I used to have a big imagination as a kid. I guess I still do. Part of imagination was growing up out in the middle of nowhere with very limited TV. That was in a time when only the rich people had a dish, so we got the “big three” TV stations, CBS, ABC and NBC, and sometimes even those came in a little fuzzy. So watching TV was out of the equation as far as entertainment went when I was a kid. Video games weren’t around as much as they are now, and I doubt mom and dad would’ve got us an Atari anyway. Add to that, the nearest neighbors with kids were at least 4 miles away, and I definitely needed a wild imagination to keep me from getting bored. One thing my brother and I would do is to have our own farm. We had all the tractors, combines and trucks. That part didn’t take any imagination. The imaginative part was when it was time for harvest because there was no grain elevator to take our “crop” to. So we used mom’s upright piano. The cool part was that we used the peddles of the piano as the leg to run the crop up. Now that’s a good imagination. For cold and rainy days we created our own kind of a basketball/soccer/football game. This was used with a balloon and involved all of the hallways in the house. To score, you had to hit the balloon all the way to the end of the hall and then hit all the way back and hit one of the small windows in the front door. This could be either a 2 boy or 1 boy game. With 2 you try to stop the other, with just 1 it was more of a time trial sort of thing. Another time that my imagination would go wild was after big rains, which don’t come around to often in southwest Kansas. What I would do is create my own drainage system from all the puddles in the driveway. I’d take a stick and make “rivers” and “canals” to move the water where I wanted. In my own mind I was a great water engineer. And the thing is, I still have a wild imagination, I imagine in my mind that I have a big ranch up in the mountains with no one around but my wife, Kathy Ireland, who makes me breakfast in bed. But when Blackie Farrell’s mind saw skid row when he imagined and Bill Kirchen does a great job of making that song come alive on his mew CD, Hammer of the Honky Tonk Gods.
I don’t like the music they’re playing on my radio tonight
It’s a little too fast for me
It’s not quite blue enough for me
One thing about Bill Kirchen, he knows how to play his telecaster very well. And on this CD he has several times to showcase his ability on that instrument, and he does not disappoint any of his rockabilly fans. But this CD also has some great songs that are great in their own right. One such example is Get a Little Goner.
If you're gonna get gone, get a little goner
If you're gonna move along, move on a little bit longer
You think I want you back, you couldn't be wrong-er
Go on, get a little goner
I like the title tracks ability to name drop several of the great country and western artists. In my world, there is nothing wrong with a good name drop song. Working Man had a feel to me of what the music was like in the early days of rock and roll. I really liked that song, along with several others. He also did a good job of mixing up the songs, there were some with more soul, some with more rockabilly, some with more country, some were slower, some were faster, and I like that in a CD. Of course there was the song that was a little to deep for me, Rocks Into Sand, but then again, that is my problem in that I don’t stray off the shallow end very often. But if you’re a fan of great music that many have felt has left us by, then do not despair, because this CD is a good one.
So what have we learned today:
- I have an imagination
- Name dropping songs are cool
- And Bill Kirchen knows how to play a telecaster and sing a good song.
I’ll give this CD 4 out or 5 Kathy Ireland inspired breakfasts.