The Vinyl Collection: Rockpile

I think I may have found a way to stay connected to the blog during this period at work where I'm writing thousands of words about the state budget and the governor's proposed local control funding formula for public schools.

Recipe - take an album from the vinyl collection, attache a picture, and write as many words as I'm in the mood and/or have time for.  No albums that would be considered an all-time classic, and nothing that I also own on CD.  So now that we have those ground rules set...

"Seconds of Pleasure" was the first (and only) album released under the moniker of Rockpile, although the band - Guitarists Dave Edumunds and Billy Bremner, bassist Nick Lowe, and drummer Terry Williams - had performed on notable albums released by Edmunds and Lowe.

Even though they were pub-rock veterans, both Lowe and Edmunds got thrown into that amorphous, late 70s category that meant everything and nothing - "new wave" - probably because Lowe produced the early Elvis Costello albums and Edmunds covered a Costello song (although so did Linda Ronstadt, and it didn't do much for her artistic integrity).

Lowe and Edmunds each released strong albums in both '78 and '79, and then "Seconds of Pleasure" came out in the fall of 1980.  It was about as far from a new wave album as one could possibly imagine - if anything, it sounded like a recording by a band that had been frozen in the Arctic for 25 years.  It's hard-rocking, and it's fun, and ultimately as lightweight and disposable as they come.  But I really liked it at the time, and still pull it out every now and then when I'm in the mood for some loud and fast fifties-influenced sounds.