Fifty Years of Music • August, 1973

Your everlasting summer and you can see it fading fast

So you grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last

Well, you wouldn't even know a diamond if you held it in your hand

The things you think are precious I can't understand. –Steely Dan

It's August 1973, I'm out of high school and about to start college at Allan Hancock Jr. College in Santa Maria. Yep, back in the day it was called, "Junior College." Looking forward to two years of, "You're not really in real college yet bucko!"

Well, it's still the summer and I'm having fun with my new girlfriend, Mary Kit. She graduated a year early, and to my great luck will be attending pretend college with me too! In reelin' in the years here, I can say... the weekend at the college really did turn out like we planned.

I'm seeing a bit less of the boys of summer, and they're wondering, "Where's Doug these days?" 

Ron dropping water balloons on our sisters from his rooftop while I pelt them from behind the stationwagon, riding bikes on 166, smoking the thin Erik filtered cigars on a starry night, Bill pushing me in his mom's wheelchair to Rexall, as (oh boy), I pretend to be handicapped, Gary buying us beer at Dino's, hangin' out in Paul's fort overlooking the garbanzo bean field, making whirlpools in my backyard circular pool, taking turns cranking and waiting to eat my mom's homemade peach ice cream.

"Yeah Doug's off with Mary Kit again, I think they drove to San Luis." We sure did love hanging out there. I have a wonderful memory of the two of us walking together in the downtown indoor network of wooden and brick shops, it was like a hippy mall. The smell of leather and incense. Now Cal Poly, that was a real university and a real college town.

Let's think this through, Cal Poly and 30 minutes from home, or maybe the five hour drive to San Diego State? We got time to plan our getaway...

Enjoy the playlist my friends.

Fifty Years of Music • February, 1972

 
February 1972 , I get down to the record shop to promptly purchase Neil Young's new album Harvest. It's got a great album graphic but I'll never forget the tactile textural feel of the recycled paper cover. Vinyl albums for me in the 1970's sometimes became a total sensory experience. Now in my opinion Harvest is a really good album, but not as great as his previous album in 1971, After The Gold Rush. Harvest would become the best selling album of 1972. 

The success of Harvest scares Neil, he's become too mainstream, too popular and promptly retreats into making non-commercial albums for many years thereafter.

Sometime in 1972, I visit my friend Paul Hobbs as he wants me to listen to Todd Rundgren's new double album, Something/Anything? We both love it! In 2003, the album was ranked number 173 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The success of Something / Anything? apparently scares Todd too. He's become too mainstream, too popular and promptly retreats into making non-commercial albums for many years thereafter.

What the f***?

Paul, I guess we were just two young and stupid consumer capitalists feeding the corporate record gods. Geez and 1972 was a good music year too... but not as great as 1971...

•••••••••••

1972 is a continuation from the late 60's of all these wonderful bands just falling apart and members making solo albums or forming new splinter bands. This past week, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Hot Tuna, the break-off project of Jefferson Airplane's members Jorma Kaukonen (guitarist/vocals) and Jack Casady (bassist). I also enjoyed Traffic's Dave Mason and Jim Capaldi's solo albums. But that lead me down the path of 'what if' these bands had just stayed together and made better albums together with their mothership bands. I guess it was just 'too soon' at the time with my break-up traumas of The Beatles and CSNY. Hell, I still haven't gotten over that, not to mention the late 60's break-ups of Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, and The Mamas & The Papas.

•••••••••••

Speaking of  The Beatles and 1972, let's finish this installment with my recommendation to watch Good Ol' Freda. (Here is the link on Amazon Prime.) This is a 2013 documentary about The Beatles secretary, Freda Kelly hired by Brian Epstein when she was only 17 years old. She was also the The Beatles fan club president and worked for them from 1962-1972. I came upon it the other night and thought it was fantastic.

Enjoy the playlist my friends!

50 Years of Music • September, 1970

Repipe came in through the bathroom walls

September, 2020 finds me in my (almost) 50 year old house and she's starting to show her age. The past several months have been, "Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling" as the ol' copper pipes sounded like a jackhammer when we turned the water on. This condition in the plumbing biz is actually called, "water hammer" or as the plumber called it, "Hammer Time."

This past month has been a scene right out of Beetlejuice as the walls would rattle and the downstairs bathroom floor tiles were getting warmer and warmer. It finally dawned on me, "Dear I believe we've sprung a hot water leak underneath the concrete slab."

Well, After consulting my old buddy and contractor, Ron Zieman he guided me to go with a complete "Pex" repipe of the entire house. A repipe, cuts off the copper lines leading under the slab and are replaced with the Pex pipe rerouted within all of the walls and ceiling. Why, because you don't have to tear out the floor and slab to fix one leak, and then do it all over again somewhere else in the house and keep rolling the dice.

Anyway, the repipe and drywall jobs went great and I just have to repaint the exterior stucco by the kitchen, the kitchen, downstairs bedroom, laundry room and this downstairs bath just completed yesterday to the missus specifications.

The really cool thing now is we have new shower and bath fixtures in both bathrooms with great water pressure throughout the house, and you don't have to worry about flushing the toilet in the downstairs bathroom and scalding the person taking a shower in the upstairs bathroom anymore!

I still found time this week to musically go back in time to 1970 where 'they' came up with the brilliant idea to put the plumbing system underneath the concrete foundation.

Music wise September, 1970 was a great month with releases from: The Byrds, The Rolling Stones (Live also featuring B.B. King and Ike and Tina Turner), Billy Preston, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, The Allman Brothers Band, Seals and Crofts, Jesus Christ Superstar, Glen Campbell, Santana, Johnny Winter, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and James Brown.

So, I now got a new playlist to whistle while I work. Enjoy my friends, register to VOTE, and stay well.