"Cattle beware of snipers"*

Started out listening to Fun House by The Stooges this morning, with the mighty Ron Asheton on my mind. I really wasn't up to that one, so for some reason I drug out Back To The Egg by Paul McCartney & Wings. I really dug this record when it came out, adding a little edge to the usual Wings thing. Sounds to me like Paul had picked up a copy of Never Mind The Bullocks after cranking out London Town.

Then, to add to the whole deal, I checked out a bootleg of the very last Wings show from Scotland in December of 1979, when they were touring for Back To The Egg. (It's called Last Flight and it's on Vigotone.) The band's next stop was gonna be Japan, of course, but Paul's suitcase took care of that. And that was the end of Wings.

This was the first Beatlesque record I bought new as a full-fledged, card-carrying Beatle geek. Got it the day it came out and played in constantly for weeks and weeks. No wonder it casts such a large shadow across my turntable. Anyway, over lunch, I thought I'd write something intelligent about this record, urging people to drag it out of their vinyl stash and give it another listen. It got slammed back in '79, but I feel it's really underrated — and probably my personal favorite McCartney record end-to-end.

But I found this great article/reappraisal on The Beachwood Reporter site. They take a very informed, yet smartass approach to the record, saving me the trouble.

And I'm still just sick about Ron Asheton.

* That's a line from "Getting Closer."