Traveling Wilburys

The ol' Regular Express is back on track.



I thought it apt to start again where I left off way back in June with another Jeff Lynne-related song.

The Traveling Wilburys were a 5 guitar band, featuring the dried up talents of Lynne, Bobby Dylan, Tom Petty, George Harrison, and Roy Orbison. In fairness, the Big O, despite being generally past his career prime, still had every bit of the talent that he possessed in the 50's and 60's, and probably had the most to do with the Wilbury's success upon releasing their first album.

Their first album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, was generally acclaimed and recently reissued with the other volume, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 (the second volume is said to be Tom Petty's "Full Moon Fever", for which all the members contributed). I grew up listening to the first volume, but never really listened to Vol. 3 until recently. As Orbison passed away of a heart attack prior to the recording of Vol. 3, the album misses his presence. Lynne and Harrison attempt to ape his vocal delivery, but it simply doesn't stand up to the velvety voice of Mr. Orbison. The album is decent, though somewhat uneven, and doesn't quite stand up to the first volume. If he didn't sound like complete garbage before, Dylan is seriously phoning it in on this one (note the backwards baseball hat on the cover), but the other three were obviously capable enough songwriters, using this outlet to experiment with different 50's and 60's rock styles that prove mostly simple and effective.

My personal favorite from this album is "New Blue Moon", a Harrison-penned track that Dylan takes the verse vocals for. Fortunately, this song is all chorus, and it's probably the only track that Dylan is actually having any fun on. Where many of the other songs sound like watered-down blues and gospel (read: white), this one actually has a bit of real R&B flavor, what with the loose drums and sustained piano and whatnot.

Traveling Wilburys - New Blue Moon

09 - New Blue Moon by regularexpress

Electric Light Orchestra

The last week or two I've been waking up with really strange songs in my head. Just the other day I was looking for this ELO song that popped into my head one morning (I almost wrote pooped into my head, isn't that FUNNY?). Songs seem to be coming up out of nowhere lately, dusting themselves off from the archival abyss in the annals of my brain, and taking center stage in my consciousness. It's not by choice, at all. Two days ago it was Goo Goo Dolls' "Slide", I shit you not. There's some messed up wiring going on in my upstairs, you know what I'm saying?

So I was looking for this song, and I wasn't really sure what it was called, but figured I had it on my computer. So I searched through all 9 GDing ELO albums on my computer, only to come up empty. But about a year ago, before I got a turntable in my possession, I bought the ELO album "Discovery" from a dollar bin somewhere. Discovery came out a couple years after their back-to-back masterpieces, but right before their disco cheeseball phase. At this point they were only borderline disco cheeseball. Anyway, voila! Song's called "Shine a Little Love".

Electric Light Orchestra - Shine a Little Love

As it's the first song on this particular record, it opens with the obligatory space-time warping synth sounds, before quickly shifting into a huge hook, laden with hand claps and searing violin work. Discovery is kind of a hit and miss record, but it's worth that crate dig and 100 cents for the few noteworthy tracks on the record.

Here's the sweet, sweet video for the song.


Check out those glittering vests! See what I'm saying about borderline disco cheeseball?