The Season Finale! (Season One)

Welcome to the belated show notes of this particular season finale for our first season of the show.  I am writing this at the beginning of our fourth season some two years later.  In fact, if you listened to the show after December 30, 2023, then you heard the remastered version.  I went back to listen to it again for future rounds of the albums that won and took it upon myself to strip out the tracks from Audacity and drop them in Reaper (what I currently use) and tweak the show.  It may not have been necessary, but it is good practice nonetheless.

In any case, I am blathering on here and that is not the reason for this page.

This was considered a season ender because, well, why not.  Seventeen episodes seemed like a good marker and it was the end of 2021, so it just fit.  To date, this is the only show where we invited another guest to come on and present with us.  I do not think it has to do with the guest, I would say that we have found that three people on a podcast is the perfect balance, especially in our current format of voting.  Please note, that all of us voting was not the case at the time of this show.

I want to take this moment to thank Mel for her participation in our little show and for defending Dolly Parton.  She did a fantastic job and blended well with the rest of us and we appreciate her efforts.

And now... on with the show.

Peace, Love, and Coffee 
(01/01/24)

The Matchups

Round One

Ray Charles - "The Birth of Soul" 

 vs 

KISS - "ALIVE!" 

 

Round Two

Dolly Parton - "Coat of Many Colors"

 vs

Funkadelic - "One Nation Under A Groove"

 

00:00 - Post Production Cory from 12/30/2023 introducing the new rematstered show

00:46 - Scott's dark introduction

01:06 - The official start of the show

01:15 - The gap that Dave mentions is that this show was released on December 30, 2021 and the last show was released back on November 15, 2021.  There was a Holiday Special released seven days earlier with our top 10 worse Chirstmas songs.  You can find that special here

01:34 - Our 500th download occurred on December 8th, 2021.  At this time, we are not giving out the year of the recording because I do not think anyone really thought we would be here two years later.

01:49 - Reference - when I offer an 8x10 picture of Scott with a little paragraph on the back, that is a comedic piece of  Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant", if you are not familiar with this 18-minute Thanksgiving journey, I highly recommend this animated video. Also - we are no longer on Twitter!

02:16 - Reference - the questions given to Mel are the same questions I posed to Dave when he first joined the show, and they were questions in an interview I did with Scott (you could almost call it a pilot episode) from long ago.  I may use it as a centerpiece in the future, after some remastering and retooling.

02:25 - Mel has indeed played in a band with all three of us in one form or another, did we even mention that she is a singing bass player?

03:25 - This was an earlier format of the show where one person would judge and the other two would defend an album.  This meant presenting a case for the album and then the third person would pick the one they thought was the better album.  Since then, we have gone to all three of us voting and majority wins - again, the power of three.

04:20 - the start of Dave's defense for Ray Charles and "The Birth of Soul"

        Music in the background - "Rockhouse, Parts 1 and 2" by Ray Charles

06:43 - The history and birth of "What'd I Say" occurred at a concert in Pittsburgh and because the song worked so well, it would always be Ray's closing number from that night until his final show.

07:12 - The quote about "What'd I Say" comes from a book written by Mike Evans in 2009 called "Ray Charles: The Birth of Soul"

08:03 - Double Reference - A Clockwork Orange is a very dark film by Stanley Kubrick, but I am alluding to a scene where Malcom McDowell is being forced to watch propaganda films as part of some diabolical aversion therapy, and has his eyes propped open.  It is as painful to watch as it must have been for the actor.  The other reference is to "Donda" - the 1 hour and 49 minute album released by Kanye West (or just Ye) around the time of these recordings.  I jokingly said that I had sat through the album, when in all actuality, I sat through about 10-15 seconds of each track.  Keep in mind that Kanye was a punching bag for most of our jokes and bits at the time.  Of course, Kanye (Ye) has not aged well in the past two years, so we no longer reference him, much like how we do not have a Twitter account.  The clip below is from "A Clockwork Orange" and it properly befits how I felt through my abridged listen of "Donda"

09:18 -  Reference - Dave mentions both Paul McCartney and George Harrison's early interactions with the song "What'd I Say," but there is another Beatles tidbit worth mentioning.  One of the first times they had Ringo playing with them, they did their cover of "What'd I Say" and every other drummer before Ringo failed miserably at the role.  As McCartney describes this:“There was a moment. And I know there was a song a lot of bands used to do, a Ray Charles song, ‘What’d I Say’, and we used to do it but none of the drummers could get it. It’s quite a hard drum part — on the ride cymbal you’ve got to go” — McCartney sings out the cymbal part — “and at the same time you’ve got to go” — McCartney sings the other overlapping rhythm “you’ve got to put that together. And there’s a bass drum involved. So you’ve got to have a knack of putting those rhythms together. And here it was, right behind us. And I have this very vivid recollection of kind of looking at John and him looking at me and looking at George and him looking at me, and the three of us are going, ‘What the fuck, this is fucking amazing!”"

10:38 - Reference - The Braille Technique for learning music.  I found this little explainer on YouTube.

12:20 - I apparently sent Dave a review about compilations and greatest hits in the Rolling Stone Top 500.  I cannot find a text or an email on this to share, but we have discussed numerous times about how Greatest Hits albums are something of a cheat in this list.  We are not fans of them in this context.

13:18 - Reference - Ray Charles came to Tampa, Florida in 1947 and spent about a year playing with other musicians and bands.  It is alleged that in this short time period, Ray was honing his skills for becoming a better performer, singer, and musical arranger.  From the money he made doing the gigs in Tampa, he was able to procure a wire recorder and lay down recordings of his playing and singing - and to hear his own voice.  The tracks he recorded on his device were rerecorded in Miami at a later date, but we can safely claim that they were originally recorded in Tampa.  Check out this article from a Tampa magazine, so there could be a little bias.

13:38 - Start of Scott's defense of KISS' "ALIVE!"

14:28 - Reference - The original versions of "She" and "Shout It Out Loud" - these songs are certainly not the sound we have come to associate with KISS.

15:11 - Reference - The fake album name that Scott created has a "Fiona feel to it" is a callback to a previous episode (a show called "The Picnic" and you can find it here) where we covered the Fiona Apple album "When the Pawn..." which has an incredibly long title of :

When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king

What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight

And he'll win the whole thing 'fore he enters the ring

There's no body to batter when your mind is your might

So when you go solo, you hold your own hand

And remember that depth is the greatest of heights

And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land

And if you fall it won't matter, cuz you'll know that you're right

15:18 - Reference - The title of the album is a direct homage to Slade, as the band Slade had released an album called "Slade Alive!" in 1972, and Slade was a huge influence on the members of KISS.  Honestly, it is just a tremendous lack of creativity, they even plagiarized the exclamation point.

Music in the background - "Rock and Roll All Nite" by KISS

15:37 - Reference - The name Wham! absolutely had the exclamation point on the end of their name.  Andrew Ridgeley explained that the name originated from a need for "something that captured the essence of what set us apart—our energy and our friendship—and then it came to us: Wham! Wham! was snappy, immediate, fun and boisterous too." British graphic design studio Stylorouge was credited with adding the exclamation mark to the name of the band.

16:57 - Reference - KISS Alive! was hardly a live album.  As Scott states, the only instrument that came unfiltered from the live recordings were Peter Criss' drum tracks.  "Producer Eddie Kramer has been honest about the post-production work. "We had to create that album from the live shows with overdubbed guitar, because of the fact that Kiss puts on a great show with much leaping about," he told Mars Music in 1998. "Obviously, guitars will not stay in tune and accuracy goes right out the the window. So, you fix what's not right."  Kramer concluded that the initial Alive! album "had the most amount of 'fixing' done to it" of any of the band's live albums."(Article: How Kiss Came 'Alive!' by Using Some Studio Magic)

20:42 - Reference - In 1974, Casablanca Records was in bad shape. "To make payroll, Neil Bogart, CEO of Casablanca Records, cashed in his line of credit at a Las Vegas casino. The label seemed doomed. It needed a cheap hit just to survive. Then Bogart had an idea. What if Kiss put out a live album? It’d be less expensive than a studio recording and might preserve some of the band’s incendiary live show. The result was unprecedented. Alive! peaked at No. 9 and remained on the charts for the next 110 weeks, becoming the band’s first record to sell more than a million copies.  Alive! rescued both Kiss and Casablanca from oblivion. (Article: How Kiss's Alive! Saved Their Record Label—And Changed the Music Industry)

22:20 - The rarely heard studio version of "Rock and Roll All Nite"

23:26 - Reference - Alice Cooper has done all sorts of crazy things on stage, this article highlights some of the most outrageous antics.  And here is creepy clip from 1971 of a hanging scene on stage

26:10 - Start of a Quiz with musicians real names and then songs with word Kiss in it

26:50 - Reference - Bono, the lead singer of U2, was born Paul David Hewson in Dublin, Ireland. Bono's nickname came from a hearing aid shop called Bonavox located off O'Connell Street in Dublin, Ireland. The name "Bono Vox" is a modified form of Bonavox. Bono was part of a surrealist street gang called Lypton Village, and he and his friends were given names by Derek Rowan, who went by Guggi. Guggi named Bono Steinhegvanhuysenolegbangbangbang, which was later shortened to Bon Murray before he became Bono Vox of O’Connell Street. Eventually, Bono Vox became Bono. (Source: Bing ChaptGPT)

28:16 - Jimmy Buffett's "Manana" that Scott and Cory sing.

28:32 - The Cream-Filled Beaver spot for Liquor Whaaat?! - this was our little attempt to try to woo a company for us to do commercials for them, and it was mostly because we loved the product (sight unseen).

30:08 - Reference - Perry Mason was an old television show based on a fictional charcter named Perry Mason that was a distinguished criminal-defense lawyer practicing in Los Angeles, California, most of whose clients have been wrongly charged with murder.  In a typical episode, the first half of the show introduces a client, who often hires Mason on non-murder related business, or becomes acquainted with him in some other way. The prospective murder victim and other important figures in the case are introduced, and then the client finds himself or herself wrongly accused of murder. In the second half, Mason and Burger spar in the courtroom. This usually takes place during the preliminary hearing because Mason's technique is to clear a client before they are bound over for trial. In the trial, Mason usually embarks upon a line of questioning that reveals the surprise perpetrator, often causing them to break down and confess to the crime in the courtroom.  (Source: Wikipedia)  

30:15 - Reference - The Simpsons and Lionel Hutz (Phil Hartman) and the "he's gonna win" line is from Season 4, Episode 21 called "Marge in Chains" and the clip is below.

30:53 - The start of Round Two (whatever was between the rounds was cut out for your aural pleasure).

31:13 - The start of Mel's defense for Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors"

    Music in the background is "Traveling Man" and "If I Lose My Mind" by Dolly Parton

34:25 - Reference - Goldie Hawn doing a cover of Dolly's "My Blue Tears" - it really does exist and it is surprisingly good.

34:33 - Reference -  I could not find a reference that ties Dolly's "She Never Met a Man (She Didn't Like)" to "Jolene".  The two were featured on a greatest hits album called "Collector's Series in 1985, but that does not rule out the speculation.

39:55 - the start of Cory's Defense of Funkadelic's "One Nation Under a Groove"

    Music in the background is "Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock" by Funkadelic

40:54 - Reference - If you ever patroned a roller rink in the late 70s or in the 80s, you know.

 

43:42 - Reference - Funkadelic live performance with the mothership landing at the end.

44:17 - Reference - Documentary on George Clinton called "Tear The Roof Off: The Untold Story of Parliament Funkadelic"