586. Cramps: Gravest Hits
587. Cramps: Songs the Lord Taught Us
588. Cramps: Psychedelic Jungle
589. Cramps: "The Crusher" 12-inch
590. Cramps: Smell of Female
591. Cramps: A Date With Elvis
592. Cramps: Rockinnreelininaucklandnewzealandxxx
593. Stations of the Crass
594. Crawdaddys: Crawdaddy Express
595. Randy Crawford: Abstract Emotions
596. Crazy Cavan 'n' the Rhythm Rockers: Crazy Rhythm
597. Crazy Horse
598. Fresh Cream
599. Heavy Cream
600. Creedence Clearwater Revival: Green River
601. Creedence Clearwater Revival: Willy and the Poor Boys
602. Creedence Clearwater Revival: Cosmo's Factory
603. Creedence Clearwater Revival: The Royal Albert Hall Concert
Mixworthy: "Sunglasses After Dark," #587; "New Kind of Kick," #589; "I Don't Want to
Talk About It" and "Downtown," #597; "White Room," "Badge," "Passing the Time," "I'm
So Glad," and "Sunshine of Your Love," #599; "Bad Moon Rising," #600; "Fortunate
Son," #601; "Ramble Tamble," "Up Around the Band," and "Who'll Stop the Rain," #602.
Don't have "Born on the Bayou"--not good.
Seeing the Cramps, Crazy Cavan, the Crawdaddys, and Creedence in the same batch is
instructive as to the paths available to anyone whose worship of the past becomes a
guiding principle: you're either a novelty act from the outset (Crazy Cavan and the
Crawdaddys); an inspired imitation for an album or two, until your lack of a second
idea reduces you to a novelty act (Cramps); or you reinvent what you love and re-
flect your times in complicated ways that are still difficult to get a handle on 35
years later--that would be Creedence Clearwater Revival. I think that among people
in my general demographic--rather than give an age bracket, I'll just say anyone who
remembers hearing "Up Around the Bend" while it was still on the charts--there's
more goodwill towards Creedence than virtually anyone from the era. Maybe anyone,
period--you'll see the Beatles get knocked around now and again, but I don't know
that I've ever come across a truly negative word said or written about Creedence
Clearwater Revival. They were brilliant, they owned Top 40, and they came and went
in the blink of an eye...Cream, on the other hand, has become one of the default
villians in assigning blame for all the bloated pretensions of the late '60s. May-
be--I've never owned Disraeli Gears or Wheels on Fire, so I guess I managed to duck
that side of them. Stick with the first album (from which I could list another song
or two) and the compilation, and I think they're often pretty great...I should say
more about the Cramps, who were my favourite group on the planet in the wake of
Songs the Lord Taught Us (it all started with Robot A. Hull's Creem review), but
those couple of years are as inaccessbile to me right now as my high-school infatu-
ation with Wishbone Ash's Argus (!). I will say that Lux Interior and Ivy Rorschach
are excellent archivists: the three-volume Songs the Cramps Taught Us, which I
assume they had a hand in compiling, is an impressive catalogue of all-around
weirdness.
________________________________________________________________________________
604. Marshall Crenshaw
605. Marshall Crenshaw: Field Day
606. Marshall Crenshaw: Downtown
607. Marshall Crenshaw: Mary Jean & 9 Others
608. Crests: Greatest Hits
609. The Crickets
610. Crime & the City Solution: Trust
611. Sonny Criss/Kenny Dorham: The Dedication Series, Vol. 1: The Bopmasters
612. Roz Croney: How Low Can You Go?
613. Bing Crosby: Merry Christmas
614. The Best of Bob Crosby
615. Crosby, Stills & Nash
616. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Déjà Vu
617. Crowded House
618. Cruzados
619. The Cry
Mixworthy: "Cynical Girl," #604; "Whenever You're on My Mind," #605; "Blues Is
King," #606; "This Is Easy," #607; "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "Marrakesh Express,"
#615; "Helpless" and "Country Girl," #616. "Sixteen Candles" (#608) is used really
well in American Graffiti, so I'm tempted to list that too, but I've made a lot of
doo-wop tapes for a lot of people and never included it on any of them. The record
that follows the Crests is not Buddy Holly's Crickets but early '50s doo-wop out
of New York. Same situation as the Capris/Capris: obscure black group first, more
famous white group later (in this instance, considerably more famous). I wanted to
set up a joke here predicated upon an obscure hip-hop group who'll one day have
their name stolen, but I can't think of anyone sufficiently current--doesn't
every new hip-hop artist enter the charts at #1 now?
I'm sure there must be two or three more Marshall Crenshaw songs worth listing; I've
got one per album. I'd never really taken notice of how bizarre the cover of Field
Day is. Not only does Marshall look to be about nine years old, he's been airbrushed
into a state of almost total artificiality. I've hardly made mention of anything that
post-dates vinyl thus far, but there's a great cover of Grant Hart's "Twenty-Five
Forty-One" on one of Crenshaw's mid-90s CDs...I've twice been surprised to learn of
an almost visceral hatred of my two favorite Crosby, Stills & Nash songs harbored
by friends. I don't know--"Marrakesh Express" is about as intricate and as playful
as acoustic folk-pop ever gets for me, and I still get caught up in all the twists,
turns, and detours of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," especially the ecstatic final minute.
Neil Young brings something much gloomier and more foreboding to Déjà Vu--"Country
Girl"'s one of my all-time favourite Neil songs--but for all of Nash's simpiness and
the megalomania of the other two, I think they were on to something even before Neil
arrived...With no expectation at all of anything turning up, I did an image search on
the Roz Croney ("Queen of the Limbo") album--great cover. Not only did I locate an
excellent scan that I'll post when I archive this section, I found out that the LP's
a big deal because she's backed by Sun Ra (it came out in '63). I don't have a single
Sun Ra album. I mean, I didn't have a single Sun Ra album until today; now I have his
hard-to-find limbo record.
________________________________________________________________________________
620. The Crystals Sing Their Greatest Hits!
621. Cult: Love
622. Cult: Live at the Lyceum - London - 20th May 1984
623. Cult: "Love Removal Machine" [double!] 12-inch
624. Culture: Two Sevens Clash
625. Culture Club: Kissing to Be Clever
626. Culture Club: Colour By Numbers
627. Culture Club: Waking Up With the House on Fire
628. Culture Club: From Luxury to Heartache
629. Cure: Standing on the Beach: The Singles
630. Curtie and the Boombox: Black Kisses
631. The Best of King Curtis
632. dB's: Stands for deciBels
633. dB's: Repercussion
634. dB's: The Sound of Music
Mixworthy: "He's a Rebel," "There's No Other (Like My Baby)," "He's Sure the Boy I
Love," and "Then He Kissed Me," #620; "Boys Don't Cry," #629; "Black and White,"
#632; "Neverland," #633.
Culture Club and the early '80s wave of British MTV bands is another one of my blind
spots. I know that for some people of a certain age, that period is viewed with the
same deep nostalgia as the early '70s are with me. I like "Do You Really Want to Hurt
Me?" and "Church of the Poison Mind" and "The War Song," but my general antipathy to
anything identified with that moment gets in the way...I love the gravity and sense
of momentousness the Cult bring to #622's title. I don't recall any major 20th-anni-
versary commemorations last May 20th, but I'm going to begin lobbying the Canadian
government immediately to make sure this year's "Lyceum Day" does not pass by unrec-
ognized. We can't quite claim Ian Astbury as our own, but he did spend part of his
adolescence down the road a piece from me in Hamilton, the two of us transfixed by
the majesty of Crime of the Century right around the same time.