Addicted To Vinyl Musical thoughts from the open road, with headphones on

Cage Match: Jefferson Starship vs. Joe Walsh

Written by: Matt Wardlaw

Ola friends!

As we get going, let's start of by congratulating Steve in Nashville, who is the winner of the contest for the super-awesome Jane's Addiction vinyl reissues of Nothing's Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual!

Congrats Steve!

You know what that means - it's time to give something else away! But you'll have to wait a little bit for the next one, because we've got some weekly business to attend to in the following post.

In the meantime, click here to order your own copy of A Cabinet of Curiosities, and check out my man Rob's rundown on the box set contents - it is slaaaaaaamin'!

P.S. - The MP3 version is only $18.99 at Amazon MP3 - that's crazy talk!

Remember how I was talking about those blog posts that come to you like a gift? This week's showcase showdown is very much in that vein. I was on my way out, heading to Detroit with a brief stop at the post office to pick up mail before leaving town.

In the mail, I got the new Jane's Addiction box set, A Cabinet of Curiosities (SWEEET!), and a package of musical love from Scene Magazine staff writer D.X. Ferris.

Inside the package was Par-Tay Mixxx G:9 #6 (2009) (download)

with the note Designed for linear or random play.

That's right, another mix disc from Ferris, in the tradition of DXMas, Danzig Slow Jams, and all of the many mixes that have come prior to those instant classics.

Unlike previous mixes, there was no track listing for this one. I popped it into the CD player, and without knowing it, I suddenly had this week's Cage Match locked, loaded, and ready to go. Oh, don't worry - I already had one on deck previously, but it got bumped.

The 1st contender: "Jane" by Jefferson Starship:

The track comes off of the 1979 album Freedom at Point Zero, featuring drummer Aynsley Dunbar, who had departed from Journey the previous year (uh, nice career move,) and is also the first album featuring new lead singer Mickey Thomas.

You know, the guy that also sang "Fooled Around and Fell In Love" with the Elvin Bishop Group, and would go on to sing on many Jefferson Starship/Starship hits.

Today, he continues to tour rib cookoffs, parties in the park, and 80s radio festivals across the United States, singing those hits. He's also available for your next bar mitzvah, as long as he can borrow your car to pick up the rest of the band, and oh yeah - dinner is included with that gig too, right?

Now, despite my previous snarky comments above, I actually really like Mickey Thomas as a singer.

This is a viewpoint that is not necessarily a slam dunk across the board with everyone else, however. There are people that think that Mickey Thomas is the devil, and these same people view the Knee Deep In The Hoopla album as a musical scud missile turd of an album from a band that wrecked two to three years of their formative period as a young adult.

This band was the band that delivered not only Hoopla, but also No Protection, an album that contained the dreaded Starship hit "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now."

Now again, I actually like "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now." Quite a bit, actually. My pal Jason Hare at Popdose recently put "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" underneath the microscope for this revealing probe, identifying the track as one of the suckiest songs in the world.

I think that means that he liked it.

So how did "Jane" wind up as track one on Ferris's par-tay mix?

"Jane" is inspired from the opening of Wet Hot American Summer, which is 3 of my favorite minutes ever committed to film. Totally captures a moment there. the subtitle of the par-tay mix is "Wet Hot American Par-Tay." I make those every year to listen to in the garage, for outdoor chores, etc.

I STILL haven't seen Wet Hot American Summer - it's one of those films that I keep hearing about, and Bela Dubby even did a screening here in Lakewood at some point last year. Gotta check that one out, pronto. Ferris tells me that it is airing this month on cable via Starz or similar.

Now let's welcome in the 2nd contender: Joe Walsh - "Turn To Stone."

When Ferris and I were at the Rock Hall earlier this month watching a Q&A with drummer Joe Vitale, Vitale told some stories about the recording of "Turn To Stone," and then we heard a portion of the track played over the theater sound system, with that big fat drugged out 70s production featuring drums that were recorded so that they kick you in the face when you first hear them.

The drums are surrounded by blankets of reverb that make you wonder if there might have been acid in that Dr. Pepper that you drank on the way to the Rock Hall. You start looking around the room to see if it is really floating, and determine that it's just the song, not you. This time.

You know that was a good day in the recording studio, when they recorded that song. Between the stories for that one, and the stories about recording "Life's Been Good," Ferris and I left the Rock Hall realizing that it was really cool to be Joe Vitale back in the day.

So there you have it - Jefferson Starship or Joe Walsh. What's it gonna be?

P.S. - Download your own copy of Ferris's Par-Tay Mix.

To keep with the spirit of the mix as I originally heard it, the tracks are only tagged with artist (D.X. Ferris) and album name ("Par-Tay etc.) I suggest that you should put it on, and rock out. Let the mix surprise you, as it did me.

I'll let you know, that when the mix crossed over into Canadian territory, I punched the dashboard with happiness and commenced air keyboards to the extreme. People that were driving next to me at that moment, gave me that weird look that says "Dude, go back to Cleveland - PLEASE."

NOTE: There's some extremely NSFW language in track 15. If bad words offend you, you're going to want to skip that one!