#22 Led Zeppelin (+ Butthole Surfers bonus)

Led Zeppelin is back at card #22 in the 1991 Pro Set MusiCards set. Looks like this copy here has a less-than-perfect top corner. Might have to poke around for an upgrade. I think I've got 2-4 copies of each Series 1 card at this point, so I've likely got a better one around somewhere. Sorting all of them is an ongoing process. If anyone is working on this set (or just looking for a favorite band's card), let me know and I should be able to help out with my dupes.

Oh, and along these lines, congrats are in order for Night Owl recently completing his 1991 MusiCards set! I appreciate the plug in that post, too!

That reminds me of another quick thing I wanted to mention. In my efforts to get more eyes on this blog, I've been trying to get it included in the Sports Card Blogroll run by James B. Anama. If you're not familiar, it's a handy list of pretty much every active blog in the cardsphere. A lot of folks browse that to find blog posts to read, so if you're a blogger, you want to be sure your blog is included there. James is usually very nice and quick to add new blogs. But the fact this is a non-sports blog throws a wrinkle and he's been reluctant to accept my add request. I feel this blog would fit right in under the "SET SPECIFIC BLOGROLL" section. Hey, the Gint-A-Cuffs blog is in there, and that's not strictly a sports card blog either. But I'd also be fine with a new little "NON-SPORT BLOGROLL" section added with this blog among the inaugural class. James might be wary of a flood of Pokemon/Magic The Gathering/Star Wars/etc blogs, but honestly I think that stuff is a whole different "cardsphere" altogether.. one that I'm not even sure exists, or if it does, I haven't stumbled upon it yet. I don't think I've gotten any commenters on this blog other than usernames I'm already familiar with from sports card blogs. I think most of us are familiar with MusiCards being everywhere in the early 90s right there with all the other "junkwax" we ripped at the local card shops back then. So I consider MusiCards closer to sports cards than other stuff that would fall under the "non-sports" umbrella. It's my belief that most card collectors are familiar with MusiCards and would appreciate the variety in blog reading with the occasional music post. And backing me up on that is a Twitter poll James did where the vast majority of respondents voted in favor of him adding the blog.

I received a request to add a ProSet SuperStars MusiCards set blog to the Sports Card Blogroll. Beyond the fact that it's not a Sports Card focused blog, should I add it to the Blogroll? Getting opinions. Please vote and leave comments if I should consider adding it to the site.

— James B. Anama (@bdj610) May 6, 2020

Last I heard from James, he was still considering adding the blog, though that poll was about a month ago now, so probably not at the forefront of his mind. If you think you can articulate reasoning for adding this blog to his blogroll beyond my pleas, please consider leaving James a friendly email or Twitter comment encouraging him to add the blog. Today is the 8-month anniversary of the 1991 MusiCards Blog, but still feels like we're having trouble getting out of the gate, and extending reach in blogrolls such as the one James maintains would be great. I'm not just looking for more page views, but more voices in the comments are very appreciated and make each post much more interesting for everyone. I'm always intrigued to hear other thoughts on the bands/songs/etc being covered.. feelings and memories readers have.. sometimes alined with my experience, other times a much different perspective. I'm not trying to boost my ego with lots of views and comments, rather I'd love to build a little online community for-- as the sidebar intro states-- "taking a trip back in time to the awesome 80s & gnarly 90s [...] talking about the music and more from the era (and beyond)."

Gah, I'm sorry for spending so much of the post on this!

But as for the card, looks like the fellas are in the middle of a seated, acoustic performance. I've watched The Song Remains The Same-- the concert film type thing recorded in '73 and released in '76-- a while back, but otherwise I haven't checked out much live Zeppelin, so I'm not sure if this was a common occurrence at their shows.

The back features a live photo-- electric, this time-- and a blurb focusing on Led Zeppelin IV.

"Stairway to Heaven" is an undeniably great song, right?! Maybe if you listened to a lot of 70s and 80s rock radio, you might be sick of it at this point. But for somebody like me who was only discovering this stuff around the time these MusiCards were first on shelves, it's still exciting when you hear the song quietly starting up. You know you're in for a ride. Even though I don't really have any idea what Robert Plant is singing about, it makes for an epic narrative song that feels like a short story or film.

With a duration of 8 minutes, it's very long as far as popular songs go. That and "Hey Jude" (7 minutes) were what radio DJs would play when they needed a bathroom break. Listeners couldn't get enough. "Stairway to Heaven" was the most requested song on FM radio stations in the United States in the 1970s.

CUSTOM CORNER

Going with the first thing that pops into my head here, I figured I'd go with the Butthole Surfers for today's accompanying Custom Corner. They've got an album titled Hairway to Steven (1988), hence the connection.

Butthole Surfers are a weird rock band that formed in San Antonio back in 1981. Their albums in the 80s weren't commercial hits but were big in the underground rock scene. Kurt Cobain was a fan and met his future wife, Courtney Love of Hole, at a Butthole Surfers/L7 concert.

The band eventually signed with Capitol Records in 1992, a surprising move that some fans felt was selling out their indie roots. Capitol hooked them up with a big-time producer to helm their major label debut.. (and hey, coincidentally fits well with this post). John Paul Jones, best known as the bassist for Led Zeppelin, produced Independent Worm Saloon (1993), with the single "Who Was in My Room Last Night?" garnering decent alternative radio play, plus got the band on MTV when the video was featured in an episode Beavis & Butt-head during the show's prime.

The follow-up album Electriclarryland (1996) saw the band reach the height of their mainstream success, with the single "Pepper" topping the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and its video getting solid rotation on MTV. Record label squabbles took some wind out of their sails and they seemed to settle back into "underground" status after that record.

They haven't been very active in recent years (latest album was released way back in 2001), though they play live once in a blue moon and may finally come out of hibernation for a new album one of these years.. who knows?

"I'm a surfer!"

I can't claim to be a huge Butthole Surfers fan, though I've got several songs of theirs in my iTunes library.

DESERT ISLAND DISC

1. Who Was In My Room Last Night?
2. The Wooden Song
3. You Don't Know Me
4. Human Cannonball
5. Revolution, Pt. 2
6. Lonesome Bulldog II
7. Golden Showers
8. P.S.Y.
9. Lonesome Bulldog IV
10. Concubine
11. Eye of the Chicken
12. Dum Dum
13. Cough Syrup
14. Pepper
15. Thermador
16. Jingle Of A Dog's Collar
17. TV Star
18. I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas
19. Night of the Day
20. One Hundred Million People Dead

There's my personal "best of" playlist for them. Frontman Gibby Haynes has also guested on a couple other songs I like, singing lead vocals on "Jesus Built My Hotrod" by Ministry and "Fire In The Hole" by Deconstruction. The early 90s side project P (with Johnny Depp and Flea) also had a couple tunes I like ("Michael Stipe" and "The Deal").

Ha, turns out Gibby was a star on the court back in high school.

Good enough excuse to whip him up a basketball card custom. Who says this blog isn't a sports card blog?! lol

That'll do it for this post. More Led Zeppelin on deck.

Any thoughts to share on "Stairway to Heaven" or the Butthole Surfers, please feel free to sound off in the comments.

#20 The Who (+ a Dimebox Dad custom set)

Ok, we're back! Neglected this blog for a few weeks, overshadowed by the covid-19 craziness we've all been dealing with since the previous post. But I'll try to get back on track. I promise this blog will never die until we reach the final card in the set or I'm physically unable to post for whatever reason (you know.. like death or significant mental impairment). But as long as I'm still kicking, this blog will keep inching forward, even if it takes us a freakin' decade or longer to get through the set! This I vow! LOL

Another reason that I was dragging my feet writing this post is I got to the end of the card images I had prepared, so that means the chore of scanning or photographing the next several cards in the set in preparation to post about them (Sure, I could find "stock" images online, but for whatever reason, it's important to me to use my own images with these MusiCards).

And another reason for my procrastination is it's hard to finalize those "desert island disc" lists (Best Of playlists) because sometimes I agonize over them more than I should. I know it's not a big deal, but I'm weird about it. I might try moving away from doing those lists since they're standing in the way of this blog moving along at a good pace.

But really, I'm looking forward to getting beyond the Legends subset that begins the set. Dealing with very popular bands means there's more history there to try to cover. And more notable songs to feature. More thoughts and memories of mine to ramble on about. So that makes the posts take longer to write. I'm anxious to get past the Legends and onto the pop acts of 1991.. especially lesser artists who were just a blip on the Billboard 200 radar and then disappeared forever. Bands I'm unfamiliar with. Bands where I'll struggle to have anything to write about. Those are the kind of posts I'm excited to research.. no offense to The Who and other greats of their ilk.

1991 Pro Set MusiCards Super Stars #20 The Who

I'd say this card is a significant improvement over the previous card that featured a distant live shot of the band. Here we see the four fellows hunkered tightly together for a promo photoshoot, Pete and Keith looking at the camera, with John and Roger looking off distracted.

The back features another posed shot, this time with the guys dressed up a bit fancier.

"The Kids Are Alright" is a great song and I'm kicking myself for forgetting about it in the last post. (See what I mean about stressing over which songs I pick? haha) I don't think I've seen the 1979 doc with that title the card mentions, but I wouldn't mind catching it sometime. Honestly, I don't think I've watched Tommy or Quadrophenia either. Maybe someday.

Something I have watched! The short-lived TV show from a year or two ago called The Kids Are Alright was a solid sitcom that took place in the 70s. (And it featured baseball cards sometimes!) Bummer it got cancelled. But that doesn't really have anything to do with The Who other than the title.

As far as The Who themselves on TV, well the first thing that pops in my mind is their guest appearance on The Simpsons. That was way back in 2000 ("A Tale of Two Springfields").

The Simpsons also snuck in a subtle Who reference in a different episode with this "file photo" from Springfield that's clearly an homage to the photo on the back cover of the album Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy.

I remember my mom owned Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy on cassette when I was a kid, and it was always very awkward whenever either of us said the title, as you can imagine. But yeah, that's a great Who best-of, originally issued in 1971 on vinyl (and 1980 on cassette).

I guess that's enough to say about The Who for now, but they'll be back on the blog with a pair of Historic Concerts cards coming up later in the set.

Hmmm... um... I can't really think of a band. Well, I was planning on a big Pearl Jam write-up (they were heavily influenced by The Who), but that would be a whole can of worms and I want to keep this short so I can hurry up and publish this post. So I'll save Pearl Jam for another day.

Tell you what, I'm just going to show off this custom set I made recently for Dimebox Nick's dad. A few years back, we worked out a deal where I whipped up some custom cards of a few of his favorite musicians in exchange for some decent baseball cards. And then he came up with a new list of names for "Series 2". He gives me free reign in choosing designs to use, though he digs 70s oddballs most of all. Here's how they turned out:

I wasn't familiar with many of these folks (best know the Minutemen and Replacements out of the lot), but it was cool learning about them all while putting the cards together (they all have backs, too).

Speaking of hooking people up with printed-out customs, I'm working on a limited special offer where readers can score a custom of their choice from me. Like a "MusiCards Blog Supporter Pack" thing where you throw a little "donation" to the blog and then I send you a custom card or two and other cool stuff like a mix CD and an exclusive "print edition" blogpost. I think it'll be fun!.. Stay tuned for this offer to show up in a future post once I get it all sorted out.

Next up on the blog, we kick off a stretch of Led Zeppelin cards. I'm hoping to bust thru them quickly, since as I mentioned, I'm anxious to get out of the Legends section and into the meat of the MusiCards set. See you soon!