Blue Plate Special: Rush, AC/DC, UFO, Cheap Trick, and more!

June 29th marked the 52nd anniversary of Neil Peart joining Rush, replacing original drummer John Rutsey after the release of the band’s self-titled debut.  Neil immediately took over duties as the band’s chief lyricist and of course established himself as a hero to young percussionists everywhere. We played a song from each of Rush’s first three albums with their legendary stickman–1975’s Fly By Night & Caress Of Steel & 1976’s epic 2112. 

We celebrated the 77th birthday for Andy Scott—hardly a household name today, but a principal in one of the biggest entries in the glam rock derby, circa mid-70s, with his band The Sweet.  Bowie was the avant garde artist at the time; Alice Cooper was the ghoul; Lou Reed the seedy hipster; the New York Dolls and Iggy the proto-punks. London’s The Sweet was the power pop representatives of the genre, from whom one can draw a straight line to the likes of Motley Crue (a young Nikki Sixx tried to recruit Sweet singer Brian Connolly to front his new band) and a ton of other hair metal outfits. Not to mention Cheap Trick, who also toured with The Sweet stateside early in their own career and shared their pop sensibilities.

The first of the month! So, songs about paying rent. George Thorogood’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer” opens with a story about “the house rent blues.”  Ian Hunter’s old band Mott The Hoople got famous when, on the verge of breakup, buddy David Bowie gave ’em the classic “All The Young Dudes.”  He also gave Ian guitarist Mick Ronson after the breakup of Bowie alter-ego Ziggy Stardusts’s Spiders From Mars.  Mick features prominently on “Cleveland Rocks”, which notably drops lyrical reference to the rent being due. It also became the theme song for The Drew Carey Show, one of my favorite sitcoms growing up. And let’s not forget AC/DC’s “Down Payment Blues” from ’78’s Powerage album, which saw Bon Scott lamenting the pain of paying rent. And, though it was never a US radio staple, Rolling Stone Australia named it one of the band’s 25 essential tracks. Eddie Van Halen named the central riff one of his all time favorites (that wasn’t his own).

It was World UFO Day, so we played 3 songs from English rockers UFO. They were transitional between hard rock, heavy metal, and the new wave of British  heavy metal during the late 60s and 70s. They disbanded 3 times during their tenure, once in ’83, again in ’89, and finally in 2024 following vocalist Phil Mogg’s string of health issues. We played “Lights Out”, “Too Hot To Handle”, and “Only You Can Rock Me.”