MY FRIEND$, MY FRIEND$, It’s Worth The MONEY!

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NO CONTROL
by Eddie Money
released: 1982
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Alright now, I’m doing a little stepping back in time reviewing NO CONTROL, Eddie Money’s sharp, 1982, pink ‘n’ black album which found his slim frame in a suit and tie and looking so... ”money.”
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When Eddie’s debut album came to my attention in 1978 due to the radio airplay of “Baby Hold On” [#11 in Billboard], I bought it but didn’t spin it often. I thought most of the songs were too spare and unadventurous musically and that his voice was nondescript.
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I never purchased another Money collection until 1982’s NO CONTROL, though I scarcely remember acquiring it because I was drunk that year. And the next. In truth, those first 4 years of that decade were the height of my partying life. I was living in a house (it’s now a condominium) at 824 Bay Street in Santa Monica (just seven blocks from the skateboarding Z-Boys former surf shop hangout). At that time, 824 must have been the most consistently rowdy house in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. John Belushi and National Lampoon’s 'ANIMAL HOUSE'? Pish 'n' Pshaw! That was us when we were BEHAVING ourselves!
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We were THE LEAGUE OF SOUL CRUSADERS, and as Pooh said, “We drank. We drank a lot. We drank more than we did not.” And yeah, you might have heard some of these hard-rocking Eddie Money tunes blasting from 824 back in the day... and the night. (Our neighbors loved us so much that the entire street signed a petition to send us packing. I guess they enjoyed our act to such a degree that they wanted to see us take it on the road.)
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By 1982, Money had learned how to write a solid, head-banging Hard Rock tune, and how to use that slight croak in his voice to maximum effect. The rockers on this set, starting with the great road tune SHAKIN’, are all fiercely guitar-propelled and rhythmically driving songs that had all of us liquidated bad boys breaking out the air guitars nearly twenty-five years ago. We eventually grew up and changed.
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And that’s something else I liked about NO CONTROL: Five years after that other Eddie had revolutionized the electric guitar and had every player emulating him with Van Halenesque “tapping”, here we had Jimmy Lyon and Marty Walsh playing in the old Rock style -- more sustain and distortion -- and it suddenly sounded fresh and exciting again. And on DRIVIN’ ME CRAZY, Tony Brock is the guest drummer behind the kit. Tony Brock? C’mon, dude! He was the stickman for The Babys and, for my “money”, one of Rock’s more formidable and underrated drummers. In ANY BAND not named 'The Babys', Tony Brock would have received the attention he deserved.
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I don’t listen to Rock a great deal anymore; I graduated to the upper I.Q. of Jazz long ago. But every once in awhile (and especially after all my beloved Christmas songs at the conclusion of the Holiday season) I need to hear some fast tunes with loud guitars, and Eddie’s NO CONTROL is right on the money.
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Interspersed between the 80 mile-an-hour road runs on NO CONTROL, Eddie has some "school zone" ballads that drop us back down into first gear. Necessary I suppose for balance, but they suffer by comparison, seeming a little droopy. But the one great exception for me is [link> MY FRIENDS, MY FRIENDS, which is really the principal reason I reacquired this album on compact disc. It’s a wistful look back at the friends who made our old times so special and so memorable. It’s a sad song made sadder by some truly mournful harmonica playing beautifully rendered by the Moneyman himself:
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“My memories are happy / My memories are sad / But I love to take my pictures out / And see the things I had... / My friends, my friends / We never got together again / But I really do miss my friends”
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THE LEAGUE OF SOUL CRUSADERS: Torch, Pooh, Twinkie, Cranium, Napoleon -- hey, you guys, it’s me, Mr. Intense. I want you guys to know that I still take my pictures out and remember what we had. And I still love you guys... wherever you are*.
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*Actually, I do know where my brother, Napoleon, is. He’s outside beating up the biker and his pit bull again. I can tell by the dog’s whining and the biker’s crying. I guess it’s nice that one of us never grew up and changed.
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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