Irish Tour 1974

This is what Jack White would sound like in the past:

It's Only Rock and Roll But I Like It

Driving up the 5 freeway the other day, tapping out the drum part on the steering wheel on "It's only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)," I noticed the most remarkable thing about the song:  The Ben Hur drum track!  Watch this clip again:

Now check out this brief clip of the Stones' song I made;  I counted out the syncopated snare beats to draw attention to them: Link

I had always assumed that Charlie Watts played drums on that track--wrong!  It was Kenny Jones of The Faces, along with ex-bandmates Ronnie Wood and David Bowie!  The incredible story is here. Here's what Charlie Watts says:

I didn't play drums on that, Kenny Jones did. I was in bed, sleeping at the time. They called Kenny Jones because he lived nearer to Richmond, it was done in a very beautiful house there that Ronnie used to own. Pete Townshend owns it now:

Keith Richards wrote about the making of the song in his autobiography, Life.

That's where I first heard "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll," in Ronnie's studio. It's Mick's song and he'd cut it with Bowie as a dub. Mick had gotten this idea and they started to rock on it. It was damn good. Shit, Mick, what are you doing it with Bowie for?  Come on, we've got to steal that motherfucker back. And we did, without too much difficulty.  Just the title by itself was so beautifully simple, even if it hadn't been a great song in its own right.  I mean, come on. "It's only rock and roll but I like it."

You can hear traces of the original track embedded in the song. Listen here to the "quiet" part near the end--all the original players emerge: link

What about the Rolling Stones' big 50th anniversary tour? There are rumors that Keith Richards is fighting an unnamed illness.  Here's what the man says:

'Basically, we’re just not ready,' says Richards. 'The Stones always really considered ’63 to be 50 years, because Charlie [Watts] didn’t actually join until January. We look upon 2012 as sort of the year of conception, but the birth is next year.' link

Keep Cool....

"Air Cooled"

...to the thrill of it all:

Astronomy (1974)

First band to use umlauts:

Very nice guitar solo starting at 4:15.

Real Life's a Beach (cont'd)

This is a continuing series which began here

Scientist at CDC, with few clues to go, took until 1974 to identify dioxin as the toxin in the oil. By this time Bliss had sprayed oil over as many as 150 sites in eastern Missouri including over a quarter of a million gallons of tainted oil on the streets of Times Beach. The search for these contaminated sites, though, did not begin immediately. At the Verona plant, which had since changed hands, investigators found a storage tank containing waste oil 100 times more contaminated than Bliss's oil. This became the primary concern because its potential for human health injury was highest. At their own expense, the new owners had the wastes detoxified. [6] And with no further reports of serious illnesses, the dioxin issue faded.

It was believed in the 1970's that dioxin decomposed rapidly in soil. Acting on an anonymous tip in 1979, EPA investigators found a number of dioxin contaminated drums near a Verona plant which had lain buried for over six years. Waste leakage from the drums still had high concentrations of dioxin when almost all of it should have decomposed. This got officials to thinking about what had happened to the contaminated soil which had been removed from the horse arenas. After three years of record searching, EPA officials learned that some of the landfill had been used as fill dirt for residential construction. Analysts collected soil samples at the original sites, at the landfill and at the residential sites. Testing by CDC began in the spring of 1982, and the first data released in August showed that dioxin levels had not diminished. [7] These findings prompted more exhaustive sampling by the EPA of all areas known to have been sprayed by Bliss, including Times Beach.
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[6]  At this time no federal guidelines existed for the clean-up of such waste sites. Superfund, the abandoned waste site clean up law, didn't go into effect until 1981.

[7]  Janice Long, David J. Hanson, "Dioxin issue focuses on three major controversies in the U.S." Chemical and Engineering News, 6 June, 1983, p. 23. Up until this time, all attention and concern was focused on the original sites and the residential sites, the so-called Minker/Stout sites named after two families owning homes there.

50 Years Of MyTunes: 1974

Albums:

Get Your Wings ~ Aerosmith. People love to deride Aerosmith as derivative of the Rolling Stones. Truth is that the Stones at this point in time mostly sucked.

Country Life ~ Roxy Music. I recall buying this album at the old Lake St. Station in Madison before they tore down that old house to make a Hardee's restaurant. The album was sold wrapped in opaque plastic to hide the "controversial" cover art.

Rock 'n' Roll Animal ~ Lou Reed dishes out some Velvet Underground oldies along with some Glam rock numbers. I like Reed's band better than the man himself in this phase.

Where We All Belong ~ Marshall Tucker Band.  Live double album from my second favorite "Southern Rock" band. Favorites here include "Can't You See" and "24 Hours At A Time."

Bridge Of Sighs ~ Robin Trower.  Forever on the search of guitar-driven power trios after the death of Jimi Hendrix, I noticed this short-lived power trio early on.

Irish Tour '74 ~ Rory Gallagher

Crime Of The Century ~ Supertramp was another band I first heard hanging around stereo shops in Madison at the time.

Not Fragile ~ Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Bad Company ~ Bad Company was a short-lived "supergroup" formed from the demise of Free, Mott The Hoople, and King Crimson.

Court And Spark ~ Joni Mitchell

Singles:

It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It) ~ The Rolling Stones.

Astronomy ~ Blue Öyster Cult hung around Patti Smith at this time (or vice versa).  I'm thinking they could have been one of the first bands to use umlauts-a couple of years before Motörhead did. This song was from their album Secret Treaties.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised ~ Gil Scott-Heron does proto-Hip Hop.

Rebel Rebel ~ David Bowie

Killer Queen ~ Queen

Pick Up the Pieces ~ Average White Band

Rikki Don't Lose That Number ~ Steely Dan from Pretzel Logic.

I Shot the Sherif ~ Eric Clapton jumps on the Reggae bandwagon.

Already Gone ~ Eagles from On The Border.

Sundown ~ Gordon Lightfoot's most interesting song inspired by Cathy Smith, a former girlfriend who later served time for her involvement in John Belushi's death.

Take Me To the River ~ Al Green.  The Talking Heads covered this later.

U.S. Blues ~ Grateful Dead from Mars Hotel.