Valeri Leontiev

Artist: Valeri Leontiev

LP: I'm Only a Singer

Song: "I'm Only a Singer"

[ listen ]

Song: "I Don't Love"

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I've just come back from a week-long road trip all around The Land of 10,000 Lakes! In case you're not familiar, that's another name for Minnesota. Most of the state's record stores are concentrated in the Twin Cities, and that's where I visited seven of them. The first five were all in Minneapolis...

 [ Minneapolis ]

...and my very first Minnesota record store was Cheapo Records, the big store on Nicollet Avenue. There was no listening station there (and none currently available at any of the stores I visited) so on this trip I basically had to judge a book by its cover. But what a cover! I had a strong hunch Valeri wouldn't disappoint with this 1988 LP, and I was right. Valeri (sometimes "Valery") Leontiev is a very big star in Russia, but of course I am not Russian, so I had never heard of him. I wonder: Do they have a lot of leopards over in Russia?

[ Cheapo Records — Minneapolis, Minnesota ]

Queen

 Artist: Queen

LP: 7" single

Song: "I Want to Break Free"

[ listen ] 

 

I want to break free...from my obsessive-compulsive proclivities. But Queen is not helping. I just found out a few weeks ago that this single (which peaked at #45 on the Billboard Hot 100 back in 1984) was released with four different covers. And now I have them all.

 

[ Brian May wants to break free. ] 

 

[ We all know Freddie Mercury wants to break free. ] 

 

[ Roger Taylor also wants to break free. ]

 

[ John Deacon wants to break free, perhaps even more so than the others. ]

Alberto Vazquez

 Artist: Alberto Vázquez

LP: Rock y Baladas con Alberto Vázquez

Song: "16 Toneladas"

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Song: "Olvidalo"

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Song: "El Hombre Araña"

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Does everyone remember my Alberto Vázquez post from back in April of 2017? Great! Well, here's another one. I was thrilled...THRILLED, I tell you, to find another of Alberto's LPs last week, this one at Daybreak Records over in Fremont. This 1974 offering is yet another delectable mixture of cover songs, in both English and Spanish, along with (I'm fairly sure) some original tunes thrown in too for good measure. 

 

There are still tons (16 toneladas, to be exact) of Alberto Vázquez records to be on the lookout for, as you can see for yourselves at his discography listing on Wikipedia here. Alberto was 77 when I last featured him here on the blog, and now...well, next month, he'll be turning 81! Here's to many more years of good health, happiness, and music from Sñr. Vazquez in the decade to come. 

 

PS. Earlier this week was "National Women's Day," which I had every intention of celebrating here...yet so far all I've posted are records by people named Oscar and Alberto. I promise this will be rectified in the days to come.

 

Procol Harum

Artist: Procol Harum

LP: Exotic Birds and Fruit

Song: "As Strong As Samson"

[ listen ]

Song: "The Thin End of the Wedge"

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Song: "Fresh Fruit"

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Speaking of classic bands I'm just now finally getting into: Digging up a terrific Procol Harum single (no, not "A Whiter Shade of Pale") at my local record store a month or two ago prompted me to embark on a mini-binge, buying just about all of the group's early LPs, which the store just happened to have used copies of in stock. "Exotic Birds and Fruit" is Procol Harum's 7th LP, released in 1974. Peaking at only #86 on the US album charts, it was their least successful record up to that point...which, as we now know, probably means it was their best one so far!

Formed in 1967, Procol Harum is one of those bands whose name I'd heard and whose records I'd seen over the years, but I'd just never bothered looking into them. (Others are Three Dog Night, UFO, Uriah Heep...there are a bunch of them.) Anyway, these guys are good. I'm glad I've finally added some of their stuff to my collection! You can read about Procol Harum here, and there's info on this particular record right here.

 

[ Procol Harum ]

Eddie Van Halen [1955-2020]

Artist: Van Halen

LP: 7" single

Song: "Pretty Woman"

[ listen ]

 

I have to admit, I've never been a huge Van Halen fan or anything, but still I was sad to hear that guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. Everyone else seemed to be jumping online to post eulogies to Van Halen today, so I figured... might as well jump. 

 

"Pretty Woman" was the first Van Halen song I became aware of; it was played on the radio a lot when my brother Matt and I first began paying rapt attention to pop music in late 1981 and early 1982. ("Pretty Women" peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in '82.) You can read all about Van Halen here, and go here to find a nice obituary for Eddie in the NY Times. I didn't know he had been married to Valerie Bertinelli!

 

[ L to R: Michael Anthony, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen ]

 

Eddie Van Halen

[ January 26, 1955 — October 6, 2020 ]

We will miss you, Eddie.

Queen City Kids

Artist: Queen City Kids

LP: Queen City Kids

Song: "Kids World"

[ listen ]

From Regina, Saskatchewan, these four guys met in high school and called their group Cambridge before changing their name and releasing this self-titled album in Canada in 1981. It's like the Queen City Kids took everything they loved about hard rock music—the relentlessly driving and screaming guitars, the growling vocals—and then multiplied them by three before putting them on this record. It's fantastic.You can read more about the Queen City Kids here.

Foreigner

Artist: Foreigner

LP: 7" single
Song: "Juke Box Hero"

[ listen ]

Here's one of the songs that was playing on 107.3 KFFM in Yakima, WA when I was 12 years old in early 1982, just as I was starting to listen to popular music. I loved it then, and it's only gotten with better with time. Turn this one up loud. It's exhilarating! Though the chorus seems designed for it, there's no fading out here. The song goes out blazing, suddenly, at full volume and with a bang. 

The third single from Foreigner's fourth album, "Juke Box Hero" peaked at #26 on the Billboard Hot 100, once again demonstrating mainstream America's inability to recognize or embrace quality entertainment that rises out of the ordinary. You can read about Foreigner here, and go here to find out how co-writer Mick Jones was inspired to create the song after taking in a dedicated fan who had been standing for hours in the rain outside one of their concerts—a scene that sounds like it was lifted right out of ALL ABOUT EVE.

[ Foreigner, circa 1981 ]

Progres 2

Artist: Progres 2

LP: Mozek
Song: "X.A.Z." / "Kdo Je Tam?"

[ listen ]

The vinyl appreciation Meetup group I've joined a few times in the past, Seattle Spinsters, just announced their next gathering! The theme will be 'world music' since it's summertime and people are planning their vacations. I've already picked out too many LPs to bring, including ones from Hong Kong, Panama, Russia, Italy, Korea, the Caribbean, and this wonderful thing from Czechoslovakia in 1984. I've missed the last two Seattle Spinsters get-togethers since I was stuck at work until 8pm, but I'm starting a new job on Monday! You can read about Progres 2 here; there were four fellas in the group when this LP came out, but according to the Progres 2 photo below, at one time there were five.

[ Progres 2 ]