When You Buy The Whole Album And Only Like One Song.

@edcyn: I loved living in that end of Burbank. I walked my dogs over to the Bob Hope Park everyday and let them sniff around awhile. You know The Safari Inn on West Olive? Lucinda Williams stayed there while recording one of her 2000’s albums.

Did you ever eat at Don Cuco’s? Best Mexican food I’ve ever had! Around the corner is Bob’s Big Boy; open 24 hours, so that’s the place to go after a late night gig (some of mine went to 1 or 2 in the A.M.). On Friday nights there is a Vintage Car Show in the Bob’s parking lot; lots of pompadours and ducktails, cuffed blue jeans, and chicks with short bangs and tats. Love it!

By the way, David Lynch says it was in Bob’s that he sat all night during some of the time he was working on Eraserhead, drinking coffee (and no doubt eating cherry pie ;-) and working on the script. He has a home in the Hollywood Hills now of course. ;-)

Rock drummers like to tout their Jazz-influenced chops (basically knowing the rudiments), but Mitch Mitchell actually put his to good use (saw him live twice). A current guy doing the same is Steve Gadd.

Earl Palmer is best-known as the drummer on early Rock ’n’ Roll hits by the likes of Little Richard (as well as a lot of Pop studio work, including on Phil Spector recordings, even Frank Sinatra), but he considered (R.I.P.) himself a Jazz musician (he came out of New Orleans). In his last days he had a trio that played in the bar at the steak house (now shuttered) directly across the street from the NBC studio in Burbank where the Tonight Show is filmed. I and a lot of other locals sat in the bar to watch a master at work. My house was two blocks away, so I could walk there.

One genre that is heavy with "1-hit wonders" is the Garage Band music of the 1960’s. After The British Invasion took over the music business in 1964, every town and city in America witnessed an explosion of local bands who were inspired by The Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Animals, Yardbirds, Who, etc. In my home town of San Jose, California, we had The Syndicate Of Sound ("Hey Little Girl"), People ("I Love You", a cover of The Zombies song), The Count Five ("Psychotic Reaction", an obvious, blatant, shameless imitation of The Yardbirds’ "I’m A Man", itself a pale, whitebread cover of the Muddy Waters original), The Chocolate Watchband (no hits, but three albums on Tower Records, and an appearance in the Roger Corman teensploitation movie Riot On Sunset Strip. I was in attendance at their first live gig. The Watchband’s drummer was a couple years ahead of me at Cupertino High.), and Stained Glass (no hits, but two albums on Capitol Records. Bassist/singer Jim McPherson left the group to join Copperhead, the band started by Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist John Cipollina. John’s brother Mario was later the bassist in Huey Lewis & The News.).

Anyway, Rock ’n’ Roll historian, critic, publisher (Bomp magazine), record company owner (Bomp Records), and Garage Band fanatic/collector Greg Shaw was (R.I.P.) about as hardcore a 45 collector as I am aware of. At the time of his death in 2004, his collection of 7" 45 RPM singles devoted to regional Garage Band releases numbered 100,000! That’s a lotta shoe boxes ;-) . By the way: when Greg was managing The Flamin’ Groovies, their fan club president was Mirian Linna, later the first drummer of The Cramps. I still have my Flamin’ Groovies Fan Club badge, handmade by Miriam. She quit The Cramps to join the NYC Rockabilly band The A-Bones, and has a coupla solo albums. Very cool chick.

You guys don’t own any 7" 45’s? I have about 600 of ’em, mostly by "non-album" kind of artists (early-60’s). "Maybe" by The Chantels---a stupendous, glorious Pop masterpiece, later covered by Dave Edmunds on his fantastic second album Subtle As A Flying Mallet. "Halfway To Paradise" (written by Carole King & Gerry Goffin) by Tony Orlando (yeah, THAT Tony Orlando), covered in 1977 by Nick Lowe on his 3rd Stiff Records 45 (non-LP) in a fantastic version

Another reason to own 45’s: Some of them contain non-album songs (such as the Nick Lowe above), or alternate versions/mixes of album songs. The original 45 of Dylan’s "Positively 4th Street" was mis-pressed, and actually contains his first recording of "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window", a very cool song. One recording of the song was done with his NYC studio band, the other with The Hawks (later of course known as The Band).

7" 45 RPM singles are cool! So are 12", one great one being "Would I Lie To You" by The Eurythmics, a killer song with drumming by Clem Burke (Blondie) and excellent recorded sound quality.