Still Figurin' Out Who I Think I Am

This one's about the Rez Juke catch-up (3 of 9).

** Image ID #2009874 Unavailable **

I'm almost embarrassed to say I once owned this before I really understood what it was, who it was, or its magnitude.

For many years between my early 20's and mid 30's, there were two days out of the year on the local calendar a couple of us looked forward to: the spring and fall record shows at one of the local VFW halls. Remember, my early 20's were pretty much pre-internet, and what little internet was available certainly wasn't gonna provide me with even a sliver of the knowledge one gains today with five minutes and a high-speed connection.

And what we'd look for at those record shows were all the bootlegs. For anywhere between $5 and $30 you could get a tape or a cd (buyer beware: it might work in your walkman or discman, and it might contain all the songs it says it does, and the person selling it might have showered in the last thirty days...no joke; the shows were held in a newly-built building, yet the stink in the air was palpable).

We came across a Pearl Jam bootleg called The Five Musketeers, which was apparently the one every PJ fan had to own. It was cool because, if my memory serves me correctly, it had a few songs Eddie Vedder sang with The Doors, a few b-sides from their early singles ("Yellow Ledbetter"! Live! Only it sounded just like the released version, with applause overdubbed.), and some random shit no one knew what to make of (including a Bob Dylan cover, a Rolling Stones cover, and a super-shitty sounding Van Halen cover sung by Mike McCready).

And this..."Hold Your Head Up", which I knew I'd heard before on the local Classic Rock radio station. It was originally put out by a group called Argent   (consisting of members of The Zombies, The Kinks, and whose namesake went on to work with Andrew Lloyd freakin' Webber- Google him, for shits and giggles!), and as it turned out, what we were listening to was our first experience with Mother Love Bone  .

In the blank era of music between the hair bands of the 80's and the grunge explosion of the 90's, that's where you'd find Mother Love Bone. Literally half the glam of David Bowie and Poison, with the charm of Black Sabbath and darker Led Zeppelin cuts...they were poised to be the big thing comin' outta Seattle before big things came outta Seattle. But Andy Wood (the lead singer) OD'd on heroin, and instead we got Temple Of The Dog, Pearl Jam, and a slew of lesser-known acts. MLB's debut EP (Shine) and major-label album (Apple) eventually came out, but Nirvana had already been the game-changer and before anyone knew what was happening supermodels were sashaying down catwalks in flannel and MTV was proclaiming Seattle as the capital city of all the musics.

And there we were, once we got our hands on Apple, digging out and dusting off that copy of The Five Musketeers, wondering if- holy fuck, it's gotta be- the same guy from Mother Love Bone. Sho' 'nuff, it was. So, dead singer there, and I'm pretty sure Argent songs only show up in occasional Adam Sandler movies that are advertised as comedies but were never, ever funny, and were also possibly a little racist.

"And if it's bad...don't let it get you down, you can take it.
Hold your head up <repeated 40 times>...hold your head high!"
Lyrics.