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| He watches you on the toilet. He takes notes. |
You'll know charismatic tech influencer and Target style ambassador Sundar Pichai from that friendly voice in your head urging you to do the right thing, but did you know he's something of a maven when it comes to AOR [Assumption Of Risk - Ed.] albums?
We spoke yestiddy via his personal neural network!
FT3 Sunny-boy! My man! 'Sup, brah?
SP You're still in your sleep clothes? At this hour? Do the right thing.
FT3 Uh ... can we talk about REO Speedwagon?
SP Surely. But moving forward, my request is you prioritise your laundry tasking. Organise the apparel you've just thrown on the chair. Do the right thing.
FT3 You've chosen their first truly consistent album - can you tell us what informed your selection?
SP I have an incompletion with the title. Riding The Storm Out sounds non-best. Surely Riding Out The Storm has preferred optionality? Why did no-one on the focus group pick up on this? Is our mission statement The Right Thing Do?
FT3 Uh ...
SP No, it is not. Do the right thing.
The neural network went into standby at this point. My thanks to Sundar for taking time out from his busy schedule going through neutral color swatches and watching me on the toilet.
I think I quite enjoyed the album, but it's a while since I listened to it. Do the right thing.
ReplyDeleteDo the right thing! Like, identifying the album correctly. This is their third album, though arguably their first truly consistent one, despite switching lead singers at the last second (so last second, that the new guy's head is airbrushed on the old guy's body on the cover!). That's why "Riding The Storm Out" (great track, indeed!) usually ends up as a live version on greatest hits packages and the like, so the band can appease Kevin Cronin by more or less ignoring Michael Murphy's tenure. I quite like "the Murphy Years". Say it with me: Don't turf the Murph!
ReplyDeleteOh, right. Did you notice the eyes?
DeleteYou made me listen to this album, and it ain't half bad. Quite a nice album from a band that I ditched when I learned about them. Early teen, Keep on loving you and that put me off in a very big way. For over 40 years that song stands firmly on number one in the Stalker Top Ten. Keep on loving you, I'm gonna keep on loving you and it's the only thing I wanna do......She said no about a zillion times, but i'm gonna keep on loving you.....
ReplyDeleteOne woman's stalker is another's unrequited love serf. Sting And His Policemen set a new bar for that-type thing with Every Breath You Take. Still, as you say, quite a nice album.
DeleteI stand corrected and proudly declare every breath the number one. Someone sicker then us should make that ultimate album
DeleteHere’s a generalisation, Americans aren’t known for irony (I now know better). I believed that until I saw The Tubes perform Don’t Want to Wait Anymore, at a gig about twenty years ago. It sounded like classic REO Speedwagon or Chicago (other AOR bands are available), live even the guitar solo is laugh out load funny.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUNZDbqwR1A
Lyrics supplied, so you can sing along at home with you cigarette lighter in the air.
We could be the last two on earth
to start a new world
Just you and me girl
Try and you can almost see
how it could be
Just you and me
Lost trapped in the freezing cold
Barely alive
Have to make love to survive
I'll show you it's done
We'll take it as it comes
A rocket to the sun
I don't want to wait anymore
I just don't think I have the strength
The strength to carry on
Oh, I don't want to wait anymore
I waited so long, forgot what I'm waiting for
Stranded on a desert isle
with no one around
for thousands of miles
Imagine anyplace
This is what it takes
But don't tell me to wait
I don't want to wait anymore
I just don't think I have the strength
The strength to carry on
Oh, I don't want to wait anymore
I waited so long, forgot what I'm waiting for
I don't want to wait anymore
I just don't think I have the strength
The strength to carry on
Oh, I don't want to wait anymore
I waited so long, forgot what I'm waiting for
I swoon when you sing it babs, like a mulatto love slave.
DeleteEhhhhh ...
DeleteFrom the early to late 1970s, and not unlike Blue Öyster Cult [such a stupid name - Ed.], I saw REO Speedwagon as an opening act quite a few times, usually with mixed results. To my ears, ‘Hi Infidelity’ is the poster child of 1980s insipid “Schlock 'n' Roll”, so popular with suburbanites, who shopped at the Mall.
ReplyDeletei have never been to a concert where reo was the opening act or anywhere else on the bill. this was by design. insipidity was coin of the realm at that time. they were unlistenable then and so they shall remain unto eternity. they were/are plain awful.
DeleteFarq, I have seen his eyes, and he sees all, and knows what you're dreaming when you sleep.
DeleteI too have never seen REO Speedwagon, saw Starship for about ten minutes at a festival mid 80's, they were just awful.
Yes, I saw those beady little eyes. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be at all surprised, if they were "Short Eyes".
DeleteI'm glad you see his eyes. I thought it was just me.
DeleteThere's also something about his hands, that I find impalpable.
DeleteThose fingers freaking me out. FT3 on phone in bed.
DeleteOff-topic:
ReplyDeleteTony Bennett shuffled off his mortal coil, at 96.
The Bronx Funeral Warbler gets his own.
DeleteOh, very funny. See who has the last laugh.
ReplyDeleteRest In Peace, Mr. Bennett.
PS, I saw what you and Lady Gaga got up to, in what you thought was private.
I had the misfortune to see REO Speedwagon only once -- in 1974, opening for Joe Walsh on his The Smoker You Drink tour. The three of us had smuggled in a couple of bottles of MD 20/20 (a notoriously potent, cost-effective bad drunk favored by young imbibers). After two or three "songs," in a fruitless attempt to blot out the horror that was REO we felt we had no choice but to empty our wine bottles prior to intermission. Consequently, memories of Joe are limited to the first few bars of Rocky Mountain Way and an overall impression of spacey guitar solos.
ReplyDeleteSince I'm on the subject, and I'm not a big fan of Joe's (America's only eccentric British rockstar), does anyone else feel that "But Seriously, Folks" is one of the best albums of the 70's?
My pal Archie Valparaiso would agree with you. If I want to hear a guitarist fronting his own band Nils gets the call.
DeleteI saw that tour in Columbus, Ohio ... it was worse than the four-hour dead show that I slept through three and a half hours of. Next was Steve Miller Band ... half the sounds were recorded on reel to reel. The tape had long since been abused and the wow and flutter opened portals around the city I'm sure.
DeleteAgreed - "BSF" is one of the great albums of the [late] 1970s... And, the track "Theme from Boat Weirdos" is an all time favorite instrumental of mine. I bought that Joe Walsh Lp & Rush's double-live "All the Worlds a Stage" post-High School graduation (1978); it lead to an Rock & Roll Summer like never before...
DeleteI recently digitized a Super Groups In Concert "two-fer" that pair REO Speedwagon with the Pretenders. And yes, I'd bought it because I wanted to do the Pretenders set, not REO. I'm giving lots of bands a second chance these days, but they did not win me over. It's not to my taste.
ReplyDeleteJust a note: I don't care much about REO Speedwagon one way or the other, but the title for this piece CAME TO ME IN A DREAM, and made me laugh even in my dream. It still strikes me as a good joke, but he implications are terrifying - Google can see directly into our subconscious.
ReplyDeleteThe other night, the words "bolar trepescaline" were implanted in my dreaming state.
Delete"The Bolar series consists of moderately deep, well drained, moderately permeable soils formed in interbedded limestones and calcareous marls formed in residuum. These occur on summits, shoulders, and backslopes of ridges on hills."
Delete"Trisescaline [nearest match] is a lesser-known phenethylamine prepared as a possible psychedelic drug."
"Google can see directly into our subconscious.
ReplyDeleteAND, apparently our bathrooms......
Reply
For me, it's the same place.
DeleteThat would explain quite a bit.
DeleteI'm lovin' your mules n' muu-muu look, Babs!
Delete