Dude! Joe's Jottings, Mostly Junk

Michael Hedges demonstrates the "Harp Guitar" on this track.

One of the new street musician groups at the festival has a member who plays one of these, though not quite in the same way. They're quite good and you should try to catch them these next two weeks.

Is January 14, 1984

Last Week's top 3 were...

• Union of the Snake
• Say it isn't So
• Say Say Say (which as we know from last week it was the #1 song of the year, not saying much for the year to come)

So this was my 8th grade year, in the deep of a north florida winter.  Not too many memories of this other than digging the music.  I remember more about the spring, once biking around became a little less painful.  One particularly annoying day around this time was that my dog followed me to school and I had to wait it out (outside in the cold) while the office called my mom to give me permission to walk her back.

The PE class would actually still have outdoor games even if it was near freezing (that school has a gym building now, but they didn't back then).  I remember a particularly frozen soccer game with us all yell-singing "we're having a heat wave!".  didn't work too well.

And the countdown is off on a good start with...

40: Send me an Angel from Real Life

( 39-21... )
And into the top 10 we go with

10: Richie continues (this one on its way up), Running with the Night
9: Culture Club's Karma Chameleon
8: Elton John guesses Why They Call It The Blues
7: Break My Stride, from Matthew Wilder.  faireraven loves this but I was 'meh then and 'meh now.
6: The Romantics hear you Talking In Your Sleep.  Liked it, but since I started my 80s revival, it's come up a little too much on XM Radio's playlists.
5: ONJ's Twist of Fate, which really grew on me recently in my fitness craze given the tempo.  Probably was a big aerobics song (after Physical, which started the craze).  Written by the same guy who wrote Physical and much of the non-ELO tracks from Xanadu.  This would be the last hit he'd write.
4: Duran Duran's Union of the Snake dropped out of the top 3.
3: Say It Isn't So helps Hall & Oats surpass The Everly Brothers as top duo of all time
2: Yes's Owner of a Lonely Heart from 90125 hits #2 (on its way to #1, Yes's biggest anything ever).  Most probably know this (not sure if Casey ever did), but Trevor Rabin had this sketched and demoed before he met Squire and White (nevermind Jon, who joined late in the process), and had gotten the idea for the original riff while sitting on the toilet.  Some classic Yes fans consider that prophetic of the Rabin years, but I didn't care.

Oddly, Michael Jackson's Thriller is still the #1 album, even though he's not in the countdown with anything from it, as his single is #1 without being actually from that album:

1: Say Say Say

And with that, I'm eating lunch and cleaning the kitchen.

(technical issues, the "now playing" is off - it hasn't shown the right song yet, and actually isn't even close (like it's calling The Fixx's Sign of Fire as Chicago's Stay the Night!)...but I'm not complaining)

(you know who you are).

check out this when you feel like reliving a little nostalgia for that golden age of "stuff we watched when MTV showed a crappy video".