Today is July 1, time to "get fiscal". Pun aside, it's in the news: there's not enough "Greece" to let European tensions slide by. Okay, not the last pun and not the last reference to sliding.

Summer and associated concerts have returned, and whatever the rate of return a considerable portion of the yearly ducats, shekels and lucre commence being tallied.

The shopping centers' and parks' series of free shows are predominantly tribute bands and I have long had a few covers maybe, just maybe in this debunked era of the alleged individual only I have conjured. "National Lampoon" once had Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet covering "Plastic Ono Band". It was never recorded, or maybe I'm just scared to check.

Speaking of fear, back to my inner vision and pull up your own covers, you never know if this may actually become scary.

First off, I always have wanted to hear Mose Allison do Led Zeppelin's "Rock And Roll". That's not a big stretch for his rightfully titled bluesy, laconic style and it would be performed in his usual format. A veteran organ-trio type guitarist like, say, Melvin Sparks---Russell Malone or even, if we want a bit of boost, Robben Ford are also on my short list---could supply the loping fills.

Maybe one of Nora Jones' players. Come to think, back when she seldom recorded anything particularly up-tempo I can imagine her and Jan Gabarek simmering on "Having A Wild Weekend". Or sort of one.

Now we jump the gap, the chasm, probably another dimension. In good or bad times, probably more often the latter, I play to myself Joni Mitchell singing T-Rex's "The Slider". Warbling is much closer, and I specifically have the watery over-dubbed harmonies of "Ladies Of The Canyon" in mind as she moves the line up a third to deliver, "I could never understand the wind at all was like a ball of love . . ." Ah, the delicious crest to that line, and capable of shattering the most sturdy tuner in a beautiful way.

Finally we have the late Rat Pack. Or I do, and also a fear of just maybe looking at an odd phone number coming in and wondering if I've upset "the estate". It seems as natural as a funnel cloud rampaging a fresh site of a local earthquake to have them hammer home "Insane In The Membrane".

Dino, twinkling and also in the warbling pantheon: "Insane in the membrane . . ."

Sammy, channeling a tiny bit of Buddy Hackett (the Vegas vibe?): "Insane in the brain!"

Frank, with a delivery born of don't mess (in all the meanings unprintable here) with him just----drilling it: "Insane in the membrane . . . "

Sammy, reprise: "Insane in the bra-a-a-a-i-i-i-in . . . ."

So there's the stadium in my mind, which is a reference to that product of an era far messier than it liked to admit aka the 70's: "Playground in my mind".

I can just hear Engelbert Humperdinck delivering that title line . . . .