Every true music fan has in their pocket a short list: the artists who hold special meaning. Our relationships to those artists are different from the rest. Each release means something. They're not just records, they're events, they're signposts...repositories of all related memories: past, present and future.

Shortly after I cracked open Bruce Springsteen's Devils and Dust, before a single note was heard, a couple of very important memories fell out. The older of the two happened back in 1982. On a routine trip to the University of Maine bookstore I found an astounding and pleasant surprise: Nebraska. This was back before the internet or magazines such as Ice, so there was no advance warning. Here I was on my usual path, attempting to quench the music thirst and I'd been handed an ocean of relief. I remember the feel of the shrink wrapped cover, maybe even a little of that plastic smell. Back at the dorm, when I waved the album in the air so as to tease my friend Ed, his jaw dropped open in awe (we had recently become so anamoured of the Springsteen bootlegs "Live at the Agora" and "Fire From The Fingertips" that we'd been listening to them to the exclusion of most other music).

To be honest, I can't quite remember my initial reaction to the music. Thematically, the material followed Springsteen's penchant for following characters through their bad and good. Musically, this was not The River. Instead, things were all stripped down. I liked what I heard and instinctively knew that it was great....but at the same time...I just wasn't ready for it and didn't know what to think.

A more recent memory was again of a solo Springsteen release. I brought my new copy of The Ghost of Tom Joad over to my fiance's house to give it a first listen. With the "Nebraska incident" fresh in my mind, me & Linda sat on the couch and listened to the record straight though while reading from the lyric sheet. It's easy for me to tear up thinking about this now, because I remember being just so happy at being able to share my discovery of the music with her in this way (something I was never able to do in my first marriage).

Now it's time for Devils and Dust to make its own way. Here I sit very late at night, in a hotel room on the coast of Maine. Linda (you know her as "The Wife") is sleeping soundly, swallowed by the enormous king size bed. In the quiet, I find that it's tough to put the old memories aside to make room for the new ones.

You have to constantly be writing from your own inner core in some fashion I find y'know?... No matter how you dress it, y'know?... Whether, in my early records where I was sort of dressing it whether it was in New York City or whether it was on the Jersey shore or whether it was set in the West. You're still writing from the essential core of who you are. That has has to be at place in every song or the song dies. The point of it was your own voice is supposed to, if you're doing it correctly, is supposed to disappear into the voice of the person..uhm..you're singing about and who's telling you the story. What would they do? What wouldn't they do? How would they behave in this circumstance? The rhythm of their speech...that's where the music comes in.

This was how Springsteen explained his method of narrative and song construction (from the DVD side of Devils and Dust).

Yes, in that American troubadour style of storytelling, Springsteen does indeed disappear into the varied cast of characters...to discover how they'll make it through their long ago, and their tomorrow.

Unlike both Nebraska and Tom Joad, the characters here are a little more diverse. There's the conflicted soldier of the title track, the hopeful parent of "Long Time Coming", the crushed romantic ("Reno"), the motherless son ("Silver Palomino") and even Jesus Christ (the powerful "Jesus Was An Only Child").

These are all songs about people whose souls are in danger...or at risk through where they are in the world or what the world is bringing to them. That's a human constant. And whether people are religious or spiritual or not...that risk is something people instinctively feel on a daily basis.

Some of the people here navigate through their trouble successfully. Others meet with tragic ends. Devils and Dust ends with the sad reverse-chronology of a man's attempt at finding a better life in the United States by way of the Rio Grande river. Given the title track's ambivalence toward war, "Matamoros Banks" seemed like a fitting conclusion (people die 'for us' for many reasons).

Musically, Devils and Dust has much more of a full band sound than it's cousin-recordings with Springsteen handling many of the instruments but with backing help from a variety of guests including the rock-solid Steve Jordan on drums, Dan Federici on keyboards and Patti Scialfa and Soozie Tyrell on vocals. The DVD side of the DualDisc (I'll refrain from comment on this new format for now, as their are good and bad points) has Bruce playing five of the tunes in a solo acoustic guitar format. "Reno" and "Matamoros Banks" are far mor powerful in this format.

I wonder if, many years from now, I'll look back at my introduction to Devils and Dust and remember the vacation that embraced it...that a band named Green Day played a sold-out show right around the corner, that it rained for most of the day, that I wished I could never leave this city...that I wrote this review on the 12th floor of this old hotel.

We'll see.

I hope.

Yesterday, during the morning and very early afternoon, it rained cats, dogs & sea turtles around here. Now, you might think that this kind of slop might put the breaks on vacation activity. Nah. Remember, book and music people look at the days in terms of opportunities. I'm reading that new Barry Miles/Frank Zappa bio...when can I fit in the next chapter..etc.

Well, yesterday was trip-to-LL Bean day. You will not be surprised to find out that I happen to know of a very fine record store not too far from Freeport, Maine. Bull Moose Music up in Brunswick has been there a long time and used to be one of my favorites back when a close friend lived up there. After the Bean experience we slogged up Route 1. One of the goals of this music trip was to plug some holes in my collection. That is, pick up some records that I've always wanted but somehow manage to have avoided through the years. Note that not all of the purchases fit this category. Here are the results:

Seasons in the Abyss - Slayer

My recent listening experience (and review) of DJ Spooky's Drums of Death piqued my interest in drummer Dave Lombardo of Slayer. Blogcritic Tom Johnson recommended this particular record. Thanks Tom, it's one giant pile of bone-crunching, noisy fun. It's got that Rick Rubin/American Recordings 'smack' going on. I listened to it very early this morning (2AM) while getting in a chapter of that Zappa bio.

Sympathique - Pink Martini

Yes, very different from Slayer and the object of my aural affections this morning. Pink Martini is a very erudite and loungy group. I became addicted to them during my great lounge phase (hello Esquivel!) of a coupla years ago. Their dreamy version of "Que Sera Sera" is really going well with the morning coffee.

Shaft - Isaac Hayes

What I really wanted here was Hot Buttered Soul, which they didn't have in stock. Since I had no Isaac Hayes at all...well, why not?!! Many, many years before "Chocolate Salty Balls", Hayes was putting out some fine music.

Battlefield of Armagideon - Lee Scratch Perry

Again, no Perry in the collection. Every time I read an article about the guy, I think I've made a grave error.

Love,Angel,Music,Baby - Gwen Stefani

Yea, it's ear candy. But it's great ear candy. Gwen pays tribute to the dance music she loved as a kid. I can't argue with that. Plus, she's illegally cute. (The wife was not pleased with this purchase)

Petra Haden & Bill Frisell

I'm still more or less blown away by what Petra Haden did with The Who Sell Out. It's unbelievable. This record wanted to be in my collection because of the Bill Frisell connection. I knew I'd get around to it sooner or later, but Haden moved it near the top of the list. What a voice. I even forgive her for covering Coldplay.

Part Two:

So, wet from the trip and tired from the shopping, we headed back through town past the boiling Androscoggin river and had a nice lunch at the Brunswick Diner (hey, if it's good enough for Tim Sample, it's good enough for us!). On the way back to Portland, the skies began to clear. Oh yea, finally time to walk around the downtown. I found a parking spot at one end of the Old Port section and we headed up the hill to, oh yes, the Portland branch of Bull Moose Music. Should I? Sure, why not?

Hot Buttered Soul - Isaac Hayes

I've not rectified my no-Isaac Hayes problem. Dang, this is a fine record. Gotta love the 12-minute version of "Walk On By". Plus..."Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic"? What's not to love?!

Blues - Chuck Berry

It's tough to find non-compilation Chuck Berry records in stores. Want a copy of The Great 28? No problem. Want Chuck Berry Is On Top? Good luck. This collection of late-50's blues tunes shows the more sensitive side of Berry. Worth the price for "Wee Wee Hours" alone.

Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix Experience

I've never owned this on any type of media. Not vinyl, not 8-track...nothin'. I can't explain it. It just never happened. And, every so often I'll hear the grinding arpeggios of the title track and think, "What the hell am I doin'?!!"

Looking For America - The Carla Bley Big Band

Bley is a freaking genius and force of nature when she composes for her big band. The suite revolving around the Star Spangled Banner is a killer.

No more record shopping today. I'm whooped.

I know that our Department of Homeland Security is making our whole country safer. That's the theory anyway. I mean, that color-coded thingy was a little embarassing, but at least we know when it's safe to go to the mall & stuff.

Seriously, there is surely a lot of work to be done there, and I'm positive that they're getting down to it. But this is going a little too far. Check out this bit from Working Waterfront:

Ushering in a new dimension to the definition of irony, new restrictions put upon the transportation of fireworks by the Department of Homeland Security has rendered them unaffordable for the celebration of Independence Day. In Article 32, residents voted overwhelmingly against raising the fireworks budget from $6,600 to the necessary $9,800 for procuring the same holiday lightshow of years past. Discussion of possibly having fireworks every other year generated little enthusiasm.

That's right. The tiny town of Swan's Island, Maine can't have fireworks this year because the Department of Homeland security has created new rules for waterborn transportation of explosives.

What? Terrorists are going to intercept the ferry leaving Bass Harbor, scoot down to D.C. and blow up the White House?

I gotta tell ya, a fine bitter drawn from the cask at Gritty's is, well...a wonderful thing.

Gees, I feel like such a whore using this danged free internet access.

Also pickup up a pile (actually, two piles) of CD's at Bull Moose. I may never leave.

Green Day is playing at the Cumberland County Civic Center tonight. There are a bunch of tatooed hooligans running around the streets. Kinda funny, if ya ask me. They've got good taste though....American Idiot is one fantistic record. No kiddin'.

So few so-called supergroups end up being truly "super". There's just something that flattens the musical karma when the sum of a band is premeditated. Think of how the Jimi Hendrix Experience (w/ Noel Redding & Mitch Mitchell) burned with such intensity. On the opposite end of the spectrum are groups like Asia and GTR. Full of talent, short on, well...just about everything else.

While I hate to jinx these guys by foisting the supergroup label on them, Drums of Death does have that certain...something. DJ Spooky's turntables & beats are matched up against the killer riffs of Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo. Toss in Public Enemy's Chuck D and scorch guitarist Vernon Reid and you've got one massive stack of throbbing musicology.

To be perfectly honest here, I've never given Slayer an honest listen. Early exposures to thrash metal left me cold. I can't remember who the band was (undoubtedly played from some cassette pressed into my hands by my late, metal-obsessed nephew, a kid who would think nothing of enjoying a little Cannibal Corpse while snarfing down his Cheerios), but the hyperactive rhythm section seemed very one dimensional. The drummer's tone so thin that the supposed ominous nature of the music was washed out completely.

All it took though, was ten seconds of "Brother's Gonna Work It Out" to put my ears squarely in the Dave Lombardo camp. The guy can flat-out play. Rigid martial beats. Funk & syncopated breaks. All of it. Just check out the scratchin' 'table vs. the blistering drums workout of "Incipit Zarathustra". A pretty thrilling dialog.

Not everything on Drums of Death is in-your-face furious. There's the ambience of "A Darker Shade of Bleak", the loping funk of "Assisted Suicide" (with guest rapper Dalek and background vocals from the great Merideth Monk) and the electronic musical pinball of "Obscure Disorder (Ghosthacked!)". Maximum space is achieved on "The Art of War".

When the musical elements coalesce into a pulsing diamond, you will find yourself wishing for a volume setting of 11. The thrashy "Kulter Kreig" reminds me of Praxis (with Reid being far more interesting than Buckethead).

The secret weapon in all of this just might be co-producer Jack Dangers (he of Meat Beat Manifesto fame). Not only does Dangers bring his wide-open ears to the project, he also plays a bunch of instruments including bass and guitar.

One main (and poisoning) ingredient common to most supergroups is the ego. I'm sensing none of that here. No one player gets in the way of any other. So what's allowed to take shape are the musical thoughts, unencumbered by the wasteful arrogance of "I".

The results are pretty danged spectacular.

Just don't call 'em a "supergroup".

I picked up the new Bruce Springsteen release this afternoon. There's a lovely disclaimer on the back:

The audio side of this disc does not conform to CD specifications and therefore not all DVD and CD players will play the audio side of the disc.

Gee, thanks.

True enough, the guys at the music shop were none too happy to discover that that Devils & Dust wouldn't load in either of their players. I haven't tried it in my Rotel yet, so we'll see.

Every once in a whatever-or-so, I hear some music that sets off so many bells in my head that confusion doesn't do justice to the resulting sense of "what the?!..."

With Hot Hot Heat's Elevator, the aural swirling involved early new wave at one extreme to more recent pop groups like No Doubt.

Let's look at the early new wave first. There's the jangly guitars a-la XTC. There's also those snappy rhythm chords, reminding me of early Joe Jackson (all the way up and including Beat Crazy). Halfway though Elevator and I'm lapsing into a serious oh-wasn't-it-great-to-be-twenty-one thought coma.

But, the vocals. Who do they remind me of? Several listens later it hits me that Steve Bays sounds like the bastard pop child of Gwen Stefani and Kevin Rowland (Dexy's Midnight Runners). This could not have been premeditated. All those 'fans' crabbing about 'selling out' need to relax & have some fun.

The big highlights:

• the guitar line that shadows the lead vocal of opener "Running Out Of Time" (the same guitar that, later in the song, pushes along the bridge with some angular, Gang of Four-ish licks)
• the organ fills that bring back all those early 80's bands that I loved
• the jaunty & raw guitar riff that drives "Ladies and Gentlemen"
• the great guitar riff supporting "Pickin' It Up"
• the call & response organ on that same song

Again, about that 'selling out' thing. Many reviewers toss around the word 'derivative' with the same amount of abandon. Sorry, that's being lazy (not that there aren't some true examples, Kingdom Come springs to mind).

This particular record may indeed draw in some older pop elements, but the fresh and exuberant spin put on them gives it plenty of "new band smell". This record brought a huge smile to my face...and on some days, that is more than good enough.

The first record listened to on the morning that will close out the last pre-vacation work day, well....it's an important one. It may be called into service as the "wheeee, I'm freeeeee!!!"-listen later that day. But the trick is to find something that'll fit in both spaces.

I failed.

What I really, really had a hankerin' for this morning was Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisted. That momumental record starts off with a single snare crack opening one of the greatest songs ever recorded, "Like A Rolling Stone". I never tire of it.

But, due to the somewhat sloppy nature of my CD/LP filing "system" (I put things away when I find the time, which lately has been harder to find than some of my orphaned socks), my copy appears to be hiding somewhere. Rather than spin up some big fib about how much I enjoyed Highway 61 on the way in, I went for a two-fer: one for the way in, the other for the Fred Flintstone takeoff.

Anthony Braxton's Creative Orchestra Music shows what Braxon can do in a big band (sort of) context. To use a snarky reviewer MusicDescriptionGenerator trick, this music sounds like a big band dropping acid and then watching either Saturday morning cartoons or Dark Shadows re-runs. It's energetic, it's spooky, it's funny, it's....well, there's not a lot of large ensemble music this quirky. And, it's surprisingly accessible. If you've never heard Braxon before, starting here might not be a bad idea.

Now, the ride home needs to have that special kick. That roll-down-the-windows-and-let-er-rip kinda thing. In the past, the Ramones have fit the bill. I mighta gone there if this was summer vacation. Instead, Mr. Tom Waits is first going to announce to the world how he's "Big in Japan". By the time I get to the grinding "Get Behind The Mule", I will have passed the converted mills, lumber yard (no, not that one), farmstands, the used bookstore, the quarter horse ranch and the hemp jewelry store. It will be...time.

(Next week's Listen just might come from a place that I have so far sneered at: one 'o them coffee and internet cafes. We'll see.)

Sometimes I wish I could just sew up my eyes so I don't have to witness and realize the monster that has become of me

This is not a happy record.

Nosiree, not one little bit. People are crushed by lovers, governments, loneliness, anger, insanity, anxiety and the plain cruelty of the human condition.

Combine all of those situations and associated emotions with two extremely loud guitars, a very athletic rhythm section and a singer who sounds like his inner organs are trying to make their way out. That is the sound of Bloodsimple. It's angst glowing white hot.

The problem is that's all there is. Or rather, that's all that I get our of it. There are a few times when the pummeling intensity is notched back a bit (the intro and bridge sections on "Sell Me Out", the long buildup on "Flatlined"), but overall...it's full-on rage. I found myself comparing them to Slipknot and Mudvayne. Further investigations revealed that Bloodsimple is the first band signed to Mudvayne lead singer Chad Gray's Bullygoat label.

Strangely enough though, like the occasional Mudvayne or Converge record, I kinda enjoyed this thing. I guess that cathartic and sorta dangerous kick in the face just fit my mood.

And dangerous, a sometimes overused rock criticism word, was a perfect fit here: the last time I listened to A Cruel World at work, a coworker popped his head through my office doorway and said, "Hey, you hear that?" It wasn't Bloodsimple he was talking about. It was the fire alarm that I couldn't hear over the squall blowing in through my earbuds. Imagine the headline: "Man trapped in fire. Hardcore music the cause." Cruel world? Oh, yea.

Ah, I just love it. There's a gun shop a couple of miles from my house. They've got one of those announcement boards out front that usually lists their current sales, specials, etc.

Yesterday, the top of the sign read "PETA Special. All Furs 25% Off".

Ouch.

A very confusing and draining week finally comes to an end. So much stuff goin' on that my normally cranky self is just plain befuddled.

First there's the tax situation. Me & the wife didn't get our act together early enough so we ended up sending off all of the papers to our poor tax guy just a couple of days ago. I hate this crap. Everything is great about spring (even the black flies) with the exception of taxes. Too danged complicated. Makes my head threaten to explode (and I don't even do 'em myself!)

Then there's work deadlines. Software under pressure is no fun.

Then there's the funny smell coming from underneath our back porch. The lady at the septic company insists that it's the vent stack up on the roof. So tomorrow I've gotta start a load of laundry and then go up on a ladder to check it out. I have my doubts. I think there's something funny going on with the main drain which, unfortunately, runs right under our screen porch.

Great.

So I get up this morning with a fuzzy head from too many worries and not enough sleep. Worse yet, I just can't decide what to listen to on the way in to work. Do I want something slowed-down & soothing? Or do I want a musical two-by-four right over the top of the not-functioning so well head?

The answer is: both.

There was nothing subtle about about good old Wendy O. Williams. Explosions on stage, chainsaws taken to guitars, tape over nipples. My kinda gal. Coup D'Etat provided the soundtrack for the drive in.

The Sonic Youth record came from the group's SYR label series. It's their interpretations of music from some 20th century musicians including Steve Reich, Nocolas Slonimsky, Yoko Ono and John Cage. If you've got an open mind, there's some cool stuff on this collection. Definitely not for everyone. For example, the Ono track is called "Voice Piece For Soprano". It clocks in at a full 12 seconds. Nothing but screams. The first time I listened to it I had no idea it was coming. At one o'clock in the morning in a very quite house, I just about wet myself. Then there's Steve Reich's "Pendulum Music", sounding like a duet between a refrigerator compressor gone bad and a demented penny whistle.

It all appears to be working. The fog is clearing and I'm on to the next round of software freakout before the three day weekend.

More coffee....

Check out the pile of articles over at Blogcritics. Man, that Scott Savol dude is whippin' up some emotion.

Ok, so last time around in my attempt to recommend some jazz-type recordings for The Duke, I kinda got sidetracked. This week, it's nose to the, uh...CD Player?

Anyway, what follows is a list of jazz-ish albums that I think might be to the liking of those who are sort of interested in jazz, but who have found it to be...how do I put this?....slow. A common way to introduce a person to jazz might be to invoke the "F-Word": fusion. Not this time around. It's been done many times before and it's just too easy. I also toyed with the idea of dealing in "energy music", some free jazz that seems to employ instruments as weapons...figuring that yer typical G.G. Allin fan might be able to appreciate the saxophone-as-blowtorch of a Peter Brotzman. Again, a risky thing.

Instead, let's consider some music that's odd, energetic and (sometimes) just plain weird. Here goes nothin'...

Naked City - John Zorn

This is Saturday morning cartoons, roller derby, detective movies, blues, cheesy television, surf, pornography, violence and more. Sometimes all in the same tune. Check out the cover of the James Bond Theme, where the entire band turns on a dime, blows its collective nose and finishes out the song.

Rootless Cosmopolitans - Marc Ribot

One of my favorite guitar players, Ribot defines 'angular'. While some of his finest stuff has happened as a sideman (good gawd, he's all over the fricken place on Tom Waits' Rain Dogs...and now that I think of it, he applies extra twangosity on Elvis Costello's "Let Him Dangle" (from Spike)), Ribot has put out an impressive collection of solo work. Cosmopolitans has Ribot making funny with some justabout sacred rock tunes including a complete bastardization of Hendrix' "Wind Cries Mary" and a busted, detuned "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". Plus, how can you not like a guy who names his band 'The Prosthetic Cubans'?

Ask The Ages - Sonny Sharrock

Perhaps the most 'jazz-like' record here, guitarist Sharrock plays a powerful set with a few jazz legends: Charnette Moffet on bass, Pharoah Sanders (saxes) and Elvin Jones at the drumkit. Scary good.

Song X- Ornette Coleman/Pat Metheny

Ornette, Metheny, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden and Denardo Coleman play some tricky, brutal, and snarling music. I read of review of this somewhere indicating that the gnarlier material was left off of the recording. Then a few weeks ago, I found out that Nonesuch is going to reissue this disc with a pile of unreleased blasphemy. I just might have to start believing in god.

Space Is The Place - Sun Ra

If they had a jazz big band playing on that old TV show Lost In Space, this would be the one. Take a sort of big band lineup, but then mix in some 1960's spacey keyboards and some truly wacky vocals. Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the Grateful Dead of their day.

And there you have it.

I'd be willing to bet money that the Duke will enjoy at least one of these records. In fact, as a sort of money back guarantee-type thing, I pledge that I will go out and purchase a Morrissey album if the Duke points his thumb down.

I just spoke to the tech dude. Apparently, they have recently load-balanced the signals in my and a few area towns. The return signals had been out of FCC spec. Because my cable is split on the outside of the house as well as the inside (I put in a splitter so that we can have tv on the second floor) the signal going to the cable modem was too low.

Nuts.

The Adelphia dude (hey, it could be a woman, I'd be all for it) is scheduled to come to the house between the hours of 1 and 3 this afternoon.

I just got a call from home. Adelphia just called and said that they've got a tech in area and can they come right over.

So much for scheduling.

Dang, and I thought I could go home & watch the Sox game. Fricken' technology.

The death, mourning, and pageantry surrounding the death of Pope John Paul II is truly something spectacular to behold.

Hmmm...maybe spectacular doesn't quite convey what I mean. I'm not in any way happy about the man's death, except the relief in knowing that his suffering has passed. His long, slow decline was a sad thing. I wouldn't wish such a fate on anybody.

My 'relationship' to the Catholic church is a weak and distant one. I was brought up in a Catholic family and attended the same church and school as my father did. He actually graduated from that school while I bailed out after the third grade, fearing the particularly mean and crusty Sister Dulceline (I just let out a little shudder). Somewhere in the middle of my high school years, the realization arrived that I didn't believe any of what I was taught: not heaven, not hell, not purgatory, not limbo, not mortal sins, not venal sins, not the church stance on contraception. None of it made sense.

What's left of my early Catholicism is mostly cultural. We still celebrate Easter at my house, mostly for the babka bread that my mother bakes, and the the hard-boiled eggs we eat with healthy doses of horseradish. And of course there's Christmas, which has more to do with gathering the family than anything else. (I also have an unusual affinity for plaid, a phenomenon best left alone here out of respect for the Pope).

But still, it is somehow inspiring to me to see all of these millions of people so touched by the passing of John Paul. He clearly meant something to them and no amount of my own disbelief can (or should) change that.

In much of the (sometimes excessive) coverage of this event, the word spiritual is employed. This is a word that is often thought equivalent to 'religion'. I myself sometimes wonder what it means. Things have a spirtual component. This is the same as objects having a Buddha-nature? Could be. Or not. What I do know is that inspiration can come to a person from many diretions. That is one (of many) idea of spirituality in my mind.

I picked John Coltrane's A Love Supreme because it's a stupendous example of a postive outcome of a person under the influence of spirituality, this time of a religious nature. This record smolders with Trane's love of his god. I don't have to agree with his thoughts to feel the absolute explosion of emotion.

This story is just too bizarre to pass up.

David Zamos is a student at the University of Akron. He bought copies of Microsoft Office XP Pro and Microsoft Windows from the university bookstore. Zamos discovered that he'd have to format his hard drive to do the install and decided against using the software. He then tried to get his money back but was told that this would violate an agreement between the university bookstore and Microsoft. He also tried to return the software directly to Microsoft but was ignored.

All Zamos wanted to do was to return the unopened software and get his $60 back (he bought both packages at an educational discount.)

What was left to do? That's right: EBay. Zamos sold both item on EBay for a profit of $143.50. He was then sued by Mircosoft claiming, among other things, "irreparable injury to its business reputation and goodwill".

Right.

Some of the case hinged on Microsoft's resale policy, which Zamos could not even read because a copy of it is placed inside the package. To make a long story short, Microsoft messed with the wrong kid. Zamos, one smart and tenacious guy, buried himself in the law library and came back firing, eventually settling after costing the company much money (those attorneys had to be expensive) and embarrassment (if something has no concept of shame, can it really be embarrassed?)

Read the whole story here. It reads like a detective story filled with legalese and coffee.

David Zamos, you're my hero.


(And thanks to Boycott-RIAA for pointing this story out.)

The famous and influential master of the Sitar is now 85 years old (pictured at right with wife Sukanya).

Man, it's been a long, long time since I discovered my first Ravi Shankar record. My sister went out on her own at 18 or so, leaving behind (why, I'll never know) a whole pile of cool and current records.

In amongst the Beatles (White Album, Magical Mystery Tour), Cream (Wheels of Fire) and The Who (Tommy) there was an album by Ravi Shanker. I remember thinking that it was weird that the 'songs' were so long. And what the heck is a 'raga' anyway? No matter, since I was still immersing myself in this other music (and totally grooving on Ginger Baker's excessive drum solo on "Toad") I didn't think Shankar's music was all that out-there.

Shankar has gone on to enjoy a long and fruitful career. And, at 85 years, he's still got quite the tour schedule. (Check out tourdates at his website).

I hope I'm that productive at that age!

(There's also a cool story about Shankar over at Morning Edition)

Sometimes, my easily-amused self gets tossed into a state of awe at the sheer power and capacity for weird associates possessed by my brain chemistry. Get this: I got from the novel Moby Dick to the imminent closing of a local bookstore in seven steps.

The weird part was that I had to go through our own Duke DeMondo to get there.

Moby Dick

I had a discussion yesterday with a coworker about this epic novel. He's in the middle of reading it and lamented that he doesn't know anybody else who's read it (shamefully, I haven't read it either). He's begun to suspect that this is one of those books that's widely spoken about but not actually read. "Ah, I said, you mean like..."

Ulysses

Another book with a grand reputation that people seem to either love or hate. I've read the first five or so pages about 20 times. For whatever reason, Joyce's style just doesn't resonate. I offered up my copy and made a mental note to search through our home stacks for it.

Jazz for The Duke

The Duke has recently admitted to owning (but not necessarily enjoying) a copy of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. There's no shame in that. It's a very subtle record and if you're in the mode for some high-adrenaline-type fun (say, something by the Pogues, or maybe Give 'Em Enough Rope by the Clash) then I can see how Kind of Blue might seem kinda lifeless. So, being the jazz evangelizer that I am, I thought it'd be fun to come up with a list of jazz/improvised music albums that might be more to the liking of the Duke's ear passages.

Oh, what happened to Ulysses? Well, I had found my home copy and was rereading pages 1-5 for the twenty-first time and thought "Can't stand this...screw Joyce." So on to recommendations for the Duke.

So of course there's a giant pile of jazz out there that's got either enough rock elements (or enough weird bits) to attract the adrenaline junky. My first thought was Ornette Coleman, who is all about weird sounds mixed with a kind of off-kilter, sideways blues. Nah...too big a leap. But, hey, what about James Blood Ulmer? Yea, that's it. Twisting and snarly guitar employing Ornette's 'harmolodic' philosophy. Perfect. I mean, it ain't Kirsten Dunst, but it'll haveta do. Tales of Captain Black should do the trick. Hey, Ornette himself plays on that one. This just might work out.

An Old (but happy) Bookstore Memory

Then I remember the first Ulmer record I ever bought: Are You Glad To Be In America? At the time, this was a total crapshoot. Ulmer was a complete unknown to me. But the record cover looked kinda cool and anyway, how can you resist a song title like "Jazz Is the Teacher (Funk Is The Preacher)"? Resistance was futile. Ulmer's music whacked me properly upside the head. Jazz, funk, and I don't know what else. Man, that record was killer.

I bought Are You Glad from the record section of a bookshop in a little strip mall located a few doors down from my first post-college apartment. This was in 1984.

A New (and sad) Bookstore Memory

Many years later, the woman who operated that stripmall bookstore opened a new shop in late 2003 in the downtown area. It was called Blackbird Books. I was overjoyed. Most of the central/southern New Hampshire region is infested with nothing but big-box retail. An independent bookstore brought a much-needed shock of culture to the downtown. Poetry readings, discussion groups, live music..gees, it was great.

Three days ago, the Blackbird mailing listed received an email from owner Maggie indicating that Blackbird will be closing its doors at the end of April. While the downtown restaurant scene had been much revitalized of late, folks just weren't buying enough books. Borders, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com were the bigger (and fatal) draw.

I suppose that most of this isn't particularly remarkable stuff. But what does underscore the amazing brain olympics involved is that fact that my line of musing made it from the act of putting down that copy of Ulysses to thinking about the bookstore closing in about five seconds.

Twenty years distilled down to five seconds...maybe I should read the rest of Ulysses now?

Two days ago I cancelled the April 6th work order via Adelphia's tech support web page. I had to switch to Internet Explorer though, because of course there's only one browser out there. Right.

Anyhoo, said support page allowed me to send them an email through a series of barely comprehensible dropdown boxes and finally some text entry. I got no confimation (other than the page telling me the mail had been sent) of the 'success' of the order cancellation. Yesterday, Mom & Dad received an automated phone call asking for confirmation of the order's cancellation ("Press 1 for...blah, blah, blah".) Nice. The order has been cancelled and some poor guy's not gonna show up on the doorstep of an empty house.

Except....last night the freakin' 'Cable' light went out on the modem again! I tried calling tech support but gave up after thirty minutes of listening to a) bad music b) some guy's voice telling me that they were sorry, but they were experiencing an inordinately large volume of phone calls and c) we value you as a customer.

They apparently don't value me enough to provide consistent, high-quality service.

Listeners come to jazz from many directions. They may have a natural attraction to it. Jazz may have been the predominant music playing on their parents' home stereo (though that kind of situation has been known to drive a person in the opposite direction.) They may even have played an instrument at a young age and gone on to stay with the music they were immersed in while learning their charts.

Then, there's the "gateway record". This is the album-equivalent of a gateway drug, but without the illicit substances and contentious debate.

Famous gateway records? Mahavishnu Orchestra's Inner Mounting Flame. John McLaughlin had the jazz pedigree (Miles Davis is all you need at the top of your resume). He also had chops to burn...and burn they did on this record. Casino by Al DiMeola. Honestly, almost any early DiMeola record will do. A sort-of cousin to McLaughlin in the smoking fretboard department, DiMeola dragged many a guitar fan toward the downbeat. Feels So Good by Chuck Mangione. In the late 1970's, flugelhorn player and bandleader Mangione had a huge crossover hit with this album's title track. So many people owned and loved that record that it surely planted more than a few jazz seeds (it was my first 'jazz' record.) Forest Flower by Charles Lloyd. Maybe not quite as high profile as some of those other artists, Forest Flower was one of those recordings that rock fans felt comfortable owning due to extended and spacey/ambient textures layed forth by some decidedly high-profile (though not at the time) players including Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette.

Many years (and stylistic shifts) later, Lloyd has combined his early modes (more or less 'straight ahead' jazz) with the more expansive structures that followed to carve out his own jazz niche. Somehow he manages to put together song suites that are both forward-looking and reverent of his past...but without excessive sentiment.

It can probably be said that each musician's release provides at least a partial summation of the artist's body of work. Charles Lloyd seems to give a complete summation with every new record - but with each album sounding fresh.

Lloyd's most recent entry (released today) in this unofficial series is Jumping The Creek. Lloyd has assembled a killer lineup that most definitely suits his muscular style of sax play. Geri Allen's angular reactions to Lloyd'd lines (check out her solo/response on "Ken Katta Ma Om") seem right at home here. Robert Hurst (Pharoah Sanders, Tony Williams, Branford Marsalis) takes up the low end with a lot of melodic flair, reminding me of Ornettte-era Charlie Haden. I've never heard of drummer Eric Harland but the man can lay claim to a mountain of technique (especially on the snare) as well as sensitivity.

And then there's Lloyd himself, weaving all of this together with saxes (tenor and Paul Desmond-ish alto) and the taragato (Turkish Pipe). The word "weaved" was used here because, unlike some jazz groups, Lloyd seems more like an equal band member rather than the lead instrument needing support from the rest of the cast. On some tunes (the closing "Song of the Inuit", for one) Lloyd presents a mere thematic fragment that is expanded upon and endlessly morphed by the entire ensemble.

It's this kind more 'open' jazz quartet music that people should be exposed to when they think jazz means "ching, ching-a, ching". There's far more to it than that. Another kind of gateway record? Maybe.

My, my, my...a few things from the 1970's I had never hoped to see again: bell-bottomed pants, Fantasy Island, all those bad haircuts.

But Earth Shoes had never crossed my mind. Until last week when me & the wife visited a local shoe store. Turns out that a series of shoes based on those old 70's favorites is currently being produced. I just had to get myself a pair.

Ah, the negative heel. So comfy.

Sometimes things do work out for the best.

I went to Staples after work last night to pick up a new cable modem. They didn't have one (unlike their tv ads which ensure us that they've got everything in stock.) Oh well, I'll try somewhere else.

Then, I get home only to discover that the "Cable" light was back on on the old and supposedly non-functioning modem. Hmmm. This is pretty funny as the person at Adelphia ensured me that there were no outages in our area.

I guess I better call them back and cancel the work order. The one that's schedule for freakin' April 6th!! Stupid.

There's something funny going on over at Blogcritics today.

Heck, there's something funny going on right here!

My ears, my nerves, my heart...needed some soothing. It'd been a tough work week. Last night, in search of some musical salve, I stopped in at my local CD shop.

When I'm in this nervous and somewhat vulnerable a state, the task of picking just the right music becomes much tougher than usual. So as to avoid the stress of selecting a genre (or to at least put it off for a few minutes), I headed over to the miscellaneous bargain box situated to the left of the checkout. Man, there was some weird stuff in there. "Cheeses of Nazareth"? I dunno. Looked kinda wild to me.

Not being much of a jazz fan (I do like that Yanny though), I eyed the few jazz CDs in the bin with suspicion. Most of 'em had edgy-lookin' 'modern' cover art. Plus, I'd never even heard of any of the players ('mystery' musicians make me nervous.) But then I noticed a CD by this guy named Kenny G. Quite the pleasant looking fella, I figured he wasn't one of them irritating, squonky-type people. OK, I rolled the dice. Classics In The Key of G went into my bag...just in time to head home to watch the latest episode of Trump (or whatever it's called.)

Well, well...it turns out that I made an excellent choice. All those nice & smooth interpretations of jazz and popular songs. Just what the doctor ordered for my frayed nerves. I particularly enjoyed Mr. G's "duet" with Louis Armstrong. "What A Wonderful World" is so moving when they play it at wedding receptions. Good thing I didn't get all teary-eyed on the drive home from the store!

I was so impressed with my new musical treasure that, after the drive in to work this morning, I decided to expand my (minimal) jazz knowledge and do some web searching on this Mr. Kenny G. Whoa! There were an awful mess of links to go through. Pretty thought-provoking stuff.

I suppose people are entitled to their likes and dislikes, but a few of the sites I visited were just plain rude. One in particular had some very harsh words for Mr. G. What really took me by surprise was that this person had a problem, a big problem, with Mr. G's rendition of "What A Wonderful World." I don't get it. What's not to like? Just listen to this:

...but when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great Louis's tracks...

Greatest jazz musician? This song and "Hello Dolly" and he's the 'greatest'? And noodling, fucked-up playing? That seems uncalled for. He's wasn't done though:

he, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician.

It turns out that these harsh words came from some guy named Pat Metheny. Never heard of him. If I met him though, I'd like to ask: was the potty mouth really that necessary?

I did some more Googling and found out that Mr. Metheny is one of them 'modern jazz' people. I'm not too internet savvy so I got one of my kids to download a Pat Metheny tune for me. The one I listened to was called "Untidy Habits" from a CD called The Sign 4. Whoa!! Mr. Metheny gave Mr. G all of that grief when his own music is this bad?! It sounds like the chipper room at the pulp mill that my high school buddy Tyler used to work at.

Some people have a lot of nerve!

But really, I should have expected this. I found some pictures of Mr. Metheny on the internet and he looks like quite the out-there character. I mean...look at the hair! At least Mr. G. keeps his hairdo all nice and combed and respectable-looking. Mr. Metheny looks like he washes his with whatever bar of soap he finds in his hotel bathroom. Untidy Habits indeed!

I suppose I shouldn't be making fun of Mr. Metheny's hair. That's lowering myself do to his level, what with all of that unseemly cussing and stuff.

I'll just be happy with my shiny new copy of Classics In The Key of G.

It is a wonderful world. Some people are just too nasty to appreciate it.