option for her. Most people blessed with a voice and talent like hers would settle for a nice, comfortable career, the easy money. It’s to her credit that she tries not to go down that road too often and it’s her questing spirit which results in wonderful releases like this. It may also be the reason that you might not have heard of her! The aim on this recording was to...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#503 in the Series and # 51 in the Live, Saturday Night Series) is Bob Marley, Live! This has long been considered the best live album of Bob Marley’s career. It’s also been considered the best live album of the reggae genre for some years now. I’ll let you make that call personally. To each his own as they say, I think the point that “it’s good” can be made, that the idea here. Me, I would have seen a live disc recorded on the next tour. That would have been the one for Rastaman Vibration.  That was my fave, but this will do.  This was the tour for Natty Dread. Bob...

  For quite some time now, The Jimmy Fallon show has been doing some great things with his musical guests. If you haven’t seen his Neil Young impressions then you’re really missing out.  The brilliance of it is in its subtleties.  He’s also had The Vanilla Fudge and The Zombies are recent guests.  Those were indeed fun to see. Now he’s taking it to another step.  Next week he’s featuring the Pink Floyd. No, the band will not reform and perform.  Sit back down.  Nick Mason will be an interview guest on Monday, Sept 26. The Shins will perform The Dark Side of the Moon’s”Breathe” on the same show.  That will be followed the next day by Roger Waters....

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#502 in the Series) is Colin Hay, Are You Looking At Me? One of the cool things about being a music fan is having good friends with whom you can play the “Trust me on this one” game. You know it; you probably played it and never even realized it.  A good friend comes up to you and either hands you a CD, or a cassette or even good ol’ vinyl and says “Check this out” I think you’ll like it.  You look at the title and try and hide your surprise when he or she hands you a title that you would never listen to on your own. In fact, you...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#501 in the Series) is R.E.M., Chronic Town OK, who remembers Trouser Press?  Actually, it’s still around. Maybe it’s just online now, I have no idea actually.  If you remember the magazine, do you remember when they used to have “flexi discs” in the issues? Who were most of the bands on those discs, no Idea, but I do remember one. That was R.E.M. and the songs that appeared on the flexi discs were from their Chronic Town EP. My good friend Terry took a bunch of those discs and took a bunch of the better songs from these bands and put them on a Maxell or TDK or “something” cassette tape. Two...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#500 IN THE SERIES) is Van Morrison, Astral Weeks. Astral Weeks by Van Morrison is the greatest album ever made. By anyone. Ever. A bold statement to make, given the vast amount of albums that Iwould consider “classic” but I’m willing to stand by it. I’ve loved this album for many years, can still listen to it without feeling it’s overfamiliar, and can still marvel at the sheer beauty of the music, the lyrics AND the singing. It’s a shape changer. For the first few, I dunno, hundred?, thousand?, listens you simply don’t know what’s coming next, where the music’s going to go, what flights of lyrical, poetic fancy Van’s going to take...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#499 in the Series) is The Beach Boys, Surfs Up Sometimes the Mojo inspirations for my psychedelic meanderings for Cool Album of the Day come from lubricating the death machine, wandering in the desert aimlessly with an Indian Shaman by my side guiding me.  Other times I am in the Falcon’s Nest jungle room staring at the black light posters of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin wondering where I can put my next lava lamp while consulting my Todd Mcfarlane figures of Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Zombie, and Jim Morrison. Alice Cooper is usually the more vocal of this quartet. Dave Alvin (Cool Album of the Day #471) was his. Jim Morrison...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#498 in the Series) is Todd Rundgren, (Re)Production Todd’s (Re)Production is going to get a ton of bad reviews. Why you say? Well, this album just doesn’t come across that well on first listen. Unfortunately, that’s all most reviewers will give to a new disc. Not here, no no no.  I try to give a new release at least three spins before I take out my crayon and loose leaf paper, ok my laptop actually. One thing that we’ve discussed before is how albums that take a little longer to get into are usually the ones that stay with you longer. I feel that way.  That’s the case here. (Re)Production is all covers,...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#497 in the Series) is Rory Gallagher, Irish Tour ’74. On top of the list there’s Jimi Hendrix. Look up anything on the genre of blues-rock bands, blues-rock music etc. and that’s who’s always at the top. Cast your eyes down a notch. Just a bit, not far, not far at all and you’ll land on Irish guitarist extraordinaire, Rory Gallagher.  If for some reason, you landed on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s name first, well then cast your eyes upward. Why, because in every way, Rory Gallagher’s name is listed above. It’s not even close. SRV should not be even mentioned in the same breath with this man. When I’m trying to decide on...