Rock bottom flashbacks

Not sure why, but I’ve had the riff from UFOs “Rock Bottom” ricocheting around in my head for the past several days. Yesterday, I finally broke down and downloaded “Strangers in the Night” from iTunes. It’s truly one of the great live albums of the ’70s, and it’s largely forgotten. Michael Schenker’s guitar work is amazing. The dude was a whack job, but he could shred. And he had a sense of melody that many speed demons lack.

I’ve been listening to the album nonstop almost since I downloaded it, bringing back memories of Pittsburgh teen angst, Iron City beer and the parking lot of a dilapidated skating rink where we spent way too many nights blasting UFO from a boom box, taking particular pride in the fact that we were sitting in a former stone quarry that used to be called Rock Bottom.