Thursday, May 31, 2012

Mannish Boy by Muddy Waters

If you don't like the Blues then you can get out of my rock room! 

This is one of my blues favorites. Muddy Waters has recorded three versions of 'Mannish Boy'. The first was in 1955, the second was a rock version in 1968, and my favorite which is the third version recorded with Johnny Winter in 1977 for the album Hard Again.

I first heard the 1977 version of this song in the movie Better Off Dead. In case you forgot, the song is played when we see Lane's fully restored Camaro. Also, this song is featured in the mob classic Goodfellas.

There are many Blues classics out there, but this one is a real jam. Click the video below and enjoy Muddy Waters.



Want to purchase the album Hard Again from Amazon? Click here to buy it and thank me later.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels) by Jim Croce

Operator, oh let's forget about this call
There's no one there i really wanted to talk you
Thank you for your time
Oh you've been so much more than kind
And you can keep the dime

Poetic rock and roll lyrics are very cool, but I'm a total sucker for a song that tells a great story. A personal favorite is 'Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels)' by Jim Croce. Released during the summer of 1972, this classic only reached #17 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. I was driving home from my parents house yesterday when I heard this on the radio and knew it had to be a post for the blog.

The story of 'Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels)' is that we have a man trying to get the number of his ex-lover from an operator because the number he had written down became faded and unreadable. The ex is living in L.A. with his former best friend, and all I can say is, 'Ain't that a bitch'. It's nice to hear that the operator is helpful unlike the service we receive from our cell phone providers in this day and age.

The song is embedded below and enjoy one of Croce's best.




Purchase the MP3 of Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels) at Amazon. Click here to purchase. 

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Alcoholiday by Teenage Fanclub

 There are things that I want to do
But I don't know if they will be with you

The first album I purchased where I had never heard a single song from the artist was Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub. This alternative rock masterpiece was released in 1991 and Spin awarded it the 'Album of the Year' award over Nirvana's Nevermind.

It was May 1992 and my senior year of high school was coming to and end. I ran the bullshit gauntlet for four years and the end was oh-so-near. Perhaps the worst class of my senior year was economics, which was taught by Mr. Horrible, a despicable excuse for a teacher. For some reason, I was stuck with that bastard for four years and I suffered through his Spanish, Western civilization, government, and economics classes.

Economics was awful because Mr. Horrible oversaw our senior class business project. What was our major project? We decided to have something called morp, which was bizarro prom. Somehow we made a profit from the dance and even had money left over after all expenses were covered. Each student in the class was to be given a check for twelve dollars and I was thrilled. When handed the check by Mr. Horrible, I decided to buy a CD.   

I cashed the check, went to the CD store at the mall, and browsed. As I made my way past the Alternative section, I saw Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub. Now I had never heard a song from these guys, but a few credible music loving students at my high school kept raving about this album in my anatomy class. I even read a really good review in a music magazine and decided to roll the dice. The album lived up to the hype.

Bandwagonesque is noisy and has some great Bryds and Beatles inspired moments. My favorite track is 'Alcoholiday', a song about a relationship gone bad or in the process of going bad. I'm happily married, folks, but when I first heard this song I had been dumped. The girl responsible for it was a real piece of work. I would not be surprised if she was the evil spawn of Mr. Horrible.

For those of you looking to add a melancholy masterpiece to your mp3 player then take a listen to 'Alcoholiday'.




Purchase 'Alcoholiday' from Amazon. Click here to get this song.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Over The Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox by Guided by Voices

This song does not rock

Happy Memorial Day! The Lost Soul of Rock and Roll has spent many Memorial Day weekends listening to various rock and roll 500s on classic rock radio and WOXY, which was the best damn indie station on the planet. In case you need an explanation, the Indianapolis 500 occurs during this holiday in the U.S., so many moons ago someone was wise enough to count down the top 500 rock and roll songs of all time during Memorial Day Weekend. 

As a Guided by Voices fan, I would love to develop a Guided By Voices (GBV) 500. Maybe I'll be more motivated next year to attempt that massive blogging feat. Maybe. If I were to choose the #1 song then I would award it to 'Over The Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox'.

The GBV catalog is full of rock gems that are worthy of the #1 spot, but to me it belongs to the opening track from the anthem driven album, Propeller. The first time I heard 'Over The Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox' was at my college apartment in 1994 and it was an incredible rock experience. The G-B-V chant, Kevin Fennell yelling 'Is everybody ready to rock?' and Bob Pollard's reply of 'This song does not rock' hooked me before a single note was played. I had heard nothing like it before and may never hear anything like it again. 

My first GBV concert was the infamous Benefit for the Winos show which was at Gilly's in Dayton, Ohio during June 1995. I went to the show with Captain Chemtrail and Ryan Dellwood. We sat through what seemed to be an endless line-up of acts before GBV took the stage around midnight. As they appeared, a chant of G-B-V erupted, and then the band rocked out to 'Over The Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox'. I had died and gone to GBV heaven.

Well, Happy Memorial Day, my GBV true believers. I've embedded the song below. Throw the switch, it's rock and roll time.


Saturday, May 26, 2012

Your Love by The Outfield

As you leave me please would you close the door
And don't forget what I told you
Just 'cause you're right don't mean I'm wrong
Another shoulder to cry upon

The Outfield's 'Your Love' is a personal favorite. This power pop hit is from The Outfield's debut album, 'Play Deep', which was released in 1986 and still sounds solid today. The song itself is about the non noble act of a man cheating on his girlfriend while she's out of town. The kids in the 1990s referred to this as a "booty call".

I remember liking this song when it was released, but somehow it was erased from my musical database within a year. Fast-forward six years to a dorm room party that I was attending while visiting my friend, Metrosexual Manila. We were underage college students and could only score wine coolers, but Metrosexual Manila had a roommate named Lazy Dave and he had this mixtape cranked on the stereo. 'Your Love' came on and something clicked in my brain. The song I loved at one time had returned. I forgot the name of the band and even the song title. Lazy Dave told me it was 'Your Love' by The Outfield and even made a copy of the song for me. Thanks Lazy Dave. Thanks wine coolers.


Friday, May 25, 2012

Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston & Ike Turner

You women have heard of jalopies
You heard the noise they make
Let me re-introduce my Rocket 88

The Lost Soul has decided to take a look at what I believe has become the forgotten decade of rock and roll. Why do I believe that the fifties is a forgotten decade? From my perspective, the music of the 1950s seems to get some disrespect from radio, television, and even music stores.

Radio stations that play 1950s music are strictly the oldies format, but in this day and age, they focus upon the hits from the 1960s and 1970s for their rotation. My local oldies station dedicates an hour every Sunday to the 1950s, but in my opinion that is blasphemy. I have noticed at record stores that the 1950s CDs are placed ina corner near the World music and the other dust collecting genres. Why the hate? The 1950s were incredible and I'm here to show some love.

My first 1950s selection is 'Rocket 88' by Jackie Brenston with Ike Turner and His Delta Kings. The song was credited to Jackie Bresnton and His Delta Cats, but Ike's group was the backing band when this song was recorded at Sam Phillips' recording studio sometime during March 1951. The song was released by Chess Records as a single b/w 'Come Back Where You Belong' and was a major R&B hit.

Some rock and roll fans and historians view this as the first rock and roll song. If you take a listen to the YouTube clip below, you'll hear that this song is really cookin' with all the right rock and roll ingredients. 'Rocket 88' has a raw R&B style courtesy of the twelve-bar blues. The boogie of the piano and the driving saxophone really make this song a gem.

What's interesting about Rocket 88 is that this song was recorded and released when rock and roll was known as R&B or race music. Additionally this kind of music was played on a few radio stations in the United States, especially WHBQ in Memphis, Tennessee. That's enough of my blogging, let's get rocking!





Want to purchase this MP3 from Amazon? Click here to purchase. 

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Sugar CD Re-Issues



Merge Records recently posted that Sugar's Copper Blue and Beaster were going to be re-issued as a three CD set featuring both releases, b-sides, and a live 1992 show. Merge is taking pre-orders, so you'll want to act quickly.

If you also love Sugar's File Under: Easy Listening, then you may want to get the bundle that includes all three Sugar releases, the b-sides, the live 1992 show, and the first 150 orders will receive a poster signed by Bob Mould. Awesome!

A guilty pleasure: Psychosocial by Slipknot

And the rain will kill us all
Throw ourselves against the wall
But no one else can see
The preservation of the martyr in me

Thursday's will be designated as guilty pleasure days, so I can share with the world my rock and roll confessions. 

My name is TonyDoug and I am a fan of 'Psychosocial' by Slipknot. Thank you. Before you dismiss a band of mask wearing Midwesterners who suck from the nu metal teat, think about the guilty pleasures you have in your musical heart before you starting hurling boulders from your glass house.

Nu metal has its fair share of detractors and I'll be the first to admit that the genre is loaded with copycat acts, but the same can be said of pop, rock, indie, hip-hop, etc. Every genre has a blueprint for success and nu metal relies upon blending metal with elements such as funk and hip-hop which is covered in a heavy layer of growls and screams. You have to sort out the good acts from the bad to find some gems, and that's how I discovered 'Psychosocial'.

It happened while talking to a friend about the lameness of nu metal. I'm from the old metal school of Sabbath and Judas Priest, so we were discussing the decline of metal since the 1990s and how nu metal fueled that decline. My friend and I started watching clips of Korn, Drowning Pool, and Slipknot to show how the genre was nothing impressive. For some reason, we clicked the video of 'Psychosocial' and after a few minutes of listening to the song I thought to myself, "This is actually pretty good."

During the following weeks I started listening to the song more and more until it clicked in my head that 'Psychosocial' was a jam.I've also gained a bit more of an appreciation of the genre. I know for a fact that some metal heads will be reading this and will comment about the greatness of current some acts from Scandinavia, but give this old school fool time to get caught up in the world of metal. Baby steps.  

Dismiss the band or even the genre if you want, but when I'm having an awful day, I hit play for this song because it gets me motivated and releases all of the aggression in a positive way. The video is below and play it if you want your face melted. Don't be afraid to get amped and rip up a few phone books. THE LIMITS OF THE DEAD!!!!




Purchase 'Psychosocial' by Slipknot at Amazon. Click here to buy.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Overlooked: Life on Mars? by David Bowie

Take a look at the lawman beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

I've been a David Bowie fan for a long time, but last year I was hit with the greatness that is 'Life on Mars?'. The fourth track from the 1971 album, Hunky Dory, was something I considered a fast-forward track. For the life of me, I can not explain why I never gave this song a chance until I watched the BBC show Life on Mars. After viewing the first episode, I was hooked on the Bowie classic.  

I'm by no means a David Bowie expert, but I'm a greatest hits type of fan. There are a few 'deep cuts' that I know, but don't ask me to write any liner notes for any future re-issues of David Bowie re-issues. Thanks.

'Life on Mars?' is a beautiful song. It is hard to put into words how great Bowie's songwriting is and how wonderful the piano and strings come together to create one of the best rock songs ever. This track has become my favorite Bowie song and has been on heavy rotation on my MP3 player.

Also, I feel this song has something of an overlooked quality when it comes to radio airplay on classic rock stations. We can argue that radio is irrelevant in this day and age, but if we are going to keep rock and roll alive then I believe radio should play a role, especially for the newbies. Yes, 'Suffragette City' and 'Rebel Rebel' are jams, but if classic rock radio is willing to play every god damn song from Boston's first album, then they can mix it up for Bowie.

I've posted the video for 'Life On Mars?' and Bowie does not disappoint in Ziggy Stardust mode wearing full glam makeup and sporting a turquoise suit. Enjoy. 







Purchase Life on Mars? at Amazon. Click here to get the MP3. 

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Donald 'Duck' Dunn (1941 - 2012)

May has been a tough month for rock and roll fans. We've lost Adam 'MCA' Yauch, Donna Summer, Robin Gibb, and Donald 'Duck' Dunn to name a few.

I grew up in a house where Stax and Motown were on heavy rotation. Every weekend, my mom would play the Best of Sam and Dave and she would have my sister and I be her back-up dancers while she would lip-sync. It was great. The music of Stax and Motown was - and still is - wonderful and I am a fan to this day.

Stax was record label based out of Memphis, Tennessee and the house band was Booker T. and the M.G.'s. Booker T. Jones (piano), Donald 'Duck' Dunn (bass), Steve Cropper (guitar), and Al Jackson, Jr. (drums) were the backbone of Stax and they are the musicians on hits for artists like Otis Redding and Sam and Dave. Those hits include 'Hold On, I'm Comin', 'Soul Man', and 'Try A Little Tenderness'. Booker T. and the M.G.'s had a major hit with the ultra cool instrumental, 'Green Onions'.

Donal 'Duck' Dunn not only performed as a member of Booker T. and the M.G.'s but he also worked with artists such as Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Diana Ross, and The Blues Brothers.

Enjoy some classic clips featuring Donald' Duck' Dunn, Otis Redding, and Sam and Dave.











Last of the Famous International Playboys by Morrissey

I never wanted to kill
I am not naturally evil
Such things I do
Just to make myself 
More attractive to you
Have I failed? 


Ryan Dellwood is one of my closest friends and I've known him since high school. We didn't really hang out or talk much until our junior year. I don't know why, but that is the way our friendship developed. 

It must have been the Bad Company lyrics scribbled on the back of my notebooks that irked Dellwood. My high school experience was from 1988 to 1992 and the artists on my heavy rotation list were Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, The Who, Yes, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Eagles, Bad Company, Cream, and a anything under the classic rock umbrella. Dellwood's taste in music was much different. He was a huge fan of The Cure, The Smiths, and The Cocteau Twins. I referred to his music as "Whinny English bullshit" because I felt Robert Smith, lead singer of The Cure, and Morrissey, lead singer of The Smiths, did nothing but bitch and moan.

Dellwood refused to give up on me and my love of classic rock. He loved The Beatles, Stones, and The Who, but despised the album oriented rock bands that I liked such as Kansas, Foreigner, and Boston. He wanted me to get away from that and go towards something better. We were in the same homeroom during our senior year of high school and one day he handed me a cassette of Rank by The Smiths. If you're not familiar with this album, it is a live Smith's show from 1986.Poor Dellwood must have spent ten minutes explaining the best tracks to me, but I have this tendency to zone out when people are talking to me, and that is what happened that day in homeroom. That is not the first nor the last time that will happen to him.

I had the tape for maybe a week and never listened to one single song. Why? It must have been the fact that he gave me the tape because it was his way of saying "Your taste in music totally sucks". When I returned the tape to Dellwood, he wanted to know my favorite songs, so I ended up giving him a total bullshit review. He may have picked up on the fact that I didn't listen to the tape, but he didn't give up on me. 

It might have been a year after graduating from high school when I was watching 120 Minutes on MTV. Despite my love for classic rock, I did occasionally watch the show. I was a fan of some college bands like They Might Be Giants and Too Much Joy. Anyway, they played the video for Last of the Famous International Playboys by Morrissey. Something clicked. The song was awesome. I had to hear it again.

I called Dellwood a day or two after the 120 Minutes experience and he was pleased. Dellwood had moved to Cincinnati to attend college and when I went to visit him a month later, we met up with another friend from high school. Our friend was living in an off-campus house with four girls. If I had a Hollywood link, I'd create s how like that for HBO or Showtime. Let me get back on track. Our friend had a stack of CDs and on top was The Queen is Dead by The Smiths. We listened to the opening track and I was hooked. My musical change was complete. I had fully embraced Morrissey and "Whinny English bullshit." I loved it then and still love it to this very day.

'Last of the Famous International Playboys' is my favorite track by Morrissey as a solo artist. If you add his material with The Smiths, I'd place it in my top five. The song is about the infamous Kray brothers who terrorized the East End of London during the 1950s and 1960s. The video is below and enjoy.  




Buy 'Last of The Famous International Playboys' at Amazon. Click here.


Monday, May 21, 2012

Happy Victoria Day

The Canadians are celebrating Victoria Day today. Rock out to The Fall!



Robin Gibb (1949 - 2012)

We lose Donna Summer and then Robin Gibb passes away. This has been a tough week for pop music fans.

I grew up in a disco household and Saturday Night Fever was on heavy rotation on the family stereo from 1977 to 1984. I only knew The Bee Gees as a disco act, but later discovered their solid pop catalog. Please enjoy a couple of their best songs below.








I Am A Scientist by Guided by Voices

I am a lost soul
I shoot myself with rock and roll
The hole I dig is bottomless
But nothing else can set me free

Welcome to the Lost Soul of Rock & Roll. I thought it was appropriate to have the first post relate to the title of the blog.

Am I a lost soul of rock and roll? My former boss referred to me as a lost soul of rock and roll and there are days when I feel that is true. Rock and roll has been a major part of my life since I was a child. Music has helped me along during some difficult, amazing and humorous times, so creating this blog was my way of sharing my love of music with the world. 

The first song I selected to showcase is 'I Am A Scientist' by Guided by Voices (GBV), a band from Dayton, Ohio. This track is from their 1994 masterpiece, Bee Thousand. If you know nothing about this band then the best way I can describe them is imagine that a group of music fans ingested huge amounts of the British Invasion, garage rock, hard rock, psychedelic rock, power pop, progressive rock, avant-garde music, punk rock, and post punk and then formed a band.

Under the leadership of front-man, Bob Pollard, this band has released numerous albums, singles, split singles, box sets, and everything in-between from 1983 until their break-up in 2004. Every release is something different and I mean that in a good way. GBV's sound ranges from lo-fi rock to slick productions without disappointing fans.

Guided by Voices was not a good band - they were great. They are one of a handful of bands that I have been obsessed with in my lifetime. I've attended some thirty-five shows and own countless GBV releases. Somewhere in a cardboard box you'll find some of my live bootlegs and rarities compilations that I acquired from 1995 to 1999 via tape trading. I've met some wonderful GBV fans over the years and still keep in touch with those crazy kids.There are some great GBV related stories I'd love to share, but I'm saving them for some upcoming posts. Gotta save up on material.

How did I fall in love with this band? I went to Lollapalooza '94 in Columbus, Ohio with Captain Chemtrail and Dizzy D to check out out The Breeders, Beastie Boys and Smashing Pumpkins. I heard The Flaming Lips were going to be at the show and wanted to see their performance. At the time, I knew GBV in name only because they were making a name for themselves on MTV and in some music magazines. I grew up twenty minutes north of Dayton and the local paper was also giving them plenty of praise.

Anyway, I had suffered through sets of Nick Cave and The Boredoms. I thought things would get better with L7. They took the main stage but there was a band making noise on the second stage. Lollapalooza had bands on a main stage and bands on a smaller second stage during their festivals. L7 informed the crowd that it was GBV and the ladies of L7 thought it was cool that GBV was rocking hard. On a side note, no tampons were thrown in the crowd by L7. Captain Chemtrail wondered if we should check out GBV and I said no. Big mistake. Perhaps the biggest rock & roll mistake of my lifetime.

A few months later, I was at a CD store near Wright State University with Captain Chemtrail and Ryan Dellwood, andother brother of rock & roll. It was one of those places that allowed customers to listen to a CD before purchase. Dellwood was listening to Bee Thousand and told me to come over to hear a song called 'Tractor Rape Chain'. It was an acoustic number with some fuzzy guitar moments, which did not sit well with me for some reason. I was in a Pixies and Fugazi kind of mood.

I returned to that same store a month later sans Chemtrail and Dellwood. I asked to check out Bee Thousand. This listen was different because I was knocked upside the head with the opening track, 'Hardcore UFOs'. It sounded like a long lost Beatles song. I bought the CD. 

The following weeks were nothing more than a heavy rotation of Bee Thousand. Each listen was a different experience. Then one day it was another knock upside the head courtesy of 'I Am A Scientist'.  I was amazed with the song and still am to this very day. The lyrics alone are fantastic.  

Enjoy 'I Am A Scientist'. This song is one of the best first doses of goodness one can ingest towards becoming a GBV fanatic. 

To all of you GBV fans out there: God bless the Pine Club. The club is open. See ya, sideburns.