Tupelo Honey (1971)

"You're My Woman" A more worthy follow-up to Moondance than the two immediately before and after this (His Band and the Street Choir and Saint Dominic's Preview), this one might also mark a point where agreements about Van Morrison begin to splinter. I think he's at his best when he sweetens the sauce and lets the music sparkle, holding the line on the longer workouts, which often—not always—drift toward self-indulgence (cf., "Listen to the Lion" on Dominic's). That's exactly what he's done here. Featuring career highwater marks in both "Wild Night" and "You're My Woman," nothing here is less than perfectly fine. The band boasts that Van Morrison specialty of playing both tight and loose all at once (how do they do that?), the tunes are exquisite, the chick singers fantastic, the harpsichord once again works, and the feeling throughout is warm, tender, and sweet. A good one.

PunchDrunk

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Proprietor Robert.Johnsson posts almost as sporadically to his blog as he does so generously, favoring discographies (or near discographies) of various punk and related artists: Mono Men, Ministry, Celibate Rifles, Imperiet, Ramones, Ed Kuepper, Saints, so on and so forth. Lots of great, handpicked individual titles as well. Understandably, he is annoyed and discouraged by trolls. But he works very hard at making this one of the most worthwhile of stops on your travels, continually taking time to re-up deleted titles and respond to requests. He deserves your support and kind words, and by the way, don't sign off as "Anonymous" when you do. Full albums available indefinitely. Archives worth browsing.

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Chunga's Revenge (1970)

If not a hurry-up job to get something on the market, for whatever reason, this at least is some kind of transitional job. Resembling its predecessor Weasels Ripped My Flesh more than Frank Zappa's first official solo, Hot Rats, but neither so much like any of the Mothers albums from the '60s. Which is to say it's something of a pastiche but without much effort to tie the pieces together. So take it in the pieces offered: Zappa's fine guitar showcase on "Transylvania Boogie," the introduction of Flo & Eddie to the Mothers family, a brief nod to Zappa the nuanced composer on the brief "Twenty Small Cigars," the usual lame jokes about groupies and the rock 'n' roll life, snorts, belches, and hey, that's my old friend Peter getting one in off rhythm on the live section of "The Nancy and Mary Music," recorded at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with audience participation. Good going, Peter!

Going Native (1994)

This very strange novel by Stephen Wright—hollow at its core, infinitely detailed at its edges—attacks with a strategy as baffling as it is compulsively readable. The main character stalks the action in a series of perfunctory cameos, flickeringly, almost not there at all, his name, even his appearance, constantly changing. He is on his way out of each scene even at it opens, yet each section is developed with the studious attention of observing the petals of a flower open in the summer sunshine of a brilliant day in July: the usual suburban America, vicious annals of true crime, tawdry sex of a certain stink, street drugs, dark rooms, sensational movie rentals, lonely truck drivers, sleeping under bridges, hitchhiking at the crack of dawn, rundown motels of course (you could have predicted that), mixed-up kids, grungy cops and doughnut jokes, screenplays in progress, depressed women, always the TV on, shades of gray and streaks of yellow. Don't pay any attention to the comparisons with On the Road. This is way beyond Jack Kerouac.

In case it's not at the library.

TV Eye Live 1977 (1978)

The story on this is that Iggy the Pop, at or nearing the peak of his post-LA/heroin comeback, released this as a throwaway to get out of a contract with RCA. With eight tracks from three midwestern venues on his 1977 travels, the whole thing clocking in at less than 40 minutes, it's routinely derided as possessed of less than bootleg quality. So caveat emptor and all that. Me, I think it's a bracing tonic and welcome sidebar to the Bowie-ized songsmithery of the first two RCA albums, also from 1977, The Idiot and Lust for Life. Heaven knows, I think they are both very fine albums, certainly among his best; unlike Raw Power, Bowie's input is purely beneficial. But they are missing the crucial elements of Iggy the Stooge, sludge driven slayer of planets, whose rhythm sections and guitars bludgeon all in their path. That's what you find here. Play very loud. (Or find actual bootlegs from his travels that year and do exactly the same. Word is that some have "better sound.")

Them (1965)

Anyone who might think that Van Morrison is more an artifact and purveyor of '70s post-folk singer/songwriter gentle on my mind fare (not that there's anything wrong with that) is referred directly to this mid-'60s debut of his Belfast band. "Gloria" alone, an instant standard for garage bands worldwide, should answer any further questions, but the yowling kick of the rest is all the way up to that classic and not to be missed. Comparable to early Bruce Springsteen and much of Patti Smith (both clearly influenced by Morrison and Them) in its full-on, breathtaking immersion in tumbling blasts of language—Bob Dylan is somewhat restrained by comparison—the poetry is accompanied by a bluesy band as raw as the scrapes on knees and elbows after a spill from a bicycle. They rock very hard and so does Van Morrison.

Sandinista! (1980)

Well, the Clash. For five years, from 1977 to 1982, they arguably had all of rock culture by the throat. They blew up and they were huge—then, more or less, they just blew away. With Joe Strummer dead now nearly five years I miss them and all they represented even more than I did 20 years ago. Sometimes it seems all we're left with is a lot of arguments about the relative merits of priceless treasure. That can be seen, for example, in the range of opinion about which of their albums is best. Most people probably say London Calling. A significant portion of fans claim the original, 1977 U.K. self-titled release as the landmark. I have even seen people stump for Give 'em Enough Rope and Combat Rock (and don't forget Black Market Clash). I am here to tell you that this is the one, understanding I'm in the minority, where conventional wisdom tends to deem it little more than an interesting failure. But this is only a failure when you consider the handful or so of weak songs, most of them found on the third vinyl LP of the original release, and forget about the best. The epic riches found here and only here are not matched anywhere else in all of their catalog: "The Magnificent Seven," "Hitsville UK," "Rebel Waltz," "Somebody Got Murdered," "Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice)," "Up in Heaven (Not Only Here)," "Police On My Back," "Washington Bullets," "Charlie Don't Surf." This is amazing stuff. But, to be fair, I'm going to call for an end to these kinds of lists and judgments. When it comes to the Clash, the best idea is to collect them all. (P.S. Lists and judgments to continue immediately following this post.)

Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story (1982)

The basic word on this—as a perusal of practically any edition's blurbs will attest—is "Best Rock Bio Evah." I think the Boston Phoenix may have actually got closer to the heart of the matter: "To call Hellfire the best book written about a rock 'n' roller is to miss the point.... Hellfire is a rock 'n' roll event." I'm not here to argue with anyone about this—no one can deny that this is a remarkable book, a marriage made in ... some place fantastic ... between its subject Jerry Lee Lewis and biographer Nick Tosches. In general, not enough is understood about the religious convictions of some of the key figures in that first wave of rock 'n' roll and their beliefs in the basics of sin and redemption: thinking here specifically of Elvis, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis, the subject at hand, who once famously (or maybe not so famously) shut down a recording of "Great Balls of Fire" to argue the metaphysics, epistemology, and orthodoxy of the song with producer Sam Phillips. "How can the Devil save souls?" Lewis cried at one point. Tosches, a painstaking fact chaser, probably doesn't have the problems associated with this conflict, but he understands it. He understands the sources of those beliefs, and most importantly, he understands the language in which they are expressed. His book will make you laugh out loud at them. It will also chill you to your core.

In case it's not at the library.

Blank Generation (1977)

"Love Comes in Spurts" Welcome to 1977. While most partisans may claim Never Mind the Bollocks as the year's signature album (or, another crowd, The Clash), for me this is it and nothing else comes close. Containing just about the totality of Richard Hell (nee Meyers) songs—certainly the majority of what mattered, shortly before he teetered off into heroin-induced irrelevance—this thing explodes with energy and the kind of shrapnel that stays in your head for good, marking the ground zero of punk-rock. It hardly matters that such unpunk exercises as a bizarre, sludgy eight-minute workout ("Another World") and none other than a Creedence Clearwater Revival cover ("Walking on the Water") occur here. What does matter is Richard Hell's words and his sensibility and, even more and too often overlooked, the amazing guitar playing of Robert Quine, a lawyer who went on to become a New York City session man nonpareil, chipping in brilliant work with Lydia Lunch, Material, Lou Reed, Marianne Faithfull, on and on. Everything you need to know about this album and its moment is scrawled across Hell's chest on the original vinyl LP cover: "You make me _______."

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Another hard disk adequacy warning and this time I really, really mean it. This blog aggregates postings found via search of mostly classic rock, including generous portions of bootlegs and boxes. One of the specialties is discographies (or big sections of one) in a single download, and/or giant lists of links devoted to a single artist (sometimes a single artist) in one post—currently on the front page are Tom Petty, UFO, the Allman Brothers, and Yes. That front page is huge and deep too—and dates back only two days. Really, it's almost too much, not the least bit organized, and often overwhelming. But if you have the stamina, you can wander for hours and days here.

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