Episode 12: Top Ten Breezy Lizards

Show Notes:
Recorded Wednesday, August 9 2006, (9:00 PM – 11:00 PM) at Big Al’s in Browstown MI.
    “We tried using an agenda this week and ended up with our longest show yet. Bullet points include a look at the Week in Audio, our Top Ten favorite songs, reviews of Off to See the Lizard, and assorted walk-ons.”

    One of my less inspired titles, but I was in a hurry to upload the show this morning and couldn’t come up with anything better. Another sizable turnout with appearances from Mike, Mickey Schmoe, Scott, Greg, Kevin, Greg 2.0, and Meredith.
    I was requesting more structure to the shows (if only so we can up with some kind of formal closing rather than just letting the proceedings peter out like we usually do) so Schmoe typed up an agenda. This might expain all the paper-shuffling. Notice the different mic placement? For the heck of it, since we clustered aroud the end of the table, I mic’d from side to side of the table rather than from end to end. Schmoe’s “That was a big one. That was a little one” makes me think of a Dr Seuss book. The first “frog” (or Red Fish) is Kevin and the second frog (or Blue Fish) is Greg 2.0. Scott alludes to an FSGL incident earlier in the day when Mike failed to yell “Fore!” and his golf ball hit 2.0’s foot.
    You can download the complete Miles Hampton interview here or here, depending on your allegiance. The Steve Dahl interview is somewhat edited (I know I could’ve cut even more, but I liked what he had to say about License to Chill) and the performance of “Sweet Home Chicago” is heavily edited. For the sake of time, I excised a line or two, a couple choruses, and the guitar and piano solos; but at least you get to hear all of Jimmy’s new lyrics. The Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris album Jimmy mentions is presumably this one. Learn more about Gomez here. Keep track of Greg’s nicknames on the FSGL blog. As you can tell, I misquoted the “Nothing But a Breeze” lyric…but, like I said, I only heard it the one time.
    Top Tens:

    I’m compelled to point out how Scott had issues regarding cover versions in our lists, yet includes “Banana Republics” (Steve Goodman) and “Window on the World” (John Hiatt). Pwned, I say, sir. Pwned!
    There’s a curious discrepancy on the Off to See the Lizard release date. Some websites say June 19 1989 while others say June 26 1989. Even more curious, both these dates are Mondays, whereas I thought albums are commonly released on Tuesdays. I had to dig out my journal (way back to the old analog, typewriter days) to settle things. Along the way I found out Jimmy was on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson June 19 and Carson held up the LP and announced the new album was out “today”. A check of all the local record stores the following morning turned up nothing. (My journal also reminds me my job did not have “flexible hours” at this time. I was in fact still freelancing that summer.) My records eventually show I got the CD on Tuesday, June 27 1989, at the Tel-Goddard Harmony House:

    The new Buffett disc was first up in the new releases section [in the racks]. They didn’t have any on the wall or even in Buffett’s section. […] It was marked down to $14.99 but the guy gave me an additional 25% off ’cause of their Summer Sale. I paid $11.24 for it, plus 45 cents tax; total $11.69.
    […] I was pleased to see Hud’s car in his driveway. I hadn’t seen it when I’d left so I took the chance he wasn’t sleeping or anything and pulled up behind his car. He opened the front door, saw me, put up one finger, closed the door, and, bless him, shuffled his dog Bo downstairs. [Bo was huge and had bit me once.] I went back to the car to get the disc and we looked it over in the driveway. Joe’s sisters stopped by too. Joe had just called Hud up, asking about the disc, and his sisters were now off to Fairlane Mall to pick it up for Joe. I showed the disc to them too. It started to sprinkle so Bill and I went indoors. He put the disc on and couldn’t resist calling up Mike. We ragged on Mike, letting him know we were listening to the album and listening to it first while he couldn’t get to it till after work. I stood nearby, rubbing it in more by reading little tidbits from the CD booklet. It was then I noticed Buffett mentioned Michigan. We called around songs one and two.

    The occasional snippets of Off to See the Lizard are from Scott’s MacBook. The CMT show whose title escaped me is Nashville Now; and it wasn’t CMT, it was TNN. “ICE” is the “International CD Exchange” newsletter. It wasn’t St Kitt’s, it was Nevis (scroll to bottom of page). Isabella did not throw a shotglass at the ship’s clock, it was a champagne glass (Tales First Edition, page 152). Evidently I didn’t hear Greg say Jay Oliver wrote “Mermaid in the Night” or else I could’ve told him it was Mac McAnally. And apparently I’m a hypocrite because “I Wish Lunch Could Last Forever” has fake harmonica too.
    And even with a printed agenda, our show endings are just as awkward.

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