Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 10

Day 10.

            Rush: Test for Echo

            There’s so much to say about this album. Perhaps I should chart it out, or I could just write endlessly that Driven is one of my all time favorite Rush songs. From the stunning lyrics to the killer molten jams, to Geddy’s dead on perfect vocal delivery. This tune is pure Rush.

            It’s my turn to drive.

            Neil’s lyrics on this album take on urban violence, the Internet in its pre-antisocial media haze, and time.

            Some of the most playful set of lyrics Neil has ever delivered are sung on this collection of tunes.

            This album is the most recent in the list. I took this whole FB challenge thing to mean albums that had an impact or influence at a young age. When this album came out, I felt as young as I do most of the time when I want to do so.

            I could write a much longer piece than this, but I don’t want to make an overlong blog.

            On the Test for Echo tour I managed to see Rush four times. They were incredible on that tour, playing better than I had ever seen them before. One of the shows I went to was in Montreal. The only time I saw them on their Canadian turf. Part of the official live album from the tour, Different Stages was recorded at the Not So Great Woods show which some friends and I attended. So yes, I recorded with Rush. If you call screaming like an idiot recording with, then yes, Rush and I jammed along with a huge crowd.

            The best thing about all these stories, is that it ties in with a story about the love of my life. DNA Girl and I attended a cast BBQ, we used to kill people on stage for money, and stories about our murderous past will be saved for another time. We talked about how I ran to Montreal to see Rush. She was impressed with my concert cult level devotion. Trading concert stories brought us closer as friends.

            I’ve got a pantheon of animals in a pagan soul.

            Nail biting hood boys in borrowed ties and jackets.

            Vertigo.

            Video Vertigo.

            Here’s a taste of this fine album.

Yours in dog years,

Count Robot

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 9

Day 9.

            Emerson, Lake, & Powell

            Do you know the score?

            I do.

            Welcome back to the show that never ends.

            Emerson, Lake, and Powell was what I first thought I knew about Keith Emerson and Greg Lake. Years later I would learn that I had been hearing those two many years earlier, but… that’s a story for another time.

            My discovery for this incarnation of ELP was via MTV back in their music video playing phase. The wall of synths that Keith played mesmerized me. Before then I never saw such a massive wall of synths. How does he play them all? Does he play them all? Is he an octopus? I didn’t know. Cozy Powell’s heavy attack on the drums really got me. The catchy lyrics worked their hook as well.

            It wasn’t long before I bought this cassette.

            Later the CD which I still listen to quite often.

            This album has stuck with me because it was unashamedly prog in the mid 80s. The first song, the Score goes on for over two minutes before the vocals begin. Who did that in the 80s? No one I knew of at that point in time.

            Yes, it’s sad to think that all three of these musicians are gone, but like Freddie Mercury they live on through their fantastic music.

            Here’s Touch and Go.

Yours in learning to fly,

Count Robot

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 8

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 8

            Day 8.

            Queen: A Kind of Magic

            “Hey! Have you seen the preview for that new movie Highlander? Queen does the soundtrack!” That might have been how it started. Or maybe it was with Entertainment tonight discussing Highlander and showing a clip from a video with Freddie Mercury and  Christopher Lambert.

            I was already a bit of a Queen fan, but this album is the first one I bought. I had it on cassette first then CD. That’s a big part of the reason it makes the list.

            The album rips and roars. Brian May builds, builds, and builds his guitar sound until it explodes all over the songs.

            One night my friends and I were driving around aimlessly listening to a tape of the audio of the Highlander movie that George Barnes had recorded. Not only was the highlight yelling along with the quotes, but also hearing that music. That amazing music.

            The night I got a phone call telling me that Freddie Mercury was dead the first thing I thought of was this album. He was gone. Freddie wasn’t immortal in flesh, but he is in music.

             Long live the princes of the universe.

            Speaking of the princes of the universe, here they are:

Yours in one vision,

Count Robot

           

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 7

Day 7.

            Hawkwind: The Chronicle of the Black Sword

            Those who live in Mass might remember a record store in Cambridge called, Second Coming (insert your own teenaged depraved variant of the name here, I sure did back then as I was the right age). Most Saturdays some friends and I would hop the train to Cambridge so we could record shop. Why did we go there so much when so many other closer stores were around back in those daze? Two words: concert bootlegs. Second Coming was a temple for bootlegs both on vinyl and cassette. They had so many boots that when word would somehow come to the store that they were due to be raided, the store would have almost nothing left in it. More than once we were in there to find only maybe a fistful of albums and tapes were on the shelves. Normally there would be thousands. How did they know in advance the cops were going to come? Who knows?

            So into this store I walked one Saturday. Flipping through the bins I stumbled across Hawkwind (they had their own small section). I knew the name of the band so it wasn’t a stunner. Music writer/critic Jim Sullivan had name-dropped them in a write up about Motorhead in one of his articles in the Boston Globe. I knew who Motorhead was and who Lemmy was and that he had once been in Hawkwind.

Hawkwind were also mentioned in a few episodes of the English comedy show, the Young Ones, which once also featured Motorhead. What fan of the Young One’s can forget Neal whining, “Play some Hawkwind or Marillion!” and in the credit sequence Hawkwind was written on a chalkboard. So yes, I knew the name.

            Still that day, I think my jaw might have dropped. Not because I found a section of their albums, but because I was staring at an album called The Chronicle of the Black Sword.

            Why was that a big deal? Well, because I had read the Elric books by Micheal Moorcock. A wild trippy fantasy series about the weakling, non-human, sorcerer, Elric and his living, soul eating, black sword, called Stormbringer and here I was, staring at an album that was devoted to that series.

            The cover was a beautiful macabre painting that outdid all of the Elric book covers.

            So yes, I bought it without listening to it, or any hesitation at all. As I told my friends, “I don’t care if the music stinks, at least the cover is great.”

            Later that day when I got home that album was what I put on the turntable. When the pulsing opening synth barrage hit me in the face I was floored. This album is a fantasy metal psych attack. My brain wasn’t ready, but it rolled along. After listening to it once through, I called my friend Paul Armstrong and told him he had to hear it. I put the album on and held the phone towards it.

            Yes my mind was blown. I will always treasure this album. The Chronicle of the Black Sword was my stepping-stone into a different world.

            If I hadn’t bought this album, I may never have discovered Aural Innovations the space rock internet radio show, which led to me writing words for the great Atlanta band Spaceseed, some of which were performed by Harvey Bainbridge who played keyboards on The Chronicle of the Black Sword album. Most likely I never would have wound up recording with the amazing Harts Horn, or recording with the mighty Tim Mungenast, and even contributing to a birthday song for Michael Moorcock himself. I certainly never would have gone to Alabama to perform at Carlo Robet Deshouten’s SpaceRock Con if the Black Sword hadn’t been added to my collection.

            Yeah, this album changed my life in a profound way.

            And just for the record, the music is still amazing. I could write a lot more about this album and one day I just might.

            Here’s a taste of the psych fantasy metal tunes.

           

Yours in the song of the swords,

Count Robot

           

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 6

Day 6.

            Blue Oyster Cult: Fire of Unknown Origin

            A fire of unknown origin took me away. An album full of science fiction apocalyptic sword fights was the perfect thing to find its way into my teenage conciousness. Thank you Blue Oyster Cult, the one true cult that I would gladly embrace.

            My friend Paul Armstrong had this cassette tape which we blasted often on his boom box in those lost daze.

            Not a bad tune to be found on this collection. Production by Martin Birch, straight up, top notch.

            Burnin For You is a nice rocking follow up song to the title track.

            The feedback driven guitars in Heavy Metal: The Black and Silver are so wonderfully twisted along with the demented lyrics.

            Joan Crawford features a hysterically odd tape/sample/collage subbing for a solo. What gruesome humor.

            Vengeance (The Pact) is a tight story driven song, of swords, and bird beasts. The time change is deftly executed.

            It would be really cool if BOC performed this entire album live. I know they played the complete first album live a few times a year or two ago so why not this one?

            It also has an intricately tripped out symbol crawling cover that would entertain a conspiracy theorist for hours.

            This album is just part of my feeble mind. It’s impossible for me to imagine it not being in my collection.

            Here’s the punky vampire song, After Dark. Terror took control and told me what to say…

           

Your faithful veteran of the psychic wars,

Count Robot

           

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 5

Day 5.

            Tangerine Dream: Green Desert

            Someone I knew let me listen to a cassette they recorded of this album. It was the first proper Tangerine Dream album I had ever heard. Of course I had heard their soundtracks to many different movies but none of that stuck to me so much.

            This album has stuck with me.

            I was told that the title track was a monster drum fest and I was informed correctly.

            Green Desert blew strange ethereal sounds backed by pounding mad drums and psych rock guitars that torched through my cheap stereo.

            This album only has four songs on it. The epic title track chews up side one. The next track White Clouds is like a mini-redux of the title track. Astral Voyager and Indian Summer are up next. These two tracks are ambient spacey trips to the inner grid.

            Many ages ago I remember walking into a chain movie theater in Somerville sitting down to wait for the movie to start and Astral Voyager was playing on the speakers! It then went right into Indian Summer then the trailers started. Who ever decided to play those before the movie, thank you! That movie theater no longer exists.

            Flash forward to a few years ago, my musical partner in crime, DNA girl, and I are discussing what our next album should be and it hits me to do our own bizarre tribute to this album, thus we created the Astro Al Purple Mushroom cd which is 4 tracks of spaced out madness tipping our hat to Green Desert with our of kilter science fiction trip out album.

            All TD fans have their go to album for the band, this one is mine even more so than Zeit which I discussed in a prior blog.

            Here is Indian Summer. The beautiful closing track.

Yours in astral voyages,

Count Robot

           

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 4

            Day 4.

            Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians: Globe of Frogs

            A time cube of psychedelic thoughts sprawling into songs. Songs that could have been written in 1960-1970-1980-1992 but recorded in the 80-90-00 time frame. That’s what this record is to me.

            This was the album that was predicted by many to help make Robyn huge, but much to the detriment of the music world it didn’t. An opening to a musical world that should be so much better than it’s present status. If he had been taken closer to mainstream it would open up more and more, but alas…

            “It rained, like a slow divorce and I wish I could ride a horse.” –Balloon Man. What a childish genius lyrical line! Robyn did some fantastic writing on this album.

            Robyn paints the world in words as strange as our reality.

            This album always makes me smile inside. This was the first Robyn Hitchcock album I heard. That is one reason why it sticks to me so strongly.

            Here’s Beatle Dennis

                         

           

Yours in Beatle Dennis,

Count Robot

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 3

Day 3.

            Rush: Power Windows.

            This was the first album of theirs to come out while I was actively in their thrall. Some people hated this record, that is their loss.

            To me it was an instant classic.

            “Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world, than the pride that divides when a colorful rag is unfurled.” –That is one of my favorite bits of Rush lyrics right there. It comes from Territories. I deeply agree with that sentiment.

            Mystic Rhythms is a psychedelic classic with expansive lyrics. The thudding drum intro is entrancing. MTV used to play a video of Mystic Rythms which was directed by one of the Devo dudes.

            Here’s the video

            All the jams in Marathon make the song like a fine wine for the ears.

            Production wise this is a wonderfully crisply brightly sounding affair which matches the material perfectly.

            Lyrically Neal did some sharp, deft, writing. Consider this rail against conformity in Grand Designs, “Swimming against the stream, life in two dimensions is a mass production scheme.” Brilliant.

            The Power Windows tour was the first time I ever saw them thanks to my good friend Paul Armstrong. We went to the show on the old party bus from the store Stairway to Heaven in Boston, it was crazy.

            The Clockwork Angels tour was fantastic because they played a good chunk of Power Windows on that tour. Grand Designs even got a spin.

            I’ve heard all these songs live except for Emotion Detector, which I believe was never performed in concert.

            My personal connection to this album is that I never, ever get bored or tired of hearing it. If anything as time goes along, I like it even more.

Your Rush fan,

Count Robot

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 2

            Day 2.

            Rush: Moving Pictures

            What can I say about this album from my favorite band?

            The production is densely layered. Rush’s playing is just at an amazing level. Using Permanent Waves as a springboard from this record their writing is sharply crystallized packing a visceral punch.

            When I first heard this album it was already a few years in the rearview mirror, but that didn’t matter. The freshness of the album still resonated to me and in many ways whenever I listen to it there is a feeling of joy as if it’s a welcome familiar friend.

            How well do I know this album? Whenever I get any piece of new stereo equipment this is my go to album for testing it out. I know how this album should sound no matter what type of speaker/headphone it’s blasting through.

            In a snide review of Moving Pictures someone once suggested no one ever listens to side 2.

            Wrong!

            When I had the cassette of this stellar album I always listened to both sides back to back in order. Once the CD came out, if anything the track that would be skipped was often Limelight but now I appreciate it as a great lead into the astonishing rise fall epic the Camera Eye. What a beautiful song contrasting two cities. Witch Hunt is a howl of horror. True horror. First its witches, communists, terrorists… “Quick to anger, slow to understand.”

            Another thing going for Moving Pictures is that it is a well-sequenced album. Just a spot on classic. Never have I tired of listening to this record.

            On the Time Machine tour, Rush played this entire album in order. That was worth the ticket price alone.

            My personal connection to this album is that it is insanely amazing.

Here is the legend:

Yours in fantastic albums from Canada,

Count Robot

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 1

            Most of you have probably heard of the top 10-album challenge thing on the social media spheres, it’s primarily on Fakebook.

            Yours truly was nominated and did it. A real friend on the site, Laura Clifford of the great cable show, Reeling: The Movie Review Show, nominated me. Another real life friend Mike Langlie of the incredible toy piano band, Twink suggested that I do an essay on each of my choices; so here it is on this here blog.

            The way I viewed this challenge is believe it or not they aren’t necessarily my favorite albums of all time, but rather they are records that came at a formative time of my musical experiencing life and have stood the test of time, consistently staying in orbit of my tune conciousness as well as being in the stereo often enough to be on this list. The albums are listed in the order that they were placed in on FB, which is to say merely in the order that they occurred to me; not at all in order of how much I dig them.

            So having given you that entire foreground, let’s proceed.

            Day 1.

            Tangerine Dream: Zeit.

            This isn’t a standard musical album; it’s a pure experience. At time’s in the double album’s worth of tracks, it’s not even music, it’s pure sounds. Unearthly, unhumanistic, strange, creepy, shape shifting sounds, this thing is all that and more.

            It has only four tracks. Each of which consumed an album side back in the day. There are distorted cellos, an early Moog synth, distorted organs, and sounds no other human probably ever made. All of this blends through an amorphous filter of gurgling soundscapes that wash through the conciousness.

            This is the soundtrack to a dream.

            Upon my first listening to this record I knew that there was something that beautifully defied reason bursting into my ears.

            This album has been well traveled throughout my life. It was the soundtrack to many Halloweens worth of handing candy out to the kids with it blaring through open windows giving them a freak out as they received treats. The album is still played regularly during late night writing sessions. The atmospheres greatly helped to shape the Dracula novel I’ve been constructing. One Halloween at the long gone amazing Middle Eastern bakery/coffee shop/restaurant the Crescent Dragon we used this album as the soundtrack to the silent movie Nosferatu as we heckled the film. A friend told me about listening to this album in black room with a head full of LSD; it’s hard to imagine that not being a life changing experience.

            Here is a link to the album. Listen to it and allow it to change your perceptions of what music can be.

Yours in sounds beyond the human race,

Count Robot