Today’s rips were a few CDs brought in from the car from recent car trips to Seattle. These included The Clash’s ‘London Calling’, ‘Mother’s Milk’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, ‘Achtung Baby’ by U2 and the ‘Every Breath You Take’ Police compilation.  Let me start off by saying that I love the Police, especially the first few albums. Sting I hung with for a couple of albums, but by the time the 1986 remix of ‘Don’t stand So Close To Me’ came out I was rather disappointed. The original version is SO much better then the remix (which simply seemed to me to be a way to try and get new Sting fans to buy a Police record). But what surprised me on this recent listening to the compilation as well is that it is MOSTLY geared towards that audience. Where is ‘So Lonely’ and ‘Bring On The Night’? Well – that is the problem with compilations in general. Oh well.

And it is for those same reasons that, even though I have already ripped ‘Clash on Broadway’, I sure am glad to have ‘London Calling’ (and a few others) to rip as well. One of my earliest record cover memories is of ‘London Calling’ from when I was about 5. Or maybe I should rephrase that… it is one of my earliest memories of being struck by an album cover. I remember my first record (a copy of the Grateful Dead’s ‘Terrapin Station’ that I was given after putting a scratch into ‘Estimated Prophet’), and I remember seeing other covers that kind of scared me (David Grisman’s ‘Hot Dawg’, for some reason, terrified me as a little kid). But ‘London Calling’ was one that I remember staring at. I kept expecting the picture to move, and for the guitar to finally fall to the stage and shatter like glass (a vivid imagination… the result of smashing a bass onto a stage actually results in a rather clumsy situation) but on this cover there was so much potential for beautiful destruction. I can’t imagine that the moments after this picture was taken are in existence, and if they are I bet they aren’t as exciting as this one. And as I grew older and got into The Clash, this is also one of the albums (in it’s entirety) that I grew to like the most. How many double albums are in existence with such a high level of music on just about every track? I don’t really think there is a single throw-away or side filler on the record… and on top of that there is a GREAT hidden track! You get ‘London Calling’ all the way to ‘Revolution Rock’ which is a fabulous 18 songs… then there is ‘Train In Vain!’. Damn.

The copy of ‘Achtung Baby!’ I have is one of the first pressings, in the eco-friendly paper packaging. I’ll never forget a quote I heard by Bono shortly before the album came out. When asked about ‘the FLY’ (as it is printed on the CD track listing) he said ‘that’s the sound of four guys chopping down a Joshua Tree’. And if there is anything I respect the most about U2 up through and a bit past ‘Zooropa’, it was the fact that they weren’t afraid to strike out in new directions, even when popular trends would suggest doing the opposite. After the huge success of ‘Joshua Tree’ (and a little more of the same with ‘Rattle and Hum’, who would guess that the same band would come back with ‘Achtung Baby!’. And though ‘the FLY’ and ZOO station’ certainly seem to be a departure, ‘ONE’ certainly exists as a bridge between the two worlds, and ‘LOVE IS blindness’ with a little re-working certainly could have existed in that earlier world. But what I remember most about this album was the sense that it was pushing into some sort of unknown territory, and with that there could be excitement. Of course I later realized that the territory was well trod by others (and having Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno and Flood working on the production certainly helped with that).

Tamiko and I were able to get tickets to the Zoo TV tour. Cars hanging from the roof for spotlights, huge multi-screen television displays and all. It was great. The show was expected to sell out quickly, and I worked at Tower at the time, so I figured I had an in. I would show up at 6am (the earliest we usually allowed people to line up for tickets) and I would kick everyone out and grab a spot at the front of the line. Now in reality, this would have led to a pretty bad ass kicking for myself. Lucky for me, when I got to the store at 6am there was already a line of a few hundred people, and I wasn’t the first Tower employee to show up. All the store management was already there, and I went to stand in line like everyone else. I still got tickets (though not on the floor) and Tamiko and I saw a great concert (with the Pixies opening!!!). And in spite of the promise by the band to not play anything pre-‘Achtung Baby!’, we had some nice helpings of ‘Running To Stand Still’ (probably my favorite U2 song) as well as ‘Pride (In The Name Of Love)’ and ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ (complete with ‘Rattle and Hum’ like strobe effects for the beginning of the song).

Finally – ‘Mother’s Milk’. First heard some track off of it on a band trip, and Dave Lasley had it on his portable CD player. Oooh… how I wanted a portable CD player back then. As the bus was moving, I would hear 20 seconds of a song… skip … 20 or so more seconds… but in between was some bass playing that Dave really admired, and it blew me away. So I decided to try and by the CD the next week and had to back off when I saw the cover. No way my parents were going to let me walk up to the register with a naked women conveniently holding 4 guys across her mid section. The disc had to wait until I was working (at Dairy Queen) and I had my own car to get me back and forth to the record store. Still an album that was very much worth the wait.  And damn it… now I can’t get ‘Magic Johnson’ out of my head again… ergh…