Category Archives: Song Highlight

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On Legal Speed (The American Way)

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Lag FrontCoffee is a wonderful drug. Its stimulating warmth delivers that little bit of pep so often missing in the early morning hours… whatever you consider those “early morning hours” to be. If noon is early for you, good on ya’. I won’t judge. But I will ask that you save me a cup.

Lagwagon’s 1992 debut, Duh, is a metal-influenced-punk-long-player, featuring a Creedence cover, a melodic romp about the deceptive eyewear resulting from drinking too much beer, an aggressive interpretation of the Inspector Gadget theme, and most importantly, Duh fosters a vicious ode to the mastered art of straining hot water through ground up roasted coffea seeds.

Lag BackLagwagon’s Mr. Coffee provides the audio equivalent of orally consuming a hot cup of joe. With its rapid approach and short-lived tenure, it leaves the consumer wanting another two-minute and fifteen-second fix. Mr. Coffee has been an early morning favorite for me since discovering Lagwagon nearly 20-years ago (yes, I’m old).

There really should be more songs about the essential joys of coffee. Its importance cannot be understated.

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Billy vs. Lionel and the Ceiling Dancing Zone of Love

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Billy vs Lionel1986 was arguably the best year of my life. It was the year I got married, produced a beautiful young daughter, Chelsea, and it was the year I was nominated for my first (and only) Pulitzer.  Ok, so NONE of these things happened to me in 1986, but what DID happen were the beginnings of a battle that still continues today… a grand crusade of international proportions. I am of course referring to Billy vs. Lionel and the Ceiling Dancing Zone of Love.

Billy EyesThere’s a lot of love going on between the singles, Love Zone and Dancing on the Ceiling. Let’s first look at Billy Ocean’s Love Zone.  The Love Zone is a safe place; a quarantined section blocked-off and geographically located between the Hate Zone and the Dead Zone. Given these other zone options, the Love Zone is the preferred zone by the majority of the zone-based community. The A-side to this single comes “from the smash hit album Love Zone” while the B-side is the instrumental version of Love Zone. The B-side offers a little less love, but still comes across as lovely.

Lionel EyesLionel Richie’s single, Dancing on the Ceiling, isn’t as immediately love-tastic. I mean, who LOVES dancing on the ceiling? I myself have never danced upon the ceiling, but “love” wouldn’t be the first emotion that comes to mind. I’m convinced Dancing on the Ceiling is the result of a drug-induced, debaucherous weekend that found Mr. Richie taking a break from his then 5 year old daughter, Nicole, to mainline a rented hotel room full of narcotics that made him feel as if he were “dancing on the ceiling.” We can all be grateful for that hit single inspired weekend. Oh, the love connection (remember that show, The Love Connection?) can be found on the B-side’s, Love Will Find A Way. That’s a good point. Love often DOES find a way, but seldom within the Hate or Dead Zones.

So, given Billy Ocean’s safe haven of zoned love and Lionel Richie’s (completely fabricated) weekend of ecstasy and ceiling dancing, it’s safe to say this is a battle our grandchildren will need to settle. I mean, could YOU decide between these two heroic poems?

1986 was a pretty amazing year.

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You Without Me is Like Corn Flake Without the Milk!

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JuiceI’ll admit that the excavation leading up to my discovery of Mr. Oran “Juice” Jones was nothing short of a complete accident. If my recollection serves me right, and she often does, I unearthed this gem at a Half Price Books in Madison, WI (probably on the East Side) and became its proud owner simply because it was a Def Jam Records release (the label being synonymous with the Beastie Boys).

Let me back up a bit and ask; are you familiar with Oran “Juice” Jones and specifically his hit single, The Rain? If not, I implore you to treat yourself to a wonderful world filled with blue diamonds and Gucci handbags.

Ok, if you don’t want to spend five minutes of your time, that’s understandable, then I suggest starting the track/video at 3:07. Mr. “Juice” Jones goes on a FANTASTIC rant aimed towards a woman he saw “walking in the rain” with an “Alley Cat coat wearing, Hush Puppy shoe wearing crumb cake.” 1) I’m not joking and 2) it gets better.

This smooth singing ladies’ man is NOT one to be messed with. The chill Mr. “Juice” and his $3700 lynx jacket completely flies off the handle, but still finds the time to sit down with the “silly rabbit” and educate her on her wrong doing. When he says, “I gave you things you couldn’t even pronounce!” we the listener know that this woman lost her opportunity to a fruitful life filled with expensive material objects (many of which, apparently, she had a difficult time pronouncing). Those Hush Puppies aren’t looking so good now, are they honey?! (That was me, not the “Juice.”)

The hot chocolate heating epitome of class should not be confused with an overly insecure and jealous lover just because he followed the “cold busted” lady without her knowing. I gather she wouldn’t have eluded to the truth had he just asked her straight. Since she didn’t realize that “tricks are made for kids,” she can thank her lucky stars that smooth man “Juice” didn’t act on his first impulse and “run up on” her and “do a Rambo” by “jammy-flat-blasting” both she and her secret lover. We can all be thankful the “Juice” didn’t serve jail time so that he could continue his lucrative music career.

“I hope you learn a valuable lesson from all of this” and think twice the next time you consider messing with the “Juice.”

(Email theprudentgroove@gmail for the mp3 to this track… you’ll thank me!)

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Blue Days, Black Nights

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Telephone Line CoverNobody ever outgrows his or her ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) phase. I certainly see no need to pull the electric plug, switch off the light, or tell the orchestra to go home (take your pick).

Kicking off with a spry, ethereal bleep followed by the vacant ringing of a telephone doomed to be acknowledge, Telephone Line is a lulling journey through the sung cries of our hero (Jeff Lynne) as he attempts to regain contact with a former lover, but you know, told amongst a charming bed of orchestral Rock ‘n Roll accompanied by elegant back-up vocals.

Telephone Line is a sad tale of that (oh so familiar) slow burn that inevitably comes when the love between two treasured sweethearts fades away, only to die a slow, excruciating death while both parties curse the heavens in complete emotional anarchy. I’m over it now, but there was a time when this song hit home a bit too aggressively.

Telephone Line is from ELO’s monumentally successful 1976 album, A New World Record. This single however was released on green vinyl in 1977. If you’ve ever heard ELO, chances are you’re hooked. If you haven’t, (WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?) I’d humbly suggest starting with A New World Record and its awe-inspiring single, Telephone Line.

Telephone Line Green

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Pseudo Echo’s Funky Town

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Funky TownPseudo Echo’s version of Funky Town was my first favorite song. At 7-years-old, that was a big deal (and since I never really grew up, it’s still a big deal some 26 years later). After watching the video as a child, I was transformed in believing that my purpose in life was to play the Keytar (or keyboard that looks like a guitar). More than that, I was CONVINCED. I was to master this ornament of musical ecstasy in a New Wave band consisting of me and my closest grade school friends (none of whom, like myself, had ever even touched an instrument). Since my elementary school didn’t offer the Keytar in our rural town’s marching band, I decided on the Alto Saxophone instead.

Funky Town was originally recorded by Lipps Inc. in February of 1980. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts and blah blah. It is my humble opinion that had it not been for Pseudo Echo’s version, I may very well have never been jettisoned into the vast musical universe. Simply put… I LOVED THIS SONG! There may in fact be an old VHS tape of a 7-year-old me singing this song while miming the Keytar, but that is a story for another time.

Like Lipps Inc., Pseudo Echo’s 1986 incarnation reached No. 1 in Australia (outlasting Lipps’ Inc.’s version by 5 weeks). At the age of 7, charts and prestigious awards didn’t concern me. What concerned me was dialing into the only radio station playing pop music that my little red Sony cassette player/radio combo could pick up in the desperate hopes of hearing Pseudo Echo’s illustrious, Funky Town. Anyone remember Z-104 transmitting out of Madison, Wisconsin? Probably not.

I think it was Dick Clark that said something about music being the soundtrack to our lives. I’ll subscribe to that. Funky Town would then serve as the first “single” in my life’s album of Greatest Hits.