Sometimes I think I'm not remotely qualified to be doing this blog series. (Perhaps you've thought the same.) Take Sparks, for example. I don't think I'd ever heard of Sparks before pulling this album off the KEXP shelves, but they've been a band for over 45 years and released a couple dozen albums - including a brand new one just last month! Where do I get off typing into the internet about them as if I know a ding-dang thing? But, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to the internet with the bloggers you have, not the bloggers you wish you had.
Anyway, now that I've watched this half-hour video by a kindly Canadian ranking all of Sparks' albums from best to worst (and watched this video for "All You Ever Think About Is Sex"), I feel like I'm pretty much caught up. Lord help me, I've been Sparksed! Like many of the KCMU gang circa 1983, I'm sold.
"One of SC's faves and for good reason! PURE POP FOR THE NOW GENERATION . . .""Sorry Eli. In case you hadn't noticed, the 'now generation' is now the 'then generation.' Although I like this one too."
"Some nice new music. Try 'I Wish I Looked a Little Better.'"
"How happy! -SC (Sex gods for the '80s)"
"I don't like Sparks but I like this LP. (Really!)"
[Scribbled-out comment]
"Question: 'Why a shaving cream pie?'"
"'All You Ever Think About Is Sex'"
"WITH SPARKS!"
"Oh yes, nudge, nudge . . . "
"A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, eh?"
"I like Sparks and I like this."
"It's OK - not their best, though."
"I Wish I Looked a Little Better! -GR"
"You will, GR, you will."
"Please, baby, please, how 'bout a tour?!"
It's been a couple years, but we have here another release from That Petrol Emotion, this time the band's third LP - which, being a third LP, is mostly compared negatively to the second. (And I'd have to check, but I bet that was compared negatively to the first. This is college radio, after all.) …
Yet again, I come to you on this Thursday somewhat surprised. I've covered the first two Television albums, plus Richard Lloyd's Field of Fire, but this is my first time bringing you one of Television guitar genius Tom Verlaine's own solo albums. Cover was certainly well-loved in the halls of KCMU …
