"CAPTAIN BILLY’S MAGIC 8 BALL" -SEASON TWO- EPISODE FOUR. STIFFS LIVE (STIFF, 1978) IN HIGH DEFINITION - THE ENTIRE ALBUM WITH THE CAPTAIN'S MAGNETIC NARRATIVE -THE CAPTAIN EXPLORES HIS COVE OF 8 TRACK TREASURES.

Last May, my son Jasper and my daughter-in-law Hannah asked me what I would like for my birthday. I said what I always say: “Surprise me.” But then Hannah suggested that they get me an 8 track because she knows I collect them. She wanted to know which genre or artist I like. Also, she didn’t know how, or where to buy one. “Ebay,” I said, and jumped on there to peruse the recent auctions. I like them sealed, or at the very least in a less worn condition. The first delicacy to appear was this unopened gem, produced by the fine punks at Stiff Records in the year of 1978 (prime time for me). It was a good choice: a vivid time capsule, recorded con brio at the crest of the New Wave, with latter-day Punk attitude. Ian Dury, disabled, misanthropic satirist, closes the show, spitting his signature “Sex and Drugs and Rock n Roll” - (did he coin that phrase?) Nick Lowe opens the tape with his patented Power Pop, and Elvis Costello is… just amazing. He croons a Bert Bacharach tribute decades before they even worked together, and detonates a searing explosion of his own “Miracle Man,” displaying the Promethean chops that would soon catapult him to stardom. I feel like a grateful fisherman, after Poseidon unexpectedly washes something tasty up on the boat deck.