Happy November to you

Did you enjoy Catober? It is one of my favorite times of the year. Phoebe and Poe are good sports the whole month as I try to put one camera or another in their face. And they cooperated right until this weekend, when I was trying to get a traditional bonus photo. If you missed a day, you can click that link, above, and see them all in reverse chronological order.

It was cold, you see, and we’d just made breakfast on Sunday morning. Put the stove cover back on, which I built to keep cats off the stove. So they sit on the cover, or near it, to enjoy the radiant heat from the slowly cooling stove and oven. This is the routine. Part of it, anyway.

Good thing I made that cover, I guess.

I saw this scene as I was parking this morning. This is the parking deck a block from our building, adjacent to where the old hotel/dorm/office building was. In fact, this is that removal project. You can’t really see much of this from my office anymore, but the heavy machinery work continues, and a dad thought enoufh of it to bring his kid. And they had a time.

They’re busting up cement with the big machines. Big repetitive sounds. The kid is bouncing in dad’s arms in time. It’s the cutest thing.

This is quite the treat for both of them, I’m sure.

We ran across this in Indianapolis on Saturday, and it didn’t really fit in yesterday’s sparse entry, so I’m putting it here.

“We thought. You. Was A. Toad!”

The soundtrack to “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” in a future installment of the Re-Listening Project. Speaking of which …

There’s not much new you can say about 1977’s “Bat Out of Hell.” The Meat Loaf, Jim Steinman debut is one of the best selling records in the history of everywhere. Meat Loaf became an actor and enjoyed a well-deserved musical renaissance in the 1990s, but “Bat Out of Hell is the mark. It is certified 14-times platinum in the U.S. and spent 522 weeks on the charts in the UK. It’s also 26-times platinum in Australia and two times diamond in Canada. It topped the Australian, Dutch, and New Zealand charts in it’s day. A quarter century later it found its way atop the Australian, Irish andAmerican album charts again in 2022, and landed in the top 10 in four other countries. It was as, they say, a minor success. I think they issued it to people in the suburbs for a time.

There was a time when someone bought this record, invited their friends over, and put this needle on the vinyl for the first time. Imagine, or remember, hearing the first 100 seconds of this rock opera for the first time.

That’s one of those first-time experience I’d like to have once more. Wikipedia:

Steinman insisted that the song should contain the sound of a motorcycle, and complained to producer Todd Rundgren at the final overdub session about its absence. Rather than use a recording of a real motorcycle, Rundgren himself played the section on guitar, leading straight into the solo without a break. In his autobiography, Meat Loaf relates how everyone in the studio was impressed with his improvisation. Meat Loaf commends Rundgren’s overall performance on the track:

In fifteen minutes he played the lead solo and then played the harmony guitars at the beginning. I guarantee the whole thing didn’t take him more than forty-five minutes, and the song itself is ten minutes long. The most astounding thing I have ever seen in my life.

Next up, a bit of Van Hagar. I bought my first Van Halen record, “OU812,” as a cassette in 1988 or so, when it came out. The first Van Halen CD to appear in the collection is a bit later in their catalog. It, like so much of the Sammy Hagar holds up.

I should have played this filler-track for Halloween.

If you’re looking for classic Van Halen riffs and percussion …

This iteration of the band was doomed to fail just after the supporting tour. In retrospect, I think you can hear it in Alex Van Halen’s drum solo. There’s just something grievous and entropic happening in here.

Now, “Baluchitherium” didn’t make it onto the vinyl format because of time constraints, but it’s full of that classic sound. And, score one for a more modern format.

Real Van Halen fans thought this riff sounded familiar. They were correct.

The record was three-times certified as platinum in the U.S. and Canada, but it was the last of Hagar. The band got tense on the road, because this is the Van Halen story. Three years later there was the one record with Gary Cherone, and then the last studio album, the still-tumultuous David Lee Roth version of the group.

Altogether, Van Halen had 12 studio albums — all but one of those landed in the top 10, and four of them, including “Balance” went to number one. (Balance was the last to hit the top of the charts.) From all of that, and two live albums and two more compilation albums, they released 56 singles. Thirteen of those sat atop the charts in the United States, and another 10 landed in the Top 10. But every time Van Halen comes to mind, for some reason, I think “What if?”

I’m sure that’s just my timing, talking.

Speaking of timing … just you wait until you hear the underwhelming anecdote I have for the next item on the Re-Listening Project.

I shouldn’t say it is very underwhelming … that might set the bar too high. But the story will not impress you at all.

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