The College Crowd Digs Me

"Presence" - Led Zeppelin (1976 )      Believe it or not, I've never owned a copy of Led Zeppelin's "Presence."   In any media format.  Nor did I have any recollection of ever listening to the square front-to-back at any time.  So I was excited to find a nice used first pressing for $12.  It was at a garage sale.  Literally.  Everything for sale was inside the garage.  Anyway, the cover and spine were clean.  The embossed title on the front is still readable.  And most importantly, the vinyl was a strong VG+.       I have to admit, watching the needle drop on a Led Zeppelin album I knew very little about for the first time gave me a bit of a rush.  This was the follow-up to Zeppelin's tour de force, "Physical Graffiti,"  so, of course, "Presence" was obviously gonna pale in comparison.  No surprise there.  But after shaking hands with the square a few times, apart from one misguided dir...

  "That Acapulco Gold" - The Rainy Daze (1967)       The Rainy Daze one-and-done offering,  "That Acapulco Gold,"  shakes hands a little with the psych driver but leans a little more into some good garage crankage.  And it is good.  Nothing here that's gonna really blow your mind.  On the other hand, there's nothing to make you want to lift the needle either, even if the songs are all over the map.  There's a little bit of everything.  The Rainy Daze even throw in a couple of covers and a medley. (Nothing special, but they do no harm.)  The title track "That Acapulco Gold"  is a kind of jugband thing atypical of the rest of the album and was released as a single, but then radio stations quickly pulled it from rotation because of the subject matter.  And finally, amongst all the other, there are still a few tasty lysergic affairs to keep the square real.      The variable Yahtzee cup of songs could've...

The Dead Zone by Stephen King (1979) Hardback, 426 pages NO SPOILERS:       The Dead Zone was Stephen King's fifth novel (not counting Bachman) and had the unenviable task of following his epic tome, The Stand .  That's too bad for any book.  Whaddyagonnado?  But I was pleasantly surprised by how much I got into it.  It was also the earliest novel of his that I hadn't gotten around to reading until now.  It's not horror, this one.  The story is more of a slow-burning thriller wrapped inside a mystery.  The main character is John Smith.  Smith is a nice, average fella, a schoolteacher, who suffers an unfortunate accident and recovers only to find he has occasional premonitions.      John Smith is just another one of King's well-written characters who, through no fault of his own, catches the wrong end of the life-stick.  We like Smith, and we grow to hold a great deal of empathy for him.  King develops or ...

"Tales Untold" - Kopperfield (1974 - Rei-2024)      So what if this gnarly, cool album cover looks like it was ripped from a three-ring binder of that one kid who sits drawing fantasy characters by the corner window during Algebra class?  How can you not love it?  This was a blind purchase, except for the hype sticker.  Apparently, this 70s band had been drinking from the rock waters of Michigan.  That was all I needed to know to make up my mind.  Kopperfield's "Tales Untold" sounds like the kind of early hard rock album you'd hear on the cooler radio stations.  Which is also cool, 'cause I kinda like that early classic rock stuff.        The band sounds a little bit like Bloodrock, but without the gloom.  And there's a Grand Funk vibe hanging around, as well.  Prog rock dust is all over it, but not heavily so.  Stoners will have no problem getting behind this.  "Tales Untold" is a banger and a l...

"In L.A., it was The Wrecking Crew. And there was the equivalent in London as well.  I was a part of it." ~ B.J. Cole ~      Session musicians like B.J. Cole may never know when they'll be asked to come into the studio, or who they'll be working with, but the good ones, the very good ones, always know the ask is coming.  From Elton John to David Gilmour.  T. Rex to The Alan Parsons Project.  R.E.M. to Robert Plant.  And it must be a double-edged sword at times.  The anonymity of it all.  Only music aficionados of a particular song or album might know the names of everyone involved in the recording.  Perhaps a blessing and a curse.  But for the last six decades, London's B.J. Cole has been the premier pedal steel guitarist, called on when an artist needs a particular sound and vibe to enhance their song.        B.J. Cole has been adding his unique pedal steel flavors and flares in all the right measures si...

"Every One Of Us" - Eric Burdon & The Animals (1968 )      The album definitely has a smidge of ringwear front and back.  And by smidge, I mean, gangster whitewalls. There are no seam splits, but the darker album covers always seem to bring out the worst.  I would've left it behind, but the vinyl looked almost minty.  Played VG+ or better when I got it home.  And the songs are pretty good.  The music has a nice psychedelic dusting about it.  There are some jammin' fuzz burns and jazz flourishes.  A little experimental here and there, for sure, but overall, "Every One Of Us" is more acoustically driven than I expected.       As I said, the music sounds fine, but there are a couple of songs with spoken interludes in the middle.  And even that's not bad, the first couple of times you spin it.  Then it starts to wear out its welcome.   For me, anyway.  You'll want to pick it up for the song…...