My Favorite Artists Of All Time! Pt.1: Growing Up in the Seventies

I'll be writing a little bit about the artists that have meant the most to me throughout my life, at first I was gonna just blog about a favorite artist at random, but then I thought it might be fun to list them in the actual order that I first fell in love with them! So if we're going back to the beginnings of a life full of musical appreciation, we've got to start back in the 1970's, where I first fell in love with records, though back then it was more about 45's than LPs, so though I'll later focus more on Favorite Albums, for the 70's we're going back to when the Single was the mighty media of choice!

  Ever since I first heard the epic single "Band On The Run" as a wee lad back in 1973, Paul McCartney (or, rather, Paul McCartney and Wings. as the unit was called then) has been one of my very favorite artists,  every subsequent single released was met with awe and affection, from the other Band On the Run singles like Jet to the singles from albums "Venus and Mars". "At The Speed Of Sound", "London Town" and "Back To The Egg", me and my siblings bought them all!

 Paul McCartney and Wings gave me my first experience of having a "Favorite" artist, where you knew you were going to buy his newest 45 even if you hadn't heard one second of it! Simply the fact that it was PAUL MCCARTNEY was reason enough to get it, and I have to say that I've NEVER been disappointed! When I got older I would eventually venture into his amazing LP catalog, but as a young kid on a limited budget, collecting his singles was really the way to go!

They say music is the soundtrack of your life, and as far as these McCartney songs go, they're absolutely spot-on! Even listening to them now the songs remind me of specific moments in my life:

Band On The Run reminds me of my father's Workplace (and playing Kikaida with friends)...

Listen What The Man Said reminds me of swimming at Alal Moana beach Park (truthfully, many songs from the 70's do, since there was always a radio blastin' the tunes at the picnics...)

Silly Love Songs reminds me of crabbing with my Dad and little brother down at Waipahu Canal (is that place still even there, I wonder?)

Let Em In reminds me of catching butterflies at Liliokalani Elementary in Kaimuki... etc, etc! SO many memories...

 Funny that all the time growing up, it didn't matter to me that this guy was part of the world renown supergroup the Beatles, and in fact all that registered to me was that this Beatles group was just the group he had been in BEFORE creating Wings!! LOLOL

Another group that Me and my siblings really loved growing up was the Bee Gees, I guess MOST kids in the 70's did, or at least had a couple of their singles, right? But this was yet another group that whenever a new single came out, SOMEBODY in the family would come home with the 45 that week! As for me, the first song I really loved from them was "Nights On Broadway" and "Jive Talking", then when "You Should be Dancing" came out, I think that's when we realized we liked everything those Gibb Brothers were doing! In fact, the Bee Gees were one of the few groups (along with the aforementioned Paul McCartney) where we'd listen to the B sides as well, and I remember one of our favorite tracks was the B-side to You Should Be Dancing called "Subway", man we just loved this song!!!

Back in the earlier 70's the eclectic Jeff Lynne Group ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA was more my brother's favorite group than mine, he was the one who brought home their earlier singles like "Evil Woman", "Living Thing" and "Strange Magic", but when they released the pop-perfect "Sweet Talkin' Woman" , that's when the fandom switched over to me, I became SUCH a fan of their singles  after that, with songs like "Turn To Stone". Shine a Little Love" and "Last Train To London", heck even down to their later wackier projects like the XANADU releases and beyond! In fact, this is the ONE group that my childhood friends still associate with ME whenever they hear a song from them on the radio, I was THAT into them! 

Finally Checking Out "Game Of Thrones"

Well, I've been putting this off for a LONG time, but when my friend bought all three seasons of HBO's wildly popular drama Game Of Thrones and then, after watching them ALL in a few weeks, asked me if I wanted to borrow the discs, I said HELL YEAH!
  I have to say that I actually didn't know much about the show except that Sean Bean (Boromir in Lord Of The Rings) and Peter Dinklage (Station Agent as well as Bolivar Trask in the upcoming X-Men Movie) were in it. Oh, and the child king Joffrey Lannister was a spoiled, evil douchebag. Yeah, even I'D heard about HIM!
Anyway, I cautiously began watching it and HOLY HELL was it GOOD! Such awesome characters, great plots and storylines, there's just TOO MUCH going on to EVER get boring! In just THREE weeks, I'd finished watching all three seasons, and now, the sad tragic WAITING game begins! Will I try to find a way to watch Season Four online, or can I wait 'til the Season comes out on DVD? We'll see!
edit: Well, looks like I couldn't wait and so far I've been watching the Season Four episodes streaming online, LOL. Now as great quality as watching it on my Home entertainment system  on DVD, but you do what you have to when you're addicted!

Black Adder Complete DVD set!

  Most of the people in my generation remember Rowan Atkinson more for his portrayal of awesome Sir Edmund BlackAdder more than his turn as Mr Bean or as Zazu in Lion King. Man, did we love this show- all of us had these crude copies taped off the television on mouldering old VHS tapes, dreadful, dreadful quality, but much-watched and remembered.
 So I was THRILLED when I saw a BRAND NEW, spiffy BOX SET containing ALL of the Black Adder shows, specials and sequels all in one awesome set! I snatched it up, and have been re-watchign them all week. MAN, what a great show, so funny, and yet, at times very sad and touching, too. truly an original series.
 LOL, I've been reminiscing about the show to my friend, and now he wants to borrow the Box Set and watch 'em all over again, as well! looks like we'll be talking more about it soon...!

Tackling Breaking Bad

   There's been so much raves and praise for the TV series "Breaking Bad", but when my friend Jas told me that this was a drama I just HAD to see, well , that was all the recommendation i needed! As the entire series had just ended and was all available for purchase, this was the right time to get off my duff and grab 'em! Costco was selling the DVD box set containing all Six Seasons for about 180.00, but when I realized I could buy the individual Seasons on DVD on ebay for about 13.00 apiece, I knew that that was the way to go! In just a few weeks, I had all the DVDs at my disposal, and the viewing began!
   Some have said that the show was "glorifying Drugs" while others claimed the show "silly and unrealistic", but for me, Breaking Bad, from the GET GO, seemed more like a really cool Graphic Novel in the vein of  "Road To Perdition"or "V for Vendetta". In that context, the fantastic seems believable, the evil acceptable and the violence the razzle dazzle! MAN, what an awesome piece of WORK this show was!!! 
 I don;t know HOW they did it, but this story of a Mild-mannered Science Teacher, who, when he finds out he has cancer, falls to a life of crime to support the expensive payments and to make sure his family is taken care of, was written and executed with such singular vision from the first episode of Season one all the way down to the explosive final episode in Season Six! Really, Breaking bad was like an EPIC Six-Chaptered mega-moive for the masses!

Favorite Albums: Betty Boo / Boomania

Way back in the early 90’s, my friend made me a mixed cassette tape opening with an extremely dancey pop song which he’d culled off of the Career Opportunities soundtrack which he’d recently picked up. This song was called Where Are You Baby, by a mysterious singer named Betty Boo, and I loved it so much, I needed to hear MORE from this artist!

Happily, my brother owned a copy of Betty Boo’s new release Boomania, an album which featured Where Are You Baby as its opening track, and my GOSH, all it took was one spin and I fell in love with almost every track! One after the other, the songs coming at me were sooo, sooo rocking and catchy, I just HAD to pick the album up for myself!

Back in the days before Wikipedia and such, there was really nowhere to learn more about Betty Boo- where did she come from? What was her “Deal”? Of course, now I know quite a bit about the former Ms. Alison Clarkson, but at the time, all I knew was what was provided in the CD liner notes. In fact, it wasn’t until months later that I even saw any videoclips of Betty, and I have to say it was quite something seeing her performing “Hey DJ/I Can’t Dance To that Music” for the first time- complete with 1960’s James Bond Secret Agent kitsch- what a conundrum she was!

Of all the songs, the stand out tracks for me are Doing The Do, Hey DJ (I Can’t Dance To That Music You’re Playing, Boo’s Booming, 24 Hours, Don’t Know What To Do (dreamy synth pop here) and of course Where are You Baby, the song that started it all! Though Betty Boo’s music is decidedly more on the Rap/R&B side, there is something about its that makes it seem more like alternative music than soul- at the time I reflected that her sound sounded a lot like Dance Pop Trio Dee-Light, with their song Groove is in the Heart…

Betty followed Boomania with  a quirky album called “Grrr! It’s Betty Boo”, but after that, I didn’t hear much more from her. No matter, it’s Boomania that will stand the test of time, and in the years since its come out, I’ve introduced the album to many, MANY new fans and they all agree that Boomania is a snappy little masterpiece!

Favorite Artists: Nick Drake

I was introduced to Nick Drake in the coolest way- A co-worker who shared similar interests with me came in one day with a copy of Nick Drake's biography by Patrick Humphries  and ALSO Nick Drake's compilation CD "Way To Blue".  Handing me both, he said,  "Here's something I think you'll enjoy reading!" This guy Jim has introduced me to so many cool artists and lent me quite a few good books, too (among them the Al Kooper and Neil Young biographies), so I knew I was in for something interesting!

  Sure enough, the life of Nick Drake was a captivating read, such a talented and yet introverted artist,  reading the book and listening to the haunting music in between, you could feel the desperation and loneliness between the notes.  Soon, I fell in love with everything on that Nick Drake compilation, and eventually I had to go out and get all the other albums from this incredible artist: "Five Leaves Left", "Pink Moon", "Bryter Lyter", even the awesome "Time Of No Reply", each album had so many great songs!!! 
  His songs are so moody and melancholy, perfect for sunset/evening walks especially in autumn, in fact, I've been listening to them a LOT recently, perfect Halloween music (especially ones like "Poor Boy", which give me such a lonely vibe!) One Christmas, I gave THREE friends the "Way To Blue" CD compilation , I thought it was such a great introduction to the man and his music, two of the friends didn't appreciate it much, but the third friend told me she and her husband loved it so much, it became their "go-to" morning music CD!

Some of my favorite Nick Drake tracks~ 

Love and Rockets, Vol.6

Back To Palomar once again with Los Bros Hernandez....

Comics For Halloween

 When it comes to my favorite holiday Halloween, it’s all about the old-fashioned rustic orangey magic that only childhood memories can provide, and no one captured that feeling better than the old Dell and Gold Key comics of the 50’s and 60’s, so I was stoked to come across this great deal of old Little Lulu comics just in time for Halloween!

Ahhh, something about the way that these stories are told is just done so RIGHT, where the look and FEEL of the strip really takes you back to that wide-eyed feeling of trick-or-treating as a kid! Probably the earliest Halloween comic I remember loving was an old Dennis the Menace strip where Dennis and his pals try to put grouchy old Mr. Wilson’s front gate on his roof (since he heard his Dad had done the same as a child) as a "trick" since he didn't "treat" them, it’s wonderful visuals really MADE the story for me- the costumes, the porch-lit  doorways and that real 1950’s suburban neighborhood!

 I remember reading an interview with the Hernandez Brothers (of Love and Rockets fame) talking about how some of their favorite Halloween comics were the Walt Disney Comics and Stories featuring Donald Duck and his Nephews, and looking over those, I can TOTALLY see what they were talking about! These old comics just captured the moment in a time-capsule, for easy enjoyment as an adult!

Aw yeah, those old comics- It's Halloween done RIGHT!!

The Kite Runner

Second time reading this Graphic Novel version of the powerful Khaled Hosseini novel, with amazing art by Fabio Celoni and Mirka Andolfo.

Girl Group "Zepparella" Rocks Led Zeppelin's "When The Levee Breaks"...Amazing!

Hard Boiled Defective Stories

Aw Man, Charles Burns' awesome stories of El Borbah, the Wrestling Detective were some of my favorite things about Heavy metal magazine back in the 80's, and when i found out they'd put 'em all together in one cool collection, I knew i just had to have it! Besides the four stories featured in the pages of Heavy Metal, (Robot Love, Dead meat, Living In The Ice Age andBone Voyage) they even featured one I don't remember seeing before, "Love In Vein"!

This is one collection I read and re-read again constantly!!!

Neil Young's Greendale

Second time reading this Graphic Novel take on Neil Young's Greendale album, by Joshua Dysart and Cliff Chiang and it's even better the second time around! My copy is signed by Josh Dysart and therein lies an interesting tale...
When I first met my friend Gerg, he offhandedly mentioned that he didn't like Neil Young and I snorted and said "Then you can go to Hell!" He was stunned by such a passionate retort from me, but as a huge Neil Young fan I'd been hearing from people who groused that they hated his voice, "He Can't Sing!", etc. all my life, and had just been reading earlier that day about Def Leppard's Joe Elliot putting Neil down too, so my gumption was up!
We laughed about it, and as we became close friends, we would occasionally remember that time, and jokingly say "Never diss Neil Young in front of Z!!"HAHAHA!
 Anyway, one day back in late 2010 or so ,Gerg was visiting his local comic book shop, and that day they had an in-store signing with writer Joshua Dysart, promoting Greendale! Seeing the title, on the cover, Gerg remembered how much I liked Neil Young and decided to not only get me a copy of the book, but have Dysart autograph it as well!
When Gerg went up to Dysart, he explained about me, who really liked Neil Young and how I got mad at him cause he said he didn't. "So you don't like Neil Young?" Dysart asked Gerg, who admitted he didn't. Dysart laughed, and signed the book to me:"Z, your friend here sucks!" LOLOL!

Some Judy Garland Love

The classic 1939 gem Wizard Of Oz is one of my very favorite films of all time and is subsequently one of the handful of movies that I’ve bought in just about every format, from Betamax to VHS to Laserdisc to DVD and the past week I FINALLY got around to purchasing my copy of the beloved movie on Blu-Ray, and it has never looked better!

Everything looks cleaned up nicely; the sound and colors terrific, but you know what blew me away even more was how absolutely luminous Judy Garland was in this movie! So, so captivating, and what an actress! Why, the scene alone where she’s locked up in the Witch’s castle is some Grammy award winning stuff! Such believable delivery!

Anyway, watching the movie always puts me into a melancholy mood, possible because you always realize at some point that Judy is no longer with us (in fact, I have the same feelings watching Breakfast At Tiffany’s, when Audrey sings Moon River) and I found that even after the movie was over, I wanted to watch and re-watch her singing Over The Rainbow, and went onto youtube to view a few clips.

While looking for her Meet Me In St. Louis clip so I could help usher in the Holidays with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, I came across this most wonderful little clip of a 15 year old Judy Garland singing the most beautiful and heartwarming version of the standard “Zing! Went The Strings of My Heart” from "Listen Darling” in 1938.

MAN, this performance just melts my heart. Is there anything out there so unbelievably innocent and simple as this girl singing this winsome tune with the gentle orchestra playing along behind her? So Sweet! What a girl~ there'll never be another one like her!

Fatale, Vol.1-5 (Complete Series)

Encouraged by how many good stories I've been discovering from Image Comics, I decided to give this film noir/horror series FATALE a whirl, and sure enough, this "Mike Hammer meets the Exorcist" tale was just another incredible title!

Stephen King's The Stand, Vol.1-6 (Complete Series)

Stephen King's The Stand is one of my all-time favorite novels, and when Marvel Comic began their comics book take on it, I bought the first few issues before deciding to wait til they were collected into TPBs. I then bought both Book One: Captain Trips and Book Two: America Nightmares when they respectively came out, but I didn't get around to picking up any of the later books until the very last book came out a few months ago! I went ahead and bought all the remaining books I'd missed right there in one crack!
For the first time I sat down and read the entire thing from beginning to end, and It's pretty darn great- not as good as the book, of course, what is, but a fine graphic novel take on a story that friends who may not like to read can enjoy!